Action Alert: BBC’s fairy tales, genocide denial and how to win the lottery!
UPDATE: BBC News Online has corrected its article [See Action Alert below]
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
The original paragraph read: “That contrasts starkly with the 100,000 or so civilians dead, four million refugees inside and outside Iraq, 4,141 coalition soldiers who have died and the cost to the UK of well in excess of £5bn.” The new paragraph now reads: “That contrasts starkly with the several hundred thousand dead and injured Iraqis, four million refugees inside and outside Iraq, 4,141 coalition soldiers who have died and the cost to the UK of well in excess of £5bn.” While I welcome the improvement, this is NOT enough. The BBC News article still doesn’t mention the relevant studies on the subject, namely the ORB poll and the Lancet’s. Please, keep writing the BBC to the email addresses below….

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Surreal indeed.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
I just read that Iraq is warning Turkey that an invasion would be disastrous… Honestly, is this real or am I dreaming things up ? Iraq is ALREADY invaded by BOTH the U.S.A , IRAN and ISRAEL in the North. Why is the Iraqi government worried about one extra little invasion huh ? Yalla, the more the merrier…Ahlan wa Sahlan as we say in Arabic….

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Getting your victims to love you
Dr. Azmi Bishara
If you want to understand the magnitude of the Palestinian tragedy and the depths of their dilemma take a look at the recent decree issued by the Israeli Ministry of Education which in essence asks Jewish and Arab schoolchildren to sign the Israeli declaration of independence as part of the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. In a statement distributed to the schools the ministry’s Society and Youth Administration set the following objectives for the jubilee: “To commemorate the passage of 60 years since the establishing of the state of Israel in the Arab and Jewish educational system; to strengthen the sense of belonging to, pride in and love for the 60-year-old state among all who attend educational institutes; to help all Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and other youth to form a clear vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; to inspire a sense of responsibility and social commitment among the young and to encourage them to become active participants in the affairs of society.”….

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Palestine is not a piece of real estate for Mahmoud Abbas
Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem, thepeoplesvoice.org
There have been real fears of late that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas may compromise fundamental Palestinian national rights for the sake of “reaching peace with Israel.” According to insiders within Abbas’ immediate circles, “the President!” may be willing and ready to offer far-reaching concessions to the Israeli apartheid state on three major issues: The first is the paramount right of return for nearly five million refugees, uprooted from their homes and villages by the terrorist Israeli entity back in 1948, and subsequently expelled and dispersed all over the globe…

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Who is Occupying Iraq? The Iran Connection and more
karlmarxwasright
I’ve also discussed the conflict between Rafsanjani, and, Ahmadimidget’s rise to power, instead. And, of course, Chalabi’s Iranian connections, past and present, as well as Chalabi and Kissinger at the Bilderberg Conference in Canada. (See blog entry from June 17, 2006 for Bilderberg Conference). So, a number of articles appear, now, regarding “Chalabi’s Rise,” the asumption being he left or fell. But, Chalabi never disappeared. Far from it. He was conspicuously present at the Bilderberg Conference in Canada along with Kissinger, et.al. The Iraq war is Chalabi’s baby. Chalabi is front and center at the heart of a reactionary, exappropriated circle of previously propertied and wealthy Iraqis determined to restore their private empires. In this project, they collaborate, of course, with a larger reactionary, counter revolutionary Fascist/Nazi global agenda centered in Washington and in Europe/NATO. One hand washes the other (…) So, just what is the real purpose and effect of these newly announced sanctions against Iran? Is it not to help facilitate the above agenda regarding Rafsanjani, Chalabi and Iraq/Iran’s privatization, perhaps? In the recent questionable sanctions around Iran’s banks, for example, I noted Iran’s Parsian was NOT mentioned…

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Depleted uranium, depleted health?
Anes Alic
An increase of the number of Italian soldiers who served in the Balkans during the 1990s who are falling seriously ill due to depleted uranium exposure is causing a public outrage in Italy, as the government downplays the extent of the problem, widely referred to as “Balkan Syndrome.” According to an October study by the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 164 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium while serving in the Sarajevo suburbs and in Kosovo during the 1990s. In 2007 alone, the study said there were nine such related deaths and 97 new cases of uranium infection…

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Top US general praises man who got US into Iraq, WMD fabricator Ahmad Chalabi
Nick Juliano, Raw Story
At least Ahmad Chalabi seems to be taking the “Pottery Barn rule” to heart. The controversial Iraqi politician and alleged Iranian intelligence asset — perhaps as responsible as anyone in drumming up false pre-war claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities — has reemerged as a central figure in the latest US attempts to put his broken country back together. Chalabi’s latest job, according to McClatchy Newspapers, is lobbying Iraq’s central government to build on security gains to provide “better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods.”…

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US Gives Immunity to Blackwater Guards
LARA JAKES JORDAN, AP
The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned. As a result, it will likely be months before the United States can – if ever – bring criminal charges in the case that has infuriated the Iraqi government. “Once you give immunity, you can’t take it away,” said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation….

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The American Police State
Chris Hedges, Truthdig
A Dallas jury, a week ago, caused a mistrial in the government case against this country’s largest Islamic charity. The action raises a defiant fist on the sinking ship of American democracy. If we lived in a state where due process and the rule of law could curb the despotism of the Bush administration, this mistrial might be counted a victory. But we do not. The jury may have rejected the federal government’s claim that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development funneled millions of dollars to Middle Eastern terrorists. It may have acquitted Mohammad el-Mezain, the former chairman of the foundation, of virtually all criminal charges related to funding terrorism (the jury deadlocked on one of the 32 charges against el-Mezain), and it may have deadlocked on the charges that had been lodged against four other former leaders of the charity, but don’t be fooled. This mistrial will do nothing to impede the administration’s ongoing contempt for the rule of law. It will do nothing to stop the curtailment of our civil liberties and rights. The grim march toward a police state continues….

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Israel’s power cuts to Gaza: Collective punishment with tacit US approval
Chris Marsden, WSWS
Israel’s decision to begin cutting power to the Gaza Strip is a collective act of punishment that violates international law. It brings to a new stage the efforts made to starve the Palestinian population into submission since Israel imposed an economic embargo on Gaza after Hamas seized control in June from Fatah, now headed by the pro-Western President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved plans drawn up by the defence establishment on October 25. On Sunday, it was reported that the Israeli energy company Dor Alon had confirmed it had received instructions to begin reducing supplies…

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US general wounded by bomb in Iraq
Reuters
A US general has been wounded by a roadside bomb that exploded beside his convoy in northern Baghdad, the highest-ranking American soldier to be wounded since the start of the war, the US military said. Brigadier General Jeffrey Dorko, commanding general of the Gulf Region Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers, had been evacuated out of Iraq for treatment, a spokesman said. His wounds were not life threatening and he was in stable condition…

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The First Nation to Legalize Torture
Inside Israel’s Military Courts
LISA HAJJAR
Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the “war on terror,” emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees? That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S. custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law….

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Blast kills 28 Iraqi police officers
Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
A suicide bomber on a bicycle killed 28 police officers and wounded 20 others who were out for morning roll call in the capital of volatile Diyala province today, police said. The police officers who were targeted were members of an elite force based in Baqubah, the provincial capital….

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Twenty headless bodies found north of Baghdad
Melbourne Herald Sun,
AT least 20 decapitated corpses were found and a suicide bomber killed 28 policemen north-east of Baghdad overnight, as the US military transferred the security control of Karbala to Iraqi forces. The corpses of men killed recently were found near the village of Gsrine close to Baquba, just hours after a bicycle bomber slaughtered 28 policemen in the violent city, a security official said…

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Eight kidnapped tribal chiefs freed – defense ministry
Voices of Iraq
Iraqi security forces on Monday managed to free 8 of 11 kidnapped tribal chiefs following a military operation, defense ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said. “The operation, based on reliable intelligence reports, began this afternoon by al-Rasafa security forces in Baghdad,” al-Askari told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). “Three chiefs remain captives after the gunmen moved them to another location,” he added, asserting that Iraqi forces are searching for them. Regarding the death of Sheikh Mathhar al-Azzawi, the spokesman said that he has no information in this regard.
The U.S. military earlier on Monday accused Arkan Hasnawi, a former Shiite militant from cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi army, of kidnapping the group of Shiite and Sunni leaders…

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APS – Random Arrests in Ishaqi
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
…What is happening in the Iraqi arena of the continuation of a series of arbitrary arrests and disregard for the sanctity of citizens is the most prominent feature of this government, instead of taking urgent solution to the dilemma of prisons complicated arrests campaigns increased again makes the lives of Iraqis hell. The government forces accompanied by the occupation forces on the morning of Wednesday, arrested 24 November 2007 more than 50 people from the villages of Ishaqi, al Asa, Al Farhaniah and Jabbarat. The government forces launched the words and sectarian slogans, in addition to stealing a number of cars, gold jewelry and money firing indiscriminately towards the citizens….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 28 October 2007.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
In a dispatch posted at 12:25am Baghdad time just after midnight Monday morning, the Yaqen News Agency reported that the Information Bureau of the Jaysh al-Muslimeen Resistance organization had announced that its fighters had blown up and destroyed a US troop transport vehicle killing all aboard. The attack took place in ‘Amiriyat al-Fallujah, a suburb of al-Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad. Yaqen reported that the Jaysh al-Muslimeen is a constituent member of the coalition of Resistance groups known as the Front of Jihad and Change….

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Oct. 29th: Zionist massacres in Palestine
Sabbah’s blog
…Starting from the oldest: 1. On October 29, 1948, when Israeli brigades captured the village of Safsaf. The known details of the massacre come to us via several contemporary second-hand Zionist reports and via Arab oral history. Yosef Nachmani, a senior officer in the Haganah (and later the director of the Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee), recorded in his diary what he was told by Immanuel Friedman, a representative of the Minority Affairs ministry: In Safsaf, after … the inhabitants had raised a white flag, the [soldiers] collected and separated the men and women, tied the hands of fifty-sixty fellahin [peasants] and shot and killed them and buried them in a pit. Also, they raped several women… (quoted in Zertal, 2005, p. 171; see also Morris, 2005, p. 500)….

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Sunday: 43 Iraqis Killed, 61 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 43 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 61 more were wounded; another 13 people were kidnapped in separate incidents. No Coalition soldiers were reported killed. Also, Turkish troops reported killing 20 PKK fighters on their side of the border. In Baghdad, six dumped bodies were recovered. Two people were killed and 13 more were wounded during a bombing in Kadhimiyah. Ten tribal chiefs, who belong to the Diyala Salvation Council, were kidnapped in the al-Shabb area; the body of one of them has already been found. Also, five people were injured during a car bombing in the Hurriya neighborhood….

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Desmond Tutu Likens Israeli Actions to Apartheid
Adrianne Appel
South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu compared conditions in Palestine to those of South Africa under apartheid, and called on Israelis to try and change them, while speaking in Boston Saturday at historic Old South Church.”We hope the occupation of the Palestinian territory by Israel will end,” Tutu said. “There is a cry of anguish from the depth of my heart, to my spiritual relatives. Please, please hear the call, the noble call of our scripture,” Tutu said of Israelis. “Don’t be found fighting against this god, your god, our god, who hears the cry of the oppressed,” Tutu said…

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The Bank of the South: An Alternative to IMF and World Bank Dominance
Stephen Lendman
In July, 2004, the IMF and World Bank commemorated the 60th anniversary of their founding at Bretton Woods, NH to provide a financial framework of assistance for the postwar world after the expected defeat of Germany and Japan. With breathtaking hypocrisy, an October, 2004 Development Committee Communique stated: “As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions….we recommit ourselves to supporting efforts by developing countries to pursue sustainable growth, sound macroeconomic policies, debt sustainability, open trade, job creation, poverty reduction and good governance.” Phew….

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