Free Iraq

This young man knows more about truth and honor than any of the sick political hacks who would have him kill and be killed.
 

Saw this one a couple of days ago.
This young man is outstanding in his outrage at the situation in Iraq. It takes a lot of guts to do this.
 

Israel steps up warnings to Bush on Iran: President Bush arrives here Wednesday to propel forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. ...
 

Olmert to lay down Israel's red lines
 

! ! ! ! !
 

The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis - It seems very clear that the industrialized nations have no intention of changing the basic path they are on, or of abandoning capitalism. We can expect only more industrial growth, more energy consumption, continued use of energy-intensive agricultural methods, etc. ...

The only way the industrialized North can continue on this path is by taking over more and more of the third world’s land, water, and resources for its own use. As the industrial appetite for resources continues to grow at a rapid rate, and as our global resources are increasingly stressed, we are going to see a very rapid expansion of third world hunger and starvation -- the globalization of African-scale famines. ...

This ‘inevitability’ of mass die-offs in the third world is well known to those who run the industrial nations. From the perspective of the heights of power, the question becomes, “How can we manage these die-offs so that they cause the least disruption in the global economy, and so that they don’t arouse too much public outcry?” Of course once you begin managing die-offs, you are then engaging in genocide, ie, arranging for particular populations to die in preference to others.

The pattern for the management strategy has been made very clear in Sub-Saharan Africa, where all those civil wars, genocidal atrocities, droughts, and famines have been occurring. Not many people realize that these disasters have been systematically imposed on Africa, by means of IMF requirements, covert destabilization programs, denial of medical care, the widespread distribution of automatic weapons, the manipulations of international banks, the dedication of agricultural land and water to Northern consumption, and the list goes on. Not only is Africa being starved to death by market forces, but the process is being accelerated by covert genocidal interventions.

I hope no one out there has any romantic notions about the new Administration, and I hope everyone realizes that the political process can never be used to solve our problems; that system is in fact the heart of our problem. I also hope it is clear to everyone that global genocide is an inevitable consequence of the continuation of this insane capitalist system, whether you agree with most of my analysis or not. And in the end, capitalism can’t last anyway.
 

Children As “Collateral Damage” Of The War In Iraq
 

Soldier says he randomly shot at Iraqi civilians
 

(See above: January 09, 2008 1:37 PM)
South Asia hit by food shortages
 

(Iraq is taking long time to 'democratize'.)
Major joint US-Iraqi operation begins: "Phantom Phoenix will synchronize lethal and non-lethal effects to exploit recent security gains and disrupt terrorist support zones and enemy command and control," the military said in a statement.
 

The Straights of Hormuz incident
 

Jordan's Spy Agency: Holding Cell for the CIA
 

BUSH’S ABSENCE GOES UNNOTICED: The man with blood running down his chin meeting with the man whose hands are dripping with blood…. are they the ones to talk about peace?


Bush fails to gain concessions on settlements from Olmert: ... Olmert said that during his meeting with Bush he was not asked to make any new commitments on the peace process.
 

Olmert tells Bush construction in Jerusalem to continue (George, why don't you just stay there? Not needed at home.)
 

Massive U.S. Airstrike Hits Baghdad: U.S. bombers and jet fighters unleashed 40,000 pounds of explosives during a 10-minute airstrike Thursday morning, flattening what the military called al Qaeda in Iraq safehavens on the southern outskirts of the capital.
 

Tony Blair to join JPMorgan (Life is good, ain't it?)
 

Army Officer Is Cleared in Abu Ghraib Scandal
 

'All options on table' to stop nuclear Iran: Israel
 

Chief rabbi thanks Bush for 'war against Iraq' (Pleasure, my friend. Now tell me, who should we kill next?)
 

Physicians for Human Rights in Israel Have Entered Gaza to Bring the World's Attention to the Ongoing Denial of Medical Care to Gazans
 

We'll nuke Iran - Bush promises Israel
 

Wayne Madsen Report -
January 10, 2008 -- Sexual assault was common at Abu Ghraib concentration camp: WMR has received photos taken of U.S. military prison guards sodomizing an Iraqi girl detained at the infamous concentration camp at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Although a number of photos showing U.S. male and female troops engaging in bizarre sexual behavior with male prisoners were released when the Abu Ghraib scandal first broke in 2004, the photos of the gang raping of the Iraqi girl by as many as three male American troops have not been widely distributed.

In May 2004, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said he did not see any "videos showing rape, either of a male or female prisoner." The photos obtained by WMR clearly show a young female prisoner being raped. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said the most shocking video she saw was a male prisoner in handcuffs who was beating his head against the wall.

It would now appear that if certain members of Congress were privy to all the photos and videos taken of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, they were seriously misrepresenting the cruelty of U.S. military personnel involved.
[ . . . ]
 

Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks
 

The Myth Of Sectarianism: The policy is divide to rule
 

Letter from Gaza: Thanks for the great efforts you've been exerting to help us, I am writing so fast as the charge of my battery will be lost while we live in the gloom with the seldomly available electricity.

My children are studying on candles for their exams. Today, a friend of mine, he is the head of pharmacy in the (Ministry of Health) asked for some life saving medications for a cancer patient, the very limited resource that we have were not enough to meet his need, I could not sleep when I went home, thinking that additional victim will die because we do not have money to pay for his treatment.

Two days ago the elevator had fallen at ..... clinic.

Thank God there were no injuries as it had fallen at a height of less than two meters. Our generators are surrendering, I lost one three days ago in ..... hospital and today I need another one for ..... pediatric hospital.

In a time where no vegetables for the hospitals because we can't cover the suppliers invoice.

This is what we have in Gaza for the new year of 2008. The disaster is also with those who have no bread in their homes, yes bread and I mean it. I know one family like that in Gaza, the father is a cardiac patient, the family is 9 members, two of them are disabled, and their elder son who is a university student found himself the bread winner of this family at once. I swear that they do have nothing to eat unless somebody of the neighbours send them food. "Winter is not that cold in Gaza but it can still chill the bones of children in the primary school of my elder daughter.

The principal of this school sent me a letter saying that they need to fix the broken windows as the wind blows the classes and they have no financial resources. We will see how we can manage that, but this is not the only school. 'The situation in the local market is just funny, the shelves are almost empty in many of the supermarkets of the poor Gaza .....the people call it here in Arabic "Al-Hesar", which means the siege. This too is what we have in Gaza for the new year of 2008.'
 

'A Heartbeat Away' From War With Iran and Pakistan
 

ABC News: Voices on Recording May Not Have Been From Iranian Speedboats
 

Bush to dine with Israel minister banned from US for spy case (Poor George. Probably he doesn't even understand why it matters.)
 

Bush and the neocons have been mere tools-of-the-day ... . The neocons happened to be promoting a package that appealed to the clique, that promised to advance some of its objectives. In selecting the neocons to be the drivers behind a new administration, the clique was by no means adopting the neocon philosophy, nor were they buying into the whole PNAC package. They were simply employing a convenient tool that was aligned tactically with clique interests for the time being. ...

Bush, who has probably never even read the PNAC agenda, was selected for entirely different reasons. Knowing that the agenda would be highly unpopular, the clique decided that defending it logically would be very difficult, even with complete control over the media. An articulate and intelligent President would look like a fool if he tried to defend the insane policies. So, our clique slyly figured, why not put someone up there who is obviously a fool, right through his whole little soul, so that the public will believe they are struggling against the foolishness of one man, and have no understanding of what’s really going on.
 

What Is He Capable Of? The Presidential Psychology at the End of Days: The central, secret conflict that consumes George W. Bush and motivates much of his action can be summed up in a few words: the desperate need to avoid, contain and disguise disabling fears about his competence and adequacy in a context where he expects to feel superior. ...

We believe the great foreseeable peril of Bush's remaining year in office is the intersection of his Christian defense with Iran. ...
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism: Human rights organizations have no rights whatsoever to stymie the victims of racism from the right of self-defense. And they have no right, whatsoever, to usurp the right of oppressed and occupied peoples to resist oppression and occupation.
 

Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel (Fine. We'll find a new story!)
 

U.S. airstrike in Iraq one of largest of the war
 

Bush implores government ministers to keep Olmert in powerj (Please. Please. Please.)
 

CIA reveals: We said in 1974 that Israel had nuclear weapons
 

Good grief!!! Bush: U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz
 

Dear Imad,

Look to this man (is he your friend if I am right) I hope his call not extension of Iran's dream in the backyard (Iraq)

شدد وزير النفط العراقي حسين الشهرستاني على ضرورة أن يكون للعراق برنامج متطور للبحث النووي للاستخدامات السلمية للطاقة الذرية في المجالات الصحية والزراعية والصناعية.

وأشار الشهرستاني، وهو عالم ذرة، إلى امتلاك العراق مصادر الطاقة الرخيصة لاستخدامها في توليد الطاقة الكهربائية، مستبعدا حاجته لبناء مفاعلات نووية تؤدي هذا الغرض.
http://www.radiosawa.com/article_print.aspx?id=1484586

وأضاف أن العراق يمتلك ثروات هيدروكربونية بكميات كبيرة، ولا سيما الغاز، لافتا إلى أن الغاز يمكنه توليد طاقة كهربائية بكلفة أقل وبشكل نظيف.

يشار إلى أن العراق كان قد امتلك برنامجا نوويا إبان مرحلة النظام السابق الذي حاول استثماره لامتلاك القنبلة النووية، وهو الأمر الذي عارضه المجتمع الدولي.

التفاصيل من مراسل "راديو سوا" في بغداد صلاح النصراوي:
 

Deterioration of Iraqi Women's Rights and Living Conditions Under Occupation [ . . . ]
Concluding Remarks:
Statistical analysis of the collected data from a population of 150 families composed of 502 members indicated the following:

1. Major causes of displacement amongst the studied displaced population include personal threats, lack of security and forced displacement through militias or occupation forces.

2. The unemployment rate is 85% amongst women in the studied population.

3. 47% of the women in the study hold some form of higher education degrees including Ph.D.s. When this number is added to high school graduates, the percentage rises to 70.6%.

4. The biggest reasons of unemployment are a lack of security and sectarian violence in the country.

5. With all the degrees and work experience, only 20% of the families rely on the mother providing an income for the family.

6. About 36% of the families have with no income or an income of less than $100/month. Women and children are made to beg or do menial labor or even work as prostitutes to feed their families.

7. Out of the 150 studied families, 87 of them have family members who were killed. There is a high mortality rate of 193 per 1000, indicating the existence of genocide amongst the migrated or displaced population. The studied population is a bias group targeted by the occupation forces and sectarian militias. The total number of deaths amongst the 4.5 million internally displaced or force migrated people both inside and outside the country is estimated to be 868,500.

8. The highest percentage of killings occur due to sectarian militias, followed by occupation forces excessive use of violence.

9. The 66 missing members of the studied families represent 12.69% of the members of the studied population, most of who left home for schools, colleges, work, etc. and never came back. Others were captured by guards and security forces and there is no information regarding their current whereabouts.

10. The burden of ill family members with long-term illnesses lies directly on the women's shoulders, since the healthcare system in Iraq has been non-existent since the beginning of the invasion.

11. About a third of the studied women in the group have developed some form of psychological or other stress related illness.

12. 20% of the students in the studied families are failing school. Major causes include emotional damage as a result of having one or more family members killed and an inability to focus.

13. 50% of the students in the studied population are school dropouts. Major causes of quitting include a lack of security and forced displacement or migration. Male student dropouts are higher in number than females.

The major conclusion is that the USA occupation of Iraq has intentionally created a catastrophic collapse in the social interrelated structure, infrastructure services, education and healthcare system, and security. All of which have a direct detrimental impact on women's living conditions and women's rights in Iraq. The occupation of Iraq has taken women back to the dark ages. By ending the occupation, Iraqi women have a better chance to earn back what they previously accomplished.
 

FBI finds Blackwater trucks patched: Blackwater Worldwide repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack, according to people familiar with the government's investigation of the incident.

The repairs essentially destroyed evidence that Justice Department investigators hoped to examine in a criminal case that has drawn worldwide attention. ...
 

New Iraqi Law on Baath Worries Ex-Baathists
 

Bush says US and Arab allies must confront Iran
 

US, Israel on 'same page' on Iran
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 1 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 2 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- Part 3 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 4 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 5 of 12
 

MEMRI is 'propaganda machine', expert says: "They use the same sort of propaganda techniques as the Nazis," Professor Norman G. Finkelstein, a well-known scholar on Israel/Palestine, told InFocus. "They take things out of context in order to do personal and political harm to people they don’t like."

MEMRI’s obsessive interest in protecting Israel derives from the people and interests that founded, fund and manage the institute’s international operations.

It was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in the Israel Defense Forces (Intelligence Branch) from 1968 until 1988, acting head of civil administration in the West Bank from 1977 to 1982; and Israeli-born Meyrav Wurmser, an extreme rightwing neoconservative now affiliated with the Hudson Institute.

Meyrav is married to David Wurmser, at one time an American Enterprise Institute "scholar" and then a State Department apparatchik under John Bolton.

Both participated in the collective writing of "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," a seminal 1996 neocon document that advocated an end to negotiations with the Palestinians and permanent war against the Arab world.

... [S]everal MEMRI staffers are former Israeli intelligence specialists. Especially troubling are suspected links between MEMRI and the current Israeli intelligence establishment.

According to a 2005 article in Israel’s Ha’aretz, the Israeli Defense Forces plants fake stories in the Arab media, which it then translates and tries to retail to Israeli journalists. How much of MEMRI is simply an extension of such IDF operations?

Every story that could possibly make Middle Eastern people look deranged, hateful or diabolical gets translated; anything that could make them look informed, talented or admirable is ignored.

According its critics, until MEMRI starts translating Hebrew stories about the rightward drift of Israeli society, torture of Palestinians in Israeli jails, the forced exile of Ilan Pappe and Azmi Bishara, and the elevation of the neo-fascist Avigdor Lieberman to deputy prime minister of Israel, they aren’t really covering all Middle Eastern media.
 

Judge assassinated in Baghdad shooting


60 killed in anti-Qaeda sweep in Iraq: US military ... and 193 arrested in the first week of Operation Iron Harvest, a major sweep against Al-Qaeda jihadists in four Iraqi provinces . ...

Iron Harvest is part of the countrywide Operation Phantom Phoenix launched last Tuesday.

It is being carried out in the central provinces of Diyala, where it is focused, and Salaheddin, and in the northern provinces of Nineveh and Tamim.


Unraveling the Myth of Al Qaida: The myth of "al Qaida" is built on an expansive foundation of many half-truths and hidden facts. It is a CIA creation. It was shaped by the agency to serve as a substitute "enemy" for America, replacing the Soviets whom the Islamist forces had driven from Afghanistan. Unknown American officials, at an indeterminate point in time, made the decision to fabricate the tale of a mythical worldwide network of Islamic terrorists from the exploits of the Afghan Mujahedeen. The CIA already had their own network of Islamic militant "freedom fighters," all that was needed were a few scattered terrorist attacks against US targets and a credible heroic figurehead, to serve as the "great leader."

The really tricky part of creating a mythical terrorist monster out of an incomplete truth is laying-out the facts behind your mythical story without revealing the whole truth about your part in its creation. ...

... Bush is playing the same card throughout the Muslim world, as we see him apply the "El Salvador option" (adapted from the Islamist program) to every situation claimed to be caused by "elements associated with al Qaida." We are hiring and training gangs of Sunni mercenaries to start wars throughout the Muslim world. Either we hire them openly, like the "Awakening" group in Iraq, semi-secretly, like the PAJEK Kurds hired to hit Iran and the Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, or back them super-secretively, like elements of the Pakistani Taliban, whom we mislabel as "al Qaida."
 

Video (9 min.), NORTH AMERICAN UNION & VCHIP TRUTH: "Divide and Conquer"
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- Part 6 of 12
 

The Internet must die
 

( Check photo. What do you suppose they're thinking? )
 

B'Tselem: Does Diskin view kids as terrorists? The human rights organizations in Israel and the Gaza Strip were angered by data presented Sunday by Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin during Sunday's cabinet meeting, according to which Israel had killed 1,000 terrorists in the past two years.

"Does Yuval Diskin include five-year-old Maria Okal, eight-year-old Aya al-Astal, nine-year-old Yehi Abu Slamia and his five-year-old brother Nasrallah among the list of terrorist?" organization officials asked. "Does the Shin Bet chief refer to the blood of these and other children as the blood of terrorists?"

The Palestinian organizations also refer to 1,000 people killed in two years, but according to them, most of the casualties were civilians. According to Samir Zakkut of the al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip, the data presented by Diskin were untrue.

The B'Tselem organization expressed its surprise over Diskin's remarks, saying that according to its figures, 816 Palestinians were killed by the IDF in that same period, including 150 minors, 48 of them under the age of 14.


Haaretz probe: Shin Bet count of Gaza civilian deaths is too low
 

Bush assured Israel over Gaza violence: Olmert
 

Israel rules out peace with Iran
 

Bush Tells Israelis He Doesn't Believe Iran NIE Report
 

CANCER IS SPREADING IN PALESTINE
 

A simple truth in Gaza: The ongoing Israeli closure of the area is not an abstract here, it is a physical containment of one and a half million people in what they regard as a giant prison, and people die because of it.
 

Judges Dismiss Suit Seeking Damages for Guantanamo Torture: Judges Say Men at Base are Not "Persons" Under U.S. Law, Torture a "Foreseeable Consequence" of Military Detention
 

Israel's Nuclear Weapons, including Fission, Hydrogen and Neutron Bombs
 

Tragic conditions experienced by Palestinian isolated prisoners
(Let me say it out loud. Israeli policy toward the Palestinians is disgustingly inhumane. Israel deserves not one iota of international sympathy. On the contrary, those responsible for the daily humiliations, deprivations and atrocities endured by Palestinians merit naught but outright condemnation. Everything possible should be done to end the barbarians' reign of terror.)
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 7 of 12
 

Video (2 min.), Olbermann accuses U.S of trying to FAKE new Gulf of Tonkin
 

US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search
 

Number Crunching: Death Count Politics - In an age where Hitlerian wars of aggression are considered standard practice for "healthy" democracies (with only the "competence" of their execution being a fit subject for debate), it is difficult, if not impossible, to single out a single element of the grotesque carnival as the most macabre. But surely the warmongers' game-playing with the death toll of slaughtered Iraqis is a prime candidate.

As we all know, there was a very brief moment of panic amongst the death merchants when a survey by Johns Hopkins experts reported in 2006 that the true count of civilians who had died as a result of the war was at least 650,000. This study, published by The Lancet, one of the world's leading peer-reviewed medical journals, was quickly given the smear treatment, haughtily dismissed by Bush and his British moll, Tony Blair for its "unsound methodology" -- despite the fact that the moll's own officials confessed privately that the Lancet study's methodology was sound. Indeed, it was the same methodology employed by the U.S. and UK governments to estimate the slaughters in Rwanda and Darfur, among other atrocities. But evidently the same science does not apply when those ordering the atrocities have white hands.

Last year, a follow-up to the Lancet study gave a credible estimate of more than 1 million Iraqis killed as a result of the invasion. One salient fact about this and the Lancet study should be borne in mind: there were areas of Iraq that are so dangerous that they could not be surveyed. In other words, the most deadly areas of the conquered land had to be left out of the studies. So they too are, in the end, minimum baselines for the total death count. Needless to say, the Lancet study follow-up has been invisible in the corporate press, not to mention in the presidential "debates."

Thus a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has been seized upon by some war supporters as "vindication" for their cause -- primarily because it seems to refute or undercut the Lancet study: "Why, we haven't killed a million or even half a million fellow human beings in Iraq; we've only killed 151,000 of them! ...

But like the compulsive mastication surrounding the surge itself, the macabre PR driving this latest dribbling of conventional wisdom cud offers much less than meets the eye. Even putting aside the perversity of touting the senseless slaughter of 151,000 people as some kind of moral victory, the new study does not refute the Lancet survey at all; in fact, as Andrew Cockburn notes in an excellent Counterpunch article, the new report is guilty of the same kind of "questionable methodology" of which the Lancet study was unjustly accused. ...

But of course, for moral perverts like George W. Bush and all those who have championed his Hitlerian assault -- from the bootlicking yellowstains of the Young Republicans to the bloodthirsty "liberal hawks" like Christopher Hitchens and Michael O'Hanlon -- it doesn't really matter how you count the dead....when the dead don't count.
 

At least 17 dead as Gaza violence explodes
 

Gulf allies turn their backs on Bush
 

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE ‘PEACE PROCESS’
 

Bush throws tantrum after failing to hoodwink Arabs (The man has but three natural states: 1. lying; 2. boot licking; 3. throwing tantrum when 1. combined with 2. don't get him what he wants.)
 

Who Is Killing the Women of Basra? ... We can start with the fact that the Pentagon has trained, armed, and funded the very militias that are killing the women of Basra.
 

Halliburton Gang Rape Victim Finds No Justice
 

Famed Israeli pianist now a Palestinian, too
 

Video (4 min.), We Are Trained Killers WARNING: This video should only be viewed by a mature audience

(Clearly, I am not a 'mature audience'. The first split seconds of the video shredded my soul and I pressed 'Esc' - frantically. WHAT ARE WE DOING?)
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 8 of 12
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 9 of 12
 

Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 10 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 11 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 12 of 12
 

Israel, U.S. to boycott UN human rights council meet on Gaza blockade
 

Israeli attacks on human rights workers 'systematic'
 

Palestinians blow up border wall, flood into Egypt
 

Two extraordinary documents:
- PALESTINE A MODERN HISTORY
- THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE IMPERIALIST-ZIONIST ALLIANCE