Did I mention I love the Guardian?
So the UK Guardian has brilliant articles about international affaisr, and more about the US's domestic policy than most American papers do. Today I found out it also has cute surveys. Check out my profile on the one below. (they weren't quite right about the fashion, but they did a good job otherwise)Which brand of consumer are you?Radical
You would rather die than be forced to wear labels. An activist who genuinely despises consumer society, you will never be seen in supermarkets: you buy your food from local shops or grow your own. You believe in alternative therapies, self-healing, getting back to basics. Despite the cottage industry image, you are technically sophisticated, creating your own power sources (windmills for electricity) and organising protests via the net. This season, and every season, you are wearing overalls. Or clothing made from hemp.
A quickie on the secret Bush
So Neil Bush (exactly) is being compelled to submit to a paternity test over a kid he allegedly had with a woman not his wife at the time. Not a particularly interesting story, but titillating enough for me to read it. Anyway, here's what I think is the juicy stuff. (the "tryst" mentioned involves other women not his wife he had sex with on a business trip)The hotel trysts took place while Mr Bush was working as a consultant for Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, which is backed by the son of former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin,
for which he was paid $2m in stock options over five years. It is not the first time that he has been involved in corporate controversy. In the late 1980's he was director of Denver-based Silverado Savings & Loan,
which collapsed at a cost to taxpayers of $1bn. At the time he denied any wrongdoing but was sanctioned by the federal government for his part in the failure.
During the deposition Mr Brown asked:
"Now, you have absolutely no education background in semiconductors, do you Mr Bush?"
"That's correct," said Mr Bush. Mr Brown also questioned him about work for Crest Investment Corporation, where he was
paid $5,000 a month for work that totalled no more than four hours a week. Bush said he provided Crest with "miscellaneous consulting services". "Such as?" asked Brown.
"Answering phone calls when the other co-chairman called and asked for advice," said Mr Bush.
I just read this in the UK Guardian, perhaps the best english-language paper on-line. Maddening props to Johnny Edmond for turning me on to it.
Betcha didn't read this in the New York Times!US pays up for fatal Iraq blunders
Over 10,000 claims but families must waive rights
Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian
The US military has paid out $1.5m (£907,000) to Iraqi civilians in response to a wave of negligence and wrongful death claims filed against American soldiers, the Guardian has learned.
Families have come forward with accounts of how American soldiers shot dead or seriously wounded unarmed Iraqi civilians with no apparent cause. In many cases their stories are confirmed by Iraqi police investigations.
Yesterday the US military in Baghdad admitted a total of $1,540,050 has been paid out up to November 12 for personal injury, death or damage to property. A total of 10,402 claims had been filed, the military said in a brief statement to the Guardian. There were no figures given for how many claims had been accepted.
"The US pays claims for personal injury, wrongful death and property damage," it said. "Payments will only be made for non-combat related activities and instances where soldiers have acted negligently or wrongfully."
Commanders make payments from their discretionary funds, rarely even admitting liability.
Payouts average just a few hundred dollars and in some cases families have been asked to sign forms waiving their right to press for further compensation. In one area of south-western Baghdad, controlled by the 82nd Airborne Division, an officer said
a total of $106,000 had been paid out to 176 claimants since July.
[That's an average of $602 a human life, folks.]Beyond the initial payments there is little recourse for the families of the dead. No American soldier has been prosecuted for illegally killing an Iraqi civilian and
commanders refuse even to count the number of civilians killed or injured by their soldiers. Iraqi courts, because of an order issued by the US-led authority in Baghdad in June, are forbidden from hearing cases against American soldiers or any other foreign troops or foreign officials in Iraq.
In three separate cases, families have described to the Guardian how their relatives had been killed apparently without cause by American soldiers manning observation posts or patrolling through the streets of Baghdad. In one case a couple were killed in front of their three young daughters when an Abrams tank ran over and crushed their car.
The number of civilian deaths caused by the US since the war remains largely uncounted. In a report last month Human Rights Watch said it had believed 94 civilians were killed in "questionable circumstances" by American troops between May and September 30.
Human Rights Watch concluded that US troops were operating "with impunity. The individual cases of civilian deaths... reveal a pattern by US forces of over-aggressive tactics, indiscriminate shooting in residential areas and a quick reliance on lethal force", Human Rights Watch said. "The lack of timely and thorough investigations into many questionable incidents has created an atmosphere of impunity, in which many soldiers feel they can pull the trigger without coming under review." For the families of the dead, the killings and the lack of legal recourse has provoked a groundswell of opposition to the US military occupation.
In some cases relatives have spoken of their plans to join the growing guerrilla resistance movement to avenge the deaths of their relatives. "I know the American soldiers are not inhumane because I saw them when they first came and they behaved well. But now they have changed and I don't know why," said Faiz Alwasity, who works for Civic, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, one of the few groups that has helped secure payments for civilian victims of the US military operations in Afghanistan and now Iraq.
"They are becoming more aggressive, maybe because they are frightened. I am afraid this is creating more resistance against them."
Feel safer now?
On 21 September 2002, The Memory Hole posted
an extract from an essay by George Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft, in which they explain why they didn't have the military push into Iraq and topple Saddam during Gulf War 1. Although there are differences between the Iraq situations in 1991 and 2002-3, Bush's key points apply to both.
But a funny thing happened. Fairly recently, Time pulled the essay off of their site. It used to be at this link, which now gives a 404 error. If you go to the table of contents for the issue in which the essay appeared (2 March 1998), "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" is conspicuously absent.
Because of this erasure, we're posting the entire essay below the portion we originally excerpted. Below that, you'll find a copy of the actual page from the magazine, courtesy of Bruce Koball and Boing Boing.
Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.
I've been told that the same passage appears on page 489 of Bush and Scowcroft's book, A World Transformed (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).This article was posted at the
Memory Hole.