|
A Last Wild Ride on the Titanic
MIKE WHITNEY
…So, (to summarize) in one 24-hour period, we found out that we’ve killed 2.5% of the entire Iraqi population, that we will maintain the same troop levels for the next 4 years (at minimum) and that our attempts to establish security have only increased the amount of violence. That’s bad. That’s real bad. By all accounts the war is failing miserably, and yet, the media continues to cover it up. How long can that go on?…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27422
Excess Death in Iraq
Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
It is the single most important statistic regarding the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq. How many Iraqis have been killed? 655,000. 655,000 Iraqis killed as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. have worked for eight months in Iraq as a journalist, witnessing the carnage on a daily basis, visiting the morgues with bodies and body parts piled into them, meeting family after family who had lost a loved one, or more … Final! ly, we get an accurate figure that shows how immense the scale of the long drawn carnage really is (…) This study is the only one, other than the first study published in The Lancet, that calculates mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. It is a technique of “cluster sampling” also used to estimate mortality caused by famines and after natural disasters. The 2004 survey came under fire from pro-war critics and from the supposedly anti-war group Iraq Body Count (IBC) which currently claims a ridiculously low figure between 44 and 49,000 dead Iraqis. In the past, the figure generated by IBC has been quoted by George W. Bush…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27407
KING MIDAS IN REVERSE
Malcom Lagauche
In an ancient Greek myth, Kind Midas had a golden touch. Everything he handled turned to gold. King George Bush has a similar gift, however it is slightly different from that of the monarch of the Greek myth: everything Bush touches turns to shit. Even the most uninformed nitwit realizes the mess going on in Iraq. Bush’s prediction of U.S. soldiers being welcomed as liberators was far off the mark and Iraq is in shambles. A current statement now in vogue in Iraq about the emb! argo years is, “Those were the golden years.” How about other Bush ventures? They don’t seem to gain as much publicity as the Iraq issue. Let’s look at Afghanistan…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27429
Army chief declares war on Blair: ‘We must quit Iraq soon’
TIM SHIPMAN
The head of the Army is calling for British troops to withdraw from Iraq “soon” or risk catastophic consequences for both Iraq and British society. In a devastating broadside at Tony Blair’s foreign policy, General Sir Richard Dannatt stated explicitly that the continuing presence of British troops “exacerbates the security problems” in Iraq…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27428
Innumerate cowards recoil from the facts: 655,000 dead Iraqis
Majikthise
The right wing noise machine is clanking and shuddering. They’re outraged about this study, published in the Lancet. The study estimated that 665,000 more Iraqis have died after the US invasion than would have been expected based on pre-invasion death rates. Here are today’s talking points. Or should we say talking flails? (…) Cowards, all of them. They own this war, but they won’t face up to the fact that their little adventure helped ki! ll over half a million people…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27427
Resistance Growing Up at School
Inter Press Service, Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
The bomb went off just outside the school as the IPS correspondent stood speaking to children and teachers within. The headmaster smiled. “You will hear many of these every day if you stay here another day or two,” he said. “The resistance will not stop until the last American leaves.” The children too took no notice of the blast, which shook the doors and windows of the half-destroyed school in this town near Fallujah, 70km west ! of Baghdad. The children are growing up in occupied Iraq — and they are resisting it. “Americans are bad,” said 11-year-old Mustafa. “They killed my family.” The family were killed in Operation Phantom Fury of November 2004 as they tried to flee the city, teachers said. That operation killed thousands and destroyed much of Fallujah and towns around it…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27416
Blaming Others First: Warmongering and the “Pseudo-environment” of Warped American Exceptionalism
Walter C. Uhler
…For example, just two days ago, New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman suggested that the apparent nuclear test by North Korea might mark the end of the post-cold war international order. “The Berlin Wall fell on 11/9 – Nov. 9, 1989, which ushered in the post-cold-war world. The apparent North Korean nuclear test went up on Oct. 9, 2006, which may have ushered out the post-cold-war world and ush! ered in a more problematic era – the post-post-cold-war world.” Thus, “one day historians may argue that the post-cold-war started on 11/9 and ended on 10/9.” (…) But, rather than cite “10/9" as the end of an era, and then blame China and Russia for not persuading North Korea and Iran to end their nuclear programs, why not cite “3/19" for exacerbating the proliferation problems facing the world today? 3/19 is, of course, March 19, 2003, the fateful day the United States launched its illegal, immoral preventive war against Iraq…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27424
Iraq’s missing dead
In Baghdad, thousands of bodies have been pulled from the Tigris, but the deaths aren’t reported. How bad is the violence?
ADNAN R. KHAN
…The Ministry of Health has instituted a strict policy for journalists, requiring them to seek permission before visiting the facility. Those allowed in get only a truly sanitized tour; more often than not reporters are barred from entering. But at the gate, guards who have worked at the facility tell a chilling tale. “Last year, I saw maybe 1,00! 0 bodies a month coming into the morgue,” says one man who, fearing for his life, requested his name not be published. “Now we’re getting nearly 1,000 a week.” All, he says, are victims of sectarian violence, both Sunni and Shia, but the officials at the morgue inside Medical City will not tell you that. “The officials don’t want us talking to the media,” says another guard, also requesting anonymity. “I’ve heard them telling people that most of the deaths are because of terrorists, but I’ve also seen the bodies myself and I can tell you that most of them were executed by death squads.”…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27420
“GAZA. INEXPLICABLE WOUNDS AND NEW WEAPONS”
edited by Flaviano Masella and Maurizio Torrealta, RaiNews24
On Wednesday, October 11 at 1.43 a.m. on Rai News 24 and on Thursday, October 12 at 7.36 a.m. also on RaiTre. This report has been triggered by the warning launched in mid-july by some doctors of Gaza hospitals, who, for the first time, have treated inexplicable wounds which, in at least 62 cases, have caused the amputation of a lower limb. The doctors have often asked the help of the international community i! n order to understand the causes of these strange wounds which presented small fragments, often invisible to x-rays and inexplicable excisions caused by heat in lower limbs. Several articles have appeared on national and international newpapers. After a long research, the investigation team of Rai News 24 has identified the possible cause of these effects: it seems a new weapon dropped by unmanned drones, which is precisely teleguided to the target.
Warning: extremely graphic photos
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27410
Baghdad humor
Born at the Crest of the Empire
“So Muqtada al-Sadr goes to Japan…” the barber tells his customer who was already smiling, bracing himself in the chair for a laugh. The barber tells the best jokes in Baghdad (…) Like a good comedian, the barber laughs, enticing the customer to laugh even harder. But another customer in the barbershop didn’t laugh. He was quietly having a haircut in another chair. He was one of those Mahdi Army men who kills people and stuffs them in the trunks of Toyotas. The next! day he went to visit the barbers and his customers to discuss their “inappropriate humor.” The conversations went like this: The Mahdi army fighter tied the barber up, took a knife and plucked out both of his eyes. He was only left alive because he was Shiite, like the Mahdi Army. The customer who laughed at the joke, a Sunni, was killed and stuffed in the trunk of a car…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27418
IRAQ: 1,200,000 refugees
IRIN
More than 300,000 Iraqis have fled their homes to other parts of Iraq to escape violence since the 2003 fall of former President Saddam Hussein, with the rate swelling in the past six months of sectarian Shiite-Sunni conflict, Minister of Immigration and Displacement, Abdul-Samad Sultan said Tuesday. In addition, some 890,000 Iraqis have moved to Jordan, Iran and Syria since Saddam’s fall, Sultan, told reporters at a press conference in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27417
In Iraq, political agreements grow out of the barrel of a gun
Needlenose
…Sunni politicians accused Shiite lawmakers Thursday of using dirty tricks to push through a new law on federalism, a landmark measure that will transform Iraq by allowing Shiites to form a self-ruled mini-state in the south.. . . The vote on the law Wednesday was marred by a boycott by the Sunni bloc of lawmakers, along with several Shiite parties, who also reject some specifics of the bill. The boycott delayed the vote for several hours ! as supporters tried to convince lawmakers to attend and scrambled to achieve a quorum — 138 of the 275 legislators. The session was closed to the public, and after repeated counts it was announced that 140 lawmakers attended. The measure was passed unanimously by a show of hands, with no count of the vote. . . . “The session was confused and turbulent. They claimed they met the quorum but they did not. There were no more than 126 lawmakers,” said Mohammed al-Daimi of the National Dialogue Council…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27426
Iraqi Resistance captures Al-Mahdy militiaman with Iranian made telecom equipment and ammunitions – Photo Report
Iraqi League Correspondent in Diyala
Several days ago, Al-Mahdy militiamen came from Al-Thawra district and the surrounding districts in Baghdad to rush madly upon attacking Khan Bany Saad Village, Diyala Governorate East of Baghdad. The villagers immediately sent an SOS to their brotherly resistance fighters to topple this cowardly assault. In fact, it did not take the Resistence more than half an hou! r to mobilize from all directions. While Al-Mahdy militiamen were besieging the village and heavily pounding them with different types of rockets and mortar guns, the Resistence fighters had tightened on the assailants and a fierce fighting erupted between the two sides. The Resistence fighters killed around 20 militiamen and the remaining fleed the scene with the support of a conspiring police unit who helped them retreat to Baghdad…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27415
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2006
Today in Iraq
Mohammad Al-Mousawi Al-Qasimi, Secretary General of the Islamic Unity Party, was assassinated Thursday when he was targeted by a bomb in Babel province. The party’s political office condemned the assassination and claimed that Iran was behind it. The political activist was known for his efforts to expose secret foreign agendas in the country. Gunmen raided the offices of al-Shaabiya Iraqi satellite television channel in Baghdad and killed 11 people, incl! uding guards, technicians and administrative staff, the station manager said. The Interior Ministry said nine were killed in the raid. A synchronized bomb attack killed five and wounded 11 others. A bomb in a car parked in central Baghdad’s Qurtaba Square exploded, followed shortly afterward by the detonation of second device planted on the roadside nearby. One policeman was among the dead…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27419
American forces allegedly sexually assaulted 8 members Iraqi police in Al-Qayyara, Mosul
Iraqi League
I have obtained information from a relative of mine, a member of the National Guard, who works on the Al-Qayyara base which is 50 kilometres south of Mosul and is a base being administered by US forces. Approximately a month ago (Sept. 2006) a number of US soldiers have sexually assaulted eight members of the Iraqi police in that area (all of whom members of the Al Jubour tribe). The act was committed in public a! nd in front of other National Guards. The Brigadier General of Staff (Ali Atallah Mallouh) called upon the victims and informed them that it is within their rights to bring a claim against the American soldiers and ask for compensation…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27413
Abusing the Arab Peace Initiative
Nicola Nasser
The failed Qatari mediation in the still unresolved inter-Palestinian divide was in practice an American success in turning the Arab Peace Initiative (API) into a pressure tool that further exacerbates fractures both in Arab and Palestinian ranks, less than two weeks after the U.S. aborted a move by the Arab League to revive an overdue comprehensive approach to the Arab and Palestinian – Israeli conflict on its basis through the United Nations. The Unites States is ! now trying to find a common ground with regional powers to abuse this initiative as a regional framework for a coordinated effort vis-à-vis Iran , Syria and their Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi spheres of influence…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27411
Gulshan in Prison: YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Anonymous (for security reasons) – Axis of Logic
Gulshan, Habibati… I never thought of writing about friends, it is too much. I hear about them and swallow my tears. Every now and then I hear about some one who is killed, disappeared, arrested or left Iraq. When I heard about Atwar Bahjat when they killed her, I closed my ears, went to bed, closed my eyes and tried not to think. I tried my best not to watch the news for days. Some friends called me, I begged them not say any ! thing. I did not want to hear details about friends. No, not about Atwar. Today I could not. Gulshan is arrested again two weeks ago, the news said, she is being cruelly tortured and her family does not know her whereabouts. She is a relative of Atwar, it added. As if it is not enough an honor to be arrested by the butchers, they add this honor of being a relative of Atwar. The news said that they found a computer in her house. (So you learned how to use the computer, good for you) It is a crime for Iraqi journalists to have computers…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27412
The logic behind Rice’s grin
Ramzy Baroud
…Rice’s visit to the region was neither intended to “reinvigorate” the peace process nor to support the voice of “moderation” in the region. It was meant to ensure the fortitude of her allies and secure and extend the collective punishment of the Palestinian people until they repent and throw out their democratically elected government, a scenario that was tried with success in Nicaragua in the 1970s, though at a very high price. Unfortunately, the Palestinian president! and his henchmen, joined by various Arab governments and European states, are in unison with Rice’s iniquitous objectives, thus giving her good reason to mendaciously grin…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27409
Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal
AMY GOODMAN, Democracy Now!
The White House is dismissing the findings of a medical study that says 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. The study was conducted by American and Iraqi researchers and published in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. We’re joined by the report’s co-author, epidemiologist Les Roberts…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27408
Old death in the new Iraq
Stayin’ Alive
…Finally, as I have said many times, Iraq Body Count should go out of business. They are doing positive harm to the reality based community by giving the perpetrators of this world historical crime cover for saying that the death toll is only 10% of what it really is. That is not helping the Iraqi people…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27423
“You’re Either With Us or You’re Dead”
Can We Call It Genocide Now?
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
When does “collateral damage” so dwarf combatant deaths that war becomes genocide? Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis their lives. That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies and conducted by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists. These are deaths over and above the pre-invasion mor! tality rate. Bush’s illegal invasion raised Iraq’s mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is published by the distinguished British medical journal, The Lancet, and is available on the journal’s online site (October 11). The study uses a scientific method known as “cluster sampling.” In 87% of the deaths, the researchers requested death certificates, and more than 90% of the surveyed households produced the death certificates. Violence accounted for 601,000 deaths and disease and destruction of civilian infrastructure accounted for 54,000 deaths…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.org.uk/?p=27406 |