Community Action Forum: Medea Benjamin

how wonderful it is to be in portland and to hear you are connecting the issues like we're trying to connect all over the country with the corporate scandals corporations like enron and how to get them out of our communities issues about civil liberties and how to take back our rights from the federal government issues like supporting the struggles in afghanistan and taking a look back at what has been the result of the us invasion of afghanistan are connecting the local and the global i am which is what we have to do and i'm sure you're excited about giving bush a big welcome on as babe to me it's absolutely amazing what business station has gotten away with its devastating and it's particularly devastating to me today to see what happened at the united nations in baghdad are for any of you who haven't heard the news it is that the latest that seventeen people were killed at the un

including the un representative to a rack sergio de mello when you look at which is manipulation of the issue of weapons of mass destruction when you look at the manipulation that he did to get us into this war in a rack and you see the devastating consequences first for the iraqi people who have suffered so much under saddam hussein under sanctions and now under the occupation and then to see the us troops who are suffering tremendously interact as well and entire on top of that now the international workers many of whom went there because they want to provide vaccinations to kids under unicef program because they want to provide clean drinking water with the united nations development program or helped him develop iraqis independent media to unesco the fact that the international community has become a target and i put this all on the

back of george bush as hoyt is particularly devastating is what wish has done to the united nations how he has used to the united nations to carry out the misdeeds of the us military and when i talk to people in baghdad today about the terrible bombing the loss of life the tragedy that happened at the un compound today they said we mourn the death of those workers those wonderful workers that came here to do something positive for the iraqi people but they said let the americans know what that reputation has been at the united nations in a rack because it was through the us strong arming of the united nations security council that the iraqis got thirteen years of devastating sanctions and while the security council did not sanction the invasion of rack after the fact they did

and then to get to the tragedy the us strong armed the secretary general kofi annan and the representative who has just killed to push that the united nations give a welcome to the governing council that was appointed in a secretive undemocratic process by united states in the wake of an illegal invasion and to say to the world community through the united nations that somehow that governing body has legitimacy in the eyes of the international community and it was a tremendous tragedy and i was at the united nations in the gallery when i heard sergey are de mello the un representative who was killed and kofi annan say that this governing council represented a positive step towards democracy in a rack having just come from a

rack knowing that the iraqi people said how can we possibly see those governing council as legitimate there is no way we see this as legitimate and so the way the us manipulated united's nations to say yes to a governing council that has no legitimacy in the eyes of the iraqi people i say led to the horrible tragedy we witnessed a day at the united nations headquarters so when we talk about those sixteen words of george bush in the state of the union address let us tell the american people that it is so much greater than sixteen words that we had been lied to from september eleventh on to attack afghanistan to then attacked a rack and the people who are the victims are the innocent people of afghanistan the innocent people of a rack the us soldiers the un workers and us here at home and let us say we talk uk should note two invasion and getting here in portland the kind of welcome he

deserves as a whole as at our show you something physical images of the racks to get a picture of what it's like but let me just first it in context i was an iraqi for the us invaded and after the us invaded and when i went back this time with a group of very brave women from code pink because let me tell you it is very dangerous to go to iraq right now we found that people who were killed and we went to the most dangerous places everywhere they said don't go don't go don't go that's where we went and we talk to everybody who is willing to talk to us and what we found was a common theme and the common theme was we hated

saddam hussein and we are glad that saddam hussein was not ruling this country anymore but we thought things might be better for us in fact we know that the united states have the ability to lift the sanctions and to make our lives better in fact we met former members of the military who had like in the iran iraq war who had a lot in kuwait and said we hated saddam hussein because he brought us into these devastating wars that killed hundreds of thousands of our comrades and destroyed our economy in fact they made comparisons between george bush and saddam hussein and they said they both seem to love war and they said to us so here is the us military so we contributed to getting saddam hussein out of office and we didn't fight for two reasons one because we know the technology of the united states was overwhelming and we couldn't win

and to impose we hated saddam hussein in order to get rid of him because we believe that the united states interrupt the voice of america radio programs that said don't fight lay down your weapons join us get rid of this oppressive ruler and sanctions will be lifted in your life will be better and they say no what happened we feel betrayed and i don't speak arabic and after two days of being in a rack i learned how to say no electricity no water no jobs no security push a big liar and a big thief at age nineteen night to draw connections between things like the world trade organisation and the obsession that this government has with opening up the borders around the world to the global corporations and what you see happening in

iraq right now is the number one example of that when you look at what has happened to devastate the economy of a rack through this invasion and a deliberate policy to destroy local businesses and then who is being brought into quote repeal the rack well let me tell you first it's a bunch of texas businessman in fact texas businessmen just like the one we have in the white house they are working out of saddam hussein's previous iraqi state texas businessmen because imagine if you were a successful texas businessman i don't think he would want to relocate to a rack right now government ministries the people who winant were failures in their own

crews back home till had never traveled to rack before in fact many of them had never had passports in their lives we're very don't know the culture and the history of a rap for don't speak the language and five don't even want to and they are put in charge of rebuilding this country in the meantime the iraqi people who are extremely well educated you have so many iraqis who are engineers who were down tears were skilled workers and who are trying to rebuild their country who've been thrown out of work and they've been thrown out of work through a campaign called the bath occasion the back the vacationers to say that anybody who collaborated with saddam hussein's government will be thrown out of their jobs and many of them thrown into prison well i met one iraqi who is so i'm in high school his high school english teacher as well as many voted the other changes in the high school were thrown

out of their jobs because they were members of the bank it now they had to become members of the battery in order to get their jobs i mean thrown out because they were members of the bad writing and he went back to his house and he said i just i decided that i would defy paul bremmer you know the us my story interact because there had been issued an order that should not have pictures of saddam hussein is that i went to my computer and i printed out and blew up a big picture of saddam hussein they said it just wasn't any pictures saddam hussein it was a picture of saddam hussein shaking hands with donald rumsfeld the plane the english teacher never had a chance to a new report by amnesty international human rights watch to

know what was going on inside a rat but donald rumsfeld did we're going nineteen eighty nineteen eighty one nineteen eighty two and worried about the oppression of saddam hussein and then in nineteen eighty three here comes don rumsfeld at the height of the oppression of saddam hussein and shakes hands and says this isn't the end that we can work with so he said to me if we are going to throw people out of their jobs for collaboration with saddam hussein yeah that let's look at a little bit of what the rack looks like today now you heard that the invasion was targeted surgical strikes and it's

china when you go to the city of baghdad a city of five million people use the sections of the city that are intact and yet the ministries had been totally devastated impress you think well it's only building here building there another building here and then you'll recognize what it means to bomb and destroy a ministry of health a ministry of transportation a ministry of commerce and ministry of public education it means that you have absolutely devastated the entire infrastructure of the country in fact this is the banking system interactive day outside in the fresh air of a hundred and twenty degrees and the banks are not functioning in fact the iraqis say the us troops helped write down the doors of the bank and the letters to go inside and eight and lo and behold as we look at the agenda of privatization most of these banks were government run banks there been totally destroyed and now the us

policymakers are rebuilding the banking system is a day nationalize banking system is a privatized system you'll hear about the looting well the looting is still going on today government buildings are being looted and the people who made money with the looting have now going on to become a high level gangsters on some low level leaders ad they use the terror ali baba alibaba like going up and the forty thieves to talk about it actually film really is that you can say in that the marble and they are taking out piece by piece every bit of marble that was in the ministry of higher education this kind of distraction continues to go on this was one of the main buildings of the electricity ministry the fact that there is such sporadic electricity is one of the biggest problems for people

the temperature is a hundred ten a hundred and fifteen goes up to a hundred twenty degrees this is a city where people were used electricity there were used air conditioning they were used to finance they have trouble sleeping at night because it is so hot they have trouble keeping their fluid from writing because their refrigeration doesn't work anymore they have trouble getting clean water because the electricity to pump the water is not functioning they have trouble getting gas well here's the faa as small business they have trouble keeping their businesses open up because without electricity people don't go out on the streets they have trouble in a country that is literally floating on oil getting gasoline a match and what that means to people being on the line for hours and hours and hours in the scorching sun when you know that your country's the second largest producer of oil in the entire world and there is not enough gasoline

and you might've heard about the riots that happened in basra just last week because people waiting on line up to twenty four hours in the scorching heat just to get gasoline and in fact this black market gasoline being sold to twenty times the price and the us soldiers are trying to stop the black market gasoline and go and shoot holes into the jerry cans to try to stop this this kind of up black market activity but you can imagine that just creates more negative feelings towards us troops as i have talked about the lack of basic services in afghanistan and we are seeing the same thing in a rack today when i was interacting before the war the streets at least in baghdad were relatively clean now go to the streets and this is what you see and imagine what it does for people's psyche to have this kind of garbage right outside their houses and what i'm at a

match in what it does for the healthcare situation to have this kind of garbage some of the other kinds of dislocations that happened after the us invasion or there was rent control under the regime of saddam hussein as soon as the us came in back rent control was lifted and thousands and thousands of poor people have been kicked out of their homes is an example of a family with four children that now has nowhere to live and so when you go into those looted burned out government buildings you'll find each of them hundreds of families squatting with no water no electricity no sanitary facilities but they have nowhere else to live another population that has been devastated is the palestinian there'd been many thousands of palestinians so we're living in a rack and have access to low rent housing now they have all been kicked out of their housing i've been living in squalid camps in

fact while we were there there was a hunger strike going on because they were asking the world community for support because they had nowhere to live and nowhere to go as another example of the community that's been devastated and these are veterans veterans from the rent a rack or get veterans from the gulf war veterans from this most recent war they had previously hospitals for vet veterans they had veterans benefits they had disability now all of that has been has disappeared and so while we were there we saw protests by the veterans saying we need a hospital to go to we need health care we need our disability insurance we need our pension we also saw women coming out on the street at great risk of their lives because women are afraid to go out because the new spate of rates of kidnappings and they finally getting fed up and started pouring out there on women's organizations to demand from us authorities that there be physical security for the civilians to demand that

there be basic and necessities like electricity and water and jobs and to demand that women have more of a say in government because you know this new ruling council that was appointed by the us has twenty five members and although women have come forward and say we think that women should have half of the seats only three women were appointed to the twenty five person council when we talked to the us authorities about it they said well we think that's pretty good because that's about the proportion of us women in congress yeah parents are afraid to let children go out of their home there is a new state of children being kidnapped for ransom the kind of lack of a party has left in its wake of real chaos and the parents are trying and during the summer months and the heat to keep children inside which makes it very difficult for the families now you might say where is the police force and all this well the police

force just like the army had been disbanded four hundred thousand members of the army we're told sorry guys you're out of a job your head of pensions whether night you worked in the army twenty thirty years we don't care and the police force there were eighty thousand iraqis in the police force the us said sorry you were collaborators with saddam and saying you're all out of a job and they're starting to retire very slowly new people into the iraqi police force the problem is that while some of them the lucky ones have been a shiite uprising might see them there were a couple of uniforms most of them have not been issued any guns and so they can't do very much to protect the population in fact we went into when the most difficult areas in baghdad used to be called saddam city now has been called side are city after one of the shia clerics but it is an area where people kept telling us don't go don't go in like a war zone they're shooting all the time and we were determined to go there but we start by the playstation re financed december please would

accompany us well we traveled around and they left unsaid would love to because it would be great for us to just get out the playstation but if somebody is trying to rob you were sued or something don't think we're going to do anything to protect you because we don't have any guns the area they're still around this guy's neck or while they haven't been issued guns may happen is she dog tags and they got ten say the name of the officer and sound specific sinbad each of the officers in the turnaround on the back it says that they are a part of an illegitimate iraqi police worth it's been warm thanks to the overthrow saddam hussein in the liberation of the iraqi people and hiv please explain thank you

this is just an example of the kind of total human sensitivity of the us administration well whenever us troops stand in all of this well i hear somebody here saying enemy tell you before i went i might've done that too but when i met the troops and yet we met them first at the border and then we talk to every single day we had a new understanding and a new sympathy for the us troops they are working under the most inhumane conditions they have control twelve hours a day seven days a week they said when they tested the weather when it's a hundred and ten degrees outside inside their flak jackets of the hundred and thirty degrees they're given half of clean drinking water a day i thought when they went home at night at least they would have air conditioning in their barracks said air conditioning running in

our showers and they are sleeping or trying to sleep in excruciating he'd uncertain in fact they say sometimes they crawl on top of their tanks at night because the top of the tank school's down and try to get a couple of hours of sleep and at first we were afraid to tell them why we were interacting we went to iraq this time to set up an occupation watch center to monitor the us troops and so we're afraid to say that was a biologist here for humanitarian purposes you know as do gooder organizations and then after talking to them we start saying no actually we're here to set up an occupation what centers so that we can try to get you all home as soon as possible it's been i'm here is the number of my wife you're the number of my girlfriend

of years the number of my husband i'm sure they would love to work with you they are miserable they don't want to be fair they hate being there and as they will know the iraqi people keep him being here so it is a terrible situation for the troops as well and because they are so jittery because they're being attacked every day they go around the streets with their weapons pointed right at the iraqi people and you can imagine the kind of anger and hostility that breaks out at every single road check point at every single place where there is contact between the us troops in the iraqi people because you will have eighteen nineteen year old boys and girls who were telling iraqis what to do in their own country and telling them in english and saying at the checkpoint and

oftentimes the iraqis don't understand what they're being told to do and the consequences of not understanding are often that you get shot at so iraqi civilians are being killed every single day why being hurt by us troops shooting at them and while we hear about us soldiers we don't hear about those iraqi civilians in fact at one hospital alone in baghdad they say they receive it and their victims a bullet wounds or people who were actually killed by us troops an average of ten to twenty a day so these kinds of incidents increased attention and the anger against us troops and the result is the constant attack on us troops this is one area we just happen to be driving by one day that was a humvee over in the corner of her they are blown up four people killed as you will know this is happening on a daily basis when we got to recommend beginning of july we were told in a briefing by the

us military that there were thirteen attacks today on us troops when we went home and two weeks later we went to a briefing where they said there were twenty five attacks a day and us troops and more sophisticated attacks this is a memorial we went two for one of the us soldiers a twenty year old who was killed when he went to buy pepsi and at the ceremony the memorial service the eulogy was all about how that soldier died fighting the war on terrorism after september eleven and let me tell you many of the troops there are just not buying it the police bush made his infamous remarks about the attacks on us soldiers and said bring a minute you can

imagine what that did to the morale of the us soldiers we went there when there was a celebration a joyous celebration for members of the third infantry division who thought they were on their way home and found out the next day but they were there indefinitely you can imagine what that does to them or out of the us troops they are starting to say they have no faith and donald rumsfeld they have no face that fate and george bush and in fact perhaps they're starting to believe that the only people who are really looking out for their best interests are their loved ones at home and the people like us who tried to stop this war from happening at over and over and over

again the one word that was staged by the us military with kuwaitis who were posing as iraqis well the same way and instead of the status of some university students need a new statue but also something very interesting on the comair know it's not perfect english but i think the sentiment is one that we can understand it says all done go home data now that supports is not something that we see over and over and over again on fox news or msnbc or cnn now i just want to talk about what we are building there and when i say we it's part of the coalition of groups that came together to fight this war here in the united states in the united states and i think many of the groups important in our part of that

website is united for peace that word we decided that we needed to create a permanent center in baghdad we're weakening us military and the us civilian authorities but also us corporations the ap and so we started something called the occupation want center i hope you will take a look at the websites called occupation watched our word and we update every single day with information about what is happening in iraq and we will start to be putting out every two weeks actions of what we can do to try to make the lives of iraqi people better at this point the occupation want center is just a couple of weeks old we went to a rack and we tried to see is there something we can really set up under these conditions of occupation right now iraqi's going to

feel that they are willing to come out openly and monitor the activities us forces and we thought well perhaps we have the international folks would have to be the ones up front it would be too dangerous for iraqis and as soon as we started having meetings with iraqis from university professors and journalism are all kinds of women's groups they i said this is exactly the kind of thing that we must be doing and you know why it's ok tam new international focus giving us support raising money for getting the word out to the international community but we iraqis want to run this center the plan to pay

more incredible women who are working full time on the center and doing every day out at great risk to their own lives did interview people about what has been their experience with the us occupation forces and get this material out to the world community and they say it was our husbands tell us every night don't do this don't go out please stop doing this and they say we have no choice we were quite are way too many years under saddam hussein and we are not going let the us do the same thing as an actor no no go back to the old in this picture you say beat us forces that were arresting interacting of this is happening on a daily basis in fact i heard an interview on npr with donald rumsfeld today when he said that they were arresting three to four hundred iraqis every week now these are

mostly people being swept up in midnight raids or swept up all the streets they are not charged with anything they are held indefinitely they don't have access to lawyers it kind of sounds like what's happening too many people in the immigrant community here it sounds like what's happening in guantanamo is total disrespect for basic rights and so we have the occupation watch center are trying to find people who were detained forced the us authorities to give them access to lawyers forced them to either charge them or let them go free at doing is taking testimony from the families of people who have been killed by the us forces when we get our press conference in baghdad announcing that we were opening this center not only did the press show up but individuals who heard about this center came because they said we don't know where the larger

complaints against the military where can we go if we go to the us military they elected us there is no authority for us to go to and salad so now every day people are coming to the center to say please hear my story do something to help me this is one example that has a woman there here in the morning go to work ms carr would start and so i went to the street to hail a taxi i think is there standing getting ready to get to hell attacks the us soldiers on patrol came by shot bullets into his chest his arm and in his leg he was left dead on the street now they said that they thought that a book that he had in his hand was a pistol they showed us a date book with a bullet hole through it they would not give them the body that the family had to go from war to more to try to find the body of the husband

there's been no apologies there's been no recognition that this man was not holding a pistol and of course no compensation for the family that is left destitute he was the only source of income for his two children two years old and four years old and for the elderly grandparents this family like so many others has been absolutely devastated and we are saying to the us authorities we when you must apologize to you must acknowledge that this was a wrongful death for aid you must pay compensation to this family and for you have to stop killing civilians at the other thing the occupation watch center is doing is looking at the issue of basic needs know one thing that you might not know about the rack is that one of the

reasons people i'm not starving in that country is because there has been a food ration system that was started during the sanctions and has been continuing through what is called the oil for food program run through the united nations this is what keeps iraqis from starvation it is getting out to the entire iraqi population well the us that says that this is not a very enterprising weight of the people this is a welfare system said that come november this system will be over and that iraqis will have to go to the market and buy their own clothes iraqis are saying what we have no jobs there are basically not functioning markets right now and so we will be putting out reports like this saying that into there is a functioning economy interact that the us cannot end the lifeline that the iraqi people have this food ration system that keeps them from starving

i put this picture up there because i just wanted to talk about the issue of unemployment because so many iraqis have been thrown out of work iraqis who works for any government agency as well as the iraqis his businesses have been devastated and when we talk about the players and that the us has been iraqi economy let us be clear they opened up the border lifted altera so the guards have been flooding the country from other parts of the world you can find many iraqi products anymore we have a friend who went to the store and then i wanted a headscarf an iraqi headscarf now all they find are head scarves made in china they want tomato sauce made interact like it used to be they can't find tomato sauce made in a wreck right now it will come from saudi arabia will come from jordan a rack with outside products in the meantime the looting has been not only of pieces of marble like i showed you but the entire inside the factory

cement mixers cranes the basic infrastructure of production has been going out of the country and the us has not been stopping it so businesses have been totally devastated in comes palin incomes bechtel incomes mc i worldcom companies that are known for their fraudulent activities here in the united states taking jobs away from iraqis and let me just tell you one story about nic i won't come to the phone system just like the electrical system hadn't been devastated after the gulf war in nineteen ninety one the iraqis said one month afterwards it was up and running now have been for months the electrical system is not up and running and the phone system is not up and running people cannot call the other side of the city taking pull their loved ones in the neighboring towns they often don't even know that since the us invasion of their loved ones are dead or alive will instead of putting resources into helping back up the local phone service can see i walk on comes in with a forty five million dollar contract of our tax money and

sets up a cellular phone system but the cellular phone system is for the international community it is given out free to international organizations amazingly enough even global exchange got three of these phones and not only are they prevent you can call anywhere in the world as long as you want for free within nine one for an area code from westchester county so we call baghdad every night by calling a nine one four number so here you as taxpayers are paying for the international community to being able to communicate in there again but the iraqi people are not able to communicate with each other what does that tell you about the model of reconstruction that the us is imposing on her and i want to and by talking about this woman who run says is one of the co directors of the center because it's indicative of how the iraqi people are putting this and then sells for it right now to try to seize control back of their own country we're hearing a lot

about the armed resistance what we're not hearing about is the an armed resistance and there's a lot of organizing happening among women's groups among human rights communities among a new group called the union of the unemployed that is demanding jobs and these people are the real heroes right now these are the ones that we have to support the independent organizes to understand that it is through nonviolent resistance that they're going to be able to to make connections with the global community that's trying to end this occupation and this woman and just one day the second day we hired her came late to a meeting and it was very strange because she was so excited about working with us and she came in all sweaty all flustered and said i'm so sorry i'm late we said what happened she said my husband was on his way to his job in the university was driving the car or in bright daylight to our car wreck disclose grab the car and took off this kind of carjacking is happening every single

day well she said the sky was the lifeline of the only way that we got her family around was the only way we got our daughters to go to school because we would take them there and she said you know my husband's never been attack like this in his home in bed shaking so we said please go home and be with them she came back the next day and she was all smiling and we said hauser has been doing and she said everything's ok now said to get the car back she laughed and said well nobody ever get their car back but that is our tradition in the muslim religion we slaughter we divide the meat up we went and gave it away to the poorest members in our community to recognize the privilege that we have and then we prayed and thank god that nothing happened to my husband he said she said now we feel much better about it because we recognize that it's not about things it's about relationships it's about people it's

b and i think that's what our community is about as well and i know that many people right now are fearing stealing so demoralized about the way the bush administration has been able to manipulate public opinion in this country and we feel like where a minority we feel marginalized and i know a lot of my co workers are feeling depressed and i say this is no time for cynicism this is no time for our listeners this is no time for depression and we have to recognize the beauty that is in our community because our community is a global community we deal with that world that is built on greed that is built on the love of things that is built on the love of money that we won't accept

institutions like the world trade organization that are built and read in the love of money they are view of how the world should be built economically is one that takes care of each other and when we look likely at what the world community is saying it's saying we don't want one superpower in this world that can determine on its own who can have access to weapons of mass destruction were towards more matt weapons of mass destruction than any other country in the world we don't want one superpower that can decide it can attack a country that hasn't attacked us we don't want one superpower that can run roughshod over the rule of law we want a global community that is war by international law and then seeks out non violent ways to resolve conflicts that is what our global community is about the

prison there is data great george bush just remember we are a part of that beautiful global community that has been called the second superpower we are part of the beautiful global community that has been saying to the bush administration that the way the administration has responded to september eleven fighting it with hate fighting violence with violence has only made us less safe here at home and as we say in code pink and as we say as part of the global justice community if we shout along and kindness and generosity to the world if we show the world that indeed we think that they are children i have precious as our own children and their lives are as precious as our lives and the world will respond to us with love and kindness and generosity and we will be so much safer here at home so let us go out to

greet george bush in the spirit of love and kindness and say that we demand to have a government that represents the beauty that we feel towards the rest of the world and we say that george bush should have the same fate as his father to be a one term president the pen the pain and i mean he has lived

it i think it's a very dangerous thing when you start saying that the death of us troops is no longer a story and it is for a long time we're not saying that it is not acceptable to us soldiers every day it's not acceptable to just be very down on the back pages of our paper and we have to build up the military families and veterans he was a brilliant and we're moving into an anti occupation the

eyes i think when we talk about afghanistan tell me yeah

and more and one so i think it has put a poll on the kind of communication that have been able to establish in the past and certainly you can

now unfortunately we have a two party system now that is controlled by corporations and moneyed interests and when you see the lack of democratic opposition to this war the fact that we really didn't have a leadership within the democratic party could do anything to try to stop this well i would say that we have a government that has control yeah that's a fair you know the issue that's i mean iraqis who feel that things could possibly even worse all the way this going to say we can imagine on because it didn't get better with us troops they see especially after today a spiral of violence that is out of control edge don't see that there will be a lessening of attacks until the us troops ago what's very difficult to

talk about what should replace the un has been devastated by this attack that happened today us has been co opted by the west's be announced starting to look is can come in i really really i recall telling lies are they say have an international incident well

i mean say you violated the law by need that knowing that i didn't know you were actually believing that the arabic speakers but not absolutely essential we need people who are made sure who understand how to stay calm in difficult situations nina period the us

or more the production that the us can't dictate so it has not been as an operative that the us will now there have been at work since the invasion in fact the company that hasn't seen those oil exports is wrong area crime and we have been doing we think this is a crime the show will have access to the well and right now the reason the us doesn't want to go to the united nations to be in charge of reconstruction is it doesn't want to have access to that and that's why we have to continue to say like the iraqi people say the oil should be wearing

iraqi people in the hands of the iraqi people not be privatized run by iraqis thank you we think just about anything that we are here

at the request of the obstacles to iraqis in particular leaves smaller and that's why one of our jobs at the application what centers continue to mount these companies to release the figures this is after all the us taxpayer money it should be public information tell people how they should conduct themselves but i think that from my experience in organizing that when we organize in a way that invites people in that creates an atmosphere where people feel comfortable bringing their children going to bring their parents bring their grandparents we can control how police interact and oftentimes the

violence is coming from them but we can try to mirror the kind of community that we want to create and the world in the way we view are organizing it now an american soldier yells and theories it got there is just one hospital alone and people wounded and killed in twenty twenty a day but we actually have no way of knowing and it's part of this insidious way of knots valuing life of iraqi people by not even bothering to be accountable for the loss

of the right genes so sometimes when you ask iraqis are you shia arab kurd they get older and they say the iraqis and there are many many these narratives among iraqis both shia arabs christians cities that is right problem and many iraqis feel the us is exacerbating those differences is using the old divide and conquer tactics and hear that with the economic situation being so devastating and the backroom of howler that it is the more conservative elements of the religious community

yeah for example oratory sections of the city it's the mosque that have taken over the garbage collection or distribution or trying to deliver basic services they are remember that these yemeni and that there are people in fact wine the action is said to have hundreds of thousands of people waiting for the word to start an uprising that uprising when initially against us troops but the christians are terrified that he would be against them the cities are terrified to be against them that is part of the fear that many people are facing in iraq right now

that the us doesn't allow any services in the security issue continues to hear a clip that passion will be healed by the most conservative elements and lead to a civil war between the sunnis and that she is the editor of the questions we get one more i'm really eating early tomorrow morning because i'm leaving back the next day an ordinance that i yes and they saved me yeah yeah yeah and they are doing that

and the international community i really enjoyed it the law e mail they

know it