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Here are two articles that show how abominably the Iraqis are being treated in their own country by the so-called liberators. Apparently, USUK has learned from the Israeli military: Like in Palestine, they have set up 'checkpoints'. And anyone who doesn't immediately understand the orders gets shot down. People who cherish the illusion that there is outrage only in the Arab world, should think again. Arundhati Roy is right when she speaks of a "tidal wave of hatred for the US rising from the ancient heart of the world". I myself can only feel loathing and anger for these bastards. --Elga <START FWD> Arab News SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY http://www.arabnews.com/print.asp?id=24878&ArY=2003&ArM=4&ArD=8 Exclusive: Vignettes of Liberation Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed Published on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 JEDDAH, 8 April 2003 The war might be nearing its end, but we already have a cache of pictures to last a lifetime. These are images of death and destitution only humans are capable of inflicting on other humans. I find the still pictures more devastating than the television ones. Perhaps the fact that they are frozen forever gives them a more haunting and devastating effect. There is no way we can forget that little child whose skull was ripped open. He lies on the ground serene in death while the upper part of his skull is open as if the explosion had occurred inside his brain. He is safe from explosions now; yet a nation suffers the legacy. He joins Mohammad Al-Durra, the other Arab child, who was similarly slaughtered by the same arms and the same manufacturers on the streets of Palestine hiding behind his father for protection. An adolescent boy, sitting up on his sickbed, one arm amputated while the other flashes the sign of victory, gives the world a stare that is as damning as the words of Mercutio on both houses of Verona: A plague o both your houses! He might have suffered under Saddam, but his curse goes to London and Washington. A photo of elderly women, clad in their abaya or chador, spreading their hands and being frisked by a female US Marine, made the front page of every newspaper in the Arab world on Sunday. This is an image more devastating to an Arab than a corpse mutilated by merciless bombs. The dead are safe from further humiliation, but to handle our chador-clad women in view of the world is nothing short of outrageous. The only thing that was enslaved by the liberators in that scene was the dignity and humanity of these women. These women are our archetypal mothers. Prisoners, very much according to the Geneva Convention I'm sure, were stripped in front of the cameras. They were handled with the utmost disregard to their dignity and their humanity. Any old sack lying about would do as a hood. The plastic that is used to tie their hands is of the most durable industrial type produced by the factories of Pennsylvania. The US cried foul when they thought their prisoners were mistreated, but nothing was heard from them or their media about such scenes played endlessly on screens across the world. The millions in the Arab world watching this do not need pundits to explain anything. The pictures are worth the volumes of all human learning. A sequence of pictures was played on television that summed up this war of liberation. A Bedouin in his pickup truck was stopped by the Marines. They roughed him up, pulled him out of his truck, and started searching it. In the glove compartment, they found a wad of cash. The camera zoomed in as two Marines started counting the cash. They decided that he had been paid large sums of money to fight them. They hurriedly took him into the waiting helicopter. The camera is in the helicopter with him. It fans back down to earth: The Marines are still counting the money while the pickup truck is left in desolation. Had anyone bothered to brief those Marines about Arab life and the Bedouins, they would have known that the man had probably just made a deal, selling a camel or a few sheep and was returning home with his money. As for the wads of cash, the Iraqi dinar has slipped so low that a bundle of it would not add up to $10. What that man had would add up to $100 at best. He also kept it in the glove compartment of his dashboard, which is typical of how Bedouins carry their money when they return from the market. What exactly was left of that man and his life? A memory perhaps? He has disappeared forever into the mayhem of a war he did not choose. The sight of his forsaken pickup truck diffused more sense of desolation than any burned up tank or bombed-out house. An elderly woman was lamenting to herself. Someone stuck a microphone close enough to pick up what she was saying. Why is this Bush so nasty? she asked no one in particular. Our houses shake so violently we cannot sit in them. She wiped her face, oblivious of the mayhem around her, and added: They do not like us. May God curse them! The pictures of devastation and human suffering continue. The world watches, and so do we. There have been reports of jubilation in Israel at these pictures. Not a single network picked it up as they did the Palestinian celebrations after Sept. 11, which afterwards many commentators said was older film taken after a human bombing. Well-dressed politicians in London and Washington can try as hard as they want to convince us that it is all for our own good. We will not believe them. We will believe our own eyes. ### Copyright 8 2003 [2] ArabNews All Rights Reserved. <END> <START FWD> Arab News SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY http://www.arabnews.com/print.asp?id=24875&ArY=2003&ArM=4&ArD=8 Exclusive: War Against Iraqi People Essam Al-Ghalib, Arab News War Correspondent Published on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 NAJAF, 8 April 2003 This is no longer a war against Saddam and his regime, if it ever was. It has become a war against the Iraqi people. The number of civilians killed since the invasion began is massive, and is rising dramatically as American and British forces continue to make their way north through densely populated areas. Each Iraqi city has lost many civilians, at times entire families, to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sami Osama, a truck driver, was delivering 5,000 kg of tomatoes through the small town of Sanawa when he approached an American checkpoint. According to witnesses who spoke to Arab News yesterday, he did not understand the orders in English and approached the checkpoint as normal. The US forces opened fire, killing him instantly and injuring two of his passengers. A friend of the deceased told Arab News: Had there been a translator at the checkpoint, he would be alive now. His friend who was driving with him said that before he was executed he was slowing down and asking what the US troops could be shooting at. While Arab News was interviewing witnesses to the death of Sami Osama, a woman approached and asked to use a satellite phone belonging to this correspondent. She wanted to call the United States for, as she put it, a humanitarian reason. She explained that her brother had arrived from the United States, where he was living with his wife and 10 children before the war began. He had been on a visit to his own family in Nassiriyah and Sanawa, and was killed there as the US troops advanced. In Sanawa, witnesses described how American troops were firing at suspected Iraqi positions, some located in residential areas. Huge holes could be seen in virtually every building along the heavily traveled highway to Sanawa, and there was also a burned-out high school. Saleh Mohammed, a local, told Arab News: One Iraqi soldier will enter a neighborhood and fire a few shots at the fighter plane, and they will respond with a barrage of shots killing as many as 50 civilians in the effort to get him. Further north, in the city of Hamza, a taxi driver told of a rescue operation in progress at a Baath Party center bombed from the air. A witness told Arab News: It was nighttime and there were civilians walking in front of the building when the first explosions started. They were all buried underneath the rubble. The rescue efforts or, more accurately, the body recovery had been going on for two days. So far, 22 corpses have been removed. They were laid to rest just near the place where they were killed. While Arab News was interviewing witnesses at the scene, the body of an eight-year-old boy was removed from under the rubble. Among the tragedies of war comes desperation, and a loss of dignity. During the three-hour drive from Sanawa, Iraqis lined the roads, begging for food and water. Arab News came across a three-year-old boy named Ahmed and his father. The boys feet were swollen, cut and bleeding as a result of severe eczema. The father explained: We were told medical service will be provided for the sick and the injured. But since the Americans arrived, I havent been allowed to drive outside Sanawa to get the medication I need for my son. Just outside Hamza, a military checkpoint was set up. All Iraqis and their vehicles are being searched thoroughly, including a coffin containing the corpse of a man strapped to his family car. He had nothing to do with Saddam or Baath, yet he is dead, said his family. Residents of Sanawa, without food or water for several days, complained that the US troops in some sections of the city have not been allowing people to move to other districts. As a result, the river, a lifeline for the people, has not been accessible to the hungry. At Najaf, the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society was supposed to be distributing food to the hungry masses. As Arab News approached, a Kuwaiti shouting in Arabic was heard. He was dressed in a US military uniform, and was ordering people to stand back. He shouted: If you step back from the fence, maybe we will start thinking of distributing food. If you do not behave, we will not distribute food. Angered further by the crowd eager to receive the humanitarian aid, he bellowed: I have warned you enough times, so there will be no distribution today. The food distribution was stopped for at least 15 minutes. Then only women and those with aid permits were being allowed to take away packages. Arab News asked what was involved in getting an aid permit, but none of the distributors nor the Iraqi civilians knew. Above him a soldier was pointing at the crowd ordering them away from the fence separating the food distributors from the hungry crowd. Every time the soldier passed an order on to the civilians or those arriving in vehicles, he aggressively pointed his 50- caliber truck-mounted machine gun at them, lowering his head to see as though taking aim. Arab News approached the soldier and asked why he was pointing his machine gun at unarmed civilians here to receive humanitarian aid. Any of these people could be suicide bombers, was his reply. An Iraqi man, who asked not to be identified, told Arab News that as the Iraqi troops begin to see that they are becoming weaker and weaker, many of them are not surrendering but withdrawing and moving ahead of the Americans. As the Americans are moving north, they are fighting the same soldiers from the cities they have conquered. Iraqi soldiers from the southern districts are moving north and joining their counterparts there. The biggest battle is going to be the battle of Baghdad, they say. The Americans are becoming more and more scared as they lose more of their soldiers. And they appear to have little if any respect for the civilians they say they have come to liberate. To them all Iraqis are a threat. They have no respect for us, so we have no respect for them, one civilian said. As they kill us, the time will come when we will kill them. Copyright 8 2003 [2] ArabNews All Rights Reserved. <END FWD> _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk