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u cant understand the world without innerstanding yourself

up! 0006 // Iraqi Resistance Geared To Fight For A Decade// july 30, 05

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Civilisation Clash

"This same agreement could have been made 20 years ago"  - father of son killed by IRA bomb. 

Are we really going to follow our Bash & Blur Crusaders into 20 years of Civilisation Clash before we come to the same conclusion?

UP! COUPLE SLAIN; POLICE SUSPECT HOMICIDE// THE YEAR'S BEST [actual] HEADLINES OF 2004

AN INTERVIEW WITH SALAH AL MUKHTAR

During the government of the Baath Party, SALAH AL MUKHTAR was for years one of the most pugnacious public voices in Iraq.  Now 61, he lives in Yemen, but underscores that his stay is a "temporary" one, as he Is convinced that one day he will return to Iraq, governed again by Baath.

Q:  Was the resistance we're witnessing in Iraq prepared by the former government, or has it grown up during the occupation?

The current resistance in Iraq, to be accurate, was not prepared by the Iraqi government, but by the Baath Party leadership.  By the beginning of 2002 the Baath Party had completed the training of about 6 million Iraqi citizens to fight urban warfare by the so called Al Quds Army.   President Saddam Hussein had managed all preparations, including storing about 50 million guns, big, medium and small sizes, with enough ammunition to fight against the occupation for ten years. 

The groups prepared for a guerrilla warfare included, beside the Iraqi armed forces, organisations like the Fedayeen of Saddam, Baath party fighters, as well as kaders of the Baath party.   In the light of what I have said, you can conclude that the resistance was prepared mainly by the political leadership of Iraq.  Of course, it used the government apparatus to facilitate the preparation for a guerrilla war. 

Since the occupation thousands of people have joined the armed resistance: some of them joined Baath party organisations, others formulated their own organisations.  For the time being, we have many different groups fighting against the American colonial occupation, and these have different ideological characters, including progressive forces, religious groups, nationalists, but the Baathist is the main one.  As for the connection among these organisations, there is strong coordination.

Q: If it was prepared, how to explain the proliferation of Islamist-religious groups?

During a liberation war it's very important to mobilise all forces.  All historical experiences have proven that all kinds of ideologies and characters participated in the process of liberating the homeland, for example in Vietnam the Buddhists were active against the American occupation. 

As for Iraq, we are confronting the most dangerous colonialism ever witnessed in the history of the mankind, and because there is no outside support, the circumstances have obliged all forces to be united with each other.

The Islamist organisations are fighting side by side with progressive and secular forces, which is very important and necessary to kick out the imperialist occupation.

Let me correct a misunderstanding.  The matter of martyr operations is not limited to Islamist organisations but includes the organisations under the Baath Party practising in these operations.  This way of acting is the most effective weapon in the hand of the Iraqi resistance: actually it is Iraq.s WMD, capable of deterring and defeating the American forces occupying the country.

The Iraqi resistance has simple weapons, while the other side has highly sophisticated weaponry, jet fighters, tanks, missiles, modern technology.  Therefore, the martyr operations are the only effective weapon the resistance has.  I would like to remind you that these kind of operations have been used by the Vietnamese and Tamil Tigers, as well as by Palestinian organisations.

Q: How many Iraqis are active in the resistance?

According to the intelligence of the American imposed government, the number of fighters in the Iraqi resistance is around 200,000, as a main body, supported by another 200,000, but this number is not correct because about 3 million Iraqis constitute the so called guerrilla war, the ocean in which the fish are swimming.

You have to remember that the number of Baath Party of supporters is 6 million, and if we dropped half that number, still we have at least 3 millions supporting the fighters.  As for the number of fighters, it's not less than 400,000, well trained militarily and ideologically for more than a quarter of century.  This number includes the best generals of the Iraqi army, specially of the Republican guards.

Q:  It seems that the resistance has infiltrated the new Iraq security, the new army, and the new administration.

As I said at the beginning, the preparations for underground fighting were finished 2 years before the occupation.  According to information released by both American occupation sources and the resistance, the Iraqi intelligence service has penetrated all levels, not only of the new imposed Iraqi administration, but also the highest command of the American army, because the Americans are in desperate needs for translators, guides, workers, technicians, speaking Arabic, and thus the Iraqi intelligence has infiltrated their ranks.  The newly established security forces and the so called National Guard have become a very good source on the Iraqis cooperating with the Americans.

I can assure you that Iraqi intelligence has achieved very important operations and, as the American colonial administrator Mr. Paul Bremer has said, the most painful operations the Iraqi resistance have made were not the military ones but the intelligence.  You have to know that the resistance's intelligence is the original intelligence service of Iraq, which was selected from the élite of the intelligence officers.  So the experiences of Iraqi intelligence were used perfectly against Americans and I assure you that the Iraqi intelligence under the resistance leadership has overwhelmed the CIA.

Q: Do you believe in the existence of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, acting in Iraq?

There is no sure information about the fate of Zarqawi, some of the information suggesting that he was killed at the beginning of Iraq's occupation, but some other sources believe he has been arrested by Americans.  Anyway whatever the correct story is, I tell you that Zarqawi is a limited phenomenon and is located in a specific area and playing a limited role.  US intelligence used to say that all operations are made by Zarqawi to show that those who fight against Americans in Iraq are foreigners not Iraqis, to convince American public opinion that the war against the so called .terrorism. is justified.  On the other hand, the US want to underestimate the role of the Iraqi resistance in general and the Baath party in particular.

Q: Could the talks between resistance and US-Iraqi forces work, if there is any talk?

The only fact is that the US and the resistance have exchanged some letters through mediators in which the American side has asked exactly what the resistance wants.  The resistance replied with some conditions to be implemented by American occupation as the only means to provide American troops safe withdrawal from Iraq.  Among these conditions are he full and unconditional withdrawal of all US armed forces from Iraq, the compensation for both the Iraqi state and Iraqi individuals for the damages suffered, and the necessity to establish an international fund to rebuild Iraq as it was before the occupation. 

There was no agreement between the two sides because the US wanted a negotiation without any precondition.  The resistance has insisted on its conditions being met before starting any negotiation, which should be concentrating on the complete withdrawal and the details of how to implement the Iraqi demands.

Q:  How are the Arab-Islamic governments reacting to Baghdad's call to give support to fighting the resistance?

The reaction of Arab and Islamic governments is characterised by fear and hesitation, because they see how the American troops and the others are humiliated.   We have an Arab proverb that if you have nothing, you can give nothing.  So the Arab governments, as well the Islamic governments, are not prepared to fight in Iraq because if the strongest empire is being defeated and humiliated, how can they do what America has failed to do?  But even if we suppose that some governments are preparing to send troops to Iraq, their fate will no different from the fate of American forces.

Q:  Can the abduction of Egypt's envoy to Iraq be justified?

Those who abducted the Egyptian ambassador believed the government of Egypt has played a negative role in Iraq by supporting American occupation and by giving a hand to the puppet government in Baghdad.  The best argument they're giving is the decision to upgrade the diplomatic representation to Embassy rank.  Before the invasion of Iraq the Egyptian government refused to upgrade diplomatic representation to the level of ambassador.  So the question of the abductors is: why are you sending an ambassador now? 

Also they believe the Egyptian step is designed to encourage other nations to send ambassadors to Iraq, which means Egypt wants to give legitimacy to the imposed government.  They concluded that, to stop the process of legitimising the puppet government, they had to do something unusual as a tool of deterrence.  I think this is the message of the assassins.

Q: Do you believe the Jaafari government will be able to put the Iraqi leadership on trial?

It's an American decision, because the main and the real player in Iraq is not the Jaafari government but the American occupation.  If the US government takes a decision Jaafari will obey American orders, in spite of the fact that the whole process is not legal from the point of view of international law. 

I believe the issue of the trial is a tactic to press the Iraqi resistance not to insist on its conditions and to stop its attacks, or at least reduce their volume.

Q: How could the Iraqi Shiite agenda, the American occupation agenda and the Kurdish projects work together to create an independent entity?

The main US objective in Iraq is to transform Iraq from a strong, unified state into a weak one.  To do so it has to encourage all kind of conflicts and disturbances, on the basis of sect and ethnic affiliation.  Therefore the US is not interested in harmonising different agendas, on the contrary it.s working on an old agenda, the American-Israeli agenda, to divide Iraq into three tiny entities.  Now, it is necessary to keep all parties fighting each other just to pave the way to impose a full control over Iraq.

>> which is what bin Laden predicted.

Q: Do you think that the Iraqi authority will be able to draft a Constitution?

Drafting a Constitution is easy, more difficult is how Jaafari can impose that Constitution when the resistance is the main power in Iraq.

Q: Who are the Sunni Muslims who joined the committee writing the Constitution?

They are a small number of citizens without weight or effective role.  They are nobody in terms of the fighting in Iraq.  Sunni, Shiite or Kurd, they're the maids of the CIA, and it doesn.t work in the longer term, because Iraq is one nation, one state, one destiny, and no one can change this fact.

Q: Do you think there.s any chance in the future for the Baath Party to re-start working officially as Baath in Iraq?

If you mean that the Baath party will join the so called political process under the occupation, I assure you that the party will never join this process.  But if you mean will the Baath Party return to power or not, I tell you that it will capture power again, because it has the upper hand in the battlefield: by watching the development of the armed struggle and the Iraqi resistance, you must conclude that whoever controls the land in Iraq will be the future government.

[This interview was conducted by Italian news agency arabmonitor.info]

http://www.al-moharer.net/mohhtm/arabmonitor_mukhtar225.htm

up!

CAPTIVES: "Terrorists Hoped For Bush Re-Election"

Two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who were held hostage in Iraq from August last year, were allowed to interview the leader of an Islamic militant cell within the group that seized them. 

They told the BBC's "Panorama" program documentary program that their captors believed George W. Bush's re-election would help radicalise Iraqis.

"We felt we were on planet bin Laden," Malbrunot said on the program.

The cell leader trained with terror leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and told them the insurgents supported a Bush presidency because they believed it meant that "there will be confrontation, occupation and radicalisation of the Iraqi people," Malbrunot said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1119925651865

UP! SOMETHING WENT WRONG IN JET CRASH, EXPERT SAYS // THE YEAR'S BEST [actual] HEADLINES OF 2004

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Cheney's Plan: Nuke Iran

by Justin Raimondo

A recent poll shows six in ten Americans think a new world war is coming: the same poll says 50% approve of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Somewhat inexplicably, about two-thirds say nuking those two cities was "unavoidable."  One can only wonder, then, what their reaction will be to this ominous news, revealed in a recent issue of The American Conservative by intelligence analyst Philip Giraldi:

"The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. 

"The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.  Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites.  Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option.

"As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. 

"Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing - that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack . but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections."

Two points leap out at the reader - or, at least, this reader - quite apart from the moral implications of dropping nukes on Iran. 

The first is the completely skewed logic: if Iran has nothing to do with 9/11-II, then why target Tehran?  As in Iraq, it's all a pretext: only this time, the plan is to use nuclear weapons.  We'll wipe out the entire population of Iran's capital city because, as Paul Wolfowitz said in another context, "it's doable."

The other weird aspect of this "nuke Iran" story is the triggering mechanism: a terrorist attack in the U.S. on the scale of 9/11.  While it is certain that our government has developed a number of scenarios for post-attack action, one has to wonder: why develop this plan at this particular moment?  What aren't they telling us?

I shudder to think about it.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6734

UP! COLD WAVE LINKED TO TEMPERATURES// THE YEAR'S BEST [actual] HEADLINES OF 2004

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A further 40,000 read it on the YOUniversity's site.

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Bomming Tripoli OK, Bomming London NOT OK

"Britain paid £100,000 for the murder of a foreign head of state"

In July 1998, a former British MI5 officer, David Shayler, revealed that British security services financed and supported a London-based Islamic terrorist group, in an attempted assassination against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 1996.  The action, Shayler charged, in an interview with the British Daily Mail, was sanctioned by then-Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind.

The incident described by Shayler did, in fact, occur.  Although Qaddafi escaped without injury, the bomb, planted along a road where the Libyan leader was travelling, killed several innocent bystanders. 

In an Aug. 5, 1998 interview with the BBC, Shayler charged, "We paid £100,000 to carry out the murder of a foreign head of state.  That is apart from the fact that the money was used to kill innocent people, because the bomb exploded at the wrong time.  In fact, this is hideous funding of international terrorism."  According to Shayler's BBC interview, MI6 provided the funds to an Arab agent inside Libya, with instructions to carry out the attack.

http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2000/terror_memo_2703.html

>> REMINDER: i don.t publish these things to put down britain, and certainly not in any way to point up superiority in the OTHER 'side'.  i publish them to help prevent us deeply xtianised westerners from forming lynch parties and "showing the natives what's what" - which caused all these probs in the first place!

UP! NEW STUDY OF OBESITY LOOKS FOR LARGER TEST GROUP// THE YEAR'S BEST [actual] HEADLINES OF 2004

AT LAST! The FACTS On SUICIDE BOMBERS! FEEDBACK!

breath of fresh air as usual.

Thanks

Cee, Oxford.

up!

how true!

Kris Deering, Liverpool.

up!

fraser, common sense and observation tell us about suicide bombers, but since we only believe authorities, it's great to have one.  Thanks.

maya, US.

up!

Fraser,

Thank-you so much for sending so much sense, in a sea of so much madness.

Keep it up!.. its this kind of thing that keeps me sane.

It seems to be a peculiar trait that no leader will ever look at the mistakes of the past, to learn about how to conduct the present.  It's as if we are compelled to re-enact the same horrors over and over again, totally blind to the reality of what we are doing. 

Angus Morrison, Cape Town.

up!

This would also explain why so many Pakistanis are involved - because there have been secret and not so secret US military bases in Pakistan for a while now.

I definitely think it is wrong to blame whole religions and nations for the acts of a few because then I can call all Christians Nazis.  The recent media hue and cry about Islam being an evil religion is equivalent to Nazi style propaganda against Jews.

Thanks for your many enlightening articles.   Keep it up. best wishes,

Tamzin, Copenhagen.

up!

Excellent article - a scientific look at suicide terrorism helps everyone.  This is a shining example of what the UP! is really good at, and good for.

Logically, one has to assume that disaffected Muslims are resentful of oppression by the West.  This article more or less proves that radical fundamentalism is just a tool for political messages that the oppressed simply can't afford to make in any other way.  Which leads me to think there is a way to cut the tie between the political force and the fundamentalism, aside from ceasing occupation... hmm...

Phil Chang, London.

up!

Hi Fraser,

Glad to see the feedback about 7/7 and 21/7, getting so interesting.  Particularly liked the following exchange between Sofie from London and yourself:

Sofie: Londoners for the most part live in harmony with one another - that's what London is all about and its the reason why I love this city so much.  But last week's attack was about our way of life (freedom of expression and freedom to live as we choose). 

>> well, i agree wholeheartedly about london being a possible example of multiracial tolerance, but freedom to live as we choose does NOT involve paying for and supporting the invasions and abuse of the rest of the planet full stop.

There's the problem: 'freedom to live as we choose'.  Living as we choose has long involved exploiting the world's resources and exploiting the world's poor.  It's visible everywhere in our greedy western societies - in our unquestioning consumption of the planet's dwindling resources, and in our willing aversion to asking questions about who profits from this and at whose expense.  It's visible in our 'freedom' to accept the lies that the supermarkets are offering us 'choice' and not another vicious neo-colonial round of exploitation, in which 'suppliers', both at home and abroad, are squeezed as much as possible to maximise profits while feeding our 'freedom' to eat what we want whenever we want.  It's particularly visible - as a form of almost pathological denial - in our 'freedom' to fly whenever we feel like it, and to drive gas-guzzling offroad vehicles for city use.  In short, our whole 'civilisation' requires that we turn a blind eye to the consequences of our endless and instant self-gratification.

In recent years, I've been thrilled to note that the message of the early pioneers (from the 70s and 80s) of ecological awareness and social justice has finally reached the mainstream.  Consumers are gradually becoming aware of the importance of fairly traded products and organic farming, for example, and ever larger numbers of charities and pressure groups have begun campaigning on the premise that we must take less and give more.  It sounds easy, doesn't it?  But it's not.  It involves us accepting that the way we live is unjust, immoral and, collectively, suicidal, and doing something about it that will impinge significantly on our cherished assumptions that we have 'freedom to live as we choose'.

The sorriest example of our collective greed and self-absorption is Iraq, where, behind the discredited lies of WMD, those who supported the illegal invasion and occupation have been prepared to endorse the unstated geopolitical aims of the project - to capture Iraq's precious oil reserves, and to instigate regime change and the establishment of 'our values', even though the invaders had plenty of ideas of how to spread 'shock and awe', and plenty of ideas about how to rob the country blind and kill tens of thousands of civilians, but didn't even have the inclination to ask how they would 'win the peace' if the Iraqi people failed wholeheartedly to endorse the endless occupation.

While Iraq is the most obvious indicator of our collective corruption, it's only a part of the injustices that serve to inflame those who are currently engaged in bringing 'The War on Terror' to London.  I don't intend to make direct connections between those eight young men and the occupation of Iraq.  I don't think I need to.  To make this country a safer place, it seems to me that all responsible people in Britain should be finding ways of renewing the argument against the actions of Tony Blair and his government that was so forcefully expressed in the largest demonstration in British history in February 2003: Withdraw British troops now (stay to finish the job?  There is no 'job'.  We had - and have - no plan).

Redressing other injustices follows: End the torture in Guantanamo and all the other 'secret' prisons, established to 'punish' Muslims for 9/11.  Stop pretending that evidence gained under torture is either morally acceptable or useful intelligence material.  Support Palestine's right to the reinstatement of the pre-1967 borders.

That's a start.  And throughout all this, stay focused on the implications of climate change and what it really means to be a conscientious consumer.  They're all connected.

Andy Worthington, London

UP!

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u cant understand the world without innerstanding yourself

up! 0004 // HAITI 1915  //  IRAQ 2005 // july 28, 05

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HAITI 1915  //  IRAQ 2005

Ghosts Of The 1915 U.S. Invasion

Still Haunt Me and My People

Edwidge Danticat, a native of Haiti.

Miami Herald, Mon July 25, 2005.

"Those who give the blows can easily forget,

but the ones who carry the scar have no choice but to remember."

On July 28, 1915, U.S. forces invaded Haiti, launching an occupation that would last 19 years.

The invasion came in the wake of President Woodrow Wilson's professed commitment to "make the world safe for democracy".  However, as soon as the Marines landed, his administration re-mapped the country into police departments, shut down the press, installed a "popular" government, rewrote the constitution to give foreigners land-owning rights, took charge of Haiti's banks and customs, and instituted a system of compulsory labour for poor Haitians.

Those who resisted - among them a militant peasant-run group called Cacos - were crushed.  In 1919, U.S. Marines in blackface ambushed and killed the Cacos' fearless leader, Charlemagne Peralte, mutilated his corpse, and displayed it in a public square for days.

>> remember the name, it's much more likely to be taught in Earth schools in a hundred years than most politicians' names we know so well today.

By the end of the occupation, more than 15,000 Haitians were dead and nobody has counted the wounded.  A Haitian gendarmerie was trained to replace the U.S. Marines, which then proceeded to form juntas, organise coups and terrorise Haitians for decades.

Although U.S. troops were officially withdrawn from Haiti in 1934, the U.S. government maintained economic control of the country until 1947.

90 years later, many maintain, including some current foreign-policy experts, that Haiti, like recently occupied Iraq, should be declared a failed state.  This could make way for another lengthy takeover.  After all, some of the conditions that existed in Haiti in 1915 are still present today: rampant insecurity, political uncertainty, proximity to U.S. shores and concern for American interests, no small part of which is the fear of an exodus of boat people headed for Miami.

Who Wants Yesterday's Putsches?!

However, while Haiti in 1915 tantalised the West with an entryway to the Panama Canal and mineral, fruit, coffee and sugar resources, it seems to have little left to currently exploit.

Few Americans are aware that their country once occupied ours, and for such a long time.  This is not surprising, for as a Haitian proverb puts it: "those who give the blows can easily forget, but the ones who carry the scar have no choice but to remember."

While it takes American leaders and their armed enforcers just a few hours, days, weeks, months to re-write another sovereign nation's history, it takes more than 90 years to overcome devastations caused by such an operation, to replace the irreplaceable, the dead lost, the spirits quelled, to steer an entire generation out of the shadows of dependency, to meet fellow citizens across carefully constructed divides and become halfway whole again.

The 1915-1934 U.S. occupation is not the only problem that Haiti has or has ever faced in the last nine decades.  Yet it is one more hurdle that the country has had to overcome in a long and painful cycle of destruction and reconstruction, self-governance and subjugation.

Though a short phase in the life of a country, 90 years is a long span of time in the life of a woman or a man.

>> to what might it have driven YOU?

[Edwidge Danticat, a native of Haiti, is the author of several novels, including, most recently, Anacaona, Golden Flower.]

Miami Herald.

up! He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.  

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