Fisk: 'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Tue May 02, 2006 12:48 pm

April 29 In Syria, the world appears through a glass, darkly. As dark as the smoked windows of the car which takes me to a building on the western side of Damascus where a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a "security source", which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers - waits with his own ferocious narrative of disaster in Iraq and dangers in the Middle East. His is a fearful portrait of an America trapped in the bloody sands of Iraq, desperately trying to provoke a civil war around Baghdad in order to reduce its own military casualties. It is a scenario in which Saddam Hussein remains Washington's best friend, in which Syria has struck at the Iraqi insurgents with a ruthlessness that the United States wilfully ignores. And in which Syria's Interior Minister, found shot dead in his office last year, committed suicide because of his own mental instability. The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. "I swear to you that we have very good information," my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. "One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up." Impossible, I think to myself. But then I remember how many times Iraqis in Baghdad have told me similar stories. These reports are believed even if they seem unbelievable. And I know where much of the Syrian information is gleaned: from the tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims who come to pray at the Sayda Zeinab mosque outside Damascus. These men and women come from the slums of Baghdad, Hillah and Iskandariyah as well as the cities of Najaf and Basra. Sunnis from Fallujah and Ramadi also visit Damascus to see friends and relatives and talk freely of American tactics in Iraq. "There was another man, trained by the Americans for the police. He too was given a mobile and told to drive to an area where there was a crowd - maybe a protest - and to call them and tell them what was happening. Again, his new mobile was not working. So he went to a landline phone and called the Americans and told them: 'Here I am, in the place you sent me and I can tell you what's happening here.' And at that moment there was a big explosion in his car." Just who these "Americans" might be, my source did not say. In the anarchic and panic-stricken world of Iraq, there are many US groups - including countless outfits supposedly working for the American military and the new Western-backed Iraqi Interior Ministry - who operate outside any laws or rules. No one can account for the murder of 191 university teachers and professors since the 2003 invasion - nor the fact that more than 50 former Iraqi fighter-bomber pilots who attacked Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have been assassinated in their home towns in Iraq in the past three years. ... <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12885.htm">link</a>

by **gotnoscript** » Tue May 02, 2006 1:19 pm

“A few days ago, an American manned check point confiscated the driver license of a driver and told him to report to an American military camp near Baghdad airport for interrogation and in order to retrieve his license. The next day, the driver did visit the camp and he was allowed in the camp with his car. He was admitted to a room for an interrogation that lasted half an hour. At the end of the session, the American interrogator told him: ‘OK, there is nothing against you, but you do know that Iraq is now sovereign and is in charge of its own affairs. Hence, we have forwarded your papers and license to al-Kadhimia police station for processing. Therefore, go there with this clearance to reclaim your license. At the police station, ask for Lt. Hussain Mohammed who is waiting for you now. Go there now quickly, before he leaves his shift work”. The driver did leave in a hurry, but was soon alarmed with a feeling that his car was driving as if carrying a heavy load, and he also became suspicious of a low flying helicopter that kept hovering overhead, as if trailing him. He stopped the car and inspected it carefully. He found nearly 100 kilograms of explosives hidden in the back seat and along the two back doors. The only feasible explanation for this incidence is that the car was indeed booby trapped by the Americans and intended for the al-Khadimiya Shiite district of Baghdad. The helicopter was monitoring his movement and witnessing the anticipated “hideous attack by foreign elements”. The same scenario was repeated in Mosul, in the north of Iraq. A car was confiscated along with the driver’s license. He did follow up on the matter and finally reclaimed his car but was told to go to a police station to reclaim his license. Fortunately for him, the car broke down on the way to the police station. The inspecting car mechanic discovered that the spare tire was fully laden with explosives." A perhaps unrelated incident, but the circumstances are strangely similar. Canadian killed in Iraq was Toronto-area trucker April 28, 2005: "A Canadian man who was killed in Iraq last week – possibly by U.S. troops – lived near Toronto for years and also held Iraqi citizenship, the CBC has learned. Some media cited unidentified sources who said he may have died after U.S. forces "tracked" a target, using a helicopter gunship, but Foreign Affairs said it's still investigating conflicting reports of the death. U.S. officials have denied any involvement. Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs will only say assigning blame is premature. It's still trying to get a complete picture of what happened from authorities in Baghdad." <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/04/27/iraq-canadian-050427.html">www.cbc.ca/story/world/na...50427.html</a>

by **gotnoscript** » Tue May 02, 2006 1:23 pm

I used to be able to edit posts. Anyway, I forgot to put the link: A warning to car drivers (in Arabic) May 11, 2005: <a href="http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KHA505A.html">globalresearch.ca/articles/KHA505A.html</a> In arabic: <a href="http://www.albasrah.net/maqalat_mukhtara/arabic/0505/moradi2_110505.htm">www.albasrah.net/maqalat_...110505.htm</a>

by **StarmanSkye** » Tue May 02, 2006 4:35 pm

The US's deliberate prosecution of a Dirty War has a long dishonorable pedigree -- a legacy that extends from Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Panama, Guatamala, Honduras, Serbia, Yugosalavia and now Afghanistan and Iraq. Likely, the current crop of Pentagon and White House war criminals are emboldened in their anything-goes sanction of Holy Hell Made-in-USA Terrorism by the US's duplicious evisceration of the authority of the Geneva Convention and the International Criminal Court to say ANYTHING about America's actions as an armed aggressor in purely voluntary, gratuitous wars. The 'privelege' given the American public now (as then) is unique, given to the citizens of few modern states, ie: To know what it feels like when one's 'leaders' routinely authorize and commit horrific atrocities and war-crimes on a vast scale against a defenseless, suffering population, where even the suggestion of legitimate self-defense is declared by the occupying oppressors to be a taboo, unauthorized topic -- all done in their names and under the pretext of National Interest and defending 'freedom'. "Let us ... vomit." Starman ****** <a href="http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=DAV20060318&articleId=2127">globalresearch.ca/index.p...cleId=2127</a> Civil War: What is the U.S. role in Iraq’s dirty war? by Nicolas J S Davies March 18, 2006 onlinejournal.com The annual U.S. State Department report on human rights for 2005 has acknowledged that the governing institutions created by the United States in Iraq are engaged in an organized campaign of detention and torture. The State Department report found, “Police abuses included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords and the application of electric shocks.” A U.N. human rights report issued last September also found evidence of extrajudicial executions, “Corpses appear regularly in and around Baghdad and other areas. Most bear signs of torture and appear to be victims of extrajudicial executions . . . Serious allegations of extrajudicial executions underline a deterioration in the situation of law and order . . . Accounts consistently point to the systematic use of torture during interrogations at police stations and within other premises belonging to the Ministry of the Interior.” Dr. John Pace, who wrote the U.N. report, has now left Iraq, and reports that 23,000 people are currently imprisoned in detention centers where torture is rife, and that at least 80 percent of them are innocent of any crime. These reports acknowledge what a small number of journalists have been reporting for at least two years, that a brutal “dirty war” has grown out of the fertile soil of the U.S. occupation. On March 15, 2004, the New Statesman published an article by Stephen Grey, titled “Rule of the Death Squads” ... The killing of academics has continued, and the minister of education stated recently that 296 faculty and staff members at universities in Iraq were killed in 2005. The Brussels Tribunal on Iraq has forwarded a list of murdered academics to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions, noting that the victims were from different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds, but were mostly vocal opponents of the U.S. occupation. On January 14, 2005, Newsweek reported on “The Salvador Option,” the proposed use of death squads as part of the U.S. strategy to subdue the country. A U.S. military source told Newsweek, “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.” This source was expressing quite precisely the rationale that lay behind the dirty wars in Latin America and the worst abuses of the Vietnam War. The purpose of such a strategy is not to identify, detain and kill actual resistance fighters, but rather to terrorize an entire civilian population into submission. The exile groups who began this dirty war in the early days of the occupation have come to form the core of successive governing institutions established by the United States. Their campaign of killing and torture has evolved and become institutionalized and their victims now number in the thousands. The State Department and U.N. reports do not address the possibility of a direct U.S. role in the campaign, but the Interior Ministry units that are most frequently implicated in these abuses were formed under U.S. supervision and have been trained by American advisors. The identities of their two principal advisors only reinforce these concerns. They are retired Colonel James Steele and former D.E.A. officer Steven Casteel, and they are both veterans of previous dirty wars. In El Salvador between 1984 and 1986, Colonel Steele commanded the U.S. Military Advisor Group, training Salvadoran forces that conducted a brutal campaign against the civilian population. At other stages in his career, he performed similar duties during U.S. military operations in Cambodia and Panama. After failing a polygraph test, he confessed to Iran-Contra investigators that he had also shipped weapons from El Salvador to Contra terrorists in Nicaragua, leading Senator Tom Harkin to block his promotion to Brigadier General. Until April 2005, Steele was the principal U.S. advisor to the Iraqi Interior Ministry’s “Special Police Commandos,” the group most frequently linked to torture and summary executions in recent reports. Steven Casteel worked in Colombia with paramilitaries called Los Pepes that later joined forces to form the A.U.C. in 1997, and have been responsible for most of the violence against civilians in Colombia. Casteel is now credited with founding the Special Police Commandos in his capacity as senior advisor to the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Assigning responsibility for atrocities to particular units or individuals is complicated by the dual nature of the Iraqi security forces, which take orders both from their nominal superiors and from separate chains of command in the factional militias that most of them belong to. Ultimate responsibility for abuses is thus blurred by the fiction of the “government” and the militias as distinct entities, when the same people are really involved in both all the way to the top. However, reports of torture and extrajudicial killings have followed the Special Police Commandos around the country wherever they have been deployed, from Anbar province and Mosul since October 2004, to Samarra in March 2005, to areas around Baghdad since April 2005. The U.N. report highlighted 36 bodies found near Badhra, close to the Iranian border, on August 25, 2005, who were identified by relatives as men who had been arrested by Interior Ministry forces in Baghdad. A second group of 22 young men whose bodies were found near Badhra on September 27 had been arrested in Baghdad on August 18. Fifty police vehicles full of Special Police Commandos swept through the Iskan neighborhood early that morning seizing young men from their homes. At their funeral, the cleric declared “They took them from their bedrooms. We blame the government, which came to save us from Saddam’s terrorism but has brought terrorism worse than Saddam.” After Special Police Commandos were first deployed in Baghdad in April, 14 farmers were found in a shallow grave on May 5, 2005, with their right eyeballs removed and other signs of torture, after they were seen being arrested at a vegetable market. Another incident 10 days later, in which eight bodies were found in a garbage dump, prompted Hareth al-Dhari, the secretary general of the Association of Muslim Scholars, to accuse the Interior Ministry directly. “This is state terrorism by the Ministry of Interior,” he claimed. The defense minister responded by blaming “terrorists wearing military uniforms.” Then there is the work and tragic death of Yasser Salihee, the Iraqi physician turned journalist, who dared to launch an investigation into abuses by the Special Police Commandos. Knight Ridder posthumously published his work under the title “Sunni men in Baghdad targeted by attackers in police uniforms” on June 27, 2005. The cautious language of the report verged on irony, but it described eyewitness accounts of numerous abductions by “large groups of men driving white Toyota Land Cruisers with police markings. The men were wearing police commando uniforms and bulletproof vests, carrying expensive 9-millimeter Glock pistols and using sophisticated radios.” Knight Ridder interviewed Steven Casteel for their story. He blamed the killings on “insurgents” impersonating commandos. As the article pointed out, this raised “troubling questions about how insurgents are getting expensive new police equipment. The Toyotas, which cost more than $55,000 apiece, and Glocks, at about $500 each, are hard to come by in Iraq, and they’re rarely used by anyone other than Western contractors and Iraqi security forces.” Faik Baqr, the director of the central morgue in Baghdad, would only tell Knight Ridder, “It is a very delicate subject for society when you are blaming the police officers . . . It is not an easy issue. We hear that they are captured by the police and then the bodies are found killed . . . it’s obviously increasing.” Mr. Baqr recently fled the country after receiving a succession of death threats. Dr. Pace, the U.N. human rights officer who visited the Baghdad morgue regularly, has said that sometimes as many as 80 percent of the bodies in the morgue showed signs of torture. Yasser Salihee was shot by a U.S. sniper on his way to get gas to drive his family to a swimming pool on his day off. His editor in Washington, Steve Butler, told me he had no reason to think Yasser’s death was connected to his work, and the U.S. Army’s account of the incident described a “random” shooting based only on rules of engagement that greatly prioritize American over Iraqi lives. However, as Italian investigators found in the case of Nicola Calipari, U.S. accounts of such incidents are not reliable, and U.S. links to the forces Dr. Salihee was investigating cast a dark shadow over his death. The Iraqi death squads have also killed an American journalist. Steven Vincent was an award-winning art critic from New York who went to Iraq as a freelance writer for National Review, The Wall Street Journal & Harpers, and wrote a book, In the Red Zone, about the experiences of Iraqis living under occupation. On July 29, 2005, he wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times that many of the police in Basra were also active in Shiite militias that had killed hundreds of Sunnis in the city. Four days later, he was abducted by a group of men in a brand new white Chevy pick-up with police markings. His body was found by the side of a road outside the city with three gunshot wounds to the chest... Iraqis question whether the chaos unleashed on their country by the United States is the result of incompetence, as most Americans assume, or of a more sinister and deliberate design to destroy their country and society. In fact, setting aside the privatized paradise of Western investment envisioned by a few neoconservative dreamers, U.S. goals in Iraq are fairly limited and don’t have much to do with the people of Iraq at all. They can be summarized as “lily pads” (U.S. bases) and oil, and a “government” in the Green Zone to legitimize access to both. The fate of the Iraqi people is only a major concern to U.S. policymakers to the extent that it threatens to impact these primary goals. Viewed from this perspective, the reactive twists and turns of U.S. policy in Iraq since March 2003 make a lot more sense: abandoning all but the oil ministry to looting; failing to “reconstruct” anything but the Green Zone and U.S. bases; the alternating marginalization and rehabilitation of different political and sectarian figures and groups; the seemingly counter-productive collective punishment and brutalization of the population; and, underlying everything, the political division of the country along sectarian and ethnic lines and the manipulation of these divisions to prevent the formation of a government that rejects U.S. objectives. In this context, whether U.S. policymakers realized it or not, a smashed Iraq was always going to serve U.S. goals better than a resurgent, independent Iraq under any government. The dirty war advances U.S. policy by terrorizing the population, as explained in the Newsweek article, but also by transforming nationalist resistance into internecine conflict between Iraqis, leaving U.S. forces secure in their bases. Indeed, U.S. casualty figures have fallen as Iraqi casualties have increased since the bombing of the Golden Dome in Samarra three weeks ago. Assassinations of academics, doctors and local leaders and the resultant exodus of the professional class deprive the country of the intellectual and political resources that might arrest the slide into chaos and impotence. Iraqi novelist Haifa Zangana wrote in an op-ed piece in the Guardian, “For the occupation’s aims to be fulfilled, independent minds have to be eradicated. We feel that we are witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq.” Should the U.S. permit the dirty war to escalate further, whether by miscalculation or simply as the best option in terms of its primary goals, the history of U.S. military and covert operations in other countries suggests that the U.S. will then escalate its own violence beyond all previous restraints. The U.S. Air Force has reported that air strikes intensified in late 2005 from 25 to 145 strikes per month, and U.S. Special Forces Command is redeploying AC-130 Specter gunships to Iraq, an ominous sign of what is to come. Rumsfeld wants his lily pads and the oil companies want their oil, and what U.S. soldiers see when they look out beyond the walls of their “crusader castles” is of secondary importance to U.S. policy. The tragedy for the people of Iraq is that, whether this policy ultimately achieves any of its goals or not, they will continue to be its victims.

by **slimmouse** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:46 pm

I see the above, and of course know full well ( in my own mind at least ) whats going on. This presents a dilemna in itself in many respects, since these liars, murderers and fools who rule us, do so principally based upon fear. And in order to educate the average mainstream media "educated" individual as to the realities of this world, one truly has to frighten the shit out them first, and as such do the work of the PTB. All the above said, I will be photocopying the above thread and distributing it to at least 12 people. Not to do so is a far worse crime to my mind.

by **Gouda** » Wed May 03, 2006 1:24 pm

Now, read of the latest murders, trauma and extreme pain in Iraq through the lens of Fisk's and Davies' reports: <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/03/iraq.main/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2006/WORL...index.html</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Bomber kills at least 16 at Falluja recruiting office 34 bodies found in Baghdad in last 2 days Wednesday, May 3, 2006 Posted: 1311 GMT (2111 HKT) BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 16 people died and 25 others were wounded Wednesday morning when a suicide bomber set off an explosives vest at a police recruitment center in Falluja, police and hospital officials said. Falluja is about 35 miles (56 km) west of Baghdad in Anbar province -- the Sunni-dominated region that has been a hotspot for insurgent attacks. Anbar is a wide swath of land that stretches to Iraq's borders with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Its two main cities are Falluja and Ramadi, the provincial capital, where on Tuesday, 10 civilians were killed when a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy carrying the governor of Anbar province. A U.S. military source said Gov. Mamoun Sami Rashid was unharmed and returned to work at the governor's compound in Ramadi after the attack. Six people were wounded, including three bodyguards and a U.S. Marine who has since returned to his unit. Marines regularly escort the governor to and from work in Ramadi, the source said. At least 29 attempts have been made against his life in the past nine months, including Tuesday's attack, according to the source. Fourteen bodies found in Baghdad The bodies of 14 men were found in northern Baghdad on Wednesday, police said, bringing to 34 the number of bodies found in the past two days. All 14 victims found Wednesday had their hands tied, showed signs of torture and had been shot in the head, authorities said. On Tuesday, Iraqi authorities found 20 unidentified bodies -- some of whom had been blindfolded -- in various Baghdad neighborhoods, Iraqi police said. Since the February 22 bombing of the Shiite Askariya Mosque in Samarra intensified the fierce tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, scores of bodies have been found with similar signs of torture in neighborhoods in and around Baghdad. The mosque attack set off a wave of Shiite reprisals and Sunni counter-reprisals that caused hundreds of deaths and strikes on mosques. Other developments # A bomb at a market in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad wounded at least 17 people Wednesday, police said. # At least 36 people have been detained in an Iraqi military sweep in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the U.S. military said Wednesday in news release. U.S. troops from Task Force Band of Brothers were providing a security ring for Operation Lion's Hunt, which was in its fourth day. # In western Baquba, gunmen killed a police officer and wounded another when they opened fire on a patrol late Wednesday morning, police said. # In southern Baghdad, four college students were pulled from a minibus and shot to death at a fake checkpoint set up by gunmen, police said.<hr></blockquote> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 5/3/06 11:25 am

by **HMKGrey** » Wed May 03, 2006 6:57 pm

Meanwhile, in other news that's strangely similar... SA agents 'stoked black violence' Members of South Africa's security forces orchestrated massacres against black civilians even in the last days of apartheid rule, a report states. The Steyn report examined violence in the early 1990s in the run-up to South Africa's first multi-racial election. It was written in 1992, but details have only just been declassified. It has long been suspected that elements of the apartheid regime helped stoke tension between black communities to undermine black-majority rule. The violence included attacks on commuters on South Africa's rail network and on labourers single-sex hostels in townships around Johannesburg and Durban. The instability continued during the run-up to the first democratic election in 1994, in which Nelson Mandela was elected president, prompting fears that the country could descend into civil war. At the time the massacres were blamed on ethnic and party-political rivalry between the Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) and the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party. 'Third force' The Steyn report says that various military and paramilitary units, working with the state railway company Spoornet, co-ordinated and often executed many of the rush-hour train killings. An investigation into the alleged "third force" behind such attacks was ordered by South Africa's last white President FW De Klerk, and written by a former defence forces chief of staff, Pierre Steyn. The report is understood to have listed those in the military and other institutions allegedly involved. After it was presented to Mr De Klerk, many of the top figures in the security services were fired or forced into retirement. Parts of the report have now been declassified. Other findings include: * That the apartheid army stored weapons in Portugal to quell uprisings in South Africa * That the military maintained secret arms caches in South Africa and neighbouring states * That apartheid army officers gave orders to left-wing Pan Africanist Congress operatives to murder ANC members * That some senior apartheid army officers planned a right-wing coup to stop the ANC coming to power Critics of the report, particularly from the apartheid military and intelligence services, say the allegations have never been proved. But the current police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, has promised to scrutinise the report and, if necessary, to look into bringing the perpetrators to justice. Story from BBC NEWS: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4966564.stm">news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-...966564.stm</a>

by **slimmouse** » Wed May 03, 2006 7:03 pm

Its rather simple really, rather like the reptillian mindset. Divide and conquer. Of course, our sophisticated intelligence requires that we dissect the bleedin obvious down to 10,000 different levels. I bet these folks just love that kinda stuff.

by **StarmanSkye** » Mon May 08, 2006 5:36 pm

HMK -- Thanks for posting the article on the Steyn report re: SA terrorist violence; I'd seen it and thot it esp. noteworthy to share, but then misplaced it, got distracted, whatever ... The articles below are an important follow-up to indications the US has been pursuing the Salvador Option in Iraq -- with all of the rascist and horrific war crime implications and collapse of civil society that reveal the true character and motive of America's war-addiction. Starman ****** <a href="http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news">www.legitgov.org/index.ht...aking_news</a> Rep. Kucinich Requests Pentagon Death Squad Records (Congressional Record) 04 May 2006 [April 5, 2006 Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld from Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio] "Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I sent the following letter to Secretary Rumsfeld requesting records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi death squads: Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: I am writing to request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams. On January 8, 2005, Newsweek magazine first published a report that the Pentagon had a proposal to train elite Iraqi squads to quell the growing Sunni insurgency." Targeted Killings Surge in Baghdad --Nearly 4,000 civilian deaths, many of them Sunni Arabs slain execution-style, were recorded in the first three months of the year. 07 May 2006 More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime - at least 3,800, many of them found hogtied and shot execution-style. Others were strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, garroted or hanged. Some died in bombings. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs. Every day, about 40 bodies arrive at the central Baghdad morgue, an official said. US guards kill ambulance crewman 02 May 2006 American security contractors shot dead an Iraqi ambulance crewman today, when they opened fire on his vehicle after a roadside bomb blasted their convoy... The incident drew an angry response from Iraqi officials, who often complain private foreign guards kill civilians with impunity. Tens of thousands of armed foreigners work in Iraq licensed by US authorities and beyond the reach of Iraqi law. Iraqi Brigadier General shot dead 04 May 2006 Gunmen shot dead a top Iraqi army officer and a driver in the ministry of human rights on Tuesday, a defence ministry official said today. Brigadier General Mohammed Raza Abdellatif, who was in charge of the logistics department for the Iraqi army in Baghdad, was killed by gunmen while he was driving to work in the capital's western Yarmuk district. [Apparently, the U.S. death squads didn't like his numbers.] Iraq arrests general over death squads - minister 08 May 2006 Iraq's interior minister said his police had arrested a general in the ministry on suspicion of involvement in kidnaps and death squads. "We have arrested an officer, a major general. . . along with 17 people who kidnapped citizens and in some cases killed them... We also found a terror group in the 16th brigade that carries out killings of citizens," said Bayan Jabor, who is fighting to keep his job in the new Iraqi regime. 42 Killed or Found Dead in Iraq Violence 07 May 2006 Car bombs killed at least 16 people and injured dozens Sunday in Baghdad and a Shiite holy city. At least 26 others were killed or found dead Sunday, including a U.S. Marine mortally wounded in Anbar province in western Iraq, police and the U.S. military said. Some of the victims appeared to have been abducted and killed by 'sectarian' [U.S.] "death squads." The dead included three brothers whose charred bodies were found before dawn in Baghdad's Dora district. British soldiers die as helicopter is shot down. Then Basra erupts in bloody gun battles 07 May 2006 Bloody battles were fought on the streets of Basra last night after a British helicopter crashed in the city, reportedly killing four airmen and drawing an Iraqi crowd shouting 'Victory to the Mahdi army'. At least three British army vehicles were set on fire as the crowd hurled petrol bombs at troops trying to reach the blazing wreckage. Iraqi police officials believed the aircraft had been brought down by a shoulder-fired missile. Four charred bodies were seen inside it, reports said. In the ensuing fighting, unconfirmed reports suggested that four Iraqis - some of them bystanders and thought to include a child - had also been killed. Blair's terrible legacy: UK soldiers dig in after five killed 08 May 2006 May 2006: A crowd cheers the shooting down of a British military helicopter; petrol bombs set fire to Warrior armoured vehicles; accusations are made that British troops are responsible for civilian deaths, including two children. This is Basra, three years after Iraq's "liberation". ***** Informed Comment - May 8, 2006 <a href="http://www.juancole.com/">www.juancole.com/</a> by Juan Cole Black Sunday Yields 81 Dead in Iraqi Bloodbaths; Interior Admits Death Squads The Washington Post reports that four bombs in Iraqi cities killed altogether some 30 persons on Sunday, and left dozens wounded. In addition, in what al-Hayat calls "the war of corpses," 51 bodies were found in the streets, handcuffed and executed, victims of Iraq's ongoing religious civil war. The most important of the bombings was that in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, the site of the shrine of Imam Husain, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Karbala is more than a city, it is a potent symbol of the righteous suffering of the Shiites and their leaders, which is woven into their ritual life. Shiites chant the name of Karbala while whipping themselves in sympathy with the pain of Husain and his small party of warriors and family members. They go on "visitation," a kind of lesser pilgrimage, to the tomb of Husain. Any big act of violence at Karbala resonates strongly with Shiites, makes their eyes sting with tears, and fills their breasts with righteous anger. The guerrillas set off the bomb near the mansion of the governor of Karbala province, only half a mile from the revered shrine of Husain. Some Shiites will certainly avenge the bombing with nighttime reprisal killings of Sunni Arabs. Speaking of feelings of sadness and victimization, many Iraqi Shiites have traditionally expressed those feelings in poetry. Banned under the Baath, it is making a comeback. In Baghdad, a car bomb in Adhamiyah was set off as an Iraqi Army convoy approached. It killed 8 and wounded 15, including some of the targetted troops. Another bomb seems to have targetted the HQ of the Al-Sabah newspaper, a government mouthpiece, killing 1 and eounding 5, all civilians, A bomb in the al-Sina`i district of Mosul killed 3 soldiers on patrol. A US Marine died of wounds incurred in fighting in Anbar Province in the country's west. In the aftermath of Saturday's shooting down of a British military helicopter and a subsequent riot against British soldiers who came to get the bodies that left 5 Iraqis dead and 28 wounded, pamphlets are circulating in the southern port city demanding an immediate British withdrawal [Ar.] . The British were already in the process of withdrawing from Maysan and Muthanna provinces, and plan to reduce their forces by 800 to 7,200. The problem is that smaller forces will depend more heavily on helicopters, and if radical Shiite militiamen are getting hold of SA-14 shoulder held missile launchers, Saturday's incident might be only the beginning. Similar weapons were given by the US to Afghan Mujahidin in Afghanistan and used effectively against Soviet helicopters from 1986. The Iraqi government says that 100,000 Iraqis have fled their homes since late February because of campaigns of faith-based ethnic cleansing. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Sunday that an officer and 17 other persons had been arrested among the special police commandoes of the ministry and charged with running death squads. This announcement is the first official confirmation that the death squads were being run out of Interior, as many charged. Bayan Jabr would like to keep his job, analogous to head of "Homeland Security" in the United States. He is supported by the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, but is depised by most of the other parties in parliament and seems likely to be forced out. Sunday's attempt to come clean was probably too limited to save him. Give him credit, though-- he at least implicated an officer. This step is not one that Donald Rumsfeld ever dared take with regard to torture at Abu Ghraib. Dan Murphy reports from Baghdad that the situation in the capital is rapidly deteriorating. It is down to only 3 hours of electricity a day. 2500 persons have been killed in religious reprisal attacks since late February. And not only are the militias of religious parties powerful, but now each neighborhood is throwing up its own militia. Meanwhile, Nancy Youssef argues that Muqtada al-Sadr is attempting to transform his militia, the Mahdi Army, into an analogue of the Lebanese Hizbullah, which is a militia, a powerful political party, and a set of social services rolled into one. An Iraqi author alleges that in the absence of effective government regulation, substandard goods are flooding into Iraq. Tariq Ali argues that Iraq hasn't been as much of a catastrophe as it could have been for the Bush administration, only because Iran's ayatollahs have tacitly allied with the Americans on key issues. He points out that if Bush's manufactured crisis with Iran goes forward, Iraq could go very bad. Samuel Berger argues sensibly in the Wall Street Journal that the US should pursue direct talks with the Iranian government as a way of resolving bilateral disputes.

by **slimmouse** » Mon May 08, 2006 6:50 pm

What fascinates me about all this 'discussion', is the belief in some quarters that there is no real plan here. On edit - I cant find anyone in this thread who is dumb enough to believe that. Because, Thats like saying theres no Bush/Nazi connection. Thats like saying 19 Arabs with boxcutters did 9/11. Thats like saying any pile of crap as I often read on here lol, usually in wallpaper format. But, I do understand that such things ( in wallpaper format) are sent to try us. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> The articles below are an important follow-up to indications the US has been pursuing the Salvador Option in Iraq -- with all of the rascist and horrific war crime implications and collapse of civil society that reveal the true character and motive of America's war-addiction.<hr></blockquote> Take an educated guess as to who benefits from the above, and then have a not-too-close- look at who pays for this idiocy. I suppose the only consolation for those who can see that far, is that this planet was specifically designed to challenge us in our soul development. Thats the leap of faith I guess. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=slimmouse@rigorousintuition>slimmouse</A> at: 5/8/06 5:31 pm

by **thoughtographer** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:40 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>What fascinates me about all this 'discussion', is the belief in some quarters that there is no real plan here. On edit - I cant find anyone in this thread who is dumb enough to believe that.<hr></blockquote> An ideological Chinese finger trap? From you? Unbelievable. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Because, Thats like saying theres no Bush/Nazi connection. Thats like saying 19 Arabs with boxcutters did 9/11. Thats like saying any pile of crap as I often read on here lol, usually in wallpaper format.<hr></blockquote> It's not like saying any of those things, but that sort of reduction is to be expected from someone who's a complete stranger to free thought. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>I suppose the only consolation for those who can see that far, is that this planet was specifically designed to challenge us in our soul development. Thats the leap of faith I guess.<hr></blockquote> You're fascinated, all right... "A crooked stick will cast a crooked shadow."

by **slimmouse** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:43 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>You're fascinated, all right...<hr></blockquote> I should be ? Im intelligent enough to be ? Should I roll one trouser leg up now ? <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)">

by **Corvidaerex** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:14 am

The "suicide bomber" setups have been reported so often, for so long, and by so many different sources that I've got to believe it's either a mass delusion to deal with the horror or that it's really happening. The constant bloodshed says it's really happening. The lack of any real ground gained by blowing up crowded urban areas or mosques or cafes suggests it's done purely for chaos. So who gains? Well, the U.S. defense contractors more than anybody. As long as Washington ("Democrat" and "Republican") says the U.S. occupies Iraq until it can "take care of itself," the billion-dollar-per-day fiasco continues at a great profit. And yet ... that almost seems too banal. The evil here is so over the top, it almost makes greed seem trivial.

Fisk: 'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq

Fisk: 'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq

A Warning to Car Drivers

Re: A Warning to Car Drivers

Re: Fisk: 'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Ira

A dilemna.

Re: more, more, and more...

Re: more, more, and more...

Its rather simple really.....

Re: more, more, and more...

What fascinates me.....

Re: What fascinates me.....

Indeed I am fascinated.

Re: the Iraq mystery

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