Meet the U.S.

[Stormig]

+Suharto+1965

 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jul1999/...1-j19_prn.shtml

[Stormig]

U.S.: Syria, we're expecting full cooperation from you in getting the noose on those Iraqis!

Syria: Kiss my *ss!

U.S.: [clear throat] Syria, we know you have WMD. [hoo-haa] And you know what we do to those with WMD. I'm not insinuating anything per se. Just that you cannot be too sure about what might happen ten years down the road.

[THOTH]

years?

[Stormig]

years?

OK, you're right. Make that "months."

[Azat]

Halliburton's History Supporting Terrorist Regimes

Wednesday, 16 April 2003, 12:38 pm

Column: Jason Leopold

 

Company Chosen By Pentagon To Extinguish Iraqi Oil Well Fires Has History Of Supporting Terrorist Regimes

 

By Jason Leopold

Kellogg Brown & Root, the company chosen last month by the Pentagon to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq, has a long history of supporting the same terrorist regimes vilified by the Bush administration and on at least one occasion defrauded the United States government to the tune of $2 million, according to public documents.

 

Halliburton, headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, and it’s KBR subsidiary did business with some of the world's most notorious governments and dictators - in countries such as Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria. The company has routinely skirted U.S. sanctions placed on these countries and lobbied the U.S. government to lift sanctions so it could set up new partnerships and create new business opportunities in these countries.

 

Still, the Pentagon awarded the Iraqi oil well contract to KBR without competitive bidding; a move that some Democratic lawmakers in Congress said was based on favoritism because of Cheney’s ties to the company.

 

Charges of cronyism led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday to open the job of putting out Iraqi oil well fires to other firms that will now bid for the multibillion -dollar contract and KBR would have to compete with other companies for the right to finish the job. The Army Corps of Engineers said it would seek new bidders to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure, considered the key to reviving that country's economy.

 

KBR and Halliburton have broken U.S. laws on numerous occasions while Cheney was chief executive and as far back as 1978. Moreover, the company inflated the price of some of its military contracts and defrauded the government.

 

Last year, KBR agreed to pay the U.S. government $2 million to settle allegations it defrauded the military while Cheney was chief executive of parent company Halliburton. KBR was accused of inflating contract prices for maintenance and repairs at Fort Ord, a now-shuttered military installation near Monterey, Calif. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento, alleged KBR submitted false claims and made false statements in connection with 224 delivery orders between April 1994 and September 1998.

 

KBR and Halliburton has also paid out settlements to end investigations and lawsuits on half-a-dozen other occasions.

 

In 1978, a grand jury indicted KBR on charges that it colluded with a competitor on marine construction work. KBR paid a $1 million fine to settle the charges. In 1995, the U.S. fined Halliburton $3.8 million for violating a ban on exports to Libya. Four years later, a Halliburton subsidiary opens an office in Iran, despite a U.S. ban on

doing business in that country. In 2001, Halliburton shareholders lash out at company executives for its pipeline project in Burma, citing that country's human-rights abuses.

Also in 2001, watchdog groups blast Cheney for placing 44 Halliburton subsidiaries in foreign tax havens.

 

Halliburton's dealings in six countries - Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria - show that the company's willingness to do business where human rights are not respected is a pattern that goes beyond its involvement in Burma. A May 2001 report in the Multinational Monitor identified the following countries in which Halliburton and its KBR unit did business with, despite U.S. sanctions and charges of human rights abuses.

 

 

Azerbaijan. Dick Cheney lobbied to remove Congressional sanctions against aid to Azerbaijan, sanctions imposed because of concerns about ethnic cleansing. Cheney said the sanctions were the result only of groundless campaigning by the Armenian-American lobby. In 1997, Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root bid on a major Caspian project from the Azerbaijan International Operating Company.

Indonesia. Halliburton had extensive investments and contracts in Suharto's Indonesia. The post-Suharto government during a purging of corruptly awarded contracts canceled one of its contracts. Indonesia Corruption Watch named Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton's engineering division) among 59 companies using collusive, corruptive and nepotistic practices in deals involving former President Suharto's family.

 

Iran. Dick Cheney has lobbied against the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Even with the Act in place, Halliburton has continued to operate in Iran. It settled with the Department of Commerce in 1997, before Cheney became CEO, over allegations relating to Iran for $15,000, without admitting any wrongdoing.

 

Iraq. Dick Cheney cites multilateral sanctions against Iraq as an example of sanctions he supports. Yet since the war, Halliburton-related companies helped to reconstruct Iraq's oil industry. In July 2000, the International Herald Tribune reported, "Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co., joint ventures that Halliburton has sold within the past year, have done work in Iraq on contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry, under the United Nations' Oil for Food Program." A Halliburton spokesman acknowledged to the Tribune that the Dresser subsidiaries did sell oil-pumping equipment to Iraq via European agents.

 

Libya. Before Cheney's arrival, Halliburton was deeply involved in Libya, earning $44.7 million there in 1993. After sanctions on Libya were imposed, earnings dropped to $12.4 million in 1994. Halliburton continued doing business in Libya throughout Cheney's tenure. One Member of Congress accused the company "of undermining American foreign policy to the full extent allowed by law."

 

Nigeria. Local villagers have accused Halliburton of complicity in the shooting of a protester by Nigeria's Mobile Police Unit, playing a similar role to Shell and Chevron in the mobilization of this 'kill and go" unit to protect company property. Dick Cheney has been a strong advocate for preventing or eliminating federal laws that place limits on Halliburton's ability to do business in these countries.

 

Before it awards the contract this time around, the Pentagon ought to consider that KBR, which the Army Corps of Engineers says is most qualified to extinguish Iraq’s oil well fires, supports the same terrorist regimes we’re at war with.

 

 

*******

[Stormig]

Iraq may have destroyed weapons, says US

WASHINGTON -- The United States charged on Friday that Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his banned weapons to avoid being 'caught red-handed' as US troops struggle to find chemical and biological arms in Iraq.

 

President George W. Bush has increasingly justified the invasion of Iraq by saying US forces ended a brutal tyranny, even as he and top aides multiply suggestions the regime may have pre-emptively dismantled its arsenal.

 

'Perhaps over time we will find out what drove them to do that. Perhaps it was the fear of actually being discovered, caught red-handed with the very weapons we said they had,' said White House spokesman Ari fleischer.

 

As clashes in Iraq become more sporadic, Mr Bush may declare as early as next week that combat there has ended while stopping short of declaring victory because key missions remain, according to aides who requested anonymity.

 

Still, Mr Bush remains confident that US-led forces scouring Iraq will find evidence of the weapons programmes he placed at the core of his case for war, even though Baghdad always denied having them, said administration officials.

 

Another reason for caution is that Mr Bush sees a global picture still rife with challenges -- like setting Iraq on course for democracy and winning the global war on terrorism -- which make declaring victory premature, they said.

 

And, observers said, Saddam's fate may not be known for certain by the time Mr Bush speaks. The President recently announced that there was 'some evidence' that the ousted leader was killed.

 

Mr Bush's speech will look beyond the military triumph in Iraq to those other challenges, said the officials, who refused to say precisely when he would speak.

 

The US leader has repeatedly said he will only declare the war is over when he hears that determination from the commander of US forces in the region, General Tommy Franks.

 

Such a message does not seem far off: The Pentagon declared on April 14 that 'major combat' was essentially over, and there have been few clashes of late involving US troops. -- AFP

 

 

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/iraqwar/s...,185497,00.html?

[Dan]

Three words:

 

 

Dan

[Stormig]

Dan, as you can see, I didn't make a comment in my last post. I don't need words anymore. People do well enough by themselves. "We said they weren't destroyed, Sodamn Insane said they were, we went in, couldn't find them, then we said Sodamn Insane must have destroyed them to prove us wrong."

And now, to save face, they are talking about how nice they were, bringing democracy to Iraq. Hello, I thought they said that was not their primary concern but a side-effect of what they were doing, just like in Afghanistan.

So far, it looks like Scott Ritter was right.

[Dan]

Dan, as you can see, I didn't make a comment in my last post. I don't need words anymore. People do well enough by themselves. "We said they weren't destroyed, Sodamn Insane said they were, we went in, couldn't find them, then we said Sodamn Insane must have destroyed them to prove us wrong."

And now, to save face, they are talking about how nice they were, bringing democracy to Iraq. Hello, I thought they said that was not their primary concern but a side-effect of what they were doing, just like in Afghanistan.

So far, it looks like Scott Ritter was right.

Stormy, I was kidding. I'm anti-war. The Bush administration (and Republicans for that matter) are a bunch of hypocrites.

 

Like this quote:

 

"The issue is not about Iraqi oil. If the United States had wanted access to Iraqi oil, we could have dropped our whole policy 12 years ago, lifted the sanctions and let Saddam Hussein have his weapons of mass destruction."

 

Wait a minute, I thought Saddam DID have weapons of mass destruction??!

 

By the way, that quote is taken from this article.

 

Dan

[Sip]

Wait a minute, I thought Saddam DID have weapons of mass destruction??!

Before you get all happy and cheery about all this, maybe you should go talk to the countless villagers that were roasted alive with mustard gas in Iran during the war with Iraq. Or maybe you should talk to the Kurds that have continuously been victims of Sadams chemical weapons. There was NO question whether he had them or could produce them or not. The only question is whether there still are any left. And I prey to Allah, Budah, Jesus, and God that there ain't any more.

 

OH, and I hope they catch sadam alive, shove a large canister of sarin or VX up his Arse and let his guts melt from the inside out. Now that will be justice.

[Dan]

I was not referring to the possibility that Iraq doesn't have WMD - I was referring to the hypocrisy and stupidity of "your" beloved leaders. Just cos I point at the hypocrisy of the US government does not mean I am pro-Saddam. Nice try, but your argument was a false dichotomy. There's more than just black and white out there.

 

And just in case you didn't know, the war on Iran was supported by the US. The weapons used on Iran were all given to Saddam by your beloved country - USA.

 

Need I say more? Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam - Dec. 20, 1983 (special envoy to Iraq from the Reagan administration)

http://www.yellowtimes.org/images/articles/handshake.jpg

"And during this period of renewed friendship, it was well known to the U.S. that Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran and had long-range nuclear aspirations that probably included an eventual nuclear weapon capability. It was also known that terrorists were being harbored in Baghdad, that the human rights of Iraqi citizens were being abused, that Saddam possessed chemical weapons and had probably used them on his own people as well as on the Iranians."

 

Source: Article

 

The gassing of Halabja was also by the same weapons that USA had supplied Saddam with. And Saddam himself was put in place by the US, after the assassination of the previous leader of Iraq. And not to forget, Bin Laden was also trained by the CIA. But I guess all those are just denied by "your" consensus, eh?

 

And oh, maybe we should also talk about Agent Orange in Nam, and how it killed so many Vietnamese AND American soldiers... And how 'bout Depleted Uranium? Is your oh-so-scientific mind gonna deny that Depleted Uranium causes cancer, just like your oh-so-dear-and-righteous government did?

 

Not to forget, the missiles that Israel hit South Lebanon with every day for more than 2 months... I suppose those were given to Israel by Saddam? And the Qana massacre didn't really take place, did it? Same with the Sabra and Shatila massacres. They were just fantasy stories written by a very creative writer, eh? Oh, and how about Napalm (which creates mushroom clouds similar to the A-bomb but smaller in size) - my facts say it's a WMD... But I guess that doesn't fit into your fact-book, eh?

 

So, Saddam was a butcher, but so were/are Reagan, Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Perle, and the list goes on...

 

Time might fade away, but history, my friend, does not fade away. Is THAT in your fact-book?

 

Dan

Edited April 27, 2003 by Dan

[Sip]

So wait, before you are happy about the hypocracy that Iraq doesn't seem to have WMP, now you are babbeling about how they did have them? Dude, DAN, I know you took a debate class but not EVERYTHING is a debate!!!! Some things are VERY clear cut. Sadam DID have WMP and anyone who says otherwise is just very very naive. At least I'm glad you don't seem to be one of those people!

 

And what difference does it make that US gave Sadam WMP or not? Does it change the fact that he had them? If nothing else, it would be even more reason that that moron had to be eliminated.

[Sip]

.. Nice try, but your argument was a false dichotomy.

Hope you can wait till I go look all that stuff up in the dictionary. Maybe I'll get back to you when I can figure out what the hell you just said

[Dan]

So wait, before you are happy about the hypocracy that Iraq doesn't seem to have WMP, now you are babbeling about how they did have them?

Pardon me??? What the hell?! First off, I never did argue anything. I just stated the "hypocracy" (sic) in the US administration's statements to justify this war (which are contradictory to what they are saying on the WMD and Iraq).

 

"...we could have dropped our whole policy 12 years ago, lifted the sanctions and let Saddam Hussein have his weapons of mass destruction"

 

Hmmmmm... I don't know what anyone can understand from that. Is there anything else other than having WMD or not having WMD? I mean, is there a middle thing between the two? You either have them, or don't have them. And if you're in the process of building them, that means (according to the US) that you have them. So it's either you have them or don't. And clearly, the above statement says that US didn't let Iraq have WMD... So how does that mean that Iraq has WMD? I don't know. There's a clear contradiction there. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees it. And just cos I see the contradiction does not mean I am supporting the view that Iraq doesn't have WMD. Iraq DID have chemical weapons (they were supplied by US and some other countries as well, to fight communism and Russia), but to just drag the issue to the present and claim that Iraq does have WMD is just plain stupid. Where are the WMD NOW anyway? Now that USA has entered Iraq and crushed Saddam's forces? Oh wait, we keep hearing less and less about the WMD argument. Now it's all about the Iraqi liberation. And they even named the campaign Operation Iraqi Freedom (Note: previously it was called Operation Iraqi Liberation) from day 1, to divert people's attention. Now it's only about regime change, and they succeeded, eh? No talk about WMD. Or wait, maybe they're implanting some, maybe that's why Hans Blix is not ALLOWED into Iraq?? Hmmmmm...

 

And what difference does it make that US gave Sadam WMP or not? Does it change the fact that he had them?

 

It doesn't change the fact that he had them - it changes the fact that Saddam was not the only person guilty. Attacking a country for having WMD (which YOU ironically supplied), means you find it wrong that the WMD were supplied to that country, and that means that if Saddam did kill so many people using them, those who supplied him with the WMD are as guilty as he was. An example of that would be: If someone kills someone using an illegal weapon (say he's underage and bought the weapon from someone illegally), the person who sold him the weapon will also be charged under the criminal code.

 

If nothing else, it would be even more reason that that moron had to be eliminated.

How so? The fact that others gave him WMD is even more reason that the "moron" had to be eliminated???! Sip, you made a complete mess right there. How can you say that the fact that someone else gave him WMD (and he accepted it) is SOLELY enough to eliminate him?? Hmmmm... I don't get it. Maybe I missed something?

 

But Sip, tell me, what's your view on Israel's WMD? Israel has been involved in wars with more countries than Iraq has. Israel is in violation of more UN resolutions than Iraq was. North Korea is under a dictatorship, so are Cuba, China, and many others. What has USA done about them? Oh wait, USA doesn't dare attack China, USA doesn't dare attack North Korea, USA doesn't dare attack Cuba (in fact, USA couldn't topple Castro's regime)... USA doesn't dare attack Israel to stop the WMD production or trade. They can only topple Arab regimes and dictatorships... Hmmmm.. I wonder why?

 

And let me tell you what - USA has not signed on the Weapons Conventions Act... Why? I wonder... Hmmm... It's not cos USA has a plan for an empire, by any chance, is it? Project for New American Century? What's that?

 

By the way, you keep saying "WMP." I'm not sure what WMP means - is it Weapons of Mass Production? Am I missing something here?

 

Dan

Edited April 27, 2003 by Dan

[Sip]

Yah that's what I mean ... WMD.

[Stormig]

So wait, before you are happy about the hypocracy that Iraq doesn't seem to have WMP, now you are babbeling about how they did have them? Dude, DAN, I know you took a debate class but not EVERYTHING is a debate!!!! Some things are VERY clear cut. Sadam DID have WMP and anyone who says otherwise is just very very naive. At least I'm glad you don't seem to be one of those people!

 

And what difference does it make that US gave Sadam WMP or not? Does it change the fact that he had them? If nothing else, it would be even more reason that that moron had to be eliminated.

Ahaha, Sip, that's hilarious! Just like Napoleon in a hunting game, where he mis-shot and hit one of his guests, who died. He just handed over his gun to the person next to him and accused him.

OK, that was the hypocrisy part.

In this case, give someone a bag of cocaine, then hold the gun to his head - "You're under arrest."

ROTFLMAO

You are right, that sheds soooooooooo much light on what the U.S. has staged in other countries before. For that, feel free to read the other pages of the topic.

[Stormig]

WMP - weapons of mass pisstruction.

[Sip]

In this case, give someone a bag of cocaine, then hold the gun to his head - "You're under arrest."

Fair enough. But all I'm saying is that, that is not such a bad thing if that guy is a bad guy to begin with. Sure, US is maybe far from perfect but the question is how bad is it really and how bad could it have been considering the sheer amount of power it has. Power corrupts ... absolute power corrupts absolutely ... or does it?!!!!

[Stormig]

In that case, you arrest him for being a bad guy - whatever your charges - legitimate and hopefully proven. Oh, and you do also have to be a cop.

At any rate, we know the UN passed out a resolution asking for full cooperation "or else"... Thing is, I don't know what gave the U.S. and empire-turned-puppet Britain the right to go into it by themselves. If anything, they just plain harmed that process.

[Dan]

By the way, just to add to your comment on USA and Brittain, Stormy, charges have been filed against Bush and his administration and Tony Blair at the ICC (International Criminal Court) - the same court in the Hague that tried Milosevic. Perhaps we will see Bush in the same cell with Milosevic. That sounds so much fun!

 

Dan

[Guest Fadi]

Seaphan, apparently the weapons of mass distructions that the US is searching after are German made and sold not the US ones. I may be wrong, but that is what I came accross after little of search.

[Sasun]

Here is an interesting article.

 

The New American

May 6 2003

 

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/05-...19no10_iraq.htm

 

What Did We Win?

by William Norman Grigg

 

 

Vol. 19, No. 10

May 19, 2003

 

 

The war was short and our losses - though tragic - were relatively

light. But what did "Operation Iraqi Freedom" actually accomplish?

 

 

It was a perfect tableau of liberation. To the cheers of jubilant

Iraqis, a U.S. Marine climbed the immense statue of Saddam Hussein in

downtown Baghdad and triumphantly draped the Stars & Stripes over

Saddam's heathen-idol visage. Shortly thereafter the signal was

given, and the obscene statue was ripped out by its roots. In a

culture-specific gesture of contempt, Iraqis removed their shoes and

used them to pound the face of the fallen idol. Americans watching

the event on television were gratified to learn that the particular

flag used on this occasion had flown over the World Trade Center on

the morning of 9-11.

 

On seeing this rewarding spectacle, more than a few Americans

undoubtedly said to themselves: "This was what we were fighting for."

But they were wrong. Desirable as it was to liberate Iraq from

Saddam's cruel reign, this military objective was not at the top of

the White House's agenda until shortly before the war began.

Moreover, if liberating oppressed people from the grip of a cruel

tyrant were the objective, it's curious that the Bush administration

would focus its efforts on far-away Iraq, rather than on the even

more vicious Communist regimes in nearby Cuba and Venezuela.

 

The advertised rationale for war in Iraq, recall, was not to liberate

Iraqis from Saddam, but to protect Americans from the threat he

supposedly presented to our nation. As late as March 17th - two days

before the missile strikes on Baghdad that provided the war's

overture - President Bush insisted that Saddam's arsenal posed a

global menace: "The security of the world requires disarming Saddam

Hussein now." In a March 6th press conference the president described

Saddam's regime as threatening America's very survival: "I will not

leave the American people at the mercy of the Iraqi dictator and his

weapons."

 

As it turned out, the much-discussed Iraqi "weapons of mass

destruction" have thus far failed to materialize. Such weapons, or

components of the same, could possibly still be found. But given

Iraq's pathetic battlefield performance, it's impossible to credit

the president's apocalyptic claims about an Iraqi threat to our

homeland.

 

Gratifying as it is that U.S. and allied troops were never attacked

by chemical or biological weapons, it seems odd that Saddam's regime

refused to use them to stop the relentless allied drive to Baghdad.

With Saddam gone and most of Iraq securely in allied hands, military

teams hunting for WMDs failed to find solid evidence of their

existence. Citing U.S. officials as its source, an April 22nd New

York Times story from Baghdad reported that a key Iraqi scientist

"has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical

weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war

began...."

 

While this might account for the curious absence of the weapons, it

would hardly be rational behavior by a ruthless regime facing

immediate extinction. Why would Baghdad have chosen to deprive itself

of its most formidable weapons on the eve of war - if, that is, it

actually had those weapons?

 

The U.S. flag draped over Saddam's statue, and earlier flown over the

World Trade Center, symbolized the second rationale for war given by

the Bush administration: payback for Black Tuesday; disruption of

Baghdad-based terrorist groups; and deterrence of future terrorist

attacks on our home soil. While no rational person disputes that

Saddam's regime was on intimate terms with terrorist groups, the Bush

administration has never even attempted to tie his regime to the 9-11

atrocity. Satisfying as it was to see Saddam's leering likeness

eclipsed by the WTC flag, it was an empty gesture where justice for

the victims of Black Tuesday is concerned.

 

Victory in Terror War?

 

U.S. Special Forces troops in Baghdad did capture Abu Abbas, the

Palestinian terrorist allegedly responsible for murdering disabled

American Leon Klinghoffer following the hijacking of the Achille

Lauro cruise ship in 1985. "He got away from us, and we've been

chasing him ever since," former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vince

Cannistraro told Newsday. "He's a big catch for us. It's an old score

to settle."

 

Abbas was one of several terrorists - members of a splinter faction

of Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization - put on trial

in Italy during the mid-1980s. Claiming they had insufficient

evidence to hold Abbas, Italian authorities dropped the case and

allowed him to leave. Holding an Iraqi passport, Abbas reconstituted

his terror cell in Baghdad, at a time when Iraq was receiving

military and economic aid from Washington.

 

Although Abbas is typically described as a fugitive, his whereabouts

have not been a mystery. The New York Times conducted an interview

with him late last year, in which the accused murderer of a U.S.

citizen condemned the September 11th attacks. And while the Bush

administration is eager to cite the capture of Abbas as validation of

its war in Iraq, it had previously shown little interest in snaring

him. Newsday points out that "U.S. Justice Department officials said

as recently as last year that they had no grounds to seek his

extradition."

 

On April 16th, the Bush administration lowered the national terrorism

"threat level" from Orange (high) to Yellow (elevated). The threat

level had been raised on March 17th to coincide with President Bush's

pre-war 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam. Down-shifting the alert level

signaled that our military conquest of Baghdad had reduced the

terrorist danger to Americans.

 

Or had it?

 

On April 21st, the State Department issued a warning to Americans

overseas that the conclusion of the war in Iraq "may increase the

potential threat to U.S. citizens and interest abroad including by

terrorist groups.... U.S. citizens are encouraged to maintain a high

level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their

security awareness."

 

Given that the military conquest of Iraq increased the terrorist

danger to Americans, how can it be viewed as a victory in the "war on

terrorism"?

 

Hail Liberation!

 

The fall of Baghdad did signal the end of a regime that ruled by

terror at home, and there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority

of Iraqis are relieved by Saddam's removal. However, it's far from

clear that the absence of Saddam translates into the presence of

freedom.

 

Note that after World War I British colonial authorities created Iraq

out of wildly incompatible tribal and ethnic groups. It has no

tradition of ordered liberty. Brutal as he was, Saddam Hussein was

typical of the ruling elite that has held sway in Baghdad since

Iraq's creation. It's true that Saddam - like most rulers in the

region - used torture and terror to deal with his personal enemies.

But lurid violence of this type is, tragically, an Iraqi tradition.

 

"As a young lad in the town of Mosul I lived through the horror of

the civil war in Iraq in 1959-60, when the Communist and Kurdish

coalition fought the Nationalists for control of the country,"

recalled Iraqi expatriate Burhan al-Chalabi in the March 24th London

Guardian. "With my brothers and parents, we used to hide huddled

together, in a small concealed basement for days on end, absolutely

terrified of being slaughtered because we were considered to be on

the Nationalist side."

 

During that pre-Saddam conflict, recalls al-Chalabi, "I saw Iraqis

split in half, while alive, by two cars. Girls were hanged from

telegraph posts, with fish hooks through their breasts. Men were

hanged outside my school gates. We were forced to watch mass hangings

in public squares. Dead bodies with their throats slit lay in the

streets."

 

Al-Chalabi points out that the Iraqi Communists committed the most

gruesome of these atrocities. Thus it is by no means a welcome sign

of "liberation" that "the long-banned Iraqi Communist Party … won the

race to publish the first newspaper in Baghdad since the fall of

Saddam Hussein," as Reuters reported on April 20th.

 

With the help of its servants in the "respectable" conservative

media, the Bush administration cultivated the impression that with

Saddam's removal, freedom would blossom in Baghdad, and the Iraqis

would swoon with gratitude toward their American liberators.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

 

"The people of Tikrit [saddam's home town] are like the rest of

Iraq," declared Abdul al-Malaki to a reporter for The Guardian of

London. "They hated Saddam Hussein. I want to kill him." But the

28-year-old café owner wasn't eager to see U.S. troops remain in his

country. "This is an occupation, nothing else," he told the British

reporter as they watched a Marine patrol. "We will keep quiet for a

year and if they have not gone we will kill them."

 

Iraqis, who have never had a genuine sense of national identity, are

also preparing to kill each other. In the northern Iraq city of Mosul

- where, as a child, al-Chalabi witnessed the bone-chilling horrors

described above - "Arabs are fighting with Kurds. Pro-Saddam

residents are fighting with anti-Saddam Arabs," writes foreign

correspondent Phillip Robertson in the April 21st Salon. "And just

about everyone is angry at the United States. For Americans,

especially, Mosul is not a safe place."

 

"The fall of this city on April 11 was not at all what we expected,"

continues Robertson. "[N]o victorious troops welcomed by cheering

masses, no women throwing flowers from balconies, no happy families

taking the tour of a free city.... On that day, armed men, some of

them Kurds, organized themselves to rob the banks while peasants and

poor people from town and nearby villages ransacked the office

buildings and utilities.... People came from all over the region to

get a piece of whatever they could get, in anything that moved."

 

Pillage and plunder also beset Baghdad after liberation. Shops,

hospitals, and the Iraqi National Museum - which housed priceless and

irreplaceable antiquities from the dawn of civilization - have been

looted mercilessly. "Hardly anyone is going to work," reported the

London Telegraph on April 20th. "Offices are closed or wrecked; the

economy, such as it was, has collapsed."

 

The American concept of freedom, which "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was

supposedly designed to transplant, is rooted in the sanctity of

individual rights and property. Having removed the threat to rights

and property posed by Saddam's regime, the U.S.-led coalition did

little if anything to address the threat posed by looters. An April

11th report from Britain's Sky News described a tragic incident in

which U.S. troops actually aided the looters by killing a shopkeeper

attempting to defend his property. According to eyewitnesses, "The

merchant pulled his rifle on the thieves when they began ransacking

the shop.... When U.S. soldiers approached the area, the looters told

them that the shopkeeper was a member of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen

paramilitary police. The American troops reportedly opened fire with

machine guns, killing the man...."

 

Interestingly, under Saddam's admittedly brutal rule, individual

ownership of firearms was relatively widespread. While occupation

forces have yet to find the Iraqi government's much-discussed

"weapons of mass destruction," they have - in familiar fashion -

begun initial efforts to disarm the civilian population.

 

"British forces have launched a gun amnesty in Basra in a bid to make

the streets safer," reported London's Ananova news service on April

9th. "An `amnesty pit' has been created close to one British compound

in the city in the hope residents will dump their guns." "Iraq has a

culture of weapons," explained British military officer Cliff Dare.

"There are a lot of them around, most held quite legally. If we want

to give the new Iraq a chance these weapons have to be taken out of

circulation."

 

The "New Iraq"

 

One harbinger of the "new Iraq" was visible in Hay al Ansar, a suburb

of the city of Najaf. Residents of that small town, after being freed

from the reign of Saddam's Ba'ath Party, were immediately terrorized

by a group calling itself the Iraqi Coalition of National Unity

(ICNU), a previously unknown Shi'ite Muslim militia who arrived in

vehicles driven by U.S. Special Forces troops.

 

"They steal and steal," complained a local man to the April 8th

Financial Times. "They threaten us, saying: `We are with the

Americans, you can do nothing to us.'" Hassan Mussawi, a Muslim

cleric who leads the ICNU, insisted the group was simply trying to

root out suspected Ba'ath Party collaborators. "If they do not resist

arrest we hand them over to the Americans," claimed Mussawi. "If they

resist then we take measures accordingly."

 

Across Iraq, noted the London Telegraph, "There is as yet no new

authority to replace Saddam and the citizens of Iraq are disoriented.

For the revolutionary Mullahs, the conditions are ideal." Those

"revolutionary Mullahs" are largely radical Muslims aligned with

Teheran, "many of whom … crossed the border from Iran" when Saddam's

secular socialist regime collapsed. Defying a history of

intra-Islamic conflict, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims - by some estimates

as many as 20,000 - joined in an April 18th march to demand that

American troops leave Iraq. During Friday prayer observance at

Baghdad's Abu Hanifah Nouman mosque, "Shia and Sunni clerics urged

the congregation, in fiery sermons, to show their bitterness to the

Americans," reported the London Independent.

 

In Sadr City - a Baghdad suburb once called "Saddam City" and now

unofficially nicknamed "Revolution City" - "the text of a speech by

Ayatollah Mohammed Emami-Kashani, an influential cleric, was read

out," continues the Independent. "It said: `Unite with each other and

send America and Britain out of your country. It is a duty for the

Iraqi nation.'" Within days, reported Reuters on April 22nd, this

anti-Anglo-American refrain was taken up by "hundreds of thousands of

Shi'ite Muslims [who] swarmed through Iraq's holy city of Kerbala in

a pilgrimage...."

 

More than 60 percent of Iraq's population consists of Shi'ite

Muslims, most of whom look to neighboring Iran for spiritual

direction. The implications of that fact are not lost on Iraq's

minorities, including the nation's small but ancient Christian

community.

 

As with the Iraqis' ability to own firearms, the condition of

Christians under Saddam's reign illustrates that while that regime

was brutal and highly authoritarian, it was not "totalitarian," in

the full sense of the term. Saddam and his henchmen devised

perversely inventive ways to torture and kill political dissidents,

and the exalted likeness of the "Dear Leader" was pervasive, but

Saddam did little to disrupt, reform, or destroy private institutions

and customs. Avak Asadourian, Iraq's Armenian archbishop, told the

April 21st Christian Science Monitor that "we enjoyed total religious

freedom and there was no religious discrimination" under Saddam's

rule. This may change if Iranian-style revolutionary Islam takes root

in Iraq - a development that may be unavoidable if "democracy" is

planted there at bayonet point.

 

Bishop Ishlemon Wardouni, head of Iraq's Chaldean Christian Church

(the only community that still speaks Aramaic, the language spoken by

Jesus Christ and His disciples), told the Monitor that Shi'ite

Muslims who follow the late Ayatollah Khomeini "want to convert a

building next to his church - formerly belonging to the ruling Ba'ath

Party - into a mosque." "If this sort of thing happens, maybe later

there could be problems," warns Bishop Wardouni. "We have heard their

slogans, `No Saddam, No Bush, Yes to an Islamic State.'"

 

Why?

 

By the time active hostilities had died down in Iraq, the official

tally of Americans killed in action was 129. Unofficial estimates of

the Iraqi battlefield casualties start at around 10-12,000. While we

properly mourn and honor each American who gave his life for our

country, we must also acknowledge that the radically disproportionate

allotment of battle casualties illustrates that Iraq was never a

military threat to our nation or our interests. Why, then, did 129 of

our nation's bravest sons and daughters die in Iraq? Did they give

their lives to allow Iran-aligned Shi'ite Muslims to build a

revolutionary "Islamic State"?

 

The evidence clearly shows that Americans and Iraqis died in

"Operation Iraqi Freedom" as part of a demonstration project in

coercive disarmament and as an object lesson to other nations. "Iraq

is not just about Iraq," a "senior administration official" told the

April 6th New York Times. According to this key administration

strategist, President Bush regards the war against Iraq to be "of a

type" with other potential wars of disarmament against such rogue

states as Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

 

In a March 26th Wall Street Journal op-ed column, National Security

Adviser Condoleezza Rice insisted that "the coalition currently

assembled to disarm Iraq shows the way" by foreshadowing the

treatment other nations can expect if they disobey UN disarmament

decrees. Reiterating a familiar Bush administration theme, Rice

placed the war on Iraq in the context of 9-11, which she said

represented "one of the relatively rare earthquakes that cause

lasting tectonic shifts in international politics...."

 

However, in a January/February 2000 essay published in Foreign

Affairs (the flagship journal of the globalist Council on Foreign

Relations, to which Rice belongs), Rice insisted that a war to remove

Saddam Hussein would be a top priority of a prospective Bush

administration: "Nothing will change until Saddam is gone, so the

United States must mobilize whatever resources it can … to remove

him."

 

Those words were published 10 months before George W. Bush was

elected, and a year and a half before the September 11th attack - the

atrocity commemorated by wrapping the face of Saddam's statue in the

WTC flag. War on Iraq to enforce the UN's disarmament decrees had

been planned long before Black Tuesday supposedly made that war a

necessity.

 

Removing Saddam did nothing to avenge our innocent dead or make our

nation more secure. It did little to free the long-suffering Iraqi

people, and may actually result in the emergence of an even nastier

and more militant regime in Baghdad. Our military victory has left

our nation saddled with the prospect of a long, bloody, expensive

occupation, and an escalating terrorist threat.

 

But the war in Iraq did achieve something previously unthinkable: It

has united the "mainstream" American right behind the proposition

that the United Nations - or a successor organization - must have the

military power to disarm rogue nations. Where "mainstream"

conservatives once warned that the UN sought the power to rule the

world, the "respectable" conservative position now dictates that the

UN is to be mocked for its supposed impotence.

 

Conservative columnist Adam Sparks ably recited the Bush

administration's position in an April 14th San Francisco Chronicle

column urging fellow conservatives to adopt the left-globalist

mantra, "Think Globally, Act Locally." "The United States is now

facing strong criticism from the United Nations, the same

organization that didn't want to get its hands dirty in Iraq; the UN

is apparently now interested in rebuilding that nation," observed

Sparks. "I think the UN should first rebuild itself into a meaningful

organization that can drive homicidal tyrants from power."

 

Similar suggestions for UN reform were offered in an April 23rd

syndicated column by David Davenport of the Hoover Institution, a

conservative think tank at Stanford. Rather than abandoning the UN,

insists this conservative scholar, we must "fix" it to make it a more

"effective decision-making body," especially "in deciding matters of

war and peace." Toward that end, Davenport urges - among other things

- "limitations on vetoes" in the Security Council, by "requiring at

least two nations to exercise it to be effective."

 

This "reform" would certainly prevent the French from vetoing

Security Council resolutions favored by Washington. But it would also

prevent the U.S. from vetoing resolutions hostile to America's

national interest.

 

Reform proposals of the kind suggested by Sparks and Davenport are

being offered by numerous conservative analysts and commentators, all

of whom - whether knowingly or ignorantly - promote the creation of a

world government strong enough to disarm rogue states. In time, the

same world government would be strong enough to disarm us as well.

 

Vladimir Lenin is said to have predicted that Communism will be built

by non-Communist hands. In like fashion, it is supposed conservatives

- President George W. Bush and his partisans - who are doing the

heavy lifting necessary to build the power and precedents necessary

for the UN, or a successor organization, to rule the world. Were

Lenin alive, he would undoubtedly look on this development with a

malicious satisfaction.

[THOTH]

Hmm Sasun - the article raises some very interesting points - though I'm not sure if the UN piece at the end fits in well with the rest...For one - i think its NATO that requires reformation and not the UN (and that this future NATO should be the organization to act militarily for the collective good of the West if so needed. NATO must grow to an organization that is inclusive of all free market democracies who share common values - to include Australia, NZ, Japan, S Korea, Brazil - etc etc (and others of course) - and certainly Russia (at some point...sooner rather then later if possible). Such an organization would not be NATO - but would require an entirely new (defensive) charter and strategy (that could perhaps include some sort of pre-emptive doctrine in the case of terroristic threats etc). Thus we would not be beholden to the UN for a consensus on threats against Western societies and values and we could act as a body - and not just the US (essentially) going it alone. Anyway - just an idea.

 

Here is something you may want to chack out. Its an interesting article (from investigative jopurnalist Seymore Hersh) that elaborates somewhat on some of the thems of your post.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

[Sasun]

A really interesting read. I remembered the movie "The taylor of Panama".

 

It is surprising to find a philosophy (Plato/Strauss) at Pentagon (???). It is all kind of a conspiracy theory, I mean what the intelligence group of Pentagon does, according to the article. I suspect many people benefit from it.

[Stormig]

US weapons team ends its search with no discovery

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

12 May 2003

 

 

The team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is ending its operation without having found proof that Saddam Hussein had stocks of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

 

It investigated numerous sites identified by US intelligence as those likely to harbour weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but has now all but accepted that it is unlikely to find any weapons. Operations are being wound up and a scaled-down unit called the Iraq Survey Group will take over.

 

The leader of the US Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, Colonel Richard McPhee, said his team of biologists, chemists, computer experts and documents specialists arrived in Iraq believing the intelligence community's warning that Saddam had given "release authority" to those in charge of a chemical arsenal.

 

"We didn't have all those people in protective suits for nothing," he toldThe Washington Post. "[but if they planned to use those weapons] there had to have been something to use and we haven't found it. Books will be written on that in the intelligence community for a long time."

 

Saddam's alleged possession of such weapons was one of the central pretexts given by Washington and London for the war against Iraq. In a February presentation to the UN, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, identified sites he said were producing WMD.

 

When George Bush made his declaration of victory aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on 1 May, he said: "We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated."

 

Some progress has been made. It was reported on Thursday that a team of experts searching for WMD had concluded that a trailer found near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq last month was a mobile biological weapons laboratory. The team admitted, however that other experts disagreed. Some officials claim that up to three such laboratories have been discovered although no biological or chemical agents have been found at any of them.

 

Yesterday, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said WMD might still be in the hands of Iraqi special units.

 

"Were they full-deployed and could they have been brought to bear on us, or are they still perhaps out there somewhere in some sort of bunker and could have been used?" he said at the US regional headquarters in Qatar. "We are trying to run that one to the ground."

 

But those on the ground appear more sceptical. US central command started the war with a list of 19 priority suspected weapons sites. All but two have been searched without uncovering any evidence. A further 69 were identified as sites that might offer clues to the whereabouts of WMD. Of these, 45 have been searched without success.

 

Some experts believe that one of the problems has been that WMD search teams were held back for too long, allowing Iraqi forces to dismantle or destroy equipment. Others believe that the assessment that such weapons existed was wrong. One Defence Intelligence Agency official said: "We came to bear country and we came loaded for bear and we found that the bear was not here. The question was 'where are Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons?' What is the question now? That is what we are trying to sort out."

 

The search for WMD will continue under the auspices of the Iraq Survey Group, which will also hunt for information about Saddam's regime. The White House has claimed this is a bigger unit than the task force. But officials admit that the number of staff hunting for weapons will be scaled back.

13 May 2003 20:09

 

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