Free Iraq

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An email from a friend:

"What is certain from the information we have (see the different 'official' versions of this massacre then scroll to under the two pictures for the eye-witness story) is that processions of Arab shiite tribes were walking (as part of the Ashoora tradition) to Najaf: The Hawatim and The Khazael. Both tribes are known for their Arab national and patriotic positions. Khazael for example had played an important role in supporting Iraq's position toward Palastine in 1948.

Had they the intention to attack the Hawza symbols in Najaf? I cannot be affirmative but there is a story from inside iraq saying that they have demanded that all Iranians in the Hawza are to leave Najaf.

Were they Mahdists? This may be a simple propaganda to isolate them among other shiites and in the eyes of the outside world.

In any event, this massacre is of great significance.

First: There were many indications and information that the Hakim-Maliki-Sistani alliance is becoming very isolated among the Arab shiite tribes and cities throught central and southern Iraq. For a while, Saddr (in Arabic) was an alternative but since he participated in the elections, returned recently to rejoin the parliment after demanding a scheduled withdrawal of occupation forces while his followers participate in wide spread attacks against the sunnis, he is losing his influence among Iraqi shiites. Iraqi nationalism is stronger than sectarianism.

Secondly: The use of lethal force by the Americans, like what they did in in Falluja, against important Arab tribes will spread the anti American anti Iranian resistance. The myth of the shiites being united behind Sistani is finished. More and more of Arab shiites will join the resistance.

The occupation and its puppets have nothing to offer the Iraqi people but blood, death, lies and destruction.

Abdul Ilah Albayaty" January 31, 2007
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Updates:
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Questions do come to mind:
- How can more than 300 'terrorists' assemble and remain hidden in a field near Najaf for so long, and are then suddenly discovered and obliterated?
- If they are claimed to be such well-trained militants, how come the Iraqi police and military casualties are so low in comparison with near 260 dead 'terrorists'?
- If they were indeed mere tribesmen marching that day in Ashoora, did they not hang somebody last month for just a similar massacre that occured in Dujail twenty years ago?

(Except that the massacring of marchers and the destruction of fields of palm groves is now done by very brave American pilots who are on a turkey hunt with their high-tech bombs shouting Yaa Hoo!!, or cowering American soldiers behind their shield of 'Iraqi' policemen, soldiers and the CIA-paid members of the Scorpion Death Brigade (SWAT Team) of Shahwani's - see bottom right picture in the link- 'Intelligence Bureau')

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The Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq - SCIRI (Bakir Hakim and 'Vice President' Adel Abdul Mahdi) had issued the following proclamation of war (in Arabic) to capture Baghdad. The events of the past month, with repeated mortar bombardment and concerted attacks on selected areas of Baghdad is clearly advocated. The collaboration and support of the Maliki 'government' is claimed to be assured and promises to prevent the intervention of the American forces.

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Olbermann: A Look Back at Bush's State of the Union speech - and credibility

"Two rockets hit the international (emphasis added, as dark humor on the definition of 'sovereignty') Green Zone in Baghdad, prompting alarms to sound and warnings urging people to take cover. The U.S. military said six people had been wounded, five of them slightly, but little damage was caused to buildings."
Security developments in Iraq, Jan 25, 2007
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PS: Ah!

"The top U.S. surgeon in Iraq was among the12 soldiers killed when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Baghdad, military officials said Thursday." Top U.S. Surgeon in Iraq Killed in Crash, January 25, 2007

Take a look:

The True Cost of War, February 5, 2007 issue

ـ"قال المالكي انه على علم بأن "مجرمين فروا من بغداد، وآخرين فروا من البلاد"ـ قنوات اتصال بين الصدر والأميركيين

Note on the source of the two documents:

I received many queries on the source of the above two documents. They are official correspondences, and hence not 'reported' on a public media outlet, but rather obtained surreptitiously.
The source whence they came from is, by my measure, reliable. That does not put them as absolutely beyond doubt when enquiring about their authenticity. One way of ascertaing their authenticity would be to ask the CIA or their employee Rubaii.

On the other hand, the third before the last word in the following paragraph does well apply to the paragraph itself:

"Dear Imad,
I guess that by trying to say that the execution of Saddam and his coterie was not legal you are not implying that the the thousands of fine and honourable Iraqis whom Saddam, Barzan and Awwad Al Bandar executed were "legally executed". You know very well that this gang had raped Iraq and Iraqis during 35 years of missrule and dictatorship. Any attempt to provide them with a post-humous "legal cover" is pathetic to say the least!"

The highest court of law in Iraq was attempting to provide a "legal cover", not I.
If pointing that out post-humously is to besmirch the quest for legality in a 'liberated and sovereign' Iraq, then the lenses have indeed darkened.

PS: JJ emailed:

"I have no doubt of the authenticity of these documents especially the 2nd. Maliki knows full well the US command wants to capture and torture as many of Iraq's military aged males as possible. The Shia mentioned are his friends and supporters so he wants to protect them from American fury (Bush's). Any animal (especially bush) reacts most dangerously when cornered. Iranians, too, will feel his wrath (see U.S. troops authorized to kill Iranians in Iraq)

Bush is being cornered: the growing realization among Americans, Congress AND the bush administration the Iraq adventure is hopeless. The task now for everyone involved is to survive another 2 years until bush departs."

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Bush Press Conference: How do we succeesd in Iraq?

Would that have now become American resentment?
Well, Mission Accomplished.
Thanks, but no thanks.
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Wolf Blitzer of CNN Interviews David Duke in Tehran .. (Video, 8 minutes) On Zionist bias in US media

Wolf Blitzer on Zionism, (video, 7 minutes)

Israeli Mossad in northern Iraq, (Video, 12 minutes)

Cost Of Iraq War: $1.2 Trillion... , January 16, 2007
PS: "The steadily rising Iraq war price tag will reach about $8.4 billion a month this year (emphasis added), Pentagon spokesmen said on Thursday, as heavy replacement costs for lost, destroyed and aging equipment mount.
The Pentagon has been estimating last year's costs for the increasingly unpopular war at about $8 billion a month, having increased from a monthly "burn rate" of around $4.4 billion during the first year of fighting in fiscal 2003." Pentagon sees U.S. war cost in Iraq rising, January 18, 2007

US soldiers in a presidential palace in Iraq

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Update:
Olbermann: Special Comment on Bush Speech January 12, 2007

"... what happened on January 10, 1967 ...

The big news story that night? President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union address.

The topic that dominated all others: Vietnam.

I'm going to guide you to some excerpts of that address -- exactly 40 years ago tonight.
See how it compares to some of the excerpts from President Bush's speech that were just released minutes ago:

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: We have chosen to fight a limited war in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a larger war--a war almost certain to follow, I believe, if the Communists succeed in overrunning and taking over South Vietnam by aggression and by force. I believe, and I am supported by some authority, that if they are not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them later.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror – and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: I wish I could report to you that the conflict is almost over. This I cannot do. We face more cost, more loss, and more agony. For the end is not yet. I cannot promise you that it will come this year--or come next year. Our adversary still believes, I think, tonight, that he can go on fighting longer than we can, and longer than we and our allies will be prepared to stand up and resist.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: Our South Vietnamese allies are also being tested tonight. Because they must provide real security to the people living in the countryside. And this means reducing the terrorism and the armed attacks which kidnaped and killed 26,900 civilians in the last 32 months, to levels where they can be successfully controlled by the regular South Vietnamese security forces. It means bringing to the villagers an effective civilian government that they can respect, and that they can rely upon and that they can participate in, and that they can have a personal stake in. We hope that government is now beginning to emerge.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: This forward movement is rooted in the ambitions and the interests of Asian nations themselves. It was precisely this movement that we hoped to accelerate when I spoke at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in April 1965, and I pledged "a much more massive effort to improve the life of man" in that part of the world, in the hope that we could take some of the funds that we were spending on bullets and bombs and spend it on schools and production.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: We have chosen to fight a limited war in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a larger war--a war almost certain to follow, I believe, if the Communists succeed in overrunning and taking over South Vietnam by aggression and by force. I believe, and I am supported by some authority, that if they are not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them later.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time…In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy – by advancing liberty across a troubled region.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: A time of testing--yes. And a time of transition. The transition is sometimes slow; sometimes unpopular; almost always very painful; and often quite dangerous. But we have lived with danger for a long time before, and we shall live with it for a long time yet to come. We know that "man is born unto trouble." We also know that this Nation was not forged and did not survive and grow and prosper without a great deal of sacrifice from a great many men.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship…A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them – and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and grandchildren.

Not much to add here -- the words of Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush pretty much speak for themselves.

Two things, though.

First of all, only 7,917 American troop had died in Vietnam through the end of 1966, or ten days before Johnson's speech. From the beginning of 1967 though the end of the war, an addition 50,285 -- more than six times as many -- Americans would lose their lives.

Also, and we're not endorsing this action by any means, then or now, but it is interesting to note that in that 1967 SOTU, LBJ also called for a 6 percent surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes to pay for the cost of the war. That's a level of responsibility -- and yes, sacrifice -- for war that our current president is unwilling to take."
"E-Day": It was 40 years ago today, January 10, 2006
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Baghdad Burning
A young Iraqi woman’s first-hand account of life in Baghdad as it is lived now. Riverbend, whose real name and that of her family are concealed for security reasons, worked as a software engineer prior to the occupation of Iraq and has been keeping her internet blog for the past three years. A collection of her writing has been published and her blog is accessed by thousands of readers worldwide.

"And no - not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.
Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists - you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world - the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator."
A lynching..., Riverbend, December 31, 2006

(See also: "Information about Iraq propagated by Western media is often woefully inaccurate or downright wrong, according to leading Arab figures, and such distortions are damaging any chance of peace in the country." Media bias 'threat' to Iraq, December 19, 2006)

"You know your country is in trouble when:
1- The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2 - Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3 - The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4- The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5 - An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6 - Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7 - For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8 - Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.
9 - People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks."
End of Another Year..., Riverbend, December 29, 2006
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