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>> It is, to say the least, ironic that, as a federal
>> judge, I was asked to come here to try to help erect
>> and establish constitutional values for the Iraqis,
>So someone had better tell Judge Merritt, the
>media, and the Bush administration that whatever
>the Iraqis are feeling right now, it isn't likely
>to be admiration. And any admiration the world
I suspect he knows, and that it's part of the irony he speaks of. Perhaps
he will speak out when he returns home?
Here in the US the situation reminds of one of those old "zombie" or
"space alien" movies where invaders start taking over people's minds, and
a few escape and spend the movie trying to set them free again.
On the Newshour tonight, in a segment on the importance of the missing
WMD, they talked about how public opinion is shifting away from support
for the war with the mounting deaths -- near 65 now. Apparantly, to the
journalist speaking, the thousands of dead and dying Iraqis count for
naught or never enter her zombified mind.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec03/wmd_07-02.html
I am rather concerned about the question of uncensored e-mail from Iraq
(perhaps through satellite phones?) coming through, since it's apparant
the the US is working hard to shut down criticism from both Iraqis and
foreign nationals both -- including in Iraqi newspapers. This has
certainly been a priority in the US media, although done on a more subtle
level -- through self-censorship and corporate group-think -- as typified
by the Newshour report, and more so by the regular commercial media.
The "war of fog" is being fought everywhere.
However -- the good news is that war of fog IS being fought. The articles
you you post are old news -- sadly only somewhat obsolete -- but neither
are these things unknown or unprotested in the US. That they were even
published at the time is a good sign.
While I worry about the things I read, I worry even more about the things
I do not -- the things which we never hear about ("Those in darkness are
not seen" - Bertold Brecht).
Not everyone hears it, but there IS information about the lack of water,
power, security, freedom, etc. in Iraq. There is precious little about
the abuse of prisoners, and that worries me. What really scares me is
imagining the secret plans being drawn up for God knows what -- like the
Patriot II act BEFORE it was leaked -- the evils we don't know about!
How much is published about the push to use computerized voting in the
next election -- using proprietary software with no paper trail? And if
the Iraqis do eventually get an election, how will their votes be
counted, and by whom? (What of Robert Kaplan's "Supremacy by Stealth in
the Jul/Aug Atlantic Monthly -- critiqued by Jonathan Schell in the 7/7
issue of The Nation (Letter From Ground Zero)?)
It was the falsification of intelligence that made the war possible,
because so very few understood it was false.
Now things are moving, however: the stories about the lies and abuses are
slowly moving into the mainstream, and a lot of people are becoming
concerned. That "old news" is still new to many, and needs to be widely
disseminated among the people.
With a little luck and a lot of work this affair will eventually result
in new and stronger safeguards, and a new respect for and insistence upon
international law and human rights. At least in this, we know who the
enemy is and where they need to be engaged: in the political, media and
legal arenas in the US and UK, on the ground in Iraq, and in the
info-sphere of the world. This battle, for free speech and media, is
critical to uncovering the monsters who yet lurk in the dark.
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