UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 11 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 11 Nov 2008
Happy Days: No Crime, No Foul for the Media-Political Club
Chris Floyd
Take for example the piece below by Salon.com's own Joan Walsh, who would certainly consider herself one of the fiercest critics of the Bush Administration around. Yet here she is, deeply stirred by Condi Rice's tribute to the historical significance of Barack Obama's election: Am I a total sap to find Condoleezza Rice's reaction to Barack Obama's victory moving? She looked like a little girl on Christmas. She looked 20 years younger, at least. That grim mask of determination and repression was gone...I know, she bears enormous responsibility for the nightmare of the Iraq war. But since this is a day to appreciate the opening to change that Obama's election creates, I think it's a day to be happy to see Condi Rice happy, and to hope she puts her experience and intelligence to work undoing the wrongs of the Bush administration. My word, yes! Let's be happy that Condi is happy! Let's not put Condi on trial for war crimes, or bother her with investigations and tribunals. Let's not take her to Fallujah and put her in front of, say, a woman who has seen her own children blown to bits just like the four little girls in Birmingham... Not only is Obama not going to pursue any kind of criminal investigation of war crimes, torture, concentration camps, warrantless spying and the innumerable other high crimes of the past eight years -- he is not even going to be pressured to do so, not even tepidly, by the leading lights of the "progressive" movement...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48706
Afghan resistance statement
A Matter to Ponder for Obama
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
...It is, therefore, imperative for Obama to put an end to all the policies being followed by his Opposition Party, the Republicans and pull out US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq forthwith. If Obama and the Democrats would like to follow into the steps of Bush and see their magnanimity in oppressing and subjugating nations and nurture the ambitions of prolonging the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, then it is clear that the fate of the Democrats will be even more shameful and despicable than the Republicans. They will not bring the ship of the downfall of USA safely to the coast of rescue and will not land it securely. It was because of this sky-high expenditure, which is now pushing America to the verge of penury and their economic institutions are melting down. The Europe and the rest of the world are pondering to bring about changes in their financial relations with USA...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48679
Afghan Insurgency Stronger Than Ever
CBS
The war President-elect Barack Obama is inheriting in Afghanistan includes an insurgency that's stronger than ever. And it's creeping ever-closer to the Afghan capital. In a video obtained by CBS News, a U.S. convoy is attacked less than 20 miles from Kabul. "I think in Afghanistan, we really dropped the ball for a long time," said Karin von Hippel of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. It's now widely agreed America's new president needs a new approach, CBS News cheif foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports. President-elect Obama's emerging strategy appears to shift focus to a regional solution to Afghanistan's problems...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48693
Palestinians Scold Dividing Hamas, Fatah
Motasem Dalloul, IOL Correspondent
Marking the fourth anniversary of their ironic leader Yasser Arafat's death, many Palestinians blame rivals Fatah and Hamas for an ever-increasing divide and hijacking unity hopes. "For the failure of the dialogue, I blame both Hamas and Fatah," Mahmoud Joneed, an unemployed worker from Gaza, told IslamOnline.net... "Both sides are blamed," insists Mohammed Nabeel, a shopkeeper. Both sides are liars and people don't trust them," he fumed. "Both should have offered bitter concessions to guarantee a fruitful dialogue. But this did not happen."...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48698
Obama's Afghanistan Plan
IslamOnline.net
US President-elect Barack Obama plans a new regional approach to the war in Afghanistan once he assumes office in January, which will include engaging key players like arch foe Iran. "As we look to the future, it would be helpful to have an interlocutor" to explore shared objectives, one senior US military official told the Washington Post on Tuesday, November 11. In a major break with outgoing George Bush, Obama plans a regional strategy to tackle the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, where US causalities this year were the highest since invading the country in 2001. According Obama military strategists, the bedrock Bush administration policy towards key regional players has outlived its usefulness. They believe Iran, which borders Afghanistan from the west, should be considered in formulating any Afghanistan plan. The Iranians "don't want Sunni extremists in charge of Afghanistan any more than we do," said the senior military official...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48699
UNRWA to stop providing services to Gaza as border crossings remain closed
Rami Almeghari - IMEMC
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza warned on Tuesday it would be forced to stop providing services to registered Palestinian refugees unless the Israeli closure of crossings stops. Christopher Gunness, official spokesperson of UNRWA told media outlets in Gaza that his organization would be obliged to stop providing food assistance to more than 750,000 registered Palestinian refugees in a couple of days if the Israeli closure of crossings continue...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48701
Media blackout? International journalists report being barred from entering, exiting Gaza
Ma'an news
Israel has limited food and fuel shipments into Gaza, and now appears to be preventing journalists from entering and even leaving the area. Several journalists have speculated that Israel hopes to limit press coverage of the effects of its latest blockade. On Tuesday Dirk Jan Visser, a photographer with a foreign news service, was denied entry into the Gaza Strip, on Monday BBC journalist Aleem Maqbool and his colleague were denied entry into Gaza, and a French journalist, "V" was denied permission to leave...

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US May Lose Its 'AAA' Rating
CNBC
The United States may be on course to lose its 'AAA' rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated, according to Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche. "The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said... In order to solve or stem the economic slowdown, Hennecke suggested the US would have to radically reduce spending across all sectors and recall all its troops from around the world...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48696
Christians In Iraq
Warren Mass
Saddam Hussein, who was a secularized Sunni Muslim, had no set agenda against members of religions other than his own. Avak Asadourian, Iraq's Armenian archbishop, told the April 21, 2003 Christian Science Monitor, "We enjoyed total religious freedom and there was no religious discrimination" under Saddam's rule.... That was then. But because of violence against Christians in post-Saddam Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled, and the country's Christian population has plummeted from 800,000 five years ago to an estimated 250,000 today. These days, the Iraqi government is intertwined with Iran and is itself moving in the direction of becoming a radical Islamic state...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48692
Boycotting Israeli settlement products: tactic vs. strategy
Omar Barghouti, The Electronic Intifada
There has been a spate of recent news reports on international companies moving out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to locations inside the internationally-recognized boundary between Israel and the West Bank. The impression is made that boycotting products originating in Israel's illegal colonies in the West Bank is on its way to becoming mainstream, handing the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement with a fresh, substantial victory. While this development should indeed be celebrated by all BDS activists anywhere, caution is called for in distinguishing between advocating such a targeted boycott as a tactic -- leading to the ultimate goal of boycotting all Israeli goods and services -- and as an end in itself. While the former may be necessary in some countries as a convenient tool of raising awareness and promoting debate about Israel's colonial and apartheid regime, the latter, despite its lure, would be in direct contradiction with the stated objectives of the Palestinian boycott movement...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48684
Washington secretly authorized military raids on 20 countries since 2004
Bill Van Auken, WSWS
Since 2004, the Bush administration has secretly authorized military raids against up to 20 countries without any declaration of war or even any explicit congressional authorization for armed action, according to a report published Monday in the New York Times. The report, which cites recent attacks on targets in Pakistan, Syria and Somalia, establishes that under an order issued by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and approved by President George W. Bush in the spring of 2004, the US military’s Special Operations forces were given license to attack alleged al Qaeda targets "anywhere in the world."...

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The Kurdish terror in north of Iraq
Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed was born in 1st July 1968 in the district of Telkeef that is linked to the city of city of Mosul. He was arrested on the 8th of July 2007 on the Iraqi/Turkish border Ibrahim Alkhalil by the Kurdish secret police that are known as Asayish while he was travelling from the city of Mosul to Turkey with a group of a Turkmen from the city of Erbil. Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed was working as a deputy of the ITF (Iraqi Turkmen Front) in the city of Mosul and according to the witnesses who were with him at the time....

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Iraq Signs $3.5 Billion Deal for China to Develop Oil Field
KATHERINE ZOEPF
North Oil, an Iraqi-owned company, has signed a contract with a Chinese state-owned oil corporation, CNPC, that was first negotiated during Saddam Hussein’s government, an official in Iraq’s Oil Ministry said Tuesday. The deal is worth $3.5 billion, said the official, Ahmed al-Shamaa, the deputy oil minister. It is the first major oil-development deal that Iraq has made with a foreign company since the American-led invasion in 2003. It will allow CNPC, with Norinco, another Chinese company, to develop the Adhab oil field in Wasit Province, southeast of Baghdad, for 20 years, Mr. Shamaa said in a telephone interview. "It has been the same contract since Saddam’s regime, but we changed it from a production-sharing contract to a service contract," Mr. Shamaa said. "The contract includes developing the field, digging wells, laying down bibs, delivering crude oil to the national grid, and natural gas processing and delivery."...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48691
Shame on You World - What More Evil Can You Do To Gaza Strip?
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
The impact of the long siege,with sudden and frequent electric outrage and the presence of the Israeli intruder is perceived by the Gaza Strip community as extremely devastating and humiliating. When the electricity break down, the darkness consumes everything,the skies over this coastal Palestinian region, are very frightful until the children light their candles and their friends and families begin to march in protest, demanding a stop to the criminal embargo on Gaza Strip. The European Union has legally claimed that the Israelis must follow international law and provide sufficient fuel to restart the power plant in Gaza Strip.However what the Israelis are providing in electric power to Gaza Strip is not enough, in consequence, the Gaza Strip community has plunged into darkness again...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48689
No ceremonies for Arafat in Gaza
Amira Hass
There was not a single public commemorations in Gaza of the fourth anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death (November 11, 2004). The rallies scheduled for Gaza Strip cities were canceled by order of the police, Fatah officials said. However, a spokesman for the Hamas government said there had been no request made for a permit for the demonstrations. The first event was scheduled for Monday in Rafah and was supposed to combine three issues: Arafat's memory; a protest over the siege of Gaza and the closing of the border crossings; and support for rapprochement talks between Hamas and Fatah being held in Cairo. Officially, all the canceled demonstrations were not under Fatah auspices but were being arranged by a coordinating committee of all PLO member organizations. In any case, the organizers of the Rafah rally were summoned by the police, held for a few hours and then asked to sign a statement they would not organize any activities or they would be fined. Some signed and others refused. The organizations have canceled all their demonstrations, though Fatah made no official announcement...

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No matter how much you try to clean yourself ,America your hands will always be dirty...
Yousef Abudayyeh
It was impossible to find a major newspaper or magazine anywhere in the world that did not have a headline that read something like "Change has come to America ". I hope what these publications mean is that African Americans finally made it to the White House and racism is gone. But how was the United States really changed? Is the racism that was inherent in what was to become the United States of America from its colonial beginnings of black slavery and white indentured servitude really gone, changed overnight by the fact of one election victory?...

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37% of Americans still believe Iraq had WMDs
BUSINESS WIRE
While a majority of U.S. adults believe that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded in March 2003, surprisingly, a significant number of U.S. adults (37%) still believe today that Iraq had such weapons (...) Fifty-two percent say it is true that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (down significantly from 64% in July 2006)....

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Divided Palestinians mourn Arafat
AlJazeera.net
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has launched a bitter attack on the rival Hamas movement as he attended events to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, the former Palsetinian leader. Abbas accused Hamas of sabotaging efforts to mend the rift in Palestinian politics and of using force to prevent any commemorations for Arafat in the coastal territory. Speaking at Arafat's graveside on Tuesday, Abbas blamed Hamas for the abandonment of planned reconciliation talks due to have been held in Cairo on Sunday, accusing it of "not wanting dialogue"...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48685
Yasser Arafat 1929 - 2004
Kristen Ess – Palestine News Network
Four years ago today Yasser Arafat died in France after taking ill in Ramallah. He was airlifted from the Muqata never to return. The image of the great man turned slight by poison or too many years under siege indoors, whatever it was that eventually killed him, that photo is forever etched in the mind. Abu Ammar waving goodbye. Talking to people today and yesterday, it seems that there is no one who does not remember where he was four years ago, and where he was days later when the national hero’s body was returned to the soil of Palestine...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48680
Arab-Americans and Obama
How to Vote Against Your Own Interests
JAMES G. ABOUREZK
...In spite of the fealty paid to the Israeli Lobby both by Obama and by McCain, and in spite of Ralph Nader doing his best to publicize the brutality of the Israeli occupation, a great many Arab Americans abandoned Nader and his message in favor of the other candidates. Of course, we all understood that Nader would not win the election, but the movement of Arab Americans away from him regrettably deprives him of the political influence he might have gained to press his positions, including his strong criticism of Israel’s illegal occupation. His voice is considerably weakened because of the movement of Arab American voters to other candidates, which is unfortunate for those Palestinians who live in desperation on a daily basis....

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48690
November 11, 2008: 7 Iraqis Killed, 51 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 7 Iraqis were killed and another 51 were wounded, mostly during bombing attacks in Baghdad and Mosul. No Coalition deaths were reported. Meanwhile, the fate of a U.S.-Iraqi agreement may rest on support from a political group that has much to lose regardless of the choice they make. Also, Iran conducted war games close to the Iraqi border. Political observers are waiting to see whether the Supreme Islamic Iraq Council will support a controversial U.S.-Iraqi security agreement...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48705


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