Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29123

The officialUS/UK/French/Israeli line is that the “Arab Spring” has finally reached Syria. There are the legal authorities of Syria, and there are armed terrorist throngs taking advantage of genuine social grievances and unleashing violence throughout the country, which in turn triggers police repression.In Syria, such groups are in all likelihood profusely armed, trained, financed and abetted by foreign players.Russia and China are not ready to tolerate a re-run of Iraq and Libya.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/index.html

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq "1,455,590", Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 4,801, Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan: 2,87, Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan $1,295,667,663,671, For more details, click here. "All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting." - George Orwell

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/hadi-j05.shtml

Today's opening of the trial of a US Marine in connection with the 2005 massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha casts a spotlight on the criminal character of the nine-year war and occupation carried out under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/iraniraq-defectors-and-disinformation-4574/

Official Washington has a soft spot for “defectors” from hostile nations, especially if their tales of perfidy about their ex-homelands fit with favored policy. That was the case with Iraq before the 2003 invasion and now with Iran, but these “defectors” often tell lies. Iranian Army CadetsA new American war hysteria is rising, this time over Iran, and – like its predecessor with Iraq – this one employs “defectors” who come forward, often under the umbrella of neocon organizations, to impart alarming tales.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d27.shtml

The withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq after nearly nine years of military occupation has been accompanied by a surge in sectarian tensions and violence that threatens to escalate into civil war. Following the explosions that ravaged Baghdad last week, there have been further attacks on government buildings in the capital and bombings and killings in the volatile cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Kirkuk.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SmH0PF1IiaI

The U.S. troop withdrawal leaves behind a country embittered by an occupation that's cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. And as U.S. soldiers return home for Christmas, the mood is far from joyful among veterans struggling to deal with the personal aftermath of the war. With soaring suicide rates, it's still too early to estimate the true cost of the invasion. Our correspondent Liz Wall reports.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d21.shtml

US President Barack Obama staged a ceremony Tuesday morning at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to mark the end of the Iraq War and the return of the top US commander in Iraq, General Lloyd Austin. With the president nodding his agreement, Austin declared, "What our troops achieved in Iraq over the course of nearly nine years is truly remarkable. Together with our coalition partners and corps of dedicated civilians, they removed a brutal dictator and gave the Iraqi people their freedom."

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29958.htm

As a Nobel Prize recipient, Barack Obama faced the oxymoronic reality of having to accept prizes for peace while waging global war. Were global consciousness at an enhanced level, observers would have equated such a contradiction as akin to a reversal of the Nuremburg principles against aggressive war; a radical pardon of Hitler’s underlings recognizing that at the heart fo such military expansion was the intention of peace and liberation.

Link: http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2011/11/rothschild-owned-central-banks-in-all.html

As of the year 2000, there were seven countries without a Rothschild-owned Central Bank. Then along came the convenient terror of 9-11 and soon Iraq and Afghanistan had been added to the list, leaving only five countries without a Central Bank owned by the Rothschild Family. We all know how fast the Central Bank of Benghazi was set up.

Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=2&p=82838&s2=05

The political scientist Mark Duffield has observed that the effect of Western intervention in Iraq has actually been to "demodernize" that country.[2] This is ironic given that the military campaigns against Iraq and Afghanistan have been accompanied by narratives of the West’s obligation to modernize backward nations. Nowhere is the truth of Duffield’s observation clearer than in the story of what has happened to Iraq’s education system, especially its higher education system. Western intervention has ended up destroying Iraq’s universities, formerly among the best in the region, as functional institutions. "Up to the Early 1980s, Iraq’s educational system was considered one of the best in the Middle East.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/205179.html

Iraq's refusal to grant immunity to US troops remaining in the country beyond a yearend deadline has stalemated talks between the two sides over the extension of US forces' presence in the country. On Monday, a US defense official described the issue as a 'sticking point' in the negotiations, AFP reported. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US administration was "looking at all the different options right now" to facilitate an immunity deal.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/loot-s03.shtml

A joint congressional investigation into US government contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan confirms that the US occupation of the two countries has been a bonanza for corporate military contractors, with waste and fraud estimated as high as $60 billion.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/27-2

BAGHDAD - Rania was 16 years old when officials raped her during Saddam Hussein’s 1991 crackdown in Iraq’s Shia south. "My bothers were sentenced to death, and the price to stop this was to offer my body," she says. Cast out for bringing ‘shame’ to her family, Rania ran away to Baghdad and soon fell into living and working in Baghdad’s red light district. Prostitution and sex trafficking are epidemic in Iraq, where the violence of military occupation and sectarian strife have smashed national institutions,

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28952.htm

"Pakistan Observer" -- Some years ago, in the Indian site www.bharat-rakshak.com, this columnist had written of the NATO militaries as resembling an army of simians. Such a force - if let loose within a confined space – can create immense damage, but are unable to clean up the resultant mess. This is precisely what the world has witnessed in Iraq. Despite more than a decade of sanctions that directly resulted in nearly a million extra deaths during that period ( because of shortages created by the UN-approved measures), the regime of Saddam Hussein was able to provide food, energy and housing to the people of Iraq, whereas eight years after “liberation” by key NATO members, the country and its population are worse off than before the 2003 invasion that led to the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/08/afghanistan-and-iraq-withdrawal.html

It is strange how right after a group of Taliban fighters were allegedly able to take out a Special Forces Chinook with a shoulder-mounted rocket; support is quickly rallied to justify keeping troops in Afghanistan until “at least” 2024, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/20118923045869251.html

Two American men can go ahead with civil lawsuit over allegations they were tortured in Iraq at the hands of US forces. Donald Rumsfeld, the former US secretary of defence, must face a lawsuit filed against him by two American men claiming they were wrongfully held and tortured by US forces in Iraq. The US Court of Appeals in Chicago on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling last year allowing the men, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, to pursue claims that Rumsfeld and unnamed others should be found personally liable for their treatment - despite efforts by the former Bush and current Obama administration to get the case dismissed.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/03/201139101019805732.html

As authorities adopt stricter version of Islam, culture of tolerance is under threat. As change sweeps the Middle East, there are fears of a new crackdown in Iraq. After anti-government demonstrations last week, security forces beat and arrested hundreds of protesters. Although officials have since apologised, but protesters fear that further repressive measures may be on the way.

This footage shows how the police and army shoots people with real bullets in Alhawijah city. this is how USA democracy works in IRAQ. god bless iraqi people.
اطلاق النار الكثيف على الثوار والمتظاهرين في الحويجة واستشهاد الشهيد فلاح حبيب.
هذه هي ديمقارطية الامريكان والمالكي

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011218104510878522.html

Reports of deaths as thousands turn out to demand better service delivery and jobs from government. Violent protests have taken place at various locations in Iraq, with anti-government protesters rallying against corruption, poor basic services and high unemployment.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/15/iraqi-defector-curveball-admits-to-wmd-lies-that-led-to-war/

An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, who allegedly helped convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had a secret stash of biological and chemical weapons, has admitted for the first time that he made it all up.

Link: http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=364&Itemid=1

It was recently reported that doctors had advised women in Fallujah not to give birth. There are many medical reasons for infertility which might shatter the dreams of a young woman. It is not difficult to imagine how heartbreaking it must be for a woman who is advised that she can never bear children. But for the young women of an entire city – tens of thousands of them – to be advised not to give birth, how can one imagine such collective pain? But perhaps it does not matter – one life is a tragedy, a million a statistic? Certainly this episode attracted limited press attention. Media Lens highlighted an interesting contrast with the attention directed at the lady who chucked a cat into a bin – one cat confined for a few hours was a tragedy.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27267.htm

January 15, 2011 "Raw Story" -- An Obama administration official said that nonviolent icon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would "understand" and "recognize" the need for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if he were alive today." Johnson said. Johnson claimed US service members are helping the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that Dr. King spoke out in favor of acts of kindness. 500 lb. depleted uranium acts of kindness, Abu Ghraib tortur prison acts of kindness, raping, mass murdering, looting acts of kindness. Oh yea, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have approved...

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340207/I-didnt-think-Iraqis-humans-says-U-S-soldier-raped-14-year-old-girl-killing-her-family.html

Steven Dale launches appeal against five life sentences because he was tried in civilian court. He says warzone sent him crazy and deaths of two colleagues had 'messed me up real bad'

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20360

WikiLeaks has been closed down world-wide and its heroic founder Julian Assange is facing arrest. Yet the WikiLeaks saga obscures an even more appalling reality that Mainstream media, politicians and academics are remorselessly lying about past and present genocidal realities from the Iraqi, Palestinjan, Tamil and Afghan Genocides to the worsening Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust and looming Climate Genocide that is set to kill 10 billion people this century.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/11/2010115112630560418.html

US military deliberately sent Shia and Kurdish commandoes into Sunni areas for torture, Wikileaks documents show. The revelation by Wikileaks of a US military order directing US forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the US military about detainee abuse. But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger US strategy of exploiting Shia sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the US war.

Link: http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=71335&s2=31

Throughout my conscious years, I have witnessed with disbelief and increasing hopelessness the limitless human capacity for cruelty and barbarism- quite often comfortably cloaked in terms of righteousness and piety. A vast number of instances of this ongoing blot upon the soul of humanity are readily attributable to the audacity of power, and the ability of the human animal to compartmentalize, commit the most inhuman acts, and go on living unperturbed to see another day.

Link: http://refreshingnews9.blogspot.com/2010/10/fed-is-fuelling-catastrophe-of-fast.html

The OECD predicts that by the end of the decade, average wheat and coarse grain prices will be 15pc to 40pc higher in real terms. The answer to this question, according to a recent OECD and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report is a definitive no; global agricultural production is on track to satisfy the expected long-term increase in demand, the OECD reckons. Yet it's little thanks to public policy, which in combination with the current craze among financial speculators for commodities, seems hell bent on driving up prices to what for millions of the world's poor may be starvation levels.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o26.shtml

The nearly 400,000 documents released by WikiLeaks give some indication of the barbaric reality of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The military reports contain ample evidence of war crimes, for which the highest levels of the US military and political establishment are responsible. The major revelations contained in the documents include:

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/148265.html

American forces decapitated an Iraqi last year on the order of their higher-up, show recently-exposed US military documents. The troops operated under the command of an unnamed US major, who had been involved in the rape of an Iraqi female, showed one such document posted on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The incident took place after the victim, the brother of the raped female, reportedly killed a military official in reprisal for the indecent assault.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m71097&hd=&size=1&l=e

So now we begin to know the full extent of what Tony Blair called the blood price. A detainee tortured with live electrical wires here, children shot by US troops at a checkpoint there...As many as 30 children died at the hands of US forces at military checkpoints, the Iraq war logs have revealed. Violent "escalation of force" (EOF) incidents as vehicles were slowed down and searched "often" resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, according to the classified documents. One entry described how a six-year-old Iraqi was hit as troops fired several rounds with light machine guns. It read: "While crossing the street, patrol had an EOF where patrol fired 3 rounds of M249. One round ricocheted off the concrete hitting a 6yr old LN [local national] 250m down the road. Medical Facility reported that the 6yr old LN died of wounds upon arrival."...

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2010/10/23/wikileaks-release-puts-spotlight-back-on

Many, many years ago, I noted in the Moscow Times that shortly after the 2003 invasion, the United States had begun hiring some of Saddam's old torturers as the invaders sought to quell the then-nascent "insurgency" -- i.e., the opposition to foreign occupation that when carried out by white men, such as the French during World War II, goes by the more ringing name of "resistance." Here's part of that report, from August 29, 2003:

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/2010102216241633174.html

Almost 700 civilians, including pregnant women and the mentally ill, killed for coming too close to checkpoints. In September 2007, an Iraqi in a car ventured too close to a US patrol in Baghdad. The soldiers honked their horns; when that didn't cause the car to turn away, one of the gunners fired a warning shot. The bullet - intended to harmlessly hit the pavement - instead hits one local national (9 year old girl).

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/23-4

Shortly after 10am on 14 May 2004, a convoy of private security guards from Blackwater riding down "Route Irish" - the Baghdad airport road - shot up a civilian Iraqi vehicle. While they were at it, the Blackwater men fired shots over the heads of a group of soldiers from the 69th Regiment of the US Army before they sped away heading west in their white armored truck. When the dust cleared, the Iraqi driver was dead and his wife and daughter were injured.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53232

The U.S.-led invasion and then occupation of Iraq brought a sharp setback to the rights of women in that country, UNFPA head Thoraya Obaid tells IPS in an interview. The view that Muslim societies are necessarily backward on the position of women arises from stereotyping, she says. And she speaks of herself as a Muslim woman who does not fit the stereotype.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39724807/ns/us_news-security/

U.S. authorities are bracing for the potential disclosure of thousands of secret Iraq war documents. The Pentagon on Monday asked media organizations not to publish any classified war files released by the WikiLeaks Web site, as the U.S. braces for the potential disclosure of hundreds of thousands of secret Iraq war documents.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20269

Dr. Christopher Busby, a world famous UK based physicist, was at the UN last week with the results of his health survey of the city of Fallujah, Iraq. The results were truly astonishing, even to the jaded eyes of UN representatives, old retired war fighters and politically connected bureaucrats. No armed force had accomplished this level of death and disease in a civilian population before. What Weapons Can Do That? There it was in black and white, on paper, from an internationally respected physicist - the utterly unbelievable, but certified results: Fallujah’s leukemia rate was 38 times higher than Hiroshima after the US Atomic Bombing in 1945. The questions were fast and furious.

Link: http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=70776&s2=14

Winter PatriotOctober 14, 2010 - The Stryker Combat Brigade in Afghanistan, some of whose members stand accused of killing civilians for sport, was led by a man who openly sneered at the U.S. military's counterinsurgency strategy, according to Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post....I cannot speak for Tunnell, but my understanding begins with the fact that the words 'insurgent' and 'insurgency' are entirely inappropriate in this context. In dictionary-English, as opposed to the political double-talk that goes on in America, an 'insurgent' is someone who rebels against a legitimately established government. Both Iraq and Afghanistan were bombed, invaded, demolished and occupied, based on transparently obvious lies.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m70256&hd=&size=1&l=e

The U.S. army attack on three houses in Falluja in the early morning of September 15 requires an explanation from various parties. The U.S. is required to explain the reason it deployed helicopter gunships in attacking a civilian target inside an Iraqi city after the withdrawal of its combat troops. The troops staying behind were supposed to be only engaged in training and offering of advice.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010926204139651974.html

Families of thousands of Iraqis missing since the invasion fear they will never find out what happened. Thousands of Iraqis have gone missing since the US-led invasion seven years ago. It is thought that many disappeared during the sectarian bloodshed and a number were rounded up in military operations.

Link: http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/mentally-injured-troops-used-to-murder-children-and-women-daily

The US continues its illegal and immoral wars, murdering innocent children, women and innocent men daily, by redeploying soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries and Military Sexual Trauma. Veterans view this as cruel, inhumane, and dangerous and know that without repeated use of traumatized soldiers on the battlefield, the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations could not continue. By winning troops Right to Heal, Iraq Veterans Against the War believes Americans can end the war and war crimes committed daily in their names.