An Intervisit - Afternoon Tea (2)


Following my Morning Coffee exchange with my neighbor, Paola Pisi - which I do hope you have enjoyed - I would like to let you in on the rest of our conversation which took us right into the afternoon in time for a nice cup of tea or should I say a small glass of strong Iraqi tea...

Prepare your own hot or cold drink and join us for the rest...


You mentioned at some point a pro-Iran line, can you elaborate on this ?

Following what I said before, I need to add that the support to Moqtada al-Sadr and his death squads must be seen in the more general pro-Iran political line of most of the anti-war movement and its alternative information.

Of course Iran has all the rights to use nuclear power for civilian purposes and most of Bush’s accusations against Iran are false and grotesque. Not only doesn’t Iran arm the Iraqi resistance, but the militias backed by Iran actively fight against that resistance. And the Iranian government, far from arming the resistance in Afghanistan, actively supports Karzai.

Iran has helped the wars of aggressions of the USA against Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Iraq, the sectarian militias backed by Iran have been carrying out ethnic cleansing in South Iraq and in Baghdad and massacred the Palestinians in Iraq.
All the Iraqis I know and all the Iraqi websites (non pro-Iraqi government) are explicit in calling this a double occupation: Iraq has been occupied by the US and by Iran.

A few days ago the spokesperson of one of the main groups of the Iraqi resistance, Islamic Army, stated on Al-Jazeera that the Iranian occupation is even worse than the American one (obviously the US are the main responsible ones for the Iraqi genocide, because without the American war of aggression there wouldn’t have been any occupation of Iraq).

But most of the alternative information on the alternative websites have completely ignored the criminal role of Iran in the wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and have constantly engaged in a defense of Ahmadinejad.

Everything Iran does is right, holy and blessed by Allah, every charge against Ahmedinejad is a U.S falsehood (when all accusations against Saddam Hussein were crystal clear true, no proof needed). Any news not favorable to Iran is published by those alternative websites with an alert sign next to it: war pimp alert.

Can we believe that they all are in good faith? Many are surely in good faith because four years of brainwashing made a lot of people no realize the absurdity of an anti-war movement engaged against a war that does not exist and indifferent to the one under way. But is not surely in good faith, the one who is orchestrating all this.
They are all at Ahmedinejad's feet, whatever he does: and this in spite of his active help in US attacks against Iraq and Afghanistan, and in despite of his support to puppet governments of Maliki and Karzai.

Iran has become the holy cow of the alternative information. Whoever dares to talk about the role of Iran in the Iraqi occupation is accused to be a servant of imperialism or worse.

In all this, the question of a possible war against Iran has had a blackmail function.

In the last three years the alternative websites have published dozens of articles on the coming war against Iran, far many more than on the real genocide of Iraqis.

During the past three years they have been speaking about next imminent unavoidable USA attack (often "nuclear") to Iran, they call the roll, they petition, they gather signatures against a war that does not exist and probably will never exist.
They are in mourning and preventive bereavement since four years for "Iranian nuclear holocaust" and don't give a damn about the real one - the Iraqi one.

They have given a thousand certain dates for USA attack (the last one was the 6th of April), and as the date is over without anything happened, obviously, they start all over again with the following date, endlessly.

As many others, I personally find difficult to believe there will be a war against Iran and obviously I am totally against such a war that would add devastation to devastation, sorrow to sorrow, and many innocent lives will again pay the prize of much madness.

Of course there are grave tensions between the US and Iran, tensions caused by the nuclear question but above all by the spoils of the Iraq war. De facto Iran is the real winner of the war against Iraq and the US now can’t leave the whole Iraq to Iran.

I personally believe that the US and Iran will finally reach an agreement without going to war. Of course I may be wrong – I certainly hope not. There has been too much bloodbath already.

It’s a fact that in the last three years every and any rumor has been interpreted by some part of the alternative information as the beginning of the war against Iran, even giving the exact dates – always wrong – of the possible start of the military hostilities, coming from anonymous sources, of course.

It’s sure anyway that in all these years the incessant propaganda, day after day, article after article, on the war against Iran has prevented any serious critical analysis on the role of Iran in the war of aggression and occupation against Iraq. Even worse, that propaganda helped to mask the actual Iraqi genocide, an “insignificant detail” next to the imminent (even nuclear) conflict against Iran.

In the last few days, even the ORB poll suggesting a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 has had in many alternative websites much less result and space (if any) than the much more important and significant denial to Ahmadinejad to visit the Ground Zero in New York (probably another sign that the war against Iran is coming?) or the arrest by the US of an Iranian in the Iraqi Kurdistan.

Obviously the US have no right to arrest Iranians in Iraq, for the simple reason that the US should not be in Iraq in the first place. For the same reason, the US should not have the right to arrest the Iraqis in Iraq, but we know that the US have been detaining tens of thousands of Iraqis without anyone screaming and denouncing this crime.

Recently the USA have revealed to have in detention 750 Iraqi children (the youngest are just 10 years old!): for them nobody has cried, protested and denounced the scandal. But we have read many articles a few weeks ago about the detention for a few hours of seven Iranians in Baghdad. It seems to me that Iraq has really only very few friends.

Recently Scott Ritter wrote an article, published by all the alternative media, with the title "Iraq Will Have to Wait." His thesis is that the Iraqi genocide is a minor event and that the US anti-war movement must focus on the Iran war.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20070927_ritter_stop_iran_war/

Of the two problems (the reality of Iraq, the potential of Iran), Iran is by far the more important. The war in Iraq isn’t going to expand tenfold overnight. By simply doing nothing, the Democrats can rest assured that Bush’s bad policy will simply keep failing. War with Iran, on the other hand, can still be prevented.[…] The antiwar movement in America must make a strategic decision, and soon: Contain the war in Iraq, and stop a war from breaking out in Iran. The war in Iraq can be contained simply by letting war be war. There is no genuine good news coming out of Iraq. There won’t be as long as the United States is there. As callous as it sounds, let the war establish the news cycle, and let the reality of war serve to contain it. The surge has failed. Congress may not act decisively to bring the troops home, but it is highly unlikely that Congress will idly approve any massive expansion of an unpopular war that continues to fail so publicly.

Scott Ritter is spreading this thesis, based on anonymous information, since February 2005, when he wrote that Bush had already signed the order to attack Iran and that it would happen that same June.
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2295/

Moreover, Ritter started to say that the Iraq war is a “minor event” compared to the imminent war against Iran.
(see also: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8130.htm).

In March 2005 he revealed his anonymous sources: “someone”.

Late last year, in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, I was contacted by someone close to the Bush administration about the situation in Iraq.” http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7560

This time though he made a correction: Bush didn’t sign the order to attack iran as yet but all must be ready for the following June. Why June?

“When I asked why that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran, Iraq's neighbor to the east, in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.”

In June 2005 there was no the attack against Iran but Ritter insists: The US War with Iran has Already Begun.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm

This time the anonymous sources have completely changed the plot; there won’t be the aerial attacks but an attack from the ground:

“To the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's interest in Azerbaijan may have escaped the blinkered Western media, but Russia and the Caucasus nations understand only too well that the die has been cast regarding Azerbaijan's role in the upcoming war with Iran.”

Ritter’s rich, detailed account this time comes without any revelation of the sources but I guess it must have been again that “someone”.

In February 2006, Ritter again changes version and this time the attack against Iran becomes nuclear:

“Ritter also predicted the military strategy for war with Iran. First, American forces will bomb Iran. If Iranians don't overthrow the current government, as Bush hopes they will, Iran will probably attack Israel. Then, Ritter said, the United States will drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.” http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/02/06/1346123.htm

But this is not the only Ritter’s revelation. Ritter writes:

“John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, ‘will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves.’”

How does he know? "How do I know this? I've talked to Bolton's speechwriter," Ritter said.”

Why all these people must go to confide with talkative Ritter is a mystery nobody can explain. Anyway, Bolton could not make that speech because in the meanwhile after a few months he left his position at the U.N.

In October 2006 Ritter reveals that Israel didn’t want a war against Iraq but against Iran.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/144204

Who knows who told him this? Maybe that “someone”?

In January 2007 Ritter writes,

“If I were to be invited to go to Washington today and speak to the Democratic equivalent of the Republican Theme Team, I would spend very little time on the issue of Iraq. Right or wrong, the Iraq War was a product of domestic American politics, not any genuine threat to national security, and as such the solution for Iraq will be derived not from whatever happens inside Iraq, surge or no surge, but rather from what happens here in America.”
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070205/ritter

Since Scott Ritter started to voice his different oracles on the war against Iran and say that the war in Iraq was a minor event compare to the imminent attack against Iran (it was February 2005), more than a million Iraqis have been slaughtered.

Since Scott Ritter started to voice his different oracles on the war against Iran and say that the war in Iraq was a minor event compared to the imminent attack against Iran. It was February 2005 and a few months earlier, in the fall 2004, the first Lancet study was published with those 100,000 Iraqi deaths as a result of the war since the invasion in March 2003. Today we have more than 1.2 million Iraqi killed...


The effects of this disinformation campaign on the anti-war movement have been disastrous and the imminent war against Iran has been used to hijack the public attention from the real war and the real genocide against the Iraqi people.

Of course Ritter has not been the only one to ride this campaign. There have been hundreds of articles and analysis on the imminent war against Iran, always new dates were announced and in the meanwhile the Iraqi genocide was being ignored.

The brainwash has been so successful and the war that there isn’t has become for everybody more important than the real war and the real genocide that when Ritter wrote the last article saying that Iraq Will Have to Wait and that the war against Iran was far more important than the war against Iraq, people didn’t object the monstrosity of this statement. It had become normal in our age of propaganda and disinformation.

Another effect of this campaign has been to cut that little support to the Iraqi resistance since all the Iraqi resistance groups agree to denounce the double occupation, from the US and Iran.


Having been around Uuruk land for quite some, you probably know better than the average layperson , the current Iraqi scene, the players, and the forces. What are your impressions on that subject?


It’s already difficult to follow what is going on at the present but it's impossible to predict the future.

What is certain is that Iraq will be divided in three parts. This is probably the best article I have read on this subject.
http://futureiraq.blogspot.com/2007/10/plan-for-iraq-is-was-partition.html

It’s not clear if the sectarian Maliki Government will stay till the partition or there will be first the attempt of a fake national unity government.
Until recently there seemed to be a strong propaganda in favour of al-Sadr with a prospective of an Allawi-Sadr-Saleh-al-Mutlak’s government with the participation of some traitors who should represent the resistance and the involvement of the UN.

This project has been strongly supported from that part of the US establishment that has opposed the neo-cons from the beginning and that now has been collecting much support from within the US powerful interests, including some neo-cons now that probably the tripartition of Iraq - surely the original plan - has failed, at least for the moment.

Obviously an eventual Allawi-Sadr-Saleh-al-Mutlak’s government couldn’t be possibly worse than the actual Maliki’s puppets. But it could open the doors to an even greater criminalization of and war against the real resistance.

Even now the U.S propaganda tells us that there is only al-Qaeda that fights against the U.S occupation of Iraq. An eventual new government with inside traitors and the fake Iraqi resistance would probably mean an increasing of the U.S propaganda; all those outside this kind of government will be defined terrorists and all part of al-Qaeda, when every body knows that al-Qaeda in Iraq is a group marginalized and fought by the true Iraqi resistance (and probably – at least in part -it is a black-op: I don't like conspiracy theories in general, but it looks as al-Qaeda works for US interests).

In this case, the barbaric assassination of Saddam Hussein, the legitimate president of the Republic of Iraq would have been a metaphor of Iraq’s end: as the USA gave the Iraqi president to al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army so they could lynch him, in the same way the US could give the whole Iraq to the same criminals.

But in the latest weeks it seems al-Sadr has lost the support he used to have and it seems he was marginalized while Hakim seems to get more powerful. Maybe Maliki will succeed to stay in power till the partition of Iraq.

But again, this is just a hypothesis, and of course I still hope in the victory of the Iraqi resistance.



You mentioned that Iraq is finished as a country. Imagine you have a magic wand in your hands, what would it take to have an Iraq again?


I am not Iraqi so from my point of view, as a person from a Western country, the only magical thing would be to bring the clock back to before the 1991 war of aggression against Iraq and before the genocidal embargo; before the long war of aggression, started in 1991, waged by the West against your country.
For the rest, only Iraqis can decide what's better for their own country; certainly it's not for me to decide.



And so ended our afternoon conversation over a small glass of strong Iraqi tea.
I don't know why I have this bitter taste left in my mouth. Maybe truth is caustic to swallow...But at least, I have a good neighbor who speaks it.

May you pay heed as well, for time is running out and it will soon be a very dark night fall for all of us...


Painting: Iraqi artist, Jaber Alwan.

Comments

Anonymous said…
this paolo pisi doesnt half go on does she???

n u forgot 2 bold this bit:

"Having been around Uuruk land for quite some, you probably know better than the average layperson , the current Iraqi scene, the players, and the forces. What are your impressions on that subject?"
Anonymous said…
layla when r u going 2 invite me round 4 tea.....i want 2 do 1 of these q & a sessions too
Layla Anwar said…
abu sheikh,

Ya marhaba ya sheikhna al kebeer...
You are right Your Eminence, I forgot but your Majesty's wishes are my command.
Bold, italic and strong.
Anonymous said…
JR, remember that one day you'll die...

...and know that it is approaching...
Anonymous said…
Love the interview format even if the info is depressing. Everyone has answers, it's asking the right questions that matter.
Anonymous said…
"it will soon be a very dark night fall for all of us."

You don't have much faith in the Resistance, eh ?
Anonymous said…
blah, blah blah, and more blah, blah blah, and now blah blah blah, and now the time is running out, more blah blah blah blah, we deserve every one cup of coffee, and blah blah blah, you beat me to it, blah blah blah, AND BLAH BLAH BLAH!
Layla Anwar said…
nur aris, what are you babbling on about ?

Just because an article is a little long and you can't be bothered to read it, does not make it blah blah...

And yes, time is running out. Or has already done so.
Anonymous said…
Scott Ritter does not make policy, but everything he said in the run-up to the Iraq war was ultimately proven correct. Just because the war plans change does not mean those plans weren't in place at the time he wrote these articles.

Layla, you accuse me of 'bad faith'. I do not know what you mean. I am ON YOUR SIDE, for crissakes. I want the war to end. I want the war criminals brought to trial. I am opposed to the bombing of Iran (perhaps you approve, but I don't think so). I am opposed to the partition of Iraq, but that is probably a fait accompli at this point. I didn't like Saddam, but I could say the same about 80% of the world's leaders and politicians, if not more. (Did Iraqis deserve to suffer under sanctions during Saddam's reign? Of course not.)

Perhaps you would prefer if readers such as myself stayed away from your blog. Perhaps you would prefer the comfortable sycophancy of a small circle of loyalists. But I have spent my entire life trying to understand the world around me, and I prefer to read as wide a variety of news and opinions as I can possibly find. How else would I have found your blog?

Contrary to your opinion, I am not so dim that I cannot be educated. So far, you cast much heat but little light on the crucial topics of the day. If you are going to assert that the anti-war left is no better than the neo-con right, you should have something more than the Workers World 'newspaper' as your evidence.

I do not know if you have ever lived in a western country. I have certainly never lived outside one.
The anti-war left is so marginalized here that our only hope for ending the war is a massive upsurge in US casualties, the reinstatement of the draft, or an economic meltdown. Those are the cold, simple facts. There is nothing else we can do to stop the madness.

I write in the spirit of finding some common ground, no matter how tenuous. Hurling insults and generalizations at your allies is not a good way of establishing that common ground.

John
Unknown said…
Dear Layla,
I have been reading your blog for some time, and have read every word of your archives. First, thank you.
I am American, and I wish I could say something for myself, for those I love here who are and want to be ignorant, for the rotten state of my country. I've never commented before because I felt I could not say anything - could not give anything back. And while I still cannot really, because this is not mine, I would like you to see this poem and hope you will know how sadly it rings true. How sorry we are. How we hope somehow good will exist for your country soon.

Doamna

Cavort
By Connie Dover

I have learned
this year
so far
that:

orange is the new pink
amazing is the new awesome
and bread is the new antichrist

a smile is actually a vestigial combat position;
and fellow politicos rarely disagree
They simply view enigmas from different perspectives

I don't meditate
I just lie in bed in the morning
and think about stuff
like:

unlimited nationwide long distance calling
niche film making for Mormons
and how unpalatable it would be to love without attachment

a vulture huddled over a corpse buzzing in the dirt
weekend winner giveaways at my local pontiac dealer
a child sleeping in the lap of a cadaver
one hundred days one million bodies
honey change the channel

We prefer our truth cut
with head-spanking images of pillow-lipped nymphs
who undulate through glossy SUVs and vault from high-res screens
into the viagra-spiked lap of a nation
that sits incubating in a sitcom induced haze
blink
and thus the world failed Rwanda

Who cares if I have mental cleavage
in a kingdom whose terrified rulers deploy smiles like weapons
as they play a fast and loose game of
pin the bomb on the Muslim
and dream of the day when the Fertile Crescent
is dotted with gated communities
called Fakewood and Arabian Heights

and who unload cargo planes full of Xanax
on a public that is now convinced that having a conscience
is actually Clinical Depression
and can be cured

And so,
as we are being outsourced, repurposed and pole-axed
in the name of a lantern-jawed myth stamped Security
As I lie in bed in the morning,
lounging in a sudsy bath of gratitude
to a certain omnipresent
intergalactic
fast food Unisource
for vowing to swipe my major credit card,
I grow weary of the shallow rhythm of my own mean invective

Cynicism tastes rancid

Every action I contemplate feels like a mistake waiting to be made,
and I want more than anything
to be reunited with the strength of will
I seem to have dropped along the way,

a child too burdensome to carry
and left by the road.
Anonymous said…
The Shi'a have endured 30 years of this oppression. Iraq was an advanced nation, but of course like ALL the other fake Arab States, have accomplished this selling Shi'a oil. They gave free health care, education, subsidies, and even salaries to non-Iraqi Arabs, using Shi'a money, while the Believers were left with none of that, and denied opportunities in their own country. They started wars, and used Shi'a men to fight it for them. And in the end, it was for a nationalism who benefits only enjoyed by an elite group of Sunnis and non-Iraqis. You are complaining about revenge of 2 years, on a campaign against the Shi'a the last 1500 years.

But there was a miscalculation. You see, perhaps it would have been believable for the systematic suicide bombings against our markets and masjids and even our female dormitories and baby kids in nurseries, to blame it on America. But to bomb our Awaited Imam's shrine, and then parade it with posters of Saddam Hussein, and then once again bomb what was left of it...a mistake was made. The road to Jerusalem does in fact cross Baghdad. But we cannot reach Damascus first, without Fallujah and Ramadi. Welcome to the Shi'a Iraq, Our Iraq.
Layla Anwar said…
anonymous shia,

I wanted to read the whole of your comment but the 1st line was enough for me.

Shias and I hate to admit it, for the most part at least in Iraq and lebanon is following in its footsteps have proved to be a nice racist, sectarian, chauvinistic lot.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SHIA OIL.
Full stop.

UNLESS, you have become the NEW JEWISH ZIONISTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST.
Confusing your sect which happens to be part of ISLAM with a RACE.

Then if this is the case, my assumption that you have turned or maybe have always been a racist, sectarian lot is confirmed. Hence, Saddam Hussein was 100% correct in clamping down and AM SORRY HE DID NOT DO IT MORE - on your sort.

Go and spread your propaganda elsewhere, AM SURE CHARACTERS LIKE THE JEWISH LEAGUE, CHOMSKY, GHALI HASSAN, JOHN SEAL ABOVE, THE ANTI WAR MOVT, WILL EMBRACE YOU.

You have no place on this blog.
Anonymous said…
What a perfect zionazi talk the above shiya`iy talks! It really deserves a new name: shi'anazi talk ...
Anonymous said…
Hi Layla.

Have you found anything about that book "Trilogy of the Self" and its author yet ?

Keep up the good work.

Regards.
Unknown said…
Most illuminating as usual Layla. Thanks for giving us a POV we can't get anywhere else.
Layla Anwar said…
Fleur de Lys,

Hello, I did ask around but no one can relate to that english title.
Did you try writing to iraqiwriters@yahoo.com? They may be able to help you. But will keep on asking. Why this now?
Layla Anwar said…
Curt,

Thanks but what does POV mean?
Layla Anwar said…
Hello Doamna,

Thank you for visiting and for the poem.

Good will not come to my country as long as the American troops are there and as long we are ruled by a hideous racist sectarian backward shia bunch who have been doing nothing but ethnically cleanse Nazi style and fill their pockets through corruption, bribes and pimping.

After all it is the americans and the zionists who brought them to power. That says a lot about both of these groups.

But I shall hold on to the thought.
Layla Anwar said…
anonymous,

shia nazi is a good term. I am finding it difficult to decide whom I detest more, the zionists nazis or the shia nazis. Funny how they look and act alike. Beautifully perverted slimey bed partners.
I pray that whatever they feel is multiplied by 1000000000. Let them choke on their hatred, vindictivness, spite and jealousy.
Anonymous said…
The people responsible for the Imam Askari shrine's destruction, the same responsible for the destruction of Janat al Baqi, the same responsible for the death of Imam Hussain will have to answer for their crimes. The neo-Ummayads, the boot-lickers of the West, the ones that sold their lands to the Europeans when they were finished prostituting themselves to the Ottomans, the ones that curse our marjas and our Imams and have ambitions to rape our lands of their resources and destroy our culture, have yet to see the manifestation of real revenge and oppression they cry about today. One I am afraid that has brewed for 1500 years a without sufficient just response...
Layla Anwar said…
LOL, what a retard .

Hussain was killed by the shias - hence the self flagellating...
Talk about carrying resentments and vengeance for 1500 years. LOL

People of such low caliber are not fit to rule anything. They are emotionally challenged to say the least. They need psychiatric help or they slip easily into psychopathological behavior as demonstrated by Al Hakeem and his Badr Brigades, Muqtada al Sadr and his Jaysh al Mahdi the drug addicts, B.Solaghr of the ministry of interior who gets erections at the sight of torture...etc etc...

People of such low class and mental dispositions are not fit to rule anything. They belong to a mental asylum. LOL
Anonymous said…
Who else do you like on the pro-Iraq virtual sphere besides Paola Pisi ?

And who do you dislike ?
Layla Anwar said…
web surfer,

I replied to you on the following post comment section.
Anonymous said…
DAMN IT, LORD

Again the drumbeats sound for war--
Two failed excursions not enough--
While motives rotted at the core
Disprove "this little thing called love."

The urgency by echo chamber
Gets raised into a fearful din--
The threat seems terrible, and amber,
So terrified will people sin.

People may be provoked to do,
By instigation to perform
Most heinous deeds, which on review
It justifies by madness, swarm.

Lord, roll this people off that cliff
Just like that herd of swine in which
Didst cast a demon--damn it if
Away from war it will not switch.

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