In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
You are correct Bruce! That's why most of the world quietly said then, "go for it Hitler – they deserve you". I say, "gas chamber is long over due".
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "bruceksim" wrote:
Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter - Skank
Oh dear!! More green/left weAkly crap!! The word I have from somone who was in country recently is that things are going quite well with the islamo-fascist scum being on the back foot and dying in quite large numbers!! And that makes us all happy!!Cheers Bruce
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "union_faruque" wrote:Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter - Skank
UNITED STATES
United States: Anti-war strike shuts down ports
Raul Connolly
3 May 2008
According to the May 2 New York Times, ports on the US west coast were shut down on May 1 by dockworkers calling for an end to the US-led occupation of Iraq.
"Cranes and forklifts stood still from Seattle to San Diego, and ships were stalled at sea as workers held rallies up and down the coast to blame the war for distracting public attention and money from domestic needs like health care and education", the NYT reported.
The main West Coast employers' group, the Pacific Maritime Association, opposed the strike and argued it was a violation by its organisers, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, of its labour contract. A PMA spokesperson described it as "genuine defiance".
According to the NYT, "dock workers were joined at port entrances or at rallies by other groups protesting the war or frustrated by economic issues or immigration policies. Some rallies seemed as much like street fairs as angry acts of resistance, with booksellers setting up stands and supporters of the presidential candidate Ralph Nader carrying banners."
The NYT reports in California, some truck drivers decided not to cross the picket lines.` `They told me it was a picket but if I wanted to go in I could", Cesar Lara told the NYT. "But I'm supporting them and to end the war."
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #749 7 May 2008.
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "al_faruque" wrote:Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter - Skank
Any help?
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "union_faruque" wrote:Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter - Skank
skankthumper2bc,
Nice to know that we are on the same side! As I said earlier, the powerful Zionist camp has isolated me in the media for the last two weeks for belting the American hate merchant Daniel Pipes. The Israel Palestine conflict is going on for the last sixty years and we can slow down posting rate so that a slow reader like me would be in a position to follow them. Not a big ask I suppose.
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "skankthumper2bc" wrote:
Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter - Skank
Yes I TRY to read posts amidst all of Brucie's BULLSHIT. And YES I agree... YES to war crimes and NO to the illegal amoral war based on LIES. Excuse me... War(s).WAY past time to impeach, convict and EXECUTE TRAITORs like Bush, Cheney and their filthy zio-NAZI ILK!
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "union_faruque" wrote:Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter - Skank
Skank,
Howcome you are silent about this post? Are you friend or foe? Do you read any post or just Post?
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "mmalamgir80" wrote:
Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
Free America Now!
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "union_faruque" wrote:Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
Saturday, 8th of March 2008, I have encountered Ms. Kathy Black from US LAW (US Labour Against War) at the Tom Mann Theatre, Sydney, Australia. Very nice, well spoken grandmotherly figure! She is travelling the world with her colleagues. They represent American Trade Unions.
They found out the ugliness and vicious cycles of wars and specifically the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. They also knew, because of these wars, poor American workers are loosing their share of food, education, housing, medicine, civil rights, industrial rights and other vital needs. Needless to say, their government who have been acting against the wish and interest of the American people are earning hate across the world.
I say, Good on You American Union Movement!
They stood up under a united banner. They are travelling around the world and building bridges between ordinary man and women across the globe.
Great lady, to her credit, she acknowledged the superior knowledge of her Australian audiences! She also confessed how little she knew from `inside America'!
We had many things in common and we became friends.
During the question time, my old friend Anna who was chairing the meeting continuously ignored me. However, due to the pressure of the audiences she had to accept my question.
My question was "how can we win war and peace"?
Her response was, "I don't know".
I continued, let's share together and find out. You see Australia is a fairly rich country and I am ashamed to say, we are stealing oil from our poor neighbour East Timor (the crowed applauded). Yet, we are sending hundreds of million dollar worth of military aid to ET and they are not even feeding one person other than a tragic `show' of Australian guns and boots. On the other hand the `bad guy of Cuba' delivered hundreds of teachers and doctors to ET and took many ET kids to Cuba to make them doctors and teachers. You see, he is assisting to build a society and surely one can work out, "who is wining"?
Then I gave a brief account of our attempts to destroy/weaken Iran in many ways over so many years. Yet, other day, so called Hitler of Iran Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad (not Mohammed Mossadegh ) hop in to a plane at Tehran and hop out at Baghdad airport, got into car, drove along the `HIGH WAY TO DEATH" without American escort. He stayed at the DENGERIUOS Red Zone, mixed with all kinds of people including Shias and Sunnis despite a totally idiotic media coverage of Shia/Sunni divide and Ahmadinazad in the `west' on that day and eventually finished his business and went back to Iran safely. I posed and said, "I am sure you now by now, who is wining".
At the end, we spoke, we cried and laughed, we look for hope and peace around the word in a much more determined manner.
But, what about my friend Anna? Was she preventing a "machine gun" like me not to attack her distinguished American guest as my old friend Professor Rees tried to protect his guest Scot Ritta earlier! Well, to my friend's surprise, Scot came and sat to me, and asked, "buddy, what was your question"?
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "Jude" wrote:RE: [freeamericanow] Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
Now our problem is getting those war crimes a moving folks. I believe a vast majority of people in the world want that to happen, now the question is how?
Jude
Sanjay,
I am sick of the war. I feel sorry and concerned for both the troops and the Iraqi people. No war is a good war, and this is a war that never should have happened. It seems Americans know few peaceful times. Grandma
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "mamubhi" wrote:Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
Sanjay,
Blogathon is good idea.
Although the democratic and humanitarian US and Australian governments do not like blogs!
You might find some solution.
Sanjay Pandey
BangaloreKarnatakaIndia
--- On Wed, 23/4/08, Jodie wrote:
From: Jodie Subject: [freeamericanow] Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services FalterTo: freeamericanow@yahoogroups.comDate: Wednesday, 23 April, 2008, 11:43 AM
Sanjay, you got that right... and I cannot change America's bloody path. Believe me.... I have tried !!
Grandma
Sanjay wrote:
Re: [freeamericanow] Re: In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
Grandma,Today's America was founded on blood. So how can peace prevail.
Sanjay Pandey
Bangalore
Karnataka
India
--- In freeamericanow@yahoogroups.com, "Jodie" wrote:In Sadr City, Basic Services Falter
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: April 22, 2008
BAGHDAD — Even as American and Iraqi troops are fighting to establish control of the Sadr City section of this capital, the Iraqi government's program to restore basic services like electricity, sewage and trash collection is lagging, jeopardizing the effort to win over the area's wary residents.
A blog looking at daily life inside Iraq, produced by The Times's Baghdad bureau.
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Enlarge Iraqis walk by a pile of burning trash in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. Residents have complained to American soldiers about a lack of basic services.
For weeks, there have been reports that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is preparing to move ahead with a multimillion-dollar program to rebuild the southern swath of Sadr City, which is currently occupied by Iraqi and American troops.
But almost a month after American and Iraqi forces pushed into the area, there are no signs of reconstruction. Instead, the streets are filled with mounds of trash and bubbling pools of sewage. Many neighborhoods are still without electricity, and many residents are too afraid to brave the cross-fire to seek medical care. Iraqi public works officials, apparently fearful of the fighting, rarely seem to show up at work, and the Iraqi government insists the area is not safe enough for repairs to begin.
On Saturday, three Sadr City residents gingerly approached an American Army position to deliver a warning: Unless the Iraqi government or its American partner did something to restore essential services and remove the piles of garbage, the militias would gain more support.
The Iraqi government has long had difficulties improving services for its citizens, but the delay in mounting reconstruction efforts in Sadr City is complicating the American strategy to thwart the area's militias and halt the mortars and missiles that had been fired from its streets toward the fortified Green Zone.
Hoping to stabilize the southern portion of Sadr City, American forces are building a wall to partition the neighborhood, and have moved with the Iraqi Army into the Thawra and Jamilla areas, south of where the barrier is being built.
But a standard — and, according to many here, crucial — counterinsurgency tactic is to appeal to a skeptical population after fighting through an area, by restoring and improving basic services.
"He who is able to fix the public utilities holds the keys to the kingdom in terms of winning the support of the Iraqi people and ultimately ending this conflict," said Sgt. Alex J. Plitsas of the 312th Psychological Operations Company, who met with Sadr City representatives.
"People tell me time and time again that they see their basic needs as being more than food, clothing and shelter," said the sergeant, whose team is attached to Company B, First Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment. "They include electricity, water and sewage. And until the Iraqi government provides them with such basic services, they won't trust them."
Indeed, the Mahdi Army, the militia founded by Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric who holds sway here, has long used the delivery of aid and basic services as a means of building political influence.
"Through a `Hezbollah-like' scheme, the Shiite Sadrist movement has established itself as the main service provider in the country," notes a recent report by Refugees International, an advocacy group. "As a result of the importance of nonstate actors in the delivery of assistance and security, civilians are joining militias."
Sadr City is so large and poor that large swaths have been in chronic disrepair, but the fighting inflicted further damage. Residents have repeatedly asked American troops during patrols why the garbage cannot be removed and basic repairs made in the areas the Americans control, especially since the most intense fighting appears to be over in these sectors.
The soldiers have stressed that they are not standing in the way of such efforts, and would also like them to begin.
But while the government has been willing to fix water, sewage and electrical lines in the past, officials say that it was still too dangerous for work to begin. The Iraqi government held a joint news conference with the American military on Sunday to promote their plans to help Sadr City, including $150 million to bolster the area's infrastructure. But when pressed on the timetable for reconstruction, an Iraqi spokesman for the Baghdad security plan refused to estimate a starting date.
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Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting.
Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freeamericanow/message/45910
