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Date: 1-5 NOVEMBER 2006 |
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Date: 5 November 2006 === RSS FEED www.informationclearinghouse.info/rssfeed.xml News Syndication You can include the headlines from this newsletter on your own website free of charge === Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2831 The War in Iraq Costs See the cost in your community === Bush & Blair: The Iraq Fantasy Neither will admit that Iraq is a disaster. But while their state of denial may cost votes in Washington and London, on the frontline in the Middle East, it continues to cost lives By Patrick Cockburn “When does the incompetence end and the crime begin?” asked an appalled German Chancellor in the First World War when the German army commander said he intended to resume his bloody and doomed assaults on the French fortress city of Verdun. === Prowling Baghdad with a sidearm and a defective bulletproof-vest By Mike Whitney None of the people who started this war will ever be held accountable. In fact, the cabal of militarists, think-tank sycophants, and genocidal nutbars, who operate covertly behind the scenes, are probably devising their next bloodbath already. Unless we root them out, the cancer will persist. === By Stephen Zunes It should be remembered that it was the Democrats who controlled the Senate in the fall of 2002 when the Senate voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. Majority leader Tom Daschle and assistant majority leader Harry Reid led the majority of their fellow Senate Democrats in voting to launch a war of aggression against a country that, despite their claims to the contrary, was no threat to the security of the United States. === By Brent Budowsky Plans are secretly underway for a suprise new call up of National Guard and Reserves to be announced sometime after the election. === By Associated Press A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency’s closely guarded interrogation techniques. === Police discovered the bodies of 87 torture victims around the city yesterday as Iraqi bloodshed escalated in the lead-in to the expected sentencing of Saddam Hussein. === U.S. helicopters struck the town of Balad, killing two people and wounding five, including two policemen === The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue. === As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war’s neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence === Saddam’s sentence will be automatically appealed and reviewed by a panel of appeal judges, who will decide whether or not to allow a retrial. If the judgement stands, however, Saddam must be executed within 30 days of the appeals panel delivering its verdict, the chief prosecutor has said. === Iraqi president will not sign death warrant for Saddam : Iraq’s new rulers split yesterday over whether to execute Saddam. === Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis on Sunday to reject the sectarian violence ripping his country apart and to “not take revenge” on “invading” forces, his chief lawyer said after the ousted leader was sentenced to death. === This is a trial which has a political purpose to convict President Saddam Hussein in order to keep pace with the occupying invader’s policy to get use of such a decisions (of conviction) and to utilize it for electoral objectives as been illustrated by President Saddam Hussein in a letter he sent to the Court on the 22nd of October 2006 === It’s that simple. When American troops are being killed by the dozen, when the country you are occupying is threatening to break up into smaller countries, when you have militias and death squads roaming the streets and you’ve put a group of Mullahs in power- execute the dictator. === “This court is a creature of the US military occupation, and the Iraqi court is just a tool and rubber stamp of the invaders,” insisted Dulaimi. === Islamic leaders warned that executing Saddam could inflame those who revile the U.S., undermining President Bush’s policy in the Middle East and inspiring terrorists. === The European Union urged Iraq on Sunday not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity. === On November 14 a group of lawyers and other experts will come before the German federal prosecutor and ask him to open a criminal investigation targeting Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other key Bush Administration figures for war crimes. === Our effort to gain information vitiated 200 years of history. International obligations didn’t matter, nor did morality or humanity. “ === Israeli snipers killed two Palestinians in occupiedGaza on Saturday, one of them a 12-year-old girl, Palestinian sources said. === Palestinian officials said the deaths bring the toll since Wednesday to nearly 50. === A brigade commander tells his soldiers, who killed 12 people in one day: “You’ve won 12:0,” and the soldiers grin broadly. This is the moral nadir we have reached, following a long slide down a slippery slope: Human life has become cheap. === Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group have reached a deal on forming a unity government that will not be headed by current Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, a lawmaker from the Islamist movement said on Sunday. === THE Pentagon is speeding up plans for possible military strikes on North Korea’s nuclear programme as concern mounts that Arab states are also looking to acquire nuclear technology === Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry warned Saturday that the United States might be forced to take military action against North Korea if China and South Korea do not agree to apply “coercive action” in urging North Korea to scrap its nuclear ambitions. === “I found it disturbing that their position is that American citizens can be treated with impunity by American officials without a recognition that the constitution applies,” Rosenbaum said. === Pushing yellow button on device could reset machine, let someone cast ballot multiple times === Repeat calls not from Hodes : Democratic field offices received dozens of phone calls and e-mails from frustrated voters upset about repeated automated phone calls they thought were coming from Democratic candidate Paul Hodes – though the calls were paid for by a Republican group instead. === The U.S. Constitution Explained === Under a new federal policy, children born in the United States to illegal immigrants with low incomes will no longer be automatically entitled to health insurance through Medicaid, Bush administration officials said Thursday. === Date: 4 November 2006 === RSS FEED www.informationclearinghouse.info/rssfeed.xml News Syndication You can include the headlines from this newsletter on your own website free of charge === Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2829 The War in Iraq Costs See the cost in your community === U.S. speeds attack plans for North Korea By Bill Gertz The Pentagon has stepped up planning for attacks against North Korea’s nuclear program and is bolstering nuclear forces in Asia, said defense officials familiar with the highly secret process. === By Scott Ritter I recently returned from a trip to Iran, where over the course of a week I made the journey from the northern suburbs of Tehran to the gates of the Natanz enrichment facility, and in doing so had my eyes opened. The Iran that I witnessed was far removed from the one caricatured in the US media. I left with the frustrating realization that, as had been the case with Iraq, America was stumbling toward a conflict, blinded by the prejudice and fear born of our collective ignorance. === By Linda Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz In January, we estimated that the true cost of the Iraq war could reach $2 trillion, a figure that seemed shockingly high. But since that time, the cost of the war – in both blood and money – has risen even faster than our projections anticipated. === By Carol D. Leonnig and Eric Rich The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the “alternative interrogation methods” that their captors used to get them to talk. === By Nelson Mandela Millions remain enslaved and in chains at a time of breathtaking advances in technology and wealth. === By Ezekiel The Department of Homeland Security proposed new rules back in July that would fundamentally undermine the right of American citizens to travel abroad. Public carriers—airlines, cruise lines, even fishing boats—will be required to submit the names of all passengers to Homeland Security prior to departure and to obtain permission from Homeland Security to board those passengers. These new rules will take effect January 14, 2007. === 11 of America’s Worst Places to Cast a Ballot (or Try) By Sasha Abramsky Machines that count backward, slice-and-dice districts, felon baiting, phone jamming, and plenty of dirty tricks. === Most of the bullet-riddled bodies were bound, blindfolded and showing signs of torture, the source said. === Iraqi security forces killed 53 insurgents and detained 16 others in fierce gunbattle in southeastern Baghdad on Saturday, Iraqi official television reported. === Mortar rounds killed seven people and wounded 20 in Baghdad’s western Adhamiya district on Saturday night === 78 percent said the U.S. presence provokes more conflict than it prevents; 84 percent said they had little or no confidence in the U.S military. === Iraqi officials on Saturday announced an all-day Sunday curfew in Baghdad and four provinces, fearing that the expected announcement of a verdict in the trial of former leader Saddam Hussein could inflame nationalist and sectarian passions and escalate the daily deluge of violence. === Iraqis and human rights advocates have questioned the timing of the verdict in the Dujail case — two days before midterm elections in the United States — and whether it is intended to boost President Bush and his Republican allies. === === Richard Perle: Iraq War Decision Wrong: Richard Perle, a leading proponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, now says devastating dysfunction within the Bush administration has turned U.S. policy there into a disaster. === Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war: Several prominent neoconservatives have turned on George Bush days before critical midterm elections, lambasting his administration for incompetence in the handling of the Iraq war and questioning the wisdom of the 2003 invasion they were instrumental in promoting. === Seven people, including a teenager and five resistance fighters, were killed in the Gaza Strip Saturday as Israel pressed an attack on anti occupation forces that has left 43 Palestinians and one soldier dead in four days. === Palestinian sources reported that an additional Palestinian was killed and another wounded from Israeli occupation forces fire near Beit Hanoun in occupied northern Gaza. === Malki Shahwan silently picks at the peach tissue she’s using to dab at the tears in the corners of her opaque eyes, eyes that her family says have gone blind from grief. === Demands international intervention === Muhammad Zakout’s 14- year-old son, Alaa, leaked blood on to a hospital pillow as his family gathered around the bed, incredulous that after repeated warnings to stay out of trouble he had been shot while throwing stones at Israeli tanks. === Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip could endanger the life of an abducted Israeli soldier and is an impediment to his release, the Palestinian foreign minister told Egypt’s state-run news agency on Saturday. === Kuwait has shut down its Shuaiba oil refinery after an explosion hit the 200,000 barrel-per-day plant, a Kuwaiti energy official said. === Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology === Data Found In Drug Raid Contains Weapons-Design Secrets === Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. === Afghan and NATO occupation forces killed seven Taliban “insurgents” and injured 30 others on Saturday in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, the provincial police chief told Xinhua. === Taliban fighters ambushed a convoy supplying logistics and goods to a US base in southeastern Afghanistan, killing two Pakistani drivers and wounding an Afghan, police said. === “The continued illegal stay of foreign forces and the criminal behavior of the U.S. and the UK troops would cause more crises in Afghanistan,” === A recent Central Intelligence Agency assessment found that the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, had been significantly weakened by rising popular frustration with his American-backed government, American officials say. ==== Germany’s army was hit by fresh allegations of misconduct on Saturday when a newspaper reported peacekeeping soldiers in Afghanistan staged the mock execution of a local child in 2002. === The German Defense Ministry challenged a newspaper Saturday to provide proof for a claim that German soldiers terrorized a little Afghan boy in 2002 by holding a gun to his head. === Who should Pay for 83 Killed at Khar in Bajaur? === 7 Minute Video: Interview with Ex-CIA Analyst Ray McGovern. He talks about running into ex-Secretary of the Department of Transportation Norman Mineta and confronting him regarding his testimony before the 9/11 Commission. === Rev. Ted Haggard Puts Foot In Own Mouth: Ted Haggard stepped down from his church, amid allegations of paying for sex with a man and doing methamphetamine with him. === Richard Nixon said one thing and did another. So, it seems, does Joseph Lieberman. === During a test using an optical scanner, officials discovered that the machine was providing incorrect election results === The number of people becoming insolvent has jumped by 55% over the past year, official figures revealed today, in the latest evidence of Britain’s mounting personal debt problems. === The internet will hold so much digital data in five years that it will be possible to find out what an individual was doing at a specific time and place, an expert said yesterday. === This documentary Web site explores more than two centuries of surveillance in America. Included are two hours of audio interviews, 300 photographs and 25 personal stories beginning in 1917. === Every single commercial fishery in the world will be wiped before 2050 and the oceans may never recover if over-fishing continues at its current rate, a four-year scientific investigation has found. === Fish stocks are declining so rapidly that scientists have predicted that they will disappear by the middle of the century unless radical measures are taken to protect them === Date: 3 November 2006 === RSS FEED www.informationclearinghouse.info/rssfeed.xml News Syndication You can include the headlines from this newsletter on your own website free of charge === Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2826 Cost of America’s War in Iraq See the cost in your community === By John Pilger The United States promised a democracy when the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year finally ended slavery. For the next decade, the civil-rights movement joined the great popular movement to end the slaughter in Vietnam, and Congress legislated to restrain the CIA’s secretive parallel power. It was a fleeting intermission. === By Greg Palast It was pure war-nography. The front page of the New York Times yesterday splashed a four-column-wide close-up of a blood-covered bullet in the blood-soaked hands of an army medic who’d retrieved it from the brain of Lance Cpl. Colin Smith. === By Mike Whitney After 3 and a half years of violence and mayhem we still know as little about the Iraqi resistance as we did in March 2003. This is inexcusable. In addition, there’s been no attempt to engage the representatives of the resistance in political dialogue. How can we possibly reach a political solution without dialogue and negotiation? === The Bush Administration as Global Jailor By Nick Turse The American gulag is so much more than Guantanamo and so much worse. The combination of U.S. “homeland” prisons, where “one in 140 Americans, or as many people as live in Namibia, or nearly five Luxembourgs” are locked away, the offshore imperial detention facilities, the shadowy CIA black sites, and the ever-shifting outsourced detention facilities operated by other nations adds up to something new in history — the makings of a veritable American prison planet. === By Robert Jensen One of the most devastating consequences of unearned privilege — both for those of us on top and, for very different reasons, those who suffer beneath — is the death of empathy. === By Julian Glover America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country’s reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq. === By Phil Rockstroh While I harbor little affection for nor feel any affinity with the corrupt establishment of the Democratic Party, I don’t believe, as is the case with the present leadership of the Republican party, they’re a klavern of insane, death-smitten apocalypticists. However, I do believe that a craven desire for power and privilege has transformed them into morally bankrupt, lickspittle, corporate stooges. === By David Pérez The only reason the Democratic Party is against the fiasco in Iraq is because the U.S. is losing the war. It’s all about “bad planning,” or “bad timing,” or whatever. If Bush and Co. had easily subjugated the nation and controlled the oil fields, the entire U.S. ruling class and their paid politicians would be joyous. === By Mike Whitney What can we expect in the midterm elections? The real question is: What should we NOT expect in the elections. We should not expect dramatic change from our present trajectory. Whether Karl Rove engineers another electoral-coup or not, is beside the point. The system has been reshaped to meet the needs and aspirations of the ruling mandarins. === By Joel S. Hirschhorn We the people once owned our democracy. We elected “representatives” to run it for US. Have you noticed? Somewhere along the way we lost our democracy. It was foreclosed by wealthy and power elites that corrupted our “representatives” who literally sold us out. Our homeland was foreclosed right in plain sight. === By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich It is the aim of the United States to inflict collective punishment on the Iranian people. The Bush White House, successfully invoked Chapter VII, Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations stipulating a threat to peace (the pot calling the kettle black) subjecting Iran to sanctions. The compliant United Nations Security Council drafted the Iran Resolution, paragraph 15 of which is as follows: === By Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar In the United States, what we call fundamentalism has very deep roots, from the early colonists. There’s always been an extreme, ultra?religious element, more or less fundamentalist, with several revivals. === By Ismael Hossein-zadeh The Bush administration’s labeling of radical Islamic movements and leaders as fascist, or “Islamofascism,” is sheer nonsense. It betrays either blatant demagoguery, or shameful ignorance, or most probably, both. === Audio An interview with James Petras, author, “ The Power of Israel in the United States”. Click to listen === Police found 56 bodies and a severed head scattered around occupied Baghdad over the last 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said === Three U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and four Marines were killed in “enemy action” in Iraq’s western Anbar province on Thursday, the U.S. military said on Friday. === The agency says an additional 50,000 Iraqis a month are fleeing their homes but remaining within Iraq, which classifies them as “internally displaced” rather than as refugees who have crossed an international border. === John Negroponte, the US national intelligence director, has made an unannounced visit to Baghdad for talks with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. === A senior U.S. general compared Iraq on Thursday to a work of art in progress and played down incessant violence and friction with Iraqi leaders as “speed bumps” on the road to stability. === Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq’s population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of taxpayers’ money and having lost the lives of 52 employees, has come to the end of its last government contract. === Pink slip for overseer mysteriously added to big spending bill === Israeli occupation forces kill, 23 Palestinians : Palestinian medics said on Friday that 23 people, including militants, women and children, were killed as the Israeli army ground military operation called “Cloud of Autumn “ went on in northern Gaza Strip. === Two Palestinian women have been killed during a stand-off near a Gaza mosque while they were trying to rescue about 60 Palestinian men besieged inside. === In the West Bank, Israeli occupation troops also arrested a Palestinian cabinet minister in the internationally boycotted Hamas-led government, shot dead two Palestinian youths and wounded another two people === A teenage Palestinian boy was killed and his older brother injured during an attack by Israeli occupation forces into Balata refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday evening. === A 4-year-old boy and 40-year-old woman were among four Palestinian civilians killed Friday during an Israel Defense Forces operation in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, Palestinian sources said. === Four members of Hamas’s armed section have been killed by an Israeli missile fired on their car as they were going to pray in the Gaza Strip. === Casualties Mount in New Israeli Attack on Gaza: The dead include a 70 year-old Palestinian man who was shot in the head by Israeli troops when he went onto the balcony of his home to take his disabled son inside. === Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday urged Israel to do their utmost to protect civilians and to refrain from further escalating an already grave situation. === Kissinger had accepted an invitation from the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute to be one of a group of leaders tasked with setting strategic goals for improving the situation of the Jewish people. Last week’s discussion centered on the Iranian threat to Israel. === A senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, told state radio that the tests should send a strong message to the United States to cease military maneuvers in the area. === U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, while Iran was trying to show it is ``tough’’ by test- firing a ballistic missile able to hit Israel, any use of the weapon would invite consequences understood by Iranian leaders. === Sergei Lavrov says a European draft resolution to impose UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program went far beyond what had been agreed. === “NPT is a valuable document, and the Islamic Republic abides by its commitments on the treaty.” Larijani stipulated that countries such as the US are trying to form a monopoly club for use of nuclear technology and supervise nuclear energy in the coming years. === The US government hurriedly closed down an official website this week after a newspaper reported it contained Iraqi documents that included details for building a nuclear bomb, officials said Friday === Six Afghan police and a soldier were killed and eight NATO troops injured in three separate attacks by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, officials and the military say. === Pakistani Taliban fighters beheaded a tribal cleric accused of being a US spy in the Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan, a security official in the restive tribal region said. === NATO operations will likely continue in Afghanistan for another 10 years, a high-ranking Canadian soldier said Thursday. === Thousands of angry tribesmen and Islamists protested today across Pakistan against an airstrike that killed 80 people at a religious school near the Afghan border this week. === Pakistan has broadcast a government surveillance footage, taken a week before the military raided a madrasa which was believed to have links with al Qaeda. === Dost’s “whereabouts are now unknown and he is at risk of torture,” Amnesty said in a statement. === The United States will soon deploy inspectors at Pakistani ports and airports to monitor passengers and cargo ships in a bid to prevent terrorist attacks === A new sign-on support letter has been drafted. Signatories include Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Eve Ensler, Danny Glover, Eduardo Galeano, Michael Moore, Arundhati Roy, Alice Walker, Howard Zinn, and many others. === The Bush administration’s military adventurism and the economy are two issues expected to impact next week’s US midterm vote. We ignore their interplay at our peril. === Bush hints Dems love terrorists in late push === This is expected to lead to melting of polar ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels and more extreme weather events such as storms and floods. === Date: 2 November 2006 === RSS FEED www.informationclearinghouse.info/rssfeed.xml News Syndication You can include the headlines from this newsletter on your own website free of charge === Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2819 Cost of America’s War in Iraq See the cost in your community === Bush : U.S. Must Stay In Iraq To Control Oil By Raw Story During an interview with conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh, US President George Bush expressed deep concerns about the possibility of the United States leaving the Middle East, raising fears that extremists could topple governments to “control oil resources.” === Stephen Sackur talks to a leading neo-conservative, Norman Podhoretz. Podhoretz, provides insights into the racism, and fascists ideology that fuels Neo-Conservatives. Click to view === By John T. Flynn when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism. === Audio Historian Howard Zinn spoke on “The Occupation of the United States” at Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois. Click to listen === By Paul Craig Roberts Perhaps Americans don’t notice, but the rest of the world does see the double standard applied when Saddam Hussein is put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, while US, UK, and Israeli government officials commit far greater crimes by illegally invading countries, targeting civilian populations, and torturing detainees. === By Patrick J. Buchanan 15 years after the Cold War’s end, to begin dissolving old alliances and shedding commitments dating to a time when a Soviet Empire bestrode Europe and Asia like a colossus? === By Charles Sullivan The mainstream media, like organized religion, is used to program public perceptions-to steer us away from truth and to perpetuate fairy tales that extol the virtues of bribery, violence, and greed. It makes useful idiots of those who cannot think for themselves and persuades them to act like fools in the eyes of the world. === A motorcycle bomb killed seven people and wounded 45 when it exploded in a crowded market in Baghdad’s Shi’ite Sadr City district, an interior ministry source said. === Iraq’s Islamic Army has claimed that it has produced a surface-to-surface missile: “The missile will allow the resistance fighters to perform attacks miles away from the target, which is safer for them. === Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday endorsed a proposal to spend at least $1 billion to expand the size and accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. === Iraqi President wants presence of US army on his country’s soil for three more years, says Iraq is not in civil war. === John Pilger: Why Bush lies about Iraq: US President George Bush’s plans to invade Iraq have nothing to do eliminating “weapons of mass destruction”, preventing terrorism or ending human rights abuses. An attack on Iraq will be the first phase of a pre-existing strategy to increase US control of the world’s oil supplies. === A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end American military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress next Tuesda === Johnstown is a small working-class town, not the kind of place you would expect to find an anti-war rally. === Instead of the nearly $3 billion originally budgeted, Bechtel finally received about $2.3 billion, a figure that includes money the company spent on projects as well as its undisclosed profit. === Israel continued an attack into Gaza which has killed 12 Palestinians and a soldier in little over a day in one of its largest operations since militants seized a soldier in June. === Israeli occupation forces are reported to have killed four Palestinians in northern Gaza, two of them civilians including a 75-year-old, in one of its biggest operations in the coastal strip in months. === The establishment of such a force has been requested several times by Palestinian leaders in order to protect civilians from various acts of violence carried out by the Israeli military. === An Israeli security agent scoffed at a Chicago grocer’s claim that he was deprived of sleep, forced to wear a foul-smelling hood and otherwise tortured after his arrest on charges of bankrolling terrorists. === “We as Christians are living in a time in which we must wake up. We must organize ourselves and become a lobby for these people. That’s why we are here,” Ellssel added. === Ethiopian communities respond with rage at Channel 2 report that revealed blood donated by Ethiopians is frozen and disposed of. === The appointment of Israel’s new deputy PM raises fears of a new catastrophe === Bush “would understand” Israeli strike on Iran : President Bush reportedly said he would “understand” a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran´s nuclear sites. === Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards test-fired dozen of missiles today, including some that are capable of reaching Israeli and American forces in the Middle East, at the start of ten days of war games. === Russian and China indicated that they will not support a draft U.N. resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program. === Monday’s aerial attack on a seminary in Pakistan’s tribal area of Bajaur that killed 80 people has again triggered a debate about who is actually carrying out such attacks === ‘We are waking up to a surveillance society all around us’ === Since Sept. 11, 2001, Blair’s government has at least once sought to use evidence extracted under torture in legal proceedings, has signed agreements to deport prisoners to countries where they may be tortured, and has turned a blind eye to U.S. mistreatment of prisoners and secret movement of suspects to countries where they could be abused, Human Rights Watch states. === Some think a trial in the abduction could uncover high-level collusion between the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, then in power, and the U.S. administration. === Bush’s Record on Anti-Terrorism === Swiss authorities have found enough evidence to seek a full investigation into allegations the CIA was trying to obtain personal details of about 500 labor union members, most of them Arabs, officials said Friday. === U.S. privacy protections rank among the worst in the democratic world, a London-based privacy organization said Wednesday. === An interesting edit of some scenes from the movie V For Vendetta === Professor Avi Rubin demonstrates how electronic vote machines can be hacked === Voters in the United States are denied the one powerful technique that might restore confidence in election results — an independent exit poll. === Civil rights groups say they are distressed that officials will not be able to supply absentee ballots for all residents who want them. === Date: 1 November 2006 === RSS FEED www.informationclearinghouse.info/rssfeed.xml News Syndication You can include the headlines from this newsletter on your own website free of charge === Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2818 Cost of America’s War in Iraq See the cost in your community === “There has never been an American army as violent and murderous as the one in Iraq” Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh slams Bush at McGill address By Martin Lukacs Hersh described video footage depicting U.S. atrocities in Iraq, which he had viewed, but not yet published a story about. He described one video in which American soldiers massacre a group of people playing soccer. === By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil, Northern Iraq Sunni insurgents have cut the roads linking the city to the rest of Iraq. The country is being partitioned as militiamen fight bloody battles for control of towns and villages north and south of the capital. === By Stephen Collinson Damning analysis says all indications point to current state of civil war, disintegration of Iraqi state. === By MICHAEL R. GORDON The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” === The Fear Merchants – An audio essay by Mumia Abu-Jamal Must listen – Two minute audio === The Spoils of Corruption By Charles Sullivan The mainstream media, like organized religion, is used to program public perceptions-to steer us away from truth and to perpetuate fairy tales that extol the virtues of bribery, violence, and greed. It makes useful idiots of those who cannot think for themselves and persuades them to act like fools in the eyes of the world. === By Thom Hartmann How the Corporatocracy Sets the Rules of the “Game” To Create Peons. === Video Documentary – Directed by Ian Inaba Kicking off with the detailed argument that black voters in Florida were systematically disenfranchised in the 2000 presidential election, the film then pulls double duty: It’s a fine-tooth examination of both the continued, unconstitutional marginalization of black voters in America and the attempts by various political and media machines to crush McKinney in retaliation for her outspokenness on that subject and on the illegality of the war in Iraq. Click to view === By James Petras Measuring The Rise or Fall of US Power : A realistic analysis demonstrates that political interventions, class conflict and international markets play a major role in shaping US-Latin American relations and more particularly the ascent and decline of US imperial power, social revolutionary forces and the other political variants in between. === By Manuel Valenzuela . Resistance will begin when the many begin the healing of civilization and the planet, when a massive movement commences to purge warmongering leadership from our midst, when a tidal wave of humanity floods the concrete jungles and steel canyons we live in, marching to the drumbeats of peace, non-violence and universal harmony. That is Revolution at the dawn of the 21st century === The bullet-riddled bodies of three people who had been blindfolded and bound at the wrists were found dumped in eastern Baghdad, and five more bodies were pulled from the Tigris River near Suwayrah, 25 miles south of the capital. === The case is one of two involving soldiers from the division accused of killing Iraqis during a deployment to Iraq that ended in September. === Staff at the U.S. military hospital in Baghdad are used to horrific injuries but when the limp, bullet-riddled body of a 5-year-old Iraqi boy was zipped up in a grotesquely oversized bodybag, it was different. It got worse when they heard he was shot by an American. === Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. Now we learn, thanks to a reporter’s FOIA request, that one of the first women to die in Iraq shot and killed herself after objecting to harsh “interrogation techniques.” === Increased violence is being countered by harsh new measures across the Sunni-dominated al-Anabar province west of Baghdad, residents say. === The U.S. military reported the death of a soldier in fighting yesterday in volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad, raising to 104 the number of American service members killed in combat in October — the fourth deadliest month since the war began. === Iraqi Shiite militants won a major political victory Tuesday when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered US and Iraqi units to lift a blockade around the flashpoint suburb of Sadr City. === An Iraqi security source disclosed Wednesday that the US forces stormed the home of former Iraqi Premier Iyad Allawi who leads the Iraqi list, one of the biggest Iraqi parliament blocs, and arrested eight of his bodyguards. === === A recent study published in The Lancet medical journal estimated that 655,000 Iraqi people have been killed as a result of the March 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq. === U.S. officials on the bases paid cash to fly-by-night Iraqi agents to cart away new vehicles and spare parts – along with generators – that had been left behind by Saddam’s army. The Iraqis then sold the valuable equipment in Syria and Jordan and paid kickbacks to the U.S. officials. === The astounding arrogance that underwrites Bush’s smug determination to keep killing and maiming tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people is no different than that of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Both knew the war was a failure, but determined to “stay the course” for a decade out of a misguided belief in protecting an image of American infallibility that was paired with shameful political motives. === UK and US forces have continued to use depleted uranium weapons despite warnings they pose a cancer risk, a BBC investigation has found. === Military Use Of DU: American Use Of DU is “A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.” US Iraq Military Vets “are on DU death row, waiting to die.” === Bahrain has censored local and foreign Internet sites for discussing a report by an alleged British spy who claimed to have uncovered a plot to maintain Sunni domination of the Gulf kingdom, === A roadside bomb ripped through a NATO vehicle, killing three soldiers on patrol in a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan. === Meanwhile, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan, British General David Richards, told the Financial Times that he doesn’t have enough forces to defeat the Taleban within the next six months. === A senior Pakistani intelligence source told the network Pakistani helicopters joined Monday’s operation after an unmanned drone fired two missiles at the Islamic school near the Afghanistan border. === A day after Pakistan’s deadliest attack of the “global war on terror,” residents say that U.S. surveillance drones fired at least some of the missiles that killed an estimated 80 people in a religious school near the Afghan border. === Amnesty International is concerned that at least 82 people in a madrassa (religious school) may have been extrajudicially executed in an aerial attack at dawn of 30 October in Bajaur. No attempt appears to have been made to arrest the victims who were described by army spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan as some 70 to 80 “militants” === Human Rights Watch has urged Pakistan to allow an independent inquiry into Monday’s bombing of an Islamic school in which 80 people were killed. === Despite the agreement with the tribal elders, the “hot pursuit” across Afghanistan into the tribal areas in Pakistan has created a storm, with the Pakistani media claiming that the attack involved the Pakistani military and Nato forces. === Some 60 people were wounded as troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, carried out the raid. === 2 Minute video === Lieberman’s cabinet debut: ‘Emulate Russia’s treatment of Chechnya === HERE in Gaza, few dream of peace. For now, most dare only to dream of a lack of war. It is for this reason that Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace. === Prominent Zionist groups and individuals in the US are conducting a campaign of intimidation against liberal and left-wing critics of the Israeli regime and Washington’s policy toward Israel. === What bizarre science-fiction horrors have to occur before the American media wakes up to the strange war that Israel is prosecuting against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians? === Source say country intends to switch foreign currency surplus from dollars to euros, in order to pay external debts and combat US economic sanctions === The United States has said there is “mounting evidence” that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are planning to topple the Lebanese government. === The US navy has conducted military exercises (30th of October) 20 miles outside Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The war games were perceived by Tehran as an act of provocation. Iranian patrol boats came very close to US and coalition warships in the Persian Gulf. === Iran unexpectedly announced on Wednesday that it would be holding military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf region this week, only days after international navies led by the Unites States held exercises in the same waterway. === The former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, has begun a visit to the UK by calling for dialogue between civilisations to prevent religious wars === British Court Frees Airline Plot Suspects : Two brothers charged in an alleged plot to blow up U.S. bound airliners were released Wednesday after a British court ruled the evidence against them was insufficient to warrant a trial === Presiding U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke on Monday gave the U.S. attorney’s office until November 14 by to respond to Padilla’s allegations, according to an order released by the court. === U.S. medical officers at the Guantanamo Bay detention center adjusted the force-feeding schedule for two long-time hunger strikers so they could fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, doctors at the U.S. navy base said. === Lecturers and staff at British universities will be asked to spy on “Asian-looking” and Muslim students they suspect of supporting terrorist acts and involvement in Islamic extremism === Former president Nelson Mandela on Wednesday accepted the Ambassador of Conscience Award, the most prestigious honour given each year by the human rights group Amnesty International. === The lawyer who divulged President George W. Bush’s drunken-driving arrest days before the 2000 election was arrested Tuesday after he was spotted on a highway overpass wearing an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume and holding a toy gun. === ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the AP own the exit polls and have defied John Conyers’ request for the raw data, keeping that data secreted from even qualified independent researchers. ===
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