Free Iraq

Antonia Juhasz, Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization: The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government.

... [T]he oil companies are trying to get what they were denied before the war or at anytime in modern Iraqi history: access to Iraq's oil under the ground. They are also trying to get the best deal possible out of a war-ravaged and occupied nation. ...
 

Dahr Jamail & Ali Al-Fadhily, IRAQ: Widows Become the Silent Tragedy
 

Iraqis, U.S. dispute deadly raid in new friction: The U.S. military said ground forces with air support killed 20 suspected al Qaeda militants, including two women, in an area north of the capital where the Sunni Arab insurgency is strong.

Police and officials in Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, said the bodies of 17 civilians, including six women and five children, were found in the rubble of two homes.

"The Americans have done this before but they always deny it," Ishaqi Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters by telephone. "I want the world to know what's happening here."

In Ishaqi, grieving relatives showed the bodies of five children wrapped in blankets to journalists. The houses, surrounded by open fields, were flattened in the raid, leaving little but rubble and twisted steel rods.
 

U.S. troops may be able to leave Iraq (And then we read . . . ): "Significant U.S. combat troops could be pulled out of Iraq by early 2008 as long as the Iraqis meets specific goals toward establishing a unified government ... "

(Meaning:
1. some U.S. troops
2. perhaps will be pulled out
3. if Iraqis meet our goals.
Does that sound to you like the U.S. will leave voluntarily?)
 

Can't Stay the Course, Can't End the War, But We'll Call it Bipartisan

Despite the breathless hype, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) report did not include any dramatic new ideas for ending the war in Iraq. In fact, it did not include a call to end the war at all. Rather, the report's recommendations focus on transforming the U.S. occupation of Iraq into a long-term, sustainable, off-the-front-page occupation with a lower rate of U.S. casualties. Despite its title, it does not provide "A New Approach: A Way Forward."

The new catch phrase of spin around withdrawal used in the report is "responsible transition." In the introduction, the report states that "this responsible transition can allow for a reduction in the U.S. presence in Iraq over time." It is not aimed at ending that U.S. presence. It is very clear that the Baker-Hamilton team do not propose a diminishing of U.S. efforts to control Iraq;

- The word "occupation" appears only five times in the entire report.

- Three times it is used to describe what Iraqis "believe" or "think" about the U.S. presence in their country.

- Twice it refers to U.S. troops in the post-World War II Army of Occupation in Germany.

- Never does it refer directly to the U.S. occupation of Iraq (nor to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land).

Following this sensible proposal is one much more radical--complete privatization of the oil industry, combined with foreign investment, and technical assistance by the U.S. government. This directly contradicts the ISG's earlier recommendation that, "The President should restate that the U.S. does not seek to control Iraq's oil" and guarantees that the U.S. and multinational corporations will be vying for control and power in Iraq for decades. Clearly this section of the report was heavily influenced by commission members James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, whom have sought access to Iraqi's oil for most of their political careers, as well as by the longstanding consensus of U.S. corporate and government opinion about the importance and claimed legitimacy of maintaining U.S. control of Iraqi oil.

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Erik Leaver is the Carol and Ed Newman Fellow at IPS and the policy outreach director for Foreign Policy In Focus.
 

Israel drags heels on Tutu fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun
 

Active-Duty US Military Personnel Will Protest War in Iraq on Wednesday
 

New pro-Israel lobby as alternative to AIPAC: Among the figures behind the initiative are billionaire philanthropist George Soros ...

The initiative for the lobby is spearheaded by Dr. David Elcott, executive director of the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) ...
 

Israel's Olmert calls for dramatic measures against Iran: When asked if he would not rule out a military strike against Tehran, Olmert replied: "I rule nothing out."

Olmert is due to visit Germany on Tuesday and will hold a joint press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
 

US casts sole ‘no’ vote against proposed UN treaty restricting arms trade (Bizness is bizness.)
 

Why is Iran Everyone Elses Problem?
 

Smith says Iraq war may be "criminal" ... [T]he Oregon senator called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he would have never voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate.
 

In matters of war and peace the 'intelligence' given to the American people never is accurate. Take, for instance, Pearl Harbor . . .
Video (2 min), The Bones of Station H

Perhaps it truly can be said that all war is built upon lies (and on the bones of our sons and daughters).
 

U.S., Iraqi troops seal off Haditha - residents: While the U.S. military has acknowledged it shut down electrical power in the area ... it has blamed current power losses on "maintenance requirements" at a nearby dam.

"This is the sixth day Haditha is without electricity," one resident said on Friday.
 

Video (5 min), Bush Brought Down to Size in Cartoon Satire: Show Imagines Administration as Grade School Misfits
 

Articles of Impeachment Filed Against Bush, In Congress: [Cynthia McKinney:] "My duty as a member of Congress is merely to uphold and preserve the constitution and to represent the will of my constituency. ...
(And this brave, principled congresswoman is on her way out.)
 

Keith Stimely, Pearl Harbor: The Latest Wave: ... [T]he reader ... cannot but draw conclusions which are devastating indeed to the "official" version of events.
(See above - December 09, 2006 12:32 PM)
 

* We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.
* We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.
* We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.
* We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.
* We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.
* We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
* We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
* We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.
* The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.
 

Video (2 min), Rare TV NEWS report about 1993 WTC bombing FBI Foreknowledge
 

Wayne Madsen, December 8-10, 2006 --REPORTING December 8 from Stuttgart, Germany. Yesterday, the editor introduced a petition at a press conference at the Nuremberg Stadium calling for the United States to honor the 1945 commitment made by Special Prosecutor Robert Jackson that the US would be bound in the future by the same rules of international law it applied to the Nazi party leaders.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact (also known as the Paris Peace Pact) formally renounced war as an instrument of national policy and its violation by the German Nazis was one of the four main charges in their indictment at Nuremberg, to wit, "crimes against peace (planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the forgoing.").

The United States is a party to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the terms of which remain in force to this day and which remains a U.S. law. ...

Allies of the illegal U.S. war against Iraq should also heed the Kellogg-Briand provision that makes participation in a "common plan" to wage a war of aggression a war crime. ...
 

Angry Iraqis bury victims of U.S. airstrike: Hundreds of chanting residents of Jalameda, a predominantly Sunni village, marched through Ishaqi on Saturday firing shots and carrying banners that read: "The people of Ishaqi condemn the mass killing by the occupation forces."

The bodies, wrapped in white cloth, were laid out in rows on the ground as residents prayed over them. They were later buried.

"We ask the Americans to be merciful. They kill civilians alleging they are terrorists. Ishaki is a catastrophe," said Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the biggest Sunni political bloc in parliament.

The Sunni Muslim Scholars Association also "strongly condemned the massacre" and accused U.S. soldiers of planting explosives and weapons at the scene to justify the air strike.
 

Roads to Iraq, Another US crime in Ashaqi; Photographic evidence
 

The International Army Of Killer Billionaires
 

The U.S. government hates democracy (lessons from Italy)
 

I Smell A Rat! Oh well. All that tax money going into the pockets of the Bush Dynasty, Cheney Family “Trust” and the other slimy bottom feeders is all for a good cause. We’re paying to defend a slogan - The Global War on Terror!
 

650,000 Dead Iraqis - Authors Of Comprehensive Lancet Study On Iraq Civilian Casualties To Present Findings To Congress Monday 11 December
 

The neocons have finished what the Vietcong started
 

"The numbers don't lie. They never do. In the past month, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces was 45 times greater than the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians."
 

Guns are dangerous . . .
Israeli soldiers shoot child playing with toy gun
 

Fox News, Israel Warns of Al Qaeda Attack on Lebanon Peacekeepers
(Or, as per WHR: "Meaning Israel is planning false-flag attack to justify going back into Lebanon.")
 

Shutdown illustrates US oil dependence
By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON - Despite rhetoric from Washington that the United States must wean itself from dependence on oil, the shutdown of a BP oilfield in Alaska has shown how far the country remains from that goal and the lack of a consensus on how best to achieve it.

BP Exploration Alaska announced on Monday that it had begun a phased shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield
We learned yesterday that BP hasn't even spent its bulging profits on basic pipeline maintenance, forcing a complete shutdown of their Prudhoe Bay operations due to a massive buildup of sludge in BP pipelines that have not been cleaned for as long as 15 years,"

When US occupying Iraq in 2003 billions of dollars looted in name updating Iraqi oil fields, oil pipelines and industry that had suffered badly of years of neglect and sanctions of 13 years during old regime, compare Iraq with BP action what we see, is it US under sanctions or war so no money left that “BP pipelines that have not been cleaned for as long as 15 years,"
 

Secret American talks with insurgents break down: “The meetings came about after persistent requests from the Americans. It wasn’t because they loved us but because they didn’t have a choice,” said a rebel leader who took part.

... “The Americans had been flirting with such meetings for a while, but they needed to sit down with people who carried more weight in the insurgency,” said one leader of the National Islamic Resistance, an umbrella organisation representing some of the main insurgent groups.

The trio of Iraqi negotiators claimed to represent three-quarters of the “resistance”. It included Ansar al- Sunnah, the group responsible for a suicide bombing that killed 22 in a

US army canteen in Mosul in December 2004, and also the 1920 Revolution Brigade, which has carried out many kidnappings and claimed to have shot down a British Hercules aircraft near Tikrit in January 2005, in which 10 people died.

At one point the insurgents offered Khalilzad a 10-day “period of grace” in which attacks on coalition forces would be suspended in return for a cessation of US military operations.

They called for a “timetable for withdrawal”, saying that it should be announced immediately although in practice it would be “linked to the timescale necessary to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces and security services”, according to one commander.
 

Haaretz, MI officer: Syria preparing its army for war with Israel


Next battleground will be a familiar one, Israelis say; In Golan Heights, tensions with Syria are on the increase
 

16 killed in Iraq attacks, including suicide bomb at shrine


'You must leave in 24 hours or your heads will be cut, your houses burnt'
 

Imad

Bush will never admit that his policies have failed, he will never back down, he will never accept reality; instead -- just like Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam -- in his petulant, spoiled, frat-boy prick vanity, he will throw an unlimited number of Iraqi and American lives into the meat grinder, to avoid facing the truth that was evident before he started the Iraq fiasco.

There are only two ways to stop Bush:

The first, is waiting until the next election (assuming, of course -- and this is by no means a safe assumption -- that the reactionary, war machine-controlled U.S. political system is capable of producing someone capable of admitting defeat and going, "Marines, we are LEAVING!"). This course of action will, obviously, result in the additional, wrongful deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people, possibly hundreds of thousands of them, before the U.S. imperialist, colonialist invaders get their asses kicked back across the Atlantic.

I'm sure you can imagine what the other way is. Just ask JFK, Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King.

Ask yourself, which of the two is better.

===================================

Talking to Iran About Iraq: A Non-Starter for Bush

Analysis: He's already pushing back against the Baker-Hamilton report, and no wonder. Accepting the proposal to engage Iran and Syria would mean admitting his foreign policy has failed

By TONY KARON
TIME, Inc.
Posted Friday, Dec. 08, 2006

Explaining the report of his Iraq Study Group to Congress on Thursday, former Secretary of State James Baker stressed that its recommendations need to be taken as a whole, rather than cherry-picked. "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad, saying, 'I like this, but I don't like that,'" Baker told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It's a comprehensive strategy designed to deal with the problems in Iraq, but also to deal with other problems in the region. These are interdependent recommendations."

President Bush plainly had other ideas, telling a press conference he was sure Baker and Lee Hamilton didn't expect him to embrace all of their recommendations. Bush made clear, for example, that he has no intention of following the Baker-Hamilton proposal for a rapid move to engage Iran and Syria in a process aimed at stabilizing Iraq. Instead, he simply reiterated his Administration's preconditions for talking to those two nations: Iran must first suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Bush said, while Syria would have to stop interfering in Lebanon.
 

What Really Interests George Bush


Clinton Anxious To Assure World He Is Still Scum-Sucking Pig
 

Mike Whitney, Baker vs. “The Lobby”: ... [T]he battle lines have been drawn. On one side we have James Baker and his corporate classmates who want to restore order while preserving America’s imperial role in the region. And, on the other side, we have the neo-Trotskyites and Israeli-Jacobins who seek a fragmented and chaotic Middle East where Israel is the dominant power.