Beyond the Rhetoric of Withdrawal: Our Unknown Air War Over Iraq

by Ed Kinane
(1,450 words)

A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower.

….

The American air war inside Iraq is perhaps the most significant – and underreported – aspect of the fight against the insurgency.

– Seymour M. Hersh, “Up in the Air,” Nov. 29, 2005, New Yorker

There’s an air war over Iraq. It’s invisible (here). It’s deadly (there).

The Iraq air war may be the longest such war in history. In one way or another it has been undermining Iraq’s sovereignty, destroying its infrastructure, and killing and maiming Iraqis for some 16 years.

Despite global pressure to withdraw, Bush Inc. – and indeed the broader US power structure – has no intention of giving up Iraq. The potential oil bonanza is too huge. And Iran – with its oil bonanza – is next door.

That air war is intensifying. The US dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of 2007 as it did in the first half of 2006.

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Ed worked in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness before, during and after “Shock and Awe.” Reach him at edkinane@verizon.net.

Report from Iran

by Gabriele Ross

(2,900 words)

I went to Iran for almost three weeks in July of 2007 with “Global Exchange.” Since 2000 Global Exchange ( http://www.globalexchange.org ) offers several tours to Iran each year with the goal of fostering citizen to citizen diplomacy. In collaboration with an Iranian partner organization we went to Tehran, Yazd, Shiraz, Pasargadae and Persepolis, Esfahan, Natanz, Abyaneh, Namak Abrud, Ramsar, Lahijan, Masuleh and Rasht. This tour took us to hyper modern urban centers and ancient adobe towns, to deserts and rainforests, and from the Alborz Mountains to the Caspian Sea. Below is an attempt to answer some of the common questions I have been asked about this trip.

Fear

One of the strangest questions came from an Iranian American: “Did you have to do the HIV test and all that to get the visa?“ At first I am totally confused but then I remember: when I immigrated to the US on a fiancée visa some twenty years ago, I had to submit to an HIV test and other health exams, the result of which were kept from me and given to immigration officials in a sealed envelope. Funny - when memory plays tricks on us, even outrageous practices by the US government are attributed to the Islamic Republic.

To answer the question: there were no tests. Based on my European password I even got a discount on the visa fee, compared to the twelve US citizens and one Australian who traveled with me. I never figured out what restrictions there are on individual Iran travel for US citizens. If there are any, they do not apply to other nationalities, as evident from the independent travelers I met for example from Germany, Japan and Spain. I was not always with the group, there was no problem with me venturing out on my own.

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Gabriele Ross (gabi_ross@yahoo.com, 503.235.6136) is a graduate of the Masters Program for Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, the "Bread and Roses” Programmer at KBOO 90.7 FM Community Radio in Portland, and a Founding Board Member of the Iranian American Friendship Council http://www.aifcpdx.org