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Bernard Weiner's Blog
December 30, 2004
The Hell That Is South Asia
The Asia quake/tsunami disaster hit too close to home: My wife had been in southern Thailand, at the beaches, only a week before the disaster struck; I had been in Southeast Asia a week before that.
Watching the horrific images on CNN and the other news channels had put me in a state of shock; watching parents shrieking as their children got swept out to sea, I was wracked by sobs myself, and turned into a sack of torpor. This was just too awful for words. I couldn't sit down and write anything, not even the most rudimentary blog.
As I compose this now, the death toll is way over 100,000, and climbing almost exponentially by the hour. A half-million are wounded. Thousand upon thousands are missing. Many outlying villages haven't even been checked yet. More than three million are homeless. The largest relief campaign in history has begun.
My wife and I had seen first-hand how so many Asian villages existed in symbiosis to the water, dependent on the easy access for their simple boats to the fish that was their livelihood. We had seen evidence of homes built on raised blocks along the rivers, because of the periodic flooding.
But we had seen nothing like the images pouring out of our TV: walls of water crashing through beaches and towns and, with nothing to stop them, continuing across the flat land, crushing everything in their path.
POVERTY ON TOP OF POVERTY
The saddest realization was that these people were desperately poor to begin with, living day by day from fishing or service work or in low-paying jobs provided by tourism. And now, not only had the survivors lost spouses and children, but so many had lost their homes, their villages, and their livelihoods.
Who knows what will take the place, if anything can take the place, of what they have lost? Who knows, for example, how long it will take before foreign tourists will want to return to this scary, battered area of the world? (It took five to 10 years for Hawaii to recover its tourist trade in Kauai in the '80s after a devastating hurricane that ruined so many of the hotels and beaches and vegetation. Thailand, for example, figures it will lose $750 million in tourist revenues in the next few months.)
It was precisely those anticipated tourist revenues that kept an early-warning about possible tsunamis from going out to the resorts in Thailand. The government didn't want to scare tourists away. Read Keith Olbermann's blog.
How do the residents of Thailand and Sri Lanka and Indonesia survive in the meantime, even if disease epidemics do not add to their ongoing tragedy?
These are kind, hard-working, warm people. Yes, they have their religions to sustain them (mainly Buddhism in Thailand, Islam in Indonesia, Hinduism in India), and there is the beginning of an immense international relief effort to aid them through this immediate crisis, but so many are broken by their losses and faced with the daunting task of starting over, from scratch.
And this assessment doesn't even take into account the ecological damage wrought by the salty water to the croplands and rice paddies and vegetation. One survivor described the situation in which he found himself simply as "Hell." Nobody around him disagreed.
BUSH WAS "ON VACATION"
While other world leaders began to address the calamity quickly -- speaking openly to their citizens and to the victims of the Asia tragedy, promising huge amounts of money and other aid -- a vacationing George W. Bush, lost in the solipsistic vision that protects him from reality, did and said virtually nothing. A deputy press secretary issued the first generic expression of America's sadness. Fifteen million dollars were pledged.
Only when the outcry against this cold-hearted behavior grew loud -- a United Nations official, for example, calling some of the developed countries "stingy" for their meager initial promises of aid, when billions are needed -- did Bush emerge, five days into the developing story, to express his personal sadness, and the promised relief aid was upped to a miserly 35 million. (By comparison, one writer estimates that the U.S. is spending about $9.5 million PER HOUR in Iraq alone.)
The American people, always generous and warm-hearted, immediately inundated non-governmental relief agencies with millions and millions of dollars and offers of help, putting into stark relief the grudging, parsimonious "compassionate conservatism" of their governmental leaders. (For a list of relief agencies accepting donations, see below).
Once again, the Bush Administration misread Asia, and ignored a chance to try to gain some good P.R. in an area of the world already very suspicious of U.S. intentions and policies. As I wrote in my recent Southeast Asia report, not one person who spoke to me in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia had a positive thing to say about Bush and U.S. policy.
This was not damage in Asia from an ordinary monsoon or typhoon or flooding. This was calamity on a scale the world had rarely seen. The response should have been commensurate with the enormity of the problem. But Bush and the tight-knit coterie around him sat silent for days -- was it ignorance? lack of caring? confusion? -- and their response to an extraordinary event was embarrassingly ordinary and generic.
HOW TO SEND AID TO THE AREA
For those wishing to join their fellow citizens in sending what those devastated countries need most right now -- funds for immediate help, and for the coming reconstruction projects -- below is the Associated Press list, posted on DemocraticUnderground.com.
Also check out internet activist Daniel Patrick Walsh's note:The Greenhouse School community has connections to many countries, and it is no surprise that the recent devastation in the coastal countries of the Indian Ocean is no exception. Our parents Hong and Tharva Net have a good friend in Phuket who has gone missing, and our prayers are with them for her safe rescue. The children are of course affected by the tragedy, although they are a bit young to grasp its enormity. We have decided to interrupt our own holiday appeal and expand and redirect our efforts to raise a supplemental amount of money we can for relief efforts.
One of our trustees, Jessica Stevens, has a contact on the island of Koh Phra Thong, in Phang Nga, Thailand, who is setting up a relief fund. We would like to collect donations for this purpose. Koh Phra Thong (which translates as Golden Buddha Island) is in a small chain of islands which have been devastated by the tsunami. Three fishing villages are in almost complete ruins, and even a small donation may have a significant impact. It is important for GHS as a community, even in the midst of struggling through our own budget, to teach our students to reach outside themselves to the larger world community. We will begin accepting donations immediately, and the children will participate in activities to raise a small amount of money toward this relief effort. Thank you for your thoughts and your participation. If you are already giving to Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross or other efforts, we do not want to divert funds from those. However, if you would like to be part of our effort, send a check to the school. (Please write "disaster relief" in the memo of the appropriate check) Send donations to us at:
The Greenhouse School
145 Loring Avenue
Salem, MA 01970(or use PayPal through our site, www.greenhouseschool.org, and we will combine donations to make one larger payment to efforts on the island. We have no illusions about the limits of our ability to help. We will, however, try to do our share as world citizens.
Thank you for joining us.
Peace, Danny
ADMIRABLE RELIEF AGENCIES
List of agencies helping quake/tsunami victims (from Democraticunderground.com).Among my favorites are Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, and World Vision.
Action Against Hunger
247 West 37th Street, Suite 1201
New York, NY 10018
212-967-7800
www.aah-usa.org
American Jewish World Service
45 West 36th Street, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10018
800-889-7146
www.ajws.org
ADRA International
9-11 Fund
12501 Old Columbus Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904
800-424-2372
www.adra.org
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC Crisis Fund)
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA
215-241-7000
www.afsc.org
Catholic Relief Services
PO Box 17090
Baltimore, MD 21203-7090
800-736-3467
www.catholicrelief.org
Direct Relief International
27 South La Patera Lane
Santa Barbara, CA 93117
805-964-4767
www.directrelief.org
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres
PO Box 2247
New York, NY 10116-2247
888-392-0392
www.doctorswithoutborders.orgInternational Medical Corps
1919 Santa Monica Boulevard Suite 300
Santa Monica CA 90404
800-481-4462 FAX 310-442-6622
1600 K St. NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20006
202-828-5155
www.imcworldwide.org/index.shtmlInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
PO Box 372
CH-1211 Geneva 19
Switzerland
41-22-730-4222
www.ifrc.org
International Orthodox Christian Charities
Middle East Crisis Response
PO Box 630225
Baltimore, MD 21263-0225
877-803-4622
www.iocc.org
Lutheran World Relief
PO Box 17061
Baltimore MD 21298-9832
800-597-5972
www.lwr.org
MAP International
2200 Glynco Parkway
PO Box 215000
Brunswick, GA 3121-5000
800-225-8550
http://www.map.org
Mercy Corps
PO Box 2669
Portland, OR 97208
800-852-2100
www.mercycorps.org
Northwest Medical Teams
PO Box 10
Portland, OR 97207-0010
503-624-1000
www.nwmedicalteams.org
Operation USA
8320 Melrose Avenue, Ste. 200
Los Angles, CA 90069
800-678-7255
www.opusa.org
Relief International
11965 Venice Blvd.¥405
Los Angeles, CA 90066
800-572-3332
www.ri.org
Save the Children
Asia Earthquake/Tidal Wave Relief Fund
54 Wilton Road
Westport, CT 06880
800-728-3843
www.savethechildren.org
US Fund for UNICEF
333 East 38th Street
New York, NY 10016
800-FOR-KIDS
www.unicefusa.or
World Concern
19303 Fremont Ave. N
Seattle, WA 98133
800-755-5022
www.worldconcern.org
World Relief
7 E. Baltimore St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
443-451-1900
www.wr.org
World Vision
PO Box 70288
Tacoma, Washington 98481-0288
888-56-CHILD
www.worldvision.org
December 16, 2004
A MATTER OF GREAT GRAVITY
The influential, far-right Christians for God organization, led by Rev. Gerald Fellwall, has launched a new campaign, to get science teachers in public schools to treat the law of gravity as an unproved theory and to replace it with "intelligent design" weightfulness.
"Gravity is not mentioned in the Bible," said Rev. Fellwall, "and nobody has ever seen gravity. It's just those liberal professors who claim its existence, and who got the law passed based on their phony evidence.
"When Adam & Eve ate from the Forbidden Tree," said Rev. Fellwall, "they brought a heaviness to the world, and we're still dealing with it today. God created gravity as a punishment for human sinning.
"Those without sin are not bound by the so-called law of gravity. That's why angels have wings," he said.
Fellwall said his organization is mounting a nationwide campaign to put stickers in all science textbooks indicating that gravity may not exist, that it's just a theory of science.
"Some people believe the world is round," he said, "but the Bible does refer to the 'four corners of the earth.' We're working on that next."
Excuse that. My jet-lagged brain (see my Asia travelogue explaining what I've been up to recently) spat that one out, without my permission.
But it did remind me of an informative piece in the Wall Street Journal: Sharon Begley's "Tough Assignment: Teaching Evolution to Fundamentalists." A biology professor at a fundamentalist Christian college in Illinois tells how he, a devout Nazarene, deals creatively with the subject of evolution.
Prof. Richard Collins decries his fundamentalist brethren claiming that there is widespread skepticism about evolution among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue. Evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny."
Begley writes:"His central claim is that both the origin of life from a primordial goo of nonliving chemicals, and the evolution of species according to the processes of random mutations and natural selection, are 'fully compatible with the available scientific evidence and also contemporary religious beliefs. Denying science makes us [Christian conservatives] look stupid'."
Worth reading the whole thing.
UNIVERSAL FUNDAMENTALISMS
Feels strange. I haven't blogged since late-November. Thought I'd mention a few of the best items out there by my blogging colleagues.
Sliding from the above to "Evolutionary Theology", blogger Digby begins by quoting liberally from a fascinating article by Davidson Loehr, "The Fundamentalist Agenda," parts of which he summarizes thusly:From 1988 to 1993, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences sponsored an interdisciplinary study known as The Fundamentalism Project, the largest such study ever done. More than 100 scholars from all over the world took part, reporting on every imaginable kind of fundamentalism. And what they discovered was that the agenda of all fundamentalist movements in the world is virtually identical, regardless of religion or culture.
The five characteristics are:1) Men rule the roost and make the rules. Women are support staff and for reasons easy to imagine, homosexuality is intolerable;
2) all rules must apply to all people, no pluralism;
3) the rules must be precisely communicated to the next generation;
4) "they spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. (Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. The phrase 'overcoming the modern' is a fascist slogan dating back to at least 1941.)";
5) Fundamentalists deny history in a "radical and idiosyncratic way."Then Digby moves on to how to combat the worst aspects of fundamentalism:
...In order to pave the way for change, liberals have to first be aware of the sacred symbols and rhetoric of traditionalism and then attempt to harness those symbols to advance our cause. I think there is some truth in that.
The Bible is one, of course, but so are the "sacred" texts of our nation, those that outline the rules and beliefs of our territory and tribe. Those symbols and totems are powerful mojo for the other side if we don't lay claim to them. They mean more than just surface martial nationalistic nonsense --- indeed, if this thesis is true, they may be more powerful than Christian fundamentalism. At the very least, liberals should embrace the symbols like the flag and the constitution and all the apple pie traditions with the knowledge that if we don't, a more pernicious force will. It's about the power of deeply held territorial impulses. Christianity and Islam are only a couple of thousand years old. As the author says, the [fundamentalists] have "severely understated the authority for their position." Perhaps we should stake that authority for our side in service of our ideals.
I can think of a few ways we might do this. The first that comes to mind is to pit fundamentalism against territory. If this retreat to fundamentalism is really a default to primitive biology, then we can frame this as America vs the fundamentalists. And lucky for us, it's easy to do and will confuse the shit out of the right. We have a built in boogie man fundamentalist named Osama on whom we can pin all this ANTI-AMERICAN fundamentalist dogma while subtly drawing the obvious parallels between him and the homegrown variety.
We start by having the womens' groups decrying the Islamic FUNDAMENTALIST view of womens' rights. These FUNDAMENTALISTS want to roll back the clock and make women answer to men. In AMERICA we don't believe in that. Then we have the Human Rights Campaign loudly criticizing the Islamic FUNDAMENTALISTS for it's treatment of gays. In AMERICA we believe that all people have inalienable rights. The ACLU puts out a statement about the lack of civil liberties in Islamic FUNDAMENTALIST theocracies. In AMERICA we believe in the Bill of Rights, not the word of unelected mullahs.
You got a problem with that Jerry? Pat? Karl????
DEMS ACT AS AN OPPOSITION?
While we're in Digbyland, we might as well pass on this item, "Tie It All Together" :
Wouldn't ya just know it? On the day LiberalOasis gets all mad at the Dems for not knowing how to fight, they go and do something smart. From the AP:[Sen.] Harry Reid said Monday his party will launch investigative hearings next year in response to what he said was the reluctance of Republicans to look into problems in the Bush administration.
"There are too many unasked and unanswered questions and the American public deserves better," the Nevada senator said...
...Sen. Byron Dorgan…said the first hearing will be at the end of January and he suggested it might focus on contract abuse in Iraq...
They said issues that "cry out" for closer investigation...include the administration's use of prewar intelligence and its reported effort to stifle information about the true cost of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Reid also mentioned global warming and the "No Child Left Behind" education program as topics that needed a closer look.
In all likelihood, they recognized the great success Rep. Henry Waxman and his staff had publishing their own report on federally funded abstinence-only programs. That showed how a minority party can make news and put the majority party on the defensive.
Now the key is to tie all of this corruption, misdirection and ineptitude into Bush's plan to destroy Social Security. I'm more and more convinced that this is not only necessary for its own sake, but will result in many other political rewards for the Democrats. Bush is a lame duck. He has far less political capital than he thinks he has. He's fucked up the War on terror and he knows it and this is his last big chance for a "positive" long term legacy. If we are able to stop him we may just show the American people that we have some guts after all and position ourselves for a big come back in 06 and 08.
The alternative is to allow him to destroy the most successful social program in the history of this country, an act that will affect real human beings in our towns, neighborhoods and families. If SS isn't worth fighting for with everything we have, then we truly are worthless.
RUMSFELD THE COWARD
Kevin Drum skewers Rummy on the distance the Defense Secretary tried to carve out between his leadership and the lack-of-armor question:We all know that John McCain isn't a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld, and Chuck Hagel isn't a surprise either. But Stormin' Norman? [Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf]
I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, as the secretary of defense, didn't have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up.
Good point. Plus there's the fact that Rumsfeld was lying through his teeth about armor production already being at capacity, and how there was nothing more he could do about it. That was bad too.
BUSH'S ATTACK ON SOCIAL SECURITY
Josh Marshall has an important piece about the Bush Administration's moves to weaken and destroy Social Security. I'll just quote a bit here; worth checking out the whole article:The Social Security "crisis" is manufactured; there is no crisis. To the extent there are long-term financing problems, the president's plan will gravely worsen them. The problem we face isn't over Social Security, which continues to run up huge surpluses (just as it was intended to under the early-80s reform), but that our non-Social Security budget continues to run massive structural deficits. Or rather, it has returned to running massive structural deficits after getting into the black in the late 1990s through the combined exertions of a Democratic president and a Republican congress. Social Security isn't the problem, but rather George W. Bush's reckless fiscal policy.
In any case, as I say, the whole thing is lies. This isn't about the program's problems but about its success. That's why the president and his allies want to phase it out. It's not about financing but about ideology.
...One thing that Democrats must understand is that they cannot win this battle legislatively. At one level what I mean by that is simply the math we can all see. The president has comfortable majorities in both chambers and in his first term (when he was a minority president and had smaller majorities) he commanded historic levels of party discipline. If he can hold those caucuses together, he can pass this and sign it and that's it. Doesn't matter what Democrats do.
This is, of course, obvious, as simple as the math, as I noted. But the implications for strategy are not necessarily that obvious.
As I wrote a month ago, the Democrats have to start seeing themselves as a true party of opposition in large part because of the way President Bush has reshaped the capital into something much more like a parliamentary system. There's no point in Democrats trying to improve legislation at the margins, because they won't be given any real opportunity to do so. The logic of the situation dictates coming up with an alternative plan not only to make the differences clear to voters now but to set the issue stage for the 2006 and 2008 elections....
INTEL REFORM & CIVIL LIBERTIES
Robert Dreyfuss writes about hidden aspects of the recently passed Intelligence Reform bill:Until now the whole debate has revolved around a three-cornered conflict between congressional right-wingers who wanted to use the bill to impose harsh immigration reforms (killed); pro-military hard-liners like Duncan Hunter who wanted to protect the Pentagon's intelligence turf (they surrendered); and the center-right coalition that backed the current bill, which contains several awful and scary provisions.
The impact of the civil liberties advocates was barely heard.
Here are some examples of what the bill does that is terrible. First, it dramatically increases the likelihood that intelligence will be even more politicized than it has been. Now, of course, intelligence agencies have always felt the pressure of politics. But by creating a National Intelligence Director beholden to the White House—an essentially political job—it it means that all of the agencies will get their marching orders from a person whose main job is to carry out administration policy. The one good thing about intelligence agencies is that they are, by their very nature, tied to the truth by virtue of collecting facts and information. Policy makers are free to ignore (or, in Bushs case, create) facts. Now it will get worse.
Second, by encouraging spying on so-called "lone-wolf" terrorist suspects, people not connected to any foreign organization or source, it means that the CIA and FBI will have a much freer hand to spy on individual Americans.
Third, by enhancing CIA-FBI cooperation and strengthening "domestic intelligence" forces, we will see more and more CIA spying on Americans. Consider the case of the arson in Maryland this week, in which several dozen homes under construction were burned. If environmental groups come under suspicion and case is declared "terrorist related," then the CIA can start spying on environmental action groups here and abroad, using all of the CIA's virtually unbridled tactics and technology.
There's a lot more. Does anyone care? Not in Congress. Even the Democrats are stupidly cheering this bill. (Sen. Rockefeller, shame on you!) The ACLU at least is worried, noting that the bill creates a de facto national ID card and has little or no safeguards to protect civil liberties.
DAILY LIFE IN BAGHDAD
Finally, for what life is really like for ordinary Iraqis, you've got to get behind the smoke and propaganda fog dispensed by the Pentagon and most mainstream media. Read the Baghdad blogger known as River; she tells it like it is:It has been a sad few weeks. The situation seems to be deteriorating daily. To brief you on a few things: Electricity is lousy. Many areas are on the damned 2 hours by 4 hours schedule and there are other areas that are completely in the dark- like A'adhamiya. The problem is that we're not getting much generator electricity because fuel has become such a big problem. People have to wait in line overnight now to fill up the car. It's a mystery. It really is. There was never such a gasoline crisis as the one we're facing now. We're an oil country and yet there isn't enough gasoline to go around...
Oh don't get me wrong- the governmental people have gasoline (they have special gas stations where there aren't all these annoying people, rubbing their hands with cold and cursing the Americans to the skies)... The Americans have gasoline. The militias get gasoline. It's the people who don't have it. We can sometimes get black-market gasoline but the liter costs around 1250 Iraqi Dinars which is almost $1- compare this to the old price of around 5 cents. It costs almost 50,000 Iraqi Dinars to fill up the generator so that it works for a few hours and then the cost isn't so much the problem as just getting decent gasoline is. So we have to do without electricity most of the day.
Cooking gas has also become a problem. The guy who sells us the gas cylinders isn't coming around because apparently he can't get the used cylinders exchanged for full ones. People are saying that it costs around 10,000 Iraqi dinars to buy one on the street and then, as usual, you risk getting one that might explode in the kitchen or be full of water. We're trying to do more and more of our 'cooking' on the kerosene heater. The faucet water is cold, cold, cold. We can't turn on the water heater because there just isn't enough electricity. We installed a kerosene water heater some time last year but that has also been off because there's a kerosene shortage and we need that for the heaters.
I took my turn at 'gasoline duty' a couple of weeks ago. E. and my cousin were going to go wait for gasoline so I decided I'd join them and keep them company. We left the house at around 5 a.m. and it was dark and extremely cold. I thought for sure we'd be the first at the station but I discovered the line was about a kilometer long with dozens and dozens of cars lined up around the block. My heart sank at the discouraging sight but E. and the cousin looked optimistic, "We just might be able to fill up before evening this time!" E. smiled.
I spent the first hour jabbering away and trying to determine whether or not gasoline was actually being sold at the station. E. and the cousin were silent- they had set up a routine. One of them would doze while the other watched in case a miracle occurred and the line actually started moving. The second hour I spent trying to sleep with my neck at an uncomfortable angle on the back head rest. The third hour I enthusiastically tried to get up a game of "memorize the license plate". The fourth hour I fiddled with the radio and tried to sing along to every song being played on air.
All in all, it took E. and the cousin 13 hours to fill the car. I say E. and the cousin because I demanded to be taken home in a taxi after the first six hours and E. agreed to escort me with the condition that I would make sandwiches for him to take back to the cousin. In the end, half of the tank of gasoline was kept inside of the car (for emergencies) and the other half was sucked out for the neighborhood generator. People are wondering how America and gang (i.e. Iyad Allawi, etc.) are going to implement democracy in all of this chaos when they can't seem to get the gasoline flowing in a country that virtually swims in oil. There's a rumor that this gasoline crisis has been concocted on purpose in order to keep a minimum of cars on the streets. Others claim that this whole situation is a form of collective punishment because things are really out of control in so many areas in Baghdad- especially the suburbs. The third theory is that this being done purposely so that the Iraq government can amazingly bring the electricity, gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas back in January before the elections and make themselves look like heroes.
We're also watching the election lists closely. Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway. The lists are more or less composed of people affiliated with the very same political parties whose leaders rode in on American tanks. Then you have a handful of tribal sheikhs. Yes- tribal sheikhs. Our country is going to be led by members of religious parties and tribal sheikhs- can anyone say Afghanistan? What's even more irritating is that election lists have to be checked and confirmed by none other than Sistani!! Sistani- the Iranian religious cleric. So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say 'theocracy in sheeps clothing'?
Ahmad Chalabi is at the head of one of those lists- who would join a list with Ahmad Chalabi at its head?
...The assault on Falloojeh and other areas is continuing. There are rumors of awful weapons being used in Falloojeh. The city has literally been burnt and bombed to the ground. Many of the people displaced from the city are asking to be let back in, in spite of everything. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for the refugees. It's like we've turned into another Palestine- occupation, bombings, refugees, death. Sometimes I'll be watching the news and the volume will be really low. The scene will be of a man, woman or child, wailing in front of the camera; crying at the fate of a body lying bloodily, stiffly on the ground- a demolished building in the background and it will take me a few moments to decide the location of this tragedy- Falloojeh? Gaza? Baghdad?
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