[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 22 Apr 2006]

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Killing Thousands of Iraqis: Is It Murder or Isn't It?
Laurence M. Vance
...U.S. soldiers killing for the state in Iraq cannot claim to be acting in
self-defense because the war itself was not for self-defense. It was an act
of aggression that was supposed to be a cakewalk, but it backfired with
disastrous results for the United States. We have sown the wind, but shall
reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7). There is no saving face. Withdraw now. If
you want to do it in a safe, reasonable, timely, and just manner, follow!
the seven steps I have previously outlined. Just withdraw the troops, now...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22778&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22778


Political Office Leader Khalid Mashal speech: No way we will bend to US,
Israeli & Fateh pressure to be subservient to the Zionists--Fateh leaders
in an uproar
Palestine News Network
Last night’s speech by Hamas Political Office leader Khalid Mashal, put
Fateh officials over the edge. They went so far as to refer to Mashal’s
words from exile in Syria to "seditious." Fateh called it "preparation for
civil war," and accused Mashal of "slander, lies, fabrications, and
blind-spite." However, what Mashal actually said! rang true for many
Palestinians, including hard line Fateh members. Yasser Abed Rabbu, widely
considered to be one of the more corrupt Fateh leaders, and Hamas' Mohammad
Nazal, engaged in a shouting match on Al Jazeera last night after Mashal's
speech, with many Fateh supporters taking the side of Nazal. "It is a
mistake for anyone to believe that by foiling the legitimate, Palestinian
elected government, will guide him to a red carpet laid out by the Israeli
American"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22782&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22782


Iraqi parliament chooses top leaders, ON SECTARIAN BASIS, after months of
deadlock
Hassan El-Najjar, Aljazeera.net
Finally, the US-Backed "Democracy" in Iraq produced a government negotiated
on a purely sectarian basis. The country is now officially recognized as
composed mainly of three sectarian groups: Shi'is, Sunni Arabs, and Sunni
Kurds. From now on, the president is going to be a Kurd. The prime minister
is going to be a Shi'i, and the speaker of parliament is going to be a
Sunni Arab. Thus, Iraq has become! the second sectarian Arab state in the
Middle East after Lebanon. In Lebanon, the French imperialists made the
president a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the
speaker of parliament a Shi'i Muslim...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22794&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22794


MORE ON THE TREACHERY OF NOAM CHOMSKY (article 21)
by Benjamin Merhav
Those on the Left who have opposed Noam Chomsky's loyalty to zionism, but
still trusted him as an "anti-imperialist intellectual", would have to find
for him a new excuse if they would still insist on trusting this zionist
bourgeois intellectual. The following journalists' reports expose Noam
Chomsky for what he is in reality : a zionist and a supporter of USA
imperialism, and they both come from the enemy's own mouth, namely, from an
Israeli d! aily paper run by fanatical zionists, and from a New York paper
reporting from West Point Military Academy. Let us start with the zionist
report, and follow up with the report from West Point...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22791&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22791


Gorilla theater
Xymphora
The play "My Name Is Rachel Corrie", effectively censored in New York by
the pusillanimous actions of James Nicola and the New York Theater
Workshop, is receiving one reading in Toronto, to be held at a secret time
and place! Has it come to the point where the Israel Lobby is so
all-powerful where even the slightest implied criticism of Zionism has to
be held in secret? Will discussions of Israel have to be held like the
planning sessions of Solidarity in Poland? Will copies of the pl! ay be
passed around like Samizdat material in the Soviet Union? Will
anti-Zionists have to recognize each other by secret handshakes?...

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GI Special 4D22: Forgotten? - April 22, 2006
Thomas F . Barton
... Sir! No Sir! never mentions the words Iraq or Afghanistan. It doesn't
have to. Unseen and unremarked upon, those bloody venues nonetheless
inhabit the entire 85 minutes of David Zeiger's impassioned documentary
like some deadly, creeping virus for which there's no cure. Zeiger's actual
subject, which he says has been on his mind for decades, is the G.I.
anti-war movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a phenomenon far more
powerful than the ! Swift Boat Veterans and all those neocon revisionists
dedicated to putting a heroic new face on the ugliness of the Vietnam War
would have us believe...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22788&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22788


Failing Big with Don Rumsfeld
Mike Whitney
...The current wave of sectarian violence is also Rumsfeld’s doing. It is a
re-creation of the terror-campaign that swept through El Salvador during
the 1980s. The Interior Ministry has adopted the "Salvador Option" a
reference to the death squads that plagued that country throughout the
Reagan era. The up-tick in violence suggests that the military no longer
sees peace and security as achievable so, instead, is pursuing a policy of
widespread anarchy disguised as sectar! ian violence. The end-game is the
balkanization of the country into small, manageable statlets that are
easier to exploit for their resources...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22786&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22786


the Israeli violence that is silenced
peacepalestine
The Tel Aviv bombing on Monday received intensive, extensive, and poignant
BBC coverage, including pictures of pieces of human flesh shredded by the
force of the explosion. Below is a partial list from occupied Palestne of
shellings, killings, robberies, savage beatings, attacks on schools and
infrastructure, home demolitions, kidnappings, the use of sewage as a
weapon, and more. Virtually all of these Israeli government, military and
settler crimes went unrepo! rted. BBC viewers were told that Israel would
'retaliate' for the Tel Aviv bombing: we are seeing more of the collective
reprisals, themselves war crimes, that Palestinians are used to. The
Islamic Jihad bomber was not shown as 'retaliating' for any of the
thousands of shells Israel has fired into Gaza in recent days; killing
children. Viewers are left with the impression of a motiveless, irrational
violence, probably caused by hatred of Jews...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22795&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22795


Um Jaafar
Imad Khadduri
..."At 2.30, the night of 21 January, I woke up to a blast that opened the
door of our house in the Al-Huriya Al-Thaniya area, west of Baghdad. A
group of American soldiers stormed in. With them was an Iraqi translator,
through whom they asked me about Mohamed. I pointed to my son Jaafar, whom
we call Mohamed at home. Without a single comment, they moved to where
Jaafar was sleeping and shot him dead. Athir, Jaafar's 28-year-old
half-brother, tried to question the translator about the reas! on. The
response was, 'the matter has come to an end.' And when he tried to go
upstairs to seek the help of their elder brother Haidar, 29, an American
bullet beat him to it, killing him immediately....

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22796&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22796


A Royal Visit...
Riveebend, Baghdad burning
..."For the first time in many years, I fear death." She said last night to
no one in particular, as we sat around after dinner, sipping tea. We all
objected, wishing her a longer life, telling her she had many years ahead
of her, God willing. She shook her head at us like we didn’t understand-
couldn’t possibly understand. "All people die eventually and I’ve had a
longer life than most Iraqis- today children and young people are dying. I
only fear death because I was ! born under a foreign occupation… I never
dreamed I would die under one"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22785&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22785


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 22 April 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.
...An Iraqi Resistance marksman shot and killed two US soldiers in the city
of al-Qa’im near the border with Syria in western Iraq on Saturday morning.
The al-Anbar Province correspondent for Quds Press reported eyewitnesses
from the al-Karabilah area to the east of al-Qa’im as saying that a US foot
patrol was proceeding down the main road to the eastern part! of
al-Karabila when two US soldiers were suddenly shot and killed by an Iraqi
Resistance sharpshooter. After the attack, American troops closed off the
area and began raids and searches in the area, looking for the Resistance
attacker. They found no sign of him...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22783&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
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Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall
What are the consequences of such an action?
John Stanton, Globalresearch.ca
Just when it seemed unlikely that domestic and international events would
unfold to test an already incompetent US government, along comes the
acceleration of the movement to destroy Iran. That effort has been well
documented over the past few years in scores of articles and position
papers from the usual suspects in the media, think-tanks, and the Net.
What’s missing in that coverag! e, though, is an understanding of the
consequences of such an action, or consequence management in Pentagon
parlance. More’s the pity in this discussion, comes the knowledge that the
majority of Americans who are calling for military action—from all strata
of society--do so as if they were casually ordering a pizza from Dominoes...

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An Hour-Long Gunbattle Between US, US-Led Iraqi Forces and Iraqi Resistance
in Al-Ramadi
TODD PITMAN Associated Press Writer
U.S. and Iraqi forces fought an hour-long gunbattle with Iraqi resistance
fighters on Saturday in this city west of the Iraqi capital, firing
automatic weapons from rooftops at small guerrilla teams maneuvering around
them in alleyways and an abandoned fairground. U.S. commanders said four
resistance fighters were killed and two Iraqi soldiers wounded in the
gunfight in eastern Ramadi -- o! ne shot through the calf and evacuated by
U.S. medics, another with a minor facial wound...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22779&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
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British military doctor court martialed for refusing to serve in Iraq
Harvey Thompson, WSWS
On April 13, a court martial sentenced a British Royal Air Force (RAF)
doctor to eight months imprisonment for failing to comply with orders when
he refused to cooperate in training and deployment for a third tour of
Iraq. A panel of five RAF officers at Aldershot in Hampshire convicted
Flight Lieutenant (Dr.) Malcolm Kendall-Smith on five charges, including
refusing to serve in Basra. He will be dismissed from the air for! ce. As
an additional punitive measure Kendall-Smith was ordered to pay £20,000
from his personal savings towards the costs of his defence...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22776&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
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Eight U.S.troops killed in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan
Malaysia Sun
Seven U.S. troops have been killed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq,
while a Marine in Iraq, and a soldier in Afghanistan, have died in
gunbattles. Two roadside bombs killed five U.S.soldiers south of Baghdad
Saturday. A servicemember was killed Friday in Afghanistan's Uruzgan
province, while a Marine died Thursday in Anbar province. Two more soldiers
were killed by separate roadside bombings in Iraq Wednesday...



<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22781&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
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The Missing Girls of Iraq
BRIAN BENNETT
...Safah is part of a seldom-discussed aspect of the epidemic of
kidnappings in Iraq: sex trafficking. No one knows how many young women
have been kidnapped and sold since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The
Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from
anecdotal evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in
that period. A Western official in Baghdad who monitors the status of women
in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated! but admits that sex
trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious
issue...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22790&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22790


Condi and the Bush Monarchy Above the Law
Kurt Nimmo
Not only is the "decider" Bush—the Monarch of America, our Napoleon
Bonaparte, the First Consul of the Straussian neocons—above the law, so are
his court minions. "Lawyers for two lobbyists accused of conspiring to
obtain secret defense information said Friday that they intended to prove
that senior administration officials, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, provided the lobbyists with some of the sensitive
information," reports the Los Angeles Tim! es. "Ratcheting up their defense
against espionage charges, the lawyers, representing former employees of
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, got tentative clearance from
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to subpoena Rice and three other
officials in the case…. It was unclear whether Rice and the other officials
would agree to be questioned or to testify," in other words they are above
the law and subpoenas are little more than toilet paper...

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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2006
Today in Iraq
...Four US soldiers killed south of Baghdad by a roadside bomb. Bring 'em
on: Another US soldier reported killed in Iraq. Australian soldier dies
from gunshot wound to the head, and the officials say the incident was not
related to combat. Six Iraqi police killed by remote-detonated car bomb in
Tal Afar. Eleven officers wounded (...) Roadside bomb northeast of Baghdad
killed three Iraqis and injured 22 others. US troops raided a house in the
Ramadi distr! ict killing an Iraqi man and his four sons. Security
commander General Salam al-Maamouri survived an attempt on his life by a
roadside bomb....

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22784&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22784


The Real First Casualty of War
John Pilger
...We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by MI6, the
secret intelligence service. In what was called "Operation Mass Appeal,"
MI6 agents planted stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction – such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret
underground bunkers. All these stories were fake. But this is not the
point. The point is that the dark deeds of MI6 were quite unnecessary.
Recently, the BBC's director of news, Helen Boaden, was! asked to explain
how one of her "embedded" reporters in Iraq, having accepted U.S. denials
of the use of chemical weapons against civilians, could possibly describe
the aim of the Anglo-American invasion as to "bring democracy and human
rights" to Iraq. She replied with quotations from Blair that this was
indeed the aim, as if Blair's utterances and the truth were in any way
related. On the third anniversary of the invasion, a BBC newsreader
described this illegal, unprovoked act, based on lies, as a
"miscalculation." Thus, to use Edward Herman's memorable phrase, the
unthinkable was normalized...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22787&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22787


What Did You Do in the War, Grandma?
Clyde Haberman
...The district attorney's office pursued a criminal case against a band of
women, some of them old enough to call Mr. Morgenthau "sonny." Not that
Marie Runyon, 91, is what you'd call a hardened criminal. Nor is Molly
Klopot, 87, nor Lillian Rydell, 86. Nor, for that matter, are any of 15
other women — a few of them practically kids, no older than 61 or 62 — who
went on trial yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court, charged with
disorderly conduct. The Granny Pea! ce Brigade, they call themselves. Last
October, they descended on the armed forces recruiting station in Times
Square. They wanted to enlist, they said. They've been around. Send them to
Iraq, they demanded, instead of some 20-year-old who has barely tasted
life...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22789&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22789




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