Catapulting the propaganda in Iraq and Basra

Compare the headlines out of Iraq today at Fox News with MSNBC News:

“Dagger in the Heart of Al Qaeda” versus “Heavy fighting erupts in Basra”.

Continues…

Dagger in the Heart of Al Qaeda A piece from Michael Yon that appears to describe an event that happened in August 2007 where “Nineteen terrorists were destroyed. Times have changed for Al Qaeda here. Too many Iraqis have decided they are not going to take it anymore. Al Qaeda in Iraq is still fighting, and they are tough and wily, but Al Qaeda Central seems to realize there are easier targets elsewhere, perhaps in Europe, where many people demonstrate weakness in the face of terror.”

Heavy fighting erupts in Basra The piece is 2 hours old. “The violence was part of an escalation in the confrontation between the Shiite-run government and al-Sadr’s followers – a move that threatens the security gains achieved by U.S. and Iraqi forces. Police and hospital officials reported that at least 22 people had been killed and 58 wounded in the Basra clashes.”

Can the propaganda bias of Fox get any more obvious than this? The MSNBC piece wasn’t even the most revealing story about Basra today.

The Guardian reported Sadr urges ‘civil revolt’ as battles erupt in Basra. “Moqtada al-Sadr called for ‘civil revolt’ following a crackdown on Shia factions in Basra.”

“We call upon all Iraqis to stage sit-ins all over Iraq as a first step,” he said in a statement. “And if the people’s demands are not respected by the Iraqi government, the second step will be to declare civil revolt in Baghdad and all other provinces.”

The cleric then went on to threaten an unspecified “third step” suggesting he could abandon the ceasefire…

The Mahdi Army ceasefire has contributed to a drop in violence over the past few months.

However, the truce is fraying, with Sadr’s allies growing increasingly angry over US and Iraqi raids against them and demanding the release of followers rounded up in recent weeks.

The cleric recently told his followers that, although the truce remained in effect, they were free to defend themselves against attacks.

The US insisted it was not going after Sadr’s followers but was targeting renegade elements that Washington believes have ties to Iran.

While the story notes that Sadr supporters fired mortar rounds into the Green Zone in Baghdad earlier, it also suggests that the Bush administration, in its lust for war with Iran, is undoing the comparative calm in Basra that allowed the British to transfer authority over to the Iraqi government.

Or, as another Guardian story notes British exit strategy rests on Basra battle. The Americans were not pleased with the British pull-out and could the alleged U.S. targeting of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia keep Britain in Iraq? If the Iraqis call for help, “then the British strategy risks falling apart.” That strategy? To reduce the 4,000 British troops deployed in Iraq to 2,500 by late spring.

The New York Times reports the Iraqi forces are backed by American troops in their story, Iraqi and U.S. forces battle Shiite militia. The NY Times comes quickly to their point: “In Basra, Iraq’s most important oil-exporting center, thousands of Iraqi government soldiers and police officers moved to drive out Shiite militia members who have taken over big swaths of that city.”

Oil. Sadr controls the oil region. The Los Angeles Times concurs in its coverage Iraqi security forces launch crackdown in Basra. “Heavy explosions and machine-gun fire rocked the city, where rival political factions, their allied militias and criminal gangs are vying for control of oil exports that generate most of Iraq’s government revenue.”

According to the LA Times story, Sheik Harith Athari, who heads Sadr’s office in Basra, “accused the Iraqi security forces today of indiscriminate arrests” of its members. But, another anonymous “official in the Basra office… warned”: “the Sadr current [or movement] is threatening to set fire to the oil wells in Basra if the Iraqi military continues its security plan.”

But again, Sadr’s supporters state their first tactic to getting the government to address their grievances is protests. The LA Times and the NY Times both mentions Sadr’s call for, as the latter puts it, “a nationwide civil disobedience campaign in response to what his followers characterized as unwarranted crackdowns on them. ” This is the form of the civil disobedience in Iraq:

Said Ammar, a government employee, said he was standing near a police checkpoint in the Huriya neighborhood in Baghdad on Tuesday morning when he was approached by Mahdi Army members. “They told me not to stand near checkpoints. They said, ‘We are waiting for the word from Moktada Sadr to attack the checkpoints; it may come at any moment.’ ”

Yassin Muhammad, 27, who lives just outside Baghdad, said he tried to enter the city but was ordered to return home by members of the Mahdi Army.

“They told me ‘Haven’t you heard of the civil disobedience?’ ” he said. “I noticed that there were no cars on the main road, and markets, schools and the bank were all closed. The checkpoints are more now than a few days ago, and my neighborhood is in tension.”

The LA Times reports also that “Sadr’s followers attempted to stage sit-ins at two mosques in Diwaniya but were ordered by Iraqi security forces to disperse. More protests were planned Wednesday at mosques in Hillah.”

So, mosques, schools, markets, and banks are closed. Taxis, buses, and other vehicles are off the road. Plus pressure on, or targeting of, government checkpoints is announced. This is the manifestation of Iraqi civil disobience so far. The NY Times inverviewd “Dr. Ali Sumasim, the leader of the political committee of the Sadr movement in Najaf, the holy Shiite city in southern Iraq, [who] said the call for sit-ins and civil disobedience would continue until a number of requests were met.”

“Our aim is to stop all civil activities in order to force the occupation force and Iraqi government to meet our demands,” he said.

The Washington Post reports also on Sadr’s nationwide civil disobedience that has left for television cameras “neighborhoods turned into virtual ghost towns, their usually busy streets all but empty.” The Post also notes the growing violence is seeping across Iraq in Iraqi Forces Battle Gunmen in Basra. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad said the Green Zone was shelled today. But, the LA Times story reports that “it was not immediately clear who fired” the “barrage of rockets or mortar rounds” into the Green Zone.

Meanwhiel in Basra, the Post states that “as of Tuesday afternoon, 13 gunmen had been killed, along with three Iraqi policemen, and six civilians were dead” according to the police.

The fighting seems to be directed against the Iraqi government. “In an interview, an Iraqi interior ministry said Mahdi Army gunmen stormed two offices of the Dawa Party, led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and clashed with guards. The clashes left five Mahdi Army gunmen and two Dawa Party guards dead, police said.”

The LA Times adds “the U.S.-led forces based on the city’s outskirts said they were conducting aerial surveillance but did not participate in today’s operations.”

Again, this time in the Post story, there are hints that the actions being taken in Basra against Sadr have goals other than quelling violence in Iraq.

But in recent weeks, many Mahdi Army leaders and Sadr loyalists have urged the cleric to remove the ceasefire, as Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops have raided and detained hundreds of Sadr followers in several southern cities in the past few months.

“The plan that is being implemented in Basra is meant to pass political agendas and not bring security,” Harith al-Ithari, the head of Sadr’s office in Basra, said in a phone interview with Iraq’s al-Sharqiya television network. “But we are working together with all sides to bring back stability to the city.”

Other than in Fox New’s propaganda piece about an event that happened last August, not one mention of al Qaeda. Instead news report after news report about Iraqis fighting Iraqis, as the Post described as a “power struggle between the Mahdi Army and its main rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its armed wing, the Badr Brigade”. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is backing its puppet government in Baghdad trying to control the Basra oil, and stirring up the hornets nest to possibly instigate a war with Iran and keep more British troops in Iraq.

But again, there is no sign of U.S. fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. Why is the Bush administration still hunting for bin Laden there? Why do we still have troops in Iraq in the middle of a civil war?