Video: IRAQI CIVILIANS MASSACRED BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS NEAR BAIJI
Family Members and Friends Killed as They Waited for Relative’s Release
Iraqwar.ru
Eight relatives and a neighbor on their way to a homecoming party for a detainee released from Camp Bucca were shot and killed by American soldiers as they waited on the road outside the neighborhood. American soldiers were conducting raids in the area, so neighbors had warned the family to stay away from the area until the patrol was over. As the two car convoy was waiting nearby, an American helicopter nearby opened fire on the vehicles. As the vehicles were hit, the drivers attempted to seek cover, but both vehicles were repeatedly shot and disabled. The helicopter landed but instead of assisting those shot and needing medical help, the American soldiers killed any survivors and then wrote numbers on the foreheads of some. Several children including a young girls body are clearly visible, and the wounds suffered by the men are horrific. The vehicle is clearly shot with many rounds and the seats and road is covered with blood. Iraqi police were called to the scene to remove the bodies, and some video footage was taken. It is clear that these people were unarmed civilians…

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“Detritus of Knowledge”
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Iraq, once famous for its Libraries, Universities and Schools…Once famous for its best educational system in the Middle East, for erasing illiteracy, for producing top notch academics, scientists and doctors, for supporting overseas students in their studies free of charge, and only God knows how many Palestinians, Egyptians, Somalis, Sudanese, Mauritanians, Jordanians…graduated from Iraqi universities…Iraq, the center of knowledge, culture and publishing…Look at it now, just look at its educational system. There is no educational system left, it is in debris, in ruins…The story am about to tell you, and I doubt very much you will read it in your media, happened yesterday at 11 am, in Adhamyia and was covered by one Iraqi satellite channel only. I need to remind you that Adhamyia is now an all Sunni walled neighborhood – ghetto. It is year-end exams in Baghdad. Around 1000 students from the College of Education in Adhamyia had to walk two hours to get to their exam hall. They were only allowed to carry pencils and an ID card. The exam was to start at 9 am. They are in their final year. They arrived at the hall, many names were missing from the exam list, deliberately so… The students explained to the Minister of “Education” that many names were missing from the exam list, that by 10.30 they still did not receive their exam questions, that they walked for 2 hours in the heat and there was no drinking water available, and no functioning toilet…In sum, the students were angry! . The mi litia/bodyguards of the Minister of “Education”, started shooting at the students with real bullets. Six were severely wounded, and 2 died in hospital. The exams were, of course, postponed… They interviewed a couple of students later on that day. One said “They shot at us exactly the same way the Israelis shoot at the Palestinians…”

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Reconciliation
Arablinks
Fatehoon correspondents in Adhamiya, Taji, Tikrit, Baaquba, Ramadi, and Hilla report that a large number of Awakening members have been in contact in recent days with armed Iraqi factions that are still at war with the Americans and the government forces in those areas where they [the Awakening people] were active, asking them for forgiveness and for the acceptance of their return to the ranks of the fighting factions… And some of our correspondents have learned that there was a welcome, in more than one location, for their return once again to the fight…

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The Year of the Taliban
Jamal Dajani
…There is no question that more than six years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban have been getting stronger day by day. Now midway into 2008, all indications lead us to believe that the balance seems to be tilting in their favor. It all started on January 14 of this year, when the Taliban conducted a daring attack on one of Kabul’s best-protected landmarks in the Afghan capital, the Serena Hotel, a luxury hotel frequented by Westerners. At the time, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said that they decided to attack the high security 5-star hotel to show “foreigners that the Taliban hand and might can reach anywhere.”…

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Zionism’s dead end
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada
…The current siege of Gaza offers the template. After disengagement, Israel has been able to cut off at will Gazans’ access to aid, food, fuel and humanitarian services. Normality has been further eroded by sonic booms, random Israeli air attacks, and repeated small-scale invasions that have inflicted a large toll of casualties, particularly among civilians. Gaza’s imprisonment has stopped being a metaphor and become a daily reality. In fact, Gaza’s condition is far worse than imprisonment: prisoners, even of war, expect to have their humanity respected, and be properly sheltered, cared for, fed and clothed. Gazans can no longer rely on these staples of life. The ultimate goal of this extreme form of separation is patently clear: transfer. By depriving Palestinians of the basic conditions of a normal life, it is assumed that they will eventually choose to leave — in what can once again be sold to the world as a voluntary exodus…Is this process of transfer inevitable? I think not…

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Mosul – Iraq’s Second Largest City in Chaos
Richard Warnick
The northern city of Mosul is the second-largest in Iraq (Basra is a close third). Despite the scarcity of news from Iraq lately, you may have heard about the launching of a long-delayed offensive last month to regain control of the ruined city of nearly 2 million people for Nouri al-Maliki’s Green Zone government. The grandly-named “Operation Lion’s Roar” was hyped by the U.S. government as “wiping out the last urban bastion of al Qaeda in Iraq.” The Iraqi security forces are unable to secure Mosul, according to the Iraqi daily Azzaman. Here’s what happened in May: given six months warning as a result of many delays, the Sunni insurgents who were supposed to be attacked left town. American, Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces had to content themselves with arresting about a thousand former Baath officers, Islamists and other “usual suspects,” few of whom could be truthfully described as insurgents…

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IOF troops assault Palestinian award winning journalist
Palestinian Information Center
IOF troops stationed at the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing, on Thursday, physically assaulted Muhammad Omar, winner of 2008 Martha Gellhorn Journalism award, as he returned to Gaza from London where he received the award earlier this month. Omar is a young journalist from the Rafah refugee camp and the correspondent of the Washington Report. He won the award jointly with American journalist Dahr Jamail who has been reporting for several years from Iraq. He said that occupation soldiers at the border crossing made fun of him saying: “Oh’ so it’s you who won the journalism award” and ordered him to lie face down on the ground, then they stepped on his neck…

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Officials: 30,000 troops heading to Iraq in 2009
LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
The Pentagon is preparing to order roughly 30,000 troops to Iraq early next year in a move that would allow the U.S. to maintain 15 combat brigades in the country through 2009, The Associated Press has learned. The deployments would replace troops currently there. But the decisions could change depending on whether Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, decides in the fall to further reduce troop levels in Iraq…

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John Yoo, David Addington Testify On Torture, Detention Policies (VIDEO)
Yoo won’t answer whether Bush can burry someone alive.
Huffington Post via ANP
David Addington, a longtime aide to Dick Cheney, and John Yoo, who helped write the infamous “torture memos,” testified before the House Judiciary Committee today on the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation policies. Both men offered evasive answers to seemingly simple questions. Yoo, at one point, was asked several times by Cmte. Chairman John Conyers whether or not the President had the authority to bury a detainee alive. Yoo was unable to offer an answer…

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Four U.S. coalition soldiers dead in Afghan attacks
Reuters
Four members of the U.S.-led coalition force have been killed in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, the force said on Friday, making June the deadliest month for foreign soldiers since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. The deaths took the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this month to 40. More than 200 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan last year. Three soldiers from the U.S.-led force and an interpreter were killed in Wardak province southwest of Kabul on Thursday when their convoy was blown up by a bomb, the force said in a statement. In another attack on Thursday, in the southwestern province of Farah, a coalition soldier was killed and seven people, including two Afghan soldiers, were wounded, the U.S. military said. It did not identify those killed or give their nationalities but most members of the coalition force are American…

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Pentagon: Taliban boosts presence in new areas
Xinhua
Taliban has regrouped and is likely to boost its presence in new areas of Afghanistan, said a Pentagon report released on Friday. According to the first report on the security situation in Afghanistan presented to Congress, the militants were still fighting in the south and eastern areas while pushing their frontline in other parts of the country. “The Taliban will challenge the control of the Afghan government in rural areas, especially in the south and east. The Taliban will also probably attempt to increase its presence in the west and north,” said the report, titled “Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan.” Despite its acknowledgment of “setbacks” that the international forces has brought to Taliban, the report concluded that the militant group has continued to grow in strength and “coalesced into a resilient insurgency” almost seven years after the U.S. military-led coalition launched attacks at the country…

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Mehdi Army dissolving, reports say
UPI
The Mehdi Army of Moqtada Sadr is evolving into a clandestine movement following Iraqi military operations targeting the group, intelligence suggests … Intelligence officials credit decisions by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to launch military offensives against Shiite militants in the southern parts of the country as deterring the group. An Iraqi intelligence official reports as many as 2,000 Mehdi Army fighters were killed in recent operations in Basra, Sadr City and the provincial capital of Maysan, Amarah. “This led to the almost complete collapse of the army,” the official said..

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Zionism’s dead end
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada
…The current siege of Gaza offers the template. After disengagement, Israel has been able to cut off at will Gazans’ access to aid, food, fuel and humanitarian services. Normality has been further eroded by sonic booms, random Israeli air attacks, and repeated small-scale invasions that have inflicted a large toll of casualties, particularly among civilians. Gaza’s imprisonment has stopped being a metaphor and become a daily reality. In fact, Gaza’s condition is far worse than imprisonment: prisoners, even of war, expect to have their humanity respected, and be properly sheltered, cared for, fed and clothed. Gazans can no longer rely on these staples of life. The ultimate goal of this extreme form of separation is patently clear: transfer. By depriving Palestinians of the basic conditions of a normal life, it is assumed that they will eventually choose to leave — in what can once again be sold to the world as a voluntary exodus…Is this process of transfer inevitable? I think not…

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The Political Economy of Media (Part II)
Review of Robert McChesney’s book
Stephen Lendman
…McChesney cites the “tipping point” – early in the new millennium “when the connection was made between the nature of the media system and a variety of policies and subsidies that created it.” Global justice protests erupted, media activism grew, and the notion that the US free market media system was preordained began to crumble. Back room deals designed it, and benefits cut both ways for the dealers. Politicians were rewarded for their efforts, and media giants got an open field to get bigger. Public interest was off the table. The key moment came in 2003, and the issue was over new media ownership rules. At the time, it looked like a slam-dunk for Big Media. George Bush was president, Republicans controlled Congress, and three of the five FCC members were Bush appointees. Media giants smelled victory and went for the kill. In spring 2003, what could stop them…

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Israeli strike on Iran not likely – local analysts
Maneuvers by Jewish state mere ‘saber-rattling to prod west in nuclear talks’
Michael Bluhm, Daily Star staff
The past week’s spate of signals that Israel might be preparing a strike against Iranian nuclear targets – an attack which would almost certainly provoke a wave of retaliation engulfing Hizbullah and Lebanon in regional conflict – amounts to nothing more than posturing to prod the West in negotiations with the Islamic Republic, a number of analysts told The Daily Star…

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B’Tselem report: “Soldier assaults B’Tselem worker filming settler violence, takes the cassette”
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News Report
The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) issued a report stating that an Israeli soldier assaulted one of its coordinators while filming Israeli settlers abusing Palestinian shepherds in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. “On Friday, 20 June 2008, around 6:20 P.M., Nasser a-Nawaj’ah, coordinator of B’Tselem’s “Shooting Back” project in the Southern Hebron Hills, filmed three settlers abusing Palestinian shepherds, shouting at them and pushing them and trying to scatter their flock”, B’Tselem reported…

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IOF troops assault Palestinian award winning journalist
Palestinian Information Center
IOF troops stationed at the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing, on Thursday, physically assaulted Muhammad Omar, winner of 2008 Martha Gellhorn Journalism award, as he returned to Gaza from London where he received the award earlier this month. Omar is a young journalist from the Rafah refugee camp and the correspondent of the Washington Report. He won the award jointly with American journalist Dahr Jamail who has been reporting for several years from Iraq. He said that occupation soldiers at the border crossing made fun of him saying: “Oh’ so it’s you who won the journalism award” and ordered him to lie face down on the ground, then they stepped on his neck…

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FAILED ATTEMPTS TO ZIONISE THE WEB
Desertpeace
“This site was hacked into due to its blatantly anti-Zionist contents. Israel is not interested in people like you who are burdens on the process of proper decision-making in the government. If you oppose what you call the ‘Israeli occupation’ then there’s no place for you here.” The above is what was found on a number of Websites yesterday. All sites in question were able to remove the filth posted by the hackers. Once again attempts to silence the truth have failed…

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Haaretz owner: Citizenship Law Makes Israel an Apartheid State
William Bowles, I’n’i
Even the owner of Haaretz, Amos Schocken, here admits what Palestinians have known for 60 years: that Israel itself, not just in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967, acts as an apartheid state — that is a state that institutionalizes and legalizes racial discrimination. It is contemptible, though, how someone as well informed as Mr. Schocken would act shocked — quite disingenuously — that such an apartheid marriage law should pass in Israel, knowing quite well that more than 20 laws, including some far more fundamental ones, have for decades discriminated against all “non-Jewish” citizens of the state, particularly against the indigenous Palestinian citizens of the state…

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Haniyeh: Stop firing at Israel for sake of Palestinians
Fadi Eyadat, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Friday appealed to Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to honor the week-long truce with Israel, and stop firing at the Negev, for the good of the Palestinian civilian population. Two mortar shells from Gaza hit the western Negev on Friday, exploding in open areas, despite the cease fire agreement. No damage or injury were reported. “We expect everyone to respect the agreement so that the Palestinian people achieve what they look for, an end to this suffering and breaking the siege,” he told reporters outside a Gaza mosque after Muslim prayers…

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War News for Friday, June 27, 2008
Iraq Today
Baghdad: #1: Iraq’s Higher Judicial Council says a senior judge has been assassinated while he was headed home in Baghdad. Spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar says masked drive-by shooters shot and killed Judge Kamil al-Showaili Thursday afternoon on eastern Baghdad’s Canal Highway. Bayrkdar says al-Showaili was the head of one of Baghdad’s two appeals courts. The spokesman has not identified any particular group as responsible for the slaying. Diyala Prv: #1: A roadside bomb exploded killing one shepherd, injuring two others in the area between Khanaqeen and Sharban to the northeast of Baquba Thursday evening…

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