FOUR UNTOLD STORIES OF HEROISM BY IRAQ WAR VETERANS

You have to go to local newspapers and television stations to find reports on wounded veterans from the Iraq war because the mainstream media feels the wounded veterans are not that newsworthy.

Here are just four accounts culled from the local media across the United States re veterans wounded in Iraq and their long upward rehabilitation fight.

They are worth reading. Also, bear in mind the mainstream media in the United States no longer feels their stories are newsworthy. They have bigger fish to fry like what is happening with Britney Spears.

By Bill Corcoran, editor and host of this blog dedicated to the brave young men and women who serve our country in Iraq and Afghanistan and who have been forgotten by the mainstream press in the United States.

A year later Steve Holloway remains determined to beat his paralysis. Three times a week, the 34-year-old war veteran spends an hour in the therapeutic pool at Palms West Hospital. So far, he's gained movement in a hamstring and toe, he's worked himself out of a crouch and, most strikingly, he can walk in the water. On his stomach — from his sternum past his belly button — is a sign of war. The deep, inset scar bisects his belly where surgeon after surgeon sewed him back together. There's a scar on his back, too. That's where the Iraqi insurgent's 7.62mm bullet exited Holloway's body, taking with it his ability to walk. the bullet struck on Jan. 15, 2007.

Jaime Antolec, 28, got blown up on the Fourth of July. A roadside bomb in Baghdad exploded under the U.S. Army sergeant's tank, shattering his ankles, and leaving him bloody and unconscious -- but alive.

Marine Sgt. Gregory Edwards took his last step Oct. 21, 2006. Alpha Company was on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq, conducting house-to-house searches when a hidden explosive detonated. The blast left Sgt Edwards a double amputee with a shattered left hand. He has endured 37 surgeries and a painful physical regimen that he devised himself to strengthen the tender stumps that end just above his knees.

David Corley was on patrol when he was shot in the jaw by enemy fire. The bullet shattered his jaw and exited through his neck. He was immediately flown to Germany and treated by a spinal surgeon. They discovered the bullet just barely missed a majory artery in his neck. Corley is now recovering in a San Antonio hospital. "He's not moving his right arm at all. He has a tremendous amount of pain in his shoulders, neck and arms. And of course he can't speak with a trake, and his jaw is wired together," his father Ronald said.

VIOLENCE AND DEATH ACROSS IRAQ

While the cable news outlets continue to obsess on the primaries or the late Heath Ledger or the latest craziness of Britney Spears, violence and death continue to spread across Iraq.

Everyone knows Fox News gave up reporting on the Iraq war months ago, but now CNN and MSNBC have also "spiked" all news out of Iraq.

The media justifies why they are not covering Iraq anymore because there is "Iraq Fatigue" in the United States and nobody wants to hear or read about Iraq anymore.

So that leaves bloggers like myself as the last bastion for telling the truth about Iraq and that is what we continue to do.

Below is what happened in Iraq on Thursday, January 24.

By Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE http://corksphere.blogspot.com/

CHAOS CONTINUES IN IRAQ

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/

Baghdad:#1: Also Thursday, a roadside bombing in central Baghdad killed two police officers and wounded six people, an Interior Ministry official said. The bombing, in Andalus Square, targeted a police patrol about 8 a.m. Three of the wounded were police and the other three were civilians.

#2: Two civilians were injured in an IED explosion in Ghadeer neighborhood east Baghdad around 4,00 pm.

#3: A civilian was injured in an IED explosion in Zafaraniyah district southeast Baghdad around 4,30 am.

#4: Police found three anonymous bodies in Baghdad today. Two bodies were found in Doura neighborhood in Karkh, the western side of Baghdad while the third body was found in Ma’amil neighborhood in Rusafa, the eastern side of Baghdad.

Mahaweel:#1: A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed one civilian and wounded two others in Mahaweel, 75 km (45 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.Iskandariya:#1: One body was found in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Samarra:#1: Gunmen abducted seven oil tanker drivers on Wednesday near Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The drivers were transporting oil from the Baiji oil refinery to western Anbar province.

Delouyia:#1: Gunmen on Thursday targeted a patrol of Delouyia awakening council in al-Mashru’a village, east of Delouyia, leaving four of the council members wounded”, Hameed al-Ahmed, the chief of Delouyia awakening council, told Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq (VOI).He added “the awakening council fighters and police forces, backed by U.S. helicopters, conducted a blitz in the accident site, clashing with the gunmen”.The tribal official pointed out “three gunmen were killed and two others arrested”.

Mosul:#1: A suicide bomber killed Nineveh province's director of police in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday, the U.S. military said. The bomber struck at the site of another deadly explosion the day before, killing the provincial police official and two other Iraqi officers, the U.S. military said. An Iraqi army soldier and a coalition forces soldier were also wounded in the attack.A suicide bomber disguised as a policeman killed Mosul's police chief and two other officers on Thursday as they visited the scene of an earlier blast, Iraqi officials and the US military said. They said five policemen and a journalist were wounded in the attack, which prompted authorities in Iraq's main northern city to impose an immediate and indefinite ban on vehicle traffic. "Two Iraqi police were killed in the blast, and one Iraqi army and one coalition force soldier was injured. "Brigadier General Salah, the provincial director of police, was also killed in the blast.#2: (update) The death toll from a bomb blast which obliterated a building in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul has risen to 34, with at least 217 people wounded, a provincial official said on Thursday. "More than 100 houses were damaged," Hisham al-Hamdani, head of the provincial council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, told AFP.Al Anbar Prv:

Khalidiya:#1: Police forces killed a suicide bomber trying to blow up himself outside the police station in Khalidiya town of Anbar province on Thursday, a security source said.Afghanistan:#1: At least eight policemen were killed Thursday during an operation by U.S.-led coalition troops in central Afghanistan, an Afghan official said. The officers died in the village of Ghariban in Ghazni province during an operation that included U.S. ground forces and airstrikes, said the deputy head of Ghazni's provincial council, Habeb-ul Rahman. It was unclear whether Afghan troops also took part in the raid. Two other villagers, including a woman, were killed in the clash, Rahman said. It was not immediately clear how the officers and civilians were killed. Afghan police officials in Ghazni province, who spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that policemen appeared to have been killed by airstrikes, which also destroyed several houses.Nine police and two civilians were killed in an air strike by U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, a provincial doctor said on Thursday, but the coalition said Taliban fighters had been killed. "Nine police, including an officer, two civilians, one of them a woman, were killed in the raid," he told Reuters. Five police were wounded, he said, adding they were in a vehicle patrolling the area when it was hit in the air strike.#2: Separately, a soldier from the NATO-led force was killed and two were wounded when a blast hit their vehicle in southern Afghanistan, an alliance spokesman said on Thursday. He did not identify the victims of Wednesday's attack.At approximately 1:40 p.m. local time (in Kandahar) today, one Canadian soldier who was part of a convoy was killed when the armoured vehicle he was in struck a suspected Improvised Explosive Device (IED), 35 km South-West of Kandahar City. Two Canadian soldiers were also injured.

#3: A Kiwi soldier has been injured in a helicopter accident in Afghanistan but the crash was not the result of enemy fire, according to the New Zealand Defence Force. The soldier, a member of the New Zealand peacekeeping force stationed in the troubled country, received minor injuries in the helicpoter crash, Captain Zac Prendergast said. No one else was injured in the accident.

Casualty Reports:

Brad Thomas, 22, suffered a serious head wound and other injuries Saturday from a roadside bomb during combat operations in Iraq. He was airlifted to American medical facilities in Germany, and his family remains hopeful he will pull through.

Specialist James Robak and his unit were searching homes in Sinsil, Iraq looking for bombs and Al Qaeda members. Along with Gaul, and four others, the explosion also killed sergeant first class Matthew Pionk of Eveleth, Minnesota. Robak was wounded as his sniper unit searched a suspected Al Qaeda compound for weapons. "I was on the roof along with two other guys, something set off the house and the whole house exploded," he said, "We lost six guys and four were injured and our [interpreter] was killed." Robak survived with a wounded leg and some minor cuts. For his father worrying comes with the job, but he was aware of the danger his son was facing before the explosion.

CURFEWS ARE A WAY OF LIFE IN IRAQ

The untold stories about life in Iraq continue to unfold while all the time the media in the United States looks the other way.

We reported on the electricity and gasoline shortages in a post yesterday on this blog, and today Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail are reporting on how curfews have become a way of life for Iraqi citizens living in Baquba.

Someday, hopefully, the American media will shed their "Iraq Fatigue" and again begin telling the American public the truth about Iraq.

However, until that happens we will continue to bring readers of this blog the inside story on life inside of Iraq.

By Bill Corcoran, editor and host of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog dedicated to telling the truth about Iraq and Afghanistan sans White House filters.



IRAQ: Under Curfew, This Is No Life

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40905

By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*BAQUBA, Jan 24 (IPS)

- Continuing curfew has brought normal life to a standstill in Baquba, capital of the restive Diyala province north of Baghdad.Through nearly three decades of rule under Saddam Hussein, Iraqis witnessed only two curfews; for the census in the 1970s and 1980s. Under the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, curfews are commonplace, enforced whenever the Iraqi government and U.S. military fail to control the situation on the ground. A curfew means all public utilities and services cease.

Life becomes frozen, and nobody is able to get to work. Factories and other utilities close, the wheel of the economy and development stops. "When the government imposes a curfew it does not think of those who have no salary," 39-year-old labourer Adnan al-Khazraji told IPS.

"A very large number of people like me rely on daily income for their living. On the contrary, government employees feel safe whether there is a curfew or not because at the end of a month they receive the salary regardless of stoppage of work." Members of the government and parliament receive big salaries, "and therefore they forget poor people at such times," Khazraji added. Not just economically, curfews have taken their toll psychologically as well.

In Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad, there has been a curfew every Friday since 2005. "I feel imprisoned when I have to keep to my home," Salma Jabr, a resident of the city told IPS. "It is the only holiday that we have to do things like visits, shopping, travelling."

Click on link above to read full account of life under curfew in Iraq.

SUNNI MILITANTS VOW TO ATTACK U.S. TROOPS

GROUP IS OPPOSED TO U.S. SUPPORT OF ISRAEL

By Maamoun Youssef - The Associated PressPosted : Wednesday Jan 23, 2008 16:49:10 EST

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/ap_iraqthreat_080123/

CAIRO, Egypt — Five militant Iraqi Sunni groups said in a joint statement posted on the Internet that they were stepping up attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq in support of Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The statement announced the launching of what was described as the “Iraqi Resistance Campaign to Help Gaza” and accused President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of responsibility for the deteriorating situation in the coastal strip.

It described the American and Israeli leaders as “war criminals,” saying they sought to “cover up their dreadful failures in all fields.” It did not provide details of the planned attacks on U.S. troops.

The statement, which surfaced Tuesday on an Islamic Web site commonly used for militant messaging, also called on nations all over the world to “help lift injustice off the innocent Gazans.”

It also addressed the Gazans, urging them to be “patient and steadfast” because “victory was close,” adding that although the mujahideen, or holy warriors, were preoccupied with fighting “the enemies of God in Iraq, this will not deter us from helping our brothers (Palestinians) because the enemy is one and the victim is one.”

The Iraqi Sunni groups said to be behind the posting include the Jihad and Reform Front, formed last May and made up of the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Mujahideen Army and Ansar al-Sunnah, as well as the Islamic Movement of Hamas-Iraq and the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance.

“We announce the launching of a military campaign ... to step up military action against the American partners of the Zionists and enemies of humanity,” said the statement. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

The statement was posted before Wednesday morning’s dramatic break through a security barrier at the border between the small Gaza Strip, run by Hamas militants, and Egypt, after which tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt to stock up on medicine, fuel and food supplies.

Israel has been carrying out airstrikes and limited ground operations against Gaza militants. Last week Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, stopping shipments of fuel, medicine and food, but began easing the restrictions on Monday in the wake of an international outcry.

U.S. LED TROOPS KILL 8 POLICEMEN AND 2 CIVILIANS IN AFGHANISTAN

Is this anyway to win the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people?

8 policemen killed in US Afghan raid



Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:43:22

http://tinyurl.com/24beyj

At least eight policemen and two civilians have been killed during an operation by US-led coalition troops in central Afghanistan. The officers died in the village of Ghariban in Ghazni province during an operation that included US ground forces and airstrikes, said the deputy head of Ghazni's provincial council, Habeb-ul Rahman. It was unclear whether Afghan troops also took part in the raid, AP reported. Two villagers, including a woman, were killed in the clash, Rahman said. Among the officers killed was the former provincial deputy police chief, he added.

WHY DOES MEDIA CONTINUE TO IGNORE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN IRAQ?

The media in the United States continues to ignore what is happening in Iraq. The following is a list of incidents in Iraq from Wednesday, January 23 ONLY and underscores how violent conditions still are in Iraq even though the media claims the "surge" has brought calm to Iraq.

VIOLENCE SPREADS ACROSS IRAQ

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/

Wednesday: 54 Iraqis Killed, 170 Wounded

Explosion kills 17 in northern Iraq
A thunderous blast tore through a vacant apartment building in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 17 civilians and wounding more than 130 in adjacent houses just minutes after the Iraqi army arrived to investigate tips about a weapons cache. Rescue crews searched under toppled walls, collapsed ceilings and piles of debris tossed by the explosion that blew apart the empty building, which Iraqi authorities said was used by insurgents to stash weapons and bombs.

Baghdad:#1: Gunmen opened fire on an Iraqi army checkpoint in central Baghdad Wednesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding two, police said. The drive-by shooting occurred about 11 a.m. in the Bab al-Mudham district, a commercial area on the eastern side of the Tigris River in central Baghdad. Two other soldiers were wounded, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

#2: More than 250 of the (Iraqi) interpreters working with the United States -- or with U.S. contractors -- have been killed.

#3: In the other attack, a roadside bomb exploded next to a girl's high school in Baghdad's western district of Amiriyah, wounding a 7-year-old boy who was passing by. But police said the target was an American patrol, not the school.

#4: Meanwhile, a roadside bomb detonated near a youth center in Zaafaraniya district in southeastern Baghdad without causing casualties, the source said.

#5: Gunmen killed the dean of Baghdad University's dental school while he was driving home from work on Wednesday, Iraqi police said. They said they found the body of Munthar Muhrej Radhi, who headed the country's premier dental school, in the front of his car in western Baghdad. He had been shot multiple times.

#6: Around 9 a.m., a roadside bomb exploded at Mansour neighborhood ( west Baghdad) at district 605. Some commercial shops damaged in that incident with no casualties recorded.

#7: Around 12.30, a roadside bomb exploded at Zafarania neighborhood ( south Baghdad) . No casualties reported.

#8: U.S. forces killed five gunmen and detained 16 others on Tuesday and Wednesday during operations in central and northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

#9: Police found ( 4 ) unidentified dead bodies in the following neighborhoods : ( 3 ) were found in Risafa bank ( east Baghdad ) ; 1 in Shaab , 1 in Husseiniya and 1 in Binouk. While one was found in Sadiyah neighborhood in south Baghdad ( Karkh bank).Diyala Prv:#1: Three miles south of Baqouba, gunmen broke into a house and killed six men in a family for cooperating with the Iraqi army, an army official said. The men had given information on al-Qaida movements to local Awakening Council members, the official said. The attack took place in al-Abara village, an al-Qaida stronghold until Awakening Council members chased out the militants a few months ago.#2: The U.S. military killed 15 gunmen during operations on Tuesday and Wednesday north of Baquba, 65 km (45 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.#3: Wednesday afternoon, a roadside bomb targeted AlHay neighborhood ( downtown Baquba) near one of the quarters of the Sahwa council injuring two members of the Sahwa. Madaen:#1: Iraqi security forces killed 15 gunmen and wounded 20 others during the last seven days in Madaen, 45 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, the spokesman for the Baghdad security plan said.Kirkuk:#1: A car bomb killed five people and wounded three about 40 km (25 miles) from the northern city of Kirkuk, police said.Wednesday evening, a car bomb (BMW model) targeted a local market of Tuz Khurmatu (south of Khurmatu ) killing 5 people ( including one woman) and injuring 12 others ( including 2 women). Also 6 cars were damaged in that incident.#2: Wednesday, gunmen kidnapped two Kurds citizens on the way between Tuz Khurmatu and Suleiman Beck (south of Kirkuk ) .Those two kidnapped are from Kafri village ( 150 km south of Sulaimaniyah).Mosul:#1: Gunmen killed Aziz Sulaiman a professor at Mosul University on Tuesday in southeastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Bagdad, police said.#2: One body was found with gunshot wounds in eastern Mosul on Tuesday, police said.#3: Police forces on Wednesday morning defused two roadside bombs in Mosul without casualties, a senior security source said." The Ninewa police defused and remotely detonated two improvised explosive devices; the first in al-Masaref neighborhood in northern Mosul and the second in al-Nabi Yuonis in the eastern section of the city," Brigadier Abdul Kareem al-Juburi, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq#4: Tuesday , a squad of the Iraqi army killed a gunmen in Mosul city and confiscated his car.#5: A bomb attack on a residential building in Iraq's northern city of Mosul on Wednesday killed and wounded up to 50 people, police said. Women and children were among the victims, police said. They did not have an immediate break-up of the dead and wounded. Witnesses said it was one of the biggest explosions they had ever heard in Mosul. Initial reports indicated gunmen had planted explosives in the building and then detonated the cache, police said.An explosion struck an apartment building in Mosul Wednesday shortly after police arrived to investigate a tip about a weapons cache inside, killing at least seven people and wounding 70, a spokesman said. The cause of the blast was unknown, but Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Jubouri said it occurred about 4:30 p.m. after the arrival of Iraqi police forces.Afghanistan:

#1: A suicide bomber targeted a restaurant in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province Wednesday wounding two women besides killing himself, a local official said.

#2: In the latest violence, suspected militants attacked a military camp in the frontier region with rockets and small arms fire Wednesday, killing three soldiers and wounding several others, a military statement and security officials said. The strike against Razmak Fort in South Waziristan came a day after fighting that left seven troops and 37 militants dead.

#3: Islamic militants fired rockets at a military base in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing one soldier and injuring two others. Rebels fired rockets at Razmak Camp in North Waziristan, killing one solider and wounding two, the military said in a statement. The soldiers responded with artillery and mortar fire, but there was no word on any insurgent casualties, it said.

And the mainstream media in the United States continues to ignore all this as if it never happened.

THE "SURGE" CAN'T FIX THIS

MAINSTREAM MEDIA OVERLOOKS LACK OF ELECTRIC POWER AND GASOLINE IN STRIFE TORN IRAQ

The mainstream media in the United States measures everything in Iraq by the yardstick of how well the military "surge" is going.

Unfortunately, the problems which confront Iraq cannot be solved by the United States military.

Citizens of Iraq are suffering through long lines at the gasoline pumps and many Iraqis have little or no electricty.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government continues to flounder trying to find some basis for reconciliation.

Add to this grim scenario the fact that 160,000 U.S. troops are bogged down in Iraq with no signs of withdrawl in the forseeable future.

Iraq continues to be a human rights, political and military mess and the press in the United States have decided the Iraq war is not worth covereing anymore.


Desperate Iraqis Lack Fuel, Electricity

By Ben Lando, UPIPosted on January 23, 2008, Printed on January 23, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/74617/

You can't have one without the other, but with many of Iraq's power plants shut and refineries stopped, Iraqis have neither fuel nor electricity.

Iraq's Electricity Ministry is blaming the Oil Ministry for cutting fuel supplies and Turkey for ending electricity imports.

The Oil Ministry says continuous power to its refineries will lead to continuous supplies of fuel.

"We hear a lot of promises but we see nothing," Baghdad resident Amjad Kazim told Gulf News. Blackouts and long lines at the fuel stations are increasing as subsidized, state-controlled supplies run dry and the black market boosts prices.

In Baghdad's neighborhoods, black market auto fuel prices have jumped by nearly 20 percent in the past week, according to IraqSlogger.com.

Various U.S. government reports show fuel supplies are half the target and the ministries are unable to make the needed capital investment.

Iraq suffered from extensive power outages last summer, but reports showed steadily increasing capacity and delivery of electricity through the end of the year. Now there are widespread reports of two hours of power a day through much of the country.

"We have not had electricity for a week now and it took me about four hours to buy fuel for my car," east Baghdad resident Jaafar Dhia Ali said in a U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report.

Winter has set in reaching below zero temperatures in Baghdad alone.

AL-QAIDA STEPS UP ATTACKS IN IRAQ. STRATEGY SHIFTS TO "SOFT TARGETS"

WE REPORT. YOU DECIDE

By Bill Corcoran, editor and host of CORKSPHERE.

One of the more well-known cable news outlets in the United States, which shall remain nameless, has a motto that goes like this: "We Report. You Decide."

There is, however, one glaring problem with the cable news station's motto. In the case of the Iraq war they no longer "report" on the war so viewers are left with nothing to "decide."

In the spirit of being "fair and balanced," another motto of the nameless cable news station, we are bringing readers of this blog the "fair and balanced" reports of what is really taking place in Iraq.

Al-Qaida has changed their tactics in Iraq and it appears as though they are pinpointing "soft targets" like schools and funerals in an effort to undermine the notion that the "surge" is working and things are getting better in Iraq.

In the past few days there have been a number of suicide bombings aimed at schools and funerals. Below is an article on just one of them.

Finally, our stat counter indicates my blog is receiving a lot of visitors from overseas. I want to thank all of you and invite you to comment on any of the topics I post on this blog.

Suicide bomber attacks Iraqi school

By CHRISTOPHER CHESTER, Associated Press WriterTue Jan 22, 4:52 PM ET

http://tinyurl.com/3yvnyo

A suicide bomber pushing an electric heater atop a cart packed with hidden explosives attacked a high school north of Baghdad on Tuesday, leaving students and teachers bloodied and bewildered as insurgents appeared to be expanding their list of targets.

The bombing — one of two attacks near Iraqi schools on the same day — follows a wave of recent blasts blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq against funerals and social gatherings.

The trend points to the possibility that al-Qaida has shifted tactics to focus increasingly on so-called soft targets and undermine public confidence that things are looking better in the country.

The backlash also coincides with a U.S.-led offensive trying to uproot insurgents from strongholds around Baghdad.

In the suicide attack, the bomber posed as a shopper or merchant transporting an electric heater on a chilly winter day — an apparent attempt to deflect attention from the explosive-rigged cart.
The blast struck the front of a two-story schoolhouse in Baqouba about 8:30 a.m., half an hour after classes began. Panicked parents rushed to find out if their children were alive or dead.
A 25-year-old male bystander was killed and 21 people were wounded — 12 students, eight teachers and one policeman, according to a doctor at Baqouba General Hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was afraid of being targeted by militants.

"I can't think of any reason to target students," said 15-year-old Mohammed Abbas, his wounded head in a bandage as his father stood near his hospital bed in Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. "We did not expect that explosions would reach our school."

Go back to the link to read the full account.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: "THE FORGOTTEN WARS"

It is hard to believe the mainstream media in the United States have collectively decided the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are not worth covering anymore considering what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan today (see stories below).

My blog http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ is the only blog in America devoted to the latest development in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As long as there is one U.S. military person in Iraq and Afghanistan, I will continue to bring to my blog readers what the mainstream media in the United States feels is stale news.

Bill Corcoran, editor and host of http://corksphere.blogspot.com/

THE WAR RAGES ON IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/

The DoD is reporting a new death previously unreported by CENTCOM. Staff Sgt. Justin R. Whiting died in an IED attack in Mosul on Saturday, January 19th. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group. No other details were released.Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: One employee was killed and six others wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in southeastern Baghdad on Tuesday, police said."An IED planted by unidentified gunmen on the main road in Jisr Diala area, southeastern Baghdad, went off when a bus carrying transport ministry employees was passing by in al-Rasafa," a security source, who preferred not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq#2: A roadside bomb wounded a policeman when it hit his car in Mashtal district in eastern Baghdad, police said.#3: Four civilians were wounded when an explosive device detonated in Karrada, central Baghdad, on Tuesday, a security source said. “An improvised explosive device (IED) went off, while an Iraqi police patrol was passing by,” a security source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq -Voices of Iraq.#4: US Army announced on Tuesday that a chopper, which crashed in northern Baghdad, actually had an emergency landing due to a technical malfunction and not as a result of an attack. Two other choppers evacuated the crew of the busted chopper to a nearby military base and secured the area, Press Coordinator at the Multinational Force in Iraq Abdulatif Rayyan told KUNA. Earlier today, tribe leaders Sheikh Khalaf Al-Dulaimi and Talib Al-Majmaie told KUNA that the chopper went down in al-Nibaie area at noon Tuesday, and at the same time a search operation was conducted in near by villages, resulting in the arrest of 30 suspects.#5: Police found three bodies in Baghdad, one in Dora, in Saidiyah, in Baladiyat.Diyala Prv:"An Iraqi force, backed by Multi-National Force (MNF) troops, killed four gunmen and cleared the villages of Tal Tal and al-Jawr in the district of al-Muqdadiya within the continuing Operation Raider Harvest," the source, who refused to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq#2: A roadside bomb killed an employee of the Transport Ministry and wounded six others when it targeted their bus in Diyala Bridge, southeast of Baghdad, police said.Baquba:#1: A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a high school north of Baghdad on Tuesday, wounding 22 people including teachers and students arriving for the beginning of the school day. Bystanders and at least one police officer were also wounded in the 8:30 a.m. bombing, according to a policeman who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals. The target of the latest bombing was unclear: The school is next to the provincial governor's office and a municipal building in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.#2: Iraqi security forces found the bodies of seven family members on Tuesday, all bearing signs of torture and shot execution-style, as they hunted al Qaeda fighters outside Iraq's volatile city of Baquba, police said. Police said the bodies were those of a father and his five sons as well as a nephew. The bodies, found in an orchard, had been identified by other family members, they said.Arab Jabour:#1: US and Iraqi ground forces edged cautiously towards an Al-Qaeda stronghold just south of Baghdad on Monday after the area was heavily bombed overnight, an AFP photographer said.Troops of the US 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment were using Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to inch forward and clearing roadside bombs with remote-controlled robots, said the photographer, who was moving with the unit. The US military said American warplanes overnight pounded suspected Al-Qaeda havens in Arab Jabour, 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Baghdad.Amara:#1: A child was killed on Tuesday in a missile explosion in southern Missan, said a police said. "A seven-year-old child was killed this morning in a missile explosion, one that remained from the former Iraqi army in al-Magar al-Kabier district, south of Amara," the source, who asked to remain anonymous, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). "The explosion took place when the child dismantled the missile to take the copper materials inside to sell it in the market," he explained.Touz Khormato:#1: Unknown gunmen believed to belong to al-Qaeda kidnapped two brothers in an area between Sulayman Bik and al-Qadaa districts near Touz Khormato, a police source said on Tuesday.Basra:#1: Two policemen were wounded in an armed attack in central Basra city on Tuesday morning, Iraqi police said. Unknown gunmen opened fire on a patrol car in downtown Basra's al-Tayaran square, wounding two policemen who were taken to the hospital and causing damage to the vehicle," an official security source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq, Voices of Iraq.Gunmen wounded three policemen when they opened fire on their car in central Basra, 550 km (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.#3: local residents told the VOI that the British base in the city of Basra was rocketed on Tuesday night. "Four Katyusha rockets were fired in the direction of the British base," a witness from a residential compound in the airport environs said. "Sirens wailed more than once at the British base," he said. The British side could not be immediately contacted to learnShirqat:#1: Gunmen killed a bodyguard of Salahuddin province's police chief and wounded another in an attack on their car in Shirqat, 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The police chief was not present at the time.Kirkuk:#1: The director of the al-Adala police station survived an assassination attempt with an improvised explosive device (IED) that targeted his motorcade in southern Kirkuk, an official police source in the city said. "An IED went off on Tuesday morning near the al-Adala police chief in the neighborhood of al-Wasti, southern Kirkuk, leaving no casualties," the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on condition of anonymity.#2: A roadside bomb wounded two people when it exploded near their car in central Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.#3: Police found a woman body under Bardi Bridge north of Kirkuk after receiving a report from a citizen in the area. Police said there were no identification cards to identify the deceased and the body carried signs of two bullets.Mosul:#1: "An improvised explosive device went off on Tuesday morning near a police patrol in Mosul's southern area of al-Ghazalani, wounding a policeman and a civilian who were close to the scene of the blast," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq, Voices of Iraq.#2: a force from the Iraqi army's 4th brigade defused two explosive charges in Mosul's eastern neighborhood of al-Tahrir, but no casualties were reported on the army's side, the source added.#3: "An Iraqi army force stationed in Mosul managed to kill a gunman in the industrial region in western Mosul and confiscated weapons and ammunitions that were in his possession," Colonel Hagi Maher, deputy commander of the 2nd brigade of the Iraqi army, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of IraqAfghanistan:#1: A Coalition CH-47 Chinook helicopter made an emergency landing in Sorobi District, Kabul Province, today around 4 p.m. after reporting a maintenance issue. There were no indications the landing was caused by enemy activity. The site has been secured by the passengers on board and a quick reaction force from a nearby base. There have been no reported injuries as a result from the emergency landing.#2: Militants have killed five Pakistani soldiers and wounded seven in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border. Pakistani commanders said the militants suffered heavy losses in the attack on an observation post near the Ladha fort, which began an hour after midnight."The miscreants attacked the observation post of Ladha fort using heavy arms," a military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, told Dawn Television. A spokesman for the militants denied heavy losses, saying 10 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 13 captured.Casualty Reports:U.S. Army Spc. Randy Moore, 23, was hurt Jan. 13 when a homemade bomb exploded near his Humvee in Iraq. Moore lost his left hand and sustained numerous shrapnel wounds, burns and injuries to both legs, his mother, Debbi McCloy, said. The improvised explosive device exploded near Moore's Humvee in heavy fighting around Baghdad. Moore was flown to the states last week and is in an undisclosed burn hospital.

IRAQ: A FAILURE TO THINK

INVASION OF IRAQ HAS TURNED INTO A HUMAN RIGHTS NIGHTMARE

By Jonathan Steele, Comment Is FreePosted on January 21, 2008, Printed on January 22, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/74454/

Five years after he launched it, George Bush's invasion of Iraq looks even more disastrous than it did at the end of the first year. Not only did it uncover no weapons of mass destruction. The invasion has led to a collapse in millions of ordinary Iraqis' personal security, producing a human rights nightmare and annual rates of killing that dwarf the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's three decades of power.

The damage to the United States has been enormous. As well as the loss of around 4,000 soldiers' lives, America's image and reputation in the Middle East have been severely harmed. For Bush and the neocons, the invasion has brought political defeat. Their project for Iraq to become a secular, liberal, pro-western bastion of democracy lies in ruins. The country is run by a narrow-minded group of Shia Islamists with close control over a sectarian army and police force. Many of them are linked to Iran.
As a result, Bush is now forced to run around the Arabian states along the Persian Gulf in an effort to build an anti-Iranian alliance and find a pretext for keeping a strategic presence in the region.

Sunni Arab revulsion at the murderous tactics of al-Qaida in Iraq, as well as the current "surge" of extra American troops, have helped to produce a welcome drop in al-Qaida's murders of Iraqi civilians and American forces, but it has to remembered that al-Qaida was never in Iraq before the invasion. A successful reduction in al-Qaida's power cannot outweigh all the harm Bush's war has caused to Iraqis.

Many critics blame the occupation's difficulties on a lack of planning, and a series of mistakes in the first few months, including the disbanding of the Iraqi army and failures to provide Iraqi with electricity and water. The line is summed up in the phrase "Winning the war but losing the peace."

But this assumes that a more intelligent and efficient occupation could have worked. It is an extraordinary notion. Like other Arabs, Iraqis have a long memory of US and British intervention in the Middle East, toppling regimes and controlling puppet governments, both to maintain an imperial presence and for the sake of oil. As soon as the Americans made it clear in mid-2003 that their occupation was going to be openended and without a timetable for troop withdrawal, Iraqi nationalists were bound to become suspicious and start resisting.

Yet L Paul Bremer, Iraq's American overlord, as well as his political masters in Washington, used the template of the occupations of Germany and Japan in 1945. They seemed to forget they were occupying an Arab country with a long history of anti-western resistance. Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi exile whose energetic campaigning against Saddam helped to push Bush into invading, realized the point with considerable regret last year when he said "the first and biggest American error was the idea of going for an occupation."

Click on link above to read the rest of this story.

SUICIDE ATTACKS CHIP AWAY AT CALMER IRAQ

A series of suicide bomber attacks, including one yesterday just north of Baghdad that left 18 killed, has dashed any hopes that Iraq is well on the way to being a secure country.


Suicide bomber kills 18 north of Baghdad

http://tinyurl.com/2qgrjp

A suicide bomber apparently targeting a senior security official blew himself up inside a funeral tent Monday, killing 18 people in the latest of a series of deadly attacks chipping away at the notion of a calmer Iraq.

The U.S. military has repeatedly warned that the fight against insurgents is not over, and the bombing in a village north of Baghdad was the third in as many days in Sunni Arab areas thought to have been largely rid of al-Qaida militants.

RIGHT-WINGERS CAN'T COVER UP IRAQ'S DEATH TOLL CATASTROPHE

The following story dovetails with the story just below it by Dahr Jamail. It speaks volumes about how the American public has been misled by the mainstream media in the United States about the war in Iraq, the "surge" and casualties.

We will continue to update this blog with the latest information we receive from a wide range of reliable news sources which underscore how Americans are not being told the truth about both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Keep coming back if you are truly interested in what 160,000 young Americans face in Iraq and another 30,000 in Afghanistan.

Bill Corcoran, editor and host of this blog which is the ONLY blog in the United States devoted exclusively to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

http://www.alternet.org/story/74263/

By John Tirman, AlterNetPosted on January 21, 2008, Printed on January 21, 2008

RIGHT-WING MEDIA SHIFTS INTO HIGH GEAR TO SMEAR SURVEY FINDINGS

Now I know what Hillary Clinton meant, first hand, by that "vast right-wing conspiracy." When the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Sunday Times in London are going after you -- along with about 100 right-wing bloggers -- rest assured you've hit a nerve.

Or is it just Soros Derangement Syndrome at work?

More than two years ago, I commissioned a household survey of Iraq to learn how many people had died in the war. This topic had been virtually ignored by the news media and the U.S. government. It was important to know for at least three reasons. The first was to try to understand the nature of the violence there, which was steadily growing and creating a humanitarian crisis, possibly a regional conflagration. Second, it might tell us something about how and when to exit. Third, we needed to know for the sake of our national soul. What had we wrought?

So I contacted the people who had done a previous, largely ignored survey-top public health professionals at Johns Hopkins University. They had published a survey in October 2004 that showed 98,000 had died in the first 18 months of the war, which was greeted with disbelief and charges of politicizing science, and quickly dismissed.

I said: 'do a bigger survey to improve the accuracy, and I will make sure it gets the proper attention in the news media.' They did do a bigger survey, and I managed a public education campaign that permitted the results to be considered more broadly, results that estimated total deaths at 600,000 by violence after 40 months of war. The survey was published in The Lancet, the British medical journal. And get attention it did, roundly disbelieved and scorned by war supporters, but spurring a brief but intense debate about the human cost of the war.

Dozens of statisticians and other professionals scoured the study and its data to see if the methods and implementation were proper; a special committee at the World Health Organization was convened to review it, and the Lancet had also subjected it to rigorous peer review. The survey held up to this scrutiny, with quibbles and some lingering "should have done this" and "might have done that." But virtually every competent person agreed that the study provided the best estimate we have.

Go back to the link at the top of this story to read the rest of the story and what happened when the right-wing media pounced on the casualty statistics coming out of Iraq.

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT THE "SURGE" FROM DAHR JAMAIL

Dahr Jamail is a world renowned reporter and author of the best-selling "Beyond the Green Zone."

In this latest dispatch from Iraq, Jamail paints an entirely different picture of "the surge" than what people hear on TV---especially FOX NEWS--and how it is being greeted by the Iraqi people.

Once again, the only place in America where you can find the truth about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is on my blog devoted entirely to the untold stories about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars instead of Bush White House "talking points."

Bill Corcoran, editor and host of http://corksphere.blogspot.com/

Police and Army Getting Sidelined in Iraq

Inter Press Service

By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

http://tinyurl.com/2l7wh4

BAQUBA, Jan 21 (IPS) - New military operations in Diyala province north of Baghdad have exacerbated a growing conflict between U.S.-backed Sunni fighters on the one hand and Iraqi army and police forces on the other.

The U.S. military commenced a large military operation Jan. 8 in the volatile Diyala province. Seven U.S. battalions led an offensive to push out fighters affiliated with 'Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia' from the area.

In the current operation, U.S., Iraqi, and local fighters have faced no serious resistance. U.S. military commanders admitted shortly after operations began that anti-occupation fighters were likely tipped off, and fled the area. But the operation has thrown up conflicts within the ranks.

"The military forces comprise the coalition forces, Iraqi police and army, and the popular forces (commonly called Kataib)," political analyst Akram Sabri told IPS in Baquba, capital of Diyala province. "It was found that the local forces are more truculent fighters who can always be relied on. This has made the coalition forces increasingly reliant upon these fighters to the extent that they will one day likely be joined to Iraqi police and army."
The Kataib Sabri speaks of are what the U.S. military calls "concerned local citizens". Most are former resistance fighters, now being paid 300 dollars a month to stop attacking occupation forces and to back them instead.

The groups, which the U.S. military claims are 82 percent Sunni, are viewed as a threat by the government in Baghdad led by U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The PM has said these groups will never become part of the government security forces. But while seen with suspicion at many places, these forces are also being welcomed in some.
Residents of Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad, say the Kataib have brought a decrease in violence, and now enjoy a respect that the Iraqi army and police never have.

"The new prestige that Kataib enjoy has enraged the Iraqi police and army," an officer in the directorate-general of police, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "In one operation in a village near Khalis city 15 km west of Baquba, the directorate-general of police contributed just 20 men, while the Kataib fighters numbered 450. This shows how the Americans now rely more on the Kataib than on us."

Adding to the growing rift between the U.S.-backed fighters and government security forces is the increasing disgust with the mostly Shia-backed government in Baghdad.
"The coalition forces have to correct what they have done in bringing in such a sectarian government," a Baquba resident said. "The existence of militants is the result of the bad performance of the government and the ruling council of Diyala in particular. Enemies are created by injustice and unfairness.

"Everything has been affected by the lack of security, and the only reason behind that is the occupation and its feeble government," the resident said.

Residents remain leery of travelling outside of Baquba. Armed groups, often with unknown allegiance, control the roads.

Hded district, 10 km south of Baquba, is situated on the road to Baghdad. "The violence here has prevented people freely using the highway," 43-year-old bus driver Muhsin Muhamed Kareem told IPS. Government forces have failed to provide security, he said.
Muqdadiya area, about 30 km north of Baquba, has become a danger spot on the road to Sulaimaniya province in the Kurdish north. Many want to go there for business because Kurdish areas have better security, but militiamen from the Shia Mehdi Army often target Sunni travellers around Muqdadiya.

"The military operations which started two months ago cleared out the militants but did not control the militia because they are the police and army," a Muqdadiya resident said.
"A policeman at an official checkpoint in Muqdadiya asked a person, who was sitting beside me in my van, what his sect was," a frequent traveller on the route said. "Passengers know that the police behaviour is sectarian."

A resident of Aswad village, eight kilometres west of Baquba, told IPS that people have reason to support the U.S.-backed Sunni fighters rather than the government forces.
"The Iraqi army is hard-hearted with the people because they think that all the villagers are terrorists. People feel safer with the other forces."

DIDN'T THEY TELL US BAGHDAD WAS SECURE?

The mainstream media in the United States keeps telling the American public that the "surge" is working so well that Baghdad is now secure and people are out and about and enjoying life on the streets of Baghdad.

Well, not quite all the streets of Baghdad are secure.

It is a pity the MM in the U.S. has soldout their credibility to the Bush Administration and keep hiding from the American public what is REALLY taking place on the streets of Baghdad.

It is our job to be the ONLY blogger in the United States who has devoted himself to telling the public the truth about conditions in both Iraq and Aghanistan.

Daily and sometimes several times a day we bring readers of this blog updates on the latest from Iraq and Afghanistan culled from a wide assortment of international news organizations who feel the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are something worth covering unlike their counterparts in the American press who have abandoned the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. .

We hope you will keep coming back.

Bill Corcoran, editor and host of this blog.


Seven unidentified bodies found in Baghdad

http://tinyurl.com/yw4zfd


Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Monday , 21 /01 /2008 Time 8:37:37


Baghdad, Jan 21, (VOI) - Iraqi police patrols on Monday found seven unknown bodies dumped in different parts of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a police source said."Police patrols found seven unidentified bodies in different areas of Baghdad, most of them were found in Baghdad's eastern side (Rasafa)," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI)."Four corpses were found in different neighborhoods of Rasafa: one in each Ziyouna, Baghdad al-Jadida, al-Talibiya, and al-Maamel," he explained."Three bodies were found in al-Kharkh's neighborhoods: two in al-Salam and one in al-Doura," the source added."Most of the bodies found bore signs of gunshot wounds to different parts of the body, mainly to the head," he noted.

LISTEN UP, BILL O'REILLY

FOX NEWS' Bill O'Reilly, host of "The Factor," has been on a rampage claiming the homeless veterans story has been exaggerated. O'Reilly took most of his outrage out on Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, who said homeless veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were sleeping under bridges.

As usual, Bill O'Reilly has nothing to backup his claims the homeless veterans stories are overblown other than his big mouth.

Below is a story of just one Iraq veteran who O'Reilly says doesn't exist.

The stories of homeless veterans are much too long for this blog and so if you are interested in reading more about homeless veterans click on the tiny URL link provided below and read the whole account.

How does Bill O'Reilly keep getting away with lying?

The answer lies in the management of FOX NEWS who have shown in the past their disdain for the men and women serving in our military by relegating any news on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to a crawl along the bottom of the screen, and many times not even that.

Bill Corcoran, military veteran and former member of the U.S. Army Combat Engineers, and host of the only blog in the United States devoted to telling the truth about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: http://corksphere.blogspot.com/

New generation of homeless vets emerge


By ERIN McCLAM, AP National Writer Sun Jan 20, 7:57 AM ET

http://tinyurl.com/39cg29

LEEDS, Mass. - Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.

There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident — car crash, broken collarbone. And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends.

And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning, draw the blinds and open up whatever bottle of booze was closest.

He would pull out his gun, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol. He would lovingly clean it, or just look at it and put it away. Sometimes place it in his mouth.

"I don't know what to do anymore," his wife, Anna, told him one day. "You can't be here anymore."

Peter Mohan never did find a steady job after he left Iraq. He lost his wife — a judge granted their divorce this fall — and he lost his friends and he lost his home, and now he is here, in a shelter.

He is 28 years old. "People come back from war different," he offers by way of a summary.
This is not a new story in America: A young veteran back from war whose struggle to rejoin society has failed, at least for the moment, fighting demons and left homeless.

But it is happening to a new generation. As the war in Afghanistan plods on in its seventh year, and the war in Iraq in its fifth, a new cadre of homeless veterans is taking shape.

And with it come the questions: How is it that a nation that became so familiar with the archetypal homeless, combat-addled Vietnam veteran is now watching as more homeless veterans turn up from new wars?

What lessons have we not learned? Who is failing these people? Or is homelessness an unavoidable byproduct of war, of young men and women who devote themselves to serving their country and then see things no man or woman should?

Click on the link above to read the rest of this story and about other homeless vets who Bill O'Reilly of FOX NEWS says is only a pipedream.

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/
.
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.

ARMY DESPERATE FOR TROOPS SENDS WOUNDED BACK TO IRAQ

SOLDIERS WITH MINOR INJURIES
SENT BACK TO IRAQ

01/19/08 AP: U.S. army, short of soldiers, sends troops with minor injuries to Iraq
Seventy-nine injured soldiers were pressed into war duty last month as the U.S. Army struggled to fill its ranks, but most were assigned to light-duty jobs within limits set by doctors, two Army leaders said.

While the mainstream media goes into complete overkill on the South Carolina primary and the Nevada caucus, there is more proof that conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan are deteriorating.

The success of the "surge" is a figment of the mainstream media's imagination and especially the cheerleader for the Bush White House, Fox News.

And there is more proof the American public are being sold a bill of goods on the success of the "surge" in Iraq and conditions in Afghanistan.

Below are just a few documented news accounts you won't find anywhere else but on this blog http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ hosted by Bill Corcoran who is bound and determined not to let the troops down in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families back in the United States.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

50 dead in southern Iraq clashes : The Iraqi government says it has seized full control of Basra and Nasiriya after bloody clashes between the police and armed men from a "messianic cult", that left nearly 50 people dead and another 100 wounded.

Iraq: At least 25 killed in another bloody day of US occupation: Six policemen were killed and 13 wounded when two suicide bombers attacked policemen assembled for evening roll-call at a police station in the town of Albu Ubaid west of Ramadi, police said.

Afghan war only just beginning, security group warns: The war in Afghanistan is only just beginning as NATO forces, far from pursuing remnants of a defeated Taliban, are entering a widening and deepening conflict they may well lose security NGO said on Saturday.

Taliban now seriously in the fight: It has also become clear that the Taliban's "easy departure" in 2001, when a US-led invasion drove them from power, was "more of a strategic retreat than an actual military defeat," the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said.