The Death Of Suaada Saadun (From BagNewsNotes, 4.5.07)

One of the best discoveries I made in the US blogosphere, is "BagNewsNotes" by Michael Shaw in New York.

Shaw is a psychologist. He writes about images: Analyzing attitudes and expressions of people, discovering manipulations by (mainly) the Big Media, and, he does so in a humane-, level-headed way. He is not prone to conspirational theories and he respects the photographers and artists, who, often risking their own lives, or at least fat earnings, provide us with images like the one he deals with below. Shaw is in Spain, this year, which helps him, I think, to keep a certain distance from the hectic American public opinion gestation.

His May 1^st post starts here: 

Michael Shaw: Reflection On "Mission Accomplished": The Death Of Suaada Saadoun

I found this a tragic, if fitting image to offer you today, the fourth anniversary of the pronounced end of major U.S. combat operations in Iraq,

One month ago, the NYT ran a story about the lead up to, and aftermath, of a sectarian killing in Baghdad. The photographs were taken by Ashley Gilbertson, a freelance photojournalist who has been working on contract for the Times in Iraq since 2003. The photo -- taken on his last trip over March and April -- appeared inside the print edition, but never made it into the on-line slide presentation.

Ashley has provided the image to BAGnewsNotes so it might be viewable on the web. He supplied the following background about this symbol of still another Iraqi life lost:

Ed Wong and I had been out for a few days on an embed in Baghdad when we chanced upon two Shiite militia men attempting to evict a Sunni family -- Suaada Saadoun and her family of seven -- from their home in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood. American and Kurdish soldiers intervened and arrested the two men, then returned to base. The next morning we found out that Suaada had been assassinated on her way home from the market. I accompanied the Americans to the house and the crime scene. I saw her family grieving, the bullet that killed her, and the upper plate of her dentures that had fallen out when she was killed. [..]

 And then -- my copy-paste operation stalled. It is too bad. Too sad. Read the rest for yourself, please.

Bush Terminator: How many Friends Eliminated? 4.5.07

Bush consulting angrily with officials (November 2006), while signing a law that protects his Guantanamo and torture politics. (BagNews)

The extremely good blog by Tony Karon: Rootless Cosmopolitan, publishes on May 2, "The Blind Spot in Israel's War Probe". What is the blind spot? It is the US intervention into Israeli politics and warfare during the Summer War of 2006 against Lebanon. The first part of the official report of an Israeli government-appointed commission about that war was published some days ago. It deals with the first five days of that catastrophic event. Calls for Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to step down are as yet unheeded, but a Tsipi Livni ultimatum (today, May 3) will probably do the job.
Olmert with his Patron...

How many foreign Friends of the Bush administration's casualties will add up, before there will be put an end to it? Olmert will for sure have to step down. He will neither be the first-, nor the last one of the leading politicians of a number of countries who'll have to pay a heavy penalty for their trust in Bush.
Blair with Balkenende, April 2007: Both will have to step down, sooner or later, because of their alliances with Bush.

Tony Blair, the British prime minister, will be the next one after Olmert. He announced that he will fix a date for his abandonment of power in Great-Britain one of the next days.
Former victims of loyalty to Bush were Spanish prime minister Aznar and Italian prime minister Berlusconi.
José Aznar, staunch supporter of Bush. Was ousted as PM in Spain in 2004, after lying about the background of the 11/3 terrorist murders in Madrid. Is now a featured speaker of the Washington Speakers Bureau.
Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister. Was outraged as he was NOT invited to the Madeira conference in March 2003. A top secret agent of the Italian SS was killed by American soldiers in 2005. His distancing from the US afterwards did not help him: He lost the 2005 elections to Prodi, who retired all Italian military from Iraq.

A holocaust of falling heads of government accompanies the sunset of the Bush administration. Ironically, while Bush started his tenure with the objective "to take out Saddam", his list of persons taken out is populated mostly by his friends. In the US, we should mention Powell and Rumsfeld, Tenet and Harriet Miers. Although the latter never had a chance. John Bolton had to be added to the list a year later.
Tenet, former CIA director, who took his distance from Bush and Cheney recently, writing a book.
My favored portrait of Miers and Bush, announcing her candidature for the Court. Bush, just after his election for a second term, was confident, that he could do anything he wanted. Poor Miers was his first victim then.
Bolton - another victim of Bush' hubris. We are waiting for HIS version of what happened. His neocon friends at the Weekly Standard already let Bush' handling of Iraq and the Middle East down. What is he going to say for himself?

In Iraq itself, Allawi was abandoned, as well as that great friend of the neocons, who was to be president of the new Iraq, Achmad Chalabi, of whom we did not hear much, these times.
Allawi with friends, 2004, in the provisional authority of Iraq, at the signature of the new Iraqi Constitution ceremony.
Achmad Chalabi, master intriguer, who, as an Iranian agent, bedeviled all NeoCons in Washington. Was to become the first president of American Iraq, but ousted, when the Pentagon, who paid for his non-existent movement, discovered the truth in April 2003. Was offered a prominent seat behind president Bush when he gave his State of the Union in January 2004. His ties to the Mollahs were discovered, and, spring 2004, his offices raided by American troops. At this moment, he is biding his time, somewhere behind the screen of Grand Mollah Sistani.

Who will be the next on the list?
Mr. Balkenende, Dutch prime minister since 2002, is a fair candidate. A parliamentary commission will soon be created to research into his stubborn refusal to reveal the "personal", "for your eyes only" letter that he says, Tony Blair sent him in 2003, to make him join the Iraq coalition.
Balkenende with Dutch military in Afghanistan, 2006.

And what about the Polish twins? Poland set high hopes on its substantial contribution to the Iraq occupation. It was bitterly disappointed to discover, that all interesting contracts went to US firms. The former government was busy to reduce their implication to zero. The new, ultraconservative government resulting from the last elections froze that. Polish public opinion is vehemently opposed to the Iraq adventure. Will they stumble also over their alliance with Bush?

The twin Polish president and PM - next victims?

We may have missed some victims of Bush' mess. But it is an impressing list as it is.
Mr. Caligula will normally stay in power until 2009. We have space to make additions to our list...

This post was first published in Legal Alien in New York and in At Home in Europe (3 and 4 May 2007). For both blogs, see the English INFO Page here. 

Bush Terminator: How many Friends Eliminated?

Bush consulting angrily with officials (November 2006), while signing a law that protects his Guantanamo and torture politics. (BagNews)

The extremely good blog by Tony Karon: Rootless Cosmopolitan, publishes on May 2, "The Blind Spot in Israel's War Probe". What is the blind spot? It is the US intervention into Israeli politics and warfare during the Summer War of 2006 against Lebanon. The first part of the official report of an Israeli government-appointed commission about that war was published some days ago. It deals with the first five days of that catastrophic event. Calls for Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to step down are as yet unheeded, but a Tsipi Livni ultimatum (today, May 3) will probably do the job.
Olmert with his Patron...

How many foreign Friends of the Bush administration's casualties will add up, before there will be put an end to it? Olmert will for sure have to step down. He will neither be the first-, nor the last one of the leading politicians of a number of countries who'll have to pay a heavy penalty for their trust in Bush.
Blair with Balkenende, April 2007: Both will have to step down, sooner or later, because of their alliances with Bush.

Tony Blair, the British prime minister, will be the next one after Olmert. He announced that he will fix a date for his abandonment of power in Great-Britain one of the next days.
Former victims of loyalty to Bush were Spanish prime minister Aznar and Italian prime minister Berlusconi.
José Aznar, staunch supporter of Bush. Was ousted as PM in Spain in 2004, after lying about the background of the 11/3 terrorist murders in Madrid. Is now a featured speaker of the Washington Speakers Bureau.
Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister. Was outraged as he was NOT invited to the Madeira conference in March 2003. A top secret agent of the Italian SS was killed by American soldiers in 2005. His distancing from the US afterwards did not help him: He lost the 2005 elections to Prodi, who retired all Italian military from Iraq.

A holocaust of falling heads of government accompanies the sunset of the Bush administration. Ironically, while Bush started his tenure with the objective "to take out Saddam", his list of persons taken out is populated mostly by his friends. In the US, we should mention Powell and Rumsfeld, Tenet and Harriet Miers. Although the latter never had a chance. John Bolton had to be added to the list a year later.
Tenet, former CIA director, who took his distance from Bush and Cheney recently, writing a book.
My favored portrait of Miers and Bush, announcing her candidature for the Court. Bush, just after his election for a second term, was confident, that he could do anything he wanted. Poor Miers was his first victim then.
Bolton - another victim of Bush' hubris. We are waiting for HIS version of what happened. His neocon friends at the Weekly Standard already let Bush' handling of Iraq and the Middle East down. What is he going to say for himself?

In Iraq itself, Allawi was abandoned, as well as that great friend of the neocons, who was to be president of the new Iraq, Achmad Chalabi, of whom we did not hear much, these times.
Allawi with friends, 2004, in the provisional authority of Iraq, at the signature of the new Iraqi Constitution ceremony.
Achmad Chalabi, master intriguer, who, as an Iranian agent, bedeviled all NeoCons in Washington. Was to become the first president of American Iraq, but ousted, when the Pentagon, who paid for his non-existent movement, discovered the truth in April 2003. Was offered a prominent seat behind president Bush when he gave his State of the Union in January 2004. His ties to the Mollahs were discovered, and, spring 2004, his offices raided by American troops. At this moment, he is biding his time, somewhere behind the screen of Grand Mollah Sistani.

Who will be the next on the list?
Mr. Balkenende, Dutch prime minister since 2002, is a fair candidate. A parliamentary commission will soon be created to research into his stubborn refusal to reveal the "personal", "for your eyes only" letter that he says, Tony Blair sent him in 2003, to make him join the Iraq coalition.
Balkenende with Dutch military in Afghanistan, 2006.

And what about the Polish twins? Poland set high hopes on its substantial contribution to the Iraq occupation. It was bitterly disappointed to discover, that all interesting contracts went to US firms. The former government was busy to reduce their implication to zero. The new, ultraconservative government resulting from the last elections froze that. Polish public opinion is vehemently opposed to the Iraq adventure. Will they stumble also over their alliance with Bush?

The twin Polish president and PM - next victims?

We may have missed some victims of Bush' mess. But it is an impressing list as it is.
Mr. Caligula will normally stay in power until 2009. We have space to make additions to our list...

A Turkish Guantanamo Victim tells his Story

In August 2006, a Guantánamo victim, Murat Kurnaz (30), who was born an grew up in Bremen (Germany), was freed after five years of torture in a Kandahar prisoners' camp and on the Guantánamo base. Since then, he lives again with his family in the Bremer neighbourhood of Hemelingen.

A fact-finding commission of the German Parliament concluded that he is completely innocent of any link to Al-Qaeda or terrorism. A conclusion that was already submitted by the German Secret Service delegation who interviewed him in 2003/2004 at Guantánamo, to the German and Turkish Governments.

His sad story is told now in a book that will be published next Wednesday in Germany. The calm, flegmatic Kurnaz is a particularly credible person (see the quoted YouTube registration of his interviews on German and Turkish TV).

This new book will constitute another blow to US credibility in Europe. Mrs Bush' and Cheney's stubborn refusal to acknowledge at least some errors in their antiterror policies, is turning itself more and more against the US and against the values for which it stands. Another sad story.

Starting in Germany, the book provokes a tsunami of bloggers' comments. I'd like to share with you some parts of my co-blogger BigBerta's review of Kurnaz' book. Bigberta is a female medical doctor, who participated in recent German military missions in Asia. Adhering to a mild version of Islam herself, she studied Islamic history and sociology, and writes regularly about xenophobia and islamophobia. Knowing, that it is superfluous, I'd like to mention also, that she is in no way anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. Her website features the Khazari history of conversion to Judaism in the 800's.

Guantanamo-Victim: Murat Kurnaz from Bremen (Germany)

December 2001. Murat Kurnaz, after touring a number of Islamic schools and loaded with presents for his family and newly-wed spouse in Bremen, is on his way home from Pakistan, riding a bus to the airport. Pakistani police halts the bus, arrests Murat and gets $3000,- from the US Army, delivering him as a "terror suspect" to them.

Bigberta (my translation & summaries, HR):

Murat Kurnaz - Five Years of My Life

Click on the image

A thoroughly human book
For the first time we heard Kurnaz himself at the moving TV-emission with Beckmann. (YouTube, HR). In my view, he needs nobody to talk in his place. After seeing that emission, nobody can doubt, that five years of this man's life have been stolen, without any justification.

His ghostwriter, Helmut Kuhn, has done a good job, for anyone who has heard Kunaz himself talking with Beckmann, hears him, and nobody else speaking from what has been written: uncomplicated, calm, without accusations.

I shouldn't deny that me too, at first I wondered also, why Kurnaz decided to study the Quran in Pakistan, at that fatal moment. Aren't there Qur'an-schools in Turkey? Well, when he explains why, I understand:

[In the beginning, Kurnaz looked for a course in a mainstream Islamic school. He felt that he owed that to his new bride, a more traditional Muslima than his rather secular family. HR]

Coming from a marginalized, jobless life and environment, he choose definitely for another approach to life than using drugs and small criminality, as a number of his friends did. He oriented himself to the Tablighi Jamaat an active missionary movement in the muslim world. The prominent French orientalist Olivier Roy, Amnesty International and the Paris City Council are positive about this movement. The Paris City Council even cooperated with them in calming the 2005 suburban rebellions by muslim youngsters. So, even if this movement is not what I would like to be Islam, you cannot charge Kurnaz with opting for the wrong Islamic movement, as the Paris City Council made the same choice. Even if they were wrong, why charge Kurnaz with making the same choice?

[..]

In the book, all horrors imaginable come true: In Guantánamo, wild amputations happen, a 96 years old, blind, prisoner is met, killing "Immediate-Response-Teams", terrorizing guardians.
But the book is not an indiction at all. It just tells the sory.
That is what makes it so readable.

bigberta - 22. Apr, 23:36