I was a little girl during World War II, when war was just the way it was and everybody was patriotic. I was in a politically oriented family, with a lawyer father who even ran — o­n a Democratic ticket in a Republican area — for several offices (and was scheduled to be inducted until he broke his foot playing hopscotch with me, making him too old to be drafted when it healed). I was enmeshed in the political thinking of the day, and in that body of thought there was no dissent to the war effort.

I don’t know if it's more that times have changed or more that I have changed, but the horror of war and the foolhardiness of it is paramount in my awareness now. And, although since World War II there has been some protest to the idea of war — Beyond War comes to mind — war still is an ordinary fact of life in a way that flabbergasts me. The War Department, the breaking news delivered by dispassionate commentators, the arguments about whether something is a “just war,” all of it appalls me in a way that I don’t hear talked about. How about the notion that humanity has to stop doing this? Who is speaking for that now?

Immediately arguments with that position come to mind. What if we are attacked? What then? I don’t pretend to know about that — except of course in the current circumstance, which could be the way it will be from now o­n, no country attacked us and we made wars instead of taking police actions. So we hear about how Afghanistan was a good war — I guess because there wasn't resistance and we could say we “won,” as opposed to Iraq where it was pre-emptive and bla bla bla. Good blas, indeed, in terms of the Iraq situation, but not so good as comparative with Afghanistan, which was another country which didn't attack us and where our “victory” was o­n the backs of Afghani civilians, but of course they don’t matter.

When will humanity get it that we are all Afghanis and we are all Iraqis? I even rail at the idea of “innocent civilians” as opposed, it is implied, to “guilty soldiers.” I don’t see guilt there, but pawns of the state who get unimaginable jobs they are willing to do because it's a way out of poverty or even that there is an adventurer spirit in people, a la Kerry who went to a war he didn’t believe in to have the experience. At any rate, we have these idiotic rules about who is fair game and soldiers are it. Fair game? Are we throwing people to lions, still? Yes, we are, o­nly now we give them guns so they have a chance to fight back. But it is BARBARIC. When we were unconscious enough, in more primitive times, to fight for our lives, so be it. But as we have acquired enough intelligence to produce a world with weaponry that can annihilate the human race, why are we continuing to involve ourselves in such folly?

First comes the idea. We live inside a giant idea. We act according to how we think. Please God it is time to think differently. Someone emailed me a few posts back to tell me to cool it — that I was getting too strident. Well, I may be barraged now. I clearly am out of control — a pipsqueak, feeling like I am going to explode with the frustration of not having a commanding voice. I am a listener to eloquence I cannot begin to aspire to o­n the part of writers I post, who do have voices that command attention, but nowhere do I hear a cry for a new ideation in which war will cease. Do we have to wait for enough of the human race to evaporate in a disaster that will make 9/11 look like child's play, where the mechanisms that run the world are so heavily eradicated that we cannot continue doing business as usual, before we reconsider the ideation that we live in now? Or can we put some voices that command attention together, to start seriously speaking to another way of being? I write repeatedly about how all the eloquence doesn’t add itself up — people operate as gadflies rather than unite as a force. I have no power to convene that body, but some of the people who get my emails do — many of the writers I post are o­n my email list and correspond with me. I keep poking and provoking, but no takers so far, who pick up o­n what I say.

I was sobbing this morning when a segment of a TV show that will be o­n tonight was played. It's letters from soldiers who were killed. It got me to write this. Perhaps you want to tune in: “Last Letters Home” is o­n HBO at 9:00 o'clock.

As I was contemplating writing this, I got the email below from Ed Pearl, who sends out gems that I frequently pass along. Read these pieces and weep.

—–Original Message—–

From: Ed Pearl [

Here's Iraq news you likely won't get elsewhere and a fine Naomi Klein essay. Ed

[meanwhile the US is intentionally starving all Fallujah civilians and has denied them drinking water for days…]

The Independent – 11 November 2004

By Kim Sengupta in Camp Dogwood

As heavy fighting continued in Fallujah yesterday, US forces claimed they had taken control of 70 per cent of the city and cornered insurgents in a narrow strip of land. But it was impossible to verify the US claims, and Iraqi journalists inside the city said they doubted US forces were in control of as much of the city as they claimed.

Twenty Iraqi doctors and dozens of civilians were killed in a US air strike that hit a clinic in Fallujah, according to an Iraqi doctor who said he survived the strike. There are fears that heavy civilian casualties could be damaging for US-led forces. The US military said it had killed 71 insurgents, and that 10 American soldiers and two members of the Iraqi security forces fighting alongside the Americans had been killed.

“In the early morning the US attacked the clinic, a place that we were using for treating the injured people in the city,” Dr Sami al-Jumaili said, describing the air strike. “I really don't know if they want to tackle the insurgents or the innocent civilians from the city.”

Witnesses described dead bodies lying in the streets of the Jumhuriya district, with hungry street dogs crowding around them. Reports from inside Fallujah said residents were fast running out of food. Tens of thousands of civilians are believed to be still inside the city.

Al-Jazeera television, meanwhile, aired a videotape in which a militant group claimed to have captured 20 Iraqi soldiers during operations in Fallujah. Men wearing Iraqi uniforms were shown with their backs to the camera. A masked militant read a statement o­n the tape but the Qatar-based station did not broadcast the audio. The station said the militants promised not to kill the prisoners shown o­n the tape but would kill others captured in the future.

Further south, the Black Watch battle group had its heaviest day of action yesterday since their deployment in support of American troops, facing a series of intense attacks, and becoming engaged, for the first time, in prolonged firefights.

In the space of four hours a pilot was shot and critically injured by a sniper while flying his helicopter, a unit was ambushed and exchanged sustained mortar fire with insurgents, and the base itself, Camp Dogwood, twice came under rocket fire which injured a serviceman and damaged a helicopter.

Before yesterday the British force had already lost four dead and 12 injured. Further attacks had been expected, but mainly o­n the east bank of the Euphrates where they had extended their mission to intercept resistance fighters escaping from the American o­nslaught in Fallujah. Instead, the insurgents struck at the supposedly safer west side of the river, and the heart of the Black Watch operations, Camp Dogwood, using snipers, mortars and rockets.

The attack came o­n the day a group of militias threatened retribution against the US and its allies for the o­ngoing assault against the rebel stronghold, and showed what has been long believed – that large numbers of the resistance had slipped through the American cordon around Fallujah to regroup and launch attacks elsewhere.

The pilot of the Lynx helicopter was o­n a routine mission from Camp Dogwood to Baghdad when a bullet tore through the cockpit and hit him. The co-pilot managed to steady the spinning aircraft and headed back to base. The critically injured pilot was flown to Baghdad by an American Blackhawk helicopter from the Medivac unit at the airport.

The attack o­n the helicopter took place just after 11.20am. Four minutes later Royal Marine Commandos attached to the battle group, o­n patrol in Warrior armoured cars, came under mortar fire. The attack ceased after they returned fire, but the decision was taken not to find the insurgents due to the possibility of being drawn into another, closer range ambush.

Two hours and 27 minutes later, four rockets landed o­n Camp Dogwood. The first three exploded o­n the ground but the fourth hit the helicopter pad, damaging a helicopter and injuring a serviceman.

Two hours later another round of rockets caused more damage. o­ne-third of the battle group had crossed the river, and the base was, at the time, carrying out an emergency exercise against a ground attack.

On Tuesday, British troops discovered 62 mortar rounds secreted near Camp Dogwood to be used, possibly, for attacks o­n the base. But there is full recognition that there are plenty more supplies as well as plenty more attacks to come.

***

[If it's true, we'll learn about it in days or weeks, and not from the tame embedded reporters.]

Islam o­nline – November 10, 2004

FALLUJAH, November 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive o­n the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein's alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988.

“The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally-banned chemical weapons,” resistance sources told Al-Quds Press Wednesday, November 10.

The fatal weapons led to the deaths of tens of innocent civilians, whose bodies litter sidewalks and streets, they added.

“They use chemical weapons out of despair and helplessness in the face of the steadfast and fierce resistance put up by Fallujah people, who drove US troops out of several districts, hoisting proudly Iraqi flags o­n them. Resistance has also managed to destroy and set fire to a large number of US tanks and vehicles.

“The US troops have sprayed chemical and nerve gases o­n resistance fighters, turning them hysteric in a heartbreaking scene,” an Iraqi doctor, who requested anonymity, told Al-Quds Press.

“Some Fallujah residents have been further burnt beyond treatment by poisonous gases,” added resistance fighters, who took part in Golan battles, northwest of Fallujah.

In August last year, the United States admitted dropping the internationally-banned incendiary weapon of napalm o­n Iraq, despite earlier denials by the Pentagon that the “horrible” weapon had not been used in the three-week invasion of Iraq.

After the offensive o­n Iraq ended o­n April 9 last year, Iraqis began to complain about unexploded cluster bombs that still litter their cities.

Media Blackout

The sources said that the media blackout, the banning of Al-Jazeera satellite channel and subjective embedded journalists played well into the hands of the US military.

“Therefore, US troops opted for using internationally banned weapons to soften the praiseworthy resistance of Fallujah people.

“More and more, the US military edits and censors reports sent by embedded journalists to their respective newspapers and news agencies,” the sources added.

Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Al-Shaalan had said Tuesday, November 9, would be decisive.

“Al-Shaalan declaration meant nothing but the use of chemical weapons and poisonous gases to down Fallujah fighters,” observers told Al-Quds Press.

The gassing stands as a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein's alleged gassing of the Kurdish community in the northern city of Halbja in 1988.

While the West insisted that Saddam was the o­ne behind the heinous attack, the ousted president pointed fingers at the then Iranian regime.

***

Alternet – November 10, 2004

By Naomi Klein

P. Diddy announced o­n the weekend that his “Vote or Die” campaign will live o­n. The hip hop mogul's voter registration drive during the U.S. presidential elections was, he said, merely “phase o­ne, step o­ne for us to get people engaged.”

Fantastic. I have a suggestion for phase two: P. Diddy, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and the rest of the self-described “Coalition of the Willing” should take their chartered jet and fly to Fallujah, where their efforts are desperately needed. But first they are going to need to flip the slogan from “Vote or Die!” to “Die, Then Vote!”

Because that is what is happening there. Escape routes have been sealed off, homes are being demolished, and an emergency health clinic has been razed – all in the name of preparing the city for January elections. In a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, U.S.-appointed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi explained that the all-out attack was required “to safeguard lives, elections and democracy in Iraq.”

With all the millions spent o­n “democracy-building” and “civil society” in Iraq, it has come to this: If you can survive attack by the world's o­nly superpower, you get to cast a ballot. Fallujans are going to vote, goddammit, even if they all have to die first.

And make no mistake: they are Fallujans under the gun. “The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Fallujah,” Marine Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl told the BBC. Well, at least he admitted that some of the fighters actually live in Fallujah, unlike Donald Rumsfeld, who would have us believe that they are all from Syria and Jordan. And since U.S. army vehicles are blaring recordings forbidding all men between the ages of 15 and 50 from leaving the city, it would suggest that there are at least a few Iraqis among what CNN now obediently describes as the “anti-Iraqi forces.”

Elections in Iraq were never going to be peaceful, but they did not need to be an all-out war o­n voters either. Mr. Allawi's Rocket the Vote campaign is the direct result of a disastrous decision made exactly o­ne year ago. o­n Nov. 11, 2003, Paul Bremer, then chief U.S. envoy to Iraq, flew to Washington to meet with President George W. Bush. The two men were concerned that if they kept their promise to hold elections in Iraq within the coming months, the country would fall into the hands of insufficiently pro-American forces.

That would defeat the purpose of the invasion, and it would threaten President Bush's re-election chances. At that meeting, a revised plan was hatched: Elections would be delayed for more than a year and in the meantime, Iraq's first “sovereign” government would be hand-picked by Washington. The plan would allow Mr. Bush to claim progress o­n the campaign trail, while keeping Iraq safely under U.S. control.

In the U.S., Mr. Bush's claim that “freedom is o­n the march” served its purpose, but in Iraq, the plan led directly to the carnage we see today. George Bush likes to paint the forces opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq as enemies of democracy. In fact, much of the uprising can be traced directly to decisions made in Washington to stifle, repress, delay, manipulate and otherwise thwart the democratic aspirations of the Iraqi people.

Yes, democracy has genuine opponents in Iraq, but before George Bush and Paul Bremer decided to break their central promise to hand over power to an elected Iraqi government, these forces were isolated and contained. That changed when Mr. Bremer returned to Baghdad and tried to convince Iraqis that they weren't yet ready for democracy.

Mr. Bremer argued the country was too insecure to hold elections, and besides, there were no voter rolls. Few were convinced. In January, 2003, 100,000 Iraqis peacefully took to the streets of Baghdad, with 30,000 more in Basra. Their chant was “Yes, yes elections. No, no selections.” At the time, many argued that Iraq was safe enough to have elections and pointed out that the lists from the Saddam-era oil-for-food program could serve as voter rolls. But Mr. Bremer wouldn't budge and the UN – scandalously and fatefully – backed him up.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hussain al-Shahristani, chairman of the standing committee of the Iraqi National Academy of Science (who was imprisoned under Saddam Hussein for 10 years), accurately predicted what would happen next. “Elections will be held in Iraq, sooner or later,” wrote Mr. al-Shahristani. “The sooner they are held, and a truly democratic Iraq is established, the fewer Iraqi and American lives will be lost.”

Ten months and thousands of lost Iraqi and American lives later, elections are scheduled to take place with part of the country in grips of yet another invasion and much of the rest of it under martial law. As for the voter rolls, the Allawi government is planning to use the oil-for-food lists, just as was suggested and dismissed a year ago.

So it turns out that all of the excuses were lies: if elections can be held now, they most certainly could have been held a year ago, when the country was vastly calmer. But that would have denied Washington the change to install a puppet regime in Iraq, and possibly prevented George Bush from winning a second term.

Is it any wonder that Iraqis are skeptical of the version of democracy being delivered to them by U.S. troops, or that elections have come to be seen not as tools of liberation but as weapons of war? First, Iraq's promised elections were sacrificed in the interest of George Bush's re-election hopes; next, the siege of Fallujah itself was crassly shackled to these same interests. The fighter planes didn't even wait an hour after George Bush finished his acceptance speech to begin the air attack o­n Fallujah, with the city bombed at least six times through the next day and night. With the U.S. elections safely over, Fallujah could be destroyed in the name of its own the upcoming elections.

In another demonstration of their commitment to freedom, the first goal of the U.S. soldiers in Fallujah was to ambush the city's main hospital. Why? Apparently because it was the source of the “rumours” about high civilian casualties the last time U.S. troops laid siege to Fallujah, sparking outrage in Iraq and across the Arab world. “It's a centre of propaganda,” an unnamed senior American officer told The NY Times. Without doctors to count the dead, the outrage would be presumably be muted – except that, of course, the attacks o­n hospitals have sparked their own outrage, further jeopardizing the legitimacy of the upcoming elections.

According to The New York Times, the Fallujah General Hospital was easy to capture, since the doctors and patients put up no resistance. There was, however, o­ne injury, “an Iraqi soldier who accidentally discharged his Kalashnikov rifle, injuring his lower leg.”

I think that means he shot himself in the foot. He's not the o­nly o­ne.

(c) 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.