Irak 90

Truthdig bericht: 'The Many Faces of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
A Dig led by Nir Rosen
Editor’s note: With the death this week of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi, many experts are predicting that the Iraqi insurgency will find itself crippled and leaderless. But according to Nir Rosen, one of the only Western journalists to have reported extensively from inside the Iraqi insurgency, the ideologies that propelled Zarqawi into his leadership role will soon find another champion, and the sectarian conflict engulfing the country will continue to worsen. Who was Zarqawi? What drove him to his murderous ends? And what can we learn from his death? Rosen, who has spent the last three years covering the Iraqi conflict, lays out some answers.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the “Sheikh of the Slaughterers,” is dead. So dies an American myth—that of the “most wanted man” in Iraq. But other myths persist: that Zarqawi’s death will have positive consequences; or that “victory,” whatever that might mean, is possible in Iraq in the wake of Zarqawi’s death… Zarqawi's death was the greatest advertisement for his cause. He had already succeeded in provoking the civil war, the final spark being the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shia Askari Shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Zarqawi sought martyrdom and direct entry to paradise by fighting the infidels in Iraq. And in the eyes of his supporters, he succeeded --proving to aspiring jihadis around the world that Iraq is the place to go to if you want to enter paradise as a martyr slain by the infidels.' Lees verder: http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060609_abu_musab_al_zarqawi/

Wouter Bos

Kijkt u even naar dit geestige filmpje. 'Watch an original animated short by Mr. Fish on the Democratic party’s new secret weapon for winning back the hearts and minds of the American public.' http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20060613_mr_fish_democrats/ En vraag u dan af waar de PVDA nu eigenlijk voor staat, ik bedoel Wouter Bos, het gezicht en de stem van de Nederlandse sociaal democraten. Waar staat hij voor? Ik bedoel met betrekking tot de ware vraagstukken van onze tijd: Oorlog en Vrede, Klimaatverandering, de groeiende kloof tussen Rijk en Arm in de wereld. Laat u het mij even weten.

Het Nederlandse Staatshoofd 2

Waarom vergadert het Nederlandse staatshoofd, koningin Beatrix, niet met Al Gore over de gevaren van de klimaatverandering, in plaats van met een gangster als Henry Kissinger over het voortbestaan van het neoliberalisme, dat de klimaatverandering alleen maar versnelt? Common Dreams bericht:
'Gore to Train 1,000 to Spread Word about Climate.
by Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK - Al Gore hopes to train 1,000 messengers he hopes will spread out across the country and present a slide show about global warming that captures the essence of his Hollywood documentary and book.
The former vice president, a Democrat, said on Monday that by the end of the summer he would start a bipartisan education campaign to train 1,000 people to give a version of his slide show on global warming featured in the film "An Inconvenient Truth" and book of the same name.
"This moment cannot be allowed to pass," Gore told reporters in New York. "I have seen and heard times before when the awareness of the climate crisis has peaked and then a few months later it's gone. I think this time is different, but I have to say I'm not certain of that."
The book is an expanded version of the film. Both are based on a slide show he has given more than 1,000 times over the past 30 years on the dangers of global warming. He says climate change is a crisis that has become a moral issue.
Most scientists believe carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap the sun's heat in the atmosphere leading to stronger storms and rising sea levels that could swamp low-lying islands by 2100.
Gore said all the profits from his film and the book will be donated to train the messengers. He said the carriers of the message will give the slide show at high schools and rotary clubs in the United States and around the world.
Gore said on Monday, as he has consistently, that he had no plans to run for president in 2008. He added that he would continue to give the slide show even as the messengers give their versions of it.' Zie: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0613-02.htm

De Britse journalist en hoogleraar Christopher Hitchens heeft in het boek 'De Zaak Henry Kissinger,' in de Nederlandse vertaling verschenen bij de Arbeiderspers, beschreven welke misdaden Kissinger begaan heeft. Hij concludeert dat Kissinger gerechtelijk vervolgd zou moeten worden 'wegens overtredingen tegen het geschreven, ongeschreven en internationaal recht, waaronder medeplichtigheid aan moord, ontvoering en marteling.' En dat allemaal op grote schaal. Net zoals het Nederlandse staatshoofd niet met Holleeder in een besloten bijeenkomst vergadert, zou ze dat ook niet moeten doen met Kissinger. Kennelijk geldt voor koningin Beatrix dat er twee soorten recht zijn.

Iran 53

De New York Times bericht: 'Nonaligned Nations Prepare to Back Iran.

Vienna, Austria - Western countries at a 35-nation U.N. meeting pushed Tuesday for consensus on the need for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, but diplomats said that most nonaligned countries were preparing to endorse Tehran's right to continue the work.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were divulging confidential information, said the 16 International Atomic Energy Agency board members from the Nonaligned Movement were likely to issue a joint statement at odds with Western efforts on enrichment.
The language would be similar to a statement issued last month by foreign ministers of nonaligned nations in Malaysia, the diplomats told The Associated Press.
That declaration "reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right" of all countries to develop, produce and use atomic energy "for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations."
Iran says it has a right to enrich uranium for purposes of generating electricity under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The United States and its allies assert the claim is a cover for attempts to develop a nuclear weapons program.
When asked Monday if Iran would suspend enrichment for the sake of negotiations, Iranian spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham repeated the government line that enrichment is Iran's "obvious right."
With the group statement decidedly favoring Iran, the United States and its allies were focusing on key nations with clout among nonaligned countries - such as Brazil, India and Argentina - that have sided with them in the past. They are urging them to put pressure on Iran in individual statements to accept an offer for talks on its nuclear program, said the diplomats.' Lees verder:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061306O.shtml

De Bush Bende 15

Op de bovenste foto ziet u Colleen Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, lid dus van de Bush Bende. Op de onderste foto ziet u zomaar een willekeurige onbekende dode Irakees, die volgens Colleen druk bezig is met een in haar woorden 'goede campagne om aandacht te trekken.'

In Truthout schrijft de onafhankelijke William Fisher: 'And the Oscar Goes To ...

You can only be bemused by the title of the lady at the US State Department who called the suicides of three prisoners a "good PR move to draw attention."
Her name is Colleen Graffy, and her title is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. That's Public Diplomacy.
Her official State Department bio says Ms. Graffy "coordinates efforts with Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes."
One has to wonder if she coordinated her suicide remarks with Ms. Hughes, the longtime Bush spinmeister whose job it is to "win hearts and minds" for America throughout the world, and especially in the Muslim world.
My brain tells me she didn't consult Ms. Hughes, but my gut tells me it's not beyond the realm of possibility. That's because since President Bush asked Ms. Hughes to take on this impossible job, she has also suffered from foot-in-mouth disease.
Like telling upper-class Saudi women that they ought to be able to drive cars, only to hear that, thank you very much, they'd much rather use their drivers.
But the Graffy gaffe takes the foot-in-mouth malady to a whole new level. In fact, if there were an Oscar for the dumbest remark made since 9/11, this lady's words would rank right up there with "bring it on" and "Mission Accomplished."
And even if she doesn't go home with the award, I predict her words will become as iconic as Rummy's comments that "stuff happens," "you go to war with the army you have," and all the people at GITMO are "the worst of the worst."
But wait - there's more. Apparently not content with one foot in her mouth, Ms. Graffy stuck the other one in as well. She told the BBC the suicides were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause," but taking their own lives was unnecessary. The three men did not value their lives or the lives of those around them, she said.
Then she went on to explain that the three detainees had access to lawyers, received mail and had the ability to write to families, and so had other means of making protests. She said it was hard to see why the men had not protested about their situation.
Evidently she hadn't heard about the hunger strikes and the many previous suicide attempts.
We don't know a lot about these three men. They may indeed have been among the "worst of the worst.Ó One, we have since learned, was scheduled to be released but hadn't yet been told. And none of them were among the ten - out of close to 500 prisoners - who have ever been charged with a crime or had a trial.' Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061306J.shtml

Amerikaanse Oorlogsmisdaden 23

De onafhankelijke Amerikaanse journalist Dahr Jamail schrijft: 'Another US Cover-Up Surfaces.

Baghdad - In the wake of the Haditha massacre, reports of another atrocity have surfaced in which U.S. troops killed two women in Samarra, and then attempted to hide evidence of their responsibility.
Among the innumerable such cases people speak of, this one too has now come to light.
According to an earlier account, Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, a 35-year-old mother of two, was killed in firing along with her 57-year-old cousin Saliha Mohammed Hassan on May 30 when they were being transported to Samarra General Hospital for Nabiha to give birth.
What was not reported, according to an Iraqi human rights investigator who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity, was that both women were shot in the back of the head by U.S. snipers.
"I investigated this incident myself, and both of these women were shot from behind," said the investigator. "Nabiha's brains were splattered on her brother who was driving the car, since she was in the back seat."
The U.S. military said soldiers fired on the car after it entered a "clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post" after failing to stop despite "repeated visual and auditory warnings." The U.S. military said in a statement that "shots were fired to disable the vehicle."
The brother of the pregnant woman, Redam Nisaif Jassim, who was driving the car, told IPS that he neither saw nor heard any warnings by the U.S. military. Two men who witnessed the incident from a nearby home also said they saw no signs of any warning.
"These kinds of killings by the Americans happen daily in Iraq," said Jassim, "They gave no warning to us before killing my cousin and sister. Of course we know they have no respect for the lives of Iraqis."
The U.S. military claims the incident is being investigated.' Lees verder:
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000403.php#more Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061306Z.shtml

De Bush Bende 14

Op de bovenste foto ziet u Elizabeth Cheney, de dochter van Dick Cheney, die beiden hetzelfde gewelddadig beleid voorstaan. Op de onderste foto ziet u het resultaat van hun ideologische opvattingen. De onafhankelijke Amerikaanse onderzoeksjournalist Robert Dreyfuss schrijft: 'Since 2005, Dick Cheney's daughter Elizabeth has held a powerful position guiding Middle East policy. And like father, like daughter: Liz is a key player in the push for regime change in Iran and Syria. At the very heart of U.S. Middle East policy, from the war in Iraq to pressure for regime change in Iran and Syria to the spread of free-market democracy in the region, sits the 39-year-old daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. Elizabeth "Liz" Cheney, appointed to her post in February 2005, has a tongue-twisting title: principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs and coordinator for broader Middle East and North Africa initiatives. By all accounts, it is an enormously powerful post, and one for which she is uniquely unqualified.
During the past 15 months, Elizabeth Cheney has met with and bolstered a gaggle of Syrian exiles, often in tandem with John Hannah and David Wurmser, top officials in the Office of the Vice President (OVP); has pressed hard for money to accelerate the administration's ever more overt campaign for forced regime change in both Damascus and Teheran; and has overseen an increasingly discredited push for American-inspired democratic reform from Morocco to Iran.
With the unspoken support of her father, Cheney has kept a hawk's eye on Iraq policy within the department, intimidating opponents of the neoconservative axis within the administration. And, less visibly, according to former officials who've worked with her, she has made her influence felt in choosing officials, selecting (or blocking) the appointment of ambassadors and other foreign service officers, and weighing in on other bureaucratic battles at the department.
Now, according to the Financial Times of London, Cheney is coordinating the work of a new entity called the Iran-Syria Operations Group. The unit was established "to plot a more aggressive democracy promotion strategy for those two 'rogue' states," reported the Times. In February, the State Department announced that Cheney would oversee a $5 million program to "accelerate the work of reformers in Syria," providing grants of up to $1 million each to Syrian dissidents.' Lees verder: http://www.alternet.org/story/37490/