UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 07 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 07 Nov 2008
Kurdish Forces Confiscating Ration Cards, Weapons From Assyrians in North Iraq
AINA
...AINA has learned that agents from the Kurdish Asayesh intelligence service are currently confiscating ration cards of families who have fled from the violence in Mosul to the Nineveh Plain. The families are told the only way for them to retrieve their ration cards is to remain permanently in the Nineveh Plain. Several independent sources have accused the two dominate Kurdish political parties of staging the attacks against Assyrians for political reasons. Several Iraqi MPs have pointed out the KDP party, headed by Massoud Barazani, is responsible...

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"Safe" Landings, Strong Iraqi Tea...or another Angry Manifesto.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
...The minute I arrived "home" and even before I had enough time to deposit my suitcase in some corner, I was told - Yalla, Layla, ta'allee- Come Layla, we have so much to tell you (...) - What ? You mean she returned to Baghdad ? - Yes. - Wait a minute here, how can she ? Her eldest son is called Bakr, her daughter, Aisha and her youngest Omar. And her home is today in a all Shiite area ? - Simple...She veiled herself. And since the Syrian authorities will neither accept Bakr or Aisha in their universities, she had no choice but to return. - And where are her kids now ? And what about Omar ? - They are safely hidden at your aunt's place. She can't take risks. And listen to the rest...Her house is in shambles. She had to pay so much money to get the "habarbashieh" out. - "Habarbashieh" stands for the new thugs of Iraq. Poor thing they left her house in ruins...- And what about ours ? - Don't ask. - What do you mean don't ask - what happened to our home ??? Ya Layla, some things in life, you need to let go of... At that point I needed some stiff booze in my tea... - I want to know, what happened ? Khalass, it's already taken for good ? - Yes, am afraid so and not much can be done. - I can't believe that !!!- Listen to the rest... - I don't want to listen to anything else. Tell me now, what do you mean for good ? - Ya bintee,(my daughter) this is our destiny.
- I can't believe that. What about all the money we gave to W. to keep the place ? - He could not hold out any longer... - Ya'nee, what you are telling me, our home is no longer ? (...) I wanted to hear nothing more...It's gone. Another "thing" gone. Another attachement gone. Another anchor gone. Another reference gone. Another memory gone. What does it matter anymore ? What is left ? But of course, it did not stop...

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A Healthy Palestinian Prisoner Operated on Without His Consent - Another Israeli Preach of human rights
Iqbal Tamimi
Palestinian prisoner Mohannad Odeh from the town of Aroorah north of Ramallah in the West bank, filed a complaint to the lawyer of the Mandela Organization. His complaint might seem strange in the civilized world. He never knew why the Israeli prison administration transferred him to a hospital and why he was subjected to a surgery he knew nothing about since he is healthy. He made it quite clear that he never suffered any health problems. But still he found himself being transferred to Soroka Hospital in Beir Elsabba (Beer Sheba).
He was requested to sign papers that should he died they can transfer and use his organs. He refused to sign and requested to see his family or get in contact with them before he was taken to the operating theatre. But the prison Administration denied him this request. He was sedated, taken to the operating room, operated on without his consent. When he woke up, he found himself surrounded by Israeli doctors and medical instruments and pipes. What organs were taken? Or what kind of experimenting was done on such helpless prisoners?...

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Israeli soldiers film themselves humiliating a bound Palestinian man
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC
Israeli Television, Chanel 10, showed on Thursday a video footage taken by Israeli soldiers filming themselves humiliating a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man at a military roadblock in the occupied West Bank, Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported. Haaretz added that the Palestinian man was kneeling and repeating sentences he was ordered to say by the soldiers, members of the Golani infantry brigades. "The Golani soldiers will bring you a log, and sick it up your ass", one of the sentences the Palestinian man was ordered to repeat, Haaretz reported...

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Bush administration delays release of prisoner abuse photos
Nick Juliano, Raw Story
The Bush administration is doing everything it can to delay compliance with a court's order that the Pentagon turn over pictures of prisoners abused in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new court filing. A three-judge appeals court panel in September ordered the administration to turn over 87 photographs depicting abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other sites. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the photos in 2005. On Thursday, the administration requested a review of that decision by all 12 appeals court judges..."This petition is a transparent attempt to delay accountability for the widespread abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad by keeping the public in the dark," Amrit Singh, and ACLU staff attorney, said in a news release Friday . "These photographs demonstrate that the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad was not aberrational and not confined to Abu Ghraib, but the result of policies adopted by the highest-ranking officials in the administration"...

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Return of the Baghdad Pact
Galal Nassar
...The agreement is clearly tailored to the occupier's needs and whatever nods it makes to Iraqi aspirations will require long and arduous negotiations to bring into effect. By signing such an agreement, Iraq will have submitted its land, sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, oil and wealth exclusively to the authority of the occupying power and chained itself to a cunningly devised treaty with devious ends. The agreement preempts a repercussion on the US from its occupation and destruction of Iraq. In stating that the occupying forces are there at the behest of the "sovereign" government of Iraq, it exempts the invading occupying power from having to pay any compensation in the long run and from even having to apologise for the crimes it has committed, which outstrip fascist and Nazi barbarities. The text is more explicit: "Except for contract related claims, both sides waive their rights to request compensation because of any harm, loss, or destruction of property, or request compensation for injury or death of forces members or civilian members from both sides occurring during their official duties."...

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Worse Than Bush?
Ted Galen Carpenter
Obama shows no willingness, for example, to reconsider Washington’s commitment to the hoary North Atlantic alliance. Indeed, he advocates further expansion of NATO, including membership for Ukraine and Georgia, despite the certainty of provoking Russia. Obama has praised NATO’s interventions in both Bosnia and Kosovo during the Clinton years, and he embraced the February 2008 decision to grant Kosovo independence over Moscow’s vehement objections... It is on the issue of humanitarian intervention, though, that Obama’s attitude—and that of some of his likely foreign policy appointees—is most worrisome. His article, "Renewing American Leadership," in the July/August 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs included a dubious and troubling assumption. He insisted that "the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity." That assumption about the alleged indivisibility of destinies is not materially different from the sentiments that President Bush expressed in his second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." But that assumption is both erroneous and dangerous. Taken to its logical conclusion, it means that America can never be safe or prosperous unless the dozens of chronically misgoverned countries are (s! omehow) transformed into free, democratic states. That is a blueprint for endless nation-building missions and perpetual war... Although it is hard to imagine, Obama’s foreign policy could prove even worse than that of the Bush administration...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48600
Iran extends an early friendly hand
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Asia Times

In a gesture of goodwill toward the next United States administration, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to president-elect Barack Obama, congratulating his victory, praising the American people and raising the expectation of significant change in the US's foreign policy. "I would like to offer my congratulations on your election by the majority of the American electorate ... The people across the world expect that policies and practices based on justice and respect for the rights of peoples and nations, coupled with friendship and non-interference in the affairs of others replace policies founded on war, occupation, coercion, deception, intimidation of nations, discriminatory bilateral and global relations; policies and practices that have enraged all nations and many governments against the US administration and tainted the image of American people," Ahmadinejad's letter to Obama reads in part. Prior to Ahmadinejad, both Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and a couple of aids to Ahmadinejad had expressed similar sentiments in the immediate aftermath of Obama's historic victory on November 4...

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Egypt postpones Cairo talks at Hamas' request
Ma'an news
Early reports from Reuters say Hamas officials have informed Cairo that they will not be attending the conciliation talks, scheduled to begin Sunday. Meanwhile delegations from the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Arab Liberation Front (ALF) arrived at Rafah crossing Saturday morning and were refused entry into Egypt. Egyptian border officials are reported to have told the delegations that they could not enter the country for "technical reasons." The delegations were turned away and told to go home. Representatives from Hamas said they would address the issue of their non-attendance in Cairo in a Saturday afternoon press conference...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48605
Israel admits 80% fewer Gazans to hospitals as requests increase
Ma'an news
The number of Gazans in need of medical attention admitted into Israel in the past month has declined from 500, to only 62 emergency cases and another 42 who direly needed specialized medical care. Head of Ambulances and Emergency Care in the de facto Ministry of Health Mu’awieh Hassanein said Israel had refused the requests of hundreds of Gazans. The problem, according to Hassanein, has been worsening for three months...

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US Drone Strike Kills at Least 13 in North Waziristan
Jason Ditz
US drones launched yet another unilateral air strike into Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency today, hitting what was described as a "suspected al-Qaeda compound" with multiple missiles and killing at least 13 inside. Information travels slowly in this remote part of Pakistan, but an intelligence officer said "eight Pakistani Taliban and five guests" were among the dead....

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Majda's Story
Gaza's New Martyrs
SAMAH SABAWI
One look at Majda’s face and I felt consumed by her overwhelming pain. For a month Majda has lived on edge, knowing how ill her father was in Gaza and knowing he may die before she would be allowed to enter into Gaza’s closed gates. Majda told me it was not her father’s death that pained her as much as knowing how worthless his life and his dignity had become, not only to a world that continues to turn a blind eye to Gaza’s misery, not only to the Israelis who have hardened their hearts to the Palestinian suffering, not only to Egypt that continues to act as jailer of Gaza’s population, but even to the Palestinian leaders....

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Watching The Defectives
Winter Patriot
...I won't link to any of the blogs where my former readers are dancing with joy. But I do congratulate them on their success. They now own a multitude of ongoing crimes against humanity, not one of which their champion wishes to end (although Obama says he wants to move the Iraq war crime to Afghanistan). They can now sing and dance and cry their tears of joy, on the highway to hell. Will the election of Barack Obama prove to be another 9/11-like event? Will it unite the world behind the United States just long enough for the US to launch another endless series of attacks against another tiny defenseless country? One wouldn't even want to suggest such a thing -- especially around the defectives! The world weeps with joy as it unites behind a willing and eager war criminal. It's so cute....

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Iraqi doctors wary of carrying guns
Ahmed Janabi, Aljazeera.net
Iraq's medical professionals have reacted with caution to a government waiver that doctors be allowed to carry arms for self-defence purposes... Hussain Mousa, the union's representative in the southern Iraqi province of al-Muthana wants the government to ensure better security for doctors rather than licensing gun ownership. "The decision is definitely positive, and would protect doctors; however, we would hope that Iraqi government would work hard on enforcing the rule of law rather than allowing doctors to carry guns," he told Al Jazeera Since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, Iraqi doctors have been the target of unknown assailants. According to reports from the Iraqi Physicians Union, more than 200 of the country's leading medical professionals have been assassinated and more than 7000 have been forced to leave after receiving death threats...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48589
IRAQ: U.S. Pushes In Their Excellencies
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
More than five years after the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, Arab capitals are beginning to send ambassadors to Baghdad. But some Egyptian commentators question the timing of the move, which they attribute to pressure from Washington. "Arab governments originally wanted a full withdrawal of foreign forces and a stable security environment before sending ambassadors," Ahmed Thabet, political science professor at Cairo University, told IPS. "Yet the pending U.S.-Iraq security agreement promises to turn the current military occupation of Iraq into a constitutionally sanctioned one."...


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Orthodox Church: we are unified against Israel’s desecration of holy places
Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, PNN
In protest of the construction of a Jewish "Museum of Tolerance" atop the Muslim Maman Allah (Mamilla) Cemetery, some 1,500 people demonstrated Thursday. The city crawled with Israeli forces: soldiers and jeeps in the streets, aircraft overhead. The Jerusalem construction is considered part of a larger cleansing of the city’s Palestinian, Arab, Christian and Muslim, heritage and ancestry. The nonviolent Palestinian resistance jumped into gear after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that construction could go forward. The museum is funded by Israeli-American interests in Los Angeles... Under the Islamic and Palestinian flags, behind the banners calling to preserve the sanctity of the dead, 1,500 people chanted for justice. The Israeli construction on the cemetery began last year with graves being exhumed. It was ordered stopped during the court proceedings, but that call was ignored...

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Hail to the Chief of Staff
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
The first trumpet blast of change ushers in Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s chief of staff and gate keeper. This is the man who arranges his schedule, staffs out the agenda, includes, excludes. It’s certainly as sinister an appointment as, say, Carter’s installation of arch cold-warrior Zbigniev Brzezinski as his National Security Advisor at the dawn of his "change is here" administration in 1977. Emanuel, as Ralph Nader points out in my interview with him below, represents the worst of the Clinton years. His profile as regards Israel is explored well on this site by lawyer John Whitbeck. He’s a former Israeli citizen, who volunteered to serve in Israel in 1991 and who made brisk millions in Wall Street. He is a super-Likudnik hawk, whose father was in the fascist Irgun in the late Forties, responsible for cold-blooded massacres of Palestinians...

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Dignity boat sails to Gaza
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC
The Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS) reported on Friday evening that "Dignity Ship" left Cyprus approximately at 6 P.M heading to Gaza. The ship carries on board 23 persons, including 12 parliamentarians, reporters, peace activists and Nazir Ahmad, a Labour member of the House of Lords in the UK. Independent Palestinian Legislator, Jamal AL Khodary, head of the PCAS, stated that Clare Short, secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to May 2003, is also onboard the ship...

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Young woman succumbs to wounds, child patient dies as a result of the siege
Palestinian Information Center
A young Palestinian woman succumbed to wounds she sustained during the Israeli attack on Tuesday and a child patient died in Gaza after being barred from receiving treatment abroad. Hanin al-loh, a 23-year-old young woman was seriously wounded during the incursion of IOF troops to the east of Deir al-Balah on Tuesday. Because of the intensive Israeli fire, the emergency team took a long time to reach causing her to lose a lot of blood. Late on Thursday night she succumbed to her wounds in hospital...

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Iraqi Shiite clerics warn against US security pact
SAMEER N. YACOUB, AP
Shiite clerics warned the government Friday not to sign a security pact that would keep U.S. troops in Iraq until 2012, as the prime minister studied what U.S. officials described as the final draft of the agreement. Parliament must approve the agreement by year's end when the U.N. mandate expires. Failure to approve the agreement or get the U.N. Security Council to issue a new mandate would force the U.S. to suspend operations in the country...


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November 7, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 10 Iraqis Killed; 15 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 10 Iraqis were killed and another 15 were wounded during light violence on the prayer day. Although there was a break in bombings today, officials are still concerned about the uptick in the use of "sticky bombs" during October. A U.S. solider died from non-combat related causes in At Ta'mim province as well. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani could veto a minority rights bill that many have complained does not give minority enough participation in provincial councils...

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