The Curse

Layla Anwar

An Arab Woman Blues

- December 14, 2006

...To be frank, I can no longer recognize Iraqis. What has happened to us , what on earth is going on here? Where has this violence and brutality been stored all this time , in which secret hideout? Since when do Iraqis abduct women, rape them, mutilate their genitals and then kill them. Since when do they drill holes in skulls and pluck eyes out from their sockets? Since when do they massacre innocent labourers in search of their daily bread? Since when do they blow up children in market places or immolate people in prayers to be charred alive, since when are worship places set on fire? And many more heinous acts .... Since when? Yes I no longer recognize this place. What is this telluric hideous ugliness painted on the walls of this city? What is this vicious cruelty that erupts from the belly of the earth and spreads like a tumor in every street and in every neighborhood? What is becoming of us? Maybe this is our curse. A first Gulf War waged by Neolithic Barbarians that knocked Iraqis down, followed by 12 years of sanctions that killed millions , followed by yet another War of "shock and awe" that took back the country to the Stone age era, followed by a ruthless occupation that has stripped thousands of their basic human dignity and killed thousands in the process. Finally allowing evil, monstrous, thuggish cronies to rule whilst these Cavemen actively engage and guide from a distance. Bestiality is indeed contagious...

continua / continued

The Bloodbath We Created

Gareth Porter, TomPaine.com

...The bloodbath argument evades the central fact that the U.S. occupation has never been aimed at avoiding or reducing sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. On the contrary, the U.S. has used sectarian conflict for its own purposes. The main purpose of the U.S. occupation has been to claim victory over those who resisted it, which has meant primarily suppressing the Sunni armed resistance throughout the Sunni zone. The Bush administration had to have Iraqi allies against the Sunni resistance, and after Sunni security units showed in 2004 that they would not fight other Sunnis on behalf of the occupation, the administration began relying primarily on Shiites to assist its war against the Sunnis. Thus the militant Shiite political parties and their military wing became the administration’s primary Iraqi allies...

continua / continued