Free Iraq

Faiza Al-Arji, This is the daily life story in Iraq
 

Malcom Lagauche, WHY THEY FIGHT: Prior to the illegal March 2003 invasion, not one suicide attack had ever been carried out on [Iraq's] soil.
 

Arthur Silber, Of Repetition Compulsion, War Crimes, and National Narcissism (Again): We have murdered an entire country, and an unconscionable and entirely unforgivably huge number of innocent Iraqis. We have murdered them, without even the merest shadow of a justifiable reason.

Remember it for next time. And unless our entire perspective and worldview is challenged and rejected, there will be a next time. That is the single fact of which you can be absolutely certain.
 

Photos confirm US raid child deaths
 

Phillip Martin, A Young Marine Speaks Out: ... Saddam was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 143 Shiites who conspired to assassinate him. (I know all you "patriotic" Americans would be calling for the heads of anyone who conspired to assassinate supreme leader Bush). ...
 

A rogue 51st state: Israel already looks to be intent on scuppering the Iraq Study Group plan for Middle East peace
 

Three Palestinian Children Killed in Gaza Shooting
 

Israel First McCain Pushing Attack on Iran for Israel
 

At least 26 killed in Iraq as pregnant mother murdered
 

Israel 'blocks Tutu Gaza mission'

(Which stands totally to reason. No treacherous murdering regime could stand inspection from one of the world's most rightly honored truth tellers.)
 

Yep, folks. (Who might have said this?): "The peace process is based on three false basic assumptions: That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."
 

As Crowd Demands Change, Lebanese Premier Is Puzzled
 

ISRAELI SPY RING PROBE WIDENS
 

Wayne Madsen, December 11, 2006 -- More evidence surfaces of "Al Qaeda's" Western financing. WMR has learned from one of its sources in New York that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York actively covered up massive money laundering by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) United Arab Emirate branch through its branch in New York. The money laundering consisted of questionable money movements through Dubai that involved individuals linked to "Al Qaeda," including those connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
 

(The two excerpted bits don't begin to do justice to all the important threads Madsen manages to keep sorted out in his head!)
Wayne Madsen, December 11, 2006 -- SPECIAL REPORT. Litvinenko poisoning scandal yet another neo-con perverse display of its parallel intelligence structures: If Britain's intelligence service is involved in the plot to set up Putin by using two unsuspecting Russian businessmen, it means that the Russian-Israeli global mafia has as many links and resources inside British intelligence as it does inside the FBI and U.S. intelligence. ...

... The Russian-Israeli Mafia has also shown itself adept at destroying its political enemies. Out Italian sources also report that Naples ... is a hotbed of activity for the Russian-Israeli Mafia. It is also a major center for the Mafia to recruit local Italian police and prison guards for various "services." The mysterious death of Litvinenko may yet expose the Mafia's true leadership and aims.
 

Videos (many!), Bush Cheney Impeachment Rally
 

18 injured in U.S. Marine helicopter landing in Iraq
 

Britain drops phrase 'war on terror': In sign of growing split between US and Britain, Foreign Office tells cabinet ministers to 'ditch' phrase
 

Bush Still Looking For A 'Way Forward' In The Face Of His Iraq Failure: Bush may have received the ISG report with the politeness of a condemned man before his executioners, but he really has no intention at all in voluntarily changing course in Iraq and bringing our soldiers home. In his radio address this weekend, Bush tried to paint the highly critical report as a validation of his Iraq strategy, instead of the accurate portrait of the stunning failure of the invasion and occupation the rest of the country and the world immediately recognized as a rare truth about the consequences of our nation's involvement there.
 

Roosevelt's Revenge?: Because it reveals so well the corruption of American institutions, and because it shows so much of the Soviet-style dark underside of the unprecedented four-term administration of Franklin Roosevelt, the story of the life, destruction, and death of renowned cartoonist Percy Crosby ought to be known to every American. The corruption is of particular interest to this commentator because it so much involves the debasement of the same institutions that we see in the "suicides" of two other important public figures, former Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, in 1949 and Deputy White House Counsel, Vincent Foster in 1993.

None of these outrages could have succeeded without the complicity of what may well be America's most corrupt institution, its news media. (emphasis added)
 

Olmert confesses to Israel's nuclear capability: The prime minister became enraged when he was asked if the fact that Israel possessed nuclear power weakened the West's position against Iran.

"Israel is a democracy and does not threaten anyone" ...
 

Alive in Baghdad: first-hand accounts: Citizen journalism is gaining ground in dangerous places. Last month the website Alive in Baghdad won a crop of "Vloggie" industry awards for showing the human face behind Iraq's daily toll of deaths and kidnappings.
 

(Permanent link to above, December 11, 2006 12:38 PM)
Wayne Madsen, Litvinenko Poisoning and Parallel Intelligence Structures
 

Alive in Baghdad, Not Enough Cemetary to Go Around: ... The caretaker of the Abu Hanifa cemetery says they dig an average of 4-5 graves each day, and this is just for one cemetery in a city of five million inhabitants.

As the Iraq study group returns dire statistics from the situation in Iraq, one wonders when the stories of mutual aid and collective support in Baghdad’s communities will begin to get more play in the media. Although a civil war now seems inevitable, perhaps a better understanding of the solidarity present within Baghdadis and Iraqis can provide another direction for Iraq’s future.
 

Gideon Levy, Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle; The Cruel Line into Gaza: These people want to return home. Israel does not even allow them this. They are human beings with families, plans and commitments, longings and dignity, but who cares.
 

LATIN AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS, Against Torture: Torture is an instrument of violence whose purpose is to destroy the moral and physical integrity of human beings, and to nullify their will. The scientific methods of coercive interrogation, as much as the electrical, chemical, physical and psychical techniques of aggression, define one and the same system of violation, degradation and subjection of a person. Only despotic, corrupt and militaristic governments have made use of these dehumanizing practices. Only totalitarian systems have deemed them legitimate. (emphasis added) Democratic communities, the moral and religious conscience of the people, and the most elemental humanism have not stopped opposing their atrocity and cruelty.
 

Jimmy Carter, Israel, Palestine, peace and apartheid: [My new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid] ... describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine, to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what black people lived under in South Africa during apartheid.


Kurt Nimmo, Englehard: Carter’s Book is Mein Kampf, Protocols: ... In Engelhard’s beloved Israel Palestinian children are “shot to death sitting in school classrooms … families murdered while tilling their land there; agricultural land stripped and burned here, farmers cut off from their land there; little girls riddled with bullets here, infants beheaded by shell fire there; a little massacre here, a little starvation there; expulsion here, denial of entry and families torn apart there; dispossession is the name of the game,” as Bill and Kathleen Christison characterize the consistent and sadly all too predictable behavior of the “only democracy in the Middle East,” yet another racist abstraction that nauseatingly assumes all Arabs are incapable of equality of rights and privileges and instead favor dictators and the boot heel.

... [T]here are more than a few Israelis, especially of the rabid settler type, who believe in Lebensraum, German for “habitat” or “living space,” and will not be satisfied until every last bit of Arab land is stolen, every last olive grove flattened, every last well poisoned, and every last Palestinian becomes a victim of the Diaspora, or Nakba, the Cataclysm.

It should be noted that the Nazis gleaned the idea of Lebensraum from the British and French, who used Darwin’s natural selection as a way to cull unwanted people in far-flung colonies. Israel’s Lebensraum is not implemented in Nazi blitzkrieg fashion, but rather slowly, over decades, with the hope most of us will not notice, (emphasis added) although there are currently 6 million Palestinian refugees scattered around the world.
 

US to double emergency equipment stored in Israel: The value of the equipment currently stored in Israel amounts to USD 100 million and the American government approved doubling its value to USD 200 million in the coming year.

In 2008 the military stock will be doubled and refilled once again in the value of USD 200 million.

The US approved guarantees in the sum of USD 9 billion to Israeli to be used over a period of three years, and this period was then prolonged an additional year.
 

Jews take root in Capitol Hill: Democrats may have conquered both houses of Congress, and so have Jewish politicians. ...
 

Israeli official 'not sorry' Tutu's probe into Beit Hanun strike canceled (Delighted & Thrilled?)
 

Olmert's nuclear slip stirs uproar in Israel ( ! ! ! )
 

Mike Whitney, The "Iraq Memorial" should go on the White House Lawn: Every generation makes blood-payments for the fools it puts in office.
 

Dahr Jamail, Iraq as a Living Hell: I thought I might just give you a taste of the sort of private communications I read every day.
 

Baghdad blasts kill 57
 

Cindy Sheehan, A Woman's Worst Nightmare
 

xymphora, The state of the womb of the mother of a future King: Generally speaking, when you see one intelligence agency surveilling a prominent target from a closely allied country, the surveillance is being done at the behest of the allied country. ...


xymphora, Zionist divide-and-conquer no longer works: There is some curious, but predictable, fallout from the election of Stéphane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada ...

The Jewish Billionaires Club is fighting back, the only way it knows how, by using spin and lies. ...
 

A Tiny Revolution, Cheating The Hangman: Dennis P. examines the near-simultaneous passing of Augusto Pinochet and Jeane Kirkpatrick, here.

EVEN BETTER: During the eighties the U.S. encouraged Chilean arms manufacturers to help arm Saddam Hussein. This effort was spearheaded by a man now forgotten by history named Robert Gates.
 

Chris Floyd, Lame Peking Duck: The Idiot Emperor and his Enabling Eunuchs
 

Hasan Abu Nimah, The Middle East: Mounting Crisis in escalating Chaos: Parties like Hamas and Hizbullah, which are able to mobilize the masses in their countries and inspire millions more across the region, have called the bluff of those who use the language of democracy. Neither has asked for anything more than the fair share of power it won at the ballot box, on behalf of the people it represents.

The approach of slamming the door on all the forces that oppose Western hegemony in the region, can only have the effect of increasing the conflict in all these arenas. In Iraq it seems already beyond control. The dangers in other areas of escalation are clear to all.
 

Israel claims Syria is preparing for War
 

Norman Solomon, Is the USA the Center of the World?: WASHINGTON -- There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that the United States is not the center of the world.

The White House had no immediate comment on the reports, which set off a firestorm of controversy in the nation’s capital.

Speaking on background, a high-ranking official at the State Department discounted the possibility that the reports would turn out to be true. “If that were the case,” he said, “don’t you think we would have known about it a long time ago?”
 

Ari Fleischer
Josh Bolten
Ken Melman
David Frum
Brad Blakeman
Dov Zakheim
Paul Wolfowitz
I. Lewis Libby
Adam Goldman
Chris Gersten
Elliott Abrams
Mark D. Weinberg
Douglas Feith
Michael Chertoff
Daniel Kurtzer
Cliff Sobel
Stuart Bernstein
Nancy Brinker
Frank Lavin
Ron Weiser
Mel Sembler
Martin Silverstein
Jay Lefkowitz
 

‘They were targeting the children’
 

(London) 7/7 Witness: Bus Was Diverted To Tavistock Sq. By Two Unmarked Cars
 

Lebanon's Army captures Israeli Mossad 'Terrorist Ring'
 

Robert Fisk, Revolution in the air as Lebanon's rift widens: With Fouad Siniora's cabinet hiding in the Grand Serail behind acres of razor wire and thousands of troops - a veritable "green zone" in the heart of Beirut - the largely Shia Muslim opposition, assisted by their Christian allies, brought up to two million supporters into the centre of the city yesterday to declare the forthcoming creation of a second Lebanese administration. A "transitional" government is what ex-general Michel Aoun called it, while Naeem Qassem, Hizbollah's deputy chairman, spoke ominously of the mass demonstrations as "the separatist day".
 

Greg Palast, Tinker Bell, Pinochet And The Fairy Tale Miracle Of Chile: Pinochet did not destroy Chile’s economy all alone. It took nine years of hard work by the most brilliant minds in world academia, a gaggle of Milton Friedman’s trainees, the Chicago Boys. Under the spell of their theories, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed trade union bargaining rights, privatized the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and on business profits, slashed public employment, privatized 212 state industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus.
 

Patrick Cockburn, The Americans don't see how unwelcome they are, or that Iraq is now beyond repair
 

Chris Floyd, Presidential Tyranny Untamed by Election Defeat: ... "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence."

... Spineless in opposition, the Democrats have already disarmed themselves before taking a share of power – and so power will remain in the lawless hands of the "unitary executive."
 

Joel S. Hirschhorn, Economic Apartheid Kills
 

George Monbiot, Routine and systematic torture is at the heart of America's war on terror
 

Bush: I won't be rushed on Iraq: ... Bush said he and the nation's top military commanders had "a very candid and fruitful discussion about how to ... win a war that we now find ourselves in." (Seems like it kinda happened just by accident.)
 

A Young Marine Speaks Out: I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. ... How do you justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's power, and his ego.
 

Pentagon's plan: More U.S. troops in Iraq
 

Army, Marine Corps To Ask for More Troops
 

Pepe Escobar, US staying the course for Big Oil in Iraq: The only way for an overall solution to the Iraqi tragedy would be for the Bush administration to give up the oil - with no preconditions, turning the US into an honest broker. Realpolitik practitioners know this is not going to happen.

Instead, the ISG is explicitly in favor of privatizing Iraq's oil industry - to the benefit of Anglo-American Big Oil - after the impending passage of a new oil law that was initially scheduled to be passed this month by the Iraqi Parliament.

For Big Oil, the new oil law is the holiest of holies: once the exploitation of Iraq's fabulous resources is in the bag, "security" is just a minor detail. Enter the ISG's much-hyped provision of US troops remaining in Iraq until an unclear date to protect not the Iraqi population, but Big Oil's supreme interests. This is really what ISG co-head James Baker means by "responsible transition".

According to reports, the draft law, Iraq's first postwar draft hydrocarbon law, proposes allowing - for the first time - local and international companies to carry out oil exploration in Iraq.

Washington's impotence and bewilderment are astonishing - considering the flurry of extrication-from-Iraq wishful-thinking schemes. It starts with being caught in the middle of a "Sunni axis" - US ally/client regimes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait - supporting Sunni Arab politicians and most of all the anti-US Iraqi guerrillas; and on the other side Shi'ite Iran and pro-Hezbollah, pro-Palestine Syria (predominantly Sunni) supporting sections of the Shi'ite-dominated, US-backed Iraqi government.

So the conclusion is grim: militia hell will continue - no matter what the US tries in desperation - because the Sunni Arab guerrillas will only disarm when the occupation is over, and when the Shi'ite militias also disarm; and the Shi'ite militias will only disarm when the Sunni Arab guerrilla war is finished. Not likely, on both counts.
 

UK 'plot' terror charge dropped: Several commentators said the threat was deliberately exaggerated to bolster the anti-terror credentials of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and that it helped to demonise British Muslims of Pakistani origin.
 

Nuclear hypocrisy at work in Israel: Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has confirmed that Israel has a nuclear weapons programme, ending decades of wink-wink denial. Nor is this just one weapon, as deadly as that potentially would be. It is estimated that Israel has approximately 200 such devices, composing a sizeable arsenal designed to intimidate. But no word from Washington, no threats of attack, not cutback on the level of funding. Not even a word or whisper of condemnation from America.
 

Olmert's nuclear blunder leads to Gulf states' call for sanctions


Professor M. Shahid Alam, Zionism: Pitting the West against Islam: ... The Zionist project to create a Jewish entity in Palestine possessed the unique power to convert two historical antagonists, Jews and Gentiles, into allies united in a common imperialist enterprise against the Islamic world. The Zionists harnessed the negative energies of the Western world -- its imperialism, its anti-Semitism, its crusading nostalgia, its anti-Islamic bigotry, and its deep racism -- and focused them on a new imperialist project, the creation of a Western surrogate state in the Islamic heartland. To the West's imperialist ambitions, this new colonial project offered a variety of strategic advantages. Israel would be located in the heart of the Islamic world; it would sit astride the junction of Asia, Africa and Europe; it would guard Europe's gateway to the Indian Ocean; and it could monitor developments in the Persian Gulf with its vast reserves of oil. ...


israel - the ‘state’ of perpetual denial: How many times will israelis DENY the obvious before the world realizes that israelis are habitual liars?


APARTHEID DECLARED LEGAL IN ISRAEL: Despite ongoing protests, despite the illigality of the wall declared by an International Court, Israel has declared it legal to continue the construction of the apartheid wall around a northern Jerusalem neighbourhood.

Below is a report on the High Court's decision regarding the construction of the wall....


The Maps Tell The Story
 

Kurt Nimmo, Romano Prodi: Olmert’s Wind-Up Cathy Chatty: ... Olmert was discovered “coaching” Italian prime minister Romano Prodi “on what to say during their joint press conference,” as if Mr. Prodi is a meathead unable to speak intelligently for himself. “It is important that you emphasize the three principles of the Quartet—that they are not negotiated (sic). They are the basis for everything,” Reuters quotes Olmert as instructing.

... Quartet is shorthand for the cooked up plans for the Palestinians by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. As if to gauge what is in store, consider the Quartet’s special envoy for Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza between May 2005 and April 2006 was none other than James Wolfensohn, Bilderberg intimate and former president of the World Loan Sharking Operation, otherwise known as the World Bank.

Of course, Romano Prodi, as a “center-left” politician and former president of the European Commission (a “supranational” elite managed by international banksters) fell in line. “As it happened, Prodi did deliver words to that effect. He further endorsed Israel’s vision of remaining a Jewish state—code for ruling out an influx of Palestinian refugees. ...

Only a bit of translation is in order: Israel intends to remain a racist state, a nation where only Jews enjoy full citizenship (and Israelis are stripped of citizenship if they marry Palestinians), and there will be no right of return, that is to say the violent theft of Palestinian land and the expulsion of Palestinians will remain codified, and Palestinians will continue living in squalid refugee camps, driven there by massacre, rape, and the memories of Dawayima (where the Israelis killed everything that moved) and Deir Yassin (a massacre led by Irgun terrorist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Menachem Begin). (emphasis added)
 

Truck Bomb Kills 70 Iraqis as the Poor Gather for Jobs


Gunmen stage mass kidnap in Baghdad


US Senate heavyweights call for more troops in Iraq
 

Ran Wei, Saudi Arabia: Middle East on brink of exploding and GCC intends to go Nuclear
 

Now, repeat after me, kiddies:
I love george bush.
I love george bush.
I love george bush.
I love george bush.
I love george bush.
 

Paul Craig Roberts, Is James Baker a Match for AIPAC? ... The U.S. is in a "grave and deteriorating" situation that can easily result in a far greater calamity than merely a bruised ego from a lost war. The entire Middle East can come undone.

The real problem is the Israeli Lobby's powerful influence – about which the Lobby brags – over U.S. policy in the Middle East and Israel's inflexibility toward the Palestinians, whose land Israel has stolen. As long as Israel exercises a veto over U.S. policy in the Middle East, the powder keg will remain alight. (emphasis added)

If news reports are correct (see, for example, this), former Secretary of State James Baker has proposed a Middle East peace conference without Israeli participation. According to an official quoted by Insight magazine, "As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure. This has become the hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month."

According to Insight, "officials said the Baker proposal to exclude Israel garnered support in the wake of Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 25. They said Mr. Cheney spent most of his meetings listening to Saudi warnings that Israel, rather than Iran, is the leading cause of instability in the Middle East." ...
 

Truth Monitors - everywhere!
New Publishing Rules Restrict Scientists
 

Oops! Truth Monitors asleep at the wheel -
Boston Air Traffic Controller Says 9/11 An Inside Job
 

Note to Truth Monitor McCain: Go do the anatomically impossible.
McCain Legislation Out To Destroy Blogs
 

Does anyone note a pattern?
Probe to quash Diana conspiracy theories
 

Blind man: Noam Chomsky (Presuming I still have the constitutional right to an opinion)
 

Who Killed Princess Diana?
 

xymphora, Most European capitals are targets for our air force: Mordechai Vanunu is claiming that the ongoing restrictions on his freedom – including prohibition from even talking to reporters – are as a result of his having revealed that Israel has the bomb, something which the Prime Minister of Israel has now confirmed.
 

Federal judge says foreign Guantanamo detainees may not sue
 

Wayne Madsen, December 14, 2006 -- "Kissinger fingerprints all over suspicious pre-9/11 money movements."
 

Al-Fayed accuses MI6 and senior royal (And I think Mohamed al-Fayed knows what he's talking about.)
 

Menezes family lose court battle
 

Survey indicates Iraqis in despair: More than 90 per cent of Iraqis believe the country is worse off now than before the war in 2003, according to new research obtained by Al Jazeera.

A survey of 2,000 people by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies found that 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of US forces.