THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

I am convinced they actually think they are doing the right thing. Combine Bush's misguidedness with post-9/11 blind patriotism and you have recipe for disaster.

America has given this fool unconditional support and a blank cheque.

That lack of dissent, in my opinion, is more of a threat to America than any terrorist organization.

Power has made this administration act like drunken sailors. Just because they have not gropped or raped the women, their killing of innocent women and children are worse.

Almost half of new Iraqi army quits

Thursday 11 December 2003, 20:32 Makka Time, 17:32 GMT

An Iraqi soldiers pay is as low as $50 a month

Three hundred Iraqi army recruits have resigned from the first battalion set up by US occupation forces.

Only 400 soldiers are left on Thursday, following the mass walkout over terrible pay and conditions.



Salaries in the new army range from $50 a month to $180 for a colonel, a US occupation administration source said.



Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official also confirmed there had been discipline problems - with some recruits refusing to obey instructions before resigning.



"My understanding is that they felt they should be paid more money, for example, than the police," he said, adding that the occupation administration will review all security force salaries.



Bad beginning



Iraq's administrators had been building a new Iraqi army after dismissing all the members of Saddam Hussein's armed forces following the invasion in April.



"There may have been some confusion when they first joined the Iraqi army. They weren't sure exactly what their terms and conditions are," the official said.



What remains of the Iraqi First Battalion is serving with the US 4th Infantry Division.



The official said a second Iraqi battalion is now training "and there are no resignations from that."



Another group of more than 2000 recruits are expected to begin their training next year, he said.

SOURCE---for the above article posted by Gel:

Aljazeera.net-----now there is a truly unbiased source----lap it up ya'all

SOURCE---for the above article posted by Gel:

Aljazeera.net-----now there is a truly unbiased source----lap it up ya'all

SOURCE---for the above article posted by Gel:

Aljazeera.net-----now there is a truly unbiased source----lap it up ya'all

I believe you would agree that failure in Iraq is NOT an option.

This concept will work in Iraq-----IF----and this is a very big ----- IF-----the human intelligence can become reliable.

I think what has been planned by the PNAC people when they were out of power, and implemented now they're in power is too big and has too much momentum to be reversed or even significantly diverted by a mere change of President.

We will not be honored for what we did and will do, and the history books will write our shame in this adventure. The only credit in the books will come in what we leave behind, and that will be known in decades, not in years.

I believe the only real black mark that history will bestow upon us is the tragic failure of the post war planning.

The Baghdad Blogger

In the looters' market, a DVD singing the praises of the so-called resistance is selling like the hot bread of Bab al-Agha

Salam Pax
Wednesday December 10, 2003
The Guardian

I first heard it in a taxi. It kind of reminded me of the time when I would get in a taxi a year ago and get the fright of my life because the driver had a tape of a sermon by Shia clerics on. The "correct" thing to do was to ask the driver to turn it off, you know, just in case the driver was actually secret police and this was a test. Yes, paranoia ruled. Anyway, I got into a taxi a couple of days ago and the first thing out of the car speakers was:

"The men of Falluja are all as brave as wolves./They hit in the darkest nights with great precision./The sun of freedom will never set down on them./They fight in the name of Allah, followed by a big army."

It was in Arabic verse, so it rhymes better than my loose translation. It went on and on, praising the bravery of the so-called resistance. The driver was playing it really loud, as if to make sure everybody in the neighbourhood was aware of his peculiar musical tastes.

It wasn't exactly sung, it was done in the way eulogisers sing. We call them maddahs and they are usually accompanied by an instrument that looks like a huge tambourine without the cymbals but with little chains on the inside that rattle as you hit it.

So this maddah was shouting from the taxi I was in - shouting things that would fall directly under Mullah Brmer's fatwa about inflammatory verbal attacks on the coalition, ie, Mr Taxi Driver should be in jail, and I am in there contemplating the effects jumping out of the car might have on my ribs.

Mr Taxi Driver was very calm and cranked the volume up every time we stopped at traffic lights. Taking my chances, I decided to ask what this thing was and, without even blinking, he gave me the name of the maddah and where to get a copy of the recording.

OK, so I want a copy, I need to know what this thing is. The best place to visit when looking for iffy merchandise is the looters' market at Bab al-Sharji. You used to go there and find stuff spread out on a blanket, most of it stolen. And the vendor doesn't know what most of it is used for anyway.

After the war and all the looting, the blankets became stalls and you would find there everything from unused computers to used batteries - don't ask me who would buy those. The most interesting development was the stalls that sell bootleg movies. Porn sits beside religious sermons. At every stall is a small television and you can preview your chosen DVD. It is always fun to walk past the stalls and listen to the audio collage, but this time all the stalls were playing the same thing - the scary disc I heard in the taxi. On each stall, people crowded around watching that thing. It was selling like the hot bread of Bab al-Agha.

The strangest moment was when an American convoy came out of the nearby tunnel while the maddah was praising the deeds of the so-called resistance, the TV sets showing pictures of funerals of Iraqis killed by coalition fire. Everyone turned around and looked at the convoy. Not good.

The cover of the DVD only has American Army written on it and, surprisingly enough, once you start it, it gives you the name and address of the maddah and the production team, which means they either have bat **** for brains or they just don't care and have bat **** for brains.

The images they use are mainly from the al-Jazeera and Arabiyah networks - seriously bad stuff. There is one single shot which is not from TV networks. It shows two men on a motorbike, they come into the shot wearing kafiyehs around their faces and, as they drive away, you see one of them is carrying an RPG launcher.

All this is happening as the official media channels (the coalition-funded TV and newspaper) are starting their Say No to Terrorism campaign. I sat watching a woman lawyer on TV talking fervently to a stiff presenter. I was really watching, because seeing a woman like that made me think girl, where have you been all this time? Sorry, but they really never showed in-your-face women on TV before.

What was really amazing was the courage she had in criticising mosque sheikhs who are calling these attacks Jihad and giving the attackers some sort of credibility. She even launched an attack on one of Iraq's most famous sociologists, Ali al-Wardi, asking Iraqis to dismiss what he wrote about Iraqis being too passive: "I never believed that, don't listen to him," she said. That got her a frown from my mum and a cheer from me.