councilor.org
| Source | Louis Proyect |
| Date | 04/12/01/00:05 |
| Today's Counterpunch has an article by Patrick Cockburn that says the
following: "There are no safe havens. Since March, 14 British civilians have been killed. Not only have insurgents proved capable of putting a bomb on a plane, but on 14 October two suicide bombers entered the heavily fortified Green Zone and blew themselves up, killing five people and injuring many more. "Danger levels in the capital are also increasing; some of the resistance fighters who were previously in Fallujah have taken refuge in Baghdad. They may wish to launch spectacular attacks to offset the fall of Fallujah, which had been the de facto capital of the insurgents. "The Iraqi government and the US Army suffered losses yesterday from two of the insurgents' favourite weapons: suicide bombs and roadside bombs. No effective defence has been found against either." While your first reaction might be to discount his report because he is Alexander Cockburn's brother, you have to also keep in mind that Patrick is no fire-breathing radical himself and writes for the mainstream press mostly. If you want further proof of the deteriorating situation for the occupiers, there's no better source than Time Magazine bureau chief in Iraq Michael Ware, a native Australian. Last night I heard him on Air America basically saying the same sort of thing as Patrick Cockburn. He was also a guest on CNN the other day where the following exchange took place: ANDREA KOPPEL: It's difficult to understand the situation in Iraq unless you've seen it for yourself. Michael Ware has been reporting on the war for "Time" magazine and has seen both sides of the conflict. He gained exclusive access to the insurgents and spent months with them. He also was embedded with the U.S. Army during the battle of Falluja. And he recently spoke do CNN's Aaron Brown. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: You've been in and out of there for two years. You'll be back in there probably sooner than you want. Do you have a sense that, on the military side, progress is being made? MICHAEL WARE, TIME: To put it simply, no. No, I don't. I mean, I don't have any sense of victory or a sense that the coalition, the West is winning right now. I mean, it seems to me we're losing ground figuratively and literally. Just from my own example. Nine months ago, I could travel the breadth of Iraq. Sure, it was dangerous, it was risky, but it was calculated. Then that ceased. And I was restricted to Baghdad itself. And the only way I could leave Baghdad was if the insurgents took me and guaranteed my safety. Now I can't believe my compound. Kidnap teams circle my house. And even in my compound, they mortar -- drop bombs on our house. And in parts of Baghdad itself, the U.S. military has lost control. The terrorists of Abu Musab al Zarqawi control entire quarters or suburbs. One of them Haifa Street, the most famous, is within mortar range of the U.S. Embassy itself. And every day we're creating more recruits for the insurgents. And every day more young men from outside Iraq, from the Muslim world, the grieved and disenfranchised, are rising up and coming to join the fight, to blood themselves. Right now, we are the midwives of the next generation of jihad, of the next al Qaeda. So the very thing that the administration says it went there to prevent, it is creating. And despite the honor and the bravery and the uncommon valor that I see among the American boys there in uniform who are fighting this grinding war day to day, when I see them dying in front of me, I can't help but think that perhaps they're dying in vain. Because we're making the nightmare that we're trying to prevent. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho