Abdul Ilah Albayaty,
February 2009
http://brusselstribunal.org/
US foreign policy experts suggested to the Bush administration that the only way to defend American interests in Iraq was by replacing current rejected figures of the political process with new figures that appear independent of the United States. We must recognise that Americans have partially succeeded in this by leaving Maliki without opposition, and obstacles, adopting slogans of the Iraqi resistance movement on the national unity of Iraq.
Maliki has proven to the Americans that he is, by his sectarian nature, more capable than Allawi in pursuing the interests of Iran/US: he saw no contradiction between WALYAT AL-FAQIH — the rule of clerics — that he long used as cover, and close cooperation with the United States. In not wearing the religious turban he can provide loyalty to Iran without creating competition with Al-Sistani and Khamenei, and can also touch the sectarian feelings of Iran while serving the interests of the United States. His signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US is proof.
The United States and their advisers in Iraq — Americans, Israelis or Iraqis — are happy about this situation because what interests them is how to control Iraq after the failed policies of Bush. What matters most to them aren’t the persons, or the support of Iraqis, but world opinion, the image of America, and guaranteeing US imperial interests.
Two trends are involved in improving the image of the United States. The first presents the Iraqi resistance as a barbaric movement concerned only with blood, murder and persecution, and that has nothing to do with the liberation of Iraq. Al-Qaeda and its like and Zionist and imperialist propaganda serve this tendency. The second trend suggests that cooperation could be established between the US and the Iraqi people under occupation or semi-occupation. The most important participants in this trend are Allawi, the Communist Party, Kurdish leaders and the Shia and Sunni parties.
All political analysts know that the American project of cooperation between the US and Israel to encourage the dreams of imperial Iran to tear the region apart and realise the “New Middle East” has failed. One reason for this failure is the exaggeration of the abilities and ambitions of the Iranians and Kurds. These ambitions have not only awakened Iraqi patriotism, but also Iraqi national and Arab solidarity. This has emerged as evident in recent days during the local elections. Their results will not change much, especially since they were conducted under the brutal US occupation, with the US-drafted constitution that threatens the unity of Iraq and under the sectarian quota system, heinous in its composition and terms of reference. Iraq with these elections does not change and remains an occupied country. The only thing noteworthy of these elections is that they reflect the balance of forces and trends at the moment.
The Iraqi resistance boycotted the local elections. It has been very successful in the boycott, but at the same time it decided not to disrupt the elections to let the parties in the political process settle accounts between themselves and allow the forces that think they can somewhat improve the situation in some provinces through the elections perform their task. This tactic was a success:
- The Iraqi resistance has proven that it is not against the use of polls, but boycotts the elections because they take place under occupation and it is the occupation that controls the election results.
- The Iraqi resistance has proven that Iraqi patriots would win every election if they were free and fair, because patriotism is stronger than sectarianism and chauvinism. The proof is the adoption by the majority of candidates of the slogan of the resistance: “Sunni or Shia, we will not sell this country.”
- The Iraqi resistance has demonstrated that resistance is not only a military action but also the political mobilisation of the masses in the various forms of support for armed action and the process of the liberation of Iraq, including the movement of the defence of the rights of individuals or groups of the population, and participation in the popular political struggle in its various forms.
The vote for Al-Hadaba list in Mosul and for Al-Haboub in Karbala put an end to what remained of the attempted US-Israeli-Iranian project of promoting Sunni and Shia sectarianism, Kurdish chauvinism and the communist liberals’ complicity with them. For fear of the victory of the national movement, the pro-occupation movement wanted to reduce the value of this victory by saying that they are former Baathists. So be it. The Baathists, the Nasserists, leftists and Islamists are the best sons of Iraq if they are the defenders of Iraqi patriotism, anywhere they are.
The summary of the election is as follows: the US has managed to scrap their allies, which became cumbersome, for Maliki’s profit. Elections are cut to his measure. But the resistance with its wise tactic has proven that the national movement is the one that will decide the future of Iraq in order that the Iraqi people is sovereign on its territory and over its wealth. Will America recognise this obvious fact or will it continue to hide its head in the sand, leaving its army and its puppets mired in their crimes against Iraq?
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Türk Dünyasının ve Müsülman aleminin ilk Cumhuriyeti Azerbaycan ve ilk Cumhur Başkanı Mehemmed Emin Resulzade´dir
Türk Dünyasının ve Müsülman aleminin ilk Cumhuriyeti Azerbaycan ve ilk Cumhur Başkanı Mehemmed Emin Resulzade´dir
Ali S. Yılmaz
Ali S. Yılmaz
M.E. Resulzade ( 1884 Baki - 1955 Ankara )
( Bir defa yükselen Bayrak bir daha inmez )
Mehemmed Emin Ahund Mulla Ekber Oğlu Resulzade 31 Ocak, 1884 yılında Azerbaycan Başkenti Baki´nin Nohanlı Şehrinde dünyaya gelmiştir. Babası din alimi olmasından ziyade çok aydın bir insan idi. Ona göre, oğlunu bilimsel temellere dayalı bir eğitime teşvik ederk yetiştirmiştir.
1902 de onyedi yaşında olan M.E. Resulzade “ Müsülman Gençlik Teşkilatını kurmuştur”. Daha sonra “Müsülman Demokratik Müsavat Cemiyyetinde” gizli faaliyete başlayarak 1994 yılın sonlarında “ Mir Hesen Mevsim “ ve Hesen Hacıoğlu adlarınd iki arkadaşlarıyla birlikte “Müsülman Sosyal Dimokrat Hümmet teşkilatını kurmuştur. Şair ve yazar olan Resulzade, yazmış olduğu “ Karanlkıta Işıklar “ adlı oyunu 5 Aralık, 1908 de sahneye koyularak Rus hakimiyyetine karşı Milli İstiklal hareketinin temel taşını teşkil eden ilk eseridir.
1908 yılın sonlarında M.E. Resulzade Çar Rus hakimiyyeti tarafından hapis tehlikesile karşı karşıya kaldığından dolayı Baki´yı terk ederek Güney Azerbaycanın başkenti olan Tebriz´e gider ve orada Şaha karşı olan Azerbaycan halkının büyük kahramanı Settar Han ve arkadaşlarıyla göüşür. Daha sonra 1910 yılında bir çok önde gelen Güney Azerbaycanın aydın şahsiyetlerile birlikte “ İran Demokrat Partisini” kurar.
Çar hükumeti İrandaki bu gibi inkilap hareketlerin korkusundan İran Şahından M.E. Resulzadenin ülke dışı edilmesini talep eder. Resulzade tehlikeyi fark ederek Türkiye´ye gider. Orada Yusuf Akçura ve Ziya Gök Alp´lar gibi büyük Türk şahsiyyetler ile tanışır ve bir çok Türk teşkilatlarında çalışarak Güney ve Kuzey Azerbaycan Coğrafiyasında yaşayan Azerbaycan Türklerini tanıtmaya çalışır.
1913 yılında çıkan genel af kararından yararlanarak kendi vatanına dönerek tekrardan daha önce kurmuş olduğu “ Müsülman Demokratik Müsavat partisine katılarak başkanlık görevine başlar. 1917 yılında büyük Rus hakimiyyeti dağılmaya başlar.
Aynı yılın Nisan ayında Baki´de bir kurultay yapılır. Bu kurultayda M.E. Resulzade “Müsavat” partisi Merkez komitesinin başkanı seçilir ve onun teklifi ile Rusyada Federal Devletlerin kurulmasına karar çıkarılır. Böylece bütün Azerbaycan bölgelerinde Azerbaycan Muhtariyet kuruluşuna yönelik Milli hareketler başlar.
1917 yılın sonlarında M.E. Resulzade Rusya parlementosunda Azerbaycan ve Türkistan´dan Millet Vekili olarak seçilir. 27 Mayıs, 1918 de kafkaslarda bulunan bütün parti üyeleri biraraya gelerek Azerbaycan Milli Şurasını teşkil ederler ve ses birliği ile M.E. Resulzade´yi Milli Şuranın sadri olarak ilan ederler.
Ertesi gün 28 Mayıs, 1918 de bütün radyolar ve gazeteler Azerbaycan İstiklaliyetini bütün dünyaya ilan ederler. Böylece Türk Dünyasında ve bütün İslam aleminde ilk olarak bir Türk Cumhuriyeti kurulmuş olur.
7 Aralık, 1918 yılında Azerbaycan parlementosunun açılışında şunları der : “ Azerbaycan, İstiklal Bayrağını yükseğe kaldırmıştır. Böylece, müsülman partileri arasında Azerbaycan idiasında fikir ayrılığı yoktur. Halkın şuurunda Azerbaycan iddiası artık mühkemleşmiştir….. ( Bir defa yükselen Bayrak bir daha inmez).
Ne yazık ki 1920 yılında bu özgürlük ve İstiklal Rusların kızıl orduları tarafından kanlı savaşlar sonucu bastırılmıştır ve kahramanlıklarla dolu bu mücadelede on binlerce Azerbaycan vatandaşı şehid edilmiştir.
Bu olaylar neticesinde M.E. Resulzade Azerbaycanın Lahıç kentinde haps edilmiştir. Haberi duyan Stalin kendisi bizzat hapishaneye gelerek Resulzade´ni serbest bırakır ve onu kendisile birlikte Mosko´ya götürür.
Böylece Stalin 1905 yılında kendisini ölümden ve hapisten kurtarmış olan inkilabçı dostu M.E. Resulzade karşısında tarihi vicdan borcunu yerine getirmiş olur.
Daha sonra 1922 yılında bazı dostları tarafından Liningrad´tan Finlanda´ya kaçırılır ve oradan Türkiye´ye geçer.
Türkiye´de hayatının sonuna kadar milli mücadelesini çıkarmış olduğu bir çok yazılarıyla devam ettirir. Bu yazıları arasında yer alan önemli eserlerinden bazıları :-
- Yeni Kafkasya Dergisi. İstanbul - 1923
- Azerbaycan Cumhuriyyetinin geçmişi, teşekkülü ve şimdiki durumu. İstanbul -1928.
- İtiklal Mefküresi ve Gençlik. İstanbul -1928.
- İnkilabçı Sosyalizmin İflası ve Demokratın Geleceği. İstanbul – 1928.
- Millet ve Bolşevizim. İstanbul -1928.
- Kafkasya Türkleri. İstanbul -1928.
- Fransız dilinde “ Azerbaycan ve İstiklaliyyeti” . Paris – 1930.
- Rus dilinde “ Kafkas problemi ile ilgili Panturanizim. Paris – 1930.
- “ İstiklal “ Gazetesi. Berlin - ( 1932 – 1934 ).
- “ Kurtuluş “ Dergisi – Berlin – ( 1934 – 1938 ).
- Alman dilinde “ Azerbaycan Problemi “ kitabı. Berlin – 1938.
- Polon dilinde “ Azerbaycanın Hürriyet Savaşı” Berlin – 1939.
- “ Azerbaycan Kültür Geleneği “ kitabı. Ankara – 1949.
- “ Çağdaş Azerbaycan Edebiyatı “ kitabı. Ankara – 1950.
- “ Azerbaycan Tarihi “ kitabı. Ankara – 1951.
Ankara Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Hastanesinde şeker hastalığından dolayı yatan Mehemmed Emin Resulzade 6 Mart, 1955 yılında gece saatı 10:50 de üç defa “ Azerbaycan …. Azerbaycan …. Azerbaycan diyerek ebediyete kavuşmuştur ve Ankara Asri kabristanlığında defn olunmuştur.
Kaynaklar:
- "Azerbaycan" (Rusca) Gazetesi, No.59, 13 Aralık - Yıl 1918.
- 1954 yılında İstanbulda çıkan "Dünya" gazetesi M.E..Resulzadenin "Stalin ile inkilap" adlı dizi hatıra makalesi.
- Abdülvahab Yurtseverin (1898-1976) İstanbul - Hatıra yazısı.
- “ Azerbaycan " Dergisi, Ankara, No3, 1955.26 Şubat, 2009
TÜRKMEN BASINI 98 YAŞINDA
TÜRKMEN BASINI 98 YAŞINDA
Ali Kasapoğlu
Her şeyden önce tüm gerçek Türkmen medyacıların basın gününü canı gönülden kutlarım.Evet gel zaman git zaman aradan 98 yıl geçti Havadis gazetesinin Kerkük’te ilk sayısının yayınlanmasından bu yana.Geçtiğimiz yüz yılın başlarında Osmanlı topraklarındaki Musul,Bağdat ve Basra vilayetlerinden sonra Kerkük sancağında bir gazete çıkarıldı,ama Türkçeydi. Zaman dilimine bakıldığında milletimizin Irak’ta uzun bir basın tarihine sahip olduğunu görüyoruz,ancak kafalarda hep bir soru işareti her yıl bugün gibi güncelleniyor,’’Bugün Türkmen medyası ne durumda’’.
Kötü durumda mıyız ?,hayır.İyi durumda mıyız ?,hayır. Peki nerdeyiz !!!! aslında nerde olduğumuzu biliyoruz ama bilmezlikten geliyoruz. Hee şunu biliyoruz bu topraklarda yaklaşık yüz yıllık bir basın tarihimiz var. Geçmişimizle elbette kıvanç duymalıyız ama önümüze bakmak şarttır.
Önümüze bakmadığımız zaman maazallah ufak bir taşa takılıp düşeriz.
Kerkük’teki Türkmen basın tarihini yazanlardan biri olan büyük yazarımız Muhammet Hurşit DAKUKLU son televizyon söyleşisinde bana demişti,’’Altmışlı ve Yetmişli yıllarında Basra’ya gittiğimde orda bir iki gazetenin başyazarının Türkmen olduğunu gördüm’’ dedi.O döneme kadar ülkem medyasının direği olmuştur Türkmen aydın medyacım.Bugün global medyaya ayak uyduran yada uydurmaya çalışan Türkmen medyası sadece yazılı basınlayetinmeyip,görsel,işitsel,İnternet alanı ve saire yönleri ile dünya medya kervanına katılmakta emekliyor.
Asıl sorunumuz işte burada başlıyor.Geride bıraktığımız yaklaşık yüz yıllık bir basın tarihimiz var ancak bugün çevremizdeki medyalar bizi çoktan geride bıraktılar bile.Az önce Türkmen basını için emekliyor kelimesini kullandım,bu kelimeyi normal karşılayanlar olabilir ve bu kelimeden rahatsızlık duyanlar da olabilir,olsun,bence her kes kendi kendisiyle ve gerçekleri ile barışık olmalı.Bakınız bugün bizi içten yaralayan ilk ve en büyük yaramız,günlük bir gazetemiz yok en azından.Bazen yaklaşık yüz yıllık bir basın tarihine sahip olduğumuzdan şüphelendiğimi sizden saklamak istemiyorum,tabi ki bu cümleme de kızanlar belki olabilir.T
abi ki tarihimle gurur duyuyorum ancak gerçekleri görebilen göz ve çekinmeden anlatan yüreklerde ihtiyacımız var.Bu sıkıntıların bir sağlıklı raya oturması için birlikte düşünüp hareket etmemiz lazım.Türkmen medyacıların bir çoğunun bugün en çok hepimizi bir araya toplayan bir Türkmen medya çatısına ihtiyacı olduğu düşüncesindedir.
Bu çatının adı ne olursa olsun,önemli olan bağımsız,Irak toprakları içinde ve devletin himayesinde olması önem arz etmektedir.Bakın iki yıl sonra basın tarihimizin yüzüncü yılını yaşayacağız,gelin birlikte bu çatının kurulması için her kes kendi yerinden birer adım atsın.
Medyamızın görsel,işitsel,yazılı,İnternet ve saire tüm dallarını bir araya getirelim.Bir medya söylem birliğine karar verelim.Bugüne kadar medya kuruluşlarımızdan uzak kalan büyük üstatlarımızı yeniden kazanalım.
Ülkedeki son olumsuz şartlardan fırsat kollayarak Türkmen medya kuruluşlarının başına geçenlere sesleniyorum,bu kuruluşları babamızın malı gibi çarçur etmeyelim.
Bugün en çok yeni nesil medyacılara ihtiyacımız var.Bugün Ali Kasapoğulları var ama yarın yoktur,profesyonel medyacı nesil yetiştirelim,bu alanda yurtdışında yada Türkiye’de eğitim almış ve ülkemizde kurslara katılmış gençlerimize kucak açalım.Bu alanda üç beş günlük kurslar yetmiyor.Kurulması gereken bir Türkmen medya çatısında bir eğitim dairesi bulunması gerekiyor.Genç kalemlere sadece söylemde değil gerçekten yol gösterelim.
Evet belki de bu dediklerimi,onlarca kez toplantılarımızda,konferanslarımızda,yazılarımızda ve televizyon programlarımızda dile getirmişizdir.Bence bunlar artık sadece anlatmakta yada yazmakta kalmamalı,uygulanmalı ve uygulanması için bir çatının teşkil edilip uygulayıcı mekanizması olması gerektiriyor.
Bu konuda büyük ağabeylerimize bir seslenişim olsun bu yazı.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Israel kürtler ile askerlik antrenmani - BBC video
Israel kürtler ile askerlik antrenmani – BBC
In case you've missed it:
Israelis training Kurds in Iraq (Video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thgylTKHgOs&hl=fr
In case you've missed it:
Israelis training Kurds in Iraq (Video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thgylTKHgOs&hl=fr
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW MEDIA RELEASE
Solving the EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle: New Crisis Group webpage
Solving the EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle: New Crisis Group webpage
Istanbul/Brussels, 23 February 2009: The International Crisis is pleased to announce the launch of a new frequently updated webpage covering the nexus of issues surrounding Cyprus, Turkey and the European Union: “Solving the EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle”.
This is a critical year for Cyprus as efforts to resolve the long conflict gather steam, and for Turkey as frustration with EU enlargement fatigue weighs heavy on its chances of approaching membership. With Cyprus a member state of the EU and troops from NATO-member Turkey still in the northern half of the island, the inter-relationships are many.
Will Turkey’s efforts to join the Union be formally blocked if it does not normalise its relations with Cyprus by autumn? Will other EU member states that have a negative stance towards Turkey’s membership continue to argue that Turkey has no place in the Union? Will such moves turn Turkey away from the EU, stifle ongoing reform and push Ankara towards other allies? Will the EU’s need to diversify energy sources and the Nabucco pipeline plans affect thinking in Brussels and member state capitals? And how will all these factors affect the search for a final peaceful settlement between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, elusive for so many decades?
“Solving the EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle”, the new Crisis Group webpage, is an effort to continually revisit these questions and others with frequently updated analysis and commentary following the situation as it unfolds. The point is not to respond to every new diplomatic twist and turn, but to make a reasoned and considered assessment of events and offer recommendations to the key actors with greater immediacy than can be done with a longer report.
Part of the reasoning behind this new webpage comes from the results of the online survey Crisis Group conducted a few weeks ago. Through that poll, we learned that 74% of our subscribers find our themed pages on specific conflicts useful -- our most popular website feature. More than half of the over 11,500 survey respondents said they would like Crisis Group to produce more frequently updated analysis and commentary on our website. Almost as many said they wanted more information from the field.
This new webpage will meet these expectations, with updates and new material once or twice a week from Crisis Group Europe Program Director Sabine Freizer in Brussels and Turkey/Cyprus Project Director Hugh Pope in Istanbul. With these frequent inputs into the public debate, we intend to play our part in the peaceful resolution of the Cyprus conflict in a way that can draw Turkey and the EU closer together.
Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels) +32 (0) 2 541 1635Kimberly Abbott (Washington) +1 202 785 1601
To contact Crisis Group media please click here
Monday, 23 February 2009
Sündüs Abbas ITC Londra Temsilcisi Oldu
Sündüs Abbas ITC Londra Temsilcisi Oldu
Dış Türkmenler Birliği
http://www.kerkukmedya.com/articles.php
Irak Türkmen Cephesi Yürütme Kurulunun 12 Şubat 2009’daki 7.ci olağan toplantısında, Sündüs Abbas hanımın Londra temsilcisi olarak atanmasına karar verilmiştir.1965 doğumlu ve Londrada yaşayan Sündüs hanım Iraktaki Salahaddin Üniversitesinden İnşaat mühendisi olarak mezun olmuştur. Londradaki Greenwich Üniversitesinden Bilgisayar Bilimlerinden diploması vardır.
Türkçe, Arapça ve İngilizce bilen Sündüs hanım faal Türkmenlerden Elektronik mühendisi İmad Saki’nin eşidir ve 2 çocuk annesidir.
Halen İngiliz hükümetinin kadınlara sosyal yardım sağlayan AAINA Womens Group kurumunda müdürdür.
Ekip çalışmasına ve danışmaya inanan Sündüs hanım her zaman İngiltere ve İrlandadaki faal Türkmenlerle (Necati Kılıncı, Muvaffak Salman, Dr. Eyyüp Bezzaz, Abbas İmami gibi şahsiyetlerle) birlikte çalışmıştır. Bu özelliğinden dolayı İngiltere ve İrlandadaki tüm Türkmenlerce seviliyor ve sayılıyor.
Siyasi Faaliyetleri:
2003’ten önce Avrupa ve Ingilterede Türklere hitap eden Avrupadaki Türk gazeteleriyle Türkmenlerin çektiği sıkıntıları ve durumları hakkında görüşmeler yaptı. 2002-2003 arası Londra temsilcisi rahmetli Mustafa Kemal Yayçılıya yardımcı olarak çalışmıştır.
Kerkükün Kürtler tarafından işgal tarihi olan 10 Nisan 2003’ten sonra, derhal İngiliz milletvekili John Austen ile iki görüşme yaptı ve işgalden sonra peşmergelerin Türkmenlere karşı işlediği cinayet ve haksızlık olaylarını fotoğraflarıyla beraber anlattı.
Verilen bilgilere ek olarak, Başbakan Tony Blair ve Dış Işleri bakanı Jack Straw’e iletilmek üzere iki mektup verdi. Amerikan elçiliğindeki birinci sekreter Ethan Goldrich ile temas kurdu ve Kuzey Irakta Türkmenlere yapılan haksızlıklara karşı Türkmenlerin kızgınlıklarını iletti.2004’te Amerikanın desteklediği peşmergelerin Türkmenleri öldürmelerini kınamak için Londradaki Amerikan elçiliği önünde protesto yürüyüşünü örgütleyen komitede bulundu. Amerikan hükümetine iletilmek üzere bir protesto mektubunu elçilik sözcüsüne verdi.Türkmenlerin haklarını savunmak için, İngiliz TV kanalları; BBC1 ve Sky News ile Arap Uydu TV kanalları, Al Mustakille, ANN, El Cezire, Abu Dabi’de tartışma programlarına katıldı.
Irakın ilk genel seçimlerinde, İngilteredeki Türkmenleri toparlayan bir dizi toplantı yaptı ve seçimlerin önemini anlatarak katılmalarını ve ITC’ye oy vermelerini öğütledi. Londradaki Irak elçiliğiyle temas kurdu ve Londra ile Mançesterde Türkmenleri seçim gözlemcisi olarak bulunmalarına yardımcı oldu.
Ayni işlemi ikinci seçimlerdede tekrarladı. Halen Iraklı yetkililerle yapılan görüşmelere katılıyor ve Kerkük, Türkmen hakları konularında Türkmenlerin görüş açısını anlatıyor.
Halen İngilteredeki Türklerin hazırladığı tüm faaliyetlere katılmakta ve Türkmenleri toparlayan faaliyetler düzenlemektedir.Dünya ve Irak siyasetinde çok önemli yeri olan İngilterede, Türkmenlerin uzun zamandır meydanı boş bıraktıklarına inanan Sündüs hanım, eksikleri bir an önce tamamlamak için çok hızlı ve etkin icraat yapmayı düşünmektedir.
Çok yakın gelecekte, Kor Gurubu adı altında toplanan faal Türkmenlerle birlikte yapılacak işlerin stratejisini çizecek ve ardından Londrada bulunan Türkmenlerle “Türkmen davası için seferberlik” toplantısı yapacaktır.
Türkmen gerçeklerini İngiliz hükümeti, devleti ve medyasına iletmeye azimli olan Sündüs hanım Türkmenlerarası ayrılıklara (mezhep, lehçe, bölge...vs.) şiddetle karşı durmakta, konuşmaktan ve gösterişten ziyade icraata ve ekip çalışmasına inanmaktadır
Dış Türkmenler Birliği olarak Sündüs hanımı desteklediğimizi açıklar tüm Türkmenlerin ona yardımcı olmalarını dileriz.
Dış Türkmenler Birliği
Merkez Kurulu
Siyasi Faaliyetleri:
2003’ten önce Avrupa ve Ingilterede Türklere hitap eden Avrupadaki Türk gazeteleriyle Türkmenlerin çektiği sıkıntıları ve durumları hakkında görüşmeler yaptı. 2002-2003 arası Londra temsilcisi rahmetli Mustafa Kemal Yayçılıya yardımcı olarak çalışmıştır.
Kerkükün Kürtler tarafından işgal tarihi olan 10 Nisan 2003’ten sonra, derhal İngiliz milletvekili John Austen ile iki görüşme yaptı ve işgalden sonra peşmergelerin Türkmenlere karşı işlediği cinayet ve haksızlık olaylarını fotoğraflarıyla beraber anlattı.
Verilen bilgilere ek olarak, Başbakan Tony Blair ve Dış Işleri bakanı Jack Straw’e iletilmek üzere iki mektup verdi. Amerikan elçiliğindeki birinci sekreter Ethan Goldrich ile temas kurdu ve Kuzey Irakta Türkmenlere yapılan haksızlıklara karşı Türkmenlerin kızgınlıklarını iletti.2004’te Amerikanın desteklediği peşmergelerin Türkmenleri öldürmelerini kınamak için Londradaki Amerikan elçiliği önünde protesto yürüyüşünü örgütleyen komitede bulundu. Amerikan hükümetine iletilmek üzere bir protesto mektubunu elçilik sözcüsüne verdi.Türkmenlerin haklarını savunmak için, İngiliz TV kanalları; BBC1 ve Sky News ile Arap Uydu TV kanalları, Al Mustakille, ANN, El Cezire, Abu Dabi’de tartışma programlarına katıldı.
Irakın ilk genel seçimlerinde, İngilteredeki Türkmenleri toparlayan bir dizi toplantı yaptı ve seçimlerin önemini anlatarak katılmalarını ve ITC’ye oy vermelerini öğütledi. Londradaki Irak elçiliğiyle temas kurdu ve Londra ile Mançesterde Türkmenleri seçim gözlemcisi olarak bulunmalarına yardımcı oldu.
Ayni işlemi ikinci seçimlerdede tekrarladı. Halen Iraklı yetkililerle yapılan görüşmelere katılıyor ve Kerkük, Türkmen hakları konularında Türkmenlerin görüş açısını anlatıyor.
Halen İngilteredeki Türklerin hazırladığı tüm faaliyetlere katılmakta ve Türkmenleri toparlayan faaliyetler düzenlemektedir.Dünya ve Irak siyasetinde çok önemli yeri olan İngilterede, Türkmenlerin uzun zamandır meydanı boş bıraktıklarına inanan Sündüs hanım, eksikleri bir an önce tamamlamak için çok hızlı ve etkin icraat yapmayı düşünmektedir.
Çok yakın gelecekte, Kor Gurubu adı altında toplanan faal Türkmenlerle birlikte yapılacak işlerin stratejisini çizecek ve ardından Londrada bulunan Türkmenlerle “Türkmen davası için seferberlik” toplantısı yapacaktır.
Türkmen gerçeklerini İngiliz hükümeti, devleti ve medyasına iletmeye azimli olan Sündüs hanım Türkmenlerarası ayrılıklara (mezhep, lehçe, bölge...vs.) şiddetle karşı durmakta, konuşmaktan ve gösterişten ziyade icraata ve ekip çalışmasına inanmaktadır
Dış Türkmenler Birliği olarak Sündüs hanımı desteklediğimizi açıklar tüm Türkmenlerin ona yardımcı olmalarını dileriz.
Dış Türkmenler Birliği
Merkez Kurulu
Saturday, 21 February 2009
US soldier found guilty in Iraqi killings
AFP
Feb 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A military court on Friday found a US soldier guilty of premeditated murder in the killings of four blindfolded Iraqi prisoners in 2007, a US Army spokesman said."
A military panel just returned findings of guilty to premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder against Sergeant (Michael) Leahy," Lieutenant Colonel George Wright told AFP.
"The panel has moved to the sentencing phase," he said of the military court in Vilseck, southern Germany.
Leahy, one of several soldiers charged in the brutal killings, faces a possible sentence of life in prison.
US media have reported that the group killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head beside a Baghdad canal.
The men were apparently Shiite fighters linked to the Mahdi Army militia, which controlled the West Rashid area of southwest Baghdad, according to the New York Times.
The killings were allegedly in retribution for an attack against the servicemen's unit.
In October, another US soldier, Specialist Steven Ribordy, was sentenced to eight months in prison for his role in the killings as part of a plea deal.
He initially denied a direct role in the shooting deaths that occurred in the spring of 2007 but pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact.
www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5giymWLSfUIgQvzxuUNYtHUXWyzew
Feb 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A military court on Friday found a US soldier guilty of premeditated murder in the killings of four blindfolded Iraqi prisoners in 2007, a US Army spokesman said."
A military panel just returned findings of guilty to premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder against Sergeant (Michael) Leahy," Lieutenant Colonel George Wright told AFP.
"The panel has moved to the sentencing phase," he said of the military court in Vilseck, southern Germany.
Leahy, one of several soldiers charged in the brutal killings, faces a possible sentence of life in prison.
US media have reported that the group killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head beside a Baghdad canal.
The men were apparently Shiite fighters linked to the Mahdi Army militia, which controlled the West Rashid area of southwest Baghdad, according to the New York Times.
The killings were allegedly in retribution for an attack against the servicemen's unit.
In October, another US soldier, Specialist Steven Ribordy, was sentenced to eight months in prison for his role in the killings as part of a plea deal.
He initially denied a direct role in the shooting deaths that occurred in the spring of 2007 but pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact.
www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5giymWLSfUIgQvzxuUNYtHUXWyzew
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Trial delayed for Muntadher al-Zaidi
Trial Delayed for Shoe-Throwing Iraqi Journalist
In Iraq, the trial of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush has been delayed until next month. Muntadhar al-Zaidi will stand trial in March on charges of assaulting a foreign leader. He faces fifteen years in prison.
Zaidi’s attorney and family have alleged abusive treatment since his imprisonment.
On Wednesday, Zaidi was applauded as he entered the courtroom.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/19/headlines#4
In Iraq, the trial of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush has been delayed until next month. Muntadhar al-Zaidi will stand trial in March on charges of assaulting a foreign leader. He faces fifteen years in prison.
Zaidi’s attorney and family have alleged abusive treatment since his imprisonment.
On Wednesday, Zaidi was applauded as he entered the courtroom.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/19/headlines#4
Kurdish-Arab War in the Offing?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Iraq: Kurdish-Arab War in the Offing?
by Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/
McClatchy is alarmed at the rapid deterioration of relations between Kurds and Arabs in the north of Iraq. The victory of the Sunni Arab nationalist party, al-Hadba', in Ninevah Province has dealt a setback to the Kurds, who initially controlled the province's governing council and whose paramilitary, the Peshmerga, was deployed in parts of the province with Kurdish populations. The Kurdistan Regional Government has already erased the provincial divisions among Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniya, and would like to absorb much of Ninevah Province, as well.
The Green Line separating Kurdish territory from Arab is being redrawn and challenged, to the benefit of the Kurds.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a centralizer, has come into conflict with the Kurds over his desire to restore an effective central government.
Some of the alarmism on this issue derives from Iraqi-Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, who says that Obama should intervene to settle outstanding Kurdish/ Arab disputes before the US troops draw down.
The Open Source Center of the USG translated the article:
' Kurdish Officials Warn of Kurd-Arab War if Kirkuk Problem Not Resolved
Report from Baghdad by Rahmah al-Salim:
"Deputies Close To Government: 'Irbil Warnings of Arab-Kurdish War Increase Tension;'
Kurdish Official to Al-Sharq al-Awsat: 'Nechirvan Barzani's Statements Reflect Real Fears;'
American Army: 'We Will Not Side With Anyone"
'Al-Sharq al-Awsat Online
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 . . .' An Iraqi MP close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says that statements made by Nechirvan Barzani, Kurdistan Region prime minister, about a war breaking out between Arabs and Kurds after the American withdrawal from Iraq, are "a disservice to the political situation in the country."
Sami al-Askari, an MP for the Unified Iraqi Coalition, stresses that "the recent statements made by the Kurds do not serve the political situation in Iraq," and points out to Al-Sharq al-Awsat Online that "Surely there are problems between the central government and the Kurdistan Region government; these differences cannot be solved in this way but through dialogue and commitment to the Constitution."
In this context, Barzani had voiced concern over an American withdrawal from Iraq before a settlement of litigious issues between Baghdad and Irbil, mainly the problem of Kirkuk. He also urged the US to put pressure on the Iraqi Government for a final solution concerning Kirkuk, and complained about the refusal of the Americans to intervene directly in this question.
Furthermore, Kamal Kirkuki, Kurdistan Region Parliament Deputy Speaker, has described Al-Maliki as a "dangerous man", and said that the Kurds are trying to stand up to him, adding: "Al-Maliki is a danger to Iraq and to democracy; he is a second Saddam."'
If the Kurdish-Arab hostity rises futher,the US could be drawn right back in to Iraq. The Eastern Mediterranean and the meeting-point of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, is too important to allow it to fall into substantial and long-term violence. Meanwhile, several parliamentary factions may be conniving at a vote of no confidence and a toppling of the Iraq government of PM Nuri al-Maliki. His centralizing tendencies, for which the Kurds ahdve denounced him, are at issue.
Iraq: Kurdish-Arab War in the Offing?
by Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/
McClatchy is alarmed at the rapid deterioration of relations between Kurds and Arabs in the north of Iraq. The victory of the Sunni Arab nationalist party, al-Hadba', in Ninevah Province has dealt a setback to the Kurds, who initially controlled the province's governing council and whose paramilitary, the Peshmerga, was deployed in parts of the province with Kurdish populations. The Kurdistan Regional Government has already erased the provincial divisions among Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniya, and would like to absorb much of Ninevah Province, as well.
The Green Line separating Kurdish territory from Arab is being redrawn and challenged, to the benefit of the Kurds.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a centralizer, has come into conflict with the Kurds over his desire to restore an effective central government.
Some of the alarmism on this issue derives from Iraqi-Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, who says that Obama should intervene to settle outstanding Kurdish/ Arab disputes before the US troops draw down.
The Open Source Center of the USG translated the article:
' Kurdish Officials Warn of Kurd-Arab War if Kirkuk Problem Not Resolved
Report from Baghdad by Rahmah al-Salim:
"Deputies Close To Government: 'Irbil Warnings of Arab-Kurdish War Increase Tension;'
Kurdish Official to Al-Sharq al-Awsat: 'Nechirvan Barzani's Statements Reflect Real Fears;'
American Army: 'We Will Not Side With Anyone"
'Al-Sharq al-Awsat Online
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 . . .' An Iraqi MP close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says that statements made by Nechirvan Barzani, Kurdistan Region prime minister, about a war breaking out between Arabs and Kurds after the American withdrawal from Iraq, are "a disservice to the political situation in the country."
Sami al-Askari, an MP for the Unified Iraqi Coalition, stresses that "the recent statements made by the Kurds do not serve the political situation in Iraq," and points out to Al-Sharq al-Awsat Online that "Surely there are problems between the central government and the Kurdistan Region government; these differences cannot be solved in this way but through dialogue and commitment to the Constitution."
In this context, Barzani had voiced concern over an American withdrawal from Iraq before a settlement of litigious issues between Baghdad and Irbil, mainly the problem of Kirkuk. He also urged the US to put pressure on the Iraqi Government for a final solution concerning Kirkuk, and complained about the refusal of the Americans to intervene directly in this question.
Furthermore, Kamal Kirkuki, Kurdistan Region Parliament Deputy Speaker, has described Al-Maliki as a "dangerous man", and said that the Kurds are trying to stand up to him, adding: "Al-Maliki is a danger to Iraq and to democracy; he is a second Saddam."'
If the Kurdish-Arab hostity rises futher,the US could be drawn right back in to Iraq. The Eastern Mediterranean and the meeting-point of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, is too important to allow it to fall into substantial and long-term violence. Meanwhile, several parliamentary factions may be conniving at a vote of no confidence and a toppling of the Iraq government of PM Nuri al-Maliki. His centralizing tendencies, for which the Kurds ahdve denounced him, are at issue.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Ünlü Türkmen Tiyatro Sanatçısı Enver Mehmet Ramazanı kaybettik
Bugün Kerkük’te Sanat dünyası üzgün bir haberle uyandı.Ünlü Türkmen Tiyatro Sanatçısı Enver Mehmet Ramazan bugün Kerkük’te hayata gözünü yumdu. Uzun bir zamandan beri ağır bir hastalıkla uğraşan Ramazan sonunda hastalığa yenildi.
Türkmen Tiyatro kurucularından birisi olan Merhum Ramazan, devlet tarafından ödüllendirilmiştir.
'BUYUK OYUN' 'GREAT GAME' FILM
´´BUYUK OYUN´´ MOVIE
Directed by Atil Inac, produced by Ayfer and Avni Ozgurel, the shooting of the movie “ Great Game” started in last October in Iraq. A Turkmen girl Cennet loses her family in a “regular” US security search, and then embarks on a difficult journey to Turkey. “Great Game” is the story of Cennet´s distressing journey through the Turkish-Iraqi border and her subsequent radicalization.
The script is by Atil Inac and Avni Ozgurel. This project is realized with the support of Turkish Ministry of Culture. Cennet´s difficult journey from Telafer to Turkey was first shot in Erbil and Musul in Iraq. Following that, the crew continued shooting in Urfa and Adiyaman in Turkey under extreme terrain and weather conditions. The last two stops of the shooting were Malatya and Istanbul. The shooting was finished in late December.
The screening of the movie is scheduled for the first half of 2009. The casting process was long due to multi-lingual character of the movie. The cast features Susan Genc in her first ever screen appearance, regulars of TV series Serdal and Serkan Genc, Selen Ucer who won the best actress award in Adana Altin Koza Movie Festival, Haktan Pak who continues his acting career in Austria, Turkmen actor Selim Bayraktar who works in Antalya State Theathre, and one of the experienced names of Turkish movie scene, Rana Cabbar.
www.buyukoyunfilimi.com
http://www.kerkukmedya.com/index.php?action=view&id=150&lang=en&page=2
Directed by Atil Inac, produced by Ayfer and Avni Ozgurel, the shooting of the movie “ Great Game” started in last October in Iraq. A Turkmen girl Cennet loses her family in a “regular” US security search, and then embarks on a difficult journey to Turkey. “Great Game” is the story of Cennet´s distressing journey through the Turkish-Iraqi border and her subsequent radicalization.
The script is by Atil Inac and Avni Ozgurel. This project is realized with the support of Turkish Ministry of Culture. Cennet´s difficult journey from Telafer to Turkey was first shot in Erbil and Musul in Iraq. Following that, the crew continued shooting in Urfa and Adiyaman in Turkey under extreme terrain and weather conditions. The last two stops of the shooting were Malatya and Istanbul. The shooting was finished in late December.
The screening of the movie is scheduled for the first half of 2009. The casting process was long due to multi-lingual character of the movie. The cast features Susan Genc in her first ever screen appearance, regulars of TV series Serdal and Serkan Genc, Selen Ucer who won the best actress award in Adana Altin Koza Movie Festival, Haktan Pak who continues his acting career in Austria, Turkmen actor Selim Bayraktar who works in Antalya State Theathre, and one of the experienced names of Turkish movie scene, Rana Cabbar.
www.buyukoyunfilimi.com
http://www.kerkukmedya.com/index.php?action=view&id=150&lang=en&page=2
Iraq Reconstruction: The Greatest Fraud in US History?
PATRICK COCKBURN
Feb 16, 2009
Arbil, Iraq.
In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme."I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad," said one US businessman active in Iraq since 2003.
In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money.
He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering.Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown.
One of the few visible signs of government work on Baghdad's infrastructure is a tireless attention to planting palm trees and flowers in the centre strip between main roads. Those are then dug up and replanted a few months later.
Iraqi leaders are convinced that the theft or waste of huge sums of US and Iraqi government money could have happened only if senior US officials were themselves involved in the corruption. In 2004-05, the entire Iraq military procurement budget of $1.3bn was siphoned off from the Iraqi Defense Ministry in return for 28-year-old Soviet helicopters too obsolete to fly and armored cars easily penetrated by rifle bullets.
Iraqi officials were blamed for the theft, but US military officials were largely in control of the Defense Ministry at the time and must have been either highly negligent or participants in the fraud.American federal investigators are now starting an inquiry into the actions of senior US officers involved in the program to rebuild Iraq, according to The New York Times, which cites interviews with senior government officials and court documents.
Court records reveal that, in January, investigators subpoenaed the bank records of Colonel Anthony B Bell, now retired from the US Army, but who was previously responsible for contracting for the reconstruction effort in 2003 and 2004.
Two federal officials are cited by the paper as saying that investigators are also looking at the activities of Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald W Hirtle of the US Air Force, who was senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004. It is not clear what specific evidence exists against the two men, who have both said they have nothing to hide.
The end of the Bush administration which launched the war may give fresh impetus to investigations into frauds in which tens of billions of dollars were spent on reconstruction with little being built that could be used. In the early days of the occupation, well-connected Republicans were awarded jobs in Iraq, regardless of experience. A 24-year-old from a Republican family was put in charge of the Baghdad stock exchange which had to close down because he allegedly forgot to renew the lease on its building.
In the expanded inquiry by federal agencies, the evidence of a small-time US businessman called Dale C. Stoffel who was murdered after leaving the US base at Taiji north of Baghdad in 2004 is being re-examined. Before he was killed, Mr Stoffel, an arms dealer and contractor, was granted limited immunity from prosecution after he had provided information that a network of bribery – linking companies and US officials awarding contracts – existed within the US-run Green Zone in Baghdad. He said bribes of tens of thousands of dollars were regularly delivered in pizza boxes sent to US contracting officers.
So far, US officers who have been successfully prosecuted or unmasked have mostly been involved in small-scale corruption.
Often sums paid out in cash were never recorded. In one case, an American soldier put in charge of reviving Iraqi boxing gambled away all the money but he could not be prosecuted because, although the money was certainly gone, nobody had recorded if it was $20,000 or $60,000.
Iraqi ministers admit the wholesale corruption of their government. Ali Allawi, the former finance minister, said Iraq was "becoming like Nigeria in the past when all the oil revenues were stolen". But there has also been a strong suspicion among senior Iraqis that US officials must have been complicit or using Iraqi appointees as front-men in corrupt deals.
Several Iraqi officials given important jobs at the urging of the US administration in Baghdad were inexperienced. For instance, the arms procurement chief at the centre of the Defence Ministry scandal, was a Polish-Iraqi, 27 years out of Iraq, who had run a pizza restaurant on the outskirts of Bonn in the 1990s.
In many cases, contractors never started or finished facilities they were supposedly building. As security deteriorated in Iraq from the summer of 2003 it was difficult to check if a contract had been completed. But the failure to provide electricity, water and sewage disposal during the US occupation was crucial in alienating Iraqis from the post-Saddam regime.
Female suicide bomber kills 39 Shia on pilgrimage
A woman suicide bomber blew herself up in the middle of a crowd of Shia pilgrims who were celebrating a religious festival south of Baghdad yesterday, killing 39 and wounding 69 others. The explosion was the latest in a series of attacks in different parts of Iraq which undermine hopes that the country would become less violent as the government re-establishes its authority.
The bombing took place at Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, as hundreds of thousands of Shia marched to the holy city of Kerbala to celebrate the festival of Arbain. Female bombers are increasingly used by al-Qa'ida in Iraq because their long black robes make it easier for them to conceal explosives and because male soldiers and police, 40,000 of whom are protecting the pilgrims, are inhibited from searching women."We came here for the pilgrimage," said Sadia Ali, who was walking to Kerbala from the Sadr City slum. "We aren't afraid. We've been through worse events in the past."
A day earlier another bomber killed eight pilgrims and injured 15 in Kerbala, showing al-Qa'ida still has a network capable of launching sectarian attacks.The success of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – running on a non-religious platform – in coming first in the polls in Baghdad and Basra in the provincial elections on January 31 kindled hopes that secularism and nationalism were beginning to overcome sectarian differences.
Recent bombings and shootings show that the Sunni-Shia conflict remains very much alive though casualties are much lower than in the 2005-07 civil war.
In northern Iraq, tension between Arabs and Kurds is increasing in the wake of the election that saw Kurdish control of Nineveh province and its capital Mosul eroded. The Kurds previously had a majority on the local council thanks to a boycott by the Sunni majority in the previous election in 2005.
But in the latest poll the Kurds won 31 per cent, about their proportion of the three million population of Nineveh, and al-Hadba, a Sunni Arab coalition dedicated to rolling back Kurdish influence, won 48 per cent.
In the days since the election, there has been a surge of violence. On Monday, four American soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb. Two important local politicians have been assassinated.
The latest was Ahmed Fathi al-Jabouri who was walking out of a mosque after evening prayers when a car drew up and a gunman shot him in the head. Elsewhere in the city there have been repeated bomb attacks on police and government installations with heavy loss of life.
Some of this violence is a battle for power within the Sunni community but overall friction between Arabs and Kurds has been growing across northern Iraq in the past six months. The government of Mr Maliki has been sending units of the Iraqi army which are Arab to replace those that are Kurdish in both Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces. This is highly sensitive since the Kurds claim all of Kirkuk and Kurdish parts of Nineveh outside Mosul.
Kurdish leaders do not conceal their anger at Mr Maliki's actions in disputed areas. "There is an effort to move away Kurdish officers above a certain rank," says Safeen Dizayee, a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by the Kurdish President Masoud Barzani.
He says that last year the Iraqi army's Twelfth Division was moved close to Kirkuk without prior consultation with the Kurds. He adds that Mr Maliki's government is "becoming a one-man show", taking important decisions, such as appointing commanders of the 16 Iraqi army divisions, without consultation with his Kurdish coalition partners.
Mr Maliki's confrontational attitude to the Kurds did him nothing but good with Arab Iraqis in the election. But the Kurds are highly sensitive to any move by non-Kurdish troops into disputed areas which they hope will join their autonomous area, the Kurdish Regional Government, through a referendum as they have long demanded.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006. His new book 'Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq' is published by Scribner.
www.counterpunch.org/patrick02162009.html
Feb 16, 2009
Arbil, Iraq.
In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme."I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad," said one US businessman active in Iraq since 2003.
In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money.
He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering.Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown.
One of the few visible signs of government work on Baghdad's infrastructure is a tireless attention to planting palm trees and flowers in the centre strip between main roads. Those are then dug up and replanted a few months later.
Iraqi leaders are convinced that the theft or waste of huge sums of US and Iraqi government money could have happened only if senior US officials were themselves involved in the corruption. In 2004-05, the entire Iraq military procurement budget of $1.3bn was siphoned off from the Iraqi Defense Ministry in return for 28-year-old Soviet helicopters too obsolete to fly and armored cars easily penetrated by rifle bullets.
Iraqi officials were blamed for the theft, but US military officials were largely in control of the Defense Ministry at the time and must have been either highly negligent or participants in the fraud.American federal investigators are now starting an inquiry into the actions of senior US officers involved in the program to rebuild Iraq, according to The New York Times, which cites interviews with senior government officials and court documents.
Court records reveal that, in January, investigators subpoenaed the bank records of Colonel Anthony B Bell, now retired from the US Army, but who was previously responsible for contracting for the reconstruction effort in 2003 and 2004.
Two federal officials are cited by the paper as saying that investigators are also looking at the activities of Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald W Hirtle of the US Air Force, who was senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004. It is not clear what specific evidence exists against the two men, who have both said they have nothing to hide.
The end of the Bush administration which launched the war may give fresh impetus to investigations into frauds in which tens of billions of dollars were spent on reconstruction with little being built that could be used. In the early days of the occupation, well-connected Republicans were awarded jobs in Iraq, regardless of experience. A 24-year-old from a Republican family was put in charge of the Baghdad stock exchange which had to close down because he allegedly forgot to renew the lease on its building.
In the expanded inquiry by federal agencies, the evidence of a small-time US businessman called Dale C. Stoffel who was murdered after leaving the US base at Taiji north of Baghdad in 2004 is being re-examined. Before he was killed, Mr Stoffel, an arms dealer and contractor, was granted limited immunity from prosecution after he had provided information that a network of bribery – linking companies and US officials awarding contracts – existed within the US-run Green Zone in Baghdad. He said bribes of tens of thousands of dollars were regularly delivered in pizza boxes sent to US contracting officers.
So far, US officers who have been successfully prosecuted or unmasked have mostly been involved in small-scale corruption.
Often sums paid out in cash were never recorded. In one case, an American soldier put in charge of reviving Iraqi boxing gambled away all the money but he could not be prosecuted because, although the money was certainly gone, nobody had recorded if it was $20,000 or $60,000.
Iraqi ministers admit the wholesale corruption of their government. Ali Allawi, the former finance minister, said Iraq was "becoming like Nigeria in the past when all the oil revenues were stolen". But there has also been a strong suspicion among senior Iraqis that US officials must have been complicit or using Iraqi appointees as front-men in corrupt deals.
Several Iraqi officials given important jobs at the urging of the US administration in Baghdad were inexperienced. For instance, the arms procurement chief at the centre of the Defence Ministry scandal, was a Polish-Iraqi, 27 years out of Iraq, who had run a pizza restaurant on the outskirts of Bonn in the 1990s.
In many cases, contractors never started or finished facilities they were supposedly building. As security deteriorated in Iraq from the summer of 2003 it was difficult to check if a contract had been completed. But the failure to provide electricity, water and sewage disposal during the US occupation was crucial in alienating Iraqis from the post-Saddam regime.
Female suicide bomber kills 39 Shia on pilgrimage
A woman suicide bomber blew herself up in the middle of a crowd of Shia pilgrims who were celebrating a religious festival south of Baghdad yesterday, killing 39 and wounding 69 others. The explosion was the latest in a series of attacks in different parts of Iraq which undermine hopes that the country would become less violent as the government re-establishes its authority.
The bombing took place at Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, as hundreds of thousands of Shia marched to the holy city of Kerbala to celebrate the festival of Arbain. Female bombers are increasingly used by al-Qa'ida in Iraq because their long black robes make it easier for them to conceal explosives and because male soldiers and police, 40,000 of whom are protecting the pilgrims, are inhibited from searching women."We came here for the pilgrimage," said Sadia Ali, who was walking to Kerbala from the Sadr City slum. "We aren't afraid. We've been through worse events in the past."
A day earlier another bomber killed eight pilgrims and injured 15 in Kerbala, showing al-Qa'ida still has a network capable of launching sectarian attacks.The success of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – running on a non-religious platform – in coming first in the polls in Baghdad and Basra in the provincial elections on January 31 kindled hopes that secularism and nationalism were beginning to overcome sectarian differences.
Recent bombings and shootings show that the Sunni-Shia conflict remains very much alive though casualties are much lower than in the 2005-07 civil war.
In northern Iraq, tension between Arabs and Kurds is increasing in the wake of the election that saw Kurdish control of Nineveh province and its capital Mosul eroded. The Kurds previously had a majority on the local council thanks to a boycott by the Sunni majority in the previous election in 2005.
But in the latest poll the Kurds won 31 per cent, about their proportion of the three million population of Nineveh, and al-Hadba, a Sunni Arab coalition dedicated to rolling back Kurdish influence, won 48 per cent.
In the days since the election, there has been a surge of violence. On Monday, four American soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb. Two important local politicians have been assassinated.
The latest was Ahmed Fathi al-Jabouri who was walking out of a mosque after evening prayers when a car drew up and a gunman shot him in the head. Elsewhere in the city there have been repeated bomb attacks on police and government installations with heavy loss of life.
Some of this violence is a battle for power within the Sunni community but overall friction between Arabs and Kurds has been growing across northern Iraq in the past six months. The government of Mr Maliki has been sending units of the Iraqi army which are Arab to replace those that are Kurdish in both Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces. This is highly sensitive since the Kurds claim all of Kirkuk and Kurdish parts of Nineveh outside Mosul.
Kurdish leaders do not conceal their anger at Mr Maliki's actions in disputed areas. "There is an effort to move away Kurdish officers above a certain rank," says Safeen Dizayee, a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by the Kurdish President Masoud Barzani.
He says that last year the Iraqi army's Twelfth Division was moved close to Kirkuk without prior consultation with the Kurds. He adds that Mr Maliki's government is "becoming a one-man show", taking important decisions, such as appointing commanders of the 16 Iraqi army divisions, without consultation with his Kurdish coalition partners.
Mr Maliki's confrontational attitude to the Kurds did him nothing but good with Arab Iraqis in the election. But the Kurds are highly sensitive to any move by non-Kurdish troops into disputed areas which they hope will join their autonomous area, the Kurdish Regional Government, through a referendum as they have long demanded.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006. His new book 'Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq' is published by Scribner.
www.counterpunch.org/patrick02162009.html
KDP'nın Kerkük asayışı ile soruşturma yapılıyor
KDP'nın Kerkük asayışı ile soruşturma yapılıyor
http://bizturkmeniz.com/tr/index.htm
KDP'nın Kerkük emniyet dairesiyle soruşturma yapılıyor. şupheli bir habere göre, Irak İçişler bakanlığı Kerkük Polis Müdürlüğünden KDP Kerkük Asayış dairesiyle soruşturma yapılmasını istedi. Ayrıca KDP'nın Kerkük emniyet faaliyetlerini zayitlatılmasını talep etmiştir. Bundan kaç gün önce Kerkük'te intihar bombası patlamak isteyen Musanna Casım adlı kişi KDP emniyeti tarafından yakalanıp ve Kerkük mahkemesine gönderilmişti. Olaydan şupheli olduktan sonra Irak içişler bakanlığı 3 Şubat tarihli 820 no yazısında Kerkük Polis müdürlüğünden tekrar soruşturmasını talep etmişti.
http://bizturkmeniz.com/tr/index.htm
KDP'nın Kerkük emniyet dairesiyle soruşturma yapılıyor. şupheli bir habere göre, Irak İçişler bakanlığı Kerkük Polis Müdürlüğünden KDP Kerkük Asayış dairesiyle soruşturma yapılmasını istedi. Ayrıca KDP'nın Kerkük emniyet faaliyetlerini zayitlatılmasını talep etmiştir. Bundan kaç gün önce Kerkük'te intihar bombası patlamak isteyen Musanna Casım adlı kişi KDP emniyeti tarafından yakalanıp ve Kerkük mahkemesine gönderilmişti. Olaydan şupheli olduktan sonra Irak içişler bakanlığı 3 Şubat tarihli 820 no yazısında Kerkük Polis müdürlüğünden tekrar soruşturmasını talep etmişti.
Rojnema gazetesinin aldığı bilgilere göre, Musanna Casım'ın yakalanmasından sonra KDP üyesi olduğunu ortaya çıkmıştı ve yakalanmasında KDPlı bir emniyet mensubuda yanında olduğunu tesbit edildi. Musanna Casım mahkeme ifadesinde bomba patlama ve intihar saldırısı yapmak istemdiğini ve KDP tarafından bir uydurma olduğunu söylemişti. Şimdi Kerkük mahkemesi KDPlı emniyet mensubuna tutuklama kararı vermişti. bu konuya ilgili Kerkük Polis Müdürü Kürt kökenli Cemal Tahir yaptığı açıklamada: Irak İçişler bakanlığı resmi bir yazıyla tekrar olayla ilgili soruşturma yapılmasını istedi, gerçeklere yetişmek için soruşturmalar devam ettiğini söyleyen Tahir, tutuklu kişi mahkemede intihar saldırısı yapmak istemediğini söylemişti. Kaynak: rojnema, Kürtçe, 15 Şubat,
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Azeri şair Bahtiyar Vahabzade hayatını kaybetti
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Türk dünyasının önde gelen şairlerinden Azerbaycanlı Bahtiyar Vahabzade 84 yaşında hayatını kaybetti. Ünlü şairin Azerbaycan'ın başkenti Bakü'de bulunan evinde vefat ettiği bildirildi
14 Şubat 2009, Cumartesi
Hayattayken Türk dünyasının yaşayan en büyük şairlerinden biri olarak nitelenen Vahabzade, uzun süredir hastaydı. Azeri şair için yarın Bakü Devlet Üniversitesi'nde veda töreni yapılacağı öğrenildi.
BAHTİYAR VAHABZADE KİMDİR?
Bahtiyar Vahabzade, 16 Ağustos 1925 tarihinde Azerbaycan'ın Şeki kentinde doğdu. 9 yaşında ailesiyle beraber Bakü'ye taşınan Vahabzade, ilk ve orta öğrenimini bu şehirde tamamladı. 1947 yılında Bakü Devlet Üniversitesi Filoloji Bölümü'nden mezun olarak aynı bölümde öğretim üyesi olarak ders vermeye başladı. 1964 yılında tamamladığı Samet Vurgunun Hayat ve Yaratıcılığı isimli monografisi ile filoloji doktoru ünvanını aldı. 1980 yılında Azerbaycan İlimler Akademisi üyeliğine seçilen Vahabzade, 1990 yılında emekli olana kadar üniversite de ders verdi.
Çok sayıda ilmi kongrelere katılan, seyahatler yapan Vahabzade, Almanya'daki Türk işçileri üzerinde araştırma ve incelemeler yaptı. Birçok defa Türkiye'ye geldi. Türkiye'den Bakü'ye giden pek çok ilim ve sanat heyetiyle görüşüp, görüş alışverişinde bulundu.
Vahabzade, 1960'larda başlayan özgürlük hareketlerinin öncülerinden biri oldu. Bu konuda kaleme aldığı 1959 tarihli Gülistan isimli şiirinde, ikiye bölünen (İran ve Rusya) Azeri halkının yaşadığı felaketleri anlattı. Adı geçen eserinden dolayı 2 yıllığına üniversitedeki görevinden uzaklaştırıldı. Azeri halkının sıkıntılarını konu ettiği pek çok eserini yurt dışına kaçırarak yayınlanmasını sağladı.
Eserlerinde Azeri Türkçesi'ni en temiz şekilde kullanmaya özen gösteren ve halkının duygularına tercüman olan Vahabzade Azerbaycan'da Halk Şairi adıyla anılır. 1995 yılında Azeri özgürlük mücadelesindeki hizmetlerinden dolayı İstiklal nişanı ile ödüllendirilmiştir. Vahabzade 1980-2000 yılları arasında da 5 defa milletvekili seçildi.
Vahabzade'nin Türkiye'de basılmış Ömürden Sayfalar (2000), Vatan, Millet, Ana Dili (2000), Soru İşareti (2002 ) gibi eserleri bulunuyordu. Eserleri 8'den fazla dile çevrilen ünlü şairin yayınlanmış 40'ı aşkın şiir kitabı, 11 ilmi eseri, 2 monografisi, çeşitli piyesler ve yüzlerce makalesi bulunuyor. Vahabzade, eserlerinde genellikle özgürlük, yurt sevgisi, din gibi temaları işlemişti.
Bahtiyar Vahabzadenin eserlerinden bazıları şunlardır:
Şiirler ve manzum hikayeler: Menim Dostlarım, Bahar, Dostlug Nağmesi, Ebedi Heykel, Çınar, Sade Adamlar, Ceyran, Aylı Geceler, Şairin kitaphanası, Etiraf, Şeb-i Hicran, İnsan ve Zaman, Bir Ürekde Dört Fesil, Seçilmiş Eserler, Kökler-Buğdaylar, Deniz-Sahil, Bir Baharın Garangusu, Dan Yeri, Payız Düşünceler, Şehitler, Özümle Sohpet, Mugam.
Tiyatro eserleri: Vicdan, İkinci Ses, Yağıştan Sonra, Feryat, Darağacı, Artık Adam.
Hatıra-Seyahatname eserleri: Sanatkar ve Zaman, Sadelikte Büyüklük, Derin Katlara Işık.
(CHA)
http://www.kerkuk.net/haberler/haber.aspx?dil=1055&metin=200902144
Abant Platform to discuss Kurdish issue in Erbil
The Abant Platform, a prominent discussion forum known for dealing with pressing issues challenging Turkey, will hold its second conference on the Kurdish issue in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Feb. 15 and 16.
The opening speech of the meeting will be given by the prime minister of the regional Kurdish administration, Nechirvan Barzani. The meeting is co-organized by the Abant Platform, a sub-organization of the Journalists and Writers Association, Arbil’s Salahaddin University and the Mukriyani Institute. Arbil Gov. Nevzad Hadi Mawlood will also be among the speakers at the opening session of the meeting. Nearly 100 intellectuals and representatives of NGOs are expected to attend the meeting of the platform, which seeks to find a solution to the Kurdish issue with different perspectives.
The two-day meeting will feature four sessions titled "Assessment of the Situation," "Common Cultural Values and the Future," "Mutual Dependence and Opportunities" and "Perspectives for the Future." Shirzad al-Najjar, an international law professor at Salahaddin University and counselor for higher education in the cabinet of the regional administration; Associate Professor İbrahim Kalın, chairman of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) and a columnist from Today's Zaman.
Kalın, Ferit Eserset, Halit Salih and Ali Bulaç will deliver their speeches in the first session. In the second session, Rashad Miran from the College of Education of Scientific Humanities at Salahaddin University; an influential journalist and organizer of the Hope Project, Halkawt Abdullah; researcher Murat Hekim; Bejan Matur; and Işık University Rector Salih Hoşoğlu will speak.
On the second day of the conference, Mehmet Altan, Galip Ensarioğlu, Nasuhi Güngör and Abdurrahman Sıdık are going to deliver their opinions on the issue. Professor Eser Karakaş, Sami Soreş, Altan Tan and Cengiz Çandar are also the lecturers of the last section. Professor Mümtaz'er Türköne, an organizer of the event, had previously told the Zaman daily that the meeting was aimed at bringing Turkey's intellectual richness to the region.
14 February 2009, Saturday
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=166886
The opening speech of the meeting will be given by the prime minister of the regional Kurdish administration, Nechirvan Barzani. The meeting is co-organized by the Abant Platform, a sub-organization of the Journalists and Writers Association, Arbil’s Salahaddin University and the Mukriyani Institute. Arbil Gov. Nevzad Hadi Mawlood will also be among the speakers at the opening session of the meeting. Nearly 100 intellectuals and representatives of NGOs are expected to attend the meeting of the platform, which seeks to find a solution to the Kurdish issue with different perspectives.
The two-day meeting will feature four sessions titled "Assessment of the Situation," "Common Cultural Values and the Future," "Mutual Dependence and Opportunities" and "Perspectives for the Future." Shirzad al-Najjar, an international law professor at Salahaddin University and counselor for higher education in the cabinet of the regional administration; Associate Professor İbrahim Kalın, chairman of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) and a columnist from Today's Zaman.
Kalın, Ferit Eserset, Halit Salih and Ali Bulaç will deliver their speeches in the first session. In the second session, Rashad Miran from the College of Education of Scientific Humanities at Salahaddin University; an influential journalist and organizer of the Hope Project, Halkawt Abdullah; researcher Murat Hekim; Bejan Matur; and Işık University Rector Salih Hoşoğlu will speak.
On the second day of the conference, Mehmet Altan, Galip Ensarioğlu, Nasuhi Güngör and Abdurrahman Sıdık are going to deliver their opinions on the issue. Professor Eser Karakaş, Sami Soreş, Altan Tan and Cengiz Çandar are also the lecturers of the last section. Professor Mümtaz'er Türköne, an organizer of the event, had previously told the Zaman daily that the meeting was aimed at bringing Turkey's intellectual richness to the region.
14 February 2009, Saturday
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=166886
Friday, 13 February 2009
Trial of Iraqi journalist Muntadher al-Zaidi scheduled to begin on February 19, 2009
The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at former President Bush will be tried in two weeks, a spokesman for Iraq’s Higher Judicial Council judge told CNN.
Al-Zaidi has been detained for nearly two months and his appearance in court will mark the first time he has been seen in public since his arrest.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
The War on Terror is a Hoax
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Comment: Could the “war on terror” be entirely a hoax? Or at the very least, is the “war on terror” an elaborate pretext and justification for Israel-U.S. intervention and global hegemony?
This article from the American Free Press definitely raises some interesting points!
By Paul Craig Roberts
According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.
If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.
The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.
I do not approve of assassinations, and am ashamed of my country’s government for engaging in political assassination. The US and Israel have set a very bad example for al Qaeda to follow.
The US deals with al Qaeda and Taliban by assassinating their leaders, and Israel deals with Hamas by assassinating its leaders. It is reasonable to assume that al Qaeda would deal with the instigators and leaders of America’s wars in the Middle East in the same way.
Today every al Qaeda member is aware of the complicity of neoconservatives in the death and devastation inflicted on Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza. Moreover, neocons are highly visible and are soft targets compared to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Neocons have been identified in the media for years, and as everyone knows, multiple listings of their names are available online.
Neocons do not have Secret Service protection. Dreadful to contemplate, but it would be child’s play for al Qaeda to assassinate any and every neocon. Yet, neocons move around freely, a good indication that the US does not have a terrorist problem.
If, as neocons constantly allege, terrorists can smuggle nuclear weapons or dirty bombs into the US with which to wreak havoc upon our cities, terrorists can acquire weapons with which to assassinate any neocon or former government official.
Yet, the neocons, who are the Americans most hated by Muslims, remain unscathed.
The “war on terror” is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel’s territorial expansion.
There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law. The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.
Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.
The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah “terrorist organizations” for no other reason than the US is on Israel’s side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State’s “finding” that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.
Americans and Israelis do not call their bombings of civilians terror. What Americans and Israelis call terror is the response of oppressed people who are stateless because their countries are ruled by puppets loyal to the oppressors. These people, dispossessed of their own countries, have no State Departments, Defense Departments, seats in the United Nations, or voices in the mainstream media. They can submit to foreign hegemony or resist by the limited means available to them.
The fact that Israel and the United States carry on endless propaganda to prevent this fundamental truth from being realized indicates that it is Israel and the US that are in the wrong and the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Afghans who are being wronged.
The retired American generals who serve as war propagandists for Fox “News” are forever claiming that Iran arms the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents and Hamas. But where are the arms? To deal with American tanks, insurgents have to construct homemade explosive devices out of artillery shells. After six years of conflict the insurgents still have no weapon against the American helicopter gunships. Contrast this “arming” with the weaponry the US supplied to the Afghans three decades ago when they were fighting to drive out the Soviets.
The films of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza show large numbers of Gazans fleeing from Israeli bombs or digging out the dead and maimed, and none of these people are armed. A person would think that by now every Palestinian would be armed, every man, woman, and child. Yet, all the films of the Israeli attack show an unarmed population. Hamas has to construct homemade rockets that are little more than a sign of defiance. If Hamas were armed by Iran, Israel’s assault on Gaza would have cost Israel its helicopter gunships, its tanks, and hundreds of lives of its soldiers.
Hamas is a small organization armed with small caliber rifles incapable of penetrating body armor. Hamas is unable to stop small bands of Israeli settlers from descending on West Bank Palestinian villages, driving out the Palestinians, and appropriating their land.
The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.
The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of The Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. Roberts can be contacted at PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com.
http://naaltieri.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-war-on-terror-is-a-hoax/
Comment: Could the “war on terror” be entirely a hoax? Or at the very least, is the “war on terror” an elaborate pretext and justification for Israel-U.S. intervention and global hegemony?
This article from the American Free Press definitely raises some interesting points!
By Paul Craig Roberts
According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.
If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.
The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.
I do not approve of assassinations, and am ashamed of my country’s government for engaging in political assassination. The US and Israel have set a very bad example for al Qaeda to follow.
The US deals with al Qaeda and Taliban by assassinating their leaders, and Israel deals with Hamas by assassinating its leaders. It is reasonable to assume that al Qaeda would deal with the instigators and leaders of America’s wars in the Middle East in the same way.
Today every al Qaeda member is aware of the complicity of neoconservatives in the death and devastation inflicted on Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza. Moreover, neocons are highly visible and are soft targets compared to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Neocons have been identified in the media for years, and as everyone knows, multiple listings of their names are available online.
Neocons do not have Secret Service protection. Dreadful to contemplate, but it would be child’s play for al Qaeda to assassinate any and every neocon. Yet, neocons move around freely, a good indication that the US does not have a terrorist problem.
If, as neocons constantly allege, terrorists can smuggle nuclear weapons or dirty bombs into the US with which to wreak havoc upon our cities, terrorists can acquire weapons with which to assassinate any neocon or former government official.
Yet, the neocons, who are the Americans most hated by Muslims, remain unscathed.
The “war on terror” is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel’s territorial expansion.
There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law. The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.
Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.
The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah “terrorist organizations” for no other reason than the US is on Israel’s side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State’s “finding” that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.
Americans and Israelis do not call their bombings of civilians terror. What Americans and Israelis call terror is the response of oppressed people who are stateless because their countries are ruled by puppets loyal to the oppressors. These people, dispossessed of their own countries, have no State Departments, Defense Departments, seats in the United Nations, or voices in the mainstream media. They can submit to foreign hegemony or resist by the limited means available to them.
The fact that Israel and the United States carry on endless propaganda to prevent this fundamental truth from being realized indicates that it is Israel and the US that are in the wrong and the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Afghans who are being wronged.
The retired American generals who serve as war propagandists for Fox “News” are forever claiming that Iran arms the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents and Hamas. But where are the arms? To deal with American tanks, insurgents have to construct homemade explosive devices out of artillery shells. After six years of conflict the insurgents still have no weapon against the American helicopter gunships. Contrast this “arming” with the weaponry the US supplied to the Afghans three decades ago when they were fighting to drive out the Soviets.
The films of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza show large numbers of Gazans fleeing from Israeli bombs or digging out the dead and maimed, and none of these people are armed. A person would think that by now every Palestinian would be armed, every man, woman, and child. Yet, all the films of the Israeli attack show an unarmed population. Hamas has to construct homemade rockets that are little more than a sign of defiance. If Hamas were armed by Iran, Israel’s assault on Gaza would have cost Israel its helicopter gunships, its tanks, and hundreds of lives of its soldiers.
Hamas is a small organization armed with small caliber rifles incapable of penetrating body armor. Hamas is unable to stop small bands of Israeli settlers from descending on West Bank Palestinian villages, driving out the Palestinians, and appropriating their land.
The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.
The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of The Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. Roberts can be contacted at PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com.
http://naaltieri.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-war-on-terror-is-a-hoax/
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
The EU must acknowledge the fact that 'Kurdish terror' exists in the north of Iraq
The 'OIL-RICH' city of KerkukPhoto by Mohammed Kelenchy
In Kerkuk Kurdish asayish and peshmerga continue to intimidate the city’s original inhabitants: the Turkmens
When will the Turkmens feel free and safe in their capital city?
The answer is: not as long as the chauvinistic Kurdish warlords and their brutal peshmerga and asayish are allowed to impose their rule by force in northern Iraq.
Our friend Mr. Mohammed Kelenchy, an Iraqi Turkmen photographer who lives in the U.K. has recently travelled to Iraq where he visited Baghdad and Kerkuk.
He spent several days taking photographs in and around Kerkuk of people, mosques, churches, important buildings and monuments. While he was taking some photos in the streets of Kerkuk a Kurdish policeman arrested him and started to question him in a rude manner, refusing to talk to him in Arabic or Turkmen. Our friend was obliged to ask someone to translate for him. Later five more policemen arrived in a van and they brutally pushed him into the van and continued to treat him rudely. His camera was taken and checked and all the photographs he had taken (over 250) in view of making a documentary on Kerkuk city and its surroundings were deleted by the chief police officer (a Kurd) without any justification. Our friend was very annoyed because he lost most of the important shots he had taken during the past two days.
When leaving Iraq Mr. Kelenchy travelled from Kerkuk to Turkey by road, during the journey he and his fellow travellers were stopped twelve times - at each check point - and every time they were questioned and searched and their passports were checked by the Kurds. He said it was a terrifying experience as they did not know whether they would be allowed to continue their journey and because he was afraid that the Kurdish police would confiscate all his CDs and memory sticks.
Our friend further reports that most Arab passengers were taken out of their cars and buses and were forbidden to go through the regional Kurdish area.
It is high time that the European and American human rights defenders and policy makers pay attention to the reports, appeals and complaints from Turkmen, Arab, Shabak, Yezidi and Assyrian communities in the north of Iraq who continue to be victims of exactions and threats by Messrs. Talabani’s and Barzani’s peshmerga and asayish.
An honest and impartial assessment of the situation in the north of Iraq is urgently needed, the European Union must admit that Kurdish terror exists in the north of Iraq and European politicians must put pressure on the Kurdish warlords Messrs. Talabani and Barzani and demand that they immediately stop their racist behaviour and criminal actions against non-Kurds in Iraq.
In Kerkuk Kurdish asayish and peshmerga continue to intimidate the city’s original inhabitants: the Turkmens
When will the Turkmens feel free and safe in their capital city?
The answer is: not as long as the chauvinistic Kurdish warlords and their brutal peshmerga and asayish are allowed to impose their rule by force in northern Iraq.
Our friend Mr. Mohammed Kelenchy, an Iraqi Turkmen photographer who lives in the U.K. has recently travelled to Iraq where he visited Baghdad and Kerkuk.
He spent several days taking photographs in and around Kerkuk of people, mosques, churches, important buildings and monuments. While he was taking some photos in the streets of Kerkuk a Kurdish policeman arrested him and started to question him in a rude manner, refusing to talk to him in Arabic or Turkmen. Our friend was obliged to ask someone to translate for him. Later five more policemen arrived in a van and they brutally pushed him into the van and continued to treat him rudely. His camera was taken and checked and all the photographs he had taken (over 250) in view of making a documentary on Kerkuk city and its surroundings were deleted by the chief police officer (a Kurd) without any justification. Our friend was very annoyed because he lost most of the important shots he had taken during the past two days.
When leaving Iraq Mr. Kelenchy travelled from Kerkuk to Turkey by road, during the journey he and his fellow travellers were stopped twelve times - at each check point - and every time they were questioned and searched and their passports were checked by the Kurds. He said it was a terrifying experience as they did not know whether they would be allowed to continue their journey and because he was afraid that the Kurdish police would confiscate all his CDs and memory sticks.
Our friend further reports that most Arab passengers were taken out of their cars and buses and were forbidden to go through the regional Kurdish area.
It is high time that the European and American human rights defenders and policy makers pay attention to the reports, appeals and complaints from Turkmen, Arab, Shabak, Yezidi and Assyrian communities in the north of Iraq who continue to be victims of exactions and threats by Messrs. Talabani’s and Barzani’s peshmerga and asayish.
An honest and impartial assessment of the situation in the north of Iraq is urgently needed, the European Union must admit that Kurdish terror exists in the north of Iraq and European politicians must put pressure on the Kurdish warlords Messrs. Talabani and Barzani and demand that they immediately stop their racist behaviour and criminal actions against non-Kurds in Iraq.
Many Election Violations Against Assyrians in North Iraq
GMT 2-10-2009 1:37:41
Assyrian International News Agency
Baghdad (AINA) -- Speaking to a journalist from PUK Media in Baghdad, Mr. Yonadam Kanna, a member of the Iraqi parliament and leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, said on Saturday his group has filed several complaints about what he described as violations to the election law.
"There were many violations against Assyrians, especially concerning the militia in the Nineveh plain which is affiliated with the Ishtar slate of 513. They used extortion, threats and other kinds of pressures against the voters. The Ishtar slate violated several articles in the election law. We have filed complaints with the Independent electoral commission of Iraq and are hoping they will investigate the matter."
The Ishtar slate is supported by a Kurdish backed group known as "The popular Council for Syriacs Chaldeans Assyrians." Its unofficial leader, Kurdish finance minister Sargis Aghajan, has been missing for several months (AINA 2-5-2009).
The violations against Assyrians in this latest election follow a consistent pattern, beginning with municipal elections that were held in 2001, followed by the elections in January and December of 2005.
In a January 28 article AINA called attention to the potential for election violations:
Fear is growing, however, of a recurrence of previous election scams.1 In the 2005 national elections, the Nineveh Plain area, the last place in Iraq where minorities constitute the majority of inhabitants, extensive electoral rigging was documented by various independent groups. Many thousands of voters from the Yezidi, Assyrian and Shabak minorities were hindered from casting their votes. The U.S. Department of State's 2005 Human Rights Country Report for Iraq states:
In the January elections, many of the mostly non-Muslim residents on the Nineveh Plain were unable to vote. Some polling places did not open, ballot boxes were not delivered, and incidents of voter fraud and intimidation occurred. These problems resulted from administrative breakdowns on voting day and the refusal of Kurdish security forces to allow ballot boxes to pass to predominantly Christian villages.2
In the run-up to the elections held in December, 2005 Assyrian campaign workers from the Assyrian General Conference were prevented from campaigning in Dohuk, a city in north Iraq with a large Assyrian population. Four campaign workers from the Assyrian Democratic Movement were fired upon as they hung election posters in Mosul (AINA 12-15-2005).
The January 30, 2005 elections were marred by egregious violations. Some 300,000 Assyrians, Yezidis and Turkmen were denied the opportunity to vote when Kurdish election officials failed to deliver ballot boxes to their districts. Prior to the elections a wave of attacks by Kurdish paramilitary groups against Assyrians was conducted to instill fear in the populace (AINA 2-10-2005, 12-30-2004).
The 2001 municipal elections held in north Iraq were marred by violence (AINA 7-2-2001).
1 AINA 12-15-2005, 2-10-2005, 1-17-2005, 12-30-2004, 7-2-2001
2 Bureau Of Democracy, Human Rights, And Labor, U.S. Department Of State, Iraq: Country Reports On Human Rights Practices -- 2005 §3 (2006), describing voting "irregularities" and problems that occurred during the 2005 elections, including incidents of Kurdish forces' preventing ballot boxes to pass to Christian communities.
Copyright (C) 2009, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.
Assyrian International News Agency
Baghdad (AINA) -- Speaking to a journalist from PUK Media in Baghdad, Mr. Yonadam Kanna, a member of the Iraqi parliament and leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, said on Saturday his group has filed several complaints about what he described as violations to the election law.
"There were many violations against Assyrians, especially concerning the militia in the Nineveh plain which is affiliated with the Ishtar slate of 513. They used extortion, threats and other kinds of pressures against the voters. The Ishtar slate violated several articles in the election law. We have filed complaints with the Independent electoral commission of Iraq and are hoping they will investigate the matter."
The Ishtar slate is supported by a Kurdish backed group known as "The popular Council for Syriacs Chaldeans Assyrians." Its unofficial leader, Kurdish finance minister Sargis Aghajan, has been missing for several months (AINA 2-5-2009).
The violations against Assyrians in this latest election follow a consistent pattern, beginning with municipal elections that were held in 2001, followed by the elections in January and December of 2005.
In a January 28 article AINA called attention to the potential for election violations:
Fear is growing, however, of a recurrence of previous election scams.1 In the 2005 national elections, the Nineveh Plain area, the last place in Iraq where minorities constitute the majority of inhabitants, extensive electoral rigging was documented by various independent groups. Many thousands of voters from the Yezidi, Assyrian and Shabak minorities were hindered from casting their votes. The U.S. Department of State's 2005 Human Rights Country Report for Iraq states:
In the January elections, many of the mostly non-Muslim residents on the Nineveh Plain were unable to vote. Some polling places did not open, ballot boxes were not delivered, and incidents of voter fraud and intimidation occurred. These problems resulted from administrative breakdowns on voting day and the refusal of Kurdish security forces to allow ballot boxes to pass to predominantly Christian villages.2
In the run-up to the elections held in December, 2005 Assyrian campaign workers from the Assyrian General Conference were prevented from campaigning in Dohuk, a city in north Iraq with a large Assyrian population. Four campaign workers from the Assyrian Democratic Movement were fired upon as they hung election posters in Mosul (AINA 12-15-2005).
The January 30, 2005 elections were marred by egregious violations. Some 300,000 Assyrians, Yezidis and Turkmen were denied the opportunity to vote when Kurdish election officials failed to deliver ballot boxes to their districts. Prior to the elections a wave of attacks by Kurdish paramilitary groups against Assyrians was conducted to instill fear in the populace (AINA 2-10-2005, 12-30-2004).
The 2001 municipal elections held in north Iraq were marred by violence (AINA 7-2-2001).
1 AINA 12-15-2005, 2-10-2005, 1-17-2005, 12-30-2004, 7-2-2001
2 Bureau Of Democracy, Human Rights, And Labor, U.S. Department Of State, Iraq: Country Reports On Human Rights Practices -- 2005 §3 (2006), describing voting "irregularities" and problems that occurred during the 2005 elections, including incidents of Kurdish forces' preventing ballot boxes to pass to Christian communities.
Copyright (C) 2009, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.
Saturday, 7 February 2009
Journalist killed by policeman in Mosul
February 5, 2009 - 05:20:51
NINEWA / Aswat al-Iraq: A journalist was killed when a policeman opened fire at him in southern Mosul city on Thursday, a security source in Ninewa said.
“The journalist, Sallam Arab al-Dawsaki, who works for al-Hadbaa newspaper, published in Mosul, was shot down by a policeman in front of his house in Wadi Hajar, southern Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa province, lies 405 km north of Baghdad.
AmR (P) http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=107588
NINEWA / Aswat al-Iraq: A journalist was killed when a policeman opened fire at him in southern Mosul city on Thursday, a security source in Ninewa said.
“The journalist, Sallam Arab al-Dawsaki, who works for al-Hadbaa newspaper, published in Mosul, was shot down by a policeman in front of his house in Wadi Hajar, southern Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa province, lies 405 km north of Baghdad.
AmR (P) http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=107588
U.S. Military Violated Security Agreement Twice in 2 Weeks, Iraqi Leaders Say
February 7, 2009
U.S. Military Violated Security Agreement Twice in 2 Weeks, Iraqi Leaders Say
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Iraqi leaders in Kirkuk Province have charged that twice in the last two weeks the American military violated the hard-won security agreement signed in November by attacking Iraqi criminal suspects without coordinating with Iraqi security forces.
The first episode occurred last month, when American soldiers fatally shot an Iraqi couple in their home near Kirkuk after the wife reached for a pistol hidden under a mattress, American and Iraqi officials said. The couple’s 8-year-old daughter was wounded. The shooting was reported at the time, but the charges of failure to coordinate emerged on Friday, hours after an American raid in which a 58-year-old man was shot and killed outside of Kirkuk.
The two episodes highlight the difficulties the Americans and Iraqis are encountering as they try to comply with the security agreement’s requirement that American troops have “full coordination with Iraqi authorities,” particularly in places where there are still active counterinsurgency operations.
In some places, Iraqi and American special forces are conducting many of the raids, but it appears that they do not necessarily contact units stationed in the field. Interviews with witnesses to the Friday raid, including the 58-year-old man’s son, suggested it did not involve the military units that regularly patrol in the area.
The son, Nihad Muhammad Hassan al-Bachary, 16, described a sudden, brutal invasion of the family home. “The American forces stormed into our house, and they handcuffed me, my two brothers and my uncle,” the son said. “When my father came out of his room, they opened fire on him point blank and then they stuffed his body in a large, black plastic bag.”
The soldiers who came in were directed by an American in a military uniform, the son said, but unlike most soldiers, he had a beard. The other armed men with him were wearing masks and Iraqi commando uniforms and speaking in “Kurdish and inaccurate Arabic,” the son said. He said that his father was an Agriculture Ministry employee, and that several other family members were detained elsewhere in the village at the same time.
The police chief of the nearby city of Hawija said that he had not been warned of the raid, and that when his officers tried to enter the village, they were stopped by American soldiers. “An American force told us that, ‘There is a special force in there,’ ” said the police chief, Ibrahim al-Juboori.
“The police department for Hawija District had no knowledge of the operation,” he said. “The people who were arrested and the one that was killed were not known as terrorists.”
Hawija was a onetime stronghold for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence believes has foreign leadership. Hussein Ali Saleh al-Juboori, a powerful local politician and the founder of the Hawija Awakening Council, which chased Al Qaeda from the area, warned that such episodes ran the risk of inspiring insurgents. “Hawija will become a center for resistance, not terrorism as it was before,” the politician said. “I have spoken with the Americans in Bachary and Kirkuk and the Joint Coordination Center, and they have no knowledge of what happened.
“There have been repeated breaches after the signing of the strategic agreement,” he said, citing the January case “when a man and his wife were killed and his daughter was injured. We demand immediate investigation.”
Iraqi Army commanders underscored the coordination problem. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said that the men who were detained and the man who was killed were suspected of manufacturing explosives, and that they had resisted arrest. But they said such considerations did not exempt Americans from the requirement to coordinate.
Col. Jassim Saadon, head of the Hawija force in the Iraqi Army, said that he, too, knew nothing of the raid until afterward. “There is a lack of coordination between the forces that execute the orders and the local forces,” he said.
Angriest was a high-ranking Iraqi commander. He said that the Americans had apologized, but said, “Upsetting and violating the families will not help the process at all. And though the Americans came down here to apologize for the incident, we said that we did not want an apology but precoordination.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press on this subject.
In the future, he said, military forces undertaking raids outside the city of Kirkuk without coordinating with his division would be treated as “hostile forces.” The only exceptions, he said, were “situations where a terrorist is arrested wearing an explosive belt or planting a bomb.”
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kirkuk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
U.S. Military Violated Security Agreement Twice in 2 Weeks, Iraqi Leaders Say
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Iraqi leaders in Kirkuk Province have charged that twice in the last two weeks the American military violated the hard-won security agreement signed in November by attacking Iraqi criminal suspects without coordinating with Iraqi security forces.
The first episode occurred last month, when American soldiers fatally shot an Iraqi couple in their home near Kirkuk after the wife reached for a pistol hidden under a mattress, American and Iraqi officials said. The couple’s 8-year-old daughter was wounded. The shooting was reported at the time, but the charges of failure to coordinate emerged on Friday, hours after an American raid in which a 58-year-old man was shot and killed outside of Kirkuk.
The two episodes highlight the difficulties the Americans and Iraqis are encountering as they try to comply with the security agreement’s requirement that American troops have “full coordination with Iraqi authorities,” particularly in places where there are still active counterinsurgency operations.
In some places, Iraqi and American special forces are conducting many of the raids, but it appears that they do not necessarily contact units stationed in the field. Interviews with witnesses to the Friday raid, including the 58-year-old man’s son, suggested it did not involve the military units that regularly patrol in the area.
The son, Nihad Muhammad Hassan al-Bachary, 16, described a sudden, brutal invasion of the family home. “The American forces stormed into our house, and they handcuffed me, my two brothers and my uncle,” the son said. “When my father came out of his room, they opened fire on him point blank and then they stuffed his body in a large, black plastic bag.”
The soldiers who came in were directed by an American in a military uniform, the son said, but unlike most soldiers, he had a beard. The other armed men with him were wearing masks and Iraqi commando uniforms and speaking in “Kurdish and inaccurate Arabic,” the son said. He said that his father was an Agriculture Ministry employee, and that several other family members were detained elsewhere in the village at the same time.
The police chief of the nearby city of Hawija said that he had not been warned of the raid, and that when his officers tried to enter the village, they were stopped by American soldiers. “An American force told us that, ‘There is a special force in there,’ ” said the police chief, Ibrahim al-Juboori.
“The police department for Hawija District had no knowledge of the operation,” he said. “The people who were arrested and the one that was killed were not known as terrorists.”
Hawija was a onetime stronghold for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence believes has foreign leadership. Hussein Ali Saleh al-Juboori, a powerful local politician and the founder of the Hawija Awakening Council, which chased Al Qaeda from the area, warned that such episodes ran the risk of inspiring insurgents. “Hawija will become a center for resistance, not terrorism as it was before,” the politician said. “I have spoken with the Americans in Bachary and Kirkuk and the Joint Coordination Center, and they have no knowledge of what happened.
“There have been repeated breaches after the signing of the strategic agreement,” he said, citing the January case “when a man and his wife were killed and his daughter was injured. We demand immediate investigation.”
Iraqi Army commanders underscored the coordination problem. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said that the men who were detained and the man who was killed were suspected of manufacturing explosives, and that they had resisted arrest. But they said such considerations did not exempt Americans from the requirement to coordinate.
Col. Jassim Saadon, head of the Hawija force in the Iraqi Army, said that he, too, knew nothing of the raid until afterward. “There is a lack of coordination between the forces that execute the orders and the local forces,” he said.
Angriest was a high-ranking Iraqi commander. He said that the Americans had apologized, but said, “Upsetting and violating the families will not help the process at all. And though the Americans came down here to apologize for the incident, we said that we did not want an apology but precoordination.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press on this subject.
In the future, he said, military forces undertaking raids outside the city of Kirkuk without coordinating with his division would be treated as “hostile forces.” The only exceptions, he said, were “situations where a terrorist is arrested wearing an explosive belt or planting a bomb.”
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kirkuk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
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