Art: Shoot an Iraqi

Last night I enjoyed an event sponsored by Red Emma's, a Baltimore radical book store and cafe. The event is described below:

Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal has been behind some of the most amazing critical artistic practice addressing the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. When his brother was killed at a U.S. checkpoint in 2005, he responded with "Domestic Tension," an unsettling interactive performance piece: for one month, Bilal lived alone in a prison cell-sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to internet viewers around the world. Visitors to the gallery and a virtual audience that grew by the thousands could shoot at him 24 hours a day. Bilal's experiences with this exhibit and the theory behind it are chronicled in his new book on City Lights, Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun.

Two interesting tidbits. First, on day-10 the paintball gun stopped; popularity of the website had crashed the webpage server. Wafaa, who for ten days had been completely preoccupied with staying out of the line of fire, was finally able to let down his guard. When he did, the grief of loosing his father and brother to Bush's Iraq war washed over him and his suppressed emotions were released.

Second, after Wafaa had been assaulted non-stop one day, because his site was #1 on Digg.com, a group of 39 people organized to take turns clicking on their key board to make the gun aim to the left. This gave Wafaa some relief and generated interesting dialoge via the chat feature of this performance art piece with those who wanted to shoot him.



Psssst... Do Something

• Contact the Broadcast Media
  
• Contact the Newspapers
  
• Contact the US Senate
  
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Message to Iraqi Soldiers Working with US

A message for those Iraqi soldiers in small US combat outposts, "your gun emplacement positions might be rigged with explosives."

Just another "reality" of war. Imagine what would happen if an insurgent infiltrated the Iraqi troops, and one of these infiltrators was manning a 50-caliber gun emplacement when the combat outpost came under attack? The insurgent could turn the gun on the outpost itself, wiping out a lot of US solders.

BUT, if the gun emplacement was rigged with explosives, the Americans could take it out. It could also be argued that the emplacement could be over-run, thereby justifying its rigging with explosives.

This scenario supposedly occurred in Vietnam. With Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch's honest talk about a possible Tet Offensive, this scenario is probably being played out in Iraq today.

I don't blame the American Soldiers who are simply trying to survive, nor should the Iraqi soldiers. They should blame George W. Bush who is guilty of crimes against peace:

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

- Chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, Nuremberg.

As fifty US soldiers report in the Nation Magazine expose' entitled, The Other Iraq War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness, the US presence in Iraq is a major source of the conflict. They call on Congress to end the US occupation of Iraq. If this happens, the scenario of US troops feeling compelled to booby-trap their allies positions cannot happen.

Sources:

The Nation, July 9, 2007, Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, The Other Iraq War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness.

Time, July 16, 2007,MARK KUKIS, Fears of a Tet Offensive in Iraq.

Art Credit: Michael Bernstein, "The Sunny Pessimist Takes Cover from the Imperceptible" and Hudson Franklin gallery, 508 West 26th Street, New York. West Chelsea.

Iraqi Deaths: Three Independent Sources

This Entry is a Work-in-Progress

Despite what the establishment media is willing to report, three credible, independent sources estimate hundreds of thousands.

First, everyone should be familiar with what's called the Johns Hopkins Study on excess deaths between March 2003 and July 2006, published in The Lancet British medical journal. The study estimates a range of about 400,000 to 900,000, with a average of about 655,000.

Second, former US military intelligence analyst, pfc. Evan Knappenberger, cites an independent number:

At the time we had concluded that there were close to 3/4 of a million civilian deaths over the course of the Iraq war. Now I would guess it is probably upwards of a million.

Knappenberger bases his statement on his own involvement in intelligence analysis:

I personally read through about 30,000 separate reports of civilian casualties in Iraq and put together a picture over a very long period of time, of the situation around Baghdad as far as what they call SECMAK now, which is sectarian murders and killings. After a month of reading through these reports, we started to get a picture of what was going on. Unfortunately, it was pretty much ignored by the chain of command.

In response to Knappenberger's estimate, Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow made the following statement, leading me to search for a third independent source:

Well that actually coincides with the two studies done most recent, a million, and before that The Lancet, the British medical journal published that study from Johns Hopkins University, saying around 655,000.

Editorial Note: I'm trying to track down Amy Goodman's reference to another study that estimates 1,000,000 excess Iraqi deaths since the US assault.

Sources:


Johns Hopkins Study Press Release, October 11, 2006.

DemocracyNow, June 12, 2007.

Katie Couric and CBS Perpetuate Undercount of Iraqi Civilian Deaths

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So, how many inaccuracies can be found Katie Couric's Video Notebook? Here's another.

On March 19, 2007, Katie Couric reported 50,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, despite the well-known Lancet study citing an estimated 654,965 additional deaths in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006 (the low end of the estimated range was about 400,000).

A Johns Hopkins School of Public Health web site states:

The mortality survey used well-established and scientifically proven methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations. These same survey methods were used to measure mortality during conflicts in the Congo, Kosovo, Sudan and other regions.

The Guardian reports:

Scientists at the UK's Department for International Development ... concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested". Indeed, the Johns Hopkins approach would likely lead to an "underestimation of mortality".

The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research was "robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended "caution in publicly criticising the study".

We know that people are buried quickly in the Islamic tradition, leading to lower reporting of deaths to officials. We know that the mass media is unable to report on vast areas of Iraq due to increasing violence, again leading to under reporting.

So, why does Katie Couric and CBS continue to report a number that is an order of magnitude lower than the best available estimate? Partly because of the human capacity for denial. Partly because corporate media insiders live in a celebrity bubble; they and their wannabe helpers are isolated from realities that would allow them to believe the numbers of additional civilian deaths could be so high. Perhaps to avoid accepting responsibility as a democracy for such a gross crime against humanity.
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