China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer.
China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.
“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”
Notably, what the Chinese are not doing is complaining. Unlike the executives of Western oil giants like Exxon Mobil, the Chinese happily accept the strict terms of Iraq’s oil contracts, which yield only minimal profits. China is more interested in energy to fuel its economy than profits to enrich its oil giants.
Chinese companies do not have to answer to shareholders, pay dividends or even generate profits. They are tools of Beijing’s foreign policy of securing a supply of energy for its increasingly prosperous and energy hungry population. “We don’t have any problems with them,” said Abdul Mahdi al-Meedi, an Iraqi Oil Ministry official who handles contracts with foreign oil companies. “They are very cooperative. There’s a big difference, the Chinese companies are state companies, while Exxon or BP or Shell are different.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/world ... wanted=all&
Iraq
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
The CIA: Keepers of the Hit Lists. War Crimes as Policy
In February the Guardian and BBC Arabic unveiled a documentary exploring the role of retired Colonel James Steele in the recruitment, training and initial deployments of the CIA advised and funded Special Police Commandos in Iraq.
The documentary tells how the Commandos tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Iraqi men and boys. But the Commandos were only one of America’s many weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Along with US military forces – which murdered indiscriminately – and various CIA funded death squads – which murdered selectively – and the CIA’s rampaging palace guard – the 5,000 man strong Iraq Special Operations Forces – the Commandos were part of a genocidal campaign that killed about 10% of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq by 2008, and drove about half of all Sunnis from their homes.
Including economic sanctions, and a 50 year history of sabotage and subversion, America and its Iraqi collaborators visited far more death and destruction on Iraq than Saddam Hussein and his regime.
For the last few weeks, American pundits have been cataloguing the horrors. They tell how the Bush and Obama regimes, united in the unstated policy of war crimes, probably murdered more than a million Iraqis, displaced around five million, and imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands without trial.
Read More :-
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-ke ... cy/5337367
In February the Guardian and BBC Arabic unveiled a documentary exploring the role of retired Colonel James Steele in the recruitment, training and initial deployments of the CIA advised and funded Special Police Commandos in Iraq.
The documentary tells how the Commandos tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Iraqi men and boys. But the Commandos were only one of America’s many weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Along with US military forces – which murdered indiscriminately – and various CIA funded death squads – which murdered selectively – and the CIA’s rampaging palace guard – the 5,000 man strong Iraq Special Operations Forces – the Commandos were part of a genocidal campaign that killed about 10% of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq by 2008, and drove about half of all Sunnis from their homes.
Including economic sanctions, and a 50 year history of sabotage and subversion, America and its Iraqi collaborators visited far more death and destruction on Iraq than Saddam Hussein and his regime.
For the last few weeks, American pundits have been cataloguing the horrors. They tell how the Bush and Obama regimes, united in the unstated policy of war crimes, probably murdered more than a million Iraqis, displaced around five million, and imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands without trial.
Read More :-
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-ke ... cy/5337367
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
As per current statistics :-
About 4.5 million Iraqi children have lost both parents
14 per cent of Iraq's population are orphan
An estimated one million families are headed by women, most of them widows.
Before the Gulf war we had two or three cancer patients a month. Now we have 30 to 35 dying every month.
Recent studies indicate that 40 to 48 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer in five years
About 4.5 million Iraqi children have lost both parents
14 per cent of Iraq's population are orphan
An estimated one million families are headed by women, most of them widows.
Before the Gulf war we had two or three cancer patients a month. Now we have 30 to 35 dying every month.
Recent studies indicate that 40 to 48 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer in five years
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
From Iraq, a tragic reminder to prosecute the war criminals
By John Pilger
27 May 2013
The dust in Iraq rolls down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming children kicking a ball; and it carries, according to Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, "the seeds of our death". An internationally respected cancer specialist at the Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Ali told me that in 1999, and today his warning is irrefutable. "Before the Gulf war," he said, "we had two or three cancer patients a month. Now we have 30 to 35 dying every month. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long after. That's almost half the population. Most of my own family have it, and we have no history of the disease. It is like Chernobyl here; the genetic effects are new to us; the mushrooms grow huge; even the grapes in my garden have mutated and can't be eaten."
Along the corridor, Dr. Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician, kept a photo album of the children she was trying to save. Many had neuroplastoma. "Before the war, we saw only one case of this unusual tumour in two years," she said. "Now we have many cases, mostly with no family history. I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. The sudden increase of such congenital malformations is the same."
Among the doctors I interviewed, there was little doubt that depleted uranium shells used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War were the cause. A US military physicist assigned to clean up the Gulf War battlefield across the border in Kuwait said, "Each round fired by an A-10 Warhog attack aircraft carried over 4,500 grams of solid uranium. Well over 300 tons of DU was used. It was a form of nuclear warfare."
Although the link with cancer is always difficult to prove absolutely, the Iraqi doctors argue that "the epidemic speaks for itself". The British oncologist Karol Sikora, chief of the cancer programme of the World Health organisation (WHO) in the 1990s, wrote in the British Medical Journal: "Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Iraq Sanctions Committee]." He told me, "We were specifically told [by the WHO] not to talk about the whole Iraq business. The WHO is not an organisation that likes to get involved in politics."
Recently, Hans von Sponeck, the former assistant secretary general of the United Nations and senior UN humanitarian official in Iraq, wrote to me: "The US government sought to prevent WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers."
Today, a WHO report, the result on a landmark study conducted jointly with the Iraqi Ministry of Health has been "delayed". Covering 10,800 households, it contains "damning evidence", says a ministry official and, according to one of its researchers, remains "top secret". The report says that birth defects have risen to a "crisis" right across Iraqi society where DU and other toxic heavy metals were by the US and Britain. Fourteen years after he sounded the alarm, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali reports "phenomenal" multiple cancers in entire families.
Iraq is no longer news. Last week, the killing of 57 Iraqis in one day was a non-event compared with the murder of a
British soldier in London. Yet the two atrocities are connected. Their emblem might be a lavish new movie of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Two of the main characters, as Fitzgerald wrote, "smashed up things and creatures and retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness... and let other people clean up the mess".
The "mess" left by George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq is a sectarian war, the bombs of 7/7 and now a man waving a bloody meat cleaver in Woolwich. Bush has retreated back into his Mickey Mouse "presidential library and museum" and Tony Blair into his jackdaw travels and his money.
Their "mess" is a crime of epic proportions, wrote Von Sponeck, referring to the Iraqi Ministry of Social Affairs' estimate of 4.5 million children who have lost both parents. "This means a horrific 14 per cent of Iraq's population are orphans," he wrote. "An estimated one million families are headed by women, most of them widows". Domestic violence and child abuse are rightly urgent issues in Britain; in Iraq the catastrophe ignited by Britain has brought violence and abuse into millions of homes.
In her book 'Dispatches from the Dark Side', Gareth Peirce, Britain's greatest human rights lawyer, applies the rule of law to Blair, his propagandist Alastair Campbell and his colluding cabinet. For Blair, she wrote, "human beings presumed to hold [Islamist] views, were to be disabled by any means possible, and permanently... in Blair's language a 'virus' to be 'eliminated' and requiring 'a myriad of interventions [sic] deep into the affairs of other nations.'" The very concept of war was mutated to "our values versus theirs". And yet, says Peirce, "the threads of emails, internal government communiques reveal no dissent".
For Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, sending innocent British citizens to Guantanamo was "the best way to meet our counter terrorism objective". These crimes, their iniquity on a par with Woolwich, await prosecution. But who will demand it? In the kabuki theatre of Westminster politics, the faraway violence of "our values" is of no interest. Do the rest of us also turn our backs?
Follow John Pilger on twitter
@pilgerwebsite
By John Pilger
27 May 2013
The dust in Iraq rolls down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming children kicking a ball; and it carries, according to Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, "the seeds of our death". An internationally respected cancer specialist at the Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Ali told me that in 1999, and today his warning is irrefutable. "Before the Gulf war," he said, "we had two or three cancer patients a month. Now we have 30 to 35 dying every month. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long after. That's almost half the population. Most of my own family have it, and we have no history of the disease. It is like Chernobyl here; the genetic effects are new to us; the mushrooms grow huge; even the grapes in my garden have mutated and can't be eaten."
Along the corridor, Dr. Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician, kept a photo album of the children she was trying to save. Many had neuroplastoma. "Before the war, we saw only one case of this unusual tumour in two years," she said. "Now we have many cases, mostly with no family history. I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. The sudden increase of such congenital malformations is the same."
Among the doctors I interviewed, there was little doubt that depleted uranium shells used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War were the cause. A US military physicist assigned to clean up the Gulf War battlefield across the border in Kuwait said, "Each round fired by an A-10 Warhog attack aircraft carried over 4,500 grams of solid uranium. Well over 300 tons of DU was used. It was a form of nuclear warfare."
Although the link with cancer is always difficult to prove absolutely, the Iraqi doctors argue that "the epidemic speaks for itself". The British oncologist Karol Sikora, chief of the cancer programme of the World Health organisation (WHO) in the 1990s, wrote in the British Medical Journal: "Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Iraq Sanctions Committee]." He told me, "We were specifically told [by the WHO] not to talk about the whole Iraq business. The WHO is not an organisation that likes to get involved in politics."
Recently, Hans von Sponeck, the former assistant secretary general of the United Nations and senior UN humanitarian official in Iraq, wrote to me: "The US government sought to prevent WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers."
Today, a WHO report, the result on a landmark study conducted jointly with the Iraqi Ministry of Health has been "delayed". Covering 10,800 households, it contains "damning evidence", says a ministry official and, according to one of its researchers, remains "top secret". The report says that birth defects have risen to a "crisis" right across Iraqi society where DU and other toxic heavy metals were by the US and Britain. Fourteen years after he sounded the alarm, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali reports "phenomenal" multiple cancers in entire families.
Iraq is no longer news. Last week, the killing of 57 Iraqis in one day was a non-event compared with the murder of a
British soldier in London. Yet the two atrocities are connected. Their emblem might be a lavish new movie of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Two of the main characters, as Fitzgerald wrote, "smashed up things and creatures and retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness... and let other people clean up the mess".
The "mess" left by George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq is a sectarian war, the bombs of 7/7 and now a man waving a bloody meat cleaver in Woolwich. Bush has retreated back into his Mickey Mouse "presidential library and museum" and Tony Blair into his jackdaw travels and his money.
Their "mess" is a crime of epic proportions, wrote Von Sponeck, referring to the Iraqi Ministry of Social Affairs' estimate of 4.5 million children who have lost both parents. "This means a horrific 14 per cent of Iraq's population are orphans," he wrote. "An estimated one million families are headed by women, most of them widows". Domestic violence and child abuse are rightly urgent issues in Britain; in Iraq the catastrophe ignited by Britain has brought violence and abuse into millions of homes.
In her book 'Dispatches from the Dark Side', Gareth Peirce, Britain's greatest human rights lawyer, applies the rule of law to Blair, his propagandist Alastair Campbell and his colluding cabinet. For Blair, she wrote, "human beings presumed to hold [Islamist] views, were to be disabled by any means possible, and permanently... in Blair's language a 'virus' to be 'eliminated' and requiring 'a myriad of interventions [sic] deep into the affairs of other nations.'" The very concept of war was mutated to "our values versus theirs". And yet, says Peirce, "the threads of emails, internal government communiques reveal no dissent".
For Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, sending innocent British citizens to Guantanamo was "the best way to meet our counter terrorism objective". These crimes, their iniquity on a par with Woolwich, await prosecution. But who will demand it? In the kabuki theatre of Westminster politics, the faraway violence of "our values" is of no interest. Do the rest of us also turn our backs?
Follow John Pilger on twitter
@pilgerwebsite
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
979 casualties in a month
September marked by bloody sectarian violence in Iraq
* Almost 400 deaths took place in last 10 days alone
BAGHDAD: Iraq saw a series of bloody sectarian attacks in September the United Nations warned could force more people to flee, as violence rose sharply from the month before, according to figures released Tuesday.
Violence has reached a level not seen since 2008, and there are persistent fears Iraq is slipping back towards the intense Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.
“September has seen a rise in mass-casualty bombings aimed at crowded areas. There has also been an increase in the killing of whole families in shooting attacks,” said John Drake, an analyst with risk management firm AKE Group.
“Radical Islamist groups are likely intent on stoking an angry response from the Shiite community,” he said.
That “will polarise society further and drive many in the Sunni community to seek protection from whoever they think represents them the best and has the best chance of physically defending them.”
Figures compiled by the United Nations, the Iraqi government and AFP all pointed to a spike in violence in September.
The UN put the death toll at 979 (up from 804 in August), while government figures showed 971 deaths (up from 443) and AFP recorded 880 (up from 693).
The September toll was the highest recorded by AFP all year, with almost 400 deaths occurring in the last 10 days of the month alone.
A suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque south of Baghdad also killed 47 people, while five attacks against Sunni funerals and mosques killed more than 50.
It said about 5,000 Iraqis had already been displaced in 2013, joining more than 1.13 million who fled or were forced out of their homes in previous years.
Violence has surged this year, especially since security forces stormed a Sunni anti-government protest site in northern Iraq on April 23, sparking clashes that killed dozens of people.
“This prompted a violent backlash from armed Sunnis frustrated with what they perceive to be marginalisation by the government,” Drake said.
And “groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq sought to capitalise on the mood by conducting large-scale attacks against the government and security forces.”
The authorities have made some concessions aimed at placating anti-government protesters and Sunnis in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-al Qaeda fighters, but underlying issues have yet to be addressed.
“At the same time, with groups such as al Qaeda fighting more openly in Syria, (militants) likely feel that they have a real chance to carve out an area of influence crossing the border of the two countries,” another motivator for increased operations, Drake said.
So far this year, more than 4,700 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in attacks, according to AFP figures. That means that roughly one in every 2,000 Iraqis has been killed or wounded.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... cFLM.gmail
September marked by bloody sectarian violence in Iraq
* Almost 400 deaths took place in last 10 days alone
BAGHDAD: Iraq saw a series of bloody sectarian attacks in September the United Nations warned could force more people to flee, as violence rose sharply from the month before, according to figures released Tuesday.
Violence has reached a level not seen since 2008, and there are persistent fears Iraq is slipping back towards the intense Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.
“September has seen a rise in mass-casualty bombings aimed at crowded areas. There has also been an increase in the killing of whole families in shooting attacks,” said John Drake, an analyst with risk management firm AKE Group.
“Radical Islamist groups are likely intent on stoking an angry response from the Shiite community,” he said.
That “will polarise society further and drive many in the Sunni community to seek protection from whoever they think represents them the best and has the best chance of physically defending them.”
Figures compiled by the United Nations, the Iraqi government and AFP all pointed to a spike in violence in September.
The UN put the death toll at 979 (up from 804 in August), while government figures showed 971 deaths (up from 443) and AFP recorded 880 (up from 693).
The September toll was the highest recorded by AFP all year, with almost 400 deaths occurring in the last 10 days of the month alone.
A suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque south of Baghdad also killed 47 people, while five attacks against Sunni funerals and mosques killed more than 50.
It said about 5,000 Iraqis had already been displaced in 2013, joining more than 1.13 million who fled or were forced out of their homes in previous years.
Violence has surged this year, especially since security forces stormed a Sunni anti-government protest site in northern Iraq on April 23, sparking clashes that killed dozens of people.
“This prompted a violent backlash from armed Sunnis frustrated with what they perceive to be marginalisation by the government,” Drake said.
And “groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq sought to capitalise on the mood by conducting large-scale attacks against the government and security forces.”
The authorities have made some concessions aimed at placating anti-government protesters and Sunnis in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-al Qaeda fighters, but underlying issues have yet to be addressed.
“At the same time, with groups such as al Qaeda fighting more openly in Syria, (militants) likely feel that they have a real chance to carve out an area of influence crossing the border of the two countries,” another motivator for increased operations, Drake said.
So far this year, more than 4,700 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in attacks, according to AFP figures. That means that roughly one in every 2,000 Iraqis has been killed or wounded.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... cFLM.gmail
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
No end in sight for Iraq fiasco
The laudable objective of liberating and making Iraq into a model regional democracy has turned out to be a cruel joke played on the Iraqi people
As the world’s attention is focused on the ongoing Syrian massacre, the killings in Iraq continue unabated. When it was attacked in 2003 under the presidency of George W Bush, Iraq was to be rid of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Soon after, the then president Bush appeared on the deck of a US warship wearing military uniform to declare victory, and a new ‘liberated’ Iraq was launched, which was supposed to become a model democracy for the region. But that didn’t happen. The US got increasingly embroiled in all sorts of troubles, finally quitting in 2011, leaving the country with Noor al-Maliki as its prime minister. Even though Iraq had elections and Maliki cobbled together a government, it somehow did not gain legitimacy among the country’s disparate and divided population. Its Kurdish region is virtually independent, its minority Sunni population is at war with the country’s new majority Shia government, and there is an ongoing al Qaeda insurgency blowing up people here and there. Iraq’s so-called liberation is a cruel joke on its people.
How did it all happen?
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... kVSo.gmail
The laudable objective of liberating and making Iraq into a model regional democracy has turned out to be a cruel joke played on the Iraqi people
As the world’s attention is focused on the ongoing Syrian massacre, the killings in Iraq continue unabated. When it was attacked in 2003 under the presidency of George W Bush, Iraq was to be rid of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Soon after, the then president Bush appeared on the deck of a US warship wearing military uniform to declare victory, and a new ‘liberated’ Iraq was launched, which was supposed to become a model democracy for the region. But that didn’t happen. The US got increasingly embroiled in all sorts of troubles, finally quitting in 2011, leaving the country with Noor al-Maliki as its prime minister. Even though Iraq had elections and Maliki cobbled together a government, it somehow did not gain legitimacy among the country’s disparate and divided population. Its Kurdish region is virtually independent, its minority Sunni population is at war with the country’s new majority Shia government, and there is an ongoing al Qaeda insurgency blowing up people here and there. Iraq’s so-called liberation is a cruel joke on its people.
How did it all happen?
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... kVSo.gmail
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Michael Prysner: ‘The Real Terrorist Was Me…’
A BEAUTIFUL SPEECH.
ORIENTAL REVIEW republishes the fragment of one of the most powerful anti-war speeches done by the former Corporal of the US Army in Iraq Michael Prysner at the 2008 Winter Soldier in Maryland. It is still relevant and sounding as ever.
“I tried hard to be proud of my service, but all I could feel was shame. Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These were people, these were human beings. I’ve since been plagued by guilt, any time I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn’t walk, who we rolled onto a stretcher, and told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt any time I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried hysterically, and screamed that we’re worse than Saddam, as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt any time I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm, and dragged into the street.
We were told we were fighting terrorists.. the real terrorist was me, and the real terrorism was this occupation. Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country, it has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government; it is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber, or a battleship; it is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or tomahawk missile.
While all those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them. Those who send us to war, do not have to pull the trigger, or lob a mortar round; they do not have to fight the war, they merely have to sell the war. They need a public who’s willing to send their soldiers into harm’s way. They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed, without question.
They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon, when the ranks of the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on Earth, but there will only be a war, if soldiers are willing to fight.. And the ruling class, the billionaires who profit from human suffering, care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy.
Understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interest. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die, to control the market of another country, and convincing us to kill and die, is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior.
Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, have nothing to gain from this occupation. The vast majority of people living in the U.S. have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag-draped coffins lowered into the earth.
Millions in this country without health care, jobs, or access to education, have watched this government squander over FOUR-HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS A DAY ON THIS OCCUPATION. [IRAQ]
Poor and working people in this country, are send to kill poor and working people in another country, to make the rich richer; and without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people, than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.
I threw families onto the street in Iraq, only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country, and it’s a tragic, and unnecessary foreclosure crisis.
We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land, they’re not people whose names we don’t know, and cultures we don’t understand. The enemy is people we know very well, and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable. The enemy is the CEO’s who lay us off from our jobs when it’s profitable; it’s the insurance companies who deny us health care when it’s profitable; it’s the banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable.
Our enemy is not five thousand miles away, they are right here at home. When we organize, and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.
http://orientalreview.org/2012/12/16/mi ... st-was-me/
A BEAUTIFUL SPEECH.
ORIENTAL REVIEW republishes the fragment of one of the most powerful anti-war speeches done by the former Corporal of the US Army in Iraq Michael Prysner at the 2008 Winter Soldier in Maryland. It is still relevant and sounding as ever.
“I tried hard to be proud of my service, but all I could feel was shame. Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These were people, these were human beings. I’ve since been plagued by guilt, any time I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn’t walk, who we rolled onto a stretcher, and told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt any time I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried hysterically, and screamed that we’re worse than Saddam, as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt any time I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm, and dragged into the street.
We were told we were fighting terrorists.. the real terrorist was me, and the real terrorism was this occupation. Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country, it has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government; it is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber, or a battleship; it is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or tomahawk missile.
While all those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them. Those who send us to war, do not have to pull the trigger, or lob a mortar round; they do not have to fight the war, they merely have to sell the war. They need a public who’s willing to send their soldiers into harm’s way. They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed, without question.
They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon, when the ranks of the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on Earth, but there will only be a war, if soldiers are willing to fight.. And the ruling class, the billionaires who profit from human suffering, care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy.
Understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interest. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die, to control the market of another country, and convincing us to kill and die, is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior.
Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, have nothing to gain from this occupation. The vast majority of people living in the U.S. have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag-draped coffins lowered into the earth.
Millions in this country without health care, jobs, or access to education, have watched this government squander over FOUR-HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS A DAY ON THIS OCCUPATION. [IRAQ]
Poor and working people in this country, are send to kill poor and working people in another country, to make the rich richer; and without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people, than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.
I threw families onto the street in Iraq, only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country, and it’s a tragic, and unnecessary foreclosure crisis.
We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land, they’re not people whose names we don’t know, and cultures we don’t understand. The enemy is people we know very well, and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable. The enemy is the CEO’s who lay us off from our jobs when it’s profitable; it’s the insurance companies who deny us health care when it’s profitable; it’s the banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable.
Our enemy is not five thousand miles away, they are right here at home. When we organize, and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.
http://orientalreview.org/2012/12/16/mi ... st-was-me/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Iraq War 10 Yrs On: Media Lies, Refugees, Ongoing Civil War? - Special report by RT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyn8BS4RcPo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyn8BS4RcPo
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Iraq: minister’s son misses flight, forces plane to return
A passenger plane flying from Lebanon to Iraq on Thursday turned back after the Iraqi transport minister’s son missed the flight and phoned Baghdad to stop the aircraft from landing, Middle East Airlines (MEA) said.
Marwan Salha, acting chairman of MEA, told Reuters the flight, scheduled to leave at 1240 (1040 GMT), had been delayed for six minutes while MEA staff looked for Mahdi al-Amiri, son of Hadi al-Amiri, and his friend in the business lounge.
Salha said that when Amiri arrived at the gate he was angry and said: “I will not allow the plane to land in Baghdad.”
Twenty-one minutes into the flight, the Baghdad airport station manager called MEA operations to tell them there was no clearance to land, Salha said. The plane then returned to Beirut and the passengers disembarked.
“It’s very disturbing because this is pure nepotism,” Salha said, adding that he hoped to resume flights to Iraq on Friday but that there would not be another flight on Thursday.
Transport Minister Hadi al-Amiri is head of the Badr Organisation, once an armed Shi’ite militia, and a political ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Many Iraqis believe that relatives of elected officials and leaders of political parties act as if they are above the law.
Iraqis mocked Amiri and his son on social media as news of the incident spread. A girl named Diana wrote: “Sounds like Uday and his father rose from the grave”, a reference to the late Saddam Hussein and his son Uday, known for arbitrary behaviour.
http://muslimvillage.com/2014/03/09/509 ... to-return/
A passenger plane flying from Lebanon to Iraq on Thursday turned back after the Iraqi transport minister’s son missed the flight and phoned Baghdad to stop the aircraft from landing, Middle East Airlines (MEA) said.
Marwan Salha, acting chairman of MEA, told Reuters the flight, scheduled to leave at 1240 (1040 GMT), had been delayed for six minutes while MEA staff looked for Mahdi al-Amiri, son of Hadi al-Amiri, and his friend in the business lounge.
Salha said that when Amiri arrived at the gate he was angry and said: “I will not allow the plane to land in Baghdad.”
Twenty-one minutes into the flight, the Baghdad airport station manager called MEA operations to tell them there was no clearance to land, Salha said. The plane then returned to Beirut and the passengers disembarked.
“It’s very disturbing because this is pure nepotism,” Salha said, adding that he hoped to resume flights to Iraq on Friday but that there would not be another flight on Thursday.
Transport Minister Hadi al-Amiri is head of the Badr Organisation, once an armed Shi’ite militia, and a political ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Many Iraqis believe that relatives of elected officials and leaders of political parties act as if they are above the law.
Iraqis mocked Amiri and his son on social media as news of the incident spread. A girl named Diana wrote: “Sounds like Uday and his father rose from the grave”, a reference to the late Saddam Hussein and his son Uday, known for arbitrary behaviour.
http://muslimvillage.com/2014/03/09/509 ... to-return/
-
adna_mumin
- Posts: 193
- Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2014 3:43 pm
Re: Iraq
Iraq Inquiry 'Won't Be Kind' To Tony Blair, Predicts Defence Minister Who Actually Served In War
The inquiry into the war in Iraq will not be "very kind" to Tony Blair, a Conservative defence minister has predicted.
Andrew Murrison told The Huffington Post that the Chilcot Inquiry should be published as soon as possible, amid accusations that the former Labour prime minister was deliberately delaying it being completed.
The minister for international security strategy has a personal connection to the 2003 war - he served in the conflict as a Royal Navy reservist.
He was also just one of 15 Conservative MPs that defied the party leadership and voted against Britain supporting the US-led invasion. Murrison later found himself deployed to Iraq for six-months as a Royal Navy medical officer.
"I’m not clear why it hasn’t been published already," Murrison said of the report. "This has been going on for several years. It is not clear why such an inquiry should take quite so long.
"These things have a tradition of taking a while. But this really is getting beyond any sense of reasonableness and it is simply not clear to me why we haven’t the inquiry report in the public."
murrison
Defence minister Andrew Murrison served in Iraq
The Chilcot Inquiry was set up in 2009 by Gordon Borwn in an attempt to draw a line under the controversy over how Britain was led to war. But five years on, its publication date is still unclear and may now be delayed until after the 2015 general election.
Murrison said "a large number of people in this country who have suffered greatly" as a result of serving in the armed forces during the war and deserved answers.
"I don’t think its going to be very kind to Tony Blair, I don’t think it can be given his involvement in this in 2003," he said.
Murrison said he did not know if Blair was causing the report to be delayed but that he would be "disappointed" if Sir John was "succumbing to pressure" from the former prime minister.
"The purpose of having a chairman like Sir John Chilcot he is capable of proceeding with this important business without being unduly pressured by anybody and nothing that I've seen of Chilcot would lead me to suggest he would be any way influenced by pressure," he said.
On Tuesday Boris Johnson said he felt "guilty" for voting in favour of the war and that people who wanted to see Blair face criminal prosecution had their "heart in the right place".
Murrison said he was "cautious" about calling the war illegal or accusing Blair of being guilty of any criminal offence. But he added: "If Chilcot does turn up something that warranted a police inquiry that’s a separate matter that would have to be proceed accordingly."
"I just think it was wrong. I think parliament was let down by an individual that they had every right to expect would with deal with them fairly. At the end of the day that is for Tony Blair and his conscience. I'm hoping Inquiry will shed some light."
The Conservative MP also warned that the report risked being devalued if it was published too long after the event. "Memories fade with time and the immediacy and capability of lessons to be learned and applied diminish with every passing day," he said.
"For this report to be valuable we need to have answers quickly and further delays are going to devalue it, certainly downgrade any relief that it may give to those have been intimately involved in 2003."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05 ... 76810.html
The inquiry into the war in Iraq will not be "very kind" to Tony Blair, a Conservative defence minister has predicted.
Andrew Murrison told The Huffington Post that the Chilcot Inquiry should be published as soon as possible, amid accusations that the former Labour prime minister was deliberately delaying it being completed.
The minister for international security strategy has a personal connection to the 2003 war - he served in the conflict as a Royal Navy reservist.
He was also just one of 15 Conservative MPs that defied the party leadership and voted against Britain supporting the US-led invasion. Murrison later found himself deployed to Iraq for six-months as a Royal Navy medical officer.
"I’m not clear why it hasn’t been published already," Murrison said of the report. "This has been going on for several years. It is not clear why such an inquiry should take quite so long.
"These things have a tradition of taking a while. But this really is getting beyond any sense of reasonableness and it is simply not clear to me why we haven’t the inquiry report in the public."
murrison
Defence minister Andrew Murrison served in Iraq
The Chilcot Inquiry was set up in 2009 by Gordon Borwn in an attempt to draw a line under the controversy over how Britain was led to war. But five years on, its publication date is still unclear and may now be delayed until after the 2015 general election.
Murrison said "a large number of people in this country who have suffered greatly" as a result of serving in the armed forces during the war and deserved answers.
"I don’t think its going to be very kind to Tony Blair, I don’t think it can be given his involvement in this in 2003," he said.
Murrison said he did not know if Blair was causing the report to be delayed but that he would be "disappointed" if Sir John was "succumbing to pressure" from the former prime minister.
"The purpose of having a chairman like Sir John Chilcot he is capable of proceeding with this important business without being unduly pressured by anybody and nothing that I've seen of Chilcot would lead me to suggest he would be any way influenced by pressure," he said.
On Tuesday Boris Johnson said he felt "guilty" for voting in favour of the war and that people who wanted to see Blair face criminal prosecution had their "heart in the right place".
Murrison said he was "cautious" about calling the war illegal or accusing Blair of being guilty of any criminal offence. But he added: "If Chilcot does turn up something that warranted a police inquiry that’s a separate matter that would have to be proceed accordingly."
"I just think it was wrong. I think parliament was let down by an individual that they had every right to expect would with deal with them fairly. At the end of the day that is for Tony Blair and his conscience. I'm hoping Inquiry will shed some light."
The Conservative MP also warned that the report risked being devalued if it was published too long after the event. "Memories fade with time and the immediacy and capability of lessons to be learned and applied diminish with every passing day," he said.
"For this report to be valuable we need to have answers quickly and further delays are going to devalue it, certainly downgrade any relief that it may give to those have been intimately involved in 2003."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05 ... 76810.html
-
adna_mumin
- Posts: 193
- Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2014 3:43 pm
Re: Iraq
Body Recount in Iraq
An excerpt quote:
“What we [the U.S.] supported is this war,” says Evers. “We sent more weapons than aid. We have basically given the thumbs-up to using illegal and abusive methods to stay in power.”
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/05/16/body ... 50219.html
An excerpt quote:
“What we [the U.S.] supported is this war,” says Evers. “We sent more weapons than aid. We have basically given the thumbs-up to using illegal and abusive methods to stay in power.”
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/05/16/body ... 50219.html
-
adna_mumin
- Posts: 193
- Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2014 3:43 pm
Re: Iraq
DEADLY BARREL BOMBS REPORTEDLY HITTING FALLUJAH
In an attempt to drive out anti-government fighters, the Iraqi army has reportedly been dropping barrel bombs on the city of Fallujah, killing civilians, hospital sources and witnesses told Al Jazeera.
Soldiers executed
Meanwhile, armed fighters in northern Iraq ambushed an army convoy on Saturday and abducted at least 20 soldiers before killing them by shooting them in the head, army officials said Sunday.
Full Article: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... -iraq.html
In an attempt to drive out anti-government fighters, the Iraqi army has reportedly been dropping barrel bombs on the city of Fallujah, killing civilians, hospital sources and witnesses told Al Jazeera.
Soldiers executed
Meanwhile, armed fighters in northern Iraq ambushed an army convoy on Saturday and abducted at least 20 soldiers before killing them by shooting them in the head, army officials said Sunday.
Full Article: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... -iraq.html
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Iraq: The biggest petroleum heist in history?
These are the ‘best of times’ for the oil giants in Iraq. Production is up, profits are soaring, and big oil is rolling in dough. Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal:
“Iraq’s oil production surged to its highest level in over 30 years last month, surprising skeptics of the country’s efforts to restore its oil industry after decades of war and neglect.” (Wall Street Journal)
Mission accomplished?
You bet. But for those who still cling to the idea that the US was serious about promoting democracy or removing a vicious dictator or eliminating WMD or any of the other kooky excuses, consider what we’ve learned in the last couple weeks. Here’s the story from Aljazeera:
“While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest Western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.
If it sounds like the big boys are dividing the spoils among themselves; it’s because they are. Exxon, BP, Shell; they’re all here. They all have their contracts in hand, and they’re all drilling their brains out thanks to the American servicemen and women who gave their lives for some trumped up baloney about WMD. Isn’t that what’s going on?
Sure it is. And even now – after all the reasons for going to war have been exposed as lies – the farce continues. Nothing has changed. Nothing. There’s still no talk of reparations, no official investigation, no indictments, no prosecutions, no trials, no penalties, no nothing. Not even a stinking apology. Just a big “up yours” Iraq. We’re way too important to apologize for killing a million of your people and reducing your five thousand year old civilization to a pile of rubble. Instead, we’ll just screw you some more and paper it over with a little public relations, like Obama did a couple weeks ago when he promised to “leave behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people”.
These PR blurbs are effective though, they provide the necessary cover for leaving enough troops behind to protect the oil installations and pipelines. That’s the kind of security Obama cares about. Security for the oiligarchs and their stolen property. Everyone else can fend for themselves, which is why Baghdad is such a bloody mess. Here’s more from Aljazeera:
“Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other Western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq’s oil market,” oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz told Al Jazeera. “But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973.” (Aljazeera)
According to Assim Jihad, spokesman for Iraq’s ministry of oil, “Iraq has a goal of raising its oil production capacity to 12m bpd by 2017, which would place it in the top echelon of global producers.” (Aljazeera)
“12 million barrels-per-day by 2017″?
That makes this the biggest petroleum heist in history. And we’re supposed to believe that the oil bigwigs didn’t know anything about this before the war? What a crock! I’ll bet you even money the CEOs and their lackeys figured out that Saudi Arabia was running out of gas, so they decided to pick up stakes and move their operations to good old Mesopotamia. That’s why they put their money on Bush and Cheney, because they knew that two former oil men would do the heavy lifting once they got shoehorned into the White House. The whole thing was a set-up from the get-go, right down to the 5 shady Supremes who suspended the voting in Florida and crowned Bush emperor in 2000. The whole thing was probably mapped out years in advance.
The US decimated Iraq; blew it to bits, bombed its industries, its bridges, its schools, its hospitals, leveled its cities, polluted its water, spread diseases everywhere, killed its kids, pitted brother against brother, and transformed a vibrant, unique country into a dysfunctional cesspit run by opportunists, gangsters, and fanatics.
Read Full Article :-
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/05/27 ... d-in-iraq/
These are the ‘best of times’ for the oil giants in Iraq. Production is up, profits are soaring, and big oil is rolling in dough. Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal:
“Iraq’s oil production surged to its highest level in over 30 years last month, surprising skeptics of the country’s efforts to restore its oil industry after decades of war and neglect.” (Wall Street Journal)
Mission accomplished?
You bet. But for those who still cling to the idea that the US was serious about promoting democracy or removing a vicious dictator or eliminating WMD or any of the other kooky excuses, consider what we’ve learned in the last couple weeks. Here’s the story from Aljazeera:
“While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest Western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.
If it sounds like the big boys are dividing the spoils among themselves; it’s because they are. Exxon, BP, Shell; they’re all here. They all have their contracts in hand, and they’re all drilling their brains out thanks to the American servicemen and women who gave their lives for some trumped up baloney about WMD. Isn’t that what’s going on?
Sure it is. And even now – after all the reasons for going to war have been exposed as lies – the farce continues. Nothing has changed. Nothing. There’s still no talk of reparations, no official investigation, no indictments, no prosecutions, no trials, no penalties, no nothing. Not even a stinking apology. Just a big “up yours” Iraq. We’re way too important to apologize for killing a million of your people and reducing your five thousand year old civilization to a pile of rubble. Instead, we’ll just screw you some more and paper it over with a little public relations, like Obama did a couple weeks ago when he promised to “leave behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people”.
These PR blurbs are effective though, they provide the necessary cover for leaving enough troops behind to protect the oil installations and pipelines. That’s the kind of security Obama cares about. Security for the oiligarchs and their stolen property. Everyone else can fend for themselves, which is why Baghdad is such a bloody mess. Here’s more from Aljazeera:
“Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other Western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq’s oil market,” oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz told Al Jazeera. “But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973.” (Aljazeera)
According to Assim Jihad, spokesman for Iraq’s ministry of oil, “Iraq has a goal of raising its oil production capacity to 12m bpd by 2017, which would place it in the top echelon of global producers.” (Aljazeera)
“12 million barrels-per-day by 2017″?
That makes this the biggest petroleum heist in history. And we’re supposed to believe that the oil bigwigs didn’t know anything about this before the war? What a crock! I’ll bet you even money the CEOs and their lackeys figured out that Saudi Arabia was running out of gas, so they decided to pick up stakes and move their operations to good old Mesopotamia. That’s why they put their money on Bush and Cheney, because they knew that two former oil men would do the heavy lifting once they got shoehorned into the White House. The whole thing was a set-up from the get-go, right down to the 5 shady Supremes who suspended the voting in Florida and crowned Bush emperor in 2000. The whole thing was probably mapped out years in advance.
The US decimated Iraq; blew it to bits, bombed its industries, its bridges, its schools, its hospitals, leveled its cities, polluted its water, spread diseases everywhere, killed its kids, pitted brother against brother, and transformed a vibrant, unique country into a dysfunctional cesspit run by opportunists, gangsters, and fanatics.
Read Full Article :-
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/05/27 ... d-in-iraq/
-
adna_mumin
- Posts: 193
- Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2014 3:43 pm
Re: Iraq
Militants Vow to March on Baghdad After Seizing Key Cities
The al-Qaida-inspired group that led this week's charge in capturing two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq vowed Thursday to march on to Baghdad, raising fears about the Shiite-led government's ability to slow the assault following lightning gains.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... d-24102499
My comment:
Seems like the terrorists (calling themselves Sunni and Muslim!) who must have got ego hurt when Saddam was killed must now be rejoicing that they snatch back from the elected "government" the country they so long held. Once again the ordinary people of Iraq who were suppressed will be depressed of their fate.
The al-Qaida-inspired group that led this week's charge in capturing two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq vowed Thursday to march on to Baghdad, raising fears about the Shiite-led government's ability to slow the assault following lightning gains.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... d-24102499
My comment:
Seems like the terrorists (calling themselves Sunni and Muslim!) who must have got ego hurt when Saddam was killed must now be rejoicing that they snatch back from the elected "government" the country they so long held. Once again the ordinary people of Iraq who were suppressed will be depressed of their fate.
-
tasneempati
- Posts: 260
- Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2014 3:44 am
Re: Iraq
Yes bhai adna_mumin craps like freebhora and anjami will be celebrating with whisky like their masters in Wahabi Saudi. But for sure US & Iran will crush these snakes before they bite civilised muslims in Iraq.
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Iran denies troops on ground in Iraq, but mulls cooperation with US
Iran’s president held out the prospect of working with the U.S. in a bid to stabilize strife-torn Iraq on Saturday, but denied reports that troops had already been sent across the border to bolster its failing neighbor’s counter-insurgency efforts.
Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist who is presiding over a nascent thaw in Iran's relations with the West, said if Washington was willing to confront "terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere," then Tehran would contemplate cooperating with its traditional foe over Iraq.
Echoing comments made by President Barack Obama on Friday, Rouhani added that Tehran was unlikely to send forces to Iraq but stood ready to provide help within the framework of international law. Baghdad has not as yet requested such assistance, he added.
Rouhani suggested in a press conference that the militants are linked to Iraqi politicians who lost in parliamentary elections held in April.
"Those defeated [in elections] have resorted to bullets. This is a grave blunder," Rouhani said. "We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups."
Asked if Tehran would work with Washington in tackling the advances by insurgents in Iraq, he replied: "We can think about it if we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere."
Iran has built close political and economic ties with Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government, and many influential Iraqis, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have spent time in Iran.
Maliki, meanwhile, has issued a rallying call to his countrymen to take up arms against insurgents from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“We are not sectarian, we will fight as a nation," Maliki said in a speech shown on state television Saturday.
President Barack Obama on Friday said that the U.S. would not be drawn into sending troops into Iraq. But he said all other options were being evaluated, including targeted strikes.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush to move into the Arabian Gulf from its location in the North Arabian Sea on Saturday, according to Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby.
The carrier will provide Obama with additional flexibility should military options be considered, Kirby said in a statement, adding that the ship will be accompanied by two guided-missile cruisers.
"Iran has never dispatched any forces to Iraq, and it is very unlikely it will ever happen," Rouhani told Saturday's news conference.
Western diplomats suspect Iran has in the past sent some of its Revolutionary Guards, a hard-line force that works in parallel with the army, to train and advise the Iraqi army or its militia allies.
Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, quoted by Fars news agency, said: "Supporting the Iraqi government and nation does not mean sending troops to Iraq. It means condemning terrorist acts and closing and safeguarding our joint borders."
U.S. officials said there were no contacts going on with Iran over the crisis in Iraq.
Rouhani said he was not aware of any American plans for Iraq or whether Washington wanted to help Baghdad.
"If the Iraqi government and nation ask for our help, we will review it. So far there has not been such a request," he said.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... tants.html
Iran’s president held out the prospect of working with the U.S. in a bid to stabilize strife-torn Iraq on Saturday, but denied reports that troops had already been sent across the border to bolster its failing neighbor’s counter-insurgency efforts.
Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist who is presiding over a nascent thaw in Iran's relations with the West, said if Washington was willing to confront "terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere," then Tehran would contemplate cooperating with its traditional foe over Iraq.
Echoing comments made by President Barack Obama on Friday, Rouhani added that Tehran was unlikely to send forces to Iraq but stood ready to provide help within the framework of international law. Baghdad has not as yet requested such assistance, he added.
Rouhani suggested in a press conference that the militants are linked to Iraqi politicians who lost in parliamentary elections held in April.
"Those defeated [in elections] have resorted to bullets. This is a grave blunder," Rouhani said. "We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups."
Asked if Tehran would work with Washington in tackling the advances by insurgents in Iraq, he replied: "We can think about it if we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere."
Iran has built close political and economic ties with Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government, and many influential Iraqis, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have spent time in Iran.
Maliki, meanwhile, has issued a rallying call to his countrymen to take up arms against insurgents from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“We are not sectarian, we will fight as a nation," Maliki said in a speech shown on state television Saturday.
President Barack Obama on Friday said that the U.S. would not be drawn into sending troops into Iraq. But he said all other options were being evaluated, including targeted strikes.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush to move into the Arabian Gulf from its location in the North Arabian Sea on Saturday, according to Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby.
The carrier will provide Obama with additional flexibility should military options be considered, Kirby said in a statement, adding that the ship will be accompanied by two guided-missile cruisers.
"Iran has never dispatched any forces to Iraq, and it is very unlikely it will ever happen," Rouhani told Saturday's news conference.
Western diplomats suspect Iran has in the past sent some of its Revolutionary Guards, a hard-line force that works in parallel with the army, to train and advise the Iraqi army or its militia allies.
Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, quoted by Fars news agency, said: "Supporting the Iraqi government and nation does not mean sending troops to Iraq. It means condemning terrorist acts and closing and safeguarding our joint borders."
U.S. officials said there were no contacts going on with Iran over the crisis in Iraq.
Rouhani said he was not aware of any American plans for Iraq or whether Washington wanted to help Baghdad.
"If the Iraqi government and nation ask for our help, we will review it. So far there has not been such a request," he said.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... tants.html
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Photos: Iraqis flee fighting in Mosul
An estimated half million people flee as the Iraqi army clashes with fighters from Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia ... mosul.html
An estimated half million people flee as the Iraqi army clashes with fighters from Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia ... mosul.html
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Playing 'Iraq card' again
The stories were wrong. No Iranian forces had marched into Iraq. While American drones fly overhead and American aircraft carriers stream into the Persian Gulf, Al Qaeda forces - really American backed Takfiris sick of being pounded by the Syrian army - are moving on Baghdad.
American newspapers are already calling it a “color revolution” while President Obama is denying military aid until he receives assurances of “reforms.”
Were America not totally complicit here as in Ukraine and Syria and, if carefully examined, staging Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, in car bombings in Nairobi, a small part of a very large list, Washington’s rhetoric might be believable.
Then again, this is the Washington of Senator John McCain, the man who has repackaged Al Qaeda as “freedom fighters.” What is more important is that no one has said a word, not one word. What next, a huge memorial to Osama bin Laden in front of the Lincoln Memorial?
Toothless
America has no troops to send, not in an election year, when petty politics and backstabbing is the rule of law in Washington. Moreover, the warring sides in Iraq, particularly the Al Qaeda forces that took Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, have more than a few friends in Washington themselves.
American Complicity
After 9/11, Americans were told Al Qaeda was the enemy, out to “destroy our freedoms.” It was the duty of every Christian, every “crusader” to take up arms against the worldwide threat. Today it is a different tune, particularly with both the American “right” and the all-powerful Israel lobby.
Only a few short years ago, Senator McCain and his friends on Wall Street and the banking capitols spoke of a “holy war” to save the world from the hordes. Today, when Christian villages in Syria are ethnically cleansed by Takfiri "hirelings" on the Saudi payroll, the silence is deafening.
For those unaware, Mosul is the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Over 500,000 Chaldean Christians reside in the region or did until 48 hours ago, a fact the western press has carefully chosen to censor. Who do we think the 500,000 refugees that fled Nineveh Province were?
Why would half a million Christians fleeing an army of Takfiri butchers be censored from America’s news? Why would no American politician or religious leader say a word? Is the power of Saudi cash and the Israel lobby that strong? If they can hide something this obvious, what have they done before, so many times before?
Then again, the western press has now dropped all references to Al Qaeda from any mention of ISIS. What were terrorist Takfiris a week ago are now “boyish pranksters.” Could this be because their agenda and those who “own the news” is one in the same?
Then again, a cursory look at the civil wars in Nigeria, Kenya and Ukraine, all mysteriously involving “Al Qaeda” franchises or “analogs” puts a statistical strain on any idea of coincidence.
America’s actions in Iraq and across the region have been blunder upon blunder.
American Contractors, but for Whom?
Since January this year, American defense contracting firms, not so long ago unwelcomed in Iraq, have been brought back “in droves.” Ostensibly, the rationale has been the inability of the Iraqi army to hold Tikrit and secure Anbar Province.
The problem is, however, that the American security firms were all selected by political groups seeking autonomy from the Baghdad government, groups tied to tribal allegiances and key state governors with private militias.
Moreover, the firms brought in, many but not all, are those tied politically with the Israeli/neocon agenda, one hostile to the government in Baghdad. In each case, the firms brought in contracted for services to provide intelligence and surveillance capabilities they never intended to deliver. In one case, a single billion dollar contract was signed for surplus equipment from Afghanistan that otherwise would have been abandoned and destroyed, a billion dollar contract to supply and service less than five million dollars of equipment of no use to Iraq whatsoever, other than to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-government elements.
Could we call that “full and absolute complicity in material support of terrorism?” My answer would be “yes!”
Today, those same contractors are fleeing Al Qaeda. They hoped no one would see the irony. They were wrong.
Planned Blunders
Not all blunders have been innocent mistakes. The Al Qaeda Takfiri moving on Baghdad are American, Turkish and Israeli trained, recruited from across the Muslim world, from prisons and street corners, great chests of Saudi cash, CIA and Special Forces training, Israeli and Turkish logistics, nothing here is really “accidental.”
As war in Syria is grinding to a halt, the lovers of chaos demand the flow of innocent blood continue. A divided Iraq, continually the target of political intrigues, was ripe for the picking.
At best, America can, Obama can claim suicidal stupidity, almost at the level of the Bush administration but then again there was nothing accidental about America’s “suicidal stupidity” then either. America used to say “Al Qaeda is evil.” With Syria, that quickly turned to “Al Qaeda is a necessary evil” we have to support. That soon morphed into, “OK, we are caught, Al Qaeda has always been us but after so long the American people are too tired and perhaps too stupid to care.”
What is generally accepted is that Al Qaeda and its many forms, call them franchises or “offshoots” or whatever, are and always have been the inheritors of the Gladio mantle, NATO’s “war on the cheap” fought by bombers, hijackers and assassins in the inimitable CIA style.
Only a few short years ago, simple false flag terrorism was enough. CIA terror groups would murder civilians, as we saw in Kiev most recently, then America would demand regime change, waving the “bloody flag” of their own making. This became so dependable, so predictable that there was even a risk the mainstream media would catch on.
Thus, today when President Obama “washes his hands” of the human disaster in Iraq, a disaster he played no small part in creating, we are asked to see nothing.
Saving Iraq
America destroyed Iraq in 2003. Recent revelations from Russian intelligence have rewritten the narrative of that time. It had been accepted that Bush and Blair, in a frenzy of greed and psychosis had decided to invade Iraq in order to steal billions in oil while pocketing their personal percentages of the vast defense contracts that a protracted bloodletting would facilitate.
The new hypothesis is kinder to Bush and Blair. It cites them as cowards and dupes, blackmailed into warring on the world on behalf of Israel, confronted with threats of “outing” their personal complicity in the theft and sale of weapons grade nuclear material and a far darker issue, very real threats against the US and Britain, threats of nuclear weapons “in place” and city after city learning first hand of the “Samson option.”
Whichever hypothesis is true, and military experts tend toward accepting the latter, the wanton destruction of Iraq and over a dozen other nations has always been “in the cards.”
Today, the “Iraq card” is being played again. If and when Iraq falls, America may well fall too, President Obama is right about that. Today CNN referred to Iran as an “American ally.” Iran isn’t ready for that. No one should be.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/15 ... ard-again/
The stories were wrong. No Iranian forces had marched into Iraq. While American drones fly overhead and American aircraft carriers stream into the Persian Gulf, Al Qaeda forces - really American backed Takfiris sick of being pounded by the Syrian army - are moving on Baghdad.
American newspapers are already calling it a “color revolution” while President Obama is denying military aid until he receives assurances of “reforms.”
Were America not totally complicit here as in Ukraine and Syria and, if carefully examined, staging Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, in car bombings in Nairobi, a small part of a very large list, Washington’s rhetoric might be believable.
Then again, this is the Washington of Senator John McCain, the man who has repackaged Al Qaeda as “freedom fighters.” What is more important is that no one has said a word, not one word. What next, a huge memorial to Osama bin Laden in front of the Lincoln Memorial?
Toothless
America has no troops to send, not in an election year, when petty politics and backstabbing is the rule of law in Washington. Moreover, the warring sides in Iraq, particularly the Al Qaeda forces that took Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, have more than a few friends in Washington themselves.
American Complicity
After 9/11, Americans were told Al Qaeda was the enemy, out to “destroy our freedoms.” It was the duty of every Christian, every “crusader” to take up arms against the worldwide threat. Today it is a different tune, particularly with both the American “right” and the all-powerful Israel lobby.
Only a few short years ago, Senator McCain and his friends on Wall Street and the banking capitols spoke of a “holy war” to save the world from the hordes. Today, when Christian villages in Syria are ethnically cleansed by Takfiri "hirelings" on the Saudi payroll, the silence is deafening.
For those unaware, Mosul is the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Over 500,000 Chaldean Christians reside in the region or did until 48 hours ago, a fact the western press has carefully chosen to censor. Who do we think the 500,000 refugees that fled Nineveh Province were?
Why would half a million Christians fleeing an army of Takfiri butchers be censored from America’s news? Why would no American politician or religious leader say a word? Is the power of Saudi cash and the Israel lobby that strong? If they can hide something this obvious, what have they done before, so many times before?
Then again, the western press has now dropped all references to Al Qaeda from any mention of ISIS. What were terrorist Takfiris a week ago are now “boyish pranksters.” Could this be because their agenda and those who “own the news” is one in the same?
Then again, a cursory look at the civil wars in Nigeria, Kenya and Ukraine, all mysteriously involving “Al Qaeda” franchises or “analogs” puts a statistical strain on any idea of coincidence.
America’s actions in Iraq and across the region have been blunder upon blunder.
American Contractors, but for Whom?
Since January this year, American defense contracting firms, not so long ago unwelcomed in Iraq, have been brought back “in droves.” Ostensibly, the rationale has been the inability of the Iraqi army to hold Tikrit and secure Anbar Province.
The problem is, however, that the American security firms were all selected by political groups seeking autonomy from the Baghdad government, groups tied to tribal allegiances and key state governors with private militias.
Moreover, the firms brought in, many but not all, are those tied politically with the Israeli/neocon agenda, one hostile to the government in Baghdad. In each case, the firms brought in contracted for services to provide intelligence and surveillance capabilities they never intended to deliver. In one case, a single billion dollar contract was signed for surplus equipment from Afghanistan that otherwise would have been abandoned and destroyed, a billion dollar contract to supply and service less than five million dollars of equipment of no use to Iraq whatsoever, other than to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-government elements.
Could we call that “full and absolute complicity in material support of terrorism?” My answer would be “yes!”
Today, those same contractors are fleeing Al Qaeda. They hoped no one would see the irony. They were wrong.
Planned Blunders
Not all blunders have been innocent mistakes. The Al Qaeda Takfiri moving on Baghdad are American, Turkish and Israeli trained, recruited from across the Muslim world, from prisons and street corners, great chests of Saudi cash, CIA and Special Forces training, Israeli and Turkish logistics, nothing here is really “accidental.”
As war in Syria is grinding to a halt, the lovers of chaos demand the flow of innocent blood continue. A divided Iraq, continually the target of political intrigues, was ripe for the picking.
At best, America can, Obama can claim suicidal stupidity, almost at the level of the Bush administration but then again there was nothing accidental about America’s “suicidal stupidity” then either. America used to say “Al Qaeda is evil.” With Syria, that quickly turned to “Al Qaeda is a necessary evil” we have to support. That soon morphed into, “OK, we are caught, Al Qaeda has always been us but after so long the American people are too tired and perhaps too stupid to care.”
What is generally accepted is that Al Qaeda and its many forms, call them franchises or “offshoots” or whatever, are and always have been the inheritors of the Gladio mantle, NATO’s “war on the cheap” fought by bombers, hijackers and assassins in the inimitable CIA style.
Only a few short years ago, simple false flag terrorism was enough. CIA terror groups would murder civilians, as we saw in Kiev most recently, then America would demand regime change, waving the “bloody flag” of their own making. This became so dependable, so predictable that there was even a risk the mainstream media would catch on.
Thus, today when President Obama “washes his hands” of the human disaster in Iraq, a disaster he played no small part in creating, we are asked to see nothing.
Saving Iraq
America destroyed Iraq in 2003. Recent revelations from Russian intelligence have rewritten the narrative of that time. It had been accepted that Bush and Blair, in a frenzy of greed and psychosis had decided to invade Iraq in order to steal billions in oil while pocketing their personal percentages of the vast defense contracts that a protracted bloodletting would facilitate.
The new hypothesis is kinder to Bush and Blair. It cites them as cowards and dupes, blackmailed into warring on the world on behalf of Israel, confronted with threats of “outing” their personal complicity in the theft and sale of weapons grade nuclear material and a far darker issue, very real threats against the US and Britain, threats of nuclear weapons “in place” and city after city learning first hand of the “Samson option.”
Whichever hypothesis is true, and military experts tend toward accepting the latter, the wanton destruction of Iraq and over a dozen other nations has always been “in the cards.”
Today, the “Iraq card” is being played again. If and when Iraq falls, America may well fall too, President Obama is right about that. Today CNN referred to Iran as an “American ally.” Iran isn’t ready for that. No one should be.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/15 ... ard-again/
Re: Iraq
Iraqi Sunnis flock to recruiting centers to fight back ISIL
See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1603353#sthash.FvhCjQLZ.dpuf
See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1603353#sthash.FvhCjQLZ.dpuf
Re: Iraq
Egypt Fatwa Center prohibits Muslims from joining ISIL
- See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1603316#sthash.5zdu6E10.dpuf
- See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1603316#sthash.5zdu6E10.dpuf
-
tasneempati
- Posts: 260
- Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2014 3:44 am
Re: Iraq
TRUE FACE OF WAHABI SAUDIS EXPOSED
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-attacks-i ... de-1453101
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-attacks-i ... de-1453101
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
When was the last time U.S. intervention in the Muslim world was actually a success?
Last month, on the same day President Obama gave a speech that defended his decision not to militarily intervene in Syria, Max Abrahms, a professor at Northeastern University who specializes in terrorism, tweeted a blunt query: "When was the last US intervention in the Muslim world that was a resounding success?"
That's a hard question to answer. For one thing, what does a "resounding success" even mean in foreign policy? Generally, political scientists would argue military intervention can only be called a success if it achieves its aims, but the aims of government intervention abroad are often unclear. It can also be hard to ascertain whether the government's actions itself helped complete that aim, or whether outside actions played a role.
However, recent events suggest give reason to raise the question again. The situation unfolding in Iraq is not only raising the possibility of U.S. intervention, but also casting a harsh light on America's invasion and nine-year presence in the country.
So where are the interventions that have gone well? Recent examples aren't encouraging. The Afghanistan War may have eventually led to the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, but as The Post's Kabul correspondent Kevin Sieff recently pointed out, its not yet clear what legacy the U.S. have left in the country itself. Americans themselves aren't sure either: According to a Pew/USA Today poll earlier this year, some 52 percent of Americans don't think the U.S. achieved its goals in the region.
Meanwhile, the bilateral intervention in Libya may contributed to the ousting (and killing) of dictator Moammar Gaddafi, but almost three years later the country seems intractably split between Islamist militias and rogue generals, and the deadly 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi continue to reverberate in American politics.
The U.S. bombing campaign against Libya in 1986 is another candidate. Ronald Reagan's retaliation for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub that killed two U.S. soldiers was clearly a military victory, but its longer term effects are less clear cut. It did appear to create a lull in Libya-sponsored terrorism and it succeeded in putting terrorism in the cross hairs of the international community, but it failed to end Libyan-sponsored terrorism once and for all. Gaddafi himself portrayed it as a victory for him, later erecting a monument to the strike near Misurata – a "golden fist crushing an American jet" (two American planes went down during the bombing).
"I think the lesson in recent history is that regardless of how benevolent U.S. intentions can be, when we go to the Muslim world and occupy it, ultimately our presence there soon becomes unwelcome,"
"Part of the problem is that there's a huge discrepancy between the reason why we are there and the reason why we are perceived to be there," Abrahms says. "I think that regardless again of our perception, what really matters is how we are perceived."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... a-success/
Last month, on the same day President Obama gave a speech that defended his decision not to militarily intervene in Syria, Max Abrahms, a professor at Northeastern University who specializes in terrorism, tweeted a blunt query: "When was the last US intervention in the Muslim world that was a resounding success?"
That's a hard question to answer. For one thing, what does a "resounding success" even mean in foreign policy? Generally, political scientists would argue military intervention can only be called a success if it achieves its aims, but the aims of government intervention abroad are often unclear. It can also be hard to ascertain whether the government's actions itself helped complete that aim, or whether outside actions played a role.
However, recent events suggest give reason to raise the question again. The situation unfolding in Iraq is not only raising the possibility of U.S. intervention, but also casting a harsh light on America's invasion and nine-year presence in the country.
So where are the interventions that have gone well? Recent examples aren't encouraging. The Afghanistan War may have eventually led to the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, but as The Post's Kabul correspondent Kevin Sieff recently pointed out, its not yet clear what legacy the U.S. have left in the country itself. Americans themselves aren't sure either: According to a Pew/USA Today poll earlier this year, some 52 percent of Americans don't think the U.S. achieved its goals in the region.
Meanwhile, the bilateral intervention in Libya may contributed to the ousting (and killing) of dictator Moammar Gaddafi, but almost three years later the country seems intractably split between Islamist militias and rogue generals, and the deadly 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi continue to reverberate in American politics.
The U.S. bombing campaign against Libya in 1986 is another candidate. Ronald Reagan's retaliation for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub that killed two U.S. soldiers was clearly a military victory, but its longer term effects are less clear cut. It did appear to create a lull in Libya-sponsored terrorism and it succeeded in putting terrorism in the cross hairs of the international community, but it failed to end Libyan-sponsored terrorism once and for all. Gaddafi himself portrayed it as a victory for him, later erecting a monument to the strike near Misurata – a "golden fist crushing an American jet" (two American planes went down during the bombing).
"I think the lesson in recent history is that regardless of how benevolent U.S. intentions can be, when we go to the Muslim world and occupy it, ultimately our presence there soon becomes unwelcome,"
"Part of the problem is that there's a huge discrepancy between the reason why we are there and the reason why we are perceived to be there," Abrahms says. "I think that regardless again of our perception, what really matters is how we are perceived."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... a-success/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Nouri al-Maliki's divisive rule helped create crisis in Iraq
The oppressive and vindictive rule of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose divisive governing has alienated and marginalized Sunnis and Kurds, has played a significant role in the deterioration of security and the emergence of Sunni extremists, experts on the troubled country say.
"I believe a great deal of the crisis can be laid at the feet of Nouri al-Maliki," said Peter Mansoor, the former executive officer to then general David Petraeus during the period of the Iraqi surge in 2007 and 2008. "Ever since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011, he’s proven to be a highly divisive, extremely authoritarian and extremely sectarian figure.
"He’s governed Iraq with an iron fist, he has alienated large segments of the Iraqi population, including its Sunni and Kurdish inhabitants, and his governing style has led directly to this moment when he’s lost control of more of third of his country."
"I believe that had Nouri al-Maliki made a serious effort to reconcile with the Sunni community and Kurdish community and governed in a more even-handed manner, that the region wouldn’t be in this position today,"
"It says something when the Sunnis feel so bad about the way they’ve been treated that they would forge a temporary alliance with these very extremist jihadists."
Initially, during the so-called U.S surge in 2008 against al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Maliki helped in the fight against the insurgency and was considered even-handed in going after Sunni and Shia extremists, Mansoor said.
"That turned out not to be the case in the long run," Mansoor said. "Once he thought he had won, then he was ready to go after his political enemies, and he viewed those enemies very much in a sectarian lens."
Instead of reaching out to other factions, al-Maliki began arresting Sunni citizens and key Sunni politicians, and putting them in jail without trial. Meanwhile, he packed the courts with his political cronies and further marginalized the Sunni community by not providing them with a fair share of budget resources, Mansoor said.
"So in just about every way you can imagine, he has alienated the Sunni community, and unfortunately what that has done, it has turned them against the government that they appeared to be on the verge of supporting after the success of the surge,"
Al-Maliki also began purging competent professional officers whom the U.S had spent years training and developing because they were not "party hacks," Harvey said, and were not family members or otherwise connected to the prime minister and the Dawa Party.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nouri-al-m ... -1.2678343
The oppressive and vindictive rule of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose divisive governing has alienated and marginalized Sunnis and Kurds, has played a significant role in the deterioration of security and the emergence of Sunni extremists, experts on the troubled country say.
"I believe a great deal of the crisis can be laid at the feet of Nouri al-Maliki," said Peter Mansoor, the former executive officer to then general David Petraeus during the period of the Iraqi surge in 2007 and 2008. "Ever since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011, he’s proven to be a highly divisive, extremely authoritarian and extremely sectarian figure.
"He’s governed Iraq with an iron fist, he has alienated large segments of the Iraqi population, including its Sunni and Kurdish inhabitants, and his governing style has led directly to this moment when he’s lost control of more of third of his country."
"I believe that had Nouri al-Maliki made a serious effort to reconcile with the Sunni community and Kurdish community and governed in a more even-handed manner, that the region wouldn’t be in this position today,"
"It says something when the Sunnis feel so bad about the way they’ve been treated that they would forge a temporary alliance with these very extremist jihadists."
Initially, during the so-called U.S surge in 2008 against al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Maliki helped in the fight against the insurgency and was considered even-handed in going after Sunni and Shia extremists, Mansoor said.
"That turned out not to be the case in the long run," Mansoor said. "Once he thought he had won, then he was ready to go after his political enemies, and he viewed those enemies very much in a sectarian lens."
Instead of reaching out to other factions, al-Maliki began arresting Sunni citizens and key Sunni politicians, and putting them in jail without trial. Meanwhile, he packed the courts with his political cronies and further marginalized the Sunni community by not providing them with a fair share of budget resources, Mansoor said.
"So in just about every way you can imagine, he has alienated the Sunni community, and unfortunately what that has done, it has turned them against the government that they appeared to be on the verge of supporting after the success of the surge,"
Al-Maliki also began purging competent professional officers whom the U.S had spent years training and developing because they were not "party hacks," Harvey said, and were not family members or otherwise connected to the prime minister and the Dawa Party.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nouri-al-m ... -1.2678343
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
It's Not Shi'as Vs Sunnis
The current conflict in Iraq is not what it is being described by most news agencies and analysts.
The Islamic State for Iraq and Shaam or ISIS as they are popularly referred to are not representative of Sunnis and indeed their ideological position is closer to that of the 7th century Kharijite faction. In 657 AD, in the battle of Siffin between Ali ibnAbiTalib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a faction of people broke off from Ali’s camp after declaring that he should not have entered into arbitration with Mu‘awiya. They deemed both Ali and Mu‘awiya’s sides to be kuffar (pl. of kafir) and it is perhaps to this act that we can trace the intellectual origins of takfeer or the act of declaring someone a disbeliever. Prior to this, as Maulana Mohsin Najafi of the Jaamiatul Kausar in Islamabad, recently pointed out, the act of takfeer was not even utilised for political opponents with the assassins of the third Caliph Usman not being the victim of takfeer. Speaking at the 10th annual Rabeeush-Shahada festival held under the aegis of the holy shrines of Karbala, Najafi tackled this sensitive question, which is not only religiously important but is now also increasingly politically relevant.
Recently Zawahiri in an open letter to the leaders of ISIS denounced the latter’s conduct and advised them to desist from their brutal and violent methods as well as reminding Jabhat al-Nusra that their sphere of operations was Syria and ISIS, that theirs was Iraq. Terrorists too extreme even for other terrorists!
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Its ... nis/291089
The current conflict in Iraq is not what it is being described by most news agencies and analysts.
The Islamic State for Iraq and Shaam or ISIS as they are popularly referred to are not representative of Sunnis and indeed their ideological position is closer to that of the 7th century Kharijite faction. In 657 AD, in the battle of Siffin between Ali ibnAbiTalib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a faction of people broke off from Ali’s camp after declaring that he should not have entered into arbitration with Mu‘awiya. They deemed both Ali and Mu‘awiya’s sides to be kuffar (pl. of kafir) and it is perhaps to this act that we can trace the intellectual origins of takfeer or the act of declaring someone a disbeliever. Prior to this, as Maulana Mohsin Najafi of the Jaamiatul Kausar in Islamabad, recently pointed out, the act of takfeer was not even utilised for political opponents with the assassins of the third Caliph Usman not being the victim of takfeer. Speaking at the 10th annual Rabeeush-Shahada festival held under the aegis of the holy shrines of Karbala, Najafi tackled this sensitive question, which is not only religiously important but is now also increasingly politically relevant.
Recently Zawahiri in an open letter to the leaders of ISIS denounced the latter’s conduct and advised them to desist from their brutal and violent methods as well as reminding Jabhat al-Nusra that their sphere of operations was Syria and ISIS, that theirs was Iraq. Terrorists too extreme even for other terrorists!
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Its ... nis/291089
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Watch: The Fall of Iraq – What You’re Not Being Told
Iraq is descending into chaos, but not for the reasons you’re being fed by the politicians and the mainstream media. The public must come to terms with the fact that the current chaos is directly related to a half century of US military interventions and covert operations in the middle east. Bombing for peace never has, and never will, work.
http://consciouslifenews.com/watch-fall ... d/1174386/#
Iraq is descending into chaos, but not for the reasons you’re being fed by the politicians and the mainstream media. The public must come to terms with the fact that the current chaos is directly related to a half century of US military interventions and covert operations in the middle east. Bombing for peace never has, and never will, work.
http://consciouslifenews.com/watch-fall ... d/1174386/#
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
War Industry Stands to Make Billions Off ISIS Threat
Good chance military hardware will end up in the hands of Islamic terror group
In the war business, timing is everything.
For instance, timing appears to be a factor in the ISIS advance in Iraq and the dysfunctional Iraqi government’s response to it, at least for the war industry.
Last month it was announced a few outstanding members of the military-industrial complex would stand to rake in around a billion dollars if an arms sale to the Iraqi government was approved by Congress.
Considering the current situation in Iraq and alarm bells echoing through the halls of Congress, the sale will undoubtedly go through without a hitch.
On Monday AllGov.com posted details of the sale to the floundering Shia regime in Baghdad:
•Beechcraft Defense Co. and eight other contractors are selling 24 AT-6C Texan II aircraft, plus spares and other equipment to Iraq. That deal is worth about $790 million. The plane is used for “light attack and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”
•AM General has a deal to send 200 of its venerable Humvees to help guard oil installations. The contract, which includes spares and equipment such as radios and machine gun mounts, is worth $101 million.
•Raytheon has a $90-million deal for seven aerostats along with 14 Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) Tower systems to be used for command and control by the Iraqi military.
“These are just the latest in a string of sales of military equipment to the Iraqi government. Others have included Stinger missiles, C-130J cargo planes, drones and patrol boats,” the web site reports.
The Pentagon has invested around $15 billion in training, weapons and equipment for the fledgling Iraq government.
In November, the Obama announced he would “increase intelligence support and provide new weaponry to Baghdad” in response to advances by al-Qaeda, a move described “a notable shift for his administration.”
In December, The New York Times reported the Obama administration had provided the Iraqi military with three sensor-laden Aerostat balloons, given three additional reconnaissance helicopters to the Iraqi military and said it planned to send 48 Raven reconnaissance drones before the end of this year. In addition, the U.S. said it planned to deliver this fall F-16 fighters Iraq has bought.
If delivered ahead of schedule in response to the current situation, there is a distinct possibility this military hardware will fall into the hands of ISIS.
http://www.infowars.com/war-industry-st ... is-threat/
Good chance military hardware will end up in the hands of Islamic terror group
In the war business, timing is everything.
For instance, timing appears to be a factor in the ISIS advance in Iraq and the dysfunctional Iraqi government’s response to it, at least for the war industry.
Last month it was announced a few outstanding members of the military-industrial complex would stand to rake in around a billion dollars if an arms sale to the Iraqi government was approved by Congress.
Considering the current situation in Iraq and alarm bells echoing through the halls of Congress, the sale will undoubtedly go through without a hitch.
On Monday AllGov.com posted details of the sale to the floundering Shia regime in Baghdad:
•Beechcraft Defense Co. and eight other contractors are selling 24 AT-6C Texan II aircraft, plus spares and other equipment to Iraq. That deal is worth about $790 million. The plane is used for “light attack and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”
•AM General has a deal to send 200 of its venerable Humvees to help guard oil installations. The contract, which includes spares and equipment such as radios and machine gun mounts, is worth $101 million.
•Raytheon has a $90-million deal for seven aerostats along with 14 Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) Tower systems to be used for command and control by the Iraqi military.
“These are just the latest in a string of sales of military equipment to the Iraqi government. Others have included Stinger missiles, C-130J cargo planes, drones and patrol boats,” the web site reports.
The Pentagon has invested around $15 billion in training, weapons and equipment for the fledgling Iraq government.
In November, the Obama announced he would “increase intelligence support and provide new weaponry to Baghdad” in response to advances by al-Qaeda, a move described “a notable shift for his administration.”
In December, The New York Times reported the Obama administration had provided the Iraqi military with three sensor-laden Aerostat balloons, given three additional reconnaissance helicopters to the Iraqi military and said it planned to send 48 Raven reconnaissance drones before the end of this year. In addition, the U.S. said it planned to deliver this fall F-16 fighters Iraq has bought.
If delivered ahead of schedule in response to the current situation, there is a distinct possibility this military hardware will fall into the hands of ISIS.
http://www.infowars.com/war-industry-st ... is-threat/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Iraq forces 'killed 255 Sunni prisoners'
Iraqi security forces and government-affiliated militias appear to have executed at least 255 prisoners since 9 June, a human rights group says.
The killings appeared to be retaliation for attacks by the jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
The prisoners were all Sunni Muslims, while the majority of security forces and militia were Shia, they added.
An Iraqi military official denied any prisoners had been executed.
However, some prisoners may have died "as a result of terrorist acts", Lt Gen Qassim Atta, the military spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, said.
The number of those killed was lower than that cited in the report, he added, saying that a committee had been formed to look into the deaths.
'Killing sprees'
Most of the executions took place as Iraqi forces fled advancing Isis fighters, HRW said in a statement.
The killings were reported in six Iraqi villages: Mosul, Tal Afar, Baquba, Jumarkhe, Rawa and Hilla.
"The mass extrajudicial killings may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity, and appear to be revenge killings for atrocities by Isis," the statement said.
Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director, said: "While the world rightly denounces the atrocious acts of Isis, it should not turn a blind eye to sectarian killing sprees by government and pro-government forces."
The HRW statement added that the executions, which it documented based primarily on interviews with eyewitnesses and officials, "may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity".
More than a million people have fled their homes as a result of the fighting in recent months.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28274742
Iraqi security forces and government-affiliated militias appear to have executed at least 255 prisoners since 9 June, a human rights group says.
The killings appeared to be retaliation for attacks by the jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
The prisoners were all Sunni Muslims, while the majority of security forces and militia were Shia, they added.
An Iraqi military official denied any prisoners had been executed.
However, some prisoners may have died "as a result of terrorist acts", Lt Gen Qassim Atta, the military spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, said.
The number of those killed was lower than that cited in the report, he added, saying that a committee had been formed to look into the deaths.
'Killing sprees'
Most of the executions took place as Iraqi forces fled advancing Isis fighters, HRW said in a statement.
The killings were reported in six Iraqi villages: Mosul, Tal Afar, Baquba, Jumarkhe, Rawa and Hilla.
"The mass extrajudicial killings may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity, and appear to be revenge killings for atrocities by Isis," the statement said.
Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director, said: "While the world rightly denounces the atrocious acts of Isis, it should not turn a blind eye to sectarian killing sprees by government and pro-government forces."
The HRW statement added that the executions, which it documented based primarily on interviews with eyewitnesses and officials, "may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity".
More than a million people have fled their homes as a result of the fighting in recent months.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28274742
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
How The US Is Arming Both Sides Of The Iraqi Conflict
To summarize: the US was arming and training the same Al Qaeda/ISIS groups of Jihadists, that it concurrently gave Iraq weapons to fight. And since the Iraq army has so far proven utterly incapable of any resistance, it is now up to US drones to "fight" the same "rebels" that the US itself was collaborating with until a month or so ago.
The clear winner here? The US military-industrial complex, of course, as well as the banks who lend money to the governments to fight wars provoked by various "developed nation" spy agencies.
Collateral damage? Millions of innocent people on the ground in Syria and Iraq, and everywhere else too.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... i-conflict
To summarize: the US was arming and training the same Al Qaeda/ISIS groups of Jihadists, that it concurrently gave Iraq weapons to fight. And since the Iraq army has so far proven utterly incapable of any resistance, it is now up to US drones to "fight" the same "rebels" that the US itself was collaborating with until a month or so ago.
The clear winner here? The US military-industrial complex, of course, as well as the banks who lend money to the governments to fight wars provoked by various "developed nation" spy agencies.
Collateral damage? Millions of innocent people on the ground in Syria and Iraq, and everywhere else too.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... i-conflict
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Iraq
Iraqi Shia militias accused of murder spree
Amnesty International says sectarian groups have abducted and killed scores of Sunnis during war against ISIL.
Shia militias have abducted and murdered scores of Sunni civilians in Iraq in crimes committed in retribution against the actions of ISIL, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
The London-based rights group on Tuesday published what it said was evidence that Shia militias abducted civilians in Baghdad, Samarra and Kirkuk, and killed them even if families paid tens of thousands of dollars in ransom.
The Amnesty report, Absolute Impunity: Militia Rule in Iraq, said scores of unidentified bodies had been discovered handcuffed and with gunshot wounds, indicating a pattern of deliberate killings.
The group called on the Iraqi government, which has armed and encouraged militias including the Badr brigades and the Mehdi army, to fight ISIL, to hold them to account.
Militias operate outside any legal framework and without official oversight, and had contributed to a deterioration in security and to the increasing lawlessness in Iraq, Amnesty said.
"Shia militias are ruthlessly targeting Sunni civilians on a sectarian basis under the guise of fighting terrorism, in an apparent bid to punish Sunnis for the rise of ISIL and for its heinous crimes," Donatella Rovera, Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser, said.
"By failing to hold militias accountable for war crimes and other gross human rights abuses the Iraqi authorities have effectively granted them free rein to go on the rampage against Sunnis. The new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi must act now to rein in the militias and establish the rule of law."
'Evidence of torture'
The Amnesty document included evidence from relatives of those who had gone missing or were killed.
It reported that one family had paid $60,000 to have a family member released, only to find his body two weeks later in a Baghdad morgue, his head crushed and his hands cuffed.
Amnesty also accused Iraqi government forces of serious human rights violations, presenting what it said was evidence of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, and deaths in custody of Sunni men held under the 2005 anti-terrorism law.
It cited one example of a 33-year-old lawyer who died in custody, his body showing open wounds and burns consistent with the application of electric shocks.
Another man was held for five months and tortured with electric shocks and threatened with rape before being released without charge.
"Successive Iraqi governments have displayed a callous disregard for fundamental human rights principles," Rovera said.
"The new government must now change course and put in place effective mechanisms to investigate abuses by Shia militias and Iraqi forces and hold accountable those responsible."
In response, Naeem Al-Aboudi, the spokeman of Aasab Ahl Haq, a Shia paramilitary group, criticised the Amnesty report, calling it "an attempt to downgrade our gains and accomplishments so far in the fight against ISIL by supporting the Iraqi forces."
"We had fought and won over ISIL in Shia and Sunni areas and while doing so we had not violated any human rights."
http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/20 ... 78369.html
Amnesty International says sectarian groups have abducted and killed scores of Sunnis during war against ISIL.
Shia militias have abducted and murdered scores of Sunni civilians in Iraq in crimes committed in retribution against the actions of ISIL, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
The London-based rights group on Tuesday published what it said was evidence that Shia militias abducted civilians in Baghdad, Samarra and Kirkuk, and killed them even if families paid tens of thousands of dollars in ransom.
The Amnesty report, Absolute Impunity: Militia Rule in Iraq, said scores of unidentified bodies had been discovered handcuffed and with gunshot wounds, indicating a pattern of deliberate killings.
The group called on the Iraqi government, which has armed and encouraged militias including the Badr brigades and the Mehdi army, to fight ISIL, to hold them to account.
Militias operate outside any legal framework and without official oversight, and had contributed to a deterioration in security and to the increasing lawlessness in Iraq, Amnesty said.
"Shia militias are ruthlessly targeting Sunni civilians on a sectarian basis under the guise of fighting terrorism, in an apparent bid to punish Sunnis for the rise of ISIL and for its heinous crimes," Donatella Rovera, Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser, said.
"By failing to hold militias accountable for war crimes and other gross human rights abuses the Iraqi authorities have effectively granted them free rein to go on the rampage against Sunnis. The new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi must act now to rein in the militias and establish the rule of law."
'Evidence of torture'
The Amnesty document included evidence from relatives of those who had gone missing or were killed.
It reported that one family had paid $60,000 to have a family member released, only to find his body two weeks later in a Baghdad morgue, his head crushed and his hands cuffed.
Amnesty also accused Iraqi government forces of serious human rights violations, presenting what it said was evidence of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, and deaths in custody of Sunni men held under the 2005 anti-terrorism law.
It cited one example of a 33-year-old lawyer who died in custody, his body showing open wounds and burns consistent with the application of electric shocks.
Another man was held for five months and tortured with electric shocks and threatened with rape before being released without charge.
"Successive Iraqi governments have displayed a callous disregard for fundamental human rights principles," Rovera said.
"The new government must now change course and put in place effective mechanisms to investigate abuses by Shia militias and Iraqi forces and hold accountable those responsible."
In response, Naeem Al-Aboudi, the spokeman of Aasab Ahl Haq, a Shia paramilitary group, criticised the Amnesty report, calling it "an attempt to downgrade our gains and accomplishments so far in the fight against ISIL by supporting the Iraqi forces."
"We had fought and won over ISIL in Shia and Sunni areas and while doing so we had not violated any human rights."
http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/20 ... 78369.html