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Iraq

After U.S. Strike On Iraqi Forces Its Troops Will (Again) Have To Leave

On Friday a volley of some 30 107mm Katyusha rockets hit the K1 base which houses Iraqi and U.S. troops near Kirkuk, Iraq. One U.S. mercenary/contractor died, two Iraqi and four U.S. soldiers were wounded. Instead of finding the real culprits - ISIS remnants, disgruntled locals, Kurds who want to regain control over Kirkuk - the U.S. decided that Kata'ib Hizbullah was the group guilty of the attack.

Baghdad Demonstrators Demand ‘U.S. Out Of Iraq!’

On Dec. 31, hundreds of people protested at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, demanding an end to U.S. intervention in Iraq. As the protest went on for hours, dozens of the protesters managed to break into the main gate, go in, and set the main reception area on fire. Embassy officials frantically asked the Iraqi government for help. Shots were fired and several people were injured, but no deaths have, as of this writing, been reported in the incident.

Iraq Protesters Form ‘Mini-State’ In Tahrir Square

With border guards, clean-up crews and hospitals, Iraqi protesters have created a mini-state in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, offering the kinds of services they say their government has failed to provide. "We've done more in two months than the state has done in 16 years," said Haydar Chaker, a construction worker from Babylon province, south of the capital. Everyone has their role, from cooking bread to painting murals, with a division of labour and scheduled shifts. Chaker came to Baghdad with his friends after the annual Arbaeen pilgrimage to the Shia holy city Karbala, his pilgrim's tent and cooking equipment equally useful at a protest encampment. Installed in the iconic square whose name means "liberation", he provides three meals a day to hundreds of protesters, cooking with donated foods.

The Israel Lobby’s Hidden Hand In The Theft Of Iraqi And Syrian Oil

KIRKUK, IRAQ — “We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re keeping the oil,” President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, “I like oil. We’re keeping the oil.” Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Iraqis Rise Up Against 16 Years of “Made in the USA” Corruption

As Americans sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, Iraqis were mourning more than 60 protesters killed by police and soldiers on Thursday in Baghdad, Najaf and Nasiriyah. Nearly 400 protesters have been killed since hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets at the beginning of October. Human rights groups have described the crisis in Iraq as a “bloodbath,” Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi has announced he will resign, and Sweden has opened an investigation against Iraqi Defense Minister Najah Al-Shammari, who is a Swedish citizen, for crimes against humanity.

Plundering Iraq

Welcome to modern Iraq. The British were always masters of efficient imperialism. In the 19th century, they managed to rule a quarter of the Earth’s surface with only a relatively small army supported by a great fleet. Many of their imperial subjects were so overawed by the pomp and circumstance of British rule that they often willingly cooperated, or at least bent the knee. Call it colonialism 101. Ardent students of Roman history, the British early on adopted the Roman strategy of ‘divide et impera’, divide and conquer.

US-Iran Standoff Moves From High Seas To Dry Land

A simmering regional standoff between the US and Iran shifted from the high seas to dry land over the past two weeks, as street protests from Beirut to Baghdad challenge existing political orders and alliances. The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, aimed at bringing the Islamic Republic to its knees, hit the rocks in the Persian Gulf over the summer. Explosions targeting oil tankers – capped by a precision attack on Saudi Aramco in September – drove home the message to Arab monarchies that their own interests would suffer should they continue to egg on the US campaign. But in October, first in Iraq and then in Lebanon, nationwide street protests erupted against dire economic conditions and endemic corruption of sectarian political elites.

The Test Of A Country Is Not The Number Of Millionaires It Owns…

At the edge of hope lies the gunfire from what Frantz Fanon called ‘the old granite block upon which the nation rests’. At the moment of protest, when the gunfire starts, clarity arrives. One should not be naïve about the character of the elite, whose smiles camouflage the instructions given through clenched teeth to the henchmen, their ‘simple men’ ready to kill the ‘simple people’. At its best, the ‘granite block’ shrugs, shuffles its cabinet, offers modest reforms; at its worst, its soldiers – their faces covered to prevent the tears from showing – fire at their family members.

Why Lebanon And Iraq Are At The Brink Of Further Strife

An imminent breakdown of the very weak economy of Lebanon, partially caused by U.S. sanctions against Lebanese banks and the end of traditional Saudi subsidies to Lebanon, also led to protests and today to the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He will now lead a caretaker government which will have too little power to change anything. Both, Iraq and Lebanon, have ethnic-sectarian systems that are finely balanced. The warlords or clan leaders of the various groups use the state for their own enrichment. Providing services for the whole country mean nothing to them.

US Out Of Syria And The Middle East

Above: US Out of the Middle East, Los Angeles protest against bombing in Syria from ABC7.com. Stop The Turkish Invasion Of

Crises In Iraq And Haiti Expose The Failure Of Militarized Neoliberalism

This season could be called the Autumn of Discontent, as people from the Middle East to Latin America and the Caribbean have been rising up against corrupt neoliberal governments. Two of the countries in crisis, Haiti and Iraq, are on opposite ends of the earth but have something important in common. Not only are they reeling from protests against government corruption and austerity programs, like Ecuador and Algeria, but in both Haiti and Iraq, their corrupt neoliberal governments were imposed on them by the use of U.S. military force.

The U.S. Led Coup Attempt In Iraq May Further Weaken That Country

The current unrest in Iraq began a week ago after a prominent general was removed from his post: Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi was the great Iraqi military hero of the war against Isis, leading the assault on Mosul which recaptured the de facto Isis capital after a nine-month siege in 2017. But at the weekend he was suddenly removed as the commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) shock troops, the elite corps of the Iraqi armed forces, by Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. He was instead given what the general considered to be a non-job at the Defence Ministry.

New Study Documents Depleted Uranium Impacts On Children In Iraq

In the years following 2003, the U.S. military dotted Iraq with over 500 military bases, many of them close to Iraqi cities. These cities suffered the impacts of bombs, bullets, chemical and other weapons, but also the environmental damage of open burn pits on U.S. bases, abandoned tanks and trucks, and the storage of weapons on U.S. bases, including depleted uranium weapons. This map and the other illustrations below have been provided by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the authors of a forthcoming article in the journal Environmental Pollution. The article documents the results of a study undertaken in Nasiriyah near Tallil Air Base. Nasiriyah was bombed by the U.S. military in 2003 and in the early 1990s. Open-air burn pits were used at Tallil Air Base beginning in 2003.

Iraqis Prepare A Carnival For Peace As US Plans For More War

Two Iraqi peace activists discuss their commitment to peace and undoing the violence wrought by the last two U.S. wars in their country. There’s a dark joke going around Baghdad these days. Noof Assi, a 30-year-old Iraqi peace activist and humanitarian worker, told it to me by phone. Our conversation takes place in late May just after the Trump administration has announced that it would add 1,500 additional U.S. troops to its Middle Eastern garrisons. “Iran wants to fight to get the United States and Saudi Arabia out of Iraq,” she began. “And the United States wants to fight to get Iran out of Iraq.”

In Iraq, As US Influence Ebbs, Iran’s Flows

March 31, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - In the dead of Christmas night last year, to evade possibly being shot down, US President Donald Trump made a surprise, whirlwind visit to US troops in Iraq. He visited Al Asad Air Base about 100 miles west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province, or about halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border where US forces are also operating. Between Al Asad and Baghdad are the notorious cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, hotbeds of resistance after the 2003 US invasion, and since then, hotbeds of extremism fueling the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.
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