It was a long time since I wrote my last post.
I fed up from the daily events, or I may say, the blood shed. But we used to the sounds of explosions and to the smell of smoke, the sound of bullets is not differ
from the sound of the jammed traffic. In addition to the very very bad electricity, not more than 2 hours a day, the neighborhood generators stop working because there is no fuel. To make it short, I decided not to write any more till the situation change to the better.
A question from one of the readers make me change my mind. The question is:
((it always amazes me when America gets blamed for suicide bombers, kidnappers, people beheading innocents, murdering militias, et al.))
My answer is that:(( before the occupation (i.e. before the american came to us), ther were no suicide bombers, no kidnappers, and no murdering militias. All these came with the occupation, and America failed or didn,t want to control the situation.
America is the only responsible for the blood shed in Iraq. and the Iraqis will never forgive it for that.))
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27 comments:
First let me welcome you back. I had been worried from your absence, only your daughters posting told me you were still alive. Yet we all know that just breathing is not always living. So we still do worry.
OK now to your question. I am afraid your wrong. These things did exist in Iraq before America came to town, what has changed is that now it happens in the open, and it happens on TV and the newspapers. What America brought was a bright light that has illuminated much of what before was hidden in the darkness of the shadows.
"America is the only responsible for the blood shed in Iraq."
Let us conduct a "thought experiment." Suppose that all 24 million Iraqis were flown on airplanes to Germany. A random sample of 24 million Germans are flown to Iraq and take up residence throughout Iraq in the same density and pattern as Iraqis. The American soldiers and their evil support contractors stayed in Iraq exactly as they are. Question: Do you believe the number of suicide bombings, beheadings, kidnappings, head-power-drillings, and mutilations would go up or down or stay the same in Iraq.
You know the answer. And that proves it ain't the Americans causing your problem in Iraq right now.
madtom
No, you are absolutely wrong, those things are new for Iraq and Iraqis. Yes there was a tyrant ruler here, there were some person arrested and no body heard about them any more. But no such things as what happened now a days. There was just one dictator.
I dont say the American did those crimes but they are the only reason for those to happen.
The American give a cover for the death squad to work, together with the Iraqi government they made it easy for the militias to kill and burn people alife!!
Do you know that every time the Americans together with the Iraqi troops raid a Sunni district they took all the weapons they found there, next day the militias attacked the same district and killed every body in thier way.
Yes original_jeff, If the American behave the same way the did now, and the same poppet government is there, any nation will do the same thing, especially if they have Iran the next door neighbor.
BTW, I mean, most of these crimes were committed by Iranian agents in Iraq, under protection of the American.
There was bloodshed under Sadaam, wasn't there? Hundreds of thousands dead, if I'm not mistaken.
And it's not the Americans who are doing the current killings, is it?
Many of us here in the USA are hoping that the murders will stop soon. The current push, just beginning, will hopefully have some effect in at least Baghdad (unfortunately, not yet in Mosul). But your enemy is the terrorists, not us.
My biggest fear for your country is that the coalition will leave before their work is complete, and that the carnage will become even worse.
Meanwhile, you are living in an intolerable situation, and my hopes and sympathies are with you and all the others who are suffering. I pray you'll stay safe and that one day soon you'll be able to wake up thinking that all of this was just a nightmare.
Forgot to mention…
and that we'll become friends.
"those things are new for Iraq and Iraqis."
You must read different reports than the ones I have seen. I have seen reports of tanks with the words "today there are no more Shi'a" written on the sides showing up in Shi'a areas, I have seen reports of 5000 Kurdish villages wiped off the face of the map, And I have seen reports of people of all stripes disappeared never to be seen again. These thing were not done by just a single dictator. No they were many more people involved.
Much of the violence you see today is because many people do not want to go back to the way it was, or because the want revenge. America did not bring the revenge under it's arm. Now I will grant you that we have not done as good a job of holding people back, but it has not been entirely our fault. Many of the old regime wants power back, and will not suffer the Shi'a or Kurd to hold on to what they have gained. You will remember that the insurgency started in Anbar, and has spread from there.
Iraqis have a choice to make, they either engage in dialoged and agree on a power sharing system, one that is fare to all parties, or they will fight till there is nothing left to defend. Unfortunately for Iraq, most of your neighbors, and I mean most, not just Iran would prefer a burnt Iraq to a happy Iraq. You guys have to make up your minds which road to travel.
madtom - you have been feed wrong information, and you believed all the lies. and most of the violence today does not come from people who do not want to go back to the way it was - nearly the entire country of Iraq wants to go back to 'the way it was' before the US invasion. They may not have liked Saddam, and they may have had loved ones killed by Saddam - but the current situation is much, much worse than it was under Saddam.
Go to this webpage:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/2007/02/daily-war-news-for-friday-february-9.html
and meet a baby that will hate Americans for her entire life. And with good reasons too.
I would bet that madtom and original jeff both believed in that WMDs CRAP.
Some people just never learn.... they stay stupid forever, no matter what.
and as to original jeff's thought experiment: put 24 million people through what the Iraqis have been put through, and they will react pretty much the same.
A great number of people in Iraq have PTSD from all this massive violence the US arrival unleashed. And if you follow the news, you will see more and more stories of how the US troops are suffering from PTSD and how the murder and suicide rates have gone way up since being in war.
And war does far, far more damage to civilians than it will ever do to soldiers.
Actually, I thought some terrorist attacks did happen in the nineties in Iraq, sporadically. Iyad Allawi, who was installed by the Bremer administration in 2004, has been linked to these atrocities against Iraqi civilians. More about this can be read at http://electroniciraq.net/news/1873.shtml.
Best regards
concerned servant of our Earth Mother
Truth Telle I have just ended a very long discussion with a person about this subject too.
My answer to him was as yours we never had this problem before it came with the US. I might translate my Swedish discussion with him into English and publish it on my blog. I gave very specific exampels from our daily lifes . He is no where to be found now on the forum. Just vanished.
I think MadTom is correct. These things happend there before the US arrived on your land. Saddaam controlled your media and everything else, so how would you know if this was happening at all during that time? That's what dictators do, and he was a bloody, murdering man.
I wish things were different there for you and for your country. I abhor the shedding of blood, and the killings, on all sides. I wish peace for you for your nation. However, I fear with the factions within your culture, religion and region, that is not possible, no matter if the Americans are there or not.
"able to tame, and get the Iraqui into a more modern, democratic, way of life."
John you have a very distorted view or Iraqis. It's almost a racist mindset to even think of Iraqis like that. I can assure you Iraqis are as capable and as talented as any other people. Once released from under the repression of the Stalinist regimes, or the communist like Nadia, they will thrive in the modern world.
I like your blog, hopefully you will post more often.
I just posted on my blog http://peterattwood.blogspot.com the follwong explanation of why Americans are behaving as they do:
Why are Americans kissing off their republic more easily than the Germans did in the 1930s?
The comparison between the loss of American constitutional government and the collapse of Weimar is apt. Let's recall that its Constitution was never formally annulled by Hitler, who ruled under Hindenburg's emergency decree. This prompts two thoughts.
One is that the US resistance is less because the roots of the current American authoritarianism, which is not really fascism, are much deeper and more fundamental to the American character than Nazism was to Germany. The US was founded on the twin pillars of genocide and slavery and has never wandered far from these principles in 400 years. Its constitutional liberties are an important adornment, but in crisis the old standbys trump.
The tremendous guilt engendered by America's fundamental betrayal of its self-asserted identity as the light of the nations has always made Americans extremely fearful of their victims, ever since Southern plantation owners lived in dread of slave revolts and the whole nation lived in fear of the Indians whom they robbed.
Americans also pride themselves on being God's chosen, even if this is somewhat secularized in some cases, but not at all in many.
Their Bibles, in a passage quite familiar to many of them (Rev 13:10) state the fundamental creed of the Christian faith as, "Whoever leads into captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, he must be killed by it." This is so fundamental that the most secular sum it up in the true saying, "Whatever goes around comes around."
But their shining city on a hill has always lived by the dictum that their life depends on killing the Indians or whoever else they fear and want to rob, and that their freedom depends on enslaving the blacks, and now the citizens of other nations under compliant puppet regimes.
To live so falsely, especially for Christians, must generate a tremendous hysteria and eagerness to be lied to in order to hide from reality. I wrote in September 2001 to al-Quds al-Arabi that the US would turn into a brutal garrison state that would nuke the world unless it were successfully opposed and defeated. Nothing in over 5 years, unfortunately, has proven me wrong, although like some others I have done my small best.
This leads me to my second point, Bonhoeffer's statement on returning to Germany in 1939 that German Christians would have to choose between wishing for the defeat of their country so that Christian civilization might be saved or wishing for its success at the cost of civilization.
We too now face that choice.
Truth Teller --
Great post. Unfortunately you will end up having this discussion repeatedly with our invasionist friends, since they are unable to learn from history. Good to hear you are still alright.
[madtom] "America did not bring the revenge under it's arm."
No, America brought sectarianism and terrorism under its arm. It made common cause with SCIRI and made their Badr Brigade the core of the IA. The US is directly to blame for the sectarian carnage Iraq sees today.
[b will derd] "There is now no doubt that our assumptions about the remaining WMD capabilties of Iraq were wrong, but that error pales in comparison to our faulty assumptions about Iraqis themselves."
So after turning Iraq into a hell on earth, you now blame the Iraqis for it? How typical of a pompous self-righteous yank not to accept responsibility for the holocaust unleashed upon Iraq. *My* assumptions about American hubris, arrogance and incompetence have been fulfilled and then some.
Somebody should "liberate" America, and then act all surprised that you don't grasp the great "chance" you are offered.
madtom said...
These reports you seen are same as those reports told us there were WMD and Nuclear bomb all those lies.
However by saying that 5000 Kurdish villages wiped off
This is very excessive number I wonder you tell us how many the total number of Kurdish villages in north Iraq? Did you know the area well? Did you visit before?
Or your reports just put by those ME and Iraq Specialists in case who are same put the hoaxes reports about WMD?
We all agree that old regime bad and it was tyrant there is no doubt and many innocent people vanished for one or few words came out their mouth accidentally all that alright but keep in mind that number of those missing was along 35yeras of the old regime to do, what wee seen now in three years the number of innocents who killed tortured detained and vanished almost equal if not exceeded if their some count for them.
Saying America did not bring the revenge under its arm it’s not right what happened these thugs and thieves where new reports now saying if also you red it saying these thieves are brought and protected by your troops and power!
Wonder If you know what Da'awa party and Bader Brigade/ SCIRI party how created and midwifes by Iran, you need to ask some of Iraqi Prisoner of war (POW) who spent years in Iran they will tells a horror stores how these “ Da'awa party and Bader Brigade/ SCIRI party done a tortures and killing for POW when were their in Iran’s prisons under Iran control, those killers and criminals are now free and protected under US Force protection.
We should admit there are criminals and thugs between Iraqis but beer in mind in any country if you take the law and you make lawlessness statues these criminals and thugs run wield exactly what you seen when Katrina happen or in 1992 during Bush the father time.
the Shi'a or Kurd to hold on to what they have gained. You will remember that the insurgency started in Anbar, and has spread from there.
This tells some thing not right! If both “Shi'a or Kurd” as happy as your claims so how “ insurgency started in Anbar, and has spread from there to them?
Unless they also come to the party? Isn’t?
Finally please reade this
I think that the rules stated are true everywhere. We don't recognize them here because family an community relationships in this country are weak. So, when people follow these rules, they are operating with different groups for different reasons, and the result is somewhat chaotic. This is not empowering for people at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak. I think there is a much bigger flaw in his argument than just the mistaken idea that the people in Iraq have a different set of survival rules that we do rather than just a different set of structures through which they are enabled. That is the assumption that they are the violent ones, and that the only way they know to play out their power struggle is through violence, and if we leave with our violence, with our guns and tanks that they will become even more violent. I don't believe this is true. Yes there will be residual violent rituals to play out whenever we leave. We set the pot spinning with guns and tanks and keep it going with a somewhat ambivalent support for the Shia, and an even bigger sense of self interest that has lead to midnight raids on peoples homes and violent attacks on random Iraqi civilians who are either in the way, or convenient targets or misconstrued as whomever is designated as the enemy du jour. It is not surprising that violence is perceived to be the way to power in this context.
It is true that many of the players we know about and think we understand are manipulating the occupying powers. What else would you expect them to do? Just let us tell them what to do? Treat us as saviors and wise gurus when we are there recklessly destroying the countryside, randomly attacking their people and preparing to make a nest for ourselves so we can bleed off their resources in the most convenient and comfortable way possible? Of course they are trying to manipulate the situation to advantage. What do you think the Saudis and Jordanian governments are doing? Are they really a reflection of our own interests, or are they using us so they can manage their own affairs to their own advantage?
But of course, the ones we really fear and distrust, the ones we accuse of the worst intentions are those darned militias and their leaders that just want us to leave so they can govern their own affairs. I have read through your comments and what I see in general is that no one much thinks the Iraqis can sort our their own problems. But that is really more true of us than them. We can't sort out their problems because we don't have their interest in mind, and we don't know or care what those interests might be. This is scary even for those of us who are inclined to good will and would like to see a benevolent situation. We really don't know what to do. They, on the other hand, know exactly what they need. And they know that to create a center of power they have to work together. And they are the ones who will have to do it.
We have not so far given them a chance to demonstrate this potential. Saddam got power, at least in part, because we backed him (overtly and covertly). Meanwhile, when we don't feel like the government in power is going to advance our agenda, we get rid of it. And everyone over there knows it. We have done that in Iraq and Iran and all over the Middle East and South America throughout the last century. What could be more manipulative? We have used our overwhelming technological advantage to manipulate the entire region to our will, yet we call them manipulative (barbarians) because they try to use whatever means available to gain some advantage in this situation.
It seemed to me the Italian interview with Mukta al Sadr was really quite hopeful. I see more advanced progress in the coalitions forming around Hassan Nasrallah and Hizbollah in Lebanon. While we're busy setting Shia against Sunni and using every fundamentalist extremist we can find to keep the pot boiling, there are leaders willing to seek unity. We don't recognize them for a couple of reasons. First, we don't really have a clue of anything going on there. Second, they don't like us and they carry guns and are willing to use them to protect their people who are their families and neighbors and clans and whatever. If they couldn't do that, what kind of following could they keep. They dabble in the political process, but right now, there is now real power to be had in that domain, and no security and no resolution. We own the process, not them.
Yes, I know, supporting Hizbollah is heresy. Signora is our man, but after last summer, it isn't a surprise that he is no longer so popular with the people. After all, he was powerless to stop his western supporters from nearly destroying the country, and he reconciled with them as soon as the debacle was over. Even so, if he would join in with a Unity government and share power with the other elected officials, perhaps that would be the end of it. But no, we won't stand for it. He still has to assert the western agenda regardless of the will of the majority of the people to keep the support of his western backers, and so he refuses to participate in a unity government, claiming that the constitution doesn't require him to. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Iraq is merely a more aggravated example of a problem at large in the developing nations of the world. If we leave, it will become less aggravated. If we let power flow to the people who are capable of holding it independently and trust to nature and to human nature we can let go. They can solve the problems that we created for them because they have strong incentives to do so, their lives, their independence, their peace, their country.
Posted by: Judith at February 2, 2007 10:57 PM
And one more
The commander of this vast terror network in Iraq is Jamal Jafar Mohammad Ali Ebrahimi also known as “Mehdi Mohandes” who also uses the Iranian name Jamal Ebrahimi. In the 1980’s, as an experienced operative of a terrorist group, he was dispatched to Kuwait to plan the bombing of US and UK embassies. He is on the wanted-list of Interpol since 1984 and has since remained inside Iran.
2. Mohandes is among the veteran and more senior officers of IRGC Qods Force who has completed the command curriculum at the IRGC’s Imam Hossein University and is currently on the payroll of the Qods Force.
3. Mohandes is in contact with Abtahi in Iran, and with Hamid Hosseini in Najaf, Iraq. After the fall of former regime in Iraq in 2003, Mohandes secretly traveled to Iraq on the order of the Qods Force, to establish an organization called “Tajamo-e Islami” or “Islamic Gathering.” Within two years, by the direct order of Ghassem Soleimani, 950 of seasoned and trusted extremist operatives of the Qods Force were transferred to this organization. “Tajamo-e Islami” has offices in most Iraqi provinces and plays a major role in organizing militant Shiite groups loyal to the Iranian regime and directing their terrorist activities.
4. Mehdi Mohandes is currently a member of the National Assembly of Iraq from Babel province.
Creating Hezbollah as a new terrorist network:
Jamal Ebrahimi (Mohandes) has embarked on creating a new terrorist network and is calling it “Hezbollah” to mimic Lebanon’s Hezbollah. This network operates in Basra and Baghdad and is in contact with the Qods Force and the Hezbollah of Lebanon. Members of this organization receive military and terrorist training in Basra and their arms and ammunition is smuggled to Basra through the Shalamche border passage. Mohandes is also sending his forces to Iran via southern boarders for special military and intelligence training. These trainees are transported to Ahwaz and Tehran in groups of 20 to 50 and are trained in garrisons dedicated to this purpose by the Qods Forces. Length of training is 15 to 30 days.
Truthteller: I respect your view but, unfortunately, a great number of Americans believe their own government's propaganda above and despite everything else.
Peter Atwood, above, spoke well.
I happen to believe that history will show that America initiated and continues to feed the internecine, sectarian war between sections of the Iraqi nation. America has done this before, in San Salvador, and that is a matter of historical fact.
America has not built a vast embassy in Baghdad, and 17 enormous military bases in Iraq, just to leave them to the Iraqis.
Did anyone watch the video at NZ's home page?
It begs the question ":(( before the occupation (i.e. before the american came to us), ther were no suicide bombers, no kidnappers, and no murdering militias."
Then I guess those are Americans in that video. Best not to watch and blame America, most do anyway
Of course, there are 40,000 Americans troops in Germany right now. They are the same exact troops (the same men and women) who have been stationed in Iraq in previous years. And you know what? The average numer of IED's per week is zero (0). The average number of German suicide bombers is also zero (0). The average number of headless bodies showing up by the sides of the roads of Berlin is also zero (0). The average number of church bombings is also zero (0). American soldiers don't even carry weapons in Germany!!
In other words, it is Iraqis who are the source of the problems, not the Americans or the Germans. Iraqis are defective. They are fighting against changes which would lead to a civilized and highly ethical and moral liberal democratic. But Iraqis don't want that. They apparently like their violence, intimidation, dictatorship, greed, corruption, etc.
What is even more disturbing is that people like you, Truth Teller, are not even willing to take the first step. That first step is shame. It is admitting the problem. It is talking about what is wrong with your people, with your culture. No, indeed, you are far, far, far from even beginning the process that would lead you and your country to a liberal democratic society.
Ignore "original jeff" and his sort - they know nothing.
As I was saying ... here is the much-respected journalist Seymour Hirsch, writing in the March 2007 issue of the New Yorker, on how the Bush Administration is working directly with Sunni nations to counteract Shiite ascendance in the region.
The United States has also given clandestine support to the Siniora government, according to the former senior intelligence official and the U.S. government consultant. “We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence, and we’re spreading the money around as much as we can,” the former senior intelligence official said. The problem was that such money “always gets in more pockets than you think it will,” he said. “In this process, we’re financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended consequences, like Al-Qaeda.
The Bush Administration’s reliance on clandestine operations that have not been reported to Congress and its dealings with intermediaries with questionable agendas have recalled, for some in Washington, an earlier chapter in history. Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration attempted to fund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of secret arms sales to Iran. Saudi money was involved in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal, and a few of the players back then—notably Prince Bandar and Elliott Abrams—are involved in today’s dealings. ... The Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of oversight, was accounting for covert funds. “There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions,” he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence official and the retired four-star general.
Seymour Hirsch's article and a tv interview is being discussed here on the Democratic Underground Forum. People are very very shocked. It is horrifying how much corruption can go on, unchecked, for years and years in a so-called democracy.
Fediraqi, that post of yours was exactly on the bullseye. America doesn't care who it has to deal with so long as its own selfish interests are served in the end. One day they support Hussein, the next day they support the Kurds ... it doesn't matter who, so long as the US wins.
Now I see that the Iraqi minorities that have been in Iraq for millenia face annihilation : Christians, Yazidis, Jews and people I never even heard of. Destruction is the only harvest from this so-called 'liberation'.
[o jeff] "n other words, it is Iraqis who are the source of the problems, not the Americans or the Germans. Iraqis are defective. They are fighting against changes which would lead to a civilized and highly ethical and moral liberal democratic. But Iraqis don't want that. They apparently like their violence, intimidation, dictatorship, greed, corruption, etc."
You're sick, man. What if America should be invaded and its government replaced with a more humane model? Would Americans resist that? Perhaps people like you should be on kill lists for "targetted assasination" like you do to Iraqis ... then we'll see if you fight back or not. You are completely twisted. Iraqis are "defective"? Why? Because they believe in determining their own fate?
Interesting to see that 'concerned' people like yourself, who believe Iraqis are defective, are the ones that would have us believe that they have Iraqis best interests at heart.
That's OK, though, because the sands in the hourglass of American occupation are draining away fast now. The hour of your ejection is coming soon.
Dear Truth Teller,
I'm happy that you and your family are well, despite everything.
And, like used to be the case, some of your American posters are indeed extremely comical, like this 'Steve-O', who writes:
"While Vietnam was an embarassment for America, the heaviest toll was paid by the people of Southeast Asia. Millions died. Today they live under the boot of China".
Now, in the US-Vietnam war (1954-1975) 5,100,000 Vietnamese died. Only less than 59,000 Americans died.
1,100,000 of the killed Vietnamese were military (both from the Vietnamese Army and guerrillas, and from the puppet, pro-US army).
Four millions were civilians; most of them were murdered by American bombs.
Here is Steve's lesson to the Iraqis: SUBMIT TO OUR POWER, OR DIE.
Nice lesson, isn't it?
And is Vietnam living "under the boot of China" ? What sort of fantasy is that?
The Vietnamese of liberated Vietnam kicked the butt of the Chinese in 1979.
As for Zeyad of 'Healing Iraq', what this Steve says is, more than libellous, senseless ...
"Of course, there are 40,000 Americans troops in Germany right now. They are the same exact troops (the same men and women) who have been stationed in Iraq in previous years. And you know what? The average numer of IED's per week is zero (0). The average number of German suicide bombers is also zero (0). The average number of headless bodies showing up by the sides of the roads of Berlin is also zero (0). The average number of church bombings is also zero (0). American soldiers don't even carry weapons in Germany!!"
I think you are rather forgetting the circumstances in which American troops first showed up in Germany...
And having chosen Germany as a comparison, don't tell me the war against Iraq under Saddam was in any way comparable to Hitler's 3rd Reich... The Nazis were technologically well ahead of the Allies right through the war... essentially it was a fairer fight... a desperately close fight..
oh, and then there was this:
"s, I have seen reports of 5000 Kurdish villages wiped off the face of the map, And I have seen reports of people of all stripes disappeared never to be seen again"
but somebody already brought up vietnam so i don't have to bother...
good night, wa salaam
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