THE HANDSTAND

july 2005

A Iraqi who answered questions..........

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time. He opened the door to them and was "happy to exercise some of his English", said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition. It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie. "In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."

The US military said the allegations "roughly correspond to an incident involving coalition forces on that day and in that general location". Maj Gen Stephen T Johnson said the allegations were being taken seriously and would be thoroughly investigated.

Acting US ambassador to the UN, Anne Patterson, had "expressed her heartfelt condolences" to Mr Sumaidaie, said a spokesman. She has urged the Pentagon and state department to look into the matter immediately.

A blogger whose questions were answered.......
Iraq scene is so complicated to the extent that nobody can put an end to this case, and may be this is the end?
I am writing now what I feel and what I am thinking of, and I'm sorry for this sudden change in my thoughts and enthusiasm but I think it is enough..
I see everybody is dying ..losing friends..losing hope..and I would lose myself if I stayed there..
We want to live…
We want to build our lives..
We want to build a future to our children..
Will they leave us do that?
And will others really help us?
I was trying to reorganize my life, or in a better way, begin a new life after realizing new facts or the same facts that I couldn't or didn't want to realize.
I'm still out of my country living a peaceful and quiet life like any other human being, which is the simplest thing, and this simple thing has not been achieved until now in Iraq.
I lost nearly all the optimism I had regarding the future of Iraq, it's now a battle zone, everybody wants to try his arms or see the 'paradise' comes to Iraq with a welcome on the borders and a push behind the borders.
It's just like you have an orchard and a flood wants to destroy it, the best way to protect it is to dig a big hole and get rid of this flood, so the orchard will be safe forever, no matter how strong that flood is.
I feel so sad when I think that the future is unknown, completely unknown..I can briefly compare the situation in Iraq now with those simple words: it was very bad, and now it is bad and I don't know whether it will continue like this or go back to the 'very bad'.
Whom to stand against now? The neighbors? The Islamic fundamentalists? Or who?
If we want to know who’s OBL or who’s AlZarqawi and who are the other terrorists, we must understand the history of their movement, and here I want to clarify that for everyone who doesn’t know the truth about them.

Wahhabis (members of the Wahhabism, a fundamental Islamic group founded by Muhammad abd AlWahhab 1703-1792) threatened Iraq since the eighteenth century and they think that Muslims (especially the Shia) do not obey Allah and Koran because they visit the shrines of Ali bin Abe Taleb (Prophet Muhammad’s cousin) and his descendants and regard them as their Imams, which is considered ‘Kufr’ or disbelief in God or polytheism, according to the Wahhabism, ‘because Allah said in the Koran: and if my adorers asked you about me, I am nearby, respond to a call of the prayer if he invocates’ and ‘the Mosques belongs to Allah so do not invocate to anybody else’, so there’s no need to go to those shrines and beg them for help, you must ask for help directly from Allah.
(Wahhabism has many other beliefs, but I just want to mention the history of it)
(Also I want to say that this movement tried to appear five centuries prior to Muhammed Abd AlWahhab, but it failed.).

So Wahhabis named their movement ‘AlTawheed’ since 1730 which means the belief in Allah only, and the other things (such as the holy shrines) are considered like the idols, and the one who visits them is a ‘Kafir’ and must be killed.

Mohammad abd AlWahhab succeeded in his movement because he depended on the Bedouins in the desert of Arabia (now Saudi Arabia) and cooperated with their Emir (Bin Su’ood) those people do not care for the shrines or anything other than Allah, in addition to that, Mohammad abd AlWahhab stated ‘Aljihad’ for them to kill everyone who does not believe in their movement and that means they could raid on other tribes and places, then kill their men, take their women and rob everything; such things were very effective especially when it comes with religion.

Since that time the movement was called (AlTawheed wa AlJihad)..

Then in 1790 the danger of the W. began to be clear in Iraq because it was easy to reach to the southern areas of Iraq from the Arabia, the W. killed people and robbed many places in Iraq which was under the Ottoman Empire at that time.

In 1802 the W. entered Karbal’a city when the people were visiting the shrine of Imam AlHussein in a day of the Shia called ‘AlGadeer day’, the W. used their swords to kill everyone there in one of the most ruthless massacres in the history of Iraq, they killed men, women and children in thousands, robbed the place and headed to AlNajaf but they could not enter because the residents of this city stood strongly against them so they ran away.

I wonder where the Zionists were at that time?! Did they support this movement since that time?
Aha….America did all of that!

I don’t know why Muslims do not want to believe that Islam includes many groups and sects that do not agree with each other, it is not that ‘unified’ religion as they claim, every group explains the Koran as they see it right or as they want it, they are in a deep dilemma, but all Muslims do not confess. They keep saying ‘Koran is clear and obvious for everybody’..

Every group in Islam deals with the Koran as they like, which is very dangerous if it is left that way.
my grandpa told me to go to a Mosque and give some money to the poor people who are used to sit near the Mosques on Friday to get some Dinars from AlMusalleen (the Muslims who do the prayer)..
I found it a good occasion to give some donations together with my grandpa’s money, so I’ve collected the overall thingies and headed there.
I couldn’t park my car near the Mosque cause I couldn’t get a permission from those excited guards there, so I should take that long walk to reach to those needy people, it was at noon, it’s still hot this time, the sun does not want to leave us, however, I found a blind man sitting near the door of the Mosque, and old women on the other side of the door…few pale children were on the other side of the street sitting near a bony woman..it’s so painful to see them in this situation, especially those kids..
I’ve started to distribute what I have among them, the thing that I can’t forget is that blind man, he’s grasped that bunch of money and said in a deep voice ‘thank you…may Allah open the paradise doors for you’… Frankly, I don’t care if they will be opened or closed, but I do care about that blind man’s life so much, I wondered what if he’s born in London or New York or any other modern cities, what would be his life, what kind of care and support he would get…and when will we be able to take care of the aged people and give them support and help.
While I was thinking and looking painfully at that blind man, I heard very loud shouts from the guards…they were running along with an imposing car, they were shouting at those poor people to get out of the road, and in hasty steps they made a shield for the man who was in that car to ‘protect’ him…His procession was a little similar to that of Saddam and his guards!

Yesterday I was in AlHurriya Olympic Swimming Pool together with my friends, while we were there, the Iraqi soccer team alternates entered the place with the goalkeepers coach Ahmed Jasim..
I met one of the players, Akram Sabeeh, the goalkeeper and talked for few minutes, then I asked some questions and told him that I’d publish his words on the internet and he’s agreed, so I gladly began my questions:
A: What do you feel when you play now? I think there’s a difference than those days during the ex-regime?
Akram: look, I was seriously afraid when I was playing, they were really horrible days under Uday, I was afraid to do anything that might be misunderstood and the result would be the jail.
Now, I feel free when I play soccer, I feel that I’m playing to improve myself and never afraid of anyone.
A: So you feel that you are free now?
Akram: of course free.
A: Have you ever been jailed?
Akram: Yes, for 10 days.
A: what for?
Akram: Because I shouted at the referee!
A: Isn’t it a humiliating act to be jailed for this reason?
Akram: Yes, but Uday was enjoying doing so, I might be lucky to be jailed only, other players were being beaten severely, tortured and many other brutal acts, you’ve heard about that?
A:Yes..let’s forget what was Uday doing… what about the economical status?
Akram: my salary was 20$ and now it is 200$.
A: wonderful..multiplied by 10..
Akram: Yes, I can think in my future now!
A: So what was wrong with other Olympic players, they were so upset when they were shown on the TV after each game, they kept repeating: occupation, targeting the cities..etc, they blamed on the Americans for that, what do you think?
Akram: Well..they were saying this cause they were watching what was going on in AlNajaf and previously in Fallujah, they felt that the families were being killed everyday.
A: And do you believe that?
Akram: we are watching all of that on the channels.
A: Have you ever watched some good news regarding Iraq on those channels?
Akram: Frankly…Never!

blog@yahoo.com

We shelter behind the myth that progress is being made

By Robert Fisk

06/23/05 "The Independent" - - So we are going to support the myth. As the headless bodies are found along the Tigris, as the mortuaries fill up, as the American dead grow far beyond 1,700 - and, let us remember, the Iraqi dead go into the tens of thousands - Europe and the rest of the world still support the American project.

The Brussels summit was - and of course I quote our good friend Mr Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations - "a clear sign that the international community will be determined and dedicated to [the Iraqis] on the tough walk ahead".

You can say "tough" again. How many suicide bombers have now immolated themselves against the Americans and their mercenaries and the new Iraqi army and the new Iraqi police force and their recruits? The figure appears to stand at around 420. Back in the days of Hizbollah's war against Israeli occupation in Lebanon, a suicide bomber a month was regarded as phenomenal.

In the Palestinian "intifada", one a week was amazing. But in Iraq, we reach seven a day; Wal-Mart suicide bombing that raises the darkest questions about out ability to crush the uprising.

Condoleezza Rice says she wants more Arab ambassadors in Baghdad. I bet she does. When King Abdullah of Jordan promises to send his man to Iraq "as soon as it is safe", you know that the Arabs have understood the situation in a way the Americans have not. Who wants to be a late ambassador? Who wants to put his head on the block in Baghdad?

The reality - unimaginable for the Americans and their self-deluding allies, tragic for the Iraqis themselves - is that Iraq is a hell-disaster. Visit any Iraqi embassy in Europe, talk to any Iraqi in Baghdad - unless they live in the dubious safety of the pallisaded "Green Zone" - and you will hear their narrative of violence and have to accept that we have failed.

We are to be, so the myth-makers of Brussels claimed yesterday, "a full partner in the emergence of a new Iraq", to prove that "the people of Iraq have plenty of friends". Oh yes indeed. Except that most of these "friends" dare not visit Iraq (like the putative Jordanian ambassador) lest they have their heads chopped off.

American journalists now writing optimistically about the war - or the "insurgency" as we still insist on calling it - either travel with US forces in Iraq or conduct a form of "hotel journalism" from their heavily guarded Baghdad hotel rooms, working their mobile phones to talk to the self-imprisoned people of Iraq or their foreign mentors. A few American reporters still venture out - may they receive their appropriate awards (preferably not in heaven) - but the voice that now speaks of Iraq is that of officialdom, the narrative written by men and women who will, so they fervently hope, never have to visit real Iraq.

The representatives of more than 80 countries are urging the elected Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to reach out to Sunnis - the same Sunnis who are destroying American and Iraqi lives on a shocking scale across the country - but the official line, so cringingly enunciated by the BBC last night, was that "top diplomats" (I like the "top" bit) had "thrown their weight behind US efforts to build a democratic Iraq". Only the word "efforts" suggested the truth.

The reality is that Iraq is more insecure than ever, that no foreigner dare now travel its highways, that few will venture into the streets of Baghdad. And we are told that things are getting better. And still we believe these lies. And still we fool ourselves in the movie-world of the Pentagon and the White House and Downing Street and, these days, the UN.

If all those dignitaries and puffed-up politicos and self-important diplomats were so sure that Iraq was going to be a success story, why didn't they meet in Baghdad rather than Brussels? And of course, we all know the answer. 

©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

 http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05282005.html

What are we to make of the news reports that Baghdad is to be encircled and divided into smaller and smaller sections by 40,000 Iraqi and 10,000 US troops backed by US air power and armor in order to conduct house to house searches throughout the city to destroy combatants?

Is this generous notice of a massive offensive a ploy to encourage insurgents to leave the city in advance, thus securing a few days respite from bombings?

Is the offensive a desperate attempt by the Bush regime and the Iraqi government to achieve a victory in hopes of reviving their flagging support?

Or is it an act of revenge?

The insurgency has eroded American support for Bush's war. A majority of Americans now believe Bush's invasion of Iraq was a mistake and that Bush's war is not worth the cost. The insurgency has proved the new Iraqi government to be impotent both as a unifying agent and source of order.

US frustration with a few hundred insurgents in Fallujah resulted in the destruction of two-thirds of the former city of 300,000 and in the deaths of many civilians. Are we now going to witness Baghdad reduced to rubble?

Considering reports that 80% of Sunnis support the insurgency passively if not actively, it looks as if extermination of Sunnis will be required if the US is to achieve "victory" in Iraq.

If this Baghdad offensive is launched, it will result in an escalation of US war crimes and outrage against the US and the new Iraqi "government."

Obviously, the Americans are unwilling to take the casualties of house to house searches. That job falls to the Iraqi troops who are being set against their own people.

If insurgents remain and fight, US air power will be used to pulverize the buildings and "collateral damage" will be high.

If insurgents leave and cause mayhem elsewhere, large numbers of innocent Iraqis will be detained as suspected insurgents. After all, you can't conduct such a large operation without results.

As most households have guns, which are required for protection as there is no law and order, "males of military age" will be detained from these armed households as suspected insurgents.

The detentions of thousands more Iraqis will result in more torture and abuses.

Consequently, the ranks of the active insurgency will grow.

Neocon court historians of empire, such as Niall Ferguson, claim that the US cannot withdraw from Iraq because the result would be a civil war and bloodbath.

However, a bloodbath is what has been going on since the ill-fated "cakewalk" invasion.

Moreover, the planned Baghdad Offensive is itself the beginning of a civil war. The 50,000 troops represent a Shi'ite government. These troops will be hunting Sunnis. There is no better way to start a civil war.

As George W. Bush has made clear many times, he is incapable of admitting a mistake. The inability to admit a mistake makes rational behavior impossible. In place of thought, the Bush administration relies on coercion and violence.

Nevertheless, Congress does not have to be a doormat for a war criminal. It can put a halt to Bush's madness.

The solution is not to reduce Iraq to rubble. The US can end the bloodshed by exiting Iraq.

The problem is that Bush wants "victory," not a workable solution, and he is prepared to pay any price for victory. The neocons, who are in effect Israeli agents, want to spread their war against Islam to Syria and Iran. For neocons, this is a single-minded pursuit. Their commitment to war is not shaken by reality or rationality.

The Bush administration has proven beyond all doubt that it is duplicitous and has delusions that are immune to reality. America's reputation is being destroyed. We are becoming the premier war criminal nation of the 21st century. We are all complicit.

How much more evil will we tolerate?

###

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

.looting of archaeological sites continues
BBC Report.
Dr Donny George was working at the Baghdad museum when it was ransacked. He is now in charge of the remainder of the collection which, two years on, is still under lock and key.

He says unscrupulous private collectors are the real culprits for what is happening to Iraq's archaeological sites. "There's a definite connection between the looters and the collectors outside the country," he says. "We know there are people sitting in Saudi Arabia and in Jordan, asking for specific material from specific sites."

'Underground' trade

But tracking down these pieces is not easy. Some national police forces, as well as Interpol, keep a database of the most important missing artefacts and in many countries it is now illegal to trade in antiquities from Iraq.

That has had some success. But Professor Stone believes it has also driven the trade underground and made it more difficult to detect. "Somewhere there must be warehouses that are bulging at the seams because this stuff isn't showing up on the market," she says. "The people who are storing it are perhaps long-term family firms of antiquities dealers. They may be assuming that if it's not this generation then it's the next generation that's going to reap the profits."

The United Nations cultural organisation, Unesco, is reviewing its work on stopping the trade at a conference this week. But it has its work cut out. Resources are limited. The security situation in Iraq shows little sign of improving. And the thieves and smugglers are more organised than ever.