New Iraq, the showdown – The dance of death of puppets, draculas and zombies between “reconciliation” and partition
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
….This is Amerika’s New Iraq, a monstrosity born from the supreme international crime, the war of aggression whose illegality under international law still persists. The notorious political process, with its imperialist constitution drafted in Washington and its Quisling gangs of warlords, psychopaths and cruel terrorists co-responsible for the Iraqi genocide and the annihilation of the country, far from representing “Iraq’s nascent democracy (which needs all the legitimacy it can get)” – as too much propaganda is still trying to sell to the Western public – has been instead the epitaph on the tomb of the last Arab country that dared to defy Western imperialism and colonialism. We are assisting at the showdown where the many puppets, draculas and zombies are positioning themselves, waiting for the sectarian partition of what used to be Iraq. The Amerikan orchestrated “political process” has been the ballad of this dance of death….

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WOMEN IN JAIL IN AFGHANISTAN
Oread Daily
The following was taken from the site of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. It is from the Persian language edition of the BBC. Afghan parliamentarians: “Women prisoners are raped in a Kabul prison”. The delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then that is reflected in the Amnesty International report. Members of Afghanistan parliament accuse some officials of Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul for raping women prisoners. A delegation of Afghan parliamentarians who recently visited the prison say some women become pregnant after being raped. The number of children staying with their mothers in Afghan prisons is extremely high, almost equal to the number of their mothers, according to UNODC. MPs say they are concerned about the conditions of Afghanistan’s prisons and are afraid such violations are going on in prisons in the other provinces….

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“Pièce de Résistance”
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…I will not succumb to you, I will not bow, I will not surrender to your might and force…I will not. It was a question of survival for me then, and it is now. Not just physical survival, but a moral and spiritual one too. You try to forcefully shape my identity with your slaps and I will resist you – no question about it. You will not make me into something am not supposed to be. And despite your best efforts, I will not let you steal, rob me of who I am or who I took great pains to construct… This is my “pièce de résistance.” Whatever it takes, it does not matter… I shall not be broken. Because this is what you want deep down – break me. Break that spirit, dampen that fire so you can finally extinguish it. And you will try several ploys. Threats, torture, rape, money, exile, hunger, poverty, brutality, humiliation, rejection, abandonment…and death. None will work. I stand firm. Today, more so than ever. I owe it to Her and to myself… And so it shall be…

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The (White) House of Shame
Christopher Dickey, Newsweek
… And in Iraq, especially, the suffering is too distant, too abstract, too intractable and too guilt inducing to assimilate. And anyway, aren’t things getting better? Aren’t the numbers of dead down for the last few weeks? Sure. Ethnic cleansing works and death squads work. The Iraqi capital, once unified and cosmopolitan, is now cut up into insular little communities. Since the militias’ campaigns of murder, mutilation, intimidation and reprisal have achieved their ends, there’s no need to keep the slaughter going…..

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Princess Ferragamo at the Barricades
It’s all about “regime change”
Mike Whitney
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the crooked Princess Ferragamo—Benazir Bhutto—has returned to Pakistan. Bhutto’s been traipsing all over Washington trying to garner support from think-tank heavies and establishment powerbrokers to help her stage a political come-back in Islamabad. She even hired a high-powered public relations firm to polish her image so the media wouldn’t focus too much attention on her past transgressions. Allegations of money laundering and corruption have haunted Bhutto ever since she was driven from office in 1996. Last month, General Musharraf cut a deal with Bhutto which freed her from the prospect of criminal prosecution and allowed her to return home. The arrangement ignored the judicial system entirely. The $1.5 billion that she and her husband allegedly “received in a variety of criminal enterprises” has simply disappeared down the memory hole…

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The Human Cost of War: The Iraqi Refugee Crisis
Testimony of Bill Frelick before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus
Human Rights News
I would like first to provide a brief overview of recent developments with regard to the 4.4 million estimated Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons in the region and then address the question of the adequacy of the U.S. response and make recommendations for a more creative and proactive initiative that needs to be taken in order to provide asylum to some of the world’s most desperate refugees. We are particularly alarmed by Syria’s decision this past month to close its borders to Iraqi refugees. Now only Iraqis with advance permission, usually for reasons of commerce, are allowed to enter. Despite hosting the largest number of Iraqi refugees (an estimated 1.5 million), Syria had kept its border open long after Jordan and other neighbors had closed theirs to all but a lucky few….

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Gaza’s humanitarian crisis: Who’s to blame for what?
Nadia Hijab, Institute for Palestine Studies
…Throughout the decades of occupation, the international community has “urged” Israel to change its policies. Western donors also invested in major infrastructure during the Oslo peace process, like the Gaza airport that Israel later destroyed. Donors have also tried to mitigate the worst consequences of the occupation, with little success. The effects of economic stagnation and decline will take decades to reverse, as will rising malnutrition and illiteracy. However, donor countries have never fulfilled their responsibility to challenge the occupation and Israel’s control of Palestinian land, water, economy, and basic freedoms. The fundamental questions for peace negotiators planning to meet at Annapolis are: Will Israel end its occupation and return control of Palestinian land and lives to Palestinian sovereignty? If not, who will make it? Anything short of this will fail…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 45/2007 ( 08 – 14 Nov. 2007 )
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)
* 3 Palestinian civilians (2 children and a doctor) were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip.
* 2 Palestinian civilians, including a woman, were wounded by IOF in the Gaza Strip.
* IOF conducted 30 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and one into the Gaza Strip.
* IOF arrested 66 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children and 2 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in the West Bank.
* IOF arrested a Palestinian civilian and damaged the infrastructure in Um al-Nasser village near Beit Lahia.
* IOF transformed a house in ‘Allar village near Tulkarm into a military site….

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IRAQ-SYRIA: First death among Palestinian refugees on border
IRIN News
Almost 2,000 Palestinians who fled violence in Iraq and are stranded at the Iraqi-Syrian border lack medical care, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). One person, identified as a priority in need of treatment, died on 13 November, the agency said. The UNHCR said about 11 children at al-Waleed camp are suffering from leukaemia, spinal injury, skin diseases and intestinal problems. None is able to obtain care inside the country. “There are a disproportionate number of seriously or critically ill among al-Waleed’s population,” said Anita Raman, associate reporting officer, UNHCR Iraq Operation. “Cancer, heart conditions and disability [due to health conditions, congenital defects and violence] are relatively common.” On 13 November, UNHCR recorded the first death among the refugees in the Al-Waleed camp. Akram Mohammed Rizq al-Assaf, a Palestinian, died of a heart attack. He had been identified as needing treatment outside Iraq….

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Muqtada moves to stop a Sunni ‘surge’
Sami Moubayed
…Maliki and Muqtada fear a rebirth of Iraqi Sunnis at the expense of Shi’ites. This explains 18,000 Shi’ites being formally authorized to hold arms by joining the Iraqi army. This explains why Maliki is becoming bolder in turning his back on the Accordance Front. Recently, he received a list of 16 names earmarked to replace those of the Accordance Front in government, put forward by the Iraqi Awakening Council in Ramadi. Most prominent on the list was Sheikh Hamid al-Hayes, ex-Anbar Awakening president and current head of Iraq Awakening…

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Sadr MP blasts new de-Baathification law
AFP
A senior official of Iraq’s Sadr movement Thursday blasted a new draft law aimed at integrating former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime into government, saying it would reward the ousted dictator’s “agents” at the expense of his “victims.” Fallah Hassan Chanchal, member of parliament for Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighbourhood in northeastern Baghdad, also accused the Iraqi and US governments of wanting to reinstate members of the former regime. “It is a coup against the constitution,” Chanchal told AFP in an interview in Sadr City, bastion of the movement of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr…

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US forces kill civilian, wound two in Baquba (Roundup)
DPA
US forces killed an Iraqi civilian and wounded two others in Baquba, while one US soldier was reportedly killed and four wounded in Diyala province, sources said Thursday. Witnesses said an Iraqi civilian was killed and two others wounded Thursday when the US forces opened fire on a car carrying them to a suburb of Baquba, 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad. The US military did not comment on the incident. Meanwhile, one US soldier was killed and another four wounded Wednesday in an explosion while conducting operations in Diyala province, the US military in Iraq disclosed Thursday. No further details were immediately available….

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Wire cage installed at Huwwara checkpoint
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Israeli forces have installed wire caging material at the notorious Huwwara checkpoint, located near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, creating a “checkpoint within a checkpoint” that has doubled the waiting time for Palestinians trying to pass through. A report published by the nonviolent anti-occupation group, the International Solidarity Movement, claims that the fencing was installed over the weekend and that 300-350 Palestinians civilians were on Saturday made to wait for some three hours or more to pass through the checkpoint. The timing of the added construction coincided with the return of many university students to their homes outside of Nablus, as well as the return home of those who had gone to Nablus for shopping and other needs….

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Guantánamo’s Child Solider
The Trials of Omar Khadr
ANDY WORTHINGTON
…On his arrival, in October 2002, just a few weeks after his 16th birthday, he was immediately subjected to a regime of humiliation, isolation and abuse, including extreme temperature manipulation, forced nudity and sexual humiliation, which had just been introduced in an attempt to increase the meager flow of “actionable intelligence” from the prison. He told his lawyers that he was “short-shackled by his hands and feet to a bolt in the floor and left for five to six hours,” and that “occasionally a US officer would enter the room to laugh at him.” He also said that he was “kept in extremely cold rooms,” “lifted up by the neck while shackled, and then dropped to the floor,” and “beaten by guards.” In one particularly notorious incident, the guards left him short-shackled until he urinated on himself, and then “poured a pine-scented cleaning fluid over him and used him as a ‘human mop’ to clean up the mess.” As if further humiliation was required, he added that he was “not provided with clean clothes for several days after this degradation.” Confirming its disregard for the rights of children, the administration proceeded, in November 2005, to designate Omar as one of ten Guantánamo detainees to be tried by Military Commission….

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FBI Raids Liberty Dollar – Confiscates All Ron Paul Dollars
Bernard von NotHaus, WhatReallyHappened.com
Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters: I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8:00 this morning a dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville. For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that where just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files, all the computers and froze our bank accounts. We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the US Constitution. We should not to be defrauded by the fake government money….

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Iraq crisis’ untold tales of refugees
Haroon Siddiqui
There’s the refugee crisis in Darfur, there’s the refugee crisis in Iraq and there’s also the crisis of some Darfurian refugees in Iraq. About 200 of them trekked there in 2005. They belong to various ethnic or ideological minorities that have been victims of the seemingly endless upheavals of the region, their plight made only worse by the U.S. invasion and occupation. Here are their untold stories, cobbled together during my recent trip to the region. Darfurians: They are stuck in a desolate camp near the Iraq-Jordan border, sustained by UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. Some American and Australian groups showed an interest in them, but nothing has come of it. Palestinians: Estimated at between 22,500 and 35,000, they went to Iraq in three batches – after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war; after the 1967 war; and from Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War, deported with others after Yasser Arafat supported Saddam Hussein in that conflict. After Saddam’s fall, many Iraqis turned against the Palestinians, believing them to have been a subsidized and pampered lot. The (Sunni) Palestinians have been beaten and kidnapped, and their housing complex in Baghdad shelled, mostly by (Shiite) militias….

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Corruption Adds to Baquba’s Problems
Ahmed Ali*
Facing violence, unemployment and poverty, the capital city of Iraq’s volatile Diyala province now finds itself confronting also corruption. This follows the failed promises of reform, reconstruction and rehabilitation at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Billions of dollars of U.S. and Iraqi funds were set aside for rebuilding Iraq, ruined by four years of occupation, 12 years of sanctions, and 30 years of dictatorship. There is little to show for these vast amounts of aid money. The infrastructure is clearly worse on all measurable levels than it was pre- invasion. Under the Coalition Provisional Authority, more than 7 billion dollars went “missing” in the first year of occupation alone. Now Iraqi authorities are blamed for adding to the corruption….

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WHY THE ANNAPOLIS SUMMIT IS DOOMED TO FAILURE
A DesertPeace Editorial
…Together, Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, twins connected at birth, will work tirelessly to make sure the conference fails. Peace would be an obstacle to their determination to continue on as things stand today. Anyone that doubts what I say can simply wait till the conference is over to see how right I was. I wish I am wrong, but I sincerely doubt it…

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Double Bluff: The Democrats’ Pro-War Anti-War Bill
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
There has been much throwing about of brains on the Democrat’s “bold” new proposal to “end” the onging war crime in Iraq. Anyone who still believes that these Reid-Pelosi Democrats are going to do anything to kill – or even pinch – the militarist goose whose golden eggs of loot and dominion are fattening the bipartisan plutocracy is, to put it mildly, a rock-bottom fool….

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AMSI Condemns the Attack on Headquarters
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) strongly condemned the attack on Umm Al Qura Mosque which its headquarters is based on at 14 November 2007, Wednesday. “This attack comes in the context that is known to us, the purpose of such dimensions of attack is very unfortunate event in interior area.” said the press statement. The statement went on as: “The guards of Sheihk Ahmad Abdul Ghafour Al Samarrai who is the president of current Waqf Al Sunni attacked on the headquarters of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) in Baghdad entering forcibly into it. These forces ordered the personals of AMSI to close the headquarters of AMSI and Umm Al Qura Radio emptying the furniture. They have also told that they are not responsible for the failure of the implement of these orders.”…

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IRAQ: Defense, oil and trade most corrupted ministries, commission says
Ali al-Mawsawi, Azzaman
The ministries of defense, oil and trade are among the most corrupted institutions in the country, according to the new director of the accountability and transparency commission. Mousa al-Shuwaili said rampant corruption in these ministries was mainly due to the pressure and meddling of influential political factions. Shuwaili stopped short of naming the factions and declined to say whether senior figures, including ministers, were involved. The commission’s former head has escaped to the U.S. where he accused the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of nurturing and encouraging a culture of corruption….

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