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Raed Jarrar: Katrina vs. Al-A'emmah
Despite all the bush administration attempts of showing the anti-occupation movement in Iraq as “Sunni” or “Saddamist” or “Baathist” or whatever other labels were, the Sadr movement has turned the table and proved that Iraqis are against the occupation and all its imposed consequences despite their ethnic and sectarian differences. As-Sadr movement arranged many demonstrations last week, along with other Iraqi political movements around the country, mobilizing tens of thousands of Iraqi protestors asking for a better constitution and better public services.
I printed out a full Arabic version of the Iraqi constitution today. I’ll try to read it as soon as possible and discuss some of its details in the next post. I’m very busy working on a project located in the Iraqi marshlands. I finished one of the four phases already, and still have three to go. I barely have time to do anything these days, that’s why I’m blogging less than usual.
But I can’t stop watching and reading news!
Around one thousand people died in Baghdad yesterday, and other thousands died in New Orleans. It’s so sad to hear and see such human tragedies. It’s also so hard to stop thinking about the thousands who died, and the other thousands of their friends and families.
Even though the Iraqis and Americans who died had ten thousand miles separating them from each other, they had many things in common.
Katrina didn’t just cause the US cars to line up at gas stations. It kicked out one million US citizens from their own homes, and it killed thousands of Americans in some days. That made me remember the first days of the US invasion when thousands of Iraqis were killed and other millions were kicked out of their homes too, and our cars were lining up at gas stations.
One of my readers from the US wrote me today saying:
You have heard, of course, of the devastation that the hurricane Katrina has done to the city of New Orleans. I heard that the situation is desperate there, because there is “no clean water, no sewage system, no electricity, no food…” and it struck me that this is the situation that parts of Iraq have been facing not for days, but for months now.
I’m sure that every Iraqi has very much of compassion with the US people during this catastrophe, because Iraqis understand the meaning of death and collective displacement. Death and displacement were a part of Iraqis lives for the last years.
Most of the one thousand Iraqis who died yesterday came from As-Sadr city in Baghdad. They had different murderers in the same day: seven of them were killed by a mortar attack on Al-Kathum area, and more than 965 died because of Al-A'emmah bridge disaster two hours after the mortar attack.
No one can tell who’s responsible for the mortar attack. Even the Zarqawi group, being the most extremist and Takfiri group, never announced their responsibility for any of the coward attacks against mosques and pilgrims. Who’s responsible for the mortar attack is a big mystery...
On the other hand, everyone can tell who’s responsible of Al-A'emmah bridge disaster.
When the occupation forces, working side by side with the Iraqi governmental troops and paramilitary fighters, close all the bridges that lead to Al-Kathum Shrine in a day that everyone is expecting millions of pilgrims to come, everyone will tell you who’s responsible for the mass murder. When the A'emmah Bridge, which has been closed for the last 9 months by the occupation force, still has two feet-high concrete barriers placed in the way of pilgrims, everyone will tell you who’s responsible for the fall and death of the one thousand Iraqis. When hundreds of pilgrims fall in the river and die drowning because of the lack of emergency staff or river police boats, all of us should know who to blame.
No, not Canada.
Blame the US-led occupation for killing more Iraqis.
When I visited the south of Iraq after the fall of Baghdad, I was impressed by the level of self-organizing the Shia community has. Shia Iraqis don’t need anyone, including the Iraqi government, to help them organize themselves. They just need their cities’ streets to be open for them; they just need the occupation concrete barriers to be removed.
The US and Iraqi decision makers should be held responsible for this human tragedy in Baghdad. The minister of health asked for the resignation of both the ministers of interior and defense. As-Sadr movement supported the minister of health in his request too. The US administration should stop wasting US people money in killing Iraqis and occupying their country. The US money should be spent on the US citizens in need: the ones who lost their homes and relatives by Katrina.
Bush should pull out the US troops from Iraq as soon as possible and stop wasting billions of dollars on mass murders and destruction. The US citizens should stop funding and supporting Iraq’s chronic Katrina and its concrete barriers.
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
But I can’t stop watching and reading news!
Around one thousand people died in Baghdad yesterday, and other thousands died in New Orleans. It’s so sad to hear and see such human tragedies. It’s also so hard to stop thinking about the thousands who died, and the other thousands of their friends and families.
Even though the Iraqis and Americans who died had ten thousand miles separating them from each other, they had many things in common.
Katrina didn’t just cause the US cars to line up at gas stations. It kicked out one million US citizens from their own homes, and it killed thousands of Americans in some days. That made me remember the first days of the US invasion when thousands of Iraqis were killed and other millions were kicked out of their homes too, and our cars were lining up at gas stations.
One of my readers from the US wrote me today saying:
You have heard, of course, of the devastation that the hurricane Katrina has done to the city of New Orleans. I heard that the situation is desperate there, because there is “no clean water, no sewage system, no electricity, no food…” and it struck me that this is the situation that parts of Iraq have been facing not for days, but for months now.
I’m sure that every Iraqi has very much of compassion with the US people during this catastrophe, because Iraqis understand the meaning of death and collective displacement. Death and displacement were a part of Iraqis lives for the last years.
Most of the one thousand Iraqis who died yesterday came from As-Sadr city in Baghdad. They had different murderers in the same day: seven of them were killed by a mortar attack on Al-Kathum area, and more than 965 died because of Al-A'emmah bridge disaster two hours after the mortar attack.
No one can tell who’s responsible for the mortar attack. Even the Zarqawi group, being the most extremist and Takfiri group, never announced their responsibility for any of the coward attacks against mosques and pilgrims. Who’s responsible for the mortar attack is a big mystery...
On the other hand, everyone can tell who’s responsible of Al-A'emmah bridge disaster.
When the occupation forces, working side by side with the Iraqi governmental troops and paramilitary fighters, close all the bridges that lead to Al-Kathum Shrine in a day that everyone is expecting millions of pilgrims to come, everyone will tell you who’s responsible for the mass murder. When the A'emmah Bridge, which has been closed for the last 9 months by the occupation force, still has two feet-high concrete barriers placed in the way of pilgrims, everyone will tell you who’s responsible for the fall and death of the one thousand Iraqis. When hundreds of pilgrims fall in the river and die drowning because of the lack of emergency staff or river police boats, all of us should know who to blame.
No, not Canada.
Blame the US-led occupation for killing more Iraqis.
When I visited the south of Iraq after the fall of Baghdad, I was impressed by the level of self-organizing the Shia community has. Shia Iraqis don’t need anyone, including the Iraqi government, to help them organize themselves. They just need their cities’ streets to be open for them; they just need the occupation concrete barriers to be removed.
The US and Iraqi decision makers should be held responsible for this human tragedy in Baghdad. The minister of health asked for the resignation of both the ministers of interior and defense. As-Sadr movement supported the minister of health in his request too. The US administration should stop wasting US people money in killing Iraqis and occupying their country. The US money should be spent on the US citizens in need: the ones who lost their homes and relatives by Katrina.
Bush should pull out the US troops from Iraq as soon as possible and stop wasting billions of dollars on mass murders and destruction. The US citizens should stop funding and supporting Iraq’s chronic Katrina and its concrete barriers.
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
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Fallujah There, New Orleans Here
In April of 2003 the US military stood by and allowed Baghdad to be looted. Not only were private establishments emptied, but all the major ministries (except the Ministry of Petroleum) were looted and burned. When Iraqis complained to the new occupation authority, the GI's informed them that stopping the looting was "not the mission." The documents from the Baath Foreign Ministry that might have shed light on the dealings of Reagan, Bush senior, Schultz and Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein before 1990 were helpfully burned. The modern history of Iraq, including cabinet meetings from the 1930s and 1940s, mostly went up in smoke (it would be as though the US National Archives for every administration since Roosevelt was burned, along with all microfilm copies). The Iraq Museum, a key repository for ancient Iraqi civilization and the history of humankind, was looted of dozens of major pieces and thousands of lesser ones.
In late summer of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina recast New Orleans as a latter-day Atlantis, displacing a million persons and reducing hundreds of thousands to dire poverty, a wave of looting broke out in the city. Some legal scholars argued that where people felt their lives were in danger because of a natural disaster, they actually had the right to take food, medicine and water--and other materials necessary to their survival-- from abandoned stores.
So the Bush administration treated Louisiana's Walmart managers the same way it treated Iraqi property holders, right? After all, "stuff happens," right? Free people are free to make errors and commit crimes in times of crisis, correct?
Nope.
' "Saying he was carrying a message from U.S. President George W. Bush, New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said police and prosecutors were ready to hunt down a small group of criminals responsible for "horrendous" crimes in the stricken city. "The streets of New Orleans belong to its citizens, not the violent thugs who have stuck their heads up out of holes in an attempt to exploit a national tragedy," Letten told reporters. "Not one inch of that city is going to be ceded to the criminal element," he said in Baton Rouge. "Not one inch." '
So I guess it just depends on whose property is being destroyed and looted, whether Bush bothers to send in US troops to stop looting.
The Iraqis are noticing the contrast, and remarking on it.
Read More
http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/looting-there-looting-here-fallujah.html
In April of 2003 the US military stood by and allowed Baghdad to be looted. Not only were private establishments emptied, but all the major ministries (except the Ministry of Petroleum) were looted and burned. When Iraqis complained to the new occupation authority, the GI's informed them that stopping the looting was "not the mission." The documents from the Baath Foreign Ministry that might have shed light on the dealings of Reagan, Bush senior, Schultz and Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein before 1990 were helpfully burned. The modern history of Iraq, including cabinet meetings from the 1930s and 1940s, mostly went up in smoke (it would be as though the US National Archives for every administration since Roosevelt was burned, along with all microfilm copies). The Iraq Museum, a key repository for ancient Iraqi civilization and the history of humankind, was looted of dozens of major pieces and thousands of lesser ones.
In late summer of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina recast New Orleans as a latter-day Atlantis, displacing a million persons and reducing hundreds of thousands to dire poverty, a wave of looting broke out in the city. Some legal scholars argued that where people felt their lives were in danger because of a natural disaster, they actually had the right to take food, medicine and water--and other materials necessary to their survival-- from abandoned stores.
So the Bush administration treated Louisiana's Walmart managers the same way it treated Iraqi property holders, right? After all, "stuff happens," right? Free people are free to make errors and commit crimes in times of crisis, correct?
Nope.
' "Saying he was carrying a message from U.S. President George W. Bush, New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said police and prosecutors were ready to hunt down a small group of criminals responsible for "horrendous" crimes in the stricken city. "The streets of New Orleans belong to its citizens, not the violent thugs who have stuck their heads up out of holes in an attempt to exploit a national tragedy," Letten told reporters. "Not one inch of that city is going to be ceded to the criminal element," he said in Baton Rouge. "Not one inch." '
So I guess it just depends on whose property is being destroyed and looted, whether Bush bothers to send in US troops to stop looting.
The Iraqis are noticing the contrast, and remarking on it.
Read More
http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/looting-there-looting-here-fallujah.html
These days, the satellite channel's screens, the newspapers and magazines are dominated by the photos of the hurricane that hit the southern United States a few days ago, and whose impact continues to displace the residents of the devastated areas to more safer places, with news and scenes of thieves filling the streets, looting the commercial stores, and burning fires in the city, of people queuing in lines in front of the petrol stations, of the police and army trying to help, but there was an evident inefficiency, or slackness, and there was criticism in the American media about the Bush administration, and the misconduct towards this crisis…..
There were news about pulling some Airmen from Iraq and Afghanistan to go back home and join in the rescue operations….
It was seen that most of the people who were besieged by the water, and who remained in the dangerous areas are the black Americans of the state, who form a poor majority who owns no cars, or enough money to leave and find alternative lodgings…
I do not know what to say….
I remembered the days of the war upon us, our sufferings which no one cared about…that was covered up, and ignored with all cruelty and inhumanity….
THIS IS America, that invaded Iraq and destroyed it…that directed the lenses of the cameras on the thieves who looted the country by the encouragement of the occupation forces, and in front of their eyes, but they didn't direct those lenses towards the families that run from their houses looking for safety; safety from the war, the terror, the daily air raids, night and day, the cameras weren't directed towards the lines of Iraqis by the petrol stations every day, under the burning sun, the cold, and the rain, during the war and afterwards, nor at the lines of children and their fathers near the bakery shops in the days of the war, waiting, and risking their lives. They weren't directed at the poor, crushed Iraqis who lost their jobs, or their family's supporter who was killed or put in prison for some reason. They weren't directed at the devastation and ruin caused the by cruel, unjust human hands, who knew no mercy or justice, for that ruin wasn't caused by the hand of GOD THE MIGHTY…
When we usually face a catastrophe of a flood, an earth quake, or a volcano, we say: this is the will of GOD, for we have no power to stop what comes from HIM. We always say: perhaps it is HIS revenge for our sins; perhaps it is a test for the amount of our faith….
But what can we say about wars waged upon us by the hands of foolish people, or evil people??
How do we act towards them?
Shall we surrender to their will, as we do in front of the will of GOD, or shall we stand up to them, stopping them in their tracks??
I see the world inside and outside of America sympathizes, panting to offer help…and I do not know whether it is an honest humanitarian feeling, an adulation to the American government, or hypocrisy, and favor-seeking…
Because most of those who rushed to help, Arabs and non-Arabs, were almost silent about what befell the Iraqis during their days of ordeal, and the war against them, or perhaps they restricted themselves to shy protestations, fearing the anger of their people…
Who rushed to send humanitarian aid to us while we were under the air and land raids? Who donated millions of dollars to relieve us? Are the humans other than us worthy of life and aid, while we aren't?
I see some Arabic countries do this before the western countries, to aid the Katrina hurricane victims… and they were the same who abandoned us in our ordeal….keeping silent, like mutes.
Where were these noble, high humanitarian feelings hiding?
I see they emerged today, hot and strong, to help the residents of New Orleans…..
Why wasn't a part of them shown to the poor Iraqis, while they were under the bombardment of missiles, and hell?
There was no water sneaking into our houses, which shook and fell apart upon us by the missiles and bombs bombardment, aren't those uglier than the flood?
In a flood, you ran with your family to a stadium or a high building, geographically far from the flood level, where you hide and feel secure, until the rescue teams reach you, but in the case of air raids, where do you hide? Where is the shelter, and security?
Where were the kind-hearted people, with the noble feelings who emerged these days??
The pilots who were in Iraq, carrying out military missions harmful to the civilian residents and families, but today they will go back home to help their families?
Why does this portrait seem so contradicting, laughable, and ridicules?
By GOD, I see the world living in a shameful state of hypocrisy, or seeing with one eye… the sick, biased media, controlled by sick, biased, racial leaderships, poisoned the people's minds, making them feel sorry for a faction of people, and ignore another… a sick, biased, racial media that transferred its diseases to most its audiences… showing up to encourage the initiatives to come and rescue the people of New Orleans… but it is the same media that hid and forbidden showing any initiative to help the Iraqi victims of the unjust, illegitimate war upon them, during the war, and for two years now…
As if the whole world is living in a state of fear of telling the truth, or adulation and hypocrisy towards the powerful unjust …. And here we pay the price when we see the anger of GOD strike us….
As if GOD THE MIGHTY is laughing in His Heaven, saying: WHO IS IT WHO THINKS HIMSELF MIGHTIER THAN I AM?? YOU ARE ALL WEAK MORTALS.........
And only the fool thinks himself strong, and mighty…
GOD feels sad about what befalls his weak worshipers, but laughs at the foolishness of those who play the role of the mighty… always teaching them grave lessons…
But who is the wise one, who looks, thinks, and learns the lesson??
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/2005_09_04_afamilyinbaghdad_archive.html#112595551755019616
There were news about pulling some Airmen from Iraq and Afghanistan to go back home and join in the rescue operations….
It was seen that most of the people who were besieged by the water, and who remained in the dangerous areas are the black Americans of the state, who form a poor majority who owns no cars, or enough money to leave and find alternative lodgings…
I do not know what to say….
I remembered the days of the war upon us, our sufferings which no one cared about…that was covered up, and ignored with all cruelty and inhumanity….
THIS IS America, that invaded Iraq and destroyed it…that directed the lenses of the cameras on the thieves who looted the country by the encouragement of the occupation forces, and in front of their eyes, but they didn't direct those lenses towards the families that run from their houses looking for safety; safety from the war, the terror, the daily air raids, night and day, the cameras weren't directed towards the lines of Iraqis by the petrol stations every day, under the burning sun, the cold, and the rain, during the war and afterwards, nor at the lines of children and their fathers near the bakery shops in the days of the war, waiting, and risking their lives. They weren't directed at the poor, crushed Iraqis who lost their jobs, or their family's supporter who was killed or put in prison for some reason. They weren't directed at the devastation and ruin caused the by cruel, unjust human hands, who knew no mercy or justice, for that ruin wasn't caused by the hand of GOD THE MIGHTY…
When we usually face a catastrophe of a flood, an earth quake, or a volcano, we say: this is the will of GOD, for we have no power to stop what comes from HIM. We always say: perhaps it is HIS revenge for our sins; perhaps it is a test for the amount of our faith….
But what can we say about wars waged upon us by the hands of foolish people, or evil people??
How do we act towards them?
Shall we surrender to their will, as we do in front of the will of GOD, or shall we stand up to them, stopping them in their tracks??
I see the world inside and outside of America sympathizes, panting to offer help…and I do not know whether it is an honest humanitarian feeling, an adulation to the American government, or hypocrisy, and favor-seeking…
Because most of those who rushed to help, Arabs and non-Arabs, were almost silent about what befell the Iraqis during their days of ordeal, and the war against them, or perhaps they restricted themselves to shy protestations, fearing the anger of their people…
Who rushed to send humanitarian aid to us while we were under the air and land raids? Who donated millions of dollars to relieve us? Are the humans other than us worthy of life and aid, while we aren't?
I see some Arabic countries do this before the western countries, to aid the Katrina hurricane victims… and they were the same who abandoned us in our ordeal….keeping silent, like mutes.
Where were these noble, high humanitarian feelings hiding?
I see they emerged today, hot and strong, to help the residents of New Orleans…..
Why wasn't a part of them shown to the poor Iraqis, while they were under the bombardment of missiles, and hell?
There was no water sneaking into our houses, which shook and fell apart upon us by the missiles and bombs bombardment, aren't those uglier than the flood?
In a flood, you ran with your family to a stadium or a high building, geographically far from the flood level, where you hide and feel secure, until the rescue teams reach you, but in the case of air raids, where do you hide? Where is the shelter, and security?
Where were the kind-hearted people, with the noble feelings who emerged these days??
The pilots who were in Iraq, carrying out military missions harmful to the civilian residents and families, but today they will go back home to help their families?
Why does this portrait seem so contradicting, laughable, and ridicules?
By GOD, I see the world living in a shameful state of hypocrisy, or seeing with one eye… the sick, biased media, controlled by sick, biased, racial leaderships, poisoned the people's minds, making them feel sorry for a faction of people, and ignore another… a sick, biased, racial media that transferred its diseases to most its audiences… showing up to encourage the initiatives to come and rescue the people of New Orleans… but it is the same media that hid and forbidden showing any initiative to help the Iraqi victims of the unjust, illegitimate war upon them, during the war, and for two years now…
As if the whole world is living in a state of fear of telling the truth, or adulation and hypocrisy towards the powerful unjust …. And here we pay the price when we see the anger of GOD strike us….
As if GOD THE MIGHTY is laughing in His Heaven, saying: WHO IS IT WHO THINKS HIMSELF MIGHTIER THAN I AM?? YOU ARE ALL WEAK MORTALS.........
And only the fool thinks himself strong, and mighty…
GOD feels sad about what befalls his weak worshipers, but laughs at the foolishness of those who play the role of the mighty… always teaching them grave lessons…
But who is the wise one, who looks, thinks, and learns the lesson??
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/2005_09_04_afamilyinbaghdad_archive.html#112595551755019616
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