OCTOBER 2005
Free speech
There is a deal in the paplines, it's on route,
and on schedule. Our troops are working round the clock
to defend ar great democracy from insurgent saboteurs.
These terrorist cells will not prevail, for United
Defence and Halliburton are on the scene, protecting ar
interests, to ensure we receive our daily oils, say
hallelujah! Ah have put in to effect a program which
provides jobs for US citizens and gives unemployed
I-raqians the opportunity to work. Ah have a vision, ma
fellow americ’ns. As god is my widdness, we are
gonna make poverty history by giving equal opportunities
to the underprivileged both here at home and elsewhere
around the world. Ar global corporations have been
working diligently, installing the appropriate
mechanisms. Ah envision a papline that taps straight
outta Saudi Arabia and South East Asia, yeah, ‘cos
sending those ships out and then bringing’em home at
great cost is a real bummer, sure is. And even if all
that works out, we can't control the spillage, heh, there
are no guarantees. Why we'd have to control the seas to
do that, heh, and I'm not saying that this fine country
of ours ain't up to taming the sea, hell, we will
prevail, ‘cos we americ’ns are at the forefront
o’cutting-edge technol’gy. Why we're the
o-riginal innovat’rs man! We built this world in the
image of our Lord baby jesus. Wha...oh, uh, where waz ah?
oh yeh, and 'course that oil spill in the middle sea
causes us great harm. Why we have to do the renegotiating
for the new oil supplies, so we can bring it back home
again at the cost, to you, the tax payer, and then
there's all that pollution, polluting the air, the
unsuppressed damage these spillages 
cause the
envir’nmint…Pappy, why DO we have ta
ree-negotioate? Why don’t we just go in there
‘n kick their asses? I mean, huh, we got ‘nough
firepower, heh…heck, you’re right, we won't
worry about that just yet, we’re making WAY too much
money, heh, the war effort practically pays for itself,
heh...folks, with ma extra tax cuts, bringing relief to
many corporations, our economy is booming, huh, and the
I-raq is burning, the oil fields that is, but don't you
worry yourselves none, you hear? By golly, we are gonna
send in thee finest elite killing squad the history of
humanity has ever seen! To ensure that democracy and
freedom prevail, and we’re gonna bring our boys and
girls back to safety, and in one piece, dead or alive.
Yes sir-ree, there is a showdown coming soon folks,
El-Kay-duh are on the run, the hunt is on, and we are
gonna kick us some serious terrorist ass! Theyz gonna pay
for what they done to us, yah!…oh, uh, the speech,
sorry pa…and them I-raqians can put their fears
to rest, for peace and prosperity is at hand, ma hand!
It's mine, all mine! And I don't want any of you poor
folk in New Orleans getting any ideas o’getting a
cut o’ma action…Darn it pa! Why can't ah say
those things in public? Ah am the god damn president! Ah
am the man! Top dog, like them untouchables. Ah
should…No, ah command that ah be allowed to express
myself as ah see fit! God damn opinion polls!…Now ah
owe money to the cussing jar…What ah mean to say is,
FEMA is on the case in the aftermath of Katr’na, and
Halliburton will fulfil its contractual obligations to
the good people of Louisiana...Darned reporters, sticking
their noses in every thing ah do. Hell, ah can't even get
a decent golf game anymore without some guy with a
macr’phone attacking ma person with complex
queshtions ‘n’ fancy english, what about ma
rights? Queshtions, queshtions, always with the
queshtions…Don't these people know anything? It's
beginning to affect ma swing! Pappy, are you listening to
me? All ah wanted was for you to love me Pappy. Instead,
you wanted to play with that damned CIA. Are ya even
listening Pappy? Pappy? You promised Pappy, you promised
you’d take care o’things, you promised me an
easy presidency…though, ah gotta hand it to ya pa,
the second election went a lot smoother than the first.
Ah still remember the look on Al’s face. Remember?
‘Course you do! Ah do believe ah owe Jeb a beer. Oh
yeh, iksnay on the oozbay…Oh, huh, the scripture, ah
mean, the speech, ‘course. Ma fellow americ’ns,
let us take a moment to say a prayer for the poor folk in
New Orleans who are so lucky, to have a man of ma
integrity, who will go on national TV, to take full
responsibility, for this human tragedy, “Blame me,
blame me.” Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me?
Nonetheless, ah remain resolute, Lord. Ma faith in baby
jesus remains untarnished by your oversights. Heck, you
got your work cut out for ya, with all them terrorists
running around this great earth…Eh, let us pray for
a stronger economy and let us pray for thee finest
military death-machine that has graced this land of ars.
Shoot, we got some fine hi-tech weap’nry heading
towards them evil doers, yep, huh, they’re gonna
feel ma rapture. Why I’m just salivating at the
prospect of launching ma all new Crusader, The Crucifier,
heh, huh…Ma fellow americ’ns, we are under
attack by great forces o’evil, there’s evil
afoot and them sinners will pay dearly for the wrong they
have wronged us with. Make no mistake, ma fellow
americ’ns, we are doing god’s work and we will
prevail. I have put into effect a zee-row tolerance
policy for dealing with these evil doers. Not only have
ah deployed the wrath of ar ma-tee o-fensive
capabilities, but ah have increased homeland security and
rewritten ar bee-loved constitution to protect ar
investments further from the evil that lurks within. Be
fearful, be vigilant, ar borders have been
breeched…huh, heh, yeh, and if any of them
terrorists wanna mess with us, I say, “BRING
‘EM ON!”…Lord! Ah am your humble servant,
and ah have been listening to your commands with great
att’ntion. Ah kneel here before you, in solitude,
within the confines of ma bomb-proof prayer room at ma
ranch which, as you already know, is of vital importance
for sustaining ar healthy relationship. Ah am your hands
Lord, and just like baby jesus, ah am ridding ar
democracies of sinners, in sickness and in health, till
death do us part. Just say when. Ay-men…Lord, does
this shirt go with this jacket?
Friday
23 September 2005
Zaki
Boulos
A quarter of a million people jammed the streets
of the capital this past weekend, as Mr. Bush
conveniently found himself visiting the US Northern
Command’s HQ in Colorado Springs.
More Dissent, More Censorship
By Dahr Jamail
09/27/05 "ICH"
-- --
While veterans from the current debacle in Iraq and
scores of military families who oppose the Bush Junta
joined the throngs of protestors in Washington DC to
express their dissent, there were other goings-on related
to Iraq while Bush had his photo-op in Colorado.
A contractor I know working in Iraq wrote me recently. He
gives me periodic updates about how life is on the base
where he works in support of the military. He
wrote:
“Another convoy hit hard-3 drivers killed and many
others wounded- I don’t know if it’s my friends
yet. They don’t like to advertise these kinds of
things much around here because they cause the exit
planes to fill up - the only problem is, there are more
plane loads waiting in Houston [to come here]. The
gullible waiting for their chance at the tarnished brass
ring. [Me and my friends] agree this countries’
policies of oil have led us down the path of
Armageddon.”
At least 1,917 US soldiers have died in Iraq now, 16 just
in the last week. At least 10 times that number have been
wounded for life, both physically and
psychologically.
Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that so many
people marched in the capital this weekend, nor that so
many of them are veterans and family members who have
simply had enough of this. The people I spoke with at the
demonstration expressed feelings of anger and impatience
towards this so-called administration.
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise, either, to
have seen a sign in the demo with a little pretzel drawn
on it which read, “Give the pretzel another
chance!”
The recent news of a few brave soldiers from the 82nd
Airborne speaking out (on condition of anonymity in a
Human Rights Watch report) about how they “vented
their frustration by systematically torturing Iraqi
detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball
bats and dousing them with chemicals” may have
shocked some people here in the US. However, it
isn’t news to soldiers in Iraq, of course, or for
Iraqis for that matter.
A soldier currently in Iraq who works as a medic wrote me
a few days ago:
“I do sick-call for the detainees. Right now, I
think they have mechanics guarding the detainees.
I’ve talked to them a couple of times and
they’ve made comments like “if they were
detained, they are probably bad…” A couple of
times I’ve pointed out that: 1) they might very well
be innocent and 2) that they are still human. The guards
seemed to really acknowledge that. But it’s almost
like everyone knows the emperor is naked, but are trying
to cling to the idea that he is wearing new clothes. When
someone points out that he might be naked, it gives them
the freedom to acknowledge that as well. The real
travesty, I think, is the American people. With no
exposure to Iraqis, all they see on the news is that we
are killing the bad guys, and they don’t see the
refugee camps, or how we trash cities (collateral damage
seems a nice phrase, because it’s not their homes
which are being destroyed. Not the sons and daughters of
their friends who are being killed.) They don’t see
the casual way most soldiers feel about destroying
property. All they see is what they are told, and unless
it’s stamped with a corporations seal, it lacks
legitimacy in their eyes and it gets relegated to an
“extremist position.””
My friends’ opinion of the misleading of the
American people by the corporate media about the horrific
reality in Iraq applies in other countries as well. Bush
Administration pressure on the media is not limited to
within the US.
In a previous weblog
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000256.php>,
I wrote about how a newspaper in Turkey had been
pressured by the US Embassy to run fewer news stories
about Iraq from journalists like myself, Robert Fisk and
Naomi Klein.
Last night, here in DC, I spoke with Stelios Kouloglou, a
journalist with Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation in
Greece. His program on the public television station has
won several awards for investigative journalism and
remains extremely popular in his country.
On the one year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, April
of 2004, his station broadcast a documentary he produced
entitled, “25 Lies to Sell the War,” a title
which needs no explanation to anyone who is not fully
encapsulated in denial.
“I found out through a leak that the US embassy in
Greece was applying political pressure to our government
in order for them to pressure my television station for
running my documentary,” he told me at his
hotel.
“It became clear, after your election in ’04
when Bush stayed in office, that his administration
became much more aggressive,” he explained.
“The US embassy began asking for our program to be
discontinued. They were telling this not just to our
program spokesperson, but directly to our government!
Their protest took a much more official character, and
they did not even attempt to conceal this.”
Being a journalist for 25 years and having covered the
war in Yugoslavia as well as having worked in Moscow
during Perestroika, he said this type of overt political
pressure to be a first for him.
“I’ve never experienced political pressure like
this, not even in Russia when I was being critical of
Gorbachev, nor in Yugoslavia when I was being extremely
critical of Milosevic,” he added.
More recently and a bit closer to home here in the US,
Doug Ireland writes:
“The internationally renowned correspondent for The
Independent - the great British journalist [and citizen]
Robert Fisk - has been banned from entering the United
States. Fisk has been covering war zones for decades, but
is above all known for his incisive reporting from the
Middle East for more than 20 years. His critical coverage
of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, and the
continuing occupation that has followed it, has
repeatedly exposed US and British government
disinformation campaigns. He also has exposed how the
bulk of the press reports from Iraq have been “hotel
journalism” - a phrase Fisk coined.”
He continues:
“The daily New Mexican reports that “U.S.
immigration officials refused Tuesday [20 September] to
allow Robert Fisk, longtime Middle East correspondent for
the London newspaper, The Independent, to board a plane
from Toronto to Denver. Fisk was on his way to Santa Fe
for a sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation’s
readings-and-conversations series on Wednesday night.
According to Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan program
officer, Fisk was told that his papers were not in order.
Davis made last-minute arrangements Wednesday for Amy
Goodman, host of Pacifica Radios daily news show,
Democracy Now!, to interview Fisk via satellite from a
television station in Toronto..." A recording of
this satellite interview will soon be available on the
Lannan Foundation’s website.”
As we prepared to leave his hotel last night, my
colleague Stelios Kouloglou half-jokingly offered,
“You can come visit Greece anytime, whether for
vacation or for political asylum.”
I only half-laughed as I shook his hand.
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches - http://dahrjamailiraq.com