what is civilian leader ?

Who is winning this war?
Q & A With Uri Avnery
07/26/07 "Information Clearing House" -- --
Who is winning this war?

On the 15th day of the war, Hizbullah is functioning and fighting. That by itself will go down in the annals of the Arab peoples as a shining victory.
When a featherweight boxer faces a heavyweight and is still standing in the 15th round - that is a victory, whatever the final outcome.

Can Hizbullah be pushed out of the border area?

The question is based on a misunderstanding of the essence of Hizbullah. Not by accident is the organization call Hizb-Allah ("Party of Allah") and not Jeish-Allah ("Army of Allah"). It is a political organization, with deep roots in the Shiite population of South Lebanon. For all practical purposes, it represents this community. The Shiites are 40% of the Lebanese population, and together with the other Muslims they form the majority.
Hizbullah can be "moved" only if the whole Shiite population is moved - an ethnic cleansing that (I hope) no one is thinking about. After the war the population will return to their towns and villages, and Hizbullah will continue to flourish.

What would happen if the Lebanese Army were deployed along the border?

That has been one of the slogans of the Israeli government from the first moment. They will announce this as the main victory. That is very convincing - for anyone who has no idea about the complexities of Lebanon.
Anyone who was in Lebanon in 1982 and saw the Lebanese Army in action knows that it is not a serious army. Furthermore, many of its officers and soldiers are Shiites. Such a force will not fight Hizbullah.
Its deployment in the South would depend entirely on the agreement of Hizbullah - and that also applies to every day it stays there.
Would an international force help?
Ditto. That is a slogan especially tailored for diplomats, who look for an idea they can easily agree on. It sounds nice, especially if one adds the word "robust".

What exactly is the robust international force supposed to do?

It is proposed that it will remove Hizbullah from the border area. Not by words - like the hapless UNIFIL, that everyone ignored right from the beginning - but by force.
If the deployment of this force were to take place with the agreement of both sides - Israel and Hizbullah - alright. It may serve as a ladder for the Israeli government to climb down from the tree it has climbed up.
But if the force is placed there contrary to the will of Hizbullah, a guerilla war against it will start. Will the international force stand up and fight in a place which the mighty Israeli army fled with its tail between its legs?
For Israel, there will be a special dilemma: what will happen if Hizbullah attacks Israel in spite of the force? Will the Israeli army enter the area, risking a clash with the international force? With German soldiers, for example?
Olmert has said that we will not negotiate with Syria. Is that practical?
So he said. He has said a lot of things, and his tongue is still wagging.
Syria is a central player in this field. No real settlement in Lebanon will succeed without the participation - direct or indirect- of Syria.
True, Hizbullah was created by us. When the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982, the Shiites received the soldiers with rice and sweets. They hoped that we would evict the PLO forces, who were in control of the area. But when they realized that our army was there to stay, they started a guerilla war that lasted for 18 years. In this war, Hizbullah was born and grew, until it became the strongest organization in all Lebanon.
But this would not have happened without massive Syrian support. Syria wants to get back the Golan heights, which have been officially annexed to Israel. Therefore, it is important for the Syrians not to allow the Israelis any quiet. Since they do not want to risk trouble on their own borders with Israel, they use Hizbullah to cause trouble on Israel's border with Lebanon.
The Lebanese border will not become quiet until we reach an agreement with Syria. That is to say: until we give the Golan back.The alternativeis to start a war with Syria, with its ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons and an army that has proved itself. President Bush is pushing Israel to do this, perhaps in order to divert attention from his fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How can one evaluate the conduct of the military campaign?

Dan Halutz will not enter the history books as one of the greatest captains of all time.
He pushed the government into this war, partly in order to cover up two embarrassing military failures: the Palestinian commando action in Kerem Shalom and the Hizbullah action on the Lebanese border. No officer has been called to bear responsibility for them. The ultimate responsibility rests, of course, with the chief-of-Staff.
Halutz, the first Chief-of-Staff who rose through the ranks of the Air Force, was convinced that he could finish it off by aerial bombardment, with the assistance of the artillery and navy. He was vastly mistaken. Even after sowing havoc in Lebanon, he did not succeed in vanquishing the opponent. Now he is compelled to do the one thing that everybody was afraid of: sending large land forces into the Lebanese quagmire.
On the 15th day of the war, not one of the aims is any nearer to being achieved. As far as Halutz is concerned, both as a strategist and as a commander, his marks are close to zero.

Have the civilians at the head of the government proved themselves?

After the elections, many people in Israel thought that a civilian era had begun, since both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense are complete civilians, without a military background. As it turns out, the opposite is the case.
History shows that political functionaries who succeed strong leaders are capable of doing terrible things. They want to prove that they, too, are strong leaders, that they have guts, that they can wage war. Harry Truman , who replaced Franklin Roosevelt, is responsible for what is perhaps the biggest war crime in history - the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anthony Eden, who succeeded Winston Churchill, started the foolish Suez war, in collusion with France and Israel.
The Olmert government started this war in shocking irresponsibility, without serious debate or deliberation. They were afraid to oppose the demands of the Chief-of-Staff, afraid to be branded as cowards.
Olmert has promised that after the war the situation in the region will be different from what it was before. Is there a chance of this?
Absolutely. But the new situation will be very much worse for us.
One of Hassan Nasrallah's aims is to unite Shiites and Sunnis in a common fight against Israel.
One has to realize that for centuries Sunnis and Shiites were mortal enemies. Many orthodox Sunnis consider the Shiites heretics. By coming to the aid of the Palestinians, who are Sunnis, Nasrallah hopes, among other aims, to forge a new alliance.
In the Middle East, a new axis may be coming into being, one that includes Hizbullah, the Palestinians, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Syria is a Sunni country. Iraq is now controlled by the Shiites, who wholeheartedly support Hizbullah. But the Iraqi Sunnis, who are waging a tough guerilla war against the Americans, also support Hizbullah.
This bloc enjoys a wide popularity among the masses throughout the Arab world, because of their fight against the USA and Israel. The opposite bloc, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, is losing popularity by the day. These regimes are considered by the masses as mercenaries of the Americans and agents of Israel. Mahmoud Abbas is strenuously trying to avoid being included in this category.
So what can be done about this?
To put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which causes ferment throughout the Middle East.
To draw Hamas out of this hostile front, by negotiating with the elected Palestinian government.
To reach a settlement in Lebanon. For it to last, this settlement must include Hizbullah and Syria. This will oblige us to give the Golan back.
It should be remembered that Ehud Barak had already agreed to that and almost signed a peace treaty, similar to the one signed with Egypt, but unfortunately chickened out at the last moment for fear of public opinion.
Uri Avnery is a journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14229.htm

urls about newclear power ?

What Chomsky writes about the 'offers' made to Iran is not only misleading, it is total crap. What about the nukes in Israel? They never even signed the NPT. And, Iran has been controlled from the beginning by this UN nuclear power 'sales office' called IAEA - Url.: http://www.countercurrents.org/u...- henk160805.htm

The Chomsky article concerns the so called 'Iranian Danger' - the wholly by the US group whipped up fake 'nuclear crisis' which Chomsky of course calls an 'Iranian crisis' - ''A negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis is within reach. The US must take three basic steps to defuse this confrontation. The consequences of not doing so could be grim.'' - By Noam Chomsky - 06/19/06 - "The Guardian" - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/hdxzh

What he writes about the 'offers' made to Iran is total crap. What about the nukes in Israel? They never even signed the NPT. And Iran has been controlled from the beginning by this UN nuclear power sales office called IAEA - Url.: http://www.countercurrents.org/u...- henk160805.htm

http://www.zmag.org/parecon/conspiracy.htm

http://last-straw.net/



This is all about petroeuro/petrodollar. Nukes are just a front or excuse to create tension.

HEU/LEU - Why USA wants to supply fuel.
http://www.usec.com/v2001_02/ HTM..._howitworks.asp

Press Conference: Mr. Hans Blix, Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, will brief on the final report of the Commission
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pre...e/ pc060601pm.rm

Iran cut out of UN talks, This is what they would have discussed, Bolton stunt.
Permanent Representative of Iran, H.E. Mr. M. Javad Zarif. UN Webcast
Weblink: http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pre...e/ pc060329pm.rm

Iran has done everything possible to negotiate with the Bush clan. Iran's only option is to cave in. Iran will not fall to USA threats, nor will the ME international community. Bush clan is the only party to threats and fears. I personally think this debate will go on for another 6 months. Hence the Pentagon recoil and switch gears approach to NK crisis. However, this does depend on the how sucessful the Iran Bourse is. June 30, 2006 is last I heard.
http://agonist.org/20060607/ iran...y_ready_to_open
http://www.infowars.com/ articles...or_business.htm

The irony is the UN will be on recess 19-30 June 2006 to cover Progress Report on UN Reform.
http://www.unpo.org/news_detail....arg=02&par=4679

Catch my drift, Iran will be dragged on. NK is new threat
Don | 06.19.06 - 2:32 pm

http://sbcglobal.net/

http://www.ifthewebsite.com/



EXCERPT: "ONE CAN ONLY HOPE THAT ONE DAY WE ALL FULLY UNDERSTAND THE PERNICIOUS EFFECTS OF THE “LIBERAL MEDIA” ON OUR MINDS, OUR WILL, OUR LIVES AND OUR WORLD. CONSIDERING THE STATE OF THE WORLD TODAY, WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT."

Very informative concerning the misleading so called 'liberal' media and their collaborators - Url.: http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog...s-and- light.htm

Please, feel free to forward, post, publish, etc.
(*) Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer living in London. He's the producer and director of the documentaries XXI CENTURY and The Peace! DVD and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers). He can be reached at info@thecatsdream.com - More about him and his work on http://TheCatsDream.com


FPF-references:

* ROME TRIBUNAL ON WAR CRIMES AND MEDIA: Held Guilty of Deception - The tribunal said mainstream media reportage on Iraq also violated article six of the Nuremberg Tribunal (set up to try Nazi crimes) which states: "Leaders, organisers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes (crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity) are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such a plan." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/68jws

STRONGLY RELATED LINKS - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gkgrb

* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/u...ode/17/ 107.html

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl

National Security Study Memorandum 219
US-Iran Agreement on Cooperation in Civil Uses of Atomic Energy (March 14, 1975)
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/libra...sm/ nssm219a.htm

National Security Decision Memorandum 292
US-Iran Nuclear Cooperation (April 22, 1975)
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/libra...sm/ nsdm292a.htm
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/libra...sm/ nsdm292b.htm

National Security Decision Memorandum 324
Negotiation of a Nuclear Agreement with Iran (April 20, 1976)
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/libra...sm/ nsdm324a.htm
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/libra...sm/ nsdm324b.htm

National Security Study Memorandum 238
U.S Policy Toward the Persian Gulf (February 13, 1976)
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/libra...sm/ nssm238a.htm

Same U.S. officials sang a different tune on Iranian nukes in the 1970s
Washington Post (March 27, 2005)
http://groups.google.com/group/ s...53d3a05bc5403c1

U.S. endorsed Iranian plans to build massive nuclear energy industry
http://groups.google.com/group/ s...b0a04b1107d7171



He has plenty of concentration camps in place throughout the US.
http://www.cephas-library.com/ nw...ive_orders.html
Don | 06.20.06 - 8:57 am |

[end quote] - For all who want to know a lot more about this fake icon who led the left astray to the right, the 'givers' to the 'takers? Look who's trapped!

Url.: http://www.newcriterion.com/arch...y03/ chomsky.htm

This is what he said a few hours after the world trade centre was demolished:
http://www.sk.com.br/sk-chom2.html

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on

U.S. Wants Companies to Keep Web Usage Records

By SAUL HANSELL and ERIC LICHTBLAU

03/02/06 "New York Times" -- -- The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives from Internet companies, said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department. The meeting included representatives from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.

The attorney general has appointed a task force of department officials to explore the issue, and that group is holding another meeting with a broader group of Internet executives today, Mr. Roehrkasse said. The department also met yesterday with a group of privacy experts.

The Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures, Mr. Roehrkasse said.

While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms.

It also wants the Internet companies to retain records about whom their users exchange e-mail with, but not the contents of e-mail messages, the executives said. The executives spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they did not want to offend the Justice Department.

The proposal and the initial meeting were first reported by USA Today and CNet News.com.

The department proposed that the records be retained for as long as two years. Most Internet companies discard such records after a few weeks or months.In its current proposal, the department appears to be trying to determine whether Internet companies will voluntarily agree to keep certain information or if it will need to seek legislation to require them to do so.

The request comes as the government has been trying to extend its power to review electronic communications in several ways. The New York Times reported in December that the National Security Agency had gained access to phone and e-mail traffic with the cooperation of telecommunications companies, and USA Today reported last month that the agency had collected telephone calling records. The Justice Department has subpoenaed information on Internet search patterns — but not the searches of individuals — as it tries to defend a law meant to protect children from pornography.

In a speech in April, Mr. Gonzales said that investigations into child pornography had been hampered because Internet companies had not always kept records that would help prosecutors identify people who traded in illegal images.

"The investigation and prosecution of child predators depends critically on the availability of evidence that is often in the hands of Internet service providers," Mr. Gonzales said in remarks at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. "This evidence will be available for us to use only if the providers retain the records for a reasonable amount of time," he said.

An executive of one Internet provider that was represented at the first meeting said Mr. Gonzales began the discussion by showing slides of child pornography from the Internet. But later, one participant asked Mr. Mueller why he was interested in the Internet records. The executive said Mr. Mueller's reply was, "We want this for terrorism."

At the meeting with privacy experts yesterday, Justice Department officials focused on wanting to retain the records for use in child pornography and terrorism investigations. But they also talked of their value in investigating other crimes like intellectual property theft and fraud, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, who attended the session.

"It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement," Mr. Rotenberg said.

Kate Dean, the executive director of the United States Internet Service Provider Association, a trade group, said: "When they said they were talking about child pornography, we spent a lot of time developing proposals for what could be done. Now they are talking about a whole different ball of wax."

At the meeting with privacy groups, officials sought to assuage concerns that the retention of the records could compromise the privacy of Americans. But Mr. Rotenberg said he left with lingering concerns.

"This is a sharp departure from current practice," he said. "Data retention is an open-ended obligation to retain all information on all customers for all purposes, and from a traditional Fourth Amendment perspective, that really turns things upside down."

Executives of several Internet companies that participated in the first meeting said the department's initial proposals seemed expensive and unwieldy.

At the meeting scheduled for today with executives of Internet access companies, Justice Department officials plan to go into more detail about what types of records they would like to see retained and for how long, said a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It will be much more nuts-and-bolts discussions," he said, adding that the department would stop short of offering formal proposals.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13490.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/washington/02records.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Japan: Government eyeing financial sanctions on Iran

Government eyeing financial sanctions on Iran
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The government is considering imposing financial sanctions on Iran if it continues to reject demands from world powers, including the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, that it scrap its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment, sources said Saturday.
The government would ban the remittance of money from Japan to Iran under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law if Iran refuses to comply with the demands, the sources said.
Japan has maintained a stance of seeking a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran's nuclear problem. But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday expressed his intention to reject the offer of a package of incentives for Iran, agreed by the five Security Council members and Germany, in return for his country ending its uranium enrichment activities.
The government has therefore started discussing the imposition of financial sanctions.
A senior Foreign Ministry official said, "It would be impossible for Japan to be the sole country to oppose sanctions declared by the United Nations or the U.S.-led 'coalition of the willing.'"
High-ranking officials from Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United States met in London in late May to discuss the Iran nuclear problem and possible mechanisms for imposing sanctions on Tehran.
Another senior Foreign Ministry official said, "Japan has been discussing with the United States at various levels, through the London meeting and on other occasions, the scope of a ban by Japan on [financial] transactions with Iran if sanctions were to be imposed on the country."
If Tokyo participates in the sanctions, it is possible that Tehran would retaliate by halting crude oil exports.
That would have serious implications for the Japanese economy because this country depends on Iran for about 15 percent of its crude oil imports.
In addition, the imposition of sanctions likely would hamper the joint development of the Azadegan oil field in Iran by the two nations.
In spite of such concerns, the government is considering financial sanctions against Iran because the United States has been increasingly critical of Japan's stance on the Iran crisis.
A high-ranking U.S. government official said Japan was being too soft on Iran because it attaches too much importance to its economic interests.
Another senior Foreign Ministry official said: "If Japan demands that North Korea stop its nuclear development program but continues to take a soft line toward Iran, that would be seen by the international community as a double standard. As things stand, Japan is setting a bad example to the international community."
But Japan's participation in sanctions against Iran is still seen as the worst-case scenario.
The government remains hopeful that a solution to the dispute can be found through diplomatic means, the sources said.
(Jun. 4, 2006) http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060604TDY01002.htm

The shocking truth about the American occupation of Iraq

http://www.worldsocialism.org/
The shocking truth about the American occupation of Iraq Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave? The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of America's army of the slums go further? By Robert Fisk06/03/06 "The Independent" -- -- I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds."What kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Just who is doing the mass killing? Who is dumping so many bodies on garbage heaps? After Haditha, we are going to reshape our suspicions. It's no good saying "a few bad apples." All occupation armies are corrupted. But do they all commit war crimes? The Algerians are still uncovering the mass graves left by the French paras who liquidated whole villages. We know of the rapist-killers of the Russian army in Chechnya. We have all heard of Bloody Sunday. The Israelis sat and watched while their proxy Lebanese militia butchered and eviscerated its way through 1,700 Palestinians. And of course the words My Lai are now uttered again. Yes, the Nazis were much worse. And the Japanese. And the Croatian Ustashi. But this is us. This is our army. These young soldiers are our representatives in Iraq. And they have innocent blood on their hands.I suspect part of the problem is that we never really cared about Iraqis, which is why we refused to count their dead. Once the Iraqis turned upon the army of occupation with their roadside bombs and suicide cars, they became Arab "gooks," the evil sub-humans whom the Americans once identified in Vietnam. Get a president to tell us that we are fighting evil and one day we will wake to find that a child has horns, a baby has cloven feet. Remind yourself these people are Muslims and they can all become little Mohamed Attas. Killing a roomful of civilians is only a step further from all those promiscuous air strikes that we are told kill 'terrorists" but which all too often turn out to be a wedding party or -- as in Afghanistan -- a mixture of "terrorists" and children or, as we are soon to hear, no doubt, "terrorist children."In a way, we reporters are also to blame. Unable to venture outside Baghdad -- or around Baghdad itself -- Iraq's vastness has fallen under a thick, all-consuming shadow. We might occasionally notice sparks in the night -- a Haditha or two in the desert -- but we remain meekly cataloguing the numbers of "terrorists" supposedly scored in remote corners of Mesopotamia. For fear of the insurgent's knife, we can no longer investigate. And the Americans like it that way.I think it becomes a habit, this sort of thing. Already the horrors of Abu Ghraib are shrugged away. It was abuse, not torture. And then up pops a junior officer in the United States charged for killing an Iraqi army general by stuffing him upside down in a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest. And again, it gets few headlines. Who cares if another Iraqi bites the dust? Aren't they trying to kill our boys who are out there fighting terror. For who can be held to account when we regard ourselves as the brightest, the most honorable of creatures, doing endless battle with the killers of Sept. 11 or July 7 because we love our country and our people -- but not other people -- so much. And so we dress ourselves up as Galahads, yes as Crusaders, and we tell those whose countries we invade that we are going to bring them democracy. I can't help wondering today how many of the innocents slaughtered in Haditha took the opportunity to vote in the Iraqi elections -- before their "liberators" murdered them
Robert Fisk latest book is "The Great War for Civilisation : The Conquest of the Middle East" © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13491.htm

Normalizing the Unthinkable

Normalizing the UnthinkableJohn Pilger, Robert Fisk, Charlie Glass, and Seymour Hersh on the failure of the world’s pressBy Sophie McNeill06/03/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The late journalist Edward R. Murrow might well have been rolling in his grave on April 21. That’s because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a lecture that day in Washington, DC to journalists at the Department of State’s official Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists. For the Bush administration to use the memory of a person who stood up to government propaganda is ironic to say the least. Secretary Rice told the assembled journalists that “without a free press to report on the activities of government, to ask questions of officials, to be a place where citizens can express themselves, democracy simply couldn’t work.”One week earlier in New York City, Columbia University hosted a panel on the state of the world’s media that would have been more in Murrow’s style than the State Department-run symposium. Reporter and filmmaker John Pilger, British Middle East correspondent for the Independent Robert Fisk, freelance reporter Charlie Glass, and investigative journalist for the New Yorker Seymour Hersh appeared together at this April 14 event.Before the afternoon panel began, I met up with John Pilger at his hotel. He’d just flown in from London and was only in New York for the panel before flying to Caracas, Venezuela the next day. A journalist for over 30 years, Pilger has reported from Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Palestine, and Iraq—to name a few of the countries to which his investigative reporting and filmmaking had taken him. Pilger told me that he’d never been as concerned about the state of the media as he was today. “I think there’s a lot of reasons to be very concerned about the information or the lack of information that we get. There’s never been such an interest, more than an interest, almost an obsession, in controlling what journalists have to say.”Despite the fact that the war in Iraq is reported daily in most U.S. newspapers and networks around the world, Pilger didn’t think the world’s press accurately conveyed the reality of life for Iraqi civilians. “We get the illusion that we are seeing what might be happening in Iraq. But what we’re getting is a massive censorship by omission; so much is being left out,” he said. “We have a situation in Iraq where well over 100,000 civilians have been killed and we have virtually no pictures. The control of that by the Pentagon has been quite brilliant. And as a result we have no idea of the extent of civilians suffering in that country.”I asked Pilger what the untold story of Iraq was that’s just not getting through. “Well, the untold story of Iraq should be obvious,” Pilger said. “But it never is. The untold story of Vietnam was that it was an invasion and that huge numbers of civilians were killed. And in effect it was a war against civilians and that was never told and that’s exactly true of Iraq.”With the majority of the world’s press holed up behind 4.5 miles of concrete barrier in the green zone, it seems impossible for the standard of reporting to improve anytime in the near future. I asked Pilger if he blamed journalists for not wanting to put their lives at risk? “No, I can’t,” he said. “But I don’t see the point of being in the green zone. I don’t see the point of wearing a flak jacket and standing in a hotel in a fortress guarded by an invader.“But there have been journalists—and others—who have actually gone with the insurgents; who have reported about them. One of them, for instance, is a young woman named Jo Wilding, a British human rights worker. She was in Fallujah all through that first attack in 2004. Jo Wilding’s dispatches were some of the most extraordinary I’ve read, but they were never published anywhere.”Pilger said the mainstream press needs to get over its hang up of “our man in Baghdad” and prioritize whatever information can be obtained by whoever is brave enough or has the best contacts. “There are sources of information for what is happening inside Iraq. Most of them are on the web. I think those who give a damn in the mainstream really have to look at those sources and surrender their prejudice about them and say we need that reporter’s work because he or she has told us something we can’t possibly get ourselves. And I think that’s the only way we will really serve the public.”We had talked too long and had to quickly jump in a cab to make it to the panel on time. The hall was packed with university students, professors, and the public. Charlie GlassThe event quickly got underway with Charlie Glass as the first speaker. A former ABC America correspondent in the Middle East, Glass drew laughs from the crowd when comparing his experience to the other panelists. “When I began journalism I approached it in the way a lot of young naïve people do, in that it was a vocation, a higher calling to tell the truth. My three colleagues up here have managed to do that throughout their careers. I tried very hard to do that throughout my career…but I worked for an American network. It’s not easy,” joked Glass. Glass spoke about the censorship he had encountered as an American TV reporter covering the Middle East, referring to a story he filed during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. There had been rumors of Israeli Shin Bath death squads murdering Lebanese civilians in the South and Glass and his crew had managed to film the evidence behind these killings. “We nailed this story. We folded one of the death squads. We got to the palace where they had assassinated a man half an hour after he had been killed. We filmed it. We filmed the eyewitness. We filmed UN soldiers, who had seen the same things, discussing it,” recalled Glass. “ABC news didn’t broadcast it. But they won’t tell you they’re not going to broadcast it because they’re afraid of losing advertising. They won’t tell you they won’t broadcast it because they’re afraid of the public reaction. They tell you they just didn’t have room that night or the next night or the next night. And that’s just the way it is. That is why very few people in this country have any idea what’s going on in the Middle East.”Glass believes this kind of censorship has led to a chasm of misunderstanding within the U.S. public. “You don’t understand what’s been going on in Iraq because you’ve been lied to again. Just like you were in Vietnam. Just like you were in Lebanon and just like you were in the West Bank and Gaza,” he said. “Nobody has a clue why things went wrong in Iraq. Well, I’ll tell you why. They were always going to go wrong in Iraq. It wasn’t because Bremer screwed up. It wasn’t because the U.S. pilfered the Iraqi treasury, which is true. It wasn’t because some soldiers misbehaved and shot some people in cars. It was because it could never go right in Iraq,” Glass insisted. “The U.S. was not trusted by any Iraqi because the U.S. history in Iraq was so reprehensible—from the betrayal of the Kurds in 1975 when Henry Kissinger sold them out and they were massacred in the tens of thousands by Saddam, from the time they aided Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war, from the time they betrayed the Kurdish and Shia rebellions in 1991, from the sanctions regime that followed.“Who would trust a power to liberate them who had already behaved like that? It isn’t a question of what happened after; it’s a question of what happened before. We had an obligation to tell what happened before and we didn’t,” Glass said, before pausing to take a moment. “I’ve lost my vocation. I actually don’t really like this profession anymore,” Glass said regrettably.Robert FiskNext to speak was Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, arguably the world’s most experienced Western reporter in the region. Fisk pulled out a copy of the New York Times and spread it out on the lectern. “This is from this morning’s paper: Al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq gets encouragement from HQ,” Fisk read aloud. “An interior minister official said, officials said, the American military said, the Iraqi government said, some American officials here observed, and some military officials have said, two American intelligence officials said, one Pakistani official said, and I’ve only got to column two,” Fisk exclaimed. “I’ve always believed that your major newspaper should be called ‘American Officials Say.’ Then you can just scrap all the reporting and have the Pentagon talking directly.”Fisk expressed outrage at the semantics of language that occurs within much of the reporting in the Middle East. “In the American press the occupied Palestinian territories become the disputed territories, a colony becomes a settlement or a neighborhood or an outpost. Here semantically, we are constantly degrading the reasons for Palestinian anger. Over and over again the wall becomes a fence. Like the Berlin fence— had it been built by the Israelis, that’s what it would have been called. Then for anyone who doesn’t know the real semantics of this conflict, the Palestinians are generically violent. I mean who would ever protest over a garden fence or a neighborhood? The purpose of this kind of journalism is to diminish the real reasons behind the Middle East conflict.”Fisk went on to explain why he thinks the manipulation of language in reporting skews the truth. “We have another phrase we are introducing now. Have you noticed how these extraordinary creatures keep popping up in reports from Baghdad? ‘Men in police uniform’ took part in the kidnapping. ‘Men in police uniform’ abducted Margaret Hassan. ‘Men in army uniform’ besieged police stations,” Fisk said, somewhat exasperated. “Now do the reporters writing this garbage actually think there is a warehouse in Fallujah with eight thousand made to measure police uniforms for insurgents?” Fisk asked, then answered. “Of course there aren’t, they are the policemen.”Fisk’s main criticism was reserved for television coverage of the conflict. “Television connives at war because it will not show you the reality. If an Iraqi is lucky enough to die in a romantic position he will get on the air,” Fisk said. He then added, “But if he doesn’t have a head on or if he is like most of the victims, torn to bits, you will not see him.”Fisk talked of his television colleague’s pictures being routinely censored by producers and editors back home. “I’ve heard them say this down the line, ‘It’s pornographic to show these pictures. We’ve got people at breakfast time; they will be puking over their cornflakes... We can’t show this.’ My favorite one is ‘We’ve got to respect the dead.’ We can kill them as much as we want, but once they’re dead we’ve got to respect them, right? And so you will be shielded from this war. You will be shielded from this reality.”Fisk believes having journalists holed up in the green zone suits the military forces in Iraq. “The Americans, and to a lesser extent the British, like it this way. They do not want us moving around. They do not want us going to the mortuaries and counting the dead.” Fisk told of an experience he had when visiting a Baghdad mortuary in August 2005. “The mortuary officials, against the law of Iraq, which doesn’t count for much at the moment, let me see the Ministry of Health computer that American and British officials have ordered the ministry not to allow Western journalists access to…which showed that in July alone last year 1,100 Iraqis had died by violence, just in Baghdad.”Fisk challenged the standard reporting conventions hammered into journalism student’s heads around the world. “There’s one that comes up from the journalism school system which is you’ve got to give equal time to both sides,” explained Fisk. “To which I say well, if you were reporting the slave trade in the 18th century, would you give equal time to the slave ship captain? No. If you’re covering the liberation of a Nazi camp, do you give equal time to the SS spokesman? No. When I covered a Palestinian suicide bombing of a restaurant in Israeli west Jerusalem in August 2001, did I give equal time to the Islamic jihad spokesman? No. When 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, did I give equal time to the Israeli spokesman, who of course was representing an army who watched the massacre as its Lebanese Phalangist allies carried it out? No. Journalists should be on the side of the victims,” Fisk said.He closed with a sober warning to viewers and readers closely following the Iraq war coverage. “We have a real disaster on our hands because the American project in Iraq is dead and don’t believe anything anyone else tells you in any newspaper. It is a catastrophe and every reporter working in Iraq knows it, but they don’t all tell you that,” Fisk said, pausing. “And that is our shame.”John PilgerJohn Pilger addressed the audience next by challenging the very idea that America and its allies are at war. “We are not at war. Instead, American and British troops are fighting insurrections in countries where our invasions have caused mayhem and grief...but you wouldn’t know it. Where are the pictures of these atrocities?”Pilger referred to the first wars he covered, Vietnam and Cambodia, and compared the role of journalists then to today. “The invasion of Vietnam was deliberate and calculated—as were policies and strategies that bordered on genocide and were designed to force millions of people to abandon their homes. Experimental weapons were used against civilians. All of this was rarely news. The unspoken task of the reporter in Vietnam, as it was in Korea, was to normalize the unthinkable. And that has not changed.” Pilger went on to explain his reaction to current reporting of events in Iraq. “The other day, on the third anniversary of the invasion, a BBC newsreader described the invasion as a ‘miscalculation.’ Not illegal. Not unprovoked. Not based on lies. But a miscalculation. Thus, the unthinkable is normalized. By concentrating on military pronouncements. By making it seem like it is a respectable war, you normalize what is the unthinkable. And the unthinkable is a war against civilians. It’s a war that has claimed tens of thousands of people. There are estimates that put it well over 100,000. When journalists report it as a respectable geopolitical act and promote the idea that it was to bring democracy to this country, then they’re normalizing the unthinkable.”Pilger turned his attention to the BBC. Generally accepted worldwide as a reputable and independent source of information, Pilger rejected this notion outright. “In Britain, where I live, the BBC, which promotes itself as a sort of nirvana of objectivity and impartiality and truth, has blood all over its corporate hands.” Pilger cited a study conducted by the journalism school of the University College in Cardiff that found in the lead up to the war, 90 percent of the BBC’s references to weapons of mass destruction suggested Saddam Hussein actually possessed them.Pilger added, “We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by MI-6, the secret intelligence service. In what they called Operation Mass Appeal, MI-6 agents planted stories about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All of these stories were fake. But that’s not the point. The point is that the role of MI-6 was quite unnecessary because a systematic media self-censorship produced the same result.”To Pilger the most significant way journalists are used by government is in what he calls a “softening up process” before planned military action. “We soften them up by dehumanizing them. Currently journalists are softening up Iran, Syria, and Venezuela,” Pilger said. “A few weeks ago Channel 4 News in Britain, regarded as a good liberal news service, carried a major item that might have been broadcast by the State Department. The reporter presented President Chavez of Venezuela as a cartoon character, a sinister buffoon whose folksy Latin way disguised a man, and I quote, ‘in danger of joining a rogues gallery of dictators and despots—Washington’s latest Latin nightmare.’“Rumsfeld was allowed to call Chavez ‘Hitler’ unchallenged. According to the reporter, Venezuela under Chavez was helping Iran develop nuclear weapons. No evidence was given for this bullshit.” He cited a recent report by the media watchdog FAIR, which found that 95 percent of the 100 media commentaries surveyed expressed hostility to Chavez, with terms such as “dictator,” “strongman,” and “demagogue” regularly used in publications such as the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. “The softening-up of Venezuela is well advanced in the United States. So that if or when the Bush administration launches Operation Bilbao, a contingent plan to overthrow the democratic government of Venezuela, who will care? We will have only the media version, another lousy demagogue got what was coming to him. A triumph of censorship by omission and by journalism,” he concluded. Seymour HershThe last speaker, Seymour Hersh, had just published his report on the Bush administration’s secret plans for an attack on Iran, which he spoke about. “Here we’ve got a situation, which is really unique in our history. This is a president who is completely inured to the press. It doesn’t matter what we write or say. He has got his own vision, whether he’s talking to God or doing things on behalf of what his father didn’t do or whatever it is. He has his own messianic view of what to do and he’s not done,” warned Hersh.The moderator questioned Hersh about his use of anonymous sources and the possibility that his Iran story was from a government plant. “It’s an appropriate question,” he remarked. “People would say are you part of the process, trying to put pressure on the Iranians by using psychological warfare and planting the story? I really wish they had that kind of cunning…that they would think in a Kissingerian way,” he laughed. “But the fact is with George Bush, it’s been very consistent. What you see is what you get.”“It was not a plant,” Hersh explained. “This [report] came from people willing to take bullets for us… willing to put their lives on the line, who understand combat and who are scared to death about this guy in the White House.” Hersh went on to warn the audience about what he thought would happen with the Bush administration and Iran; “Folks, don’t bet against it because he’s probably going to do it; because somebody up there is telling him this is the right thing to do.”Hersh considered the damning words of his colleagues. “Yes, it’s important to beat up on us. As usual we deserve it. As usual we failed you totally,” Hersh remarked wearily. “But above and beyond all that, folks, by my count there are something like 1,011 days left in the reign of King George the Lesser and that is the bad news. But there is good news. And the good news is that tomorrow when we wake up there will be one less day.”To a large round of applause, the afternoon ended. I asked Pilger his final thoughts. He paused and then replied, “Journalists, like politicians, like anybody really, should be called to account for the consequences of their actions. Journalists have played a critical role in sustaining wars. Starting them and sustaining them. And we have to face that discussion. There’s nothing wrong with journalism, it’s a wonderful privilege, it’s a craft actually, and I’m very proud to be a journalist. But it’s the way it’s practiced. It’s as if it has been hijacked by corporatism and we should take it back.” Sophie McNeill is a freelance video journalist whose work regularly appears on Australia’s SBS Television “Dateline” program. She lives in New York
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13492.htm

The Pentagon's Shaky Self-Exoneration

Return to Ishaqi: The Pentagon's Shaky Self-Exoneration By Chris Floyd 06/03/06 "Empire Burlesque" -- - It seems that the Pentagon, that veritable fount of veracity, has probed itself for the alleged execution-style slaying of civilians in Ishaqi, and found that the operation -- which left 11 civilians dead, including five children under the age of five -- was in fact an exemplary feat of arms, strictly by the book. Everything happened pretty much the way they originally said it happened: soldiers seeking a dastardly al-Qaeda operative (now more circumspectly described as a man suspected of being an al-Qaeda operative) took fire during the pursuit and responded with heavy force: air power and ground assault on the suspect's redoubt, which just happened to be someone's house. In the course of the textbook op, which we're told killed the al-Qaednik and a local bombmaker, there were also three "noncombatant" deaths, and an estimated nine "collateral deaths." (The difference between these two categories is not explained. And of course it doesn't matter to the innocent people killed; whether they are "non-combatants" or "collaterals," they're still just as dead. No doubt there are strict bureaucratic guidelines behind these distinctions.) These deaths are regrettable, of course, but such things happen as unintended consequences of noble causes, and no doubt there will be a bit of loose change doled out to the innocent victims' families.So that's that then. Nothing to see here, time to move on... And you know, I really wish we could. No one here takes any pleasure or satisfaction from reports of yet another egregious failure of the human spirit, yet another eruption of the bestiality that lies buried in the mud of our brains. This is true in any case, anywhere, but it is doubly true if the crimes are done in the name of your own country. And any time that such a report turns out to be mistaken is a cause for joy.By the way, this is what the powerful -- and their sycophants -- always fail to understand: no genuine dissident is happy about dissenting. You dissent because you see injustice, crime, corruption and needless death being wrought by the power structures of your own society. You dissent because so many lies have been forced down your throat, and you just want to know the truth, as far as it can be known, you just want to speak the truth, whatever it may be. You dissent because of the reality that you see. And this is a painful thing; it's like watching a family member go bad, like learning your own father is a killer, that your mother is thief. No one wants to believe evil of their own country, their own society; but sometimes the very ideals that you were given by your society -- a commitment to justice, to truth, the belief in the inherent worth and moral agency of every individual human being -- compels you to confront the reality of the crimes and corruption of the leaders and institutions of that same society.It isn't fun; there's no pleasure in it. Especially if, with Dostoevsky, you believe that "each is responsible for all," that you yourself are implicated in every failure of humanity. Bob Dylan captured the essence of this kind of dissent well when he sang of the great iconoclast, Lenny Bruce:
He fought a war on a battlefieldWhere every victory hurts. So yes, it would be nice to be able to accept at face value the Pentagon's exonerating version of the incident at Ishaqi. (Relatively speaking, of course; that is to say, in the murderous context of the vast atrocity that is the Iraq war itself, it would be better to accept the Pentagon's assertion that the deaths of up these innocent people were simply the inevitable and unintended by-product of urban warfare, rather than the more grisly alternative. It would be good to have this slight mitigation of the general horror.) But a commitment to the truth -- and a refusal to succumb to historical amnesia -- prevents such an automatic acceptance. For this is the same Pentagon that whitewashed the Haditha killings not once, but twice (with two different stories) after the massacre there last year. This is the same Pentagon whose innumerable investigations into itself during these crimeful Bush years have only managed to peel a few "bad apples" plucked from the bottom of the barrel, despite the extraordinarily vast and systematic nature of the regimens of torture and atrocity established by the Bush Administration, as Amnesty International has pointed out in an important new study. Such elaborate systems cannot have been constructed and operated without orders -- direct and implied -- from the very highest reaches of government and the military command. Yet the Pentagon has employed oceans of whitewash to protect the brass, while grudgingly throwing a few bits of cannon fodder and trailer trash -- as the Bushist elite would see them -- on the fire to serve, in the words of Breaker Morant, as "scapegoats of the empire."Thus, in a general sense, you would be foolish to accept the result of any of the Pentagon's self-investigations at face value, without independent corroboration. This kind of cynicism is, again, painful and unpleasant, but it has been forced upon us by the many, many lies that have emanated from that five-sided fortress over many decades. This is not to say that every Pentagon self-exoneration is false or incomplete, or that there are not many honorable military investigators doing sterling -- and thankless -- work. (The current Haditha probe -- although belated, and problematic in many respects, is an example of this.) It's merely acknowledging the indisputable reality of history -- and certainly of the current war -- that the Pentagon brass habitually lie and dissemble and look the other way when it comes to allegations of atrocities by US forces. It's only prudent to reserve judgment on any institution that investigates itself for wrongdoing. Or put it this way: if you're ever charged with murder or bank fraud or dope dealing or tax dodging, ask the cops if you can investigate yourself, and see what they say.But the Ishaqi exoneration warrants skepticism not only in this general sense, but also in its particulars. From press accounts of the report, it largely reiterates the Pentagon's original storyline, while enlarging the death count from the original "four civilians, including one child," which it had held to until this week, when the Haditha story spilled out. And the report apparently just dismisses out of hand the large amount of credible evidence that contradicts the Pentagon's latest story. First is the photographic evidence: pictures taken of the aftermath by Agence France Presse, and a video that emerged this week on BBC. These clearly dispute the Pentagon's account, which holds that the house was first raked with gunfire, then attack by helicopter gunships, then finally bombed by American jets: a massive barrage of firepower that left the house in ruins. But the video shows that part of the house was left standing. The photographs, which have been widely available for months, show five dead children, one of them only a few months old. They have been laid out by grieving relatives. Their bodies show no signs of having been ripped up or damaged in the course of an all-out air and ground assault; as the BBC's John Simpson points out, they had not been crushed by the collapse of the house, as the Pentagon claimed. Instead, they are unmarked, their clothes dusty but in most cases untorn. In the photographs I saw, one child clearly has blood oozing from the back of her head, while the baby has a hole in his forehead, and other damage to his face. The other children are laid on their back, with their wounds invisible, their bodies remarkably whole. Simpson, shown viewing the film, said it was clear that the children had been shot. Second is the testimony of the villagers, and of two officials of the U.S.-backed Iraqi police, Major Ali Ahmed and Colonel Farouq Hussein. These are men who risk their lives by their cooperation with the Coalition. The villagers say soldiers entered the house and killed the occupants; the house was later hit by the helicopter then bombed, apparently to cover up the killings, some of the villagers surmised. The Iraqi police said "all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head." Later, a Knight-Ridder reporter saw a preliminary report indicating that the 11 victims had multiple wounds. This tallies with Simpson's viewing, which showed that one of the dead children had been shot in the side. Everyone who saw or examined the bodies agreed that the victims had been shot, most likely by bullets from the large pile of American-issue cartridges found inside the house, which can also be seen on the video.Also dismissed by the Pentagon is the testimony of Ahmed Khalaf, brother of house's owner, who told AP that nine of the victims were family members and two were visitors, adding, "the killed family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children. The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."Not a single villager, not a single local police official agrees with the Pentagon version of the attack. Are they all lying, even the "collaborators" with the occupation? Not likely. Are they confused or uncertain about the exact sequence of events? Naturally; the only Iraqis who know exactly what happened in that house are dead. Are there discrepancies between the early reports on the bodies' conditions, i.e., where they all shot in the head, or were some shot in other parts of their bodies, and were they all bound before they were shot, or just some of them, or perhaps none of them? Yes, there are discrepancies. The video, seen in its incomplete form on BBC, does not clearly bear out the charge that the victims had been bound. The video doesn't show all the victims, but those being pulled from the house do not appear to be bound, although in the version I saw, most of the bodies shown had already been wrapped in rugs or blankets. But is there any disputing the photographic evidence that the victims, particularly the children, were shot, not crushed by the collapsing walls? No, this reality cannot be denied, despite the Pentagon's report. Is there any disputing the evidence that the children were killed by single shots, and not, say, riddled with bullets in the course of a cross-fire between US forces and insurgents? No, this reality cannot be denied either. Someone fired a single shot into the bodies of every child on display in the photographs, which were taken by a Western news agency, and corroborated by a representative of another Western news agency, Associated Press, who was also on the scene after the attack.What can we conclude from all this? That there was indeed a Haditha-style execution of the innocent at Ishaqi? No; the limited amount of evidence that we can gather on the incident -- at a distance, from press reports -- does not on its face categorically prove a deliberate massacre. To categorically prove such an allegation -- or categorically disprove it -- would require a thorough, completely independent investigation. We can say that the available evidence gives many deeply troubling indications that some kind of atrocity indeed occurred at Ishaqi. And we can say that key portions of the Pentagon's self-exoneration are flatly contradicted by photographic evidence, and also by the credible testimony from villagers, US-backed Iraqi officials and Western news agencies (including Reuters, Knight-Ridder, AFP and AP) as to the nature of the victims' fatal wounds. The Pentagon's hastily-announced report on Ishaqi does not answer all the questions and charges raised by the incident; indeed, it seems not to have even addressed some of them. The whole truth of what happened in the village will remain uncertain until it can be investigated by an independent, impartial and authoritative agency. And we know this will never happen.Finally, let's put the incident in its proper context by quoting the conclusion from our original post on Ishaqi:
We know that the American troops who caused the deaths of these children – either by tying them up and shooting them, an unspeakable atrocity, or else "merely" by storming or bombing a house full of civilians in a night raid "with both air and ground assets" – were sent to Iraq on a demonstrably false mission to "disarm" weapons that did not exist and take revenge for 9/11 on a nation that had nothing to do with the attack. And we now know that the White House – and George W. Bush specifically – knew all along that the intelligence did not and could not support the public case he had made for the war.We know that the only reason that this dead baby has his arm frozen to his lifeless face is that three years ago this week, George W. Bush gave the order to begin the unprovoked, unjust and unnecessary invasion of Iraq. He hasn't fired a single shot or launched a single missile; he hasn't tortured or killed any prisoners; he hasn't kidnapped or beheaded civilians or planted bombs along roadsides, in mosques or marketplaces. Yet every single atrocity of the war – on both sides – and every single death caused by the war, and every act of religious repression perpetrated by the extremist sects empowered by the war, is the direct result of the decision made by George W. Bush three years ago. Nothing he says can change this fact; nothing he does, or causes to be done, for good or ill, can wash the blood of these children – and the tens of thousands of other innocent civilians killed in the war – from his hands. *Note: "Ishaqi" now seems to be the preferred transliteration of the town''s name. In our earlier reports, we used "Isahaqi," one of several versions that came out in the early news reports.*UPDATE: The BBC reports this afternoon that the Iraqi government has officially rejected the Pentagon's investigation into the Ishaqi killings. Excerpt:
The Iraqi government has rejected the findings of a US military investigation into the deaths of 11 civilians in the village of Ishaqi, north of Baghdad.A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said the report, which cleared the US soldiers of wrongdoing, was unfair. The government will demand an apology and compensation, the spokesman said.
Visit Chris Floyds Website www.chris-floyd.com

Why it's over for America

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=informati06f8-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26index=blended%26keyword=Failed%20States

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article621899.ece
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13426.htm

Why it's over for America An inability to protect its citizens. The belief that it is above the law. A lack of democracy. Three defining characteristics of the 'failed state'. And that, says Noam Chomsky, is exactly what the US is becoming. In an exclusive extract from his devastating new book, America's leading thinker explains how his country lost its way By Noam Chomsky05/30/06 "The Independent" -- -- The selection of issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights is, naturally, a subjective matter. But there are a few choices that seem unavoidable, because they bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival. Among them are at least these three: nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's leading power is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of these catastrophes. It is important to stress the government, because the population, not surprisingly, does not agree. That brings up a fourth issue that should deeply concern Americans, and the world: the sharp divide between public opinion and public policy, one of the reasons for the fear, which cannot casually be put aside, that, as Gar Alperowitz puts it in America Beyond Capitalism, "the American 'system' as a whole is in real trouble - that it is heading in a direction that spells the end of its historic values [of] equality, liberty, and meaningful democracy".The "system" is coming to have some of the features of failed states, to adopt a currently fashionable notion that is conventionally applied to states regarded as potential threats to our security (like Iraq) or as needing our intervention to rescue the population from severe internal threats (like Haiti). Though the concept is recognised to be, according to the journal Foreign Affairs, "frustratingly imprecise", some of the primary characteristics of failed states can be identified. One is their inability or unwillingness to protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction. Another is their tendency to regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and hence free to carry out aggression and violence. And if they have democratic forms, they suffer from a serious "democratic deficit" that deprives their formal democratic institutions of real substance.Among the hardest tasks that anyone can undertake, and one of the most important, is to look honestly in the mirror. If we allow ourselves to do so, we should have little difficulty in finding the characteristics of "failed states" right at home. No one familiar with history should be surprised that the growing democratic deficit in the United States is accompanied by declaration of messianic missions to bring democracy to a suffering world. Declarations of noble intent by systems of power are rarely complete fabrication, and the same is true in this case. Under some conditions, forms of democracy are indeed acceptable. Abroad, as the leading scholar-advocate of "democracy promotion" concludes, we find a "strong line of continuity": democracy is acceptable if and only if it is consistent with strategic and economic interests (Thomas Carothers). In modified form, the doctrine holds at home as well.The basic dilemma facing policymakers is sometimes candidly recognised at the dovish liberal extreme of the spectrum, for example, by Robert Pastor, President Carter's national security adviser for Latin America. He explained why the administration had to support the murderous and corrupt Somoza regime in Nicaragua, and, when that proved impossible, to try at least to maintain the US-trained National Guard even as it was massacring the population "with a brutality a nation usually reserves for its enemy", killing some 40,000 people. The reason was the familiar one: "The United States did not want to control Nicaragua or the other nations of the region, but it also did not want developments to get out of control. It wanted Nicaraguans to act independently, except when doing so would affect US interests adversely."Similar dilemmas faced Bush administration planners after their invasion of Iraq. They want Iraqis "to act independently, except when doing so would affect US interests adversely". Iraq must therefore be sovereign and democratic, but within limits. It must somehow be constructed as an obedient client state, much in the manner of the traditional order in Central America. At a general level, the pattern is familiar, reaching to the opposite extreme of institutional structures. The Kremlin was able to maintain satellites that were run by domestic political and military forces, with the iron fist poised. Germany was able to do much the same in occupied Europe even while it was at war, as did fascist Japan in Man-churia (its Manchukuo). Fascist Italy achieved similar results in North Africa while carrying out virtual genocide that in no way harmed its favourable image in the West and possibly inspired Hitler. Traditional imperial and neocolonial systems illustrate many variations on similar themes.To achieve the traditional goals in Iraq has proven to be surprisingly difficult, despite unusually favourable circumstances. The dilemma of combining a measure of independence with firm control arose in a stark form not long after the invasion, as mass non-violent resistance compelled the invaders to accept far more Iraqi initiative than they had anticipated. The outcome even evoked the nightmarish prospect of a more or less democratic and sovereign Iraq taking its place in a loose Shiite alliance comprising Iran, Shiite Iraq, and possibly the nearby Shiite-dominated regions of Saudi Arabia, controlling most of the world's oil and independent of Washington.The situation could get worse. Iran might give up on hopes that Europe could become independent of the United States, and turn eastward. Highly relevant background is discussed by Selig Harrison, a leading specialist on these topics. "The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the European Union were based on a bargain that the EU, held back by the US, has failed to honour," Harrison observes."The bargain was that Iran would suspend uranium enrichment, and the EU would undertake security guarantees. The language of the joint declaration was "unambiguous. 'A mutually acceptable agreement,' it said, would not only provide 'objective guarantees' that Iran's nuclear programme is 'exclusively for peaceful purposes' but would 'equally provide firm commitments on security issues.'"The phrase "security issues" is a thinly veiled reference to the threats by the United States and Israel to bomb Iran, and preparations to do so. The model regularly adduced is Israel's bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, which appears to have initiated Saddam's nuclear weapons programs, another demonstration that violence tends to elicit violence. Any attempt to execute similar plans against Iran could lead to immediate violence, as is surely understood in Washington. During a visit to Tehran, the influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned that his militia would defend Iran in the case of any attack, "one of the strongest signs yet", the Washington Post reported, "that Iraq could become a battleground in any Western conflict with Iran, raising the spectre of Iraqi Shiite militias - or perhaps even the US-trained Shiite-dominated military - taking on American troops here in sympathy with Iran." The Sadrist bloc, which registered substantial gains in the December 2005 elections, may soon become the most powerful single political force in Iraq. It is consciously pursuing the model of other successful Islamist groups, such as Hamas in Palestine, combining strong resistance to military occupation with grassroots social organising and service to the poor.Washington's unwillingness to allow regional security issues to be considered is nothing new. It has also arisen repeatedly in the confrontation with Iraq. In the background is the matter of Israeli nuclear weapons, a topic that Washington bars from international consideration. Beyond that lurks what Harrison rightly describes as "the central problem facing the global non-proliferation regime": the failure of the nuclear states to live up to their nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligation "to phase out their own nuclear weapons" - and, in Washington's case, formal rejection of the obligation.Unlike Europe, China refuses to be intimidated by Washington, a primary reason for the growing fear of China on the part of US planners. Much of Iran's oil already goes to China, and China is providing Iran with weapons, presumably considered a deterrent to US threats. Still more uncomfortable for Washington is the fact that, according to the Financial Times, "the Sino-Saudi relationship has developed dramatically", including Chinese military aid to Saudi Arabia and gas exploration rights for China. By 2005, Saudi Arabia provided about 17 per cent of China's oil imports. Chinese and Saudi oil companies have signed deals for drilling and construction of a huge refinery (with Exxon Mobil as a partner). A January 2006 visit by Saudi king Abdullah to Beijing was expected to lead to a Sino-Saudi memorandum of understanding calling for "increased cooperation and investment between the two countries in oil, natural gas, and minerals".Indian analyst Aijaz Ahmad observes that Iran could "emerge as the virtual linchpin in the making, over the next decade or so, of what China and Russia have come to regard as an absolutely indispensable Asian Energy Security Grid, for breaking Western control of the world's energy supplies and securing the great industrial revolution of Asia". South Korea and southeast Asian countries are likely to join, possibly Japan as well. A crucial question is how India will react. It rejected US pressures to withdraw from an oil pipeline deal with Iran. On the other hand, India joined the United States and the EU in voting for an anti-Iranian resolution at the IAEA, joining also in their hypocrisy, since India rejects the NPT regime to which Iran, so far, appears to be largely conforming. Ahmad reports that India may have secretly reversed its stand under Iranian threats to terminate a $20bn gas deal. Washington later warned India that its "nuclear deal with the US could be ditched" if India did not go along with US demands, eliciting a sharp rejoinder from the Indian foreign ministry and an evasive tempering of the warning by the US embassy.The prospect that Europe and Asia might move toward greater independence has seriously troubled US planners since World War II, and concerns have significantly increased as the tripolar order has continued to evolve, along with new south-south interactions and rapidly growing EU engagement with China.US intelligence has projected that the United States, while controlling Middle East oil for the traditional reasons, will itself rely mainly on more stable Atlantic Basin resources (West Africa, western hemisphere). Control of Middle East oil is now far from a sure thing, and these expectations are also threatened by developments in the western hemisphere, accelerated by Bush administration policies that have left the United States remarkably isolated in the global arena. The Bush administration has even succeeded in alienating Canada, an impressive feat.Canada's minister of natural resources said that within a few years one quarter of the oil that Canada now sends to the United States may go to China instead. In a further blow to Washington's energy policies, the leading oil exporter in the hemisphere, Venezuela, has forged probably the closest relations with China of any Latin American country, and is planning to sell increasing amounts of oil to China as part of its effort to reduce dependence on the openly hostile US government. Latin America as a whole is increasing trade and other relations with China, with some setbacks, but likely expansion, in particular for raw materials exporters like Brazil and Chile.Meanwhile, Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming very close, each relying on its comparative advantage. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil while in return Cuba organises literacy and health programs, sending thousands of highly skilled professionals, teachers, and doctors, who work in the poorest and most neglected areas, as they do elsewhere in the Third World. Cuba-Venezuela projects are extending to the Caribbean countries, where Cuban doctors are providing healthcare to thousands of people with Venezuelan funding. Operation Miracle, as it is called, is described by Jamaica's ambassador to Cuba as "an example of integration and south-south cooperation", and is generating great enthusiasm among the poor majority. Cuban medical assistance is also being welcomed elsewhere. One of the most horrendous tragedies of recent years was the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. In addition to the huge toll, unknown numbers of survivors have to face brutal winter weather with little shelter, food, or medical assistance. One has to turn to the South Asian press to read that "Cuba has provided the largest contingent of doctors and paramedics to Pakistan", paying all the costs (perhaps with Venezuelan funding), and that President Musharraf expressed his "deep gratitude" for the "spirit and compassion" of the Cuban medical teams.Some analysts have suggested that Cuba and Venezuela might even unite, a step towards further integration of Latin America in a bloc that is more independent from the United States. Venezuela has joined Mercosur, the South American customs union, a move described by Argentine president Nestor Kirchner as "a milestone" in the development of this trading bloc, and welcomed as opening "a new chapter in our integration" by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Independent experts say that "adding Venezuela to the bloc furthers its geopolitical vision of eventually spreading Mercosur to the rest of the region".At a meeting to mark Venezuela's entry into Mercosur, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said, "We cannot allow this to be purely an economic project, one for the elites and for the transnational companies," a not very oblique reference to the US-sponsored "Free Trade Agreement for the Americas", which has aroused strong public opposition. Venezuela also supplied Argentina with fuel oil to help stave off an energy crisis, and bought almost a third of Argentine debt issued in 2005, one element of a region-wide effort to free the countries from the control of the US-dominated IMF after two decades of disastrous effects of conformity to its rules. The IMF has "acted towards our country as a promoter and a vehicle of policies that caused poverty and pain among the Argentine people", President Kirchner said in announcing his decision to pay almost $1 trillion to rid itself of the IMF forever. Radically violating IMF rules, Argentina enjoyed a substantial recovery from the disaster left by IMF policies.Steps toward independent regional integration advanced further with the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia in December 2005, the first president from the indigenous majority. Morales moved quickly to reach energy accords with Venezuela.Though Central America was largely disciplined by Reaganite violence and terror, the rest of the hemisphere is falling out of control, particularly from Venezuela to Argentina, which was the poster child of the IMF and the Treasury Department until its economy collapsed under the policies they imposed. Much of the region has left-centre governments. The indigenous populations have become much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador, both major energy producers, where they either want oil and gas to be domestically controlled or, in some cases, oppose production altogether. Many indigenous people apparently do not see any reason why their lives, societies, and cultures should be disrupted or destroyed so that New Yorkers can sit in SUVs in traffic gridlock. Some are even calling for an "Indian nation" in South America. Meanwhile the economic integration that is under way is reversing patterns that trace back to the Spanish conquests, with Latin American elites and economies linked to the imperial powers but not to one another. Along with growing south-south interaction on a broader scale, these developments are strongly influenced by popular organisations that are coming together in the unprecedented international global justice movements, ludicrously called "anti-globalisation" because they favour globalisation that privileges the interests of people, not investors and financial institutions. For many reasons, the system of US global dominance is fragile, even apart from the damage inflicted by Bush planners.One consequence is that the Bush administration's pursuit of the traditional policies of deterring democracy faces new obstacles. It is no longer as easy as before to resort to military coups and international terrorism to overthrow democratically elected governments, as Bush planners learnt ruefully in 2002 in Venezuela. The "strong line of continuity" must be pursued in other ways, for the most part. In Iraq, as we have seen, mass nonviolent resistance compelled Washington and London to permit the elections they had sought to evade. The subsequent effort to subvert the elections by providing substantial advantages to the administration's favourite candidate, and expelling the independent media, also failed. Washington faces further problems. The Iraqi labor movement is making considerable progress despite the opposition of the occupation authorities. The situation is rather like Europe and Japan after World War II, when a primary goal of the United States and United Kingdom was to undermine independent labour movements - as at home, for similar reasons: organised labour contributes in essential ways to functioning democracy with popular engagement. Many of the measures adopted at that time - withholding food, supporting fascist police - are no longer available. Nor is it possible today to rely on the labour bureaucracy of the American Institute for Free Labor Development to help undermine unions. Today, some American unions are supporting Iraqi workers, just as they do in Colombia, where more union activists are murdered than anywhere in the world. At least the unions now receive support from the United Steelworkers of America and others, while Washington continues to provide enormous funding for the government, which bears a large part of the responsibility.The problem of elections arose in Palestine much in the way it did in Iraq. As already discussed, the Bush administration refused to permit elections until the death of Yasser Arafat, aware that the wrong man would win. After his death, the administration agreed to permit elections, expecting the victory of its favoured Palestinian Authority candidates. To promote this outcome, Washington resorted to much the same modes of subversion as in Iraq, and often before. Washington used the US Agency for International Development as an "invisible conduit" in an effort to "increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas" (Washington Post), spending almost $2m "on dozens of quick projects before elections this week to bolster the governing Fatah faction's image with voters" (New York Times). In the United States, or any Western country, even a hint of such foreign interference would destroy a candidate, but deeply rooted imperial mentality legitimates such routine measures elsewhere. However, the attempt to subvert the elections again resoundingly failed.The US and Israeli governments now have to adjust to dealing somehow with a radical Islamic party that approaches their traditional rejectionist stance, though not entirely, at least if Hamas really does mean to agree to an indefinite truce on the international border as its leaders state. The US and Israel, in contrast, insist that Israel must take over substantial parts of the West Bank (and the forgotten Golan Heights). Hamas's refusal to accept Israel's "right to exist" mirrors the refusal of Washington and Jerusalem to accept Palestine's "right to exist" - a concept unknown in international affairs; Mexico accepts the existence of the United States but not its abstract "right to exist" on almost half of Mexico, acquired by conquest. Hamas's formal commitment to "destroy Israel" places it on a par with the United States and Israel, which vowed formally that there could be no "additional Palestinian state" (in addition to Jordan) until they relaxed their extreme rejectionist stand partially in the past few years, in the manner already reviewed. Although Hamas has not said so, it would come as no great surprise if Hamas were to agree that Jews may remain in scattered areas in the present Israel, while Palestine constructs huge settlement and infrastructure projects to take over the valuable land and resources, effectively breaking Israel up into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from some small part of Jerusalem where Jews would also be allowed to remain. And they might agree to call the fragments "a state". If such proposals were made, we would - rightly - regard them as virtually a reversion to Nazism, a fact that might elicit some thoughts. If such proposals were made, Hamas's position would be essentially like that of the United States and Israel for the past five years, after they came to tolerate some impoverished form of "statehood". It is fair to describe Hamas as radical, extremist, and violent, and as a serious threat to peace and a just political settlement. But the organisation is hardly alone in this stance.Elsewhere traditional means of undermining democracy have succeeded. In Haiti, the Bush administration's favourite "democracy-building group, the International Republican Institute", worked assiduously to promote the opposition to President Aristide, helped by the withholding of desperately needed aid on grounds that were dubious at best. When it seemed that Aristide would probably win any genuine election, Washington and the opposition chose to withdraw, a standard device to discredit elections that are going to come out the wrong way: Nicaragua in 1984 and Venezuela in December 2005 are examples that should be familiar. Then followed a military coup, expulsion of the president, and a reign of terror and violence vastly exceeding anything under the elected government.The persistence of the strong line of continuity to the present again reveals that the United States is very much like other powerful states. It pursues the strategic and economic interests of dominant sectors of the domestic population, to the accompaniment of rhetorical flourishes about its dedication to the highest values. That is practically a historical universal, and the reason why sensible people pay scant attention to declarations of noble intent by leaders, or accolades by their followers.One commonly hears that carping critics complain about what is wrong, but do not present solutions. There is an accurate translation for that charge: "They present solutions, but I don't like them." In addition to the proposals that should be familiar about dealing with the crises that reach to the level of survival, a few simple suggestions for the United States have already been mentioned: 1) accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court; 2) sign and carry forward the Kyoto protocols; 3) let the UN take the lead in international crises; 4) rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror; 5) keep to the traditional interpretation of the UN Charter; 6) give up the Security Council veto and have "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind," as the Declaration of Independence advises, even if power centres disagree; 7) cut back sharply on military spending and sharply increase social spending. For people who believe in democracy, these are very conservative suggestions: they appear to be the opinions of the majority of the US population, in most cases the overwhelming majority. They are in radical opposition to public policy. To be sure, we cannot be very confident about the state of public opinion on such matters because of another feature of the democratic deficit: the topics scarcely enter into public discussion and the basic facts are little known. In a highly atomised society, the public is therefore largely deprived of the opportunity to form considered opinions.Another conservative suggestion is that facts, logic, and elementary moral principles should matter. Those who take the trouble to adhere to that suggestion will soon be led to abandon a good part of familiar doctrine, though it is surely much easier to repeat self-serving mantras. Such simple truths carry us some distance toward developing more specific and detailed answers. More important, they open the way to implement them, opportun- ities that are readily within our grasp if we can free ourselves from the shackles of doctrine and imposed illusion.Though it is natural for doctrinal systems to seek to induce pessimism, hopelessness, and despair, reality is different. There has been substantial progress in the unending quest for justice and freedom in recent years, leaving a legacy that can be carried forward from a higher plane than before. Opportunities for education and organising abound. As in the past, rights are not likely to be granted by benevolent authorities, or won by intermittent actions - attending a few demonstrations or pushing a lever in the personalised quadrennial extravaganzas that are depicted as "democratic politics". As always in the past, the tasks require dedicated day-by-day engagement to create - in part recreate - the basis for a functioning democratic culture in which the public plays some role in determining policies, not only in the political arena, from which it is largely excluded, but also in the crucial economic arena, from which it is excluded in principle. There are many ways to promote democracy at home, carrying it to new dimensions. Opportunities are ample, and failure to grasp them is likely to have ominous repercussions: for the country, for the world, and for future generations.This is an edited extract from Failed States by Noam Chomsky (Hamish Hamilton)© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

The War Prayer

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his publisher, and was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. It was first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine's anthology, Europe and Elsewhere.
The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed. See Jim Zwick's page "Mark Twain on the Philippines" for more of Twain's writings on the subject.
Transcribed by Steven Orso (snorso@facstaff.wisc.edu)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2231.htm
http://web.syr.edu/~fjzwick/twain_ph.html