No one is taken in by the US lies

[cal04]

The graves of Falluja show the reality of Iraq's occupation
In an ideal world, the US-appointed interim prime minister of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, would find himself answerable for his craven obeisance to his American overlords, instead of using this week's Sharm el-Sheikh conference as an excuse to condemn those who are fighting back against occupation.

A year and a half ago, CIA wings wafted him and his ilk back to long-suffering Baghdad, the ancient capital of a resilient Arab people, who had somehow survived two devastating wars, 13 years of history's most punitive sanctions, the all-consuming degradations of life under a totalitarian regime, the destruction and occupation of their country by a motley crew of US soldiers, British tag-alongs, "a coalition of the coerced and the bribed" - to use John Kerry's once radical phrase - and the harpies and carpetbaggers in the form of American private contractors, corporate swine, exiled Iraqi fraudsters, and professional torturers.

Iraqis watched helplessly as their country's infrastructure was destroyed - electricity, sewerage, houses, hospitals, schools, libraries, bridges, roads - and as their national treasures were allowed to be looted, and their natural resources robbed.

Now they are bankrupt, riven with preventable disease, chafing under emergency laws and watching as respectable political figures are roughed up and arrested for their party's stance on the methods of the occupation. There has been a regression to Saddamite tactics - one Islamist politician's daughter and grandchildren were reported to have been arrested when he could not be found. Press freedom is muzzled, and directives are issued to the media to follow the interim-government line on Falluja, or else. But the graves of Falluja speak for themselves: "Ya Allawi, ya jaban. Ya 'ameel al-Amercaan. Sheel idak, sheel idak. Hatha shaabak mai reedak!"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1357465,00.html

[Englander]

1. Iraq-the racist war..............

"All Iraqis watch as their homes and mosques are desecrated by soldiers who shoot injured men in the stomach in pre-emptive lunacy that mirrors that of their leader. They and a billion Muslims watched as Americans forbade families from burying their dead, and allowed stray dogs to gnaw the corpses of pregnant women and toddlers on the mean streets of what was once Falluja, during Id al-Fitr, Islam's Holy Feast. No one is taken in by the lies and arrogance and greed of this racist war."

[Kolesar]

2. You are so correct

They sold this war by going to the deep well of racism in the United States. Racism has long been one of the most powerful forces at work in this country at this time. With all their successes, the gop has been able to move beyond the obvious "white hands--reverse discrimination" and Willie Horton ads. Now they attack gay people.

I hear these Christians at work deriding Islam as some kind of a degenerate religion. Anti-Moslem hatred was all over the right-wing airwaves in the period after 9/11/01.

Do Europeans refer to it as 11/9?

[indepat]

3. These are but small prices to be paid when liberty, freedom, and

democracy are being given to an oppressed people.

[Briar]

4. Millions of Americans are n/t