Page 2 of
2 ROVING IN THE RED
ZONE The true
heart of darkness By Pepe Escobar
people a day. When he was caught,
locals realized there was also a Sudanese sniper.
And then came the sniper of al-Ra'y, who
specializes in the Shabab area. There's even a
"sniper school" - in al-Radwaniya. People in these
affected neighborhoods cannot even dare to cross
their own streets.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq - in
its demented urban incarnations from Dora to
Amiriya - will continue killing even fellow Sunni
Arabs, especially
harmless barbers (a grudge
against un-Islamic haircuts) and garbage
collectors (after all, they are government
employees). Uncollected piles of garbage - a
recurrent Baghdad theme - also offer the prospect
of a perfect hideout for IEDs, mines and bombs.
The best time in Baghdad to circumvent the
gigantic queues and have a tank filled with
gasoline will continue to be immediately after a
shooting spree - or a car/truck bombing. More and
more mule carts - most carrying propane tanks -
will be seen in the dusty streets among the rusty
orange-and-white Volkswagen Passats and the sheep
grazing by the curbside - heralding the return of
Baghdad to the Middle Ages.
The truce
between the Iraqi Army and sections of the
muqawama will also prevail: "Don't do
anything against us," say the guerrillas, "and we
will not shoot you." The army's poor souls anyway
are more than ready to admit that they're only in
it for the money - one of the few forms of steady
salary available in the country.
The
federalists of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq may have changed the party's
name to Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and pledged
their unconditional allegiance to revered Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, but it's their Badr
Organization, including death squads, that will
continue to lay down the law out of the seventh
floor of the Interior Ministry.
Meanwhile,
the nationalist Sadrists will continue to rule the
Shi'ite street. As for how come Sistani supports
the new oil law, which will virtually hand out
Iraq's natural wealth to Anglo-American Big Oil,
this crucial matter will explode in all its
perfidious contradictions in the Iraqi Parliament
next month.
There will be countless more
"mysterious" attacks on the Green Zone like the
one two weeks ago, in the middle of the night.
Residents nearby heard loud explosions and saw
columns of smoke. A fleeting Reuters dispatch on
the explosions appeared on the Internet, but only
in French, with no details, and then mysteriously
vanished. Nearby residents are adamant: "The Green
Zone is attacked with mortars every day." And
al-Qaeda in Iraq has not even taken its new
al-Quds 1 guided missile for a test drive.
Darkness dawns at the break of
noon The United Nations says Somalia is now
the most urgent humanitarian crisis on the planet.
No it's not: it's Iraq. Baghdad is now the
ultimate laboratory of perverse social
engineering: a brutalized, militarized,
neo-Spartan future three-tier society where
privileges are enjoyed by the first tier - the US
Army, the handsomely paid US shadow army of
contractors - and the second tier - Iraqi
politicians who spend most of their time in London
or Middle Eastern capitals. The overall population
are just corralled, humiliated and treated as mere
slaves - extras in their own land.
Take
Iraqi Airways, for instance. True, some of its
pilots have been assassinated. The reservation
system is manual. After getting to Baghdad
International Airport (which locals still call
"Saddam") - an obstacle course that involves
endless checkpoints and body searches - one may
wait for as long as half a day, or sometimes a
full day, for a "scheduled" flight. "There is no
schedule," comments a passenger.
No
flight-departure panel, either. And not a single
shred of information. Meanwhile, throngs of bulky
contractors loaded with high-tech gear are
dutifully guided to their safe, scheduled,
comfortable, on-time flights to Saudi Arabia,
Dubai or Kuwait. They are superior beings. They
sport badges. The average population has no badge;
they are infra-beings.
This is the picture
of "normal life" for people like the helpless,
affable Kurd who poses as the Iraqi foreign
minister, Hoshyar Zebari, as well as scores of
high-minded US senators, Congress members and
vapid retired generals on CNN. Their pre-packaged,
spun-to-the-word certainty is an astonishing
insult to world public opinion's intelligence.
One wonders why they don't surge via Iraqi
Airways on "Saddam" International, buy a cheap
Korean portable generator and hit the Red Zone
with no Kevlar vests, no bodyguards, no
sport-utility vehicles with tinted windows, no
protecting Apache helicopters circling overhead,
to wallow in the joys of "normal life".
Leaving Baghdad at night, past curfew
time, is one of the saddest experiences of our
time. There are just a few dim lights down on the
ground - as if the former pride and splendor of
Islam are enveloped in a shroud. The only moving
object is - what else - a serpentine US convoy
about to go on a search-and-destroy mission in
"normal life".
The Bush/Cheney
half-trillion-dollar (so far) Iraq adventure razed
to the ground an entire Arab state. Not just any
Arab state; the cradle of civilization as we know
it has been hurled back to medieval times (but
with mobile phones for everyone; an Iraqna SIM
card costs only US$10).
Blowback will be
perennial: the "sanctions generation" - the angry
young men who grew up deprived of everything
during the 1990s - will never, ever forget it.
Even if the Iraqi Parliament votes a timeline for
the end of the occupation - as Sadrist leader Nasr
al-Roubaie told Asia Times Online two weeks ago
(see What Muqtada wants, May
4).
Iraq is and will remain the true heart
of darkness of the early 21st century. Forget
about Russia or China; now, finally, the
administration of President George W Bus, the
military-industrial complex and assorted armchair
warriors can finally be assured that the United
States has found an enemy for life.
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