Keeping the Peace (Updated)
There is something very, very depressing about this story of four peace activists being held hostage by hooded gangsters in Iraq.
Of course, if these same hostage-takers were holding, say, four privately-contracted "security experts" from Blackwater, I wouldn't be allowed to call them gangsters. I'd have to refer to them as "the resistance." The Christian Peacemakers Team seems to be some well-intentioned but perhaps somewhat naive folks. On their website they say:
"Christian Peacemaker Teams has been present in Iraq since October 2002, providing first-hand, independent reports from the region, working with detainees of both United States and Iraqi forces, and training others in non-violent intervention and human rights documentation."
Their four members are now themselves detainess -- but not of either the U.S. or Iraqi government forces. There is a third force fighting in Iraq as well; a force which also commits human rights violations -- including hostage-taking, car bombings and be-headings. Their own level of irrationality is amply demonstrated by their taking prisoner of these four pacificists who represent no threat to anyone except themselves. This episode is a stark and chilling reminder of how devilishly complicated the ground situation is in Iraq and how, consequently, bumper-sticker-sized solutions are inoperable. In the meantime, let's hope these innoncent pacifist volunteers are quicly released unharmed and that their captors are caught and punished.
UPDATE: Now a new spate of hostage-taking. And death squads inside the police.
November 29th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Its been clear from the start that the situation is dangerous for internationals in Iraq. NED or not…In all seriousness, why would you use this sad situation, involving most likely gangsters with no political motivation aside from claiming to be anti-occupation and wanting money - to bolster your repetitive anti-antiwarmovement,even antipacifist perspective. Why even make the argument? I know internationals who were nearly kidnapped there two years ago. I wish I had the guts to go myself, like you went to Chile. How would you feel if there was a subtle implication that those caught by Pinochet “asked” for what they got? That is your underlying message, isn’t it?
November 29th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Sure it’s dangerous, especially for Christian Helpers. Sitting ducks is more like it.
November 29th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
“Of course, if these same hostage-takers were holding, say, four privately-contracted “security experts” from Blackwater, I wouldn’t be allowed to call them gangsters. I’d have to refer to them as “the resistance.”
Is there an emoticon for an extended middle finger? If there is, and I would have known about it, I would definitely have led off this post with it.
You know, it’s funny but just in the past couple of days I read this in the Telegraph, saw the video for myself, read about mass graves in Namibia being tied to South African “security forces” now serving as “civilian contractors” in Iraq — many of them with Blackwater — and I’ve read Aaron Glantz on how mercs “make up the third biggest ‘coalition partner’ in Iraq after the United States and Britain. Many of them are from former secret police agencies of since-overthrown police states like Pinochet’s Chile and apartheid South Africa.”
Oh, but boo-fuckin’ hoo should a hair on their precious, helpless little heads ever so much as be parted the wrong way by an Iraqi barber.
Good for you, Marc. What’s wrong in Chile is right as rain in Iraq. After all, we’re fighting headchoppers, we are.
You’d think that at least the fact that these poor, poor, helpless “civilian contractors” are using not just Iraqis, but U.S. marines for target practice would arouse some indignation.
I mean, at least American lives are worth something… right?
November 29th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
J Cummings - I don’t detect any “they asked for it” above. More like an implicit statement that very bad things can happen to well-intentioned people?
November 29th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
Marc wrote: “…detainess — but not of either the U.S. or Iraqi government forces. There is a third force fighting in Iraq as well; a force which also commits human rights violations — including hostage-taking, car bombings and be-headings.”
I don’t believe that the U.S.’s detention and questioning of combatants who would re-enter the fight to kill our soldiers if released falls in the same class as human rights violations against innocent civilians, which includes be-headings, by the terrorists.
Rich and I had a discussion about this group in another thread. I don’t know if they are motivated by left wing politics against Bush or religious passion to help people in Iraq. For now, it doesn’t really matter. They’re in a fix and they’re going to have to hope that the U.S. troops and command can become their heroes instead of potential adversaries. I think it’s apparent that we are the good guys.
Unless you’re not “superstitious,” then we should pray for these kidnapped people.
November 29th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
MC: “Of course, if these same hostage-takers were holding, say, four privately-contracted ’security experts’ from Blackwater, I wouldn’t be allowed to call them gangsters. I’d have to refer to them as ‘the resistance.’”
Who would be forbidding you this? The current government in Iraq that has called the resistance legitimate? Or the US peace movement that you seem to be suggesting is fully supportive of terrorists.
Maybe you’re just in a bad mood.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
I continue to be amazed by the inability of supposed grown-ups to discuss uncomfortable matters. AAA ur gonna have to do better than saying “boo-fucking-hoo” over the loss of any human life. Until you do that, you have lowered urself into the same category of the wingnuts who show up at state executions and hold up signs that say “Fry the Bastard.” I am hardly an enthusiast of mercenaries or privatized troops. But their hooded killers and beheaders are inhuman vampires.
Nor am I arguing as some above suggest that the CPT’s had it coming, that they deserved it, or that the peace movement supports terrporists. I have this funny habit, you see, of actually writing what I mean. So I repeat: this episode is rife with dark irony that should give cause of celebration to absolutely no one.
The hooded fanatics are SO irrational that they kidnap and threaten four pacificists who not only dont threaten them, but are there to documents the abuses of their enemy.
The poor pacificists, meanwhile, become the victims of a gross human rites abuse that they have — for whatever reasons– decided not to document.
Those are plain facts. If you don’t like them, then go stick ur heads somewhere dark and wet. I find no sub-texts, no hidden meanings, no suggestions, only grim irony. There is also a policy implication that I stated very clearly:
there seem to be no good guys in Iraq. The occupation creates bloodshed and pain. A sudden withdrawal of the occupation forces would probably cede power to the most violent elements. If we dont withdraw, however, we keep in power a security force that is now riddled with death squads. We have the Bush admin to thank for this bloody mess. But that doesnt excuse fascist thugs that kidnap and threaten wandering pacifists.
The only person here gloating over other’s people pain is AAA who seems to get a hard-in when it comes to torturing mercenaries.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
The U.S. represents the good guys and we have Saddam Hussein to thank for the bloody mess. We didn’t take action in other mideast countries that didn’t spread death and terror.
I still can’t figure out why these people were kidnapped. What it does point out is how absolutely crazy the terrorists can be. Maybe this might open a few eyes.
—————–
Mark York, it’s 7:15 PM my time and I have to leave now. I’ll try to update you on my schedule tomorrow.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:23 pm
Marc Cooper: “The only person here gloating over other’s people pain is AAA who seems to get a hard-in when it comes to torturing mercenaries.”
Talk about irony — given what we know about the identity of the “interrogators” at Iraqi prisons, and their own, uh, “proclivities.”
November 29th, 2005 at 5:23 pm
Pretty grim stuff. All the news about Iraq is grim these days. I can’t imagine how this can end well and I haven’t even really head anyone offer something up with that goal in mind in quite a while.
Way OT: Marc likes to ask what Democrats stand for. I think it’s a good question, but in this post, http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/29/135937/26, Mark Schmiitt says that the real issue is not what does my party stand for but what does my elected Rep stand for. Definitely worth a read.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
I don’t know who or where triple A is, but this relativism is as tired as the oblivious wingnuts thinking they can kill “for the good of the group” e.g. Iraqis, school of thought. The insurgents are Iraqis Sunnis to be exact.
On the other Woody is predictably out of it regardless of the time of day or where his schedule takes him. Hussein exported nothing out of Iraq in the way of terror. The terrorists came from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan so lets not wade back into mythville. He had a dictatorship that wanted no part with outsiders in any way. The idea that the flypaper theory wouldn’t attract this exact sort of stunt should be prima facie from the start.
Wasn’t that the idea with breaking Iraq? Which was a side issue from the terror groups. I think so.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Mercenaries get paid real well so I’ll spend more time worrying about some naive “Christain Pacifists” than Blackwater’s finest. Sorry if they get killed. I hear life is pretty dangerous in the Cosa Nostra too. Anyone here shed tears for Paul Castellano or Benny Siegel for that matter. To quote the GODFATHER: “This is the Business we have chosen.” I’ll save my pity for the poor innocents caught up in this nightmare. God help them.
November 29th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Mark A. York: “…this relativism is as tired as the oblivious wingnuts…”
“Relativism?” Moral relativism? Oh, fer cryin’…
November 29th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
No I was thinking cultural relativism. It’s OK to behead innocent people because we’re the conquering horde and that’s part of their culture. The actions aren’t equivalent. If it’s them it’s OK, us not. This is where that whole torture debacle makes us look even worse and ygives you a way in on this angle.
November 29th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
I feel there is no justification for the hostage taking of these three individuals. I feel many in Iraq utilize the war issue as a way to dish out their own form of racism and ethnocentrism on individuals who are actually trying to help them out. I feel more individuals in the Muslim world should come out to sepak out against these types of actions. Why is the ACLU and NAACP so vocal in some areas and not others? Why don’t these groups take up issue with the Islamic religion and try to pressure them into being more active in the issues where Muslims exact terroist acts on innocent victims? How can the attrocities in Darfur go so unnoticed by these groups, thousands a day are killed by Islamic terrrorist. I have known many good Muslim individuals in my life and they are nothing like I read and see on the news. I hope more groups, Muslim, and non-Mulslim get more active in this issue. If this was a white on black issue it would be the hottest topic in the world, these kidnappings bus Islamic extremists deserve just as much scrutiny, if youdon’t believe me ask the family members of those being held captive.
Raymond B
http://www.voteswagon.com
November 29th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Mr. Cooper & All:
A solid post Marc.
Some good points by a cranky audience…Mr. Abbas-Ali Abadani blew me away with the middle finger invective and “head-chopping” line. Just can’t compete with that tonight, Mr. Abadani.
P.S. Finally read whole article in the lastest Atlantic Monthly ’bout those slots…nice piece.
P.S. #2 Mavis: the Schmitt piece was cool. Thanks for pointing that out.
P.S. #3 …”head-choppers”…!!! Abbas…
November 29th, 2005 at 8:57 pm
Maybe I’m being too simplistic, but from what I’ve read of the Islamist program, they don’t distinguish between “good’ or “harmless” Christians and “bad” Christians. All Christians are viewed as infidels, enemies of Islam, and when they enter into Muslim lands, they must either be converted or killed, though the Islamists may also be willing at times on tactical grounds to settle for submission or expulsion. (Jews, of course, are viewed the same or worse.)
This provides at least some explanation for the kidnappings; that said, the actions are evil, barbaric, and representative of a mindset that needs to be expunged if we are to have a hope of peace (other than the Islamist “peace” of world-wide Sharia).
Obviously, there is room for debate over how we should respond to this challenge. However, while evil on the part of us Westerners should factor into our response, it does not reduce or excuse the evil of our adversaries.
November 29th, 2005 at 9:33 pm
I don’t know, I’d venture not remodeling foreign cultures save for the one who attacked us, for being in Saudi Arabia, I might add. And that one is still in big trouble. We’ve done nothing really.
November 29th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
What some folks don’t seem to quite realize is that the abductors who kidnap foreigners trying to “do good” in Iraq are the same people who are blowing up people mosques, markets, and other sites where innocent Iraqis are the victims. So the goals of the “resistance” are anything but a democratic society. As I have said before, to understand a situation like Iraq requires holding two contradictory thoughts in one’s head at the same time: The US invasion was wrong and wrongheaded, but the insurgents are the worst kind of fascists.
btw here is my Science wire service story on Susanne Osthoff, a German archaeologist and great friend of the Iraqi people who nevertheless was abducted with her driver on Friday by the great “resistance.”
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2005/1129/1?etoc
November 29th, 2005 at 11:07 pm
“Many of them are from former secret police agencies of since-overthrown police states like Pinochet’s Chile and apartheid South Africa.â€
Acutally, AAA, South African mercernaries in iraq, mostly former hired guns and well placed officers for the apartheid regime, consititute a very large percentage of the civialian contractors sentto iraq. A while back it was discovered that the actual torturers and killers of steve biko made their way to iraq, became mercernaries and were ultimately killed. There were few teras shed at home, in fact a friend of mine in joburg quipped that iraqis may not believe in truth and reconciliation like us.
November 30th, 2005 at 12:56 am
“Their four members are now themselves detainess — but not of either the U.S. or Iraqi government forces. There is a third force fighting in Iraq as well; a force which also commits human rights violations — including hostage-taking, car bombings and be-headings. Their own level of irrationality is amply demonstrated by their taking prisoner of these four pacificists who represent no threat to anyone except themselves. This episode is a stark and chilling reminder of how devilishly complicated the ground situation is in Iraq ….”
Marc, how does this work? On the one hand, you’re reminding us of “devilish complications”, but on the other, you see only a unitary “third force” among the human rights violators. There’s gotta be half a dozen “third forces”, some of them contending with each other. Whatever the ideological pretensions of the kidnappers in this case (”The Swords of Righteousness”, yeah right), it’s likely that they don’t care whether their captives are Christian or “documenting human rights violations by their enemies”. (You don’t even know who their real “enemies” are — they could be rival kidnapping operations.) Maybe they saw Westerners, and money in the bank. It goes on all the time there. Or it did, until Westerners became very thin on the ground.
“Irrational”? Maybe. Or maybe some of these are very rational thugs saw a way to make an amount of money equal to 20 times annual per capita earnings in Iraq today. And without hardly working at it.
November 30th, 2005 at 1:45 am
“There is also a policy implication that I stated very clearly: there seem to be no good guys in Iraq.”
Actually, Marc, you didn’t state that clearly, at best you insinuated. And it’s not a “policy implication” — a policy implication would point to what we should be trying to do (if anything).
And again you oversimplify. There ARE good guys in Iraq. I have little doubt that most US GIs in Iraq believe they are their trying to create and defend democracy, to offer one prominent example. People working to restore and maintain basic services are generally “good guys” (even if there are now whole towns run by militias sympathetic to Zarqawi who have gained popular support simply by restoring basic services.)
The problem is that you can’t lay one “good intentions” paving stone after another, without checking to see where the road you’re building is leading. So we’ve got another spate of kidnappings of foreign do-gooders on our hands. Why focus on that, while making the emerging Shi’ite police state a mere footnote? This administration is clearly disingenuous when it marks the pacification of a particular former insurgent-infested avenue in Baghdad as important progress that Joe Biden conveniently neglects to mention, while not bothering to report that the police stations of Baghdad are heavily infested by the followers of Moqtada al Sadr, whose forces our soldiers were pummeling in Najaf not so very long ago. We’ve got an administration saying that Iraqi forces are starting to strengthen admirably, that they might soon be ready to take the lead all over, while the leader of CSIRI complains that the U.S. is actually holding them back (with the clear implication that U.S forces aren’t letting CSIRI be vicious enough.) We ostensibly went to war against ruthless islamofascists, but now, if we can declare something like victory and beat something like a retreat, it may be in large part by shifting the security burden to ruthless islamofascists. You want irony? That’s some irony we got there. Some nice white people are being held captive in Iraq? A sideshow blown up into a front-page event, and one that probably isn’t even what you paint it as.
November 30th, 2005 at 5:25 am
“What some folks don’t seem to quite realize is that the abductors who kidnap foreigners trying to “do good†in Iraq …”
My hunch is that the kidnappers are common criminals looking for a ransom. We’ll see. And Woody, prayers for the captives was the my first reaction to Marc’s post.
November 30th, 2005 at 8:12 am
Are you sure that the Christian Peacemakers don’t document kidnappings, etc.? Are yout taking the Horowitz position that those who document Abu Ghraib don’t also document crimes of (some elements of) the Iraqi resistance and/or more likely criminals? It seems to me that among internationals, those who travel to Iraq, etc. this fact is well known, and well documented - and it was highly gratuitous to just add “rites (sic) abuse that they don’t document.” They, along with Iraqi leftistst that they work with, are the good guys in Iraq. Read Christian Parenti, your colleague’s book “The Freedom” for more on internationals in Iraq.
November 30th, 2005 at 8:20 am
Looks like Cooper scooped Horowitz and pals
see frontpagemag.com.. “reaping what they sow”..and this is I take it, a friend of yours..
November 30th, 2005 at 9:23 am
“The US invasion was wrong and wrongheaded, but the insurgents are the worst kind of fascists.”
Is there someone who actually thinks the insurgency is just and a viable alternative? That isn’t a cultural relativist? The insurgency is just inevitable, that’s all it is.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:43 am
Raymond B asks why the ACLU doesn’t go after Muslims. Well the reason is simple. The Civil Liberties Union was founded to defend AMERICAN Constitutional rights from Governmental encroachment in the US. They don’t sue in foreign courts and I’m not sure who they would sue anyway. The kidnappers? And I have no idea why mention the NAACP. What are they supposed to do? Set up pickets in Baghdad? Call for a boycott of Iraq? I think you are going to have to do better if you want to trash leftwing action groups. You might start by doing your homework and single out organisations that would have some relevance. Like maybe Amnesty International? Oh wait, they have criticized the Islamic Republic of Iran and held urgent actions for “prisoners of Conscience” there. And they did the same for victims of Saddam. Well, keep looking.
To all who tar the insurgents let me point out that their motives may be all over the lot and some are probably garden variety criminals. Yet our own reports say that less than 7% are outsiders. The insurgency is an indigineous movement of Iraqis who don’t want to see their country occupied. You can decide whether they are good guys or not but that is. frankly, irrelevant to the discussion.
November 30th, 2005 at 11:09 am
You know, when I read horseshit like “All Christians are viewed as infidels, enemies of Islam, and when they enter into Muslim lands, they must either be converted or killed”, I can’t help but think that I’ve wandered into a Twilight Zone episode.
The fact that such viewpoints have now become a part of the official narrative in this country is sad, but hardly surprising, given certain cultural traits and many years of conditioning by the mass media.
I think that listening to the dominant narrative, watching it unfold on CNN… I think that this is what it must have felt like for an American Indian to watch cowboys and Indians movies of the kind that were prevalent a few decades ago — before the romanticizing of Dances With Wolves — complete with “scalpers”, ululations and war dances.
Yup, watching CNN, reading (most) American blogs definitely makes one feel like an extra in a cowboys-Indians movie. Your narrative is either irrelevant, or else has been written for you by folks who don’t much care for you and your kind. You yourself instinctively reject the bullshit made for the bigoted audience, and events assume a surreal quality because what is being portrayed, and the characters, is so alien to anything you have ever known. You instinctively know that the truth is not what it seems; and believe fervently that it will come out in the end.
According to the IBC’s Dossier of Civilian Casualties in Iraq, while “US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims” and “Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims”, it is “Post-invasion criminal violence” that has “accounted for 36% of all deaths.”
Folks isn’t it possible, just possible, that these kidnappers are not “insurgents” or “resistance fighters” or even, god forbid, “radical Muslims” but merely bandits and criminal elements who have formed organized kidnapping rings? You know, of the kind that were prevalent for decades in Colombia, Peru, Lebanon and, to this day, in parts of Brasil and much of Africa and the Philippines. Most of these groups also carried out their activities under various “revolutionary” or “resistance” banners. Like “The Army for Jihad and Victory in Southern Lebanon” or “the People’s Revolutionary Movement of Colombia”. Just because someone strikes a certain pose, doesn’t mean that they are what they’re posing as.
I realize that its politically convenient and expedient for some folks (NED or not) to conflate criminal gangs with “insurgents”, but I just thought I’d throw this out there.
November 30th, 2005 at 11:33 am
York misses the point in his rush to use quick sound bites.
November 30th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
Thanks for that IBC link…
November 30th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Really? What would that point be?
November 30th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
As for the historical narrative, scalping or counting coups was a real Native American tactic, not some Hollywood made propaganda. Sure the skew was there, but the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Atrocities abound, as Custer would attest were he not killed in his own mishap. While extermination was the goal of some, having sovereign lands, and numerous populations with us today is hardly evidence of complete ethnic cleansing.
December 1st, 2005 at 11:38 pm
What cultural warriors such a hitch and marc cooper dont realise is that not even so called “islamist” movements are monolithic \ in their idelogy. here;s an interesting document
In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful
“O ye who believe! If a wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest ye harm people unwittingly, and afterwards become full of repentance for what ye have done.”-The Holy Qur’an, 49:6
The Islamic and National forces in the governorate of Hebron/Palestine express their deep regret for the kidnapping of four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq.
The Islamic and National forces in the governorate of Hebron/Palestine have had long experience confronting Israeli crimes and violations with the CPT since 1995, and wish to confirm that the members of this group have had and still have a major role in confronting Israeli crimes and violations, and in the protection of the property and the lives of the Palestinian citizens.
More than once they placed themselves in front of the occupation’s tanks, and they confronted Israeli occupation bulldozers with their bodies defending Palestinians’ homes against destruction. They accompanied our children when they were threatened and attacked by Israeli settlers on their way to and from their schools. Because of what they were doing, the CPT members were subjected to arrest, beating and pursuit by the Israeli soldiers and settlers in more than one location in Palestine. Many of them were denied entry to Palestine, or deported by the occupation authorities because of their activities in confronting the occupation.
We appeal to our brothers in the resistance and all those with alert consciences in Iraq, with whom we consider ourselves to be in the same trench confronting American aggression and occupation, to instantly and quickly release the four kidnapped persons (two Canadians, one Briton and one American) from CPT, in appreciation for their role in standing beside and supporting our Palestinian people and all the Arab and Islamic peoples.
Freedom for the Iraqi and Palestinian people.
Shame and disgrace on the Zionist and American occupation.
The Islamic and National Forces in the Governorate of Hebron:
Islamic Resistance Movement/Hamas
Palestine People’s Party
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Democratic Union of Palestine/FIDA
Fatah
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Palestinian Liberation Front
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
Hebron, 29 November 2005
December 1st, 2005 at 11:43 pm
Thank you Ahmed. I never had a clue that their might be a variety of views in the Islamic world. Thanks for opening my eyes.
December 2nd, 2005 at 2:13 pm
No problem. I mean you use the language of “islamo fascism” with uch rapidity and utter lack of refelction that i figured youd benefit from some education
cheers
ahmed
September 30th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Dave…
Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future…