The Third Anniversay of the Second Attack on Fallujah: Cruel November Arrives

(art source)










This November marks the third anniversay of the second of two American-led military assaults culminating in the massive destruction of most of the ancient Iraqi city of Fallujah. Consequently, I am republishing my account of this event here on Mosquito Blog, lest we forget. It was first published by the Southern ((I)) in print form, and later at OpEdNews.com, the web-link of which site you can access by clicking on this article's above title.

Earlier this year I posted the first four articles in this series at Mosquito Blog. They dealt with the first assault ending in May, and the immediate aftermath. In the rest of the articles, this being the sixth, I will go into detail about the much more brutal second assault, something most of us know little about, due to the paucity of the media.

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Fallujah, the Guernica of Our Times

Part 6: Cruel November Arrives

By Mac McKinney

A Native American Parable:

A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt. He said 'I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.' The grandson asked him, 'Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?' The grandfather answered: 'The one I feed.'

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By October of 2004, while the Bush Administration was focusing on winning the November elections, the American military was not so quietly finalizing preparations for a second assault on Fallujah, which some analysts were predicting would not occur until after Bush was re-elected, so as not to jeopardize Bush's compassionate conservative campaign image.

However, bombing runs against alleged insurgent safe-houses and meeting places, such as restaurants, were now occurring daily, coupled with ongoing reports of related civilian casualties. American officials once again trumpeted their sophisticated use of "smart" bombs and missiles to unerringly obliterate the "bad guys", although forensic evidence on the ground has time and again painted a picture of this ordnance as neither terribly bright at times nor terribly discriminating. And on the ground, Marines were also engaging in almost daily and nightly firefights along the city's perimeter with the Mujaheddin.

On October 14, 2004, CNN reported, quoting from Wikipedia, "that the US offensive assault on Fallujah had begun and broadcast a report from a young Marine outside Fallujah, 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, who announced that 'troops have crossed the line of departure.' Hours later, CNN reported their Pentagon reporters had determined that the assault had not, in fact, begun." The Los Angeles Times would later report that "the Marine's announcement was a feint--part of an elaborate 'psychological operation' (PSYOP) to determine the Fallujah rebels' reactions if they believed attack was imminent."
(source)

There was no doubt that the American military was eager to finish what it had started in April, like a hungry lion stalking an escaped and wounded prey, still game, but slowly tiring. The generals had also convinced themselves that Fallujah was the heart of all their troubles in Iraq. Conquer the city and the insurgency would be broken, like a Jihadist Napoleon meeting his Waterloo. Set a harsh example, as the Romans once taught their legions, and the other cities of Iraq would fall in line. But first the November 2nd presidential election had to come and go, so everything was to be put into place in the meantime, the new order of battle completed and the ever pliable, interim Allawi government's authorization to attack officially secured.

Operation Phantom Fury

The pending operation was officially named Phantom Fury and, according to GlobalSecurity.org, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Marines and U.S. Army troops, as well as 2,000 of Allawi's Iraqi Security Forces, would be deployed, backed by all manner of weaponry and aircraft, against some 2000 to 3000 hardcore Mujaheddin. Residents of Fallujah, once a vibrant city of some 300,000 to 350,000 people, were being warned by the military to flee the coming onslaught, the Americans accenting this by cutting off food and water supplies. Thus a vast, unorganized exodus into the desert and neighboring towns and cities began. Think of the evacuation of New Orleans just before Katrina struck to imagine the scale of confusion and hardship for tens of thousands of Iraqis who now had to huddle in chaotic tent cities with sparse food, water and medical support. Typhoid fever and other diseases would quickly break out.

Not everyone in Fallujah could or would leave the city and their homes though, just as in New Orleans. Perhaps as few as several thousand to as many as 50,000 civilians stayed behind, but no one will ever know now, in the aftermath. The frightening thing about this was that the Americans would soon declare parts of the city "weapons free" once the attack began. This means, in combat jargon, that GIs are free to kill anything that moves. Another term for this is "free-fire zone", a phrase made infamous in Vietnam, as entire swaths of territory would fall under that designation, giving the American military and its allies carte-blanche to slaughter thousands upon thousands of "gooks".

On November 2, 2004, George Bush won re-election. Reports immediately began surfacing that a second major assault on Fallujah was now imminent. On November 7, ominously, the Iraqi interim government declared a 60 day state of emergency across Iraq. The following morning of November 8, Prime Minister Allawi formally authorized Operation Phantom Fury, later to be called Operation al-Fajr (the Dawn) by his Defense Minister. Allawi's stated goal was "to liberate the people" and "clean Fallujah from the terrorists".

That same day the new offensive began, on what was also Laylat e-Qadr, the most important and holy night of the year for the Islamic world, the assault commencing with coordinated heavy air strikes, artillery, infantry and armor. But there was an immediate glitch. The CENTCOM commander, Gen. George Casey, had to acknowledge that a number of the Iraqi forces, apparently hundreds of them (possibly upset about killing humans on a holy day), had failed to show up. However, this was not a strategic setback, because the Iraqis had no major, independent responsibilities anyway, but the White House had wanted to give the assault as prominent an Iraqi face as possible.

Onslaughts from the North, the Southeast and the West began simultaneously, with the highest priority given to storming the city's western outskirts, where Marines and Iraqi Security commandos raced to secure two bridges across the Euphrates River and seize Fallujah General Hospital. Why, we must ask, was the hospital such an important target, especially when it is against the Geneva Conventions to target hospitals at all?

The Hospitals

First we must recall that during the April siege of Fallujah, bloody reports from the city's hospitals of civilian casualties, along with powerful newscasts by Al Jazeera, were instrumental in turning public opinion against the siege, ultimately leading to a ceasefire. These were lessons learned at the Pentagon. Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Allawi banned Al Jazeera from Iraq altogether in August. A second step would obviously be to silence the hospital staff at Fallujah General. Here are several accounts of what transpired:

The official version of events is recounted in the pro-Establishment, GlobalSecurity.org article on Operation Phantom Fury:

"In the first stage of their assault, a Marine unit and other troops seized two strategic bridges and a hospital situated on a peninsula formed by the Euphrates River leading to an area that was a possible fall back zone for insurgents driven out of central Fallujah. However, according to MNF-I (Multi National Force-Iraq) the hospital was being used as a center for enemy propaganda to inflate the number of civilian casualties. Iraq's 36th Commando Battalion was placed in charge of Fallujah General Hospital which was kept open to provide medical services to injured civilians. However, according to Defense Tech, the 36th Commando Battalion was originally a 'political' unit drawn from the militias of the five major political parties, but only its Kurdish pesh merga element has really proved reliable." (source)

Here is a second account from the Canadian journalist, Naomi Klein, dated Dec 4:

"The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that 'the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties', noting that 'this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons'. The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers 'stole the mobile phones' at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world. But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients....."
(source)

Pepe Escobar, Asia Times' Roving Eye reporter, also had several notes on all of this:

1) "Dr Muhammad Ismail, a member of the governing board of Fallujah's general hospital 'captured' by the Americans at the outset of Operation Phantom Fury, has called all Iraqi doctors for urgent help. Ismail told Iraqi and Arab press that the number of wounded civilians is growing exponentially - and medical supplies are almost non-existent. He confirmed that US troops had arrested many members of the hospital's medical staff and had sealed the storage of medical supplies.

"The wounded in Fallujah are in essence left to die. There is not a single surgeon in town. And practically no doctors as well, as the Pentagon decided to bomb both the al-Hadar Hospital and the Zayid Mobile Hospital. So far, the International Committee of the Red Cross has reacted with thunderous apathy."
(source)

2) "In terms of the information war, the hospital was indeed the most strategic of targets. During the first siege of Fallujah in April, doctors told independent media the real story about the suffering of civilian victims. So this time the Pentagon took no chances: no gory, disturbing photos of the elderly, women and children - the thousands unable to leave Fallujah in advance of this week's offensive, the civilian victims of the relentless bombing.

"But this did not prevent the world from seeing doctors and patients at the hospital handcuffed to the floor - as if they were terrorists. Hospital director Dr Salih al-Issawi told Agence France-Presse that the Americans blocked him and other doctors from going to the center of Fallujah to help another clinic in distress; he also said an ambulance that tried to leave the hospital was shot at by the Americans - just like in April, when all ambulances were targeted. The Geneva Convention is explicit: in a war situation, hospitals and ambulances are neutral...."
(source)

But this is not the military of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur any longer, a military that honored the Geneva Conventions and the Principles of Nuremberg, whose armies won the affection of civilians in both occupied Germany and Japan after WWII. This is the Rumsfeld military, lost in the dark wilderness of Machiavellianism and murderous egocentrism, marching to the drum beat of a soulless, delusional bureaucrat, enamored with the high technology of killing and oblivious to human suffering.

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Next issue, Part 7:

Fallujah Becomes Guernica

The REAL Hiillary Clinton

Watch Corporate Girl in action....Hillary should be a moderate Republican....She and the Republicans always have lots of corporate money to run on. Any politician with lots of corporate money is not going to represent US.

she surely isn't a Democrat.

We need to hear more from REAL Democrats!!

Two New LIEBER-CRATS

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will join the Republicans and support George Bush’s sorry choice for attorney general. According to Feinstein and Schumer, the Justice Dept. is in desperate need of leadership.

It’s true...the Justice Department is in desperate need of leadership. Appointing another Roberto Gonzalez clone will not provide leadership. Mukasey will not stop torture nor will he hold the Bush Administration accountable under American Law or our Constitution. The vote stealing will continue and who knows who they'll pick for our next President? So why would any self-respecting Democrat vote to nominate another Gonzalez type of Attorney General? I'm starting to think that maybe Cheney and Bush have kept this Congress under illegal surveillance. Maybe they have now "got something" on Feinstein and Schumer so they can manipulate their votes?

The American people are in desperate need of Congressional leadership. We are sick of a Congress that caves into this childish, insane President every time he has a temper tantrum in order to get his way. So what if the Justice Dept did not have a Senate confirmed leader? What’s worst is having a Congress that will not do it’s job and stand up to this president.

Besides, if Bush wants Muskasey so much....just tell Bush NO....He'll be sure to make one of his infamous interim appointments the next time Congress takes a break.

I hope the voters in New York and California find replacements for Feinstein and Schumer….California voters could really go the extra mile and replace the new Decider Nancy Pelosi while they are at it.

Nevada voters should take vote for another Democrat to take Sen. Harry Reid’s seat.

We need to let the Democratic party know that they cannot act like the Republican leaders and get away with it.

We, the people need to take a strong stand and DEMAND that the Democratic party represent us. We desperately NEED at least two opposing parties in this country. We don ‘t need a radical Republican party and a Republican Lite party in Congress.

It’s Democrats like Feinstein, Schumer, Reid, and Pelosi are exactly WHY I am committed to remaining an independent. Don’t take our votes for granted or 2008 will send you a message that Republican Lite is NOT something we will settle for.

Buzz…Buzz…

Stand Up To The Decider(s)

When we got out the vote and elected "our" Democratic Congress to stand up to "The Decider" in the White House none of us imagined that the Washington Dems would create two additional "Deciders" to counter what the people have clearly stated they wanted. Harry Reid is "deciding" for the Senate and Nancy Pelosi for the House. No wonder Congressional ratings in the polls are so low!

Yes the Republican Bloc in Congress is the main reason for the low polls, but the second reason for low poll ratings are these two additional "Deciders."

Harry Reid had "decided" that the giant, powerful telecoms are "above the law" and should not have to face their day in court. The voters are disgusted with the way the rule of law has been thrown away in this country. It's gotten to the point that the "rule of law" only applies to the middle and lower classes in this country....with a token elected official thrown into the mix occasionally.

Why should the most powerful institution in our country--the multinational corporations--be exempt from the law? There is currently a court case pending. Harry Reid you need to let the judicial branch do its job.

Hopefully, all of Virginia's elected officials--both Democrats and Republicans--will stand up to The Deciders and faithfully represent their constituents....not the powerful corporate lobbyists who have lots of money trying to buy "our" elected officials.

The "people" have made it very clear....we want our rule of law restored and our constitution protected. Hopefully we will all be able to contacting our Senators and our house representatives to remind them of that "our" constitution and the rule of law is the basic foundation of the democracy we treasure so highly. Buzz....Buzz.....

Reflections on Hurricane Season 2005, Part Four

Here is my Fourth article generated by my recent tour of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana to inspect 2005 hurricane damage and what has been done in the aftermath. This series was published at OpEdNews.com in the Spring, but I want to continue to bring Mosquito Blog readers up to date, because government on all levels is still agressively working against the basic interests of many of the disenfranchised in New Orleans, particularly Blacks. There is tremendous injustice going on and charges of racism are rife, but skewed ideology and private business sector avariciousness are equal suspects here.

It will be interesting to compare the pathetic government efforts at recovery in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans to how government will now react in southern California to the wild fires devastation. Stay tuned for that.

In this report I have now waded into the heart of hurricane devastation in New Orleans, the Lower Ninth Ward, where I found government relief efforts practically invisible, and only some hearty volunteers and social activists present there to help the victims of Katrina survive day to day.

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May 8, 2007

Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward, Where Tragedy and Hope Meet

By Mac McKinney

Along the Gulf Coast, Post Katrina, Part 4: The Lower Ninth Ward

















Devastated house in the Lower Ninth Ward

After wandering through Orleans Avenue (which was recounted in Part 3) on this increasingly warm and sunny Friday the 13th, I headed on to downtown New Orleans, somewhat disoriented by the unfamiliarity of the streets after some 28 years, but I finally found myself on the end of St. Charles Avenue. I stopped at the nearby St. Charles Bar and Pool Room and ordered a Hurricane, which I sat sipping through a straw like a slow milkshake while I watched an old Gunsmoke episode on the nearest screen. I figured I could use a good shot of rum to get me through the rest of what would surely be a taxing afternoon.

I started walking up busy St. Charles, taking photos, diverting momentarily over to Camp Street, where, surprisingly, I came across the Zen Center of New Orleans, unaware that the city even had a Zen temple. It would take the compassion of Buddha, I thought, to heal all of New Orleans. I walked through Lafayette Square, photographing the statue of school children with John McDonogh, the philanthropist, also unaware that the plight of the public school system would be brutally brought home to me soon in the Lower Ninth Ward.

I eventually reached Canal Street, where I bought some trinkets and took more photographs. You could never guess, looking at downtown New Orleans, that a major hurricane had devastated the city some 20 months ago. Repairs had been relatively quickly and efficiently made, even though parts of downtown had been flooded up to four feet high, as a hotel clerk explained to me. She also told me the easiest way to get to the lower Ninth: drive east on Poydras, right on Claiborne, and just keep going until you cross over a big drawbridge.

So that's what I did. However, once upon S. Claiborne and merged onto N. Claiborne, I was so struck by significant damage right on this major boulevard that I parked and took more photographs. Why, I thought, hadn't such an amazing eyesore as the one shown below been leveled after so long by the city? But again, this was in a predominantly Black district. Is that answer enough?

















An eyesore along N. Claiborne Avenue

After about a ten minute drive I was rolling over the large and rusty looking draw bridge spanning the Industrial Canal, the canal whose levee system had been breached in three places, two of these breaches directly flooding the Lower Ninth, a levee system that investigators have emphasized was one in name only.

As I got off the bridge, I pulled into a close by gas station, jumped out and asked a fellow gassing up to his truck if I was actually in the Lower Ninth right now, which he confirmed. "Where can I find the major damage?" I asked, explaining that I was here to take photos.

"Just turn right at the light two blocks up or take the next right here and start looking," he replied, "The damage is everywhere."

So I turned right, or north, and began what became a two hour plus sojourn up and down the still devastated streets of the Lower Ninth Ward, where some 25,000 people once lived, worked, played and worshipped. On the northside at least, very few people have moved back in. You see a few operable-looking cars parked in front of a few houses, as opposed to the hundreds of abandoned cars all over the place. On the southside, less badly hit, several thousand people have moved back in I am told, and I did see more people out and about, although, due to time constraints, I focused primarily on the northside, where I barely saw a person all afternoon, except for a few city workers, several homeowners, and a handful of contractors, that is until I went by the Common Ground Community Center later on.

You can visit my photo album on the Lower Ninth Ward, by the way, at any time by just clicking here. You can view the photos singly or as a slide show. You don't have to sign in either. There are 176 photos, so take your time.

Almost every house on the northside looks abandoned and damaged, with windows half or all the way out and the front door usually open or loose on its hinges. Some of the front doors or facades had X's on them, ominous reminders of the horrific days of the flooding, when rescuers were putting X's on a house to indicate that it had been checked for people or pets. But many if not most houses had no X. Does that indicate they were never checked?

Gone, obviously, are all the bodies. Gone too are the egregious piles of putrid garbage that had accumulated throughout the Lower Ninth as the floodwaters abated. Determined crews of volunteers dressed in Tyvek suits and respirators came in, from both the Lower Ninth and beyond, to eliminate them. None of this was organized by the city, mind you, despite Mayor Nagin's wonderful-sounding rhetoric, the city acting more like an absentee landlord in a detective series than any kind of leader in the rebuilding efforts here, which just reinforces the viewpoint some residents hold that the city only wants to drive off the black community, so that realtors and carpetbaggers can seize all their property. Or is it just the inertia of bureaucracy and regulations that paralyzes government?

Schools and Churches

In March of 2006 students and organizers also "raided" (since it was off-limits) the Martin Luther King Elementary School on the southside. To quote from an article by Kerul of Common Ground Collective:

New Orleans --In an historic act of solidarity, around 85 students and organizers from across the country risked arrest today by entering Martin Luther King Elementary School in the devastated Lower 9th Ward. Outside the school, a crowd of around 300 gathered wearing Tyvek suits and respirators, holding hand painted signs and chanting to oncoming traffic. In an ongoing effort to rebuild New Orleans, residents of the Lower Ninth Ward requested that these supporters clean the school out....

After raking the leaves and debris littering the entrance to the school, the crowd of volunteers pounded their tools on the pavement, as police observed from across the street. The students made their way into the building, and began sweeping and scooping piles of mud and debris from the lobby, carefully avoiding personal effects and sensitive items, such as plaques and framed pictures that had fallen from the walls in the storm. Among odd findings, an 8 inch dead fish was found in the stairwell leading up to classrooms.

Of the 117 public schools operational before Hurricane Katrina hit, only 20 are open. No plans exist to open schools in the Ninth Ward, giving residents no opportunity to rebuild their community. (March 16, 2006, source)

Unfortunately, over a year later, the school has not reopened, prompting protests. Instead the school has been "moved" uptown, in name only and as a charter school, to the former site of Edgar P. Harney Elementary School in Central City, which does absolutely nothing to help the repopulation and rebuilding of the Lower Ninth. The Louis Armstrong Elementary School, also on the southside, has likewise not reopened. Charter schools, I might add, are looked upon as the Messiah for a new educational paradigm, but the jury has not even formed on this count.

















Joseph Hardin Elementary. Louis Armstrong has yet to reopen on the southside

Things are even worse on the northside, where the Joseph A. Hardin Elementary School has never even been gutted. I can attest to that after stumbling across the school as I drove down St Maurice Avenue. It seemed so disheveled, with weeds and twisted chain-link fencing marring the entrance, that I grew curious and started exploring the premises, soon realizing that no one, apparently, has bothered to do much of anything to this neighborhood tragedy. An overwhelming pathos struck me as I gingerly stepped through semi-dark rooms taking pictures. You'll see what I mean when you look at my photo album. Room after room was trashed, with the ceiling panels falling down, insulation hanging, the overhead trim rusting, trash and desks and books strewn all about, yet, thankfully, there was not a lot of structural damage visible. Can this school be salvaged? I would say yes, but there has to be the will to do so. And unless the schools are all cleaned up and rebuilt, how can the Lower Ninth Ward be revived?

















The lobby of Hardin Elementary in April, 2007

There is a similar problem with the churches on the northside. The two I saw and photographed, the Holy Family Spiritualist Church and The Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, have both been gutted, thank God, but they still await reconstruction, and for the Ward to be revived, the houses of worship must also be revived.

I continued to drive about, stopping to take photos every few blocks or so. There were crazy juxtapositions such as a boat atop a rusted out truck, fairly intact houses right next to completely shattered ones, a tour bus sitting in a weed-grown lot right next to a house, parked as if it was the family car. After rambling though most of the northside, I finally doubled back toward the direction I had started from, driving south on tree-lined Tennessee Avenue, but then turned right a block, then left again onto Deslonde Street, where I could immediately see some activity in the distance ahead.

Common Ground Collective

The bright color blue caught my eyes as I approached, this anomaly gradually transforming into a house covered with a blue tarp that extended out over the large driveway and, past that, another, corner house whose siding had been painted the same blue tint. This was the ward headquarters, so to speak, of Common Ground Collective, a truly amazing volunteer organization that I can't do justice to in this piece alone, only delineating it here.


















Common Ground Community/Distribution Center in the Lower Ninth Ward

Common Ground was founded in the tumultuous days after Katrina struck by social activists Brandon Darby, Scott Crow, King Wilkerson and Malik Rahim with a treasury of $50 and the awareness that, to quote from a March 2, 2006 Alternet article by Billie Mizell, "they could do a better job at helping people than the government of the most powerful nation in the world. Their small monetary investment has grown; the collective now has hundreds of members who have fed, housed and provided medical care for nearly 20,000 people (many more than that in the year since this was written-Mac).

"How did they do it? They went to the houses that were standing and asked the people who were still around, "What can we do to support you?" What they kept hearing: You can't rebuild a community that's buried under tons of garbage. So they started by picking up trash and decomposing animals, and then moved on to putting tarps over homes.

"They began to envision a relief organization radically different from those that had come to Louisiana in Katrina's aftermath. They wanted to bring together people of every background, race and economic level -- doctors working alongside garbage men working alongside cooks working alongside lawyers working alongside kids, all for one common goal. Space in a local mosque was secured for their headquarters, and soon, monetary assistance started pouring in and volunteers started lining up. A medical clinic was opened, and Red Cross immediately began pointing people in need to Common Ground. (Yes, the Red Cross turned the sick away in droves, instead sending them to a tent run by kids and volunteer nurses.) A legal aid clinic was established to offer immediate assistance to those trying to rebuild their lives and to put pressure on the authorities to focus on relief and rebuilding." (source)

Common Ground eventually divided into two separate organizations: Common Ground Relief and Common Ground Health Clinic. Quoting from Wikipedia:

"Common Ground Health Clinic had its beginnings when four young street medics, who had heard Malik Rahim's plea for support, showed up in Algiers a few days after the hurricane. They began riding around on bicycles asking residents if they needed medical attention. Locals were apparently surprised to be approached in this way, since no representatives of government agencies or of the Red Cross had appeared up to that point. The medics offered first aid, took blood pressure, tested for diabetes, and asked about symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other disease.

"After forming as a more cohesive organization, Common Ground began recruiting volunteers to help rebuild homes and provide other free services in the Lower Ninth Ward.... Thousands of people have volunteered for various lengths of time, creating an unusual social situation in the predominantly black neighborhoods, since most of the volunteers have been young white people from elsewhere. An ABC News Nightline report described the volunteers as "mostly young people filled with energy and idealism, and untainted by cynicism and despair, and mostly white, [who] have come from across America and from countries as far away as Indonesia."

"In addition to providing free food, water, cleaning supplies, protective gear, diapers, and health and hygiene goods, Common Ground has offered legal assistance, day care, tutoring, soil and water testing, and Internet access. Although much of their housing remediation work has been in the Lower Ninth Ward, they have a larger station across the Industrial Canal in the Upper 9th Ward of New Orleans." (source)

So I stopped here and started asking a few questions. Since it was already late afternoon now, I didn't ask many, and later decided I would come back Sunday to ask some more. I then walked to the corner and started talking to a handful of people sporting "I Love New York" tee-shirts. They were all church volunteers from New Jersey, and apparently the corner of Deslonde and N. Derbigny in front of Common Ground was a sort of volunteers' rendezvous point. Countless volunteers from around the globe must have met on this same corner since Katrina hit.

When I cam back Sunday I interviewed Jesse and Dan, two hard-core volunteers who had given up their normal lives and homes to serve the people of the Lower Ninth Ward. Jesse explained how they realized, as the Katrina tragedy unfolded, "that there was something from our government that should have been done, but wasn't, so we stepped in and will help as long as needed."

Both felt that the city of New Orleans was not only not helping, but clearly trying to drive people out of the Lower Ninth while maintaining a PR façade. Consequently a lot of Common Ground's efforts are in the legal arena, educating residents about and protecting them from government and private business ill-intent and dishonesty. A hotline was created for residents to report police corruption and brutality.

Jesse himself explained how he had been cold-cocked and beaten up by five of New Orleans' finest after he accidentally wandered into a melee that the police were starting to break up. Jesse explained how there was really a terrific community fellowship and an old, old culture in the Lower Ninth Ward. Generation after generation of families have lived here and everybody on a street knows everybody else. So what a compound tragedy it will be if this community is not revived.

I asked about the levee system, because I had noted how low it looked to me. Jesse anecdotally described how if one is a good jumper, you can stretch your arm up, leap up and barely touch the top of the levee in certain places. Not very encouraging. That is why, ultimately, New Orleans needs an entirely new engineering project to offer this invaluable city flood and surge protection to suit the challenges of the 21st Century. But that would take a massive New Deal Era TVA-style project, something totally beyond the thinking and capability of the atomistic, corporate-minded Bush Administration.

To add injury to insult regarding the levees, Jesse and Dan conveyed how Mississippi River cruise ship lines were attempting to build docking facilities on the far northern end of the Lower Ninth on a natural hurricane barrier called the Cypress Triangle. This would destroy much of this natural defense against flooding and put residents at even greater risk. To compound matters, they also want to construct dangerous and garish high-voltage towers in the ward, an example of the utter callousness and folly of corporations untethered from social needs. The Army Corps of Engineers' proffered advice to residents in light of all the above is: Put your houses on stilts.

Returning to Friday afternoon timewise, after talking to volunteers, I hopped back in my car and drove over to the southside to survey the damage there. I saw much of the same, but with less destructive intensity, and there were more signs of life, functioning houses here and there, neighbors talking, more cars and trucks driving about, so this was a hopeful sign of progress.

By now it was late afternoon with the sun low on the horizon, so I slowly turned back onto N. Claiborne Avenue and up and over the draw bridge, headed for a look at the French Quarter, which I soon discovered looks completely recovered from Katrina, a stark, stark contrast to what I had just witnessed.

I left the Lower Ninth Ward with competing emotions flowing through me. On the one hand, the enormity of the destruction was unnerving and depressing. On the other hand, the spirit of love, selfless service and dedication among the volunteers I met was absolutely inspiring. If this spirit is contagious enough to spread throughout America, then New Orleans and the Lower Ninth will survive and flourish. But if the current paradigm of privatization, "halliburtonization" as some call it, prevails down here, then the Devil will get his due.

Quote for the Day from an American Soldier

The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.

"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground." (Source)

Reminds me of when Lindsay Graham tried to use his "guided tour" in Iraq as "proof" to show "progress" in the Iraq occupation. Jim Webb appropriately labelled Graham's "guided tour" as a "dog and pony show." Our experienced troops know what's really going on. That's why when we have an election the U.S. Government doesn't do what needs to be done to insure that our troops votes are counted! In fact the extremists Republican party actually sends mail to the home of troops stationed in Iraq with a "do not forward" so they can "challenge and eliminate" the vote of that soldier.

The Republican party has a funny way of showing their gratitude for our troops.

Buzz...Buzz....

Family Securiy Matters - for the Bush Family That Is

(source)









(source)


I am glad Mosquito brought up the so-called conservative (Barry Goldwater would scream) political group, Family Security Matters, in her last post. They are actually a front for the NeoCon think tank "Center for Security Policy", and it just so happens that I wrote a public diary at OpEdNews back in August regarding their "conservative" philosophy of government, based on a Paul Watson article. So I am reprinting it here for your enlightenment. If this doesn't raise alarm bells in your heads as to what these seemingly innocuous-sounding NeoCon cadres have in mind for America and the planet, then you are likely a cadaver on a slab. So read on if you are still alive and kicking:

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From my OpEdNews Public Diary of August 17, 2007:

Want to know what goes on in the minds of NeoCons behind closed doors? Want to see how their philosophy, one more akin to Nazi Totalitarianism, Statism and the Mafia all rolled into one, is totally alien to the principles upon which the American Republic was founded? Then check out this expose by Paul Joseph Watson of their not so secret desire to make Georgus Bushus Junior the Emperor of the World.

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The NeoCons had a gaffe recently. They let their collective inner brain get exposed to the public, if ever so briefly. Within this brain we see the workings of disfunctional, delusional psychotics whose rantings would normally end them up in a secure mental ward in an asylum. Instead, the lunatics have taken over the asylum, the Paranoid States of America, formerly known as the United States. Read this excerpt from Paul Watson's latest article, which can be found here:

(I don't usually insert this much from an article, but it is truly important to immediately absorb just how f**ked up in the head these cats are.)

********

Neo-Cons: Make Bush Dictator Of The World


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, August 17, 2007


If you thought Stu Bykovsky's call for a new 9/11 was the lowest the Neo-Cons could sink, think again. A right-wing foundation with links to Dick Cheney has called for Bush to be made lifetime president, ruler of the world, and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed of Arabs by means of a nuclear holocaust.

The Family Security Matters organization masquerades as an independent "think tank" yet was highly influential in President Bush's re-election in 2004 and has links to top Neo-Con ideologues.

The outfit poses as an advocacy group for a new breed of goose-stepping brownshirts - so-called "security moms," who are noted for their blind obedience to neo-conservatism as a result of believing every ounce of fearmongering that emanates from the Bush administration on the inevitability of mass casualty terror attacks.

"In late 2004, Media Matters for America discovered that the phone number listed on FSM's website actually belonged to the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a rabidly hardline foreign policy outfit run by former Reagan administration figure Frank Gaffney," reports Right Web.

The Center for Security Policy is an umbrella organization that includes the National Security Advisory Council, whose members hold senior positions within the Bush administration itself. Former and current members include Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and the organization has also given awards to Donald Rumsfeld.

The FSM foundation itself also has ties to the Anti-Defamation League, the International Women's Forum, numerous nationwide television and print media outlets, and includes on its board of advisors Neo-Con radio host Laura Ingraham and former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, James Woolsey.

Representatives of FSM also routinely appear as guests on Fox News and their website is a cesspool of anti-American fervor - acting as a cheerleader for the invasion of Iran, the warrantless wiretapping program (opponents of which are labeled "traitors") and lauds the Patriot Act as "An irreplaceable tool utilized by our Secret Service to keep us safe."

In an August 3rd article, contributing editor and philosopher Philip Atkinson penned a feverish diatribe that calls for the end of democracy, for Bush to be made ruler of the world as Julius Caesar was made emperor of Rome, for Bush to be made lifetime President in the U.S., and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed by means of nuclear genocide and re-populated with Americans.

The comments are so fundamentally sick and twisted that the reader must absorb the following passages in full to recognize the true depravity of what the Neo-Con fringe truly embrace.

After calling democracy 'the enemy of truth and justice', Atkinson openly calls for genocide and mass slaughter."The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

"The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead."

He then cites Julius Caesar, the reviled dictator of the Roman Empire, as an example of how Bush should engage in rampant ethnic cleansing.

"When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.

Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome.

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies."

Atkinson then concludes by stating such actions would allow Bush to declare martial law, become permanent President of the U.S. and eventually ruler of the entire world."He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

"President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming "ex-president" Bush or he can become "President-for-Life" Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons."

The sheer abhorrence of the diatribe could lead many to think that this was some kind of attempt at black humor, a faux article written by a liberal intended as a parody to ridicule right-wingers, but it's not, it's real - this is what many of the Neo-Cons actually embrace.

To the kind of people who think like this, carrying out a 9/11 style attack is like a walk in the park.

-end of excerpt

********

Again, please check out the rest of this expose at this weblink

Conservative Front Group releases list of dangerous organizations

Family Security Matters, a conservative front group,
has just released it's list of the ten most dangerous organizations in America. If you are enrolled in a university or college (or are a graduate) than you are very familiar with the #2 organization on the list....It seems education makes for a dangerous America. No wonder Bush developed the No Child Left Behind program....Bush was just "protecting" us. Here's the Family Security Matters top ten list of the most dangerous organizations in America.

10) ThinkProgress
9) Muslim Student Association
8) CodePINK
7) American Civil Liberties Union, National
6) Family Research Council
5) Center for American Progress
4) League of the South
3) MoveOn.org
2) Universities and Colleges
1) Media Matters for America

Photos of the Blackwater Protest at Moyock, NC

A hardy coalition of peace and justice activists took on Blackwater USA Saturday, Oct 20, 2007 at their world headquarters, outraged by a long history of bloody incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan and culminating in the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad on Sept 16. I posted a news item a few days ago on Mosquito Blog which you can check out later for more information.

Meanwhile, independent photographer Joe Filipowski sent me a CD full of photos of the Blackwater Protest in Moyock last Saturday, with the request that I get them out to the public, so I have been doing that. I took some 80 plus of his best photos and loaded them on my Kodak Gallery space for everyone's perusal, but I thought I would show you a few of them here at Mosquito Blog to twik your interest. You can follow them up via the link to the rest of the photos at the bottom of this post.

To briefly summarize, there were protesters outside of the Blackwater entrance along both sides of the roadway and bleeding onto a nearby city street. There was a guerilla theater partial reenactment of the Nisour Square massacre, and there were seven arrests of activists who quietly chose to practice civil disobedience. The police were pretty cool about this and the whole event went off very successfully.

There was local and Virginia coverage of the protest, with some independent media types joining in, or protesters simply being their own media journalists and photographers. The message got out that there is very vocal resistance on both coasts now to Blackwater's martial ambitions and violence.





























You can see the rest of Joe's photos by clicking here . You don't have to sign in, just go to "view slideshow".

It is hoped that this protest will serve as an inspiration to others who are challenging the government/corporate war machine that is devastating humanity and the planet.

Surprise--Fox News Faking the News yet again...

Think Progress broke this story on how Fox News used a old FBI memo (neglecting to tell it's viewers the memo was from four years ago) to "connect" the California fires to Al Qaeda. Fox News continues to stay on the Republican "shock and awe" script. If the Republicans can keep
Americans shocked and awed like deer in the headlights they can continue to allow their corporate cronies to rob our National Treasury AND dismantle our rights and our constitution.

Is there anyone out there (besides "charles) who will admit they depend on Fox News to keep them informed?

Thanks to Think Progress for the h/t you can also view the Fox transcript there.

Buzz...Buzz.....

Bush Approved Torture

First watch Bush Lie....



More than 100,000 pages were finally released under the Freedom of Information act and the result is the book Administration of Torture . In this book General Micheal Dunlavery reports that President Bush gave him "marching orders" to have the Pentagon approve harsher interrogation methods for use at Guantanamo.

The book sources an Army investigator reporting that Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in overseeing the interrogation of a Guantanamo prisoner Mohammed al Qahtani. The prisoner was forced to parade naked in front of female interrogators wearing women's underwear on his head and was led around on a leash while being forced to perform dog tricks.

“It is imperative that senior officials who authorized, endorsed, or tolerated the abuse and torture of prisoners be held accountable not only as a matter of elemental justice, but to ensure that the same crimes are not perpetrated again.”--Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh

I wonder if the Democratic Congress is going to continue to do nothing but give us lip service now that the torture has been traced all the way to Rumsfeld and Bush. Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone would at least start the impeachment hearings. If these were started it would be difficult (if not impossible) for Bush and Cheney to invade Iran and/or impose martial law in the United States.

If our Congress continues to refuse to act maybe the World Court will mete out the justice that is necessary to restore some balance of power in our world...and maybe some in Congress will also be held to account.....

Buzz...Buzz....

Project Censored--25 Top Stories Ignored

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008

#1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
# 3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
# 4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
#6 Operation FALCON Raids
#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
#8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
#9 Privatization of America’s Infrastructure
# 10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations’ Debt Relief
# 11 The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan
# 12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops
# 13 Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants
# 14 Impunity for US War Criminals
# 15 Toxic Exposure Can Be Transmitted to Future Generations on a “Second Genetic Code”
#16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
# 17 Drinking Water Contaminated by Military and Corporations
# 18 Mexico’s Stolen Election
# 19 People’s Movement Challenges Neoliberal Agenda
# 20 Terror Act Against Animal Activists
# 21 US Seeks WTO Immunity for Illegal Farm Payments
# 22 North Invades Mexico# 23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
# 23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
# 24 Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President
# 25 Who Will Profit from Native Energy?

Exposing Fox News

These are clips from Outfoxed. Robert Greenwald (recipient of journalism's prestigioua Upton Sinclair award) is the director of Outfoxed.

Fox News, in its present state, will never have a reporter win a muckraker award like this.

With just a little bit of research one will know NOT to depend on Fox News for anything but examples of corporate bias and right wing propaganda.

If you haven't seen OutFoxed why not? Have you thought about the corporate ownership and interests of your local news and other national news sources?

Protest at Blackwater's Moyock Headquarters Last Saturday

On Saturday a coalition of peace and justice activists bearded the wolf in his lair, staging a protest and guerrilla theater right outside the corporate gates at Moyock, North Carolina. Seven activists engaged in civil diobedience and were arrested. Blackwater has been put on notice from coast to coast now that Americans don't want a modern Murder, Incorporated International being enshrined in our country.











An anti-Blackwater Protester Outside Blackwater's World Headquarters (Source: WNCT, Channel 9 in Greenville, NC. Check out their coverage too, with news video, by clicking here )

*******

There have been several local reports of Saturday's protest, although I don't think the national media picked it up. What else is new?

But the excellent reporter for The Virginian Pilot, Bill Sizemore, did however write a news report with five great photographs by Chris Curry of the Pilot as well. Below is an excerpt of the article. You can read the entire article by clicking here and note when you do that the photos are a series of five that you can activate.

Sizemore has also written a terrific report on Blackwater which you can access by clicking here.

Photos: Seven protesters arrested at Blackwater's headquarters
The Virginian-Pilot
© October 21, 2007
Last updated: 7:05 PM

Special Report: Inside America's Private Army

By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot

MOYOCK, N.C.

Seven people were arrested Saturday at Blackwater Worldwide’s front entrance after protesters re-enacted the Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater contractors in which 17 Iraqis died.

It was the first protest at the 10-year-old private military company’s headquarters, a reflection of its heightened profile since the Baghdad shootings stirred Iraqi anger and created a diplomatic crisis for Blackwater’s client, the U.S. State Department.

The protesters drove a small gray station wagon, covered with simulated bullet holes and smeared with red paint, onto Blackwater’s property. One lay back in the driver’s seat and five others got out and lay on the ground, as if they had been shot.

The scene was intended to mimic that in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where an Iraqi doctor and her son died in a fusillade of gunfire as their car approached a Blackwater diplomatic convoy......

Currituck County sheriff’s deputies, called to the scene by Blackwater guards, told the protesters they were on private property and asked them to leave. When they didn’t respond, they were handcuffed and placed in a sheriff’s van. Some went limp and had to be dragged.

A crowd of about 50 more protesters who had gathered along the adjacent public road cheered as the seven were driven away. The group carried signs with slogans such as “Bring Blackwater to Justice,” “Security Contractors are Unlawful Combatants” and “Blackwater: Shoot First, Ask No Questions.”......

The protest was organized by the Norfolk Catholic Worker and Blackwater Watch, an activist group based in Durham, N.C.

Christian Stalberg, a spokesman for Blackwater Watch, said the group’s aim is to “shut down Blackwater.”

“It’s an unmitigated disaster,” he said. “They’re irresponsible and totally unaccountable.”

DeMott, who described himself as a Vietnam War veteran, said he was willing to risk arrest because “not to raise my voice would be to tacitly condone Blackwater and its murderous activities.” ......................

The Joys of the Bush Paradigm in Iraq

What have we wrought?














Outside a morgue in Baquba, Iraq, family members cry near the body of a 17-year-old girl killed during a raid by Iraqi forces. It has been five years since the authorization of US military force in Iraq.
(Photo: Reuters) (source: Truthout.org)

The Buddha said over two thousand years ago that hatred will never vanquish hatred. Only love can vanquish hatred. This is an immutable law of the universe.

America, collectively, went into Iraq with hatred and racism in its heart. Underneath all the fine rhetoric was a deep lust to strike out and punish, if not destroy, a people we have never had any real awareness of, substituting instead decades of Hollywood stereotypes about evil, violent, thieving, lascivious Arabs. These stereotypes, although more subtle than the Nazis' fragrant stereotypes against the Jews, have been every bit as deadly. America has actually transferred this traditional Western and Germanic/Anglo-Saxon anti-Semitism against Jewish peoples, dating back hundreds of years, for a self-righteous anti-Semitism against the Arabs, because, if you even know, Arabs and Jews are both considered Semitic peoples. They were both cut from the same cloth geographically and ethnically. Moslems and Jews even share the same ancestral "grandfather", Abraham.

So if educated Americans have ever wondered how in the world the sophisticated German people could have gone along with the Nazi agenda, with the massive crimes against humanity, with the endless passion for war, violence and torture, all we have to do is look at ourselves for the last six years and how we have leisurely walked down the seductively negative path of fear, violence and loathing. We have now perpetuated a Holocaust in Iraq, with anywhere from half a million to over a million dead, with some two million plus Iraqis in external exile, another two million in internal exile. Hundreds of thousands are sick, wounded, depressed, deranged, unemployed or in prisons, overt or covert, some of which still practice torture beyond prying eyes.

This is America's self-expression in the world today, massive death and suffering, compliments of the traditional Right-wing, the corporate Merchants of Death, and the Trotskyite-style Neocon fanatics. They will inevitably say in their alienated, sophistic ways, "So what, who cares, they're sub-human, and enemies of Christ or Jehovah or the American Century anyway."

But it does matter, because now this is their and our Karma. And what goes around comes around. So how will America work its way out of such terrible crimes? Is this even possible, to offer contrition at this point and try to make amends?

Even worse, America has made itself less and less human by dehumanizing others, so cruelty and inhumanity will follow us home, so to speak. Our social and political interactions within America will coarsen and harden, indeed they already have. The faux Social Darwinism of the 19th Century has returned with a flourish - the survival of the fittest, the richest, best armed and most unscrupulous.

And then we have the walking wounded. For those who have literally shot and killed or tortured Iraqis, particularly women and children, they now have their demons and ghosts inside of them permanently, no matter how they try to repress this black hole through liquor and drugs and self-denial. And we have thousands of GIs or ex-GIs carrying this burden.

This is why I don't go and beat my neighbor and burn his house down in a fit of paranoia or sadism, because I know it will all come back on me, sooner or later, no matter how invincible I think I might be. The human ego, no matter how arrogant it is, is not running the Universe. A God of Truth and Justice is. And it isn't any different for nations.

Pity the nation.

When will the Bush Cabal End?

(Warning: This Video contains some war images that the American people are not used to seeing... since the corporate media has sanitized the war, deciding to show invasions like they are some video game.)

It looks like it's up to the "people" to demand an end to the Bush Cabal--Don't give up...Contact your elected representatives at least once a week. Let them know you want Impeachment, and to protect the Constitution and the Civil Liberties it grants to "we, the people."

Unfortunately this democratically controlled congress fears and respects Bush and Cheney much more than they do the voters who gave them the control of Congress. Maybe the Dems need enough wake up calls on a regular basis to instill some respect for the people who actually vote them into office. The Dems need to realize that they don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of capturing the White House if they can't show their base and the American people that they are in reality a second, "opposition" party.

Let's show them that there are not enough "good germans" in this country that will allow Bush and Cheney to continue their war crimes against Iraq or Iran.

The Third Anniversay of the Second Attack on Fallujah

Inside home looking out, whose owner claimed it was shot into by US snipers from nearby rooftops during the 1st Siege of Fallujah.
(source from Dahr Jamail)

This November will mark the third anniversay of the second of two American-led military assaults culminating in the massive destruction of most of the ancient Iraqi city of Fallujah. Consequently, I am republishing my account of this event here on Mosquito Blog, lest we forget. It was first published by the Southern ((I)) in print form, and later at OpEdNews.com, the web-link of which site you can access by clicking on this article's above title.

Earlier this year I posted the first four articles in this series at Mosquito Blog. They dealt with the first assault ending in May, and the immediate aftermath. In the following articles I will go into detail about the much more brutal second assault.

In light of all the controversy over Blackwater, bear in mind that it was the folly of Blackwater that created the circumstances that led to the siege of Fallujah. Remember this as you read on. Blackwater's presence in Iraq has been like the Black Plaque's from the start.

*********

Fallujah, the Guernica of Our Times

Part 5: Cruel November Approaches

By Mac McKinney

The Fallujah Brigade, created to resolve the brutal conflict between the American military and the city of Fallujah by the May Truce, was a political solution, not a military one. The Brigade's overall mission was to pacify the city as an American proxy force through both persuasion and police powers, and to arrest the killers of the Blackwater Four, a goal that was beginning to look like a ludicrous obsession in a country where scores of people were being murdered daily.

The thousand-plus (1600 by some accounts) Fallujah Brigade was hastily created out of, largely, whichever local Iraqis were available with past military experience. Ironically, this included enlisting both members of Saddam Hussein's old Baathist army and, by tactfully looking the other way, insurgents that the Marines had just been fighting against. Consequently, if the Brigade was meant to confront and defang insurgent forces inside Fallujah, it was compromised from the start. And one can imagine Marine Officers knew this. As journalist W. Thomas Smith, former Marine, writing in National Review Online, points out, "Officially, Marine commanders support the Fallujah Brigade. They may not have a choice", as if this was an odious decision. He goes on to emphasize that "Decisions on how to destroy the enemy should be left to the professionals", and then begins a lengthy discourse on the teachings of Sun Tzu, the Chinese author of the hoary Art of War, pointing out in particular the evils of allowing civilians to interfere with the generals. (source)

In early May, the Fallujah Brigade began taking over some of the Marines' responsibilities, although still under the direct control of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. But the Brigade was staring at a transformed city, one that was now militarized and radicalized by recent events. The traditional political structure that had run the city was in chaos, thanks first to the US Army's destabilizing "regency" for months, followed by the Marines' just-aborted siege, so that now the most obvious authorities in Fallujah beyond the Marine Corps perimeter were the ones with all the guns, the insurgents or mujaheddin. And these tended to be God-fearing Sunni Muslims who undoubtedly felt they owed their survival thus far to the grace of Allah, and Allah's intermediaries, the imams, or clerics.

The Shura

Strident martial law, Sharia-style, now began to take effect within the formerly secular-ruled city, a move that was an organic development under siege conditions, but one which would also alienate some Fallujans. A "Mujaheddin Advisory Council or Shura" became a loose umbrella organization to run the very city the Fallujah Brigade was now supposed to take control of, and it included such imposing, hard-line clerics as Abdallah Janabi. The Shura was soon issuing strict Islamist decrees that would have never passed muster during the secular Saddam era. Some have described what was taking place as the "Talibanization of Fallujah."

Pepe Escobar, the well-known journalist who writes the Roving Eye column for Asia Times Online, had this to say in 2004 regarding the new order in Fallujah:

"Writers and professors in Baghdad with close family and tribal ties to Fallujah have explained to Asia Times Online the new order. In today's Fallujah, every military commander is an emir. They may be strident, conservative Salafis, philosophical Sufis, al-Qaeda admirers, former Ba'ath Party army officials, former secret-service agents, or even the average neighbor, a father of six.

"If you qualify as an emir, you are a leading member of what is popularly described as 'the Iraqi resistance' in control of 'liberated Fallujah', a region off-limits to US troops ever since the United States handed over control of the city in May after a month-long siege.

"Along with local imams and tribal chiefs, all emirs are also part of a Shura, a mujahideen council, created last winter and directed by two imams, Abdallah Janabi and Dhafer al-Ubeidi.

"These imams may be considered the spiritual leaders of the resistance in Fallujah. Janabi, from the Saad bin Abi Wakkas Mosque, is a true radical: he is the leader of the takfiris - the fiercest warriors, some Iraqi, some from other Arab countries, some voluntary, some linked to Arab groups. Janabi was the first imam in 2003 to call for armed resistance against the occupation of Iraq, and for the summary execution of spies. Dhafer, from the al-Hadra al-Muhammadiya mosque, is a senior to Janabi in the Shura. His fatwas (religious edicts) carry enormous influence........The mujahideen paint a picture of a city where Sharia law may be the norm, but the air hangs heavy with paranoia - just as it did in Taliban Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The city may now be free of marines, but is under an informal siege by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's new secret-service agents and Central Intelligence Agency operatives. These spies are executed the minute any of the emirs identify them. The emirs parade around town in luxury Western cars with tinted windows, just like the Taliban with their Toyota Land Cruisers did in Afghanistan.

"An undeclared 'foreigner-hunting season' is in effect. It has claimed, among other victims, a Lebanese businessman, the South Korean national Kim Sun-il, and six Shi'ite truck drivers. Janabi justifies all the executions. During the past three months, the mujahideen have also executed more than 30 Fallujah residents, all of them denounced as spies for the Americans..." (Pepe Escobar) (source)

The reference to Minister Allawi above refers to the fact that on June 28, 2004, the American supervised Iraqi Interim Government morphed into the Iraqi Transitional Government, led by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite with a dual Iraqi-British background who lived in exile in England for years and who was instrumental in helping the Blair Government craft its case for war against Iraq. Allawi quickly took a very hostile position toward the Fallujan insurgency and continuously granted US forces carte-blanche for ongoing military actions against the city, including, for example, sporadically blasting Fallujah with one-ton bombs.

Against this evolving insurgent dynamic in Fallujah, the Fallujah Brigade had to accomplish several key demands of the Marines: 1) apprehend the men responsible for killing the Blackwater Four; 2) broker the handing in of the insurgents' heavy weapons; 3) root out and arrest foreign terrorists (another American obsession); and 4) patrol the city. It soon became apparent that the Brigade was having difficulty on all counts, although they were manning various checkpoints. I return to Escobar's account:

"Every entrance to the city is controlled by the mujahideen, who also control the US-trained Iraqi policemen. Most men now are mujahideen, either in the Iraqi National Guard (the former US-trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps); the Iraqi police; and in the population as a whole. The real Ba'ath military power in Fallujah is in the hands of two people with very close ties to the emirs: Jassem Mohammed Saleh - the first commander of the Fallujah Brigade - and Abdullah Hamed.

"The Fallujah-connected sources tell Asia Times Online that the new US-Allawi-appointed Iraqi secret services hoped the Ba'ath military in Fallujah would circumscribe the influence of the mujahideen. The exact opposite has happened. In Fallujah, Ba'athists now answer to the emirs in control of the resistance." (Pepe Escobar) (source)

Brigade Collapse

By June, 2004, the Marines were already expressing public disenchantment with the Brigade, many of whose members saw themselves as peacemakers, not proxy enforcers, and by August, the Marines were openly suggesting that it was a failure. By early September, tensions grew dramatically between the two forces when several Brigade members allegedly fired at Marines near the city limits and the latter returned fire, killing four Iraqis. This incident was the last straw, and on Sept 9th the Corps informed the Brigade they would be dissolved. To quote Colonel Jerry Durant, "The whole Fallujah Brigade was a fiasco. Initially it worked OK, but it wasn't a good idea for very long."
(source)

Brigade members were offered positions with the Iraqi police or national guard. An LA Times article reported, however, that Brigade members were upset and much more likely to join the insurgency. A Major Abed Abaas of the Brigade said, "This was a great violation to the members of the Brigade by the American forces and the Iraqi interim government. Dissolving the Fallujah Brigade, they broke the truce agreed upon last April when the Americans besieged Fallujah."
(source)

Since the Marines never put much stock in the Brigade to begin with, they had never completely ceased military operations against Fallujah. Air strikes continued throughout the summer and fall, often on residential areas, with the rationale that these were legitimate insurgent targets. As a Sept 12, 2004 article by Brian Dominick of the New Standard reports:

"American pilots have struck the city of 300,000 more than a dozen times since ground forces pulled out last spring, however. In fact, they have bombed the city nightly for the better part of the past week, each time striking what US military officials say are terrorist 'safehouses.' On nearly every such occasion, hospital officials have said the strikes killed or wounded women, children and others presumed to be noncombatants.

"New doubt was recently cast on the validity of US targets by an unusual source: In a video the UK Guardian says is being distributed in markets all over Fallujah, unidentified captors reportedly execute an Egyptian man who says his name is Muhammad Fauzi Abdul Aíal Mutwali. Before he is beheaded, Mutwali confesses to having been offered $150 apiece to plant homing devices in the houses of suspected insurgents around the city, to be used to help US pilots hit specific targets in the city.

"In the past, the tactic of using paid informants to determine targets has received criticism for its arbitrary nature and its potential for abuse by competing parties on the ground. This is especially applicable in cases where damage cannot be assessed by the military, and thus informants cannot be held accountable for providing invalid targets.

"While the US military enjoys unbridled control of the skies above Fallujah, the streets appear to belong exclusively to a cabal (the Shura) of some twenty militias whose leaders have begun to meet and coordinate defense of the brazen city, the Guardian reports."
(source)

The military also claimed to be attacking the safehouses of "al-Qaeda in Iraq" led by the mysterious Jordanian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom, some declared, had established Fallujah as his operational base. But sightings of Zarqawi proved as reliable as sightings of the Loch Ness monster, complicated by charges that he didn't even exist, at least not on the increasingly mythic level his media persona was attaining. The Pentagon has added to this cynicism by recently admitting that they have been purposely hyping Zarqawi as a propaganda strategy to influence the Iraqi people (and, indirectly, the American people.) So, where does the reality end and the PSYOP begin regarding Zarqawi? (For more on the Pentagon PSYOP Zarqawi Program, click here.

But as October arrived, one thing was proving increasingly reliable - the growing rumors and reports that the Americans were preparing to launch a second major offensive against the city.

Next issue, Part 6:

Cruel November Arrives

STOP THE NUCLEAR BAILOUT!!

SIGN THE PETITION HERE

THEN CALL YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES...TELL THEM TO STRIP OUT OF THE BILL WHAT THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY PAID TO HAVE "SLIPPED" INTO THE BILL WITH NO DISCUSSION AND NO DEBATE. WE NEED SAFE, GREEN, VIABLE ENERGY. INVEST IN WIND AND SOLAR PLANTS NOT NUCLEAR.

Another FAUX news report

Is there anyone out there who will even admit to seriously watching this propaganda station?

There must be a few "good german" types out there because Bush still has about 20 -25 percent no matter what he is caught doing....many of the "good germans" appear to be network executives and newspaper owners because the American news tends to bury what is uncovered on George Bush and his minions....Buzz...Buzz...

Congrats to the Women Bloggers!!

Vivian Paige posted a list she found of over 100 women political bloggers. Virginia was well represented with gotv, catsmeow commentary, and our very own Mosquito Blog joining Vivian on the list. These were the bloggers that the list compiler found herself.

The list has now grown to over 200 with others sending in links to the site now....It will be interesting to see how big the list grows. We are happy that we were easily found and didn't have to send a link into the list.

It's interesting that the compiler figured out the sex of the Mosquito....but I guess the cat's out of the bag now. We also have Star posting here and our main man Mac McKinney.

Alma Kessling will soon be joining us as soon as I get her the information so she can start posting her stuff. We anticipate that Alma is going to be a very exciting addition for us. She has a lot of insight on local happenings in Hampton Roads as well as the national scene.

From those of us at Mosquito Blog....We hope everyone is doing okay out there. Buzz...Buzz....