The Peace of Obama's Speechwriters Pt.3

''Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course. And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home."

Thus spake Obama today. I don't think there is an honest word or comma in that statement.

Who Cares About The Ordinary People of Iraq?

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  • Sazan Mandalawi
  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 August 2010 08.00 BST
  • Article history

Residents mourn as they wait outside a morgue to claim the bodies of victims of another bomb attack in Baghdad. Photograph: Saad Shalash/Reuters

As a proofreader in a news agency in Iraq's Kurdistan region I feel like a doctor, but the type of patients I indirectly meet every day are average Iraqis. Unlike a doctor I cannot cure their illnesses or prescribe medication but I have managed to identify the cause of their psychological illnesses.

Today, such Iraqis leave home unsure if they will return to their families that evening or not. Those who have jobs work long hours every day for little pay. If they are lucky their children or nephews and nieces are not yet kidnapped and if they are extremely lucky they haven't had more than one relative martyred in a suicide attack.

Report after report comes in and I begin to feel the woes and the pains of the Iraqi people. Their restlessness and how desperate they are to live a day without hearing a bomb, without being at risk of kidnapping and to have more than just a few hours of electricity every day.

These patients have wounded hearts, they have anger management problems, they have lost loved ones and their scars are yet to heal.

Recently the Iraqi interior ministry revealed that the country had itsdeadliest month for two years in July, with more than 1,500 casualties. Asingle suicide attack on an army recruitment centre in Baghdad last week killed 57 people and wounded 123.

Not a day passes behind my desk that I do not receive an article about a roadside bomb, a suicide attack or a killing. I retype the same words every day: "unidentified gunmen" killing a certain number of civilians and then "escaping to an unknown location".

It is hard to believe the country is floating on what the world refers to as black gold. The average Iraqi relies on food rations and is desperate for car fuel – that is, if he still has a car.

As a young girl when thinking of my future and ways to reach my dreams, my eyes begin to sparkle with hope. The average Iraqi's fills with tears as he or she tells you: "I just hope live tomorrow".

Recently it was revealed that narcotic drugs are being produced in certain areas such as the Dhi-Qar province. Radiation from war remnants has been found as the cause of cancer among young children in particular. Missiles were found in a girls' school in the Adhamiya area and numerous unidentified dead bodies are found almost every day.

I can only imagine Baghdad as being flooded with corpses and wounded people.

Politically, Iraq today is like a ship in the middle of the ocean with tens of captains, each stirring in a different direction towards their own interest.

As for the government, the electricity minister has resigned and the factions are yet to agree and form a government – five months after the election results. The reality is it is a fight over a seat – the prime minister's post; as citizens are crying for power, food and security, the government is busy searching for where its treasure lays.

Reports state more than a third of the new parliamentarians are supposedly on holiday.

Even if the government forms and with some miracle the requirements of the people are met, it will take an entire generation to heal the wounds of the average Iraqi. The psychological pains are greater than any physical wound.

Every Iraqi needs a psychologist or a doctor. The tragedy is that few worthy doctors are left in the country, as many were threatened and hadno alternative but to escape in fear of their lives.

After knowing the pains of the Iraqis it is frustrating as day after day I proof the same sentence in tens of articles, after so and so met "no agreement was reached". With a seat up for grabs that is worth more money and power than one can imagine, who cares about the average Iraqi
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Mission Accomplished - This Time It's Bullshit 2

Pulling all combat troops out of Iraq? 50,000 will remain there as 'advisers'. Yeah, right. Of course, all troops are trained for combat; calling them “non-combat support personnel” is simply B.S. Obama wants to campaign for Democrats in the mid-term elections by lying about ending combat in Iraq.

More absurdly, the Fox 'News' Channel interviewed an army officer this morning by first congratulating him and his fellow soldiers for “making Iraq a safe and secure place.” Before he said this, the network announced that they could not reveal the location of the interviewer “for security reasons.” The interview took place at a location where they were completely surroundedd by ten foot high piles of sandbags. This is how Fox and the war cheerleaders spell “secure.”

As Obama Pretends To Withdraw - Some Benefits for Iraqis To Be Grateful For

I would say this speaks for itself. It is a significant dip in quality of life for most Iraqis even compared to Saddam's time. Of course it only applies to those who have survived the Saddam years and (god help us) 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'.

The New Iraq - Thanks, America

COURTNEY E. MARTIN | July 12,

From American Prospect

When Nation-Building Becomes Cowardly Escape

Americans should be outraged that shoddy infrastructure and broken promises will be our legacy in Iraq. If you walk down Falluja's busiest streets, you are likely to travel parallel with open trenches that smell of putrid waste. These trenches, vestiges of a planned but unfinished sewage treatment system, are more than an eyesore and an assault on the olfactory senses. They are a reminder of America's broken promises in the ongoing nation-building effort in Iraq.The New York Times reported last week that many of the most fundamental needs of the Iraqi people, the most vital infrastructure projects, have been abandoned. Of the long-planned sewage system, for example, theTimes reports, "After more than six years of work, $104 million spent, and without having connected a single house, American reconstruction officials have decided to leave the troubled system only partly finished, infuriating many city residents." The project was initially supposed to treat waste for Falluja's entire population (200,000 people), with room to grow by 50 percent. Now it will, at best, serve 4,300, before the Americans working on the project leave town.Iraqi citizens shouldn't be the only ones infuriated by our military's half-assed effort to rebuild a nation that we so righteously destroyed not so long ago. Americans should also be outraged. We should be fuming. This war was fought in our names, and now shoddy infrastructure and broken promises will be our legacy. We should be calling our political representatives and demanding that the U.S. military finish what it started in Iraq and implement a long-term plan for incorporating nation-building practices effectively and ethically.The RAND Corporation reports, "Nation-building has been a controversial mission over the past decade, and the extent of this controversy has undoubtedly curtailed the investments needed to do these tasks better. So has institutional resistance in both the state and defense departments, neither of which regards nation-building among its core missions. As a result, successive administrations tend to treat each new such mission as if it were the first and, more importantly, the last." In other words, we reinvent the wheel (badly), following every new conflict. We can argue the morality of wars, but as long as we keep participating in them, we must be committed to leaving them with dignity and integrity.In a study of the seven historical attempts by the U.S. to nation-build -- in Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan -- RAND found that "there is no quick-fix" and that "none of our cases was successfully completed in less than seven years." It's worth remembering that we started the Iraq War before finishing the job in Afghanistan. Now we want to bail before the job's done in Iraq, too, setting ourselves up for another half-cooked polity and a continued world of hurt.The financial costs are high, indeed, but the costs in terms of security and morality are potentially even higher. Our nation-building blunders are not just ineffective and embarrassing; they're downright dangerous. Leaving a taste like this in Iraqis' parched mouths is certainly not going to make Americans any safer. The president of the Falluja City Council told The New York Times: "I told the Americans if they want to leave a good impression ? and to erase bad feelings about the United States from the war, they should finish this project completely and properly. It was supposed to be finished in two years, then five years, and it still isn't complete. There's been no benefit to us."Even many of the projects that do look to be on the path to completion are being finished so quickly and haphazardly that engineering standards have been thrown out the window. Shaymaa Mohammad Ameen, who works with reconstruction officials as a liaison for the Diyala Provincial Council, told the Times that "American officials frequently threatened to leave when Iraqis questioned engineering standards and brought up other safety issues."The U.S. is slipping out of Iraq, base by base, soldier by soldier, not with a bang but with a whimper of unfulfilled promises and blatant denials. Sure it would be nice to just come home, as so many on the left have argued. No one wants our troops in Iraq any longer than is necessary. But what's even worse than prolonging their presence is undermining their work thus far by asking them to leave a job shoddily and incompletely done. Our troops' integrity -- and that of the country -- is at stake.When asked about the abandoned projects and dwindling quality of those that haven't yet been scraped, Col. Dionysios Anninos, head of the Army Corps of Engineers, told theTimes: "I am not aware of the Iraqis having any sort of hard feelings that we will not finish current projects." Really? You break a promise to five-sixths of Falluja's population and no one seems perturbed? And then, as if to add insult to injury, he enthusiastically added, "We will finish strong!"This isn't nation-building; this is cowardly escape. The American public shouldn't stand for it. Additional research by Krystie Yandoli.

New Labour Let's Move On Mantra

This is worth reading just for the comments by the Guardianistas (of whom I am one). I am greatly reassured by these comments in the light of my own misgivings re Iraq which has haunted me, and I'm not exaggerating, since 2003. It bothers me that that the thought of the horrors perpetrated by the 'special relationship' should haunt me who marched against the proposed invasion and does not seem to bother the 'let's move on' brigade - Blair, Milliband, Balls, Brown, Hain, Harman....blah.. blah....bleurrrrrgh. I'll let the Guardianistas speak for me....;.

One Day To The Death of the New Labour Cult - Thanksgiving UK

Reasons to be grateful to Tony Blair and New Labour (hat-tip to William Burroughs):

Thanks for the 'special relationship'

Thanks for extraordinary rendition

Thanks for the 10p tax threshold

Thanks for the Private Finance Initiative(from an idea by M.Thatcher)

Thanks for the carnage in Iraq & Afghanistan

Thanks for the failed privatisation of the Post Office

Thanks for trying (and failing) to exclude the Gurkhas

Thanks for ID Cards by the back door

Thanks for the surveillance society

Thanks for schmoozing the bankers for years

Thanks for cash for honours

Thanks for Fred the Shred (Knighted by you)

Thanks, finally, to you and Brown for cleaning up British politics as you promised in 1997.

Kinnock on Iraq – ‘ Let’s Move On'

Lets move on, Neil? Move on from 1.5M people (low estimate) displaced? Move on from 300,000 men, women and children(very low estimate) dead? Move on from white phosphorous and depleted uranium-induced deformities in babies in Fallujah? Move on from Abu Ghraib, torture and rendition? Move on from the billions wasted in creating chaos and a Shiite theocracy in Iraq? Yes I bet you and your New Labour friends would like to move on. On the bright side, most of your candidates will be moving on to a career outside politics after the election on 6^th May and it will be largely as a result of the Iraq bloodbath and the other betrayals of everything that the Labour movement ever stood for. Why did they wheel you out to utter this crass, cynical garbage? Because Brown and Milliband and Mandelson don’t want their names in the same sentence as the word Iraq. You on the other hand are expendable to New Labour (and everyone else now). Roll on May 7^th. Clegg for PM.

Secret Jail Abuse In Iraq

They were held at al-Muthanna until the human rights ministry gained access to the prison and closed the facility.

"We were tortured for four long months continuously," another former detainee said.

"Whether you recognise or not, whatever they want you to say, they keep torturing you and the prisoners. They died in the torture."

Link To Short Video Here

Al Qaida Leader Killed Again

The 'deaths' of the two 'leaders of Al Qaida in Iraq come at a curiously convenient (electorally speaking) time for Al Maliki. The post-election scene is a shambles for all the world to see. Meanwhile Al Maliki and his US mentors claim credit for some kind of trumped up success which includes the killing of Abu Ayub al Masri who the US military said did not exist a year ago - Al Maliki hopes this story will boost his chances of digging in amidst of the endless re-counts, horse-trading and squabbling. I posted on the subject of spin and fantasy stories fed by the Coalition to the US media the last time al-Masri was 'killed' in 2008. In previous propaganda stories he has been arrested, killed, re-arrested, allegedly re-killed and now devalued: The U.S. quietly slashed the reward posted for the Leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq -- in an unannounced change, the bounty for a most wanted terrorist is reduced from $5 million to $100,000 12 May 2008. The U.S. government quietly withdrew a $5 million reward it was offering for the killing or capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, named then by the Pentagon officials as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Masri had been one of America's most wanted figures in Iraq ever since his identity was revealed in 2006. But U.S. News outlets revealed that the bounty for him was reduced and that he was unceremoniously dropped in late February from the State Department's Rewards for Justice Program, which offers cash payments for information that leads to the capture or killing of wanted terrorists.
For the entire analysis of CIA-Pentagon Lies see Recycled al Qaeda 'Leader' Killed Again and Again and Again
It doesn't help that they have released a photo of Johnny Depp in a head-dress as his mugshot.

A Voice For Survivors - Iraq

The story of a young woman whose life was changed when she was shot by a US convoy. Her face is obscured here for her safety. She shared her incredible story of struggle and survival with CIVIC's associate director Marla Keenan in Amman.

Iraq - 7 Years On and Worse Off Than Ever

H/T to Reality Zone for the link.

Fallujah - Latest Horrors

Stories were widespread at the time(see posts on this site) about white phosphorous and depleted uranium being used by the US Military in Fallujah. The predictable denials were, as ever, unconvincing.Click on post title for full details from BBC.





Officials in Fallujah had warned women that they should not have children.
Doctors and parents believe the problem is the highly sophisticated weapons the US troops used in Fallujah six years ago.
British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC's World Today programme that doctors in Fallujah were witnessing a "massive unprecedented number" of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects.
She said that one doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 - when she saw about one case every two months - with the situation now, when, she saw cases every day.

2 Million Iraqi Refugees

Caritas to urge political action on Iraqi crisis

Iraq

Vatican City/Geneva –Caritas Internationalis says the Iraqi refugee crisis could destabilise the region as numbers of people fleeing the conflict top two million.

Caritas Internationalis President Denis Viénot, and representatives will be participating in a conference convened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday that will highlight the plight of Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries as well as within Iraq itself. The meeting will aim to press for action on Iraq’s humanitarian tragedy.

Caritas Internationalis desk officer for the Middle East and North Africa Sebastien Dechamps will be at the meeting. He said, “There are 2 million Iraqi refugees in the Middle East region alone. Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and now Egypt cannot sustain indefinitely such a social and economic burden.

“The international community has to shoulder its responsibility to help these Iraqis, fleeing war, violence, and hopelessness. Our Iraqi Caritas colleagues couldn’t be here for this meeting, but they tell me every day what a nightmare life has become for them.”

Caritas Syria, Caritas Jordan, Caritas Lebanon and Caritas Turkey are all assisting thousands of refugees. But the situation is unsustainable according to Caritas, as few Iraqis are given legal status in their host countries and most are forbidden to work. Children often have to work odd jobs, under threat of discovery and deportation, for their families’ survival. Children cannot go to school, for either financial or legal reasons, or for fear of having their families sent back to Iraq.

“The Iraqi refugees have to be given a means to support themselves, to be able to work and have hope for their futures,” said Najla Chahda, Director of the Caritas Migrants Centre in Beirut, which has also had an influx of refugees.

Caritas Iraq meanwhile helps those trapped in the conflict in Iraq. It estimates there are some 1.7 million people uprooted from their homes within Iraq, seeking shelter wherever they can from the constant killing and violence.

Caritas Iraq helps the most needy, the handicapped, the elderly, the destitute, orphans and single mothers, and minorities. Caritas Iraq’s Well Baby Programme, which began during the Gulf War in 1991, currently helps more than 40,000 children under five and expecting and nursing mothers, looking after their specific nutritional needs. Malnutrition rates among children are worse now than when Iraqis were living under embargo.

Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development, and social service organisations present in over 200 countries and territories.

For more information, contact: Nancy McNally, Tel: +39 06 69879752 Mobile: +39 334 2344 136 mcnally@caritas.va or visit www.caritas.org