Tag: Antiwar movement

Leave it to Laura Silber, author of a major propaganda pamphlet about the destruction of Yugoslavia and now a “senior policy advisor” for George Soros’s Open Society Institute, to lay out in the open Empire’s plans for Serbia.
In an opinion piece for the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune today, titled “Serbian voters bring good tidings,” Silber gushes over the election of Boris Tadic as the last best hope to “set this geographic lynchpin [i.e. Serbia] right once and for all.” Her policy prescriptions are as cringe-worthy as her prose… Continue reading “Tadic: Empire’s Dark Horse?”

Juan Cole wrote today:

US observers keep expressing puzzlement as to why the killing of hundreds or thousands of insurgents has not had an impact in repressing the guerrillas. They don’t seem to get it that Iraqi clans still matter and that when they kill an Iraqi, they anger the man’s brothers, uncles, and first and second cousins, some of whom step forward to take his place. In the US a lot of people don’t even know their cousins and certainly would not sacrifice their lives to avenge one. Iraq is not like that. So, it isn’t really even a matter of ideologies, necessarily. The US military has incurred enough clan feuds to keep the insurgencies going. And, of course, Iraqi and Arab nationalisms are powerful enough that people hate seeing Western troops in their country. The line between being angry about it and being angry enough to pick up a gun is a thin one.

And, as he was writing this, US troops graphically illustrated his point:

AN Iraqi motorist was shot dead by US troops today as he tried to overtake a military convoy, police and witnesses said.

The unidentified man was shunted into a wall by a Humvee and shot three times at close range, according to a witness.

A policeman at the scene said the US troops thought two Iraqis in a burgundy Nissan Concord car had been trying to attack them with grenades. However, no weapons were found.

“They thought they were trying to throw a grenade at them so they shot the driver,” said Lieutenant Abdul Nehbi Ibrahim.

US soldiers refused to comment and left the scene.

The victim lay in a pool of blood, his face covered with a square piece of blood-soaked cloth, as his distraught father vowed to join the insurgency against the foreign forces in Iraq.

“God curse the Americans!” he shouted.

Relatives at the scene said the victim had been due to get married on Thursday.

American forces have bombed what they refer to as a “safe house” in Fallujah, killing at least ten people, perhaps as many as 15 which Iraqi witnesses claim were all members of one family. Acting on “intelligence” provided by the US appointed Iraqi “government” which car bomber and CIA asset Iyad Allawi said was “clear and compelling,” American warplanes dropped four 500-pound (225kg) bombs and two 1,000-pound (450kg) bombs in the raid. We might hope that Allawi’s concept of clear and compelling intelligence has evolved since his elevation to the exalted position he now occupies because the type of “intelligence” he provided to his neocon handlers and dupes like Tony “45 minutes to WMD Launch” Blair in the run-up to the invasion was about on par with Chalabi and Curveball’s.

Jeremy, cutting straight through the obfuscation and euphemistic blather of the US military and Allawi, asks the obvious question:

If this new government is in control and the police force is so good can someone tell me why we didn’t surround the house, arrest people, and put them on trial? That would have been preferable to dropping a bomb on the place wouldn’t it? Or does the new Iraq believe in summary justice delivered from an Apache?

I don’t care who told them the house was used as a hideout. Attacking a safe house for the purpose of destroying it is a reprisal. Attacking it while innocents are inside is a crime against morality.

What is important is that the new Iraqi rulers, these men supposed to bring justice and freedom to Iraq, believe that flying a helicopter round and blowing up a house is a good way to deal with the problem. I guess it worked for Israel huh?

The refusal of the Bushites and neocons who are driving policy in Iraq to break with the heavily Likudnik-influenced mindset about Arabs, Muslims and Iraq has been responsible for their myriad spectacular failures to date, and cannot help but lead to the further destruction of civil society in Iraq. It is Iraq’s tragedy that the people least likely to succeed in any project in the Middle East, the people who least understood the culture, religions and tribal nature of this Arab people lied and connived their way to the helm of the greatest force for destruction in the history of the planet and proceeded to use it to force their hubristic and delusional vision on a country they knew nothing about. How it all ends is unknowable, but we can at least entertain the hope that it will end mercifully soon.

Information Clearing House has a link to a Der Spiegel report
“More Than 100 Children Imprisoned, Report Of Abuse By U.S. Soldiers.”

When I first tried the link, it didn’t work, so I did a search on “100 children imprisoned.”
It kicked out a story from April 8, 2003, “Iraqi child prisoners freed” and associated
crowing and peacenik-bashing .

Meanwhile, Iran wants to know why, when Saddam faced the judge, no mention was
made of the 1980-1988 war, why the list of charges filed doesn’t include Iraq’s use of
chemical weapons in that war.

An obvious answer was provided by one of the ex-Iraqi generals interviewed by
Newsweek in March, 2002:

“One general interviewed by NEWSWEEK made no bones about his use of
chemical weapons. General al-Shamari commanded nine divisions in the
Iran-Iraq War before he defected in 1986. (Now 56, he runs a small
restaurant in northern Virginia.) He says he carried out Saddam’s
orders to gas the Iranians, firing chemical weapons from howitzers.
The impact was devastating. ‘It created a state of chaos,’ said
al-Shamari. Given that he was miles from the target, how did he know
that? From U.S. intelligence. ‘We got information from American
satellites,’ said al-Shamari. (A former CIA official confirmed that
the United States, which was backing Iraq against Iran, provided
intelligence to the Iraqis. ‘Included in that, I’m sure, would have
been some feedback, intended or unintended, to the Iraqis on their
use of chemical warfare,’ said the official.)

Very interesting.

DESERTER

THE STORY OF GEORGE W. BUSH AFTER HE QUIT THE TEXAS AIR NATIONAL GUARD

An examination of the Bush military files within the context of US Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of that era lead to a single conclusion: George W. Bush was considered a deserter by the United States Air Force.

After Bush quit TXANG, he still had nine months of his six-year military commitment left to serve. As a result, Bush became a member of the Air Force Reserves and was transferred to the authority of the Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colorado. Because this was supposed to be a temporary assignment, ARPC had to review Bush’s records to determine where he should ultimately be assigned. That examination would have led to three conclusions: That Bush had “failed to satisfactorily participate” as defined by United States law and Air Force policy, that TXANG could not account for Bush’s actions for an entire year, and that Bush’s medical records were not up to date. Regardless of what actions ARPC contemplated when reviewing Bush’s records, all options required that Bush be certified as physically fit to serve, or as unfit to serve. ARPC thus had to order Bush to get a physical examination, for which Bush did not show up. ARPC then designated Bush as AWOL and a “non-locatee” (i.e. a deserter) who had failed to satisfactorily participate in TXANG, and certified him for immediate induction through his local draft board. Once the Houston draft board got wind of the situation, strings were pulled; and documents were generated which directly contradict Air Force policy, and which were inconsistent with the rest of the records released by the White House.

And he appears to prove it, too.

Thanks to Michael Bérubé for the link. He says he’s the ten-thousandth lefty blogger to post about this, but since I was off the net for over a week, I’m glad he posted it when he did.

Philip Dru: Administrator will be interviewing frequent contributors to Antiwar.com Jacob G. Hornberger and Elaine Cassel today from 4 – 6PM EST. The radio interviews will be streamed on the web. There’s a high-bandwidth link and a low-bandwidth link.