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Iraqis Voice Outrage as Haditha Massacre Trial Ends In No Jail Time for Accused U.S. Marines

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 26 (News Report) - The last of the U.S. marines charged in the 2005 Haditha massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, received no jail time after he pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty and avoiding charges of involuntary manslaughter. Under his sentencing, Wuterich now faces a maximum penalty of a demotion to the rank of private. The victims, including women and children, were killed when the marines burst into their homes and shot them dead in their nightclothes. Wuterich allegedly led the Haditha massacre and was the last defendant to face charges. Six other marines have had their charges dropped or dismissed, while another soldier was acquitted. "[Iraqi] outrage is perfectly understandable," says Tim McGirk, the Time magazine reporter who broke the story on the Haditha massacre. "Here is a case where so many Iraqis were killed, women and children, old men, and yet, what's happened? Most of the charges have been dismissed, and Wuterich was basically given a slap on the wrist." [includes rush transcript]

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Western Oil Firms Remain as US Exits Iraq

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Dahr Jamail - Jan. 09 (News Report) - hile the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain. On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a $17bn flared gas deal. Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq's giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.

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Rick Santorum: I Would Bomb Iran

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Jan. 01 (News Report) - Republican Rick Santorum says that if he's elected president, he would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities unless they were opened for international arms inspectors....

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Iraqi Women's Activist Rebuffs U.S. Claims of a Freer Iraq: "This Is Not a Democratic Country"

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 16 (News Report) - Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, joins us to discuss the impact of the nearly nine-year U.S. occupation, particularly on Iraqi women. "The Iraqi cities are now much more destroyed than they were five years ago," Mohammed says. "At the same time, we have turned to a society of 99 percent poor and 1 percent rich due to the policies that were imposed in Iraq." Moahmmed decries the repression of Iraqi protesters that joined the Arab Spring in a February 25th action. "The women are the biggest losers in all of this. We went to the Iraqi squares, we demonstrated, but got oppressed in ways that are new to Iraqi people. Anti-riot police of the American style was something that we witnessed there ... This is not a democratic country." [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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State Dept. Veteran Peter Van Buren Defies U.S. Censors to Recount Failed Reconstruction in Iraq

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 30 (News Report) - In "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People," State Department official Peter Van Buren provides a first-hand account of the faltering and often misguided attempts at reconstruction in Iraq undertaken by the U.S. government. Van Buren published the book after rebuffing heavy State Department pressure to redact a number of passages. Van Buren joins us to discuss the failed efforts he witnessed in Iraq and his struggle to tell his story to the world. "The State department is very much like the Mafia," Van Buren says. [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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The dark side of counterinsurgency - Afghanistan - Salon.com

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By David N. Philipps David N. Philipps David N. Philipps David N Philipps - Nov. 16 (News Report) - The dark side to U.S. counterinsurgency tactics were on graphic display last week when Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, of the 5thStryker Brigade, was convicted in a military court of three counts of murder, attempted murder and other charges, while deployed in Afghanistan in 2009.

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Violence Spikes in Iraq as U.S. Considers Ways to Extend Occupation Past December Deadline

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Aug. 19 (News Report) - Today, roughly 46,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, along with more than 64,000 private contractors. This week, as Iraq suffers its deadliest violence of the year, there is increasing speculation that the Obama administration will extend its occupation of the war-ravaged nation. Earlier this month, the Iraqi government authorized talks on whether to approve keeping thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq beyond a withdrawal deadline of December 31.

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Mixed Signals on US Troops in Iraq

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Gareth Porter - Jul. 16 (News Analysis) - Anti-American Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has stood in the way of proposals to extend U.S. troop presence in Iraq beyond the end of this year, and some of his backers have attacked American forces as a reminder of the looming deadline. But Gareth Porter reported for Inter Press Service that Sadr may be sending mixed signals.

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Read It and Weep: The Depressing and Expensive Legacy Of Empire's Hubris In Iraq

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Peter Van Buren - Jun. 08 (News Analysis) - After all, as of October 1, 2011, full responsibility for the U.S. presence in Iraq will officially be transferred from the military to the Department of State. In other words, as Washington imagines it, the occupation won’t really end at all, even if the landlords are switched. And the State Department hasn’t exactly been thinking small when it comes to its future “footprint” on Iraqi soil. The U.S. mission in Baghdad remains the world’s largest embassy, built on a tract of land about the size of the Vatican and visible from space. It cost just $736 million to build -- or was it $1 billion, depending on how you count the post-construction upgrades and fixes?

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Richard Engel report on NBC Nightly News News with Brian Williams

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

MSN.com - By Richard Engel - May. 02 (News Analysis) - The truth was, there was never a connection between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden. ....when civil war in Iraq broke out, American troops were stuck. ..But now .Osama bin Laden is dead, killed not by a massive troop deployment but by a commando raid carried out by a few dozen men and helicopters.

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MADRE :: Press Room :: Getting Stronger Every Generation: Six Women's Stories

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

madre.org - May. 02 (Special Report) - Great popular change is the result of years of sustained organizing, education and activism. Six women’s lives can tell this story. These are women who came together across generations to demand their rights and to fight for the safety and health of their communities.

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The Mosaic Philosophy at Gitmo

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Harper's - By Scott Horton - Apr. 30 (News Report) - Several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.

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U.S. Silent on Deadly Iraqi Gov't Crackdown on Protests; 300 Arrested in Sweeps Targeting Dissidents

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 02 (News Report) - While the United States has sharply criticized the Libyan government for brutally cracking down on opposition protesters, it has remained noticeably silent on the recent attacks against Iraqi dissidents. On Friday, tens of thousands of people participated in Iraq’s largest protest in years. Although the protests were largely peaceful, authorities fired water cannons, sound bombs and live bullets to disperse crowds as Iraqi army helicopters buzzed overhead, killing an estimated 29 people. Then on Sunday, U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces detained about 300 people, including prominent journalists, artists and lawyers who had taken part in the rallies.

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Palast ArrestedBusted by BP in Azerbaijan

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Greg Palast - By Greg Palast - Dec. 20 (Investigative Report) - Here in Azerbaijan we believe in human rights. PLEASE GIVE US YOUR FILM." Oh, no, no, not good. The enforcers here come in three colors: the military police still wearing their old Russian puke-green uniforms, the MSN (the dictator's secret police) in windbreakers without ID, and BP's own corporate police force in black tunics, sashes and full hats who look like toy soldiers from the Nutcracker ballet. They weren't dancing.

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Putting Iraq’s Political Turmoil in Context

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Pajamas Media - By N.M. Guariglia - Nov. 12 (News Analysis) - The United States should worry less about Iraq’s internal politics and more about Iran’s regional belligerence. If we protect Iraqi freedom from Iran, the Iraqis will figure the rest out on their own accord. After all, for all the mess in Iraq’s politics, they are the only state in the region that gets to have such messiness and politicking. This is what Arab democracy, for now, looks like. There are still security challenges throughout Iraq (especially for Christians). But Americans should be confident that this will work out. We need not place all of our trust in Iraq’s leadership, either. Should Maliki prove to be too sectarian or too Iran-friendly in his second term, the Iraqis will respond overwhelmingly in favor of freedom at the ballot box. If the Iraqis have proved one thing since 2003, it is that they are willing to fight and die for freedom and peace. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers have lost their lives alongside U.S. troops, countering Iranian-backed insurgents and al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

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The Wikitruth About Iranian Murder of Americans

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Pajamas Media - By Michael Ledeen - Oct. 24 (News Analysis) - The latest bunch of previously secret reports from Wikileaks abundantly document the Iranian war against Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Have a look at the New York Times‘ latest account, which is a model of fine journalism: lots of information, links to the primary documents, and good context throughout.

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WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs: Iraqi Deaths Higher Than U.S. Count

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Oct. 23 (News Analysis) - Military documents laid bare in the biggest leak of secret information in U.S. history suggest that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the 2003 U.S.

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WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs: US Troops Abused Prisoners Years After Abu Ghraib

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Marcus Baram - Oct. 23 (News Report) - Despite a vigorous attempt by the Pentagon to stop WikiLeaks from releasing 400,000 pages of classified military documents about the Iraq War, the group has gone ahead with its latest document dump. Most shockingly, the documents allegedly show that US troops abused prisoners for years even after the Abu Ghraib scandal and that the US ignored systemic abuse, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, according to several news reports.

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I Was a Professor at the Horribly Corrupt American University of Iraq... Until the Neocons Fired Me

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By John Dolan - Oct. 08 (Special Report) - Agresto was in charge of “reforming” the Iraqi education system on good Republican principles. To his credit, he wrote a reasonably honest book about the experience called Mugged by Reality. Unfortunately, the mugging didn’t take; Agresto has gone back to his right-wing roots, avoiding that disrespectful thug, Reality, as much as possible.

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"New Order, Same Abuses": Amnesty Condemns Iraq for Holding 30,000 Prisoners Without Trial

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 20 (News Report) - Amnesty International is condemning Iraq for holding an estimated 30,000 prisoners without trial, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. In a new report, Amnesty documents that Iraqi prisoners are being arbitrarily detained and often beaten to obtain forced confessions. [includes rush transcript]

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Iraqi Refugee Describes Torture, Imprisonment of Husband Who Returned to Iraq to Free Jailed Son

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 20 (News Report) - Rabiha al Qassab, a British Iraqi woman who lives in London, describes the harrowing story of her husband, Ramze Shihab Ahmed. Having fled in 1998 after being accused of trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Ramze returned to Iraq last year to get his son out of prison. He, too, was arrested and was tortured. Like 30,000 other Iraqis, he and his son are being held without charge.

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Iraq Index

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Brookings Institute - Sep. 01 (News Analysis) - The Iraq Index is a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data. This resource will provide updated information on various criteria, including crime, telephone and water service, troop fatalities, unemployment, Iraqi security forces, oil production, and coalition troop strength.

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So, who won the war in Iraq? Iran.

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Mohamad Bazzi - Aug. 30 (News Analysis) - As the U.S. military concludes its combat role — which President Barack Obama will formally announce from the Oval Office on Tuesday — Iraq is indeed a dramatic example for the Middle East, but not in the ways that Bush and his administration envisioned. Iraq did not become a beacon of democracy, nor did it create a domino effect that toppled other dictatorial regimes in the Arab world. Instead, the Iraq war has unleashed a new wave of sectarian hatred and upset the Persian Gulf’s strategic balance, helping Iran consolidate its role as the dominant regional power.

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Whose Hands? Whose Blood? Killing civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tom Engelhardt - Aug. 06 (News Analysis) - the Secretary of Defense told interviewer Christiane Amanpour that, whatever Assange's legal culpability might be, when it came to "moral culpability... that's where I think the verdict is guilty on Wikileaks." Moral culpability. From the Martian point of view, it might have been considered a curious phrase from the lips of the man responsible for the last three and a half years of two deeply destructive wars that have accomplished nothing and have been responsible for killing, wounding, or driving into exile millions of ordinary Iraqis and Afghans.

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Confessions of a Tea Party Casualty

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By David Corn - Aug. 03 (Special Report) - It was the middle of a tough primary contest, and Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) had convened a small meeting with donors who had contributed thousands of dollars to his previous campaigns. But this year, as Inglis faced a challenge from tea party-backed Republican candidates claiming Inglis wasn't sufficiently conservative, these donors hadn't ponied up. Inglis' task: Get them back on the team. "They were upset with me," Inglis recalls. "They are all Glenn Beck watchers." About 90 minutes into the meeting, as he remembers it, "They say, 'Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'" Inglis didn't know how to respond. As he tells this story, the veteran lawmaker is sitting in his congressional office, which he will have to vacate in a few months. On June 22, he was defeated in the primary runoff by Spartanburg County 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy, who had assailed Inglis for supposedly straying from his conservative roots, pointing to his vote for the bank bailout and against George W. Bush's surge in Iraq. Inglis, who served six years in Congress during the 1990s as a conservative firebrand before being reelected to the House in 2004, had also ticked off right-wingers?in the state's 4th Congressional District by urging tea-party activists to "turn Glenn Beck off" and by calling on Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) to apologize for shouting "You lie!" at Obama during the president's State of the Union address. For this, Inglis, who boasts (literally) a 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, received the wrath of the tea party, losing to Gowdy 71 to 29 percent. In the weeks since, Inglis has criticized Republican House leaders for acquiescing to a poisonous, tea party-driven "demagoguery"?that he believes will undermine the GOP's long-term credibility. And he's freely recounting his frustrating interactions with tea party types, while noting that Republican leaders are pushing rhetoric tainted with racism, that conservative activists are dabbling in anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense, and that Sarah Palin celebrates ignorance. The week after that meeting with his past funders?whom he failed to bring back into the fold?Inglis asked House Republican leader John Boehner what he would have told this group of Obama-bashers. Inglis recalls what happened: [Boehner] said, "I would have told them that it's not quite that bad. We disagree with him on the issues." I said, "Hold on Boehner, that doesn't work. Let me tell you, I tried that and it did not work." I said [to Boehner], "If you're going to lead these people and the fearful stampede to the cliff that they're heading to, you have to turn around and say over your shoulder, 'Hey, you don't know the half of it.'" In other words, feed and fuel the anger and paranoia of the right.Continue Reading ?1 Comment | Post Comment?????

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