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There’s not a lot for Americans or Brits to be jovial about these days. Trolling through the news sites is a somewhat depressing business. Gasoline prices are out of control on both sides of the Atlantic; we read today that George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, is to resign after failing to make any progress with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The British ex-prime minister, Tony Blair, remains the Quartet’s envoy for Mid-East peace, but as no-one has heard sight nor sound of him in months (which gives Brits at least one reason to believe life could still be worth living) it seems likely his success in that area is on a par with his career as British prime minister.

Floods are causing havoc throughout much of America; forest fires rage in Britain (a calamity virtually unknown in that country). All-in-all, a whole vista of doom and gloom stretches across the Northern hemisphere, which even the demise of Osama bin Laden has failed to shift.

So, you think you’re badly off?

Remember the nation our respective governments raped, pillaged, and ransacked for seven long years; the war zone that kept us entertained night after night with epic dramas of ‘shock and awe’?

Iraq is still there. Just.

It’s still there, and it’s still a hellhole – long abandoned by the media whose sponsors used it to raise audience figures and sell burgers, beer, and every other commodity Westerners would cry themselves to sleep over, if their supply dried up.

A nation forgotten by Americans and Brits too upset by the price of gasoline to worry what their government’s brutal actions created, in a land thousands of miles away.

McClatchy Newspapers still has a bureau in Baghdad, staffed by a few dedicated Iraqi journalists. One of them is Leith Hammoudi. This is his blog entry for yesterday:

I don’t know how to start this blog. I am still under the effect of the shock that happened to me only less than an hour ago. I was about to lose my life and my lovely son because of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I used to bring sweets to my family every Thursday from a close bakery on the main street. Today I did the same thing but I went only about half an hour ago. My son Haider insisted to join me so I took him. In my way back home and Just less than ten steps from the sweets bakery, I hear sound of shooting and I thought that some kids are playing with fireworks. I was shocked to know the issue is bigger than my simple mind. I saw by my own eyes two young boys covering their faces with black scarves holding two pistols and shooting a broker inside his office in a very cool blood and walked away.

At that moment, I was only thinking about my son so I covered him with my body and kept him behind me while I was looking at them walking to the other side calmly. My son was shocked and asked me innocently “what was going on dad” and I told him its only some kids who are playing with fire work. When they left, I found out that the man was injured in his shoulder and I saw him after second ina taxi going to the hospital.

I came back home thinking about what I just saw. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dozens of questions came to my mind at one second. What if I were in front of them? Would they shoot me? Would they shoot my son? Why did I bring my beloved son with me? OMG. I don’t even want to think about that at all. Among all the questions came a real big one, Why I am still in Iraqi while I can live somewhere else?? At the end and when I couldn’t answer any of my questions, I remembered that this is my third facing with death and Thanks God I am still alive. the first one was in 2005 when a car bomb detonated in a place I always pass through and the second time when a mortar shell fell near the bus I was in while coming to work while today is the third one. I don’t know when I am going to face it one more time and I don’t know if I would survive or not.”^[1]

So, you think you’re badly off?

Despite the recent inauguration of a new power plant in Baghdad- supplied by the Iranians – five hours power per day is all the average Iraqi citizen can expect. The US/UK invasion (the rest of the ‘coalition’ so pathetic as to be unworthy of mention) began in March 2003. Almost a decade later, the country is being left to fester by the ‘coalition’, despite International Law demanding that the perpetrators reconstruct the infrastructure.

Eight years on, the violence in Iraq continues unabated. No, it doesn’t make the US TV news. To show it would be evidence of America’s utter failure in that country (with a bit of British assistance).

The website, Iraq Today, chronicles the violence on a daily basis. Here is today’s entry, though it could be any day picked at random:

Kurdish rebels kill police officer in attack – agency

Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: In Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle belonging to the Ministry of National Security in al-Ghazaliyah district in western the capital, wounding two ministry employees aboard, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Iraqi security forces rushed to the site of the first blast, but another roadside bomb exploded near their vehicles and wounded two policemen and a soldier, the source said.

#2: In a separate incident, a bomb detonated at a liquor store in Bab al-Sharji district in downtown Baghdad, wounding a civilian and damaging the store, the source said.

#3: In eastern Baghdad, a roadside bomb went off near a U.S. military convoy in Baladiyat district, the source said without giving further details.

#4: Five casualties were reported in north-east Baghdad following an explosion in the area, security sources said today (Wednesday). The source told Aswat al-Iraq that “a bomb exploded in Palestine Street, wounding five civilians.”

Mussayab:
#1: Police found the bodies of two men with gunshot wounds in the town of Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, a Babil province police official said.

Hilla:
#1: Police found the body of a teenager bearing signs of torture in a town near the city of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, a Babil province police official said.

Tikrit:
#1: The Director of Tuz township’s Nationality Certificates Office Director in Salahal-Din Province has been injured in an explosive charge blast in his car on Thursday, a police source said. “An explosive charge, stuck to the car of Tuz township’s Nationality Certificates Director, Lt.
Brig. Madih Nouri, blew of under his car in the city of Tikrit on Thursday, seriously injuring him,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Kirkuk:
#1: Iraqi police say a lawmaker from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc escaped an assassination attempt in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk. Police Brig. Gen. Khattab Omar says bombs exploded Thursday morning near the house of Arshad al-Salehi, a Turkomen member of Iraqiya. Al-Salehi and his family were in the house at the time but suffered no injuries.

A mortar round landed in the early morning on the house of Arshad al-Salihi, a Member of Parliament and head of a political group represents the Iraqi Turkoman minority, destroying part of his house, a local security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

#2: Hours later, two people were wounded in central Kirkuk when a roadside bomb struck the convoy of Major General Jamal Tahir, a chief police in Kirkuk, while he was visiting the house of Arshad al-Salihi which was attacked by a mortar round earlier in the day, the source added.

Mosul:
#1: A roadside bomb went off near a police patrol on Wednesday, wounding three policemen and one civilian, in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.”

That’s just one relatively ‘uneventful’ day in Iraq.

If all that violence occurred in Britain, or Texas, on a single day the populace would be up in arms demanding action. In Iraq, it happens every day – seven days a week, 365 days a year.

But, oh, did you know – the price of gasoline in the US has just gone up another five cents.

So, you think you’re badly off?

^{[1] “Facing Death” Inside Iraq -McClatchy}

^{[2] “War News for Thursday, May 12, 2011” “Iraq Today”, May 13, 2011}

Filed under: Never had it so bad

There are times I just feel like writing. You know the mood; there’re questions inside that aren’t properly resolved. Sure, you can sit down in an armchair and mull them over, but it never seems to produce a tangible answer to what’s puzzling you. So, you make yourself comfortable at the keyboard, pour a glass of French red, and begin hammering away at nothing in particular.

It’s Osama bin Laden, of course. Not him personally, you understand. I think I wrote in a recent post that him being alive or dead is of no concern to me. No, it’s more what his death – or, our reaction to it – is doing to us as people.

Let’s consider the whole concept of right versus wrong. For that’s truly the crux of the issue. To suggest that the cold-blooded killing of three thousand people on 9/11/2001 was not wrong would be madness. More than madness; idiocy.

Yet the cold-blooded killing of one unarmed man in Pakistan – albeit the alleged mastermind behind the deaths of those three thousand on 9/11/2001 – is, we are told, right.

Except, according to the US intelligence services he wasn’t the mastermind, that was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. However, assuming he was the ‘big boss’ behind the ‘taking out’ of the three thousand, can it be right to kill him in cold blood?

To answer that question it’s necessary to examine the concept of ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’.

Society sets certain rules necessary to its (relatively) smooth functioning. We make laws for the purpose. Yet even as we make those laws, we break them. Society says the speed limit on this road is 40 mph, but it’s late in the evening, the road is clear, so we feel justified in driving at 60 mph. (Unless we happen to be a Republican in a pick-up truck, in which case we set the cruise for 39 mph and to hell with the queue behind us – but I digress) It’s unlikely the local sheriff’s deputy would agree with our logic, but then he makes his money from issuing tickets.

Okay, I’ll admit to a certain flippancy, but when Douglas Bader said, “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men,” he wasn’t too far off the mark.

What he was actually saying was that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not fixed in stone, however many laws society creates. They are, in fact, subjective rather than objective.

Is there anyone out there who honestly believes Osama bin Laden was not acting from an, albeit misguided, sense of righteousness? I suppose there may be some who simply believe he was ‘evil’, but most sane individuals would accept that people do what they consider right for them, even if the end result is obviously wrong for somebody else. Bin Laden was, in his own eyes and those of his followers, a freedom fighter. He believed what he was doing was right.

Terrorism is nothing new. When the Romans invaded Britain in 43AD, the Anglo-Saxons terrorized the Romans at every opportunity. And can you blame them? Some bloody foreign army suddenly comes tramping across your cornfields, raping your women and stealing your chickens, and then expects you to lay down your arms and lick their feet. No way!

I remember, a couple of years ago, when Obama was campaigning for the presidency, a video of his ex-pastor did the rounds of the media circus, and America was aghast at this black cleric talking of 9/11, and telling his congregation that, “America’s chickens had come home to roost.”

It was then I realized that Obama could never be the president that many hoped he would be. It was because Obama, faced with the words of his pastor, betrayed him. I knew that the cleric, whose name now escapes me, was courageous enough to tell the truth. But Obama, like Iscariot before him, denied his own pastor for the thirty pieces of silver that was the White House.

The problem with governments is that they tend to look after their own. Take the US government, and that of Saudi Arabia, as examples. We all know the civil rights record of Abdullah is appalling. He’s a barbarian of the first order. Yet, America (and Britain) treats him like a prodigal son. Stuff what he does to his subjects, Abdullah is a western customer par excellence, and consequently deserves red carpet treatment.

What Abdullah wants, Abdullah gets. He wants arms; give him arms. He wants US military boots to protect him; give him US military boots to protect him. He wants a kiss…

…give him a kiss.

It’s hardly surprising that some Saudi individuals should view the West in general, and the US in particular, as their enemies, given the arrangement existing between Abdullah and certain western leaders and their governments.

The US did withdraw most of their military personnel from Saudi in 2003, but only after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan had stretched the military to its limits. Opening up those new fronts in the Middle East was even more reason for al Qaeda to increase its resentment of the West.

Does any of this justify the cold-blooded killing of a man in a small Pakistani town with the unlikely name of Abbottabad?

At the end of the game, history – at least, the history that bears any relation to fact – will declare this a contest of ‘right’ versus ‘right’, in which ‘right’ eventually won or lost, depending on your viewpoint. The methods utilized to fight the contest, on both sides, can never be anything else but wrong.

The incontrovertible facts are that nothing on this earth can justify the events of 9/11/2001, yet equally, nothing justifies democratic governments supporting an evil regime that tortures and victimizes its subjects in the most brutal of ways.

America’s chickens certainly came home to roost on 9/11/2001, but in a manner that could never be acceptable to any sane human being. The crime committed on that day was hideous by its choice of innocent victims, guilty of no crime against anyone, mere scapegoats for the brutal policies of successive US governments. As though, somehow, they might have been able to change those policies.

As to whether we in the West have right on our side? I believe we do. There can never be a right reason for taking the lives of those who have done no wrong, or holding them responsible for the actions of their governments.

Nevertheless, 9/11 was no act of war, but a criminal act, whatever George W Bush may have said. Wars can only ever be waged against other nations, not organizations, despite the colloquial names given to the ‘war on drugs’, or the ‘war on cancer’, or other marketing ploys common in capitalist countries.

The cold-blooded killing of an unarmed Osama bin Laden can never be justified, whatever his alleged crimes. For ‘alleged’ they now will always be. For us to accept his fate as justifiable is to turn ‘wrong’ into ‘right’. It is tantamount to legalizing the lynching of blacks in 1950’s America.

To make acceptable such corruption of our societal values of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – those that legally declare a man to be innocent till proven guilty by due process of law – is to corrupt ourselves and our society.

We embark on that path at our peril.

Filed under: Wrong is right and right is wrong

It’s celebration time in America, but what is it they’re partying about? President Obama called it ‘justice’. It’s not that. One BBC reporter said it was a classic case of ‘the good guys killing the bad guys’. It’s not that, either.

On the surface, you might find it hard to find any similarity between the alleged assassination (for that’s what it was) of Osama bin Laden and the recent royal wedding in Britain. In fact, there’s an obvious parallel.

As the Western world teeters on the edge of economic decline, both the royal wedding and the news of bin Laden’s alleged violent demise at the guns of America’s elite troops, serve the same purpose. They provide the populace with a reason to celebrate, at least, temporarily.

Personally, I enjoyed those parts of the royal wedding that made it into the Adams’ household. It made me feel good about being British. Right now, I’m glad I’m not American. Somehow, the idea of feeling enthused and patriotic by the violent end of another human being is distinctly disturbing.

If the story, suddenly released in a blaze of media frenzy this morning, is true and bin Laden is dead, it is of no consequence to me. That old adage is invariably right, “He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.”

Justice, however, it is not. For the supposed leader of the ‘free’ world to state that it is, says more about the sad state of the ‘free’ world than it does about Osama bin Laden.

The mass hysteria that accompanied the news, so hyped by the US media with its videos of yelling crowds outside the White House, young men chanting, “USA! USA! USA!”, and the inevitable “Christian” gentleman assuring us that ‘God had taken his [bin Laden’s] soul and hurled it into Hell!” is as disturbing to me as any crowd of Muslim fundamentalists dancing with glee at the sight of burning towers on 9/11.

It’s a viewpoint that begs the question, “Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?”

Does it just depend which part of the world you were born into?

If so, it’s no different than the football fan who supports his local team, except the stakes are just a little higher. Is America, then, merely celebrating a home team touchdown?

Is bin Laden dead? There’s not a shred of evidence been released to substantiate the claims. So far, we have only the word of politicians to go on, and we all know how trustworthy they are. Getting rid of a body before anyone has a chance to corroborate its identity is amazingly suspect.

Still, when everyone wants to believe he’s dead, and America is once more the vengeful angel of righteousness wreaking havoc on the ungodly, who needs evidence anyway? Most Americans will now believe revenge has finally been taken for the attacks of 9/11.

Just as there’s no evidence of his sudden death, neither is there yet one shred of evidence bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 hijackings, but after ten years most Americans find it a convenient truth, and are happy to celebrate the alleged perpetrator’s violent end.

Justice has not been done, for justice must also be seen to be done. With no trial, no evidence, no defense and no prosecution to seek out the true facts behind the accusations, to even suggest justice was done is to denigrate the very process of justice.

That the man who uttered those words is not only the president of the United States of America, but a highly qualified member of the legal profession, says little for the state of justice in this land today.

Tonight, most Americans don’t care about justice. They’re celebrating a victory. In their eyes, America is suddenly great again.

I’ve used the phrase, “most Americans” on a number of occasions throughout this article. I did so deliberately.

Earlier this afternoon I received an anonymous email in my in-tray. It contained an attachment. Apparently, the Social Security Administration’s top man, Commissioner Michael J Astrue, was so overcome with emotion at the news of bin Laden’s alleged demise, he couldn’t resist sending out an email message to all his thousands of employees. I assume it was one of them who sent it to me:

Subject: The Death of Osama bin Laden

Our unified nation has taken a major step toward peace with the death of Osama bin Laden. To those of you who serve and have served America not only through your work here but also with military service, I extend my thanks for your dedication to our country.

To those of you who lost family and loved ones on September 11, 2001, as I did, I hope last night’s news brings you some measure of comfort and closure.

Michael J. Astrue
Commissioner

The emailer who sent the attachment had written these words:

Something about this message just makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.”

Most Americans will be rejoicing tonight, but there’s at least one out there who won’t be.

Somehow that makes me feel a whole lot better.

Filed under: High ’em high