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July
10, 2003
Joanne
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Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
July
9, 2003
David
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Is the Media Finally Turning on
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10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
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Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
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Hail to the Thief:
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July
8, 2003
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Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
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Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
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Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
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They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
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Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
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Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
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Avnery
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Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
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Standard
Schaefer
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Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
July
3, 2003
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg
Thomas
W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy
David
Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong
and the US
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Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution
Jackson
Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices
Stan
Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
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Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July 2, 2003
Diane
Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing
Richard
Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress
Justin
Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia
Reuven
Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July
1, 2003
Sasan
Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and
Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia
and the Sodomy Cops
Susan
Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong
to Ourselves
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name
Gary
Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
June
30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé
of Progressive Politics in America
Col. Dan
Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire
Tim
Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White
Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
Uri
Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30
Website
of the Day
Bush El Hombre
June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
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Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
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Noah Leavitt
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Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
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Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
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Julie
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Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
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US Troops Outta Times Square
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Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
June
27, 2003
Jason
Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
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David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
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Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
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June
26, 2003
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Jason
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Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
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Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
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Cassel
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Squatting in Mansions
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A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
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Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
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Ordinary Vistas:
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June
25, 2003
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Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
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Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
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Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
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John
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The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
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Pritzke
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Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
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The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
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Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
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WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
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Saddam and the WMD Mystery
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Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
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Watch
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Aslam Khan
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Arrogant
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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July
9, 2003
Go Tell Private Lynch
US
Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
By ALI ABUNIMAH
United States occupation forces in Iraq are refusing
to treat wounded and sick Iraqis if their injuries are not directly
caused by the United States. This shocking behavior is a violation
of the Geneva Conventions.
On June 30, dozens of Iraqis were killed
and scores injured in an explosion at an abandoned ammunition
dump at Haditha, 260 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. The victims
had apparently been searching for shell casings to sell as scrap.
According to the BBC, a spokesman for
US Central Command in Baghdad said that, because the dump was
Iraqi, not American, US forces in the area were not taking responsibility
for caring for the wounded.
But the United States is responsible
at every level. First and foremost, as the occupying power, the
US is supposed to provide security for Iraq's people. The fact
that Iraqi civilians can walk into abandoned Iraqi Army stores
shows that the US is dismally failing to do that. A few weeks
ago, Iraqi villagers became ill after taking radioactive canisters
from a known Iraqi nuclear site that US forces had failed to
secure.
Second, the US is legally and morally
obliged to render assistance to the injured. Article 16 of the
Fourth Geneva Convention states: "The wounded and sick,
as well as the infirm, and expectant mothers, shall be the object
of particular protection and respect." Article 55 states:
"To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the
occupying power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical
supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in
the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if
the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate."
Almost three months into the occupation,
the US has done little to meet its legal obligation to restore
Iraq's collapsed medical system. Richard Alderslade, a spokesman
on health policy for the World Health Organization, told Reuters
on June 26 that Iraq's health system was "extremely fragile,"
and running at no more than 30-50 percent capacity at a time
when the public health situation is deteriorating, with an increase
in child sickness, communicable diseases, and threats from unexploded
munitions.
Third, the fact that Iraqis are reduced
to searching for scrap ammunition in such a dangerous place to
sell for subsistence is a testament not only to the devastation
of decades of sanctions and war, but of the utter failure of
the occupiers to provide the Iraqi people with the food and work
they need.
Horrifying though it is, the apparent
US refusal to assist the injured at Haditha is no isolated incident.
It appears to be policy. On June 23, the Associated Press reported
that, "while on duty at an army air field, Sergeant David
J. Borell was approached by an Iraqi who pleaded for help for
his three children, burned when they set fire to a bag containing
explosive powder left over from war in Iraq. Borell immediately
called for assistance. But the two army doctors who arrived about
an hour later refused to help the children because their injuries
were not life-threatening and had not been inflicted by US troops."
Borell, of Toledo, Ohio, said of the
June 13 incident: "I have never seen in almost 14 years
of army experience anything that callous," and asked: "What
would it have cost us to treat these children? A few dollars
perhaps. Some investment of time and resources. I cannot imagine
the heartlessness required to look into the eyes of a child in
horrid pain and suffering and, with medical resources only a
brief trip up the road, ignore their plight as though they are
insignificant."
Before the two doctors left, Borell pleaded
with one to do something, but "he didn't show any compassion,"
so the sergeant gave the children's father supplies from his
own first aid kit. The next day the father took his extensively
burned children, Ahlam, 11, and Budur and Haidar, both 10, to
Baghdad to seek treatment.
AP reported that "a US military
spokesman said the children's condition did not fall into a category
that requires army physicians to treat them - and that there
was no inappropriate response on the part of the doctors."
This is a fancy way of saying "we just don't care."
In addition to being unbelievably cruel,
callous and illegal, this US policy is politically stupid. Having
invaded Iraq and overthrown its government in a few weeks, the
United States has proven incapable of providing Iraqis with even
the degraded level of basic services they received under Saddam
Hussein. As unrest and resistance to the occupation grows, the
US badly needs to improve its image and relationship with the
people it rules. It's hard to see how refusing to treat the war
injuries of children and Iraqi civilians can do anything but
achieve the exact opposite.
This article first appeared in The Daily
Star.
Ali Abunimah
is co-founder of ElectronicIntifada.net.
Weekend
Edition Features
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
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