2005-04-28
IRAQ QUAGMIRE
These days I don't write much about Iraq | The main reason is because I don't have many connections to first-hand reports of what occurs in that embattled nation | I do link to others, such as Steve Gilliard's News Blog so it's not like there is no connect |
The other day, in my e-mail came an account from Boston, and a public forum where independent journalist Dahr Jamail spoke to an interested audience | Here's some of the points he noted:
These days I don't write much about Iraq | The main reason is because I don't have many connections to first-hand reports of what occurs in that embattled nation | I do link to others, such as Steve Gilliard's News Blog so it's not like there is no connect |
The other day, in my e-mail came an account from Boston, and a public forum where independent journalist Dahr Jamail spoke to an interested audience | Here's some of the points he noted:
• A hospital in Sadr City without food, no cancer drugs. The Ministry of Health was promised 1 billion dollars but have received nothing. Work on the building has been outside ~painting~ | Inside any kind of minimal care and service is lacking | The toilets in the Intensive Care Unit are holes in the ground,and utter filth |
• In Baghdad, a city of 5 million, there is electricity only one to three hours per day | Bechtel has received $3.8 billion dollars for water treatment plants, but very little water treatment has occured | Pictures showed water trickling in stench holes | Polluted water has caused serious disease, esp. in children, who have also been killed crossing roads to get water for their families |
• There is a gasoline crises, long lines, two days or more for gasoline. Burgeoning black market in petrol—meanwhile, the U.S. military orders its oil tankers (that have stalled due to mechanical failure) burned. One soldier was told by an Iraqi how that is to see they are spending hours and days waiting for gas to drive their cars.
• A chilling story about Mark Manning, a filmmaker from California who went to Fallujah for two weeks to seefor himself what was happening. Within 12 hours after he arrived back in the US, all of his film and cameras were stolen from his hotel room. He was then called by someone who said "you'll never know, you're in a crowd, and a shot will be fired..." A few days later, after he stopped answering his cell phone due to the threatening calls, he was telephoned at his mother's home, where he had not been in two years |
• 12 independent journalists have been killed trying to report independently of the corporate media. This, despite the protestations recently regarding the Italian journalist and the Italian government’s refusal to accept the results of the U.S. military’s investigation (absolving the soldiers who fired on the vehicle).
• Anyone who reports the horrible truth gets the three pronged attack: discredit, dispute, destroy. GE owns 3 major news networks, and is directly profiting from this war.
• We are sitting on their oil, and we control its dispensation: Exxon's profits up 27% last year. It's doubtful we're in a hurry to start pumping
WAR CORRESPONDENTS: To Hell and Back withS.B. Documentary-Maker Mark Manning | Empire Notes also reports on Iraq War | PIX CREDITS: hula hoop Instructional Technology, Tank Angleterre | THANKS TO: Cathy McLaughlin |
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