I felt so depressed yesterday after watching this video showing the 2 US soldiers who were kidnapped some months ago being tied to a truck and then dragged for a few minutes before then being set on fire and burned. According to Mujahideen Shura Council, the two soldiers were part of the brigade that raped and burned Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and killed her family in al-Mahmoudiya back in June. More killing and torture will not get us anywhere.
The same Shura Council has supposedly announced an "Islamic State" in the middle of Iraq (baghdad and surroundings) as a response to the destructive Province-based federalism Law that just passed in the Iraqi parliament last week. The ill-boding law passed when the US puppet Allawi helped SCIRI by sending four MPs from his coalition to vote for the law. All Sunnis, Secular (i.e. NDF), Sadr and other major groups boycotted the session. The Allawi move raises questions about the US role in supporting the tragic law that will open the door for a full scale Iraqi-Iraqi conflict. I couldn't find the alleged Qaeda/Shura council announcment about the Islamic State online, but in case it wasn't a CIA hoax (because it fits very conveniently with the bush "war on terrorism" retoric), it seems like a good oportunity for the Iraqi anti-occupation movement to find itself and reject such extremist anti-Iraq ideologies. It is kind of ironic to watch arch enemies al-qaeda, the bush administration, and the Iranian government work together in the same bunker to divide Iraq.
There are a lot of rumors (and facts) about a coup de d'etat happening soon in Iraq. One washington post article written by David Ignatius (oct. 13th) mentioned the effort of some Iraqi leaders to form a "national salvation government". The Natioanl Dialogue Front (NDF), led by Al-Mutlaq, seems to be taking a leading role in this effort. Many Iraqis are expecting the fall of this current Iraqi government soon.
While bush and his few supporters (less than one third of the US population) are pushing to "stay the course" in Iraq, the official number of coalition soldiers killed in Iraq reached to 3,000 today, and the official number of US NON-MORTAL CASUALTIES in Iraq is aproaching 45,000. This number is still very low comparing to the 185,000 US veterans (nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan) who have been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.
The same administration that caused the death of and injury of tens of thousands of Americans in Iraq caused the death of more than 600,000 Iraqis according to the latest study published in the Lancet. This number suggests that other millions of Iraqis were injured as well because of the post-occupation violence. Let's wait and see the wave of deniers of this reasonalbe study (one out of 40 Iraqis killed in a very modest number, I don't know of anyone who hasn't lost at least some members of their extended family).
On a closing note, I've gotten many emails with advice on how to deal with the death threats I recieved some months ago, and most of the emails (even from active duty soldiers) suggested I should report Mr. brian messersmith to the police and to the USACID (US Army Criminal Investigation Detachment). So I'll contact my lawyer this week to ask for more details. Also, I am currently taking my first legal steps against Jet Blue, TSA, and other agencies. I'll keep you updated.
