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U.S. trapped in Arabian sands
Dhamad Wasmi, Azzaman
The U.S. began its third millennium with its Iraq adventure. It thought it would change the face of the Middle East through its illegal invasion of that country and crown itself as the world’s unrivaled superpower for decades. But it failed drastically in the test it set for itself. The invasion through which it wanted to teach the Middle East a lesson backfired. The leaders who hoped their invading troops will be welcomed with flowers are now busy ferrying their dead and wounded soldiers and have no idea what to do with tanks and vehicles that are knocked out in anti-U.S. operations…
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Militiamen abduct, rape and kill students
Nidhal al-Laithi, Azzaman
Three female students from the University of Mustansiriya were kidnapped, then raped and then killed and then their mutilated bodies passed to the Baghdad morgue. The horrendous crime has shocked many in Baghdad and unleashed yet another wave of terror in the violence-torn city home to a quarter of Iraq’s population. The female students were raped and killed “in a horrific manner at the hands of militias,” said the non-governmental Organization for the Defense of Women in Iraq. “This is a fresh horrifying indication that the level of crime and violence is taking unprecedented proportions in Iraq,” the group said in a statement. The crime has terrorized the university community in Baghdad, prompting many parents to stop sending their girls to classes. Militia groups work freely in Baghdad and frequently U.S. and Iraqi troops turn a blind eye to their atrocities…
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Evidence of cooperation between Mahdi Army and US forces to attack Sunni neighborhoods
Roads to Iraq
Evidence of US occupation forces helping Mahdi Army to attack Sunni neighborhood and displace the residents. The clip I managed to obtain is of woman recently displaced from AL-Hurryia neighborhood describes when Mahdai Army failed to capture her two sons because of the fierce resistance, Mahdi Army asked the American forces for help, the two brothers were arrested by the Americans, she said her two sons are now in jail. At the beginning of the clip the woman says that her both sons are not involved in any political activities before and after the occupation…
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Why we fight!
Ed Naha, Smirking Chimp
Since our illegal invasion and subsequent illegal occupation of Iraq, our Dreamer-in-Chief has envisioned the new, democratic Iraq in terms rivaling the descriptions of Oz and The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Now, with nearly 3,000 American troops dead and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents slain, just what kind of an Iraqi government are we fighting for? How about one who lynches 13 prisoners in public, video-tapes it and hands out the tapes to TV stations? This is what we’re fighting for (…)By the by, nobody checked the lynched prisoners’ hands to see if they still had that purple “I Voted” mark. Also, they were lynched because they were “thought” to be involved in assassination plots…
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Mass Infanticide Then and Now
King Herod & George Bush
Gideon Polya, MWC.News Network.
CHRISTMAS DAY 2006 is almost with us and our thoughts turn to the Birth of Jesus Christ and to Reverence for Mother and Child which is the common belief of all decent people. It being Christmas and because horrendous events in the Holy Land and the Middle East are so much in the fore of daily news reports, I have written a contemporary ANNOTATION of the Story of the Birth of Jesus as told in Matthew Chapter 2 of the beautiful King James version of the Holy Bible. Because I am an agnostic humanist scientist concerned with excess mortality (excess death, avoidable death, avoidable mortality, deaths that should not have happened) my interspersed Annotations below are concerned with current acute mortality realities relating to the Matthew Chapter 2 story…
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IRAQ: INTERVIEW – TARIQ AZIZ IS ILL AND SHOULD BE FREED SAYS LAWYER
AKI
Badey Aref, the lawyer of Tariq Aziz, the deputy of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for over a decade, says his client is seriously ill. In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Aref said that “during a visit to Aziz last Friday, which lasted no more than half an hour, the former premier had to write down what he wanted to say,” as he was too weak to talk. A key member of Hussein’s deposed regime, Aziz, 70, has been in US custody since he surrendered days after the US-led invasion in 2003. He has been detained in an undisclosed location but has so far not been charged with any specific crimes. Aref told AKI that his client “has not been seeing his family for over a year and a half,” something which makes him feel “very depressed” though “US forces have allowed the family to visit Aziz on Wednesday, 27 December.”
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Selling Christmas trees dangerous in Iraq
Christians among the most targeted people in the city
The Washington Post
…Last Monday, a week before Christmas, Dawoud was the only tree vendor on his street, which in times past had become Christmas tree row in early December. His colleagues were too afraid to join him. “They said, ‘You go check it out first. You’re an old man,”’ he said. With a black-checkered kaffiyeh wrapped around his head, he placed five tall, anemic-looking trees against a wall and waited for people to show up. Few did. With his one good eye, he scanned every car that drove by. He called his presence on the street a “fidai” — a suicide mission — and broke into a hearty laugh. “Why should I be scared?” he asked. “The old men, they don’t care like the young people.” Dawoud is a Muslim, but he has lived among Christians in the mixed Karrada district for years. “We are brothers,” he said, expressing a tolerance that is increasingly rare in Baghdad. For centuries, including under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Christian minority coexisted with Muslims. Saddam’s deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian, one of an estimated 600,000 to 1 million people of the faith living in the country before the U.S.-led invasion overthrew Saddam in 2003…
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A Christmas Curse: Retribution Time or To Hell with All the B
William A. Cook , Atlantic Free Press
It occurred to me in one of my less cynical moments, deluded no doubt by the merriment of the season, that all of those responsible for the havoc and chaos of these past six years should face the wrath of the American people and, one might hope, the wrath of the God of Justice and Vengeance. Once before I had similar urgings, in July of 2004 to be exact, and I penned an article titled “Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons” that appeared in Counterpunch, wherein I placed our benighted leaders into the Inferno’s circles of Hell. The experience of the last two years heaped on that of the preceding four necessitates a reconsideration of the leniency of Dante’s punishment as it fits the crimes of our current horde that deserve an exclusive damnation prepared for their unique and heinous sins…
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Residents blame U.S. for deadly attack in Baquba
CNN
Residents in Baquba blamed U.S. troops for a rocket attack that killed six people and wounded six others, including women and children, a Baquba joint coordination center official said Saturday. Rockets landed on a residential neighborhood Friday, leveling one of the houses and partially damaging several others…
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 23 December 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
…In a dispatch posted at 7:18pm Makkah time Saturday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US troops accompanied by their Iraqi puppet army allies carried out a raid in the city of al-Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad, to identify and punish residents who watch the az-Zawra’ satellite TV station that for a short while now has been broadcasting programs issued by the Iraqi Resistance including all new video releases by the Resistance. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported residents of the Nazal neighborhood of al-Fallujah as saying that the US and Iraqi puppet troops stormed into the home of Mr. Kamil Ahmad Hammadi and found his family watching az-Zawra’. The Americans immediately smashed their television set and arrested the head of the household who was still in custody at the time of reporting…
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More Palestinians Arrives at the Iraq-Syria Border
PalestineFreeVoice
The UN refugee agency on Friday reiterated its call for a solution to the plight of Palestinian refugees stuck in Iraq after a new group of 41 arrived at the Iraq-Syria border to escape violence, harassment and targeted killings in Baghdad. The latest group has been stranded on the Iraqi side of the border with Syria since last Saturday, UNHCR’s chief spokesperson, Ron Redmond, told reporters in Geneva, adding that Iraqi border authorities initially refused to allow them to leave Iraq, citing a lack of proper documentation. Some members of the group do not have any travel documents, while others are holding expired ones – all as a result of suspension until further notice by the Iraqi authorities of renewals or issuance of residence permits…
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Ex-Abu Ghraib detainee recounts atrocities committed by US forces
The Peninsula
An Iraqi who spent seven months in Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad says he has horrifying experiences to tell of how the US soldiers have committed atrocities on innocent Iraqi civilians who were taken into custody and put behind the bars for no fault of theirs. And among the prisoners were not only young Iraqi men, but also the elderly, women and children, according to Abdul Jabbar Al Azzawi. Having vowed to expose the “dirty face of America” before the world, Al Azzawi is here holding an exhibition of photographs showing “chilling” human rights violations committed by the US soldiers in his country…
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15 Bodies Identified as those of High Ranking Officers in Iraq’s Former Armed Forces
Alquds, via Iraqi League
Iraqi police has identified 15 dead bodies in one of Baghdad’s mortuary as officers in Iraq’s former armed forces. Amongst the dead were major generals and colonels. Recently, ‘some 20 high ranking officers of the former Iraqi armed forces were kidnapped by AlMhadi militia’, said a general of the former Iraqi armed forces who had lucky escape from the kidnap operation who. The former general told London’s AlQuds newspaper that the militia wore Iraqi police uniforms and had set up fake check points when they abducted the 20 former high ranking officers who had gone to collect their pension from AlMoheet Bank Baghdad’s AlKathimeyah district…
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, December 23, 2006
Today in Iraq
Clashes between Iraqi security forces and Shi’ite militiamen loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have left five people dead and wounded 17 others in the usually calm city of Samawa, police sources said on Saturday. The sources said that the fighting began on Friday afternoon when Sadr’s armed followers protested against the continuous detention of their comrades by the police. Four of the dead were policemen. Militia members kidnapped a Sunni mosque Imam Emad Al Shamari from Al Bunouk neighborhood. Police said that they found 12 dead bodies all over Baghdad. The corpses carried multiple gunshots. 4 bodies found on Rusafa side, eastern side. 8 bodies found on Karkh side, western side…
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5 US GIs Killed; British Raid Rogue Police in Basra; Coeds Raped, Killed in Baghdad
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
…Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that on Friday, Baghdad awoke to discover that a horrible crime had been committed. Militiamen kidnapped three coeds from Mustansiriya University, raped them, killed them, and tossed their bodies into a courtyard at al-Adli Medical School in the capital. A woman’s organization complained bitterly that the Iraqi government was doing nothing to halt a building crime wave. The organization and the girls’ friends among Mustansiriya U. students also blamed the Shiite ayatollahs for lending their support to the Shiite militias. (Mustansiriya University is near to Sadr City and the implication is that the kidnappers were Mahdi Army, attacking Sunni girls). Likewise, the militias kidnapped a female teacher from Ghazaliya district, raped her, and cast her body in the street in the Shu’la district of Baghdad…
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Ten years later the price is still worth it
Gabriele Zamparini
“There have been plenty of markers that show that this [Iraq] is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilising factor, you will have a very different kind of Middle East.” – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
FACTS: A study published a few months ago in the British medical journal the Lancet estimated the war of aggression against Iraq had slaughtered about 655,000 human beings. In these last few months the carnage got even worse…
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email to Stars and Stripes’ editors RE: A letter to an American G.I.
Gabriele Zamparini, The cat’s dream
Dear Editors of Stars and Stripes, A young US soldier’s mother recently wrote: “Two weeks ago he called by satellite phone, awakening Amy and me in the dead of the night. Machine gun fire was all around him, the sound of war filling our ears and hearts with grief and fear of loss. (…) He says that this war cannot be won! He has no faith in the politicians who sent him there.” A very important debate is going on in Washington D.C. in these very hours on what to do about the situation that the US has created with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Please, take a few seconds to read what an Iraqi woman has to tell to American soldiers. A letter to an American G.Iby Layla Anwar: arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2006/12/letter-to-america
n-gi.html
I believe this letter to an American G.I. written by an Iraqi woman should be part of that debate and I am sure many US service-people and their families would appreciate the opportunity to read it…
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Last Bad Deal Gone Down: War Profits Trump the Rule of Law
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque
Slush funds, oil sheikhs, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney – it’s a scandal that has it all, corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you’ve never heard about it – even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteering, it seems, is just as thick as the fog of war. But here’s how the deal went down. On Dec. 14, the UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith (Pete Goldsmith as was, before his longtime crony Tony Blair raised him to the peerage), peremptorily shut down a two-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a massive corruption case involving Britain’s biggest military contractor and members of the Saudi royal family. SFO bulldogs had just forced their way into the holy of holies of the great global backroom – Swiss bank accounts – when Pete pulled the plug. Continuing with the investigation, said His Lordship, “would not be in the national interest.”…
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Report: Baghdad now dominated by Shiites
United Press International
Shiite Muslim control of Baghdad has raised fears a militant Shiite fringe will have free rein to conduct broad Sunni killings, it was reported Saturday. Neighborhoods once mixed with Shiite and Sunni Arabs are now almost entirely Shiite, residents and officials told The New York Times. Sunnis have just one seat on the 51-seat Baghdad Provincial Council, which runs the city’s services. The shift to Shiite control began in February, after a shrine in the city of Samarra was bombed, The Times said…
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To the Iraqi Christian people!
Issa al ‘Awam * On behalf of the Iraqi patriot Christian youth – Al Moharer
We the patriotic Christian youth in Iraq declare in front of the entire world that we shall neither participate, nor celebrate any festivities or show any signs of joy during the nativity of our lord Jesus Christ and the New Year… Further more we request from all Christians amongst the Iraqi people inside and outside Iraq to not celebrate, participate or organize any festivities for Christmas in solidarity with us and with our people in our dear occupied homeland Iraq in order to remember what our people is suffering such as killing, persecution, humiliation and stripping of dignity and the usurpation of our rights at the US and the pagan Persian Iranian hands attempting to our sovereignty, dignity and the usurpation of our rights…
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VIDEO: The “War on Terrorism” is a Fabrication
Interview, SIC-TV Lisbon (English)
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research
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