UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 15 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 15 Nov 2008

Actions needed: As time runs out Gazans slowly dying
Popular Committee Against Siege (PCAS)
Power, food, medicine, treatment and all aspects of live vanished from the Gaza strip. The 7 crossings are totally closed with no glimpse of hope to reopen them again. Israel went on more deep flagrant violations of all human laws as it blocked the UNRWA aids into Gaza. 750.000 UNRWA's beneficiaries are exposed to hunger and lack of food. On Saturday, the United Nations offices closed its food aid distribution centers and 20,000 Gazans walked away empty-handed from the UN food distribution centers. More than 1 million live in deep darkness since 2 days as 80% of Gaza strip out of power....


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Iraqis Believe Americans Bombing Them to Promote SOFA
Anwar Ali
It seems to me that things are getting worse. This week I was at the scene of a bombing, reporting a news story about three explosions in Adhamiya. They were horrible explosions, all at the same time in a very crowded Shia neighborhood. I remember the smell of the blood, the flies all around and the injured people, the broken glass and the destruction.... Some people are saying that the Americans are making the bombings to make Iraqis believe that it is very important for them to stay in Iraq, that they are still needed. The Americans say that when they withdraw from Iraq violence will increase. Is that a threat? You can read it as a threat, or you can read it as an expectation. Some Iraqis take it as a threat. Some people are asking: "Are the Americans punishing us with bombings because Iraq has refused to sign the SOFA?" [Status of Forces Agreement]. Here that is a reality, people think it...

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Iraq Detention Imams Work for $2 Billion Private Equity Fund
Nick Mottern and Bill Rau, t r u t h o u t | Report
When Iraqi imams sit down with prisoners at a US detention center in Iraq to discuss Islam, they are working for a subsidiary of Global Innovation (GI) Partners LLP, a California- and London-based private equity firm that claims to have "$2 billion in capital under management." GI Partners sells, among other things: base maintenance for US military forces in Iraq; psychiatric care in the United Kingdom; in-room television and movies for hotels; wine, movie production studios and pubs. GI Partners also manages hundreds of millions of dollars for California and Oregon public employees pension funds and, according to the GI Partners Web site, pension funds in the Netherlands and the Middle East. The imams join the GI Partners world when they go to work for Russian and East European Partnerships (REEP) Inc., the GI Partners subsidiary hired by the US military to run Islamic discussion, civics and vocational programs in its Iraq detention centers....

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Shi'ites call for Basra to be mini-state
AP
Two Shi'ite lawmakers have called for a referendum on turning the oil-rich province of Basra in southern Iraq into a mini-state. The push signals a renewed effort by Shi'ites to grant regions self-rule in what would be a federalist system of government. Sunnis oppose the idea, fearing it could lead to the country's eventual break up or isolate them from oil wealth concentrated in mainly Shi'ite and Kurdish areas...


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Israeli Deputy Defense Minister; "Gaza invasion, a matter of time"
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC
Israeli Deputy Defense Minister, Matan Vilnai, stated on Friday that a large-scale invasion of Gaza is only a matter of time and added that the army was prepared to invade the Gaza Strip and fight Hamas. Vilnai stated that the offensive would be large and Hamas fighters would suffer a major blow because the offensive "would be very effective". He also said that he talked about a large-scale offensive but did not mention reoccupying the Gaza Strip...


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O'Hanlon Gives Obama Some Bad Advice
Robert Dreyfuss
...I have a news flash for Petraeus. The Taliban think they're winning because they are winning. Sending more troops won't help. It will only inflame right-wing Muslims to support the Taliban more strongly, build Pashtun nationalism, destabilize Pakistan, and kill a lot of Afghan civilians. Here's an alternative strategy for Obama: "withdraw and negotiate....

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AMSI to the Iraqi Soldiers: Follow Barzan
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) called on employees of all state Guard to follow the example of heroic soldier (Barzan Mohammad Abdullah al Hadidi), who declined to humiliation and took revenge for his dignity. This soldier who took lives of a number of brutal warmongering U.S. soldiers and did like what any honorable Iraqi did firing on the soldiers, killing four of them and wounding three others...

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Kurds alarmed by SOFA
Roads to Iraq
...The whole time, Kurds were the only political bloc supported the approval of the security agreement. Not anymore, Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman said: I don’t support the signing of the agreement … it will strengthen the Iraqi government … The U.S. forces will withdraw from the country ….There no reference to the protection of the Kurdistan region. Othman said that there are two articles, Iraq government can use against the Kurds...

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Iraq's Cabinet to vote on security pact with US
HAMZA HENDAWI and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, AP
Iraq's Cabinet will vote Sunday on a security pact with Washington that would keep U.S. forces in the country for another three years, a major step in efforts to balance Iraqi demands for national sovereignty with the security concerns of the two allies. In a bid to secure support for the agreement from the country's top Shiite cleric, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday dispatched two senior lawmakers to see Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, with a copy of the pact's final draft...

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Valedictory hot air
Rice's last and final visit to Israel/Palestine is conclusive proof that the neocons achieved nothing and could offer nothing
Khaled Amayreh
The 24th visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Palestine-Israel this week didn't differ much from her previous visits, especially in substance. Rice, who held meetings with Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, followed by joint press conferences in both West Jerusalem and Ramallah, essentially regurgitated the same platitudes and false promises she voiced ever since she assumed the top diplomatic post nearly four years ago. Finding virtually nothing to clutch to in terms of hard achievements in the so- called peace process, Rice put a brave face on her apparent colossal failure to get Israel to end its decades-old occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip...

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An Embarrassment Of Laundry Lists
Winter Patriot
...When the telecoms wanted legal immunity for their lawbreaking activities, Barack Obama said he would try to prevent that from happening. Then he voted for a law that made it happen. When the big banks wanted $700 billion of your money, with public opinion running 100-to-1 against the idea, Barack Obama voted for the bill that gave that money away. He needed your support then; he slapped you across the head. You voted for him anyway. Those bills were always going to pass. They didn't need his vote. He could have voted against them, as a token gesture. But he didn't. He didn't even pretend to be on your side, even though he needed your support so very much. And you gave it to him anyway. And now ... he doesn't need you anymore. He's already made his intentions as clear as day ... and yet here you come with your Dear Santa letters full of free advice -- advice your man has already rejected. If he didn't even bother pretending to be serious when he needed your support, what makes you think he'll listen now, when he doesn't need you at all?...

I guess I just don't understand politics.

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UN closes Gaza aid centers, citing lack of food
DIAA HADID, AP
Gazans seeking food aid walked away empty-handed from locked United Nations distribution centers Saturday after a strict Israeli border closure depleted U.N. food reserves. Israel sealed Gaza's borders nearly two weeks ago as part of a new round of fighting with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns and Israeli air strikes on Gaza militants have eroded a truce that had largely held for five months...

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Iraq: Sunni roadblock to U.S. security agreement
Ned Parker, LATimes
Iraq’s Vice President Tariq Hashimi and his Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party could very well prove to be the force that blocks a U.S.-Iraq security agreement from being signed this year. Hashimi insisted this month that the pact be put before a popular referendum. His party members concede such a referendum would not be possible until sometime next year. Hashimi indicated his stance at the same time Shiite lawmakers close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki have made clear they are now supporting an agreement for U.S. forces to stay in the country for another three years....

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Video: Gaza humanitarian crisis
AlJazeeraEnglish
Inside Story questions the 'blame game' being played by the parties while the people of Gaza continue to suffer. Israel has refused permission for a convoy of trucks containing basic humanitarian supplies to deliver their loads to the Gaza Strip. Initially, the authorities had said they would allow passage for the 30 truckloads of drugs and food....


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UN on Gaza: "People are going to start getting hungry"
Ma'an news
The situation in the Gaza Strip is shifting from "collective punishment to genocide," said Jamal Al-Khudari, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and head of the popular committee against the siege in Gaza. The trickle of humanitarian aid previously allowed into Gaza, on which 80 percent of the population depended, has now been stopped for nine days by the Israeli army. The delivery of medical supplies and industrial fuel donated by the European Union (EU) has also been blocked. The fuel was needed to power Gaza’s sole power plant, which has now shut down, leading to rolling blackouts throughout Gaza...

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Second Fiddle to Israel
Khaled Amayreh
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been trading harsh accusations as to who bears responsibility for the open-ended postponement of Egyptian-sponsored national reconciliation talks that were due to take place in Cairo earlier this week. Citing Hamas’s decision to boycott the much-heralded talks, PA and Fatah leaders and spokespersons denounced the Islamic movement for being "unserious and insincere" about the restoration of Palestinian national unity...

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Sabra, Shatila and Collective Amnesia
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
Waltz With Bashir is a breath-taking new Israeli film, an animated documentary directed by Ari Folman. In 1982, Folman was a 19-year-old IDF infantry soldier. Twenty four years later, in 2006, Folman is surprised to find out that he does not remember a thing from that war or the massacres in Sabra and Shatila. The film is a journey into Folman’s lost past. The documentary is set as a chain of animated interviews and conversations between Folman and his military associates, psychologists and Ron Ben Yishai, the legendary Israeli TV reporter who was among the first to report on the Sabra and Shatila Massacres. The setting aims at building a coherent personal past narrative out of the broken memories of others. The film is highly sensitive and emotionally moving....

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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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The upcoming confrontation, Maliki and the Kurdish Coalition
Roads to Iraq
Maliki wanted to change the constitution few days ago (...) Questioning the Constitution means: - The relationship between the Kurds and other Iraqi political components is very close to another phase of internal conflict. Seeing Maliki’s attempts to improve his relations with Sadrists, raises some doubts that Maliki wants to split the United Shiites Alliance into: Al-Hakim’s Supreme Council with its Kurdish Coalition alliance - and Maliki’s Dawa Party with the Sadrists alliance [other small parties, and the tribal councils]...

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U.S. helicopter down in Iraq's Mosul leaving two dead
Reuters
Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a helicopter accident in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday, a military spokeswoman said. The helicopter involved was an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, a small scout helicopter fitted with weapons. It hit overhead cables as it was attempting to land. "There has been a helicopter incident in Mosul. They're classifying it now as a hard landing when it came in contact with wires," Captain Charles Calio said earlier on Saturday...


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November 15, 2008: 4 US GIs, 16 Iraqis Killed; 75 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 16 Iraqis were killed and 75 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. Four U.S. servicemembers died in separate incidents, including a helicopter crash in Mosul. Meanwhile, Iraqi and U.S. negotiators have agreed on a draft of a controversial U.S.-Iraqi security pact that will allow U.S. troops to remain in Iraq after December. The draft now goes to the Cabinet and then Parliament for approval....

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