With George Bush having General Petraeus tell him that success is possible in Iraq --"although doing so will be neither quick nor easy" -- it would appear that the U.S. is settling in for the long haul in Iraq. This situation makes Anthony Arnove's second edition of Iraq - The Logic of Withdrawal, very timely.
Israelis call it the second
In 2003, the combined forces of the UK/US coalition stormed into Iraq, unleashing perhaps the most profound political and humanitarian crisis of our time. Four years later, the war to reassert Anglo/American dominance in the Middle East has become a brutal conflict with mounting casualties, sectarian violence, and religious and ethnic unrest. Unwilling to admit defeat, the occupation forces have developed a strategy to seal off entire Baghdad communities with the construction of dividing walls interspaced with entry points guarded by heavily armed soldiers.
This is election year in Pakistan. Political parties are trying to keep the military out of politics. The country's civil society is pushing for free speech in a nation whose history has been shaped by military coups.
"Is the United States concerned about Baloochi terror inside Iran, based in Pakistan? It's probably fostering it. We don't have any direct evidence but there have been clearly terrorist acts in Iran, which are based in the Baloochi areas in Pakistan. And it's very likely that it's part of the general U.S. program to disrupt Iran."
Much was made of the looting of Iraq's National Library after the fall of Baghdad and the collapse of order in the capital. Less is known about the role of small private libraries and how they continue to provide some of the only access to scholarly material for Baghdad's intellectuals and academics. Hameeda Al-Bassam, a disabled Shi'a woman in Iraq, describes her work as a librarian, as well as the difficulties she faces, not only as a woman, but also as someone bound to a wheelchair.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019