From the daily archives:

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Freeway, Racial Covenants, Suburban Growth — a great novel!

by Frank Paynter on September 20, 2007

Whitney Terrell, author of The King of King’s County, is interviewed on NPR. I read this book and his previous novel, The Huntsman, and give them both my unqualified recommendation. Terrell is a very good writer and a fine novelist! Thanks to Ben for the heads up on the interview.

[Just as an aside...] In a report from Iraq last summer, Terrell wrote:

The [American] city of Victory-Liberty [has] a functioning sewage system that pumps 500,000 gallons of sewage back into the Baghdad municipal system every day. The city’s pipes have the capacity to deal with the excess load in part because only 20 percent of Iraqis have sewage service.

Today Iraqi health officials confirmed the first cases of cholera in Baghdad. Maybe if the money we are spending there went into infrastructure for the Iraqis instead of providing a flush toilet that can suck down a sheep in a single flush for every member of the US occupation forces, the public health situation would improve rather than deteriorate.

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Sheik, sheik, sheik

by Frank Paynter on September 20, 2007

Greg Palast on the death of Bush’s agent in Anbar province (aljazeera report in the YouTube videos in my post below this one):

Bush shook Abu Risha’s hand two weeks ago for the cameras. Bush can shake his hand again, but not the rest of him: Abu Risha was blown away just hours before Bush was to go on the air to praise his new friend.

Here’s what you need to know that NPR won’t tell you.

1. Sheik Abu Risha wasn’t a sheik.
2. He wasn’t killed by Al Qaeda.
3. The new alliance with former insurgents in Anbar is as fake as the sheik – and a murderous deceit.

How do I know this? You can see the film – of “Sheik” Abu Risha, of the guys who likely whacked him and of their other victims.
[snippage]
Abu Risha was the PR hook used to sell the “success” of the surge.

The sheik wasn’t a sheik. He was a fake. While proclaiming to Rick that he was “the leader of all the Iraqi tribes,” Abu lead no one. But for a reported sum in the millions in cash for so-called, “reconstruction contracts,” Abu Risha was willing to say he was Napoleon and Julius Caesar and do the hand-shakie thing with Bush on camera.

Notably, Rowley and his camera caught up with Abu Risha on his way to a “business trip” to Dubai, money laundering capital of the Middle East.

There are some real sheiks in Anbar, like Ali Hathem of the dominant Dulaimi tribe, who told Rick Abu Risha was a con man. Where was his tribe, this tribal leader? “The Americans like to create characters like Disney cartoon heros.” Then Ali Hathem added, “Abu Risha is no longer welcome” in Anbar.

“Not welcome” from a sheik in Anbar is roughly the same as a kiss on both cheeks from the capo di capi. Within days, when Abu Risha returned from Dubai to Dulaimi turf in Ramadi, Bush’s hand-sheik was whacked.

Click thru and read the whole thing.

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Fake Sheik

September 20, 2007

How do we get the word out to the people in the USA that everything Bush tells them is dressed up marketing shizzle? Greg Palast sent a good write-up regarding these films to the Portside list today.

                 

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