Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
By The illustrious Nick Petersen
Hello, all (and by all I mean.... how many people read this site?) I have decided to post, at long last, if for no other reason than to add another voice to the Dan-Centric stream of consciousness that is HongPong's greatest strength. Perhaps I will continue to write in, perhaps not, but I do have one over-arching point to introduce in my first submission, and it is to reflect on the ill-timed approach of trying to discuss the current conflict in terms of world opinion at the moment.
First of all, we are two weeks into a conflict, and until this conflict ends, we must assume everything to be transitory in nature, and stemming from the glut of instant-on "news" available around the news. The advent of satellite and digital technology has had an unparalleled (and frankly, probably divisive and increasingly insipid) effect on world opinion. Through the slanted, discoloured lenses of biased news agencies such as Al-Jazeera and its American counterpart (Fox News; Next on Fox News, Mullah Ashcroft discusses his latest attacks on "the infidels" and their treacherous degradation of the Republican invention of "Family Values") we have been led to believe either that this conflict is black or white, on either side without any intelligent regard to the contrasts and historical parallels on either side of the issue. I believe that it is important for us, in this time of increasing tension and uncertainty, to allow ourselves to make peace with that uncertainty, and preach patience over propoganda or, especially, circumstantial first-person accounts, and to act as a calming influence in an increasingly inflamed world political view.
I will not criticize nor defend a particular view today, because I think that if there is one lesson to be learned from the military at this particular junction of history it is simply that this conflict is twelve days old, and we know next to nothing about what it is going to look like in hindsight. For every report of Iraqis angered by the hegemonic preconceptions of Americans as liberators, there are reports of Iraqis being gunned down trying to leave their homes. When the Marines overran positions south of Basra several days ago, they found Iraqi soldiers killed by their artillery fire laying yards away from Iraqi soldiers shot at close range in the back of the head by pistols. In a conflict for hearts and minds, it may be best to wait until guts and brains cease being spattered in a military conflict that the United States will win, probably within the next month. This is not Panama, nor is it Vietnam, and it behooves us to wait for what should probably be a relatively short amount of time.
Also, alternative media is great, and much needed, probably more than ever, but remember not to ignore more traditional sources. For tempered, well-thought out liberal criticism, I would urge everyone to turn to the New Yorker, which has been running at least one Bush-related article and at least one war-related article for several months now. There have been excellent exegeses of Richard Perle's conflicts of interest and Dick Cheney's whoring of himself and his values to the almighty dollar, including some of the same quotes that have found their way onto the pages of HongPong. The New Yorker has been continuously in print for longer than the majority of the traditional sources that are shaping up to be less than unbiased (although remember that their reliance on the government for access has much to do with this) and their writers are the best in the business, period.
The paucity of dialogue is going to be the land mine on the path to trying to do the right thing in this far away land after the end of hostilities, so gear up, and stockpile truths for the upcoming conflict on restructuring.
"The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is." ?Dick Cheney the Experienced Liberator, 1996. (Quote from the excellent collection of war-related documents and evidence, cooperativeresearch.org. Thx to Schwartz)
The war plows on as Americans are forced away from every major Iraqi city. Lacking the popular favor to safely attack ancient Arab cities, they have been forced into waiting and firing blind missiles and bombs... You can say they are smart and that they minimize civilian casualties. ONLY PEACE minimizes civilian casualties.
So how can we perceive what is going on? Media chickens ride along with the American troops, unable to describe the random tactics of the Anglo-Saxon "coalition." They cannot directly expose the flip side, the lives of people who are actually getting the life bombed out of them by American planes. The media plays elusive games, obsessing over rumors of Saddam's duplication while ignoring what he has to say. With all these reporters driving around the desert in humvees, there have often been vast stretches of time where human interest stories flood out everything else. Because Iraq is not turning over like the neocon 'idealists' predicted. So what do you do to get the real story? One excellent site is The Agonist, with constant news updates from all sides. Want to know how smart YOU are? Take the Iraq quiz. Thx again to Schwartz!
Un-embedded and longtime war reporter Robert Fisk covers Baghdad, outside the walls of media censorship. From the scene of at least 20 dead innocent Arabs in Baghdad:
It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still smoldering car. Two missiles from a single American jet killed them all ? more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be ?liberated? by the nation which destroyed their lives.It is all too likely that we have stumbled badly in managing the political climate of the Middle East prior to engaging Saddam. Robert Fisk reported yesterday from outside Baghdad:Who dares, I ask myself, to call this ?collateral damage?? Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm that covered northern Baghdad in a cloak of red and yellow dust and rain yesterday morning. It?s a dirt poor neighborhood ? of mostly Shiite Muslims, the same people whom Messers Bush and Blair still fondly hope will rise up against Saddam ? a place of oil-sodden car repair shops, overcrowded apartments and cheap cafes.
A senior Iraqi business executive wanted to explain how slender was the victory the Americans were claiming. "Throughout history, Iraq has been called Mesopotamia," he said. "This means 'the land between the two rivers'. So unless you are between the two rivers, this means you are not in Iraq. General Franks should know this." Alas for the businessman, the US Marines were, as we spoke, crossing the Euphrates under fire at Nasiriyah yesterday as hundreds of women and children fled their homes between the bridges. But still, by yesterday evening, only 50 or so American tanks had made it to the eastern shore, into "Mesopotamia". It didn't spoil the man's enthusiasm.Fisk also had an excellent interview with Democracy Now on March 25th. How experienced do TV reporters sound, really? How much do they bother considering a history that is longer than 12 years?"Can you imagine the effect on the Arabs if Iraq gets out of this war intact?" he asked. "It took just five days for all the Arabs to be defeated by Israel in the 1967 war. And already we Iraqis have been fighting the all-powerful Americans for five days and still we have held on to all of our cities and will not surrender. And imagine what would happen if Iraq surrendered. What chance would the Syrian leadership have against the demands of Israel? What chance would the Palestinians have of negotiating a fair deal with the Israelis? The Americans don't care about giving the Palestinians a fair deal. So why should they want to give the Iraqis a fair deal?"
This was no member of the Baath Party speaking. This was a man with degrees from universities in Manchester and Birmingham. A colleague had an even more cogent point to make. "Our soldiers know they will not get a fair deal from the Americans," he said. "It's important that they know this. We may not like our regime. But we fight for our country. The Russians did not like Stalin but they fought under him against the German invaders. We have a long history of fighting the colonial powers, especially you British. You claim you are coming to 'liberate' us. But you don't understand. What is happening now is we are starting a war of liberation against the Americans and the British."
....As the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said a few hours ago, I was listening to him in person, the Americans expected to be greeted with roses and music- and they were greeted with bullets. I think you see what has happened is that -- and as he pointed out -- the American administration and the US press lectured everybody about how the country would break apart where Shiites hated Sunnis and Sunnis hated Turkmen and Turkmen hated Kurds, and so on. And yet, most of the soldiers fighting in southern Iraq are actually Shiite. They?re not Sunnis, they?re not Tikritis, they?re not from Saddam?s home city. Saddam did not get knocked off his perch straight away, and I think that, to a considerable degree, the American administration allowed that little cabal of advisors around Bush- I?m talking about Perle, Wolfowitz, and these other people?people who have never been to war, never served their country, never put on a uniform- nor, indeed, has Mr. Bush ever served his country- they persuaded themselves of this Hollywood scenario of GIs driving through the streets of Iraqi cities being showered with roses by a relieved populace who desperately want this offer of democracy that Mr. Bush has put on offer-as reality.In a critical development, an Iraqi Shi'ite leader declared that the United States must leave the country immediately after Hussein is toppled, or they will soon face armed resistance. The leader of the Iraqi Shiite Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqer Hakim, declared that "The world does not approve of any colonialism or occupation, and we will take peaceful measures in this respect at the beginning but we will use force later." So much for those multi-year Halliburton contracts that have already been signed.And the truth of the matter is that Iraq has a very, very strong political tradition of strong anti-colonial struggle. It doesn?t matter whether that?s carried out under the guise of kings or under the guise of the Arab Socialist Ba?ath party, or under the guise of a total dictator. There are many people in this country who would love to get rid of Saddam Hussein, I?m sure, but they don?t want to live under American occupation...
...Very soon, the Americans are going to need the United Nations as desperately as they wanted to get rid of them. Because if this turns into the tragedy that it is turning into at the moment, if the Americans end up, by besieging Baghdad day after day after day, they?ll be looking for a way out, and the only way out is going to be the United Nations at which point, believe me, the French and the Russians are going to make sure that George Bush passes through some element of humiliation to do that. But that?s some way away. Remember what I said early on to you. The Americans can do it- they have the firepower. They may need more than 250,000 troops, but if they?re willing to sacrifice lives of their own men, as well as lives of the Iraqis, they can take Baghdad; they can come in.
But, you know, I look down from my balcony here next to the Tigris River- does that mean we?re going to have an American tank on every intersection in Baghdad? What are they there for- to occupy? To repress? To run an occupation force against the wishes of Iraqis? Or are they liberators? It?s very interesting how the reporting has swung from one side to another. Are these liberating forces or occupying forces? Every time I hear a journalist say ?liberation?, I know he means ?occupation?. We come back to the same point again which Mr. (Richard) Perle will not acknowledge; because this war does not have a UN sanction behind it?I mean not in the sense of sanctions but that it doesn?t have permission behind it, it is a war without international legitimacy, and the longer it goes on, the more it hurts Bush and the less it hurts Saddam. And we?re now into one week, and there isn?t even a single American soldier who has even approached the city of Baghdad yet. And the strange thing, looking at it from here in Baghdad, is the ad hoc way in which this war appears to be carried out.
You need to read this: Thank God for the Death of the United Nations by Richard Perle:
...For Lady Williams (and many others), the thumb on the scale of judgment about this war is the idea that only the UN security council can legitimise the use of force. It matters not if troops are used only to enforce the UN's own demands. A willing coalition of liberal democracies isn't good enough. If any institution or coalition other than the UN security council uses force, even as a last resort, "anarchy", rather than international law, would prevail, destroying any hope for world order.Yes, if you believe that 3 of 5 permanent members of the Security Council will never agree to your aggression and advocacy of military hegemony, then the UN has little value. But is Perle after Israel's regional hegemony, or America's? Is there a difference these days?This is a dangerously wrong idea that leads inexorably to handing great moral and even existential politico-military decisions, to the likes of Syria, Cameroon, Angola, Russia, China and France. When challenged with the argument that if a policy is right with the approbation of the security council, how can it be wrong just because communist China or Russia or France or a gaggle of minor dictatorships withhold their assent, she fell back on the primacy of "order" versus "anarchy"....
This new century now challenges the hopes for a new world order in new ways. We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the war to the territories from which it is launched. This will sometimes require that we use force against states that harbour terrorists, as we did in destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The most dangerous of these states are those that also possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one, but there are others. Whatever hope there is that they can be persuaded to withdraw support or sanctuary from terrorists rests on the certainty and effectiveness with which they are confronted. The chronic failure of the security council to enforce its own resolutions is unmistakable: it is simply not up to the task. We are left with coalitions of the willing. Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognise that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the UN.
Galleries of March 22 St. Paul events:
Then I went along the big protest march, starting at Macalester and going down Summit to Victoria St., through Victoria Crossing and back up Grand Ave. The protest got between 5,000 and 7,000 people going, with more onlookers. After starting out at the front of the march, I worked my way back taking tons of photos. It was huge and varied collection of people: families, anarchists, immigrants, Mac kids, Mr. Ethier, Arabs, hippies, true Christians and Buddhists. If you have some time I suggest you go straight through and look at all the pictures.
Saturday events: St. Paul pro and anti-war rallies at the Capitol, NOON. Many politicians will be there. Then a rally at Macalester College Campus Center, 1:30 PM. Then a march down Summit and up Grand at 2 PM. The weather looks promising. Further local protest info at Twin Cities Indymedia. I will put my photos up here sometime quick.
The quasi-governmental Egyptian weekly paper Al-Ahram has some fantastic pieces about the emerging tragic puzzle in Iraq. With the banner headline 'The Gates of Hell,' Hani Shukrallah struggles with the consequences of this new war for his region:
An illegal war waged in blatant violation of the UN Charter and of international law; a war against which 30 million people throughout the world have already demonstrated before a single shot is fired on streets from Los Angeles to Tokyo; a war to which opinion polls in virtually all the world's nations, with the exception of the US and Israel, have produced a definitive 'no' -- how can such a war be recorded except in infamy? And this, before the body count.In 'The other America,' the excellent Edward Said talks about the conflict within the United States, which is hardly the 'monolith' it often seems:
I think it is more accurate to apprehend America as embroiled in a serious clash of identities whose counterparts are visible as similar contests throughout the rest of the world. America may have won the Cold War, as the popular phrase has it, but the actual results of that victory within America are very far from clear, the struggle not yet over. Too much of a focus on the American executive's centralising military and political power ignores the internal dialectics that continue and are nowhere near being settled.Amr Moussa, the Secretary-General of the Arab League finds himself in a bind, as he thought that upholding UN resolutions would permit a destructive war to be avoided. Now, he just has to suppress widespread political revolution, the flip side of planting a 'seed of democracy:'
"If it is about implementing Security Council resolutions, then we say that there is a mechanism responsible for applying these resolutions which relate to the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. So what is it really about? Changing regimes, installing puppet regimes or reworking the region in accordance with the interests of Israel? These are all questions that are associated with recent developments." ... "And obviously, Security Council resolutions are not made for Israel to comply with, since Israel is treated as a country above international law," he adds... "It would be very difficult to imagine anything positive coming out of devastation and destruction and human suffering, especially at a time when we thought we could have achieved the objectives of the Security Council through peaceful means."On the U.S. side, a notable situation has transpired in San Francisco, where peaceful protesters and hard-core anarchists known as the 'the Black Bloc' have taken to the streets. As one anarchist considered anger towards the war:
It's not just about the war. The war is just one very small manifestation of how truly insane this world has gotten, where a handful of military leaders can do whatever they want around the globe with no repercussions or constraints. They can lie so much to the population; but at some point, it gets too absurd to stomach, [the claim] that Iraq really poses an imminent danger to the safety and well-being of people in San Francisco. For me, it's not so much about the war; it's more how fucked-up society is in general ...A troubled protester, Paul Aladdin Alarab, jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death Wednesday after reading a statement. This was the second time he jumped from the bridge. His final statement seems to have been obscured in the media.
The best situation [would be] that there are violent confrontations with the police that spill out into real working-class neighborhoods and gain a level of popular support that currently our breakaway marches don't have. Like we saw with the Rodney King thing here.
I don't know if the majority of people in this society are ready to drop their conventional beliefs at the drop of a dime and instantly realize the benefits and great fun that can be had by looting, street fighting with the police, and blocking major roads. To me, that would be an optimistic situation.
I just ran into a very interesting site "Electronic Iraq" which has been designed along the lines of Palestinian Electronic Intifada. Check both out for interesting news, including the latest sinister declarations of everyone's favorite powerful neocon strategist Richard Perle, who shockingly says Thank God for the death of the UN!!!! Holy Kofi!!!!
There were big protests in response to the Iraq invasion all over the world. Out in San Francisco the hippie anarchists took some initiative and fought the police, while elsewhere people noted that world society has more important things to do than attack Arabs. The weather in the twin cities was rather forbidding, but we were still able to get about 5,000 people out and around for a march around downtown. It was a lot of fun, despite a chilly light rain part of the time. I ran into lots of Macalester friends and we shouted subversive things. My little brother came along and got political for the first time.
I had the digital camera and took about 90 pictures, which I cleaned up in Photoshop and put together a 72-pic slideshow of crowds, signs, flags and general ruckus. After showing this around, it was clear the original slide show was too big for small computer screens, as well as too fat to download well over dialup modems. So now I have two more galleries which don't automatically 'slide show.' One gallery is quite small, for small screens and low-bandwidth connections. The other gallery is a bit bigger but fits better on small screens. The large version photos are in the slideshow. The set of photos is the same in all. I want to thank my little brother Johnny (rockin a gray hoodie and red hat in many pictures) for taking the group pictures.
It's always interesting to watch the reactions of passerby. Some people just stand there looking stonefaced, experiencing a little doubt and cognitive dissonance over the righteousness of their leader. Which is the idea.
So check the fantastic (very large size) slide show, Gallery (small), Gallery (large)!!! Choice pics include: Kira, Schwartz, Annie & Arun getting loud, Dan "Fist Bush" Sword & his "dirty hippy" roommate, The Henry High School guys & girls, the native (Aztec?) dancers, and lots of cool crowd shots too.
Twin Cities protest Thursday: Student walkout @ Noon and protest @ 4:30 PM, MPLS Federal Building (4th St. & 4th Ave). After that, stuff on Saturday at Macalester.(Twin Cities info) (world IndyMedia) (WhatReallyHappened: protest news)
Things take a turn as the C-in-C tries to bust a cap in some recalcitrant Arab ass, starting with an assassination attempt on a sunny Thursday down in the first river valley. Some of the weaklings asserted a series of myths known as 'international law' but the powers that be brushed them off. So now there is a Moral Quest in effect. This quest includes a marvelous combination of classic and fun new activities such as:
Am I the only one who thinks this is one bad postmodern dream, from assassinated Serbian Archduke PMs to burning shuttles and the usual oil Jihad? Damn. Let's take out the bitchin Chileans next. We almost had Kissinger back on the payroll to plot round two for their punk asses.
Ok, ok. Things are gettin down to business. This is only a time for serious and moral people like Dick Cheney and Ken Lay to decide what to do next. Who pulls strings? Who says that this is right? The people, oh the people. They wave flags and shit, but say "Shi'ite?" and they say "What?"
Please relax, would you? The leaders have it under control.
MacOS X users: if you want to get going looking at Arabic, Hebrew, or other web sites, get the new (and slightly unstable) web browser Camino. (DOWNLOAD) It is pretty solid, and I like it a lot. Tabbed browsing, multilingual and fast.
It's time for Spring Break here in the land of the surprisingly nice weather. I'm goin to northern Minnesota for a while. If the bio-warfare starts, I will make for Canada, because the evildoers won't touch their bedfellows, those Canuck socialists. So I have a plan. How about you? By the way, there is a mysterious disease spreading in Asia and people have been advised to avoid Hong Kong, China and Vietnam. Osama bin Laden was unavailable for comment.
Random stuff today from around the dial of ideology... it's protest day again... Opposition is important and may someday have an effect.
Media obedience. The war is illegal. Who cares? we're Amurrca!
Naked protesters suck -- "[Jane] Fonda not only fails to acknowledge her direct responsibility for the slaughter of millions..."
Ohio Rep. gets silenced by the Washington Post for suggesting oil might be involved. Oil??! Never!!
Richard Perle on Meet the Press: "I don't see what would be wrong with surrounding Israel with democracies." Violence? From tha article:
Most Jewish neoconservatives make no bones about the fact that they see in the Iraq war a fortuitous convergence of (according to their geopolitical perspective) American and Israeli interests, based on the theory that toppling Saddam will help plant the seeds of Arab democracy and moderation throughout a region that spawned Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.Ahh good... So someone has a strategy. I finally got my copy of the Saddam Hussein Reader from Ruminator. What a fantastic 38-article book!
Edward Said, prominent Palestinian intellectual, notes that the war in Iraq is already the most unpopular in modern history, and has been pushed forward with arrogance and racist pretensions of imperialism. The Bush cabal has hijacked the country and is about to lead us to disaster.
Democracy traduced and betrayed, democracy celebrated but in fact humiliated and trampled on by a tiny group of men who have simply taken charge of this republic as if it were nothing more than, what, an Arab country? It is right to ask who is in charge since clearly the people of the United States are not properly represented by the war this administration is about to loose on a world already beleaguered by too much misery and poverty to endure more.... As for the demagogues and servile intellectuals who talk about war from the privacy of their fantasy worlds, who gave them the right to connive in the immiseration of millions of people whose major crime seems to be that they are Muslims and Arabs?Print this one out and deploy to upset those who keep happy residence in corrupt hegemony.
As we go forward to a glorious and overwhelming victory in the valley of civilization, some weakling pacifists ('professors') are objecting to the so-called 'Japanese model' of post-war occupation and rebuilding. Perhaps their strongest argument is that our government has not actually trained people in Iraqi society and culture, to help build a new civil order:
U.S. policy planning for postwar Japan began three years before the defeat. Thousands of Americans studied Japan's history and language and, in the last year of the war, underwent intensive training in civil administration. The occupation succeeded due in part to the detailed knowledge these administrative experts acquired about Japan's social and political institutions and culture. There is no evidence that the United States is now preparing a similar group of dedicated experts or developing comparable post-invasion policies consonant with Iraq's history, political system, and culture.Cross your fingers. Everything will work out.
The mysterious and vocal rift between the United States and France continues to deepen as House Republicans acted to change menu wording in their 3 cafeterias. Starting immediately, House office buildings will quit serving 'French' fries and 'French' toast.
"This action today is a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France," said Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration.Like that one diner, they are now serving 'freedom fries' and 'freedom toast.' Yes, the most prudent thing to do is continue slapping the French with more white gloves, until they surrender the right to dissent. A Gaul countermove? Perhaps they should demand we return the statue of liberty. Thanx to Schwartz for the link.
Fuckitall.com released a sweet sweet altered version of Bush's State of the Union address. It is an excellent piece of sly video editing and yall should check it. It's not streaming video so it should work well on bad connections. (Available in Quicktime, RealMedia and Windows Media) Thanks to Ofer for the link!
Two prisoners of the US military were beaten to death at an interrogation prison in Afghanistan, according to a March 7 article in the UK's Guardian. The autopsies verified that both died of blunt force injuries and have been classified as 'homicides.' But we are in the land of the free, which means that the government hasn't really covered it up. But has this story been covered in the United States?
It is believed that the recently captured Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is also being held at this base. I wonder how the CIA is interrogating him.
Ok, it only took three months, but I have finally gotten it together to redo hongpong.com to permit people to get involved. So you can get registered and submit stuff...
There is something wrong. There is a war about to go underway which will kill thousands without just cause. People must object to the unilateral, hasty, and unjustified conflict. We have to get the word out and the Internet is an exceedingly valuable tool for this. There should be several news and opinion links a day as we go forward into what Thomas Friedman is already calling "World War III."
Of course not everyone agrees right now, and I want to get all perspectives published, so if you feel religious genocide or seizing the oilfields is yet again the answer, or lots of Communism, please send in your news and views. Pro-war stuff and indeed pro-war people are welcome here.
When submitting stories, the site software can automatically generate hyperlinks and HTML for you, so you don't need to know how to code. Just select "Auto Format" from the (HTML Format) popup menu. ( More about auto-format)
Dan -- March 9 2003.