Iraq: Ghost Land
This, from today's New York Times, just about sums up the success Bush is having in Iraq. Reported from Baghdad:
Entire districts in this city of five million people [are] more deserted than they had been since the 21-day war with Iraq last year. Bombings, drive-by shootings and the hostage-takings have persuaded many Iraqis, and almost all foreigners, that any journey inside Baghdad-and certainly, any journey outside the capital-is potentially lethal.
Bush's Mass Grave
To the mass graves from the Saddam era, we can add one more—a mass grave from the Bush era. More than 600 people have been killed in Fallujah in the last week or so, and the Times reports: "Residents could be seen carrying bodies to a soccer field converted to a cemetery." Iraqis will never forget this butchery, but don't expect Kanan Makiya's Iraq Memory Foundation—one more Iraqi National Congress propaganda mill— to collect documents on this atrocity.
Asked about reports on Al Jazeera that Iraqi children had died in Fallujah, the mass-murdering General Mark Kimmitt suggested that reporters "change the channel to a legitimate, authoritative, honest news station." Fox, maybe?
April 12, 2004 | 4:39PM
663 And 700
With the latest two Americans killed in a helicopter that was shot down Sunday, that makes 663 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of the war last March.
That's bad. Far worse is the number of Iraqis killed—in just the past week or so. Associated Press reports that since April 1, 700 Iraqis have died in fighting across Iraq, including the dozens killed when U.S. forces rocketed a mosque last week. That's probably greatly underestimating the actual number of dead. In all, uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, thanks to President Bush's "liberation" of Iraq.
The neocons and Iraqi exiles, like Ahmad Chalabi, claim that Saddam Hussein killed 300,000 Iraqis in 35 years of ruling the country. That probably exaggerates the true number by a factor of 10. If so, 30,000 dead Iraqis under Saddam's rule is just about equal to the, say, 30,000 or so killed by Bush.
By the way, the Pentagon isn't counting the number of dead Iraqis.
April 12, 2004 | 1:22PM
Next: Egypt?
Having mangled Iraq, there’s a chance that President Bush might start doing the same to Egypt today. The president is dragging yet another world leader, this time Egypt’s President Husni Mubarak, down to his dusty Texas ranch.
Chances are, Bush will deliver a lecture on democracy to the Egyptian leader, who’s sitting on top of a powder keg of Islamic fundamentalists and Muslim Brotherhood fanatics. Today’s Washington Post editorial—yes, the same Post which editorially backed the war in Iraq which turned out so well—calls Mubarak “the largest obstacle to President Bush’s democracy initiative in the Middle East.”
That would be the “democracy initiative” cooked up by Liz Cheney—a former State Department official now busy at the American Enterprise Institute—and the Bush administration’s team of neocons. But imposing democracy-by-U.S.-army didn’t work in Iraq, and instant democracy won’t work in Egypt either. Mubarak, whose predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated by Islamic fanatics of the same kind we are now battling in Baghdad, knows a little more than Bush about Egypt’s volatile mix.
In fact, lecturing Mubarak about democracy is just a way of changing the subject from what the neocons don’t want to talk about: Ariel Sharon’s bulldozer-like policy of crushing the Palestinian nationalist movement and building The Wall that will outline the shape of Greater Israel. Perhaps, as long as there will be lectures in Crawford, Texas, General Mubarak ought to deliver a stern one to President Cowboy today, too.
April 12, 2004 | 11:36AM
tompaine.com |
