A Case Study in Conservative Mendacity
Daniel De Groot, Open left
I noted last night that a supply of uranium from Iraq had been successfully moved to Montreal in secrecy. If you check into this, you’ll quickly find that the uranium a) was not weapons grade and b) was well known to the UN and IAEA and was being stored legally by Saddam’s government. It was legally in Iraq according to international law. I wondered if the right wing echo chamber would use this as “proof” that the WMD claims were true after all. I got even better than I hoped, as not only do they use it that way, but they reveal how dishonest they are by the way they have done this…

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Genocide in Iraq
DAVID MODEL
…Invading and occupying Iraq under the pretext of a preemptive war, a country already decimated by Dessert Storm, sanctions and no-fly-zones, represents the quintessential tragedy and hypocrisy of American foreign policy. To verify that the American Government is guilty of genocide in Iraq, I will establish a set of criteria based on the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and apply them to Iraq. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide sets out a number of criteria to evaluate whether or not a war crime attains the magnitude of genocide. These criteria are not without controversy but by examining the scholarly literature on the subject and the judgments of the International Criminal Court, I have established conservative standards to assess whether or not the American Government is responsible for genocide in Iraq.

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Medical Shortages Fatal for Kirkuk Patients
Patients in oil-rich city dying needlessly on the operating tables of its principal hospital.
By Ayub Nuri (ICR No. 263, 1-July-08)
Shortages at Kirkuk hospital’s neurosurgery unit are such that surgeons ask the families of patients to go out and buy the basic equipment required for operations. This, in a country where medical care is supposed to be free and in a city which is pumping hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day. Even the most essential items – such as Gelfoam sponges to stop bleeding – are unavailable. It’s not uncommon to see a surgeon standing helplessly over a patient while members of his or her family go off to the local market with a shopping list for the operation…

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Islamic Army in Iraq: Statement in the 88 Twentieth Revolution anniversary
Islamic Army in Iraq
…Today, as we recall the reality of the masterpieces of the exploits of the history of Iraq, which is “the Twentieth Revolution against the English occupation”, which represented the turning point in the history of modern Iraq, and a great series in the victory and the empowerment, the resistance factions in Iraq; armies and their battalions and fronts that have responded to God and His Messenger, peace be upon him, and stood against the aggression on our country had the right sprawl of the march of jihad and resistance. The Islamic Army in Iraq, is sharing the sons of Iraq’s the (88) anniversary of the start of the Twentieth Revaluation, and confirms that the choice of resistance is the best way to liberate Iraq and preserve the Arab and Islamic identity and unity, and all the work that is not based on the weapon is nothing to be mentioned…

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Abu Ghraib Torture Claims Spook CACI, L-3 Communications
Tom Burghardt, Antifascist Calling…
Will “outsourced” torture chickens finally come home to roost in American courts? On June 30, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Burke O’Neil LLC, of Philadelphia and Akeel & Valentine, PLC, of Troy, Michigan filed a series of lawsuits in federal district courts in Maryland, Ohio, Michigan and Washington state against über-contractors CACI International, Inc., CACI Premier Technology and L-3 Services Inc., a division of L-3 Communications Corporation. Monday’s announcement by CCR follow close on the heels of a similar suit filed in May in federal district court in Los Angeles by Iraqi torture victim Emad al-Janabi, also against CACI International, Inc. and L-3 Communications…

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Israel’s UK ambassador fails to respond to assault claim
Friends of Mohammed Omer: No response from Israeli ambassador to assault claim
Redress Newsblog
A week ago we asked the Israeli ambassador in Britain for the truth about the brutal attack on Mohammed Omer by security officials and, if appropriate, for an apology, compensation for his injuries and an undertaking in future to respect his right to go about his work unmolested. He has not replied. By all accounts Mohammed’s tormentors were taking an unhealthy interest in the whereabouts of his prize-money and put him in hospital when his answers weren’t to their liking. We sent Ambassador Ron Prosor numerous published reports and he will presumably have read John Pilger’s article in The Guardian. Pilger, twice winner of the Journalist of the Year award, can be relied on to check his sources for accuracy as far as is humanly possible…

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INTERNATIONAL CALL TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE IRAQI DETAINEES AND PRISONERS OF WAR IN IRAQ
A group of 120 politicians, academicians and Journalists from several countries issued an urgent appeal to protect the rights of the Iraqi detainees and prisoners of war in the American jails in Iraq . The Group also announced the formation of International Solidarity Committee with them and demanded that their treatment conforms with the Geneva Protocol vis-à-vis the detainees and prisoners of war…

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Israel locks down West Bank village
AlJazeera.net
Israeli forces have blockaded the Palestinian West Bank village of Ni’lin. Troops encircled Ni’lin on Sunday to prevent foreigners from joining protests against a network of razor-wire fences and concrete barricades that cut into occupied Palestinian land. “The protests have been getting more violent, and that is what we’re trying to stop,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said. David Chater, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the West Bank, said: “This village of 5,000 people is essentially being locked down under curfew, under a seige, as tight as anything that the Gaza Strip has experienced since last Friday…

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If There Was Any Doubt about Where the Pentagon Stands on Iran
Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com
It was dispelled Wednesday by Adm. Mike Mullen, who repeatedly made clear that he opposes an attack on Iran — whether by Israel or his own forces — and, moreover, favors dialogue with Tehran. While various media have printed or run excerpts of his press conference, I think it might be useful to post virtually all of his remarks regarding Iran just to illustrate how clear he was…

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Palestinian water shortages rooted in American-Zionist cooperation during British Mandate
Jake Norris, PNN
When the British arrived in Palestine at the close of World War I, they declared that their arrival would usher in a new period of modernity and prosperity. Nowhere would this be more keenly felt than in the area of water and irrigation. Working together with Zionist settlers and American hydraulic engineers, Britain would introduce new technologies that could raise the living standards of all Palestinians. In 1922 Winston Churchill summed up British arrogance by stating that “anyone who has visited Palestine recently must have seen how parts of the desert have been converted into gardens…the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards irrigation”. Yet a regular and reliable supply of water is anything but a certainty for Palestinians today…

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IRAQI DOCTORS: Returning home is suicide
BEGENA P PRADEEP
IRAQI doctors in Bahrain say they have no plans to answer an appeal for them to return home, describing any attempt to go back as suicide. Their reaction follows a conference in Baghdad late last month, which focused on ways to persuade hundreds of Iraqi doctors who fled the fighting to return… Iraqi doctors here claimed it was a trap and said they had no intention of risking their lives or their families’ safety. “Most of the doctors I know are convinced it is a trap,” said a 44-year-old consultant paediatrician, who is originally from Iraq but now has Bahraini citizenship. “Iraq’s Health Ministry is literally emptied of its Sunni staff. “For sectarian reasons we are threatened, forced to resign, kidnapped or murdered by certain groups.”…

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Palestinians Murder, Israelis Have Accidents
Lawrence of Cyberia
So, the JTA thinks it is a stupid suggestion (from James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal) that the “accidental killing” of American activist Rachel Corrie by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003 may have given the Palestinian who perpetrated Wednesday’s attack in Jerusalem the idea for turning his vehicle into a deadly weapon. The JTA has a point. It is impossible to know what goes through the mind of a murderer as he embarks upon his murders, so it is sheer speculation to suggest Wednesday’s killer might have been influenced by the Corrie “accident”. Besides, if he was influenced by a specific prior incident, why would it have to be the Corrie case that affected him? With all that the Palestinians go through under Israeli occupation, how self-centred do we have to be to think it was specifically the case of an American victim that influenced him? If he really was motivated to murder by the example of Israel’s own use of bulldozers to murder its opponents, wouldn’t it be more likely for him to be influenced by cases involving fellow Palestinians, like Jamal Fayed…

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MOHAMMED OMER: ‘WHY DID THEY TREAT ME LIKE THAT?’
Desertpeace
He has already seen everything. At 24, he has already been documenting the horrors of his city, Rafah, for six years. He photographs and writes, seeking to be a voice for those who are voiceless, as he puts it. On his Web site Rafah Today – like that of USA Today or Israel Today, only from Rafah – he paints a picture for readers around the world of the horrors of his city, the most afflicted of all cities in the anguished Gaza Strip, in strong and shocking colors. You will see there demolished houses and crushed bodies, tanks shelling people’s homes and lost children. He also writes for various publications abroad, including The Washington Report, several papers in Europe and, primarily, in Scandinavia, as well as for the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency…

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Jewish “Klansmen” tie Palestinian to power pole, beat him savagely
From Khalid Amayreh in el-Sammou, Hebron
Even in his wildest dreams, Midhat Radwan Abu Karsh never imagined that one day he would be tied up to a power pole and savagely beaten by bigoted Jewish settlers who believe that non-Jews are animals in a human shape. Yet, this is exactly what happened to him earlier this week when four Jewish terrorists ganged up on the 31-year-old Palestinian teacher as he was hiking in his land, awaiting Israeli peace activists whom he wanted to brief on the daily acts of vandalism, harassment and land theft at the hands of fanatical Jewish settlers, protected by the army and backed by powerful political parties. Abu Karsh accuses the settlers of being hell-bent on driving Palestinians away in order to take over their land…

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Cold Shoulders
Kathy Kelly, PeaceJournal.org
Over the past two years, here in Amman, Jordan, I’ve regularly visited the family of Umm Hamdi, an Iraqi woman forced out of her native Iraq four years ago by terrifying death threats after her husband, very likely prey to that same threatened violence, disappeared. Although often met with the proverbial “cold shoulder” when trying to improve conditions for her family, she persists,–in the daytime she does child care for another family and, in the evening, she knits, sews, and makes handicrafts to sell in a local market. Umm Hamdi is tough, strong and fiercely determined to provide for her children. Nevertheless, she’s wretchedly insecure as a single mother and one more refugee among thousands in a country where resources to cope with her anxious needs are very slim. And she is worried for her son who is still in Iraq…

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Please do not return our antiquities!
Fatih Abdulsalam, Azzaman
…These countries have returned to Baghdad some 5,000 stolen pieces but no one can guarantee that these treasures will not be stolen again. The country is still in turmoil. Instability prevails. We wonder how a government that is itself embroiled in corruption; lacks basic transparency procedures and lacks control beyond the U.S.-protected Green Zone can safeguard these treasures. And this corrupt government is the only success story the Americans are proud of in Iraq. Neither the government nor the U.S. troops are in a position to take care of Iraqi antiquities. When they cannot protect the living Iraqis it is too much to ask them to protect the artistic products of their ancient fathers. It is good to see stolen Iraqi antiquities being seized and returned to the country. But it is criminal to trust them to those ruling the country – whether the government or its U.S. protectors. I call upon all countries who have officially declared their seizure of stolen Iraqi antiquities to keep them temporarily in their national museums even if Iraq has to pay them for that…

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Afghan officials: US missiles killed 27 civilians.
AMIR SHAH and JASON STRAZIUSO, AP
Afghan officials said fighter aircraft battling militants accidentally killed up to 27 Afghans walking to a wedding ceremony in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday, the second military attack in three days with reports of civilian deaths… In the second incident early Sunday, the chief government official in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar province said villagers reported that as many as 27 people walking in a group toward a wedding were killed in a bombing. Up to 11 other people were wounded, Haji Amishah Gul said…

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DCI: IOF troops physically assaulted 10-year-old Palestinian boy in Qalqilya
Palestinian Information Center
Defense for children international-Palestine section (DCI-PS) documented in a report a brutal physical assault on a 10-year-old boy called Ezzat committed on June 11 by IOF troops seeking information on the location of a handgun, while he was in his father’s shop selling fodder and eggs along with his youngest brother and sister in the Sanniriya village, Qalqilya. According to the report, the boy was repeatedly beaten, slapped and punched in the head and stomach for half an hour. He was deeply shocked and lost two of his teeth as a result of the assault…

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AUTOMATED McCARTHYISM
Desertpeace
McCarthyism has come a long way since the dark days of the 1950’s… its new arena of ‘action’ is now the Internet. Instead of FBI goons doing searches for the suspected enemy, the dirty work is done today by robots. Google has used these ‘auto goons’ for some time, in fact, Automated McCarthyism has become their modus operandi. Just show any inclination on the Web that you might be a supporter of the Palestinian Cause or the Anti War Movement and ‘poof’ the robots got you!…

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LAST DAY TO SIGN THIS IMPORTANT PETITION
Desertpeace
We, the undersigned, condemn Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Gaza correspondent and author of the magazine’s regular feature, “Gaza on the Ground.” The 24-year-old Palestinian journalist was brutally assaulted by Israeli Shin Bet security officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing on his way home to Gaza on June 26. He had just received the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which he shared with independent American journalist Dahr Jamail. Omer’s award citation reads, “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” …

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July 6, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 26 Iraqis Killed; 43 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
The workweek in Iraq began with several deadly attacks. At least 26 Iraqis were killed 43 more were wounded across the country. The biggest attacks were in Baghdad and Jalawla. Meanwhile, an American soldier died of non-combat related causes. In Baghdad, six people were killed and 14 more were wounded when a car bomb blew up in Shabb; a second car bomb was defused at that spot. This was the third attack in four days near the Yarmuk Hospital A separate car bomb wounded five in Jamiya; the injured may have been policemen defusing a bomb. Also, three security personnel were wounded during operations, and two dumped bodies were found…

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