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Date: 16-17 NOVEMBER 2006 |
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Date: 17 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 2865 The War in Iraq Costs See the cost in your community === By Mike Whitney Iran is playing a clever game in Iraq using US occupation forces to crush the Ba’athist-led resistance while expanding their influence via the Shiite militias. This is a “lose-lose” situation for the United States. === It’s rare to speak to someone who’s been a member of al Qaeda, and rare too to interview a spy. BBC Video Report His story is extraordinary, revealing the extent of al-Qaeda’s preparations – years before 9/11 – to target the west, but also the British authorities’ lack of awareness of the growing threat of Islamic terrorism. Watch It === Weapons of Mass Destruction Protected By Bill Quigley. What does it say about our society that personal sacrifices to go to war to kill people in war are praised, while personal sacrifices for peace are condemned? What does it say that intentional destruction of cities and communities and families and individuals are considered totally legal, while actions trying to dismantle weapons of mass destruction send people to prison? === By Marianne Williamson A bill before Congress would establish a US Department of Peace. This measure would provide practical, nonviolent solutions for the problems of domestic and international conflict. It would apply the institutional heft of the US government to a serious effort not merely at avoiding war or waging war more effectively. It would take America to the next evolutionary step: It would proactively wage peace. === By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth Small groups of Israelis, smaller than Gush Shalom, are abandoning Zionism and coalescing around new ideas about how Israeli Jews and Palestinians might live peacefully together, including inside a single state. === By Ben Fox The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report. === Video “Here’s your Patriot Act, here’s your … abuse of power,” Watch it === Police found 14 bodies bearing signs of torture and bullet wounds in different parts of Baghdad, police said. === U.S. killed 35 civilians when they shelled several homes in the Al-Dhubat area of the city. === At least 21 have been kidnapped and shot in head over the past three weeks, their bodies dumped in different parts of the city === An Austrian was killed and an American was seriously wounded after their convoy of security contractors was hijacked in southern Iraq, an Iraqi police officer said Friday. === The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II. === Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) explains why cutting off funding for the Iraq war is the only way to truly protect American troops. === The full panoply of American power was unleashed upon Iraq, and the results have been profoundly unimpressive. This doesn’t just mean that the US loses in Iraq. It means its leverage elsewhere is severely diminished as well. === New allegations from Iraq’s education minister that the state may be complicit in mass kidnappings. === The influential Association of Muslim Scholars on Friday called on Sunni politicians to quit Iraq’s government and parliament, a day after the Shiite interior minister issued an arrest warrant for the association’s leader. === BBC Baghdad correspondent David Loyn says Mr Dhari is an Iraqi nationalist who is opposed to any co-operation with America and is also against government proposals to give an amnesty to anyone who gives up the insurgency. === A soldier was sentenced Thursday to 90 years in prison with the possibility of parole for conspiring to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her and her family. === One of four US soldiers accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl showed little remorse, and even smiled during a confession to charges he conspired to kill her and her family. === Two former employees of an American private military contracting company have claimed in a Virginia court that they witnessed their supervisor deliberately shoot at Iraqi vehicles and civilians this summer, and that the company fired them for reporting the incidents. === A leading Iraqi lawyer has accused the US army of throwing 211 families, including his, out of their homes. === Military interrogators from the Netherlands abused dozens of Iraqi prisoners following the 2003 invasion, according to a Dutch press report. === A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night. === The deaths, which follow the killing of at least 12 civilians in fighting on Oct. 24, are a potential set back for NATO, which is trying to win the support of Afghan locals as it seeks to quell the insurgency. === To carry out the increased mission load, the air force’s entire complement of B-1 bombers was shifted over the summer from the British air base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to a Middle Eastern airfield closer to Afghanistan. === Troops from most major European nations are kept far from the fighting in Afghanistan, crippling NATO’s effort to defeat the Taliban and secure the embattled south, according to NATO officers and independent analysts. === An Israeli human rights group has called for an immediate military investigation into the deaths of two wounded and unarmed Palestinians shot during an army raid in the occupied West Bank this month. === Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday that Israel rejected the new peace initiative out of hand. She told Moratinos that it was unacceptable for an initiative concerning Israel to be launched without coordination with Jerusalem. === === Minister for Information and Broadcasting Muhammad Ali Durrani Friday said that Israeli terrorism and aggression against Palestine would come under discussion during emergency OIC executive meeting called at Jeddah. === The Palestinian Authority’s representative to the UN, Riad Mansour, called for “Israeli war criminals” to be put on trial for the shelling. === Q: In your book, you argue that ‘because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned.’ Can you explain that more fully? === The Hezbollah leader criticized US “hegemony” in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian situation as well as Lebanon. He predicted the US had no future in the region and would “leave the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim worlds in the same way they left Vietnam”. === Visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will return to his country with reassurances from the Bush administration that it is not backing down from its view that Iran and its nuclear program are a world threat. === Iran may have signed a virtual “death warrant” by openly declaring a governmental decision to move away from the dollar in the country’s foreign-exchange transactions, says WND columnist Jerome Corsi === It would be “dangerous” for the U-S to think it can do in Iran what it’s done in Iraq and Afghanistan. === Russia is going ahead with a contract to deliver sophisticated air defence systems to Iran, a Russian defence ministry official said, despite appeals from Washington to reconsider === What Ted Koppel Found In Iran === Pakistan and Russia today decided to activate their joint governmental commission and further reinforce cooperation in the fields of defence and security. === Three people were killed and 17 injured Friday when a bomb kept in a dustbin exploded near a bus stop in the Pakistani city of Lahore. === “Islamist” groups seeking to destabilize the government because of President Pervez Musharraf’s alliance with the United States in the war on terrorism are suspected of being behind a wave of attacks in the northwest of the country in recent weeks. === The Home Secretary was accused of sexing up the terror threat to boost his chances of becoming Prime Minister. === A major security alert has been sparked after police lost a briefcase full of imitation bombs. === THE Army’s high command was accused last night of officially sanctioning the hooding and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention. === The Pentagon plans to build a military commissions compound at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, costing up to $125 million, a major undertaking meant to accommodate up to 1,200 people for the first U.S. war crimes trials since World War II, The Miami Herald learned Thursday. === Anti-Castro Terrorist Gets Only 4 Years === A former White House aide, I. Lewis Libby, may have disclosed conclusions from a highly classified government report on Iraq to journalists before the report was declassified by President Bush, federal prosecutors said in a new court filing. === Representative Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, who was elected to finish the term of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, has asked Congress to investigate the destruction of files in her office by former staff members of Mr. DeLay. === Early in the morning of November 16, 2006, at the age of 94, Milton Friedman passed away. Friedman was the great economist of our time who more than anyone saved the economics profession from dogma. === Hotel chain drops CNN over Iraq sniper video: Midwest firm pulls channel off lineup; ‘their actions supported terrorism’ === A Nevada town passed a law this week making it illegal to fly a foreign nation’s flag by itself, the latest swipe by a U.S. community at illegal immigrants. === Starting this winter, questions will center on American ideals rather than historical facts. === The Dutch cabinet has backed a proposal by the country’s immigration minister to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa in public places. === Date: 16 November === 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 2863 The War in Iraq Costs See the cost in your community === US plans last big push in Iraq Strategy document calls for extra 20,000 troops, aid for Iraqi army and regional summit By Simon Tisdall President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make “a last big push” to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations. === Audio & Transcript In the United States, the top spy says violence in Iraq has reached almost satanic levels, and he fears the Iraqi Government is not capable of bringing it under control. === By Ted Rall Special prosecutors ought to track down everyone, up to and including Bush, who lied about WMDs in Iraq, chose not to pursue Osama in Pakistan after 9/11, deliberately withheld help that could have saved lives during the Hurricane Katrina, and signed off on warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. Law and order starts at the top. === By Stephen Grey More than 7,000 prisoners have been captured in America’s war on terror. Just 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Between extraordinary rendition to foreign jails and disappearance into the CIA’s “black sites”, what happened to the rest? === By Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin Interviews with high-ranking military officials shed new light on the role Rumsfeld played in the harsh treatment of a Guantánamo detainee. === “Prove to me that you’re not working with our enemies.” 2 Minute Video “I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’ “ Beck added: “I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.” Click to view === As many as 60 or more passengers of six hijacked microbuses were killed by militants Thursday in occupied Baghdad, eyewitnesses told the official TV channel al-Iraqiya, in the latest horrific incident of sectarian violence in conflict-torn Iraq === U.S. forces killed nine “insurgents” and detained nine others during a raid just south of Yusufiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. === Police recovered 55 unidentified bodies, most of them tortured and shot, around Baghdad in the 24 hours to Wednesday evening === Four more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Thursday, bringing to at least 10 the number killed over the past two days in gun battles and roadside bomb blasts around the country. === Kidnappers tortured many of the dozens of hostages seized in a daylight raid on a government building and killed some of them, a minister said as he warned that he felt Iraq no longer had an effective government. === “Sunnis are as much my brothers as Shi’ites. My only enemies are the occupiers,” he said during the encounter in Sadr City, the sprawling Baghdad slum where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been hunting him as, effectively, Public Enemy No. 1 for months. === Analysts say civil war is a reality, but real worry is that chaos will spread === Two Afghan civilians were killed and a child injured on Thursday after their van was shot at by the British troops. === A top American defence official has warned that the level of violence in Afghanistan will go on rising. === Al Qaeda’s influence and numbers are rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with fighters operating from new havens and mimicking techniques learned on the Iraqi battlefield for use against U.S. and allied troops, U.S. intelligence officials said. === The US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet. === The British intercede when they see their war dead threatened but when innocent Palestinians are killed in their sleep by monstrous unprovoked Israeli violence, they set about quibbling about the balance of blame between the two sides. === The readers of Haaretz daily newspaper in the past days were in for a surprise after three Israeli citizens published obituaries in the back pages of the newspaper which expressed their grief for the death of civilians in Beit Hanoun last week. === “We believe, at this point, that we are engaged in the proper course with respect to Syria, Iran, on all the various issues that are before us,” state department spokesperson Sean McCormack said when pressed on whether Washington is ready to end its silent treatment of the two regimes. === The US government has confirmed its willingness, in principle, to discuss the conflict in Iraq with its neighbour, Iran. David Satterfield, a state department adviser, told a Senate committee the timing of such talks was under review. === Alleged AIPAC informant promoted : 06/23/06 – The Bush administration promoted David Satterfield, an alleged informant for a former AIPAC lobbyist facing trial in a classified information case. === The Education Ministry’s 2007 budget will likely preserve the gaps between Jewish and Arab schools in terms of teaching hours, and development plans for minorities will also be slashed, Haaretz has learned. === U.S. President George Bush was informed on Tuesday of an initiative to establish a center under his name in Israel, as a sign of gratitude for his support for the country and its security === In the first post-election battle between the Bush administration and the Democrats, the Jewish community is standing behind the president as he pushes the candidacy of John Bolton. === How the Israeli lobby uses intimidation to prevent academic freedom in the U.S. === The November 14, 2006, criminal complaint is a request for the German Federal Prosecutor to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes in the context of the so-called “War on Terror.” === If Rumsfeld is going to be held accountable for authorizing torture and other human rights abuses, we need your help. === Rumsfeld OK’d Dog Scares, Strips: Newly-released documents on U.S. policy of torturing prisoners show that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized guards to strip detainees and threaten them with dogs. === “If sentencing is to be done,” said Chavez earlier this week, “the first one to be given the most severe sentence this planet has to offer should be the president of the United States, if we’re talking about genocidal presidents,” === A GERMAN, who was held for four years in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has alleged systematic torture in the hands of the US military, from beatings to being chained to a ceiling for days. === Recent reports of the Bush Administration’s decision to increase training and aid for the militaries of Latin America so as to reverse the region’s leftward swing have only sharpened criticism at home and abroad. === The outgoing Republican chairman of a key U.S. Senate committee has made a last-minute attempt at giving the Bush administration what he calls the necessary “resources” for carrying out its phone call and Internet surveillance within the law, but critics remain unconvinced. === Bush’s failure to grasp the limits of US global power has led to an adventurism for which his successors will pay a heavy price. === House Democrats chose Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland as their majority leader today after a bruising fight that cast a cloud over the party’s post-election celebration. === Last month, a New York Times article described him as operating “a political trading post” on Capitol Hill, and a watchdog group has listed him as among the 20 most corrupt members of Congress in its 2006 list. === The Defense Department’s computerized travel reservation system has turned into a half-billion-dollar fiasco, so flawed that only 17 percent of the travelers are using it as intended, Senate investigators say. === Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing. === The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience “very low food security.” === The City regulator issued a warning to the high street banks yesterday that the “clouds were already darkening” and urged them to prepare for the impact of rising unemployment and the knock-on effect on bad debts. ===
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