Enver Masud, "Iraq: Divide and Rule,
'Ethnic Cleansing Works'," The Wisdom Fund, October 10, 2006
David Model, "Genocide in
Iraq," counterpunch.org, May 21, 2008
Patrick Cockburn, "Revealed:
Secret Plan to Keep Iraq Under U.S. Control," Independent, June 5,
2008
Patrick Cockburn, "Oil Giants Return To
Iraq," Independent, June 20, 2008
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, "Spinning Fairy
Tales of Baghdad," Independent, December 22, 2008
Deborah Haynes, "Confusion
over registration restricts turnout in Iraq poll to 51%," Times, February 2, 2009
Gareth Porter, "Petraeus'
Counter-Offensive: Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal
Orders," counterpunch.org, February 2, 2009
John Tirman, "Iraq's
Shocking Human Toll: About 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2
Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans," Nation, February 2, 2009
Patrick Cockburn, "A coup for Maliki and a secular Iraq:
Voters have rebuffed religious parties - and cemented the power of the
country's Prime Minister," Independent, February 3, 2009
[The emergence of Iraq's nationalist movement has been a long time coming.
Built around parties opposed to the influence of both Iran and the United
States, it began to take shape in the fall of 2007 after a series of US
actions: a Senate vote in favor of a proposal from then-Senator Joe Biden to
partition Iraq into three mini-states; the brutal killing of seventeen
Iraqis in Baghdad by Blackwater security forces; and US support for a law
that would have opened the door to privatization of Iraq's oil
industry.--Robert Dreyfuss, "Iraq's Resurgent Nationalism," Nation, February 18, 2009]
Richard Norton-Taylor, "Why we went to war in Iraq remains a secret as Straw blocks the
release of cabinet minutes," Guardian, February 24, 2009
Anthony Dimaggio, "Seven Years
of Wartime Propaganda," counterpunch.org, February 27, 2009
[Although the arrest of a Sunni Awakening Council leader and seven of his
deputies that triggered the uprising was spun both by Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki and by the U.S. command as an anti-terrorism issue rather than
sectarian repression, it was in fact part of the long-term struggle for
power between the Shi'a-dominated government of Iraq and Sunnis who have
been disenfranchised.--Gareth Porter, "Maliki Draws US
Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals ," counterpunch.org, April 2,
2009]
[Last weekend, the Iraqi government arrested an Awakening Group leader of a
Baghdad neighborhood, then moved into the area. With the help of US
occupation forces, they disarmed the militiamen under his control, but only
after fighting broke out between US-backed Iraqi government security forces
and the US-formed Sunni Awakening Group militia. This disturbing event is
the realization of what most Iraqis have long feared - that the relative
calm in Iraq today would eventually be broken when fighting erupts between
these two entities.
The US policy that has led to this recent violence has been long in the
making, as it has only been a matter of time before the tenuous truce
between the groups came unglued. For it has been a truce built on a deeply
corrupt US policy of backing the predominantly Shia Iraqi government forces
while paying the Sunni resistance not to fight both government and
occupation forces.--Dahr Jamail, "The Growing Storm,"
truthout.org, April 2, 2009]
[Air Force One only touched down after the whole airport was shut down. Amid
ultra-hardcore security, Obama met with General Ray Odierno, the top US
commander in Iraq, entered a SUV and stepped down at Camp Victory, the top
US military base in Iraq, which happens to be contiguous to the airport. Not
even a glimpse of real-life, messy, dangerous Red Zone Baghdad.--Pepe
Escobar, "The
president makes a victory lap," Asia Times, April 9, 2009]
[Throughout history, those who collaborate with the occupiers of their
country tend to end up hung out to dry, or dead. The occupation of Iraq is
no different - collaboration and the poison fruits that come of it are on
full display for the history books once again. Only now, the rapidity with
which this is happening is staggering.--Dahr Jamail, "Laying the Groundwork for
Violence," truthout.org, May 7, 2009]
[ . . . the ongoing attacks by the Maliki government against the Sahwa
continue to destabilize the situation in Iraq and allow overall violence to
increase with each passing week. We are seeing Sahwa fighters leave their
posts in ever-increasing numbers; the US military is literally redrawing the
boundaries of cities in order not to move their bases outside of them to
respect the Status of Forces Agreement, and there is no sign from the Obama
administration that there will ever be a full withdrawal from Iraq, nor
reparations made to the people of Iraq.--Dahr Jamail, "Provoking the Inevitable," truthout.org, May 23, 2009]
[It is said that history is written by the victor. What is not said is
that destroying the enemy is only half the purpose of a victor. The other
half is the subjugation and drastic alteration of the self-perception of the
enemy, so as to gain unquestioned control over every aspect of the
subjugated state, its populace and its resources, so that having won victory
it can get on with the "much bigger business of plunder," according to Franz
Fanon, philosopher, psychiatrist, author and a pre-eminent thinker of the
twentieth century.--Dahr Jamail, "Colonizing
Culture," truthout.org, May 27, 2009]