The secret Iraqi war files - Al Jazeera

A great report by Al Jazeera on the Iraqi War Diaries which were released by Wikileaks. Be warned some of the images are very disturbing. The photographs of children covered in their parent's blood after their car was fired upon by US soldiers manning a check point are not likely to be forgotten any time soon by anyone who sees them.

Even the figure of 15,000 additional Iraqi dead is likely to be an underestimate according to professor Jacob Shapiro to the Guardian.

Wikileaks's Julian Assange - "Iraq was a blood bath on every corner"

Videos from Press TV

I have just finished following the Wikileaks conference live on the internet in which Julian Assange and British lawyers representing Iraqi victims of British military violence presented the latest leaked documents on the occupation of Iraq by US and UK forces. The material makes for painful reading and its a litany of brutality, lies and killings carried out in the name of American and British democracy. Not least of the shocking revelations is the addition of over 15,000 more Iraqi dead to the official death toll. In addition the documents also bring to light the extensive use of torture by UK forces and the legacy of colonial savagery and racism developed in imperial outposts such as Cyprus, Palestine and Northern Ireland that the British brought to Iraq.

As one contributor said it was hard to ignore the savage racism that allowed interrogators  to operate with the the only limitation being that of their own imagination. thousands of people hauled off the streets and traeted in a manner that got Nazi officials long sentences in the Nuremberg war trials

Also what can you say about the murder of a young girl by a British soldier riding a tank as she played in street. What was here crime? What did she do to deserve such a fate? isndie there is a feeling of anger and disgust welling up to think that such crimes against humanity and decency were carried out by in my name. It makes me feel unclean and ashamed.

Links

The Wikileaks Warlogs can be seen here

http://wikileaks.org/iraq/diarydig

The CBS news account of the conference here

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/23/world/main6984273.shtml

Twitter feed here

http://twitter.com/#!/search/warlogs

The Guardian's mash up mapping all the deaths mentioned in the Iraqi War Diaries

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/oct/23/wikileaks-iraq-deaths-map

Wikileaks video struggles to get airing on US TV

Yesterday Wikileaks released a decoded video showing the killing of a dozen people, including a Reuters news agency photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, Saeed Chmagh in Baghdad in 2007. The footage, which is harrowing not only in what it depicts but also the attitude of the Apache attack helicopter crew to those who were shot to death, spread across the internet, driven by Twitter users who were quick to pick up the story.

On the other hand the mainstream press in the US has been more reticent about the incident and for a period yesterday MSNBC blocked all search attempts using the term "wikileaks". Even as I write this CNN is not showing the whole video but rather a truncated version which has scenes from the start of the video and not footage which shows the helicopter crew a firing upon a civilian van which had drawn up to help the Reuters driver who was injured in the initial attack and resulted in the serious injury to two young children inside.

The video is also at odds with the account by the Washington Post published at the time where those who took part in the operation stated that the chopper, code named Crazy Horse was responding to insurgent fire and that every effort had been made to deal humanely with the dead and wounded. As Capt. James Hall, a chaplain with the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, who arrived on the scene minutes after the incident said to the Post, July 13, 2007.

"We pulled up and stopped, and I could hear them over the intercom say they couldn't drive the Bradleys in because there were too many bodies and didn't want to drive over them,"

On the other hand the transcript taken from the Apache's radio traffic just after the attack (see here for the transcript on the Wikileaks site) reveals a different story.

"I think they just ran over the body,"

"Ha, ha."

"Yeah"

"Maybe it was just a visual illusion, but it looked like it."

"Well, they're dead, so."

Arrest Tony Blair for Crimes Against Peace

Arrest Tony Blair for Crimes Against Peace, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Performing a Citizen’s Arrest

Your attempts to arrest Mr Blair will, at this stage, be largely symbolic, but they will have great political resonance.

It is essential that they are pursued peacefully and calmly, not least for your own safety: at no point should you create the impression that you mean to harm him, or you could be harmed yourself. The method we recommend is calmly to approach Mr Blair and in a gentle fashion to lay a hand on his shoulder or elbow, in such a way that he cannot have any cause to complain of being hurt or trapped by you, and announce loudly, “Mr Blair, this is a citizens’ arrest for a crime against peace, namely your decision to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq. I am inviting you to accompany me to a police station to answer the charge.”

If any police officers are accompanying Mr Blair, you should explain the charge to them, and encourage them to support you by arresting him.

You are advised not to put yourself at risk of charges of assault or false imprisonment. In other words, do not cling onto Blair or attempt to drag him anywhere.

You are unlikely to get much further than that. But as long as the attempt is picked up by the media, the point will have been made: he is a war criminal who can expect to be pursued for his crime wherever he goes.

You should decide how you want to leave the situation after your attempt. Blair or the people accompanying him might wish to argue with you if the arrest takes place in the media spotlight, so before attempting it you should have a good grasp of the case against him, be aware of the likely counter-arguments, and prepare some responses.

You might also wish to contact the media either before – if you know and trust a journalist – you attempt the arrest or immediately afterwards. It’s a good idea to prepare a press release (and a list of email addresses of relevant news desks) beforehand, for a friend to send out as soon as it’s happened.

The chances of getting Blair officially arrested or prosecuted in most nations are currently slim. But like most non-violent direct action, the main purpose here is to create an event which alerts people to an uncomfortable truth, changes the public mood and puts pressure on governments.

Good luck.

Arrestblair.org

LIFE - Bush On Trial

LIFE - Bush On Trial, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

'In the months following George Bush's dramatic arrest at Amsterdam's Schiphol international airport three months ago the possility that a former US president maybe be tried and sentenced for war crimes has gripped the imagination of people from New York to New Delhi. Media representatives from every corner of the planet have turned the sleepy Dutch city of the Hague into a international news circus dwarfing the coverage given the O.J Simpson trial in the 90's. According to latests foreign ministry accounts 6,560 reporters have descended upon city to cover this week's preliminary hearings which are scheduled to conclude next week.

Bush's detention on route to the UN conference on North Atlantic Security and Safety in Zurich severely strained US – Dutch relations with some Republican members of Congress calling for the air strikes on military targets within the country if the former president was not released. In the days that followed hundreds of businesses and organisations with ties with the Netherlands were attacked throughout America with three Dutch citizens losing their lives in bomb attack on the country's Los Angeles consulate.

Not surprisingly, it has been the question of the sense and the legitimacy of the trials that is the center of attention for many eyewitnesses. Despite the lack of a legal precedent, most of them approve of the proceedings because, as U.S. writer Gore Vidal put it, "warmongers will no longer be able to live quietly in retirement." Some observers, however, have remained skeptical. Iraqi writer Salah Wali considered the indictment "bizarre" and American diplomats based in Europe have privately admitted that the Americans didn't "enter the war with clean hands. No nation could have done so."

The defendant, who await the world's judgment in varying postures of resentment, resignation, and revolt, is another focus for most members of the press. "While the counsel for the prosecution read US documents about the killing of Iraqis and Afghans," railed Polish reporter Pawel Osmanczyk, enraged by the prisoner's deliberate display of boredom, "Bush yawns, or just pretends to be asleep."

Fascination for and disappointment about the banality of the man who helped in the possible murder of thousands of people also appear in the accounts of the reporters witnessing the proceedings. "Involuntarily one desires to see a greater man," wrote Australian journalist John Pliger, "who have to stand trial for all the cruelties which are spread out before the court." Afghan opposition leader, Abdullah Abdullah remarked incredulously: "He is so insignificant that you ask yourself: Was it really this degenerate who laid my country to waste... ?"

Read more:

Tony Blair's mug-shot

Tony Blair's mug-shot, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

"I fought the law and the law won."

The revolution will not be televised - But it will be Twittered, blogged, videoed, and photographed.

This post is a kind of mash up, a mixture of different sources and types which show how the internet through its ability to allow participation is changing not just the way we consume media but the way we conduct our lives in the public sphere.

My first port of call is the video Iran: A Nation of Bloggers by students at the Vancouver Film School. The short gives a brief but insightful look at ones of the world's blogging super powers. All the more relevent given the way blogs, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube are being used by young people there to get their message out to the world at large as we speak.



The second video is by Clay Shirky at TED about how cell phones, Twitter and other such innovations can make history. How the old media paradigms are cracking under the weight of changes brought about by the internet.



However, amidst all the hype and glee about the opportunities such technologies offer let's not forget that in many parts of the world authoritarian minded regimes still seek to silence critics through the suppression of internet users and the stripping away of basic rights such as the right to anonymity. China, Iran and most lately the UK have ruled against the right to blog without declaring your identity. Nice to know Gordon Brown has chosen to align his government with such enlightened states. The axis of internet evil gains another member.

Zoriah - Stories from behind the headlines

zoriah_iraq_war_baghdad_sadr_city_woman_shopping_soldiers, originally uploaded by Zoriah.

Until recently Zoriah Miller was working as an independent photographer and journalist covering stories from Iraq that don't usually make the headlines. His amazing photography, often carried out under the most difficult of conditions however, lead to him being "disemebedded" i.e kicked out after he showed images of dead American soldiers. As the New York Times says;

"The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war."

Click here to read more from the New York Times story.

In WWII the same policy was in place and even in Vietnam where the reporters were given free rein many media outlets refused to run stories or images that showed the US military in a bad light. Like Philip Jones Griffiths before him Zoriah is finding that its not just the military censors that have to be dealt with when covering a war zone but also the indifference of the public unwilling to hear about a war they so enthusiastically supported until very recently.

History seen and unseen.

"In the 1960’s an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam."

Sir! No sir!

Click here to see the whole movie.

And for those of us who think that this is history click here.

It's ok, I'm a dentist

I was reading the New York Times today when something caught my eye. It seems that even the Hippocratic oath has it's limits in the War on Terror . In an article on the limits permitted American "interrogators" (a polite euphemism, if ever I heard one) the journalist mentioned this in passing;

"Mr. Krongard even recalls receiving a proposal for help with questioning Qaeda suspects from an American dentist who said he “could create pain no human being could withstand.”

This is a far cry from the modern oath which, amongst other things states quite clearly;

"Never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest."

Reading this I can't help but think of the Nazi war criminal/dentist played by Lawrence Olivier in the Marathon Man.

Peace in our time?

Do they know or care what they are shooting at? This is a city of millions, not some goddam shooting range. The targets they miss are not cardboard cut-outs.



Am I angry? YOU BET!!!!

For an alternative view on American involvement in Iraq check out this video.

Faithless - Bombs

Apparently this video was banned by MTV in the USA as being too controversial!!! That reminds me of a line from Apocalypse Now in which Kurtz, the renegade American leader of a brutal, rag-tag army fighting the Viet Cong says;

"They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write f##k on their airplanes because it's obscene! "



Bombs

If I don't get out of this I I wish, I just want you to know that I really really love you.

So much more than I thought this world could ever hold
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold

We think we're heroes, we think we're kings
We plan all kinds of fabulous things
Oh look how great we have become

Key in the door, the moment I've been longing for
Before my bag hit the floor
My adorable children rush up screaming for a kiss,
and a story, they're a gift to this world
My only claim to glory
I surely never knew sweeter days
Blows my mind like munitions
I'm amazed

So much heaven, so much hell
So much love, so much pain
So much more than I thought this world could ever contain
So much war, so much soul
Moments lost, moments go
So much more than I thought this world can ever hold
We're just children, we're just dust
We are small and we are lost
And we're nothing, nothing at all

One bomb, the whole block gone
Can't find me children and dust covers the sun
Everywhere is noise, panic and confusion
But to some, another fun day in Babylon
I'm gonna bury my wife and dig up my gun
My life is done so now I got to kill someone

So much heaven, so much hell
So much love, so much pain
So much more than I thought this world could ever contain
So much war, so much soul
Moments lost, moments go
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold

So much more than I thought this world could ever hold
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold

So much heaven, so much hell
So much love, so much pain
So much more than I thought this world could ever contain
So much war, so much soul
Moments lost, moments go
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold

These lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com