In a remark on my last post on Iraq, Sam Haque points out:

The situation is that occupation forces have taken for themselves the role of guardians by and large without the consent of those who they are ostensibly protecting.

— Sam Haque, comment (2006-05-10) on GT 2006-05-08: Why We Fight

This is true, and not just of the situation in Iraq. It is as accurate and concise a description as you could make of what governments do for a living, always and everywhere. It’s war that brings this into the sharpest relief, because the normal restraints on brutality are released, the beneficiary-victims are strangers in a faraway land, and the public intellectuals and the official press line up to shout down any serious challenge to the progress of war aims. But war and occupation are only the starkest and most explicit expression of what State power essentially means, not just with bombers and soldiers and tanks, but also with every spook, cop, G-man, prosecutor, jailer, and hangman whose paychecks we are forced to cover. Consider, for example, the local cops in New Britain, Connecticut, who protected the hell out of an 11 year old boy and his mother in the name of serving a drug search warrant without interruption, or last week’s riot and reign of terror by Mexican police asserting their authority to protect and serve the people of San Salvador Atenco, whether they like it or not.

The State is, as Catharine MacKinnon says, male in the political sense. But not only because the law views women’s civil status through the lens of male supremacy (although it certainly does). It is also because the male-dominated State relates to all of its subjects like a battering husband relates to the household of which he has proclaimed himself the head: by laying a claim to protect those who did not ask for it, and using whatever violence and intimidation may be necessary to terrorize them into submitting to his protection. The State, as the abusive head of the whole nation, assaults the innocent, and turns a blind eye to assaults of the innocent, when it suits political interest — renamed national interest by the self-proclaimed representatives of the nation. It does so not because of the venality or incompetance of a particular ruler, but rather because that is what State power means, and that is what the job of a ruler is: to maintain a monopoly of coercion over its territorial area, as a good German might tell you, and to beat, chain, burn, or kill anyone within or without who might endanger that, whether by defying State rule, or by simply ignoring it and asking to be left alone.

Or, as Ezra Haywood once put it, A cruel kindness, thought to be friendly regard, assumes to protect those who, by divine right of rational being, are entitled, at least, to be let alone. We are not among wild beasts; from whom, then, does woman need protection? From her protectors. And so it is for us civilians, facing the doorkeep before the Law.

Further reading:

• Randolph Bourne (1918): War is the health of the State
• Lysander Spooner (1867–1870): No Treason

Robert Bidinotto is pissed off. He’s pissed off at me in particular and he’s pissed off at anti-American scumbags in general. So much so that I have been denounced as, inter alia, a scumbag, a liar, a sophist, disingenuous, a complete fraud, and incapable of arguing straight up and honestly. So much so that I have been informed that I am no longer welcome to comment at Bidinotto’s blog. Others have gotten tagged with most or all of these terms, and just for good measure some of them have been denounced as bitches, contemptible, bottom feeders, and complete lunatics. Here’s why.

Late last month, Bidinotto was pissed off that Joel Stein, Leftist columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a column in which he took issue with the popular cant of supporting the troops.

Leftist columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Joel Stein, has become notorious during the past couple of days for writing, I don’t support our troops. Not I don’t support the war in Iraq or even I don’t support the war against Islamist terrorism. No — I don’t support our troops.

And the scumbag means it. Sure, we could blame just Bush, he wrote. But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they’re following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

Yup. He’s blaming the troops.

But he’s not the only one.

Then follows a long invective, frequently updated with new bellows of outrage, against libertarians — mostly those in the orbit of LewRockwell.com and the Ludwig von Mises Institute — who have similar things to say, or other things that don’t bear much relation to Stein’s column but strike him as outrageous anti-American scumbaggery. In reply to all this, I asked two days ago (2006-02-03):

From Rad Geek on 02/03/06

Here’s the comment of Joel Stein’s that Bindinotto [sic] singles out, apparently for special outrage: The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they’re following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

Isn’t this true?

To which Bidinotto replied (2006-02-04):

From Bidinotto on 02/04/06

Hey Geek, do you know what question begging means? It means assuming what it is that you’re supposed to be proving.

Let me spell it out for you: You are assuming (1) that the American soldiers are acting immorally, and (2) that they know their activities to be immoral, but are ignoring that fact. Neither is the case. So — no, the last statement is not applicable.

I point out to one side that I have a long-standing professional interest in the teaching of logic and that I’ve written philosophical work on the nature of question-begging fallacies. Not that that means anything. In any case, since this didn’t answer my question, I replied yesterday (2006-02-04):

From Rad Geek on 02/04/06

Bidinotto:“Let me spell it out for you: You are assuming (1) that the American soldiers are acting immorally, and (2) that they know their activities to be immoral, but are ignoring that fact.

No, I’m not. I’m asking you whether or not it is true that individual soldiers bear at least partial moral responsibility for the actions they carry out, even when they are acting on orders. And further whether large-scale surrender of individual conscience under military orders (whenever it happens) is horrifying. Neither I nor the passage I asked you about says [sic] anything at all about whether in fact the conduct of soldiers in the Iraq War specifically is immoral.

(And yes, I realize that the rest of the article does make that point. So what? The question is about the passage that you singled out for excoriation, not the rest of the article.)

Bidinotto: Neither is the case. So — no, the last statement is not applicable.

I didn’t ask whether it was applicable to the Iraq War or not. I asked whether it is true or false.

Bidinotto came around to the question and added one of his own (2006-02-04):

From Bidinotto on 02/04/06

EVERYONE bears moral responsibility for his or her actions. Soldiers, too. And in fact the disobedience of soldiers to improper orders is a time-honored tradition. So is the prosecution of those who give, and follow, transparently improper orders. Remember Lt. Calley in ‘Nam? Hell, what about the Abu Graib prison abuse?

But none of that is what Stein’s disgusting piece was about, as you well know and acknowledge. His I don’t support the troops was about the troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq; it was they whom he calumnied as horrifying by declaring that they were ignoring their morality; and THAT was what I indeed target for special outrage.

Now a question for you: in the context of Iraq, do you agree with Stein that our troops are acting immorally — and knowingly so?

Which I then answered, with a clarification of the point I was interested in:

From Rad Geek on 02/04/06

Now a question for you: in the context of Iraq, do you agree with Stein that our troops are acting immorally — and knowingly so?

I think that some of them are and others aren’t; the issue is complicated by the fact that soldiers are not free to stop participating in the war and thus some of them are acting under duress. Those that are willingly doing it are, I think, willingly participating in evil, and I see no reason to celebrate them for that or sanctimoniously declare my support for them on that account (even if they do things that require a lot of physical or intellectual skill, and even if they do things that are very daring).

If that makes me an anti-American scumbag, so be it; my main concern here, though, is that the argument over that should be played from where it lies. Your real complaint here isn’t that Stein, Rockwell, Snider et al. don’t support the troops. It’s that they don’t support the war in Iraq. Fine; that’s an argument to be had. But fuming about the fact that people who already consider the war to be an unjustifiable campaign of State murder afortiori consider those foot soldiers who willingly carry it out to be murderers, really seemsto me to be a bit much. The debate is better served by arguing over the premises, not shouting back and forth over the conclusion.

To which Bidinotto replied earlier today (2006-02-05):

From Bidinotto on 02/05/06

So, Geekie, now you admit that what I said earlier WAS true: You are assuming (1) that the American soldiers are acting immorally, and (2) that they know their activities to be immoral, but are ignoring that fact.

Initially, in reply, you said No, I’m not — maintaining that you were not referring to soldiers in Iraq, but to generic soldiers who blindly follow orders.

But now you admit that all along you WERE referring to our soldiers’s activities in Iraq, and that Those that are willingly doing it are, I think, willingly participating in evil… You now admit that you consider those soldiers to be murderers.

In short, in trying to get my original response, you lied.

I do not welcome sophists who argue disingenuously, just to try to score debating points. Besides being an anti-American scumbag, Geekie, you have revealed yourself to be a fraud, and any future comments by you will be deleted. And should you, Betsy, or similar sorts try to sneak in here under assumed names, you will only underscore the fact that you are complete frauds who cannot argue straight up and honestly.

Second, Geekie, don’t tell me what my real complaint is with Stein, Rockwell, you, et al. I made it very clear in this post that I have friends and colleagues who strongly oppose the war in Iraq; but they remain friends and colleagues precisely because they do NOT mock, insult, and belittle our SOLDIERS over that policy disagreement.

No, Geekie, my targets in this post are anti-American scumbags like you, who DO sully American troops.

Got it?

Everyone else: got it?

Since I’m no longer welcome to post comments at Bidinotto’s website, I’ll mention a couple of points here.

First, a point about logic and language. It’s not accurate to say that I’m assuming that American troops are acting immorally, and that they’re doing so knowingly. I’m concluding that on the basis of an argument. The argument is mostly left unexpressed in my comments at Bidinotto’s blog; but that brings us to the second point: the reason it is left unexpressed is that nothing turns on it in the discussion with Bidinotto. The passage from Stein that Bidinotto singles out for outrage is true — and Bidinotto later concedes that it is true — whether or not the principle set out in it is (as Stein thinks it is, and Bidinotto does not) applicable to the situation of those soldiers who are willingly fighting in Iraq. (I think it’s important to note that not all soldiers fighting in Iraq are doing so willingly, in any meaningful sense. But that’s a side issue.) That’s all I was asking, and all I was interested in; There is a difference between stating that you’re going to discuss a principle without applying it to a particular situation, and stating that you’re going to discuss a principle that doesn’t apply to that particular situation. The question (and my implied endorsement of the principle) presupposed nothing (neither a Yes or a No) about its applicability in this particular case. Which is what I was saying. The invective against my dishonesty and fraudulence is, thus, based on something hard to distinguish from wilful misreading.

Logic lesson for the day: in order for an argument to beg the question, the argument must first be made. Or at least alluded to. Or something.

Second, the fact that Bidinotto is willing to bestow sentimental praise on some opponents of the Iraq war is not even remotely to the point. Here is a rough version of the argument being used by the folks that he is outraged at:

1. The things done in the prosecution of the Iraq War are evil.
2. There are some (many) American soldiers who willingly do the things done in the prosecution of the Iraq War.
3. If soldiers willingly do things that are evil, they bear (at least some) moral responsibility for them.
4. You shouldn’t support people who bear (at least some) moral responsibility for doing things that are evil.
5. Therefore, there are some (many) American soldiers you shouldn’t support.

As far as I can tell, this is a valid deductive argument (if somewhat roughly expressed). Bidinotto strongly disagrees with the conclusion; and he’s pretty pissed off about those who would draw it. But what is it that he disagrees with in the argument? He explicitly states that he agrees with 3. 2 is a matter of manifest empirical fact. He doesn’t say anything one way or the other about 4 in this article, but as an Objectivist it’s unlikely that he’d want to deny it. So which premise does that leave in dispute: (1), the premise that the things done in the prosecution of the Iraq War are evil. If you accept all of the premises but don’t accept the conclusion, then you’re being inconsistent. If you avoid the conclusion only by rejecting premise 1, then the real issue in the debate just isn’t the scumbaggery of failing to support our troops. It’s the damned war. Acting as if your decision to sanction or not sanction the actions of American soldiers in Iraq should be insulated from any moral considerations about the propriety of the ongoing use of militarized violence in Iraq, or the direct individual roles that the soldiers play in carrying out the force, or the individual decisions that they make to comply or not to comply with that policy, requires you to either (1) deny one of the other premises (i.e., to give up on the idea that you shouldn’t sanction willing participation in evil, or to give up on the idea that individual soldiers are morally accountable for their actions under the banner of war); or (2) blank out. Neither of these is an option that should recommend itself to rational and civilized people.

It’s one thing to get pissed off about deep disagreements of moral principle over the nature, justice, and effects of the Iraq War. It’s quite another to fume at people for refusing to hypocritically profess to support for our troops when they have concluded that some (many) of those troops are willing participants in evil.

There is no nobility in blanking out the conclusions of your premises, and no honor in palavering hypocrisy. Modus ponens is a tough cookie.

That’s all I’m saying.

A couple of months ago I elliptically grumbled about media coverage and analysis of the riots originating from French slums. Here’s an example of what I was on about, but from a positive angle. This is what I was talking about; this is what you should be doing.

A group of enterprising students at Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania, has some advice for the politically disaffected: If you find the media’s Iraq coverage unsatisfactory, pick up the phone. Don’t call the Times, or CNN, or Rupert Murdoch; call Baghdad. There are a couple of Iraqi phone books available on the Internet, and plenty of interesting people willing to share their stories directly, from six thousand miles away, many of them speaking decent English. When your phone bill starts to get out of hand, try downloading Skype, software that allows two people to talk free, from anywhere in the world, using computer microphones and a headset.

Amelia Templeton, a senior history major, estimates that she has spoken with twenty-five Iraqis over the past year, and now, as she said the other day, it’s a bad idea to ask me about Iraq unless you plan on listening for a while. One of the Iraqis she spoke with, a painter named Esam Pasha, who is a grandson of the former Prime Minister Nuri al-Said, has even invited her to visit Baghdad. I was told that if I came he’d pick me up at the airport, she said. Given what that road is like, how dangerous it is going to and from the airport, that’s quite an offer.

Templeton is one of the editors at War News Radio, a weekly half-hour show broadcast on the Swarthmore campus station, and podcast over the Web, where it draws as many as three thousand listeners a day. The show’s stated aim is to rediscover the voices of real people in Iraq. …

The students began, two semesters ago, by creating a homemade sound studio, using bulletin boards and egg cartons hung from ceiling pipes. Now, thanks to the college, they’ve got proper acoustic tiling, although space heaters are still required to supplement the building’s old radiator, and the reporters sometimes wear ski jackets and hats while manning the phones. They have secured interviews, in recent weeks, with the C.E.O. of the new Iraqi Stock Exchange, an aspiring filmmaker in Baghdad, and the Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi. In one broadcast, an Iraqi doctor, referring to the mood at the checkpoints, said, Everybody feels terrified; everything around is horrible, and you expect that you may be killed at any minute. (His daughter had been shot, he said, by U.S. soldiers.)

…

We thought we were at a disadvantage not being on the ground in Iraq, Eva Barboni, a junior poli-sci major, said. But when you hear from reporters there that they can’t even leave their hotels you start to think. The sound quality afforded by Skype, it turns out, is often better than what can be achieved over the weak landlines in the Green Zone.

If you’re working for a big American network, with a film crew following you, you’re not going to get out on the streets in Baghdad, Wren Elhai, a sophomore, said. We can do a lot from here that the networks can’t do.

— Ben McGrath, The New Yorker (2005-12-19): Baghdad to Swarthmore

Is there any guarantee that by chatting up any Iraqi you happen to pick out of the phone book, you’ll get the straight story, the whole truth, or even comments that are especially interesting? No, of course not. Iraq is full of people, like any other country, and some of those people are liars, creeps, toadies, cranks, or anything else you could think of.

One drawback of the long-distance approach, of course, is that you can’t be sure whom you’re talking to. Templeton, while working on a segment about a typical Iraqi teen-ager, ended up speaking with a father she later came to suspect of being a Baath Party official. She killed the story. I thought maybe they weren’t the average, she said.

— Ben McGrath, The New Yorker (2005-12-19): Baghdad to Swarthmore

But, as I said before, There’s nothing wrong with addressing statements and then giving some reasons for taking them to be insincere or misleading. But it is totally irresponsible to make loud and confident declarations about why complete strangers are doing something when you haven’t so much as bothered to ask them or to find out what they’ve said on the matter.

The fact that so many words are daily so confidently poured forth about Iraq and Iraqis, by both amateur and professional blowhards who have not done something as simple as this, whose sole or primary sources of information are newsmedia outlets that march on through reportage while resolutely neglecting to do things as simple as this to make themselves less than ignorant about the conditions in Iraq or what ordinary Iraqis have to say about the concrete effects of the Great Powers’ policies on their own day-to-day lives, should tell you something not just about public debate in general, but also about the nature of the Iraq War and the continuing occupation in particular.

You can find information on, and broadcasts of, War News Radio at the War News Radio website.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Los Angeles Times 2005-11-30: U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press:

WASHINGTON — As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military information operations troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country. …

And, just in case you were wondering:

The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group’s Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets. …

Some of the newspapers, such as Al Mutamar, a Baghdad-based daily run by associates of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, ran the articles as news stories, indistinguishable from other news reports. Before the war, Chalabi was the Iraqi exile favored by senior Pentagon officials to lead post-Hussein Iraq.

Others labeled the stories as advertising, shaded them in gray boxes or used a special typeface to distinguish them from standard editorial content. But none mentioned any connection to the U.S. military.

The going rate seems to be as much as US $1,000 – $1,500 per story, although a few papers ran the articles for as little as US $50.

Military officials familiar with the effort in Iraq said much of it was being directed by the Information Operations Task Force in Baghdad, part of the multinational corps headquarters commanded by Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were critical of the effort and were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

A spokesman for Vines declined to comment for this article. A Lincoln Group spokesman also declined to comment.

One of the military officials said that, as part of a psychological operations campaign that has intensified over the last year, the task force also had purchased an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to channel pro-American messages to the Iraqi public. Neither is identified as a military mouthpiece.

Anthony Gregory, 2005-12-01:

These days, so many news accounts hardly need commentary. …

That’s almost certainly true. In any case, if commentary is needed, it can always be recycled:

Welcome to the mainstream news media for the new millennium, in which Noam Chomsky has become obsolete: they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. Interlocking interests and subtle mechanisms of control aren’t even the point anymore; the Bush machine and its clients now pass out government-manufactured news segments and lucrative tax-funded bribes for useful political commentators. The Bush League may not be making government smaller, but they are making radical critique simpler–may God help us all.

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

Jus ad bello

Like Judas of old,
you lie and deceive
A world war can be won
you want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), Republican Party fund-raiser, 12 April 2002:

Why don’t we just take his oil? Smith bellowed to the crowd during a fiery 13-minute speech, referring to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Why buy it? Take it!

President George W. Bush, speech before the United Nations General Assembly, 12 September 2002:

He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge — by his deceptions, and by his cruelties — Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.

…

In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.

From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

United Nations’ inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.

…

We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in his country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence.

Perry G. Smith, guest column for the Opelika-Auburn News, 27 February 2003:

The editorial board asked these questions:

1. How can we start a war with Iraq while waging a war against terrorists all over the place?

2. Would the battlefront be too much to manage?

3. Might al-Qaida appreciate us going into Iraq?

4. If we attack Iraq, will we be more vulnerable to terrorists?

It’s too bad those people whom we elected to make decisions about those questions for us (President Bush, Vice President Chaney [sic] and our Republican-controlled Congress) and our nation’s National Security advisers and military leaders don’t include the [Opelika-Auburn News] on every little aspect of their planning. Our smart leaders use intelligence that is gathered by very sophisticated sources in their decision-making process. Disclosure of our secret intelligence and plans (necessarily the answers to your questions) to the liberally biased news media usually gets the people who gave the information on which we based our decisions killed or stops any further disclosure of information to our sources. I believe that our leaders have made a full assessment of those and other questions and the best courses of action have been decided upon for the best interest of our nation. All of us should fall in behind our president and whole-heartedly support him and our committed military personnel now.

…

Saddam needs to disarm now. If he does not, this superpower intends to make him. I personally believe that this conflict will be over more quickly than Desert Storm and with even fewer U.S. casualties.

Jus in bello

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

George W. Bush, 20 January 2002:

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, … do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 20, 2002, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to reflect upon the sanctity of human life. Let us recognize the day with appropriate ceremonies in our homes and places of worship, rededicate ourselves to compassionate service on behalf of the weak and defenseless, and reaffirm our commitment to respect the life and dignity of every human being.

Alberto Gonzales, memo to George W. Bush, 23 January 2002:

Positives

The consequences of a decision to adhere to what I understood to be your earlier determination that the GPW does not apply to the Taliban include the following:

…

• Substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441). ** That statute, enacted in 1996 prohibits the commission of a war crime by or against a U.S. person, including U.S. officials. War crime for these purposes is defined to include any grave breach of GPW or any violation of common Article 3 thereof (such as outrages against personal dignity). Some of these provisions apply (if the GPW applies) regardless of whether the individual being detained qualifies as a POW. Punishments for violations of Section 2441 include the death penalty. A determination that the GPW is not applicable to the Taliban would mean that Section 2441 would not apply to actions taken with respect to the Taliban.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, meeting with troops in Qatar, 28 April 2003:

And there have not been large numbers of civilian casualties because the coalition took such great care to protect the lives of innocent civilians as well as holy sites. … When the dust is settled in Iraq, military historians will study this war. They’ll examine the unprecedented combination of power, precision, speed, flexibility and, I would add also, compassion that was employed.

General Tommy Franks, Bagram Air Force Base, 19 March 2002:

I don’t believe you have heard me or anyone else in our leadership talk about the presence of 1,000 bodies out there, or in fact how many have been recovered. You know we don’t do body counts.

Donald Rumsfeld, interview on FOX News Sunday, 9 November 2003:

Well, we don’t do body counts …

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, interview with BBC Today, 18 May 2004:

Q: How many people, Iraqi people, have been killed during the occupation? Do you have a figure or don’t you?

A: … And I gave answers to a Parliamentary Question on this. I went into it in a great deal of detail. We’ve made use of NGO estimates, and others, but the last estimate which I gave in answer to a Parliamentary Question, and I speak from recollection but I’m happy to have this checked, was about ten thousand.

Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press, 7 September 2004:

A spike in fighting with Sunni and Shiite insurgents killed eight Americans in the Baghdad area on Tuesday and Wednesday, pushing the count to 1,003. That number includes 1,000 U.S. troops and three civilians, two working for the U.S. Army and one for the Air Force. The tally was compiled by The Associated Press based on Pentagon records and AP reporting from Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cited progress on multiple fronts in the Bush administration’s global war on terrorism and said U.S. enemies should not underestimate the willingness of the American people and its coalition allies to suffer casualties in Iraq and elsewhere.

Dr. Les Roberts, 29 October 2004:

Making conservative assumptions we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most of the violent deaths.

James Massey, interview on Democracy Now!, 24 May 2004:

Iraq violated every rule of engagement that I have ever been taught – violated every rule of the Geneva Convention that I have been taught.

Adam Gorlick, Associated Press, 16 October 2004:

Depression set in, and Jeff dealt with it by going on heavy drinking binges. On Christmas Eve, he sat down with Debbie and gave his first account of being told to shoot two unarmed Iraqi soldiers.

The way he told the story, Jeff was about five feet away from two Iraqis — each about his own age — when he was ordered to shoot them. He said he looked them in their eyes before closing his own, then pulled the trigger.

He took off two dog tags around his neck, threw them at me and said, Don’t you understand? Your brother is a murderer, Debbie said.

Doug Struck, Washington Post, 7 December 2004:

A former U.S. Marine staff sergeant testified at a hearing Tuesday that his unit killed at least 30 unarmed civilians in Iraq during the war in 2003 and that Marines routinely shot and killed wounded Iraqis.

Jimmy J. Massey, a 12-year veteran, said he left Iraq in May 2003 after a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress. He said he and his men shot and killed four Iraqis staging a demonstration and a man with his hands up trying to surrender, as well as women and children at roadblocks. Massey said he had complained to his superiors about the killing of innocent civilians, but that nothing was done.

U.S.-appointed Iraqi Defence Minister Sheikh Hazem Shalaam, 9 November 2004:

We’ve called it Operation Dawn. God willing, it’s going to be a new, happy dawn for the people of Falluja.

U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, 9 November 2004:

There is no confusion, if you’re on the street, you’re a bad guy. Ninety per cent of the civilian population has left

Rory McCarthy and Peter Beaumont, The Guardian:

The moves came amid renewed warnings from aid groups that Iraq’s civilian population was facing a humanitarian catastrophe.

Although many of Falluja’s 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault, between 30,000 and 50,000 are believed to have remained during the fighting.

The horrific conditions for those who remained in the city have begun to emerge in the last 24 hours as it became clear that US military claims of precision targeting of insurgent positions were false.

According to one Iraqi journalist who left Falluja on Friday, some of the civilian injuries were caused by the massive firepower directed on to city neighbourhoods during the battle.

If the fighters fire a mortar, US forces respond with huge force, said the journalist, who asked not to be named.

The city had been without power or water for days. Frozen food had spoiled and people could not charge their cellphones. Some people hadn’t prepared well. They didn’t stock up on tinned food. They didn’t think it would be this bad, he said.

At the main hospital, cut off from the rest of the city, doctors have reportedly been treating the injured with nothing but bandages, while the Red Crescent says people have been bleeding to death for lack of medical attention.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, meeting with troops in Qatar, 28 April 2003:

Q: Hi, Mr. Secretary. I’m Sergeant Cramer (ph) from the 502nd (Transit ?), and I was just curious to know whether or not you’ve been bombarded with apologetic phonecalls from your critics who had perceived a doom and gloom scenario.

(Applause; cheers.)

Rumsfeld: My answer’s off the record. (Laughter.) There were a lot of hand-wringers around, weren’t there? (Laughter; applause.) You know, during World War II, I think Winston Churchill was talking about the Battle of Britain, and he said, Never have so many owed so much to so few. A humorist in Washington the other day sent me a note paraphrasing that, and he said, Never have so many been so wrong about so much. (Laughter; applause.)

Jus post bellum

How much do I know
to talk out of turn?
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Thought I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never forgive what you do

George W. Bush, remarks to reporters, 3 May 2003:

We’ll find them [Weapons of Mass Destruction]. It’ll be a matter of time to do so

George W. Bush, interview with TVP Poland, 30 May 2003:

But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 10 February 2004

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not recall British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s pre-war claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready to be deployed in 45 minutes.

I don’t remember the statement being made, to be perfectly honest, Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he didn’t remember the statement either.

The claim made headlines around the world after Blair leveled it in a 55-page white paper presented to the House of Commons in September 2002.

Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority, 2 September 2003:

The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don’t have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over.

George W. Bush, press availability in Monterrey, Mexico, 12 January 2004:

One thing is for certain: There won’t be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, report to Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, 11 March 2004:

On 19 January 2004, Lieutenant General (LTG) Ricardo S. Sanchez, Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Seven (CJTF-7) requested that the Commander, US Central Command, appoint an Investigating Officer (IO) in the grade of Major General (MG) or above to investigate the conduct of operations within the 800th Military Police (MP) Brigade. LTG Sanchez requested an investigation of detention and internment operations by the Brigade from 1 November 2003 to present. LTG Sanchez cited recent reports of detainee abuse.

…

I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts: (a) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; (b) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; (c) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; (d) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; (e) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear; (f) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; (g) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; (h) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; (i) Writing I am a Rapest (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked; (j) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture; (k) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; (l) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; (m) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees. … These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements.

…

Several US Army Soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib/BCCF and Camp Bucca, Iraq. Furthermore, key senior leaders in both the 800th MP Brigade and the 205th MI Brigade failed to comply with established regulations, policies, and command directives in preventing detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and at Camp Bucca during the period August 2003 to February 2004.

Then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, CBS Early Show, 19 March 2004:

There are no more rape rooms and torture chambers in Iraq.

George W. Bush, remarks on the first anniversary of the Iraq War, 19 March 2004:

All of us can now agree that the fall of the Iraqi dictator has removed a source of violence, aggression and instability in the Middle East. … Who would prefer that Saddam’s torture chambers still be open? Who would wish that more mass graves were still being filled? Who would begrudge the Iraqi people their long-awaited liberation?

George W. Bush, interview with Al-Arabiya Television, 5 May 2004:

It’s very important for people, your listeners, to understand in our country that when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act–and we act in a way where leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. And we act in a way where, you know, our Congress asks pointed questions to the leadership. … Iraq was a unique situation because Saddam Hussein had constantly defied the world and had threatened his neighbors, had used weapons of mass destruction, had terrorist ties, had torture chambers …

George W. Bush, Presidential radio address on the second anniversary of the Iraq War, 19 March 2005:

Good morning. On this day two years ago, we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to disarm a brutal regime, free its people, and defend the world from a grave danger.

Et cognoscetis veritatem

Let me ask you one question.
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness?
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
when your death takes its toll
all the money you made
will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I’ll follow your casket
in the pale afternoon
I’ll watch while you’re lowered
down to your death-bed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead