Robert Fisk: 'Rebel army? They're a gang of foreigners'

Our writer hears the Syrian forces' justification for a battle that is tearing apart one of the world's oldest cities

Damage at the gate of Citadel in Aleppo 

A victorious army? There were cartridge cases all over the ancient stone laneways, pocked windows, and bullet holes up the side of the Sharaf mosque, where a gunman had been firing from the minaret. A sniper still fired just 150 yards away – all that was left of more than a hundred rebels who had almost, but not quite, encircled the 4,000-year-old citadel of Aleppo.
"You won't believe this," Major Somar cried in excitement. "One of our prisoners told me: 'I didn't realise Palestine was as beautiful as this.' He thought he was in Palestine to fight the Israelis!"

Do I believe this? Certainly, the fighters who bashed their way into the lovely old streets west of the great citadel were, from all accounts, a ragtag bunch. Their graffiti – "We are the Brigades of 1980", the year when the first Muslim Brotherhood rising threatened the empire of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez – was still on the walls of the Syrian-Armenian hotels and silver shops. A 51-year-old general handed me one of the home-made grenades that littered the floor of the Sharaf mosque; a fluffy fuse poking from the top of a lump of shrapnel, coated in white plastic and covered in black adhesive tape.

Inside the mosque were bullets, empty tins of cheese, cigarette butts and piles of mosque carpets, which the rebels had used as bedding. The battle had so far lasted 24 hours. A live round had cut into the Bosnian-style tombstone of a Muslim imam's grave, with a delicate stone turban carved on its top. The mosque's records – lists of worshippers' complaints, Korans and financial documents – were lying across one room in what had evidently marked the last stand of several men. There was little blood. Between 10 and 15 of the defenders – all Syrians – surrendered after being offered mercy if they laid down their arms. The quality of this mercy was not, of course, disclosed to us.

The Syrian soldiers were elated, but admitted that they shared immense sadness for the history of a city whose very fabric was being torn apart, a world heritage site being smashed by rockets and high-velocity rounds. The officers shook their heads when they led us into the ramparts of the immense citadel. "The terrorists tried to capture it 20 days ago from our soldiers who were defending it," Major Somar said. "They filled gas cylinders full of explosives – 300 kilos of it – and set them off by the first entrance above the moat."

Alas, they did. The huge medieval iron and wooden gate, its ornamented hinges and supports – a defence-work that had stood for 700 years – has been literally torn apart. I clambered over carbonized wood and hunks of stone bearing delicate Koranic inscriptions. Hundreds of bullet holes have pitted the stonework of the inner gate. Below, I found a T-72 tank whose barrel had been grazed by a sniper's bullet which was still lodged in the sheath, its armour broken by a grenade. "I was inside at the time," its driver said. "Bang! – but my tank still worked!"

So here is the official scorecard of the battle for the eastern side of the old city of Aleppo, the conflict amid narrow streets and pale, bleached stone walls that was still being fought out yesterday afternoon, the crack of every rebel bullet receiving a long burst of machine-gun fire from Major Somar's soldiers. As the army closed in on the gunmen from two sides, 30 rebels – or "Free Syrian Army" or "foreign fighters" – were killed and an undisclosed number wounded. According to Major Somar's general, an officer called Saber, Syrian government forces suffered only eight wounded. I came across three of them, one a 51-year-old officer who refused to be sent to hospital.

Many of the rebels' weapons had been taken from the scene by the military "mukhbarat" intelligence men before we arrived: they were said to include three Nato-standard sniper rifles, one mortar, eight Austrian machine-pistols and a host of Kalashnikovs, which may well have been stolen by Syrian deserters. But it is the shock of finding these pitched battles amid this world heritage site which is more terrible than the armaments of each side. To crunch over broken stone and glass with Syrian troops for mile after mile around the old city, a place of museums and Mosques – the magnificently minareted Gemaya Omayyad stands beside yesterday's battleground – is a matter of infinite sorrow.

Many of the soldiers, who were encouraged to speak to me even as they knelt at the ends of narrow streets with bullets spattering off the walls, spoke of their amazement that so many "foreign fighters" should have been in Aleppo. "Aleppo has five million people," one said to me. "If the enemy are so sure that they are going to win the battle, then surely there's no need to bring these foreigners to participate; they will lose."

Major Somar, who spoke excellent English, understood the political dimension all too well. "Our borders with Turkey are a big problem," he admitted. "The border needs to be closed. The closure of the frontier must be coordinated by the two governments. But the Turkish government is on the enemy side. Erdogan is against Syria." Of course, I asked him his religion, a question that is all innocence and all poison in Syria these days. Somar, whose father was a general, his mother a teacher, and who practices his English with Dan Brown novels, was as quick as a cat. "It's not where you are born or what is your religion," he said. "It's what's in your mind. Islam comes from this land, Christians come from this land, Jews come from this land. That is why it is our duty to protect this land."

Several soldiers believed the rebels were trying to convert the Christians of Aleppo – "a peaceful people", they kept calling them – and there was a popular story doing the rounds yesterday of a Christian storekeeper who was forced to wear Muslim clothing and announce his own conversion in front of a video camera. But in wartime cities, you find talkative soldiers. One of the men who recaptured the entrance to the citadel was Abul Fidar, famous for walking between Aleppo, Palmyra and Damascus over 10 days at the start of the current conflict last year to publicise the need for peace. The president, needless to say, greeted him warmly at his final destination.

And then there was Sergeant Mahmoud Dawoud from Hama, who had been fighting in Hama itself, Homs, Jebel Zawi and Idlib. "I want to be interviewed by a reporter," he announced, and of course, he got his way. "We are sad for the civilians of this land," he said. "They were in peace before. We promise as soldiers that we will make sure a good life returns for them, even if we lose our lives." He does not mention all those civilians killed by army shellfire or by the "shabiha", or those thousands who have suffered torture in this land. Dawoud has a fiancée called Hannan who is studying French in Latakia, his father is a teacher; he says he wants "to serve his homeland".

But the thought cannot escape us that the prime purpose of men like Sergeant Dawoud – and all his fellow soldiers here – was not, surely, to liberate Aleppo but to liberate the occupied Golan Heights, right next to the land which the "jihadis" apparently thought they were "liberating" yesterday – until they discovered that Aleppo was not Jerusalem. 

Robert Fisk: The bloody truth about Syria's uncivil war

Those trying to topple Assad have surprised the army with their firepower and brutal tactics

A few hours after the ferocious attack on Damascus by the Free Syrian Army began last month, the new Syrian minister of information, Omran Zouhbi, turned on journalists in the capital. "What are you doing here in Damascus?" he roared. "You should be out with our soldiers!" And within a day, tired images of a primly smiling President Bashar al-Assad and pictures of Syrian troops happily kissing children were replaced by raw – and real – newsreel footage of commandos fighting their way across Baghdad Street under fire from the rebel opponents of the regime, grimy-faced, running from street corners, shooting from the cover of walls and terraces. "We've cleaned up here," one tired but very angry officer said. "So now we're going to get the rest of those bastards." Never before – not even in the 1973 war when the Syrian army stormed Observatory Ridge on the heights of the Golan – had the Syrian public witnessed anything as real as this on their television sets.
And – despite all the mythical tales of its presence in every smashed village – the battle for Damascus really was fought by Maher al-Assad's ruthless 4th Division. The soldiers loyal to Bashar's younger brother gave no quarter. "It was a slaughter, a massacre," a Syrian with expert knowledge of the military told me. "A lot of the corpses were already bloated within hours, but you could tell some of them weren't Syrian; there were Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, one Turk, Sudanese …" He counted 70 bodies at one location, 42 of them non-Arab. The FSA said it lost only 20 men, and claimed that the Syrians emphasised the number of "foreign fighters" they found among the dead. "Syrian soldiers don't like to think that they are shooting at fellow Syrians – they feel much more comfortable if they believe they are shooting at foreigners," the young man said.

The statistics of the Syrian war will always be in dispute – both sides will minimise their losses while they are fighting and exaggerate the number of their "martyrs" once the conflict is over; nor will we ever know the true number of the civilian dead, nor the exact identity of their killers. Given unprecedented access last week to majors and generals whom the West accuses of war crimes, I found only one officer who would partially admit the existence of the murderous shabiha militia credited with atrocities in largely Sunni Muslim towns and villages. "The shabiha doesn't exist," he told me. "It is a figment of imagination. There are village 'defenders' who guard some areas …"

And that, of course, is exactly what the shabiha claim to be, local Syrian civilians protecting their homes from the government's enemies. They existed in Algeria during that country's barbaric conflict between the dictatorship in Algiers and the Islamist rebels in the 1990s, protecting their families while committing atrocities in towns and villages believed to be used by – or sympathetic to – their "terrorist" Muslim enemies. In Algeria, too, the government's opponents were called foreign fighters, men who had fought in the Afghan war against the Russians and who had returned to continue their holy war against the secular regime in France's former colony. Now another former French colony's secular – albeit Alawite-dominated – leadership says it is fighting men from Afghanistan, making no distinction between Unity Brigades or Muslim Brothers or Salafists or just plain Free Syrian Army. No one will be surprised to learn that there has always been the closest military-intelligence relationship between Algiers and Damascus.

But the government army's battle with its Syrian and foreign antagonists has not always gone as smoothly as the regime would like the world to believe. Despite the narrative now peddled in the West, armed men were present on the streets of Syrian cities and villages since the very early days of the Syrian awakening 18 months ago. True, the Arab Spring initially took the form of demonstrations by tens of thousands of unarmed protesters in the great cities of Syria, but an Al Jazeera camera crew captured film of gunmen attacking Syrian soldiers near the village of Wadi Khallak in May 2011. That same month, Syrian television obtained tape of men armed with Kalashnikovs near crowds of unarmed Syrian protesters in Deraa, where the revolt began after secret police officers tortured to death a 13-year-old boy.

Yet when they first entered Deraa, it appears, Syrian officers and their soldiers did not themselves believe they were facing armed opponents. "Sixty per cent of the city was secured by us in just one day," a Syrian familiar with the operation says. "We sent in only 1,100 soldiers – this would never happen now – because they did not think there were any armed groups there. But by the time we had recovered the rest of the city in the next five days, we had lost 17 of our men dead to sniper fire." This was not the only surprise: once pitched battles began later in the year, the Syrian military was amazed by the firepower of its opponents.

"In Homs, the army was inside a building that received hundreds – literally hundreds – of rocket-propelled grenades," a Syrian familiar with the operation says. "There were thousands of explosions, and eventually we had to evacuate the entire building because it was going to crumble. When the soldiers were out, they had to explode the whole place before it crashed to the ground." And for an army condemned for its own cruelty in battle, the Syrians were astonished by the ruthlessness of those opposed to them.

In Andan, a heavily defended army checkpoint was wiped out last year when the Liwa Tawhid, the Unity Brigade, assaulted the position and killed all 75 soldiers and four officers. In a later ambush at Shughour, 120 soldiers were killed. Army files record nine security officers murdered at a police station at al-Hadr in Hama province, eight policemen at another office in the same province. In Salkin, another town in Hama, an ex-army civilian lorry driver employed by the Army's Vehicle Service Station 5036 was assaulted by civilian crowds. Abdul Fatah Omar Abdul Fatah was accused of being a member of the shabiha, stripped naked and hanged, then his corpse was pelted with shoes and decapitated. In Duma, a mosque leader told worshippers: "Among us, there is an Awaini," – a traitor. The man was beaten to death. His name is recorded as Abu Ahmed Akera.

When the Free Syria Army followed up its attack on Damascus with an assault on Aleppo, the authorities found that the first target of their enemies was the artillery school. More than 70 cadets managed to resist until reinforcements reached them. Word has it that all anti-aircraft missile crews at the school were hastily taken out of Aleppo to save them from capture and help protect the country's tactical missile defences from possible Israeli or Nato attack.

Syrian soldiers fighting their way through the winding, narrow streets of Aleppo's old city this week might choose to remember a young Egyptian student who spent months in Aleppo in the 1990s, working on an urban planning thesis that included the very battlefield in which the army is now fighting: Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the US. Some of the attacks on Syrian officials have been planned with great care; scientists at the Scientific Research Centre outside Damascus have been murdered. Long before the air force was first used in the war – the army claims this was in June – seven pilots were killed by rebels last year. The military says that it began using artillery – as opposed to mortars – only in February.

For the government, the outlook appears harsh. The army believes Idlib – reported to be an al-Qa'ida stronghold – will be one of the most critical battles in the war. There are reports of fearful conscripts seized from a civilian bus in central Syria and given an option: either their parents hand over 450,000 Syrian pounds (£7,000) to the Free Syrian Army or the young men must join the rebels. In the village of Rableh near al-Qusayr, a largely Christian population of 12,000 is said to be held hostage by rebels as human shields, although the army has apparently decided it would be too costly to take the village.

Bashar al-Assad's government faces a resourceful, well-armed and ruthless enemy whose Islamist supporters are receiving help from the West – just as the Islamist mujahedin fighters were funded and armed by the West when they fought the Russians in Afghanistan during the 1980s. With up to 50,000 men under arms and perhaps 4,000 battle tanks, the Syrian army, per se, cannot lose. But can they win?

ROBERT FISK-Assad's Foreign Minister gives his first interview to a Western journalist since the conflict began

ROBERT FISK

Exclusive: ‘We believe that the USA is the major player against Syria and the rest are its instruments’

Assad's Foreign Minister gives his first interview to a Western journalist since the conflict began

The battle for Damascus could be heard inside the Foreign Minister's office yesterday, a vibration of mortars and tank fire from the suburbs of the capital that penetrated Walid Muallem's inner sanctum, a dangerous heartbeat to match the man's words.

America was behind Syria's violence, he said, which will not end even after the battle for Aleppo is over. "I tell the Europeans: 'I don't understand your slogan about the welfare of the Syrian people when you are supporting 17 resolutions against the welfare of the Syrian people'. And I tell the Americans: 'You must read well what you did in Afghanistan and Somalia. I don't understand your slogan of fighting international terrorism when you are supporting this terrorism in Syria'."

Walid Muallem spoke in English and very slowly, either because of the disconcerting uproar outside or because this was his first interview with a Western journalist since the Syrian crisis began. At one point, the conflict between rebels and government troops in the suburbs of Douma, Jobar, Arbeen and Qaboun – where a helicopter was shot down – became so loud that even the most phlegmatic of Foreign Ministers in a region plagued by rhetoric glanced towards the window. How did he feel when he heard this, I asked him?

"Before I am a minister, I am a Syrian citizen, and I feel sad at seeing what's happening in Syria, compared with two years ago," he said. "There are many Syrians like me – eager to see Syria return to the old days when we were proud of our security."

I have my doubts about how many Syrians want a return to "the old days" but Muallem claims that perhaps 60 per cent of the country's violence comes from abroad, from Turkey, from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with the United States exercising its influence over all others.

"When the Americans say, 'We are supplying the opposition with sophisticated instruments of telecommunications', isn't this part of a military effort, when they supply the opposition with $25m – and much more from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia?"

A year ago, I told Muallem, I lunched with the Emir of Qatar, and he was enraged at what he called Bashar al-Assad's lies, claiming that the Syrian President had reneged on a deal to allow Muslim Brotherhood members to return home.

Muallem nodded. "If you met the same Emir two years ago, he was praising Assad, and considered him a dear friend. They used to have family relations, spending family holidays in Damascus and sometimes in Doha. There is an important question: what happened? I met the Emir in Doha in, I think, November 2011, when the Arab League started their initiative [resulting in the sending of League observers to Syria] and we reached agreement … The Emir told me: 'If you agree to this initiative, I will change the attitude of Al Jazeera and I will tell [Sheikh] Qaradawi [a popular prelate with a regular slot on the television chain] to support Syria and reconciliation, and I have put down some billions of dollars to rebuild Syria…' .

Of America's power, Walid Muallem had no doubt. The Americans, he says, succeeded in frightening the Gulf countries about Iran's nuclear capabilities, persuaded them to buy arms from the US, fulfilling Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 dream of maintaining bases for oil transportation.

"We believe that the US is the major player against Syria and the rest are its instruments." But wasn't this all really about Iran? I asked, a dodgy question since it suggested a secondary role for Syria in its own tragedy. And when Muallem referred to the Brookings Institution, I groaned.

"You are laughing, but sometimes when you are Foreign Minister, you are obliged to read these things – and there was a study by the Brookings Institute [sic] called The Road to Tehran, and the result of this study was: if you want to contain Iran, you must start with Damascus…

"We were told by some Western envoy at the beginning of this crisis that relations between Syria and Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas are the major elements behind this crisis. If we settle this issue, they [the Americans] will help end the crisis. But no one told us why it is forbidden for Syria to have relations with Iran when most if not all the Gulf countries have very important relations with Iran."

For the Syrian Foreign Minister, the crisis started with "legitimate demands" subsequently addressed by "legislation and reforms and even a new constitution". Then along came "foreign elements" who used these legitimate demands "to hijack the peaceful agenda of the people".

There followed a familiar tale. "I don't accept as a citizen to return back centuries to a regime which can bring Syria backwards. In principle …no government in the world can accept an armed terrorist group, some of them coming from abroad, controlling streets and villages in the name of 'jihad'."

It was the duty of the Syrian government to "protect" its citizens. Assad represents the unity of Syria and all Syrians must participate in creating a new future for Syria. If Syria falls, its neighbour countries will fall. Muallem travels to the non-aligned summit in Iran tomorrow to burnish what he calls their "constructive efforts" to help Syria.

I asked about chemical weapons, of course. If Syria had such weapons, they would never be used against its own people, he said. "We are fighting armed groups inside Aleppo, in the Damascus suburbs, before that in Homs and Idlib and this means fighting within Syrian cities – and our responsibility is to protect our people."

And the infamous Shabiha militia blamed for atrocities in the countryside? Walid Muallem doesn't believe in them. There might be local unarmed people defending their property from armed groups, he says. But pro-regime, paid militiamen? Never. No war crimes charges against the Syrian Foreign Minister, then. But the guns still thunder away outside his windows.

ROBERT FISK-The provocateurs know politics and religion don't mix

ROBERT FISK

Thursday 13 September 2012

The provocateurs know politics and religion don't mix

It only takes a couple of loonies a few seconds to kick off a miniature war in the Muslim world

So another internet clever-clogs sets the Middle East on fire: Prophet cartoons, then Koranic book-burning, now a video of robed "terrorists" and a fake desert. The Western-Christian perpetrators then go into hiding (an essential requisite for publicity) while the innocent are asphyxiated, beheaded and otherwise done to death – outrageous Muslim revenge thus "proving" the racist claims of the trash peddlers that Islam is a violent religion.
The provocateurs, of course, know that politics and religion don’t mix in the Middle East. They are the same. Christopher Stevens, his diplomat colleagues in Benghazi, priests in Turkey and Africa, UN personnel in Afghanistan; they have all paid the price for those ‘Christian priests’, ‘cartoonists’, ‘film-makers’ and ‘authors’ – the inverted commas are necessary to mark a thin line between illusionists and the real thing – who knowingly choose to provoke 1.6 billion Muslims.

When a Danish cartoon in a hitherto unknown newspaper drew a picture of the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb in his turban, the Danish embassy in Beirut went up in flames. When a Texas pastor decided to ‘sentence the Koran to death’, the knives came out in Afghanistan – we are leaving aside the little matter of the ‘accidental’ burning of Koranic pages by US personnel in Bagram. And now a deliberately abusive film provokes the murder of one of the State Department’s fairest diplomats.

In many ways, it’s familiar territory. In fifteenth century Spain, Christian cartoonists drew illustrations of the Prophet committing unspeakable acts. And – just so we don’t think we have clean claws today – when a Paris cinema showed a film in which Christ made love to a woman, the picture-house was burned-down, one cinema-goer was killed, and the killer turned out to be a Christian.

With the help of our wonderful new technology, however, it only needs a couple of loonies to kick off a miniature war in the Muslim world within seconds. I doubt if poor Christopher Stevens – a man who really understood the Arabs as many of his colleagues do not – had ever heard of the ‘film’ that unleashed the storming of the US consulate in Benghazi and his own death. It’s one thing to witlessly claim that the US would go on a “crusade” against al-Qaeda – thank you, George W. Bush – but another to insult, quite deliberately, an entire people. Racism of this kind stirs many a crazed heart.

And has Al-Qaeda – defeated by the Arab revolutionaries who demanded dignity rather than a Bin Laden Caliphate across the Middle East – now decided to cash in on populist grievances to advance their Islamist cause? Libya’s largely impotent government blames the Americans themselves for Stevens’ killing – since the consulate should have been evacuated – and suggests that a Gaddafi clique was behind the attack. This is ridiculous. If the armed militia in Benghazi, calling itself the ‘Islamic Law Supporters’, are more than telephone-gunmen, then al-Qaida involvement has to be suspected.

Ironically, there is room for a serious discussion among Muslims about, for example, a re-interpretation of the Koran; but Western provocation – and western, alas, it is – closes down such a narrative. Meanwhile, we beat our chests in favour of a ‘free press’. A New Zealand editor once proudly told me how his own newspaper had re-published the cartoon of the Prophet with a bomb-filled turban. But when I asked him if he planned to publish a cartoon of a Rabbi with a bomb on his head next time Israel invaded Lebanon, he hastily agreed with me that this would be anti-Semitic.

There’s the rub, of course. Some things are off limits, and rightly so. Others have no limits at all. Several radio presenters asked me yesterday if the unrest in Cairo and Benghazi may have been timed to “coincide with 9/11”.  It simply never occurred to them to ask if the video-clip provocateurs had chosen their date-for-release to coincide with 9/11. 

Saturday 1 September 2012

Robert Fisk: Another week in the violent, murderous and divided world of Syria

Christians and Armenians among latest to die

A week is a long time in violence. It seems only yesterday – five days ago, in fact – that armed men shot Sheikh Abu Haitham al-Bortawi outside the el-Noor mosque in the Rukenadin suburb of Damascus. Went to the scene. Middle class area. Tree shaded, clean street. Ten in the morning. Turns out he was the cleric who knelt right next to Bashar al-Assad for the Eid prayers at the end of Ramadan. A dagger to the heart of the body politick.
I meet an old friend the next day at a café in Mezzeh, and he's crying. His dentist lived in Zabadani, in the hills near the Lebanese border, in Free Syria Army country. His son was warned the family home was unsafe because of incoming fire. From the army? No one's sure. But a shell hit the house and the dentist has just arrived at the French Hospital. Dead, his grieving family still at the morgue.

Then there's the two Christian guys outside town. One runs a DVD store, the other a pharmacy. Murdered. Next day, their funeral cortege is car-bombed. Twelve dead, at least 40 wounded. Turns out they had brothers in the Syrian army, apparently conscripts. Hardly a sin. But the opposition says the two men were "connected to the military".

A Syrian journalist calls me. Six Armenians have been "slaughtered with knives" in their homes. I race to the Armenian church and there is brown-robed Bishop Armesh Nalbandian next to the ancient chapel of Saint Sarkis – he has around 6,500 parishioners in Damascus – and only a few metres from the memorial to the 1915 Armenian genocide. Many of those one and a half million victims of Ottoman Turkish slaughter were put to death in the deserts north of Damascus, now the scene of another Calvary.

But the "six-dead" story is untrue, Armesh says. Good news. But no. Three Damascus Armenians have just been murdered, apparently shot. Thirty-nine-year-old Bedros Matosian died along with his younger brother Kevork and the son of one of them – the bishop isn't sure which – called Levon, who was only 22. Armed men. No identity. But the Matosians had Alawite and Sunni neighbours who were also massacred, because, so the local story goes, they refused to join the Free Syria Army.

The story depends on where you go in this divided capital. Yesterday, I take another prowl, through the Damascus suburbs; Malayha, Harasta, Zamalka, Bab Shawkeh. Thirty government checkpoints, maybe 40, but in Harasta, the Syrian Arab Republic has no sway. There are dozens of painted green, white and black FSA flags on the walls. "The free people of Harasta are denied their liberty," a slogan informs us. "Assad should go." There's a mosque so packed that the crowds have spilled on to the boiling roadway; a guy in a pick-up tells us it's safe to head for the motorway. An opposition man. A Syrian soldier in sunglasses waves us back to the autostrade of the Syrian Arab Republic.

We drive through the Assad Suburb, government housing, though some home-owners have rented to people from Zabadani – maybe a little security problem? – and just past the Tishreen military hospital (former student, one Bashar al-Assad), there's an explosion and a car with headlights zipping the street dust under its shrieking tyres and a pulverised dead dog lying inside a garage.

Up to the Kassioun mountain overlooking Damascus for lunch at Al Montagna – the only guests, save for three tired Syrian officers – and we look across at the Omayad mosque and there's a roar from the government guns on the other side of the jebel and a rumble of sound relayed mountain-to-mountain on the other side of the city. Fifteen seconds later, there's a pop far away on the edge of the Palestinian camp at Yarmouk and a smudge of grey smoke. Then another report and another rumble and another pop a bit to the right, four miles away through the heat haze. Palestinians. I close my notebook for the week.

Welcome to the American Gulag: Using Involuntary Commitment Laws to Silence Dissenters

Welcome to the American Gulag: Using Involuntary Commitment Laws to Silence Dissenters

By John W. Whitehead

September 15, 2012


What happened to 26-year-old decorated Marine Brandon Raub—who was targeted because of his Facebook posts, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called "conspiratorial" views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys—has happened many times throughout history in totalitarian regimes.

As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum observes in Gulag: A History: "The exile of prisoners to a distant place, where they can 'pay their debt to society,’ make themselves useful, and not contaminate others with their ideas or their criminal acts, is a practice as old as civilization itself. The rulers of ancient Rome and Greece sent their dissidents off to distant colonies. Socrates chose death over the torment of exile from Athens. The poet Ovid was exiled to a fetid port on the Black Sea."
The advent of psychiatry eliminated the need to exile political prisoners, allowing governments instead to declare such dissidents mentally ill and unfit for society. For example, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union often used psychiatric hospitals as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally through the use of electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures. Insisting that "ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure," the psychiatric community actually went so far as to provide the government with a diagnosis suitable for locking up such freedom-oriented activists.
In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, Russian officials also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers. Author George Kennan describes a process in which:

The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is "prejudicial to public order" or "incompatible with public tranquility," he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years. Administrative exile–which required no trial and no sentencing procedure–was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.

Sound familiar? This age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by declaring them mentally ill and locking them up in psychiatric wards for extended periods of time is a common practice in present-day China. What is particularly unnerving, however, is that this practice of making individuals disappear is happening with increasing frequency in America. Indeed, Raub’s case exposes the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that is targeting Americans—especially military veterans—for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state.
It’s no coincidence that within days of Raub being seized at his Virginia home on August 16, 2012, and forcibly held in a VA psych ward, news reports started surfacing of other veterans having similar experiences. These incidents are merely the realization of various U.S. government initiatives dating back to 2009, including one dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle which calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be "disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war."
That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) these veterans is diabolically brilliant. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these service men are being declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.
Coupled with the Department of Homeland Security’s report on "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," which broadly defines rightwing extremists as individuals and groups "that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely," these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government. Although these initiatives caused an initial uproar when announced in 2009, they were quickly subsumed by the ever-shifting cacophony of the news media and its ten-day cycles. Yet while the American public may have forgotten about the government’s plans to identify and disable anyone deemed a potential "threat," the government has put its plan into action.
Thus, what began as a blueprint under the Bush administration is being used as an operation manual under the Obama administration to exile those who are challenging the government’s authority. An important point to consider, however, is that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent.
Under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of intervention. Just earlier this year, for instance, the Justice Department launched a pilot program aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.
One tactic being used to deal with so-called "mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare" is through the use of civil commitment laws, found in all states and employed throughout American history to not only silence but cause dissidents to disappear. For example, in 2006, NSA officials attempted to label former employee Russ Tice, who was willing to testify in Congress about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, as "mentally unbalanced" based upon two psychiatric evaluations ordered by his superiors. In 2009, NYPD Officer Adrian Schoolcraft had his home raided, and he was handcuffed to a gurney and taken into emergency custody for an alleged psychiatric episode. It was later discovered by way of an internal investigation that his superiors were retaliating against him for reporting police misconduct. Schoolcraft spent six days in the mental facility, and as a further indignity, was presented with a bill for $7,185 upon his release.
Most recently, of course, Virginia’s civil commitment law was used to justify arresting and detaining Marine Brandon Raub in a psychiatric ward. On Thursday, August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub’s home, asking to speak with him about posts he had made on his Facebook page made up of song lyrics, political opinions and dialogue used in a political thriller virtual card game. Among the posts cited as troublesome were lyrics to a song by the rap group Swollen Members and Raub’s views, shared increasingly by a number of Americans, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.
After a brief conversation and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, law enforcement officials then handcuffed Raub and transported him first to the police headquarters, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were "terrorist in nature." Outraged onlookers filmed the arrest and posted the footage to YouTube, where it quickly went viral, which may have helped prevent Raub from being successfully "disappeared" by the government.
In a hearing on August 20, government officials pointed to Raub’s Facebook posts as the sole reason for their concern and for his continued incarceration. Ignoring Raub’s explanations about the fact that the Facebook posts were being read out of context, Raub was sentenced to up to 30 days’ further confinement in a psychiatric ward. While in the psych ward, Raub reported being interrogated by medical staff about his views about the government and threatened by a doctor with brainwashing.
On August 23, Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett declared the government’s case to be lacking in factual allegations and ordered Raub immediately released. However, for the tens of thousands of individuals detained—wrongfully or otherwise—under civil commitment laws every year, regaining their freedom is nearly impossible, predicated as it is on a bureaucratic legal and judicial system.
The problem, of course, is that the diagnosis of mental illness, while a legitimate concern for some Americans, has over time become a convenient means by which to penalize certain "unacceptable" social behaviors. Most recently, we have witnessed the pathologizing of individuals who resist authority as suffering from oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), defined as "a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures."
Under such a definition, every activist of note throughout our history—from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr.—could be classified as suffering from an ODD mental disorder. Yet psychologist Bruce Levine, who has studied the issue of dissent and mental illness, suggests that the problem may have less to do with any true illness on the part of the anti-authoritarians than it does with those in field of psychology and psychiatry who are pre-disposed to labeling anti-authoritarians as mentally ill. Says Levine, "In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not."
Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced or declared unfit for society.  Governmental authorities at all levels have made it abundantly clear that they want no one questioning their authority. And for those who do take to the streets to express their opinions and beliefs, rows of riot police, clad in jackboots, military vests, and helmets, holding batons, stun guns, assault rifles, and sometimes even grenade launchers, are there to keep them in line.


Source 

Iraq snapshot - September 17, 2012

Iraq snapshot - September 17, 2012

The Common Ills

September 17, 2012

Monday, September 17, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue,  Archbishop Desmond Tutu raises his voice to help a family, Angelina Jolie visits Iraq, 8 of 9 commissioners for Iraq's electoral commission are named, more residents move from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, Tareq al-Hashemi talks about his trial and conviction, Soledad O'Brien embarasses herself and CNN,  and more.

 

Starting wih war resistance.  Kimberly Rivera and her family (husband and two kids) went to Canada in early 2007 with only what they could carry on their small family car.  She was on leave from Iraq and horrified by what she saw while serving.  Already a believer in Jesus Christ when she deployed, the horror deepened her spirituality and her conviction to do the Lord's work as she understood it.

What happened to her is no uncommon.  Agustin Aguayo also was a practicing Christian when he deployed to Iraq.  Seeing war up close deepened his own faith and religious beliefs.  That is why he stopped carrying a loaded gun while deployed in Iraq and why he found he could no longer participate in the Iraq War.

Faith. like any relationship, is not static nor is it taught to be.  Regardless of the religion, there is the belief that, for example, in times of crisis, the power of religion can carry you through the experience when you could not make it through on your own.  (Hence the modern day parable of the two sets of footsteps in the sand that becomes one as your higher power carries you in the darkest of times.)  Faith is not stagnant which is why religious scholars spend so much time pursuing knowledge, why followers do not attend one service their entire life but continue to attend to deepen their understanding and beliefs.

Kim and Agustin's experiences are in keeping with their religions which do allow for faith to grow and deepen.  The US military has refused to recognize that and has found itself in the questionable (legally questionable) position of interpreting faith and judging faith.  The US military will not allow an Agustin Aguayo or Kim Rivera to become a conscientious objector, they will argue that they were practicing a religion when they went to Iraq and that if they had objections they should have been lodged prior to deployment.  (Lodging the objection prior to deployment, to be clear, does not mean someone will get C.O. status.)  They will refuse to recognize that faith and spirituality are not fixed and that they can grow and deepen over time and due to experience.

 

She is now threatened with expulsion.  The Canadian government wants her out of the country by September 20th.  August 31st, Kim took part in a press conference with War Resisters Support Campaign's Michelle Robidoux.

 

 

Kim Rivera: If you want to know my biggest fear is being separated from my children and having to -- having to sit in a prison for politically being against the war in Iraq which I had experience in.  Without that experience, I know that I would not have come to the decision I had made to leave and also be here in Canada for people to know that experience which I had spoken many of.  So the only thing that I guess I can really ask is that all of my legal applications that I applied be considered and my agency application also get a decision.   That's pretty much all I have.

 

Many Canadians support her and organizations as well including  the United Steelworkers of Canada which issued a statement calling for the government of Canada to let Kim and her family stay  and  Canada's National Union of Public and General Employees which also issued a statement.  NowArchbishop Desmond Tutu has added his voice to the cause with a column for the Globe and Mail:

 

But those who were called to fight this war believed what their leaders had told them. The reason we know this is because U.S. soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera, through her own experience in Iraq, came to the conclusion that the invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the presence of U.S. forces only created immense misery for civilians and soldiers alike.

Those leaders to whom soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera looked for answers failed a supreme moral test. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003, millions have been displaced and nearly 4,500 American soldiers have been killed.

There are many people who, while they may have believed the original justification for the war, came to a different conclusion as the reality of the war became more evident. Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself came to the conclusion that the Iraq war was "absolutely an error."

It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: "I made a mistake." Not least among these are Ms. Rivera and the other American war resisters who determined they could not in good conscience continue to be part of the Iraq war.

 

 

Hopefully other voices will join Archbishop Tutu in calling for the Canadian government to allow Kim and her family to stay.

 

 

Someone needs to call out Soledad O'Brien.   Newsbusters is a right-wing media critique site.  They sent something to the public e-mail account. It's their report on CNN's Soledad O'Brien 'fact checking' US House Rep Peter King (link has text and transcript).  It wasn't journalism.  Excerpt.

 

 

Soledad O'Brien: So let's talk about that last line. "What we saw this week is in may ways a logical result of all of that."  Are you saying that the president is responsible and his policies responsible for the death of the American ambassador to Libya?

 

US House Rep Peter King: I'm saying the president's policies have sent a confused message.  For instance, take Egypt.  Here is a country getting $1.6 billion in aid annually from the United States.  Yet President Morsi for the first day, the entire day of our embassy being under attack, did virtually nothing to protect us and was actually putting out statements in Arabic where he was sympathizing with the demonstrators and those attacking the American embassy.  What it's done is it's created a climate, it's created an attitude in the Middle East where our allies don't trust us, where those who are undecided are starting to hedge their bets and turn against us.  For instance in Iraq, the president talks about how he pulled our troops out of Iraq.  The fact is he was given a glide path in Iraq.  He pulled the troops out without getting a Status Of Forces Agreement, without leaving any American troops behind and now Iran is emerging as a major power in that region whereas if we had our troops there it would not happen.

 

Soledad O'Brien:  But you-you've been talking about an apology tour.  As you know that matches the framing of other people.  Donald Rumsfeld says he's made a practice of trying to apologize for America, he's talking about the president.  Mitt Romney has said "I will not and never apologize for America.  I don't apologize for America." Tim Palwenty back in February was saying, "Mr. President, stop apologizing for -- "  Where do you see an apology?  You called it an apology tour.  You said the apologies.  What apologies are you specifically talking about?

 

US House Rep Peter King: I would say when he was in Cairo in 2009, when he was basically apologizing for American policies, saying American policies sometimes have gone too far --

 

Soledad O'Brien: Never once in that speeh, as you know, which I have the speech right here.  That was -- he never once used the word apology.  He never once said I'm sorry.

 

US House Rep Peter King: Didn't have to.  The logical  -- any logical reading of the speech or the speech he gave in France where he basically said that the United States can be too aggressive --

 

Soledad cuts him off again.  What she needs to do is cut off that  hair. (When you have circles and bags under the eyes, do not wear your hair long unless you're pulling it back.  The goal with bags and circles is never to create more shadows on the face.  What an idiot.)

 

This is not complicated.  Soledad, using faux-gressiver terms like "framework" (the journalist term is "narrative"), may indicate some cabal but Donald Rumsfeld and King honestly believe what they're saying.  I would assume the same for Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty as well but with Rumsfeld and King there is a long body of the critique.  It predates Barack Obama and if Soledad thinks she's up to a 'fact check,' she needs to educate herself on this.

 

To move to a different topic but to explain the larger point,  then-President Ronald Reagan supported SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative).  I didn't.  I thought it was a lunatic idea, I thought it militarized space, etc.  Ronald Reagan had one opinion, I had another.  By Soledad's 'understaning,' she can fact check that and determine one of us to be right.  She is an uneducated lunatic.  Ronald Reagan believed he was right about SDI, I believe I am right.  Those are opinions.  They don't go to fact check. 

 

I bring up SDI specifically because Soledad wants to treat King's statements as something she's never before encountered.  (Maybe she hasn't.  She's not that smart.)  But his statements are at the heart of modern day conservatism and Barack's approach is in stark contrast to Reagan (Reagan remains the hero of most modern day conservatives).  You can read the SDI speech and you can see a lot of what's being discussed by King and others in that speech.  Here's an excerpt:

 

President Ronald Reagan:  The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression - to preserve freedom and peace.

Since the dawn of the atomic age, we have sought to reduce the risk of war by maintaining a strong deterrent and by seeking genuine arms control. Deterrence means simply this: Making sure any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States or our allies or our vital interests concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won't attack. We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.

 

 

I disagree with those opinions (including the claim that the US doesn't start fights).  And I can argue with someone who holds those opinions.  But I recognize those to be opinions.  Not facts.  It's an ideology.  If this is so far above Soledad's head, CNN needs to send her to a college where she can hopefully learn.  And I'll go further, if EJ Dionne, an opinion columnist, wanted to call the conservative opinion "wrong," that's fine.  He's an opinion columnist.  Soledad is supposed to be objective.  That makes her performance today even more embarrassing. 

 

Sunday, Ava and I wrote "TV: Media Fail" and it was about the media's refusal to play fair.  Jim did a quick piece that bookends that with "Romney and Obama last week" and, though we answered his questions in that, Ava and I were both confused why he wanted that.  He's getting at the points above.  It is not fair for Soledad to pretend to be 'objective' and then treat a conservative ideology to a 'fact check.'  It's about the same as putting religious beliefs to a 'fact check.'  Beliefs and opinions can differ and, in fact, in a democracy are supposed to.  You may not like the conclusions someone forms based on the facts, but they are allowed to reach their own conclusions.

 

Karl Rove wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal, published in April of 2009, about what he termed Barack's "apology tour."  He wasn't the only one using that term at that time.  Click here for a video about the "apology tour" that was posted to YouTube April 32, 2009.  For Soledad to be ignorant of all of this is an insult to the viewers.  Her segment was an insult.  If she wants to debate ideology, fine, let her take a stand -- and state whether it's her own or that she's playing devil's advocate -- and have that discussion.  But don't pretend that she's dealing with facts.  And don't pretend that we (on the left) win when some journalist plays America dumb by acting as if ideology and belief can be put to a fact check.  CNN should be ashamed of themselves. 

 

These are serious issues and if Soledad O'Brien's not up for them, she needs to be pulled.   If it's still not clear, let's look at King's remarks on Iraq.

 

US House Rep Peter King: For instance in Iraq, the president talks about how he pulled our troops out of Iraq. The fact is he was given a glide path in Iraq. He pulled the troops out without getting a Status Of Forces Agreement, without leaving any American troops behind and now Iran is emerging as a major power in that region whereas if we had our troops there it would not happen.

 

Barack pulled US troops from Iraq?  That's a fact.  Removed them without a SOFA?  Fact.  King takes those facts, places them in his conservative framework and comes up with opinions ("glide path" and the US left in a position of weakness).  So-called objective journalists need to learn to do their job.  Media Matters, as this item demonstrates, does a better job of grasping the points about ideology and opinion, that Soledad O'Brien refuses to -- and Media Matters doesn't claim to be objective or impartial -- it is a left-wing organization.

 

 

The third week of this month has begun and, through Saturday, Iraq Body Counts counts 183 people dead so far this month as a result of violence.  And the violence continues today with a high-profile Baghdad bombing.  KUNA explains, "The blast is considered of some significance for it targeted the heavily-guarded location [Green Zone], where senior officials reside.  The zone also includes a number of government, diplomatic and security offices and departments."  Xinhua reports that 7 people are dead and twenty-four injured from the "suicide car bomb attack near an entrance of Baghdad Green Zone."  Al-Shorfa notes that the death toll has risen to 8.   AP reports the "bomber slammed a car packed with explosives into one of the [Green Zone] gates."  AFP adds, "The attacker drove up to the entrance situated at the July 14 bridge, which is manned by Iraqi soldiers and lies across the Tigris River from the Green Zone, before detonating an explosives-rigged vehicle, an interior ministry official said."  Kareem Raheem (Reuters) quotes an unnamed police officer stating, "Cars were lining up waiting to be searched at the checkpoint that leads to the Green Zone and suddenly a speeding car exploded nearby.  Some people died inside cars and I saw two soldiers lying on the ground.  We immediately closed the area." Adrian Blomfield (Telegraph of London) observes, "The bombing was reminiscent of the violence that regularly targeted the Green Zone when it served as the American administrative headquarters in the years following the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003." In addition, Alsumaria reports a mortar attack on a Mosul police station has left one police officer and two civilians injured. 

 

 

Meanwhile RTT News reports, "Deadly clashes between Turkish security forces and activists of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have left 42 people dead during the weekend, Turkish media reported citing officials. "  The PKK is a Kurdish group which fights for Kurdish independence.   Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described the PKK in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk."  Suzan Fraser (AP) reports that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today echoed his "call on the rebel group to lay down arms.  Erdogan said military offensives against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, would end only after the rebels lay down arms."  In response, Reuters notes, "Turkey's main Kurdish party said on Monday that Turkey must agree a mutual ceasefire with Kurdish separatists to have any hope of ending their conflict, rather than making one-sided demands that they disarm."

 

Yesterday, the US State Dept issued the following statement:

Today, the seventh convoy of approximately 680 Camp Ashraf residents arrived safely at Camp Hurriya. This convoy represents the last major relocation of residents from former Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya and marks a significant milestone in efforts to achieve a sustainable humanitarian solution to this issue. Over the coming weeks, the small group temporarily remaining at former Camp Ashraf will address residual issues and then also move to Camp Hurriya.

The United States appreciates the efforts of the Government of Iraq to accommodate both security and humanitarian concerns throughout this process, including the peaceful and orderly closure of former Camp Ashraf and relocation of its residents to Camp Hurriya. We count on Iraq's continued adherence to the December 25, 2011 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the United Nations that provides a path for the safe relocation of former Ashraf residents out of Iraq. We welcome the cooperation by the former Ashraf residents in this relocation and look forward to their continued participation in the process set forth in the MOU. Additionally, we are grateful for the work of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, whose personnel have achieved much under challenging circumstances.

The United States will continue to support those efforts and, working with the United Nations and our partners in the international community, turn our attention to supporting the permanent relocation of the residents from Iraq.

 

 

Approximately 3,400 people were at Camp Ashraf when the US invaded Iraq in 2003.  They were Iranian dissidents who were given asylum by Saddam Hussein decades ago.  The US government authorized the US military to negotiate with the residents.  The US military was able to get the residents to agree to disarm and they became protected persons under Geneva and under international law.

Despite that legal status and the the legal obligation on the part of the US government to protect the residents, since Barack Obama has been sworn in as US president, Nouri has ordered not one but two attacks on Camp Ashraf resulting in multiple deaths.  Let's recap.  July 28, 2009 Nouri launched an attack (while then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was on the ground in Iraq). In a report released this summer entitled "Iraqi government must respect and protect rights of Camp Ashraf residents," Amnesty International described this assault, "Barely a month later, on 28-29 July 2009, Iraqi security forces stormed into the camp; at least nine residents were killed and many more were injured. Thirty-six residents who were detained were allegedly tortured and beaten. They were eventually released on 7 October 2009; by then they were in poor health after going on hunger strike." April 8, 2011, Nouri again ordered an assault on Camp Ashraf (then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was again on the ground in Iraq when the assault took place). Amnesty International described the assault this way, "Earlier this year, on 8 April, Iraqi troops took up positions within the camp using excessive, including lethal, force against residents who tried to resist them. Troops used live ammunition and by the end of the operation some 36 residents, including eight women, were dead and more than 300 others had been wounded. Following international and other protests, the Iraqi government announced that it had appointed a committee to investigate the attack and the killings; however, as on other occasions when the government has announced investigations into allegations of serious human rights violations by its forces, the authorities have yet to disclose the outcome, prompting questions whether any investigation was, in fact, carried out."Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observes that "since 2004, the United States has considered the residents of Camp Ashraf 'noncombatants' and 'protected persons' under the Geneva Conventions."

 

Of yesterday's relocations, Martin Kobler, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative to Iraq, declared yesterday, 'This is an important step as we near the end of the relocation process.  I would like to thank the residents for their cooperation.  I would also like to thank the Government of Iraq for ensuring this last major relocation and paving the way for the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf under the terms of the memorandum of understanding."  Press TV (link is text and video) notes that 168 residents remain at Camp Ashraf.  Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reminds, "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is under a court order to decide by October 1 whether to remove MEK from the terror list. The secretay has said several times that her decision would be guided, in part, by whether the group moves peacefully from Camp Ashraf."

 

 

Now for this:

 

The arrest warrant was issued on Dec. 19, just after I arrived in Erbil. I was very surprised. I was shocked that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had issued such a warrant. He needs to consult with the president, if there is any proof. I have legal immunity granted by the constitution, yet they ignored this legal provision. They went so far as toissue a death sentence. The surprising part about this incident is its timing. This verdict came on September 9. They dismissed the previous judge and appointed a new one. This was the first trial conducted by the newly appointed judge. Here we are talking about a judge who is not familiar with details of the case. They reached a verdict within less than 24 hours. There was not even time for defense.

 

That's Tareq al-Hashemi speaking.  Please note, we've gotten the chronology right.   From the April 30th snapshot:


The political crisis was already well in effect when December 2011 rolled around.  The press rarely gets that fact correct.  When December 2011 rolls around you see Iraqiya announce a  boycott of the council and the Parliament, that's in the December 16th snapshot and again in aDecember 17th entry .  Tareq al-Hashemi is a member of Iraqiya but he's not in the news at that point.  Later, we'll learn that Nouri -- just returned from DC where he met with Barack Obama -- has ordered tanks to surround the homes of high ranking members of Iraqiya. December 18th is when al-Hashemi and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq are pulled from a Baghdad flight to the KRG but then allowed to reboard the plane. December 19th is when the arrest warrant is issued for Tareq al-Hashemi by Nouri al-Maliki who claims the vice president is a 'terrorist.' .

 

 

Tareq al-Hashemi knows the chronology because it's his life.  We know it because we followed it.  Why is it that employees of Reuters, AP and the rest -- people paid to do a job -- don't get it right?  Why is that they are allowed repeatedly to rewrite history and FALSELY claim that Tareq left Baghdad after a warrant was issued? 

 

Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi has been targeted by Nouri.  He speaks about that and more to Faith Altyli (Al-Monitor).  Excerpt:

 

The problem with Iraq is Maliki's style of governing. I don't agree with him on economic concerns or on political processes. The administrative council, president and vice president work as a team. However, we could not work together, as Maliki had different desires. He believes in tyranny, not in democracy. I tried to convince him many times ... to be more just and stand against discrimination. Since 2006, Iraq has steered away from democracy and is turning into an autocracy. I was against this happening. 

Iraq had a great opportunity. We had the chance to hold the presidency of the Arab League for a year. However, when the summit ended, Maliki went against the will of the participants and supported Assad. 

 

 

As the political crisis continues, Raman Brosk (AKnews) reports, "The Kurdish Blocs Coalition (KBC) is hoping that President of Iraq Jalal Talabani will put an end to months of disputes between Baghdad and Erbil upon his return from Germany where he is receiving treatmeant after his health deteriorated."  He fled to Germany after he betrayed the other blocs working on the no-confidence vote.  From his 'sick bed' in Germany (he had knee surgery), he threatened to resign as president.  But a lot of people are pinning their hopes on him.  Dar Addustour notes that ahead of Talabani's return, KRG President Massoud Barzani has departed for a tour of Europe where he'll meet with various leaders.

Alsumaria notes the incoming  8 Independent High Electoral Commission members include: Mohsen Jabbari Mohsen, Wael Mohamed Abd Ali, Moqdad Hassan Saleh, Safaa Ibrahim Jassim al-Hassan, Aboert Bunnell al-Alalah, Khan Kamal Ali.  All Iraq News adds that Kolshan al-Kamal was nominated but the vote on al-Kamal has been postponed due to objections from the Christian MPs.  The Commission is supposed to have 9 members and, at present, the hope is that the ninth member will be voted on shortly.  AFP explains,

"The new commission may have to contend with political pressure in addition to the challenges of organising elections, including local polls that are to be held next March.

Faraj al-Haidari, the outgoing head of IHEC, said in late August that he and two other members were found guilty of graft and handed suspended one-year prison sentences."

 

Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) also reports on Parliament, specifically the body's Integrity Commission which has called for all Iraqi ministers and deputy ministers, deputies and advisers who hold dual nationality to drop the non-Iraqi nationality.   Why is this a concern?

In a government of refugees, you have many people with other nationalities.  And when people leave with government money -- as 7 officials in Nouri's last government did -- it can be very difficult to have them extradicted from another country if they hold citizenship in that country.

 

Over the weekend, Iraq had a high profile visitor.   Saturday, Al Madareported that UN Special Envoy on Refugee Issues and Academy Award winning  Angelina Jolie visited Iraq today as part of the UN efforts for Syrian refugees.  The American actress will visit Dohuk Province and met with refugees at the camp there.  Dohuk and Anbar Province house approximatley 21,000 Syrian refugees.  Angelina met with Iraq's Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoshyar Zebari. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) adds, "Jolie and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari discussed the situation of Syrian refugees in Iraq while meeting at his office in Baghdad, the foreign ministry said in a statement. They also talked about the efforts made by the Iraqi government to meet the daily needs of refugees, the statement said."  

 

BBC offers a streaming video report of her trip.  The Age carries a Reuters video report on the trip.  Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) offers a photo essay of the visit.

 

RTT News notes this is Jolie's fourth trip to Iraq and "Jolie spent Sunday meeting with Syrian refugees in the Domiz camp in northern Iraq. She also met officials of the Kurdistan regional government, including the Prime Minister, the Interior Minister and the Governor of Dohuk. Many of the officials she met were former refugees."  The Voice of Russia notes that in addition to visiting Iraq, she also toured "refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey."  Sowetan's report includes:

 

"What they described on the ground, hearing it from them is so horrific," she said, adding that the children's stories were especially moving, including some who said they had witnessed people being pulled apart "like chickens."
"When you meet so many innocent people and civilians, the people of Syria are asking who is on their side. 'Who is going to help us as the months go on?" she added.

 

Approximately two-thirds of the Syrian refugees in Iraq who are registered with the United Nations are in the KRG.  Despite this fact, All Iraq Newsreports that the KRG has received zero in financial support for the refugees from the Iraqi central government out of Baghdad.    AFP quotes her stating at the Dohuk refugee camp Domiz, "I know how gracious the Kurdish government and the Kurdish region people have been to the Syrian refugees."  AFP also quotes her stating at Dohuk, "I have been to the four borders of Syria, and this is the first camp I have been to where they are already preparing for winterisation, and also where there are ID cards, giving freedom of movment, which is an extraordinary thing."   AKI quotes her stating, "At this juncture, it is critical that Iraq receives urgent international support and continues to welcome refugees across its borders."   The KRG issued the following on her visit:

 

Erbil, Kurdistan Region - Iraq (KRG.org) – Angelina Jolie, the Special Envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, travelled to the Kurdistan Region today to visit refugees in camps along the Syrian border and to discuss with Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani the help provided by the Kurdistan Regional Government. 

Ms Jolie this morning met some of the 21,000 Syrian refugees that have taken shelter in camps in Duhok province before travelling to Erbil to meet Prime Minister Barzani who welcomed Ms Jolie to Kurdistan and thanked her for drawing attention to the plight of the refugees. 

Citing the $10million allocated by the KRG to provide for the needs of the refugees, the Prime Minister said, "We have not received any support from Baghdad, but of course this has not caused us to delay our aid. Instead of waiting for the support of the Federal Government, we have provided immediate assistance to those who have sought shelter with us." 

Ms Jolie thanked the Prime Minster and the KRG for the help they are providing and expressed her hope that the international community will begin partnering with the Region in these efforts.

The Prime Minister detailed the aid being provided to the refugees, explaining that the KRG is providing food, shelter, healthcare, and emergency aid, as well as developing an educational programme that will soon be implemented to allow the children to keep up with their studies. They also discussed the situation in the other camps that Ms Jolie had visited in her role as UN ambassador. 

Ms Jolie arrived in Kurdistan today after meeting with Iraqi returnees from Syria and senior government officials in Baghdad on Saturday. Her visit is part of a larger regional tour of camps in Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon for Syrians who have been displaced by the violence in the country.

In April 2012, Ms Jolie was appointed Special Envoy of the UNHCR, before which she served for several years as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR. The famous Hollywood actress has been a very strong public advocate for human rights.

 

 

 

Alsumaria notes her previous visits to Iraq as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and that she's alos visited refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanaon and Turkey to bring a spotlight to the refugee issue and, with regards to Syrian refugees only, Kitabat notes she has visited camps in Lebanon and Jordan. AFP reports she travels next to Erbil and will visit Dohuk's refugee camp.