[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 02 May 2006]

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The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback Mike Whitney Today, Iran fired the first shot in a battle that will ultimately change the global economic system. Mehr News Agency announced that the long-anticipated Iran Oil Bourse (OIB) will open sometime next week on Kish Island competing head-on with the US dollar. Currently, all oil transactions are denominated exclusively in greenbacks (via the London and New York oil exchanges) giving the US a virtual monopoly on the oil trade and maintaining the dollar’s position ! as the world’s reserve currency. This privilege has allowed the US to generate massive deficits as well as a national debt of $8.4 trillion without fear of economic collapse but, the "time’s they are a-changin’". If Iran proceeds with its plan, the central banks around the world will convert some of their reserves into euros sending billions of dollars back to the America. This will result in either recession or depression... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23009 DEPLETED URANIUM - FAR WORSE THAN 9/11 Douglas Westerman In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y.,which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated ! properties costing over 100 million dollars. Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23019 American Hostages... Riverbend, Baghdad Burning ...The big question is- what will the US do about Iran? There are the hints of the possibility of bombings, etc. While I hate the Iranian government, the people don’t deserve the chaos and damage of air strikes and war. I don’t really worry about that though, because if you live in Iraq- you know America’s hands are tied. Just as soon as Washington makes a move against Tehran, American troops inside Iraq will come under attack. It’s that simple- Washington has big g! uns and planes… But Iran has 150,000 American hostages... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23010 Karl Rove Indictment Long Overdue Evelyn Pringle On April 28, 2006, Jason Leopold, an investigative journalist who has consistently forecast up-coming events in the CIA leak case far in advance of the mainstream media, is citing "sources knowledgeable about the probe" in reporting that: "Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charge! s against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week." For most Americans, this bit of news will be viewed as long overdue. The criminal indictment filed by the grand jury against Scooter Libby leaves no doubt about who leaked what and when... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23023 Haseeb’s Presentation at Georgetown University ... and ... The proclamation of the Iraqi General Command of the Armed Forces Imad Khadduri ...We, at the General Command of the Iraqi Military Forces, now declare our responsibility for many heroic operations, whose archives and proof we shall soon provide, that have been carried out by your sons and brothers throughout Iraq. We solemnly announce to the world that the Resistance is intrinsically Iraqi, in blood and identity, and is carried out by the Iraqi armed for! ces and the heroic and patriotic Resistance groups. The General Military Command strongly condemns any violence that is perpetrated against the security of the ordinary Iraqi citizen, in whatever form or shape. Iraqis, Your army was not dissolved by the occupation juggernaut. It remains your protector with its soldiers and officers who are from you and for you. It is compromised from all sectors of the Iraqi society. It is not led by any political party neither does it represent any single sectarian faction. It is a national army for a united Iraq... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23031 The PNAC Paper Trail Jeff Huber The longer the fiasco in Iraq drags on, the more we hear the folks who cooked up the idea of invading that sand dune republic denying that they had anything to do with it. Crooks and Liars provided this John Bolton quote from a press conference televised last week on CNN. We did not violate the UN charter in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and that plan was not drawn...at the Project for the New American Century. John's memory must be slipping, what with all those resp! onsibilities he has as Ambassador to the United Nations now. Maybe it's time to help him refresh it. Let's take a hike down the PNAC Paper Trail... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23024 Ahmadinejad: Lost in translation peacepalestine ...When properly translated the Iranian president actually calls for the removal of the regimes that are in power in Israel and in the USA as a goal for the future. Nowhere does he demand the elimination or annihilation of Israel. He called for greater governance for Palestine. The word map does not even feature. And the president makes plain that the Holocaust happened, but, he argues western powers have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own imperiali! stic purposes. What the mainstream ran with is complete deception... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23029 Army Documents Show Senior Official Reportedly Pushed Limits on Detainee Interrogations ACLU New Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union today reveal that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered interrogators to "go to the outer limits" to get information from detainees. The documents also show that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. (...) The ACLU also released an Information Paper entitled "Allegations of Detainee! Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan" dated April 2, 2004, two weeks before the world saw the pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The paper outlined the status of 62 investigations of detainee abuse and detainee deaths. Cases include assaults, punching, kicking and beatings, mock executions, sexual assault of a female detainee, threatening to kill an Iraqi child to "send a message to other Iraqis," stripping detainees, beating them and shocking them with a blasting device, throwing rocks at handcuffed Iraqi children, choking detainees with knots of their scarves and interrogations at gunpoint... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23032 Relentless Drive For Oil Company Profits Threatens EVELYN PRINGLE The higher oil prices are a threat to America's overall economy and the skyrocketing costs of heating public facilities and keeping school buses, police cars, emergency vehicles and snowplows running are wreaking havoc on local governments all across the country. For example, in Charlotte, SC, each one cent increase in a gallon of gas means a $70,000 increase in annual fuel costs to the city budget, according to a report distributed at the League o! f Municipalities Conference, on October 17, 2005. According to district administrator, Lois Cuff, the small school district of Freedom Wisconsin, came up $100,00 short for heating bills in 2005... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23022 Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson on Peddling Democracy Tom Engelhardt & Chalmers Johnson After those weapons of mass destruction never appeared and Saddam's al-Qaeda connection proved but a figment of the overly vivid neocon (and Vice-Presidential) imagination, the Bush administration wheeled out the shiniest of American exports, democracy. It had worked for Ronald Reagan in Central America in the 1980s, why not in Iraq, too? Suddenly, actual democratic elections, which administration officials had headed off or tried t! o contain from the moment Baghdad fell, were de rigueur, the very essence of our mission in Iraq, the true reason that we Americans were placed on this Earth. Who even recalled (or now recalls) the tawdry history of the American occupation, of the way L. Paul Bremer, our hapless viceroy in Baghdad and his kleptomaniacal Coalition Provisional Authority, did everything in their power, including cancelling local elections, to ward off democracy or any significant expression of the popular will... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23030 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, May 2, 2006 Today in Iraq .. Roadside bomb kills U.S. soldier Monday night about 40 miles south of Baghdad in the Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death." U.S. soldier assigned to the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team dies in Iraq from cardiac arrest. American security contractors shot dead an Iraqi ambulance crewman, when they opened fire on his vehicle after a roadside bomb blasted their convoy. Two American civilians were wounded in the incident in north Baghdad, the US military said. ! Clearly marked with a red crescent symbol, its windows had been shattered by bullets (...) U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 100 "insurgents" last week in the town of Ramadi in the rebel heartland of Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Tuesday... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23021 Do you remember US propaganda of Saddam’s “look-alike(s)”? Baghdad Dweller Reminded me of this: Where are Saddam’s look-alike(s)? For years the US and the UK media told the public to not trust what they see on TV, and the images we see on TV or newspapers are one of many replicas of Saddam. Books and articles published on the subject, TV stations hosted politicians and plastic-surgeons to discus "Saddam’s clones" but after three years in Iraq, neither the Americans or the Iraqis captured or killed one of Saddam’s! replicas, not even a single person appeared to claim he played "Saddam" for some time. Part of never ending "psy-ops" and propaganda set by the invaders to legitimize the invasion... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23017 GI Special 4E2: The Republic In Danger - May 2, 2006 Thomas F. Barton President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" prot! ections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23016 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 2 May 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice In a dispatch posted at 7pm Makkah time Tuesday evening, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US occupation forces raided and searched every Internet café and office in the city of ar-Ramadi, about 110km west of Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon. In another move to cut off the residents of ar-Ramadi from the outside world, the American occupation forces threatened to arrest! anyone caught using a cellular telephone in the city. The Americans claimed that this order was needed because the Resistance – whom they called "terrorists" as is their habit – use cellular phones as a means of communication and for setting off bombs by remote control. The ar-Ramadi correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US troops arrested owners of the Internet cafes and confiscated all their equipment. They also threatened to arrest anyone seen outside his house during the nighttime curfew from 8pm until 6am... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23015 60 percent of Americans can't find Iraq on a map Truth About Iraqis "Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn’t find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic." Utterly shameful and disgraceful. "Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from the world," National Geographic president John Fahey said in announcing a program to help remedy the proble! m. Duh ... You are now entering the "American murderers shoot to kill" zone. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, which is not an imaginary state in a video game or Harry Potter or American Idol, an Iraq ambulance driver was shot and killed by US security contractors after an explosion near their vehicle. (CNN) Failed at geography, primed at murder. Finding no one to kill, the security contractor decided to kill the driver... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23014 Plame and the 'intelligence officials' Xymphora Raw Story reports that MSNBC correspondent David Shuster confirms their story by Larisa Alexandrovna that Plame was working on an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran, and that her outing by the Bush Administration damaged the American ability to track Iran’s nuclear program. Note that this confirmation is careful to note that it is built on what 'intelligence sources’ say. In other words, the '! confirmation’ is just a repetition of the same CIA intelligence bullshitters relied upon in the original Larisa Alexandrovna article... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23013 New Army documents reveal US knew of and approved torture before Abu Ghraib scandal Raw Story New Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union today reveal that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered interrogators to "go to the outer limits" to get information from detainees. The documents also show that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. "When our leaders allow and even encourage abuse at the 'outer limits', America su! ffers," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "A nation that works to bring freedom and liberty to other parts of the world shouldn't stomach brutality and inhumanity within its ranks. This abuse of power was engineered and accepted at the highest levels of our government"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23012 7 US soldiers killed in Iraq Arabic News.com The Department of Defense announced today and yesterday the death of 7 US soldiers in Iraq. Sgt. Edward G. Davis III, 31, of Antioch, Ill., died April 28 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Staff Sgt. Bryant A. Herlem, 37, of Copperas Cove, Texas. Sgt. Jose Gomez, 23, of Corona, N.Y. also died in B! aghdad, Iraq, on April 28, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV during combat operations. The soldiers were assigned to the 10th Cavalry, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23011 BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: 36 US House Reps Want Bush Impeachment Probe Matthew Cardinale, Editor and National Correspondent, Atlanta Progressive News 36 US House Representatives have signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors of H. Res 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush’s impeachment, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. The two latest co-sponsors, as of Friday, were US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) and US Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23027 Three years since Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”: Torture, corruption, growing resistance in Iraq Patrick Martin May 1 marks three years since President George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln for a rally, choreographed by White House spin-doctors, to celebrate "Mission Accomplished" in the US war against Iraq. Organized military resistance by the regime of Saddam Hussein had collapsed. Fewer than 150 American soldiers had been killed in the successful invasion, in which the United States! seized control of a country boasting the world’s second largest oil reserves. Fast forward to today: nearly 2,300 more US soldiers have died since Bush declared major combat at end, while the Iraqi death toll has soared to well over 100,000... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23008 The "New Totalitarianism" now defines a desperate neo-con end game Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman As the Bush/neo-con kleptocracy disintegrates in a toxic cloud of military defeat, economic bankruptcy, environmental disaster and escalating mega-scandal, its attack on basic American freedoms---its "New Totalitarianism"---has escalated to a desperate new level, including brutal Soviet-style prosecutions against non-violent dissidents and an all-out offensive for state secrecy, including an attack on the internet! . In obvious panic and disarray, the GOP right has turned to a time-honored strategy---kill the messengers. While it slaughters Americans and Iraqis to "bring democracy" to the Middle East, it has made democracy itself public enemy Number One here at home... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23025 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.