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Iraq Dispatches - Dahr Jamail's Weblog
'Dahr Jamail's Weblog' contains Dahr Jamail's published news reports regarding the Middle East.
November 13, 2007
BOOKS-US/IRAQ: Outrage in a Time of Apathy
Inter Press Service
By Aaron Glantz*
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 13 (IPS) - Unlike most U.S. journalists who went to Iraq to cover a war, Dahr Jamail went to try to stop it.
Continue reading "BOOKS-US/IRAQ: Outrage in a Time of Apathy"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 04:12 PM
July 12, 2007
Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, Iraq Reporter Schizophrenic in Disneyland
What if you spoke regularly of "haji food," "haji music" and "haji homes"? What if your speeding convoys ran over civilians often enough that no one thought to report the incidents? What if your platoon was told pointblank: "The Geneva Conventions don't exist at all in Iraq, and that's in writing if you want to see it"; or, when you shot noncombatants, it was perfectly normal to plant "throwaway weapons" by their bodies, arrest those civilians who survived, and accuse them all of being "insurgents"? What if your buddy got his meal-ready-to-eat standard spoon and asked you to take a photo of him pretending to scoop the brains out of a dead Iraqi? Or what if the general attitude among your buddies was: "A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi.... You know, so what?"
These examples -- and many more like them -- can be found in a remarkable breaking story in the new issue of the Nation magazine. In a months-long investigation, Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian interviewed 50 U.S. combat veterans who had been stationed in Iraq. They were intent on exploring "the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians" (as well as on those soldiers). The article, "The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness," offers Americans a look behind the bombings and carnage in the headlines at just what kind of a war American troops have found themselves fighting -- focusing on the degradation that is essential to it and will accompany those troops home.
It is the perfect companion to the piece independent reporter Dahr Jamail has written for Tomdispatch today, which gives a sense of what anybody, even a journalist exposed to such "apocalyptic violence" and despair, is likely to bring home with him. Even more important, through a series of wrenching emails Jamail has received recently from Iraq, you get a small sense of what the dark and horrific war the American vets described to Hedges and al-Arian, a war only escalating in brutality, looks like to the Iraqis -- the ones who stand in danger of getting run over by those speeding convoys, or are at the other end of the kicked-in door, or the racism, or simply the anger and frustration of isolated soldiers in a strange and hostile land.
Jamail's new book on the Iraq he saw but most Americans, soldiers or journalists, didn't -- Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq -- is being published in October. Like Hedges and al-Arian, he offers a sense of an ongoing war you almost never hear about on the nightly news. Tom
Iraq on My Mind
Thousands of Stories to Tell -- And No One to Listen
By Dahr Jamail
"In violence we forget who we are" -- Mary McCarthy, novelist and critic
1. Statistically Speaking
Having spent a fair amount of time in occupied Iraq, I now find living in the United States nothing short of a schizophrenic experience. Life in Iraq was traumatizing. It was impossible to be there and not be affected by apocalyptic levels of violence and suffering, unimaginable in this country.
But here's the weird thing: One long, comfortable plane ride later and you're in Disneyland, or so it feels on returning to the United States. Sometimes it seems as if I'm in a bubble here that's only moments away from popping. I find myself perpetually amazed at the heights of consumerism and the vigorous pursuit of creature comforts that are the essence of everyday life in this country -- and once defined my own life as well.
Continue reading "Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, Iraq Reporter Schizophrenic in Disneyland"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 09:01 PM
May 27, 2007
"Baghdad is a smashed city..."
Below is an email I have just received from my close friend and translator Abu Talat. While he has fled Baghdad with his family and is now a refugee in Syria, he recently had to return to Baghdad in order to try to salvage what is left of his former life (his car, belongings from his house, etc.) before returning back to Syria. His note is instructive as to the current living conditions in the capital city of Iraq. Here is the full text of his message:
Continue reading ""Baghdad is a smashed city...""
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 05:40 PM
April 23, 2007
Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, Into the Iraqi Diaspora
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) released new figures on the disintegrating health situation in Iraq where, according to the group, 100 people a day die, on average, and countless more are wounded. Of the injured who manage to make it to an emergency room, 70% face a chance of dying there. Many don't reach clinics or emergency rooms at all, given the horrendous security conditions in the country. (Most knowledgeable observers believe that all death counts are low-ball numbers, given the increasing problem of gathering accurate figures amid the mayhem.)
In Iraqi hospitals, drugs and equipment are increasingly scarce, while ever more health professionals have joined the general exodus from the country. "The daily violence coupled with the difficult living and working conditions," reports WHO, "are pushing hundreds of experienced health staff to leave."
Here are a few other bits of information from the WHO report, according to Elisabeth Rosenthal of the New York Times:
"80% of Iraqis lack access to sanitation, 70% lack regular access to clean water and 60% lack access to the public food distribution system… As a result of these multiple public health failings, diarrhea and respiratory infections now account for two-thirds of the deaths of children under 5… According to a 2006 national survey conducted by UNICEF, 21% of Iraqi children are chronically malnourished."
And then there's the poorly covered refugee crisis -- probably the worst on the planet at this moment -- gripping the country. Almost 4 million Iraqis have had to leave their homes, according to Refugees International. But don't just rely on some impartial NGO for your information. Here's a ball-park estimate quoted recently in an interview with David Petraeus, the general in charge of the President's "surge plan" in Iraq:
"'It's a big competition right now among a variety of groups; and, again in an environment, in Baghdad in particular, [that is] very heavily colored by an influence of the sectarian violence.' Neighborhoods have been depopulated and General Petraeus believes that ‘hundreds of thousands, maybe millions' of Iraqis have been displaced."
Recently, Tomdispatch regular Dahr Jamail, who covered the war in Iraq from Baghdad for a while, visited some of the beleaguered refugee camps and centers in Syria that are trying to cope with the tens of thousands of desperate Iraqi refugees arriving each month. Jamail is a remarkable figure. A young man who originally went to the region on his own to cover the war, he gives "independent" journalism a name to be proud of. Our premier investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, said this of him recently, in offering criticism of American mainstream journalism's attribution practices at an al-Jazeera media conference:
"There is a young journalist here, Dahr Jamail, whose stuff has been very prescient, and I've four or five times included the brave accounts of some of his work in my stories… It's not just at the New Yorker, it's [also] at the New York Times where I worked very happily for a decade -- the first thing you [editors] cut out is any mention of anybody else. That's such a disagreeable aspect of our profession, the competition. Rather than credit a competitor we'll ignore the story. This is general. You all know what I'm talking about."
Now, consider the view from Syria through Dahr Jamail's eyes and click to accompanying photos by photojournalist Jeff Pflueger. Tom
"I Am Now a Refugee"
The Iraqi Crisis That Has No Name
By Dahr Jamail
Since the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, that country's explosive unraveling has never left the news or long been off the front page. Yet the fallout beyond its borders from the destruction, disintegration, and ethnic mayhem in Iraq has almost avoided notice. And yet with -- according to United Nations estimates -- approximately 50,000 Iraqis fleeing their country each month (and untold numbers of others being displaced internally), Iraq is producing one of the -- if not the -- most severe refugee crisis on the planet, a crisis without a name and without significant attention.
Continue reading "Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, Into the Iraqi Diaspora"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 07:25 PM
March 25, 2007
Dahr Jamail on Free Speech TV "SouceCode" Gives Iraq Update with Exclusive Video from Baghdad
March, 2007 - Dahr Jamail on Free Speech TV Show "SourceCode"
In this 10 minute piece, Dahr Jamail gives an Iraq update with exclusive video from Iraq. He describes some of the origins of the "sectarianism" that the US corporate media is so apt to point to when discussing the violence in Iraq, and shows how the US has been involved in fueling the sectarian tensions.
See the streaming WMV file (30 megs)
Download the high-res file (100 megs mpeg)
View the Streaming Flash file (30 megs)
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 05:34 PM
December 14, 2006
Child Victims of Violence
Here is the text and photos I just received from a doctor friend in Baghdad:
"This is 20 month-old Iraqi baby girl, who was severely injured and mutilated, in a blast by a car bomb in Al-Sadr City 21 days ago,she lost her two eyes.
"Her name is Shams-means sun in Arabic-... well not anymore, her mother was killed during the accident. Shams lies now in a surgical specialty hospital in Baghdad, and as we live in these terrible conditions in Baghdad she has not much chance to get any proper medical care...
"She is an innocent element amid this turmoil. I have a kid almost the same age and I feel aching pain inside for her. Shams was sent for my consulatation for her but I could do nothing. If she could make it she would live with a broken soul forever. Who could bring back her cherubic childish smile again? I hope that the criminal who did this sees part of his accomplishment."
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 11:14 PM
December 11, 2006
"Today Is Better than Tomorrow"
Tomgram: Jamail, Emails from the Front Lines of Iraqi Daily Life
Right now, we have on the table a "possible exit strategy" from Iraq -- James A. Baker's Iraq Study Group report -- that, once you do the figures, doesn't get the U.S. even close to halfway out the door by sometime in 2008; and that report is already being rejected by the Republican and neocon hard right; by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who continues to plug for some form of "victory" ("The enemy must be defeated...") on his last lap in Iraq, while still flaying the media for only reporting the "bad news"; by a President who is still on the IED-pitted road to success ("Not only do I know how important it is to prevail, I believe we will prevail..."), has called for three other reviews of Iraq policy (by the Pentagon, National Security Council, and White House) in an attempt to flood Washington with competing recommendations, and is probably on the verge of "surging" 15,000-20,000 more U.S. troops into Baghdad.
All sides in this strange struggle in Washington would add up to so much political low comedy if the consequences in Iraq and the Middle East, the oil heartlands of our increasingly energy-hungry planet, weren't so horrific. As Andrew Bacevich, historian, former military man, and author of The New American Militarism, wrote recently in the Boston Globe, Iraq's many contradictions "render laughably inadequate the proposals currently on offer to save Iraq and salvage American honor. Dispatch a few thousand additional US troops into Baghdad? Take another stab at creating a viable Iraqi army? Lean on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make ‘hard decisions?' One might as well spit on a bonfire."
Consider the strangeness of it all from the Washington perspective. The Iraq Study Group essentially wants to infiltrate the already largely sectarian army the Bush administration has set up in Iraq, an army incapable of handling its own logistics or, in many cases, planning its own missions, with 10,000-20,000 American advisors to do what the U.S. military has been unable to accomplish these last years. That largely Shiite (and Kurdish force) is already a motor for further violence. Adding vast numbers of (still largely untrained, surely resented, and undoubtedly resentful) advisors to it will only ensure that the "Iraqi Army" remains functionally a thoroughly recalcitrant American one into the distant future. This is the functional definition of a failed strategy from the get-go, but given the geostrategic la-la land that George Bush and Dick Cheney inhabit, it now passes for "realism" in our national capital.
For a touch of actual realism, it seemed reasonable to turn to those who have been living out the results of Washington's mad plans these last years -- actual Iraqis. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who has written regularly for Tomdispatch on our occupation of Iraq and, from 2003 to 2005, covered it in person, offers us at least a glimpse of the nightmare world that George Bush's "cakewalk" into Iraq inflicted on those in its path. Here are some of the people "stuff" happened to. Tom
"Today Is Better than Tomorrow" Iraq as a Living Hell By Dahr Jamail
The situation in Iraq has reached such a point of degradation and danger that I've been unable to return to report -- as I did from 2003 to 2005 -- from the front lines of daily life. Instead, in these last months, I have found myself in a supportive role, facilitating the work of some of my former sources, who remain in their own war-torn land, to tell their hair-raising tales of the new Iraq. While relying on my Iraqi colleagues to report the news, which we then publish at Inter Press Service and my website, I continue to receive emails from others in Iraq, civilian and soldier alike.
What I know from these emails is that the articles on Iraq you normally read in your local newspaper, even when, for instance, they cover the disintegration of the Iraqi health system or the collapse of the economy, are providing you, at best, but a glimpse of what daily life there is now like. After all, who knows better what's happening than those who are living it?
Continue reading ""Today Is Better than Tomorrow""
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 04:16 PM
July 14, 2006
"This is a big disaster for the Lebanese."
Once again the U.S. government has refused to condemn the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as the bombs fall on Beirut, killing scores of civilians.
Continue reading ""This is a big disaster for the Lebanese.""
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 12:19 PM
May 31, 2006
Civilian Slaughter Update
On Tuesday, May 30 Truthout published my article "Countles My Lai Massacres in Iraq."
Here are a couple of recent pieces of information to augment that story.
Today the AP has just released this story:
2 Iraqi women killed by coalition troops
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two Iraqi women were shot to death north of Baghdad after coalition forces fired on a vehicle that failed to stop at an observation post, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Iraqi police and relatives said one of the women was about to give birth."
And on May 29, Al-Shaqiyah TV reported from Iraq:
"US forces killed five civilians and wounded two others in the city [Ramadi] today. A source at Al-Ramadi State Hospital said that among the dead were a child and a woman. An Iraqi officer in Al-Ramadi said that the US forces were beefing up their presence on the periphery of Al-Ramadi, noting that the city will soon come under siege 'ahead of an all-out attack such as the one that targeted Al-Fallujah' in 2004."
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 06:42 PM
February 25, 2006
Addition to “Who Benefits?” Post
Al-Arabiya TV reports that on February 22rd, the day of the bombing at the Golden Mosque in Samarra:
“Al-Arabiya Television has lost its correspondent in Iraq, Atwar Bahjat, with two other colleagues. Atwar gave the last live dispatch to Al-Arabiya Television at 1500 gmt yesterday. Atwar disappeared after that. The Iraqi Police today confirmed that she and two other colleagues were assassinated in Samarra... The three journalists were covering the attack on the shrine of the two Shi'i imams, Ali al-Hadi and Al-Hasan al-Askari, north of Baghdad.”
Continue reading "Addition to “Who Benefits?” Post"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 09:33 PM
February 24, 2006
Who Benefits?
The most important question to ask regarding the bombings of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on the 22nd is: who benefits?
Prior to asking this question, let us note the timing of the bombing. The last weeks in Iraq have been a PR disaster for the occupiers.
First, the negative publicity of the video of British soldiers beating and abusing young Iraqis has generated a backlash for British occupation forces they’ve yet to face in Iraq.
Continue reading "Who Benefits?"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 06:45 PM
February 12, 2006
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
If one watches corporate media or listens to Cheney Administration propaganda, one is either not getting information about Iraq at all, or hearing that things are looking up as the U.S. approaches another “phase” in the occupation.
Just taking a brief look at the “security incidents” reported by Reuters for today, 12 February, gives a little clue as to how the occupation of Iraq, aside from being immoral and unjust, is a dismal failure.
Continue reading "Out of Sight, Out of Mind"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 07:16 PM
February 01, 2006
More Bad News for the Brits
Doha, Qatar – Interesting to be writing this while attending the 2ndAl-Jazeera Forum, which is focusing on “Defending Freedom, Defining Responsibility” in the media. Al-Jazeera, which has been banned 100% from working in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Algeria due to their holding said governments accountable to the people they supposedly represent.
While conducting a short interview with Samir Khader, the program editor for Al-Jazeera channel made famous in the excellent documentary “Control Room,” I learn that he too was in Fallujah during the April, 2004 siege on that city. After his witnessing of his colleagues being killed, maimed and/or detained by the U.S. military in Iraq both during the Anglo-American invasion and subsequent failed occupation, he takes seriously the rights and protections of all journalists.
Continue reading "More Bad News for the Brits"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 07:51 PM
January 28, 2006
Saint Patrick’s Four
The date is March 17, 2003. St. Patrick’s Day and just two days before U.S. bombs began raining down on Baghdad, 40 year-old Teresa Grady, her older sister Clare, Daniel Burns and Vietnam veteran Peter De Mott decided to take action against the impending illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.
The group of Catholic Workers from Ithaca, New York, known as the “St. Patrick’s Four,” entered an Army-Marine Recruiting Center and poured their blood on the walls, recruiting posters and an American flag in an act of non-violent civil resistance to what they knew already was to be the first of countless violations of international law the Bush Administration would commit during their invasion and occupation of sovereign Iraq.
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Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 12:24 AM
January 12, 2006
“Freedom in action”
Yesterday Mr. Bush warned U.S. citizens of more violence in Iraq…again.
He called it the “price of progress” as Iraq “moves toward democracy.”
In the shady, smoke and mirror filled world of Mr. Bush where violence is progress and Iraq inches ever closer to their elusive “democracy,” truth remains ever distant from the rhetoric of his speech writers.
Continue reading "“Freedom in action”"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 07:50 PM
January 08, 2006
US Propaganda vs. Iraqi Reality
It appears as though the Cheney administration will soon “redeploy” thousands of US troops out of Iraq. While several permanent US military bases are under construction there as I type this, the Capital Hill Cabal, desperate to paint the Iraq disaster in a glorious hue, are working their pundits and spokespeople overtime to convince the ill-informed they have not failed dismally in every aspect of their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Continue reading "US Propaganda vs. Iraqi Reality"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 02:23 AM
December 31, 2005
Open Letter From an Iraqi
I recently received this letter from an Iraqi friend who lives in Baghdad. It is written as an open letter to Mr. Bush. -DJ
Continue reading "Open Letter From an Iraqi"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 05:46 PM
December 02, 2005
“Pacified” Fallujah
Lies cost lives in Iraq.
Remember the reasons given by the US military and puppet interim Iraqi government for Operation Phantom Fury against Fallujah? Just prior to the November, 2004 assault on that city, the primary reasons given for the massacre in Fallujah were: to provide “security and stability” for the upcoming January 30 “elections” and to rid Fallujah of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
Let us judge the success or failure of this massacre by their own yardstick.
Continue reading "“Pacified” Fallujah"
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 10:38 PM
November 14, 2005
Fallujah Revisited
Nearly a year after they occurred, a few of the war crimes committed in Fallujah by members of the US military have gained the attention of some major media outlets (excluding, of course, any of the corporate media outlets in the US).
Back on November 26, 2004, in a story I wrote for the Inter Press Service titled 'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah, refugees from that city described, in detail, various odd weapons used in Fallujah. In addition, they provided detailed descriptions such as “pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns.”
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Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 01:49 AM
November 07, 2005
Operation “Steel Curtain”
There is a huge US military operation once again targeting the Al-Qa’im area of Iraq, this one named “Steel Curtain.”
As tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of the massacre in Fallujah, the US military pushes on with house to house fighting in the small down of Husaybah, near Al-Qa’im.
Continue reading "Operation “Steel Curtain” "
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 09:53 PM
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