[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 24 Feb 2005 - Part Two]

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Il Bilancio dello Stato di Bush:
La guerra contro il popolo dei lavoratori continua.
"International Action Center", traduzione di Curzio Bettio di Soccorso
Popolare di Padova
Lunedì 7 febbraio 2005, George W. Bush ha scatenato un attacco senza
precedenti contro la gente povera e contro i lavoratori degli Stati Uniti.
Ha proposto un bilancio di 2.57 bilioni di dollari che però prevede per il
prossimo anno tagli per 20 miliardi di dollari a programmi interni
nazionali in favore delle persone anziane, i vetera! ni, i bambini e la
povera gente. Questa proposta di bilancio è una spudorata dichiarazione di
guerra alla classe lavoratrice (...) Il bilancio di Bush esige che i più
poveri ed oppressi paghino i costi dei suoi tagli di tasse per le classi
ricche e per i programmi di guerra infinita.

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9938&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9938


FLASHBACK: La strage di «al-'Amiriyya»
Marco Hamam, Aljazira.it
Quattordici anni fa a Baghdad l'aviazione americana bombardò un rifugio di
civili causando la morte di oltre 400 persone. Ecco il racconto dei
testimoni e dei sopravvissuti (...) Con al-'Amriyye successe quanto
accaduto lo scorso anno con Falluja. Buona parte della stampa europea ed
americana non pubblicò le foto delle vittime. Sembra di rivedere un film:
bombe "intelligenti" che fanno stragi, uccisione premeditata di civili,
ridicole menzogne sui f! atti, media ammutoliti dal potere e
dall'autocensura. Dopo quattordici anni nulla è cambiato nella guerra
americana. Qui di seguito proponiamo la traduzione di uno speciale della tv
del Qatar Aljazeera del giugno del 2001 alla quale presero parte molti dei
sopravvissuti che raccontarono l'inferno di quei giorni...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9948&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9948


Iran e Siria formano un fronte comune dinanzi alle minacce USA
Página12/Red Voltaire - www.resistenze.org
...Segnalava inoltre che il presidente Bush indicava per nome i suoi
prossimi obiettivi nella zona in questione: Siria (ed una parte del Libano)
così come l'Iran, stati nei quali pretende di applicare l'"hard power" per
integrarli con la forza nel "Grande Medio Oriente", benché era sembrato
tentennare circa l'ordine di priorità. Aveva ricordato che il Congresso gli
aveva già dato carta bianca per attaccare la! Siria, ma aveva assicurato
che l'Iran, proseguendo col suo programma nucleare, rappresentava un
pericolo forse più importante. La credibilità di quest'ultima imputazione
può misurarsi ricordando il discorso del 2003 sullo stato dell'Unione,
durante il quale aveva garantito che l'Iraq si era rifornito di uranio in
Africa...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9963&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9963


IRAQ: Ramadi residents flee city after latest US-led attacks
IRIN
Residents of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province some 100 km east of
Baghdad, have started to flee the city following the latest offensive
launched by US Marines and the Iraqi army. The military have carried out
raids in the province over the past few days in an attempt to crack down on
insurgents, with the main focus of operations eing Ramadi, a rebel
stronghold. Worried that the offensive could proceed as it did in nearby
Fallujah, where he maj! ority of the city's population was forced to flee
during a near hree-month long campaign, many Ramadi families are taking
personal effects and food supplies and heading to relatives' houses in the
capital, or to the same camps where residents from Fallujah fled...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9940&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9940


Islamic Congress's Letter to PM Supports Position on Syria and Lebanon, and
Warns That Aggressive U.S. Policies in Middle East Will Lead to More Death,
Destruction and Misery
Canadian Islamic Congress
...To date, the American-led invasion of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of
more than 100,000 Iraqis and thousands of Americans. Iraq has been
transformed from country with 100% employment and a stable public service
infrastructure, into an impoverished nation in disarray, with more than
half of its adult workforce ! jobless. From being one of the leading Middle
East states in administration, education and health care, Iraq has fallen
to one of the world's most disadvantaged societies...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9950&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9950


Covert Ops in Your Neighborhood
Kurt Nimmo

Imagine the following scenario: a covert Nicaraguan assassination team
enters the United States and methodically kills Casper Weinberger, Duane
Claridge, Oliver North, John Poindexter, Thomas Clines, Robert McFarlane,
and other figures connected to the Contras, a U.S. supported paramilitary
group responsible for killing an estimated 30,000-50,000 Nicaraguans (in a
country of 3.5 million) (....) Consider the following from the Washington
Post: "The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would
allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct
military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador
there, administration officials familiar with the plan said." Disregarding
the squabble between the Pentagon and the State Department, consider what
this means: Special Operations forces are covertly entering countries and
conducting "military operations," that is to say killing people the
Pentagon doesn't like...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9939&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9939


Conversation with David Barsamian
Omar Khan, Electronic Iraq
...Omar Khan: You've said of the media that "most of the censorship occurs
by omission, not commission." Can you illustrate this in the case of US
news coverage of Iraq? David Barsamian: There is a structural relationship
between media and state power. They are closely linked. Who are the media?
Not just in the United States, but around the world, they're a handful of
corporations that dominate what people see, hear, and read. They have be!
en able to manufacture consent, particularly in the United States, for
imperialist wars of aggression...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9959&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9959


Bush's 'priceless' war
David Isenberg, Asia Times
Although the exact cost of the Iraq invasion to the American taxpayer is
not known, recent figures suggest it is a lot more than has been publicly
suggested and will grow considerably higher. Part of the problem in
estimating costs is that the war is obviously not over; it just keeps
going, and going, and going. According to a report on the cost of the war
in Iraq released last week by the Democratic staff of the House Budget
Committee, the war and ongoing insurge! ncy could cost the United States
between US$461 billion and $646 billion by 2015, depending on the scope and
duration of operations...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9960&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9960


Ritual & Sexual Torture in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib
Bad Blood
DIANE CHRISTIAN, CounterPunch
One of the Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo tortures recently
revealed is US women smearing menstrual blood on Islamic prisoners and
fondling or rubbing them sexually to defile them. The tactic includes
taunting prisoners that they will then have no water to purify themselves
to pray. Some prisoners were also shown pictures of their wives with their
heads superimposed on naked women's bodies posed beside Osa! ma Bin Laden.
"I see my wife everywhere, everywhere' Mamdouh Habib, an Australian
ex-detainee reported...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9953&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9953


Australia slides further into the Iraq quagmire
The tragic inevitability of a forlorn hope
GAVIN GATENBY
John Howard's decision to double Australia's ground troop commitment in
Iraq was inevitable. The prime minister put off the inevitable for as long
as he could, but Australia's slavish adherence to the American Alliance
left him no option but to dispatch more troops to George Bush's mad
neo-colonial adventure. His justification of the decision as necessary to
stop the Coalition crumbling put a desperate sp! in on the situation that's
at odds with Washington's upbeat line on post-election Iraq...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9944&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9944


A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
Danny Schechter, "Weapons of Mass Deception" Filmmaker, Declares War on the
War Propaganda Machine
BUZZFLASH
... Journalism is supposed to be a watchdog on power, not a lapdog. It's
not there as an echo chamber or a transmission belt for the claims made by
the government. The media has a duty to scrutinize information, seek out
other sources, try to evaluate and try to understand what the political
strategy is behind a focus on a certain issue. But what we saw ove! r and
over again, on every single news program on every channel for almost five
months, was the demonization of Saddam Hussein...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9949&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9949


Show Trials and Phony Confessions Target Syria
Juan Cole
AP reports on a televised confession of someone who said he was a Syrian
agent in Iraq in charge of terrorist operations (...) These confessions are
phony as a three-dollar bill (or a three-Euro coin). AP reports with a
straight face that al-Essa "claimed he infiltrated Iraq in 2001, about two
years before the U.S. invasion, because Syrian intelligence was convinced
that American military action loomed." That allegation doesn't pass the
smell test with me. ! If this guy was sent in 2001, it was to make trouble
for Saddam, not with reference to America. The Syrian Baath mostly did not
get on well with the Iraqi Baath...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9955&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9955


Abu Ghraib, a Year Later: What's Changed?
Torture Nation
TOM WRIGHT, CounterPunch

Nearly a year has passed since the lurid photographs of Abu Ghraib first
surfaced, briefly capturing the attention of the nation. Even to a public
saturated by every imaginable form of transgression, the bizarre images of
"Hooded Man," the piles of naked bodies and sordid sexual domination stood
out, whether because they seemed like demons lurching from the Puritan
unconscious, or just because they were so baldly at variance with the fairy
tales through which much of the nation had been sleepwalking since
September 11. But in no time, the opinion managers mounted the ramparts...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9954&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9954


They refused to fight Bush's war for oil
Alan Maass, Socialist Worker
...As a staff sergeant in the Florida National Guard, Mejia was part of the
invasion of Iraq. After a two-week furlough in October 2003, he refused to
go back to his unit in Iraq because he believed the war was unjust. "The
justification for this war is money, and no soldier should go to Iraq and
give his life for oil," Mejia said before his trial last May. "I have
witnessed the suffering of a people whose country is in ruins and who are
furthe! r humiliated by the raids, patrols and curfews of an occupying
army"...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9958&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9958


Pablo Paredes explains why he's resisting
"I want to be a voice for truth"
Socialist Worker
PABLO PAREDES made his bold protest against the U.S. occupation of Iraq
when he refused to ship out for the Persian Gulf in December on board the
USS Bonhomme Richard. Socialist Worker's JUSTIN AKERS talked to Pablo about
why he decided to become a military resister...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9957&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9957


Why Are We Welcoming This Torturer?
Europe is tacitly condoning the Bush regime's appalling practices
Victoria Brittain, The Guardian
George Bush is this week having an extravagantly orchestrated series of
meetings with Europe's leaders, designed to show a united front for the
creation of democracy around the world. Tony Blair talks of our "shared
values". No one mentions the word that makes this show a mockery: torture.
It is now undeniable that the US administration, at the highest levels, is!
responsible for the torture that has been routine not only, as seen round
the world in iconic photographs, at Abu Ghraib, but at Guantánamo Bay and
Bagram...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9952&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9952


30 Die in Series of Attacks Across Iraq
TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew up his car at police
headquarters in Tikrit, killing at least 15 people in Saddam Hussein's
hometown in the bloodiest of several attacks Thursday that claimed 30
lives. Two American soldiers were among the dead (...) The U.S. command
said two American soldiers were killed and two wounded in separate bomb
attacks, one northeast of Baghdad in Qaryat, and a second near Samarra,
west of Qaryat..! .

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9946&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9946


Ministry says food donation to Iraq was sold as fodder
Melody Chen
A Jordanian charity failed to deliver Taiwan's donation of 4,000 tonnes of
quality rice to Iraqi refugees and sold the food after it was no longer
good for human consumption, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA)
confirmed yesterday. The ministry, in a bid to help the Iraqi people
suffering from war, worked with the Hashemite Jordan Charity Organization
(HAJCO) to transport 5,000 tonnes of rice to Iraq in 2003. While 1,000
tonnes of the food aid ! were sent to Iraq, 4,000 tonnes of the consignment
were stored at Jordan's Aqaba Port for more than a year...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9945&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9945


Halliburton Gets Bonuses for U,S, Army Work
Reuters
U.S. defense contractor Halliburton, under scrutiny for its contracts in
Iraq, has been given bonuses for some of its work supporting the U.S.
military in Kuwait and Afghanistan, the Army said on Thursday. But the Army
said performance-based bonuses had not been paid yet to Halliburton's
Kellogg Brown and Root unit for dining services for U.S. troops in those
countries. Military auditors have criticized those services as too costly
and have asked the Texas-based! company to justify its charges...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9942&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9942


IRAQ: Baghdad rubbish poses health hazard
IRIN
Doctors in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, warn that diseases may spread if
accumulated rubbish in many areas of the city is not removed urgently. Dr
Ibrahim Youssef, from the Ejidida medical centre in Baghdad, told IRIN that
they had seen many cases of children with infections caused by bacteria
found in unhygienic places. "A solution to this problem should be found
quickly. Even our centre has accumulated rubbish, which is only collected
once a week," he said...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9961&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9961




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