Antiwar.com Blog

Australian-born, British-based journalist John Pilger’s newest documentary investigates the United States-led “War on Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and raises crucial questions about the real motives behind the violence. The 50-minute video weaves together footage of victims of US bombing in Afghanistan and victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, people in Afghanistan who claim they are no better off or even in worse shape since their supposed “liberation” by the America, and disturbing interviews with a variety of US experts revealing the long history of American intervention in foreign affairs, including the Carter administration’s authorizing $500 million to the Mujahideen: training and funding Islamic extremists including Osama Bin Laden. “Out of this,” Pilger states, “came the Taliban, Al Qaeda and September 11th.” His gimmick of intercutting footage and sound bites from speeches by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair with footage of destruction and interviews that directly contradict the figures’ public words is clever and effective.

Pilger’s sharp style of dress, Geraldo-esqe delivery of inflammatory accusations (every bit as carefully worded for effect as the public declarations of the warmongers he seeks to discredit) and the melodramatic music he has chosen to accompany his footage have the unfortunate effect of undercutting the solid reporting and moments of genuine emotional poignancy in the film, and no doubt give his critics ample reason to label him a bit of a self-serving sensationalist, and perhaps he does love the sound of his own voice a bit too much. His statements are broad, and his views at times seem a bit too simplistic. But no matter how smug he may come off, Pilger does make a very valid point about the terrible distance between the public statements of the American and British Governments and the actual actions they have taken, and if it takes a slick format to get more people to wake up to the horrible realities of this supposed “War on Terror,” he has my blessing.

Copies of the VHS video are available from Bullfrog Films, Oley PA (800-543-3764) or at
www.bullfrogfilms.com.

Iraq should dissolve the U.S.-picked Governing Council and set up a caretaker government of respected Iraqis to lead the country from the U.S. handover of power on June 30 until elections set for Jan. 31, U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Wednesday.

The caretaker government would be led by a prime minister and include a president and two vice presidents. It must include “Iraqi men and women known for their honesty, integrity and competence,” Brahimi said.

Well, that leaves Chalabi out, doesn’t it?

Brahimi insisted U.N. and U.S. officials were cooperating but he denounced the U.S. military operation against Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, where civilian deaths have reportedly been high.

“Collective punishment is certainly unacceptable and the siege of the city is absolutely unacceptable,” Brahimi told a press conference.

He also criticized the U.S.-led coalition’s holding of Iraqi prisoners and U.S. efforts after Saddam’s fall to root out high-ranking members of the ousted Baath Party from official positions.

“It is difficult to understand that thousands upon thousands … of professionals sorely needed in the country have been dismissed” due to Baathist ties, he said.

Even some coalition officials have complained that the de-Baathification committee, headed by Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, has gone too far in pursuing Baathists.

Two more strikes against Chalabi. He has misused his CPA-granted power by wielding the “de-Baathification” stick against his political enemies and participated in, if not outright helped foment, the “collective punishment” against all the residents of Fallujah.

These criticisms can also be applied to other members of the Iraqi Puppet Council, but they fit Chalabi like a bloody glove.

As if to punctuate Brahimi’s statements at the press conference, in the middle of it a rocket slammed into the nearby Sheraton.

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Update: For further proof of the disastrous and criminal actions of the neocon implant, Ahmed Chalabi, see this Salon article, which was pointed out by Aaron Trauring on the Stand Down blog:

When puppets pull the strings

Ahmed Chalabi, the neocons’ choice to run Iraq, appears to have been responsible for the disastrous decision to move against Muqtada al-Sadr

Over at LRC blog, Jeffrey Tucker is kind enough to round up some of the gems from the prez’s Q & occasionally A session last night. I’ll just go through a few with my knee-jerk ripostes in italics:

*They’re [Iraqis] not happy they’re occupied. I wouldn’t be happy if I were occupied either.
Another reason to keep Dick Cheney on staff, no?

*I want to know why we haven’t found a weapon yet.
Hey, car bombs, mines, RPGs, and Kalashnikovs are weapons, too, and “we” have found plenty of those–right in “our” faces.

*One of my hardest parts of my job is to console the family members who have lost their life.
Bush Iraq military funeral attendance count: 0.

*This is a war against people who have no guilt in killing innocent people. That’s what they’re willing to do.
No comment; just a gaping jaw.

*I have directed our military commanders to make every preparation to use decisive force, if necessary, to maintain order and to protect our troops.
Maintain, v.: To keep up or carry on; continue; to keep in an existing state; preserve or retain; to keep in a condition of good repair or efficiency.

*There’s a terror still in the soul of some of the people in Iraq; they’re worried about getting killed, and, therefore, they’re not going to talk [about the location of WMD].
Tell us more of these people who are surely in U.S. custody (or could be) and whom they’re afraid of being killed by.

*My job as the President is to lead this nation into making the world a better place. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Nope, nothing about saving the world. Maybe he thinks he’s Bono or Miss America.

I was rather hard on William Tucker in today’s Collateral Damage, with good reason, but I also pointed out a few good moments in his essay “Call It a Democracy and the Hell With It.” One passage I didn’t quote certainly merits kudos:

The entire Vietnam War was fought on the premise that we were creating a little “island of freedom” in Southeast Asia, that we could surgically distinguish between guerrillas and civilians, that we were winning the “hearts and minds of the people,” that the war could be “Vietnamized” by propping up a local constabulary (which is only hated all the more for collaborating with the enemy), and that putting in just another 100,000 to 250,000 troops would finish do the job.

Many conservatives still live with the fond illusion that if we had only “put everything we had” into Vietnam, we could have “won the war.” What is this supposed to mean? Sure we could have leveled the country and everything in it, but “pacifying” it? That would have meant staying another 30 years.

I have heard this line my entire life–the hippie protesters/liberal politicians/Communist media kept us from winning! And it’s complete BS, as I recognized some time around, oh, my ninth birthday. The sort of “winning” referred to simply means defeating the NVA/Viet Cong at any cost, which would have meant the utter annihilation of Vietnam and its neighbors. That would have been hard to sell as liberation, even for Henry Kissinger. So props to Tucker for having the guts to point that out, even though I still think he’s a kook.

Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was unversally acknowledged as a major advocate of intervention in the Balkans, from her sponsorship of the Hague Inquisition to her drive for the bombing of Serbia in 1999.
Now officially retired from politics, Albright has a lucrative “consultancy” business. According to a Belgrade-based news agency Inet (scroll down to the entry “17:20”), the Albright Group, LLC will “advise” the board of Ipko Net, a Kosovo (Albanian) ISP seeking a mobile telephony concession in the occupied province. Here is the text of the report, translated by Inet: Continue reading “Albright seeks profits in occupied Kosovo?”

A Busy Person’s Guide to the Bush Press Conference

Since most people don’t like to watch an hour of Bush on television (and for some reason I don’t mind even though it drives me nuts), I decided to boil down the questions and answers from tonight’s press conference in the East Room of the White House to their bare essentials. The questioners (Q:) are not identified. All answers (A:) are (paraphrases) from George W. Bush. (transcript of the conference)

Thanks, criticalviewer!

Via Billmon’s Whiskey Bar