[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 14 Mar 2006 - Part Two]

uruknet.info   اوروكنت.إنفو :: information from occupied iraq :: informazione dall'iraq occupato

We’ve Done It Before, So Why All The Shock? The War on Iraq in the Context of the Forces that Shape US Foreign Policy Stephen Gowans, What's Left ...Two events are distantly critical to the decision of US planners to target Iraq for regime change: The 1958 revolution that overthrew the British-dominated monarchy, and the expropriation of British and US oil companies in the early 1970s. The first established Iraq’s nominal political independence; the second imbued the first with significance, by giving Iraq control over important economic assets. The constitution under Saddam Hussein held that "natural resources and the basic means of production are owned by the People." Oil revenue was used to "underwrite a handsome program of social supports, including free education through university" and medical care considered "the finest in the Middle East" (Workers World, August 20, 2005). The price of basic goods was subsidized, and a largely state-owned economy was used to provide jobs – and income – to millions of Iraqis. While not socialist, Iraq’s economy had many features of a socialist economy, and all the hallmarks of an economy advanced capitalist countries love to hate: restrictions on foreign ownership; preferential treatment of domestic firms; state intervention in the economy to achieve public policy goals; and limits on the sphere of private investment (...) The war didn’t begin in March 2003. In fact, it can be said to have continued uninterrupted from the moment the Gulf War began in 1991, shifting form and intensity in the interim, bu! t never coming to a close... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21566 GI Special 4C14 - All Out For Ft. Bragg - March 14, 2006 Thomas F. Barton ...From March 13th to March 18th, students across the nation will join together in coordinated demonstrations in protest of the Iraq war. As an action called for by the Campus Anti-war Network (CAN), dozens of high schools and colleges in all regions of the country will spend the next week in local demonstrations, discussions, marches, and rallies. Three years after the invasion of Iraq, students continue to actively fight for immediate withdrawal from the Middle East and for money to be spent on education, not occupation. The week culminates in the Global Days of Protest, March 18th-19th, where American students join millions around the world in solidarity in a call to end illegal invasion and continued occupation... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21568 Tom Fox Remembered Around the World as Dedicated Activist Who Devoted His Life to Peace Democracy Now! The body of American peace activist Tom Fox has been found in Baghdad, over three months after he was kidnapped along with three other members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. The whereabouts of the other three hostages remains unknown. We speak with one of his close friends and colleagues and hear from mourners around the world... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21567 Salon Publishes Complete Photos-Videos Abu Ghraib The Abu Ghraib files Salon.com The human rights scandal now known as "Abu Ghraib" began its journey toward exposure on Jan. 13, 2004, when Spc. Joseph Darby handed over horrific images of detainee abuse to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID). The next day, the Army launched a criminal investigation. Three and a half months later, CBS News and the New Yorker published photos and stories that introduced the world to devastating scenes of torture and suffering inside the decrepit prison in Iraq. Today Salon presents an archive of 279 photos and 19 videos of Abu Ghraib abuse first gathered by the CID, along with information drawn from the CID's own timeline of the events depicted... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21565 Abizaid says U.S. may want to keep bases in Iraq Vicki Allen The United States may want to keep a long-term military presence in Iraq to bolster moderates against extremists in the region and protect the flow of oil, the Army general overseeing U.S. military operations in Iraq said on Tuesday. While the Bush administration has downplayed prospects for permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid told a House of Representatives subcommittee he could not rule that out... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21561 Police gang stopped by Iraqi investigators Rick Jervis, USA TODAY Iraqi investigators broke up a ring of police officers who were kidnapping people, extorting ransoms and often killing their victims, a top U.S. military officer said Tuesday. The allegations are among the most serious charges of police abuse to surface and come amid rising concerns that police and paramilitary forces are breeding grounds for Shiite Muslim death squads and militias. The gang operated in northern Baghdad and was allegedly commanded by an Iraqi police major general, one of the highest-ranking officers implicated to date in an Iraqi-led investigation into allegations of death squads and sectarian militias functioning within police and paramilitary units, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson. said in an interview... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21560 Sectarianism Takes Root in Iraq Academic Life Anas Al-Ubaidi, IOL Correspondent "Are you a Sunni or a Shiite?" has become a basic question Iraqi students ask each other nowadays, a further sign of simmering sectarianism in a war-torn country seen by many as sliding towards a devastating civil war. "My son Wisam has been shunned along with other Sunni students by the majority Shiite students in his school in [the predominantly Shiite southern city of] Basra," Alaa Al-Basri told IslamOnline.net on Tuesday, March 14. "When he tries to make friends with classmates, they first ask him whether he is a Sunni or a Shiite... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21559 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 14 March 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. In a dispatch posted at 10:35pm Mecca time Tuesday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US occupation troops shot and killed all the members of an Iraqi family of seven as they drove their car through ar-Ramadi, 110km west of Baghadad. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported Dr. Muhammad ad-Dulaymi of the City of ar-Ramadi Hospital as saying, "the family was on their way home when US forces suddenly opened fire on them, killing the head of the household, his wife, and their five children, the eldest of whom was 14"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21558 Deja Vu All Over Iran Robert Dreyfuss Comedians might be forgiven for making jokes that President Bush is talking about drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq because he needs them next door in Iran. It isn’t, however, so far off the mark. The pieces are falling into place for Operation Regime Change II, this time in Iran. You’d think, given how badly it went the first time, and how utterly unpredictable a showdown with Iran would be, that the Bush administration would have at least changed its m.o.—but no. Shaking his head in New York, where he was attending United Nations Security Council discussions on Iran, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said bluntly: "It looks so déjà vu." He ridiculed the idea of sanctions on Iran as useless and ineffective, and he called the U.S. push for a showdown over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program a "self-fulfilling prophecy"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21556 ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL Malcom Lagauche ...In 1991 and 1992, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, all part of Yugoslavia, declared independence from the Yugoslav federation. Many ethnic Serbs lived in the renegade states and did not heed the call for independence. Milosevic acted in the same manner as Abraham Lincoln and tried to keep his country intact. Don’t hold your breath waiting to see his picture on any currency. Instead of being called a patriot, Milosevic has been designated the "Butcher of the Balkans" and he is charged of orchestrating the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The consensus in the western media is that he broke up Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic underwent a demonization program created by the U.S. of such a magnitude that it comes close to the power of the demonizing of Saddam Hussein. The one-time patriot of Yugoslavia was transformed into a mass murderer of horrific proportions. But, as with Saddam, a little scrutiny lays bare the lies perpetrated by the U.S. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, many atrocities occurred from all sides. However, the U.S. blamed Milosevic for them all... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21555 Open Letter to George W. Bush Jesse, Editor, TvNewsLIES.org Mr. Bush, (I do not address you as Mr. President because American presidents are elected; they do not become president via election fraud!) It is painfully obvious, and embarrassing, that your lack of intellect has led the world towards peril on many levels. While it would take a lifetime to educate you about general issues I thought you may have time to learn at least one thing before your term in office is up. Please see the dictionary definition for the term "civil war", which I took the time to look up for you. civil war, n.1. A war between factions or regions of the same country. 2. A state of hostility or conflict between elements within an organization Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21553 US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told Ewen MacAskil, The Guardian Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos. John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as "an unbelievable mess" and said "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well-meaning but out of their depth"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=21564 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.