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Iraq, Afghanistan essays from 2006 to 2011
Some years back, I had a sweet set up where I could post full articles, on my own volition, on a mostly Socialist leaning news site. The website devolved, predictably, into quasi-subversion of U.S. foreign policy so I left, right about the time Pres. Obama was pulling out of Iraq.
In an acerbic exchange one year with Will Pitt, he wryly suggested I write articles, myself, if I didn't like what he wrote. I took his advice and eventually wrote over 260 articles or essays in the time period above.
I hit Bush almost everyday, in response to news reports about Iraq and other 9-11 related US military aggression.
When Pres Obama was elected, I continued criticism of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations with a less confrontational bent, but nonetheless, direct and unflinching in my anti-war advocacy.
I can't imagine that these articles will survive forever anywhere on the internet, but they seem particularly vulnerable at the old site, so I wanted to give them another home. ALL of them were also posted at DU at the time, so they aren't outside of our TOS or anything like that. I also don't think all of them deserve another home, so I'd cherrypick through them.
I'm going to post the very first one, and see what the response is to continue in this forum.
3/9/2006
Rudiments of a Tyrant's Reign
The U.S. regime is scrambling to find a big enough 'evil' in Iraq to justify their continued military presence and to further maintain the troop levels they claimed only months ago they wanted to reduce. Their new found concern about sectarian violence assumes clean hands on the part of the U.S. military. But, Bush knew the political table was tilted toward the Shiites when he called for the electoral process to begin. In fact, he was bound to hold the elections when he did because of his public crowing during the U.S. presidential campaign about how he was spreading democracy in Iraq with his invasion.
The Shiite clerics, who have excellent control over their many followers, got them to the polls in numbers that couldn't, or wouldn't be matched by the other sects. It was no secret that Shiites would end up benefiting the most from elections, which, for the Bush administration's shallow, rhetorical purposes represented democracy.
It's amazing to hear the Bush regime claim they are just now learning of the militias that they have supported and encouraged all along, with our troops often muckraking right alongside of them. Two secret torture prisons in Iraq were 'discovered' in December. US Maj Gen Joseph Peterson, who is in charge of training the Iraqi police, told the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 16 that US forces had had just found the first evidence of death squads within the interior ministry.
Bush has been using the training of the Iraqi forces as justification for our continued occupation. But, they were divided into militias from the start. The Sunni's immediately labeled them death squads. The rest of the world knew about them, and, so did the Bush regime. The squads were doing our dirty work, stifling the resistance, keeping the rabble down. They still do Bush's bidding, despite the public protests.
Yesterday it was reported that armed men in camouflage uniforms similar to those of police commandos abducted up to 50 employees of a private security company in Baghdad, less than 24 hours after 18 blindfolded bodies were found in an abandoned van. The Guardian reports that, last month UN officials quoted morgue sources as saying they had received a monthly average of at least 700 bodies since April last year, many showing signs of torture.
Now, faced with a new Iraqi regime, whose 'elected' leaders have openly aligned with countries that our government actively opposes, like Iran and Syria, the Bush administration wants to distance themselves from the very authority they facilitated with thousands of lives and billions of dollars. The real motivation behind all of the administration noise about the sectarian violence and division is a desire to highlight and isolate the segments of the new authority which may be so aligned with Bush's nemesis, Iran, that their alliance amounts to Iraq government collusion with a future enemy combatant.
The prospect of Bush's fledgling plutocracy in bed with a member of his 'axis of evil' has his regime scrambling to do a bit of marginalizing of their own of Iraq's new leadership. The sectarian violence gives them the wedge they need to continue their grip on power there. Chaos is the breeding ground for Bush's imperialism. The heightened concern by the Bush regime about Iraqis killing Iraqis can only signal their intention to exploit the violence to justify more of their own planned militarism.
U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad admitted yesterday that the Iraq invasion had opened a 'Pandora's box' of sectarian conflicts. But instead of calling for a withdrawal of the aggravating forces, Khalilzad suggested that pulling out troops out could cause a 'regional' war because of the sectarian conflicts that had appeared to intensify following the Samarra bombing. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, however, played down the prospect of a civil war, even as he used the violence to accuse Iran of, 'putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful', as he stoked the fire for future military meddling.
Bush and his cabal didn't care about the lives of Iraqis when they started out the war killing them. They don't care now as Iraqis are killing each other, often with our assistance and support. Ironically though, our State Dept. seems to care. "The vast majority of human rights abuses (in Iraq) reportedly carried out by government agents were attributed to the police," the State Dept. wrote.
The U.S. report says that police abuses "included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords and the application of electric shocks." It also said that police units were run by members of sectarian militias, including two Shiite groups, the Badr Organization and the Mahdi Army.
I suppose the Bush regime will want to step outside of all of that and claim to have clean hands, but we are more than just the merchants of Iraqi's misdeeds, we are the authors, the teachers, the mentors, the architects, the ultimate masters of the violence there. Bush is continuing a long line of oppressors throughout history who have raped Iraq for their own greed and lust for power. If violence continues to spread it will be the result of the defining act of Bush's imperious reign - his bloody disruption of Iraq - as his regime marches on with seeming invincibility, without any obstacle of democracy yet impeding his tyrant's reign.
Rudiments of a Tyrant's Reign
The U.S. regime is scrambling to find a big enough 'evil' in Iraq to justify their continued military presence and to further maintain the troop levels they claimed only months ago they wanted to reduce. Their new found concern about sectarian violence assumes clean hands on the part of the U.S. military. But, Bush knew the political table was tilted toward the Shiites when he called for the electoral process to begin. In fact, he was bound to hold the elections when he did because of his public crowing during the U.S. presidential campaign about how he was spreading democracy in Iraq with his invasion.
The Shiite clerics, who have excellent control over their many followers, got them to the polls in numbers that couldn't, or wouldn't be matched by the other sects. It was no secret that Shiites would end up benefiting the most from elections, which, for the Bush administration's shallow, rhetorical purposes represented democracy.
It's amazing to hear the Bush regime claim they are just now learning of the militias that they have supported and encouraged all along, with our troops often muckraking right alongside of them. Two secret torture prisons in Iraq were 'discovered' in December. US Maj Gen Joseph Peterson, who is in charge of training the Iraqi police, told the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 16 that US forces had had just found the first evidence of death squads within the interior ministry.
Bush has been using the training of the Iraqi forces as justification for our continued occupation. But, they were divided into militias from the start. The Sunni's immediately labeled them death squads. The rest of the world knew about them, and, so did the Bush regime. The squads were doing our dirty work, stifling the resistance, keeping the rabble down. They still do Bush's bidding, despite the public protests.
Yesterday it was reported that armed men in camouflage uniforms similar to those of police commandos abducted up to 50 employees of a private security company in Baghdad, less than 24 hours after 18 blindfolded bodies were found in an abandoned van. The Guardian reports that, last month UN officials quoted morgue sources as saying they had received a monthly average of at least 700 bodies since April last year, many showing signs of torture.
Now, faced with a new Iraqi regime, whose 'elected' leaders have openly aligned with countries that our government actively opposes, like Iran and Syria, the Bush administration wants to distance themselves from the very authority they facilitated with thousands of lives and billions of dollars. The real motivation behind all of the administration noise about the sectarian violence and division is a desire to highlight and isolate the segments of the new authority which may be so aligned with Bush's nemesis, Iran, that their alliance amounts to Iraq government collusion with a future enemy combatant.
The prospect of Bush's fledgling plutocracy in bed with a member of his 'axis of evil' has his regime scrambling to do a bit of marginalizing of their own of Iraq's new leadership. The sectarian violence gives them the wedge they need to continue their grip on power there. Chaos is the breeding ground for Bush's imperialism. The heightened concern by the Bush regime about Iraqis killing Iraqis can only signal their intention to exploit the violence to justify more of their own planned militarism.
U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad admitted yesterday that the Iraq invasion had opened a 'Pandora's box' of sectarian conflicts. But instead of calling for a withdrawal of the aggravating forces, Khalilzad suggested that pulling out troops out could cause a 'regional' war because of the sectarian conflicts that had appeared to intensify following the Samarra bombing. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, however, played down the prospect of a civil war, even as he used the violence to accuse Iran of, 'putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful', as he stoked the fire for future military meddling.
Bush and his cabal didn't care about the lives of Iraqis when they started out the war killing them. They don't care now as Iraqis are killing each other, often with our assistance and support. Ironically though, our State Dept. seems to care. "The vast majority of human rights abuses (in Iraq) reportedly carried out by government agents were attributed to the police," the State Dept. wrote.
The U.S. report says that police abuses "included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords and the application of electric shocks." It also said that police units were run by members of sectarian militias, including two Shiite groups, the Badr Organization and the Mahdi Army.
I suppose the Bush regime will want to step outside of all of that and claim to have clean hands, but we are more than just the merchants of Iraqi's misdeeds, we are the authors, the teachers, the mentors, the architects, the ultimate masters of the violence there. Bush is continuing a long line of oppressors throughout history who have raped Iraq for their own greed and lust for power. If violence continues to spread it will be the result of the defining act of Bush's imperious reign - his bloody disruption of Iraq - as his regime marches on with seeming invincibility, without any obstacle of democracy yet impeding his tyrant's reign.