GI Special:

thomasfbarton@earthlink.net

4.6.06

Print it out: color best.  Pass it on.

 

GI SPECIAL 4D6:

 

 

THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

April 5, 2006 L.A. Times

 

 

“I Don’t See Any More Good Coming Out Of Being Here”

 

31 March 2006 PBS

 

What's working and what's failing in the US-led effort to battle the Iraqi insurgents? On Friday, video journalist Brian Palmer, who was embedded with US Marines in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, gives us an uncensored, inside look at the extremely dangerous and often overwhelming job of fighting the committed insurgency.

 

"I don't see any more good coming out of being here," Lance Corporal Damon Broussard told Palmer.

 

"You can only make so much progress and then you have the guys hiding behind the scenes planting IEDs and stuff ... You can only do so much until you friggin' slam your face into the wall so many times."

 

 

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

 

 

Chief Warrant Officer Michael L. Hartwick Jr., of Orrick, Mo., died April 1, 2006, when his helicopter was shot down in Iraq west of Youssifiyah. (AP Photo)

 

Orlando Soldier Killed

 

April 1, 2006 News4Jax.com

 

ORLANDO, Florida:   An Orlando soldier was killed in Iraq when he was hit by small arms fire while on patrol, the U.S. Department of Defense said Friday.

 

Pfc. Sean D. Tharp was killed in Baghdad Tuesday when his element came under enemy small arms fire while conducting dismounted patrol operations, officials said.

 

Tharp, 21, was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, out of Fort Hood, Texas.

 

"He'd just gotten over there," Michael Tharp, his stepfather told the Orlando Sentinel. "He was a brilliant kid.  He had high enough test scores to do about anything (in the Army), but he chose the infantry."

 

Michael Tharp found out about the death when a reporter called at his home near the University of Central Florida Friday.

 

"I'm sorry I can't think right now," Tharp said.  "Baghdad?  That's supposed to be the safest place isn't it?"

 

Tharp said he had not seen his stepson since his divorce with Teresa Tharp three years ago.

 

But his stepson did call him before Christmas to say he was leaving for Iraq, Tharp said.

 

Teresa Tharp could not be reached for comment.  Telephone messages left at her home in east Orange County and work were not returned.  She teaches economics at Valencia Community College.

 

Sean Tharp enlisted on May 17, 2005, after talking to Orlando recruiters, the Army said.

 

He grew up on military bases in the United States after his mother and stepfather married when he was 3. Both were career soldiers, Michael Tharp said.

 

Michael Tharp said his stepson dropped out of school in 10th grade while at Edgewater High School in Orlando.

 

"He was just trying to get his life back together.  He'd gotten his GED, and he had been straight for like a year before he went in," Michael Tharp said.  "I think he enlisted to get the bonus money and get college money to go back to school."

 

Sean Tharp was posthumously given the rank of private first class, said Dalena Kanouse, an Army spokeswoman based in Fort Hood, Texas.

 

Indiana County Soldier Killed

 

Mar 26, 2006 Ross Guidotti, Reporting, (KDKA)

 

INDIANA, PA:  A Pennsylvania soldier has been killed in Iraq.

 

Sgt. 1st Class Randy D. McCaulley, 44, of Marion Center, died in Habbaniyah, Iraq on March 23, when his dismounted patrol came under enemy small arms fire during combat operations.

 

McCaulley was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 110th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, based in Indiana, Pa.

 

McCaulley served in the regular Army from 1970 to 1983 and joined the Pennsylvania National Guard in 1984.

 

He was posthumously promoted to the rank of Sergeant First Class and will be awarded the Purple Heart.

 

McCaulley is survived by his parents, James and Donna McCaulley, and his two sons, Cody and Dustin.

 

Memorial services have not been scheduled at this time.

 

McCaulley is the 24th Solider of the Pennsylvania National Guard to be killed in the Global War on Terror.

 

REALLY BAD IDEA:

NO MISSION;

HOPELESS WAR;

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

A U.S. soldier at the scene of a car bombing in Baghdad April 4, 2006.  REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz

 

 

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

 

 

One U.S. Soldier Wounded

 

April 05, 2006 AFP

 

Soldiers serving with the US in central Uruzgan province clashed with "enemy forces", spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts said.

 

One soldier was hurt and evacuated for treatment, he said in a statement today.

 

Resistance Kills Occupation Spy Chief

 

April 05, 2006 AFP

 

TALIBAN militants shot dead a district intelligence chief in southern Afghanistan.

 

Four Taliban on motorbikes opened fire on the spy chief of Moqur district of Ghazni province as he was travelling to work, the provincial police chief said.

 

Yesterday another district intelligence chief, Mohammad Tahir from western Farah province, was also killed by the Taliban as he was going to office.

 

 

TROOP NEWS

 

 

Iraq Combat Veteran Feels “Bushwhacked”

 

From: Mother Of An Iraq Combat Veteran

To: GI Special

Sent: April 05, 2006

 

Having my son burn some DVDs of the song "Bushwhacked" to pass out at our local armory.

 

He liked the words and thought others in the military would as well.

 

To access it go here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12610.htm

 

[“We've been Bushwhacked by a White House war, built on White House lies.”]

 

Wisconsin Towns Vote for Immediate Withdrawal From Iraq:

“I See It Going Down Hill”

 

 

04/05/2006 John Nichols, The Nation.com & abcnews.com

 

In November 2004, the village of Luxemburg, Wisconsin, voted to re-elect George W. Bush by a hefty margin of 701 to 431.   Always a GOP stronghold, the community voted for other Republicans as well, even the challenger to popular Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, who was winning by a landslide statewide.

 

Watertown was one of 32 communities that weighed in, and the town of 23,000 seemed an unlikely hotbed of opposition.  After all, it voted overwhelmingly for President Bush the past two elections.

 

However, more and more folks there are fed up with the fighting --including National Guardsman Rustin Wittenburg, a 25-year-old father of two who will head to Iraq for the first time later this month.

 

"I didn't disagree with it in the beginning," Wittenburg said, "And I kind of do now because I see it going down hill."

 

There's not much question that the majority of the 2,000 residents of this rural northeastern Wisconsin village of well-maintained homes, neat storefronts and large churches think of themselves as old-fashioned Midwestern conservatives.

 

So, by the calculus of the Bush White House and its echo chamber in the national media, Luxemburg ought to be just about the last place in the United States to express doubts about the President's handling of the war in Iraq.

 

And surely, no national pundit would have predicted that the village would vote in favor of a referendum declaring: "Be it hereby resolved, that the Village of Luxemburg urges the United States to begin an immediate withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, beginning with the National Guard and Reserves."

 

Yet on Tuesday, the citizens of Luxemburg did exactly that, endorsing the immediate withdrawal referendum with a clear majority of their votes.  

 

Luxemburg was not the only Wisconsin community that voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 but voted against his war Tuesday.

 

Up the road from Luxemburg, the villages of Casco and Ephraim voted for Bush in 2004 and immediate withdrawal in 2006.  Across the state in northwest Wisconsin, the towns of Ojibwa, Draper and Edgewater, all of which backed Bush two years ago, voted against the war on Tuesday.

 

Their votes came as part of a statewide rejection of the war that saw twenty-four of thirty-two communities where Bring the Troops Home Now referendums were on local ballots vote for withdrawal.

 

Added together, the referendums produced a resounding 40,043 to 25,641 vote against the continued US occupation of Iraq--producing an antiwar margin of 61 percent to 39 percent.

 

Apologists for the war--from the Republican National Committee to conservative talk-radio hosts and Fox TV commentators--are spinning like crazy to suggest that the referendums offer a reflection only of liberal, anti-Bush sentiment in college towns such as Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin.

 

The problem that the spin doctors are running into is that, while the Bring the Troops Home referendum won Madison by a thumping 68-to-32 margin, similar referendums won by a 70-to-30 margin in the well-to-do Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood and by a dramatic 82-to-18 margin in the community of Couderay in rural Sawyer County.

 

"These thirty-two communities were a representative sample of the state, with twenty-two of the thirty-two located in counties that George Bush won in the 2004 election," explained Steve Burns, Program Coordinator of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. "This is yet more evidence of a new antiwar majority in Wisconsin."

 

It was particularly notable that a Bring the Troops Home referendum won in a LaCrosse, the western Wisconsin city where Democratic and Republican presidential candidates--including Bush--have regularly campaigned over the years because the region around it is seen as a bellwether for national politics.  Indeed, despite an aggressive campaign against the withdrawal referendum by LaCrosse County Republicans, the Bring the Troops Home measure won by a solid 55-to-45 margin.

 

It is true that referendums were defeated in eight cities, villages and towns.  But only in two of those communities did the vote for immediate withdrawal fall below 45 percent.

 

 

They bet that they could win the votes not just of liberals but of honest conservatives, and in so doing they secured a message that--for all the attempts to spin it away--cannot be denied.

 

By a wide margin, an honest cross-section of communities in a Midwestern "battleground" state--where Bush and Kerry wrestled to a virtual tie in 2004, and where the House delegation is split between four Democrats and four Republicans--have told Washington that it is time to bring the troops home.

 

 

“Sailors Live Like Prisoners, They Are Treated Like Criminals, And Some Of Them Actually Begin To Believe That They Are”

 

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

 

April 7, 2006

Letters To The Editor

Socialist Worker

 

IN RESPONSE to “U.S. military crimes in Japan” (February 24): The sailors in the 7th fleet face a battle that few know about.  The only time that their situation sees any publication is when one does something extreme, as in the case of Seaman William Oiliver Reese.

 

All it takes is one person of a higher rank to not approve of the attire they have on and they can be denied from even leaving their ships.  These sailors live aboard these ships, in 2.5 foot by 2.5 foot by 6.5 foot “coffin racks” all year long.  They are not even allowed, without special permission, to stay out past midnight.

 

This seaman Reese incident put even further restrictions on these sailors with already low morale. They have made a buddy system a requirement for any alcohol-related activities, and a 3 a.m. all hands curfew.  That curfew greatly restricts sailors.  It is now impossible for anyone living on the ship to leave the port town because trains stop at midnight and don’t start until 5 a.m.

 

So instead of avoiding the place that they are trying to forget, they must stay near it.

 

They must also watch the senior people get away with activities that would land them in cuffs.

 

These young men and women aboard the vessels of the 7th fleet stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, are some of the hardest working people in the Navy.  The USS Kitty Hawk is the only forward deployed aircraft carrier in the Navy.

 

The workweeks that they enjoy in port are between 75 and 98 hours long.  They stabilize more out to sea at about 84 hours. 

 

They get to watch their seniors take leave whenever they want and for as long as they want.  However, they generally get one 14-day period a year to go back and see friends and family at home.

 

The senior people live among their friends and family.

 

It’s a cultural struggle there between people that want to avoid their wives at home and the junior people that just want to forget work for a while.

 

Yet despite all of this, these people are the closest-knit community I’ve ever been among.

 

The junior people aboard these ships watch out for each other and help one another out. Yet they are made out to be criminals by everyone including their bosses whenever it’s possible.  They accomplish tasks in a fraction of the time it would take any other aircraft carrier crew to finish the same revolution.

 

I served aboard that ship for three years.  I am proud to say that I know more people that were of the junior ranks that are of sound moral character than I’ve found in one place any were here back in the states.

 

Those people know and live core values that are only whispered on this side of the ocean: Brotherhood, solidarity, comradery--these are ideals that are the way of life for these people, yet even their superiors want to accuse them of being a group of criminals. Instead of making monsters of them, America should take a moment and look at how they live and learn from them.

 

The chain of command for the ship will continue to punish these people as hard as they can, but they will be fighting a symptom of a bigger problem, not the cause.

 

I’ve yet to know a junior person that has not mentally cracked in some fashion in that place.

 

Sailors live like prisoners, they are treated like criminals, and some of them actually begin to believe that they are, until they finally snap and do something that they regret.

 

Bryan Schaefer,

Former IT2 aboard the USS Kitty Hawk,

St. Louis, Mo.

 

Scotland’s Infantry Losing Battle To Fill Ranks

 

April 04 2006 IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent, Herald & Times

 

Almost three times as many soldiers have left Scotland's infantry regiments in the past year as are currently in training to replace them, The Herald has learned.

 

Less than a week after the formation of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, a leaked report drawn up by the Army's director of infantry shows 233 quit early or were discharged for medical or disciplinary reasons.  A further 170 reached the end of their enlistments and did not sign on for another stint in the ranks.

 

The report also warns that only 156 Scottish recruits are in the immediate pipeline at the infantry training centre at Catterick in Yorkshire and that this figure will be "subject to wastage" between now and July.

 

About 30%, on average, fail to complete the course.  It means up to 50 of those under instruction are likely to drop out, leaving roughly 100 as "draftees" for the individual battalions.

 

Meantime, 403 trained soldiers have already returned to civilian life, despite a £4m television advertising campaign extolling the virtues of belonging to "the Scottish infantry".

 

As The Herald revealed exclusively last month, the RRS is forecast on the Army's own figures to be 600 men under strength – the equivalent of more than a battalion – by the summer.

 

 

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

 

 

Occupation Propaganda Network A Deadly Place To Work

 

April 5, 2006 Huda Ahmed, Knight Ridder Newspapers

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq:  When two employees of government-owned al Iraqia television were killed on assignment a year ago, station managers decided they had to be memorialized. They soon realized, however, that the photo cabinet they'd selected wouldn't be big enough.

 

Now, with 35 dead in the last year and 55 wounded, they're planning to devote a newsroom wall to remembering departed colleagues.

 

How dangerous is it to work for the network?  Even on hot days, soldiers who guard the station cover their faces with ski masks, out of fear that they'll be identified by enemies of the station and hunted down after work.

 

Sahar al Ibrahimi, a TV reporter, has moved her family to escape what she describes as ''terrorists' attacks and threats.''

 

''When we go to restless areas, I try to hide the Iraqia logo, in order not to jeopardize the life of the crew accompanying me,'' she said.

 

Many of the deaths clearly were the work of insurgents who see the station as an extension of the government and American forces.

 

Muhammed Jassim Khudhair, who's second in charge at the pro-government network, notes that they've asked the prime minister's officer to consider murdered network employees as national martyrs, similar to soldiers, which would make their families eligible for special pensions.  Currently, the station pays out about $1,400 per death.

 

Station manager Sayed Habeeb Muhammed Hadi al Sadr thinks that part of the reason for the hostility may be the station's beginnings as an American-funded radio station that expanded into a network under the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled.

 

“Some people call us the Jewish station, some the American station, some the Lebanese station,” he said.

 

Assorted Resistance Action

 

Body found near the bus station April 5, 2006 in Ramadi.  Guerrillas killed a police recruit for collaborator forces nearby the bus terminal in Ramadi, and left his body with his recruitment card pinned to his chest with a rock.  (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

 

 

 

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

 

 

“The Soldiers Felt That Takatori Was Not Being Beaten Alone.

“The Officer Was Doing It To Intimidate Them.  Their Faces Darkened”

 

MILITARIZED STREETS, a fact-based novel researched in China, was banned by the Japanese imperial government in 1930 and censored by the US occupation authorities in 1945.

 

According to a prominent literary historian, Donald Keene, “it may well be the most absorbing work to have been fostered by the proletarian literature movement.”

 

A full translation by Zeljko Cipris from the Japanese will be found in Denji Kuroshima, A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings, published by the University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

 

***********************************************

 

The scene: Tsinan (Jinan), China

 

Time: spring 1928, during a Japanese military intervention

 

Author: Denji Kuroshima (1898-1943), a soldier in Japan’s imperial army during the Siberian Intervention who became a lifelong antimilitarist and anti-imperialist

 

 

Chapter 30

 

Morning after the next: six o’clock.  The continent-scorching day was already beginning.

 

The soldiers lined up in the corner of the match factory’s poplar wood storage house.

 

The sensitive Lieutenant Shigefuji fixed his attention on the expressions of the men who seemed to be avoiding their superior’s direct gaze.

 

He saw unrest, loss of morale, reluctance, irresolution.  For a long time he had been aware of a dangerous atmosphere brewing among the men.  Immediately he had thought of someone hiding in the shadows and plotting something!

 

The brave, simple, emotional Shigefuji possessed an acute talent for intuitively perceiving the needs and instincts of the soldiers he was managing.  

 

This sense let him know when the soldiers were surreptitiously doing something behind his back -- something of a bad nature.

 

Clearly they had grown disloyal.

 

Takatori had struck a factory supervisor, resorting to violence so that the workers would get all their wages.

 

Since then at least five or six soldiers had lost the ability to distinguish between arriving at the front to fight for their country and coming here to join workers in committing outrageous acts.

 

Among them it was especially Takatori he was keeping an eye on. All the more so as many of the soldiers found Takatori’s statements appealing.  The lieutenant knew that too.  There had to be a reason for it!

 

The special-duty sergeant major in charge of personnel had noticed this too.

 

The sergeant major was gravely concerned that the men might be conspiring with the Chinese communists.  But Shigefuji made light of the matter.  

 

He was convinced that whatever they set out to do, as ordinary soldiers they were incapable of accomplishing much.  

 

Noticing the unrest, unease, and a certain lack of pride in the eyes of the lined-up soldiers, he was swift to attribute the cause to the scheming by Takatori and his ilk.

 

He resolved to break them this very day.  There would be countless casualties.  They would commit a major blunder!  He frowned.

 

Having rewound his leggings, Takatori, dragging his shoes, was trying to fall into line after everyone else.  The officer drew close to him.  From the side, he struck him a hard blow on the cheek.  He did it deliberately in such a way that all the soldiers could see it.

 

“Hey, Takatori!  Don’t loaf!”

 

“...”

 

“You don’t like serving your country?  Those who don’t are traitors.”  And he struck him three more times.  “Is that clear?”

 

“...”

 

Takatori’s eyes were jutting from their sockets and burning as if about to lunge forward.  He had no idea why he had suddenly been hit.  The lieutenant did not like the way Takatori was staring at him.  He could not tolerate an insolent attitude.

 

“Watch it!  If you don’t shape up, you’ll be sorry!” he shouted.

 

“What have I done?”

 

“Watch it! Cut it out, Takatori!”  He rattled his sword.  “I can see right through you.  I know exactly what you’re up to.  You have no idea what a terrible thing you’re doing.”

 

“I’m not doing anything.”

 

For an instant, Takatori hesitated.  But instantly he fixed the lieutenant with his shining eyes.

 

“Quit it!” Shigefuji said solemnly. “I know everything!”

 

“Know what?”

 

As an enlisted soldier he had been hit a number of times in the past.  He had been kicked.  He had been beaten with the sword enough to bend it.  Countless times he had endured it.  Other men had received much the same treatment.  

 

“What are we actually being made to do?  To wring our own necks!  Nothing less!  Soldiers are the most good-natured fools in existence.”

 

The soldiers felt that Takatori was not being beaten alone.  They were all being beaten. The officer was doing it to intimidate them.  Their faces darkened.

 

Like an accurate barometer, the sensitive Shigefuji soon noticed it. His eyes registered the soldiers’ growing agitation and strange restlessness.  If he continued the beating, it would achieve the opposite effect from that intended.  The entire unit would be affected. And his tone of voice betrayed this awareness.  Takatori looked up and tried to say something.  The lieutenant cut him off.

 

“What on earth are you men starting to think of?  Eh?  Just what kind of things are running through your mind?”

 

“We don’t want to do all this work just to be harassed.”

 

“Hmm... He doesn’t want to be harassed, he says.” The officer deliberately twisted the soldier’s words. “In that case, obey orders properly!  If you just obey orders, everything will be fine.”

 

Shigefuji pushed it no further.

 

Intrepid as he was, he was outnumbered.

 

Glancing at the soldiers’ expressions, he held his tongue.

 

From his experience of handling soldiers he knew he must never show the slightest doubt that his orders might not be obeyed.  Before the men an officer had to display absolute conviction that his orders would be carried out without question.  He understood this was essential.  And this is the stance he took.

 

He was far from satisfied with Takatori’s attitude.  Nevertheless, acting as if he were through with the admonition, he drew himself up to his full height and faced the line of soldiers.

 

[Thanks to the brother who sends in these selections.  To be continued.  T)

 

 

 

“The Sectarian Violence Is Being Directed By Competing Political Elites Under The Rubric Of Occupation”

 

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

 

April 4, 2006 Lenin's tomb [Excerpt]

 

The civil war scenario hawked by many, both opponents and supporters of the occupation, misses something important: the sectarian violence is being directed by competing political elites under the rubric of occupation.

 

What is happening in Iraq is not 'civil war' (yet), or simply some incomprehensible kind of randomly violent chaos.

 

In this situation, various groups are struggling for power and patronage, others are struggling for equity, and some are struggling for their very existence.

 

It is the occupation which has to be overcome in the immediate term, and fighting the occupation also means fighting the germinal indigenous ruling class which is allied to it.

 

Resisting sectarianism means resisting the splitting tactics of the new political elites, particularly those most allied with the occupation.

 

“This Obscene Military Budget Inflation Has Been A Bipartisan Effort”

 

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

 

April 7, 2006 Socialist Worker [Excerpt]

 

TODD CHRETIEN is the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate from California, running against Dianne Feinstein, and a member of the International Socialist Organization.  Here, he explains the alternative to Washington’s war on the world.

 

THE U.S. government spent $2.25 trillion last year, not counting Social Security.

 

This pile of dollar bills could be laid out end to end and stretch from the earth to the sun and back, and still have enough left over to get to Mars.

 

According to the War Resisters League, about half of this eye-popping sum goes to military spending.

 

The League arrives at this figure by adding the official Pentagon budget for 2006 ($450 billion), plus the “supplemental” funds that Congress granted for the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq ($120 billion), plus the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons maintenance and development costs ($17 billion), plus veterans’ benefits ($76 billion), plus the portion of federal debt interest payments accrued from past military spending (at least $275 billion), plus another $10-20 billion from various federal departments that goes toward military costs.

 

 

By way of comparison, China spent $35 billion on its military last year.  Since the former USSR collapsed in 1991, U.S. military spending has increased by over 50 percent.

 

By and large, this obscene military budget inflation has been a bipartisan effort, with the parties squabbling over this or that high-tech system, and this or that base closure.

 

 

 

OCCUPATION REPORT

 

 

Collaborator Won’t Collaborate:

Iraq PM Tells Bush & Blair To Go Fuck Themselves

 

April 5, 2006 Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, The Guardian

 

Iraq's embattled prime minister has defiantly refused to give up his claim to head the country's next government in spite of strong American and British pleas for an end to a deadlock which has paralysed the country for almost four months.

 

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in Baghdad - his first since Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw pleaded with him and his rivals for an immediate agreement to prevent a slide to civil war - Ibrahim Jaafari insisted he would continue to carry out his duties.

 

"I heard their points of view even though I disagree with them," he said, referring to Ms Rice and Mr Straw's hectic arm-twisting visit to the Iraqi capital which ended on Monday.

 

Using the argument that the US and Britain had toppled Saddam in order to bring democracy, he turned it against them. "There is a decision that was reached by a democratic mechanism and I stand with it ... We have to protect democracy in Iraq and it is democracy which should decide who leads Iraq. We have to respect our Iraqi people," he said.

 

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;

RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS

US Military Police stop and search Iraqi citizens April 4, 2006, in Baghdad.  (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

 

[Fair is fair.  Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA.  They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses with force and violence, overthrow the government, put a new one in office they like better and call it “sovereign,” and “detain” anybody who doesn’t like it in some prison without any charges being filed against them, or any trial.]

 

[Those Iraqis are sure a bunch of backward primitives.  They actually resent this help, have the absurd notion that it’s bad their country is occupied by a foreign military dictatorship, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to grab their country.  What a bunch of silly people.  How fortunate they are to live under a military dictatorship run by George Bush.  Why, how could anybody not love that?  You’d want that in your home town, right?]

 

 

 

 

How Bad Is It?

 

 

March 28, 2006 Riverbend.blogspot.com [Excerpts]

 

Uncertainty...

 

I sat late last night switching between Iraqi channels (the half dozen or so I sometimes try to watch).  It’s a late-night tradition for me when there’s electricity- to see what the Iraqi channels are showing.  Generally speaking, there still isn’t a truly ‘neutral’ Iraqi channel.  The most popular ones are backed and funded by the different political parties currently vying for power.  This became particularly apparent during the period directly before the elections.

 

I paused on the Sharqiya channel which many Iraqis consider to be a reasonably toned channel (and which during the elections showed its support for Allawi in particular). I was reading the little scrolling news headlines on the bottom of the page.

 

The usual- mortar fire on an area in Baghdad, an American soldier killed here, another one wounded there… 12 Iraqi corpses found in an area in Baghdad, etc.

 

Suddenly, one of them caught my attention and I sat up straight on the sofa, wondering if I had read it correctly.

 

E. was sitting at the other end of the living room, taking apart a radio he later wouldn’t be able to put back together. I called him over with the words, “Come here and read this- I’m sure I misunderstood…”

 

He stood in front of the television and watched the words about corpses and Americans and puppets scroll by and when the news item I was watching for appeared, I jumped up and pointed. E. and I read it in silence and E. looked as confused as I was feeling.

 

The line said:

 

الى عدم الانصياع لاوامر دوريات الجيش والشرطة

وزارة الدفاع تدعو المواطنين الليلية اذا لم تكن برفقة قوات التحالف العاملة في تلك المنطقة

 

The translation:

 

 

That’s how messed up the country is at this point.

 

We switched to another channel, the “Baghdad” channel (allied with Muhsin Abdul Hameed and his group) and they had the same news item, but instead of the general “coalition forces” they had “American coalition forces”.

 

We checked two other channels. Iraqiya (pro-Da’awa) didn’t mention it and Forat (pro-SCIRI) also didn’t have it on their news ticker.

 

We discussed it today as it was repeated on another channel.

 

“So what does it mean?”  My cousin’s wife asked as we sat gathered at lunch.

 

“It means if they come at night and want to raid the house, we don’t have to let them in.” I answered.

 

“They’re not exactly asking your permission,” E. pointed out. “They break the door down and take people away- or have you forgotten?”

 

“Well according to the Ministry of Defense, we can shoot at them, right?  It’s trespassing-they can be considered burglars or abductors…” I replied.

 

The cousin shook his head, “If your family is inside the house- you’re not going to shoot at them.  They come in groups, remember?  They come armed and in large groups- shooting at them or resisting them would endanger people inside of the house.”

 

“Besides that, when they first attack, how can you be sure they DON’T have Americans with them?” E. asked.

 

We sat drinking tea, mulling over the possibilities.

 

It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties.

 

But it also brings to light other worrisome issues.

 

The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other.  The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forces”.

 

All of this directly contradicts claims by Bush and other American politicians that Iraqi troops and security forces are in control of the situation.  Or maybe they are in control- just not in a good way.

 

 

 

“The Downward Slide Seems Particularly Steep”

 

March 31, 2006 Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, The Guardian [Excerpt]

 

For Iraqis in Baghdad, duck and cover is already a metaphor for daily life. On each of the seven visits I have made here since Saddam Hussein was toppled, security conditions have worsened.  The downward slide since my previous trip for the December elections seems particularly steep.

 

Iraqis who work for the government or have jobs in the Green Zone are especially vulnerable. Soldiers in the national army and policemen usually go home in civilian clothes. Some dare not tell their families, let alone their neighbours, what their jobs are.

 

The pavements outside the American embassy here are peppered with odd concrete structures.  They look like oversized kennels, about four feet high and six feet long, with a low wall at each end. Painted on them, large letters explain their purpose - duck and cover.

 

This is deep inside the well-guarded Green Zone, but if mortar rounds start to fall as you walk or drive by, these pygmy bunkers are where you and up to 10 people can squeeze in and crouch until the coast is clear.

 

Like the iconic image of the last helicopter leaving the roof of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975 with terrified people struggling to clamber aboard, these ugly shelters may eventually achieve similar symbolic status.

 

So Much For Bush’s Happy Talk About A “New Iraq”

 

March 26, 2006 By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, The New York Times [Excerpts]

 

I GOT back to Iraq two weeks ago, having been away more than a year.  The first story I covered began with a tip that vigilantes had hanged four suspected terrorists from lamp posts in Sadr City, a Shiite slum.  The minute I got to the scene, I realized I was stepping into a new Iraq. Another new Iraq, really; maybe even the third Iraq I have seen since I began reporting here in 2003.

 

Gone were the American tanks that used to guard the intersections.

 

Instead, aggressive teenagers with machine guns and shiny soccer jerseys ruled the streets.  They poked their heads into cars and detained whomever they wanted.

 

Mass murder used to provoke some form of official reaction, however feeble. I remember seeing the Iraqi police seal off areas after big bomb attacks and poke around for evidence.  Now, there are major crimes with no crime scenes.

 

If this all sounds depressing, it is.  That's how people here feel.  I've been looking hard, but in two weeks I haven't found an Iraqi optimist.  [Obviously he hasn’t interviewed anybody from the resistance.]

 

In the summer of 2004, I profiled a band of young artists who braved dangerous roads to get away from Baghdad and paint pretty pictures of the Tigris River. Now, they're homebound. 

 

There is a similar sense of newfound hopelessness in the faces of the Iraqis I work with.

 

Everyone has guns.  We interviewed an educated woman who rides the bus with a loaded Glock pistol in her lap.

 

 

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK