Don't Be An Asshole
hey, Shirin, I put in almost 4 hours of work on this post. Now, you go ahead and cut and paste it to email and pretend you did the research without any attribution to me or Iraq Today.
I didn't know you were good friends with Raed - what AFSC office does he work at anyway?
Thanks Dancewater and the others who make this site what it is.
When you really want to know what's going on in Iraq. Iraq Today is the only place to go.
I also appreciate your unedited comment section. Missing Links deletes my comments because they offend his sensibilities.
For example, two points made in todays postings:
"In the past five years, Iraqis have been paying dearly for the blunders first of the foreigners who came to occupy their country and second of the Iraqis these foreigners have nurtured and supported to run the country.
"Fighting has spread and exposed a deep rift within Iraq's majority Shi'ites
While anti-war people certainly have much to complain about the outrageous American behavior, we cannot overlook the inter-Iraqi violence. It is something that needs more explanation. But, the so called experts are either pro-American or anti-American and it is hard to find any discussion of the 5 years of inter-Iraqi violence.
When an Iraqi combatant looks down the barrel of his rife pointed at another Iraqi -"what is he thinking?" I have followed this war closely since day 1 and been a student of the middle east for many years and I cannot answer that question. And, I cannot find an objective social scientific answer to that question.
Thanks again Dancewater
Susan, I am sorry that I occasionally find the same things you do, most likely from the same sources, and send them out without crediting Today in Iraq.
Would it satisfy you if, before I send something out to my little list, I scanned TIA to see if you have posted it, and give you credit for also having found it? I am not being facetious. I would love to find a way to do what I do without offending you or making you feel slighted.
As I have said repeatedly, I have nothing but respect and awe for the depth and breadth of this site, and the work you and Whisker, and Cervantes do in keeping it up day after day after day. It is easily the best source for daily information on Iraq.
And this is the last I will say about it. We simply do not have time for this kind of personal animosity.
how about finding some article of interest and posting it in the comments?
that way everyone will benefit.
funny that you never send anything out to your email list BEFORE I get around to posting it - all of the stuff you send out comes AFTER I put it on the blog
so what office of AFSC does Raed work at anyway?
When an Iraqi combatant looks down the barrel of his rife pointed at another Iraqi -"what is he thinking?"
some of them, like some US veterans from Iraq, are just plain crazy from PTSD - except that the Iraqis have it MUCH worse than any American.
and a lot of the inter-Iraqi violence is fostered by the occupier's policies.
and a lot of the inter-Iraqi violence is a fight for power and control of the area and the resources. Some of them are getting "help" from foreign countries in this regard.
The Resistance in France/Czechoslovakia/Greece/Yugoslavia/Ukraine
killed Collaborators, no? And those killed were Frenchmen/Czechs/Greeks/Yugoslavs/Ukrainians, non? Perhaps it makes more sense to ask what the Iraqis who support/supported or work/worked with a violent foreign invasion force are/were thinking? Such are usually called "Traitors" in other similar situations in history.
And but for the US invasion the Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence would be negligible and would hardly exist. And Americans certainly would NOT care about it at all. After all American on American violence hardly gets reported if your black or latino and young..
Oh and by the way Tom not all the violence "reported" as being Iraqi-on-Iraqi is necessarily so.
A lot of it only makes sense as black-ops against a subject population so as to terrorize potential Resistance sympathizers/activities. The war between the Ministry of Interior vs. Ministry of "Defense" [- does no state call it the Ministry of War anymore?] looked like the US stoking both sides - chaos as good for US interests. See under "Lebanon", which also happened to be where the CIA got really really proficient with car bombs in the 80s. And where and when did car bombs make a big "irrational" re-appearance? ("irrational" only if its assumed that Iraqis and not the US are/were behind them. For the US it (so-called inter-Iraqi violence) made good sense as a PR cover for the continuation of Occupation so as to facilitate the ongoing piecemeal seizure (through bad agreements) of resources from the people of Iraq.
It is crucial to recall that Iraq was a nation at peace prior to Bush's Command to Destroy and that the establishing of the insecurity of "unembedded" journalists was a priority for the occupation. Remember the Palestine Hotel.
The American occupation has been wholly evil from the start, and evil only operates by misleading the innocent.
Good comments, FP.
You know, recently it seemed as if there was a deadly school shooting about every week for a while there. Certainly there are several a year in this country. I wonder, when an American plans to go and shoot up a school full of American kids, what is he thinking? And when he looks down the barrel of his automatic weapon, pointed at a bunch of American school kids, what is he thinking? America has NOT been a bloody war zone for the past five years, so what on earth causes an American person to kill other Americans?
Tom, I am astonished that it surprises you to find that in a massively, overwhelmingly violent and destructive situation - a situation in which anything resembling normalcy and stability has been destroyed, some people will behave violently toward other people for all kinds of reasons. Why, even in cases of natural disasters some people will kill other people for all kinds of reasons.
Catastrophe just does not bring out the best in everyone, you know.
I am in awe of you guys who keep this blog alive.
Good to hear from yoy FF!
E
good report
The battle of Basra rages on
Pepe Escobar on why the US gave green light to attack Basra.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?
i=9...=977_1206870721
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php
new from Iraq.
worth bookmarking
New attack vs a US hummer near the US base in Al-taji
by islamic army
http://www.liveleak.com/view?
i=6...=627_1206735045
A US soldier is under sniper attack while checking an iraqi papers
the sniper attacked the US soldier while standing near his hummer and checking papers of an iraqi civilian..
http://www.liveleak.com/view?
i=0...=06d_1206747225
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