[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 9 Feb 2006 - Part One]

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Insulting Islam
Felicity Arbuthnot, Special to PalestineChronicle.com
...Nearly three thousand years ago, the Babylonian 'Council of Wisdom'
instructed: To the feeble show kindness, Do not insult the downtrodden, Do
charitable deeds, render service all your days, Do not utter libel, speak
what is of good report, Do not say evil things, speak well of people.
Editors, politicians and cartoonists, would do well to pin it to the wall
and reflect from time to time. Large gatherings will, near, inevitably
contai! n hot heads – and sometimes even agent provocateurs, determined to
discredit. Burning buildings is tragic, illegal, unacceptable,
reprehensible and inexcusable. So is burning homes, towns, villages, state
buildings: countries. Cartoons too are a two way stretch. An Arab newspaper
recently showed a crusader, helmeted, cross regaling the front of his
robes, blood dripping from sword depicted as pen. The caption was:
'European Press'...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20457&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20457


Iran and the bomb
Pedro De Pezarat Correia
...At the time of the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, George W. Bush and the
other extremist "hawks" that dictate US policy were not afraid to state,
implicitly and explicitly, that they were on the first stage of an
ambitious strategy that eyed the whole of the Middle East, having as
targets, obviously, the hostile states of the so-called "axis of evil",
namely Syria and Iran. It was, after all, to continue what has been for
decades Washington’s choice: to act as patron and ! agent of Israel’s
geopolitical strategy. Once Iraq was "normalized" the American bulldozer
would move on to crush Iran. Syria would fall on its own...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20458&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20458


ON NSA SPYING: A LETTER TO CONGRESS
The New York Review of Books
We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We
write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush
administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as
reported in The New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice
Department's December 22, 2005, letter to the majority and minority leaders
of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the
administration's defen! se of the program. Although the program's secrecy
prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice
Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless
electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to
identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly
the program appears on its face to violate existing law.

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20461&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20461


Report Says Number of Attacks by Insurgents in Iraq Increases
JAMES GLANZ, "New York Times"
Sweeping statistics on insurgent violence in Iraq that were declassified
for a Senate hearing on Wednesday appear to portray a rebellion whose
ability to mount attacks has steadily grown in the nearly three years since
the invasion. The statistics were included in a report written by Joseph A.
Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the Government
Accountability Office, who testified before the Senate For! eign Affairs
Committee during a hearing on Iraq stabilization and reconstruction. The
American military declassified the statistics so he could present them to
the hearing in his report, Mr. Christoff said in an interview...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20463&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20463


Agustin Velloso: The West Adding Cartoons to Injury
Agustin Velloso, Special to PalestineChronicle.com
It seems Westerners ability to trespass limits knows no limits. The
cartoons disgraceful affair, or global crisis as some have called it, shows
the West lack of decency, moral hypocrisy and political cynicism. Decency.
Year after year Muslim and Arab blood is being spilt in the Middle East.
Those who kill, maim and destroy unlawfully and without mercy, find
themselves unable to intervene in the cartoons affair b! ecause they say
they cannot go against the right of journalists to freely express
themselves. We have here a Jewish-Christian civilization that kills
thousands upon thousands of Muslims while invade their lands with total
disregard for international and humanitarian laws, but that it is at the
same time hand-tied by a sacred law about freedom of speech...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20459&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20459


"Humane and compassionate"
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
The chief military spokesman at Guantanamo, Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin, said
yesterday force-feeding of hunger strikers is being carried out "in a
humane and compassionate manner." And really, who can disagree? In recent
weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant
detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them
through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward.
Detainees who refuse to! eat have also been placed in isolation for
extended periods to keep them from being pressured by other hunger
strikers. The lawyers [for the "detainees"] said other measures used to
dissuade the hunger strikers included placing them in uncomfortably cold
air-conditioned isolation cells, depriving them of "comfort items" like
blankets and books and sometimes using riot-control soldiers to compel the
prisoners to sit still while long plastic tubes were threaded down their
nasal passages and into their stomachs. And why are they doing this
exactly? Out of concern for the lives of the hunger strikers? Out of
"compassion"? Hardly...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20455&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20455


Who's behind the kidnaps?
Firas Al-Atraqchi, Al-Ahram Weekly
...In short, both the four CPT members and Carroll had been recognised by
Iraqis -- and specifically Sunnis -- as performing work they viewed as
beneficial to the Iraqi people and/or alleviating the plight of Sunnis in
Western Iraq (CPT) and in detention centres (Carroll). It is worthy of
mentioning that CPT had been operating in Iraq at least six months before
the US invasion of 20 March 2003 (...) This is known by all Iraqis across
the board since 200! 2. So who would kidnap them? Who stands to gain? Who
stands to lose? Who would kidnap Ms Carroll? Who stands to gain? Who stands
to lose? Perhaps the answer lies in a deeper understanding of an armed
group which few know operates in Iraq. Ever heard of the Scorpions?
According to a Washington Post report in 2005, the US intelligence
community tried to conceal the existence of the group known as the
Scorpions which was operating secretly in Iraq. The report says that the
Scorpions were small teams of CIA-sponsored militia (paramilitary) outfits
nicknamed Alligator and Cobra who were set up prior to the invasion to
commit acts of subterfuge and incite violence against the Baathist regime...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20453&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20453


Educators face blowback for protesting Iraq war in schools
Carlos Miller, RAW STORY
Just over three years ago, as the nation readied for war with Iraq,
elementary school teacher Deb Mayer stood in front of her class and uttered
the word that would get her blacklisted from her profession. It was a word
that got her deemed "unpatriotic" by an angry parent. A word that led to
her termination from the Bloomington, Indiana school district. A word that
got her labeled as a potential sex offender and ruined her chances ! of
finding work elsewhere. That word was "peace."..

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20460&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20460


The Corporate Plunder Of Iraq
Dave Whyte
...The largest part of the money spent by the US-British occupation was not
US or international donor funds, but oil revenue that belongs to the Iraqi
people. During the period of direct rule the US spent, or committed to
spend, around £11.3 billion, most of which was disbursed to US
corporations. Of this expenditure, £5 billion is unaccounted for. From the
available evidence we know that much of it has vanished into the hands of
corporations, corrupt public officials and ! elite Iraqi deal fixers.
During 14 months of its existence the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
– the body set up to rule Iraq and headed up by Bush favourite Paul Bremer
– issued 100 legal orders by decree. Those orders, implemented without the
consent of Iraqi people, represent a pure form of neo-liberal orthodoxy
that has had profound and irreversible consequences for the Iraqi economy...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20454&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20454


Nigger thought experiment
Xymphora
...Here is a small list of some of the things we do to Muslims, without
even a hint that there might be some moral issues involved: 1. drop bombs
on innocent civilians in a country that posed no harm, and boastfully talk
of 'shock and awe'; 2. shoot their children in the face as part of an
organized program to steal their lands; 3. imprison their wives and
daughters as hostages; 4. chop down the olive trees that have supported
their families for hundreds of years; 5. threaten mo! re innocent civilians
with death in countries like Iran and Syria, countries which again pose no
threat; 6. lock up their young men by the hundreds of even thousands after
September 11, unconstitutionally and illegally, and quietly release them
months later rather than admit it was all a racist program of profiling...

7. fire a tank shell into a group of their children, and call it a 'mistake';

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20451&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20451


Three Years After 30 Million People Took the Streets to Tell Bush and Blair
Not to Go to War
The Human Majority was Right About Iraq
MIKE MARQUSEE
Three years ago, the world witnessed something unprecedented. On the same
day, in 900 cities in forty countries north and south, east and west,
thirty million people took to the streets in protest against the imminent
attack on Iraq. There were demonstrations in Moscow, Karachi, Dhaka,
Manila, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kinshasa, Tel Aviv, among many others, but th!
e biggest turn-outs were in the belligerent nations. The marches in
Britain, Spain, Italy and Australia were probably the largest in their
countries' histories. On 15th February 2003, I was lucky enough to find
myself in New York...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20450&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20450


WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, February 8, 2006
Today in Iraq
Two U.S. soldiers died in Iraq at Al Husayniya on Sunday in a roadside bomb
attack, the U.S. military reported on Tuesday. Soldier dies in Brooke Army
Medical Center in Texas from injuries received in a bomb attack in Baghdad
last December. Army soldier from the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment
dies on Wednesday of wounds suffered three days earlier in a roadside
bombing in Anbar province. Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics
Group, II Marine Exped! itionary Force (Forward) killed Monday in a bombing
in Anbar...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20462&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20462


Kidnapped journalist pleads for her life
AP
US journalist Jill Carroll has appeared in a video aired on a private
Kuwaiti TV channel appealing for her supporters to do whatever her Iraqi
kidnappers want to secure her release. "I am here. I am fine. Please just
do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as
possible," Carroll says. Carroll appeared in the black-and-white video
wearing an Islamic veil, sitting in a chair in front of a wall with a large
floral design...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20465&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20465


Iraq's basic services are worse now than before war began
James Glanz, The New York Times
Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity,
water and sewerage sectors has fallen below pre-invasion values, even
though $16 billion of U.S. taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the
Iraq reconstruction program, several government witnesses have told the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Of seven different measures of
infrastructure performance presented Wednesday at the committee hearing !
by the inspector general's office, only one was above pre-invasion values...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20464&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20464


CIA Patsy Gets Help in Prison Escape
Kurt Nimmo, Another day in the empire
Be afraid of Jamal al-Badawi, al-CIA-duh "mastermind" terrorist—or
interchangeably, dim bulb Muslim patsy—who supposedly dug a tunnel out of
"a heavily guarded" Yemeni prison and made his escape, thus posing a "clear
and present danger to all countries." As it turns out, al-Badawi received
the equivalent of a cake with a metal file from Yemeni intelligence
officers, according to the Associated Press. Of course, the Associated
Press did not! bother to mention that Yemeni intelligence is in the pocket
of the CIA, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20449&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20449


Baath Party Statement
In the ongoing open ended confrontation with the US imperialism: the Baath
is the Resistance base, its inspirer, the source of its strength and its
invincible spearhead
The Arab Baath Socialist Party
Those who didn't understand or tried not to understand the real meaning of
the Political and Strategic Program of the Armed Iraqi resistance, as
designed by the Resisting Baath in Iraq, and those who ignored or tried to
ignore the early publication of the Program immediately after the! start of
the Armed Iraqi Resistance and went on talking about a Resistance "without
a political Program" for various in connection with their political,
security, intellectual or economical integration with the Occupation and
its failed project in Iraq.. All these were historically in the opposite
trench of the Baath and its Renaissance Project in Iraq and in the nation
as a whole... When the planned aggression started and the soil of Iraq was
occupied, they took a wait and see position, in the hope to finish the
Baath and to destroy it. These included plotter and inept Arab regimes,
politicians, intellectuals, writers, Media, individuals, and institutions
plus all the debased traitors of Iraq those who got debased either before
or after the Occupation or through its failed political agendas and
episodes...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20447&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20447


International Progress Organization condemns anti-Muslim hate propaganda
and calls upon European Union to take a firm stand in defense of the rights
of all religious communities
Al-Moharer.net
In a statement issued today, the President of the International Progress
Organization (I.P.O.), Dr. Hans Koechler, condemned the publication of
blasphemous caricatures by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and their
republication by newspapers in France, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Spain,
Austria, New Zealand, and other Wes! tern countries. The 12 cartoons
originally printed in the Danish newspaper reveal utter contempt for the
Muslim religion and are a clear incitement to religious hatred and
fanaticism against the worldwide community of Muslims...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20446&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20446


What does this guy have to do to get impeached?
Greg Sagan, Amarillo Globe-News
...We are now deluged with evidence that President Bush has violated
federal law in authorizing the National Security Agency to tap the
telephone and Internet communications of Americans without a warrant, that
he has violated international law by launching an unprovoked invasion of
another country, that he has violated the Geneva Conventions by abusing
prisoners of this war, and that he manipulated Congress by offering
sanitized vers! ions of National Intelligence Estimates about Iraq's
weapons programs - versions that did not contain the disclaimers and
rebuttals in the original documents he received from the CIA. The latest
cannonade comes from a television station in Great Britain claiming to hold
written minutes of a Jan. 31, 2003 meeting between President Bush and Prime
Minister Tony Blair, in which our president outlined a plan for provoking
Iraq by flying a U-2 reconnaissance plane and its fighter escorts in the
markings of the United Nations in hopes the Iraqis would shoot at them in
violation of U.N. resolutions...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20445&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20445


Criticize Bush, get investigated for sedition
Chairman Jeff, SmirkBlog
It happened to Laura Berg, a Veterans Administration nurse who showed up
for work one day to find government agents waiting for her. The American
Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico wants the government to apologize to a
nurse for seizing her computer and investigating her for "sedition" after
she criticized the Bush administration. Her crime? Berg, a clinical nurse
specialist, wrote a letter in September to a weekly Albuquerque n! ewspaper
criticizing how the administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq
War...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20444&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20444


BUSH REFUSES TO CONFRONT THE TRUE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR
Randolph T. Holhut
The butcher’s bill, the ever-expanding human and economic cost of the Iraq
war, grows with each passing week. The human cost keeps increasing. Nearly
2,300 U.S. soldiers have been killed and more than 16,000 have been
seriously wounded.
The economic cost keeps increasing too. The war in Iraq is estimated to
cost the United States about $100,000 a minute, or nearly $200 million a
day.
But the bill will ulitmately be much worse. According to Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stieglitz of Columbia University and Linda
Biomes, who teaches management at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government,
the ultimate cost of the Iraq war could go as high as $2 trillion...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20442&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20442


“Dangerous” Academics
Right-wing Distortions about Leftist Professors
Robert Jensen, www.dissidentvoice.org
In an "urgent" e-mail last week, right-wing activist David Horowitz hyped
his latest book about threats to America’s youth from leftist professors.
The ad for The Professors -- The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America
describes me as: "Texas Journalism Professor Robert Jensen, who rabidly
hates the United States, and recently told his students, 'The United States
has lost the war in Iraq and t! hat’s a good thing.’"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20448&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20448




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