Cultural Cleansing in Iraq

Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime. Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers’ willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world’s oldest recorded cultures. Get more info or order book here.

from maulana rumi

Talking, no matter how humble-seeming
Is really a kind of bragging.
Let silence be the art you practice.

Social science on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan: The New Yorker

Pape asserts that “offensive military action rarely works” against terrorism, so, in his view, the solution to the problem of terrorism couldn’t be simpler: withdraw. Pape’s “nationalist theory of suicide terrorism” applies not just to Hamas and Hezbollah but also to Al Qaeda; its real goal, he says, is the removal of the U.S. military from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries. Pape says that “American military policy in the Persian Gulf was most likely the pivotal factor leading to September 11”; the only effective way to prevent future Al Qaeda attacks would be for the United States to take all its forces out of the Middle East. Full article.

review: VIDEOCRACY by Erik Gandini, Sweden 2009

a fascinating and sometimes chilling visual essay, videocracy examines italy in the age of media baron and current prime minister silvio berlusconi.

erik gandini is an italian filmmaker who went to film school in sweden. u see some of that influence in his work – a certain sparesity in narration which is more than compensated for by the cinematographic content of the film. gandini loves the documentary form on account of that flexibility – u can communicate what reality feels like without having to articulate what it is.

at the beginning of the film he explains how u have to be inside of italy’s berlusconi-induced video culture in order to understand it, it’s not enough to look at it from the sidelines. and inside we go as the film plunges into a collage of footage from tv shows. one of the producers explains how the images and sounds that emanate from berlusconi’s tv programming represent the man himself, his persona. he likes naked voluptuous women, fun parties, loud colors, and money and that’s what u see on-screen.

reality tv is immensely popular in italy and so is the idea that there is no point in just “being” unless u r “seen.” we meet a young man who has been training to become a cross between jean-claude van damme and ricky martin for 12 yrs so he can be on a tv show. he complains about how girls get all the gigs: “the girls will do anything to be on tv. they have an advantage. it’s not fair. why should i be a mechanic for the rest of my life?”

he is right. girls do have an advantage. many of them dream of becoming velines, tv show dancers who accompany the host on stage. they never speak but perform a rather ridiculous dance which is meant to engage the audience in between breaks. whether they r velines or housewives on reality tv, women r constantly objectified, degraded. i couldn’t help ask myself whether it’s worse for women to be hidden away by the taliban or to be stripped naked in front of cameras by talk show hosts. of course there is the question of free will – but is there?

we are introduced to a cherubic friend of the prime minister’s: lele mora is the most powerful talent agent in italy. he can turn regular people into super stars. everyone wants him. he’s a master puppeteer. gandini’s camera lingers on his face – an odd mix of beatific smiles and sleazeball ambiguity.

one of his proteges is a man named fabrizio corona. he employs paparazzi to hound celebrities and sells their compromising photographs back to them. he gets 80 days in prison for extortion but comes out tanned, buffed up, rebranded and fully merchandised. he becomes a celebrity and starts making some serious dough – his job is to show up at parties where people can get pictures taken with him. when he starts to lose his touch, he decides to go to murder scenes and ask the families of murder victims to sport his t-shirts in exchange for money. that doesn’t work out too well. he straps a video camera onto his body and secretly films his own divorce proceedings. he’s a survivor.

it’s a nightmarish world – surreal in its vulgarity, horrifying in its vacuousness, disturbing in its ability to produce mass appeal. the film ends with some text: 80% of italians get their information from tv. it’s the legendary panem et circenses and we would do well to recognize where we’re headed.

girls auditioning for the much desired job of veline.

Indecent Haste – Amnesty International

On 27 July 2002 Khadr was shot at least twice in the back, once in the leg and had been blinded in one eye by shrapnel. He was unconscious for almost a week and was near death. Yet by 12 August 2002 he had been transferred to Bagram detention facility and was being interrogated while still confined to a stretcher. This speaks volumes about the lack of concern showed for the 15-year-old boy’s welfare by his captors. Indeed both interrogators testifying yesterday appeared to feel sorry for Omar Khadr. Full story.

War Surgeon Gino Strada: “Media Not Interested in Human Tragedies” of War

some context: “Afghanistan is a country where 70% of the population has never seen a doctor or a nurse in their lives. It is a country where there is no safe water. It is a country where there is malnutrition. But on top of it, it is a country that, after this last aggression of 2001, 2002, has seen problems it has never experienced before: prostitution and AIDS. AIDS was an unknown phenomenon, as prostitution was, in Afghanistan. And now in Kabul you have prostitutes, and health authorities are starting to be concerned with a possible spread of HIV, which would be a tremendous tragedy in a country without medical infrastructure or without the possibility to look after patients.” (Dr Gino Strada) – More here.

Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg, “Tricks of the Theatre”

At the start and at the finish of the Hashmi case, tricks of the theatre have been used to make a human being look terrifying to an audience. By the extreme conditions in which he was restrained, he was made to seem like a dangerous animal, so ferocious that only the tightest and thickest chains could prevent him from eating us alive. By the layers of isolation which kept him from communicating with the outside world, his words were made to seem so poisonous, so hateful and powerful, that if they could be heard they would knock down walls and devastate cities. And at the end, the protection accorded to those who would determine his innocence or guilt made it appear that he belonged to a movement so vast and so mighty that it had more power than the greatest criminal gangs to strike down its enemies wherever they might hide. Full article.

Were US Special Forces Involved in the Arrest of Faisal Shahzad?

Reports are emerging suggesting that secret US military intelligence aircraft were used to find and locate Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of attempting to set off a crude car bomb in Times Square. The CBS affiliate in New York reported today: “In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.”

The post at 5:34 PM was titled “Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect’s Arrest.” But then at 6:21 PM, the article’s title was changed to “Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes: Faisal Shahzad In Custody After Nearly Fleeing United States.”

The paragraph about the Army planes was deleted from the CBS story. Full article.

Muslim Group Wants Franklin Graham Booted From Capitol Hill Prayer Event

Mikey Weinstein, whose Military Religious Freedom Foundation originated the protest over Franklin Graham’s involvement in the Pentagon event, said his group doesn’t get involved in issues beyond the armed forces. But he called it an “extremely huge mistake” for any branch of government to put its imprimatur on Franklin Graham, whom he calls an “Islamophobe, an anti-Muslim bigot and an international representative of the scourge of fundamentalist Christian supremacy.” As for Obama’s reported promise to “look into” the Pentagon’s decision, Weinstein said: “Our strongest hope is he was saying it the same way that somebody smiles and says, ‘Yes,’ to crazy Aunt Bertha in the attic, ‘Of course, we’ll bring up milk and cookies for the Martians who visit you each night.’ ” Full article.