[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 32.

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Op woensdag 10 mei 2006 17:26 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Ik vraag me af of nationalisme een westerse uitvinding is. En ik vraag me af of het slechter is om Irak in drieeen te delen, dan om de "kippen" in één hoenderhok te houden...

Heb je het over "Irakees" nationalisme? Of "Koerdisch" nationalisme?
Soennieten? Shiiten?

Die beschaving waarin verschillen verdwijnen is maar een dun laagje. Of je nu Nederlander, Joegoslaaf of Irakees bent. Soms is het denk ik beter om maar wel naar etnische en religieuze scheidslijnen te kijken, met behoud van respect voor normale menselijke waarden natuurlijk. Dat had een hoop ellende in bijvoorbeeld Joegoslavie, Rwanda en Irak gescheeld.

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The US May Have Delivered 200,000 AK-47s to Insurgents in Iraq – War Construction Money Used To Buy Submachine Guns + Explosives

The insurgents in Iraq may have 200,000 new assault weapons to use against US forces. But where did these weapons come from; the Russians, the Chinese, Osama Bin Laden? No, evidently they were delivered to Iraq by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Best Syndication
 

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Authorities Fear Guns Shipped to Iraq Went to Insurgents

BAGHDAD (KNX) -- Fears have surfaced that as many as 200,000 AK-47s shipped by the U.S. to Iraqi security forces may have ended up in the hands of terrorists.

The Northern Ireland newspaper The Daily Mirror reports the 99-ton cache of AK47s was supposed to have been secretly flown out from a U.S. base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have since vanished.

Orders for the deal originated with the U.S. Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.

And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was criticized by the United Nations in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, a fact uncovered by human rights group Amnesty International.

Amnesty chief spokesman Mike Blakemore said: "It's unbelievable that no one can account for 200,000 assault rifles. If these weapons have gone missing it's a terrifying prospect."

KNX 1070
 

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Op vrijdag 12 mei 2006 05:41 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
blabla


"The weapons are going to continue at the wartime rate."

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Op vrijdag 12 mei 2006 10:50 schreef klez het volgende:

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Als je ff doorleest zie je dat verschillende mensen (waaronder Amerikaanse legerofficieren) gearresteerd zijn voor deze zaak.

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Wie met pek om gaat wordt er door besmeurd. Corruptie is tot een exquise kunstvorm verheven in het Midden-Oosten.

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A roadside bombing north of Baghdad has provoked fierce clashes between two Iraqi army units.

According to Iraqi police sources one of the army units was Kurdish and the other made of Shias.

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By the end of 1975, no side held a decisive military advantage, but it was generally acknowledged that the Lebanese Front had done less well than expected against the disorganized Lebanese National Movement. The political hierarchy, composed of the old zuama and politicians, still was incapable of maintaining peace, except for occasional, short-lived cease-fires. Reform was discussed, but little headway was made toward any significant improvements. Syria, which was deeply concerned about the flow of events in Lebanon, also proved powerless to enforce calm through diplomatic means. And, most ominous of all, the Lebanese Army, which generally had stayed out of the strife, began to show signs of factionalizing and threatened to bring its heavy weaponry to bear on the conflict.

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Op zaterdag 13 mei 2006 06:06 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
Maar natuurlijk, de verantwordelijkheid ligt altijd bij een ander.

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US REPRESENTATIVE JACK MURTHA

Marines Killed Civilians "In Cold Blood"

By Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin

Senior House Democrat Jack Murtha warns that the details of a reported massacre in Iraq last year will prove "a very bad thing" for the US.


DPA
US Representative John Murtha says the US military may be in for some bad press.

A senior House Democrat with close ties to the military claimed Wednesday that U.S. Marines wantonly killed innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in an early morning raid last November, buttressing a March report by Time.
"Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," said Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam and is among the most influential Democratic voices on military matters. "This is going to be a very, very bad thing for the United States."

Asked about his sources during a midday briefing on Iraq policy in the Capitol, Murtha confidently replied, "All the information I get, it comes from the commanders, it comes from people who know what they are talking about." Although Murtha said that he had not read any investigative reports by the military on the incident, he stressed, "It's much worse than reported in Time magazine."

The civilian deaths are under review by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is also responsible for the Marine Corps. A Navy spokesman declined to comment on Murtha's claims, saying that the matter is part of an ongoing inquiry. He would also not comment on when the investigation into the incident would be completed.

In March, Time described an incident in the western Iraqi town of Haditha -- the worst alleged case of U.S. troops deliberately killing civilians in Iraq. Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, was killed in the early morning of Nov. 19, 2005, by a roadside explosive device. In the hours that followed, Marines searched three houses, killing a total of 23 people. According to Time, the Marine Corps' initial report claimed that 15 civilians had died in the same blast that killed Terrazas -- and another eight insurgents were killed after a subsequent firefight with Marines.

But Murtha contended Wednesday that the military's initial report was wrong. "There was no firefight," he said. "There was no IED [improvised explosive device] that killed these people."

Last month, the Marine Corps relieved of command three officers who oversaw the military unit responsible for the Iraqi deaths at Haditha -- Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

Murtha, widely known as a foreign-policy hawk, grabbed the national spotlight last fall when he suddenly called for the orderly withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. His press briefing Wednesday was a six-month follow-up to that initial call for withdrawal. The Pennsylvania Democrat argued that part of the responsibility for the Haditha killings lay with the Pentagon leadership, who had stretched soldiers too thin. "These guys are under tremendous strain -- more strain than I can conceive of -- and this strain has caused them to crack under situations like this," Murtha said.

The psychological strain Murtha described has been well documented. Veterans describe the violence of war as having a numbing effect on soldiers, making it possible to carry out otherwise unthinkable acts. This is especially true when a fellow soldier has been killed. "Once you reach that point, all sorts of restrictions you may place on yourself are removed," says Rion Causey, a medic in the infamous Army platoon known as Tiger Force, which may have killed as many as several hundred unarmed civilians in the central highlands of South Vietnam in 1967. Causey did not participate in the atrocities.

Murtha visited the Haditha region in August, three months before the incident. According to Murtha, a U.S. general there said at the time, "I don't have enough troops to do my mission."

<sub>FOUND IN...

Salon.com

This article has been provided by Salon.com as part of a special agreement with SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL. In return, our colleagues in San Francisco will publish selected articles from Der Spiegel on their Web site at:
Salon.com</sub>

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Op donderdag 18 mei 2006 23:10 schreef Yildiz het volgende:
Van mijn kant is het natuurlijk wel selectief, maar ik wou het Spiegel-artikel hier delen.
[..]

In March, Time described an incident in the western Iraqi town of Haditha -- the worst alleged case of U.S. troops deliberately killing civilians in Iraq.
 

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Laser 'optical incapacitator' issued in Iraq
U.S. device for use by soldiers at checkpoints

Thursday, May 18, 2006 Posted: 1701 GMT (0101 HKT)

Manage Alerts | What Is This? WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. military has given troops in Iraq a laser device to temporarily blind drivers who ignore warnings at vehicle checkpoints, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, defended its use as legal and said the devices were intended to prevent civilians from being shot.

"There have been numerous incidents that tragically have resulted in civilian deaths" in which drivers approaching U.S. military checkpoints have failed to heed warnings from troops, who in some cases have opened fire, he said.

[..]

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Op zondag 21 mei 2006 00:56 schreef Yildiz het volgende:
Zeg, klooien met ogen en licht mócht toch helemaal niet?
[..]

Uit het artikel wordt ik ook niet veel wijzer, gebruiken ze nu 10 bouwlampen, of 1 geconcentreerde straal licht, een 'laser' ?

Zie ook: http://www.groene.nl/1995/05_24/laser.html

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Op zondag 21 mei 2006 01:22 schreef Zendgemachtigde het volgende:

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Uitermate humane oplossing van die Amerikanen toch.
Wat heb je liever, tijdelijk verblind of een kogel?

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Op zondag 21 mei 2006 01:24 schreef Yildiz het volgende:

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Je kan het ook zo stellen.

Wat heb je liever, banden lekprikken, of mensen blind maken?

Ik dacht dat we zo'n beetje Europees / Wereldwijd hadden afgesproken dat we geen wapens tegen het optisch vermogen van de mens mochten gebruiken, al kan ik dat even zo snel niet vinden.

Natuurlijk beweerde hier men al gelijk dat het geen wapens waren. Maar aan de andere kant weet men ook niet hoe lang het effect duurt. Lekker vaag weer.

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Op zondag 21 mei 2006 00:56 schreef Yildiz het volgende:
Zeg, klooien met ogen en licht mócht toch helemaal niet?

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Uit het artikel wordt ik ook niet veel wijzer, gebruiken ze nu 10 bouwlampen, of 1 geconcentreerde straal licht, een 'laser' ?

Zie ook: http://www.groene.nl/1995/05_24/laser.html

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SAS soldier quits Army in disgust at 'illegal' American tactics in Iraq

An SAS soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces.

After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.
 

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Soldiers to get life in jail for refusing to act as occupiers

SOLDIERS who object to taking part in a military occupation of a foreign country will face life in prison under measures due to be rubber-stamped in the House of Commons on Monday.

The little-noticed Armed Forces Bill will have its third reading in the Commons on Monday and left-leaning MPs are alarmed that it will legitimise pre-emptive military strikes.

It will change the definition of desertion to include soldiers who go absent without leave and intend to refuse to take part in a "military occupation of a foreign country or territory".
 

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Op zondag 21 mei 2006 06:03 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
Paar maanden terug:
[..]

Dat kan natuurlijk niet, soldaten die naar hun geweten luisteren, dus daar hebben ze nu het volgende op gevonden:
[..]

Befehl ist Befehl!

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Oh, en welkom terug klez.

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Op zondag 21 mei 2006 11:10 schreef klez het volgende:

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Betrouwbaar, dit soort berichtgeving waar de objectiviteit van afdruipt...

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Op maandag 22 mei 2006 01:57 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

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Kinderen doodschieten voor de ogen van hun ouders, na bombardementen de overlevenden afmaken, complete moskee's vol met mensen afslachten en de lijken verbranden, ophangen...