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25 November 2004 - MiddleEast.Org - MER is Free
FALLUJA - IN MEMORIUM
on Thanksgiving Day

Thousands of Chilean Protestors Greeted George Bush in Santiago
News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the
Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know

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Dean of Washington Journalists
Cries Out Against U.S. Rape of Falluja

"To understand the Iraqi resistance, I suggest reading the
Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott. He wrote: 'Breathes there a
man with soul so dead who never to himself has said this
is mine own my native land.' "


The Killing Fields of Iraq and Falluja

"As our Humvee stopped behind the truck, a Marine in the vehicle ahead

of us leapt out, pointed his rifle into the window of the pickup and
sprayed it with gunfire. It was a cold-blooded execution."


MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 25 November: For years, or was it decades, she sat in the front row at White House press conferences and by tradition the President would turn to her for the first question and at the end she would utter the words 'Thank you Mr. President' bringing Presidential Press Conferences to a polite close. These days she's in the back row and never called on -- blackballed by those now in power whom she has come to despise and fear...and say so boldly in print. But for Washington insider's Helen Thomas is still the Dean of the Washington Press Corps...and she's certainly got the experience and knowledge, and now the independence, to have her opinions taken very seriously.

Thanksgiving day in America. The land of the 'free' and home of the 'brave', bad as things are, is in pretty good shape when it comes to what's going on with most people in much of the rest of the world. While the 'new' Americans celebrate their historic 'Thanksgiving', however, the 'native' Americans are remembering, hardly celebrating, their fate after they greeted the 'White Men' with Turkeys early in the 17th century. And these tragic days the peoples of Iraq and Palestine, to name just a few at the top of the news, are hardly 'celebrating' their increasingly brutal occupation by the new crusading forces determined to subjugate and kill them in the name of their false gods, 'democracy' and 'freedom'. Try this, for instance, for an alternative Thanksgiving narrative with much food for thought rarely offered up and debated in polite American Judeo-Christian society.

As for the future of the United States of America and what now lies ahead one does indeed have to wonder. "Sorry Faluya! Stupid Americans, Your Day Will Come..." is more than a street slogan in Santiago. With such poor political and economic leadership at home, such outrageously bloody and repressive imperialist policies abroad, such a culture of legalized corruption in Washington and growing cynicism about government in the heartland, the very fabric of the American polity is being seriously weakened. And, though usually it is only whispered, there is now loose in the land a peculiar kind of hubristic American neo-fascism taking root, step by step, policy by policy; a reality whose ramifications for all lie still ahead down history's road.

As for the new killing fields of Iraq -- most recently in Falluja, the 'City of Mosques' -- the alternative-media reports that follow from Green Leaf Weekly in Australia and The Village Voice in New York make for devastating reading. "Sorry Faluya"..."Sorry Faluya"...
MAB in Washington, Thanksgiving Day 2004




Attack on Fallujah can't be justified

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

Friday, November 12, 2004 - WASHINGTON -- Do Americans of good conscience really believe that we are making the United States more secure by bombing and killing the people of Fallujah?

That's the justification President Bush and his hawkish circle have given for their brutal offensive against the Sunni stronghold as they push ahead for the total military occupation of Iraq.

Why are we killing Iraqis in their own country? And why are our forces being killed?

Of course it was convenient and the better part of valor for the president to wait until after the election to start dropping the 500-pound bombs on Fallujah as well as raking the streets with artillery and aircraft firepower.

Bush, who has never been in war, flaunted his commander in chief status during the campaign. But clearly he did not want to put it to the test at Fallujah before Election Day.

Had he done so, the president would have had to explain why he took the United States into Iraq and why he was targeting innocent Iraqis.

From day one, the U.S. government has been hard-pressed to find legal justification for being in Iraq by force. U.S. military moves were contrary to the U.N. Charter and the laws that came from the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II.

Under the U.N. Charter, armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of another state is a violation of international law.

Does anyone believe that hand-picked interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, on the CIA payroll for years, is a free soul? Did we really make war against Iraq out of the goodness of our hearts to ensure free elections for Iraqis?

The silence of the Democrats is playing into the president's hands. As was the case with the original October 2002 congressional resolution authorizing war, Democrats are unsure of themselves and therefore unwilling to challenge the president.

Once the offensive was under way, many Americans were appalled to learn that among our first major targets were the hospitals in Fallujah.

By now everyone in this country must know that every reason Bush gave to attack Iraq has turned out to be a false. No weapons of mass destruction were found after two task forces took months and spent millions to hunt for them.

There was no imminent threat by Iraq against the United States. And virtually nothing has been found to connect al-Qaida with deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Presidential credibility used to have some meaning in this country. The president visited the soldiers wounded in Iraq at Walter Reed Hospital Army Medical Center on Tuesday for the first time since March. He told reporters that the U.S. soldiers in Fallujah were doing "the hard work necessary" for a free Iraq to emerge.

And he said the coalition forces were moving into Fallujah "to bring to justice those who are willing to kill the innocent, those who are trying to terrorize the Iraqi people and our coalition (and) those who want to stop democracy."

The Bush administration has no count on civilians who have lost their lives in the current massive assault on Fallujah, but some 900 civilians reportedly died in the fighting last April when the U.S. retreated temporarily from Fallujah.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters he knew of "no specific estimate of civilians" who may have been killed in the recent fighting.

But he added: "I know the military goes out of its way to minimize the loss of civilian life, and what we are working to achieve in Iraq is an important cause that will make America more secure."

Thousands in Fallujah fled their homes and are living in tents, knowing that the U.S. attack was about to begin.

Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers are going from house to house in urban street fighting -- something Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, wanted to avoid as a way of reducing the human cost of the first Gulf War. For that reason he resisted going on to Baghdad after the liberation of Kuwait.

To understand the Iraqi resistance, I suggest reading the Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott. He wrote: "Breathes there a man with soul so dead who never to himself has said this is mine own my native land."

* Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com.



IRAQ: US launches mass slaughter in Fallujah

Doug Lorimer

On November 8, the US military launched its long-anticipated second attempt to recapture the rebel Iraqi city of Fallujah, located 55 kilometres west of Baghdad.

The assault — conducted by some 10,000 US troops and 500 Iraqi troops under their command, using tanks, artillery and attack helicopters — was preceded by weeks of nightly air strikes on residential buildings, restaurants and mosques. The strikes were designed to terrorise the city's population of 340,000, causing up to 200,000 of them to flee to Baghdad.

Two days before the fullscale US assault began, US warplanes reduced the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city to rubble. BBC News reported that witnesses said only the hospital's facade remained.

The deliberate destruction of this hospital was a clear indication that the US military wants to ensure that dead or injured Fallujah residents are not brought to the city's hospitals — so as to conceal the scale of civilian casualties.

During the US military's previous attempt to recapture Fallujah — in April — Iraqi doctors at the city's hospitals reported that hundreds of residents, most of them women, children and elderly men, were being killed by US air strikes, artillery shelling and sniper attacks.

Outrage from Iraqis at this casualty toll led to mass protests in Baghdad, including a three-day general strike. The mass protests forced Washington to call off its troops' siege of Fallujah at the end of April.

Significantly, the first operation in the new US offensive to recapture the city was the storming and seizure of the Fallujah General Hospital by US troops in the early hours of November 8. This hospital is located on the western edge of the Euphrates River, separating it from the rest of the city.

During their assault on the city in April, the US marines prevented ambulances and other vehicles from transporting dead or injured residents to what was at that time — and after the destruction of Nazzal Emergency Hospital, is once again — the city’s only trauma-capable medical facility.

The day after the US military's seizure of Fallujah General, Dr Salih al Issawi, the director of the hospital, told the South African Press Association that US marines were again preventing ambulances from delivering patients to emergency care.

Free-fire zone

That the intention of the US military is to turn Fallujah into a “free-fire” zone was indicated by the rules of engagement given to the invading US troops. On November 7, the puppet government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi declared that all Iraq except the Kurdish-run areas in the country's north was under martial law, banning all protest rallies and street demonstrations. He also announced that a 24-hour curfew applied in Fallujah, to be observed by everyone in the city except the invading US and puppet Iraqi troops, thus making any Fallujan who is not in a residential building a free-fire target.

On the eve of their offensive against Fallujah, US commanders were openly making it clear to their troops that they were expected to shoot unarmed civilians. Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that on November 7 US Marine Corps Colonel Michael Shupp told his troops to shoot any Iraqi civilian who approached them with raised hands because he or she might be a “suicide bomber”.

The homicidal mentality that US marine commanders have drummed into their soldiers was illustrated by the comments made by 20-year-old Lance Corporal Joseph Bowman on November 7. “I want to go and kill people, so we can go home” he told an Associated Press reporter. “Kill them and go home — that’s all we can do now.”

The US invasion of Fallujah began with intense air strikes and artillery attacks on civilian targets. The November 9 New York Times reported: “Just before the marines began to push south into Falluja, the American bombardment intensified, and heavy artillery could be heard pounding positions in or near the city every few minutes. An entire apartment complex was ground to rubble. A train station was obliterated in a hail of 2000-pound bombs.”

The NYT report quoted Marine Colonel Craig Tucker saying that Fallujah's defenders would “win if it's bloody; we'll win if we minimise civilian casualties”. Bombarding an “entire apartment complex” with artillery shells and reducing it to rubble is how the US military “minimises” civilian casualties!

An Agence France Presse reporter in the city told the Qatar-based Aljazeera satellite TV station on November 9 that in the northwestern Jolan district, one building in every 10 had been flattened by US air strikes.

Associated Press reported that same day that Fallujah residents said intense street clashes between US troops and armed Fallujah residents were raging in the northern sectors of the city. Witnesses reported seeing two US tanks engulfed in flames.

Iraqi journalist Abu Bakr al Dulaimi told Aljazeera on November 9 that almost half Fallujah's 120 mosques had been destroyed by US air strikes and tank attacks. “Violent clashes are now going on in the western areas of the city”, he added. “Clashes have also erupted in Jolan neighbourhood. Resistance in these areas is fierce. The city's defenders are responding to the US attacks with everything at their disposal.”

On November 10, the US Knight Ridders Newspapers chain reported that US commanders claimed they had taken control of most of Fallujah and were encountering only “light” and “unco-ordinated” resistance. However, it also reported that “insurgents showed no sign of surrendering. Rebels attacked sporadically throughout the day, using rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and mortar strikes, said a Knight Ridder reporter embedded with the [US] Army's 1st Infantry Division”.

Intense fighting

The November 10 London Evening Standard reported that, “Fresh fighting erupted today in areas of Fallujah declared ‘cleared' by US forces”, adding: “After battling to the centre of the city yesterday, American commanders had thought they controlled at least its northern third — with rebel fighters fleeing to southern districts to regroup. But at first light intense machinegun, mortar and rocket exchanges opened up in the north-western district of Jolan.”

The US military responded with air strikes “at a rate of six every 15 minutes. Explosions again rocked an area already said to have had half its buildings flattened in two days of solid shelling.”

The Reuters news agency reported on November 10 that “American tanks pushing into central Fallujah are meeting fierce resistance from well-organised insurgents who show no signs of giving up”.

Marine tank platoon commander Lieutenant Joe Cash told the Reuters reporter the city's resistance fighters were unleashing coordinated attacks on the US invaders. “They hit us from one area and then another right afterwards. There is in-depth organisation.”

“There are lots of them. We took heavy fire”, Gunnery Sergeant Ishmail Castillo told the Reuters reporter. “They don't look like they are going to cave in.”

On November 8, Time magazine reported that in a “a pep talk to US troops ahead their invasion of Fallujah on Sunday, the senior enlisted marine in Iraq, Sgt. Major Carlton Kent drew inspiration from great Marine triumphs of the past. ‘You're all in the process of making history', he told them. ‘This is another Hue city in the making.'

“Kent's analogy to the 25-day battle in 1968 to wrest control of the old Vietnamese colonial capital from guerrilla insurgents may be somewhat unfortunate, however... To be sure, the enemy the Marines are facing in the fierce fighting for Fallujah that began overnight Monday may be not dissimilar from the one they encountered at Hue. Both are fiercely determined guerrilla fighters motivated by a combination of nationalism and ideology, capable of great cruelty and dug in so deep in the urban landscape that they had to be rooted out building by building. But while Hue was an heroic triumph, at the cost of some 580 fatalities for the Marines and other US and South Vietnamese units who went in to recapture a city audaciously seized by insurgents, winning the battle did not help the American side win the war. And it's far from clear that victory in Fallujah, rendered somewhat inevitable by the massive advantage in men and firepower of the US-led operation, will prove more successful than Hue in turning the tide of the conflict.”

Political blow

US officials claim that the capture of Fallujah is necessary to establish “order” in Iraq so that they can proceed with their plans to legitimise Allawi's US-appointed government through national elections next January. However, the US invasion of Fallujah may already have dealt a fatal political blow to these plans, with prominent Sunni Muslim clerics and politicians condemning the invasion and urging Sunnis — who make up 40% of Iraq's population of 25 million — to boycott the elections.

On November 8, the Iraqi Islamic Party, described by the Western news media as “Iraq's most influential Sunni political party”, announced its withdrawal from Allawi's government. “From today, we have nothing to do with this government”, said Iyad al Samurraie, the party's deputy secretary general. “We don't want to take the responsibility of shedding Iraqi blood without any legal excuse.”

The next day, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of leading Sunni clerics that claims to represent 3000 mosques, called for Iraqis to boycott the January elections which they described as being held “over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah”.

“The scholars of Iraq place full legal responsibility on Iyad Allawi for the genocide Fallujah is exposed to at the hands of occupation forces and a bunch of Iraqi National Guardsmen who cooperate with them”, association director Sheik Hareth al Dhari said in a statement broadcast throughout the Arab world on satellite television. From Green Left Weekly, November 17, 2004.



Dead-Check in Falluja
by Evan Wright

Village Voice - November 24 - 30, 2004: In April 9, 2003, the day the statue of Saddam Hussein was being toppled in Baghdad, symbolizing the promised liberation of Iraq, I was embedded with a Marine unit engaged in fierce combat about 30 miles north of the city, on the outskirts of Baquba. Late that afternoon, the Humvee I was in was following about 50 feet behind a Marine Light Armored Vehicle when it pulled alongside a Toyota pickup pushed to the side of the road, its doors riddled with bullet holes. The head of at least one occupant was visible in the truck, but I couldn't determine if he was moving or not. Nor did I see any weapons. As our Humvee stopped behind the truck, a Marine in the vehicle ahead of us leapt out, pointed his rifle into the window of the pickup and sprayed it with gunfire. It was a cold-blooded execution.

As we continued forward, passing the truck, I glimpsed at least two corpses sprawled on the seats, the interior spattered with blood. During the brief moment I looked, I was unable to determine whether the dead men possessed weapons. None of the four Marines in our Humvee said anything. We had been awake for more than 30 hours, much of that time under steady mortar, rifle, machine-gun, and rocket-propelled grenade fire from enemy combatants who dressed in civilian clothes and moved around on the battlefield in Toyota pickups. (To make matters even more confusing, during the height of combat farmers were racing into the surrounding fields—where enemy soldiers were shooting at us from dug-in, concealed positions—in order to rescue sheep from the gunfire.)

In the previous few minutes we had already passed more than a dozen corpses strewn by the side of the road. Some had the tops of their heads missing, expertly hit by Marine riflemen. Others were burned—still smoking, actually—having crawled out of other vehicles set ablaze by rockets fired from Marine helicopters. The execution of one or two more men wasn't worth commenting on.

I greeted the sight of dead Iraqis in the pickup with a sense of numb relief. At least they would not be trying to kill us that day. In the preceding two-and-a-half weeks, the unit I was embedded with had come under frequent enemy attack, with three Marines wounded. There were 23 bullet holes in the Humvee I rode in—miraculously, none of the five of us inside had been hit. I had developed a strange relationship with the sight of dead Iraqis. I felt safer when I saw them.

I felt especially comforted when I saw dead men by the road still clutching weapons in their hands, a common sight. Unfortunately, of the hundreds of dead people I saw on the roads leading from the Kuwait border to Baghdad, perhaps 20 percent or more were obviously civilians. I will never forget the three or four women I saw fatally shot and partially burned, still seated in a bus on the road north of Nasiriyah. Or the little girl, about four, lying by the side of the road in a pretty dress, her legs neatly and inexplicably chopped off at the knees. Mercifully, I remember thinking at the time, she was dead like all the others.

Since my return from Iraq, I have continued to watch the horror unfold on television. It's different seeing the violence decontextualized from the battlefield, now playing out in discrete video clips that run between ads for Chevys and the Olive Garden. Videos of militants staging beheadings against dungeon-like backdrops, with the perpetrators wearing masks and the victims in colorful jumpsuits, seem almost like grotesque TV shows.

One of the great ironies of the Bush administration, obsessed as it is with Christian values and the attendant crusade to punish what it deems obscene and lewd in the media (from Janet Jackson's breast to Howard Stern's speech), is that it has given us a war in which the airing of snuff films on national TV has become routine. The conflict in Iraq, as seen through news coverage, has begun to resemble the macabre underground 1980s video series Faces of Death. Throw in the images produced by the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib, and the administration has put itself in the running to successfully compete with the BDSM side of the porn industry.

Just as I thought I was adjusting to the video carnage, NBC correspondent Kevin Sites, embedded with U.S. forces in Falluja, gave us last week's shocker: the video of a Marine standing over a wounded, apparently unarmed Arab sprawled on the floor of a mosque and executing him with a gunshot to the head.

It brought back memories of the April 9 episode and others I witnessed in Iraq. Yet, watching this on TV, I felt the same outrage many others have expressed. American soldiers, we like to believe, don't shoot unarmed people. Not only is this morally repugnant, but execution of wounded, unarmed combatants violates Article Three of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which states in part that "persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely."

Even to those unfamiliar with the Geneva Conventions, it seems obvious from the mosque video that a war crime was committed. The response from the administration and military officials has been unusually swift. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte conveyed his regrets to Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and vowed that "the individual in question will be dealt with." The Marine in the video, whose name has been withheld, was pulled from duty, and his commanders issued a statement promising to investigate what they called "an allegation of the unlawful use of force in the death of an enemy combatant." Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, added in an interview, "We follow the law of armed conflict and hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability."

One thing military officials are not saying is that the behavior of the Marine in the video closely conforms to training that is fairly standard in some units. Marines call executing wounded combatants "dead-checking."

"They teach us to do dead-checking when we're clearing rooms," an enlisted Marine recently returned from Iraq told me. "You put two bullets into the guy's chest and one in the brain. But when you enter a room where guys are wounded you might not know if they're alive or dead. So they teach us to dead-check them by pressing them in the eye with your boot, because generally a person, even if he's faking being dead, will flinch if you poke him there. If he moves, you put a bullet in the brain. You do this to keep the momentum going when you're flowing through a building. You don't want a guy popping up behind you and shooting you."

What I'd seen on that road outside of Baquba on April 9 was a dead-check. The Marine who fired into that Toyota with wounded men inside didn't want anybody shooting at us as we went past. It may have been a war crime, and had I possessed a video camera at the time and filmed it, the Marine who fired into the truck might have faced punishment. As it was, no one questioned the Marine's actions.

In fact, commanders in the Marine Corps during the period I was embedded with them in the spring of 2003 repeatedly emphasized that the men's actions would not be questioned. As one of the officers in the unit I followed used to tell his men, "You will be held accountable for the facts not as they are in hindsight but as they appeared to you at the time. If, in your mind, you fire to protect yourself or your men, you are doing the right thing. It doesn't matter if later on we find out you wiped out a family of unarmed civilians."

Commanders didn't want their men to suffer casualties because they were overly constrained by rules of engagement. At the same time, Marines were constantly drilled in refraining from shooting their weapons, even at certain times when they came under fire. On one afternoon I recall in particular, the unit I was with was ordered to hold a position on the outskirts of a hostile town. For six hours, insurgents fired at the Marines from rooftops and from behind piles of rubble they'd set up in streets as barricades. But the Marines I was with, unable to pinpoint the exact locations of the enemy shooters, refused to fire back for fear of hitting civilians. The 22-year-old radio operator of the team I was with had it within his power to call in an artillery strike on the corner of the town where most of the enemy forces seemed concentrated. At one point, while I was crouched in the dirt, taking cover behind the tire of the Humvee as enemy sniper rounds popped into the dust nearby, I asked him why he didn't call in a strike. He simply laughed at my display of fear.

There were other times when the enlisted men in the unit fell into violent quarrels with others whom they felt were too aggressive and risked civilian lives. In one instance, enlisted men nearly came to blows with an officer whom they accused of firing a weapon into a house that they believed contained civilians. Despite their concern, terrible mistakes were made. I was standing next to a 22-year-old Marine from the Humvee I rode in when he fired his machine gun prematurely at a civilian car approaching a roadblock, striking the driver, an unarmed man, in the eye. The unit was subsequently ordered to drive past the car without rendering aid. I sat next to the gunner as we crept past, listening to the dying man gasp for breath. The gunner didn't talk for the next three days. A few days earlier, the youngest Marine on the team had shot a 12-year-old boy four times in the chest with his machine gun, mistakenly thinking a stick the boy had been carrying was a weapon. When the mother and grandmother of the boy later dragged him to the Marines' lines seeking medical aid, the sergeant who led the team dropped down in front of the mother and cried.

The Marines constantly debated the morality of what they were engaged in. A sergeant in the platoon told me he had consulted with his priest about killing. The priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government so long as he didn't enjoy it. By the time the unit reached the outskirts of Baghdad, this sergeant was certain he had already killed at least four men. When his battalion commander praised the unit for "slaying dragons" on the way to Baghdad, the sergeant later told his men, "If we did half the shit back home we've done here, we'd be in prison." By then, the sergeant told me, he'd reconsidered what his priest had told him about killing. "Where the fuck did Jesus say it's OK to kill people for your government? Any priest who tells me that has got no credibility."

He and several other Marines recently returned from Iraq (many from their second tours) whom I've talked to about the Falluja shooting say they are not sure they would have dead-checked the wounded man in the mosque had they been in the same position. Most say they probably would have, even though the mosque had already been cleared once. "What does the American public think happens when they tell us to assault a city?" one of them said. "Marines don't shoot rainbows out of our asses. We fucking kill people."

Another Marine in the unit I followed—a Democrat's dream, he returned home from fighting in Falluja in time to vote for Kerry—added, "Americans celebrate war in their movies. We like to see visions of evil being defeated by good. When the people at home glimpse the reality of war, that it's a bloodbath, they freak out. We are a subculture they created and programmed to fight their wars. You have to become a psycho to kill like we do. To most Marines that guy in the mosque was just someone who didn't get hit in the right place the first time we shot him. I probably would have put a bullet in his brain if I'd been there. If the American public doesn't like the violence of war, maybe before they start the next war they shouldn't rush so much."

* Evan Wright is the author of Generation Kill, about a Marine reconnaissance unit in Iraq.




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November 2004


Magazine






Condi Rice - Weakest and Worst Sec State in Washington Memory
(November 29, 2004)
"So we are to have a new Secretary of State who dreadfully misjudged the terrorist threat leading up to 9/11 and then misled America and the world about the case for invading Iraq. As if that's not disturbing enough, look who is succeeding her as the President's National Security Adviser... I'm not making this up; it's all on the record. So instead of putting America's foreign policy in the hands of people who might have restored the country's credibility in the world, the President has turned it over to two of the people who helped to shred it." -Bill Moyers

US in Iraq 'worse than Hitler'? Turkish Parliament Leader Has His Say
(November 28, 2004)
"The occupation has turned into barbarism. The U.S. administration is committing genocide...in Iraq. "This occupation has entirely imperialist aims." - Mehmet Elkatmis, Head of Tukish Parliament's human rights commission

Islamabad 25 Years Ago Was Forecast of What Has Since Come
(November 27, 2004)
Twenty-five years ago, as hate-filled crowds invaded the American Embassy in Islamabad and the 100+ Americans hiding in 'The Vault' feared they would be killed, there was already in the air of international affairs an omen of what was to come. What happened then has since politically metasticized into what is happening today, an escalating 'Clash of Civilizations' with the United States doubly tinged with fundamentalist Crusading zealotry and Israeli Zionist ideology. And the hatreds, despair, and sense of grievance in many places in the world, including today's Pakistan, are still growing....

Washington's War-Mongering Military-Industrial-Government Complex
(November 27, 2004)
They could have sub-titled this excellent 48 minute Dutch documentary "Cesspool Washington" for it exposes a significant aspect of how the American capital has incestuously and unethically entertwined big business, big money, and government. Exposed in this documentary is a major part of the U.S. war-making and war-profiteering scene of which few Americans are aware. These realities goe a long way to explain how and why U.S. war policies are what they are.

The CIA's TORTURE AIR
(November 26, 2004)
Witnesses have claimed that the suspects are frequently bound, gagged and sedated before being put on board the planes,

CIA Purge Converting Agency To Neoconism
(November 25, 2004)
They already have firm control of the Pentagon, which also actually means some 80% of the "Intelligence" Budget. And they've made great progress in recent years taking over the State Department as well as the National Security Council. Now crusading "Neocons" -- many Jewish and nearly all connected over the years with the Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington -- are determined to finally bring the last resistant power center, the CIA, into line. Washington these days is like the land of the body-snatchers, everyone looking over their shoulders, the fear factor rising higher and higher.

Falluja in Memorium on Thanksgiving
(November 25, 2004)
As for the new killing fields of Iraq -- most recently in Falluja, the 'City of Mosques' -- the alternative-media reports that follow from Green Leaf Weekly in Australia and The Village Voice in New York make for devastating reading. "Sorry Faluya"..."Sorry Faluya"...

January Elections - Truth or Consequences
(November 25, 2004)
Under the conditions that actually exist -- unprecedented military occupation, extraordinary impoverishment and bribery, still-expanding CIA infiltration, massive propaganda manipulation -- the very concept of 'free and fair' elections takes quite a credibility stretch.

New from MER
(November 22, 2004)
New from MER - MER realizes that today situation in the Middle East and in Washington requires new and creative means to provide critical information and independent expert analysis. But this can only be achieved if those who appreciate today's historical moment will dig in and provide the independent financial support necessary. Please make your check to MER and contribute today. MER P.O. Box 4918 Washington, DC 20008

Fearing Bush Assassination
(November 22, 2004)
Over the weekend during Bush's short visit to Chile there was an extraordinary double display of this concern. First Bush himself got man-handled in a crowd of security people literally having to pull his senior protective body man after him through a small blocking crowd of Chilean security. Later the elaborate State Dinner the Chilean President was putting on was abruptly canceled when the American's demanded that every one of the two hundred carefully selected guests go through metal detectors and possible body frisks. The Chileans said not very dignified, no need; the Americans said too bad, no dinner.

Please read and contribute this weekend, thank you.
(November 21, 2004)
If MER is to move forward and have the kind of impact we can and should now have, independent financial support is now absolutely crucial. After all the steps we have taken in recent years to reorganize and improve MER, serious financial support is now the key missing ingredient we must have. Yes we are now positioned to reach far more persons worldwide and to have far greater impact including on radio and TV programs. But this can happen only with your substantial financial support. So please contribute this weekend making your check to MER and sending to: MER P.O. Box 4918 Washington, DC 20008

Israel Buys Another Piece of Washington
(November 20, 2004)
Read the details about Haim Saban, Ariel Sharon's "close personal friend", keeping all this crucial perspective and context in mind which the nation's 'newspaper of record' largely ommitted.

Please read and contribute this weekend
(November 20, 2004)
If MER is to move forward and have the kind of impact we can and should now have, independent financial support is crucial. After all the steps we have taken in recent years to reorganize and improve MER, financial support is now the key missing ingredient if we are to be able to take the steps we now could. We are now positioned to reach far more persons worldwide and to have far greater impact including on radio and TV programs. But this can happen only with your serious financial support. So please contribute this weekend making your check to MER and sending to: MER - P.O. Box 4918 - Washington, DC 20008

Yasser Arafat's Life and Legacy
(November 19, 2004)
There are only a small handful of Western journalists who have the background, the credibility, and the conviction, to write with historical depth and considerable insight about the death of Yasser Arafat. David Hirst, still writing for The Guardian after all these years, the man who authored THE GUN AND THE OLIVE BRANCH, is right up there at the top of that list. This article was published in The Guardian last week just as Arafat's death was announced.

Nuke Attack on U.S. 'all but inevitable' warns top CIA official
(November 19, 2004)
As the new historic purge of non-neocons roles over Washington, firing, resignations, and fear have the CIA, the State Department, and lesser known sometimes secret U.S. Government agencies in a tizzy. One of those now forced out at the CIA is the man who has headed up the great manhunt for Osama Bin-Laden. He spoke up last year in a book written by 'Anonymous' titled "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror." Just days after leaving the Agency he spoke up on the popular CBS News Program Sixty Minutes.

U.S. and ISRAELI Deceptions...over and over again
(November 18, 2004)
Even as Yasser Arafat was being buried last Friday the American President and the British Prime Minister purposefully tried to immediately dim his memory and twist the headlines by holding an unusual joint press conference at the White House. What Bush and Blair spewed forth grabbing TV time that evening from Arafat's Cairo funeral and Ramallah burial twisted and distorted history further beyond recognition. This extraordinary and urgently needed corrective was published by Robert Fisk earlier this week in The Independent.

More on the Arafat 'Stealth Assassination' and Cover Up
(November 17, 2004)
With the 'Stealth Assassination' of Yasser Arafat, following a campaign to kill or imprison most of the popular Palestinian leaders that was greatly stepped up when Ariel Sharon became Israeli Prime Minister, the Arab-Israeli conflict does indeed enter a new phase. But the political cancer has already considerably metastacized region-wide and the 'two-state' cure is not really any longer possible.

The Great Sharon Deception
(November 16, 2004)
"Deception and lies have been a corner stone in Israeli policy, brought to a new level of perfection since Oslo. While the world believed that Rabin promised to eventually end the occupation and dismantle the settlements, the number of Israeli settlers actually doubled during his rule. At the same time that Barak declared he intends to dismantle the Golan Heights settlements, in 1999, he actually poured money into their expansion. As Sharon promised to dismantle at least the illegal settlement posts in the West Bank, their number kept increasing. Still, none of this is ever remembered. Each new lie is received with welcome cheers by the Israeli peace camp, and by European governments. Since Oslo, every Israeli government knows that all it takes, to ease diplomatic pressure, is to come up with a new 'peace plan'."

To Readers of MER
(November 16, 2004)
If MER is to move forward and have the kind of impact we now can and should have financial support making it possible to do so is now the key missing ingredient. We have done so much in recent years. And now we are positioned to reach far more persons worldwide and have far greater impact including on radio and TV programs. Please contribute today making your check to MER and sending to: MER - P.O. Box 4918 - Washington, DC 20008

Powell Out, CIA Purging, Iraq Exploding, Palestinians Erupting
(November 15, 2004)
Just hours after once again fronting for U.S. Middle East policies as today's article in The Guardian points out; just hours, after proclaming about the 'new Palestinian leaders' "We know these gentlemen well, and I hope to be able to see them..."; just hours after the extent of the historic purge of the CIA has flashed into the headlines...; Colin Powell has cashed in his chips in a combination of being pushed and walking away while he still can without even further damage to his once considerable reputation.

ARAFAT - The Assassination and The Cover Up
(November 13, 2004)
Five critical days before it was officially announced that Yasser Arafat was actually dead -- even as leading media organizations were repeatedly parroting officials to the contrary -- MER not only reported the real news that Arafat was all but legally dead but the important news that he had been 'Stealth Assassinated' by blood poisoning by the Israelis. Below are links to MER articles published from 4 to 12 November about the assassination of Yasser Arafat and the cover up that followed.

Israel's Public Threats Against Arafat Telegraphed the Assassination
(November 13, 2004)
These are some of the public threats in the past few years. One can only imagine what has been said when the cameras and microphones were not present.

Sharon's Lethal Words and Cartoons Foretold what was to come
(November 13, 2004)
"Speaking of the Palestinians, they were dealt a lethal blow... It will bring their dreams to an end." -- Ariel Sharon upon returning from his ninth and last meeting at the White House with George W. Bush - 16 April 2004

Public Israeli Threats from top officials to Kill Yasser Arafat
(November 12, 2004)
Public Israeli Threats from top officials to Kill Yasser Arafat escalated in recent months. In any murder investigation, or death under suspicious circumstances, an autopsy is done and those who have threatened the person are investigated. But in the case of Yasser Arafat even though his personal doctor of over 20 years 'demanded' an 'official death investigation' and 'autopsy' those in charge worked feverishly to bury Arafat quickly and prevent any serious independent investigation.

NYTimes Articles on Arafat - 1 to 12 Nov 2004
(November 12, 2004)
New York Times Articles on Yasser Arafat 1 to 12 November 2004

ARAFAT Assassination Coverup as quick and limited funeral and burial take place
(November 12, 2004)
They are racing now to get the funeral over with very quickly and with no real opportunity for the public outpouring of grief and anger that would result if everything were not so closed and controlled by the military. And they are racing as well to get him quickly buried in a rock tomb. His 'wife' has received a huge payoff, $22 million yearly, for her silence. The top 'new leadership' of the Palestinians that has approved these arrangements are all known to be persons closely connected with the Israelis and supported by the U.S. -- Nabil Sha'ath, Abu Mazen, and Abu Ala -- and all known themselves to be politically and financially corrupt.

ARAFAT ASSASSINATION - Article links, Media Interviews
(November 12, 2004)
The personal physician of Yasser Arafat called for an inquiry into the cause of the veteran Palestinian leader's death on Thursday. "I demand an official inquiry and an autopsy ... so the Palestinian people can learn in all transparency what caused the death" of their leader, Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi said on Al-Jazeera television only hours before Arafat was due to be buried... Kurdi, who was Arafat's personal physician for more than 20 years, said he had been surprised by the actions of some members of the veteran leader's office... Yasser Arafat's 'wife' Suha will receive $22 million a year out of the Palestinian Authority budget. Abu Mazen is said to have personally approved this extraordinary arrangement, and it appears to have silenced Suha Tawil from the 'conspiracy' charges she publicly made Monday.

MER on KTSA San Antonio
(November 11, 2004)
Listen to MER on KTSA San Antonio about Arafat's Death; and check links to the past week's MER articles about Arafat.

MER and Media Articles about Arafat on day of his death
(November 11, 2004)
"I demand an official inquiry and an autopsy ... so the Palestinian people can learn in all transparency what caused the death" of their leader, Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi said on Al-Jazeera television only hours before Arafat was due to be buried... Kurdi, who was Arafat's personal physician for more than 20 years, said he had been surprised by the actions of some members of the veteran leader's office.

Sharon Kills Arafat? Assassination Coverup Succeeds?
(November 11, 2004)
The message is rather clear: "You Arab and Palestinian 'leaders' have much more to fear from us (Israel and the U.S.) if you don't play ball than you do from your own people. On top of all the other leaders we have killed off or imprisoned one way or another, we can even pull off a 'Stealth Assassination' of Nobel Peace Prize winner, former most frequent foreign guest to the White House, and international famed Yasser Arafat because he refused to do as we told him he must. So beware: COMPLY, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

ARAFAT - Assassination Covered Up As Death Announced
(November 11, 2004)
**MER was first, was right, was most insightful** Days before it was finally officially announced early this morning in the Middle East MER reported that Yasser Arafat was all but legally dead. Even as leading media organizations were parroting contrary and purposefully deceptive information MER not only reported the real news but the important realities. In this case that Yasser Arafat had been 'Stealth Assassinated' by the Israelis with help from as yet undisclosed Palestinians and an American OK.

ARAFAT - How and Where to Properly Bury Him
(November 10, 2004)
And when Arafat's body is flown from Cairo to Ramallah representatives of the Arab League, of all the Arab countries, and of all the countries who have long recognized the PLO and long called for a free and independent Palestinian State, should accompany the body whether the Israelis give their 'permission' or not. They should in this way not only show their respects for Arafat the symbolic man but for the imprisoned and all-too-forgotten people he leaves behind, half in refugee camps, half increasingly behind walls and fences in ghettos and concentration camps.

ARAFAT Update
(November 10, 2004)
Yasser Arafat has been all but legally dead for many days now. He has been kept 'between life and death' in a very 'complex situation' (to use the crafty words that have come from key officials) for financial and political reasons rather than for medical reasons. By a preponderance of the circumstances and the evidence Yasser Arafat has effectively been stealth assassinated by the Israelis as MER first reported and explained last Saturday.

China Rocks the Geopolitical Middle East
(November 10, 2004)
As the Americans expend their power, their money, their blood, and their credibility both Europe and China are on the march. Europe is more often discussed, but the Chinese have been taking important steps into Africa in recent years, and now they are doing so into the Middle East in a bigger way than ever via Iran.

Arafat's Death Announced
(November 9, 2004)
MER reported and explained Arafat's death -- indeed his assassination by blood poisoning -- many days ago, in fact last week. This story from Reuters has just moved on the international wires this morning at 9am EST:

Poor Poor People of Palestine
(November 9, 2004)
This is hardly the first time MER has commented harshly and candidly about Nabil Shaa'th, or Abu Mazen, or Abu Ala. We have in fact done so for years now as upcoming FlashBack articles will serve to remind. As for Suha Tawil, Arafat's "wife", she has proven time and again what a self-serving extortionist and political witch she has truly been -- taking after her mother Ramonda who managed to steal and embezzle more limited millions from the PLO in her own days before introducing her dumpy daughter to Yasser and moving from Palestine to her luxury-life in exile.

MiddleEast.Org on ARAFAT LIFE and DEATH
(November 8, 2004)
PLEASE FORWARD TO FRIENDS AND CONCERNED PERSONS. AVAILABLE TODAY AT MIDDLEEAST.ORG THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW and EDITORIAL ABOUT THE DEATH OF YASSER ARAFAT.

Arafat is Dead - Frantic struggles underway
(November 7, 2004)
Yasser Arafat is Dead; likely assassinated by blood poisoning by the Israelis. Frantic struggles and manuevers are underway for power, money, and the symbolism of how and where Arafat will be buried. Arafat's long-time cronies neither of whom has any real popular support but who are trying to take total control of the PLO and the PA with Israeli and U.S. assistance -- Abu Mazen and Abu Ala -- are on the way to Paris.

ARAFAT - How and Where to Bury Him
(November 7, 2004)
Far better symbolism than burial under the dictate of Israeli military occupation and today's apartheid conditions is 'temporary' burial of Yasser Arafat in the city where the headquarters of the Arab League is located, indeed in a special crypt on the grounds of the Arab League in downtown Cairo.

Arafat's Murder and Legacy
(November 7, 2004)
It's the worst possible end for Yasser Arafat, and more importantly for his life-long quest for justice, dignity, and a free independent Palestinian State. In the end it appears Yasser Arafat has been killed by fatal poisoning in a kind of stealth assassination by his arch nemesis Ariel Sharon, with help from those inside his own circles. Arafat passes from history not as the father of a Palestinian State but with his people more fractured and dispossessed and in greater bondage, imprisonment, and impoverishment than ever in their history.

ARAFAT - Stealth Assassination!
(November 6, 2004)
Arafat was assassinated by blood poisoning by the Israelis working with some insiders is the conclusion of Professor Hisham Ahmed... Professor Ahmed lives in Ramallah near the headquarters where Arafat was under house imprisonment for nearly three years. He teaches Political Science at Bir Zeit University and has his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has taught at a number of American Universities and been a Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Ahmed was born in Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem and he is an astute observer of Palestinian affairs and indeed of international affairs.

MER Experts on Arafat's Death (or assassination), Burial Plans, and Legacy
(November 5, 2004)
Please pass this information on to persons in the media. Bruzonsky, Hamzeh, and others associated with MER including Palestinians living in occupied Palestine will be available throughout the weekend for radio and TV interviews. The link to this email is: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2004/11/1174.htm MER can now be reached at all times, 24-hours daily, at MER@MiddleEast.Org and (202) 362-5266. Persons in the media can reach MER at all times on a special media number -- 202 Number1 (202 686-2371) and Press@MiddleEast.Org

Arafat's Burial, Monies, Powers, and Legacy
(November 5, 2004)
"Both Gaza Ghetto and Occupied Ramallah are awful choices for Arafat's burial, especially in view of the worse than Apartheid realities that have taken hold during the years Arafat played, and lost so badly, the 'peace process' game with the Israelis and the Americans."

About MiddleEast.org
(November 4, 2004)
Please read carefully and please help make MiddleEast.Org possible.

Arafat Dominates In Death as in Life
(November 4, 2004)
Arafat is now likely to be buried not in a free Palestine, not in Jerusalem, not really as the kind of historic figure he so desperately sought to be. Rather he will be likely buried in Occupied Palestine, in the city of Ramallah, behind the new Apartheid Wall, with arch nemesis Ariel Sharon deciding on the place and giving his 'permission'. How sad...how tragic... And the future now on the horizon appears still more gloomy and more bloody than the past now about to be symbolically buried with the body of the single man who has dominated Palestinian history ever since the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960s.

America, Arafat, and the 'New World Order'
(November 4, 2004)
NBC's Chris Matthews: "I believe we live in a country that is really culturally divided now... maybe the way Pakistan and India are."

Democratic Disaster
(November 3, 2004)
Even as Americans voted and the world watched considerably now in shock, one of the world's most famous scientists, Stephen Hawking, was declaring the U.S. invasion of Iraq a 'war crime' at a protest in London. Now the aftermath of that history-making invasion, of the new Crusade led by the United States and based on major historic deceptions and manipulations, will return to center stage.

Moral Cowards ALL
(November 2, 2004)
Scott Ritter's "The War on Iraq has made Moral Cowards of us all" article should have appeared in the U.S., rather than in The Guardian in the U.K. The article about more mega-billions for the Iraq war did appear in the U.S., on the front-page of The Washington Post last Monday.

Osama Votes Bush Says Fisk
(November 2, 2004)
Robert Fisk is the chief Middle East correspondent for the London Independent and one of the most knowledgeable, insightful, and courageous western journalists about the Middle East. He was exclusively interviewed in 1996 by MERTV for a series of four half-hour programs which we will soon Internet broadcast. He was interviewed yesterday on the 'Democracy Now' program about the recent speech by Osama Bin Laden to the 'people of America', about Yasser Arafat, and about the war in Iraq.

Osama Bin Laden's 'October Surprise'
(November 1, 2004)
Osama Bin Laden: "I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred. So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider."

Iran Next - Part 2
(November 1, 2004)
Tomrrow the American election itself will become history. The likelihood is the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime will remain in power; hard as that still is for so many to imagine and understand. But should the Democrats win the White House Middle East policies will be largely in the hands of the neoliberals and the super money-men like Israeli-Sharon-connected Haim Saban who have far more in common with the neocons than has yet been realized by many who will vote for them. Whatever happens tomorrow the build-up to attacking and if at all possible 'regime changing' Iran is well underway and the showdown increasingly imminent.




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