UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 14 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 14 Nov 2008
US Covers Up their Murders and Sexual Abuses in Iraq
Kawther Salam
Why does the US occupation and the Iraqi government cover up such incidents? How many such incidents have the governments cover up? Why did they decrease the number of victims in their reports? Omar Abdullah Tawfiq is an Iraqi soldier. One month ago, on October 11, 2008, he opened fire at a number of U.S. troops during a nightly raid carried out jointly by the Iraqi army and U.S. Soldiers in sites in Al-Mosul which were suspected locations of the so-called "Al Qaeda" (civilians). Omar killed four American soldiers and injured two. Iraqi military sources declared that the soldier Omar Abdullah Tawfiq lost control of himself when he saw US marines sexually harassing an Iraqi girl of 17 in a house owned by an old man, her father....

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Chronic malnutrition in Gaza blamed on Israel
An explosive report by the Red Cross on a humanitarian tragedy
Donald Macintyre, Independent
The Israeli blockade of Gaza has led to a steady rise in chronic malnutrition among the 1.5 million people living in the strip, according to a leaked report from the Red Cross. It chronicles the "devastating" effect of the siege that Israel imposed after Hamas seized control in June 2007 and notes that the dramatic fall in living standards has triggered a shift in diet that will damage the long-term health of those living in Gaza and has led to alarming deficiencies in iron, vitamin A and vitamin D. The 46-page report from the International Committee of the Red Cross – seen by The Independent – is the most authoritative yet on the impact that Israel's closure of crossings to commercial goods has had on Gazan families and their diets...

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Taleban vow to win Afghan fight
"Al-Qaeda had been brought to Afghanistan by the Americans, not by the Taleban"
BBC News
The Taleban's senior spokesman has used a rare radio interview to call for all foreign forces to leave Afghanistan. Speaking by telephone from a secret location in the region, Zabihullah Mujahid also derided US President-elect Barack Obama. Fielding questions from BBC World Service listeners, he said Mr Obama's plans to deploy more troops would not defeat the Afghan insurgency... The spokesman denied his movement financed itself from the drugs trade, a statement our correspondent says is unlikely to be taken seriously in Western capitals. He criticised the US for attacking Afghanistan in 2001, and said there was no proof that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. Al-Qaeda, he said, had been brought to Afghanistan by the Americans, not by the Taleban...

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OBAMA - WIPING THE SLATE CLEAN
Media Lens
In 1997, the British media filled with talk of "historic" change. Blair's victory that year "bursts open the door to a British transformation," the Independent declared. (Neal Ascherson, 'Through the door he can begin to create a freer land,' The Independent, May 4, 1997) A Guardian leader saluted the nation: "Few now sang England Arise, but England had risen all the same." (Leader, 'A political earthquake,' The Guardian, May 2, 1997) The editors predicted that, by 2007, Blair's triumph would be seen as "one of the great turning-points of British political history... the moment when Britain at last gave itself the chance to construct a modern liberal socialist order." (Ibid) The Observer assured readers that the Blair government would create "new worldwide rules on human rights" and implement "tough new limits on arms sales." This, after all, was the dawn of Blair's "ethical" foreign policy. It was a dawn of the dead - Blair left behind him the almost unimaginable horror of Iraq and Afghanistan... Over the past two weeks - one decade and three wars later - the same media have been insisting, as one, that US president-elect Barrack Obama is another "new dawn"...

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Declaration of Independence 20 years later: heightened concern over internal divide and Jerusalem
Fadi Yacoub, PNN
In spite of Israeli occupation and siege, 20 years ago today the late President Yasser Arafat decided to declare Palestinian independence. It was in Algiers in 1988 that Arafat, as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, delivered his Palestinian Declaration of Independence. Today Palestinians salute the anniversary with sorrow for the fragmentation of the internal scene. On the occassion, PNN spoke with leaders from the leftist parties and those of Fateh and Hamas....

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Gaza: Israeli blockade worsening humanitarian crisis
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is urging the Israeli authorities to allow the immediate passage of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and fuel to the Gaza Strip. Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Programme Deputy Director Philip Luther said: 'Israel's latest tightening of its blockade has made an already dire humanitarian situation markedly worse. This is nothing short of collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population and it must stop immediately.' Even the trickle of humanitarian aid previously allowed into Gaza (on which 80% of the population depends) has now been stopped for nine days by the Israeli army...

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How US claims about Syria became media facts
Unwary journalists who repeat US army claims about Syria and Iraq become tools in a propaganda war
Sharif Nashashibi, Guardian
In any conflict, warring parties strive to convince the public that justice is on their side. The most effective way of doing this is through the media. It is imperative that journalists cast a critical eye on information they receive to avoid becoming unwitting tools in the propaganda war. In particular, they should not report claims as facts. There were several fundamental failings in the British press coverage of the recent US raid into Syria. For example, Richard White in the Sun and the Independent correspondent Patrick Cockburn both reported as fact that the raid killed Abu Ghadiya, an alleged al-Qaida figure who smuggled fighters into Iraq...

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Video: Aftershock
IOF soldiers reveal how to brutally repress Palestinian civilians
Haitham Sabbah
"Whilst I was there, I lost all my faith in the Israeli army. They put it right in your face: 'Go be the oppressors for your people. Force yourselves upon them’. They told us…’take these bats wrapped up in plastic and…calm things down’…We had skulls on our helmets, dude. We walked around with machetes, all kinds of crazy stuff. Sheriff badges. We’d improvise some very unique solutions". This is Ehud, speaking 12 years after having served in the occupied Palestinian territories. Like the thousands before him, he was a paratrooper in the Israeli army during the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993). Some of the improvised solutions he came up with while serving in the occupied territories included attaching the plus and minus cables from a two-way radio battery to the ears of a Palestinian to give him an electric shock...

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Torture – Yes We Can?
Obama and the national security question: the sellout accelerates
Justin Raimondo
Most politicians wait at least until they've been sworn in before they start breaking their campaign promises. In this sense, as in so many others, Barack Obama represents an entirely new phenomenon: the politician who preemptively reneges. A recent Wall Street Journal piece describing the transition process as it relates to intelligence-gathering reveals we aren't going to see much change in this vitally important realm, the one in which the Bush administration truly made its blackest mark. This will "create tension within the Democratic party," we are told, apparently because even the worst party hacks will have a hard time going along with the revised Obama Doctrine on the issue of torture. According to the Journal, Obama's advisors on intelligence matters are "centrists" in the Clinton mold and outright Republicans, who favor torture "with oversight." These, we are told, are the "pragmatists," likely candidates for positions in Obama's national security bureaucracy. "He's going to take a very centrist approach to these issues," avers Roger Cressey, who served as a counter-terrorism official under Clinton as well as Bush II. It's a grotesque commentary on the moral health of the nation when advocacy of torture is considered "centrist." One shudders to imagine what it means to be right-of-center....


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Obama transition points to more war and repression
Bill Van Auken
President-elect Barack Obama owes his victory, both in the Democratic primaries and the general election, in large part to the overwhelming hostility of the American people to the years of military aggression, torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic spying and all of the other crimes that will constitute the indelible legacy of the Bush administration. Thanks to his carefully calibrated criticisms of these policies, as well as his indictment of his principal Democratic opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton, for her October 2002 vote authorizing the US invasion of Iraq, Obama’s "change you can believe in" was perceived by many, both in the US and abroad, as a promise that his election would signal an end to militarism and attacks on democratic rights...

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Statement about pronouncing a Death Sentence for Al-Mujahid (Kareem Ibrahim Saleh Al-Qaragholi)
The Jihad and Change Front - 1920 Revolution Brigades
Every day passes the fourth occupation government increased its blight and adds shameful acts to (her) history which is full of hasten for the sake of pleasuring the occupation; it comes with unimaginable acts for the most subtle mind people. Thus every day Iraq afflicts with the troubles of people who claim that they belong to it. Since the occupation came with its four governments dolls, they begin to do such an acts, and now its fourth government do not getting bored from monitor the heroic Mujahedeen and uproot them with a pretext of terrorism, but this time it employed the judiciary organization; to pronounce unfair death sentences on them… an embarrassing thing for all people with honor in the world. It was not a surprise for what happened in the recent days of pronouncing a death sentence to Al-Mujahid (Kareem Ibrahim Saleh Al-Qaragholi); but the strange thing is that they announced it with arrogant and without fear...

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Buzzwords, Politics and US Elections
Ramzy Baroud
...The fact is, both candidates, McCain and Obama, had much more in common than they would care to admit, as they voted to fund the Iraq war, supported offshore drilling, backed the plan to bail out Wall Street, appealed to the 'middle class’, never the many millions of poor Americans, and brazenly demonstrated their undying love for Israel, right or wrong. Any truly independent assessment would most likely show that commonalities between both candidates – especially towards the end of their campaigns – ran too deep that would render designations of them as 'opponents’, engaged in constant 'debates’, particularly puzzling....

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In Italian - On the Drillers.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
...As you may well know, Muqtada Al-Sadr and his drilling Mahdi army spared none in Iraq. Sunnis, Christians, Palestinians, Gays, Secularists , Baathists, Nationalists, patriotic anti-Occupation, women, men, children....And as you may well know, Muqtada Al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army collaborated and propped up the various sectarian fascist Shiite governments that came into place with the Anglo-American occupation. Be it the Jaafari government or the current Maliki government. And engaged his own Sadrist party in the political process as well. And as you may well know, the Mahdi army was a crucial tool in implementing the ethnic cleansing that took place in Iraq, as per the directives of America and its zionistic plans and the subsequent exile of millions of Iraqis for the most part SUNNIS AND CHRISTIANS....

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Sources: Hamas looking to postpone national dialogue in order to avoid extending Abbas' term
PNN
Informed Palestinian sources disclosed today that Hamas wants to delay the comprehensive Palestinian dialogue in Cairo until after the ninth of January 2009 when Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential term ends. When the Hamas party declared it would boycott the internal dialogue just a day before it was slated to begin, most indicators pointed to a reticence by leaders outside of Palestine. The Gaza government was viewed as largely supporting the meeting. However within a day the party said there was no internal discord. It should be noted that the Hamas movement works on consensus decision making which includes the outside leadership, the Gaza leadership and members on the chapter level. Postulations as to why Hamas had boycotted the meeting included specifically outside control and a general disdain for Egypt... A source close to the Hamas leadership, who spoke with the daily Al Quds Al Arabi on the condition of anonymity, said that there were two main points that caused the party to cancel its participation in the dialogue...

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US Attack Kills 12 In Pakistan
AlJazeera.net
At least 12 people have been killed in a missile strike said to have been carried out by a US drone in a Pakistani tribal region. The raid is thought to have killed pro-Taliban fighters, five of them foreigners, Pakistani officials said on Friday. Previous bombing raids by the US, in which civilians have died, have been condemned by the Pakistani government which argues that they infringe on the country's sovereignty...


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Iraq's Maliki to urge his Cabinet to endorse security pact with U.S.
Ned Parker, LATimes
Reporting from Baghdad — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will urge his Cabinet to endorse a contentious security agreement with the United States and will give an address backing the pact ahead of a vote in parliament, one of his trusted confidants said today. Maliki, who until now had not endorsed the agreement and had criticized U.S. negotiating positions during the summer, decided to publicly support the accord after U.S. officials accepted most of the changes to the text requested by the Iraqi government at the end of October and then agreed to two final changes to the text, said Shiite Muslim lawmaker Sami Askari, the confidant....


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UNRWA: Gaza Strip ran out of food supplies amidst catastrophic human condition
Palestinian Information Center
The UNRWA, the UN agency that caters for Palestinian refugees, has announced Thursday that food supplies and basic needs in Gaza Strip had ran out due to the Israeli rejection to allow the agency trucks into the populated Strip. John Ging, the operations manager of the UNRWA in the Strip said in a press statement that the agency won't be able to bring food supplies into Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli refusal to open the border-crossings with Gaza, describing the situation there as "catastrophic". He added that UNRWA ran out of supplies on Thursday evening and will not be able to distribute more unless the crossings are opened and food aid is allowed in...

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In direct violation of the Road Map, Barak approves settlement construction in the W. Bank
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC
Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported on Friday morning that Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, approved in recent months plans for the construction and marketing of hundreds of units in illegal West Bank settlements. A number of settlements are east of the annexation wall, which means that these settlements are even outside of the large settlement blocs that Israel's refuses to evacuate under any peace deal with the Palestinians....


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Iraq's top Shiite cleric to let govt decide on US pact
AFP
Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric will leave it to the government to decide on a controversial US military pact, but associates of the reclusive leader said it must respect Iraqi sovereignty. Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani -- revered as the highest religious authority by Iraq's Shiite majority -- rarely involves himself in politics and usually communicates his views only through associates. "The Guide (Sistani) called for general elections which produced the country's government and the parliament," a religious official close to Sistani told AFP on condition of anonymity...

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Targeting Hugo Chavez
Stephen Lendman
Since taking office in February 1999, America's dominant media have relentlessly attacked Chavez because of the good example he represents and threat it might spread in spite of scant chance it will in today's climate. Yet some of his fiercest critics maintain pressure and show up often on the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. Most recently on November 10 by its America's columnist, Mary O'Grady. Her style is agitprop. Her space a truth-free zone. Her latest in an article headlined "Hugo Chavez Spreads the Loot" referring to what The New York Times calls "Suitcasegate."...

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Stuck in Boredom...
Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues
...People are just so caught up in their own little bubbles...and I guess am caught up in mine. But there is a little difference here. X. can find other Babettes, Bernadettes and Georgettes on a new camping trip. Y. can change departments, bosses, offices or jobs... But If I leave my "bubble" where will I go to ? I guess my only "consolation", short of an adequate term, is to remember that another 4 million or so are stuck in the same bubble as I. In all likelihood they are as estranged as I am and are thinking along the same lines - Where will we go to ? Yes indeed, them and I are very stuck. And seems like we will remain so for quite a long time...

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