2006

By 2006 the arguments about Iraq had shifted to ones that allowed the now immensely unpopular neo-cons to justify an illegal attack on a sovereign power, with possibly millions of deaths. None of the previous arguments worked. We knew there were no WMDs. We knew Al Qaida was not in Iraq, before the war anyway. But now that the new Iraqi society was being built at uch a high cost, The neo-cons relied on new lies. Bush claimed now that the war was to bring democracy to Iraq all along, and for the sole purpose of making Iran the new enemy.

Abu Ghraib abuses

Intepretor Alyssa Peterson killed herself after seeing torture – September 2003

Tal-Afar air base in northern iraq

Major Alexander arrived in Iraq in early 2006 – Indie, 26 04 09

Authored a book called – “How to Break A Terrorist: The US interrogators who used brains, not brutality to take down the deadliest man in Iraq.” By Matthew Alexander and John R Bruning (The Free Press)

Alexander’s unit had the job of finding Zarqawi. Three years trying to find him had failed. Alexander finally managed to persuade one of Zarqawi’s associates to give away his location because he had come to reject  his methods, such as mass slaughter of civilians

Many sunni fighters were in Al Qaida because of necessecity – they did not share its extreme puritanical Sunni beliefs or hatred of the shia majority.

Alexander had discovered the real reason for the insurrection and tried to warn General Casey – but was ignored.

General David Petraeus became commander in Iraq and took notice of the real motives of the Sunni fighters – not the myth which claimed religious fanaticism was the root cause.

Sunnis joining al Qaida for political reasons – because the Shias were taking power.: de Baathification marginilsed the Sunni and took away their jobs. Al Qaida were able to provide money abnd arms to the insurgents.

Foreign fighters were recruited mainly from Sauid Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, North Africa.

Alexander – torture simply does not work – “it hardens their resolve. They shut up.”

2006 saw the height of the Shia sunni civil war – some 3000 people being killed every month.

January 2006

January 1 – Russia cuts natural gas to Ukraine over a price dispute.

January 4 – Powers are transferred from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to his deputy, Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after Sharon suffers a massive hemorrhagic stroke.

January 6 – The record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season officially draws to a close as Tropical Storm Zeta dissipates.

January 7 – Embroiled in multiple scandals, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay announces he will not seek to reassume his former post.

January 15 – NASA's Stardust mission successfully ends, the first to return dust from a comet.

January 19 – A suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, Israel injures 20, one of them seriously.

January 23 – Stephen Harper wins the federal election in Canada, forming a minority government.

January 26 – Hamas wins the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections.

“The Palestinians elected the wrong party to power. They were supposed to give their support to the friendly, pro-western, corrupt, absolutely pro-american Fatah, which had promised to ‘control’ them, rather than to Hamas, which said they would represent them. Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats….god damn that democracy. What are we going to do with people who don’t vote the way they should do?”

Palestinians voted for Hamas “because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abba’s Fatah and the rotten nature of the “Palestinian Authority” – not as it’s presented on the mainstream news that they want an “Islamic Republic.” The news said Mr abbas was a moderate because he says the right things in washington.

The “all-wise, all-good, west, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote.”

“Hamas won its Palestinian victory on 26 January 2006 and has been ostracised ever since.” 

 “Ehad Olmert said Israel would not negotiate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas. Sanctions were placed on Gaza and the West Bank by both Israel and the West.

President Mahmoud Abba’s Fatah movement, which won only 43 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian parliament, threatened new elections – and is now regarded by the international community as the only ‘legitimate’ Palestinian authority.”

In 2005 Iraqis elected the Dawa party to power in Baghdad “which was responsible…for most of the kidnappings of westerners in Beirut in the 1980s, the car bombing of the (late) Emir and the US and French embassies in Kuwait.”

“We have always expected the Arab governments to do what they are told [UK in Egypt in 1930s, France in Lebanon]. So today we are expecting the Syrians to behave, the Iranians to kowtow to our nuclear desires (though they have done nothing illegal) and the North Koreans to surrender their weapons (though they actually do have them, and therefore cannot be attacked).”

Fisk, Indie, 28th January 2006.

January 31 – Samuel Alito is sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

February 2006

February 1 – UAL Corporation, United Airlines' parent company, emerges from bankruptcy after being in that position since December 9, 2002, the longest such filing in history.

February 8 – 2006 East Timor crisis: 404 soldiers desert their barracks in East Timor.

February 17 – A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.

February 22 – a group of armed men blow up the Al Askari (Askariya shrine) Mosque, a Shiite holy site in Samarra, Iraq. 60 miles north of Baghdad. Dated back to 9th century. Using explosives. Peter W Galbraith in his book “the end of Iraq” says it was almost certainly al qaida wot dun it. Shiites hit back – attacks on sunni mosques around Baghdad. The US and Iraqi military did not intervene as they were too scared of the Mahdi army. Some Iraqi police even joined the attackers. Three sunni imams were killed that day. In basra a Shiite mob broke into a jail, seized 10 foreign Arabs & shot them. On the 23rd – 47 shiites were pulled off buses, near Baquba, and executed. 29 dead sunnis then turned up in Baghdad – handcuffed and shot in the head.

A few hours after the shrine was destroyed Condoleeza Rice appeared on Egyptian tv. Mervat Mohsen “excessive meddling has brought the Shiites in Iraq to power. The neighbouring Iranians are shia. The sunnis are compromised. America’s trusted allies are Sunnis. There is a civil war brewing in Iraq. What have you done?”

Rice “well i don’t think there is a civil war brewing Iraq. I think what you have in Iraq is a country that has thrown off the yoke of a horrible dictator, who by the way, created all kinds of instability in this region with his wars against his neighbours. Now that dictator is gone, you have the Iraqi people, who come from many different sects, from many different ethnic groups, trying to use a politic process of compromise and politics, to replace repression.” Rice was denying reality.

February 24 – A state of emergency is declared in the Philippines, after an alleged coup d'état against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is foiled.

Feb 26 – March 2nd or so – 184 Sunni mosques were destroyed or vandalised – violence killed more than 1000 Sunnis and Shiites. Baghdad’s mixed neighbourhoods became armed camps.

Atwar Bahjat – al Arabiya reporter – was abducted with cameraman and soundman – they were all shot. Then sunni gunmen attacked her funeral.

March 2006

March 4 – The final contact attempt with Pioneer 10 receives no response.

March 7 – Fifteen people die and many others are injured in 3 blasts throughout Varanasi, India.

March 9 – NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft discovers geysers of a liquid substance shooting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, signaling a possible presence of water.

March 10 – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters Mars orbit.

March 22 – The Federal Reserve stops the publishing of M3 money supply data.

March 25 – A scramjet jet engine, Hyshot III, designed to fly at 7 times the speed of sound, is successfully tested at Woomera, South Australia.

March 25 – Seven die in the Capitol Hill Massacre in Seattle, Washington.

March 30 – The first Brazilian astronaut, Marcos Pontes, goes into space in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-8, at 2:29:00 CET.

April 2006

April 8 – The bodies of 8 murdered men are found in Shedden, Elgin County, Ontario.

April 9 – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is removed from office after 4 months in a coma.

April 11 – The European Space Agency's Venus Express spaceprobe enters Venus' orbit.

April 11 – President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirms that Iran has successfully produced a few grams of low-grade enriched uranium.

April 17 – An Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Tel Aviv kills 9 people and injures dozens.

April 20 – Iran announces a deal with Russia, involving a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil; 9 days later Iran announces that it will not move all activity to Russia, thus leading to a de-facto termination of the deal.

April 22 – Four Canadian soldiers are killed 75 kilometers north of Kandahar, Afghanistan by a roadside bomb (the worst one-day combat loss for the Canadian army since the Korean War).

April 24 – Three explosions in a tourist section of Dahab, Egypt kill 30 and injure over 115.[citation needed]

April 29 – Massive anti-war demonstrations and a march down Broadway in New York City mark the third year of war in Iraq.[citation needed]

Upon leaving the World Bank on 31 May 2005, Wolfensohn assumed the post of special envoy for Gaza disengagement for the Quartet on the Middle East. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed him to this position, in which he was to help coordinate Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and to spearhead reconstruction efforts as the Palestinians assume sovereignty over the area. Citing frustration with the stymied Road Map process, he announced that he would not continue on past his original one-year commitment, and left the post on 30 April 2006.[7] wiki

Originally “our” “middle east envoy, a former world bank opresident who left in frustration because he could neither reconstruct Gaza nor work with a ‘peace process’ that was being eroded with every new Jewish settlement and every Qassam rocket fired into Israel.”

May 2006

May 1 – Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalizes his nation's gas fields.

May 1 – The Great American Boycott takes place across the United States as marchers protest for immigration rights.

May 4th - Dennis Kucinich – congressman.

ENTER CONTENTS OF EMAIL

May 9 – Beaconsfield mine collapse: After 14 days trapped underground, miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb are rescued in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia.

May 24 – East Timor's Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta officially requests military assistance from the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal.

May 27 – The first demonstration for gay rights in Moscow is broken up by the police.

June 2006

June 3 – Montenegro declares independence after a May 21 referendum. The state union of Serbia and Montenegro is dissolved on June 5, leaving Serbia as the successor state.

June 3 – Seventeen men are arrested in the Greater Toronto Area for alleged ties to a terrorist plot to blow up targets in the region.

June 6 – The Union of Islamic Courts gains control of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, ending warlord rule of the city.

June 7 – Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and 7 of his aides are killed in a U.S. air raid just north of the town of Baqouba, Iraq.

June 9 – An explosion kills 8 Palestinian civilians on a Gaza beach; Israel denies responsibility for the blast.

June 18 – The first Kazakh space satellite KazSat is launched.

June 23 – In Miami, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests 7 men, accusing them of planning to bomb the Sears Tower and other attacks in Miami.

June 28 – Operation Summer Rains: Israel launches an offensive against militants in Gaza.

July 2006

July 4 – STS-121: Space Shuttle Discovery is launched to the International Space Station. It returns safely on July 17. It is the second return to flight mission after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

July 5 – North Korea test fires missiles, timed with the liftoff of Discovery, preceding the fireworks celebrations that night in America. The long range Taepodong-2 reportedly fails shortly after takeoff.

July 10 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan shortly after takeoff.

July 11 – A series of coordinated bomb attacks strikes several commuter trains in Mumbai, India during the evening rush hour.

July 12, the month long Lebanon War started: Israeli troops invade Lebanon in response to Hezbollah  kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing 3. Hezbollah declares open war against Israel 2 days later.

“Until July 2006, Lebanon enjoyed considerable stability, Beirut's reconstruction was almost complete,[14] and increasing numbers of tourists poured into the nation's resorts.[12] Then, the month long 2006 War between Israel and Hezbollah caused significant civilian death and heavy damage to Lebanon's civil infrastructure.” wikip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon

http://hezbollah.totallyexplained.com/

July 31 – Cuban president Fidel Castro temporarily relinquishes power to his brother Raúl before surgery.

At the end of July NATO members agreed to send a small contingent of troops (fewer than 40) to iraq to train Iraqi armed forces and help rebuild its military.

In return the US agreed to shelf its demand that the mission come under US led coalition command. France opposed this demand fearing NATO entering the Iraqi battlefield through the back door.

August 2006

August 10 – London Metropolitan Police make 21 arrests in connection to an apparent terrorist plot that involved aircraft traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Liquids and gels are banned from checked and carry-on baggage.

August 11 – A resolution to end the 2006 Lebanon War is unanimously accepted by the United Nations Security Council.

August 14 – A UN cease fire takes effect in the 2006 Lebanon War.

August 22 – Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border in Ukraine, killing 171 people, including 45 children.

September 2006

September 1 – A fire kills 29 of 148 aboard an Iran Air Tours Tu-154M aircraft after the plane lands in Mashhad, Iran.

September 13 – The solar system's largest dwarf planet, designated until now as 2003 UB313, is officially named "Eris"; its satellite is now known as "Dysnomia".

September 16 – Five churches are attacked in Palestinian areas following the Pope's comments on Islam.[citation needed]

September 19 – Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok as members of the Royal Thai Army stage a coup d'état. The army announces the removal of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power.

October 2006

North Korean nuclear testOctober 9 – North Korea claims to have conducted its first-ever nuclear test.

October 10 – Google buys YouTube for USD $1.65 billion.

October 13 – South Korean Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.  October 15 – The UN agrees to sanction North Korea over nuclear testing claims. Two days later. Coincidence?

October 15 – The establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq is declared.

October 24 – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its first flyby of Venus (it will be captured into Mercury's orbit on March 18, 2011).

October 30 – Former President of Chile Augusto Pinochet is placed under house arrest for crimes committed at the Villa Grimaldi detention centre.

October 30 – An airstrike on a madrasah in Bajaur, Pakistan kills dozens of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.[citation needed]

November 2006

November 5 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein and 2 of his senior allies are sentenced to death by hanging, after an Iraqi court finds them guilty of crimes against humanity.

November 8 – Margaret Chan is elected as the Director-General of the World Health Organization.

November 8 – A transit of Mercury occurs.

November 12 – The former Soviet republic of South Ossetia holds a referendum on independence from Georgia.

November 20 – Iran and Syria recognize the government of Iraq, restore diplomatic relations, and call for a peace conference.

November 21 – Pierre Amine Gemayel, Lebanon's Minister of Industry, is assassinated in Beirut.

Gemayel was grandson of the founder of the Phalange Party in Lebanon. Killer was never found. France had supported the eviction of the Syrian army in 2005. French President had been friends opf the murdered ex pm Harir and French support in the UNSC was helping to set up the tribunal which was to try the killers of Harir and Gamayel.

November 23 – A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad, kill at least 215 people and injure 257 others.

November 30 – Typhoon Durian triggers a massive mudslide and kills at least 720 people in Albay province on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

December 2006

December 1 – Felipe Calderón takes office as President of Mexico.

December 2 – Stéphane Dion is elected the new Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, on the fourth ballot.

December 3 – Hugo Chávez is re-elected President of Venezuela.

December 5 – The military seizes power in Fiji, in a coup d'état led by Commodore Josaia Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama.

December 10 – Space Shuttle Mission STS-116: Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center on the first night launch since the 2003 loss of Columbia.

December 10 – Christer Fuglesang becomes the first Swede in space.

December 13 – U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) suffers a stroke during a radio interview.

December 14 – U.S. Spy Satellite USA 193, also known as NRO Launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), is launched and malfunctions soon after.

December 15 – Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter successfully flies for the first time.

December 15 – An alleged assassination attempt on Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh sparks inter-Palestinian clashes.

Senior leader within the Taliban killed by a missile in Afghanistan – controlled by CIA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhtar_Mohammad_Osmani

December 21 – The death of Saparmurat Niyazov sparks world concern over a possible power vacuum and instability in energy-rich [[Turkmenistan]].

December 22 – The Space Shuttle Discovery lands at the Kennedy Space Center, concluding a 2-week mission to the International Space Station.

December 24 – Ethiopia admits its troops have intervened in Somalia.

December 26 – An oil pipeline explodes in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, killing at least 200 people.

December 29 – War in Somalia: Ethiopian and Transitional government troops capture Mogadishu without resistance.

December 30 – Saddam Hussein, former Iraq president, is executed in Baghdad.

December 31 – The Met Office announces that England has experienced its warmest year since records began in 1659, with an average temperature of 10.82 °C (51.48 °F).

Bush’s surge in Iraq – late 2006 with his popularity at the lowest ebb – ordered the surge despite opposition from within his own party – a surge designed to allow withdrawal.