jim writes:

"Does US Military Want to Take Out Journalists?"

Robert Fisk, Baghdad - 09 April 2003, Independent

First the Americans killed the correspondent of al-Jazeera yesterday and wounded his cameraman. Then, within four hours, they attacked the Reuters television bureau in Baghdad, killing one of its cameramen and a cameraman for Spain's Tele 5 channel and wounding four other members of the Reuters staff.

Was it possible to believe this was an accident? Or was it possible that the right word for these killings--the first with a jet aircraft, the second with an M1A1 Abrams tank--was murder? These were not, of course, the first journalists to die in the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Terry Lloyd of ITV was shot dead by American troops in southern Iraq, who apparently mistook his car for an Iraqi vehicle. His crew are still missing. Michael Kelly of The Washington Post tragically drowned in a canal. Two journalists have died in Kurdistan. Two journalists--a German and a Spaniard--were killed on Monday night at a US base in Baghdad, with two Americans, when an Iraqi missile exploded amid them.

And we should not forget the Iraqi civilians who are being killed and maimed by the hundred and who--unlike their journalist guests--cannot leave the war and fly home. So the facts of yesterday should speak for themselves. Unfortunately for the Americans, they make it look very like murder.

jim writes: A report from the Portugal News:

"US Arms Group Heads for Lisbon"

Directors of one of the world's largest armament companies are planning on
meeting in Lisbon in three weeks time. The American based Carlyle Group is
heavily involved in supplying arms to the Coalition forces fighting in the
Iraqi war.

"The Secret War Machine:

The Missing Link between the Contras and al Qaeda"

Bruce Sterling

It may come as a shock that Vice Admiral John Poindexter has popped up as a
visionary cyberguru for Darpa. Until recently, the former national security
adviser was best known as a convicted conspirator in the late-'80s
Iran-Contra scandal. Poindexter's career move makes sense, though, when you
consider the astonishing prescience of his scheme to fund covert operations
in Central America. The visionary spirit of Iran-Contra never died, and
today it's alive and well and fueling the War on Terror.

John Fisk writes:

SADDAM HUSSEIN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - So where are

the Americans? I

prowled the empty departure lounges, mooched through

the abandoned

customs department, chatted to the seven armed militia

guards, met the

airport director and stood beside the runways where

two dust-covered Iraqi

Airways passenger jets -- an old 727 and an even more

elderly Antonov --

stood forlornly on the runway not far from an equally

decrepit military

helicopter.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"Absurd War in Iraq"

John Chuckman

The title could be the name of a television quiz show, although I doubt the subject matter would attract a large audience, especially in that key market of the United States.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Is Uncle Sam about to get caught...?"



"Between Iraq and a Hard Place:


An Anti-State Communist Perspective on the War"

Angyal Istvan
                 



As I write this, in early March 2003, the rulers of the United States are about to attack Iraq. If the prevalent guesses are correct, the American empire will rapidly defeat and destroy Saddam Hussein's regime, seize Iraqi oil fields, and occupy major urban centers. This will probably be accomplished with an initially low number of US military casualties, and a very high number of deaths among Iraqi civilians and military personnel. The United States will attempt to cobble together a client regime analogous to that of Karzai's in Afghanistan, and it will be at this point, the high-point of an apparently overwhelming and inexpensive US military victory, that a real, enduring defeat for the United States may begin.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Bring On the Spanners"

Arundhati Roy
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian

Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates...


How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words? And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilisation

On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawl colourful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles.

jim writes:

"Bush's Dream, America's Nightmare"

Jamal Mecklai



Having lived in -- and loved -- America for fifteen years, I have often found myself a lonely apologist as people everywhere made fun of America's shallow culture and shockingly thin knowledge levels, and were angered by its arrogant (and often violent) posturing in world affairs. Of course, since America was the worlds biggest market, since it had the best universities and made the best movies, most of the criticism was easy to deflect, since everybody -- or almost everybody -- also had a vested interest in the American dream.



The Bush government's immoral and illegal assault on Iraq this week has tormented me, more even that the attack on the World Trade Centers, since it has compelled me to confront the fact that a country I love(d) could pillage and rape in this manner.

nolympics writes:

Israelis trained US troops in Jenin-style urban warfare
The Independent( London)

By Justin Huggler in Amman

29 March 2003

The American military has been asking the Israeli army for advice on
fighting inside cities, and studying fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin
last April, unnamed United States and Israeli sources have confirmed.
Reports that US troops trained with Israeli forces for street-to-street
fighting have been denied. If the US army believes the road to Baghdad lies
through Jenin, there is reason for Iraqi civilians to be concerned.

"Iraq as Trial Run"

Noam Chomsky, Frontline, India


Noam Chomsky, University Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founder of the modern science of linguistics and political activist, is a powerhouse of anti-imperialist activism in the United States today. On March 21, a crowded and typical - and uniquely Chomskyan - day of political protest and scientific academic research, he spoke from his office for half an hour to V. K. Ramachandran on the current attack on Iraq.


V. K. Ramachandran: Does the present aggression on Iraq represent a continuation of United States' international policy in recent years or a qualitatively new stage in that policy?


Noam Chomsky: It represents a significantly new phase. It is not without precedent, but significantly new nevertheless.




This should be seen as a trial run. Iraq is seen as an extremely easy and totally defenceless target. It is assumed, probably correctly, that the society will collapse, that the soldiers will go in and that the U.S. will be in control, and will establish the regime of its choice and military bases. They will then go on to the harder cases that will follow. The next case could be the Andean region, it could be Iran, it could be others.