A Worse Record Than Saddam's

Bad boy Julian Assange, the pretty, blondish founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks was hugely admired when he uncovered oppressors and political chicanery in places like China and Kenya, but now he takes on Western duplicity and crimes. Can't have that. This spawn of Beelzebub, say our masters, a traitor whose insolence is a crime against the secretive states of the US and UK. Disregard the pique and dyspepsia of officialdom. It is a distraction, smoke from fires deliberately started to stop us seeing what lies before us.

The audacious website first released confidential and candid material on the hellish war in Afghanistan and now opens up a new front, more than 400,000 classified US files documenting the previously untold horrors of the Iraq war. Revealed are countless atrocities and the deaths of 66,000 Iraqi civilians at the hands of US and British soldiers and Iraqi personnel who had joined the allies. Men were burnt, some had parts removed, others were killed slowly; women were shot, children too, killed before they grew. Anything goes, it seems, during a military conflict and no questions are asked. As an Israeli army trainer said, when asked about the death of Rachel Corrie, the young, pro-Palestinian activist mown down by an Israeli tank: "During war there are no civilians".

The authorities in Iraq did not investigate reports of abuse and killings. An Iraqi friend tells me the rape of girls, women, boys and men was widespread, a tool used both to intimidate and punish. Apparently, there are images from Abu Ghraib prison of these sadistic "punishments"; they were never released because of the feelings they could arouse in Muslim countries. So morally deformed are these men of war that they care more about inconvenient outrage than they do about crimes against the people they supposedly went to save. They should have heeded the words of Martin Van Creveld, an erudite Israeli war historian who compared the disastrous American Vietnam War with the Iraq adventure:

"He who fights the weak – and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed – and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins, also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel."

By this reasoning, to fight the weak who are not in any sense your enemy is extreme brutishness and totally self-defeating.

Key figures in the British Army and Government must have been privy to this information. They held their tongues and presumably sidestepped any ethical niggles. The Americans were in command and you don't get to lick the arse of the world's only superpower and then turn round and kick it. That, you understand, is the pact, the unbreakable deal behind our special relationship.

Manfred Novak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, says Obama's administration must investigate and come clean – after all, this President vowed to change the image and behaviour of the US which, for too long, has co-operated with tyrants and violated human rights across the world, including in Guantanamo Bay, which is still open and where captured, lost boys became broken men.

Fewer and fewer global citizens now believe the rapturous anthems and sombre panegyrics of God's own America. After this week, the number will have tumbled further, which, in some ways, is a pity. There is much to praise about the US, its history of perpetual resistance to unacceptable state power, its energy, creativity, business, intellectual and cultural buzz. When such a great nation does great wrong, its mirror is shattered and even if the shards are stuck back together again, the cracks will always remain. And when the custodian of the free world behaves so appallingly, how do we liberal Muslims promote democratic values across the Muslim world?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (sounding like a clone of Condi Rice) slammed the Wikileaks exposé and warned that lives of US civilians and forces and their allies were now in serious danger. At one level, I fear she is right. The internet traffic over the past two days has been so fast, furious and volatile, it could indeed fuel terrorism, recruitment into jihadi cells, even more violence in unstable Iraq, suicide bombers in Afghanistan and ugly attitudes towards the West, home to millions of Muslims. But keeping the stories hidden was always wrong. Innocent Iraqi people should never have been made to suffer by the allies and even the guilty should have faced due process to prove commitment to justice and decent values. When there was evidence of liberators behaving monstrously, action should have been taken and in the public eye. Clinton must know this, as a lawyer. It is a primary principle of her profession.

I wonder if some staunch supporters of the Iraq war will now think again about the purpose and execution of that illegal and vainglorious expedition. The sanctions and war killed, maimed and destroyed more civilians than Saddam did, even during the most diabolical periods of his rule. Blair, Bush and their armies have never had to face proper, international judicial interrogations. Now imagine good Muslims worldwide, who know all about universal rights, but can see that there is no universal accountability, that Third World despots are made to pay while others earn millions writing autobiographies and lecturing the world on good leadership and governance. Hundreds of savvy, smart, keenly aware young people email me from various Muslim states asking: "What's the point? They say one thing and do the opposite. They say they want to help us and kill our people. Why should we trust the British and Americans?"

What do our army commanders and American leaders advise me to tell these disenchanted Muslims? And Mr Blair, I wonder if he has some wise thoughts? He is, they tell me, still one of the greatest prime ministers this country has had. And his wife, the hot human rights lawyer, does she think these abuses her husband just might have known about should be investigated? No answers will be forthcoming. Those who took us into this
war are not obliged to explain themselves, not liable. In that they are worse than the dictator they toppled. Not comfortable that thought, but true.

(The Independent)
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/10/27/worse-than-saddams/

More War Lies

Lies aren’t used just to start wars, but also to escalate them, continue them, and even reduce or end them. And we got a pile of war lies from the president Tuesday evening.

Obama claimed the war on Iraq was initially a war to disarm a state. Really? And then “terrorist” Iraqis attacked our troops in their country. Yet if they had done that in our country, I suspect they would still be the terrorists. And then it became a civil war which we were innocently caught up in. Uh huh.

U.S. participants in this crime are heroes, always and everywhere. That’s sacred. The troops’ mission has involved protecting the Iraqi people, and by golly they’ve done a superb job, as long as we don’t mention the complete devastation of Iraq, the million dead, the millions of refugees, and the intense resentment of those remaining toward our country for what we’ve done to theirs.

The Iraqi people now (dead, in exile, in a ruined nation) have a chance that they supposedly didn’t have before we destroyed their country, a country that was actually a better place to live in in every way in 2003 than it is now, and in 1989 than in 2003. To hear President Obama, this war has been for the benefit of the Iraqi people, and these wars have been about al Qaeda and 9-11.

Obama slid into nonsense about al Qaeda after discussing Iraq and before mentioning Afghanistan, a Bushian maneuver if ever I saw one:

“No challenge is more essential to our security than our fight against al Qaeda.”

Never mind that al Qaeda barely existed before these wars became recruiting tools. “We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda” in Afghanistan, the president promised, even though al Qaeda isn’t there. Troop reductions in Afghanistan will begin next August, he said, although the prepared transcript said July, and will be determined by conditions on the ground, even though Afghanistan is not yet as bad as Iraq is.

Obama modeled the future bloodletting in Afghanistan on the myth of the successful escalation in Iraq, ignoring factors that have contributed to the reduction of violence in Iraq, including the promise of complete withdrawal, the beginning of withdrawal, and prior to those factors the incredible level of death and displacement, negotiations and bribes. The test for a “surge” in Afghanistan failed in Marja, and Obama simply behaves as if it succeeded.

And here at home “it is time to turn the page.” Never mind the commission of the supreme international crime of aggression. Never mind the mass murder. Obama said he talked with George W. Bush earlier in the day. Obama lied that the two of them had never agreed on the war, a war Obama voted to fund repeatedly in the Senate. And he lied that Bush was committed to U.S. security, knowing full well that this war has made us all less safe.

“There were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq’s future.”

Except for the majority of Americans who believe the war never should have begun, that it should be immediately ended, and that its architects — starting at the top with Bush, not the bottom with the troops — must be held criminally accountable. Participation in this crime is not a service to anyone.

The most honest part of the speech was this:

“We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.”

That’s a remarkable point for the president to dare to make. But there was no mention of the hundreds of billions yet in the works to be wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Pakistan and numerous other countries deserving of our favors.

The big lie, of course, is that the combat mission is, once again, completed. The soldiers in Iraq and the mercenaries and contractors are there for combat. That there are fewer soldiers is movement very much in the right direction, and very much to be applauded, but pretending that those remaining are something else is not accurate. Many of them may see less combat, but I’ll believe they’re not there for combat when their weapons are taken away.

The big question, of course, is what will be done about the deadline of December 31, 2011. Here’s what Obama said on this key point:

“Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq’s Security Forces; supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year. As our military draws down, our dedicated civilians — diplomats, aid workers, and advisors — are moving into the lead to support Iraq as it strengthens its government, resolves political disputes, resettles those displaced by war, and builds ties with the region and the world. And that is a message that Vice President Biden is delivering to the Iraqi people through his visit there today. This new approach reflects our long-term partnership with Iraq — one based upon mutual interests, and mutual respect. Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission.”

Violence will not end. We just won’t call it combat. It’ll be an overseas contingency. But what about all U.S. troops leaving by the end of next year? Obama doesn’t seem to hedge on this the way he does later in the speech on a future withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that will be “subject to conditions on the ground.” And that’s a good thing. The same day as this speech, the war-loving Washington Post printed a column by Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009, which pushed for a longer occupation with these words:

“And it may be that a new Iraqi government will request a U.S. military presence beyond the end of 2011. If so, I hope we will listen carefully.”

Maybe we should start listening very careful right now. The president speaks of a long-term partnership with Iraq. How do you have that if you’re gone? The answer may be that you aren’t gone, that you maintain a significant military force in the country consisting of mercenaries employed by the State Department.

Here’s what the Bush-Maliki Unconstitutional Treaty says:

“All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.”

However, the same document, as Raed Jarrar pointed out to me, carefully defines U.S. forces to allow exceptions:

“Definition of Terms . . .

‘U.S. Forces’ refers to the entity that includes all the personnel of the American Armed Forces, the civilian personnel connected to them and all their possessions, installations and equipment present on Iraqi territory.

‘Member of the U.S. Forces’ refers to any person that belongs to the army of the United States, its navy, air force, marine force or coast guard.

‘Civilian element member’ refers to any civilian working for the U.S. Department of Defense. And this term does not include the personnel usually resident in Iraq.”

The trick is that not all imaginable U.S. forces have to work for the so-called Department of Defense. If they work for any other department, they’re in the clear. But Iraqis are in their gun sights.
http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/09/more-war-lies/

The truth be known, the U.S. has become isolated from the rest of the world on this lunacy!

By Peter Dyer

Though the U.S. political/media establishment remains in denial, an international consensus is building that the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a crime -- a profound and catastrophic violation of international law.

The crime was aggression: the waging of unprovoked war on a sovereign state.

The growing global consensus holds that not only was the invasion of Iraq illegal but that accountability should follow, that – at least in the future – such crimes should result in direct and severe personal consequences for leaders who plan for war and give the orders to start.

Two recent developments, in London and in Kampala, Uganda, highlight this movement away from impunity and toward personal responsibility for aggression -- referred to in the judgment of the first Nuremberg trial in 1946 as "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

In London, the Chilcot inquiry, the official British examination of the Iraq War, has produced powerful testimony from leading ex-government figures that Operation Iraqi Freedom was illegal and was known to be so at the time by many senior officials.

Sir Michael Wood, chief Legal Adviser to the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the British equivalent of the U.S. State Department, told the Chilcot Inquiry in January:

"I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law. In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorized by the Security Council, and had no other legal basis in international law."

The FCO Deputy Legal Adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, told the inquiry: "I regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal, and I therefore did not feel able to continue in my post."

Ms. Wilmshurst also testified that her perspective was shared unanimously among all the FCO Legal Advisers.

Testifying on July 20, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director General of MI-5 (Military Intelligence-5, the British Security Service) from 2002 to 2007, further undermined the "self-defense" justifications for invading Iraq, cited by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Asked for her assessment of the possibility that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would have threatened western interests by combining weapons of mass destruction with international terrorism, she answered:

"It is a hypothetical theory. It certainly wasn't of concern in either the short term or the medium term to my colleagues and myself."

When asked if she gave any credence to assessments that Saddam Hussein provided support for al-Qaeda and might have been involved in 9/11, Manningham-Buller said:

"No. …there was no credible intelligence to suggest that connection and that was the judgment, I might say, of the CIA. It was not a judgment that found favour with some parts of the American machine, …which is why Donald Rumsfeld started an intelligence unit in the Pentagon to seek an alternative judgment."

When asked for her reflections on the invasion, she said: "The main one would seem to me to be the danger of over-reliance on fragmentary intelligence in deciding whether or not to go to war. If you are going to go to war, you need a pretty high threshold. … The intelligence was not substantial enough upon which to make that decision."

Only the United Nations Security Council can legally use or authorize armed force across borders (U.N. Charter Article 41) unless a country has been attacked or an attack is imminent (Article 51).

The U.N. Security Council did not authorize the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Neither the U.S. nor the U.K. had been attacked by Iraq. Neither was there anything remotely resembling an imminent threat of Iraqi armed attack on the U.S. or the U.K.

By the numbers the invasion of Iraq was a monstrous crime, generating massive trauma for the Iraqi people.

In the resulting conflict somewhere between 100,000 and one million people lost their lives. About four million people lost their homes.

Yet, it remains highly unlikely the men and women who brought about these horrors will ever be arrested and tried. That's mostly because the superpower status of the United States and the nature of internal U.S. politics make serious accountability hard to envision, at least in the foreseeable future.

The principle of "equal justice under the law," so fundamental to the American way that the phrase is engraved on the front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building, is cast aside when U.S. authorities authorize the killing of foreigners in the name of national security, even when the justification is bogus.

Outside the U.S., though, momentum is building for equal justice under international criminal law.

This perspective was dramatically affirmed recently at the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. On June 11, the ICC reached agreement to amend the ICC Charter, subject to a vote in 2017, to include a definition of the crime of aggression.

The ICC Charter, established in 1998, gave the court jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.

But finding an agreement on the definition of aggression and the conditions of jurisdiction proved so difficult that the delegates finally agreed that the ICC could not actually assume jurisdiction until (Article 5 Section 2) "a provision is adopted…defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime."

In 2002, shortly after the ICC Charter entered into force, the States Parties (countries which have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute, the founding document of the ICC) established a special working group on the crime of aggression.

In Kampala, almost eight years later, 84 of the 111 ICC States Parties reached agreement on a definition as well as on jurisdiction.

Also participating in the discussions were 30 "observer nations:" countries such as the United States, Russia and China which are not yet States Parties and thus could not vote but which still exerted influence.

It's worth noting the Obama administration's modest concession to the international rule of law. Though the United States remains outside the ICC, the presence of an American delegation at the review conference is a repudiation of the Bush administration, which not only refused to engage the ICC but actively worked against it.

The Bush administration, by threatening reductions in aid, pressured over 100 countries to sign "Bilateral Immunity Agreements" whose purpose was to ensure that these countries would not transfer U.S. nationals to the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The Kampala agreement on aggression was based on a series of compromises, a major portion of which had to do with sorting jurisdiction, between the ICC and the U.N. Security Council, for the finding of aggression.

Not surprisingly the permanent members of the Security Council (the ones with veto power: U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China) were reluctant to share the power to determine aggression conferred by United Nations Charter (Article 39).

The Draft Resolution compromise provided that under certain conditions the ICC could exercise jurisdiction over aggression by States Parties, but the Security Council would have ultimate veto power.

Dr. Kennedy Graham, a New Zealand Member of Parliament who went to Kampala as an observer with Parliamentarians for Global Action, made some comments reflecting the mixed reaction at the conference to the United States agenda:

"At present, the U.S. is 'prepared to constructively engage' without joining. Of course it is…. [It] is quite prepared to refer [to the Security Council] any issue of crimes in bello [during war], since it can veto any of its own.

"What it is not prepared to do is cede any competence to the Court to determine aggression (crimes ad bellum). … So, more of the same from the U.S., right now. But the time will come. They cannot hold out forever.

"When the rest of the world has moved, the leader of the free world will come inside the tent. When peace and justice truly merge on the negotiating table, the U.S., with its strategic partner of the night, Israel, will turn up for dinner. They should be made welcome."

Still, despite the compromises, the Kampala agreement was remarkable. The major hurdles to including aggression as a crime that can be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court have been overcome.

The days when national leaders can wage war with impunity may be slowly coming to an end.

Perhaps someday, as Kennedy Graham envisions, all countries will come inside the tent. If and when that happens even the leaders of the world's most powerful countries, when contemplating slaughter of the citizens of another country for political gain, will want to pause to consider the prospect of arrest, trial and imprisonment.
Humanity will then have taken a giant step toward the founding goal of the United Nations: a world without war.
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com

Obama goes to WAR!

http://tales-of-iraq-war.blogspot.com/

Iraq seven years later...

by Carlos Latuff
http://tales-of-iraq-war.blogspot.com/

U.S. ignores UK's Iraq war evidence

By David Swanson

Peter Dyer sums up well the sort of conclusions we can draw from the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role as sidekick launcher of aggressive war on Iraq:

"On March 18, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Elizabeth Wilmshurst resigned as Deputy Legal Adviser to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the British equivalent of the US State Department.

"'I regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal, and I therefore did not feel able to continue in my post,' she said later. Ms. Wilmshurst discussed her resignation while appearing before the current British inquiry into the Iraq War — the Chilcot Inquiry.

"In an office of 35 or so lawyers, she may have been the only one to resign. However, she testified that her perspective was shared unanimously among all the FCO Legal Advisers, including the head of the office, Sir Michael Wood.

"Sir Michael himself told the Chilcot Inquiry: 'I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law. In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorized by the Security Council, and had no other legal basis in international law.'

"In sum: every lawyer charged with advising the British government on the legality of the Iraq invasion believed it was illegal."

And, of course, we already knew this. And, of course, we did not need to know it. We just need to read the UN Charter to know that aggressive wars are illegal.

Dyer spends most of the rest of his article pointing out that even a hobbled toothless inquiry treating public documents as untouchable because "classified" and leading to no law enforcement actions is a giant leap forward from anything happening in the United States, the nation chiefly responsible for the crime under "investigation."

The Chilcot inquiry may ask to meet with former US officials, as noted by UPI, which also reports on the latest smoking gun tossed high onto the pile of thousands of smoking guns:

"Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says he will check records of his pre-Iraq invasion phone calls with then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"Straw made the promise Monday to Britain's Iraq Inquiry panel after allegations emerged that Powell told him in the weeks prior to the [2003] Iraq invasion that President George W. Bush would invade the country even if Saddam Hussein complied with nuclear arms inspectors, The Times of London reported.

"The newspaper said the calls became an issue after Straw defended his decision to dismiss the advice of his chief legal adviser that the war would be unlawful.

"Inquiry panel member Lawrence Freedman, hinting that the panel may have documents showing Bush planned to attack Iraq even if U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix found that Saddam was complying with U.N. resolution 1441, asked Straw, 'Was there any point where Powell said to you that even if Iraq complied, President Bush had already made a decision to go to war?'

"The Times said Straw, now Britain's justice secretary, replied, 'Certainly not to the best of my recollection. I would have to check the record of my many conversations I had with Secretary Powell.'"

But that is not how Straw replied. And there was more than a hint here that the questioner already knew the answer.

This "inquiry" is being conducted by panelists in possession of numerous documents, both public and still private, that they are forbidden to discuss. The Downing Street Minutes and every other piece of documentation long since confirming for the public the truth into which this show is "inquiring" are deemed "classified" and unmentionable by the Chilcoteers.

So, what would it look like to question Straw about a document proving Powell had told him (as the entire world outside of US television viewers knows by now the United States told the United Kingdom) that Bush was going to war regardless of Iraq's behavior?

Here's Chris Floyd's account:

"And so, to close out its first phase, the Chilcot Inquiry recalled Straw -- who had already given one sweaty, white-knuckle performance on the witness stand a few weeks ago.

“With the implacable politesse of the true British mandarin, panelist Sir Lawrence Freedman seized the opportunity to suggest to the right honorable minister that the right honorable minister might, perhaps, be lying through his right honorable teeth in denying that Colin Powell had informed him quite clearly that the Americans were going to war, come hell or high water, in March 2003.

“As the Guardian notes, Freedman's questions make it clear that [he] has obviously seen some very interesting paperwork. Here is the exchange, from the Guardian:

"Freedman asked: Can you start by confirming that you knew that military action was planned by the US for the middle of March come what may? You were copied in, presumably, to reports of conversations between the prime minister and the president?

"Straw replied: Yes, I don't think there was any key document that I should have seen that I didn't.

"Freedman: Was there any point where [Colin] Powell said to you that even if Iraq complied, President Bush had already made a decision that he intended to go to war?

"Straw replied: Certainly not to the best of my recollection.

"Freedman went on: I was going to suggest you might want to look through your conversations and check.

"Mr Straw at last got the hint: I will go through the records because I think you are trying to tell me something.

"Yes, Mr Straw. He is trying to tell you, and the world, that he has the paper in his hand documenting your conversation with Colin Powell: a clear admission of the war crime of military aggression, as it reveals that there was not even a pretense of a legally justifiable casus belli among the American and British leaders -- just the cold, pre-determined intention to attack."

And yet, what the best of our commentators across the Atlantic seem to miss is that the illegality of the war is taken as a point in its favor in the United States.

"Proving" its illegality yet again is not really interesting in Washington. The Washington Post deemed it old news prior to ever mentioning it. President Obama openly declared his power to launch illegal wars in a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech some weeks back.

For us, an inquiry into war lies is a quaint tourist destination, like a European town with pedestrian streets and neighbors who speak to each other. We love visiting such things, but we wouldn't want to live there.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/US-ignores-UK-s-Iraq-war-evidence.html

US military imports sand to Iraq: Report

A new report unveils that since 2003, the US military has been spending big bucks on importing sand to Iraq a country covered mostly with sand.

Iraq has sand ten times more than it has water or oil, yet Director of Resource Management for the US military Maj. Gen. Phillip E. McGhee claims that the country's sand is not the right type for building blast walls, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The US military says it had to import sand from other countries including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

A 15-ton blast wall, according to Gen. McGhee, costs about USD 3,500 to build.

However, he said, "to move it elsewhere in the region could cost us, transportation-wise, about USD 15,000 making it probably more cost-effective to leave it in place and buy another one elsewhere. The same goes for shipping containers" he added.

"Depending what port you move that same container out of, it could cost you USD 3,000 or it could cost you USD 15,000" McGhee said.

A report by the Pentagon last year criticized the US military spending in Afghanistan and said a great deal was being wasted.

The United States has spent over one-trillion dollars for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past nine years.

A report by US Congressional Commission of Wartime Contracting released last year revealed that the military has wasted huge sums of its budget on unnecessary spending and luxuries.

The report said that the US military spent over USD 30 million on building a single 'dining facility at
Camp Delta' in Baghdad, which would be completed by a time, when most US troops will have left the country.

SG/MMN
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/US-military-imports-sand-to-Iraq-Report.html

Mohamed Khodr – With Blair-Bush Lies, Muslims Died

“For wicked men are found among my people; they lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch men”

- Jeremiah 5:26-29, (Bible: Old Testament)

“Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

For 100 years the Arab and Muslim world have known that when it comes to European and American imperialistic designs on the Middle East there are two separate universes with separate political, economic, racial and legal standards. With self assured arrogance, hypocrisy and double standards western powers reserved the "right of might" to inflict devastating invasions, occupations, mass murders, ethnic cleansing and the Anti-Jewish cleansing of Europe by gifting a land, without ownership or right, to European Jews who proceeded to emulate European colonialism to attack and ethnically cleanse an innocent people from their land. Israel was born by England's illegal gifting of a foreign land and subsequently immorally supported by the United States at the expense of a hapless population living under the most dire and brutal of occupations.

Throughout the history of their imperialistic, colonial designs those western powers and Israel, the fate of the indigenous populations was never an issue or matter of concern to these warring states. From the Native Americans, North and South, to Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Asians and the Aborigines of Australia and New Zealand, their lives, history, religion, culture and language were fodder for extinction to satisfy the economic greed of western powers.

In 1917, a simple typed letter of 68 words signed by Lord Balfour, foreign minister of England and addressed to the Jewish banker, Lord Rothschild, proscribed Palestine, still under Ottoman rule, "a national homeland for the Jews." It became known as the “Balfour Declaration” and used a manifesto by Zionists to justify their illegal, immoral and genocidal design on Palestine.

"In Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country…Zionism, be it right or wrong, is rooted in age-old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”

– Lord Balfour, UK Foreign Minister

From David Lloyd George (“We have the right to bomb niggers”), Prime Minister of England 1916-1922 – to Lord Arthur Balfour, UK Foreign Minister 1916-1919 and author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration – to President Truman – to the current Vice President of the United States, Joseph Biden, all have declared themselves to be “Zionists”.

Not since World War II has one western leader, not even one, ever been charged or prosecuted for war crimes against humanity. While Holocaust museums are being erected around the world, often at taxpayers’ expense, not one single museum in a western capital, with the exception of Latin America, has ever been built to memorialize the genocides against African Americans, Latinos, Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Asians and Aborigines – all victims of imperial holocausts.

These days in London an “inquiry”, not trial, named after its chair, the Chicot Inquiry, has been looking into the reasons and justifications that led to the massively illegal war and devastation of an innocent nation, Iraq.

So far, former British government officials have presented evidence that the war was “illegal”, did not have support from the U.N., nor from the entire world except for UK and US, – that Tony Blair had been told that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that intelligence was “sexed up” and manipulated to justify Blair’s war crimes against Iraq.

Blair launched his war crime against Iraq with the same zeal, lies and fear mongering propaganda used by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense, called by Time Magazine, the “Architect” of the Iraq War, was asked in a Vanity Fair interview, May 2003, why was the Iraq War based on Saddam’s alleged possession of WMD’s. This time, he actually told the truth. Wolfowitz stated:

“For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”

As a second reason he stated that the war gave the U.S. the opportunity to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia where Saudi hostility against the presence of the troops was high.

Tony Blair’s lies to the British people, despite their immense opposition to the war, and to Parliament have been aptly documented. But this arrogant war criminal, ironically a MidEast "peace envoy", told the Chicot Inquiry that he did not lie about his justifications for war and unconscionably stood by his false assertions for the devastating illegal war. He was unrepentant and unremorseful for the millions of dead, injured and displaced Iraqis. Nor was he repentant for the sacrifice of British soldiers. In true narcissistic and pathological fashion he said he would make the same decision to invade Iraq again today. Even Saddam’s death wouldn’t have stopped their messianic psychosis to invade Iraq. Got to do it for Oil and Israel.

Blair quotes that reveal a pathological liar with no conscience but possessing a hypocritical racist soul, much like all Israeli leaders, including today’s war criminal du jour, Netanyahu.

“Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones.”

“Ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane.”

“The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."

-Foreword to UK Government dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction

Tony Blair's arrogant testimony to the Chicot Inquiry is a blatant genocidal example of a western leader trying to justify the unjustifiable. Both Blair and Bush knew beforehand that Iraq had no WMD's and that their falsified intelligence came from an alcoholic liar (“Curveball”) and Iraqi dissident, Ahmad Chalabi, whose lies gave Blair and Bush the weapons for mass destruction of Iraq. The British Intelligence even plagiarized statements from a U.S. PhD student’s thesis on Iraq which included the outrageous claim that Saddam can launch WMD’s within 45 minutes.

Blair, in true contempt to truth and history, used Bush’s fallback position that 9/11 changed their outlook on world affairs and became their pretext for a world “war on terror”. Blair’s testimony showcased that the best defense was a good offense.

The U.N., Fourth Geneva Convention, I.C.C., and International Laws were created by western powers and thus easily manipulated and selectively applied by them to the third world and not to themselves who self ascribe the right to devastate in the name of self defense, even pre-emptively. Using such logic any nation can invade another pre-emptively if it can manufacture hysteria, lies and self perceived threats to itself. Thus China is totally justified to invade Taiwan, Russia can invade Poland and the Czech Republic given America’s deployment of missile defense systems, Cuba can invade the U.S., Turkey can invade Armenia and so on.

Within this cabal of righteous powers is Israel, a nation born out of violence, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing; a nation that has repeatedly launched pre-emptive wars using the western mantra of "self defense". Israel, a state unlike any other that commits genocides with total impunity daring the world to criticize much less consider prosecuting its leaders for documented crimes against humanity, as evidenced by the Goldstone Report.

Not satisfied with the bloodshed in Iraq, Blair has the audacity to call for the same devastation of the Muslim nation du jour, Iran, thereby joining the Israeli motivated policy of “next stop, Tehran”. Iran, like Iraq, poses no threat to either, the west or Israel, even if it does possess nuclear weapons. Would Iran commit suicide or would it insanely nuke Israel thereby committing a holocaust against Palestinians, the very people Iran loves and defends? Would it destroy Jerusalem, while causing massive nuclear radiation in the entire region and risking massive nuclear retaliation from Israel, a state in possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons and a non-signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty? Blaming, then bombing Muslims seems to be Blair's, Obama's, and Israel's policy. Nuclear Israel, demonstrably a criminal nation, is untouchable while non-nuclear Muslim nations are bombable. Justice lies in the eye of the criminal.

TRUTH has always been the enemy of western civilization and in due time will be its undoing.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/02/02/mohamed-khodr-with-blair-bush-lies-muslims-died/

Obama: A Monument to Hip-ocrisy

Barack Obama is a very handsome man. He has the charisma of a showman. He speaks very well, and what's more, he can even dance. It's not clear whether that is sufficient criteria to make one into a president, oops, not "a" president but "The President", but it certainly was enough to get one elected for the position.

And yet, Obama is nothing if not humble. He recognised that he really didn't (yet) deserve the world's most important honour, the Nobel Peace Prize, but he also recognised last week that while he is "The President", someone else is "The Boss".

What does all of this mean in the big picture? Quite a lot, actually, because whether he deserves it or not, Obama is there, in the highest echelons of power and glory, getting the greatest achievement awards for being … handsome, charismatic and cool. Since the advent of widespread mass media, style has definitely overcome substance as the top priority, the winning attribute. As a matter of fact, the soul of commerce is advertising, and Obama has been selected to represent the "American Image" that wants to be loved once again, whether or not they deserve it.


In the world of advertising, the biggest question is about appearance, finding a soundbite, a face, a slogan. Enormous resources are invested in developing a successful image. As Joseph Levine wrote "You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough." There's little doubt that Obama has understood this concept.

Does Obama want to fool anyone? Well, that's hard to tell. He apparently knows his market though, because they are a generation that "tweets", makes friends through "social networks", actually enjoys the deadpan face (what comic genius) of Obama's "He's The Boss" tribute. He's cool, and he's one of us, ergo, we are cool. We might even be a friend of his, on some social network. We are actually cautioned against going against him, and the mantra, "he's still new, give him time", or the comical "it's his first 100 days", being uttered long after the expiration date, were there to warn us that we better stay out of things where Obama is concerned. He might be an imperialist, but hey, he can't change things overnight… as if he would if he could?

There is a level of wishful thinking in the idol worship that has accompanied Obama since he came onto the scene. It stopped mattering what he might do, what counted was what he "was" and how that communicated great things about the American people and their advancement and true belief in achievement and equality for all: he's got it all, he's young, black, urban, well-educated, modern but also traditional, graceful but also a with that charming nervousness that makes one look like they are going to worry about your problems for you. That's what the president is supposed to do. And if you are "The President", you can be either a Father Figure or a Brother. Bush struggled to be the Father Figure, since his position as "official son" made him turn that ambition into a full time job, and… let's face it, it was not attractive and was no longer going to be a winning strategy. People only love and listen to their fathers when they are either very young or quite mature. So, Obama is our cool brother. We would share CDs with him if he lived in the same building, wouldn't we?

America is in its teens. It feels young and it likes starting over. It needs to be unconditionally loved so that it can really be free to do what it wants without being told to change. After a series of wars and a growing list of nations that can no longer tolerate the single superpower doing what it wants and damn the torpedoes, it is looking for a new girlfriend, a European one, and if possible, a Middle Eastern one. These are the places that have political history as former superpower or immense natural resources that will determine the next superpower in a not-so-distant future when resources will count more than abstract things like the deposits of the Federal Reserve. America really needs the rest of the world that counts to fall in love with it again. Fulfilling the expectations, (there was indeed a need for love) it didn't brush off the seduction, and the mass media of the international community had a huge crush in November 2008, as if the world was all of a sudden different and far better, and Obama hadn't even taken oath yet. Even those who aren't members of the club of "friends of America" were ready to at least go on a date and see how things might go. That might be a legitimate expectation, but Obama was sure to give the banks, Israel and the military industry a gigantic helping hand as his first steps. He would not dare criticise Israel during the war they waged in Gaza… as if "not being sworn in" was some kind of excuse.

Things got a little rougher with the deployment of more troops and the mass exodus in Pakistan because of American and NATO military actions, so then Obama decided to engage in his specialty, rhetoric, aka "smooth talking", and in Cairo, he fooled the Western countries totally, but not the Arabs and Muslims. Straight off the bat, he was justifying slaughtering Muslims and warning Palestinians that they had to "stop killing". And that was enough for the Israeli hasbara machine to pretend that he was a friend of Palestine, and therefore, people had to be more vigilant than before and really back Israel in this trying time. Quite a tough one to pull off, looking at everything Obama has promised, said and done, but this is how hasbara works, tell a lie and repeat it. No one ever said they weren't clever.

But, it is easy to be successful at rhetoric when standards for it are quite low, and when listeners are not really hearing what is said, but what they want to hear, that this man is really different and good. What Obama uses are code words that avoid specifics. Concepts of goodness such as "hope", "change" "belief" "courage" can really stir the spirit, but what if my idea of good is different from his? What if the idea of change that an Afghani or Iraqi has is different than the idea coming from the White House? In Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel, he put his hands out in front of him, his modesty could not be false, he really does not deserve that award, and he knows it. His critics can see the three little letters in the word "award": right in the middle we have WAR. But Obama decided to talk about his wars, and to justify them. So, now, we have the ultimate in hypocrisy. Defending a peace prize by saying that war brings peace. That the Americans were good "then" and they are good "now". That they defend themselves and will always do so, because this is what America does for the good of the Americans and the entire world.

He mentioned the foundation of the UN. But he didn't mention the Veto power of the USA, going against the absolute majority of the nations in order to defend occupation and support the oppression of an entire people who happen to not have "a big enough budget".

If Looks Could Kill

And thus, we are all witnessing the continuation of the collective lovefest, pushed to a higher level, as no longer is Obama "capable" of imposing imperialist agendas in areas targeted for "liberation" on behalf of the grand caravan of "The Coalition of the Willing", he is actually doing precisely that. It goes beyond simply leading the world's most powerful nation and defending the US from harm, because here we have the entire narrative of the "good war", the "just war", the fight against terrorism, which Obama expresses in his acceptance speech as a few angry men who harm hundreds of innocent people. He cannot fathom that under his command, the United States does the same thing, but with total impunity. In Afghanistan at least one hundred innocent civilians were killed by a few men flying US Air Force planes, and this was not an isolated attack, it is simply one that had been reported. This act, when done by the Republicans, was immediately condemned by those who consider themselves to be "anti-war". The complaints never seemed to last longer than a few days and they had no practical efficacy whatsoever, but the feeling was that it was wrong, it was putting America in a worse position and that one should protest, not really for the Afghanis or Iraqis, but for the sake of the image of the USA. All of this has simply faded out because their man, the charming and attractive Obama is doing it, and his narrative of the Good War, they believe, is going to be enough to do the trick. Certainly, there is nothing new about the utilisation of rhetoric and image to make effective propaganda. What would really be sad is if those who identify with Obama because of his attractive image identified with all the hypocrisy he represents, and the lack of awareness that he is as imperialistic and as warmongering as any president before him, none excluded. If looks could kill, they probably will.

* Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of Tlaxcala translations collective.

http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan