Absences March 31, 2009
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These stunningly moving photographs are taken from Abscences, an exhibition by the Argentine photographer Gustavo Germano. The scenes are the same in the contrasting photos, but the newer images miss people that appear in the older ones. These young men and women were “disappeared” during Argentina’s Dirty War, where thousands of activists, students and trade unionists were abducted, tortured and executed.
Gustavo has said that he wants to convey…
“…more than just the forced disappearances of people that happened in Argentina, there is also the time that has passed. I want to reflect the double effect that time has had. On the one hand, there is the time that the survivors endured while living in the absence of their lost loved one. On the other hand, there is the time forfeited by the persons who disappeared and did not have a chance to live out their lives. When I was creating the concept of this show, I thought that it would be good to capture the aging of the survivors. And it is this very basic and human concept that the terrorism of the State destroyed.”
Without wanting to sound like I’m charging into battle with a plastic toy flag; tyranny, wherever it oppresses, should be struggled against. It’s the imposition of suffocating misery.
Committing public urination while playing bowls would be considerably less sad than gloating about leaving lights on during earth hour… March 30, 2009
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Don’t mind me; just contributing to the public discourse.
Bubbles, Stirrings, Sounds… March 25, 2009
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The consequences of the “surge” have inspired a lot of applause but very little analysis, presumably on the grounds that a) they seem to be good, and, thusly, b) any further prodding will just jinx the damn thing. The trouble is that the strategy has never been a panacea, but a plaster slapped over a ballistic trauma.
The “surge”, itself preceded by massive ethnic cleansing and ghettoisation, has been dependent upon two factors: the ceasefire of the Mehdi Army and the hefty bribes paid to Sunni militias.
The bribes ended a couple of weeks ago, yet the hoped for integration of militiamen into the government has been worryingly slow…
In interviews with leaders from a dozen local Awakening Councils, nearly all complained that full-time jobs were lacking, that pay was in arrears and that members were being arrested despite promises of amnesty.
I noted this last Summer when Maliki targeted hundreds of members of the Awakenings groups. The fear that former insurgents have “just changed their t-shirts” is clearly still potent, and seems to be turning his government against assimilation and towards, well, futile belligerence.
Back to the NYT…
Perhaps most ominously, many expressed concern this might drive some followers back to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a largely Iraqi group with some foreign leadership, at a time when both Iraqi and American military commanders say that the group seems to be making gains, small but worrisome, around Baghdad.
The interesting Musings On Iraq blog comments…
The causes are probably a mix of the notoriously slow Iraqi bureaucracy and political unwillingness on the part of some Shiites to accept the Sunnis fighters, many of which were former insurgents. Added to this is the much larger problem of the country’s budget crisis. There is little money to fund the expansion of any of the ministries and security forces right now, let alone hire almost 100,000 SOIs unless the price of oil increases. As a result, the ultimate plight of many of the SOI may be the unemployment line.
The closing sentence is more pessimistic than it sounds. Unemployed militiamen – disproportionately discontented(pdf) and facing horrific violence – could make Yosser Hughes look like a kitten.
On that theme, Spencer Ackerman offers this interesting, if nauseatingly answerable, question…
Let’s say the Iraqi government doesn’t hire the extra ex-insurgents, and instead arrests many of them. Does the Sunni community from which most of the ex-insurgents come from support a return to insurgency in that case? The recent ABC public opinion poll in Iraq suggests that Iraqis in general want a return to normalcy, but Arab Sunnis still lag behind Arab Shiites and Kurds in terms of political contentment. To oversimplify matters considerably: at what point would the Sunnis — who have already stepped back from the violent abyss once this year — say they’ve had the Shiite-led government break too many promises?
Over 60 Million Britons Have Been Affected By Death… March 24, 2009
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Here’s a neat example of media fearmongering…
Why would the number of the soldiers possibly matter more than the number of protestors? It’s a pointless number; like saying that 80% of people have heard of discrimination, or that 100% could conceivably kill someone. The reason that they’ve used it is that the number of “Muslim[s]” who attended the protest – 20 – was so small as to be insignificant, and that – and the fact that were just PR-obsessed associates of Anjem Choudary – doesn’t chime with the whole TERRIFYING MOOOSLIM RADICALISATION shit.
Still, it can be heartening: five billion nine hundred and ninety-seven million eight hundred and sixty thousand eight hundred and twenty-two people don’t read the Daily Mail.
Administrative Thought… March 24, 2009
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Why did I write so much shit about the US elections? It was just as useful and interesting as munching grass.
Torture! Brought To Your Computer Screen At The Click Of A Button! March 23, 2009
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This is worth keeping an eye on…
“The Sunday Weekly Torture “Round-up” is intended to be a new regular feature at Daily Kos, capturing stories on the ongoing torture scandal, especially those that might otherwise escape notice. At the same time, we will strive to present an overview of important new developments in the drive to hold the U.S. government responsible for its war crimes, in addition to covering stories concerning torture from other countries, as time and space permit. (Alas, the U.S. has no monopoly on this hideous practice.)”
Outsourcing Torture… March 22, 2009
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In 2001, the respected Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter wrote a rambling, asinine article* that “f[ound] his thoughts turning to… torture“. He didn’t, he assured his readers, support “cattle prods or rubber hoses“. Well, “at least not here in the United States“…
“…we’ll have to think about transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies…Nobody said this was going to be pretty.”
Among the many adjectives that have been used to summarise the “War On Terror“, “pretty” certainly has been noteable in its absence.
The outsourcing of torture that Alter considered has – I’d hope – exceeded his wildest ‘thoughts’. There’s been systemic prisoner abuse in Iraq, the “dark prison” in Bagram, the Uzbekistani torture chambers where “everyone confesses“. I wouldn’t say that this was due to “less squeamish allies”, though – the Bush administration showed that itself to be perfectly capable of torturing anytime and anywhere – but because, in the first, excited days of war, such unpleasantness was best removed from view. All of this must not be forgotten in the frenzy of relief that’s greeted the impending closure of Guantanamo.
What we must also remember is Britain’s own complicity. Sure, we’ve seen no detention centres on the Isle of Man, but we can outsource our inflictions even further afield. The Observer reports…
A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.
In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to “run much deeper”.
Indeed, Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch informs us that “these are not incidents involving one particular rogue officer or two, but rather an array of individuals involved over a period of several years“. Rangzieb Ahmed – 33, from Rochdale, later convicted in Manchester court – had “three of the fingernails of his left hand…removed“.
I do hope that the HRW report goes into specifics. Even with the enormity of evidence against government officials, ambiguity has allowed them to slyly sidestep pointed fingers.
* Via Mark Danner’s superb NYRB essay “US Torture: Voices From The Black Sites”.
Nick Cohen Still Lying…No, Come Back, I Promise That I’ll Try To Make It Exciting… March 21, 2009
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A week and a bit ago, Nick Cohen published an essay which described the Israel Lobby thesis of Walt and Mearsheimer thusly…
“…the duo’s notion that a Jewish cabal organised the second Iraq War is ubiquitous, and those who hold it think that their regurgitation of the oldest fantasy of the far right is proof positive of their liberalism.”
When I posted a comment asking for supporting quotes, the invisible moderating doorman, who went on to accept eight other posts, turned it away.
In the past week, Cohen’s had a bit of a spat with Sunder Katawala and Sunny Hundal (well, I say spat, it was more that Sunder kicked him to bits and Sunny gleefully jumped on the remains). Anyway, I found a thread that he was participating in and drew his attention back to my comment. Strangely, he didn’t post again.
Today, though, he was interviewed by Oy Va Goy and gave a predictable answer to the following question…
…what is the maddest thing an antisemite has ever said to you?
That the Israel “lobby” organised the second Iraq War. Madness straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, of course, but treated as sane by the London Review of Books, Independent, BBC etc, etc.
“Jewish cabal” and “Israel “lobby”“? No difference there, Nick?
And, with regards to Iraq, he’s still wrong. Let’s see what Walt and Mearsheimer wrote…
“Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”
So, according to M&W, pressure from “Israel and the Lobby” was a “critical” factor behind the decision. Nothing about organisation there, and, as I’ve noted before, they explicitly reject the notion of a cabal, let alone a Jewish one.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I agree with that element of M&W’s thesis. Indeed, I can’t say in all confidence that their theory isn’t anti-semitic (I highly doubt it, but haven’t read the book). However, I am sick of journalists baselessly drenching others in sputum, and Cohen’s unwillingness to support his statements leads me to believe that he’s consciously and shamelessly bullshitting.
As Stephen Walt put it…
“The one thing which shocked me after [The Israel Lobby] was released was people lying about what was in the book. Unless they are on drugs or soft in the head, they must sit down and quite deliberately invent.”
Ach, damnation, I’ve buggered up again. That wasn’t Walt talking about The Israel Lobby, that was Nick Cohen talking about What’s Left?! In this very Oy Va Goy interview, as well, the fooooowellll…
Free Speech! (Terms And Conditions May Apply…) March 20, 2009
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It appears that George Galloway MP is to be barred from entering Canada. Now, I used to witter on about his various failings far too much, for the simple reason that my views were, by and large, difficult to substantially defend. Indeed, I still think that many of his opinions can be placed on the vomitous end of the repugnance scale, but they don’t really impact upon anyone and, thus, it’s especially sordid to bar him. Their definition of “free” – as in “speech” – must be similar to those who advertise a FREE!! product but forget to add…
That it really costs loads! Haha!
It’s good, however, to see the media rallying round in support of a man that, normally, they’d claim to abhor. A piece from the New York Post – titled “Canada’s Thought Police” – correctly states that…
“Of course, a ban on opinions – even disagreeable ones – is the very antithesis of the Western tradition of free speech and freedom of the press.”
Indeed. The neoconservative National Review has also, somewhat surprisingly, pitched in, writing…
“We believe that the right to free speech must be defended almost without exception…”
Even Melanie Phillips has offered her support, forthrightly proclaiming that…
“The idea that certain arguments must not be made, and that to do so is to find oneself arraigned before a judicial tribunal, is the very antithesis of a liberal society. It is a symptom of totalitarianism.”
…
“It is no accident that it is uber-‘liberal’ Canada, which worships at the shrine of human rights law, where this medieval inquisition is taking place.”
Hang on, judicial tribunal? Oh, how foolish of me. These are all reactions to the “hate speech” trial, in Canada, of the racist and incontinent failure Mark Steyn. Ah well, I’m sure that these bastions of free speech – who, let’s remember, have implied that the country’s slipping towards Islamism like a walrus on a mudslide – will rise to the MP’s defence.
Sits.
Waits.
Scratches ear.
Drums fingers on table.
Celebrates Christmas.
Dies at a ripe old age.
Update: Just before I start collecting cobwebs, look who is allowed in.
Update 2: I’m mildly bemused to gain a link to this post from Steyn Online, but it’s admirable that the man (or, possibly, his staff) is/are willing to provide a dissenting view. What is it to be gifted with a hefty link from Steyn? Is that being, via a jump to phonetics and back again, stained?
