Patrick Cockburn, discusses “The Surge: A Special Report” which he wrote for the Independent, where he is Middle East correspondent: the split between the Sadr and Hakim factions; American propaganda that Iran is behind Sadr and the Mahdi Army and the “new” EFP bombs; the widespread humanitarian catastrophe; the occupation and sectarian war it has created; divisions in Kurdistan; the crisis in Kirkuk; predictions in the event of an eventual withdrawal; the redirection toward the Sunni insurgency; the unimportance of Allawi, Maliki or anyone else America installs in power; the danger to U.S. soldiers in Iraq if Cheney bombs Iran; predictions for the short and long term.
MP3 here. (46:39)
Patrick Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq, a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006.
Patrick Cockburn is a hero, and I greatly wish that he was a decision maker by/for the American people, in the federal government. Oh that his reporting will make a difference on the future considerations about whether the U. S. Government should continue taking us to into war.
I think it’s a criminal understatement to call Mr. Cockburn a hero. Although he might rebel at the description, I think that on the strength of his intrepid and resourceful reporting, he’s something akin to a modern saint. I pray that he will not become a contemporary martyr as well.
You are so right, a modernday Saint Patrick. We need to be sure that he is not martyred.
The Neocons who lured Bush into this fiasco in the distant sands have achieved their goals which were to create havoc and turmoil in the area. This has been nothing but the age-old strategy of ‘divide and conquer’used by other empires to conquer and suppress the people of the under-developed world.