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This is the daily life story in Iraq
Faiza Al-Arji
…During my work with Iraqi NGOs , dealing with human rights issues, I met this man, he was released recently from an Iraqi prison, and I asked him to write me his testimony. Now, you all can read it, and recognize what a kind of new government we have in Iraq these days. Mr Bush trying always to support this government , and telling the world that this is unity government, doing its best to make iraqis more happy and celebrate democracy. This is the daily life story in Iraq, besides the kidnapping and bloodshed everywhere…
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Baker vs. “The Lobby”
Mike Whitney
The tension between the Bush administration and the members of the Iraq Study Group, illustrates the widening chasm between old-guard U.S. imperialists and “Israel-first” neoconservatives. The divisions are setting the stage for a major battle between the two camps. The winner will probably decide US policy in the Middle East for the next decade. The failed occupation of Iraq has put the entire region on the fast-track to disaster. That’s why James Baker was summoned from retirement to see if he could change the present trajectory and mitigate the long-term damage to US interests. Baker was opposed to the invasion from the onset but his 4 day trip to Baghdad convinced him that something had to be done quickly. The ISG report reflects the unanimous view of its authors that Iraq is disintegrating into chaos and that action must be taken to reduce the level of bloodshed. Baker is not merely an objective observer in this process. He clearly “has a dog in this fight”…
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Images from the US crime against Ishaqi innocent people
Roads to Iraq
Here are the images of the Ishaqi 32 martyrs killed by the US falsely accusing them to be Al-Qaeda members. [these are new images and not Al-Jazeera images] The only survivor from the both families says: I was in my farm, from far I saw American military forces surrounded the house then I heard gunshots and screams, after 15 minutes the noises stopped and the Americans left the area. Minutes later, an airplane bombed the two houses with one missile followed with five missiles. I knew my whole family members are killed…
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Sandra Day O’ Connor: “My Life as a buck-passing Phony”
Mike Whitney
Do you like Sandra Day O’ Connor? You know, the peevish ex-Supreme Court Justice with the mug like George Washington? O’ Connor’s placement on the Iraq Study Group is one of the more striking political ironies of our time. After all, who played a bigger role in securing a spot in the Oval Office for our Crawford Interloper than O’Connor? Nevertheless, O’Connor was rewarded for her loyalty by putting her on a panel that is designed to derail the Bush juggernaut before the entire Middle East disappears in sheets of flames. Now that’s irony! Apparently, O’Connor has forgotten her part in the 2000 election-swindle and now believes that the media has an obligation to clean up the mess she made…
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Get Feith and Exit Iraq without Bush
Ahmed Amr*, Alarab Online
As the sectarian bloodletting in Iraq intensifies, it is easy to lose track of the American policies that unleashed the carnage. Even the anti-war movement seems to have accepted the conventional wisdom that the insurgency and the Shiite death squads attired in police uniforms were unfortunate and unpredictable byproducts of a noble neo-con project to establish a progressive western oriented state in a turbulent region. The greatest acts of deception in this war of choice were not the WMD allegations or the canard that Saddam was behind the atrocities of 9/11. The bigger lie is that the United States was on an idealistic expedition to fight tyranny and spread the gospel of democracy (…) Sabotaging the Arab nationalist movement has always been a strategic goal of Zionism. For Feith’s Israeli mentors, the outbreak of civil war and chaos in Iraq or any other Arab country is considered a good thing. The Likudnik obsession with the Baath party is rooted in Israel’s fear of a resurgence of pro-Palestinian pan-Arab nationalism. Historically, the pan-Arabists gave the Palestinians safe havens in addition to financial, material and diplomatic support (…) The death squads are an instrument. The goal is partition…
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Baath Party Statement
No to the negotiations! No to Baker’s report! Yes to the military solution!
The Arab Baath Socialist Party
… Our Party asserts again that it will never accept to negotiate with the US unless it accepts the announced conditions, for the negotiations concern how to execute the conditions and not upon negotiating these conditions. This position, repeated again and again reasserts once more that our Party didn’t authorize whoever to establish a contact or to negotiate with the Occupation outside Iraq. Those who attended meetings organized in Jordan and in the Occupation’ Stooges’ embassy in Amman in particular or elsewhere do not represent the Party whatsoever and they are the ones who have fallen into the Occupation trap and try to use the Party name for objectives bad for the people and for the Party…
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WHY THEY FIGHT
Malcom Lagauche
All Muslims are fanatics. They hate the U.S. They are jealous of our freedoms. They want to kill in the name of Allah. The list of reasons why the U.S. is not looked upon in good graces in the Arab and Muslim portions of this planet goes on and on. Unfortunately, most of the statements are as truthful as the huge Iraqi arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. It seems that instead of decreasing, the amount of Islamic disinformation being thrust upon the U.S. public is escalating at an alarming rate. Today, tens of millions of U.S. citizens see Islam as public enemy number one. To them, all Moslems are terrorists and they are duty-bound to blow up Americans to gain their place in heaven with 72 virgins…
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, December 9, 2006
Today in Iraq
…One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died today from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province. “The Islamic Army in Iraq” group released a videotape claiming responsibility for destroying a US “Humvee” in Ramadi city. The videotape showed a military vehicle being hit by an explosion in one of the city’s streets. Al Jazeera could not verify the authenticity of the videotape from an independent source. A British soldier was wounded as three British bases came under attack in the southern Iraqi province of Basra. Primary school headmaster Yussif Faraj al-Shimari was shot dead in the southern neighbourhood of Dura. Two people died in mortar attacks on the district of Adhamiyah. Baghdad police found the bodies of 10 people who had been trussed up and shot dead at close range, then dumped in the street…
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Beware of gringos bearing ‘gifts’
William Bowles , I’n’I
“Staying the course”, the battle cry of the republic. Then comes the Iraq Study Group and predictably all the headlines parrot the news bites about a war ‘lost’ and a ‘change of course’. But is it a change of course or the same wolf dressed up as a dove creeping in through the back door of the biggest embassy on the planet? The US Embassy in Baghdad covers about 100 acres and sits within the so-called Green Zone right in the heart of Baghdad, in effect a small town within a town, and not exactly a temporary dwelling, so regardless of whether the Marines et al continue to blow the country to pieces or not, you don’t build a gigantic piece of real estate costing billions on someone else’s land without every intention of staying (on the course). It’s the 21st century equivalent of one of those French Foreign Legion’s forts, built to police a colony and keep the natives in their place and, retreat to when under attack…
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Of Repetition Compulsion, War Crimes, and National Narcissism (Again)
Arthur Silber
…And that remains the American perspective, and it very accurately captures our colonialist, condescending, and racist national attitude toward Iraq and its peoples: we were doing them a favor. If it turned into a genocidal murder spree, well, that’s only because it was managed “incompetently.” Most people still will not see the inescapable moral meaning of what we have done. And most people will never acknowledge that if we had implemented a murderous plan of conquest “competently,” that would only make the results infinitely worse, not “better.” We have murdered an entire country, and an unconscionable and entirely unforgivably huge number of innocent Iraqis. We have murdered them, without even the merest shadow of a justifiable reason…
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Our Genocidal National Narcissism: We Are the Very, Very “Bad Guys”
Arthur Silber
…By invading and occupying Iraq, we engaged in a completely unjustified war of aggression. Our presence in Iraq constitutes nothing less than an unforgivable war crime. Critics of our viciously immoral war bemoan American casualties — and those casualties are indeed tragic. But even most of those critics almost never mention the hundreds of thousands of dead and injured Iraqis — or the fact that we have destroyed an entire nation beyond any hope of recovery in the foreseeable future. This narcissism is displayed almost as much by liberal and progressive bloggers as it is by the mindlessly robotic Bush and America defenders. I freely admit that I find this national narcissism disgusting and sickening to an extent that far surpasses my ability to express it fully and accurately. It is absolutely nauseating…
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A Young Marine Speaks Out
Philip Martin
I’m sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify ‘sacrificing’ your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man’s power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there?…
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Barack Obama and the Winds of War: Turning Right
Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Glen Ford
… Obama reveals himself as just another imperialist, oblivious to his own nation’s crimes and incapable of internalizing the concept of self-determination and sovereignty of weaker nations. The U.S. has “coddled” 600,000 Iraqis to death – not counting those who previously perished during decade-long sanctions. The Americans methodically destroyed the Iraqi state, and now wonder why the militia/parties can’t put it back together again. The Americans drove most Iraqis to hate them, yet remain persuaded that they retain the moral authority to scold one part of the nation, their “allies,” while “extinguishing” (Obama’s word) another part, the resistance…
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Sectarian Violence Flares as Shiites Raid Sunni Area
JOHN F. BURNS, NYTimes
Bands of armed Shiite militiamen stormed through a neighborhood in north-central Baghdad on Saturday, opening fire on Sunni Arab residents and driving hundreds from their homes, an Iraqi Army officer said, in one of the most flagrant episodes of sectarian violence yet unleashed in the capital. At nightfall, an Iraqi Army officer said that 150 families, many with small children, had boarded a convoy of trucks and cars outside a Sunni mosque in the Hurriya neighborhood, hoping to flee to Sunni areas of the capital where they would be safe. He estimated the number of people involved at between 500 and 1,000, and said that many of them were huddled in the open backs of trucks in the winter cold. The officer, Col. Abdullah, said the convoy had been waiting outside the mosque for several hours, fearing attacks by Shiite gunmen if they left. He declined to give an estimate of the number of people killed and wounded in the fighting, saying the situation was too chaotic after five hours of street-to-street fighting…
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Iraq Study Group: a bipartisan coverup of Washington’s war crimes
Bill Van Auken, WSWS
A striking feature of the Iraq Study Group report is that its belated admission of the military-political debacle and catastrophic conditions created by the US intervention in Iraq excludes any assessment of how the “grave and deteriorating” situation in that country came to pass, and who bears political responsibility for it (…) The Iraq Study Group document contains a section entitled “Sources of Violence.” It says the following: “Violence is increasing in scope, complexity, and lethality. There are multiple sources of violence in Iraq: the Sunni Arab insurgency, al Qaeda and affiliated jihadist groups, Shiite militias and death squads, and organized criminality. Sectarian violence—particularly in and around Baghdad—has become the principal challenge to stability.” Yet it fails to state the obvious. The root cause of this violence is an imperialist intervention that was aimed at reducing Iraq to a semi-colony of the US. It was this intervention that generated the so-called “insurgency”—i.e., the legitimate resistance of Iraqis to the foreign military occupation of their country. And it was Washington’s attempts to impose a client regime, utilizing tactics of divide-and-rule, that gave rise to the nightmare of sectarian violence…
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Police: Saddam’s nephew escaped from prison
Man serving life sentence in Iraq for making bombs for insurgency
Associated Press
A nephew of Saddam Hussein serving a life sentence for making bombs for Iraq’s insurgency escaped from prison Saturday in northern Iraq, authorities said. Ayman Sabawi, the son of Saddam’s half brother Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, fled the prison some 45 miles west of Mosul in the afternoon with the help of a police officer, according to local police Brig. Abdul Karim al-Jubouri. Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf confirmed the escape but declined to elaborate…
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 9 December 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
…In a dispatch posted at 11:08pm Makkah time Saturday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Iraqi Resistance forces frustrated a pro-Iranian Jaysh al-Mahdi assault on the area of as-Suwayrah, 48km southeast of Baghdad. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the Shi’i sectarian Jaysh al-Mahdi militia, covered by troops of the puppet “Iraqi National Guard,”attacked the area of as-Suwayrah and then came under mortar bombardment from counterattacking Resistance men. The Resistance fired three mortar rounds at the Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen, killing a number of them and forcing them to retreat from the area…
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Can the U.S. ruling class admit defeat in Iraq?
Saul Kanowitz
In the weeks leading up to the November 2006 mid-term elections, the war in Iraq loomed large in polls and in media commentary. But despite the fact that a clear majority of people in the United States are against the war, there was no opportunity to choose a candidate from either of the big-business parties who reflected that sentiment. The leaderships of both Democratic and Republican parties are in complete agreement over their desire to recolonize Iraq, despite tactical disagreements. Unfortunately for them, the Iraqi people’s deep-seated desire to regain control of their sovereignty has upset their plans. The indigenous resistance movement is inflicting increasingly unsustainable casualties on the U.S. occupation forces. The Pentagon is barely in control of Baghdad, with the fortress-like “green zone” the only secure sector in the city…
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Photos confirm US raid child deaths
Aljazeera.net
Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage that confirms children were among the victims of a US air raid northwest of Baghdad. Local officials said that the bodies of 17 civilians, including six children and eight women, had been pulled from the debris of two houses in al-Ishaqi. The US military had issued a statement on Friday saying that two women were among 20 suspected “al Qaeda terrorists” killed in the operation. Al Jazeera’s footage showed the bodies of men, women and children wrapped in blankets after they had been pulled from the rubble…
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Cornered Military Takes to Desperate Tactics
Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
People living in areas where resistance to U.S.-led occupation is mounting are facing increased levels of collective punishment from the occupation forces, residents say. Siniyah town 200 km north of Baghdad with a population of 25,000 has been under siege by the U.S. military for two weeks. IPS had earlier reported unrest in Siniyah Jan. 20 when the U.S. military constructed a six-mile sand wall in a failed attempt to check resistance attacks. Located near Beji in the volatile but oil-rich Salahedin province, Siniyah has become a vivid example of harsh tactics used by occupation forces, who have lost control over most of the country…
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Jimmy Carter Tells Truth about Palestine but not about Palestinians in Israel
Genevieve Cora Fraser
Jimmy Carter tells the truth about the impact of the Israeli Occupation on Palestine in “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In Gaza, Israel is practicing a slow form of genocide where the people are sealed off from the world and encounter non-stop military assaults, he points out. And the Wall Israel is erecting separates Palestinians from Palestinians. The Wall steals Palestinian land just as the illegal settlements do, and is creating a prison. But Carter is far from candid about the crisis in Israel itself, claiming that Arab Israelis enjoy full rights as citizens and that it is a wonderful and open society. Sure, Arab Israelis can vote and have a few token representatives in the Knesset, but they do not have full rights as citizens – or human rights for that matter…
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