[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 25 Jul 2006]

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My Letter to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora Mike Whitney Dear Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Perhaps you will be kind enough to answer a few questions regarding the recent visit of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, so that people around the world who have looked on with sympathy as your country has been ravaged by Israeli aggression can understand your feelings on these important matters. First of all, why did you allow the Secretary of State to visit Beirut? The Bush administration had ! already made its position entirely clear and everyone who followed the issue knew that the US would continue to give Israel the "green light" until it finished its military operations according to its original plans. Were you unaware that Rice had already stated that she was not prepared to offer a "cease fire"? Were you unaware that the United States was "rushing a shipment of precision-guided bombs to Israel" to continue the slaughter of Lebanese civilians and the destruction of the nation’s infrastructure? Why would you allow yourself to be photographed "smiley-faced" and shaking hands with the woman who is destroying your country and killing your people? (...) Jesus Christ said, "For what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his soul." What about your soul, Prime Minister? Was that part of America’s bargain, too? You have disgraced your country and betrayed your people. You should do the honorable thing and submit your resignation so tha! t your people can elect a leader worthy of their respect... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25059 Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action By President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD., former Director, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project The delivery of at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters bombs containing depleted uranium warheads by the United States to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon will result in additional radioactive and chemical toxic contamination with consequent adverse health and environmental effects throughout the middle east.! Today, U.S., British, and now Israeli military personnel are using illegal uranium munitions- America's and England's own "dirty bombs" while U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and British Ministry of Defence officials deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing, and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material - depleted uranium. The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the world and all governments must force cessation of uranium weapons use... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25045 Did you know? Gabriele Zamparini Did you know that "Dana Olmert, the daughter of Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert... [was one of] the demonstrators [who] chanted slogans such as 'Tzahala residents, there's a murderer in your neighborhood,' and raised signs calling on the government to 'put a stop to the murder of civilians' and stating, 'Halutz is a killer, the intifada shall prevail.' Activists also shouted, 'neighbors, ask Halutz why he's killing children and how many'"? Why not? Did you know that "45! % of those killed in Lebanon are children and of the 500,000 people who have fled to safety, some 200,000 are children"? Why not? Did you know that Israel bombed "the nation's biggest private network, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation"? Why not? Did you know that a "big milk factory in the Bekaa region called 'Liban Lait’ was completely burned and destroyed by direct attacks from the Israeli Air Force."? And that a "food storehouse called 'TransMed’ in Choueifate, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, was totally destroyed"? Why not? Did you know that "Lebanon's president accused Israel on Monday of using phosphorous bombs in its 13-day offensive and urged the United Nations to demand an immediate ceasefire"?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25048 Israel uses cluster bombs, chemical weapons. Lenin's Tomb According to Human Rights Watch, Israel is now dropping cluster bombs on Lebanese villages, and have already killed and wounded men, women and children. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Minister of Health says wounded children are suffering from the impact of white phosphorus. The Lebanese president repeated the claim yesterday. As Israel pushes further into Lebanon, it continues to target civilians, in one incident blowing up a house and killing the family inside.! A Times reporter has told ABC news that he has witnessed the deliberate targeting of civilians. We have to bear in mind precisely how much the information that gets out into the mass media is conditioned by Israeli censorship... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25033 War crimes, a moment of humanity, and Harper's shame SPENCER OSBERG, Special to Shunpiking Online ...In the villages in the hills east of the costal town of Naquora, Rami says the Israelis have bombed all the roads and bridges, meaning nobody can leave and supplies cannot get in. People are beginning to starve and they're too afraid to leave the basements of their homes. Now the Israelis are bombing the houses. He says there is nowhere to hide and you unable to run. Between 40 and 70 families from the town took r! efugee from the bombing at a school, and then on Monday the Israelis bombed the school, killing almost everyone. Rami says seven families where sheltering in a large house next to the hospital and the Israelis bombed them. It took emergency crews two days to remove all the bodies because the Israeli jets continued to bomb it over and over again, killing some of the emergency workers... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25058 MEDIA ALERT: DEMOLISHING LEBANON - PART 1 Media Lens ...The rules are clear but never discussed - corporate reporters are free and happy to declare their personal views insofar as they accord with state interests, but not when they conflict. To criticise the powerful is to be 'biased' and 'crusading'. To support the case made by power is to be 'measured', 'objective' and 'balanced'. Journalists' moral outrage is not relevant when the West does not give a damn about the men, women and children dying under its bomb! s... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25056 Text of Bush-al-Maliki news conference Associated Press ...Maliki In the name of God, the most merciful, the passionate, I would like to thank President George Bush. Mr. President, I would like to thank you for your invitation to come here and visit the United States of America. And I would like to thank you for the warm welcome that myself and my delegation received. And, also, I appreciate very much your interest in the situation in Iraq and the responsible spirit that have dominated our discussions toda! y. We have discussed with President Bush clearly and frankly all the current challenges and the horizon and the future and ways of cooperation between our two country in order to build a democratic, united, flourishing Iraq that enjoys its full national sovereignty... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25055 WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2006 Today in Iraq Four mortar bombs fell in the southern Baghdad suburb of Abu Dshir, killing two civilians and injuring seven more. Earlier, one civilian and one soldier were killed in a series of bomb attacks which injured seven people. The final death toll from an explosion and clashes which erupted between gunmen and the police on Monday on Haifa street in central Baghdad is four policemen killed and 36 wounded. One policeman was killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb we! nt off near their patrol in the Zayouna district of the capital. Gunmen killed a policeman in a drive-by shooting in southwestern Baghdad. Five civilians were killed and four others were wounded Monday evening when mortar shells crashed into a southern Baghdad neighborhood... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25052 Five myths that sanction Israel’s war crimes Jonathan Cook, GlobalResearch.ca This week I had the pleasure to appear on American radio, on the Laura Ingraham show, pitted against David Horowitz, a "Semite supremacist" who most recently made his name under the banner of Campus Watch, leading McCarthyite witch-hunts against American professors who have the impertinence to suggest that maybe, just maybe, Arabs have minds and feelings like the rest of us. It was a revealing experience, at least for a British journali! st rarely exposed to the depths of ignorance and prejudice in the United States on Middle East matters -- well, apart from the regular whackos who fill my email in-tray. But five minutes of listening to Horowitz speak, and the sympathy with which his arguments were greeted by Laura ("The Professors -- your book’s a great read, David"), left me a lot more frightened about the world’s future... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25050 What in hell does the Bush Regime want out of the Middle east? Ted Bohne The New Iraqi Prime Minister says Iraq will not descend into Civil war. This, of course, begs the question, where in hell he is, the Bahamas? Iraq is in the very midst of a civil war. The three factions in Iraq are hard at war with the US and other Iraqis. Car bombs, suicide bombs and such are killing of Iraqis faster than bullets. Then you have American field grade officers telling their men to kill any Iraqi male of military age. That woul! d be about fifteen. Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer discernable as nations. Only a huge areas of carnage. The American's have failed entirely, and really should leave. Reason and logic dictate an American departure, and now since they are nothing more than an acute exacerbation of a Bush Catastrophe... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25049 Israel's False Assumptions about Lebanon: Israeli Miscalculations The Angry Arab News Service At this stage, it is not clear what will happen next. But at this stage, it is possible to state that Israeli political goals will not be achieved, no matter how long Israeli aggression takes. No matter what happens next, and even if Israel manages to kill Nasrallah or other leaders, Israel's ability to achieve its goals is diminishing not increasing. I am not being triumphalist: Israeli military superiority, and Israeli! willingness, nay eagerness, to use massive and indiscriminate violence, has never been in doubt. I lived and barely survived the 1982 Israeli invasion after all. But the political situation is rather spiraling quickly away from the intentions of Israel and its vocal and silent partners in the world... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25047 I accuse you ! Tsilli Goldenberg, Israeli citizen, Axis of Logic I, Tsilli Goldenberg, Israeli citizen, Accuse you - Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel, Amir Peretz, Minister of Defense, Dan Halutz Head of Staff Chief Commander of the Israeli Army, of committing this bestial barbaric slaughter in Lebanon. I accuse you of committing Crimes against Humanity towards the Palestinian People. I accuse you of deserting our soldiers, when their lives could be saved by negotiations, and I accuse you of starting an unju! stified war in my name... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25046 The spirit of resistance Pepe Escobar As southern Lebanon is turned into a wasteland mirroring the Gaza gulag, Washington neo-cons may stridently celebrate the contours of a final solution for the Hamas-Hezbollah "problem". Or should they? Israel's feverish military machine at least conveys the impression it knows exactly what it's doing - with its made-in-the-USA bombs destroying not just military but civilian targets. But this does not mean Israel is winning its war against Hezbollah... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25043 “You can tell them that I’m not leaving. We love Lebanon.” ZENA EL-KHALIL ....Biggest cynical statement of the day: Israel has told people to evacuate from the south because they are going to annihilate the south of Lebanon. However, the people can not leave because all the roads have been destroyed/blocked. And yesterday when people did try and leave, the Israelis opened fire on them! A massacre is happening! Update on the attacks, as of yesterday: Israelis have been bombing the south of Lebanon with phosphorus! and other chemical bombs. Israelis have bombed all ports along the coastline of Lebanon. Israelis have bombed all our local army radars and some outposts Israelis have bombed/attacked the fire fighting brigade and the Search and Rescue Brigade in the South. Innocent civilian lives were lost. It was a massacre - the buildings were also housing refugees... Israelis have continued to bomb the suburb of Beirut, Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25042 Beirut, 1982 Sabra and Shatila and the Brave Woman Who Awoke the Press to the Massacres MAHER OSSEIRAN ...The story she told me was her personal experience, and as such, I left it to her alone to share with others. Since the time I heard her story, I had hoped to read it in a magazine or a newspaper. Perhaps people in Europe got to read it; but I certainly did not read it here in the States. I have always felt that the story, as a first hand account of what happened around Sabra and Shatila while the! refugees were being slaughtered, should be widely shared. Today, I feel that the passage of time insulates my friend and gives me the freedom to share it with you... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25041 The IDF Will Become Even More Violent Why Israel is Losing ASHRAF ISMA'IL The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of its much-vaunted military apparatus. Ironically, there are several reasons for believing that Israel's destruction of southern Lebanon and southern Beirut will weaken its bargaining position relative to its adversaries, and will strengthen its adversaries' h! ands... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25038 Jewish Zionists Keeping Up the Pretense of America's Global Empire Bob Finch Both America and the Jews-only state in Palestine (Jos) have a vested political interest in continuing to maintain the fiction that America is the empire and the Jos is its satellite. After all, a hyper-power like America doesn’t want the world to ridicule it, even if only in private, for being the servant of a tiny nation of belligerent paranoid racists surrounding themselves with walls, buffer zones, and security fences, in the Middle ! East. The Jos doesn’t want the world to know it is giving orders to the Bush administration because then it would have to take the blame for its racist deeds that it is currently deflecting onto America... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25037 Rice begins Mideast tour to promote US-Israeli war aims Patrick Martin US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Beirut, Lebanon Monday, the first stop in a trip whose purpose is to shore up the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah and give more time for the Israeli military to use American bombs and weapons to devastate Lebanon. Rice visits Israel not, as media accounts suggest, to act as a moderating influence on the Zionist regime. Rather, following the logic of Bush administration fore! ign policy, Rice will pressure the Israelis to intensify the violence in south Lebanon so as to create the optimum conditions for joint Israeli and American pressure against the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25039 While the world is turning its back on Lebanon and closing its eyes Raida Hatoum ...I went home feeling sad and helpless. Decided to occupy myself with reorganizing the old newspapers I keep in my room: I carry the first one and open it to find it is "Al Safeer" newspaper from 1996 and on the first page pictures of killed infants and children - it was the Israeli massacre of Qana. This massacre happened when people from the southern villages took refuge at a UN center in the village of Qana and were murdered as I! srael bombed the UN center. Pain sweeps me and I crack down with the tears I tried very bravely and hardly to stop for seven days. The whole picture is so shockingly clear to me: we will never live in peace and will never have a future as long as Israel is protected, tolerated and allowed to kill children and destroy houses and hospitals in Lebanon and Palestine. It is a genocide. Nothing less. Nothing else... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25035 Kidnapped in Israel or Captured in Lebanon? Joshua Frank As Lebanon continues to be pounded by Israeli bombs and munitions, the justification for Israel's invasion is treading on very thin ice. It has become general knowledge that it was Hezbollah guerillas that first kidnapped two IDF soldiers inside Israel on July 12, prompting an immediate and violent response from the Israeli government, which insists it is acting in the interest of national defense. Israeli forces have gone on to kill over 370 innocent Leban! ese civilians (compared to 34 killed on Israel's side) while displacing hundreds of thousands more. But numerous reports from international and independent media, as well as the Associated Press, raise questions about Israel's official version of the events that sparked the conflict two weeks ago... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25034 The Lobby Or Not The Lobby? Issa Khalaf, Countercurrents.org ...The two, apparently conflictive assertions, that Israel serves American imperial interests and that the Israel lobby "controls" US foreign policy are both partially correct, and therefore not mutually exclusive. There has been an increasing convergence of interest between a more militarized and aggressive US foreign policy navigated by neo-conservatives and supported by Christian fundamentalists and a lobby that has increasingly become more aggressiv! e, uncompromising, and demanding in its support of Israel. US and Israeli policies and strategies have also become blurred and integrated, partially because of the fact that many of the neo-conservatives in government and its ideologues outside it are Jewish Americans who are also exceptionally committed and loyal to Israel as much as they are to America... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25051 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.