Free Iraq

Is the cost of capturing an “insurgent”.....Priceless?
NY Times, March 15, 2006

BAGHDAD, March 15 — “American soldiers demolished a farmhouse near the Sunni Arab town of Balad today after encountering unexpectedly heated resistance from insurgents, killing a number of civilians in the process.

The American military said that three civilians had been killed, while Iraqi officials said an entire 11-member family — from a 75-year-old grandmother to a 6-month-old baby — had been wiped out.

Maj. Tim Keefe, a military spokesman, said American troops were on their way to capture an insurgent in a rural area north of Baghdad when insurgents opened fire from the farmhouse.

"Coalition forces returned fire, utilizing both air and ground assets," Major Keefe said.

The results were devastating, according to images broadcast on Arab TV: dead cows, scorched cars, a smashed house and 11 bodies rolled up in blankets.

The insurgent suspect was captured, Major Keefe said, adding that American officials are continuing to investigate the incident.”...........
 

Noam Chomsky, Latin America and Asia are at last breaking free of Washington's grip: Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming ever closer, each relying on its comparative advantage. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil, while in return Cuba organises literacy and health programmes, sending thousands of highly skilled professionals, teachers and doctors, who work in the poorest and most neglected areas, as they do elsewhere in the third world.

Cuban medical assistance is also being welcomed elsewhere. One of the most horrendous tragedies of recent years was the earthquake in Pakistan last October. Besides the huge death toll, unknown numbers of survivors have to face brutal winter weather with little shelter, food or medical assistance.

"Cuba has provided the largest contingent of doctors and paramedics to Pakistan," paying all the costs (perhaps with Venezuelan funding), writes John Cherian in India's Frontline magazine, citing Dawn, a leading Pakistan daily.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan expressed his "deep gratitude" to Fidel Castro for the "spirit and compassion" of the Cuban medical teams - reported to comprise more than 1,000 trained personnel, 44% of them women, who remained to work in remote mountain villages, "living in tents in freezing weather and in an alien culture", after western aid teams had been withdrawn."
 

Canada committed to Afghan mission, Harper tells troops;
Harper is the new Conservative Prime Minister here - SEE!!!
 

Anwaar Hussain, Happy Birthday Free Iraq!
 

RAF doctor faces court martial over stand on Iraq (Resistance = heroism. Hats off to those courageously ethical.)
 

Wayne Madsen Report, March 16, 2006 -- The tall, lanky man who spawned George W. Bush may have been standing in front of the Texas School Book Depository on Nov. 22, 1963: George H. W. Bush is one of very few Americans who does not precisely remember where he was and what he was doing on the fateful Friday in November 1963. Of course, he would have had a foggy memory if he was an accessory to the crime. The Bush family are modern Borgias -- cruel "human locusts" who devour and ruin everything in their path.


Wayne Madsen, PRIVACY AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION WARFARE: Monograph written in 2001 prior to the 9-11 attacks but after the Bush administration began talking about disrupting media over which they had no control.
 

Anger over British firms' Iraq profits
 

American unease over Iraq grows: "The war will show up as the perpetration of a criminal fraud. [Bush] is a criminal known to be armed and shown to be dangerous."
 

Paul Craig Roberts, Is Another 9/11 in the Works?: It is obvious that Bush intends to attack Iran and that he will use every means to bring war about.
 

(Extract thanks to Uruknet)
Excerpts From Saddam-Judge Exchange -
Saddam: What pains me most is what I heard recently about something that aims to harm our people. My conscience tells me that the great people of Iraq have nothing to do with these strange and horrid acts, the bombing of the shrine of Imam Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari ... which led to the burning of mosques in Baghdad, which are the houses of God, and the burning of other mosques in other cities of Iraq (...) Abdel-Rahman: What is this style of yours? You are a defendant in a major criminal case, concerning the killing of innocents. You have to respond to this charge. Saddam: What about those who are dying in Baghdad? Are they not innocents? Are they not Iraqis? ... I am addressing the Iraqi people. (Resumes reading but sound goes out.) Abdel-Rahman: The court has decided to turn this into a secret and closed session...
 

Chris Floyd, Trash Talkers: The Black Mud of Bush/Blair Propaganda: . . . Colleen Graffy, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, was in London last week on a propaganda offensive. Ms Graffy had visited Guantánamo and witnessed no unpleasant interrogation, no torture and plenty of sports facilities, she told Jeremy Vine on Radio 2. The imperturbable Vine was speechless when she drew from her bag a sample tube used for force-feeding prisoners and explained to him that it had no metal edges and was therefore humane…..[*However, for some reason she didn't offer to stuff down her own gullet, just to show viewers at home how comfy it is. A pity. CF]
 

Iraq secure in couple of years: Rice (Or, as POAC says, "Make your vacation plans now.")
 

. . . and, on the lighter side: Bush's sex police chief arrested
 

(Prescient? The following article was published January 05, 1998, back in the days of my happier ignorance.)
Abid Ullah Jan, Nazis of the Nineties: The name of the new game to be played in the last year of the twentieth century is "catastrophic terrorism" and it has been made frightening, not because it conceivably could really happen but because of what people who choose to dwell on the possibility, however remote, want to do about it. The anti-biological and anti-weapons of mass destruction American propaganda and actions are already duplicating Hitler's prior to World War-II tactics.

Any further terrorism from now onwards would be justified in the name of combating "catastrophic terrorism," . . .
 

re:one of the photos

I am one of the Iraqi people and I am in no partnership with the U.S military.
 

وقبيل يوم 20 مارس اذار ذكرى الغزو سألت رويترز عشرات العراقيين ان كانت الحياة أفضل الان أم أسوأ مما كانت قبل الغزو. أغلبهم بدا متشائما أو على أفضل تقدير حائرا اذ حلت مخاوف جديدة محل المخاوف القديمة.

والبرلمان الذي اجتمع لاول مرة يوم الخميس أمامه مهمة صعبة.

وقال رجل الاعمال عادل حسين (45 عاما) في البصرة قلب صناعة النفط في جنوب العراق "فيما يتعلق بالامن كانت الحياة أفضل من قبل... ولكن من الناحية الاقتصادية الان أفضل بكثير."

وفي مدينة كركوك النفطية الشمالية التي تشهد أعمال عنف قال العامل علي سلمان "قبل الحرب... كان التعذيب والقتل يحدثان في السر. الان يجري ذلك علنا. معنى الحرية اختلف. اليوم أنت حر في ان تعيش وحر في أن تقتل غيرك."
 

"After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

Ben Griffin
Ben Griffin told commanders that he thought the Iraq war was illegal

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds."

SAS soldier quits Army in disgust at 'illegal' American tactics in Iraq
 

U.S., Iraqis Launch 'Operation Swarmer' . . . the largest air assault since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital, the military said.

"More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation . . . to clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra."
 

Clancy Sigal, Dachau's 73rd "Grand Anniversary" Celebrated - Feds Schedule $385 Million Concentration Camp To Be Built By Halliburton Subsidiary: The following article appeared in a Munich newspaper in 1933 to mark the "grand opening" of Dachau, Germany's first concentration camp. This month marks the 73d anniversary:

Münchner Neueste Nachrichten,

Tuesday, March 21, 1933

A Concentration Camp for Political Prisoners in the Dachau Area

In a statement to the press, Himmler, Munich's Chief of Police announced:

On Wednesday the first concentration camp will be opened near Dachau. It has a capacity of 5000 people. Here, all communist and-so far as is necessary- Reichsbanner and Marxist officials, who endanger the security of the state, will be assembled. In the long run, if government administration is not to be very burdened, it is not possible to allow individual communist officials to remain in court custody. On the other hand, it is also not possible to allow these officials their freedom again. Each time we have attempted this, the result was that they again tried to agitate and organize. We have taken these measures without concern for each pedantic objection encountered, in the conviction that we act to calm the concerns of the nation's people, and in accordance with their aims.

Himmler gave assurance that in each individual case, preventive custody will not be maintained longer than necessary.
 

Norman Solomon, Hook, Line and Sinker - War-Loving Pundits
March 17, 2003: President Bush to the Iraqi people - "If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you."
 

VIDEO (13 min.), BBC Newsnight: Questions over Iraq's reconstruction cash - Following the Iraq war, billions of dollars of Iraq's money was directed to American companies to rebuild the country.

But much of it remains unaccounted for, and Peter Marshall has been investigating startling allegations of post war profiteering.

(Do NOT expect to find this on FOX)
 

Iraqi protesters in Halabja attack museum

PBS’ NewsHour broadcasted a video of the museum attack. It should be posted on NewsHour Web site either late tonight, or tomorrow.

NY Times, March 16, 2006

...”Unrest even exploded in Iraqi Kurdistan, long believed to be a haven of calm: Demonstrators clashed with police and burned down a museum in Halabja to protest lack of services from President Jalal Talabani's political party, which governs eastern Kurdistan.

In the late morning, parliament members began arriving at the convention center inside the fortified Green Zone, protected by layers of concrete blast walls, miles of concertina wire, and Georgian soldiers and South American guards who speak neither English nor Arabic...

...After a singing of Koranic verses, the speaker of the transitional assembly, Hajim al-Hassani, announced the appointment of Mr. Pachachi. At 83, Mr. Pachachi is the oldest member of Parliament and entitled, by Arab tradition, to assume the role of speaker until someone is appointed permanently. Mr. Pachaci took the lectern in a dark suit and blue tie, a white handkerchief poking out of a breast pocket.

Mr. Pachachi tried to outline the high stakes of the political talks, and said the appointment of ministers should not be done on the basis of sect.

He was abruptly interrupted by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the main Shiite bloc. "The first session of Parliament, according to the constitution, should be for administering the oath of office and appointing a speaker," Mr. Hakim said, sitting in black robes in the front row. "These discussions should come later."

Mr. Hakim's outburst underscored the very sectarian tensions that Mr. Pachachi had sought to highlight"........

--------------------

Is Rumsfeld gaming that?
Robert Dreyfuss, March 16, 2006

..."Those, like me, old enough to remember Lebanon’s civil war understand the pattern. Civil war in Iraq does not look like the American Civil War, with armies clashing on fields of battle. In Lebanon, a kaleidoscopic mix of Maronite Christian militias, Sunni warlords, Shiite militia, Palestinian guerrillas and others formed shifting alliances with each other over fifteen long years. Some parts of Lebanon were relatively stable and quiet, while Beirut, Lebanon’s seaside capital, and towns and villages surrounding it became bloody battlegrounds. Barriers, checkpoints, red lines and green lines divided the capital and its suburbs. There were scores of ceasefires which later collapsed.

Throughout it all, there were elections, and Lebanese governments came and went. Presidents were assassinated. As the fighting raged in Beirut, all sides drew on the resources of their twin hinterlands. The first “hinterlands” were the ethnic and national enclaves, which were like armed camps, who provided the troops, arms and supplies for the main fighting. The second hinterlands were the foreign powers who supported various sides in Lebanon. Above all, that meant Syria and Israel, but it included Iran, Iraq, Libya and others.

So, too, in Iraq. Baghdad, with one-fifth of Iraq’s population, already resembles Beirut. Neighborhoods, and surrounding towns, are being ethnically cleansed. Barriers are up. Militias rule. The Sunni triangle, Kurdistan, and the Shiite south are the immediate hinterlands, and Iraq’s neighbors are surreptitiously joining in, with Iran supporting the Shiites, the Sunni Arab countries backing their co-religionists, Israel helping the Kurds. Alliances are shifting—who knows what side the Barzani Kurds will end up on?—as they always do. But the pattern is clear. Soon, the killing will escalate from midnight kidnappings and car bombs to artillery and heavier weapons. Is Rumsfeld gaming that?

Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst at the Brookings Institution, points out that Iraq will not quietly divide itself into three pieces and be done with it. Those analysts, such as egregiously ill-informed partisan of the Kurdish warlords, Peter Galbraith, who believe that Iraq can neatly divide itself, are obscenely wrong. I hate to agree with Pollack, whose war-mongering in advance of the 2003 invasion convinced many hawkish liberals and New Republic types that war was a good idea. But Pollack is right when he points out that the division of Iraq will be ugly............
 

FLASH PRESENTATION (must watch) : Hiroshima - Where Denial Meets Reality The Lies - The Deaths - The Future?
 

Speaking Events, Visiting Iraqi Women, Schedule here


Weekend anti-war rallies
 

I know, I know. Evil Iranian scientists are behind this.
 

"The master class has always declared the war and the subject class has always fought the battles, . . . the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose, including their lives," and "the working class, who furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in declaring war and have never yet had a voice in declaring peace. . . . You need to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder."
(Eugene Debs, June 16, 1918. Quoted by Rodney A. Smolla in his book "Jerry Falwell v. Larry Flynt", St. Martins Press, New York, p. 217.)
 

(Following on preceding comment)
Eugene Debs' June 16, 1918 Anti-War Speech: For this Debs was tried under the Espionage Act of 1917, found guilty and sentenced to two concurrent ten-year terms of imprisonment and stripped of his citizenship.
 

Soldiers in Iraq know they are fighting and dying for a lie


White House Reaffirms 'First Strike' Doctrine
 

A day in the life of Baghdad residents 3 years after invasion: Abu Mustafa heard the call to morning prayer drift down from the tiled green minaret at the Shanshal mosque. The call was familiar, but the voice was different. The regular muezzin had been killed a week ago when he'd rushed to defend the mosque against an attack.

Still, Mustafa welcomed the sound. He'd made it through another night alive.

"I cannot sleep at night," he said. "Instead, I put my head on the pillow and stare at the dark - stare at nothing, listen to nothing. The call to prayer tells me it is now time to fear the day."
[ . . . ]
 

Was it worth it? An Iraqi family debates
 

Kurt Nimmo, Operation Swarmer: Designed to Foment Iraqi Civil War - As usual, the complicit corporate media has added the required amount of spin to “Operation Swarmer,” characterizing it, per Pentagon handouts, as an “attack on insurgents hiding around Samarra,” according to the recently sold Knight Ridder. In fact, “insurgents” are everywhere in Iraq as most Iraqis oppose the occupation of their country and such opposition is regarded as insurgency.

It appears “a considerable number of civilian losses” is part and parcel of the “strongest signal yet” sent to the Iraqi people, who are preparing for the neocon engineered civil war in their country, “readying themselves for the worst, fleeing likely flash points, stockpiling weapons and basic foodstuffs, barricading their neighborhoods, and drawing lines in the sand delineating Sunni and Shiite territory,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In order to sell “Operation Swarmer” to a reluctant public, we are told the “insurgents hiding around Samarra” are in fact “loyal to al-Qaeda’s Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” an assertion often claimed and yet never verified, as the Straussian neocons, as Machiavellian liars and deceivers, are not in the habit of backing up their absurd claims with facts and documentation. “The operation is targeting bases of militants loyal to Zarqawi,” a senior Iraqi army officer told Agence France Presse, the Mail & Guardian reports. Translation: a lot of Iraqis will be killed.
 

Wayne Madsen Report, March 17, 2006 -- Bush regime re-emphasizes perpetual war doctrine: Yesterday, the Bush regime unveiled its "National Security Strategy of the United States of America." The 49-page strategy identifies additional nations that are considered enemies of, and, therefore, threats to the United States. The strategy reserves the right for the United States to preemptively attack these nations. Time magazine's Matt Cooper (remember him from Scooter Libby infamy?) laughably argues the White House document is only theoretical and not binding. Similar neo-con doctrine was used to justify the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Few U.S. troops in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan would argue the neo-con policy is "theoretical." Nations identified as threats to the U.S. and worthy of a U.S. invasion so their "despotic" governments can be replaced with "democracies," a code word for a sudden influx of depleted uranium weapons and bunker buster bombs, pedophiliac and sado-masochistic jailers and interrogators, "Christian" missionaries, private mercenaries and brigands, political show trials of vanquished political leaders, looting of museums and treasuries, embedded "prostitute" journalists, and infrastructure "repair" (U.S. military base construction) companies like Halliburton and Bechtel, include Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Cuba, Belarus, and Syria. There are also warning shots in the report fired at China and Russia.
 

Iraqi Kurds Destroy Shrine in Rage at Warlords

“Many Kurds have grown angry at what they view as the corruption and tyranny of the two dominant political parties here.”

NY Times, by Robert F. Worth
March 17, 2006

...”The violence, pitting furious local residents against a much smaller force of armed security men, was the most serious popular challenge to the political parties that have ruled Iraqi Kurdistan for the past 15 years. Occurring on the day the new Iraqi Parliament met for the first time, the episode was a reminder that the issues facing Iraq go well beyond fighting Sunni Arab insurgents and agreeing on cabinet ministers in Baghdad.

Although Kurdistan remains a relative oasis of stability in a country increasingly threatened by sectarian violence, the protests here — which left the renowned Halabja Monument a charred, smoking ruin — starkly illustrated those challenges even in Iraq's most peaceful region.

Many Kurds have grown angry at what they view as the corruption and tyranny of the two dominant political parties here. They accuse their regional government of stealing donations gathered to help survivors of the poison gas attack. The town's residents chose Thursday to close off the town's main road and rally against government corruption. When government guards fired weapons over the protesters' heads, the crowd went wild and attacked the monument.

The sudden and deliberate destruction of such a well-known symbol of Kurdish suffering clearly stunned officials with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which governs the eastern part of the Kurdish region. But many local people, including survivors of the 1988 attack — said the Patriotic Union was to blame, having transformed the monument into an emblem of its own tyranny and greed.

"All the money given by foreign countries has been stolen," said Sarwat Aziz, 24, as he marched to the museum in a crowd of furious, chanting young men. "After 18 years, Halabja is still full of debris from the war, we don't even have decent roads."

Several protests have occurred in recent months against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which runs western Kurdistan and is led by Massoud Barzani. But nothing has come close to the violence that erupted Thursday in Halabja.

Apparently unnerved by the prospect of publicity, party militia members tried twice to confiscate the cameras of a photographer for The New York Times who was leaving Halabja by car Thursday evening, and only stopped after an appeal to high-ranking party officials...

...By all appearances, the attack on the Halabja Monument was an authentic expression of popular rage. The crowd contained young and old, men and women. Most seemed to view the museum — which was inaugurated in September 2003 at a ceremony attended by Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state — as the prop of an unjust government.

"That monument over there has become the main problem for Halabja," said Bakhtiar Ahmad, nodding at the museum, with its distinctive yellow crown-shaped roof. "All the foreign guests are taken there, not to the city."

Nearby, Tara Rahim, a quiet 19-year-old dressed in a neat black cloak and head scarf, said she had come to honor her sister Zara, killed in the 1988 attack, and to stop the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan from taking advantage of the anniversary.

"Kurdish officials used Halabja to gather money," she said, standing with a group of eight other identically dressed young women. "Millions of dollars has been spent, but nothing has reached us."

The protest began about 9 a.m., when local residents poured onto Halabja's main road and ignited tires. As the crowd grew, protesters moved toward the monument and hurled stones at a sign outside that read, in Kurdish, "No Baathists Allowed Here." It collapsed in pieces.

About 40 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan guards, gathered around the monument, began firing long machine-gun bursts into the air...

...The shooting only enraged the crowd, and as the guards retreated in a panic, the protesters reached the monument and began smashing its windows and glass display cases with stones. Inside, protesters poured propane from a can and set fire to it. Within minutes, flames were licking from the windows and a thick column of black smoke was twisting into the bright blue sky.

The security guards moved back toward the monument, and some began firing weapons into the retreating crowd. One bullet sliced through the chest of Kurdistan Ahmed, a 17-year-old high school student, and he collapsed onto the grass, dying.

By noon, it was over. One protester was dead, six were wounded, and most of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan guards had retreated to their compound on the edge of town, leaving the monument a blackened hulk of broken glass and shattered tiles............
 

For a Worldwide Network against War: A war against Iran would involve a US/Israeli First Strike with the likely use of nuclear 'tactical' weapons whose radioactivity will spread inexorably across the planet to affect everyone. Cancer rates will rise dramatically.

The neo-con desperadoes want their war and who can stop them?

We must try: but what can we do?

1) The internet is our one trump card. Use it to inform yourself and others. Expose the lies in which we are being buried.

2) Take action. Take to the streets. The message everywhere must be loud and clear: Defend Iran!No more War! Warmongers behind bars!

3) Whatever you do report it locally and globally across the net using resources such as Indymedia.

To assist this process we have set up a website:

www.iransolidarity.endofempire.org
 

TELL BUSH AND CONGRESS: STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS!
"The threat of a new war, this time against the people of Iran, is growing every day. The media is filled with reports of an alleged nuclear threat posed by Iran and the assumed need for the U.S. to take military action. These reports recall the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" reports issued in the months leading up to the war on Iraq.

I have just sent messages to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, U.N. Secretary-General Annan, Congressional leaders and the media saying "NO WAR ON IRAN!" through StopWarOnIran.org's NO WAR ON IRAN CAMPAIGN.

Please take the time to do the same by clicking on the link at the bottom of this email message.

Thanks!

http://www.stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml

Please Circulate this Message Widely!"
 

Note re the above:
Not an "Americans only" petition, it is set up for the international community. While Americans may feel a particular responsibility, absolutely certain is that the whole world will be affected if saner minds fail to prevail. PLEASE add your signature.
 

VIDEO (5:49): 100,000 Iraqi Kids Killed

The Killing of Iraqi Children

Video of US Sponsored War Crimes

[Go to the clickable link that says "click here"]
 

Iraq Dispatches, Translated Daily News Feeds from the Middle East: Dahr Jamail Iraq is happy to announce new daily video streams of translated Middle East News on line. The daily Mosaic streams, produced by LinkTV, features selections from daily TV news programs produced by national broadcasters throughout the Middle East. The news reports are presented unedited and translated, when necessary, into English. Mosaic includes television news broadcasts from selected national and regional entities listed on the right. These news reports are regularly watched by 280 million people in 22 countries all over the Middle East.

Thus, people unable to speak or understand Arabic or Persian are now able to get news directly from the Middle East. You are no longer forced to rely on people who can read Arabic to give you the information, as you can watch or read the news yourself and make up your own mind. Between the Mosaic and MidEastWire daily Iraq news feeds, www.dahrjamailiraq.com is now a daily source of fresh news directly from major Middle Eastern news agencies, all translated into English.

How to watch Mosaic: Please watch the quicktime stream while reviewing the information about the broadcasters linked to from the DahrJamailIraq website. Mosaic represents a diversity of media sources from state controlled to US funded to private networks affiliated with political factions. Mosaic is best understood, appreciated and digested within the context of the specific news outlets being watched.

You can see the News Broadcasts here.
 

5 Children Shot In Head as US raid on home killed 11 family members
 

Broadcast: 17/03/2006
Video Horror captures more sectarian massacres in Iraq: The video images of a series of massacres in Iraq mark a new level of horror in the sectarian killing. A warning that this story contains graphic images of corpses, including some which have been mutilated.

Transcript at link.
 

VIDEO (5 min.): "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."
 

Extract -
Ghali Hassan, Iraq: A victim of international terrorism: More than 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq during the 1991 US war. A large number of these bombs were encased in ‘depleted’ (DU) uranium, a radioactive by-product of the enrichment process used to make nuclear fuel. The ‘dust’ which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years contaminates the air, land and water, and causes chromosomal radiation damage, especially to soft tissue, pregnant women and their foetuses. [2] Cancer researchers in Iraq and in the West have shown that due to DU residue, the ‘rate of cancer has increased nine-fold since the 1991 US war,’ particularly among pregnant women and their babies. According to the Pentagon's own report, the US-UK dropped 320 tonnes of DU on Iraq in 1991. Greenpeace puts the figure at an estimate of 800 tones. More that 100,000 DU shells dropped on the city of Basra and its surroundings. The destruction was deliberate and a long-lasting act of terrorism.

Eric Hoskins, a Canadian physician and coordinator of a Harvard study team, reported that the US War on Iraq “effectively terminated everything vital to human survival in Iraq -- electricity, water, sewage systems, agriculture, industry and health care.” [3] "All of Iraq’s 11 major electrical power plants as well as 119 substations were completely destroyed. Eight multi-purpose dams were repeatedly hit and destroyed -- this wrecked flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation and hydroelectric power. The health and education systems weren’t spared. Twenty-eight civilian hospitals and 52 community health centres were hit." In addition, more than 676 schools were damaged, including 38 completely destroyed (Media Lens 01 July 2002). Was all this for the sake of returning a tin-pot dictator to Kuwait?

To ensure that Iraq would be unable to repair or replace of what had been destroyed, the US and Britain maintained the genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people, enforced by a massive military presence and weekly bombing raids designed to terrorise the Iraqi population. The sanctions have greatly impaired Iraq’s ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers. The health care system has deteriorated, and the education system and standard of living were near collapse. In addition, the sanctions were designed to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world and destroy the fabric of Iraqi society.

The 13-year long sanctions on Iraq were the UN's biggest and most profitable mass murder in the history of the UN. While Iraqis children were malnourished and starved to death, obesity and corruption among UN member states and bureaucrats increased to levels unknown in the organization’s history. The pretext for this deliberate mass murder was Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was well known that Iraq neither had WMD, nor posed a threat to the American people.

Iraq has been turned from a functioning state into a cluster of prisons where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi prisoners are tortured, abused and murdered by US and British forces and their collaborators. Any Iraqi, regardless of age and gender is prone to daily random raids and mass arrests by US forces and their collaborators. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been detained by US and British military forces at some time during the Occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are still languishing in countless US and British-run prisons across Iraq. The majority of these prisoners are innocent civilians. Many Iraqi towns and villages have been walled in with sand and razor wire barriers, and turned into “concentration camps.”

Furthermore, to strip Iraq off its national independence and self-determination, the US and its secret agents (CIA and Israeli Mossad) instituted a terror program of systematic assassination and murder of thousands of Iraqis, including scientists, academics, prominent politicians and anti-Occupation voices. The “De-Baathification” program is modeled on the “Salvador Option” -- the program which was responsible for the murder of thousands of Latin Americans peace activists and intellectuals in El Salvador and other nations of Latin America. It is misleading to blame these premeditated murders of innocent people on Iraqis. For more on the US dirty role in Iraq see Nicolas Davies’ Online Journal article, 15 March 2006.

It is not in Americans’ interest that for more than 15 years the Iraqi people have endured the longest and most violent international terrorism in history. The Iraqi people are demanding the immediate end to the Occupation and its associated violence. The longer the US remains in Iraq; it will only increase the destruction and bloodshed.

Yet the line persists among Westerners, Americans in particular, that the US and its allies are on a “mission” to “teach” Iraqis “democracy” and “freedom.” Most people are aware that this falsehood is a masked Western extremism. It is the enemy of democracy and freedom. Western extremism is not only destroying Iraq for no reason whatsoever, but also perpetuating violence around the world. It is time to demand the immediate end to international terrorism against the Iraqi people and pay reparations for the crimes committed against the nation of Iraq.
 

xymphora, The Israel Lobby's Canadian branch office
 

Study: U.S. Mideast policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby: "No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical," write the authors of the study.

The study also documents accusations that American supporters of Israel pushed the United States into war with Iraq. It lists senior Bush administration officials who supported the war and are also known to support Israel, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and David Wurmser. The authors say the influence of the pro-Israel lobby is a source of serious concern and write that it has even caused damage to Israel by preventing it from reaching a compromise with its neighbors.
 

E X T R A C T - (Rather long one, at that!!!)
Crescent and Cross, You Might Be An Anti-Semite If...
...You think that Jesus was a good guy who had some important things to say about peace on earth, human rights and respect for your fellow man...

...You think that the idea of one select group of people, the Jews, being a ‘master race’ who are ‘destined to rule the world with a rod of iron’ is a bunch of nonsense...

...You think that exterminating over a billion Muslims just because they dared to prevent their centuries-old culture from being conquered by the multi-headed beast of Zionism might not be such a good idea...

...You reject the popular notion that Islam is a religion of war and instead after some study find it to be a religion of peace that holds Jesus and his mother in the highest esteem and find that the Qur’an possesses some of the most beautiful religious verse ever written...

...You think that the world’s most powerful nations, particularly those in the West, are controlled by individuals who are religious fanatics devoted to implementing some farcical, whacked-out conspiracy theory called the ‘Zionist agenda’.

...You think that the land of Palestine was once inhabited by a group of people called ‘the Palestinians’ who actually lived there for 2,000 years, and further, that this mythical group of people called ‘the Palestinians’ deserve this thing known as ‘dignity’ and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these inalienable rights are ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’...

...You think that nuclear weapons being in the hands of religious fundamentalists who possess a messianic mindset and who nurse a fanatical hatred for people of other religions besides their own is a recipe for disaster, and you’re not talking about Iran but rather Israel...

...You think that the solution to the age old ‘Jewish question’ is for the Jews to quit seeing themselves as ‘the Chosen people’ and to make an honest attempt at treating others with the same kind of respect that they themselves demand from the rest of mankind...

...You think that the recent uproar in Europe over the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed done by a Jewish supremacist named Rosen was a deliberate attempt on the part of the Zionist agenda to further enflame tensions between the Christian and Islamic worlds...

...You believe that the current spy investigation with regards to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is in the best interests of America’s national security and that it is not all just an attempt to unfairly smear Jews and taint them with the charge of being more loyal to the Israeli agenda than to what are the best interests of their own country of America...

...You believe the testimony given by a man named Victor Ostrovsky, ex-Israeli intelligence officer working for the Mossad who wrote in his two books ‘By Way of Deception’ and ‘The Other Side of Deception’ that the Israelis were planning to assassinate President George Herbert Walker Bush at the Madrid peace conference in 1991 in order to blame it on Palestinian terrorists was probably true...

...You believe that those 100 or so Israeli agents who were arrested in the wake of 9/11 in incriminating circumstances such as cheering at the destruction of the Twin Towers knew something about it beforehand and that all the jumping up and down and hollering that was taking place wasn’t all part of an out-of-the-way Bar-Mitzvah celebration...

...You believe that Americans are not obligated to sacrifice the lives of their children, their paychecks, and their security so that Israel can continue to exist like a cancer in the Middle East...

...You believe that there is an agenda to silence critics of Israel by threatening individuals for speaking out with loss of employment or imprisonment and particularly those who dare to question the mechanics of what happened during the Holocaust...

...You believe the press reports coming out of Israel which quoted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as having said to cabinet minister Shimon Peres ‘not to worry about American pressure on Israel,’ since ‘we, the Jewish people control America and the Americans know it’...

...You believe that the peoples of Iraq and Palestine have the right to defend their homelands against a foreign invasion, including the use of violence and that what they are doing today is no different than what American patriots did some 200 years ago in fighting for their freedom against a foreign, occupying power...

...You think that the business of calling Muslims and others from the Middle East ‘rag-heads, sand niggers and hajjis’ is racist in its nature...

...You believe that Israeli Intelligence was involved with the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal after seeing an AP photo of a Mossad officer at the facility sporting a Star of David Tattoo on his left shoulder...

...You do not believe that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was all about finding Weapons of Mass Destruction and you are confident that you are correct when 3 years later none have been found...

...You believe that the Jews should be held to the same standards as every other human being without being given any preferential treatment that might exonerate or in other ways cover up what has been a dark history on their part of brutality and duplicity against other peoples, and that indeed the whole idea of there being a ‘chosen race’ of people is as stupid as was the flat-earth theory that in previous centuries impeded so much of mankind’s development ...

Yes, indeed you might be an anti-Semite if you believe just one of these forbidden items...

...But then again, maybe you’re not.
 

Riverbend, Three Years...: It has been three years since the beginning of the war that marked the end of Iraq’s independence. Three years of occupation and bloodshed.

I’m sitting here trying to think what makes this year, 2006, so much worse than 2005 or 2004. It’s not the outward differences- things such as electricity, water, dilapidated buildings, broken streets and ugly concrete security walls. Those things are disturbing, but they are fixable. Iraqis have proved again and again that countries can be rebuilt. No- it’s not the obvious that fills us with foreboding.

The real fear is the mentality of so many people lately- the rift that seems to have worked it’s way through the very heart of the country, dividing people. ...

And what role are the occupiers playing in all of this? It’s very convenient for them, I believe. It’s all very good if Iraqis are abducting and killing each other- then they can be the neutral foreign party trying to promote peace and understanding between people who, up until the occupation, were very peaceful and understanding.

Three years later and the nightmares of bombings and of shock and awe have evolved into another sort of nightmare. The difference between now and then was that three years ago, we were still worrying about material things- possessions, houses, cars, electricity, water, fuel… It’s difficult to define what worries us most now. Even the most cynical war critics couldn't imagine the country being this bad three years after the war... Allah yistur min il rab3a (God protect us from the fourth year).
 

Blair on Iraq: 'I'd do it all again' (I'm sure you would, Tony)
 

Economist editor calls for Blair to quit

Go. Take George with you. Take Donald & Dick & Paul & Condi, too. GO.
 

Bush battered by US pessimism, leadership doubts
 

Third anniversary of Iraq war is marked by protests around world: In London this morning, protesters will gather in Parliament Square and march to Trafalgar Square for a rally to be addressed by MPs and other anti-war activists. Similar protests will take place in Basra and Baghdad, as well as in New York, Madrid, Rome, Sydney and many other major cities, calling for the removal of troops.
 

GlobalProtests Mark Iraq War Anniversary: Around 500 protesters marched through central Sydney, chanting "End the war now" and "Troops out of Iraq." Many campaigners waved placards branding President Bush the "World's No. 1 Terrorist" or expressing concerns that Iran could be the next country to face invasion.

"Iraq is a quagmire and has been a humanitarian disaster for the Iraqis," said Jean Parker, a member of the Australian branch of the Stop the War Coalition, which organized the march. "There is no way forward without ending the occupation."

Opposition to the war is still evident in Australia, which has some 1,300 troops in and around Iraq. Visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was heckled by campaigners in Sydney this week, who said she had "blood on her hands."
 

Death Squads Terrorize Baghdad
 

Nermeen Al-Mufti, So why are you still here?: Even by Iraq's standards, this week was tragic. On Sunday nearly 100 civilians were killed in Al-Karkh and Sadr City -- both working class neighbourhoods of Baghdad -- by car bombs. The Karkh explosion took place at about 8am, close to a school ironically named National Sovereignty. School teachers were seen soon afterwards trying to calm down screaming children in the school. Then it was all wailing and police sirens.

On the same day, the body of the president of the Engineering College of Mustansariya University was found. He had been kidnapped a few days earlier. Forty bodies of unidentified men, apparently killed by gunshot, were also found on Tuesday. ...

Iraqis live in shock and disbelief, as if the tragedy is unfolding elsewhere. The country has been witnessing a surge in sectarian violence since the bombing of the Samaraa Shrine a couple of weeks ago. Recent remarks by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld failed to cheer them up. Rumsfeld promised that US troops wouldn't intervene in the case of civil war in Iraq. The US ambassador in Iraq echoed the same sentiment.

Janan Ali, a Mustansariya University professor, is a critic of US policy in Iraq. "Since the first days of the occupation, and having failed to find mass destruction weapons or establish a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, the US administration has been telling us that it was keeping its troops in Iraq to prevent civil war. US forces have attacked several Iraqi cities on the pretext of protecting Iraqis. And now the US administration has just confessed it was lying all along. There is no more justification for Arab and international silence on the matter. The Iraqis have warned repeatedly that the continued occupation would lead to civil war."

The country's leaders don't see the bombs go off except on television, Al-Ani added. "They live in fortified palaces or in the Green Zone. They don't feel the pain."

The inhabitants of the Green Zone will be celebrating on 9 April. The cause of celebration: Iraq's new "National Day". For some people, this is a cause for joy. For many, this is just the day the nightmare started.
 

Juan Cole: AIPAC Impact on US foreign policy
Political scientists John Mearsheimer (U of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard) bravely take on the issue of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and the way it distorts US foreign policy in the Middle East. Most American Jews deeply disagree with the policies advocated by the American Enterprise Institute, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, etc., But a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew US politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine.

A longer version of the report is here.
 

Time.com, On Scene: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled: Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted humvees, green and red Iraqi flags stenciled on the tailgates, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough and slapping it to the walls of a mud oven.

The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the "largest air assault since 2003" in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released....

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ... [T]here were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.

Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves to the woman’s freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they’d found all day.
 

So, we failed to kill a lot of people? Then, what, may I ask, Dr. Khadduri, was this 'Operation' all about?
 

Iraq operation fails to find insurgents
 

1,000 more sailors expected to join ground forces in Iraq (How ever will they find their 'sea legs'?)
 

Pentagon hired contractor to advise on collecting information on churches, mosques, other U.S. sites
 

Iraq Politician: Assault 'Untimely’
 

Evelyn
Your above Comment at 10:06 a.m. on what was the operation about?

Two fold:

1- To give a small 'Iraqi' army unit some teething experience (which will evaporate as soon as their mentors desist).

2- A poor spin to the American people that 'we are winning'.

Anybody venture to estimate how much this charade has cost?

 

Cost: Immaterial.
Value: Priceless.
We've now seen this enactment on television (news!) so many times. Perhaps we've brought order into chaos? Money well spent.
 

Operation Overblown
 

Only on Fox: Footage of World Trade Center wreckage aired during coverage of Operation Swarmer

VIDEO CLIP found at above link!!!
 

Baghdad Dweller, UPDATE ON OPERATION "SLAUGHTER IRAQIS": The head of “Samara journalists Union” said Islammemo is the only independent news on the operation, all other newspapers and news agencies are embedded with US troops, that’s include, Washington Post, New York Times, AlHurra TV and Al-Arabyia TV, even Iraqi Journalists.

All the information they reports are provided by the US militry only, not a single independent news agency.
 

This is something we all can do - penalty free. No NSA. No Patriot Act infringement (not yet, at least). No jail time. No bullets. No 'crime'.
Consumers for Peace: - Join The ExxonMobil War Boycott - Buy Citgo - VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS
 

Mike Whitney, CENTCOM; the central battlefield in the global resource war: Once we observe the sharp black outline of America’s newest battlefield, the illusions of the "war on terror" are quickly dispelled. This is the geographic reality of the present conflict. The war on terror is merely public relations fluff.

The Bush master-plan cannot fully succeed without affecting regime change in Tehran and integrating Iran into the schema for regional domination. ...
 

Naeim Giladi, The Jews of Iraq: I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called "cruel Zionism." I write about it because I was part of it.

[ . . . ]

We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs - I say Arab because that is the language my wife and I still speak at home-we Arabs on numerous occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank, Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
 

wiseprince, Saddam Hussein, Leader Of Iraq: Saddam Hussein has called on the people of Iraq to join together and rather than fighting one another fight the coalition forces. The courtroom immediately cut the audio feed and removed all media from the proceedings. This drastic reaction demonstrates who owns this joke of a court. An Iraqi judge, though primarily an administrator of justice, should not be looking after the safety of the American occupying forces over the safety and unity of Iraqis. A call to fight the people who have been raping, robbing and murdering the land of your people and the people themselves seems like what a leader ought to be doing at this stage of the occupation. ...

The President of Iraq has shown he is absolutely willing to take the full responsibility of the "crimes" he has been charged with in direct contradiction of Western leaders who to this day refuse to admit that the war, as argued pre-invasion, had absolutely no legal basis. Liberal crimes in Canada, Conservative thievery in the United States, from Karl Rove to Katrina no North American leader is willing to admit fault and take full responsibility for the downfalls of a nation yet Saddam Hussein, the "Monstrous Dictator", with the threat of hanging does not shovel off any responsibility to those who he trusted. For better or for worst Saddam will not hide behind his followers. "I am the President of Iraq", he says. The more we see of post-Saddam leadership the more evident it becomes. Saddam Hussein is the leader of Iraq.
 

Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair, Three Years On - Where's the Resistance Here on the Home Front?: In its present form the Democratic Party has ceased to be a credible opposition. It is constitutionally incapable of confronting the Administration, on the war or anything else.

Their only strategy is to let George Bush self-destruct, as a kind of political suicide bomber. ...
 

Media Alliance for New Activism, Canada in Afghanistan: Top Ten Under-reported Facts -
Brief Overview:
FACT #1: Jean Chretien & Canadian Corporations Involved in Trans-Afghan Pipeline
FACT #2: Gordon O'Connor, Defence Minister, Is Former Military Lobbyist
FACT #3: Current Afghan Parliament Includes Warlords and Drug Lords
FACT #4: Afghan Warlords Considered Bigger Threat Than Taliban
FACT #5: Afghan Women Face Repression Despite Removal Of Taliban
FACT #6: Elected Afghan Woman Faces Death Threats For Speaking Out
FACT #7: Since the U.S.-led War, Afghanistan Is Increasingly Hooked on Heroin
FACT #8: U.S. And Coalition Forces Using Excessive Force & Arbitrary Detention
FACT #9: Canada Complicit In Violation of Human Rights For 'War On Terror'
FACT #10: U.S. Finds More Oil and Gas Reserves After 4-Year Search
 

Wayne Madsen Report, March 18, 2006 -- : More testimony on Custer Battles fraud in Iraq involving the Iraqi Currency Exchange (ICE) project: Testimony of retired General Hugh Tant and others prove damaging to GOP-linked contracting firm. Details of Custer Battles Enron-like offshore subsidiaries revealed. Shady firms with names like Laru, Custer Battles Levant, Red Sea Cabins, MT Holdings, and a relationship between Custer Battles and Bearing Point are outlined. Click here for Feb. 2006 abridged testimony.
(Abridged testimony, in PrintPreview: 636 pages!)


Wayne Madsen Report, March 18, 2006 -- Another day in the dictatorship called the United States: In addition to dealing with Soviet-style jamming of this web site (and others to which we are linked), an interesting episode took place this past Thursday night at Old Ebbitt's on 15th Street, just two blocks from the White House and across the street from the Treasury Department. This editor, along with a few colleagues, had our photograph taken at the bar by an individual in a business suit and trench coat who then proceeded at a fast clip outside to his waiting double parked DC-tagged sedan (complete with dark one-way view back windows) and sped off. We have the tag number and will have a friendly law enforcement official run it. Nothing may come of the query, however. DC and other jurisdictions reserve some of their state license tags for unspecified federal agency use. Ebbitt's is not the kind of place that one appreciates having his or her photo taken by federal goons. It has historically been a meeting place for Washington's literati and political set -- if the feds now believe that they can wantonly disregard the privacy of patrons of such DC gathering places, it may be far too late to rescue this severely-damaged democracy.
 

Honorable mention for honorable human beings. Hello, Egypt!
Egyptian Judges Protest Lack of Freedom: Nearly 1,000 Egyptian judges held a half-hour silent protest Friday to demonstrate for full judicial independence and against the government's order to interrogate of six of their colleagues who criticized recent elections.

The justices, wearing the red and green sashes of their profession, gathered outside their professional association, the Judges' Club, in downtown Cairo ahead of an extraordinary general assembly to discuss their grievances.

The protest was larger than previous actions by the judges and drew participants from across the country. ...
 

(How many weeks was our brave Judith Miller incarcerated?)
Freed Iranian Journalist Remains Defiant: An Iranian dissident journalist freed after spending most of his six-year prison term in solitary confinement vowed Saturday to keep criticizing the hard-line clerical regime.

Akbar Ganji, 46, appeared gaunt and considerably older, with a long beard, as he received friends and family at his Tehran home a day after being released.

"My views have not changed at all. Jail and pressures never forced me to change my views. Today, I'm more determined to say what I said six years ago," said Ganji, who was on a hunger strike for about three months last year.

"My imprisonment was unjust and will remain a great injustice forever," he added to applause from his audience.

Ganji was jailed in 2000 after reporting on the killings of five dissidents by Intelligence Ministry agents. Authorities said the articles he wrote violated the law and insulted the authorities.
 

Fatah Officials Call for Abbas to Resign: Several Fatah officials called on President Mahmoud Abbas to resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority to protest Israel's raid of a West Bank prison earlier this week, party activists said Friday.

The raid, in which Israel seized six top militants, was seen as a humiliating blow to Abbas' prestige and raised new questions in his Fatah Party about their president's ability to govern, especially following Hamas' landslide victory in a January parliamentary election.

If the Palestinian Authority is dissolved, Israel - as occupier of the West Bank and Gaza Strip - would be forced to assume responsibility for the 3 million Palestinians living there. The dissolution also would render Hamas' election victory irrelevant.

In violence Friday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 10-year-old girl during an operation in the West Bank village of Yamoun, the girl's father, Abdul Rahman Zaed, said. The girl was in a car with her uncle, who was shot in the head and arrested, Zaed said.
 

Werther, Bombs and Butchers - "Where Do We Get Such Men?": Where, indeed, do we get such men? Why do they always seem to choke the upper levels of government like kudzu on a Georgia hillside? What is the structural morphology of human society that ordains such creatures shall insert themselves into the body politic and determine its fate?

The latest example of such men--that is, men whose relation to their country is that of a tapeworm to the large intestine--comes to us courtesy of a conference on the Vietnam War held by the John F. Kennedy Library on 11 March 2006.

Among the array of self-justifying participants, the choicest quote was offered by former Chief of Staff to President Nixon and later Secretary of State Alexander Haig. He said that military leaders in Iraq are repeating a mistake made in Vietnam by not applying the full force of the military to win the war.

"Every asset of the nation must be applied to the conflict to bring about a quick and successful outcome, or don't do it," he said. "We're in the midst of another struggle where it appears to me we haven't learned very much."

Haig, whose swansong in public office was a borderline hysterical (and unconstitutional) statement that he was "in charge" after the attempted assassination of President Reagan, made a sententious declaration at the Kennedy Library that sounded reasonable--until one subjects it to a moment's analysis. Notice that once the decision for war is made according to the Haig formula, every asset of the nation should be brought to bear. But who makes the decision for war? Is it a wise one? Is it even an honest one? A skeptic would suggest that the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a fraud, as was the declaration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

With his silence, Haig implies that Americans are supposed to give a pass to "leaders" who lie the country into war, so long as those leaders direct it like berserkers. Is it the duty of Americans only to make every sacrifice necessary (and with a GDP of over $13 trillion, there are a lot of assets to be sacrificed; unfortunately they involve our children's standard of living), and never to question the rationale and the principle behind the war?

Haig does not expatiate on that question. Neither does he expound on precisely what it means to apply every asset. Would that mean fire-bombing? Nuclear weapons? Poison gas? ...
 

VotersForPeace, A New Approach: Organizing Voters to End War
 

Pledging to Vote for Peace
 

Charles Sullivan, To bleed and to die: Social change of the kind that is needed in this country has always been precipitated by organized labor. Part of the problem we face as a nation is the decline of strong labor unions. Labor has often been the driving force behind social justice movements in America. Without a strong labor presence social justice will be a very difficult proposition.

Labor unions have always been under assault by the company bosses and their cohorts in government. This connection reveals that the government does not serve the people; it serves business interests, the elite. It is thus evidence not of democracy, but of Plutocracy. ...

One way out of the morass is through organizing the work force on a massive scale, through the creation of revolutionary unions, as envisioned by Eugene Debs and others. This union must represent all workers and it must proceed on a global scale. ...

[Eugene Debs' June 16, 1918 Anti-War Speech]
 

Robert Fisk, The farcical end of the American dream: The US press is supposed to be challenging the lies of this war
 

Eamon Martin, Mysterious Photographers of Nothing; Life in the Shadows of the Empire: I help publish a small, nonprofit, independent newspaper in western North Carolina called the Asheville Global Report. We print under-reported news that casts an often-critical eye on the doings of our government at home and abroad, in the hope that our fellow citizens will find the inspiration and motivation to hold our government accountable. In doing so, our explicitly nonpartisan goal has always been to fulfill the traditional role of the press in a democratic society.

Since we began our project seven years ago, members of our staff have encountered a few unmistakable incidents of surveillance --
 

Greg Szymanski, Former U.S. Navy Officer, 68, Sends Bush His Aviator Wings In A Symbolic Gesture To Either "Shape Up Or Ship Out": "Besides the torture and illegal detention issues I strongly oppose based on my 20 years as a criminal lawyer, I find it hard to believe that Americans accept the fact that Bush has somehow been ordained as a religious savior of sorts, using this as justification to invade and attack countries without just cause. This is totally unacceptable from a legal and from a humanitarian point of view.

"To remain silent is to let you (Bush) think I approve or support your actions. I do not. So, I am saddened to give up my wings and bars. ... But I hate the torture and death you have caused more than I value their symbolism. Giving them up makes me cry for my beloved country."
 

OBVIOUS CONCLUSION: The neocons huddled together at AIPAC and PNAC - mapping out the future of the world - consider each and every one of us expendable.

QUESTION: Will we allow them to decide?
 

Bombs, bullets meet Shiite pilgrims in Iraq: Friday's bloodshed in Baghdad began as groups of faithful, many of them parents with children in tow, trekked down city streets headed for the southbound highway to Karbala.

At about 7:30 a.m., a BMW sedan driving alongside pilgrims in the western district of Adil opened fire, killing three young men and wounding two other people, ...

Then, about midday, a bomb left in a plastic bag of vegetables exploded on a minibus, ...

[Meanwhile, Operation "Swarmer" - the largest air assault operation in three years - courageouly searched a farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman making bread, successfully capturing her bread while sustaining nary a scratch to selves or fabulously decked out coalition equipment. (See 10:03 AM above)]
 

Evelyn,

I saw your post dominated here!

I love to know more info who you are and why you so interested in Iraq War?
 

War consists of killing people and destroying property. That's all there is to war. Any honest soldier will tell you the same thing: His job is to kill people and destroy property.
 

Alison Weir, AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy: According to the Society of Professional Journalists, one of the four major pillars of journalistic ethics is to "Be Accountable." According to SPJ's Code of Ethics:

"Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

"Journalists should:
* Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
* Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
* Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
* Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
* Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

"The trend toward secrecy," AP's president has correctly been pointing out, "is the greatest threat to democracy."

In the final analysis, therefore, it is up to us--members of the public--to step in. Everyone who believes that Americans have the right and the need to receive full, undistorted information on all issues, including Israel-Palestine, must take action. We must require our news media to fulfill their profoundly important obligation, and we must ourselves distribute the critical information our media are leaving out.

If we don't take action, no one else will.

AP can be reached at 212-621-1500.
 

you Iraqis should not expect any sympathy.

To many people this is just one less Muslim to worry about
( or should I say several going by the picture!)

The less Muslims there are, the better

John
 

AP email (general questions/comments): info@ap.org
 

NEW ORLEANS: Quick! Vote while the black people are gone
 

(The following article highlights for me - a relatively ignorant "Westerner" - an element of Empire which previously has escaped my notice.)
Abid Ullah Jan, Pakistan: Reeling Under Military Occupation: Pakistan is the only country that is occupied by its own armed forces on behalf of the United States of America. ... As a matter of fact, most of the British Empire was not ruled by those from the British Isles, managing direct military occupations. There were regions left in the hands of older rulers or else manufactured rulers who did the bidding of their paymasters. ... Just after the British secured Iraq in the 1920s, a Foreign Office memorandum put the case for indirect colonialism squarely:
"What we want is some administration with Arab institutions which we can safely leave while pulling the strings ourselves; something that won’t cost very much but under which our economic and political interests will be secure."

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published report—"A US-financed Military Dictatorship: Pakistan has Long, Bloody History as the US Terrorist Arm (June 2002)— Pakistani generals "were deeply involved" in drug trade and three of them were counted amongst the twelve richest generals in the world. The report adds: "Washington’s instrument has been the Pakistan army, which U.S. officials have called ‘the greatest single stabilizing force in the country.’ Its major "military" campaigns have been launched against its own unarmed people."

The military occupation of Pakistan will continue as long as the US is the Pakistani’s Army’s main supporter. If the United States or the IMF stopped pouring money into Pakistan, the government there would not be able to pay its 500,000 troops and maintain the status quo of having an upper hand in every decision from local to the provincial, national and international level. Civilians are always looked down upon and military officers are specially trained to keep the contemptuous "civilians" at arms length. Military officers are specifically instructed during their initial period of training to even avoid public transport so as to keep a distance from the occupied, oppressed general public.
 

U.S. - Iraqi Sweep Angers Sunni Arabs: Along with ammunition and arms, the soldiers seized computer discs of fatwas — edicts — issued by Islamic clerics to kill Iraqi police and soldiers, al-Talabani said.
(How terribly convenient. Somewhere - I seem to recall - having read about "paid-for" journalism.)
 

xymphora, The [Israel] Lobby as a necessary cause of Evil: ... [C]riticism of the Lobby is valid and powerful as long as the decisions would not have been made but for the actions of the Lobby. The Lobby fought hard for the Iraq war. Were it not for the Lobby, Bush would not have been able to attack Iraq as he would not have been able to muster sufficient Congressional support. The Lobby’s amazing ties to the majority of American Congressmen made the war on Iraq possible. But for the actions of the Lobby, the war would not have happened. Of course, it is also fair to say that but for the massive lie-making and PR spinning efforts by the Lobby’s agents in the White House, the Jewish neocons, the war would also not have been possible. Thus, the Lobby can be blamed for the war, as well as for many other bad American political decisions.


xymphora, The mechanics of a conspiracy: ... We know about AIPAC and its remarkable financial control over American politicians, we know about the espionage scandal, we know about JINSA, we know about the neocons and the lies that led to the attack on Iraq, we know about the Christian evangelist control over the White House and its connections to Israeli colonialism, we know about the hard lobbying going on now with respect to Syria and Iran. This isn’t anybody’s conspiracy theory. This is conspiracy fact.
[ . . . ]

I’ll have more to say about the international political and cultural conspiracy. The Israel Lobby in the United States is just one part, albeit the most important part. We need to fully document the extent and mechanics of the conspiracy in order to rebut the usual attack that this is all just another anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. A small group with a lot of money that devotes itself completely to one cause can do a lot of harm.
 

Kurt Nimmo, Horowitz Neocons Push False Left-Right Paradigm: As an example of how muddy the political waters are these days, consider Ben Johnson, managing editor of David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine, writing Paul Craig Roberts off as a conspiracy-mongering UFO-chaser because Roberts stated the obvious—the United States will eventually attack Iran as it attacked Iraq.
 

Juan Cole: Bush's Greater Middle East

Compare above to the following, posted yesterday:

Mike Whitney: CENTCOM; the central battlefield in the global resource war
 

Rumsfeld: 'Trying to figure out' what to do if Iraq falls into civil war: President George W Bush and his officials have so far refused to discuss what has become known as the "Plan B" scenario, declaring that the US military will stay in Iraq until a stable, democratic government is established.
 

Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees: As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. ...
 

Iraq occupation: Three years on and still they're lying to us: Although [John Reid] conceded that Iraqi troops were not capable of taking control yet in any of Iraq's 18 provinces, he insisted the army was growing in strength, saying there were now 240,000 troops, with 59 battalions capable of taking the lead in operations.
 

Key Events Since U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq (In case you need a brief list)
 

Iraq's Insurgents: Who's Who (Brought to you by the Washington Post)
 

Analysis: Envoy Dives Into Iraq Diplomacy: The 54-year-old, Afghan-born U.S. envoy - a snappy dresser with a soft-spoken, easy demeanor - . . .
 

"Precise Collateral Damage" -
Stars & Stripes, U.S. seeks to reduce civilian deaths at Iraq checkpoints: U.S. soldiers have killed and injured many hundreds of Iraqi civilians who unwittingly drove too close to convoys or checkpoints . . .

Commanders want those shootings reduced . . .

(Perhaps Iraqis also think this a good idea?)
 

U.N. to raise its profile in Iraq
 

Douglas Herman: Cowards All - Our
American Presidents; They Love Their Wars But Leave The Fighting To Others
 

I feel sorry for these kids as they had no choice but to be brought up in a Muslim country. They may well have turned into the next generation of terrorists who are out to destroy anything white or christian or Jewish. If only they could have been born in the Uk where people are civilised and sensible.
 

The Torture Judge; U.S. court rules our government can break international laws to keep us safe: In a startling, ominous decision—ignored by most of the press around the country—Federal District Judge David Trager, in the Eastern District of New York, has dismissed a lawsuit by a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who, during a stopover at Kennedy Airport on the way home to Canada after vacation, was kidnapped by CIA agents.

Arar was flown to Syria, where he was tortured for nearly a year in solitary confinement in a three-by-six-foot cell ("like a grave," he said). ...
 

Chris Floyd: Children of Abraham: Death in the Desert: What happened in the village of Isahaqi, north of Baghdad, on Ides of March? The murk of war – the natural blur of unbuckled event, and its artificial augmentation by professional massagers – shrouds the details of the actual operation. But here is what we know.
[ . . . ]
P
H
O
T
O
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(Article, above, here illustrated) HAVE YOU GOT KIDS? So much for targeting insurgents

(Won't someone PLEASE send these photos to George? Let him enjoy his next Fathers Day.)
 

Sky falls in on Bush the outcast
 

British soldiers going Awol have trebled since the invasion of Iraq: Ministers are planning to tackle the "refusenik" problem by introducing a new definition of desertion in the Armed Forces Bill now going through Parliament. Soldiers could now face life imprisonment if they refuse to take part in the occupation of a foreign country . . .
 

Reposted: March 17, 2006 8:19 AM Comment -
"The master class has always declared the war and the subject class has always fought the battles, . . . the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose, including their lives," and "the working class, who furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in declaring war and have never yet had a voice in declaring peace. . . . You need to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder."
Eugene Debs, June 16, 1918
 

First published March 18, 2004
Michel Chossudovsky, "We the People Refuse to Fight": Abandon the Battlefield! Disobey Unlawful Orders
 

Iraqis Face 'Painful Anniversary' of War

Meanwhile . . .
Cheney: Iraq not in civil war, predicts success
 

FLASH (Warning: Not for those with failing sense of humour): "Bush's Secret Meeting"
 

Following on Dr. Khadduri's earlier "See, no money” -
Wayne Madsen Report, March 19, 2006-- GOP-connected contractor Custer Battles e-mail talks of Filipino house maids . . . and . . . raising a $100 million fund to pursue non-government contracting work with "a lot less risk.": "We actually ordered 5 Filipino house workers, one for each bedroom! I'm actually not joking, except the bedroom part. Getting very concerned about the security situation, and while I have total confidence in Mort's staff I would not have any confidence in our new staff. We are going to bring in Flips [a pejorative term for Filipinos] to man the inside of the house, with the Sudanese and Iraqis being outside. Otherwise, we'd literally have to clear the house of boobytraps every time we left the house. Plus it will be great for parties, and Mercy can run herd." Custer concludes the e-mail, "As a reminder please send the RI [Rhode Island] water stuff and the rotation schedule so I can plan my return. Thanks again I know how hard you are working. Can I sleep in your bed while you are gone? Did you order my Pilipino masseuse?"
 

Bob Chapman, Train Wreck of the Week (March 18 2006): The world’s central banks would have us believe that they will likely work closer together to try to manage the impact of an expected long-term decline in the value of the dollar. ... What the bankers are not telling you is that they started dumping dollars five years ago. If you check [Bank for International Settlements] figures . . . you see that dollar reserve holdings have dropped precipitously. The big holders are Asian central banks, the US and Caribbean banks that are fronting for Federal Reserve monetization. We can assure you British and other European central banks will extricate themselves in due time but Asian banks will get left holding the bag.* (Emphasis added)
 

Mike Whitney, Killing Women and Children: The “My Lai Phase” Of The Iraq War: What goes through George Bush’s mind when he sees the dead bodies of Iraqi women and children loaded on the back of a pickup truck like garbage?

March 15 was another defining moment in America’s downward moral-spiral in Iraq. Eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed in a wanton act of slaughter executed by American occupiers. Photos taken at the scene show the lifeless bodies of young children, barely old enough to walk, lying motionless in the back of a flatbed truck while their fathers moan inconsolably at their side.

What parent can look at these photographs and not be consumed with rage?

The US military openly admits it attacked the house in Ishaqi where the incident took place. Reuters reports that, “Major Ali Ahmed of the Ishaqi police said US forces landed on the roof of the house in the early hours and shot the 11 occupants, including five children.”

“After they left the house they blew it up”, he said. “The bodies, their hands bound, had been dumped in one room before the house was destroyed,” (policeman) Hussein said. Police had found spent American issue cartridges in the rubble.” (Reuters)
 

Michael Klare, Saudi Arabia: the sands run out
 

Ninety-three years of bombing the Arabs: [N]ame the first town in the world where civilians were indiscriminately bombed from the air.

(If you're not an Arab there's probably not a chance in Hell you'll know the correct answer. Perhaps you won't even care.)
 

(I've never seen a film from Oz that wasn't wonderful! If you're like me in this, perhaps you'll want to explore Nick Possum, Private Eye, the home of the link directly above.)
 

Palestinians Feel Betrayed By London, Washington
 

Hassan Al-Haifi, Does John Bolton Work for Israel, or America?: What kind of venue is AIPAC to discuss topics that are part of a major spy scandal involving high-level U.S. Defense Department Officials and senior official at AIPAC? . . . But then, why shouldn't Mr. Bolton achieve his place of honor within the world of Israeli lobbyists in the United States? After all, his colleagues in the Cheney group of neo-cons have found comfortable niches there, with or without being involved in spy scandals on behalf of Israel.
 

'Toxic' cash for peerages row threatens to engulf Blair
 

Exonerating a Gitmo General
 

Dear Mr Kadduri and other people here, I do not think you can throw all balls in the American and British courts and blame this total on them. Our regime in Iraq for many years committed horrible acts against innocent Iraqi people and also those peoples in Iran, Kuwait and Israel. Where are the pictures of these victims who have died because of the acts of the Iraqi regime?

The picture you see here has been happening in Iraq for DECADES, not just in last few years. Those pictures also would have existed in Iran and Kuwait for very long periods of time, thanks to Iraqi regime!

These pictures are nothing new at all. Also, torture in Iraqis and other Arab prisons is nothing new. it has been happening fror decades with no-one saying anything at all.

Many peoples are naive enough to think that these pictures are something new but they are not, it is an old and tragic story for years and years and years under Saddam.

WHEN Saddam is seen in court in nice suits with a hearty voice and spirit, we all know that times in Iraq have changed. In his times, prisoners were not even afforded a plate of food or a painless death. look all around the Arab word for decades and you will see terrible prisons with terrible torture.

It is nothing new and never will be
 

Hibba the actual point is that the USA and GB accused to Saddam for torture, killing Iraqis etc. What have USA and GB done? Arrested tens of thousands without any trials, tortured, killed tens of thousands, destroyed cities, used chemical weapons etc. The point is that USA and GB do not have anymore the moral right to criticize Saddam and have lost all their moral authority. They did not behave any better than Saddam did and the new “beginning” they gave to Iraq has been a total disaster for Iraqis. Before Iraqis tortured and killed Iraqis. Now Americans kill and torture Iraqis. That is a big difference. What moral right Americans have to kill and torture Iraqis? Because torture in Iraqis and other Arab prisons is nothing new – come-on Hibba, nobody can be so naïve to say so.

Of course USA and GB can be and should be blamed. If Saddam is demanded to be responsible what happened in Iraq during his watch, so should USA and its president “carry” the responsibility what happens in Iraq during his watch. It would rather funny if only dictators are “responsible” and leaders of “the free world” can do what ever they want without any responsibility.

Saying the word magic word TERRORIST doesn’t give any nation (including USA and Israel) the right to do anything they want if they want to be called civilized nations. Now the president (dictator) of Belarus calls the opposition “terrorists” and uses the methods USA has “introduced”. Can USA blame him? No because USA uses basically same terminology and methods in the famous war against terror.
 

Saddam and Saddam alone is to blamed for Iraq problems. He was never force to collaborated with the west; he was never force to kill his own people and attack Kuwait, Iran and Israel, it was his call.

At the point in the 1970s when the Arabs world enforced an embargo on certain west nations for supporting Israel, what did Saddam do? He sold oil to these west nations, particularly the US. Did Saddam support the Arab and Muslim cause WHEN IT MATTERED? No he did not. Is that the only way he could make Iraq prosperous? by defying otherArab and Muslim nations while pandering to the US!

In the end when you play fire you get burned.

What intelligent leader with foresight is going to invade an oil-rich neighbour that the world rely on?

When Iraq invaded Kuwait there was a lot of support within the Arab world for Saddam.

Fact is that the Arab world is in disarray and does not know what it wants, what it is looking for or what is even right or wrong!

Many Arab and Muslim countries are best buddies woth the US anyway! So to blame US for all this is plain incorrect. You have to look at broader picture! Arabs are as much part of the mess as the US and Israel is.
 

Hibba nobody forces USA to mess around middle east or Israel to occupy West Bank. Naturally Arabs should be responsible for the mess in Arab countries, like USA is responsible for the mess in USA and Israel for the mess in Israel. The difference is that USA has military presence in Middle East. Arabs do not occupy or threaten militarily in reality USA and Israel.

I am not convinced that Arab world does not know what it wants as you claim. Of course it knows, the political problem is that what the Arab world wants is not what USA wants and what some of the “Arab” leaders USA helps to grip on power want. For example the people of Arab world want USA to end the occupation of Palestine. USA could demand it easily and Israel would not have any options. USA could demand a nuclear free zone to Middle East, demand Israel to give up its nuclear weapons and others would most certainly sign a such treaty. USA could guaranty Israel’s safety by a defence treaty and its 1948 or 1967 borders. These examples show that USA could easily create real stability and peace in Middle East without wars and occupation, if there would be the political will. But oddly that will exists only in speeches not in actions.

Hibba the day USA occupied Iraq it also took the responsibility of the area. Blaming Saddam for the problems NOW in Iraq is childish. Saddam has been jail for years. The reason that Iraqis hate the US occupation is caused by the occupation. You should see "the broader picture".
 

SimoHurtta,
Thank you so much for your very appropriate comments. As usual, your incisive clarity helps me see the forest rather than just the trees. (Or, as you would say, "the broader picture"!)
 

US blasted for creating terrorism "quagmire" on anniversary of Iraq war
 

Remi Kanazi, What has become of Iraq?: I always hear “bring the troops home.” Not only do it for the troops this time, do it for the Iraqi people.
 

Slate, Civil Disagreement: All the papers lead with Iraq. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal focus on the statements by President Bush, and top people in his administration, who insisted yesterday that progress has been made since the invasion of Iraq three years ago.

Knight Ridder got its hands on an Iraqi police document that says American troops executed 11 people, including an elderly woman and an infant, after a raid last Wednesday. A U.S. military spokesman said they had never heard of the allegations and added that it's "highly unlikely that they're true."
 

Blair unrepentant, but still tormented by legacy of war: The Prime Minister judged that "being there" would buy Britain precious influence with the United States. Three years on, the balance sheet looks pretty one-sided. The British-inspired effort to get a new United Nations mandate for military action fizzled out. Foreign Office warnings about the lack of a plan for the aftermath of the invasion fell on deaf ears in Washington and the painful, gruesome consequences are all too apparent today.
 

Iraq enters fourth year of war with more deadly violence
 

U.S. War Spending to Rise 44%
 

Iraqi police say U.S. troops executed 11, including baby
 

Bush says Iraq war laying a 'foundation of peace' ("Hold your nose" material)
 

In Saddam's Torture Chamber, a Grim Picture of US Abuse
 

Iraq as 'playing field'? -
'Iraq was awash in cash. We played football with bricks of $100 bills'
 

White House no longer sees quick end
 

Recommended -
Tom Engelhardt, Connecting the Dots, Bush-Style

(Passing on two valuable resources noted by Engelhardt: The Global Beat, a project of Boston, University, and Tony Karon's blog.)
 

Sidney Blumenthal, Iraq: The big lie - Bush and Rumsfeld robotically repeat their Iraq talking points, ignoring the fact that their ambassador and generals are contradicting them.

Three years after coming ashore, some neoconservatives are experiencing the torments of disillusionment. Their most cherished dreams are encrusted with the blood and sand of Iraq. There are no second chances. ...
 

Many Iraqis Don't See Normalcy for at Least a Decade
 

Juan Cole, Top Ten Catastrophes of the Third Year of American Iraq: [ . . . ]
3. The constitution allows provinces to establish provincial confederacies. This provision reflections the model adopted by the Kurds in the north, which is now attractive to Shiite parties in the south. These confederacies can claim 100 percent of the revenues from all future petroleum, natural gas and other natural resource finds. The loose, weak federal government, like the early American state under the Articles of Confederation will be robbed of sovereignty (and income) by ambitious provincial elites. It is possible that these provincial confederacies may break up the country.
 

Well, now ! . . .
Vatican change of heart over 'barbaric' Crusades: THE Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference at the weekend that portrays the Crusades as wars fought with the “noble aim” of regaining the Holy Land for Christianity.
 

Chávez: 'George W Bush, you are a donkey'
 

Britain condemns Israel over fatal shooting of a Palestinian child
 

If you're tired of reading . . .
FLASH: BECOME REPUBLICAN
 

Did I say the US was blame-LESS? No I do not say this.

It is about Saddam regime and the Arab countries taking SOME (i.e. half) of the responsability for the whole mess now. It is about accepting the realities of the situation now and in history. Do you REALLY think that supporting people or groups like Arafat, Hamas and Saddam is in the best interests of furthering the cause of Arab peoples? I think not. Giving these people excuses or voting them into power is almost a death sentence for helping out Arabs.

Bad events do not just spontaneously happen because of one country, it will involve many in that chain and in this case the mess in Iraq involves as many Arabs as it does Americans.

Arab nations have no idea what they want otherwise they would have a UNITED arab league with a UNITED vision and a united goal. They do not at all and that is WHY an oil embargo will NEVER be enforced on the west in these present days. America has too many allies such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi and UAE.

Saddam created a lot of the sectarian animosity now in Iraq. For years he pounded the Shia and Kurds with weapons, chemical weapons and shere brute force. Now you think those Shia and Kurd people now in power hold no grudges? Of course they will and it is now surfacing in worse way.

Its a 50/50 world now. America has merely unleashed the worse that human nature has to offer. The worse which has been produced by decades of slaghter within Iraq itself and perpetrated by Saddam regime upon their own people.

Really - ask yourself - what kind of leaders takes his country head on into a brutal 8 year war with a neighbour, only to recommit his country to war with another neighbour only 18 months after the finish of the first one, and in the process literal wasting Iraqi life left right and centre?

That tells me WHERE Iraq problems were born. Everything has to be born to grow either into a good thing or a bad thing. Saddam is father,
 

Increasingly, Rumsfeld a lightning rod for Iraq criticism: General Eaton wrote in a commentary in The New York Times that "Rumsfeld is not competent to lead America's armed forces," and that President Bush should accept the resignation that Rumsfeld has offered in the past.
 

ABUGATE
 

DIANE CHRISTIAN, Over to You, Dante - License to Lie: The license to kill in Iraq follows a license to lie. 'Spin' is a scurrilous euphemism to use here, because the game isn't words, but wounding and killing and destroying. Rumsfeld is agile with words - he tried to contain the Abu Ghraib photos by saying they were 'radioactive.' He is a perfect machiavel - ruthless, arrogant, and single-minded, swathed in rimless glasses and sober, steadfast and stern demeanor. If Dante were around he'd have a new image for Geryon, the effigy of fraud. "His face was the face of a just man, so mild an aspect had it outwardly; and the rest was all a reptile's body."
 

JEFF HALPER, "To Hell With All of You" - The Power of Saying No: Since it is the international community, the US, Israel and, yes, Fatah, who have closed all avenues of redress to the Palestinians, they carry the "blame" for the rise of Hamas. It is to them that the message of the Palestinian electorate is aimed: "To hell with all of you!"

Indeed, the vote for Hamas was not a closing of the door at all, but a rational, intentional and powerful statement of non-cooperation in a political process that is only leading to Palestinian imprisonment. Hamas, if anything, stands for steadfastness, sumud, the refusal to submit. This conflict is too destabilizing to the entire global system to let fester, the Palestinians are saying. You can all impose upon us an apartheid system, blame us for the violence while ignoring Israeli State Terror, pursue your programs of American Empire or your notions of a "clash of civilizations," we the Palestinians will not submit. We will not cooperate. We will not play your rigged game. In the end, for all your power, you will come to us to sue for peace. And then we will be ready for a just peace that respects the rights of all the peoples of the region, including the Israelis. But you will not beat us.

As an Israeli Jew who sees how the Occupation has eroded the moral foundations of my society and, indeed, my entire people, and as a resident of Israel-Palestine who knows that my fate is intricately intertwined with that of the Palestinians, I pray that such an end will come sooner rather than later.
 

NORMAN SOLOMON, Is There a Right Way to Wage a Wrong War? - Why are We Here?: On Saturday, during her national radio response to the president, Senator Dianne Feinstein accused the Bush administration of "incompetence" in the Iraq war.

What would be a competent way to pursue the war in Iraq? How would you drop huge bombs on urban neighborhoods in a competent way? How would you deploy cluster munitions that shred the bodies of children in a competent way? How would you take hundreds of thousands of people from their home land and send them to a country to kill and be killed -- based on lies -- in a competent way?
 

Cheer up, folks! -
Wayne Madsen Report March 20, 2006 -- : Its not often that a film can affect the body politic of a nation. But that is the effect of the movie released on St. Patrick's Day, V for Vendetta. Set in a near future England ruled by a Conservative Party government-turned-fascist, the hero, a horribly burned escaped political prisoner named "V" who dons a Guy Fawkes mask, cape, hat, and has an array of fancy weapons (sort of a Zorro, Phantom of the Opera, and Batman clone), blows up London's Old Bailey judicial building and the Houses of Parliament as an act of vengeance for the genocide and political repression carried out by the fascist government. ...

What has our own fascist right wing media hopping mad are the references to the Bush regime and its wars. One political dissident in the movie has a secret room displaying banned art and posters. One of the posters is from the anti- Iraq war London protests -- it displays a U.S. flag and U.K. flag inter-connected by a swastika with the words "Coalition of the Willing." ...

The left has always been tolerant to a point. But pushed against the wall, the progressives of the world have always discovered how to treat their vanquished enemies -- just look at what happened to Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Pierre Laval, Vidkun Quisling, and other fascist leaders of the 20th century.

V has one bit of advice that is already echoing around the Internet: "People shouldn't be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of their people."

The right-wing has plenty to be worried about with the movie V for Vendetta. They will first see the push back in the November elections (and woe be it to them if they once again engage in election fraud). And upon electoral victory will inevitably come the indictments, trials, impeachments, imprisonments, electoral recalls, and, if need be, deportations, or as they called them during the days of Guy Fawkes, banishment.
 

Palestinians losers in Mideast water war: Israel is believed to monopolise around 75 percent of Palestinian water resources in a region where rainfall is infrequent and water a strategic asset.
 

http://www.armscontrol.org/
 

Media Avoids Covering Vote on Permanent Bases: Something is happening in Iraq that most Americans have never heard about, but many Americans think the war is being fought for: the United States is building what look like permanent military bases.

Something happened in Congress last Thursday that most Americans have not heard about*. A number of Congress Members, led by Barbara Lee and Tom Allen, proposed an amendment to the latest giant spending bill for the war, an amendment forbidding the United States to establish permanent bases in Iraq.

Both Lee and Allen spoke on the floor in support of the amendment, as did [others]. See them on TV? How about on the radio?

The amendment passed! (Emphasis added.)
----------------------
* True. I pay attention, and this is information is new to me!
 

Military Investigating Deadly Raid in Iraq
 

Iraqis Think U.S. in Their Nation to Stay
 

Ted Lang, 911 ­ One Simple Question: Was there, or were there, "stand down" drills and orders in place to deliberately make the United States of America vulnerable on that day? All that is required of the criminal, mass-murdering Bush regime is a simple "yes or no" answer!
 

America can't block UN's new human rights body: AGAINST strong American opposition the United Nations has overwhelmingly voted to establish a new body to promote human rights around the world.

In an unusual split with the US, Australia was one of the 170 countries that supported a new body to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission.

The Human Rights Council will have upgraded status, will be a standing body which meets regularly - the old commission met for just a few weeks each year - and hold special sessions to deal with a crisis.

The US was one of just four countries to oppose the new body, and demanded that each country's vote be recorded. Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau also voted against it.
 

'Goodbye My Beloved Father, Martyred By the Americans'
 

VIDEO (MEMRI TV), We Are Against America's 'Democratic' Jihad: “Those who plundered, colonized, occupied, killed, executed, and dropped uranium are considered men of peace, who spread democracy.”
 

Greg Szymanski, Part One: The Strange Case of Dr. Francesco Pazienza Donato. His Story Opens the Door to How America Sponsors Terrorism Abroad and How It Has Tried to Destroy Italy and the Italian Lifestyle: Dr. Pazienza, first hired by Michael Ledeen, has been locked away in jail as a 'political prisoner' for more than 20 years and now is in solitary confinement.

If the truth ever is fully known about the strange case of Dr. Francesco Pazienza, the lid should be finally blown sky-high off the White House, blowing a hole so deep and wide that every President since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan will be nabbed for treasonous high crimes against humanity and the civilized world.

And according to observers in Italy when the dust finally settles, the reason why Pazienza is being held as "a political prisoner" should finally put the finishing touches on despicable men like Michael Ledeen, Karl Rove and President George W. Bush, to name a few.
[ . . . ]
 

Dahr Jamail, Operation Swarm of Lies: Operation Swarm of Lies is part of yet another Cheney administration media blitz to put a happy face on this horrendously failed misadventure in Iraq. . . . But this operation of mass distraction has served other purposes as well. Operation Swarm of Lies served well in diverting media attention in the US from US/UK covert operations in Iran last Friday. . . . Operation Swarm of Lies also effectively distracted media attention from the arrest of an American "security contractor" in Tikrit last week.

Barbaric, savage and irresponsible are words that can also be used to describe the true nature of Operation Swarm of Lies.

Just this past Sunday, the Director of the Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI), Muhamad al-Deraji, issued an appeal to the UN mission in Baghdad regarding violations committed by the US military operation near Samarra.

"We have received information from citizens and human rights activists in Samarra stating that the region, under American and Iraqi military operation ... is witnessing dangerous human rights violations, which is confirmed by the following:

1 - The Red Crescent aiding missions are not allowed to enter the region.

2 - [Independent] Press and media are, as well, forbidden from entering the region.

3 - Women and children are not allowed to leave the region of military operations.

4 - Receipt of news indicates presence of violations and assault for citizens aiming to terrorize them and forces them to emigrate from this region, through arresting the men and forcing women and their horrified children to escape later, on and leave the region aiming to build a military base there."

Most importantly, however, is the human tragedy which Operation Swarm of Lies has both generated as well as diverted attention from.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, via the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported on Sunday, "Hundreds of families displaced due to major offensive."

The report says "hundreds of families have fled the city of Samarra" as the result of Operation Swarmer. Barakat Muhammad, a resident and father of five who lives in Samarra told IRIN, "When they started to hit our city I didn't take anything. I just took my family and ran like hell. We don't have anything to eat or wear."

Despite claims by the US military that no shots were fired, obviously bombs were dropped on civilians.

And the al-Qaida suspects killed by this particular air strike were of the younger variety this time around, again as usual for the US military in Iraq.

But of course, all of this was effectively overshadowed by Operation Swarm of Lies.
 

Larry Chin, America’s goose step to nuclear brink: New Bush National Security Strategy, new Osama propaganda, target Iran: With each passing hour, the Bush administration continues to push the world closer to a nuclear holocaust. In recent days, Bush has unveiled a new National Security Strategy that not only affirms the doctrine of the 2002 National Security Strategy, but pushes even more aggressively for preemptive and presumptive attacks.
 

Cindy Sheehan, The bodies are piling up: Honor the dead. Protect the living. End the war.
 

Say,
I've only now seen your comment left on March 18th.

Who I am: A very ordinary American with ordinary skills and interests.

Regarding my Iraq focus, it has grown from my strong need to understand my country's role in the world. Early in 2003, after many years abroad, I returned to the U.S. just as Colin Powell was going to the U.N. with his "case" against Iraq. In my ignorance, I believed he was telling the truth. I could not imagine it otherwise.

I have landed at 'Free Iraq' almost by chance, mainly, as it happens via Riverbend, whose blog I discovered shortly after she began writing. Riverbend helped me see the personal, the human, the reality of Iraq. Ultimately I could not help but question and search for more areas of truth that previously had escaped me. And I am appalled. Appalled that I could have been so ignorant about the true nature of American foreign policy. Appalled that we are so insulated from the truth. Appalled that it has been so easy to lie to us. Appalled at the hideous suffering wrought by our ignorance and apathy. Appalled that the men (and women) who are running us all into the grave seem not to give a damn.

I am grateful to Dr. Khadduri for allowing me to romp all over his blog. My ongoing concern, however, is that others get crowded out by my entries. You are right in using the word "dominated". Please know that is not my intention. Nothing delights me more than finding a comment left by yourself or Abu Hasan or SimoHurtta or MadAsHell or Nadia or EnglishWoman or TooBad4US or Bishop or Fazia or Claude Dorsel (or others whose names escape me right now).

To all of you, please contribute. The landscape is so much richer when you do.
 

Hibba what I have read about Iraqi comments that the secretarial division has got worse under USA rule. Iraqis say in their blogs and other writings that before it did not matter so much I you were a Sunni, Shia, Christian, Kurd etc.

The constitution USA “wrote” to Iraq is the primus motor of further secretarial division. It forces each “ethnic” group to organize behind their ethnic party and hinders efficiently the formation of normal political parties in the sense we understand them in Western Europe. Parties created on the basis of ideology (liberal, conservative etc) and / or on the demands of a certain class of the society (workers and farmers party). It is the new constitution which pushes the Iraqi groups further away from each other. It is a classic example of divide and conquer. If the majority can’t rule, because the American Ambassador feels that the elected majority leaders are to religious and friendly to Iran, is that a functioning democracy?

Of course Iraqis and Arabs in general are responsible of the mess in their countries. So it should be. It is their right, the countries belong to them. The point is that USA should have as little responsibility from the mess in Iraq and Arab countries as Finland has to answer. Almost zero. If Arabs support as you say leaders like “Saddam, Hamas, Arafat” it is up to them. Israelis do not choose Arab leaders or Arabs Israeli leaders. If Americans support and choose people like George Bush as their leaders we others can only wonder it. Americans hate Chirac, Israelis hated Arafat, Arabs hate Sharon, most of the world hates now George Bush. That is how it is.

Ask your self Hibba what where the circumstances in which Saddam led Iraq to war against Iraq. Saudi Arabia promised to pay it and USA gave all its support for that war. Do not be naive Hibba. Saddam was a normal average Middle Eastern dictator, not a reincarnation of Stalin and Hitler. Saddam was not worse than USA’s Shah in Iran or other dictators in the region.
 

Same here. I haven't recovered yet from the total dismay I felt when, only one or two days later, it became obvious the Colin Powell presentation at the UN was a tissue of lies.

Before that, I was opposed to war on principle, because of the suffering of the people involved, but still believed the attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, et... still had a vague justification in reality.
 

"normal average Middle Eastern dictator".

Can you define this? There is no such thing. We are not talking about common garden people and events.

SimoHurrta this really tell me that you are try to minimize the impact this man had on poor Iraqis and on other Arabs and Muslims.

I do not know any other middle east country leader that committed his country to TWO separate BACK-TO-BACK wars with fellow Muslims - which amounted to 11 non-stop years of utter annilations of Iraqi men and their wifes and childrens. 11 years of sending young men to the Iranian and kuwaiti fronts to face slaughter on a grand scales by unimaganable weapons.

I do not know of any other Arab leader that has also attacked hundreds of thousands of his OWN people, committed genocide, attacked with chemical weapons and killed even his own flesh and blood in orders to keep the powers that he gripped with blood-stained pathological hands.

Saddam also made UN sanction worse by selling things that Iraqis needed on the black market in other countries.

Even when Iraqis were not at the war fronts, he STILL made sure that their life was miserable and meaningless as possible. He still made sure children died with lack of medicine and food.

There was nothing "normal" or "average" about him even in terms of speaking about dictates.

I look forward to seeing him execute.

Arabs have to learn to start to look in the right directions and away from murderers as leaders. They have to start to show themselves as sophisticated and intelligent beings who are no longer isolated.

I find it so sad when Iraqis cannot live together unless a dictator is there with iron rod. This tells me bad things that need to be fixed
 

I agree with Hiba especially on the point that the Arab world is in total disarray.

The split between Arab countries with regard to the US became apparent not so long ago when a scheduled Arab League summit was abruptly cancelled in Tunisia.

Only 11 of the 22 member states' foreign ministers met to draft a common position on US-propelled political reforms prior to the summit. They failed to agree on the language to be used on the subject.
At least seven Arab leaders bowed out of the meeting to avoid embarrassment over the reforms.

The disarray led Tunisian President to cancel the summit indicating that even discussing, let alone implementing the initiative was a problem.

It had to be rescheduled.

Some Arab countries rejected US plan, others called for political reform plans to be embraced.

Libya's President accused Kuwait and Saudi Arabia of serving American interests in the Arab world whilst the United Arab Emirates requested that Saddam be asked to step down in return for immunity from prosecution before the war.

In other summits the Arab nations were deeply divided as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon's Hizbollah, and the Palestinians formed an alliance to drive Israel into the sea while Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt insist on taking a more moderate road.

These are just a few examples

Arab politics is an old fossilized maze and unable to function or make sensible decisions for the Arab people.

As for Saddam, he has made his own bed and now he can lay in it. He has himself to blame and that is it as far as my opinion goes. May the Iraqi people deal with him as they like. He won't last long now. There will be no 5 year stint at the inept Hague for him - just good old fashioned brutal cold justice that must be served asap
 

An Iraqi Tear, Halabja the Political Victory!: Iraqis, before the anger of Halabja, used to think that the Kurds are living in another world; a world of prosperity and safe.. Now they are discovering that they are on the same boat; fighting for their rights no matter if they are Arabs, Kurds or Turkmens!

Halabja became an industry directed by international media and relations companies exactly like the issue of Kuwaiti incubators which was the main pretext used by Bush senior to lunch the war forcing Saddam out of Kuwait in 1991; Halabja became exactly a "tool" in the hands of Bush and others used whenever they need to use it!
 

Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations: "We played by the rules of the game," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said at a session in the mid-1990s. "In 1991, our weapons were destroyed."
 

Insurgents Free 33 Inmates in Brazen Raid
 

Iraqis Detail Deadly U.S. Marine Raid: Ali, 76, whose left leg was amputated years ago because of diabetes, died after being shot in the stomach and chest. His wife, Khamisa, 66, was shot in the back. Ali's son, Jahid, 43, was hit in the head and chest. Son Walid, 37, was burned to death after a grenade was thrown into his room, and a third son, 28-year-old Rashid, died after he was shot in the head and chest, Rsayef and Hamza said.

Also among the dead were son Walid's wife, Asma, 32, who was shot in the head, and their son Abdullah, 4, who was shot in the chest, Rsayef and Hamza said.

Walid's 8-year-old daughter, Iman, and his 6-year-old son, Abdul-Rahman, were wounded and U.S. troops took them to Baghdad for treatment. The only person who escaped unharmed was Walid's 5-month-old daughter, Asia. The three children now live with their maternal grandparents, Rsayef and Hamza said.

Rsayef said those killed in the second house were his brother Younis, 43, who was shot in the stomach and chest, the brother's wife Aida, 40, who was shot in the neck and chest while still in bed where she was recuperating from bladder surgery. Their 8-year-old son Mohammed bled to death after being shot in the right arm, Rsayef said.

Also killed were Younis's daughters, Nour, 14, who was shot in the head; Seba, 10, who was hit in the chest; Zeinab, 5, shot in the chest and stomach; and Aisha, 3, who was shot in the chest. Hoda Yassin, a visiting relative, was also killed, Rsayef and Hamza said.

The only survivor from Younis's family was his 15-year-old daughter Safa, who pretended she was dead. She is living with her grandparents, Rsayef said.

The troops then shot and killed four brothers who were walking in the street, Rsayef and Hamza said, identifying them as the sons of Ayed Ahmed - Marwan, Qahtan, Jamal and Chaseb.

U.S. troops also shot dead five men who were in a car near the scene, Hamza and Rsayef said. They identified the five as Khaled Ayad al-Zawi and his brother Wajdi as well as Mohammed Battal Mahmoud, Akram Hamid Flayeh and Ahmad Fanni Mosleh.
 

Mike Whitney, Bush Employs the Salvador Option; Death Squad Democracy: The notion that Iraq is now consumed by civil war depends on a number of assumptions that are inherently false. First of all, it assumes that the Pentagon is ignoring the fundamental principle which underscores all wars: "Know your enemy". In this case, there's no doubt about who the enemy is; it is the 87% of the Iraqi people who want to see an immediate end to the American occupation. Therefore, the greatest threat to American objectives of permanent bases and occupation is the camaraderie that that manifests itself in the form of Arab solidarity or Iraqi nationalism.

In a larger sense, the "alleged" sectarian violence is consistent with what we have seen in previous CIA-run operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Negroponte are alumna of those conflicts (which, according to Cheney, succeeded quite admirably) so it's probable that they would apply what they have learned about counterinsurgency to the ongoing war in Iraq. The El Salvador-experiment proved that the masses can eventually be terrorized into compliance.
 

British troops swoop on Basra 'smugglers': In a night-time operation, 300 soldiers flooded Basra, securing the city, while several platoons were sent in to carry out precisely timed arrests at nine different addresses on the outskirts. Seven suspects were taken.
 

Juan Cole, Sunni Arabs demand War Reparations from US: Al-Zaman says that the Association of Muslim Scholars (hard line Sunni clerics) issued a communique on the third anniversary of the war, saying, "The American plan has failed" and warning Iraqi forces that they "should not fool themselves that they are battling terrorists who have arrived from abroad."

The text says, "Everyone must realize that the American plan has failed in Iraq. We demand not just the withdrawal of Occupation troops in accordance with a timetable agrred upon with the United Nations but also that reparations be paid for the losses attendant on this attack."
 

A Look at the City of Tal Afar: . . . Tal Afar has become one of four cities north and west of Baghdad where U.S. forces have constructed huge sand barriers around the towns to limit access.

Since the second operation in Tal Afar, where a significant U.S.-backed Iraqi force remains within striking distance, the city has been far less restive. (Pacified 'democracy'?)
 

Time, One Morning in Haditha: According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children.

The U.S. has paid relatives of the victims $2,500 for each of the 15 dead civilians, plus smaller payments for the injured. ...
 

Hassan A El-Njajjar, State of the Zionist Empire Three Years After the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq: [T]he invasion and occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with the pretexts of weapons of mass destruction and links with Alqaeda. It also has nothing to do with Bush Jr. or his administration per se. It has everything to do with the Zionist Empire and its plans of world domination. The US and American presidents have been used as tools to achieve the objectives of this Empire.

We need to correct our course as soon as possible before it is too late. We still remember the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breaking away of its republics. We still remember the humiliation the Russians felt when they couldn't even bring home their troops from east Germany because they didn't have the resource to do so.

Let's end the Empire and keep the United States, before it's too late and we lose both.
Let's stop our politicians' humiliating loyalty to Israel.
Let's stop all aid to the Israeli occupation government until it withdraws from the Palestinian occupied territories and leave the Palestinian people alone.
Let's put America first, before the Zionist Empire. (Emphasis in original)
 

William A.Cook, Israeli Human Rights; Starve the Palestinians: On the third anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq broadcast in full shock and awe to the world via green TV screens that all might see the night devastation of the city, another invasion was underway in Gaza, a silent invasion of human rights that, in its barbarity, casts its own shock and awe, the starvation of the people of Gaza by closure of that prison's gates by Israeli IDF. David Shearer of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA) stated, "What we were warning before was that stocks (of wheat) were getting low. Today we are saying stocks are gone, and the end point has been reached." Israel has closed Gaza's commercial lifeline, the Al-Minter Crossing, these past 50 days in peak harvest time, preventing the export of goods and stopping the import of bread supplies. 3,594 MT of wheat flour contracted to local mills did not enter. Now there is no bread and the 70% of Palestinians living below the poverty line have no food. This barbarity one does not expect from the people who cried for protection from fascist forces when they were under siege.

Perhaps as we watch the Israelis enter their voting booths on the 28th, we might hope that the branding of Israel as a genocidal nation might cause a twinge of moral outrage and put into office a government that would seek reconciliation with the Palestinians rather than devastation of them. ...
 

xymphora, Return of the aluminum tube monster
 

Robert Fisk, The Iraq War: Three Years On - The march of folly, that has led to a bloodbath: It is the march of folly. In 1914, the British, French, and Germans thought they would be home by Christmas. On the 9th of April 2003, corporal David Breeze of the 3rd Battalion, 4th US Marine Regiment - the very first American to enter Baghdad - borrowed my satellite phone to call his home in Michigan. "Hi you guys, I'm in Baghdad," he told his mother. "I'm ringing to say 'Hi, I love you. I'm doing fine. I love you guys.' The war will be over in a few days. I'll see you all soon."
[ . . . ]

Civil war? There never was a civil war. It is a tribal, not a sectarian society. Some organisation wants a civil war; oddly, it was an occupation force's spokesman, a certain Dan Senor, who first warned of civil war in Iraq at an Anglo-American press-conference in 2003. Why? We talk of civil war far more than the Iraqis do. Why? Repeatedly, we are told that Iraqis and Westerners are kidnapped by "Men wearing police uniforms" or by "Men wearing army uniforms".

What is this nonsense? Are we really to believe that there is a vast warehouse in Fallujah containing 8,000 made-to-measure police uniforms for potential insurgents? No! The truth is that many of the policemen and soldiers or Iraq, upon whose loyalty and courage our retreat, according to Bush, depends, are themselves insurgents. So deeply have the nationalists/Islamists forces infiltrated these men that the Bush-Blair promises of withdrawal are the very opposite of the truth. We are on our own. We may persuade our ex-spooks, like the former "interim prime minister" Iyad Alawi, who obediently claimed yesterday that therewas a civil war in progress, to try to frighten Iraqis. The reality is that our armed presence in Iraq is destroying an entire people.
 

Excerpt -
Howard Zinn, America’s Blinders: Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, . . . we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. . . .

Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the biggest lie. In the history of secrets, withheld from the American people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with different interests in this country. To ignore that—not to know that the history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor—is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by people in power.

If we as citizens start out with an understanding that these people up there—the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, all those institutions pretending to be “checks and balances”—do not have our interests at heart, we are on a course towards the truth. Not to know that is to make us helpless before determined liars.

The deeply ingrained belief—no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general—that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to “pledge allegiance” (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with “liberty and justice for all.”

Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted that belief in the minds of many people, that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. . . .

A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice.

(Howard Zinn, above, precisely captures the American experience.)
 

An Interview with Chalmers Johnson (Part 1) - Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: Empires are defined so often as holders of colonies, but analytically, by empire we simply mean the projection of hegemony outward, over other people, using them to serve our interests, regardless of how their interests may be affected.

So what kind of empire is ours? The unit is not the colony, it's the military base. ... An empire of bases -- that's the concept that best explains the logic of the 700 or more military bases around the world acknowledged by the Department of Defense. Now, we're just kidding ourselves that this is to provide security for Americans. In most cases, it's true that we first occupied these bases with some strategic purpose in mind in one of our wars. Then the war ends and we never give them up.
 

Paul Craig Roberts, America is Not God; Bush's Delusional Speech: The security of Americans has nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. Iraq cannot overthrow the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, and American civil liberties. Iraq cannot illegally spy on American citizens, declare them to be "suspects" and detain them forever without warrant or charges. Iraq cannot put American critics of the Bush regime on "no-fly" lists.

The real dangers to Americans reside in the neocon Bush administration. This delusional warmonger administration believes it has the power and the right to dictate to Muslim countries their political and social institutions. This extraordinary arrogance and hubris breeds opposition where there was none. The world is not going to obey Bush and a handful of stupid neocons.
 

Dr. Norman D. Livergood: We Can No Longer Afford Vulture Capitalism (A wealth of material contained here. Not a commentary for quick skimming.)
 

Let the good times roll !!!

- 15 Million Brits Losing Savings in Blair's Supposed Safe Bet: Too bad!

- Bush Signs Bill That Didn't Pass Congress: The discrepancy between the version Bush signed and the actual bill that passed equates to a value of $2 billion.

$2 billion? So what!
- US spends its way to 28 Eiffel towers: made out of pure gold: IF YOU are worried about how much you owe on your credit cards, this might put things in perspective: America’s national debt limit was increased yesterday to $9 trillion. That’s $9,000,000,000,000 — enough to buy Buckingham Palace 9,000 times.

- For Sale By Bush Admin: 300,000 Acres Of National Wilderness...
 

Saddam also made UN sanction worse by selling things that Iraqis needed on the black market in other countries.

Hiba,
I think you forgot who support Saddam and who writes the reports within Ba'ath Party caused lives of hundreds of Iraqi killed it’s done by Iraqis themselves like Tawfiq Alsamarai and others.

Just to remind you what some Iraqi did with Abdul Karim Kasim? Who did the killing in Musel? Who did the miss? Is it Karim Kasim not but those the criminals Iraqi those who between us but sadly we dot care about them those who are sick and careless those they have no loyalty to Iraq those who have no believe in their hearts.

Zeina,
I agree with all what you said, but just one point I need to clear that most the Arabs regimes are killers but because they supported we did not hear about their criminal or there are no news or reports telling us what’s there and what’s happened on their land this is some samples from old news,
1- All we remember the massacre in the Ka'aba when some Saudis fighting inside the Haram the Saudi forces and what happened to them.

2- Al-Saud old days used to be picks their oppositions by Chops and through them in the desert الربع الخالي.

3- Algeria just days ago the police killed 17,000.00 people in Algeria. After the Islamist win the elections and the flowing years of instability in Algeria...

4- 5000.00 citizenship striped from them through them on boarders from Qatar because one of tribe member killed or tried to kill American where the Americans troops their.
 

HISTORICAL COLLATERAL BY POLONIUS

Looting and raping, killing of
The innocent, these are
Collateral, collateral
When making merry war.

It was to be expected as
The troops made forward thrust--
Collateral, collateral
In war is right and just.

The battle goes exactly as predicted,
Suffering, pain, ubiquitous inflicted,
Alas the conscience has been so constricted,
If not already utterly evicted!

So war proceeds apace, not from
Most previous wars to far:
Historical, historical
Is where the judgments are.

With hindsight so the future will
Look back on all of us
Historical, historical
And smell the oozing pus.

The battle went exactly as expected,
But prophets so vicariously selected
Proved themselves not a little disconnected,
Rear guard democracy left unprotected.

--i.m.small
 

HOW MANY ARE THE DEAD?

How many are the dead?
Spokespeople dance it
Jiglike when asked, nor read
Reports from Lancet.

"Support the troops" as draped
Come two or three
Coffins home as escaped
Eye of TV,

While "over there" (I mean
To say Iraq)
Of coverage there´s been
An awesome lack!

Casualties, mayhem, dead
Blithely ignored
By each domestic head
Dreamy and bored.

Taxpayers, what a good
Return on cash,
Democracy that stood
Reduced to ash,

And enmity stirred up
Not just among
"Insurgency" (which group
Seems growing strong)

But common foes--once friends--
Around the world,
Nor any credence lends
Our dreams imperiled.

Dreams and schemes we have boasted,
Tried to chance it
On one huge gamble; coasted
Except for Lancet.

--i.m.small