Americans claim they want to liberate the people of Iraq & bring them democracy but it looks more like a conquest & a land-grab .What the Bush Regime has done is to destroy Iraq as a unified nation & leave its people in a weakened position so that the Americans can have control over the country & use it as a base of operations for controlling the Middle East Now they are forcing the Iraqi government to privatize the oil fields & turn a large proportion of the oil-rights over to American corporations on long term leases of 30 years or more-
Anyway here is an example of how the Bush Regime is trying to win the hearts & minds of the Iraqi people - I jest of course - In this video American soldiers blow up a mosque for no apparent reason & the soldiers have a good laugh & this is their way to build up the trust of the Iraqi people one mosque at a time but it looks more & more like the Crusades rather than the liberation of a people from tyranny -
Why should the Iraqi people support the Americans when they have shown no concern or respect for the people of Iraq or for their culture & religion ???
Note: there are more videos at Liveleak of US troops goofing around & their cowboy style antics...as if they were in some sitcom on tv...
And here is the song " MONEY " from Bob Fosse's CABARET this song could be the anthem for the Neocons :
While war rages & the poor get poorer & the rich become the Super-rich just forget it & don't let it affect you as long as you are content & happy that's all that matters while freedom is stripped from your neighbors & the jails are filled & some are tortured all in the name of securiy & the Homeless are removed from the city streets who cares where they go to whether to Gulags or to another part of the city out of your sight out of your mind just go to the Cabaret or stay home & watch the glittering HD Plasma tv for instead of just Cabarets we now have " American Idol " & other reality type shows for our amusement...
The U.S. media would have us believe that the Iraqi people are a bunch of barbarians who have no interest in peaceful solutions but this is far from the truth as the following article from AlterNet points out U.S. Imperial Ambitions Thwart Iraqis' Peace Plans
By Joshua Holland and Raed Jarrar . May 21, 2007.
Iraq's resistance groups have offered a series of peace plans that might put an end to the country's sectarian violence, but they've been ignored by the U.S.-led coalition because they're opposed to foreign occupation and privatization of oil.
Last week,( May 14) a majority of Iraqi lawmakers demanded a timetable for U.S. and other foreign troops to leave their country. The very next day, the Al Fadhila party, a Shi'ite party considered moderate by the (often arbitrary) standards of the commercial media, held a press conference, in which it offered a 23-point plan for stabilizing Iraq.
The plan addressed not only the current situation in Iraq -- acknowledging the legitimacy of Iraqi resistance, setting a timetable for a complete withdrawal of occupation troops and rebuilding the Iraqi government and security forces in a nonsectarian fashion -- but also the challenging mission of post-occupation peace building and national reconciliation. It included provisions for disbanding militias, protecting Iraq's unity, managing Iraq's natural resources, building relationships with other countries based on mutual interest and the principle of non-intervention in domestic issues, and healing the wounds of more than 30 years of dictatorship, war, sanctions and foreign occupation....
... More significant even than proposals made by Iraqi political parties are those put forth by the country's armed resistance groups --- the very groups that have the ability to bring a halt to the cycle of violence. Comprehensive plans have been offered by the Baath party, which ruled Iraq for three generations, the Islamic Army in Iraq and other major armed resistance groups and coalitions. The plans vary on a number of points, but all of them shared a few items in common: the occupation forces must recognize them as legitimate resistance groups and negotiate with them, and the United States must agree to set a timetable for a complete withdrawal from Iraq. That's the key issue, but Iraq's nationalists see it only as the first step in the long path to achieving national reconstruction and reconciliation.
But these plans are unacceptable to the Coalition because they (a) affirm the legitimacy of Iraq's armed resistance groups and acknowledge that the U.S.-led coalition is, in fact, an occupying army, and (b) return Iraq to the Iraqis, which means no permanent bases, no oil law that gives foreign firms supersweet deals and no radical restructuring of the Iraqi economy. U.S. lawmakers have been and continue to be faced with a choice between Iraqi stability and American Empire, and continue to choose the latter, even as the results of those choices are splashed in bloody Technicolor across our TV screens every evening.
Last year, a comprehensive, 28-point proposal for stabilizing Iraq was offered by the nascent Iraqi government itself after long meetings with different Iraqi groups. According to local polls and political leaders, most Iraqis believed it was the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel -- the plan was attractive to the vast majority of the public, even those Iraqis affiliated with violent resistance groups. But the plan wasn't acceptable to Washington, and was watered down so as to be unrecognizable under U.S. pressure.
...But while the commercial press focuses on the bloody scenes created by those who have taken up arms against the occupation and the fledgling Iraqi government, the reality is that a significant opposition has been expressed in nonviolent means such as regular demonstrations on the streets of Baghdad and other cities, petitions signed by Iraqis, strikes organized by Iraqi unions, parliamentarian work to create binding legislation, and opinion articles in the dozens of Iraqi newspapers that have proliferated since the invasion. This nonviolent demonstration of Iraqis' anti-occupation sentiment reflects large majorities of all of Iraq's major ethnic and sectarian groups -- more than eight out of 10, according to many polls.
...One of the few laws left on the books from the Saddam Hussein era is one that severely limits the rights of Iraqi workers to organize. As journalist David Bacon reported in the winter of 2003, coalition forces "escalated their efforts to paralyze Iraq's new labor unions with a series of arrests" that left one of the few surviving segments of Iraq's once-vibrant secular civil society toothless.
In addition, Iraqi newspapers and T.V. stations have been repeatedly targeted. The major clashes between U.S. forces and the Mehdi Army in 2004 were sparked by the closure of the Sadrists' official newspaper, and a number of broadcast stations have been shut down because of their anti-occupation stands. Eighty-two Iraqi journalists have been killed since 2003.
The unreported -- or at least underreported -- story is that Iraqi nationalists are not just "insurgents"; there are many who still believe in political solutions and nonviolent resistance. They continue to work against the occupation through diplomacy and nonviolent opposition, but the Al-Maliki regime, which is dominated by Iraqi separatists, has joined the White House, the Pentagon and the bulk of the U.S. Congress in marginalizing their voices. It is the latest in a long series of examples of American officials backing only the worst horses in Iraq -- a theme that began with the embrace of proven fraudsters like Ahmed Chalabi.
(...and the opression of ordinary non-violent Iraqis continues:)
Much of the violence in Iraq has been fueled by this systematic disregard for nonviolent means of opposing the occupation. Before they sink down the memory hole, let's recall what just a few of the headlines from the very early days of the occupation were saying:
* "U.S. Soldiers Kill 13 at Iraq Protest Rally, Hospital Reports," Associated Press, 29 April 2003.
* "At Least 10 Dead as U.S. Soldiers Fire on School Protest," Independent (U.K.), 30 April 2003.
* "Two More Die During Protest at U.S. Killings: Mayor Wants Troops to Leave Town Where 14 Were Shot Dead Day Before," Guardian, 1 May 2003
* "More Protesters Fall to U.S. Guns in Falluja; Commander Says Americans Will Remain," Associated Press, 1 May 2003.
* "[During a Demonstration] U.S. Soldiers Are Said to Kill Iraqi Policemen by Mistake," New York Times, 12 September 2003
Nonviolent resistance in Iraq continues to be met with violence today. Iraqi nationalists have faced repeated attacks by both Coalition forces and Iraqi separatists -- from the bombing of the National Dialogue Front's headquarters in Baghdad to attacks by Shia separatists like SCIRI on Sadr loyalists. At the same time, U.S. officials have heaped praise on -- and the White House has feted -- Iraqi separatists while dismissing Iraq's nationalists as "extremists" or members of "anti-government forces."
Take care,
GORD.
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