Free Iraq

Iraq lawless like the Wild West

"We need a new sheriff in Iraq to enforce federal laws," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, while testifying in support of Jamie Leigh Jones, a constituent of his who alleges that fellow employees raped her while she worked for KBR Inc. two years ago in Iraq.
 

Iraq insider November 30, audio extra: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad disputes the current rosy American analysis of the situation in Baghdad
(Download the file and hear what’s life inside Iraq now)


One day Iraqi resistance leaders will have to be brought into negotiations. They are a legitimate factor in the complex Iraqi equation. National reconciliation which attempts to exclude people who have sacrificed so much in the struggle against foreign occupation has no chance of succeeding. The pre-condition - as happened when the Vietnam war ended - has to be a clear declaration by Washington that it is going altogether, with no bases or "residual forces" left behind. Only then will Iraqis come to the negotiating table seriously, and work out a future that does not leave an elephant in the room.
 

military analyst Mustafa Alani commented, “The handover is not to the Iraqi government, it is to the militias, to the criminal groups and to the Iranian influence.” To monitors of news from this front this is nothing new. Those are the very same groups Teheran has financed and armed for the past four years, which means part of Major Shearer’s statement is indeed true, life for them won’t change much, they will continue to avoid combat and not make any attempt to challenge the heavily armed groups controlled by Iran.
http://crossfirewar.com/index.php?m=20071216
 

'Deprogramming' Iraqi Detainees: In a proposal put out for bid Dec. 15, the Joint Contracting Command is seeking a team of professionals, including "teachers, religious and behavioral science counselors," who will "execute a program that effectively reintegrates [into Iraqi society] detainees, particularly those disposed to violent, radical ideology through education and counseling," according to the statement of work.

Part of the program will involve small detainee groups, possibly led by an Iraqi cleric and a behavioral scientist, "undergoing enlightenment, deprogramming and de-radicalization sessions" for six weeks.

The team, according to the proposal, must be led by an American with 10 years of experience in leadership and management, and with a security clearance at the "secret" level. It is strongly desirable for this person to have worked with Iraqis or third-country nationals and have five years of experience analyzing Middle Eastern religions, politics and culture. A master's degree in psychology or behavioral science is also desired.

... Assisting will be a "psychological enlightenment" specialist who must have a master's degree in behavioral science, speak and read Iraqi Arabic, and have five years of experience related to Middle Eastern radical ideologies. This person must also interview "radicalized detainees to collect information about their motivations and pathways to radicalization" in order to "identify openings for change."

The team is to provide reports and advice to Stone's aides about "relevant ideological, religious, cultural and education conditions of adult and juvenile detainees," along with "comprehensive individual assessments" that would "enable prudent decision-making on release or continued detention of detainees." One stated goal for the program is creating "a refined program of instruction" that would be something the Iraqi government could "adopt and implement within its detention facilities."
 

Imad

'US backed' Turkish raids on Iraq

I almost forgot,

Oh, of course, Iraq is an "independent, self-governing democracy."

Except when the 130,000-person white, Christian, American, English-speaking army of illegal occupation that actually runs it, tells a neighboring country, "go ahead and bomb Iraq, that's just fine by us". Just imagine, what do you think the reaction of the Americans would be, if the Iranians "politely requested the right to bomb Iraq"?

The pathos of this situation, in which a supine, ass-kissing puppet government in Iraq has to sit impotently by, while its brutal occupier gives third parties the "right" to murder the same Iraqi civilians over which the Iraqi government is supposedly in charge, should be so obvious that anyone except an American should understand it. Then again, the same puppet regime has to sit passively by, while America's mercs (Blackwater) shoot its defenseless citizens in the street, then catch the first flight back home, laughing all the way.

Twenty years from now, when Iraq is run by a fundamentalist Shiite religious dictatorship made up of people who have learned to hate America's guts from childhood, you'll want to remember events like this and remember why things turned out as they have.

Note: I tried hard to find a reference to the fact that the Americans endorsed this raid, anywhere on the U.S. mainstream media, even the Times didn't have it, let alone the mainstream TV networks. I guess it just isn't news-worthy, right?
 

Imad

If "24" is "art" -- an assertion that many would find questionable -- then what we have here, in the Kafkaesque nightmare of George Bush's America, is "death imitating art imitating death". (See No Mundane Madness (Don’t Blame ‘24′)
especially
"I read some “Reflections on 24 and the Real World” by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, assertions that “The Threats Portrayed on 24 Are Quite Realistic” by former CIA Director James Woolsey, an interview with former FBI Director William S. Sessions (“I Sleep Well at Night”) and a surreal account of how the dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point plus three experienced military interrogators traveled to Hollywood to meet with the “24” creative team to try to beg them to tone down the show’s use of torture for the good of the American viewing public – and for our troops.

I learned how some of the young American military interrogators in Iraq, in places like Mosul, Fallujah and, of course, Abu Ghraib, used “24”’s screenplays as a guidebook when trying to figure out the right way to extract information from detainees. Lacking leadership from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush, they turned instead to Jack Bauer for insight and inspiration.

“All the people who were actually conducting interrogations were privates or specialists who had no idea what they were doing,” Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib, said in an interview. “[The Bush Administration] said the Geneva Conventions don’t apply, so we had no idea what the rules were. They took away our rules and our training, so we really had nothing to fall back on, and the only role models we had were from TV and movies.”)

It's the perfect expression of Hollywood's impact on the world -- they make a television show that glorifies a sadistic, self-righteous, Rambo-esque cowboy ("Jack Bauer") who happily murders and tortures anyone who, in his subjective opinion, is a "terror suspect" (no need for frivolities like a trial, or guilt, or evidence, or due process, of course) -- then little American army boys and girls watch the show and do it for real, to helpless, screaming captives from the Third World. Since neither the average American, nor the Americans in their Army, can tell the difference between the real world and the nonsense that's fed to himself and herself every day on their docile, "patriotic" television news, how would they know (or care) that the TV cruelty is being done to real people? It's all just the same thing to an American -- it's "entertainment". ("Somebody get me a cheeseburger!")

How can anyone not be disgusted with the behavior of this terrorist rogue state called the U.S.A.? How can anyone defend them? How can we fail to take up arms to defend the rest of the world against them?

Happy bloody New Year.
 

دراسة : نبذة تاريخية عن المليشيات في العراق

الجمعة 06 أكتوبر 2006
القسم: تحقيقات عامة

http://www.iraqsunnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3844
http://nahrain.com/d/news/06/11/11/nhr1111a.doc