[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 24 Mar 2006 - Part One]

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Militants of Jafaari commit massacre in Al-Fursan village. US sponsored death squads in action. Haythem Khatab, Abdul Wahab Al Obeidi, Dirk Adriaensens (BRussells Tribunal) Immediately after the blast in Samarra targeting the shrines of Ali Al-Hadi and Hassan Al-Askari, men dressed in black, and in large number, attacked Sunni mosques and areas (...) Black-clad militias and police commandos also attacked Al-Fursan (bani ziyad), a little Sunni village located in Nahrawan, south east of Baghdad. I decided to go there to film when I heard that some from the Iraqi Red Crescent would visit the village and bring aid 03 March 2006 (...)"Around 50 Chevrolet of the commandos of the police attacked our village; they were wearing black, they killed 8 people and kidnapped 22. We may find their bodies somewhere." The man said that the militants came from different areas, confirming that they were Mahdi Army and Badr Brigades" (...) I asked the men to go deeper in the village. The cameraman was afraid and returned to our ambulances. I was afraid also. The scene was horrible. The village was deserted, and destroyed. All the houses were burnt — both clay and concrete houses were burnt. Black soot was everywhere, over windows and doors. Cars were burnt; trucks were burnt. Animal carcasses were everywhere. The people who had come killed everything alive. They raided the villages many times, so they might raid it while we were there... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21870 60 Minutes joins the propaganda war Mike Whitney Two weeks ago, CBS 60 Minutes ran a segment called "Tal Afar: Al Qaida’s Town". The story focused on an Iraqi city on the Syrian border that was allegedly "taken over by Al Qaida" and turned into a terrorist "base to train insurgents and launch attacks around Iraq". (60 Minute’s transcript) According to"America’s most popular news magazine", the city of 200,000 was controlled by a few hundred "terrorists" who kept the townspeople imprisoned in their own homes until American forces invaded the city and set them free. 60 Minute’s anchor, Lara Logan, interviewed Colonel H.R. McMaster for the piece; quizzing him on the situation before and after the American siege... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21882 Children Continue To Be Main Victims Of U.S. Occupation Dr. César Chelala One of the most tragic consequenes of the Iraq war has been its effect on children. The war continues to claim them among its main victims, while the health of the majority of the population also continues to deteriorate. In the 1980s, Iraq had one of the best health care systems in the region. Following the 2003 invasion by the coalition forces, an ongoing cycle of insurgent violence and occupation forces’ counter-attacks have significantly damaged the basic health infrastructure in the country. As a result, Iraq’s health system cannot respond to the most basic health needs of the population... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21892 Bush Launches Massive Shock & Awe Offensive... Against U.S. Media Peter Daou, Huffington Post As the Bush administration's Iraq fiasco spirals further out of control, a new phase of the war has begun: an all-out assault on the American media for simply reporting the news. The scope and audacity of this attack is breathtaking; on cue, a bevy of administration officials and rightwing talking heads has begun taking direct aim at the press, accusing reporters of fabricating the Iraq crisis... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21890 Shia Death Squads Target Iraqi Gays -- U.S. Indifferent Doug Ireland, www.dissidentvoice.org ... "The Badr Corps is committed to the 'sexual cleansing’ of Iraq," says Ali Hili, a 33-year-old gay Iraqi exile in London who, with some 30 other gay Iraqis who have fled to the United Kingdom, five months ago founded the Abu Nawas Group there to support persecuted gay Iraqis. Said Hili, "We believe that the Badr Corps is receiving advice from Iran on how to target gay people." In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been carrying out a lethal anti-gay pogrom against Iranian gays, notably through entrapment by Internet -- and this tactic has recently begun to be used by the Badr Corps in Iraq to identify and hunt down Iraqi gays (...) "We desperately need protection!" pleaded Tahseen. "But, when we go to the Americans, they laugh at us and don’t do anything. The Americans are the problem!"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21889 News Release Death Squads in Iraq Institute for Public Accuracy In early 2005, Parry wrote the article "Bush's 'Death Squads,'" which examined the "Salvador Option" in Iraq, referring to the 1980s U.S. government's "supporting El Salvador's right-wing security forces, which operated clandestine 'death squads' to eliminate both leftist guerrillas and their civilian sympathizers." (...) A member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Beth Pyles has spent four of the last eight months in Iraq. She just returned from her latest trip on Tuesday and was particularly involved in working with Palestinians whom she reports are being targeted by death squads in Iraq. Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21888 Update on Pace - No Expulsion, but students threatened with discipline if organize Brian Kelly, Pace University student First, I must to apologize for getting this letter out so late, after having our disciplinary hearing with the Dean of Students (Pace University) Friday afternoon, Lauren had to begin packing for a relief trip to New Orleans and we were both stuck trying to make sense of the outcome. I have spent most of my spring break trying to digest the hearing, the student handbook, and the events of the past several weeks. The hearing was shrouded with the same methods of intimidation and deception that Pace has been using against us the last few weeks. We entered Dean O’Grady’s office with one of our attorneys, Gideon Oliver, and then the Dean informed us we would have two separate hearings. Lauren and I were forced to sit next to the University Attorney. Lauren and I elected to pursue an "informal resolution" as outlined in Pace University’s student handbook... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21886 Schools in Iraq Isam Rasheed Abdul-Rahman, Isam Rasheed Abdul-Rahman Today we write about schools in Iraq, and how occupation affects them. I tried to get close to teachers, to find out how they work now, and what kind of problems they face in schools at present. The first teacher I spoke to was Mohammed Akram, 36 years old, who works in Al-Karama primary school. "I’ve been teaching for eight years," he said, "and I regret to say the schools in Iraq have deteriorated. The situation inside the schools became very bad, due to bribery, and there is not enough control from the Iraqi government on schools (...) "Some teachers are sectarian and treat students badly according to name (some names, like Omar, are used mainly by Sunnis, while others, like Abdul Hussain, are mainly use by Shias). We have low education levels and the educational materials are not enough; the Ministry of Education didn’t print enough books for students"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21871 Bush Shuns Patriot Act Requirement Charlie Savage, The Boston Globe When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers. The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21884 THE WRONG SIDE WON (AGAIN) Malcom Lagauche The recent elections in Belarus have been condemned by the U.S. and the European Union (EU). Both sides state they will impose sanctions and travel restrictions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Sound familiar? It should because this is yet another hypocritical action taken by the U.S. in its quest to democratize the world. Unfortunately, the EU came on board with the U.S. in this case. I thought the Europeans would have had more dignity and not mimicked Uncle Sam. There are a few puzzling aspects to this case... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21883 Iraq: Was rescue of CPT members staged?; New evidence of US atrocities in Iraq Truth about Iraqis There are troubling signs that it was staged. First consider that when British, US and Canadian forces broke into the house where the CPT members were being held captive, not one shot was fired. Not one kidnapper was to be found. The house was empty save for the three hostages. No weapons were found. Were the kidnappers on a lunch break?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21880 "President Bush was beyond pathetic.." Imad Khadduri "President Bush was beyond pathetic on the issue of Iraq during his press conference this week... Bush has lost the American public on the war, and why he deserved to lose it was illustrated in spades by the press conference. He was confused and confusing; he made blatant misstatements of fact; he used phony arguments against critics of the war; he offered a false picture of progress in Iraq, then blamed the media for not telling that story. We will succeed in Iraq ultimately, he said, because he "believes" it. And, by the way, U.S. troops will be there at least until 2009... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21879 Islamophobia at Downing Street Tony Blair's Bipolarity MICHAEL CARMICHAEL This week, Tony Blair launched a scathing ideological attack on Islamism. Describing the conflict between Islamism and the world as a, "battle for modernity," he quoted the conservative American historian, Samuel Huntington, in order to refute him. Contrasting his interpretation of a "conflict about civilisation" in a historical chiaroscuro with Huntington's "conflict of civilisations," Blair blasted Islamism as the fountainhead of the world's escalating level of ultra-violence (...) To date, let it be noted that Blair has not called out in public for the genocidal extermination of the entire Islamic population of the world. Let it also be noted that Adolf Hitler did not publicise his plan for the final solution to what he perceived as the problem posed by the Jews he hated and feared. Hitler's tirades against the Jews led to the public acceptance of anti-Semitism. Will Blair's frontal assault on Islamists lead Britain in the same direction?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21876 On orders from prime minister’s department and police: Australian web site shut down Richard Phillips, WSWS One week before the third anniversary of the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Australian government forced the closure of a satirical web site that powerfully exposed several key lies told by Prime Minister John Howard to justify participation in the US-led war. Authored by Richard Neville, former editor of Oz magazine—a well-known satirical publication that challenged British censorship laws in the 1960s—the site—johnhowardpm.org—was suspended after a high-level intervention by the prime minister’s department and the federal police... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21875 Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCOMPLISHED Greg Palast ...And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC." Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude. Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel. There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21887 Iraq on its own to rebuild, U.S. says Thomas Frank, USA Today The head of the U.S.-led program to rebuild Iraq said Thursday that the Iraqi government can no longer count on U.S. funds and must rely on its own revenues and other foreign aid, particularly from Persian Gulf nations. "The Iraqi government needs to build up its capability to do its own capital budget investment," Daniel Speckhard, director of the U.S. Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, said... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21873 Appeal For Help Sectarian Cleansing and Coercive Displacement Abdul Wahab Al Obeidi ...On February 27, 2006, Al-Fursan village was attacked by hordes of men in black, who were driving cars of the ministry of interior and state-backed militias. A large number of the villagers fled their homes. Eight people, including the Imam of the village mosque, whose name is Abu Aisha, and a ten year-old boy called Adnan Midab, were executed (...) The village mosque was sabotaged and burned down like almost all the houses in the village (...) The above is but the tip of the iceberg. These practices are organized and carried out on a regular basis within towns, rural villages and suburbs. Civilians are asking for international forces to protect them (...) The tragedy is mounting. People are deprived of basic needs. The aid workers are helpless. The UN and humanitarian NGOs must act... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21885 The next popular war Xymphora Since September 11 there has been ongoing speculation that the Bush Administration would counter one crisis or another by triggering another terrorist attack on American soil. The Republicans are in a particular funk at the moment, and with elections coming up, the idea that another attack might occur is difficult to resist. On the other hand, Bush now bases his entire Presidency on the illusion that he is the guy to protect Americans from terrorism. It will be difficult to blame the next attack on Clinton... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21872 At least 51 more die in Iraq violence Talabani issues optimistic assessment on cabinet ASSOCIATED PRESS Iraq's president issued a highly optimistic report Friday on progress among politicians trying to hammer out the shape of a new unity government. Meanwhile, at least 51 more people, including two U.S. soldiers, were reported dead in rampant violence. President Jalal Talabani said the government could be in place for parliamentary approval by the end of the month, but acknowledged, "I am usually a very optimistic person." He spoke to reporters after a fifth round of multi-party talks among the country's highly polarized political factions... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21893 Hired guns unaccountable Pentagon releases 400 'serious incident reports' voluntarily filed by security contractors in Iraq Jay Price About 6,000 non-Iraqi security contractors are operating in Iraq. During nine months in 2004-05, contractors reported firing into 61 civilian vehicles; no one was ever prosecuted. Security analysts say it is likely that such incidents are vastly underreported. Security contractors supporting the U.S. effort in Iraq regularly shoot into civilian cars with little accountability, according to a News & Observer analysis of more than 400 reports contractors filed with the government... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21895 In Falluja, Iraqi forces riven by sectarianism Fadel al-Badrani, Reuters If all goes to plan, U.S.-trained Iraqi troops and police will work together, gain the trust of volatile cities like Falluja and battle insurgents on their own as the Americans gradually withdraw troops. But, judging by the mood of this former rebel stronghold west of Baghdad, that is wishful thinking (...) This week, the mostly Arab Sunni police staged a strike to protest what they said were abuses committed by Shi'ite Muslim soldiers. The police have returned to their posts, but the mistrust remains. "The soldiers attacked a 17-year-old grocer and took him away to an area where he was found dead two hours later," said a police major, who asked not to be named. He said the youth had been shot in the eye and his stomach ripped open... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21894 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.