Iraq: Listening to the Survivors
The killing of Saddam Hussein’s lawyers and the Iraqi testimonies
Paola Pisi and Gabriele Zamparini (*)...We agree with Fuller when he writes that "under an image of al-Sadr's father and firing some shots in the air does not constitute proof of guilt acceptable in any courtroom in the world", but we have tried to demonstrate that that image has a context and it’s only the last and the least piece in a larger picture designed by a series of concordant testimonies. Of course whoever is responsible, they couldn't have openly abducted Khamis al-Obeidi and outraged his corpse in Sadr City, in total impunity, without the complicity of the MOI [Ministry of the Interior] and the occupation forces (...) In a spirit of solidarity with the Iraqi People’s Just Struggle for freedom and independence against the US-led illegal invasion-occupation of Iraq, the "crime against the peace, for which there is responsibility under international law", we would like to appeal to our brothers and sisters in the international ANTI-war-occupation movement to listen carefully to the Iraqi People without patronizing them. We believe these questions are extremely urgent and must be addressed without further delay. In Iraq the carnage is going on and it’s time to question the role of all these militias and death squads and their relation with the occupying Power. Among other death squads and militias, a truly independent investigation must question the Badr Organisation [the armed wing of the Shia Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq] and the Mehdi Army [the militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr] within the frame of the US-led occupation and its puppet Iraqi government of which Moqtada al-Sadr with his religious party is one of the most important components...
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The Washington Post's War-mongering Scribe
Mike WhitneyCharles Krauthammer is a signatory of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (group which called for the ouster of Saddam) and the unofficial spokesman for the warmongering neoconservatives. He was a main proponent of the war in Iraq and has since led the cheerleading for the occupation. It's always handy reading Krauthammer to find out what the current thinking is among administration power-brokers. His articles are a window into the emergent fantasies of the Bush brain-trust. In fact, it's astonishing how efficiently Rumsfeld and Cheney's sinister ideas are channeled into Krauthammer's keyboard. In this week's article, "Drying up the Jihadist Sea", Krauthammer has taken a sudden about-face and abandoned his normally strident militarism. Instead, hedevotes his entire column to promoting "amnesty" for the members of the Iraqi resistance. This abrupt change of heart would have been inconceivable just a few months ago. Are things really so bad in Iraq that the fire-breathing Krauthammer is ready to send up he white flag?
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Rape, murder -- and conspiracy
Joseph Cannon, CannonfireMost of you know about Steven Green, the soldier accused of raping a 15-year-old girl and then murdering both her and her family last March... Unfortunately, something larger, even more disturbing seems to be going on here. Green was dismissed due to an unspecified "personality disorder," diagnosed after the crime came to light. Or so we have been told. But evidence suggests that military officials knew all about the massacre the night that it occurred. We also have good reason to suspect that someone made the decision to scapegoat Green. Initial reports in the American press, as well as detailed reports in the foreign media, reveal that Green had plenty of accomplices. Why have no other names floated to the surface? Why do all fingers point to one guy? (...) More mystery: Initial reports said that Green and the others changed into civilian clothes before the attack. Why? Obviously, they did not intend to pass as American tourists. Obviously, authorites would not give a cover story for an atrocity commit by four Americans disguised as civilians. Obviously, the soldiers hoped to pass as Iraqis -- as mujahideen. Was this whole operation a bungled psy-op? Were the soldiers instructed to commit an atrocity while posing as insurgents? That theory may be speculative -- but to me, it makes more sense than does the official story. Think about it. A group of Ameican soldiers leave base -- supposedly without their commanding officer's knowledge. They are dressed as insurgents. They commit a despicable act. They return. Other military men immediately come to the scene and ascribe the crime to the insurgency...
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Why I Support the "War on Terror"
Mickey Z., Counterbias.comYes, I support the "War on Terror." No, I’m not declaring public allegiance to the current jihad against a tactic (which is in actuality a war against terrorist attacks not perpetrated by the United States or its allies/client states)… I’m thinking of another meaning entirely for our new favorite word: "terror." As defined at Dictionary.com, "an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety" and/or an "intense, overpowering fear" characterize brand of the terror I speak of...
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Cindy Sheehan to Move Camp to National Mall
Washington, D.C., September 8 to 21
Charles Jenks, Traprock Peace CenterCindy Sheehan and activists in the growing peace movement plan to establish Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, again this August 16 to September 2. They then plan to move the camp to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., beginning September 8. The camp on the Mall will carry the name Camp Democracy at Fort Fed Up, and details are available at www.campdemocracy.org . Organizers intend the camp to bring together peace activists and activists for social justice, united in demanding a shift of public resources from war to the needs of people. Participants will lobby Congress to end all funding of the occupation of Iraq, and will demand that Congress hold the Bush Administration accountable for the falsehoods that launched the war and the abuses of power here at home that have accompanied it...
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INDEX ON AFGHANISTAN
Sarah Meyer, Index ResearchThe exponential number of deaths in Afghanistan have been devastating as NATO troops continue to arrive at their various destinations. Whether it be 'insurgents’ in Iraq, 'Taliban’ in Afghanistan, or Palestinian resistance since June 1967, occupation is unpalatable. "According to international law, the people of a country, occupied by a foreign power, has the full right to fight for their liberation." And whilst international laws are being broken, constitutional laws are also being breached in the United States and in the United Kingdom, with no resistance...
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Israel – Britain’s Imperialist Rottweiler
William BowlesFrankly, I am beside myself with despair and anger at the actions of the Israeli government which have, as one commentator put it, more in common with the Nazi onslaught on the Warsaw Ghetto than any nonsense about defending the Israeli people from 'terrorism’. Worse still is the frustration I feel with the actions of the British government, which aside from a plaintive whine about "restraint", does absolutely nothing. Are we to stand by and watch 'our' government be party to a war crime of the most horrendous proportions? It seems so. So too, the 'impartial' BBC is directly complicit in covering up Israel's crimes against humanity and frankly, when the day comes and the Western governments are forced to answer for their crimes, the BBC should also be in the dock along with them. What kind of mentality is it that can condone what is being done to the Palestinian people? How do the people in the BBC news department live with the fact that the lies they write every day make them party to covering up the genocidal actions of the Israeli government...
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Kurdish Militia, Iraqi Police Terrorizing Assyrians in North Iraq
AINAAttacks against Assyrian Christian civilians (also known as Syriacs and Chaldeans) residing in the Nineveh Plain, north Iraq, have recently escalated at the hands of local Iraqi police as well as Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) paramilitary security squads. On June 30, 2006 three Iraqi Police loyal to the KDP Police Chief in the Hamdaniya District of the Nineveh governorate began assaulting civilian passers by with anti-Christian and racist slurs. The policemen had just come off duty but were still carrying their automatic weapons. As the Iraqi police continued their tirade against Christians in the overwhelmingly Assyrian Christian town, Steven Basim, a young man, left his car to plead with the police to refrain from their insults and threats. The police officers approached the man and one immediately started to strike him squarely on the side of his head with his weapon. As the young man fell to the ground bleeding, the other two policemen then also joined in the beating...
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 6 July 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org...For several days US forces in the city of ar-Ramadi, about 110km west of Baghdad have been demolishing buildings in the city in a move that local people believe is in preparations for building a "green zone" type of fortress. Quds Press reported residents as saying that US forces had destroyed about 10 buildings, some of them owned by local people and some owned by the state. When local residents asked the Americans why they were demolishing the buildings, the American troops replied that they were building a "public park" – something that ar-Ramadi residents do not believe, Quds Press reported. The residents say that translators working for the Americans have told them that the US aim is to create a "green zone" fortified area like the high-security district the Americans have created in downtown Baghdad in which the headquarters of the American occupation and its puppet "Iraqi government" are housed...
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New al-Zarqawi in Egyptian Prison
Kurt Nimmo"Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri al-Yawm has quoted Mamduh Ismail as saying he met al-Muhajir, also known as Sharif Hazaa, or Abu Ayub al-Masri, in Tura prison in Cairo, where he has been held for seven years," reports al-Jazeera. Mamduh Ismail is an Egyptian attorney representing Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the purported successor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. "Sharif Hazaa [al-Muhajir] is in Tura prison, and I met him two days ago while I was visiting some of my clients," Ismail told al-Jazeera. In response, the Pentagon replied: "We cannot comment on the news that … al-Masri is in an Egyptian prison and not in Iraq, we have to clarify that from the Egyptian government." In other words, the Pentagon will simply wait for this embarrassing detail to fall off the corporate media radar screen...
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Saddam lawyers invoke International Criminal Court
AFPThe 11 lawyers for Saddam Hussein have applied to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what they claim are violations of law to which the former Iraqi leader has been subjected, one of them said. An application to the prosecutor assigned to the Hague-based tribunal said Saddam was "a prisoner of war within the meaning of the Geneva Convention and thus came under ICC jurisdiction as applied to cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression." "All the breaches and aberrations constitute an infraction of the Geneva Convention and can therefore be considered war crimes," lawyer Emmanuel Ludot told AFP (...) The court application by the lawyers, a French copy of which has been obtained by AFP, said the Iraqi tribunal had no legal basis, in terms of international conventions such Geneva, to be able to try Saddam. "Defence witnesses are threatened, intimidated and imprisoned," it said. "Those attorneys still alive are not able to speak out," it continued in a reference to the deaths of three of Saddam's defence lawyers since the Baghdad trial began in October 2005...
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Two US Choppers Downed in Iraq
Prensa LatinaTwo Apache helicopters from the US Air Force were brought down in the town of Al Dur, northeast of the Iraqi capital on Thursday, according to local TV Al Sharqiya. The US occupation forces´ high command had no comment on the event. A video recording broadcast by TV Al Arabiya, based in the United Arab Emirates, shows the ground-air missile hitting a US helicopter. According to the media, that footage, which was first posted on the Internet and later broadcast on television, belongs to an armed group known as Army of Mujaheddin, whose members claim to have brought down the chopper...
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DON'T support our troops (inform them)
Mickey Z.War MachineFor some Americans, the phrase "support our troops" is little more than a euphemism for: "support the policies that put our troops in harm's way." For Americans of the liberal persuasion-ever cautious not to offend those mythical fence sitters-the phrase "support our troops" is a safe way to avoid taking a principled stand against this war (and all war). Either usage of the phrase "support our troops" does nothing to challenge the latest mission in particular or the concept of military intervention in general. There are simple, almost knee jerk methods by which the idea of unconditional support for our soldiers during war can be questioned. The easiest involves any variation of this query: Would it have been acceptable for the people of Nazi Germany to support "their boys" even if those same folks did not agree with Hitler's maniacal methods?...
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In Cold Blood: Iraqi Tells of Massacre at Farmhouse
Raheem Salman and J. Michael Kennedy, "Los Angeles Times"He was the first to enter the charred farmhouse where the bodies of his relatives lay strewn about the floor, shot and bludgeoned to death. And he watched more than three months later as a U.S. Army officer took the two surviving children in his arms, barely able to hold back tears as he told them that the people who had killed their family would be punished. "Never in my mind could I have imagined such a gruesome sight," Abu Firas Janabi said of the day in March when his cousin, Fakhriya Taha Muhsen; her husband, Kasim Hamza Rasheed; and their two daughters were slain and their farmhouse set ablaze...
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Ramzy Baroud , The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle
Reviewed by Jim MilesA chronicle is a "continuous register of events on order of time" and within that framework, Ramzy Baroud recounts the reality of the Intifada as seen from inside the wall, through the distorted lenses of the western media, as well as a more analytical view of politics. These three themes - the 'wall’, the media, and politics – surface time and again within the narrative of events. The introduction presents the underlying reality of all Israeli actions, that its success "in fragmenting physical and geographical Palestine is matched by its success in having shattered the social, political, and economic strata as well," and they "have been systematic and ongoing since well before the Second Intifada." The end purpose is a negation of the Palestinians as a people and as a geographical entity so that greater Israel may be realized...
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Has Israel's Absolute Power Corrupted Absolutely?
Genevieve Cora Fraser"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The 19th century historian, Lord Acton and his famous quote came to mind this week as Israel’s response to Palestine reached unprecedented levels of aggression. Operation Summer Rains led off with the abduction of Hamas legislators and mayors in an attempt to destroy the elected government of Palestine. The bombing of the Gaza power plant has left many of the 1.4 million Gaza residents without electricity, running water and sewers as the heat of the summer soars. The bridge attacks within Gaza has made transportation impossible, except for armed battalions and giant bulldozers. The guided missile assault on the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, which has left it in charred ruins, was justified with the claim that the building was the "meeting place to plan terror activities." And once again food and medicine is blockaded and hospitals left in chaos with rolling blackouts as Gaza residents await further onslaughts by Israeli Occupation Forces.
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, June 6, 2006
Today in IraqAn Indiana National Guard soldier was killed in Iraq on Monday, according to a Wednesday release from the Indiana National Guard. Staff Sgt. Paul S. Pabla, 23, of Fort Wayne, was deployed with the 150th Field Artillery, based in Bloomington. Officials said Pabla was hit by sniper fire while on patrol in Mosul. He had been training Iraqi policemen. Sgt. Muldoon was taken in battle Thursday. His wife, Ashlee Muldoon of Sherman, said the preliminary information is, Sgt. Muldoon's unit was on a raid. "He was the first one in and charged the stairs," Ashlee Muldoon said. "He was shot in the side and leg and it hit an artery. He bled to death." (...) The central morgue said Tuesday that it received 1,595 bodies last month, 16 percent more than in May, in a tally that showed the pace of killing here has increased since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The toll for last month was roughly double the 879 bodies the morgue received in June 2005...
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RAPED: Shocking Eyewitness Testimony Of US Rape, Murder In Iraq
Muhammad Abu Nasr, Free Arab VoiceThe neighbor of the martyred family told the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Isla the following: "At 2pm a force of Americans raided the home of the martyr Qasim, God rest his soul. They surrounded him and I heard the sound of gunfire. Then the gunfire fell silent. An hour later I saw clouds of smoke rising from the room and then the occupation troops came quickly out of the house. They surrounded the area together with Shi'i 'Iraqi National Guard’ forces, and they told us that terrorists from al-Qa'idah had entered the house and killed them all. They wouldn’t let any of us into the house. But I told one of the 'National Guard’ soldiers that I was their neighbor and that I wanted to see them so that I could tell al-Hajj Abu al-Qasim the news about his son and his son’s family, so one of the soldiers agreed to let me enter. "So I went into the house and found in the first room the late Qasim and his wife and Hadil. Their bodies were swimming in blood. Their blood had spewed out of their bodies with such force that it had flowed out from under the door of the room. I turned them over but there was no response; their lives were already gone"...
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GI Special 4G6: Others Don't Believe We Should Be Here - July 6, 2006
Thomas F. BartonIRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR DEMAND IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ
"Others Don’t Believe We Should Be Here"
While Congress spends time debating partisan resolutions on the future of Iraq, and the country sinks further into the worst national divide since Vietnam, Sgt. Lisa Meighan remains focused on her job: Ensuring the three-man armored humvee team she leads returns safely everyday to its base near Kabul, Afghanistan - an increasingly difficult task.
And while old men debate the merits of war in the secure confines of Washington, D.C., this 37-year-old mother of four from Gilroy, along with her gunner and driver, is part of a unit providing perimeter protection for U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan's capital city.
The politics swirling about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are played out in the war zones much like they are stateside - there are those soldiers who are vehemently opposed and others who see it as necessary.
"A lot of them just want their tour over," Meighan said. "Others don't believe we should be here.
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IRAQ CORRUPTION UNPRECEDENTED
Special Broadcasting Service, |
New York Times report from Ramadi: evidence of US war crimes in Iraq
Barry Grey, WSWSA front page article in the July 5 New York Times provides a chilling and damning picture of the daily, murderous violence being perpetrated by US forces in occupied Iraq (...) The Times’ article is far from a denunciation of the US military in Ramadi. It has more the character of an apologia, repeating uncritically the official US line that the people of Ramadi are "caught in the middle" of a struggle between American troops and insurgents—an absurd contention on its face given the tenacity of the resistance and the well-known tenet of counter-insurgency warfare that partisan guerrillas fighting foreign occupation rely on popular support and sympathy against the overwhelming military superiority of the occupier. Nevertheless, the very facts reported by the Times make clear that the US is committing war crimes, and that it is doing so in a systematic way and on a massive scale. The vast majority of these crimes go unreported, leaving the American people largely in the dark, unaware of the full extent of the horror being carried out in their name...
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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
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