Film Criticism, Charles Clarke and Me
Les Skeates, Outside the Gates
…What is happening in Iraq with the bombings of Mosques, festivals and markets is partly designed to disrupt and ultimately stop a similar secular/faith alliance developing amongst the Iraqi resistance. Sectarian terror of this sort only benefits the occupation forces. This was Northern Ireland. Has been Palestine for the past 38 years and is now Iraq. Maybe I have underestimated what the Generals learnt from ‘The Battle of Algiers’?…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17126

Syria: The Next Iraq
Robert Dreyfuss
Three years ago, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely viewed as the first chapter of a region-wide strategy to remake the entire map of the Middle East. Following Iraq, Syria and Iran would be the next targets, after which the oil-rich states of the Arabian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, would follow. It was a policy driven by neoconservatives in and outside of the Bush administration, and they didn’t exactly make an effort to keep it secret…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17136

TvNewsLIES Challenges Believers of the Official Version of 9/11:
Where the Hell Is YOUR Proof?
Jesse, Editor – TvNewsLIES.org
To this day, there has been no independent official inquiry into the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Kean Commission, with which most Americans are familiar, was based on the Bush/PNAC version of events. It was charged with probing the breakdown of intelligence prior to the attacks and making suggestions for improving communications among the competing agencies involved. The Commission, formed after more than a year of opposition by the Bush administration, did not∑repeat…did NOT∑investigate or report about the causes of the attacks…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17140

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report
David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson and Douglas Jehl, New York Times
I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday. Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17137

Another Dodgy Dossier: The Mehlis Report On the Harari Assassination
Social Democracy Now
The Mehlis report on the Hariri assassination is just another dodgy dossier. In order to lay the blame for the assassination at Syria’s door it specializes in innuendo and unverified allegations by anonymous persons. The only named individual purporting to possess information incriminating Syria turns out to be a multiply convicted swindler who was paid handsomely for his revelations by a Syrian dissident…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17123

Improvised Iraqi weapons deadly to USA occupation forces
GI Total Dead: 3 short of 2,000
Ernesto Cienfuegos, La Voz de Aztlan
A primary reason for the defeat of the USA in Vietnam was the determined insurgency by the Vietcong. The Vietcong, though lacking conventional weaponry and field supplies, defeated the vastly better equipped USA armed forces by utilizing improvised weapons and extremely effective guerilla tactics. These very same tactics by the Iraqi insurgency are today taking a very heavy toll on USA occupation soldiers. The Iraqi fighters are following the ancient and classical principles of insurgency: when the enemy attacks, retreat; when the enemy digs in, harass; when the enemy is exhausted, attack…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17135

Salivate, Citizen
Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers
… I was indoctrinated by US government propaganda that taught me to believe that American lives are more important or valuable than the lives of people from other countries. Why do Americans care when two of their soldiers are killed in a foreign country – in a foreign country? But when tens of thousands of innocents – in their own homes – in their own country – are bombed and murdered by us, it is not even reported in American news? Why do the brainwashed cry when one or two soldiers are killed fighting in a country – a country that they had no business being in the first place – but don’t care for the innocent children murdered by those soldiers at the same time?…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17134

Colonel quits as fears grow for the safety of his men
Sean Rayment, Telegraph
A senior army officer serving in Iraq, who voiced concerns over a lack of armoured vehicles for his men, has resigned. Details of the resignation emerged just days after another of Lt Col Nick Henderson’s soldiers was killed in a bomb attack in Basra. Last month the 43-year old commanding officer of 1st Bn Coldstream Guards, who is married with children, made a request to senior officers for extra Warrior armoured personnel carriers…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17133

Cheney aide passed Plame’s name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak investigation say
Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story
With the possibility of indictments just days away, sources close to the investigation into who outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have provided RAW STORY a more detailed account into how and why Plame’s name was leaked and what role the Pentagon and the vice president’s office played. Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on loan from the office of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources said. Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, the sources said…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17132

Alice in Wonderland: The World As It Is Today
Sam Hamod
I remember reading ALICE IN WONDERLAND and thinking, how in the world did that world become so upside down. But guess what, weâ•re in an Alice in Wonderland world right now. G W Bush says things are better in Iraq; yet, more of our troops and more Iraqi civilians are being killed everyday and there is no safe place for any American or foreigner except in the Green Zone…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=16911

Former UN Weapons Inspector: Don’t Rule Out Staged Government Terror
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Former United Nations weapons inspector and Marine Scott Ritter appeared on The Alex Jones Show and stated that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of the Bush administration staging a terror attack in order to jolt a wavering foreign policy agenda back on track. Ritter compared the atmosphere within the administration to that during the time of Watergate, where Nixon considered utilizing America’s nuclear arsenal to create a devastating diversion from domestic calamity. “Nothing this administration would do would surprise me, they’re desperate right now”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17131

Enemy Body Counts Revived
Bradley Graham, The Washington Post
US is citing tolls to show success in Iraq. Eager to demonstrate success in Iraq, the U.S. military has abandoned its previous refusal to publicize enemy body counts and now cites such numbers periodically to show the impact of some counterinsurgency operations. The revival of body counts, a practice discredited during the Vietnam War, has apparently come without formal guidance from the Pentagon’s leadership. Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said they knew of no written directive detailing the circumstances under which such figures should be released or the steps that should be taken to ensure accuracy…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17130

Is Anyone Responsible for Iraq’s Disaster?
Ira Chernus
Once again, a mainstream journalist has missed the real story because he didn’t check out CommonDreams.org. This time it’s the New York Times’ top dog in Baghdad, Dexter Filkins, writing a long piece about the tragedy of Nathan Sassaman (…) Sassaman’s own explanation sounded crazy: “Fear and violence∑can convince these people that we are here to help them.” So Filkins now omits that quote, which he had once published, and makes it all sound very reasonable: “His theory was that no progress would be possible without order first and that ultimately, even if his men were hard on the locals, they would come around.” (…) One night early in January, 2004, Sassaman’s hard-line theory of “order first” led some of his men to throw two captive Iraqis into the Tigris river. Only one came out alive. Sassaman tried to cover up their crime, got caught, and received an official reprimand for criminal conduct, which effectively ended his military career. But Filkins’ current article lays no blame on Sassaman, nor on Bush administration decision-makers…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17129

Another Military Blogger Silenced
Matt, The Tattered Coat
Months ago, in response to a post I wrote about the military blogger Colby Buzzell, Kate of Broken Windows told me to pay attention to Daniel Goetz, a soldier writing a blog called All the King’s Horses. Regrettably, I never followed her advice. And now, as Lizzy, Fred, and Navyswan tell us, it is too late. It is too late because Daniel has been silenced, against his will. And not only has he been silenced ˜ he has been forced to publicly declare himself “a supporter of the administration and of her policies”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17128

IEDs: Iraq rebels’ deadly weapon against US troops
AFP
The most powerful military force in the world faces a steady loss of life in Iraq from makeshift bombs planted by or even under the roadside ˜ deadly items soldiers call improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. While the euphemism is a catch-all term that also includes small bombs made with home-made explosives, in Iraq it more often refers to bombs built by insurgents using military-grade ammunition…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17124

Iraqi oil exports grind to a halt
BBC News
Oil exports from Iraq have been completely halted by a combination of attacks and bad weather, reports say. Four sabotage attacks brought exports from Northern Iraq to a halt on Sunday and officials warned the damage may take a month to repair. The problem worsened on Monday when a pipeline carrying crude to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was hit in an attack…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17139

Just another Iraqi Town
Sectarian Cleansing Threatens Iraqi’s Future
Sabah Ali, BRussells Tribunal
… I want to tell you about the conspiracy against this town, the bad conditions due to the existence of the American and the Iraqi troops who are supporting them. Kidnappings, looting, and thefts are regular under the American coverage. When a person is kidnapped or killed near the American tanks and vehicles and they do not do anything, how do you explain this? And when there is a raid they cut the roads and surround the town, they do not allow any body and anything to go out or in for days. The population here is 150.000, not to mention the surrounding villages, and we do not have a hospital, how do you think it is possible to get any medical help in those days. A woman died delivering a baby, because we could not take her to a hospital, another one was actually killed with her baby and her brother in law when the American airplane shot their car when the family was taking her to the hospital. Now the problem is even worse with hundreds of refugees immigrated to this town running away from the sectarian cleansing which is happening in different places in Iraq…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17105

Après Rove le Déluge
Mike Whitney
Can Bush survive in a post-Rove world? Not likely. The Bush persona is mainly the invention of its author Rove; a careful stitching together of religious and western imagery, of pious moralizing and cowboy “straight-talk”. Originally, Bush was nothing more than a formless glob of clay that uber-advisor Rove tenderly sculpted and brought to life. In many ways Bush is nothing more than the political vehicle for the aspirations, ambitions, and objectives of his constituents. He wasn’t chosen as a presidential nominee for his abilities, but for his for his willingness to follow orders and carry out the corporate agenda without question…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17110

Autopsy reports reveal homicides of detainees in U.S. custody
ACLU
…Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy reveleaved bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominatnly recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17121

ACLU reports 21 homicides in U.S. custody
LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
At least 21 detainees who died while being held in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed, many during or after interrogations, according to an analysis of Defense Department data by the American Civil Liberties Union. The analysis, released Monday, looked at 44 deaths described in records obtained by the ACLU. Of those, the group characterized 21 as homicides, and said at least eight resulted from abusive techniques by military or intelligence officers, such as strangulation or “blunt force injuries,” as noted in the autopsy reports…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17119

Constitution Referendum: Too Democratic to be American!
Sabah Ali, BRussells Tribunal
…Back to the balloting: It was announced that 3 Iraqi provinces said NO, in Salah Addeen, Anbar (94-95%), and Musol (80%-100%) in different parts of the city. This means that the draft failed, because, according to the Transitional Administrative Law put by Bremer, the ex-American head of the occupation authorities, if two thirds in 3 provinces said NO, the constitution fails. (Strangely) enough the Referendum committee denied that there is any official numbers in Musol yet, 8 days after the balloting, and that there are such numbers available in 12 other provinces which said YES! The implication is obvious; the Musol results are going to be changed…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17106

Natural Disasters and the Militarization of America
Michel Chossudovsky, Globalresearch.ca
…The renewed call for a greater role for the military in the country’s civilian affairs has emerged at a critical political juncture. The Plame-CIA leak investigation, led by Special Counsel Fitzgerald could result in criminal charges and impeachment procedures directed against key members of the Bush Cabinet, including Vice President Dick Cheney. While the “war on terrorism” is still the main pretext for a greater role of the military, natural disasters constitute a new and innovative justification…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17102

Iraq Charter Appears to Have Failed: Sunni Leader
Ahmad Atta, IOL Staff
The draft Iraqi constitution appears to have failed as the Sunni province of Nineveh joined forces with two other Sunni districts in voting down the document, a senior Sunni leader has said. “We received credible information that vote counting in the northern city of Mosul, capital of the predominantly-Sunni Nineveh, indicated that more than two-thirds of voters had rejected the draft,” Saleh Al-Mutlaq, the leader of the umbrella body Iraqi National Dialogue Council, told IslamOnline.net…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17122

GI Special 3C92: “It’s Bad Down There” – October 24, 2005
www.militaryproject.org
…Here in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Sunni Arab insurgents are waging their fiercest war against American troops, attacking with relative impunity just blocks from Marine-controlled territory. Every day, the Americans fight to hold their turf in a war against an enemy who seems to be everywhere but is not often seen. The cost has been high: in the last six weeks, 21 Americans have been killed here, far more than in any other city in Iraq and double the number of deaths in Baghdad, a city with a population 15 times as large…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17116

The US is Still the US Iraq is Not Vietnam, But…
NORMAN SOLOMON
Many politicians and pundits have told us that “Iraq is not Vietnam.” Certainly, any competent geographer would agree. Substantively, the histories of Iraq and Vietnam are very different. And the dynamics of U.S. military intervention in the two countries — while more similar than the American news media generally acknowledge — are far from identical. Iraq is not Vietnam. But the United States is the United States. War after war, decade after decade, the U.S. news media have continued to serve those in Washington who strive to set the national agenda for war and lay down flagstones on the path to military intervention…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17115

The Plame Game
Shades of Iran/Contra
MICHAEL DONNELLY
It’s down to the finish line this week for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe into just who in the Bush regime outed CIA agent Valerie Plame in a lame attempt to counteract her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson’s refutation of Bush’s famed “sixteen words” which led us into war. The words, which Wilson rightly called a “lie” were uttered at the January 28, 2003 State of the Union Address and were a major part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq. They are: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17114

Media, Democrats Complicit in Rush to War
Patrick J. Buchanan
While President Bush and his War Cabinet bear full moral responsibility for Iraq, they could not have taken us to war without the complicity of the “adversary press” and “loyal opposition.” Today, this town is salivating over the prospect that Karl Rove and “Scooter” Libby will be indicted for outing Joe Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative. Thirty months ago, many of those anxious to see the White House brought down were hauling its water. Consider the role played by our newspaper of record, The New York Times…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17113

To Naseem Rejwan on Jews, Sunnis & Shiites
Wafaa’ Al-Natheema
…Since at least the 1940s, all census conducted in IRAQ including those under the Baath party were not providing questionnaire about any religion’s sects (Orthodox, Catholic, Sunni, Shiite, etc..) The forms requested individuals to fill in whether they were Moslems, Christians, Jews or Sabeans. So how did the industrial west come to the conclusion that Sunnis are the minority in Iraq when this matter has not been documented?…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17112

In Your Face Destruction of the Constitution
Kurt Nimmo, Another day in the empire
It should be obvious by now all hope of restoring a constitutional republic is down the tubes, especially when our very own Congress critters have no understanding of how the Constitution works or what the language of the document means. Consider Republican senators Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chafee as they questioned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. Hagel and Chafee “were among several lawmakers who asked Rice whether the Bush administration was considering military action against Iran and Syria, and asked whether the president would circumvent congressional authorization if the White House chose that option”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17111

Rigging accusations surround Iraq referendum result
James Cogan, WSWS
While no official result has been announced yet in the October 15 referendum on the draft Iraqi constitution, US officials are claiming it was endorsed by the majority of Iraqis. The count, however, is already surrounded by accusations of ballot-rigging and fraud and will to be regarded as illegitimate by wide sections of the Iraqi population…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17109

Iraq war foes ready for 2,000th military death
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters
Cindy Sheehan, the military mother who made her son’s death in Iraq a rallying point for the anti-war movement, plans to tie herself to the White House fence to protest the milestone of 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq. “I’m going to go to Washington, D.C. and I’m going to give a speech at the White House, and after I do, I’m going to tie myself to the fence and refuse to leave until they agree to bring our troops home,” Sheehan said in a telephone interview last week as the milestone approached. “And I’ll probably get arrested, and when I get out, I’ll go back and do the same thing,” she said…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17108

Tomgram: Facing a Nameless War
Tom Engelhardt
…Given Lasseter’s piece and similar reports elsewhere — Rory Carroll of the Guardian, recently kidnapped and released, wrote, “Government officials admit that Shia militias with links to Iran have infiltrated the police and army. Human rights groups accuse them of operating death squads against Sunnis.” — another question might be asked: What is the Iraqi Army actually being stood up for? The Iraqi government in Baghdad’s Green Zone is an awkward Shiite-Kurdish alliance. Little surprise that the new army should also be mainly a mix of Shiite and Kurdish units, or that its goals should be less than “national.”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17107

3 massive vehicle bombs explode near hotel in Baghdad; at least 20 dead
ROBERT H. REID
Three massive vehicle bombs exploded Monday near the Palestine Hotel, home to many western journalists, killing at least 20 people. Dramatic TV pictures showed one of the bombers driving a cement truck through the concrete blast walls that guard the hotel, then blowing up his vehicle. Iraq’s national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said the attack, which appeared well-planned, was a clear effort to take over the hotel and seize journalists as hostages…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17118

Tomgram: Weissman on the Plame Case in Perspective
Tom Engelhardt & Steve Weissman
As many now know, Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Counsel in the Plame case, set up an official website last week. Something tells me he isn’t planning on going anywhere soon. While we await the indictments to come, consider the strange history of the 1982 CIA shield law that triggered the process (as Steve Weissman explains it below). It was a backlash law, a dream law of the right; it was a response to the 1960s, to the Church Committee’s revelations of CIA assassination plots, coup attempts, black propaganda operations and the like, to the urge to put even minimal constraints on an “intelligence” agency that had run amok in the world; and it was a response to the “rogue” CIA agent Philip Agee who named names…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17101

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 23 October 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice.
…US F-16 fighter bombers bombed four peaceful houses south of the city of al-Qa’im near the Iraqi border with Syria, completely destroying them. The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reported residents of al-Qa’im who witnessed the attack as saying that the reason for the American bomb raid was that Resistance fighters had attacked an American helicopter with medium weapons near those houses but had been unable to bring down the American aircraft. Less than an hour later the American warplanes bombed the four houses, razing them to the ground…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17100

‘We have proof UK bombed us’
Gulf Daily News
Iran said yesterday it has proof that Britain was involved in a double bomb attack last week that killed six people and injured more than 100 in Ahvaz. The British embassy in Tehran immediately rejected the allegations. “Information obtained show that Britain is the main accused in the recent events,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state TV…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17099

Grieving Iraq family sees no end to “rivers of blood‰
Reuters
Adel Abed Hammed was a skinny 31-year-old so withdrawn he sometimes went days without talking to anybody and would let only his mother touch him. Mentally ill since childhood, he used to wander the streets of Baghdad alone. One day he chanced on some American soldiers who shot him dead after he took fright at a bullet fired over his head. “I wouldn’t feel such misery if he wasn’t so sick but that makes it double for me,” said his mother. “He was like a child”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=17098