I almost cannot believe the level of brazen disregard or outright, racist disdain that Bush administration spokespeople and their supporters show towards the situation in which the people of Iraq are forced to live (or die.) Every day we hear crowing from the Bushites about how “the surge is working”, or “Petraeus is succeeding in ‘flipping’ the Sunnis”, or whatever. But what you don’t hear at all from them are the grim facts about the situation of Iraq’s people.
Reporters in the MSM should be actively asking the administration’s spinmeisters how on earth they can claim signs of “progress” in Iraq, in light of developments like those being continually reported by those international agencies that do care what happens to real people in Iraq.
Like this, report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, yesterday:
- an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis are have been uprooted from their homes, with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to over 60,000 people compared to 50,000 previously, according to UNHCR and the Iraqi Red Crescent…
More than 2 million Iraqis are displaced inside Iraq, with over 1 million displaced since the February 2006 Samarra bombings. While most of the security incidents happen in the centre and south of the country, the displaced are not confined to these regions. In the north, there are more than 780,000 displaced Iraqis, over 650,000 in the centre of the country, and 790,000 in the south. Many are barely surviving in makeshift camps, inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons.
Syria, which has generously kept its borders open to fleeing Iraqis, estimates that more than 1.4 million Iraqis are now in the country. Jordan estimates that some 500,000-750,000 Iraqis are in the country. The number of Iraqi asylum seekers in Europe in the first half of 2007 rose to nearly 20,000 – the same number received during all of 2006…
Or this, from the ICRC today:
- With the daily violence currently inflicted on the lives of Iraqis, tens of bodies are found every day, while countless persons go missing. While some of the bodies found can be identified, others cannot. According to official sources in Iraq, from 2006 until June 2007 some 20,000 bodies were brought to the Medical-Legal Institute in Baghdad (MLI). Almost 50 per cent of these bodies were unidentified and brought to morgues throughout the country. When unclaimed, they were buried in cemeteries. Since 2003, according to some sources, 4,000 unidentified bodies have been buried in special cemeteries in Najaf and Kerbala.
For an Iraqi family, the process of looking for a missing person may prove to be extremely complicated or even very dangerous, and sometimes impossible. One of the main factors is the current security situation. Today, it is well known that moving in certain areas in Iraq can be life-threatening. Therefore, families cannot move freely asking for the whereabouts of their missing relatives. They try to go through private channels such as individuals or charity organizations. The second step would be looking in hospitals, before inquiring at the MLI, knowing that Baghdad suffers today from the worst security conditions…
And then, there are the swelling numbers of Iraqis who have been detained by the US forces themselves, under the surge. This recent news report says the number has gone up from 16,000 in February to 24,500 today.
The writer there, the NYT’s Thom Shanker, adds these details:
- Nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody are Sunni Arabs… with the other detainees being Shiite Muslims, the officers say.
Of the Sunni detainees, about 1,800 claim allegiance to a group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, military officers said. Another 6,000 identify themselves as takfiris [= “excommunicators”], meaning Muslims who believe that some other Muslims are not true believers. Such extremists view Shiite Muslims as heretics.
Those statistics would seem to indicate that the main inspiration of the hard-core Sunni insurgency is no longer a desire to restore the old order – a movement that drew from former Baath party members and security officials who served under Saddam – and has become religious and ideological.
Actually, I disagree. The figures he gives “indicate” nothing of the kind. They indicate only that some 37.4% of the Sunni detainees are either Qaeda supporters or takfiris. They tell us nothing about the remaining 62.6% of them.
Shanker tells us that of the US-held detainees, “about 800” are juveniles. That is cause for huge concern.
We need to remember that the term “detainee” refers to people who have not been convicted of any crime, but are merely behing held “on suspicion”, or because a jealous neighbor has turned them in, or whatever. Shanker says the average length of time they are held is one year, though the very low figure he gives on releases so far this year seems to contradict that. (Perhaps math is not his strong point?)
He also has this additional detail:
- According to statistics supplied by the headquarters of Task Force 134, the American military unit in command of detention operations in Iraq, there are about 280 detainees from countries other than Iraq. Of those, 55 are identified as Egyptian, 53 as Syrian, 37 as Saudi Arabian, 28 as Jordanian and 24 as Sudanese.
280 foreigners is just over one percent of the total. An interestingly low figure.
Anyway, my main point here is to note that none of the reports I have seen in the humanitarian-affairs media recently gives any indication that the surge has brought any improvement to the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Just the opposite.
Isn’t that the key “metric” that the US electorate and media ought to be focusing on?
Otherwise, what is the surge for? Just the personal vanity of one stubborn and rather ignorant US president?
Helena Cobban asked:
“Otherwise, what is the surge for? Just the personal vanity of one stubborn and rather ignorant US president?”
In a single word: Yes.
George Orwell advised never repeating words or phrases that one commonly reads in print. In agreement with this sage counsel, I advocate resistance to government propaganda by not repeating verbatim its carefully crafted “lizard language” terminology developed by hired-gun word magicians like Frank Luntz, et al. Instead, I recommend placing questionable Orwellian euphemisms in “scare quotes” (what Alfred Korzybski called “safety devices”) preceded by disclaimers and followed immediatly by reality based alternatives. To illustrate by example:
The so-called “surge” (i.e., trickle-dribble escalation) has only the desperate objective of buying three (3) more six-month “Friedman Units” (or, F.U.s) of political procrastination until the culpable cretins (i.e., the Regime and its retainers) who concocted this calamity — from the vapid, vainglorious vaquero on down — can slink out of office unscathed by even the slightest acquaintance with accountability for their crimes.
In a single word or many of them, America and its fortunes now careen out of control with implacable events in the driver’s seat, while the detached streering wheel of state dangles dangerously in the credulous clutches of a clown.
Oh no, THAT won’t do, explanationwise! Not “Just the personal vanity of one stubborn and rather ignorant US president” considered in isolation.
“Otherwise, what is the surge for?
“More than 90 percent of the Army’s new recruits since late July have accepted a $20,000 “quick ship” bonus to leave for basic combat training by the end of September, putting thousands of Americans into uniform almost immediately.”
“It has emerged the MoD is so desperate to stem the exodus that it is offering £2,000 “golden hellos” to people joining specialist trades, reservists or civilian contractors. “”
So those who talking sending civiliances and others like engineeres to help Iraqis all just hotair, they went to Iraq for a fast CASH ………………… WHO LIKE TO BE A MILIONEAR IN IRAQ?
“As military and political leaders prepare to deliver a progress report on the conflict to Congress next month, many soldiers are increasingly disdainful of the happy talk that they say commanders on the ground and White House officials are using in their discussions about the war.
And they’re becoming vocal about their frustration over longer deployments and a taxing mission that keeps many living in dangerous and uncomfortably austere conditions. Some say two wars are being fought here: the one the enlisted men see, and the one that senior officers and politicians want the world to see.
“I don’t see any progress. Just us getting killed,” said Spc. Yvenson Tertulien, one of those in the dining hall in Yousifiya, 10 miles south of Baghdad, as Bush’s speech aired last month. “I don’t want to be here anymore.””
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-morale25aug25,0,3144924.story?coll=la-home-center
And according to BBC radio this morning, there’s a cholera outbreak in Northern Iraq now, as well.
Helena, you forgot to point now the Kurds start flee their villages in north Iraq due Iranians shelling their area, and some news reported that the locales had found leaflets written in Persian telling them to leave their homes and land although Iranians officials denying they have any link with this.
زيباري يسلم الحكومة الايرانية مذكرة احتجاج لقصفها القرى العراقية
http://www.aswatnews.org/details.aspx?id_news=1035
Nathan Hubbard joined the Army, along with Jason, in 2005, in part to honour the death of Jared but also out of a sense of vengeance. Nathan, an army specialist in the 25th Infantry Division, was one of 14 US soldiers killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in northern Iraq, the worst death toll suffered in a single day by the US military since January. The Pentagon said that the crash was caused by mechanical failure and not enemy fire.
The family was taking the death of their second son “very, very hard”, according to a police spokesman in Clovis, a close-knit town near Fresno, California, where the Hubbards live. The father of the three sons, Jeff, is a retired 30-year veteran of the Clovis police department.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2317453.ece?print=yes&randnum=1188546420158
How hard Jason story is but in same talk’n the stories from the other side of this war “Iraqis” how hard for them and how many of them suffer more than Jason and his family, Iraqi still suffering because of this war…..
Helena, this is a good article about Iraq and the Iraqi humanitarian’s crises
The writer ending his article with this:
Any future mission in Iraq will require a legitimacy that the U.S. invasion lacked. Our position within the UN, coupled with our unique standing in the international community, could make sure this is achieved.
As a country, we need to remember that, regardless of the causes, Iraq today is a humanitarian crisis and a geopolitical time bomb, a country whose collapse or breakup could destabilize the immediate region, and potentially much more.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/250785
Any future mission in Iraq will require a legitimacy that the U.S. invasion lacked. Our position within the UN, coupled with our unique standing in the international community , could make sure this is achieved.
Who these uniquely positioned self-legitimateds are, exactly, does not quite appear. But as long as demonstrable good guys take the money and spend it well and reject any nonsense about control of their expenditures by non-good guys, well, perhaps it’s OK.