George Bush’s much ballyhooed “surprise” visit went over like a lead balloon in Iraq.
Even before Bush left Baghdad, thousands of supporters of the Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had taken took to the streets in protest -- an incredible feat of organizing when you consider even Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki didn’t know about Bush’s trip until five minutes before his arrival.
“As an Iraqi, I’m so disappointed!” bellowed Sa'dik al-Hasnawi, head of the Sadr Movement office in Diwaniya. “Bush’s visit shows Iraq is the 51st state. It doesn’t make any sense that the President of one country comes to visit another country with sovereignty and is own right to self-determination without the President and the Prime Minister having any information about it. The Iraqi government won’t do anything without permission from America. So we have a country without a government.”
Meanwhile, citizens of Baghdad have begun life under an ongoing dusk-'till dawn curfew and new American military manoeuvre called "Operation Forward Together."
In the aftermath of Bush’s visit, Iraqi authorities imposed a curfew in the capital hoping to stem the tide of violence that seems to continue unabated. No one is allowed outside from 9pm until 6 in the morning. Cars will be banned from the roads during Friday prayer. Up to 75,000 Iraqi and US soldiers using tanks and armored vehicles are being deployed across Baghdad.
“There is a lot of military,” computer programmer Alaa al-Obeidi said from his home in Baghdad. “Tanks, a lot of soldiers, but it’s just a huge show of force. They are showing off. They’re just going around.’
“They have a lot checkpoints, but they are not doing any real checking,” he added. “They’re just harassing people and delaying us. That’s it.”
Almost immediately after the new operations launched, a car bomb exploded in Baghdad killing two people and wounding seven. In the Sunni neighborhood of Adamiya, Reuters reports, gun-men blocked roads with stones and tree trunks and exchanged fire with Iraqi police.
Mothana al-Dhari is spokesman for Iraq's Sunni clerical establishment, the Association of Muslim Scholars exaplined:
“Now the government is announcing publically that there is no legitimate resistance,” he said. “We expect to hear this from the government, because they are saying they are a legitimate government. So they want to make anybody against them illegitimate. The first people they want to make illegitimate is the armed resistance. But the armed resistance is against the American occupation.”
Al-Dhari says the fighting will continue. He says under international law, any people under foreign occupation have the right to take up arms.
So, despite Bush’s broad pronouncements, the fighting will continue.
Pacifica radio network reporter Aaron Glantz is author of the new book "How America Lost Iraq" (Tarcher/Penguin). More information at www.aaronglantz.com
warcomeshome.org
Pacifica radio network reporter Aaron Glantz is author of the new book "How America Lost Iraq" (Tarcher/Penguin). More information at www.warcomeshome.org
Suppose it is the orders of Paul Bremer? The plundering of their national assets? The stealing of their natural resources? Bombing their cities and villages with cluster, phosphorus, and depleted uranium? Breaking into their homes, imprisoning, torturing, killing of innocents? The puppet government installed by the US neo-con/multi-national/corporate invaders? The US trained and backed, Interior Ministry, death squads? The lost promises of, restored electricity, water, jobs, homes, and infrastructure? The 1.6 billion dollar embassy that we are building, while saying that the insurgents are prohibiting the reconstruction of Iraq? The permanent bases? The new prisons? The 20-40 thousand mercenaries unaccountable to Iraqi or American laws?
Why would they hate us? There are only 1,000 people dying per month (appx 200-300 thousand thus far), 28,000 imprisoned (appx 85-95% innocent) and tortured, the loss of their country to foreigners, the loss of 70% of their jobs, the loss of clean water, the contamination of their country with depleted uranium, the loss of all of their assets and natural resources, terrorists, an invading army and the sickness of their children and people.
Just to name a few minor sacrifices, for their democracy. They did get some purple fingers and got rid of Saddam. The ungrateful wretches. What more could they ask for?
by
LYNNE KRINGLER (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 55 comments)
on Thursday, June 15, 2006 at 2:07:08 AM
We won the war on Japan in WWII and we still occupy Japan. We still occupy S. Korea. How can we think it will be any different with Iraq? Iraq does not have a valid government now, and the argument that they didn't have one with Saddam is truly not true. Afterall we supported him with weapons. Ronald Reagan supported using Iraq to fight Iran. Are we stupid in thinking Saddam would not realize his people were dying for America's enemy Iran? What was America giving Iraq to wage war against Iran? Nothing but weapons and death. Sure looks like a good reason why Saddam wanted Kuwait returned to their homeland.
Are we still stupid to think this imposture government will quell violence? In reality this scheme is the same script Saddam was following, except now America is doing much more damage than Saddam ever did! I just know more people have died from America's involvment in Iraq, than the crimes they are charging against Saddam today.
Bush is promising Oil to the Iraqi people. What a great consolation prize if they agree to the occupation! (sarcasm)Oil is not going to uplift the people in Iraq, it is the pretext, the reason, the war. Why would they want it now? Why would they want to sell to the American government who killed their loved ones, who are occupying their country and never leave? Do we really think Iraqi people want to be uplifted from the money from the Oil sales, knowing that the Americans are the ones who killed their family?
I can see the Iraqi people now saying well they killed all our aunts and uncles, and our children, and the old shoe peddler because of Oil, and now they want us to agree with their phoney government, and forget about the lives of our family, as we accept the idea that Oil and its revenue from the sales are going to make us a better society. Hey thanks for killing my family, now we have everything from the American occupiers.
This is such a terrible scenario I just gag on my own large intestines. I know if I was an Iraqi, I would never accept it. I would never give up until the American government left not only Iraq but the entire middle east.
Osama Bin Ladin was right. And I will never believe that he concoted 911. That was clearly a Bush and Enron Pearl Harbor II to rally support for this false war, all in name of taking Oil, and forging ahead the corrupt plan of American dominance in the world. The devil may have the money, but he will never get my soul.
The Iraqi fools in the present phoney government should be ashamed of themselves. They will have no respect. They need to insist the American government leave.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Thursday, June 15, 2006 at 6:46:50 AM
2 comments
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