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Today's
Stories
April
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
The Real Lessons of Vietnam
April 10
/ 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick
Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other Delicacies
Robert
Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview with Lee
Evans
Brandy
Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon
Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website
of the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9,
2004
Robert
Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L.
Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8, 2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick
Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas
Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7,
2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick
Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali
Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert
Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William
Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan
Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert
Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
|
April
13, 2004
The Sick, the Old and the Young Ask:
"Do
We Look Like Fighters?"
By PATRICK COCKBURN
In an abandoned air-raid shelter in west Baghdad,
people from Fallujah crouch in semi-darkness. Their voices tremble as
they recall how they survived the week-long siege.
Not
all did. In a tent outside relatives were mourning for Mushref Mohi,
aged 70, who died of exhaustion during the eight hours that his family
was kept waiting at US checkpoints as they fled the city.
"There was nothing much wrong with him and he usually liked to
walk everywhere instead of driving," said his brother, Rabbia Mohi
Maloud al-Daraji. "But they kept us waiting from 10am to 6.20pm
because they searched every car for half an hour, and he could not take
the strain."
By
yesterday morning 88 people from Fallujah had crowded into Shelter No
24, a disused bunker painted green and white in an attempt at camouflage
in the Amariyah district of Baghdad. Beds lined both sides of the dark
entrance corridor, dimly illuminated by a few bulbs that flicker out
during the frequent electricity cuts.
"Do
we look like fighters?" asked Milouq Abbas, a middle-aged woman
in a black robe, pointing to her three children. Like other survivors,
she was outraged by the claim by the US Marines that the 600 dead and
1,200 wounded in Fallujah were mostly armed insurgents.
Although
the families in Shelter No 24 are very poor, they had scraped together
enough money to hire a mourning tent, traditional in Iraq, for Mushref
Mohi, so that his relatives could be comforted over his death.
In
one corner of the tent, wearing a white hat and staring sightlessly
in front of him, was Abdul Salaam, aged about 20 and blind since birth.
"I heard the roar of the bombing and I was frightened," he
said. "I cannot read but I know a lot of the Koran by heart and
I started reciting it to myself."
We
were taken to the families in the shelter by Dr Abed al-Illah, a specialist
in internal medicine who is also a representative of the Iraqi Islamic
Party, which is part of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. He
had just visited Fallujah hospital. He said: "About 350 out of
the 600 dead were women and children. One was only eight months old.
Many died from simple wounds and could have been saved if they had medical
attention."
The
anger and bitterness of Iraqis such as Dr Illah, a veteran opponent
of Saddam Hussein, over the slaughter of civilians in Fallujah shows
how few friends the US has left in Iraq. He said: "The Americans
claim that all the wounded are fighters and will not let us take them
away. Families cannot escape because of their snipers."
On
the gate into the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in Amariyah is a
poster of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, killed by an Israeli missile last month.
Inside other members of the party, almost all Sunni Arabs, officially
allied to the US in Iraq, spoke in terms of outraged nationalism.
"We
are looking after 400 families from Fallujah," said Muneeb al-Durubi.
Reflecting on the more general impact of the crisis, he said: "The
most important thing these days is a kind of marriage between the Sunni
and the Shia. The Americans gamble on dividing us, but the Shia are
providing food, medicine and weapons. They have opened their homes to
refugees." He thought only the Kurdish leaders were really loyal
to the Allies.
An
important development over the past week is that, because of the attack
on Fallujah and the offensive against the cleric Muqtada Sadr, there
are decreasing number of Iraqis on whom the US can rely. A central aim
of the US is to build up Iraqi security forces, but when the 620-man
2nd Battalion of the US-trained new Iraqi army was ordered to Fallujah
last week they refused to go.
US
officers reportedly estimate that 20 to 25 per cent of the Iraqi security
forces have disappeared, changed sides or declined to co-operate with
the US. Iraqis working with foreigners of any kind are increasingly
fearful of being accused of being collaborators.
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