Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

In April, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sat at a conference table in his Baghdad office with almost two dozen men in combat fatigues. The men were not officers in the Iraqi Army, but representatives of the Shiite paramilitary groups that have led the fight against ISIS. Hadi al-Amiri, one of the most senior militia leaders, delivered a long and forceful monologue on his fighters’ recent victories. Abadi, in a blazer and tie, listened, occasionally jotting down notes, a video of the meeting shows. A few minutes later, Abadi himself praised the fighters.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Oct-22/319740-power-failure-in-baghdad-as-militias-outgun-state.ashx

One Man's Mission: Justice for Iraq

While in Boston in 1994, full-time peace activist Bert Sacks made a decision that changed his life forever.

He decided to seek out a study produced by a group called the Harvard Study Team, which had reported to The Washington Post that the deliberate destruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure by the US military, along with the US-led economic sanctions against that country, were likely to cause 170,000 Iraqi children to die.

Unfortunately, that estimate would turn out to be far, far too low, as President Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, infamously boasted on national television when she said the price of 500,000 dead Iraqi children was "worth it." Albright went on to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33154-one-man-s-mission-justice-for-iraq

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad and several other cities on Friday, urging the government to deliver on its promised reform package aimed at tackling corruption and improving services.

Iraqis have been staging weekly demonstrations since July. The protest movement that stemmed from exasperation over power cuts in the searing summer heat gradually led to broader demands for political reform.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, with backing from the country's most revered Shiite religious cleric, announced a reform package but change has been slow to materialise and the protests have continued.

With sharp declines in oil prices, unlimited spending on the war against the Islamic State and what is thought to be rampant corruption since 2003, poverty is a growing concern in the country, as MEE's contributor Suadad al-Salhy recently reported.

More than 30 percent of Iraqis living in oil-rich southern provinces and 13 percent living in Baghdad, where shantytowns are increasingly springing up, live in poverty.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/thousands-iraqis-demonstrate-countrys-reforms-move-slowly-305832958

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Just as the wild furies of sectarianism threaten to tear apart West Asia, massive protests on a civic basis took place in Baghdad and Beirut. In both cities, the populations rose up out of frustration over a lack of basic services and corruption. During the hot summer, power cuts plagued Baghdad, even as garbage piled up on the streets of Beirut. In both Iraq and Lebanon, leaders of various sectarian groups lived comfortable lives in their gated zones. The gap between their lavish existence and the privations suffered by ordinary people sent millions of Iraqis and Lebanese onto the streets. In Baghdad, a banner celebrated the street’s ethics, “From Baghdad to Beirut — Not Sunni, Not Shia. Ours is a Civil State.” This was wishful thinking, but it was nonetheless brought to life in the demonstrations.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/14/a-new-tahrir-square-moment/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Four-star General Ray Odierno retired from his position as U.S. Army chief of staff on Friday. Now, less than a week after mustering out, he’s cashing in. The former general has taken a job as a senior adviser to the investment firm JPMorgan Chase.

In a press release posted on JPMorgan’s website on Thursday, the firm announced that Odierno is joining the company in “a senior advisory capacity,” providing “strategic advice and global insights” to CEO Jamie Dimon as well as the company’s board of directors. The announcement also said Odierno “will represent JPMorgan Chase through engagement with clients, government officials and policy makers in the U.S. and internationally.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/20/iraq-war-surge-general-ray-odierno-gets-new-job-jp-morgan-chase/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

"If we cannot provide enough electric power for the Iraqis, why don't the families buy private generators?" asked an Iraqi official during a recent press interview. It was similar to the quotation misattributed to French Queen Marie Antoinette two hundred years ago; if the people don't have bread, "Then let them eat cake."

Again, like the French, the Iraqis revolted by igniting the uprising in Basra. This spread around the country and this time the Iraqi leaders could not blame the Yazidis, which they had done in the past when there was activity in Iraq's western cities. Those who gathered in Iraq's Tahrir and other Squares did not belong to a specific sect, race or party. They gathered as Iraqis and expressed their anger at their rulers who have subjected them to decades of failure, with neither justice nor anything as mundane as new building projects. Instead, the leaders conspired in the name of religion to loot the country's wealth and used its resources to satisfy their evil desires and feed their obsession for money and power.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/20246-the-electricity-uprising-in-iraq

Irak: Hitze und Proteste

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/45/45644/1.html

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

When the United States government declared its war on Afghanistan in October 2001, thus taking the first step in its so-called ‘war on terror’, following the devastating attacks of September 11 earlier that year, Iran jumped on board.

Then Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, dubbed a reformist, provided substantial assistance in the US effort aimed at defeating the Taliban, an ardent enemy of Iran and Afghan Shia. Indeed, the Taliban’s aggressive policies included an anti-Shia drive, which resulted in a massive refugee problem. Tens of thousands of Afghan Shia sought refuge in Iran.

http://www.ramzybaroud.net/just-politics-iran-like-the-rest-is-not-blameless/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

The US administration of Barack Obama - like its neoconservative predecessor - has made military aggression the mainstay of its policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Today, the “War on ISIS” has taken the headlines from the “Global War on Terror,” but the storylines remain the same: massive air assaults; death and destruction for the people under attack; floods of refugees; and desperate humanitarian crises. President Obama continues to hear criticism for his failure to swiftly defeat ISIS. But while crushing ISIS may be the official stated goal, the actual agenda may be a long, drawn-out war to weaken regional powers. We have seen this policy before - with many of the same players - in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

In February 1979, the Iranian Revolution overthrew Shah Reza Pahlavi, the ruler of Iran since 1953, when a CIA-orchestrated coup brought him to power. The Islamic Republic of Iran was established by the Revolution under its first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Once the Shah’s US-friendly regime in Iran was deposed, American administrators sought a new ally in the region. They began to warm their relations with neighbouring Iraq, even though that country was listed with the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/battling-isis-iran-iraq-war-redux-1538117706

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Iranian officials and Shiite authorities in Najaf reacted in June 2014 to the rapid advances of the Islamic State (IS) and its conquest of Iraqi cities by quickly organizing paramilitary forces. The Quds Force of Iran led by Qasem Soleimani quickly established dozens of paramilitary groups, mostly Shiite ones, to prevent IS from further expanding its forces. And during the past three months, the Shiite paramilitary forces, alongside the Iraqi army, started a series of offensive operations and managed to take back certain important cities. including Ramadi and Tikrit.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/iran-iraq-iraq-basij-forces.html#

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

A college student told likely GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Wednesday that his brother, former President George W. Bush, was to blame for the rise of the Islamic State.

The heated confrontation took place at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada, according to The New York Times. Ivy Ziedrich, 19, a student at the University of Nevada, approached the former Florida governor to question him about comments he had made during the event. Bush had argued that the Obama administration's weak foreign policy was responsible for the rise of the terrorist group, also known as ISIS, in the Middle East.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/jeb-bush-isis_n_7279970.html

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Many Americans think secret U.S. documents become public after, say, 30 years, but many are hidden indefinitely to conceal inconvenient truths that could enlighten public debate, as Robert Parry discovered in getting a redacted version of a “top secret” paper from 1981 that he had already found in unredacted form.

By Robert Parry

By recently releasing a redacted version of top secret “talking points” that Secretary of State Alexander Haig used to brief President Ronald Reagan about Mideast developments in spring 1981, the U.S. government has inadvertently revealed what it still wants to hide from the public some 34 years later – because I found the full version in congressional files in late 1994 and first wrote about it in early 1996.

The key points that the U.S. government still doesn’t want you to know include that in early 1981 Israel already was supplying U.S. military equipment to Iran for its war with Iraq; that the Saudis had conveyed a “green light” supposedly from President Jimmy Carter to Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980; and that the Saudis agreed to finance arms sales to Pakistan and other states in the region.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/11/failing-to-hide-israel-iran-iraq-secrets/