Gorilla’s Guides

The American air strike on Sadr City hospital this morning led to the injury of twenty persons including patients asleep in the wards, medical, and other hospital personnel. (see مصدر رسمي: 20 جريحا وتضرر نحو 50 سيارة في قصف أمريكي لمستشفى الصدر immediately below)

According to the director of health services for Sadr City the bombing of the hospital by an American warcraft:

“resulted in the injury of 20 patients who are hospitalised, a number of senior medical workers, also damaged were nine ambulances, and about 40 civilian cars.”

The bombing of the hospital also damaged the right rear entrance to the hospital and the emergency unit. One of our members working in the hospital contacted by ‘phone said the toll is expected to rise as the wounded succumb to their injuries. She added that the wounded were mostly children and some some women.

Sadr City hospital is one of the two hospitals serving Sadr city — the other is Imam Ali hospital, they are responsible for treating the people wounded in the American attack on the city, and receiving the corpses of those killed in the American assault. The Americans bomb Sadr city which is very densely populated on a daily basis.

Ali Ibn Laith. Born December 14 1999 - Killed March 27 2008

Son of our much missed colleague Laith and his wife, last remaining brother to our greatly loved colleague Mohammed Ibn Laith and his sister.

O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.

There will be no further postings tonight.

There is very heavy fighting in the city. The streets are almost empty of civilians and civilian traffic. All our correspondents in the city say there are many columns of smoke in the city and the sounds of explosions and machine gun fire. One local source in the teaching hospital says that many have been wounded. He said also that they are having to turn away wounded for treatment because there are too many to treat. He says he has been told that it is the same in other hospitals

In the largest population movement in the Middle East since 1948, a huge influx of Iraqis is putting pressure on services in Jordan and Syria. How are their Red Crescent Societies responding to the needs?

Abdul Sattar, Dunia, Nawal and Abdul Karim have two things in common: death threats forced all four of them to flee their native Iraq; and they rely on Red Crescent Societies in neighbouring countries. The two men and two women come from different ethnic and social backgrounds. Each has his or her story and reason for escaping from Iraq. Although they come from different sources, the threats are the same: leave or die a violent death.

Security in Iraq has deteriorated to such an unprecedented level, due to the international armed conflict that began in 2003 and internal fighting, that many Iraqis find it nearly impossible to live in their own country. The result is that an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have left their homes, the largest population movement in the Middle East since more than 800,000 Palestinians fled to neighbouring countries in 1948, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Fearing for his life, Abdul Sattar, 30, left Baghdad a year ago and settled in Damascus. When he ran out of funds in June 2007, he decided to go back to Baghdad to sell his car, his only remaining possession of value.

“This was my only alternative,” he explains, speaking with difficulty. His troubles began almost as soon as he arrived home. He was stopped at a checkpoint on his way to sell his car. The car was taken. He and nine other people were stuffed into a minivan and taken to a house.

“I saw instruments of torture hanging from the ceiling,” recalls Abdul Sattar. The people were beaten and tortured. Two men were shot on the spot. The rest were taken to a place called Al-Sadiyyah, a location known to have become a killing field at the edge of Sadr City, in Baghdad.

Their heads covered with their shirts, the hostages were ordered to kneel. It was dawn when they were shot at close range. Abdul Sattar was shot three times. One of the bullets lodged in his jaw. He can barely open his mouth now. “I still cannot believe I was so lucky. The pain was unbearable but I was able to sneak back home.” All the others died instantly.

His family took him to a nearby hospital where he had several operations. Afraid of being kidnapped again and killed, he left for Damascus the day he was released from hospital.

Dunia, who is also a Shiite, escaped from Baghdad because her husband, a blacksmith who had been assisting Iraqi forces to armour their vehicles, was first warned then kidnapped by the resistance.

Abdul Karim and Nawal are former Ba’ath party members; both are Shia. They would have been killed if they had stayed in their neighbourhoods. Nawal lost both her legs during US bombing in 1991.

Swelling population

According to several international reports, an estimated 50,000 Iraqis leave their country each month. Most of them go to Syria or Jordan before attempting to travel to third countries.

“Somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 new Iraqis enter Syria every month,” says Abdul Rahman Al-Attar, president of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. “Many do not have the means to support themselves.”

More than 2 million “externally displaced” Iraqis have crossed the borders into neighbouring Syria and Jordan since conflict began in Iraq in 2003. The large increase in the populations of the two countries (over 8 per cent for Syria and15 per cent for Jordan) has strained the health, education, water and other systems. Prices of consumer items, real estate and rents have seen sharp increases. More than 750,000 Iraqis have taken refuge in Jordan and nearly 1.5 million in Syria.

Danger at home

Continue reading ‘Haunted guests - Iraqis seek refuge with their neighbours’ »

I never met Lurch and knew only his first name. But he and I developed a friendship that I valued and will miss. One of the things we do here on “Guides” is a dialogues programme. My father agreed strongly with markfromireland the follower of the Prophet Jesus (PBUH) that Westerners and Muslims needed to be able to see one another as people, as brothers and sisters in humanity, and with help from others the germ of our dialogues programme was brought into being before I was even born.

Lurch came to learn of this, I do not know how, and said to my good friend Dubhaltach how “essential” — that was the word he used, it was that such dialogues between Irakis and Americans take place. Du put us in touch, and Lurch and I “spoke” by electronic chat on several occasions. At first we were wary of another but I came to enjoy those chats and to look forward to them. He joked with me that he was not only old enough to be my grandfather but that he was old enough to be my grandfather’s grandfather. I told him some of my grandfather’s stories about July 14 and the years after and he spoke of his time in the American army. I think they would have liked another it seems to me they were very similar in their compassion, their courage, and their love of their people. It seems to me as well that, like my grandfather, Lurch retained his sense of wonder and desire to learn new things.

We spoke of his love for America and I of mine for Irak. He was proud of his time in the American forces and distressed at what they were doing and being used for while still hoping fiercely for the best for them. He loved America, a true clear eyed love that saw both the good and bad. From the warmth and love with which he spoke he especially loved his grandchildren and wanted them to have the best of lives. He was very taken with the verse in the Holy Qur’an that we are created male and female of the different tribes and nations that we should know one another and not despise each other. He was even more taken with the saying of Ali ibn Abi Talib that those who are not brothers in religion are still brothers in humanity.

Loving American, good soldier, above all loving father and grandfather. I am diminished today, my brother in humanity Lurch has died.

Mohammed Ibn Laith,
Al-Sadriya,
Baghdad,
Irak.

As we remarked before the expression “ongoing diplomacy” is just a nice way of saying “Genocide.” Courtesy of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit it’s now indisputably “legal” under American “law.”

On Friday 22nd 2008, to nobody’s surprise the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit  upheld [follow this link to download the judgement as as PDF] the dismissal [follow this link to download the judgement as as PDF] of the case brought by approximately three million Vietnamese plaintiffs against against Dow Chemical Co, Monsanto Co and nearly 30 other American chemical companies for producing and supplying defoliants, including Agent Orange that US forces used during the Vietnam war. 

American warplanes sprayed these highly toxic substances on Vietnamese forests between 1962 and 1971 to destroy Vietnamese sources of food and cover. In other words just as they have done — and continue to do in Irak today, the Americans during the Vietnam war used the starvation of civilians as a weapon.

Long after the last bullet has been fired in a war, unexploded bombs, landmines and toxic chemicals continue to maim and kill civilians. This is particularly true of the Vietnam war. Three decades after US soldiers and diplomats scrambled aboard the last planes out of Saigon in April 1975, the toxins they left behind still poison Vietnam.

Source: Comment is free: Agent of suffering

Do you remember this child?  He’s one of the millions who will not get any help or restitution from the people who did this to him, they can hide behind the legal doctrine of sovereign immunity. He won’t get any help or restitution from the people who made a lot of money selling the poison to the people who did this to him.

This is from Reuters on Friday:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court upheld on Friday the dismissal of a civil lawsuit against major U.S. chemical companies brought by Vietnamese plaintiffs over the use of the defoliant “agent orange” during the Vietnam War

… … …

A U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, New York ruled in March 2005 that the plaintiffs failed to show that use of agent orange, a plant killer supplied to the U.S. military in Vietnam, violated a ban on the use of poisonous weapons in war and that the lawsuit did not prove the plaintiffs’ health problems were linked to the chemical.

“Although the herbicide campaign may have been controversial, the record before us supports the conclusion that agent orange was used as a defoliant and not as a poison designed for or targeting human populations,” Judge Roger Miner wrote for the three-judge appeals court panel.

The court also upheld two other agent orange rulings, including one in a case that was brought by veterans and their families who said their health problems did not become apparent until after a 1984 class-action settlement was reached with a group of veterans. In that case, the Second Circuit found that, as government contractors, the chemical companies could be shielded from liability.

Source: Court upholds dismissal of agent orange suit | Reuters

Dioxins:

Dioxins are a class of chemical contaminants that are formed during combustion processes such as waste incineration, forest fires, and backyard trash burning, as well as during some industrial processes such as paper pulp bleaching and herbicide manufacturing. The most toxic chemical in the class is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD). The highest environmental concentrations of dioxin are usually found in soil and sediment, with much lower levels found in air and water

Source: Dioxins 

2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD) 

TCDD is considered to be one of, if not the most toxic man-made substance. It has been shown to cause cancer and disrupt multiple endocrine functions. TCDD is a by-product of several manufacturing processes such as paper production and pesticide formulation. Among its varied effects, TCDD has been shown to cause increased fetal loss and reduced birth weight in animal studies.

Source: Birth Outcomes of Women Exposed to Dioxin in Seveso Italy - DERT

Three decades later America and her surrogates make war on all the peoples of the Middle East in the same evil, and futile way that they made war on the peoples of South East Asia, only the means of delivering death across the generations have changed. Not the calculated barbarity, not the hypocrisy, not the evil, and most certainly not the racism. It’s not just Irak, and it’s not just Lebanon:

What I mean by that is that it’s going to be a cold day in hell before the Lebanese forgive or forget what was done to their children by Israeli troops and Israeli aviators. They’re not going to forgive or forget that the weapons used to slaughter their children and destroy their livelihoods were made in America, paid for by America, and calculatingly used against their children in a war planned for years by Israel, and launched with America’s blessing.

They’re not going to forgive or forget that America blocked all attempts to stop their children being massacred by Israeli troops and Israeli aviators. They’re never ever ever going to forgive or forget what that bloodsoaked slut Condoleeza Rice said about how the agonised deaths of their children were the “birth pangs of the new middle east.” They’re not going to forgive or forget that neither the “light unto the nations” nor the “shining city on the hill” gave a flying fuck about their children. It didn’t matter that a lot of the dead children were Christians all that mattered was that they were Lebanese, that they were Arabs, untermenschen and that it was worth killing them because the political calculation in America and Israel was that killing them would cause their parents to blame and hate their fellow Lebanese.

Source: Gorilla’s Guides (old site): Guest Posting by Declan: “What I Did At The Weekend”

And its not just Gaza:

In any event, in Gaza the Oslo experiment in indirect rule seems to be over. Israel now treats the territory less like an internment camp and more like an animal pen: a space of near total confinement whose wardens are concerned primarily with keeping those inside alive and tame, with some degree of mild concern as to the opinions of neighbors and other outsiders.

Source: Middle East Report Online: Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism by Darryl Li

America’s “ongoing diplomacy” is directed at all the peoples of the Middle East, or at least at those of us who aren’t utterly and slavishly obedient to American demands. The war in Irak is part of America’s “ongoing diplomacy,” the “ongoing diplomacy” that is carried out by “Democrat” and “Republican” administrations alike, of saying to us and to everyone who has something that America covets:

We are your new masters, we are intrinsically better and moral than everyone else simply because we are American. We are the new master race. We know what is good for you. Obey us or we will do this to your children and your home.

No.

Maryam, Mohammed Ibn Laith, Fatima.

All Washington’s calculations depend on a quick war and an easy victory. ‘There’s an assumption that the Americans will be greeted as liberators, and very little consideration of the deep anti-American sentiment as the result of 10 years of poverty due to the sanctions’, one UN official said.

‘No decisive policy is without its risks,’ retorted a senior US official.

The Iraq Bush America will build

The Americans are preparing a three-stage plan for ruling the country after toppling Saddam’s regime. Jason Burke, Gaby Hinsliff and Ed Vulliamy in New York explain the risks and the costs “The Iraq Bush Will Build” Sunday February 9, 2003.

The Irak that Bush America built is a bloodsoaked example of the results of a people believing that they are the new Master Race. Bush is but the tip of the festering cancer that permeates the American body politic.

Americans overwhelmingly believe in the myth lie of the “Shining City on The Hill”, that America is a “Light Unto The Nations”, that “We Are Better Than That”, that the atrocities committed by their troops are committed by just a “Few Bad Apples.”

Lie — the genocide in Irak is what happens when any people who believe they are in some way intrinsically superior to everyone else see something that they covet.

The genocide in Irak is a direct expression of the most fervently held belief of the American people, that they are somehow intrinsically morally superior to everyone else - especially when that “everyone else” happens to have brown coloured skin. The genocide that America has committed in Irak is a direct result of what Michael Kinman my American Christian brother in humanity rightly calls their idolatrous Gospel of Greed. The genocide that America has committed and continues to commit in Irak  is a clear expression of that idolatrous Gospel and of the will of the overwhelming majority of the American people.

The vast majority of Americans who now say they oppose the war do so because it is clear even to them that America has lost, that while we may be shocked at the level of barbarism to which America has stooped in Irak, we are not awed, and we are not surprised.

5 years ago today, my father, may his memory be blessed, called me to him:

“Instead of going to your football club we are visiting your uncle, you and your brother will learn how to shoot properly.”

Americans are not welcome here. They have forced violently their way into my home, slaughtered the inhabitants, stolen the food, and poisoned the water. As they did so they boasted that they were predators:

“This is what you trained for, Marine!” “You’re the hunter! You’re the predator!”

And that is what they are.

Predators.

Soldiers? No. Just another death squad preying upon the civilians and children of Irak.

But predators can become prey, and the American predators who have had to re-invade my country five times since their original campaign to “shock and awe” us into submission failed now must pay the so-called “Awakening” councils not to attack and kill them. Not only predators but loser predators.

The word for each and every American in Irak is not only “predator” it is also “loser”. The word for each and every American who supported the war against my people is “loser”. The word for each and every American who did nothing to stop America’s illegal and brutal war against my people,  is “loser”.

“Ana Iraki.” “I am Iraki.”  Like the majority of Irakis my tribe is a mix of Sunni and Shia. One of my parents was Sunni one was Shia. I live in Baghdad. Our neighbourhood has Sunni and Shia Arabs, Sunni and Shia Kurds, we have some Christian neighbours such as the goalkeeper in my football team. On the nights that it is my turn to help man the checkpoint to keep the latest set of American funded death squads from my home and the homes of my neighbours I try to team up with him - did I mention he was Kurdish? My good friend and loyal Iraki comrade Basil is Kurdish.  We have Shabaki, Turkmen, and Yezhidi in our neighbourhood also.

Enjoy your failed surge losers and have a nice day.

Long after you and your empire have rotted on the garbage heaps of history my people will still be here.

Long live the Iraki resistance.

Mohammed Ibn Laith,
Al Sadriyah
Baghdad
Irak.

We wish all our Muslim readers a holy, happy, and peaceful New Year, for our Iraki brothers and sisters we pray especially that God bring us freedom, peace, and fortitude, and that he drive the American barbarians from our sacred soil.

Ali, Ali Ibn Hussayn, Fatima Jameel, Haleema Al-Azzawi, Hussein Al-Bayati, Khaled Al Basrawi, Khalil Ibn Hussein, Maryam, Mohammed Al-Hamadani, Mohammed Hashi, Mohammed Ibn Laith, Nur Hussein Ghazali, Omar Khdhayyir, Ra’ed Al-Bayati, Saba Ali, Suheila Jamil, Um Thalit, Yusuf Al-Jezani.

1429 Muharram 1

Irak.

O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.

There will be no further postings today.

Khaled