Anbar's Ghost - The Iraqi Fake Sheikh
This post is overdue, but is still worthy - lwtc247
Bush happy with his fake tan.
I had been getting annoyed with Al Jazeera (English) over a month ago. Example: David Frost's question to Mariane Pearle (wife of Daniel Pearl, a likely CIA asset cum agent) killed in Pakistan posing as a journalist. Frost asked how she thinks the War "on"[sic] Terror is going - gurrrrrr! - and if she feels "WE" are winning!! - GURRR GURRR GURRRRRRR!!! {Note: Thankfully Ms. Pearl showed a lot more sense than 'sometimes here, sometimes not' post-pensioner David Frost did, when she seemed to realise that such acts which say her husband be killed, don't spring forth from a Vacuum}. Other example, 'everyone’s mate' Riz Kahn and the sickening love-in he had with Zionist apologist, Elie Wisel.
So Al Jazeera was plummeting towards the dirt. Perhaps this is what Pilger had in mind when of Al Jazeera he said "they are hiring a lot of westerners, it will be interesting to see what happens".[see Ref 1]. The gap was closing between themselves and state funded propaganda machine, the BBC, with its predictable line of establishment-line talking heads and interviews/news presenters who softball those wielding executive power and who only (sometimes) get animated against those who challenge the establishment (See Galloway/Paxman 6th May 2005) or those who attack so called Israel.
In amongst these troubling times, I chanced upon a gem of a program ion the People & Power series, called Anbar’s Ghost.
The context of the program was laid out by the program was by the lovely Ms. Sama Al-Shahad revealing that the USUK 'Coalition of the Killing', lead by the Americans were being whipped by the Nobel Iraqi Resistance.
With excuses to justify the rape, destruction and killings rapidly running out, in conjunction (which the lovely Ms. Al-Shahad forgot to report) with a failing coalition propaganda campaign carried by a vulnerable and increasingly discredited main stream media, PhD killer, General David Betrayus needed some good news fast in order to deliver a politicised (and therefore lobbox) report on the "progress" made in Iraq,
Cue the Fake Sheikh! Sheikh Sattar Abu Reesha.
Smile, so I can show the folks at home that we are all one big happy family
(and if you stop playing the game, your history)
Betrayus' "report" was to be delivered to the Democrat controlled Congress (who interpreted their election as bestowing upon them the right to defy the very people who voted them in! A 4 year licence to defy the will of the majority of the people.) the excuse to sit on their Zionist sponsored bottoms, to allow the genocide to continue, instilling hopelessness into those highly admirable USans who oppose the massacre. Abu Reesha provided an excellent opportunity to deceive.
Getting back, the programs host, Ms. Sama Al-Shahad (who is very lovely), informed us that the US govt accountability office report said that the US failed to achieve many of its benchmarks. However surge supporters countered this pointing to what they claim as having success in Anbar province {thanks to the actions of the Sheikh you see}, where peculiarly enough, the US had faced earlier some of the fiercest resistance. But now all was rosey, as if by magic, Sunni tribes thanks to Abu Reesha were now fighting side by side WITH the Americans!
The supreb host, Al-Shahad, told us the Sheihk, Sattar Abu Reesha, was so celebrated, that Bush met with him on a quick visit to Iraq (around 6th - 14th Sept). Ms. Samah Al-Shahat, a lovely woman who is probably very kind, unselfish and good comapny to boot, then handed over to the film made by investigative journalists Richard (Rick) Rowley and David Enders to check out the story.
Sadly, but necessarily so I guess, move away from the captivating eloquent introduction given to us by the lovely and more-ish Ms. Al-Shahat, to Amman, Jordan where Rowley and Enders were waiting to get a visa to meet the Sheikh in Ramadi….
Aaah, a good initial sign; the "I'll name that tune in one" twangs the electric guitar from the Doors’ "The End" soundtrack start us off, instantly setting the mood. At least one member of the film crew has excellent taste, so I was predicating good things to come and I wasn't to be disappointed either!
We are informed "the papers are full of stories about a Sheikh from Anbar who has changed the course of the war in favour of the Americans" Which would provide food for those very starved supporters of the war, that the Coalition of the Killing could still win; a victory was to be had, snatching victory from the lower intestines of defeat. Call me a old prune, but does anyone know if a "Karen Miller" had recently emigrated to Jordan? Or, perhaps if Jordan has it own home-grown Millers, Al-Millaries perhaps? That wouldn't happen in Israeli-British province called Jordan would it? Naaaaaah.
Insurgency Analyst, Moyad Abu Subiah for the Al-Ghad newspaper, who had written about the war from day one, especially about the war in Anbar said "I've never heard of anyone named Sattar Abu Reesha. Maybe there is a Sattar Abu Reesha, maybe there are many Sattar Abu Reeshas". With an cheeky yet intelligent grin on his face.
Moyad said that “Abu Reesha was a ghost, a name the Americans had attached to a public relations campaign.” Aaaaah. Music to my conspiracy infected heart.
I wonder if Moyad now finds himself rendered to writing articles in the internal annual publication: "Guantanamo Workers Gazzette”? Well, either that or dead, - I wouldn't be surprised.
It turned out that Abu Reesha wasn't in Ramadi afterall (I wonder why?) but in the Marriott Hotel in Aaman! LOL. Well I never. Not in Ramadi(!) but on the top penthouse floor of the Marriott, furnished with fancy furniture and paintings beyond the financial reach of most.
Here's what he, Head of the "Iraq Awakening Council" said in his first few lines...
"I want you to introduce me. I am head of the Iraq Awakening council. Leader of all the Iraqi Arab Tribes. I am real. I am not a ghost. In 5 days time, I will return to Iraq, and I will be in my house in Ramadi. And to the terrorists, I say that I will be in Anbar in 5 days, and if they want to see me, I am ready for them."
Oh dear! Did he forget he's not supposed to be acting and that he's SHOULD to look into the camera? Or perhaps there was a fly buzzing overhead and that was the reason why his eyes looked upward as if he was trying to remember his lines, but maybe not. "Head of ALL Arab Tribes" Wow. That's a big claim, and just how does he figure that one out I wonder? And announcing where he will be, slapping a glove across the face of his opponents - oh dear. That's wither immensely brave or incredibly stupid. Given Abu Reesha’s challenge, and that his top floor of the Marriott hotel had what was described as "elaborate" security, and the fact that in number of days time having returned back to Iraq he was to end up dead, you might be able to would out the correct answer to that one.
The very first time I saw the dude, quick as lightening, I got the impression that he was some 2-bit actor playing his first big part - possibly feeling that he had bitten off more than he could chew, but nonetheless, he endeavoured, as just maybe, someone had previously whispered in his little thespian ears what the salary would be; Who knows, a high position within an upcoming episode of the Iraqi mupp puppet show was in the offing, or a major stakeholder in some future 'Irachtel' petrochemicals company?
Anyway, I had a wee chuckle to myself as Sattar seemed to display opening night nerves, fretting that people might not fall for the claims of achievements that some suspicious sources were attributing to him and the near instantaneous occurrence thereof.
The aura of the man was reminiscent of a past ooze-meister Ahmad Chalabi, 'the old anointed one', who rather amusingly, always seemed to be at the end of a major cock-up laid bare for all and sundry to throw rotten tomatos at, which ultimately washing off his anointedness. Ha ha!
What happens next is superb as Rowley and Enders describe the record of American combat dispensed across Anbar, not forgetting, if you ever could, those women, kids and husbands who the Americans in all USan lavishness, chemically burnt alive from inside their lungs, their eyes, nostrils, mouths, ears and skin when the deliberately genocide, an American Halabja, as the helpless people of Fallujah were doused with white phosphorous. But that the glorious Iraqi Resistance still came out on top, in spite of the hell unleashed by the US.
Anbar is the stronghold of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq. More US soldiers have been killed there than in any other province. Much of Anbar has been under the direct control of insurgents since 2004 and in Anbar's most famous town, Fallujah, 2 allied invasions, dozens of air strikes tens of thousands of arrests and three years of curfews and continuous American raids have not ended resistance."
YEAH. This confirmation of what reports from the Iraqi resistance did me a world of good. is excellent news.
But I have to laugh at those US bullying pigs, who on camera commit offences against International law by threatening to blow down someone’s house should they not get their way. And then we see the murdering US filth putting into practice their ‘intercultural awareness training’ elements of which they were no doubt expert in even before their training as they exchanged male kissed to try and cement their agreement with what we are told was a number of tribal leaders...
who of course are genuine and not simply bought off...
At this point I’m going to stop commenting on the rest of the program, as regular readers of this and other related blogs should by now, be able to spot the illution the US try to foist upon us.
Happy viewing.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C223AE63-CE85-4887-9275-D2278C2A844C.htm
Postscript: Now I guess, Sheihk Sattar Abu Reesha really is Anbar's "ghost". Even though Abu Reesha's working with the Americans was a HUGE betrayl, it is doubtful that he would ever have done such a thing if the Yanks had never invaded in the first place. That highlights a tragic element present is the loss of the many thousands of other Iraqi lives. May the Coalition of the Killings defeat speed up.
Other notes:
[1] See the John Pilger speech at the world socialists forum 2007 for a scathing critique of neo-journalism
http://www.eternaltruth.net
2008-05-23 @ 22:40