Seymour Hersh on 'the Madness of King George' · 3 November 2007, 08:27 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Last week Seymour Hersh visited Groningen, the Netherlands, to deliver a lecture at the Van der Leeuw-lezing (Van der Leeuw Lecture). Click here to read his complete lecture on, among other things, ‘the Madness of King George’ and its corrupting effect on U.S. societey.
george bush,
groningen,
iraq,
king george,
seymour hersh,
van der leeuw lezing
The De-Baathification of Iraq: Really a Misstep? · 26 October 2007, 12:43 CET by Charles Vermeulen
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the U.S.-led occupation forces banned all members of the Baath party from the new government, as well as from public schools and colleges. By some this was considered a misstep, because it meant that dozens of experienced technocrats and other employees weren’t available anymore for the reconstruction process of Post-Saddam Iraq. Furthermore it spread anger and resentment among Iraq’s Sunni population who lost their traditional position of power. Recommendation 27 of the Iraq Study Group Report (page 45) therefore reads: ‘Political reconciliation requires the reintegration of Baathists and Arab nationalists into national life, with the leading figures of Saddam Hussein’s regime excluded. The United States should encourage the return of qualified Iraqi professionals—Sunni or Shia, nationalist or ex-Baathist, Kurd or Turkmen or Christian or Arab—into the government.’ But was it really such a bad idea to purge rigorously Iraqi society from members of the Baath party? Currently I’m reading the Dutch translation of Anna Politkovskaya’s Putin’s Russia (Pocket edition, Breda 2005) in which she discusses, among other things, the rise to power of current Russian president Vladimir Putin. According to Politkovskaya possibly more than 6,000 KGB / FSB officials followed Putin when he became President and now occupy key positions in Russia’s key institutions. This means that Russia’s new power structures ‘are chockful of citizens’ who grew up in a tradition in which repression is valued as a proper solution for governmental problems. Only a radical purge, Politkovskaya impassionedly argued, would have sufficed to prevent the current outcome, which she deeply deplored. (pages 130-131)
anna politkovskaya,
de-baathification,
fsb,
iraq,
kgb,
politkovskaya,
putin,
putin's russia,
russia
Sean Smith’s 'Inside the Surge' · 21 July 2007, 10:53 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In his ‘Inside the surge’ Guardian’s photographer and filmmaker Sean Smith, who ‘spent two months embedded with US troops in Baghdad and Anbar province’, once more shows the horrors of the war in Iraq for both the Iraqi people as the US soldiers. Click here to watch his report. (Via Bieslog)
baghdad,
inside the surge,
iraq,
sean smith,
surge,
troop surge strategy
Layla Anwar on Savior Muqtada al-Sadr's Return · 30 May 2007, 20:50 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Layla Anwar in ‘The "Savior" has landed’, a posting on her blog ‘An Arab Woman Blues – Reflections in a Sealed Bottle…’.
al-sadr,
iraq,
layla anwar,
muqtada al-sadr
Mark Urban on the Troop Surge Strategy · 19 May 2007, 13:15 CET by Charles Vermeulen
BBC reporter Mark Urban stayed in Dura, Baghdad, embedded with U.S. soldiers to see how they’re coping with the daily violence and how the implementation of the newly adopted troop surge strategy is turning out in practice. Click here to watch his report.
al doura,
baghdad,
dura,
embedded,
iraq,
mark urban,
surge,
troop surge strategy
Other Forms of Abuse · 18 May 2007, 21:32 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today’s edition of de Volkskrant reports that the Dutch military police officers have mentioned several kinds ‘human rights violations’ to the Van den Bergh-Committee, the committee which is in charge of the investigations into allegations about abuses by the Dutch army in Iraq. According to the officers almost a hundred Iraqi prisoners were detained blindfolded without food and drink a whole day long, whilst access to toilets was denied to them. Furthermore, the plastic handcuffs of some of the detainees allegedly were tightened to such an extent that the blood supply to their hands stopped. And, to conclude, the ‘dignity of the prisoners was violated’, because, according to the officers, executives shot photo’s of them for private use.
abuse,
al-samawah,
dutch army,
human rights violations,
iraq,
volkskrant
Use of Hooding, Electrodes and a Stun Baton? · 18 May 2007, 13:18 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In November 2006 Dutch daily de Volkskrant reported about the possible use of torture of Iraqi prisoners by the Military Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (‘Militaire Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst’, MIVD) in buildings of the Coalition Provisional Authority in the town of Al-Samawah in 2003. (The Dutch army had occupied the southern Iraqi province of al-Muthanna as part of the Stabilisation Force Iraq (SFI) from July 2003 till April 2005.) A lot of political turmoil ensued after the report and the then Dutch government was forced to set up an inquiry into the matter (‘Van den Berg-Committee’). Last Tuesday’s edition of Dutch current affairs program NOVA says it laid hands on some findings of this inquiry (‘Het Feitenrelaas’), which will probably be published by the Van den Berg-Committee only sometime in June. According to these findings, NOVA says, captured Iraqi prisoners were hooded and besides water and noise a stun baton (‘electrodestok’) was used during their interrogations, which were carried out by the MIVD. According to a witness, military jurist Misha Geeratz, possible 5 to 10 prisoners were subjected to those interrogation techniques, all probably no longer than a few hours.
Unfortunately, the NOVA report remains unclear on some important issues. First of all, on the use of water and noise. Were water and noise used to deprive the prisoners of sleep or ‘just’ to intimidate or humiliate them? The report, for instance, shows a fragment of a paper with the line ‘keeping detainees awake with water’ (‘het wakker houden van gedetineerden met water’) without discussing or showing the context of the line. Because of this the fragment doesn’t prove anything at all. It might, for example, be that the paragraph of which the line is part of discusses the possibilty that the MIVD applied the technique of sleep deprivation only to reject this possibility as unlikely a few lines further on. To continue, the report discusses a disturbing message from the British headquarters in Basra to the Dutch: a detainee told the British he was ill-treated by Dutch soldiers during his interrogation. According to him water was thrown upon him and sounds were used as well as electrodes. Especially the latter suggests the use of outright torture by the Dutch. But the report also shows fragments of paper with lines with the word ‘stun baton’ (‘electrodestok’) in it. Apparently, the inquiry committee found two different torture tools which were possibly used by the MIVD: electrodes and a stun baton. The report mentions that a prisoner said he was ill-treated with electrodes. But what about the use of a stun baton? Are testimonies available in which the use of a stun baton is mentioned and, if so, how and on what scale were they used?
To conclude, the following is worth mentioning. The interrogations of Iraqi prisoners were performed by an MIVD lieutenant-colonel, two non-commissioned officers, both of the MIVD too, and an interpreter. Officially the MIVD wasn’t allowed to perform interrogations without the presence of a ‘military jurist’. Nevertheless, on October 17, 2003 a message came from ‘the Hague’, in which the military jurists ‘were requested to acquiesce in’ the fact that the MIVD determines who are allowed to be present during their interrogations. And so did the three MIVD officers according the report: they forbade others to attend at least some of their interrogations. ‘Some of their interrogations’ because the report doesn’t explicitly states that others were denied access to all of the MIVD interrogations.
al-samawah,
coalition provisional authority,
dutch army,
electrodestok,
hooding,
iraq,
mivd,
netherlands,
sleep deprivation,
stabilisation force iraq,
stun baton,
torture,
volkskrant
Rudi Vranckx on the Troop Surge Strategy · 11 May 2007, 12:24 CET by Charles Vermeulen
VRT journalist Rudi Vranckx has recently returned from Baghdad, Iraq, where he had worked as an embedded journalist. Last Wednesday’s telecast of Dutch current affairs program NOVA showed his report and afterwards a short interview with the journalist. Below an interesting quote from Vranckx, a response on the question of interviewer Clairy Polak whether it’s possible for the heavily armed American soldiers, who don’t speek Arabic, to built trust among the Baghdadi as part of their newly adopted troop surge strategy. In it Vranckx refers to a scene from his report, which show a group of young American soldiers visiting the Baghdad University and its chancelor.
baghdad,
baghdad university,
iraq,
iraq strategy,
surge,
troop surge,
troop surge strategy
The Self-Confidence of John Bolton · 11 March 2007, 08:03 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Yesterday’s edition of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad included an interview with former ‘United States Ambassador to the United Nations’ John Bolton. In the interview Bolton’s self-confidence appears to be still completely intact, despite the neoconservative failures in Iraq, despite the fact that his recess appointment wasn’t prolonged last December. When interviewer Tom-Jan Meeus asked Bolton whether a military solution for Iran’s nuclear ambitions is still a serious option for the US, he answered affirmatively. For he’s ‘convinced that it’s possible to break through the nuclear fuel cycle in Iran, by destroying, for example, their uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Or the Iranian conversion plant in Isfahan. It’s only necessary to destroy a part of the nuclear fuel cycle to prevent that they will be able to develop nuclear arms.’ Focussing on possible retaliatory actions by Iran Bolton clearly isn’t afraid of the consequences of US military action either: ‘What would Iran do? (...) Do you think that Iran will stop selling oil? They couldn’t. Their whole economy is based on oil selling.’ But what if Iran would increase its military activity in Iraq and kill as many American soldiers as possible? According to Bolton, that wouldn’t be a problem either, because ‘for that reason we’ve just sent extra troops to Iraq’. Nonetheless Bolton adds that he isn’t very fond of a military solution. He would prefer ‘regime change’ in Tehran. Clearly all lessons which could be learned from Iraq are still wasted on Bolton. To Bolton ‘regime change’ still is an almost purely juridical procedure, which ‘only’ requires the defeat of a regular army and in his eyes wars can be completely controlled and aren’t unpredictable at all.
John Bolton, Bolton, Iran, Tehran, Iraq, Nuclear Ambitions, Nuclear Arms
bolton,
iran,
iraq,
isfahan,
john bolton,
natanz,
nuclear ambitions,
nuclear arms,
regime change,
tehran,
uranium enrichment,
us military
Maliki Curbing Shia Militia's? · 28 January 2007, 18:36 CET by Charles Vermeulen
This week’s The Economist (page 35-36) sees a "glimmer of hope" in Iraq as, according to the magazine, some American officials and some of the aides of Nuri al-Maliki "have been telling journalists" that the Iraqi prime minister "has had a change of heart" and "has authorised a full-fledged crackdown on the militia’s". As a result the U.S. army was able to arrest several members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the number of operations by Iraqi and American troops against "Mahdi Army targets" could be sped up. Furthermore, the Sadrist commanders are said to be on the run and their fighters are forced to lay down, even in Sadr City itself.
The Economist adduces several causes for this apparent major change. First of all, Maliki allegedly "has lost his patience" and no longer wants to "to engange the Sadrists through dialogue". Secondly, the video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, which showed Sadrists mocking at the former dictator, is perceived by Iraqi Shia’s as a sign that their current power in Iraq might be lasting. According to the magazine this boosted Maliki’s popularity among the Iraqi Shia. On the other hand, to continue, outside Iraq Maliki’s reputation has suffered severely by his failure to rein the Shia militia’s. As a result of this failure the U.S. has threatened to end its support for the Iraqi governement. Likewise, it may become very hard for Maliki to persuade several Sunni Gulf states to cancel billions of dollars of debt as the slaughter of Iraqi Sunni’s continues. What’s worse, they might start to actively support Sunni militia’s.
But also the Sadrists themselves seem to support the curbing of the militia’s. Although Al-Sadr "never seemed happy with sectarian cleansing carried out in his name" and although the Sadrists have struggled to bring under control their commanders and fighters, it’s remarkable, nonetheless, that al-Sadre has failed to respond to the latest arrests of his commanders, which might be a sign that he has "acquiesced" in the U.S. efforts to purge his army of its "rogue commanders". Likewise al-Sadr has responded "quite mildly" this week on the increasing number of arrests, while several Sadrist members of parliament even proclaimed the end of their boycot of parliament. The Economist states that this might be the result of the fear of the Sadrists that, if Iraq becomes a pariah state in the Arab world, they might be perceived as the prime cause for this which in turn would turn them into a pariah among the Shia Islamists.
The current developments, however, constitute only "glimmer of hope", the magazine warns, for the Mahdi Army "may be quieting down, the Sunni insurgents are not". So any new Sunni attack might be the end of Maliki’s new policy towards the Shia militia’s or even spark of a new wave of Shia retaliation.
al-sadr,
iraq,
mahdi army,
maliki,
militia's,
muqtada al-sadr,
saddam,
saddam hussein,
sadr city,
shia,
sunni
Execution Chamber Infiltrated to Stir Violence · 4 January 2007, 06:57 CET by Charles Vermeulen
‘The execution (of Saddam Hussein) was carried out by militias and outsiders. They put aside the team from the interior ministry that was supposed to carry it out’, an Iraqi official claimed yesterday. According to Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, the infiltration even had a marked purpose: ‘Whoever leaked this video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between Shiites and Sunnis’. Click here to read an article on the matter in The Scottsman.
iraq,
mowaffaq al-rubaie,
saddam,
saddam execution,
saddam hussein
Don't Allow Bha'atists to Gain From Execution · 3 January 2007, 10:17 CET by Charles Vermeulen
The execution of Saddam Hussein last Saturday ignited a heated debate which primarily evolves around the questions whether death penalty is just barbarious or somehow legitimite, whether Saddam’s trial has been fair / legitimite or not, whether the circumstances in which the execution took place (the mocking at Saddam preceding the execution and the recording on mobile phone) and the date of the execution (the Sunni date for Eid ul-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice) were inappropriate. Important as those issues are, they shouldn’t overshadow the almost endless list of repulsive crimes committed by the Butcher of Bagdad and his henchmen. To be more specific: off course it would have been opportune if the Shia dominated government of Iraq considered the feelings of the Iraqi Sunnis and even of Saddam’s hardcore Ba’athist supporters. On the other hand, Saddam’s supporters shouldn’t be allowed to gain politically, or at least not much, from the flaws in the trial and from the execution, for they bear no proportion to Saddam’s crimes at all. On the contrary, to cry blue murder, as his supporters do, is completely out of place.
bha'ath,
bha'athists,
eid ul-adha,
festival of sacrifice,
iraq,
saddam,
saddam execution,
saddam hussein,
shia,
sunni
'Replaced by More Tyrants Instead of One' · 2 January 2007, 16:54 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Reactions from the Iraqi blogosphere on the execution of Saddam Hussein on IraqSlogger via Zeyad’s must-read blog Healing Iraq.
healing iraq,
iraq,
iraqi blogosphere,
saddam,
saddam execution,
saddam hussein,
treasure of baghdad
The Image of the Sadrists · 2 January 2007, 10:15 CET by Charles Vermeulen
As far as I know Moqtada al-Sadr’s supporters, especially his militia, the al-Mahdi Army, are notorious for their abductions and brutal violence in the streets of Baghdad. But apparently I misjudged them as, according to Sami al-Askari, an advisor of Iraqi prime-minister Nouri al-Maliki, the behaviour of some of them during the execution of Saddam Hussein ’(...) damaged the image of the Sadrists. That should not have happened. Before we went into the room we had an agreement that no one should bring a mobile phone.’ The mobile phone video showed some of the attendents chanting ‘Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!’ at the former dictator.
baghdad,
iraq,
mahdi army,
moqtada,
moqtada al-sadr,
saddam,
saddam execution,
saddam hussein,
sadrists,
sami al-askari
Saddam Hussein at the Gallows (2) · 1 January 2007, 09:52 CET by Charles Vermeulen
On Reuters.co.uk a new video is published showing Saddam laughing while being mocked at on the gallow. According to Reuters the video images show “Saddam exchanging taunts with witnesses at his execution. In Arabic, someone shouts ‘Go to Hell’ and the name of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric whose father was killed by Saddam’s agents. Saddam laughs and replies ‘Is this courage? Is this what you think it takes to be a man?’” The video had been ‘posted on Arab websites’, Reuters reports.
al-sadr,
iraq,
moqtada,
moqtada al-sadr,
saddam,
saddam hussein,
saddam video
Saddam Hussein at the Gallows, His Last Minutes · 31 December 2006, 13:19 CET by Charles Vermeulen
The New York Times on Saddam Hussein’s last minutes.
iraq,
moqtada,
saddam,
saddam hussein,
saddam video
On the MIVD Interrogation Methods in Iraq · 12 December 2006, 07:37 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Almost a month ago Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported that the Military Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (‘Militaire Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst’, MIVD) tortured dozens of Iraqi prisoners in buildings of the Coalition Provisional Authority in the town of Al-Samawah in 2003. After this disclosure a discussion ensued whether the MIVD actually tortured or whether its interrogation methods in Iraq had been somewhat ‘rough’. A commission was established by Defence Minister Henk Kamp and his colleague Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Minister of Justice, to investigate the matter.
Yesterday’s edition of daily NRC Handelsblad (frontpage + page 3) in the mean while has acquired new documents, originating from the Ministry of Defence, which shed new light on the issue. According to these documents water was thrown on the detainee’s by the MIVD interrogators, not so much to keep them awake, but as a means of punishing a detainee who ‘told lies’. Likewise, detainees weren’t exposed to loud music to prevent communication between them, but painful load music (‘white noise’) was used to put pressure on the prisoners.
Now, especially the water component of this new revelation is interesting: water wasn’t thrown on the detainees to keep them awake, but to force them to give information which the MIVD wanted. According to two Dutch professors, Willem van Genugten and Liesbeth Zegveld, who were quoted by NRC Handelsblad, this makes throwing water on a detainee an illegal method of interrogation. Accordingly, NRC Handelsblad implicitly presents ‘wettening detainees to keep them awake’ as a legal method. But what if ‘keeping detainees awake’ actually entailed the ‘torture lite’ interrogation method of ‘deprivation of sleep’? That would sound a lot worse than the allegation that water was thrown as a means of punishment. Therefore, signs that water was used to keep detainees awake shouldn’t be treated as something soothing. On the contrary, these are disturbing signs which require a thorough investigation.
al-samawah,
coalition provisional authority,
deprivation of sleep,
iraq,
liesbeth zegveld,
mivd,
netherlands,
sleep deprivation,
volkskrant,
willem van genugten
Lack of Intelligence on Iraq Insurgency · 11 December 2006, 07:15 CET by Charles Vermeulen
According the Iraq Study Group Report, which was released last week, the United States government ’(...) still does not understand very well either the insurgency in Iraq or the role of the militias’ (chapter 9, ‘Intelligence’). Furthermore, the Study Group found that ‘there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq’. ‘For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence.’ Click here to read ‘Sunni and Shiite Insurgents Remain Mystery to U.S., Iraq Report Charges’, James Risen’s article on the issue, published today on the website of the New York Times.
insurgency,
intelligence,
iraq,
iraq insurgency,
iraq study group
Bill Clinton on the Iraq Study Group Report · 8 December 2006, 09:49 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Last Wednessday Twan Huys of Dutch current affairs programme NOVA interviewed former U.S. president Bill Clinton, which was broadcast last night. In the interview Clinton, who paid a visit to the Netherlands, made some some interesting statements on the report which the Iraq Study Group came up with last Wednessday.
Clinton admitted that he was familiar with only 3 or 4 of the 79 recommendations of the study group yet, but he thinks that ‘putting more emphasis on training and embedding [American] troops in advisory roles with the Iraqi’s is a good tactical suggestion’ and he thinks that the U.S. ‘has to have some lowering of [U.S.] troop levels if for no other reason than to free up some troops to go to the internationally approved mission in Afghanistan to stop the resurgent Taliban and the resurgent Al-Qaeda that would follow that.’ Furthermore he agrees that the U.S. government has ‘to restart the peace momentum (...) between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That would help a great deal (...) overall in reducing the terrorist tensions and improving the climate in the Middle East.’ And he agrees that the U.S. government ‘should reach out to the Iranians and the Syrians and try to get a regional solution’. Although ‘right now the Iranians don’t want to do anything, probably because their policy seems to be: what ever causes America heartburn is good for us’, Clinton believes that this isn’t a mission impossible: ’[t]he truth is that there are 1.6 million Iraqi refugees already. If Iraq were to deteriorate to the point Bosnia did before we had a stabilization, there will be 10 million Iraqi refugees, most of them would be in Iran. I don’t really think that Iran wants that. So I think that there may be an opportunity for us to all work together.’
On the question whether Clinton is afraid that the conflict in Iraq will spill over its borders to the neighbouring countries, he responded that he’s afraid that ‘the country will may disintegrate internally and many, many more people may die and that it may become the new epicenter of organised terror activity throughout the region. (...) [A]nd that (...) it could destabilize other countries. But not some much by having the conflict itself spill over. Although (...) the Iranians (...) and the Syrians should be worried about whether their own financial and political resources could be strained if they have too many refugees.’
To conclude, Clinton said that he doesn’t hold the view that the U.S. army should leave Iraq as might be physically possible, for in 2003 the U.N. has endorsed the presence of international troops in the country to prevent its collapse and he subscribes to the view that it would result in ‘more chaos and death in the country of innocent civilians’. But, on the other hand, the U.S. has ‘to look to the time when our military involvement will end and (...) readjust what [it’s] doing there now’ and he favours ‘some lowering of the troops now’ for ‘it will send a signal that [the U.S.] is changing policy and to ‘free up some troops to try to be strong in Afghanistan’.
Update – For the coming days the interview with Bill Clinton, which furthermore is about climate change and the ambition of his wife senator Hillary Clinton to become U.S. president, can be viewed here. Don’t be discouraged by the introduction in Dutch, for the interview itself is completely in English.
afghanistan,
al-qaeda,
bill clinton,
clinton,
iran,
iraq,
iraq study group,
syria,
taliban
On the Funding of the Iraq Insurgency · 26 November 2006, 12:40 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today’s edition of the New York Times includes an interesting article on the funding of militia’s in Iraq. In ‘U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself’ reporters John F. Burns and Kirk Semple discuss a U.S. government report, according to which ’[t]he insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes (...)’. Click here to read the article.
funding,
insurgency,
iraq,
iraq insurgency,
new york times
'Rumsfeld Sanctioned Abuse at Abu Ghraib' · 26 November 2006, 01:54 CET by Charles Vermeulen
According to Janis Karpinski, the former U.S. Army Brigadier General who ran the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq until early 2004, Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld sanctioned the abuse of detainees at the notorious prison. In an interview in today’s edition of Spanish newspaper El Pais Karpinski said she had seen a letter with the Minister’s name printed under it and a written signature above the name, apparently Rumsfeld’s signature, which authorised the use of harsh interrogation methods as sleep deprivation, playing music at maximum volume, making detainees stay for a long time and having them sit in stress positions. In the margin of the letter was written in the same handwriting as the signature’s: ’[m]ake sure this is accomplished’. (Source: Reuters)
abu ghraib,
donald rumsfeld,
iraq,
janis karpinski,
karpinski,
rumsfeld
Living in a True Hell on Earth · 24 November 2006, 16:01 CET by Charles Vermeulen
A dramatic appeal for help by Baghdadi blogger Nabil posted only shortly before the deadliest attack since 2003 which killed more than 200 people in the slums of Sadr City, Baghdad. A few hours ago it was reported that the sickening spiral of violence continues as six Sunnis were burned alive by Shia militiamen to take revenge for Thursday’s carnage.
baghdad,
iraq,
nabil's blog,
sadr city,
shia
'Investigators Intimidated by Dutch Marines' · 22 November 2006, 11:02 CET by Charles Vermeulen
The reporting by Dutch daily de Volkskrant on the alleged torture of Iraqi detainees by the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) in Al-Muthanna in 2003 continues. To start with, last Friday de Volkskrant reported that the MIVD had ‘tortured’ dozens of Iraqi prisoners. Today’s edition of the newspaper states that the marines also raided houses, although they weren’t authorized to do so. But even more remarkable is the following. On his weblog (in Dutch, CV) defence minister Henk Kamp condemned previous Volkskrant reporting on the detainee issue, for the newspaper had failed to mention that the military police (marechaussee) had investigated the issue and had propounded it to the the Counsel for the Prosecution (‘Openbaar Ministerie’ or ‘OM’). The OM, in turn, had concluded on the basis of the marechaussee investigation that criminal investigation was unnecessary. But today’s edition of de Volkskrant includes a report that undermines the minister’s criticism. According to the newspaper ‘discriminating remarks’ as «nazi’s» and «kankerjoden» (‘fucking Jews’, literally ‘cancer Jews’) were used to intimidate the investigators and, more shockingly, at least one investigating military policeman had been threatened with death by Dutch marines. Shortly after the first publication on the issue in de Volkskrant political leader of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) Wouter Bos responded that ’[t]here is a smell of a cover-up coming off’ the case. Minister Kamp rebuked him for jumping to conclusions, but as it appears, the minister has to explain even more.
Update – De Volkskrant says that today’s report is based on a confidential letter of commander of Dutch military police (‘Koninklijke Marechaussee’, ‘KMAR’) Cees Neisingh, dated on 18 November 2003.
al-muthanna,
dutch marines,
henk kamp,
iraq,
mivd,
volkskrant,
wouter bos
Torture or No Torture? (4) · 19 November 2006, 21:07 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In today’s edition of discussion program Buitenhof Chief of Staff of the Dutch armed forces Dick Berlijn described what has happened, to his knowlegde, in Al-Samawah, Iraq: no high tones were used by the MIVD, but ‘some of background noise’ in order to avoid that detainees could communicate with each other, detainees were put on a blinded goggle and ‘water was thrown’, but neither high pressure syringes nor fire-engines were used. The latter seems to be a red herring of Berlijn, for it wasn’t the question if high pressure syringes were used, but if the detainees were wetted to keep them awake.
al-samawah,
buitenhof,
dick berlijn,
iraq,
mivd,
netherlands,
torture
Torture or No Torture? (2) · 17 November 2006, 17:54 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad professor M.T. Kamminga, specialized in international law, says that the MIVD methods reminds him of the interrogation technics which the British applied during the conflict in Northern Ireland. On 18 January 1978 (Ireland vs. the United Kingdom) the European Court of Human Rights condemned these technics as a violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ‘prohibition of torture’. Not because the technics amounted to torture, but rather to ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. The British technics involved comprised ‘hooding’, ‘wall-standing’, ‘subjection to noise’, ‘deprivation of sleep’ and ‘deprivation of food’. The Netherlands is one of the signatories of the Convention.
deprivation of sleep,
hooding,
human rights,
iraq,
kamminga,
m.t. kamminga,
mivd,
netherlands,
sleep deprivation,
torture
Torture or No Torture? · 17 November 2006, 11:30 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Should sleep deprivation, exposing prisoners to extremely high sounds and glaring light be considered as torture or not? On Healing Iraq for the first time I learned about the methods used by Iraqi militia’s to torture their prisoners which involved electric drills. No one would deny this is torture. The methods used by the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) as described above, on the other hand, are clearly less bloody and, I assume, less painful. Also in de Volkskrant two Dutch experts have already gave their opinion about the matter and disagree with each other. Frits Kalshoven, a Dutch retired professor specialized in war-law, says this isn’t torture. Willem van Genugten, a professor whose field of expertise comprises international law and human rights, on the other hand, says it is torture according to international law. Who’s right? I’m not sure. Nonetheless, if the allegations are correct it’s clear that the MIVD set foot on a very slippery slope and the least thing one could say is that torture looms ominously on the horizon.
frits kalshoven,
human rights,
iraq,
kalshoven,
mivd,
netherlands,
torture,
van genugten,
willem van genugten
Dutch Tortured Too in Iraq · 17 November 2006, 07:23 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reports that the Military Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (‘Militaire Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst’, MIVD) tortured dozens of Iraqi prisoners in buildings of the Coalition Provisional Authority in the town of Al-Samawah in 2003. The Dutch army had occupied southern Iraq province of al-Muthanna as part of the Stabilisation Force Iraq (SFI) from July 2003 shortly after Gulf War II till April 2005. The prisoners were put on goggles, as a result of which they couldn’t see anything. Intermittently their glasses were put of after which they were exposed to glaring light. To keep them awake they were wetted and their hearing was exposed to extremely high sounds. According to de Volkskrant even now retired Chief of Staff Luuk Kroon was informed about what was going on at the time, but Kroon chose to ignore the advise of Kees Neisingh, major-general of the military police, to propound it to the Counsel for the Prosecution (‘Openbaar Ministerie’ or ‘OM’). Whether Defence Minister Henk Kamp was informed remains unsure for the time being. De Volkskrant furthermore reports that according to some ‘secret memo’ of a juridical department of the Ministery of Defence the Dutch forces in Iraq weren’t even allowed to interrogate any one at all.
al-muthanna,
henk kamp,
iraq,
luuk kroon,
mivd,
netherlands,
sfi,
stabilisation force iraq,
torture,
volkskrant
The Idea of Raising US Troops Levels · 16 November 2006, 07:12 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today Guardian Unlimited reports that the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker is about to present a four-point strategy for Iraq involving an increase of US troops levels by 20,000 to allow for ‘a last big push’ in Baghdad. This would off course oppose the advise of general John Abizaid not to increase troops levels, because ‘more pressure [is] needed to be put on the Iraqi army to do its part’. But as the abduction of Sunni employees and visitors of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research by ‘a small army of 80 gunmen, dressed in police uniforms’ shows once again: one cannot rely on Iraqi security forces. Not so much because they lack the courage, skills or resources to act against sectarian violence, but because it’s virtually impossible to distinguish them from the opposing parties. Considering this the idea of raising US troops levels doesn’t sound that odd.
abizaid,
baghdad,
baker,
iraq,
iraq study group,
james baker,
john abizaid,
sectarian violence,
us troops
Why Iran Might Be Willing to Help Out Too · 14 November 2006, 07:18 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In ‘Iran Seeks to Keep US Troops in Iraq’, an article on EurasiaNet, Kamal Nazer Yasin states that Iran isn’t happy at all with the current chaos in Iraq. According to a unnamed political scientist he quotes one of the reasons for a quick American pull out is that ‘Iranian security forces are simply not prepared to protect [the 700-mile common border] against a massive inflow of refugees, weapons, smugglers and armed adversaries of all kinds’. Click here to the whole report and learn why Iran might be interested in talks with the U.S. too.
iran,
iraq,
kamal nazer yasin,
us troops
Why Would Syria Help Out Washington? · 13 November 2006, 21:27 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Iran and Syria to help out the U.S. and the U.K. in their efforts to end the violence in Iraq. But why would they do this? Washington and London are ‘bogged down in the quagmire’ of Iraq and therefore regime change in Tehran and Damascus, as aspired once by the Bush administration, seems very unlikely right now. In the case of Syria, however, a gleam of hope is justified. As violence continues in Iraq large numbers of refugees likewise continue to leave the country. The UNHCR recently estimated that at least 600,000 Iraqi refugees are already living in Syria. Although many of them have ‘fled over the past decade or more, (...) now some 2,000 a day are arriving in Syria’. According to the UNHCR ‘the needs of those who have fled are dramatic and to a large extent unmet’. As such the growing number of Iraqi refugees constitutes a potential source of instabilitaty within Syria’s borders, but therefore it might also be an opportunity for Washington and its allies to invoke the assistance of Damascus successfully.
blair,
iran,
iraq,
london,
refugees,
syria,
tony blair,
unhcr,
washington
'Redeployment From Iraq in four to six Months' · 12 November 2006, 19:24 CET by Charles Vermeulen
It’s barely one week after the Democrats won the congressional elections and President Bush tendered the resignation of Defence minister Donald Rumsfeld, but the winners show they don’t intend to let the grass grow under their feet as Democrat Senator Carl Levin said that the U.S. presence in Iraq is ‘not open-ended and (...) we need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months’ in an interview on ABC’s This Week. Levin will probably become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the newly elected Congress.
bush,
carl levin,
democrats,
donald rumsfeld,
iraq,
levin,
president bush,
rumsfeld
The Invasion of Iraq Was About Oil, Bush Admits · 7 November 2006, 06:38 CET by Charles Vermeulen
During the run-up to the war in Iraq the Bush administration denied it ‘sternly’, but according to Washington Post Staff Writer Peter Baker president Bush admits it publicly now: the invasion of Iraq was about oil. Or at least partly.
bush,
iraq,
oil,
president bush,
united states,
washington post
Ishtar's Iraqi Screen · 6 November 2006, 19:05 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Ishtar in ‘The Real Iraqis’, a posting on her must read blog ‘Iraqi Screen’.
iraq,
iraqi,
iraqi screen,
ishtar
Protest in Tikrit · 6 November 2006, 07:35 CET by Charles Vermeulen
CNN reports that 2,000 people protested last Sunday’s verdict and sentence against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Tikrit, Hussein’s birthplace and hometown. They had to defy a government’s curfew to do so. But still, according to Wikipedia Tikrit had an estimated population of about 28,900. If these numbers are (still) correct, it would mean that barely 7% of Tikrit’s population went out on the streets in support of their leader.
iraq,
saddam,
saddam hussein,
tikrit
Fareed Zakaria's Drawdown Option · 6 November 2006, 07:01 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In ‘Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward’ Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria expounds how.
Iraqi Culture and Democratizing Iraq · 5 November 2006, 11:24 CET by Charles Vermeulen
As sectarian violence is daily routine in Iraq the country seems to fall apart rapidly and the project to democratize Iraq seems to end in complete failure. No doubt lots of explanations can be adduced to elucidate this utter failure. This posting, however, is limited to the field of culture, which makes the central question here: does Iraqi culture handicaps the attempt to establish democracy in Iraq? A big question, but the ideas of Geert Hofstede, ‘expert on the interactions between national cultures and organizational cultures’ and the data on the Arab World (including Iraq) he gathered and analysed throw some interesting light on the matter.
The core in the thinking of Geert Hofstede about national culture differences is constituted by five concepts, that is, his famous five ‘cultural dimensions’: ‘power distance’, ‘individualism’ (versus ‘collectivism’), ‘masculinity’ (versus ‘feminity’), ‘uncertainty avoidance’ and ‘long-term versus short-term orientation’. In his analysis of the above mentioned data two of these five dimensions catch the eye: the dimension of ‘power distance’ and the dimension of ‘uncertainty avoidance’.
In his ‘Allemaal andersdenkenden: omgaan met cultuurverschillen’ (Dutch Paperback edition, 2004, page 39), which was originally published as ‘Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind’ (London, 1991) Hofstede defines ‘power distance’ as ’(...) the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally’. In the paragraph ‘Machtsafstand en de staat’ (‘Power Distance and the State’, pages 55-56) he compares states with a high level of power distance with states with a low level of power distance. Let’s take a closer look on the first category, states with a high level of power distance, for according to Hofstede’s data it’s this category to which Iraq belongs.
In states with high levels of power distance the question whether power is legitimate or not is irrelevant and power precedes justice. An unspoken consensus exists that there needs to be an ‘order of unequality’ in the world and that everyone has a specific place in it. In such states the powerful enjoy priviliges and they’re expected to use their power to acquire more wealth. Furthermore, they try to look as powerful as possible. The main sources of their power are their friends and family, charisma and / or the ability to use violence, which explains the frequent occurrence of military dictatorships in countries with a high level of power distance. The political spectrum in such countries is usually marked by a strong left- and right-wing and a weak center. As to be expected, to conclude, high income inequality is typical for states with a high level of power distance.
The other dimension which stands out in Hofstede’s analysis is ‘uncertainty avoidance’. Hofstede defines the concept as ‘the extent to which members of a society feel uncomfortable by uncertainty and ambiguity; this feeling is associated with, among other things, a nervous stress and and the need for predictability: for formal and informal rules’ (page 144). According the above mentioned data the Arab World (including Iraq) is marked by a high degree of ‘uncertainty avoidance’. Hofstede characterizes such societies as follows (pages 161-166):
They tend to have more formal and more accurately worded rules, their citizens belief that they exercise little influence on their authorities, dislike (extreme forms of) protest, feel dependent on the expertise of their government and think that this is as it should be. Their officials foster negative feelings towards politics and politicians. They tend to be conservative and value law and order. Their political spectra often include extremist minorities. In societies marked by a high degree of ‘uncertainty avoidance’ a tendency exists to ban political groups. They include relatively more terrorists. Furthermore, their members tend to be suspicious, xenophobic, ethnocentric and chauvinistic. Combined with a high degree of collectivism a high degree of uncertainty avoidance coincide with more implicit rules originating in tradition (‘high context’-communication). This combination also coincide with a tendency to assimilate or suppress minority groups, which often leads to violent conflicts with those groups, who share the same tendency, as is the case in the Arab World.
Several characteristics strike the eye: a tendency to value inequality, the ability to use violence as a source of power, a political spectrum marked by a weak center, the feeling of dependency on the expertise of the government, the presence of extremist groups, a tendency to ban political groups and suppress minority groups, xenophobia and ethnocentrism. If this is the context in which the democratizing project takes place, one can hardly be surprised about the ‘utter failure’ of the project and to ‘stay the course’ can hardly be considered a serious option. Yesterday Belgian public TV station Canvas aired ‘Chemical Ali’, a documentary by Kawa Akrawi on the atrocities committed to the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites by Ali Hassan Al Majeed, better known as ‘Chemical Ali’. The documentary once more calls to mind, on the other hand, that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq has never been an option at all.
ali hassan al majeed,
chemical ali,
ethnocentrism,
geert hofstede,
iraq,
kawa akrawi,
kurds,
power distance,
saddam,
saddam hussein,
uncertainty avoidance,
xenophobia
Wayne White: Dividing Iraq Might Be An Option · 29 October 2006, 10:07 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In a report in yesterday’s edition of NRC Handelsblad Wayne White, adjunct scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said that the plan which U.S. senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Leslie H. Gelb launched in the New York Times earlier this year might be a serious option after all. The plan entails the division of Iraq in three autonomous zones and a central government which ‘would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues’. White considers the fact that ‘25 percent of the Iraqi population live in mixed neighbourhoods’ as the main flaw in the plan. It would be ‘extremely bloody and painful’ to force those people to leave their homes. On the other hand, the process of ethnic and religious cleansing by the warring parties is already in progress. According to official numbers, White continues, half a million Iraqi had to leave their houses. But according to White this might as well be almost one million Iraqi by now. Furthermore, ‘in Bagdad whole neighbourhoods are combed out’. So the chance that Biden’s plan might actually be successful is in fact growing.
bagdad,
biden,
iraq,
joseph r. biden,
wayne white
Rumours About an Imminent Coup d'Etat in Iraq · 21 October 2006, 11:53 CET by Charles Vermeulen
According to Robert Dreyfuss the end of the embryonic Iraqi democracy is imminent as rumours are growing about a coup that would overthrow Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s administration. Click here to read his ‘A coup in the air’, a report published on Asia Times Online today.
al-maliki,
coup,
coup d'etat,
iraq,
maliki,
nuri al-maliki,
robert dreyfuss
Why the Insurgency in Iraq is Escalating · 9 March 2006, 07:22 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Again an interesting essay (to be published in Newsweek, March 13, 2006) by Fareed Zakaria, this time on the insurgency in Iraq. Furthermore, in his essay Zakaria refers to another interesting article entitled ‘Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon’ (Foreign Affairs, March / April 2006) by Stephen Biddle, whose remarkable, central point is that creating ‘an Iraqi national military and an Iraqi police force’ (‘Iraqization’) is throwing ‘gasoline on the fire’.
fareed zakaria,
insurgency,
iraq,
stephen biddle
Terrorism and the US invasion of Iraq · 16 January 2006, 21:34 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In an interview with Paul Bremer in the last week’s Monday edition of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad the former ‘the Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority’ was asked whether the war in Iraq fostered terrorism. According to Bremer this question illustrates the lack of understanding in Europe of ‘the new terrorism’, which confronts the US with muslim terrorists who want to kill Americans by the thousands. This implies that the US cannot wait for the next terrorist attack; they have to act before they’re attacked. Failing to see this is caused by Europe’s standstill. Europe isn’t aware of this new threat and therefore it has a problem. By disqualifying Europe and its efforts to counter terrorism again a representative of the Bush government tries to distract the public’s attention from the fact that it has never been proven that Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks were somehow supported by the regime of Saddam Hussein.
9/11,
al-qaeda,
bremer,
coalition provisional authority,
europe,
iraq,
paul bremer,
saddam hussein,
terrorism
Eager to Start on Second Term · 21 January 2005, 14:21 CET by Charles Vermeulen
It’s been somewhat more than a year ago that neoconservative Robert Kagan described the balance of power between the United States and Europe as follows in his ‘Of Paradise and Power. America and Europe in the New World Order’ (New York 2003):
Next week Condoleezza Rice will be confirmed as Secretary of State in the second Bush administration. During a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations last Tuesday she stated the following:
And:
Nobody will contend that Europe now suddenly is a military great power. But the idea that America is powerful enough to realize its strategic and ideologically inspired ambitions under its own steam, appears to be an expensive, neoconservative miscalculation. Not for those who have the Iraq debacle on their conscience, however. Yesterday they eagerly started on George W. Bush’s second term.
america,
bush,
condoleezza rice,
europe,
european union,
george bush,
iraq,
kagan,
neoconservative,
president bush,
robert kagan,
united states