The Worst War Crime Yet?
Bush’s War on Children in Iraq
DAVE LINDORFF
Surely nothing that President Bush has done in his two wretched terms of office—not the invasion and destruction of Iraq, not the overturning of the five-centuries-old tradition of habeas corpus, not his authorization and encouragement of torture, not his campaign of domestic spying—nothing, can compare in its ugliness as his approval, as commander in chief, of the imprisoning of over 2500 children. According to the US government’s own figures, that is how many kids 17 years and younger have been held since 2001 as “enemy combatants”—often for over a year, and sometimes for over five years. At least eight of those children, some reportedly as young as 10, were held at Guantanamo. They even had a special camp for them there: Camp Iguana. One of those kids committed suicide at the age of 21, after spending five years in confinement at Guantanamo. (Ironically and tragically, that particular victim of the president’s criminal policy, had been determined by the Pentagon to have been innocent only two weeks before he took his own life, but nobody bothered to tell him he was slated for release and a return home to Afghanistan.)…

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Israeli siege leads to soaring anemia in Gaza newborns
Mohammed Omer
The Israeli siege of Gaza that has restricted access to food, water, and medicine is beginning to cause serious problems for newborn babies and pregnant mothers. “Many babies are born suffering from anemia that they have inherited from their mothers,” said Dr. Salah al-Rantisi, head of the women’s health department at the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza. The mothers are becoming anemic because they do not get enough nutrition during pregnancy due to the Israeli blockade that has choked the supply of food and medicines. Dr. al-Rantisi also heads the women’s health unit at Nasser hospital, where 30 to 40 children are born every day. Many suffer from anemia, he said….

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Ancient City of Babylon Destroyed by US Occupation Base
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The last outsiders to visit the ruins of the once-mighty city of Babylon in Iraq came in tanks and helicopters, leaving a blight on its historic and fragile landscape, archaeologists say. The city, born on the banks of the Euphrates River 5,000 years ago and full of priceless archaeological treasures, was transformed into a U.S. military camp after the 2003 invasion with a heliport built among the ruins. The base was later passed to Polish army control and despite the soldiers’ departure in 2005, the damage left behind is evident. At a meeting in Berlin next month, Iraqi and other specialists will endeavor to assess the true level of damage. Iraqi archaeologist Hadi Mussa Qataa, who guided an AFP reporter through the fragile ruins, said helicopter take-offs and landings, along with the tremors from the heavy rumble of armored vehicles had damaged the city’s historic monuments…

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Army medic admits torturing Iraqi boy, 14
Christopher Leake, Daily Mail,
A junior Army medic has admitted kicking and punching a 14-year-old Iraqi boy, then watching as colleagues ‘hooded’ him with a sandbag. The Lance-Corporal told how the teenager was bound and kicked before being left in stifling heat inside a Warrior armoured vehicle for more than an hour without water. According to the admissions – in statements to the Royal Military Police – the boy, who survived the ordeal, was kicked and punched each time he asked for water….

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Two civilians killed, child wounded by U.S. fire in Mosul-police
Voices of Iraq
Two civilians were killed and a child was wounded on Saturday by alleged U.S. fire in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a local police source said. “Two civilians were killed and a child was wounded, today, as a U.S. vehicle patrol reacted to a roadside bomb explosion in Nabi Younis area, eastern Mosul,” the source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI)….

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An Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi on Israel
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing
KATHLEEN M. BARRY
Dear Nancy Pelosi, Check your history books. Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel is celebration of the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine, the celebration of the expulsion of 750,000 Arabs who generations later still people the refugee camps of Lebanon, Syria, Jordon, who still mourn their families slaughtered by Zionists as they completely destroyed Arab villages in Palestine, who still hold keys to their homes that were seized by the new Israeli state in 1948…

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Afghans outraged after US Marines cleared
AFP
Afghans reacted with outrage Saturday after the US military found Marines had acted appropriately when they opened fire after an attack last year, killing at least 10 civilians. The country’s top rights body meanwhile reiterated its finding that the troops had used excessive force in the March 4 incident in Nangarhar and the United Nations said it was disappointed no one was held accountable. “I’m deeply outraged over this,” Abdul Aziz Khairkhawa, deputy head of the Nangarhar provincial council, told AFP after the US Marines’ announcement Friday….

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Business As Usual in the U.S.
Justice Department’s Revelations on Torture
ROBERT FANTINA
It has long been an accepted fact of life that the U.S. not only condones but also practices the torture of political prisoners. While President George Bush, Cabinet members and members of Congress decry the human rights violations of other nations, they are not nearly so critical of those violations when perpetrated under their orders…

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The Mosul riddle
Pepe Escobar
…Meanwhile, under the global radar, an invisible war in Mosul drags on, officially against al-Qaeda in Iraq jihadis but in fact a barely disguised anti-Sunni mini-pogrom conducted by – what else? – government-embedded militias. No one has asked the million-dollar-question: How come multicultural Mosul – a non-Kurdish city – is now being ruled by deputy governor Khoso Goran, a Kurd? It all started in January, when Maliki – and Washington – started spinning the Ninevah province offensive, centered in Mosul, as “the last battle” against al-Qaeda in Iraq. The notion that “al-Qaeda” – or Salafi-jihadis in general – could be in control of Mosul, a city of 1.7 million people, was absolutely ludicrous in the first place…Among its methodology, the Mosul operation also has not failed to deploy collective punishment techniques – like depriving large swathes of the city of water. Tribal chiefs had to plead to Mosul governor Duraid Kashmoula, according to the Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad: “The Council of Arab tribes in Mosul reported that the government cut off water supplies from the right side of the city for two days as part of a collective punishment policy against Arabs who refused to deny their pan-Arabism, and reject the campaign of ‘Kurdishization’ of the city.”…

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Death of Gazan couple brings death toll of blockade to 162
Ma’an News
Only two days separated the deaths of Nabhan Haboush and his wife Lulu Haboush the last two people to have died as a result of the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, the Popular Committee Against the Siege announced on Saturday, bringing the overall death toll to 162. Sixty-two-year-old Nabhan Habbush died of cancer, 59-year-old Lulu Haboush died of kidney failure….

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UPDATE ON PROF. FINKELSTEIN’S DEPORTATION
Desertpeace
There was a total blackout on this in the Israeli press until a few minutes ago. To be honest and fair, I do not think it was intentional, it was the Jewish Sabbath and most press offices were closed…But, finally, here is an update on the Finkelstein Case..

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UN says more roadblocks were installed by Israel in the West Bank
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies Report
The United Nations stated in a press release on Friday that Israel increased the number of roadblocks in the Palestinian territories since September last year although it officially pledged to reduce them. The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that since September 2007 until April this year the Israeli army installed 41 additional roadblocks, and that the total number of roadblocks is now 607 while the number was 566 in September last year…

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MAKING IRAQ DISAPPEAR
Malcom Lagauche
The magician David Copperfield once made the Statue of Liberty disappear. A worldwide audience gasped when it saw an empty space where the statue used to stand. Moments later, the magician reversed his trick and the Statue of Liberty again was in view. After the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. wanted Iraq to disappear in the minds of U.S. citizens. For 12 years, all the diabolical tricks against Iraq and the deaths of more than two million people were kept secret by collusion between the media and the U.S. government. But, during this time, there were some bizarre circumstances that occurred in which the memory of Iraq was erased….

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Followups
badger, Arablinks
A couple of posts back, I noted one of the roadblocks in the way of the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF) rejoining the government—namely the rejection by the Maliki government of the nominees of Khalaf al-Alyan, reviewing who he was and what that rejection meant. Today, AlHayat has some additional remarks by an IAF person that point in the same direction, only more bluntly….

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US and Britain Host Investment Conference in Bethlehem
Kawther Salam, Palestine Think Tank
Where will the Bethlehem Investors Conference lead the Palestinians? Who planned and hosted this conference, and why? What role does Israel play in this Investors Conference in Bethlehem? Who decides who is not allowed, and who is allowed, to attend the Investors Conference: Israel or the PA? Will the Investors Conference discuss the proposed joint economical project at the border? Why do the Americans have to stick their nose in every project and every political decision, we are already suffering under the criminal occupation of Israel without having to account for the thievery being implemented by the Americans. Will we have to kick them out as well once the Jews are gone?..

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Popular committee: The Gaza private sector is in a state of clinical death
Palestinian Information Center
The popular committee against the siege expressed Saturday its dismay at the deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, which reached frightening levels without any reaction on the part of UN organizations and the international community, warning that the private sector in the Strip is in a state of clinical death. In a press release received by the PIC, Rami Abdo, the spokesman for the committee, stated that during the last period, many activities of the private sector get paralyzed, most recently the commercial sector which completely collapsed except for small number of bakeries and transportation means….

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DESERTPEACE ACCUSED OF CENSORSHIP!
Desertpeace
Ironic that a Blog that goes on and on, post after post about and against Internet censorship gets accused of just that. The following is from my page called ‘Comments Are Not Free’…take special note of the sentence in red… Comments Are Not Free. The comments on this Blog are locked. I have explained the reasons for this a number of times. Basically it is to avoid… any form of racism including (real) antisemitism… any zionist propaganda … any form of sexism… obscenities of any kind… (…) To be attacked by zionists for my views is to be expected.. to have so-called friends do it is a completely different matter. One so-called ‘friendly blogger’ is obviously not happy with my policy on comments and posted the following on his blog… Wake Up From Your Slumber…Normally I would not respond in any way to such matters, but the Blog in question has a huge readership, and I felt they were entitled to an explanation….

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Troops detain 400 in Shiite areas of Baghdad
AFP
Iraqi police and US troops detained 400 people during search operations in two Shiite neighbourhoods of southwest Baghdad over the weekend and also seized weapons, the US military said on Saturday. Police detained 400 people on Friday and seized four mines, an automatic weapon, ammunition and a host of other materials that could be used for making bombs and mines, the US military said in a statement. “There was a large number of weapons confiscated,” it said…

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I KNOW THIS IS HARD TO BELIEVE ~~ BUT ISRAEL LIED AGAIN
Desertpeace
They say this, but do that… BUT… it’s expected so NOTHING is done about it. It’s like we are dealing with a child, we know he lies, but…. BUT WHAT!!!!! We are literally letting Israel get away with murder! It’s time to put an end to this NOW! Below is just the latest example of ‘getting caught in the act…..’..

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Al-Sadr lawmakers denounce Iraqi government, warn of ‘black clouds’ hanging over militia truce
HAMID AHMED, AP News
Lawmakers loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accused the Iraqi government of trying to crush the movement and warned Saturday of “black clouds” on the horizon for truces that have eased fighting between al-Sadr’s militia and security forces. The Sadrist Movement has heightened its rhetoric against the government in recent days, raising concerns over the cease-fires in the southern city of Basra and Baghdad’s Sadr City district, the stronghold of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia….

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US spending in Iraq ignored rules
BBC News
The payments were for goods such as trucks and bottled water for troops. An audit of some $8bn (£4bn) paid to US and Iraqi contractors has found that almost every payment failed to comply with US laws aimed at preventing fraud. In one instance, $11m was paid to a US company without any record of what goods or services were provided, the US defence department audit said…

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