Bowing down to our own violence

April 22, 2007

By Norman Solomon

Many days after the mass killings at Virginia Tech, grisly stories about the tragedy still dominated front pages and cable television. News of carnage on a vastly larger scale -- the war in Iraq -- ebbs and flows. The overall coverage of lethal violence, at home and far away, reflects the chronic evasions of the American media establishment.

In the world of U.S. mainline journalism, the boilerplate legitimacy of official American violence overseas is a routine assumption.

“The first task of the occupation remains the first task of government: to establish a monopoly on violence,” George Will wrote on April 7, 2004, in the Washington Post. But three years later, his Newsweek column laments: “Vietnam produced an antiwar movement in America; Iraq has produced an antiwar America.”

Current polls and public discourse -- in spite of media inclinations to tamp down authentic anger at the war -- do reflect an “antiwar America” of sorts. So, why is the ghastly war effort continuing unabated? A big factor is the undue respect that’s reserved for American warriors in American society.

When a mentally unstable person goes on a shooting rampage in the United States, no one questions that such actions are intrinsically, fundamentally and absolutely wrong. The media condemnation is 100 percent.

However -- even after four years of a U.S. war in Iraq that has been increasingly deplored by the American public -- the standard violence directed from the Pentagon does not undergo much critical scrutiny from American journalists. The president’s war policies may come under withering media fire, but the daily activities of the U.S. armed forces are subjected to scant moral condemnation. Yet, under orders from the top, they routinely continue to inflict -- or serve as a catalyst for -- violence far more extensive than the shooting sprees that turned a placid Virginia campus into a slaughterhouse.

News outlets in the United States combine the totally proper condemnation of killing at home with a notably different affect toward the methodical killing abroad that is funded by the U.S. Treasury. We often read, see and hear explicit media commendations that praise as heroic the Americans in uniform who are trying to kill, and to avoid being killed, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In recent decades, the trends of war have been clear. A majority of the dead -- estimated at 75 to 90 percent -- are civilians. They are no less innocent than the more than 30 people who suddenly died from gunshots at Virginia Tech.

It would be inaccurate to say that the bulk of U.S. media’s coverage accepts war launched from Washington. The media system of the USA does much more than accept -- it embraces the high-tech violence under the Pentagon’s aegis. Key reasons are cultural, economic and political.

We grew up with -- and continue to see -- countless movies and TV programs showing how certain people with a handgun, a machine gun or missiles are able to set wrongs right with sufficiently deft and destructive violence.

The annual reports of large, medium and small companies boast that the U.S. Defense Department is a lucrative customer with more and more to spend on their wares for war.

And the scope of political discourse, reinforced by major news outlets, ordinarily remains narrow enough to dodge the huge differences between “defense spending” and “military spending.” More broadly, the big media rarely explore the terrain of basic moral challenges to the warfare state.

Everyone who isn’t deranged can agree that what happened on April 16, 2007, at the campus of Virginia Tech was an abomination. It came about because of an individual’s madness. We must reject it without the slightest equivocation. And we do.

But the media baseline is to glorify the U.S. military -- yesterday, today and tomorrow -- bringing so much bloodshed to Iraq. The social dynamics in our own midst, fueling the war effort, are spared tough scrutiny. We’re constantly encouraged to go along, avidly or passively.

Yet George Will has it wrong. The first task of government should not be “to establish a monopoly on violence.” Government should work to prevent violence -- including its own.

Norman Solomon’s book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” is out in paperback. The world premiere of the “War Made Easy” documentary film will happen in New York City on May 14. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com

DC Madam Says Iraq War Strategist Was A Customer

'D.C. madam' names a purported customer

Story Highlights

• Escort-service operator describes man as a regular client
• Harlan K. Ullman says "allegations do not dignify a response"
• Ullman a leading theorist behind "shock and awe" strategy in Iraq war
• Name dropped during hearing on changing lawyers

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The alleged "D.C. madam" dropped a name in court documents filed Thursday, but the man named bristled at being accused of hiring the high-end escort service run by Deborah Jean Palfrey.

Government prosecutors say Pamela Martin and Associates was actually a prostitution ring that Palfrey operated in the Washington area for 13 years. Palfrey denies that her business provided sexual services to its customers.

In her motion to reconsider appointment of counsel, Palfrey named Harlan K. Ullman as "one of the regular customers" of the business.

Ullman is one of the leading theorists behind the "shock and awe" military strategy that was associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"The allegations do not dignify a response," Ullman told CNN. "I'm a private, not a public, citizen. Any further questions are referred to my attorneys."

Ullman -- a former Navy commander and "a highly respected and widely recognized expert in national security whose advice is sought by governments and businesses," according to his Web site -- also said he is considering "some sort of legal action."

His attorney, Marc Mukasey of Bracewell & Giuliani in New York, declined to add to his client's comment.

Palfrey's civil defense attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, told CNN that it was his understanding that Ullman used the business' services but did not engage in sexual activity with the escorts.

Palfrey is fighting a multiple-count racketeering and money-laundering indictment. Her attorneys have been engaged in a battle with the court over documents that list the names and personal information of her clients.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has restricted access to the documents, but Sibley argued that the order applies to the originals of the documents, not to copies.

Copies have already been given to a media outlet, he said.

The motion filed Thursday asks the judge to install Sibley in place of the public defender Palfrey has been assigned for the criminal case, and to order the government to continue to pay for her defense. The government has seized her assets, and she cannot afford to pay on her own.

Sibley is Palfrey's attorney in a civil case against one of her former employees.

Pentagon opens civilian claim files against military: Chilling accounts of fatalities

Related
ACLU Releases Files on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq: See story and link to database following this story.
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Chilling accounts of civilian fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan released under freedom of information act.

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian

Chilling accounts of hundreds of fatal encounters between the US military and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing a rare glimpse of the confusion and chaos of daily life in the conflict zones, were released by the Pentagon yesterday under the freedom of information act.

Four hundred and ninety-six files deal with Iraqi claims for compensation for family members killed by US forces between 2003 and 2006 and 17 from Afghanistan. The files, including handwritten notes from some of the soldiers involved, record the deaths of civilians killed mainly at checkpoints, or in their homes, or when US forces sprayed roads with gunfire to protect convoys.

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Many of the deaths result from a failure of communication between US forces, most of whom do not speak Arabic, and civilians. Among the files is one relating to a mother shot dead and her two children wounded when the taxi they were in went through a checkpoint at Baqubah, north of Baghdad, in February last year.

The US defence department file said: "While the matter is still under investigation, there is evidence to suggest that the warning cones and printed checkpoint signs had not yet been displayed in front of the checkpoint, which may be the reason why the driver of the taxi did not believe he was required to stop." The case has since been resolved and the US military has paid out $7,500 (£3,750).

Another file, from the 101st Airborne Division, deals with a claim for $4,800 from a father whose son was shot dead in a car at a checkpoint between Baghdad and Kirkuk in 2005. A sergeant dealing with it writes: "How was he supposed to know to get out of the vehicle when they fired warning shots? If I was in his place I would have stayed put too." In spite of his comments, the claim was turned down.

The defence department paid out $2,500 in another case, near Tuz in eastern Iraq, in which four family members were killed at their home in March 2004. The file records that more than 100 rounds were fired, so indiscriminate that 32 sheep and a cow were also killed.

The files were released after a request by the American Civil Liberties Union and amount to only a fraction of civilian deaths at the hands of US troops and the compensation claims lodged. Of the 496 Iraq claims released yesterday, cash payments were made in 164 cases.

Marc Garlasco, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, said what he found shocking was the lack of consistency in deciding who was entitled to compensation.

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ACLU Releases Files on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq (4/12/2007)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

Americans Have a Right to Unfiltered Information About the Human Costs of War, ACLU Says

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today made public hundreds of claims for damages by family members of civilians killed or injured by Coalition Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ACLU received the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request it filed in June 2006.

The hundreds of files provide a vivid snapshot, in significantly more detail than has previously been compiled and released, of the circumstances surrounding reports of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Since U.S. troops first set foot in Afghanistan in 2001, the Defense Department has gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human costs of war," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Our democracy depends on an informed citizenry, and it is critical that the American people have access to full and accurate information about the prosecution of the war and the implications for innocent civilians."

The ACLU pointed out that during both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department has instituted numerous policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These policies include:

• Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas;
• Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;
• Inviting U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review;
• Erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and
• Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.

The files made public today are claims submitted to the U.S. Foreign Claims Commissions by surviving Iraqi and Afghan family members of civilians said to have been killed or injured or to have suffered property damages due to actions by Coalition Forces. The ACLU released a total of 496 files: 479 from Iraq and 17 from Afghanistan. The documents released by the ACLU are available online in a searchable database at www.aclu.org/civiliancasualties

Most of the Iraq claims range from early 2003 to late 2006; the majority are from 2005. Most claims from Afghanistan are from May 2006, with one dating back to 2001. Based on the number of deaths represented and the variation in number and location of claims per year, the ACLU said it believes there are additional documents being withheld and is pressing the Defense Department to disclose them all.

Of the 496 files, 198 were denied because the military found that the incidents arose "from action by an enemy or resulted directly or indirectly from an act of the armed forces of the United States in combat," which the military calls "combat exclusion."

Of the 496 claims, 164 incidents resulted in cash payments to family members. In approximately half of the cash payment cases, the United States accepted responsibility for the death of the civilian and offered a "compensation payment." In the other half, U.S. authorities issued "condolence" payments, which are discretionary payments capped at $2,500 and offered "as an expression of sympathy" but "without reference to fault." Claims based on incidents that were not reported in the military's "SIGACT" ("significant act") database, despite eyewitness corroborations, are generally denied for compensation although a condolence payment may be issued.

The files provide a window into the lives of innocent Afghans and Iraqis caught in conflict zones. In one file, a civilian from the Salah Ad Din (PDF) province in eastern Iraq states that U.S. forces opened fire with more than 100 hundred rounds on his sleeping family, killing his mother, father and brother. The firepower was of such magnitude that 32 of the family's sheep were also killed. The Army acknowledged responsibility and the claim resulted in two payments: a compensation payment of $11,200 and a $2,500 condolence payment. In another file, a civilian in Baghdad states that his only son, a nine-year-old (PDF), was playing outside when a stray bullet hit and killed him. The Army acknowledged responsibility and paid compensation of $4,000.

"As these files remind us, war imposes heavy burdens on innocent civilians," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Director of the ACLU's National Security Program. "Although these files are deeply disturbing to read, they allow us to understand the human cost of war in a way that statistics and the usual platitudes do not."

The ACLU noted that a significant number of the files - 92 of 496 - relate to deaths at checkpoints (50 files) or near American convoys (42 files). In one file, a civilian states that his son drove up to a checkpoint (PDF) in Kirkuk, was shot at through the roof of the car and hit in the abdomen; he later died from his wounds. An e-mail in the file from an Army sergeant states: "How was he supposed to know to get out of the vehicle when they fired warning shots? If I was in his place I would have stayed put too." The claim was denied although the sergeant suggested that the civilian might seek a condolence payment.

In another file, a civilian states that his mother was killed (PDF), his four-year-old brother suffered shrapnel wounds to the head, and his sister was shot in the leg after the taxi they were riding in ran through a checkpoint in the eastern Iraq town of Baqubah. An Army memorandum states: "[T]here is evidence to suggest that the warning cones and printed checkpoint signs had not yet been displayed in front of the checkpoint, which may be the reason why the driver of the Taxi did not believe he was required to stop." The Army suggested a condolence payment of $7,500. It is not known whether it was granted.

Attorneys on the FOIA project are Jaffer and Nasrina Bargzie of the national ACLU.

In a separate project, the ACLU filed a FOIA request in October 2003 for records concerning the abuse of prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. To date, that request has resulted in the release of more than 100,000 pages, all of which are available online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia. Litigation regarding that FOIA request is ongoing.

Pentagon: Iran detains 15 British troops

Iran nabs British sailors in Iraq waters
The Associated Press
News Fuze

Article Launched:03/23/2007 05:14:17 AM PDT
LONDON- Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors in Iraqi waters on Friday, the Ministry of Defense said.

The British Navy personnel were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," and had completed their inspection of a merchant ship when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, the ministry said.

"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and ... the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office," the ministry said.

A Pentagon official said the Britons were in two inflatable boats from the frigate H.M.S. Cornwall during a routine smuggling investigation, said the official, who spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the incident.

He said the confrontation happened as the British contingent was traveling along the boundary of territorial waters between Iran and Iraq. They were detained by the Revolutionary Guard's navy, he said.

A fisherman who said he was with a group of Iraqis from the southern city of Basra fishing in Iraqi waters in the northern area of the Gulf said he saw the Iranian seizure. The fisherman declined to be identified because of security concerns.

"Two boats, each with a crew of six to eight multinational forces, were searching Iraqi and Iranian boats Friday morning in Ras al-Beesha area in the northern entrance of the Arab Gulf, but big Iranian boats came and took the two boats with their crews to the Iranian waters."

The Britain government said it had demanded "the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."