The Rag Blog

BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 — Two blocks from the new American outpost in Ghazaliya, one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods, a fight was raging. Shiites were battling Sunnis, the latest skirmish in a sectarian war that has left this area a wasteland.

On Friday morning, it became an American fight, too, after a few rounds whizzed by Sgt. Sergej Michaud’s head, and he and three other soldiers returned fire.

The battle would rage for nearly an hour, with mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades exploding near the soldiers, who in turn laid down heavy fire, eventually driving the attackers away.

Previously, that would have been the end of it, with the soldiers moving on to their next patrol area and eventually returning to their base. But this time, the Americans were staying, defending their new home in a neighborhood where the rule of law had been driven out by the reign of the gun.

Their outpost here, a cluster of fortified houses officially designated a joint security station and unofficially called the Alamo by some of the soldiers, is a test case for President Bush’s new Baghdad security plan. The strategy envisions at least 20 more facilities like it in other troubled neighborhoods, all jointly staffed by Iraqi and American forces.

Even after the stations are set up, American commanders say, it will be many months, at best, before they can even hope to prevent bombings like the one that killed at least 88 people in a central Baghdad market area on Monday.

In the week since the Americans arrived, however, the troops have seen the truth of what their commanders warned in announcing the plan: it leaves Americans more exposed than ever, stationary targets for warring militias.

The outpost sits on the fault line between Sunni and Shiite enclaves: Ghazaliya to the south, where fighters with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have moved in among the Sunni population, and Shula to the north, a base for Shiite militias that have been raiding this neighborhood for months.

Over the course of three days spent with the 105 soldiers here — Company C of the Second Battalion, 12th Cavalry — four American vehicles were hit by roadside bombs near the outpost. No soldiers from Company C were wounded, but they know the fighting will intensify.

“I’m a juicy target they are just trying to figure out,” said Capt. Erik Peterson, 29, the commander at the outpost.

During the week, the soldiers also received their first glimpse of the green Iraqi forces who will share the mission and eventually, they hoped, take it over. The soldiers talked about them with a mixture of bemusement, disdain and mistrust.

“You could talk about partnership, but you would be lying,” said one soldier who asked that his name not be used, for fear of punishment by his superiors.

It was also a week to start getting to know the desperate residents of Ghazaliya, where almost every remaining family has lost someone to kidnappings and executions, and where government services have long been cut off.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — With a certain satisfaction, Lebanese journalist Michael Young watched a local station broadcast images seen across the world on April 9, 2003: the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Firdaus Square, its reverberations rumbling across a stunned Middle East. Out of curiosity, he switched to a satellite station from Syria. It was showing a documentary on a venerable Damascene mosque. He flipped to another channel, where a former Egyptian general was dismissing the idea that day that the Iraqi capital had even fallen.

“If they were scared of what was happening in Baghdad, there was more power in this moment than might have been expected. The regimes were truly scared of this moment, truly scared,” recalled Young, the opinion editor of the Daily Star in Beirut.

“The problem is,” he added, “the Americans failed.”

The coterie of Arabs who supported the U.S.-led invasion were never the target of expensive American propaganda efforts. Their unpopular stands in the Arab world earned them inboxes full of angry e-mails; a few claimed they got death threats. And nearly four years after the invasion they backed, their sense of frustration, resentment and even betrayal speaks volumes about how withered American standing is in the Middle East today and how far the region itself has deteriorated, riven as it is by escalating conflicts, worsening sectarian tension and a simmering struggle with an ascendant Iran.

“It’s a success story for al-Qaeda, a success story for autocratic Arab regimes that made democracy look ugly in their people’s eyes. They can say to their people: ‘Look at the democracy that the Americans want to bring to you. Democracy is trouble. You may as well forget about what the Americans promise you. They promise you death,’ ” said Salameh Nematt, a Jordanian analyst and the former Washington bureau chief for the Arabic-language daily newspaper al-Hayat.

I tried to leave the hotel at night to buy some cigarettes, when one of the hotel security guys took me a side and asked me where I was going?

I told him that I was going to buy some cigarettes from the corner shop, he smiled and said “No go back.” I found that strange and asked him why?

He said “believe me and go back” I questioned him again?, he then informed me that there was some thing fishy going on out side, and that there were three cars driving back and forth in front of the hotel, the guard told me that they had stopped the car and asked them what they were doing in the neighborhood?”

(Because after dark you don’t find cars driving because of the security situation and only militia forces will move around looking for random Sunni targets)

They told him that they are looking for some one called Omar!!

Iraq will not let United States use its territory to launch strikes against Iraq, according to the leader of the parliamentary bloc of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

“We will not allow the American forces to strike Iran to achieve what it wants because the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of our neighbours.” He said. “Iran is our big neighbour who and deals with us diplomatically without meddling in our internal affairs.”

He added that Iran has the technical capacity to assist in the rebuilding of the his war torn nation.

Member of the House of Representatives Fread Raunduzi of the Kurdistan Alliance called on the Iraqi government and the government of Kurdistan region to “make a substantial effort” secure the release of Iranian diplomats detained by the US forces following the seize of the consulate in Erbil, an act which has “caused problems in the relationship between the Iraqi government and Iran.”

CRAWFORD — The Revs. Alan and Nancy Bean never dreamed of being on the front lines of the “war on drugs” — let alone actually getting involved in it in their small West Texas town.

But in 1999, these two ordained Baptist ministers were called to form “Friends of Justice Tulia” to get the word out to the national media, NAACP, the ACLU, and the Justice Department that there was something fishy about a local drug sting.

The sting itself initially received glowing yet nasty coverage in their hometown newspaper.

“When I first heard about the drug sting, actually I didn’t know that everybody was black. The race of those arrested was not given in the newspaper account, which is what I was going on,” Rev. Alan Bean told the Iconoclast. “What got me was that they were described as scumbags and known drug dealers in an editorial in the Tulia paper.”

Indeed, 39 of the 46 people arrested for allegedly dealing cocaine were African American and so poor that they had no houses or cars of their own. Moreover, the “drug kingpin,” a 57-year-old pig farmer who lived in a run-down shack, was convicted and given a 90-year sentence.

Yet as the first of the trials were happening, Rev. Bean questioned the verdicts more closely: Why should the sentences be so long? How could there be 46 drug dealers in a town of 5,000? How could any jury convict any alleged criminal on the testimony of a single narcotics agent?

To Rev. Bean, this style of due process just didn’t make sense biblically.

“The Bible says that nobody is to be convicted except on the word of at least two witnesses. That’s not just a passing reference in the Bible. Moses said it. Paul confirmed it. Jesus confirmed it. I mean, no matter who your favorite figure is in the Bible, they said it,” said Rev. Bean. “That teaching isn’t just there because it appealed to somebody. It just made sense. It’s not just to take any single person’s word for anything, particularly when a person’s freedom is riding on the line.”

As this lone undercover agent — Tom Coleman — was basking in the spotlight of his work, more information surfaced. Coleman made his living working low-level law enforcement jobs in country towns. His position was funded through a federal anti-drug program that reached rural areas outside of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

However, Coleman made for a lousy undercover agent, never wearing a wire, taking photographs and videotapes, nor hiring a partner to verify his work on the Tulia sting. Still, a number of predominately white juries believed him and sent the defendants to prison with terms ranging from 90 years to 400 years, the latter given for one man with a prior conviction.

With its team of racially-integrated and persistent volunteers, the Friends of Justice eventually obtained media exposure. An article in the Texas Observer and a documentary on the irregularities of the Tulia case convinced several civil rights organizations to take the case seriously.

VENEZUELA initiates new stage of revolution

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa chat while U.S. puppet Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez sits wringing his hands. From Jan. 11 through 15 three leftist Latin American presidents were sworn in. This surely made the White House more nervous about this region of the world.

Early on Jan. 11, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was sworn in at the National Assembly after having won a landslide election on Dec. 3. Ironically, this was the same day that, in the north of the American continent, U.S. President George W. Bush would announce his new policy for more death and destruction in his war on “terrorism” and Iraq.

Several of Chávez’s speeches point to a new stage of the Bolivarian Revolution that will intensify the development of his proposed “Socialism of the 21st Century” in Venezuela. These included a call for the formation of a Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela, a new party that would coalesce all the pro-revolution groups existing in the country; the nationalization of important sectors of the economy, including telecommunications, electricity and the Central Bank—which up to now has been an autonomous entity—and several other measures intended to move toward the construction of a socialist society.

Sandinistas back in office in NICARAGUA

After being sworn in, Chávez flew to Nicaragua to attend the inauguration of President Daniel Ortega. After a lapse of many years, in a completely new situation in the country, the Sandinista Front for National Liberation was back in office on Jan. 11, represented by Ortega. The Sandinistas, who had tried earlier to bring revolutionary change to Nicaragua, had been forced out in 1990 after a contra war sponsored by the U.S. that cost billions of dollars of damage, followed by Washington’s direct intervention in Nicaragua’s elections in support of an opposition it had created.

In fact, the World Court in 1988 actually ruled that the U.S. should pay Nicaragua some $12 billion to $17 billion in reparations for the damage of the contra war—a ruling Washington ignored.

The Nicaraguan masses have suffered terribly—first during the U.S.-contra dirty war and then, after the pro-U.S. regime was installed, by neoliberal economic policies dictated from Wall Street.

The rightwing smear campaign against Barack Obama, waged by a magazine funded by the far rightwing Korean businessman and part-time messiah, the Reverend Moon, has foundered on CNN’s good reporting. The allegation was that he had gone to a radical “Saudi-funded” madrasah. Wolf Blitzer had the professionalism to send out an experienced reporter to the school that Obama attended when he was 6 years old in Indonesia. He found it just an ordinary modern school with boys and girls and both male and female teachers, which taught modern subjects.

The smear campaign would be hilarious if it weren’t so satanic.

01/22/07 “ICHBlog” — — Just why did the US attack Somalia two weeks ago? Of course, the answer given for the US military intervention and the generally accepted notion is the hunt for terrorists. But is it? Are terrorists the only bone of contention the US has with Somalia? When the US military devised “Operation Restore Hope” in 1993 which was short-lived after they were whipsawed by rag-tag militia in and around Mogadishu, were they fighting the ‘war on terror’?

They couldn’t have been because this war was to start much later, If anything it is a post-Sept 11 phenomenon. So then why did the US bomb ICU extremists in the name of Al Qaeda terrorists and not throughout last year when they occupied Mogadishu?
Just why is Somalia so important to the US, and by extension the big boys of Europe and some Gulf states? A UN Somalia Monitoring Group report released in November 2005 reveals that a dozen countries, namely Yemen, Djibouti, Libya, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Iran, Syria, Eritrea, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Uganda were all poking their noses into the Somalia pie.

What the UN Somalia Monitoring Group didn’t reveal, however, is that these were not the only countries which were interested in the country. The little known yet well-heeled contact group, consisting of Norway, the US, UK, France and Tanzania (just an appendage) are also deeply enmeshed in Somalia.

While the terrorism theory holds some water, the reality of the factors contributing to the mess in Somalia is pegged on natural resources. Oil and gas are Somalia’s Achilles heel. It is an open secret that four US oil giants are sitting pretty on money-spinning concessions expecting to reap huge windfalls from massive resources of both oil and gas in Somalia.

The story of Somalia and oil goes back to the colonial period. British and Italian geologists first identified oil deposits during that period of imperialism. The first oil wells historically referred to as the Daga Shabell series were dug in the 1960s. Tiny gas discoveries adjacent to Socotra were also noted.

“The arrogance of military power has led to a grave crisis – and to a decline of the United States’ role and influence.” Mikhail Gorbachev.
“The president is living in a dream world,” US Sen. Barbara Boxer.

01/22/07 “ICHBlog” — On Iran , US Administration has reached the pre-Iraq invasion rhetoric level of 2003 , when against the UN Charter and world opinion ,President George Bush decided to invade Iraq after having assembled a naval armada and air and land forces in the region ,cheerlead by a subservient US media . Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are accusing Tehran of developing nuclear weapons and exporting terrorism, just as Saddam Hussein was allegedly doing. Iran is also not abiding by U N resolutions on its nuclear weapons program, which, like Iraq then, it denies it has. UN Nuclear Agency in Vienna has found no proof of a weapons program .Neither there was one in Iraq in 2003. Almost all accusations made by US President , his deputy and others , exaggerated by US corporate owned media proved to be false.

But after 4 years of blunders and stupidity , the situation is unlike March, 2003 , with an isolated Bush administration now under siege having become unpopular and discredited at home and with allies abroad .In Iran it faces a people with a long history of survival beginning with Alexander and his uncouth Macedonian hordes , Arabs ,Turks , Mongols and others. And they succeeded in civilizing most of them.

Even the new Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee , John D. Rockefeller (D) took umbrage at the Bush administration’s increasingly hostile barrage against Iran .The efforts to portray it as a growing threat were uncomfortably reminiscent of the rhetoric about Iraq. “To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again,” Senator Rockefeller said in an interview on 19 January. “This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.” “I don’t think that policymakers in this administration particularly understand Iran,” he added. Rockefeller, a moderate , with good access to most classified intelligence about the threat from Tehran felt that US agencies still knew little about either Iran’s internal dynamics or its intentions in the Middle East.

On how President Bush has dealt with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism since 119 attacks, Rockefeller believed that the campaign against international terrorism was “still a mystery” to the President. “I don’t think he understands the world,” he said. “I don’t think he’s particularly curious about the world. I don’t think he reads like he says he does.” He added, “Every time he’s read something he tells you about it, I think.”

Over Bush’s policy of ‘Surge ‘ ie sending additional 21,500 troops to Iraq ,hot words are being exchanged between Democrat party ,resurgent after Bush’s Republican party debacle in November elections and the White House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are backing a nonbinding Senate Democratic resolution declaring that “It is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the US military force presence in Iraq.”

ACT 1 Scene 1 Cemeteries of the world are filled with ghosts meeting and discussing; ghosts in sheets of red, ghosts in black and red; some with gaping wounds, others without limbs, some beheaded and blinded. Some came from forgotten weed patches, others from under monumental tombstones. Some speak loud and clear, other curse under their breath – but all are filled with angry indignation.

From near and far they all declare:

All: Revenge!

To those who betrayed our trust, our fight, our sacrifice,

even as they dare to praise or speak

in our name and of our death.

We say a curse on all your kind,

we shall visit

and you shall hear our voices

amplified by the millions

and through the many languages

will be conveyed

our message:

Traitors do not tread upon our graves

Lest you lose your treasures

And more yet

your unholy alliance with all those

whose power tyrannize our people

And makes a mockery of our sacrifice.

And so speak the assembly of the ghosts of the past

addressing the rulers of the present,

former comrades

who have taken up the cudgels

of their former enemies.

They travel far and wide

to Central and South America,

to the Middle East,

Asia, Europe and

North America.

Neither color or gender

are forgotten,

or forgiven.

All those who forsake