Clipmarks | arifsali's 'war' clips

Over one million Iraqis killed by war

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:21:15 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Further survey work undertaken by ORB, in association with its research partner IIACSS, confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003.

Following responses to ORB’s earlier work, which was based on survey work undertaken in primarily urban locations, we have conducted almost 600 additional interviews in rural communities. By and large the results are in line with the ‘urban results’ and we now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000.

Further information about the research, our calculations, questionnaire wording and data tables is available by clicking on the links below. Also available is an article providing background on IIACSS and its founding director Dr. Munqith Dagher.

Tags: iraq, death, war, united states

I raped Iraqi girl, then helped kill her....soldier pleads guilty

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:04:47 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: BTW, the headline isn't mine, this is how it showed up in RSS feed.
Unless he was a criminal before he was a soldier, I do not understand how a human being commits such crimes out of nowhere.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Soldier pleads guilty in Iraq killings

FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky (AP) -- One of four U.S. soldiers accused of raping an Iraqi girl last spring and killing her and her family pleaded guilty Wednesday and will testify against the others.

Spc. James P. Barker agreed to the plea deal to avoid the death penalty, said his civilian attorney, David Sheldon.

The killings in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, were among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses by military personnel in Iraq.

Sgt. Paul E. Cortez and Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, both members of the 101st Airborne Division with Barker, could face the death penalty if convicted in the case in courts-martial at Fort Campbell.

Former Army private Steve Green, 21, pleaded not guilty last week to charges including murder and sexual assault.

Green was discharged from the Army for a "personality disorder" before the allegations became known, and prosecutors have yet to say if they will pursue the death penalty against him.

The indictment accuses Green and others of raping the 14-year-old girl and burning her body to conceal their crimes. It also alleges that Green and four others stationed at a nearby checkpoint killed the girl's father, mother and 6-year-old sister.

Barker has given investigators vivid accounts of the assault. An investigator testified during a hearing in August that Barker had said the soldiers drank whiskey and played cards while plotting the assault, that Barker, Cortez and Green took turns raping the girl, and that Green shot her and her family.

Tags: iraq war, soldiers, crime, politics, war

The Biggest Threat to the West Lies Within Itself, Not with Islam

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:32:52 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Simon Jenkins on threats to peace and democracy.

This defeatism led the American Congress to allow its president to authorise torture and detention without trial in what Senator Robert Byrd called “the slow unravelling of the people’s liberties”. It enabled a British Home Office to curb free speech and habeas corpus. It arms police, fortifies buildings and impedes the free movement of citizens. It makes every Christian suspicious of every Muslim.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

The biggest threat to the West lies within itself, not with Islam

The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation.

Extremists on each side feed off the others’ frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. Each sees the other as a cosmic menace and abandons communal tolerance and peaceful diplomacy to counter it.

To portray Islam as a whole as a concerted threat to western security, and to imply that the West’s democratic institutions and freedoms are not proof against that threat, is absurd and close to treason. Then to demand that western freedoms be dismantled and stored away for the duration of a “war on terror” is to wave the flag of surrender.

I believe in the robustness of the democracies created in the West over the past half-century. I am not sure that our leaders do.

Tags: terrorism, islam, christianity, religion, freedom, war, peace, democracy, west, torture

Polar Bears arrested for blocking the entrances to the Capitol

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:23:10 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: I know, they must have done something wrong.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 60 peaceful demonstrators, including several dressed as polar bears, were arrested outside the U.S. Capitol on Monday protesting the Iraq war and global warming, authorities said.

"People are being arrested out here because you (Congress) are not doing your job," antiwar activist Ann Wright shouted into a bullhorn.

Demonstrators were arrested on charges of unlawful assembly and blocking entrances to the Capitol, which was ringed by members of the U.S. Capitol Police.

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, a police spokeswoman, said, "We've had about 60 arrests." She said she had received no reports of violence.

About half a dozen demonstrators dressed in fluffy white outfits held a banner reading, "Polar bears for solutions to war and global warming."

Tags: united states, politics, war

Israel labels Gaza 'enemy entity'

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:26:47 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: english.aljazeera.net

Israel's security cabinet has declared the Gaza Strip an "enemy entity", opening the way for cuts in fuel and other vital supplies to the territory.

Hamas issued a statement in response, saying that the security cabinet's announcement on Wednesday amounted to a "declaration of war".

Sand barriers have been built on some Gaza streets
in anticipation of Israeli raids [Reuters]

The office of Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, said his security cabinet approved the "enemy entity" classification and there would be "limitations on imports to the Gaza Strip and a reduction in the supply of fuel and electricity".

Tags: israel, palestine, gaza, war, hamas, politics

Delhi, 1857: a bloody warning to today's imperial occupiers

Fri, 11 May 2007 21:21:38 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, has just been published in paperback by Bloomsbury

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

A century and a half after the Indian mutiny, echoes of the arrogance and lies that sparked insurgency could not be clearer

Yet the lessons of 1857 are very clear. No one likes people of a different faith conquering them, or force-feeding them improving ideas at the point of a bayonet. The British in 1857 discovered what the US and Israel are learning now, that nothing so easily radicalises a people against them, or so undermines the moderate aspect of Islam, as aggressive western intrusion in the east. The histories of Islamic fundamentalism and western imperialism have, after all, long been closely and dangerously intertwined. In a curious but very concrete way, the fundamentalists of all three Abrahamic faiths have always needed each other to reinforce each other's prejudices and hatreds. The venom of one provides the lifeblood of the others.

Tags: history, india, united states, war, politics

Fatal errors in planning for postwar Iraq: British Defence Secretary

Wed, 02 May 2007 22:36:10 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: politics.guardian.co.uk

A catalogue of errors over planning for Iraq after the invasion, and an inability to influence key figures in the US administration, led to anarchy in Iraq from which the country has not recovered, the British defence secretary during the invasion admits today.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Geoff Hoon reveals that Britain disagreed with the US administration over two key decisions in May 2003, two months after the invasion - to disband Iraq's army and "de-Ba'athify" its civil service. Mr Hoon also said he and other senior ministers completely underestimated the role and influence of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.

"Sometimes ... Tony had made his point with the president, and I'd made my point with Don [Rumsfeld] and Jack [Straw] had made his point with Colin [Powell] and the decision actually came out of a completely different place. And you think: what did we miss? I think we missed Cheney."

Tags: iraq, iraq war, britain, united states, politics, war

Why were/are so many in Journalism afraid of the Bush regime?

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:59:09 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: This is from Landay and Strobel Talk Back and Moyers' blog. I'm sure some of you have already clipped parts of it, but the whole piece is worth a read. Visit the source.

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

Why were/are so many in Journalism afraid of the Bush regime? Are we under a government of, by and for the corporations?

Warren Strobel:
Thanks for the comment. One of the things that got left out of the show was how then Knight Ridder, now McClatchy, has given us tremendous corporate backing for our journalism. I know the corporate office got some flack for what we were doing and writing back in 2002, 2003, 2004, but we never felt chill winds from our own company trying to hold us back. Questions wondering whether we were sure we were on the right track, yes. Self-censorship, no.

Also, to get to your first point, we find it kind of ironic to see all sorts of journalists challenging the administration on all sorts of fronts now - I mean, it's good and healthy to have that kind of accountability. But it's a lot easier for a reporter to do that when Bush has low approval ratings, the Iraq war is not going well and the Democrats control Congress...

Tags: bush administration, iraq war, war, politics, journalism

Israeli company to cash in on building separation walls in Iraq

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:32:58 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.arabmonitor.info

Baghdad, 25 April - Following Monday's protest marches in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad against a US project which they feel aimed at herding them into a prison, Iraqi Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr stood up against the project also. Adding his voice to the mainly Sunni protesters against the construction of a 5 km-long wall around the neighborhood of Adhamiya in Baghdad, he condemned the evil intentions of the occupation forces, accusing them of aiming at dividing Sunni from Shiite Iraqis.

The company of Belinski, a German-Israeli Jewish businessman, has a long experience in building barriers in the Occupied Territories of Palestine: with the help of two Palestinian business clans, owners of the Tarifi Cement Companies and the Barakeh General Trade, in the years 2003/4 Zeef Belinski used 390.000 tons of subsidized Egyptian cement and used it for building Jewish settlements and the Apartheid wall in the Occupied Territories of Palestine

Tags: iraq war, united states, war

I can't believe this ...

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 03:47:01 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: flickr.com

Tags: war, politics, protest, picture

Pentagon Says No Evidence Of Al-Qaeda-Hussein Link

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 01:13:26 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.rferl.org

A newly declassified report by the U.S. Defense Department has found there was little evidence to support the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Pentagon report, issued by the Defense Department's inspector general on April 6, quotes a 2002 CIA document that says: "Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations" between Hussein's government and Al-Qaeda.

Speaking on April 5, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney repeated assertions that such a link did exist before the decision was made to invade Iraq.

Tags: politics, pentagon, united states, 9/11, al qaeda, saddam hussein, iraq, war, iraq war, bush administration, cheney

President Cheney

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 23:48:18 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: So went to Iraq to get Zarqawi? How come I didn't know about this?

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

CHENEY: Sure — well, it’s just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton; I worked closely with Ike when I was Secretary of Defense. He’s Chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike is a good man. He’s just dead wrong about this, though. Think about — just to give you one example, Rush, remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, Al Qaida affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for Al Qaida, then migrated — after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the Al Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He’s the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is Al Qaida operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.

Tags: war on terror, iraq war, politics, cheney, war, united states

Accused Over Atrocity - PFc Bryan Howard

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:21:58 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.sky.com

A US soldier accused of one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq War - the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her family - is set to go on trial.

Private First Class Bryan Howard, who was initially described as a lookout for the crime, is one of five current and former US soldiers accused over the incident.

Barker and Cortez said they took turns raping the teenager while PFC Steven Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister.

Barker said Howard and another soldier, PFC Jesse Spielman, did not participate in the rape and killings.

But he admitted they were at the house when the assault occurred - and had come knowing what the others intended to do.

Tags: united states, soldiers, crime, war, iraq war

Soldier's dad tells Bush, `This war is wrong'

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:22:08 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: blogs.chicagotribune.com

The two-page letter is signed from the “proud father of a fallen soldier.”

A little more than six weeks ago, his soul a cauldron of grief and rage, Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton addressed and mailed it to President Bush.

And since he’s yet to receive an acknowledgment or reply

“My voice, and that of many other frustrated Americans is not being heard,”

“the message he continued to send to me was that of incompetence,”

“Incompetence by you, (Vice President Richard) Cheney and (former defense secretary Donald) Rumsfeld. Incompetence by some of his commanders as well as the overall strategy of your decisions.

“When I asked him about what he thought about your decision to `surge’ more troops to Baghdad, he told me, `until the Iraqis pick up the ball we are going to get cut to shreds. It doesn’t matter how many troops Bush sends, nothing has been addressed to solve the problem he started,’”

says Landeck’s letter (full text below)

Tags: soldiers, united states, iraq war, war

Time to Blame the Iraqis

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:17:00 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Highly sarcastic, bitter, truth.

Clip Source: www.embassymag.ca

As the people who talked the United States into the Iraq war try to talk their way out of the blame for the mess they made, one dominant theme has emerged: Blame the Iraqis. Our intentions were good; we did our best to help; but the Iraqis are vicious, incompetent ingrates who would prefer to kill one another than seize the freedom we brought them. It's not our fault that it turned out so badly.

It has turned out rather badly, hasn't it? U.S. President George W. Bush will go no further than to say that he is "disappointed by the pace of success," and his British sidekick, Prime Minister Tony Blair, still insists that "We will beat [the Iraqi resistance] when we realize that it's not our fault that they're doing this." But practically everybody else in the U.S. and Britain knows that the invasion of Iraq was a huge disaster.

Tags: iraq, iraq war, united states, war, politics