Monday, January 26, 2004

Oh yeah -- these people love us:

Anti-U.S. tunes big hits in Iraq

...Americans have flooded [Iraq]'s airwaves with harmless Western and Arab pop tunes, but many are drawn more to the catchy rhythms of crooners such as Sabah al-Jenabi.

"America has come and occupied Baghdad," he sings in one popular number. "The army and people have weapons and ammunition. Let's go fight and call out the name of God."

U.S.-led coalition authorities have barred the media from promoting any kind of violence, but there is a hot market in the bazaars of central Iraq for cassettes by singers calling for insurrection.

"The men of Fallujah are men of hard tasks," Mr. al-Jenabi sings in a dialect decipherable only to people in the Sunni Muslim heartland cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. "They paralyzed America with rocket-propelled grenades. May God protect them from [U.S.] airplanes." ...
    
At Sabah Recordings, a popular cassette shop in a Fallujah alleyway, owner Maher al-Ajrari initially denied that he sold Mr. al-Jenabi's music. But after an hour of conversation, he admitted that the resistance tapes are best sellers.

Mr. Ajrari even carries multimedia "video" versions of the CDs, in which the anti-U.S. tunes are accompanied by footage of American troops killing and maiming Iraqis....


--Washington Times

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