Tag: Iraq war

This week in Obama political scandal

It’s the attempt by the federal government to make legal acts, or marginally illegal acts, literally a federal case.

President Obama is currently embroiled in three situations labeled as political scandal. The IRS scandal is the most problematic in that it involves a highly disliked arm of government that affects almost everyone’s lives. But I agree that the REAL scandal in the IRS issue is that there are lots of political groups on both ends of the political spectrum getting tax-exempt status, when that designation should be limited to more cultural/civic issues. Since the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010, there have been far more organizations of every political stripe trying to influence elections, sometimes illegally. Also, the richer applicants fell under lesser scrutiny, a real class distinction. The President has shown public indignation over this particular issue, but he may be missing the bigger picture.

The notion that the Benghazi story is bigger than Watergate and Iran contra combined suggests that the “silly season” has already begun, Bob Woodward’s assertion notwithstanding. If there are altered documents, it may be Republicans feeding them to the mainstream media. At the end of the day, the real story on the government side will be that the US was ill-prepared for an attack in a hot spot, on a significant day (9/11 in 2012) despite warnings within the Administration, that no help was available to those who died there; that’s the scandal. The “talking points” of who said what, and when? An issue will be made of this, but it seems like usual interagency jockeying, rather than malicious intent to me.

I’m much more concerned by the unethical seizure of phone records of Associated Press journalists in connection to media leaks; it’s not just that First Amendment “freedom of speech” thing; it’s a Fourth Amendment “unreasonable search and seizure” thing, which has the effect of stifling whistleblowers. It’s the attempt to make legal acts, or marginally illegal acts, literally a federal case. One saw this in the Aaron Schwartz case, huge governmental overreach. The story of the octogenarian nun in federal prison for protesting may tick you off as it did me.

The President, as noted, seems to be worked up over one of these issues, but is more defensive about the other two. I would wish he’d get more excited about trampling people’s constitutional rights, but that does not appear to be in the cards. I find his behavior disappointing, to say the least.

Still, when the I word gets thrown around, I agree with this assessment: “it would take about fifty of each of the three to collectively equal Watergate, let alone the impeachment and incarceration we should have had over Iraq.”

What a birthday party!

There was a girl who turned eight years old who was at that New York City demonstration, which means she turns 18 today

I mentioned last year that I was in New York City on February 15, 2003, with about 100,000 of my closest friends, protesting against the upcoming war in Iraq. (There were many other protests across the country, and indeed, across the world; the photo is from the Austin, TX rally on that date.) It seemed obvious then, and no less obvious now, that there was no justification for the United States military incursion.

Some folks have asked me why rehash the war.”It’s over; let’s move on.” For one thing, we should note the many casualties of the engagement. For another, if we fail to understand the rationale for the war, the flawed notion of getting rid of Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, then we as a nation will be hard-pressed to deal rationally with the next potential conflict. Should we go to war in Syria? Or Mali, where the French, put upon in the United States for failing to support the Iraq war have been fighting some iteration of Al-Queda? Heck, it was still an issue in a recent confirmation hearing.

Trailer for We Are Many, about those 2003 rallies.

Enough of this. What I really wanted to say is that there was a girl who turned eight years old who was at that New York City demonstration, which means she turns 18 today. I’ve known her almost all her life. I suppose this birthday will be a little more subdued than the one she had a decade ago.

I’m sorry I missed her, and her parents, at the MidWinter’s celebration earlier this month.

@15Feb2003 – We Are Many

There seems to be this revisionist history that the American people were fully behind military action in Iraq, when this was hardly the case.

Last year, I came across this Kickstarter project, We Are Many – a feature-length documentary film “about the never-before-told story of the biggest protest in history, on 15 February 2003, and its legacy, through the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement. The day that saw an estimated 30 million people in over 700 cities around the world, gave birth to a new global social movement.”

I was compelled to participate because I was there (pictured with my friend Dave). A bunch of folks from the Albany, NY-area took buses down to New York City to protest the threat of war in Iraq, which nevertheless started the following month.

But I also contributed because there seems to be this revisionist history that the American people were fully behind that military action when this was hardly the case. Personally, I participated in at least 20 vigils, and at least one large rally in Albany before 15 February 2003 in protest against the warmongering talk.

The documentary, scheduled for the 10th anniversary of the rally, “will tell the real story.” You are invited to “share your own reflection and invite people you know who marched/were against the Iraq war to tell their stories too” at this site. Or go to the Facebook event page.

Oh, the most unlikely thing about 15 Feb 2003 is that, among that throng of thousands of people walking down the streets of NYC, I ran into my old college friend Uthaclena, his wife, and their daughter (who was celebrating her birthday that very day) who had come from an hour south of Albany to protest as well.

B is for Baghdad

In the next millennium, Baghdad was captured by various groups, including the Fatimids, the Mongols, the Ottoman Turks and finally the British.

 

When I was growing up, Baghdad sounded wonderfully exotic and ancient. After all, it was in Mesopotamia, that area between the Tigris and Euphrates, which is “widely considered to be the cradle of civilization.”

The meaning of the city’s name may be a “Middle Persian compound of Bag ‘god’ + dād ‘given’, translating to ‘God-given’ or ‘God’s gift’…A less probable guess has been Persian compound Bağ ‘garden’ + dād ‘fair’, translating to ‘The fair Garden.’ Regardless of the derivation, I had believed for some time in my youth that there was a literal Garden of Eden at one point, and it was located somewhere around there.

While the city’s roots date back to ancient Babylon, as a settlement as far back as 1800 B.C., in 762 A.D., “the caliph Al Mansur commissioned the construction of the [modern] city… Mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire…In its early years, the city was known as a deliberate reminder of an expression in the Qur’an, when it refers to Paradise.” So it may have been the perfect place in the three major monotheistic religions at different points.

But in the next millennium, Baghdad was captured by various groups, including the Fatimids, the Mongols, the Ottoman Turks, and finally the British in 1917, during World War I. In the spring of 1941, a coup was launched against the pro-British Kingdom, replaced by “a pro-German and pro-Italian government”, but two months later, “the Mayor of Baghdad surrendered to British and Commonwealth forces.

“On 14 July 1958, members of the Iraqi Army under Abdul Karim Kassem staged a coup to topple the Kingdom of Iraq. King Faisal II…and others were brutally killed during the coup. Many of the victim’s bodies were then dragged through the streets of Baghdad.”

Baghdad prospered for a time, but war, first a nearly nine-year struggle with Iran and then a brief conflict in 1991 and a considerably longer war starting in 2003 with the United States and its allies “caused significant damage to Baghdad’s transportation, power, and sanitary infrastructure.” (And no parade for the US troops coming home is imminent.)

There was this 1987 German movie called Bagdad Café, which I saw at the time. “The film is a comedy set in a remote truck-stop café and motel in the Mojave Desert. The plot is centered around two women (Marianne Sägebrecht and C. C. H. Pounder) who have recently separated from their husbands, and the blossoming friendship which ensues…With an ability to quietly empathize with everyone she meets at the café, helped by a passion for cleaning and performing magic tricks, Jasmin gradually transforms the café and all the people in it.” It was a charming film; here’s the principal song from the movie, Calling You by Jevetta Steele, the soundtrack of a Roger Ebert dream about Illinois cornfields after one of his surgeries. The film was made into a short-lived 1990 US TV sitcom starring Jean Stapleton and Whoopi Goldberg.

Somehow, the notion of Baghdad as a place of greater understanding and cooperation appeals to me. I don’t know if the performer here is from Baghdad, but he is from Iraq and has a wonderful, hopeful story. And there’s seldom too much hope.

ABC Wednesday, Round 10

Tidying Up My Office for Peace

Initially, I thought to offer them gratis to whomever wanted them, but the postage and packaging for them could get quite costly.

I was trying to figure out how to BlogBlastForPeace when I realized I had a more pressing issue. I need to tidy up my office while passing the peace without spending a fortune. Here’s my situation.

Back in late 2002, I was attending weekly vigils in front of the NYS Capitol in Albany, against the buildup that would, in March 2003, become the Iraq war. Somebody had made up a bunch of these nifty green buttons with white lettering that said, Choose Peace. Rather like the buttons being sported by my friend Dave and me at a massive antiwar rally in New York City in mid-February 2003.

At some point, the informal group started running out of these buttons. Somehow, I ended up ordering (and paying for) more of them. And you know it’s cheaper to buy in bulk, so I ordered 500 or 1000 of them; I don’t recall. I gave away a LOT of them.

Anyway, the war began, and I stopped going to peace rallies a couple of months later. So I have several dozen buttons left, in a bag in my office, which I would like to give away.

Initially, I thought to offer them gratis to whomever wanted them, but the postage and packaging for them could get quite costly, and time-consuming to boot.

Now, if you can use a number of them, and promise to distribute them to others, or just want one or two, I’ll send them to you. If you want to help me out on postage and packaging – and this is not required – I can send you some PayPal bill for some nominal amount – say, $1 for one or two buttons, $2 for a bulk order in the US; $2/$3 to Canada or Mexico; $3/$5 to the rest of the world; or you can mail me a check or international money order. Just e-mail me with the contact info. And if you’re local and want one or some, let me know, and I’ll give them to you as well.

My officemates will thank you.

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