(Special) Friends of Palestine. Sometimes when viewing the BBC's coverage of Israel and area you can't help wondering what contacts they have and what friends their correspondents make out there.

Perhaps it's not entirely their fault- few Israelis want to talk to them (generally out of moral repugnance at an organisation they see as terrorist apologists)- but there are an awful lot of occasions where they go and trawl through opinion among Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank.

Alan Johnston's been out and about again in Gaza recently, touting around for sound-bytes on the 'so-called road map' (his phrase). You can imagine his line of questioning (in arabic)- 'excuse me, sir/madam, would you like to tell me what you think of the so-called roadmap?', to which the response might be 'mmmemph! That so-called road map!'. It it any wonder that 'A journey up the Gaza Strip illustrates the local people's disillusionment.'?

In fact the regularly blasphemed road-map could constructively have been left out of this foray and this report. They could be asking a question like, 'do you support Ariel Sharon's recent plan for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip?' or 'what do you think of the Likud membership who blocked Sharon's withdrawal plan?'. That would be interesting if insightfully reported. Ah well.

I wonder if he also tried to engage debate on the trial of the IDF soldier who shot Tom Hurndall last spring? A BBC correspondent would have been able to sympathise with Palestinian grievances, as this reporting of Hurndall's mother's response demonstrates:

'She said she still found it difficult to believe that justice would be done.

"It is not sufficient to come this far merely for the staging of a show trial," she said.

The BBC's Middle East correspondent James Reynolds says there is an inescapable feeling among many that this trial is going ahead because the victim was British, not Palestinian.'

There are three calumnies that the BBC succeeds in spreading here. One, ignoring the fact that Hurndall's mother naturally wants the killer to face the consequences of his actions, implying that the Israelis are not supplying that. Two, that now the case has been brought it will be a public relations exercise. Three, that the whole process is tainted with racism.

But what about the other side? The fact that the Israelis initially contested the case shows that they did not intend to make a special allowance for Mr Hurndall's citizenship (incidentally I notice that one of the charges against 'their' man is obstruction of justice). It also shows that they did not intend on there being any 'show-trial'. Conveying no appreciation that this is an example of Israeli willingness to submit their activities in Gaza to the law courts might explain why the only people who want to talk to the BBC are Palestinians.

Melanie Phillips reports:

'The BBC internal inquiry into what went wrong over Andrew Gilligan's infamous Today broadcast which led to the David Kelly affair and the Hutton inqury and provoked the biggest crisis in the Beeb's history, has found that nothing went wrong apart from Andrew Gilligan and no-one was to blame apart from Andrew Gilligan.'

Michael Grade's comment? :

"The greatest threat to the independence of the BBC is the self-censorship of the staff."

Andrew Gilligan's (apart from the obligatory self-defence):

"I am broadly pleased with the outcome of the inquiry, in that the BBC seems finally to have joined the rest of the country in rejecting the conclusions of Lord Hutton."

Not quite what I was thinking, but all interesting responses.

What I’m saying is that these events are the exception and not the rule.'- Iraq the Model

Chaos, A Cruel Scheme or Something Else?

Here's Paul Reynolds musing on how institutional the abuses at Abu Ghraib are. That this did not strike me as dreadful I put down to the reassuring technicality of much of its discussion (but that's the problem). Here's Barbara Amiel with her not reassuring chaos theory.

I start from the premise that the inmates of Abu Ghraib last summer were mostly likely aggressors implicated in murderous activities. I don't think it's possible to treat such vicious people with a lot of dignity without jeopardising the authority of the prison and interrogators. A couple of Iraqi blogs have said some interesting things about this. Iraq and Iraqi's says

'Is there any prison in the world with out humiliation?
Did any one talk about Iraqi human rights before April 2003?
Did any one ask what those people in Abo Ghraib did to be treated like that?
Can any Arab country open its prisons for any committee?
Would any one dare to criticize prisons system in any other Arab country?'

Iraq the Model has apparently interviewed a source that would lead you to believe that the problem with Abu Graib was that it was too relaxed. It's not inconceivable. If things are too relaxed, then imposing order can sometimes be difficult and messy, and spills over into abuse if subverted.

Reynolds' analysis is titled 'US Policy or Anomaly?'. A key quote is 'Did the guard force at Abu Ghraib who liked to take pictures of themselves at work simply overstep the mark while following a general instruction to set the "conditions for successful exploitation of the internees"?'

As I've mentioned, Reynolds' account is technical. I'm not at all sure it deals fairly with the army report of Maj General Geoffrey Miller's review of Abu Ghraib which was undertaken last summer. I'm especially sceptical about this:

'The words "integration", "synchronisation", "fusion" and the phrase "enabler for interrogation" must mean the process by which the detention officers prepare the prisoners for questioning by subjecting them to demoralising techniques.'

The actual phrase in the report of MG Miller's review was 'intelligence integration, synchronisation and fusion' (italics added). This could mean what Reynolds says it means: the uniting of interrogation techniques with the conditions of detention, but since the detention conditions were never going to produce intelligence directly, it seems to me this could as easily refer to questioning techniques and practices more directly relevant to 'intelligence'. Reynolds seems like he is twisting when he tacks on the phrase 'enabler for interrogation' to the other three words. If we add the two phrases together more naturally, we get 'intelligence integration, synchronisation and fusion' (should act as an) 'enabler for interrogation'. It doesn't make any sense (being the wrong way round) until doctored by Reynolds. Just a thought.

Jed Babbin quotes more from Miller, that 'CJTF-7 did not have authorities and procedures in place' when Miller reported last summer. In other words, the privates were doing what they pleased, which seems to have meant a very relaxed regime for the Baathists that were being rounded up and brought to Abu Ghraib.

In fact the headline phrase culled from Miller's review- 'detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation'- suggests that a basic ethos of detention was being ignored and that senior officers were trying to make it effective. That this failure to enable was at the forefront of MG Miller's mind supports the claims of slackness reported by Iraq the Model. In the case of the abusive minority, their response to accusations of slackness was to abuse prisoners. That is not 'overstepping the mark', it is failing to follow orders.

Reynolds is intent on prolonging the controversy and making the casualties of the Abu Ghraib affair as senior as possible- if they can't get Rumsfeld then let it at least weaken Rumsfeld's personnel- hence the, at bottom, rather obvious attempt to embroil the new director of Abu Ghraib in the controversial incidents of the past.

Update: Samizdata publishes the findings of the military's report into the Abu Ghraib abuses. Here is more info.

Update 2: General Taguba reports to the Senate (linked to this BBC story you can find a pdf copy of his report).

Matthew Parris wrote an article in the Times yesterday that engaged my annoyance. The basic thesis is that Bush need to win the election in November so that you Yanks can learn the error of your ways. Another four years of Dumbya ought to do ya.

Parris (the kind of guy DumbJon would call a T.I.N.O.- Tory In Name Only) badly needs a fisking, so a' fisking we will go.

Core to his approach is that Bush is an ideologue driven by the theory that 'liberal values and a capitalist economic system can be spread across the world by force of arms'. You will not find in this analysis mention of September 11th.

It is interesting that Parris says 'The opening American presidency of the new millennium — George W. Bush, 2001-2009 — should serve as an object lesson to the world for the decades to come.', because obviously if that comes to pass it won't be 2001-2009, but 2000-2008 that will be remembered as 'the years of Dubya'. This clanger is indicative of his approach: Parris exposes his readers to a dangerous contempt for the reality of history.

It will surely be obvious to an historical viewpoint that GWB was primarily energised by the fact that September 11th happened, and happened on 'his watch'. Parris talks of 'America's dream of becoming the new Rome'. If that is an accurate characterisation it will still always be remembered that the dream took root from a murderous nightmare. When he says that with the collapse of that supposed dream there will be 'no straw at which Republican apologists can clutch' he is patently wrong. Even a disinterested person could make that defence, let alone an apologist.

Again and again Parris makes the mistake of confusing a number of geo-political judgements with an ideology. He compares a Bush victory in November to Harold Wilson's Labour victory in 1975- which created the conditions for the Thatcher revolution in '79 by making us fed up with socialism. Presumably he has in mind Hillary in 2008 (2009 might be leaving her surge in the polls a bit late). Wilson was a socialist; Bush is a neo-Con, so Bush's failure ought to be like Wilson's. No. Bush's ideology only extends as far as ensuring America's security (how would he have energy for more?). Can you define Neo-Conservatism like you can define Marxist-Leninism? You can argue what 'security' means, but to suggest Bush wants to ransack the world on a neo-colonial binge is to depart the debating chamber, as Parris and friends so willingly do.

Following this Parris drifts off into a happy fog of comparisons with British dynasties- the Thatcher years, the Major years, the Blair years. What he fails to mention is one of the cardinal differences between the US system and our own: your lot only get eight years max. Thatcher fell after eleven years, a circumstance impossible in the US. If Thatcher had had only eight years she would be the untainted heroine of Conservatism, neo- or otherwise.

Having exhausted the ideological and dynastic arguments for failure, Parris goes onto the pscychological. You see, deep in your consciousness, you Americans are rather youthful and exuberant. You have this 'dawning neo-imperialist urge' which needs to be blunted, in response to which Parris says 'The answer to “because we can” is “you cannot”.

Parris is too polite to express his desire for as many US casualties in Iraq as possible, but that's what he's just said in so many words. One would have thought he would have been more interested in applying his dictum to people like Saddam Hussein's Baathists, 'The answer to "because we can" is "you cannot" ', but it seems extending the logic of his argument beyond the evil Americans hasn't occurred to him.

Parris proves himself a heroic defender of the lost Baathist status-quo. He says the neo-cons 'cannot allow themselves to think that an Iraqi insurgency could be anywhere near the popular pulse.' This poetic language is meant to obscure the fact that the 'insurgency' is indeed murkey and complex, very much tied into the Baathist past, and far from the regular beat of any supposed popular Iraqi pulse. Far more synchronised is Parris's analysis with those of analysts at the BBC.

Parris concludes by returning to his notion that ideology drives the US approach. He says 'A simple and moving idea resonates through all these words. It is the idea that the principles we now hold are, at the most profound level, universal'. Notwithstanding the fact that to dispute the universality of all the principles we 'now hold' would negate the possiblity that some rights are universal, this is missing the point. It's much simpler and less moving than he thinks. It's not about ideology, complex or simple, it's about security with honour and justice, which, according to the old American way, and in many strands of the British way, is the only kind of security that's real.

(Oh almost forgot to say thank you to Shot-By-Both-Sides for the link)

Tales of Monstrous England. I'm just finding it delicious that the most prominent surname involved in the Abu Graib scandal is 'England'. 'England' is being dragged through the mud by the British press. It's almost as funny as noting last spring that England's cricket captain was called Nasser Hussein- now does that show tolerance or what? (or what?) On the other hand, a childhood friend of mine changed his surname from 'Gay' when he was about ten years old. Still, it's not the name that counts, it's what words are appended to it. My friend objected to 'GayLord'.

That's why I feel sorry for Lynndie England when I find that the BBC's Clive Myrie has described her as 'a monster' in a recent article. For holding a leash and pointing at penises, or have I missed something of Ms England's heinousness? I don't like it at all. Name-calling of the most hurtful and opportunistic sort from the most authoritative of sources can also be called bullying. Especially when looking at pictures of Ms England I am persuaded she's a lot more vulnerable to rape than any of her Iraqi inmates, even in their difficult circumstances.

Don't worry though- her name isn't being taken in vain, since Myrie frames this appendage 'monster' as part of a broader question: 'What was it about the war in Iraq that turned her into a monster? '

Indeed we can see who the bogeyman is now, can't we?

Putting aside the obvious attempt to smear the Iraq campaign with some kind of mysteriously cursed quality, like the mist that seems to surround those cinematic-blockbuster shots of the Vietnam jungle, what about this term 'monster' being used in its rightful place by the BBC- to describe Saddam Hussein? I ran the searches and this is the best I could come up with, from Roger Hardy:

'Ask Kuwaitis, and they will tell you Saddam Hussein was a monster who is now safely behind bars. '

So we have one second-hand condemnation of the tyrant using this term 'monster', yet Lynndie England gets it full in the face as soon as an august BBC commentator becomes aware of her existence. Nice work, fellows.

I'm not alone in thinking that the outrage over the tweaking/mistreatment/systematic abuse/torture of Iraqis has gone too far. American soldier-blog 'ChromeDomeZone' makes the vital point that there's no comparison between the treatment highlighted at Abu Graib under US jurisdiction and that which occurred during the former regime. He quotes Rush Limbaugh saying 'These are pictures of humiliation of people. These are pictures of intimidation of people. They're not pictures of violence. They're not pictures of death. They are not pictures of horror.'

Here in the UK, Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror has wheeled out (says the soldier has 'come forward', well, I mean...) another UK soldier linked to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who describes the horrors to which Iraqis were allegedly subjected- allegedly to violence in this case- in summer-autumn of last year. The trouble is, it's muddling everything up (um, deliberately?). The central fact remains that if Piers' photographs were fabrications he should walk.

The new revelations include 'one of the worst things' where a UK Corporal allegedly 'went up to one of the prisoners who still had a sandbag on his face and was poking his fingers into his eyeballs until the guy was screaming in pain.'. More picturesqely (something I had trouble visualising), he says that when the sand bags were taken off their heads 'looked like haggises'. (you can read the BBC's ever-changing account of the controversy here.)

The odd thing is, that eyeball thing happened to me in the front row of the scrum in a rugby match at school- only I didn't have a sand-bag to protect me. It worked, in the sense that it was disabling and I dropped out of the scrum and their side won it, but although I don't think the other guy could have pushed my eyeballs much harder, they recovered pretty well (in fact I no longer seem to need glasses for anything, though that might be completely unrelated). Not a nice experience anyway. In the light of that I'm a bit sceptical; like me the Iraqi solder could have rolled away before he started to scream. So far as the account goes he wasn't under restraint, so why didn't he just roll away with his face toward the floor, something I managed to do even though bound into the working scrum? That's maybe just a flavour of the questions the soldier might find himself answering as he is being interviewed by military police.

Another point: just under a year ago Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment was reported for alleged mistreatment of Iraqis in Basra. He was acquitted, and subsequently pursued successful libel actions against the Sunday Express, and, guess who?- the Mirror ('The Mirror on Sunday', if that makes a difference).

I'm not forgetting UNscam, even though in the world of nicey-nicey diplomacy that we left behind firstly with Sept 11 but subsequently with the UN ructions over the Iraq invasion, it would be nice to be nice and allow the nice Mr Annan to retain his saintly status.

I'm sure some politicians in the UK and the US feel the same way too, but I think it is very likely what we have uncovered is that France and Russia were conniving with the Iraqi end of the axis of evil, and if you're serious about the axis, which I am sure Bush is, you have to be interested in UNscam, however reluctantly. In that sense interest in UNscam separates the sheep from the goats. As Kerry Buttram noted in his scan of what the BBC aren't interested in, UNscam is an story (like the entire WoT as conceived by Bush) that the BBC are not interested in, which more or less proves the point.

Friends of Saddam today updated their reports on Ambassador Bremer's hindrance of the investigations into Unscam. With Lakhdar Brahimi firmly ensconced in the process of developing the transition to an Iraqi government there are good reasons why Bremer might not want to undermine the UN's involvement in Iraq. Equally, former ambassador to the UN Negroponte (and upcoming man-on-the-ground in Iraq) might not like to see his options narrowed by a damaging investigation into the UN's involvement with the old regime, especially when it seems that parts of the old regime must go unscrutinised in order to bring Iraq some peace.

What with that, and the media's obsession with Bush-the-liar-and-torturer, and the UN's own stonewalling, and powerful enemies on the UN security council (France and Russia), it reminds me that this is a scandal with no friends. No friends, but plenty of people whose interest demands they recognise the seriousness of UNscam. No friends, but a burning sense of injustice that may yet roast the UNscammers in the way that Richard Armitage had in mind when he exploded with the words 'if someone is found guilty they ought to hang'.

An interesting episode is chronicled at USS Neverdock. Marc has been hot on the trail of peace activist Jo Wilding as she gallivants round Fallujah in search of anti-US propaganda. Previously, an article used her as a source for accusations that US troops fired on ambulances in Fallujah, and Marc pursued the BBC with e-mails pointing out Ms Wilding's background as 'a well known anti-War activist that was once arrested for attacking Tony Blair.'

This time it was an e-mail she sent to the BBC that was used to 'kick off' a feedback article, inviting readers to send in descriptions of their experiences relating to Iraq. It's clear that Wilding has been deliberately targeting the BBC as a mouthpiece for her interests. Marc chased them about it, and finally an e-mail came back saying they had withdrawn the e-mail and that Wilding's background 'had not been made clear' (as though that was not their job)- this despite much previous correspondence from Marc Landers over the previous incident. The BBC journalist who wrote to Marc made a fine apology, but what can you say about editorial procedures that don't bother to check the background of people making radical claims, require readers to do their research for them, don't disseminate information amongst their staff about prominent but 'risky' sources, and don't make it clear when a source is identified as having possible ulterior motives? You can say that that editorial procedure turns a blind eye to problematic sources when those sources say what they want and expect to hear.

The BBC's Caroline Hawley, or the 'White Witch' as my brother-in-law calls her, has produced an article following up some TV reporting that tries to capture the state-of-play in Fallujan hearts and minds. They seem rather confused.

The article headline talks of 'fury' in Fallujah, but the first thing Hawley reports is is the declaration of victory on the part of the Iraqis she claims are now in charge of Fallujah. If this was the seige of Fallujah, the defenders have succeeded and this represents a reversal of the US victory over the Iraqi army this time last year. Cause for celebrification, it would seem.

But Hawley insists on saying that 'it was always an uneven battle, and there is fury in Falluja at what people here say was an indiscriminate use of American force.' (note: there is a difference between 'force' and 'American force' that ought to be clear to any right thinking person). So it was an uneven battle favouring the US, with excessive 'American force', which the US apparently lost? Why no credit for being gallant enough to hold back from flattening them properly, even though some Fallujans might have- and have- declared this their victory? Mark Steyn sums up the issue thus: 'heartless and mindless as they are, I’m reluctant to kill 300,000 of them.'.

Then, after the briefest mention of what the 'US military says', we go on to the exemplar Hawley offers to background what she calls 'strong international criticism of what is widely seen as a disproportionate response.'

And this is where it gets even more annoying. Hawley refers to Ali-Hassan as a Fallujah resident. That's all, despite the fact that he's very much a male of fighting age. There's no examination of Ali Hassan's account of the killing of 36 people from three families, presumably in US bombing though that's purely an inference from her account. Again, when we hear that 'The bodies of five children are still said to be under the rubble' there is no corroborating evidence on offer. The gravestones Hawley points to have no names, yet we are asked to believe that two children are buried there- but who knows how they died when even Hawley does not say? All of this appears without corroboration. Are we just supposed to emote with Hawley (a concept difficult to imagine), or have we a right to expect some evidence when atrocities (deliberate or accidental) are being alleged?

Given the BBC's record in Fallujah so far, it's not difficult to imagine them adopting Al Jazeera tactics and asking what those residents who are revolting would like them to report. 'Have Your Say' for Jihadis.

Some Realities On The Ground: a moving letter from Iraq (via Glenn).

Key quote for the attention of Paul 'the insurgency has clearly spread from the few "former regime elements" ' Reynolds:

'they were ambushed by a group of insurgents--undoubtedly former regime soldiers with some military
training--with RPGs, heavy machine guns, and AK-47s'