Magpie

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Un-Happy anniversary.

It was on March 18, 2003 that the US-led invasion of Iraq began. It was supposed to be a cakewalk. Iraqis were supposed to meet their liberators with flowers. The US was going to rebuild Iraq. The Iraqis were supposed to start a Jeffersonian democracy. And everyone was going to be happy.

We all know what happened instead.

In Baghad, Riverbend has posted her relections on three years of occupation and violence:

The thing most worrisome about the situation now, is that discrimination based on sect has become so commonplace. For the average educated Iraqi in Baghdad, there is still scorn for all the Sunni/Shia talk. Sadly though, people are being pushed into claiming to be this or that because political parties are promoting it with every speech and every newspaper — the whole 'us' / 'them'. We read constantly about how 'We Sunnis should unite with our Shia brothers ...' or how 'We Shia should forgive our Sunni brothers...' (note how us Sunni and Shia sisters don't really fit into either equation at this point). Politicians and religious figures seem to forget at the end of the day that we're all simply Iraqis.

And what role are the occupiers playing in all of this? It's very convenient for them, I believe. It's all very good if Iraqis are abducting and killing each other — then they can be the neutral foreign party trying to promote peace and understanding between people who, up until the occupation, were very peaceful and understanding.

Three years after the war, and we've managed to move backwards in a visible way, and in a not so visible way.

In the last weeks alone, thousands have died in senseless violence and the American and Iraqi army bomb Samarra as I write this. The sad thing isn't the air raid, which is one of hundreds of air raids we've seen in three years — it's the resignation in the people. They sit in their homes in Samarra because there's no where to go. Before, we'd get refugees in Baghdad and surrounding areas ... Now, Baghdadis themselves are looking for ways out of the city — out of the country. The typical Iraqi dream has become to find some safe haven abroad.

Three years later and the nightmares of bombings and of shock and awe have evolved into another sort of nightmare. The difference between now and then was that three years ago, we were still worrying about material things — possessions, houses, cars, electricity, water, fuel ... It's difficult to define what worries us most now. Even the most cynical war critics couldn't imagine the country being this bad three years after the war... Allah yistur min il rab3a (God protect us from the fourth year).

Via Baghdad Burning.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:06 AM | Get permalink

Does this remind you of anything?

Like perhaps the buildup to the Iraq war?

While this may be old news to many of you, this magpie caught very little news while I was out of town earlier in the week. So it's new [and rather scary] to me:

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Wednesday compared the threat from Iran's nuclear programs to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.

"Just like September 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat," Bolton told ABC News' Nightline program.

"I think it's just facing reality. It's not a happy reality, but it's reality and if you don't deal with it, it will become even more unpleasant."

It's like the administration thinks that if they invade yet another country, things will turn out better than they did in Iraq. If any of Dubya's flunkies start using the words 'Iraq' and 'cakewalk' in the same sentence, we all need to start worrying.

From Rueters, via Wampum.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:15 AM | Get permalink

1 picture, 1000 words: You know the drill.

And this picture — well, this graphic — should give you a clear idea why Republican political ops are sweating bullets, afraid of how badly Dubya's continued bungling in Washington will drag the GOP's entire ticket down in the November US elections.

Down, down, down

[Source: WSJ/NBC Poll of 1005 adults, March 10–13
Graphic: Wall Street Journal]

If you want to know the details of how bad the prez is doing, you can download a PDF file of the poll's findings if you go here.

Via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:24 AM | Get permalink

Friday, March 17, 2006

No comment.

From John Dunleavy, commenting on whether a lesbian/gay Irish organization should be allowed to march as a group in the St Patrick's Day parade in New York City:

"If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow Neo-Nazis into their parade? If African Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?" he asked pointedly. "People have rights. If we let the ILGO [Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization] in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?"

Dunleavy is the chairman of the the NYC parade.

Via Irish Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:16 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Warning: Slow blogging ahead.

I'm in Seattle until Thursday afternoon, so expect posting to be slow to nonexistent until then.

Do avail yourself of some of the fine blogs listed over in Magpie's left column. We especially recommend checking out what our blogmates Mary and Natasha are up to over at Pacific Views.

See you soon.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Regime Change 101.

Had the class not have been so hush-hush, that's the name that might have appeared on the syllabus of a class for potential regime changers conducted last year in Dubai. Asia Times has a very interesting article based on a series of interviews with an Iranian woman who participated in the class:

Once in Dubai, Nilofar was booked by one of two organizations running the program into the Holiday Inn. She recounts that the course organizers were a mixture of Los Angeles-based exiled Iranians, Americans who appeared to supervise the course and whose affiliation remained unclear throughout, and three Serbs who said they belonged to the Otpor democratic movement that overthrew the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

The highly secretive nature of the workshops meant that they were misleadingly advertised in the lobby of the hotel as a conference by the "Griffin Hospital". The organizers, instructors and students identified themselves through aliases and were instructed to communicate with one another after the course was over through Hushmail accounts, an encrypted e-mail service that claims to be hack-proof.

In class, the Serbian instructors organized role-playing games in which the participants would assume the personas of characters such an Iranian woman or a Shi'ite cleric. Throughout these exercises in empathy and psychology, stress was laid on the importance of ridiculing the political elite as an effective tool of demythologizing them in the eyes of the people.

"They taught us what methods they used in Serbia to bring down Milosevic," Nilofar said. "They taught us some of them so we could choose the best one to bring down the regime, but they didn't mention directly bringing down the regime - they just taught us what they had done in their own country."

Cyrus Safdari, an independent Iranian analyst, said: "As I gather, the idea was to fund and train activists to be agents provocateurs along the lines of the Otpor movement in Serbia. Their job was to utilize various techniques, such as anti-government graffiti etc, to embolden the student movement and provoke a general government crackdown, which could then be used as a pretext to 'spark' a mass uprising in Iran that appeared to be spontaneous and indigenous."

Neither the class participant or Asia Times' reporter knew who was behind the classes, but Safdari speculated that it might be 'one of the right-wing Washington think-tanks that has a proven track record of providing inspiration for Bush administration policy initiatives in the Middle East.'

Given Washington's increasing bellicosity toward Iran, this magpie bets that there are a lot of these classes going on.

You can read the full article here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:08 AM | Get permalink

All roads lead to Iran.

Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant puts it up on the chalkboard so that we can't miss the meaning.

In black and white

[Cartoon © 2006 Bob Englehart]

You can see more of Englehart's cartoons here.

Via Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:05 AM | Get permalink

'No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis.'

That's the assessment of the US occupation of Iraq in a confidential memo sent to UK PM Tony Blair just days after the fall of Baghdad. That memo is part of a trove of documents that have been surfacing as the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq approaches — much of that material connected to the publication of Michael Gordon and UK General Bernard Trainor's book, Cobra II: the Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.

As part of the research for the book, Gordon obtained a series of memos written in May and June of 2003 by John Sawers, who was the UK government's envoy in Baghdad right after the invasion. These memos do not paint the US in a very good light. Some of the memos' content has been published by the UK Guardian:

The British memos identified a series of US failures that contained the seeds of the present insurgency and anarchy.

The mistakes include:

A lack of interest by the US commander, General Tommy Franks, in the post-invasion phase.

The presence in the capital of the US Third Infantry Division, which took a heavyhanded approach to security.

Squandering the initial sympathy of Iraqis.

Bechtel, the main US civilian contractor, moving too slowly to reconnect basic services, such as electricity and water.

Failure to deal with health hazards, such as 40% of Baghdad's sewage pouring into the Tigris and rubbish piling up in the streets.

Sacking of many of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, even though many of them held relatively junior posts.

To be honest, this magpie wasn't surprised by much in the memos — the bulk of the information has been around for awhile. But what is new is the confirmation that Tony Blair's government knew how botched the invasion and occupation were right from the beginning — and that Blair decided to sit on top of that information, and lie about the situation in Iraq to the UK public and the rest of the world.

You can read the full Guardian article here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

Pot ... kettle.

Right-wing Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has been shooting off his mouth again. This time, he called Muslims 'satanic' during Monday's broadcast of his television program, The 700 Club:

Robertson's comments came after he watched a news story on his Christian Broadcasting Network about Muslim protests in Europe over the cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

He remarked that the outpouring of rage elicited by cartoons "just shows the kind of people we're dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it's motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it's time we recognize what we're dealing with."

Robertson also said that "the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination."

While Robertson said afterwards that his comments referred to Islamic terrorists only, his history of making anti-Islamic statements casts some doubts on the sincerity of that disclaimer. Even the AP notes that in 2002 Robertson said that Islam "is not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist. They want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy."

Islam and Muslims are far from the only targets of Robertson's wrath. Within the past few months he's suggested the the stroke suffered by Israel's PM Ariel Sharon was divine retribution for pulling Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip. He also called on the US to assassinate Venezuela president Hugo Chavez.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink

Monday, March 13, 2006

The biggest demonstration you didn't hear about.

How come 300,000 to 500,000 people demonstrating against the feds' immigration 'reforms' this past Friday in Chicago wasn't news? This magpie sure hadn't heard about it until we found this.

These people don't exist.

Nothing to see here. Move along please.
[Photos: CBS 2 News]

From the CBS 2 story on the demonstration:

Crowds marched through the city on Friday to rally against HR 4437 — The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.

Supporters of the bill before Congress say it beefs up border protection. But thousands of people in Chicago's Latino community call the pending bill a blatant violation of rights.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the protesters — of Polish, Irish, Latino, Chinese and many other nationalities — gathered at Union Park, at Ashland Avenue and Lake Street, and marched to the Loop. From the air, it appeared to be an endless sea of demonstrators, flooding the streets to protest the recently-passed house bill, which would make it a crime to hire or even help undocumented immigrants.

At the end of the day, organizers say it was more than half a million protesters. Police estimated the crowd at 300,000.

"I'm definitely surprised to see this many people," said protester Cesar Garza. "I expected a small amount of crowd, but this is — wow! I'm really surprised."

Many of the protesters were immigrants who took the day off work to attend the rally.

"This is a ridiculous bill," said Polish immigrant Paulina Cdnok. "I don't understand how it got as far as it did, and they're trying to make this a law — and then at this point it's a police state."

Other immigrants said their most important goal was to be part of the United States.

"It's important that they know that we make great contributions to this country," Chicago resident Maricela Herrera said. "We're not here to take any jobs or anything, we're here to be able to give our contributions that make the United States what it is...."

The march ended at the Federal Plaza, at Adams and Dearborn streets, where state and local leaders promised to fight for immigrant rights.

"Whether their names are Gutierrez or Lozano, Lipinski or Blagojevich; it doesn't matter," said Gov. Rod Blagojevich. "This is a country built by immigrants."

Mayor Richard M. Daley said: "This is a fight that includes every American. Those who are here undocumented, we're not going to make criminals out of them. That is not what America has ever stood for and will not stand for."

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez told the crowd that immigrants are here to stay, and pledged to work to block the bill.

So why wasn't this news anywhere in the US other than in Chicago? This magpie is waiting for an answer.

CBS 2 has more photos of the demo here, and you can view the story that aired last Friday on CBS 2's newscast if you go here and search for '300,000'. [Flash req'd]

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:30 PM | Get permalink

Spreading freedom to Iraq's women.

It hasn't been any secret that the increasing violence since the US-led invasion of Iraq has hit Iraqi women hard, and that this climate of violence certainly hasn't been helped by the increasing public power of Islamic fundamentalists. While the Western press has taken only episodic notice of this violence against women, Iraqi bloggers such as Riverbend at Baghdad Burning have chronicled how the daily world of Iraq's women has shrunk as the threat of violence has grown.

So it was no surprise when I ran into this item at Feminist Daily News today. According to the story, acts of violence against Iraqi women who fail to wear headscarves have tripled since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Given that Feminist Daily news is basically a headline service, I immediately went to the source of their info, the UN's IRIN news service, where I found many more details:

"Women are being killed because they don't wear headscarves and veils," said WRA [Women's Rights Association] spokeswoman Mayada Zuhair. "A life is being taken because of a simple piece of cloth, and someone should prevent more women from being killed by these ignorant people who that believe honour depends on what you?re wearing."

According to WRA, there have been 80 attacks to date against women and reports of four women being killed by their families in 2005. This is compared too 22 attacks between 1999 and March 2003 and one death....

Zuhair explained that the choice not to wear headscarves is much more pronounced in the capital because society there is more open to modernisation. This is opposed to the south of the country, where traditional family life has changed very little since the war in 2003.

"It's difficult to say how many women wear headscarves and veils," Zuhair added. "But, before 2003, roughly, seven out of 10 were wearing scarves and coverings, whereas now, four in 10 do." [Emphasis added]

According to Zuhair, many women are afraid to report harassment and violence to authorities, and WRO is often approached by these women [or their families] for help. There's usually little WRO can do, however:

"Police interference is very difficult. In most cases, the husband is the one who has to search for help because we can't interfere in issues related to traditional values," Zuhair noted. "The husband is the only one who has this right."

According to Sheikh Ali Muthilak, a spokesman at the Rahman mosque in Baghdad, women become the "property" of their husbands after marriage. "The husband makes decisions about their lives," he said. "Sometimes you get the impression that women are vegetables that can be easily exchanged, without feelings or ideas."

Compounding the problem, the law allows for abuses against women, say women's rights activists. The Iraqi Penal Code, for example, states that "the penalty for killing a woman should be reduced if a crime was committed for reasons of honour". A so-called "honour killing" is where a woman's relative kills her for what is described as an act which brings dishonour to the family. Not covering up, according to Zuhair, can be perceived as such an act....

Meanwhile, the Iraqi police describe the issue as "delicate," involving a volatile mix of religion and tradition cultivated by Iraqi Muslim families for decades. "We're in a Muslim country — if you interfere in family cases concerning veils, you're considered a betrayer of Islam," explained police officer Ali Zacarias. "We cannot touch such cases."[Emphasis added]

Lovely, huh?

But it doesn't stop here.

After I read the story about the headscarf-related violence, I noticed a week-old story in IRIN's sidebar. That story reported on statistics compiled by a different Iraqi women's organization that show that all types of violence against Iraqi women have increased since the 2003 invasion.

"We've studied reports from local NGOs on women's rights in the past three years, including violence, kidnappings, forced prostitution and honour killings," said WFO [Woman Freedom Organisation] President Senar Muhammad. "And the extent to which women have lost their rights in Iraq is shocking."

According to the study, released on 9 March, the most worrying trend was the large number of kidnappings of women, many of whom reported being sexually abused or tortured. While such occurrences were largely unknown during the Saddam Hussein regime, more than 2,000 women have been kidnapped in Iraq since April 2003, the report noted....

The report also noted that many Iraqi women were also being sold as sex workers abroad, mainly to the illicit markets of Yemen, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States. Victims usually discover their fate only after they have been lured outside the country by false promises....

The WFO report also pointed out the large number of female inmates currently held in prisons controlled by occupying powers the US and the UK, mentioning the Al-Kadhimiya and Abu-Ghraib prisons in particular. "Based on our records and from anonymous information, we estimate that there are more than 250 women in these two prisons alone," said Muhammad, "who are exposed to different kinds of torture, including sexual abuses."

The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, denied that female prisoners were regularly subject to mistreatment, but added that information on female detainees was confidential. "We're Muslims, and we know very well how to treat our women prisoners," said senior ministry official Ahmed Youssifin....

According to the WFO's Muhammad, government claims that female inmates are not mistreated is belied by abundant physical evidence to the contrary. "It's very difficult to believe women are being well-treated in Iraqi prisons," he said. "Many times have I seen signs of torture and beatings on their faces after they were released."[Emphasis added]

So why isn't the 'mainstream' press all over these stories? We just searched Google News on the terms 'Iraq women violence' and couldn't find anything recent of consequence.

And, given the Dubya administration's lip service to helping the women of Iraq [an example is this 9 March statement by under-secretary of state Karen Hughes], why isn't the US government raising its voice against the violence? [Okay, so that's just a rhetorical question — we all already know the answer, I'm certain.]

More: Inter Press Service has a good story on the difficulties faced by women in post-Saddam Iraq, and has some info not in either of the IRIN stories. You'll find the IPS story here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:01 PM | Get permalink

Go MetaFilter!

If you keep track of those 'Via' thingies at the bottom of many Magpie posts, you'll know that I often find stuff via MetaFilter — a bloggy sort of community site that's been around for almost seven years now. MeFi is so full of [mostly good] stuff that it's scary.

Another of our faves, grow-a-brain, has just put up the first in a series of Best of MetaFilter posts. Not only is the post big fun, but it reminded me of an old Magpie post on what the MeFi kids dubbed 'The Best Logo Ever' — a post and logo that I'd totally forgotten.

You owe it to yourself to get right over to grow-a-brain and check the MetaFilter post out.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:07 AM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

It's Google Mars! It works just like Google Earth, except it's on Mars.

Now Magpie's Martian readers will be able to look at their houses, too.

Let's Google Mars

Olympus Mons, the highest volcano in the solar system.

By the way, if you want to see some really cool pictures of the caldera at Olympus Mons' summit, Mars Express has got 'em.

And you might also want to check out the website for the Mars Odyssey Mission THEMIS, which has lots of other cool Mars stuff.

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

How bad have Dubya and the GOP screwed up the US?

This bad.

[Source: US Government Accountability Office]

RenaRF makes the gloomy economic message she got at a talk by US Comptroller General David Walker [who runs this office] and makes it comprehensible to us non-economists. It's scary stuff.

Via My Left Wing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Things continue to go really well in Iraq.

You know those recurring allegations that death squads are operating out of the Iraqi police and security forces? The ones that the Iraqi government always denies?

Senior Iraqi officials Sunday confirmed for the first time that death squads composed of government employees had operated illegally from inside two government ministries.

"The deaths squads that we have captured are in the defense and interior ministries," Minister of Interior Bayan Jabr said during a joint news conference with the Minister of Defense. "There are people who have infiltrated the army and the interior."

Via Knight Ridder Washington Bureau.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:07 PM | Get permalink

In another time and place, this cover would be funny.

But, given the world we're living in, it just scares me.

I'm talking about the cover for the current issue of The Economist's North American edition:

What was he thinking of, anyway?

'Congress should veto George Bush's nuclear agreement with India.'
[Graphic: The Economist]

And, in case you missed the reference, here's a still from the 1964 nuclear black comedy Dr Strangelove:

Ride 'em, cowboy!

Slim Pickens whoops his way
to nuclear armageddon.

Thanks to Avedon Carol at The Sideshow for the tip about the cover.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:22 PM | Get permalink

Welcome to the Theocratic States of America.

The Christian right is showing its hand in a bunch of bills introduced at the current session of the Missouri legislature. The bills give a good idea of the kind of future fundamentalist Christians would like to impose on the entire country.

From new limits on sex education classes to penalties for living in sin, the proposed laws would remake Missouri's public life in myriad ways. They would sanction prayer in public schools, subsidize religious schools and allow the Bible to be taught in school.

One bill purports to help women make "the transition from work to home." Another wants the legislature to recognize "a Christian God" as the deity for most Missourians.

Rep. Cynthia Davis, an O'Fallon Republican and sponsor of several bills, said conservatives are tired of an overly permissive society in which high school students are taught how to use condoms.

"It's time to get back to the basics," Davis said. "Our country has been hijacked by liberals. We?ve had people with left-wing ideas pushing us away from what made America strong." [...]

Other bills would:
Deny alimony to ex-spouses who live with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Ban all abortions.

Provide tax credits for contributions that help kids in lousy school districts to attend private schools.

Propose a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to pray in schools and on other public property.

Allow pharmacists, insurance companies, doctors and hospitals to deny treatment if the procedure or medication offends their moral values.

Propose a constitutional amendment to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed on public property.

You can just bet that a bunch of these proposals will be making an appearance in a legislature near you.

From Kansas City Star, via Red State Rabble.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:52 PM | Get permalink

10 books your [US] kids aren't supposed to read.

One of the favorite pastimes of moralists in the US [usually, but not always, from the religious right] is trying to tell parents what books their kids should and shouldn't read. Every year, school boards and public libraries have to deal thousands of requests to pull books from their shelves or make books inaccessible to most children.

Each year, the American Library Association puts out a list of the 10 most-challenged titles from the previous calendar year. The 2005 list has just come out and, once again, the big winners are offensive language and sex!

"It's Perfectly Normal" for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;
"Forever" by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
"The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
"Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;
"Detour for Emmy" by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;
"What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;
"Crazy Lady!" by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language; and
"It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families" by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

This magpie especially recommends the Captain Underpants series. It was a huge hit with our friend N's 10-year-old son.

Via LISNews.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:34 AM | Get permalink

Wouldn't it be something... ?

... if the next time you read a news story like this one, that story was about the leader of your country?

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet waves during her inauguration ceremony.
[Photo: Martin Bernetti/AFP]

Michelle Bachelet, sworn in Saturday as Chile's first female president, promptly named a 20-member cabinet — 10 men and 10 women.

The Socialist pediatrician has promised to have equal numbers of men and women in about 300 decision-making posts, and plans to introduce a law to make political parties include minimum numbers of women in contests for congressional and municipal posts. [Emphasis added]

This magpie would most definitely like to see the day we get gender parity in our government here in the US. I hope I live that long.

Via CBC News.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:12 AM | Get permalink