Human Cost of War: Anthony Phillip
US soldier becomes hibakusha
David McLane
…We learned about soldiers becoming sick from depleted uranium from a book published in Japan, Hibakusha Ni Natta Iraq Kikanhei (Returning Iraq Soldiers become Hibakusha). After many telephone calls Sueko was able to set up an appointment with Anthony at his house in Middletown, New York. He continued by saying, “I didn’t know what was going on and I got in touch with one of my soldiers, Sergant Ramos, and he’s the one that was having the same similar problems I was having, the headaches, the headaches were BAD. Ahhh, I don’t believe my headaches. And I said, ‘Something doesn’t seem right.’ And then he made a couple of phone calls and then that’s how we ended up getting tested for depleted uranium. And it came back positive, and the symptoms we were having are because of depleted uranium.”.When asked how well the Army took care of him and others, he said:”But when we went to the Army with our tests and said, Listen can you test us for this, and they says there’s no test available; we don’t test soldiers for that…But Anthony began to find there were more and more soldiers coming back with the same problems who managed to get tested and found to be positive for uranium 236…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45094

Living Among the Dead On the Old Gaza City Graveyard
PalestineFreeVoice Social Reportage Series No 4
Authors Hiyam Noir & Fady Adwan
Amid all levels of infrastructural devastation in the Gaza Strip, many families are hit by increasing poverty, and many are forgotten, living absolute marginalized.In the heart of Gaza City is an old cemetery, where some families have found shelter, and where they live their lives among the dead. One family we meet have lived on the old Gaza City graveyard,for over five decades.Others have become poor and dispossessed during the last decade.Because of the many difficult conditions and the hard ship under occupation,many have lost their employment or a business, and without income there is very little money over to pay for the rent, or to build or buy a new home….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45095

The Haditha Travesty, Take Two
Robert Dreyfuss
… it is sad and troubling that, so far at least, it looks like no one is going to have to pay for the November, 2005, massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. That’s the mostly Sunni city in which, at the height of the insurgency, U.S. Marines mowed down a carful of unarmed Iraqi men, apparently shooting them point blank as they lay on the ground, and then stormed into surrounding homes where they butchered men, women, and children. So the tragedy of the massacre is now compounded by the tragedy of a judicial whitewash and coverup….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45096

78 years later… The Anglo-Iraq Treaty of 1930
Helena Cobban
Thanks to Glen Rangwala of Cambridge and Jonathan Schwarz of Democrats.com who have found the definitive UN-archived version (PDF) of the 1930 treaty between Britain and Iraq…The 1930 treaty provides an instructive precedent for with the present US attempts to force the (US-constituted) Iraqi government into a long-term security arrangement in many respects: * In both cases, a western government that had taken control of Iraq by military means later had its presence there given some cover by the world’s leading intergovernmental body, and also set about constituting a puppet “national” government there which was the body with which this agreement was “negotiated.” * In both cases, there is some attempt by the occupying power to couch the treaty in terms of equality, and to make some of its provisions look advantageous to the occupied country. But in both cases, close attention to the terms of the agreement reveals its highly asymmetrical nature. * In both cases, provision is made for the western power in question to have wide access to, use of, and control over military bases in Iraq; there are components relating to it providing “advisors” to the Iraqi armed forces; and Britishers service-members in Iraq are offered immunity from local prosecution and other privileges…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45085

Video: January 2001, Bush Sought to “Find A Way” to Invade Iraq
This is the full CBS 60 Minutes 2004 interview of Former Secretary Of Treasury Paul O’Neil and reporter Ron Suskind that discusses Bush asking his National Security Council to “find a way” to invade Iraq during their first meeting in January 2001. Almost 9 months before the September 11th attacks. This seems to have been forgotten by the mainstream media, and the Congress….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45090

The Torture State: Innocents Suffer; Villains Walk; Media: “Next!”
Winter Patriot
What we’re looking at here is a situation in which no major newspaper will call for charges against men who are obviously — and admittedly — guilty of treason, war crimes, and horrendous crimes against humanity. So let’s get this straight: There is no possible punishment which could even begin to approach “justice” in this case. None. The dogs of war — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gates, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Grossman, Woolsey, and all the rest — have done so much damage to the entire world that no punishment could possibly be sufficient. Nothing could even come close. Imagine the most horrible sort of punishment being inflicted on one of these people. Picture him (or her) under the worst conditions of torture you can contemplate. See his home and belongings destroyed; listen to his children weeping. Imagine that all his descendants were doomed to inhabit a land in which every single thing was contaminated with radioactive waste. Think of all his friends and relatives scattered to foreign countries where they aren’t welcome, or living among death and fear and foreign troops and foreign mercenaries and all the other debris of modern war. Now multiply by a million. This is what these people deserve. But no opinion columnist (liberal or otherwise) for any establishment newspaper (left coast or elsewhere) could ever get such an opinion published — and if he wants to keep his job, he’d best not submit such a thing to an editor, either…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45089

UK Vacuum Bombs in Afghanistan
IslamOnline.net & Newspapers
Britain has used and will continue to use one of the world’s most brutal weapons, which creates a pressure wave that sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies, in Afghanistan, The Sunday Times reported on June 22. “We are conscious of the controversial aspects [of this weapon] but it is being used sparingly and under strict circumstances where it is deemed appropriate by the commander on the ground,” confirmed the Ministry of Defense (MoD). It has decided to equip British helicopters in Afghanistan with the Hellfire AGM-114N missiles early 2008 after repeated complaints from pilots against the ineffectiveness of normal weapons in the fight against Taliban…
According to The Sunday Times, American Apache pilots used the thermobaric Hellfire in Iraq. Human Rights Watch has condemned and called for a ban on using thermobaric weapons worldwide. The New York-based group describes them as “particularly brutal” and that their blast “makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter.”..

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45087

Operation Enduring Pipeline
Creekside
If asked, Canada would help the Afghan army defend a proposed $7.6-billion U.S.-backed natural gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, to Pakistan and India. We’ve heard about this pipeline before. U.S. Unocal and Bridas of Argentina were both bidding on it with the Taliban when the Taliban pulled out of the negotiations just one month before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Afghan President Karzai, who either was or wasn’t previously a Unocal employee, signed an agreement with the Turkman president this April to begin construction of the pipeline in 2010. Named TAPI after the four nations involved, it will run straight through Kandahar where Canadian troops are slated to stay till at least 2011..

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45086

Hundreds of Detainees Died under US Custody, at least 25 Murdered – Ex-US State Department Official tells US Congress
Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent Asian Tribune
On June 20, U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to President Bush’s first secretary of state Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides. Nadler: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered? Wilkerson: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108. A February 2006 America’s foremost rights organization Human Rights First report found that although hundreds of people in U.S. custody had died and eight people were tortured to death, only 12 deaths had “resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official.” …

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45083

Israeli non-government organization accuses IOF of abusing Palestinian detainees
Palestinian Information Center
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), a non-government organization, has accused the Israeli occupation forces of regularly abusing Palestinian detainees including minors. The PCATI, in its annual report published on Sunday, registered 90 cases of abuse in which violence was used against those detainees either on their arrest, on their way to detention or during incarceration. It said that the abuse was also reported against minors who should enjoy special protection in accordance with the international law, and added, “The soldiers do not treat the minors with care and often, as various reports show, they take advantage of their weakness”…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45080

Palestine in the American Imagination: Religion, Politics and Media
Ramzy Baroud
As Palestinians hurriedly buried their loved ones in the Gaza Strip following a deadly Israeli onslaught, which further contributed to Gaza’s worst humanitarian crisis since 1967 , US and Israeli celebrities rallied at a Los Angeles benefit concert for the Israeli town of Sderot, located near the border of Gaza. Hollywood movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight, Valerie Harper and comedian Larry Miller mingled with Israeli celebrities such as singer Ninet Tayeb and others. Children from the Israeli town of Sderot, which received the lion’s share of homemade Palestinian rockets, were cheerful nonetheless. Song and dance, interrupted occasionally by solemn messages of support delivered via satellite by both Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates, replaced the cries of sirens the images of huddling families in the town’s shelters. It was a bittersweet moment, that of solidarity, a renewal of the vow made too often, that Israel’s plight is that of America, and Israel’s security is an American priority, and, indeed, ‘God loves those who love Israel’….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45093

Israel’s Iran bombing test run “political theater”
Dion Nissenbaum
…As McClatchy reported earlier this month, Israel appears to be taking part in a concerted psy-ops campaign to rattle Iran and generate support in the US. And some military analysts who are following the issue closely see The New York Times story as part of this ongoing psy-ops campaign. “This might have been a useful exercise, but it was not a convincing rehearsal of an attack on Iran, perhaps someplace in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Egypt,” wrote John McCreary, a retired and respected former Defense Department intelligence analyst who writes the widely read NightWatch. “Nevertheless, it was a great use of an Israeli armed forces exercise as political theater.’ The analysts over at Stratfor, the Texas-based private intelligence analysis company, also had a similar take. “A country that is planning an attack is not going to prepare in such a public manner,” Stratfor concluded. “It follows, then, that these exercises and the subsequent reports are designed to rattle the Iranians. Tehran knows these are psychological operations, but it cannot be 100 percent certain; after all, Israel is highly militarily competent.” While Stratfor thought the story was meant to rattle Iran, McCreary says Israel’s target is the American public and the media…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45092

Report: Israel to free 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit
Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents
…Reporting on the talks for the soldier’s release, the Palestinian daily Al-Ayam reported meanwhile that the current snag in negotiations concerns 100 Palestinian prisoners whose release Hamas is demanding. Israel has reportedly agreed with Hamas on the number of prisoners to be released, but not their identity. The dispute, according to Al-Ayam, concerns 100 of the 350 prisoners that Israel is expected to release in the first phase of the deal…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45091

Hakim-Iran coup on the Shiite coalition
Roads to Iraq
People really need to keep an eye on this story that Al-Hakim wants to participate in the elections without joining the Dawa Party [as I reported here], under the title “Iraq witnesses coups before provincial elections”: [At the meeting of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council discussing the coming provincial election] the most unexpected coup happened, when Al-Hakim announced that the SCIIC will participate in the elections alone without joining other groups…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45088

Hakim-Iran coup on the Shiite coalition
Roads to Iraq
People really need to keep an eye on this story that Al-Hakim wants to participate in the elections without joining the Dawa Party [as I reported here], under the title “Iraq witnesses coups before provincial elections”: [At the meeting of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council discussing the coming provincial election] the most unexpected coup happened, when Al-Hakim announced that the SCIIC will participate in the elections alone without joining other groups…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45088

AN AWARD FOR THE VOICLESS PEOPLE OF PALESTINE
Desertpeace
Mohammed, 24, was the youngest person to be awarded this prestigious prize. The Israeli government tried to prevent Mohammed Omer, who lives in the Rafah refugee camp, from leaving Gaza. Eventually, under international pressure he was able to leave and give a powerful and eloquent acceptance speech. In that speech he dedicated his Martha Gellhorn Prize to the ‘Voiceless People of Palestine’…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45084

Female Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 15 in Iraq
Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post Foreign Service
A female suicide bomber killed at least 15 people, including several police officers, and wounded scores Sunday in front of a government building in Diyala province, Iraqi official said. It was the second time this year that a suicide bomber, apparently intent on killing police officers, attacked the busy downtown area of the provincial capital, Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45082

Fighting breaks out in northern Lebanon; 3 dead
BASSEM MROUE, AP
Fighting broke out in northern Lebanon on Sunday between pro- and anti-government factions leaving at least three people dead and 24 wounded, security and medical officials said. Tensions have been on the rise for several days between government supporters in Tripoli’s Bab el-Tabaneh district and the opposition in neighboring Jabal Mohsen, according to the security officials. Machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades were used in the clashes, which started around 4 a.m., according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45081

News of the Day for Sunday, June 22, 2008
Iraq Today
Baghdad: Two bodies with gunshot wounds found dumped in different places. Baquba: Female suicide bomber attacks a police patrol near the Diyala Governor’s office, killing 16. A physician at the local hospital says the dead include 8 policemen, 2 women and a child. AFP correspondent says several police vehicles caught fire. DPA says the death toll is 18, with 38 injured. al-Dakmat village, near Kirkuk: IED kills 3 civilians, injures 2. No information on the identity of the victims or whether they were the intended target…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=45098