Politics is Business
- Two news stories
Zarqawi Killed in Iraq Air Raid
Zarqawi died in a strike against an “isolated safe house” about 8km (five
miles) north of Baquba at 1815 (1415 GMT) on Wednesday, officials said.
“We have eliminated Zarqawi,” Prime Minister Nouri Maliki told a news
conference in Baghdad, sparking sustained applause.
Oil Prices Fall On Zarqawi Death
Oil prices have dropped sharply to below $70 a barrel on news of the
death of the militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.
Two key oil prices, for July delivery of US light sweet crude and UK
Brent, fell to $69.54 and $68.35 respectively.
“The hope is that with the removal of the terror leader in Iraq …
future oil supply could increase,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst
with Purvin & Gertz.
On Wednesday former US central bank chief Alan Greenspan had warned
that oil prices were hurting the US economy.
- From BBC News
Oil prices have been falling since Tuesday. Zarqawi was killed on Wednesday. Other factors affecting oil’s reassessment are changing security in Nigeria, diplomatic tensions easing in Iran, changing energy demands, and of course, Iraq’s “increased hope” after the death of Zarqawi. These events occurred at similar times. Implying causation, especially in stock markets is a difficult task.
I know there are other factors involved. But news stories directly link the killing of Zarqawi to falling oil prices. I thought it was interesting, that the death of one man can, in one way or another, effect the global economy.
What do people think about these photos of the bloodied face and body of Zarqawi being splashed all over the news? It seems remarkably similar to al-Qaeda releasing pictures and videotapes of burning US vehicles as propaganda, images of executions and beheaded hostages etc. Or, for that matter, to severed heads being displayed on spikes around the Tower of London.
I can see why they released these pictures, of course - for reasons of proof as well as propaganda. But it illustrates that everyone involved in war becomes as savage and brutal as each other. They are all involved in exactly the same activities, and they end up using the same methods.
Zarqawi, by all accounts, was a vile and cruel man. But I expect the people who killed him probably were, as well.
Sorry, didn’t realise it was a meta-post. I’ve been reading too much of the BBC Have Your Say website, and forgotten how to think.
The direct link is weird, as the main way I interpret it, is that he was killed for oil as prices dropped as a result of his death. Which is not correct, but by the story’s structure is the encouraged conclusion. Naughty BBC.
Some US soldiers are vile and cruel, but not all. I wonder why some go that way, and some don’t.
isn’t it against genev conv. or somtin to display pictures of enemy casualties like that? thought I read someat along those lines once. perhaps not tho.
Speaking of spin and propoganda - how d’you think this might relate to/effect the Anglo-French ‘nuclear friendship’ that’s being touted at the moment? The link being energy supplies obviously, d’you thnk blair would be any less likely to go down the nuclear route if some kind of stability is secured in iraq/middle east, or is he totally ‘commited’ (blinkered/arrogant) to turning the UK into a nuclear isle? Will anyone ever be able to talk sense into that man’s head once he’s got some crazy scheme lodged there (again)?! and other questions… Bringing it back to scroots’ article, I do find it interesting how these things on the world stage often seem to tie together somehow, and so you could look at the situation in iran for example and see it reflected in wall street. I suppose that’s why Blair’s gone a bit loopy. As a politician trying to do what he thinks is ‘right’ would involve so much juggling, and eyes on various assorted pies all over the world, that he’d either have to have a completed solid, cohesive and efficient cabinet..etc to help him or he’d just start making sweeping decisions independently in order to keep the juggling balls in the air, even if he has no idea how he’s going to catch them all when they start to fall! Perhaps Blair just panicked and decided it was up to him alone to steer the country , else he’d just end up arguing about every decision when the time to act arrived, especially as his cabinet isn’t particularly solid or capable. I suspect his religious background and sense of history have a big part to play in his way of politics at the moment - I wonder, if the head of his church told him what he was doing was wrong would it make any difference? He might listen more to them than to his political party! It could ‘herald’ a return to politics of the middle ages and the power of the church being far more prominent, although perhaps not overtly - a scary idea.
It already happened. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the head of Blair’s church the CoE, has unequivically attacked and condemned the war from the start. But Blair’s supreme arrogance overrides his faith every time.
Commentary from Iraqi newspaper Al-Zaman:
By sheer coincidence, the shock of President Bush’s publicity ratings hitting rock bottom was dwarfed by a sudden and spectacular breakthrough in Iraq, namely the nominees for the ministries of Defence, Interior and National Security being endorsed by parliament.
Then… again by pure coincidence, Zarqawi’s hiding-place was spotted and blown to smithereens, along with the prize fugitive inside.
Praise be to God, who has blessed our land with so many happy coincidences and has made our people gullible enough to swallow them all without choking.
When questioned about the recent suicides of three Guantanamo inmates, camp commader Rear Admiral Harris said he does not believe that the men killed themselves out of despair.
“They are smart. They are creative, they are committed,” he said.
“They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”
I think that’s one of the most callous, cruel things I’ve ever heard.
“
Yes the ‘asymetrical warfare’ thing is absolutely extraordinary. What amazes me is that the idea that by killing themself they could be waging ‘asymetrical warfare’ is such an abstract idea - an absolutely massive intellectual leap. They have talked themselves into a corner and have to keep hammering out the same old logic even as it becomes more and more absurd.
Regarding Zarqawi, it’s really interesting how the line is blurred between an act of war, i.e. killing an enemy commander, and a political assassination.
As the US/UK claim that the war is ‘over’ in Iraq, is it actually possible for this to be an act of war?
Does anyone know anything about international law re. political assassination?
To give the US its due, with the regard to both Guantanamo and the killing of Zarqawi, it is grappling with the question of the rise of ‘non-state actors’ (actually quite a useful term), and how it is possible for the machinery of international law, which is largely designed to deal with conflicts between states, to deal with them.
We may not agree with their answers, but we can’t ignore the question.
And the US seems to be responding to this problem by reinventing the language of conflict. Opposing soliders have become terrorists or “enemy combatants,” conveniently putting them outside the terms of the Geneva Convention. When suicide attempts at Guantanamo started to embarrass the military, they simply changed the definition to make attempted suicides “self-injurious behaviour,” meaning that the attempted suicide rate suddenly dropped to zero. Without wanting to dredge up the ghost of George Orwell once again, this is exactly what he meant by the term “doublespeak.”
I’d be interested to know what international law says about military assassinations in war-time, too. But international law doesn’t really seem to matter anymore, does it?
Do you really think this is because of the rise of “non-state actors” making the old paradigm obsolete, or is it that the Bush administration (and previous US governments) have deliberatly undermined and weakened institutions such as the UN, in the same way that Mussolini did with the League of Nations?
Of course, Britain is guilty of this too. As is North Korea, Iran and all the rest of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_humanitarian_law#Violations_and_punishment
An intersting article on who has and hasn’t signed each of the conventions on war, and legal points about how when you’re not a solider you become a legal combatant by openly displaying weaponry
But no one particularly powerful has ever signed up to it. Or if they have, they’ve neutered it.
Latest comment on Guantanamo suicides, this time by the US deputy assistance secretary of defence:
“What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life, because as Americans we value life even if it is the life of a violent terrorist captured waging war against our country.”
If these people were violent terrorists, why haven’t they been charged? Why haven’t they been sentanced? And exactly how were they “waging war against our country” when most of them were captured from battlefields in Afghanistan, defending the country from American invasion?
I think you do need new terms.
The idea of nation states waging war against each other was only ever fairly flimsy, and the definitions associated with nation states at war have themselves been used to justify atrocities.
What we have to is sit outside the terms (and I refuse to be drawn into an argument with any postmodernists who claim that this isn’t possible)and be mindful of the agenda of those shaping the terms before you accept them before we accept or reject them.
‘Extraordinary Rendition’. There’s a term and a half. It means that the UK government is in cahoots with the US in flying ‘terror suspects’ to Eastern Europe to be tortured. This is a fact.
Were they definitely in cahoots?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4817374.stm
Above article seems to suggest that the UK didn’t check that they weren’t rendition flights. Rather than accepting it. And sorry to be pernickety, but were they definitely tortured or suspected of it? More and more I realise what the US is capable of, but it would be a shame to misuse the word fact.
And that said if extraordinary rendition occurs, ‘TATAing’ (torturing and taking away) could be a better phrase.
Apologies - just read the article, and there were two individuals transferred through the UK. Sorry, sorry.
Returning to Zarqawi - this is the cover of the New York Post after he was killed/murdered/assasinated/judged/matryred/executed
http://www.gawker.com/images/2006/06/warmupvirgins.jpg
I hate myself for sniggering.
Yes, that is slightly funny. Less so when you remember you’re looking at a corpse.
Going back to the definitions discussion, I do understand that different terms always arise to describe new circumstances. That’s the natural function of language. But the vocabulary of the war on terror has not evolved in a linguistically “natural” way - it has been created very specifically by a certain group of people in order to create a certain impression. This is what ALARADTO means by “being mindful of the agenda of those shaping the terms before you accept them before we accept or reject them.” It worries me that so many people unconsciously adopt the language of those in power, and by doing that, subscribe to their definitions.
“The war on terror.” This in itself is a masterful piece of wordplay. Everyone - including me - has accepted this title without really considering what it means. It doesn’t make any sense at all, if you think about it. What’s next - the war on sadness? The war on fear? The war on lust?
People don’t seem to question the possibility of waging war on an abstract concept
And we should be equally cautious of adopting the language of those not in power, as they are equally likely to use language to steer us towards certain definitions.
We could call it the war on language.
Absolutely. But we hear the voices of those not in power much less - they don’t get to dictate terms in the same way - so their influence is less pervasive.
Perhaps we should create our own definitions, free from linguistic/psychological manipulation.
‘Al-Qaida’ is an interesting term, adopted for its usefulness to the agenda of radical Islamism and yet equally useful to the Western enemy.
Both wish to present Al-Qaida as a monolithic underground agency - or at least a single ’cause’ - when in fact it is nothing of the kind.
Both find that the term is useful to their purposes, and yet their purposes are so different.
Aren’t they? Having written that I’m not so sure …
In terms of definitions free from linguistic manipulation, I would like to suggest the term ’silly fucking arseholes’ to describe them all.
As a wise beardy man once scrawled on someone’s house - Bin Laden, Bin Bush, Bin Blair.
Naughty beardy man.
He also was manipulating language for his own secret beardly agenda.
(Private note to ALARADTO: check your emails, matey.)