UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 06 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 06 Nov 2008
US: "It's Taliban's fault if we slaughter Afghan children"
ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and SANGAR RAHIMI, NYTimes
As Afghan officials reported more civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes on Thursday, witnesses to a strike that apparently hit a wedding party on Monday said the civilian death toll could be more than double the 40 reported so far by Afghan officials... Referring to the deaths in both that strike and another reported on Thursday, in which Afghan officials said at least seven civilians were killed in the northwestern province of Badghis, Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for United States forces, said, "We hope that it’s not from our fire, but we suspect it may well have been." In a telephone interview, Colonel Julian accused Taliban forces of "immersing themselves" among civilians on Monday to deter American forces from using airstrikes...

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At Least Seven Civilians Among 20 Killed in Latest US Strike in Afghanistan
Jason Ditz
Just a day after reports emerged that a US air strike against a wedding party in Kandahar earlier in the week killed at least 40 civilians, another US strike in Badghis Province killed at least another 20 people, with at least seven of them reportedly civilians. Provincial Council head Dawlat Osmani said his information suggests that as many as 30 civilians had been killed....

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The Beat Goes On: More Atrocity as Afghanistan Braces for Obama Surge
Chris Floyd
While America continues its giddy, self-congratulatory celebration of "change," Afghans find themselves mired in the tragically familiar: yet another round of mourning for yet another massacre of innocent civilians in yet another blind, bludgeoning air strike by American forces. This time almost 40 people, including 10 women and 23 children, were ripped to shreds of bone and viscera when an American missile struck a wedding party in the remote village of Wech Bakhtu, according to Washington's own hand-picked native satrap, President Hamid Karzai...

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Obama's Chief of Staff Choice Favors Compulsory Universal Service
J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner
Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-Elect Barack Obama's choice for chief of staff in his incoming administration, is co-author of a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, that calls for, among other things, compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25. The following excerpt is from pages 61-62 of the 2006 book: It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

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Emanuel's Father: Let Arabs Clean the White House Floors, Rahm's All Over Israel Policy
Philip Weiss
Rahm Emanuel's father, who was in the terrorist organization the Irgun, talking to the Israeli press: In an interview with Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son's appointment would be good for Israel. "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel," he was quoted as saying. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House." The Ma'ariv article also quoted Dr. Emanuel as saying that his son spends most summers visiting in Tel Aviv, and that he speaks Hebrew, but not fluently...

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A Look Under the Hood of the (Potential) Obama Administration
Joshua Frank
Tuesday’s celebration hangovers have finally started to wear off, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Change will be coming to Washington in January, but it is difficult to decipher what form it will take. Early clues, however, suggest that Barack Obama’s administration will prove unlikely to alter the fundamental political machinery that has led us into war and economic turmoil. Below is a brief summary of Obama’s potential choices for a few key roles in his administration...

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Shell-Iraq gas company would be Basra natural gas monopoly
Iraq Oil Report
A secret document obtained by United Press International reveals a planned joint venture company between Royal Dutch Shell and the Iraqi Oil Ministry would give the company a 25-year monopoly on the gas industry of southern Iraq, Ben Lando reports for United Press International. Shell and the ministry are currently negotiating the terms of the joint venture company. On Sept. 22 the two signed what’s known as a "Heads of Agreement," basically a rough draft of the contract, a legal framework establishing the management team and the scope, purpose and other details of the company. Though it’s non-binding, the confidential document is telling...

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Iranian leader offers Obama landmark congratulations on election win
The Canadian Press.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday congratulated Barack Obama on his election win - the first time an Iranian leader has offered such wishes to a U.S. president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. An analyst said Ahmadinejad's message was a gesture from the hardline president that he is open to some sort of reconciliation with the United States. Obama has said he is willing to hold direct diplomacy with Iranian leaders...

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Rising Number of US Air-Strikes Take Toll in Afghanistan
Jason Ditz
As violence in Afghanistan spirals even further out of control, the United States military is relying more and more on air power in combat situations. The number of air missions launched by the US is up 31% over last year, and these missions are taking an increasing toll on the Afghan civilian populace....

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Travesty of Tolerance on Display in Jerusalem
Museum lays waste to ancient Muslim cemetery
Jonathan Cook
Israel seems to have little time for the irony that a modern Jewish shrine to "coexistence and tolerance" is being built on the graves of the city's Muslim forefathers. The Israeli Supreme Court's approval last week of the building of a Jewish Museum of Tolerance over an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem is the latest in a series of legal and physical assaults on Islamic holy places since Israel's founding in 1948. The verdict ended a four-year struggle by Islamic authorities inside Israel to stop development at the Mamilla cemetery, which lies in the shadow of Jerusalem's Old City walls, close to Jaffa Gate...

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Fear of Flying, Men in Love & all that Jazz...
Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues
... K. my best friend, whom I have known for donkey years as a "revolutionary Marxist", flabbergasted me tonight. He has become so mellow with the years. He spoke of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Of course K. loves to smoke his hashish daily, coupled with his favorite drink. Hell, if I had as many joints and glasses as he did, I would become Gandhi myself, let alone preach him. I will metamorphose into a female Gandhi, like Muqtada al Sadr, the expert driller and rapist...

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Fox News Angrily Smears Nader For Daring To Criticize Obama
Paul Joseph Watson
A Fox News host and his panel angrily proclaimed that Ralph Nader’s career was finished after the Independent Party candidate dared to criticize Barack Obama’s record of toadying up to corporate interests, as top liberal websites applauded Fox News for their aggressive defense of the president elect. The corporate media’s frightening obsession with maintaining Obama’s messianic complex now apparently extends to the so-called "right-wing" Fox News, who have eagerly picked up the baton and are right behind the mindless fervor of Obamamania - acting in lock step with the establishment left...


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Iraq Seeks More Security Pact Talks - US Says They’re Done
Jason Ditz
The United States has officially responded to the Iraqi government’s proposed amendments to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) today. The terms of the response have not yet been made public, but early reports indicate that, as suggested by White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe on Tuesday, the US had accepted some of the amendments and rejected others...

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Ahmadinejad congratulates, cautions and advises Obama
Borzou Daragahi
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today posted a congratulatory message to President-elect Barack Obama on his official website. But his lengthy note also cautioned Obama to change America's ways and to reverse policies based on what he described as "belligerency, occupation, bullying, demagoguery," among other things....

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The Change We Need
Obama’s First Appointment Is Son Of Zionist Terrorist
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet
President elect Barack Obama’s first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, who is set to become chief-of-staff, is the son of a member of the Zionist terrorist group Irgun, which was responsible for bombing hotels, marketplaces as well as the infamous Deir Yassin massacre, in which hundreds of Palestinian villagers were slaughtered....Cries of "sins of the father" lose their gusto when one considers the fact that, after the 1996 re-election of Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel "Was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! … Dead! … Dead!’ and plunging the knife into the table after every name." Sounds like a nice guy. Rahm Emanuel is also an enthusiastic supporter of the United States Public Service Academy Act, a lobbying group founded in 2006 in order to promote the foundation of an American public service academy modeled on the military academies - a youth corps whose students would be trained in "civilian internship in the armed forces".

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Cu Chi Tunnels - Part 1
Reza Fiyouzat
...In light of the emergence of the Tunnels of Gaza, which have been dug and developed as a response to prison-like conditions imposed on the entire Gaza Strip, it should be instructive to study other instances of tunnels used to combat oppression, particularly in anti-colonial/anti-imperialist struggles; in this case by the Vietnamese people against the French and later the Americans (as well as the Australians, South Koreans, etc., who were recruited into the American military's Operation Rape Vietnam)....

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Judge Advocate General informs the High Court that he will not amend the indictment in the shooting of a bound Palestinian in Ni'lin
B'Tselem
On 4 November 2008, the judge advocate general, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, informed the High Court of Justice that, despite the court's suggestion that the prosecution consider filing more serious charges against Lt. Col. Omri Borberg and Staff Sgt. L. in the case involving the shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian in Ni'lin, he decided to leave the indictment as it is. Attorney Dan Yakir, of the Association for Civil Rights, stated on behalf of the petitioners – the Association for Civil Rights, B'Tselem, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, and Yesh Din – that, "We regret that, despite the severe criticism voiced by the High Court, the JAG remains firm in his opinion that abuse of a bound Palestinian detainee by a senior officer and shooting him is, at most, unbecoming conduct."...

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Abu Hussein's invitation to Damascus
Sami Moubayed
In the Muslim world, men take pride in their first born baby boy and they are often called "the father of X" for the remainder of their lives. In turn, first born boys are named after their grandfathers, and this explains why Syrians affectionately call Barack Obama "Abu Hussein" (father of Hussein). He does not have a baby boy - just two beautiful girls - yet that doesn't really matter for the overwhelmed Syrians who woke up to hear the news coming in from Washington on November 5 that Barack Hussein Obama had become the 44th president of the United States... For the past 12 months, Damascus has welcomed a wide array of US officials who are either members of the Obama team or supporters of the new president. All of them came carrying a similar message: The policy of no dialogue with Damascus under Bush has been unproductive for the region and the United States. That is going to change, they said, when Obama reaches the White House. All of them were warmly received by the Syrians, at a popular and official level, including former ambassador Daniel Kurtzer and former national security advisor under president Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski...

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Life set to get harder for Nahr al-Bared refugees
IRIN News
As he picked plastics and paper off the rubble-filled conveyor belt, Issam Sayyed indicated to a white house behind him pock-marked with bullet holes and with its roof caved in. "That’s my home," said the father of nine, a Palestinian refugee displaced from the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon, which was ruined in a 15-week war last year between the army and Islamist insurgents. Soon the bulldozers clearing the ruins would knock down the white house along with the others, and the remains of Sayyed’s home would be passing before his hands as he sorted through the rubble for a wage of US$13 a day...

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U.S. Foreign Policy Will Not Change
Harry van Bommel, Translated By Niek Hendrix
...Obama became the preferred candidate with his message of change not only in the U.S. but also outside. Obviously we all assume that Obama's policy will be very different from that of his rival McCain, let alone the policy of Bush. After the trail of destruction the latter left, the world indeed wants the promised change and especially in the foreign policy of the U.S. Is it correct however to say that Obama will bring these far reaching changes? A glance at his election program and public statements suggest otherwise. Obama became known for his call to withdraw the American troops from Iraq. In this way he represented the opinion of the large majority of the American people. Gradually this position was moderated. Obama did indeed write in the New York Times that the U.S. must withdraw from Iraq, but not until 2010 and with an abandonment of a force for the hunt on Al-Qaida and the training of the Iraqi Army. We are not talking about a small group here: this summer the Democrat Richard Danzig, who probably will become the minister of defence, was talking about a force between 30,000 and 55,000 men. By the way, it is not intended that the released troops will go home. They are intended for deployment in Afganistan...

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November 6, 2008: 13 Iraqis Killed, 34 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 13 Iraqis were killed and another 34 were wounded in the latest attacks. Baghdad saw another round of bombings, even as the U.S. and two other countries plan to reduce their troops or remove them completely. In military news, one U.S. brigade will return to home early as part of the U.S. drawdown. Also, Bulgaria's 155 servicemembers will leave Iraq by year's end when their mandate expires. Meanwhile, most of Romania's troops will leave, but some may remain to work as counselors...

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