22 Dead, Dozens Wounded in Mosul, Falluja Attacks;
Sunni leaders Arrested in Diyala
The NYT reports that various attacks in Mosul and Falluja killed 22 on Sunday, including a suicide bombing targeting a US convoy in Mosul that missed and hit a restaurant instead. As many were wounded in the attacks as killed. There was also an assault on national police in Mosul, and a roadside bombing that killed Iraqi troops and wounded by-standers. In Falluja, guerrillas threw a grenade into a family home, killing an infant and wounding family members.
McClatchy reports that, in addition, a roadside bomb detonated in Adhamiya, north Baghdad, wounding 3.
The US and Iraqi militaries maintain that attacks are down by about half from this time last year, showing security progress. These statements seldom mention that a major reason for the fall in violence has been the ethnic cleansing of some 4 million Iraqis from their homes, reducing the contact of ethno-sectarian groups and so reducing violence among them.
Some Sunni fighters who had laid down their arms or fought religious radicals in the past two years are dismayed at the militant Shiism of the new Iraqi government, the lack of reconciliation with Sunnis, and the prospect that an American withdrawal will leave them at the mercy of Iran. Some are contemplating returning to armed struggle, according to McClatchy.
Dahr Jamail confirms the Sunnis' sense of unease, which is exacerbated by steps such as the arrest of two Sunni leaders in Diyala province by the al-Maliki government on Monday morning. One of those just detained, Sheikh Riyadh al-Mujami, is a well-known leader of a local Awakening Council.
Meanwhile, an amnesty for Sunni Arabs who left the insurgency, passed last February as part of a quest by the government for reconciliation, is now being blamed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for the release of mainly Sunni Arab guerrillas who are behind the wave of bombings and other violence this spring. Al-Maliki wants to revise the law.
Arab notables of Kirkuk Province met near Hawija to plan out a pan-Arab political alliance in order to contest provincial elections there. Both Sunnis and Shiites attended. They are contesting the plan of Kurds to annex Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Only a tiny fraction of Iraq's some 4 million displaced persons, about 1.5 million of them abroad, have attempted to return to their old neighborhoods. McClatchy reports that often they have not found it safe, or have not found employment, and that they lack services.
The al-Maliki government is using libel lawsuits in an effort to close down the independent press in Iraq, and even some web sites. Political libel practices were common in the 16th and 17th centuries, but in most democratic countries they have gradually become more difficult to mount, as legislators and courts have recognized that they interfere with the healthy functioning of a free press. Ironically, the al-Maliki government appears itself to have confirmed the charge over which it sued the Kitabat (Writings) website in Germany, that members of the cabinet are corrupt and nepotistic.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Iraqi researchers believe that Iraq is now a major conduit for drugs from the new golden triangle of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Levant. Some 14,000 Iraqis have themselves fallen into addiction.
Meanwhile, many Iraqis are upset that the US soldier who was convicted of raping an Iraqi minor girl, then killing her and others in her village, did not get the death penalty. Aljazeera English has video:
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/25/2009 12:10:00 AM
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3 Comments:
An American autrocity from day one until today. God bless the Iraqi people and their precious homeland that is now destroyed.
There's still some political libel around: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/04/lewy
What Was I Fighting For? : “What I witnessed and experienced during a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan followed by another in Iraq has forever shattered my once noble ambition. As an infantry rifleman in the Marines Corps, I saw so much of these wars through ‘nightly patrols’ : We were trained to approach a point of interest on foot, coordinating with translators whose sole vested interest in supplying us intelligence was to earn money... we would gather information that often proved faulty, and question locals to the point we felt comfortable conducting a raid. After receiving [a "go"] order, we would ransack homes, destroying windows and doors, chairs and tables, families and lives — detaining and arresting anyone who seemed suspicious. The problem, of course, was that it was impossible to distinguish militant Taliban members or Al Qaeda from innocent civilians: everyone became a suspect.In one instance, my squad leader gave me orders to pursue possible terrorists leaving the scene in which we had established a perimeter. My four-man fire team and I followed these suspects undetected for about 100 yards along an exposed ravine. When we were four feet from them, I drew my M-16 and pointed it directly at their faces, yelling, "Get down on the ground!" We beat them in search of nonexistent weapons, breaking limbs in the process. Later that day, I learned these men were innocent. Another time, my squad and I detained, beat and nearly killed a man, only to realize he was merely trying to deliver milk to his children. These raids compelled me to tell Congress: "We have been chasing ghosts in Afghanistan and Iraq."Amazingly, these patrols were all the same, whether I was in the desolate desert near Camp Rhino — the US-led coalition's first strategic foothold in Afghanistan — or stationed outside Basra in Iraq. The terrain was different, but what remained the same was the manner in which we carried out missions; the unconscionable acts of violence and collateral damage that followed; and the ever-present paranoia that, "every Muslim could be a terrorist." These raids even ended the same way. We would compensate the family whose home we had invaded, offering to fix or pay for broken furniture, etc., before moving on to the next village, where kids would throw rocks at us and give us the finger. To my knowledge, I never detained or arrested anyone guilty of a crime.
I witnessed firsthand the ineffectiveness of U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I didn't fully grasp the extent of these failed foreign policies or our government's deception until I returned home from war. Realizing there never were Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that we would have difficulty tracking terrorists even if we had committed all the troops in our military, I felt as though my patriotism had been exploited for political gain: a select few were profiting from these wars, while the majority of Americans shouldered this enormous tax burden.”
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