[NYTr] US Media Rarely Accurate on Catastropic Military Occupation of Iraq

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Kevin Zeese - Oct 29, 2007


The Catastrophic Military Occupation of Iraq:
Rarely Described Accurately in the U.S. Media

 An Interview with independent journalist Dahr Jamail

"The bogus idea that if the U.S. leaves things will worsen 
is both inherently racist and ignorant."


Kevin Zeese: Compare you experiences in Iraq with how the media
generally described the events.  Do you think most people, Americans in
particular, are  getting an accurate picture of what has occurred in
Iraq?  Is occurring in Iraq?

Dahr Jamal: From the invasion until now, with few exceptions the
so-called mainstream media in the West has portrayed a drastically
different picture of what Iraq is really like under U.S. military rule.
We regularly see stories from the military point of view, and rarely,
if ever, how catastrophic the occupation has made life for the average
Iraqi. Thus, most people are in no way getting an accurate picture of
what has occurred, or what is occurring today. For example, how many
mainstream outlets cite the only scientific survey which has been done
to tally the number of Iraqis killed? Known as the Lancet report, and
conducted by scientists from John's Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health
in conjunction with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in
Baghdad, it found that 655,000 Iraqis had died as the direct result of
the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Over 90 percent of the people
they tracked had death certificates provided by family members to the
researchers. Yet the mainstream media does not cite this survey, which
was authenticated by British Government. Why not? This is but one
example of countless examples.

KZ: You were in Fallujah, describe how long, when and under what
circumstances.  I understand you were there right after the four
Blackwater operatives were killed in Fallujah? I've heard commentators
describe the U.S. role in Fallujah in heroic terms, like something out
of a World War II movie.  How do you see the role of the U.S. military
in Fallujah?

DJ: I went into Fallujah several times; first -- before the siege to see
that the military had an ongoing policy of collectively punishing the
cities residents by cutting water and electricity everytime they were
attacked.

Then during April I went as the siege was in progress. After the siege
ended I returned several times in May to chronicle what happened.
Later, during the November siege, I covered it by interviewing doctors
and refugees from the city.

What the U.S. military did in that city, under orders from the White
House, likens it to a modern Guernica. Most of the city was destroyed
during the second attack -- 70% of it was destroyed. Restricted and
illegal weapons like cluster bombs and white phosphorous were used by
the military. Marine snipers were shooting anything that moved in the
city.

Horrible war crimes took place there. Yet, again, the corporate media
portrayed it as a heroic action to free the people of the city from
fighters, yet it was mostly the people from the city themselves
fighting to defend their homes, and their city, from the military. Of
all I saw in Iraq, Fallujah stands as the worst action the U.S.
military took, aside from the initial invasion of the country.

KZ: Were women, children and the elderly being killed?  Was it
accidental?  Intentional?  The U.S. military talks about precision
bombs, what kinds of weapons was the U.S. using?

DJ: From what I saw in April, at a small clinic inside Fallujah, it was
mostly women, children and elderly being shot by marine snipers.
Everyone I saw coming to the clinic, people from different parts of the
city coming at different times, were all telling the same story.  That
snipers were shooting everything that moved since they were being kept
out of the city by the resistance.  It definately appeared to be
intentional, and soldiers later verified this.  Later, during the
November siege, military leaders declared the entire city a "free fire
zone," meaning they gave soldiers license to shoot anything they wanted.

As far as "precision" bombings -- there is no such thing.  Just the
blast radius alone for many of the munitions means that by definition
there will be damage to nearby locations, which usually means civilian
homes.

This has been true since the initial invasion.

KZ: During the last presidential campaign I was with Ralph Nader when
he was being interviewed on an international television show and a
woman called from Fallujah, this was after the first battle when Bush
pulled back from attacking the city, and the woman expressed pride that
they had pushed back the U.S. military.  At the same time I recall
Senator Kerry, who was running for president, mocking George Bush for
backing down on Fallujah.  His comments gave Bush the green light for
the second attack on the city where many more died.  Now, I see the top
Democratic presidential candidates saying they cannot promise to get
out of Iraq by 2013 and all keep a military action against Iran on the
table.  All this is occurring when the vast majority of Americans want
the U.S. out of Iraq and do not want a war with Iran. What do you make
of the political situation in the U.S. and the electoral choices that
peace voters have?

DJ: The silver lining of this dark cloud we are now living under in our
country is that the true colors of the mainstream candidates in both
the Democratic and Republican parties have the same mindset about U.S.
policy in the Middle East. I urge people to read the National Security
Strategy, along with the Quadrennial Defense Review Report. These give
a pretty clear picture of U.S. policy in the Middle East-which is
essentially to control the natural resources and the shipping lanes.
Until those are addressed in open debates with politicians, whatever
their party, we cannot expect to see any policy change regarding Iraq,
Iran, and the Middle East. Our political system has been corrupted, and
most of the representatives, aside from a handful, are embedded within
that system. It is a systemic problem, thus, requires solutions which
address the system. This means that voting for one candidate or the
other isn't going to address the real problem.

KZ: What would be the key false impressions that Americans have about
Iraq and how would you correct them?

DJ: That the occupation has an end date, that if the U.S. leaves things
will worsen in Iraq, and that by staying they are preventing the civil
war from widening.  The occupation, as per the current U.S. strategy
supported by all of the mainstream politicians on either side of the
aisle, has no end date.  Period.  Drawing down the number of troops,
if -- when it happens, has nothing to do with moving towards a total
withdrawal until the policy is changed.

The bogus idea that if the U.S. leaves things will worsen is both
inherently racist and ignorant.  Iraq is where western civilization
began, and the Iraqi people are more than capable of sorting out the
problems within their country.  In addition, the majority of those
current problems were caused by and continued to be propagated by the
foreign occupation forces.  When the occupation ends, thus begins the
first step towards solving all of the problems within Iraq.

The rhetoric that the U.S. is preventing a worsening of the civil war
by staying is also erroneous.  Via arming Sunnis and politically
supporting Shias, along with facilitating the death squads, the U.S.
presence in Iraq only exacerbates the sectarian tensions they helped to
foster in the first place.  Again, total U.S. withdrawal will be the
first step towards reconciliation and peace.

KZ: What advice would you give the U.S. peace movement and Americans
opposed to the Iraq occupation at this difficult time?

DJ: I feel the two single greatest things people can do to help end the
occupation are to support Iraq Veterans Against the War, and to
continue to organize locally. IVAW is the spearhead, I feel, of any
movement that will be effective in ending the occupation, and
organizing locally for local, national, and international issues is
paramount for building the infrastructure necessary to radically change
the collapsing system we find ourselves in today. (Iraq Veterans Against the War can be found at 
http://www.ivaw.org/. If you want to get involved in local organizing
contact the author at KZeese at DemocracyRising.US )

KZ: I understand you have participated in deep ecology workshops with
Joanna Macy (see http://www.JoannaMacy.net ) who is a long-term activist
and is now involved in what she calls "The Great Turning" from the
industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.  See:
http://www.joannamacy.net/html/great.html
Do you see connections between the Iraq occupation and issues like
climate change and the ecological crisis?

DJ: They are inseparable. The runaway train that is this Late Stage
Capitalism, of infinite growth at the cost of human rights and our
ecology, brings us the latest symptom, which is Iraq. The U.S. military
is one of the largest polluters on the planet -- thus the direct link of
the ambitions for U.S. global empire, using the military to enforce
this, runaway corporatism and all the destruction to the ecology that
that growth entails, and thus, our global climate change crisis.

 
[Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches, which can be seen at 
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com , are essential reading for anyone who
wants to understand what is happening in Iraq.  (You can sign up on the
site to receive his reports via email.)  Dahr has spent a total of 8
months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists
in the country.  In the MidEast, Dahr has also has reported from Syria,
Lebanon and Jordan.  Jamail writes for the Inter Press Service, The
Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published
in The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian, Foreign
Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few.  Dahr Jamail's
current book, "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded
Journalist in Occupied Iraq," can be purchased on-line or in book
stores.

Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising (see
http://www.DemocracyRising.US ) and Voters for Peace (see
http://www.VotersForPeace.US ). ]