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

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Letter from Fallujah to Kofi Annan
The people of Al- Fallujah
... With our utter surprise to what was happening to our people in
Fallujah, we has the honor to submit to you and through you the
International Community two reports; the first one is stating major crimes
that the U.S. forces had done between 7th November up to the end of
December 2004. The second one is focusing on the humanitarian situation of
the Fallujah refugees. We hope that the United Nations and the whole world
be aware of the reality that wa! r crimes and civilians massacres were
perpetrated by the US forces in Fallujah and surroundings areas. The
committing of these crimes became widely known, but what we would like from
your Excellency is to record officially all these crimes. We also hope that
your Excellency will take, in accordance to your authority and
responsibilities as stated in the Charter and the International law, clear
practical procedures to protect the right of the victims, and held the
criminals accountable for their international crimes...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9922&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9922


US Enterprise: Lost in (cyber) space?
William Bowles

Do I get a sense that the 'enterprise' is unravelling or is it merely
wishful thinking on my part? Judging by the media's (mis)handling of for
example, the situation in Iraq as well as the 'war on terror', it would
seem so. On many fronts, the corporate/state-run media is under concerted
assault from the so-called alternative press for its complicity in covering
up the crimes of the imperium as never before. So have we come 'of age'?...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9931&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9931


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 23 February 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.

US occupation forces completely surrounded the rebellious city of Hit and
ordered a curfew imposed. The curfew is to go into effect at 10pm and lasts
until 6am. The Americans deployed more than 150 armored vehicles and tanks
around the city. US snipers took up positions on high rooftops, preventing
all local people from coming out of their houses under threat of being shot
on sight. The US occupation forces announced that the repressive measures
would remain in force until local people turned in Resistance fighters to
the Americans or at least handed over the weapons and rockets that are used
to shoot down American helicopters from time to time...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9937&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9937


Censorship of the Alternative Media on the Internet
Dave Stratman, Editor, New Democracy & Les Blough, Editor, Axis of Logic
...I am writing to ask your thoughts about what appear to be
government/corporate tactics to harness the free flow of information on the
Internet. Many of you may have heard that Google News recently stopped
indexing Uruknet, only to reinstate them - following many complaints sent
in by those of us who are trying to protect the Internet from
corporate/government control. The response by tho! se who support Uruknet
was apparently powerful enough to make the managers of Google News think
twice about removing a website as a news source. Another website editor
recently told me that Google News also discontinued indexing of their
website. It was only following a long and tedious process - that he was
able to achieve reinstatement. That particular website was one that is
based in the United States and primarily publishes material in support of
Venezuelan sovereignty...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9935&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9935


Iraq to be a Vietnam: retired general
AAP
AUSTRALIA'S involvement in Iraq would end in disaster just like Vietnam, a
retired general said today. Major General Alan Stretton said the Government
would eventually bow to public pressure and withdraw the troops, leaving
behind a bloody mess (...) He said the Government was being irresponsible
in sending even more troops. "I really believe it will go the same way as
Vietnam," he told the John Laws radio program on 2UE...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9930&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9930


Special Report. The GOP's many Talons
Did White House S&M ring order special videos from Abu Ghraib?
Wayne Madsen, Online Journal Contributing Writer
...The discovery of Gannon's involvement with military-oriented gay
pornographic sites having sado-masochistic overtones, including urination,
has a number of observers looking for a connection with the documented
cases of prisoner sexual abuse by U.S. military members and contractors.
That abuse included male-on-male rape, male-on-female rape, the sodomizing
b! y U.S. and allied military personnel of young male and teen prisoners
with such implements as glow sticks and broom handles, forcing naked male
prisoners to form human pyramids, guards urinating on prisoners, forcing
prisoners to smear themselves with feces, and subjecting prisoners to
forced masturbation...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9929&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9929


Falluja mosque marine escapes charge
Aljazeera.net
A US marine, captured on film shooting a wounded Iraqi at point blank range
during last year's assault on Falluja, will not be formally charged. The
CBS News on Wednesday said it had learned that military investigators had
concluded insufficient evidence existed to formally charge the marine with
murder (...) The shooting on 13 November occurred during a search of a
mosque. The killing - filmed by an embedded cameraman working for the NBC
network - sparked global! outrage and was described by the International
Committee of the Red Cross as a demonstration of "utter contempt for
humanity"...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9928&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9928


Bullet-Stopper Conscription: the Jenna Option
Kurt Nimmo
..."Since the Army's fiscal year began last October, it has only signed
18.4 percent of its target of 80,000 new recruits. That's less than last
year's and well below the 25 percent target the Army had set for itself to
meet by this time," reports the Christian Science Monitor. Lt. Gen.
Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army's personnel chief, admitted the problem is
Iraq. "Well, let's wait and see how this thing settles out in Iraq,'" he
said. "For the active dut! y for '05 it's going to be tough to meet our
goal, but I think we can. I think the telling year for us is going to be
'06." For anybody who pays attention the news, even the corporate media
filtered news, it is obvious Iraq is not going to "settle out" in the
foreseeable future, if ever. Add to this Bush's saber-rattling directed
against Iran and Syria and it becomes obvious the government will soon need
a fresh influx of bullet-stoppers...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9925&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9925


What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About IraqThe Poisoned Well
WERTHER*, CounterPunch
Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, the American public has endured an
astounding avalanche of official lies, half truths, pseudo-events [1] and
sheer balderdash that will surely enter the Guinness Book of Records. Among
the most persistent and infuriating lies of government, to those who have
imbibed their knowledge of the past from the crystalline springs of Gibbon
and von Ranke, is the misleading historic! al analogy. Its purpose is
twofold: to relativize whatever current disaster the governing class has
waltzed the hapless populace into; and to kill any usable past. The
technique also has the added benefit of making government placemen sound
learned - at least in the estimation of an audience which gains its
knowledge of the world through Fox News and other State media...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9923&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9923


The Butcher Allawi Challenges the Shi'ites
Kurt Nimmo
How many times can the New York Times call Ayad Allawi "Dr." in one news
article? I count eight times in a little over 660 words. If Allawi is the
"doctor" of anything it is death, or rather summary execution. It is simply
amazing this former CIA stooge is actually considered a political player in
Iraq, as the above linked New York Times article bends over backwards to
do. "Maneuvering over the makeup of the new Iraqi government intensified
today after the int! erim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, confirmed that he
would form a coalition to challenge the victorious Shiite alliance and the
doctor it has selected as its candidate to become Iraq's prime minister,"
writes the Times. "Dr. Allawi and Barham Salih, a Kurdish politician and
deputy prime minister, said on Tuesday that without guarantees renouncing
sectarianism and embracing Western democratic ideals, they were poised to
block Dr. Jaafari's nomination and possibly peel off enough members from
the Shiite's United Iraqi Alliance to form a government of their own"...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9924&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9924


No votes in Nineveh
Iraqi Assyrians are victims of Kurdish ethnic cleansing
Odisho Malko, The Guardian
...Since the fall of Saddam, systematic low-level ethnic cleansing has
driven thousands of Assyrian Christians from their homes. Our churches have
been firebombed and our women forced to wear the hijab. In northern Iraq
much of this intimidation has come from the Kurdish militias. It reached a
climax on election day, when ballot boxes were prevented from reaching
between 200,000 and 400,000 people...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9918&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9918


Company's work in Iraq profited Bush's uncle
Walter F. Roche Jr.
The Iraq war helped bring record earnings to St. Louis-based defense
contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc., and new financial data show
that the firm's war-related profits have trickled down to a familiar family
name — Bush. William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, uncle of the president and youngest
brother of former President George H.W. Bush, cashed in ESSI stock options
last month with a net value of nearly half a million dollars...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9919&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9919


US military investigating alleged rape of female detainee by US servicemember
AFP
The US military is investigating an allegation that a US servicemember
raped a female detainee and has closed another criminal investigation into
an alleged rape of a second female detainee for lack of evidence, a
Pentagon spokesman said. Allegations of sexual misconduct by US military
personnel surfaced last year during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, but
these are the first known cases of soldiers being accused of raping female
det! ainees...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9917&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9917


New evidence of US torture in Iraq and Afghanistan
Kate Randall, WSWS
New evidence of US mistreatment and torture of detainees and civilians in
Iraq and Afghanistan has emerged in government documents obtained by both
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Associated Press. The
documents also reveal a pattern of cover-up by the military in connection
with the abuse. US Army documents obtained and released by the ACLU contain
previously undisclosed allegations of abuse, including a report that a
severel! y beaten detainee was forced to drop his claims of mistreatment as
a condition for being released from custody.

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9913&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9913


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 22 February 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice
A powerful explosion shook the US base known as al-Warrar located west of
ar-Ramadi on Tuesday morning when one of the translators who was working
inside the American facility carried out a martyrdom bombing attack on the
US occupation troops, Mafkarat al-Islam reported....

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9916&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9916


Australian government commits more troops to Iraq
Peter Symonds , WSWS
The Australian government's decision yesterday to dispatch 450 more
soldiers to Iraq has further underscored the criminal, neo-colonial
character of the US-led occupation and Canberra's involvement in it. The
deployment is aimed at shoring up the Bush administration's disintegrating
"coalition of the willing" and at the same time securing Australian
interests in the Asian region through closer ties with Japan...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9912&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9912


Week of Campus and High School Resistance
Monday, March 14 to Friday, March 18
A.N.S.W.E.R.
On Saturday, March 19, people in the U.S. and all over the world will march
against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and colonial occupation everywhere.
During the week of the second anniversary of the "shock and awe" invasion
of Iraq, our generation will make its presence felt. Help build the
militant and vibrant youth and student movement that has grown continuously
over the past three years...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9911&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9911


Revealed: The Rush to War
Richard Norton-Taylor
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the
invasion of Iraq that military action could be ruled illegal. The
government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted it set up a team of
lawyers to prepare for legal action in an international court. And a
parliamentary answer issued days before the war in the name of Lord
Goldsmith - but presented by ministers as his official opinion before the
crucial Commons vote was drawn up in Down! ing Street, not in the attorney
general's chambers...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9927&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9927


British soldiers convicted of Iraq abuse
Aljazeera.net
Two British soldiers have been found guilty of abusing Iraqi civilians
after a court martial hearing which revived memories of US mistreatment of
prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A third soldier had already pleaded guilty to one
charge of assault after he was pictured standing on a detained Iraqi
looter...



<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9926&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9926




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