March on Washington to Oppose War January 27, 2007
March on Washington to Oppose War January 27, 2007
Join together to march for peace and justice in Washington, DC on January 27, 2007! Many lobbying and additional legal, nonviolent protest activities are planned in conjunction. Please go if you can or join in local activities wherever you may be.
United for Peace and Justice
Digg the January 27 March
DC Indymedia
Pacifica Radio WPFW 89.3 FM
BBC video
Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
The Absurdity of War in Occupation: Dreamland
The Absurdity of War in
Occupation: Dreamland
by Henry Edward Hardy
The film Occupation: Dreamland (Greenhouse Pictures, 2005) tells the story of a squad of American soldiers from the US 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fallujah, Iraq. Directors Ian Olds and the late Garrett Scott were “embedded” journalists with the 82nd Airborne in 2004. They have created a laconic, dark and incisive film giving their ground’s-eye view of Fallujah under the American occupation.”Dreamland” is the ironic name given by the soldiers to their rather dilapidated base at a former Ba’ath Party resort.
Occupation: Dreamland grips one with the terror and absurdity of the Iraq occupation. Who is the enemy? Who is a friend? Boredom and barracks humor frame instants of chaotic, harsh violence and everyday life. Two young Iraqis speak chillingly to the camera, saying, “The men of Fallujah are brave. Do not go to Fallujah. No Fallujah.” An Iraqi man in the street raises his arms to heaven and shouts that he is sick of guns. Frightened US soldiers in the middle of the night break down doors and force terrified families to kneel in front of them and warn menacingly (in English) that if anyone is up on the roof they will be shot.
This war in Iraq is not epic, as in the movie Gunner Palace. Olds and Scott present an occupation that is banal and good-natured and yet as menacing and disorienting as a J. G. Ballard novel. Some of the young soldiers observe that “something” had to be done after 9/11. Another soldier says, “Sometimes I’m thinking, ‘Man, if those were Iraqi soldiers coming and stomping on my door, I’d be running up there with a couple guns myself, you know.'” Another acidly observes, “I guess people could say that we’re stopping the stem of global terrorism, but the last time I checked, all the hijackers and a good number of people like Osama [bin Laden] were from Saudi Arabia.” (In fact 15 of the alleged 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and four Egyptian).
The directors have a perspective that, by the selection of the material, one infers is critical of the occupation. But they have the wisdom to stand back and let the US soldiers and people of Iraq tell their own stories through their documented words and actions.
Occupation: Dreamland is available on DVD from http://www.occupationdreamland.com/dvd.html.
Occupation: Dreamland (IMDB)
Occupation: Dreamland (Rotten Tomatoes)
82nd Airborne
82nd Airborne Division (globalsecurity.org)
82nd Airborne Division (United States) (wikipedia)
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current.
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
An Intimate Look at a Stumbling White House: State of Denial by Bob Woodward
An Intimate Look at a Stumbling White House
State of Denial: Bush at War part III
by Bob Woodward
Simon and Schuster, 2006
http://www.simonsays.com
by Henry Edward Hardy
State of Denial is Washington Post Assistant Editor Bob Woodward’s third book on the presidential administration of George W. Bush. Like Bush at War (2002) and Plan of Attack (2004), the book purports to be an inside look into the intimate details of executive policy making at the White House. State of Denial uses the same omniscient viewpoint as in the previous books, though Woodward does insert himself into the story this time in order to make a few parenthetical derogatory comments pertaining to the recently retired secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
Woodward graduated from Yale in 1965, a few years before Bush. Until 1970 he served on the staff of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, and sometimes acted as a courier to the White House.Woodward first achieved national prominence in the early 1970’s for his coverage of the Watergate break-in. That scandal led to the resignation of Richard M. Nixon. Woodward and fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein played a significant role in uncovering and reporting on the Watergate conspiracy.
Although it includes some unlikely-sounding quotes and aphorisms, even haiku, State of Denial is clearly written, well-paced and full of pithy and memorable quotes. The book includes this quote from a US Intelligence Colonel early in the Iraq occupation regarding the lack of sufficient occupation troops:
Rumsfeld is a dick
Won’t flow the forces we need
We will be too light
Woodward writes that during a Cabinet meeting on August 27, 2001, the Saudi ambassador (and Bush family friend) Prince Bandar confronted Bush and cabinet members about growing tension in the Middle East. Woodward writes that Colin Powell, then the Secretary of State, confronted Bandar after and demanded, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re putting the fear of God into everybody here. You scared the shit out of everybody.”Bandar replied, “I don’t give a damn what you feel. We are scared ourselves.”
Woodward’s tale of the tirade by Bandar and the alarmed response by Powell, two weeks before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, makes the Saudi origins of 14 of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers all the more interesting.
This is only one of many blockbusters Woodward apparently withheld from publication by the Washington Post. Woodward never seems to let the interests of the Post or the United States get in the way of his own journalistic coups. He has been criticized for allowing New York Times reporter Judy Miller go to jail for contempt of court and Vice President Dick Cheney’s aide “Scooter” Libby to be charged with leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. All along Woodward knew that the information had been previously revealed to him by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
In a 1996 article in the New York Review of Books, Joan Didion accused Woodward of “curious passivity” in his uncritical retelling of the stories of each of his protagonists. In a wide-ranging attack on his work, methods, and credibility, she accused him of creating “political pornography”. But whereas the previous two books show Bush as a confident and decisive commander, the current work depicts him as vacillating, detached and ill-informed from the outset of his presidency. One would like to see some explanation from Woodward for his extraordinary change of perspective. One almost feels sorry for the thoroughly unlikable Rumsfeld as he is savaged by Woodward’s portrayal of him as a manipulative, vain, overbearing tyrant. Although he evidently granted Woodward several in-depth interviews, Rumsfeld does not come in for the kid-gloves treatment proffered to most of his other apparent sources. So now Bob Woodward has the scalp of Rumsfeld to add to that of Nixon.
This is a fun book, a weighty book, and a political tour-de-force. But it isn’t journalism. Instead it lies somewhere between an historical novel such as Burr by Gore Vidal, and books such as Rise of the Vulcans by James Mann or Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer. State of Denial has had great influence among the chattering classes in Washington and I believe influenced the recent congressional elections and led to the downfall of Rumsfeld. This book is highly recommended.
State of Denial (Metacritic)
State of Denial (wikipedia)
The Deferential Spirit (Joan Didion in the New York Review of Books )
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
James Risen’s compelling book, State of War
James Risen’s Compelling
State of War,
The Secret History Of The C.I.A. And The Bush Administration
by Henry Edward Hardy
State of War, (Free Press, 2006) is the bestselling expose of the Bush administration’s manipulations of the U.S. intelligence community. In State of War, New York Times national security reporter James Risen accuses the George W. Bush administration of massaging intelligence to support their post-9/11 political agenda.
Risen has written one-ninth of a blockbuster book about the CIA and the Bush administration. That is to say, one of the nine chapters has spawned a continuing national controversy and talk of impeaching George W. Bush. Curiously, the no-less explosive material in the rest of the book has been met with resounding silence by the mainstream American media.
Risen’s most resounding charge is that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has engaged in widespread and systematic surveillance within the United States in contravention of the law.
According to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978:
“A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally —
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or
(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute.”
The imminent publication of Risen’s book caused The New York Times to reveal that it had known of, and suppressed, news of warrantless National Security Agency surveillance of Americans for a year. In a Times story on Dec. 16, 2005 titled, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” Risen and co-author Eric Lichtblau revealed that the NSA, under direction from the Bush administration, had engaged in widespread violations of the FISA law by engaging in warrantless surveillance of Americans.
The reason The New York Times waited so long to run the NSA eavesdropping story remains murky. In a New Year’s Day column titled, “Behind the Eavesdropping Story, a Loud Silence,” the Times Public Editor, Brian Calame wrote, “For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making,” leaving both Mr. Calame and the public to wonder what machinations underlay the year-long hold on the story and the subsequent decision to publish.
The NSA program was fueled by concern that foreign calls routed through the U.S. were not being monitored because of the probable cause stipulation under FISA. But once the “back door” capability was in place at the major telecommunications hubs, the program expanded to include calls in which one, and sometimes both callers were physically within the U.S. In the absence of any congressional or judicial oversight, there must be tremendous temptation to listen first, and seek a warrant later if at all. The implications of such widespread illegality raises a number of questions. Have we seen the beginnings of an electronic police state such as was envisaged in George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World ?
Risen recounts a fascinating story of 30 relatives of people who were known to have had a role in Iraq’s pre-1991 nuclear bomb effort. Recruited by the CIA before the Iraq war to investigate their relatives’ knowledge of alleged WMDs, all 30, according to Risen, returned from Iraq with the same message: the programs had been shut down and the personnel mothballed.
What Risen does not provide is evidence. Much of the book has the odor of sour grapes from CIA, FBI and State Department lifers who have been run over or shunted aside by the gun-happy Vice President Dick Cheney. For more in this vein the curious reader might consult Imperial Hubris by Anonymous, as well as former Bush counter-terror czar Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies.
The allegations in State of War deserve a full public inquiry. If true, then the republic stands at a crisis, having fallen into the hands of fools and/or traitors. On the other hand, if false, then these accusations deserve to be discredited and laid to rest. Either way, one should read this book in order to gain a clearer perspective on what these charges against the administration are and how much or how little evidence there is to support them.
A version of this review was previously published in Current Magazine and at eCurrent.com.
State of War (Metacritic)
James Risen (wikipedia)
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Federation of American Scientists)
Behind the Eavesdropping Story, a Loud Silence. New York Times, January 1, 2006.
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
Deconstructing Bush’s Iraq Speech
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has done in the New York Times website a fine job of deconstructing and refuting President George W. Bush’s manipulative and propagandistic Iraq speech of January 10, 2007.
Bush’s Iraq Plan, Between the Lines
Iraq Plan, Between the Lines (interactive)
Anthony Cordesman profile
Center for Strategic and International Studies
President’s Address to the Nation
Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, October 26, 1963
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