Posted by seumasach on February 1, 2009
Many Iraqis voted on religious lines during national elections in 2005.
But with many people still struggling with poverty and the unstable security situation some voters are reconsidering that decision in 2009.
Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught reports from the northern town of Irbil.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: Iraqi elections | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
James Cogan
29th January, 2009
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Within days of taking power, the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people, intensify US military strikes on targets inside Pakistan and continue the occupation of Iraq indefinitely. What is being prepared is a brutal escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan and a widening of the conflagration in the region. |
Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 19, 2008
Gareth Porter
20th December
WASHINGTON – United States military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete pullout of all US combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: iraq withdrawal, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 17, 2008
Sami Ramadani
17th december, 2008
Within a few unlikely seconds, a pair of size 10 shoes have become the most destructive weapon the people of Iraq have managed to throw at the occupying powers, after nearly six years of occupation and formidable resistance. One Iraqi writer called the shoes, hurled by a journalist at George Bush, “Iraq’s weapon of comprehensive destruction”.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: Add new tag, End of empire, iraq withdrawal | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 13, 2008
Christopher King
10th December, 2008
Christopher King examines the corrosive effects of the Anglo-American “special relationship” on British politics and argues that, if Britain is to safeguard its civil liberties, democracy and independence, it must bring former Prime Minister Tony Blair to account for that ultimate symbol of the “special relationship”, the Iraq war.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: End of empire, iraq withdrawal, join the euro! | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 11, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
11th December, 2008
On November 27 the Iraqi parliament voted by a large majority in favor of a security agreement with the US under which the 150,000 American troops in Iraq will withdraw from cities, towns and villages by June 30, 2009 and from all of Iraq by December 31, 2011. The Iraqi government will take over military responsibility for the Green Zone in Baghdad, the heart of American power in Iraq, in a few weeks time. Private security companies will lose their legal immunity. US military operations and the arrest of Iraqis will only be carried out with Iraqi consent. There will be no US military bases left behind when the last US troops leave in three years time and the US military is banned in the interim from carrying out attacks on other countries from Iraq.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: status of forces agreement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 7, 2008
Justin Raimondo
5th December, 2008
Is it really possible that President-elect Barack Obama intends to break his campaign promise to “end the war” in Iraq, and keep US troops in that country well beyond the sixteen month timetable for withdrawal he advocated during the campaign?
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: Obama's foreign policy | 1 Comment »
Posted by smeddum on December 7, 2008
Life in Iraq Has Become “Unbearable,” Economist Stiglitz Says
WRITTEN BY SHERWOOD ROSS Faxts.com
WEDNESDAY, 03 DECEMBER 2008 14:10
The western media, true to form, is blaming Mugabe for the Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, without mentioning sanctions or the situation in Iraq
President Bush’s attack on Iraq has made daily life there “unbearable” for most people, two prominent American business authorities write.
“Five years after the United States occupied Iraq with the stated goal of bringing democracy to its people, the war has essentially ruined the country’s economy, society, and sovereignty,” writes Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz with Linda Bilmes in “The Three Trillion Dollar War(W.W. Norton).” Bilmes is a former CFO of the U.S. Commerce Department. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis, Iraq | Tagged: cholera | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 7, 2008
27th November, 2008
This is a rough translation of what the Iraqi parliament has passed today with a very slim majority (144 MPs instead of the constitutionally required two thirds majority 184 MPs). The good news is that this is not over yet. This will make the law valid for the next six months until the Iraqi people vote on it in a national referendum.
Posted in Iraq, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 22, 2008
21st november, 2008
Thousands of Shi’ites took to the streets of Baghdad today in the latest public expressing of opposition to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and Iraq, presently the subject of contentious (and occasionally violent) debate in Iraq’s parliament.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: status of forces agreement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 30, 2008
Gareth Porter
31st October, 2008
The threat by the George W Bush administration last week to withdraw all economic and military support from the Iraqi government if it does not accept the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) has raised the stakes in the political-diplomatic struggle over the issue.
Posted in Iraq | Tagged: US-Iraq Status of force agreementt | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 