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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (112937)	8/26/2003 5:33:13 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

real life stories from Iraq: With the breakdown in civil order after the US invasion, Mohamad’s fighting skills come in handy. The other day, in broad daylight, a carjacker put a gun to his head and forced him out of his taxi. Mohamad obediently got out, and as soon as the carjacker put down his gun to start the car, Mohamad whipped out his pistol, pointed it at the driver’s head and threw him out of his car. “It’s a jungle out in the streets now,” Mohamad laughed. “It’s like being back in the army, but with no one in charge.” occupationwatch.org American authorities recently closed Al-Mustaqilla (the independent), one of the newly published Iraqi newspapers. At 3 p.m. on Monday July 21, 2003, American tanks closed the entire area surrounding the street on which the newspaper’s small building is located. Many American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi policemen jumped over garden fences and roofs from neighboring houses. They broke the wooden (inner) door and dashed into the building, which also functions as a publishing house for advertisements and as a distribution center. They turned everything upside down, confiscated the newspaper’s safe (with 1.5 millions ID in it), the computers and the important personal documents of the chairman, Mr. Abdul-Sattar Alshalan. They arrested Mr. Alshalan, who is currently imprisoned at an unknown location...Journalists from other newspapers think that Al-Mustaqilla was closed because of the last issue's editorial, which “violated” an order by Mr. Bremer, the American administrator. Two months earlier, Bremer had ordered that no one should publish provocative material that encouraged resistance. The editorial criticized the American Administration openly and accused it of floundering, stumbling, and giving the Iraqi people nothing but disappointment and suffering. occupationwatch.org Five local councils members were selected from a slate of 11. Majid, the highest vote getter, was made president. The elections took place on June 2, and their first meeting with the US authorities was scheduled for June 7 at 10am. The five members of the newly elected council were at the designated meeting place bright and early. Standing outside in the hot sun, they waited and waited and waited. After several hours, they were told to go home, the meeting had been cancelled. "There was no explanation," said Majid, annoyed, "and no apology about keeping us waiting for hours." commondreams.org June 28, 2003. The 32-year-old doctor got into his car to go to work, but the car wouldn’t start. So he walked out to the main street down the road from his house to hail a taxi. A few minutes later, US soldiers driving by in their tanks pumped eight bullets into Mazen’s chest, legs and arms. He lay dead on the sidewalk. Mazen’s wife Bushra, dressed in black and holding her two young children, weeps as she sat in her living room recounting the events. Her father-in-law, Antoine, also breaks down crying as he described his son’s bullet-ridden body. Why the soldiers shot Mazen is unclear. His family heard two different stories. One is that the soldiers were driving by, heard shots, thought they were being attacked and fired back. Another version is that they thought Mazen was trying to steal a car and fired to stop him. In any case, the soldiers claimed that Mazen was holding a pistol. But according to his family, the doctor didn’t even own a pistol; the black object he had in his hand was his daybook. Bushra went to her room to fetch the daybook, which she clings to as evidence. It was seared by a bullet. occupationwatch.org