[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 31

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 11:39 schreef Monidique het volgende:
de algehele War on Terror helemaal verprutst.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 13:42 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Dat is de vraag. Al-Qaida is natuurlijk zwaar aangeslagen door Afghanistan, en Irak lijkt ook een verloren gebied voor ze.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 10:17 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Volkomen logisch, als soldaat heb je wel wat anders te doen dan internetten...

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 16:48 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

Je hebt nu niet het idee dat je met een dubbele moraal praat? Censuur is iets anders dan georganiseerde tijdsbesteding..

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 15:06 schreef Monidique het volgende:

Het punt is dat Irak om te beginnen al helemaal niets te maken had met Al-Kaida, dus dat opstandelingen niet zo graag meer met hen samenwerken, is vanuit dat oogpunt niet echt positief.

quote:

Desalniettemin vinden er elke dag zelfmoordaanslagen plaats, is Irak nu een failed state waar terrorisme beter gedijt en exporteert het dit ook naar andere landen, Jordanie met name. De opstandelingen in Afghanistan gebruiken tactieken uit de oorlog in Irak en worden elk jaar dodelijker, datzelfde geldt voor Pakistan en Thailand. Iran is sterker dan ooit, Amerika wordt nog meer gehaat door nog meer mensen en Irak is volgens de veiligheidsdiensten een broeinest van terrorisme zoals Afghanistan werd na de inval door de Sovjets. Dat noem ik toch wel falen.

quote:

Het is incompetentie.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 16:57 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Je bent werknemer en je baas bepaalt of je wel of niet mag internetten. Heeft niets met censuur te maken.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 17:30 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

Soldaten mogen dus wel internetten..

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 17:08 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Het is duidelijk dat Al-Qaida aangetrokken wordt door Irak en het is zeer de vraag of dat in ons nadeel is.
Het is wel strijdig met de belangen van de Irakezen, dat is duidelijk.
[..]


Irak wordt al jaren afgeschreven door links. En hoewel de twijfel nu ook bij de neocons zelf begint toe te slaan, denken veel Irakis er zelf nog steeds anders over.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 18:48 schreef Vassili_Z het volgende:

[..]

Hou eens op met links bashen. .Het geeft alleen je eigen kortzichtigheid aan.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 19:53 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]


Waarom? Het noemen van Bush en/of Amerika en/of de Neocons (zelfs wanneer het er niet toe doet) is toch ook standaard praktijk hier.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 19:54 schreef Vassili_Z het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 02:39 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

Held. Dus wat doen de smerige oorlogscriminelen om te voorkomen dat er meer soldaten achter de werkelijke intenties komen;
[..]

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 23:12 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Ja logisch.

85% van de Amerikaanse soldaten denkt dat ze er zitten "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks"

77% denk dat ze vechten "to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."

[afbeelding][afbeelding][afbeelding]

bron

Dus alle reden om proberen te voorkomen dat ze geinformeerd raken. Niks zo gevaarlijk als een soldaat die iets meer weet van de dingen heeft (voor Washington that is).

De Britten lijken iets beter te beseffen waar ze hun leven voor wagen.

Soldiers going Awol have trebled since the invasion of Iraq

Drie jaar vandaag sinds de start van de oorlog.

Irak is kapot, duizenden en duizenden doden, mensen geestelijk en lichamelijk verminkt voor het leven, hele generaties getraumatiseerd, het land en ecosysteem vergiftigd, martelingen, moorden, geweld en aanslagen aan de orde van de dag..

Happy Birthday Free Iraq!

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 23:24 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
En dan zijn er sommigen die anno 2006 nog steeds met "Saddam" aan komen leuren.

quote:

Op maandag 20 maart 2006 00:08 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
[afbeelding]

quote:

Op maandag 20 maart 2006 00:28 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Jaja, Saddam heeft wel eens een handje gehad van Rumsfeld. Zet je die 300 andere westerse ministers die bij Saddam op de koffie zijn geweest hier ook ff neer.

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 23:37 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Wie had het dan nu voor het zeggen gehad in Irak als de Amerikanen in 2003 niet waren binnengevallen, denk je?
Oh. Dat interesseert je niet. Zeg dat dan...

quote:

Op zondag 19 maart 2006 20:16 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]


Vijand-denken zit er blijkbaar diep in bij jou wanneer iemand er een andere mening als jou op na houdt.

quote:

Op woensdag 15 maart 2006 11:38 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:

[..]

http://www.refdag.nl/arti(...)+inmenging+Irak.html

quote:

zo 19 mrt 2006, 22:08

Legerleider ziet weinig in overleg met Iran

AMSTERDAM - De bevelvoerder van de Amerikaanse troepen in Irak, George Casey, ziet weinig in onderhandelingen tussen de Verenigde Staten en Iran over de situatie in Irak. Dat heeft hij zondag gezegd in het tv-programma Fox News Sunday. Hoewel Iran naar een stabiel buurland streeft, wil het niet dat de VS in Irak slagen, aldus Casey. De Iraakse opstandelingen gebruiken volgens hem explosieven die afkomstig zijn uit Iran.

De regering van president George Bush stemde vorige week in met overleg met Iran over Irak. De diplomatieke banden tussen de landen werden bijna dertig jaar geleden afgebroken.

quote:

Op maandag 20 maart 2006 14:15 schreef Vassili_Z het volgende:

[..]

Amerika had Hoessein in die tijd wel gesteund in de oorlog tegen Iran. Wereld van verschil met' alleen' op de koffie gaan.

quote:

Freedom, Yes, Iraqis Say, But at Great, Grave Cost
Contrasts to Hussein Era Leave Some Hopeful, Others Bitter

By John Ward Anderson and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 21, 2006; Page A13

BAGHDAD, March 20 -- By almost any standard, Bashar Muhammed, the owner of a thriving Internet cafe, is a Baghdad success story. Three years after the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein, the Internet business here is booming, and Muhammed has what most Iraqis could only dream of under Hussein -- freedom, a cutting-edge job, lots of customers.

But when conversation turns to his life and prospects, he sighs and voices frustration that Americans just don't get it.

Fakhri Fikry Kareem, an editor in Baghdad at one of more than 100 newspapers launched in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall, says he values the freedom but says opportunities "were squandered" by the U.S. occupation. (By John Ward Anderson -- The Washington Post)

"It is true that we got freedom after the war, but uncontrolled freedom -- chaos and violence," he said in a cool, deliberate tone. Five of his relatives have been killed in car bombings and assassinations, Muhammed said, noting that most recently an uncle was killed for being a Sunni Arab.

"The new generation is growing on violence and sectarian ethics, and this will affect Iraq for many years to come," he said. "We are living a more devastating war every day."

As Iraqis on Monday marked the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, there was a stark difference between their pessimistic outlook and some U.S. officials' upbeat assessment of the situation. With insurgent violence grinding on, essential services sagging below pre-invasion levels and the prospect of civil war looming, many Iraqis question whether Hussein's ouster was worth the cost.

Many thousands of their countrymen have been killed. In December, President Bush estimated the Iraqi toll at 30,000.

Laith Muhammad, 32, a student in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, listed the risks Iraqis face these days. "We either die by the Americans, the insurgents in the name of jihad, the security companies, which kill you and leave you laying in the street, the Iraqi police or . . . the death squads," he said. Such squads are widely believed to be operating from within the country's Interior Ministry. Muhammad cited private militias as yet another threat.

"Three years after the American invasion of Iraq, I have only one wish," he said. "I do not want democracy, food, electricity and water. I just do not want to die."

Other Iraqis, however, are less quick to blame the United States.

Sardar Muhsin Maheed, 25, a student at Mosul University, said too many people blamed the occupation for all of Iraq's ills. He traced most problems to Hussein, suggesting that issues such as the poor economy are legacies of the ousted president.

"The U.S. has liberated us from Saddam and his oppression," he said. "We are not ready to form a democratic state, and that is because of the burden left by Saddam's regime."

Another of Hussein's legacies, he said, was sectarian tension in the country. An Iraqi government has been democratically elected, but the politicians and their parties are creating a new Iraq based on religious and ethnic interests.

Freedom, Yes, Iraqis Say, But at Great, Grave Cost
Luay Mohammed, a 57-year-old Sunni Arab who spent 35 years working for the Education Ministry, said he was forced to retire because the government and the ministry are now run by Shiite Muslims. His son could not get a job "because he is not a Shiite and he did not suffer" under Hussein, Mohammed said, his voice laced with bitterness and sarcasm.

"We've been waiting for years for true democracy to come, a democracy that makes everybody live and work together with respect and love. But here it is: a democracy with maximum chaos," he said. Now, all of his sons have cellular telephones -- not because it is hip or because of a communications boom, but because the security situation demands it. "This is what democracy has brought us."

The U.N. sanctions that had been imposed on Hussein's government have been lifted, and a vibrant free press has emerged. But unemployment is stuck between 27 and 40 percent, while oil production -- which the government counts on to generate 90 percent of its revenue -- remains below prewar levels.

"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime was worth everything," said Fakhri Fikry Kareem, owner and publisher of the daily Meda newspaper, one of more than 100 newspapers that have begun publishing in Iraq since Hussein's fall. Despite a rocket attack on his office, a bomb attack on his car and the killing of three of his reporters, Kareem said: "I have never felt as free to speak any day in my life as today. If George Bush did anything good, it was toppling Saddam Hussein."

Kareem, 63, said he opposed the war. While drinking Turkish coffee and fingering a long string of worry beads in his Baghdad living room, he talked of what might have been, suggesting that perhaps the United States could have removed Hussein without starting a broader conflict.

"I am not pessimistic," he said. "But I'm upset, because the war and the occupation, which could have led to a new situation in Iraq, were squandered by the stupid mistakes committed by the American administration and military and the U.S. representatives in Iraq."

Subhi Nadhem Tawfik, a professor at Baghdad University's Center for Strategic Studies, said people no longer believed that helping Iraq was foremost on the U.S. agenda during the invasion. "The U.S. has won a tremendous strategic victory," which has come increasingly at the expense of Iraq, he said.

"With the occupation of Iraq, the strategic significance of all the states in the region was diminished," Tawfik said.

The war and its aftermath have so far cost the United States about $250 billion. Congress allocated $21 billion to repair essential infrastructure and revitalize the economy, and to establish programs for good governance and democratic institutions. As much as $3.5 billion has been diverted to pay for better security, but Iraq remains the largest U.S. government reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan following World War II.

Meanwhile, many Iraqis -- especially in Baghdad, home to almost a quarter of the population -- said they don't see much evidence of the aid.

"We hear about tens of billions of dollars spent on reconstruction," said Bashar Muhammed, the Internet cafe owner. "The only reconstruction in the country I see now are the cement barriers. There are lots of them."

Special correspondents K.I. Ibrahim, Bassam Sebti and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and Dlovan Brwari in Mosul contributed to this report.

quote:

'Iraq was awash in cash. We played football with bricks of $100 bills'

At the beginning of the Iraq war, the UN entrusted $23bn of Iraqi money to the US-led coalition to redevelop the country. With the infrastructure of the country still in ruins, where has all that money gone? Callum Macrae and Ali Fadhil on one of the greatest financial scandals of all time

quote:

Op dinsdag 21 maart 2006 16:36 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:
schokkend verhaal over de corruptie in Irak en hoe dat ontstaan is:
[..]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1734689,00.html

The environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption. "American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone," says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based attorney who represents whistleblowers now trying to expose the corruption. "In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did."

quote:

On the very first day of Saddam Hussein's testimony the judge turned off his microphone and ordered all media to leave following Saddam's comments that the civil war in Iraq is being deliberately fueled by the US.

quote:

Op dinsdag 21 maart 2006 21:33 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

And waarom die burgeroorlog gecreeerd wordt door competentie..
[..]

quote:

Op dinsdag 21 maart 2006 22:24 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Saddam kan het weten...

quote:

Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George Bush’s incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is just dead wrong.

quote:

“It’s about oil,” Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA’s top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam’s former oil minister to finalize the plans for “liberating” Iraq’s oil industry. In London, Bush’s emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq’s crude.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq’s oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq’s oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn’t matter. The key thing is what’s inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will “enhance its relationship with OPEC.”

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq’s oil production – limiting Iraq’s oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil – not to get MORE of Iraq’s oil, but to prevent Iraq producing TOO MUCH of it.

You must keep in mind who paid for George’s ranch and Dick’s bunker: Big Oil. And Big Oil – and their buck-buddies, the Saudis – don’t make money from pumping more oil, but from pumping LESS of it. The lower the supply, the higher the price.

It’s Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what economists call an “oligopoly”—a tiny handful of operators who make more money when there’s less oil, not more of it. So, every time the “insurgents” blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just LOVE it.

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 00:09 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

quote:

 
Let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher’s original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he called,

“Operation Iraqi Liberation.”

O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys in the White House change it to “OIF” – Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn’t sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq’s OIF.
 

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 00:42 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Uit dat artikel
[..]

!

Het heette eerst inderdaad Operation Iraqi Liberation.

Er is net een studie uit, uitgevoerd door een professor van Harvard University en een professor van University of Chicago, met de titel:

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Hun conclusie is dat Israel zoveel greep op de Amerikaanse regering heeft dat ze de VS de belangen van Israel laat verdedigen ook al gaat dat ten koste van de Amerikanen zelf.


Hiermee heb je de twee krachten achter de oorlog in Irak. Big Oil en Israel (of beter gezegd de Zionisten)

Met het uitkomen van deze studie zie je ineens weer allemaal artikelen verschijnen over de rol van olie in het conflict, de corruptie en politieke incompetentie. Kortom het zwarte piet toeschuiven en aandacht afleiden van bijvoorbeeld deze studie.

Niet gek opkijken als er binnenkort verhalen verschijnen over criminele professors. Dat er kinderporno op computers is aangetroffen of iets dergelijks. En het zou zomaar kunnen dat een van hen Mearsheimer of Walt heet.

Online lezen: The Israel Lobby

de unedited version is beter (hier te downloaden)

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 01:06 schreef David Letterman het volgende:

[..]

ik maak ook geen opmerking over de deskundigheid van de profs die het hebben geschreven

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 05:56 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Nee je beschuldigt ze alleen maar even van het schrijven van een tendentieus stuk in plaats van een studie.

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 00:42 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Uit dat artikel
[..]

!

Het heette eerst inderdaad Operation Iraqi Liberation.

Er is net een studie uit, uitgevoerd door een professor van Harvard University en een professor van University of Chicago, met de titel:

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Hun conclusie is dat Israel zoveel greep op de Amerikaanse regering heeft dat ze de VS de belangen van Israel laat verdedigen ook al gaat dat ten koste van de Amerikanen zelf.

quote:

Iraq: A cluster of torture prisons

[..]

Reuters; “The U.S. State Department is winding down its $20 billion reconstruction program in Iraq and the only new rebuilding money in its latest budget request is for prisons . . . State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey told reporters he was asking Congress for $100 million for prisons but no other big building projects were in the pipeline."

[..]

John Pace of the UN Human Rights in Iraq, a pro-Occupation propaganda mouthpiece, said recently that; between “80 percent to 90 percent were innocent people” rounded up “quite blindly," and taken to prisons.

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 10:11 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

Meer over dat;

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 10:43 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Even een snelle reactie. Ken je de interviews met Kay Griggs?

Sluiten heel goed aan bij de links die je daar geeft.

Een deel staat iig online. (kan de links eventueel vanavond wel opzoeken) Heel interessant wat zij te vertellen heeft.

quote:

(22-03)The US military is investigating two incidents in which US soldiers killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either guerrillas or had died in cross fire.

The growing evidence of retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by US soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

US troops have been notorious among Iraqis for their willingness to shoot any Iraqi they see in the aftermath of an insurgent attack. But it is only now that convincing and detailed information is becoming available about the killings.

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 09:22 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

En daar heeft hij gedeeltelijk gelijk in. Los daarvan, ik zou niet weten welk land onze steun meer verdiend in die opeenhoping van domme fascistjes, extreemlinksen en moslimfundamentalisten (allemaal vijandig gezind naar ons) die het Midden-Oosten heet, dan Israel.

quote:

Op woensdag 22 maart 2006 12:33 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

[..]

Whehehe, arme Nixon . Ik heb een stukje gekeken en I take it for granted . Mijn god . Aanrader voor iedereen die nog twijfelt over hoe het kan dat zoveel mensen zich niet uitspreken over cover-ups.

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane do not apply."

quote:

Verdere artikel beschrijft de moordpraktijken van soldaten die er dus op getrained zijn dood en verderf onder de bevolking te zaaien

quote:

 
Death Squad Democracy

For three years the Iraqi resistance has successfully kept American troops on the defensive; taking control of more area, destroying pipelines and oil facilities at will, discouraging enlistment in the Iraqi Security Forces, and undermining public support among Americans (63% of who now believe the war was "a mistake")

These are the goals of every guerilla movement; a gradual erosion of public support, deflating morale, surprise attacks, and eliciting greater support from the general population.

It is clear that this has been a winning strategy for the resistance, and not one that they would readily abandon to pursue an ethnic/religious war.

So, where does the violence originate?

[...]

"In Iraq, the war comes in two phases. The first phase is complete: the destruction of the existing state, which did not comply with the interests of British and American capital. The second phase consists of building a new state tied to those interests and smashing every dissenting sector of society. Openly, this involves the same sort of shock therapy that has done so such damage in swathes of the Third World and Eastern Europe. Covertly, it means intimidating, kidnapping, and murdering opposition voices."

"What we do know, however, is that hundreds of Iraqis are being murdered and that paramilitary hit-squads of the proxy government organized by US trainers with a fulsome pedigree in state terrorism are increasingly being associated with them."

The 'Salvador Option'
 

quote:

Op donderdag 23 maart 2006 02:37 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Schuim drijft bovenop idd.

quote:

The dangers of infecting the armed forces with such partisan propaganda are immense. First, think of how this notion has skewed the reaction of American soldiers to the Iraqi people, especially anyone accused or suspected – for whatever reason, or none at all – of being an insurgent, or a "Baathist diehard," etc. To an American soldier blinded by the deliberate Bush lies, such people would appear to be nothing but evil terrorists complicit in the murder of thousands of innocent Americans. And in fact, all Iraqis would be tarred by this brush: for how could a soldier out on patrol distinguish which of the seething mass of foreigners surrounding him had been a supporter of the man who (supposedly) attacked America?

Putting deluded soldiers in such a position, fed with such lies, is a formula certain to produce atrocities and abuse. No wonder we have seen so many cases of American soldiers being quick on the trigger, quick with the boot and the fist, belligerent and brutal in tumultuous house searches, eager to "soften up" prisoners for CIA interrogators, and so on.

quote:

"There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack of 9/11, I’ve never said that and never made that case prior to going into Iraq." -- George W. Bush, 16-12-05

quote:

Op zondag 26 maart 2006 13:18 schreef Resonancer het volgende:
Niet alleen Irak heeft last van het DU!

Depleted Uranium Contaminates Europe
http://www.countercurrents.org/moret270206.htm
The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in Britain, were transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia; of special significance were those from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001, and the "Shock & Awe" bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003.

quote:

Op zondag 26 maart 2006 13:35 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Is er misschien een betrouwbaardere site dan uruknet.info?

quote:

Juan Cole: Top Ten Catastrophes of the Third Year of American Iraq

Source: Juan Cole's Blog (Informed Comment) (3-20-06)

The American war against Iraq began on March 20, 2003, so today is the third anniversary. The Himalyan mistakes of the American administration of the country in its first two years have by now been much analyzed -- the punitive steps against even low-level Baath Party members, the firing of tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs, the dissolution of the army, the permitting of looting on a vast scale, the failure to understand tribal honor, the failure to get a handle on the early guerrilla war, the failure to understand Shiite Islam, the torture at Abu Ghraib, the failure to get services on line, the destruction of Fallujah, the ill-timed and ill-advised attempt to "kill or capture" Muqtada al-Sadr, the adoption of an election system that allowed the almost complete exclusion of the Sunni Arabs, etc., etc.