[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 23 Mar 2006 - Part One]

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The “Noble Cause” that killed Casey Sheehan
Mike Whitney
A lot of rubbish has been written about "religious faith" lately. The fact
is, there’s a force more powerful than faith; the power of denial. America
has completely surrendered to denial; abandoning any claim to reason or
clear-sighted analysis. The vast majority of people are perfectly content
to ignore the tell-tale signs of looming disaster choosing instead to keep
their heads firmly tucked in the sand. Is it really that hard to see what’s
happening? Is ! it difficult to grasp that the Congress just voted to spend
another $92 billion for a war that nobody wants? That raises the national
debt to a whopping $9 trillion, every penny of which will be paid off by
our children and their children’s children. They’ll be indentured servants
until the end of time. Do the American people care? No way. The soothing
bromides from our doltish president are enough to lull them back into their
narcotic-haze. It’s called "denial". D-E-N-I-A-L...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21805&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21805


Human Rights Report
1 January– 28 February 2006
UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI)
The human rights situation in the country remains a matter of serious
concern. Following the events of 22 February 2006, which included, the
destruction of Al Askari Shrine in Samarra, there has been a marked
deterioration in the security environment, resulting in hundreds of cases
of killings, torture, illegal detention and displacement. Serious
allegations have been received by UNAMI Human Rights Office regarding the
act! ions of some segments of the security forces, in particular the police
and special forces, and their apparent collusion with militias in carrying
out human rights violations. Allegations that "death squads" operate in the
country grew stronger following the discovery by the Multi-National Forces
in Iraq (MNF-I) and the Iraqi Security Forces of a suspicious group, acting
within the structures of the Ministry of Interior...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21813&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21813


Haditha and My Lai: Same Killer Dynamic
Kurt Nimmo
In late November, 1969, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines reported
extensively on the My Lai massacre, the premeditated murder of 500
civilians in the Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam. In early 1970, as a
young antiwar activist, I remember how this single event more than any
other contributed significantly to turning millions of fence-sitting
Americans against Nixon’s illegal war and subsequently swelled the ranks of
the antiwar movement (...) Fast-forward ne! arly four decades: "The US
military is investigating two incidents in which American soldiers killed
at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either
guerrillas or had died in cross fire," writes Patrick Cockburn for the UK
Independent. "The growing evidence of retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi
families, often including children, by US soldiers seemingly bent on
punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark comparisons with the massacre
of Vietnamese villagers." In fact, reports of the attack on civilians in
Haditha sound disturbingly similar to the My Lai Massacre...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21827&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21827


Democratizing the Middle East: One Torture Victim at a Time
Jason Miller
Psychological torture, sleep deprivation, brutality, severe sexual
humiliation, and murder summon visions of a dank dungeon in a remote region
of pre-invasion Iraq, Iran, or North Korea, replete with evil inquisitors
and hooded executioners. However, those manifestations of horror did not
spring forth from the Axis of Evil. They are actually drawn from official
post-9/11 US policy. Despite its fabled commitment to human rights, the
United St! ates government has been committing and enabling acts of torture
for half a century. Not even Superman had the power to snatch "Truth,
Justice and the American Way"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21815&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21815


Iraqi Civilian Deaths: Time To Know the Truth
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's Dream
My e-mail to the BBC: Dear David Gritten, In "Iraqi civilian deaths
shrouded in secrecy" (By David Gritten, BBC News website, Wednesday, 22
March 2006), you write: Recent figures from the campaign group Iraq Body
Count put the minimum number of civilians killed in Iraq since the US-led
invasion three years ago at between 33,710 and 37,832. Although the
majority of those deaths were caused by insurgent attacks, multi-national
fo! rces stationed in Iraq ostensibly to protect the population have been
responsible for a significant number. QUESTION: Who told you that "the
majority of those deaths were caused by insurgent attacks" ?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21810&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21810


Another Abu Ghraib trial leaves top brass unscathed
Eric Schmitt, New York Times
With the conviction of an Army dog handler, the military has now tried and
found guilty another low-ranking soldier in connection with the pattern of
abuses that first surfaced two years ago at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But
once again, an attempt by defense lawyers to point a finger of
responsibility at higher-ranking officers failed in the latest case to
persuade a military jury that ultimate responsibility for the abuses lay
furth! er up the chain of command...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21823&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21823


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 22 March 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice
...US forces occupied several buildings in the town of ad-Dulu 'iyah, 97km
north of Baghdad on Tuesday morning and remained there until 4pm local time
Tuesday afternoon. When they pulled out, the Americans left behind the
bodies of nine local people, three of them members of one family, whom they
had killed, according to a Quds Press dispatch on Wednesday. I! raqi puppet
police sources told Quds Press that a force of US troops drove into the
area of ad-Dulu'iyah at dawn Tuesday, backed up by aircraft and tanks
following violent fighting that raged from shortly after midnight until 4am
Tuesday morning...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21824&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21824


How much is a Palestinian child worth?
Xymphora
From jews sans frontieres, the Israeli government has finally set the
official bounty amount for dead Palestinian children. How else would you
read an official government payment to a soldier for forcing him to go
through the inconvenience of an investigation for having shot a child?
Needless to say, nothing was done about the atrocity other than going
through the motions of a whitewash hearing. This is just more of the easy
racism which forms the basis of Israel! , the same easy racism that allows
Israeli officials to refer to the forced starvation of the Palestinians in
Gaza as a 'diet’. The underlying idea that the Palestinians are
untermenschen is a necessary precondition of die Endlösung of the
Palestinian Question...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21822&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21822


The Democratic Quandary - War Opposition or Party Allegiance?
Joshua Frank, Countercurrents.org
Can you really oppose the occupation of Iraq and still call yourself a
Democrat? I’m not so sure. The majority of Washington Dems continue to
applaud Bush’s invasion of Iraq as well as his debauched crusade against
terror. A few antiwar voices have echoed though Democratic corridors, but
none have produced any genuine shifts in ideology, let alone direction. Nor
will they...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21821&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21821


Iraq Propaganda Program Cleared as Legal by Inquiry. But Is It Right?
Ron Fullwood
An inquiry released today found that Lincoln Group, a US public relations
firm, didn't violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print
positive articles. Now, the Pentagon says they want to do a little
tinkering to get their efforts out of the spotlight. I get the impression
that Rumsfeld knows their Iraq propaganda program is going to explode in
their faces if they don't cut the Lincoln group off, but I don't think f!
or a moment that either the Pentagon or the White House is abandoning their
plans to achieve what they envision as 'information superiority'...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21819&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21819


Fitzgerald previews government's case against Libby
Jason Leopold, Online Journal Contributing Writer
The criminal trial against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick
Cheney's former chief of staff, may still be nearly a year away, but the
special counsel prosecuting the case has already provided a preview into
the government's criminal case against the ex-White House official, who is
accused of lying to the FBI and a grand jury about his role in the leak of
a covert CIA operative...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21818&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21818


What’s Become of Americans?
Paul Craig Roberts
Imagine knocking on America’s door and being told, "Americans don’t live
here any longer. They have gone away." But isn’t that what we are hearing,
that Americans have gone away? Alan Shore told us so on ABC’s Boston Legal
on March 14: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to
be true, I expected the American people to rise up. They didn't. Then, when
the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our
government participated! in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people
and turn them over to régimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then
the American people would be heard from. We stood mute...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21817&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21817


Death squads operate unchecked in Iraq: UN
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
A United Nations report Wednesday raised concern about human rights in
Iraq, citing suspicions that death squads acting 'within the structures' of
the interior ministry had carried out killings in and around Baghdad. The
report by the UN mission to Iraq accused Iraqi security forces,
particularly police and special forces, of collusion with militias to
commit human rights violations. It pointed to 'many bodies' found since
January that bore hallma! rks of extrajudicial executions. It said US-led
multinational forces in Iraq had arrested 22 special police commandos
riding in a van with a man they were going to execute...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21825&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21825


DAILY WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, March 22, 2006
Today in Iraq
A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. military convoy on the main road leading
to Baghdad International Airport on Wednesday morning, an Interior Ministry
source told Xinhua. It was not clear whether there were any casualties
among the U.S. troops. Rebels blasted an Iraqi police station with grenade
and mortar fire before dawn on Wednesday, killing four policemen in Madaen,
south of Baghdad, police said. They said they had detained about 70
suspects in raids! in the town after the assault. Roadside bomb strikes
British patrol killing civilian and wounding British soldier in southern
Basra...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21811&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21811


IRAQ: Aid agencies unable to enter Samarra
IRIN
Aid agencies say thay have been prevented from entering the city of
Samarra, in central Iraq, where a major US and Iraqi military operation is
underway. "Our convoys sent on Sunday and Monday have been prevented from
entering the city by US troops and our information from inside is that
families are without food, power and potable water, particularly because
they cannot leave their homes," noted Abdel Hameed, a spokesperson for the
Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS).! This, they say, has left hundreds of
families without medical assistance and food supplies. "Innocent people and
especially children are suffering from a lack of supplies in and on the
outskirts of Samarra," said Muhammad al-Daraji, Director of the Monitoring
Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI)...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21808&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21808


Helen Thomas vs. George Bush...and the rest of the media
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
...Which brings us today's press conference, and Helen Thomas asking George
Bush why he really went to war, since we know all the public rationales
fell apart. The whole answer isn't worth repeating, but this is: "I also
saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically.
That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to
pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world s! aid, disarm,
disclose, or face serious consequences -- [interruption from Thomas] -- and
therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam
Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny
inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult
decision to make to remove him. Of course the world knows that Iraq did
disclose that it had no weapons (as the post right below this one reminds
us), and that it did disarm, and that Iraq was not "denying" the
inspectors...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21806&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21806


Profs Document Hijacking of U.S. Foreign Policy
Kurt Nimmo
It comes as no surprise two "of America’s top scholars," having released an
article criticizing the hijacking of American foreign policy by AIPAC, the
neocons, and the tiny outlaw state of Israel, are unable to get a hearing
in the corporate media. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and
Stephen Walt of Harvard’s Kenney School "say that [AIPAC] is so strong that
they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication,"
reports U! nited Press International. "They claim that the Israel lobby has
distorted American policy and operates against American interests, that it
has organized the funneling of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and
'has a stranglehold’ on the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large
campaign funds gives its vast influence over Republican and Democratic
administrations, while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle
East dominates the policy debate."....

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21803&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21803


Bush says US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely
Jerry White, WSWS
At a White House press conference Tuesday morning President George W. Bush
suggested that the US would continue the occupation of Iraq for years, if
not decades, to come. Asked if there would be a day when there were no more
American forces in that country, Bush replied that that would be "decided
by future presidents and future governments of Iraq." Bush suggested that
US troops would remain long after the end of his administration in January
2! 009, making it clear that the country is to be reduced to the status of
a semi-colonial protectorate...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21802&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21802


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 21 March 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
...After wrecking havoc for four days with its massive offensive against
the people of the Samarra’ area, some 120km north of Baghdad, US forces on
Tuesday finally allowed aid convoys from the Iraqi Red Crescent in to the
area to provide help to the devastated population. A source in the Iraqi
Red Crescent told Quds Press that the! Americans had allowed an aid convoy
into the village of al-Jallam and that they were awaiting permission to go
into the villages of al-Milh and al-Bu Khaddu. In the past two days, the
Red Crescent had been able to provide aid to families who fled those areas,
which were still sealed off by the US forces...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21801&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21801


US troops investigated over Iraqi massacres
Patrick Cockburn
The US military is investigating two incidents in which American soldiers
killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either
guerrillas or had died in cross fire. The growing evidence of retaliatory
killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by US
soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark
comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21800&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21800


CINDY SHEEHAN, HOWARD ZINN AMONG NOTED LEADERS FOR PEACE ENDORSING THE
EXXONMOBIL WAR BOYCOTT
Consumers for Peace
The ExxonMobil War Boycott campaign announces endorsements by Cindy
Sheehan, Howard Zinn, and a host of internationally known activists and
writers, with support from national and regional peace and justice
organizations. Consumers for Peace launched the boycott campaign on
December 29, 2005, seeking an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and
mercenaries from Iraq and the impeachment of George W. Bush! and
prosecution of U.S. officials responsible for war crimes and crimes against
humanity.

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=21799&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21799




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