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Today's
Stories
Jan.
31 / Feb 1, 2004
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
January
30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
January
27, 2004
Steve
Philion
Ritter Was Right: My Exchange with
CNN's Aaron Brown
Daniel
Ellsberg
Leak Against This War: Expose the
Lies from the Inside
C.G.
Estabrook
Can George Ever Really be Elected
President?
Josh
Frank
Hot Coals in Vermont: Dean's Smoke
Screens
Greg
Moses
Racism 101 All Over Again
Gilad
Atzmon
Blood, Soil and Art
Mike
Ferner
"We're All Lied To": an
Interview with Bruce Cockburn in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
General Disorders of the Day
January
26, 2004
Sean
Donahue
The Toxic Career of Rand Beers: Kerry's
Drug War Zealot
Gary
Leupp
David Kay's Admission
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has
Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in
Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10,
Morris 0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan
Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's
Revelations and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the
Mafia
January 19, 2004
Justin E. H. Smith
Inside
America's Prisons: From Corrections to Retribution
Richard W. Behan
The GOP, Inc.
Ray McGovern
Bush's
State of the Union: Humility or More Hyperbole?
Werther
SOTUS:
the Stalin Moment of America's Nomenklatura
Phillip Cryan
Media Collusion in Colombia's War
Lee Sustar
A New Strategy to Reverse Labor's Decline?
Arthur Versluis
Great Lakes as Commodity: Privatizing Water
Uri Avnery
Anti-Semitism:
a Practical Manual
Steve Perry
Fresh Crack from Hawkeye State
January 17 / 18, 2004
Fadi Kiblawi and Will
Youmans
The
Use and Abuse of MLK Jr by Israel's Apologists
Joshua Muldavin
and Joseph Nevins
Blaming the Symptoms
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear
Plant
Brian Cloughley
Iron Hammers in Iraq
Saul Landau
Fog of War: Vietnam and Iraq
M. Shahid Alam
Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
Richard Manning
Food Poisoning as Background Noise
Marjorie Cohn
The Guantanamo Concentration Camp
Mike Whitney
Scalia and Opus Dei: Radicals on the Court
Sadik Kassim
Meet Our New Saddam: Islam Karimov
Carol Norris
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
David Krieger
Imagining MLK Jr at 75
Bruce Jackson
Making War, Making Movies
Ron Jacobs
Revolution in the Air: a review
Richard Edmondson
Rupert Murdoch and My Sister
Richard Forno
Apologizing for Preemption: Evil, Perle and Frum
Poets' Basement
Holt, Mickey Z, Albert & Guthrie
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No Stan
for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
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CounterPunch
Wire
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Corrie
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Francis Boyle
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Weekend
Edition
January 31 / February 1, 2004
The Subtle War
Humiliation
in Ramadi
By ROB ESHELMAN
I
was about to begin the prayer when a Franj threw himself upon
me, seized me, and turned my face to the East, telling me, 'That's
how you pray!'
Usamah Ibn Munqidh, Chronicler (1095-1188)
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Frankish crusaders
rampaged through the Muslim regions of Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine. Glorious, walled cities were torched while surrounding
agricultural land--vineyards and olive and date groves, were
reduced to fallow ground. In 1098, the barbarous armies of the
west, victorious at Ma'arra, celebrated by skewering, grilling
and eating Arab children. Jerusalem fell to the occidentals.
Thousands of Muslims were killed in the gold-domed Al-Aqsa Mosque;
Jews were sealed in their synagogue and burned alive. Today the
military occupation of Iraq, though far less brutal, feels to
many like a crusade.
"The Americans are monsters and
freak people," says Sheikh Mohammed Mahmoud Letief, a very
powerful spiritual and political leader in Ramadi. "They
are treating us worse than Saddam. The soldiers are insulting
Iraqis by treating them like animals. They don't know anything
about our culture and how we treat people."
Compared to the cluster bombs and dead
children of the war, these complaints about the occupation's
humiliation and brutality may seem unimportant, but the routine
depredation of deeply religious and honor bound Iraqis is a hugely
important part of why so many Sunni's are resisting the occupation.
At times the military's destructive activity
is due to the cultural ignorance of young soldiers. At other
times it is a conscious tactic meant to rip apart the social
ties holding this society together.
Ramadi is an hour and half drive west
from Baghdad along Iraq's major east-west thoroughfare, Route
10. Hang a left about 30 minutes beyond Fallujah, and you enter
this town of 400,000.
To say that Ramadi is a hotspot for the
resistance is an understatement. During a drive through the city
center, the burnt remains of Humvee tires lay close to a blown-out
portion of median strip--the telltale sign of an expended Improvised
Explosive Devise. On a side street nearby, a pick-up speeds by.
In the cab, the driver and passenger conceal their faces with
kaffiyas. The third passenger, riding in the bed of the truck,
is also masked and brandishes a kalashnikov. A short distance
behind are two Iraqi police cars in hot pursuit--filled with
gun toting cops.
Because of this rebel activity Ramadi
is the scene of a collective, retaliatory punishment perhaps
unequaled in Iraq. This repression includes the familiar forms:
house searches, detentions, home demolitions, and checkpoints.
However, it is also the scene of intense emotional and psychological
warfare--a callous and often intentional effort to crush the
pride and self-respect of an entire population.
Outside Sheikh Mohammed's home, the street
is filled with children spilling out from a nearby elementary
school. A surreal mural of brightly painted Disney characters
and blue Smurfs is painted on a wall opposite--beat-up pickups
and rusty sedans drive slowly past. The vehicles slow down or
stop completely to wave or give their regards to the Sheikh.
Always, he takes time to stop and talk, often holding hands with
the man he's speaking to, never rushing the interaction.
Only in his mid-thirties, the Sheikh
has gained the respect of Ramadi because of his family lineage,
his skills at mediating disputes between various clans and above
all because of his religious scholarship.
Since the March invasion of Iraq, the
Sheikh's neighborhood has had electricity for no longer than
three-hours at a time and the water is routinely cut. During
one of my visits, the water has been off for more than twenty-four
hours. Inside his darkened home, the Sheikh describes American
methods in Ramadi.
"When they enter mosques, they don't
know the Koran from any other book, they throw it on the ground,
they kick it. If they come to my home, they will go to my library
and destroy all the books. This means they are against us, against
our culture--against Islam."
The Sheikh then relates what he describes
as a "funny and sad story." A seven-year-old boy was
standing next to a mosque as a military patrol approached. The
child threw a rock--hitting one of the passing vehicles. The
soldiers answered, "by shooting over one hundred large caliber
bullets into the mosque". The military convoy then surrounded
the place of worship and demanded to speak with the religious
leaders inside. The military asked them to turn over the child.
The soldiers then took everyone in the mosque, maybe fifty, handcuffed
them, and made them stand with their faces against a wall. "They
didn't differentiate between sheikhs, the old, or the young",
explains Sheik Mohammed. Continuing, he says, "If they were
looking for the child, why did they treat all the people in the
mosque so poorly?"
The story is finished, but I've failed
to see the funny part. Maybe something has gotten lost in translation.
Then I remember: earlier, the Sheik had described the Americans
as the "silly people". The humor, which the Sheikh
is trying to convey, pivots on how insanely the Americans behave.
Throughout the visit I hear a child's
piercing cries from inside the kitchen. The Sheikh explains apologetically
that his oldest son, age four, is terrified of Americans. The
boy is worried that the visiting strangers will take his father
away.
To illustrate the brutality of the occupiers,
the Sheikh takes me to a farm in al-Sigaria, a small village
to the southeast of Ramadi. By chance a US military patrol is
in full swing. A number of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Humvees
straddle the single entry point into town. Driving through, to
the right, a squad of burly US soldiers lead away a small boy,
perhaps ten or eleven years old. The boy looks miniscule compared
to the armored soldiers.
This is the village where, in July, the
US military raided the home of Shaaker Mahmoud Moklef. Suspecting
him of being an IED engineer, they tossed concussion grenades
into the rear yard, then blew the front door off with explosives.
The soldiers entered the courtyard--guns blazing--killing the
52-year old farmer along with his wife and son. Shaaker's two
daughters survived--the oldest required surgery for a gunshot
wound to the leg. No IED making gear was found.
Ali, one of Shaaker's brothers, looks
deeply angered and saddened when talking about the killing of
his brother and his brother's family. However, for Ali, and his
older sibling Jamal, the brutal deaths were only the beginning.
For months, they were unable to locate the bodies of their family
members and perform a proper burial. The corpses had been disappeared
by the perpetrators. In the case of Shaaker's son, the body has
still not been delivered to the family thus ensuring their emotional
wounds remain open.
Inside the home of Ali, the Sheikh and
I drink hot, sweet tea with the younger brother and Jamal. Ali
painfully recounts the story of attempting to track down the
body of Shaaker's wife. After many months, they learned that
she was buried behind a military hospital in the ancient city
of Babel, just to the south of Baghdad. According to Ali, as
the bulldozer began to exhume the woman's body, other corpses
were uncovered, revealing a mass grave. When the wife's body
was disinterred, they found that her hands were still bound.
Before the incident, the oldest daughter,
Ala, was the top of her class receiving the highest marks amongst
her peers. Now, explains Ali, "she's traumatized, always
getting zeros." Following the gunning down of her parents
and brother, she was transported to the hospital in a helicopter
lying next to the bodies of her slain parents and brother.
Walking from Ali's house toward the scene
of the July carnage, a thick fog engulfs the low-cut homes of
al-Sigaria. The swaying palms rustle--serenading our somber approach.
We make our way through the twisted metal remains of the front
door and enter the courtyard.
We meet the two daughters. Heads bowed,
their posture, their eyes, and their silence confirm the violence
which happened here. Despite their apparent sadness, they still
exude an aura of dignity--welcoming us into their home.
Back in front of the home, by the kobuz
oven, the Sheikh says: "This is a poor village. The Arab
people here do not have many possessions, but they are rich in
their hearts." The Sheikh contrasts this assessment by repeating
an earlier description of Americans. "Only monsters are
capable of treating people so badly."
We leave al-Sigaria--lunch awaits us
back at the Sheikh's house. As he drives his modest white sedan,
I tell him the next time I come to Ramadi, I hope that I can
visit him and his family in a free Iraq--a country without a
dictator or an occupying army. He responds, "You are always
welcome. Your home will be in our hearts and our eyes."
Here in Ramadi, the Sheikh and others,
describe an assault on their culture which is playing out like
the history of the Crusades. In the West, the occupation of Iraq
is pitched as a project of liberation--of bringing freedom to
a country which for many years was compromised by the brutal
apparatus of Saddam Hussein's regime. However, from the perspective
of those in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle, Hussein
has been replaced by a far worse entity--one that keeps the population
subservient, but also sets out to undermine their way of life.
As we re-enter the tempest of central
Ramadi--stacked traffic and bustling market place--the Sheikh
says, "One day, those living in the East will be able to
live along side those from the West. Then there will be true
peace." As we pull out of town and head for Route 10, we
pass a long line of vehicles waiting for patrol, an Iraqi Police
checkpoint, and more US military patrols trawling for action.
Rob Eshelman
is a San Francisco-based journalist currently working in Iraq.
His articles have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail and Counterpunch.
He can be e-mailed at robeshelman@riseup.net.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
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