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"The
most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news
and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from
MER.
It
is
indispensable!" - Robert
Silverman - Salamanca,
Spain
The U.S. and Israel have set Iraq on Fire
NYTIMES Reporter Faces Death Then
Writes More Plainly About Iraq
and the Middle East
"A few days after Sheik Yassin was killed,
American authorities
shut
down the Hawza newspaper, the mouthpiece of
Moktada al-Sadr... But closing
it only played into Mr. Sadr's
hand, fueling huge protests by his
followers. Then Falluja happened.
The group that took responsibility said it was avenging Sheik Yassin."
NYTimes
"Today the hated Redcoats
wantonly killing and destroying
are the Americans. The ragtag militias
fighting the occupiers are
Palestinian and Iraqi and Muslim. And the pompous,
self-righteous,
arrogant types fill U.S. T.V. screens with their cries for more
troops
and more killing until the natives comply with the Empire's
demands.
The other evening, on NBC News, the 'consultant' 'explaining'
developments in Iraq ended with
'God Bless the American Marine Corps!"
MER
MER - Mid-East Realities - www.MiddleEast.Org
- Washington - 4/12/2004:
There he is, alive but for the decision of his
Iraqi captors that could have gone the other way, and still can for
others, and he jots off an email for explanation not to any Arab
friends, or any Middle Easterners for that matter, but rather to a
Jewish professor at Emory University in Atlanta long associated with
the duplicitous 'peace process' not to mention the 'liberal' arm of
Israel's vast collection of American Jewish appologists and
promoters. Then, not getting the real answers from
Professor Kenneth Stein, the intrepid reporter for the New York Times manages to write a
few lines toward the end of his tale about what any average Middle
Easterner knows -- that the Israeli-U.S. assassassination of Ahmed
Yassin in Gaza and the events that followed in Iraq are now being
played out with growing hatred against the Americans, and that still
growing passions of revulsion and utter despair are leading to hostage
takings, brutal killings, body burnings...with the end not really in
sight now.
Actually all Americans had to do was watch
their TV screens last evening and use a little thought and
feeling. For those not watching NBC's much-hyped
docu-drama about 9/11 there was on CBS a three-hour showing of Mel
Gibson's THE PATRIOT. That's a movie about 1776 and the American
revolution. The hated British wantonly killing and
destroying. The ragtag 'American militias' attacking them using
what today would be called 'terrorist tactics'. The pompous,
self-righteous, arrogant British officers belittling their subjects and
acting as declining empires do with such brutality and hubris.
And finally the French fleet sailing in to save the rebellious colonies
from otherwise defeat - leading to American independence more than 200
years ago now.
But today the hated Redcoats wantonly killing
and destroying are the Americans. The ragtag militias fighting
the occupiers are Palestinian and Iraqi and Muslim. And the
pompous, self-righteous, arrogant types fill U.S. T.V. screens with
their cries for more troops and more killing until the natives comply
with the Empire's demands. The other evening, on NBC News, the
'consultant' explaining developments in Iraq ended with 'God Bless the
American Marine Corps!" And what effect this is all going
to have on future history remains uncertain, but all indications are it
is all leading to still more bloodshed and hatred with no real end now
in sight.
P.S. If you
haven't seen The Patriot, now
is the time to rent it, watch it, and ponder the historical connections.
Recent Timely
On March
22, in the Gaza
Strip, Israeli forces assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the leader of
Hamas and a hero to Palestinians. Outraged Arabs hit the streets in
Baghdad and other Middle Eastern capitals. Many Americans in Iraq
braced for reprisals. A few days after Sheik Yassin was killed,
American authorities shut down the Hawza newspaper of Moktada al-Sadr,
an anti-American Shiite cleric, accusing him of printing lies that
encouraged violence against the Americans. But closing the newspaper
only played into Mr. Sadr's hand, fueling huge protests by his
followers. Then the Americans arrested one of Sadr's top aides. And
then the brutal killing of four American 'contractors' in Falluja
happened. The group that took responsibility said it was avenging Sheik
Yassin. Then the sheik's ghost returned to Iraq once again on April 2
when Mr. Sadr announced that he was opening the Iraqi chapters of
Hezbollah and Hamas, pro-Palestinian groups responsible for attacks on
Israel.
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ROADBLOCK
War's Full Fury Is Suddenly Everywhere
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
New York Times News of
the Week in Review
- April 11, 2004 - BAGHDAD,
Iraq - Just the other day, on the outskirts of
town,
clouds of black smoke boiled up from the highway. A fuel truck was on
fire, engulfed in flames.
Another day in Baghdad. Another hit on a military convoy.
But when a photographer and I stepped out of our car to take pictures,
it was clear we were stepping into another Iraq.
Insurgents flooded onto the roadway, masks over their faces,
machine guns in their hands. They began to fire at approaching Humvees.
The neighborhood around us scattered into a mosaic of panic. Women
slammed gates behind them. Cars shot gravel from their tires as they
raced away. And we were just 20 minutes outside the city center in a
place that up until the last few days was as safe as any.
In Kufa, a palm-lined town on the Euphrates, bearded Shiite
militiamen who swear their allegiance to a rebel cleric are driving
around in police cars. American officials had just bought those police
cars. American soldiers had just trained the policemen who had been
riding in them.
In the Khadamiya neighborhood, one of the prettiest spots in
Baghdad, men passed out grenades where just days ago children sat under
umbrellas, licking ice cream. It was stunning how natural it looked,
how quickly armed men seemed the norm, how nobody seemed to bat an eye,
even though the heart of Baghdad now looked like the heart of Kabul.
The atmosphere in Iraq has completely changed. In just a week, a
fading guerrilla war has exploded into a popular uprising. "Six months
of work is completely gone,'' said a State Department official working
in southern Iraq. "There is nothing to show for it.''
It was as if the clock had been set back to the early days of
occupation. Again tanks are blasting apart targets in Baghdad
neighborhoods. Cities like Falluja and Ramadi are under siege or, more
accurately, re-siege.
But there is a difference. Back then, last April, when I was a
reporter embedded with the United States Army, Iraq seemed as if it was
slowly coming under control. Now, after three months on my current
stint here, that nascent sense of order is collapsing into chaos.
This past week, a photographer (yes, the same one) and I headed to
Ramadi, 50 miles west of Baghdad and the scene of a fierce battle that
claimed the lives of 12 marines. The trip was supposed to take two
hours. We had to take back roads.
The fields glowed green with rice, the palm trees swayed, and
children splashed in rivers. We saw women in the doorways of mud huts
squinting at us. We saw a slice of life in Iraq that was quiet and
simple.
But just as I was admiring the scenery, a minivan zoomed in front
of our car and blocked the road. A dozen gunmen with scarves tied over
their faces jumped out. Some had heavy machine guns. Some had
rocket-propelled grenades. We were surrounded. "Out! Out!" ' the men
shouted. We were in a bulletproof car. Or allegedly bulletproof. Who
really knew? The insurgents banged on the inch-thick glass with the
tips of their Kalashnikovs. I didn't want to open my door.
But with the fatigue of one who is thoroughly defeated, I got out.
I stood in the dust and watched the men level their guns at my chest. I
thought about my mother. I was hoping it wouldn't hurt.
The translator and driver, usually so cool, even joking, under
fire, looked terrified. One insurgent swung the safety off his gun,
making a very deliberate metallic sound I hope never to hear again, and
unloaded half a clip into the sky.
"Move!" he shouted.
We stepped over the hot brass bullet casings that had just been
spat into the dirt and got into the minivan. We had no options. We had
driven into the heart of the Sunni resistance, into a little town
between Baghdad and Ramadi completely overrun by mujahedeen fighters,
right now one of the most anti-American places on the planet. We later
learned that we had arrived just at the time of an attack.
Our captors were not sure if we were journalists or spies.
Eventually, they satisfied themselves that they could trust us. The
critical moment came when a man with aviator sunglasses brought us a
bowl of water.
"Drink," he said.
My mouth was so parched from fear that no sip ever tasted so wet.
"Now," he said, "you are our friends."
Later someone told me that if you are offered water - or tea, or
anything in such a situation - take it. The gesture means you are a
guest. And hospitality in the Arab world can spell the difference
between making it out of a sticky situation or not. The man with the
aviator sunglasses wasn't just giving me water. He was giving me life.
Eventually, we were allowed to drive away from the village. As we
left, the insurgents launched an attack on the marines. Rockets
flashed. The insurgents cheered. The last we saw of them their fists
were in the air.
And I was left with the question: Why now?
Why did the Shiites, who had been patient for a year, suddenly pour
into the streets to kill Americans? Why are at least some Shiite and
Sunni groups, who used to be rivals, now cooperating? How did the
slaughter and mutilation of four American civilians in Falluja set off
a chain reaction that reverberated beyond the Sunni Triangle and jolted
the entire country?
I punched out an e-mail message to Kenneth W. Stein, a Middle East
historian at Emory University, who suggested in response that the
killing of four American contract workers in Falluja on March 31, and
the macabre celebration afterward made extreme violence possible and
even invigorating.
"These examples whip up emotions, show to the public just how
successful the struggle is against the foreigner, the occupier, the
alien,'' Mr. Stein wrote. "Pack mentality can overcome reason and
propriety.''
But before Falluja two things happened - clear in retrospect - that
helped unravel what little hope was here.
The first was hundreds of miles away. On March 22, in the Gaza
Strip, Israeli forces assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the leader of
Hamas and a hero to Palestinians. Outraged Arabs hit the streets in
Baghdad and other Middle Eastern capitals. Many Americans in Iraq
braced for reprisals.
A few days after Sheik Yassin was killed, American authorities shut
down the Hawza newspaper, the mouthpiece of Moktada al-Sadr, a radical
Shiite cleric. The paper had been accused of printing lies. But closing
it only played into Mr. Sadr's hand, fueling huge protests by his
followers.
Then Falluja happened. The group that took responsibility said it was
avenging Sheik Yassin.
The sheik's ghost returned to Iraq once more, on April 2, when Mr.
Sadr announced that he was opening the Iraqi chapters of Hezbollah and
Hamas, pro-Palestinian groups responsible for attacks on Israel.
The next day American authorities announced arrest warrants for
several of Mr. Sadr's followers. His was soon to follow. Last Sunday,
Iraq erupted. Mr. Sadr ordered his followers to take over government
offices in Shiite areas across the country. In just days, the fighting
pulled in thousands of people who weren't fighters before, and who took
on a new identity. Until then, the insurgency had been a mysterious
force behind a red and white checkered scarf. It had no uniform, no
ideology, no face.
But Mr. Sadr provided that. Posters of him are everywhere now, even
in Sunni strongholds like Falluja, something unthinkable before this
crisis.
Mr. Sadr is only 31 years old. In the world of holy men, he is
considered a religious lightweight. Compared with Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, the more moderate Shiite cleric whose decrees carry the
force of law, Mr. Sadr's voice is just a suggestion.
But Mr. Sadr seemed to tap into a Shiite backlash percolating for some
time.
Many Shiites have suffered the same humiliations as the Sunnis.
They complain about soldiers bursting into their homes and harassing
them at checkpoints, and all the other grievances experienced by those
living under an occupation by foreigners from thousands of miles away.
And as the anniversary of Baghdad's fall approached, the Shiites, who
greeted American tanks with roses one year ago, had little to
celebrate.
"When I wake up, I know this day is going to be a little worse than
the last one,'' said Haider al-Kabi, a 29-year-old laborer from Najaf
who said he was joining the resistance. "I got sick of it.''
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