7.10.04
A valid question.
Would there have been an invasion if iraq was just planning to resume a weapons program, instead of not having WMD of any sort?
A valid question, wouldn't you agree?
A valid question, wouldn't you agree?
The Oedipal bipedal
"You know, the president's father did not go into Iraq, into Baghdad beyond Basra," Mr. Kerry said, as W. blinked and burned. "And the reason he didn't is, he said, he wrote in his book, because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves today. There's a sense of American occupation."
incoming...
lim
6.10.04
The Labyrinth & on Desire and Pleasure: you'll just have to deal with my leakage
I'll do some back-trcking with background and fore-tracking with commentary...but here's a couple paragraphs that struck me today as I was trying to get some work done. Please bear with the vocabulary...it is sensical, just give it a chance. Right now it doesn't matter who wrote these words...I'll unfold this like origami.
--The Culprits--
I. General economy is a traffic system; marking routes within the complex immanence or quasi-horizontality that infests the axis of transcendence. Every vertical difference is collapsible onto a tangled horizontal flow. It is not that base materialism denies the necessity of vertical articulation; there is no tendency to delete the vocabulary of summits and troughs, differences in intensity, materialist thought would leave nothing but a theologically constituted reality abandoned by God (a colony of particles). Scaling is the positive superfluity of God inherent to matter, but its gradations of relative transcendence must be commensurated with an impoersonal nature exhausting the real: genealogically rather than metaphysically explored. The labyrinth is the unconscious of God, or the repressed monotheism. The illusion of ego in general requires that it remain unthought. What God really was is something incompatible with anything 'being' at all. Real composition is not extrinsically created nature, but if this is a Spinozism, it is one in which substance itself is sacrificed to the scales. So that atheism is in the end (an end without an end) an immense sponge, a mega-sponge, the dissolution of boundaries in all of its positive complexity. It is an inexhaustible porosity, drunk upon the sea. Sponge-matter -- encroached without limit bt silence -- is the same thing as fate. In any traffic system real transition precedes articulation (which means that there are no boundaries, but only digressions). Sponge-vectors do not connect pre-existing points, but spawn decomposable patches from out of the subtilization of speeds and the intricate criss-crossing of routes. Absolute points are transcendent mirages, hyperbolically projected out of dismantled vector nets. The reality of space is only the possibility of flow.
sub-I. Freud, too, is an energeticist (although reading Lacan and his semiological ilk one would never suspect it). He does not conceive desire as lack, representation, or intention, but as dissipative energetic flow, inhibited by the damning and channelling apparatus of the secondary process (doman of the reality principle). Pleasure does not correspond to the realization of a goal, it is rather that unpleasure is primary excitation or tension which is relieved by the equilibriating flux of sexual behaviour (there is no goal, only zero); 'unpleasure corresponds to an increase in the quantity of excitation and pleaure to a diminuition' [F III 218]. This compulsion to zero is -- notoriously --ambivalent in Freud's text: 'the mental apparatus endeavors to keep the quantity of excitation present in it as low as possible or at least to keep it constant' [F III 219]. Far from being a discrediting confusion, however, such ambivalence is the exact sympton of rigorous adherence to the reality of desire; epressing the unilateral impact of zero within the order of identitarian representation.
Psychoanalysis, as the science of the unconscious, is born in the determination of that which sufferes repression as the consequence of a transgression against the imperative of survival. It is the pursuit of this repressed threat to the ego which carries Freud along the profound arch of thought from sexuality to the death drive. At first ( in the period up to the First World War) the attempt to explicitly formulate the site of the most irremediable collision between survival and desire leads Freud to his famous reading of the Oedipus myth and the sense os the Father's law, since it is the competition with the Father -- arising as a carrelate of the infant's incestual longing for the mother --- that first brings the relations between desire and survival to a crisis. Later, in the formulation of the death drive, the sacrificial character of desire is thought even more immediately, so that desire is not merely integrated structurally with a threat to existence within the oedipal triangle. but is rather related to death by the intrinsic tendency of its own economy. The intensity of the affect is now thoughtt as inherently oriented to its own extinction, as a differentiation from death or the inorganic that is from its beginning a compulsion to return. But despite recognizing that the conscious self is a modulation of the drives, so that all psychical energy stems from the unconscious (from which ego-energy is borrowed), Freud seems to remain committed to the right of the reality principle, and its representative the ego, and thus to accept a survival (or adaptation) imperative as the principle of therapeutic practice. It is because of this basic prejudice against the cleaims of desire that psychoanalysis has always hasd a tendency to degenerate into a technology of repression that subtilizes, and therefore reinforces, the authority of the ego. In the terms both of the reality principle and the conservative moment of psychoanalysis, desire is a negative pressure working against the conservation of life, a dangerous internal onslaught against the self, tending with inexorable force towards the immolation of the individual and his civilization.
MORE TO COME...stay tuned after these respites of light abundance.
lim
update: a nod to maureen dowd for beating me to the glazing of one of my points regarding (the start of) this thread of eventual discovery. sorry for not being able to get to point sooner... i'll try. too much right now...too much.
--The Culprits--
I. General economy is a traffic system; marking routes within the complex immanence or quasi-horizontality that infests the axis of transcendence. Every vertical difference is collapsible onto a tangled horizontal flow. It is not that base materialism denies the necessity of vertical articulation; there is no tendency to delete the vocabulary of summits and troughs, differences in intensity, materialist thought would leave nothing but a theologically constituted reality abandoned by God (a colony of particles). Scaling is the positive superfluity of God inherent to matter, but its gradations of relative transcendence must be commensurated with an impoersonal nature exhausting the real: genealogically rather than metaphysically explored. The labyrinth is the unconscious of God, or the repressed monotheism. The illusion of ego in general requires that it remain unthought. What God really was is something incompatible with anything 'being' at all. Real composition is not extrinsically created nature, but if this is a Spinozism, it is one in which substance itself is sacrificed to the scales. So that atheism is in the end (an end without an end) an immense sponge, a mega-sponge, the dissolution of boundaries in all of its positive complexity. It is an inexhaustible porosity, drunk upon the sea. Sponge-matter -- encroached without limit bt silence -- is the same thing as fate. In any traffic system real transition precedes articulation (which means that there are no boundaries, but only digressions). Sponge-vectors do not connect pre-existing points, but spawn decomposable patches from out of the subtilization of speeds and the intricate criss-crossing of routes. Absolute points are transcendent mirages, hyperbolically projected out of dismantled vector nets. The reality of space is only the possibility of flow.
sub-I. Freud, too, is an energeticist (although reading Lacan and his semiological ilk one would never suspect it). He does not conceive desire as lack, representation, or intention, but as dissipative energetic flow, inhibited by the damning and channelling apparatus of the secondary process (doman of the reality principle). Pleasure does not correspond to the realization of a goal, it is rather that unpleasure is primary excitation or tension which is relieved by the equilibriating flux of sexual behaviour (there is no goal, only zero); 'unpleasure corresponds to an increase in the quantity of excitation and pleaure to a diminuition' [F III 218]. This compulsion to zero is -- notoriously --ambivalent in Freud's text: 'the mental apparatus endeavors to keep the quantity of excitation present in it as low as possible or at least to keep it constant' [F III 219]. Far from being a discrediting confusion, however, such ambivalence is the exact sympton of rigorous adherence to the reality of desire; epressing the unilateral impact of zero within the order of identitarian representation.
Psychoanalysis, as the science of the unconscious, is born in the determination of that which sufferes repression as the consequence of a transgression against the imperative of survival. It is the pursuit of this repressed threat to the ego which carries Freud along the profound arch of thought from sexuality to the death drive. At first ( in the period up to the First World War) the attempt to explicitly formulate the site of the most irremediable collision between survival and desire leads Freud to his famous reading of the Oedipus myth and the sense os the Father's law, since it is the competition with the Father -- arising as a carrelate of the infant's incestual longing for the mother --- that first brings the relations between desire and survival to a crisis. Later, in the formulation of the death drive, the sacrificial character of desire is thought even more immediately, so that desire is not merely integrated structurally with a threat to existence within the oedipal triangle. but is rather related to death by the intrinsic tendency of its own economy. The intensity of the affect is now thoughtt as inherently oriented to its own extinction, as a differentiation from death or the inorganic that is from its beginning a compulsion to return. But despite recognizing that the conscious self is a modulation of the drives, so that all psychical energy stems from the unconscious (from which ego-energy is borrowed), Freud seems to remain committed to the right of the reality principle, and its representative the ego, and thus to accept a survival (or adaptation) imperative as the principle of therapeutic practice. It is because of this basic prejudice against the cleaims of desire that psychoanalysis has always hasd a tendency to degenerate into a technology of repression that subtilizes, and therefore reinforces, the authority of the ego. In the terms both of the reality principle and the conservative moment of psychoanalysis, desire is a negative pressure working against the conservation of life, a dangerous internal onslaught against the self, tending with inexorable force towards the immolation of the individual and his civilization.
MORE TO COME...stay tuned after these respites of light abundance.
lim
update: a nod to maureen dowd for beating me to the glazing of one of my points regarding (the start of) this thread of eventual discovery. sorry for not being able to get to point sooner... i'll try. too much right now...too much.
5.10.04
The Department of WTF
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. intervention in Iraq was hampered early on by a lack of adequate forces and efforts to contain looting after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, according to the former U.S. administrator in Iraq.
"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Paul Bremer said in a speech reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday. "We never had enough troops on the ground."
No shit Sherlock. And that whole disbanding of the army thing was a splendid idea that has no bearing on the current violence.
Another case, of using hindsight 20/20 to be a false prophet...or seem like a smart-guy.
***
Also, here's confirmation of the KBR rip-off scam from an employee of KBR. And some other letters of dissatisfied soldiers.
From: Anonymous
Sent: Thursday April 15 2004 12.41am
Subject: From KBR truck driver now in Iraq
Mike, I am a truck driver right now in Iraq. Let me give you this one small fact because I am right here at the heart of it: since I started this job several months ago, 100% (that's right, not 99%) of the workers I am aware of are inflating the hours they claim on their time sheets. There is so much more I could tell you. But the fact is that MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars are being raped from both the American taxpayers and the Iraqi people because of the unbelievable amount of greed and abuse over here. And yes, my conscience does bother me because I am participating in this rip-off.
"It's hard work..."
It's hard work looking like a complete idiot in the debate. It's hard work for Bush to not use complete sentences. It's hard work to get the "Moooolahs" to cooperate. But it's not so hard if you're the president.
4.10.04
Nuclear War in the form of Depleted Uranium: The War's Littlest Victim
Juan Gonzalez, of the NY Daily News, broke the story about Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew's daughter being stricken with deformities from what seems is from depleted uranium. He was sent home after he himself was struck with an illness suddenly. He then tested positive for uranium contamination.
"My husband went to Iraq to fight for his country," Janice Matthew said. "I feel the Army should take responsibility for what's happened."
Welcome to Nuclear War. In the interest of logic, anytime a cell's nucleus is deformed through depleted uranium...that is a clear and definable form of nuclear war. It is not what we conventionally identify as nuclear war, but it is nonetheless.
The tragedy cascading upon this single tragedy is that millions of Iraqis have been subjected to the horror, the pure horror, of DU contamination. Yes, even children the same age as Gerard and Janice Matthew's. And what's more is that the land that the DU was exploded upon has been ruined for millions of years. There will be no crops for DU contaminated land.
On the plate: 1) Abu Ghraib and other prison torture and sexual abuse 2) Lies about WMD and connection with Al Qaeda (Rumsfeld has helped me out on both today.) 3) Depleted Uranium Exposed as Nuclear War 4) Samarra and the many new Fallujahs to come according to this administration, that will go nowhere in solving Iraq's ills 5) More art and fun to make the pill of reality easier to swallow 6) And the two elections that will mean little to Iraq (though we're all in trouble if the NeoCons don't get the boot in D.C. in November.) 7) And I'm sure I'll include some other random and shocking things
"My husband went to Iraq to fight for his country," Janice Matthew said. "I feel the Army should take responsibility for what's happened."
Welcome to Nuclear War. In the interest of logic, anytime a cell's nucleus is deformed through depleted uranium...that is a clear and definable form of nuclear war. It is not what we conventionally identify as nuclear war, but it is nonetheless.
The tragedy cascading upon this single tragedy is that millions of Iraqis have been subjected to the horror, the pure horror, of DU contamination. Yes, even children the same age as Gerard and Janice Matthew's. And what's more is that the land that the DU was exploded upon has been ruined for millions of years. There will be no crops for DU contaminated land.
On the plate: 1) Abu Ghraib and other prison torture and sexual abuse 2) Lies about WMD and connection with Al Qaeda (Rumsfeld has helped me out on both today.) 3) Depleted Uranium Exposed as Nuclear War 4) Samarra and the many new Fallujahs to come according to this administration, that will go nowhere in solving Iraq's ills 5) More art and fun to make the pill of reality easier to swallow 6) And the two elections that will mean little to Iraq (though we're all in trouble if the NeoCons don't get the boot in D.C. in November.) 7) And I'm sure I'll include some other random and shocking things
If Al-Zarqawi even exists...
there is NO HARD evidence that he was in Iraq before the war. Iraq invasion = Zarqawian Violence
If you ask me, I'm very skeptical it is just one man. It is from the Epic of Giglamesh, really. You need a scapegoat...to hold within him/herself all the ills of society, to be ostracised from society...Zarqawi could possibly be a phantom scapegoat that will not leave society (or be captured...and I mean possibly, I'm not saying this for sure.) He's made more real when 25 million dollars are put on his head or capture. Money and reporters saying, "that man with the black mask on is Zarqawi...and he is actually the one that beheaded that American"...makes him even more real. And it allows the current administration to say that Zarqawi was connected to Saddam when it is frankly a lie. It's very basic distortion of the collective psyche of American and westerners. Cold and calculating...and meant for consumption by ahistorical Americans in an election year. Many Iraqis, living inside of Iraq, do not buy this...and I can guarantee you this.
How do you like them apples?
If you ask me, I'm very skeptical it is just one man. It is from the Epic of Giglamesh, really. You need a scapegoat...to hold within him/herself all the ills of society, to be ostracised from society...Zarqawi could possibly be a phantom scapegoat that will not leave society (or be captured...and I mean possibly, I'm not saying this for sure.) He's made more real when 25 million dollars are put on his head or capture. Money and reporters saying, "that man with the black mask on is Zarqawi...and he is actually the one that beheaded that American"...makes him even more real. And it allows the current administration to say that Zarqawi was connected to Saddam when it is frankly a lie. It's very basic distortion of the collective psyche of American and westerners. Cold and calculating...and meant for consumption by ahistorical Americans in an election year. Many Iraqis, living inside of Iraq, do not buy this...and I can guarantee you this.
How do you like them apples?
How convenient!
In front of an audience in New York, Mr Rumsfeld was asked about connections between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said
First, ALL New Yorkers practically are a step ahead of you...you moron. So, you're not divulging anything new to New Yorkers.
Second, yes now that they see the fact that they have to deal with Bush trying to think on his feet two more times...some concessions are in order. So, a few of them that were formerly so persistant about this false connection have to shift the policy of the president--and yes, FLIP-FLOP--in order to make half-sense to people in the next debate.
Lastly, it is in perfect time for the election. And, Rumsfeld could probably stay if Bush is re-elected, because he's such the champion for truth all of the sudden.
Bottom line: These lying bastards are going to do whatever it takes to get re-elected. Even back-pedal. But expect Cheney to remain saying that Saddam harbored Al- Qaeda (Al-Ansar connection that Saddam repeatedly bombed) and that was a good enough reason to invade. Notwithstanding the fact that Cheney and Co. basically invited terrorist inside Iraq in a suspiciously deliberate manner (to perhaps give them an excuse to stay and continue destroying Iraq?), the damage has been done. And Iraq is a mess directly because of misguided and foolish policy concerning Iraq...and you'll see, once and if this receives more exposure, somebody will have to back-pedal on the continued Cheney crazy-talk eventually, too.
Will the truth come out in time for it to make any difference?
Update: SEE? The method of sending mixed messages creates psychological torment and confusion among the American populous. And Rumsfeld did it yet again. I'm not surprised. In NY, to win some votes for Bush/Cheney, he said the above. Once he left (i'm guessing he left NY), and on the night of the Cheney/Edwards debate, he goes back to the Cheney line...to reenforce,what I imagine will be some pretty belligerent bs coming out of Cheney's mouth tonight. Rove has this thing all planned out. Keep sending those mixed signals to the American people. It worked before, and there's no reason why it won't work again. Pure psychological manipulation through fear-mongering and constant retractions.
Reality is something most of the NeoCons have lost complete touch with.
But you can't deny Bush cannot think on his feet. And there is reason for Rove to panic. That's a good thing.
I like Nader much more than either of them. Apparently, he didn't accept GOP help in Michigan like I said and thought before...I'm too tired to explain it, but he's the only one with the slightest bit of integrity and clear purpose. And if he debated Kerry and Bush, he would destroy them both with words. So, although, Michael Moore and Bill Maher begged him to step out...more and more I'm convinced that American democracy is in danger if a third part candidate cannot be taken seriously by this stagnant two-party system. WHERE in the Constitution does it say it has to be a two-party system?
That's all...Don't buy all the FLIP FLopping Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney are doing. And that is precisely what they're doing and accusing Kerry of doing at the same time.
I am losing it because of Baghdad and Samarra now, but I want to continue the hiatus a moment longer.
One of my favorite directors is Chris "Magic" Marker for a number of reasons. First, he says his name is Marker after 'Magic Marker'. Second, I can relate to his non-ness in terms of being, seeing, living, and breathing ...u know, consciousness. Maybe I was born in Mongolia, too. And at times I feel I'm from a different planet. So, I had an immediate connection with him from the first moment I saw one of his films and before I knew any details about him personally. I was moved. And it wasn't La Jetée that turned me onto him, his most reknown film I guess...the story that the, yeah, the movie 12 Monkeys was inspired by...Anyway, he's one of the most thought provoking people alive. And sure, Antonioni is pleasurable to type, and Fellini at his best is a force of nature, but Marker is the man, the shiznit, if you will.
So, please please if you get a chance see Sans Soleil and Le Joli mai
A lot of his work is really hard to come by, but you should have no problem finding Sans. I could go on about him, but I'll let you see him (or if you've already seen his work then go ahead) and comment on him yourselves.
So, please please if you get a chance see Sans Soleil and Le Joli mai
A lot of his work is really hard to come by, but you should have no problem finding Sans. I could go on about him, but I'll let you see him (or if you've already seen his work then go ahead) and comment on him yourselves.
2.10.04
Taking a break, losing my marbles...
I'm completely losing it over Martin Wolf Wagner's photographs. Please visit his website and check out some fantabulous minimalist macular generation.
Other things I'm enjoying at the moment are copy-art.net
Of course, eyeBeam in NY is great, but they can be kind of stuck-up self-righteous art snobs that live in some super-strata artworld fantasy. Some of them are really really nice, though... but check them out regardless of my opinion. Actually, I have a superficial gripe with only one of them...so I should back-off judging myself. They're quite the influential bunch, but one could use a dose of modesty, though. Alex Galloway's book Prototype is a must read. He's a class act, too. ..so, guys, no offence aight? I nub you guys/gals, you know I do. But since you probably couldn't even begin to guess who I am in my incognito persona, it really doesn't matter now does it?
And check their reBlog. Tom Moody just left reBlog...and I've grown extremely fond of his own blog.
Wooster Collection in Paris, per esempio...a taste of what's on Tom's Blog
Zentai woman (via)
Bifurcated Rivets is text only that takes you to places you would probably never go to otherwise...
...and take a peek and ars electronica's site
one more thing...is the artsfeed blog that aggregates some dope feeds all in one special place for your viewing pleasure.
and JUST one more, space and culture...yes, oh yes...you must check this...
The lesson is...there's more to the internet than news. So all you news-junkies try something new because your brain will rot otherwise.
lim.
Other things I'm enjoying at the moment are copy-art.net
Of course, eyeBeam in NY is great, but they can be kind of stuck-up self-righteous art snobs that live in some super-strata artworld fantasy. Some of them are really really nice, though... but check them out regardless of my opinion. Actually, I have a superficial gripe with only one of them...so I should back-off judging myself. They're quite the influential bunch, but one could use a dose of modesty, though. Alex Galloway's book Prototype is a must read. He's a class act, too. ..so, guys, no offence aight? I nub you guys/gals, you know I do. But since you probably couldn't even begin to guess who I am in my incognito persona, it really doesn't matter now does it?
And check their reBlog. Tom Moody just left reBlog...and I've grown extremely fond of his own blog.
Wooster Collection in Paris, per esempio...a taste of what's on Tom's Blog
Zentai woman (via)
Bifurcated Rivets is text only that takes you to places you would probably never go to otherwise...
...and take a peek and ars electronica's site
one more thing...is the artsfeed blog that aggregates some dope feeds all in one special place for your viewing pleasure.
and JUST one more, space and culture...yes, oh yes...you must check this...
The lesson is...there's more to the internet than news. So all you news-junkies try something new because your brain will rot otherwise.
lim.
echoBloggin the times and some horrific pics
First, read the story "How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence" by David Barstow
I proceed with this as an echoBlog post of the nytimes coverage on this matter + some other pictures.
"We know we have a part of the picture. And that part of the picture tells us that he is, in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons." --Vice President Dick Cheney
"Meet the Press," Sept. 8, 2002
Right, you lie and lie like it's goin' out of style. You lied us into a war of choice. And you deserve the wrath of informed voters on November the 2nd
Alex Wong/NBC
American centrifuges in the Oak Ridge plant stand much higher than those used in Europe
These are the ones we have to enrich uranium. Cool, huh? We could blow up the world with the amount of uranium enriched in Oakridge.
Aluminum tubes accumulated by Iraq were often stored outside and had to be coated to resist the weather. That coating made them unsuitable for use in centrifuges that could have refined uranium into bomb material.
Now look at the Aluminum tubes Iraq was supposed to be able to enrich uranium with and destroy the "civilized" world with...I think they could use these for building the new national council tents. So, they don't go to complete waste, you know?
The International Atomic Energy Agency
Now, I realize it doesn't benefit the Iraqi psyche for me to post the following pictures. I feel it's necessary to confront the ills and without these pictures existing we cannot claim that these abuses happened. So, this is for the record. And herein are some of those responsible for the abuse that have yet to be held accountable. Namely, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. General Karpinski is pictured with Rumsfeld below at Abu Ghraib. Do you notice that look of complete horror on her face? She has spoken out, as many know, that her orders came from higher up on the food-chain. I wonder who those gluttonous gorgers of food were...Cheney, Rumsfeld??? And I'm sure there are plenty others that were in on this clear violation of human rights and the Geneva Convention. I'll try to paint a clearer picture with the help of those like General Taguba and Seymour Hersh. I'm sure others will come forward--in time--no matter how much of a gag-threat they place on persons through methods they applied to the likes of Ambassador Joseph Wilson. So here you go...apologies if you don't wish to see it...but if you don't, you don't wish to accept the reality that heinous acts did, in fact, take place and now few scapegoats are being hushedly ostracised so that Bush and Cheney's re-election hope remains alive. One or two more whistleblowers could end their hopes to retain the White House in a heartbeat and they know it.
Now, I don't know what looks more evil than this...
General Karpinski, please get some rest...you look like a walking zombie. And Donald, iron your pants...look a little more presentable to the tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Update: My, the time off writing editorials did Thomas Friedman some good. I'm amazed at his forceful voice. And Bush Inc. better be worried because they lost one of their staunchest allies for the war at the NY Times. And that ain't no joke.
I proceed with this as an echoBlog post of the nytimes coverage on this matter + some other pictures.
"We know we have a part of the picture. And that part of the picture tells us that he is, in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons." --Vice President Dick Cheney
"Meet the Press," Sept. 8, 2002
Right, you lie and lie like it's goin' out of style. You lied us into a war of choice. And you deserve the wrath of informed voters on November the 2nd
Alex Wong/NBC
American centrifuges in the Oak Ridge plant stand much higher than those used in Europe
These are the ones we have to enrich uranium. Cool, huh? We could blow up the world with the amount of uranium enriched in Oakridge.
Aluminum tubes accumulated by Iraq were often stored outside and had to be coated to resist the weather. That coating made them unsuitable for use in centrifuges that could have refined uranium into bomb material.
Now look at the Aluminum tubes Iraq was supposed to be able to enrich uranium with and destroy the "civilized" world with...I think they could use these for building the new national council tents. So, they don't go to complete waste, you know?
The International Atomic Energy Agency
Now, I realize it doesn't benefit the Iraqi psyche for me to post the following pictures. I feel it's necessary to confront the ills and without these pictures existing we cannot claim that these abuses happened. So, this is for the record. And herein are some of those responsible for the abuse that have yet to be held accountable. Namely, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. General Karpinski is pictured with Rumsfeld below at Abu Ghraib. Do you notice that look of complete horror on her face? She has spoken out, as many know, that her orders came from higher up on the food-chain. I wonder who those gluttonous gorgers of food were...Cheney, Rumsfeld??? And I'm sure there are plenty others that were in on this clear violation of human rights and the Geneva Convention. I'll try to paint a clearer picture with the help of those like General Taguba and Seymour Hersh. I'm sure others will come forward--in time--no matter how much of a gag-threat they place on persons through methods they applied to the likes of Ambassador Joseph Wilson. So here you go...apologies if you don't wish to see it...but if you don't, you don't wish to accept the reality that heinous acts did, in fact, take place and now few scapegoats are being hushedly ostracised so that Bush and Cheney's re-election hope remains alive. One or two more whistleblowers could end their hopes to retain the White House in a heartbeat and they know it.
Now, I don't know what looks more evil than this...
General Karpinski, please get some rest...you look like a walking zombie. And Donald, iron your pants...look a little more presentable to the tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Update: My, the time off writing editorials did Thomas Friedman some good. I'm amazed at his forceful voice. And Bush Inc. better be worried because they lost one of their staunchest allies for the war at the NY Times. And that ain't no joke.
The Taguba Report and related materials
PDFs:
Here's the original (3.3 MB)
Here's a text version, and another, and yet another, and the memory hole's version
Note: the MSNBC version is not the complete version. Names are redacted out of privacy, but the entire report is not included (to my knowledge)...funny, huh?
Profiles of Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba: 1, 2, 3
(thought i'd get more up , but maybe later...something came up)
The Great War in Color
North-African Soldiers cooking their meal in a village in Oise, France, 1917
(Autochrome color picture by Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud)
This is one of the few real color photographs of the First World War: a group of Spahis, Algerian soldiers, who fought with the French on the European battlefields.
This is a fascinating look into this war in color. Click the pic for plenty more.
Iraqi Artists II: Repost with Additions
This is a re-post from earlier with some new additions to come The one that I am very happy about now is the Kathim link at the bottom.
I'm going to try to collate some articles about Iraqi artists. Come back to this post for more.
'Iraqi Drama in Crisis'
Art Imitates Iraqi Life in All Its Chaos and Misery
Leading Iraqi artist dies
Looted Iraqi Art Displayed Online
Kathem Al Sahar
Punk Rock in Iraq
Iraqi Elvis
AfroPop Worldwide Interview of Kazem
Iraqi Theatre Struggles for Normality
on Iraqi Cinema, 'baghdad blues'
some websites:
IraqiArt.com
Rahim Al Haj, Iraqi oud player's website
oriental tunes.com
belly dance museum Check out my favorite, Taheya Carioca!!!
songs of assyria
ilham al madfa3y's streaming music
on Old Iraqi music
LA MUSICA:
Kathim Al-Saher
A lot of music, by the beloved Kathim...both streaming and
download'able
Fairuz, while you drink your tea in the morning: She was something else (wink, wink)
, Maah'shallah!
Some streaming Iraqi music...tons of artists! Sometimes the quality is sketchy, but well worth your time.
I'm going to try to collate some articles about Iraqi artists. Come back to this post for more.
'Iraqi Drama in Crisis'
Art Imitates Iraqi Life in All Its Chaos and Misery
Leading Iraqi artist dies
Looted Iraqi Art Displayed Online
Kathem Al Sahar
Punk Rock in Iraq
Iraqi Elvis
AfroPop Worldwide Interview of Kazem
Iraqi Theatre Struggles for Normality
on Iraqi Cinema, 'baghdad blues'
some websites:
IraqiArt.com
Rahim Al Haj, Iraqi oud player's website
oriental tunes.com
belly dance museum Check out my favorite, Taheya Carioca!!!
songs of assyria
ilham al madfa3y's streaming music
on Old Iraqi music
LA MUSICA:
Kathim Al-Saher
A lot of music, by the beloved Kathim...both streaming and
download'able
Fairuz, while you drink your tea in the morning: She was something else (wink, wink)
, Maah'shallah!
Some streaming Iraqi music...tons of artists! Sometimes the quality is sketchy, but well worth your time.
Seymour Hersh: Interview with Jon Stewart, the Neo-Con "Coup"
The interview is both entertaining, informative, short, and sweet.
Also, this is a humorous prelude to the research I'll be doing about Abu Ghraib and other situations that have to do with abuse and torture in Iraq. It will include other things, too, that I find pertinent when it comes to the collective amnesia settling amongst the American population. I don't expect millions of people to absorb whatever I end up coming up with, but at least it will be in the public domain.
From time to time, I'll scatter some comic relief amidst the depressing and missing details yet to be adumbrated to a degree that's sufficient for the unacceptable nature of these matters. I don't promise anything new, though I'm sure new things will be unearthed as time passes. I just promise to create a catalog or space on the web of items in a format that is more accessible to the average reader and web-surfer.
More on this later...I have a lot of catching up to do with real-world stuff and I'll be in touch with everybody I've emailed and heard from about this and other things soon. So, please, pardon the delay and thank you for the support and kindness. I look forward to any collaboration that might spring forth. :)
Liminal
Update: Other daily show interviews and clips of note...Ambassador Joe Wilson, Senator Joe Biden, Bush debating Bush, ...more later?
1.10.04
On my desktop now
While I realize it's a personal thing (or not at all) to put an image, color, or pattern on one's desktop...every once and a while I'll put up what I've got on mine. I have no idea why I've decided to do this, but here's what's on mine at the moment. Any guesses where this is? More often than not, they'll be of picures (altered or not) that I have taken...like this one. Of course, I gave it a photshop halftone pattern with some wicked colors, but I'll supply you with the original if you're so interested.
Oh, I guess I've done it before with the abstract photos with the Kant excerpts. But I'll try to make it a habit now. :)
Oh, I guess I've done it before with the abstract photos with the Kant excerpts. But I'll try to make it a habit now. :)
The Debate
here, you decide who looked more like a parroting fool.
Let me be completely clear. Iraq will not be a better place with either Bush or Kerry. As far as foreign policy goes, they are almost carbon copies of one another. The matter is whether we're going to keep following the failed neo-conservative vision for the Middle/Near East or if we're going to try to take a bit more multilateral approach to the region and world.
Besides, getting that cold and calculating group of Neo-Cons out of Washington shall be to the benefit of all. And change is never negative when matters continue to be exacerbated by assymetrical policies in place that plunder the liberties and values that should be trademark of a free society.
In otherwords, lets nix the Orwellian coma.
Update: Ed Helms and John Corddry of The Daily Show give their analysis of the debate.
Update II: Juan Cole has some important remarks about the debate and Chalabi.
Let me be completely clear. Iraq will not be a better place with either Bush or Kerry. As far as foreign policy goes, they are almost carbon copies of one another. The matter is whether we're going to keep following the failed neo-conservative vision for the Middle/Near East or if we're going to try to take a bit more multilateral approach to the region and world.
Besides, getting that cold and calculating group of Neo-Cons out of Washington shall be to the benefit of all. And change is never negative when matters continue to be exacerbated by assymetrical policies in place that plunder the liberties and values that should be trademark of a free society.
In otherwords, lets nix the Orwellian coma.
Update: Ed Helms and John Corddry of The Daily Show give their analysis of the debate.
Update II: Juan Cole has some important remarks about the debate and Chalabi.
30.9.04
The Distractions End Right Now
I plan on doing some serious digging about Abu Ghraib and the NO, no wmd situation...yes, history is upon us. And I'm going to grasp it now before it is erased.
All these wedge issues / distractions of bush's service in vietnam must be obliterated.
The first debate is today. And I want to hear something real come out of one of their mouths. So I'll hold myself to the same standard of focusing on what the hell has happened to this country and Iraq in the process of the past couple years. Abu Khaleel just mentions that it needs to be described before we ahve the solutions.
And I'm in full agreement of his methodology and logic. You must describe a problem before solving it.
But in the back of my mind, I'm afraid without any reconciliation for what tragic events that have unfolded, that we'll be running in place with any solution we could possibly come up with. (But more power to you AK)
I'm going to go on describing to Americans especially what has taken place. Because there seems to be an amazing attention deficit disorder or collective amnesia setting in here.
So...I'm going to do my part with the blog and with other ways to get people's memories jogged.
Pace,
lim.
All these wedge issues / distractions of bush's service in vietnam must be obliterated.
The first debate is today. And I want to hear something real come out of one of their mouths. So I'll hold myself to the same standard of focusing on what the hell has happened to this country and Iraq in the process of the past couple years. Abu Khaleel just mentions that it needs to be described before we ahve the solutions.
And I'm in full agreement of his methodology and logic. You must describe a problem before solving it.
But in the back of my mind, I'm afraid without any reconciliation for what tragic events that have unfolded, that we'll be running in place with any solution we could possibly come up with. (But more power to you AK)
I'm going to go on describing to Americans especially what has taken place. Because there seems to be an amazing attention deficit disorder or collective amnesia setting in here.
So...I'm going to do my part with the blog and with other ways to get people's memories jogged.
Pace,
lim.
It's about time ya Yawer!
I expected a bit more of this from him, but finally he says something again. (via La Times, via Juan Cole)
And is justice being delayed by the Bush admin.? Guess who explains it.
Drawing a parallel between U.S. tactics in Iraq and Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, President Ghazi Ajil Yawer said the U.S. strikes were viewed by the Iraqi people as "collective punishment" against towns and neighborhoods.
Footage of injured and dead women and children being pulled from bombed buildings "brings to mind Gaza," Yawer said in an interview on CNN.
And is justice being delayed by the Bush admin.? Guess who explains it.