[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 11 Sep 2005]

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Urgent call to stop the massacres in Talafar.
The Arab Committee for the Support of Iraq - BRussells Tribunal
For the tenth consecutive day, the Iraqi city of Talafar is being subject
to air and land siege by the U.S. occupation forces that are committing the
ugliest forms of military operations against this city. Information
received indicate a human disaster that the residents of this city are
facing as a result of the one-week siege imposed on them. This siege is
coupled with a fierce military operation that ! has hit both humans and
stone. Dozens of martyrs have fallen as a result of this military operation
in addition to hundreds wounded, including women and children. Houses and
infrastructure are being destroyed and electricity and water has been cut.
Occupation forces are preventing any food and medical assistance to enter
the city, foreboding an even worse human disaster (...) The Arab Committee
also calls upon Arab and Islamic organisations, parties and popular
movements to urge for popular action across the Arab nation in support of
the heroic Iraqi people and our people in the steadfast city of Talafar in
the face of the American aggression...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15622&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15622


Tala'afar .. After Fallujah, Samarra, Haditha, Hit, Rawa and Qaim .. Then
on to Fallujhah, Haditha, Hit, Rawa and Qaim .. Then on to Tala'afar ...
Imad Khadduri , Free Iraq
..."Fighting eased Sunday, the second day of a U.S. and Iraqi sweep through
the militant stronghold of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, as insurgents
melted into the countryside, many escaping through a tunnel network dug
under an ancient northern city" "The terrorists had seen it coming (and
prepared) tunnel complexes to be used as escape ! routes," Maj. Gen. Rick
Lynch said in Baghdad."
... "After the Tal Afar operation ends, we will move on Rabiyah (on the
Syrian border) and Sinjar (a region north of nearby Mosul) and then go down
to the Euphrates valley," al-Dulaimi said. So who are the 141 'insurgents'
killed and 197 arrested (while only 5 'Iraqi security' soldiers dead) mean
but a relentless aerial bombardment on civilians?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15642&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15642


Tal Afar Stormed.
Threat of Ethnic Cleansing Grows in Iraq
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Iraqi troops took the lead in the ground assault in the northern Turkmen
city of Tal Afar, in an attempt by the US to showcase newly trained Iraqi
army units. The problem is that they are perceived as mostly Shiite, and
the Tal Afar campaign is targeting Sunni Turkmen neighborhoods. So the
mayor has resigned in protest of a "sectarian" operation. Al-Hayat reports
that a local Turkmen leader said that 152 civilians had been! killed by
"indiscriminate" fire coming from US helicopter gunships. It also said that
(Shiite) Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari declare that he had ordered the
operation against what he called terrorists, who, he said, had expelled
people from their homes. Jaafari should remember what happened to the
popularity of Iyad Allawi when he called for more US strikes on Fallujah.

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15639&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15639


John Roberts' Role in the Guantanamo Hunger Strike
Mike Whitney
...American justice is an oxymoron. Under Bush, there is neither justice
nor a system; just the willful conduct of bullies who act according to the
most cynical impulses. Roberts is the embodiment of the present paradigm; a
man whose adult life has been devoted to secret organizations, like the
Federalist Society, whose sole purpose is the dismantling of legal
protections and civil liberties for the common man. He is the poster-boy of
the new worl! d order. The Muslim prisoners who are resisting this regime
of lawlessness; some who have even ripped the feeding tubes from their
arms; are heroes in the truest sense of the word. They have put their own
lives on the line for a just cause; demanding that they be treated with the
same respect and dignity deserving of every man. Now, they face an
agonizing death fighting for the very same principles that are written into
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15629&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15629


Iraqis To Bush - Where Did All Our Money Go?
Evelyn Pringle
I have come to the conclusion that even if I live to be 100, I will never
be able to track down every Bush-connected profiteer involved in this phony
war on terror scheme. According to a report released in March 2005, by
Transparency International (TI), an international organization that focuses
on matters of corruption, Iraq could become "the biggest corruption scandal
in history." "I can see all sorts of levels of corruption in Iraq,"report
contributor! Reinoud Leenders told the Christian Science Monitor, "starting
from petty officials asking for bribes to process a passport, way up to
contractors delivering shoddy work and the kind of high-level corruption
involving ministers and high officials handing out contracts to their
friends and clients...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15630&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15630


G.H.W. Bush made Kuwait safe for Al Qaeda financing
WAYNE MADSEN REPORT
G.H.W. Bush made Kuwait safe for Al Qaeda financing. George H. W. Bush's
Operation Desert Storm made Kuwait safe for an important part of "Al
Qaeda's" financing operations. Documents dating to 1993 and obtained from
European intelligence sources by WMR indicate that after U.S. troops ran
Saddam Hussein's forces out of the oil rich emirate, Kuwait became a
significant base of operations for Osama bin Laden and his "Al Qaeda"
support network. K! uwait was the headquarters for an Islamic "charity,"
Lajnat al Dawa al Islamiyah, a group designated by the Treasury Department
as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization. Lajnat
gave financial support to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "Al Qaeda's" chief
planner of the 911 attacks, which occurred exactly four years ago.
Mohammed's brother ran Lajnat's operations in Peshawar, Pakistan...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15641&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15641


Blackwater Mercenaries: Coming Soon to Your Town
Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire
It is now obvious how martial law (not officially declared as such) will
work in America in the wake of the devastation of New Orleans. Instead of
federal troops or an influx of National Guard troops sent to “restore
order” (the latter mandated in our now anachronistic Constitution; see
Article 1, Section 8) and empowered to “suppress Insurrections and repel
Invasions,” in Louisiana the state and federal governments have brazen! ly
violated the Constitution by sending in Blackwater Security and other
private goon squads. “Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the
Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are
openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans”...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15638&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15638


Imploding the Empire: Metaphors for the Age
Gary Steven Corseri
Why are we surprised that it took so long for Bush the cowboy to get off
his ass and do something about Katrina? Those of us whose memories have not
been addled by TV recall that Bush Sr. also was on vacation before Gulf War
I began. The Bushes like their vacations, and the country be damned! George
Bush pere spoke of a “kinder, gentler nation” and “a thousand points of
light.” (Speechwriter Peggy Noonan built her fatuous career based on those
eight! words.) Bush pere lured Saddam Hussein into the wolftrap of Kuwait.
(Ambassador, April Glaspie, had assured him that the U.S. did not involve
itself in disputes between Arab neighbors.) After taking out most of the
Iraqi draftees in a “turkey shoot” that killed about 100,000 fleeing the
hellish roads from Kuwait, the kinder, gentler Bush-1 imposed sanctions
that “I-feel-your-pain” Clinton continued. His Secretary of State Madeline
Albright decided that half a million Iraqi children’s deaths were “worth
it.” Clinton handed the mendacity ball to Bush file who declared Jesus was
his favorite philosopher. During his campaign against media-stiffed Al
Gore, Bush-2 declared his desire for a humbler U.S. foreign policy. Soon
after the election, humble-pie Bush was stomping over the Kyoto protocols,
denying global warming, and making it clear that his was the Jesus of the
Church militant, not the turn-the-other-cheek-love-thy-enemy guy...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15635&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15635


Cuba and the United States: Two Countries, Two Responses
Dan Bacher, www.dissidentvoice.org
There is no greater contrast to the way a country reacts to a hurricane
than the way the Cuban government and the Bush regime reacted to their
respective disasters. A hurricane with 160 mile-an-hour winds recently
battered the small island of Cuba. Equally notified in advance as the Bush
regime was about the impending catastrophe in New Orleans and the Gulf
states, the Cubans efficiently evacuated 1,500,000 people. Because! the
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in the local communities are
so well organized, everything went smoothly without the loss of one life
(...) The Bush regime is a criminal one, the worst presidential
administration in U.S. history, which cares nothing about the people of New
Orleans, the U.S., Iraq or the rest of the world...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15636&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15636


September 11, 2005...
Riverbend, Baghdad burning
...It has been four years today. How does it feel four years later? For the
3,000 victims in America, more than 100,000 have died in Iraq. Tens of
thousands of others are being detained for interrogation and torture. Our
homes have been raided, our cities are constantly being bombed and Iraq has
fallen back decades, and for several years to come we will suffer under the
influence of the extremism we didn't know prior to the war. As I write
this, Tel Afar, a small p! lace north of Mosul, is being bombed. Dozens of
people are going to be buried under their homes in the dead of the night.
Their water and electricity have been cut off for days. It doesn’t seem to
matter much though because they don’t live in a wonderful skyscraper in a
glamorous city. They are, quite simply, farmers and herders not worth a
second thought...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15632&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15632


The storms gather
Hana Al-Bayaty
Just when the United States anti-war movement had found a focus for its
energies in Cindy Sheehan, hurricane Katrina blew in from the Gulf of
Mexico to expose the real nature of the Bush administration and the dangers
of its plans for "full spectrum dominance". The American people discovered,
perhaps to their astonishment, that their successful economy had created an
underclass of millions of disenfranchised citizens, the majority of them
African-Americans...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15631&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15631


Elementary! My Dear Watson?
Anwaar Hussain, Fountainhead
...While the US has already spent upwards of US $ 250 billion on Iraq war,
with the cost estimated to top a trillion US dollars if that fiasco
continues for a further five years, and spends the highest in the whole
world on its overdeveloped military muscle, the report states that, “One
study finds that eliminating the gap in healthcare between African
Americans and white Americans would save nearly 85,000 lives a year. To put
this figure in context, techno! logical improvements in medicine save about
20,000 lives a year”. The frank and bold data highlights an inconsistency
not only at the heart of the US health system but also across the board at
the entire governmental priorities. While the high levels of personal
healthcare spending reflect the America’s cutting-edge medical technology
and treatment, the social inequalities, interacting with inequalities in
health financing and other misplaced priorities, limit the reach of medical
advance to all and sundry...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15627&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15627


Zero Access and the First Amendment
Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire
In the new New Orleans, where the paradigm of the Bush police state is
field tested, the media is not allowed to inform Americans of the death
toll in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Or so FEMA’s military overseer of
“victim recovery efforts” (confiscating guns and kicking in doors), Gen.
Russel Honore, would have it. Terry Ebbert, homeland security director of
the new New Orleans, explained Honore’s reason for banning the media (and
assault! journalists and photographers and steal the memory cards from
their cameras): “we don’t think that’s proper” to let members of the media
view the bodies, the potentate declared...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15626&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15626


Powell's 'pain' and 'terrible feeling' ... How accountable are 'blots'?
Imad Khadduri , Free Iraq
...Immediately after his 'Security Council' speech on February 2003, I had
written an article, "The nuclear bomb hoax", refuting Powell's flimsy
so-called 'evidences'. That article ended with: "Powell said: "Let me now
turn to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever
abandoned his nuclear weapons program." This verges on being humorous. But
as the Arabic proverb goes: The worst kind of misf! ortune is that which
causes you to laugh"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15625&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15625


New Orleans: Barbarity of US capitalism exposed
Barry Sheppard
...The exposure of the lies told by both parties about the war, the
revelations of Abu Ghraib and increasing international isolation further
eroded that support. When Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed
in Iraq, made her pilgrimage to Bush’s Crawford farm, her individual act of
courage came at the right time. It struck a deep chord among tens of
millions of people in the US. The Bush administration was put on the
defensive. The criminal r! eaction of the administration to New Orleans has
been met with widespread revulsion. It has combined with the growing
opposition to the war to create a major crisis of confidence in the US
population. Writers in the New York Times have compared Bush’s situation to
that faced by Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and Richard Nixon in 1973. The
upcoming demonstrations against the war on September 24 will be larger than
they looked like being a few months ago. And New Orleans will now be
another theme of the protests...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15624&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15624


FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions to Florida Residents Unaffected by ‘04
Hurricane to Help Bush Win State
Jason Leopold, www.dissidentvoice.org
Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to
thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and
three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a
majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according
to publi! shed reports...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15623&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15623


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 10 September 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.
...Even as US forces claimed that their offensive had not yet begun, US
aircraft continued raids on various neighborhoods. On Thursday and Friday
there were more than 50 American air sorties over the city, targeting
houses and residential buildings. Although there were certainly civilian
casualties in the air raids, the Quds Press correspondents outside t! he
city reported that obtaining anything like exact data has been impossible
given the American blockade imposed on Tall ‘Afar. Not only has the
pounding come from the sky. US tanks have been shelling positions that the
Americans claim are occupied by Iraqi Resistance fighters on the edge of
the beleaguered city. There have been persistent reports that the American
forces have not limited themselves to the use of conventional weapons...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15620&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15620


A viewpoint on Iraqi National Resistance and Liberation
Imad Khadduri , Free Iraq
Whenever there is occupation there is resistance. All nations have
experienced this. Resistance to occupation is legal, legitimate and
acceptable. On top of this are some people who hate the US and found Iraq a
suitable place to fight their war. They came to the country after the
occupation, and the Americans are now paying the price. Al Qaida and Musab
al-Zarqawi are separate from the rest of the resistance. There is no
coordinatio! n between the resistance and these groups, whom we consider to
be terrorists (...) Inside the armed resistance there are different groups
and trends. You have Baathists, Islamists, Sunnis, Shias, sometimes you
also have Kurds. The main characteristic is Arab nationalist...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15619&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15619


In Defence of Michel Chossudovsky
Michael Keefer
During the past two weeks Professor Michel Chossudovsky, an economist,
political analyst and human rights advocate of international reputation who
teaches at the University of Ottawa and directs his own Centre for Research
on Globalization and its widely-admired website
<http://www.globalresearch.ca, >www.globalresearch.ca, has become the
object of a strange campaign of defamation. Chossudovsky’s website makes
available writings on worl! dwide political issues by a wide range of
academics and journalists. It also offers open forums in which members of
the public can discuss and debate the issues raised by the scores of
articles published each week. But that, it seems, can be a risky business...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15616&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15616


All eyes on Halliburton as contacts turn into contracts
Oliver Morgan
With the floodwaters still high in New Orleans last week, with 25,000 body
bags on their way to the city, with the Gulf of Mexico oil industry
crippled - 160 platforms and 16 rigs still evacuated, oil refineries shut
down - there was one group of people who, nevertheless, could see some good
coming out of the wreckage. Who? Halliburton shareholders. The
Houston-based company - once headed by vice-president Dick Cheney, who was
dispatched by Geo! rge Bush to survey the damage - has been a star
performer on the markets since the storm hit the Gulf. Its shares have
risen by more than 10 per cent to $65. It has out-performed the Dow Jones
Industrial Average, which itself recovered last week...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15633&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15633


Pastor Niemöller in the 21st Century
Daithí Mac Lochlainn, The Gaelic Starover
“When the Neo-Conservatives came into power, they disenfranchised a large
number of American citizens of their vote, but I was neither black nor from
Florida, so I said nothing (...) Then, they invaded a sovereign nation in a
war of aggression based on lies and deception, but I wasn’t Iraqi. I did
nothing. Then, they tortured, humiliated and photographed detainees and
passed the images around like baseball cards, but wasn’t an Abu Ghra! ib
inmate. I did nothing. Then they sodomized a teen-aged boy in sight of his
distraught mother, but I wasn’t an Iraqi youth. I did nothing. Then, they
cut off a small city’s water and power before bombing it to smithereens,
but I didn't live in Fallujah. I did nothing...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15615&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=15615




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