Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Procedures"/Abu Ghraib Redux

Check out the recent article by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris in The New Yorker about Sabrina Harman, one of the photographers and subjects of the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal of 2003.

It is an insightful portrait of one of the people who ended up taking the blame for a systemic problem of abusing and torturing suspects under the auspices of the Global War on Terror. Take note of her letters, which demonstrate a moral confusion and anguished conscience at what was taking place, and what she was participating in. Take note, as well, of how she was clearly doing what she was asked to do by Military Intelligence, and thus her criminality was sanctioned and encouraged.

You can see a clip of Morris' forthcoming film here.

Winter Soldier 2008, The Iraq/Afghanistan Version

The original Winter Soldier hearings took place in Detroit in 1971, and involved American veteran testimonies on U.S. conduct in the war on Vietnam (including John Kerry).

According to Wikipedia,

The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan, from January 31-February 2, 1971. Discharged servicemen from each branch of military service, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years of 1963-1970.[1][2][3]

The recent Afghanistan/Iraq War has led to a new "Winter Soldier" 2008. Full audio is accessible here.

Check out this testimony by Logan Laituri, a conscientious objector, from Truthout. Among other elements of his testimony--that his commanding officer gave a pep talk to his platoon, in which he said that they would use "dropped weapons" if there were any case of Iraq casualties that might lead to inquiry.

And here is Jason Hurd's testimony on the Rules of Engagement.

In short, these testimonies offer insights into the U.S. conduct of the war, and the effects on Iraqi civilians and on American soldiers.

Grace Paley's "Fathers"

My parents visited this past weekend, and my ex-Cold Warrior father (Navy veteran and longtime reserve officer, retired with the rank of Captain) had just returned from Vietnam, forty years after his service in the war. Here's to you, Pops, and your bear hugs.

"Fathers" by Grace Paley

Fathers
Fathers are
more fathering
these days they have
accomplished this by
being more mothering

what luck for them that
women's lib happened then
the dream of new fathering
began to shine in the eyes
of free women and was
irresistible

on the New York subways
and the mass transits
of other cities one may
see fatherings of many colors
with their round babies on
their laps this may also
happen in the countryside

these scenes were brand new
exciting for an old woman who
had watched the old fathers
gathering once again in
familiar army camps and com-
fortable war rooms to consider
the necessary eradication of
the new fathering fathers
(who are their sons) as well
as the women and children who
will surely be in the way

3/23: Peace Protesters Stage Dramatic Die-in to Oppose Iraq War at City's Most Prominent Catholic Parish

I have very mixed feelings about this protest, because of how it does not actively invite its audience, but rather shocks and shames them.

However, it hearkens back to the dramatic protests in the late Sixties and early Seventies by Philip Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, and many others of the Catholic Left (the Baltimore Four, Catonsville Nine, the Camden 28, etc.). Such protests could be read alongside the prankish, but no less serious, symbolic actions of the Situationists and others (see Lipstick Traces, for one source).

3/23: Peace Protesters Stage Dramatic Die-in to Oppose Iraq War at City's Most Prominent Catholic Parish

CHICAGO, March 23 – Six members of the anti-war group “Catholic Schoolgirls Against The War” staged a dramatic die-in during the 11AM Easter mass at Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago’s most prominent Catholic parish – and the home of one of the nation’s most conservative church leaders, Cardinal George. The action included a denunciation of Cardinal George’s January 7 meeting with Mayor Daley and President Bush, the ‘chief architect’ of the ongoing carnage in Iraq. Four people were arrested at Bush's January 7 visit, one of whom was slapped with bogus felony charges.

The three men and three women activists timed the action to reach both Holy Name’s large easter audience -- including some of Chicago’s most prominent citizens, who commonly attend Easter mass at the church -- and the many more viewers and readers of the local press, which usually extensively covers the services.

The action was staged in the Gold Coast cathedral’s parish center, an auditorium where mass is being said while the main cathedral undergoes renovation. Easter services at Holy Name are traditionally one of the most heavily attended masses of the year, and this mass was no exception, with people packed wall to wall for today’s Easter morning holiday service.

The group of young men and women, dressed in their Easter best, sat through the 11AM mass until George reached the homily. George had just uttered the words, "Often, we hear people say 'love is blind," when the protesters rose from their seats to address George and the hundreds of parishioners in the auditorium. "The sixth commandment says 'Thou shall not kill'" said one protester. "Yet more than a million Iraqis have been killed since the invasion of Iraq," said a second. Many members of the audience audibly gasped and murmered at these words. "On January 7, Cardinal George met for lunch with George W. Bush," said a third protester, saying that Bush was responsible for the ongoing carnage in Iraq. That statement referred to a January 7 meetng Cardinal George and Chicago mayor Richard Daley had with George W. Bush during a presidential visit to Chicago that was capped by the arrest of four peace protesters.

In the wake of the Bush visit in January, peace activists vigorously criticized the Cardinal and mayor Daley for failing to publicly raise the issue of the war -- and the need to end it -- with Bush, and the Holy Name action was staged in part to remind George of his resonsibility to press for the issue of an end to the war with public officials, particularly leading war boosters like Bush.

At this point during the church service, ushers had rushed around the protesters, who then squirted themselves with stage blood and collapsed to the floor in the aisle. Some stage blood spattered on non-protesters in the vicinity.

The protesters voluntarily got to their feet at the ushers' urging and walked out of the auditorium, chanting "Even the Pope calls for peace!" "And so should we all call for peace," said George from the alter as the last protester was led out.

The protesters were arrested outside by Chicago police, and conducted a series of media interviews with local television outlets, which had packed the auditorium to film George's service, while cops waited for a police wagon to take them to lockup.

The six peace activists -- Angela Haban, 20 years old, female; Regan Maher, 25 years old, female; Mercedes Phinaih, 18 years old, female; Ephran Ramirez, Jr., 22 years old, male; Donte D. Smith, 21 years old, male; and Ryane J. Ziemba, 25 years old, male -- chose Holy Name as a way to ratchet up a sense of urgency about the war with the cardinal and many of the city's elite who attend services there.

The protesters' sense of urgency seems to be well placed -- four more U.S. soldiers were killed today in Iraq, bringing the total number of soldiers killed there to over 4,000 since the war began just over five years ago. Estimates of Iraqi dead total in the hundreds of thousands, and perhaps as high as a million or more. The U.S. government has chosen not to keep track of the number of civilian casualties in this conflict.

"On a day when we're celebrating the resurrection of the Prince of Peace -- a man whose ministry was deeply tied to comfort and relief for the most oppressed among us -- it's critical that we remind ourselves and others everywhere of the need to reject business as usual and demand peace in Iraq from our own government and its supporter," said Kevin Clark, a supporter of today's protesters. "The fact is that many in attendance today at Holy Name Cathedral are among the city's most powerful people, and it's incumbent on them to endure a little discomfort to be reminded that unless they're working tirelessly to end this war immediately, then their presence in this church on Easter Sunday is an act of hypocrisy."

This afternoon, the Chicago police announced that the six young people arrested at the Holy Name Cathedral die-in have been charged with one count of felony criminal damage to property and two counts of simple battery. They are currently being held at Cook County jail at 26th and California, and are expected to be arraigned on the felony charge some time Monday morning, possibly as early as 9AM. Police denied one arrestee who is hypoglycemic access to his medication. Police have also repoortedly been telling concerned callers that supporters of the peace protesters could be investigated for terrorism by Homeland Security -- a tactic supporters says underscores the repressive political nature of the police response to the protest.

Supporters are working to arrange jail solidarity and legal support. For more info, call Kevin Clark at 312-259-4380 or email him at solitaryleftist (at) aol.com. Supporters have also set up a paypal account to raise bail funds. The contact email for that effort is holyname6 (at) riseup.net. Paypal donations can also be sent via the following url: www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr

Obama and Israel: Abunimah's Analysis

The senator, his pastor and the Israel lobby

By Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
31 March 2008

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9427.shtml

US senator Barack Obama was widely hailed for his 18 March speech calming the media furor about the sermons of his pastor for twenty years Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright's remarks, Obama said, "expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."

It might seem odd for Obama to mention Israel and "radical Islam" in a speech focused on US race relations, especially since Wright's most widely reported comments were about America's historic and ongoing oppression of its black citizens.

But for months, even before most Americans had heard of Wright, prominent pro-Israel activists were hounding Obama over Wright's views on Israel and ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. In January, Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), demanded that Obama denounce Farrakhan as an anti-Semite.

The senator duly did so, but that was not enough. "[Obama has] distanced himself from his pastor's decision to honor Farrakhan," Foxman said, but "He has not distanced himself from his pastor. I think that's the next step." Foxman labeled Wright "a black racist," adding in the same breath, "Certainly he has very strong anti-Israel views" (Larry Cohler-Esses, "ADL Chief To Obama: 'Confront Your Pastor' On Minister Farrakhan," The Jewish Week, 16 January 2008). Criticism of Israel, one suspects, is Wright's truly unforgivable crime and Foxman's vitriol has echoed through dozens of pro-Israel blogs.

Since his early political life in Chicago, Barack Obama was well-informed about the Middle East and had expressed nuanced views conveying an understanding that justice and fairness, not blinkered support for Israel, are the keys to peace and the right way to combat extremism. Yet for months he has been fighting the charge that he is less rabidly pro-Israel than other candidates -- which means now adhering to the same simplistic formulas and unconditional support for Israeli policies that have
helped to escalate conflict and worsen America's standing in the Middle East. Hence Obama's assertion at his 26 February debate with Senator Hillary Clinton that he is "a stalwart friend of Israel."

But Obama stressed that his appeal to Jewish voters also stems from his desire "to rebuild what I consider to be a historic relationship between the African American community and the Jewish community."

Obama has not addressed to a national audience why that relationship might have frayed. He was much more candid when speaking to Jewish leaders in Cleveland just one day before the debate. In a little-noticed comment, reported on 25 February by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Obama tried to contextualize Wright's critical views of Israel.

Wright, Obama explained, "was very active in the South Africa divestment movement and you will recall that there was a tension that arose between the African American and the Jewish communities during that period when we were dealing with apartheid in South Africa, because Israel and South Africa had a relationship at that time. And that cause -- that was a source of tension."

Obama implicitly admitted that Wright's views were rooted in opposition to Israel's deep ties to apartheid South Africa, and thus entirely reasonable even if Obama himself did "not necessarily," as he put it, share them. Israel supplied South Africa with hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry despite an international embargo. Even the water cannons that South African forces used to attack anti-apartheid demonstrators in the townships were manufactured at Kibbutz Beit Alfa, a "socialist" settlement in northern Israel. Until the late 1980s, South Africa often relied on Israel to lobby Western governments not to impose sanctions.

And the relationship was durable. As The Washington Post reported in 1987, "When it comes to Israel and South Africa, breaking up is hard to do." Israeli officials, the newspaper said, "face conflicting imperatives: their desire to get in line with the West, which has adopted a policy of mild but symbolic sanctions, versus Israel's longstanding friendship with the Pretoria government, a relationship that has been important for strategic, economic and, at times, sentimental reasons" ("An Israeli Dilemma: S. African Ties; Moves to Cut Links Are Slowed by Economic Pressures, Sentiment," The Washington Post, 20 September 1987).

In 1987, Jesse Jackson, then the world's most prominent African American politician, angered some Jewish American leaders for insisting that "Whoever is doing business with South Africa is wrong, but Israel is ... subsidized by America, which includes black Americans' tax money, and then it subsidizes South Africa" ("Jackson Draws New
Criticism From Jewish Leaders Over Interview," Associated Press, 16 October 1987).

As a presidential candidate, Jackson raised the same concerns in a high profile meeting with the Israeli ambassador, as did a delegation of black civil rights and religious leaders, including the nephew of Martin Luther King Jr, on a visit to Israel. For many African Americans, it was intolerable hypocrisy that so many Jewish leaders who staunchly supported Civil Rights and the anti-apartheid movement would be tolerant of Israel's complicity.

Thus, Reverend Wright, who has sought a broader understanding of the Middle East than one that blames Islam and Arabs for all the region's problems or endorses
unconditional support for Israel, stood in the mainstream of African American opinion, not on some extremist fringe.

That is not to say that Jewish concerns about anti-Semitic sentiments among some African Americans should simply be dismissed. Racism in any community should be confronted. But as they have done with other communities, hard-line pro-Israel activists like Foxman have too often tried to tar any African American critic of Israel with the brush of anti-Semitism. Why must every black candidate to a major office go through the ritual of denouncing Farrakhan, a marginal figure in national politics who likely gets most of his notoriety from the ADL? Surely if anti-Semitism were such an endemic problem among African Americans, there would be someone other than Farrakhan for the ADL to have focused its ire on all these decades.

By contrast, neither Senator Joe Lieberman (Al Gore's running mate in 2000 and the first Jewish candidate on a major party presidential ticket), nor Senator John McCain
have been required so publicly and so repeatedly to repudiate extremist and racist comments by Israeli leaders or some well-known radical Christian leaders supporting the Republican party. Foxman, whose organization devotes enormous resources to burnishing Israel's image, has rarely spoken out about the escalating anti-Arab racism and incitement to violence by prominent Israeli politicians and rabbis.

That is no surprise. African Americans, Arab Americans and Muslims all share some things in common: individuals are held collectively responsible for the words and actions of others in their community whether they had anything to do with them or not. And the price of admission to the political mainstream is to abandon any foreign policy goals that diverge from those of the pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian lobby.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books,2006).

Mark Doty Reading Walt Whitman's "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice"

This is Mark Doty's reading of Whitman at Split This Rock...

"Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice" by Walt Whitman

OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
Those who love each other shall become invincible,
They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,
If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade,
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and waited beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection,
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,
I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

To See the Earth review in Jacket

Check out the first official review of To See the Earth, appearing in Jacket (35), Spring 2008.

A blurb from it:

Implicit in this “seeing” is the conscious act of witnessing that informs much of the book, be it witness to the hardships of poverty in Russia during the post-Soviet period, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, or the often-overlooked American protests against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than simply “political poetry,” however, Metres explores the extent to which language itself is bound up in the struggle to articulate an adequate response to the world around us. The problems of language are two-fold, he seems to suggest, arising not only from its inherent incommensurability but also from its reliance on and origins in the very authoritarian systems his poetry testifies against

.

Jay Hopler and Cate Marvin reading, a review

Jay Hopler and Cate Marvin came into town to give a reading at Cleveland State last night, and I was struck by their collective "comic macabre," a legacy, perhaps of the masterful confessionals like Berryman and Plath.

Hopler was a hell of a lot funnier than his poems sounded on the page on my first readings of his book Green Squall, and much of that humor is directed at himself, a la Berryman, when he even talks to himself in the third person in "The Frustrated Angel."

Marvin hews closer to Plath than Hopler to Berryman in terms of technique and style, though she also ranges into the fabular and postmodern manques more fully. I was particularly struck by this poem, "Landscape with Hungry Girls," from her latest book, Fragment of the Head of a Queen, for its directness and anger about patriarchy and what happens to young women who succumb to its vampirisms. It made me think of my short list of poems on anorexia, which would include Frank Bidart's "Ellen West," and Ted Leo's "Me and Mia."

"Landscape with Hungry Girls"

There’s blood here. The skyline teethes the clouds
raw, and rain’s course streams a million umbilical
cords down windows and walls. Every things gnaws,
and the pink polish on their girl-nails chips, flakes
off as they continue to dig through towering heaps
of refuse. It's a story, as usual. As usual, a phone
and dead silence. Or the phone: a lobster to the ear.
Girls resigned to being girls. The softer faces they
find in the mirrors. The limp shake, a hand placed,
a flower wilting moist on the man's palm. Or hard
handshakes deemed "aggressive": snakes. O, girls.
All of them carefully watching carefully the faces
of their sleeping men, even when their own faces are
more beautiful in their watching, and if only they'd
watch their own faces beneath the revolving lights
sliding between the blinds: they are blinded from
watching their men sleep so dumbly. The headaches,
the insistent grip of a gnawing stomach, eating itself.
Thinking hunger is strength, how hurt they are, girls
picking at food on their plates. I like a girl who eats.
Careful, what you say you want. The moon is distant,
yet cousin to her face: our genders worse than alien.
Bleeding is something everyone does. You don't call.
Girls snack on skyscrapers, girls gut their teddy bears,
and girls saw their own faces off. What is it to lack
compassion? When you walk through a zoo do you
not thinkg the animals it houses could have been you?
Who would you be, how hungry, if you were a girl
feeding only on the meek sleep of male countenance?
Would you stand vigil, would you starve if they do?

The Sidewalk Blogger in Hawai'i Marks the 4,000th U.S. Death in Iraq

Thanks to the Sidewalk Blogger for marking this latest tragic milestone in the Iraq debacle.


Meanwhile, let's also remember that the Iraq Body Count nears 90,000...
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

"Charlie Don't Surf"/From Apocalypse Now to Sandinista Back Then, and Now to Iraq

In the process of uncovering anti-war or dissenting songs that get co-opted (and yes, I have yet to post on Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" or Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.", though at least the former is mentioned in the book, Behind the Lines), I found an instance where a vaguely pro-war statement & representation comes to be made into a song against war: The Clash's "Charlie Don't Surf," from the endless three-album Sandinista (1981). In Apocalypse Now, one of those movies that first looks pro-war, then looks anti-war, then looks pro-war again, the following interchange occurs:

Kilgore: You either surf or you fight.
Willard: Are you crazy God damnit? Don't you think its a little risky for some R&R?
Kilgore: If I say its safe to surf this beach Captain, then its safe to surf this beach. I mean I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole fucking place!
Kilgore: Charlie don't surf!

You can watch The Ride of the Valkyries scene in case you missed the movie.

The Clash then recorded their song, a version of which they play here:




CHORUS
Charlie don't surf and we think he should
Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't no good
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie's gonna be a napalm star

Everybody wants to rule the world
Must be something we get from birth
One truth is we never learn
Satellites will make space burn

We've been told to keep the strangers out
We don't like them starting to hang around
We don't like them all over town
Across the world we are going to blow them down

CHORUS

The reign of the super powers must be over
So many armies can't free the earth
Soon the rock will roll over
Africa is choking on their Coca Cola

It's a one a way street in a one horse town
One way people starting to brag around
You can laugh, put them down
These one way people gonna blow us down

CHORUS

Charlie don't surf he'll never learn
Charlie don't surf though he's got a gun
Charlie don't surf think that he should
Charlie don't surf we really think he should
Charlie don't surf

Charlie don't surf and we think he should
Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't no good
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie don't surf

But, as is the rule, "Charlie Don't Surf" also has become something of a gaming title as well. In the following youtubed clip, you too can become a soldier, defined by the weapons that you hold in front of you, like a pair of ideological goggles into which you squint, trying to make out who to kill and who not to.