Goodman: The reconstruction of Iraq (How the Marines rebuilt Najaf)

[Barrett808]

Goodman: The reconstruction of Iraq
Maj. Kerry W. Goodman

NAJAF, Iraq - I am going to write in detail about some of the major accomplishments of my task force, which is made up of just over 400 Mississippi Army National Guard soldiers.

Everyone in Mississippi should be very proud of the blood, sweat and tears shed in Iraq by Mississippi's sons. As I write this article, I've just learned that another member of this brigade has lost his life today from a direct-action firefight with insurgents. I can assure you that soldier believed in what he was doing and did not die in vain. The American people are beginning to doubt the mission here; so easily they forget that 229 years ago we were in the same situation as the Iraqis. Of all the countries in the world, the United States should understand that the Iraqi people need us.

There have been some major accomplishments in Iraq and in the province of an-Najaf over the past few months.

On Oct. 15, the people of Najaf came out in great numbers to vote “yes” for the national referendum, which, if passed, will become the Iraq constitution. If I remember my Quitman High School government teacher (Mrs. Bartee, you can correct me later if I am wrong), it took the United States from 1776 to 1787 to write its constitution; Iraq has written - and soon will ratify - its constitution in 10 months. In my book that is a great accomplishment and noteworthy.

In Najaf, we have declared local and provincial control, which, in short, gives the security control back to the provincial government. To us that would mean the Iraqi security forces are the first responders to all security events in the province; they patrol, man all the checkpoints, secure all government buildings and respond to all insurgent attacks and civil disturbances.

If you have been keeping up with the news you have heard the president say we will withdraw from Iraq when the Iraqi security forces are strong enough to take over the security of this country. Najaf is the first province in Iraq to be given security control and is the model for all of Iraq to follow. This could not have been accomplished by the Iraqis without hard work and assistance from Task Force 198 with its exceptional soldiers and officers from Mississippi.

(more)

http://www.meridianstar.com/articles/2005/11/06/opinions/news_columnists/a7-goodman.txt

[xchrom]

1. 229 years ago we were not in the same situation.

and the comparison is so outrageous as to be insulting.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Oh, this is part of that new "campaign" it reads just like all

the "good news" letters of the past from Iraq. I particularly like the reference to the american revolution, very psyops!

And of course there really is a Maj Goodman who will claim that he did write this - they won't make that mistake again. Did they submit this to all the ltte all over the country?

[donco6]

3. Seriously deluded.

"The American people are beginning to doubt the mission here; so easily they forget that 229 years ago we were in the same situation as the Iraqis. Of all the countries in the world, the United States should understand that the Iraqi people need us."

There simply is no parallel between the American Revolution and the unjust war in Iraq. If anything, the real parallel is the insurgent action AGAINST us.

[teryang]

4. Death squads in "democratic Iraq"

Interesting analysis of the deep politics of death squads in "democratic Iraq" and of a possible Anglo-American balkanization plan. Think El Salvador, Guatamala, Columbia, Bosnia and Kosovo.


Crying Wolf: Media Disinformation and Death Squads in Occupied Iraq


by Max Fuller

November 10, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca

...Since then, a steady stream of the victims of extrajudicial killings has flowed through the Baghdad morgue. Characteristically, the victims’ hands are tied or handcuffed behind their backs and they have been blindfolded. In most cases they also appear to have been whipped with a cord, subjected to electric shocks or beaten with a blunt object and shot to death, often with single bullets to the head. Yasser Salihee, a journalist for Knight Ridder investigating the bodies, wrote that eyewitnesses claimed many of the victims were seized by men wearing commando uniforms in white Toyota Land Cruisers with police markings. (Knight Ridder). Salihee’s last article was published on 27 June, three days after he was fatally shot by a US sniper at a routine checkpoint...

...The majority of accusations are general. Journalists refer to the police, security forces, the National Guard or to poorly identified police commandos, but specific accusations have been made against a unit known as the Wolf Brigade. The identification of the Wolf Brigade with cases of abduction, torture and execution in Baghdad was first made on 16 May, when Mothana Harith Al-Dari, a spokesman for the AMS, stated that ‘The mass killings and the crackdown and detention campaigns in north-eastern Baghdad over the past two days by members of the Iraqi police or by an Interior Ministry special force, known as the Wolf Brigade, are part of a state terror policy’, in relation to the discoveries of the victims of extrajudicial executions noted above (Islam Online)...

...Fifteen years later, the same charges can be levelled against the recent Iraq ‘War’ and the country’s subsequent occupation. Most importantly, I believe that a process akin to that Baudrillard highlighted is being actively employed to simulate a civil war in Iraq. False-flag intelligence operations are aimed at sowing seeds of a sectarian strife that was largely non-existent prior to the invasion. Thus, even many Sunni Iraqis are coming to believe that the well-organised death squads run from the CIA-controlled intelligence hub are actually the Badr Brigade they often claim to be; and thus British SAS men in Arab disguise plant bombs at Shia religious festivals to be blamed on fanatical Wahabi Sunni ‘insurgents’...

...Whether such tactics succeed in provoking further, autonomous acts of violence directed against the civilian population is much less significant than the impact they are able to exert within the media. This Anglo-American intelligence operation acts as a factory churning out the signs of Civil War: a ‘wave of tit-for-tat sectarian violence’ and the consequent ethnic cleansing. The signs are produced to be picked up by the media and spun and spun until nothing is left but a nebulous Civil War with no internal logic or structure, with the occupying forces as powerless to intervene as they were in the Balkans while Iraq splits into Rubiae’s desired four to six autonomous provinces. Those few journalists, like Yasser Salihee and Steven Vincent, who break the mould and start to investigate the actual authorship of extrajudicial killings themselves become victims.

[coda]

5. It took 4 months and included separation of church and state.

Iraq has a theocracy.


IRAQI CONSTITUTION

CHAPTER ONE: BASIC PRINCIPLES

Article (1): The Republic of Iraq is an independent, sovereign nation, and the system of rule in it is a democratic, federal, representative (parliamentary) republic.

Article (2): 1st - Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:

(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam

(b) Window Dressing

(c) Window Dressing

2nd - Window Dressing

Article (3): Window Dressing

Article (4): Window Dressing

[Boo Boo]

6. This is such shameless propaganda

I'm glad Maj. Goodman feels like they've had some success, and I hope his promotion comes through real soon, but the Shia controlled holy city of Najaf don't serve as a model for jack shit in the Sunni Triangle.