* IRAQ: Doctors warn of increasing deformities in newborn babies * Horror Of Depleted Uranium Not Limited To Iraq * Iraq: A Colonial Dictatorship * The Rise Of Legitimate Resistance Movement * EXTREME BIRTH DEFORMITIES * Pictures: Armored humvee hit by roadside plant and abrams tank traped in the mud www.abolkhaseb.net-images-mortar-attack-us-humvee-260405.htm * Dokumentation: "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in Bildern * Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons * A message from the IRAQI RESISTANCE to the people of the world and the US-UK soldiers in Iraq message-from-resistance.wmv * Mujahideen Army in Iraq: Message To the people of America www.giv-seiten.info-www.giv-archiv.de-Report-Videos-Bayan-7.wmv * Internationale Irakkonferenz - Berlin, 12.MŠrz 2005 Scheich Hadi Al Khalisi - Irakischer Nationaler GrŸndungskongress Awni Al Kalemji - Irakische Patriotische Allianz
IRAQ: Doctors warn of increasing deformities in newborn babies
IRIN
This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations
BAGHDAD, 27 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Doctors in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have reported a significant increase in deformities among newborn babies.
Health officials and scientists said this could be due to radiation pbutted through mothers following years of conflict in the country.
The most affected regions are in the south of the country, particularly Basra and Najaf, according to experts. Weaponry used during the Gulf war in 1991 contained depleted uranium, which could be a primary source for the increase, scientists in Baghdad said.
"In my experiments we have found some cases where the mother or father were suffering from pollution from weapons used in the south and we believe that it is affecting newborn babies in the country," Dr Ibraheem al-Jabouri, a scientist at Baghdad University, told IRIN.
According to Dr Nawar Ali, at the University of Baghdad, who works in the newborn babies research department, a significant number of cases of deformed babies had been reported since 2003.
"There have been 650 cases in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals - that is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher," Ali warned.
The health expert said polluted water, which could contain radiation from weapons used in previous conflicts, was the main factor behind the increase.
The type of deformities found in newborn babies are characterised by multiple fingers, unusually large heads, unilateral lips or no arms or legs.
In addition, Dr Lamia'a Amran, a pediatrician at the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) hospital in the capital, told IRIN that inter-marriages were also to blame and that most of cases of deformed babies were from poor families in the southern region.
"Most of the women who have deformed babies in our hospital are married to relatives and have no idea that a common blood factor can also cause such problems," Amran added.
The IRCS hospital registers at least four cases of deformities every week. During April this year, 15 cases were reported, according to the hospital spokesman, a number considered high for a short period of time.
However, Amran added that 60 percent of the cases were not related to blood factors, but due to other causes. She explained that after studying family history of couples with deformed babies, they concluded that radiation and pollution were the main causes of the deformity.
But most of the cases reported don't survive for more than a week, doctors said. Nearly 90 percent of such cases at the Central Teaching Hospital for Pediatrics in Baghdad do not survive, according to Wathiq Ibrahim, director of the hospital.
"We have asked for help from the government to make a more profound study on such cases as it is affecting thousands of families," he told IRIN.
"My two children were born with deformities and today I had my third one with the same problem. The doctors say pollution is the cause and now my husband wants to divorce me claiming that I am not capable of bringing healthy children into the world," Fatima Hussein, a 34-year- old patient at the hospital, told IRIN.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) is working on developing a programme to alert mothers to the problem. A MoH senior official told IRIN that studies had been undertaken to discover reasons for deformities occurring and to find solutions fast.
Officials at the World Heath Organization (WHO) have not yet developed any kind of research on the subject, but said they would buttist the MoH if requested.
"The Iraqi government should take a lead on this issue and if we are asked to buttist we will do it," Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the WHO in Cairo, told IRIN.
"It is a very delicate problem, I have heard about cancer caused by pollution, but deformities in newborn babies is something new and as a result of security issues in the country our staff are outside Iraq, which makes surveying more complicated," she added.
"Our children have started to suffer the effect of years of war and disasters inside Iraq. The wars happened but no one cared about the result it was going to have and today innocent lives are being lost due to pollution and poor information," Firdous al-Abadi, a spokeswomen for the IRCS, told IRIN.
ENDS
Article nr. 11376 sent on 28-apr-2005 19:54 ECT
The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=11376
The incoming address of this article is : www.irinnews.org-report.asp?ReportID=46840
* * *
Horror Of Depleted Uranium Not Limited To Iraq
James Denver, Axis of Logic
Apr 28, 2005, 01:00
"I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."
The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time. These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain.
Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.
A Dirty Tyson
'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For 'depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and plant production. However, uranium is one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children end at a greater distance he "The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited." (Daily Mirror) The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pbutt through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible persons indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.
A Terrible Legacy
Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the rest rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an alarming rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. (1) On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a special report on the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer rests in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU- although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year's war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.
The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.
We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so-called 'safe limit' of uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there.
Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-plant test sites in the Pacific.
Doctors report that many women no longer say 'Is it a girl or a boy?' but simply, 'Is it normal, doctor?' Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.
Blue on Blue
What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by planting. Moreover, their bodies have not only been buttaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return-even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.
Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq-that's 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government's failure to fully buttess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans' buttociations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their loveuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are 'on DU rest row, waiting to die'.
Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust.
They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities clbuttically buttociated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU.
The Vital Evidence
Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only 'low level' radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied 'low- level' radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells 'like flashes of lightning' again and again in a single second. (2) Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such 'lightning strikes' can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.
Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body's communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.
In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This 'radiation-induced genomic instability' is compounded by 'the bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation-with some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.
The Price of Truth
That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, 'The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.' (3)
Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the mbuttive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money.
The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren't used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret. (4) One American study in 1990 said DU was 'linked to cancer when exposures are internal, and to chemical toxicity-causing kidney damage'. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects. (5)
A Culture of Denial
In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and clbutted them as 'weapons of mbutt destruction' 'incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law'. Since then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.
Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, 'The US government's Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.' He concluded, 'uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.' Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked.
During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called 'some'.
The Way Ahead
Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound plants used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been blanketed in lethal particles- any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge plants which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the plants rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.
The Royal Society has suggested the solution is mbuttive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world?
So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic rests from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.
References
1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998. 2. Rosalie Bertell's book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28. 3. www.gulflink.osd.mil-duii-duiitabl1.htm #TABLResearch Report Summaries 4. www.wagingpeace.org-articles-02.01-020117moret.htm The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is available at the website www.mindfully.org-Nucs-2003-Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm 5. www.gulflink.osd.mil-duiitab11.htm #tab Lresearch report summaries
Further information
The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able to arrange a limited number of private urine tests for those returning from the latest Gulf war. It can be contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771. Web: www.llrc.org ---------------------------------------------------------- James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally on science and technology. ==========================================================
Article nr. 11382 sent on 28-apr-2005 21:50 ECT
The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=11382
The incoming address of this article is : www.axisoflogic.com-artman-publish-article17142.shtml
* * *
Iraq: A Colonial Dictatorship
Ghali Hbuttan, www.globalresearch.ca
29 April 2005
The URL of this article is:
After two months of wrangling and haggling over the forming of the new Iraqi "government", the US got what it wants, a US government. The Iraqi people are saying: 'How could we have elected those people'? And those are the people the US will continue to protect. At gunpoint, the Iraqi people have been denied the right to govern their country and live in peace.
Iraqis were disappointed by the results of the infighting between the expatriates in their bunker. The rigged elections and the US-crafted and unconsbreastutional Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) gave the Kurds veto power, not only over the new consbreastution, but also to derail any democratic negotiation, including the end to the US Occupation of Iraq. The TAL requires the national buttembly to have two thirds of its votes to confirm a government, a requirement found in no other democratic system in the world.
The vote for secret candidate lists have to be altered so that US allies, the Kurds, will have the final say in any decision-making. On 13 February 2005 and few hours before the final results were officially announced, Reuters reported that "the United Iraqi Alliance UIA said today it had been told by Iraq's Electoral Commission that it had won around 60 per cent of the vote in the country's election". Scott Ritter later confirmed this, the former UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq, announced in Washington State on 19 February that the UIA actually won 56 per cent of the vote, and that "an official involved in the manipulation was the source". The manipulated 48 per cent vote won by the 'Shiites slate' deprives the UIA of an outright majority. And so, Mr. Rumsfeld 'messy democracy' needs tidying up a bit when the US doesn't like the results. US actions in Iraq instigated violence, dividing Iraqis and preparing the nation for civil war. After all, the US and its allies have the most to gain from division and sectarian violence.
The selection of Jalal Talabani as Iraq's president is 'democracy' gone too far. A Kurdish president of a country with more than 85 percent of the population is Arab. Out of 275 seats, the Kurds "gained" 75 seats at the expense of Iraqis who rejected the Occupation and boycotted the illegitimate elections. Jalal Talabani is a Kurdish warlord and a well-known opportunist, and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). His ties span wide enough that his own people call the "Everybody's Agent". He is also known among the Kurds as "the man with many orifices". From his friendship with Saddam Hussein, to his support for Tehran in the Iraq-Iran war, to his contacts with the C.I.A. and Israel may be he travelled too far. Talabani's love affairs with Saddam were so deep that a full book is required to explain.
Talabani's two vice presidents are: Ghazi Al-Yawar, the former US- appointed president of the Iraqi Interim Government (IIG). Al-Yawar is an expatriate and influential Sunni sheikh of the Shammar tribe. Mr. Al-Yawar position is only symbolic and design to deceive Iraqis to support this farce parliament. The fact that he refused to be the Speaker was proof of his displeasure with the selection process and the election. The second vice president is Adel Abdul-Mahdi of the UIA list, the list that includes Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and Ahmed Chelabi.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi is a long-time expatriate of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) in Iraq and the interim finance minister and a member of the US-appointed IIG. He is the perfect replacement for Paul Bremer, the former US Proconsul in Iraq. Abdul-Mehdi is now responsible for putting to work Paul Bremers's illegal 100 Orders to sale Iraq and the Iraqi economy to US corporations. A former Maoist turned pro-US 'free-marketer' who promised Washington to privatize the Iraqi oil industry in favour of US oil giant corporations. In his last two visits to Washington, he told the Americans before the elections that if he is to be put in a top position, he will give US oil corporation Iraq's oil and public industry.
The head (prime minister) of the new "government" has been finally appointed. He is the Da'wa Party senior leader, Ibrahim Jaafari of the UIA, a long-time expatriate and member of IGC. Jaafari is a religious figure and closed to many Iranian clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. Like all the other expatriates and IGC members, he is not known in Iraq. He spent most of his time in Iran and Britain. Like the all other expatriates, his animosity towards Saddam was personal and self-interest.
Once they are settled-down in their new position, the expatriates or the quislings will begin working on drafting a permanent consbreastution, by August 15, before new elections. Their textbook will be Bremer's "transitional consbreastution" and his 100 Orders to privatise Iraq. A legitimate and independent Iraqi government has the right to use its power to annual Bremer's monstrous and illegal "transitional consbreastution" and Orders. Sadly, the 30 January elections produced a US puppet government from inside the fortified US "Green Zone", and its survival depends on its symbiotic relationship with the Occupation forces.
What Iraq will look like if the new "government" succumb to US dictates and Orders? "A small sampling of the most important orders demonstrates the economic imprint left by the Bush administration: Order No. 39 allows for: (1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) 'national treatment' - which means no preferences for local over profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses", wrote Antonia Juhasz, a project director at the International Forum on Globalization in San Francisco (LATimes, August 05, 2004).
Antonia Juhasz added; "Orders No. 57 and No. 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations". "Order No. 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq's laws. Even if they, say, kill someone or cause an environmental disaster, the injured party cannot turn to the Iraqi legal system. Rather, the charges must be brought to U.S. courts". She continued; "Clearly, the Bremer orders fundamentally altered Iraq's existing laws. For this reason, they are also illegal. Transformation of an occupied country's laws violates the Hague regulations of 1907 (ratified by the United States) and the U.S. Army's Law of Land Warfare". The US administration expects the new Iraqi "government" to legitimise and enforce the Orders on behalf of US corporations. The "new" Iraq will look like a K-Mart with oil pumping stations.
The elections were a US trap. The Iraqi people have been deceived to vote for a US government. Instead of ending the Occupation peacefully by the ballot box, Iraqis were actually voted for the continuation of the Occupation and US domination. Western Liberal elites and the "anti-war" organisers, who endorsed and hailed the elections as "praiseworthy" should be ashamed for not only, betraying their own moral consciousness, but also the Iraqi people.
The new Iraqi parliament is a farce. The Bush administration is using this farce as a model of colonial dictatorship, in which few (Iraqi) expatriates or natives are allowed to manage their own affairs, while the Occupation and US control of Iraq's oil resources will continue. In this way, the US will create legitimacy to its ongoing occupation of the Iraqi people. It is important to remember that just after the elections, the US refused to provide timetable for troops withdrawal, and the US Occupation of Iraq was no longer the focus in Western and US media.
In the US, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced last week in Washington that Zalmay Khalilzad has been nominated the new US ambbuttador to Iraq. Khalilzad, an Afghan-born American, has been the US ambbuttador to Kabul since 2003. His legacy in Afghanistan is: He left Afghanistan ruled by criminal warlords, a permanent US military base and one of the largest opium producing US colony in the world. Khalilzad is the 'neocons' emissary. His mentors are Paul Wolfowitz, privates Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle. Like them, he advocated the invasion of Iraq in the mid 1990s and is one of the leading proponents of US new imperialist agenda. Khalilzad is known in the US as the best packaged Colonial Ambbuttador, in that he is an buttimilated American with the Oriental look. His main task in Iraq is to streamline Iraq to suit Washington and Israel imperialist agenda, and to facilitate US control over Iraq's, and the region vital oil resources.
Meanwhile, two years have pbutted since the US-Britain armies invaded Iraq; more Iraqis today are imprisoned than at any point in the history of Iraq. Innocent men, women and children are illegally held at notorious prisons of abuse, torture and liquidate. Many of Iraqi prisoners are held secretly in different locations and beyond the reach of any human rights monitors. Occupation forces end Iraqis routinely, with complete impunity, at checkpoints, in their homes, and in detention facilities. A report in the credible British journal, The Lancet, on November 2004, shows that from March 2003 to October 2004, US armed forces and its mercenaries have end more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians; over half of them were women and children. The estimate is very conservative in that it excluded the high civilians rest in Fallujah, and the complete destruction of a once vibrant city of 300,000 people. Other major Iraqi cities and towns are experiencing similar destruction and atrocities, with the full cooperation of Western mainstream media.
Malnutrition among Iraqi children under the age of 5 years have doubled to nearly 8 percent since the US invasion of Iraq as a result of lack of drinking water, food, and adequate sanitation. A report prepared for the UN Human Rights Commission reveals that more than a quarter (3-4 millions) of Iraqi children do not get enough food to eat. Food, drinking water and the supply of electricity have continued to decrease to levels below to that during the genocidal sanctions. Unemployment among Iraqis is more than 70 percent and the population purchasing power at a dangerous level. Iraq's economy has worsened, poverty has increased and living standards in Iraq declined markedly. Iraqis continue to be humiliated and abused in violent house-to-house searches being conducted by US forces, accompanied by the criminal Kurdish Peshmerga militias. All these atrocities and destruction are committed with the full knowledge and blessing of the new US-approved Iraqi "government".
Will the Iraqi people allow this form of colonial dictatorship to continue? I do not believe so. Demonstrations against the Occupation and the new "government" have already taken place in many parts of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Baghdad on Saturday denouncing the US Occupation and terrorism in Iraq, and demanding the release of Iraqi prisoners and detainees Link here.
The war against Iraq was a liquidateous crime and those who are responsible for it, and for the destruction of Iraqi society, should face war crimes trials. The US-British Occupation is illegal and has failed to deliver Iraqis' most basic necessities and security, let alone 'freedom' or 'democracy'.
The Iraqi people Resistance will continue until the US end its liquidateous Occupation of Iraq. Resistance against the Occupation is the unquestionable right of the Iraqi people to self-determination. The Iraqi people had enough of tyranny and dictatorship. Colonial dictatorship has been tried in Iraq before and has ended in bloodbath. The Iraqi people have rejected the presence of the US, and the violence brought with it. The US has no reason to be in Iraq. All the reasons for this act of aggression and the Occupation of Iraq have been exposed as lies.
To become a Member of Global Research:
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & breastle are not modified. The source must be acknowledged and an active URL hyperlink address of the original CRG article must be indicated. The author's copyright note must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact:
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global Research's News and Discussion Forum:
© Copyright G HbuttAN GLOBAL RESEARCH 2005.
Article nr. 11411 sent on 30-apr-2005 04:07 ECT
The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=11411
The incoming address of this article is : globalresearch.ca-articles-HAS504A.html
* * *
The Rise Of Legitimate Resistance Movement
Ghali Hbuttan, Countercurrents.org
29 April, 2009 - Like many resistance movements, the Iraqi Resistance movement is an anti-occupation, anti-colonial movement. The difference about the Iraqi Resistance to US Occupation was that it was an immediate uprising by the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people did not "welcome" the US invading forces. It was a carefully staged lie. Iraqis are bitterly resent all occupation forces, and resistance to an illegal Occupation is widespread today.
The Iraqi people Resistance groups varied; some are former soldiers and unemployed, some are professionals and workers and others are religious leaders with local and family influence. They spread throughout the country and led by prominent Iraqis. Although, these groups are not centrally
linked, almost all of them shared an enthusiastic devotion to Islam and an enthusiastic rejection of the US Occupation of Iraq. One of the most prominent of the leaders of the Iraqi people Resistance is Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr, the son of the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Al-Sadr, a prominent Iraqi religious leader who was buttbuttinated in 1999 along with two of his other sons. The family of Al-Sadr has a history of opposition to oppression and dictatorship.
Unlike the expatriate quislings, who have been promoted (by US forces) to high positions in the "government" and often paraded on Western TV screens to provide local legitimacy to US Occupation, Al-Sadr is an Iraqi national, did not live in exile during the Saddam's regime and refuses to collaborate with the Occupation forces. His courageous character of denouncing the US Occupation made him the only recognised anti-Occupation voice in Iraq, and raised his popularity. Al-Sadr was against the US invasion and Occupation of Iraq. Al-Sadr announced that the 'Americans and their allies must be expelled by force from Iraq'. He said publicly and rightly that the Americans were in Iraq to stay, rob Iraq of its wealth and oil resources, and advance US imperialist aims because the reasons for this war of aggression were fabricated lies.
Furthermore, The allegation that Al-Sadr is a "religious fanatic" and will created an Iranian-style government in Iraq is misleading falsehood designed to deny the Iraqi people national resistance voice. Al-Sadr said on several occasions that he is not interested in government position, and that he opposes Iran theocracy as a model for Iraq. Al-Sadr's main aim is a sovereign united Iraq, free from foreign occupation and corruption.
The shameful propaganda perpetuated against the Iraqi Resistance by Western media and pundits is unfounded. The label of "insurgency" used by Western governments and mainstream media to depict the Iraqi Resistance which is fighting for a legitimate cause, as an 'organized rebellion fighting against legitimate government' is an imperialist labelling to justify a "counterinsurgency" by foreign forces. It is typical smear against those resisting Western colonial aggression.
Right wing American pundits, led by Michael Ignatieff, professor of Human Rights at Harvard University, who supported the war of aggression but found themselves on the wrong side of humanity, recently begun to rationalise and justify the war as a "lesser evil" on the bases that there was a 'bigger evil' than this liquidateous crime against the Iraqi people. An illegal war of aggression justified as a "just war" with no moral or ethical basis whatsoever.
This distortion of the truth is designed for domestic consumption by citizens of the occupying forces and not for Iraqis. The propaganda has also contaminated and affected the "anti-war" movement position. Opposing the war before it started has been easy "feel good" activities of the "anti-war" movement, while support for the Iraqi people to liberate their country from violent Occupation is seen 'unpatriotic' and not worthy of support.
Naomi Klein October 03, 2004 piece "The resistance and the Left", (The Nation), is best analysed by its section on Al-Sadr's movement. Klein wrote; "When I heard about the demo, I wanted to go, but there was a problem: I had been visiting state factories all day, and I wasn't dressed appropriately for a crowd of devout Shiites". Any one who has been in Iraq will reject this naive and untruthful claim. While she was at "the demo" Klein added; "I was soon interrupted, however, by a black-clad member of the Mahdi Army: He wanted to talk to my translator about my fashion choices. A friend and I joked that we were going to make up our own protest sign that said, Let Journalists Wear Their Pants. But the situation quickly got serious: Another Mahdi soldier grabbed my translator and shoved him against a concrete blast wall, badly injuring his back. Meanwhile, an Iraqi friend called to say she was trapped inside the 'Green Zone' and couldn't leave: She had forgotten to bring a headscarf and was afraid of running into a Mahdi patrol".
Is this journalism? Is it political analysis? No, it is racialist load of nonsense and inaccurate understanding of the Iraqi society. Iraq has been a secularist state for hundreds of years. Iraqi society is a mosaic society. Christian, Jews and Muslims have lived together in harmony much longer than 'Canadians'. Iraqi women participation in society is not different from any other advanced societies. Women rights are enshrined in Iraq's Consbreastution, which was dissolved by the Occupation forces and replaced by a US-crafted "Interim Consbreastution" that deprives Iraqi women of their rights. This "colonial feminism" is consistent with Western hypocritical treatment of Muslim women as useful political tool to denigrate Islam and Islamic culture.
Naomi Klein should follow an 'ethic of responsibility', and would do well to hold her own government accountable not only for its share of the crimes against the Iraqi people, but also against Arab Canadians and Muslim Canadians. It is this Islamophobic trait of imperial North American culture and its anti-Muslim racism that propels the abuse and torture of innocent Iraqi men, women and children in US-controlled prisons in Iraq.
Many of the "anti-war" movement leaders are now refusing not only to support the Iraqi Resistance against the Occupation, but also hesitant to push for full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. It seems that those who are opposing full withdrawal of US forces, are like those who support the war for the wrong reasons. The anti-war rhetoric is now replaced by anti-troops withdrawal rhetoric. It is an old insurance policy adopted very often by waverers activists and pundits alike because of the absence of serious dissent and lack of moral principles against the US agenda.
The rise up of the Iraqi Resistance took the Western world by surprise, not only because of its effectiveness against a militaristic 'superpower', but also because of the West distorted and fabricated image of the Iraqi people.
The most obvious reasons of course are: the anti-Arab nature of the West and the US in particular, and the West misperception of Arabic and Islamic cultures. This misunderstanding of societies, which suffered greatly under Western colonialism, is embedded in the West ignorance and imagined superiority. As Bertrand Russell wrote, "It is the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know and care about circumstances in the colonies" made easy with sufficient propaganda at home.
As stated above, like any resistance movement, the Iraqi Resistance is heterogeneous people's movement. "I met Shia sic and Sunnis fighting together, women and men, young and old. I met people from all economic, social, and educational backgrounds", wrote Molly Bingham, a scholar at Harvard University, who spent sometime with a group of Resistance fighters in Iraq. She rightly added; "In the absence of a solid government or civil structure it is not surprising that a Muslim community like any other community would revert to Koranic law, even if only temporary". It is important to remember that the US Occupation forces dismantled the Iraqi state, destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and encouraged criminal anarchy. In other words, the country was deliberately made lawless by US forces.
Furthermore, the "anti-war" movement decision to follow the US administration false clichŽ and buttociates the Iraqi Resistance with violence and terrorism - as if the 150,000 US forces and their mercenaries are not by far the most violent person groups in the country today - is misguided and plays into the hands of the Bush administration and proponents of the war. There is no gentler, kinder occupation. Occupation is violence, occupation is oppression, occupation is anti-democratic and occupation is theft. Throughout the history of people's struggle against colonial occupation and aggression there has been no "pristine" resistance movement.
All resistance movements have used armed struggle to force the occupiers to change course. Iraq is not different. Violent resistance arises from violent military occupation. However, Iraqi sources argue that most person acts attributed to the Iraqi Resistance movement were actually carried out by the US-created militias, and secret US and Israeli agents in order to distort the image of the Resistance and stir up sectarian divisions among the population. Iraqi Resistance leaders and the buttociation of Muslim Scholars have rejected attacks against civilians and blamed the US forces and their allies for orchestrating the violence.
The creation, arming and financing of 'ethnic militia' and Para- military rest squads by US forces designed to create ethnic divisions and provoke civil war, the ultimate goal of the Bush administration in Iraq. Jalal Talabani's recent call to use the Kurdish Peshmerga militia and the Badr Brigade, the Iranian-trained militia of the SCIRI party, to fight the Iraqi Resistance is a desperate act, which will pave the way for breakdown of Iraqi society. After all, the US and its allies have the most to gain from a divided Iraq embroiled in sectarian violence. The Iraqi civilians are the victims of this US-instigated violence.
From March 2003 to October 2004, US forces have end more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, most of them innocent women and children, reported the reputable British journal, The Lancet. The only credible scientific study published so far. The estimate is considered conservative because it excludes the high rest tool of the Fallujah atrocities. The US forces self-immunity from prosecution makes it very easier for them to kill Iraqis with insbreastutionalised impunity, as if Iraqis were not human beings.
Fallujah was fire planted and destroyed by US forces. In violation of International Law and the Geneva Conventions, US forces used modern form of napalm plants (MK-77 Mod 5), which ignites on impact to attack civilian population there. According to the Red Cross, more than 6,000 innocent civilians (men, women and children) have been end, and the rest of the population is displaced refugees. A war crime termed "collective punishment" designed to instil fear in the Iraqi population pbutted with complete silence in Western capitals.
Cluster plants, and mines have needlessly blown up countless Iraqi men, women and children. Many of the cluster plants reportedly dropped from the air by US-British forces on civilian areas throughout Iraq were of the banned types BLU97A and CBU-105. In addition to cluster plants, the use of "depleted" uranium (DU) by US-British forces have contaminated large areas of Iraq with abnormally high levels of radiation. Credible evidence shows that DU is the cause of dramatic increase of cancers and birth defects.
Two years of US Occupation, the situation in Iraq is on the brink of disaster. Malnutrition, hunger and infant mortality among Iraqi infants under the age of five had almost doubled since the invasion - double the number of that before the invasion and during the genocidal sanctions. The health situation have exacerbated due to lack of drinking water and electricity. Poverty has increased and living standards in Iraq declined markedly. Most Iraqis are still living on food rations and aid. Iraqis continue to be humiliated and abused in violent house-to-house searches being conducted by US forces. Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children are imprisoned, abused and tortured in US-built and controlled prisons through out Iraq.
The April 19, 2005 demonstration of more than 300,000 Iraqis in Baghdad alone (the largest in Iraq for many decades) was jointly organised by Al-Sadr movement and the buttociation of Muslim Scholars, showed that all Iraqis are united against US Occupation and terrorism. This unity contradicts the West perception of Iraqis as a divided society and rejects the occupiers' imperialist policy of 'divide and rule'. "The fact is that sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq are not a product of deep-seated cultural differences. They are the product of a history of imperialism and colonialism in the region and domestic Iraqi politics", wrote Rami El-Amine of Left Turn magazine. El-Amine rightly added that; "This applies as much to the Arab-Kurd tension as it does to the Sunni-Shias sic". This should serve, as the launching pad for the "anti-war" movement demands for the full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and the liberation of Iraqi people from foreign occupation.
Resistance to foreign occupation is enshrined in people legitimate right to national liberation and sovereignty. "International law grants a people fighting an illegal occupation the right to use 'all necessary means at their disposal' to end their occupation and the occupied "are enbreastled to seek and receive support". The Iraqi people have the right to resist colonial aggression.
The success of the Iraqi Resistance to liberate Iraq from US Occupation and achieve national independence and sovereignty is a precursor to thwart US imperial doctrine of dominating the world by force. Had it not been for the Iraqi people Resistance against US Occupation, Syria and Iran would have been attacked by now.
To match its rhetoric with its actions, the "anti-war" movement should use its infinite resources to expose the violent and anti-democratic imperialist nature of the Occupation. The best way to support the Iraqi people and prevent Iraq from descending into more violence and civil war is to end US Occupation of Iraq. The Occupation is the problem not the solution. Iraqis are very capable to work things out between themselves and built their society without interference from foreign forces.
The "anti-war" movement can then organise the setting up of a war crimes tribunal to investigate and prosecute those who committed this liquidateous war of aggression against the Iraqi people. This will eventually contribute to enhancing democracy and respect for the rules of law at home and elsewhere.
Ghali Hbuttan lives in Perth, Western Australia.
Article nr. 11393 sent on 29-apr-2005 19:56 ECT
The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=11393
The incoming address of this article is : www.countercurrents.org-iraq-hbuttan290405.htm
* * * * *á
