The repair of Iraq is a slow process (not helped by reports that Islamist death squads are hunting down homosexuals and killing them): Municipal authorities in the southern city of Basra have mounted a campaign to clean up the Jewish cemetery there. The cemetery is seen as one of Basra’s ”˜cultural landmarks’ and the authorities…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Torturing their way to freedom
America in Iraq: a lesson in how to make friends and influence people: Torture and other abuses against detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine, even after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, according to new accounts from soldiers in a Human Rights Watch report released today. The new report, containing first-hand accounts…
How to avoid realities
John Pilger, New Statesman, September 24: Britain’s political conference season of 2008 will be remembered as The Great Silence. Politicians have come and gone and their mouths have moved in front of large images of themselves, and they often wave at someone. There has been lots of news about each other. Adam Boulton, the political…
How to confuse a country in one easy step
One side of modern Iraq: Abdul Hussein Abdul Razzaq laughs wearily when asked if racism is a problem in Iraq. As a black Iraqi, Razzaq says, he faces job and social discrimination and has little chance of getting a political appointment or being elected if he ran for public office. That’s why Razzaq, a longtime…
In his own words
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to CNN and host Larry King can’t seem to understand why the Islamic Republic may be upset that the US supported Saddam Hussein for many years:
Terrorists are our friends
Farnaz Fassihi, Iranian American correspondent in Iraq for the Wall Street Journal, Democracy Now!: I think that the fact that the violence came down is because of three reasons. It’s because of the surge, one reason. It’s also because of the Americans putting the Sunni insurgents on the payroll. They’re paying about $300 a month…
How to ruin a country
The reality of Iraq all too easily ignored by our mainstream media (including the murder of one million people). The truth on CSPAN: The most shocking testimony I have ever heard about the war”¦.Today 3 Iraqi men testified, one who was Chief Investigator of the Iraqi Public Integrity Commission (likened to the CIA here) to…
How to bring “liberation” to Iraq
So much for the “success” of the surge in Iraq: Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday. The images support the view of…
A battle never worth winning
Iraq-style counterinsurgency is fast becoming the US Army’s organizing principle. Is the military preparing to fight the next war, or the last one?