The U.S. heroes

To anyone who hails the U.S. forces in Iraq as "liberators" for Iraqis or as "defenders" for their country, "the great and civilized United States of America," here is the New York Times' Paul Von Zielbauer in today's edition addresses them:

"In March or April 2007, three noncommissioned United States Army officers, including a first sergeant, a platoon sergeant and a senior medic, killed four Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head as the men stood handcuffed and blindfolded beside a Baghdad canal," Zielbauer starts his article by citing a sworn statements made by two of the involved soldiers.

"After removing the blindfolds and handcuffs, the three soldiers shoved the four bodies into the canal, rejoined other members of their unit waiting in nearby vehicles and drove back to their combat outpost in southwest Baghdad," the article continues.

The bravest among the three was First Sgt. John E. Hatley, who the other soldiers said killed two of the detainees with pistol shots to the back of their heads....wow you are such a brave man Mr. Hatly!!!

Now how many dead bodies like those were found dumped in the streets, garbage and canals in past years and reported by the U.S. forces as victims for the tit-for-tat killings between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite extremists while their stories were different???

Long live America, long live its brave army !!!!

Thanks Zeilbauer!

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Off to America...

The Christian Science Monitor's Stacy Teicher Khadaroo offers today a very nice piece about 15 Iraqi students on their way to the United States to join class of 2012 at colleges and universities that have waived tuition to help them become Iraq's future architects, teachers, psychologists.

With the help of the Iraqi Student Project, which was born of two American peace activists' desire to give something back to Iraqis in the wake of violence triggered by the US invasion in 2003, the students have resurrected their ambitions after shelving their dreams as they have forced to leave to Syria due to violence.

It is really something nice to find such Americans trying to fix what their country's army and policy have done to this country and its people and hope all Americans try to do the same.

One of these students, Ali Abdul Majeed, who is packing up for Fairfield University in Connecticut hopes to eventually to return to Iraq to treat children.

Well Majeed I wish you the best in your study but hope to honor your promise and go back to Iraq to treat its children not like other students who promised such things but they didn't make it to Iraq...but yet no one can blame them...

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Oil negotiations rported stalled

Negotiations between Iraqi Oil Ministry and oil majors over Technical Support Agreements, TSAs, have been stalled and one of these has been terminated, the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswire reported.


Hassan Hafidh of the Dow Jones Newswire reports that negotiations with an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. -led consortium for a short-term oil service contract to develop a major oil field in southern Iraq, have been terminated by the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

While Gina Chon of the Wall Street Journal says negotiations are going through hard path and are not likely to go through.

Haffidh also reported that Iraq has hired the U.K.-based Gaffney, Cline & Associates Ltd. to provide consultancy for the Oil Ministry on the first round of tenders to develop eight oil and gas fields.

"The company provides consultancy on contract models, how to submit tenders, which company should bid for this or that oil or gas field, and other suggestions," a sourace told Dow Jones Newswires.

The sources for these stories are Iraqi oil industry sources close to the Oil Ministry ( a reference which is mainly used to refer to former Iraqi oil officials) and a U.S. diplomat in Baghdad and I don't know why Iraqi Oil Ministry keeps mum on these negotiations as long as it is doing something correct...

kassakhoon@gmail.com