[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 24 Jul 2005]

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"Must I paint you a picture?"
Jeff Wells, Rigorous Intuition
Those who were awaiting Friday's court-ordered release of more, and still
more grievous, images of inhumanity from Abu Ghraib know it didn't happen.
(I wonder, could any have been surprised?) (...) [In June, Judge Alvin
Hellerstein] rejected arguments from the government that releasing the
photographs would violate the Geneva Conventions because prisoners might be
identified and "further humiliated," but he ordered any identifying
features to be rem! oved from the images. In the letter sent Thursday, Sean
Lane, an assistant U.S. attorney, said that the government was withholding
the photographs because they "could result in harm to individuals" and that
it would outline the reasons in a sealed brief to the court. You see, it's
quite simple really: it's the evidence of torture, not the torture itself -
including, reportedly, child rape - that violates the prisoners' rights.
It's their images which are protected by the Geneva Conventions. They
themselves are not...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14062&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14062


Are you prepared for World War Three?
John Kaminski
Let's pretend, just for the moment, that this is a hypothetical question.
Let's pretend, just for argument's sake, in the comfort of your own easy
chair, in front of your own big screen TV, just a few easy steps away from
your favorite, anxiety-reducing snacks in your refrig, that this is just an
academic exercise in geopolitical and psychological speculation, a polite
brainstorming session that imaginary participants might conduct if certain
coincidental worst ! case scenarios were to come to pass ... all at the
same time...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14058&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14058


British Cops trained in Israel
"Operation Kratos": London Met Police Special Operations Unit "Shoot to Kill"
Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch.ca
The cold blooded murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, in the Stockwell
underground was no accident. London Metropolitan Police had approved a
policy of "shoot to kill": "a controversial tactic deployed only in the
most extreme circumstances but one police have been preparing to use for
the last two weeks.". The shoot to kill policy was undertaken unde! r the
auspices of "Operation Kratos", named after the mythical Spartan hero. It
was carried out by the London Metropolitan's elite SO19 firearms unit often
referred to as the Blue Berets. The latter are described as the equivalent
to the US SWAT teams, yet in this particular case, they were not wearing
uniforms...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14055&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Six decades on the third rock from the sun
William Bowles, I'n'I
...That the man the police shot in cold blood was a Brazilian, only
reinforces the essentially racist nature of a system that needs a scapegoat
that is in reality, based not on religion but on ‘race’, in order to
justify its ‘war on terror’. A system that has over the past four years
consistently pumped out the same message – albeit in a thinly disguised
‘code’ – it’s okay to make war on dark-skinned people. Sooner or later, the
war would come home,! it was as predictable as night following day. Hence
the phrase used with such monotonous regularity by the state, ‘not if but
when’ was a self-fulfilling prophecy, hard-wired if you like, into the
system. A ‘rolling Reichstag fire’. So when people talk of the ‘blowback’
caused by the occupation of Iraq, I have in mind something quite
different...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14070&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14070


'Why Did They Force My Son Into the Water?
Kim Sengupta, The Independent
When the 17-year-old failed to return home, in one of the poorest parts of
Baghdad, the family went on a search. They returned to find waiting for
them a young man, Ayad Salim Hannoun, with a horrific tale. He claimed that
Ahmed had been ordered into a river by British troops, and had drowned. The
account he gave to the family, and then Iraqi police and British military
authorities, will be key evidence in a war crimes trial of troops charge! d
with inhumane treatment...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14069&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Jean Charles de Menezes
Xymphora
...Had the victim turned out to be Muslim, we would no doubt have heard the
whole constructed story of his connection to the bombings, the bombs he had
strapped to his body, the excellent work of the police in following him to
the scene of his planned attack, their heroism in stopping it, and a long
and involved tale of how this nice young man was lured into Islamic
extremism by radical Muslims he met at his local mosque. Unfortunately, he
was a Brazilian, picked at random by the ! British paramilitary police unit
based on the fact that he looked Asian and was wearing a heavy coat. It
appears that they pursued him towards the train and thus towards people who
could have been hurt, forced him onto the train, and then executed him -
with a theatrical five shots - in front of witnesses. The Israelis aren't
just teaching them how to fight terrorism, they're also teaching them how
to fake it...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14038&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Where the hell were we?
Watching the Watchers.org
One year and some months ago, we went through the Abu Ghraib scandal. We
saw pictures of people abused by a few soldiers, and then it was assumed
they were acting alone, yadda yadda yadda, not involvement from the higher
ups. So how did we miss this? Where are you, MSM, when we need you? This is
going to be a short one, I just want to draw to your attention two
particular paragraphs from witness testimony on Abu Ghraib...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14067&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Bonifaz Connects Rove-Gate and Downing Street Memo
Carl Doerner
...It was therefore necessary to "work up a plan" to get weapons inspectors
back into Iraq to create "the legal justification for the use of force."
Mr.Blair expressed a hope Saddam Hussein would provide justification by
refusing to let inspectors in, but this did not happen. What followed was a
charade of justification for a planned war of empire by going to the UN and
asking Congress in October, 2002, for a resolution to authorize of use of
force. ! The Republican leadership allowed only two days for debate and Mr.
Bush did not fulfill his obligations under the resolution. Closely linked
is the ongoing story of exposure that his wife was an undercover CIA agent
to punish Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Mr Wilson had unraveled another of the
administration's lies for war - that Iraq had made nuclear related
purchases from Niger...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14066&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14066


Was a "Bomber" Superimposed onto Metropolitan Police Surveillance Camera Photo?
Citizens For Legitimate Government
...The CLG has also inspected this image. "The white-hatted man was
apparently superimposed onto the photo. Not only is his arm 'behind' a
railing that is supposedly several feet behind HIM, but also, upon
magnification in Photoshop, part of the bar actually goes into his head.
This was 'touched-up,' but pixels of his head mix unmistakably with pixels
from the railing." --Michael Rectenwald...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14065&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14065


IRAQ: women alarmed at prospect of rights erosion, UNIFEM says
IRIN
...The current draft of the constitution "subordinates guarantees of
women's human rights and international law to religious Shari'ah law and
replaces one of the Middle East's most progressive personal status laws
with arbitrary interpretations of religious law", according to the US-based
international women's human rights organisation MADRE. If the national
assembly approves such a constitution, it said, "it could give
self-appointed religious c! lerics the authority to inflict grave human
rights violations on Iraqi women" in relation to freedom of movement,
travel, property inheritance and custody of their children. Iraq, which had
been overwhelmingly secular until the 1990s, was in danger of being
"catapulted towards theocratic rule", the group warned last week...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14063&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14063


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 24 July 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
...Iraqi Resistance forces fired seven 82mm mortar rounds into the
provincial government office building in Samarra’, currently occupied and
used as a headquarters by US forces and their Iraqi stooges. The Resistance
unleashed its mortar barrage just as a joint US-Iraqi puppet patrol was
entering the building at 11am local time Sunda! y morning. Residents of the
al-Mu‘tasim neighborhood of Samarra’ who witnessed the attack told Mafkarat
al-Islam that the mortar shells blasted into the area as a joint patrol of
four US Humvees and three puppet force troop carriers were entering the
fcility...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14061&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14061


Charles de Menezes: Executed to Instill Fear
Kurt Nimmo, Another day in the empire
...Point is, when a criminal government involved in massive war crimes (in
Iraq and Afghanistan) gives cops (or special forces) a free pass to kill
people without pretext or ramification, yahoos in government employ will
emerge from the woodwork and begin executing people. Of course, this may be
exactly what the British government wants—to instill fear in select
communities as a form of psychological warfare...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14059&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14059


Blair Is Unfit to Be Prime Minister
John Pilger, The New Statesman, UK
...On 19 July, while the BBC governors were holding their annual general
meeting at Television Centre, an inspired group of British documentary
filmmakers met outside the main gates and conducted a series of news
reports of the kind you do not see on television. Actors played famous
reporters doing their "camera pieces". The "stories" they reported included
the targeting of the civilian population of Iraq, the application of the
Nuremberg Prin! ciples to Iraq, America's illegal rewriting of the laws of
Iraq and theft of its resources through privatization, the everyday torture
and humiliation of ordinary people and the failure to protect Iraqis
archaeological and cultural heritage. Blair is using the London bombing to
further deplete our rights and those of others, as Bush has done in
America. Their goal is not security, but greater control. The memory of
their victims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere demands the
renewal of our anger...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14057&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14057


Grief for British, but none for Iraqis?
Richard Crouter
... Musayyib's dead are not known by name and are never seen. They count
only as statistics, human lives dispensable for the sake of an allegedly
greater good. But what happened in Musayyib last weekend has occurred all
over Iraq on a daily basis, ever since we declared victory in 2003. The
equivalent would be random daily bombings all over the United Kingdom over
the last two years. Apart from the special case of Israel, the Middle East
seems far away. The ! faces from Musayyib appear alien and "other." We can
hardly pronounce Iraqi names, let alone remember them...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14056&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14056


Many die in Baghdad truck bomb blast
Aljazeera.net
A bomber in a flatbed truck laden with 500 lbs of explosives has killed at
least 29 people and wounded 30 others outside a Baghdad police station,
Iraqi police said. The US military had initially said more than 40
civilians had been killed in the Sunday explosion in the Mashtal area of
eastern Baghdad. This figure was not reconfirmed later. The attack occurred
at the Rashad police station during a blinding sandstorm. Security
barricades prevented the bomber from ! reaching the station, but the huge
blast destroyed two dozen cars and damaged nearby shops...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14052&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14052


Plame Games Expose WMD 'Intelligence Failure' Scam
Ahmed Amr
...When the Plame scandal was in its early stages, George Bush expressed
little urgency in finding the culprits. As he puts it "we may never catch
the person who leaked this information." The president’s wishful thinking
didn’t take into account one Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor.
The question of the hour is what did the President not know and when did he
block it out. Of course, it is no secret that Cheney and his neo-con cabal
wrote the bo! ok on the WMD hoax and the ‘intelligence failure’ alibi. If
you had a copy of the neo-con operational manual – it might help you make
sense of the Plame games and why Joseph Wilson actions posed such a threat
to their grand enterprise...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14048&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14048


Punishment for looking like a terrorist -- Five shots to the head
Stan Moore, MMN
If you happen to be Brazilian or a Sikh or Portuguese or some other
swarthy, dark-haired culture, don't enter the London subway systems looking
suspicious. As far as police are concerned, your suspiciousness carries
with it the death penalty. You can't be allowed to trigger a hidden bomb,
even if you don't have a bomb. Your looks combined with the terror in the
hearts of the police and the citizenry means you will be shot and killed! ,
and then it can be determined if you are a real threat. Or the police will
shrug and say, "Oops. Sorry."...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14047&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14047


Bomb attacks destroy 2 US Humvees in Iraq, causing casualties
Xinhua
Insurgents blew up two roadside bombs in Iraq's flash point western city of
Ramadi on Sunday, destroying two US Humvees and causing some casualties,
witnesses said."A roadside bomb detonated at 8:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) as a US
patrol was passing by in the Hasiyba al-Sharqiya area in eastern Ramadi,
destroying a Humvee, killing and injuring the soldiers aboard," resident
Hindi Muhmoud al-Dulaimi told Xinhua. "Shortly after, another US patrol was
hit ! by a roadside bomb as it was rushing to the scene for rescue work.
Another Humvee was destroyed," Dulaimi said...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14046&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14046


GI Special 3B99: Soldier Called Bitch Gets Help - July 24, 2005
www.militaryproject.org
Dear GI Special, I live in Germany and am an associate of Military
Counseling Network, an organisation offering cost-free GI-rights counseling
--especially conscientious objection-- to soldiers stationed in Germany. We
are presently working with four soldiers in various stages of their
application and an additional four just getting started. Military
Counseling Network is now in contact with the soldier (Soldier called a
bitch! ) whose story you told. He is presently restricted to base on an
A15, but two of us visited with him yesterday for three hours. We'll be
supporting him as best we can from here on...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14045&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14045


Child Abuse at Abu Ghraib
Watching the watchers
Data is emerging, no matter how the administration attempts to hide it,
that the new photos and video of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison include the
torture of children (...) While there isn't even an inkling of this in the
US Mainstream media, all over the world people are beginning to read about
the US abusing children at Abu Ghraib...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14040&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14040




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