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Latest Articles: War, War, War
Iraq ministry finishes draft law on contractors
Post Date: 2007-09-25 20:49:37 by Zipporah
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Iraq ministry finishes draft law on contractors Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:35pm BST By Mussab al-Khairalla and Aseel Kami BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Interior Ministry has finished draft legislation that would end the legal immunity enjoyed by private security contractors after a deadly shooting involving U.S. firm Blackwater, an official said on Tuesday. In fresh violence, a suicide car bomb killed three people near a police station in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra. Car bombings are rare in Basra, the hub for Iraq's oil industry. Two car bombs also killed six people and wounded 20 in the Zayouna district of eastern Baghdad, police and a hospital official said. Interior ...
Snipers Baited and Killed Iraqis, Soldiers Testify
Post Date: 2007-09-25 20:02:35 by Zipporah
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Snipers Baited and Killed Iraqis, Soldiers Testify By PAUL von ZIELBAUER Under a program developed by a Defense Department warfare unit, Army snipers have begun using a new method to kill Iraqis suspected of being insurgents, using fake weapons and bomb-making material as bait and then killing anyone who picks them up, according to testimony presented in a military court. The existence of the classified “baiting program,” as it has come to be known, was disclosed as part of defense lawyers’ efforts to respond to murder charges the Army pressed this summer against three members of a Ranger sniper team. Each soldier is accused of killing an unarmed Iraqi in three ...
Now we have Article 41
Post Date: 2007-09-25 19:46:36 by richard9151
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September 24, 2007 Now we have Article 41 They crossed the high seas; they poured out their billions; they sacrificed their sons … to "liberate" Iraqis … but what we, the women of Iraq got, is article 41. In 1959 the Iraqi government amended the Personal Status Law. Article 118 came into being as part of our constitution. It gave the women of Iraq the most progressive of all Arab and Islamic women's rights legislation until this very day. No discrimination in salaries, no discrimination in uniforms, the separated Mums get to keep the home until the children are of age, and so many other items that made the female community of Iraq one of the most progressive ...
Cheney’s New War Plans
Post Date: 2007-09-25 19:45:47 by aristeides
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Cheney’s New War Plans A thoroughly moderate, wonky international relations expert I know who spends much of his energy evaluating the efficacy of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan recently offered this summary of the Bush-Cheney Administration’s efforts: The Bush-Cheney administration has surrendered much of Afghanistan to the Taliban and much of Pakistan to al-Qaida. They have turned most of Iraq over to Iran, creating the very danger over which they now threaten another disastrous war; they have strained the U.S. Armed Forces to the point of exhaustion, turned the Defense Department over to private contractors, the Justice Department over to the ...
State Dept Stonewalls Waxman on Iraq Corruption
Post Date: 2007-09-25 19:31:37 by Zipporah
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State Dept Stonewalls Waxman on Iraq Corruption
By Spencer Ackerman - September 25, 2007, 4:46PM
A new letter from House oversight committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice charges that State Department officials have refused to answer Congressional investigators' questions about corruption in the Iraqi government unless the committee agrees not to disclose their answers.
That's not all. In the letter, Waxman charges that State has instructed Blackwater not to cooperate with the committee's inquiry into its operations in Iraq (more on that soon), and that Condoleezza Rice herself has refused to testify about either corruption within the Maliki ...
Scott Adams Making a Little Sense
Post Date: 2007-09-25 19:28:20 by Enderby
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A Feeling I'm Being Had I was happy to hear that NYC didn't allow Iranian President Ahmadinejad to place a wreath at the WTC site. And I was happy that Columbia University is rescinding the offer to let him speak. If you let a guy like that express his views, before long the entire world will want freedom of speech. I hate Ahmadinejad for all the same reasons you do. For one thing, he said he wants to "wipe Israel off the map." Scholars tell us the correct translation is more along the lines of wanting a change in Israel's government toward something more democratic, with less gerrymandering. What an ass-muncher! Ahmadinejad also called the holocaust a ...
Sen. Webb blasts Lieberman/Kyl Amendment: “This proposal is Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream”
Post Date: 2007-09-25 19:20:23 by Zipporah
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Sen. Webb went on the offensive today and denounced the Lieberman/Kyl amendment as warmongering and a big fat, wet kiss to the “William the Bloody” Kristol wing of the GOP—including the star of the Neocons: Dick Cheney. Lieberman is setting the stage with all his Iran amendments that have the sole purpose of bringing the US into war with Iran. This must be defeated and I implore the Democratic Party to vote this down. A big shout out to Jim Webb for standing up against this amendment. Call your Reps…(We have a “Contact Congress” box on the lower right hand column)
Watch
Those who regret their vote five years ago to authorize military action in Iraq should think hard ...
35% of the Iraqi population is either dead, maimed or a refugee
Post Date: 2007-09-25 19:04:38 by aristeides
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35% of the Iraqi population is either dead, maimed or a refugee by ghengismom [Subscribe] Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 03:04:45 PM PDT 1 in 3 people is the stunning reality of this war and no one speaks for them I wish to inform and hopefully to move you. I have gathered this information from various sources, UNICEF, the United Nations, WHO, medical journals and relief organizations. The figures are often based on estimates along with some verifiable reports and eye witness accounts because hard figures are difficult to gather. I tried, whenever possible to use multiple sources. Additionally, the UN places the prewar population of Iraq at 22 million. With numbers so large they are already ...
The men planning America's next air war
Post Date: 2007-09-25 05:53:41 by Ada
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An invitation to visit "Checkmate", the US air force's most important and secretive strategic planning group, was an offer that, as a veteran military analyst, I could not refuse. A few weeks earlier, I had written that the air force was the supreme instrument of America's global power, likening it to the 19th-century Royal Navy. Were it not for the USAF's 24-hour close air support, I said, US and British ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan would be unable to defend their long, vulnerable supply lines, and might even face defeats like those suffered by imperial Britain at Kut and in the Afghan wars. My column ricocheted around the Pentagon's top brass and ...
Very Bloody Oil
Post Date: 2007-09-25 01:26:31 by richard9151
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September 16th, 2007 Many people have been saying that the invasion (and occupation) of Iraq is about oil. I believe that there is more than oil involved, but certainly oil was a driving motivator. Now we can add Alan Greenspan to the list of those who reinforce that claim. Greenspan writes in his new book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World: ‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’ Yes, it is sad indeed, “politically inconvenient” or not, that we invaded, decimated, and continue to occupy a nation to control its oil reserves. Or to perhaps be a bit more specific, to turn ...
PBS: Weapons of US soldiers in Iraq 'plagued with problems'
Post Date: 2007-09-25 00:29:43 by robin
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The M-16, the choice rifle of the United States Armed Forces, turns 50 years old this month and is still plagued by many of the same problems it had half a century ago, putting American troops in Iraq at a severe disadvantage when it comes to small arms combat, the PBS program Newshour reported tonight. "That AK-74 outhits the M-16 by two to one on full automatic," said Jim Sullivan, referring to the Russian-made assault rifle, now in its third generation. "And the reason there were 100 million AK's made wasn't to equip the Russian army - it was to give [to] our Third World opponents. The United States can't win ground wars anymore." The M-16 and its ...
Closing Guantanamo lockup looks increasingly unlikely
Post Date: 2007-09-24 22:30:22 by kiki
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As the 2008 elections approach, many in the GOP are seizing on the detention unit as a get-tough issue. WASHINGTON — A lightning rod for international criticism, the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not long ago appeared headed for closure. President Bush and his top advisors said they wanted to shutter the controversial lockup. But the latest attempt to shut it down is facing collapse: The detention facility has been embraced by many Republicans as a potent political symbol in their quest to seize the terrorism issue ahead of next year's elections. "The Republican Party has won two elections on the issue of fear and terrorism. [It's] going to try ...
Bush to ask 195 billion to fund Iraq, Afgan wars: report
Post Date: 2007-09-24 21:52:25 by richard9151
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1 day ago WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House will ask Congress next week to approve another massive spending measure for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan totaling nearly 200 billion dollars, The Los Angeles Times reported on its website late Saturday. Citing unnamed Pentagon officials, the newspaper said if President George W. Bush's spending request is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war. US war costs have continued to grow because of the additional combat forces sent to Iraq this year and because of efforts to quickly ramp up production of new equipment, such as mine-resistant trucks, the report said. The new trucks can cost three to six times as ...
Harmon: Bush Used A Fake Terror Attack Warning To Get FISA Bill Passed
Post Date: 2007-09-24 20:42:16 by Mekons4
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Bush Used A Fake Terror Attack Warning To Get FISA Bill Passed by dday Thu Sep 20, 2007 at 08:47:11 AM PDT I've written a bit over the years about FEAR Unit, the Federal Even-yeared Antiterror Response. It seemed like every time an election came up we'd be bombarded with terror alerts and lurid attack plans. Since the Presidential approval ratings hit the toilet, FEAR Unit has been deployed in non-election years as well, to improve Republican standing and, in one case, to get legislation passed. Jane Harman has blown the whistle on the behind-the-scenes work to get the odious FISA bill through the Congress. It turns out that the Bushies did what they do best - they started a ...
Q & A with investigative journalist Seymour Hersh
Post Date: 2007-09-24 20:42:02 by Peetie Wheatstraw
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Jewish Journal: You wrote in The New Yorker in the spring of 2006 that the United States might not have much more time to focus on Iraq because they had started planning to bomb Iran. That hasn't happened yet. Do you still think it will? Seymour Hersh: At that time it was considered far out. But it's not anymore. I'm still writing about Iran planning. It is very much on the table. And I can tell you right now that there are many Shia right now in the south of Iraq, in the Maliki party, that believe to the core that America is no longer interested in Iraq, but that everything they are doing now is aimed at the Shia and Iran. JJ: You're not a fan of President George W. Bush. ...
Department of Veterans Affairs Reports 73 Thousand U.S. Gulf War Deaths
Post Date: 2007-09-24 20:25:44 by Horse
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More Gulf War Veterans have died than Vietnam Veterans: The Department of Veterans Affairs, May 2007, Gulf War Veterans Information System reports the following: Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths: 73,846 – Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847 – Deaths amongst Non-Deployed: 55,999 Total “Undiagnosed Illness” (UDX) claims: 14,874 Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906 - Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911 - Disability Claims amongst Non-Deployed: 1,212,995 Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims 36% -Source: http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf NOTE: Soldiers, by nature, typically don’t complain. In other words, the ...
Monday: 1 GI, 104 Iraqis killed; 115 Iraqis Wounded
Post Date: 2007-09-24 19:42:52 by Brian S
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Updated at 5:47 p.m. EDT, Sept. 24, 2007 At least 104 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 115 others were wounded in the latest round of attacks. A mass grave was found in al-Abara, while in Abu Maria a suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint. Kirkuk was the scene of several bombings as well. An American soldier was killed during an armed attack in Salah ad Din province. A suicide bomber attacked a gathering of local leaders in Baquba. Preliminary reports say that the chief of police was among the 26 dead; another 50 were wounded. A mass grave containing the bodies of 20 students was found in al-Abara. In Abu Maria, a suicide truck bomber killed six people, including two policemen and an ...
Juan Cole: Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1
Post Date: 2007-09-24 18:13:04 by Zipporah
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Photo: AP/Vahid SalemiIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves as he leaves Tehran Sept. 23 to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Sept. 24, 2007 | Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited. The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the ...
More Than 20 Top Ret. Generals Oppose Bush's War
Post Date: 2007-09-24 17:33:59 by robin
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More Military newsGenerals opposing Iraq war break with military traditionBy Mark SauerUNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERSeptember 23, 2007 Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton: "The ethos is: Give your advice to those in a position to make changes, not the media. But this administration is immune to good advice."Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste: "I had a moral obligation and a duty to do so. I have been speaking out for the past 17 months and there is no turning back."The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq.What might be ...
U.S. Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints
Post Date: 2007-09-24 17:31:12 by robin
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U.S. Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints By Sudarsan Raghavan and Steve Fainaru Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, September 23, 2007; A18 BAGHDAD, Sept. 22 -- Senior Iraqi officials repeatedly complained to U.S. officials about Blackwater USA's alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm until 11 Iraqis were shot dead last Sunday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. Before that episode, U.S. officials were made aware in high-level meetings and formal memorandums of Blackwater's alleged transgressions. They included six violent incidents this year allegedly involving the ...
Podhoretz Secretly Urged Bush To Bomb Iran
Post Date: 2007-09-24 11:02:59 by Brian S
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President Bush and Karl Rove sat listening to Norman Podhoretz for roughly 45 minutes at the White House as the patriarch of neoconservatism argued that the United States should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. The meeting was not on the president’s public schedule. Rove was silent throughout, though he took notes. The president listened diligently, Podhoretz said as he recounted the conversation months later, but he “didn’t tip his hand.” “I did say to [the president], that people ask: Why are you spending all this time negotiating sanctions? Time is passing. I said, my friend [Robert] Kagan wrote a column which he said you were giving ‘futility its ...
Blackwater clue to kidnap of five Britons in Baghdad
Post Date: 2007-09-24 10:28:07 by robin
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A NEW theory to explain why five Britons were kidnapped in an audacious terrorist operation at the ministry of finance in Baghdad at the end of May emerged yesterday. As the hostages spent their 117th day in captivity, Matthew Degn, a former American policy adviser to the Iraqi government, said he thought they had been seized in revenge for the fatal shooting of an interior ministry driver by guards of the US private security company Blackwater a few days earlier. It was Blackwater’s shooting of at least 11 civilians in a Baghdad square last Sunday that prompted an open row between the Iraqi government and Washington days before Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, meets President ...
Maliki Accuses Blackwater of Challenging Iraq’s Sovereignty
Post Date: 2007-09-23 19:08:13 by Brian S
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BAGHDAD, Sept. 23 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Sunday that the shooting of Iraqi civilians last week by Blackwater USA, a private American security company, amounted to a challenge to the nation’s sovereignty, but he added that the his government was working jointly with the United States to bring those responsible to justice. In an interview with The Associated Press in his New York hotel suite ahead of his appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, he said: “The Iraqi government is responsible for its citizens, and it cannot be accepted for a security company to carry out a killing. There are serious challenges to the sovereignty of Iraq.” The ...
VIDEO: America's "Long War". From the Truman Doctrine to the NeoCons
Post Date: 2007-09-23 12:52:04 by robin
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The Long War. From the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives. The Implications of the US Military Agenda Michel Chossudovsky's Address at the Opening Session, Perdana Global Peace Forum to Criminalize War, Kuala Lumpur, 5-7 February 2007 We are at an Important Crossroads in our History. The US has launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. It is a profit driven military agenda. The greatest threat to the war criminals is the truth. How do we reverse the tide of war. We must criminalise war. We must break the legitimacy of the military agenda.Wait until Buffering is complete. Click left and then right mouse button on screen to activate controls, including ...
US backing the wrong Shi'ite horse
Post Date: 2007-09-22 22:59:04 by Steel
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For some time, analysts have suggested that the George W Bush administration's "troop surge" strategy may have achieved a measure of success in certain parts of Iraq. Many highlight the tendency on the part of local tribes in the Sunni-dominated areas to stand up against al-Qaeda, in that way emphasizing their own "Iraqiness" as well as their unwillingness to join in an all-out war against Western civilization. Attacks against US forces have declined in many of these areas, and there are signs that al-Qaeda has been forced to relocate to new areas and to choose new targets. Perhaps the most convincing indicator of some "surge" success has also gone ...
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