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Death sentence for President Saddam Hussein
Gilles Munier
The verdict of President Saddam Hussein’s first trial and that of seven former Iraqi leaders- the Al Dujail case- due on October 16th has been postponed till November 5 in order “to complete verifications”. Actually the postponement has been required by Bush’s public relations consultants in the hope that the announcement of the capital sentence on the Iraqi President, his half-brother, Barzan Al-Tikriti, former head of the secret services before 1984 a! nd the Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, will help the Republicans secure more votes in the coming half-term elections to be held …two days later. Unless an unforeseen event, the sentences will be enforced within 30 days. By hanging (…) Whatever our views on President Saddam Hussein, it is a fact that the war of aggression on Iraq is regarded as illegal and the arrest of its leaders, an illegal act. The verdict that will be passed on November 5 by “the Green Zone Magistrates” will have no legal standing…
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Reckless leaders
Nadia, Talking About Iraq
…Bush and his team and the Iraqi government (yes all of them) care NOTHING about the ordinary Iraqis that are being killed every single minute of the day. Reckless leaders such as these have no credibility what so ever when it comes to caring about ordinary Iraqis. So what can I make of this? Honestly the only thing that makes real sense is that they want Iraq destroyed. Some might argue Iraq is already destroyed – well that’s true but apparently not enough for that ! group. Some might argue it does not make sense why would they jeopardise (especially Bush) their careers like that? I don’t know the exact answer to that. The truth is, however, surely hidden in some unholy combination of the factors Greed, Hate, Oil, apartheid-Israel, Racism, and the accelerated return of Christ…
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Video
Les Roberts on Iraq deaths.
Lenin’s Tomb
Ady Cousins has done some stellar work again, this time uploading footage of Les Roberts explaining the methods and findings of the first survey of Iraq mortality published in the Lancet, and dealing with the criticisms. These criticisms and the replies, it happens, preempted practically everything that has been said in criticism of the latest survey…
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Truths of a Lost War
Tom Engelhardt
Are we now officially out of our minds? On Tuesday, General George W. Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Zalmay Khalilzad, our ambassador to Iraq, gave a joint press conference in Baghdad that was all for home consumption. By home, I mean Washington DC. I mean Indiana. I mean Texas. Baghdad’s Green Zone was essentially a stage set for a political defense of the Bush presidency. If the news hadn’t been quite so grim, this tandem’s act might have qualified as an Abbott ! and Costello comedy routine, including the moment when the lights went out — while “gunfire and bomb blasts echoed around the city” — thanks to our inability to resuscitate Iraqi electricity production…
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‘Stop the looters destroying history’
Dalya Alberge
THE cultural treasures of Iraq — the birthplace of writing, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy — are being obliterated as looters take advantage of the country’s bloody chaos. Fourteen of the world’s leading archaeologists have written to the President and Prime Minister of the country, demanding immediate action to stem the vandalism after seeing photographs of sites left pockmarked by enormous craters. Among examples in the letter, seen yesterda! y by The Times, was a Babylonian sculpture of a lion dating from about 1700BC that lost its head because the terracotta shattered as looters tried to remove it. Another was the destruction of the Ana Minaret on the Euphrates about 190 miles (310km) west of Baghdad, revered for 1,000 years as a unique construction…
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WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2006
Today in Iraq
A journalist who used to work for the former state news agency INA was killed with his wife in the Amiriya district of Baghdad. Iraq’s most notorious death squad leader, Abu Deraa, escaped a major U.S.-led raid on a Shi’ite Muslim militia stronghold in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told Reuters. Deraa is held responsible for a rash of brutal sectarian killings and kidnappings of Iraqi Sunnis. There were reports of clashes between militants and the pol! ice in Bani Saad, 22 kilometres south of Baquba, and in Abu Saida, 25 kilometres east of Baquba. Police found seven bodies, shot and bound, in different parts of Mosul on Wednesday…
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Hiroshima Appeal to Ban Uranium Weapons
The 3rd ICBUW International Conference ( August 6th, 2006 )
NO DU Hiroshima Project
We have gathered in Hiroshima from across the world to demand, together with the victims, a total ban on uranium weapons. Meeting in this city, we have shared the sorrow, loss and hope of the people of Hiroshima and the Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, for a world free from war and suffering from radiation. In Hiroshima, we have listened to victims from four continents that have suffe! red because of uranium weapons. From mine to battlefield, uranium products have been implicated in a trail of illness, environmental destruction and death. Claims by the nuclear industry and the military that low-level radiation is not harmful to human health must be rigorously challenged. We call on scientists from all backgrounds to assist in assessing the dangers associated with the chemical and radiological toxicity of uranium. Its unique properties when aerosolized are a hazard to human health and the environment. We strongly condemn the United States and United Kingdom, whose armed forces have used large quantities of uranium weapons in Iraq and the Balkans. ICBUW is also alarmed by growing evidence that uranium munitions may have been used in both Lebanon and Afghanistan…
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 26 October 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
…In a dispatch posted at 11:50am Makkah time Thursday morning, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Iraqi Resistance forces were able to seize complete control of large swathes of the city of Ba’qubah following violent battles between the Resistance and puppet “Rapid Deployment forces in the city, located about 65km northeast of Baghdad. The Ba’qubah correspond! ent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that 40 percent of the land area of the city – including the neighborhoods of al-Mu ‘allimin, al-Hashimiyat, al-Muradiyah, and al-Hadid – in the western part of the city had been taken over by the Resistance after the puppet “Rapid Deployment Forces” took heavy losses, suffered a defeat, and fled…
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Lieberman Is Not an Israeli ‘Internal Affair’
Nicola Nasser
…When he served as minister of transport in a previous government, Lieberman called for all Palestinian prisoners, now more than ten thousand, held by the Israeli occupation authorities to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to provide the buses, Ha’aretz reported on July 11, 2002. In 2002, Lieberman declared, “I would not hesitate to send the Israeli army into all of Area A [the area of the West Bank ostensibly under Palestinian Authority control] ! for 48 hours. Destroy the foundation of all the authority’s military infrastructure … not leave one stone on another. Destroy everything.” He also suggested to the Israeli cabinet that the air force systematically bomb all the commercial centers, gas stations and banks in the occupied territories…
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Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Frank Morales
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law. It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohi! bitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions…
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IRAQ IS BUSH’S WATERLOO / UPDATE
Allen L Roland
We are not wanted in Iraq, and we are now hunted, bombed and hated by a growing legion of freedom fighters . Over 70% of Americans now feel Bush’s war and occupation of Iraq is a FAILURE. And, indeed, they are correct ! Bush continues to refer to Iraq as the central front in the war on terror when in reality it is an illegally occupied country wherein the vast majority of the Insurgency are rightfully fighting for their freedom from U.S oppression. Our illegal occup! ation of Iraq is a total failure with over 2800 Americans killed, over 25,000 wounded, over 40,000 hospitalized , approximately 665,000 innocent Iraqis killed…
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Surviving the Board of Deputies
What Do Ken Livingstone and a Fictional Character Named Artie Fishel Have in Common
GILAD ATZMON
Created by saxophonist, composer and author Gilad Atzmon, Artie Fishel is a fictional satirical character, conceived as the first artificial Zionist who, despite the best efforts of the radical lobbying group The Board of Deputies of British Jews and enormous political pressure brought to bear on the Pizza Express group, made his London debut at the prestigious Pizza On The P! ark jazz club in Knightsbridge last week with a four night residency that began on Wednesday 18th of October. The idea behind Artie Fishel took some time to evolve. Originally, I planned on creating an online chat box featuring an artificial Zionist. I thought that we could all benefit from a proper chat with a proper articulate Zionist. A man who understands Israeli wisdom and can morally defend the merciless tendency entangled with Jewish Nationalism…
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Vice President For Torture: The Return
Ethan Heitner
Good evening, America. Your vice president, Richard Cheney, confirmed publically in an interview with one of his sycophantic radio fans Tuesday that the United States water-boards people it doesn’t like: “Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?” asked [Scott] Hennen. “It’s a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president `for torture.’ We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved! in,” Cheney replied. “We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we’re party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.”…
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PERVISION OF ‘JUSTICE’ IN ISRAEL
DesertPeace
The murderer of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was allowed a conjugal visit by his ‘wife’ yesterday, but one third of the relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel are barred from entering the country to visit their loved ones, the human rights group B’Tselem reported this morning. So… a convicted Jewish murderer of the Israeli Prime Minister has more rights in Israeli prisons than a probable innocent Palestinian… and this in the ‘only democracy in the Middl! e East’…
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Iraq’s al-Maliki sharply delineates differences with U.S. leadership
JAY PRICE, McClatchy Newspapers
…In recounting a meeting with the head of one of those militias, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, al-Maliki said he and al-Sadr agreed “that the efforts for all political groups should be focused on the most dangerous challenge, which is al-Qaida and the Saddam Baathists.” Both those groups are made up primarily of Sunni Muslims. Al-Maliki also said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was “not accurate” when he said Tuesday! that the Iraqi government had agreed to a timetable for dealing with Iraq’s problems…
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JAMES PETRAS’ NEW BOOK – THE POWER OF ISRAEL IN THE UNITED STATES
Stephen Lendman
…Petras’ powerful new book is titled The Power of Israel in the United States. It’s a work of epic writing and essential reading documenting the enormous influence of the Jewish Lobby on US policy in the Middle East. It focuses like a laser to assure that policy conforms with Israel’s long-term goal for regional hegemony. The Lobby’s influence is broad and deep enough to include officials at the highest levels of government! , the business community, academia, the clergy (especially the dominant Christian fundamentalists/Christian Zionists) and the mass media. Petras shows how together they’re able to assure the full and unconditional US support for all elements of Israel’s agenda going back decades even when that agenda harms our interests such as the unwinnable war in Iraq, any future one against Iran if it’s undertaken, and the appalling and brutal subjugation and colonization of the Palestinian people that serves no US interest whatever. In spite of it, the Lobby is able to get the US to go along with Israel unconditionally with no serious opposition to it tolerated…
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Today’s Development in Iraq, nobody told you about
Roads to Iraq
First, this is an Iraqi-US operation joined by Kurds prostitutes, to prove to the world that “Bush democracy” is flourishing in Iraq. Reported on Iraqirabita, a party organized by the Kurds to the Iraqi-American forces, Kurdish prostitutes under the Iraqi flag showed what the Liberation all about. Second, aliraqnews said that a high-level American delegation is touring Arab countries trying to involve some Arab countries in so-called “peace-keeping ! forces in Iraq”. So the American army can barricade itself in their military bases outside Iraqi cities. Some Arab leaders showed their acceptance to send military units to Iraq, covered by an Arab League with the slogan “to stop the bloodshed in Iraq”…
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‘Stability First’: Newspeak for rape of Iraq
Pepe Escobar
…This logic of extermination of a society and culture was inbuilt in the process since March 2003. In fact, the systematic annihilation of 2-3% of the entire Iraqi population, according to a study by The Lancet, not to mention the 1 million people displaced since March 2003, follow the more than 500,000 children who died during the 1990s as victims of United Nations sanctions. Iraq has been systematically destroyed for more than 15 years, non-stop. And i! t gets worse, because for the Bush administration all this death and destruction is just a minor detail in the “big picture”. In a perverse replay of what happened in the Vietnamese jungles, the Pentagon lost the asymmetric guerrilla war raging in the Sunni belt. Sunni Arabs are totally alienated. Seventy percent are in favor of attacking the occupiers, no holds barred. No wonder Saddam Hussein is still popular. This month, about 500 Sunni Arab tribal chiefs and former Ba’ath Party officials in the police, army and intelligence got together in al-Hindiya, 25 kilometers west of Kirkuk, to pledge allegiance to Saddam, qualified as “supreme combatant and legitimate president”…
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85 civilians killed by NATO air strike in Afghanistan
Xinhua
At least 85 civilians were killed by a NATO air strike in a village of the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a witness told Xinhua on Thursday. Bismillah Afghanmal, a member of the provincial council of Kandahar, said a NATO air strike killed 85 civilians including women and children on Tuesday night in Nangawat village in Panjwai district of the province. He said there was no information of Taliban casualties in the bom! bardment. Meanwhile, Ghulam Hasan, a villager from Nangawat, said about 90 civilians were killed and several injured in the NATO bombing…
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New U.S. deaths make October deadliest month for U.S. troops in a year
Associated Press
The number of American troops killed in Iraq in October reached the highest monthly total in a year Thursday after four Marines and a sailor died of wounds suffered while fighting in the same Sunni insurgent stronghold. The U.S. military said 96 U.S. troops have died so far in October, the most in one month since October 2005, when the same number was killed. The spike in deaths has been a major factor behind rising anti-war s! entiment in the United States, fueling calls for President Bush to change tactics…
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Baghdad: A Doctor’s Story
Zeyad, Healing Iraq
This video filmed by an Iraqi doctor is a must see. I am amazed that someone could actually film the terrible conditions inside one of Iraq’s most dangerous hospitals, Al-Yarmouk Hospital in western Baghdad, in these troubled days. I was struggling to keep my tears from flowing because I was watching it with an American friend 2 days ago. But at one point, when an injured Shi’ite woman lying in an ambulance started screaming at the camera, “Bring Saddam back! It wasn’! t like this under his rule!” I lost control. This should be on every American tv channel. Go see it…
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