Letter Never Sent

Some interesting things for today, this from Al Jazeera:

Republican Guard commander cut deal with US forces

The mystery of what happened to the Iraqi Republican Guard defending Baghdad appears to have been solved if a report in today’s Le Monde is to be believed.

The French daily reports that Maher Sufyan, Commander of the Republican Guard reached an agreement with American forces in which he ordered his forces to surrender in exchange for his transfer via an American Apache helicopter to an undisclosed safe haven.

Quoting anonymous sources, Le Monde’s correspondent in Baghdad said that Sufyan ordered all Republican Guard forces to lay down their arms and go home. Shortly thereafter an Apache helicopter escorted Sufyan from the Al Rashid camp, east of Baghdad, to an unknown location.

Maher Sufyan is not included on the infamous “deck of cards” created by US defence officials to highlight the most wanted individuals from the Saddam Hussein government. Iraq’s popular Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed Al Sahaf, Naji Sabri, Iraq’s Foreign Minister and Oumid Medhat Mubarak, the minister of health are also not included on the list.

The US is not publicizing this for obvious reasons as it shows the Machiavellian politiking at work.

From the Wash. Post via Cryptome, Likely Suicide Bombers Include Profiles You’d Never Suspect by Sharon Begley:

If individuals are capable of terrible things under the right circumstances, that suggests “it is not possible to ‘profile’ suicide terrorists: They are just like us,” says Prof. Atran.

Surely, not entirely. A crucial distinction may be that to a terrorist, his cell is everything: kin, friends, neighbors, teachers. Psychological manipulation causes recruits to view the group as a fictive family for whom they are as willing to die as a mother for her child. Such manipulation, says Prof. Atran, “can trump individual personality and psychology to produce apparently extreme behaviors in ordinary people.”

Terrorists promote small-group cohesion much as the military does. Says Maj. Gen. Stewart, “If you ask a soldier why he is willing to fight and die, he’ll tell you it’s for his buddies.”

So with terrorists. Some may be lured by the promise of riches to their survivors, or by the feeling that life offers them nothing else but, perhaps, a moment of glory. “Terrorists kill for the same reasons that groups have killed for centuries,” says Prof. McCauley: “For cause and for comrades. We all know we are going to die. Every normal person believes in something more important than life.”

Suicide terrorism is as old as the Zealots, who 2,000 years ago mounted suicide attacks in Roman-occupied Judea, and as new as human bombs in the West Bank. It may reflect a deep-rooted survival mechanism that allows us to act “in otherwise paralyzing circumstances,” suggests Prof. Atran in the journal Science. As researchers probe the genesis of suicide terrorists, it’s clear that it will be some time before we disprove Dostoevsky’s sad observation: “While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”

Top Iraqi Scientist Surrenders To U.S.: A Valuable Source On Weapons Program:

“He would know Iraq’s chemical weapons program, since he lived with it,” said Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, in a telephone interview yesterday. As late as March 19, the day before the war against Iraq started, Blix said, he received a letter from Saadi saying Iraq had destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons.

“I was telling the truth, always telling the truth, never told anything but the truth, and time will bear me out, you will see,” Saadi told ZDF. “There will be no difference after this war.”

Three days after the Iraqi government collapsed and after more than three weeks of war, U.S. military and intelligence forces have yet to report any discoveries of banned weapons or weapons systems.

The TV is beaming images of Iraqis in the streets. Apparently, this is to signal the victory of the US over another third world power. First there was Afghanistan and now Iraq, both countries weakened by years of war and in the case of Iraq by almost fifteen years of sanctions, ‘no fly zones’, and strategic bombings. The message is clear to other weak governments, build up your weapons programs and fast. Apparently, it doesn’t matter if you try to disarm. As Iraq surely did as there were no chemical weapons used and no so-called ‘weapons of mass distruction’ found. You can expect weapons technology to proliferate as governments realize how insecure their power is against invasion and covert war. Expect our own government to feel this insecurity as they beef up defense budgets and strengthen ‘anti-terror’ laws. The jack-booted Republican party has already made clear its intentions to make the provisions of the Patriot Act permanent. I also expect weaker governments to engage in a frenzy of relationship building with stronger parties to counter the apparent power of the United States. This will be an interesting moment as it gives our own government a choice between more power or prudence.

The US has yet to find chemical weapons in Iraq. Nor have they been used. This war is nothing but a deception.

US accused of plans to loot Iraqi antiques:

It has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met with US defence and state department officials prior to the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country’s invaluable archaeological collections.

The group is known to consist of a number of influential dealers who favour a relaxation of Iraq’s tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities. Its treasurer, William Pearlstein, has described Iraq’s laws as ‘retentionist’ and has said he would support a post-war government that would make it easier to have antiquities dispersed to the US.

Before the Gulf war, a main strand of the ACCP’s campaigning has been to persuade its government to revise the Cultural Property Implementation Act in order to minimise efforts by foreign nations to block the import into the US of objects, particularly antiques.

News of the group’s meeting with the government has alarmed scientists and archaeologists who fear the ACCP is working to a hidden agenda that will see the US authorities ease restrictions on the movement of Iraqi artifacts after a coalition victory in Iraq.

Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, leading Cambridge archaeologist and director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, said: ‘Iraqi antiquities legislation protects Iraq. The last thing one needs is some group of dealer-connected Americans interfering. Any change to those laws would be absolutely monstrous. ‘

The British Empire likewise looted Egyptian and Greek treasures during their colonial days.