Selves and Others

US effort to silence communications from the ’axis of evil’ may stem liberal expression as well.

NICOSIA, CYPRUS - Iran’s dissenting and liberal voices, reeling from a crackdown in cyberspace by their country’s old guard, now worry about a new challenge from an unexpected quarter: America. (...)

Despite bouts of polemics, Washington is engaged in initiatives to engage Iran in dialogue over its nuclear program, including moves to coordinate US policies toward Tehran with the Gulf states. On its side, Iran also knows what is at stake, and is fully cognizant of the United States’ seriousness regarding nuclear non-proliferation.

The United States has spent nearly $200 billion dollars and lost more than 1,400 American lives so that Iraqis could attempt representative government. If, by some miracle, the result is a democratic and pro-western Iraq, President Bush can claim Mission Accomplished, for real.

But a great deal must still break right before that banner can be unfolded. One risk is endless insurgency and prolonged occupation. Another is that Iraqis will indeed elect a popular government, but not one that we like, or that likes us. (...)

The cartoon on the letters page of the January 26 Sydney Morning Herald featured an Iraqi casting his vote in the US-engineered January 30 election saying “Give me liberty or give me death”, while behind him a masked suicide bomber preparing to detonate responded “Ok”. The message of the cartoon, captioned “Freedom of choice”, was clear: Having suffered decades of Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship, Iraqis’ first chance for a “democratic” election, brought about by their US-led “liberators”, has been undermined by “terrorists”.

He writhes in pain, moaning with every other breath. The Iraqi police colonel’s chest is covered in bandages, his legs from the knees down nearly completely hidden from view due to thick bandages holding what is left of his shins together.

“We gave him first aid and requested a transfer because we don’t have any specialists left,” Dr. Aisha tells me, her name changed as requested since doctors are now technically forbidden to talk to the media or allow them to take photos in Iraqi hospitals unless granted permission from the Ministry of Health and its US-advisor.

And even then we are only allowed to talk with “spokespeople” at select hospitals. (...)

Let’s not forget that the reason Bush gave Americans for invading Iraq was not to battle tyranny. It was to protect us from a Saddam Hussein armed with weapons of mass destruction-which were never found, David Corn reminds us. And now that the weapon search has quietly been called off, administration lackeys still maintain Hussein posed a threat.

Even before the polls closed in Iraq, the Bush administration declared not only victory, but credited themselves with having orchestrated a historic event.

To be sure, an election in which Iraqis could vote for multiple candidates was unprecedented, and its significance was not lost upon neighboring regimes where small elite holds power.

Still, Bush’s index for success - that Iraqis could vote at all - is as empty as it is self-serving. As the occupying power the USA could hold an election whenever they chose, just as Saddam organized plebiscites to ratify his rule. Whether history remembers this election a turning point will depend on resolving Iraq’s fundamental problems, something that this election could not do. (...)

Since the night of September 11, 2001, when George W. Bush quoted Psalm 23 and declared the day’s events to be the opening salvo of a cosmic struggle of good vs. evil, administration officials and supporters have claimed that this president’s mixture of religion and politics is nothing new in the presidency. Just last month in speaking to journalists, Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson offered this viewpoint.

That simply is not so. We have the data to prove it.

What makes Bush distinct from other modern American presidents is not that he believes in or refers to a supreme power in his public communications. What sets Bush apart is how much he talks about God and what he says when he does so. The pattern is so clear that we guarantee Bush will invoke God several times in his State of the Union address on Wednesday. (...)

One thing that journalists and politicians have in common (besides an unhealthy desire to be noticed, that is) is a lack of any sense of history. A politician will typically advocate policies that have had disastrous results in the past, without even making the tiniest effort to examine those lessons. Journalists, for their part, tend to live in the present and simply act as though the past never existed.

And so we have Iraq today. (...)

There are times when one must give the devil his due. The American media is capable of carrying out extraordinary feats, turning lead into gold and an election held under foreign occupation into a victory for democracy.

With near total unanimity, all the resources of this giant propaganda machine-the reporters and columnists, television pundits and talk-radio hosts, professional image-makers and spin masters-have been mobilized over the past three days to sing the praises of the Iraqi election. (...)

The former Python takes aim at Bush and Blair — without losing his sense of humor.

Terry Jones made his name as a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, writing and performing some of the most innovative and absurd comedy ever seen on TV.

Beginning in 2001, Jones — who has also written scholarly books about Chaucer and children’s books — has turned his pen on George Bush and his "war on terror". His new book, Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror, compiles a series of wickedly satirical columns Jones published in Britain’s The Observer, The Guardian and The Independent during the past three years.

In one column, he takes pointers from Donald Rumsfeld’s approach to information extraction (“The thing is if people don’t say where they’re going after choir practice, this country is at risk. So I have been applying a certain amount of pressure on my son to tell me where he’s going. To begin with I simply put a bag over his head and chained him to a radiator...”)

Another column finds him losing patience with two neighbors he’s convinced are plotting something terrible against him. Because the police require evidence to act, Jones invokes Bush’s doctrine of preemption, “since I’m the only one on the street with a decent range of automatic firearms.” In others, he congratulates American forces for their success in making Osama bin Laden “look haggard,” questions whether a leprechaun or a fairy godmother feeds Tony Blair his strategy, and laments that a “war on an abstract noun” is unwinnable.

Jones recently spoke with MotherJones.com from his home in London.

Donna Mulhearn has spent the last week in the Palestinian West Bank town of Saida under curfew and military occupation with its people. The following are her last three letters and photos describing the effects of this military occupation of a small village from 27 January until 2 February 2005 (...)

I knew he was in trouble when those doves refused to fly off that Vatican windowsill recently. The image lingers...the Pope with his mouth open...seemingly botoxed...like Bob Hope’s was in his unfunny last TV appearance...cheeks akimbo...timing way off...and that little Italian boy by his side, shooing the birds who wouldn’t budge. It was as if they were saying, "Sorry, we donna work for you no more."

You gotta love those acidic doves. (...)

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) recently conducted a five-day training for Muslim peacemakers at the request of a human rights organization in Kerbala. The training was held in Kerbala at the office of the human rights organization from January 22-26, 2005. Four CPTers, Peggy Gish, Cliff Kindy, Maxine Nash, and Allan Slater conducted the highly participatory training.

Each day of the training had a different focus. These included: stories of non-violent peacemaking, the power of non-violence, the spirituality of non-violence, planning for public actions, and on the last day various smaller topics were covered including trauma and self-care, working with media and human rights documentation. (...)

[29 January 2005]

The dictionaries of the victors and those possessing military superiority do not define their occupation as `terrorism and violence.’

Until the mortar shelling on Gush Katif yesterday and Monday, optimism in Israel was on the rise. Sharon talked about a historic breakthrough in relations with the Palestinians; Palestinian policemen once again deployed in the Gaza Strip with their weapons; Qassams didn’t land in Sderot; there’s talk of a meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon; the Israelis are talking about gestures and releasing 900 prisoners; Peres is talking about jump-starting the economy in Gaza; and Mofaz and Dahlan have met twice already. The general feeling is that despite several wrenches in the works and despite the gaps that emerged in talks between security officials, the sheer fact there are talks attest to the improvement. (...)

The very sign at the entrance - "Horizons of Reform and Renaissance" - makes one wonder. The facility has been refurbished and redesigned, and has quiet motorized carts that bring visitors from one pavilion to the next. The activities also arouse one’s curiosity: lectures on literature and poetry, meetings with authors, gifts for guests. The international book fair that opened last week in Cairo, being held for the 37th time, can take pride in its improvements. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who as usual inaugurated the fair, asked how visitors to the fair would be protected against the wind and the rain, he received a satisfactory answer: there are wind barriers and awnings.

Some 27 countries - 16 of them Arab - are participating in this fair, to which Israel was not invited. The rewarming in relations between Egypt and Israel cools off when it comes to the Egyptian intellectual barons, who lord over the cultural ties and uphold the dictates of the Egyptian Journalists Association, the Egyptian Writers Union or the Egyptian Association of Film Writers and Critics, which forbid any contact with their Israeli colleagues. Anyone who dares violate these rules finds himself out of the unions - without the economic backing the unions provide their members. (...)

in Basra

American troops killed four detainees and injured six others to quell a riot at a prison in British-controlled southern Iraq.

The deaths, on the day the elections were held, drew an angry response from the Iraqi interim government which called for the troops to be put on trial if they were found to have used excessive force. (...)