Be All the Cannon Fodder You Can Be
May 11, 2008
First there was the RAND report on US soldiers nearly one-third of who return from Afghanistan and Iraq suffering brain injuries or stress disorders or both. Only 43 percent of them ever get to see a doctor. Now comes this exclusive in the Independent: ‘Soldiers need loans to eat, report reveals‘. Following is the Independent investigation followed by Alexander Cockburn’s analysis of the RAND report.
Senior figures react angrily to damning indictment of life inside the Army. Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady investigate
A highly sensitive internal report into the state of the British Army has revealed that many soldiers are living in poverty. Some are so poor that they are unable to eat and are forced to rely on emergency food voucher schemes set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Some of Britain’s most senior military figures reacted angrily yesterday to the revelations in the report, criticising the Government’s treatment of its fighting forces.
The disturbing findings outlined in the briefing team report written for Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, include an admission that many junior officers are being forced to leave the Army because they simply cannot afford to stay on.
Slave Revolt…of Sorts
April 28, 2008
End of the empire is nigh. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, US planners were hoping to find an Iraqi Karzai. Things have turned out so poorly, that even the prototype is hinting defection. ‘Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War‘, Carlotta Gall of the New York Times reports. (thanks Jairo)
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.
Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.
He criticized the American-led coalition as prosecuting the war on terrorism in Afghan villages, saying the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Livingstone for Peace
April 16, 2008
‘He has consistently and loudly opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ writes Tariq Ali. ‘For that reason, Ken has my vote’.
Given the way that politics has gone to the dogs in so many parts of the democratic world, its hardly surprising that celebrity status and wealth have taken centre stage. Whether political atomisation is a transient phase remains to be seen. Meanwhile it is worth remembering that this country is involved in two wars and occupations.
The leaders of both the mainstream parties in Britain continue to support involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. And apart from the valiant but small group of antiwar campaigners, the country seems to have forgotten that a million Iraqis have died since the occupation of their country, three million have become refugees and millions in the country face the most horrendous conditions in their everyday lives. If a country considered hostile to the west had behaved in this fashion, the outcry would have been deafening.
Taxi to the Dark Side
April 4, 2008
Taxi to the Dark Side is an excellent documentary charting the recent history of the US Governments use of torture. I hadn’t realised that a high level legal adviser to the President, John Yoo, went as far as publicly arguing that “there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.” Rationality gone mad – his name has gone on my list of people whose testicles do need crushing.
As a side note, I enjoyed Stephen Kings recent comments on the debate as to whether waterboarding is torture or not “if the Bush administration didn’t think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn’t think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture.”
“This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.” Alex Gibney, Director, Academy Award acceptance speech.
Hey Ma
March 24, 2008
I thought this James song was relevant considering the 4,000 dead soldiers toll circulating in the press. I can’t say I like the video given that it suggests soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are somehow ‘heroes’ rather than criminals. I should point out that this isn’t the official video but another good example of remix culture.
James Unveil Highly Controversial Album Cover
Indie veterans James have unveiled the controversial artwork to their new album ‘Hey Ma’ which features an image of a baby about to pick up a handgun.
The hard-hitting image has apparently seen advertising execs give the album a wide berth, meaning that it is very unlikely to feature on major PR campaigns.
Winter Soldiers Sound off
March 24, 2008
The following report is on the Winter Soldier event in the USA by, friend of The Fanonite, Dahr Jamail.
Jason Moon suffers from persistent insomnia as he wrestles with memories of his time in Iraq. “While on our initial convoy into Iraq in early June 2003, we were given a direct order that if any children or civilians got in front of the vehicles in our convoy, we were not to stop, we were not to slow down, we were to keep driving,” says the former National Guard and Army Reserve member. “In the event an insurgent attacked us from behind human shields, we were supposed to count. If there were thirty or less civilians we were allowed to fire into the area. If there were over thirty, we were supposed to take fire and send it up the chain of command. These were the rules of engagement. I don’t know about you, but if you are getting shot at from a crowd of people, how fast are you going to count, and how accurately?”
Moon is taking part in Winter Soldier. This is public testimony organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War about the human consequences of failed U.S. policy in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Read the rest of this entry »
Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 17, 2008
‘US veterans gathered in Maryland this past weekend to testify at Winter Soldier, an eyewitness indictment of atrocities committed by US troops during the ongoing occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers spoke of free-fire zones, the shootings and beatings of innocent civilians, racism at the highest levels of the military, sexual harassment and assault within the military, and the torturing of prisoners.’ While the corporate media ignored the story, Democracy Now, the Real News Network and several other independent media institutions covered it in depth (see Jeff Cohen’s excellent piece ‘Iraq Winter Soldier Hearings: Victory for Independent Media‘). You can watch Democracy Now’s coverage here, and below you will find videos from Real News. (This page will be updated as more testimonies become available).
Fallon’s Fall Is Bad News
March 13, 2008
Here is by far the best analysis on CentCom chief Fox Fallon’s resignation and its implications from the top US investigative journalist, Jim Lobe. My impression from reading the Esquire article is that Fallon may have seen it coming and chose to preempt the administration by leaving with a bang.
As much as I would like to agree with Steve Clemons and Chris Nelson, I think Adm. Fallon’s resignation is very bad news, less because it signals war with Iran, as a few analysts have argued (although it certainly makes war more possible), than it suggests rather strongly that the “realists,” have lost ground in their never-ending war with the hawks in and outside the administration over control of the “global war on terror.” It seems very clear to me, among other things from the comments of Sec. Gates, who leads the realist faction, that the resignation resulted from White House pressure, and that Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, among others, really did not want Fallon to go. For much of the past year, Fallon had acted as their “point man” (in the military sense) in trying to promote a saner strategic policy toward the entire region covered by the Central Command and not one that was so obsessed with achieving “victory” in Iraq (and unmitigated hostility toward Iran). His departure will clearly weaken the realists’ hand in the ongoing battles against the neo-conservatives (who, as I noted most recently in late January, had mounted a mostly under-the-radar campaign to get Fallon relieved of his responsibilities at the earliest possible moment) and other hawks, particularly those most closely associated with Cheney.
The War That Can Bring Neither Peace nor Freedom
February 5, 2008
The crisis of the Afghan occupation is a reminder of its fraudulent claims, growing cost in blood, and certainty of failure’, writes Seumas Milne.
The Afghan war, you will remember, was supposed to be the “good war”. Unlike the catastrophe of Iraq, from which most former cheerleaders still prefer to avert their eyes, Afghanistan was thought to be different. Senior British military figures might wince in private over their Basra humiliation, but would earnestly insist that they were fighting the good fight in Helmand “at the request of the elected Afghan government”. Gordon Brown felt able to tell parliament only six weeks ago that “we are winning the battle in Afghanistan”.
But in the wake of a string of reports that the country is fast becoming a failed state and a humanitarian disaster, as armed attacks on western troops and Afghan forces multiply and Nato splits down the middle over sending reinforcements, that looks ever more other-worldly. The US coordinator on Iraq, David Satterfield, even suggested last month that Iraq would turn out to be America’s “good war”, while Afghanistan was going “bad”. After a conflict that has already lasted longer than the second world war, Paddy Ashdown, rejected at the last minute as UN proconsul in Kabul, was clearly closer to the mark than Brown when he declared: “We are losing in Afghanistan.”
Jottings on the Conjuncture
January 31, 2008
Recently when I met Tariq Ali in London, he suggested I read Perry Anderson’s editorial in the current issue of the New Left Review. I had forgotten about the matter until I noticed this attack on the New Left icon by a member of the UK Israel Lobby on the Guardian‘s blog (abiding recent convention the fellow generously concedes Anderson is not an ‘antisemite’, following it immediately with the ubiquitous ‘but’). The piece must have really hit its mark if the Britcons have had to let loose their poodles of war. I was compelled to read, and I must say, I am thoroughly impressed. The analysis here is nuanced and sophisticated and well worth the read.
The contemporary period—datable at one level from the economic and political shifts in the West at the turn of the eighties; at another from the collapse of the Soviet bloc a decade later—continues to see deep structural changes in the world economy and in international affairs. Just what these have been, and what their outcomes are likely to be, remains in dispute. Attempts to read them through the prism of current events are inherently fallible. A more conjunctural tack, confining itself to the political scene since 2000, involves fewer hazards; even so, simplifications and short-cuts are scarcely to be avoided. Certainly, the notations below do not escape them. Jottings more than theses, they stand to be altered or crossed out.
i. the house of harmony
