Free Iraq

Burn in hell, Mr. President
 

IslamOnline.net, Italians Protest US Burning of Iraqis: Report -
Italian demonstrators have gathered outside the US Embassy in Rome to protest the US army use of white phosphorus shells (WP) against Iraqis, a leading British daily reported Tuesday, November 15.

The Independent said another protest organised by the Italian newspaper, Liberazione, was planned Tuesday in front of the US Consulate in Milan.

"The 'war on terrorism' is terrorism," one of the newspaper's commentators declared.

[ . . . ]
 

Kurt Nimmo, Aussie Fake Terror Linked to Brit Intelligence: It should come as no surprise the supposed Muslim terrorist group “captured” in Australia is a creation of the British MI5 and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO). As Greg Ansley writes for the New Zealand Herald, the group was busted by a “supergrass” agent (the term supergrass is used in Northern Ireland to refer to arrested paramilitaries who divulged the identities of their compatriots to the Royal Ulster Constabulary in exchange for immunity from prosecution, in other words informers).
[ . . . ]

British, American, and Pakistani efforts to create terrorist organizations and cells is a well-documented fact, going back at least to the late 1970s. Thus we can only conclude that the “alleged Islamic terrorist cell in Sydney” that supposedly “stockpiled bomb-making materials, trained at outback hunting camps and sized up Australia’s only nuclear reactor as a possible target,” according to the Associated Press, is yet another intelligence contrivance, as it was penetrated by ASIO and key people are in fact British intelligence assets. In 2003, the Howard government pushed the ASIO Terrorism Act through the Australian parliament, thus providing “the Australian Security Intelligence Organization … the power to detain and question people without charge or trial. ASIO and Federal Police officers can raid anyone’s home or office, at any hour of the day or night, and forcibly take them away, interrogate and strip-search them and hold them incommunicado, effectively indefinitely,” write Mike Head and Richard Hoffman. As such, we can expect the Australian government to stage more raids on “terror cells” with links to intelligence services.

Fake terrorism leading to the dismantlement of civil liberties is the raison d’être of all authoritarian governments, from Hitler’s “Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich” (the Enabling Act, dismantling civil liberties in Germany after the torching of the Reichstag, an act of arson claimed by Hermann Goering, Hitler’s deputy and legal heir) to Bush’s contrived war on terrorism in the wake of the nine eleven inside job.
 

Kurt Nimmo, Amman Bombings: More Suspicious Details: . . . A security official, who will likely be demoted if his identity is revealed, told the Associated Press that “lights in sections of both the Radisson and Hyatt hotels went out just before the near simultaneous blasts in—apparent—co-ordinated fashion…. A DJ at the Radisson, where a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding reception was bombed, also recalled how the ballroom where the party was being held mysteriously descended into darkness. ‘The lights at the wedding hall went off seconds, maybe just one second, before the blast, although there was electricity outside the room in the corridor, the nearby lobby area and the reception,’ Fadi al-Kessi told The AP. ‘For some reason, I looked to my right in the darkness and saw what looked liked lightening, then there was a loud boom. It felt like the explosion came from the ceiling, then people started running out,’” notes the AP. (Emphasis added.)*
[ . . . ]

Not surprisingly, in the wake of the Amman terrorist bombing black op, the Jordanian police indicate they will “harness state-of-the-art electronic surveillance technology” in banks (and likely elsewhere) and also implement “tough new security rules,” including “a demand that citizens report the identities of any foreigners renting flats or houses,” according the News24, thus tightening the noose of the Jordanian police state further. All of this, as well, will get Americans incrementally accustomed to the idea that in order to prevent (fake) terrorist attacks, we may soon be required to hack up the Bill of Rights further (by passing Patriot II, the sequel) and pave the way for more police state tactics and technology.
---------------------------

* "Emphasis added" = Nimmo, not Evelyn!
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 15, 2005 -- When lying Generals lie: "There has been much made about retired Major General Paul Vallely's contention that Ambassador Joe Wilson relayed information about the employment status of his wife, Valerie, to the retired two-star in the Fox News green room during 2002. Funny that the ambassador would tell someone like Vallely such a thing when he would not even tell his own brother.

"First of all, Vallely's time line is way off. Joe Wilson did not appear on any network, let alone Fox, when Vallely's claims he did. Second, retired two- and three-star generals in DC are all over the place, just like horse manure was in this town before the era of the automobile. Paul Vallely's colleague, Tom McInerney, a paid shill for the neo-cons who want to invade Iran, is a retired Air Force Lt. Gen. (three star). McInerney's brother, James McInerney, is a retired Air Force Major General and a shill for the defense industry-funded National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), a neo con bacchanalia of war planning and obscene defense spending. Third, Vallely dominates conversations, hardly letting anyone get a word in edgewise. See what I mean about retired right wing generals and horse crap?
[ . . . ]

"If Vallely has any evidence, he should put it in a notarized and witnessed affidavit and send it to the special prosecutor. If he is not telling the truth (and believe me, he is not) and was put up to his prevarication by anyone tied to the Bush administration, Valelly may want to contact Judith Miller and get a run down on the chow and daily routine at the Federal detention center in Alexandria, Virginia."
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 15, 2005 -- Spat between Vicente Fox and Hugo Chavez involves Mexican presidential election: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Mexican President Vicente Fox a 'lap dog for the empire' over the Mexican leader's support for George W. Bush's dead-on-arrival Free Trade Area of the Americas. It is clear that the Bush administration relishes the resulting diplomatic spat between two of Latin America's major oil producers. As Venezuela and Mexico recalled their ambassadors from each other's capitals, Chavez warned Fox that if he didn't let up, he would be 'stung.'

"Fox is clearly worried about the 10 point lead in presidential election polls of progressive former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an ally of Chavez. Obrador leads Roberto Madrazo, of the main opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a party with a long history of corruption, in polls for next year's presidential election. Fox's National Action Party candidate, Felipe Calderon, trails a distant third, a fact that clearly rankles Fox.

"Obrador and Bolivia's populist leader, Evo Morales, stand a good chance of being elected presidents of their countries and joining Chavez in an anti-Bush bloc of Latin American states that will also encompass Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Cuba. Nicaragua's Sandinistas are also poised to make a comeback."
 

Karma Nabulsi, Guardian, Arafat the obstacle has been exposed as a myth: [ . . . ]

"A year after [Arafat's] death, the claim that his removal would positively alter the political landscape and give the chance to Israel, the Palestinians and the international community to negotiate a settlement has proved false. And being false, it allowed an even more destructive reality to take hold. Sharon, without serious protest and much encouragement, has in the past year turned Gaza into the largest prison on earth, moved tens of thousands of settlers into the West Bank, and built an illegal wall across Palestinian land which encircles and starves Palestinian cities and farms. In fragmenting the land, he has further fragmented the Palestinian people who belong to it, both those under occupation and those in enforced exile as refugees. This was his aim all along. He saw Arafat as an obstacle to this ambition. With Arafat gone, he has indeed managed to achieve it. But he couldn't have done this without the negative myth's magnetic hold in the west.

"What he represented was the reason he was removed: that Palestinians are one people, whether living under military occupation or in refugee camps. They have a right to self-determination, and they have fought hard for their liberty for generations, which is also a right. For a people to negotiate their way out of an occupation by diplomatic means alone, when the occupier is determined to hold on to their land, has no successful precedent. On the other hand, examples of successful negotiations once the occupier has accepted he must relinquish another's country are legion. Arafat's own much-used example was De Gaulle's 1958 call for 'la paix des braves' with the Algerian armed liberation movement, the FLN. Arafat represented an important reality - peace will come when freedom is achieved for the Palestinians, and not one minute before.

"The negative myth of Arafat prevents any understanding of the conflict or how to resolve it. This is not a conflict healed by providing economic recovery to Palestinians, since their impoverishment is entirely due to an entrenched and permanent military occupation. It is not a holy war against Palestinian terrorists who seek the destruction of the Israeli state, nor excited speculation on the role a new Israeli Labour party leader might play. This is a battle over the right to call this conflict a conflict between two peoples: one that is oppressed, and the other that is denying them their right to be free. Recovering the true myth of the old man is the key to understanding who the Palestinians are, and how they will achieve their freedom."
 

George Monbiot, Guardian, The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it
(Otherwise known as "rewriting history")
 

Guardian, Spanish police expose more CIA links to secret flights of detainees: "A Spanish police report seen by the New York Times provides the names of the mainly American crew and passengers of a dozen suspect flights that landed in Palma de Mallorca in 2003 and 2004. The flights were allegedly part of the CIA's 'extraordinary rendition' programme, in which, say human rights groups, suspected extreme Islamists are taken to be interrogated in countries where US human rights rules on torture do not apply. "
 

VIDEO (28 minutes), Information Clearing House, The Real Face of The U.S. Occupation Of Iraq: "How the U.S. military occupation looks from the other end of the gun barrel. On the ground footage shows the humiliation and dehumanization, inevitable in a colonial situation."

(None of us can claim ignorance.)
 

The Microsoft GW help icon is hilarious. Haven't laughed THAT hard in a while.

Some worthwhile content lately. Maybe Americas are finally waking up.

Peace.
 

Gary Younge, Guardian, Riots are a class act - and often they're the only alternative: "France now accepts the need for social justice. No petition, peaceful march or letter to an MP could have achieved this."
 

PrisonPlanet.com, Prominent Conservative Leader: Government in Hands of Psychopaths: "Former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts expressed his dire warning that the US government has fallen into the hands of psychopaths and that the Neo-Cons in the Bush administration may be set to stage another terror attack in the US as part of a black operation to demolish growing dissent and coerce the public to rally behind the government once again.

"Roberts went further than he has ever gone before in stating that the Neo-Cons were worse than Hitler and Stalin because they publicly embrace torture and pre-emptive war, something that past despots at least tried to hide.

"Roberts said that America is the most hated nation on earth by design and that the military is completely out of control. The barbarism in Iraq practiced by the US occupational government will live in infamy when it is historically judged by hindsight."
 

Permanent links to above-posted Madsen articles.
- Wayne Madsen Report, When lying Generals lie
- Wayne Madsen Report, Spat between Vicente Fox and Hugo Chavez involves Mexican presidential election
 

Yamin Zakaria, GlobalResearch.ca, The Road from Fallujah to Amman: "Hypocrisy is not a problem when 'might is right' is the policy, and drunk with imperial arrogance, none of the Western countries even blinked at the exposure of this monumental hypocrisy that Iraq was subjected to chemical weapons. The UN Muppet Kofi Anan took no note, instead he is busy lecturing Syria and Iran on behalf of US and Israel, while the US and Israel prepare for an attack and they are already committing illegal incursion into Syrian and Iranian air space to intimidate them. Silence of the west is understandable but why are the Arab/Muslim regimes also silent on the war crimes and terrorism committed in Fallujah. From Mubarak to Musharraf, they are mute and the only time they exercise their vocal chords is in condemning retaliation. This is another stark reminder that the Muslim masses have no representation at the political level."
 

Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, Bush's Rewriting of History: "For decades, the well-connected Bush family has been treated like a kind of American royalty in which a petulant king or prince can stamp a foot and insist that whatever the evidence says the truth is otherwise. Their subjects are expected to bow in acquiescence, while dissenters can expect a good thrashing.

". . .George W. Bush, is turning to this tried-and-true family tactic to extricate himself from his own web of lies and distortions about the Iraq War. In a Veterans Day speech on Nov. 11, Bush accused those who question his alleged misuse of pre-war intelligence of being the real guilty ones who have distorted the facts.

"In essence, Bush’s argument is that he didn’t lie the nation into war; he and his top aides were just misled by the same faulty intelligence that Congress saw. Plus, they say independent commissions already have cleared Bush of hyping the evidence.

". . . [W]hat may be most stunning is Bush’s chutzpah in insisting that he’s the innocent victim here. He portrays himself first as the victim of the CIA’s faulty pre-war intelligence and now as the victim of reckless accusations that he helped cook the final intelligence product before it was fed to the public.

". . .[W]e . . . have noted that perhaps the strongest evidence of Bush’s proclivity to lie about Iraq came after the invasion, when he began falsifying the record – rewriting history – with claims that Saddam Hussein had barred U.N. weapons inspectors from entering Iraq. Hussein’s 'defiance' supposedly left Bush no choice but to invade.

"So, while it may be impossible to divine whether Bush really believed that Hussein had WMD stockpiles, it is undeniable that Bush knew that his assertion about Hussein barring U.N. inspectors was false. The inspectors returned to Iraq in November 2002 and remained until they were force out by Bush in March 2003 to let the invasion proceed.

"Yet, despite this well-known historical record, Bush began altering the history within a few months of the invasion, just as his other claims about Iraq’s WMD programs and its collaboration with al-Qaeda terrorists were falling apart.

"The significance of this provable lie to the other Iraq War falsehoods is that it demonstrates Bush’s intent to deceive. The 'Saddam-did-not-let-us-in' lie also shows that Bush’s response to getting caught in one deception – failing to find the WMD stockpiles, for instance – seems to lead him to start a new set of lies."
 

Sunnis Demand Probe of Torture Allegations


Guard shows no remorse over Iraq bunker prisoners: "The discovery of the detainees was a major embarrassment for the U.S.-backed government . . ."
 

Bush's vision fails to win over Middle East: ""It would be a disaster if this region thought democracy was an American idea." (Jack Straw)
 

GlobalResearch.ca, Russian experts see Israeli, US links in Jordan blasts, Lebanon murder
 

Mohamed Younis, Bellacio.org, The Iraqi government started punishing provinces who rejected the constitution: "These offensives started with the operation named 'Iron curtain', which was raised against people of Alqaem and Karaabla and Al-ubaidy in Al-Ramadi province west of Iraq. In the name of following foreign insurgents, many houses have been demolished on the heads of peaceful families. The USA F-16 fighters, which were used normally do not differentiate between insurgent fighters and peaceful families. The USA troops declared that they have killed 37 Iraqis in air raids on 14 Nov. in Al-ubaaidy town. The Iraqi Red Crescent reported on 13 Nov. the finding of 54 dead under the rubble of their houses. They included many women and children. The USA troops always consider any person they kill as insurgents. More than 200 civilians were arrested in the 1st week of Nov in Al-Ramadi province. On the other hand, waves of arresting civilians have started in Dialla province north-east of Baghdad. On 12 & 13 Nov more than 600 civilians were arrested there and more than 200 were arrested in Baghdad.. These are the numbers declared by the government sources, but the actual numbers are more. The arrested people will be detained for few months, without being charged or sent to a trail. The total number of detainees by the Iraqi government has exceeds 100,000 as many sources confirmed. Most of the detainees face brutal treatments. In many cases electric drills were applied to the detainees arms, or legs during the interrogation sessions. These brutal actions have led to false confessions.

"It is obvious that such actions are against those who voted 'NO' for the new Iraqi constitution. It is no more than some kind of revenge performed by USA troops and Iraqi government. It is ironic that those who are speaking of installing democracy in Iraq, detain tens of thousands of peaceful people without charging them, with out letting any lawyers or the Red Cross or the Red Crescent to visit them."
 

Kurt Nimmo, Amman Radisson Owned by Palestinians: "'Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, whose family owns the Radisson,' explains the Arab Media Watch blog, 'sent out the following press release:

"'We are the owners of Radisson SAS Jordan. As the owners we want to send deep condolences to all the staff and guests. We are deeply shocked and obviously condemn such acts. We very briefly want to set the record straight on 2 points.

"'Firstly, news reports have been indicating that the Radisson SAS was specifically attacked because it is an American hotel and has hosted Israelis. I want to make it clear that the Radisson SAS is a Scandinavian chain and owned by Palestinian-Jordanians.

"'Furthermore, the Radisson SAS owners and staff represent the strongest supporters out of all the hotels in Jordan for the Palestinian and Iraqi people. We have expressed our support throughout the decades and will continue to do so.'

"You’d think al-Zarqawi’s Tanzim Qa’idat Al-Jihad fi Bilad Al-Rafidayn (Al-Qaeda Organization of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers) would bomb a Jordanian target, not one jointly owned by Palestinians and Jordanians (recall the Israelis consider Palestinians Jordanians and vice versa). ...

"The Radisson SAS was bombed by Mossad because it was considered a Palestinian target—and because blame could be pinned on the mythical al-Zarqawi. Running black ops engineered to be blamed on Arabs is the basic Israeli intelligence modus operandi . . .."
 

Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon
 

Still More 'Miraculous 911 Evidence' Found!: "Independent Medical Investigation Not Allowed As Pentagon Controls Flight 77 Autopsy Results - But Lists Three People Not Even On The Flight!"
 

Anthony Arnove, ZNet, Iraq Under U.S. Occupation: "It Was Never As Bad As This"
 

Excerpt -
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque, Mogadishu on the Tigris: The Reality of Bush's Iraq: "The Independent provides more depth and perspective to the breaking story about the Iraqi torture chamber uncovered yesterday: Raid on torture dungeon exposes Iraq's secret war.

"This story has the potential of becoming a 'Katrina' moment: a revelatory episode that exposes long-suppressed truths about the reality of Bush's "leadership" and its agonizing consequences. Just as the hurricane finally brought Bush's incompetence, cronyism and callousness to mainstream attention, the torture chamber revelations could lead to a broader awareness of the murderous chaos that Bush's 'liberation' has unleashed upon Iraq, with sectarian and ethnic death squads roaming the land, murdering and oppressing the people -- often with tacit U.S. backing or U.S. training. As one American officer said of Baghdad -- the centerpiece of Bushist 'democracy' in Iraq: 'It's getting more like Mogadishu every day.'

"Many of the allegations from Sunni leaders of abuse are against the 2,000-strong Wolf Brigade, which was formed in October 2004 after training with US forces and first saw action during the widespread disturbances in Mosul last year...

"Iraqi politicians in the new regime have repeatedly accused the CIA of refusing to hand over control of the recreated Iraqi intelligence service to the Iraqi government, and the paramilitaries are run by Adnan Thabit, allegedly a former CIA 'asset'."
 

Larisa Alexandrovna, TheRawStory, Exclusive: More than 13,000 being held by coalition in Iraqi prisons; Less than 2% have been convicted
 

Ayesha Javed Akram, Daily Times, UN Diary: Robert Fisk criticises rise of patriot journalism in US: "During a recent trip to Baghdad, Fisk asked an Iraqi if there would be civil war if the Americans left. The man was a Sunni Muslim and was attending his brother’s funeral when Fisk put this question to him. 'Why do you westerners always want us to have civil war,' he said. 'I am married to a Shia Muslim – do you want me to kill my wife?'

"Fisk is extremely sceptical about most American claims. He doesn’t believe civil war will wreck Iraq if America pulled out, just like he chuckles at the American insistence that they invaded Iraq to liberate it. 'Did we invade Iraq for the oil? I think so. If the major export of Iraq had been asparagus instead of oil, I don’t think the 82nd Airborne Division would be there right now.'

"Vast armies of the Mafioso are now operating in Iraq. Women are being sold into prostitution into Syria and Yemen. As we sit in New York or London with wall-to-wall coverage of the (Iraqi) constitutional referendum, in their homes Iraqis are not talking about the constitution. They are talking about how to protect their wives and children from being kidnapped,' said Fisk.

"The average ransom for a kidnapped child in Iraq is $50,000-$60,000. But, said Fisk, paying up doesn’t always mean the child will be returned.

"'I have spoken to families who have paid kidnappers and been told that their child is waiting for them at the street corner. The child is waiting, but he is dead. Yes, there is lawlessness, anarchy and chaos in Iraq today,' said Fisk."
 

(I post this simply because it pleases me to do so!)
V.P.Cheney heckled by anti-war protesters during speech
 

The Australian, Rumsfeld protesters vow to step up: "A GROUP opposing Australia's new anti-terrorism laws has vowed to push ahead with a protest timed to coincide with a visit to Adelaide by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, despite a ban by authorities.

"The group, which calls itself the Rice Rumsfeld Reception Committee, plans to protest on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide tomorrow.

"'The Federal Government wants to pretend to the US and the world that the whole of Australia is behind the US war on Iraq and the rest of their generally aggressive global strategy.'"
 

11 Jordanian officials resign after bombings: "King Abdullah II appointed Marouf al-Bakhit, Jordan's ambassador to Israel, to replace outgoing security chief Saad Kheir, a former chief of Jordan's intelligence department."
 

Oil execs met Cheney task force: WP: "A White House document shows oil executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force which critics say secretly formed energy policy favorable to the industry, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

"During a Senate hearing last week, chief executives of the major oil companies either denied that their firms participated in the task force or that they did not know*, the newspaper said."
--------------------------

* Happily for them, the liars were not under oath.
 

Jim Lobe, AntiWar.com, Republicans Cut and Run from Iraq and Bush: "As noted by Nelson Report, a popular insider Washington newsletter, questions about Iraq and whether the country was manipulated into war 'add up to a steady drumbeat of doubts, second guessing, fair criticism, commentary on bad planning, and just plain bad luck, combined with continued, televised horror and tragedy in Iraq and the region … such that it's hard to see where the 'good news' is going to come from consistently enough to 'change' public opinion on the president anytime soon, if ever.'"
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 16, 2005 -- The Bush administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy": U.S. intelligence sources who served in Iraq report that after photos from Abu Ghraib prison surfaced of naked male prisoners who were forced by their U.S. guards to form human pyramids and masturbate, the U.S. military went into total denial mode. "It was a 'don't ask, don't tell policy,'" according to one intelligence source who was assigned to both the Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca prisons. Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein has ordered the Pentagon to release to the American Civil Liberties Union 74 photos and 3 videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib in 2003. However, the Pentagon is resisting the judge's order.

There is good reason for the embarrassment of the Pentagon in the affair. The orders to take the sexually-oriented photos and videos, some of which involve teenage Iraqi boys and girls and sodomization by their guards, came directly from a pedophile and closeted male homosexual ring operating in the White House, according to the intelligence sources. Copies of the tapes and photos were sent directly to the White House for the entertainment of senior members of the Bush White House, including officials in the Vice President's office and the Executive Office of the President.

When the photos at Abu Ghraib became public, the senior military command structure in Iraq "went nuts," according to an individual who witnessed the cover-up of the affair. "They ordered an immediate policy of denial about details of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib," said the source. The source added that senior officers were disgusted that lower ranking guards were prosecuted and jailed when the order for the mistreatment came directly from the White House.
 

Raed in the Middle, Remembering My Grandfather


Extract -
Faiza, Tuesday, November 15, 2005: "May GOD never give the good health or success to whoever joined in the destruction of Iraq, scattering its people around the corners of earth, or tore the unity of those who still live there, in spite of all calamities, paying the price daily, from their blood, comfort, and health… those who lost the simplest rights of a human to live peacefully…..

"Under the pretext of Al-Hareeri's assassination event, America interferes to put her conditions; like evacuating the Palestinian organizations from Syria, considering them to be terrorist organizations…

"Palestine and its people suffer daily the mass killings campaigns and the terrorism of Israel, many martyrs fall, young men, and children…as if their story has become the forgotten-always-present story…

"With the news of the daily violence, killings, and destruction, led by the American administration against Iraqis, America is also responsible about what happens in the Palestinian land.

"America supports Israel, and works to carry out her agenda, meaning, as they usually say: Israel isn't the one who does what America wants, but America does what Israel wants of her…"
 

Extract -
Christian Science Monitor, Discovery of tortured Iraqi prisoners sparks outrage: Sources say Iraqi PM and US forces had been told about 'torture cells' months ago.

"The Associated Press reports, however, that the US raid may not have been accidental, and may have been aimed at 'scoring points' with Sunni Arabs, whose participation in next month's general election is necessary if the US wants to be able to exit Iraq sometime in the next two years.

"Meanwhile, two Iraqi businessmen who allege they were tortured by US troops in Iraq are suing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials in a federal court in Washington. The Washington Post reported Monday that the men alleged that US troops put them in a cage of lions, and at other times pretended to be executing them, and carried out other acts of torture during their months in US custody.

"Mr. Rumsfeld said their accounts sounded 'far-fetched' and said it was common for detainees to make up allegations of torture." (Emphasis added!)
 

Molly Ivins, Torture -- Spare Me The Tough Talk: "'We do not torture,'' said our inarticulate president, straining through emphasis and repetition to erase the obvious.

"A string of prisons in Eastern Europe in which suspects are held and tortured indefinitely, without trial, without lawyers, without the right to confront their accusers, without knowing the evidence or the charges against them, if any. Forever. It's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Another secret prison in the midst of a military camp on an island run by an infamous dictator. Prisoner without a name, cell without a number.

"Who are we? What have we become?"
 

The New York Times, Doing Unto Others as They Did Unto Us : "How did American interrogation tactics after 9/11 come to include abuse rising to the level of torture? Much has been said about the illegality of these tactics, but the strategic error that led to their adoption has been overlooked.

"The Pentagon effectively signed off on a strategy that mimics Red Army methods. But those tactics were not only inhumane, they were ineffective. For Communist interrogators, truth was beside the point: their aim was to force compliance to the point of false confession.

"Fearful of future terrorist attacks and frustrated by the slow progress of intelligence-gathering from prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Pentagon officials turned to the closest thing on their organizational charts to a school for torture. That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C., known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody.

"The Pentagon appears to have flipped SERE's teachings on their head, mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantánamo went 'up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques' for 'high-profile, high-value' detainees. General Hill had sent this list - which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias - to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002.
[ . . . ]

"By bringing SERE tactics and the Guantánamo model onto the battlefield, the Pentagon opened a Pandora's box of potential abuse. On Nov. 26, 2003, for example, an Iraqi major general, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, was forced into a sleeping bag, then asphyxiated by his American interrogators. We've obtained a memorandum from one of these interrogators - a former SERE trainer - who cites command authorization of 'stress positions' as justification for using what he called 'the sleeping bag technique.'

"'A cord,' he explained, 'was used to limit movement within the bag and help bring on claustrophobic conditions.' In SERE, he said, this was called close confinement and could be 'very effective.' Those who squirmed or screamed in the sleeping bag, he said, were 'allowed out as soon as they start to provide information.'"
[ . . . ]
 

Sam Hussenini, Counterpunch, A Very Crude Culture; Trying to Look Female Suicide Bombers in the Eye
 

Bill Christison, Counterpunch, Do the People of the United States Care Enough to Stop Him? Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
 

Pierre Tristam, Counterpunch, Are You Listening, Samuel Beckett? Torturer's Theater: "The torturers are stumbling on each other, and all over themselves. The champion of torture is running around Congress trying to salvage an exceptional permission slip for his CIA henchmen. His boss the Commander-in-Zilch is tripping all over his sentences trying to say why torture isn't torture as long as he misunderestimates torture's definition. The CIA is tripping all over its own secrecy to keep its torture-ridden 'black sites' hooded. The ghosts of Abu Ghraib have turned Iraq into minefield of djinns exploding on every forked tongue. And now the torturers are literally running into each other, uncovering each other's dens and pulling one of the greatest Captain Renault impressions in the history of hypocrisy: They're shocked, shocked to know that torture is going on here.
[ . . . ]

"But who discovers what when is not as important as what keeps unraveling. When the 'liberators' and the 'liberated' are torturers, doing their work in the same places and (usually by proxy for the Americans) the same manners in which Saddam once did, there isn't any skin left to peel off the face of the occupation's purpose or credibility. There is no skeleton beneath. There is only the silent scream of condemnation no one wants to hear. In this theater of the absurd, even the tax-paying audience underwriting the show is deaf.

"One last absurd irony: On December 15, we will have been in Iraq exactly one thousand days, crowning Christmas Day as more than a rhetorical Thousand and One Nights. What a present. The only number that matters on this side of the stage, of course, is that there are only 39 shopping days left till then."
 

Kurt Nimmo, Hillary Clinton: Davos Lady Does Israel: "It appears our globalist rulers are cutting the deck, prepping Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2008. As the elitist tradition demands, all serious presidential candidates must pay homage to the appropriate centers of influence and power. One such center is AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 'the most effective general interest group over the entire planet,' according to the neocon Newt Gingrich.

"Thus Hillary and her husband trekked to Israel, where Hillary made sure to get her photo snapped at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, designed to touch the hearts of all voting Jews in America. She called another wall—the apartheid wall, soon to stretch 400 miles and reduce the West Bank into a huge open-air prison—where she declared, 'This is not against the Palestinian people…. This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change their attitudes about terrorism*,' according to the Israel Hasbara Committee. ...
[ . . . ]

"It should be remember that a little-known governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, was groomed by the CFR and Trilateralists and subsequently celebrated at the secretive Bilderberg Conference in 1991—all prerequisites for his ascension to the White House. ..."
------------------------------

* The "emphasis added" will be properly understood by Free Iraq readers.
 

Kurt Nimmo, Believe 9-11 Was an Inside Job? Leave the Country!
 

Permanent link to November 16, 2005 11:13 AM article (above) -
Wayne Madsen Report, The Bush Administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy"
 

IRAQ ON THE RECORD: "Prepared at the direction of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Iraq on the Record is a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq. It contains statements that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made. It does not include statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. If a statement was an accurate reflection of U.S. intelligence at the time it was made, it was excluded even if it now appears erroneous. For more information on how the statements were selected, see the full methodology. The Iraq on the Record Report (pdf) is a comprehensive examination of these statements."

Iraq on the Record is searchable by
- the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq
- issue area
- keyword
 

TRANSCRIPT, PBS Newshour, 16 Nov. 2005: Gwen Ifill interviewing John Burns, New York Times, about the discovery of an Iraqi torture cell holding 173 seriously abused detainees, almost all Sunni Arabs.

Personal comment (Evelyn):
The truth about the Iraqi detention centers long has been known. As recently as July this year Khalid Jarrer's own experience with the Mokhabarat was linked at this site. No Iraqi is in ignorance. And probably most foreign bloggers seriously interested in Iraq long ago were separated from their ignorance as respects the horrors of Iraqi detention centers. So it interests me that "suddenly" these centers stand exposed for public attention. And up until now the "coalition" forces have been in the dark.

As per the transcript, "Unusually, the American commander here, Gen. George Casey and the American ambassador, have taken the lead very publicly in going to the Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and saying do something about this; investigate it, get to the bottom of it." And al-Jaafari has ordered up a report, due two weeks hence.

Great timing: the report should be released two weeks before the next significant date: 15th December. By which time, of course, the whole mess will be cleaned up, or at least, blame properly attributed, and democracy will be shown to be alive and well in Iraq.
 

Iraqi poll clouded by controversies: "A month before Iraq holds elections, Washington and the government it backs in Baghdad find themselves battling for credibility, rather than being able to tout progress toward democracy and human rights.

"With the discovery of a torture bunker at Iraq's Interior Ministry in Baghdad, and the admission that U.S. forces used burning phosphorus weapons during their assault on Falluja a year ago, which officials had earlier denied, both parties are struggling for legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis, analysts say.

"The latest setbacks risk further undermining the case the United States made for going to war . . . "
 

Baghdad brutality: "Conditions in the bunker were so bad, according to one freed detainee, that inmates prayed for a transfer to US custody at the Abu Ghraib prison."
 

Dave Lindorff, Shake and Bake: Who would Jesus burn?
 

Reconstructing Iraq (cont'd) -
Massive bid-rigging scam alleged in Iraq: "The complaint accuses an American-Romanian businessman, Philip H. Bloom, of paying officials from the coalition’s south-central region 'bribes, kickbacks and gratuities, amounting to at least $200,000 per month,' in order to obtain reconstruction contracts through a bid-rigging scam.

"A government affidavit alleges that in one instance, the officials rigged bids for contracts in Hillah and Karbala, two cities 50 to 60 miles south of Baghdad. In some cases, Bloom’s companies performed no work, . . .

"Bloom or companies he controls made bank deposits of $353,000 on behalf of at least two CPA officials and bought them real estate in North Carolina as well as vehicles and jewelry worth more than $280,000 in 2004 and 2005."
 

Extract -
Riverbend, Conventional Terror...: Few Iraqis ever doubted the American use of chemical weapons in Falloojeh. We’ve been hearing the terrifying stories of people burnt to the bone for well over a year now. I just didn’t want it confirmed.

I didn’t want it confirmed because confirming the atrocities that occurred in Falloojeh means verifying how really lost we are as Iraqis under American occupation and how incredibly useless the world is in general- the UN, Kofi Annan, humanitarian organizations, clerics, the Pope, journalists… you name it- we’ve lost faith in it.

. . .Image after image of men, women and children so burnt and scarred that the only way you could tell the males apart from the females, and the children apart from the adults, was by the clothes they are wearing… the clothes which were eerily intact- like each corpse had been burnt to the bone, and then dressed up lovingly in their everyday attire- the polka dot nightgown with a lace collar… the baby girl in her cotton pajamas- little earrings dangling from little ears.

Some of them look like they died almost peacefully, in their sleep… others look like they suffered a great deal- skin burnt completely black and falling away from scorched bones.

I imagine what it must have been like for some of them. They were probably huddled in their houses- some of them- tens of thousands of them- couldn’t leave the city. They didn’t have transport or they simply didn’t have a place to go. They sat in their homes, hoping that what people said about Americans was actually true- that in spite of their huge machines and endless weapons, they were human too.

And then the rain of bombs would begin… the wooooosh of the missiles as they fell and the sound of the explosion as it hit its target… and no matter how prepared you think you are for that explosion- it always makes you flinch. I imagine their children covering their ears and some of them crying, trying to cover up the mechanical sounds of war with their more human wails. I imagine that as the tanks got closer, and the planes got lower- the fear increased- and parents searched each other’s faces for a solution, for a way out of the horror. Some of them probably decided to wait it out in their homes, and others must have been desperate to get out- fearing the rain of concrete and steel and thinking their chances were better in the open air, than confined in the homes that could at any moment turn into their tombs.
[ . . . ]

The Pentagon spokesman recently said:

"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon."

This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons…

Quite simply… conventional terror.
 

George Galloway: US Army Is Defeated in Iraq
 

Charles Sullivan, Information Clearing House, Make them pay: "A regime built upon lies cannot long stand. We can hear the death rattle beginning to rise in the bloated throat of the Bush regime as it chokes upon its own offal. The question is how long will the people accept mendacity and moral decay and call it truth? Will the perpetrators of these crimes against nature and humanity be held accountable? Will they be forced to bear the fruits of their own labors?

"[W]ill we force ourselves to look upon the carnage they have wrought with horror and disgust; and bring them to justice? There should be no way out for the perpetrators of such heinous crimes against nature and humanity. Make them pay."
 

Exclusive interview with Karen Parker, Chief Counsel of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers by Gabriele Zamparini: SHAMELESS BBC: WHEN MISINFORMATION MEANS WAR CRIMES -
The comment “Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance [WP] against civilians.” assumes that therefore civilians may be targeted by WP weapons. This is an outrageous assumption because civilians may NEVER be the target of military operations -- whether using bows and arrows or white phosphorous, or any other weapon. This rule is not dependent on specific treaties but is a fundamental part of the laws and customs of war. Protocol III relating to incendiary weapons (of the Convention on Prohibitions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (1983)) makes all this clear by reinforcing this. While this treaty mainly sets out rules relating to WP in regards to combatants, it also reinforces the rule against targeting civilians.

There seems to be some controversy about whether WP might be a chemical weapon or a poisonous gas weapon and hence prohibited by treaties ratified by the US relating to these types of weapons. While a technically interesting question, it deflects attention from the fact that the US forces targeted civilians with WP and other weapons, both illegal and legal in Falluja. The debate about what category of weapons WP weapons are is irrelevant to THAT issue. What is important is to focus on the deliberate targeting of civilians or using weapons against a legal military target when there is a substantial likelihood of serious and numerous civilian casualties. Such targeting is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, especially due to the nature of the weapons such as those containing WP used against them.

While the US may not have ratified certain weapons conventions, this does not mean that therefore the US may legally use the weapons that are the subject of such treaties. This is because weapons may be otherwise banned by operation of existing humanitarian law. Under these rules, a weapon may be considered banned if: (1) it cannot be contained to the legal field of battle; (2) it cannot be stopped or cleaned-up when the war is over; (3) it causes "undue suffering" or "superfluous injury" (terms from The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 -- echoed in the "Conventional Weapons Treaty"); or (4) it unduly harms the environment. The nature of WP makes it difficult to control, so it cannot be contained to legal military targets. In this sense, it could be banned by operation of international law in urban areas, as it cannot be sufficiently controlled to the legal field of battle. Note that the Incendiary Weapons Protocol was intended to limit the use of these weapons even against combatants because of the "excessively injurious" issue.

Most specific weapons treaties have provisions that provide for "similar, but unnamed weapons" that are "analogous" to the names ones. For example, the 1925 Protocol on Gases has such clauses. WP weapons fit this rule as either "chemical" or "gases" by analogy.
 

Doug Thompson, Bush's troubles mount as Republican defections increase: “There’s an old rule in politics that says no slide is irreversible. The President’s declining numbers suggest he will go down in history as the exception to that rule.”

“Focus groups show voter approval drops significantly when the President’s name is mentioned. ... Any embrace of the President’s policies is a death knell.”

“It’s not just that the American people distrust the President. Republicans no longer trust him. Members of his own party now cut and run from his policies.”
 

Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque, Body Politics:The Senate's Sham Rebellion Against Tyranny and Torture: "The dual amendments are little more than a cynical PR ploy: torture will be condemned in public, but quietly continued in the former KGB camps and other secret hellholes that Bush has strung across the world like a barbed-wire necklace. The Pentagon's own lawyers certainly understand the true nature of the game. As one told the Observer: 'If detainees can't talk to lawyers or file cases, how will anyone ever find out if they have been abused?' No one ever will, of course; that's the point. With habeas corpus denied up front, the worst cases of torture and false imprisonment can now be buried forever in 'indefinite detention;' the tribunals, with their access to appeals, will be reserved for open-and-shut showpieces.

"These draconian measures reach far beyond a handful of hard-core terrorists. According to the Pentagon's own figures, more than 21,000 innocent people have been caged without due process in Iraq alone, the Guardian reports. Hundreds more have been unjustly imprisoned around the world. A regime that thrives on fear requires a steady stream of 'enemy combatants' to justify its unlimited 'war powers.' The belly of this beast will never be full."
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 17, 2005 -- Senior U.S. military officers aided and abetted torture and sexual molestation film and photo fest in Iraq: "Former U.S. military intelligence agents have revealed to WMR that Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq, and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the official who 'Gitmo-ized' Abu Ghraib, told military interrogators at the very beginning of the U.S. occupation what the 'deal was' regarding sexual humiliation and molestation. In late April 2003, Miller's first foray into Iraq was to Bilad Airbase, near Camp Anaconda, one of the first detention sites. One interrogator said that Miller was 'one sick motherf****r,' and that Sanchez engaged in a cover-up mode from the very beginning."
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 17, 2005 -- "Washington Post managing editor Bob Woodward's role in exposing Valerie Plame and CIA network is no surprise to many and indicates continuing obstruction of justice. According to Washington journalists who know Bob Woodward, the fact that he was likely one of the water carriers for Dick Cheney in exposing Valerie Plame and her covert network is no surprise. They cite his famous 'Deep Throat' character in Watergate. One of Woodward's boss's at the Post said he confronted the junior reporter and asked him, 'If your source is so goddamned important, how come we don't know who it is?' It turns out that his source, Mark Felt of the FBI, was not as important as some of the other sources in Watergate, including FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, White House counsel John Dean, and possibly, Chief of Staff Al Haig.

"Then there was Woodward's supposed death bed interview with CIA Director Bill Casey, who succumbed to a brain tumor just before he was due to testify in the Iran-contra scandal. People who worked at the hospital where Casey was being treated said there was no way Woodward could have gained access to Casey's room, whether posing as a doctor or claiming he was an old friend.
[ . . . ]

"In some respects, Woodward is more disruptive to the criminal investigation than was Judith Miller. Woodward's revelations that he was told about Plame by a third White House source somehow exonerates Lewis Libby, who special prosecutor Patrick Fitgzerald claimed was the first official 'known' (that means 'known' at that time) to leak the classified information. Karl Rove's allies are also spinning the idea that Woodward's revelations clears Rove. Woodward's revelations only point to a much wider criminal conspiracy and continued obstruction of justice that has impeded the work of the special prosecutor."
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 17, 2005 -- Bolton off his leash: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose lies have no bounds, assured everyone worried about unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN John Bolton's lack of tact and offensive behavior that the mercurial official would be kept on a short leash. If Bolton was ever on a leash, he's off of it now.

"Bolton's latest outrage is to suggest that unless the UN comply with US dictates it should be replaced. Bolton cited former Republican far right North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, Bolton's one-time employer, as a role model for dealing with UN ambassadors.

"We've heard this right wing clap trap about international organizations before:

"'In our view, the times when there was no 'League of Nations' were far more honorable and more humane.' -- Adolf Hitler, Munich speech, April 13, 1923

"'The League of Nations has never been a real league of peoples. A number of great nations do not belong to it or have left it' -- Adolf Hitler, Reichstag speech, January 30, 1937

"'The League of Nations was not an instrument of a just policy of understanding among nations, but is and was a guarantee of the meanest dictation man ever invented.' -- Adolf Hitler, Wilhelmshaven speech, April 1, 1939

"'There's no such thing as the United Nations, if 10 floors of the 38-story UN headquarters building were eliminated, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.' -- John Bolton, 1994 Federalist Society speech

"'Being practical, Americans say that either we need to fix the institution or we'll turn to some other mechanism to solve international problems.' -- John Bolton, Jesse Helms Lecture Series, Wingate University, November 14, 2005"
 

Some things don't change . . .
Documents Show Nixon Deception on Cambodia: "'Publicly, we say one thing,' he told aides. 'Actually, we do another.'"
 

Haj Ali, Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons in Iraq, S.O.S TO THE FRIENDLY AMERICAN PEOPLE: I START MY LINES WITH A BIG HELLO TO THE FRIENDLY AMERICAN PEOPLE TELLING THEM THAT WE IN THE ASSOCIATION OF VICTIMS OF THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION PRISONS WRITING TO YOU. I AM HAJ ALI, THE MAN OF THE BLACK CAP ON HIS HEAD AND WIRES OF ELECTRICITY CONNECTED TO HIS HAND IN ABU GRAIB PRISON WHO FOUND THIS ASSOCIATION WRITING TO YOU, TO YOUR FREE WILL, YOUR HEARTS AND YOUR MINDS TO ASK YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN STOPING THE BLOOD BATH THAT'S GOING ON IN IRAQ DONE BY THE DIRTY HANDS OF THE MELITIAS THAT WORK IN THE MINISTRY OF INTERIOR IN IRAQ AND BY THE MINISTRY OF INTERIOR ITSELF WHICH HAS BECOME A PROFFESSIONAL IN TORTURING AND KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE UNDER THE BASIC OF SECTARIANISM AND ETHNICITY THEY BROUGHT TO IRAQ.

YOU HEARD IN THE NEWS ABOUT THE 176 DETAINEES OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TORTURED IN A SAVAGE WAY. WE NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT THERE ARE MORE THAN 200 PRISONS LIKE THE ONE WHERE THE 176 HAVE BEEN FOUND IN FEW DAYS AGO.

IT'S A SHAME THAT THE ARMY WHO DID THE NORMANDI OPERATION TO LIBERATE EUROPE FROM THE NAZISM, IS SUPPORTING AND COVER THE KILLERS IN THOSE PRISONS.

WHAT YOU HEAR OF SPEECHES TO TELL ABOUT THE EXISTANCE THOUSANDS OF THE IRAQI SOLDIER AND POLICE MEN ARE BIG LYING! THOSE PEOPLE WHO WORK IN THE IRAQI ARMY AND THE POLICE SYSTEM HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY THE AMERICAN ARMY AND POLICE MEN. THEY STARTED HAVING THE KILLING AS A PROFESSION UNDER THE SUPPORT AND COVER OF THE AMERICAN TANKS AND AIR FORCE. WE ENSURE TO YOU AND TO THE WORLD THAT THOSE PRISONS HAVE BECOME A BIG BASE TO GRADUATE PEOPLE WHO BECAME READY TO HAVE THE GUN ON SHOULDERS BECAUSE OF THE SAVAGE TORTURE AND HUMILIATION THEY HAVE IN THOSE PRISONS.

PLEASE, HELP YOUR CHILDREN, MOTHERS, FATHERS, SISTERS AND BROTHERS IN IRAQ TO STOP HAVING A CONTINEOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING AND DEATH EVERY DAY. WE ARE SURE THAT A FREE WILL WITH A FREE WORD WILL BE MORE NEEDED THAN A GUN, AND LOVE MUST BE THE LANGUAGE WE NEED TO TALK TO EACH OTHER WITH. OUR BIG HOPE IS THAT HONOR WILL BE SHINING ON YOUR HEADS IN THE DAY YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING TO HUMANITY, YOUR HISTORY AND TO IRAQ .

YOU MAY HAVE OUR BEST GREETINGS, APPRECIATION AND RESPECT.
 

Christian Science Monitor, Iraqi torture practices could be more widespread
 

Top Democrat urges Iraq pullout
 

Congressman John Murtha, Speech Nov. 17, 2005 calling for withdrawal from Iraq
 

Ted Lang, Ellsberg Of The American Resistance: Asked which bomb he thought would "go off first - Fitzgerald bringing another indictment, or the military attack on Syria and Iran," Daniel Ellsberg "offered that the war would probably come first, initiated in all likelihood as an engineered distraction to negate the effect of the expected upcoming indictments."

Further:
"The [D]emocratic base would be glad to see us out [of Iraq], as I would. That does not mean we are going to get [D]emocratic leaders who are going to give up those bases in Iraq in the midst of those oil fields."

"If there's a terrorist attack, I think the president will get what he wants, and here's what I think he wants. This is my belief. I believe that what he wants is a new Patriot Act that's already been drafted, I feel sure, that will make this Patriot Act look like the Bill of Rights."
 

Finishing touches put to Iraq exit strategy: "Britain is putting the final touches to an exit strategy from Iraq that will be launched with next month's election of a permanent new government in Baghdad.

"According to several senior sources, the policy under discussion with Washington envisages the replacement of the current Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari with a more effective successor."
[ . . . ]
 

Mike Odetalla, The victim is required to guarantee the security of his oppressor

Dear Hillary,

My name is Mike Odetalla. I am a Palestinian/American and a father of three, who was born in 1960 in my ancestral village of Beit Hanina, which is a suburb of Jerusalem, and according to internationally recognized laws, conventions, and resolutions, is considered part of the occupied Palestinian Territories that were invaded and captured by Israel in the 1967 war. I was a child of war, having lived through the 1967 war, whereby my mother, my siblings, and I were forced to flee our home and seek refuge in the scorpion infested caves that populate the hills that surrounded our village.
[ . . . ]

You stood with your back to the concrete wall and had the audacity to say to the Palestinians people, "This wall is not against the Palestinians. This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism." Your words proved yet again that neither you nor anyone else in our government has any grasp of reality of what is actually happening in the ground in Palestine. The victim is once gain placed in the unenviable position of having to guarantee the security of his oppressor, while being denied his own basic human rights and security or for that matter, the freedom to of movement in his or her own town or village.
[ . . . ]

(See Kurt Nimmo, Hillary Clinton: Davos Lady Does Israel, posted November 16, 2005 6:24 PM)
 

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 17 November 2005
 

Zafar Bangash, Media Monitors Network, Are international institutions relevant?: "Contrary to widespread belief, international institutions such as the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) etc., were not created to bring peace and prosperity to the world, but to serve the interests of the West. It is distressing to note, however, that the very victims of these institutions seem totally mesmerized by the high-sounding rhetoric of these organisations, and act as if their survival depends on them."
 

Not guilty. The Israeli captain who put 17 bullets into a Palestinian schoolgirl: "An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.

"The soldier, who has only been identified as 'Captain R', was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.

"The manner of Iman's killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was 'scared to death', made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.

"After the verdict, Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never intended to hold the soldier accountable.

"'They did not charge him with Iman's murder, only with small offences, and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my daughter so many times,' he said. 'This was the cold-blooded murder of a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill Palestinian children.'

"The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident."
 

The argument against the use of white phosphorus is unconvincing, to be frank.

You cannot expect troops to fight a war with one hand tied behind their back. This is clearly what the anti-war crowd want, but they seem not to live in a world. Bringing soldiers into court every time a civilian is killed, or points accusations is fruitless, and this has now been proved.
If you take the phosphorus argument to its conclusion, you can argue against the use of any weapon during warfare. Some of the most lethal weapons are actually legal anyway, for example, the massive ordnance air burst bomb (MOAB). It's among the largest and most deadly conventional bombs ever built.
We have to face facts here, and also examine history. Warfare's biggest casualties have always been civilians.
The stark reality is that this particular war has been brought about by political corruption in the US, the UK and Iraq, and also by Iraq's unwillingness to cooperate fully with UN inspectors throughout the 90's decade. There is absolutely no point in launching verbal attacks, or propagangist attacks or suicide attacks on the public of the US, or the UK or their allies such as Jordan.

The other sad fact that many people neglect to mention is that UN sanctions were responsible for only a fraction of the hardship that Iraqis endured in the 1990's. The other 80% of the hardship for Iraqis with brought on by the gross corruption of the Iraqi government and the ruling elite eg, the ruling elite were selling baby food and medicines onto the black market merely to put money in their own pockets. Plus Iraqis had so many corrupt hurdles to surmount when they wanted to start their own business that they were kept helpless.

Why some people fail to look at the facts is beyond me
 

Amos,
Facing facts: War is hell. Civilians, indeed, are warfare's biggest casualties. But, allowing for the notion that militarily strong nations are entitled to wage preemptive war (unencumbered by International Law), using all weapons and means at their disposal, then it goes without saying that white phosphorous (and depleted uranium) will be in their arsenal. No evidence exists that the invading "coalition" has tied one hand behind the back of their troops. And certainly soldiers have not been brought "into court every time a civilian is killed" (maimed or tortured). After all, to date over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have perished (some estimates put that figure as high as 200,000).

You say, "The argument against the use of white phosphorus is unconvincing." Actually, quite the contrary. The argument for white phosphorus is terribly convincing. After all, it works. As a visitor to this blog, previously you will have read this: "Image after image of men, women and children so burnt and scarred that the only way you could tell the males apart from the females, and the children apart from the adults, was by the clothes they are wearing… the clothes which were eerily intact- like each corpse had been burnt to the bone, and then dressed up lovingly in their everyday attire- the polka dot nightgown with a lace collar… the baby girl in her cotton pajamas- little earrings dangling from little ears.

Some of them look like they died almost peacefully, in their sleep… others look like they suffered a great deal- skin burnt completely black and falling away from scorched bones."

What do you make of the fact that we are killing and maiming an untold number of Iraqis with Weapons of Mass Destruction? Is the argument about prohibiting WMD's (the initial purported reason for invading/occupying Iraq) - - or, rather, over who gets to use them?

Facing facts: How will we respond if one day some nation or group decides to visit upon us their wrath over our nation's actual use of Weapons of Mass Destruction?
 

Riverbend, House of Horrors...: The whole world heard about the one in Jadriya, recently raided by the Americans. Jadriya was once one of the best areas in Baghdad. It's an area on the river and is special in that it's greener, and cleaner, than most areas. Baghdads largest university, Baghdad University, is located in Jadriya (with a campus in another area). Jadriya had some of the best shops and restaurants- not to mention some of Baghdad's most elegant homes...… and apparently, now, a torture house.
[ . . . ]

These torture houses have existed since the beginning of the occupation. While it is generally known that SCIRI is behind them, other religious parties are not innocent. The Americans know they exist- why the sudden shock and outrage? This is hardly news for Americans in the Green Zone. The timing is quite interesting- it shouldn't matter that this raid came immediately after the whole white phosphorous story came out, but the Pentagon and American military have proven to be the ultimate masters of diversion.*

Only last year in an area called Ghazaliya, one such house was discovered. It was on a smaller scale though. My cousin lives in Ghazaliya and he said that when the Americans got inside, they found several corpses and a man hanging from the ceiling on a makeshift noose. The neighbors had tried to get the Americans to check the house for months- no one bothered. They finally raided it because they got information from someone in the area that it was an insurgents hiding place. I read once that in New York, if a woman is being raped, she should scream 'fire' instead of 'rape' because no one would come to save her if she was screaming 'rape'. That's the way it is with Iraqi torture houses- the only way they'll check it is if you tell them it's a terrorist cell.

And another thing- you know when they say 'men dressed in Ministry of Interior uniforms' or 'men in official cars claiming to be from the Ministry of Interior', etc. when describing some horror committed by the new Iraqi security forces in the news? Here's a thought: they aren't 'claiming' and they aren't in costume- they actually ARE from the Ministry of Interior! One would think they'd do this covertly so as not to enrage Iraqis or humanitarian organisations, except that it doesn't matter to them because SCIRI and Da'awa aren't out to win hearts and minds. They have American favor- what more does one need in the New Iraq?

For over a year corpses have been turning up all over Baghdad. Corpses of people who are taken from their homes in the middle of the night (lately they've been more brazen- they just do everything in the light of day), and turn up dead somewhere. That isn't as disturbing as the reports about the bodies- the one I can't get out of my head is that many of the corpses are found with holes in the skull left by an electric drill.
[ . . . ]
------------------------

* Amos: Emphasis added.
 

Kurt Nimmo, Washington Post Explains How the Nazi-Created CIA Protects Us: [ . . . ]
"Priest expends a few thousand glowing words, making excuses for this massive terror organization, based on Nazi intelligence and initially staffed with Nazi war criminals, while never telling us the truth about the CIA: in addition to being the largest, most organized, and well funded terror organization in the world, it is a primary example of the Hegelian dialectic: it utilizes the Fichtean “thesis—antithesis—synthesis” model, first covertly creating terrorism, then reacting as our saviors to its custom-made terrorism, and finally proposing draconian measures to combat the terrorism it initially fabricated, thus dismantling our liberties and erecting a police state, as all faithful Nazis demand authoritarian government."
 

Bombers Kill 74 at Two Mosques in Iraq
 

Extract -
Mark Chmiel & Andrew Wimmer, An Exercise of the Imagination; Uncrucify Them: "This weekend thousands of people are gathering at Fort Benning, Georgia, to demonstrate their continued opposition to the "School of Assassins," a school that has been training Latin America's military in the techniques of torture and terror for more than fifty years. ...

Ignacio Ellacuría, the Jesuit priest and rector of the UCA [University of Central America], may have been predicting his own slaying when he wrote that if the university were to make a clear, strong stand for justice, it would suffer persecution. ...

Ellacuría once proposed an exercise of the imagination for this present age of atrocity; an exercise that calls people of good will to step outside their own comfort so that others might simply live:

I want you to set your eyes and your hearts on these people who are suffering so much-some from poverty and hunger, others from oppression and repression. Then, standing before this people thus crucified you must repeat St. Ignatius' examination from the first week of the [Spiritual] Exercises.

Ask yourselves: What have I done to crucify them? What do I do to uncrucify them? What must I do for this people to rise again?

Now, these many years later, Ellacuría's questions carry a new urgency for all of us mired in the global "war on terror." Indeed, we can look in many directions and see people suffering so much from the results of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. We need only turn our gaze toward Fallujah and Ramadi, the pulverized cities of Iraq, once cities of thousands, now shells, their populations scattered to makeshift desert dwellings and refugee camps. How did we contribute-by our taxes, our silence, our timidity-to their crucifixion?

We at the Center for Theology and Social Analysis in Saint Louis, Missouri, have been especially horrified by one particular expression of contemporary "crucifixion," the brazen use of torture as an instrument of U.S policy. From Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantánamo in Cuba, the U.S. has scandalized the world with the sickening disparity between our official rhetoric about "liberation" and "democracy" and our operative practices of abuse, humiliation, and torture.

Lest you think crucifixion is merely an antiquated metaphor, consider the story of Manadel al-Jamadi. Taken prisoner in Bagdhad by U. S. Navy Seals, witnesses said he arrived at Abu Ghraib alive, but after a short period of "interrogation" during which his arms were wrenched behind his back and his body hoisted by his wrists into a position known as "Palestinian hanging," al-Jamadi was soon dead from asphyxiation.

On Friday morning, a group of us (some from St. Louis, several Catholic Workers and others from Raleigh, and Kathy Kelly from Chicago) gathered outside the hangar that houses these CIA "torture taxis" to offer a Litany of Lament and Mourning. The Jewish prophets' reliance on "the language of grief," writes Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, breaks open "the rhetoric that engages the community in mourning for a funeral they do not want to admit. It is indeed their own funeral." One by one Friday morning we lamented the torment and death of victims of torture throughout the world while we mourned the death of our own souls as we learn more each day about our own complicity.
 

Christian Science Monitor, Cracks emerge in US - S. Korea unity on Iraq, other issues: "In a move that caught the Bush administration off-guard, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Friday that it would withdraw 1,000 of its 3,200 troops serving in Iraq."
 

Imad

Regarding:
"White House: Murtha's call is 'surrender'
McClellan called Murtha, a retired Marine colonel who earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, "a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting America."

But McClellan added, "The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists." "


He's a traitor, you see. Everyone who opposes President Bush is a traitor. Especially Iraqi nuclear scientists who say nasty things about Saddam's nuclear program having been a mirage. They're the worst, by far... running just ahead of decorated Vietnam war veterans (many of them wounded in the line of duty) who fought for their country (right or wrong) while Mssrs. Cheney and Bush had a great time back Stateside, partying to the max.

The Commie traitors. They should all be shot. Send 'em to Bagdhad as cannon fodder.
 

(Amos, Reassurance that troops do not fight "with one hand tied behind their back.")
Wayne Madsen Report, November 18, 2005 -- Pentagon intelligence sources are reporting that the situation on the ground is "out of control": Reports of "bestial" treatment involving U.S. personnel, private mercenaries from at least 25 countries, and Iraqi government forces are flooding out of Iraq. The "bestial" treatment includes rape, torture, sodomizing of children, and the gratuitous murder of innocent civilians.
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 18, 2005 -- More on Al Qaeda -- the database: Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.
[ . . . ]

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money."*

In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel's case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel's character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system "got him" for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group. It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of "Al Qaeda." We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.
-----------------------------------

* Here, only this final para. of the long excerpt quoted by Madsen has been retained.
 

Wayne Madsen Report, November 18, 2005 -- Neo-con global conspiracy under increased assault from US Attorney for Northern Illinois and Special Prosecutor in CIA "leakgate" Patrick Fitzgerald: Yesterday, Patrick Fitzgerald indicted former Hollinger International chairman (Lord) Conrad Black on 11 counts of fraud and issued an international warrant was issued for his arrest. Hollinger owned several neo-con newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times (Robert Novak's syndicator, which it still owns), Jerusalem Post, London Daily Telegraph, New York Sun, and several Canadian newspapers. In his indictment, Fitzgerald said of Black and his co-conspirators, "All in all, what has happened here has been the grossest abuse by officers or directors and insiders."
[ . . . ]

Hollinger's board includes Richard Perle, 911 Commission member and former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson, and Henry Kissinger. ...
[ . . . ]

Black renounced his Canadian citizenship when he became a member of the British House of Lords as "Lord Black of Crossharbour." The arrest warrant for Black has resulted in the issuance of an INTERPOL red notice to apprehend the fugitive since it is believed he is residing in Canada with a British passport. U.S. fugitive Marc Rich, the Zug, Switzerland-based "silent partner" of the neo-con global criminal cartel and Scooter Libby's former client, was also subject to an INTERPOL red notice prior to his being pardoned by President Clinton.
[ . . . ]

There is another interesting nexus between Fitzgerald's probe of the White House CIA leak and McNulty's probe of the AIPAC espionage. It turns out that Fitzgerald has questioned Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler (as well as Walter Pincus) about the leak. While all attention is focused on Woodward, it is also important to focus on Kessler because he is also mentioned in the AIPAC probe in a report by the Jewish Telegraph Agency:
[ . . . ]
 

John Stanton, GlobalResearch.ca, There is a Name for this Government-Corporation we call "The US Administration": "While the buzz is all around the Plame-Wilson-Libby-Woodward-Rove-Hadley affair, and the lies that got the US into Iraq again, the real news is that military and non-military torture chambers stretching from Mexico to Asia have become standard operating procedure for the US. Further, the response of official Washington to the torture expose was not disgust, but a call to prosecute the whistleblower that leaked the awful news."
 

MilitaryProject.org, "If I Die Here, What The Hell Did I Die For?": "And every day, that's all you would have. You know, 'Two American soldiers die from terrorists,' or 'Ten wounded from terrorists.' It was always terrorists. They never consider it just being people that are fighting for their country. It's still a war to them and they are fighting against the invasion of their country."
 

Robert Dreyfuss, Our Monsters In Iraq: It is time to start waving the bloody shirt. There is no longer any doubt that the men that the United States has installed in power in Iraq are monsters. Not only that, but they are monsters armed, trained and supported by George W. Bush's administration. The very same Bush administration that defends torture of captives in the so-called War on Terrorism is using 150,000 U.S. troops to support a regime in Baghdad for which torture, assassination and other war crimes are routine.

So far, it appears that the facts are these: that Iraq's interior ministry, whose top officials, strike forces and police commando units (including the so-called Wolf Brigade) are controlled by paramilitary units from Shiite militias, maintained a medieval torture chamber; that inside that facility, hundreds of mostly Sunni Arab men were bestialized, with electric drills skewering their bones, with their skins flayed off, and more; that roving units of death-squad commandos are killing countless other Sunni Arab men in order to terrorize the Iraqi opposition. ...

Last week I had a chilling encounter with one of the monsters responsible for the Murder Inc. units run by Badr and by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). At a Washington think tank, I met Adel Abdul Mahdi, Iraq's so-called deputy president and a SCIRI official. When I asked Mahdi about reports that Iraqi police and interior ministry squads were carrying out assassinations and other illegal acts, he didn't deny it—but, he said, such acts were merely a reaction to the terrorism of the resistance. "There is terrorism on only one side," he said. "Inappropriate acts by the other side, by the police—this is something else. This is a reaction." As far as civilian casualties in Sunni towns, he had this to say: "You can't fight terrorism without attacking some popular areas."

I also asked him about the Badr Brigade, the Iranian-backed paramilitary force that is the main domestic army propping up Abdul Mahdi's Shiite coalition, he said "they are disarmed," which is patently absurd. He added: "They participate fully in the political process."

Abdul Mahdi had this to say about Fallujah, the city that was obliterated by the U.S. armed forces a year ago. "It is one of the most peaceful areas in Iraq. I don't know whether the people are happy or not. But it is one of the most peaceful cities."

The military in Iraq is scrambling to limit the damage from the stunning revelation about the men who are running Iraq today. We toppled Saddam—and in his place we've installed a hundred mini-Saddams.
 

(Permanent link to November 18, 2005 3:55 PM post)
Wayne Madsen Report, Neo-con global conspiracy under increased assault from US Attorney for Northern Illinois and Special Prosecutor in CIA "leakgate" Patrick Fitzgerald
 

Kurt Nimmo, Intel Op al-Zarqawi Voice Talent Issues Correction
 

Facts (more) . . .
The Independent, Tortured men look like 'Holocaust victims': "Witnesses said many of the 169 men and youths were emaciated and looked like 'Holocaust survivors'. Some had suffered beatings so severe that their skin had peeled off, and three men had been kept locked in a cupboard where they could not move. All the others were packed, blindfolded, into three rooms nine feet long and 11 feet wide.

"Instruments of torture and beating were found hidden in a false ceiling. Witnesses also said that the guards in charge of the detainees, all but three of whom were Sunnis, at an interior ministry bunker in central Baghdad, wore combat fatigues of the Shia Badr Brigades militia. 'Because of the appalling overcrowding, some of the most badly treated were squashed on to floors and their skins got stuck to the floor,' said a witness."
 

Tiring of torture? So are the victims.

Extract -
Secret death squads feared among Iraq's commandos: The commandos are part of the Iraqi security forces that the Bush administration says will gradually replace American troops in this war. But the commandos are being blamed for a wave of kidnappings and executions around Baghdad since the spring.

One such group, the Volcano Brigade, is operating as a death squad — under the influence or control of Iraq's most potent Shiite factional militia, the Iranian-backed Badr Organization, said several Iraqi government officials and western Baghdad residents.

In the past six months, Badr has heavily infiltrated the Interior Ministry under which the commandos operate, the sources said. Badr also was accused of running the secret Interior Ministry prison raided Sunday by U.S. troops.

About 2 a.m. on Aug. 23, men in Volcano Brigade uniforms and trucks rolled into the streets of Dolay, a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood of western Baghdad, residents say. "I got a call from my cousins" around the corner, said Ahmed Abu Yusuf, 33, an unemployed Sunni. "They told me to stay hidden because the Volcano were in the streets, arresting Sunnis."

For three hours, the raiders burst into Sunni homes, handcuffed dozens of men and loaded them into vans. They ended the assault and drove out of the neighborhood just before the dawn call to prayer, which would bring men into the streets, walking to the local mosques, Abu Yusuf said.

Two days later and 90 miles away, residents of the desert town of Badrah, near the Iranian border, found the bodies of 36 of the men in a gully, their hands still bound and their skulls shattered by bullets. Two were the cousins who had phoned him the warning, Abu Yusuf said.

In the past year, the U.S. military has helped build up the commandos under guidance from James Steele, a former Army Special Forces officer who led U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in El Salvador in the 1980s. Salvadoran army units trained by Steele's team were accused of a pattern of atrocities.

Execution-style massacres are now routine. In the 11 weeks since the Dolay victims were discovered in the desert, at least 17 groups of apparent Baghdad residents — 158 men in all — have been found dumped in empty fields, back streets or at Baghdad's sewage plant, most shot to death with their hands tied, according to a compilation of reports from news agencies and Iraq Body Count, an Internet-based voluntary organization that monitors civilian casualties.
 

If war is so great, why does it need a toothpaste salesman? -
(A very long article, but well worth a look.)
Rolling Stone, The Man Who Sold the War: "Rendon is one of the most influential of the private contractors in Washington who are increasingly taking over jobs long reserved for highly trained CIA employees. In recent years, spies-for-hire have begun to replace regional desk officers, who control clandestine operations around the world; watch officers at the agency's twenty-four-hour crisis center; analysts, who sift through reams of intelligence data; and even counterintelligence officers in the field, who oversee meetings between agents and their recruited spies. According to one senior administration official involved in intelligence-budget decisions, half of the CIA's work is now performed by private contractors -- people completely unaccountable to Congress. Another senior budget official acknowledges privately that lawmakers have no idea how many rent-a-spies the CIA currently employs -- or how much unchecked power they enjoy.

"Unlike many newcomers to the field, however, Rendon is a battle-tested veteran who has been secretly involved in nearly every American shooting conflict in the past two decades. In the first interview he has granted in decades, Rendon offered a peek through the keyhole of this seldom-seen world of corporate spooks -- a rarefied but growing profession. Over a dinner of lamb chops and a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape at a private Washington club, Rendon was guarded about the details of his clandestine work -- but he boasted openly of the sweep and importance of his firm's efforts as a for-profit spy. 'We've worked in ninety-one countries," he said. "Going all the way back to Panama, we've been involved in every war, with the exception of Somalia.'"
 

IRAQ: UN RIGHTS EXPERT CALLS FOR INQUIRY INTO SADDAM LAWYER MURDERS: "When allegations call into question the impartiality of the government, and when so much hinges on the facts, an independent investigation is the only way to uphold the rule of law. This is clearly a situation in which a failure to undertake a convincing investigation will have major negative implications for all that the government is trying to achieve."
 

Al-Jazeera, Poor Iraqis face struggle for survival: "Prisoner abuse reports are dominating the news in Iraq, but poverty is also producing shocking images - of families living on rotting garbage dumps."
 

Kurt Nimmo, Chavez: Bush is a Genocidal Madman


Kurt Nimmo, 50 Percent of American Cretins Think Torture Works: "I’m sorry to call fifty percent of Americans cretins. But in essence that is precisely what they are if they believe the phony baloney and mostly illusory al-Qaeda is a threat, that nineteen cave-dwelling Arab hijackers pulled off nine eleven with boxcutters, that the twin towers 'pancaked' against the laws of physics, that an aviation fuel fire is capable of melting hardened steel, and a one-legged petty criminal of sub-normal intelligence is capable of running a complex underground resistance in Iraq. My fellow citizens are cretins if they surrender their birthright—constitutionally guaranteed liberty—to gain an illusory and vaporous security from fake terrorism obviously contrived by the government."
 

Clarification on White Phosphorous:
Use of WP is not specifically banned by any treaty that the US has signed. There has been a running debate about whether it fits the definition of "chemical weapon" or whether it should be considered a conventional mutition. There are many other "grey areas" like depleted uranium shells, vacuum bombs, cluster bombs, and even certain types of land mines. While WP is wrong in the eyes of many, it is not the same thing as a specifically banned chemical agent like mustard gas.

I take exception with the people who express shock and accuse the US of using illegal chemical weapons. In this case, the weapon in question isn't illegal, its just immortal, and that fits right in with everything else my country has been doing in Iraq so far. Save your shock and awe for the really nasty stuff the GW clan will probably do (or permit others to do) before the American public finally wakes up.

If either side had acted reasonably, this could have been avoided. I guess its too much to expect that we live in a reasonable world.

toobad4us
 

“Clarification” on White Phosphorous as a chemical weapon for USA is easy. If USA approves the use of White Phosphorous against US troops and civil population in a shock and bake manner, then there is no “moral” problem for US government and army. I however suppose that if the resistance in Iraq or terrorists in general would use white phosphorus, USA would at once speak about use of illegal and immoral chemical weapons. The production and use of white phosphorus and napalm based weapons is not difficult, even a guerrilla army can do it.

In a way it is amusing to watch this ever continuing “moral struggle” of USA. It is legal for US citizens (Army and CIA) to torture people abroad but not in USA. White Phosphorous is not a chemical weapon. Only US’s friends are allowed to develop WMD’s. ETC. The Chinese counterparts must have difficulties keep their faces “serious” when Bush lectures them about human rights. When Bush leaves the room the laughter will be loud and long.

During Bush’s regime period USA has lost all it credibility in the human rights and democracy aspects. Most Europeans consider the US electoral system as strange and in many ways undemocratic. Lately US congress decided to give 4 million dollars to Russian parties (well what would Americans think if Russian and Chinese parliament would give money to US minority groups and parties). Let’s imagine that Russia had a political system of two almost equal parties, a voter registration that is administrated by the parties, a complex election law system differing in each province etc. Well, Russians and others certainly would say it is not democratic.
 

Questions of legality and morality go to the heart of all matters concerning the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In terms of international law, the war waged by the "coalition" forces against Iraq is illegal. But the concept of "legality" itself raises questions. For somehow we often equate legality and morality. Any real basis for such equivalence is nonexistent. This because power blocks legislate and act to their own advantage. And concepts surrounding human rights get rendered "quaint" when not suited to the needs of power.

Is white phosphorus "legal"? Given that international law deems the very invasion/occupation of Iraq illegal, surely it should follow that all actions and substances that further victimize the population of Iraq are themselves illegal. And even if some technical nicety explains away that illegality, what does it say about us as human beings that we condone substances that so ravage, terrorize and utterly destroy? How can we look at photos such as these and frame the argument around "legality"?

If we are to retain our humanity, it is the concept of morality to which we must turn. What has been done to ordinary Iraqis on a day-to-day basis is 100% immoral. Condoning the barbarism that has been visited upon them is immoral. Condoning the perpetrators is immoral. No justification exists.

Moral actions enhance life. Moral actions work to the greater good. Moral actions sustain and affirm. Moral actions build community, supporting our individual and collective growth and well-being. What has been done to Iraq is so far removed from human decency that the perpetrators have come to rely upon definitions of "legality", and even then, they rely on self-serving definitions.
 

Is it legal? Does that matter?
Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon: "This is a version of the standard USMC Shoulder Mounted Assault Weapon but with a new warhead. Described as NE - 'Novel Explosive'- it is a thermobaric mixture which ignites the air, producing a shockwave of unparalleled destructive power, especially against buildings.

"A post-action report from Iraq describes the effect of the new weapon: 'One unit disintegrated a large one-storey masonry type building with one round from 100 meters. They were extremely impressed.'"
 

Technology is god. Humans are but the subjects.
 

Subject matter . . .
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches, The Advocate: "On September 29, 2005, shortly after 8 p.m., Amal Kadhum Swadi, and her youngest son Safa were arrested by U.S. forces in the Ghazaliya district of Baghdad on suspicion of planting an improvised explosive device.

"They were just leaving their Baghdad home with other family members, and had opened their garage door to take out the family car, when the Swadi family were swarmed by multiple Humvees and numerous heavily armed U.S. Soldiers with weapons drawn.

"Haloed by headlights and surrounded by agitated soldiers, mother and son were separated from each other and hidden from view of other family members behind a wall of troops and humvees. They were blindfolded and handcuffed tightly with the plastic zap straps and hoods that have become potent symbols of the dehumanization of Iraqis under occupation.

"Ms. Swadi and Safa were made to squat on the highway’s dirt embankment while Zaid, her eldest son, was issued a handwritten receipt for his mother and brother. [ . . . ] "
 

"Legal"? . . . Who cares?
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches, A Constitutional Referendum that Wasn’t
 

Legality & Morality - revisited
Scott Morris, ZNet, Wasting Fallujah: The ease with which the US has, for more than 2 ½ years "wasted" Iraqis, the ease with which culturally we participate in acts of wanton cruelty, demonizing of Iraqis, savage acts of inhumanity and barbarism, brutish violations of international conventions and laws, and our willingness to look the other way in the face of monstrous US induced misery, suffering and death, is symbolized graphically in the haunting specter of the US "wasting" of Fallujah one year ago: "Operation Phantom Fury."

The LA Times reported that "the US military" assaulted the city of Fallujah with the full "understanding" that "civilians…would be killed." . . .
[ . . . ]

One year after the 'wasting" of Fallujah the "sickening odor of rotting corpses" continues to permeate the horrid air in Iraq, and the "sickening," swarming specter of US war crimes continues to wreak destruction across Iraq. Several questions come to the fore. What must be accomplished politically and culturally to: (1) overcome the ease with which we remain distanced from acts of wanton cruelty and savage acts of inhumanity; (2) apply to US leaders the same standards of law and morality we would demand of others in the face of barbaric violations of international conventions and laws; (3) transform the institutions that give rise to so much US induced misery, suffering and death. At what point will we demand that US leaders responsible for these crimes of war be held accountable? "How Many Dead Innocent Iraqis is Too Many?" "How Many Dead US Soldiers are Too Many?" What "right" does the US have to "waste" Iraqis? What will the "blowback" be for these crimes against humanity? Will we pay reparations to the Iraqis for the damage? What will it take to stop the US killing machine? What will it take to stop the next Fallujah? "Who are the real barbarians?"

These are questions of grave import to all US citizens concerned with justice, freedom, peace, survival and accountability.
 

A Citizen of Mosul, What [is] happening in Iraqi prisons: "It is the freedom and democracy of the new Iraq. Viva America."
 

Raed in the Middle, "See You in Rubble": But what does “unconventional” or “illegal” weapons mean anyway? Are there any legal weapons to kill civilians? Are there any conventional bombs to destroy cities?

Every bullet that was shot in Iraq by the occupation armies is an illegal and unconventional weapon.
 

British-trained police in Iraq 'killed prisoners with drills'
 

White House Doubts al-Zarqawi Among Dead (Given Zarqawi's reported death in April 2004, we can assume that in this instance the White House is correct!)
 

Transcript, Meet the Press, November 20, 2005 -

MR. RUSSERT: But if we did withdraw quickly, it could result in a civil war or a bloodbath.

REP. MURTHA: Well, I'm not sure of that. At one time I thought that, and at one time I thought Iran would have undue influence. But I tell you something, I've come to the conclusion these Iraqis are very proud people. They can run the country themselves. They've had a history of civilization that goes back much further than ours. . . .
 

"The production and use of white phosphorus and napalm based weapons is not difficult, even a guerrilla army can do it"

How true, very true. So never underestimate the threat that coalition troops face out there. VX nerve gas has already been used against the troops. In my opinion, if they have to use white P, then they have to. They are not going to be using flour bombs to fight off such an enemy. Reality check
 

i from iraq i make this
http://aljadriya.blogspot.com
 

Salem Al-Jumaili is nothing but one of the criminals who ruined Iraq. He looked so calm as if his hands were not dirty with blood.
Isam