Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
February 20 / 22, 2004
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
February 14/15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
February 20 / 22, 2004
"Don't be Surprised
if the Soldiers Show No Compassion At All"
Anatomy
of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
By BEN GRANBY
Mohammed offered me a cigarette. I wasn't about
to refuse. I dont normally smoke, and a choked a little after
inhaling. Then the nicotine seared through my veins. Relaxed.
I was suited up to join Alpha 'Attack'
company on a night time mission in a neighborhood just outside
of Balad. And beyond. Ranger trained Cpt. Matthew Cunningham,
29, had insisted that I don camouflage grease paint so that I
might join him and his squad in infiltrating a farm community
from the rear. The Captain looked the part of a ranger: lean,
stern determined and focused, yet I had found him to be quite
congenial when things weren't so serious. The objective this
night of February 11 was the capture of one man, Fawzi Youniy
(nicknamed 'Fuzzy Anus' by the troops), deemed responsible for
funding and/or directing mortar attacks on the 1-8th's TOC.
Lt. Goldman led me in to the Bradley.
He called out to the driver, "I only printed up three detainee
forms, so if we get any others I guess we'll have to shoot them."
He waited a bit and then remembered that I was standing behind
him. "I was only joking, of course!"
The Bradley's loading door sealed shut
with myself, the Sergent and Mohammed the translator in the rear.
As we rumbled on, tossing us about inside, Lt. Goldman explained
a few things. "These sorts of missions are always hard.
Don't be surprised if the soldiers use no compassionate at all,"
he explained. "I've only been with the unit for a couple
weeks, so its still hard on me to watch. Women and children will
be crying, and hey, we are waking them up at midnight and taking
their husbands and sons away. I don't even know how to explain
it to my wife."
Some thirty soldiers were to participate.
I would hang by the commanding officer, Cpt. Cunninham with an
infiltration squad. Another squad would circle around to the
front of the homes as we would cut off any rear escape. The Bradley's
would then circle around and position the front for a quick extraction.The
plan was to detain all males in an around the Younis home to
find the suspect.
We dismounted as a whole and split up
in the darkness. I followed the soldiers down a few main roads.
A few homes and garages lit the only lights at night. But yet
again the dogs howled and barked as we passed by. We moved in
relative silence, the soldiers relying on their night vision
to scope out routes through dirt and gravel. Finally we came
upon a large fenced orchard and slid off the road.
We trudged for a good half-mile through
twists and turns of bramble, trees and irrigation ditches. At
times the Captain would pause to check his Global Positioning
Sattellite unit for a precise location fix. After an arduous
journey, we finally settled into a ditch about 200m in front
of the first target home amid a large orchard. Then it was a
waiting game.
The dogs throughout the area continued
to bark loudly. As they abated the other sounds of the night
picked up. Eerie screams and yowls broke through the air.
They turned into a cacophony of banshee
cries. I took them to be stray cats, caterwauling in choruses,
but it was of a pitch and degree I had never heard before. Then
some of the dogs began to howl. The three-quarters moon broke
through the cloud cover and cast dancing lights through the trees.
It felt like the perfect holloween setting. I looked to my left
at Cpt. Cunningham in full camoflague gear, laying in the irrigation
ditch with his M-4 at the ready and his eyes focused through
his night-goggles. It was a heavily armed holloween.
After almost 45 minutes of waiting in
total silence (and having been awake for 16 hours with only 4
hours of sleep the day before, myself drifting in and out of
sleep), we finally heard loud bangs of metal. The Captain turned
to me. "The first objective," he whispered. "They're
breaching the first objective." Soon enough the heavy roar
of the Bradleys broke through the night as the vehicles moved
into position outside the neighborhood's homes. Then we moved
in. I wasn't sure what to expect when I began running through
the field and towards the homes. I had seen recordings of raids
done in urban areas and I didn't think I would ever have the
heart to participate. But as the soldiers began entering the
homes, I just followed, running behind. I let my camera do my
thinking (which wasn't doing to much in the total darkness).
Bam! Bam! "Go, go, go!" We
poured through a gate and ran across a short courtyard. Bam!
The double metal doors of the house were smashed open. Immediately
women began crying. We passed a small foyer and found two elderly
women and one old man startled as the lights were flicked on.
The soldiers poured through the house, fanning out to all rooms
and looking for other people. "Friendly going upstairs!"
"Upstairs clear!" "Friendly coming out!"
The old man was taken from his home as the women followed, crying
out. The soldiers moved on. "What about the house across
the street?" "Blue 6 has it." "We've still
got this big one over here." "Let's go!"
Again I follwoed the unit, this time
around a large brick wall and over to the front of the farmhouse.
A few swift kicks to the gate. A dash to the front of the house.
Splitting up to enter all visible doors simultaneously. Running
into the home amid cries.
As I entered a darkened hallway I came
across seven young girls and boys. One young girl, no older than
10, with large glasses and a tan hejab kept her hands raised
in the air. I had never before seen a child do such a thing.
They all wore fear deep on their faces. The males, children and
adults alike, were brought outside in a line up. The youngest
two were released, but all others from about fourteen and up
were cuffed and brought out to the Bradleys down the road. Running
out the back, the women tried to follow sobbing. I looked back
briefly. I couldn't stare long. I began to well up myself, realizing
that these people had no clue what was going on. Even if the
men would likely be released in a matter of minutes, it was still
a terror for the women and children to see their fathers, sons
and husbands torn from them by a legion of masked men.
Here, infront of a home, some twenty-five
men, all bound by flex-cuffs, were lined up for identification
as Mohammed took down their names. Once it was determined that
Fawzi Younis was not among the detainees, the Captain ordered
the restraints to be cut. He then addressed them, with Mohammed
translating. The detainees voluntarily moved to their knees with
their hands in their laps. They still looked bewildered and frightened.
"Thank you for participating in
tonight's roundup," he began. "You know who we are
looking for and we will not have to do this anymore if you help
us. We know you know who is attacking Americans, and we need
you to come forward." The flourescent light glistened against
the grease paint on his face.
One man stood up and asked the Captain
what the people of the village could do if they didn't know who
was firing the mortars. Cpt. Cunningham was curt. "They
are firing from your fields. You cannot sit inside and let it
happen. I want you to be proactive. I want you to go out and
find out who these people are and come tell us. Otherwise we
will continue to come at night and ask." There was nothing
more he could do here. "Ok. You are going to stay sitting
here until we have left the area."
And with that, in a matter of seconds
all thirty soldiers had boarded the APC's and we were off.
As our Bradley lurched forward and we
headed back to the base, Lt. Goldman broke the silence. "Well,
that was fucking worthless."
Ben Granby
is a freelance reporter in Iraq. He can be reached at: Sarin@devo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 14 / 15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|