There is some thing strange, that is the media's silence about what is going on in Tal-Afar.
Tal-Afar is a city about 80 km north-west of Mosul. For the last week, about 10,000 soldiers from the US troops, Kurdish peshmerga and Badir army (a shiee militia) were laying siege to the city.
Most of the residents have left their homes and settled in the neighboring villages and in Mosul.
Reports in the Iragia TV channel said, they killed about 200 terrorists in the operation, but what we heard from the people fled from their, that the fighters inside Tal-Afar have left the city already.
Some of the refugee said that most of the people killed were civilians who had no place to go so they chose to stay in their homes, stayed because they feared persecution at the hands of the Peshmerga and Badr Army.
Families fled from the city are staying in refugee camps out side the city, the government has not provided any shelter, food or drink for them.
Most people in Tal-Afar would choose rather to be detained by the Americans now, because they know if Iraqi soldiers or Iraqi police detain them they will be tortured severely, and possibly killed. This gives you an idea of how bad it is with these Iraqi soldiers.
I have difficulty in explaining my feeling. But just imagine how an Iraqi person prefer to be detained by an American but not by the Iraqis, his own countrymen...!!!
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Well I heard that leaders from other cities were told that if they take control of their cities and remove the terrorist, and cooperate with the government in Baghdad, that the army would not be sent in, and they would not suffer like Tal Afar.
I can not approve of torture and mistreatment of prisoners by Iraqi forces, but anybody should be able to understand some of the reasons for it. These people, the Iraqi police and soldiers, have been the favorite targets of insurgents and have been slaughtered at every opportunity inthe most cruel ways. They know with certainty the cruelty of their enemy, and if they return it in the same kind it should not be unexpected.
A more worrisome bit of news is that some police may not be getting paid properly. If this is correct (and it sounds stupid and inefficient so I find it easy to believe) then how can they support themselves and their families except by bribery and corruption?
Tales of cruelty and barbarity in prisons in Iraq and other Arab countries are not new. They are as old as time, and it seems from their prevalence that perhaps people in the middle east consider such things normal and appropriate or have until recently.
Yet there also seem to be occaisional first-hand stories of people who were caught up in the prison system, not tortured, not treated with excessive cruelty, and released when their innocence became clear.
Obviously the best situation would be to
1. pay police and soldiers enough that they do not need to steal or accept bribes,
2. demand that they treat all prisoners with decency and justice, and
3. punish them if they become criminals themselves.
One question Iraqis may wish to ask themselves is "Does our draft constitution say that this is how things should be?"
A news picture from Mosul:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050915/481/bag10809151121
Hurria, I would be interested in how you use logic to classify Saddam's dictatorship and Iraq's condition under it as a "nation-state". Is a "nation-state" then in your mind a state where a thug steals power through ruthless assasination and builds himself a lot of palaces while embroiling his country in one war after another?
Actually, I have no idea what a "nation-state" is or should be. It's not a term I've heard often, and I suspect there is no formal widely accepted definition for it. I guess I will assume that you feel Iraq's consider themselves citizaen of on nation regardless of tribal or religious affiliation, since that is what "hitech luddite" was casting doubt on.
For my part, I have a hard time classifying a country with a 40.4% literacy rate as much of anything but a third world backwater, and that's the figure for Iraq according to the following link:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
The Unicef figures aren't much different:
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/iraq_statistics.html
Did some more looking at the literacy numbers. Seems Iraq's literacy rate is roughly half that of it's neighbors (see http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2103.html). I wonder if that's true. Certainly illiteracy is not unknown in Iraq if this blogger's post is correct:
http://youngmammy.blogspot.com/2005/09/work-troubles.html
So, Hurria, I guess the question is not what logical mechanisms you employed to convince yourself that Iraq is anything but "a loosely governed group of tribes and religious sects with no central authority" as hitech luddite characterizes it, but how you can imagine that a nation composed largely of illiterates could be anything else.
It is possible that your energies might be better employed in teaching children to read than condemning the great satan that is America in your portrayal?
johninnz -
My point was that Iraq and Iraqis can not simply say "Iraq is the cradle of civilization and a proud nation and therefore morally superior to these helpful people from the other side of the world who have invaded us". Hurria's casual dismissal of Titech Luddite's skepticism won't wash.
Strykerdad
Unfortunatly the post of Alan Gray,Newsblaze, is full of mistakes
This is not surprised me or any other Iraqi who know how the US media change the truth in well planned manner.
Even the American Encyclopedias are written in such a way to hide the truth.
One simple example is this statement "The majority of people in Al Anbar are Turkoman, a mixture of Sunnis and Shi'a."
This is 100% wrong, any Iraqi or any one familiar with Iraq will prove it wrong to you.
I cannot agree more with hurria and bruno.
Iraq needs a return to authoritarianism and democracy is a tool of the imperialists who want to steal Iraqi oil and water. This articles makes us feel proud:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-iraq-a-bombers-tale,0,1027206.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
Here is the article.
From Wikipedia: "The most common source of legitimacy today is the perception that a government is operating under democratic principles and is subject to the will of the people."
Hurria says: "A territory is sovereign, because rocks and trees and acreage have sovereignty."
Hurria, you are a darling.
Strykerdad,
Sorry it took so long for me to read your offer of help. My immediate family is doing okay. My sister and her husband have been on the coast (with their 5 week old!!) setting up medical clinics and offering aid. A good friend of mine from high school has a blog where he talks about aid coordination:
http://simuljustusetpeccator.blogspot.com/
If you still have a place to offer, or want to help in another way, he suggests coordinating your help through this group:
http://pcarelief.org/
My friends are all determined to stay in their hometowns and rebuild. They are staying in trailer homes or at churches or at one of the few houses left standing. The help they need has to do with moving boxes, and cutting through trees.
Sorry for interrupting your thread truthteller.
Waldschrat --
You know, Iraqi illiteracy is an interesting phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, I know blaming everything on sanctions and the US is becoming so terribly boring and old hat, but I did run across this:
"Turning the Page on Iraq’s History"
Charles Asquith - 4 Nov, 2003
“Early in his rule, Saddam was credited with creating one of the strongest school systems in the Middle East. Iraq won a UNESCO prize for eradicating illiteracy in 1982. Literacy rates for women were among the highest of all Islamic nations, and unlike most Middle East school systems, Iraqi education was largely secular.”
And this excerpt tracks the descent of Iraqi literacy into oblivion:
AHAB THE ARAB RE-EMERGES
Malcom Lagauche - April 28-29, 2005
“ Let’s take a look back and see the gradual ascent of literacy in Iraq. I will use statistics from various sources. In 1980, a few years after the beginning of the war against illiteracy, according to PBS, 49% of those in Iraq under the age of 15 were literate. By 2002, that figure had risen to 75%. There may have been a possible decline in the 1990s because of the embargo, but the figures are impressive.
By the end of the 1980s, shortly before the U.S. aggression against Iraq began, 87% of the Iraqi public was literate. In other words, about twice as many people could read and write than could 15 years earlier.
The embargo was disastrous on the Iraqi educational system. For instance, even pencils were not allowed to be imported. The U.S. placed these in the "dual-use" category of imports. Since there are few trees for wood in Iraq, pencils became rare. Anti-embargo human rights groups brought pencils to Iraq during the sanctions, but it was only a drop in the bucket for the actual needs.
Despite the hardships, Iraqis were still learning to read and write. At the height of the embargo in 1995, 89.7% of Iraqi males were literate and 45% of the female population could read and write. The sanctions took their highest toll on Iraqi women.
Even in March 2003, most figures from international organizations stated that Iraq still had a literacy rate of over 60%. Two years later, and the rate is under 40%. To make it simple, about two of every three Iraqis today can not read or write.”
I leave the conclusion to you to make, as to what exactly the problem with Iraq literacy is. HINT: It has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.
ertejaa --
Uh, yeah, we'll just leave it to YOU to decide which government is legitimate or not. Suuure. We trust you completely, given that the 'forces of democracy' currently in Iraq support at this time a wide variety of thugs and monarchies. Heck, they even went to war to restore the Kuwaiti emirate, hardly a structure compatible with democratic principles. Get a life, hypocrite.
"Which leads to the questions "who would start such rumors and why?" ... "who would accept such rumors and why?" ... "who would propagate such rumors and why?"
Excellent questions, M99. The answers should be obvious to those who do not completely have their heads in the sand.
On the bright side, a shipment of ostomy supplies from Friends of Ostomates Worldwide ("F.O.W.", Link) reached the hospital in Mosul this week and is probably being unpacked as I write this. TT and his friend were so excited and happy they phoned me all the way from Mosul. This was a pretty big shipment, enough to make a real difference, much more than I could have possibly sent myself. The only part I had in it's delivery was helping to point the way for FOW and pestering people by phone and email to try to be sure it got there safely.
Talking to the doctors in Mosul warmed my heart. I think the communication and coordination that went into delivery of this shipment is an important step in trying to get the hospital what it needs to help patients. I have not located a similar willing donor for chemotherapy drugs and other stuff yet, but I have proven that drugs CAN be sent to Mosul, and I hope to find a way to get the hospital what it needs.
Strykerdad -
Please contact me. You can either use the email link on my blog profile or relay via TT. I'm hoping to organize another shipment of chemotherapy drugs, and a couple of other folks have offered to chip in already.
Regarding subverting the US military to serve the hospital, contact me.
I came across an intresting story of justice and injustice in Pittsburgh that seemed pertinent and thought I'd post a link. Here it is:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050924/ap_on_re_us/sept11_search
Seems a repairman turned an Arab doctor in to the FBI simply because he had a copy of the Koran and a flight simulator game lying around in his apartment - the poor doctor was inconvenienced badly and sued, and he got 2.5 million dollars. I guess the moral is that justice happens, although I can't help wondering how much success he would have had if he'd been shot by mistake in Mosul.
I went over to the local mosque today to see if I could get them inteested in helping get stuff for Mosul. It was an interesting experience - I blundered in smack in the middle of Friday prayers so I had to wait for that to be over. Found myself surrounded by lots of Arab-looking folks talking and being nice to each other (and to me) and shaking hands and hugging - the atmosphere was a lot like what I've experienced in gatherings at Christain an Buddhist churches, except that there were more beards and more folks speaking what I assume was Arabic. After asking around I found a guy who I was told was the the assistant president of the mosque and he was able to steer me to a website that might help - I will follow up on it. I also need to try contacting some of the local Christian chuches.
The reason the big shipment from FOW was successful was that I was able to attract the attention of a group tht had more and better resources thanI do and point the way for them. I plan to send some more stuff myself but it is now clear to me that I need to put more effort into finding people who can help.
"How can you have a national identity when 30 million or so people are split into five languages."
Hmm. Well, we have ELEVEN official languages ...
thank you Hurria.
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