Life, Love, and Liberty

Brad Spangler lets us know about a triple whammy of anarchist and/or libertarian media fundraising drives. If you’re interested, then here are the three sites:

-Antiwar.com

-Rational Review

-Infoshop.org

I’ve made use of all three sites before, but the one I visit the most is Antiwar.com. It’s a very good site for keeping up with news related to foreign policy.

Courtesy of Brad Spangler.

New York, NY - April 18, 2007. Elaine Brower, Tom Good, Sally Jones, Ben Maurer and Barbara Walker were arrested on March 23, 2007 in Congressman Vito Fossella’s office. Their crime? Reading the names of the (US) war dead aloud and demanding a meeting with their representative so they might discuss the extreme positions he holds on the Iraq War. These 5 activists are charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. They are demanding Fossella drop all charges and agree to a meeting.

Show your support - tell Fossella to drop the charges and meet with his constituents. Sign the online petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/fossfive/petition.html

Please show your support!

TEHRAN, Iran -

Iran appears to be digging in for a prolonged standoff over its capture of 15 British sailors and marines, demonstrating the power of hardliners willing to confront the West, analysts say.

These are interesting times we live in. Who knows how long this standoff will last? It hopefully won’t last very long since war could easily spark in a situation like this.

British backtrack on Iraq death toll

By Jill Lawless

Published: 27 March 2007

British government officials have backed the methods used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion, the BBC reported yesterday.

The Government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet in October. But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticised study had used sound methods.

The study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. The study estimated that 601,027 of those deaths were from violence.

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 per cent certain that the real number of deaths lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636.

The conclusion, based on interviews and not a body count, was disputed by some experts, and rejected by the US and British governments. But the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Roy Anderson, described the methods used in the study as “robust” and “close to best practice”. Another official said it was “a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones”.

Unbelievably horrific! Is forgiveness for Bush or Blair possible?

Not looking good!

The Russian military experts estimate that the planning of the American military attack against Iran passed the point of nonreturn on February 20, when the director of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei, recognized, in his report/ratio, the incapacity of the Agency “to confirm the peaceful character of the nuclear program of Iran”.According to the Russian weekly magazine Argoumenty nedeli, a military action will proceed during the first week of April, before Easter catholic and orthodoxe (this year they are celebrated the 8), when the “Western opinion” is on leave. It may be also that Iran is struck Friday 6, public holiday in the Moslem countries. According to the American diagram, it will be a striking of only one day which will last 12 hours, 4 hours of morning to 16 hours of afternoon. The code name of the operation is to date “English Cock” (Bite). A score of Iranian installations should be touched. With their number, centrifugal machines of uranium enrichment, centers of studies and laboratories. But the first block of the nuclear thermal power station of Bouchehr will not be touched. On the other hand, the Americans will neutralize the DCA, will run several Iranian buildings of war in the Gulf and will destroy the key positions of command of the armed forces.As many measurements which should remove in Teheran any capacity to counteract. Iran projected to run several tankers in the strait of Ormuz with an aim of cutting the provisioning of the international markets of oil and of striking with the Israel missile.The analysts affirm that strike them American will be launched from the island of Diego-Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, from where will take off of the bombers with long operating range B-52 with on their board cruise missiles; by the embarked aviation of the American aircraft carriers deployed in the Gulf and forming part of the 6th American Fleet in the Mediterranean; cruise missiles will be also drawn since the submarines concentrated in the Pacific and with broad from Arabia.
Result, the Iranian nuclear program will be rejected several years in back. In private talks, American Generals suppose that the times of deployment of American anti-missile defense in Europe can be postponed. Another event envisaged, the oil barrel could fly away to 75-80 dollars and this for one prolonged period.Meanwhile, the new resolution on Iran and whose project was adopted by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany should be voted with CS as of this week. The text envisages sanctions against 10 Iranian public companies and to three companies concerned with the Body of the guards of the Islamic revolution, unit of elite to the orders of the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic, the ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Sanctions are also envisaged against 15 physical people: eight leaders placed high of companies of State and seven key characters with the Body of the guards of the Islamic revolution.

See Four Day War for details on the horrors that may unfold in the aftermath of an attack on Iran. The article posits a situation involving an Israeli strike but the potential consequences could flow from a U.S. attack too.

Here’s a petition for people to sign if they want to contact the reps on this issue

My take on what we can learn about gender issues from the Disney classic Beauty and the Beast is on the verge of completion and an unrevised — which may include further additions — version has been posted at Lady Victoria’s Salon Liberty.

Also, I’d been wanting to blog on one of Michael Leeden’s more disgusting recommendations.

[H]ere is the bedrock tenet of the Ledeen Doctrine in more or less his own words: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”

All the complexities of international relations thrown aside in favor of the philosophy of a schoolyard bully. This kind of sentiment is sickening beyond belief.

Hat tip to Arthur Silber who quotes Jonah Goldberg.

Another one of Leeden’s cringe inducing statements:

One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please…

Looks like he got his wish.

An article from AlertNet that I found via AntiWar.com.

(New York, February 23, 2007) � Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s new security plan for Baghdad grants military commanders sweeping powers to arrest people and restrict their basic freedoms of speech and association, Human Rights Watch said today.On February 13, al-Maliki issued martial law powers giving military commanders authority to conduct warrantless arrests, monitor private communications, and restrict civil society groups in Baghdad. General Qanbar Hashim, commander of Baghdad operations, announced the decree as part of the Iraqi government’s latest plan to curb the escalating civil war in the country.The decree grants General Qanbar far-reaching powers to conduct searches and seizures without warrants; to arrest, detain and interrogate people; to monitor, search and confiscate “all mail parcels, letters, cables, and wire and wireless communication devices”; and to restrict all public gatherings, including “centers, clubs, organizations, unions, companies, institutions, and offices.”"The security situation in Baghdad is dire, but giving the military free rein to violate the basic rights of Iraqis is not the answer,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “International law strictly limits the restrictions a government can place on fundamental rights during a public emergency. Iraq’s new martial law provisions open the door to easy abuse.”The vaguely worded decree provides few details on how the regulations will be implemented, and includes no time limits for most of its provisions. It provides no specific limitations on searches of private property or searches and confiscation of private correspondence. While it requires that defense and security forces operating under the control of the military commander “abide by law” in carrying out searches, arrests and interrogations of individuals, and “shall observe human rights” in general when carrying out the decree, there is no elaboration of any safeguards.The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iraq ratified in 1976, permits some restrictions on certain rights during an officially proclaimed public emergency that threatens the life of the nation. According to the Human Rights Committee, the international body of experts that monitors compliance with the treaty, any derogation of rights during a public emergency must be of an exceptional and temporary nature, and must be “limited to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.” Certain fundamental rights � such as the right to life, the right to be secure from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment � must always be respected, even during a public emergency.

Under international law, states may not invoke a public emergency to permit arbitrary deprivations of liberty or unacknowledged detentions, nor may they deviate from fundamental principles of fair trial, including the presumption of innocence. Human Rights Watch said that persons held as administrative detainees under a lawful state of emergency should enjoy as a minimum the right to be brought before a judicial authority promptly after arrest, be informed of the reasons for the deprivation of liberty, and have immediate access to legal counsel and family. They also should be allowed to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in a fair hearing, and to seek a remedy for mistreatment and arbitrary detention.

To implement the decree, al-Maliki cited article 58(9)(c) of the Iraqi Constitution, which authorizes him to pass emergency laws that do not contravene the Constitution: “The Prime Minister shall be authorized with the necessary powers that enable him to manage the affairs of the country within the period of the state of emergency and war. A law shall regulate these powers that do not contradict the constitution.” He also cited the 2004 Law for Safeguarding National Security.

In addition to granting the military broad powers to deprive Iraqis of their liberty, the decree also grants General Qanbar full control over the defense and interior ministry forces. This is apparently intended to rein in the country’s security forces, which over the past two years have increasingly splintered into segments affiliated with Shi’a and Sunni militias. Mounting evidence has implicated Interior Ministry forces in abductions, torture and killings of members of the Sunni community.

The decree provides for broad use of the death penalty, a punishment that Human Rights Watch opposes in all circumstances as inherently cruel and inhuman. Three articles in the decree refer to the 2005 Anti-Terror Law, which permits “the harshest punishment” for those found guilty of a wide array of offenses, including rape, theft, murder, abduction and destruction of private and public property, as well as the commission, participation or encouragement of crimes cited in the decree. The absence of due-process protections under the decree greatly increases cause for concern.

Other provisions of the decree include an extension of the curfew in Baghdad from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily and the suspension of licenses for weapons ownership, limiting arms ownership to Iraqi security forces and to security guards escorting their charge or guarding their homes.

The decree represents a positive development with respect to preserving the property and possessions of forcibly displaced people against illegal occupation of their homes, as called for in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. It addresses the issue of squatters occupying homes belonging to the approximately 3.8 million people who have fled or otherwise been displaced.

The decree requires these squatters to vacate the homes that they have taken over or to prove the owner’s consent to their occupation, which cannot exceed six months. This provision is in apparent recognition of the vast numbers of Iraqis, both Sunnis and Shi’a, who have been forced to abandon their homes due to the violence in the country, and whose premises have since been overtaken by others.

How can anyone maintain with a straight face that Iraq is a truly liberated nation? I imagine the problem is that these stories don’t get much attention in the media that most Americans are exposed to on a daily basis. It should be a critical priority of the anti-war movement to bring the alternative media into the limelight.

Antiwar.com has had some good success but much more work is needed.

I was recently reading an article titled The Next Jihadists: Iraq’s Lost Children that sparked an idea for a photo blog. Some of the pictures portraying the suffering in Iraq were incredibly moving and I decided it would be a worthwhile project to catalogue such images. I was going to call this new site The Death of Iraq but the idea has changed to one for a blog documenting the horrors of what the United States empire has wrought or assisted in numerous places.

I am thinking of calling it Pax Americana: The Brutal Reality.

Sound like a decent title? Suggestions for pictures are welcomed too. Just send me an email at nickmanley@lifeloveandliberty.com.

(I wrote this for an English class I am currently enrolled in. Figured it would make a decent blog post too.)

Many individuals became rightfully disillusioned — although some were not supportive from the get go — with the gang of war criminals currently holding power in Washington after news stories like this one started coming out. The popularity of the Iraq war and the Bush administration started taking a much delayed and deserved nosedive. Unfortunately, we may be faced with another Middle Eastern military adventure if some recent rhetoric from the government is any indication of what is to come.

“SEVILLE, Spain - Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide “pretty good” evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted Friday.”

Given what we experienced before, claims such as this should be looked upon with the utmost of skepticism. Even if true though, I don’t think one should be especially surprised that such things are occurring. Iranians or the Iranian government have a very rational self-interest in deterring the United States government from attacking the territory they inhabit.

The best way for the United States government to convince them otherwise is to start serious withdrawal from Iraq and tone down its threatening rhetoric towards Iran. Such a policy would save the lives of countless Americans, Iraqis, and Iranians. Surely, such a preservation of human life is preferable to another unnecessary slaughter.

You really have to wonder whether some political commentators listen to themselves when they speak.

Case in point: the incredibly monstrous Rush Limbaugh who should really do us all a favor by ceasing to have a talk show.

“You have this stupid pansy little idea that war is bad”

Hat tip to Arthur Silber for this.

Guess I am just a silly pansy who doesn’t understand why lots of death and suffering is really really great rather than something to be avoided.

How could I be so foolish!

Thank you for enlightening me Limbaugh. No, really. You’ve shown me why I could never embrace your perspective on life once again ( :

Being an apologist for torture had already gone a long way towards that. I am not sure whether that commentary or this one is worse. I’ll have to settle on them being of equal horror.