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ART OF WAR: Postcard from Iraq
by Larmee
Monday, Dec. 01, 2003 at 1:01 AM
Postcard from Iraq
Postcard from Iraq
Dear Mother and Father,
by Love, Your Son
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 2:13 AM
Dear Mother and Father,
.
why am I here? In this hell! I only wanted to go to college, not here where we don't belong. Get me out please! It's hell! They hate us! And why shouldn't they? We invaded them, for Christ's sake! Whose country am I defending, anyway? Not the U.S..!
.
Love, Your Son
.
Ps. Get us out of here please!!!
just in time for Christmas
by Irving
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 2:48 AM
Thanks for the demoralizing Tokyo Rose sewage, little macy buruuti. So solly that the Hildebeast had her thunder stolen by that mean widdle Bush.
But hey, tell you what. Here's some uplifting images to combat that shit you're trying to pull on us. Ought to warm your hearts, seeing as you sanctimonious jerks were the champions of womyn.
look at the date
by mmmaaaasai
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 8:47 AM
under the photo - that was in early april
They always knew they'd be well received in basra given that it's a shiite stronghold - note for irving & tribe, that means they didn't like saddam
Even in basra things haven't been going so well since the summer though. Read up. Check out these more up-to-date photos from basra (from FreeRepublic.Com "A Conservative news forum")
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/961110/posts
Cheering Crowds
by Brad
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 5:37 PM
�Television footage showed the wreckage surrounded by cheering crowds, including a
boy who displayed an American soldier's helmet. There has been no word on casualties in
that attack.�
US Helicopter Downed in Iraq; 15 Dead
A huge U.S. transport helicopter has been
shot down in Iraq, killing at least 15 U.S. soldiers and wounding more than 20 others.
03/11/2003 00:02
VOA
Witnesses say two Chinook helicopters were flying in formation near the town of Fallujah
when at least two missiles struck one of the aircraft. A U.S. Army spokesman said the
crash is under investigation. The attack is the deadliest against American forces since
U.S. President George Bush declared an end of major combat in Iraq six months ago.
U.S. authorities say the two Chinook transports were carrying troops from the Army's
82nd Airborne Division to Baghdad International Airport when the attack took place.
Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was killed early Sunday in Baghdad, when a roadside bomb
exploded as a military convoy passed by.
Separately, in the center of Fallujah, residents said a roadside bomb exploded as a convoy
carrying U.S. troops was passing a market. One of the vehicles burst into flames.
Television footage showed the wreckage surrounded by cheering crowds, including a boy
who displayed an American soldier's helmet. There has been no word on casualties in that
attack.
Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, has been the site of many recent attacks and
clashes between U.S. forces and Iraqis who oppose the U.S.-led coalition.
U.S. officials had warned of possible attacks against Americans in Baghdad beginning
Saturday, during what were rumored to be "days of resistance" against foreign military
forces in Iraq.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters and AP.
cheering Collaborators
by Irving
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 5:43 PM
How many times have you masturbated to that article, you America hating freak?
Your kind will be remembered when civil war comes.
Bushbots
by Sam
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 6:42 PM
6 AM dinner?
by maitre'd
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 6:58 PM
I wouldn't be smiling if I had to pretend to eat dinner and drink non-alcoholic beer at 6am for some spoiled twit's photo op.
Leftists are abject idiots
by Sam
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 7:09 PM
Get your facts right, asshole - the Washington Post made that error, and all you Borg lapped it up. And Madsen from Counterpunch is another one of those dime a dozen intellectually dishonest assholes who ran with the lie and didn't want to confess to it's staggering idiocy, so it blamed Bush instead.
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen12012003.html
"The fact that the Post's editors were cut out from the secret trip to Baghdad practically guaranteed that an erroneous 5:20 am Baghdad time account would have crept into the Post's early morning edition. A number of people who read the Post print edition Friday morning were also given the impression that there was an early morning landing and that Bush was serving Thanksgiving dinner to the troops in the morning. And they would stay confused. Outrageously, by Sunday, November 30, the Post still had not corrected its error."
Since all you people seem to want is the sphincter of another male, you apprently have no time to sit and waste even half a minute a day thinking things through for yourselves.
Hey Sam!!
by Hey Sam
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 8:37 PM
Do you post as "durutti" on DU? Y or N
And Yet, More Cheering Iraqis
by Brad
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 10:21 PM
"Television footage broadcast from the scene showed at least three bodies on the road and a jubilant
crowd of around a dozen men kicking them."
The Scotsman, Nov. 19
Seven agents die in Iraq attack on convoy
NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN
SEVEN Spanish military intelligence agents and two Japanese diplomats were killed in
separate attacks in Iraq yesterday in another devastating blow to coalition efforts to bring
peace to the country.
An eight-strong team from Spain�s National Intelligence Centre was travelling in two
vehicles when it was ambushed. Attackers opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled
grenades at Al Mamudiya, 18 miles south of Baghdad. Only one member of the team,
which was returning from a reconnaissance mission escaped.
Four of the dead had been scheduled to return to Spain shortly, according to the Spanish
defence minister Federico Trillo, who later confirmed he would be flying to Iraq to help
repatriate the bodies of the dead officers.
The attack took place in an area under the command of the US army, he said. Television
footage broadcast from the scene showed at least three bodies on the road and a jubilant
crowd of around a dozen men kicking them.
Some of the crowd were chanting: "We sacrifice our souls and blood for you, oh
Saddam."
Loopey
by d
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2003 at 11:12 PM
>Some of the crowd were chanting: "We sacrifice our souls and blood for you, oh Saddam."
What a bunch of nutsos!!
I AGREE
by rr
Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 12:27 AM
Exactly, that's why we don't want our sons and daughters over in Iraq, dying and being horribly maimed; fighting a war for no apparent reason, fighting a war that has nothing to do with the United States, fighting a war planned, promoted and lobbied for by those who don't send their sons and daughters to fight (nor have ever fought themselves, in fact, did everything they could to avoid combat duty, or the military all together).
They have others do the fighting and dying for them.
d
by College Republican
Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 6:06 AM
>Some of the crowd were chanting: "We sacrifice our souls and blood for you, oh Saddam."
>What a bunch of nutsos!!
They sound like Bushmen.
check this out!
by impeach Bush!
Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 12:22 PM
BAGHDAD � A growing controversy grew as the soldiers from the First Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne came down from the high they experienced during President Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad.
It emerged that President Bush had not worn a hair net while he served food to the troops. Army regulations require that army food servers were a hair net. As a result, there was serious fall out from the breach of protocol, namely his hair falling into the food.
"I found a hair in my dinner," said one soldier. "It was gray, just like the President's. It was disgusting."
"I found one too," said a female soldier. "It put me off my meal, which I was looking forward to."
"By not wearing a hair net, he spoiled Thanksgiving dinner," said a third soldier. "It would have been better if he hadn't come at all, and if Paul Bremer had read his message instead."
One food server at the dinner expressed his feelings about the incident. "He undermined our professionalism as food servers," he said. "Every day for thirteen months we've been here, doing our job, serving up food and taking fire from the real soldiers. But we've been wearing our hair nets. By coming here and interrupting his own Thanksgiving, which he could have had in Crawford, he disrespected us."
The Democratic candidates for President were reluctant to criticize the President for his trip, until they heard about the hair net incident.
"He's the Commander in Chief and yet he broke army rules, "said Howard Dean. "He should be impeached."
"I wish I'd said that," said John Kerry.
"I've commanded troops in mess halls," said Wesley Clark. "My hair doesn't fall out as much as the President's. I'm the only one who can go follicle to follicle with the President."
Dear Mom and Dad,
by Love, Your Son
Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 9:31 PM
Dear Mom and Dad,
.
You didn�t raise me to be a killer. This week, I killed an Iraqi. I can�t stop thinking about it.
Whose responsible?
Who lobbied for this war?
Just whose country am I fighting for, anyway?.
Love, Your Son
cemetary defecators
by answer man
Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 10:33 PM
Here's who cried out for this war, you cowardly Commie freak.
Clever, Troll, But...
by PATRIOT
Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 11:12 PM
Clever, Troll, but ....
the Iraq war had nothing to do with 9/11.
In fact, the whole plan was published in 2000, way before 9/11. Below is an article from ABC's Nightline.......which doesn't mention that most of these "neo cons" worked for a Israeli Lukid-associated think tank when they published this. I know you already know all this, but for anyone else.....just go to google: and punch in "new american century"......or for fun, "feith, perle, treason".
This war is not being fought for the U.S.A.
(as you well know)
below: abstract of Night Line show:
The group, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.
And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."
That event came on Sept. 11, 2001. By that time, Cheney was vice president, Rumsfeld was secretary of defense, and Wolfowitz his deputy at the Pentagon.
The next morning � before it was even clear who was behind the attacks � Rumsfeld insisted at a Cabinet meeting that Saddam's Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round of terrorism," according to Bob Woodward's book Bush At War.
What started as a theory in 1997 was now on its way to becoming official U.S. foreign policy.
Links to Bush Administration
Some critics of the Bush administration's foreign policy, especially in Europe, have portrayed PNAC as, in the words of Scotland's Sunday Herald, "a secret blueprint for U.S. global domination."
The group was never secret about its aims. In its 1998 open letter to Clinton, the group openly advocated unilateral U.S. action against Iraq because "we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition" to enforce the inspections regime.
"The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power," they wrote, foreshadowing the debate currently under way in the United Nations.
Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; John Bolton, who is undersecretary of state for disarmament; and Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. Other signatories include William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, and Richard Perle, chairman of the advisory Defense Science Board.
According to Kristol, the group's thinking stemmed from the principles of Ronald Reagan: "A strong America. A morally grounded foreign policy ... that defended American security and American interests. And understanding that American leadership was key to not only world stability, but any hope for spreading democracy and freedom around the world."
Pushing for a More Assertive Foreign Policy
After the 1991 Gulf War ended with Saddam still in position as a potential threat, Kristol told Nightline, he and the others had a sense that "lots of terrible things were really being loosed upon the world because America was being too timid, and too weak, and too unassertive in the post-Cold War era." In reports, speeches, papers and books, they pushed for an aggressive foreign policy to defend U.S. interests around the globe.
Clinton did order airstrikes against Iraq in 1998, but through the rest of his presidency and the beginning of Bush's, America's "containment" policy for Saddam lay dormant � until September 2001.
"Before 9/11, this group ... could not win over the president to this extravagant image of what foreign policy required," said Ian Lustick, a Middle East expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "After 9/11, it was able to benefit from the gigantic eruption of political capital, combined with the supply of military preponderance in the hands of the president. And this small group, therefore, was able to gain direct contact and even control, now, of the White House."
Like other critics, Lustick paints PNAC in conspiratorial tones: "This group, what I call the tom-tom beaters, have set an agenda and have made the president feel that he has to live up to their definitions of manliness, their definitions of success and fear, their definitions of failure."
Kristol dismisses the allegations of conspiracy, but said the group redoubled its efforts after 9/11 to get its message out. "We made it very public that we thought that one consequence the president should draw from 9/11 is that it was unacceptable to sit back and let either terrorist groups or dictators developing weapons of mass destruction strike first, at us," he said.
Predicting Vindication
Now that American bombs could soon be falling on Iraq, Kristol admits to feeling "some sense of responsibility" for pushing for a war that will cost human lives. But, he said, he would also feel responsible if "something terrible" happened because of U.S. inaction.
Kristol expressed regret that so many of America's traditional allies oppose military action against Iraq, but said the United States has no choice. "I think what we've learned over the last 10 years is that America has to lead. Other countries won't act. They will follow us, but they won't do it on their own," he said.
Kristol believes the United States will be "vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq." He predicts that many of the allies who have been reluctant to join the war effort would participate in efforts to rebuild and democratize Iraq.
This report originally aired on Nightline on March 5, 2003.
yeah, so what?
by Trolls R Us
Thursday, Dec. 04, 2003 at 12:28 AM
Only a piece of shit Collaborator would defend Hussein. I don't give a damn who thought about doing it - that ragheaded sewage is gone. Ask Iraqis if they want Hussein to return.
America is my home, and everyone else is number 2, if even that high, and I make no apologies, and give not an atom of respect to anyone who doesn't feel the same. To feel affinity with your home is born and bred in all of us, and only someone deeply mentally disturbed feels otherwise.
And here's alink to the ABC story you didn't provide. Glad to help you, Collaborator.
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:21SCUl8EZBIJ:abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html+%22a+secret+blueprint+for+U.S.+global+domination.%22+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
please end our misery
by blood on Leftist hands
Thursday, Dec. 04, 2003 at 12:52 AM
"I Was Wrong!"
By Rev. Ken Joseph, Jr.
Amman, Jordan
How do you admit you were wrong? What do you do when you realize those you were defending, in fact, did not want your defense and wanted something completely different from you and from the world?
This is my story. It will probably upset everybody - those with whom I have fought for peace all my life and those for whom the decision for war comes a bit too fast.
I am an Assyrian. I was born and raised in Japan where I am the second generation in ministry after my Father came to Japan in answer to General Douglas Macarthur's call for 10,000 young people to help rebuild Japan following the war.
As a minister and due to my personal convictions I have always been against war for any and all reasons. It was precisely this moral conviction that led me to do all I could to stop the current war in Iraq.
From participating in demonstrations against the war in Japan to strongly opposing it on my radio program, on television and in regular columns I did my best to stand against what I thought to be an unjust war against an innocent people - in fact my people.
As an Assyrian I was told the story of our people from a young age. How my grandparents had escaped the great Assyrian Holocaust in 1917 settling finally in Chicago.
Currently there are approximately six million Assyrians - approximately 2.5 million in Iraq and the rest scattered in the Assyrian Diaspora across the world.
Without a country and rights even in our native land it has been the prayer of generations that the Assyrian Nation will one day be restored and the people of the once great Assyrian Empire will once again be home.
HOME AT LAST
It was with that feeling, together with supplies for our Church and family that I went to Iraq to do all I could to help make a difference.
The feeling as I crossed the border was exhilarating - `home at last, I hought, as I would for the first time visit the land of my forefathers.
The kindness of the border guards when they learned I was Assyrian, the taxi, the people on the street it was like being back `home` after a long absence.
Now I finally know myself! The laid back, relaxed atmosphere, the kindness to strangers, the food, the smells, the language all seemed to trigger a long lost memory somewhere in my deepest DNA.
The first order of business was to attend Church. It was here where my morals were raked over the coals and I was first forced to examine them in the harsh light of reality.
Following a beautiful `Peace` to welcome the Peace Activists in which even the children participated, we moved to the next room to have a simple meal.
`What in the world do you mean?` I asked.
`How could you not want peace?` `We don't want peace. We want the war to come.`
Sitting next to me was an older man who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently feeling the freedom to talk in the midst of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned to me and said `There is something you should know.` `What` I asked surprised at the sudden comment.
`We didn't want to be here tonight`. he continued. `When the Priest asked us to gather for a Peace Service we said we didn't want to come`. He said.
`What do you mean` I inquired, confused.
**`We didn't want to come because we don't want peace` he replied.**
`What in the world do you mean?` I asked. `How could you not want peace?`
**`We don't want peace. We want the war to come` he continued.**
What in the world are you talking about? I blurted back.
That was the beginning of a strange odyssey that deeply shattered my convictions and moral base but at the same time gave me hope for my people and, in fact, hope for the world.
THE STRANGE ODYSSEY BEGINS
Beginning that night and continuing on in the private homes of relatives with whom I stayed little by little the scales began to come off my eyes.
I had not realized it but began to realize that all foreigners in Iraq are subject to 24 hour surveillance by government `minders` who arrange all interviews, visits and contact with ordinary Iraqis. Through some fluke either by my invitation as a religious person and or my family connection I was not subject to any government `minders` at any time throughout my stay in Iraq.
As far as I can tell I was the only person including the media, Human Shields and others in Iraq without a Government `minder` there to guard.
What emerged was something so awful that it is difficult even now to write about it. Discussing with the head of our tribe what I should do as I wanted to stay in Baghdad with our people during their time of trial I was told that I could most help the Assyrian cause by going out and telling the story to the outside world.
Simply put, those living in Iraq, the common, regular people are in a living nightmare. From the terror that would come across the faces of my family at a unknown visitor, telephone call, knock at the door I began to realize the horror they lived with every day.
Over and over I questioned them `Why could you want war? Why could any human being desire war?`
They're answer was quiet and measured. `Look at our lives!`We are living like animals. No food, no car, no telephone, no job and most of all **no hope**.`
I would marvel as my family went around their daily routine as normal as could be. Baghdad was completely serene without even a hint of war. Father would get up, have his breakfast and go off to work. The children to school, the old people - ten in the household to their daily chores.
**`You can not imagine what it is to live with war for 20, 30 years. We have to keep up our routine or we would lose our minds`**
Then I began to see around me those seemingly in every household who had lost their minds. It seemed in every household there was one or more people who in any other society would be in a Mental Hospital and the ever present picture of a family member killed in one of the many wars.
Having been born and raised in Japan where in spite of 50 years of democracy still retains vestiges of the 400 year old police state I quickly began to catch the subtle nuances of a full blown, modern police state.
I wept with family members as I shared their pain and with great difficulty and deep soul searching began little by little to understand **their desire for war to finally rid them of the nightmare they were living in.**
The terrible price paid in simple, down to earth ways - the family member with a son who just screams all the time, the family member who lost his wife who left unable to cope anymore, the family member going to a daily job with nothing to do, the family member with a son lost to the war, a husband lost to alcoholism the daily, difficult to perceive slow death of people for whom all hope is lost.
The pictures of Sadaam Hussein whom people hailed in the beginning with great hope everywhere. Sadaam Hussein with his hand outstretched. Sadaam Hussein firing his rifle. Sadaam Hussein in his Arab Headdress. Sadaam Hussein in his classic 30 year old picture - one or more of these four pictures seemed to be everywhere on walls, in the middle of the road, in homes, as statues - he was everywhere!
All seeing, all knowing, all encompassing.
`Life is hell. We have no hope. But everything will be ok once the war is over.` The bizarre desire for a war that would rid them of the hopelessness was at best hard to understand.
***`Look at it this way. No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now`***
Coming back to family members and telling them of progress in the talks at the United Nations on working some sort of compromise with Iraq I was welcomed not with joy but anger. **`No, there is no other way! We want the war! It is the only way he will get out of our lives`**
Once again going back to my Japanese roots I began to understand. The stories I had heard from older Japanese of how in a strange way they had welcomed the sight of the bombers in the skies over Japan.
I had been demonstrating against the war thinking I had been doing it for the very people I was here with now and yet I had not ever bothered to ask them what they wanted.
Of course nobody wanted to be bombed but the first sight of the American B29 Bombers signaled to them that the war was coming to an end. An end was in sight. There would be terrible destruction. They might very well die but finally in a tragic way there was finally hope.
Then I began to feel so terrible. Here I had been demonstrating against the war thinking I had been doing it for the very people I was here now with and yet I had not ever bothered to ask them what they wanted. What they wanted me to do.
It was clear now what I should do. I began to talk to the so called `human shields`. Have you asked the people here what they want? Have you talked to regular people, away from your `minder` and asked them what they want?
I was shocked at the response. **`We don't need to do that. We know what they want.` was the usual reply before a minder stepped up to check who I was.**
With tears streaming down my face in my bed in a tiny house in Baghdad crowded in with 10 other of my own flesh and blood, all exhausted after another day of not living but existing without hope, exhausted in daily struggle simply to not die I had to say to myself `I was wrong`.
********How dare I claim to speak for those for whom I had never asked what they wanted! ****
ALL I COULD DO
Then I began a strange journey to do all I could while I could still remain to as asked by our tribe let the world know of the true situation in Iraq.
Carefully and with great risk, not just for me but most of all for those who told their story and opened up their homes for the camera I did my best to tape their plight as honestly and simply as I could. Whether I could get that precious tape out of the country was a different story.
What I was not prepared for was the sheer terror they felt at speaking out.
Wanting to make sure I was not simply getting the feelings of a long oppressed minority - the Assyrians - I spoke to dozens of people. What I was not prepared for was the sheer terror they felt at speaking out.
Over and over again I would be told `We would be killed for speaking like this` and finding out that they would only speak in a private home or where they were absolutely sure through the introduction of another Iraqi that I was not being attended by a minder.
From a former member of the Army to a person working with the police to taxi drivers to store owners to mothers to government officials without exception when allowed to speak freely the message was the same - ****`Please bring on the war. We are ready. We have suffered long enough. We may lose our lives but some of us will survive and for our children's sake please, please end our misery.****
On the final day for the first time I saw the signs of war. For the first time sandbags began appearing at various government buildings but the solders putting them up and then later standing within the small circle they created gave a clear message they could not dare speak.
They hated it. They despised it. It was their job and they made clear in the way they worked to the common people watching that they were on their side and would not fight.
Near the end of my time a family member brought the word that guns had just been provided to the members of the Baath Party and for the first time we saw the small but growing signs of war.
But what of their feelings towards the United States and Britain? Those feelings are clearly mixed. They have no love for the British or the Americans but they trust them.
`We are not afraid of the American bombing. They will bomb carefully and not purposely target the people. What we are afraid of is Saddam Hussein and what he and the Baath Party will do when the war begins. But even then we want the war. It is the only way to escape our hell. Please tell them to hurry. We have been through war so many times,but this time it will give us hope`.
AT THE BORDER ... A FINAL CALL FOR HELP
The final call for help came at the most unexpected place - the border. Sadly, and sent off by the crying members of my family I left. Things were changing by the hour - the normally $100 ride from Baghdad to Amman was first $300 then $500 and by nightfall $1,000.
As we came to the border we began the routine paperwork and then the search of our vehicle. Everything was going well until suddenly the border guard asked if I had any money. We had been carefully instructed to make sure we only carried $300 when we returned so I began to open up the pouch that carried my passport and money stuffed in my shorts.
Suddenly the guard began to pat me down. `Oh, no`! I thought. It`s all over`. We had been told of what happened if you got caught with videotape, a cellular telephone or any kind of electronic equipment that had not been declared.
A trip back to Baghdad, a likely appearance before a judge, in some cases 24-48 hour holding and more.
He immediately found the first videotape stuffed in my pocket and took it out. I could see the expression of terror on the driver as he stifled a scream.
The guard shook his head as he reached into my pocket and took out another tape and then from pocket after pocket began to take out tape after tape, cellular telephone, computer camera - all the wrong things.
We all stood there in sheer terror - for a brief moment experiencing the feeling that beginning with my precious family members every Iraqi feels not for a moment but day and night, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That terrible feeling that your life is not yours that its fate rests in someone else's hands that simply by the whim of the moment they can determine.
For one born free a terrifying feeling if but for an instant.
As the guard slowly laid out the precious video tape on the desk we all waited in silent terror for the word to be taken back to Baghdad and the beginning of the nightmare.
He didn't have to say a word. I had learned the language of the imprisoned Iraqi.
Suddenly he laid the last videotape down and looked up. His face is frozen in my memory but it was to me the look of sadness, anger and then a final look of quiet satisfaction as he clinically shook his head and quietly without a word handed all the precious videotape - the cry of those without a voice - to me.
He didn't have to say a word. I had learned the language of the imprisoned Iraqi. Forbidden to speak by sheer terror they used the one language they had left - human kindness.
As his hands slowly moved to give the tape over he said in his own way what my Uncle had said, what the taxi driver had said, what the broken old man had said, what the man in the restaurant had said, what the Army man had said, what the man working for the police had said, what the old woman had said, what the young girl had said - he said it for them in the one last message a I crossed the border from tyranny to freedom . . .
Please take these tapes and show them to the world. Please help us . . . . and please hurry!
Rev. Ken Joseph Jr. is an Assyrian, a minister and was born, raised and resides in Japan where he directs AssyrianChristians.com, the Japan Helpline and the Keikyo Institute
or not...
by DF
Thursday, Dec. 04, 2003 at 8:45 AM
And guess what? Rev. Ken's writing a book about his "experience" in Iraq - visualize the dollar signs.
From: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/kenjosephs.htm
A "human shield" Anti-war Protestor Changes His Mind about Saddam Hussein After Being in Iraq-Disputed!
�
Summary of the eRumor
A "human" shield" anti-war protestor who went to Iraq to oppose the war in 2003 changed his mind after being there and talking with the citizens.� Rev. Kenneth Josephs said he protested the war during demonstrations in Japan, where he lives, as well as opposed the war through speeches and radio broadcasts.� After actually being in Iraq, however, he realized that Saddam Hussein was a monster, that most of the people wanted the war to happen, and he came to the conclusion that he had been wrong about the whole thing.
The Truth
The story of the pacifist who changed his mind about the war in Iraq after actually being there got wide coverage just before the war started, especially because of a United Press International story that went around the world.
There is question, however, about the pacifist credentials of the Rev. Kenneth Josephs, the man featured in the stories.
TruthOrFiction.com has not been able to find any evidence of his having participated in pacifist demonstrations, anti-war demonstrations, or having the motive of halting the war with his visit to Iraq.
He was definitely not a human shield, but we have not found any occasion when he claimed to be.
That seemed to have been attached to his story by other writers, especially in a 3/24/03 article on Newsmax.com.
The headline read "Reality Stuns 'Human Shield': 'Saddam Was a Monster."
The article described a "group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers."
Killed in Iraq
by YOUNG, Ryan C., 21, Sgt., Army; Corona, Calif
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 12:26 AM
Killed in Iraq
The Department of Defense has identified 442 American service members who have died
since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American
yesterday:
YOUNG, Ryan C., 21, Sgt., Army; Corona, Calif.; First Infantry Division.
dollar signs
by D.F. was here
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 10:32 AM
We're still learning how evil Saddam was
NY Daily News
December 05 2003
A.M. Rosenthal
Sometimes, when I'm thinking of writing about Saddam Hussein, I dream at night of young Iraqis walking along the streets of their cities. They look normal, except for one thing: They are all dead. I realize that all of them are utterly silent and have the faces of new corpses. Some might speculate that these are dreams of guilt (a sentiment easily and frequently aroused in me) about all those who have died in America's wars with Iraq. I believe otherwise, that they are dreams triggered by increasing knowledge about the slaughter of innocent Iraqis under Saddam.
I supported the United States in its two wars against Iraq from their beginnings. The reasons were clear for me: In the 1991 war, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, followed by the threat of attacks on its neighbors. This year, the threat of an attack on the United States.
In the latest war, millions of Americans were rock-certain at first that Iraq was ready to use weapons of mass destruction against us. Now, many Americans believe Iraq did not have such weapons and that the Iraqis are victims of America. Many young Americans and Europeans have carried placards denouncing the U.S. (but saying not a word critical of Saddam and his Gestapo brigades).
But I and my close friends have heard from enough experts in the field to conclude that the Saddam loyalists who are attacking U.S. troops in Iraq now still dream of acquiring nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and of one day setting them off.
Such blind, mad loyalty should be no surprise. Saddam's regime was cemented into Iraq and its people, nailed deep into city and soil, backed by divisions of Saddam's secret police with their nationwide network of concentration camps and their government by torture. It was a huge fascist - or, perhaps more accurately, Stalinist - empire.
As for the slaughter of the innocents, on Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran a segment about Iraq. I called Scott Pelley, the correspondent for the piece, to get some details about the casualties over there.
He said that what you know depends on where you were and when you were there. The story he was covering had its origins in 1991, during an uprising against Saddam in Southern Iraq and the bloody response. In the town of Al Hilla alone, 2,000 dead were later found.
"We were in a community center," Pelley went on. "Eight hundred bodies on the floor.
"We were told by the villagers that [in 1991] the authorities came, and all the men over 18 were loaded into 36 buses, and they were told that they were going to a political rally in Baghdad. If that doesn't remind one of the Final Solution in Germany. ...
"The buses take off, and they were not found again until after the war," said Pelley.
The bodies were missing for more than 11 years until they were discovered this past June.
Scott continued, "An Iraqi who had seen what happened went to the allied authorities and said, 'You have to dig up this section of the freeway,' and they did.
"They found all these guys, and they all had their hands tied behind their backs. They were blindfolded and had been machine-gunned, and a paved highway [put] over the top of them."
Despotism devoured strings of villages in Iraq, and some 300,000 Iraqis disappeared during the Saddam regime.
Freedom is our heritage, and to hell with those who would substitute slavery.
help me, Sodomite IMC'ers
by Sodom Hussein
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 12:21 PM
>Wrom: MEPYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMBIPBAR
>Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2003 10:23:21 AM GMT
>To: < undisclosed recipients >
>Subject: URGENT HELP NEEDED
>
> You may be surprised to receive this message, as we have not known each other previously. However, I
> have been reliably informed of your Discretefulness and Ability in transactions of this nature. First, I must
> solicit your confidence in this Transaction, this is by virtue if its nature as being utterly CONFIDENTIAL
> and TOP SECRET! I came to know of you in my private search for a Reliable and Reputable person to
> handle this confidential transaction, which involves the transfer of a large sum of money to a foreign
> account requiring Maximum Confidence. Though I know that a transaction of this Magnitude will make
> any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. I have
> decided to contact you due to the needful urgency of my Situation.
>
> Let me start by first introducing myself properly to you. I am MR. SADDAM HUSSEIN, a former high
> government official in Baghdad. Unfortunately, due to a coup, our Benevolent Administration was
> usurped in favor of a foreign occupying force, so I have been dismissed from my old position. In addition,
> my two sons UDAI and QUSAI, also Public Servants, were brutally killed during this occupation. Naturally,
> I am Vexed with deep Sorrow over these events.
>
> However, during my time serving the people of Iraq, I was able to amass a modest Fortune by extracting a
> processing and handling fee from the country's oil revenues, and I also inherited a certain amount of
> money after the death of my Beloved Sons. As it happens, those funds -- currently totalling just over 37
> BILLION AMERICAN DOLLARS -- are being held by a security company in Geneva. I am unable to leave
> Tikrit at this time, however, as my mother has cancer and I have to stay here and give her the insulin
> shots, and therefore I cannot retrieve the money personally.
>
> The Branch Accountant with the First Despot Deposit & Trust Company of Switzerland, a Mr. Terrence J.
> Wilkinson, has informed me that I may move the Monies to another bank Account in America, but I require
> the help of an American who already has such an account so that I may Discretely accomplish this thing.
> In addition, I have a shipment of certain VALUABLE MINERALS acquired from Nigeria, and I need to move
> these Materials to a more secure location. My previous American confidant, Mr. Joseph Wilson, was
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> prepared to offer you 10% of my total holdings (3.7 Billion Dollars) as a fee for handling these Matters.
>
> If you can assist me in this matter, you should forward to me your telephone and fax number for easy
> Communication and to fax you the OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS concerning the consignments to ensure the
> transfer of the funds to your account. Your prompt response is being highly Appreciated.
>
> Your faithful friend,
> Saddam Hussein
Saddam's old friends?
by Nixon Baby
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 1:40 PM
Can't you just get your old pals Rummy, Reagan or Cheney to help? They all have offshore accounts.
The collaborator Bush is keeping bin Laden safe and warm.
explain this
by DF
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 2:30 PM
read and digest. this confirms everything anyone's ever said about the hypocrisy of the "brutal tyrant" argument for war
this is an extract - full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1072313,00.html
Tony Blair's new friend
Britain and the US claim a moral mandate - and back a dictator who boils victims to death
George Monbiot
Tuesday October 28, 2003
The Guardian
The British and US governments gave three reasons for going to war with Iraq. The first was to extend the war on terrorism. The second was to destroy its weapons of mass destruction before they could be deployed. The third was to remove a brutal regime, which had tortured and murdered its people.
So just one excuse remains, and it is a powerful one. Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. While there was no legal argument for forcibly deposing him on the grounds of his abuse of human rights, there was a moral argument. It is one which our prime minister made repeatedly and forcefully. "The moral case against war has a moral answer: it is the moral case for removing Saddam," Tony Blair told the Labour party's spring conference in February. "Ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane."
Had millions of British people not accepted this argument, Tony Blair might not be prime minister today. There were many, especially in the Labour party, who disagreed with his decision but who did not doubt the sincerity of his belief in the primacy of human rights.
There is just one test of this sincerity, and that is the consistency with which his concern for human rights guides his foreign policy. If he cares so much about the welfare of foreigners that he is prepared to go to war on their behalf, we should expect to see this concern reflected in all his relations with the governments of other countries. We should expect him, for example, to do all he can to help the people of Uzbekistan.
There are over 6,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan. Every year, some of them are tortured to death. Sometimes the policemen or intelligence agents simply break their fingers, their ribs and then their skulls with hammers, or stab them with screwdrivers, or rip off bits of skin and flesh with pliers, or drive needles under their fingernails, or leave them standing for a fortnight, up to their knees in freezing water. Sometimes they are a little more inventive. The body of one prisoner was delivered to his relatives last year, with a curious red tidemark around the middle of his torso. He had been boiled to death.
those amazing Leftists
by Irving
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 3:44 PM
A little hypocritical, wouldn't you say? Not one Collaborator had a protest sign saying "Down With Hussein". Not one single protestor aligned with that Communist front A.N.S.W.E.R. had a sign speaking up for the oppressed, the tortured who ended up in shredders, etc. Those same Leftists who pretend to be for womyn's rights has yet to defend the burka, (which I've asked more than once).
No, the champions of womyn's rights and childrens rights and of all the rights of the various oppressed have instead turned on the liberators, because Leftists are all mouth and no action. Human "shields" want camera time, and when they're told to congregate at power generators instead of hospitals (which never was a target, and we all know it) they throw a tantrum and shag ass.
What Leftist fakers have the ability to do, however, is post sewage dipped from the trough of the Guardian, the trendy meeting place for self loathing cockroaches everywhere, where words are all they have.
Please continue. Projection is amazing to watch.
you're lying, Irving
by DF
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 3:47 PM
I do care for womyn's rights, I really do. I was one of millions who carried protest signs with this image on it. Give me a while and I'll pull that proof out of my ass, the way everything else i say comes out.
that was irving
by the REAL DF
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 3:53 PM
That image was from Afghanistan, not Iraq. But all the same, I do care about womyn's rights! Golf courses are way more important than worrying about burkas in oppressive patriarchal societies.
Burkas
by Rebecca
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 4:50 PM
"Those same Leftists who pretend to be for womyn's rights has yet to defend the burka, (which I've asked more than once)."
Irving - I'm not sure I totally understand the question but here's an answer I think. Many actions and events were held against the Taliban/Burka/oppression of women in Afghanistan in Pgh prior to 2001. What there wasn't was media interest here. Take one event where press packs were sent out to all the media and no one responded except KQV and a small syndicated article in the PG (and that includes the so-called-liberal Lynn Cullen who later went on to support the war in Afghanistan, brag about "liberation" from the burka, and talk over anyone who didn't buy into that). That's probably why you never heard about these actions. It's also one example why Indy Media came to exist.
RAWA, the organization that campaigned the hardest against the Taliban's oppression of women (some of its members were killed for it) were the ones who smuggled out the video from which the still you posted was taken (a woman executed for alleged adultery). More aware than anyone of the stakes involved, RAWA was opposed to the war before it began and it still is now, 2 years on. Most women in Afghanistan still wear the burka for fear of the warlords who now once again rule most of the country outside Kabul. In other words, nothing much has changed there, but a lot of people lost their lives or got hit by bits of cluster bomb for it.
I hope that answers your question.
And if I wish hard enough Tinkerbell will appear.
saddam of iraq vs asad of syria
by mark
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 6:59 PM
Saddam Housain, Ex-dictator of Iraq
Saddam Houain
Officer Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979 leading the Baath Arab Party of Iraq.
Asad Family, Dictators of Syria
Hafez & Bashar Assad
Officer Hafez Assad seized power in 1970 leading the Baath Arab Party of Syria.
Baath Totalitarian Regime in Iraq:
The Baath party gradually took over political and economical life in Iraq and became the only legal party in the country. Iraq is a republic by constitution, but the Socialist totalitarian regime was governing the nation.
Baath Totalitarian Regime in Syria:
The Baath party gradually took over political and economical life in Syria and became the only legal party in the country. Syria is a republic by constitution, but the Socialist totalitarian regime is governing the nation
Baath Rule of Iraq:
The opposition figures were persecuted, arrested, executed and even assassinated abroad. Iraq became a police-state ruled by fear and brutality.
The dictator of Iraq was running fake elections were he was �re-elected� as president with 99.99% of the votes for consecutive terms until he was overthrown in April 2003.
Baath Rule of Syria:
The opposition figures were persecuted, arrested, executed and even assassinated abroad. Syria became a police-state ruled by fear and brutality.
The dictator of Syria was running fake elections were he was �re-elected� as president with 99.99% of the votes for consecutive terms until he died in 2000. His son Bashar inherited his father�s position and policy in 2000 and started his own 99%-vote elections.
Iraqi Crimes against people of Iraq:
In addition to regular persecution, mass military operations were carried against Iraqis who oppose regime. In 1987 the baath regime killed thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq using chemical weapons. In 1992 the regime massacred thousands of opposition Shaiis in Southern Iraq and thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq destroying whole cities and villages.
Syrian Crimes against people of Syria:
In addition to regular persecution, mass military operations were carried against Syrians who oppose the regime. In 1980 the baath regime killed thousands of Syrians in Tadmor prisons and in the city of Hama. In 1982, the regime massacred more than thirty thousands of Syrians by completely destroying the city of Hama in full aerial and land attacks.
Occupying its small neighboring country of Kuwait:
Iraq is, roughly, 20 times larger than Kuwait
600 Kuwaitis believed to be killed in Iraqi prisons
On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi regime occupied its small neighboring country of Kuwait and appointed a puppet pro-Iraqi government there.
Hundreds of Kuwaitis civilians were killed or captured and spent their lives in Iraqi prisons until they died. The US and the International community lead a military coalition that liberated Kuwait on February 25, 1991.
Occupying its small neighboring country of Lebanon:
Syria is, roughly, 20 times larger than Lebanon
18,000 Lebanese believed to be killed in Syrian prisons
On October 13, 1990, the Syrian regime completely occupied its small neighboring country of Lebanon and appointed a puppet pro-Syrian government there.
Thousands of Lebanese civilians were killed or captured and spent their lives in Syrian prisons until they died. The US and the International community were busy with the Iraqi situation, which left Syria occupying Lebanon until this moment.
Iraqi Links to Terrorist Groups:
Uncertain relations to some terrorist groups, encouraged terrorist activities against the United States and West-European countries since 1990.
Syrian Links to Terrorist Groups:
Syria founded and sponsored several terrorist groups in self-occupied Lebanon and in Syria. Syrian sponsored groups carried several suicide attacks against Americans, West-Europeans and Lebanese since 1980�s killing hundreds. The Syrian regime has founded and sponsored terrorists that mastered hostage-taking and hijacking against American and West-European nationals and civil airplanes. Eleven terrorist groups listed in the US State Department use the Syrian capital as a headquarter.
Iraq Crimes against humanity:
Using WMD against Iraqi people
Massacring civilian Iraqis and civilian Kuwaitis in Iraq and occupied Kuwait
Detaining, torturing and killing thousands of prisoners in Iraq and Kuwait
Syria Crimes against humanity:
Using WMD against Syrian and Lebanese prisoners
Massacring civilian Syrians and civilian Lebanese in Syria and occupied Lebanon
Detaining, torturing and killing thousands of prisoners in Syria and Lebanon
Iraqi Relations with the Syrian Baath Party:
Using the same fascist means in an extreme competition to rule over the Arab countries while claming the highest level of hater to the US and the West.
Syrian Relations with the Iraqi Baath Party:
Using the same fascist means in an extreme competition to rule over the Arab countries while claming the highest level of hater to the US and the West.
Starting mid 90�s, the Syrian regime started smuggling Iraqi oil in violation of the United Nations' resolutions. This enabled Saddam Husein�s regime to survive longer and helped selling its oil for weapons that were used later against the US and the allied troops. During the war of liberating Iraq, the Syrian totalitarian regime feared being the next tyranny to fall and supported Saddam�s troops by sending arms and paying mercenaries to fight against the US and the allied troops. The Syrian Foreign Minister announced that it is �Syrian national interest for the Allied troops to be defeated�
Statues of Saddam:
Statue of Saddam
After the collapse of Saddam�s regime, the Iraqi people celebrated the dictator�s overthrown by destroying his numerous statues that were placed in every corner, and were guarded by the secrete service security.
Statues of Asad:
Statue of Assad
Awaiting the collapse of Asad�s regime, the Syrians dare not but pay respect to his numerous statues that are placed in every corner, and guarded by the secrete service security. The statues of the Syrian dictator in Syria outnumbers those of Saddam�s in Iraq.
for more information check http://2la.org/syria/index.php
and one American .....
by Voice Of America
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 at 9:38 PM
Roadside Bomb in Baghdad Kills 5
VOA News
06 Dec 2003, 00:39 UTC
A roadside bomb explosion near a Baghdad mosque has killed four Iraqis and one American soldier.
The remote-controlled bomb exploded Friday as a three-vehicle U.S. military convoy and a small bus filled
with Iraqi passengers passed a shopping area near the al-Samarrai mosque.
Voice Of America
Friday, Dec.6, 2003
my dearest Rebecca
by tinkerbelle
Saturday, Dec. 06, 2003 at 12:59 AM
So what if the womyn of a highly oppressive patriarchal society doesn't want us there? Bulldykes aren't wanted on certain golf courses, but it doesn't stop the fantastically mentally disturbed womyn from bitching and parading about and forcing their way into where they aren't wanted, ain't that right? If the US took over the country completely, enough that those women would feel somewhat more safe, you Leftist mental cases would be in the streets under your typical Commie banners, screaming "Imperialism" and other fresh and brand spanking new ideas never before heard in the history of Mankind.
No matter how you spin it, Leftists turned their backs when they were needed most. At the time you could have had that camera time you wailed about, you chose instead to be a carnival barker for A.N.S.W.E.R.
The credibility of Leftists vanishes before your very eyes. How does it feel ti be irrelevant?
Actually, buddy
by Pete
Saturday, Dec. 06, 2003 at 12:02 PM
How does it feel to be a douchebag?
Sitting at home at 1am on a Friday night posting on Indymedia, eh? Wow, I can't believe a guy like you isn't out pullin' tail all over town! Apparently, the women of your town don't know what they're missing. Angry pissants like yourself aren't exactly a hot item anymore for social occassions, I guess. If I am little and precious, and I am your polar opposite (a happy, well-adjusted male comfortable with his heterosexuality), would that, by definition, make you fat and worthless?
Those meaningless points aside, our dumb government spent 28 million dollars advertising the new 20 dollar bill. That's 56 small business grants, or 560 homes, or a good deal of AIDS help for African nations. But hey, at least now I know that when I see a peach tint on Jackson's head, I don't have to question its legality!
While I'm at it, Rendell (a Democrat) is a dick too. For God's sake, man, come up with a budget. How hard is it? You've had almost a year! Are you stupid? Incompetent? Lazy? Well, thankfully, you can go see the governor's mansion, decorated perfectly for Christmas, for the low, low price of forgetting that Rendell is a jackass.
Why are there so many stupid people in charge?
I has been soundly whooped
by "man"handled
Saturday, Dec. 06, 2003 at 1:49 PM
Oooooooohhhh! Red Alert! Mr. Testosterone� is on the loose!
Please allow me to tell you that I have a woman. No need to prowl the back alleys for skanky Leftists with braided armpits and more hair on their legs than me in order to prove I'm a worldly and kewl "progressive" metrosexual, no sir. And a couple of my buddies like to drop by, have a brew or two, and help me along in my slapping around you highly emotional dipwigs. Took only a few minutes, while the Playstation was loading.
But hey, how nice of such a well adjusted "male" to take the time to post, instead of ignore me.
Oh, and it's kinda odd that such a well adjusted muscle ripping straight like yourself brought up the subject of AIDS. I just love that homosexist angle thrown at me every day. Nothing like a little guilt for what others problems are to make life complete, ain't that right? You stupid son of a bitch, you've heard how some of them have sex with little girls because of their voodoo beliefs it'll keep the boogeyman away? Yeah, throw money at 'em, while we have enough need for it at home.
Did you gather my drift, tough guy? I'm not a Bushbot. Bush is an asshole wanting to take my money and funnel it to incredibly stupid people, just because it makes Bono groupies happy. Fuck all that "Great Unifier" crap. You play with fire, you get burned. Keep your dick in your pants and needles out of your arms, and you just might live a day longer, ain't that right, Mr. Testosterone� ???
to pete
by from me
Saturday, Dec. 06, 2003 at 1:50 PM
Because stupid uninformed people vote them in there because they care more about how they look on tv more than if they actually know anything?
concerning pete
by Sam
Saturday, Dec. 06, 2003 at 1:59 PM
On another thread I said: "BTW, conservatives accusing progressives of being "hateful" or "angry" is a great example of projection."
pete, you made me out to be another dime store lying Leftist. Thanks for giving Irving what he wanted.
Uh, wanna help me slash my wrists?
HAPPY HOLIDAYS: Postcard From Me
by Irv The Nirv
Monday, Dec. 08, 2003 at 12:19 PM
Happy Holidays to all of you liberal America Haters who think that everything that goes wrong in the world is Americ's fault. Love and Kisses. See you under the mistltoe !!!
good one!
by Irving
Monday, Dec. 08, 2003 at 3:18 PM
Two thumbs up!
in our name
by Leftist
Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2003 at 2:18 PM
Museum of horrors
Dec. 9, 2003
Matthew Gutman
Here, men and some women and children were beaten nearly to death, then lifted by their bound wrists towards the ceiling until their arms dislocated. They were then allowed to recover enough for more torture. All of this, conducted under the banner of justice.
These were the lucky ones, according to Adnan Farrage al-Sa'edi, a former inmate of Hakemiyeh, which is being converted into Iraq's first memorial to the disappeared and tortured. Hundreds of thousands � Shi'ites, Kurds, clerics, and peasants � were executed and dumped in unmarked graves that pock the countryside.
As Iraq struggles to grasp the magnitude of the ousted regime's terror, the US-appointed Governing Council plans to establish a war crimes tribunal to mete a different kind of justice for the several hundred Ba'ath Party leaders who engineered the crimes against humanity.
The tribunals are to be an entirely Iraqi affair: Iraqi judges will hear the cases, which will be presented by Iraqi lawyers and observed by international experts.
For the past 20 years, exiles' estimations of Saddam's executions have increased incrementally from the horrifying to the catastrophic.
"Before the war, the estimations peaked at 400,000," said Iraqi National Congress vice secretary-general and security chief Nabil al-Masawi.
At the time, that number was considered inflated. Then Saddam's statue came tumbling down in mid-April, and the veil obscuring the horror was lifted. The official number of missing at the hands of Saddam's terror squads now stands at 780,000, but it is growing, said Masawi, who fears it could climb to 1 million.
Sa'edi padded down the unlit halls of Hakemiyeh, his hands clasped behind his back as if in testimony to his torture. He snapped open the bolts of his former cell block and fell to his knees, beside a heap of ragged blindfolds. The future curator then began describing the horror, detail by detail.
He brought his hands together behind his back and jutted them upwards simulating the hook that guards had placed in his wrist bindings. A winch slowly cranked, lifting him almost two meters off the floor. Searing pain followed cartilage pulling away from bone. The guards tugged on his feet with each denial.
When asked how he could so nonchalantly describe his torture, he said: "What we had was very comfortable compared to what others suffered."
Other secret prisons like those in Saddam's Radwaniyeh Palace swallowed up thousands of detainees. Few returned to the land of the living.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam's regime broke thousands of opponents by dipping them feet first into vats of acid, or putting limbs into meat-grinders. Some were forced to witness their children's heads bashed into concrete walls, others were forced to watch as wives were raped. Inevitable execution was their only relief.
By the 1990s, an increasingly paranoid Saddam began to fear inspections from human rights groups. He scaled back the torture program and moved the remnants out of the Baghdad suburbs to his palaces and more distant prisons.
On March 2, 1996, Sa'edi was signed in to Hakemiyeh, stripped, blindfolded, and then tossed into a six-square-meter cell with 13 other men. In the crimson painted room � a touch devised by Saddam to simulate blood � he slept in the filth-ridden latrine; there was no other space. A number, 320, his new name, was printed in marker on his right wrist.
When the Mukhabarat realized he was a political prisoner, he was put in solitary confinement, and then the interrogations began. Daily beatings were supplemented by the meat-hook treatment. When inmates neared death, they were injected with antibiotics. Then they were fed chicken. More torture followed.
Bottles of anti-spasmodics and antibiotics littered the floor of the facility's clinic.
Every three weeks the torture was interrupted by 15 minutes of sunshine in a rooftop cell. Clumps of sodden hair remained in the corners of the cell where the inmates' heads were shaved. "It was part of the humiliation," Sa'edi said.
Among the Mukhabarat's favored tactics to break the opposition was kidnapping and blackmail, said Masawi, who lost five members of his family to the regime. The Mukhabarat, under Saddam's orders, filmed the torture, rape, and execution. The videos were then sent to family members to grieve them into submission and surrender.
All the videos were meticulously duplicated. Copies of the torture were filed both in the Mukhabarat's Baghdad headquarters and in the provincial capitals where they were taken.
Sa'edi mentioned his own "crime" only as an afterthought: From his book shop he had sold "forbidden books" on the religious teachings of the Shi'ite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
After three months in Hakemiyeh, he was sentenced to 20 years, moved to the Mukhabarat's Baghdad headquarters, and from there to the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison.
The evidence used against him at his military trial was a scrap of paper upon which he had written, "Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr [a revered and later executed Shi'ite cleric] is our national leader."
After his conviction, all of his assets were transferred to the regime. In October 2002, he was released in a general amnesty.
Sa'edi, with his aquiline nose, almost white beard, and slightly stooped posture, seemed sprightly and alert for his age. He looked 60, but said he is 41.
What rankles many of those in Iraq's new political parties is that they and journalists managed to get the hundreds of tons of Mukhabarat files before the coalition forces. While the coalition forces snatched truckloads of material, journalists scoured the ruins of Saddam's palaces and secret police stations. They found links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden, and Iraqi efforts to sell enriched uranium to Arab states.
As for Sa'edi, he said his party, once one of the longest suffering in Iraq, had converted the building into a museum to ensure "that this never happens again in Iraq."
"For part of this, thanks are due to the US," he said from his dank former cell, Number 44. "America was the only country that could have done this."
Sa'edi said he theoretically supports the idea of war crimes tribunals, "but if you ask my mother and my wife, they will say it is better for these criminals to be burned immediately... But I never carried a pistol in my belt. Our struggle is through ideas, and it is still part of our duty to make people aware of these acts."
When asked what sentence would be appropriate for those found guilty he uttered one word: death.
It was an unjust war nonetheless
by True Leftist
Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2003 at 4:09 PM
The plight of the Iraqi people may be deplorable, but America had no reason to fling itself into war with a soveriegn nation over an internal domestic matter. Human rights are an important issue for the world, but how are we to ever eliminate human rights abuses throughout the world if the United States ignores the institutions of the world community in dealing with these issues. Is the US going to go to war over the human rights abuses that still occur daily in Africa. Or what about the daily human rights abuses in south and central america? Or even better, when will the US go to war to stop the human rights abuses that hispanic immigrants endure everyday in this country, or the human rights abuses that are effected by the American government on its own people in the ghettos, the prisons, and the underfunded schools. Like Iraq, the human rights abuses in the US are meted out by a callous uncaring ruling class of wealthy, predominantly white elites and their chosen house slaves.
The suffering that the Iraqis were supposedly relieved of is nothing more than a distraction from the true purposes of this military action ----- George W. Bush's grab at power, money and oil for his rich friends. All at the expense of the rest of the US. The rest of us can see $100 Billion go to the "reconstruction" of Iraq, and a pittance go into US education, housing for the underserved (or to GW, the "undeserved"), or healthcare.
Saddam Hussein may not have been the greatest humanitarian, but he was a leader that his people apparently where willing to have in power. If they were so happy to see Dubya the Conquerer, then why are they still killing American soldiers in Iraq? Why didn't they all run out and embrace us like Dubya said they would? Why? Because Dubya lied about having a plan, just like he lied about the reasons for going into Iraq.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction? What is the plan to get US out? Why does Dubya think the Arab world should have to live under the US model of western "democracy"? Dubya jumped ahead of the UN to take his war machine into the oil rich middle east that kicked his daddy's ass.
I can not buy into the farce that Dubya and the Republifascicans are concerned in the least with human rights of anyone, least of all the many tribes of the Arab world. Dubya has only replaced one despotic dictatorship in Iraq with another despotic dictatorship. Dubya is the new dictator, dictating that his war machine must go into a battle to the death against their will, to impose on the Iraqi people a government that they do not want, imposing fear on a world that wants peace and not Dubya's war or revenge and conquest.
I WILL buy into the power of the American people to effect their own regime change this year and remove the selcted occupant of the White House with an ELECTED PRESIDENT. Today several US soldiers were again murdered as a direct result of George Bush's negligence. The only consolation for these brave soldiers that are forced into doing George Bush's dirty work are dying for freedom ---- the freedom of the American people from the worst leader ever to have been forced on the American people. If they continue to die in this battle for our freedom then Dubya's sandy quagmire will surely lead to his defeat at the polls in a few short months.
another true freak sliding into irrelevance
by durutti
Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2003 at 5:40 PM
What kind of moron are you? Why should I care what the United Dictators think?
Amazing how you supposed champions of human rights now defend your inaction and cowardice and giving aid and comfort to the Butcher of Baghdad by saying the United States didn't heed UN resolutions to resolve the previous resolutions that were enacted in order to resolve....
what would Kucinich do?
by WWKD
Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2003 at 6:31 PM
Here's a question for all you "intellectuals" out there:
Let's say I come up to you on the street, and all of a sudden I double up my fists and start pummeling your slimy Collaborating ass. What will you do?
Will you double up your fists and defend yourself?
Or will you lose control of your bladder, reach for your cell phone and call the United Nations, then sit in your puddle of urine and wait 12 years for however many resolutions?
If your choice is the latter, bonus points for telling us your odds of winning as long as terrorist nations are on the "Security" Council.
what ANSWER doesn't want you to see
by Sam
Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2003 at 7:27 PM
Iraq behind the cameras: a different reality
December 5, 2003
TARA COPP
BAGHDAD, Iraq - It's a little-known footnote in postwar Iraq that an unassuming Army Civil Affairs captain named Kent Lindner has a bevy of blushing female fans.
Every time Lindner checks in on the group of young, deaf Iraqi seamstresses at their factory here, the women swarm him with admiration. "I love you!" one of them writes in the dust on Lindner's SUV.
Such small-time adoration is not the stuff of headlines against the backdrop of a country painfully and often violently evolving from war. So on this day, when Lindner and his fellow soldiers are cheered as they fire the deaf workers' boss, a woman who has been locking the seamstresses in closets, holding their pay and beating them, the lack of TV cameras on hand is no surprise.
But later that night, mortars hit nearby. Cameras are rolling, and 15 minutes later folks back home instead see another news clip of Baghdad's latest violence. It's a soda-straw view that frustrates soldiers, like those in Lindner's Civil Affairs unit, who are slowly trying to stitch together the peace while the final stages of the war play out on television.
"We've got a lot of good things going on, but when I went home (on leave), people were just like 'We never hear that stuff,' " said Civil Affairs Pvt. Amy Schroeder. "That's what makes the families worry."
What Iraq looks like on TV, and what Iraq is like for the 130,000 troops living here, sometimes feels like two different realities.
That's especially true for the Army's Civil Affairs soldiers, reservists who often serve as civil engineers in their "real life" jobs, and who are here working in Iraq's schools, hospitals and factories. There are thousands of Civil Affairs soldiers in Iraq, and their daily missions take them into all regions of the country, from the water plants in Basra to the south, to canning factories up north in Irbil.
"Our stories aren't the sexiest," says the 432nd Civil Affairs Brigade commander, Gary Beard. "But what we do will build the success of this country."
For the soldiers, the morning typically starts inside their compounds with a breakfast of coffee and thick, rubbery bacon substitute from one of the contractor dining halls, or sometimes just a cigarette and a Coke. It's cold now, but the sun is still white-bright, so most still wear hats or sunglasses.
Outside the compounds, Iraqis who have become full-time employees wait to get their IDs checked. The regulars know the MPs by name, and the soldiers and Iraqis exchange the same kind of morning greetings heard at job sites everywhere.
"Amin! What's up, man?" the 352nd Civil Affairs commander, Maj. Michael Maguire, says to contractor Amin Ahmed. The Iraqi businessman works with vendors in the city to get equipment for Maguire's men. Over the months, a bond has formed. When Ahmed was worried about car bombs hurting his daughter at school, Maguire helped get heavy barbed wire to wrap around the school's perimeter.
With their translator ready to go, Lindner and 352nd Lt. Col. Jim Otwell don bulletproof vests and Kevlar helmets and drive out of the compound to visit the state-run sewing factory for deaf Iraqis.
"We want to find out what your working conditions are, anything that we can do to help you," Otwell tells the young women at the factory. He speaks in English slowly, for the benefit of an Arabic translator, who then turns to an Arabic-speaking sign-language translator to sign Otwell's questions to the seamstresses.
The girls' hands start flying as they tell Otwell about their hated boss.
"She would beat us, and pull our hair!" signs Nadia Jabar.
"What about working conditions ... do you have hearing aids? Books you can read?" Otwell asks.
"Nothing!" they sign back.
Otwell and Lindner tour the building, which is cold and dusty. But inside several of the rooms are old products they can sell - hundreds of Iraqi flags they've sewn, dresses and pillowcases. Already the team has arranged for the factory to produce all the uniforms for Iraq's civil defense forces, and piles of cut brown pant legs line the floor.
Now the workers are getting $60 a month, part of which is spent on housing them at the factory. Otwell and Lindner promise to come back soon, and ask the workers to make a list of things that they really need, so maybe next year the factory can get some upgrades. On the way out, the workers jump and clap, as Lindner and Otwell escort the old boss - who had come back to the factory despite a previous arrest by Iraqi police for beating the workers - away from the building.
Across town, another mission is under way.
"Welcome, welcome to our school," chants a line of 7-year-old girls in Arabic at the Abu Ghuraib Primary School, which the 490th Civil Affairs Battalion took under its wing to restore after it was badly looted postwar.
The now-bright-blue school has new equipment and new electrical wiring that feeds bright bulbs by the teachers' blackboards.
As each soldier walks through the entrance to the official ribbon-cutting, the girls chant louder in Arabic, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Inside, headmistress Ibistam Mahdi cuts a yellow ribbon, and thanks the men through a translator.
"For the 350 girls here, it is a lot better," Mahdi says.
Despite the violent news images seen most often at home, these soldiers say it's more common to see boys selling water jugs of gasoline to passing cars than it is to see a roadside bomb.
In the cities, the convoys pass through marketplaces where women walk, arm in arm, to shop for trendy beaded skirts that sparkle in the sun. They pass blocks of electronics stores where men carry home boxes of MP3 players and satellite TV dishes. On busier streets, hundreds of roadside "money exchanges," where Iraqis trade dollars for dinars, pop up like lemonade stands.
"Oh, I'm an Ali Baba now," says Staff Sgt. Justin Lockhart to a squirming 11-year-old Iraqi boy named Aaday. Aaday has the sergeant's handcuffs and is busy playfully locking Lockhart up.
"It sounds bad, but I try and play with the kids as much as possible," says Lockhart, of the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion. "It's safer with them around. The only times I'm scared are when there are kids around us, and they leave. Or when adults come get them - it's right after that that we leave a place," because it may signal a coming attack, he said.
Even in Fallujah, a city 30 miles west of Baghdad that in the last month has become characterized as one of the more hostile cities in Iraq because of recent attacks, Civil Affairs teams still make daily trips out of their compound to help get the city's day-to-day needs functioning. And the men and women stationed there say it's just not as violent as it looks.
"I go out every day," says 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion Sgt. Bill Belongea. "I have not had to raise my weapon yet. It's not as bad as the media portrays it."
On another mission in Baghdad, soldiers from the 352nd Civil Affairs command pull up to the Ministry of Labor and Social Services to follow up on victims of a recent police-station bombing. By the gate, hundreds of needy Iraqis line up for welfare payments.
The soldiers of the 352nd have stopped in to pick up food and clothing for a family of 26. The family members survived the attack on the Adamiyah Police Station, but the explosion destroyed their apartments.
"All they have left is what they pulled out of the rubble," says Capt. Chuck Timney. "These people could have a long wait for a new home, so we're going to try and make it as comfortable as possible."
As the soldiers wait, news of a nearby roadside bomb comes in through the static on the Humvee's radio. A command post dispatches rescue helicopters, and a few minutes later two Black Hawks buzz past.
Maj. Jeff McKone is listening in the Humvee's front seat, and his reaction is one of relief - that this particular bombing is not one he has to worry about. He continues to snack on an MRE through the dispatches, and then hops down from the Humvee to help load boxes for the family.
As the soldiers arrive at the displaced family's temporary quarters, the parents and children rush out to open the gate and help carry the packages.
Both Timney and Capt. Mike Self, who has brought colored paper and pens sent by his church back home for the kids, check specifically on the youngest child. The toddler stopped speaking or moving after the car bomb. Although still mostly listless in her mother's arms, the girl wails during this visit. It's the first noise they've heard from her, and it's a sign of relief for the soldiers, who have clearly bonded with the family.
As they say their goodbyes, the soldiers look happy, accomplished.
"If you can't feel good about today," McKone says, "then you shouldn't be here."
(Reach Tara Copp at coppt(at)shns.com)
Here's one for you fans
by "Intellectual"
Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2005 at 10:37 PM
chameleonsday@hotmail.com 555iloveun America Number 1
Why have the UN when our own leaders are selling us out?
www.whatreallyhappened.com/rumsfeld_saddam.gif
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