On the first anniversary of forming the government in Iraq, Every thing around us reminds of achievements that our elected government has accomplished within its first year by help of the greatest power... the USA!!!. Did you ever hear of hidden services or invisible projects? That what our government try to make Iraqi people believe…Oh God who can we remind what we did not experience or see!!!. When I switch on the TV I always find a sign shown on it "government of huge achievements". In the newspaper we find the same sign even in the streets I read these signs everywhere. I'm always wondering what are these achievements? At lest let us see or feel them, are they happening here, in another country or maybe on another planet? they should be visible, shouldn't they? Or may be we are a demanding people never feel content ever … MAYBE!!
Really I don't know what the difference between this elected regime and Sadam's regime? Both of them use fictional statements to hide painful facts as if we are blinds people...please we need transparency and credibility in dealing ...no more lies ...please ..Is that impossible ?
The above is from Jenan's "Achievements" (McClatchy Newspapers) and I'm really not in the mood for the New York Times. So we'll start out with some other things, such as the example of reality noted above and, with more examples of the realities for Iraqis, read IRIN's "Women forced to give up their jobs, marriages:"
When Suha Abdel-Azim, 38, received a letter from her boss saying she had to stop working for security reasons, she couldn't believe it. After three years as an engineer for a local company, she was fired without compensation.
"I was shocked when they told me I was being fired. I was an excellent worker and had done many fantastic and profitable projects but they didn’t want a woman with them any more. They tried to explain, saying it was too dangerous for the company to employ women: the company had received threats," Suha said.
"I tried to convince them that I could work from home. I have two children to bring up, and have been alone since my husband was killed by insurgents in 2004 for working for a foreign company, but in vain. They just sent me home," she said.
Suha is now unemployed. She has been trying to find a job but as a woman she is finding it difficult.
"When they see my cv [curriculum vitae] they get excited but later they say they cannot employ me because I'm a woman and it could be too dangerous for them. Most of the local construction companies in Iraq now have only men working for them," she said.
To be clear, no woman needs to justify the need or right to work. But let's note that she has two children and her husband? One of the many deaths in the illegal war. And thanks to Bully Boy -- who gave lip service to 'democracy' but wasn't interested in it (why should he care about it there when he never cared about it in the US). So the woman's lost her husband thanks to Bully Boy's illegal war and now she's lost any way to support her family. Before Bully Boy made the decision to start an illegal war of choice, Suha Abdel-Azim and other Iraqi women could work because women's rights did exist in the law. Thanks to Bully Boy, women have lost that.
In the IRIN article you'll also learn of other 'freedoms' brought by Bullly Boy: the freedom to have others insist you sign divorce papers because you've married into the 'wrong' sect, Shi'ite thugs (armed by the US, trained by the US) announcing women can no longer even be teachers "teaching other women."
We're going off topic to note "Turkey asks US not to violate its airspace again" (Turkish Daily News) because I'm flipping through seven domestic papers and going through the e-mails and not seeing anything on this:
Turkey on Tuesday formally asked the United States not to repeat any airspace violation, following an incident last week where two US F-16 fighters infringed the Turkish air corridor.
A US diplomat from the embassy in Ankara was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and requested to provide information on the May 24 incident. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, said late Monday that the incident occurred due to a mistake by the pilots, adding, "We have discussed the issue with (Deputy Chief of General Staff) Gen. Ergin Saygun. The file is closed."
The Turkish Daily News has learnt that the complaint was handed to a lower level diplomat instead of Ambassador Wilson, in a move to show that Turkey will not exaggerate the incident.
[. . .]
The incident has coincided with increased media speculation in Turkey, which faces a general election in July, of a possible Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq to crush the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists hiding there.
As the New York Times frets over the fate of contractors trying to squeeze as much blood money out of Iraq as they can, Polly notes "Iraq horrors drove soldier to stab himself to death in front of girlfriends and sons" (Daily Mail):
A 20-year-old soldier who went AWOL after six months on the front line in Iraq killed himself in front of his girlfriend and her two sons.
Fusilier Martin Packer had been keen to serve his country in Iraq.
But after six months he returned home to Tyneside and went AWOL, tormented by what he had witnessed in the war zone.
In the early hours on Monday, Martin turned a knife on himself in front of his girlfriend and her two children.
Joanne Hepple and sons Anthony, 16, and Robert, 10, watched helplessly as he stabbed himself in the stomach.
That won't make the New York Times. Money grubbers trying to cash in on Iraq will make the paper of no record. And I'm sure the New York Times will ignore Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia (The New Press) the way they have other books on and by war resisters. However, Martin Smith (Iraq Veterans Against the War) reviews it in "From foot soldier of empire to rebel for peace" (Socialist Worker):
Mejía's work--written from the vantage of a soldier who served and saw firsthand the consequences of U.S. imperialism--cuts through the deceptions and lies used to justify the war.
[. . .]
MEJIA ALSO describes the U.S. military’s blatant racism and disregard for Iraqi culture, which angered the civilian population and fueled the resistance.
At Al Assad, his unit assisted in running an illegal detainee camp, operating at roughly the same time as the infamous brutality at Abu Ghraib. Prisoners deemed as "enemy combatants" were hooded and kept awake through acts of cruelty and disorientation.
Beyond Mejía’s exposure of the lies of occupation, the strength of his book is the humility with which Mejía explains the change within himself that led to his decision to follow his conscience and oppose war. Torn between his feelings of duty to his fellow soldiers and his growing opposition to an illegal and immoral war, Mejía, home on a two-week leave, decided he could no longer be a pawn for U.S. empire.
He decided that the new war he was prepared to fight in would be "a war against the system I had come from, a battle against the military machine, the imperial dragon that devours its own soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike for the sake of profits."
He went underground for five months and then applied for conscientious objector status. He then turned himself in to the military and faced a high-profile court martial. "I made my decision based on my understanding that this is a criminal, illegitimate war for empire," he told reporters. "Had I died in the war, in my heart, I would have died a mercenary."
At a time when the war was still supported by large numbers of people, Mejía became the first soldier to be sentenced and serve nine months in prison for resisting.
Now while the New York Times relegates 10 dead US service members to page A10 and feels telling that news can really wait until paragraph 19 of that story (see previous entry) Martha and Kevin both note John Ward Anderson's "10 American Soldiers Killed in Iraq: Memorial Day Casualties Make May Deadliest Month for U.S. in 2 1/2 Years" (Washington Post) which, we should note, runs on the front page of the Post:
The U.S. military announced Tuesday that 10 American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Memorial Day, making May the deadliest month for U.S. troops in 2 1/2 years, as insurgents continued attacks on government and civilian targets.
Gunmen dressed in police uniforms staged a well-coordinated kidnapping at Iraq's Finance Ministry and abducted five Britons. Two vehicle bombings in Baghdad killed at least 44 people and injured 74. And the bodies of 32 men -- all shot and tortured, some handcuffed and blindfolded -- were found in two locations north and south of the capital on Tuesday, a senior Iraqi security official said.
[. . .]
Eight of the U.S. fatalities Monday occurred when a U.S. helicopter crashed in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers; insurgents then ambushed a rapid response team that was arriving to rescue the troops, killing six other soldiers with a series of roadside bombs, said Lt. Col. Christopher C. Garver, a military spokesman.
To repeat, that ran on the front page. The Times doesn't even think it merits its own story and pairs it off with the five money grubbers kidnapped in Iraq while they tried to turn a profit and runs that on A10. 3647 is the ICCC count for the total number of US service members who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war. 116 is the current total listed for the month of the May.
Edward Wong offers "Strife in North Iraq as Sunni Arabs Drive Out Kurds" and though there may be something worth reading in it, his blind acceptance of the laughable finger-stained elections make everything in the article suspect.
On the World Bank, check out Wally's "THIS JUST IN! BANKING ON BANKING BIG!" and Cedric's "Bully Boy's jobs program for War Criminals." Also check out Kat's "Ruth and more."
(Apologies to Ruth for my delay in posting Ruth's Report.)
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
camilo mejia
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