Middle East Voice

How Long Will it Take?

2007-01-04T02:50:00.000-08:00

There are rumblings of serious discontent on all sides in the US nowadays--at last! I was beginning to wonder if everyone isn't deaf dumb and blind! What I keep asking myself now is 'how long will it take for these people to finally do something about the worst president the US has ever had the misfortune to vote into office?

As usual, Arianna Huffington has some good stuff for us to read.

Yes, and About al Qaeda.....

2007-01-02T00:45:00.000-08:00

I have no idea where this originally came from, as it was sent to me in an email. I don't have time to research it now. I just would like to say that J. Bruce Campbell exhibits rare commonsense in these times, when we are all blindly rushing forward like lemmings towards the cliff.

BTW, it's becoming clearer that even Americans are as sick of all this (Iraq War, Afghanistan, and on and on and on..) as we are.

My type of Americans

This Savage Nation

By J. Bruce Campbell

1-1-7

Communists are the lowest form of life. We've been Communists since 1861. The Yankees, that is, and all who sympathize with what they did, which was wage aggressive war against people they'd already ripped off for decades. And then they ripped them off for decades after the war was over. That was Communism, American-style.

Karl Marx was a big fan of Abraham Lincoln and wrote to him in praise of his war of aggression against people seeking independence from Yankee dominance, under the terms of the Declaration of Independence. But Lincoln was our Lenin. Grant became Trotsky. Sherman, Sheridan, Custer and the other generals were their Bolshevik killers who went on to slaughter hundreds of thousands of American Indians, who also wanted independence. This was the first state-sponsored genocide and it happened here. Since then, no independence movement has been allowed by our Red government, anywhere in the world. I joined an independence movement in an African country called Rhodesia, but that movement was also crushed by the US government.

The American government is no more tolerant of independence than was the Soviet government. As I have pointed out many times, the American government created the Soviet government in 1917 and sustained it to its bitter end, and then supervised its reorganization in 1990. All Communist governments since, from China's to Cuba's, from East Germany's and all of Eastern Europe's to North Korea's, from Vietnam's to South Africa's, have been organized by the US State Department and/or the CIA.

The hallmarks of Communist power after 1917, the things that made it different, were the psychiatric prisons and forced confessions of "crimes of disloyalty" that never happened. The most loyal and die-hard Communists were frequently executed by their own colleagues after they confessed to made-up charges. Party members were expendable and formed a valuable database for the control of the general population. This was revealed also by the American Communist, Benjamin Gitlow, in his The Whole of Our Lives. He wrote that party members were occasionally murdered by other party members and their deaths blamed on "reactionaries." The purpose was mainly to radicalize even more party members, and reinforce their fanaticism and fear. It was all about mind-control, and still is. Our churches do it, too, and our schools. The only difference is the level of fear needed for control. Most people only need a little fear to be controlled.

America has lots of Communists. Bush and Cheney and their neo-cons are Communists. We all know that. But so are prison guards. Soldiers, marines and airmen, too. They just don't know it, because "they fight for freedom." Our police have become Communists, the way they lie and plant evidence and invade people's homes. IRS agents are Communists, along with just about everyone else in government - especially the FBI. The way our politicians take our money and pay themselves - at the point of a gun - qualifies them as first-class Communists. But anyone who is willing to kill for political power is what today we might call a Communist. The CIA got its original members from the wartime OSS. The OSS' membership was comprised of fifty percent members of the Communist Party USA (to gain the immediate cooperation of the French Underground).

The American-built Soviet Communist machine finally ran out of gas and our military-industry gangsters lost their valuable and lucrative "enemy," which had to be replaced quickly.

My wife and I watched a new movie the other night - "The Road to Guantanamo." It is the true story of several British Pakistanis from Tipton, West Midlands, who accompanied their friend to Pakistan, where he was to be married. This was a few weeks following 9-11. The wedding was cancelled and the young Brits had nothing to do and so, through several misadventures, wound up across the border in Afghanistan. There, they were quickly rounded up by the Americans and our puppet hoodlums, the Northern Alliance. Falsely accused of helping the Taliban, the men were placed in appalling SRO dungeons and then in the dreaded shipping containers, in which most of those with them died of suffocation or gunshots by American soldiers. The movie did not depict that hundreds of these victims actually cooked to death in the containers, left out in the hot sun for days. This was overseen by our wonderful boys, who were fighting for freedom.

The lucky survivors, who included the British Moslems, were then processed and put into those bright orange jumpsuits with total sensory deprivation. Hearing and sight were deprived with ludicrous hoods, black-out goggles and hearing suppressors. Placed in ritualistic positions on the floor of a C-130, they were flown to Cuba, specifically Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay.

Here they were subjected to pure American sadism. That is, it was Israeli sadism administered by screaming American thugs, same as Abu Ghraib. The prisoners' entire life histories were already known by the American dictatorship, and so it was known months in advance that none of these prisoners was guilty of anything. And this was the whole point of the torture.

My wife, a medical doctor, realized that these innocent guys were the subjects of a big experiment. She had seen the same sort of thing in Veterans Administration hospitals. That is, our entire veteran population is an experimental group. They have little choice but to submit to whatever procedures the government chooses for them, because they are Communists in a Communist system. She thinks that anyone who submits to the AMA priesthood is performing in one pharmaceutical experiment or another and should be paid by the industry.

The first big American psychological experiment was the Korean War, in which our wonderful boys killed and were killed under the flag of the United Nations. That was an experiment right there, having American soldiers who'd grown up pledging allegiance to the flag, living and dying under the blue and white UN banner. No one complained that I know of. In league with our North Korean and Red Chinese puppets (they were, after all, put in business by the US government), American soldiers were experimented on in very unpleasant ways. Pavlov developed brainwashing in Russia under Lenin, doing his dog experiments on Russians and others victims of Jewish Communism but the ultimate targets are American men and "conditioned response" had to be tried out on them.

It must have worked pretty well because the infamy of the Korean War was that no American prisoner of war ever escaped from a North Korean prison. Lots of them got away from the Nazis and even the Japanese, but not a one of them got away from the North Korean psycho-prisons. Except I knew one who did.

Don G. was a mud engineer in the California oilfield when I met him in the late '70s. Someone said he'd been a prisoner of the North Koreans but wouldn't talk about his experience. He talked about it with me. Don and his group of forward observers were a little too close to the enemy soldiers, calling in coordinates for the artillery, when they were overrun. Most of his mates were killed but Don and a black sergeant from Houston were captured. Their ordeal became a nightmare that lasted several months. Both of them were interrogated and subjected to what became known as "brainwashing." Neither of them cooperated and both of them were beaten frequently. Other Americans who didn't cooperate were shot occasionally. Don and the sergeant were threatened with being shot and the sergeant told Don that if they didn't somehow get away they would doubtless soon be killed. Their crimes were an unwillingness to criticize their country in any way, even the Jim Crow policy the sergeant had experienced all his life. Misplaced loyalty!

Brainwashing is a fairly simple procedure, it turns out. It does require the victim to self-criticize. Once he does that, he can be switched into anything the brainwasher wants. So to get him to self-criticize the brainwasher gets him to criticize someone else, eventually a friend and finally himself. The key to avoid being brainwashed is never to criticize anyone other than the one who's trying to brainwash you. That's what Don and his friend kept doing, and that's why the Koreans were going to kill them.

Don and the other guy didn't actually escape from a prison camp but got away while in transit from one camp to another one in the dark of night. They dropped down in a depression in the path while the other prisoners trudged by. Then they headed south, for UN lines. Their first surprise was their reception by the American doctors, who were astonished that these two men escaped. They were the only ones. So the doctors interrogated them pretty heavily, trying to figure out their motivation to escape, since no one else had even tried it. Then they were sent to Letterman VA Hospital in San Francisco. Here, the psychiatrists seemed downright hostile and even offended that these two mavericks would get away from the North Koreans. Don was totally confused. His confusion soon turned to anger at his treatment by the army, which seemed to view him with suspicion. Over the next few years of hostile treatment and examination by army psychiatrists, Don became bitter, so much so that his wife divorced him and his family feared he was a brainwashed Communist. He was the exact opposite. But this is what happens to anyone who bucks the system in America - even an American.

Back to the British Moslems. And the Afghans and Pakistanis and what other Moslems were kidnapped and tortured by the army. All of them are innocent, which is the point of what we are doing to them. We torture them to find out what breaks them down, so as to devise some formula, some database, for controlling all Moslems. These British guys somehow survived the sadism and were eventually released. Hundreds are still in our gulags, interrogated daily by American morons whose knowledge of Islam comes from Jewish television programs. The same questions are asked, over and over, month after month, year after year. Confessions are demanded to non-existent crimes, just as the Soviets demanded them. All that is really wanted is a delta factor, some change in behavior or renunciation of Islam, ideally - which never happens. The Jews very much want to unplug Moslems from their religion, or figure new ways to turn Moslems against themselves and self-destruct, as they are doing in Jewish-ruled Iraq.

There are still five hundred or more Moslems in the US Naval prison at Guantanamo Bay. Ten of them have been charged with something and even those ten are totally innocent, compared with the Americans. The Brits were constantly ordered to confess to being members of "al-Qaeda," which most refused to do, even after the most revolting torture. They had no idea what al-Qaeda was or is. Only the CIA really knows what it is because "al-Qaeda" is a CIA word. We all were told years ago that "al-Qaeda" meant "base." I thought this meant base of operations, or fundamentalism or something deep. No. It means "database." Al-Qaeda is the CIA's computer list of mujahadin freedom fighters they were arming to defeat the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan back in the '80s. Osama bin Laden was a paymaster and CIA-backed organizer of the fighters. The point is that the CIA knows exactly every name in the database because it's their database.

To force these innocent Brits, or any other Moslems, to confess that they are in al-Qaeda is CIA-Mossad brainwashing and psycho-conditioning. It is pure terrorism, as described by George Orwell in 1984. No one has described what the Moslems are up against as well as Orwell did in the final climactic scene in which Winston Smith is tortured by O'Brien. O'Brien explains that the object of torture is not to gain information but only to inflict pain. The only way to know for certain that a person is really under your control is if he is suffering. What the Jewish Bolsheviks did to the Russians, the Jewish Israelis to the Palestinians, the Judaized Americans are doing to the Iraqis and Moslems everywhere. Orwell warned us that this was our future, and it is. He was just too polite to describe it properly as Talmudic Judaism, what I call Jewish Rule. On behalf of Jewish Rule, George W. Bush is conducting a merciless war of extermination against all Moslems.

George W. Bush, as he revealed as governor of Texas, derives pleasure from torturing and murdering those under his total control. Read that 2000 Vanity Fair article in which he giggles and talks obscenely as he mimics Carla Faye Tucker as she begs for her life. This was about the time that he would cite Jesus as his inspiration.

I must admit that the murder of Saddam Hussein, dressed up as a routine execution, left me speechless, but everything that George W. Bush does leaves me somewhat dazed and without the power to describe exactly what he has done, or why. Of course, Saddam was lynched on Bush's orders, before he could speak of his dealings with Bush's father. Saddam and GHW Bush reportedly shared billions of dollars in kickbacks from the Kuwaitis and from various oil companies engaged in the region. Saddam was reportedly a major owner of Mercedes-Benz and therefore the Chrysler Corporation, among many others. He was supported by Bush, then head of CIA under "Gerald R. Ford, Jr." (Ford's actual name was Leslie Lynch King, Jr.) Saddam became Iraq's president in '79, during Carter's reign, but worked for Bush against the Iranians throughout the Reagan-Bush years.

GW Bush claimed he was angry with Saddam for trying to assassinate his "dad." But, as the ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky has revealed, it was the Mossad that tried to assassinate Poppy Bush in '91, when he and Baker threatened to delay the ten billion dollar Israeli "loan guarantees" because of the crappy apartment houses they were greedily building on Palestinian land. I know - all of Israel is on Palestinian land. But Saddam never attempted to assassinate Bush, Sr. - it was the Jews, as usual. The little moron knows this full well but is incapable of anger at Jews so he pretended anger at Saddam, who was supposed to be murdered instead of being captured and tried. The CIA was in charge of Saddam's arrest and for some reason allowed him to live and threaten the Bush family secrets. I believe that this act was behind Bush's decision to dismantle the CIA and give its job to Rumsfeld's Pentagon. Rumsfeld - the guy who worked with Saddam and supplied him with chemical weapons against the Iranians in the '80s.

Saddam's murder was inevitable because he had to be silenced. His dignified, heroic attitude on the gallows has probably never been seen in our lifetimes, and may never be seen again - certainly on videotape. Some have claimed that we were actually seeing one of Saddam's doubles but that's not likely. But, whoever he was, he died well and showed the world the difference between a real man and an alcoholic mama's boy. As I predicted in an earlier essay, Saddam was subjected to Nuremberg-like treatment by his ski-masked enemies while the rope was put around his throat. Taunts and curses were yelled at him. Saddam's calm and manly comportment didn't give Bush anything to giggle about.

George W. Bush needs to experience the same treatment that, when he orders it, gives him sexual gratification, probably the only kind he can get. He needs to experience Jewish Rule from the other end of the rope. So does Cheney and every other war criminal under them.

Justice will be served only when Bush and his handlers are standing on the gallows in a smelly room, hard Manila ropes placed around their necks and the trap-doors let go beneath their feet. I dream of hearing the sound of their necks breaking.

Only the sound of their necks breaking will stop the nightmare they have created for the Moslem world, and the nightmare they plan for us. Bush and his gang have committed the worst war crimes in history, with the use of depleted uranium ammunition. They have consigned millions of us to very bad deaths, with four million pounds of uranium dust blowing through our lower atmosphere.

These monsters have already killed 700,000 Iraqis since Shock and Awe, plus thousands of Americans who helped kill them. The first Bush and Clinton killed over a million Iraqis with Desert Storm and their brutal starvation sanctions. The coming uranium deaths mean nothing to them. Kissinger, who is advising Bush, considers them stupid animals, pawns of foreign policymakers.

There is another group of Americans that needs to drop through the trap door: The Zionist radio talkers. Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, the Savage Wiener and all the rest who have screamed and urged the destruction of Moslems. The Wiener wants millions killed now. All of them call for the nuclear bombing of Iran. These loudmouths talk and talk, knowing that their homicidal words please the Israelis. They need to be shown that their vile words have consequences.

The first thing we must do is get it in our minds that all war criminals must be hanged. We must stop acting as we have been programmed to act for generations, which is to acquiesce in every evil policy and law made up by these sadistic criminals. We, too, have been part of a huge Zionist program in mind-control. So far, we have not broken the spell cast by these masters of horror. They have millions of Americans believing that American brutality is a good thing. I believe the only way to break the spell is to call for their hanging.

Dahr Jamail's Prediction: Further Iraq Destabilization

2006-12-31T00:53:00.000-08:00

** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **

** Visit the Dahr Jamail website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

** Website by http://jeffpflueger.com **

Saddam Execution Set to Destabilise Iraq Further

*Inter Press Service*

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

*BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 (IPS) - Former dictator Saddam Hussein is due to be executed next month in a move that could bring more instability in an increasingly violent and chaotic occupation.*

The execution is to follow a decision by a court of appeal Dec. 26 to uphold the death sentence for Saddam. Under present Iraqi law, execution must be carried out within 30 days of confirmation of the order.

Chief judge Aref Shahin said following confirmation of the death

sentence: "From tomorrow, any day could be the day of implementation."

Saddam is also in the midst of another trial over charges of genocide and other crimes during a 1987-1988 military crackdown on Kurds in northern Iraq. An estimated 180,000 Kurds died during the operation.

That trial has been adjourned until Jan. 8. Saddam's co-defendants in that case are likely to face trial if he is executed.

Saddam was convicted last month for ordering the killing of 148 Shias in Dujail town in 1982 in revenge for an assassination attempt against him.

He was sentenced to death by hanging.

The completion of the nine-month trial that saw 39 court sessions, through which three defence lawyers and a witness were murdered, will most likely inflame Iraq's political divide further.

Hashim al-Ubaydi's son was sentenced to death by a 'revolution court' of the Saddam regime. But he is not pleased to see that Saddam Hussein will be executed in the present circumstances.

"I was an opponent of Saddam and his policies, but I support putting him through a real national court away from occupation influence. I cannot forgive or forget that my son was executed, but as an Iraqi nationalist I cannot accept to see the president of my country put to trial in such a ridiculous way by invaders and their tails."

Many Iraqi leaders say the timing of the trial and execution will enlarge the cracks between already divided Iraqis.

The Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the leading Sunni group, whose members were listed on Saddam's most wanted list prior to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, has expressed deep concern about the consequences of an execution.

AMS secretary-general Dr. Harith al-Dhari rejects suggestions that Saddam was a leader of Sunnis. He says 35 of the 55 most wanted persons by U.S. occupation authorities following the invasion were Shias.

Confirmation of the verdict has given rise to celebrations as well.

Some say the execution should be made a festive occasion. "Saddam must be executed at the first day of Eid (the Muslim Holiday)," a leader of the Shia Sadr Movement told reporters. "We demand live broadcast of the execution."

Others will not be celebrating even within Kurdistan. "I hate Saddam and always wished him the death he deserved for his attitude against my Kurdish nation," Sardar Herki from Sulaymaniya in northern Iraq told IPS on phone. "I still wish him death -- but together with his successors who killed half the population of Iraq and arrested the other half."

Compared with the present scenario, many Iraqis have begun to see the Saddam days as a "golden time", a political science teacher told IPS. A report in the medical journal Lancet says more than 655,000 Iraqis have died unnaturally as a result of the occupation.

"Iraqis would have not objected so much if the situation had been improved by Saddam's executors," the teacher said. "His time was certainly not a golden time, but Iraqis felt proud of his policies against Iranian and American arrogance and greed. He managed to feed his people and provide them with security and basic services despite all the wars they fought, and the UN sanctions against Iraq."

The defence team has objected to the verdict, and continues to campaign against it.

"The whole court procedures were illegal right from the beginning,"

Khalil al-Dulaimy, chief of Saddam's defence team told reporters in Baghdad. "Mr. President Saddam Hussein is a prisoner of war and he should not be handed over to his opponents by international law, and the international community must press the U.S. authorities not to do so."

International human rights organisations are asking for suspension of the death sentence, while arguing that Saddam was denied a fair trial.

Human Rights Watch has reported that the trail was marred by political interference.

In a statement that seems to warn of impending violence and increasing political divide, the Ba'ath Party, formerly led by Saddam, has threatened it would target U.S. interests anywhere if he was executed.

"Our party warns again of the consequences of executing Mr. President and his comrades," said a statement that appeared on a website known to represent the party. "The Ba'ath and the resistance are determined to retaliate, with all means and everywhere, to harm America and its interests if it commits this crime."

_______________________________________________

(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.

All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the http://DahrJamailIraq.com website. Website by photographer Jeff Pflueger's Photography Media http://jeffpflueger.com . Any other use of images, photography, photos and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

More writing, commentary, photography, pictures and images at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

Why US Policy in Iraq Can Never Succeed

2006-12-28T06:32:00.000-08:00

Basically, because it is based on a huge lie.

Is there a Sunni Majority in Iraq?

12/28/2006 7:41:00 AM GMT

By: Faruq Ziada

Introduction:

The United States based its policy on Iraq on two primary so-called facts:
1. The Sunnis are a 20 % minority.
2. The Sunni minority and Saddam Hussein ruled the Shia majority in Iraq.

Thus, the U.S. Iraq policy — as set by the Bush Administration, and the Neoconservatives – both before and after the 2003 war and occupation, was based on this false premise. Because of this, the Sunnis were marginalized and power was handed over to the Shia religious parties and Kurdish parties by the occupation force CPA, Ambassador Bremer, and later Ambassador Negroponte.

Based on this false premise, the U.S. policy failed miserably. Still, the Bush Administration continued and still is continuing this policy. Bush called it "Stay the course…"

For this reason, and to bring to light information that should help inform a new policy, it is of the utmost importance to correct this fallacy. We need to put the facts in front of all who will try to correct the course, find the correct necessary policies to end the bloodshed, and end the catastrophe that has befallen Iraq.

The Correct Percentages of Sunnis, Shias, Arabs, and Kurds
The actual, real percentages of various groups in Iraq is outlined below.

As Nationalities:

Arabs82 - 84%

Kurds, Turks, etc. 16 - 18%

Religions

Muslims 95 - 98%

Christians and others 2 - 5%

Muslim Sects

Sunnis 60- 62%

Sunni Arabs 42 - 44%

Sunni Kurds and Turks 16 - 18%

Shias 38 - 40%

Shia Kurds and Turks 2 - 4%

Percentage of Sunnis, Shias, Arabs, and Kurds

Statistics come from the Al- Quds Press Research Center, London Study (www.qudspress.c om) and, with reference to the map on the distribution of religious groups, from the Baker – Hamilton Committee report page, 102).

The Election of January 31,2005

- The results of the elections on January 31, 2005 provide a very clear indication of Sunni majority and Shia minority. For instance:

- The majority of Sunnis boycotted the elections. Those who voted gave their votes to the slates of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, or Adnan Al- Pachachi, or to the Royalist.

- All the Shia parties or groups united on one slate, the Unified Iraqi Coalition.

-Ayatollah Al-Sistani and all other Shia religious leaders issued an edict (fatwah) that Shias must vote and must vote for the Shia slate. The edict also stated that if a married man or woman did not vote, they would no longer be legally considered husband and wife.

- The media showed long lines of women in southern Iraq, waiting to vote, just as they depicted ill people in wheel chairs being pushed to the election boxes.

- The Coalition Provisional Authority (the U.S.) and the Elections Committee claimed that 95% of Shias participated in the vote.

- The CPA gave its full backing to the elections. President Bush hailed the elections as one of the greatest events in Middle East history, a great democratic achievement.

- However, the election results were a fiasco and a big scandal for all those who participated in the elections. The results were delayed for more than five weeks, during which time the United States and the Shia filled the media with daily statements about how fantastic they were and how the Shias had won more than two-thirds of the seats.

- Using convoluted logic, some attempted to use this to prove the Shias accounted for more than 60 % of the population.

According to the official Election Committee, the numbers involved in the 2005 voting are as follows:

In addition, the following numbers were provided:

The Results of the January 31 Election

Iraqis eligible to vote 15,450,000

Iraqis inside Iraq 14,200,000

Iraqis outside Iraq 1,250,000

• Iraqis (Shias, Kurds, and a few Sunnis) who participated in the vote = 8,456,266, or 54 %

• Iraqis who boycotted, primarily Sunnis = 6,693,734, or 46 %
It should be noted that Iraq was considered as one electoral unit.

Therefore, a Shia voting for the Shia slate in the Arab areas, governates, the Kurdish area, or abroad will be counted for the Shia slate.. The same for the Kurds etc. The Kurdish votes in Baghdad (more than a million) went for the Kurdish slate etc.

The Vote for the Slates : Total Votes % of Eligible Voters

Unified Iraqi Slate(Shia/ Sistani) 4,075,295 26.3 %
The Kurdish Slate 2,175,551 14.0 %
Iraqiyah Slate (PM Ayad Allawi) 1,168,943 7.5 %
Iraqiyon (President Ghazi Al-Yawer) 150,650 0.9 %
The Communist Party 69,920
Adnan Al-Pachachi Slate 23,302
The Royalists (Shareef Ali) 13,740

It is worth noting here that the Kurdish provisional government announced that 98% of Kurds participated in the voting and that the Shia leadership announced that 95% of Shias voted in the election.

The Elections of the Council of Representatives, December 15,2005
The election of the Council of Representatives (present Parliament) was on December 15, 2005. Shias and Kurds participated in the elections overwhelmingly.

However, Sunnis who supported the Muslim Scholars Association boycotted the elections. Sunnis who participated were the supporters of:

• The Islamic Party (present Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi)

• The Hiwar National Iraqi Front (Dr. Saleh Al- Mutlaq)

• Those who voted for National Iraqi List (ex- Prime Minister Ayad Allawi).

The Results of the Elections of the Council of Representatives
We shall concentrate only on the Shias to show once again that they are the MINORITY in Iraq, based on the official final report of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (www.ieciraq.gov) issued on February 10, 2006.

The number of eligible voters 15,568,702
The number participating in the vote 11,895,756
The number voting for the Unified Iraqi Coalition 5,021,137

The Shia Bloc
- Percentage of eligible voters 32.2 %
- Percentage of those who voted 42.2 %

The announcement of the results of the elections were delayed for nearly two months (the elections were held on December 15, 2005, and the results were announced on February 10, 2006), because of accusations of mass forgery in the Shia governates; the militias took over the ballot boxes and filled them with ballots. All other parties threatened that they would boycott the new Council of Representatives if the situation was not rectified.

Under this pressure, an International Investigation Committee was set up jointly by the United Nations and the Arab League to check the accusations. The Committee came under open threats from the Shia parties (SCIRI of Abdul Aziz Al- Hakeem, and Al-Dawah of Al-Maliki). The Committee was also under pressure from the Bush administration, which was desperate to have the election results announced, to demonstrate that the "democratic" process was on track.

Under these threats the Committee had to announce its findings from Amman, Jordan.

The Committee announced that there were grave violations committed in the Shia governates, but also said it could not determine who committed them. The U.S. then pressured the parties contesting the election results to accept them, promising that it would exert pressure on the Shia coalition to accept changes in the Constitution, etc. The protesting parties then acquiesced to the U.S. pressures and the results were finally announced nearly two months after the elections.

Conclusion
With the full backing of Shia religious leaders and all efforts by the Shia political parties, groups and factions, regardless of whether they were religious or liberal (Ahmed Al-Chalabi), and uniting under one banner (Shia), the numbers that the Shias could muster were meager. It can be clearly seen that they are a minority in Iraq, and not a majority:

• They received 26.3 % of the votes of eligible voters in the January 31 2005 elections.

• They received 32.2% of the votes of eligible voters (regardless of all election violations, forgeries and filled ballots boxes) in the December 15, 2005 elections.

Therefore, one of the main reasons for the drastic failure of U.S. policy in Iraq must be attributed to the reliance on the false premise that the Sunnis are a minority and the Shias are a majority in Iraq. It is very clear from the official numbers taken from the results of the elections of January 31, 2005, and December 15, 2005, that: the Sunnis are 60 – 62 % of the population of Iraq (42-44% Arab, and 16-18% Kurd and Turk Iraqis), and only 38 – 40 % are Shias.

Faruq Ziada served as an ambassador in Iraq’s Foreign Ministry from 1992 to 2000.

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_id=12491

Saddam Gets Just Desserts

2006-12-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

We all knew it would happen. They upheld the judgement to execute Saddam Hussein. Word is the sentence of hanging will be carried out within thirty days.

He deserves it. But the hypocrisy of it! Saddam Hussein didn't kill nearly as many people as Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co. have. Wonder how long we'll have to wait for justice to be done there? I hope a court of human rights is convened sometime soon to give these monsters their come-uppance.

New savage twist to violence in Baghdad - Yahoo! News

2006-11-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

New savage twist to violence in Baghdad - Yahoo! News

Yet more evidence that the US just isn't cutting it in Iraq. Far from introducing 'democracy,' they have created a situation where anarchy reigns.

At least Saddam Hussein had the strength of character to stop this. There was no sectarian violence when he was in power. It is well known among the people of the Middle East that Iraqis have a particular kind of character. They need strong leaders--not namby pamby US/Israeli agents.

When are they going to admit that they're in a situation they can't handle and let the real men go in and sort it ou?

Israel, the US Blesses Thee!

2006-11-24T00:54:00.000-08:00

Today, while driving through town, I wound up behind a minivan that had a big sticker on the back. The sticker had an Israeli flag in the middle of it, and under it the quotation from the book of Genesis that reads "I will bless those who bless thee."

I would like to take this time to list my own reasons for thanking and blessing Israel , our lone ally in the Middle East , for everything she has done for us, since I am quite sure most Americans are unaware of just what kind of friend she has been to us.

For extorting from me and my fellow Americans $4,000,000,000.00 a year for the last 4 decades, we bless thee.

For taking our most sophisticated weapons technology and stealing it for yourself without paying the American patent holders, we bless thee.

For taking that high-tech military technology and selling it to our enemies, such as the Russians and Chinese, thus further endangering us, we bless thee.

For using that weaponry in a sustained attack against a United States ship, the USS Liberty, in an attempt to sink her, thus preventing US servicemen from revealing to the rest of the world information concerning the war crimes they witnessed you commit against Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Desert during the Six Day War, as well as for the purposes of dragging the US into yet another one of your murderous adventures, we bless thee.

For killing 35 and wounding 170 American sailors aboard the USS Liberty, we bless thee.

For bribing the United States government into covering it up, preventing any justice from being done for the benefit of the families of the lost sailors - as well as the American People, we bless thee.

For sending your agents into Egypt and blowing up American buildings forthe purpose of blaming the Arabs in an event known as the Lavon Affair, we bless thee.

For sending your agents into Libya during the Reagan administration, and broadcasting radio messages in Arabic that were designed to sound like terrorist cell planning" so that the US would initiate military strikes against Khadafi in an event known as Operation Trojan Horse, we bless thee.

For withholding information from us concerning the planned attacks against the US Marine barracks in Lebanon , attacks you knew about through your moles in the Islamic world and about which you deliberately refused to warn us in order to further your interests against the Arabs, we bless thee.

For employing Jonathon Pollard, an American serviceman paid to spy for Israel in order to steal even more of our National Security secrets for your parasitic purposes, we bless thee.

For blackmailing President Clinton through one of your sayanim, Monica Lewinsky, in order to prevent a coherent peace program from being pushed forward between yourself and the Palestinian people whom you have brutalized and murdered for the last 50 years, we bless thee.

For breaking every agreement you have made with your Arab neighbors, stealing their land, displacing, murdering, and treating them like the animals you see them as, we bless thee.

For using your agents within the first Bush administration to involve us in the first Gulf War, causing the deaths of American men and women, and exposing our servicemen to whatever bioweapons were and are responsible which have led to Gulf War Syndrome, we bless thee.

For your role in the September 11 attacks in this country, and for blackmailing and bribing the US government into deporting back to Israel the 100 or more intelligence agents that were arrested after the attacks, we bless thee.

For suppressing the information from the American people of your involvement in the September 11 attacks and sending us in the wrong direction in search of answers, we bless thee.

For using one of your agents in the US Army Weapons Lab to steal anthrax and distribute it into our mail system, terrorizing US citizens and killing several in order to blame the Arabs, we bless thee.

For using your agents in the US Government, namely, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, and the rest into initiating this war in the Middle East so that you could bring to heel all the enemies you have made during the last 50 years, we bless thee.

For using your agents in the media to lie to us on a minute byminute basis about the war, lying to us as to how "just" this cause is, and what the real reasons behind it are, we bless thee.

For using your agents in the Christian Evangelical community, such as Falwell, Graham, Swaggert, Robertson and the rest who praise you as God's chosen people and further keep Americans in the dark about who you really are what you have done, and what you are truly about, we bless thee.

For bringing idiots like Limbaugh, Liddy, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly and Savage to the forefront as paid liars who will support you and further lead Americans astray, we bless thee.

For making America your attack dog, and for sending her sons anddaughters to fight and die in all your future wars, we bless thee.

For using your influence in the media to hide the real statistics about the war, the dead and wounded on both sides, we bless thee. For using us in such a way that not only further inflames the Arab world against us, but as well has succeeded in our alienating ourselves against those nations with whom we have been friendly for over a century, we bless thee.

And finally, for using your influence in our media and academia to flood our minds with pornography and lies, as well as inculcating in us a hatred for our history, religion, and culture, for dividing our nation between races and sexes, and for releasing into our society all of your plagues and filth that have left us a rotted out corpse of a once great nation, oh Israel, our friend, We bless thee.

We Bless Thee

2006 by Mark Glenn

Amazon.com: Islam: The Facts: An Account of What Muslims Really Think and Feel: Books: Patricia Skinner

2006-11-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com: Islam: The Facts: An Account of What Muslims Really Think and Feel: Books: Patricia Skinner

Arm yourself with the facts so that next time someone asks you, you know! This is a book for those who want the truth. A book written about Islam by a Muslim. And one who actually speaks English too! Wow what a find!

The McGill Daily

2006-11-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

The McGill Daily: "“There has never been an American army as violent and murderous as the one in Iraq”
Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh slams Bush at McGill address
By Martin Lukacs
The McGill Daily

Speaking to launch McGill’s interdisciplinary media studies program last Wednesday, Hersh said he had seen video footage of atrocities in Iraq.

Jennifer Bartoli / The McGill Daily
“The bad news,” investigative reporter Seymour Hersh told a Montreal audience last Wednesday, “is that there are 816 days left in the reign of King George II of America.” "

It's what we've been saying all along! The good news is, the truth will all come out. Maybe when it's too late for hundreds of thousands of people, but it will come out.

Saddam gets death for Shiite killings - Yahoo! News

2006-11-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

Saddam gets death for Shiite killings - Yahoo! News

Well, Saddam, you finally got your just deserts! A fitting end to all the Muslim lives you destroyed. In case you believe what Bush says, Saddam Hussein was a noted enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood. He may have been born a Sunni Muslim, but he did terrible, unspeakable things to anyone who tried to establish the freedom for Sunni Muslims to practice in Iraq. I know. We used to associate with many of those who fled Iraq when we lived in London in the 1970s. Seems they're still not safe in Iraq now, thanks to Bush and the Shia.

Back to the impending hanging of Saddam. Muslims are told that no matter how bad a man is, there will always be a worse tyrant prepared to come along and rid the world!

Bush is certainly a worse tyrant. Look at history, and you'll find that the really, really bad ones go out in a way that will preserve their memory for mankind. Some of the Pharaos are talked about to this day for this reason. Look at Hitler, how he died and what people think of him. Attila the Hun? I feel comforted, anyway, in knowing the George W. Bush is going to be bought safely to account by the same Power that will bring us all to account. In the end, he's truly hurting no one but himself. Twenty years, and we'll all be worrying about something else.

Wayne Madsen Report - Home

2006-10-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

Wayne Madsen Report - Home: "October 25, 2006 -- FBI trains its own civilian 'Stasi' force. Across the United States, private citizens have been deputized to 'assist' the FBI in counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence activities. They are graduates of the little-known FBI Citizens Academies, 25 training academies across the United States that have trained citizens in firearms use, collection and preservation of physical evidence, FBI organization, communications, counter-intelligence operations, and drug enforcement. Participants in the program must obtain a security clearance, be a recognized business, civic, religious, or community leader, be 21 years of age with no prior felony conviction, and live or work within the jurisdiction of a participating FBI field office. FBI civilian academy graduates work closely with state and local police.

Started in 1993 at the Phoenix Field Office, FBI Citizens Academies now exist in Albany (NY), Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbia (SC), Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Little Rock, Memphis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Newark (NJ), Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland (OR), St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.

The FBI is looking for a few good snitches."

And that smacks of Hitler's setup before WWII. They are planning on doing it all again it seems ...

YouTube - Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America

2006-10-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America

Wise words to America...

blog.myspace.com/autumnsworld

2006-10-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

blog.myspace.com/autumnsworld: "By Katrin Bennhold International Herald Tribune

-->THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2006
-->Published: October 18, 2006

PARIS When I walked into Washington's Dulles International Airport with two suitcases and a ticket to Paris, I was satisfied that I looked like a Muslim woman. A hijab left only the oval of my face exposed - my blond hair was covered, pulled back in a tight bun - and I was wearing an ankle-length skirt. For good measure, a copy of the Koran stuck out of my handbag.

The idea to slip into the skin of a Muslim on a trans-Atlantic flight had come to me after interviewing dozens of young Muslims in Chicago about their post-9/11 experiences. One had given me a Koran. Returning to Washington from Chicago, when I flipped open my suitcase at check-in to find my passport, the Koran came into view. The United Airlines agent became visibly uncomfortable. I was searched, and on arrival in Washington, my checked bag had a security notice inside informing me that it, too, had been checked.

Many of the people I interviewed in Chicago had spoken of airports....."

This was interesting. But you know, I've traveled many times since September 11, and I admit I've been pulled over for a "random check" every time. However, I always find airport staff very friendly (except for one officer in New York in 2002). They're apologetic and embarrassed. They seem to want me to know that they're acting under orders and it's not a personal thing. In fact, in general I find US airport staff particularly friendly and helpful.

Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad

2006-10-20T02:49:00.000-07:00

And, just as Chris Floyd was saying, here is the result of a puppet government egged on by the Bush administration .....

** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **
** Visit the Dahr Jamail website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
** Website by http://jeffpflueger.com **

Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad

*Inter Press Service*
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail

*BAGHDAD, Oct 19 (IPS) - Death squads from the Ministry of Interior
posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital,
emerging evidence shows.*

The death toll is high - in all 1,536 bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue in September. The health ministry announced last month that it will build two new morgues in Baghdad to take their capacity to 250 bodies a day.

Many fear a government hand in more killings to come. The U.S. military has revealed that the 8th Iraqi Police Unit was responsible for the Oct. 1 kidnapping of 26 Sunni food factory workers in the Amil quarter in southwest Baghdad. The bodies of ten of them were later found in Abu
Chir neighbourhood in the capital.

Minister for the Interior Jawad al-Bolani announced he is suspending the police unit from official duties, and confining it to base until an investigation is completed.

But sections of the ministry appear responsible for the abductions and killing. Ministry of nterior vehicles were used for the kidnapping in this case, and most men conducting the raid wore Iraqi police uniforms, except for a few who wore black death squad 'uniforms', witnesses told IPS.

The leader of the police unit is under house arrest and faces interrogation for this and other crimes, according to an official announcement.

"It is for sure that they did it," one of the victim's neighbours told IPS on condition of anonymity. "The tortured bodies were found the second day. They came in their official police cars; it is not the first time that they did something like this. They do it all over Baghdad, and
we hope they will get proper punishment this time."

Men of the police unit meanwhile do not face imminent punishment. "They are going to be rehabilitated and brought back to service," director-general of the Iraqi police Adnan Thabit told IPS.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party, blamed militias with ties to the government and the U.S. military.

"The Iraqi Islamic Party asks how could 26 people, women among them, have been transported from Amil to Abu Chir through all those Iraqi and U.S. army checkpoints and patrols," it said in a statement.

The U.S. military has denied any involvement in the killings.

General Yassin al-Dulaimi, deputy minister for the interior, has said on Iraqi television several times that death squads are composed mainly of Iraqi police and army units. His comments reflect differing allegiance and agendas even within the Shia bloc.

General Dulaimi has been trying for long to expose the organised criminal gangs that have been controlling the ministry since its formation - a formation that was overseen by U.S. authorities.

Dulaimi says he does not believe that the Shia Badr organisation, a large, well-armed and funded militia, has complete control over his ministry. But most residents of Baghdad believe that Badr has complete control over the Baghdad Order Maintenance police force, and use this
force to carry out sectarian murders. This force is one of several official security teams in Baghdad.

The force is led by Mehdi al-Gharrawi, who also led similar security units during the U.S.- led attack on Fallujah in November 2004.

"All criminals who survived the Fallujah crisis after committing genocide and other war crimes were granted higher ranks," Major Amir Jassim from the ministry of defence told IPS. "I and many of my colleagues were not rewarded because we disobeyed orders to set fire to
people's houses (in Fallujah) after others looted them."

Jassim said the looting and burning of homes in Fallujah during the November siege was ordered from the ministries of interior and defence.

"Now they want to do the same things they did in Fallujah in all Sunni areas so that they ignite a civil war in Iraq," said Jassim, referring to the Shia-dominated ministries. "A civil war is the only guarantee for them to stay in power, looting such incredible amounts of money."

Another official with the ministry of defence, Muntather al-Samarraii, told IPS that both Iran and "collaborators" within the Ministry of Interior are to blame for the widespread sectarian killings.

"I have lists of thousands of corruption cases from within my ministry, and other files to expose to the world," he said, "But the world is not listening. When it does, I am afraid it is going to be too late."

A police officer in Samarraii's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that he believed that murderers would not be punished for their crimes.

"They will reward them, believe me, and give them higher ranks," he said. "This is a country that will never stand back on its feet as long as these killers are in power. And the Americans are supporting them by allowing their convoys to move during curfew hours."

While there is little evidence of direct U.S. involvement, questions have arisen over what the U.S. forces have done - or not done - to encourage such killings.

A UN human rights report released September last year held interior ministry forces responsible for an organised campaign of detentions, torture and killings. It reported that special police commando units accused of carrying out the killings were recruited from Shia Badr and Mehdi militias, and trained by U.S. forces.

Retired Col. James Steele, who served as advisor on Iraqi security forces to then U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte supervised the training of these forces.

Steele was commander of the U.S. military advisor group in El Salvador 1984-86, while Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to nearby Honduras 1981-85. Negroponte was accused of widespread human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights in 1994. The Commission reported the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political workers.

The violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by operatives trained by the CIA, according to a CIA working group set up in 1996 to look into the U.S. role in Honduras.

The CIA records document that his "special intelligence units," better known as "death squads," comprised CIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people suspected of supporting leftist guerrillas.

_______________________________________________
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.
All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the http://DahrJamailIraq.com website. Website by photographer Jeff Pflueger's Photography Media http://jeffpflueger.com . Any other use of images, photography, photos and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

More writing, commentary, photography, pictures and images at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You are subscribed to the Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches because you requested a subscription at some point.

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

Or, you can unsubscribe by sending an email to iraq_dispatches-request@dahrjamailiraq.com and write unsubscribe in the subject or the body of the email.

The Blog | Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: Iraq for Sale: Further Evidence of the Bush Administration's Incompetence | The Huffington Post

2006-10-20T02:18:00.000-07:00

The Blog | Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: Iraq for Sale: Further Evidence of the Bush Administration's Incompetence | The Huffington Post: "Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
Bio
Blog Index RSS
10.19.2006
Iraq for Sale: Further Evidence of the Bush Administration's Incompetence (51 comments )
READ MORE: Iraq, Indictments, George W. Bush

The Iraq war is one of the greatest blunders in American history. The American people already know that the human and financial cost of the war has been far too great. Nearly 2,800 Americans have been killed and we are spending nearly $250 million on each day on the war in Iraq.

Robert Greenwald's new film, Iraq for Sale, shows how the Bush Administration has been outsourcing this war to corporate America - and how that effort has been mismanaged. His film is a convincing indictment of the Administration's decision to give multi-billion dollar sweetheart deals that have lined contractor's pockets while failing to meet the basic needs of our soldiers. All Americans should be asking how the Bush Administration could have allowed contractors to fail to provide our soldiers with safe food and drinking water.

Greenwald's film adds further evidence of the Bush administration's incompetence from the start of this war and continuing to this day. We now know that they misled the American ...."

You notice all these posts are sourced from respectable, sane and even highly inteligent members of US society. No crackpots making wild claims. This is what's really going on folks!

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Home

2006-10-20T02:12:00.000-07:00

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Home: "Why Bush Smiles: Victory is at Hand in Iraq PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Despite George W. Bush's ostentatious bucking up of the Iraqi government yesterday, it is very likely that there will indeed be an American-engineered coup ousting Maliki and installing some sort of strongman-led 'national unity government' in Baghdad soon, probably before the end of the year.

(Indeed, the very showiness of Bush's pledge of support – in a phone call supposedly initiated by Bush, then announced to the media – is a good indication of the decapitation to come. As JFK once told Gore Vidal: 'When a politician says to you, 'Jack, if there's anything I can do for you, just let me know,' that means you're dead.' And Maliki – installed in a Bush-backed internal party coup that toppled the previous prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was himself once a recipient of similar pledges of staunch White House support – is a dead man walking.)

The chief reason why Maliki and his government will be ousted is not the hell-storm of death and violence that is now devouring the country. The fact that every new day sees a hundred or more mutilated bodies dumped on the nation's streets, and pitched battles between sectarian militias, and multiple deaths ...."

How much more can YOU take?

100 Facts and 1 Opinion

2006-10-19T02:09:00.000-07:00

100 Facts and 1 Opinion: "IRAQ

1. The Bush Administration has spent more than $140 billion on a war of choice in Iraq.

Source: American Progress

2. The Bush Administration sent troops into battle without adequate body armor or armored Humvees.

Sources: Fox News, Boston Globe

3. The Bush Administration ignored estimates from Gen. Eric Shinseki that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq.

Source: PBS

4. Vice President Cheney said Americans 'will, in fact, be greeted as liberators' in Iraq.

Source: Washington Post

5. During the Bush Administration's war in Iraq, more than 1,000 US troops have lost their lives and more than 7,000 have been injured.

Source: globalsecurity.org

6. In May 2003, President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, stood under a banner proclaiming 'Mission Accomplished,' and triumphantly announced that major combat operations were over in Iraq. Asked if he had any regrets about the stunt, Bush said he would do it all over again.

Source: Yahoo News

7. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was 'the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.' The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no collaborative operational relationship with Al Qa"

As if we needed more evidence that Bush is an idiot!

ABC News: Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison

2006-10-19T00:23:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison

Well he doesn't have much choice does he? There is a strong resemblance to the Vietnam War here, and anyone old enough will be able to spot the parallels. Hopefully the people of the US won't wait so long this time before they insist on doing something about it.

Bush, you're in a place and on a continent that is nothing to do with you, and yes, the people of Iraq and the people of the Middle East do not want foreign troops on thier soil, in the same way that the people of the UK and the people of the US would not want to be occupied either. This war is making the world a lot more dangerous for Americans, and the longer it continues, the more pressure will build until something drastic happens. Get Bush on a leash right away people, before you lose everything because of him.

The March To War: Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean

2006-10-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

This website continues to recieve reports of an ongoing military build-up in the eastern Mediterranean.

Described by one source as: “the greatest sea and air armada Europe (NATO) has ever assembled … since WWII”

Green Zone Follies

September 28, 2006

TBR News.org – Baghdad September 28, 2006

“I have been out of this area for a month, along with a number of others, on a PR project. Coming back here is like going back to Hell for breakfast. The insurgents occasionally drop mortar rounds inside the sacred Green Zone, killing people including diplomatic personnel and once, two colonels out for a squash game. No one can do anything about it so we keep it quiet.

This whole project, bringing democracy and joy to poor rag head heathens has fallen completely apart. Morale in Iraq does not exist and self-mutilations, suicides and serious mental problems are so commonplace that no one even notices any more. The field equipment, trucks, howitzers, spotter aircraft, tanks and armored vehicles are all either in the shops or waiting in line. The sand here destroys everything eventually and Rumsfeld never bothers to replace anything. The food and medical services are very good but that’s about all.

We spy on the GIs to be sure they aren’t sending out ‘negative’ messages to home and the various religious Iraqi people are slaughtering themselves, and us, at an accelerated rate. The Iraqi death tolls are enormous and our own are very bad and kept very quiet. Now, they tell me, Cheney wants the entire National Guard activated and shipped over here along with every reservist or discharged GI with former combat service. They have the orders drawn up there and we have copies.

Engineers have been putting up miles of new barracks and the supply services are tipped to expect ‘significant very large shipments’ of food, clothes, shoes, helmets and so on. A quarter of a million men are supposed to be reactivated and sent over here before Christmas. A general officer said, in my office, that they were just waiting until after the elections in November. Bush and Cheney want a general draft but that won’t wash so instead, everyone and anyone that can move; comes over. Basically, the resistance has beaten us but of course no one can ever talk about that. They call it ‘defeatism’ and one can get into trouble for it. Soldiers who bitch get transferred to the west where the lifespan of a GI is somewhat limited.”

www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2525.htm

NOTE: Still don't think they will attack Iran [too obvious] .. the Iranians are more "Nationalist" [Racist] than Religious. They are their because the Zionists want them there, the oil is only the bait to pull the Americans in. Think it most likely they will attack Syria and Saudi Arabia [Al Hijaz]. Whatever happens it is going to be big .. withing the first two weeks of October, methinks. Start making contingency plans .. there will be hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts US Apology

By Suleyman Kurt, Ankara
Friday, September 29, 2006

zaman.com

A map prepared by a retired U.S. military officer that sketches Turkey as a partitioned country was presented at the NATO’s Defense College in Rome, where Turkish officers attend.

(See map above)

The use of the map at a conference meeting by a colonel from the U.S. National War Academy angered Turkish military officers.

Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit called the U.S. Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, and protested the incident. U.S. military authorities admitted the mistake, for which they apologized to Turkey.

According to the reports, the incident took place on Sept. 15.

An American colonel who came to the Defense College for a conference began a lecture on technology.

However, a few minutes later he presented a map that showed Turkey as separated, and included an “independent Kurdistan” on Turkish territories.

In reaction to the U.S. colonel’s elaboration on the map, previously characterized by U.S. authorities as not reflective of the American view, the Turkish officers left the conference room.

The Belgian commander of the College was then informed about the incident.

The commander reacted, saying that academic freedom did not mean everybody could say anything he wanted, and cited the incident as unacceptable.

Turkish officers also briefed Ankara about the developments relevant to the incident.

The U.S. State Department assured Ankara that the map did not reflect the official American view, and denounced it as unacceptable.

The new Middle East map, prepared by retired Col. Ralph Peters and published in the Armed Forces Journal in June, had sparked reactions in Ankara.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=36919

Another Proponent of the Truth!

2006-09-30T03:05:00.000-07:00

Every day we learn about someone else who isn't just opposed to murderous-Bush's policies, but they're prepared to stand up and be counted.

Senator Craig Roberts is one of those people. Do take the time to read a Wiki about some of this brave man's work.

I Give You....the Truth

2006-09-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

I thank Uri Avnery for this. It's no good if we Muslims keep on pointing out the fact that Christians and Jews have enjoyed safety and dignity while living under Muslim rule for centuries. These facts must come from their own historians. It's comforting to see that there are a few objective scholars left in the world.

Muhammad's Sword

23-09-2006

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations".

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith".

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Iraqi Poll Comes as No Surprise!

2006-09-28T02:13:00.000-07:00

Do your read the Huffington Post? If you don't you should. This is a reflection of what a great many Americans think about their government. It's very encouraging from our (Muslim) point of view, because we can easily see from what Arianna writes that it's not just us who are more-than-a-little disgruntled with the status quo.

Today, Arianna is commenting on the fact that most Iraqis back attacks on US troops. Can anyone seriously be surprised? Wherever you live in the world, imagine that a foreign power has seized your country, created a situation where the entire infrastructure has been destroyed, normal life is a thing of the past, and no one is safe in their beds, and see if you wouldn't back attacks on the people responsible for that. I guarantee you'd be out there, on the ground , yourself trying to kill them. Particularly if you'd lost a relative -or-two, as so many families have now.

Read more about what Arianna has to say.

US Military in Iraq

2006-09-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the truth about what's going on:

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **

** Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

** Website by http://jeffpflueger.com **

A Broken, De-Humanized Military in Iraq

By Dahr Jamail

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 26 September 2006

While the deranged chicken-hawks who "lead" the US continue their efforts to wage another unprovoked war of aggression, this time against Iran, what's left of their already overstretched military continues to be bled in Iraq.

When the situation is so critical that even the corporate media is forced to report on it, you know it's bad. Last week on the NBC Nightly News, General Barry McCaffrey, now retired, said of the current state of the US military, "I think, arguably, it's the worst readiness condition the US Army has faced since the end of Vietnam." This isn't a big surprise when we consider the facts that many soldiers are already into their third combat tour, frequent deployments have cut training time at home in half, and two thirds of all Army combat units are rated not ready for combat.

The fact that 60% of National Guard soldiers have already reached their limit for overseas combat is most likely not going to slow down the Cheney administration's lust for more war. Most likely, they'll just have Rummy change the Pentagon's policy that currently limits Guard combat tours to two out of every five years.

This change was apparently already expected by Lieutenant General Steven Blum, of the National Guard, who told NBC, "If you think the National Guard's busy today, I think we're going to look back and say 'these were the good old days' in about three years." A comment to which General McCaffrey responded: "More is being asked of them, particularly the National Guard and reserve components, than they signed up to do. And in the near-term, we think it's going to unravel."

That "near-term" seemed to be about 72 hours away from McCaffrey's comments. On Monday, the Army announced that because it is stretched so thin by the occupation of Iraq, it is once again extending the combat tours of thousands of soldiers beyond their promised 12-month tours.

It's the second time since August (i.e., last month) that this has occurred. The 1st Brigade Armored Division, which is having its tour extended, just happens to be located in the province of Al-Anbar, which the military has long since lost control of. Between 3,500 and 4,000 soldiers are affected by this decision.

The move prompted defense analyst Loren Thompson to tell reporters: "The Army is coming to the end of its rope in Iraq. It simply does not have enough active-duty military personnel to sustain the current level of effort."

There are currently over 142,000 US soldiers in Iraq. Just last week General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the region, said the military is likely to maintain and possibly even increase its force level in Iraq through next spring.

What does this look like for US troops on the ground in Iraq? Here is an email I received just last week from a mother whose son is serving in the US military in Ramadi:

/My son cannot bear what he is forced to do, and has probably through sheer terror, confusion, and split-second decisions, killed innocent civilians. He is well aware of this, and I have witnessed the consequences first hand. He probably carries innocent blood on his hands. The killing of innocent people is virtually unavoidable. He is in Al-Anbar region. You are the ONLY person in the media who has responded to my emails. The other emails I sent to news organizations questioning why so little news out of Al-Anbar were unanswered. I believe that it is because the US has lost that region, and is suppressing that news to the American public. My son called me last week from Ramadi and said the war is lost - they are just going thru the motions, again, forced to carry out orders and risk their lives for an unobtainable and unjust goal. I continue to read your web site, as well as others, while I pray for my son's safe homecoming in spring./

Her anguish, the description of her son's mental state, and her son's report of the conditions in Ramadi, tragic as they are, come as no surprise. At the time of this writing, over 2,703 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and over ten times that number wounded. This month, over

61 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. With an average of over

2.5 killed daily this month, at the time of this writing it's already the third bloodiest month this year in Iraq for occupation forces.

Another report released last weekend from the Veterans Health Administration found that over one third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking medical treatment are reporting symptoms of stress or other metal disorders. This is a tenfold increase in the last 18 months alone. The dramatic jump in cases is attributed to the fact that more troops are facing multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is of course complicated by the fact that veterans' groups claim that the VA is not able to meet the growing demand for services.

Already, veterans have had to deal with long waits for doctor appointments (oftentimes over six months), staffing shortages, and lack of equipment at medical centers run by the VA.

The woman who sent me the email about her son gave me permission to publish another email that shows clearly how the over-stretch of the military in Iraq and multiple tours are affecting her son:

/ I have established contact with my son, thank God, and he writes to me daily about Iraqi atrocities, and how he wants to wax them all. His morale is low and he has a weak LT who is unable to keep up with the pace required. I would love to share these emails with you, but I am afraid. I'm afraid of the implications should this ever get out. I want to do nothing to endanger my communications with my son. My impression through my readings and contact with soldiers is that the Iraqis are generally good people. The American occupation seems to be only making things that much worse for the average Iraqi. My impression is that Iraq is a country with no hope. No matter what is done, they will never have a stable government, no matter what form it might take. From my son, I'm able to glean the complete CHAOS Ramadi is in. It is hopeless. As a mother, I want him to do whatever is necessary to come home, and will not sugar-coat my thoughts: that he should kill everything and come home. Naturally, not someone who is obviously an innocent civilian, but how do you tell? How do you know who is innocent and who is a threat?

Therefore, he feels that daisy-cutting the town is the only option. Of course this will not happen, and he's blowing smoke. However, it is an indication of how bad things are there ... the struggle between the Marines and the insurgents is never ending. The type of bomb now employed by the insurgents (whoever they are) is frightening ... a metal plate on the ground: when the Marine steps on it, it connects the circuit and that boy is blown up. My son is running missions thru back alleys ... and is hauling a machine gun that is destroying his back. He is a slender young man, and the gear he is carrying is affecting his health. He can run for miles, but not with a hundred pounds on him.

Already I hear such a hardness in his emails, such low morale, such hopelessness, and he has only just begun this deployment (hopefully his last ... his third)./

/ America is a great nation, compassionate to many, and is my homeland.

I am sickened at what is happening, and what my son is being made to do as a Marine. Ultimately we have morphed into an empire. It breaks my heart that my son may die on foreign soil fighting a useless war that will only lead to more death and destruction .../

The longer the occupation of Iraq continues, more death and destruction are two things all of us can count on. Along with a broken, bleeding military that is being stretched even further each day, and the anxious families of those serving, whose nerves and hearts are also being stretched further each day.

_______________________________________________

All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the http://DahrJamailIraq.com website. Website by photographer Jeff Pflueger's Photography Media http://jeffpflueger.com . Any other use of images, photography, photos and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

More writing, commentary, photography, pictures and images at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You are subscribed to the Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches because you requested a subscription at some point.

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

Or, you can unsubscribe by sending an email to iraq_dispatches-request@dahrjamailiraq.com and write unsubscribe in the subject or the body of the email.