markfromireland

There are times when you’ve got to love the Italians. Truly there are times when you just have to say:

“mio cuore, mia anima, mia vita…”

to each and every Italian you happen to bump into on the street. Why? Well there’s this matchless piece of reporting from the New York Times’ very own Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher (with a bit help from two brown people living in Iraq.)

Chaos overtakes once-peaceful Basra
By Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher The New York Times

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2006

[ follow the “more” link to read what I freely confess is a long article - markfromireland.]
(more…)

Question: What is this man doing? (Scroll down for the answer)

Answer: He’s a mortuary attendant in Baqouba, and he’s unoading a box containing eight human heads.

Death Squads, children taken hostage by US troops to force their father to surrender, pregnant women shot as they are rushed into hospital, American mercenaries caught with bomb making making equipment set loose scot free to do it again, British soldiers ditto, daily slaughter of civilians by bombs, hospitals without supplies, teachers, doctors, nurses, fleeing the country, a growing litany of massacres committed by occupation troops. And an administration doing its utmost to ensure that the word “America” becomes a synonym for amoral, corrupt, racist, self-indulgent, lieing, bankrupt, dieing…. empire, too engaged in navel gazing to realise that this is more than just “a big public relations problem“

markfromireland

[crossposted to Gorilla’s Guides]