[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 08 Jun 2006]

uruknet.info اوروكنت.إنفو :: information from occupied iraq :: informazione dall'iraq occupato

Who was Abu Musab al Zarqawi? Michel Chossudovsky Mythical figure and terror mastermind Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was killed in an air raid, according to a statement of the Iraqi government. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki announced at a press conference . "We have eliminated Zarqawi." The head of US-led forces in Iraq, General George Casey, said the strike against an "isolated safe house" took place at 1815 (1415 GMT) on Wednesday. (BBC, 7 June 2006) "Jordanian-born Zarqawi was said to have been in a meeting wi! th associates at the time. Several other people were reported to have been killed in the raid. General Casey said Zarqawi's body was identified through fingerprints, facial recognition and known scars." (Ibid) Zarqawi has been upheld both in official statements and the media as head of "the Sunni insurgency", leader of "al-Qaeda in Iraq", allegedly responsible for the the killings of thousands of civilians. The evidence suggests that Zarqawi was part of a Pentagon disinformation campaign launched in 2003. which was initially intended to justify the US led invasion of Iraq... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23809 Killing al-Zarqawi: End of a Pentagon-Dairat al-Mukhabarat Collaboration? Kurt Nimmo ... Some believe Iraq was invaded not to steal Iraq’s oil, but rather take it off-line as a way to jack up prices. I’m not sure I buy this. More likely, Iraq’s oil is a casualty of the neocon plan to destroy the country and balkanize it. Oil is oil and it sure the heck ain’t going anywhere. It will be ready to pump after Iraq is split into three pieces—one Kurdish, another Shia, and the last Sunni. Of course, al-Zarqawi, or the l! egend of al-Zarqawi, played an instrumental role in moving along the sort of sectarian strife required to break the country into bite-sized pieces. As noted above, if al-Zarqawi (or somebody called al-Zarqawi, as the actual al-Zarqawi was likely killed some time ago) was indeed killed earlier today, he was betrayed and set-up to be killed, as patsies often are... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23820 "without causing collateral damage to other Iraqi civilians" Imad Khadduri , Free Iraq ..." The Islam Memo correspondent in Ba'qoubah managed to enter the area of Hibhib on Thursday afternoon after the travel embargo to it was lifted by the occupation forces. The correspondent reported from the area around the house in which Zarqawi was killed. Eye witnesses said that the occupation forces did fire two rockets at the house which rattled the whole city. More than 50 nearby homes were completely destroyed. Homes at! 500 meters away suffered heavily, especially due to the effects of the second bomb. The Iraqi police who first arrived at the scene removed many charred bodies from the rubble as the bombardment melted even the iron beams of the roof of the house and in its windows. "How is it that Zarqawi's body remained intact as if he died in his bed?" asked one Iraqi resident"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23825 A Small Rabbit Out of a Big Hat Stan Goff ...Zarqawi was the ultimate "foreign fighter," one who willingly adopted the name "al Qaeda in Iraq," feeding the mistaken notion that there is actually an organization called al Qaeda, an official enemy that is global and eternal, and now manifest on this particular part of the oil patch. Just this year, the Washington Post published a documents showing that the Pentagon had an active program to legendize Zarqawi (...) The Pentagon public relations staff, with the activ! e assistance of an obsequious US press, successfully portrayed Zarqawi as a one-man dynamo, an evil genius who was single-handedly running most of the "insurgency" in Iraq, a take-off on the earlier theme of foreign fighters being the majority of the resistance. This, and we should remember when the British SAS was caught in the act of planting bombs last year that would have been attributed, undoubtedly, to Zarqawi... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23834 Zarqawi: Dead Again Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy Al-Zarqawi dies for the umpteenth time but now the US government says sincerely Zarqawi is really, really dead again (...) To be less than satirical, the pictures of his alleged corpse are surprisingly photogenic considering that the U.S. Military does not claim to have dropped a house on Zarqawi —merely two 500-pound bombs at the conclusion of a three day operation. Amazing that he is both recognizable and in one piece. But the U.S. Military would not lie ! about this...would they?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23833 Freedom Rider Baby Killers at Haditha Margaret Kimberley, The Black Commentator ...The occupation of Iraq is a crime against the people of that nation. They have been killed, incarcerated, and tortured. Their resources have been stolen, their infrastructure has been destroyed. Iraqi children are more malnourished now than in the days of the evil dictator. Opposition should always come from the perspective that the U.S. committed a terrible act in March of 2003 when the occupation began. We should be gl! ad that the story of Haditha is now being told, yet no one should think it is an isolated incident or that it was caused merely by over stressed Marines who don’t know what there mission is... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23819 And now for something completely (in)different William Bowles Okay, okay, I know there’s all kind of shit going down. This morning for example BBC Radio 4 News ran a long piece on the reported death of 'Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, how he was "leader of al-Qu’eda in Iraq" and how, with his alleged death, things would now be different in Iraq. The report by the Beeb’s John Simpson was an archetypal piece of disinformation. Not one piece of proof either of his death or even of his existence was offered by this mouthpiece ! for the state. Instead, we got a diatribe on what a "nasty" man he was... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23832 Un-Conventional Thinking: The Pentagon Honors Torture Awareness Month Chris Floyd ...But somehow, when it came to actually writing up these "moderations," the legal eagles in Rumsfeld's shop left out "a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans 'humiliating and degrading treatment' … a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards," the Los Angeles Times reports. (Gregory Djerejian has a good take on the story here.) I! n fact, what the latest draft of this handy-dandy document does is officially codify Bush's earlier evisceration of the Geneva Convention, when, under the wise tutelage of Alberto Gonzales, Bush signed a secret directive in 2002 "suspending" parts of the Convention for all the Terror War captives in his concentration camps, detention centers, rendition pits and secret prisons. As numerous military, legal and human rights experts agree, Bush's action effectively dissolved the Convention as a binding, universal protection for anyone captured in a conflict, including American troops, replacing it with….well, nothing, really – except maybe the law of the jungle... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23830 For the women of Iraq, the war is just beginning Terri Judd, The Independent The women of Basra have disappeared. Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women's secular freedoms - once the envy of women across the Middle East - have been snatched away because militant Islam is rising across the country. Across Iraq, a bloody and relentless oppression of women has taken hold. Many women had their heads shaved for refusing to wear a scarf or have been stoned in the street for wearing make-up. Others have be! en kidnapped and murdered for crimes that are being labelled simply as "inappropriate behaviour" (...) In the British-occupied south, where Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers (...) Under Saddam, women played little part in political life but businesswomen and academics travelled the country unchallenged while their daughters mixed freely with male students at university... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23828 From Bush to Hillary . . . holding the war parties accountable Joshua Frank, Online Journal Contributing Writer There are plenty of reasons the Democrats continue to support the ongoing occupation of Iraq. Not only did they authorize the invasion, they continue to sit on their hands while our armed forces commit murder in the name of democracy in Haditha. Perhaps the worst of the Democrats still embracing the illegal war is Senator Hillary Clinton. And despite her unwillingness to engage the antiwar community, sh! e still receives substantial support from those who say they don’t support the occupation... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23829 Babil residents protest poor services, demand official resignations IRIN Nearly 1,200 angry residents of Babil province, some 100km south of the capital, Baghdad, took to the streets on Wednesday to protest poor services and demand the resignation of several local officials. "If these officials aren't up to the responsibility, they should resign," said Hussam Mustafa, a 25-year-old employee at the city's civil defence directorate. "We have no potable water, and must bring water from the river," he said. "We have ! just three hours of electricity every day, and no fuel at the petrol stations." Demonstrators carried banners reading, "We want electricity" and "We demand that the local council resign." Some also shouted pro-Saddam Hussein slogans, such as "We would sacrifice ourselves for your sake, Saddam"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23826 The Left and the Israel Lobby Joseph Anderson, www.dissidentvoice.org There have been prominent responses to the recent debate over the influence of the Israel lobby sparked by the article, "The Israel Lobby," by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which was recently published in the London Review of Books. Some -- predictably -- condemn any attempt to raise the issue as "anti-Semitic" -- metaphorically screaming, "Israel lobby? What Israel lobby?" This is arguably the largest lobby based in D.C. In fact, one migh! t somehow surmise its power by the sheer marshalling of vehemence and overwhelming forces with which its power is denied. The very people who, on the one hand, insist that there is no proof of the Israel lobby’s power, or say that it’s too difficult to study in Washington’s overall political environment, on the other hand, typically attack anyone as "anti-Semitic" who attempts to conduct the very research and analysis whose study could provide such proof. One has not been allowed even to raise the very question about the Israel lobby (now finally broached in the establishment press by M & W), let alone study and investigate it, without being labeled, slurred or at least insinuated as being "anti-Semitic"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23821 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, June 8, 2006 Today in Iraq Sgt. Mark T. Smykowski, 23, of Mentor, Ohio, died June 6 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. (DefenseLink). Staff Sgt. Richard A. Blakley, 34, of Avon, was killed Tuesday by small-arms fire while he was on patrol near Al Khalidiyah, Iraq, the Indiana National Guard said Thursday. Blakley, an Avon High School gradu! ate, was deployed with the 738th Area Support Medical Company of Monticello, Ind. An explosion targeted a police patrol in the New Baghdad area in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and four civilians and wounding 11 people. A blast at a fruit market in the New Baghdad area in eastern Baghdad killed thirteen people and wounded 39. The bomb detonated at the entrance of the market, severely damaging several shops. A parked car exploded at the outdoor Amin market in the capital, killing at least 10 people and wounding 10 others. Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23817 America on the Couch Death’s Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche Since 9/11 Robert S. Dotson, www.dissidentvoice.org ...How is it that we permit leaders who, while claiming divine guidance, unapologetically kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and pass it off as "collateral damage"? How is it that this bastion of Liberty and Justice has more of its citizens incarcerated than any other on the planet? How is it that this nation of Peace spends more on weapons of destruction (and, yes, we are talk! ing mass destruction) than the rest of the planet’s nations combined -- and, still we are told that more are needed? How is it that we permit the economic rape and pillage of America (and the entire planet) by unfettered amoral multinational corporations under the rubric of Free Trade? How is it that we allow our government to abdicate its role in maintaining America’s infrastructure -- from hard assets to social services -- while enabling profits to Big Business interests "beyond avarice"? How is it that we tolerate (and fund!) televangelists who publicly call for the murder of another nation’s leader or for the state murder of those deemed "undesirable" pursuant to the religious revelation du jour?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23816 The Death of Zarqawi Targeting the “US Home Audience” Sunil K. Sharma, www.dissidentvoice.org The corporate media is abuzz with news of the apparent success of US forces in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq last night. Zarqawi has been portrayed by the Bush Administration and mainstream media as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Iraq since a few months before the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. President Bush and his British poodle Tony Blair are trying to spin the killing of Zarqawi as a momen! tous defeat for the (Islamic) forces of terror, a big setback for the Iraqi resistance, or "insurgents" to use imperialist parlance. The death of Zarqawi also happily, though perhaps temporarily, takes some heat off the US in the wake of the recent Haditha massacre revelations... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23814 BBC justifies torture Gabriele Zamparini,The Cat's Dream Dear Paul, I hope all is well. You write: "In addition, the question of what the US defines as 'torture' has also not been fully resolved, though the US has made some recent concessions." The United States became a State Party to the "Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" on October 21, 1994. According to this Convention "the term 'torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether! physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23812 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: Dead Again Kurt Nimmo Let’s see. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the phantom terrorist with super-human powers, was killed in the Sulaimaniyah mountains of northern Iraq, and then he was killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, followed by a death during Operation Matador near the town of Qaim on the Syrian border, and finally he was killed, along with his mentor, Osama bin Laden, in the besieged city of Fallujah. Now we are told he was "killed in a U.S. air raid north of Baghdad [in the town of Hi! bhib near Baquba]," according to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Reuters reports. The reported death—and past deaths—are simply another dimension of a rather transparent psychological operations campaign run out of the Pentagon... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23811 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 7 June 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. ...Iraqi Resistance fighters have managed to withdraw from the city of ar-Ramadi before US forces, who are encircling and blockading the city, could launch an offensive against them. The correspondent for Quds Press in ar-Ramadi, about 110km west of Baghdad, reported that sources close to an Iraqi Resistance organization told him that the Resistance had made t! he decision to withdraw from the city based on their experience in the battles of al-Fallujah where it was clear that for guerrilla forces to try to hold ground against the US war machine was a fruitless waste of manpower and caused the city unnecessary suffering. The Resistance fighters, accordingly resolved to pull out of the city, to save the residents from the death and destruction that the attacking Americans would surely do them... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23818 The Israeli plan Xymphora Perhaps the main lie of Zionism is that the plight of the Palestinians is the unintended consequence of Israeli efforts to defend itself against Palestinian violence, violence that is entirely rooted in the fact that the Palestinians have never been able to accept the existence of Israel. In fact, everything that has happened in the Occupied Territories has been part of an Israeli plan. If you are so inclined, you could call the plan, and efforts of Israeli apologists to conceal it, a ! conspiracy... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23810 Pentagon Jettisons US Agent Provocateur Al-Zarqawi Musab dies for the umpteenth time but this time its for real says the US government! Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com For those of us attempting to keep track of how many times US agent provocateur Musab Al-Zarqawi has been killed or captured today's news comes as something of a relief - the US government has stamped its official seal of approval on the fact that the Pentagon's most influential PR tool is no more. Irrefutable evidence confirms that! Musab Al-Zarqawi was a US agent provocateur used to both sell the necessity of the war in Iraq and as a patsy to take the fall for numerous suspicious bombings which only had the effect of realizing a long-held US and Israeli goal to deliberately foment civil war in Iraq and break up the country along sectarian lines... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23808 GI Special 4F6: "I Don't See Where It Was True" - June 8, 2006 Thomas F. Barton "The Information That Got This War Started, I Didn’t See Where It Was True" A Prattville native is dead after an insurgent attack near Ramadi, Iraq. The Army confirmed Carlos Purnell's death late Wednesday afternoon, about 12 hours after it happened. Purnell's family is angry as they mourn, questioning why their son, a carpenter by trade, must die overseas. His family called him C-low and they say Carlos always had an attitude and deep down he always just wanted to help. Tiffany Purnell is the Carlos' widow. She says, "He liked caring for other people. He always, always, always put other people before himself." The family says Purnell was working as a carpenter building houses and schools when an insurgent bomb exploded nearby. His wife says during the chaos, Carlos reverted to form. She says, "He was trying to save people," but his wounds were too severe. Carlos died on the table. What complicates the situation is that Tiffany Purnell wore the same uniform too when she met and married Carlos at Fort Rucker. S he says, "The military done changed my life for the better." Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=23805 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.