[casi-analysis] casi-news digest, Vol 1 #173 - 2 msgs

[casi-news-request@DELETETHISlists.casi.org.uk]

[ This message has been sent to you via the CASI-analysis mailing list ]



This is an automated compilation of submissions to newsclippings@casi.org.uk

Articles for inclusion in this daily news mailing should be sent to newsclippings@casi.org.uk. 
Please include a full reference to the source of the article.

Today's Topics:

   1. [Peace&Justice] Will Elections Make a Difference? (IRC Communications)
   2. Fwd: THE STRANGE KIDNAPPING OF MARGARET HASSAN (CharlieChimp1@aol.com)

--__--__--

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:22:05 -0700
To: peaceandjustice@lists.riseup.net
From: IRC Communications <communications@DELETETHISirc-online.org>
Subject: [Peace&Justice] Will Elections Make a Difference?


[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace and Justice News from FPIF
http://www.fpif.org/

January 6, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introducing a new commentary from Foreign Policy In Focus

Will Elections Make a Difference in Iraq?
By Mark LeVine

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 it has become a commonplace that
religious extremism, particularly of the Muslim kind, lies at the heart of
the problems that seemingly condemn the Muslim majority world to political
and social backwardness, economic stagnation, and cultural oppressiveness.
For the planners and supporters of Bush administration policy in Iraq, the
actions of the country's Sunni minority, and the thousands of foreign
"jihadis" who have come to fight the Great Satan "between the two rivers"
(as Musab al-Zarqawi has allegedly renamed his Iraqi branch of al-Qaida),
have become a poster child for all that is wrong with Islam.

Most scholars of the Middle East and Islam would take issue, strongly, with
such simplistic (mis)characterizations of contemporary Islam and Muslims.
But there is more than a grain of truth to the accusation that religious
beliefs and motivations are among the biggest contributors to the violence
plaguing Iraq. Indeed, the attitudes of religious leaders in the country,
especially Sunnis, have played a powerful and negative role in the
continuing violence that threatens to derail, or at best seriously delimit
the positive impact, of the January 30 elections.

Of course, the attitudes of senior American religious-cum-political leaders
(and can there be any doubt George W. Bush functions as both for millions
of Americans?) aren't helping much either. Much attention has been devoted
to the numerous Bush administration errors--disbanding the Iraqi army, not
putting enough U.S. forces on the ground--that encouraged the current chaos
and violence in Iraq. Yet as important has been the clearly
religious--jihadist, actually--foundations of the U.S. invasion and
occupation of the country. Guiding American policy in Iraq and the larger
Middle East are several troubling dynamics, the combination of which have
led to 100,000 dead Iraqis, well over 1,000 dead U.S. soldiers, and
counting; not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars literally wasted
on useless violence.

Mark LeVine (http://www.meaning.org/levinebio.html) is an Associate
Professor of History at UC Irvine and the author of Why They Don't Hate Us:
Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oneworld Publications, 2005). He is a
contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (online at http://www.fpif.org) and
writes a blog hosted by History News Network (http://hnn.us/blogs/37.html).

See new FPIF commentary online at:
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2005/0501iraqelect.html

With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0501iraqelect.pdf

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interhemispheric Resource Center is proud to announce that, in conjunction
with our 25th anniversary, we have changed our name to International
Relations Center. Please visit our website at www.irc-online.org to see our
new logo and check back in the coming months as we begin the integration
and improvement of all of our program and project websites. As
International Relations Center we remain IRC and committed to our mission
of: working to make the U.S. a more responsible member of the global
community by promoting progressive strategic dialogues that lead to new
citizen-based agendas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Produced and distributed by FPIF:"A Think Tank Without Walls," a joint
program of International Relations Center (IRC) and Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS).

For more information, visit http://www.fpif.org. If you would like to add a
name to the "What's New At FPIF" specific region or topic list, please
email: communications@irc-online.org with "subscribe" and giving your area
of interest.

To add your name to this list, send a blank email to:
peaceandjustice-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

To unsubscribe, send a blank email to:
peaceandjustice-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

International Relations Center (IRC)
(formerly Interhemispheric Resource Center)
http://www.irc-online.org/
Siri D. Khalsa
Outreach Coordinator
Email: communications@irc-online.org




--__--__--

Message: 2
From: CharlieChimp1@DELETETHISaol.com
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 13:23:15 EST
Subject: Fwd: THE STRANGE KIDNAPPING OF MARGARET HASSAN
To: Intelligentminds@yahoogroups.com, newsclippings@casi.org.uk


[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ]


In a message dated 06/01/05 16:21:38 GMT Standard Time,
shailmanman@yahoo.com writes:


By  Matt Bojanovic

Margaret Hassan was born Margaret Fitzsimmons in Dublin.  While a
student in London, she met an Iraqi student, Taheen Ali Hassan.  They
say she was 17, and he was 26. They fell in love, married, and went
to live in Iraq in 1972. She took Iraqi citizenship, converted to
Islam and learned Arabic, which they say she spoke perfectly, with
an  Iraqi accent, as if she had been born there.

After the Gulf War of  1991, she became director of Care
International in Baghdad. She organized  the building of hospitals
and undertook the restoration of Iraq's drinking  water system, which
had been attacked by NATO bombers. It was an  impossible task,
because of the Western embargo on spare parts and  supplies.

Justin Huggler writes in The Independent of November 17:

'When they heard that she had been kidnapped, they came on to the
streets of Baghdad in their wheelchairs to demand her release.
Children from a school for the deaf came out holding placards
demanding the release of "Mama Margaret." "If it wasn't for her, we
would probably have died," Ahmed Jubair, a small boy in a
wheelchair,  said that day. "She built us a hospital and took care of
us. She made us  feel happy again." There can be few greater
epitaphs.'

Charity was  not enough to Margaret Hassan; it was not enough to help
a few  thousands--or even a few millions--of poor unfortunates. She
knew whose  cluster bombs were putting children in wheelchairs. She
knew who had  caused the destruction of the infrastructure in Iraq
and said it openly,  without fear of offending important people in
Washington and London. Being  a saint was not enough for her, she
demanded a bit of justice, real  change, in this world, not in the
next.

Robert Fisk, after  speaking to Margaret Hassan and her assistant,
Judy Morgan, wrote in The  Independent of November 2, 1998:

'Put very bluntly, the two CARE  workers are convinced that they are
providing the proverbial useless drop  in the ocean, helping to salve
consciences - Western consciences - while  Iraqis die because of our
United Nations sanctions... Ms Hassan suspects  that Westerners have
somehow humanly divorced themselves from ordinary  Iraqis. "I don't
think we see them as people," she says. "If you see  someone
suffering - if you have a grain of humanity in you - you have to
respond to that. Sanctions are inhuman and what we are doing cannot
redress that inhumanity." '

In January 2003 Margaret Hassan went  to New York and to London
warning of even worse catastrophes for the Iraqi  people. If war
came, the country's infrastructure, already severely  stressed by the
embargo, would have collapsed. At a House of Commons  briefing she
said: "The Iraqi people are already living through a terrible
emergency. They do not have the resources to withstand an additional
crisis brought about by military action."

A KIDNAPPING OR AN  ARREST?

Margaret Hassan was seized on her way to work on October 19,  2004.
Out of the various odd kidnappings of opponents to the war, which
had already taken place in Iraq, this was the oddest. From The
Independent of October 21 and November 17 we gather that the road
was  blocked by two cars and that two men in Iraqi police uniforms
asked her to  come out and talk to them. When she complied, other
gunmen appeared,  grabbed her, and dragged her driver and her unarmed
guard from their  seats. They began beating the two men with their
guns. "Stop beating  them," Mrs. Hassan told them, "I will come with
you."

Anyone who  has ever observed a robbery and a police raid, may have
noticed that cops  and robbers do behave a little differently. Cops
don't really mind getting  noticed. They like to hang out together,
and they may linger on and chat,  afterwards. Robbers, somehow, just
don't like to show off on the job too  much.

Robbers and rebels appear to agree that key to success are speed  and
not attracting attention. On the other hand, in a death squad, in a
squad of policemen out of uniform ordered to disappear dissidents,
everyone wants to be active, to look busy, to do something useful.
There is no resistance, so they start to beat up bystanders a bit.
Since you are there, they slam you against the wall a couple of
times:  it's a little thing, but it's satisfying.

These strange kidnappers did  not mind making a scene on the street.
They were not in a big rush, and  could indulge a favorite pastime,
beating people up.

Insurgents  sometimes organize the killing of regime collaborators in
full view of  everyone, in a calm and leisurely fashion. The idea is
to cast fear in the  hearts of all who consider collaborating with
the occupation, and their  families. In an execution carried out on a
crowded street, the killers  want to make it clear that they control
the neighborhood and are  omnipresent, while the police are fearful
and absent.

An execution  can be carried out as a theatrical performance, as a
human sacrifice,  because the script is very simple and the
performance takes only seconds.  The killers can walk away and
disappear into the crowd, or they can drive  a couple of blocks, park
the car, and split up. Police roadblocks do not  present serious
danger to an execution squad.

A kidnapping instead  must be a very quiet job, to avoid the chance
of passers-by or neighbors  calling the police with the description
of the vehicles involved. A fast  getaway is essential, before
roadblocks are organized. Every second  counts.

The Hassan kidnappers did something worse than waste time at  the
jobsite beating up people. They did something that one would not
expect from people preparing for a very dangerous drive through
ordinary police checkpoints, on Baghdad streets patrolled by
American  forces: they began to shoot in the air.

Iraqi cops are notorious for  their propensity to start firing into
the air when stuck in a traffic jam.  They also shoot in the air just
to announce their presence, or to ask  bystanders to keep away or
move along. In situations where you would  expect New York cops to
tap the ground with their nightstick or to flick  on red light and
siren, Baghdad cops just fire off a few shots in the air.

As a retired police officer tells us at
http://www.behindthebadge.net/truelife/tl6.html, "when I first
started  in law enforcement one of the things I enjoyed, was turning
on my blue  light and siren and then driving fast. There was a sense
of power and  excitement every time an emergency call came in."

Later he learned  that it was dangerous to run very fast with his
light on, because  civilians might act unpredictably. But as a young
cop he loved to put on a  light and sound show. That's why Iraqi cops
can't resist the impulse of  firing in the air, in any confrontation.
It gives them a comforting  feeling, a semblance of power and
control, over a very scary environment.

GETTING TOUGH ON THE BRITS

The kidnappers of Margaret Hassan  behaved in a manner remarkably
similar to the standard behavior of the  Allawi police, as reported
in the British press. In The Telegraph of  August 16, we read:

'The police chief delivered a blunt warning:  journalists had two
hours to leave Najaf or face arrest... official  explanation for the
decision was that police guarding the hotel had found  550 lb of
dynamite in a car nearby. That seems unlikely... A deputation of
journalists was denied an audience with Najaf's governor, Adnan  al-
Zurufi. The policeman outside his office was brusque. "If you do not
leave by the deadline we will shoot you," he said. That was enough
for  all but a handful of British and American journalists who
hunkered down in  the hotel as the deadline expired. As night fell,
shots were fired at the  roof of the hotel, from where reporters file
their stories.'

The  British daily The Independent of August 17 2004 reports from
Najaf:

'A police lieutenant arrived at the hotel at 6.30pm ...As
journalists protested, the lieutenant said above the hubbub: "We are
going to open fire on this hotel. We are going to smash it up. I
will  kill you all. You did this all to yourselves." ...He said four
snipers  would be positioned on the roof of the police station to
fire at any  journalists who left the hotel....The police then drove
off, stopping 300  meters down the road and fired warning shots in
the direction of the  hotel.'

On August 26 we seem to still have the same police problem.  Reuters
reports as follows: "Journalists were just eating dinner and
suddenly the police appeared in the lobby and started firing in the
air...when the police fired, one just missed a western cameraman.
The  brick pieces from the wall came flying at us after the bullet
hit."

The Guardian reports:

'Police moved into the lobby of the Sea  of Najaf hotel at 9.15pm
last night... they fired shots into the air...  Journalists from Arab
and other international media, including the entire  BBC team, as
well as The Guardian, The Independent, Times and Daily  Telegraph,
were pushed into a truck, which was driven off to Najaf's  police
station where the local chief of police, Ghalib al-Jazae'ri, said  he
was incensed by media reports [on the situation in Najaf]... The
police officer who burst into the Guardian's room, wearing a
balaclava  and pointing a Kalashnikov, said in Arabic: "We're going
to fuck the lot  of you." '

Clearly, the Allawi regime finds it very difficult to  tolerate the
presence of neutral observers. Iraqi officials seem to  dislike
Westerners in general. They seem barely able to control their  rage,
even towards reporters from outfits generally recognized to be  pro-
war, like The Times and The Telegraph.

PSYCHOPATHS IN BAGHDAD

In a report published in The Oregonian of August 7, we read that on
June 29, 2004, a soldier of the Oregon National Guard, surveying the
area from a tall building, spotted a bit of torture going on in a
courtyard near the Interior Ministry. The battalion commander,  Lt.-
Col. Daniel Hendrickson, led the guardsmen in. They found many
prisoners who said they had been deprived of food and water for
three  days. Many of these prisoners had bruises and cuts and belt or
hose marks  all over. At least one had a gunshot wound to the knee.

Officers and  men of that outfit were decent people. They were under
the impression that  torture was no longer the cool thing to do in
democratic Iraq, after the  Abu Ghraib photo brouhaha. Somehow, they
believed that the "shock and  dismay" felt in Washington was over the
realization that there was torture  in Iraq, not over the
embarrassment of photos falling in the wrong hands.

The soldiers took the handcuffs off the prisoners, moved them into
the shade, and gave them water. These were 150 men who had been
rounded up in one neighborhood, in an "anti-crime raid" which
netted  "a collection of immigrants and poor Iraqis." The guards said
that "these  prisoners were all dangerous criminals and most were
thieves, users of  marijuana and other types of bad people."

Captain Southall said 'one  prisoner claimed the Iraqi police
arrested him at a market and confiscated  his passport even though he
had "paid a tremendous bribe" to the arresting  officer. Others, many
of whom appeared to be non-Arab shopkeepers and  workers, said they
had been detained for lack of proper identification.'

Lt.-Col. Daniel Hendrickson called for instructions. As the soldiers
waited, Southall said, the Iraqi policemen began to get "defiant and
hostile" toward the Americans. After a while, headquarters ordered
the  soldiers to leave.

Earlier, Hendrickson had demanded to speak to the  man in charge.
A "well-dressed ... man" came forward and said "there was  no
prisoner abuse and that everything was under control and they were
trying to conduct about 150 investigations as soon as possible."

The rulers in Baghdad are worried. They are seen with contempt by
their subjects. They are ex-Baathists. The policemen they hired are
former Saddam Hussein cops. The officers are former Saddam Hussein
officers. They all have contempt for their Iraqi subjects and hatred
for their foreign masters.

We can safely assume that the policemen  mentioned by The Oregonian
would have been delighted with the opportunity  to capture and
brutalize a foreigner. Those cops would have seen Margaret  Hassan as
someone on whom to vent their feelings of humiliation about  having
had to take orders from foreigners, sometimes.

HOSTAGE  DRESS CODE: HANDCUFFS OPTIONAL

To tie prisoners in a painful position  is a normal Coalition
practice, officially approved. It is not torture. It  is not torture
because we do not do torture.

Rebels in Iraq seem  quite assured of the support of the population.
They believe that their  prisoners would not get far if they tried to
escape. One of those who  captured the four Italian "contractors"
explains in the Sunday Times of  June 27 that the prisoners were not
tied up or even locked up in their  room.

The three freed "contractors" and the Polish engineer Jerzy Kos  did
have complaints, but those were over food, not over being painfully
tied up or mistreated.

In The Telegraph of August 14, 2004 the  British reporter James
Brandon, taken from his hotel in Basra, explains  that the kidnapping
had been very unpleasant, but that "once they learned  I was a
journalist I was treated very well."

That was the  experience of dozens of reporters detained by initially
very threatening  and aggressive insurgents. They were held for
periods varying from minutes  for documents check, to eight days for
the American Micah Garen and his  interpreter, Amir Doshe, released
August 22 in Nasiryah.

The  French reporter Georges Malbrunot, held for four months, reports
that his  colleague Christian Chesnot got slapped by his interrogator
when, shown a  photo of General Kimmitt, he denied that he knew who
the general was. They  had just taken off his blindfold and did not
know that without his glasses  Mr. Chesnot couldn't see a thing; they
thought he was trying to get smart  with them.

The Salafists who took two Italian aid workers, Simona Pari  and
Simona Torretta tied them only during their trip from Baghdad to
their jail, and untied them upon arrival. When the blindfolded
prisoners were moved, the guards would lead them by the tunic's arm,
never touching them. After the interrogations were over, in a couple
of days, blindfolds were also removed.

On October 28 The Salafist  Brigades of Abu Baker Siddiq kidnapped
Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a Polish  woman who had married an Iraqi and
had lived in Iraq for 30 years. She  appeared in front of the flag of
the group, while one of her captors read  a statement. She was not
tied up. She was freed and appeared at a press  conference in Warsaw
on November 21. She said: " They treated me  decently... I was held
in a small, very clean room, newly painted. I was  well fed, and I
was given plenty of water and toiletries... the abduction  was very
quick -- it was very well organized."

The guerrillas seem  to have a very relaxed attitude about
restraining prisoners, even when the  prisoners appear to be
paramilitaries, such as Scott Taylor or the four
Italian "contractors." It seems that they mostly tie up prisoners
during transfers and before execution.

Ken Bigley appeared chained  and behind bars only in his last video.
There was no such escalation in  the treatment of Margaret Hassan,
who appeared distressed and in a state  of "painful positioning" from
the first day.

A video released on  November 12 showed Margaret Hassan passing out
on camera. A bucket of  water was then thrown over her. She was
filmed lying wet and helpless on  the ground before getting up and
crying. The video was received but was  deemed to be too horrifying
to be aired on Al-Jazeera.

The rebels  insist that they kill prisoners only when the Coalition
rejects a prisoner  exchange. They had never brutalized prisoners in
their videos simply  because it was not in their interest. The clear
threat to kill their  prisoners was sufficient to put pressure on
government and public opinion  of the occupying countries;
humiliating prisoners would have been  counterproductive to the image
of the rebels.

The bucket of water  is what you would expect at the police station,
when you pass out during  interrogation. Would a non-professional
interrogator for the rebels think  of the bucket of water as a tool
for crushing the spirit of a prisoner?  Perhaps, but in the Iraqi
context it seemed strange, the rebels had never  done it before. More
important, why would Islamic guerrillas have wanted  to crush the
spirit of a Muslim convert who for years had raised her voice
against the rulers in Washington and London?

Could this desire to  crush and humiliate have been just the normal
reflex behavior that kicks  in when Iraqi policemen have a prisoner
in their hands? With the added  pleasure that here they had the
opportunity to crush and humiliate a  Westerner?

HOW DO REAL REBELS TREAT THEIR PRISONERS?

Would  real rebels have used "painful positioning" and the bucket of
water  treatment in the course interrogating Margaret Hassan?

Mohammed  al-Joundi, the driver/fixer of the French reporters was
accused by enraged  rebels of being an American spy, hired to spy on
the French reporters.  They actually had a reason for believing that.
He had in his car a  photomontage--there is some stupid joke--that
placed his own son next to  U.S. Army General Kimmitt. He was kept
for three months. When Fallujah was  surrounded on November 10, his
jailers suggested that they all swim across  the Euphrates. He
explained he could not swim, so they left him behind. He  said he was
not mistreated.

The worst treated hostages ever  released, who a couple of times came
very close to being executed, were  two reporters, Canadian Scott
Taylor and Turkish Zeynep Tugrul. They  entered northern Iraq from
Turkey on September 7 and were detained in Tal  Afar, a Turkmen city.
They arrived just hours before an expected American  attack . The
rebels thought they were spies on a reconnaissance mission.

Scott Taylor tells us at
http://www.espritdecorps.ca/new_page_243.htm:

'Two men were  questioning me. In what seemed like a bad Hollywood
comedy, someone  started up a generator outside...the lights came
back on and the two  interrogators clumsily tried to pull their ski
masks back on before I  could recognize their faces.

With the tension broken, the one who had  identified himself
as "Emir" [commander]... actually started to laugh and  left his mask
off. This man had been among the group that had taken us at  the
police checkpoint. "Sleep now and I will check your story. If you
are telling the truth, we will release you - if not, you die," he
said.

...[The next day, at first] they had been very strict in  enforcing
the rules. I was to sit on a broken chair in the middle of my  cell.
However, as the temperature rose to a 45=C2=A1 Celsius [112F] and my  sun-
baked room turned into an oven, they had compassionately allowed me
to venture outside. By nightfall everyone was so relaxed that Zeynep
and I sat eating dinner and talking to our guards. The young boy [a
fifteen-year-old] stated that his only ambition in life was to "die
a  martyr." Shortly past dark, the Emir returned and informed that he
had  confirmed that we were not spies. He gave a "Muslim promise" to
set us  free in the morning.'

The Emir was killed in battle that night, and  left a power vacuum.
As each group of fighters went into battle, the two  reporters were
transferred from one band to another. Various groups of  fighters
tried to get the reporters to confess by mistreating and beating
them.

IN THE HANDS OF THE AXIS OF EVIL

One group that held  them was composed of Iraqi Arabs, not Turkmen,
and belonged to Ansar  al-Islam, accused of being the famous missing
link in the Saddam-Bin Laden  Axis of Evil. Neither Taylor nor Tugrul
understood Arabic. The reporters'  position was now weaker, since all
their documentation had been destroyed  when a house had collapsed
under American fire.

The international  press had already discussed the presence of Mossad
in northern Iraq. The  new interrogators were less intelligent and
worldly than the Emir. They  were convinced to have in their hands "a
Mossad agent from America." It  was difficult to disprove that, since
Taylor had to admit to being from  the North American continent and
to having been in the military.

Scott Taylor is the editor of the Canadian military journal Esprit
de Corps. It's true that he had written against Canada's
participation  in the war on Iraq, but this was Tal Afar, an ancient
city of mud houses,  a place of medieval appearance. For your average
jihadi warrior in Tal  Afar, Scott Taylor had all the traits of an
American spy.

The  greatest danger came from the presence of combatants who
intended to seek  martyrdom that very evening, fighting against
American airpower. They had  no chance, but here was the opportunity
to take along, into the next  world, at least one of their enemies.

Released after five days of  captivity, Scott Taylor (ST) tells us in
an interview with Chris Deliso  (CD) at
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3D3606 :

'ST:  Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the juxtaposition of
brutal  terrorist tactics with this sweet Middle Eastern hospitality.
In between  the beatings they would treat us very well. They never
denied me water,  and as the guests, we would be served dinner before
them. And good dinners  too, I might add.

CD: That must have been very disconcerting.

ST: Indeed. I remember on Thursday night, there was a cool breeze
coming in from the window, and I was lying on my side, pretending to
sleep. I noticed the terrorist who had been assigned to guard me get
up and walk over toward me... I was afraid it was time for more
beatings.

But you know what the guy does? He reaches around and  pulls the
blanket up on me, as you would for a kid; apparently, he thought  I
might be cold from the window. So this kind of diametrically opposed
behavior was really confusing. Even though they were bloodthirsty
militants, they did have a human side to them.

I mean, even when  they're threatening, "You're going to die, this is
your last supper,"  they're beaming because they've given you the
best part of the chicken!

Of course, for them dying is a wonderful thing. So the mindset is
like, "I'm giving you the best part of the chicken and I'm going to
kill you - what the hell else do you want?" '

A STRANGE, SUDDEN  CHANGE

So how do the most deadly rebels in Iraq behave with their
prisoners? In a barbarous, generous, violent, nice, brutal, and
gentle  manner....even in the midst of battle.

What do they want from  prisoners? They suspect them to be American
spies and want confessions.  Until now, it seems that the most brutal
rebel interrogators have not  tried to humiliate and crush the spirit
of prisoners. Except in the case  of Margaret Hassan.

When one of the Italian "contractors" was  murdered, he was not a
tortured, crushed man. We have a pretty good idea  of what went on in
the kidnappers' jail from the words of his freed  companions, from
the murder video, and from one of his jailers, Abu  Yussuf, as told
to Hala Jaber on The Sunday Times of June 27 2004.

We are asked to believe that suddenly the rebels lost all their
inhibitions and turned sadistic. - as sadistic as Saddam Hussein
policemen. Not towards the captured foreign mercenaries, no, towards
one of the strongest voices raised in defense of Iraq, towards the
one  who had gone to New York and had spoken at the United Nations
against the  bellicose plans of Bush and Blair.

We are asked to believe that the  Islamists have suddenly turned on
converts to Islam, an unheard of  attitude. We are asked to believe
that they have abandoned all their  traditions, just to humiliate a
distinguished lady who had spoken for Iraq  at the House of Commons,
in a desperate attempt to block Allawi's game  plan to go back to
Baghdad in an American tank.

ADVERTISING THE  "SECRET SPECIAL SECTION"

All groups that take hostages seek publicity,  especially on Arabic
TV networks. The publicity obtained when they take  Western prisoners
is the easiest way for Iraqi insurgent groups to make  their name
known in the Arab world, as well as in the West. Being known  brings
new recruits and financial contributions. Remaining unknown has no
advantage.

Every previous hostage video indicated the name or  symbol of the
group involved, but the kidnappers of Margaret Hassan  decided to
remain unknown and unnamed. They were a "Secret Special  Section," so
secretive and so special that they behaved unlike any known  Iraqi
insurgent group.

Videos released by rebel groups usually  include nationalist or
religious slogans. Usually masked armed men read a  manifesto,
detailing their motivations and objectives. A flag or symbol of  the
group is usually in evidence.

Tawhid wal Jihad shows its black  flag on its videos and hangs it on
destroyed American tanks. When the  destroyed tank appears on
television, children and young men become  familiar with the flag as
a symbol of competence and success. During  battles in Baghdad, their
black flag flew from palm trees. The flag is a  tool for recruiting
sympathizers, contributors, couriers, and fighters.

The kidnappers of Margaret Hassan felt no need for a flag, a symbol,
a motto, or a slogan. They wanted to remain indefinable.

CHANTS  AND GOOD ARGUMENTS TO KILL YOUR OWN

Execution videos are usually  accompanied by religious invocations or
the chanting of Koranic verses.  Not in the case of Margaret Hassan.
Killing is a difficult task,  especially for untrained non-
professionals. Abu Yussuf, who filmed the  execution of the
Italian "contractor" Fabrizio Quattrocchi, had been  opposed to
killing him, but had to follow orders.

Hala Jaber, as  she tells in The Sunday Times, asked Abu Yussuf how
he could bear to watch  a defenseless man being killed. "I have never
done this before," he said.  "But then I too started to call 'Allahu
akbar' and my Islamic beliefs  reminded me of my mission."

In the final video announcing her  execution, no explanation was
offered as to why Margaret Hassan was  thought to be in the enemy
camp. There had been an outpouring of love for  Margaret Hassan in
Baghdad; a group aspiring to recruit for jihad would  have tried to
explain the reasons for killing a known enemy of the  embargo, the
war, and the occupation.

At least they would have  shown themselves stupidly certain of their
perceived paranoiac reality,  like the primitives of the Islamic
Army, who declare themselves proud of  having executed the "Italian
agent" Enzo Baldoni. They would have stated  that they had proof she
was a spy for London, that she was a Christian  just pretending to be
a Muslim.

Especially when they have access  to mass media, believers never miss
the opportunity to make themselves  heard. Believers always explain,
always try to justify their most absurd  ideas, their most barbarous
acts.

No, these were not believers.  Recruiting for Jihad was not their
aim. They had no plan, no proposal, and  no propaganda message. They
did not even deny that Margaret Hassan was one  of their own, an
Iraqi Muslim. They acted as if they had just wanted to  offend Iraqis
and Muslims everywhere. If that was their intention, it  worked out
fine, since the most common reaction in the Arab world was to  call
the killing "un-Islamic."

HELLO, AL-Z, WE HAVE A LITTLE  PRESENT FOR YOU

Black psy-ops are operations whose intent is to  deceive or influence
the enemy. The target can be the enemy armed forces  or population.
The target is also public opinion, local, worldwide or even  in one's
own country. Historically, such operations are common. During the
Indochina war, government forces would occasionally dress up in
guerrilla outfits and terrorize an area, hoping to turn the
population  against the rebels.

According to a BBC report dated November 2, 2004,  "gunmen holding
hostage Margaret Hassan said they would hand her to  militant Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi if British troops do not leave Iraq within  48
hours. The warning was made by a hooded figure on a video broadcast
on the Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera."

That was an unusual threat,  since in the Arab world al-Zarqawi is
believed to be dead. His death in  action was announced on March 4,
2004, in a letter signed by a dozen rebel  groups.

This was the second time in the course of a month that an  "al-
Zarqawi" presence had been felt at a kidnapping of pacifists in
Iraq. According to "voices" heard at a s=C5=BDance organized by Coalition
intelligence for The Sunday Times, al-Zarqawi had proposed to
purchase  two young Italian anti-war aid workers for "much more" than
4 million  dollars.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/targeting_pacifists_iraq.htm

When they say "al-Zarqawi," we must recall that the Bad Guys say he
is dead, while none of the Good Guys have spotted him in years. When
they summon the useful ghost of al-Zarqawi, we know they are talking
of Abu Rashid, the emir who ordered the death of Nick Berg.

Abu  Rashid is tough, but he is a woossie in comparison to
the "Secret Special  Section" boys. Abu Rashid had told Sara Daniel
in Le Nouvel Observateur of  August 4: "We ... kidnap... to put
pressure on the countries that help ...  the Americans.. It's not a
good thing to behead, but it's a method that  works... I tried to
negotiate an exchange of prisoners for Nick Berg, but  the Americans
turned me down."

Abu Rashid does not like to cut off  heads. Worse, Abu Rashid attacks
only the occupiers and those who help  them. Indeed, he says he
released Angelo de la Cruz, the Filipino truck  driver, when his
government pulled its soldiers out of Iraq. He released  Angelo even
though the Filipino government is still fighting against  Islamic
rebels back home.

Ireland is not helping the Coalition, so  there is no doubt that Abu
Rashid would have released Margaret Hassan. A  strange threat indeed,
turning her over to "al-Zarqawi."

Even  mentioning "al-Zarqawi" as friend of theirs, to whom they want
to give  Margaret Hassan as a present, is odd. Why would they want to
give  publicity to a group they are in competition with, and no
publicity at  all, not even a name or a flag, to their own "Secret
Special Section"?

Which rebel group has ever respectfully mentioned a competing rebel
group in their own communiqu=C3=A9? Which rebels have ever pointed out
another group as more dedicated, more combative, fiercer, and
deadlier  than themselves?

THE REAL JIHADIS ARE NOT AMUSED

According to  The Independent of October 25, commanders of five
separate guerrilla  groups in Fallujah said they were not holding
Margaret Hassan. The emir,  or commander, of one group of Iraqi
insurgents in Fallujah told Reuters  reporters: "This woman works for
a humanitarian organization. She should  not have been kidnapped. She
had been living in Iraq for 30 years and she  was a humanitarian. The
resistance did not kidnap her because this would  have left a bad
impression of the resistance in the world."

Tawhid  wal Jihad recently changed its name to "al-Qaeda Group in the
Land of Two  Rivers" as the land of Iraq is known. On November 7 they
published a  statement saying:

"We call on those responsible for her captivity to  release her
unless she is proven to be a collaborator. If this is proven,  they
should show it clearly to people lest our religion is accused of
things that are not true... [If delivered to us] we will release her
immediately unless she is proven to have conspired against
Muslims...  These people who are using this prisoner as a playing
card didn't know our  religion very well...We only kill those who
fight us and kill our people.  In true Islam, they don't kill women
and young children."

DID  BLAIR WANT HER DEAD?

Deirdre Fitzsimmons, sister of Margaret, issued a  plea to her
kidnappers. "We are the Irish family of Margaret and we are  pleading
with you to set her free. We have listened to your demands and
begged Tony Blair and the British government to release the women
prisoners," she said. "But we are Irish and we have no influence on
the British government."

Prime Minister Tony Blair wasted no time  to present himself as
sponsor and protector of Margaret Hassan. He said:  "I think it shows
you the type of people we are up against that they were  prepared to
kidnap somebody like this." At the House of Commons Blair  said, "We
are doing what we can to secure her release." He praised  Margaret
Hassan, he praised her work.

The Foreign Office spokesman  chose to advertise the fact that
besides being an Irish and Iraqi citizen,  Margaret Hassan also holds
British citizenship. He was quoted in The  Independent of October 25
as saying: "We are working closely with the  Iraqi authorities to
secure Margaret's release."

Everything  possible was said to impress upon the rebels the idea
that Margaret Hassan  was British and dear to the British government,
going as far as calling  her by her first name, as if she had been
one of them... as if she had not  spoken with contempt about their
policies and their murderous behavior  towards Iraq.

Here is the response of friends and co-workers in  Baghdad, as
reported by The Independent of October 21: "There is a lot of
unhappiness here among people in Care about what is being said in
London. We feel that all this talk about the British Government
getting involved will send bad signals to the people holding her.
This  makes the whole thing political ... This is not helpful and it
could hurt  her."

Assuming that her kidnappers were ignorant Iraqi rebels, Tony  Blair
did his level best to convince them to kill her.

PUNISH  FRANCE, IGNORE GERMANY, FORGIVE RUSSIA

That lapidary phrase was  proclaimed by National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, to control  incipient rebellion among her restive
European business partners.

The leaders of most European countries did want to join the
American "cakewalk" into Iraq. The leaders knew that, win or lose,
war  could not fail to make them rich. They wanted this war even
though their  subjects were opposed, and by overwhelming majorities.

The problem was  that NATO was controlled by a council, and that
members had veto power. It  had in recent years agreed to adventures
into Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.  This time, however, a couple of
elder council members, lacking the proper  understanding of the
principles of managed democracy, seemed impervious to  pressure,
threats, and bribes. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld justly  referred
to them as "Old Europe", and compared them less than favorably to  a
daring and prosperous "New Europe"--Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, etc.

The Old Europeans insisted on following the old-fashioned rules of
George Washington that "a wise govt. will never, in a free country
go  to War against the feelings of the People--but it will often
refuse to go  to war to indulge the heat of the public mind."

It was proposed that  the Europeans could be sucked into the war by
degrees. The idea was that  when Yanks and Brits attacked Iraq, the
Iraqis might shoot back at the  invaders and hit Turkey. The missiles
of course would have been Iraqi even  if they came from the sea--no
problem, we can fix such minor details. If  NATO aircraft and
missiles were there already, then NATO forces would have  been "under
attack." In this way NATO was to be dragged into the war and  the
occupation, and all in self-defense against Iraqi aggression.

Secretary of State Colin Powell sounded hurt and saddened as he
insisted that "NATO has an obligation under its charter to aid a
member nation that feels threatened." Three NATO allies had
objected.  As www.newsmax.com reported on February 10, 2003, "NATO
was plunged into  its deepest crisis for decades Monday after France,
Germany and Belgium  vetoed a U.S. request to provide military
assistance to Turkey in the  event of an attack by neighboring Iraq."

PUNISH BELGIUM...

On  October 27 a new video appeared on Al Jazeera with Margaret
Hassan  pleading for Great Britain to withdraw troops and for Care
International  to stop operations in Iraq. Care, which is based in
Belgium, obeyed  immediately.

They want us to believe that the Islamists were  displeased with an
organization that had helped deliver clean drinking  water to
millions of Iraqis. An organization based in the small NATO  country
that dared to challenge Allawi and Washington, an organization run
by an Irishwoman, one who had converted to Islam. One who had
defended  Iraq at the United Nations and at the Chamber of Commons.
An Irishwoman  who had access to the Western press, and who would
have certainly spoken  without fear again... a dangerous woman, but
not to the Islamists.

Patriotic suspension of disbelief is getting ever more difficult.

The Islamists had no issues with Care International, and certainly
no issues with Belgium, a country that had never colonized a Muslim
country. Prime Minister Allawi did have issues with Belgium, the
only  small European country that had dared to join the Paris-
Berlin "Axis of  Weasels."

Prime Minister Allawi had shown himself to be very emotional  about
countries that refuse to support his plans. He had already
challenged France, in a rather truculent manner. His predictions
that  there would be terrorist attacks "in Paris, in Cannes, in Nice"
had caused  the cancellation of a visit to France by the Iraqi
president. When a  reputed car bomb expert like Allawi has visions of
terrorist attacks,  people get nervous.

Expelling Care from Iraq may have been an  afterthought, a petty
gesture of revenge, of the kind that would have  given satisfaction
to a statesman of the rank of Caligula or Caracalla.  Temporary
insanity is not unusual in the high spheres of power.

To  quote from the announcement of the first political society in
Philadelphia  in 1793, "there is a disposition in the human mind to
tyrannize when  clothed with power." Richard Barnet observed that the
Founding Fathers  believed that "wielding unchecked power is an
unhinging experience for  ordinary mortals."

It appears that Prime Minister Allawi may have come  unhinged. To
history he will leave the aphorism "Punish Belgium, ignore  Monaco,
forgive the Vatican."

THREE CHOICES

Here is the  theory behind the kidnappings: the rebels capture some
poor guy, one of  the Willing, and demand that his government
withdraw its soldiers or  accept a prisoner exchange. The prisoners
whose government refuses to  deal, get killed.

The calculation is that, sooner or later, families  will turn against
the war out of fear of seeing their son or husband in a  cage,
pleading for his life. As a result, the ranks of the Coalition of
the Willing are being thinned out.

A nasty but sensible plan with  a minor difficulty, in the Hassan
case: how do you get the relatives to  put pressure on the Brits, if
they are Irish? It's difficult to believe  that, no matter how
ignorant and primitive these rebels may be, they might  not
understand the difference between London and Dublin.

It's  possible that illiterate villagers somewhere in the desert may
believe  that if you speak English properly you are English, it's
possible they may  not know the difference between England and
Ireland. However, Margaret  Hassan had been accepted in her adoptive
country as an Iraqi and as a  Muslim--Muslims are as pleased to
convert you as any Christian missionary.  She spoke Arabic, she could
have explained herself. At that point real  rebels would have
understood they made a mistake and would have made a  call to
Baghdad. They could have offered to release her to a high envoy of
the Red Cross, thus creating excellent publicity for themselves.

Alternatively, they could have asked for ransom, which would
certainly have been paid, by Europeans or by Iraqis, not by London.
Premier Berlusconi paid millions for his prisoners, out of his own
pocket, and Delta Force had to stage a fake raid to fool the world
into believing that "we do not negotiate with terrorists."

http://www.traprockpeace.org/targeting_pacifists_iraq.htm

The  third alternative, killing a hostage from the wrong country,
would have  guaranteed the enmity of the other factions of the
resistance. The "Secret  Special Section" boys who took Margaret
Hassan were running the risk of  being pursued like mad dogs by the
other factions of the resistance, as  soon as they were found out.

This entire story simply does not fit  with realities on the ground.

THE PUZZLE IS SOLVED

If we  propose that the rebels of the "Secret Special Section" are
policemen,  every odd detail of the event, every piece of the puzzle
falls into place.

The killers described themselves as "an armed Islamic group." The
idea was to pin on the rebels in general an act abhorred by all
Iraqis. They chose no name for themselves in order to tarnish the
image of all groups.

They proposed turning her over to  "al-Zarqawi" because Tawhid wal
Jihad, the group that claims to be  inspired by al-Zarqawi, is the
most successful insurgent group so far.  Mentioning is a form of
endorsement: the idea was to associate the murder  to all groups, but
to Tawhid wal Jihad in particular.

This was  also a ploy to make Westerners see the war as a necessary
crusade against  evil, and to create a bad image for the rebellion,
even in Iraq. Margaret  Hassan was one of the few Westerners whose
killing could have made Iraqis  hate the killers.

The rebels had never killed a woman hostage; to  remedy the rebels'
inaction, the Prime Minister picked one of his enemies  as
sacrificial victim. The Prime Minister knows how important it is to
instill fear in all possible opponents. Margaret Hassan had tried to
block his rise to power with all her loose talk at the United
Nations  and at the Chamber of Commons; she had to be punished.

This was a  win-win situation: Iraqis who believed the official story
of the Hassan  murder would react with contempt for the rebels,
Iraqis who disbelieved it  would have come to fear Allawi even more.

The assault on Fallujah was  expected to involve a high level of
unpleasantness, as indeed it did. It  would have been real cool to be
able to deflect the attention of Western  public opinion from the
horrors that one would expect in an attack on a  city that has become
a "free fire zone." The official expression in the  current war
is "no go zone."

Prime Minister Allawi foresaw the  need and ordered the operation,
which came to coincide with the bloodiest  battle of the war, in
which much of Fallujah was razed to the ground.

A FRESH BLOOD TRAIL TAKES US TO A MAD BOMBER

This was not the  first black psy-op for the Prime Minister. There is
reason to believe that  the Allawi regime created a fake American
document, which was passed to  the rebels. All four people who had
organized aid convoys to Fallujah and  Najaf, when they were under
siege by the Coalition, were kidnapped, over  the course of a few
weeks.

Maurizio Scelli, chief or the Italian  Red Cross, negotiated the
release of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta,  Italian aid workers who
had delivered drinking water to Fallujah and  Najaf. Scelli explained
that they "were considered spies since their names  appeared on a
list that it seems originated from the offices of American  secret
services and identified them, according to the Iraqis, as espionage
elements.... the two young women were tied to Baldoni and to
Ghareeb."

Ghareeb was a Palestinian who organized aid convoys to Fallujah and
Najaf, when they were under siege. Enzo Baldoni, a very committed
anti-war Italian reporter, had been an essential intermediary in the
organization of aid convoys to Najaf.

According to the Italian Red  Cross chief, Ghareeb "was indicated as
a Palestinian spy who in some way  was working also for the Israelis.
His death seems an execution." Enzo  Baldoni, was also executed.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/targeting_pacifists_iraq.htm

How  dare we suggest that the Prime Minister of Iraq may be involved
in  removing his critics? He is clearly unstable and unable to take
criticism.  He was unable to keep himself from reacting to French
aloofness in a  truculent manner. His pattern of thinking has not
changed since the good  old days when he was an agent of the
Mukhabarat of Saddam Hussein.

Consideration of his criminal record shows him clearly capable of
killing the innocent, at random, just to show off to Washington his
criminal ability and competence. As reported by The New York Times,
he  led a bombing campaign against soft targets in Baghdad in 1994
and 1995.

Bombs against a school bus, in a mosque, in a movie house, a car
bomb in front of the offices of a newspaper, about 100 victims, is
that sufficient to award Allawi the distinction of being a man
without  problems of conscience? The only problem mentioned in the
article is that  headquarters in London had promised the bomb
technicians $2000 per bomb,  but had sent them only $1000.

From the original story, on which the  New York Times story is based,
we learn that on one occasion the bomber in  Baghdad complained about
being paid with forged dollar bills. It seems  that the Allawi Gang
in London had pocketed the real greenbacks and had  sent some
homemade ones to Iraq. Certainly no one would dare to suggest  that
Bill Clinton might have sent forged American currency to his boys in
London.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06112004.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0609-02.htm

The Prime  Minister is much admired by his police officers. They know
him as a man  capable of taking the initiative and to give a good
example, as when he  killed six or seven prisoners in Baghdad, all by
himself. He is a capable  man, capable of anything.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0716-01.htm

The Prime  Minister was the person most likely to profit from the
killing of Margaret  Hassan. We have motive, means, and opportunity.
We have evidence of bodies  buried in his basement. No live witnesses
in this latest case, but a fresh  blood trail leads to his doorsteps.
Will that be sufficient to impanel a  grand jury?

Published by Traprock Peace Center

http://www.traprockpeace.org

December 27, 2004
:: Article  nr. 8662 sent on 06-jan-2005 16:28 ECT
:: The address of this page is :  www.uruknet.info?p=3D8662





To: anti-allawi-group@yahoogroups.com
User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82
From: "shailmanman" <shailmanman@yahoo.com>
Mailing-List: list anti-allawi-group@yahoogroups.com; contact anti-allawi-g=
roup-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list anti-allawi-group@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:14:07 -0000
Subject: [anti-allawi-group] THE STRANGE KIDNAPPING OF MARGARET HASSAN
Reply-To: anti-allawi-group@yahoogroups.com





By Matt Bojanovic

Margaret Hassan was born Margaret Fitzsimmons in Dublin. While a
student in London, she met an Iraqi student, Taheen Ali Hassan. They
say she was 17, and he was 26. They fell in love, married, and went
to live in Iraq in 1972. She took Iraqi citizenship, converted to
Islam and learned Arabic, which they say she spoke perfectly, with
an Iraqi accent, as if she had been born there.

After the Gulf War of 1991, she became director of Care
International in Baghdad. She organized the building of hospitals
and undertook the restoration of Iraq's drinking water system, which
had been attacked by NATO bombers. It was an impossible task,
because of the Western embargo on spare parts and supplies.

Justin Huggler writes in The Independent of November 17:

'When they heard that she had been kidnapped, they came on to the
streets of Baghdad in their wheelchairs to demand her release.
Children from a school for the deaf came out holding placards
demanding the release of "Mama Margaret." "If it wasn't for her, we
would probably have died," Ahmed Jubair, a small boy in a
wheelchair, said that day. "She built us a hospital and took care of
us. She made us feel happy again." There can be few greater
epitaphs.'

Charity was not enough to Margaret Hassan; it was not enough to help
a few thousands--or even a few millions--of poor unfortunates. She
knew whose cluster bombs were putting children in wheelchairs. She
knew who had caused the destruction of the infrastructure in Iraq
and said it openly, without fear of offending important people in
Washington and London. Being a saint was not enough for her, she
demanded a bit of justice, real change, in this world, not in the
next.

Robert Fisk, after speaking to Margaret Hassan and her assistant,
Judy Morgan, wrote in The Independent of November 2, 1998:

'Put very bluntly, the two CARE workers are convinced that they are
providing the proverbial useless drop in the ocean, helping to salve
consciences - Western consciences - while Iraqis die because of our
United Nations sanctions... Ms Hassan suspects that Westerners have
somehow humanly divorced themselves from ordinary Iraqis. "I don't
think we see them as people," she says. "If you see someone
suffering - if you have a grain of humanity in you - you have to
respond to that. Sanctions are inhuman and what we are doing cannot
redress that inhumanity." '

In January 2003 Margaret Hassan went to New York and to London
warning of even worse catastrophes for the Iraqi people. If war
came, the country's infrastructure, already severely stressed by the
embargo, would have collapsed. At a House of Commons briefing she
said: "The Iraqi people are already living through a terrible
emergency. They do not have the resources to withstand an additional
crisis brought about by military action."

A KIDNAPPING OR AN ARREST?

Margaret Hassan was seized on her way to work on October 19, 2004.
Out of the various odd kidnappings of opponents to the war, which
had already taken place in Iraq, this was the oddest. From The
Independent of October 21 and November 17 we gather that the road
was blocked by two cars and that two men in Iraqi police uniforms
asked her to come out and talk to them. When she complied, other
gunmen appeared, grabbed her, and dragged her driver and her unarmed
guard from their seats. They began beating the two men with their
guns. "Stop beating them," Mrs. Hassan told them, "I will come with
you."

Anyone who has ever observed a robbery and a police raid, may have
noticed that cops and robbers do behave a little differently. Cops
don't really mind getting noticed. They like to hang out together,
and they may linger on and chat, afterwards. Robbers, somehow, just
don't like to show off on the job too much.

Robbers and rebels appear to agree that key to success are speed and
not attracting attention. On the other hand, in a death squad, in a
squad of policemen out of uniform ordered to disappear dissidents,
everyone wants to be active, to look busy, to do something useful.
There is no resistance, so they start to beat up bystanders a bit.
Since you are there, they slam you against the wall a couple of
times: it's a little thing, but it's satisfying.

These strange kidnappers did not mind making a scene on the street.
They were not in a big rush, and could indulge a favorite pastime,
beating people up.

Insurgents sometimes organize the killing of regime collaborators in
full view of everyone, in a calm and leisurely fashion. The idea is
to cast fear in the hearts of all who consider collaborating with
the occupation, and their families. In an execution carried out on a
crowded street, the killers want to make it clear that they control
the neighborhood and are omnipresent, while the police are fearful
and absent.

An execution can be carried out as a theatrical performance, as a
human sacrifice, because the script is very simple and the
performance takes only seconds. The killers can walk away and
disappear into the crowd, or they can drive a couple of blocks, park
the car, and split up. Police roadblocks do not present serious
danger to an execution squad.

A kidnapping instead must be a very quiet job, to avoid the chance
of passers-by or neighbors calling the police with the description
of the vehicles involved. A fast getaway is essential, before
roadblocks are organized. Every second counts.

The Hassan kidnappers did something worse than waste time at the
jobsite beating up people. They did something that one would not
expect from people preparing for a very dangerous drive through
ordinary police checkpoints, on Baghdad streets patrolled by
American forces: they began to shoot in the air.

Iraqi cops are notorious for their propensity to start firing into
the air when stuck in a traffic jam. They also shoot in the air just
to announce their presence, or to ask bystanders to keep away or
move along. In situations where you would expect New York cops to
tap the ground with their nightstick or to flick on red light and
siren, Baghdad cops just fire off a few shots in the air.

As a retired police officer tells us at
http://www.behindthebadge.net/truelife/tl6.html, "when I first
started in law enforcement one of the things I enjoyed, was turning
on my blue light and siren and then driving fast. There was a sense
of power and excitement every time an emergency call came in."

Later he learned that it was dangerous to run very fast with his
light on, because civilians might act unpredictably. But as a young
cop he loved to put on a light and sound show. That's why Iraqi cops
can't resist the impulse of firing in the air, in any confrontation.
It gives them a comforting feeling, a semblance of power and
control, over a very scary environment.

GETTING TOUGH ON THE BRITS

The kidnappers of Margaret Hassan behaved in a manner remarkably
similar to the standard behavior of the Allawi police, as reported
in the British press. In The Telegraph of August 16, we read:

'The police chief delivered a blunt warning: journalists had two
hours to leave Najaf or face arrest... official explanation for the
decision was that police guarding the hotel had found 550 lb of
dynamite in a car nearby. That seems unlikely... A deputation of
journalists was denied an audience with Najaf's governor, Adnan al-
Zurufi. The policeman outside his office was brusque. "If you do not
leave by the deadline we will shoot you," he said. That was enough
for all but a handful of British and American journalists who
hunkered down in the hotel as the deadline expired. As night fell,
shots were fired at the roof of the hotel, from where reporters file
their stories.'

The British daily The Independent of August 17 2004 reports from
Najaf:

'A police lieutenant arrived at the hotel at 6.30pm ...As
journalists protested, the lieutenant said above the hubbub: "We are
going to open fire on this hotel. We are going to smash it up. I
will kill you all. You did this all to yourselves." ...He said four
snipers would be positioned on the roof of the police station to
fire at any journalists who left the hotel....The police then drove
off, stopping 300 meters down the road and fired warning shots in
the direction of the hotel.'

On August 26 we seem to still have the same police problem. Reuters
reports as follows: "Journalists were just eating dinner and
suddenly the police appeared in the lobby and started firing in the
air...when the police fired, one just missed a western cameraman.
The brick pieces from the wall came flying at us after the bullet
hit."

The Guardian reports:

'Police moved into the lobby of the Sea of Najaf hotel at 9.15pm
last night... they fired shots into the air... Journalists from Arab
and other international media, including the entire BBC team, as
well as The Guardian, The Independent, Times and Daily Telegraph,
were pushed into a truck, which was driven off to Najaf's police
station where the local chief of police, Ghalib al-Jazae'ri, said he
was incensed by media reports [on the situation in Najaf]... The
police officer who burst into the Guardian's room, wearing a
balaclava and pointing a Kalashnikov, said in Arabic: "We're going
to fuck the lot of you." '

Clearly, the Allawi regime finds it very difficult to tolerate the
presence of neutral observers. Iraqi officials seem to dislike
Westerners in general. They seem barely able to control their rage,
even towards reporters from outfits generally recognized to be pro-
war, like The Times and The Telegraph.

PSYCHOPATHS IN BAGHDAD

In a report published in The Oregonian of August 7, we read that on
June 29, 2004, a soldier of the Oregon National Guard, surveying the
area from a tall building, spotted a bit of torture going on in a
courtyard near the Interior Ministry. The battalion commander, Lt.-
Col. Daniel Hendrickson, led the guardsmen in. They found many
prisoners who said they had been deprived of food and water for
three days. Many of these prisoners had bruises and cuts and belt or
hose marks all over. At least one had a gunshot wound to the knee.

Officers and men of that outfit were decent people. They were under
the impression that torture was no longer the cool thing to do in
democratic Iraq, after the Abu Ghraib photo brouhaha. Somehow, they
believed that the "shock and dismay" felt in Washington was over the
realization that there was torture in Iraq, not over the
embarrassment of photos falling in the wrong hands.

The soldiers took the handcuffs off the prisoners, moved them into
the shade, and gave them water. These were 150 men who had been
rounded up in one neighborhood, in an "anti-crime raid" which
netted "a collection of immigrants and poor Iraqis." The guards said
that "these prisoners were all dangerous criminals and most were
thieves, users of marijuana and other types of bad people."

Captain Southall said 'one prisoner claimed the Iraqi police
arrested him at a market and confiscated his passport even though he
had "paid a tremendous bribe" to the arresting officer. Others, many
of whom appeared to be non-Arab shopkeepers and workers, said they
had been detained for lack of proper identification.'

Lt.-Col. Daniel Hendrickson called for instructions. As the soldiers
waited, Southall said, the Iraqi policemen began to get "defiant and
hostile" toward the Americans. After a while, headquarters ordered
the soldiers to leave.

Earlier, Hendrickson had demanded to speak to the man in charge.
A "well-dressed ... man" came forward and said "there was no
prisoner abuse and that everything was under control and they were
trying to conduct about 150 investigations as soon as possible."

The rulers in Baghdad are worried. They are seen with contempt by
their subjects. They are ex-Baathists. The policemen they hired are
former Saddam Hussein cops. The officers are former Saddam Hussein
officers. They all have contempt for their Iraqi subjects and hatred
for their foreign masters.

We can safely assume that the policemen mentioned by The Oregonian
would have been delighted with the opportunity to capture and
brutalize a foreigner. Those cops would have seen Margaret Hassan as
someone on whom to vent their feelings of humiliation about having
had to take orders from foreigners, sometimes.

HOSTAGE DRESS CODE: HANDCUFFS OPTIONAL

To tie prisoners in a painful position is a normal Coalition
practice, officially approved. It is not torture. It is not torture
because we do not do torture.

Rebels in Iraq seem quite assured of the support of the population.
They believe that their prisoners would not get far if they tried to
escape. One of those who captured the four Italian "contractors"
explains in the Sunday Times of June 27 that the prisoners were not
tied up or even locked up in their room.

The three freed "contractors" and the Polish engineer Jerzy Kos did
have complaints, but those were over food, not over being painfully
tied up or mistreated.

In The Telegraph of August 14, 2004 the British reporter James
Brandon, taken from his hotel in Basra, explains that the kidnapping
had been very unpleasant, but that "once they learned I was a
journalist I was treated very well."

That was the experience of dozens of reporters detained by initially
very threatening and aggressive insurgents. They were held for
periods varying from minutes for documents check, to eight days for
the American Micah Garen and his interpreter, Amir Doshe, released
August 22 in Nasiryah.

The French reporter Georges Malbrunot, held for four months, reports
that his colleague Christian Chesnot got slapped by his interrogator
when, shown a photo of General Kimmitt, he denied that he knew who
the general was. They had just taken off his blindfold and did not
know that without his glasses Mr. Chesnot couldn't see a thing; they
thought he was trying to get smart with them.

The Salafists who took two Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and
Simona Torretta tied them only during their trip from Baghdad to
their jail, and untied them upon arrival. When the blindfolded
prisoners were moved, the guards would lead them by the tunic's arm,
never touching them. After the interrogations were over, in a couple
of days, blindfolds were also removed.

On October 28 The Salafist Brigades of Abu Baker Siddiq kidnapped
Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a Polish woman who had married an Iraqi and
had lived in Iraq for 30 years. She appeared in front of the flag of
the group, while one of her captors read a statement. She was not
tied up. She was freed and appeared at a press conference in Warsaw
on November 21. She said: " They treated me decently... I was held
in a small, very clean room, newly painted. I was well fed, and I
was given plenty of water and toiletries... the abduction was very
quick -- it was very well organized."

The guerrillas seem to have a very relaxed attitude about
restraining prisoners, even when the prisoners appear to be
paramilitaries, such as Scott Taylor or the four
Italian "contractors." It seems that they mostly tie up prisoners
during transfers and before execution.

Ken Bigley appeared chained and behind bars only in his last video.
There was no such escalation in the treatment of Margaret Hassan,
who appeared distressed and in a state of "painful positioning" from
the first day.

A video released on November 12 showed Margaret Hassan passing out
on camera. A bucket of water was then thrown over her. She was
filmed lying wet and helpless on the ground before getting up and
crying. The video was received but was deemed to be too horrifying
to be aired on Al-Jazeera.

The rebels insist that they kill prisoners only when the Coalition
rejects a prisoner exchange. They had never brutalized prisoners in
their videos simply because it was not in their interest. The clear
threat to kill their prisoners was sufficient to put pressure on
government and public opinion of the occupying countries;
humiliating prisoners would have been counterproductive to the image
of the rebels.

The bucket of water is what you would expect at the police station,
when you pass out during interrogation. Would a non-professional
interrogator for the rebels think of the bucket of water as a tool
for crushing the spirit of a prisoner? Perhaps, but in the Iraqi
context it seemed strange, the rebels had never done it before. More
important, why would Islamic guerrillas have wanted to crush the
spirit of a Muslim convert who for years had raised her voice
against the rulers in Washington and London?

Could this desire to crush and humiliate have been just the normal
reflex behavior that kicks in when Iraqi policemen have a prisoner
in their hands? With the added pleasure that here they had the
opportunity to crush and humiliate a Westerner?

HOW DO REAL REBELS TREAT THEIR PRISONERS?

Would real rebels have used "painful positioning" and the bucket of
water treatment in the course interrogating Margaret Hassan?

Mohammed al-Joundi, the driver/fixer of the French reporters was
accused by enraged rebels of being an American spy, hired to spy on
the French reporters. They actually had a reason for believing that.
He had in his car a photomontage--there is some stupid joke--that
placed his own son next to U.S. Army General Kimmitt. He was kept
for three months. When Fallujah was surrounded on November 10, his
jailers suggested that they all swim across the Euphrates. He
explained he could not swim, so they left him behind. He said he was
not mistreated.

The worst treated hostages ever released, who a couple of times came
very close to being executed, were two reporters, Canadian Scott
Taylor and Turkish Zeynep Tugrul. They entered northern Iraq from
Turkey on September 7 and were detained in Tal Afar, a Turkmen city.
They arrived just hours before an expected American attack . The
rebels thought they were spies on a reconnaissance mission.

Scott Taylor tells us at
http://www.espritdecorps.ca/new_page_243.htm:

'Two men were questioning me. In what seemed like a bad Hollywood
comedy, someone started up a generator outside...the lights came
back on and the two interrogators clumsily tried to pull their ski
masks back on before I could recognize their faces.

With the tension broken, the one who had identified himself
as "Emir" [commander]... actually started to laugh and left his mask
off. This man had been among the group that had taken us at the
police checkpoint. "Sleep now and I will check your story. If you
are telling the truth, we will release you - if not, you die," he
said.

...[The next day, at first] they had been very strict in enforcing
the rules. I was to sit on a broken chair in the middle of my cell.
However, as the temperature rose to a 45=A1 Celsius [112F] and my sun-
baked room turned into an oven, they had compassionately allowed me
to venture outside. By nightfall everyone was so relaxed that Zeynep
and I sat eating dinner and talking to our guards. The young boy [a
fifteen-year-old] stated that his only ambition in life was to "die
a martyr." Shortly past dark, the Emir returned and informed that he
had confirmed that we were not spies. He gave a "Muslim promise" to
set us free in the morning.'

The Emir was killed in battle that night, and left a power vacuum.
As each group of fighters went into battle, the two reporters were
transferred from one band to another. Various groups of fighters
tried to get the reporters to confess by mistreating and beating
them.

IN THE HANDS OF THE AXIS OF EVIL

One group that held them was composed of Iraqi Arabs, not Turkmen,
and belonged to Ansar al-Islam, accused of being the famous missing
link in the Saddam-Bin Laden Axis of Evil. Neither Taylor nor Tugrul
understood Arabic. The reporters' position was now weaker, since all
their documentation had been destroyed when a house had collapsed
under American fire.

The international press had already discussed the presence of Mossad
in northern Iraq. The new interrogators were less intelligent and
worldly than the Emir. They were convinced to have in their hands "a
Mossad agent from America." It was difficult to disprove that, since
Taylor had to admit to being from the North American continent and
to having been in the military.

Scott Taylor is the editor of the Canadian military journal Esprit
de Corps. It's true that he had written against Canada's
participation in the war on Iraq, but this was Tal Afar, an ancient
city of mud houses, a place of medieval appearance. For your average
jihadi warrior in Tal Afar, Scott Taylor had all the traits of an
American spy.

The greatest danger came from the presence of combatants who
intended to seek martyrdom that very evening, fighting against
American airpower. They had no chance, but here was the opportunity
to take along, into the next world, at least one of their enemies.

Released after five days of captivity, Scott Taylor (ST) tells us in
an interview with Chris Deliso (CD) at
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3D3606 :

'ST: Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the juxtaposition of
brutal terrorist tactics with this sweet Middle Eastern hospitality.
In between the beatings they would treat us very well. They never
denied me water, and as the guests, we would be served dinner before
them. And good dinners too, I might add.

CD: That must have been very disconcerting.

ST: Indeed. I remember on Thursday night, there was a cool breeze
coming in from the window, and I was lying on my side, pretending to
sleep. I noticed the terrorist who had been assigned to guard me get
up and walk over toward me... I was afraid it was time for more
beatings.

But you know what the guy does? He reaches around and pulls the
blanket up on me, as you would for a kid; apparently, he thought I
might be cold from the window. So this kind of diametrically opposed
behavior was really confusing. Even though they were bloodthirsty
militants, they did have a human side to them.

I mean, even when they're threatening, "You're going to die, this is
your last supper," they're beaming because they've given you the
best part of the chicken!

Of course, for them dying is a wonderful thing. So the mindset is
like, "I'm giving you the best part of the chicken and I'm going to
kill you - what the hell else do you want?" '

A STRANGE, SUDDEN CHANGE

So how do the most deadly rebels in Iraq behave with their
prisoners? In a barbarous, generous, violent, nice, brutal, and
gentle manner....even in the midst of battle.

What do they want from prisoners? They suspect them to be American
spies and want confessions. Until now, it seems that the most brutal
rebel interrogators have not tried to humiliate and crush the spirit
of prisoners. Except in the case of Margaret Hassan.

When one of the Italian "contractors" was murdered, he was not a
tortured, crushed man. We have a pretty good idea of what went on in
the kidnappers' jail from the words of his freed companions, from
the murder video, and from one of his jailers, Abu Yussuf, as told
to Hala Jaber on The Sunday Times of June 27 2004.

We are asked to believe that suddenly the rebels lost all their
inhibitions and turned sadistic. - as sadistic as Saddam Hussein
policemen. Not towards the captured foreign mercenaries, no, towards
one of the strongest voices raised in defense of Iraq, towards the
one who had gone to New York and had spoken at the United Nations
against the bellicose plans of Bush and Blair.

We are asked to believe that the Islamists have suddenly turned on
converts to Islam, an unheard of attitude. We are asked to believe
that they have abandoned all their traditions, just to humiliate a
distinguished lady who had spoken for Iraq at the House of Commons,
in a desperate attempt to block Allawi's game plan to go back to
Baghdad in an American tank.

ADVERTISING THE "SECRET SPECIAL SECTION"

All groups that take hostages seek publicity, especially on Arabic
TV networks. The publicity obtained when they take Western prisoners
is the easiest way for Iraqi insurgent groups to make their name
known in the Arab world, as well as in the West. Being known brings
new recruits and financial contributions. Remaining unknown has no
advantage.

Every previous hostage video indicated the name or symbol of the
group involved, but the kidnappers of Margaret Hassan decided to
remain unknown and unnamed. They were a "Secret Special Section," so
secretive and so special that they behaved unlike any known Iraqi
insurgent group.

Videos released by rebel groups usually include nationalist or
religious slogans. Usually masked armed men read a manifesto,
detailing their motivations and objectives. A flag or symbol of the
group is usually in evidence.

Tawhid wal Jihad shows its black flag on its videos and hangs it on
destroyed American tanks. When the destroyed tank appears on
television, children and young men become familiar with the flag as
a symbol of competence and success. During battles in Baghdad, their
black flag flew from palm trees. The flag is a tool for recruiting
sympathizers, contributors, couriers, and fighters.

The kidnappers of Margaret Hassan felt no need for a flag, a symbol,
a motto, or a slogan. They wanted to remain indefinable.

CHANTS AND GOOD ARGUMENTS TO KILL YOUR OWN

Execution videos are usually accompanied by religious invocations or
the chanting of Koranic verses. Not in the case of Margaret Hassan.
Killing is a difficult task, especially for untrained non-
professionals. Abu Yussuf, who filmed the execution of the
Italian "contractor" Fabrizio Quattrocchi, had been opposed to
killing him, but had to follow orders.

Hala Jaber, as she tells in The Sunday Times, asked Abu Yussuf how
he could bear to watch a defenseless man being killed. "I have never
done this before," he said. "But then I too started to call 'Allahu
akbar' and my Islamic beliefs reminded me of my mission."

In the final video announcing her execution, no explanation was
offered as to why Margaret Hassan was thought to be in the enemy
camp. There had been an outpouring of love for Margaret Hassan in
Baghdad; a group aspiring to recruit for jihad would have tried to
explain the reasons for killing a known enemy of the embargo, the
war, and the occupation.

At least they would have shown themselves stupidly certain of their
perceived paranoiac reality, like the primitives of the Islamic
Army, who declare themselves proud of having executed the "Italian
agent" Enzo Baldoni. They would have stated that they had proof she
was a spy for London, that she was a Christian just pretending to be
a Muslim.

Especially when they have access to mass media, believers never miss
the opportunity to make themselves heard. Believers always explain,
always try to justify their most absurd ideas, their most barbarous
acts.

No, these were not believers. Recruiting for Jihad was not their
aim. They had no plan, no proposal, and no propaganda message. They
did not even deny that Margaret Hassan was one of their own, an
Iraqi Muslim. They acted as if they had just wanted to offend Iraqis
and Muslims everywhere. If that was their intention, it worked out
fine, since the most common reaction in the Arab world was to call
the killing "un-Islamic."

HELLO, AL-Z, WE HAVE A LITTLE PRESENT FOR YOU

Black psy-ops are operations whose intent is to deceive or influence
the enemy. The target can be the enemy armed forces or population.
The target is also public opinion, local, worldwide or even in one's
own country. Historically, such operations are common. During the
Indochina war, government forces would occasionally dress up in
guerrilla outfits and terrorize an area, hoping to turn the
population against the rebels.

According to a BBC report dated November 2, 2004, "gunmen holding
hostage Margaret Hassan said they would hand her to militant Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi if British troops do not leave Iraq within 48
hours. The warning was made by a hooded figure on a video broadcast
on the Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera."

That was an unusual threat, since in the Arab world al-Zarqawi is
believed to be dead. His death in action was announced on March 4,
2004, in a letter signed by a dozen rebel groups.

This was the second time in the course of a month that an "al-
Zarqawi" presence had been felt at a kidnapping of pacifists in
Iraq. According to "voices" heard at a s=8Eance organized by Coalition
intelligence for The Sunday Times, al-Zarqawi had proposed to
purchase two young Italian anti-war aid workers for "much more" than
4 million dollars.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/targeting_pacifists_iraq.htm

When they say "al-Zarqawi," we must recall that the Bad Guys say he
is dead, while none of the Good Guys have spotted him in years. When
they summon the useful ghost of al-Zarqawi, we know they are talking
of Abu Rashid, the emir who ordered the death of Nick Berg.

Abu Rashid is tough, but he is a woossie in comparison to
the "Secret Special Section" boys. Abu Rashid had told Sara Daniel
in Le Nouvel Observateur of August 4: "We ... kidnap... to put
pressure on the countries that help ... the Americans.. It's not a
good thing to behead, but it's a method that works... I tried to
negotiate an exchange of prisoners for Nick Berg, but the Americans
turned me down."

Abu Rashid does not like to cut off heads. Worse, Abu Rashid attacks
only the occupiers and those who help them. Indeed, he says he
released Angelo de la Cruz, the Filipino truck driver, when his
government pulled its soldiers out of Iraq. He released Angelo even
though the Filipino government is still fighting against Islamic
rebels back home.

Ireland is not helping the Coalition, so there is no doubt that Abu
Rashid would have released Margaret Hassan. A strange threat indeed,
turning her over to "al-Zarqawi."

Even mentioning "al-Zarqawi" as friend of theirs, to whom they want
to give Margaret Hassan as a present, is odd. Why would they want to
give publicity to a group they are in competition with, and no
publicity at all, not even a name or a flag, to their own "Secret
Special Section"?

Which rebel group has ever respectfully mentioned a competing rebel
group in their own communiqu=E9? Which rebels have ever pointed out
another group as more dedicated, more combative, fiercer, and
deadlier than themselves?

THE REAL JIHADIS ARE NOT AMUSED

According to The Independent of October 25, commanders of five
separate guerrilla groups in Fallujah said they were not holding
Margaret Hassan. The emir, or commander, of one group of Iraqi
insurgents in Fallujah told Reuters reporters: "This woman works for
a humanitarian organization. She should not have been kidnapped. She
had been living in Iraq for 30 years and she was a humanitarian. The
resistance did not kidnap her because this would have left a bad
impression of the resistance in the world."

Tawhid wal Jihad recently changed its name to "al-Qaeda Group in the
Land of Two Rivers" as the land of Iraq is known. On November 7 they
published a statement saying:

"We call on those responsible for her captivity to release her
unless she is proven to be a collaborator. If this is proven, they
should show it clearly to people lest our religion is accused of
things that are not true... [If delivered to us] we will release her
immediately unless she is proven to have conspired against
Muslims... These people who are using this prisoner as a playing
card didn't know our religion very well...We only kill those who
fight us and kill our people. In true Islam, they don't kill women
and young children."

DID BLAIR WANT HER DEAD?

Deirdre Fitzsimmons, sister of Margaret, issued a plea to her
kidnappers. "We are the Irish family of Margaret and we are pleading
with you to set her free. We have listened to your demands and
begged Tony Blair and the British government to release the women
prisoners," she said. "But we are Irish and we have no influence on
the British government."

Prime Minister Tony Blair wasted no time to present himself as
sponsor and protector of Margaret Hassan. He said: "I think it shows
you the type of people we are up against that they were prepared to
kidnap somebody like this." At the House of Commons Blair said, "We
are doing what we can to secure her release." He praised Margaret
Hassan, he praised her work.

The Foreign Office spokesman chose to advertise the fact that
besides being an Irish and Iraqi citizen, Margaret Hassan also holds
British citizenship. He was quoted in The Independent of October 25
as saying: "We are working closely with the Iraqi authorities to
secure Margaret's release."

Everything possible was said to impress upon the rebels the idea
that Margaret Hassan was British and dear to the British government,
going as far as calling her by her first name, as if she had been
one of them... as if she had not spoken with contempt about their
policies and their murderous behavior towards Iraq.

Here is the response of friends and co-workers in Baghdad, as
reported by The Independent of October 21: "There is a lot of
unhappiness here among people in Care about what is being said in
London. We feel that all this talk about the British Government
getting involved will send bad signals to the people holding her.
This makes the whole thing political ... This is not helpful and it
could hurt her."

Assuming that her kidnappers were ignorant Iraqi rebels, Tony Blair
did his level best to convince them to kill her.

PUNISH FRANCE, IGNORE GERMANY, FORGIVE RUSSIA

That lapidary phrase was proclaimed by National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, to control incipient rebellion among her restive
European business partners.

The leaders of most European countries did want to join the
American "cakewalk" into Iraq. The leaders knew that, win or lose,
war could not fail to make them rich. They wanted this war even
though their subjects were opposed, and by overwhelming majorities.

The problem was that NATO was controlled by a council, and that
members had veto power. It had in recent years agreed to adventures
into Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. This time, however, a couple of
elder council members, lacking the proper understanding of the
principles of managed democracy, seemed impervious to pressure,
threats, and bribes. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld justly referred
to them as "Old Europe", and compared them less than favorably to a
daring and prosperous "New Europe"--Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, etc.

The Old Europeans insisted on following the old-fashioned rules of
George Washington that "a wise govt. will never, in a free country
go to War against the feelings of the People--but it will often
refuse to go to war to indulge the heat of the public mind."

It was proposed that the Europeans could be sucked into the war by
degrees. The idea was that when Yanks and Brits attacked Iraq, the
Iraqis might shoot back at the invaders and hit Turkey. The missiles
of course would have been Iraqi even if they came from the sea--no
problem, we can fix such minor details. If NATO aircraft and
missiles were there already, then NATO forces would have been "under
attack." In this way NATO was to be dragged into the war and the
occupation, and all in self-defense against Iraqi aggression.

Secretary of State Colin Powell sounded hurt and saddened as he
insisted that "NATO has an obligation under its charter to aid a
member nation that feels threatened." Three NATO allies had
objected. As www.newsmax.com reported on February 10, 2003, "NATO
was plunged into its deepest crisis for decades Monday after France,
Germany and Belgium vetoed a U.S. request to provide military
assistance to Turkey in the event of an attack by neighboring Iraq."

PUNISH BELGIUM...

On October 27 a new video appeared on Al Jazeera with Margaret
Hassan pleading for Great Britain to withdraw troops and for Care
International to stop operations in Iraq. Care, which is based in
Belgium, obeyed immediately.

They want us to believe that the Islamists were displeased with an
organization that had helped deliver clean drinking water to
millions of Iraqis. An organization based in the small NATO country
that dared to challenge Allawi and Washington, an organization run
by an Irishwoman, one who had converted to Islam. One who had
defended Iraq at the United Nations and at the Chamber of Commons.
An Irishwoman who had access to the Western press, and who would
have certainly spoken without fear again... a dangerous woman, but
not to the Islamists.

Patriotic suspension of disbelief is getting ever more difficult.

The Islamists had no issues with Care International, and certainly
no issues with Belgium, a country that had never colonized a Muslim
country. Prime Minister Allawi did have issues with Belgium, the
only small European country that had dared to join the Paris-
Berlin "Axis of Weasels."

Prime Minister Allawi had shown himself to be very emotional about
countries that refuse to support his plans. He had already
challenged France, in a rather truculent manner. His predictions
that there would be terrorist attacks "in Paris, in Cannes, in Nice"
had caused the cancellation of a visit to France by the Iraqi
president. When a reputed car bomb expert like Allawi has visions of
terrorist attacks, people get nervous.

Expelling Care from Iraq may have been an afterthought, a petty
gesture of revenge, of the kind that would have given satisfaction
to a statesman of the rank of Caligula or Caracalla. Temporary
insanity is not unusual in the high spheres of power.

To quote from the announcement of the first political society in
Philadelphia in 1793, "there is a disposition in the human mind to
tyrannize when clothed with power." Richard Barnet observed that the
Founding Fathers believed that "wielding unchecked power is an
unhinging experience for ordinary mortals."

It appears that Prime Minister Allawi may have come unhinged. To
history he will leave the aphorism "Punish Belgium, ignore Monaco,
forgive the Vatican."

THREE CHOICES

Here is the theory behind the kidnappings: the rebels capture some
poor guy, one of the Willing, and demand that his government
withdraw its soldiers or accept a prisoner exchange. The prisoners
whose government refuses to deal, get killed.

The calculation is that, sooner or later, families will turn against
the war out of fear of seeing their son or husband in a cage,
pleading for his life. As a result, the ranks of the Coalition of
the Willing are being thinned out.

A nasty but sensible plan with a minor difficulty, in the Hassan
case: how do you get the relatives to put pressure on the Brits, if
they are Irish? It's difficult to believe that, no matter how
ignorant and primitive these rebels may be, they might not
understand the difference between London and Dublin.

It's possible that illiterate villagers somewhere in the desert may
believe that if you speak English properly you are English, it's
possible they may not know the difference between England and
Ireland. However, Margaret Hassan had been accepted in her adoptive
country as an Iraqi and as a Muslim--Muslims are as pleased to
convert you as any Christian missionary. She spoke Arabic, she could
have explained herself. At that point real rebels would have
understood they made a mistake and would have made a call to
Baghdad. They could have offered to release her to a high envoy of
the Red Cross, thus creating excellent publicity for themselves.

Alternatively, they could have asked for ransom, which would
certainly have been paid, by Europeans or by Iraqis, not by London.
Premier Berlusconi paid millions for his prisoners, out of his own
pocket, and Delta Force had to stage a fake raid to fool the world
into believing that "we do not negotiate with terrorists."

http://www.traprockpeace.org/targeting_pacifists_iraq.htm

The third alternative, killing a hostage from the wrong country,
would have guaranteed the enmity of the other factions of the
resistance. The "Secret Special Section" boys who took Margaret
Hassan were running the risk of being pursued like mad dogs by the
other factions of the resistance, as soon as they were found out.

This entire story simply does not fit with realities on the ground.

THE PUZZLE IS SOLVED

If we propose that the rebels of the "Secret Special Section" are
policemen, every odd detail of the event, every piece of the puzzle
falls into place.

The killers described themselves as "an armed Islamic group." The
idea was to pin on the rebels in general an act abhorred by all
Iraqis. They chose no name for themselves in order to tarnish the
image of all groups.

They proposed turning her over to "al-Zarqawi" because Tawhid wal
Jihad, the group that claims to be inspired by al-Zarqawi, is the
most successful insurgent group so far. Mentioning is a form of
endorsement: the idea was to associate the murder to all groups, but
to Tawhid wal Jihad in particular.

This was also a ploy to make Westerners see the war as a necessary
crusade against evil, and to create a bad image for the rebellion,
even in Iraq. Margaret Hassan was one of the few Westerners whose
killing could have made Iraqis hate the killers.

The rebels had never killed a woman hostage; to remedy the rebels'
inaction, the Prime Minister picked one of his enemies as
sacrificial victim. The Prime Minister knows how important it is to
instill fear in all possible opponents. Margaret Hassan had tried to
block his rise to power with all her loose talk at the United
Nations and at the Chamber of Commons; she had to be punished.

This was a win-win situation: Iraqis who believed the official story
of the Hassan murder would react with contempt for the rebels,
Iraqis who disbelieved it would have come to fear Allawi even more.

The assault on Fallujah was expected to involve a high level of
unpleasantness, as indeed it did. It would have been real cool to be
able to deflect the attention of Western public opinion from the
horrors that one would expect in an attack on a city that has become
a "free fire zone." The official expression in the current war
is "no go zone."

Prime Minister Allawi foresaw the need and ordered the operation,
which came to coincide with the bloodiest battle of the war, in
which much of Fallujah was razed to the ground.

A FRESH BLOOD TRAIL TAKES US TO A MAD BOMBER

This was not the first black psy-op for the Prime Minister. There is
reason to believe that the Allawi regime created a fake American
document, which was passed to the rebels. All four people who had
organized aid convoys to Fallujah and Najaf, when they were under
siege by the Coalition, were kidnapped, over the course of a few
weeks.

Maurizio Scelli, chief or the Italian Red Cross, negotiated the
release of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, Italian aid workers who
had delivered drinking water to Fallujah and Najaf. Scelli explained
that they "were considered spies since their names appeared on a
list that it seems originated from the offices of American secret
services and identified them, according to the Iraqis, as espionage
elements.... the two young women were tied to Baldoni and to
Ghareeb."

Ghareeb was a Palestinian who organized aid convoys to Fallujah and
Najaf, when they were under siege. Enzo Baldoni, a very committed
anti-war Italian reporter, had been an essential intermediary in the
organization of aid convoys to Najaf.

According to the Italian Red Cross chief, Ghareeb "was indicated as
a Palestinian spy who in some way was working also for the Israelis.
His death seems an execution." Enzo Baldoni, was also executed.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/targeting_pacifists_iraq.htm

How dare we suggest that the Prime Minister of Iraq may be involved
in removing his critics? He is clearly unstable and unable to take
criticism. He was unable to keep himself from reacting to French
aloofness in a truculent manner. His pattern of thinking has not
changed since the good old days when he was an agent of the
Mukhabarat of Saddam Hussein.

Consideration of his criminal record shows him clearly capable of
killing the innocent, at random, just to show off to Washington his
criminal ability and competence. As reported by The New York Times,
he led a bombing campaign against soft targets in Baghdad in 1994
and 1995.

Bombs against a school bus, in a mosque, in a movie house, a car
bomb in front of the offices of a newspaper, about 100 victims, is
that sufficient to award Allawi the distinction of being a man
without problems of conscience? The only problem mentioned in the
article is that headquarters in London had promised the bomb
technicians $2000 per bomb, but had sent them only $1000.

From the original story, on which the New York Times story is based,
we learn that on one occasion the bomber in Baghdad complained about
being paid with forged dollar bills. It seems that the Allawi Gang
in London had pocketed the real greenbacks and had sent some
homemade ones to Iraq. Certainly no one would dare to suggest that
Bill Clinton might have sent forged American currency to his boys in
London.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06112004.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0609-02.htm

The Prime Minister is much admired by his police officers. They know
him as a man capable of taking the initiative and to give a good
example, as when he killed six or seven prisoners in Baghdad, all by
himself. He is a capable man, capable of anything.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0716-01.htm

The Prime Minister was the person most likely to profit from the
killing of Margaret Hassan. We have motive, means, and opportunity.
We have evidence of bodies buried in his basement. No live witnesses
in this latest case, but a fresh blood trail leads to his doorsteps.
Will that be sufficient to impanel a grand jury?

Published by Traprock Peace Center

http://www.traprockpeace.org

December 27, 2004
:: Article nr. 8662 sent on 06-jan-2005 16:28 ECT
:: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=3D8662






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
<FONT COLOR=3D"#000099">DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileg=
ed children resources
often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today!
</FONT><A HREF=3D"http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/lR.olB/TM"=
><B>Click Here!</B></A>
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->


Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anti-allawi-group/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    anti-allawi-group-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/








End of casi-news Digest

_______________________________________
Sent via the CASI-analysis mailing list
To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-analysis
All postings are archived on CASI's website at http://www.casi.org.uk