Somalia : Third Day Of US Air Strikes Leave Dozens Dead, Real Fears That Warlord Violence Will Return

The Fourth Front In The 'War On Terror' Opens Wide

UPDATE : If you're going to reveal that you wasted dozens of innocent people and compleely missed the targets of your anti-terror mission, reveal the truth on the day when half the world's media is totaly occupied with the 'Bush Surge Speech'.

None Of The Three Targeted Al Qaeda Terrorists Were Killed By Airstrikes In Somalia


The gruesomely efficient mass-killing machine that is the American gun ship has laid waste to dozens of Somalis near the Kenyan border, for the third day in a row.

The dead may or may not be Al Qaeda. They may or may not be some of the FBI's most wanted terrorists. And they may or may not even be Islamists. It seems unlikely that all the dead will turn out to be key 'War On Terror' targets, considering that at least one of the dead was a four year old boy, and two others were a young couple in the process of getting married.

To prove that the savagery of the guns-in-the-sky attack was worthwhile, the US, literally, needs Al Qaeda heads on a stick, because after being strafed by gunships, there is unlikely to be much left of their bodies.

On the ground are US special forces, amongst the ranks of the Ethiopian army, and the World Bank is directing millions of dollars in fresh cash to the Coptic Christian powers across the border from Somalia.

America is well and truly back in the land of 'Black Hawk Down'.

And the locals are already starting to talk about the attacks as being nothing more than pure, spiteful revenge for the early 1990s humiliation that Somali warlords dished out on American special forces ; downing at least three Black Hawk helicopters and killing some 18 highly trained American warriors.

The United States' decision to open up a fourth front in the 'War On Terror' has been met with shock and fury across the EU and words of warning from a clearly troubled, brand spanking new United Nations Secretary General.

There is little but the claims of the United States to cite truth that Al Qaeda is operating widely in Somalia, and seeking shelter for its most wanted amongst the Muslim-majority towns and villages.

It should have been a clear and easy sell to the American public : We're striking back at those who destroyed two of our African embassies in the late 1990s.

But so far, there is no proof that Al Qaeda operates in Somalia, that Islamists were threatening the Christians next door in Ethiopia, or even that the majority of Somalians were unhappy with the Islamic Courts that removed the foul and brutal warlords from their savage rule of the nation in June, 2006.

Incredibly, the United States and Ethiopia are now arguing over who supplied the intelligence that said Al Qaeda targets were hiding out in Somalia and had been located.

In Somalia, the US faces a choice between millions of people leaving relatively peacefully under a low-grade Sharia Law or slipping in the blood of their children and neighbours under the Law of the Warlords.

For now, the US appears to be backing the warlords, who have promised to strengthen the unelected 'interim' government of Somalia, as it tries to take control of the capital Mogadishu. But riots amongst Somalis, who were happy with the peace brought by the Islamic Courts (if displeased at the same time that nutters shot up a crowd watching the World Cup), have already broken out in Mogadishu, and plans to disarm the public at large are going badly, if not already abandoned. There are also stories now flowing out of Mogadishu that Islamists backed by the citizenry are attacking Ethiopian troops and at least one Army base of the Somali government forces.

The Islamists, for the most part, appear to have melted away, promising an Iraqish insurgency, of car bombings, suicide attacks and gruelling guerrilla warfare from the shadows for years to come.

Why is Somalia so important to US interests?

It is partly strategic in a world war manner, it is partly to do with the massive mineral and oil wealth of the region, but it also appears to have a lot to do with throwing off the veil and revealing the true colours of the 'War On Terror'.

That is, Christianity Vs Islam, or Islam Vs Christianity.

Few in the media have acknowledged the likelihood that this new front has as much to do with religious choices, and the possibility that Islamist rule can work, as it does with stopping 'terror'.

For there is little else more terrifying in the world, for the people on the ground, than the horrifically awesome spectacle of a couple of A130 gunships slashing thousands of rounds a second into your homes and villages and family members.

Many Somalians already view the gunship attacks as acts of terror, state terror this time, courtesy of the Americans.

It will be hard for the US to convince the locals that hypocrisy and blood-lust revenge have nothing to do with the new Somali front in the supposed 'War On Terror'.

Besides religion, oil wealth and revenge, Somalia also sits smack bang on what will prove to be a powerfully decisive front of the Fourth World War.

In short, he who controls the Red Sea passes through which much of the world's oil is shipped, controls all. And the Suez Canal is not far away.

As for how life will change for Somalis now the Islamic Courts no longer rule, there is this perspective from noted historian Niall Ferguson :

The Islamists offered Somalia order; not a Western order, to be sure, but order nonetheless.

Under their rule, the price of an AK-47 in the Mogadishu markets slumped to $15, a sure sign that the warlords were being forced to downsize their militias. Young men no longer roared through the streets in the Mad Max-style vehicles known locally as "technicals" trucks mounted with antiaircraft guns. Some were returning to school and university. Others were getting jobs with private electricity companies and airlines. Internet cafes were beginning to displace militia training camps. Kalashnikovs were being traded in for mobile phones.

Now, with the Islamists gone, the most likely scenario is a return of the warlords. Worse, the Islamists may now revert to the tactic of suicide bombing to destabilize the new government. As has happened in Afghanistan, the overthrow of an Islamist government will be followed not by a new order but by the old disorder.

...in the war on terror, the United States would rather see a country torn apart by multiple sons-of-bitches than ruled under Sharia law.

But the more U.S. foreign policy promotes anarchy instead of order, the stronger the Islamists' appeal will be. And the darker the shade of mischief that will ensue.

Whether or not the Islamists imposed a rule that was better for the majority of Somalis is beyond debate. About the only thing worse for the Somalis than the raping, child-slaying warlords would be a government composed of Hannibal Lecter clones starved into raw fury.

In Somalia, under the Islamic Courts, Sharia Law was not all-encompassing, and those who tried to outlaw dancing and kite-flying found the resistance was more trouble than it was worth. This was not Afghanistan, and despite the images on television, Somalis know all the about the West, its movies, clothes, TV shows, music, mobile phones, flash cars, gadgets and trinkets.

Somalis were finding a middle ground between Taliban-like religiously-imposed restrictions on their freedom and something close to Western-style debauchery. There were no strip clubs, but magazines like Vogue were eagerly being snatched up by Somali women looking for the latest fashions.

Perhaps it was this middle ground that terrified the Bush Neocons the most.

That Islamist rule could work, and lead towards totally democratic elections where, God forbid, the Islamists might win a powerful majority.

The United States had clearly decided that what happened with Hamas in Palestine, could not be allowed to happen with the Islamic Courts in Somalia.

Savage terror, pouring down from the sky, was deemed the better alternative.

As usual, former CIA action man Robert Baer provides the concise, nail-all sound bite :

"It's akin to the heart of darkness, just shooting into the jungle," he said.

"At the end of the day, you are just making more enemies."


Mission Failed : Official Admits Not Even One Of The Supposed Al Qaeda Terrorists Were Killed In Somali Airstrikes By The US That Killed Dozens Of Civilians

Coincidence? Ethiopia Invades Somalia - World Banks Gives Somalia $175 Million In 'Aid'

United States Went After 20 Targets In Somalia - Now Ethiopia And US Argue Over Who Supplied The Intelligence That Led To The Deadly Air Strikes

The Globalist Agenda In Somalia - Control Over Read Sea Oil Shipping Lanes & Suez Canal, With Oil Riches To Boot

US Warships Gather Off The Coast Of Somalia

Somali Interim President Defies US On Day Two Of His New Rule - Refuses US Request To Allow Moderate Islamists To Join His Government

New UN Secretary General Concerned About US Actions In Somalia - Fears Escalation Of Violence

US Special Forces, CIA, Working Inside Somalia With Ethiopian Troops

Dozens Killed By Airstrikes, Including Newlyweds

The Local View : Retreat Of Islamists Will See Resurgence In Clan Conflicts And Warlords Violence

THE WORLD WAR NEWS IN BRIEF

(click headlines for links)

NOTE : The new 'War On Terror' front that has opened up in Somalia for the United States will be dealt with in a separate post.

Australia Refuses To Increase Troop Numbers In Iraq, Foreign Minister Says Commanders On The Ground In Iraq Must Make Decisions About US Troop Numbers

Despite claiming to be committed to the 'War On Iraq' and expresing backing for whatever decisions President Bush makes, Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, revealed Australia would not be sending additional troops to the region, or making any plans to increase the troop commitment in the future.

Downer also said that he expected the US President would follow the advice of his senior military commanders on the number of troops needed to fight the war.

"...that is obviously a matter of consultation between the (US) president and his military commanders," Mr Downer said.

Downer failed to acknowledgment that the majority of the United States' senior military executive who have commented on US troop commitments have stated that a troop "surge" will not change the situation on the ground.


Turkey Warns Kurds It Won't Allow Them To Seize Oil-Rich Kirkuk In Northern Iraq

This is a battle that has been brewing since before the Iraq War, though tensions and attacks have increased since the American-led invasion in 2003. Though you would hardly now it from the Western media. This is the silent war in Iraq, and Turkey not only fears that the Kurds will get their own independent state, but Iran and Syria rightly fear that Kirkuk will be where the oil pipelines to Israel (through Jordan) will begin :

Turkey has been warning for at least two years now that the Kurds will not get their independent state, embracing Kirkuk, without a fight. A big fight :

Ankara has accused the Kurds of deliberately boosting their numbers in Kirkuk, at the expense of Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmens, to ensure the city votes in an eventual referendum in favor of being incorporated into Iraq's Kurdish region.

"God Damn You, Persian Midget" - What Saddam And His Executioners Said To Each Other

A more detailed deciphering of the words exchanged between Saddam Hussein and his executions has been published online.

Before the noose was fixed around his neck, Saddam mocked one of his executioners with the line, "God damn you, Persian midget."

Saddam then smiled and made the first reference to powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. This led to claims on Sunni/Baathist websites that the cleric was actually one of the masked executioners.

Officials in the execution chamber then drown out Saddam by shouting "ila jahanam". Which has been translated as "go to Hell" :

Others insult Saddam. One man asks them to stop: "I beg you, I beg you, the man is being executed!" Saddam then says the Shahada, or testimony, that there is no god but Allah and Muhamad is his prophet. When he tries to say it again the trap door opens and he falls through to be hung. One man then shouts that "the tyranny has ended!" and others call out triumphal Shia chants.

Iran Warns Israel and United States To Back Off Over Its Nuclear Energy Plans

As Israel tries attempts to ramp up support for possible nuclear strikes against Iran's nuclear energy facilities, Iran has issued yet another warning that it will not pull back from its plans to use nuclear energy to free itself from an oil-dependent energy future.

In reaction to a U.N. sanctions resolution passed on Dec 23, Iran's parliament passed a bill obliging the government to revise its cooperation level with the U.N.'s International Atomic energy Agency (IAEA), and to accelerate its nuclear work.

The bill, passed last month, gave a free hand to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to decide whether it wanted to pull out of the NPT if pressured.

No doubt sensing great trouble ahead, the United Arab Emirates has announced that neither the United States nor Israel will be able to launch any military strikes from it's territory :

The United Arab Emirates rejected as "madness" reports that the United States and Israel will use regional countries as launch-pads for future attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities. In Tehran, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said that his country is willing to develop cooperation with Iran, adding that both countries agree on the need to support peace and stability in the region, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

New US Commander In Iraq Warns It Could Take "Two Or Three Years" For US-Iraq To End The War

Sending up to five additional combat brigades, as suggested by administration officials in Washington who have discussed the plan with reporters, would push the American force in Iraq to at least 160,000 troops, close to the levels involved in the invasion nearly four years ago.

This so-called surge would constitute an abrupt about-face in American strategy, which has aimed in the past two years for a drawdown of American troops as Iraqi forces take on greater responsibility for the war.

Moscow Warns Israel It Must End Violence In Palestine

Moscow "is worried by the actions of Israel that objectively heat the tension on the Palestinian territories, including the military operation conducted on January 4 in the West Bank administrative center Ramallah..."

Meanwhile, there is a new kind of relgious terror boiling over in Gaza, as Fatah and Hamas are pushed towards a civil war by their own disunity and the weapons flows from Israel and the United Sates.

And a disturbing report that claims Israel is now puring Christians from its lands in a deliberate 'cleansing'.


The United States Shifts Up To 20 Stealth Fighters To South Korea As Reports Of North Korea's Plans For Second Nuclear Test Grows

15 to 20 radar-evading F-117A Nighthawk fighters are now being sent to US bases in South Korea in a major realignment of American bomber forces in South Asia. A spokesman for US Forces in South Korea, however, called the move, "a routine deployment".

North Korea views such repositioning of its major aerial assets as preparations for war and a possible invasion.

The aircraft can "penetrate high-threat airspace" and take out critical targets with laser-guided weapons.

Iraq Erupts On The Eve Of Bush's New War Plan Announcements

The War For Iraq's Oil Has Almost Been Won



Tonight, US President Bush will unveil his new plans for how the Iraq War is to be fought by the United States in the coming 12 to 24 months.

He is expected to announce that some 20,000 more troops will be "surged" into Baghdad, and that the American forces will team up with the Iraqi Army to hammer first the Sunni insurgency, and then the Shiite militias.

Considering that the Maliki government was thrust into power, and remains in power today, due only to the political, social and street fighting powers of the Shiite militias, the crackdown on those aligned with Bush's nemesis, Moqtada al-Sadr, in particular, will be a long time coming.

Shiite-affiliated Army officers will not go after their 'brothers'. So it will be up to the US to hit the Shiite slums to rout the 'terrorists' and 'extremists', while the Iraqi Army slaughters more Sunnis.

That is, if Bush's 'The New New Way Forward Plan' ever sees the cold, hard light of World War 4 reality, that is.

Bush faces an incredible amount of opposition to his plans, before they've ever been announced.

Beset by leaks, Republican dissent, international condemnation and reflections on how his plans are similar to Vietnam War troop surges, President Bush could find himself announcing war plans that will not only be opposed by Congress, but by the very soldiers he intends to send.

And that spells mutiny.

US Congress, now controlled by the Democrats, may even block Bush from getting the funding he needs to go forward with his escalation plans for the Iraq War.

While pro-war Republicans, the blogger armies of anti-Left, and the corporate opionista, will wail and scream about how the Democrats "don't support the troops", relatively few Americans will back them up, or speak out in support of Bush's plans.

In fact, USA Today features a poll and cover story today that spells out a tide of dissent amongst Americans unmatched in the entire war-time history :

Those surveyed oppose the idea of increased troop levels by 61%-36%. Approval of the job Bush is doing in Iraq has sunk to 26%, a record low.

The poll also reveals 80% believe the war has not gone as well as BushCo planned, and more than half directly blame the president for this catastrophjc failure. Only 41%, however, blame the Iraqi government for the increasing level of violence in greater Baghdad.

That Americans roundly blame BushCo. for the bloodbath growing bigger by the day across most of Iraq spells disaster for the Republicans PR campaign of trying to convince Americans that the Iraqis are now responsible for the violence in their country, not America. Clearly Americans still believe that it is up to BushCo. to stop the bloodshed.

Letters To The Editor of newspapers across the US, talk radio, the comments section of blogs and news sites, are filling up with American dissent, and its getting angrier, and more aggressive.

There is growing talk of American National Guard and Army Reserve forces refusing to follow BushCo. orders to deploy, or redeploy, to Baghdad in the coming months, and some commentators in mainstream media are speculating that their own president might not even "make it" to the end of his second presidential term.


Meanwhile in Iraq, gun battles have raged across Baghdad, and a dozen other cities and major populations centres across Iraq, leaving more than 50 people dead.

The fury that erupted following the very public execution of Saddam Hussein has not abated, and there are reports that Sunni insurgents hung dozens of hooded men from nooses slug over power poles and electricity wires in Baghdad slums.

While the Iraqi Army may go after the Sunni insurgents in BushCo.'s coming war plans, American forces are expected to directly take on the Shiite militias. But they can't even get into the outer streets of the militia enclave Sadr City, without encountering snipers and IED attacks.

Reaching the core of the massive slum, from which mortars and rockets are being launched into Sunni neighbourhoods, and American bases, is expected to cost many American lives.

But even a troop surge is unlikely to bring peace, or even a reduction in violence and unrest to Baghdad, and Iraq in turn, in the coming months.

The new American commander for Iraq thinks it may still be another two or three years before they can talk seriously about a more peaceful, more stable Iraq :

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, who took up the second ranking U.S. military post in Iraq a month ago, told reporters the American public would need patience to see a stable Iraq but also said he hoped Iraqi troops could be in control of Baghdad within months after a new operation mounted with U.S. help.

Speaking ahead of Washington's expected announcement of a new approach in Iraq, Odierno said: "The mission now is to defeat the ... insurgency and to train Iraqi security forces. "Over time we can accomplish the mission. That time I put two or three years from now. The issue becomes are we willing to wait two or three years or do we want to speed it up?"

Although President Bush has recently adopted the line, "We're not winning in Iraq...but we're not losing," he only came to make such a frank admission because the majority view of the American public could no longer be ignored.

Since the insurgency began, shortly after the Coalition of the Willing swept into Baghdad in April 2003, BushCo. has maintained that they are "winning in Iraq". This stance confused and angered many Americans, and the senior ranks of the US military, because only a blind fool couldn't see that the war was not being won. At least, it wasn't being won in the way that we were told it would be won. That is fast and decisively with few American casualties.

But Bush wasn't lying all those long months of bodybags and American flag draped coffins.

The War For Iraq's Oil was being won. And now, victory is close.

Chris Floyd, a truth-teller widely despised by Americans who like to deceive their fellow country men over the realities behind the Iraq War, explains why :

For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now, could already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving force behind his planned "surge" of American troops is the need to preserve those fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand.

At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new "hydrocarbon law" essentially drawn up by the Bush Administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday reports. The new bill will "radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw open the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world," say the paper, whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. "It would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972." If the government's parliamentary majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.

As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon, BP, Shell and other carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals, allowing them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned oilfields for decades to come.

This law has been in the works since the very beginning of the invasion – indeed, since months before the invasion, when the Bush Administration brought in Phillip Carroll, former CEO of both Shell and Fluor, the politically-wired oil servicing firm, to devise "contingency plans" for divvying up Iraq's oil after the attack. Once the deed was done, Carroll was made head of the American "advisory committee" overseeing the oil industry of the conquered land,

Bush is expected to also announce in his 'My Big Plan For Victory In Iraq' speech to sent benchmarks for the Iraq government, one of which will be finalising the future of Iraq's oil.

You don't need to guess what sort of pressure will be used to get that paperwork signed quick smart.

Expect a good number of the car bombings and assassinations of government ministers, and their families, to draw to a close shortly after the future of Iraq's oil wealth is signed over to the global fuel giants.


New US Commander For Iraq War : "Americans Must Learn To Be Patient..."

Baghdad 2025 : How Future War Fantasists Plan To Deal With Planet Of The Slums - Robots To Kick In Doors, Spidermen To Scale Walls, Dissent Targeting Weapons

Fighting Erupts On Baghdad Streets, Plane Crashes, Iraq Army Checkpoints Attacked

American and Iraqi Armies Launch Ground Forces, Helicopter Gunships Assault On Sunni Haven, 21 Dead : Reports Suggest Sunni Insurgents Were Massive For Huge Attack

On The Doorstep Of Sadr City, American Troops Frustrated As They Wait To "Get The Job Done And Go Home"

Republican Divisions Over Future Of Iraq War Grows

Democrats Launch Bill That Could Force Bush To Allow Congress To Approve His War Plans : Stripping War-Making Powers From The Decider "Who Decides"

Claim : 120 Militia/Militants Killed In Four Days Of Fighting Against US And Iraqi Forces

The War For Iraq's Oil Has Almost Been Won

"God Damn You, Persian Midget" - What Saddam And His Executioners Said To Each Other

A more detailed deciphering of the words exchanged between Saddam Hussein and his executions has been published online.

Before the noose was fixed around his neck, Saddam mocked one of his executioners with the line, "God damn you, Persian midget."

Saddam then smiled and made the first reference to powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. This led to claims on Sunni/Baathist websites that the cleric was actually one of the masked executioners.

Officials in the execution chamber then drown out Saddam by shouting "ila jahanam". Which has been translated as "go to Hell".

Others insult Saddam. One man asks them to stop: "I beg you, I beg you, the man is being executed!" Saddam then says the Shahada, or testimony, that there is no god but Allah and Muhamad is his prophet. When he tries to say it again the trap door opens and he falls through to be hung. One man then shouts that "the tyranny has ended!" and others call out triumphal Shia chants.

A STORM OF NEWS ON THE IRAQ WAR

News out of Iraq and Iraq War related news out of the United States is coming so thick and fast these days, it's almost impossible to keep up with it all. So excuse the lack of coherency attached to the choices of stories I've linked to, and extracted from, in this post.

These are the stories I've been reading, and the ones I've had on file for a week or two now that seem to be the most important today.

Just a note of explanation : I spent almost two years working as a full-time volunteer for the Australians At War Film Archive, transcribing hundreds of interviews from veterans of World War 2, Korea, Malaysia, the Indonesian insurgency, Vietnam, Somalia, East Timor, Afghanistan and the Iraq Wars.

I really thought that listening to and watching, literally, thousands of hours of veterans talking about war, violence, death and loss would harden me somehow to soaking up dozens of stories a day about the 'War On Terror'. But it hasn't.

If anything, there is a nightmare-like deja-vu quality to what is now happening. The stories of all those Australian veterans of past wars are being repeated over and over again, with events on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's my excuse, anyway, for the patchy quality of this blog, and the long stretches of no updates. I hope the thousands of regular readers of this blog will understand why the updates have become infrequent. I hope to correct that in the coming weeks.

The 'War On Terror' has proved to be a disaster of almost incomprehensible proportions for the militaries of the United States, Australia and the UK. Let alone the armies and civilians of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a dozen other countries.

You can pray it will end tomorrow, but it won't. We will have this war before us for years to come, as US Vice-President Cheney and former Defence Secretary Rumsfeld promised, and we will leave the worst of it to the next generation.

If the updates here are not regular enough, you can't go past the Information Clearing House for a daily sweep of the true scope and horror of the 'War On Terror.'


Claim : 25% Of Veterans Of The Global 'War On Terror' Have Filed For Disability

The figures are heart-breaking, particularly when you consider that the vast majority of the Global 'War On Terror' veterans from the United States are under the age of 26 :

* Wounded veteran totals range from 25,000 to beyond 100,000.

* More than 1500 American veterans are 100% permanently disabled.

* More than 70,000 have approached Veterans Affairs to access mental health care, which means that possibly hundreds of thousands of young American veterans are now suffering post-traumatic stress disorder but have not seeked out help, due to lack of access, personal ego and peer pressure.

* More than 1000 Global 'War On Terror' veterans are known to be homeless.

You can imagine what the stats are for those now consumed by alcohol and drug problems.

If such information doesn't break your heart, then you're as demented as the terrorists our soldiers were supposedly sent to fight.

From Electronic Iraq :

...the number of injured has far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting that more than 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war are receiving disability benefits.

New guidelines released by the Pentagon released last month allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders.

They didn't even do this in World War 1, when the condition was known as 'shell-shock'.

This is no longer a 'War On Terror'.

This is a physical, mental, spiritual massacre of America's youth. And the destruction of an entire generation of Iraqis.


Why Not To Increase The Size Of The US Army

From the Washington Post :

Iraq represents the latest sobering reminder of a lesson for Democrats and Republicans alike in the post-Cold War world: Even the world's only remaining superpower, with forces unmatched by any other military on the planet, is limited in what it can do with its troops.

Donald Rumsfeld used to say that only four of Iraq's 18 provinces were troubled, but he neglected to consider the implications of his own statement: That even 140,000 U.S. soldiers -- just about the largest force that the United States could sustain in Iraq over several years -- could not pacify part of one country. The world's lone superpower, spending more on defense than the next dozen nations combined, has all that it can handle -- indeed, more than it can handle -- trying to deal with unrest in part of a single country the size of California. At nearly half a trillion dollars and counting, our power, skill and money buy us a losing outcome in one small corner of the world.

The point is not to belittle the extreme difficulty of the mission facing our troops but to highlight it and come to grips with the limits even of formidable military power set amid hostile populations. Our enemies, well aware of the dominance of conventional American forces, cordially decline our invitation to fight on our terms, under the traditional rules of military force-on-force, with defined battlefields largely separated from populations.

Robert Fisk Claims That Many Washington Secrets Died With Saddam Hussein

From the UK Independent :

The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War - is dead.

Saddam Is Dead, So Where's Osama Bin Laden?

You'd think that five years on from September 11, 2001, that the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden should be viewed as something of a...well, a failure. You'd be wrong.

Here's how the White House views the current 'Where's Osama?' situation :

Q: "....the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure."

White House Spokesperson : "Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure."

In the Bush White House, you get promoted for coming up with newspeak brilliance of such high quality.


Bad Guy Of The Year : Bin Laden? Al-Sadr? Saddam? No, It's Bush

25% Of Americans Named President Bush As Bad Guy Of The Year.

How badly do you have to fuck up to have tens of millions of Americans, let alone most of the rest of the world, think you are worse than Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?


Even American Soldiers Don't Believe The United States Can Win The War On Iraq

Think Progress has chewed the stats on a poll covering the opinions of 6000 members of the US military, and the numbers are shocking :

– Only 35 percent said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved.

– 50 percent believe success in Iraq is likely, down from 83 percent in 2004.

– 38 percent believe the United States should send more troops to Iraq. 39 percent believe we should maintain current levels or reduce the number of troops, including 13 percent who support complete withdrawal.

– 72 percent believe the military is “stretched too thin to be effective.”

– 47 percent disagree with President Bush’s mantra that the war in Iraq is part of the war against terrorism, while the same percentage agree.

– Only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

– 52 percent approve of the overall job President Bush is doing, down from 71 percent in 2004.

– 63 percent say the senior military leadership has the best interests of the troops at heart. That number is lower from President Bush (48 percent) and lower still for civilian military leadership (32 percent) and Congress (23 percent).

American Citizens, Democrats, Republicans, And Now American Soldiers Reject Bush Plans To Escalate The War On Iraq By Sending In More Troops

Americans troops don't think they're winning the War On Iraq, and they don't think they can win it in any way that represents a military victory.

But President Bush is supposedly planning to "surge" in tens of thousands more American troops, in what has been called His Last Chance At A Win In Iraq.

Most of the Democrats controlling the 110th US Congress think pouring more troops into Iraq is a shockingly bad idea. So do some key Republicans. So do most Americans.

Even Fox News war hawk Oliver North thinks the possible plan to "surge" tens of thousands more American troops into Iraq is terrible idea, as do the American soldiers in Iraq that he has been talking to :

"Not one of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen or Marines I interviewed told me that they wanted more U.S. boots on the ground. In fact, nearly all expressed just the opposite: 'We don't need more American troops, we need more Iraqi troops,' was a common refrain. They are right.

"Adding 10,000 or 20,000 more U.S. combat troops...isn't going to improve Iraqi willingness to fight their own fight...an imperative if we are to claim victory in this war..."

How long before President Bush faces a military-wide mutiny, an at-home insurgency, in response to his plans to escalate the 'War On Iraq'?

You would not be far wrong in your thinking if you believe that it has already begun.

It has.

And it is likely to the be the biggest story of 2007.


The Plan To Win The War In Iraq, By The Iraqis

Bush Removes His Iraq War Dissenters - Top US Military Commander For The Middle East Is Replaced, Iraq War Team "Overhauled"

150,000 American Iraq Veterans On Disability Pensions - Veterans Dumped And Forgotten When They Can't Fight This War Any More

Top Democrats Tell Bush No More Troops For Iraq War, Begin Pullout Now

Across The Arab World, New Pride Comes In Recognition Of Saddam Hussein As The Brave Martyr Who Faced Down 'The Enemy' - Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, India, Jordan, Pakistan Sees Marches And Praise For Dead Dictator

"It Takes A Real Genius To Create A Martyr Out Of Saddam Hussein"

US Ambassador To Iraq Seen As Favouring Sunnis Over Shiites - Removed From Office

Shocking, Sickening Details Emerge On The 'Haditha Massacre' As Murder Trials Begin - American Troops "Went Crazy" And Killed 24 Women, Teenagers, Children

"Chaos" Overran Iraq War Plans In 2006, Says Bush Team - This Is Only True If 'Chaos In The Middle East' Is Not The Real War Plan

2006 : THE YEAR IN IRAQ, IN REVIEW

A story from Stars & Stripes that supplies a remarkable timeline of events in Iraq, from a US military perspective, through 2006.

2006 was supposed to be the year of great change in the 'War On Iraq' and Iraq itself. When 2006 began, the new government was in place, oil production (the main source of revenue for the government) had been ramped up to almost 2 million barrels per day, and there were signs that the isurgency was falling away.

How incredible it is, then, to be here at the end of 2006, and to see just horrific changes in Iraq. Changes that no longer point towards a brighter future any time soon, but instead signal a far more deadly, more gruesome new reality for Iraq : all out civil/sectarian war, with tens of thousands more American troops set to pour into the war-savaged country.

From Stars & Stripes :

Before the year began, 2006 had been dubbed the “Year of the Police,” in which American trainers were to focus on bringing the Iraqi police forces up to speed. Officials had talked about a troop reduction in the second half of the year.

But when insurgents bombed a Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, everything changed. The news became dominated by horrific sectarian violence and increasing attacks against American troops.

Some notable events :-

Jan. 5: More than 130 Iraqis and seven U.S. soldiers are killed in suicide bomb attacks and combat on one of the deadliest single days since the war began.

Jan. 6: The New York Times reports that a classified Pentagon medical study revealed that as many as 80 percent of the Marines who died of torso wounds in Iraq could have been saved if they had better body armor. Marine Corps officials say the newspaper took the study’s conclusions out of context. Side armor and other additions are widely distributed.

Jan. 20: Preliminary election results from the Dec. 15 Iraqi parliamentary elections are announced. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance captures 128 of the 275 parliamentary seats but falls short of the two-thirds majority it needs to rule without a coalition. Eleven other parties win seats in the election. Weeks of negotiations ensue as the parties vie to name a prime minister.

Jan. 23: A report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction finds evidence of fraud and mismanagement.

Feb. 12: The Shiite-led coalition picks Ibrahim al-Jaafari to head the first full-term government since Saddam’s ouster. Months of political intrigue follow as Jaafari fights to keep his interim title.

Feb. 15: A Senate report finds the U.S. spent $16 billion on reconstruction in Iraq, but electrical generation, sewage service and water production lag below prewar levels.

Feb. 22: Insurgents detonate bombs inside the Askariya shrine in Samarra, touching off huge reprisal attacks.

Feb. 28: Canadian Brig. Gen. David Fraser takes command of coalition troops in southern Afghanistan from U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry.

March 15: Saddam Hussein testifies for the first time in his trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

March 16: American and Iraqi military forces launch Operation Swarmer, targeting insurgent strongholds near Samarra. It is the largest air assault mission of the war.

March 16: Time magazine reports that a criminal investigation into the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, is under way. The military originally said many of the civilians were killed by an insurgent bomb.

March 29: Abdul Rahman, who was sentenced to death in Afghanistan after converting to Christianity, is granted asylum in Italy.

March 30: U.S. journalist Jill Carroll is freed, 82 days after being kidnapped in Baghdad.

April 4: A second case is filed in Iraqi court against Saddam Hussein, this time on charges of genocide, for wiping out thousands of Iraqi Kurdish villagers in 1998.

April 22: Nouri al-Maliki, from one of the leading Shiite parties, is elected by parliament as prime minister.

April 30: Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general, is pursuing 72 separate investigations into alleged corruption by reconstruction firms.

May 6: Some 1,300 Iraqi and American troops launch Operation United Front, which sweeps through the Ameriyah district of Baghdad. Numerous weapons caches and insurgents are seized.

May 29: Violent riots break out in Kabul, Afghanistan, after an accident involving a U.S. military truck and civilian vehicles.

May 31: The military announces it has brought into Iraq some 1,500 soldiers of the 1st Armored Division. The troops had been in Kuwait since November 2005 as a “call forward force.”

June 7: Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is killed when Air Force F-16s bomb a safehouse near Baqouba. Zarqawi was blamed for some of the most brutal attacks on military and civilian targets since the war began. His death is hailed as a major victory for the American military and fledgling Iraqi government.

June 14: Nouri al-Maliki announces the launch of Operation Together Forward, a plan to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad. The plan is to put some 70,000 extra U.S. and Iraqi forces on the streets of Baghdad.

June 20: The booby-trapped and mutilated bodies of Pfcs. Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker are recovered near Yusafiyah, four days after they were seized in an attack near a checkpoint. A third soldier, Spc. David J. Babineau, was killed in the attack.

July 3: Former soldier Steven D. Green is charged in a U.S. federal court of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl in Mahmudiyah before murdering her family and burning the bodies. Four other soldiers are charged in a military court of rape and murder on July 8.

July 11: The Army announces it is discontinuing its multibillion-dollar deal with Halliburton, responsible for contract services in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

July 13: Muthanna province in Iraq becomes the first to be handed over for full security responsibility by Iraqi forces. Gen. George Casey, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, hails the transfer as an historic event and an important milestone.

July 15: Coalition forces kick off a huge offensive in Helmand province, Afghanistan. U.S. forces push down from the north as Canadian and British soldiers push up from the south.

July 27: The first trial of Saddam Hussein ends after nine months.

July 27: The military command in Baghdad says it will extend the deployment of the 172nd Stryker Brigade and move it from Mosul to Baghdad, as part of Operation Together Forward.

July 31: NATO assumes command of coalition military units in southern Afghanistan, marking the “most dangerous and challenging” mission in NATO’s 57-year history.

Aug. 3: Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, says sectarian violence in Iraq could deteriorate into civil war.

Aug. 30: Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq, estimated that Iraqi security forces would need another 12 to 18 months before they could take over from American troops.

Sept. 3: U.S. and Iraqi troops capture a senior leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq. Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al Saeedi is alleged to have masterminded the shrine bombing in February.

Sept. 3: U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, NATO’s supreme allied commander, asks for more equipment and troops against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. The request continues to go largely unfilled by year’s end.

Sept. 4: Two U.S. military aircraft accidentally fire on a Canadian platoon operating in southern Afghanistan, killing one soldier.

Oct. 5: The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force takes command in the east of Afghanistan, completing its command of all forces throughout the country.

Oct. 19: Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. spokesman in Iraq, says Operation Together Forward has not reduced levels of violence.

Nov. 3: Newspapers report a last-minute insertion into the military authorization bill signed by President Bush will shut down the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction in 2007. The office reported millions of dollars in waste, corruption and poor project oversight.

Nov. 5: Saddam Hussein is convicted by an Iraqi court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death for the execution of 148 men and boys in the Shiite town of Dujail.

Nov. 8: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigns. His final day at the Pentagon is Dec. 15.

Nov. 23: Car bombs kill at least 161 people and injure 257 in Baghdad’s Sadr City.

Nov. 26: The Iraq war now equals the length of the U.S. involvement in World War II.

Dec. 6: The Iraq Study Group recommends U.S. talk with Syria and Iran, focus on training Iraqi troops and scale down its presence drastically in 2007.

Dec. 19: Bush says of the war in Iraq: “We’re not winning, we’re not losing.”

Dec. 21: Eight Marines are charged in the slaying of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq.

Dec. 25: The deaths of six U.S. servicemembers in recent days push the Iraq war’s death toll beyond the number of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Dec. 26: An Iraqi appeals court upholds Saddam Hussein’s death sentence in the Dujail case. He is executed on Dec. 30.

THE EXECUTION OF A DICTATOR

IN DEATH SADDAM WILL BECOME A LEGEND, BEYOND HIS WAR CRIMES

AND THE UNITED STATES WILL REMAIN GUILTY FOR GIVING HIM WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

After spending far too many hours reading far too many stories on the reactions from across the planet to the news that Saddam Hussein has been executed, it's overwhelmingly obvious that while few regret the dictator is dead, there is a huge amount of dissent and anger at the method and timing of the execution and the 'justness' of the trial that preceded it.

While President Bush and Australia's prime minister John Howard crow about the "fairness" of the trial Saddam faced, there are few takers for such praise in the legal world. This wasn't a trial of justice, it was all about vengeance. As the fast-tracked execution shows.

It's also quite stunning to see just how many commentators, blog commenters, letter writers and opinionists, the world over, are going out of their way to point out that Saddam has been put out of Iraq's misery quick smart in order to kill off the future trial he faced for the gassing of the Kurds in the late 1980s.

Why?

Because in order for Saddam to have received a "fair and just trial" over that appalling massacre, there would have been much information going down on the public record about where Saddam actually got the toxic chemicals and the relevant delivery systems that made the massacre of more than 5000 Kurds possible. Not to mention the tens of thousands of Iranians killed in horrific ways by some of the very same chemical weapons that he used to massacre the Kurds.

The biological and chemical weapons that Saddam used on the Kurds and the Iranians were supplied by the United States, and there are US Senate records to prove it.

What this means is that a legend will now quickly form, and it's one that appears to be true, unfortunately, that Saddam was taken out before too much about the United States' complicity in arming up his regime with weapons of mass destruction during the 1980s is exposed to the harsh, unforgiving daylight of international legal scrutiny.

That Saddam was executed so publicly - via the leading nightly news stories and front page photos and Google and YouTube videos, and so brutally - being hung from the neck in a shabby room with gleeful voices mocking him - only showed just how callous and medieval the Iraqi legal system of today is.

It's supposed to be anything but. This is not the Modern Iraq fantasy that was, and continues to be, sold to the American and Western public.

The photos and videos are shocking of the execution are shocking. Probably more so because Saddam did not go fighting and screaming to his death, but managed to maintain a presence of dignity amongst his obvious fear. He did not beg for forgiveness, nor do did he apologise for his crimes.

He went down claiming he was a militant who was not afraid to die. The video shows that, while nervous, he was not terrified of the fate about to befall him. Most people would have a hard time imagining themselves meeting their death this way.

Again, this was a largely unforeseen fallout reaction for those whose job it is to market and sell the liberation of Iraq as taking that nation into the 21st century of fresh, new democracies.

Did America really spend half a trillion dollars and lose 3000 soldiers just so the Iraqis could go back to hanging people in dank rooms amongst cheering and mocking laughter?

It was never supposed to be this way.

Saddam was supposed to be served up a cold dish of justice for his crimes against humanity, and the world was supposed to learn the full extent of everything he was responsible for. Not simply just a small, (by comparison) massacre of villagers, some of whom had tried to kill him.

Compared to what Saddam did to the Kurds and to the Iranians (during the Iran-Iraq War), the massacre he was convicted for was almost the least of his crimes.

But Saddam is dead, and the the air will never be truly cleared of how the United States propped up and armed up his regime during the 1980s.

Instead, legends and conspiracy theories will flourish around the extremely disturbing facts of what happened back then.

The good news may well be that Saddam is dead.

The bad news is that he is set to become a dead legend of Hitleresque proportions.

And while Saddam hung from the thick rope for nine minutes, his neck broken, car bombs across Baghdad killed dozens of Iraqis and another seven (or more) American soldiers.

Saddam, it seems, got off easy in the end.

The Iraq Civil War is now set to become even more deadly in the year ahead. The insurgency is running rife and is smashing great holes in the US military, and the once holy strength of the America's Army. Just as Saddam promised before the war began.

Death has now claimed Saddam Hussein.

But death will now claim hundreds, if not thousands, or tens of thousands, more American and Iraqi lives.


The Last Minutes Of A Tyrant's Life - Prayers, Cry For Calm, Jeers And Mocking

"I Watched Saddam Die"

The Reaction To Saddam's Execution From Iraqi And Arab Media

Arab Haj Pilgrims Outraged At Execution, Viewed As An Insult To Muslims, Mostly For The Timing

United States And Iran Stand United....In Their Satisfaction At The Death Of Saddam

World Leaders Welcome And Condemn Death Of A Dictator

Europeans Denounce Saddam's Execution

Palestinians Say They've Lost A Leader, And Supporter

The Victory Of Vengeance Over Justice

Vatican Denounces Execution, Says Saddam's Death Was Tragic

India Condemns Execution, Protests Erupt

Taliban Says Saddam's Death Will Intensify Jihad

SADDAM HUSSEIN HAS BEEN EXECUTED



Incredible scenes of jubiliation are now being reported across Iraq as television screens fill with images of the execution of Saddam Hussein.

For millions of Iraqi Shiites, the news that this brutal dictator is dead will be greeted like a gift from God, particularly as it comes at the start of the Eid festival.


Go to 'Your New Reality' for full coverage

2006 : ONE YEAR OF THE IRAQ WAR IN REVIEW

Excerpts from a comprehensive review in the UK Independent :

The history of Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been full of fake turning-points - the capture of Saddam in 2003, the supposed handover of sovereignty to Iraqis in 2004, the parliamentary elections and referendum in 2005.

All these events were greeted by the White House and Downing Street at the time as important and encouraging signs of progress, justifying the invasion of 2003. But with every year the war has become more intense. Iraqis are now dying at the rate of about 1,000 a week, according to the UN. Civil war is raging in central Iraq. The war against the US soldiers has also escalated, though American casualties are far lower. The country is awash with blood.

There were two real turning-points of very different kinds in Iraq in 2006: the blowing up of the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra on 22 February; and the Republican defeat in the US mid-term elections, in which Iraq was the main issue, on 7 November. The first was the starting gun for the present sectarian bloodbath. The second also had a vast effect within Iraq as the US began to contemplate failure.

In Samarra, nobody was killed by the explosion itself, though it wrecked the great golden dome of the shrine. But the attack led to a Shia onslaught on Sunni Arabs. Shia restraint, already close to breaking point, finally gave way after more than two years of bombs aimed at army and police recruits, who were mostly Shia, as well as at purely civilian targets. Within days, 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were dead. People caught in the wrong areas at the wrong time were dragged from their cars and slaughtered.

Amid this bloodbath, it is difficult to pick out long-term trends. However, several were clearly visible in 2006:

* There is civil war between Shia and Sunni in central Iraq, and it is getting worse by the day. The most important battle is for control of Baghdad.

* The US is becoming weaker in Iraq because of its evident failure to gain control of the country, and because of the Republicans' defeat in the mid-term elections. The number of Americans who support continuing the war is decreasing.

* The US tried, under its astute and affable envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, to conciliate the Sunni by offering them positions in government, limiting provisions in the constitution they disliked and seeking to talk to the insurgents. The strategy shows little sign of working, and Khalilzad's star is waning.

* The Shia, never comfortable with the US-led forces but prepared to work with the US for their own ends, are increasingly hostile to the occupation. The percentage of Shia who agree with armed attacks on US-led forces rose from 41 per cent to 62 per cent in the first nine months of 2006.

* The US is considering negotiations with Iran and Syria, though this would be a confession of weakness. It also knows that they would look for concessions, such as a US withdrawal and an increase in their regional influence. Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are increasingly worried by Shia successes in Iraq and Lebanon.

* The Kurds are losing confidence that Iraq will hold together, though they do not want to be blamed for it coming apart. Kurdistan is the only peaceful part of Iraq.

* The militias grew stronger during the year because the army and police cannot provide security.

Iraq is disintegrating. In areas where there was a mixed population - above all in Baghdad itself - there have been mass killings. After the Samarra bomb, the capital began to divide up into hostile districts, each protected by its own militiamen. The militias themselves became stronger as everybody wanted armed men they could trust at the end of their street. Shia and Sunni families - whichever was in a minority - received letters, often enclosing bullets, telling them to move within 24 hours or be killed. Few dared to stay.

By the end of the year, the UN High Commission for Refugees estimated that 1.6 million Iraqis had fled within the country and another 1.8 million had gone abroad, mostly to Jordan and Syria. At one point, an estimated 1,000 people a day were crossing the border into Jordan and a further 2,000 a day into Syria.

Inside Baghdad, it is the Shia who are advancing, using their superior numbers. Sunni are being pushed back into the south and west of the city. But in the furthest outskirts, in dusty towns that were once mixed, the Sunni are on the attack. There is brutal fighting in towns such as Balad, one of the few places with a Shia majority north of Baghdad, and Mahmudiyah, on the main road to the south. The Sunni are increasingly in a position to encircle Baghdad.

The US troops are largely bystanders in this ferocious civil war. Where they do intervene it is usually to defend the Sunni, angering the Shia. It is a nasty feature of present-day Iraqi politics that Sunni, Shia and Kurds all see themselves as victims and have little sympathy for or knowledge of the woes of others. In conversation, they tell of atrocities committed against their own community but scarcely mention the killings perpetrated by their own militias and gunmen. Shia describe their Sunni opponents as "Wahabis" and cat's-paws of Saudi Arabia, while Sunni view Iraqi Shia as pawns of Iran.

What options are open to the US? It could reinforce its troops with 20,000 to 30,000 more men, but these numbers add little security in a city the size of Baghdad. It could pull back to its bases, prepared to intervene in support of Iraqi government forces. But these bases depend on vulnerable supply lines. It could pick a fight with the militias, notably the Mehdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr, as it did before in 2004 - it would win militarily, but it cannot eliminate the Sadrists because they are too numerous and too popular.

Negotiations are unlikely to succeed that do not have at their centre an agreement for a timetable for US and British withdrawal. It is their presence in Iraq that is destabilising the region. Their departure should also be unambiguous, with no American bases established inside Iraq.

The US and Britain have argued that this would lead to the Iraqi government unwinding, and would embolden the insurgents. But both these processes are going on already. Sunni resistance to the occupation has created a sympathetic environment for al-Qa'ida-type organisations to flourish in central Iraq. The longer the war goes on, the more entrenched the fanatical Islamic groups will become.

The last justification for keeping US troops in Iraq was that "at least they prevent civil war", but they are failing to do so. It might be useful to have foreign forces acceptable to both sides, but the US and British occupiers do not, in the eyes of Iraqis, have the legitimacy to act as mediators.

The coming year is likely to see the battle for Baghdad intensify. Iraq will probably continue to exist, but as a loose federal state. The Kurds always wanted this; indeed, they would like independence if they dared to take it, but they fear the reaction of Turkey, Iran and Syria.

After the horrors of this year, Sunni and Shia will hardly be able to co-operate closely in future. The sense of Iraqi identity may have been damaged beyond repair. But, more than most states, Iraq is dominated by its capital and Shia and Sunni will continue to fight to rule Baghdad until they either win or know there is no hope of victory.

Go Here To Read The Full Story

THE WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF


IRAN announced it is ready to offer "comprehensive assistance" to Iraq. There is more talk of helping out with the 'service sector' than security, for now. Although an Iranian spokesman basically said you can't have a healthy economic environment within Iraq without security.


THE United Nations Security Council resolutions imposed upon Iran last week are more about saving face for the United States and Britain, claims the Iranian president, than being a united front of world powers against Iran's plans for nuclear energy expansion.

The Iranian president has also blasted the United Nations for completely ignoring the fact that Israel is armed with an estimated 200 nuclear weapons, while there is no proof that Iran has any, or is working towards developing even one such weapon.


THE United States claims that Iran is heading into a "downward spiral" over its non-compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency for its nuclear programs. Iran is now believed to be planning to counter the recently imposed United Nations Security Council sanctions by replacing the US dollar with the Euro for most of its major oil and trade deals.



Ethiopia has invaded Somalia, with the blessing of the United States. Ethiopian forces have reached the outskirts of Somali's capital Mogadishu. The Islamists who chased the savage warlords from power in Somalia earlier this year have now declared a 'holy war' against Christian-dominated Ethiopia.

Ethiopia says the Islamists are in retreat. The Islamists say they have made tactical withdrawals.

Almost half a million Somalis are now believed to be in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Ports and major routes have closed, food and fuel prices have surged.


ISRAEL is now planning a series of what they call "pin-point" strikes against Gaza positions from which Palestinian militants are firing Kassam rockets into Israel-occupied territory. The 'truce', however, remains in place.

In another sign of faltering relations between the United States and Israel, the US announced it will join EU and Arab League condemnation of Israel's plans to build new, illegal settlements in the West Bank.


DID the United States Secret Service bust an Iraqi government minister out of jail and smuggle him into Jordan? It sure sounds like they did.


NORTH Korea continues to defy the United States by playing a complicated game of aggressive diplomacy during six party talks on the future of its nuclear weapons programs. The United States wants to talk about the weapons, but North Korea would rather talk about why the US is trying to stop its international business ventures and why President Bush is so insulting towards the North Koreans.

South Korea now claims that the United States offered to take North Korea off its roster of international terrorist states if they began dismantling their nuclear weapons. NK said no.


The Taliban has confirmed that its top commander has been killed during fighting in Afghanistan. Akhtar Mohammad Osmani is believed to have been essential in not only military planning, but overseeing the financial transactions of the Taliban.


THE chief of the Phillippines' alleged Al Qaeda-linked group, Abu Sayvaf, was killed in early September.

Khaddafy Janjalani was one of the United States' most wanted terrorists. The bounty on him was worth $5 million. It took more than three months for DNA results to confirm the body was that of Janjalani.



STEPHEN J. Sniegoski claims that the 'War On Iraq' is a war fought by the United States on behalf of, and for the direct benefit of, Israel. He explains why here.

An interesting story from April 2003 discussing Israel's plans to pump oil from the then
"newly conquered Iraq" to Haifa. It sounded like plans for a new pipeline were all ready to go following the successful invasion. No word now on what happened to those plans.


SADDAM Hussein will be executed within 28 days. He has written a letter to the people of Iraq, urging them not to hate each other, or the American soldiers in their midst :

"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking. I also call on you not to hate the people of the other countries that attacked us... Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any honest believer.''


THE United States is planning to install anti-missile radar and defence systems in Japan in the next few years.


PAKISTAN is planning to try and secure its border with Afghanistan by installing massive minefields and a fence system.


IF peace and stability is not restored to Afghanistan, claims former US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, then the stability of Pakistan and India will become increasingly at risk.

THE TOP TEN MYTHS OF THE 'WAR ON IRAQ'

Juan Cole, of 'Informed Comment,' has compiled a Top Ten of American-media pumped myths about the Iraq War.

He shreds the last strands of credibility from such fictionals as :

- The United States can still the 'War On Iraq'.

- There is no civil war now raging in Iraq.

- The controversial Lancet Study, which proposed war-related deaths in Iraq were over 600,000, is seriously flawed and unreliable.

- Most of the violence in Iraq is confined to Baghdad, and surrounding districts.

- Iraq is "the central front in the War On Terror".

- Sunni resistance fighters will follow Americans home with terror attacks if they are not beaten and destroyed in Iraq.

Interesting to note that Juan Cole's site is now one of the most popular amongst United States' intelligence agencies, full of desperate analysts trying to understand the truth about what is happening in Iraq.

From the story :

Bush and others in his administration have argued that setting such a timetable would give a significant military advantage to the guerrillas fighting US forces and opposed to the new government. That assertion makes sense only if there were a prospect that the US could militarily crush the Sunni Arabs.

There is no such prospect.

The guerrilla war is hotter now than at any time since the US invasion. It is more widely supported by more Sunni Arabs than ever before. It is producing more violent attacks than ever before. Since we cannot defeat them short of genocide, we have to negotiate with them.

And their first and most urgent demand is that the US set a timetable for withdrawal before they will consider coming into the new political system. That is, we should set a timetable in order to turn the Sunni guerrillas from combatants to a political negotiating partner.

Saddam Hussein To Be Exected Within 30 Days - Appeals Rejected

Claim : New US Defence Secretary Visited Baghdad To Deal With American Troop Mutiny In Anbar

1000 British Troops Raid And Then Destroy HQ Of Shiite Death And Torture Squads, Working Under Cover Of Iraqi Police

Basra Raid Infuriates City Council, Refuse To Co-Operate With British Forces

Americans Slowly Realise That President Bush Faked His "Reality Moment" On Iraq, And That He Intends To Stay The Same Old Course

Christmas Day In Iraq : More Than 70 People Killed, Dozens Found Tortured, Dead