Reshuffling the cards in Iraq
Ghali Hassan, Online Journal Contributing Writer...Three years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq is a destroyed country under a fascist Occupation. Iraqis have no water, no electricity, no jobs (unemployment at 70 percent), and lack basic health care services. Iraqis, at all levels, are far worse off than before the invasion and Occupation. There are no security and no human rights. Hundreds of thousand of Iraqis, mostly women and children, have been killed by U.S. forces. Iraqis continue to be arrested without charge, tortured, and abused by U.S. forces and their trained militias and death squads. Long before the invasion, the U.S. and Britain trained, armed and financed expatriate Iraqi criminal elements in the U.S., Britain and Iran. Once they entered Iraq on the back of U.S. tanks, the expatriates and their minders embarked on a criminal process of "de-Baathification," which implied the liquidation of anyone associated with the Ba’ath Party, as well as anyone with anti-Occupation nationalist views. "De-Baathification" is simply a murderous tool for inciting violence and destroying Iraqi society. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in cold blood by the U.S.-trained and armed militias, and others have simply disappeared. None of these daily mass murders of innocent civilians were committed under the previous regime of Saddam Hussein. The label of "Sunnis" and "Shiites" is a U.S. creation to provide a smokescreen and divert people's attention from the crimes of the Occupation...
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Iraq Body Count - NOT JUST NUMBERS!
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's Dream...Iraq Body Count Co-Founder and Oxford Research Group's Executive Director John Sloboda was on CNN on July 19, 2005 (...) HOLMES: And who's doing the killing, John? SLOBODA: Well, currently, the vast majority of killing is being done by anti-occupation insurgents, criminals and unknown agents. We just don't know who a lot of them are. That is a complete reversal from the situation in the beginning of the conflict, when, of course, in the first six-week phase of the war, the vast majority of deaths were caused by U.S. bombs and aerial raids. Mr. Sloboda's words are in total contradiction with the findings of the "Lancet study": On 29 October 2004, the British medical journal The Lancet published 'Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey’: Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths...
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What has become of Americans?
Paul Craig RobertsWhen the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the American people to rise up. They didn't. Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute. Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorist suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did. And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't...
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 9 May 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice....The American siege of Samarra’ entered its fifth day on Tuesday, with no indication that an end was in sight. A curfew was first imposed on the city at 6am Friday morning and has been in force ever since. Quds Press reported a number of residents of Samarra’ who were able to slip out to nearby villages as saying that the Americans had imposed an extremely strict blockade on a number of neighborhoods in the city, among them ad-Dubbat, al-Amin, al-Khadra’, and al-Mu'tasim, prohibiting absolutely anyone from entering or leaving. The residents said that the Americans prevent local people from leaving their houses to perform their daily necessities. They have shut down all the markets, shops and stores and turned off electric power to most neighborhoods of the city...
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Ahmadinejad Sends a Futile Letter
Kurt NimmoIran’s president Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be "wiped off the map," although Shimon Peres did say "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map." As Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann note, Ahmadinejad was deliberately misquoted as part of an ongoing propaganda campaign against Iran by the neocons, in particular the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), founded by Yigal Carmon, who served time in Israeli military intelligence, and Meyrav Wurmser, a neocon that had a hand in crafting the neocon document "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" presented to then Israeli president, Benjamin Netanyahu. MEMRI is known for selectively quoting and distorting Arab and Muslim news reports and editorials...
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Defending the Indefensible
William FisherAfter years of ignoring the United Nations panel charged with oversight of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) - a centerpiece of international human rights law - the US government turned up at a meeting of the group in Geneva with a delegation of more than two dozen lawyers and other officials to affirm that the US is "absolutely committed to uphold its national and international obligations to eradicate torture" and that "there are no exceptions to this prohibition. That's what I call chutzpah! The government's theory must be that the more lawyers you bring to Geneva, the easier it will be to bob and weave your way around those pesky questions people keep asking about Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo, renditions and secret prisons in Eastern Europe...
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As goes Maine . . .
Michael Ash, Online Journal Contributing WriterThe call for the impeachment of George W. Bush is turning from a leak into a downpour. Late last month the Kennebec County (Maine) Democratic Committee joined with other small communities like Lake Station, Indiana (population 14,000), and Northampton, Massachusetts (population 30,000), the State Democratic Committee of Vermont, and several state legislatures (including California and Illinois) that have introduced resolutions calling for the president's impeachment...
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How we (essentially) stole Iraq's oil
Joshua Holland...And it's not just about oil; combine the Oil Law with the rest of Bremer's orders. They not only slashed corporate taxes and allowed foreign investors to take 100 percent of their profits out of the country, they gave them -- by law -- the same status as Iraqi firms. That means that all the things countries like Iraq do to turn foreign investment into a little bit of development are off the table: foreign multinationals can't be asked to invest in the local economy or hire a certain number of Iraqi workers or build schools and health clinics or any of the other strategies that are common in poor but resource-rich countries. All of those rules worked their way into the Constitution as well. None of this is a conspiracy theory; all of it is well-documented in the public record...
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GI Special 4E9: Bush Sets Amazing New Record - May 9, 2006
Thomas F. BartonPresident George W. Bush's approval rating fell to 31 percent in a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Monday, the lowest recorded in the survey and a drop of three percentage points in a single week. Bush's approval rating, at 34 percent a week ago, tumbled on declining support from conservatives and Republicans. The poll found 52 percent of conservatives and 68 percent of Republicans approved of Bush's performance, record lows in both categories...
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Losing on points
Swopa, NeedlenoseIn the Los Angeles Times this morning, Borzou Daragahi gives us a glimpse at how they're making the sausage soon to be known as the government of Iraq: Officials said talks over control of the key ministries had reached a crucial point, with a Shiite slated to keep the interior post and a Sunni to take over defense if individuals could be found who were relatively free of sectarian or political affiliations. So the departments are being allotted by sect, but only if the ministers are "relatively" non-sectarian. Great. Somehow, I think "relatively" is going to translate into "not at all, but we've agreed to pretend otherwise"...
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GI Special 4E8 - Take A Trip With Us In A Time Machine - May 8 2006
Thomas F. Barton...The elite in this country have the conscience of a Charles Manson, only they have aircraft carriers. That’s the mentality we are dealing with. Mobster behavior is Mobster behavior. The Freedom Fighters in Iraq have an answer to U.S. terrorism in THEIR country, it’s called an AK-47, and an Improvised Explosive Device. Nothing has really changed since Vietnam. My greatest revelation from Vietnam, was the realization that I was the enemy in Southeast Asia. Thirty-five years later, that insight has not changed one bit. Now, the people who are dying in countries as a result of American occupation, are connected to me. That is what happens when you become a Global Citizen...
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, May 9, 2006
Today in IraqThe US military announced Tuesday the death of a soldier in east Baghdad after he was a hit by a roadside bomb a day before. Marine Cpl. Cory L. Palmer, had been injured in an explosion in Iraq on May 1. Shortly after midnight on Sunday, however, he learned in a phone call from his brother that the young Marine had died from his injuries while on a flight from Germany to San Antonio. Pvt. Alva L. Gaylord, 25, of Carrollton, Mo., died of injuries sustained in Qasr Ar Riyy, Iraq on May 5 (...) Six Iraqi reporters were killed across Iraq during the past three days, the Observatory for Freedom of the Press said Tuesday (...)
Iraqi police patrols discovered 10 bodies riddled with bullets in different parts of Baghdad. Sunni cleric killed in southern Baghdad. The Iraqi Islamic Party said Dulaimi was the 150th Sunni cleric to be killed in Iraq since 2003...
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The CIA's sin
XymphoraThe CIA's sin, according to the peculiar ethics of Dick Cheney, is not that it came up with intelligence that contradicted the neocon position on Iraq. That was to be expected, as the truth is always to be expected. The neocons had a plan to deal with the truth, called the Office of Special Plans. Together with their complete control over the disgusting American media, the truth was not going to be a problem. No, the problem was that the CIA, and in particular George Tenet, tried to play both ends against the middle. Everything, or just about everything, was fine with the CIA until after the war, when suddenly all the quibbles started pouring out. Curveball, biolabs, nukes - the CIA apparently knew all these things were bullshit, but chose, in Cheney's view (and he is not entirely wrong), to wait until after the war to use them as political ammunition against the Bush Administration. Joe Wilson and David Kelly were guilty of exactly the same crime, and paid for it in different ways. As far as Cheney is concerned, that crime is treason...
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Clark assails Iraqi trial of Saddam Hussein
Vicki Allen, ReutersFormer U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a member of Saddam Hussein's defense team, on Tuesday said the former Iraqi president's trial was a sham designed to justify the U.S.-led invasion. Saddam's trial on charges of crimes against humanity was "a direct threat to international law, the United Nations, universal human rights and world peace," Clark said at a news conference. He demanded that proceedings be transferred from the Iraqi Special Tribunal to a new court that could work independently, free of prejudice. Clark, who was attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson from 1967-1969, said the United States wanted the trial to "vindicate its invasion, to validate its occupation, and to make the world believe that the Iraqi people demanded that Saddam Hussein and leaders in his government be executed"...
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Is the s**t starting to hit the fan?
Imad Khadduri, Free IraqBush smothered Comedian Stephen Colbert at White House Correspondents' Dinner, April 24, 2006. Bush finally getting a whiff of it Watch Bush's face swelter as he had to swallow it from Colbert. What didn't anger him were only the parts that he didn't understand. He did flash brief smiles at several silly points in the skit.Rumsfeld stuffing his mouth with it , April 30, 2006. Rumsfeld lied before the war, and he lied repeatedly to retired-CIA Ray McGovern...
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Ray McGovern & Cindy Sheehan to lead March on the White House
Ben FrankThursday May, 18th Cindy Sheehan and Ray McGovern, are meeting at Lafayette park near the White House, then Marching to Rumsfeld’s personal residence. Wouldn’t it be great if someone brought a video cameda, and it’s thousands of people standing outside Rummy’s house, singing along to #3 from Neil Young’s new album, "Don’t Need- No More Lies!" In fact that ought to be on repeat over at the big protest camp going up on the DC Capitol Mall- with the speakers turned to Congress and cranked to 11...
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Atwar Bahjat’s death….. revisited
Baghdad DwellerI bet right now you all know about this video clip of Atwat Bahjat’s murder, if not, then read "The Sunday Times" article: Part of me died when I saw this cruel killing. I want to add the followings: AlaArabyia (the Arabic Satellite channel Atwar worked for before her death) denied that the woman in the video is Atwar Bahjat saying this: The woman in morgue who washed Atwar’s dead body said the head was attached to the body, Atwar’s family said the same also because they (her mother) saw the body. Now which one do you believe?? "The Sunday Times" or AlaArabyia?...
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Route 666
Jeff Wells, Rigorous IntuitionThe killing of Fern Holland, a young human rights worker from Oklahoma, remains as unsolved and mysterious as it was when her body was found riddled with bullets on a desolate stretch of road near one of Iraq's southern holy cities in March 2004. Now, federal investigators in the United States are grappling with a second mystery: what happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash issued by U.S. government authorities to Holland and Robert Zangas, a press officer who died in the same incident, in the days before their deaths? (...) Holland was the first US civilian to be murdered in Iraq. Two months later, the second was Nick Berg. For what it's worth, which may not be much, both were alumnists of Oklahoma University, where Berg's email account found it's way to Zacharias Moussaoui. Berg was allegedly in Iraq on the business of repairing communication facilities, notably a radio tower near Abu Ghraib, and had as a business partner Aziz al-Taee, an Iraqi-emigre linked to Russian mafia. One of Berg's killers is heard to say "Do it quickly" in Russian...
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to US President George W. Bush
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Translated by "Le Monde"Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America. For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political Forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them...
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 8 May 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice...In a bulletin posted at 8:50pm Makkah time Monday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that a short time ago dozens of pro-American Shi'i sectarian militiamen launched a violent assault on the predominantly Sunni al-A'zamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Fighting continued and explosions and gunfire could be heard at the time of reporting. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that more than 70 Shi'i sectarians of the pro-American Badr Brigades, some wearing uniforms of the Iraqi puppet police and driving puppet police pickups and Landcruisers, managed to storm across the al-A'zamiyah bridge into the neighborhood on the left bank of the Tigris River at a time when local people were not paying attention. The pro-American sectarian gunmen opened fire on crowds of men, women, and children in the streets of the neighborhood...
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Loose Change 911: Incendiary documentary exposing the falsehoods of the events of Sept 11, 2001
Korey Rowe, Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, Producers"Loose Change 2nd Edition" is the follow-up to the most provocative 9-11 documentary on the market today. This film shows direct connection between the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the United States government. Evidence is derived from news footage, scientific fact, and most important, Americans who suffered through that tragic day. IT IS EVERYONE'S duty TO VIEW THIS FILM!...
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www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily information concerning occupied Iraq:
news, analysis, documents and texts of iraqi resistance available in Italian and
English.
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