History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
Published on Thursday, August 27, 2009 by GRITtv
An Underground Railroad for Iraqi Women
While President Obama’s declared an end date for Americans in the Iraq war, will it ever be that simple for Iraqis? We talk to Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq and Yifat Susskind, communications director at MADRE who are helping women survive in the mess that is today’s Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/18-2Published on Saturday, July 18, 2009 by McClatchy Newspapers
Once World’s Bread Basket, Iraq Now a Farming Basket Case
by Mike Tharp
MISHKHAB, Iraq – Once the cradle of agriculture for civilization, the Land Between Two Rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates – has become a basket case for its farmers.
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Colonizing Iraq
The Obama Doctrine?
By Michael Schwartz
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“Who Knows, We Might Have to Start Importing Crude Oil…”
Who Will Control Iraq’s Oil?
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Baghdad.
Furious protests are threatening to undermine the Iraqi government’s plan to give international oil companies a stake in its giant oilfields in a desperate effort to increase its declining oil production and oil revenues.
In less than two weeks time, on June 29 and 30, the Iraqi Oil minister Hussain Shahristani will award service contracts to the world’s largest oil companies to develop six of Iraq’s largest oil producing fields over 20-25 years.
Senior figures within the Iraqi oil industry have denounced the deal. Fayad al-Nema, the director of the South Oil Company, which comes under the Oil Ministry and produces most of Iraq’s crude, said last weekend: “The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years. They squander Iraq’s revenues.” Mr Nema is reported to have since been fired because of his opposition to the contracts, which he says is shared by many other officials in Iraq’s state-owned oil industry.
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http://www.newstatesman.com/200605080016
The New Statesman 8 May 2006
John Pilger detects the Salvador Option
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http://www.truthout.org/052809M
Iraq Redux? Obama Seeks Funds for Pakistan Super-Embassy
by Saeed Shah and Warren P. Strobel
McClatchy Newspapers: May 27, 2009
Islamabad – The U.S. is embarking on a $1 billion crash program to expand
its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another
sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment
to war-torn South Asia, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Published on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 by The Telegraph/UK
US Army Prepared to Stay in Iraq for a Decade
The Pentagon is prepared to remain in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between Washington and Baghdad that would bring all American troops home by 2012, according to the US army chief of staff.
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http://www.truthout.org/050709J?n
t r u t h o u t May 7, 2009
Laying the Groundwork for Violence
by Dahr Jamail
Throughout history, those who collaborate with the occupiers of their
country tend to end up hung out to dry, or dead. The occupation of Iraq is
no different – collaboration and the poison fruits that come of it are on
full display for the history books once again. Only now, the rapidity with
which this is happening is staggering.
The Limits of Occupation
The Road Out of Iraq
By BRIAN M. DOWNING
A spate of bombings in Iraq has given rise in recent weeks to asking how long US troops must remain in the country.
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22525.htm
The Independent May 1, 2009
A Historic Day For Iraq
But not in the way the British want to believe
By Robert Fisk
One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead Iraqis?
Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don’t know. And we don’t care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That’s why we don’t know the figure. That’s why we left Basra yesterday.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/occupying-hearts-and-minds
Occupying Hearts and Minds
by Dahr Jamail
May 1st, 2009
One of the definitions of the word “occupation” is: the action, state,
or period of occupying or being occupied by military force. Throughout
history, areas or countries occupied by military force have always
resisted, and this resistance has caused the occupier to devise more
suitable methods of subduing the population of the area being occupied.
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Pull Out of Iraq This Year
By GEORGE McGOVERN
President Obama holds my admiration with high hopes for his message of change in Washington. It is puzzling, however, that he has adopted most of the previous administration’s formula for dragging out the withdrawal of our troops from the mistaken war in Iraq for nearly three more years. Very little “change” here.
Three years ago, public opinion polls indicated that a majority of Americans believed our policymakers were wrong in ordering troops into Iraq. It is widely accepted that this sentiment more than any other factor in the 2006 congressional elections resulted in Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.
Are we now going to ignore for another three years the public mandate of 2006 against this costly, preemptive war based on deceit? And how can we justify putting thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan? We have already exhausted our treasury. We are also close to exhausting our soldiers.
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If only the world had listened to him
I wish I had met Tom Hurndall, a remarkable man of remarkable principle
by Robert Fisk
The Independent (March 28 2009)
I don’t know if I met Tom Hurndall. He was one of a bunch of “human
shields” who turned up in Baghdad just before the Anglo-American
invasion in 2003, the kind of folk we professional reporters make fun
of. Tree huggers, that kind of thing. Now I wish I had met him because -
looking back over the history of that terrible war – Hurndall’s journals
(soon to be published) show a remarkable man of remarkable principle. “I
may not be a human shield”, he wrote at 10.26 on 17 March from his Amman
hotel. “And I may not adhere to the beliefs of those I have travelled
with, but the way Britain and America plan to take Iraq is unnecessary
and puts soldiers’ lives above those of civilians. For that I hope that
Bush and Blair stand trial for war crimes.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-a-brave-man-who-stood-alone-if-only-the-world-had-listened-to-him-1656067.html
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The New York Times is proud that the USG has restored prostitution as
well as gambling and consumption of drugs and alcohol in Baghdad to a
Saddam-era level of prosperity. It’s so proud of it that it put it on
the front page (burying an objection raised by an Iraqi human rights
group in page six)! — Yoshie
April 19, 2009
Secure Enough to Sin, Baghdad Is Back to Old Ways
By ROD NORDLAND
BAGHDAD — Vice is making a comeback in this city once famous for 1,001
varieties of it.
Gone, for the most part, are nighttime curfews, religious extremists
and prowling kidnappers. So, inevitably, some people are turning to
illicit pleasures, or at least slightly dubious ones.
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http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041709.html
The Reawakened Specter of Iraqi Civil War
Michael Wahid Hanna
April 17, 2009
(Michael Wahid Hanna is program officer for international affairs at
the Century Foundation in New York. He conducted research in Iraq in
2006 and 2008.)
April has already been a cruel month in Iraq.
http://i4.democracynow.org/2009/4/9/nir_rosen
“We Didn’t Create a Paradise in Iraq; We Created a Hell”
Independent Journalist Nir Rosen on 6th Anniversary of US Overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Read the rest of this entry »
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032102255.html
Washington Post March 22, 2009
In Iraq, Chaos Feared as U.S. Closes Prison
Ex-Inmates Reanimate Sunni, Shiite Militias
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Garma, Iraq — The release of hundreds of prisoners from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, has facilitated the revival of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in Basra, Baghdad and the borderless expanse here along the Euphrates, according to police chiefs, intelligence officials in the Interior Ministry and residents.
Although none of them predicted a return to the anarchy and sectarian carnage of 2006-2007, when scores of bodies might show up in the street on any day, officials suggested that the groups were preparing for the onset of a U.S. military withdrawal.
http://counterpunch.org/porter03262009.html
March 26, 2009
Despite Obama’s Promises, Combat Forces will Remain in Iraq
The Big Con on Iraq
By GARETH PORTER
Despite President Barack Obama’s statement at Camp LeJeune, North
Carolina Feb. 27 that he had “chosen a timeline that will remove our
combat brigades over the next 18 months,” a number of Brigade Combat
Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq
for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-
combat label.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/63703.html
McClatchy Newspapers March 10, 2009
Fears grow Iraq violence will doom Obama’s Afghan plan
By Nancy A. Youssef and Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — As the U.S. military begins to shift its focus to a new battle against extremists in Afghanistan, a recent spike in violence in Iraq has some military commanders worried that their Afghan strategy could falter with the need to keep a large force in Iraq to quell the mayhem there.
This Is Huge: Obama Pledges No Residual Forces In Iraq After 2011
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left at 9:46 AM on February 27, 2009.
The Iraq War will end.
Orwell in Babylon
Obama’s Non-Withdrawal Withdrawal Plan
By CHRIS FLOYD
It would be superfluous in us to point out that a plan to “end” a war which includes the continued garrisoning of up to 50,000 troops in a hostile land is, in reality, a continuation of that war, not its cessation. To produce such a plan and claim that it “ends” a war is the precise equivalent of, say, relieving one’s bladder on the back of one’s neighbor and telling him that the liquid is actually life-giving rain.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090224/ap_on_go_pr_wh/iraq_withdrawal/print
Officials: Most troops out of Iraq in 18 months
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to remove all U.S. combat
troops from Iraq by August 2010, administration officials said
Tuesday, ending the war three months later than he had promised during
his presidential campaign.
A Theft Bigger Than Madoff
Iraq Reconstruction: the Greatest Fraud in US History?
By PATRICK COCKBURN
In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff’s notorious Ponzi scheme.
Published on Friday, December 19, 2008 by Inter Press Service
US Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact
by Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.
The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.
A man holds his child as US soldiers walk past, during a routine patrol in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Fadhil, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008.
(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)By redesignating tens of thousands of combat troops as support troops, those officials apparently hope to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to insist on getting all combat troops of the country by mid-2010.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick12112008.html
Counterpunch, December 11, 2008
It’s All Spelled Out in Unpublicized Agreement
Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq
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Asia Times November 17, 2008
A Pact With The Devil
By Pepe Escobar Read the rest of this entry »
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Text of Agreement
November 20, 2008
Brawl Halts Session of Iraqi Parliament
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and SUADAD AL-SALHY
BAGHDAD — A session of Iraq’s Parliament collapsed in chaos on
Wednesday, as a discussion among lawmakers about a three-year security
agreement with the Americans boiled over into shouting and physical
confrontation.
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November 15, 2008
Cleric Calls for Resistance to U.S. Presence in Iraq
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and SUADAD AL-SALHY
BAGHDAD — As the Iraqi cabinet prepares to vote on a security
agreement for American troops, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada
al-Sadr called Friday for armed resistance against any agreement that
allowed a continued United States presence in Iraq.
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Patrick Cockburn: The US can quit Iraq, or it can stay. But it can’t do both
Iraqis have a clear idea who they believe funds their secret police
Tuesday, 11 November 2008 Read the rest of this entry »
The U.S. Doesn’t Know How Alone It is in Iraq
Friends Like These
By PATRICK COCKBURN
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