na-aH, THEY DI-INT!
Apr. 27th, 2003 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistoh, yes, they did.
Papers--Al Quaeda met with Iraqi Officials
LONDON - Two newspapers reported that they found documents in the bombed out headquarters of Iraq's intelligence service that appear to show that Saddam Hussein's regime met with an al-Qaida envoy in 1998 and sought to arrange a meeting with Osama bin Laden.
Papers found by reporters working for the Toronto Star and Britain's Sunday Telegraph appear to show that purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaida based on their mutual hatred of the United States and Saudi Arabia, the newspapers reported in their Sunday editions.
The 1998 meeting went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad, said the newspapers, which had reporters working together with Iraqi translators on the story.
Journalists found the documents in the rubble of one of the rooms of the intelligence headquarters, the papers said.
Bin Laden's name appears three times in the handwritten file, with each reference clumsily concealed with white-out correction fluid and then blackened with ink, the Toronto Star wrote.
The Toronto Star recounted how a translator named Amir scraped off the white correction fluid to reveal bin Laden's name.
``It says bin Laden! It says bin Laden,'' the Toronto Star quoted Amir as exclaiming.
One of the pages, dated Feb. 19, was marked ``top secret and urgent'' and referred to plans for the trip from Sudan of the unnamed envoy, who is described in the file as a trusted confidant of bin Laden's, the Sunday Telegraph said.
The document, signed, ``MDA,'' which the Telegraph said is a code name believed to belong to the director of one of the Iraqi intelligence sections, said the Iraqis sought to pay for the envoy's costs while in Iraq ``to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden.''
The message to bin Laden ``would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him,'' the Telegraph quoted the document as saying.
The other documents confirm that the envoy traveled from Khartoum in Sudan to Baghdad in March 1998 and that he stayed at the al-Mansour Melia hotel, it said.
The documents do not mention whether any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials, the Telegraph said.
Separately, The Sunday Times reported that its own journalists had found documents in the Iraqi foreign ministry that indicate that France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials.
The newspaper said the documents reveal that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private trans-Atlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.
One document, dated Sept. 25, 2001, from Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush.
um...where to start. the fact that AOL news, a news outlet, is reporting--as news--what other newspapers have published? i guess it's appropriate, seeing as we don't have news anymore, they are always meta-news, very far deferred from what actually might be going on, the text in press representing only what the American, (AOL-using) public is supposed to hear. It reminds me of that skit on Mr. Show where the reported claims to report from the place "where news happens" or something like that, and then he is revealed to be sitting underneath the podium where the anchors for the "real" news are broadcasting. Secondly, I suppose everything that is claimed in that article is possible. It is possible that this meeting transpired, since despite opposing ideology and Islamic Fundamentalists' hatred of Saddam, behind-the-scenes diplomacy often results in surreal scenarios, and as we all know, politics makes strange bedmates. The point is, "facts" have to be looked at dichronically, and in the context of their production. There is no such thing as a "pure" historical fact, it's mythological, like one of Kant's "pure" categories, or a unicorn. I am not being historically pomo about this, that shit is bad, and enables historical revisionism, which is very bad, esp. today. Things happen. Soviet Revolition happenend in 1917. Holocaust happenned. The US bombed Cambodia. This war happenned. "Historical facts" are a category of how it goes down in history books, how it imprints on the minds of the kids to whom it is imparted in Social Studies during the second period. "Historical Facts" is a devilish trick w/r/t history because often it assumes the guise of Real-Truth-by-the-Virtue-of-
Being-Uncovered. Truth through illusion, if you will. (Like my tattoo, Aletheia, except, of course, like everything it can signify different things). Sometimes, it will even use real things that happenned as part of the mix. "Historical facts" of the self-narrative of every ideologically Socialist country has been formed on a binary opposition to the Imperialist US. Well, the US is imperialist. And it did send planes, bombs and CIA agents to crush such governments, when it could. But the homegrown (or imposed from the outside) socialist governemnts always rules according to the logical fallacies, most notably Ignoratio elenchi and shifting the burden of proof. Like, the US is bad, therefore we are good. We suck? Well, let the US prove how they are not fat racist capitalist pigs. (And, conversely, the US engaged in the same thing--"since Communism is the plague of the world, it is our duty to stop it;" "we are not Imperialist, there they starve and silence people"). The point is, all of these "facts" are spins, serving specific agendas. And they have specific power for their followers if they are constructed as uncovered, salvaged from a web of lies. This is pretty problematic, because by my own argument, I could be a "conspiracy theorist," which is a problematic label because it connotes that the person in question is paranoid, cooky and wrong. This is why I think it is imporant to present the case for "the government is lying" from their own bricolage of texts, clipped speeches, internal inconstistencies within their own discourse, rather than trying to justify it ideologically or historically (oh, the gov't has always lied)--at least not in a public forum, because that will lead to an Amistad.
Here is an example of one of the most disgusting "historical facts" "rescued" from the mainstream discourse. You could subtitle it "When Benjamin's articulation of history goes wrong, horribly wrong." I just recently found out through a really creepy webpage called jewwatch.com what the actual argument of Holocaust deniers is. I mean, I always thought that they were just like "whatevah, it didn't happen, all the images on TV and stories were part of the Jewish Plot, etc." No, apparently they do have their own "historical facts" version that, apparently, to them, shines like a beacon of truth through the virtually universally accepted historical fact of the Holocaust (not to be confused with the real event of the Holocaust, the historical fact is just the post facto narrative of what happenned.) Anyway, in the Holocaust deniers version, they incorporate camps and burned bodies, and example of strengthening a lie through elements of truth. So as their story goes (I feel gross even typing it), there was a Typhoid epidemic, and the Nazis, the great humanitarians that they were, quarantined the typhoid victims in the "camps" and attempted to treat them, and when they died from typhoid, their bodies were burned to prevent the spread of the disease. In some paint-by-numbers context-free way, they could construe their narrative as the "real" past seized from "official history." well, benjamin is probably rolling over in his grave. And I feel like someone just walked over mine. Anyway.
The point of all this is (to tie it back to the news article) that the most insidious "historical fact" narratives aren't necessarily dominant onees, they are the ones that "pretend" to uncover the "Truth" (for example, in the rubble of bombed-out Baghdad?) because a) they appropriate the real value of non-dominant-paradigm histories, by being a wolf in a sheep's clothing, or whatever, and b) they can use the "timely uncovering" to justify things retroactively. Mix in some inductive logic (the gov't is probably lying--and it's not a largely historically rooted ideological stance, that i critiqued before--no, it's inductive logic of constant descreptancies in the "Text of the Iraqui War as brought to you by CNN"), and the picture becomes clear, or at least likely. WMD search is a bust. Out of the million reasons originally given for war by our government, none have really stood up. So how convenient is it to "find" something indicating a very unlikely link, which would completely contradict Bin Laden's hatred of Saddam's regime (and the calls for the Iraqi people to uprise and kill him on the Bin Laden tape, that were oddly not mentioned in the US, since that was the Bush was pushing a link between Saddam and 9-11, the ineffible metonymyc link that is achieved by mentioning the two in one sentence enough times). And with the government's insane logic, they can use it to justify future PNAC wars. "No proof that Syria is linked to 9-11? Well, everyone said there was no proof about Iraq, but damned if we didn't find proof until AFTER we bombed it. whatdya say about "innocent until proven guilty"? well, that's just for Americans. Not Iraquis. And Americans aren't gonna have that for long either, just wait till the Sunset provisions become permanent, and then the Homeland Security will become the new British Empire on which the Sun will never set."
Papers--Al Quaeda met with Iraqi Officials
LONDON - Two newspapers reported that they found documents in the bombed out headquarters of Iraq's intelligence service that appear to show that Saddam Hussein's regime met with an al-Qaida envoy in 1998 and sought to arrange a meeting with Osama bin Laden.
Papers found by reporters working for the Toronto Star and Britain's Sunday Telegraph appear to show that purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaida based on their mutual hatred of the United States and Saudi Arabia, the newspapers reported in their Sunday editions.
The 1998 meeting went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad, said the newspapers, which had reporters working together with Iraqi translators on the story.
Journalists found the documents in the rubble of one of the rooms of the intelligence headquarters, the papers said.
Bin Laden's name appears three times in the handwritten file, with each reference clumsily concealed with white-out correction fluid and then blackened with ink, the Toronto Star wrote.
The Toronto Star recounted how a translator named Amir scraped off the white correction fluid to reveal bin Laden's name.
``It says bin Laden! It says bin Laden,'' the Toronto Star quoted Amir as exclaiming.
One of the pages, dated Feb. 19, was marked ``top secret and urgent'' and referred to plans for the trip from Sudan of the unnamed envoy, who is described in the file as a trusted confidant of bin Laden's, the Sunday Telegraph said.
The document, signed, ``MDA,'' which the Telegraph said is a code name believed to belong to the director of one of the Iraqi intelligence sections, said the Iraqis sought to pay for the envoy's costs while in Iraq ``to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden.''
The message to bin Laden ``would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him,'' the Telegraph quoted the document as saying.
The other documents confirm that the envoy traveled from Khartoum in Sudan to Baghdad in March 1998 and that he stayed at the al-Mansour Melia hotel, it said.
The documents do not mention whether any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials, the Telegraph said.
Separately, The Sunday Times reported that its own journalists had found documents in the Iraqi foreign ministry that indicate that France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials.
The newspaper said the documents reveal that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private trans-Atlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.
One document, dated Sept. 25, 2001, from Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush.
um...where to start. the fact that AOL news, a news outlet, is reporting--as news--what other newspapers have published? i guess it's appropriate, seeing as we don't have news anymore, they are always meta-news, very far deferred from what actually might be going on, the text in press representing only what the American, (AOL-using) public is supposed to hear. It reminds me of that skit on Mr. Show where the reported claims to report from the place "where news happens" or something like that, and then he is revealed to be sitting underneath the podium where the anchors for the "real" news are broadcasting. Secondly, I suppose everything that is claimed in that article is possible. It is possible that this meeting transpired, since despite opposing ideology and Islamic Fundamentalists' hatred of Saddam, behind-the-scenes diplomacy often results in surreal scenarios, and as we all know, politics makes strange bedmates. The point is, "facts" have to be looked at dichronically, and in the context of their production. There is no such thing as a "pure" historical fact, it's mythological, like one of Kant's "pure" categories, or a unicorn. I am not being historically pomo about this, that shit is bad, and enables historical revisionism, which is very bad, esp. today. Things happen. Soviet Revolition happenend in 1917. Holocaust happenned. The US bombed Cambodia. This war happenned. "Historical facts" are a category of how it goes down in history books, how it imprints on the minds of the kids to whom it is imparted in Social Studies during the second period. "Historical Facts" is a devilish trick w/r/t history because often it assumes the guise of Real-Truth-by-the-Virtue-of-
Being-Uncovered. Truth through illusion, if you will. (Like my tattoo, Aletheia, except, of course, like everything it can signify different things). Sometimes, it will even use real things that happenned as part of the mix. "Historical facts" of the self-narrative of every ideologically Socialist country has been formed on a binary opposition to the Imperialist US. Well, the US is imperialist. And it did send planes, bombs and CIA agents to crush such governments, when it could. But the homegrown (or imposed from the outside) socialist governemnts always rules according to the logical fallacies, most notably Ignoratio elenchi and shifting the burden of proof. Like, the US is bad, therefore we are good. We suck? Well, let the US prove how they are not fat racist capitalist pigs. (And, conversely, the US engaged in the same thing--"since Communism is the plague of the world, it is our duty to stop it;" "we are not Imperialist, there they starve and silence people"). The point is, all of these "facts" are spins, serving specific agendas. And they have specific power for their followers if they are constructed as uncovered, salvaged from a web of lies. This is pretty problematic, because by my own argument, I could be a "conspiracy theorist," which is a problematic label because it connotes that the person in question is paranoid, cooky and wrong. This is why I think it is imporant to present the case for "the government is lying" from their own bricolage of texts, clipped speeches, internal inconstistencies within their own discourse, rather than trying to justify it ideologically or historically (oh, the gov't has always lied)--at least not in a public forum, because that will lead to an Amistad.
Here is an example of one of the most disgusting "historical facts" "rescued" from the mainstream discourse. You could subtitle it "When Benjamin's articulation of history goes wrong, horribly wrong." I just recently found out through a really creepy webpage called jewwatch.com what the actual argument of Holocaust deniers is. I mean, I always thought that they were just like "whatevah, it didn't happen, all the images on TV and stories were part of the Jewish Plot, etc." No, apparently they do have their own "historical facts" version that, apparently, to them, shines like a beacon of truth through the virtually universally accepted historical fact of the Holocaust (not to be confused with the real event of the Holocaust, the historical fact is just the post facto narrative of what happenned.) Anyway, in the Holocaust deniers version, they incorporate camps and burned bodies, and example of strengthening a lie through elements of truth. So as their story goes (I feel gross even typing it), there was a Typhoid epidemic, and the Nazis, the great humanitarians that they were, quarantined the typhoid victims in the "camps" and attempted to treat them, and when they died from typhoid, their bodies were burned to prevent the spread of the disease. In some paint-by-numbers context-free way, they could construe their narrative as the "real" past seized from "official history." well, benjamin is probably rolling over in his grave. And I feel like someone just walked over mine. Anyway.
The point of all this is (to tie it back to the news article) that the most insidious "historical fact" narratives aren't necessarily dominant onees, they are the ones that "pretend" to uncover the "Truth" (for example, in the rubble of bombed-out Baghdad?) because a) they appropriate the real value of non-dominant-paradigm histories, by being a wolf in a sheep's clothing, or whatever, and b) they can use the "timely uncovering" to justify things retroactively. Mix in some inductive logic (the gov't is probably lying--and it's not a largely historically rooted ideological stance, that i critiqued before--no, it's inductive logic of constant descreptancies in the "Text of the Iraqui War as brought to you by CNN"), and the picture becomes clear, or at least likely. WMD search is a bust. Out of the million reasons originally given for war by our government, none have really stood up. So how convenient is it to "find" something indicating a very unlikely link, which would completely contradict Bin Laden's hatred of Saddam's regime (and the calls for the Iraqi people to uprise and kill him on the Bin Laden tape, that were oddly not mentioned in the US, since that was the Bush was pushing a link between Saddam and 9-11, the ineffible metonymyc link that is achieved by mentioning the two in one sentence enough times). And with the government's insane logic, they can use it to justify future PNAC wars. "No proof that Syria is linked to 9-11? Well, everyone said there was no proof about Iraq, but damned if we didn't find proof until AFTER we bombed it. whatdya say about "innocent until proven guilty"? well, that's just for Americans. Not Iraquis. And Americans aren't gonna have that for long either, just wait till the Sunset provisions become permanent, and then the Homeland Security will become the new British Empire on which the Sun will never set."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
another historical "fact"
Date: 2003-04-27 10:24 pm (UTC)the point? these people have no interest in the truth, only in power.
-mjm
no subject
Date: 2003-04-28 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-29 05:09 am (UTC)