Read
Why It Happened!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
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
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend Edition
December 4 / 6, 2004
An Interview with Patrick Cockburn
Reporting
on the Ground from Iraq
By
ALAN MAASS
From the execution of unarmed civilians,
to U.S. snipers planted in mosques, to raids on hospitals, the
horrors of the U.S. invasion of Falluja continue to emerge in
the media.
The international media, that
is. It's almost impossible to learn the real story of the U.S.
assault from America's corporate media--which has reverted to
the same uncritical, cheerleading attitude it had during the
weeks after the invasion of Iraq began.
But accounts of what actually
took place when the U.S. attacked what it claimed was a small
force of "terrorists" in Falluja describe a high-tech
slaughter. The leveling of Falluja will only add to the fury
of ordinary Iraqis--ultimately fueling opposition and resistance,
whether in the so-called "Sunni triangle" in central
Iraq, or among the majority Shias in the south, or in northern
cities like Mosul once thought relatively stable.
Patrick Cockburn has been an
invaluable source of information for anyone wanting to know what
is going on in Iraq. As a correspondent for Britain's Independent
newspaper, he has written regular reports from Iraq throughout
the occupation. Many of these reports have appeared on the CounterPunch
Web site. With his brother Andrew, he wrote Out
of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein--one
of the best books on Iraq under Saddam's Baath Party regime.
Last month, in the aftermath
of the invasion, he talked about what really happened in Falluja--and
why Washington's "victory" in this battle won't help
it win the war.
THE U.S. claimed that they
were targeting a small force of hard-core insurgents in Falluja,
including "foreign" terrorists. What's the reality?
THERE SHOULD be no mystery
about the nature of the resistance in Iraq. The situation is
very simple, as it would be in most countries of the world--when
you have an occupation by a foreign power, you have resistance.
And that's exactly what's happened in Iraq.
It's absurd to think that there
are tiny groups either of foreign fighters or remnants of the
former regime who are holding the rest of the population to ransom.
You can see this in Falluja,
in Mosul. You could see this from the very beginning--from the
summer of 2003. Whenever I went to a place where there had been
an attack on an American patrol, and U.S. soldiers had been killed,
always, the local kids were jumping up and down for joy. This
was always an unpopular occupation with most of the population,
and that majority has gone up.
Having said that, the resistance
has always been fragmented. It's different in different areas.
In places like Falluja, there was a very strong tribal element.
In fact, in a place as tribal as that, it would be very difficult
to have any movement, military or political, that wasn't tribal.
In the villages, often the
resistance was really just the local young men. I remember in
April of this year, I was caught up in an ambush on the road
west of Baghdad, between Abu Ghraib and Falluja. The U.S. army
hadn't realized that the road had fallen to the resistance, and
I was caught up in an ambush of trucks carrying gasoline to U.S.
forces.
We got out of the car and lay
on the ground. And when we were escaping, it was very noticeable
that all the young men were running with their guns from villages
nearby, shouting to us and other cars, "Where's the fighting,
where's the fighting?" This was very much a local militia
in action.
What happened in Falluja has
been exaggerated in the newspapers and on television. You see
these great satellite maps showing Falluja, as if this was Stalingrad
or the Battle of Berlin in 1945.
Falluja is kind of a one-horse
town--it's not that big. You could walk across it in about half
an hour.
And just at the moment that
the U.S. troops were moving into Falluja, suddenly, most of Mosul--a
city in the north, which is at least five or six times the size
of Falluja--fell to the insurgents. Most of the police went home
or changed sides.
This is far more important
in some ways than what's happened in Falluja. But Falluja was
drummed up as a media spectacular, and therefore, what's happened
in the rest of the country got much less publicity.
WHEN THE U.S. moved to retake
Mosul after the rebellion, it appeared to be using Kurdish troops.
That will only increase the threat of ethnic conflicts between
Arabs and Kurds, won't it?
THE PROBLEM for the U.S. army
in Iraq is that if they're going to use local forces, the only
ones that they can really rely on are Kurdish forces--commonly
called peshmerga. Elsewhere, they clearly don't really trust
the Iraqi National Guard forces that have been raised.
You can see that from the number
of very bloody attacks on the National Guard by insurgents. It
turns out that the National Guard have no weapons outside their
camps. Everybody in Iraq carries a gun, but not these guys. And
the reason appears to be that the U.S. Army was nervous about
giving them weapons when they went home--in case they didn't
come back, or in case they'd use them against Americans.
Mosul is mostly an Arab city.
The Arabs are on the west bank of the Tigris--about 700,000 or
800,000. There are over a quarter million Kurds, mostly on the
east bank. And sectarian feelings have been growing since the
city fell during the war last year. The Arabs blamed the Kurds
for being behind the looting, and there was an element of truth
in this.
I went in there on the day
Mosul fell, and I picked up a peshmerga bodyguard with a submachine.
It turned out to be a really bad idea, because they weren't after
me, but they certainly were after anybody wearing a Kurdish uniform.
So I had to get the guy to lie down in the back of my car, with
his gun underneath him, and put a blanket over him. I spent half
the day trying to protect our Kurdish bodyguard.
BEFORE THE invasion, the
U.S. justified every missile strike on Falluja as an attack on
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--the "terrorist mastermind" behind
all Iraqi resistance, if you believe Washington. What kind of
power does Zarqawi and his supporters have? Or is he more a creation
of U.S. propaganda?
THERE'S NO question that the
Zarqawi group exists. But to think that it's the main element--or
even among the main elements--of the resistance is exaggerated,
I think.
Obviously, it's done a number
of bloody and heavily publicized things by issuing videos of
Zarqawi cutting people's throats. But otherwise, I think that
its public prominence really started from January of this year.
At the press briefings in Baghdad, every time the military and
civilian spokesmen appeared, they would say Zarqawi did this,
Zarqawi did that.
Remember, this came a couple
weeks after Saddam Hussein had been picked up--the main Iraqi
figure who could be demonized. Everything bad happening previously
could be blamed on Saddam. With no Saddam, you needed someone
to demonize.
There was a story that a special
letter from Zarqawi to al-Qaeda had been found, but this is pretty
dubious. Many specialists on Iraq think that it's a hoax.
I think that the Zarqawi group
is really quite limited. I should also say, however, that because
of all the publicity about Zarqawi's group, this has enabled
it to expand. I was in Haifa Street, which is just east of the
Green Zone in Baghdad--a hard resistance area where a U.S. vehicle
was hit a few months ago. The local kids were dancing up and
down, and some of them had produced a black flag, as if it was
Zarqawi's group who was there. But this is just something that
the local kids had heard about, so they ran it up themselves.
You suddenly have groups--some
political, some criminal--claiming that they're part of Zarqawi's
group. But that's just what they've heard about, and it gives
them an identity.
THE U.S. claimed that the
attack on Falluja had to go forward to prepare the way for elections
in January. What do you make of this?
THIS WHOLE connection between
the attack on Falluja and the elections is one of the weirdest
things I've heard. You go and smash up a city, you turn all of
its population into refugees, you kill quite a number of them--and
somehow they're going to come out and vote? I think that was
always kind of an absurdity.
It was always very odd that
30 miles from the center of Baghdad, you had this independent
enclave in Falluja, where the U.S. had to withdraw, apparently
under orders from the White House because of the presidential
election. So it was always likely that they were going to attack.
I don't think it really has a strong connection with the election.
And in fact, you can see that
most of the Sunni areas of Iraq are even more out of control
after Falluja than they were before.
I think the elections are going
to take place primarily because Ayatollah Ali Sistani wants them
to take place. He wants there to be an election in which the
Shiite Iraqis can demonstrate that they're a majority. And the
Kurds want the elections because they think they'll do quite
well.
But it's doubtful that Sunni
Muslims--who are about 20 percent of the population--will vote.
Perhaps more important is that
you can have these elections, but will it effect anything? Is
there any reason that the resistance should go down?
In Northern Ireland, in the
1970s and '80s, there were lots of elections, and it never seemed
to affect what the Provisional IRA was doing to the British Army.
There's no particular reason why elections in Iraq should stop
the resistance.
The U.S. had a particular imperative
before the U.S. presidential election to show the Iraqi elections
as the prime policy objective in Iraq. That isn't there anymore.
But I think that it would be very difficult to postpone the elections
now--because the Shiites are expecting it, have demanded it for
a long time, and would see a postponement as one more attempt
to deny them power.
SISTANI WAS noticeably silent
in opposing the U.S. assault on Falluja. Does mean that he's
on board with Washington? And if so, how much influence does
he--as the main Shiite religious leader in Iraq--have compared
to the more militant cleric Moktada al-Sadr?
I DON'T think it's necessarily
accurate to say that Sistani is on board with the U.S.
From the beginning, Sistani
and the people around him have argued that the Iraqi Shia made
a mistake when Iraq was occupied by the British during the First
World War--when the Shia took the front line in the armed opposition
to the occupation and led the great uprising in 1920. Consequently,
it was the Sunni who were given power by the British, and really
have held it up to the present moment.
But that doesn't mean Sistani
is in favor of the occupation. Sistani has refused to meet any
American or foreign official representing the occupation since
the invasion. Paul Bremer, when he was the U.S. viceroy of Iraq,
never got to see him.
I think they're walking a tightrope.
On Falluja, they may have felt that at least part of the resistance
in Falluja was sectarian and anti-Shiite. And consequently, that
may be one of the reasons why they didn't say anything.
There's no doubt that Sadr
has quite a large constituency. But his power stems partly from
the religious reputation of his father, who was murdered by Saddam
Hussein in 1999. It's difficult for him to go 100 percent against
the Shiite religious establishment.
Sadr's people are a mixture
of religious and nationalist. Their main poster is of Moktada
and his family--as martyrs who were killed by Saddam--but in
the background, there's an Iraqi flag. So it's not just religion--there's
a very strong nationalist element in Sadr's group. There were
those who wanted to go on fighting in Najaf, and there were the
political leaders who didn't want to.
One of the most important things
to watch over the next year or two is the relationship in general,
obviously, between the Shia and the Sunni, but also between the
nationalist groups on both sides. The Sunnis will have seen that
Moktada denounced the attack on Falluja, and Sistani didn't--at
least not until the last moment.
How far does this become a
nationalist movement, and how far is it a sectarian movement?
You can't be sure about that yet. The recent uprising in Mosul
in the last week or so appears to be much more straightforwardly
nationalist, allegedly led by former members of the Baath Party.
But all of this is very fluid.
IS THERE any developing
national leadership or direction to the Iraqi resistance?
THERE ISN'T a national leadership,
although there seems to be more contact between different groups.
The lack of a national leadership
hasn't necessarily been to their disadvantage. One of the difficulties
that the U.S. has had in pinning them down is that there was
no leadership to identify and target. Often, these are guys who
come from a certain village or a certain area, but they don't
necessarily have many contacts elsewhere.
How much sectarian cooperation
is there? I think it probably depends on each individual neighborhood
or town. In some areas, there's traditional hostility between
Shia and Sunni; in some areas, there's cooperation. It's a complex
relationship. Iraq is not like Northern Ireland, where Protestants
and Catholics practically never marry.
Iraq--particularly Baghdad,
but Iraq as a whole--is full of families where the husband or
wife is Sunni, and the other is Shia. That's true of Iraq in
general, and it's true of the resistance as well.
ONE OF the outcomes that
the U.S. media have raised is of civil war--and even of the U.S.
pushing for the partition of Iraq along ethnic lines as a solution
to the crisis of the occupation. Do you think this is in the
cards?
PARTITION SOLVES a few problems--or
doesn't quite even solve them--but it would create a whole series
of new problems.
It's difficult to divide Iraq
up. What happens, for instance, to Kirkuk? This is a matter of
deep dispute between the Kurds and the Arabs of Iraq--what happens
to the oilfields around Kirkuk? Secondly, at least a quarter
of the population of Iraq lives in the greater Baghdad area.
What do you do about Baghdad? There are some Sunni areas, some
Shia neighborhoods, and there are a lot of mixed neighborhoods.
It's very difficult to just
physically divide up the country.
There is the division between
the Kurds and the Arabs, both Shia and Sunni, which is very deep
and getting deeper, because Iraqi Kurdistan--the three provinces
in the north--has effectively been independent for over a decade.
Most young Kurds don't speak Arabic, so those divisions are pretty
deep.
But even here, partition creates
other questions. Once you have an independent Kurdistan, what
is Turkey going to do? Is it going to sit by? What's going to
happen?
What would happen to the Shia
part of Iraq--is that going to fall under the influence of Iran?
Dividing up the country creates
a vacuum, which is going to be filled by somebody, from inside
or outside Iraq. I think partition also underestimates the fact
that while there are deep sectarian divisions in Iraq, there's
also, among Arabs, strong Iraqi nationalism.
Sectarianism is growing, but
nationalism is also strong. So students at one university have
taken the decision not to ever refer to Shia and Sunni. Particularly
among educated youth, there's a strong feeling that they should
refer to themselves only as Iraqis.
Everything is taking place
in a country that's deeply impoverished. At the time of the invasion,
one of the reasons that a majority of Iraqis--not just Kurds
and Shia, but a lot of Sunnis--were glad to see the end of Saddam
was that they expected their material lives to get better. And
they really haven't, with some exceptions. In many cases, they've
gotten worse.
So all these struggles and
divisions are taking place in a country where more than half
the population is unemployed, where people are living in poverty.
And this has contributed to making Iraq such a violent place.
Alan Maass is the editor of Socialist
Worker. He can be reached at: alanmaass@sbcglobal.net
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|