Iraq War Latest

[Southpark Fan]

Iraq War deaths exceed Vietnam War numbers
Gary Vey | viewzone

Department of Veterans Affairs Reports 73 Thousand U.S. Gulf War Deaths See: pdf

'Under the new reporting system, deaths that happen en route or post evacuation are not counted as combat deaths. This is why the number seems unusually low -- a little over four thousand as of 2009.

The actual figures have been hidden from the American public just like the returning, flag draped coffins were censored from the press. But the figures are now available and we can only hope that the American people will be outraged when they learn how they have been misled.

According to The Department of Veterans Affairs, as of May 2007, reports in the Gulf War Veterans Information System reveal these startling numbers:

Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths: 73,846

* Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847
* Deaths amongst Non-Deployed: 55,999

The stastics for non-lethal injuries are likewise staggering:

Total "Undiagnosed Illness" (UDX) claims: 14,874
Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906

* Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911
* Disability Claims amongst Non-Deployed: 1,212,995

Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims: 36%'

[Southpark Fan]

Big hero and Federal parasite Jason Kenney should take the point...fu****g prick!

Iraq war resister, a pregnant mother of four, sentenced to 10 months in prison
Naomi Spencer | 4 May 2013 | WSW

'On Monday, US Army Private Kimberly Rivera, a pregnant mother of four, was sentenced by court martial to 10 months in prison and given a bad-conduct discharge for crossing into Canada in 2007 to avoid redeployment to Iraq.

Rivera, now 30-years-old, was deployed to Iraq in 2006 with the Fort Carson, Colorado 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Stationed in Baghdad, she was assigned to guard the gates at Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where she was constantly approached by civilians. The soldiers were under orders to treat every civilian, including small children, as a potential threat warranting a lethal-force response.

Home on leave in December of that year, Rivera made the decision to go to Canada with her family and seek out refugee status.

In an April 23 interview with the anti-war organization Courage to Resist, Rivera explained that she encountered a 2-year-old girl at the gate who was crying and shaking violently from trauma. The child had come to the base with her family, which was demanding compensation after a bombing by US forces. “When I saw the little girl shaking in fear, in fear of me, because of my uniform, I couldn’t fathom what she had been through,” she said. “And all I saw was my little girl and I just wanted to hold her and comfort her. But I knew I couldn’t.”

Rivera said in a 2007 interview, “I had a huge awakening seeing the war as it truly is: people losing their lives for greed of a nation and the effects on the soldiers who come back with new problems such as nightmares, anxieties, depression, anger, alcohol abuse, missing limbs and scars from burns. Some don’t come back at all.”

The family settled in Toronto and applied for legal immigration status. In January 2009, Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney dismissed Rivera and other US war resisters living in Canada as “bogus claimants…people who volunteer to serve in the armed forces of a democratic country and simply change their mind to desert.” Rivera appealed the decision.'

Video: Jason Kenney - Crackerman
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Video: For call sign EXTORTON 17
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[Southpark Fan]

Sectarian conflict worsens in Iraq
Jean Shaoul | 1 August 2013 | WSW

'A wave of attacks in a number of Iraqi cities this week has left around 70 dead and 200 injured. The attacks, mainly aimed at Shi’ite Muslim areas, took place amid intensifying sectarian conflicts as different factions of Iraq’s political elite battle for power on behalf of their various regional backers.

On Monday, there were 18 car bomb attacks on towns and cities in Iraq’s mainly Shi’ite southern region and Baghdad’s Shi’ite-populated districts. In Baghdad, car bombs exploded in several markets and car parks, the worst hitting Sadr City, a Shi’ite stronghold in the east of the capital. Another car bomb exploded in Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing four people. At least seven people were killed in two explosions in Kut, southeast of Baghdad. There were two explosions near a market in Iraq’s second city, Basra, that killed 3 people and wounded 14, while another in the city of Smawa in Muthanna Province killed 6 people and injured 19. The northern city of Tikrit saw an attack on a house belonging to an army officer, killing one person and injuring two more.

Bombings and shootings across Iraq on July 25 left at least 28 people dead. A few days earlier, car bombs in central Baghdad killed 9 people and injured 17, part of a wider campaign of violence that left at least 46 people dead in and around the capital.

Government security forces have set up road blocks in Baghdad to stop and inspect vehicles for explosives, leading to long lines and difficulty in moving around the city. While no group has claimed responsibility for these deadly attacks, they are widely believed to be the work of al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, formed by a merger of al-Qaeda’s Syrian and Iraqi branches.

In addition, some of the attacks appear to be the work of Shi’ite groups.
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More: Latest from Iraq

[Southpark Fan]

Deadly bombings rock Baghdad
Thomas Gaist | 16 August 2013 | WSW

'At least 34 were killed and more than 100 wounded in a series of car bomb attacks across Baghdad on Thursday. Bombs struck Baladiyat, al Shurta al-Rabaa, Kadhimiyah, and Husseiniya, among other districts. One attack struck near the US Green Zone “diplomatic complex.”

Iraq’s current monthly death toll is at its highest since 2008 and the country has seen intensified spasms of sectarian violence in recent months. July 2013 was the bloodiest single month in Iraq since 2008, with over 1,000 killed and 2,326 wounded. So far, 300 have died in August. Sectarian violence has killed over 3,400 Iraqis since the beginning of 2013. Coordinated attacks involving several car bombs take place regularly.

At least 80 died on Saturday when bombs exploded at several markets, street shops, and parks. Monday saw a series of attacks killing at least 22. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an umbrella group composed of Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Islamist militias, claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Iraq’s government, led by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is carrying out repression on a massive scale. In response to this week’s bombings, the Shia-majority government announced that it will continue its policy of mass arrests of oppositionists, mostly Sunnis. The regime has been executing oppositionists and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Sunnis, often without charges, in prisons controlled by sectarian militias. By inflaming sectarian tensions through attacks against Sunnis, the Maliki regime maintains the division and subordination of the Iraqi working class.

The ISIS was formed in April of 2013, choosing its name to indicate its ties to Islamists fighting against the Assad regime, including the al Nusra Front. In an audio statement released at the time, the leader of ISIS referred to al Nusra as the organization’s branch in Syria. A faction within al Nusra has since designated itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to confirm its fealty to the ISIS. The al Nusra Front is the best-trained and most effective force among the US-backed militias fighting to bring down the Assad regime in Syria. While US officials may publicly denounce al Nusra, the effect of US policy is to channel arms and financial support to the group and other extremist groups serving as proxy forces for US imperialism. If the Iraqi leadership fails to toe the US line, it may face a similar fate at the hands of al Nusra’s allies, the ISIS.
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More: Latest news from Iraq

[Southpark Fan]

Think about what has been sown with regard to our (say the US/NATO etc...) government's illegal invasions, occupations and mass murder campaigns post-9/11. Take Iraq as just one example, if you will.

Please read the following excerpt from: How the U.S. poisoned Iraq

MSNBC reports: Between 2002 and 2005, U.S. forces shot off 6 billion bullets in Iraq (something like 300,000 for every person killed). They also dropped 2,000 to 4,000 tons of bombs on Iraqi cities, leaving behind a witch's brew of contaminants and toxic metals, including the neurotoxins lead and mercury. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an Iranian-born toxicologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, is studying the health impact, and her early findings are worrying.

Last year, in a study published with Iraqi colleagues, she reported staggering increases in birth defects in the heavily bombarded cities of Basrah and Fallujah. The increases started in the early 90s, after the bombings of the first Gulf War, and continued right through 2011. So that's 6 billion bullets in a 3 year period, which equals 300,000 for every person - just in Iraq.

So that's 6 billion bullets in a 3 year period, which equals 300,000 for every person - just in Iraq.

Great book: The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy More Moments of Zen, More Indecision Theory

[Southpark Fan]

Dozens killed and wounded as sectarian bloodshed escalates in Iraq
Rosa Shahnazarian | 21 December 2013 | WSW

Over the past week, waves of sectarian bombings and shootings have torn into Iraq, hitting victims throughout the country.

Yesterday, at least 14 people were killed in three separate attacks. Two roadside bombings 100 miles north of Baghdad in Tuz Khurmato led to the deaths of nine people. Twenty-four were injured. Further north, in the town of Hawija, two adjacent homes were stormed by militants who shot and killed six family members before bombing the buildings and getting away.

Shiites from Iraq and neighboring countries are undertaking an annual pilgrimage to the Iraqi city of Karbala for Arbaeen—a Shiite Muslim holy day, marking the fortieth day of mourning for the death of the Prophet Mohamed’s grandson, that falls on December 23 this year. Pilgrims have provided an easy target for suicide bombers targeting Shiites, and increased government security has done little to diminish the bloodshed.

The day before, at least 46 people were killed and 100 others were wounded in attacks throughout Iraq. A former Reuters reporter who has worked for the Iraqi media as well was killed along with his son in the blast that killed at least 16 and wounded 31 in a southern Baghdad neighborhood on Thursday. Mohanad Mohammed was the seventh journalist to be killed in the country in less than three months.

Two additional attacks targeting Shiites in areas south of Baghdad killed at least 16 people and wounded 18 others, including children and an elderly woman who was rushed to Yarmuk Hospital in Baghdad, her face covered in blood.

In yet another attack on Thursday, uniformed militants reportedly shot and killed a Sahwa militiaman, his three children and his wife and brother-in-law after breaking into their house in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad.

The Sahwa militia was funded by the US military and the Iraqi government and was composed of Sunni tribesmen. Starting in 2006, they patrolled neighborhoods and fought other Sunni insurgents and members of Al Qaeda. Sahwa militia members are now a frequent target of other Sunni militants, who view them as traitors. Yesterday, four more militia members were injured in two separate attacks in the Sharqat area, north of Baghdad.

Altogether, more than 8,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence in Iraq this year—levels not seen since 2008 and the end of the “surge” of US occupation troops into the country. In November, 948 people were killed in violent attacks throughout Iraq; ninety percent of the victims—852 people—were civilians.

Ten years after Washington invaded Iraq, based on lies that Iraq threatened the world because it had weapons of mass destruction, and waged a war that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the sectarian conflicts stoked by the US occupation of Iraq and the resulting devastation of Iraq continue to have tragic consequences.

Related: Uprisings in Fallujah and Ramadi as Iraqi Army Clears Protest Site

[Southpark Fan]

The 'Freedom' Bush Left to Iraqis, 10 Years Later: A Bloodbath Civil War
Thom Hartmann | January 7, 2014 | Alternet

Fighters belonging to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) have almost entirely taken over two major cities in Iraq's Anbar province, Fallujah and Ramadi. Iraqi forces and Sunni tribal leaders have retaken some parts of those cities, but the ISIS fighters are holding strong.

If it wasn’t obvious 10 years ago, it should be now: George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a complete and utter disaster. It has made that country a more dangerous and more violent place. A stable democracy — the kind Bush and his cronies Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz promised would come about after we knocked out Saddam — looks as far away as ever. Instead, Iraq is once again teetering on the edge of all-out civil war.

The capture of Fallujah and Ramadi by Islamic radicals caps off a year of bloodshed for Iraq. According to the United Nations, 2013 was Iraq’s deadliest year since 2008 with nearly 9,000 people killed, most of them civilians. Just last month,759 people were killed.

Tensions between minority Sunnis and the ruling Shiite government of Nouri-Al Maliki, given new fuel by the war in neighboring Syria, have risen to a boiling point not seen since the height of Iraq’s civil war in 2006.

History, it appears, is repeating itself in the worst possible way.

After we invaded Iraq in 2003, Fallujah, the same city overrun by Al-Qaeda fighters on Friday, was the heartland of the Sunni insurgency against American forces. Now it’s once again a launching pad for religious extremists who want to turn Iraq into a theocracy.

If you're looking for someone to blame for this, look no further than Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and all the other neo-cons who were pushing to invade Iraq as far back as the 1990s.

In 1998, the big neo-con think tank Project for a New American Century actually sent a letter to President Bill Clinton asking him to get plans ready for an invasion of Iraq. Arguing that America’s current Iraq strategy was “inadequate,” the letter’s authors said:

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. ... In the long term, [this] means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

Clinton didn’t bite, but when George W. Bush came to Washington, the neo-cons knew they had someone who would do their bidding.

In fact, while campaigning in 1999, George W. Bush told his biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, that if he became president, he wouldn’t make the mistake his father made in having only a short and limited war with Iraq; he’d have a big enough war so he’d become a “war-time president” with enough political capital to do things like privatize Social Security.

[Southpark Fan]

On Bringing War Criminals to Justice
Dahr Jamail | April 28, 2014

Planning for Prosecutions

Sabah al-Mukhtar, the president of the Arab Lawyers Association, chaired the final session of the Iraq commission. The session investigated what the next steps should be toward bringing those responsible for the Iraq invasion and occupation to justice. See: UK referred to International Criminal Court for war crimes in Iraq

“The delegitimization of major war criminals is complete in terms of the understanding around the world that these successive wars that have been waged are in complete opposition to international law,” Dr. Niloufer Bhagwat, professor of comparative constitutional law at the University of Mumbai and vice president of the Indian Lawyers Association in Mumbai testified.

She addressed the fact that there have been no reparations, the sanctions crimes need to be addressed, including the fact that the US government knowingly killed more than 500,000 Iraqi children via malnourishment and disease, and added, “The work we’ve done here has to be carried from country to country so the political formations adopt our viewpoint, that these wars of aggression can only come to an end when we have an overturning of the political and economic systems.”

Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, a senior practicing lawyer and lead prosecutor of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunals on Iraq, believes that the people’s tribunals that have been held on Iraq “are becoming an increasingly important tool for recapturing the lost space and jurisprudence over war crimes. We’ve had three war crimes tribunals and we intend to have more and to introduce this thinking into law schools like the one in which I teach.”

He believes the next step toward justice is for countries to exercise universal jurisdiction as a means of charging war criminals.

“Three quarters of UN states have authorized their courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes, so the stage is actually set,” he said. “The challenge then is how to get these countries to institute charges against these war criminals on the basis of credible trials that have been conducted and ended up in convictions, either by peoples’ tribunals or otherwise. The next step is to go country to country and begin to file charges in each of these jurisdictions.” See: Nobel laureate urges prosecution of Bush, Blair for Iraq war crimes

Dr. Curtis F. J. Doebbler, an international lawyer who practices law before the International Court of Justice, shared an instance where there has already been some success.

“We suggested, for Syria, and I was in the room with the negotiators, that [US Secretary of State John] Kerry be advised that the use of force could lead to violations of international law, and there could be war crimes,” he said. “So I think we’re making some inroads.”

Lindsey German, the convener of the British antiwar organization Stop the War Coalition, stated in her concluding remarks that Bush and Blair are “by far the most responsible persons for the Iraq war.”

She added, “Blair is still the envoy for peace in the Middle East, of all things, for which they obviously didn’t check his CV. We have to stress the connections between the wars and the political and economic systems under which we live. We can’t have economic justice without bringing justice to the war criminals.”

Comar addressed the “banality of militarism” in the United States, said he hopes that the work he is doing “is creating a vaccine for that” and stressed the need for confidence in international law. See: George W Bush Taken to US Court for ‘His’ War Crimes in Iraq

“We in the US can work to take power back from the federal system on a state system and begin to incorporate international law into our own laws,” he said. “Or maybe we can do this on a city level to criminalize this wrongdoing in a lawful manner so that we have more control. I look forward to sharing my court complaint with any other lawyer. We need to work together to help get people reparations from this war and to prevent the next war.”

Dirk Adriaensens, a long-time Iraq activist and cofounder of the Iraq Commission, concluded the commission by calling for concrete proposals that will lead to global court cases regarding Iraq. See: Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study

“If Inder Comar says that his court case can be replicated in all other 49 US states,” he said, “then we can replicate this in every country around the world.”

Related: Iraq News

[Southpark Fan]

Canadian Spec Ops Involved in Iraq Firefight
Paul McLeary | January 19, 2015 | Defense News

Canadian forces have killed several Islamic State fighters in Iraq

Canadian special operations forces have been involved in a deadly firefight with Islamic State (IS) fighters in Iraq, a top Canadian general said on Monday. The disclosure marks the first official acknowledgement that western troops are leaving their forward operating bases and have engaged in combat in Iraq while training and advising Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

The Canadian operators had just completed a planning session with "senior Iraqi leaders several kilometers behind the front lines," explained Canadian special forces commander Brig. Gen. Michael Rouleau during a conference call with reporters. "When they moved forward to confirm the planning at the front lines in order to visualize what they had discussed over a map, they came under immediate and effective mortar and machine gunfire."

Canadian snipers quickly opened up on the targets "neutralizing the mortar and the machine-gun position," he said.

There are 69 Canadian special operations forces working in Iraq, operating under an April deadline for ending their mission, along with a number of regionally-based Canadian CF-18 Hornet aircraft taking part in the coalition bombing campaign aimed at IS targets as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

In a surprising bit of openness about a mission often clouded in secrecy, Rouleau also confirmed that his operators have called in airstrikes for coalition aircraft from the ground, and have used lasers to designate targets.

Rouleau said the Canadian advisers — working with the Kurdish Peshmerga in the north — generally stay several kilometers from the front lines, though they do get closer from time to time.

He claimed that the training program so far has been a success, and that "we have seen Iraqi security forces take more ground, gain more confidence and become even more proficient warriors than they already are."

[Peter]

So much for being a nation of peace-keepers... only a matter of time now before I will be dealing with the "I am Chuck the Canuck" solidarity after a further escalation and importation of violence to the "True North strong and free."

[Southpark Fan]

Scheming schemers and war criminals.





This memo, drafted by the U.S. Embassy in London, reveals how Bush used Labour 'spies' to manipulate British public opinion.

[Southpark Fan]

Iraqi army kills dozens of ISIS fighters, but 90,000 trapped civilians starving in Fallujah
10 Apr, 2016 | RT

Easy to forget what is going on in Iraq (where it all started); with all the excitement in Europe.

The Iraqi military says 44 Islamic State terrorists have been killed in recent airstrikes across the country. This includes Fallujah, where tens of thousands remain trapped and, according to Human Rights Watch, are inadvertently being starved by the Iraqi Army.

“Under the supervision of joint operation command, and with the support of the department of military intelligence, the Iraqi Air Force pounded ISIS positions in Hawija and Shargat,” the statement reads, as cited by Kurdish agency Rudaw.

Members of Iraqi government forces celebrate on a tank with a seized flag of the Islamic State group (IS) after they retook an area from its jihadists on April 2, 2016 in the village of Al-Mamoura, near Heet in the western province of Anbar.

The statement by Iraq’s war media office also said three military bases belonging to Islamic State (IS formerly ISIS/ISIL) were destroyed. In Hawija, forces killed 28 militants, who were allegedly of different national backgrounds. A further 16 were killed in Shargat.

Fallujah is where most of the action appears to be at the moment. The air force “targeted ISIS positions… destroying two explosive and weapons factories and a hospital which was used as a military base.”

Whether Fallujah can be retaken without dire human losses is another question.

According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report from Thursday, 90,000 residents are trapped and are at serious risk of starvation in the first Iraqi city that fell to IS. Vicious control of every day-to-day aspect of the city’s life is being implemented by the terrorist group, with the type of punishments and summary executions that made it infamous when it first drew international attention.

Food prices in the city are off the charts, with a 50kg bag of flour – something that costs around $7.50 in the US – costing $4,166 in one case noted by HRW.

“Food is so scarce that many people have resorted to eating grass,” the authors wrote.

The Iraqi Army has a role to play here, according to two unnamed officials who told HRW that it is “keeping shipments of food and other goods from reaching the city.” Besieging a populated area is illegal under international law.

According to the authors, the army did try to open humanitarian corridors for food to pass through IS-controlled areas to the people, but IS caught on to the fact.

"Residents in the city confirmed that the local government had tried to open three routes out of the city, but they were discovered and booby-trapped by IS militants," the authors wrote. The siege then continued.

The people can’t leave because IS doesn’t want its new kingdom to look like it can’t sustain life. Grotesquely, they execute those that try, witnesses told HRW.

“The people of Fallujah are besieged by the government, trapped by ISIS, and are starving,” an HRW official said in the Thursday report, which calls on Baghdad to work on a better strategy.