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Rami G. Khouri
The big question that haunts Iraq today, and that has traumatized much of the modern Arab world, is “Will the Iraqis be given an opportunity to decide their own fate?” This is not a frivolous question. The fact is, the Iraqis did not have a choice or a voice when their country was manufactured by the British colonial office early last century. Perhaps this is why, for the second time in a century, the British Army is in Basra again, ruling an occupied people and contemplating their future condition.
Charles R. Steward III
The capture of the town was relatively easy. The colonel in charge of the occupation tells the local mayor his people must cooperate. The mayor replies, “I don’t know, sir. They are orderly under their own government.” The colonel informs the mayor, “They will be in danger if they are rebellious. We must get coal, you see. Our leaders do not tell us how; they order us to get it. But you have your people to protect. You must make them work and thus keep them safe.” The mayor then asks, “But suppose they don’t want to be safe?”
David Enders
Paul Bremer?s ?Coalition Provisional Authority? admits to holding around five thousand Iraqi detainees, although other official estimates vary from 20,000 to 50,000. Many of them are imprisoned indefinitely and without charges. David Enders from Occupation Watch here gives a story about attempts to track down one man - a journalist - who has been imprisoned by the occupation forces in a Kafkaesque system of arbitrary, violent injustice, that gives the lie to USA claims that it is creating a free democracy in Iraq.
Abdulwahab Badrakhan
Before the war, the word was for any “peace of information” that would support the war, especially pertaining to the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Probably in all its history, the USA has never spent as much money on ‘nothingness’ as on Iraqi WMDs. Now the invasion is over, as was shown by James Baker’s recent appointment as George W Bush’s ‘personal envoy’, the word is for money, and this money determines the decisions and choices in Washington.
Ramzy Baroud
While in high school, I used to write a weekly article. Pretending to use the school?s restroom, I would hide a scrap of paper behind a specified toilet and leave. A young man would follow me in, locate the paper, and fit it into his shoe and so hastily vanish. On the next day, the article, in its entirety would be inscribed on the walls of the school; hand-written with no names attached, except for a pen name: “Young Kanafani”.
Ed Blanche
If the USA military?s escalating war against insurgent forces in Iraq is starting to look more and more like Israel?s campaign to crush the Intifada and the Palestinians? hope of an independent state, it?s probably because the Americans have been increasingly turning to their Israeli allies for advice on how to conduct just such a conflict.
Phillip Adams
As George W. Bush sinks slowly in the West, let?s look at what he?s achieved at other points of the compass. In Afghanistan, the president needs a Praetorian guard of Americans to keep him safe in Kabul. In Iraq, escalating attacks come from who knows where. As for Iraq?s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, we have witnessed the biggest failure in intelligence in modern history; or been misled with the biggest lies foisted on Western democracy. Or both. It?s now clear that only one man was honest about WMDs in the run-up to the war.
Julian Manyon, ITV Correspondent
Sunday?s clashes in Samarra ? billed by the USA as their biggest post-invasion victory ? had all the classic ingredients of a Wild West thriller. The American white hats were delivering money to the town?s banks when they were ambushed by the black hats. The Americans were quicker on the draw and no fewer than 54 black hats perished in a hail of well-aimed gunfire. In fact, when I and other reporters reached the town, we found confusion, anger and a story that bore little resemblance to the made-for-TV version. It?s a story that gives the lie to Donald Rumsfeld?s airy claim that he doesn?t ?do? quagmires, for what happened in Samarra is something of an object lesson in how to make one.
Firas Al-Atraqchi
In 1931, a young Adolf Hitler learned the value of the media. A powerful media could control the people, move them when needed, silence them when needed. This is called propaganda. Last month, USA Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld charged that Arab media in Iraq was “violently anti-coalition.” Apparently, showing images of girls being frisked by USA soldiers, an affront to Muslims and Arabs, is anti-coalition. Apparently, giving voice to Iraqi civilians who complain that they were beaten, or showing old men being pushed around and forced to strip by anxious USA soldiers is anti-coalition.
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