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Recent Stories
March 26, 2003
Bruce Jackson
A Battlefield from Hell
Pablo
Mukherjee
Watch Their Lips
David Krieger
Shock But Not Awe
Linda
Heard
Winning Hearts and Minds Bush-Style
Imad Jadaa
The Beautiful Face of America
Adam
Engel
Buckets of Blood
Patrick Cockburn
Kurds Unimpressed
David
Lindorff
POWs, Torture and Hypocrisy
Robert Fisk
The Coup That Didn't Happen
April
Hurley, MD
A Doctor's Outrage in Baghdad
Gloria Bergen
Chretien's Shame
Reema
Abu Hamdieh
The Smell of Death Surrounds Me
March 25, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
of Cairo
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on
the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz----------------Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Stephen Banko
I Was a Soldier
Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch from
Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The Erosion
of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush:
A Draft Resolution
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March
29, 2003
Bombs in the Marketplace
Nowhere
is Safe
By JO WILDING
Baghdad.
This
morning the sky had cleared: a mixed blessing. It was good to be able
to see through the daylight again, although the view of smoke plumes
across the city wasn't the most soul-fulfilling sight. At the same time
it seemed likely to mark the end of our period of grace, such as it
was, when the weather was holding up the onslaught.
I've
not read the mainstream media coverage of what's going on, so I don't
know what's been reported, but yesterday a marketplace and a convoy
of civilian buses from Syria were hit. I can't tell you much about the
bus attack, because it happened four hours' drive from Baghdad, except
that a friend saw five of the wounded come into hospital in Baghdad
and they said there were three buses travelling together from Damascus,
heading into Baghdad.
An
Apache helicopter was following them for some time and, as they approached
a bridge at an interchange, the Apache destroyed the bridge with a missile.
There was a collision between the buses. One bus was hit with a missile
while some people were still inside. I don't know how many died or were
wounded.
In
Al Shaab market Mohammed Al Zubaidi told us he had a shop where he made
and sold cushions for car seats. It was the second one from the left
as you look at the remains of the building which the bomb hit. It's
burnt out but you can see the small compartment which was his. His assistant,
Faris El Bawi, was crushed in the blast and his body incinerated in
the fire that followed, along with his eleven year old son Saif who
was helping him, because his school was closed for the war.
Mohammed
was out of the shop and saw two rockets dropped, about five seconds
apart at 11:30 yesterday. He couldn't see the plane because of the thick
air, but says he heard it. There was a crater in the mid strip of the
road --not deep--and the buildings either side of the road were wrecked
and burnt out.
Husham
Hussein said he was about 200 metres away, indicating a set of traffic
lights, when it happened. He saw the missile hit the front of the building
where Mohammed's shop used to be. It wasn't a huge missile, he said,
which fits with the relatively small size of the crater. He said a lot
of people were injured in the flats above the shops. The shops were
all open and the market was busy. He thought 25 people were killed.
Someone else said 45-50 people had gone to hospital. No one could think
of a military target nearby.
Mohammed
said five people died in the restaurant near his shop. Abu Hassan, a
45 year old father of five, 17 year old Malik Hamoud and Sabah Nouri,
28, were all working in the restaurant. Two customers also died but
no one we met knew their names. The crowd of men told of women in cars
which caught fire, burning to death because no one could get to them.
Safa Isam and his brother Marwan, 17 and 12 respectively, were injured
in a car driven by their father, who died.
Family
after family has been torn apart: mothers, fathers, children, wives
and husbands, and it's only been a week.
Within
the same district a missile hit a home next door to Balqis Secondary
School for Girls on Tuesday night. The school was damaged: most of the
neighbours think that was the intended target. The bomb ploughed through
the wall of number 74 next door, bursting into square fragments about
half a centimetre each way, pocking the walls in all directions with
what looked like a rash of bulletholes: small pits about two inches
in diameter at the surface.
The
television exploded and a metal bar on the window melted. The mattress
where the family were sleeping is covered with blood. Munib Abid Hamid
managed to shield his wife and child with his body. His wife Sahar Taha
had chest injuries but has been discharged from the An-Naman surgical
hospital. Their six year son Khaiser Munib has two broken legs. His
parents were downstairs with the rest of the family, all unhurt.
Munib
is a solid looking bloke. The doctor said he'd only survived this far
because he's so strong. His mother told us in gestures that he was cut
from his chest to the bottom of his torso. His body was peppered with
the metal squares: the doctor said he had multiple injuries to his abdomen:
they had removed bits from his intestines and liver, both legs and feet,
but some had had to be left where they were.
The
bandages which encase his legs are yellowed and foul--looking--he's
fighting gas gangrene and still in danger of losing his legs. 'How can
I work in future?' he asked. 'I am a car mechanic. I think I am finished.'
Another livelihood destroyed. The same question as in previous days
echoes like the after-rumbles of the bombs: 'Is this democracy? Is this
freedom?'
We
were invited in for tea and biscuits in Adamiya, where a rocket demolished
five homes on Monday lunchtime. Because people are not going to work
or school, they were mostly at home in the middle of Monday and six
died. No one saw a plane or heard anything till the explosion: they
speculate that it might have been fired from the sea. Strange how a
command from so far away can simply erase whole structures built for
life and family and shelter from the world.
The
missile landed vertically on number 13, killing the grandmother, Khowla
Sherkhli, the father, Ahmed Munier, and the daughter, Maha Waleed. Three
survi'ved with injuries. Another three died in the street whose houses
back onto that one. In number eleven 65 year old Wadha Mukhlif and her
husband Abid survived being crushed and lacerated, as did 10 year old
Hamsa Ahmed and her mother at number 15.
It
all seems so casual. I know my vision is skewed because I'm not paying
any attention to military targets and have no idea how many have been
hit, but daily I see mangled homes and bodies, only a corner of the
picture and that's only the most dramatic aspect. My friend Zaid has
been without electricity for three days now and the water supply is
intermittent. My friend Majid says his house has only an occasional
power supply and all their windows upstairs have shattered.
He
was worried because their house is very near the airport and one of
the theories is that forces will land there and advance into town, taking
them right past his house. His mates have all left, many of them to
Dialla, which he says is the safest place in Baghdad. Dialla is where
the farmhouse was attacked a couple of days ago. Home isn't safe, the
farms are not safe, the market isn't safe. Nowhere, nowhere is safe.
Jo
Wilding is a British human rights organizer. Email: wildthing@burntmail.com
Yesterday's Features
Daniel Wolff
A Road Trip in Wartime
Chris
Clarke
We Never Spit on Any Baby Killers
David Lindorff
Saddam, a Hero Made in Washington
Pierre
Tristam
Icarus on Crack: American Hubris and
Iraq
Jason Leopold
Richard Perle: the Enterprising Hawk
Saul
Landau
Technological Massacre
Carol Norris
The Mother of All Bombs
Riad
Abdelkarim, MD
Iraq War Lingo 101
Adam Engel
Schlock and Awe
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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