Nederland en Afghanistan 79

Zelfs in Kaboel krijgt de bevolking genoeg van de Amerikaanse bezetting. Al Jazeera bericht: 'Riot involving US forces erupts in Kabul. US and Afghan forces fired on protesters in the Afghan capital after a riot erupted on Monday because of a traffic accident involving US troops, police and eyewitnesses said.
Three people were killed in the accident, and a fourth was killed by gunfire, they said.
Aljazeera's correspondent in the capital, Kabul, said at least 20 were killed or wounded.
A Kabul police chief, Sher Shah Usafi, said at least three people were killed and 16 wounded in the crash, while US forces killed one person and wounded two when they fired on dozens of stone-throwing rioters shouting "Down with America!"
A commander for the city's traffic police who was at the scene said he saw US forces firing on protesters. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The US-led coalition in Kabul confirmed there had been an accident and gave different casualty figures but said it had no reports of soldiers opening fire.
"There was a military flatbed truck which had a mechanical failure, maybe a brake problem, and it crashed into some civilian vehicles.
"One civilian was killed and six were injured," coalition spokeswoman Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence told AFP.' Lees verder:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B9E0FAF2-B4D3-4A69-93FA-749FAC6CC520.htm

Irak 79

De Guardian bericht: 'When US turned a blind eye to poison gas America knew Baghdad was using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988. So why, asks Dilip Hiro , has it taken 14 years to muster its outrage?
When it comes to demonising Saddam Hussein, nothing captures the popular imagination in America better than the statement that 'he gassed his own people'. This is an allusion to the deployment of chemical weapons by Iraq's military in the Iraqi Kurdistan town of Halabja in March 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war, and then in the territory administered by the Tehran-backed Kurdish rebels after the ceasefire five months later.
As Iraq's use of poison gases in war and in peace was public knowledge, the question arises: what did the United States administration do about it then? Absolutely nothing. Indeed, so powerful was the grip of the pro-Baghdad lobby on the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan that it got the White House to foil the Senate's attempt to penalise Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons to which it was a signatory. This made Saddam believe that the US was his firm ally - a deduction that paved the way for his brutal invasion and occupation of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf war, the outcomes of which have not yet fully played themselves out.
Between October 1983 and the autumn of 1988, Baghdad deployed 100,000 munitions, containing mainly mustard gas, which produces blisters on the skin and inside the lungs, and nerve gas, which damages the nervous system, but also cyanide gas, which kills instantly. From initially using these lethal agents in extremis to repulse Iran's offensives, the Iraqis proceeded to use them as a key factor in their assaults in the spring and summer of 1988 to regain their lost territories, including the strategic Fao peninsula.
That the Pentagon had first-hand knowledge of Iraq's use of chemical agents during these offensives was confirmed by the New York Times two weeks ago. "After the Iraqi army, with American planning assistance, retook the Fao peninsula, a Defense Intelligence Agency officer, Lt Col Rick Francona, now retired, was sent to tour the battlefield with Iraqi officers,' wrote Patrick Tyler of the Times. 'Francona saw zones marked off for chemical contamination, and containers for the drug atropine scattered around, indicating that Iraqi soldiers had taken injections to protect themselves from the effects of gas that might blow back over their positions."' Lees verder: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,784313,00.html
Voor meer over luitenant kolonel Francona zie ook: http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/oorlogomolie.html

De Israelische Terreur 18

De Kuwait News Agency nericht: 'Palestinians face catastrophe -- Arab physicians Union.

HLT-AL-UNION-PALESTINE Palestinians face catastrophe -- Arab physicians Union
CAIRO, May 27 (KUNA) -- A delegation from the Arab Doctors Union warned on Saturday of a humanitarian catastrophe that will face Palestinians if the Israelis continue their blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.The head of the delegation, Dr. Hamdi Al-Sayed, told the press after meeting the Arab League's Secretary General Amr Mousa that they asked Mousa to allow Arab civil institutions to participate in the aid efforts to the Palestinians.Mousa said on his behalf that the AU is working intensively to ensure regional and international support for the Palestinians.On other developments, Dr. Al-Sayed said he urged for international support during the World Health Organization (WHO) meeting which was held in Geneva.He said the dire conditions in Palestine "are unaccepted by international laws" and added that cutting the supplies from the Palestinian people is considered inhumane.' Lees verder: http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=870397

Irak 78

Het persbureau Associated Press bericht: 'Italy to pull 1,100 troops from Iraq.
ROME - Italy will pull 1,100 of its troops from Iraq in June, the new government said Friday, giving its first specific numbers about the planned withdrawal.
"In June we will reduce our troops from 2,700 to 1,600," Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said during an evening television show.
His announcement came hours after he met with Premier Romano Prodi to map Italy's exit strategy from the U.S.-led coalition.
Most Italian troops in Iraq are in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. They are involved in training, security and reconstruction.
The decision to withdraw this many troops by June belongs to the previous government of conservative Silvio Berlusconi. The new center-left government of Romano Prodi was merely staying with it for the time being, Foreign Ministry spokesman Pasquale Terracciano said.
"The next steps have not been decided yet," Terracciano said.
Prodi had opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq and pledged during his campaign for the elections in April which brought him and his center-left allies to power to bring Italian troops home and replace the contingent with a civilian force.' Lees verder:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/
mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/14677205.htm

De Israelische Terreur 17

De Amerikaanse journalist Mike Whitney schrijft: 'Olmert should have stayed Home
-- Ehud Olmert never should have been invited to Washington. He shouldn’t have been given a platform to spout his defiance of UN resolutions. The Bush administration does the country a disservice by rewarding leaders who ignore the international community and carry out their own self-serving agenda. This doesn’t mean that Israel should be bombed into the Stone Age like Iraq, or that Olmert should be targeted for regime change. And, it doesn’t mean that the Israeli people should be collectively punished with lethal sanctions like those that are being levied against the Palestinians. It simply means that Israel should be isolated as much as possible until it complies with UN resolutions to return to the 1967 borders. Olmert’s appearance in Washington is a setback for the United States as well as the cause of peace in the Middle East. It undermines our credibility in the Muslim world and makes our foreign policy look hypocritical. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the center of the turmoil that is extending through the entire region. The administration’s favoritism has poisoned the atmosphere, making the battle for “hearts and minds” that much more difficult. Olmert was given a hero’s welcome when he entered the House of Representatives. If anyone in the audience had read the Amnesty International report issued earlier in the day, they certainly didn’t let on. The report stated that, “Israeli soldiers, police and settlers who committed unlawful killings, ill-treatment and other attacks against Palestinians and their property commonly did so with impunity….Investigations are rare, as were prosecutions of the perpetrators, which in most cases did not lead to convictions.” The report suggests that severe human rights abuses are being carried out against Palestinian civilians that go completely unanswered by Israel. These issues are taken seriously nearly everywhere except in the US congress where human rights abusers are revered as the champions of liberty. Olmert’s speech followed the usual formula of demonizing the Palestinians while portraying Israel as the victim of a 60 year struggle against fanatical Arabs. No mention was made of the countless checkpoints that dot the West Bank, or the thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons, or the boycott of food and medical aid that is strangling the territories. Instead, Olmert limited himself to tough-talk on terrorism and praise for the US-Israel alliance. At times his speech was absurdly ingratiating: “The United States is a superpower whose influence reaches across oceans and beyond borders…Our two great nations share a profound belief in the importance of freedom and a common pioneering spirit deeply rooted in optimism….It is impossible to think of a world in which America was not there, in the honorable service of humanity.” Behind the smarmy rhetoric, though, Olmert was busy giving the US another black-eye by authorizing more violence in the occupied territories. As he delivered his speech the AP reported another attack in Gaza. This time, three Palestinian civilians in the same family were killed in an air raid on an alleged terror suspect. Nahed Mahani and his family were out driving his new car when the vehicle was hit by shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile fired from an unmanned drone. The explosion killed his grandmother, his mother, and his daughter. Three generations were wiped out in one blast. The next day, another four more Palestinians were gunned down by Israeli troops in a gangland-style hit in Ramallah. 30 innocent passers-bye were injured in the attack.' Lees verder:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13401.htm

De Oorlogsstaat 55

Bij Information Clearinghouse kunt u kijken naar: Baghdad ER. BAGHDAD ER is an emotional, devastating and honest account of modern-day war. 12-time Emmy® Award winner producer/director Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill capture the humanity, hardships and heroism of the US Military and medical personnel of the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq. Sometimes graphic in its depiction of combat-related wounds, BAGHDAD ER offers an unflinching and honest account of the realities of war.' Zie:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13192.htm

Amerikaanse Oorlogsmisdaden 6

De Washington Post bericht: 'In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre. Iraqi Townspeople Describe Slaying of 24 Civilians by Marines.
BAGHDAD, May 26 -- Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.Two U.S. military boards are investigating the incident as potentially the gravest violation of the law of war by U.S. forces in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq. The U.S. military ordered the probes after Time magazine presented military officials in Baghdad this year with the findings of its own investigation, based on accounts of survivors and on a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student at Haditha's hospital and inside victims' houses.An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into the killings and a separate military probe into an alleged coverup are slated to end in the next few weeks. Marines have briefed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and other officials on the findings; some of the officials briefed say the evidence is damaging. Charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making a false statement are likely, people familiar with the case said Friday."Marines overreacted . . . and killed innocent civilians in cold blood," said one of those briefed, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who maintains close ties with senior Marine officers despite his opposition to the war.Haditha is one of a chain of farm towns on the Euphrates River where U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled foreign and local insurgents without resolution for much of the war. The first account of the killings there was a false or erroneous statement issued the next day, Nov. 20, by a U.S. Marine spokesman from a Marine base in Ramadi: "A U.S. Marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.''' Lees verder:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13402.htm Of:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052602069_pf.html Voor meer informatie zie ook: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.marines27may27,0,4813272.story?coll=bal-home-headlines