whole lot o' Qaeda going on

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent summary of the new trend in war "reporting" - or rather the aping the MSM is doing with regard to selling this evil and incompetent administration. The culprits are not Rush or Hannity but the other prime suspects - NY Times, CNN, etc.

It's an obvious propaganda technique meant to confuse and lure support for a war and a presidency that is so painfully in toilet. No longer is there even a pretense to put a context together on the conflict. So remember that just a few weeks ago - and for the past 4 years - "Qaeda in Iraq" were actual insurgents. A diverse group as well, Sunni, Shia, former Repubilcan Guard, foreign Jihadis, and myriad strains of militant groups- religious and secular in nature.

But we don't do context in America anymore - that's too hard to understand for a people who think the earth is flat and round

Demand's Niger Embassy

So the word I get form Venice is that it is "POLITICAL". And so as luck would have it a few stories on a piece by Thomas Demand are circulating around the web today. The above is Demand's homage to the Niger embassy - infamous generator of a forged smoking gun that not only led to the Iraq war but also the ruination of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame. I've long been a fan of Demand and this is the perfect subject for him. Forgery on forgery so to speak and endless other paper cliches.

From the Fondazione Prada:

The Fondazione Prada is presenting a project by the German artist Thomas Demand, curated by Germano Celant at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. The proposed work consists of two large installations; Yellowcake, composed of a series of new photographs, exploring a place in Rome which was instrumental to US intervention in Iraq.

For the exhibition presented at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Demand has developed two large installations. The title Yellowcake refers to its technical meaning: “yellowcake” denotes a concentrated form of uranium, which when enriched may be used to make nuclear weapons. This word recently emerged in mainstream political discourse because it was the fulcrum of President George Walker Bush’s famous accusation in his State of the Union Address in 2003, in which he stated: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of Uranium in Africa”. The evidence was paperwork supposedly stolen from the Embassy of the Republic of Niger in Rome and passed on to British and American intelligence by SISMI, their Italian counterparts. The documents were supposed to be a contract for the sale of hundreds of tons of yellowcake to the Iraqi authorities, which soon turned out to be obvious forgeries.

Demand’s work consists of a series of photographs about the location where the trail leading to this ‘smoking gun’ originated. Usually, the artist bases his works on existing photographic sources, but with Yellowcake there were no images available: no one covering the story had gained access to Niger’s Embassy in Rome. It was thus a story that had yet to be illustrated. Lacking photographic evidence, it remained unanchored to its site. Demand’s first step, then, was to try to gain access to the Embassy. By entering the apartment-cum-embassy he also crossed an extra-territorial frontier between Italy and Niger (and Europe and Africa). The meeting yielded nothing much, but while there, Demand was able to memorize the site and begin a conversation with the embassy’s staff.

The information he gathered from these visits was the basis for a life-sized reconstruction of the very same place, built over a period of months in his studio and, subsequently, the large photographs that constitute the finished work and are presented at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. So the infamous story that has been named “Nigergate” has finally received a pictorial representation of some kind.

Tenet, tweezers and Ron Jeremy??

You have to love the year book picture effect. It crystallizes our collective selves in such an endearing horror show kind of way. The year book picture always tells a truth and holds an ugly mirror up forever. With all the faux outrage George Tenet spewed on 60 Minutes and what I think will be a limply received new book - it's great to see young George next to his classmate, Ronnie "soon to be Jeremy" Hyatt. At least Ronnie made a career openly "pimpin". You gotta love that picture!


Via Wonkette.

4 years later.....

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the Bush photo op - perhaps the greatest American propaganda stunt in history. So what has exactly been accomplished $500 billion later ?

Here's a "then and Now" from Think Progress:

	May 1, 2003	Today
U.S. Troops Wounded	542	24,912
U.S. Troops Killed	139	3,351
Contractors Killed	69	916
Journalists and Media Assistants Killed	11	167
U.S. Forces in Iraq	150,000	146,000
Size of Iraqi Security Forces	7,000-9,000	334,300
Number of Insurgents	less than 5,000	~70,000 (Sunni only)
Insurgent Attacks Per Day	8	148.9
Cost to U.S. Taxpayers	$79 billion	$421 billion
Approval of Bush’s Handling of Iraq	75%	24%
Percentage of Americans who Believe The Iraq War Was “Worth Fighting”	70%	34%
Bush’s Overall Job Approval	71%	32%

Talk about surges....and I still sometimes can't believe it's been 4 years but then again it feels like 20.

that stand up routine is getting old

"Our strategy can be summed up this way, as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."
- George W. Bush

Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy


WASHINGTON - Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said training Iraqis remains important. "We are just adding another leg to our mission," Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.

But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention of training Iraqi troops on Thursday during a visit to Iraq.

So if you can pull yourself away from your VT massacre media induced trauma for just ten seconds, wrap your head around this story. A story that it is worthy of headlines has only been brought to light by McClatchy - formerly Knight-Ridder. Though we have been hearing for years that the primary goal is to create a self-sustaining military in Iraq befitting a self-sustaining democracy it appears that the great minds at work have changed course once again. Never mind the millions of dollars flushed and the hundreds murdered for signing up for the Iraqi army,some Pentagon pricks now think training a military is untenable and that the only way to "win" is to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves. Makes a hell of a lot sense doesn't it? Security is going so well over there we may as well turn back the clock to year one of the war. Can we fire the Pentagon for incompetence yet? All those bureaucrats in the funny shaped building can only come up with this??? What do they do all day? Since when does not training an Iraqi force become an "additional leg" ? Sounds like an amputated leg to me. This is a ship of fools.

So what is the goal here? If we're aren't going to have a trained Iraqi force of say 150,000, who is gonna fill the security gap, the credibility gap with Iraqi citizens? A draft perhaps? No, Americans don't want a draft, we're not very good at responsibility and much prefer the working class to disappear over there somewhere while we postulate the merits of an armed classroom and get siked about the coming rapture. Besides a draft for an illegal war might cause trouble - might make people question motives as they are forced to personalize the war and the pillaging - the volunteer part is the loop hole.

Or perhaps another deal has been inked to fill this gap with private mercenary forces. Seems like the only way to do this. They could stay forever without bothering with Congress and all that fussy legal stuff. As for the Iraqis well you'll just have to get used to an American occupation forever because let's face facts there's still a hell of alot money to be made over there and we sort of regard you as helpless children anyway.

Frank Loyd Wright designs for Baghdad

Phronesisaical blog turned me on to this fascinating story at KuiperCliff on Frank Loyd Wright.

American architect Frank Lloyd Wright had been involved in plans to modernise the Iraqi capital Baghdad, located on the plain between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. He visited the city in May 1957, as an old man nearing his 90th birthday, and, inspired both by Arab and Persian art and architecture, began to draft a series of blueprints for a new city.

King Faisal II invited several prominent architects to contribute ideas to establish Baghdad as a modern world city. This included Le Corbusier, Gio Ponti and Walter Gropius. Faisal was assassinated in 1958, after which a military junta seized power, setting the scene for the modern history of Iraq with which we are depressingly familiar. None of Wright’s buildings were ever constructed, the revolutionary government deeming them “too grandiose”, although some of the other plans were later implemented: Gropius’ Baghdad University (1960), Ponti’s Ministry of Planning building (1958), and a Le Corbusier sports hall (the Saddam Hussein Gymnasium, erected in 1981).

So Wright was enthralled with the mythology of 8th century Baghdad under caliph Harun al-Rashid, a memory still central to Pan-Arab utopianism and I'll assume the identity of the general culture at large. That's an interesting contrast to his peers who rejected out right any romanticism. I think it's a safe bet to say that these grandiose plans will not be revisited if Baghdad can ever be resurrected from its current chaos and dysfunction. I would like to think though that if this disaster ever comes to a close that prominent architects may converge in a spirit of reconciliation to take on the reclamation of a once historic and influential city. So for now we will have to endure the bad decision to fragment Baghdad into security sectors.

that spending bill ....

so now that we can unplug from Imus-gaffe, just what is so offensive about the Democrats and the Iraq spending bill that our king is/isn't going to veto?

But on March 23 the House passed an Iraq spending bill that includes this:

The $124 billion legislation includes more than $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus billions more than Bush requested for combat equipment and training, for military housing and health care, to address the flaws in mental health care, brain trauma treatment and other issues that surfaced in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal.

The bill would establish strict standards for resting, training and equipping combat troops before their deployment and lay down binding benchmarks for the Iraqi government, such as assuming control of security operations, quelling sectarian violence and more equitably distributing oil revenue. If progress is not made toward those benchmarks, some troops would be required to come home as early as July.

Now that's some "partisan" pork! I gotta echo Lee Iaccoca here - when are we gonna take this prick to task?

tips: crooks and liars /borders

blackwater II -disaster as the new Dot Com

So I went to the book launch and talk of Jeremy Scahill's book on the mercenary group Blackwater USA last night with co-hosts Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman. It was an excellent event full of big ideas and deadly insights. I have to admit being somewhat depressed upon exiting, but these are the times we live in. I can absolutely recommend the book however, do pick up a copy because this story represents something central to understanding not only what Iraq is largely about but what war craft is becoming. Trends in how wars are conducted have roots in business practice and often come full circle back to the civilian population in many forms - some more benign than others but war always reconstructs a society on multiple levels.

The Blackwater story as Scahill observes, is not only about hired mercernaries ("contractors") that operate above and below the law, but rather a larger story of privatizing all aspects of society. It's an ominous philosophy that is an absolutist calling for all traditional constructs of a society to go into private control. From "small things" like the phone company and veteran's health records to the larger fields of defense, health and food production. The potential for fraud, corruption and criminal behavior is almost outside of the imagination. Blackwater represents the first big stride in at least one aspect of this program, privatizing the military.

For me the really big concept touched on last night was by Naomi Klein - "disaster capitalism", the subject of her forthcoming book. This is huge and I was thrilled to hear the term as various bloggers were touching on the subject in our "apocalypse" series earlier this year. Chris Hedges also gets near the topic in his latest book on the religious right - American Fascists. The idea is simple and really quite obvious actually. The War on Terror is obvious part of this new disaster capitalism (which in all honesty we should be calling "corporatism" because that is what we are truly living with) but not exclusive to it. The wave of natural disasters and epidemics such as the Asian Tsunami, Bird-Flu, Katrina, etc. are also part of this new mechanism to profit from extreme events. This is a new universe of profiteering. When sudden shifts happen, whether they are ecological or political in nature the general populace is vulnerable - emotionally, intelectually, financially. Think of the land grabs in Asia after the Tsunami or the 9th ward where 60% of that population were homeowners - no more. These events render rational people reactionary and expose the weakest of us to forces much larger than ourselves. Cash strapped government agencies capitulate as well. We live in a time where disaster is becoming an economic model for success and control of new sectors never before handled by industry. Even the Red Cross is partnering with Wal-Mart for hurricane relief.

There is something post-modern in all of this as some bloggers (Jodi Dean) have touched on. Iraq is a great example.The war in Iraq is on the one hand a colonial pillaging of a sovereign state, but it is also a simultaneous pillaging of ourselves. We (in cohort with others) are poised to control all of the natural resources of Iraq at the same time wasting tons of our own captial, natural resources and lives in the process and depleting our own resources and social systems at home. So the pillage is an exterior motive as well as reflexive act meant to cause an equal breakdown within our own ability to govern at home. These breaks in traditional structures cause economic and political opportunity for non-governing entities. Vacuums are quickly being filled by ideologically driven private interests. Blackwater is just one case - where they lobby to be part of the military to get access, no bid contracts and tax dollars while at the same time lobby to be outside of the military to be free of the Pentagon's Uniform Code of Military Justice. The goal is to be intrinsic to the "total US Force" while maintaining tax free status as a BVI entity. You can easily include Bechtel, Lockheed Martin and many others in this growing trend of paradoxical corporatist identity.






Image: Blackwater headquarters North Carolina
many concepts in this post indebted to Naomi Klein

blackwater

The new book on Blackwater USA is out this week. There is a book signing and discussion between author Jeremy Scahill and Naomi Klein of The Nation at the Center for Ethical Culture. This looks to be fantastic! If you are unaware of who/what is Blackwater, pickup the April edition of The Nation or check out Jeremy's site for the book here - very informative.

In short, Blackwater is a private mercenary company funded by tax dollars, promoted by the Bushies and the Pentagon, and increasing in scale.They have over 20,000 "soldiers", a small airforce (20 aircraft) and seek to replace the national guard in this country as demonstrated in New Orleans after Katrina. With so many reservists abroad, it's a big security and financial vacuum to fill - a big opportunity in other words. This is an organization that is not subject to the same laws as you and I or as normal law enforcement.

Balkinization had a great post last friday about what the rise of Blackwater represents - a threat to the tradition of the citizen- soldier.

Balkinization writes:

Before there was a President, a Congress or a Supreme Court, before any thought had been given to a Constitution, much less a Bill of Rights, America had its first institution: the Army. It was directed by a commander-in-chief - the only one in our history not to serve simultaneously as president. And that Army was the initial repository of national values, particularly of the notion of a citizen-soldier, putting his life at risk for the promise of modest pay and little more, called to duty for altruistic reasons - not for cash or power, prepared to relinquish his soldierly calling and return to civilian life at the end of hostilities. (By and large the Founding Fathers did not think much of a standing army; indeed, much of what they had to say on this subject is so obscene one would have difficulties printing it even today). One of the foundational values of the American Republic is the concept of a citizen-soldier, a concept presented eloquently by George Washington in his farewell address to the troops from November 3, 1783, and preserved at the heart of the nation's defense strategy for more than two centurie

For George Washington and his contemporaries, the mercenary was a symbol of a corrupt and enslaving Europe that they sought to avoid. The citizen-soldier, by contrast, was the model for a democracy that places great value on stability and peace, that abjures military adventurism. But today, under the corrupting influence of those potent narcotics, money and power, all these lessons seem forgotten.

driving off a cliff

Senator Biden railing against the incompetence of the administration. It's pretty powerful. Would have been nice to hear this 3 years ago though.


via Alternet.com

the freeway blogger

Not sure how familiar people are with Tales of the Freewayblogger but this is an ongoing intervention along California highways. This is good stuff and it puts the message where it needs to be - real life, but more importantly in those
in-between spaces. I like it a lot. I wonder if Chelsea were to do the same thing with those Patrick Mimran billboards how the reception would be?

Love and War

Seeing that it's Valentine's Day and superficial tokens of love are swirling, Alternet has a reminder of what love during war looks like for thousands of survivors and those that love them. I'm reminded that the sacrifices of a few are not shared by the whole. The rest of the photos at Nina Berman are worth viewing.



Marine Sgt. Ty Zeigal and his wife Renee Kline
photo Nina Berman www.ninaberman.com.

Iraq roundup: needed adults, Jamilgate and new victims

Just a quick round up on Iraq as the there are some interesting things swirling about. Juan Cole has some upbeat news tied to the new leadership under Gates.

Bush is bringing in Ryan Crocker, a distinguished career foreign service officer, as the new US ambassador to Iraq. And Gen. David Petraeus will replace Gen. Casey as top ground commander in Iraq. Zalmay Khalilzad, the outgoing ambassador to Iraq, will go as ambassador to the United Nations, replacing the lying blowhard John Bolton.

I'm stricken with a case of the "what ifs" and "if onlys"! What if Gates had been at the Pentagon in 2003 and Petraeus had been in charge of the US military in Iraq and Crocker had been there instead of Paul Bremer? These are competent professionals who know what they are doing. Gates is clear-sighted enough to tell Congress that the US is not winning in Iraq, unlike his smooth-talking, arrogant and flighty predecessor. Petraeus is among the real experts on counter-insurgency, and did a fine job of making friends and mending fences when he was in charge of Mosul. Crocker has been ambassador to Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan, and knows the region intimately (as does Khalilzad). Bremer had been ambassador to . . . Holland. Despite all the talk of the resurgence of the Neoconservatives with their "surge" (actually ramped up occupation) plan, this team is the farthest from Neoconservative desires that you could possibly get.

Imagine that, hiring regional expertise? and don't forget the surge - rather bump.

* I just read this about another new apointee - Admiral William J. Fallon (this could be scary)

JamilGate:

Jamilgate?? What the hell? Well there has been a swelling in the right's blog ranks spearheaded by the shrill Michelle Malkin over an AP source - a man named Jamil Hussein (an Iraqi police officer). He has been cited as a single source by the AP on various killing attributed to the U.S. military. Malkin is supposedly going to Iraq to uncover the "conspiracy" of Jamilgate and bring justice to the AP for publishing insurgent propaganda. Well the AP apparently is vindicated.
No surprise. Of course he is losing his job now and will probably meet with an unattractive fate as a leaker of information but at least Michelle's curiosity can be quenched once and for all. Let's hope Malkin actually goes to Iraq and gets on the wrongside of some Blackwater mercenary on a Greenzone bender. The General has the usual funny take and some links to the right.

Remember that broadcast hanging a few days back by Rupert Murdoch and friends? Well sadly some kids have been paying attention. The second immitation death has occurred. The fine print reads: Saddam a martyr for Islam. Well done gang!!!


images: Huff Post, Jesus' General

The $350 Billion Noose

I will refrain from a rant about the philistine nature of showing executions on television - something we somehow historically managed to avoid until this morning (FOX 3:55am). Instead I would like to express my exasperation at the continuing ability of the Pentagon and State Dept. to get everything wrong. I'm not simply speaking about morality, but about understanding the dynamics of the conflict (the Iraqi population) and ultimately misunderstanding the "enemy" because the enemy is an "other". We are in the middle of a civil war which we have helped to create and yet we still don't understand the rules of engagement, we don't seem to be able to understand the basics of this sectarian war. Why? Perhaps because we have too many wonks and painfully few regionalists in the ranks. In short we can't see the dynamics because we don't consider the "enemy" as an equal - but as an other, invisible and mysterious.

Here is how Saddam's execution plays into sectarian divisions:

The tribunal...had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday -- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a "sacrifice" for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public. (Juan Cole)

It is painful to watch as the situation bottoms out further and further and yet our ignorance charges full steam into the inferno.

Warm up the virgins...

I'm pandering to a baser instinct this morning.....















... and from the NY Daily News - the gold frame standard

Memorial

• Faces of the fallen
• Human cost of occupation
• Utopia
• Artist Fence Memorial
  

Juan Cole slams Hitchens - and I LOVE IT

Over at Informed Comment, there is a great little nugget courtesy Andrew Sullivan about the 'fued' between sodden Christopher Hitchens and the always sober and insightful, Professor Juan Cole.

If you don't know Juan Cole you should. He should get a Pulitzer every year this inane war lurches forward in Iraq. His journal is the real record of events and about the only place where you will find real discussion, real proposals and the real map of who is shaping the reality in Iraq and D.C. He has an uncanny ability to call it months in advance. In short, he is the expert on Iraq.

Hitchens is a revered author and former writer for the Nation (in case you are clueless) turned Bush cheerleader on Iraq. Now he's rolling out the Iran rhetoric - Kenneth Pollack anyone? I still credit him with the definitive Kissinger book. Too bad he's devolved into a big drunk. You can still identify against fascist and nihilistic Islamist impulses without being a neo-con bastard apologist for incoherent foreign policy.
Exihibit A: Paul Berman

The Poor Man's Airforce

As we see the daily dosage of violence in Iraq - or rather don't see - its worth noting that the bulk of the sectarian fighting is being executed with car bombs. For an excellent and saddening history on the use of the car bomb for political ends, read Mike Davis' two part piece on Tom Dispatch.

As a side note, there are over 44 million entries for 'car bomb' on google.

Having read the piece by Mike Davis I'm reminded of the amazing work done by the Atlas Group. Its a project developed by artist Walid Raad and is focused on documenting the contemporary history of Lebanon. They did a haunting and exhaustive study on the use of the carbomb during Lebanon's civil war. This is real political art and contemporary history. Not to be missed - two years later the work still creeps into my mind on a regular basis.


Luckily for the party set, the other google results look something like this: