ROVING IN THE RED ZONE

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE02Ak01.html


Pepe Escobar in Iraq, " This is the first of his unembedded, non-Kevlar-protected, bodyguardless reports."

-long snip-

The air is heavy, dusty and the sun usually does not shine through the thick haze - a Hollywood-like special effect. The Baghdad gulag has the feel of an eerie version of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles - dusty and dead instead of glitzy palm trees, living-dead characters covered by a thick layer of sand and soot. The urban tissue is of a dissected cadaver - filthy, exposed parts separated from one another, fear and loathing impressed on blood, sweat, tears and viscera.

This is the real face of Bush's surgeland.

-snip-

The badge syndrome becomes more apparent in one of the safest places in the Red Zone: it had to be a mini-Green Zone, in the Shi'ite Karrada neighborhood. A group of no more than 10 houses, including two hotels, is protected like a bunker. Inside this normality amid chaos, the prominent inhabitants had to be armed-to-the-teeth private security contractors - the shadow US army in Iraq. Exit a group of bulky, burly South African mercenaries who had been sipping tea in the hotel lobby over piped music. Enter a group of Nepalese Gurkhas in T-shirts whose first activity is target practice at the hotel entrance.

-snip-

In explosive al-Amriya, in west Baghdad, flags of the Islamic Emirate of Iraq are on full display, and the writing is - literally - on the walls: "Long live al-Qaeda." Women are being forced to wear the niqqab - which covers the whole face - and gloves at all times, and some women have already been executed, accused of spying. All across town war widows - women who traditionally were supposed to stay at home raising the family - now have become mechanics, parking valets or electronic appliance repairers.

-snip-

The UN has done next to nothing to help these millions of exiled Iraqis - not to mention the wealthy Arab emirates, or the Wahhabi millionaires in Saudi Arabia. After the total implosion of social life, Iraq has reverted to pre-modernity. Baghdad, once the pride of Islam, has reverted to the status of the saddest, most desperate of global capitals. No wonder the motto - even from secular, well-educated Shi'ites - is ubiquitous: "Iraq is finished."

So no one can say that half a trillion dollars - so far - courtesy of US taxpayers, has not served a clear "creative destruction" purpose. And this is only the hors d'oeuvres. The Baghdad gulag is yet to reach full fruition. Iraq will be finished one mini-Green Zone at a time.
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and depleted uranium poisoning will win