Gorilla’s Guides

This is what it means to be “ethnically cleansed.”

It means to be from Tahrir in Southern Baqouba … and to be the “wrong thing.”

It means to be a family that’s received death-threat after death-threat.

It means to be attacked on the very day you flee as you leave your home for the last time.

It means four of your family, two women and two children, gunned down in front of you.

It means a mortuary attendant closing your dead children’s eyes.

It means weeping over your wounded son … and your wounded granddaughter.

It means waiting in a hospital corridor clutching your child and wondering desperately what will happen to you next.

This is what the American invasion and continued occupation has brought to Iraq.

markfromireland

This grandmother led a cold-blooded mission to avenge the death of her son. Nine men were executed. Paul McGeough reports.

THE lined face peers from shrouds of mourning black. Wabila Felehi Hussein is a 50-year-old grandmother, and her life is imploding.

 (click image for full size)

[snip]

Even a short time spent with this family reveals the grandmother’s towering strength. Until now, all the blood-letting has been laid at the door of organised insurgency cells, religious militias, death squads that operate within the national security forces and tribal gangs. But this woman is being hailed by thousands as the Shiite mother who spectacularly - and brutally - avenged her son’s death.

[snip]

“We searched for 10 days before someone told us that Muthanna’s body had been dumped in the river at Arabjabour [which is inside the Triangle of Death]. I asked the police to get him back. They said it was too dangerous. The Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army [a Shiite militia] refused to recover him, so I had to do it myself.”

Her adult sons - Adel, Saad and Mohanad - feared for their lives, so she organised 16 other men, guns and cars. Saad explains how finally she shamed them into action, threatening to go alone if they would not go with her.

As the convoy set out for Arabjabour, Wabila Felehi was in the first of five cars. The family was armed with borrowed weapons - three rocket-propelled grenade launchers, a few AK-47s and a handful of pistols.

[snip]

… after fleeing Hoorijab, the mother set her sons working their mobile phones, calling the few who they could still trust in Hoorijab to get the name of the alasa who might have given Muthanna’s name to the insurgency. “They got the name of the son of a local tribal sheik who lived near their house,” he says. “When she sent the boys, she insisted he must be brought back to Sadr City alive, because no one was to be killed unless they had proof of their involvement in Muthanna’s death.

“He was interrogated and gave up nine more names. Eight of them were abducted and brought back for interrogation … and then they killed them with guns, knives and by bashing some of them. Adel killed six; Saad killed three.”

So then, if this is democratic Iraq, is unimpressed with the new Middle East. But as she slip-slapped her hands in disgust, she was contemptuous. “This is not democracy … we have no stability, no future. It would be better if we all were dead … get me out of Iraq.”

Tears streaming down her face, she hit bottom. “We were happy when the Americans came. They lifted the Saddam darkness, but now they have led us into a new, blacker darkness.”

Full story here. Go read.

markfromireland

Residents deny security getting better in Baghdad

Azzaman, August 24, 2006

The U.S.-led military operation has failed to improve conditions in Baghdad, residents said.

Contrary to U.S. reports that the operation has brought results, the residents confirmed that the heavy presence of U.S. and Iraqi troops on the streets of Baghdad has complicated rather than alleviated the capital’s problems.

American and Iraqi officials have reported a dramatic drop in violence in areas of Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi troops have been carrying out house-to-house searches.

But the residents, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the operation was alienating many Iraqis due to the humiliation they receive at the so many checkpoints currently available in Baghdad.

The operation has led to traffic congestions unseen even by the standards of the often heavily crowded streets of Baghdad.

Many Iraqis fail to reach their destinations and workers, public servants and private entrepreneurs say it has been extremely difficult for them to reach their offices, factories or shops.

Crossing a checkpoint is not easy. It may take several hours in Baghdad’s blazing sun.

Analysts watching the operation closely said U.S. and Iraqi reports of that the military campaign was bringing results were premature.

“A resistance movement like the one raging in Iraq is difficult to subdue by force. It needs a little more effort than the fire power,” said an analyst who did not want his name revealed.

Another said he believed the substantial increase in checkpoints and the heavy presence of troops and arms on the streets was sending the wrong message to many ordinary Iraqis.

“I do not think the operation has reduced the level of violence. On the contrary, what we see and hear points to a rise in violence not only in Baghdad but in many other provinces,” he said.

A view of life outside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone

By Naseer al-Zubaidi

Azzaman, August 5, 2006

All over the world people have the chance to give their dead a proper burial but in Iraq.

Iraq is perhaps the only country in the world where the dead are denied this privilege. But the dead are not the only ones who suffer. Iraqis who are still alive fare no better.

We who are still alive lack the basic means of living. We enjoy no stability. There are no public services. We enjoy none of the amenities which people across the world take for granted.

Therefore the Iraqi people are closer to death than life. We can safely say Iraqis are walking shadows. They are dead but still can use their legs to walk and their lungs to breathe.

Walking and breathing are no longer a blessing for Iraqis. If they walk, they will most probably end up victims of a car bomb attack, a stray or deliberate bullet from a passing U.S. convoy or hostages of a murderous criminal gang.

If they walk, they will most probably run into a check point manned by murderous militias. They will have no chance to survive if the militia men discover they are members of the opposite sect.

Breathing fresh air is no longer a pleasure in Iraq because simply there is no more fresh air to breathe. All over Baghdad it is the smell of death, explosions, car bomb attacks, raids and bombing that fills the air.

Some might say that I am a real pessimist for depicting such a gloomy picture of conditions in Iraq.

They may be right. And I fully understand their attitude and know exactly what they have in mind.

They are certainly referring to the few Iraqis who live together with their U.S. masters in the Green Zone in Baghdad which the U.S. occupiers have ringed with massive anti-blast walls.

This zone, created by U.S. marines following their invasion of the country, is the only spot in Iraq which is relatively safe and secure.

U.S. administrators and their Iraqi lackeys who run the country rarely venture outside this zone which the U.S. has turned into something like a citadel of reinforced concrete with several security barriers.

It is tragic to see that those supposedly working for the welfare of the Iraqi people, planning its future and laying down the foundations of a ‘new Iraq’ are so concerned bout their own safety and well-being at a time the whole country is burning.

The zone the U.S. has created in Baghdad to protect its administrators and Iraqi lackeys is the prison which the U.S. has built for itself in the country.

Those working, sleeping, drinking, eating, swimming and playing golf in the zone have become the enemies of the Iraqi people.

If they want to leave, they will need a helicopter because they do not belong to the people outside the zone. Those inside the zone know they are unwanted by the people outside the zone. For this reason they do not feel secure among the people they claim to serve and love.

These are our governing elites – the U.S. and its lackeys – who have practically lost all contact with the people they are supposed to serve.

markfromireland

What Would Have Happen If We Had Been In Iraq?

As for one of a politician’s distinguishing characteristics, it is speaking half-truths or no truth, because his goal is to run the ship, i.e. getting support from society for policies he finds appropriate. The reason I am recalling this truth once again is the unbelievable statements Prime Minister Erdogan made to convince opponents, particularly those in his own party, to send troops to the UN peace forces in Lebanon. The statements the Prime Minister made at the JD Party”s MKYK meeting and which were published in the newspapers on August 17th are as follows:

“Developments are occurring around us that are of great interest to us… If we want to have a say in the region, we can’t sit in the audience; we have to be at the table on stage… If we had been in Iraq, we would have had a say. You only have control when you have a say. For this reason we have to be at the table. Think now, if we had been there, would the PKK be in Northern Iraq?… Look at Iraq. A Sunni-Shiite war is going on that has almost brought the country to the threshold of division… If we had been there, there would have been no Sunni-Shiite war… At least no one would have died in the region we were in.” The Prime Minister’s words have nothing to do with the truth for these reasons:

[snip]

Had the TSK entered Iraq with the March 1st memorandum, Turkey would have taken part in what UN General Secretary Kofi Annan called the “illegal” occupation of Iraq and would have been treated as “occupation forces” by the Iraqis. Just like American, British and other foreign soldiers (that were forced to leave), Turkish troops would have been the target of Sunni resistance groups and Shiite rebels. Al Kaida wouldn’t have hesitated to do its worst against Turkey. Why should Turkey, a close ally of the US and Israel, be treated any differently?

If Turkey is respected today in the Arab world, it’s not because the people are Muslim, but because it refused to cooperate with the US in the invasion of Iraq. If today all Arabs, including the Hezbollah, support Turkey’s participating in the Lebanese peace force, it’s because the Turkish Parliament showed the world that it would not cooperate with the US under all conditions.

[snip]

In order to be a “party at the table,” it’s necessary to be a party wanted on the stage. Because the US isn’t a party wanted on the stage, even if it sits at the “head of the table,” it is completely helpless in Iraq. The party in control in Iraq is Iran, who’s not even on the stage. Situations imposed with armed force will boomerang. While attempting to establish an administration in Iraq that is friendly to America and favorable to Israel, the “head of the table” Bush Administration has raised enmity against the US and Israel to a peak. A government protecting the interests of Turkey has to remain distant in its relations with this US and this Israel.

Source Zaman Online

markfromireland