Just when you think they can't get any lower

As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the US mission in Iraq.
The articles, written by US military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to US military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of US and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout US-led efforts to rebuild the country.
Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the US or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the US has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.
Read the rest...

In Iraq, Killing is for fun

This comment was posted on my last post's thread by "Mohammed" and i didn't publish it because it's off subject, still you might want to take a look at it:

"A 'trophy' video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet," the Sunday Telegraph reports. "The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis."Check out link below to view video. "

end of comment.

I could recognize two of the sites, one is close to where i live and one is close to my university.
Khalid*

Let's take a break:)

* I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

* I went to Majid ( my little brother who stopped blogging, anyone interested in studying a bunch of big IB boring books with him? ) complaining to him that mom and dad think that mishmish (my fat white cat) can understand what they tell her, and he replied: why, didn't you know? and my eyes gazed wide openned while i said: they got to you, you are one of "them" now! after that, i started to believe it myself, haha!!

What! she really does! mom says " mishmish go to the kitchen i put food for you in your plate " and mishmish leaves the bedroom immediately and goes to the kitchen to check her plate!

even better: mishmish always tries to leave the house when the door is openned, so mom was with mishmish in the bed room when she -mom, that is!- called one of us "the door is opened, close it before mishmish finds out" and believe it or not she -mishmish, that is!- jumped right away and rushed like a thunder out of the room through the hall reaching the door where she left leaving us all with a O_o expression.

* In one of the cafeterias in my university, they sell french fries sandwiches!! that is sandwiches containing french fries only!!! and when i went to some of my jordanian friends and told them they didn't think it's strange at all, and one of them said that i find it strange because i came from iraq where people eat meet only! (well it's partly true, Iraqis can eat meat in the three meals!)

* whenever i see anybody's foot i count his toes hoping that they would be six.

your turn , tell us something weird about you!

me*:)

Thanks giving, Thanks Bliar.

I want a piece of that Turkey! :)

Hot news:

Bush planning to bomb al Jazeera offices in Qatar and other places?
now how would they explain it? " The missile was supposed to hit Al Zarqawi in Iraq but missed and hit Aljazeera in Qatar (Qatar is that country with total population of 700 000 people to the east of Saudi Arabia, where the headquarter of Aljazeera is), we will make investigations and punish those behind this mistake that doesn't represent the spirit of America " ??
That's mean, I know.

even worse: The British government thretened to prosecute the editors in chief of the Daily Mirror, the Guardian and The Times if they published more details about the secret document that leaked to the press.
"A civil servant has been charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera", Read more...

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Update, thanks to Najma: A blog by Aljazeera staff: don't Bomb!

Update: "I'll go to jail to print the truth about Bush and al-Jazeera", says Boris Johnson, the British MP for Henley-on-Thames and Editor of the Spectator who pledged to deny the ban on publishing the Memo - if anyone passes him the Memo he will publish it in the Spectator. He says. Read more.
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Hot news 2:

"Control of Iraq's future oil wealth is being handed to multinational oil companies through long-term contracts that will cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a new report published today.
Crude designs: the rip off of Iraq’s oil wealth, reveals that current Iraqi oil policy will allocate the development of at least 64 per cent of Iraq’s reserves to foreign oil companies. Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves

Figures published in the report for the first time show: the estimated cost to Iraq over the life of the new oil contracts is US $74 to US $194 billion, compared with leaving oil development in public hands.
These sums represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi state budget.
the contracts would guarantee massive profits to foreign companies, with rates of return of 42 per cent to 162 per cent" Read the Rest.

Hot news 3:

Personally, I would choose to be in one of the torture houses of the Iraqi interior ministry, rather than any of the CIA secret prisons around the world .I really don't want to know what they do to people there. I mean It's terrifying enough what happens in Guantanamo which is not a secret one.

That's all for now!
Khalid*

I can't think of a title for this post!

So..
Did you read about the Torture house?
ya, I am sure you did.
Just wanted to remind you of some of the reasons why people attack Police and national guards.
Did you see the Italianos film about the use of chemical weapons in Falluja?
yeah probably.
just wanted to remind you that a bunch of nice readers called me a liar when I said that chemical weapons were used in Falluja, and also in the airport battle in Baghdad, when I wrote about the pictures that I saw of people burned while their clothes remained intact.
I knew about the use of chemical weapons in Falluja, because simply everyone in Iraq knows, and everyone that was in Falluja knows it, and I remember them describing it to me too.
one of my friends, a very brave Iraqi girl that was working on her own to evacuate civilians from inside Falluja during the fight ( yes, of course there were civilians inside the city ) told me that an American soldier asked her specifically not to eat or drink anything inside the city, you know what that means?
yah, I guess you do.
actually what I know, is that even more than one kind of chemical weapons were used, basing on what people from Falluja told me back then, airplanes throw yellow powder on them, and then in another occasion, white powder, and in another occasion a green powder, ( white, yellow and green? I hope my memory saved that right ) but I remember for sure that there was more than one kind, at least basing ont he colour of the cloud they saw. I just didn't have the proof.
well, now we do have a proof for the white phosphorus at least!
but why make a big deal out of it? They are all conventional weapons after all, right?

Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians, contrary to an Italian state television report this month which said the weapons were used against men, women and children in Falluja who were burned to the bone. "We categorically deny that claim," Venable said.
"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon," added Bryan Whitman, another Pentagon spokesman.

"This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons…Quite simply… conventional terror", as Riverbend puts it.

Now let's get back to the torture house story please, i have some notes:

first: the timing is perfect:
Always a story like that comes out whenever there is a scandal about something the occupation did, it's a standard procedure: you hear about a terrible scandal, and then next day the occupation creates new news that distracts us all from talking about the first scandal.
you don't know how much I remember the movie " wag the dog " every time something like this happens. So when the chemical weapons thing appeared, we get the story of the torture house to cover it, hmm.

second: This torture house story just gives you a glimpse of what the Iraqi government is like, and why people hate it and attack it. And now Jaafari is all over the news telling us that he is going to punish people behind this! hahaha!!! Is this a joke? hellooo!! Not like he didn't know, I mean the things that happen in the building of the ministry of interior affairs itself aren't any better you know, and it's not a hidden jail inside the ministry, it's THE one jail, that people in the street know it and talk about it, and besides two rooms in the seventh floor where I was during the time I was arrested, so we all in Iraq know about these things that happen in the ministry of interior and Jaafari never heard about them till Italianos told him?
hmmm...
in Arabic we have a saying: " if you did know it's a disaster, if you didn't know then it's a bigger disaster " !!!

Third: Tells you how far Iran is involved in Iraq, the main Shea parties that are now practically "the Iraqi government" itself, have the control over the government and the army and police, and they run the ministry of interior too, and now they have also secret torturing prisons around the country inside Iraq, brilliant.

Fourth: Now let's talk about the American role in this:
The official story is that the American army was looking for a 15 years old boy that was missing, YAA RIIGGHHTT... this is SO wag the dog ( they were going to help the cute girl with the white cat in the movie ) so the American army sent a number of soldiers to look for a 15 years old boy because his parents were searching for him? OOHH YAAAA RIIIGGHTTT 2ajal na3am 9odog!!
and accidentally while carrying out that noble sweet hearted operation, carrying roses and flowers to give to the poor little boy, they stumbled up on 173 detainees, of course! Is there any crazy one among you that question that story?
:D
you know that the American army cares so much about every Iraqi citizen, to the point that they send their troops whenever they hear about a 15 years little boy missing, well sometimes they throw chemical weapons on 5 years old girls, but still, its irrelevant. Don't question what little Bush people say or you will go straight to hell.
I wonder how many 15 years old boys are in Aby Ghreib and Bukka (sp?) prisons, as you know people spend between 90-180 days before they get a "number" inside the prison, which means that this 15 years old boy missing could be in an American prison actually without the American themselves knowing about it.
but no, they decided to go look for him (they look for missing people? YAA RIGGHHTT! ) in a particular house in Baghdad where it happened that 173 people were illegally kept and tortured, right after the scandal of Falluja spread all over the media.
I am not suggesting anything! I am just telling you the official story :))

Abstract of the story: We, the American army are children loving people that go out looking for children when their parents can't find them, and in our way we find illegal torturing places, we are the most humanitarian peace loving army in the world that needs to stay in Iraq just to prevent Iraqi people from torturing each other.

sniff sniff...*tears*...thats so sweet!
Khalid*

WTH?

Ok it must be something about me that makes troubles in whatever country I go to. Explosions in Jordan? It’s the first time. Jordan has been, till two days ago, the only explosions-free country in the region. Take a look at the map and you will see that every country around Jordan is a tension center itself. Three explosions happened, in three fancy hotels at the same time, killing 52 in some versions and 68 in other versions, and injuring over 200. The Jordanian government refuses to announce the names of the killed people, and I will tell you my dear friends why is that. The truth is that the three explosions weren’t attacks against civilians, (well rich civilians I have to say) but were actually planned assassinations against top officials. It’s believed that there was a top-secret meeting between Palestinian and Israeli officials, with the presence of American officials maybe, and some Jordanian personalities, and also an Iraqi delegation participating in it. All haven’t been confirmed yet.The government announced the names of about 30 killed people only. Abbas, the head of the Palestinian authority, announced the death of the head of the Palestinian intelligence agency in one of the explosions, and announced official three days of morning mourning. This was the first sign that something fishy was going on there. And then today, Palestinian sides today, announced that "The Palestinian cause is a just cause and doesn't need this kind of support to win”!!! “This kind of support?” note: they are not being sarcastic. So they must have meant that they don't want people making explosions to kill Israelis like that. The US government, the UN, the whole world all burst of rage and condemned the explosions strongly. none of the above said anything about the hundreds of civilians that have been getting killed for the last couple of weeks in the American operation in the west of Iraq, but now the whole world is condemning killing civilians here in Jordan, hmmm. I am sure there is something fishy. Who is it that was killed there, that made all those dudes in the American administration and the UN so angry? Who are the "foreigners" that the Jordanian government wouldn’t announce their names? I have no idea! I managed to get inside one of the hotels and got actually into the explosion site, i its really big, I can say the destroyed area is about 50*50 meters or more, everything within that area is destroyed, parts of the sides, furniture and sealing, including the false sealing and the air conditioning pipes above it, and if I am not wrong, two walls, one of them is the front of the hotel, the farthest point to the explosion. Now an explosive belt doesn't do that kind of mess, believe me. Something fishy is going on. I am telling you! Yesterday Al Jazeera said Israelis were evacuated from the hotels (or one of the) before the explosions, the thing that the Jordanian government declined today.
yesterday I was interviewing people in the street to see the feelings ok Iraqis living in Jordan about the explosions, and all the ones that were asked said that the good relation between the Jordanian and Iraqi pro-American government might be a reason why Jordan was attacked.
Still waiting for more bits of information to gather the story.

I and my family are fine, thanks for all your emails.

My deep condolences to the families of those who were killed, i was there in the gathering that included people and moslim religion men and a priest, in front one of the hotels after the attack in support of the victims of the attack.

killing any civilian, any innocent person is always condemned, all i am trying to say that there was certain people gathering at that day in these hotels that were targeted.
possibly discussing somethign about iraq, maybe it was an iraqi-isreali-american conference...i am just saying maybe, because if the goal of explosions is to kill civillians then the best place to go would be mecca mall for example, or Abdon mall, or any of the big malls in amman that has thousands of people in them with no security measurments at all, that would be a much easier and more efficiant attack if the goal was to kill civillians only.

still, as i said, we dont have the real story till now, lets wait a bit and see. we dont have facts, i reported what i saw and what people think and what i think, since i am in Amman.



Khalid*