[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 9 Aug 2006 -Part Two]

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Refusing to Fight: an interview with Resister Kyle Snyder Karen Button Those who have seen the recent documentary about U.S. GI resistance during the Vietnam war "Sir No Sir!" will understand the numerous parallels to growing resistance in today’s military and its solidarity with the civilian anti-war movement. From non-violent demonstrations and sit-ins to the radical actions of The Weather Underground, hundreds of thousands protested the Vietnam war for years. Finally, officials began leaking classi! fied information. But, ultimately, it was the individual soldier refusing to participate any longer that brought the military machine to its knees. Fragging of superiors and outright refusal to follow combat orders became commonplace. Desertion and Absent Without Leave (AWOL) hit an all-time high; the Pentagon documented 1,500,000 during that time. About 100,000 of those active duty members went into exile, and at least 90 percent of them fled, to Canada. Today, those precedents are being repeated. Resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq (and, to some degree, Afghanistan) among its own military is growing rapidly and the Department of Defense teetering on the brink of recruitment crisis... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25612 Lebanon War Resonates in Iraq Nicola Nasser, thepeoplesvoice.org ...The "Shiite" Hizbollah identifies more with the reportedly "Sunni" Iraqi national resistance and its Palestinian counterpart than with the reportedly "Shiite" collaboration with the U.S. occupation of Iraq (...) The Iraqi sectarian-led mass protests were politically hollow because they were not reinforced by either anti-occupation political or concrete moves on the ground. It was ironic to listen to the thousands of protesters sincerely chanting! anti-American slogans and announcing their willingness "to go and fight in Lebanon" while the troops of the "American enemy" were a few meters away guarding against the protests spelling out of control against them and their Iraqi allies. Those slogans could have been more credible had just a few of the protesters dared to demand their leaders to overcome their sectarian loyalties and join their Sunni compatriots in resisting the foreign occupation. For example the Sadrist movement, the main leading force behind the protests, could have gained national credibility by at least quitting its five cabinet posts and the 30 seats it holds in the Iraqi parliament, which prop up al-Maliki government, whose spokesmen are day and night hailing the Americans as the liberators, allies and friends of the Iraqi people, thus prolonging the occupation... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25613 The Right to Defend What ? Robert.Thompson ...My conclusion is very simple, the Israelis have no right to defend their discriminatory "state", but they have the right to survive on condition of acting with justice towards all in habitants equally, which would meaan the end of their "Jewish state" to replace it by a democratic state. There remains the responsability of all politicians to do what is necessary, and in the meantime, I beg them to stop saying thaat the Israelis have the right to do everything t! o "defend their state" in its present form... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25625 Missing the Story in Lebanon KABOBfest ...If Israel-lovers don't like negative media coverage, they should get Israel to stop being the snotty, hyper-aggressive, settler-colonial, apartheid state it is. Given how criminal Israel's political history and policies are, media coverage in the US should be much more critical -- like the European press, for example. Everyone else in the world sees that it is wrong to occupy and oppress the Palestinians. However, Israel is largely saved from the proportionate criticism i! t merits. Media here depend heavily on the US government for information, and thus reflect its biases... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25623 Hezbollah Warns Arabs to Leave Haifa KABOBfest Just as the diplomatic overtures between Hezbollah and Israel are sinking on the rotten (pro-Israel) foundations they were planted on, and just as the Israeli cabinet decided to broaden the already broad offensive in Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned all Israeli Arabs to leave the port city of Haifa so the militant group could step up attacks without fear of shedding the blood of fellow Muslims. Haifa, the third-largest city in Israel, was alrea! dy by Hezbollah's rocket attacks. The damage was nothing compared to Israel's in Lebanon of course. Some estimate that up to 85% of Lebanon's infrastructure is gone... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25621 Mothers wail, ‘What human would ever do this?’ Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are 15 or younger, hospital records show. "This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut’s largest, told IPS. Not only are most of the patients children, but many of the injured are in serious condition, he said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in Beirut. That means that 30 percent! of everyone hit by Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe." The fatality rate was high, he said, "because the Israelis are using new kinds of bombs which can enter shelters. They are bombing the bomb shelters which are full of refugees"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25619 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 9 August 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice In a dispatch posted at 12:10pm Makkah time midday Wednesday, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US occupation forces surrounded the city of al-Hadithah, about 220km west of Baghdad, and its suburbs at dawn on Wednesday and began launching mass raids, searches, and arrests in the city. The al-Hadithah correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported local eyewitness! es as saying that the US forces had closed all the city’s entrances and exits and close the roads inside the city in addition to imposing a curfew. The lock down affected not only al-Hadithah, but also the suburbs of al-Haqlaniyah and Barwanah. Eyewitnesses reported that at the time of reporting, American troops were raiding houses and making mass arrests... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25618 Israeli Gaza Commander: ‘We Are Determined to Create Chaos’ John Dugard Heads HRC’s Fact-finding Mission to Palestinian Territories Palestine Media Center – PMC Ignoring international outcries for restraint and diplomacy, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) were on Saturday advancing their reoccupation push into the Gaza Strip amid Palestinian, Arab and Islamic diplomatic efforts to stop the Israeli invasion, efforts that have been aborted so far by a US-led western diplomacy. "We are determined to cre! ate a professional chaos, to jump from one place, to emerge, to use this method or another, to leave the territory and enter it again after a while," Israel’s Gaza Division Commander Brigadier General Kochavi told Ynet on Friday, after a visit by the IOF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25617 Should some US media be tossed out of the Middle East? Truth About Iraqis I just caught wind of a neat little report tugged into the midst of CNN's coverage of the "War in the Middle East". CNN's anchor Kyra Phillips introduced the report on why Hezbollah fights Israel by asking the audience whether it is based in a hatred of Jews or a turf war. The reader should be mindful here. Any opposition, any debate, any rejection of Israeli viewpoints will immediately incur charges of anti-Semitism. So, the report begins ! by reflecting on how Hezbollah wants Israel destroyed. How Israel seeks "peaceful co-existence" with its neighbors, but the "other side" wants Israel's existence wiped out... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25616 Psychopaths Murder Children - You Pick Up The Tab Joe Quinn, Signs of the Times Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "I believe this is a war which is fought by all the Jews," the Israeli prime minister said in a conference call and webcast Monday. Let's face it,The State of Israel is fighting against the Iranians and the Syrians." What is clear is that Olmert, (and Sharon before him) Bush, Rice and the members of their respective political parties and their corporate friends have no problem! with murdering innocent children. But my question is: Do You? Does the ordinary American or Israeli Jew (or Israeli Christian or Arab) sanction the cold-blooded massacring of innocent people?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25615 Israeli airforce bombs Lebanese funeral five times, killing 13 Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Thirteen people were killed Tuesday evening in Al Ghazziya, Lebanon, while attending the mass funeral of the fifteen Lebanese people killed just the day before. Local sources reported that 1500 people were attending the funeral procession, praying and mourning, accompanying the fifteen coffins in a procession to the town's cemetery, when the missiles hit. The first missile dropped by Israeli warplanes hit a building qu! ite near the procession, then, about thirty minutes later, four more missiles were dropped among the mourners, killing 13 and wounding 18, according to local hospitals and Mayor Mohammed Ghaddar... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25614 Video The height of American stupidity, LIVE on FOX Wake up from your slumber "[Arabs] have made up a lot of stories. I don’t think Israel is really bombing Lebanon. I think it’s faulty construction that’s causing these buildings to fall." Each time I think I've heard everything, FOX news proves me wrong. It's hard to tell, though, whether members of FOX's audience get this stupid from watching their program or are just born this way... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25611 Military says 15 Israeli soldiers killed AP Fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed in a single day of fighting Wednesday, the military said, the highest one-day total in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. The military said 38 soldiers were wounded in battles across south Lebanon. Israel TV said some of the dead and wounded were reservists, and the others were from the standing army. Many of the details, including the names of the dead soldiers, were not immediately released... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25628 Spielberg group to donate $1M for Israel The Associated Press A foundation created by filmmaker Steven Spielberg will donate $1 million to relief efforts in Israel as it battles with Hezbollah. The Righteous Persons Foundation will make an initial contribution of $250,000 to the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles Israel Crisis Fund. The foundation, spokesman Marvin Levy said Tuesday, will then follow up with gifts to the New Israel Fund and other organizations that are providing relief to those evacuated from north! ern Israel... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25610 THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF ISRAELI TERROR DesertPeace As the war rages on in Lebanon, the 'other' victims are being forgotten. The hostilities by the Israeli army have not let up in Gaza at all since the bombings on Lebanon began. These 'forgotten' victims of Israeli terror must not be forgotten... their plight must be known and their struggle for freedom must be supported. The zionists are crying that citizens from the north are being forced to leave their homes. This is true.... BUT.. in most cases they will have! homes to return to when the hostilities stop. This is not true of the Palestinians in Gaza... their homes are being destroyed, they are without electricity, water, sufficient food or medication... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25609 The Grave Consequences of Supporting War in Lebanon Scott Ritter With Israel waging an all-out war against the forces of Hezbollah, and the death toll in terms of civilian casualties mounting on a daily basis, the question of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis takes on an urgency that is being felt around the world. Everywhere, it seems, except in Israel and the United States. One should not be fooled by the "false" diplomacy being waged by the United States, fronted by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and t! he U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. The draft Security Council resolution co-sponsored between the United States and France is but a tragic farce, a smoke screen designed to unilaterally protect Israeli interests at the expense of all others that is so transparent no Arab nation takes it seriously (it has been rejected outright by Lebanon, Syria and Hezbollah). Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25608 Fox Military Analyst on Syria: ‘We Can Talk To Them When We Line Them Up and Kill Them’ Think Progress With the Bush administration refusing to hold direct talks with Syria, Col. David Hunt, military analyst for Fox News, appeared on Hannity & Colmes last night to offer some advice to the president: "I think we can talk to them when we line them up and kill them." Stating that "the only reason to talk to some of these guys is to just do that," Hunt went on to argue that America should "absolutely, 100 percent" se! ek regime change in both Syria and Iran if they’re "not going to cooperate." Watch it... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25607 www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.