A Ticket to Ride

This flimsy adjunct to my long running dot com has unleashed a salvo of foam from the brownshirts. Thanks for caring, and pardon the failure to reply to each comment. At my age, every minute counts. Perhaps I’ll come to regret this blog, launched on an impulse to side-step the process of managing Go Live every time I want to shoot off my mouth at www.richardneville.com. It is also the lure of a 30 day free trial.

Wait a minute. Didn’t mean to sound rude. I WILL trawl the comments and reply to the ones that effectively challenge my viewpoint, okay?

A difference between today’s neo conservative climate and that of the Vietnam era, is that a number of poets, painters, writers, rockers and thinkers have sided with the party of war. For some, it is a career decision: stay with the strength. For others, it is based on an honestly held view of the world, moulded over many years. For a third group it is the shock of the view; observing the crash of the twin towers from the streets of Manhattan and/or its never ending replays, the power of which lies at the core of the collective brain like a primal trigger. Perhaps this is why Christopher Hitchens did a U-turn.

As a lifelong champion of human rights, Hitchens has every right to change his mind. At least he’s got as mind, unlike so many other ranting barrackers of Bush. But is it a mind that can be trusted? This is a question I ask of myself, as much as I ask it of those who support the war. It is so easy to become a victim of mindset, and so difficult to admit that we’re in its grasp.

About a year ago I heard Christopher Hitchens talking with Phillip Adams about events in Iraq, shortly after he had returned from touring the hotspots. Hitchens was certain it would soon calm down; that the few troublemakers would be exxtinguished, and that normality and democracy was imminent. It was a calm, lengthy discussion; Adams let him roll.
Because of Hitchens’ long experience in the Middle East, I was half inclined to accept this rosy view, until the source of the view was revealed. Hitchens had toured the warzone in the personal helicopter of Paul Wolfovitz.

The adage that power corrupts is assumed to apply to the powerful. In my experience, it is those on the edges of power who become the most corrupted.
The renegade painter taken up by the Australian Prime Minister, who lurches to the right. The brilliant scientist appointed to the coal board who suddenly sees a healthy future for fossil fuels. The sensitive journalist sent to Baghdad by Rupert Murdoch who finds “nobility” at the US high command. Choose carefully in whose helicopter you ride.

And now a message from Naomi Klein, addressed to Washington’s ambassador to Britain:
From the Guardian, Saturday December 4, 2004:

YOU ASKED FOR MY EVIDENCE, MR AMBASSADOR. HERE IT IS.

TO David T Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London

Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".

The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.

In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.

US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.

Eliminating doctors
The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casual ties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world.

But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit.

Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital.

Eliminating journalists
The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.

It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.

On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.

Eliminating clerics
Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack".

"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.

Mr Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.
(Additional research by Aaron Maté).

For more comment, see www.richardneville.com

Comments

[BigBob]

It is sad to see the lack of debating skill exhibited in the comments of your previous post.

I am glad that they just didn't make you pack up shop. Which is, of course, the intention.

[Rachele]

I dont understand why people seek out Richards writing if they clearly disagree with it. For what point? The sake of an argument. What a waste of time.

[Ralph]

my cat's breath smells like cat food

[Link]

"Delete abusive and vexatious commenters without mercy and fanfare. You are the guardian of a public space. If you allow that space to be degraded, only degraded readers will visit. "

Good advice from seasoned hand CS at his "last post" on Back Pages.

[Link]

I heard the Christopher Hitchens interview too and thought similarly- sounds reasonable enough - of course as it turns out it depends which side of the bread your butter's on. Typical homo sapien tch!

[Evil Pundit]

"This flimsy adjunct to my long running dot com has unleashed a salvo of foam from the brownshirts."

Now you see the difference between an old-style one-way medium where you preach to a silent audience, and the new interactive Web where we peons get to talk back. Of course, anyone who disagrees with you must be a Nazi.

"It is so easy to become a victim of mindset, and so difficult to admit that we’re in its grasp."

Coming from someone who hasn't had a fresh thought since 1968, this is irony at its best.

[Carmel]

Well, gee, Evil, seeing as you call yourself a 'right wing death beast from hell' you've put yourself in the same category as Nazis.

[Link]

Oh and I forgot, old adage, "Beware of Greeks bearings gifts." Hitchens is afterall merely a human

Eee Pee, that last bit was unnecessary and obviously untrue - in fact impossible. You give your real intentions in commenting away, by saying such things.

[Michael Sutcliffe]

No Carmel, that's not the case. The political spectrum can no longer be defined in simple old left vs old right. New right has nothing to do with nazis (as I'm sure your aware), but more to do with a protest against the idiotic, irrational and emotionally motivated policy put forward by the left.

However, if there is a group in the political spectrum that wants to impose their 'special' moral code on others and spend other peoples money to build their new utopian social order, it's the left.

[Rachele]

‘impose their 'special' moral code on others’

I believe you may have surfed on in on your own accord did you not?

[Carmel Glover]

Perhaps it's the lateness of the hour, Michael, but I don't know what you're talking about. What's not the case?

I made no comments whatsoever about left and right. So far as I'm concerned, extremes of any kind are equally blind.I'm well aware that 'left vs right' is simplistic. There are many people from both the left and the right who think this war was wrong. The same applies to other important issues.

My post simply addressed the fact that Evil Pundit objected to being called a 'nazi' (by inference from 'brownshirts') because he disagreed. I merely pointed out that he describes HIMSELF as a 'right wing death beast from hell' (follow the link to his blog). That's a pretty good description of a nazi, in my book, so I don't know why he's objecting.

[Michael Sutcliffe]

I believe you may have surfed on in on your own accord did you not?

No it was a reasonable comment. Carmel previously stated

Well, gee, Evil, seeing as you call yourself a 'right wing death beast from hell' you've put yourself in the same category as Nazis.

New right is not the same as old right which seeks to enforce a blanket moral code on all of society i.e. in its extreme form, fascism. If there is any group that is seeking to enforce an extreme moral blanket over all of society today, it's the loopy left.

[Michael Sutcliffe]

Carmel, what's not the case? This is not the case:

" merely pointed out that he describes HIMSELF as a 'right wing death beast from hell' (follow the link to his blog). That's a pretty good description of a nazi, in my book, so I don't know why he's objecting."

The modern day use of the expression "right wing death beast" is nothing to do with nazism! It's used a lot around the traps, particulary in US sites and it seems to be mostly moderate libertarians (not even conservatives!) that are using it.

[Carmel Glover]

Oh for heavens sake ... that was one of those throw-away lines, said with tongue-in-cheek. I'm not familiar with the use of the expression but I didn't suppose he meant it literally.

Just for the record ... what DOES it mean? (Americans - with a number of notable exceptions - are notoriously careless with their use of language.)

[Carmel Glover]

Oops ... should have put a smiley at the end of that last one.

[Evil Pundit]

Can we drop the debate about right-wing death beasts, and simply all agree that Richard Neville hasn't had a fresh idea since 1968?

[Rachele]

Nope, because we dont all think that is true

[Evil Pundit]

You are squishing my dissent!

[sam]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005986

[Carmel Glover]

Back in 1968 I wasn't much impressed with Richard Neville. I was pretty conservative then and swallowed whatever the establishment told me. Many years later I saw him in a very interesting TV series and much later again saw him at a standing-room-only session at the Brisbane Writers Festival. He had become more conservative, I less so. At any rate, I and the mostly 'mature' audience were very impressed indeed. Plenty of fresh ideas, much reflection on life lived, considerable reassessment of the ideas of his youth. A man who came across as VERY self-aware, able to laugh at himself and confess to his inconsistencies. Signs of approaching wisdom there.

[Gibbo]

Can somebody please give at least one example of Richards great wisdom. I've been asking and asking but haven't received anything approaching a sensible answer.
Please!!!

PS. I thought I saw chemtrails today. They turned out to be clouds. Maybe they were evil clouds, I don't know. Probably AmeriKKKan clouds. Bloody Yanks!

[Evil Pundit]

Richard wears stupid-looking goggles. That's great wisdom, isn't it?

[Carmel Glover]

"Don't cast your pearls before swine," someone else wise once said.

And now, little boys, go play amongst yourselves.

[BigBob]

Michael,

You have dropped by to call most readers supporters of "idiotic, irrational and emotionally motivated policy", without providing a single example or argument.

When you can my ears will be open, if you just want to call me stupid because I don't fall into line with your utopian ideals, well Sir you are the idiot, you are irrational and you are most definitely emotionally motivated.

Go away now, and come back with some real arguments for discussion.

Act quickly or you will join Evil in the dark well in which he lives.

[Shane Muir]

William Thomas has written a book about chemtrails.
http://www.willthomas.net/Chemtrails/index.htm

Here you will find videos and pictures so that you can tell the difference between clouds, chemtrails and contrails.

Its not that hard Gibbo.

I am still driving around with my Common Law Plates on my car.. feeling powerful and free.

upmart.org