Baghdad is under siege

[Kulapavana]

<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>Source: Independant</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=top></TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=top></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- This may have been posted already, but I didnt see it. -->Baghdad is under siege

By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil, Northern Iraq

Published: 01 November 2006

Sunni insurgents have cut the roads linking the city to the rest of Iraq. The country is being partitioned as militiamen fight bloody battles for control of towns and villages north and south of the capital.

 

As American and British political leaders argue over responsibility for the crisis in Iraq, the country has taken another lurch towards disintegration.

 

Well-armed Sunni tribes now largely surround Baghdad and are fighting Shia militias to complete the encirclement.

 

The Sunni insurgents seem to be following a plan to control all the approaches to Baghdad. They have long held the highway leading west to the Jordanian border and east into Diyala province. Now they seem to be systematically taking over routes leading north and south.

 

Dusty truck-stop and market towns such as Mahmoudiyah, Balad and Baquba all lie on important roads out of Baghdad. In each case Sunni fighters are driving out the Shia and tightening their grip on the capital. Shias may be in a strong position within Baghdad but they risk their lives when they take to the roads. Some 30 Shias were dragged off a bus yesterday after being stopped at a fake checkpoint south of Balad.

 

In some isolated neighbourhoods in Baghdad, food shortages are becoming severe. Shops are open for only a few hours a day. "People have been living off water melon and bread for the past few weeks," said one Iraqi from the capital. The city itself has broken up into a dozen or more hostile districts, the majority of which are controlled by the main Shia militia, the Mehdi Army.

 

The scale of killing is already as bad as Bosnia at the height of the Balkans conflict. An apocalyptic scenario could well emerge - with slaughter on a massive scale. As America prepares its exit strategy, the fear in Iraq is of a genocidal conflict between the Sunni minority and the Shias in which an entire society implodes. Individual atrocities often obscure the bigger picture where:

 

* upwards of 1,000 Iraqis are dying violently every week;

 

* Shia fighters have taken over much of Baghdad; the Sunni encircle the capital;

 

* the Iraqi Red Crescent says 1.5 million people have fled their homes within the country;

 

* the Shia and Sunni militias control Iraq, not the enfeebled army or police.

 

No target is too innocent. Yesterday a bomb tore through a party of wedding guests in Ur, on the outskirts of Sadr City, killing 15 people, including four children. Iraqi wedding parties are very identifiable, with coloured streamers attached to the cars and cheering relatives hanging out the windows.

 

Amid all this, Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, has sought to turn the fiasco of Iraq into a vote-winner with his claim that the Iraqi insurgents have upped their attacks on US forces in a bid to influence the mid-term elections. There is little evidence to support this. In fact, the number of American dead has risen steadily this year from 353 in January to 847 in September and will be close to one thousand in October.

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all that and the morons like Bush are still saying that "we are making progress in Iraq".

 

if this is "progress" I hate to think what a "setback" would look like...

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

Sorrow

 

The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land

Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky:

A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers,

But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking

 

He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise

In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise

He's chained forever to a world that's departed

It's not enough, it's not enough

 

His blood has frozen & curdled with fright

His knees have trembled & given way in the night

His hand has weakened at the moment of truth

His step has faltered

 

One world, one soul

Time pass, the river rolls

 

And he talks to the river of lost love and dedication

And silent replies that swirl invitation

Flow dark and troubled to an oily sea

A grim intimation of what is to be

 

There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night

And there's dust in my eyes, that blinds my sight

And silence that speaks so much louder than words,

Of promises broken

 

[pink floyd - a momentary lapse of reason]

 

Yes the Iraqi peoples cannot avoid the result of their former leader having broken all of his promises. Broken promises to the Iraqi people and - broken promises to the world.

 

The Iraqis must understand that there is hope for a 'new day' a day better than the one before all this began - yet - the false promises of the irregular fighters which prevents that 'new day' from adventing...must be rejected enmasse.