[Peace-discuss] Dahr Jamail: "‘Reality Is Totally Different’: Iraqis on ‘Success’ and ‘Progress’ in Their Country"

[Stuart Levy]

See this article by Dahr Jamail, interweaving US propaganda about
"progress", etc. in Iraq, with letters from Iraqis commenting on
those reports and on the situation they see now in Iraq:

   http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174886/dahr_jamail_missing_voices_in_the_iraq_debate

For example:

[...]
Americans may argue among themselves about just how much "success" or
"progress" there really is in post-surge Iraq, but it is almost invariably
an argument in which Iraqis are but stick figures -- or dead bodies.  Of
late, I have been asking Iraqis I know by email what they make of the
American version (or versions) of the unseemly reality that is their
country, that they live and suffer with.  What does it mean to become a
"secondary issue" for your occupier?

In response, Professor S. Abdul Majeed Hassan, an Iraqi university
faculty member wrote me the following:

    "The year of 2007 was the bloodiest among the occupation years, and
    no matter how successful the situation looks to Mr. Bush, reality
    is totally different.  What kind of normal life are he and the media
    referring to where four and a half million highly educated Iraqis
    are still dislocated or still being forcefully driven out of their
    homes for being anti-occupation?  How can the people live a normal
    life in a cage of concrete walls [she is referring to concrete walls
    being erected by the Americans around entire Baghdad neighborhoods],
    guarded by their kidnappers, killers, and occupation forces?  What
    kind of normal life can you live where tens of your relatives and
    your beloved ones are either missing or in jail and you don't even
    know if they are still alive or, after being tortured, have been
    thrown unidentified in the dumpsters?
[...]