Hard to Deny: Iraq is All About the Oil By Michael Schwartz,
Tomdispatch.com
How the U.S. is working
to secure Iraq's oil -- one of the most important sources of
petrochemical energy on the planet -- and how the Iraqis are resisting.
Support the Troops, End the War
-Pioneer Square at Broadway & Morrison
720 SW Broadway Ave Portland, OR 97201 Directions: Either take the Max light rail to Pioneer
Square or park in the garage on Taylor between Park and
Broadway, or you can park on the street nearby.
Hosted by Solomon Hill-Burke
Description This is a peace rally. Like
Mother Teresa said: "I will never attend an anti-war rally. But
you hold a peace rally, and I'll be there." So we will hold a
peaceful candlelight vigil to end the War in Iraq and pull all
troops out of the country. This war must end now! Are we going
to wait around for another troop escalation by a desperate
Republican war machine? I don't think so. Vietnam-time people!
Let's stop this!
Reflections on the Invasion of Iraq
Experts on military and foreign affairs assess the past and
present outlook on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of
Iraq.
Have you
seen the headlines? President Bush is quietly negotiating an agreement
with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to keep our troops there
indefinitely--an agreement that could
include permanent bases and a massive military presence for years!1
Bush is trying to tie the hands of the next administration to keep us in
Iraq for the foreseeable future.2 This is a pivotal
moment—the agreement is still in the planning stages and if we don't act
now, we could be stuck in Iraq for decades. It's critical to push
Democrats into opposing this. Right now, President Bush's troop
reduction plan has fooled some people into thinking we're headed toward
an exit in Iraq—but this move makes it clear he's literally committing
the U.S. to a war with no end. It's an extreme policy and Congress can
stop it—but whether they do depends on how loud we are.
Can you sign the petition demanding that
Congress act to stop the president from committing to a massive military
presence in Iraq for decades? We'll deliver your comments to your
representatives by the end of the week—there's no time to waste.
Clicking here will add your name:http://pol.moveon.org/endless/o.pl?id=11723-8065784-RRhOqq&t=3
Holocaust Denial, American Style By
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet
Institutionally unwilling to consider America's
responsibility for the bloodbath, the traditional media have
refused to acknowledge the massive number of Iraqis killed
since the invasion.
The average American believes that 10,000 Iraqi
civilians have been killed since the US invasion in March 2003. The
most commonly cited figure in the media is 70,000. But the actual
number of people who have been killed is most likely more than one
million....
The estimate of more than one million violent
deaths in Iraq was confirmed again two months ago in a poll by the
British polling firm Opinion Research Business, which estimated
1,220,580 violent deaths since the US invasion. This is consistent
with the study conducted by doctors and scientists from the Johns
Hopkins University School of Public Health more than a year ago.
Their study was published in the Lancet, Britain's leading medical
journal. It estimated 601,000 people killed due to violence as of
July 2006; but if updated on the basis of deaths since the study,
this estimate would also be more than a million. These estimates do
not include those who have died because of public health problems
created by the war, including breakdowns in sewerage systems and
electricity, shortages of medicines, etc....
Mark Weisbrot is
Co-Director and co-founder of the
Center for Economic and
Policy Research. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the
University of Michigan. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social
Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and
has written numerous research papers on economic policy. He is also
president of
Just Foreign Policy.
September 11 , 2007 - PDF
Iraq: The People's Report,
United for Peace and Justice responds to the Petraeus Report.
I have spoken out against the war in
Iraq since before it began.
I have outlined a plan to turn the page in Iraq and end the war.
Sign on to the plan today:
British Criticize U.S. Air Attacks in Afghan Region
By CARLOTTA GALL
Senior British commander said the unacceptably high level of civilian
casualties caused by
American Special Forces was making it difficult to win over local
people.
Iraq Is About to Become a Lot Worse By Chris Hedges, Truthdig The sad truth about Iraq in the
near future is that it will get much, much worse, whether
American troops stay or leave.
Read more »
THE crisis over Iraq’s
refugees is the first major policy issue in
which Iraqi civilians are front and center. We
debate how the surge looks today or how oil will
be distributed tomorrow on the banks of a
swelling river of human misery: two million
Iraqis who couldn’t bear to live in Iraq
anymore, and another two million displaced
internally but too poor to flee.
Representatives
from dozens of countries and international
nongovernmental organizations have gathered in
Geneva to discuss what might be done in the wake
of the largest population shift in the Middle
East since 1948. The world is asking what George
W. Bush, who started the war in Iraq and
presides over the country that historically
accepts more refugees than any other, will do
for these desperate people.
Many of them will most likely
be denied refuge... OP-ED
CONTRIBUTOR
Hounded by Insurgents, Abandoned by Us
By KIRK W. JOHNSON
How will the United States help those Iraqis
whose belief in us cost them their country?
Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation By Raed Jarrar, Joshua Holland,
AlterNet More than half of the members of Iraq's
parliament rejected for the first time on Tuesday the continuing
occupation of their country. The U.S. media ignored the story.
Read more »
'NYT' Bares US Payments On Civilian Casualties in Iraq
Editor & Publisher
- USA ... military forces have killed or injured in Iraq drew wide
attention last year in the wake of disclosures of alleged massacres at
Haditha and other sites. ...
Iraqi Death Toll: Why the UN Can’t Count By Jon Wiener, www.TheNation.com
The UN has drastically underreported the number of Iraqis killed in 2006.
“The first problem with the UN count is that refers only to
civilians — and thus almost certainly omitted deaths of Iraqi
policemen, soldiers, insurgent fighters, and members of private
militias like the Badr brigade.”
http://activeresource.org/wordpress/archives/84
Media
Sham for Iraq War Is Happening Again By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
The mainstream media that misled the public into the war with Iraq is
now trumpeting so-called analysis about why we should stay, but their
rhetoric is just another betrayal of journalistic responsibility.
Iraq
Doesn't Need Any More Heavy Weapons
Stephen Pizzo, News for Real
War on Iraq:
The Baker-Hamilton report proposes to "beef up Iraqi military" with
billions in new hardware -- the absolute last thing the war-torn country
needs.
War on Iraq:
Congress passed a law banning permanent bases in Iraq and the
Baker-Hamilton Report suggests that Bush state we don't have long-term
plans - meanwhile, construction continues.
A recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds that a majority of Americans say
it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq. This sentiment is on par with
attitudes throughout most of the year, although slightly more negative
than found in September. The current situation in Iraq continues to be
one of the three issues Americans say they are most likely to take
into account when voting in the November congressional elections.
Americans are increasingly likely to say that the Democrats rather
than the Republicans can best handle the situation in Iraq.
Alexander CockburnThe war in Iraq:
A dreadful mistake
July 7, 2006- America will see, over the years
to come, thousands of traumatized soldiers trying to reenter civil society
and resume their peacetime lives. Many will never shake off the traumas
instilled by months of service in Iraq, and thousands of families and
communities, not to mention the soldiers themselves, will be paying the
price while the supreme commanders who launched this war will be making
money from lectures and memoirs.
And, of course, back in Iraq, there are already thousands who will only
remember America as the land that sent soldiers who shot their brothers or
sisters or cousins, or tortured them in prison, or destroyed their homes, or
leveled their neighborhoods with high explosive from an airplane.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/2/2006/1401Click
here to comment "Loose
ends: " The attacks on America, September 11, 2000 The
War in Iraq is Over
The Fog of war....A Free PressJohn Murtha
Situation Called Dire in
West Iraq: Anbar Is Lost Politically, Marine Analyst Says By Thomas
E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 11, 2006; Page A01
The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an
unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that
country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing
the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation
there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar
with its contents. The officials described Col. Pete Devlin's
classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time that a
senior U.S. military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq.
One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We
haven't been defeated militarily but we
have been defeated politically -- and that's where wars are won
and lost."
The Real Agenda
Much of the Bush administration's response to
the attacks of Sept. 11 had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden
than with expanding presidential power.
The Cost of Executive Arrogance The president’s constant
efforts to assert his power to act without consent or consultation has
warped the war on terror. The unity and sense of national purpose that
followed 9/11 is gone, replaced by suspicion and divisiveness that never
needed to emerge. The president had no need to go it alone — everyone wanted
to go with him. Both parties in Congress were eager to show they were tough
on terrorism. But the obsession with presidential prerogatives created
fights where no fights needed to occur and made huge messes out of programs
that could have functioned more efficiently within the rules.
Our
Military-Industrial Boondoggle"We must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
More Chaos in Iraq
Are we winning hearts are minds, or alienating more Iraqi
people?
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a
vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral
failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no
compromise on basic principles."
Ayn Rand
Iraq
Doesn't Need Any More Heavy Weapons
