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by BOOGIE66 » Mon Jun 16, 2014 6:24 pm
by chump » Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:10 pm
Could U.S., Iran work together in Iraq? Maybe, officials say
CNN) -- The United States could end up cooperating with Iran to stop militant gains in Iraq, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested Monday in an interview with Yahoo!News.
But a Pentagon spokesman denied Monday that any military coordination with Iran is in the cards.
In his interview with Yahoo!News, Kerry didn't say that cooperation with Iran is under active discussion inside the administration.
"Let's see what Iran might or might not be willing to do before we start making any pronouncements," he said.
But he went on to say that the he "wouldn't rule out anything that would be constructive to providing real stability."
"I think we are open to any constructive process here that could minimize the violence, hold Iraq together -- the integrity of the country -- and eliminate the presence of outside terrorist forces that are ripping it apart," Kerry said.
His comments are the first time such a high-ranking U.S. official has made such a public statement since militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria began an offensive that has seen vast swaths of northern Iraq fall out of government hands.
by seemslikeadream » Tue Jun 17, 2014 8:31 am
Stop Calling the Iraq War a 'Mistake'
Posted: 06/16/2014 11:05 am EDT Updated: 06/16/2014 11:59 am EDT Print Article
As Iraq descends into chaos again, more than a decade after "Mission Accomplished," media commentators and politicians have mostly agreed upon calling the war a "mistake." But the "mistake" rhetoric is the language of denial, not contrition: it minimizes the Iraq War's disastrous consequences, removes blame, and deprives Americans of any chance to learn from our generation's foreign policy disaster. The Iraq War was not a "mistake" -- it resulted from calculated deception. The painful, unvarnished fact is that we were lied to. Now is the time to have the willingness to say that.
In fact, the truth about Iraq was widely available, but it was ignored. There were no WMD. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The war wasn't about liberating the Iraqi people. I said this in Congress in 2002. Millions of people who marched in America in protest of the war knew the truth, but were maligned by members of both parties for opposing the president in a time of war -- and even leveled with the spurious charge of "not supporting the troops."
I've written and spoken widely about this topic, so today I offer two ways we can begin to address our role:
1) President Obama must tell us the truth about Iraq and the false scenario that caused us to go to war.
When Obama took office in 2008, he announced that his administration would not investigate or prosecute the architects of the Iraq War. Essentially, he suspended public debate about the war. That may have felt good in the short term for those who wanted to move on, but when you're talking about a war initiated through lies, bygones can't be bygones.
The unwillingness to confront the truth about the Iraq War has induced a form of amnesia which is hazardous to our nation's health. Willful forgetting doesn't heal, it opens the door to more lying. As today's debate ensues about new potential military "solutions" to stem violence in Iraq, let's remember how and why we intervened in Iraq in 2003.
2) Journalists and media commentators should stop giving inordinate air and print time to people who were either utterly wrong in their support of the war or willful in their calculations to make war.
By and large, our Fourth Estate accepted uncritically the imperative for war described by top administration officials and congressional leaders. The media fanned the flames of war by not giving adequate coverage to the arguments against military intervention.
President Obama didn't start the Iraq War, but he has the opportunity now to tell the truth. That we were wrong to go in. That the cause of war was unjust. That more problems were created by military intervention than solved. That the present violence and chaos in Iraq derives from the decision which took America to war in 2003. More than a decade later, it should not take courage to point out the Iraq war was based on lies.
Real Goal of Iraq War in 2003: Oil and Inciting Terrorism to Create Permanent Conflict
STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
US Wars? Wins? Losses? Aren't those answers self-evident? Well, if the objectives of the various wars are taken into account, indeed they aren't. Let us start with Vietnam.
The standard interpretation of the US War on Vietnam is that the US lost it. The classic picture is of that last helicopter taking off from the roof of the soon-to-be former US Embassy in Saigon. But if one considers the original US objectives the intervention-to-become-war in Southeast Asia, it was actually a win.
The French-Vietnamese War ended in 1954. The Geneva Conference of that year produced a treaty signed by the French and the Vietnamese and guaranteed by Great Britain and the Soviet Union. It brought hostilities to an end, temporarily divided the country in two, and provided for national elections to be held in 1956 -- elections that everyone knew would be won by Ho Chi Minh and his people. Pointedly, the US refused to sign or recognize the treaty.
They knew that if the plan in it were allowed to proceed, the chances were very good that Vietnam would peacefully progress to socialism and could be an economic success. If that happened, the same thing might well peacefully occur in other Southeast Asian countries, were democracy to be given a chance. Even as certain US analysts attempt in hindsight to disavow it, the "domino theory" about the spread of "socialism with a national face," distinguished from and not necessarily allied with the Soviet Union, and certainly not with the traditional enemy, China, communist or not, was quite correct.
And so, in the view of the US leadership of the time, the Dulles Brothers, John Foster at State and Allen at the CIA, everything had to be done that could be done to prevent the democratic process from introducing socialism to a country and then possibly succeeding in a peaceful setting. Once started, the process just continued on its own momentum, especially since any opponent of the war was labeled a "commie sympathizer" or worse by its supporters.
If looked at in this light, the Vietnam War was a US victory. The peaceful establishment of socialism was prevented. Its spread by example and peaceful means to neighboring countries was prevented. Vietnam today has a sort of market socialist economy, becoming more "market" and less "socialist" by the year. But the country was ravaged by almost 20 years of war and two to three million of the best and the brightest of its people were killed. It is hardly the economic or social engine of the development of democratically-installed socialism that it might have become had it been left alone. In terms of the original American goals for the intervention, this was a win, a palpable win.
Next, let's consider the various interventions in the former Yugoslavia. Certainly lives were saved and a good deal of stability was eventually established, in Bosnia and Kosovo. But they do not fall under the usual rubric of "victory." In terms of the promotion of US imperialism around the world, however, "victory" was achieved. The US showed, for example, that it could bomb the capitol of another sovereign nation for 70 or so days straight, without UN sanction, and no one with any authority could say boo to a goose. In terms of international law, it was sort of like the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Italian invasions of Libya and Ethiopia, and the German-Austrian Anschluss. In terms of Kosovo, the US showed that a piece of a sovereign country, in this case Serbia, could be split off from it and made into an independent country, again without UN sanction. (Ukraine/Crimea, anyone?) And the US has a quite large permanent military base in Kosovo. Spoils of war?
And then we come to Iraq. It is now teetering on the brink of even more disaster than it has been subject to since the US invasion, and political figures like "Negative Ace" McCain are now shouting that the US should have stayed there, and it's "all Obama's fault." As I said in a recent Tweet, "Blaming Obama for Iraq tragedy is like blaming the sweepers for the elephant droppings needing clean up after the circus parade has passed." (Yes, and the "elephants" were purposely chosen.) This is so even though George Bush could not negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with his hand-picked Prime Minister, al-Maliki, to exempt US troops and civilian contractors from local law in the case of violations of it, and that Obama has just lost it by the pull-out. (That's an excellent, in-depth column by Dexter Filkins, by the way.) If Iraq falls into civil war or is split up into three parts (which Joe Biden and I must say myself both suggested shortly after the beginning of hostilities), many voices will indeed be shouting "loss." But once again, in terms of the original objectives, it was not.
First of all, one of its original major justifications, other than the non-existent WMD, was that the War on Iraq was a part of the "War on Terror" (which is still going on). One should note (and I must note that I have done so on a number of occasions) that, according to one retired Army General, to call a military action a "War on Terror" is akin to calling another action a "War on Flanking Manoeuvres." "Terror," however you want to define it, is a tactic used by an enemy. It is not itself an enemy. But it was very much in the interests of those forces which forced the US into war to cement the "terror/fear" environment in the minds of the US people. And they certainly have achieved that goal, within the GOP/TP "base," at least.
Second of all, sometime after the Iraq invasion began, it started to become clear that the primary objective was not at the beginning what many of us on the Left thought it was: "oil and bases" - and it was to a degree. However, there was a goal that was probably more compelling to the neocons, although not mutually exclusive.
On the surface, the CheneyBush War Policy was becoming curiouser and curiouser. "Things are getting better in Iraq," they said, when they were clearly getting worse. "We must fight on to 'victory' " they said, without ever defining what they mean by "victory." And "we must fight on to 'victory'" when virtually every other military and political authority on the matter said that no matter how you would define it, "victory" was impossible. But that would be "victory" in military terms.
However, let's connect the dots to see what was really happening. 1. As is very well known, Bush/Cheney lied the U.S. into war. 2. There was no post-war planning, as is also well known. The U.S. State Department had a plan, and all 2,200 pages of it were just ignored. 3. The museums looting that could easily have been prevented could have part of a plan (well a different kind of plan) to develop permanent chaos. That would also explain the staffing of Paul Bremer's pro-consulate by totally unqualified, very young, Republican political operatives: not accidental or careless, but purposeful. In essence it was thinking what might be stated like this: "Let's do whatever we can to gum up the infrastructure even further than it is already gummed up by Saddam and our invasion." 4. In late 2006, the report of The Iraq Study Group, headed by no less than the man who coordinated the effort to steal the 2000 election for Bush, James Baker, had provided a perfect cover for withdrawal to begin then. CheneyBush disposed of it before the ink was dry, and [the famous/infamous "Surge" was begun. 5. At various times, the major Muslim countries offered to provide cover for an American departure, especially if it were attached to a real settlement of the Palestine/Israel problem. They were not taken up on those offers.
In the 2008 Presidential campaign, John McCain at one time rattled on about "staying in Iraq for 50 years." (Gosh. Some things never change, changing conditions to the contrary notwithstanding). Indeed, the US eventually left Iraq, not with any kind of "victory" but because it was pushed out, by the very puppet government that Bush/Cheney set up. But the Permanent War Society, or at least the Permanent Preparation for Permanent War Society, is very much in play. In terms of its original objectives, regardless of what happens in the Middle East now, the War on Iraq can only be said to have resulted in a victory - for those who originally planned and prosecuted it.
As for Afghanistan, that may be the one major war the US has fought since World War II that could not be said to be, in any sense of the term, a "victory." But that one's for another time.
JUNE 16, 2014
The Web of Illusion
Obama and the Iraqi Gordian Knot
by MICHAEL BRENNER
We all are acutely aware that Washington is in a serious jam because of the mounting threat to the Baghdad regime amidst signs of military and political unraveling. The United States is reaping the whirlwind from its twelve years of reckless “War On Terror” in the Middle East. The disastrous Iraqi invasion/intervention is the direct cause. Strategically incoherent and disjointed American actions elsewhere are also essential parts of the story. For there has been no systemic logic guiding policies from place to place, from issue to issue. Yet the intersection and overlap of developments are the hallmark of the region’s politics. In short, we have not been up to the task intellectually or diplomatically. Moreover, our leaders have indulged their own parochial interests and the escapist mentality of the public by refusing to face squarely either the error of our ways or the contradictory nature of our objectives.
Today, we are confounded by unanticipated events that leave us uncomprehending and at a loss as what to do. President Obama’s vague remarks issued daily only confirm the impression of disorientation. The nub of the problem is that the United States has multiple enemies and faces multiple threats to its interests in the Middle East. Each possible course of action for dealing with one of them has implications for the others. Moreover, any policy remedy for problem ‘A’ is counter indicated for problem ‘B’ or ‘C.’ Those contradictions have become manifest. Aid the Syrian opposition in order to unseat President Assad in Syria (problem ‘A’) and you cannot avoid strengthening radical jihadi groups (problem ‘B’) who are fighting Assad’s regime. Even if aid is funneled to more secular or moderate Islamist elements, the outcome will be to the advantage of the radical jihadis (they may also seize the arms that you send). Yet, acceding to a Syrian agreement that reserves a continuing place for the Assad forces would add to the status and prestige of its ally Iran (problem ‘C’). That reorientation would have the further adverse effect of deepening the alienation of Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf principalities by strengthening their arch enemy, Iran, and its partners (Assad and Hezbullah). To assuage the Saudis et al, Washington has reaffirmed its commitment to maintain a strong military presence in the Gulf. But the Obama administration’s repeated declarations that the era of American wars in the Middle East is over (made partly with an eye on American public opinion) trails doubts as to the credibility of those stated commitments.
As to Iran, Washington is concentrating on hammering out a nuclear deal with Tehran that meets its stringent terms for denying the IRI a nuclear weapons potential now or in the future. It assiduously has declined to put on the table other possible aspects of a wider political relationship with Iran – beyond a gradual lifting of economic sanctions and a deliberate normalization of diplomatic relations. This bifurcation of the approach toward Iran has two sources. One is a desire not to distress the House of Saud by feeding suspicions that Washington may abandon them for a new partner in the region. The second is the entrenched conviction in the Obama administration that the current Iranian leadership will remain hostile to the United States. That means that it should be treated warily as an unfriendly power if not an enemy.
Now there is the unraveling of Iraq. The appearance of ISIS (an outgrowth of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia that now has broken with the original al-Qaeda leadership) as a powerful force in both Syria and Iraq has exacerbated uncertainty and aggravated threats. Dedicated to spreading an ultra doctrine of anti-Western and anti-secular salafism, it is the embodiment of America’s foremost perceived threat: Islamic terrorism. If Washington prioritizes that threat, and that enemy, every other interest should be subordinate to it. Does that imply, though, joining forces with ISIS’ enemies in accord with the classic realist proposition that my enemy’s enemy is my friend (or ally)? The shi’ite dominated government of Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad does not pose a direct problem in this respect insofar as it is a creature of the American occupation and Washington is committed to defend it as the legitimate authority in Iraq. However, Maliki is a tacit member of the political coalition that includes Iran, Assad in Syria, and Hezbullah. His oppression of Iraq’s sunnis has cast him as one of the evil-doers in the minds of the salafist groups and as an opponent by the Saudis. As the contests across the region take on darker and darker tones of an all-out sectarian war, the United States finds itself in a position whereby any expression of support for a given party is taken as a sign that it is choosing sides. Consequently, coming to Maliki’s aid – and more surely seeking an accommodation with Assad in Syria costs the US among most Sunnis. Military action directed at the ISIS, as is under consideration by the White House, would infuriate Sunni public opinion – especially in Iraq – and thereby raise the odds against some sort of modus vivendi being reached among the Iraqi sectarian factions. Movement in that direction, though, is a stated precondition for the provision of military assistance.
The Sunni tribes of Anbar and Diyala have struggled with their own challenge of prioritizing multiple threats. Since 2003, they have fought three enemies in overlapping phases: the occupying American forces, al-Qaeda militants, and the oppressive Shi’ite government in Baghdad. Their “preferred enemy” was the United States between 2003 and 2006-07. At the time of the shawah movement from 2007–2010 when they entered into a tacit coalition with the United States (facilitated by heavy cash payments) to counter the al-Qaeda militants’ encroachment on their tribal authority, and most recently the Maliki regime that reneged on premises to continue the arrangement and instead systematically sought to reduce the Sunnis to second class status. Today, they largely have abandoned the government – either entering into tactical alliances with ISIS or remaining neutral.
Then there is Iran. Circumstances have produced a convergence of the primary American interest (suppressing the violent jihadists) and the primary Iranian interest (securing their theocracy against threats from a coalition of Sunni forces). Revolutionary Guard officers already have visited Baghdad to talk about contingency plans for the provision of direct military existence to the Maliki government – although there is no evidence to support rumors of elite Iranian units (Quds battalions) crossing the border to stem the ISIS offensive. Objectively speaking, conditions point to some form of tacit collaboration between Tehran and Washington – politically and perhaps militarily on the ground in Iraq. However, that suggests a diplomatic relationship which not only does not exist but which Washington has to date refused to contemplate even in the abstract. Of course, the Iranian leadership confronts the same contradictions as it contemplates the ominous situation in Iraq. It, too, must prioritize interests and make painful trade-offs in a situation where it perceives multiple enemies and multiple threats.*
The same could be said for the House of Saud. They invested heavily in the Islamist opposition to Assad. They funded and supplied al-Nasr among other groups. That behavior conforms to a long-standing policy of promoting Islamic fundamentalism so as to secure its legitimation from any Islamist elements that might seek to undermine their legitimacy – in Saudi Arabia and in the Islamic world. No enemies on the fundamentalist end of the Islamist continuum. They persevered in that strategy even when Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda emerged as a mortal threat from the Saudi backed mujahedeen in Afghanistan. The malignant mutation in Syria and now Iraq endangers them. Yet they have no surrogate in the game this time to represent their interests. The US? Maliki? Assad? The Iranians? Life is tough all over.
Recently, there have been slight signs that the Saudi leadership has recoiled from its over-commitment in Syria and, indeed, is giving some thought to exploring a modus vivendi with Tehran. Logically, that could represent a “third way” between the confrontation stance it has followed (and urged on Washington) and waiting in dread to see whether a possible US-Iran partial reconciliation might impend. Such an agonizing strategic reappraisal is even harder for the Saudis than for American leaders.
One can argue that objective circumstances have pointed to this line of thinking as serving the best interests of all parties for some years now. Washington itself could have reached this conclusion and invested far more intellectual and diplomatic energy in encouraging the Saudis to reconceptualize their strategic perspective accordingly. Rather, we have concentrated on gestures to assuage Saudi fears. One reason, of course, is that our urging a modus vivendi depended on our own readiness also to pursue a more cordial relationship with the IRI which domestic political circumstances and impoverished strategic thinking in the Obama administration militated against. In addition, we never seem to have understood how powerful the sectarian/historical dimension of the Saudi led Sunni vs Persian led Shi’ite sectarian rivalry is in reinforcing the power competition. By siding with the Saudis et al on the latter, we were encouraging indirectly the former. Iraq redux insofar as the basics of the Islamic world are concerned.
We should be cautious about ascribing too much to the American role in inflecting Saudi attitudes – if in fact a meaningful shift has occurred, which we certainly don’t know for sure. Yes, the Saudi have suffered a prolonged bout of nerves over the past three years. That makes them sensitive to the atmospherics. In truth, though, nothing of consequence has changed in American policy over this period. We never were ready to bomb Iran back to the Neolithic Age because the Saudis ran out of valium; and we never were inclined to lower markedly either our assessment of interest or risk in the region. That “pivot” business was just sloganeering as every knowledgeable observer knew from the moment it was broached by the White House/State public relations machines.
Faced with this paradoxical dilemma, the United States has one advantage compared to the regional players. It has far greater latitude in defining and weighing its stakes. There are no vital American interests at stake – most certainly not the country’s security and regime stability. Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East has been grounded on an expansive conception of national interest. In the post-Cold War era, it has been an integral, important part of a grand strategy that aimed at the fostering of a sort of benign hegemony. That is to say, a set of institutions and arrangements that embraced most of the world, protected against any rogue forces by overwhelming American military force (as expressed in “full spectrum dominance.”) In the Middle East, our goals expanded correspondingly: isolate and contain both Iraq and Iran, secure Israel by weaving a web of mutually interested conservative regimes that included Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and – later – Fatah’s tame Palestinian Authority itself. Turkey was a tacit member.
In the wake of 9/11, goals became more audacious: suppress radical jihadist Islam everywhere, crush Saddam’s Iraq, promote democracy (except in the Gulf states) with a liberated Iraq serving as the pole of attraction, coerce of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and encourage the forces of globalization to do their benign work. Of course, the plan was full of contradictions from Day One. Its keystone, a remade Iraq, was pure fancy whose pursuit has produced catastrophic waves of instability. Yet, despite tactical defeats and manifestly noncompliant local players, Washington under two successive presidents has refused to revise its strategy’s underlying premise. Above all, the practical objectives of securing Israel and maintaining access to the region’s energy resources, were overlaid with grander ambitions. The War On Terror itself quickly was transformed from an intelligence cum police operation into an all-embracing program to remake the Islamic world so as to reduce future threats of that kind to zero. A national culture that had little tolerance for uncertainty had difficulty abiding anything less. A native optimism elided the obvious obstacles. And a political leadership whose hallmarks were evasion of both the world’s hard truths and honesty at home shed inhibition about reaching for the impossible.
A sober recognition of the limitations on the extent to which the United States can influence the outcomes of internal politics should be a central element in our foreign policy thinking. The overwhelming evidence of the past twelve years highlights the heavy penalties that the United States pays by acting on the sanguine belief that it is within our power to shape the affairs of other societies.
Now the web of illusion has been shredded. So the prime requisite for the grueling task of figuring out the least costly and least dangerous ways to cope with current realities is to admit the fatal flaws of past thinking and, thereby, to clear the ground for a modest strategic construction that conforms to a realistic assessment of American interests based on a sober appreciation of regional realities. To move forward with deliberation, America’s political class first should take an unsparing look backwards and then look in the mirror. This self exorcism is long overdue.
Iraq Crisis: Created by Bush & Blair and Bankrolled by Saudi Arabia
Bush and Blair said Iraq was a war on Islamic fascism. They lost.
June 15, 2014 |
So after the grotesquerie of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, meet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama.
From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis – and by Kuwaiti oligarchs – now rule thousands of square miles.
Apart from Saudi Arabia’s role in this catastrophe, what other stories are to be hidden from us in the coming days and weeks?
The story of Iraq and the story of Syria are the same – politically, militarily and journalistically: two leaders, one Shia, the other Alawite, fighting for the existence of their regimes against the power of a growing Sunni Muslim international army.
While the Americans support the wretched Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his elected Shia government in Iraq, the same Americans still demand the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his regime, even though both leaders are now brothers-in-arms against the victors of Mosul and Tikrit.
The Croesus-like wealth of Qatar may soon be redirected away from the Muslim rebels of Syria and Iraq to the Assad regime, out of fear and deep hatred for its Sunni brothers in Saudi Arabia (which may invade Qatar if it becomes very angry).
We all know of the “deep concern” of Washington and London at the territorial victories of the Islamists – and the utter destruction of all that America and Britain bled and died for in Iraq. No one, however, will feel as much of this “deep concern” as Shia Iran and Assad of Syria and Maliki of Iraq, who must regard the news from Mosul and Tikrit as a political and military disaster. Just when Syrian military forces were winning the war for Assad, tens of thousands of Iraqi-based militants may now turn on the Damascus government, before or after they choose to advance on Baghdad.
No one will care now how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been slaughtered since 2003 because of the fantasies of Bush and Blair. These two men destroyed Saddam’s regime to make the world safe and declared that Iraq was part of a titanic battle against “Islamofascism.” Well, they lost. Remember that the Americans captured and recaptured Mosul to crush the power of Islamist fighters. They fought for Fallujah twice. And both cities have now been lost again to the Islamists. The armies of Bush and Blair have long gone home, declaring victory.
Under Obama, Saudi Arabia will continue to be treated as a friendly “moderate” in the Arab world, even though its royal family is founded upon the Wahhabist convictions of the Sunni Islamists in Syria and Iraq – and even though millions of its dollars are arming those same fighters. Thus does Saudi power both feed the monster in the deserts of Syria and Iraq and cosy up to the Western powers that protect it.
We should also remember that Maliki’s military attempts to retake Mosul are likely to be ferocious and bloody, just as Assad’s battles to retake cities have proved to be. The refugees fleeing Mosul are more frightened of Shia government revenge than they are of the Sunni jihadists who have captured their city.
We will all be told to regard the new armed “caliphate” as a “terror nation.” Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, the Isis spokesman, is intelligent, warning against arrogance, talking of an advance on Baghdad when he may be thinking of Damascus. Isis is largely leaving the civilians of Mosul unharmed.
Finally, we will be invited to regard the future as a sectarian war when it will be a war between Muslim sectarians and Muslim non-sectarians. The “terror” bit will be provided by the arms we send to all sides.
Blair: Bombing Iraq Better – Again
by Media Lens / June 16th, 2014
Over the weekend, the British media was awash with the blood-splattered Tony Blair’s self-serving attempts to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The coverage was sparked by a new essay in which Blair claimed that the chaos in Iraq was the “predictable and malign effect” of the West having “watched Syria descend into the abyss” without bombing Assad. Blair advocated yet more Western violence, more bombing:
On the immediate challenge President Obama is right to put all options on the table in respect of Iraq, including military strikes on the extremists…
Par for the course, the liberal wing of the corporate media, notably the Guardian and BBC News, led with Blair’s sophistry. (See image, courtesy of News Unspun).
Blair told Andrew Marr on BBC1 that:
Washing our hands of the current problem would not make it go away.
The choice of phrase is telling. The image of Blair attempting to wash away the blood of one million Iraqis is indelible.
The Guardian‘s editors performed painful contortions to present an illusion of reasoned analysis, declaring that Blair’s essay was both ‘thoughtful’ and ‘wrong-headed’. Robert Fisk’s response to Blair was rather different:
How do they get away with these lies?
In the Guardian editorial, titled “A case of blame and shame”, the key phrase was:
If there has to be a hierarchy of blame for Iraq, however, it must surely begin with Saddam.
Of course, “surely”! But only if the Guardian‘s editors feel compelled to keep selling one core ideological message to its audience. Namely, that, although mistakes do happen, such as “deficiencies” in the West’s occupation of Iraq, US-UK foreign policy is basically well-intentioned. That, in a nutshell, is why the Guardian is part of the liberal establishment bedrock.
The Guardian forgot to mention that Saddam Hussein achieved power with the assistance of the CIA. They forgot to mention that the West supported him through his worst crimes, supplying the technology that allowed him to launch chemical weapons attacks during the Iran-Iraq war, protecting him in the United Nations and the press, and so on.
Like an addict unable to let go of just one more fix, the paper said:
The situation may not demand, but it certainly invites, intervention.
The Independent, that other great white hope of British liberal journalism, was no better. An editorial asked: “Would intervention now work?”, adding that it “may become inevitable because of the threat to Israel and Turkey, a Nato ally.” The paper bemoaned, outrageously, that it had come to this because “some sort of decisive Western action in Syria, famously defeated in the House of Commons, might have prevented ISIS from gaining the strength it has.” In fact, bombing Assad would have massively empowered ISIS, one of his major enemies.
The editors complained that there was now:
No appetite for intervention anywhere, no matter how compelling the arguments.
The pathetic hand-wringing continued:
Our failures in Iraq have inoculated Western electorates against any desire to repeat the experiment, no matter that an invasion of Iraq now could be more truthfully termed a “liberation” for the Iraqi people, and an act to save many more lives throughout the Middle East, than the one Mr Blair and Mr Bush presided over 11 years ago. Their failures do mean we cannot act now.
Ah, this time it really will be a “liberation”, whereas last time, as even London mayor Boris Johnson notes:
It looks to me as though the Americans were motivated by a general strategic desire to control one of the biggest oil exporters in the world…
Johnson, who voted for the war and describes it as merely a “tragic mistake”, is concerned not with the criminality and bloodshed but the ability to sell wars in future:
Blair is now undermining the very cause he advocates – the possibility of serious and effective intervention.
Amol Rajan, the Independent’s editor, boasted of “our proud record on coverage of Iraq”.
We responded:
Sorry, we have analysed the Independent’s performance closely. Your record was and is shameful. Where to start?
We could do worse than by reminding him of his own paper’s editorial at the war’s launch (when Simon Kelner was the editor):
The debate about…this war is over…the time has come “to support our troops”. (‘When democracies do battle with a despot, they must hold on to their moral superiority’, Independent, March 20, 2003)
The Eternally Open “Option”
BBC News reported Obama as saying that the US government was looking at “all options”, including military force, to “help fight Islamist militants”. The reality of the US empire, regardless of who sits in the president’s chair, is that the military “option” is always “open”.
In Syria, the “Islamist militants” are “rebels” who are on “our” side because they oppose the “tyrannical” Assad. In Iraq, the “Islamist militants” are “insurgents” because they oppose the US-implanted and supported “democracy” there. BBC News maintains the required warmongering narrative by asking loaded questions such as:
Iraq: How can US help combat insurgents?
Frank Gardner, in his role as ”security” correspondent, can be relied upon to explain how the US can “help”.
The corporate media find nothing strange in the idea that the blood-drenched perpetrators of the vast war crime of 2003 are preparing to return to the scene of their crime in 2014 to administer more of the same catastrophic “medicine”. That the US and the West, and their client state Israel, are the prime movers of chaos, violence and instability in the Middle East is not part of the back-story.
Sometimes BBC reporting becomes so extreme that the term “Orwellian” isn’t sufficiently strong to describe the madness of a BBC journalist calling for military action. Consider that diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus “reported” that the Iraqi government “needs to bring rapid firepower to bear and quickly” to reclaim territory “seized” by “ISIS-led fighters”.
When the corporate media descends to this depth, we are truly in the grip of societal madness.
‘A Curious Perspective’
Earlier, Marcus had written one of those “background” pieces that the BBC publishes in times of crisis in order to present the required context and history. The article was titled “Six things that went wrong for Iraq”. It had at least one glaring omission which prompted us to email Marcus on June 12 as follows:
Hello Jonathan,
Your new article for the BBC News website is titled “Six things that went wrong for Iraq”. Not one of these six items is the appalling UN sanctions regime that, according to Unicef, resulted in the deaths of an estimated half a million children under five and likely well over one million people in total.
In 1998, Denis Halliday, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, resigned his post in protest at what he called “genocidal” sanctions. These sanctions were maintained at the particular behest of Washington and London, and involved huge propaganda efforts to obscure the truth. Halliday’s successor, Hans von Sponeck, likewise resigned in 2000.
Imagine if a foreign journalist had written a piece about this country titled, “Six things that went wrong for the UK”. Imagine that this journalist had not mentioned that around two million British people [i.e. proportional in respect of the relative populations of the UK and Iraq] had died as a result of UN sanctions policy in the 1990s. You might well regard such a journalist as a propagandist.
You must surely be aware of the facts, and yet you choose to airbrush them from Iraqi history. Why?
David Cromwell
The same day, Marcus sent a response of sorts:
Dear Mr Cromwell
I am sorry that you did not find anything useful in the piece.
As ever you choose to see things entirely from your own organisation’s curious perspective.
Thank you for troubling to write.
The BBC man’s haughty and evasive dismissal totally blanked the appalling tragedy of UN sanctions on Iraq. As the playwright Harold Pinter said in his acceptance speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature:
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.
But in the mind of a senior BBC correspondent, to be challenged about journalistic silence on a major international crime committed by the West is a “curious perspective”.
The seven people who need to STFU about Iraq right now
We at Raw Story’s Oh God Here We Go Again desk know that we can’t be the only ones whose stomachs are turning at the thought of a renewed military engagement in Iraq.
We marvel at the Big Brass Ones on some people who feel the need to offer their opinions about how the U.S. should conduct itself with regards to recent rise of extremist elements in the country and the loss of two of its major cities to al Qaeda. These people seem to believe that their previous dire wrongness on everything about the topic of Iraq shouldn’t preclude them from opining about our nation’s current course of action, goodness no.
1. Andrew Sullivan, who has devoted any number of column inches lately to slamming the NeoCons and the war “they” advocated for. In a post today — the elegantly titled “The Neocons Get A War Chubby” — Sullivan roundly mocked and scolded re-interventionists, warning the country not to “sink the U.S. right back into the Iraqi quicksand.”
Sullivan has long-since disavowed the infamous 2001 column in which he said war critics might collude with al Qaeda to try and take down the U.S. from within, but it tends to linger on in the memory, much as forgotten sushi leftovers will leave behind their distinctive odeur to linger in that drawer in your refrigerator.
“The middle part of the country — the great red zone that voted for Bush — is clearly ready for war,” Sullivan wrote in the U.K.’s Sunday Times. “The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead — and may well mount a fifth column.”
We’ve got your “fifth column” right here, Andy. It’s in our pants.
2. Judith Miller, the Bush administration’s “humiliated and discredited shill” on WMDs was once thankfully banished to writing a household hints column for the West Egg Pennysaver — or something.
Nonetheless, on Friday, the reporter known as “the most infamous example of the press’s failure in the run-up to that war” was unflushably bobbing up on Fox News to discuss the media’s portrayal of Iraq as Irony let herself into the garage and started the car without opening the garage door and waited quietly for the end.
3. Thomas Friedman, the hot air specialist who rhapsodized in May of 2003 that American military might had rightly told the Iraqi people to “suck on this.” When the Iraqis declined his offer and the occupation spiraled completely out of control, Friedman insisted over and over that the situation would stabilize in just six more months.
To commemorate this very special failure as a pundit and prognosticator, lefty wags created the Friedman Unit, a six month span of time in which nothing ever happens.
4. The New York Times seems to have conveniently forgotten how sad and diminished the Gray Lady looked locked out on the Bush administration’s porch in her bloomers, poor old thing.
Today, columnist Tyler Cowen lamented that the economy is suffering because we don’t have any major wars planned after forces come home from Afghanistan at the end of the year. Peace, the libertarian fretted, is bad for business.
Funny they should endorse war as an economic engine right as Iraq appears to be shitting its bed and playing with matches in a fireworks store. I mean, what are the odds?
5. The whole of the so-called Juicebox Mafia. The lines of that particular claque have expanded and contracted to include Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias and a passel of other Beltway post-teens who were so excited they got to sit at the big kids’ table they forgot that they didn’t know jack shit about foreign policy and endorsed a war of choice in one of the most volatile regions of the world, wheeee! What could go wrong? We’re smart! And cute!
A big, pre-emptive “Shut it!” goes out to Peter Beinart, however, who, in January, 2003, joined the National Review‘s Jonah Goldberg in a CNN panel discussion in which the two giggled and leered over accusations that U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter was a child molester because of allegations that he had communicated over the Internet with a 16-year-old girl.
“I think that he didn’t have any credibility to begin with,” said Beinart of Ritter. “I mean, this is the guy who never really explained, as Jonah said, why he flipped 180 degrees and became a Saddam mouthpiece. So for me it’s irrelevant. I never listened to what he had to say on Iraq to begin with.”
“He’s now just basically joined Pete Townsend on the Magic School Bus,” Beinart continued. “Pete Townsend of the WHO has also been implicated in child porn and things of that nature. But as everybody said, Ritter’s credibility, just on the basics of Iraq, was completely shot and now there’s even less reason to listen to him.”
Scott Ritter’s alleged crime? Pointing out that Saddam Hussein didn’t have any WMDs and that a U.S. invasion was a bad idea.
6. Ari Fleischer, one of the most pugnacious, pugilistic, and sometimes breathtakingly condescending White House press secretaries in history. Fleischer functioned as a lying administration’s able mouthpiece both here and in the combat zone and served the unlikely function in life of making fellow Bush administration shill Dan Senor seem almost non-slimy.
Fleischer piped up on Twitter Friday morning to simultaneously absolve the Bush administration of blame and passive aggressively accuse the Obama administration of squandering gains made by his own masters. Trouble is, he got the year wrong.
“Regardless of what anyone thinks about going into Iraq in 2002,” he tweeted — apparently forgetting that the first bombing raids began in March of 2003, “it’s a tragedy that the successes of the 2007 surge have been lost & abandoned.”
Bush administration folks are still around, apparently, to remind us in the reality-based community that facts is HARD and stuff.
7. John McCain, you angry, corn-teethed fossil. You’ve never met a foreign conflict that didn’t require MOAR U.S. TROOPS, have you? At least you’re consistent, after a fashion. Oh, who are we kidding, you’re not consistent at all about anything that might score you some political points and get you on TV!
Things didn’t go super well for you on Morning Joe on Friday, though, did they? Impeccably-coiffed refrigerator magnet Mika Brzeznski actually woke up from her boredom-induced coma and called you out right to your face, didn’t she, old man?
“What about going [into Iraq] in the first place, and what about churning the hate, and what about taking the Sunnis out of leadership positions in 2003, what about the fact that there might have been some parts of this that were on the previous administration that might be litigated as well?” Brzezinski said.
Then she went on to ask the question everyone in the country should be asking, why does anyone listen to you anyway? If we’d taken your advice, she said, we’d be knee-deep in Syria right now.
“So we’re going to be in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then we’re also going into Syria, in your estimate?” she asked. “I mean, I’m just wondering how long can we do this? How long can we do this? How long can you ask this of American troops and think it’s okay?”
She’s right, John. You’re like a jumped-up rich boy with no real capital of his own who’s bellied up to the blackjack table blowing every single penny of his wife’s money just to catch that fleeting winner’s high.
Oh, no, wait, that’s exactly what you really are, isn’t it?
Or, as TBogg so eloquently observed, “Hush you guys. The guy who thought Sarah Palin would make a good vice-president is explaining to us what we should do in Iraq.”
by brekin » Tue Jun 17, 2014 12:58 pm
by NeonLX » Tue Jun 17, 2014 2:48 pm
All we fought for in Iraq.
All we fought for in Iraq is on the cusp of vanishing.
That’s what Mitt Romney says.
We fought for. We fought for. We.
Oh, so it’s we now, is it, Mitt?
We.
I must have missed you over there, but it was a busy place. We. The guy who helped set up “pro-draft” rallies and yet somehow managed to avoid service in Vietnam is upset about losing what “we” fought for? We.
Yeah, fuck you, Mitt.
And you’re all welcome to quote me on that.
Somebody stepped into my office yesterday and asked how I felt about it. He wanted to know how I felt about “losing” Iraq.
How do I feel about losing all we fought for?
I don’t know.
First, I’m going to need somebody to explain to me exactly what it was that we were fighting for.
What was it? What is it that we gained, according to Mitt Romney? And what is on the cusp of vanishing? What is that? No, really, somebody please explain it to me.
Because I’d love to know.
The Wikipedia says Operation Iraqi Freedom started on the 20th of March, 2003, which is just another reason why you shouldn’t believe anything you read in the Wikipedia (don’t, just don’t). That’s not correct, the war began a day earlier. See, I was there on the night the war really started, at precisely 2200 hours, on the 19th of March in the Northern Arabian Gulf. I was there when US Navy SEALs and Polish GROM stormed the MABOT and KAAOT oil terminals a full day before Saddam Hussein discovered that his time was finally up. In point of fact, I had arrived there four months before, a few days before Christmas in December of 2002. From the day of my arrival (and before that really) to the day the war started, and for months after, I was a Navy intelligence officer working in support of the invasion force. There’s not much I don’t know about the events leading up to war and the aftermath of the invasion.
Well, not much except for that one little detail.
Why.
All these years later, and I still don’t know why.
Oh, I mean, I know what they told us, sure, Saddam Hussein attacked America on 9-11. Right? That’s what they said, that’s what the Commander in Chief told us. Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaida, remember? The son of a bitch and his stinking nation of terrorists attacked us. The Iraqis had it coming. And Georgie Boy was going to finish what his daddy started. Hooray! Right? That’s what they said.
Except those of us in the professional intelligence community looked at each other and thought, wait, what? How the hell did we miss that? Saddam and Osama bin Laden are working together? Buwah? But Rumsfeld, he had his own little extra-constitutional intelligence outfit staffed with his simpering cronies who he paid to blow smoke up his pinched grey ass until his colon resembled beef jerky and he sure didn’t have much use for us – after all, we were just the military he had.
Ours, as they say, is not to reason why, ours is to but do and die, right? At least that’s what Rummy told us and you know, you go into war with the Secretary of Defense you have, not the one you’d like to have. And if Rumsfeld says he’s got the real scoop, it must be true? Right? Sure, that justifies his contempt for us, sure it does.
Except, Rumsfeld’s little masturbation fantasy turned out not to be the case.
But hey, never mind that, Saddam Hussein was threatening us anyway, wasn’t he? Sure he was, in fact, that’s the first time you heard the phrase “Weapons of Mass Destruction” isn’t it? The bastard had nukes and germs and war gas and he was just itching to use them on America, wasn’t he? Heck we even had pictures of “mobile weapons labs” to prove it, isn’t that what Colin Powell told the UN and the world? And by damn Saddam had been buying Yellow Cake uranium from Niger, right? Colin Powell wouldn’t lie to us, would he? He was a hero, a general, he wouldn’t send his comrades into war on a lie now would he?
Except all that turned out to be bullshit too, and Colin Powell was either a dupe of staggering proportions or he was the kind of Soldier who would fuck his buddy right in the ass without so much as a reach-around and I’ll leave it up to you to figure which one is worse.
But by the time we figured out we’d been ass-raped by Colin Powell, we were shoulder deep in Iraq, Baghdad was burning, Iraq’s army had thrown down their weapons and taken off their uniforms and had melted into the population, Saddam had vanished and his sons were dead, and the President of the United States had already declared victory from the deck of an American aircraft carrier.
And so, the objective became … what?
Hearts and minds and freedom and democracy and nation building and magic bunnies who fart sunshine and rainbows.
Unfortunately, it turns out we’re real good at the blowing shit up part, not so good at the magic bunnies part.
Which in retrospect, shouldn’t be all that surprising - given that in order to build a civilization it helps if you actually have some vague familiarity with the people involved. Needless to say, we didn’t. And we didn’t care. To America, they were all little brown towelheads, sand niggers, raggedy-assed camel jockeys who ought to be grateful to America for burning down their shitty country. Sunni? Shia? Turkman? Baathists? What’s that? What do you mean they hate each other? They’re all Muslims aren’t they? They’re all Aayrabs, right? What do you mean they hate each other? And it all fell apart, disintegrating into insurgency and murder and bloody civil war – just exactly as anybody who actually knew something about the region and its people and its history could have told you it would. We lost less than a hundred soldiers in the actual war, the “peace” cost us nearly 5000 more. And the Iraqis? Who the hell knows? A hundred thousand? A million? It’s impossible to tell.
And it turns out that freedom and democracy and magic flying bunnies were as elusive as Iraq’s supposed WMDs – or Colin Powell’s honor.
So, what was it again that we were fighting for?
They had no idea what we were fighting for, those saber-rattling Chicken Hawks, the cowardly connected wealthy weasels who’d managed to avoid serving in their own war, who kept their children out of uniform, but just couldn’t wait to send us into one of their own making. They sent us off with parades and marching bands and cheering crowds … and brought the bodies home in secret, hidden away from the TV cameras and the public.
They had no plan and no idea what we were dying for, but they assured us what the war wasn’t about – it wasn’t about religion.
Oh no, sir, we weren’t fighting to eradicate Muslims, it wasn’t about Islam.
The Evangelical Christian religious extremists who started this war told us it wasn’t about religion.
Heh heh, riiiiiight. And Vietnam was really about containing communism. Sure.
Maybe they should have had Colin Powell tell that whopper to the UN, but he’d quit by then and was suddenly as invisible to America as those flag draped metal boxes arriving at Dover Air Force base in the middle of the night.
Americans who a few years before had been proudly waving their little flags as Johnny marched off to war were suddenly all shifty-eyed, they slapped a $5 dollar made in China magnet on the bumper of their giant gas-sucking SUVs, Support Our Troops, and with sardonically raised eyebrows complained to each other over the pumps about the immorality of a war fought for oil.
But that wasn’t true either, was it?
Iraq’s oil fields, the ones we fought and died to preserve on orders from the White House, the off-shore terminals the SEALs and the GROM risked their lives to save on that night back in 2003, the precious Iraqi oil that was going to pay for the war and pay to rebuild the country we’d blown up, well, that oil is nowhere to be found today, is it?
So, tell me again, what exactly is it that’s on the “cusp of vanishing?”
I mean it sure isn’t peace.
It’s not freedom for the Iraqi people, despite the war’s idiotic name.
It sure isn’t regional stability.
It’s not the end of terrorism or the near universal hatred of America in the Middle East.
And now that Halliburton and KBR and Blackwater and Dick Cheney have made their billions and cashed out, it isn’t even about long term economic investments and American business.
Hell, it’s not even about cheap gas.
So, go on, enlighten me. Because even though I was there, I’ve got no goddamned idea what it is that we’ve lost in Iraq beyond the 4,487 men and women we shipped home in metal boxes, beyond the 32,223 wounded and maimed, beyond the trillions of dollars we spent in our rage and our drive for revenge and our lust for blood.
Today, John McCain and Mitt Romney and the rest of the conservative war machine are railing against the President.
McCain stirred from the yellow fog of his bamboo cage and proclaimed in his best Old Man Yelling At Clouds voice, “We won Iraq! Obama lost it!”
Really Johnny Walnuts? Tell me, what did we win? And what have we lost? Please be specific, because I’d really like to know.
We no more “won” Iraq than McCain’s own father “won” Vietnam.
McCain claims he “predicted” the sectarian violence now tearing Iraq apart. Really? Where the hell was clairvoyant John McCain back in 2003 when he voted along with the rest of them to send us into war? And later, where was his great predictive ability when Iraq began tearing itself apart? I guess he was at a Dixie Chicks concert, he must have been out in the lobby ordering a plate of Freedom Fries when his pal George W. Bush let Iraq disintegrate into civil war.
And so here we are.
The same old motley cast of characters, the warhawks and the chickenhawks and the billionaires and the simple-minded saber-rattlers and the same old hate-filled pundits, they just can’t wait to jump back into Iraq.
Mitt Romney, John McCain, one who never served and one who damned well ought to know better, men who both wanted to be President of the United States and who both lost to Barack Obama, they just can’t wait to send other people’s kids back into the meat grinder.
Here’s my question.
Why?
Why, John McCain?
Why, Mitt Romney?
Why, conservatives?
This time you fuckers goddamned well tell me why.
What’s the goal? What’s the objective? Is it to end terrorism? Is it to enforce peace at the muzzle of a gun? Is it it to make defense contractors rich? Is it for jobs? Or is it for magic flying bunnies who shoot rainbows and cheap gasoline out of their little assholes to the sound of Yankee Doodle Dandy?
Or, or, is it just because you hate Barack Obama?
That’s it, isn’t it?
It is.
You sons of bitches one and all, you simpering capering madmen, this time at least have the courage to face the cameras, to look into America’s eyes, and tell them that their sons and daughters will be dying because you John McCain, because you Mitt Romney, because you Dick Cheney, because you Donald Rumsfeld, because you George W. Bush you lying bastard, because you conservatives hate Barack Obama and for no other reason. Go on, tell us, go on. Wave your little flags and beat your fleshy chests, roll out the marching bands and tell us just how many more American soldiers should die. Go on, put a number on it. Ten? A hundred? Fifty four thousand? How many of us have to die? How many more bodies will it take to satiate your mindless hunger for blood and revenge? How many more American lives are worth your insane hatred of the president? How many? How much further into debt should we drive our nation, another trillion dollars? Two? Ten? A hundred? Put a price on it you insane sons of bitches, go on, give me a number, write me a check. Tell me how much you’re willing to pay, show me the goddamned money. How many more years? How many? One? Five? Another decade? Fifty? What is it? Don’t wave your hands and make some vague prognostication, give me a number, how many lives, how much money, how many years? You look us in the eye and you fucking tell us.
Sure, let’s go back to Iraq.
Oh, yes, let us do that.
I’ll dig out my uniform and strap on my pistol and gird up my sword and ride into battle yet again.
Just so long as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and every single one of those powdered, Botoxed talking heads at Fox News are in the vanguard. That’s right, you cowards, you put on a uniform and you lead the charge this time around. The Koch brothers and Mitt Romney can pay for it, every goddamned penny, we’ll bleed them until they’re dry and then we’ll pull the gold fillings from their teeth to pay for it right along with the rest of their Wall Street cronies. You fuckers got rich off the last one, you can damned well pay for this one. And when you run out of money, we’ll take your blood, fair’s fair.
Strap John McCain into the cockpit of an A-4 Skyhawk and let him fly air cover.
If he gets himself shot down and taken prisoner again, well, you know what? Fuck him, leave him to the enemy because frankly his hate and bile and raging insanity have done more damage to this country than Bowe Bergdahl ever did.
The terrorists can keep him.
You want to go to back to war? No problem, this time, you go first.
Back then, as an officer, mine was not to reason why.
But this time, well, this time I’m a civilian. And as a citizen of the United States, this time I demand to know why.
So, you saber-rattling sons of bitches, you look me in the eye, and you tell me.
by 8bitagent » Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:52 am
seemslikeadream » Tue Jun 17, 2014 7:31 am wrote:
June 15, 2014 |
So after the grotesquerie of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, meet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama.
From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis – and by Kuwaiti oligarchs – now rule thousands of square miles.
Apart from Saudi Arabia’s role in this catastrophe, what other stories are to be hidden from us in the coming days and weeks?
The story of Iraq and the story of Syria are the same – politically, militarily and journalistically: two leaders, one Shia, the other Alawite, fighting for the existence of their regimes against the power of a growing Sunni Muslim international army.
While the Americans support the wretched Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his elected Shia government in Iraq, the same Americans still demand the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his regime, even though both leaders are now brothers-in-arms against the victors of Mosul and Tikrit.
The Croesus-like wealth of Qatar may soon be redirected away from the Muslim rebels of Syria and Iraq to the Assad regime, out of fear and deep hatred for its Sunni brothers in Saudi Arabia (which may invade Qatar if it becomes very angry).
by 8bitagent » Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:57 am
by 82_28 » Wed Jun 18, 2014 5:24 am
by 8bitagent » Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:24 pm
82_28 » Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:24 am wrote:Well, of course it fucking is the inkwell. That was a great read, Neon. Thanks for sharing.
I have come to the momentary conclusion that we're on Purpose V. 1.2 alpha. Or something. I was watching some public access bullshit the other night that featured the WA State tea party or some shit hosted by the "discovery institute" and by god are they motherfucking up to speed on what they're up to.
What a bunch of soulless assholes. The "tea party" is whole cloth fake and you can tell in the Hicksian way that they are a great market. I mean, who doesn't remember the time we first heard of the "tea party" and going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT"? Now it's just a matter of course. Just exists, like the brown and black shirts of the "greatest generation" who defeated them or something. The right just exists because craven capitalists. I nod my head in disbelief -- that means side to side.
It is simply the template of cruelty adapted/upgraded in order for the minions to produce results for their hidden masters.
by seemslikeadream » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:15 am
WEEKEND EDITION JUNE 20-22, 2014
Supporting Democracy is So Yesterday
Washington’s Rats are Abandoning Maliki
by DAVE LINDORFF
The rat, among mammals, is one of the most successful animals on the planet. Cunning, ruthless, competitive and above all adaptable — it is able to change its habits quickly as needed to accommodate the situation it finds itself in.
When it comes to foreign policy, the US government is swarming with rats.
Just look at the situation in Iraq. The US invaded the country in 2003, claiming it was a rogue nation that had, or was trying to develop, “weapons of mass destruction.” When it became clear that this was a lie, or at best, simply not true, the stated motive for the invasion was changed to “regime change,” and the goal became “bringing democracy to Iraq.”
The US and the key US corporate news organizations loved Maliki when his party won the largest block of seats in the first parliamentary election in 2006 and he became prime minister. As the Washington Post’s David Ignatius crowed at the time, after the votes were in, “The most important fact about Maliki’s election is that it’s a modest declaration of independence from Iran.” Ignatius quickly went to the US ambassador at the time, Zalmay Khalilzad, for a comment, and Khalilzad, a neoconservative linked to the National Endowment for Democracy, obligingly told him, “His reputation is as someone who is independent of Iran.”
Khalilzad had worked assiduously (almost rat-like, one might say) behind the scenes to build a coalition of Kurds, Sunnis and Shia politicians opposed to the incumbent prime minister Ibrahim al-Jafari (who was seen as Iran’s man), in order to back Maliki’s ascendancy.
In 2010, the US again backed Maliki, supporting him for a second term even though the initial results of the voting gave a plurality to his challenger Ayad Allawi. Using heavy-handed tactics and his control of the judiciary, Maliki essentially stole that election,. He did this with the approval of the US Embassy which, in 2010, was still, if not controlling the country, a major player.
Shift to the present Iraq national elections. The US, during the campaign, was clearly backing Maliki’s virtually assured re-election as prime minister. Indeed, an April 30 article in the New York Times — a steadfast voice for the Washington foreign policy establishment, hailed the parliamentary voting underway as a triumph. As reporters tim Arango and Duraid Adnan wrote:
“Millions of Iraqis voted for a new Parliament on Wednesday, defying threats from Islamist extremists, in an election that was carried out, by Iraq’s brutal standards, in remarkable peace…
“The election, the first nationwide vote since the departure of American troops more than two years ago, was seen as a referendum on Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s eight years as prime minister as he seeks his third term amid a growing Sunni insurgency that has brought the country to the edge of a new civil war.”
On May 19, after the votes were all counted (at least those in Shia regions), the Washington Post, another stalwart backer of the US foreign policy establishment, reported on the victory of Maliki’s party in the elections saying:
“The US Embassy in the capital welcomed the result, calling it ‘another milestone in the democratic development of Iraq.’”
But along the way to Maliki’s re-election plurality, something happened: a lightning-fast military campaign by Sunni insurgents, backed by a population that was furious over several years of violent attack and repression by Maliki’s police and military, and an opportunistic separatist move by Kurds in the north, suddenly put even Baghdad at risk.
Suddenly the rats in Washington, seeing their “man in Baghdad” as vulnerable, and their rickety construct in Iraq as facing collapse, aren’t so committed to democracy in the place, and are “adapting” to a new political environment.
As the Wall Street Journal reported this week:
“WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is signaling that it wants a new government in Iraq without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, convinced the Shiite leader is unable to reconcile with the nation’s Sunni minority and stabilize a volatile political landscape. The U.S. administration is indicating it wants Iraq’s political parties to form a new government without Mr. Maliki as he tries to assemble a ruling coalition following elections…”
Democracy for Iraq? Oh that was so yesterday. Today the issue is combating the Sunni insurgency, and keeping Iran from gaining further influence over Baghdad.
Whatever one’s opinion of Maliki — and the truth is he has been a fairly typical Middle East strongman, brutally surpressing the Sunni minority on behalf of his Shia backers, and also playing hard-ball even against those Shia politicians who would be his rivals, including having them arrested — betrayal of allies noble and vile has of course been a long tradition in Washington. So has dropping any pretense of supporting democratic elections. The US backed elections in the Palestinian territories until Hamas won handily in Gaza, at which point Washington just stopped talking about democracy there, and backed Israel’s policy of turning the place into the world’s biggest concentration camp, starved of water, fuel and food.
In Ukraine, the US backed so-called “orange revolutions” and democratic elections until it decided to back a right-wing coup that drove the elected prime minister out of the country.
As the US continues to find itself increasingly challenged around the globe by countries that feel less and less intimidated by an overstretched US military, and as the dollar keeps losing ground as a reserve currency, making economic sanctions less and less potent as a tool of coercion, the rats in Foggy Bottom and the White House will have to become increasingly adaptive if they hope to continue to infest the globe as they have since the days of the Cold War.
by AlicetheKurious » Sat Jun 21, 2014 3:29 pm
by seemslikeadream » Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:24 pm
by American Dream » Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:30 pm
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Western human rights organizations and Sisi dictatorship
I won't mention Western media as we know that they follow the foreign policy orientations of their government but the relative silence of Western human rights organizations toward the scale of repression in Egypt has been sickening. If the victims are not largely (but by no means exclusively) Islamists, they would have raised an international hue and cry. I guarantee you that if Sisi were to turn against Israel (he won't), all Western media and Western human rights organizations would suddenly discover that he is a dictator after all.
Posted by As'ad AbuKhalil at 12:03 PM
by AlicetheKurious » Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:57 pm
by justdrew » Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:54 pm
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