[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 31 march Part One]

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Feast of the Conquerors: George Bush's Civil War Victory Dance Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque Once again we must take up the cudgels for President George W. Bush, who is being increasingly maligned for his alleged lack of strategic vision in Iraq. This chorus of petty carping from partisan dead-enders has been exacerbated of late by all the hand-wringing media reports about "civil war" breaking out among the ungrateful beneficiaries of the president's selfless crusade for peace and enlightenment in the Middle East. These charges are, as always, pure bunkum. As we have often noted here before, Bush is pursuing a remarkably effective "win-win" strategy in Iraq, a highly flexible vision that is even now ripening to fruition. The savage militias, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, sectarian hatred and gruesome tortures that are turning Iraq into a howling moonscape of fear and chaos are but precision tools in the artful hands of the Leader, as he patiently crafts the ultimate victory... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22121 "Hajis", shovels and the march to New Orleans Lenin's Tomb I first read that "Haji" was being used as a derogatory nickname for Iraqis by US troops in 2004, similar to the use of the word "gook" in Vietnam. According to former troops interviewed in this Newsnight documentary about an antiwar March to New Orleans (which you can still watch until this evening, I guess), the word is burned into the brains of troops by military higher-ups at all levels: they're not humans, they're just "hajis". Further: "the message was always: 'Islam is evil' and 'They hate us.' Most of the guys I was with believed it." "They basically jam into your head: 'This is hajji! This is hajji!' You totally take the human being out of it and make them into a video game." This made it so much easier to kill: "if you start looking at them as humans, and stuff like that, then how are you going to kill them?"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22123 THE WAR DRUMS ARE GETTING LOUDER AND SENDING A CLEAR MESSAGE Stephen Lendman The way things are today, why on earth would the "big fool lunatics in charge" in Washington ever want another war or maybe two of them. Already they're "waist deep in the Big Muddy" in two out-of-control debacles in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the country is leaching multi-billions we don't have to pay for them. Despite this hopeless chaos, it looks almost certain we're now headed for a new one against another Middle East 4-letter country beginning with the letter "I", and may try to "double our displeasure" by including a "fracas in Caracas." I just learned about an "Operation Bilbao" which appears to be blueprint to overthrow the Chavez government and likely includes in it targeted assassinations starting with the guy in charge... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22127 Many Iraqis rely on neighborhood watches MARIAM FAM, Associated Press As the sun goes down and most Baghdad residents take refuge in their homes, Maamoun Abdul Wahab takes to the streets - a pistol tucked in his clothes. For about 12 hours, he prowls the narrow alleys of Baghdad's heavily Sunni Azamiyah district, part of a neighborhood watch group formed to fend off Shiite militias and Interior Ministry commando units considered by many Sunnis as little more than death squads. "If the militias or the commandos set foot here, we will fight them - either they die or we die," Abdul Wahab declared. "If we let them in, they will kill us anyway, so we might as well defend ourselves."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22124 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, March 30, 2006 Today in Iraq U.S. airman killed and another wounded by roadside bomb while conducting operation near Baghdad. U.S. soldier dies from wounds received in clashes in Fallujah on March 28. U.S. soldier dies in Rutbah on March 28, after improvised explosive device detonates near his Humvee. OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: Suicide car bomb goes off at entrance of a police commando headquarters near Green Zone. The blast was powerful but the cement barriers protected the guards, minimizing the casualties to two wounded along with killing of the suicide bomber... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22112 Cheney And Halliburton Hold Title - Top Earners In Iraq Evelyn Pringle There has never been an investigation into Cheney's involvement in awarding Halliburton no-bid contracts making the company the number one war profiteerer in Iraq. Apparently people have forgotten about the March 5, 2003 e-mail between the Army Corps of Engineers and a Pentagon employee that stated the contract "has been coordinated w VP's office." People also seem to have forgotten that Cheney continues to own stock in Halliburton. Stock that has risen in leaps and bounds since its former CEO moved into the White House and developed the most prolific war profiteering scheme of all time... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22111 The Long War's Pricetag Frida Berrigan ...In the "Economic Costs of the War on Iraq," economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes try to gauge of the long term economic consequences of the war. In the January 2006 paper, they assert "even taking a conservative approach and assuming all U.S. troops return by 2010, we believe the true costs exceed a trillion dollars." In his article on the report, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert struggles to explain that number: "imagine a stack of bills worth $1 million that is roughly six inches high... $1 billion [stack] would be as tall as the Washington Monument… If it were worth $1 trillion, the stack would be 95 miles high." Ninety-five miles of bills. A huge deficit. American and Iraqi lives destroyed each day. From the New York stage of the "Bring 'Em Home Now" concert on March 20, Geoffrey Millard, a soldier who spent 13 months in Iraq, declared "We don’t need an exit strategy… 'Exit' is not a strategy; it's an executive order." Those are the words America wants to hear, the sooner the better... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22110 Not a Country Anymore William Fisher, t r u t h o u t | Perspective Think about contractors in Iraq, and what's the first thing that comes to mind? Halliburton, raking in billions and overcharging taxpayers by billing the government for stuff it never delivered, and then getting bonuses for almost all its questionable charges? The Lincoln Group, paying Iraqi journalists to plant "good news" stories in the press? The Pentagon's private army of outsourced "security specialists," like Blackwater and Custer Battles, the mercenaries whose greed and shameful tactics make the CIA look like choirboys?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22109 Blackwater USA says it can supply forces for conflicts By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot Stepping into a potential political minefield, Blackwater USA is offering itself up as an army for hire to police the world's trouble spots. Cofer Black, vice chairman of the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company, told an international conference in Amman, Jordan, this week that Blackwater stands ready to help keep or restore the peace anywhere it is needed. Such a role would be a quantum leap for Blackwater and raises a host of policy questions... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22108 Political humor of the day Eli Stephens, Left I on the News Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office on Wednesday and warned the Americans against interfering in the country's political process. Does that mean he's going to first "uninvite" the allegedly "invited" American troops out of the country, and then turn the reins back to Saddam Hussein, the President before the Americans started interfering in his country's political process?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22106 JUST NOT WELCOME The cat's dream Member of the boards of directors of Chevron Corporation from 1991 to 2001 (there is a 130,000-ton oil tanker named after her), former US National Security Adviser and now traveling the world as emissary of "world nightmare incarnate" as Indian writer Arundhati Roy recently called George W. Bush, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is coming to England, invited by UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jack Straw... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22105 Imus Executive Producer: Carroll is “The Kind of Woman Who Would Wear One of Those Suicide Vests, Sneak Into the Green Zone” Think Progress There was a shocking segment earlier today on the popular radio/television show "Imus In The Morning." Watch this exchange between Executive Producer (and "quick-witted on-air contributor") Bernard McGuirk and Don Imus’ sidekick Charles McCord. Some lowlights: MCGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the — try and sneak into the Green Zone (...) She may be carrying Habib’s baby at this point... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22104 Iraq: Officials Complain of Rising Drug Use, Trafficking Drug War Chronicle Three years after the US invasion of Iraq, drug trafficking and addiction are on the rise, officials at the country's Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs told the United Nations' humanitarian news agency, IRIN, Monday. The remarks were prompted by large drugs seizures in recent weeks. The primary illicit drugs being used are heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, with grams of heroin or cocaine going for $20 to $30 dollars, ministry officials said. (Previous reports have noted widespread abuse of prescription drugs as well.) They said the heroin is coming from Afghanistan and Iran and the cocaine is somehow arriving from South America... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22126 U.S. raid on Shiite shrine served as a warning Kevin Whitelaw The U.S. military was trying to send a "little reality jab" to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr when American and Iraqi troops raided a Shiite community center and shrine over the weekend, says a top U.S. military official. The joint assault killed at least 16 people, most of them believed to be tied to Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army. U.S. officials insist the center was being used as a base for insurgent activities and was not a mosque. But many Iraqis say the complex did indeed include the Shiite equivalent of a mosque, and the raid has drawn harsh condemnation from Shiite politicians and prompted Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, to launch an investigation... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22122 An Appeal to International Lawyers and Law Professors Hold the Bush Administration Accountable for Flauting International Law CURTIS F.J. DOEBBLER I just wanted to take this timely opportunity to encourage those of you who are courageous enough, to think about what you can do to encourage the United States to respect international law through outside pressure on the United States. While I laud the efforts of those within the United States -- such as the recent effort of Ben Davis and those who supported it -- and hope that such efforts will continue, at the same time I am every day more and more convinced that change cannot come from within the United States, or that if it does, it will only be after countless people have died or suffered because of the failure of the US to respect international law... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22125 Two massacres: the tales of young girls Eli Stephens A young Iraqi girl tells about a massacre: A young Iraqi girl has exclusively given ITV News a shocking first hand account of what witnesses claim amounts to mass murder by US troops in the war-torn country. Ten-year-old Iman Walid tells of screaming soldiers entering her house in the Iraqi town of Haditha spraying bullets in every direction. Fifteen people in all were killed, including her parents and grandparents. Her account has been corroborated by other eyewitnesses who say it was a revenge attack after a roadside bomb killed a marine. (...) So, do you think Iman Walid might be asked to testify before U.S. Congress, like Nayirah, the 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who told Congress that 312 premature babies had died after Iraqi soldiers threw them from their incubators, testimony which led directly to the first Gulf War? No, I shouldn't think so. But forget about Congress. Here's the thing about the testimony of these two young girls. The Haditha massacre did receive fairly extensive coverage in the U.S. press -- for one day... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22120 More proof of a conspiracy Xymphora In all the malarkey we’re hearing from the apologists for the Israel Lobby about the Mearsheimer and Walt paper, it should not be forgotten that the idea that the war was fought for Israel isn’t somebody’s wild thesis submitted with no proof whatsoever. We can prove it. Without the slightest doubt. David Wurmser, Cheney’s chief Middle East advisor, and Douglas Feith, the guy in charge of 'stovepiping’ the intelligence using the Office of Special Plans in order to fool American officialdom with phony intelligence and hide the real intelligence, were both involved in the 'Clean Break’ paper... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22119 Casey Austin Sheehan: May 29, 1979 - April 04, 2004 Cindy Sheehan ...As the two year mark of Casey's death is careening helplessly towards me, I reflect that even if I tried with all my might, I could never forget, nor want to forget Casey or his story. I can never forget the joyous day that he came into our lives on JFK's birthday which was also Memorial Day that year. I will never forget the 21 Memorial Day birthdays before Casey donned the uniform of the Military Industrial Complex that we had where we invited family and friends over for a bar-be-que to celebrate his life. The two Memorial Day birthdays we have had so far without him are pain-filled beyond measure and we will have to endure many, many more. What about the holidays: The happy ones before Casey was killed, and the devastating ones since he died? ... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22117 While America Slept Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher Richard Cohen, the longtime Washington Post columnist sometimes accused of being a "liberal," produced a strong column today, titled "Bush Wanted War." In it he said he had long been skeptical of this idea, but now had come to accept it. That’s all well and good, but where was Cohen a little more than three years ago, when this fact was as plain as the smirk on the president’s face, and the columnist agitated for war anyway? If there was an "I’m sorry for being so stupid" embedded in Cohen’s column I didn’t spot it... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22118 Shiite Ayatollah Ignores Letter From Bush QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer A letter from President Bush to Iraq's supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week but sits unread and untranslated in the top religious figure's office, a key al-Sistani aide told The Associated Press on Thursday. The aide - who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani's refusal to make any public statements himself - said the ayatollah had laid the letter aside and did not ask for a translation because of increasing ``unhappiness'' over what senior Shiite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent post-invasion government... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22130 Beware the Ides of March William Bowles, I'n'I Unlike many of my brethren (and not for the first time), I am seem to be out of step about the apocalyptic visions that are currently populating the Webosphere concerning an immanent invasion of Iran. No doubt the US have plans for every country on the planet, that is after all, one of the roles of the 'think tanks’, to do 'what ifs?’ What if France goes really socialist? What if … But planning various scenarios is one thing, following through is something quite different. I tend to view the release of documents that reveal the existence of plans to invade Iran as being a quite deliberate ploy on the part of the US ruling class (see the links at the end of this piece); on the one hand to put the frighteners on any country that dares oppose US objectives and on the other, they bolster just how 'serious’ the USUK are about the alleged threat that Iran poses (or any other country that challenges the US)... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22116 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.