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Wars and conflicts

  • Bush’s Mercenary Army
    18 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Stewart Nusbaumer
    Until the first bomb landed on the center of Baghdad, I insisted, although my friends insisted I was nuts, we were not going into Iraq. Not my best predication.
    What went wrong, with me? I underestimated George Bush’s stupidity. My friends are better at stupidity than I am.
    My firm belief that our military was not going into Iraq was based upon a certainty on my part that a U.S. occupation of Iraq would turn out to be an utter disaster, for both Iraqis and Americans. (…)

  • Did Iran use Chalabi to lure the U.S. into Iraq?
    18 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    TED GALEN CARPENTER, Cato Institute
    The Bush administration’s disenchantment with its onetime favorite Iraqi client, Ahmad Chalabi, has centered on the explosive allegation that he and his associates may have forwarded highly classified U.S. information to the fundamentalist Islamist government in Iran. Specifically, Chalabi and his cohorts are accused of informing Tehran that the United States had broken the communications code of Iran’s intelligence service.
    If true, this could become (…)

  • Sandline mercenary: Bougainville to Iraq
    17 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    The National (PNG), 16 June 04
    Spicer in Iraq
    Sandline mercenary fame of B’ville crisis to head private army in Baghdad
    By SINCLAIRE SOLOMON
    LIEUTENANT-Colonel Tim Spicer, the Sandline mercenary of the Bougainville crisis fame of 1997, has resurfaced in Baghdad, Iraq, to head what is undisputedly the biggest private army in the world. The Briton, whose Sandline mercenaries were expelled from PNG that year in a military-inspired protest led by Major General Jerry Singirok, this time (…)

  • US Army Paralyses Baghdad with Fortifications
    14 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Baghdad Fumes as the Americans Seek Safety in ’Tombstone’ Forts
    By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
    http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=530692&host=3&dir=75
    The US army is paralyzing the heart of Baghdad as it builds ever more elaborate fortifications to protect its bases against suicide bombers.
    "Do not enter or you will be shot," reads an abrupt notice attached to some razor wire blocking a roundabout at what used to be the entrance to the 14 July bridge over (…)

  • Iraq War Supporters Lose in European Elections
    14 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Dutch opposition parties critical of the Iraq war scored significant gains at the start of elections for the European Parliament, while Prime Minister Tony Blair lost support across Britain in local voting, key tests since the invasion last year.
    Iraq, as well as domestic issues, concerned voters as the 25 nations of the recently expanded European Union began electing legislators a four-day process that started Thursday in Britain and the Netherlands.
    While Britain’s results in the EU (…)

  • Forced Nudity of Iraqi Prisoners Is Seen as a Pervasive Pattern, Not Isolated Incidents
    10 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Tomm W. Christiansen/Dagbladet Iraqis picked up for looting weapons were marched naked through a park into a building after their clothes were burned by American troops in April 2003. They were then freed and chased naked onto the street.
    SEXUAL HUMILIATION
    By KATE ZERNIKE and DAVID ROHDE
    In the weeks since photographs of naked detainees set off the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, military officials have portrayed the sexual humiliation captured in the images as the isolated acts of a (…)

  • Bush Faces Italian Anger Over Iraq on Rome Visit
    4 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    ROME (Reuters) - Italians greeted American soldiers as liberators when they marched into Rome 60 years ago but President Bush faces deep anger on his visit on Friday over the actions of a new generation of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
    Authorities fear violent demonstrations during Bush’s two days in Rome, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, worried by the prospect of clashes in the streets, urged Italians to show "maturity and understanding of history."
    While Berlusconi has been among Bush’s (…)

  • 2004 Racism Watch Calls for Action to End Use of Anti-Arab Books by the U.S. Government
    4 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Ted Glick, 973-338-5398 Manning Marable, Director of African American Studies at Columbia University, today called for immediate action to be taken to end use by the U.S. military of a book, "The Arab Mind," by Raphael Patai. In the words of Brian Whitaker, Middle East correspondent for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the book presents "an overwhelmingly negative picture of the Arabs." "It is outrageous that a book full of racially charged stereotypes and generalizations would be a major (…)

  • Other things Iraq war funding can pay for
    3 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    Congress and President Bush have so far provided $119.4 billion for the war in Iraq. Here are examples of what else that money could buy. It could send 748,495 people, nearly everyone in Jacksonville, Fla., to Harvard University for four years. Based on Harvard’s 2004-05 school year costing $39,880 for tuition, fees, room and board, multiplied by four. Or send 2,806,506 people — almost all the residents of Chicago — to the average-priced public university for four years, based on The (…)

  • Army noted Geneva Conventions violations in Iraq prisons last fall
    3 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    An Army general who visited Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last fall complained that the military was violating international war standards by incarcerating common criminals along with insurgents captured in attacks against U.S.-led forces. It was one among dozens of observations in a still-classified report, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, portraying an overcrowded, dysfunctional prison system lacking basic sanitation and medical supplies.
    "Due to operational limitations, facility (…)