Sadr City Residents Warned to Leave;
AFP reports, "25 killed as Rockets Shatter Basra Calm." Shiite guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets at the British base out at the airport in Basra, killing two civilians. There was retaliatory fighting in Basra that left more dead.
Tina Susman of the LAT has some fun with the Bush administration's fixation on Iran as a source of weapons and trouble in Iraq. She notes a major embarrassment last week when a cache of supposedly Iranian weapons seized in the Shiite holy city of Karbala turned out to be no such thing. The US military had just taken the word for it of local Karbala police. She says that this week when the Pentagon gave its overview of captured weapons, all of a sudden there was no mention of Iran at all.
The Iraqi military has warned civilians to leave the vast slum of Sadr City, apparently in preparation for a massive government assault on the Mahdi Army militia based there. Since slum dwellers notoriously lack the means to leave their slums, this call seems more likely to be for the sake of appearances than a realistic expectation. When thousands are massacred in the course of a military attack on a densely packed civilian area, the authorities will be able to say that they gave fair warning. Although the US demonizes the Mahdi Army, Many Sadr City residents view it as in part a charitable organization, and they also are often grateful for the security it provides. It is not as if the federal government is providing security.
Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi leader who invented the technique for the modern Iraqi state of ethnically cleansing rebellious populations as a way of making his rule stick. He did it to the Marsh Arabs in the south and also to Kurds in the north. The US has already either conducted or allowed ethnic cleansing in Falluja and West Baghdad. It now seems set to empty out the east of the capital.
Apparently the fractious, RPG-wielding slum dwellers are getting in the way of the planned Green Zone golf course, so they have to be removed.
You know some British colonial administrators were still planning new cricket fields in India in 1946.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament took up the conflict between PM Nuri al-Maliki and the Sadr Movement and President Jalal Talabani's initiative to resolve it. At the same time, the two sides seemed to get farther apart, with al-Maliki continuing to insist on the disarming of the Mahdi Army militia. Talabani's plan called for a first step of the militiamen pledging not to carry arms in public in Baghdad and troubled areas in the south. The Talabani plan may soon be voted on by parliament, but it is opposed by the Sadr Bloc of MPs.
Al-Hayat also reports on a planned meeting of al-Maliki with Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a component of the (Sunni fundamentalist) Iraqi Accord Front. Al-Hashimi is said to be set to rejoin the government. The proposed list of cabinet members from the IAF has not been accepted by al-Maliki. Dissent has broken out, however, in the Dialogue Council of Khalaf al-`Ulyan, one of the three components of the Iraqi Accord Front.
McClatchy reports political violence for Thursday.
' Baghdad
1 Katyusha rocket slammed into the Green Zone at 9 am Thursday. No casualties were reported.
2 Katyusha rockets slammed into the street next to al-Nasr cinema, Sadoon Street, central Baghdad killing 2 civilians, injuring 2 others and causing material damage to several civilian cars.
A roadside bomb exploded in Humat al-Watan intersection near Shaab stadium, east Baghdad. It targeted an Iraqi Army patrol injuring 5 servicemen.
An adhesive IED in a Kia minibus exploded killing 1 civilian, severely injuring 5 others. The incident took place in Zayuna neighbourhood, near the traffic fly over at around 3 pm Thursday.
A roadside bomb exploded behind the National Theatre in Karrada, central Baghdad injuring 3 civilians.
A parked car bomb exploded targeting a police patrol in Mansour neighbourhood, west Baghdad, near Samad restaurant in Rowad intersection at 5 pm Thursday. The explosion killed 3 policemen and 4 civilians and injured 2 policemen and 17 civilians amongst whom were 2 women and 1 child. The location is a central commercial centre and the explosion resulted in burning 4 civilian cars completely as well as the police vehicle in addition to extensive material damages to 10 stores and completely destroying the restaurant.
A roadside bomb exploded in Jihad neighbourhood, near Mohammed Rasool Allah Mosque at 7 pm injuring 7 civilians.
4 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad today by Iraqi Police. 1 in Nahdha; 1 in Dola’I and 2 in Abu Disheer.
Salahuddin
Suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt detonated targeting mulla Nathim al-Juboor, head of Dhuluiayah Sahwa, a US supported militia, in Khazraj area, 5 km to the north of the town of Dhuluiayah. The mulla was in a motorcade with the Chief of Police and the District Commissioner of Dhuluiyah on a tour of reconstruction projects. This is the second assassination attempt he survives with only superficial injuries.
Basra
Violent clashes broke out between the security forces and gunmen in al-Askari neighbourhood, Zubair district 35 km t the west of Basra city after many Katyusha rockets were fired targeting a Notional Police camp in Zubair. The fighting continues and no casualties report was available at time of publication.'
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/09/2008 12:30:00 AM
|
Facebook
8 Comments:
"Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi leader who invented the technique of ethnically cleansing rebellious populations as a way of making his rule stick."
Maybe this was a typo. I'm not sure. But clearly Saddam did not "invent" the technique of ethnic cleansing. Do I have to offer historical precedents to contradict your assertion? I'm not going to bother, they are too obvious, and I don't want to insult your intelligence. Did you really mean to claim that Saddam "invented" this?
' When thousands are massacred in the course of a military attack on a densely packed civilian area, the authorities will be able to say that they gave fair warning. '
Just like Fallujah. What is there to add?
I suppose we all might claim that we weren't really paying attention to the first in-your-face, prime-time war crime of this Neocon regime in Fallujah... or something.
This one is being advertised.
I wonder if either of the Demoblicans running for President will say one word? Or will they just pass the ammunition?
Will Gravel/McKinney/Nader say one word?
Will any of us say one word?
Or is it just another war crime by now?
One small point. The statement, "Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi leader who invented the technique of ethnically cleansing rebellious populations as a way of making his rule stick," is not exactly right. Massive deportations of people -- what I think you are calling ethnic cleansing here, given the context -- in Mesopotamia was actually pioneered by the Assyrians in the 800s BC, and has a long history in Iraq after that.
The sentiment of the quote is certainly right on, but to me the US is simply using tried and true methods of imperial control. That they overlap Saddam testifies more to what we've gotten ourselves into than our borrowing techniques from him.
M Krupto
IN response to this note:
"
Tina Susman of the LAT has some fun with the Bush administration's fixation on Iran as a source of weapons and trouble in Iraq. She notes a major embarrassment last week when a cache of supposedly Iranian weapons seized in the Shiite holy city of Karbala turned out to be no such thing. The US military had just taken the word for it of local Karbala police. She says that this week when the Pentagon gave its overview of captured weapons, all of a sudden there was no mention of Iran at all."
In my opinion, you progressive pundits need to understand that the propaganda damage has already been done. The WhIte House succeeded in filling the dutiful media with the story of the Iranian weapons. The correction will never appear or will barely appear. Talk of "embarrassment" is such folly I shake my head in disbelief at it. DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW PROPAGANDA WORKS? Propagandists are NEVER embarrassed because they don't CARE about the truth. They care only about the fact that they got one more allegation against Iran into the media, where it will stick to people's brains like peanut butter, like the idea that Saddam and Bin Laden were blood brothers.
Many Sadr City residents view it as in part a charitable organization, and they also are often grateful for the security it provides. It is not as if the federal government is providing security.
This gives rise to the question of exactly how are organization's such as Sadr's set up that equips them with the ability to provide such services.
Where do they learn what services are needed? What personnel are responsible for delivering them. How are they organized? Funded?
Such an analysis would be useful not only for dealing with problems with Iraq, but could have broader value. For example, it could equip us with new tools to respond to gang violence in inner city American slums.
ref : “Sadr City residents view [Jaish al Mahdi] as in part a charitable organization...” @ duncan: “Where do they learn what services are needed? What personnel are responsible for delivering them; How are they organized..?”
they don't occupy ‘Sadr City’, they live there : they are "We, the people".
---------------------------------------------
Bromwich, NY Review of Books => ‘Euphemism and American Violence’:
“In Tacitus' Agricola, a Caledonian rebel named Calgacus, addressing "a close-packed multitude" preparing to fight, declares that Rome has overrun so much of the world that "there are no more nations beyond us; nothing is there but waves and rocks, and the Romans, more deadly still than these—for in them is an arrogance which no submission or good behavior can escape." Certain habits of speech, he adds, abet the ferocity and arrogance of the empire by infecting even the enemies of Rome with Roman self-deception:
"A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them.... To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of "government"; they create a desolation and call it peace."
“The frightening thing about such acts of renaming or euphemism, Tacitus implies, is their power to efface the memory of actual cruelties. Behind the façade of a history falsified by language, the painful particulars of war are lost. Maybe the most disturbing implication of the famous sentence "They create a desolation and call it peace" is that apologists for violence, by means of euphemism, come to believe what they hear themselves say.”
Potential investors are being encouraged to take a punt that years ahead, Baghdad's fortunes may mirror former war-torn cities such as Sarajevo and Beirut that have risen from the ashes.
Well... wasn't that poor timing? Between Lebanon dissolving into civil war (again) and Serbia about to fall into the hands of the ultra-nationalists (again), you'd think they'd be a bit more careful on cities for comparison. Of course, I don't think they'll have enough time to even break ground on this bit of Neocon Neoimperial madness, but who knows? They might continue putting down grass and getting ready to tee off even as the rest of Baghdad burns...
In big concession, militia agrees to let Iraqi troops into Sadr City
BAGHDAD — Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.
Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds have been wounded in the fighting, which included frequent U.S. airstrikes.
Sadr supporter Araji, however, said the agreement specifically barred American forces from entering Sadr City.
But the Americans don't have to enter the Sadr City to murder its inhabitants from the air anymore than the Israelis have to enter Gaza. Save for blood sport.
Or have the Sadrists taken "Iraqi security forces" into Sadr City as hostages in an effort to hold off the fate of the residents of Falluja?
I am afraid that to a Christian Air Force Crusader, whether flying an F-16 in Baghdad itself or a Predator from Maine or Montana, the only good Iraqi infidel is a dead Iraqi infidel. Man, woman, or child.
Post a Comment
<< Home