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Author Topic:   If America Were Iraq
DayDreamer
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posted March 18, 2006 12:17 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
If America Were Iraq

by Juan Cole
September 23, 2004

President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the U.S. is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on Sept. 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, D.C., but mainly above the Mason-Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, D.C., and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?

There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totaling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and federal troops could not go into those cities?

What if, during the past year, the secretary of state (Aqilah Hashemi), the president (Izzedine Salim), and the attorney general (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?

What if all the cities in the U.S. were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?

What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Mont., Flint, Mich., Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, D.C., and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs," but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

What if, from time to time, the U.S. Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by U.S. Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and even pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial over on the Mall? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the U.S. Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades?

What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, D.C., and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire.

What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%?

What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?

What if municipal elections were canceled and cliques close to the new "president" quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors"? What if several of these governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas?

What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner?

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/10/00_cole_if-america-were-iraq.htm

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 18, 2006 12:40 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Is this the appropriate time to point to the similarities between Iraqi nationalists and Jwhop?

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DayDreamer
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posted March 18, 2006 12:42 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Sorry it's late...What do you mean?

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DayDreamer
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posted March 18, 2006 01:05 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
All this article is asking the reader to do is look at the perspective of those living through the Iraq war and all the chaos they must go through.

I hope no one is under the impression that it's speaking of nationalism.

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proxieme
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posted March 18, 2006 01:13 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That's an incredibly interesting article - but be prepared for cries that it's from "an absolutely in-credible source! WagingPeace! Harumph! Harumph!"

It reminds me of another very good point:
Iraqi mothers and fathers love their children just as fiercely as do American mothers and fathers, and - rightly or wrongly - many of those who have lost their children to sanctions or to bombs blame America and her forces, at least in part.
We should be amazed that we're getting the support that we are rather than grumbling over "defeatism" or the "lack of rationality" in action.

Kinding of diverging, I just read this real-life vignette:

On the eve of the three-year anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, the Methboubs, like most Iraqis, feel a mix of frustration, disappointment, and hope in the face of daily sectarian violence.
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD – Crammed into the same ramshackle apartment in which they fearfully waited out the US invasion of Iraq three years ago, the Methboub family is asked to list the good points of the US presence.

But an argument erupts in their small living room, like a bomb in a crowded marketplace.

"They never do anything good, they close the roads, they kill the Iraqi people," spits out 19-year-old daughter Fatima, clicking her tongue "no" repeatedly. "They own Saddam's palaces, but they are worse than Saddam Hussein. They hurt the Iraqi people."

"I object," says Amal, 16, trying to insert her more nuanced argument between Fatima's strident declarations. "The first thing [the Americans] did is release us from Saddam Hussein. That's a big revolution for Iraq."

The close-knit, poor family of Karima Selman Methboub, a widow with eight children whom the Monitor has followed closely since late 2002, has always met challenges head-on, accepting what they see as their fate with a potent sense of humor, and often with laughter.

But for many Iraqis, who have watched in horror as tens of thousands of their countrymen have died since the 2003 invasion, hopes for the future are muted, or gone. US promises of freedom and democratic rule after the tyranny of Saddam Hussein have instead given way to Iraqi anger at US invaders and Iraqi insurgents.

"The only one who is responsible for the Iraqi and American dead is [President] Bush," claims Fatima. "I hope Bush's conscience judges him. The Americans and the Iraqis know: He is responsible for the mass killing in Iraq, no one else."

Amal counters: "Thanks to Saddam Hussein, we are blind, and we are deaf. Did you like to live in the dark?" she demands of her sister. "The small Arab countries have development and good education. We do not, though we are the richest in the Arab world."

"I can't say that the Americans are angels," she continues. "But when Iraq wants to develop, the terrorists come to Iraq from Syria and Saudi Arabia. The Americans are trying to preserve the freedom of societies around the world."

But many Iraqis say the price has been higher than they could have imagined. "My soul is unsettled in my body," intones Mrs. Methboub. She mentions that gunmen wearing commando uniforms entered the house of relatives a couple of weeks ago, and took away three sons who later turned up dead.

"We can't like Iraq now, because we are tired," says Methboub. "If we had a lot of money, we would run away from this country. The civil war is starting."

Amal adds with some exasperation over the new government: "Iraq will be finished, all the people will die, but still politicians will fight for their posts."

She will be 17 next week and kept a diary during the war. Recent entries comment on the surge in sectarian violence, and Amal's own drift toward sectarian thinking. "When you say you are Shiite or Sunni on the street, people say: 'No, don't say that,' " she says, toying with the tail of a turquoise head scarf. "But it never changes the fact that Iraq contains Shiite and Sunnis [and] they now hate one another."

Battling to scrape by

Such thinking was far from this family's thoughts three years ago. Full of dread and losing hope, as the American invasion of Iraq loomed, the Methboubs watched helplessly as better-off neighbors moved out of their run-down Baghdad apartment building in search of safety.

Fear gripped the capital before the attack, and statements about the future began with the words: "If I am still alive...."

"Without my neighbors, I felt strange, and started to be afraid," Methboub told the Monitor on the eve of war in 2003. "Because I cried, my daughters cried, too."

Today, the Methboub family still cries and lives in fear. Like so many other poor families in Iraq, they are battling to scrape a living through war, occupation, insurgent violence and now growing sectarian bloodshed. Another 25 executed bodies were found on the streets Thursday. Some 86 corpses were discovered on Tuesday.

Baghdad has morphed from a place of order and calm - imposed by the heavy hand of Hussein and his well-oiled, omniscient security forces - to one of divided by miles of blast walls, coils of razor wire, and checkpoints. The word "safety" is rare; the word "victory" is never heard.

Vowing to form a unity government that can avoid "national disaster," Iraq's first full-term parliament held its inaugural session Thursday. But even as 275 deputies were sworn into office, they have yet to end the political deadlock over choosing a prime minister.

And this week President Bush warned of more "chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."

Such a candid assessment is no surprise to the Methboubs who have now become so stretched by chronic insecurity that they question the entire enterprise that still keeps 130,000 US troops on Iraqi soil.

Turning against the US presence

Fifteen-year-old daughter Duha's experience with Americans may be most trenchant - and perhaps more worrying, for US military commanders and officials alike. The Baghdad primary school she attended with her twin sister, Hibba, was renovated by US forces early in the occupation.

"It's good for all the students; it was an old school, and in the past we thought it would fall on us," says Duha, sitting on the single step to the kitchen. "I liked only one soldier. He gave us sweets and notebooks at school. He sent me a letter and gave me a necklace."

That was before Iraqi prisoners were found to be abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison, humiliating them in ways that turned Iraqi stomachs - and were played repeatedly on the televisions in most Iraqi living rooms.

"I don't like the Americans anymore," says Duha, as her mother tries to quietly shush her. "Many soldiers came to our school, and gave us school bags, but my friends don't like the Americans."

For a family of such modest means, the Methboubs are never short of drama. Daughter Zainab, who turned 18 last month and married in late 2004, is four months pregnant. Her husband works as a bodyguard for a ranking Iraqi politician.

A fire swept through a nearby bakery not long ago, destroying the family air conditioner. That will make the last days of Zainab's pregnancy in August uncomfortable, they predict. Smoke from the fire wrecked the apartment interior (which has now been repainted in pale blue and beige) and a wheelchair-bound neighbor upstairs died the next day; they say of "shock."

Duha passed her English exam with a 58 percent, but Hibba failed with just 45 percent correct. Mother Methboub jumps to her defense, complaining how "bad" the teachers are these days. During a visit, Hibba quietly sits in the kitchen, completing homework.

Youngest sibling Mahmoud, 12, who was "painted" by a US soldier's laser rifle sight late last year when he played around with toy guns on the street, has turned those dangerous toys in for a simple Nintendo-style TV game. During his next school break, Mahmoud will again sell Pepsi on the sidewalk, earning one dollar a day.

Hope for the next generation

As darkness sets in, the family notes that electricity supply has been declining - now one hour on, and three hours off. US officials confirmed this week that power supply has reached a three-year low.

For families like the Methboubs, unaware of the billions the US invested in boosting power supply, and the collapsing state of the grid, that fact says it all. But despite the ever-present danger on the streets, and the seemingly endless carnage on the TV news, Amal is looking ahead.

It is evidence of the gritty determination to prevail that has seen the Methboubs through one crisis after another, and certainly will see them through many more.

"I am hopeful," Amal says with quiet conviction, as if waiting for Fatima to protest. "Maybe after two years, when I am older, hopefully I can make some changes in Iraq. I hope something better will happen."

"Every year, I will grow, like Iraq," says Amal, stronger now. "This event is good for my generation, because the next generation will learn how to avoid this situation in the future."
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2006/0317/p01s04-woiq.html

----

More communist propaganda, I'm sure, but still an interesting read.

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AcousticGod
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Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 18, 2006 01:31 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Certainly was.

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DayDreamer
unregistered
posted March 18, 2006 01:32 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Oh well Proxieme, I'm expecting those cries Here's the author (and history professor's) website, http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html

That is a good point about Iraqi and American parents. And the article you posted speaks volumes...since the words are coming from the children, the hopefully future generation of Iraq.

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DayDreamer
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posted March 18, 2006 01:33 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
AG...what's your take on this?

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Petron
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posted March 19, 2006 02:24 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
IRAQ `IN THE GRIP OF CIVIL WAR'
Sat Mar 18 2006 20:41:50 ET

Iraq is in the grip of civil war, the country's former prime minister will insist on Sunday.

Iyad Allawi warned the violence was reaching the point of no return and Europe and the USA would not be spared the consequences.

British ministers have repeatedly denied civil war is either imminent or inevitable in Iraq.

But former interim prime minister Mr Allawi said: ``It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.''

Mr Allawi tells the BBC's Sunday AM program: ``Iraq is in the middle of a crisis. Maybe we have not reached the point of no return yet. But we are moving towards this point. We are in a terrible civil conflict now.''

Mr Allawi said Iraq would fall apart if the bloodshed reached the point of no return.

``It will not only fall apart, but sectarianism will spread throughout the region, and even Europe and the United States would not be spared all the violence that may occur as a result of sectarian problems in this region.''

Developing...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm

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LibraSparkle
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posted March 19, 2006 11:24 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Excellent, DD and Proxie!

I also think it is interesting that many of the people in support of this killing fest in Iraq (also known as war) are hugely against abortion rights.

I wonder... how is it acceptable to support the killing of innocent people of another country while you staunchly oppose abortion? (I, personally, don't view abortoin as murder... but the majority of the Right biased people do.)

Seems hypocritical to me... though... when you have Jesus H. Bush on your side, I guess you don't have to make any kind of logical sense.

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lotusheartone
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posted March 19, 2006 11:40 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
how will you feel if we get hit with another terrorist attack?

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Cardinalgal
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posted March 19, 2006 07:23 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
"Iraq in civil war, says former PM" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4821618.stm

however "Defence Secretary John Reid says there's no civil war threat..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4819382.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4822058.stm

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