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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (15337)	5/28/2007 2:22:24 PM
From: Crimson Ghost	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Worse than the worst The Hay audience heard from Patrick Cockburn how the difficulty of reporting Iraq means we can hardly imagine how bad things really are. Katharine Viner Iraq: it's worse than you can possibly imagine, and worse than we can possibly know. That was the message when the brilliant Middle East reporter, Patrick Cockburn, spoke on stage today at Hay, publicising his book about the British and American occupation of Iraq. Iraq, he said, is a country that's been "hollowed out". Two million people have left. At least 3,000 civilians are murdered every month. The rest live in terror. He told of details that give a real sense of what's going on. Because there are no more open-air markets, since so many have been bombed, people have set up stalls in side streets or their back gardens instead. Before the war, there were 32,000 doctors in Iraq; now 2,000 are dead, 12,000 have left, and the remainder, who are seen as having money and are thus targets for kidnappers, must work from armed-guarded clinics. He reminded us about the Green Zone, the giant fortified area in the centre of Baghdad - while most of the city doesn't get electricity or water or sewage disposal, the Green Zone gets plenty, so the occupiers who live there have no idea what it feels like to live anywhere else. He discussed "one of the great thefts in history", the "enormous kleptocracy", that started with Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, which, infamously, didn't keep accounts. (They believed that all money spent would miraculously "trickle down".) Cockburn is one of the brave few British journalists who still report from Iraq. He described just how difficult it is to do so: he can't go anywhere for more than 20 minutes; he can't make an appointment; he can't mention to anyone where he might be going, he meticulously avoids traffic jams. And those measures are just to "increase the odds in your favour", he said. There may have been a plethora of books on Iraq, but most see the country as only a "backdrop" for what is "real and significant" - ie, Washington politics. But Cockburn, thank goodness, is different; he tries to see the occupation the way Iraqis see it. He talked of cities that reporters rarely get to, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, where we don't know just how bad the violence is; he stressed that even the conservative official figures record that at least 3,000 civilians are murdered every month. It is a "society pulsating with fear the whole time". Someone in the audience wondered if really the situation isn't so bad, that this is just the "Iraqi way of going about things" and it would all even itself out. "That's baloney," said Cockburn. "This is the worst thing to happen to Iraqis since 1258, when the Mongols invaded and took Baghdad." All our blogs from Hay will be collected here. Guardian Books will feature the latest news from Hay, literary blogs and a daily podcast. commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

To: sea_urchin who wrote (15337)	5/28/2007 3:03:16 PM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Gus > You always seem to know Israeli propaganda before it's been printed. So, when will Israel be invading Lebanon again or will they be able to get the US to do it for them? One thing we do know is that whenever "Al Qaeda" appears Uncle Sam cannot be far behind.

To: sea_urchin who wrote (15337)	5/30/2007 4:23:48 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Re: Makes me think you are the local representative of MOSSAD. You always seem to know Israeli propaganda before it's been printed. LOL... But the point where MOSSAD's spiel and my theory diverge is that an attack against UNIFIL troops stationed in Lebanon, especially the French contingent, will benefit Israel in her warmongering against Iran. France is a key player in Europe, the Middle East and the UN (as a permanent member of UNSC). Hence my suggestion that MOSSAD could actually be the mastermind of an al-qaeda-like terrorist attack against the French in Lebanon.... I guess that's why former French President Jacques Chirac has relocated to Saad Hariri's Parisian apartment(). President Chirac feels accountable for the French soldiers in Lebanon and wants to remain in the Lebanese loop.... Gus () President Chirac and his wife are to move into a Paris apartment belonging to the Hariri family when he leaves the Elysee on Wednesday. In addition to the Quai Voltaire apartment, he will have access — as a former president — to a suite of offices at the nearby Assemblée nationale. theinnercircle.wordpress.com