Tell me again why we're there, and what good we're doing?

[babylonsister]

:-(


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/world/middleeast/26sunni.html?hp

Sunni Baghdad Becomes Land of Silent Ruins


By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: March 26, 2007

BAGHDAD, March 25 — The cityscape of Iraq’s capital tells a stark story of the toll the past four years have taken on Iraq’s once powerful Sunni Arabs.


Ahmed Ali, 72, closed his carpentry business in the Adhamiya district after he lost a second son.


Theirs is a world of ruined buildings, damaged mosques, streets pitted by mortar shells, uncollected trash and so little electricity that many people have abandoned using refrigerators altogether.

The contrast with Shiite neighborhoods is sharp. Markets there are in full swing, community projects are under way, and while electricity is scarce throughout the city, there is less trouble finding fuel for generators in those areas. When the government cannot provide services, civilian arms of the Shiite militias step in to try to fill the gap.

But in Adhamiya, a community with a Sunni majority, any semblance of normal life vanished more than a year ago. Its only hospital, Al Numan, is so short of basic items like gauze and cotton pads that when mortar attacks hit the community last fall, the doctors broadcast appeals for supplies over local mosque loudspeakers.

Here, as in so much of Baghdad, the sectarian divide makes itself felt in its own deadly and destructive ways. Far more than in Shiite areas, sectarian hatred has shredded whatever remained of community life and created a cycle of violence that pits Sunni against Sunni as well as Sunni against Shiite.

Anyone who works with the government, whether Shiite or Sunni, is an enemy in the eyes of the Sunni insurgents, who carry out attack after attack against people they view as collaborators. While that chiefly makes targets of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Army and the police, the militants also kill fellow Sunnis from government ministries who come to repair water and electrical lines in Sunni neighborhoods.

more...

[Amonester]

1. To enrich the already rich bu$che family and their cronie$?

We have to neutralize their propaganda catapult$ to see the truth as it is.

[LibertyorDeath]

2. Here's the why and the what

The rape of Iraq's oil
The Baghdad government has caved in to a damaging plan that will enrich western companies.

Michael Meacher
Guardian

About Webfeeds March 22, 2007 1:30 PM | Printable version
The recent cabinet agreement in Baghdad on the new draft oil law was hailed as a landmark deal bringing together the warring factions in the allocation of the country's oil wealth. What was concealed was that this is being forced through by relentless pressure from the US and will sow the seeds of intense future conflict, with serious knock-on impacts on the world economy.

The draft law, now before the Iraqi parliament, sets up "production sharing partnerships" to allow the US and British oil majors to extract Iraqi oil for up to 30 years. While Iraq would retain legal ownership of its oil, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP that invest in the infrastructure and refineries would get a large share of the profits.

No other Middle Eastern oil producer has ever offered such a hugely lucrative concession to the big oil companies, since Opec has always run its oil business through tightly-controlled state companies. Only Iraq in its present dire condition, dependent on US troops for the survival of the government, lacks the bargaining capacity to resist...cont'd

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_meacher/200

[stirlingsliver]

3. It'S Ea$y to Under$tand

It's easy -- oil profit$
and profit$ for Haliburton and other cronie$.

[leftchick]

4. the OIL

The bases and the US palace. bush says fuck the Iraqis.


:(