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Today's Stories March 15 / 16, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Robert Pollin Diane Christian Wajahat Ali Tom Wright
/ Alan Farago Greg Moses Michael Hudson Martha Rosenberg John Goekler Uzma Aslam
Khan Oren Ben-Dor David Underhill Fred Gardner David Michael
Green Rev. William E. Alberts Gail Dines David Yearsley Chris Clarke Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
March 14, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Don Santina
Patrick Cockburn
Tim Rinne Robert Fantina
Saul Landau
David Macaray
Franklin Lamb
Michael Neumann
March 13, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Whitney
Assaf Kfoury
Andy Worthington Adam Federman
March 12, 2008 Dave Lindorff
R.F. Blader
Yonatan Mendel
Jonathan Cook
Bill and Kathy
Christison James J. Brittain
Ron Jacobs
March 11, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Ed O'Loughlin
Ramzy Baroud Kathy Christison
China Hand John Joslin
Mike Averko
Ben Rosenfeld
Thierry Paquot
March 10, 2008 Uri Avnery
Col. Dan Smith
R.F. Blader
Michael Neumann
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman James J. Brittain
Missy Comley
Beattie March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition JoAnn Wypijewski
Mike Whitney
Peter Morici
Ralph Nader
Jonathan Cook
Steve Niva
Bill and Kathy
Christison Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau Eric Walberg
Scott Johnson
Mark Scaramella
Bill Clinton Poet's Basement
Website of
the Weekend March 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn
Robin Blackburn
Saul Landau
Binoy Kampmark
Chris Floyd
Andy Worthington Will Potter March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008 Vincent Navarro Forrest Hylton Peter Morici George Ciccariello-Maher John Ross Jacob Hornberger Paul Watson Dan Bacher Website of the Day
March 5, 2008 Cockburn /
St. Clair Joanne Mariner Fidel Castro Christopher
Brauchli Steven Sherman Dave Lindorff James Murren Adam Engel Website of Day
March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali William Blum Bill Quigley Ralph Nader Patrick Irelan James J. Brittain
/ Norman Solomon Jacob Hornberger Andy Worthington Mike Averko Website of the Day
March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Alan Farago Richard Gott Wajahat Ali Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Uri Avnery Martha Rosenberg Eva Liddell Michael Donnelly Website of the Day
March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Kathleen and Bill Christison Nelson P. Valdés Christopher Brauchli Ron Jacobs John Ross Robert Fantina Robert Weissman Mohammed Omer Remi Kanazi Bob Jackson Richard Rhames Franklin Lamb Rannie Amiri David Michael
Green Conn Hallinan Faheem Hussain Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez Jonathan Cook Joshua Frank Anthony DiMaggio Linn Washington, Jr. Binoy Kampmark Robert Bryce Sonja Karkar Dave Lindorff Website of
the Day
February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Fred Gardner Michael Levitin William S.
Lind David Macaray Stephen Fleischman George Wuerthner Laura Carlsen Carl Finamore Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 27, 2008 David Rosen Vijay Prashad Harvey Wasserman Andy Worthington Wajahat Ali Peter Morici Stephen Philion Michael Donnelly Erica Rosenberg / Website of
the Day
February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Alan Dershowitz
Harvey Wasserman Michael Colby Gary Leupp David Orchard Martha Rosenberg Fran Shor Serge Halimi Global Balkans Website of
the Day
February 25, 2008 Roger Morris Anthony DiMaggio Ralph Nader Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Peter Morici Dave Lindorff Saul Landau
/ Heather Gray Robert Weitzel John Halle Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Wajahat Ali Ralph Nader Jürgen
Vsych Fidel Castro Andy Worthington David Macaray Jeremy Scahill David Krieger Ron Jacobs Michael Garrity Brian McKenna Missy Beattie Fred Gardner Boris Kagarlitsky Mike Ferner Dan Bacher Christopher
Ketcham Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney Jason Hribal Liaquat Ali Khan Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Liliana Segura Robert Fantina Yifat Susskind Norm Kent Website of
the Day February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Elizabeth Schulte Helen Redmond Benjamin Dangl Michael Levitin Liam Leonard Patrick Irelan Linn Cohen-Cole Michael Simmons CounterPunch
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Weekend
Edition How to Destroy a Country in Five YearsIraq's Blood-Sodden AnniversariesBy PATRICK COCKBURN Baghdad "It reminds me of Iraq under Saddam," said a militant opponent of Saddam Hussein angrily to me last week as he watched red-capped Iraqi soldiers close down part of central Baghdad so the convoy of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki might briefly venture into the city. Five rears after the invasion of Iraq the US and the Iraqi government both claim that Iraq is becoming a less dangerous place, but the measures taken to protect Mr Maliki told a different story. Gun-waving soldiers first cleared all traffic from the streets. Then four black armored cars, each with three machine gunners on the roof, raced out of a heavily fortified exit from the Green Zone, followed by sand-coloured American Humvees and more armoured cars. Finally, in the middle of the speeding convoy, we saw six identical bullet proof vehicles with black windows, one of which must have carried Mr Maliki. The precautions were not excessive since Baghdad remains the most dangerous city in the world. The Iraqi prime minister was only going to the headquarters of the Dawa party to which he belongs and which are only half a mile from the Green Zone but his hundreds of security guards acted as if they were entering enemy territory. Five years of occupation have destroyed Iraq as a country. Baghdad is today a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettoes divided by high concrete walls. Different districts even have different national flags. Sunni areas use the old Iraqi flag with the three stars of the Baath party and the Shia wave a newer version, adopted by the Shia-Kurdish government. The Kurds have their own flag. The Iraqi government tries
to give the impression that normality is returning. Iraqi journalists
are told not to mention the continuing violence. When a bomb
exploded in Karada district near my hotel killing 70 people
the police beat and drove away television cameraman trying to
take pictures of the devastation. Civilian casualties have fallen
from 65 Iraqis killed daily from November 2006 to August 2007
to 26 daily in February. But the fall in the death rate is partly
because ethnic cleansing has already done its grim work and
in much of The war of 2003 was bound to have very radical consequences. If Saddam Hussein was overthrown and elections held then the domination of the 20 per cent Sunni minority would be replaced by the rule of the majority Shia community allied to the Kurds. In an election Shia religious parties linked to Iran would win, as indeed they did in two elections in 2005. Many of America's troubles in Iraq have stemmed from Washington's attempt to stop Iran and anti-American Shia leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr filling the power vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein. The US and its allies never really understood the war they won which started on March 19, 2003. Their armies had an easy passage to Baghdad because the Iraqi army did not fight. Even the so-called elite Special Republican Guard units, well paid, well equipped and tribally linked to Saddam, went home. Television coverage and much of the newspaper coverage of the war was highly deceptive because it gave the impression of widespread fighting when there was none. I entered Mosul and Kirkuk, two northern cities, on the day they were captured with hardly a shot fired. Burned out Iraqi tanks littered the roads around Baghdad, giving the impression of heavy fighting, but almost all had been abandoned by their crews before they were hit. The war was too easy. Consciously or subconsciously Americans came to believe it did not matter what Iraqis said or did. They were expected to behave like Germans or Japanese in 1945, though most of Iraqis did not think of themselves as having been defeated. There was later to be much bitter dispute about who was responsible for the critical error of dissolving the Iraqi army. But at the time the Americans were in a mood of exaggerated imperial arrogance and did not care what Iraqis, in the army or out of it, were doing. "They simply thought we were wogs," says Ahmad Chalabi, the opposition leader, brutally. "We didn't matter." In those first months after the fall of Baghdad it was extraordinary, and at times amusing, to watch the American victors behave exactly like the British at the height of their power in nineteenth century India. The ways of the Raj were reborn. A friend who had a brokerage in the Baghdad stock market, told me how a 24 year old American whose family was a donor to the Republican Party had been put in charge of the market and had lectured the highly-irritated brokers, most of whom spoke several languages and had PhDs, about the virtues of democracy. There was a further misconception that grew up at this time. Most Iraqis were glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein. He had been a cruel and catastrophically incompetent leader who ruined his country. All Kurds and most Shia wanted him gone. But it did not follow that Iraqis of any description wanted to be occupied by a foreign power. Later President Bush and Tony Blair gave the impression that overthrowing the Baathist regime necessarily implied occupation, but it did not. "If we leave, there will be anarchy," friends in the occupation authority used to tell me in justification for the occupation. They stayed, but anarchy came anyway. In that first year of the occupation it was easy to tell which way the wind was blowing. Whenever there was an American soldier was killed or wounded in Baghdad I would drive there immediately. Always there were cheering crowds standing by the smoking remains of a Humvee or a dark blood stain on the road. After one shooting of a soldier a man told me: "I am a poor man but my family is going to celebrate what happened by cooking chicken." Yet this was the moment when President Bush and his Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld were saying that the insurgents were 'remnants of the old regime' and 'dead enders'. There was also misconception among Iraqis about the depth of the divisions within their own society. Sunni would accuse me of exaggerating their differences with the Shia but when I mentioned prominent Shia leaders they would wave a hand dismissively and say: "But they are all Iranians or paid by the Iranians." Al Qa'ida in Iraq regarded the Shia as heretics as worthy of death as the Americans. Enormous suicide bombs exploded in Shia market places and religious processions slaughtering hundreds, and the Shia began to hit back with tit-for-tat killing of Sunni by Shia death militia death squads or the police. After the Sunni guerrillas blew up the Shia shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006 sectarian fighting turned into a full blown civil war. Mr Bush and Mr Blair strenuously denied that this was so, but by any standard it was a civil war of extraordinary viciousness. Torture with electric drills and acid became the norm. The Shia Mehdi Army militia took over much of Baghdad and controlled three quarters of it. Some 2.2 million people fled to Jordan and Syria, a high proportion of them Sunni. The Sunni defeat in the battle for Baghdad in 2006 and early 2007 was the motive for many guerrillas, previously anti-American, suddenly allying themselves with American forces. They concluded they could not fight the US, al Qa'ida, the Iraqi army and police and the Mehdi Army at the same time. There is now an 80,000 strong Sunni militia paid for and allied to the US but hostile to the Iraqi government. Five years after the American and British armies crossed into Iraq the country has become a geographical expression. Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The
Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq', a finalist
for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best non-fiction
book of 2006. His new book 'Muqtada!
Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq'
is published by Scribner.
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