Read the Government Report On Slavery and Iraq
J. Clifford
There is a report that was released by the U.S. State Department just at the end of last week, and it’s something that every American ought to take at least a short look at: It’s the Trafficking in Persons Report for 2008, a document that summarizes the problem of slavery around the world…The report says of Iraq, “ Iraq is a source and destination country for men and women trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude. Iraqi children are trafficked within the country and abroad for commercial sexual exploitation; criminal gangs may have targeted young boys, and staff of private orphanages may have trafficked young girls for forced prostitution. Iraqi women are trafficked within Iraq, as well as to Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Iran for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation…Iraq did not take any meaningful action to address trafficking in persons over the reporting period. Although it has a functioning judiciary, the government neither prosecuted any trafficking cases this year nor convicted any traffickers. Furthermore, the government offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons, and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country.”…

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Kandahar braces for Taliban battle
AlJazeera.net
Afghan and Nato forces are urgently redeploying troops around the southern city of Kandahar in preparation for a possible large-scale battle with the Taliban. The soldiers have sealed off the Arghandab district just 30km north of Kandahar where the Taliban claims around 500 of its fighters are now in control of 10 villages. Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kandahar, said the authorities had imposed a curfew and soldiers were building defensive lines, taking up positions on rooftops and patrolling just about everywhere as they await reinforcements for a counterattack on the areas taken by the Taliban. Mark Laity, a Nato spokesman, said that Nato and Afghan military officials were redeploying troops to the region to “meet any potential threats”. The Taliban offensive comes just few days after a suicide attack on Kandahar’s main jail freed more than 1,000 prisoners…

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Afghanistan: Mass prison break underscores crisis of US-backed regime
Bill Van Auken, WSWS
Large numbers of US-led NATO troops together with Afghan puppet forces continued a largely fruitless search over the weekend for more than 1,000 prisoners who escaped from a fortress-like jail in the southern city of Kandahar…The attack represented a humiliation for the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, underscoring its weakness, incompetence and corruption. It likewise points to the failure of the US-led NATO occupation to suppress the growing insurgency, despite the deployment of record numbers of foreign troops in the country. In the wake of the prison break, US forces suffered their deadliest attack thus far this year when a roadside bomb exploded under a Humvee in the southwestern province of Farah on Saturday, claiming the lives of four Marines…

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Torture in “Democratic Kurdistan”
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Who would have thought that these “poor, oppressed, repressed, exploited, gassed…” Kurds, would resort to such a thing as Torture. But yes, they do. And this is NOT the first report on Torture in “ Democratic Kurdistan”. Two security organs in Suleimaniya are responsible for extracting information through sadistic methods — the Ass’aich and the Zanaree, security and intelligence bodies. The latter is a branch of the PUK party – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. According to this article, news are circulating in Suleimaniya and elsewhere in the Kurdish regions, and it is the talk of the town, from the street cafés, to family gatherings to the daily press in “Kurdistan”, that torture is wide spread in Kurdish prisons. Several detainees were interviewed and they all corroborated that the following methods were used – detainees are stripped naked, severe beatings with metals chairs, metal rods, and water hoses. Rape of the detainee and the female members of the detainee’s family. Immersion in ice cold water and electrocution with cables while immersed…

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U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases
Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers
American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, the kind that’s used to corral livestock. The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling. Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2001. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment…

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Taliban run four districts in Helmand – official
Quqnoos.com
THE TALIBAN have occupied four districts in the province of Helmand, according to the provincial governor Gulab Mangal. The governor said the army were currently trying to re-take the districts of Marjar, Baghran, Washer and Naw Zad. A recent US marine-led operation to seize control of the Garmser district from the Taliban has forced many residents in the district to flee their homes. The local bazaar, Hazar Joft, was destroyed in the intense fighting…

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Taliban take over villages near Kandahar
NOOR KHAN and JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writers
Hundreds of Taliban fighters invaded villages just outside Afghanistan’s second-largest city Monday, forcing NATO and Afghan troops to rush in while frightened residents fled. The Taliban assault on the outskirts of Kandahar is the latest display of prowess by the militants despite a record number of U.S. and NATO troops in the country. The push into the Arghandab district — a lush region filled with grape and pomegranate groves that the Soviet army could never conquer — comes three days after a Taliban attack on Kandahar’s prison that freed 400 insurgent fighters…

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Al-Sadr followers warn against arrests
KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
Followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr signaled Monday that they won’t resist a military crackdown in one of their last southern strongholds unless government troops make arrests without warrants or commit other violations. The statements came three days before the expiration of a deadline for gunmen in the Sadrist stronghold of Amarah, capital of Maysan province, to surrender their weapons and renounce violence or face harsh measures…

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The Terror that begot Israel
Khalid Amayreh
As the evil state of Israel is celebrating sixty years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the native Palestinians, many people around the world, especially young generations, will not be fully aware of the manner in which Israel came into existence. Similarly, the younger Zionist generations who don’t stop calling their Palestinian victims “terrorists” should have a clearer idea about Israel’s manifestly criminal past which Zionist school textbooks shamelessly glamorize and glorify. Prior to “Jewish” statehood, three main Jewish terror organizations operated in Palestine, primarily against Palestinian civilians and British mandate targets. The three were: The Haganah, the Zvei Leumi or Irgun and the Stern Gang. The Haganah (Defence) had a field army of up to 160,000 well-trained and well-armed men and a unit called the Palmach, with more than 6,000 terrorists. The Irgun included as many as 5,000 terrorists, while the Stern Gang included 200-300 dangerous terrorists…

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WaPo: Iraq the Colony is A Ok
Siun
While Bush tries to badger Brown and the Brits to stay in Iraq – and Maliki hops from neighbor to neighbor spinning the SOFA agreement complete with flipflop speeches that say negotiations are at a deadend one moment, then saying there will be a successful agreement the next, our buddies at the Washington Post have discovered the joys of being a colonial power…

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At the Cliff’s Edge: World Problems and US Power
Review of Doug Dowd’s book (Part I)
Stephen Lendman
At age 89, Doug Dowd is a wonder. He’s still active, vibrant and thankfully so. He calls himself a “radical economist” in the best sense of the term, and for more than 50 years through the late 1990s, he was a distinguished interdisciplinary professor of economic history and more at Cornell, UC Berkelely and elsewhere. It went along with his activism, progressive thinking, honest concern for the least advantaged, and love of teaching young people. He’s no different today, except that he’s semi-retired, living full-time in Bolonga, Italy, nearing his 60th year teaching at nearby Modena University, and approaching his 10th decade…

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Letter to Luisa Morgantini: “You are too greatly terrified!”
Adel Samara, Palestine Think Tank
To Luisa Morgantini,Vice President of the European Parliament. It was really interesting that you have made the sacrifice of issuing a press release (13th June 2008) before the EU Monday June 16th June in Luxembourg in the margin of the EU general affairs and external relations council, wherein it states that Israel doesn’t respect the agreements: and therefore recommends voting no to the upgrade of relations with EU. The core of your statement is that you need Israel to show a serious signs of good faith…It is in fact more than strange to expect Israel to do that. During the entire 60 years of the occupation of Palestine, Israel never has shown any signs of respect for any humanitarian demands. As a settler colonial regime Israel is in fact unable to change. This is without reminding you that settler colonialism never changes by being blamed, begged and bribed. However, the term “EU-Israeli relations” is a vague and biased description for a dangerous, dirty and racist history. This term is a part of the Eurocentric discourse…

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Turkish newspaper reveals Maliki’s wait-game
Roads to Iraq
The circus of contradictory statement about the Iraq – U.S. agreement continued today,. Ignoring the public opinion, the parliament, and even his boss Maliki, Zebari told the CNN that the agreement will be signed at the end of next month. For sure, Zebari’s enthusiasm represents the Kurdish position, which according to anonymous Iraqi official on Awan: “Is the Iraqi government’s weakest link”…

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Refugees Forever
Najwa Sheikh in Gaza – thepeoplesvoice.org
The 20th of June is the day where the world will put more focus on the refugees, and where they will celebrate what is called the World refugee day, a day that is not only for Palestinian refugees but also for other unlucky nations whose war and injustice disrupts their lives, to be called refugees forever. I am a Palestinian refugee; my parents as well as my grandparents are refugees too, fled from our homeland Al Majdal and settled in one of the 8 refugee camps in Gaza strip administered by UNRWA…

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Iran starts construction of Iraq’s Sadr city power plant
Tehran Times
Iran starts the executive operation of Iraq’s Al Sadr power plant. Iranian contractors (Sanir and Ameran Ofoq companies) won the tender for constructing a gas-fed power plant with 315MW capacity in Iraq’s Al Sadr city, amid fierce competition from China and Europe, IRNA reported. Iran’s MAPNA Company is also responsible for providing the plant’s equipment including two gas-fed generator turbines (with total capacity of 315MW), transformers and spare parts…

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Iraq takes a turn towards Tehran
Sami Moubayed
A popular Iraqi joke speaks of an aged man who marries a young girl many years his junior, called Mana. Whenever he visits his young bride, she complains that his long beard has become too white, and plucks out its white hair. The next day, he visits his first wife Hana, who is his age, and she complains that the remaining black hairs do not compliment him, plucking them out as well. He eventually ends up with no beard, and miserably speaks to himself in front of the mirror saying, “Between Hana and Mana, I lost my beard!” The moral of the story – which rhymes in Arabic – is that men cannot please all tastes, nor two wives. Iraqis today are using the story in reference to their Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is torn between appeasing the United States, which brought him to power and kept him there despite all odds, since 2006, and pleasing his patrons and co-religionaries in Tehran….

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Net Tightens Around the Fishermen
Nora Barrows-Friedman
When the broiling sun sinks behind the rolling Mediterranean sea in Gaza, hundreds of fishing boats turn on their motors and assemble ragged nets to round up the evening catch. Flickering blue lights scatter across the shallow seas as the boats gather offshore in close quarters. Mackerel, sardine and grey mullet are caught in nets and dumped into plastic crates to be sold in the street markets. But under severe military occupation dominating the Gaza strip, it has become increasingly difficult to make a living as a Gaza fisherman…

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West Bank poverty pushes boys into work force
MUHAMMED MUHAISEN, Associated Press Writer
Deep in the mechanic’s pit, 12-year-old Jihad Robin found refuge, secretly smoking cigarettes on a break from his job in a car repair shop. He left school at age 9 when teachers told him that since he couldn’t read, he would have to fall back two grades. His parents, unable to make ends meet, forced him to go to work. The West Bank has high unemployment, with the Palestinian economy still struggling from fighting with Israel and restrictions on travel because of security checkpoints..

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Action Alert: Contact your EU represenatives now
Haitham Sabbah
On the 16th June, the European Union will be discussing the possible upgrading of relations with Israel. Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayad, already raised Palestinians concern about this issue in his letter to EU. Your support is needed. Please send this letter (or write your own) to your various representatives and express your concern at this measure while Israel continues to flaunt international law…

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Finally, the U.S. Mega-Bases in Iraq Make the News
Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com.
It’s just a $5,812,353 contract — chump change for the Pentagon — and not even one of those notorious “no-bid” contracts either. Ninety-eight bids were solicited by the Army Corps of Engineers and 12 were received before the contract was awarded this May 28th to Wintara, Inc. of Fort Washington, Maryland, for “replacement facilities for Forward Operating Base Speicher, Iraq.” According to a Department of Defense press release, the work on those “facilities” to be replaced at the base near Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit, is expected to be completed by January 31, 2009, a mere 11 days after a new president enters the Oval Office. It is but one modest reminder that, when the next administration hits Washington, American bases in Iraq, large and small, will still be undergoing the sort of repair and upgrading that has been ongoing for years. In fact, in the last five-plus years, untold billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the construction and upgrading of those bases…

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June 16, 2008: 3 GIs, 15 Iraqis Killed; 40 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 15 Iraqis were killed and 40 more wounded across Iraq. Meanwhile, Amara quietly prepares for a security crackdown. Three American servicemembers were killed in separate incidents. A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier today near Hilla. Also, the DOD announced the deaths of two Marines on June 11 in separate incidents. The first one was killed during combat operations in Anbar province, while the second Marine died of non-battle-related causes…

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