Iraq: 180,000 Internal Refugees since Feb

by redjade Mon Jun 05, 2006 22:48

The reasons people are killed for are absurd to the point of being funny. On the top of my list is wearing shorts. Teenagers in my neighbourhood have been killed for that unforgettable crime and probably it is the reason why two sportsmen who play for the Iraqi Tennis team and their trainer have been murdered.

I have been going around trying to film for this video blog for five days now and it has been a constant struggle. People do not want to talk. They politely ask me to take away my camera they do not want to get in trouble.

You know that thing about barbers being big chatterboxes? Well that is everywhere except Baghdad apparently. I spent a whole morning going from one barber to the next asking them to tell me why they are so afraid and they just won’t on camera. I finally found one who only agreed to do it after I showed him that we could do it without showing his face or the name of his shop or where it is.

Physicians are also difficult, and so are bakers. I did find a baker who was willing to talk on camera but when I was walking out it was one of the workers in the bakery who followed me and told me “you do realize we have families who depend on us staying alive”. I know, and I know why everybody is so reluctant to talk. Because we don’t know what is the next thing that will get us killed.

read the rest at...
http://justzipit.blogspot.com/2006/06/i-am-working-on-t....html

by redjade Mon Jun 05, 2006 23:30

QUOTE: 'Every contract on at least one of the Uber-Bases, since April 2006, has a "No Sex Slavery" section. This is actually required (Maybe as a late reponse to DynCorp abuses in other theatres, or more likely because of a different scandal that never hit the press). And it is not just a 'Dude, I totally promise I won't buy a sex slave while I am here' but more than a page devoted to combating all the various loopholes by which one could acquire a sex slave under contract. I present for you...complete with spelling errors... the Army Contracting Office's Boilerplate NO SEX SLAVE RULES:

13. FAR 52.222-50 Combating Trafficking in Persons (Apr 2006)

read more at
http://mrvetinari.livejournal.com/38935.html#cutid1

by redjade Tue Jun 06, 2006 07:30

The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

[....]

"The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people," said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. "Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire."

June 5, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0605-01.htm

by redjade Tue Jun 06, 2006 07:36

The wife of the unnamed staff sergeant claimed there had been a "total breakdown" in the unit's discipline after it was pulled out of Falluja in early 2005.

"There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing [violent initiation games], you name it," she said. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."

The troops in Iraq have been ordered to take refresher courses on battlefield ethics, but a growing body of evidence from Haditha suggests the strain of repeated deployments in Iraq is beginning to unravel the cohesion and discipline of the combat troops.

"We are in trouble in Iraq," Barry McCaffrey, a retired army general who played a leading role in the Iraq war, told Time magazine. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from this war."

June 5, 2006 by the Guardian/UK...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0605-02.htm