3 GIS BECOME AMERICAN CITIZENS ON EVE OF DEPLOYMENT TO IRAQ

With all the hoopla over illegal aliens in the news as well as dominating much of the political debates for POTUS, this story from the Army Times puts a whole new look on the immigration issue.

Three Oklahoma National Guard soldiers will be getting their citizenship just before they are deployed to Iraq.

(Editor's comment: I wonder if Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, both of whom avoided military service, will have anything to say about the three GIs who will be given their citizenship just in time to leave for Iraq).

Bill Corcoran, editor and host of the only blog in the United States devoted to untold news about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: http://corksphere.blogspot.com/
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Soldiers earn citizenship on eve of deployment

The Associated PressPosted : Sunday Jan 20, 2008 17:33:37 EST

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/ap_citizenship_080120/

TULSA, Okla. — Three Oklahoma National Guard members in El Paso, Texas, preparing for deployment to Iraq have become United States citizens.
Jamaica native Sgt. Gareth Wilson, 27; Spc. Oyewale Hotonu-Oyerinde, 28, from Nigeria; and Tulsan Sgt. Adam Ngotngamwong, whose father is from Thailand and whose mother is Canadian, all gained their citizenship on Friday, expedited by their service with Oklahoma’s 45th Infantry Brigade.

An executive order signed by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks means the normal wait required for legal residents of the U.S. is waived for those serving in the military, along with the application fee.

“I just wanted to go to Iraq as an American citizen,” said Tulsan Ngotngamwong, 25, who previously deployed in 2004 to Afghanistan. “It makes it closer to home. You are fighting for your country, instead of just being a legal citizen.”

Wilson also is from Tulsa, and Hotonu-Oyerinde is from Oklahoma City.
The pending deployment of the three to Iraq underscored for them the opportunity to get their citizenship on the fast track.

Initial headquarters elements of Oklahoma’s 45th are deploying over the next few days to their pending mission in Baghdad, Iraq. After a farewell formation Sunday, the unit will begin shipping its soldiers first to Kuwait for processing, then to Baghdad’s International Zone.

Read the rest of the story by clicking on link above from the Army Times.

JUST ANOTHER QUIET SUNDAY IN IRAQ---NOT

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE?

Me or the lying eyes of the mainstream media who claim Iraq is a desert oasis of tranquility in the Middle East?

What you read below spells out what is REALLY happening in Iraq and not the baloney TV, especially FOX NEWS, and the rest of the press are feeding the American public.

Bill Corcoran, host of this blog devoted to telling the truth about conditions on the ground in Iraq where 160,000 brave young Americans are hunkered down caught in the middle of never-ending sectarian violence that has gone on for five years, or longer than World War II.

Just another quiet Sunday in Iraq----NOT.

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/


BaghdadOne civilian killed, two injured by roadside bomb in Zayounah neighborhood, eastern Baghdad.Mortar attack near the Saidiyah amusement park injures two.

BaladMortar round hits Ashoura observances, killing three, injuring 18, according to a source. The hospital reports the toll as 3 killed, including 2 children, and 20 wounded. Reuters gives the death toll as 5.

NassiriyahCommander of the police commandos, Lieutenant colonel Abdel Amir Jabbar, dies of injuries sustained in Friday's fighting with the Ansar Ahmad al-Yamani sect. VoI reports that several senior security officials were killed in the fighting. (This is apparently the same group which is elsewhere identified as Soldiers of Heaven, although there is dispute over whether they are connected to the Soldiers of Heaven who fought a major battle with U.S. and Iraqi forces a year ago. I would definitely like to see clarification of this, but the nature of the group remains murky. -- C)

Near FallujahSuicide bomb attack on the estate of Sheik Aeifan al-Issawi, a leader of the Anbar Awakening Council, kills six, including four of his security guards. Issawi is unharmed.Reuters has an entirely different description of what might be the same incident: A suicide bomber killed six people in a town south of Falluja where people were celebrating the release of a man from U.S. military custody, local officials said. The bomber walked into the man's house and blew himself up. This is so different that it seems conceivable there were two suicide bombings in Falluja. Certainly the leader of the Anbar Awakening Council would not have been in U.S. custody

.BasraFighting continues between security forces and members of the Soldiers of Heaven group, but on a lower level than previously. Iraqi police source says 20 people were arrested, no police casualties.Rocket attack on Coalition base at the city's airport injures two Czech soldiers. Injuries are not serious.

MosulTwo injured in attempted car bomb attack on a police checkpoint. Police say they shot the driver, implication is this caused the bomb to detonate prematurely.

Buhrez (South of Baquba)Joint U.S.-Iraqi force kills an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, according to an anonymous security source. (It is odd that so many of the sources in the security forces speak anonymously. Maybe they don't feel very secure. -- C)

SamarraDrive-by shooting kills a Baathist leader.Separately, gunmen attack Awakening Council militia members, resulting in the deaths of three attackers, according to a source. Note that the Awakening Councils seldom report suffering any casualties of their own in these battles. -- C

TELL ME AGAIN ABOUT HOW SECURE IRAQ HAS BECOME

All the citizens of the United States ever hear about Iraq anymore is just how secure the country has become.

Huh?

If Iraq is so secure then how come these events happened Sunday in Iraq in Baghdad and Falluja, two of the Iraqi cities that the mainstream press says are "secure?"

Bill Corcoran, host of this blog devoted to telling the TRUTH about Iraq and not the blowback TV, especially FOX NEWS, and the print media are dumping on unsuspecting Americans.


Blast kills civilian, wounds two in eastern Baghdad

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Sunday , 20 /01 /2008 Time 8:48:12

http://tinyurl.com/3dzbpd


Baghdad, Jan 20, (VOI)- At least one civilian was killed and two others were wounded on Sunday morning when a roadside bomb went off in eastern Baghdad, a police source said.
"An explosive charge went off, this morning, on the main road in Zayounah neighborhood, eastern Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding two more," the source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI)."Security forces sealed off the area and rushed the wounded to a nearby hospital," he added.SK


Suicide bombing leaves 10 casualties near Falluja

Anbar - Voices of Iraq
Sunday , 20 /01 /2008 Time 8:48:12

Anbar, Jan 20, (VOI) – Five civilians were killed and five others wounded in a suicide bombing attack that targeted a gathering of well-wishers on the release of a detained local resident near Falluja on Sunday, a police officer in Anbar province said.
"The suicide bomber blew himself up inside the house of Hadi Hussein in Amiriyat al-Falluja on Sunday afternoon," the officer, who asked not to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

Good News From Iraq: Opium Agriculture Takes Off

By Patrick Cockburn, Independent UKPosted on January 18, 2008, Printed on January 20, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/2enw93

Editor's note: According to UN estimates, 92 percent of the world's heroin originates in Afghanistan, the other theater in Bush's "War on Terror."

The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops.
Afghans with experience in planting poppies have been helping farmers switch to producing opium in fertile parts of Diyala province, once famous for its oranges and pomegranates, north-east of Baghdad.

At a heavily guarded farm near the town of Buhriz, south of the provincial capital Baquba, poppies are grown between the orange trees in order to hide them, according to a local source.

The shift by Iraqi farmers to producing opium was first revealed by The Independent last May and is a very recent development. The first poppy fields, funded by drug smugglers who previously supplied Saudi Arabia and the Gulf with heroin from Afghanistan, were close to the city of Diwaniyah in southern Iraq.

The growing of poppies has now spread to Diyala, which is one of the places in Iraq where al-Qa'ida is still resisting US and Iraqi government forces. It is also deeply divided between Sunni, Shia and Kurd and the extreme violence means that local security men have little time to deal with the drugs trade. The speed with which farmers are turning to poppies is confirmed by the Iraqi news agency al-Malaf Press, which says that opium is now being produced around the towns of Khalis, Sa'adiya, Dain'ya and south of Baladruz, pointing out that these are all areas where al-Qa'ida is strong.

The agency cites a local agricultural engineer identified as MS al-Azawi as saying that local farmers got no support from the government and could not compete with cheap imports of fruit and vegetables. The price of fertilizer and fuel has also risen sharply. Mr Azawi says: "The cultivation of opium is the likely solution [to these problems."

To read the full account about the mushrooming poppy growth in Iraq click or cut and paste on the link at the top of this story.

IRAQ SCHOLARS RELUCTANT TO RETURN

While the mainstream media obsesses on the South Carolina primary, the fallout from the Iraq war continues to bury Iraqis in ways that are totally overlooked by the press in the United States.

The most recent study reported on CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog by Bill Corcoran devoted exclusively to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has to do with all the academics who are refusing to return to Iraq because security conditions are anything but secure.

IRAQ'S SCHOLARS RELUCTANT TO RETURN

The continuing shortage of academics is damaging higher education throughout the country.

By Zaineb Naji in Baghdad (ICR No. 243, 18-Jan-08)

http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=342062&apc_state=henpicr

Zahra, a doctoral candidate studying immune-system diseases, shook her head in disappointment when she saw the list of professors who were supposed to review her thesis.Three had fled the country. While one promised to attend her defence of her thesis, another was unable to make it because of the security situation. Zahra, 40, who received her PhD two months ago, did most of the work on her own.

She doesn’t blame her professors – one left Iraq after receiving a bloodstained bullet in an envelope together with a note which read, “You’re wanted because you are a scientist.”

“I thought that the good security situation might encourage the professors to return to Iraq,” said Zahra, who did not want her real name to be used. “On the contrary, some are still fleeing the country, and the universities are still suffering from a shortage of lecturers.

”Widespread threats against Iraqi university staff have all but stripped the country of its intellectual core, particularly in Baghdad. According to the country’s higher education ministry, 240 lecturers were killed from 2003 to October 2007.

Approximately 2,000 academics have fled the country, according to Tariq al-Bakaa, a former minister of higher education who served under the 2004 government of the then prime minister Ayad Allawi.

Most have fled to Jordan, Gulf States, Libya and Syria, where some have established the Syrian International University for Science and Technology. Many others cannot find work or are struggling to make ends meet in their countries of refuge, but are wary of returning.