[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 05 Mar 2006]

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As If There Were No Tomorrow Sunnis Leaving Iraq Khalid Jarrar**, Freelance Writer – Jordan Once I got to the Iraqi borders, I panicked when I saw the numbers of Iraqis leaving, as if there were no tomorrow — huge numbers waiting in long, endless lines. It could take you 48 hours at the Iraqi-Jordanian border to have your passport stamped and your car checked. It's a scene that I wish I had never seen (...) So here is why I left Iraq: For no crime at all but being a Sunni, I was arrested by the ministry of interior's intelligence body and detained for a couple of weeks. I made my way out of detention after they couldn't prove anything against me and couldn't make me confess of crimes that I hadn't done: They weren't able to make me say the name of "my terrorist cell" or "where its funding came from." I was labeled "terrorist" the moment I entered there, even before they started to interrogate me. But as I said, since they couldn't get any information out of me, they freed me for a few thousand dollars. After paying them what they wanted, I left the prison, and under threats from them and other militias, I left Iraq... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21257 Dubai and the Straits of Hormuz Mike Whitney Geography is fate. United Arab Emirates is located at the center of an oil-dependent world. This tiny state forms the promontory that juts out into the famed Straits of Hormuz through which 40% of the world’s oil passes every day. Across the narrow straights sits Iran, the next victim on the list of "axis of evil" nations. Any attack on Iran will require that military forces quickly deploy to Dubai to forestall the closing of the straits and the subsequent devastation that would cost to world oil supplies and financial markets. This is the critical point which is being intentionally concealed by America’s diversionary media. This is the reason that President Bush continues to force the Dubai port-plan even though 70% of the American people and Congress resoundingly oppose it... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21254 The IL Talks to the Deputy Head of the Mosul Institute of Teachers :: media bureau::iraqi league :: Today, the Iraqi League (IL) interviewed Mrs Shatha Ma’yoof, the deputy head of Mosul Institute of Teachers over the events published by the IL in which soldiers of the US forces of occupation subject a group of 40 female students to remove their clothing on board of the college bus. Mrs Ma’yoof confirmed the story which was received by the IL from its correspondent on the ground. She confirmed that there were 40 female students on the bus, and that the incident had taken place at 13.45 whilst the bus was on route to the Aleslah-Alzera’ee district. The deputy head of the Institute was reluctant to repeat the words of the US soldier ordering the girls to remove their clothing, because of their indecent nature. She also added that the US soldiers had grabbed and beaten up a young boy in front of the girls in order to intimidate and install fear in the girls... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21249 Mosul: US Solider Orders the Female Students to Remove their Clothing media bureau::iraqi league :: ...Then, American male and female soldiers boarded the bus full of the frightened girls. The female solider first ordered the girls to remove their traditional head dress, then removed her own shirt revealing her breasts before ordering them to reveal their breasts as well. Feeling under threat of abuse by the American occupation soldiers, the girls began to scream and call for help to the near-by office of the so-called 'the National Guards’, whose job has never been the protection of the people of Iraq, who know too well that the National Guards’ job is to protect the US forces of occupation from local unrest. Indeed, it was the heroics of the head of Institute of Teaching who save the girls, whose intervention proved to be vital to the release of the girls in their humiliating public abuse. The girls were finally released after three hours and in state of fear and hysteria... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21248 What the media doesn't want you to know Curtis Doebbler ...Another right, the presumption of innocence, is violated when not only judges, as already indicated, but also the US-supported president of Iraq states that President Saddam Hussein is guilty and should be executed (...) The long list of violations of the human right to fair trial also includes the complete absence of an opportunity for any defendant to call witnesses because the defence has no way of investigating any of the alleged crimes. Without proper security and resources that are adequate enough to assist them in finding witnesses, the right of defendants to call witnesses is completely illusory... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21267 "A Recent Surge In Violence..." EarlG , Democratic Underground This morning I learned that Pentagon officials have said that force levels in Iraq would not be cut "anytime soon," apparently because of a "recent surge in violence" sweeping Iraq. But what struck me most about that news was votesomemore's response in this thread claiming that, "There is ALWAYS a 'recent surge in violence.'" That got me thinking. Is there always a "recent surge in violence" in Iraq? I Googled the phrase, and discovered that the answer to the question is, well, yes... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21246 GI Special 4C4 - Striking Soldiers Make A President Cry - March 4, 2006 Thomas F. Barton ...Fox News titled a recent segment "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" Presumably, it could from the point of view of the Bush-Cheney gang, if it gets in the way of all-out resistance to the occupation. That is, Bush almost certainly would prefer to see Sunnis fighting Shias than to see both fighting Americans and collaborators. In any case, the war cannot be resolved without the US soldiers leaving. Only leaving provides the chance for a peaceful solution.... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21264 'If We Pull Out Now, They'll Kill Each Other.' Lenin's Tomb Now, what did I say? And what did you say? I was right, wasn't I? It looks like all this talk of civil war is a pretext for the US to further outstay their welcome in Iraq: The expectation now is that U.S. force levels will remain the same for the foreseeable future, according to a senior military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another Pentagon official said that with violence continuing in Iraq, the current number of American troops would likely be maintained at least through the end of 2006. According to this 'think' piece from an establishment CFR hack, the US can't "Iraqize" the war because this is "civil war"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21244 Pipes: Mass Murdering Muslims a Good Thing Kurt Nimmo Once again, the Islamophobe Daniel Pipes reveals the Straussian neocon mindset, disregarding the teaching of his guru, Leo Strauss, who advised Machiavellian deception when dealing with the dumbed-down masses. "Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition’s responsibility nor its burden," Pipes told New York Sun on February 28. "Civil war in Iraq … would be a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one," Pipes continued, allowing us commoners a glimpse of the way the Straussian neocon mind works. According to Pipes, a "civil war" in Iraq would be a good thing since it would invite "Syrian and Iranian participation, hastening the possibility of an American confrontation with those two states," an objective at the very core of the Straussian plan to unleash society and culture destroying chaos and violence in the Middle East and thus breaking the region up into more easily controllable Bantustans. More sectarian violence would also put an end to the "dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push toward elections. This will have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21255 Tomgram: Dahr Jamail Follows the Trail of Torture Tom Engelhardt & Dahr Jamail They told him, "We are going to cut your head off and send you to hell." Ali Abbas, a former detainee from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, was filling me in on the horrors he endured at the hands of American soldiers, contractors, and CIA operatives while inside the infamous prison. It was May of 2004 when I documented his testimony in my hotel in Baghdad. "We will take you to Guantanamo," he said one female soldier told him after he was detained by U.S. forces on September 13, 2003. "Our aim is to put you in hell so you'll tell the truth. These are our orders -- to turn your life into hell." And they did. He was tortured in Abu Ghraib less than half a year after the occupation of Iraq began. While the publication of the first Abu Ghraib photos in April 2004 opened the floodgates for former Iraqi detainees to speak out about their treatment at the hands of occupation forces, this wasn't the first I'd heard of torture in Iraq... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21263 Blowing Up History Zeyad, Healing Iraq Governmental sources are reporting that militants have blown up the Abbasid palace north of Samarra. The source blamed the same groups that bombed the Al-Askari shrine over a week ago (...) No further details on the incident were provided, but still, it boggles the mind that such an operation could be carried out twice at the same area in just over a week. Given the historical and cultural value of these palaces and mosques in such a tense area, where a similar attack took place last week, one would think that they would be closely guarded. But why protect buildings in a country where human life has no value anyway? You won't see sectarian riots over this one. It's only an archaeological site, and too much of those have been destroyed or looted over the last three years for people to care anymore... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21262 Gitmo: The Worst of the Worst? A report, based entirely on Defense Department documents, exposes the truth about Guantánamo Nat Hentoff, The Village Voice ... There are now about 490 prisoners at Gitmo, and "55 percent of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or coalition allies. "Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized as Al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40 percent have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda at all and 18 percent have no definitive affiliation with either Al Qaeda or the Taliban. "Only 5 percent of the detainees were captured by United States forces. [A total of] 86 percent of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody. This 86 percent of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were turned over to the United States at a time at which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21261 'Abritrary' Detention Fueling 'Dire' Situation in Iraq: Amnesty Agence France Presse Tens of thousands of people have been held "arbitrarily" in Iraq since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003, creating a situation that is ripe for abuse, Amnesty International has said. Amnesty Most of those held were neither charged nor faced trial and had no basic right to challenge their detention, the London-based human rights group said as it launched a new report "Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and Torture in Iraq"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21260 U.S. Marines Wall in Iraqi City With Sand ANTONIO CASTANEDA U.S. Marines used to patrol the streets of this city near the volatile Syrian border. Now they've penned it in with a wall of sand, leaving only three ways in or out. While causing discomfort to the townspeople, the military says it is an effective barrier to insurgents and frees up troops for use in other parts of restive Anbar province in western Iraq. The Marines ringed Rutbah with a 10.5-mile-long berm, seven feet high and 20 feet wide, in mid-January and reduced their presence to checkpoints at the three entrances that also are manned by a few dozen Iraqi soldiers... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21259 IRAQ: Palestinians targeted - UNHCR IRIN Thousands of Palestinian refugees living in Iraq have reportedly been attacked and discriminated against, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. "Over the past week, we've received reports that up to 10 Palestinians have been killed in Baghdad and several have been kidnapped," UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Ron Redmond, said. The Palestinian Muslims Association (PMA) in Baghdad says it has received more than 270 reports of attacks on Palestinians since September, including crimes such as rape and murder. "Families are being forced out of their homes and women are being raped in front of their husbands because they are Palestinians," said PMA spokesman Ahmed Muffitlak... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21256 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 4 March 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org In a dispatch posted at 7:55pm Mecca time Saturday evening, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a foot patrol of US and Iraqi puppet regime troops in the Jazirat al-Khalidiyah area, some 80km west of Baghdad. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported residents of the al-Fahhamah area in Jazirat al-Khalidiyah who witnessed the bombing as saying that an explosive device that had been planted by the side of the main road in the area blew up by the joint foot patrol... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21252 Military denies withdrawal plan Ibon Villelabeiti, Reuters The U.S. military in Iraq said on Sunday media reports that America and Britain planned to pull all troops out of Iraq by spring 2007 were "completely false," reiterating that there was no timetable for withdrawal. Two British newspapers reported on Sunday that the pull-out plan followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now an obstacle to securing peace. But a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq reiterated previous statements by U.S. and Iraqi officials that foreign troops would be gradually withdrawn from the country once Iraqi security forces were capable of guaranteeing security. "This news report on a withdrawal of forces within a set timeframe is completely false," Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said of the stories in Britain's Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror, which quoted unnamed senior defense ministry sources... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21253 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 2006 Today in Iraq US soldier dies at Brooke Army Medical Center from injuries received on November 21, 2005 from an IED in Iraq. Four Iraqi police officers were killed in Mosul as they left a police academy. Two more police officers killed by roadside bomb in Mosul. Iraqi army recruit shot dead at a wedding ceremony. Bodies of two policemen (who had been kidnapped) were found shot in the head in Kirkuk. Two more bodies found in Iskandariya. Gunmen kidnapped Abdul Rahman al Zabawee, a member of Fallujah tribal leader’s council. Car bomb killed two civilians and wounded three police officers in the town of Salman Pax. A mortar round landed in a market and bus station in another nearby town (another article says Gisr Diyala is the town), killing seven and wounding twenty... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21250 Dichter: I’ll Kill Haniyeh Kurt Nimmo It is entirely and predictably within character. Avi Dichter, former Shin Bet boss, who will become defense minister of Israel when the "centrist" Kadima party (a collection of Likudite outcasts) wins Israel’s election later this month, has promised to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the Palestinian Authority, Ismail Haniyeh, according to the Jewish Telegraph. Such a threat is more than enough reason for the Palestinians to declare war on Israel, although this of course would be suicide. Considering the numerous crimes of Israel, Dichter’s threat is completely normal... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21241 Conflicts and power Xymphora ...While a civil war in Iraq benefits Likudniks in the American government and in Israel, it also benefits a guy like Cheney, whose only interest is in creating more power for Cheney. The United States has fallen into a vicious cycle where the jobs of the neocons and their fellow travelers like Cheney and Rumsfeld are dependent on their cleaning up the messes they have already started. An end to conflict would put them out of power, so we’ll never see an end to conflict... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21247 Big Brother’s Youth League Snoops Colorado Teacher Kurt Nimmo In Orwell’s novel 1984, Big Brother’s Youth League and the Spies harassed Winston Smith, accused him of thought crime, threatened to turn him in to the Ministry and have him sent to the salt mines. Jay Bennish, high school teacher in Aurora, Colorado, was not threatened like Winton Smith, although a student spy tape recorded his comments in the classroom and now it appears Bennish, who compared Bush to Hitler, will lose his job... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21242 www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.   You receive this newsletter because you subscribed it. If you think it was an abuse, or simply if you don't want to receive it any more, click here to unsubscribe from the newsletter.