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Is the U.S. shrugging off American hostages in Iraq?

American Hostage
The report of an American hostage killed Thursday, if confirmed, represents the first foreign hostage killed in Iraq in four months and the first American in over a year.

Who is this reportedly slain hostage? NBC affiliate KTUU in Anchorage, Alaska reported Wednesday:

Family members have confirmed that the American hostage on a video released Tuesday is, in fact, Ronald Schulz of Eagle River.

Schulz grew up a farm boy in North Dakota and later became a marine, according to Thursday night’s KTUU news, which included footage of his family members at a press conference:

?Our family is aware that the Iraqi people have concerns regarding the U.S. government presence in their country. However, murdering Ron will not solve these issues,? said Julie Schulz, Ron Schulz?s sister.

It appears that Schulz, an industrial electrician, purchased a round trip ticket from Anchorage to Amman, Jordan, where some believed that he was to marry, others were unsure whether the trip was for business or pleasure, according to KTUU.
family of Ronald Schulz

While the kidnapping of Schulz is confirmed, Thursday’s claim that he was murdered was posted on an Islamic militant website as reported by CTV:

“[T]he American security consultant for the Housing Ministry was killed after the end of the deadline set to respond to the Islamic Army’s demands.”

The U.S. government squelched the claims immediately, and it rotated to the back of most news round-ups.
Continue reading “Is the U.S. shrugging off American hostages in Iraq?”

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U.S. bars Red Cross from visiting detainees

BBCNews reports:

The US has admitted for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody.

The state department’s top legal adviser, John Bellinger, made the admission but gave no details about where such prisoners were held.

Correspondents say the revelation is likely to increase suspicion that the CIA has been operating secret prisons outside international oversight.

Video report at streaming at the BBC

In past visits to detainees in Iraq the Red Cross confirmed treatment “tantamount to torture,” and authorities were pressed to admit that 70 to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees had been arrested by mistake.

read: Sidney Blumenthal’s “Condi’s Trail of Lies” Salon column (free Spiegel online mirror)

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Bring them to Justice

Corruption in Iraq
Ginger Cruz, Deputy Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a US government office and Isam al-Khafaji, former reconstruction advisor to the Coalition Provision Authority and former director of Iraq Revenue Watch lined up on opposite sides on KCRW’s “To the Point” with Warren Olney (.mp3 download/podcast) (web site).

But in the end, both agreed on the most major issue. As Cruz, described, people don’t understand how in 1991, under Saddam Hussein’s regime, electricity was restored within a year of U.S. air raids, but NOW, under the occupation of the mighty U.S., three years have passed and utilities are occasionally functional at best.

Riverbend, whose postwar blog entries were recently released in the book Baghdad Burning, posted this in her blog last week:

The electricity schedule in what appears to be most areas in Baghdad is currently FIVE hours of no electricity for every one hour of electricity. It?s very frustrating considering the fact that it?s not really cool enough yet for excess electrical heater use- where is it all going? If the electrical situation is this bad now, what happens later when the populace starts needing more electricity?

Approximately 1/6 of the (taxpayers’) funds going to Iraq reconstruction is lost in the shuffle, due to corruption within the CPA and the corrupt middlemen and brokers. Many are already predicting it will completely eclipse and overshadow the UN oil-for-food scandal in terms of both finances and degree of fraudulence.

And it extends beyond Robert J. Stein, Phillip H. Bloom and their cartel. The Boston Globe highlighted last week that “11 investigators in Iraq [are] looking into more than 50?cases of graft involving civilians and the US military.”

Initially the grand plan was for a GLOBAL war on terror; but right now a good portion of our money is vanishing into thin air, while another chunk is inevitably being siphoned into anti-Democracy and anti-American hands, whether you call them sadaamists, insurgents, islamofascists, or pinko commies. There can be no democracy, at least as America envisions it, when corruption, theft, and the influx of foreign funds distracts from the top down. They don’t even have electricity yet.

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No help for the helpless in Pakistan

pakistan earthquake refugees
(REUTERS): Former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton unveiled on Wednesday a $90 million aid program for universities and other organizations shuttered by Hurricane Katrina three months ago.

Where have they been for the last two months?

Nearly 80,000 people have died as a result of the October 8, 2005 earthquake outside of Islamabad. Millions have been displaced, and as many are homeless and struggling to stay warm and fed, tens of thousands more may perish at the hands of the brutal Himalayan winter.

“Eighty per cent of the aid pledged for the tsunami (more than $4-billion) was given with two weeks,” according to an article first published in mid-November in the Globe and Mail titled “If we don’t help Pakistan, al-Qaeda’s friends will.”

Its estimated that the UN has received less than a third of the $312 million in aid it called for in mid-October.

Last month Ian Welsh made the call at BOPNews — and it is not too late:

[T]he area of Pakistan in question is an area where al-Q’aeda has often found refuge, and indeed, safety, with tribal fighers protecting them.

Which, may make you think that their trouble; their need; is an American opportunity. For a couple billion dollars, a huge aid operation could have been launched with the American flag all over the place.

Community Dispatch posted a call for grant proposals on State Dept. “letterhead,” but there is no mention of it on State.gov.

Announced on Dec. 6, and running for one month (no hurry here), 1 milllion dollars is available for an NGO to manage the UN operated Afghan refugee camps in the region. According to the release, 1/4 of the earthquake ravaged region’s nearly 900,000 Afghan refugees are in the “most damaged districts.”

Now, I’ll be optimistic and conclude, for now, that State has removed this posting because the grant has already been filled by a qualified and eager NGO. The more skeptical among us may be a bit leery of the disappearance of a call for proposals in less than 24 hours.

*UPDATE: the announcement is now live here at state.gov*

The White House announced the Katrina contribution from the Bush-Clinton fund one day after Katrina victims “unleashed their fury” on the empty ears of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina.

Pakistan needs that $90 million. I thought there was some $62 BILLION earmarked for the U.S. Gulf Coast. By mid-November, FEMA distributed nearly $4.5 billion in federal funds according to ReliefWeb. That’s over 4 THOUSAND million! I suspect much of this dinero must have fallen through the cracks for a measly $90 million to shake things up.

I recommend the PakQuake blog for in-depth perspective and calls for donations.