Free Iraq

Iraqi reporter: Baghdad '100 times worse' than a year ago: "Even the regular people cannot leave their own neighborhoods. ... If you go to another neighborhood, that's completely unknown to you, and you might not be able to come home alive."

When asked about General Petraeus' suggestion last week that "Iraqi soldiers and police are very much in the fight," Nuri replied, "I think that's not true at all. ... I have to be honest with you and with everyone else in the world. When I was traveling around Iraq, in Baghdad or anywhere else, I was afraid of the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police more than I was afraid of a militia or unknown men."
 

Surprise Visit
 

AP Poll: Most see Iraq war as failure (Fine. But what would have constituted a successful illegal invasion / occupation?)
 

The view from Baghdad: Mounting death toll which makes a mockery of US optimism
 

Newsweek: Internal Pentagon report contradicts Petraeus' testimony to Congress: “I think Colin Powell used dodgy information to get us into the war, and Petraeus is using dodgy information to keep us there.”
 

911, Iraq, PNAC, All roads lead to Israel
 

Today Is The Fourth Anniversary Of An Enormous Opportunity
 

'The US Will Lose War Regardless What it Does'
 

Refuse to fight: Only those fighting the war can end it. By laying down their arms and refusing to kill anymore, including themselves.
 

A disgraceful and cynical surge of self-interest: We should not be surprised that the Congressional testimony from General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, yesterday painted an encouraging picture of the situation in the country. General Petraeus was reporting on his own efforts to curb the insurgency in Iraq and evaluating a military approach that he had personally championed. He was never likely to conclude that the surge had failed. And nor was the White House likely to schedule a report of failure to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The surge was never truly about stabilising Iraq. The US had already lost the ability to control events on the ground when the troops began to pour in earlier this year. Its primary purpose was to stave off demands from Democrats and some Republicans for a timetable for a US troop withdrawal. This is cynical and disgraceful. But what else can we expect from a military adventure that was formed in a spirit of hubris and carried out in an atmosphere of crashing incompetence and reckless arrogance? The US-led occupation of Iraq is unravelling in the same morally compromised manner in which it began.
 

Iraq Insurgents Attack U.S. Headquarters
 

Instead of going home, British troops headed to Iranian border: Report
 

In planning Iraq's future, US can't 'see beyond next summer,' ambassador says

(Repeat after me:
"More time is needed."
"More time is needed."
"More time is needed."
"More time is needed."
"More time is needed."

Got it?)
 

Amnesty film shows agony of US detention techniques
 

IAEA Chief Walks out on EU session in Protest over Statement on Iran
 

An African hero: Biko - the forgotten martyr
 

"HE UNDERSTOOD US BETTER THAN WE UNDERSTAND OURSELVES": ... [A]ll the blame for today’s Iraq can be thrust upon the U.S. government and its hired quislings. All the bluster being thrust about in the U.S. Congress is plain and simple bullshit.

Iraq is not a country today. It is an assemblage of hundreds of fiefdoms being run by local gangs. There is a strong resistance, but if it is able to make all the foreigners leave the country, what will be next? Unlike in 1991 when the Iraqi people rebuilt the country, there will be no country to rebuild. This is a quandary that lacks a concrete answer at this time.

According to most polls, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis today say that the country was far better off under Saddam Hussein, even during the embargo years. Some Iraqis today call the 12 years of sanctions "the golden years." Not one U.S. politician has the decency or courage to say that Iraq was far better off under Saddam. Even many of those who once opposed him have come to the conclusion that Iraq was a unified Arab country.

Today, Iran calls some of the shots in Iraq and the U.S. calls the others. Make no mistake, if the stooge government in Baghdad makes a decision, it first had to be okayed by Washington.

The Iraqi people today understand the reality of the differences in the consequences of two invasions. The U.S. still does not see the obvious.

In November 2006, Dr. Abbas Khalaf, a former Russian translator for Saddam Hussein, was interviewed by the CTV Moscow Bureau. He defended the Ba’ath regime and its president and decried how Iraq turned into a violent and fragmented entity. When asked about Saddam’s tenure as president of Iraq, he stated:

You could agree or disagree with him, but now even those who were secretly against him are saying he understood us better than we understand ourselves.
 

Rice: Stabilizing Iraq 'long process' ("Destabilizing Iraq was ever so much easier.")
 

What Crocker and Petraeus didn't say: Neither Petraeus nor U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker talked about the fact that since the troop surge began the pace by which Iraqis were abandoning their homes in search of safety had increased. They didn't mention that 86 percent of Iraqis who've fled their homes said they'd been targeted because of their sect, according to the International Organization for Migration.

While Petraeus stressed that civilian casualties were down over the last five weeks, he drew no connection between that statement and a chart he displayed that showed that the number of attacks rose during at least one of those weeks.

Petraeus also didn't highlight the fact that his charts showed that "ethno-sectarian" deaths in August, down from July, were still higher than in June, and he didn't explain why the greatest drop in such deaths, which peaked in December, occurred between January and February, before the surge began.
 

Video, The Shock Doctrine
 

J'Accuse: The U.S. is currently pursuing a foreign policy in the Middle East and throughout the Arab world that is dementedly designed to promote a clash of civilizations.