Iraq reality

``Bloodbath Beyond the Green Zone''

Patrick Cockburn is truly indispensable for learning the truth about Iraq. No US news sources present the situation in terms anything like this:

The Shia, 60 per cent of the Iraqi population, won two elections last year but the US has fought to deny them complete control of the Iraqi state. 'So far,' one high ranking US official was quoted as saying, 'the Shia have not demonstrated that they can govern, and they have to demonstrate that now.'

Cockburn goes on to describe the realities making Iraq ungovernable after the US invasion not only removed the regime of Saddam Hussein, but unleashed a security nightmare for the great majority of the Iraqi population--from brutal occupation practices, from indiscrimminant bombings carried out by some of the anti-occupation resistance, from criminals, and from marauding militias conducting ethnic cleansing.

He writes of a bomb killing 19 set off in the Baghdad Shia district of Sadr City, ``in retaliation for attacks by black-clad Shia gunmen, probably from the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, on two Sunni districts in west Baghdad the previous day.

Cockburn now reports from Arbil in the Kurdish region. In a town called Khanaqin in this northern part of Iraq, Cockburn writes about ``refugees who are desperately seeking refuge here as Sunni Arab death squads and assassins drive out Kurds and Shia Arabs from the rest of Diyala'' Province.

Cockburn quotes a police lieutenant about people arriving in Khanaqin who were forced to leave their homes in other parts of Iraq after, ``They all got warnings telling them to go within 24 hours, or be killed.''

``Baghdad is paralysed by terror. In Basra one person is being murdered every hour according to an adviser to the Defence Ministry,'' writes Cockburn.

Meanwhile, as I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, Tony Blair and George W. Bush live in an Orwellian world of delusion, where up is down, black is white, and war is peace:

Tony Blair arrived the day after Maliki announced his cabinet. Blair's statements at a press conference were useful only as a check list of what is not happening in Iraq.

He praised the formation of 'a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries and divides.' But that is precisely what it does not do....

As government, US, and UK control over Iraq deteriorate, the almost totally unreported response of Iraq's neighbors is stunning:

Intervention by neighbours of Iraq is generally invisible, often taking the shape of money flowing to favoured parties and militias. But high up in the snow-streaked Kandil mountains on the Iraq-Iran border in north-east Kurdistan it is easier for Iran to send cruder signals to Baghdad and Washington without provoking a military response. Here, on the night of 31 April to 1 May Iranian artillery fired 2,000 shells into Iraq signaling to the US and its Kurdish allies that Tehran is not intimidated by any threats against it.

Here we begin to see why the Bush propaganda offensive against Iran and its nuclear program is rather toothless. Iran is in a position to increase greatly the misery of the US occupation.

Cockburn concludes by arguing persuasively that the occupation has increased, not suppressed, the level of violence in Iraq.

Note: This posting was delayed by problems with Blogger.