WP: Killing Fields: Iraq Is the Republic of Fear

[DeepModem Mom]

KILLING FIELDS
Iraq Is the Republic of Fear
By Nir Rosen
Sunday, May 28, 2006; Page B01

Every morning the streets of Baghdad are littered with dozens of bodies, bruised, torn, mutilated, executed only because they are Sunni or because they are Shiite. Power drills are an especially popular torture device.

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya , or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, dissidents called Iraq "the republic of fear" and hoped it would end when Hussein was toppled. But the war, it turns out, has spread the fear democratically. Now the terror is not merely from the regime, or from U.S. troops, but from everybody, everywhere.

At first, the dominant presence of the U.S. military -- with its towering vehicles rumbling through Baghdad's streets and its soldiers like giants with their vests and helmets and weapons -- seemed overwhelming. The Occupation could be felt at all times. Now in Baghdad, you can go days without seeing American soldiers. Instead, it feels as if Iraqis are occupying Iraq, their masked militiamen blasting through traffic in anonymous security vehicles, shooting into the air, angrily shouting orders on loudspeakers, pointing their Kalashnikovs at passersby.

Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy. They, too, are killing Iraqis....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601578.html?nav=hcmodule

[Tin Man]

1. K&R for truth - very telling article describing the utter anarchy of Iraq

...Iraq has become a total clusterfuck - a three party civil war between Sunni, Shia, and America.

Congratulations GWB, this is the 'legacy' you've crafted for yourself...

[DemoTex]

2. Joe Galloway (co-author of "We Were Soldiers Once; and Young") said ..

Last week on Kieth Olberman's Countdown (sans Kieth), war correspondent/writer Joe Galloway (who, as a civilian, was awarded the Bronze Star by the US Army for bravery at the battle of L-Z XRAY during the Ia Drang campaign in Viet Nam in November 1965) put his considerable gravitas behind the statement that, in many ways, Iraq is worse than Viet Nam. This Washington Post article epitomizes that of which Joe Galloway spoke.

Now, we can not only call Bu$h the worst president ever (which includes the sub-set of war presidents), but we can start to say that his illegal war is - in many ways - worse than the worst, Viet Nam. That is not entirely true, of course, but unless it ends soon it will be, in toto.


Massacre at hamlet My Lai-4
March 16, 1968

[enough]

3. k&r

[K8-EEE]

4. May God And The World Forgive Us

For blowing the lid off that tinder box and causing what was a totally predictable result; even greater suffering for the Iraqis. It's unimaginable what's going on there, and to think we won't see any blowback from it is delusional.

[DemoTex]

5. After the carnage in Baghdad today, this article is even more germaine.

On the Iraq killing field today there were Iraqi KIAs, US soldier KIAs, and CBS journalist KIAs, and the insane war-monger tried to rationalize his war crimes in a speech at the hallowed Arlington Cemetery. On the other front-burner, Afghanistan is boiling over. This situation is totally out of control.

A kick to re-visit this article 2-nite.