Al-Jazeera TV was threatened and accused that they were not showing the right (American) viewpoint; their live pictures of the war were "not true", so their office was bombed and one of their reporters was murdered. All because the American government was not pleased with their programs. Is this the new "George Bush" democracy?...

www.pandoraproject.org states:

The first independent media/paper running in iraq/baghdad is out up, with the content from the first issue of Al-MuaJaha yesterday, which is now posted to http://www.almuajaha.com -Please can folk get this out on their local wires and networks so that this gets alot of support. This is the first move to break the news embargo, and these mainly students on the ground in Iraq, need all the solidarity they can get. cheers Davey (pandora DU project) .

Below are 3 items from this site:

A NEW KIND OF DEMOCRACY: CURRENT RATING = 0

by Hamsa Mohammed in Baghdad

As an Iraqi civilian, and after being through this war, and after listening to all that has been said and done, I want everyone to know that this war has just begun. This isn't the end. And everyone should know that the Iraqi people are ready to sacrifice their lives for Iraq, and only for Iraq - not for Saddam, and not for the Americans.

For years, most of the people have seen Iraq through Saddam We always tried to make people see them as two different things, but it was too hard. Now that Saddam is no more the question is-what will the world see? The United States said, or to be more precise-George Bush said that they will enter Iraq as liberators not as occupiers, and that they are here to eliminate an aggressive regime, to destroy the weapons of mass destruction, to offer the Iraqi people freedom and independence, and to help Iraq regain a respected place in the world.

But will Iraq be just another American State?

From my place now we are not even respected in our own land. We don't have the right to say anything about what the Americans are doing. They hold the machine guns, and we don't. Is this the new, George Bush democracy?

We are calling for democracy. We want our voices to go out to the world with no fear. But that is not possible because we are not free. We are not free to move, especially at night. We are not allowed to film near any U.S. military (just like with Saddam!). Al-Jazeera TV was threatened and accused that they were not showing the right (American) viewpoint, and their live pictures of the war were not true, and so their office got bombed and one of their reporters were murdered because the American government was not pleased with their programs. Is this the new, George Bush democracy?

Voices in the Wilderness was banned from working at the Palestine hotel because they did some writing that showed part of this reality. So they had to be stopped. So where is the democracy? Where is the freedom?

We don't even have the right to protect ourselves and our families. We see crimes that are committed, and we can't stop them. We can't even say "no" to anything the American soldiers are doing, even if it is illegal.

For example, the weapons that they find now, in the city, they are destroying them in the middle of Baghdad - in the city where children, women, and men live, with no concern for what it might do to the properties of the people, and some of our people have lost their lives and houses because of those destructions. They don't have any other place to live. Who is responsible for that?

In addition to that, the pollution that these destructions are causing to the environment, and the diseases that might appear because of no clean water, and not enough medicines, threaten all of us.

Who is in charge of this? Who is responsible for all these crimes? Or this the new, George Bush democracy, where no one can say, "No!"?

POEM BY ABED AL-KAREEM

by Salaam Talib Al-Onaibi

After the fall of Baghdad, no one to cared for the patients at Al-Rashed Psychiatric Hospital. Many of the inmates fled to the street. One of the few that remain is a poet named Abed Al-Kareem, who came to Al-Rashed after being arrested several times by Saddam's regime. An educated man, he never seemed crazy. Abed Al-Kareem choose to stay in the hospital because he felt more freedom there, to write his poetry. He dedicated these few lines from a poem of his to the people of Iraq:

When will this oppression end?
And the Rulers who do what they want with people?
Honorable men expelled from their homes,
From the burgeoning homes of the vain, degraded and flaunted.
Vagabond in my own land I became
Locked in my grave -
I raised my head and said,
"No, no - I won't kneel."

MASS GRAVE IN AL HILLA

by Kassem; May 15 2003

I am an Iraq person calling myself Kassem. I have been struggling with the western media and politicians for long many years. I have been trying to lift the sanctions against my country Iraq and to stop its bombardment. Anybody in Iraq or anywhere in the Arab world who thinks freedom exists in the West has to has his/her brain examined. the difference between the Arab/Muslims/latin Americans is we carry on resisting and we offer sacrifices. In the west they are scared from loosing their jobs or being labeled anti semitic so they quickly shut up. Victory to Iraq. We will clean Iraq.

The following is my response to a story which is runing in the media about a mass grave recently discovered in Iraq. I have sent it to the bbc and channel4, let us expose the western the freedom.

To those who are shedding tears, including the bbc correspondent Sucker at the sight of the victims of the mass grave near AL-Hilla city; why you are not shedding tears at the 100 thousand or so Iraqis whom your country have just killed? |What about shedding some tears about the more than one million whom your country have killed through the bombardment of 1991 and the following sanctions? Why do not you shed tears at the victims of the depleted uranium then and the new ones? Why do not you shed tears at the reined country, which was running, before your second destruction to it since 1991? Is the answer is because you do not see the graves or is the false pretences of the politicians make you immune from seeing who are the real criminals?

Not just the Iraqi museum has been looted by the professional looters and murderers but the Qura’anic library and country libraries have been burnt to the ground. Like what the Moguls did in 1258 AD they have burnt everything which they could not understand. It seems this dark history is repeating its self over Baghdad and the world all over again.

The difference between the victims of the mass grave and their victims are the families of the latter have mourned their dead in 1991 and most are buried in proper graves. In 1991 I have lost 5 of my relatives, one still with no grave, all are killed by the countries which lunched the attack against Iraq and who listened to their false pretences then. My nephew born in 1992 with no legs at all. Apart from the effect of the depleted uranium there is no reason for this horrific deformity. Now in AlMansour district of Baghdad 14 of my neighbours have been killed, only one person has been killed in the restaurant where President Saddam Hussein supposedly was. 200 meters away a family of 6 has been evaporated too. The effects of the depleted uranium are well known.

While Iraq under the rule of President Saddam Hussein needed more freedom of speech and more justice definitely Iraq did not want to be invaded by the perpetrators of the on going crimes against humanity.

Rather than shedding tears, stand up and make your government to leave my country Iraq and pay compensation for the on going crimes.

Between the victims of the mass grave and their victims are the families of the latter have mourned their dead in 1991 and most are buried in proper graves. In 1991 I have lost 5 of my relatives, one still with no grave, all are killed by the countries which lunched the attack against Iraq and who listened to their false pretences then. My nephew born in 1992 with no legs at all. Apart from the effect of the depleted uranium there is no reason for this horrific deformity. Now in AlMansour district of Baghdad 14 of my neighbours have been killed, only one person has been killed in the restaurant where President Saddam Hussein supposedly was. 200 meters away a family of 6 has been evaporated too. The effects of the depleted uranium are well known.

While Iraq under the rule of President Saddam Hussein needed more freedom of speech and more justice definitely Iraq did not want to be invaded by the perpetrators of the on going crimes against humanity.

Rather than shedding tears, stand up and make your government to leave my country Iraq and pay compensation for the on going crimes.