He writhes in pain, moaning with every other breath. The Iraqi police colonel’s chest is covered in bandages, his legs from the knees down nearly completely hidden from view due to thick bandages holding what is left of his shins together.

http://tinyurl.com/63duy


From Information Clearing House

Tahrir--"independence"--is a word which a lot of people voted for on Sunday; not for "democracy" as the Western media would have it, but for freedom; freedom to speak, freedom to vote, freedom from the Americans.

http://207.44.245.159/article7945.htm

The comment, made by Lt. Gen. James Mattis, came in reference to fighting insurgents in Iraq. Some Audience Members Clap.

http://207.44.245.159/article7956.htm

The Iraqi Election 'Bait and Switch': Faulty Poll Will Not Bring Peace or US Withdrawal

posted 01/31/05

Problems of bias, insecurity, and voter confusion have undermined the democratic value of the election in Iraq, Carl Conetta says. Nonetheless, it will win greater international legitimacy for the US mission and enable more vigorous counter-insurgency operations. Conetta examines likely electoral outcomes and the factors shaping the new Iraqi government. An addendum summarizes Iraqi public opinion regarding the occupation and US forces.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=6545719&url_num=24&url=http://www.comw.org/pda/0501br17.html


From Moving Ideas News

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

posted 02/01/05

The official end to the U.S. search for weapons in Iraq confirms what most observers had known for over a year and what UN inspections indicated before the war: Iraq did not have any significant amount of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or long-range missiles. As a Carnegie study concluded one year ago, administration officials systematically misled the American people as to the nature of the threat and the need for military action.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=6545719&url_num=19&url=http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=16382


From Moving Ideas News

by Rami Khouri, Beirut Daily Star

Democracy in the Middle East is more likely to come from indigenous efforts than Marines protecting ballot boxes.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/#003592

by Mike Whitney

If the Bush administration had any confidence in their Iraq policy they would have plopped Saddam’s name on the ballot. That way we’d know whether Iraqis would rather continue on the ruinous path of occupation or return to the “good old days” of the former tyrant. Instead, we’re left with a spaghetti bowl of candidates whose names tell us nothing about the success or failure of the American strategy. Despite Junior Bush’s assertion of “resounding success,” the elections have only further obscured the real source of the current dilemma: occupation....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb05/Whitney0201.htm

The Never Again Mantra: The Independent’s Case for Genocide in Iraq

by Kim Petersen

“Never again” must be one of the most hypocritical phrases ever mouthed. In October 2001, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to the Labour Party Conference: “And I tell you if Rwanda happened again today as it did in 1993, when a million people were slaughtered in cold blood, we would have a moral duty to act there also.” It was Blair’s version of the “Never again” mantra. His sincerity was damned by what the International Committee of the Red Cross called “the most deadly war ever documented in Africa. Indeed, the highest war death toll documented anywhere in the world during the last half century,” and ongoing since 1998 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet, it was allowed to slide under the UK media radar, as it was in the US and elsewhere....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb05/Petersen0201.htm

American journalism sank to a new low in its coverage of the "demonstration elections" in Iraq, measured by the number of American journalists who challenged Washington's micro-managing of election coverage while on air: zero.

Just watching broadcast and cable television in the United States, you had no way of knowing that journalists were "limited to filming at only five polling stations" or that "it's American soldiers who will be transporting the ballot boxes around when they are full of votes" in Mosul, unless you happened to catch ITN's Julian Manyon on CNN International's program International Correspondents --

FULL TEXT:
http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/02/censoring-coverage-of-iraqi-elections.html

-- Yoshie

From ufpj-news