BioPepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.
Comments from Registered Members | (Register or log in to make your comment.) | RealPirate 2008-05-06
(continued from previous...) But the RN is not and will be a sad attempt of being the antithesis of FOX News! | RealPirate 2008-05-06
Norway, you hit the point right on the head! And Garret, you probably just have not dug deep enough into this screwed up part of the world to know you head from your ass. All that Muqtada al-Sadr cares about is his political aspirations. And this is supposedly a holy man. He is more like a worm, who is trying to protect is little patch of dirt with the 300 million dollars he has been given and who knows how much more he has milked from Iran in their blind support for him. As for Pepe, well we all know he is not a journalist; he is a sensationalist, who paints illusions with juxtaposition of historical imagery that suits his rhetorical soapbox. The REAL News seems to think that good reporting is simply crying out and pointing the rhetorical finger at the world in hopes that someone will believe the sky is falling and the "I told you so" mentality. If the RN was a real news organization, they'd provide a balanced approach to the diatribes of Pepe! But the RN is not and will be a sad | Garrett 2008-05-03
Norway...go screw yourself. Why is the US bombing poor Iraqis??? Because we can. Nobody cares and this is the REAL NEWS.
My only complaint about Pepe's reporting is that he is treating it all like some football game of death. Does Muqtada Al Sadr care if he has a 1-0 lead over the neo-cons? He cares more about the 500 women, children and BABIES senselessly killed every week... | Noway 2008-05-03
So this is an example of Pepe Escobar's searing analysis? I think I would get superior critical thought from my youngest daughter (12 yo) and her, like, adolescent, you know, friends? Just as with so many of your humanist-oriented reports, you've tugged at heart-strings but failed to deal with the larger forces at work. Inevitably, those forces will thwart your half-baked attempts to effect change, even if such attempts could, indeed, improve the situation. Try again, Pepe. And next time, please include some critical thinking! BTW: Throwing in a historical allusion that has no connection to your story is not an example of critical thinking (attempts to liken Iraq to Vietnam are spurrious -- the U.S. may not be "winning" outright militarily or politically, but they're not suffering losses the way they did in Vietnam). |
TranscriptPEPE ESCOBAR, THE REAL NEWS ANALYST: It’s been five years since George W. Bush proclaimed Mission Accomplished in Iraq. Now take a very good look at these images. Yes, they are disturbing. You won’t see them on Western TV networks. And no, there’s not a hint of mission accomplished about them. These are innocent civilians-– poor Shi’ite Arabs living in the three million-strong Sadr City in Baghdad, one of the largest slums in the world. As The Real News has reported Sadr City is being walled in–- transformed into a gulag, and pounded relentlessly by US air strikes. The Pentagon-–and the Iraqi government–-say they are “protecting the Green Zone” by attacking Sadr City.
As if that traumatic scene of the helicopter leaving the roof of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975 was rattling too many military minds. 1745 Iraqi civilians were killed in April-– against 159 policemen and 104 soldiers. Over 400 people were killed in Sadr City alone. Only 10% were guerrillas. This carnage is a direct consequence of Dick Cheney’s recent tour of the Middle East, Iraq included. This carnage is a direct consequence of Gen. David Petraeus’ surge. These are victims of a vicious political battle between the al-Maliki government in Baghdad, supported by the al-Hakim family, and the US, against Muqtada al-Sadr, who they fear will win the next elections in October-–because, of course, he is immensely popular. And in the big picture, these deaths are a graphic example of how the sophisticated Pentagon machine plans to deal with “problematic” urban slums in the future. We wall them, we isolate them, and we bomb the hell out of them. Who cares about collateral damage? It may be very harsh to say, but that's how it is.
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