[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 26 Nov 2005]

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The Greatest Strategic Disaster in American History
Mike Whitney
A few months ago, retired Army Lt. General William Odom called the war in
Iraq, "the greatest strategic disaster in American history". Since then,
he’s added to his criticism saying that, "The army is broken" and "we need
a basic strategic change of direction" or "we’re going to pay a higher and
higher price over a longer period of time." Odom’s sober analysis of Iraq
is a stark contrast to the optimistic braying of the Bush administration.
Just th! is week, Bush said that America will prevail in Iraq and that we
will persist until "victory" is achieved. Vice President Dick Cheney is
equally confident of success, although he has backed off his earlier
predictions that the "insurgency is in its last throes"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18178&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18178


The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens
Richard Seymour, Monthly Review
Picture a necrotic, sinister, burned-out wasteland -- a vast, dull mound of
rubble punctuated by moments of bleak emptiness and, occasionally, smoking.
Those of you whose imaginations alighted instantly on the Late Christopher
Hitchens have only yourselves to blame, for I was referring to Fallujah.
The "city of mosques" was sacrificed in November 2004 during an
all-American war movie: the MacGuffin, an obscure yet deadly figure kno! wn
as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who, predictably, "escaped" with his wily
confederates into the deserts...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18183&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18183


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 26 November 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
...In a dispatch posted at 5pm Mecca time Saturday evening, Mafkarat
al-Islam reported that a short while earlier US forces had arrested several
men and driven their women and children out of five homes in the city of
Hit in western Iraq. The Americans then demolished the houses, following
the tactics practiced by the Zionist! forces in occupied Palestine...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18191&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18191


Independent, investigating media: facing bomb and virus epidemics
jouna, iraq-war.ru
The corporate media is sinking deeper and deeper into it’s chemical lies
and false reporting on the origins of terrorism. To mention few examples,
the BBC News is gaining reputation for it’s "changing" titles, to a such
degree that it’s already known as "the BBC Nows" (for an excellent coverage
of the reporting of the BBC, cf.
<http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/). >http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/).
Ev! en more famous is the New York Times (also referred as the "New York
Slimes") for it’s former employee Judy Miller, but one should not discredit
their coverage of the Fallujah: Hidden massacre either
(...) Meanwhile the independent, investigating media is facing steadily
growing and widening attacks...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18190&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18190


Violence against occupation opponents continues in lead-up to Iraq election
James Cogan, WSWS
In contrast to Washington’s propaganda that a stable democracy is emerging
in Iraq, a campaign of terror and intimidation is continuing against
opponents of the US occupation in the weeks leading up to the December 15
election. The November 13 exposure of a secret prison in Baghdad, where
American troops found interior ministry police commandos torturing alleged
members of the guerilla resistance, has been followed this ! week by the
blatant assassination of a Sunni Arab leader...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18184&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18184


When a Chemical Weapon is Not a Chemical Weapon
US War Crimes List Keeps Growing
DAVE LINDORFF
...In all of this, it needs to be recalled that the US fall-back claim that
it "only" used phosphorus bombs against insurgents has to be held up
against the reality that the US military, in Iraq in general and in the
Fallujah assault in particular, considers all Iraqi males of "combat age"
(read that 12 or 14 and up) to be the enemy under Pentagon "rules of
engagement." In Fallujah, it was widely reported tha! t the US, after
encircling the city in preparation for its assault, refused to allow such
Iraqi males to leave the doomed city and left them to their fate as the
assault began (a war crime, since under the rules of war anyone, inclulding
combatants, must be allowed to surrender and leave the field of battle)--an
assault that included the use of phosphorus bombs. Even so, Iraqi
government sources say 5-6000 civilians were killed in the US attack on
Fallujah a year ago. That's a terrible toll, but in fact, the real figure
is surely higher and will never be known...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18182&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18182


So what have they got to hide? Official secrets, lies, and the truth about
the assault on Fallujah
Raymond Whitaker and Marie Woolf, The Independent
Nobody outside the Westminster village would recognise the names of David
Keogh and Leo O'Connor. One is a former Cabinet Office official, the other
a researcher for an MP who lost his seat at the last election. But the
crime of which they are accused concerns two men who are firmly in the
public eye: Tony Blair and George Bush...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18195&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18195


An Arab-American Priest, Depleted Uranium, and Iraq
Robert Hirschfield, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
TRAVELING around southern Iraq in the late 1990s to investigate the effects
of U.N. economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, Jesuit Father Simon Harak
stopped at a hospital in Basra. Meeting with him and his colleagues from
the anti-sanction group Voices in the Wilderness, Dr. Jenan Hassan briefed
them about the medical horrors she and other doctors were confronting as a
result of the use of depleted ura! nium (DU) weapons by the U.S. Army in
southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war. There was a fivefold increase in
cancer, especially leukemia, she said, and a five- to eightfold increase in
children born with genetic defects. Dr. Hassan showed the Voices group some
of the newborns. "We saw a baby with a head growing out of his head,"
recalled Harak. "We saw babies with intestines growing outside their
bodies."...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18194&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18194


Lost Legs, Burned Faces and White House Lies
What Are They Dying For?
BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
On November 24 the number of US dead in Iraq for the month reached 75. In
October, 96 Americans were killed. The corpse total is over 2100. More than
7,000 of the 15,804 wounded (as at November 24) have lost limbs or minds or
will bear hideous disfigurement to their graves. What for? Why have they
died or been maimed? What righteous cause has made it imperative for
thousands of young Americans to have their lives cut ! short or be horribly
mutilated? Among the worst of those wounded were Sergeant Spencer Akers,
who was burned on over 75 per cent of his body, and 26 year-old Latseen
Benson of the 101st Airborne. Specialist Benson was blown up on November 13
and "lost his legs and possibly part of an arm and was in a coma Tuesday
night [November 15] in a hospital in Germany"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18181&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18181


GI Special 3D26: "For All The Soldiers Who Have Died"
www.militaryproject.org
...For all of the soldiers who have died at the hands of these people --
for all of the soldiers who suffer irreparable wounds, internal and
external, because these people don't care about anyone except themselves --
Kevin has faced everything that he has - and it's time for these people to
pay the piper. With the letter to Bush that Kevin sent last November [see
below], he clearly told Bush and his commanders what he intended to do. He!
said no more -- that one letter was all he needed. On December 22, 2004, I
clearly told the American people what they were allowing these people to do
to our soldiers and their families in an Open Letter to Our Leaders. There
was nothing more that needed to be said. Words weren't going to do it --
actions were...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18192&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18192


Torture and the Empire
Who We Are
SAUL LANDAU
George W. Bush returned from a brief but difficult November learning foray
in Latin America: "Wow, Brazil is big." Meanwhile, U.S. citizens grew
impatient with his performance. CBS polls rated him at 35% approval in
early November. Even his supporters acknowledge that Bush's policies have
created enormous ill will throughout the world. More ethically worrisome,
cried his critics, those policies don't represent who we really are. Most
Americans, for example,! abhor torture. So, on November 7, Bush flatly
declared: "We don't torture"--just as front page stories appeared with
details of how the Pentagon charged five U.S members of an elite Army unit
with kicking and punching detainees in Iraq...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18180&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18180


Congressional Theater, Media Illusions and Controlling the Debate
Les Blough, Editor, Axis of Logic
When those who are wise find themselves facing an impending defeat in any
area of life, they confront their defeat, engage in self-examination, try
to understand the reasons and come to terms with their own failure.
Insight, courage and honesty are required. Others are not as wise,
courageous or honest. The unwise who find themselves in the throes of
defeat immediately begin to attribute their failure to others. Th! e latter
often begin to blame others, sometimes even cannibalizing their own,
devouring them in an orgy of bloodletting in order to locate their failure
externally. Enter Congressman John Murtha and the Democrats in Washington.
As the war mongers in Washington see their web of terror in Iraq begin to
unravel, they feel compelled to launch new attacks - on one another...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18179&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18179


Large military operation in Iraq expected: Interior minister
ArabicNews.com.
In a statement, the Iraqi minister of interior Bayan Jaber Soulagh
announced during a military parade for the security keeping forces the
coming of a "nearby large military operation." Soulagh said "there is a
mission before us. We will move strongly to attack the shelters of
terrorism in different areas," noting that this force will include 10,000
fighters and some 1000 military vehicle...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18196&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18196


Britain gives approval to torture, claims Amnesty
Ben Russell and Colin Brown
Tony Blair has been accused of undermining decades of British campaigning
for international human rights by using the war on terror to give a "green
light" to torture. Amnesty International is to launch an unprecedented
global campaign tomorrow against the British Government after ministers
admitted they would use information gained by torture to prevent attacks on
the United Kingdom...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18177&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18177


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 25 November 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.
Following the violent combat that raged on Thursday night between Iraqi and
other Arab Resistance fighters on the one hand and US occupation troops on
the other, the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in the al-Qa’im area learned
that US troops penetrated about five kilometers into Syrian territory in an
attempt to chase down Resistance fighters. Residents of M! akr adh-Dhib
village as well as Syrian citizens, who spoke with Mafkarat al-Islam over
the telephone, said that a US armored vehicle was completely destroyed on
Syrian soil and was then hauled back into occupied Iraq...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18176&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18176


I’ll Tell You How You’d Feel! You’d Feel Like an Iraqi!
Jesse, Editor, TVNewsLies
Look around you right now. Count the people in your home; your children,
siblings, parents, pets, whom ever happen to be at your home at any given
time. Add your neighbors on either side of where you are. Now imagine that
you come home to find them all dead because a car bomb exploded in front of
your home. How would you feel?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18189&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18189


Anti-Iraq War Monument Unveiled at Bush's Hometown
IslamOnline.net
US President George W. Bush's hopes for a brief reprieve from the bitter
occupation of Iraq debate were dashed on Friday, November25 , when scores
of protesters led by anti-war icon Cindy Sheehan called anew for troops
pullout and unveiled an anti-war monument in the US leader's adoptive Texas
hometown. "We're here to say that the killing has to stop," Sheehan, whose
son was killed in the Iraq war, told reporters, reported Agence
France-Presse (AF! P)...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18188&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18188


Our unconscious minds know the truth: the war is lost. We must get out
Matthew Parris, Times
...This winter there will be the slow shifting of our collective conscious
mind as a nation behind the position already occupied by our collective
unconscious: that the war is lost. The occupation didn’t work. Only the
order of retreat remains to be settled...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18187&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18187


The US Plans a Long, Long Stay in Iraq
Eric Margolis
The US Air Force’s senior officer, Gen. John Jumper, stated US warplanes
would remain in Iraq to fight resistance forces and protect the
American-installed regime "more or less indefinitely." Gen. Jumper let the
cat out of the bag. While President George Bush hints at eventual troop
withdrawals, the Pentagon is busy building four major, permanent air bases
in Iraq that will require heavy infantry protection. Jumper’s revelation
confirms what this column has lon! g said: the Pentagon plans to copy
Imperial Britain’s method of ruling oil-rich Iraq. In the 1920’s, the
British cobbled together Iraq from three disparate Ottoman provinces to
control newly-found oil fields in Kurdistan and along the Iranian border.
The Sunni heartland in the middle was included to link these two oil
regions...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18186&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18186


Some things you might have missed
Xymphora
...Nibras Kazimi drills serious holes in the credibility of one of the two
main witnesses, a man called 'Hosam Taher Hosam', in the Mehlis report
defaming Syria for the assassination of Hariri (the other main witness,
Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, has already been completely discredited).
Mehlis not only did a hack job on Syria, he did an obviously incompetent
hack job on Syria. Are German prosecutors always this bad?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18193&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18193




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information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
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