Look what they're doing
Many languish in prisons indefinitely, lost in a system that imposes English-language procedures on Arabic speakers with Arabic names not easily transcribed. I walked past a detainment center once where a dozen prisoners could be seen marching in a circle, surrounded by barbed wire. They were shouting "USA, USA!" over and over.
"They were talkin' when we told 'em not to, so we made 'em say somethin' we liked to hear," grinned one of the soldiers guarding them. Another gestured up with his hands, letting them know they had to raise their voices. A sergeant later quipped that the ones who are not guilty "will be guilty next time", after such treatment. Some prisoners are termed "security detainees" and held for six months pending a review to determine whether they are still a "security risk". Most are innocent. Many were arrested simply because a neighbor did not like them, or because they were male. A lieutenant colonel involved in this told me that there is no judicial process for the thousands of detainees. If the military were to try them, that would entail a court martial, which would imply that the United States is occupying Iraq
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Hundreds of people were emerging from the smoke, running away, hundreds more were running to it and hundreds more were standing in shock, crying, screaming. A woman walked by carrying the inert body of her child. American humvees pulled up, as did Iraqi police cars. "There are many dead people," shouted one man running from out of the hotel's wreckage, asking people to help. Terrified and confused US soldiers tried to turn back the crowd of Iraqis who rushed to help; they swung in every direction with their rifles, looking for the enemy...
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Journalists moved away to report on their phones in English, Turkish, Italian. Others stood still, filming the scene. At least we didn't have to go far; the resistance is considerate enough to strike close to the hotels and neighborhoods where the press reside.
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That same night the "Iraqi street" was blaming it on a missile, meaning on the Americans, and as always everybody had a friend who swore he had seen the missile hit the car. Sunnis and Shi'ites are united in believing America and "the Jews" are responsible for the sectarian attacks, because of the absurd belief that America wants to remain in Iraq and will provoke a civil war to serve as a pretext.
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Meanwhile over ten thousand Iraqi men are being held prisoner, and most of them are innocent. Iraqi security guards as well as American soldiers hate the explosive-sniffing dog in front of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels, because they, like the rest of us who live in the area, are subject to its olfactory whims as it imagines every day that it smells a bomb and they must close off the street for several hours. Two of my friends were arrested for not having a bomb last week, when the dog decided their bag smelled funny. They were jailed for four days though they were not carrying a bomb. Unlike the murderous accuracy of the Israeli security forces, who at least speak Arabic, the American security forces are a blunt instrument. They arrest hundreds at once, hoping somebody will know something.
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I was with a US army unit when they went on a raid one morning. Tanks, armored personnel carriers and Humvees squeezed through the neighborhood walls as a CIA operator eyed the rooftops and windows of nearby houses angrily, a silencer on his assault weapon. Intelligence had intercepted a phone conversation in which a man called Ayoub spoke of advancing to the next level to obtain landmines and other weapons. Soldiers broke through Ayoub's door early in the morning, but when the sleepy man did not immediately respond to their orders he was shot with non-lethal ordnance, little pellets exploding like gun shot from the weapon's grenade launcher. The floor of the house was covered with his blood. He was dragged into a room and interrogated forcefully as his family was pushed back against their garden's fence.
Ayoub's frail mother, covered in a shawl, with traditional tribal tattoos marking her face, pleaded with the immense soldier to spare her son's life, protesting his innocence. She took the soldier's hand and kissed it repeatedly while on her knees. He pushed her to the grass along with Ayoub's four girls and two boys, all small, and his wife. They squatted barefoot, screaming, their eyes wide open in terror, clutching one another as soldiers emerged with bags full of documents, photo albums and two compact discs with Saddam Hussein and his cronies on the cover. These CDs, called The Crimes of Saddam, are common on every Iraqi street and, as their title suggests, they were not made by Saddam supporters. But the soldiers couldn't read Arabic and saw only the picture of Saddam, which was proof enough of guilt. Ayoub was brought out and pushed on to the truck. He gestured to his shrieking family to remain where they were. He was a gentle, avuncular man, small and round, balding and unshaven, with a hooked nose and slightly pockmarked face. It seemed unlikely that he was involved in any anti-American activity; but he did not protest and maintained his dignity, sitting frozen, staring numbly ahead. The soldiers ignored him, occasionally glancing down at their prisoner with sneering disdain. The medic looked at Ayoub's injured hand and chuckled to his friends, "It ain't my hand." The truck blasted country music on the way back to the base. Ayoub was thrown in the detainment center. After the operation there were smiles of relief among the soldiers, slaps on the back and thumbs up.
Several hours later a call was intercepted from another Ayoub. "Oh shit," said the unit's intelligence officer, "it was the wrong Ayoub." The innocent father of six who had the wrong name was not immediately let go so as not to risk revealing to the other Ayoub that the Americans were searching for him. The night after his arrest a relieved Ayoub could be seen escorted by soldiers to call his family and tell them he was fine, but would not be home for a few days. "It was not the wrong guy," said the units commander defensively, shifting blame elsewhere. "We raided the house we were supposed to and arrested the man we were told to."
Nir Rosen/Reason online Mar.26.04
I was booted off a thread at electrolite* last year for suggesting strongly that the US invaded Iraq at the direction of "the Israelis" though I didn't say it that way. What I said was Jewish hatred of Babylon, which is what Iraq is and was, runs deep, and the Jews are a vengeful unforgiving people. This year I've already caught a lot of heat for seeming to be that uniquely horrible kind of person, the anti-Semite. Which if I have to insist I'm not too much longer will start being a false statement. What I hate, the groups and kinds of people I find repugnant, are mostly behaviorally linked, not ethnically or spiritually. Certainly not in the broad sense of "Jew" or "Arab".
I've insinuated over and over without ever saying it outright, that Bush was a tool for behind-the-scenes power, the same power that put all those big-box kids in harm's way in the Rock. Something lots of people are ready to believe, only they think it's the "oil companies".
And then when the media dropped Bush, right at the same time they assassinated Dean, and gently picked up Kerry, you know what? It never occurred to me, I swear it.
I thought he was an Irish Catholic, but they were so fawningly upbeat about him I kept looking for some reason, some connection. Why would he be so appealing to the same toothless pack of canines that elected Bush in the minds of the hypnotized public?
Well it's there. You can find it easy enough. His grandmother, his wife, he's connected.
I'm not going to be a one-man band on this issue, there's other things I want to get said before it's time to go.
But I do want to say clearly I have no problem with his ethnicity, or his religion.
It's the lies, the maneuvering, and the heartlessness. The damage in the cause of selfishness.
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What needs to be pointed out here is the extreme and pandemic anti-Semitism in Iraq. This will not be reported in the American media because it links directly to the cause of the invasion.
Why is there so much anti-Semitism in Iraq?
The correct response is - "Huh? wha?"
Does Kerry have a Jewish connection?
Why were Kerry's top
The correct response is - "I have no idea what you're talking about."
