THE DEBACLE IN IRAQ
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THE NIGHTMARE IN IRAQ
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PICTURE FROM www.DubyasWorld.com
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CANADIAN S.O.S.
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FROM www.dubyasWorld.com : THE NEED TO STOP ALL NEGATIVE NEWS STORIES ON IRAQ OR NEW ORLEANS
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Anyway I just read a couple of good books on the Iraqi War which I would
like to recommend ..
One is the War Against Truth by Canadian journalist Paul William Roberts & the other is Night Draws Near by Pulitzer Prize-winner for journalism Anthony Shadid . These two journalists are examples of Journalist with some integrity.
Both authors were on the ground during the Invasion & Occupation of Iraq & were not embedded with the US military or other forces & so were able to report more openly & accurately about the situation as it unfolded. Both were also were able to talk to average Iraqi citizens as well as with military personnel .
Unfortunately many journalist fearing for their personal safety or were naive enough to actually believed the military would be open & honest with them about the unfolding situation. Of course this is not an issue for journalist who are as committed to the Bush’s administration’s overall view of the world & its ultimate goals.
Both authors have attempted to cut through the Western Media's propaganda about the war. They also give a more intimate account of the War in Iraq & put a human face on this great tragedy. Of course all of this is wasted on those who support President Bush & his administrators since they believe that they are the truly enlightened ones & can by definition do no wrong as they are the very people who are defending Christendom & the West & Capitalism & their peculiar version of Freedom & Democracy from the Savage Arabs & Muslims of the World. The invective & maledicta they use cannot point in any other direction except to create a climate of Hate & Intolerance to all Arabs & Muslims.
They have done their job well since even many individuals who see themselves as “ liberals “ or Humanists & as open-minded or fair-minded have more often than not fallen for these stereotypes & racist attitudes towards all Arabs & Muslims. Even they forget that those who attacked New York on 9/11 represented a small minority in the Islamic World . This minority has grown more emboldened though with each & every brutal attack on innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
Whether or not the war with Saddam Hussein was justified it becomes apparent how the US botched the whole thing. Unless ,of course, their intent was to literally destroy the country & culture of Iraq which many Iraqis & others have come to believe.
The so-called “ Clash of Civilizations “ has to a great extent become a self-fulfilling prophecy .
For instance ; The US administration knew there would be some serious problems arising over law & order , and re-establishing the infra structure i.e. communications television radio, telephone water supplies, sewage treatment, electricity, & gasoline supplies , food & medical facilities & medical supplies as well as medical personnel once the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled but they did not prepare for it.
And the US led forces continued for month after month which stretched into at least the first two years of occupation to do little to give aid to the Iraqi civilian population. After the US forces attacked a city , a town a village a neighborhood they little or nothing to give medical aid to Iraqi civilians since the Americans saw all Iraqis as the enemy & therefore as potential terrorists or insurgents & so refused to give them even basic humanitarian aid . This doesn't surprise those of us who were against the war since time & again Bush & his cronies said that the Geneva Convention & other International agreements no longer applied to the US forces in Iraq or elsewhere . From their point of view America is the final arbitrator of the Moral as well as of International Law.
The Neocons believe all these laws were drawn up by a discredited " Liberal Elite " comprised of " Secular Humanists " & Communist front groups like the ACLU & Pro-Choice & other special interest groups such as Amnesty International, World Watch & evil pernicious groups like the International Red Cross which insists doctors , nurses & other medical personnel as well as Hospitals & ambulances are not legitimate military targets. So Us forces blew up hospitals, first aid stations & clearly marked ambulances if they gave medical treatment to wounded insurgents or even innocent civilians.
The US forces often led reprisals against areas from which Insurgents supposedly came from & so would revenge themselves again on innocent non-combatants killing as many as they thought fit . At times the US forces seem to have acted in a manner more often ascribed to the Nazis of Germany in the Second World War or to the very Terrorists they claimed they were fighting . Of course to adopt the tactics of Terrorist seems odd to some of us since then one loses the Moral High-Ground as it were since one is no better than those you are fighting but NeoCons do not like such wimpy liberal sentimental unrealistic views .
For the NeoCons it is only by showing the enemy brutal naked force that one can subdue them & thereby eliminate them as a threat & as they tell us this has worked well in Iraq & Afghanistan & elsewhere even if it means bombing them back into the stone-age . For instance the Neocons & Religious or Christian Right believe it is appropriate , given the aims of their enemies , to use rather deliberate & brutal actions to control the “ Enemy Population” i.e. Iraqis .
And so it is justifiable To enter a neighborhood & then barge into peoples home waving their rifles around & shouting in English at men , women & children who speak Arabic & not English to then search their homes smashing the family's possessions , terrorizing them doing body searches while pointing the barrels of their guns to the heads of women & children while shouting & swearing at them .
This is not an exaggeration as many US soldiers in interviews have said in preparation for going to Iraq they were told all Iraqi's were their enemy & that they were a little less than human & that all Arabs & Muslims were godless evil creatures out to destroy America & Christianity. So what's a soldier to think especially a 17 or 18 year old kid who was told very little if anything about the Geneva Conventions or other International Agreements on The Rules of Engagement & then is told he must avenge the thousands murdered on 9/11 . And how should they behave when they are told that they are permitted to use whatever force or tactics they wish including humiliation, intimidation, threats, torture , mutilation of corpses & even shooting women & children. After what we are told has taken place at Quantanimo & Abu Ghraib there seems to be no real restraint placed on US forces or their allies in Iraq. The few who have been tried for such wrong -doing are merely a few scapegoats to appease the public who don't really understand the nature & dirtiness of war . These are the Neo-Cons martyrs to their cause. Most merely received a slap on the wrist even for killing prisoners in their care. Since only American lives count for anything ; what can one expect ?
For instance Paul Roberts points out that American forces have illegally used & continue to use anti-personnel cluster bombs in areas where there are innocent civilians who will also be killed .
Each of these cluster bombs when they explode scatter thousands of little bombs ripping into the bodies of anyone in the vicinity . But not all the little bombs or “ bomblets” go off & it just so happens the “ bomblets” look like a child’s spin top which then explodes when someone picks it up. This is done quite deliberately it seems in the same way the Americans have used Napalm or Napalm like incendiary chemicals on the attack on Fallujah & elsewhere in Iraq even though the use of such chemicals are prohibited by International Agreement which the US signed. As has been noted before the Americans may sign such agreements to appear as being somewhat reasonable but when it suits their purposes they chose to ignore them or prevaricate in various ways by putting their own Spin on the issue ; and putting their Public Relations people to work & by using Neo-Conservative lawyers to explain to the American public that the Us administration & military forces are either not doing what they are doing or that they are not really in breach of the particular agreement at issue.
This is how they have treated the issue of torture since day one- i.e. “We don’t use torture”, “Sometimes we use torture but it’s necessary ”,or These prisoners of war are not really prisoners of war but detainees & are terrorist & so international law does not apply to them” or “ What we do is not really torture .” Humiliation , beatings , sleep-deprivation & making a prisoner masturbate or perform sodomy these according to the average American , Canadian & British Good Little Christian Neoconservative do not see this as torture but as part of doing God’s work so we are told by the Bushites and their puppets in the Media .
Anyway don’t fret next stop Iran with Bunker Buster Mini-Nukes all for what aim well whatever Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz & Condoleezza Rice can come up with because they just want to rule the world & what’s so wrong about that their little puppets Tony Blair & Stephen Harper would like to know. It seems to me if I remember correctly when the Soviet Union did this sort of thing the Americans & her allies used to go ballistic , my, my how times have changed in this best of all possible worlds as Voltaire might add... These guys used to get all teary-eyed when they heard about some dissident in the USSR being tortured or even imprisoned for his or her beliefs or public utterings now any member of a US department who speaks out even on Global Warming or Evolution or whether or not NOAH literally in historical terms sailed on the biggest bloody ship ever built all so their God could invent rainbows ah well there you go... Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose someone once said...
The horror inflicted upon the Iraqi people by the US forces & their allies appears as completely unnecessary . The tragedy of the war was just another horror inflicted upon a people who had suffered for some thirty years under the rule & tyranny of Saddam Hussein &then had to undergo the ordeal of years of a pointless war with Iran followed by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait followed by the US counter-attack & then ten years of oppressive draconian sanctions which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians leaving the country rather destitute before the US 2003 invasion.
There were no weapons of Mass Destruction & no connection with Al Qeda & the 9/11 attack.
Anyway the authors of these two books try to put the present situation in an historical context of the history of the Middle East especially since the time of the First World War. At that time much was promised to the Arabs who were willing to fight on the side of the British & French . In the end the Arabs were betrayed & the British & French and others carved up what they won from the Germans & the Turks leaving the Arabs to once again be left ruled by another group of conquerors. And so now they have been conquered again by another nation & so history of Iraq continues from broken promises & conquerors to Tyrants to new Conquerors .
As Kurt Vonnegut used to say , “ and so it goes, Hi, HO ”
Paul William Roberts HOME PAGE
www.paulwmroberts.com/
A WAR AGAINST TRUTH : An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq pub. 2004
"With regard to Iraq, we are continuing to act as imperialists or colonizers in a post-colonial age. The more we attempt to remake the world in our own image, the deeper the resentment against us will grow." -- PWR, 2002.
"Despite the bitter humor and riveting eyewitness accounts of the Iraq tragedies, a serious reading of this lacerating account of the crimes and the lives of the victims is about as enjoyable as ripping off scabs. But it is so vivid and compelling that it is impossible to put it down. Reading it is not only painful, but also as necessary as opening one's eyes in the morning, for those who want to perceive the world as it is and to do something about it."
-- Noam Chomsky on A WAR AGAINST TRUTH
2. Interview with "Night Draws Near" author Anthony Shadid
Sherri Muzher, Electronic Iraq, 30 September 2005
Appropriately beginning with the day of amnesty at the infamous Abu Ghreib prison when Saddam Hussein released all the prisoners, the new book Night Draws Near is an illuminating look into the ordinary lives of Iraqis during not so ordinary times. From this day on, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Anthony Shadid gets his first peek into deep-seated complaints and the long history of Iraqis, hardened by modern events but always proud of their identity.
Shadid, a 36-year-old Washington Post correspondent who chose not to be embedded with the military when the 2003 war was launched, embarks on a journey into the lives of numerous Iraqis. From the young girl Amal who writes a diary about the war and death she doesn't understand to Iraqi sculptor Mohamed Ghani who laments the looting and destruction of Iraqi historical artifacts to the clairvoyant Islamic mystic Hazem who provided comfort to Shadid's friend, Nasir Mehdawi, Shadid helps us to understand a society that was clearly misunderstood by the architects of the Iraq War. Not only does Shadid humanize the conflict, but he also explores the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures at a time of conflict.
See wbsites:
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE for daily news
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
THE NEW YORKER
THE COMING WARS
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17
From DEMOCRACY NOW
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/26/1450204
By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 11 October 2004
Watch the Webcast: Seymour Hersh, 1 hour 22 minutes
UC BERKELEY
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/10/11_hersh.shtml
Robert Fisk website & blog
which has audio & video of interviews & speeches of Robert Fisk
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
Other related books include:
Wheatcroft, Andrew : Infidels : THE conflict between Christendom and Islam, 638-2002 , Pub. 2003
Woodward, Bob : Bush At War Simon & Schuster Pub. 2002
Vidal, Gore : Dreaming War: Blood For Oil And The Cheney-Bush Junta,
pub. 2002
Hersh, Seymour M. : CHAIN OF COMMAND: THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO ABU GHRAIB , PUB. 2004
Carter, GRAYDON : WHAT WE’VE LOST: BUSH’S WAR ON DEMOCRACY & FREEDOM , PUB. 2004
MARTIN , WILLIAM : WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE: THE RISE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN AMERICA ( COMPANION TO THE PBS SERIES), PUB. 1996
FACKRE, GABRIEL : THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT & CHRISTIAN FAITH, PUB. 1982
MARTY, MARTIN E
& APPLEBY, R. SCOTT: THE GLORY AND THE POWER: THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHALLENGE TO THE MODERN WORLD ( COMPANION VOLUME TO THE PBS AND NPR TV SERIES) PUB. 1992
Anyway that's enough for now,
GOOD NIGHT ,AND GOOD LUCK
GORD>
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