UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 18 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 18 Nov 2008

Will The Slaughter Of Iraqis By The US Military Ever Be Reported?
Michael Schwartz
Will The US Government And Media Finally Report The Slaughter Of Iraqis By The US Military? I recently received a set of questions from Le Monde Diplomatique reporter Kim Bredesen about the 2007 Project Censored story about 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The questions and answers are, I think, useful in framing both the untold story of the slaughter in Iraq and the failure of the U.S. media to report on its extent or on U.S. culpability for the deaths of 4% of the Iraqi population....


Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48874
"Iraq out of Iraq" and other Mousetraps...
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
...I was watching with Mom - God bless her - Al Jazeera program "Itijah al Muakess" - Opposite Directions or Views. One of the guests was an "Iraqi" Kurd, the other a Lebanese. Why on earth did Al-Jazeera feel the need to bring in a Lebanese to talk about SOFA when there are plenty of Iraqis who are opposed to the DUAL occupation ? The Kurd dismissed the question when asked about the persecution of the Iraqi Christians and literally ducked it. When grilled about American detention camps - he said " The AMERICANS NEVER ARREST ANYONE". Kamel and Omar, my close relatives are STILL IN DETENTION. As for Omar, we are not quite sure if he is alive or not. And Kamel is over 67 years old. If he ever makes out alive, that in itself would be a miracle. They are both detained by the Americans with NO CHARGES. At that point, Mom who was busy cleaning the Bamia - Okra or Ladies Fingers-said in her typical Iraqi fashion, "Nchab, kalb ibn al kalb." - Shut up, dog son of a dog. My Mom is polite...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48870
"From them the sin, and from them the forgiveness. From them the killing, and the tears. From them the massacres, and the justice of the courts."
AL-AWDA, via Annie's letters
Below is a letter from one of the young women attacked by on the Berkeley campus while standing in silent protest (because of anti-Arab sentiments expressed at a concert) with a Palestinian flag. The way the incident has been addressed by the university is perpetuating the racism experienced by these Palestinian students. Please support these students & help the authorities on the campus figure out who the 'bad guys' were in this incident. We will not stand by while those attacked are revictimized by being blamed for taking a (legal) stand against the dehumanization of Palestinians & all Arabs. This was handled badly by the school administration & we can't let this go by without response. Please send an email to the Chancellor & student affairs...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48878
James Zogby and the Politics of Perception
Remi Kanazi
James Zogby isn't just an Arab American with an opinion. He is the president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a well known writer, and an esteemed leader within the Arab American community. Many non-Arab Americans highly regard his analysis and look to his articles as a resource to understand the Middle East. This is precisely why his latest article, "Rahm Emanuel and Arab Perceptions" is so disturbing. In the piece, Zogby tries to calm the fears of Arab Americans about Barack Obama's first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, to White House Chief of Staff. Zogby expressed shock and dismay that his constituency, once euphoric over the election of Obama, was now sending him angry and cynical letters. Zogby described the emails and calls to his office as "troubled and troubling—because much of the reaction was based on misinformation and because of what the entire episode reveals about the larger political dynamic."...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48879
Obama advisers: Harsh interrogators will walk
Stephen C. Webster
Even as President-elect Obama vowed "to regain America's moral stature in the world" during Sunday's 60 Minutes appearance, two of his senior advisers confessed there is no intent to pursue those in the Bush administration who engaged in torture. Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, the advisers said that the plan is to put a stop to current interrogation methods and to "look forward" as opposed to focusing on prior transgressions....

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48884
Methinks they do protest too much
William Bowles
- I’m coming across quite a few essays by lefties bemoaning the fact that Barack Obama has somehow 'let us down’. For example there’s a piece by Dave Lindorff 'Obama's First Big Mistake on the Job - Rescuing Joe Lieberman’. Mistake? There is no mistake. The gist of the piece is about the "treacherous" Joe Lieberman, former Dem, who when he lost the race for nomination as Democratic Senator for Connecticut, turned around and joined the Republicans and got elected. Okay, the guy is as Lindorff says, "…a wretched example of a man without principle—a back-stabbing slimeball of a politician whose only allegi[a]nce, apparently, besides to himself, is to Israel", something else I object to in Lindorff’s piece is his qualification of his reference to Lieberman’s Zionist 'credentials’, "Now I don’t want anyone to think I’m some rabid anti-semite. My wife and kids are Jewish, we have good friends who are Israeli, and no, I don’t think the Jews run the media or the country. I do, however, think that Joe Lieberman thinks more about what, in his warped and shriveled worldview, is good for Israel, than about what is good for America." Come on Dave, 'some of my best friends are Jews’? There’s no need to apologize for attacking Zionism, you’ll be branded as an anti-semite no matter how much you protest that you ain’t. Get used to it...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48881
Iran and the US-Iraq SOFA
Reza Fiyouzat, Revolutionary Flowerpot Society
... Some have argued with some justification that the Iranians are sending a signal to the president-elect Barak Obama by persuading their Iraqi brethren to go along with the SOFA deal, while others have called the SOFA deal a defeat for the Iranians. Personally, I agree somewhat with the first take, while I think the SOFA agreement in and of itself is neither a threat to the Iranians nor a boon. What the Iranians want in the region is a recognized role assigned to them by the Americans as an indispensable 'partner' in the workings of the major issues concerning the long-term fate of the region. And in playing a key role in the Iraqi regime signing onto the SOFA deal, they have made a showcase of their 'indispensable' role to the Americans. This in turn should gain them some favor in other areas of their dealings with the Americans. This, again, should show to the U.S. Leftists who think the Iranian regime has some deep-seated anti-imperialist bent that no such thing will be exhibited by the Iranian state in its current setup. They want regional hegemony and the only power that can guarantee them such a status is the U.S...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48862
The Era of Magical Thinking: SOFA Smokescreens and Presidential Power
Chris Floyd
The American media is by and large swallowing the propaganda line that the Iraqi cabinet's acquiescence to a "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) with the U.S. occupation force means that the Iraq War will be over in 2011. This will further cement the conventional wisdom that the suppurating war crime in Iraq is now behind us, and the topic will be moved even further off the radar of public scrutiny. But as usual, there is a wide, yawning abyss between the packaged, freeze-dried pabulum for public consumption and the gritty, blood-flecked truth on the ground. As Jason Ditz reports at Antiwar.com, the so-called "deadline" in 2011 for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces remains, as ever, an "aspiration," not an iron-clad guarantee....

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48868
Video: Taliban's increasing clout in Kandahar
AlJazeeraEnglish
The Canadians have lost a higher percentage of their troops killed in action in Afghanistan than any other country in the multinational force. Meanwhile, as Al Jazeera's David Chater reports, the Taliban are in full control again in many areas of Kandahar, where the group was born....

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48864
UN human rights chief calls for end to Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip
UN News Centre
The top United Nations human rights official called today for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, which she said contravened international law and had deprived those living there of their most basic human rights for months. "By function of this blockade, 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months," said Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. "This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now," she said....

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48875
Caught in Bed with Evil
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
Crossing points into Gaza have been shut down for almost two weeks, forcing the only power plant there to stop functioning, due to the lack of fuel. Last week, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency ran out of food and stopped rations’ deliveries to 750,000 residents of Gaza. Though the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now immanent, Western media refrains from reporting about the emerging disaster. Apparently, there are far more interesting things to write about, much more interesting than millions of Palestinians who are being starved by the Jewish state. However the press was kind enough to report that British foreign minister David Miliband spent some time in Israel this week....

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48872
Rendered homeless, East Jerusalem's Al Kurd family now targeted in tent
Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, PNN
Director of the Jerusalem Center for Economic and Social Rights, Ziad Hammouri told PNN today that Israeli forces have demolished 51 houses in East Jerusalem since the beginning of 2008. He said, "The delivery of demolition orders, the destruction or confiscation of houses and the construction of settlements are all being conducted frantically by the Israelis before any solution on the issue of Jerusalem can be implemented." Hammouri added, "The new realities on the ground will be imposed de facto." This year’s demolitions are focused on East Jerusalem's Silwan and Beit Hanina. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's advisor is referring to an "open battle on Jerusalem."...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48877
From Kurdistan to K Street
Inside Washington's covert foreign policy apparatus, middlemen like Shlomi Michaels are key.
Laura Rozen, Mother Jones
The routine of Washington foreign policymaking is straightforward and, well, a little boring. Presidents and secretaries of state issue pronouncements in speeches. Diplomats have discussions in ornate ceremonial rooms. That's the official version, anyhow, and even if we're well aware that reality departs from the C-Span, Foreign Affairs version of things, the rhythm, pomp, and ceremony shape our understanding of how countries relate to each other. This is a story of the other world, the one whose real power players never show up in the CNN headline crawl...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48883
Index on Past, Present and Future
Sarah Meyer, Index Research
Heimat means 'Homeland.' A boxed edition of Edgar Reitz's 1982 film, Heimat, just arrived. 6 disks (english subtitles) with an introductory booklet by David Parkinson. I would like to share Edgar Reitz's outline in his press notes on Heimat, quoted by Mr. Parkinson in "Reactions and Responses." Why? Because what seemed relevant in Germany then is now also relevant to the United States today, as the U.S. president and his retinue are getting ready to leave the White House. Hopefully there will be no more home-made disasters before this becomes an actuality...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48871
Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?
Perils of Pakistan
GEORGE C. WILSON
President-elect Obama has committed himself to stepping up the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is not an overstatement to say that he will risk his whole presidency, and perhaps even unwittingly put nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists who might use them to attack the United States, if he leaps too far into neighboring Pakistan in pursuit of elusive victory. The rub, as the Vietnam and Iraq wars showed us all, is unintended consequences. Our military leaders can, and almost certainly will, make a strong case to Obama that there is no way to defeat the Taliban and their allied tribes in Afghanistan without cleaning out their sanctuaries just over the Afghan border in Pakistan...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48869
President-elect Obama and the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace
for Israeli-Palestinian peace
United States President-elect Barack Obama's election victory has revived hopes that stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations could finally lead to a two-state solution. Few new presidents have been greeted with such optimism and associated high expectations. However, the chances for progress depend on more than a new American president. There are several interrelated factors: US engagement, the availability of a viable peace agreement, Israeli and Palestinian internal politics and the broader international situation. An examination of these factors indicates that the optimism is unjustified...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48867
URGENT: Kidnapped by the Israeli Navy
FreeGaza.org
Fifteen Palestinian fishermen along with three internationals have been kidnapped in Palestinian waters by the Israeli Navy. They were fishing seven miles off the coast of Deir Al Balah, clearly in Gaza fishing waters and well within the fishing limit detailed in the Oslo Accords of 1994. The fishermen and the human right's observers were transferred from 3 separate boats to the Israeli warships. Other Palestinian fishermen reported that the 3 boats were seen being taken north by the Israeli Navy...


Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48866
Obama’s “seamless transition” to endless war
Bill Van Auken
President-elect Barack Obama appeared Sunday on the CBS program "60 Minutes" for his first televised interview since his November 4 election victory. He covered a wide range of subjects with a lack of specificity and a placid tone that suggested someone who had read through stacks of briefing books, but had few defined positions of his own and was above all anxious to offend no one. When asked what he had been "concentrating on" in the past week, however, his answer was unhesitating: "Number one, I think it’s important to get a national security team in place because transition periods are potentially times of vulnerability to a terrorist attack. We want to make sure that there is as seamless a transition on national security as possible."...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48863
Israeli military invades Rafah city in southern Gaza
Rami Almeghari - IMEMC
Israeli military bulldozers, backed by armored vehicles, swept early on Tuesday morning into the eastern borders of Rafah city in southern Gaza Strip. Witnesses said that the Israeli bulldozers began razing farm lands just 50 to 100 meters depth into Palestinian areas, mainly in the Alnahda neighborhood. Witnesses added that the Israeli armored vehicles moved towards the Gaza international airport, and that they also razed farm lands in the area...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48865
Democrats Cover Up Bush Era War Crimes
George Washington's Blog
The Associated Press writes: "Two Obama advisers said there's little—if any—chance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage." And when Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy was asked if Bush officials could face war crimes, he responded: "In the United States, no. These things are not going to happen." This is not entirely surprising, given that Democratic congress members Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman and John D. Rockefeller were secretly briefed on torture many, many years ago, and yet did nothing to stop those unlawful programs...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48873
Iraqi Sunnis Push for Referendum on Security Pact
Democracy Now!
In Iraq, the head of the Accordance Front, Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab bloc, said on Monday that the Sunni bloc still has reservations about a security pact that would let US troops stay in Iraq for another three years. Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Sunni bloc, told reporters that the Sunnis wanted a referendum on the pact which has yet to be approved by parliament...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48876


www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.

uruknetgif