We know that the occupation hasn't brought freedom or security to the Iraqi people.

The Bush administration, the provisional authority and the client state have shared a common policy of destroying civil society and destroying inter-religious and non-religious organizations, particularly labor unions and opposition parties. This policy, and not Iraqi culture, is the cause of the sectarian violence.

I'll leave off here and forward this message from the Iraqi Freedom Congress:

Another diary, earlier today, used an ethnic slur.

I pointed the slur out. People troll-rated me. Several people assumed I was joking, and rebuked me for commenting on the use of the slur. I was not joking; I was pointing out the thoughtless use of an ethnic slur.

I've known something of this from personal experience, and I suspect a few of you can say the same. But this report by Rob Kall puts the story in the open:

FBI Puts Antiwar Protesters on Criminal Database; Canada Uses It To Ban Protesters From Entry

You can find it at http://www.infoshop.org/... or somewhere on http://www.opednews.com

After the recent disaster, volunteers from Kansas Mutual Aid (an anarchist group based in Lawrence, Kansas) arrived to help rebuild Greensburg. However, local police and FEMA officials have forced KMA volunteers out of Greensburg, classified the relief volunteers as security threats, and subjected the relief volunteers to federal surveillance.

Article by Dave Strano, of Kansas Mutual Aid, first published on Infoshop News, below the fold.

Let's do the math. I'm not particularly great with statistics, but these stand out.

In May-July 2006, Burnham et al. surveyed Iraqi households to measure the civilian cost of the Iraq war. They compared the death rate since March 2003 (during the war and occupation) to the death rate before March 2003 (during the sanctions); the excess had reached about 655,000 +/-130,000 (to 1SD) dead by May-July 2006. In June 2006, the Iraq Body Count had confirmed about 41,000 war-related dead. That implies 15 unreported war-related deaths for each reported war-related death. At present, the IBC has confirmed 62,570-68,593 war-related dead. At the same ratio of 15 unreported war-related deaths for each reported war-related death, this implies 1,001,000-1,098,000 war-related dead.

So when people say that 3,000 people have died in the war, or 68,000 people have died in the war, remind them that 1,000,000 people have died already, and more will die until the war ends. Those who would continue the war until January 2009 will kill 700,000 more people; those who would continue the war until January 2013 will kill 2,400,000 more people, unless the death rate changes, and it is more likely to rise than fall.

from http://www.basraoilunion.org/...

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Iraqi Government Freezes Union Bank Account

Tuesday July 20th 2006

OIL UNION BANK ACCOUNT FROZEN

IRAQI GOVERNMENT ATTACKS OPPONENTS OF OIL PRIVATISATION

We have just confirmed reports that the Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad andwithin Iraq.Wave of anti-union activity by government The Iraqi regime's decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers' union, freezing the writers' union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal.

The Philippine government has been killing opposition activists. The following article appeared in Asia Times and was mirrored at Infoshop and elsewhere: http://www.atimes.com/...

Killing season in the Philippines
By Herbert Docena

MANILA - Political activist Cathy Alcantara was gunned down by unidentified assailants last December 5, outside the resort where she had helped to organize a conference on farmers' rights.