IRAQ: Occupiers are Near Prisoners

[DuctapeFatwa]

They are the hated ones, the despised face of U.S.. occupation in Iraq...
Officially too, these are not combat troops, but ”military police” out to catch ”the very bad people” from Saddam's regime. ”They do not have basic skills in civilian policing, and they are unaware of the law they are supposed to be applying,” says Curt Goerig from Amnesty International. At the military camp of the 1st Battalion of the 37th Armoured Division in Baghdad, that shows.

This unit has taken over Baghdad Island, the biggest park next to the Tigris river. The park is now off-limits to the Iraqis...The Department of Defence (DoD) says that in the first four months of the U.S. invasion, about 300 U.S. and British soldiers died in combat and ”non-combat” deaths. But both Iraqis and peace activists in Iraq doubt this figure.

With the death toll rising, and public support for the occupation of Iraq waning, the military is making sure no pictures of soldiers' bodies are shown on television. The military planners want cheerleading for the soldiers instead. There is a proposal from a producer at Fox TV û the most-loved television station by the troops û to produce something called 'COPS, the Baghdad Specials'. ..
The average soldier has little knowledge of the history and culture of Iraq, or of the Islamic faith. ...

the soldiers turn to the army chaplain for guidance. He issues guidebooks, such as 'Prayers for Iron Soldiers' or 'Iron Soldiers' Spiritual Fitness Nuggets', which essentially justify going to war and killing the enemy...A recent issue of Baghdad's activist-run newspaper, al-Muajaha (The Iraqi Witness) reports that a U.S. solider stole 25,000 Iraqi dinars (16 dollars) from supermarket owner Samir Adbul Rasool Al-Humdani. Amnesty International reports that an officer from the 101st Airborne Division stole three million Iraqi dinars (2,000 dollars). ...

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20249

[IndianaGreen]

1. Swiss union GBI condems the arrest of Iraqi labor leaders

I wonder how many Americans have even a clue as to the brutality of US occupation of Iraq. Here is a letter to Paul Bremer complaining about US troops arresting labor leaders for daring to picket.

Zurich,11th september 2003

Swiss union GBI condems the arrest of Iraqi labor leaders and requests
the full respectation of ILO conventions and democratic rights in Iraq

Dear Mr.Brenner

As the Swiss biggest union,we condemn the illegal arresting of 54 Iraqi leaders and members of the Union of the Unemployed of Iraq (UUWI)on August 2 in Baghdad,who were peacefully exercising their democratic right to demonstrate for better conditions in Iraq.

We are informed,that the unionists were only released after the intervention of representatives ot the United Nations,even though they were neither armed nor in any other way violating the law, but
were only engaged in a peaceful 5-day sit-in protest of the treatment of unemployed Iraqi workers by occupations forces in Iraq.

We demand of the U.S.and other occupation forces to fully respect and honor the ILO conventions on labor rights including the right to organize and to protest treatment and conditions.

Especially after having launched this war in the name of democracy and welfare for the Iraqi people, we request the U.S.and any other occupation forces,not only to respect fully the democratic rights and all the rights guaranteed by the ILO Conventions,but also to enhance the living standard of Iraqi citizens,employed and unemployed, and to meet that country ’s humanitarian needs immediately.

http://www.wpiraq.org/english/gbi230903.pdf

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. For most of the voting class, it can't be brutal enough

They want blood, and they want suffering, and they want a lot of it.