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Today's
Stories
March 22 /
23, 2008
Ralph Nader
Bush
Blisteres the Truth on Iraq
March 21, 2008
Marleen Martin
Land
Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on
Crime"
Peter Montague
Run
Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not
Saul Landau
Monroe's
Deadly Doctrine
Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset
Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?
Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?
Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations
Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing
Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?
Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?
Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
March 20, 2008
Damien Millet
/
Eric Toussaint
The
Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?
Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire
Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech
Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API
Stella Dallas
/
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right
Website of the Day
The Angry Monk
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
|
Weekend
Edition
March 22 / 23, 2008
IraqiGirl Comes
of Age Under Occupation
Bush's
Surge Hits Mosul
By JOHN ROSS
The world marks the fifth year of the
war in Iraq with no end in sight. Just as others in my generation
could not remember a time when there was no Vietnam war, my life
seems to have begun with the current massacre. What came before
has been erased.
I was just a whippersnapper
of 65 back then when in February 2003, I signed on with the Human
Shields and rode up to Baghdad in a London double decker bus
to interpose my body between Bush's bombs and the Iraqi people.
Most of us were sure we were going to die and we were prepared
to pay the price to stop the war before it began. But we didn't
die and we didn't stop the war. Five years later here I am,
to my amazement, turning 70. The war like my life goes on.
And on.
As the crude reality of imminent
attack closed in on Iraq, Saddam flew a bunch of us Shields up
to Mosul 240 miles north of Baghdad during the first week of
March 2003. Mosul is Iraq's largest Sunni majority city and
with a population of 1.7 million, the nation's third city behind
Baghdad and Basra. Despite the Sunni majority, Mosul has a lively
ethnic mix. Bordered by Kurdistan, a substantial portion of
the population wears the Kurdish colors. Turkmen, Christians,
and Yazedis - the non-Muslim sect slaughtered by unknowns in
August 2007 - are all players in the ethnic push and pull. There
are few Shiaas in Mosul.
Saddam rewarded the loyalty
of Mosul's Sunnis by selecting many of his elite army officers
from the city and the now-outlawed Baath party ruled local politics.
In the summer of 2003, Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, on the
run from their American pursuers, sought refuge in Mosul only
to be taken out by U.S. sharpshooters when they were betrayed
by a local Judas.
But all that came months later.
When we flew into Mosul in the first days of March 2003, Saddam's
minders had the buses waiting. We toured the local public hospital,
viewed the dying babies, and were shown the empty supply rooms.
We visited an abandoned Mosul University campus and stood before
the Winged Lion of the Assyrians that guarded the gates to the
city. We visited a  communications
center bombed by the first Bush in 1991 and a Christian church,
also bombed by the Americans. We drove out across the lush valley
and climbed up to a first century Christian monastery carved
out of the mountainside. The blackened cubicles were covered
with centuries of candle wax.
It was raining hard, a cold
dense rain, and the flocks of sheep on the road were soaked through.
Everything was a deep dark green - Mosul is in the mountains
above the deserts of central and southern Iraq. We ate a huge
lunch at Saddam's expense. There was plenty of Arak, "the
milk of lions", to wash it all down. I bought a Saddam
watch from a street peddler outside the airport.
Mosul, the capital of Nenevah
province, a region celebrated for its many now-looted ruins,
was a strategically sited city in the middle of the U.S.-imposed
no-fly zone. Nenevah abuts Syria on the northwest and Turkey
further north and it became a critical transit point for black
market oil out of the country and foreign fighters flocking to
join the resistance further south.
The Sunnis of Mosul bristled
at the presence of U.S. troops who encamped on the outskirts
of town and often drew fire from the locals. 22 American troops
were killed when a suicide bomber entered their mess tents in
December 2004.
The November 2004 U.S. push
into Fallujah just days after George Bush had been re-elected
president, triggered an uptick in fighting in Mosul as insurgents
fleeing that western city moved north to Nenevah. U.S. convoys
sent south from Mosul to join their comrades in Fallujah sometimes
crossed paths with the rebels on the roads.
While the brutal battle for
control of Fallujah raged, a similar battle was joined in Mosul.
The militants seized whole districts, attacked police stations
and prisons, and confronted Iraqi army patrols. U.S. troops
were poured back into the fray. Repeated curfews were declared.
The battle for Mosul has ebbed
and flowed ever since, sometimes more intensely than in Baghdad.
Every night, bodies are dumped in the neighborhoods to the left
bank and the right of the Tigris river. Explosions and gunshots
puncture the sleep of the citizenry. Last year, as the Bush
surged kicked in down river in Baghdad, a fresh wave of insurgents
converged on Mosul compounding the daily violence, some of which
is recorded police blotter-style by the Mosul Observer.
The "Killing Harvest"
as the paper mordantly labeled the reports seems particularly
preoccupied with the profession of the victims. In 2007, according
to my casual count, one or more barbers, butchers, printers,
jewelers, policewomen and men, bakery workers, "wage earners",
wood merchants, opthomologists, an ex-Iraqi body building champ
fleeing sectarian violence further south, and a woman who had
converted a room in her house into a beauty salon, were slain
in Mosul. Doctors were both kidnapped and killed with some regularity.
Ditto with journalists. Mosul University professors and their
students were popular targets - the "Killing Harvest"
meticulously lists the victims' faculties and colleges. Agriculture.
Statistics. Humanities.
Many of these deaths and maimings
are attributed to "explosive devices" and others to
drive-by shootings. Car bombs in cars set off car bombs in houses
and whole neighborhoods collapse. This is apparently what happened
this past January 22nd in the Zajilli district where a grain
storehouse in which explosives had been cached blew sky high,
killing 60 and wounding 280 (Red Crescent.) When the Nenevah
police chief showed up to survey the damage, he was stoned by
survivors whose homes had been destroyed. A suicide bomber hurled
himself at Brigadier General Saleh Ahmad al-Jabouri, killing
and wounding a score more.
The Killing Harvest reports
also kept tabs on the yet-unidentified bodies dumped in the districts,
some charred beyond recognition, some missing their heads. Sometimes
the bodies are hung up under the bridges as a warning to all
who walk there.
The killings are spread throughout
the city. On March 30th, 2007 the Forensic Pathology hospital
received 24 bodies in 24 hours killed in 18 separate incidents.
Last April was the cruelest month. 64 bodies were collected
during the last week of the month. There were 24 mortar attacks,
29 explosions, and 23 armed clashes. Totals for the whole month
were 244 homicides, 137 explosions, and 123 armed "incidents"
- the surge in violence in Mosul obeys Bush's surge strategy
in Baghdad.
About a third of Mosul's killing
harvest deaths are attributable to U.S. military kills. "United
States helicopters shell X neighborhood in X district, killing
or wounding X number of civilians" is a frequent entry.
Three women. Four brothers. An 11 year-old child.
U.S. troops blow the doors
off homes and shoot the homeowner when he tries to protect his
family. On May 16th, after six car bombs had gone off in the
city and two bridges across the Tigris were blown, "U.S.
Army soldiers shot Kamal Abdul Baqi, an 83 year-old retired teacher,
when he refused to allow their guard dogs to search his house.
Mr. Abdul Barqi is both blind and deaf." (Mosul Observer.)
As the Battle of Mosul has
resurged with Bush's surge, U.S. troops seem to be increasingly
jumpy. When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates flew into that
city on December 5th, two unidentified men were shot dead for
"lunging" at U.S. soldiers. The troubled year ended
appropriately enough December 31st when U.S. troops shot a Christian
couple in the head after the Americans' patrol had been targeted
in the Tahreer district.
I have been living in Mosul
for months now without ever having checked out of this cavernous
hotel in the old quarter of Mexico City where I've been in residence
for the past 23 years. In a book project begun upon in 2006,
I've been collaborating with a spirited Iraqi teenager from Mosul,
weaving together four years of "Iraqigirl's" blogs
(iraqigirl.blogspot.com) into a narrative (working title: "Iraqigirl
- Coming of Age Under U.S. Occupation.)
Iraqigirl has indeed come of
age during Bush's war in Mosul. When she began her blog in July
2004, she chatted up her Barbies and her bears and posted pictures
of her pink room on the Internet. Then she would tell about
walking outside her door on the way to school and finding a corpse
in the street. "That's nothing", a school chum tells
her, "there was a body without a head on my street."
Iraqigirl's life is fixated
on family and school - school and studying provide a stabilizing
space in the middle of the chaos of war. But sometimes when
she gets to school, her classroom has been hit by a missile.
Just getting to school can put her life and that of her family
at risk. One day, her dad, a respected doctor in Mosul, was
roughly pulled from his car by U.S. troops, forceably searched
and made to stand in the broiling sun for hours while Iraqigirl's
sister and her two year-old daughter sat in the sweltering car.
When the baby began to cry, her mother was afraid to reach for
the bottle of water in her purse because any movement could have
caused the U.S. soldier standing by to shoot her.
Iraqigirl's relatives have
been killed. Some have had to leave Iraq. Her beloved grandfather
grew weary and died LAST May. "Bomb cars" break out
the kitchen window all the time but the family no longer replaces
them. What's the use?
Iraqigirl's resentment at how
Bush and his war have messed up her childhood is redemptive.
"I'm 16. These should be the happiest years of my life.
I should be a wild girl doing crazy foolish things" she
complains, locked up one night after the next by the eternal
curfews. "We go to sleep at 10 o'clock now like the chickens.
Are we chickens?" she asks.
Black humor abounds. One day,
her sister narrowly escaped a car bomb blast outside the university.
When she returned home, as Iraqigirl tells it, Najma refused
to do housework. "I was going to die today and you want
me to wash the dishes?" she told her mom. Anne Frank's
ghost floats over the Mister Bean jokes Iraqigirl intersperses
in the texts.
The year of Bush's surge has
been a rough one for Iraqigirl and for Mosul. The curfews keep
her counting the walls ("there are still four in each room")
and she is terminally bored as only a teenager can be. Her college
board exams were called off three times because of the war in
Mosul. But there are pluses. "The sound of the American
airplanes has helped this community to discover the value of
silence."
Now the al-Maliki government
in association with its U.S. puppet masters has declared the
Mother of All Battles to take Mosul back from the insurgents
Bush's surge brought to town and troops are reportedly massing
for the final assault. The U.S. invaders have established dozens
of checkpoints in the city and plans to build walls between neighborhoods.
Iraqigirl is pessimistic about the future.
"Life is one thing we
are not very good at
Your lost friend from where
Iraq once was.
Iraqigirl."
"IRAQIGIRL - COMING OF
AGE UNDER U.S. OCCUPATION" is a manuscript looking for a
publisher. Readers are encouraged to send contacts to johnross@igc.org
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