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Or Call Toll Free 1--800--840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 11 CounterPunch in New Orleans! Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War Now Available! Diane Christian 18 Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and Sharon Speak the Same Language Patrick Cockburn 19 Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah Dave Lindorff 20 Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked, Shocked, Shocked Chris Floyd 21 Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists and Annihilation April 29 / 30, 2004 Dave Zirin 22 A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome Death of Pat Tillman Kathy Kelly 23 The Warden's Tour Greg Weiher 24 Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the Banality of Evil Michael S. Ladah 25 Terrorism and Assassination: the Ultimate Depception Patrick Cockburn 26 The Fallujah Mutinies April 28, 2004 Christopher Brauchli 27 Meet Congressman Know--Nothing: Tom Tancredo Wendy Brinker 28 The Politics of the Numb Faisal Kutty 29 The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence John Chuckman 30 Seeking the Evil One Mike Whitney 31 Flag--Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times Tom Mountain 32 Rwanda and the F***** Word Graeme Greenback 33 The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production Tracy McLellan 34 The War Comes Home M. Grover Furr 47 Protest, Rebellion, Commitment Elaine Cassel 48 Lies About the Patriot Act Mickey Z. Cook 54 Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry and Bush Melt into One Jeffrey St. Clair 55 Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank Brandy Baker 56 A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So Robert Fisk 57 A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free Speech Ben Tripp 58 October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios Nelson Valds 59 "Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg Lucson Pierre--Charles 60 Haiti's Return to the Future Kurt Nimmo 61 The CIA Killed Pat Tillman Mark Scaramella 62 Does Anybody Know Anything? Patrick Cockburn 63 The Return of Saddam's Generals Gary Engler 64 Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas Col. Robert Byrd 87 Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq William S. Cook 96 George 1 to George 2 Jack Random 97 Iraq and Vietnam Jean--Guy Allard 98 Alarcon Meets the Editors Mike Whitney 99 Charade in the Desert Bill Christison 100 Only Major Policies Changes Can Help Washington Now Weekend Edition May 1 / 3, 2004 A Year from "Mission Accomplished" An Army in Disgrace, a Policy in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat By PATRICK COCKBURN Baghdad. Wisps of grey smoke were still rising from the wreckage of four Humvees caught by the blast of a bomb which had just killed two US soldiers and wounded another five. When the soldiers smashed their way into an old brick house in the Waziriya district of Baghdad last week, they were raiding what they had been told was an insurgent bomb factory, only for it to erupt as they came through the door. The reaction of local people, as soon as the surviving American soldiers had departed, was to start a spontaneous street party. A small boy climbed on top of a blackened and smouldering Humvee and triumphantly waved a white flag with an Islamic slogan hastily written on it. Some other young men were showing with fascinated pride a blood--soaked US uniform. Another group had found an abandoned military helmet, and had derisively placed it on the head of an elderly carthorse. A year after President George Bush famously declared "major combat" in Iraq over, how is it that so many Iraqis now have such a visceral hatred of Americans? One reason is that the photographs of brutality and humiliation of Iraqi detainees by British and American troops, which have so shocked the rest of the world and angered Arab countries, have come as little surprise to Iraqis. For months it has been clear to them that the occupation is very brutal; Iraqis, who are cynical about their rulers, may also suspect that real as well as simulated torture is going on in Abu Ghraib prison, where US intelligence calls the shots. They may suspect that, as under Saddam Hussein, the humiliation and ill--treatment were quite deliberately inflicted to soften up prisoners before they were interrogated. More graphic pictures of real torture are said to have been taken as well those shown on US television last week. Iraqis knew that he had ruined their lives through his disastrous wars against Iran and Kuwait, and were glad to be rid of him. Even the supposed beneficiaries of his rule, the Sunni Arabs of cities such as Tikrit and Fallujah, could not see why they were so much poorer than the people of other oil states such as Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Watching the dancing, jeering crowd in Waziriya was Nada Abdullah Aboud, a middle--aged woman, dressed in black. She had a reason for hating Americans, though she claimed she did not do so. There seems to have been no rational reason why he had been killed. But the high toll of Iraqi civilians shot down after ambushes or at checkpoints has given Iraqis the sense that, at bottom, American soldiers regard them as an inferior people whose lives are not worth very much. Iraqis make very plain what they think about the occupation in private conversation, but Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq, and the US military command, shut away in their headquarters in Saddam's old Republican Palace, had no idea of the growing hostility towards them until April. Then, when they started the sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, they discovered that aside from the Kurdish minority, Iraqis had turned decisively against the occupation. Another simple reason for disillusionment with the US is simply the Americans' failure to restore normal life. Iraqis in Baghdad continually say that Iraq recovered more quickly from the damage inflicted by the first Gulf War under Saddam in 1991 than it did after the second war in 2003. Shopkeepers keep their stock at home in case there is another outbreak of looting. The police are back on the streets and there is less casual crime than last year, but it is still more dangerous than it was under the old regime. Abu Amir, a shopkeeper in the middle--class Jadriyah district of the capital, said: "Under Saddam I sometimes did not make money in my store, but I could go home in the evening without worrying if my son had got back safely. But Fallujah and the pursuit of Muqtada al--Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, has meant that nationalism is once more respectable. The extraordinary political weakness of the US in Iraq became evident as never before last week. Despite having an overwhelming military force available to take Fallujah and Najaf, the US did not dare do so. It had become evident even in Washington that to crush the resistance in either city -- not a difficult task against a few thousand lightly armed gunmen -- would spread rather than end the rebellion. Even so, it was extraordinary to see Jassim Mohammed Saleh, a general in Saddam's Republican Guard -- disbanded like so much else in Iraq last May -- being driven into Fallujah on Friday in full uniform past cheering crowds. The old Iraqi flag, now dropped by the US--appointed Iraqi Governing Council, was being waved from his car window. It is a measure of how far the Governing Council is out of touch with ordinary Iraqi opinion that they should have voted to change the flag in the first place. Mohammed, an engineer trying to patch up a broken sewage pipe in Baghdad, still had time to express his fury at the change. One of the biggest US mistakes was not to hold elections earlier, something British and US officials admit in private could have been done. This would have produced a legitimate Iraqi authority to which Iraqi security forces could have given real loyalty. They were not able to use their military strength against Fallujah and Najaf. They have very little political support outside Kurdistan. It may be one of the most extraordinary defeats in history. Keep CounterPunch Alive: 101 Make a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
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