Category: World News & Politics

In a series of interviews in the Washington Post, senior American army officers have openly expressed doubts about whether the United States will win.

Major General Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division which was in western Iraq for much of the past year, said that tactically the US was winning but when asked if overall it was losing, replied: “I think strategically we are.”

Colonel Paul Hughes, the first director of strategic planning in Iraq after the war, whose brother died in Vietnam said: “Here I am, 30 years later, thinking we will win every fight and lose the war, because we don’t understand the war we are in.”

A senior general at the Pentagon who chose te remain unknown said he believes the United States is already on the road to defeat. “It is doubtful we can go on much longer like this,” he said. “The American people may not stand for it — and they should not.”

Asked who was to blame, this general pointed directly at Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. “I do not believe we had a clearly defined war strategy, end state and exit strategy before we commenced our invasion,” he said. “Had someone like Colin Powell been the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], he would not have agreed to send troops without a clear exit strategy. The current OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] refused to listen or adhere to military advice.”

So, obviously some people think that the Nick Berg decapitation video is a fake.

Here are some of the questions some raised about the video:

• The timing of the video’s release – guaranteed to divert attention from the outrage over US abuse of Iraqis.
• Why Nick Berg was wearing an orange jumpsuit
  

As everyone already knows from the news yesterday, a video posted on an al Qaeda-linked Web site showed the beheading of Nicholas Berg, a freelance communications worker from Pennsylvania, USA.

The Web site said the killing was carried out by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

I didn’t post about this yesterday even though it’s the first thing I read in the news, simply because I wanted it to move around in my head for a while before I do.

I think it’s very disturbing and wrong.

They’re painting this as an act of revenge for what was and is still being done to Iraqis, and that’s one cause that a lot of people will relate to, but still I don’t think they’ll agree with the manner it was done.

Islam is against such acts and strictly forbids them even in times of war, no matter what the circumstances are.
Islam teaches people to treat hostages and prisoners of war humanely and with dignity and respect, and that’s a long time before the Geneva conventions ever existed.

I think that the anger and resistance are justified but that acts of beheading and mutilation are so wrong and unjustified no matter what.

I just found this interesting article by Howard Fineman for Newsweek called “Running Against Osama bin Laden”.

He writes:

George W. Bush’s political handlers are obsessed with a date on the calendar. It’s not Sept. 11 or Nov. 2. It is June 30 — the day of the “handover,” when America’s role in Iraq is supposed to begin winding down. Swing voters who have been withholding judgment about the war want to see if the “transition” produces stability in Iraq and a reduction in American casualties, a key Bush adviser told me. “That’s a critical time,” he said. “It could set the tone for the rest of the race.”

[…]

This is the sound of wishful thinking… They are not in control of events, and neither are our few allies on the ground in Iraq. Osama bin Laden is in charge. He’s the other “candidate” in this presidential race.
And he’s winning.

[…]

Bin Laden’s bet was, and is, that the United States is too weak-willed and economically vulnerable to last for long in a war against jihadis motivated by centuries of hatred for the West.

I think he’s overdoing it a bit and oversizing Osama Bin Laden’s actual weight, but still it’s interesting to explore this line of thought and see how much power certain people or groups can have over elections.

My son Arik was murdered when he was a soldier by Palestinian fighters. He was not murdered because he was Jewish, but because he is part of the nation that occupies the territory of another.

I know these are concepts that are unpalatable, but I must voice them loud and clear, because they come from my heart – the heart of a father whose son did not get to live because his people were blinded with power.

— Yitzhak Frankenthal, I Would Have Done The Same.

[Via Lawrence of Cyberia]

I just stumbled upon an interesting article called “The Price of Arrogance” by Fareed Zakaria for Newsweek.

He writes:

“America is ushering in a new responsibility era,” says President Bush as part of his standard stump speech, “where each of us understands we’re responsible for the decisions we make in life.”

“I take full responsibility,” said Donald Rumsfeld in his congressional testimony last week. But what does this mean? Secretary Rumsfeld hastened to add that he did not plan to resign and was not going to ask anyone else who might have been “responsible” to resign. As far as I can tell, taking responsibility these days means nothing more than saying the magic words “I take responsibility.”

Zakaria goes on to talk about the stance the Bush administration is taking regarding the Geneva conventions. He writes:

Within weeks after September 11, senior officials at the Pentagon and the White House began the drive to maximize American freedom of action. They attacked specifically the Geneva Conventions, which govern behavior during wartime. Donald Rumsfeld explained that the conventions did not apply to today’s “set of facts.”
Last week he said again that the Geneva Conventions did not “precisely apply” and were simply basic rules.

The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been “We’re at war; all these niceties will have to wait.” As a result, we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure.

A great read. I suggest you check it out: The Price of Arrogance.

About 500 Iraqis met in Baghdad on Saturday to set up a national political force free of US influence to push for a handover of sovereignty under the auspices of the United Nations.

The United Iraqi Scholars Group – which appointed a 16-strong leadership panel – has vowed to boycott any political group set up by the US and called for a stronger army than the small force envisioned by the US-led coalition.

After a five-hour conference, the group said its agenda was based on “legitimate resistance to end the occupation” and keep Iraq united.

The group of moderate Shia and Sunni Muslims as well as Kurds also demanded the US-appointed Governing Council should be sidelined.

Shaikh Jawad al-Khalisi, a senior Shia cleric who will head the group, said it wanted the handover of power to Iraqis on 30 June “done under the umbrella of the United Nations and not the CPA”, the US-led occupying authority since last March’s invasion.

[Source: Al Jazeera]

A 12 year old girl was stripped and beaten by U.S. military personnel in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq.

Suhaib al-Baz, a journalist for the al-Jazeera television network, claims to have been tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison, based west of Baghdad, while held there for 54 days.

Mr al-Baz was arrested when reporting clashes between insurgents and coalition forces in November.

He said: “They brought a 12-year-old girl into our cellblock late at night. Her brother was a prisoner in the other cells.

“She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her. Her brother was helpless and could only hear her cries. This affected all of us because she was just a child.”

Mr al-Baz claims the guards at the prison were keen to take photographs of the abuse and turned it into a competition.

“They were enjoying taking photographs of the torture. There was a daily competition to see who could take the most gruesome picture.

“The winner’s photo would be stuck on a wall and also put on their laptop computers as a screensaver.

This is so disgusting. These people are animals and should be executed!
Even that would be too little for them!

The Walt Disney Company has blocked distribution of Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 9/11” simply because it is critical of the U.S. President George W. Bush.

The film — which links Bush with powerful Saudi families, including that of Osama bin Laden — is set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival in France later this month.

The reason?
According to today’s edition of The New York Times, it might ‘endanger’ millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will ‘anger’ the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush.

It’s amazing how the U.S. teaches us new forms of democracy each and every single day. I’m totally awed.

Moore won an Oscar for best documentary feature at last year’s Academy Awards for his film “Bowling for Columbine.”

[More: CNN]

A report released yesterday suggests that harassment and violence against Muslims are on the rise in the US, fueled by pro-war attitudes, religion-based anti-Muslim rhetoric and lingering fears from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it received reports of 1,019 anti-Muslim incidents during 2003 — a nearly 70 percent increase from the previous year and the highest number of civil-rights complaints from those of the Islamic faith in the nine years the group has been tracking them.

According to the report, titled “Unpatriotic Acts,” hate crimes against Muslims jumped 121 percent that same year.

So, where are the world leaders on this issue?
Too busy fighting anti-semitism?
Or is it ok to hate Muslims these days?