I would call this writer an American traitor!!!!
granny
The Rumsfeld Solution; "liberating Iraq, one
journalist at a time"
Mike Whitney, Axis of Logic
July 3, 2005 -- "The International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ) is calling on the United States to
investigate 3 new cases of journalists killed in
Iraq in the last week...This brings to 17 the
number of journalists and media staff killed by US
soldiers." -- Iraq Press
Last week, Yasser Salihee, a reporter for Knight
Ridder news agency, was assassinated in a
perfectly executed gangland-style hit a few miles
outside of Baghdad. He was struck by a single
bullet to the head by an American sniper.
Salihee's murder resulted from his extensive
coverage of the torture and murder of "suspected
insurgents" by US-backed death-squads.
Many readers will remember Donald Rumsfeld
rushing-off to Baghdad a few months ago to
ensure that the "newly elected" Iraqi government
didn't fiddle with the new regime he'd installed in
the Interior Ministry. With the help of former
CIA-operative Iyad Allawi, Rumsfeld put together
a cadre of thugs who operate under the rubric of
"The Wolf Brigade". ( also referred to as
"Rumsfeld's Boys"). Salihee had uncovered the
gruesome details of how this counterinsurgency
unit really works; roaming the countryside in
white Toyota Land Cruisers, dressed as police,
rounding up anti-occupation suspects, and either
killing and torturing them as they see fit. These
special units are similar to the death squads that
were used by Ronald Reagan in El Salvador
during the 1980s. Now they are thriving in Iraq
under the auspices of the Defense Dept;
operating freely behind the façade of a
democratically elected Iraqi government.
The Wolf Brigade has enlisted members of the
Republican Guard as well as former members of
Saddam's feared secret police, the Mukhabarat.
Both groups are intimately familiar with torture
and the other instruments of state terror. Since
the elections the Brigade has played a major role
in the crackdown throughout the Sunni Triangle
that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of
innocent Iraqis. Salihee was following these
developments when he was gunned down.
He discovered that corpses, which were being
dumped off at the Baghdad morgue, showed the
signs of being killed in a "methodical fashion.
Their hands had been tied or handcuffed behind
their backs, their eyes were blindfolded and they
appeared to have been tortured. In most cases
the dead men looked as if they had been whipped
with a cord, subjected to electric shocks, beaten
with a blunt object and shot to death, often with
single bullets to their heads."(Free Arab Voice)
Eyewitness accounts said that many of the
victims had been apprehended by people dressed
as police who bore all the hallmarks of the Wolf
Brigade.
There's been a steep increase in the number of
murders since the elections. "Before March
2003...the morgue handled 200 to 250 suspicious
deaths a month, about 16 of which included
firearm injuries." Now there are "700 to 800
suspicious deaths a month, with some 500 having
firearm wounds." Many of these have been killed
execution-style with a single bullet-wound to the
head.
Rumsfeld's post-election change in Strategy
The complexion of the conflict has changed
dramatically since the election. The Pentagon no
longer expects to win the war, so the strategy
has changed to inciting widespread violence with
the ultimate goal of destroying Iraqi society and
dividing up the nation. Every random act of
violence should be analyzed with this in mind.
Rumfeld's three-pronged attack now includes a
stepped-up counterinsurgency campaign (killing
and detaining hundreds, if not thousands of
innocent Sunnis), a savage Dresden-type, slash
and burn strategy of the main Sunni cities (so far,
Haditha, al-Qaim and Karabila have received the
"Falluja treatment"), and a "no-holds-barred"
assault on the press; ensuring that only sanitized
reports emerge from America's embedded
journalists.
Salihee, of course, veered from the Pentagon
strategy and paid with his life. He leaves behind
a wife and a daughter of two years. Regrettably,
Night-Ridder has tried to paper-over the death of
Salihee saying that, "(Civilians) die anonymously,
every day, at checkpoints and in raids and in
suicide attacks. They are crushed when bombs
fall on their homes; they are caught in crossfire
between insurgents and American troops. Like
Yasser, they die on lovely summer days, while
looking forward to splashing in the pool, enjoying
some rare time off. Little is known about the
innocent Iraqis who pay the ultimate price for a
war conducted in the name of their liberation."
Very prosaic, but total rubbish. Salihee was
murdered, Godfather style. The only noteworthy
aspect of the incident is that it was performed
with much greater proficiency than the attack on
Italian journalist Guliana Sgrena. It looks like
there's been a decided upgrade in the talent level
of the Pentagon's assassination teams.
Salihee's Death in Perspective
The Bush administration has developed a
coherent strategy for quashing the free press. It's
clear that they regard the free flow of information
as every bit as dangerous as a bomb-wielding
Ba'athist. Those who aren't already co-opted into
the fold have been subjected to withering attacks
from government-friendly stations and news
agencies. Hence, CBS anchor, Dan Rather is sent
packing while Time magazine executives are left
groveling before a national audience. Similarly,
private citizens like Ward Churchill have
withstood the scathing assault of an astonishingly
competent right-wing media machine that can
descend on its prey at a moments notice and
leave little behind save a few bleached bones. At
the same time, the BBC, NPR and PBS have all
been penetrated by hostile forces bound to
poison the few remaining bastions of independent
reportage and purge those errant journalists
whose coverage eschews the Pentagon filter.
This is 'Information Warfare' on a grand scale; a
conflict that the Bush administration intends to
win no matter how many people are sacrificed in
the process. Don't think that Dahr Jamail, Patrick
Cockburn or Robert Fisk don't understand the
meaning of Salihee's death. It's painfully clear.
The Defense Secretary is determined to see that
only one storyline will surface in Iraq. Anyone
who dares to deviate from the accepted narrative
can expect to find himself slumped over in the
front seat of his car with blood issuing from his
forehead. As Rumsfeld warned earlier this year,
"People need to be very careful about what they
say, just as they need to be careful about what
they do."
We've been forewarned.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can
be reached
at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.
:: Article nr. 13363 sent on 04-jul-2005 17:44 ECT
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