Fw: [Peace-discuss] Things are getting better

[Lisa Chason]

Carl -- can you send out the Washington Post op-ed piece (don't see it at
their website)?
Can't be believed if we can't read it...
L.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
To: <Peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 10:46 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Things are getting better


> [The Sunday Washington Post contains an amazing op-ed written jointly by a
> guy from the American Enterprise Institute and another from the Project
> for a New American Century -- neocon propaganda outfits with much business
> money.  They are calling (seriously) for a Vietnam-style
> counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq -- but of course without the
> "mistakes" made in Vietnam.  The thing has to be read to be believed.
> Meanwhile, here's an account of how things are at the center of the
> American occupation, form the redoubtable Robert Fisk.  --CGE]
>
> The Independent
> 10/26/03
> They're Getting Better
> Running the gauntlet of small arms fire and rocket-propelled
> grenades after check-in at Baghdad airport
> By Robert Fisk
>
> YOU need to take a military escort to reach Baghdad airport these days.
> Yes, things are getting better in Iraq, according to President Bush --
> remember that each hour that goes by -- but the guerrillas are getting so
> close to the runways that the Americans have chopped down every tree,
> every palm bush, every scrap of undergrowth on the way.
>
> Rocket-propelled grenades have killed so many GIs on this stretch of
> highway that the US army -- like the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the
> mid-80s -- have erased nature. You travel to Baghdad airport through a
> wasteland. Heathrow it isn't.
>
> "OK folks, now you can leave your bags here and go inside for your
> boarding passes," a cheery US army engineer tells the first arrivals for
> Amman. So we collect slips of paper that show no flight number, no seat
> number, no destination, not even a take-off time. There's a Burger King
> across the lot, but it's in a "high-security zone" which mere passengers
> cannot visit. There's no water for sale. There are so few seats that
> passengers stand in the heat outside what must be the biggest post office
> in the world, a vast US military sorting hanger with packets of mail for
> every one of the 146,000 troops in Iraq, standing 30ft high in racks.
>
> But take a look at the passengers. There's a lady from the aid
> organisation Care heading off for a holiday in Thailand, and there's the
> Bishop of Basra in his black and red robes and dangling crucifix, and
> there's an outgoing television crew and the International Red Cross
> representative with a little Red Cross plane to catch to Kirkuk. There's
> also a British construction man up from Hilla who spent the previous night
> under fire with the local Polish battalion. "Rocket-propelled grenades and
> heavy rifle fire for two hours," he mutters. Of course, the occupation
> authorities never revealed that. Because things are getting better in
> Iraq.
>
> Behind us, a series of giant four-engined jets are climbing in circles
> into the hot morning sky, big unmarked jobs that fly 180 degrees to the
> ground in tight circles to take off and land, so low you'd think they
> would trip the runway with their wing-tips -- anything to avoid the
> ground-to-air missiles that America's enemies are now firing at aircraft
> in the "New Iraq". "It's routine," one of the American engineers confides
> to us. "We get shot at every night."
>
> Among the other passengers, there's a humanitarian worker who's clearly
> had a nervous breakdown and some rather lordly Iraqi ladies escorted to
> check-in by an RAF officer with too much hair over his collar and, across
> the lot, a squad of American Special Forces soldiers enjoying the sun,
> heavy with black webbing, automatic rifles and pistols. Why do they all
> wear shades, I ask them? One of them takes off his sun-glasses. "What girl
> would look at us if they could see our real faces?" I agree. But they're
> an intelligent bunch of men, heavy with innuendo. Yes, they've got a safe
> house near Fallujah and combat casualties are sometimes "contained" within
> road accidents or drownings.
>
> A GUY called Chuck wants to confide in me. "You know the most precious
> resource about this country, Bob?" he asks. "It's the Iraqi people.
> There's a lot of protoplasm here." I was contemplating the definition of
> protoplasm when the first mortar came in, a thundering roar that had the
> passengers ducking like a theatrical chorus and a big white circle of
> smoke rising lazily from the other side of the runway. There's a whizzing
> noise and another clap of sound.
>
> "They're getting better," Chuck tells me. "They must have put that one
> close to the runway." The other Special Forces lads nod approvingly.
> Another tremendous explosion, and they all nod together. Another big white
> ring rippling skywards, as if a giant cigar addict had sat down for a
> smoke by the runway. "Not bad at all," says Chuck's friend.
>
> "We used to have a five-mile safety perimeter round the airport," Chuck
> says. "That's now down to two miles. The max anti-aircraft range is
> 8,000ft. So two miles is on the edge." Translation: US forces used to
> control five miles round the airport -- too far to permit a man with a
> hand-held launcher to hit a plane. Ambushes and attacks on the Americans
> have reduced their control to a mere two miles. On the edge of that
> radius, a man might just hit a plane with a missile range of 8,000ft.
>
> The Americans say there are two planes flying to Amman, at 10am and noon.
> Then another mortar round explodes in front of the hangars on the far side
> of the airport. And another.
>
> "This," the Bishop of Basra sermonises to me, "is the continuation of our
> 22-year war." I call a colleague in Baghdad. Airport under mortar fire, I
> helpfully report. "Heard nothing about it, Bob," comes the reply. "How
> many mortars did you say?" But the Special Forces men are enjoying
> themselves. An Apache helicopter races over us to strafe the Iraqi
> guerrillas. "Some hope," says Chuck. "They've already pissed off."
> Technicians in guerrilla warfare, the Special Forces men are coolly
> appreciative of anyone's professionalism, including that of the enemy.
>
> An American engineer pops up. If the TV crew will buy his guys Cokes, they
> can visit Burger King. A crackle of rifle fire from way beyond the airport
> perimeter. There must be a movie here, Walt Disney meets Vietnam.
>
> The Airbus belongs, incredibly, to Royal Jordanian, the only international
> carrier to risk the run to Baghdad once a day. At the steps, there's a
> squad of Jordanian security men in white socks -- Jordanian and Syrian
> plain-clothes cops always wear white socks -- and they insist, right there
> on the runway, in checking over all our gear again. Computers turned on,
> computers turned off, cameras opened, closed, notebooks out, even a sheaf
> of readers' letters to be prowled over. The Apache flies back, rockets
> still in their pods.
>
> Take-off is rather faster than usual. But there's no steady climb to
> cruising altitude. The Airbus turns sharply to port, G-forces pushing us
> into our seats, and there outside my window is the tented prison-camp city
> where the Americans keep more than 4,000 of their Iraqi prisoners without
> trial. The tents start to spin as the plane twists to starboard and then
> to port again, and there is the same prison camp outside my window, but
> this time upside down and turning anti-clockwise. I look around the cabin
> and notice fingers dug deep into arm-rests. The Airbus engines are
> howling, biting into the thinner air, and our eyes are searching for that
> thin trail of smoke that no one wants to see.
>
> Then the pilot levels out. A Royal Jordanian stewardess in a bright white
> blouse arrives at our seats. Things are getting better in Iraq. "Juice or
> red wine, which would you like?" she asks me. Reader, which did I choose?
>
> ***
>
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