This is the entire documentary by BIll Moyers about how the U.S. press corp dealt with the run up to the War In Iraq. For anyone interested, or to those who should be, this is a good watch. Check it out, its for free! Just click on the title.
I am listening to Orrin Hatch, Senator of Utah on the floor of the United States Senate.
He is blaming the American people if we lose in Iraq. If we lose our "resolve." So he is blaming you and me.
You and I didnt send enough troops to provide safety and security to a country we had the obligation under international treaties to protect.
You and I sent the troops to Iraq ill equipped and lacking sufficient body armor and armored Humvees.
You and I disbanded the Iraqi Army and fired thousands of teachers.
You and I protected the Oil fields, turned our backs on rampant looting.
You and I know very well Stuff Happens.
You and I invaded a foreign nation with no intelligence about that country and the state of the infrastructure. Indeed, we invaded this country with almost no human intelligence.
You and I invaded this country because Saddam Hussein, as Cheney said, simply stated is amassing weapons of mass destruction to use against America and its friends.
You and I will have lost this War, according to the Republicans in Congress.
Poor Sancho
I was just listening to a briefing for reporters at the Pentagon by General Petraeus, the top general in Iraq, and he addressed this notion of an acceptable level of violence in Iraq.
By this they mean that life could get back to normal, shops open, kids playing, yet these specatular car bombs may continue.
I understand that every society accepts some violence. There are hundreds of murders in most big cities in the U.S. Yet I can still walk the steeets and feel safe, as President Bush noted the other night. Compare an American city violence to Baghdad. Is he serious? Did he say that?
So that is where we are at now in Iraq. One of the standards supporters of the war will cite now is, well the amusement parks are open and some guy is watering his soccer field despite the suicide car bomb that killed 180 people on the other side of town.
How many car bombs is peace? How many car bombs is acceptable?
So the plan for safety and security in Iraq makes room for a few car bombs here and there.
Could you imagine if the President told us that a couple Oklahoma City bombings once in a while isnt so bad. The Mall of America is still open, after all.
Does anyone listen to what these people actually say?
Poor Sancho
I am getting sick and tired of hearing people say the surge is working in Iraq because the "enemy" is hitting hard back.
Or that the fact that U.S. casualties has risen, in many cases above that of the Iraqi Army, makes the case that the War is being won and the new strategy has been successful.
This one gets me mad: The surge is working and the War is being won because the number of mutilated corpses has dropped from a flood to a stream. And most officers one hears from in the news say it is more because the militias have stood down rather than from the modest increase of U.S. troops in Baghdad.
I thought the objective of the surge was to give the Iraqi government breathing space to start the reconcialation process. If that is the case, where has been the Iraqi goverment on this score? The parliament rarely meets with a quorum. They pass no meaningful legislation. None of the so called benchmarks have been met, not that I even know what they are, since they are never discussed publicly.
I was watching on TV the other day and Ian Paisley, the leader of the Protestants in Northern Ireland, and Gerry Adams, the leader of the Catholics, can barely even have a civil exchange after over 30 years of fighting and bloodshed. And the issue being discussed was the formation of a unity government to replace British rule. Sound familiar.
Another thing that sounds familiar are these walls being built around neighborhoods to separate Baghdadis. They call these "peace lines." These walls went up in the 1970's and yet still remain. Seperate to bring together. Makes sense.
Now think of the current situation in Iraq. The same amount of civilians killed in the Troubles equals the monthly death toll for Iraqis.
So all these experts on foreign affairs and retired military guys keep saying give this surge a couple months to work and bring the parties together. What world have they been living in? So, in the fall, the Sunnis and Shias and Kurds will all come to a safe and secure Baghdad and shake hands and end a Civil War that is killing on average 1000-2000 innocent Iraqis a month? And all these people have been killed even with the additional troops in Iraq? Is that what they are saying?
Furthermore, all these experts say that the surge is supposed to bring back some semblance of normalcy to Iraq. I was wondering what reality would they base that normalcy on? Life under Saddam? Life in Baghdad pre Baath party rule? The long ago days of the Salah al-Din?
Poor Sancho
This new tactic of selectively compiling biometric data of Iraqis as part of the new operation to wall off and establish checkpoints for some of the most restive neighborhoods of Baghdad almost got by me in this article.
I understand here in America fingerprinting for things like a new job is common practice, but this exceeds that limited scope.
This operation gives the appearance, rightly or not, of forcing citizens of a democracy to submit to random tracking as if they were cattle on a farm. Thats the way it looks like to me.
I understand the logic behind the plan to track residents and seperate the criminals from the law abiding citizens, but it just seems to me to be another one of these things the U.S. does that makes more enemies than it vanquishes.
If the cops came to my neighborhood and said crime is up so Ill need your fingerprints and eyescan to cross the street, I would say go screw yourself.
This is why we invaded that country, to wall them in and tag them like steer?
Excerpt from:
'Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged
U.S. Tries High Walls and High Tech To Bring Safety to Parts of Baghdad
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007; A01
BAGHDAD
In some sealed-off areas, troops armed with biometric scanning devices will compile a neighborhood census by recording residents' fingerprints and eye patterns and will perhaps issue them special badges, military officials said. At least 10 Baghdad neighborhoods are slated to become or already are gated communities, said Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, the deputy commander of American forces in Baghdad.
The tactic is part of the two-month-old U.S. and Iraqi counterinsurgency plan to calm sectarian strife and is loosely modeled after efforts in cities such as Tall Afar and Fallujah, where the military says it has curbed violence by strictly controlling access. The gated communities concept has produced mixed results in previous wars -- including failure in Vietnam, where peasants were forcibly moved to fortified hamlets, only to become sympathizers of the insurgency.
Is this what leadership looks like? Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki has ordered the wall being built by the U.S. military to be removed.
In my opinion this is exaclty the kind of thing I want to be seeing from the Iraqis. How could the American military not have foreseen this outcry? Are they that out of touch with the needs and wants of the Iraqis?
This is a prime example of the folly that the U.S. military is involved with in Iraq. Building barriers to seperate neighborhoods when the goal of the new operation is to build security so the sides could come CLOSER together.
I am not very confident in the ability of the United States bridge to a religious divide withing Iraq based on this most current example of bad decisions made by senior leadership of the Bush Administration.
Poor Sancho
following is a part of an article from the NYT. The whole halting of building the wall isnt quite as clear as I thought...
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: April 22, 2007
BAGHDAD, April 22 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Sunday that he was ordering a halt to construction of a wall that would blockade a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad from other areas, saying it reminded people of “other walls.”
The announcement, which he made in Cairo while on a state visit, appeared intended to allay mounting criticism from both Sunni Arab and Shiite parties about the project. “I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop,” Mr. Maliki told reporters during a joint news conference with the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.
“There are other methods to protect neighborhoods,” he said.
A spokesman for the American military, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, said the military would remain “in a dialogue” with the Iraqi government about how best to protect citizens. The military did not say whether the wall’s construction would be halted.
Mr. Maliki did not specify in his remarks what other walls he referred to, but the separation barrier in the West Bank being erected by Israel, which protects Israel but greatly inconveniences Palestinians, is a particularly sensitive issue among Arabs.
In Baghdad, the wall would surround the Adamiya neighborhood, a Sunni Arab enclave bordered by Shiite areas. The Sunni neighborhood often comes under mortar attack from those neighborhoods. But Adamiya has also been a stronghold of militant Sunni Arab groups and the wall would have helped the Iraqi security forces control their movements.
The United States military has begun building walls in Baghdad to seperate Sunnis and Shiites in an attempt to stem the endless intranacine bloodshed.
The first of these walls is being built to enclose the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adhamiya,one of the most violent of Baghdads districts.
This is another development in the War that you will probably not hear very much from the people like the President. This is not the part of the story Bush wants you to hear.
So we are now walling off neighborhoods from each other, creating check points on each block that effectively cut off one part of the capital city from another.
Is this what Bush calls breathing space for the Iraqis? This is the plan to bring the warring sects together to work on national reconcialiation? Does any of this seem counterintuiitive to you?
We are going to bring the Sunnis and the Shi'as together by seperating them?
And then to top it all off, Bush says this, just to remind himself that he is GW
"the men who attacked Iraqis … swear allegiance to the same network" that assaulted the United States on 9/11."
"This was hardly a random act of murder," Bush said of the explosions in Baghdad. "It has all the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda attack. The terrorists bombed … at rush hour with a specific intent to kill as many people as possible."
I just wish the President would actually be honest with the American people and talk about things like this wall being built.
So this is why we invaded Iraq? To seperate the capital city into neighborhood fiefdoms? Does that sound like Democracy?
And what happens to these "gated communities" when the United States leaves Iraq, which Mr. Bush has promised to the
American people?
Is this really a plan?
From Check Point Baghdad Newsweek Magazine
Some Iraqis are puzzled by these extreme reactions. "My mother was so touched [by the Virginia Tech shooting] that I could swear she shed a tear when we saw this on the news. I think it makes Iraqis sad to see such brutal acts anywhere in the world. I can't even imagine that someone would find this a payback for the American people," says Thair Sami, a 36-year-old dentist. "It's sad that people even in a place like the United States can't find a way other than violence to solve problems. Which actually makes me very pessimistic. If this is how people solve their problems in the U.S. then so much for the national reconciliation in Iraq."
Pictures not often seen by Americans, unless you look. I am sorry I have to show dead bodies, but that is what happens in War. These photos were taken in Baghdad Wednesday April 18 2007.
Ali al-Saadi/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images
Rahim Rahim Karim Hmait, a 43-year-old taxi driver, said he tried to evacuate several wounded people to the hospital. But as he approached an army patrol at high speed, soldiers, perhaps thinking he was a suicide bomber, opened fire on his taxi. He was hit in the abdomen, leg and hand.
“I lost control and the car smashed into one of the shops,” he said in an interview at a hospital in Sadr City, where he was taken for care. “Some of the wounded people died inside the car.”
excerpt from By KIRK SEMPLE NYT-4-18-07
Cant say it is very funny, but I guess I wasnt the only one to think of the terrible events at Virginia Tech in the context of Iraq.
Treasure of Baghdad made me think today. This video did the same.
My thoughts were stirred from this exchange he and I had concerning the news we get here in the U.S. and the reality of Iraq for Iraqis. It is great that these people overcoming extraordianry circumstances are being highlighted and praised, rightfully so. But it just occurred to me we should be hearing stories by now about a 10 story tall library in Baghdad. Of the newly remodeled Baghdad University library. All with the newest volumes and rows of computers.
Is there even a Baghdad Library? I honestly dont know. If there was one my guess is it was looted, burned and never rebuilt.
We should be hearing about shy young men and women and traditional Arab or Islamic dating practices, not the harrowing experiences from the kids at Hometown Baghdad.
I know that sounds naive I guess. But it honestly just occurred to me. We have no idea what the hell is going on over there, the American people I mean.
Here is the exchange
Poor Sancho said...
The more I read and learn about average Iraqis like these guys gives me confidence in the future of Iraq.
We always hear that the news does not portray the "good" news from Iraq. I am not sure exactly what is a good news story, but I would count these guys as good news for Iraq.
Treasure of Baghdad said...
Yes, Sancho. But have you noticed how they are thinking of leaving Iraq fearing death? What is good in this mass immigration?
Iraq is left in the hands of criminals and clerics who day by day force the educated and elites to leave the country so that they can do whatever they like.
Can you believe that insurgents kidnapped the son of the chair of the department of my college, beheaded him and sent his head in a box to the professor?!! Do you hear such news on the American "independent" and "free" media?!! The aim was to hurt the professor, not the son. They made him flee Iraq with a broken heart. Can you imagine that? in a box?
So should we arrest the kid who blew his head off after killing 32 innocent students and teachers? That has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever him say.
How are we supposed to crack down on a dead guy with no head?
That just pissed me off.
Article from my friend Treasure of Baghdad. To me it shows what havoc fear and isolation can sow upon children.
When my sister and I were talking the other day about my niece, she broke my heart on something she told me, which chilled my entire spine and let my tears loose. My niece has started crying when she wakes up in the morning.
A few weeks ago, my sister heard my niece crying in her room a few minutes after her father went to work. She ran quickly to her room seeing her weeping in her bed. She held her and tried to comfort her but she didn’t stop. She went crying more as my sister held her. She took her to the living room and brought her all her favorite dolls and toys but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even touch them. She played a Sesame Street DVD for her but she didn’t look at it. She kept crying. Desperate, my sister took her outside to the backyard. As her feet stepped on the garden’s grass, she started jumping and running here and there with her tears drying gradually on her delicate cheeks. “She was depressed,” my sister told me. “She wanted to be outside the house. We barely go out these days.”
My heart sank thinking about how my 17-months old niece felt imprisoned in her house. She is one of the hundreds of thousands of children imprisoned in their houses, unable to enjoy their childhood. The last time my sister said they went to an amusement park and zoo was last month where she said they took the risk for the sake of this little girl. She told me how she was absolutely happy to see the animals at the zoo as she was jumping, carrying her red and purple balloons. She said they can’t go frequently there because one car bomb or a suicide bomber would be enough to turn their life into a tragedy.
Now my worries do not only include fear of death for my family, but also the trauma that this war is going to leave on this little girl. USA Today published a very good article about how 70 percent of Iraqi children are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which ironically, I don’t believe it’s a “post” disorder since they are still going through the same horror every single day.
Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks. © USA Today
What will happen to her in the future? How is she going to deal with her childhood deprivation in the future? What kind of a child she is going to be being deprived of even enjoying the slide on the weekend? What kind of child she is going to be being imprisoned inside her house all day unable to be among children in her age? What will she say when she grows up and talks about her childhood? So many questions are in my mind but there is no answer to any one of them.
And as usual, the elected Iraqi government has no solutions for anything. Their recklessness to this situation has become as damaging as what the insurgents and militias are doing against the people of this country. Every time someone asks them about something, they use the phrase “security situation”.
The Iraqi government is aware of the problem but largely unequipped to address
it, said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman. "Until we have proper security
in Baghdad, there's not much we can do to help these children," Al-Dabbagh said
in Washington. © USA Today
I don’t know when this security situation is going to be improved. Maybe when there will be no more Iraqis in Iraq!
I have been following the War in Iraq very closely, and as a result I have become numb to horrific news. I will admit this one has shocked me.
If you can imagine this happening every other day, week after week, month upon month, year over year. To talk to your friends and no one can figure out why this happened. To shake your head and ask why?
Imagine waking up every other day with this story. Maybe for a half a second you can empathise with the Iraqis.
Adel tours a dangerous neighborhood armed with only a camera.
Hometown Baghdad was shot by an all-Iraqi crew and tells the stories of three young people trying to survive in Baghdad.
To view all videos in this series, go to www.youtube.com/chattheplanet
Please rate and comment on the videos. And please subscribe to our channel to see more videos in the Hometown Baghdad series. Our brave Iraqi cast and crew risked their lives to make this series. So please help us make sure the world listens by helping us spread the videos. Embed them to your site, email them around, favorite them.
And visit www.hometownbaghdad.com to learn more about the series and to leave comments for the cast members
Joe Raedle/Getty
BAGHDAD, IRAQ - APRIL 15: School children watch as U.S. Army soldiers of the B-CO 2/325 AIR 82nd Airborne Division climb to the roof of their school to get a high vantage point April 15, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq.
Joe Raedle/Getty
BAGHDAD, IRAQ - APRIL 16: U.S. Army Sergeant Chris Reed from Sanford, Florida of the B-CO 2/325 AIR 82nd Airborne Division buys food from a merchant during a patrol April 16, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq
Don Quixote CHAPTER VIII
Blessed be Allah the all-powerful!" says Hamete Benengeli on beginning this eighth chapter; "blessed be Allah!" he repeats three times; and he says he utters these thanksgivings at seeing that he has now got Don Quixote and Sancho fairly afield, and that the readers of his delightful history may reckon that the achievements and humours of Don Quixote and his squire are now about to begin; and he urges them to forget the former chivalries of the ingenious gentleman and to fix their eyes on those that are to come, which now begin on the road to El Toboso, as the others began on the plains of Montiel; nor is it much that he asks in consideration of all he promises, and so he goes on to say:
Don Quixote and Sancho were left alone, and the moment Samson took his departure, Rocinante began to neigh, and Dapple to sigh, which, by both knight and squire, was accepted as a good sign and a very happy omen; though, if the truth is to be told, the sighs and brays of Dapple were louder than the neighings of the hack, from which Sancho inferred that his good fortune was to exceed and overtop that of his master, building, perhaps, upon some judicial astrology that he may have known, though the history says nothing about it; all that can be said is, that when he stumbled or fell, he was heard to say he wished he had not come out, for by stumbling or falling there was nothing to be got but a damaged shoe or a broken rib; and, fool as he was, he was not much astray in this.
Iraqis collect metal and plastic objects at a rubbish dump in Baghdad on April 12. Municipal dustmen no longer venture into some areas, such as Saidiyah, due to fear. Overflowing rubbish dumps and people setting fire to rubbish are a common sight in Baghdad.
(AHMAD AL-RUBAYE, AFP/Getty Images)
Interview with Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan who was in the Parliament buildings cafateria inside the Green Zone on Thursday when it was struck by a suicide bomber, killing Mohammed Awad, a moderate Sunni lawmaker as he ate his lunch. Mr. Raghavan was within feet of the explosion and was sitting in an adjacent table to the lawmaker
Video of the Attack
News report from Dubai, as well as Al Jazeera concerning the cowardly destruction of the Sarafiya Bridge in Baghdad.
British Major-General Stanley Maude enters Baghdad in March 11, 1917, capturing the province of Mesopotamia from the Ottoman Empire. (NYT)
If History tells us anything, it tells us to, well, look at history. A recent article by Hugh Dellios in the Chicago Tribune analysing the British occupation of Iraq in the post World War I years demonstrates this motto better than anything I have seen or heard since the War in Iraq began. Indeed, it is one of the best analysis of the United States occupation of Iraq I have yet seen. I encourage anyone interested in the War in Iraq to read this article.
Donate your old digital cameras to young artists in Afghanistan
via
AFGHAN COMMUNICATOR
An Art & Culture Organization
Flushing, NY
http://www.AfghanCommunicator.com
email Rameen Javid
office@afghancommunicator.com
They need them by Friday, 20 April, 2007
to quote Rameen:
This summer, we are taking two Afghan artists to Afghanistan to conduct art workshops and raise the level of art. However, teaching skills alone can only go so far; thus we want to provide them with equipment and supplies so that they can practice what they have learned. Working with five art agencies in Afghanistan, our budget is very tight, thus we cannot afford to buy digital cameras and other equipment. We also hope to build the photography department at Herat University.
Therefore we are asking you to please donate your digital cameras, tripods, and other portable art-related items, including mat cutting boards for framing, portfolios to protect art, and brushes. More expensive technical items that are needed include memory cards, mini dvd video camera, mini dvd tapes, laptops, projectors and related software.
Newscast from the Middle East looking back at 4 years of War in Iraq. Check it out. Gives you a different perspective.
By Jeff Danziger
In reaction to former campaign strategist Matthew Dowd criticizing George Bush and his handling of the Iraq War, the official talking point from the White House has been to rebuke Mr. Dowd as emotionally unstable because his son is deploying to Iraq.The New York Times had a good editorial pointing out this distasteful and insulting political tactic. 
Mike Luckovich. No explanation needed.
I was watching a speech by President Bush the other day and was dumbstruck when he was offering analysis on the War in Iraq and had this to say:
"it's not a civil war, it is pure evil. And I believe we have an obligation to protect ourselves from that evil."
I am curious what an average Iraqi thinks of that statement? Surely the President was not intending to paint all Iraqis under arms to be "pure evil?" Every General or reputable prognosticator recognizes the militias, and the Shi'ite militias at that to be the greatest threat and deterrent to peace and stability in Iraq. Has Mr. Bush noticed that the Shi'ite militias and the political parties that back them are what is holding the fragile Iraqi coalition government together?
That is not to discount the foreign elements such as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the massive car bombs and suicide vests bombers they can deploy. But by all accounts, these compromise less than 10 percent of the overall insurgency.
It appeared for a short while after the elections in November that the language of President Bush and his minions had changed to a more sober, realistic tone rather than the black or white rosy scenarios they have proffered to the American people.
I am becoming more and more frustrated, again, at this disconnect between the rhetoric in Washington by President Bush versus the reality of constant car bombings, sectarian killings and deaths of U.S. service personell. I honestly do not understand this disconnect. It has that sound of politicking, sloganeering that the American people seem to have grown so tired of that they simply ignore his comments.
It would seem honest, forthright, bold assessments by the President as apposed to the old and worn out happy talk about "makin progress" would buy the Generals more time to do whatever that can do at this point to save Iraq from the abyss.
Senator John McCain stated the “surge” or escalation of troops in Iraq is working and that it is safe for Americans to walk around Baghdad. To back up this claim Mr. McCain and several GOP lawmakers took a vacation to the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, finding enough time to commandeer 100 U.S. troops and 4 combat helicopters from the War on Terror to go bargain rug shopping in flak jackets with sniper teams keeping watch.
Mr Mcain claims the media is not presenting all the good news out of Iraq, or that they are reporting the news from 3 months ago. The Senator believes the “surge” has been successful, though he offers very little in the way of hard evidence, rather anecdotal evidence such as he could drive in a heavily armored convoy instead of taking a helicopter from the airport. Is that progress or an indication of how difficult it will be to attain any real progress?
The Senator fails to mention the 2000 Iraqi citizens killed from violence in March. Think of that. Or the daily tally of car bombs and the random killings by people dressed in police uniforms.
Mr. McCain’s comments and ensuing ditch digging are prime examples of why the American people have tuned out the War in Iraq and have no confidence in the leaders that got America in this mess.
Wait we have Rep. Pence of Indiana saying “The Shorja market, was "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summer time.” Is he serious?
