Canada Offers Forum for Lecturer Barred from U.S.

Tweet "VANCOUVER — A highly regarded Iraqi epidemiologist who wants to tell Americans about an alarming rise in cancer levels among Iraqi children will come to Canada instead because he couldn't get a visa to the United States.

"Unable to travel to the University of Washington, Riyadh Lafta -- best known for a controversial study that estimated Iraq's body count in the U.S.-led war in Iraq at more than half a million -- will arrive at Simon Fraser University in B.C. this month to give a lecture and meet with research associates.

"'The University of Washington wanted him, but the U.S. denied his entry," said his colleague at SFU, Tim Takaro. "They need to be able to collaborate, even if his results are unpopular with the Americans. Now he's at SFU, and the best they're going to get is a video feed."

*****Another article (below) tells there will be video link at UW Kane Hall. Linda

IRAQI CASUALTY COUNT RESEARCHER TO SPEAK

Sponsored by UW School of Public Health Iraq Sister University Project and
Simon Fraser University

Dr. Riyadh Lafta will be in North America to collaborate with University
of Washington colleagues on a research project to document elevated levels
of pediatric cancers in Basra, Iraq. The project was conceived as part of
a sister university relationship between Basra Univ and the UW. The
research project is supported by a grant from the Puget Sound Partners, a
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative.

Dr. Riyadh Lafta, who teaches medicine at Baghdads Al-Mustansiriya
University College of Medicine, co-authored the October 2006 *Lancet*
article that estimated more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of
the the American-led invasion in 2003.

Dr. Lafta will speak at a public gathering in Vancouver, BC, at Simon
Fraser University's Wosk Hall (580 W. Hastings in downtown Vancouver BC)
on Friday, April 20, at 7:00 p.m.

His talk will be video cast to the UW's Kane Hall at the same time with
the opportunity for interactive audience participation.

Video linked to Kane Hall 210, UW -- for more information contact Amy
Hagopian at 206-616-4989.

Thanks to Mark Jensen on the Tacoma UFPJ list for the heads up

War on Want: Palestine in Humanitarian Catastrophe

Tweet "Palestine is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe. The United Nations reports that 70% of Palestinians are now living in poverty, a figure which will rise still further if current conditions continue. The Palestinian economy is collapsing, with GDP set to fall by 27% by the end of 2006.The World Bank is calling 2006 "by a margin, the worst year in the West Bank and Gaza’s dismal recent economic history.

Officer in Iraq Learns of Extensions via News--Will Resign

Tweet From an email to CNN

"Currently, I am an Army officer serving my second tour of duty in Iraq. I fought in Falluja in 2004. I protected Iraqi voters during the first elections in 2005. I'm currently slugging it out with insurgents and terrorists in the violent Diyala province. My soldiers and I have seen and been witness to things that no one should ever have to see and have lived through events that keep me up nights. Like most combat arms officers here, I live with the fact that many of my soldiers have not survived the battles we have fought, yet we survivors continue to soldier on. To learn of my unit's extension by watching the news is an insult. Many commanders and leaders throughout the Army, including myself, only learned of this extension after their own subordinates saw a press conference on TV and questioned them about it. Informing soldiers this way is a disrespectful act and angers me, many of my soldiers, and many of their family members.

"While my own soldiers informing me of the inevitable extension of tours of duty disappoints and angers me, the fact that an already arduous yearlong tour is being extended absolutely infuriates me. Do leaders have absolutely no respect for soldiers and their families or is the Army this broken? I'm sure reality lies somewhere in between. As for myself, I am tired. I'm tired of this war. I'm tired of seeing my soldiers die. I'm tired of never being home. I'm tired of having no answer when my soldiers ask me if we're really defending our nation. I'm tired of not seeing my newborn son or my wife. I'm tired of not being home for Christmas. Because I am so tired of these things, I will tender my resignation when I return home ... whenever that is. I'm pretty sure I won't be the only one.

PORTION OF ANOTHER EMAIL FROM CNN

"I think we really need to look at the whole troop situation, and unfortunately because our leaders are refusing to reason or look for alternative solutions, there may need to be a draft. I hate to say that, but to keep up this way is not the answer. Really, I think it might be a good idea to draft all of Congress. I'm serious. See how quickly things would change.

Found on War in Iraq

End of March in Rafah: Deluge of Sewage Kills Villagers

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A Palestinian child who drowned in the sewage water

"Hundreds of families have fled from their houses in the village of Umm Al Nasser, in northern Gaza, after a tsunami struck, leaving many dead and many missing. Adding to the misery, houses are submerged, drowning in waste water from a ruptured water treatment reservoir. The burst flooded the village with the noxious sewage, rendering the area foul-smelling and exposing residents to potentially serious health risks.

This happened awhile ago and you have to scroll down to see the story, but it is one of the most horrific reminders of the way Palestinians are forced to live under this Israeli Occupation. Linda

Iraq: The Struggle to Live

Tweet Photo: A man reacts after his pickup truck was overrun by a US military vehicle in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 11, 2007. Several cars were damaged and two civilians hurt when a US military convoy pushed their way though morning rush hour. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

From Iraq Today

Why Imus Had to Go--Eugene Robinson

Tweet "Which is a sign of how the world has changed.

"Four decades ago, when Imus started his long and lucrative radio career, there were few women and minorities at NBC in a position to influence the company's decision on an issue like this one. Take it another step: There were few women and minorities in positions of authority at the firms that advertised on Imus's show.

"In think tanks and on college campuses, intellectuals still argue about diversity, but in corporate America the issue is settled: Diversity is a fact of today's world. In the nation's two most populous states, California and Texas, minorities already form a majority. Companies realize they cannot survive, let alone thrive, without courting diversity among their employees and their customers. You certainly can't run a television network these days without taking diversity into account.

"Imus's advertisers couldn't afford to be associated with racist, misogynistic views, and neither could NBC. This doesn't portend any sort of chilling effect on free speech, as some have suggested. It doesn't mean that white males are being relegated to the dustbin of history. Last time I checked, guys, you still ran most of the world. You just have to be a bit nicer these days, and you have to share.

Washington Post via Cursor.org

Wolfowitz: It's Not Just the Girlfriend Thing

Tweet "In a chaotic day of revelations and meetings at a normally staid institution on Thursday, Wolfowitz apologized for his role in the raise and transfer of Ms. Riza to the State Department, where she remained on the bank’s payroll.

"He made the comments to a few hundred staff members assembled in the bank building atrium, only to be greeted by booing, catcalls and cries for his resignation.

"Earlier, the bank’s staff association had declared that it was “impossible for the institution to move forward with any sense of purpose under the present leadership.” The association had helped spearhead an investigation into Ms. Riza’s transfer and raise, details of which came into the open in the last 24 hours.

"The events injected a new ugliness into what had already been a bitter rift between Wolfowitz and many of the bank’s employees, who have questioned his suitability for the job as a former deputy secretary of defense and architect of the Iraq war, and have challenged many of his policies at the bank, especially those cracking down on corruption in which he suspended aid to several countries without consulting the board.

Wonder who he IS consulting with (as if we didn't know).

Silence of the Hawks--Neil Clark

Tweet April 13, 2007 1:30 PM
Link to whole article: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/neil_clark/2007/04/the_silence_of_the_hawks.html

The International Red Cross warned this week that the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is getting even worse. At the same, time a major academic study by the Oxford Research Group concludes that the illegal US/UK invasion has "spawned new terror" in the region. In the light of the latest damning evidence of the consequences of the invasion, what has been the reaction of the lap-top bombadiers who five years ago so energetically propagandised for war? I've been trawling the web to find out.

After talking about the UK hawks, he adds this about US & Aussie creeps:

Across the pond, Andrew Sullivan opines about shopping bags, while David 'Axis of Evil' Frum tells us about his grandfather.

Mark Steyn, who once accused anti-war demonstrators of having blood on their hands, focuses on the trial of his old mentor, Conrad Black.

Down Under, Tim Blair, who in 2004 ridiculed claims that the future in Iraq was "frightening", shares his thoughts on Alaskan sea otters.

Found on Cursor.org

Kurt Vonnegut Said This

Tweet “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’"

Found on Desert Peace

IDF Forcing Palestinian Births at Checkpoints--Deaths Result

Tweet "April 11, 2007

"The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights (PICCR) reported that Israeli troops stationed at hundreds of roadblocks in the occupied territories barred dozens of pregnant women from crossing the checkpoints while in labor; 34 infants and four women died on their roadblocks.

"The Commission reported that soldiers forced 68 pregnant women to give birth on road blocks after barring them from crossing as they were being transferred to hospitals and medical centers.

"Also, the PICCR said that the Israeli procedures complicated the lives of the Palestinian civilians including pregnant women by enforcing harsh conditions and carrying illegal practices at these checkpoints.

"Since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada on September 28 2000 until July 2006, 68 pregnant women had to give birth at checkpoints, and that 34 infants and 4 pregnant women died on these checkpoints.

Green Zone Down: Bomb Hits Parliament As Bush Moves to Make Baghdad a Prison

Tweet "And so, while he cannot reduce Baghdad to Glenn Reynolds' longed-for rubble -- at least not yet -- he can push forward with this new tightening of the screws on his captive colony. When this inevitably fails in its ostensible mission, they will lurch on to something else, another scheme to keep the rubes off-balance for a few months longer, then repeat the cycle again and again. Why? Because the whole point of Bush's strategy is to prolong the American military presence in Iraq. This is why American soldiers were sent there -- to stay there. And they will stay there -- no matter how many bombs go off in the Green Zone, no matter how much horrific blowback is generated by the Bush-McCain surge -- until the American people make the political costs too high for any politician to bear. And this includes the Democrats, whose vaunted "anti-war" plans so far have all called for retaining some kind of military presence in Iraq, and the handover of the nation's oil to the West. As the man said, the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Empire Burlesque

Coach Stringer Speaks Truth--Power Better Listen

Tweet "Coach Stringer took it even further in her comments last night to MSNBC's
Keith Olbermann.

"She said, "We've become so desensitized that we've allowed a lot
of things to pass, and we've not been happy... Too often politicians,
leaders, and religious leaders speak for us, and we sit back
and don't realize the power in numbers, and when to say
enough is enough....We see all the time. A kid that
steals something with a plastic cap pistol, and
spends 10 years in jail, and yet you see,
the white-collar workers, you know, thieves that
steal millions of dollars . And I do think that if people
stood up, politicians [wouldn't] wait for a poll but
strong enough to make a decision and stand...
You know I happen to be the daughter of a coal miner.
My father lost both his legs in a mine. He worked hard
each and every day. He only stayed out of the mine six
months until he got prosthetics. I know what it is to
work hard and this has been a lifelong pursuit and passion.
I've coached for 36 years...as a person of conscience, I have
seen so much that I would like to see changed, with
everything. I would gladly exchange winning a national
championship if we, as young ladies, would stand and
allow the country to somehow be empowered and that
we take back our country..."

From Dave Zirin -- Edge of Sports [quoting from the Keith Olbermann show]

We May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture--JoAnn Wypijewski

Tweet "Compare Richard Pryor to Chris Rock: they both say fuck; they both say nigger, but the effect is totally different because the context is different and the intention is different. Chris Rock took the form but the content is completely changed, because Pryor came out of a different culture, a mass movement radical culture. On the radio, the first shock jock, that guy out in Colorado who was killed, wasn't even funny or incisive from jump. He was just disgusting, the forward edge of the general exhaustion, a degraded expression of a degraded culture. He came out of a backlash culture, a right wing culture. But it paid, so it flourished, because it also came out of a hyper-corporate culture. Now the only time it creeps up on anyone that there's something really degraded about all this is when it's applied to their wife, their daughter, but that's very particular."

Found on Counterpunch.org

Joe Lieberman Sees Surge Working (Yeah, to Unite the Iraqis Against Occupation)

Tweet

clipped from www.informationclearinghouse.info What part of “leave now” doesn’t Lieberman get? Speaking of the rally called by Sadr to blast the Americans as Iraq’s “archenemy” and to demand “that the occupiers withdraw from our land,” Lieberman surreally sought to find a silver lining of support for U.S. policy: “[Sadr] is not calling for a resurgence of sectarian conflict. He’s striking a nationalist chord. He’s acknowledging that the surge is working,” he said. So apparently the surge is working ... to unite all Iraqis against us. As Hazim al-Araji, one of Sadr’s top Baghdad representatives, described the by-all-accounts massive rally: “There are people here from all different parties and sects. We are all carrying the national flag, which is a symbol of unity. And we are all united in calling for the withdrawal of the Americans.”

US Borrowing Israeli Checkpoint System in Iraq--Won't Work There Either

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clipped from news.independent.co.uk Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter. The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success. found on angry arab newservice.

Ann Telnaes

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Iraqis Demand End to US Occupation

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Hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded--enemy occupier. Clear enough for you, GW and Congress?

clipped from www.nytimes.com The demonstrators marched to Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, from neighboring Kufa, with two cordons of Iraqi police lining the route. Some at the rally waved small Iraqi flags; others hoisted a giant flag 10 yards long, the Associated Press reported. Leaflets fluttered through the breeze reading: “Yes, Yes to Iraq” and “Yes, Yes to Moktada. Occupiers should leave Iraq.” “The enemy that is occupying our country is now targeting the dignity of the Iraqi people,” said lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie, head of Mr. Sadr’s bloc in parliament, as he marched, according to the A.P. “After four years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded.”

President Overstates Risk to America, Analysts Say

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Guess we all knew this--but it is good to see it in a mainstream newspaper.

clipped from seattletimes.nwsource.com WASHINGTON — It's become President Bush's mantra, his main explanation for why he won't withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. But is it true? Military and diplomatic analysts cast doubts on it. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland. "The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature," said James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization.

U.S. Occupation Authority: Amateurism and Arrogance

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Former Iraqi trade, defense and finance minister blows whistle on US occupiers.

clipped from seattlepi.nwsource.com NEW YORK -- In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country - a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators." "The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press. What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

"Renegade Cleric" Al-Sadr Calls for Attacks on U.S. Troops

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BAGHDAD -- The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged the Iraqi army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing American forces out of the country, according to a statement issued Sunday.

The statement, stamped with al-Sadr's official seal, was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday - a day before a large demonstration there, called for by al-Sadr, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said. Its authenticity could not be verified.

In the statement, al-Sadr - who commands an enormous following among Iraq's majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government - also encouraged his followers to attack only American forces, not fellow Iraqis.

"God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them - not against the sons of Iraq," the statement said, in an apparent reference to clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi troops in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. "You have to protect and build Iraq."

The U.S. military on Sunday announced the deaths of four American soldiers, killed a day earlier in an explosion near their vehicle in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. The province has seen a spike in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces since the start of a plan two months ago to pacify the capital. Officials believe militants have streamed out of Baghdad to invigorate the insurgency in areas just outside the city.