[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 14 Jan 2005]

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The Rule, Not the Exception -- The "Salvador Option" in Context
Sean Donahue
Newsweek reports that the Pentagon is considering having U.S. Special
Forces train death squads in Iraq, modeled on U.S. death squads in El
Salvador.
What Newsweek fails to note is that: 1. This policy represents standard
U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, employed around the world since the
1960's. 2. Two suspicious kidnappings in Iraq last year suggest that death
squad activity may already exist in Iraq. 3. The "Salvador Option" is not
an extreme option being considered by a few neo-cons at the Pentagon,
rather it reflects a policy that could easily develop bipartisan support,
and which John Kerry may have been hinting at during the presidential
campaign...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8849&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8849


Bagdad, come al solito
Dahr Jamail, Nuovi Mondi Media
...La demolizione di Falluja continua. Due delle mie fonti nella città che
vivono in quartieri differenti, mi dicono che ora i militari stanno
bruciando le case. A prima vista, trovano trappole esplosive così
accatastano i mobili nelle case, li ricoprono di combustibile e gli danno
fuoco. Nonostante questo, oggi hanno ucciso un altro marine...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8854&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8854


The Southern Iraqi Resistance - Key to Defeat of the Aggressors
Arthur Shaw, Axis of Logic Exclusive
The South of Iraq carries an extremely important strategic responsibility
for winning the war against US imperialism and the other foreign
aggressors. One of the responsibilities of the Southern Resistance is to
shut down the theft of oil by American thieves. The Iraqi forces have more
or less achieved the shut-down of American oil-theft in the North...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8851&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8851


Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
www.albasrah.net
It was a systematic campaign to frighten the hell out of us about the
threat of Saddam Hussein, and almost none of it was true. "The Iraqi
dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with
horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."-- George Bush,
Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8852&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8852


A Restless Calm…
Dahr Jamail
...He gives me a quick rundown of what he knows of Fallujah, telling me
that the military controls two main checkpoints into the city and the main
road which divides what is left of the demolished city. "There are still 25
attacks each day by the mujahideen there against the occupiers," he says,
"And the resistance is in control of large areas of the city to this day."
Who knows how accurate this is. And with the military cordon around most of
the city, it's almost impossible to verif! y for now. He claims that only
3% of the people killed during the assault were fighters, and the rest
civilians...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8853&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8853


US doctors tied to torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib
Kate Randall, WSWS
US Army doctors have violated the Geneva Conventions by collaborating in
the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other US
military detention facilities, according to an article in the January 6
edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (...) The article provides
new substantiation to allegations that medical personnel—in direct
violation of international laws of war and medical ethics—have worked with
the US military i! n designing torture techniques used against detainees. A
confidential report released late last year by the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) also charged that US interrogators used
psychological and physical coercion and enlisted the participation of
medical personnel in what it described as "a flagrant violation of medical
ethics"...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8850&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8850


Secrecy surrounds Iraq vote
Concerned about violence, some political parties won't even reveal
candidate lists.
Dan Murphy, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Secret ballots are the cornerstone of any democratic process. But little
more than two weeks before Iraq's first free elections on Jan. 30, the
country is finding that secrecy is being taken to new heights. The
identities of many of the candidates haven't been publicly disclosed and
are likely to remain secret until after elec! tion day, an illustration of
the difficulty in mounting an election amid war...



<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8839&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8839


FLASHBACK: DID SADDAM "GAS HIS OWN PEOPLE"?
Sovereignty
In the Sunday Telegraph of 16 March 2003, John Simpson claimed that Saddam
Hussein gassed the Kurdish town of Halabja on March 16, 1988. This horrific
incident is perhaps the prime piece of propaganda used to justify war
against Iraq because "Saddam gassed his own people". But what is the truth?
...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8840&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8840


The WMD Fraud
DAVE LINDORFF, CounterPunch
The great thing about being George W. Bush is never having to say you're
sorry (...) Not only are there no such weapons, the few efforts that did
exist to try to make something nasty having been dismantled by 1991, but
the Iraqi scientists arrested by invading American troops, and held
incommunicado for as long as two years now have been found to have been
innocent of any wrongdoing...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8848&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8848


Letter to Gilbert Achcar
Alex Callinicos, ZNet
...One important dimension of the real US strategy is more and more to play
on the division between the Shias and Sunnis (...) Given the disastrous
overall position of the Americans in Iraq, the Shia card is almost the last
in their pack (the very last of all is the Israeli strategy of breaking the
country up, but I don't think Washington is ready for this yet)...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8841&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8841


First Hand Account Of Detention And Torture At Abu Ghraib
JUS
JUS has received this gut wrenching first hand account that magnifies the
torture and abuse that continues to this day in Abu Ghraib and that should
surely shock us to our senses to stand up against the despicable American
occupation of Muslim land. This eye witness account is written by the
cousin of an Iraqi brother that is known by a brother in the UK. His cousin
is based in Mosul, and was a university student at the time he was arrested
by the occu! pation forces. He has given his kunya name Abu Huthdayfah so
as to conceal his identity...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8832&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8832


U.S. veteran: "We're committing genocide in Iraq"
Aljazeera.com
...Former Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey is a 12-year Marine veteran who's
returned from Iraq, airing some very disparaging views on his country's
role in the Middle Eastern nation. The American marine entered Iraq as part
of the initial American invasion in March 2003 and was witness, and in some
cases took part in, the killing of innocent civilians. He says that in one
48-hour period, he witnessed the killing of some 30 civilians by U.S.
gunfire at hi! ghway checkpoints...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8842&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8842


Scheer on al-Qaeda: A Day Late and a Few Billion Dollars Short
Kurt Nimmo
...Yeah, it is deeply threatening, alright—and designed to be so,
especially around "election" time and when Strausscons need a pretext to
invade Islamic countries. Now? Osama is irrelevant—in fact, he is dead—and
al-Qaeda has merged with an even more gruesome (and equally manufactured)
hobgoblin, Abu Musab Zarqawi and the U.S. intelligence (with more than a
little help from the Israelis) version of the Iraqi resistance. Stuff like
this doe! s not grow on its own like something left in the back of the
refrigerator. It is manufactured—and for specific purpose...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8838&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8838


Pentagon ban on filming coffins defied
Aljazeera.net
A US National Guard unit has defied a Pentagon request that sought to stop
television news crews filming six flag-draped soldiers' coffins arriving in
Louisiana. The Pentagon has barred US media from filming the coffins of US
service members arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware...



<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8836&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8836


This election could plunge Iraq further into the abyss
Seumas Milne, Guardian
...But, in reality, the elections are likely at best to be irrelevant, at
worst to plunge Iraq deeper into the abyss. Both common sense and first
principles dictate that no election in a country invaded and controlled by
foreign troops can conceivably be regarded as free and fair. The poll due
on January 30 is part of a process imposed by Bush's proconsul Paul Bremer,
transparently designed to entrench US plans for Iraq and the wider Mi! ddle
East; all the main politicians and parties taking part owe their position
and physical survival to US protection and power; and voting will take
place in a country under martial law, where a full-scale guerrilla war is
raging and whose heartlands are under daily bombardment...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8835&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8835


Down the Memory Hole
Hearts and Minds, Revisited
MARK CHMIEL and ANDREW WIMMER, CouterPunch
...And yet hardly a week goes by that we don't come across-in newscasts, on
the Internet, in newspapers-a pious invocation of our efforts to win Iraqi
"hearts and minds," harking back to Vietnam, and willfully forgetting that
our military efforts there (where we learned to "destroy the village in
order to save it") killed 3.5 million Vietnamese before they came to an
end. This year's political campaigning allowed! Americans to indulge in one
of our favorite cultural pastimes, playing the impartial observer,
interested only in sitting back and hearing both sides of every issue. It
appeals to our American sense of fairness at the same time that it absolves
us of ever taking responsibility for what is being done in our name...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8834&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8834


Bush's 'Death Squads'
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Refusing to admit personal misjudgments on Iraq, George W. Bush instead is
pushing the United States toward becoming what might be called a permanent
"counter-terrorist" state, which uses torture, cross-border death squads
and even collective punishments to defeat perceived enemies in Iraq and
around the world. Since securing a second term, Bush has pressed ahead with
this hard-line strategy, in part by removing dissidents inside his
administration while retaini! ng or promoting his protégés...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8833&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8833


Recalling the Anti-Imperialist League
Stephen Bender, Antiwar.com
...Today, the medium from which most Americans get their news, television,
plays much the same role as the "yellow press" of William Randolph Hearst -
cheerleading for war. Then, as now, the argument justifying war started as
a matter of self-defense, then morphed into a war for "freedom," and
finally stood naked as a political and economic power grab. In fact, Jay
Garner, the first proconsul of Iraq, made explicit the parallels. He said
Iraq would! serve the same purpose as the Philippines in that it would be
an outpost for American troops and a place where resources could be
exploited, just as the Philippines were a vital "coaling station"...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8831&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8831


Iraq Offers to Let Israelis of Iraqi Descent Vote
Julie Stahl, CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
Iraq's decision to allow all Iraqis -- including Israelis of Iraqi descent
-- to vote in upcoming elections is "positive step" and "clear hint" that
the post-Saddam government may be open to having diplomatic relations with
Israel, an Israeli government official said. Anyone who is or was once an
Iraqi citizen, even if he was stripped of his citizenship, will be eligible
to vote, Sarah Tosh, spokesperson for Iraq's ! out-of-the-country voting
said, according to a report in the daily Ha'aretz on Thursday...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8830&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8830


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 12 January 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member editorial board The
Free Arab Voice.
Iraqi Resistance forces shot down a US Apache helicopter at 6pm local time
Wednesday over the administrative boundary marking the border of the
an-Nazal neighborhood in al-Fallujah. The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent
in al-Fallujah reported that he saw the US helicopter on fire as it crashed
into one of the houses in the area...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8829&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8829


After the elections the US will still rule
Hani Lazim, Socialist Worker
...People are battling to survive everyday life because there is no petrol,
no cooking gas, and no heating oil. Cities like Fallujah, Najaf, Mosul,
Samara, Ramadi, Baquba, Basra and big districts of Baghdad are in ruins and
many people have been made homeless. Kirkuk is in a state of semi civil war
and the resistance is operating in every part of Iraq, militarily and by
civil disobedience. In this situation people cannot just go to the pollin!
g stations. And people don't know who to vote for, simply because there is
no information about all the parties and slates of candidates...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8843&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8843




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