[Mb-civic] READ AGAIN1 Though seen before

[Michael Butler]

Thanks to KC in Paris. It is well worthwhile reading again.
Michael

------ Forwarded Message
From: "K.C. Schulberg" <kcs at wwom.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 14:53:14 +0200
To: "Michael Butler" <michael at michaelbutler.com>
Subject: Fw: A Letter from Farnaz Fassihi

Hi Michael,

Been mostly staying up to date with the MB civic news group.  It makes a lot
of reading, but is way worth while.    And stayed up till 5AM watching the
VP debate last night here in Paris.   I received my absentee ballot today.
I don't believe, in my lifetime, our vote has been more important.

Here, below is an article that deserves to be included in the news group.
And the URL directly below confirms the legitimacy of the message.

Hope you are very well.

Peace & Love,

KC

K.C. Schulberg
STELLAR GROUP
35 rue Boileau 75016 Paris
tel: 33 1 40 71 87 35  fax: 33 1 40 71 87 53
cell: 33 6 08 49 25 57  mail: kc at stellar-group.com


http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10006
53324




>
> Subject: A Letter from Farnaz Fassihi
>
>
>
>>> Hello all.
>>>
>>> The e-mail copied below was a private message from Farnaz Fassihi, the
> Wall
>>> Street Journal's correspondent in Baghdad. It was apparently intended
> only
>>> for her friends, one of whom posted it on the WEB without her knowledge.
>>>
>>> Ms. Fassihi, Iranian born, educated in the U.S., worked for the news
> section
>>> of the Journal, not the editorial section. Her reporting has been viewed
>>> as unbiased and dispassionate, professional at all times. After her
> e-mail
>>> was circulated, Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times asked the Journal
> about
>>> her status. In a written reply, Paul Steiger, The Journal's managing
>>> editor, says Ms. Fassihi is ". . . coming out of Iraq shortly for a long
>>> planned vacation. That vacation was planned to, and will extend past the
>>> election."
>>>
>>> Though it was not right for one of her friends to publish this letter
>>> without her permission and put her assignment in jeapordy, now that she
> is
>>> on "vacation", you might find it informative reading.
>>>
>>> Pass this along if you like.
>>>
>>> WSJ reporter Fassahi's e-mail to friends
>>> 9/29/2004 2:47:12 PM
>>>
>>> Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under
>>> virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this
>>> job:
>>> a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far
> away
>>> lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a
>>> difference.
>>>
>>> Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those
>>> reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and
>>> a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in
>>> the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in
>>> restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for
>>> stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to
> scenes
>>> of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English
>>> outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger
> at
>>> checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing,
> feeling.
>>> And can't and can't.
>>>
>>> There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near
>>> our
>>> house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern
>>> every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make
> sure
>>> our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel
>>> first, a reporter second.
>>>
>>> It's hard to pinpoint when the turning point exactly began. Was it April
>>> when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when
>>> Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when
> Sadr
>>> City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly
> battlefield
>>> for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from
>>> isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite
>>> President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under
>>> Saddam it was a potential threat, under the Americans it has been
>>> transformed to imminent and active threat, a foreign policy failure
>>> bound
> to
>>> haunt the United States for decades to come.
>>>
>>> Iraqis like to call this mess the situation. When asked how are things?
>>> they reply: the situation is very bad. What they mean by situation is
>>> this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are
>>> several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and
> injuring
>>> scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable
> and
>>> littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill
>>> American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings.
>>> The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.
>>>
>>> In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone.
>>> The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health, which was
>>> attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers--
> has
>>> now stopped disclosing them. Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a
>>> day. A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said
>>> young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the
> ground.
>>> They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it
>>> with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the
> locals
>>> this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there
>>> were
>>> a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to
> avoid
>>> driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to
>>> detonate
>>> them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land,
>>> the
>>> population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.
>>>
>>> For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of
>>> abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around
>>> Baghdad
>>> because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between
>>> towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at
>>> 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes
> in
>>> broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and
> the
>>> Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They
>>> were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from
> their
>>> generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m.
> when
>>> he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown
>>> back
>>> near the neighborhoods. The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no
>>> signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized
> and
>>> more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it --
> baathists,
>>> criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda -- are cooperating and
>>> coordinating.
>>>
>>> I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the
> military
>>> and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate
>>> would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it
>>> was
>>> determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you
>>> and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to
>>> Al
>>> Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the
>>> Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist
>>> snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word
> on
>>> release or whether he is still alive.
>>>
>>> America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National
>>> Guard
>>> units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being
>>> murdered by the dozens every day over 700 to date -- and the insurgents
> are
>>> infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S.
> military
>>> has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just
>>> trained
> to
>>> get rid of them quietly. As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe
> for
>>> foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt.
>>> After
>>> two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq
> reconstruction
>>> only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been
>>> reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are
> going
>>> here.
>>>
>>> Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of
>>> sabotage
>>> and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war
>>> exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed
>>> up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq? Iraqis say that thanks to
>>> America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They
>>> say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a
>>> dictator ruler. I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam
> Hussein
>>> were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote.
>>> This is truly sad.
>>>
>>> Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about
> elections
>>> here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of
>>> voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy
> that
>>> would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget
>>> about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all
>>> is
>>> lost." One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For
>>> those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could
>>> salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism,
> chaos
>>> and mayhem has been unleashed onto this county as a result of American
>>> mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
>>>
>>> The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months
> while
>>> half of the country remains a no go zone -- out of the hands of the
>>> government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the
> other
>>> half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling
>>> stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving
>>> the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will
> not
>>> be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war. I
> asked
>>> a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the
> Iraqi
>>> elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect
>>> a
>>> leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being
>>> blown
>>> into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating
> with
>>> the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"
>>>
>>> -Farnaz 





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