US practicing systematic rape, torture, sadism against women in Iraqi prison camps.
Yaqen News Agency , Translated by Muhammad Abu Nasr
The General Secretary of the Union of Political Prisoners and Detainees in Iraq, Muhammad Adham al-Hamd declared that the US occupation administration in Iraq relies on systematic rape, torture, and sadistic treatment of Iraqi women prisoners in its prison camps in the country. Al-Hamd said that the enormous crimes being committed against women in the prison camps in occupied Iraq have the support and blessings of the US military, for whom the practices serve as a means to bring psychological pressure on men engaged in the Resistance, in an attempt to break their spirit and fighting will…

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Did you know?
Sabbah’s blog
… that non-Jewish Israelis can’t buy or lease land in Israel. … that Palestinian license plates in Israel are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews. … that Jerusalem, both East and West, is considered by the entire world community, including the United States, to be occupied territory and NOT part of Israel. … that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the “territories”? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron’s 120,000 Palestinians….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 27 October 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
…In a dispatch posted Saturday, the Yaqen News Agency reported that Shi’i sectarian Jaysh al-Mahdi militiamen, with the clear backing of the American-installed puppet authorities, shot and killed Shaykh Rasim Qunaydilah the Imam of the ‘Ulaybat Mosque in the al-Khalis area, about 60km northeast of Baghdad. Yaqen reported Major Ahmad as-Sa’di of the puppet police in ‘Ulaybat as saying that Shaykh Rasim Qunaydilah had taken up the post only five months ago. Witnesses told Yaqen news agency that as a result of the sectarian murder, local residents had begun packing their belongings and preparing to move. Residents say that puppet regime officials have been ignoring the continuing abuses that Shi’i sectarian gunmen have practiced against local Sunni civilians for months, over the course of which there have been dozens of assassinations of civilians but no investigations, despite clear evidence that the Shi’i sectarian militias were the perpetrators….

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BBC Says That Israel is in Northern Iraq
Turkish Weekly
According to BBC, Kurdish soldiers were secretly trained by former Israeli commandos in northern Iraq to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations. • Avivi, Israel’s Ambassador to Ankara, told the Turkish academicians in USAK that Israel has done nothing in Iraq without informing Turkey. Avivi says Israel supports Iraq’s unity and against a possible Kurdish state in the region. • A number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport, Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli newspaper, had reported in 2005…

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Saturday: 1 GI, 68 Iraqis Killed, 38 Wounded; over 100 Iraqi Troops Poisoned
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
As protesters in the U.S. called for an end to the war, at least 68 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 38 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. One U.S. servicemember was also killed in Salah ad Din province. Eight people, including a police chief, were kidnapped in Muqdadiya. Also, 100 Iraqi army servicemembers were poisoned during breakfast in Baghdad. Police found 17 decomposing corpses in a field west of Baquba. In Baghdad, eight people were killed and 13 more were wounded during a bombing in the Jisr Diyala area. Four unidentified bodies were found dumped in as many locations. Also, over 100 Iraqi troops were poisoned during breakfast this morning; the origin of the poisoning is unknown. …

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Truth Matters
Charles Sullivan
I have been writing political essays for a few years now. I do so as a reluctant enthusiast, not because I wanted to write on these themes; but because, it seemed to me, that professional journalists were not telling the whole story; that significant parts that would allow people to connect the dots and understand what is happening from a historical perspective, was being deliberately omitted from the official version of current events, and from history. As propaganda, the elements that are deliberately left out of media are as important as those that are retained…

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Murdoch’s Cuckoo’s Nest: The Wall Street Journal’s Op-ed Page
Mike Whitney
…In the last few days the WSJ has run articles defending Exxon against the$2.5 billion punitive damages that were ordered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for its massive oil spill in Alaska nearly 2 decades ago. They’ve run another tiresome apology for Judge Robert Bork, the alleged victim of a left-wing witch hunt. They’ve provided a lawyerly defense of the Marines who went on the “killing spree” in Haditha; another promotion for the extortionist World Bank, an emotional plea to “Save the Bush Tax Cuts”, and, of course, an over-the-top 1500 word thesis on why “Victory Is Within Reach In Iraq” by neocon nutcase Michael Ledeen. On Monday, October 22, the WSJ ran an article by David Rivkin, “Getting Serious about Torture”, which essentially defends the “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of terror suspects by pointing out the relative nature of these terms. (Isn’t it odd that questions related to torture never came up before Bush took office?)…

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War News for Saturday, October 27, 2007
Iraq today
A bomb exploded Saturday in a predominantly Shiite area southeast of Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 13 others, police and hospital officials said. The blast, which occurred at 7:30 a.m. in Jisr Diyala, targeted restaurants frequented by government employees and construction workers, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. Two police officers and two women were among the wounded, the officials said…

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Iraq Hampers U.S. Bid to Widen Sunni Police Role
MICHAEL R. GORDON, NYTimes
The American military’s push to organize Sunni Arabs into local neighborhood watch groups has been one of the United States’ most important initiatives in Iraq — so much so that President Bush flew to Anbar Province in September to highlight growing alliances with Sunni tribal leaders. But now that the Americans are trying to institutionalize the arrangement by training the Sunnis to become policemen, the effort has been hampered by halfhearted support and occasionally outright resistance from a Shiite-dominated national government that is still inclined to see the Sunnis as a once and future threat…

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Foul Play…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
The Iraqi sectarian government is plagued with endemic corruption that totals around 4 Billion dollars per annum. The sectarian ministries, i.e those run by the exported thugs from Iran (M.Al.Sadr, Al Hakeem, Maliki,….) are the worst hit. This is the government that America is upholding. This is the government we received from Iran. This is the government that the Anti-War greeted with flowers. Congratulations to the Iraqis with purple, green and red fingers of Liberation.
Ink, Dollars and Blood….

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Homeless in Iraq
Shirouk Alabayachi and Robert Lowe, Guardian
American officials report that the number of sectarian and other killings in Iraq has declined since the onset of the military “surge”. But, while the number of killings may, indeed, have fallen, does that mean Iraq is really safer? Insecurity in Iraq is most strikingly illustrated by the number of people fleeing their homes. The United Nations estimates that, since July, the number has risen by 60,000 every month. The best estimate is that around 16% of Iraq’s population, or one in six Iraqis, no longer live in their homes. Roughly half of those who have fled have also left the country, implying 2 million refugees. This leaves another two million who have been displaced internally, and who represent an emerging humanitarian tragedy….

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Stop the Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
Window Into Palestine
Gaza is not only starving; it is dying before the eyes of the international community. If the international conspiracy of silence does not come to an end, and if the policy of blaming the victim continues, the 21st Century will witness its first brutal genocide. Thousands of Israeli soldiers are surrounding Gaza in a hermetic manner, shooting and killing any Palestinian trying to escape. The Rafah Crossing, the only exit to the external world, has been closed for two years…

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Israel: Tactics and strategy of collective punishment
Arablinks
…AlHayat limits itself to talking about these tactical issues, but what is much more important in the long run is the fact that Israel is resorting openly and admittedly to collective punishment of the civilian population. Among the big Arab-language papers, it was left to Al-Quds al-Arabi to highlight the point in its lead editorial yesterday, not only from the point of view of even darker days ahead for the Gaza population, but also from the point of view of Israel’s more-open disregard for international law. The editorialist notes. The United Nations recently warned the Jewish state against any collective punishment against the Gaza Strip which is subject to the control of Hamas, but this did not fall on attentive ears, just as more generally the concern of the West for the suffering of the Gazans is extremely limited, not to say non-existent…

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Leuren Moret, Depleted Uranium, and Strykers In Hawaii
Cathy Garger, -Axis of Logic exclusive
…In April, 2007, internationally reknown radiation expert, environmentalist, and geoscientist, Leuren Moret, was invited by activists in Hawaii to come and bring her expertise – and Geiger counter – with her. During her stay, Ms. Moret spoke with Hawaiians, educating around the issue of uranium munitions as a lethal, toxic, and radioactive poison. The elevated radiation readings Moret and citizen activists recorded were carried by ABC-TV news on April 29 and 30, 2007. Moret brought international attention to the military’s use of Depleted Uranium in Hawaii when she exposed high environmental radiation readings levels there. Use of radioactive materials – even in weapons “training” and “testing”- and are prohibited in the U.S. without Nuclear Regulatory Commission involvement. In a recent interview, I asked Ms. Moret how it felt to discover high radiation readings in Hawaii? Moret responded, “It was not so bad when I was driving around the island and measuring the DU in the air because the levels were only up to about 30 or 40 counts per minute. Background when the wind is blowing off the ocean is about 3-9 CPM….

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Naim: Siege on Gaza could lead to health disasters affecting entire region
Palestinian Information Center
Dr. Basem Naim, the PA acting health minister, has affirmed that his ministry was exerting tremendous efforts to contain results of the international siege imposed on the Palestinian people. However, Naim warned in a press interview published on Saturday that the continued closure of crossings in and out of the Gaza Strip in particular would lead to a humanitarian health disaster the repercussions of which would affect the Israelis and all neighboring countries….

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Israel plans to ‘isolate Gaza 100 percent’
Middle East Online
Israel plans to paralyse the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip in every possible way and separate itself completely from the Palestinian territory in the long term, a minister said on Saturday. “We want to separate ourselves from the Gaza Strip at the level of its infrastructure in every way possible,” Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told Israeli public radio. On Thursday Defence Minister Ehud Barak announced that Israel would start periodic electricity cuts and limit fuel deliveries to the Strip because of the continued firing of rockets by militants….

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Occupation forces killed a woman and her child in Fallujah
Roads to Iraq
– Although PKK spokesman told Radio SAWA: We do not have any offices in the Iraq cities, and we said that before. We heard that Turkey and Iraq met and agreed to close PKK offices in Iraq, we do not know what they meant by this Agreement The Turkmen Party (turkmeneli) published images of the PKK headquarter in Kirkuk where PKK Radio station (Radio Walat) also situated, about one kilometer from the American and British consulates.- Great, the Turks let the Iraqi-American delegation spend the night in a police guesthouse and not in a hotel. – Occupation forces killed a woman and child in Fallujha today, they fired on their car on the highway…

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ISRAEL TRYING TO WIDEN THE GAP AMONG PALESTINIANS
Desert Peace
Israel is not satisfied with Palestine literally cut in two. They are now attempting to widen that gap by ‘Israelisizing’ those Palestinians that live in Israel proper….a plan that is meeting with opposition as seen in the following report from Ynet…

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Undiagnosed brain injury – the hidden legacy of Iraq
MoD begins study amid fears that up to 20,000 soldiers may be affected
Matthew Taylor and Esther Addley, The Guardian
The Ministry of Defence is conducting a major study into brain injury in troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan amid fears that thousands of soldiers may have suffered damage after being exposed to high-velocity explosions. The US army says as many as 20% of its soldiers and marines have suffered “mild traumatic brain injury” (mTBI) from blows to the head or shockwaves caused by explosions. The condition, which can lead to memory loss, depression and anxiety, has been designated as one of four “signature injuries” of the Iraq conflict by the US department of defence, which is introducing a large-scale screening programme for troops returning from the frontline….

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PA interior ministry: Explosion in south Gaza result of IOF shelling
Palestinian Information Center
The interior ministry in the PA caretaker government in Gaza has affirmed that the explosion Saturday morning in a civilian home south of the Gaza Strip that killed three Palestinian females including a child was the result of IOF artillery shelling. The ministry’s spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussain said in a press release that his ministry’s investigation at scene of the incident proved that the blast was the result of an Israeli land-to-land projectile….

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US will hand Iraqis control of Karbala
KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shiite province of Karbala on Monday, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens. Karbala will become only the eighth of Iraq’s 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control, despite President Bush’s prediction in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November. But the target date has slipped repeatedly, highlighting the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in areas still troubled by daily violence….

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U.S. commander in Iraq: Sectarian bias limits police
Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
A departing major general who oversaw the U.S. military operation in northern Iraq delivered blunt criticism Friday of the ministry that manages Iraqi police forces, accusing it of “foot dragging” in hiring desperately needed officers because of sectarian bias. The comments put in stark terms the sectarian divisions in Iraq’s Shiite-led Interior Ministry, which has been beset by allegations of infiltration by Shiite Muslim militiamen and human rights violations, including torture. U.S. officials are rarely so openly critical of the agencies with which they are nominally partnering to try to stabilize the country….

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Sympathy for rebels in northern Iraq
Crispin Thorold, BBC News
The Kandil mountain range runs across northern Iraq, but it is in the area where the borders of Turkey, Iran and Iraq meet that many of the rebels from the PKK are believed to be hiding. The Turkish government says that the 3,000 Kurdish fighters based there use the region to launch attacks inside Turkey. On a hilltop close to the town of Ranya, there is a spectacular view of the jagged peaks of the Kandil mountains. On one side you look towards Turkey and on the other Iran….

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“A Letter to Ken Burns about The War: An Intimate History”
Dr. Suki Falconberg
‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the Yokosuka rape queues in August 1945, with GI’s lined up for blocks, two abreast, to get at the Japanese girls enslaved in ‘comfort stations’ for them—with the full cooperation of the American and Japanese authorities. Destitute, vulnerable girls were raped into unconsciousness as the men joked and laughed and jostled in line, waiting their turn. Some girls bled to death. Some committed suicide—that is, the lucky ones who could escape. Not one ‘comfort girl’ has told her story—due to shame. Why did you not tell this particular ‘intimate history’ of ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns? Especially since ‘usage’ of the girls was almost 100%. Why has the small detail that almost every GI in Japan, 1945, was a rapist escaped you? Why his this big ‘dirty secret’ of war never been covered? (…) War never ‘liberates’ women. War sexually destroys us. It has never been otherwise. Briseis had no say in her fate as a ‘captive’ woman. No one asked her what she thought of the arrangement. No one has asked the Filipina women trafficked onto the fifty U.S. bases in Iraq what they think of their lot as the GI’s line up for their five-minute shot inside them…

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Turkey-Iraq talks on PKK ‘fail’
Aljazeera.net
Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has threatened to order an incursion into northern Iraq against fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), after talks with Iraq aimed at avoiding a cross-border raid, had reportedly failed. “The moment an operation is needed, we will take that step,” he told a crowd in the town of Izmit on Saturday. Turkish-Iraqi talks collapsed on Friday after Ankara rejected proposals from Abdel Qader Jassim, the Iraqi defence minister, for tackling Kurdish fighters….

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Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn ‘unconscionable’ detention
Leonard Doyle, Independent
An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are “enemy combatants”. The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as “unconscionable”. His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack – and another Supreme Court ruling against it – that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned….

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Negev prisoners accuse prison authority of deliberate physical assaults
Palestinian Information Center
The Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli Negev detention camp accused the prison administration of deliberately causing them permanent physical disabilities. In a statement signed on behalf of the prisoners of five Palestinian factions and received by the PIC on Saturday, the prisoners also accused the prison authority of attempted murder during the events inside the prison on Monday which resulted in the death of prisoner Mohamed Al-Ashqar and injury of about 250 others. The prisoners charged that Israeli soldiers belonging to assault units called “Matsada” and “Nahshon” deliberately opened fire using various forms of weapons on the upper parts of the prisoners’ bodies….

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US to force diplomats to go to Iraq
Aljazeera.net
The US state department has said it will require its diplomats to staff its embassy in Iraq due to a lack of volunteers.b Forty to 50 posts will be open next year in the embassy, located in Baghdad’s fortified green zone. Until now postings have been staffed on a voluntary basis and have often been hard to fill. Up to 300 US diplomats will be notified that they are “prime candidates” for one-year terms in Iraq….

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Seven Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip on Friday
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that a total of seven Palestinians were killed in the Israeli military offensives that targeted several areas in the coastal region. The sources stated that one resident died of wounds sustained earlier in the day as the army shelled As-Shuja’ia neighborhood, east of Gaza city. The resident, Ahmad Hassanen, is a member of the Al Quds brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad. He was seriously injured during clashes with soldiers who invaded the area, supported by tanks and armored bulldozers, and died of his wounds later in the day…

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US steering clear of Kurdish fight
PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
The U.S. military commander in northern Iraq said Friday he plans to do “absolutely nothing” to counter Kurdish rebels who are staging deadly cross-border attacks into neighboring Turkey. It was the most blunt assertion yet by an American official in the last few weeks that U.S. forces should not be involved in the fight. The Bush administration has said repeatedly that the border crisis should be resolved through diplomacy. Asked what the U.S. military was planning to do, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said: “Absolutely nothing.”…

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