http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=389923

"About 50 Iraqi civilians were killed in coalition bombing of the southerncity of Basra, the independent Arab-language satellite station Al-Jazeera claimed last night. In footage seen across the Arab world, the station aired grisly and explicit images of the dead and wounded, including a child with the back of its skull blown off and blood-stained people being treated on the floor of a hospital."


Al Jazeera is back on the job in Iraq, and once again is unlike any other news broadcasting organization on earth, in that Al Jazeera broadcasts the real face of war, you know, like once upon a time, back during the Vietnam War, the American press used to do as well. (The image above shows Aghan casualities of war, while the black and white image, from once upon a time, long long ago, in a land with a less highly concentrated media, shows Vietnam, in black and white, because it was just that long ago).

You might recall how little the Pentagon appreciated those reports from Al Jazeera, and fortunately when the offices of Al Jazeera in Kabul got smart bombed, they were not in the office at the time, but were out on the road doing journalism...

The efforts of Al Jazeera exposed the fraudulent bullshit spread by the Pentagon, as they attempt to make the ridiculous assertion that you can conduct bombing campaigns in urban areas while only harming politicians and other people like that. Shock and Awe would appear to be a dismal failure from what I have seen of it, simply because the Pentagon is not doing Hiroshima the right way, and consequently Iraq is not yet shocked and in awe of the Pentagon and thus collapsing like Japan did in World War 2, and giving up without a fight. According to those who designed that theory of Shock and Awe urban areas were to be pounded 'not in weeks, or days, but rather in minutes' and here the Pentagon is back to typical bombing as in a typical war, while still calling that sorry excuse for a bombing campaign 'Shock and Awe'. Shock and awe it is not, and therefore we can assume that protests and activism have at least spared Iraq (for now) the very worst of the evils of Hiroshima and true 'Shock and Awe' strategy, but however we must remember, that even though the Pentagon has decided not to do the full Shock and Awe thing to Baghdad right away, the target list is spread out all over the city, including residential neighbourhoods, and you just don't bomb cities without people getting killed.

Last year Colin Powell tried to get the Gulf States to shut down Al Jazeera, or at the very least censor them, not the type of thing you would expect from a 'democracy' but then whoever said that the Americans were interested in bringing 'democracy' to the Middle East. Al Jazeera also does other naughty things like showing the Middle East the lawlessness and carnage created by the Zionists in power in Israel, and their policy of theft and extra judicial assasination (to hell with the courts and the rule of law, now Ceasar is going to be judge, jury and executioner, as well as oppressor and land thief). The Americans don't let people see that sort of thing in America, and they also don't appreciate Al Jazeera showing it to people anywhere else in the world...

In an unrelated story, an American soldier has 'fragged' three officers in a tent in Kuwait using a grenade...He was either shell shocked or somehow mentally unbalanced, this reminding one of the waves of wife murders committed by soldiers after they returned from Afghanistan. However he is being reported as the 'traitor' and will probably be shot at sunset, after being roasted alive by the American media...

 http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/23/sprj.irq.war.main/index.html


The efforts of Al Jazeera have resulted in the most popular page on my website, not to mention the most linked to page on my site, Afghan War Photos...

 http://www.awitness.org/news/december_2001/aghan_thumbs.html

In the future, I intend to be posting 'Iraq War Photos' as well, and given how at least Al Jazeera is on the job, that should prove to be possible, too...

You can keep up to date on news feed from the peace activists in Baghdad and Iraq at the Electronic Iraq site, which is another alternative to getting reports only from the media...

 http://electronicIraq.net/

You can also monitor the body count in Iraq at

 http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

I assume they are counting dead bodies and not the injuries, mutilations, lost limbs, etc., that are also a form of collateral damage, and who can 'count' the child trauma and the post traumatic stress disorder in places like Baghdad, which are a type of civilian casualty as well...

You can 'meet the people of Baghdad' on this page

 http://www.awitness.org/journal/index.html