Part Three in a Troubling Series

by Michael I. Niman

Remember Fallujah? It's the Iraqi city of 300,000 that we had to destroy in order to save back in April of 2004. Over 30 Americans died and over 400 American troops were wounded and airlifted away. And at least 1,200 Iraqis were killed. A Red Cross official reported that American forces used cluster bombs and chemical phosphorous weapons inside the city. The target of the U.S. assault, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with up to 80 percent of his fighters, managed to slip out of town, leaving the Fallujans to catch the brunt of the American attack. In the end, some 10,000 homes in the city were completely leveled, and an estimated 150,000 residents displaced.

An Interview with Gilbert Achcar

by Bill Weinberg

Gilbert Achcar is the author of The Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder (Monthly Review Press, 2002) and Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror (Monthly Review Press, 2004). A native of Lebanon, he teaches international relations at the University of Paris, and is a frequent contributor to Le Monde diplomatique. On Nov. 3, he spoke in New York City at an event organized by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy entitled "The Case For Immediate Withdrawal: Wrestling with the Hard Questions." The following day, he spoke with WW4 REPORT's Bill Weinberg at his apartment in Lower Manhattan.

Nir Rosen has a piece in the December Atlantic Monthly entitled "If America Left Iraq: The case for cutting and running." Rosen poses the following questions and answers them all himself:

Would the withdrawal of U.S. troops ignite a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites?

No. That civil war is already under way—in large part because of the American presence. The longer the United States stays, the more it fuels Sunni hostility toward Shiite "collaborators." Were America not in Iraq, Sunni leaders could negotiate and participate without fear that they themselves would be branded traitors and collaborators by their constituents. Sunni leaders have said this in official public statements; leaders of the resistance have told me the same thing in private.

A voice of unassailable moral credibility—we hope—is added to chorus demanding release of the four hostages from the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq.

LONDON (Reuters) - A former Guantanamo Bay detainee has pleaded for the release of peace worker Norman Kember and three other hostages held in Iraq.

Iraq's armed guerillas are usually portrayed in vague and shadowy terms, allowing political commentators to cast them in whatever image is deemed convenient. Even the correct word to designate them says more about the commentator than the militants themselves. Those who wish to demonize them call them "terrorists"; those who wish to cheer them on call them the "resistance"; while the majority of the mainstream media cut it down the middle by calling them "insurgents"—while still providing little detail about who they actually are.

Now a front-page Dec. 2 New York Times story (online at the International Herald Tribune) actually provides a breakdown of the insurgency's major constituent entities, and an analysis of its strategies and structure, drawing on the research of the SITE Institute (for Seach for International Terrorist Entities).

The SITE Institute identifies five major groupings, each made up of numerous small, largely autonomous cells that operate under its umbrella. From largest to smallest: al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Ansar al-Sunna, the Victorious Army Group, the 20th of July Revolution Brigade and al-Rashideen Army.

Recent reportage raises some disturbing questions about the abduction of the four activists from the Christian Peacemaker Teams now being held hostage in Iraq—Tom Fox, 54, of Virginia; Norman Kember, 74, of London; James Loney, 41, of Toronto; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, also of Canada. (See our last post on the case.)

Rather inconvenient news at a time when Bush is hailing a "clear strategy for victory" (Bloomberg, Dec. 1) and "real progress" (Guardian, Nov. 30) in Iraq.

RAMADI, Iraq, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Iraqi militants attacked a U.S. base and a local government building with mortar rounds and rockets in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Thursday, before holding ground on several central streets, residents said.

Sen. Joseph Biden's Nov. 21 speech before the Council on Foreign Relations calling for a phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq over the next two years is clearly intended as a response to Dick Cheney's bellicose tirade before the American Enterprise Institute that same day. Cheney merely demonstrates classical addictive behavior. He just can't stop himself: