Newsgroup: italia.firenze.discussioni
Titolo: Sempre sull'Iraq

Posto questo articolo che ho letto l'anno scorso per la tesi.
(
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,933363,00.html
)
What about Private Lori?
For the last week America has been gripped by the 'Saving Private
Jessica' mission. But nobody wanted to hear the sadder story of her
friend and tentmate Private Lori Piestewa, who died in combat. Gary
Younge reports from her home town of Tuba City, Arizona
Thursday April 10, 2003
The Guardian
This is the tale of two privates. They were sisters-in-arms - two
young women fighting for Uncle Sam. They were roommates at Fort Bliss
military base in Texas; tentmates in the Gulf, and close friends at
all places in between. Then they (and 13 other members of the US
Army's 507th Maintenance Company) took a wrong turn in the southern
Iraqi city of Nassiriya and were ambushed. One, Jessica Lynch, 19, was
injured, hospitalised and then rescued by Special Forces to emerge as
the poster girl for American resilience and camaraderie. The other,
Lori Piestewa, 23, was killed, with the gruesome distinction of being
the first native American in the US army to be killed in combat and
the only American servicewoman to die in this war.
On the face of it, Piestewa, from the Hopi tribe, does not fit the
bill for the all-American war hero or heroine. She was a single mother
of two who left her four-year-old son, Brandon, and three- year-old
daughter, Carla, with her parents who live in a trailer in Tuba City,
Arizona while she went to fight in the Middle East. But, in more ways
than one, hers is the other American face of this war, fought by a
military whose ranks have been swelled by poor, non-white women. A
volunteer army comprising recruits who, whatever their patriotic
credentials, have few other choices.
Tuba City is home mostly to Navajo people although it sits on the edge
of a Hopi reservation - a piece of land returned to native Americans
by the federal government. In theory, they are independent nations
entering into bilateral treaties with the US government; in practice
most reservations are situated on poor land with limited independence
and home to the most impoverished minority in the country. 
The Hopi land is no exception - a vast expanse of hundreds of miles of
red rock and yellow sand peppered with trailers and brick housing that
would not look out of place in a South African township. A nation of
tumbleweed and tumbledown, where more than 50% of the inhabitants are
unemployed. 
It was not just the poverty of the reservation that made the armed
forces an attractive proposition for Piestewa. Serving in the military
is a family tradition. Her father fought in Vietnam and her
grandfather served in the second world war. As a 17-year- old, she was
the commanding officer of the Junior ROTC (cadet) programme at Tuba
City High School, leading dozens of students in drills. Two years
later she married a local man but divorced him shortly after Carla was
born. She then joined the army partly out of an interest in the job,
neighbours say, but primarily to provide a secure income with which to
raise her children. 
This community of 8,200, which according to the census is almost 95%
native American, is tight-knit and tight-lipped. Since just about
everyone knew her or her parents, nobody has been unaffected. Since
the immediate family do not wish to talk to the media, few outside it
will venture anything beyond, "She was a great girl", "We are very
proud" and "It's so sad", for fear of appearing to be exploiting her
death. 
Evidence of her absence is everywhere. Small shrines with huge
pictures of Piestewa have sprung up in the supermarket and outside her
house. Shops have put donation buckets on display to raise money for
her children, and two radio talk-show hosts in Phoenix are starting a
trust fund to pay for the children's education. 
Even the centuries-long feud between the Hopi and the Navajo has
abated. At a rally last week, leaders from the two tribes made a rare
joint appearance as about 5,000 people gathered to pray for Piestewa
and the other missing soldiers. "Navajo, Hopi, nobody cares now," says
Archie Ortiz, an army veteran. "We are all together in remembering
her." 
At least 45 Hopis are serving overseas and around 70 Navajos are in
the Middle East. "You would think that the general history of native
Americans would make them opposed to involvement in the military,"
says Tim Johnson, the executive editor of the country's leading weekly
paper on native American affairs, Indian Country Today. There has been
no specific polling of native American attitudes towards the war,
although Johnson believes it would be slightly higher than average. 
Indeed, during the first Gulf war a group of native Americans in
Oregon wrote an open letter to President George Bush Sr, ridiculing
his pretext for attacking Iraq. "Dear President Bush," it read.
"Please send your assistance in freeing our small nation from
occupation. This foreign force occupied our lands to steal our rich
resources ... As in your own words, 'The occupation and overthrow of
one small nation is one too many.' Yours sincerely, An American
Indian." 
Moreover, the army's sensitivity to native American culture leaves
much to be desired, says Johnson. "They still talk about 'going into
Indian country', meaning enemy territory," he says. They continue to
dwell on the stereotype of native Americans as warriors, giving their
missiles names like Apache and Tomahawk. "On the one hand they think
of us as fierce warriors and on the other they refer to us as being
hostile to American interests." 
Yet after African-Americans, native Americans are the ethnic group
represented most strongly in the military. In the second world war,
the Navajo radio operators were known as the Codetalkers, after they
used their complex language to devise a code for allied communications
that the Japanese were never able to break. One of the soldiers
raising the flag at Iwo Jima was a native American. 
Johnson, whose father fought in Vietnam, believes there are two main
reasons why so many of his people join up. The first is political:
"Native Americans have a great appreciation for freedom and liberty,"
he says. The second is economic: native Americans are the poorest of
all ethnic and racial groups in America. "The military is one world
where people can build lives and make something else of themselves,"
he says. 
This has made the American military more reliant on the poor, and
therefore non-whites, than ever. In 1973, 23% of the military was from
racial minorities; in 2000 it was 37%. While Hispanics remain
underrepresented compared to the population as a whole, they are
rapidly catching up. While the total number of military personnel
dropped 23% in the last decade the number of Hispanics leaped 30%. 
This growth has been particularly marked among women. In the army,
black women, who make up only 16% of the female civilian population,
actually outnumber white women. 
"A survey of the American military's endlessly compiled and analysed
demographics paints a picture of a fighting force that is anything but
a cross-section of America, with minorities overrepresented and the
wealthy and the underclass essentially absent," wrote the New York
Times recently. 
The subject has become highly sensitive politically, with the
Democratic congressman from Harlem, Charles Rangel, calling for the
return of the draft. "It's just not fair that the people we ask to
fight our wars are people who join the military because of economic
conditions, because they have fewer options," he says. 
The family of Shawna Johnson, a black female prisoner of war in Iraq,
say she wanted to be a chef but couldn't afford the training.
Not long after Piestewa's disappearance became known, the commanding
officer of Tuba City high school's ROTC programme told the Arizona
Republic she was no longer so keen on the military. "This is
definitely teaching me the reality of life," said 16-year-old Dezbah
Begay. "Maybe I'll become a chef or a police officer or a doctor
instead." 
If Piestewa was pulled by patriotism she was also, by all accounts,
pushed by economics. From what she said in an interview before she
left for Kuwait in February, it was clear that she would miss her
children: "It's hard to leave them but they are going to be with their
grandmother." However, it sounded as though she was heading for a big
adventure rather than combat. "I'm excited to go see something new,"
she said. "I'm also going to learn a lot." 
The family received an email from her a few weeks ago, saying she was
about to enter Iraq and it "felt good that she was not sitting around
and waiting any more". 
Then came the news that soldiers had been captured, killed or were
missing. Five of her colleagues, including Johnson, were questioned on
Iraqi television; the Pentagon confirmed the death of two others. The
fate of the other eight, of whom Piestewa was one, was unknown. For
more than a week families of the two women waited for news. All around
Tuba City signs were hung out telling people: "Put your porch light
on, show Lori the way home." They used white stone to spell her name
on a 200ft mesa just outside the town. News of Lynch's rescue last
Tuesday raised hopes, but by Friday they were dashed again by a phone
call from the army to say Piestewa was among the dead. The Lynch
family heard the news just before boarding a flight to Germany to see
Jessica. 
Lynch will come home to West Virginia on crutches, to the waving of
American flags; Piestewa will return to the reservation in a coffin
draped in an American flag.
-- 
Foolfolly
Le gare sono per i cavalli, non per i musicisti (Bela Bartok)

 draped in an American flag.
Belle le guerre si...
-- 
"...si vive di ricordi, signori, e di giochi, di abbracci sinceri, di baci
e di fuochi, di tutti i momenti, tristi e divertenti, e non di momenti
tristemente divertenti."
Caparezza

In data Fri, 16 Apr 2004 13:22:24 GMT, Foolfolly ha scritto:
Mi piaceva il thread e aggiungo:
 IRAQ: BUSINESS NON SI FERMA, PRONTE 350 IMPRESE ITALIANE/ADNKRONOS
IN FILA PER SUB-FORNITURE CON PRIME CONTRACTORS USA E GB
(di Fabio Insenga)
Roma, 16 apr. - (Adnkronos) - La 'guerra dei sequestri' non ferma il
business della ricostruzione in Iraq. Anzi, nonostante le difficolta', e'
ancora corsa agli appalti. E le imprese italiane non restano a guardare. A
quanto apprende l'ADNKRONOS, sono oltre 350 quelle pronte ad accaparrarsi
uno dei sub-contratti che i 17 prime contractors (15 americani e 2
britannici) mettono sul piatto. In ballo ci sono complessivamente 18,6 mld
di dollari stanziati da Washington per gli interventi infrastrutturali, di
cui solo 8 sono stati gia' assegnati. La posta in gioco e' alta e al fianco
delle imprese si schiera tutto il 'sistema Italia' con l'attivita'
coordinata di governo, Ice e Confindustria.
(Fin/Pn/Adnkronos)
16-APR-04
15:10
