A letter to an American G.I.
Layla Anwar
When I watch pictures of your dead buddies on albasrah.net and I read some of your naive childlike poems, I feel sorry for you. I honestly do. I feel sorry for you yet at the same time I feel anger. It is a very confusing mix of ambivalent, contradictory emotions. On the one hand,I would love to strike you and on the other hand I say to myself, it is not really your fault.
You chose it yet you did not choose it. From your perspective you are only “executing orders” . Yet hard facts on the battle ground tell me that you also enjoy the humiliation you inflict on these “alien” “evil “ people-the Iraqis. Despite your own neediness and your being in “it” because “it” will give you a grant, a green card and maybe the famous passport with an embossed striped eagle , you still believe you are superior, a better race, a more advanced one, a purer one…

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Options after the deconstruction of Iraq
Rodrigue Tremblay, Online Journal Guest Writer
Wars of aggressionare the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices. Wars are also waged by warlike gambling leaders who bet their citizens’ houses to fulfill their megalomaniac dreams of grandeur. And the illegal military invasion of Iraq was a gigantic gamble from the start. What’s more, it is a war that was planned and executed on the basis of fabricated lies. It was a war based on false pretenses and on false perceptions of the Muslim Middle East. For example, it is not true that Middle Eastern Muslims hate the West “because they hate our way of life, our freedom, and our democracy.” Polls indicate that such ideas are simply based on ignorant prejudices. This wicked war will be judged by history as one of the most blatant abuses of power by any American administration ever…

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Reconciliation conference ends with failure
Ali Khaleel, Azzaman
The reconciliation conference the government convened to bring the disparate Iraqi groups together has failed. The organizers, in a bid to hide the failure, said the meeting was the first in a series of future gatherings aimed to reconciling Iraqis. There was no consensus even among the groups which attended the conference. Some factions withdrew as the conferees debated future moves while some key factions had already stayed away, particularly anti-U.S. groups. The conference’s failure is yet another blow to U.S. strategy. President George Bush was keen to see the conference reach at least some form an agreement so that he could sell his new Iraq strategy to U.S. public…

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Former Iraqi Army Officers rejected Maliki’s initiative
Roads to Iraq
A statement distributed in Iraqi cities, former Iraqi military officers refused Maliki initiative to the ranks of the new army saying: The new army is collaborating with the occupation, basics principles of every army in the world is to fight the invaders, not to cooperate with it to continue the occupation. The leaflets distributed in Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra and Mosul, according to the statement, the officers set several conditions for a return, including a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq that does not exceed six months, and the restructuring of the former army and dismantling the current army, and the trial of present senior army officers with crimes against civilians by an international courts…

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Why isn’t the dog barking in Israeli Northern Iraq?
Terry Thurber, Al-Jazeerah.info
See what they’re doing? Do you see what they’re not doing? They’re not telling us anything about Israeli (err) Kurdish northern Iraq. What is going on there? Any “sectarian violence” (wink wink – nod nod!)? Any ministry policemen costumed “vendettas” happening there? Kurds and Israelis are all fat – healthy and living the life in full serviced (electricity, water, medical) comfort on top of their stores of accumulated killing commodities protected under the 15 year “no-fly” zone. They probably got cable TV and their homes are warm. Southern Iraq is not so chosen. The Iraqis in southern Iraq are living in lakes of blood-puss and half rotted family members – they’re starved – they’re sick – drinking blood puss contaminated piss water and subject to all sorts of masked vendettas from the usual suspects of “opposing sects” perennially costumed as masked ministry police…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 17 December 2006.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
In a dispatch posted at 5:14pm Makkah time Sunday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that a US warplane struck a civilian home in the al-Hasy area, a western suburb of al-Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported a puppet police source as saying tha the US warplane attacked the house late on Saturday night, destroying it completely and killing two family members inside. Three more people, two of them children, were wounded in the American air raid…

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Preemptive Warfare: Building a Consensus in favour of Israel’s Nukes
Gloabalresearch.ca
…Public consensus is being slowly built in regards to Israeli weapons of mass destructions (WMDs). The admission regarding Israel’s nuclear arsenal (almost simultanously by Washington and Tel Aviv) seems to be part of a carefully planned campaign to legitimize Israeli nuclear weapons as a necessary means of self-defense. These statements are also linked to a broader geopolitical and strategic project to create a “New Middle East,” controlled by the United States, Britain, and Israel in alliance with NATO…

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America’s outrageous meddling in Palestine
Khalid Amayreh, palestine-info.co.uk
“At a time when the Bush administration is utterly unable or unwilling to get Nazi-like Israel to remove even a single roadblock in the West Bank, the US government appears hell-bent on stoking up the fire of civil war in Palestine. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would ask Congress for “tens of millions of dollars” to “strengthen the security forces” of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas. But strengthen Abbas against whom? Against Israel which is savaging Palestinians and occupying their country and gravely violating their human, civil, political and national rights? Or perhaps they want to strengthen him so that his ’ strengthened “security forces would force Israel to dismantle the gigantic wall it has built in the heart of Palestinian population centers for the purpose of stealing more and more Palestinian land for Jewish settlement expansion?…

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Powell: We Are Losing In Iraq
CBS News
The United States is losing the war in Iraq but sending more troops to Baghdad is not the best way to change course, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Face The Nation. Powell said he agreed with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group co-chairmen, Lee Hamilton and James Baker, that the situation in Iraq is “grave and deteriorating,” and he also agreed with recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that the U.S. is not winning the war…

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Counterproductive U.S. “Advice” to Palestinians
Slide of Palestinian divide into the brink of a US sponsored civil war
Nicola Nasser, thepeoplesvoice.org
…The Israeli government, the U.S. administration and the European Union welcomed Abbas’ move and pledged support; at the same time the Jordanian minister of information, an Egyptian statement, the U.N. Secretary General and Russia ’s foreign ministry as well as Syria and Iran urged Palestinians to preserve their national unity and to de-escalate. Israel and the U.S. are not neutral in the inter-Palestinian crisis. They were inciting the PLO and its autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA) to take on armed resistance to the Israeli 40-year old occupation long before Hamas assumed power. Their incitement was fleshed with more muscle after the Islamic movement came to power through ballots, which they themselves financed and monitored. Bringing in the EU to join them they imposed a devastating economic siege on both heads of the Palestinian leadership. However they spared their political and diplomatic siege to one head, the Hamas-led government, and selectively streamed in only humanitarian aid through the other head, which they continued to flesh with more muscle…

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Call me Ebenezer, but Christmas as we know it needs to go…
Jason Miller
Bursting forth with renewed intensity, the “War on Christmas” is back in 2006. So just what does this alleged war against an impalpable enemy entail? Have “Islamofascists” captured and decapitated Santa Claus? Did a US-made IDF “smart bomb” strike Bethlehem and obliterate baby Jesus as he lay in the manger? Did the Grinch go global with his nefarious thievery? Actually, the answer can be found amongst the corporate media’s nearly countless obfuscations and deceits. Divisive, sophistic arguments crafted by “sage” pundits and readily accepted by genuflecting readers admonish that secular forces are determined to eradicate Christmas and its celebrants’ joy with the zeal of a restaurateur exterminating cockroaches. What an ingenious way to divert attention from the ongoing genocide in Iraq and the gutting of our Constitution!…

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Iraq’s Sunnis ‘risk ethnic cleansing’
Guy Dinmore, FT
Vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi, Iraq’s most senior politician from the Sunni Arab minority, said on Sunday that more US troops were needed in Baghdad to stop the “systematic cleansing” of the Sunni community by Shia militias. Some 3,000 Iraqis were fleeing the country daily and Iraqi forces were insufficient, incompetent and corrupted, he said. There is intense speculation in Washington that President George W. Bush will propose “surging” some 30,000 more US troops into Iraq in a last-ditch effort to secure the city and Anbar province…

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Blair vows support to Al Maliki
Reuters
British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged his support for the Iraq government during a visit to Baghdad yesterday and urged neighbouring states to support reconciliation and security in the country. Blair’s visit comes amid persistent Shiite-Sunni killing, with UN officials estimating more than 100 people are killed a day, and as the United States considers a change in strategy. Blair said he and Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki discussed the need for national reconciliation, building up Iraq’s security forces and “the importance of the support of all countries in the region for this process”…

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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2006
Today in Iraq
An improvised explosive device detonated near a Multi-National Division – Baghdad patrol, killing three Soldiers north of the Iraqi capital yesterday. The combat patrol was conducting a route clearance mission in order to free the roads of any possible dangers so that a follow-on unit could move through the area without harm. Mercenary from New Zealand killed in rocket attack on convoy, location not not specified. Steve Gilchrist, 33, joined the Australian army before beginning work in Iraq with private British security firm Armor-Group. Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnap 20-30 employees of the Iraqi Red Crescent. A Red Crescent official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said the gunmen left women behind. . . .The abduction comes just days after the organization’s vice president, Dr. Jamal al-Karbouli, said American forces represented a greater danger to its work than insurgents…

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Reconciliation conference is another government propaganda
Roads to Iraq
The conference was good propaganda for the media, but in reality its useless. How can they call this a reconciliation conference and they invited oppositions living abroad to join the political process while people who are in the political process wasn’t invited at all…

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3 GIs killed, 53 Bodies found; Sunnis, Sadr Boycott ‘Reconciliation’ Conference
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
…The long-awaited “reconciliation conference” was finally held in the Green Zone on Saturday, with 200 Iraqis of various persuasions present. But the Sunni guerrillas were not represented, and even most Sunni Arab parties were not there. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Baathist guerrilla leaders, who were not invited, are saying that al-Maliki has gone back on his earlier promises to them. Al-Hayat says that the Association of Muslim Scholars (hardline Sunnis), the Congress of the Iraqi People of Adnan Dulaimi (fundamentalist Sunnis), and Salih Mutlak’s Dialogue Front (ex-Baath secularists) all boycotted. Moreover, opposition figures living abroad, who had been invited, mostly declined to come. And Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite clerical leader, turned down an invitation. So it doesn’t sound to me as though this conference will amount to anything…

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Palestinian refugees fear for their lives after recent attack
Report, IRIN
Palestinian refugees living in Iraq say there is increasing fear in their community after a recent attack on a predominantly Palestinian Baghdad neighbourhood left nine people dead and several injured, including children. “We are getting worried about our situation in Iraq. We cannot leave the country because the borders are closed to us and the government doesn’t give us any hope that it can increase our security,” said Ahmed Muffitlak, spokesman for the Baghdad-based Palestinian Muslims Association (PMA). On 13 December, local militia attacked the al-Baladiya district of the capital, where hundreds of Palestinians have lived for years. No attempt was made by the Iraqi police or multinational forces to halt the three-hour attack, Muffitlak said, adding that the militia stopped ambulances entering the area and attacked anyone who tried to enter or leave without their authorisation…

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Abbas’ call for early elections causes rift within Fatah
palestine-info.co.uk
The central committee of the Fatah Movement on Sunday lashed out at Farouk Kaddoumi, the secretary general of the Movement, and other Palestinian factions that rejected PA chief Mahmoud Abbas’ call for early legislative elections. In a statement on the issue, the committee said that Kaddoumi’s stands do not reflect the official position of Fatah, especially those refusing Abbas’ call for early elections. It added that such positions only caused more confusion within the Fatah Movement and involved the Movement in regional axes that only “harmed the Palestine cause”…

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Front Page Slander
Sarah Meyer, INDEX RESEARCH
Two opposing sides of human nature appeared in the Media within the last 48 hours. Front Page, for me, represents, the Media Face of Darkness. Jimmy Carter: Jew-Hater, Genocide-Enabler, Liar 14.12.06, D. Horowitz, Front Page. For a full study of this dark media world and their corporate funding, see
The Haditha Doctor and the Media Dissemblers. This is relevant information as the Haditha murder trials are about to begin. Compare the above bile with the following Guardian letter…

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Gunmen Stage Mass Kidnapping in Baghdad
CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, AP
Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms burst into Red Crescent offices on Sunday and kidnapped two dozen employees and visitors at the humanitarian organization in the latest sign of the country’s growing lawlessness. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Iraq on his sixth visit since the 2003 invasion, appealed for international support for Iraq’s fragile government, saying the bloodshed was being carried out “by the very forces worldwide who are trying to prevent moderation.”…

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Fifty-three bullet-ridden bodies found in Baghdad
AFP
Fifty-three bullet-ridden corpses were discovered by Iraqi police in Baghdad on Saturday, including 15 dumped in one flashpoint neighbourhood in the war-torn capital, a security source said. The bodies — all men who had been shot dead by unknown gunmen — were found littered across the capital, in the latest of a string of such gruesome discoveries with Iraq in the throes of torturous sectarian warfare…

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Lame Duck Visits Dead Duck Walking
Felicity Arbuthnot
…After a photo opportunity with Maliki, the partners in crime, clutching hands as tightly as drowning men at straws, Blair had the cheek to plead with neighbouring countries, which he had long joined his Master in Washington in threatening, to help them out of the mess (you broke it, you fix it.) (…) Watching the frantic desperation on the sinking U.S. and U.K. Titanics, the lack of dignity and courage, the frantic pleas, the lies, it is impossible not to compare Iraq’s illegally ousted government. And currently no western country has any right to even mention their human rights violations – they do not hold a candle to ours, at every level. On the 18th of March 2003, George W. Bush (CNN) gave Saddam Hussein forty eight hours to leave the country, of which he was legitimate President, “sovereignty and territorial integrity” guaranteed by the spineless United Nations. He stayed, not deluded as to his country, sanctioned and all but disarmed, with only a third world armed force. He could have fled as other leaders, threatened by Western might, have, across the globe. He stayed. His entire leadership stayed – and on the eve of war (literally) he went to downtown Baghdad and talked to the people…

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My heart is tired, heavy with the wounds of Iraq
Faiza Al-Arji, A Family in Baghdad
…I was watching one of the Iraqi TV stations, there was a press conference held by the Iraqi Prime Minister, and the Bulgarian Prime Minister. One of the Iraqi journalists asked Al-Maliki: What do you think of the foreign and Afghani fighters who are dislodging the Iraqis from their homes on the outskirts of Baghdad? Well, that’s a funny story, of which we didn’t hear before. It was evident that the question was pre-arranged before the press conference. And the Iraqi Prime Minister answered that the government is suffering from this international war against terrorism, which is a third world war, and that foreigners are committing these ugly actions in Iraq, we are sorry for the Iraqi victims, we will fight the terrorists, and will not allow them to…lab…lab…lab… Oh, my God! Is he fooling himself, or the world, or what? I do not know; should I feel sad about him, or laugh at him? Where did the Afghani fighters come from to Iraq today? Yesterday, I saw with my own eyes the demonstrations of the dislodged families in Baghdad, from Al-Hurreyah area, on Iraqi TV stations. They carried banners saying that Al-Mahdi Army threatened them and removed them from their houses. They demanded the intervention of the government. And we all know that Al-Mahdi Army belongs to Muqtada Al-Sader, who is in the government, so, where did the story of the foreign Afghanis come from this morning, in front of the Bulgarian guest?…

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Worse Than Apartheid
Chris Hedges, Truthdig
…The debate over Jimmy Carter’s book, one that dishes up a fair number of Israeli myths about itself and states a reality that is acknowledged even by most Israelis, misses the point. The question is not whether Israel practices apartheid. Apartheid is a fond dream for most Palestinians. The awful question is rather will Israel be able to unleash a policy so draconian and cruel that it will obliterate a community that has lived on this land for centuries. There are other, far more loaded words for what is happening to the Palestinians. One shudders to repeat them. But unchecked, unstopped, the current wave of violence and abuse meted out to the Palestinians will echo down the corridors of history as one of the greatest moral and tactical blunders of the early part of this century, one that will boomerang on Israel and on us, bringing to our own doorsteps the evil we have allowed to be delivered to the narrow alleys and refugee camps in Gaza…

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Saudi vs. Iran
Sabbah’s blog
…US is in trouble after the war in Iraq, which they claimed then is about WMD. Years went by, nothing was found, instead, Iraqi resistance got better and stronger day by day. They call them “insurgents”, but what do you expect from an occupier to call a national resistance? Israel and US calls anyone who is not at their side as terrorist, but a 5 years old kid knows who is occupying who and who is criminal and who is resistance. The best way to hide a crime is to commit a new one, more devastating, and this is what US army and Israelis master. After US failure in Iraq, to cover-up their occupation crimes and reason for existence in Iraq, best way is to create and SUPPORT a civil war. Unfortunately, they succeeded in Iraq (and now something similar is starting in Palestine), but it is getting out of control. The Iranians are gaining more power than they initially forecasted (or never did). No one can blame Saudi support for Sunni’s for a simple reason; Iran is more powerful and has greater influence in Iraq than the occupation forces. There is reports from Iraqi Shia’t Imams that more than two million Persian has been given the Iraqi nationality…

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It’s Either Occupation or Education
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service
Two in three children in Iraq have simply stopped going to school, according to a government report. Iraq’s Ministry of Education says attendance rates for the new school year, which started Sep. 20, are at an all-time low. Statistics released by the ministry in October showed that a mere 30 percent of Iraq’s 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to roughly 75 percent of students who were attending classes the previous year, according to the Britain-based NGO Save the Children. Just before the U.S.-led invasion in spring 2003, school attendance was nearly 100 percent…

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Elfen slurfest…Defaming Vanunu and Atzmon, take a look and see
Gilad Atzmon, peacepalestine
…While a tolerant atheist would respect the fact that billions of people for almost two millenniums have held the belief that Christ is the ‘Son of God’, the tribal Jewish left activist Maccoby knows better. For her “Jesus was a human being and NOT the Son of God”. She, the Jewish ethnic campaigner knows better than generations of Christians. But she doesn’t stop there. According to Maccoby, Christian belief is a ‘reactionary’ adventure and to support the democratically elected Hamas is ‘regressive’ (…) Apparently, I am now accused of being a reactionary Christian anti-Semite. This is not a joke and with Tribal campaigners around, life never gets boring. Maccoby, Elf and their ilk must believe this is so. One may ask, why exactly am I accused of being a ‘reactionary Christian anti-Semite’? It’s simple, because I refuse to accept the authority of a Jewish tribal activist who clearly dismisses the entire Christian religious narrative…

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Iran’s crocodile rocked
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
With votes still being hand-counted, there’s every indication Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s moderate faction has scored a stunning victory over the extreme right in the crucial election for the 86-member Council of Experts, according to Iranian state TV. “Hashemi” – as he is known in Tehran – as well as Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi – the gray eminence and spiritual leader of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad – will be among the 16 clerics representing Tehran in the Council of Experts…

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Neo-Cons Wanted Israel to Attack Syria
Jim Lobe
Neo-conservative hawks in and outside the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had hoped that Israel would attack Syria during last summer’s Lebanon war, according to a newly published interview with a prominent neo-conservative whose spouse is a top Middle East adviser in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Meyrav Wurmser, who is herself the director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute here, reportedly told Yitzhak Benhorin of the Ynet website that a successful attack by Israel on Damascus would have dealt a mortal blow to the insurgency in Iraq…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 18 December 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
…In a dispatch posted at 5:09pm Makkah time Monday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US military vehicles deployed in ar-Ramadi, 110km west of Baghdad transported six completely wrecked US military vehicles out of the city towards the west on Monday morning. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses as saying that a large column of three huge transport vehicles with escort transported the six wrecked vehicles as well as some destroyed Humvees towards al-Baghdadi to the northwest were the Americans have set up a vehicle “graveyard” for US vehicles destroyed by Iraqi Resistance fighters…

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Saudis report Shi’ite ‘state’ inside of Iraq
Sharon Behn, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Iran has effectively created a Shi’ite “state within a state” in neighboring Iraq, defying both Iraqi Sunnis and neighboring Sunni nations, according to a Saudi security report. Iranian military forces are providing Shi’ite militias with weapons and training, Iranian charities are pouring funds into schools and hospitals, and Tehran is actively supporting pro-Iranian Iraqi politicians, the report said. “Where the Americans have failed, the Iranians have stepped in,” said the report by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a Riyadh-based consultancy commissioned by the Saudi government to provide security and intelligence assessments. The report, submitted to the Saudi government in March, has not been publicly distributed…

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WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2006
Today in Iraq
The military has announced two more American combat deaths in Iraq. Both occurred in western Anbar province. A Marine died Saturday and a soldier died Friday. At least 59 Americans have been killed in Iraq this month. A car bomb killed five people and wounded at least 19 in the southern Sunni area of Sadiya, near a vegetable market. No one immediately claimed responsibility. Four bodies were found blindfolded, handcuffed and shot execution-style off a highway in western Baghdad. Two roadside bombs killed one person and wounded seven others during the morning rush hour, and two mortar shells killed one person and wounded two others. A sniper killed a guard at the gate of the University of Technology. Police say 36 bodies have been found in the Baghdad area, some of them showing signs of torture. In other violence, two policemen, an Iraqi soldier and a municipal official were killed in Baghdad, and a police officer was killed southeast of the capital…

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Powell, Baker, Hamilton … Thanks for Nothing!
Washington Refuses to End the War
NORMAN SOLOMON, CouterPunch
When Colin Powell endorsed the Iraq Study Group report during his Dec. 17 appearance on “Face the Nation,” it was another curtain call for a tragic farce. Four years ago, “moderates” like Powell were making the invasion of Iraq possible. Now, in the guise of speaking truth to power, Powell and ISG co-chairs James Baker and Lee Hamilton are refueling the U.S. war effort by depicting it as a problem of strategy and management. But the U.S. war effort is a problem of lies and slaughter…

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Annals of the Damned Human Race: Liberating Afghans, Body and Soul
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque
…Ghafar’s extended family in the southern Panjwai district are among the nearly 4,000 people killed since the beginning of 2006 in a Taliban resurgence that is using civilians as human shields against escalating NATO air attacks. “A Taliban resurgence that is using civilians as human shields.” That is to say, Taliban fighters are not standing around in open fields waiting for NATO to kill them but are basing themselves in settled areas among the population…

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Aljazeera: The Plot thickens
Ramzy Baroud
The launch of Aljazeera International on November 15, the English arm of Aljazeera Satellite Television was hardly an ordinary event. It was another notable addition to the growing global efforts aimed at counterbalancing American-European domination over world media: deciding on what story is to be told and how, thus shaping public opinion, reinforcing Westerns policies, disseminating its own ideas and ideals, at the expense of the almost entirely neglected and utterly hapless audiences that neither relate nor wish to identify with such discourses…

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An Uncompromising Leftist Position
Kim Petersen, www.dissidentvoice.org
…It is not enough for progressivist media and progressives to acknowledge the great injustice inflicted against the Palestinians; it is not enough to call for a cessation of the atrocities. Progressivist media and progressives must not compromise on denouncing the zionist oppression, demanding justice, and defending the legitimate rights of Palestinians — including the right to compensation and regaining what was unjustly taken from them…

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Red Crescent halts Baghdad work after abduction
REUTERS
The Iraqi Red Crescent suspended operations in Baghdad after gunmen in police uniforms kidnapped about 30 people from one of its offices in the capital on Sunday, an official of the humanitarian body said on Monday. ‘We have suspended our operations in Baghdad until all the hostages are released,’ Maazen Abdullah, secretary-general of the Iraqi Red Crescent, told Reuters. Gunmen have released 17 hostages, most of them employees, Abdullah said. The Red Crescent, which works in Iraq with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has 40 offices in Baghdad. Work will continue in its other offices, Abdullah said…

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Blame me for gas attacks in Iran, says Saddam
Ahmed Rasheed
Saddam Hussein said on Monday he would take responsibility “with honour” for any attacks on Iran using conventional or chemical weapons during the 1980-1988 war but he took issue with charges he ordered attacks on Iraqis (…) “In relation to Iran, if any military or civil official claims that Saddam gave orders to use either conventional or special ammunition, which as explained is chemical, I will take responsibility with honour,” Saddam told the court. But he added: “I will discuss any act committed against our people and any Iraqi citizen, whether Arab or Kurdish. I don’t accept any insult to my principles or to me personally.”…

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American Recounts Iraq Prison Ordeal
IslamOnline.net & Newspapers
He was detained incommunicado for 97 days at one of the notorious US prisons in Iraq, deprived of sleep with fluorescent lights in his cell never turned off, handcuffed and shackled and deafened by heavy metal music. The maltreatment episode might not sounds new in light of the several US abuse scandals in Iraq and elsewhere had it not been for the fact that the detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran and an FBI informer…

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The coming Sunni-Shi’ite showdown
Jason Motlagh, Asia Times
After indications that Saudi Arabia would be forced to step into Iraq in the event of a US withdrawal to counter Iran-backed Shi’ite militias, Saudi officials have been silent. But the message is clear, despite a haze of diplomatic intrigue in Washington: Arab Sunni governments are rallying to stymie Tehran’s influence across the Middle East in what is shaping up to be a showdown. US failures in Iraq have stretched the world’s most formidable military and soured public opinion both abroad and at home, as the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report confirms. Observers say Iran now has the initiative in its campaign to establish itself as the anchor of a “Shi’ite crescent” extending through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. These concerns are heightened by the possibility Iran will develop nuclear weapons in the coming years…

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What is IraqSlogger?
Helena Cobban, ‘Just World News’
IraqSlogger is a new website, about to be officially “launched” next week, but already doing lots of outreach and promo (…) That page describes the company’s two main “products”: the free IraqSlogger, and then this: Our first premium [i.e. for-pay] product offering is called IraqSafetyNet, targeted to meet the urgent need in Iraq for useful intelligence, security information, insightful advice, news, and independent analysis. With security conditions continually fluctuating, reliable information and advice on risk is at a premium. Our intelligence is gathered from a exclusive intelligence network, open source, and carefully developed personal contacts… (…) So basically, this company is mixing up the job of making available a free news-reporting service with that of hiring themselves out as private intel consultants/providers, offering themselves to the highest bidders. Very disquieting…

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The War on Shampoo
Craig Murray
Google “Rashid Rauf – mastermind”. On the first page of results you will find CBS, the BBC, the Times, Guardian and Mail all describing Rauf last summer, on security service or police briefing, as the “Mastermind” behind the “Liquid terror bomb plot”. So the fact that a Pakistani court has found there is no evidence of terrorism against him cannot be lightly dismissed by the cheerleaders of the plot story. Rashid Rauf still faces other charges, including forgery, and what is touted as possession of explosives, although what he actually possessed was hydrogen peroxide, which is not explosive. As hydrogen peroxide is readily obtainable without limitation from any chemist or hardware store in the UK, why you would source it in Pakistan to blow up jets in Britain was never very convincing. The Pakistani court perhaps felt so too…

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