Subject: ON PRODUCTION CYCLES
IN "THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY" : FROM THE
CENTER FOR THE ADVANCED STUDY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS,
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
"Troubled waters make for good fishing !"
is an adage attributed to the 19th-century capitalist, Jay Gould. This gem of
wisdom from an expert on the subject is enough to explain the 21st-century
investment opportunities which a permanent-warfare state represents. Halliburton
Corporation
is but one of many corporations with military contracts, but its
multi-billion-dollar investments in Iraq serve as a reminder that an astute
social class consciousness does exist, even if we do not approve of its
consequences.
The interests of corporations such as Halliburton, Inc. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=15.
and The Carlyle Group
are not some
metaphysical construct, but rather they are rooted in real relationships, which
exist in the real world; they manifest real power, with a real purpose, and
they produce real consequences.
Below, we are sharing with readers two recent Blogs
from Dahr Jamail's
In item A. we have an eyewitness account of "Collective
Punishment" against the Iraqi nation for living in
Item B. is an unspeakable description of the carnage inflicted by
These are images of catastrophe for most of us, whether we have or
have not developed a social class consciousness. But for many class-conscious
capitalist investors, these accounts mean only one thing :
the guarantee of future profits in their military investments.
Finally, CEIMSA invites readers to attend a series of regional
conferences to be held in Grenoble, beginning on
Thursday, 27 January, where Grenoble graduate
students in American Studies will present their research on the impact of
American transnational corporations, after a showing of the award-winning
documentary, The Corporation,
produced by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan.
(For the schedule of these conferences, please see attachment at the end of
this page.)
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université
Stendhal-Grenoble3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
___________________________
A.
From Dahr Jamail :
Date:
Subject:
Collective Punishment
Collective Punishment
It
s not a new tactic here in
The military claimed
they had been attacked by fighters in the area, while the locals denied any
knowledge of harboring resistance fighters.
Standing in a field
full of unexploded mortar rounds a farmer explained, We
don t know why they bomb our house and our fields. We have never resisted the
Americans. There are foreign fighters who have passed through here, and I think
this is who they want. But why are they bombing us?
At that time U.S.
Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters
that Operation Iron Grip in this area sends a very clear message to anybody who
thinks that they can run around
I counted 9 small
tails of the mortar rounds sticking into the air in this small section of the
field.
I asked if the
family had requested that the Americans come remove the unexploded ordnance.
Mr. Shakr, with a very troubled look told me, We asked them the first time and they said OK, we ll come take care of it. But they never came. We asked them
the second time and they told us they would not remove them until we gave them
a resistance fighter. They told us, If you won t give
us a resistance fighter, we are not coming to remove the bombs.
He holds his hands
in the air and said, But we don t know any resistance fighters!
Also last winter I
also reported on home demolitions in
That pattern appears
to remain the same, as I found today in another visit to the al-Dora region of
Seven weeks ago,
after having suffered many attacks by the Iraqi resistance in the area, the
military began plowing date palm orchards, blasted a gas station with a tank,
cut the electricity which is still down, and blocking roads in the rural
farming area.
As we drove deep
into the rural farming area along a thin, winding road which parallels the
The Americans were
attacked from this field, then they returned and started plowing down all the
trees, explains Kareem, a local mechanic, None of us
knows any fighters and we all know they are coming here from other areas to
attack the Americans, but we are the people who suffer from this.
Across the way are
other piles of scorched date palms.
Mohammed, a 15
year-old secondary school student stands near his home explaining what he saw.
There is a grave of an old woman they bulldozed, and then he points to the
nearby road, They destroyed our fences, and now there
are wolves attacking our animals, they destroyed much of our farming equipment,
and the worst is they cut our electricity.
They come by here
every night and fire their weapons to frighten us, he explains while pointing
out an MRE on the ground, left from some soldiers who used the bulldozers.
But we need
electricity to run our pumps to irrigate our farms, added Mohammed, And now we are carrying water in buckets from the river
instead and this is very difficult for us. They say they are going to make
things better for us, but they are worse. Saddam was better than this, even
though he executed three of my relatives.
His mother, Um Raed, cannot stop talking about the electricity.
If there are bombs
why do they attack our homes, she pleads, Why don t they follow the people who
attack them? Why do they come to our family? All we need now is electricity so we
can run our water pumps. I don t need my house, but we need water. This is our
planting season.
Ihsan, a 17 year-old student, joins the
conversation near the bulldozed orchard. I was beaten by the Americans, he
explains, They asked me who attacked them and I do not
know. My home was raided, our furniture destroyed, and one of my uncles was
arrested.
Um Raed is asking him to talk about the electricity some more,
but then adds, Yesterday at 5:30pm they came here and fired their weapons for
15 minutes randomly before they left.
I glance at the
ground and see the casing of a 50 caliber bullet while she is speaking, Nobody attacked them. Why are they doing this? We told them
to come and search but they didn t. They just shot
their guns and left.
She holds her arms
in the air and pleads, Please, please, we must have
electricity. They destroyed two of our pumps and threw them in the river!
A 20 year-old farmer
sees us talking and walks up to us. For almost the last 2 months, since they
plowed these fields, we have had no electricity. How can I
irrigate my fields without pumps, asks Khalid, With
no electricity there is no water. They come here every evening and fire their
weapons, and now my house has no glass in the windows.
I glance over at Um Raed s home, which has bullet pock marks in the wall.
Every night they
come on their patrols and shoot everywhere, added Khalid.
A 55 year-old blind
farmer approaches us with his cane. He listens to the conversation then shares
his experiences. The problem now is no gas for our machines, then
they shot our gas station with a tank, he says while his eyes look over my
shoulder, These trees are hundreds of years old and they cut them. Why?
They destroyed so
many of our fences, he adds, And now we have wolves
attacking our animals. We are living on the food ration now,
that is all. We only need to stop this hurting.
While others
listening are nodding, he continues on, Every night I
hear them come and shoot. During the beginning, when they searched our houses
they didn t steal. Now they steal from us. They didn t hurt us at the beginning, but now they are hurting
us so much!
We walk a little
ways down the road and Ahmed, a 38 year-old farmer talks with us. He d been detained during a home raid on
I don t know why I
was arrested, he explained of his journey through the military detention system
for 10 months, which found him experiencing treatment like having mock
executions, being bound and having his head covered for days on end, and being
held at a camp near Basra in the scorching summer temperatures.
At that camp they
hung a sign where we stated that said, The Zoo, he explained. He claims that
his home and fields were searched and no weapons were found. His ten month
detention included witnessing sexual humiliation of prisoners, and regular
beatings.
I watched black
American soldiers put naked Iraqi women in a cell and then enter the cell, he
explains, I heard the screams as they soldiers raped the women.
Sheikh Hamed, a well dressed middle aged man approaches and
suggests we move off the road in case a patrol comes through and begins
shooting again.
After moving off the
road he says, These are our grandfathers orchards.
Neither the British nor Saddam behaved like this. This is our history. When
they cut a tree it is like they are killing one of our family.
He says three of his
cousins were executed by Saddam Hussein s regime before adding, We don t want this freedom of the Americans. They are
raiding our homes and terrorizing us at anytime. We are living in terror. They
shoot and bomb here everyday. We have sent our families to live elsewhere.
We are told the road
is blocked, so we drive a little further along the
One of the men with
us tells us that at the same time the date palm orchards were destroyed the
road was blocked by first the military blasting it, then placing smaller
concrete barriers.
People grew weary of
walking to their homes from the roadblock, so farm tractors were used to pull
the blocks and reopen the road. Yesterday the military brought larger barriers
and the road is sealed yet again.
An 80 year old man
carrying several bags of food gingerly makes his way through the barrier then
shuffles on down the road towards his home.
Hamoud Abid, a 50
year-old cheery farmer meets us just past the roadblock and I ask him what the
soldiers told him about the roadblock.
They humiliate us
when we talk to them, he says, They would not tell us
when they will remove these blocks, so we are all walking now.
He says the soldiers
used to come ask him to search his fields and he would allow it, and give them
oranges while they searched. They searched them 10 times and never found
anything, of course, he explains, But they came last
time more recently and caused destruction to my wall. They were starting to
knock over my trees when a tread fell off their bulldozer, so they left.
But just before
leaving, they destroyed his front gate and left a block of concrete as a
calling card.
We begin to leave
and Hamoud, despite this horrendous situation
cheerily says, You should stay. I will grill fish, and
you can stay the night in my home.
We decline and he
insists we at least stay for lunch or chai, but we
must be going.
As we drive back out
the small, winding road two patrols of three Humvees
each rumble past us headed towards where we d just come from. Just after that
two helicopters rumble low overhead towards the same area.
I just phoned the
military press office in
The spokesman, who
won t give me his name, said he knew nothing about such things, but that there
were ongoing security operations in the Al-Dora area.
___________________________
B.
from Dahr Jamail :
Date
Subject: The
Tsunami of
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
The Tsunami of
The morgues at the
hospitals of
The smell rushes out
at us as the doors are opened. I’ve smelled the burning bodies on the
funeral pires in
The smell rushes out
at us as the doors are opened. I’ve smelled the burning bodies on the
funeral pires in
Many of the bodies
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=halfbody>
are from Fallujah, obviously picked off the
streets-parts of which are eaten by dogs
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=eatenlegs>.
The bodies from Fallujah have the typical oddly
discolored skin
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=fighter2>,
along with other abnormalities
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=face1>.
I walk out of the
first freezer straight into a metal pole. Two of the people with me, including
Abu Talat, make sure I’m ok as I stand there
stunned…I didn’t even feel the pole, just that it stopped me from
proceeding to the next freezer.
Bodies are piled
into the freezers
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=fullmorguehorrible>
and most are uncovered, but not all. The hardest visuals to get out of my head
are those of the eyes <http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=eyes>.
The doctor with us
says that most of the bodies have been shot…and are not from Fallujah. The violence against Iraqis continues
unabated…worsening by the day.
I do my
job…taking photo after photo of the most horrible thing I’ve ever
seen in my life. Many of the bodies are so old they are shrinking into
themselves.
After the last
cooler, we start to walk away. I am spitting, trying to get the smell to leave
me…Abu Talat is staring off into distance.
After I gag, the hospital worker who accompanied us to the coolers walks
towards me with a small vial of scent, and begins rolling it across my upper
lip.
“Shukran jazeelan (thank you very
much),” I tell him, then he proceeds to do the same for Abu Talat, then we walk on.
We talk with the
doctor more as we shuffle along. “The morgues in all the hospitals are
filling with bodies everyday, most of them shot by
soldiers,” she says, “But also from crime and accidents. So many dead civilians.”
We walk, well, kind
of shuffle out of the hospital, towards the car.
“That is the
most horrible
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=holehead>
thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” I say to Abu Talat.
We get in the car
and just drive.
“I don’t
know what to do,” I tell him, “What do you want to do?”
He holds his hands
up, expressing that he doesn’t know either. “Let’s just
drive,” I say.
“Ok, I’m
just trying to drive,” he replies.
I decide to go buy
some supplies…grasping towards normalcy as I catch whiffs of the decaying
bodies despite the nice smelling scent that was rubbed across my upper lip.
We buy some lunch
only because it’s lunch time and we’re
supposed to be hungry, then drive the rest of the way to the hotel.
My head is spinning,
as is Abu Talat’s. “I am
traumatized,” I tell him. “Yes, my head is spinning also,” he
replies before adding, “I want to take a shower.”
“I wish I
could shower from the inside,” I tell him.
“From the
outside it’s very easy,” he says quietly, “But how do we clean
from the inside?”
We go to my room and
I begin writing. The food sits in its bag on the couch…Abu Talat says, “In Islam, if we touch a dead body, even
if we just see one, we should shower,” he says while walking into the
bathroom.
He pauses as he catches
me staring out the window at nothing, “Hey, don’t think about it. I
know it is hard.” I slowly look up at him as he adds, “It is harder
on me, because I am Iraqi. My heart is shredding.”
He walks into the
bathroom of my hotel room to take a shower, as I go back to writing this.
Nobody knows who
these dead people are. The coolers are full. Others are full too, in the other
hospitals.
He finishes and
begins to pray as I start my shower, trying to wash the bodies away. It helps,
some.
But it’s the eyes
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album30&id=eyesfinal>
that got me. And they won’t go away.
_______________________________________________
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and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
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