baghdadskies2
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Hala Fattah
Historian of pre-modern Iraq. Independent scholar living in Amman, Jordan. UCLA graduate. Author of The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf , 1745-1900 (SUNY Press, 1997).
Lots of facts and colour about modern Iraq and Iraqis. Archive for May 2004 Friday, May 14, 2004:
Abstracted titles to make it easier to see what might be of interest.
* A Day at the Races
Reminds me of a racecourse I visited with my parents, which must have been East of the river. The only fact I know is that it was run by a man called Dickie Bird, who showed us round on a non race day.
* Iraq and the Notion of Geographical Determinism
* In Memoriam: Dr. Khalid Al-Qassab (1924-2004)
* Poetry and the Women Question in Iraq
* Remembering Mr. Hourani and Dr. Enayat
* The Multiplicity of Iraqi Identities, and What It All Means
* The Decline of the Shoe Industry in Iraq
* Two Historians of Another Era: Abbas Al-Azzawi and Ya’qub Sarkis.
My second school in Kharradah was by a Mrs. Sarkis. I wonder if this was the same family. She was left-handed (hand twisted as if it was a right hand.) I remember her saying, as we stood in line with our exercise books waiting to have them marked, "Don't write like this!". In fact, I did, and suffered for hours in examination rooms from aching wrist and cramp...
* The Street that was Straight
Rashid Street
* The Fascinating Saga of Dhannun Ayyub, an Early Literary Figure in Iraq
* The Iraqi Press in the Tens, Twenties and Thirties (PART ONE)
* "She is Iraq’s Um Kulthoum”
* A Tribe of the Mid-Euphrates, and the Vagaries of Change
* Desegregating a Baghdad Cafe
* In This Manner I Knew Them: The Writings of Jaafar Al-Khalili
* A Landholding Family with Merchant Roots
The Pachachis
* Askari Street
The street Hala I lived on in Baghdad in the 1950’s
¶ Wednesday, November 17, 2004 0 Comments
Falluja
There has been talk on the cyberwaves about Evil and American exceptionalism -- "the deep belief that our motives are uniquely pure, our goals singularly above reproach."
I think the destruction of the Waco compound [don't take everything on this site as kosher], by government organisations including the FBI representing the U.S. state, was an "evil act". Young children died in the fires that destroyed David Koresh's fantasy world.
A state is usually not described as evil, unlike individuals. Though the state is not described as evil, it consisists of inviduals who can or might be evil.
An Army is a killing machine. It is not a social service or a university medical school department of ethics. The almost real-time filming of military action, such as the recent killing of a wounded man in a Mosque in Falluja, is what occasionally happens in war. I wondered where the Marine's Officer was. He would have been the man to make a decision about what to do. From the video the wounded man didn't appear to be an immediate threat, so we must put it down to some illness or psychopathy in the solder who pulled the trigger. Most media reports said the Marine had only just returned to duty after a wound to his head. You're talking Vietnam Syndrome here: tired, boozed up, drugged up innocents without proper leadership.
No doubt, when the facts about Fallujah II are out, we will learn that of the thousand or so insurgents/terrorists claimed to have been killed, a large proportion were completely innocent people who got caught up in the fighting. If you are in charge of a military force going in to a place like Falluja, you know perfectly well that you are not going to be able to tell the difference between fighters and bystanders. You can't worry about that. It would completely defeat your objective. If asked, you will dissimulate, before and after. "I don't know". "I have no figures on this". There is no need to tell the truth, either about your plans or your deeds. By the time the truth comes out, everyone who counts won't even remember what it was about.
FALLUJA AS A PLACE
This is important. It is an article by Jonathan Lyons,"U.S. battles weight of history in Iraq". The Americans would have known all about this as they planned the battle. People sit there in the situation rooms, Googling, looking for information to help them carry out their job, or to cover up their projected misdeeds.
