Ritual Reality

The Army You Have

December 21, 2004

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- It was a brilliant, sunny day with blue skies and warmer than usual weather in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down for lunch in their giant mess hall tent.

It was about noon Tuesday when insurgents hit their tent with a suspected rocket attack.

Soldiers were knocked off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and shrapnel sprayed into the men. Twenty-four people were killed.

Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick-thinking soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot.

"Medic! Medic!" soldiers shouted.

Medics rushed into the tent and hustled the rest of the wounded out on stretchers.

Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters outside. Others wobbled around the tent and collapsed.

"I can't hear! I can't hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.

Near the front entrance to the chow hall, troops tended a soldier with a gaping head wound. Within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.

Source

"We were there! We are there! We have a special capacity and a special pedagogical responsibility to stop others from taking the air for granted, because that air is contaminated. It is poisoned by the criminality at the very genetic core of this whole system, that needs Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium to enforce its will on those it would dominate and those who refuse to surrender their own humanity to this criminality.

Who we call statesmen are often as not thieves. Who we call statesmen are often as not vandals. Who we call statesmen are often as not mass murderers, and who better to out them for what they are than those of us who have been held closest to their criminal hearts in their time of need." -- Stan Goff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A portrait of President Bush using monkeys to form his image that was banished from a New York art show last week amid charges of censorship was projected on a giant billboard in Manhattan on Tuesday.

"Bush Monkeys," a small acrylic on canvas by Chris Savido, created the stir last week at the Chelsea Market public space, leading the market's managers to close down the 60-piece show....

The original picture will be auctioned on eBay, with part of the proceeds donated to parents of U.S. soldiers wishing to supply their sons and daughters with body armor in Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came under fire from soldiers in Kuwait earlier this month who complained that they had to use scrap metal to armor their vehicles.

"Many of my friends are over in Iraq," Savido said in a statement.

...This is the ugly reality that National Guard Spc. Thomas Wilson was apparently trying to convey to Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait last week. There is no front line in Iraq. Or, to be more precise, the front line is wherever the insurgents decide it is. And very often they decide it should be trucks and unarmored Humvees at the back of supply lines—what used to be known, in other wars, as the rear area. Because the insurgents present a 360-degree threat, the most vulnerable units are often the ones the Army pays the least attention to: poorly equipped National Guardsmen or reservists in supply and transport companies. During a Q&A while the Defense secretary was stopping off in Kuwait, Wilson asked Rumsfeld: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?"

Rumsfeld's initial response was testy. "You go to war with the army you have," he barked. Wilson's question, it turned out, had been planted by a reporter embedded with Wilson's 278th Regimental Combat Team, which was about to head into Iraq in a long convoy of unarmored vehicles. But Wilson's brave words brought applause and shouts of approval from the other 2,300 soldiers in the hangar at a base in Kuwait.

Newsweek

Newly Obtained FBI Records Call Defense Department’s Methods "Torture," Express Concerns Over "Cover-Up" That May Leave FBI "Holding the Bag" for Abuses

NEW YORK -- A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

"These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers"...

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

ACLU

"We" are at war with the army we have. However, "we" are not in a war anyone in his or her right mind would want or wish for. Only the most callous and amoral leaders drive young men and women into the teeth of an unjustified conflict where they are asked to live with split second decisions about identifying innocents from insurgents. In Iraq today, Britain's Prime Minister declared that the attack in Mosul was part of a struggle between democracy and terrorism. That's easy for him to say. What about the struggle between occupation and sovreignty?

What is so terrifying about questioning the role of the American government in their actions and position taken in the world? This is what we call the Fifth Estate -- to monitor those whom we have chosen for office and demand that they be held accountable for their actions and also to demand that the media fulfill their true role and choose journalism over reporting. This is true in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, with every death of an Iraqi civilian, and with every death of a member of the armed services. It's time to start seeing the quag for the mire and pursue every instance of hellish, reality-based criminal behavior up to the masterminds. All the way to the top.

When we find the actions of our country despicable, it is our duty to call attention to their deviation from what we hold true and dear. Politicians who hide behind the myth of patriotism, security and fear should be chased from the shadows of their own lie and made to stand accountable for their choices and actions.

Iraq is a mess. It is our duty to demand that those with power stand accountable for their choices in manufacturing a cause for war which now, in the echo of all these lives lost, is finally revealed for the lie that it always was.

Maybe the writing is on the wall for Donald Rumsfeld but marching him out the door is only one small step in examining the deep and systemic problems that plague us. We have to remember who actually owns this frightful machine, grind all the gears, and slam it into reverse.