[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 19 Apr 2006]

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WOMEN AND GAYS DON’T COUNT
Malcom Lagauche
...During the Ba’athist years, Iraqi women dressed in styles as diverse as
those in the west. If a woman wanted to "take the veil," she was allowed.
But no woman was ordered to perform such a ritual (...) Today’s Iraq is
totally different. I don’t have to repeat some of the horror stories of
women now not being able to leave their houses without two male family
members, or women being beaten because of their style of dress. There have
been many reported incidents. In add! ition to the regression of women in
Iraqi society at the hands of a few fundamentalist U.S.-appointed stooge
politicians, many Iraqi women have been humiliated and even raped by U.S.
troops. Again, there are many published articles concerning these abhorrent
actions. So, Iraqi women are doubly-damned: with the fall of a government
that held them in high esteem, they must put up with social mores that are
against their own beliefs; and add to that the presence of the military
personnel who forced the old government out...

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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, April 19, 2006
Today in Iraq
A U.S. soldier died from wounds sustained on Tuesday when his vehicle was
struck by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on
Wednesday. Bomb targeting police patrol blows up in the neighborhood of
Harthiya, killing one civilian and injuring 11 people, including two
policemen and an Iraqi soldier. Roadside bomb explodes near al-Kindi
hospital in eastern Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding four others.
In the Amariyah district, gun! men kill medic as he walked from house to
house administering vaccinations. In three separate attacks, gunmen in the
neighborhood of Dora kill a construction worker, a trade ministry employee
and three power plant workers who had been snatched from their car an hour
earlier. In the suburb of Rustamiyah, police discover five bodies of
Iraqis, handcuffed and blindfolded. Late Tuesday, police had found 11
corpses in various parts of the capital...

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The Billion-Dollar Baghdad Embassy
Leigh Saavedra, POAC
That's the estimate, though only half of it has been appropriated so far, a
billion dollars to build a new embassy in Iraq . It will be the largest on
the globe, the largest the world has ever seen, the size of Vatican City in
Italy. U.S. embassies typically cover ten acres. This one, a 104-acre
complex, will be comprised of 21 buildings, its own water wells, an
electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment facility that makes the huge
compound completely i! ndependent of Iraq , whose "interim government" sold
the land to the U.S. in October 2004. Terms of the agreement do not appear
to be readily accessible...

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Death warrants – Saddam 148, Bush 152
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY, Pravda.ru
...Saddam Hussein, we now hear, signed the death warrants of 148 Shiite
villagers who had risen up against him in Dujail in 1982, for which Saddam
Hussein sits in the dock and could face the death penalty. George Bush, in
his six-year tenure as Governor of Texas, signed 152 death warrants, a
record for any governor of any state in the history of the USA. An example
of what George Bush is capable of is provided by the signing of the death
wa! rrant of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man of 33 with the brain
of a seven-year-old. Pleas of clemency were denied after a hearing which
lasted barely half an hour. Saddam Hussein was derided because he invaded a
sovereign nation – in the event, Kuwait, which was stealing Iraq’s oil by
cross-drilling, and which had been warned against this practice. George
Bush invaded a sovereign nation – Iraq, based on lies and deception...

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DOES IRAN'S PRESIDENT WANT ISRAEL WIPED OFF THE MAP AND DOES HE DENY THE
HOLOCAUST?
Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann
Bush frankly speaks of 'threat to Iran'. Is this a Freudian slip? He speaks
of 'military might' against Iran: "But now that I'm on Iran, the threat to
Iran, of course -- (applause) -- the threat from Iran is, of course, their
stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat, a
serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to
a strong alliance. ! I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we
will use military might to protect our ally, Israel, and -- (applause.)"
George W. Bush, US-President, 2006-03-20 in Cleveland (Ohio) in an
off-the-cuff speech. But why does Bush speak of Iran's objective to destroy
Israel? To raze Israel to the ground, to batter down, to destroy, to
annihilate, to liquidate, to erase Israel, to wipe it off the map - this is
what Iran's President demanded - at least this is what we read about or
heard of at the end of October 2005. Spreading the news was very effective.
This is a declaration of war they said. Obviously government and media were
at one with their indignation. It goes around the world. But let's take a
closer look at what Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said...

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The Really Real "Long War"
Chris Floyd
...Control of these resources and strategic areas in order to box in China
(and eventually India) and prevent the rise of any potential rival to
American domination of global affairs – or rather, the domination of global
affairs by a small American elite quite willing to see their own country
sink into corruption, ruin, tyranny and fear – is now and has been since
the end of the Cold War the driving force of the political faction led by
Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfow! itz and others brought into power
by the rigged election of runner-up George W. Bush in 2000. It is for this
and no other reason that thousands of Americans have been killed, and tens
of thousands maimed in Iraq; it is for this that up to 300,000 innocent
Iraqis have been slaughtered; it is for this that the war plans for Iran
are going forward. The only way that the pathetic, stunted intellects of
this political faction know how to interpret reality is through the
paranoid prism of the Cold War, with its hidebound abstractions, its
cartoonish exaggerations, its perverted morality (willing to destroy a
village, a region, a nation – even the whole world – to "save" it from the
enemy) and, more than anything else, the vast power and privilege it
accorded to the national security elite...

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Baghdad Slipping Into Civil War
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
The new clashes between Shia militiamen dressed in Iraqi military and
police uniforms and resistance fighters and residents from the Sunni
Adhamiya district of Baghdad have convinced many that what Baghdad is
witnessing is no less than a civil war (...) Residents said the attack was
clearly carried out by Shia militia. "I have seen these members of the Badr
militia and Mehdi Army wearing Iraqi Police (IP) uniforms and using IP
pick-up trucks roaming our ! streets," said Abu Aziz, "They tried to reach
our sacred Abu Hanifa mosque, but they were stopped before they could do
so, thanks to god. Some were just wearing civilian clothes with black face
masks, others were definitely commandos from the ministry of interior"...

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MEDIA ALERT: 'YOU COULD KILL WHOEVER YOU WANTED'
War Crimes And The Struggle For Truth
Media Lens
...By contrast to coverage of the incident at Haditha, Newsnight's even
more disturbing eyewitness accounts - suggesting the routine killing of
civilians - have generated no response in the media: not one article
discussing these reports has appeared in any newspaper since the film was
shown. But this is hardly surprising, given the almost complete
indifference of so many British journalists to the fate of! Iraqis. Also
ignored by the media was last week's report that, "The mortality of
children in Basra has increased by nearly 30 percent compared to the Saddam
Hussein era," according to Dr Haydar Salah, a paediatrician at the Basra
Children's Hospital...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22704&s2=20>Read the full article / Leggi
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Welcome Home
Cindy Sheehan, t r u t h o u t
"Go home," a Crawford neighbor of Camp Casey, her face deformed with rage,
yelled at me as about 50 of us walked the four miles from Camp Casey I to
Camp Casey II on Good Friday. We were re-enacting the Stations of the
Cross. I was hauling a 12-pound cross on my shoulders, which was Station
12: Jesus Dies. The cross kept getting heavier as we walked along in the
high noon Texas sun, but it was not nearly as heavy as the cross that
George Bush handed me on April 4, 20! 04. "We are home, thank you," I
replied happily, as I flashed a peace sign to her. Camp Casey is our home...

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20 000 people kidnapped in Iraq
Abdelamir Hanun
Nearly 20 000 people have been kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of
2006 alone, according to a report on violence in a country scarred by three
years of conflict. The survey, which underscored the massive social
upheaval caused by rebel activity and increasing sectarian conflict, didn't
give the number of people killed. However, it said 15 462 people had been
wounded...

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GI Special 4D19: "Sir! No Sir!" Free DVD For Troops - April 19, 2006
Thomas F. Barton
In the 1960s, thousands of American GIs rebelled against the Vietnam War,
changing the course of U.S. history and society. No film has ever told
their story... until now. Are you or do you know someone serving in or in
support of Iraq or Afghanistan? For a limited time only IVAW and Displaced
Films is proud to offer 500 free copies of Sir! No Sir! to members of the
military who are serving overseas. This award winning document! ary
uncovers the untold story of the antiwar movement within the military
during the Vietnam era. To learn more about the film and watch the trailer,
go to <http://www.sirnosir.com >www.sirnosir.com ...

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Bait-and-Switch on Iran
When "Diplomacy" Means War
NORMAN SOLOMON
One of the nation’s leading pollsters, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research
Center, wrote a few weeks ago that among Americans "there is little
potential support for the use of force against Iran." This month the White
House has continued to emphasize that it is committed to seeking a
diplomatic solution. Yet the U.S. government is very likely to launch a
military attack on Iran within the next year. How can that be?...

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Three university professors shot dead by gunmen in Baquba
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Gunmen opened fire on staff members at a university in north-central Iraq
on Wednesday, killing three professors and seriously wounding another, as
police announced the discovery of nine corpses with bullet wounds near
Baghdad. Security forces immediately sealed off the area around Baquba
University following the attack, while the dead and wounded were
transferred to Baquba General Hospital. The attack followed the
announcement by a! n Iraqi police source of the discovery of nine corpses
with gunshot wounds, between al- Mussayeb and al-Iskandariya, 36 kilometres
south of Baghdad (...) Earlier, US troops clashed with insurgents in
al-Ramadi, 110 kilometres west of Baghdad, killing four civilians and
injuring six others, among them small children and women, a police source
said...

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IRAQ: Palestinian refugees remain stranded on Jordan border
IRIN
About 150 Palestinians refugees fleeing from Iraq, including some 50
children, remain stranded near the Jordan-Iraq border, say aid officials.
"The children are suffering due to a lack of protection and food," said
Ahmed Barak, a volunteer for the Iraqi Aid Association. "Medical provision
in the area is very poor." The refugees, many of whom fled their homes in
Iraq in the wake of a recent spate of anti-Palestinian violence, have been
waiting for Am! man's permission to enter the kingdom since 4 April...

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 18 April 2006.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.
...In a dispatch posted at 11:25am Makkah time Tuesday morning, Mafkarat
al-Islam reported that fierce fighting was raging at the time of reporting
in the northern Baghdad area of al-A'zamiyah between Iraqi Resistance
fighters and US and Iraqi puppet troops. The correspondent for Mafkarat
al-Islam reported eyewitnesses in al-A'zamiyah as saying that the battl! e
broke out on Tuesday morning when the joint US-Iraqi puppet forces
attempted to storm the district in order to carry out mass arrests among
the residents. Iraqi Resistance fighters among the local residents, armed
with light and medium weapons and pipe rockets resisted the American-led
assault...

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Nature abhors a security vacuum, and so do Iraq's militias
Needlenose
...Iraqi reporters for NEWSWEEK set off last week to visit some of the
country's most sacred sites. They didn't get far. At the first stop on
their list —- the 10th-century Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad —- two reporters
were detained and questioned. The armed men who held them were from an
obscure security force called the Facilities Protection Services, which now
apparently numbers a staggering 146,000 men. . . The FPS, as it turns out,
is a mut! ant security agency that has grown from a 4,000-man group of
"night watchmen" -— the description given to them last year by Lt. Gen.
Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training all Iraqi security forces -—
into a large, amorphous force that seems to lack any centralized control.
Not one ministry contacted by NEWSWEEK would accept overall responsibility
for the FPS. The Americans don't oversee them either: "We really don't get
anywhere near them," says Tim Keefe, a U.S. military spokesman in
BaghdadmFacility Protection cops are suspected of committing at least some
of the sectarian killings that have plagued the country in recent months...

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Bush: the Decider Dictator
Kurt Nimmo
I recall months ago, when folks began first murmuring about booting Donald
Rumsfeld, arriving at the obvious conclusion—Donald Rumsfeld is not going
anywhere, not anymore than Cheney is (short of a heart attack). Rumsfeld
and Cheney are integral to the Straussian neocon hold on both the Pentagon
and the Oval Office (...) It’s said Rumsfeld has to go because Iraq is a
disaster. I beg to differ—things are going swimmingly for the Straussian
neocons in Iraq. Bush never intended! to bestow democracy on the Iraqi
people, as claimed, and we all know about the weapons of mass destruction
that never were (and a few of us said this in late 2002, as the Office of
Special Plans began to circulate its propaganda and lies to the likes of
Judith Miller at the New York Times). All of it was and is a smokescreen
for the real deal—fomenting "civil war" and eventually breaking Iraq up
into three pieces based along ethnic and religious lines (all the better to
rule and divide—and steal oil, water, and other natural resources, not to
mention turning millions of people into a pool of cheap labor, as the
Israelis have done over the years to the Palestinians)...

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Stand up for Humanity
Dr. Gideon Polya
...Dr Dhafir and Dr Kendall-Smith are both medical doctors who have been
imprisoned in Western democracies (the US and the UK, respectively) for
standing up against horrendous abuse of humanity by the Anglo-American
Coalition in Iraq. The Nazi analogy adduced by Dr Kendall-Smith in his
defence is germane. The Nazis killed 1.5 million Jewish children during
World War 2. So far, the post-1990 Iraqi infant mortality totals 1.6
million and the post-2003 infant mortality totals 0! .4 million - 90% of
these deaths have been AVOIDABLE and have occurred through the
non-provision by the Occupying Coalition of the life-preserving requisites
demanded by the Geneva Conventions. The under-5 infant mortality in Iraq
(post-1990) and Afghanistan (post-2001) have been 1.6 million and 1.4
million, respectively, and now total 3.0 million. How many infants have to
be murdered before the world cries "enough is enough"...

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Bush declines to exclude nuclear strike on Iran
Edmund Blair, Reuters
U.S. President George W. Bush refused on Tuesday to rule out nuclear
strikes against Iran if diplomacy fails to curb the Islamic Republic's
atomic ambitions. Iran, which says its nuclear programme is purely
peaceful, told world powers it would pursue atomic technology, whatever
they decide at a meeting in Moscow later in the day. Bush said in
Washington he would discuss Iran's nuclear activities with China's
President Hu Jintao this week and av! oided ruling out nuclear retaliation
if diplomatic efforts fail. Asked if options included planning for a
nuclear strike, Bush replied: "All options are on the table. We want to
solve this issue diplomatically and we're working hard to do so"...

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Why Oppose the Israel Lobby?
Comments on Mearsheimer and Walt
Gabriel Ash, www.dissidentvoice.org
...I’ll state here my core agreement with the authors: the Israeli lobby is
indeed powerful and influential; its influence is nefarious and damaging to
Americans, Israelis, the people of the Middle East and the rest of the
world (though not necessarily in that order.) The evidence supporting these
statements is beyond dispute by any fair and open-minded person. The
problem, however, is not with these conc! lusions, but with the way M&W
frame their understanding of the Lobby’s role in American politics...

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Forget the Middle East:
North America Harbors the World's Most Dangerous Terrorists
JASON MILLER
After years of living under the perpetual risk of the ultimate terrorist
attack, most people have become acclimated to the distinct possibility of
imminent extinction of life on Earth. Fortunately, humans tend to be highly
adaptable beings, and most are able to go on with their daily tasks without
dwelling on potential doomsday scenarios. In fact, people have become so
desensitized to the threat of nuclear ! holocaust that those who still
believe American propaganda are more terrified of religious fanatics
wielding box cutters than they are of an ICBM capable of annihilating
millions...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22701&s2=20>Read the full article / Leggi
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