Looters Destroying Ancient Treasures

July 20, 2008

Archaeologists say unprotected remains of country’s historic civilisations are subject to widespread plundering.

IWPR (ICR No. 265, July 18, 2008)

By Daud Salman in Baghdad and Berlin

Experts are calling for Iraq’s archaeological sites to be protected, saying that many have been severely damaged as a result of theft, illegal excavations and trespassing.

According to the Iraqi government, the country – which was once home to Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian and other ancient empires – has around 10,000 archaeological sites.

Most are located in central Iraq, an area badly hit by the chaos and lawlessness that has gripped the country over the past several years. While some of the country’s best known Mesopotamian sites, including Ur near modern-day Nasiriyah, are well-protected, many have no security.

The Iraqi government has just 1,200 guards to keep an eye on all of its sites, said Qais Rashid Hussein, director-general of excavations and inspection at the ministry of archaeology and tourism. Hussein said the lack of protection is “a huge problem” that has left antiquities vulnerable to gangs and smugglers.

Treasure-hunters illegally excavate the sites for valuable items which can be traded on the black market and are often smuggled out of Iraq.

Margarete van Ess, director of Oriental Science at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, estimated that illegal excavation in Iraq has caused ten billion dollars worth of damage.

“Many of the sites are far from town centres and cities and are under the control of tribes,” she said, which made them vulnerable to theft.

While Saddam Hussein’s regime secured most of the country’s sites and cracked down heavily on theft. Those caught steeling antiquities faced 15 years in prison, and, in some cases, the death penalty. These sentences, though still on the statute books, are rarely enforced today.

On Iraq’s black market, ancient coins, seals and other gold, silver and bronze pieces can be purchased for as little as ten dollars, but the same items can fetch a far greater sum outside the country. Thousands of artefacts from Iraqi sites have ended up in neighbouring Syria and Jordan.

Continued . . .

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Afghanistan hit by record number of bombs

July 20, 2008

Air Force Times, July 18, 2008

By Bruce Rolfsen – Staff writer

Air Force and allied warplanes are dropping a record number of bombs on Afghanistan targets.

For the first half of 2008, aircraft dropped 1,853 bombs — more than they released during all of 2006 and more than half of 2007’s total — 3,572 bombs.

Driving the increasing use of air power are fights in southern Afghanistan, where the Marine Corps arrived last winter, and battles in eastern Afghanistan, where Taliban and other insurgents use the border region with Pakistan as a safe haven.

Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, who oversees ground operations in eastern Afghanistan as commander of Joint-Combined Joint Task Force-101, told reporters insurgent attacks were up 40 percent this year compared with 2007.

Information from the Air Force shows that in June warplanes released 646 bombs — the second-highest monthly total for Afghanistan or Iraq. The record was set in August 2007, when 670 bombs fell on Afghanistan.

As high as those numbers are, they may understate the intensity of the combat. The statistics do not include cannon rounds shot by fighters or AC-130 gunships, Hellfire and other small rockets launched by warplanes, and assaults by helicopters. In close-quarter firefights where friendly soldiers could be wounded if bombs are used, cannon fire and missiles are often the preferred alternative.

Inside Afghanistan at Bagram Airfield, the Air Force keeps a squadron each of A-10 Thunderbolts and F-15E Strike Eagles. From outside of Afghanistan, the Air Force launches B-1B Lancers.

Also flying over Afghanistan are remote-controlled MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, both able to attack targets, and AC-130 gunships. Foreign warplanes dropping bombs include French Mirage 2000 fighters and British Royal Air Force Harriers, typically flying out of Kandahar Airfield.

For Air Force jets, the preferred bombs are laser-guided bombs and satellite-controlled Joint Direct Attack Munitions.

The most frequently used bombs are the 500- and 2,000-pound satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions and 500-pound laser-guided Paveway bombs. Unguided bombs sometimes are used, typically when the target is a safe distance from coalition troops and civilians.

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US torture claims are unreliable: British lawmakers

July 20, 2008

Khaleej Times, July 19, 2008

(AFP)

LONDON – The British government should no longer accept US assurances that it does not use torture, a parliamentary oversight committee said on Sunday in a wide-ranging report looking at London’s human rights policy.

Ministers have previously taken at face value statements from their US counterparts, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush, that Washington does not resort to such practices.

But the cross-party foreign affairs committee said that stance should be abandoned given admissions from the US director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, that “water-boarding” had been used on terror suspects.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has told parliament on two occasions this year that the practice, which simulates drowning during interrogation, amounts to torture.

Miliband’s position has “serious implications” for government policy, the committee said in its 214-page Human Rights Annual Report 2007-8.

“We conclude that, given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the government does not rely on such assurances in the future,” it added.

Britain is a signatory to a United Nations convention that prevents the extradition of suspects to countries where torture is used. If adopted, a change in approach could affect such transfers.

The committee also called for Britain to carry out an “exhaustive analysis” of US government interrogation techniques and seek guarantees about whether US flights carrying terror suspects used British airspace or airports.

Earlier this year, the United States admitted that two “rendition” flights landed on Diego Garcia, a British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean where there is a US air base.

Britain, whose policy is not to allow such transfers where there is a risk of torture, had earlier accepted assurances that its territory had not been used for the extra-judicial transfer of suspected extremists.

Such flights should not use British territory or airspace, even if no detainees were on board, the committee said.

Elsewhere, the committee urged an investigation into claims that six British nationals were detained and tortured by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and interrogated by British security agents.

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NATO air strikes kill nine Afghan police in ‘friendly fire’ clash: officials

July 20, 2008

AFP, July 20, 2008

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) – Nine Afghan policemen were killed in international military air strikes called in after troops clashed with police in southwestern Afghanistan, provincial authorities said on Sunday.

The fighting erupted in the western province of Farah in the early hours of the morning when police and soldiers mistook each other for Taliban militants, deputy provincial governor Mohammad Younus Rasouli said.

Police engaged soldiers with the Afghan National Army (ANA) and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), kicking off the fighting, he said.

“The ANA requested air support, and ISAF bombed the police post that killed nine police and injured five police,” he said.

The police chief of Farah’s Anar Dara district was among the wounded and was in a serious condition, he said.

The police commander for western Afghanistan, Ikramuddin Yawar, confirmed the incident and said he had sent a team to the area to investigate.

“Last night at around 1:30, a clash took place between ANA, ANP (Afghan National Police) and ISAF, each mistaking the other side as Taliban,” Yawar said. “Nine police were killed and five wounded.”

The Afghan defence ministry and international forces said they were checking on the report but did not immediately have details.

There have been several deadly incidents of “friendly fire” in Afghanistan where there are several Afghan and international security forces involved in the fight against Taliban insurgents.

The forces have been accused of not coordinating their operations properly, resulting in cases of mistaken identity.

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Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep: Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore Address the Netroots Nation Conference

July 20, 2008
Published on Saturday, July 19, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
by Ronnie Cummins

Saturday morning, July 19. Sitting here at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, Texas with several thousand other online activists. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Party Speaker of the House, the third most powerful politician in the United States, is up on the podium, doing her best to damp down the mounting criticism of the Democratic Party’s shameful collaboration in funding the war and aiding and abetting the Bush administration’s shredding of the Constitution. Before Pelosi speaks, an announcement is made from the podium that disruptions will not be tolerated–if any of us express our frustrations too passionately with Pelosi and the sell-out Democratic Party leadership we will be arrested.

The first question the Netroots moderator poses to Pelosi is about impeachment. This generates considerable applause and cheers from the crowd. Pelosi, notorious for proclaiming that “impeachment is off the table,” artfully dodges the question and evasively talks about censuring the Bush administration and getting tough on Karl Rove. This generates polite clapping from the front of the room, where all the tables have apparently been “reserved” for Pelosi fans. In contrast I can see groans, grimaces, and shaking of heads from many of us, the netroots rabble, sitting at the back of the hall.

I resist a strong urge to get up and leave. How long will the centrist bureaucrats of Netroots Nation and groups like MoveOn roll-over for lowest common denominator Democrats and Barack Obama? After an hour of rather boring rhetoric by Pelosi, Al Gore makes a surprise appearance on the stage, letting Nancy off the hook.

After a standing ovation, Gore reminds us that the polar icecaps are melting even faster than scientists had expected. The global climate crisis, he goes on, is about to turn into a climate catastrophe. Gore then points out that global warming is of course connected to the energy crisis, reliance on foreign oil, and the economic crisis, as well as the lack of political leadership in the country. Finally, to cheers from the crowd, Gore calls on the assembled netroots to educate the public and get behind his campaign to generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources of energy within 10 years.

Pelosi once again joins Gore on the stage and rather unconvincingly tries to present herself and the Democratic majority in the Congress as “revolutionary” on energy matters. This is too much for a number of us in the audience, and finally a man yells out at the top of his lungs, “What about the goddamn impeachment resolution?” The security guards at side of the hall look nervously around, but no one makes a move to arrest the man.

After claiming that she is trying to be “bi-partisan” today, and dodging a question about whether or not she will get behind Gore’s campaign for 100% renewable electricity by 2018, Pelosi rather anti-climatically reminds us that nothing will change unless we “get out there and elect Obama and a Democratic majority in November…”

Whether or not you decide to vote for Democrat Barack Obama, Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, or Independent Ralph Nader in November, please go to http://www.GrassrootsNetroots.org and join a growing radical populist army who believe we need an alternative to MoveOn and Democratic Party centrists. The doomsday clock is ticking. Let’s fight like hell to make sure that 2008 is not the year where we tried to change drivers, but still went over the cliff.

Ronnie Cummins is National Director of the Grassroots Netroots Alliance.

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Friends of Israel blind to the truth

July 19, 2008

By Stuart Littlewood | Redress, 19 July 2008

Stuart Littlewood considers the blatant disregard for justice, human rights and basic norms of civilized behaviour shown by Israel’s stooges in the British Parliament, some of whom recently visited Israel and showed far more concern for Israeli terrorists than the Christian and Muslim civilians they terrorize.

The real Zionist vision does not recognise any maps. It is a vision of a state without borders – a state that expands at all times according to its demographic, military and political power.

This warning by the respected Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery should be impressed on every friend of Israel in the West.

They are so gullible. The Jewish Chronicle last week reported how a group of intrepid Conservative MPs on a “Friends of Israel” junket experienced a “gunfire exchange” in Sderot. One of them said:

”We couldn’t see the gunfire, but could hear that it was close by.” The exchange illustrated the “effects on quality of life that people in the south of Israel suffer on a daily basis. It shows that it is not a sustainable position for these areas to be constantly subject to rocket attacks and that Israel has the right to take appropriate actions to defend its citizens.” Urging Britons to visit Israel, he argued: “It’s very important to show their support for the only democracy in the area. I feel we have a duty and obligation to support Israel.”

Israel’s stooges in the UK Parliament choose to sympathize with Israeli terrorists rather than the Christian and Muslim civilians they terrorize

Another commented: “The gunfire was pretty close and it very much brought home how the violence in the area is ongoing and what people go through every day. Until I was there, I didn’t appreciate how serious the problem was and how much normal civilians, including children, are on the front-line.”

These brave souls from the British Parliament didn’t trouble to visit the Gaza side and experience the Palestinians’ quality of life under the far more lethal barrage from Israel or partake of starvation rations under the cruel siege. If they hadn’t the good manners to go talk with Hamas they could at least have met the Christian community and listened to their story.

Instead they were happy to be brainwashed by Tel Aviv propagandists, who no doubt told them how many home-made rockets had fallen on southern Israel but not, of course, the number of high-tech munitions fired by Israel’s F16s, helicopter gunships, tanks, drones and naval gunboats into the densely-packed population of the Gaza Strip, or the limb-shattering high-velocity rounds used by the Israeli occupation forces. I’ll bet they can quote the Israeli casualties but have no idea of the massive Palestinian death toll.

It is very strange indeed how these Friends of Israel – mostly Christians, it seems – show far more concern for Israeli terrorists than the Christian and Muslim civilians they terrorize.

Maybe basic facts haven’t quite sunk in…

  • like Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people for 60 years
  • like Israel continues to occupy, rob, humiliate and murder its neighbours
  • like Israel is no Western-style democracy but an apartheid-loving ethnocracy
  • like Israel has ignored nearly 40 UN resolutions, flouts international law and is oblivious to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • like eight Palestinians are killed for every Israeli, and the lives of Palestinian children are so cheap they are slaughtered at the rate of 11 to 1
  • like Israel lies when it claims to have “withdrawn completely” from Gaza
  • like Israel has nuclear weapons numbering hundreds and is the only state in the region not to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

With a record like this, how does the Israel lobby manage to browbeat supposedly intelligent MPs, MEPs and ministers into supporting the regime’s crimes and the ruthless Zionist expansion?

Continued . . .

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Report: U.S. Africa Aid Is Increasingly Military

July 19, 2008

Advocacy Group Cites Development Needs

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 18, 2008; A10

NAIROBI, July 17 — U.S. aid to Africa is becoming increasingly militarized, resulting in skewed priorities and less attention to longer-term development projects that could lead to greater stability across the continent, according to a report released Thursday by the advocacy group Refugees International.

The report warns that the planned U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America’s image and prevent terrorism, is allowing the Defense Department to usurp funds traditionally directed by the State Department and U.S. aid agencies.

A Pentagon spokesman did not return a call requesting comment. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned this week against the risk of a “creeping militarization” of U.S. foreign policy and said the State Department should lead U.S. engagement with other countries.

The Pentagon, which controlled about 3 percent of official aid money a decade ago, now controls 22 percent, while the U.S. Agency for International Development‘s share has declined from 65 percent to 40 percent, according to the 56-page report.

“The danger is this strategy will not achieve the security objectives of addressing the root causes of terrorism,” said Mark Malan, author of the report. “And it certainly won’t address the developmental objectives of U.S. foreign policy.”

Refugees International, based in Washington, provides aid to refugees and advocates for solutions to end conditions that create displacement.

Malan said the militarization has been driven by the U.S. focus on counterterrorism, though the trend dates to the Cold War era. The more fundamental problem, he said, is a lack of consistent, coherent U.S. foreign policy attention to Africa.

For example, the United States has dedicated nearly $50 million to hire contractors to train 2,000 soldiers in post-civil war Liberia, a West African country of 4 million people. Meanwhile, $5.5 million has been dedicated to boosting a weak and unprofessional army of 164,000 soldiers in Congo, a country of 65 million where a decade-long conflict and humanitarian crisis have left an estimated 5 million people dead.

The headquarters of the new African command post, known as Africom, has not been determined, and many African leaders have rejected hosting it. A temporary headquarters is being set up in Stuttgart, Germany, and is expected to begin consolidating responsibility for the continent in October.

Africom in part aims to better integrate U.S. efforts in Africa by coordinating military activities with the State Department and other agencies, but “the State Department is being overwhelmed by the Pentagon,” Malan said.

Continued . . .

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Ashcroft Defends Waterboarding In Front of House Judiciary Committee

July 19, 2008
Published on Thursday, July 17, 2008 by Associated Press

by Lara Jakes Jordan

WASHINGTON – Former Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday “it was not a hard decision” to withdraw Justice Department legal opinions that approved the use of harsh interrogation methods which critics say amount to torture.

Ashcroft, testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee, said he did not necessarily disagree with the conclusions of the two memos that were written in 2002 and 2003 but later rescinded. But he said the legal reasoning behind both memos was flawed and needed to be corrected.

At the heart of both opinions was a controversial definition of torture. It said “only extreme acts” that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure should be prohibited in the interrogations of terrorist suspects. Ashcroft, who served as attorney general from 2001 to 2005, had initially approved both memos. They were written in part at least by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo.

“It became apparent in the further examination of those opinions, when made in another timeframe, that there were matters of concerns that were brought to my opinion,” Ashcroft told lawmakers. “It was not a hard decision for me.”

He added that he relied on his staff attorneys – and Yoo in particular – to give him sound legal advice.

Though the memos were later replaced with a new, narrower policy about what methods would be allowed, that did not “call into question any of the actual interrogation practices that the OLC had previously approved as legal,” Ashcroft said. OLC stands for the Office of Legal Counsel, which writes the Justice Department’s legal opinions for the president.

“When I was informed about concerns regarding overly broad advice, the limits of which were never tested, I directed the OLC to correct it,” Ashcroft said.

Democrats peppered Ashcroft with questions about how often waterboarding was used by interrogators who were following the now-defunct legal opinions.

Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his or her cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world. Critics call it a form of torture.

Ashcroft said he was aware of three times that interrogators waterboarded terror suspects. He said he does not believe waterboarding, as it was then described by the CIA, amounted to torture.

The Bush administration maintains waterboarding was legal when it was used by CIA interrogators in 2002 and 2003 on top al-Qaida detainees Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. CIA Director Michael Hayden has said waterboarding was used, in part, because of widespread belief among U.S. intelligence officials that more catastrophic attacks were imminent.

Hayden banned waterboarding in CIA interrogations in 2006. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to publicly discuss whether waterboarding is currently legal since it is no longer used by CIA interrogators.

© 2008 The Associated Press

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More Evidence Madrid Bombing was a False Flag Op

July 19, 2008

Kurt Nimmo | Infowars, July 17, 2008

Madrid train bombing
It now appears obvious the Madrid bombing was a Gladio-like operation designed to frighten and stampede the Spanish public into supporting the bogus war against terror.

Agence-France Presse reports:

Spain’s supreme court Thursday overturned the guilty verdicts on four of the 21 people convicted over the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

It also upheld a lower court’s decision to acquit one of the alleged masterminds of the Al Qaeda-inspired attacks, Rabei Ousmane Sayed Ahmed, known as “Mohammed the Egyptian”.

And it handed down a four-year prison term to a Spaniard, Antonio Toro, who had been acquitted on charges of transporting explosives.

Note: the attack is no longer considered the direct handiwork of al-Qaeda but is rather an “al-Qaeda inspired attack.” Back in March, 2004, the corporate media resoundingly declared al-Qaeda to be responsible.

The supreme court Thursday overturned the convictions of Basel Ghalyoun and Mohamed Almallah Dabas, both condemned to 12 years in prison for belonging to a terrorist group.

It also cleared Abdelilah El Fadual El Akil, condemned to nine years for collaborating with a terrorist group, as well as Raul Gonzalez Pena, who had received five years for supplying explosives.

In other words, according to Spain’s Supreme Court, these people did not belong to a terrorist group, at least not an Islamic terrorist group. Apparently, there was not enough evidence to stay the conviction of “Mohammed the Egyptian,” said to be the ringleader, and his conviction was thrown out as well.

The court in October had handed down the heaviest sentences to two Moroccans — Jamal Zougam and Othman el-Gnaoui — and a Spaniard, Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras.

As it turns out, Trashorras and a compatriot, Antonio Toro, were government informants, a fact reported by the New York Times and the Times Online. Toro was recently handed a four-year prison for transporting explosives.

Continued . . .

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U.S.-led forces confirm killing Afghan civilians

July 18, 2008

REUTERS

Reuters North American News Service

Jul 17, 2008 08:13 EST

KABUL, July 17 (Reuters) – U.S.-led coalition troops killed eight Afghan civilians in an air strike in the western province of Farah during a Tuesday raid against suspected militants, the U.S. military said.

The acknowledgement came as reports of more civilian deaths caused by a fresh air raid by foreign forces emerged on Thursday from the neighbouring province of Herat.

Tuesday’s air strike was summoned after a coalition convoy came under sustained attack from machine gun and indirect fire from a number of houses adjacent to a road in the Bakwa district of Farah, the U.S. military said.

“The coalition convoy returned fire and called for close air support on the enemy positions. A house was hit; eight civilians were killed, two others injured,” it said in a statement late on Wednesday.

“Coalition forces never intentionally target non-combatants, and deeply regret any occurrence such as this where civilians are killed and injured as a result of insurgent activity and actions,” it said.

Afghan officials said nine people, all members of the same family were killed in Tuesday’s bombing.

In Thursday’s raid, at least four men were killed, a spokesman for the regional police command said. Witnesses said 17 people were also wounded and taken to hospital.

The U.S. military said the raid was against “high priority Taliban targets” in Herat, adding two “Taliban leaders” and “significant number of other insurgents were also killed”.

In a statement, it said, there was no evidence of civilian casualties.

The issue of civilian casualties is highly sensitive one for the Western-backed government and undermines Afghan support for the presence of foreign forces who are fighting the Taliban-led insurgents in Afghanistan.

There has been a sharp rise in violence in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the hard-line Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The U.S. military says it is investigating reports by Afghan officials that around 60 civilians were killed in two separate air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces this month in eastern Afghanistan.

More than 800 civilians have been killed since the start of 2007 in Afghanistan by foreign and Afghan forces, according to Afghan officials and the U.N. (Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Valerie Lee)

Source: Reuters North American News Service

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