Letter From Bahrain

This is what it’s like to live in Bahrain: if you’re familiar with the Hollywood film, The Sound of Music, then you would have been amused yet charmed by the international cast involved in the recent Bahrain School production. An Egyptian played the role of Captain von Trapp, and an Indian played Maria – the singing Nun. All seven von Trapp children were a mish-mash of ethnic backgrounds. In fact, a black American student played a German Nazi commander.

Watching the performance was a genuine relief from the usual wanton human corruption streaming in from the media about the Middle East.

Besides this week’s soul-curdling beheading of Nick Berg and Rumsfeld’s public relations con in Baghdad, there is also the sell-out of democracy in Bahrain.

Allegedly, the petition committee of the Bahrain Human Rights Centre was dissolved yesterday before a planned demonstration demanding the release of 14 people held in custody for collecting signatures to petition His Majesty King Hamad for constitutional changes.

According to the Gulf Daily News, Al Wefaq Islamic Society president Shaikh Ali Salman asked that the committee be dissolved because he didn’t want the four Bahraini political societies to have a rift with the government.

Seventeen Bahrainis involved in the petition drive were arrested April 30 for “attempting to overthrow the system, distributing falseness and rumour, encouraging hate of the state and using illegal means to try to petition His Majesty.”

In Bahrain, it’s acceptable for an MP - before election - to expose himself to a young woman; it’s acceptable for male teenagers to vandalize cars; it’s acceptable for a gang to destroy a restaurant. However, petitioning for constitutional changes is equal to overthrowing the system.

Of course there is no mention of this petition drive, the detainees and planned demonstrations in The Bahrain Tribune – the island’s only other English newspaper. This is hardly surprising since the Minister of Information allegedly owns the newspaper.

George Orwell’s vision of 1984 is strong as ever.

According to the New York Post, a semi-sleazy Murdoch publication, Lynndie England, the 21-year-old female trailer-park scapegoat, appeared in a degenerate video having sex in front of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and was also depicted on film in graphic sex acts with other U.S. soldiers.

From Jeff Goldstein, of Protein Wisdom:
Top 10 Excuses and/or dinosaurs of Lynndie England

10. Pachycephalosaurus

9. "I thought those were corn dogs. And I love corn dogs."

8. "Wait, you said 'secure and detain'? Because it sounded like you said 'put together
a circle jerk, film it, then burn it onto a DVD.'"

7. Carcharodontosaurus

6. "Oh, I see: it's okay to liberate Iraqis, but try liberating a few American nipples and
all of sudden you've committed a crime...?"

5. "I thought those were salamis. And I love salamis."

4. Hylaeosaurus

3. "I know it might seem strange to non-military personnel, but a standard PsyOps
technique is to have an orgy with multiple partners, photograph it, then blame the
'chain of command.' For some reason, that really demoralizes incarcerated
Ba'athists."

2. "Abu Ghraib, grab Abu...it's a common mistake for a dyslexic. Did I mention that I'm
a dyslexic? "

1. (Tie) Tyrannosaurus Rex; "I tripped and fell and accidentally landed on some men with
erections."

The details and circumstances of Nick Berg’s gruesome death by five masked mujahideen are horrendous.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida allied group has no connection to Islam or any religion of mercy, compassion and humane principles.

Civilized society should be angry and sickened by the barbaric murder and the exploitative way that al-Qaida has linked it to the notorious U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison.

In recent weeks, many scenes from Iraq have been deeply disturbing. Among them were photos of the charred bodies of American civilians hanging from a bridge in Fallujah and photos of U.S. soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

This culture of revenge and the pornography of violence robs us all of our dignity and underscores the importance of holding ourselves to the highest standards of humane treatment and international justice.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says it best in the following editorial.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign and take his top deputies with him. That includes Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary Douglas Feith.

It's not just Mr. Rumsfeld's latest fiasco, the botched handling of the investigation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

It's not just that Mr. Rumsfeld seriously underestimated the number of U.S. troops required for the occupation of Iraq and the potential for American casualties.

It's not just that Mr. Rumsfeld seriously overestimated the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

It's not just that Mr. Rumsfeld ignored the State Department's plans for the occupation and relied on private security forces and private companies with no-bid contracts. It's not just that U.S. policy in Iraq has devolved in dangerous ad hocery, with one day's decision reversed the next day.

It's not just that Mr. Rumsfeld had charged around the world insulting key allies.

It's the accumulation of all these miscalculations, misconceptions and missteps - and an arrogant inability to admit his mistakes - that require him to step down. If the Defense Department were a corporation, its CEO would be long gone.

Whether or not Iraq is like Vietnam, Mr. Rumsfeld's failings are reminiscent of Robert McNamara's. Like the Vietnam-era Pentagon chief, Mr. Rumsfeld took over an omnipotent military and put it in a situation that made it vulnerable. Like Mr. McNamara, Mr. Rumsfeld thought the United States could use force to impose its will on a part of the world he didn't understand and still doesn't. Like Mr. McNamara, Mr. Rumsfeld has deluded himself into thinking that he can manage the unmanageable through the application of a brilliant intellect.

Right now, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress are livid that Mr. Rumsfeld failed to warn them about the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, which he has known about since January. The White House said Wednesday that Mr. Bush also was upset that he hadn't been told about the pictures of abuse.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognized that the pictures would inflame opinion and persuaded CBS to delay its broadcast for two weeks. Yet once the news broke, both Gen. Myers and Mr. Rumsfeld claimed they hadn't finished reading the three-month old report. If true, that is a serious dereliction of duty.

Regarding Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld has been more interested in proving his theories of military transformation than in listening to pragmatic advice of experienced military experts. When the Army's departing Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, estimated that 200,000 troops would be needed for the occupation, he was ridiculed as "way off the mark" by Mr. Wolfowitz. Now the Pentagon finds itself having to increase the number of troops, lengthen their stay and provide more heavy armor in response to the deaths of soldiers in light vehicles. Unpardonably, Mr. Wolfowitz didn't even know, during congressional testimony last month, how many Americans had been killed in Iraq.

Mr. Rumsfeld also dismissed the advice of a State Department task force that had spent months planning for the occupation. He cast the United States' lot with Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraq National Congress, a group of exiles who have proved unpopular and unreliable.

Mr. Chalabi also provided the United States with bum intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld even started his own intelligence office under Mr. Feith, who hyped faulty intelligence to justify the war.

If there ever was a plan for the occupation, it wasn't discernible amid the chaos. Ret. Lt. Gen. Jay Garner was replaced by L. Paul Bremer who is being replaced by John Negroponte. The Iraqi army was disbanded and then reconstituted. The Baathists were excluded and then included. The Marines were ready to take Fallujah and then pulled back. A general in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard was put in charge of Fallujah and then replaced two days later.

This isn't a plan; this is chaos.

Mr. Rumsfeld has consistently been wrong. He has responded to criticism by bullying and sneering at his critics. His arrogant miscalculations have cost American soldiers their lives and continue to put them at grave risk. The Army has been stretched to the breaking point. Billions of dollars of U.S. treasure continue to sink into the sands of Iraq; Wednesday, President George W. Bush asked Congress for $25 billion more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

American prestige has suffered around the world. Saddam Hussein and his nonexistent WMDs have been replaced with a mob of insurgents that poses a greater threat to Americans than Saddam ever did.

For his mistakes and his inability to recognize them, Mr. Rumsfeld must go.