The Horror, the Horror: American Imperial Wars

Dave Lindorff: 

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:45am. Dave Lindorff

When I was a 17-year-old kid in my senior year of high school, I didn't think much about Vietnam. It was 1967, the war was raging, but I didn't personally know anyone who was over there; Tet hadn't happened yet. If anything, the excitement of jungle warfare attracted my interest more than anything (I had a .22 cal rifle, and liked to go off in the woods and shoot at things, often, I'll admit, imagining it was an armed enemy.) 

But then I had to do a major project in my humanities program and I chose the Vietnam War. As I started researching this paper, which was supposed to be a multimedia presentation, I ran across a series of photos of civilian victims of American napalm bombing. These victims, often, were women and children -- even babies. 

The project opened my eyes to something that had never occurred to me: my country's army was killing civilians. And it wasn't just killing them. It was killing them, and maiming them, in ways that were almost unimaginable in their horror: napalm, phosphorus, anti-personnel bombs that threw out spinning flechettes that ripped through the flesh like tiny buzz saws. I learned that scientists, like what I at the time wanted to become, were actually working on projects to make these weapons even more lethal, for example, trying to make napalm more sticky so it would burn longer on exposed flesh. 

By the time I had finished my project, I had actively joined the anti-war movement, and later that year, when I turned 18 and had to register for the draft, I made the decision that no way was I going to allow myself to participate in that war. 

A key reason my -- and millions of other Americans' -- eyes were opened to what the U.S. was up to in Indochina was that the media at that time, at least by 1967, had begun to show Americans the reality of that war. I didn't have to look too hard to find the photos of napalm victims, or to read about the true nature of the weapons that our forces were using. 

Today, while the Internet makes it possible to find similar information about the conflicts in the world in which the U.S. is participating, either as primary combatant or as the chief provider of arms, as in Gaza, one actually has to make a concerted effort to look for them. The corporate media that provides the information that most Americans simply receive passively on the evening news or at breakfast over coffee carefully avoid showing us most of the graphic horror inflicted by our military machine. 

We may read the cold facts that the U.S. military, after initial denials, admits that its forces killed not four enemy combatants in an assault on a house in Afghanistan, but rather five civilians -- including a man, a female teacher, a 10-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy, and a tiny baby. But we don't see pictures of their shattered bodies, no doubt shredded by the high-powered automatic rifles typically used by American forces. 

We may read about wedding parties that are bombed by American forces -- something that has happened with some frequency in both Iraq and Afghanistan -- where the death toll is tallied in dozens, but we are, as a rule, not provided with photos that would likely show bodies torn apart by anti-personnel bombs -- a favored weapon for such attacks on groups of supposed enemy "fighters." (A giveaway that such weapons are being used is a typically high death count with only a few wounded.) 

Obviously one reason for this is that the U.S. military no longer gives U.S. journalists, including photo journalists, free reign on the battlefield. Those who travel with troops are under the control of those troops and generally aren't allowed to photograph the scenes of devastation, and sites of such "mishaps" are generally ruled off limits until the evidence has been cleared away. 

But another reason is that the media themselves sanitize their pages and their broadcasts. It isn't just American dead that we don't get to see. It's the civilian dead -- at least if our guys do it. We are not spared gruesome images following attacks on civilians by Iraqi insurgent groups, or by Taliban forces in Afghanistan. But we don't get the same kind of photos when it's our forces doing the slaughtering. Because often the photos and video images do exist -- taken by foreign reporters who take the risk of going where the U.S. military doesn't want them. 

No wonder that even today, most Americans oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not because of sympathy with the long-suffering peoples of those two lands, but because of the hardships faced by our own forces, and the financial cost of the two wars. 

For some real information on the horror that is being perpetrated on one of the poorest countries in the world by the greatest military power the world has ever known, check out the excellent work by Professor Marc Herold at the University of New Hampshire. 

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Iraq's US Security Charade

The Bush/Cheney administration has no clue what Democracy is, so how can they proclaim Iraq a Democracy of any kind?

By Ramzy Baroud

December 05, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" --- World media rashly celebrated the "historic" security pact that allows for US troops to stay in Iraq for three more years after the Iraqi parliament ratified the agreement on Thursday, 27 November. The approval came one week after the Iraqi cabinet did the same.

Thousands of headlines exuded from media outlets, largely giving the false impression that the Iraqi government and parliament have a real say over the future of US troops in their country, once again playing into the ruse fashioned by Washington that Iraq is a democratic country, operating independently from the dictates of US Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker and the top commander of US troops in Iraq, General Ray Odierno. The men issued a joint, congratulatory statement shortly after the parliamentary vote, describing it as one that would "formalise a strong and equal partnership" between the US and Iraq.

Jonathan Steel of the British Guardian also joined the chorus. "Look at the agreement's text. It is remarkable for the number and scope of the concessions that the Iraqi government has managed to get from the Bush administration. They amount to a series of U-turns that spell the complete defeat of the neo-conservative plan to turn Iraq into a pro-Western ally and a platform from which to project US power across the Middle East."

Even Aljazeera.net English seemed oblivious to the charade. It assuredly wrote that the agreement "will end the 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein. It is effectively a coming-of-age for the Iraqi government, which drove a hard bargain with Washington, securing a number of concessions -- including a hard timeline for withdrawal -- over more than 11 months of tough negotiations."

Most attention was given to dates and numbers as if their mere mention was enough to compel the US government to respect the sovereignty of Iraq: 30 June 2009 is the date on which US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities and January 2012 is the date for withdrawal from the entire country. Also duly mentioned is a hurried reference to opposition to the agreement represented in the "no" vote of the "followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia leader", which caused, according to the BBC "rowdy scenes of stamping, shouting and the waving of placards during the debate".

The dismissal of the opposition as "followers" of this or that -- portraying those who refuse to be intimidated by US pressure as a cultic, unruly bunch -- also has its rewards. After all, only a real democracy can allow for such stark, fervent disagreements, as long as the will of the majority is honoured in the end.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh knew exactly how to capitalise on the buzzwords that the media was eagerly waiting to hear. The success of the vote would constitute a "victory for democracy because the opposition have done their part and the supporters have done their part".

Of course, there is nothing worth celebrating about all of this, for it's the same charade that the Bush administration and previous administrations have promoted for decades, in Iraq and also elsewhere. "Real democracy" in the Third World is merely a means to a specific end, always ensuring the dominion of US interests and its allies. Those who dare to deviate from the norm find themselves the subject of violent, grand experiments, with Gaza being the latest example.

What is particularly interesting about the Iraq case is that news reports and media analysts scampered to dissect the 18- page agreement as if a piece of paper with fancy wording would in any way prove binding upon the US administration which, in the last eight years, has made a mockery of international law and treaties that have been otherwise used as a global frame of reference. Why would the US government, which largely acted alone in Iraq, violated the Geneva Conventions, international law and even its own war and combat regulations, respect an agreement signed with an occupied, hapless power constituted mostly of men and women handpicked by the US itself to serve the role of "sovereign"?

It's also bewildering how some important details are so conveniently overlooked; for example, the fact that the Iraqi government can sign a separate agreement with the US to extend the deadline for withdrawal should the security situation deem such an agreement necessary. Instead, the focus was made on "concessions" obtained by the Iraqis regarding Iraq's jurisdiction over US citizens and soldiers who commit heinous crimes while "off duty" and outside their military bases. This precisely means that the gruesome crimes committed in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and the willful shooting last year of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater mercenaries in Nisour Square in Central Baghdad is of no concern for Iraqis. And even when crimes that fall under Iraqi jurisdiction are reported, such matters are to be referred to a joint US-Iraqi committee. One can only assume that those with the bigger guns will always prevail in their interpretation of the agreement.

In fact, a major reason behind the delay in publishing the agreement in English (an Arabic version was first publicised) is the apparent US insistence on interpreting the language in a fashion that would allow for loopholes in future disagreements. But even if the language is understood with mutual clarity, and even if the Iraqi government were determined to stand its ground on a particular issue, who is likely to prevail: the US government with 150,000 troops on the ground and a massive imperial project whose failure will prove most costly to US interests in the Middle East, or the government of Nuri Al-Maliki, whose very existence is a US determination?

More than five years have passed since the US occupied Iraq, leaving in its wake a tragedy that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, destroyed civil society, thus allowing for the growth of one of the world's most corrupt political regimes, and introducing the same terrorists to Iraq that the Bush administration vowed to defeat. Nothing has changed since then. The US attacked Iraq for its wealth and the strategic value of controlling such wealth. The Bush administration and their allies have tried many times to distract from this reality, using every political cover and charade imaginable. The facts remain the same, as does the remedy: The US must withdraw from Iraq without delay, allowing Iraqis to pick up the pieces and work out their differences as they have done for millennia.

-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Did Violence In Iraq Go Down Because of Ethnic Cleansing?

Satellite images show ethnic cleanout in Iraq - [ Is the surge responsible for drop in violence or population shift? ]

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080919/sc_nm/iraq_lights_dc
sent by Nomen

Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday. The images support the view of international refugee organizations and Iraq experts that a major population shift was a key factor in the decline in sectarian violence, particularly in the Iraqi capital, the epicenter of the bloodletting in which hundreds of thousands were killed. "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left," geography professor John Agnew of the University of California Los Angeles, who led the study, said in a statement. "Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said Agnew, who studies ethnic conflict. [ MORE AT STORY SITE ]

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Independents Unbound and Scott McLellan

WASHINGTON — The White House called former press secretary Scott McClellan "disgruntled" after he wrote a blistering review of the administration and concluded that his longtime boss misled the nation into an unnecessary war in Iraq in a book due out Monday.

That's what they said about Paul O'Neil and just about anyone who has written or said anything negative about this appalling administration and who has been on the inside, Everyone else they just ignored, like the millions of demonstrators, most of them peaceful, world wide, who begged, pleaded and demanded that this war not happen. But as we all know, George Bush and Dick Cheney, for different and some of the same reasons, were going into Iraq if it hair-lipped hell and half of Georgia. Where, Scott, are the apologies to us; those who opposed this war in the streets and on blogs, letters to editors (which were rarely published) and letters to our congress critters. Why can't the Right ever just simply apologize to their fellow Americans who were right about this administration and this hellish war? That would go a long way toward unifying this country again. My strong hunch is that the Rights' last wish is unity. That which is referred to as the Left in this country is, more often than not, moderates who simply see things as they are and they don't like it one bit and so they move to the left. Seems the only thing to do when the Right has slipped into a very dangerous theocratic fascism that will destroy this nation just as surely as Hitler and his band of happy corporatists brought on the destruction of Germany.

"History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided — that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder," McClellan wrote in "What Happened," due out Monday. "No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact."

Scott, we are already feeling it's impact and it is only going to get worse because no matter whom we elect in November, the Bush administration has made sure that the final collapse will be on someone else's watch. But history will know who caused this catastrophe for our nation and for the Iraqi people, as well as others around the globe who will suffer as a result of being to closely tied to us and our economy (read sociopathic corporations which form this horrendous empire).

"What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary," he wrote in the preface.

So, it was a war of aggression, Just as we all said it was, the mother of all war crimes, from which other war crimes are born, like the son's of the real Whore of Babylon, the multinational corporations, which are raping and pillaging a land for no good reason, killing and torturing innocent people who have never been any threat to us. Of course, this is only the most obvious incidence of that. It has been going on for years. Just ask the people of Bhopal, India.

Scott, why haven't your blown your own brains out by now, like many of our soldiers who cannot sleep and have nightmares of wrong doing and risking their lives for George W Bush and his corporate pals? I can't help but wonder.

White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of the book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague.

Oh who cares what that addled bitch has to say? She is simply a better liar than Scott.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew."

Perino said the reports on the book had been described to Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment. "He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.

Yeah I bet he won't care to comment. I doubt anyone but the usual 30 percent of delusional "bags of hammers" in America would listen anyway.

The volume makes McClellan, a Texan picked by the president and paid by the people to help sell the war to the world, the first longtime Bush aide to put such harsh criticism between hard covers. It is an extraordinarily critical book that questions Bush's intellectual curiosity, his candor in leading the nation to war, his pattern of self-deception and the quality of his advisers.

His adviser were mostly NeoCon egg heads who, like Bush himself, had never been in a field of battle as a soldier, actually went out of their way to avoid serving their country, even during peace time. Hell, none of them even served in the Peace corps. All of that drudgery is beneath them. yet, they have the unmitigated gall to call Obama an elitist? Black is White, War is Peace, up is down, and Eurasia has always been at war with Oceana. Orwell is spinning in his grave.

"As a Texas loyalist who followed Bush to Washington with great hope and personal affection and as a proud member of his administration, I was all too ready to give him and his highly experienced foreign policy advisers the benefit of the doubt on Iraq," McClellan wrote.

Bad move, Scottie. This should be a lesson to you and everyone else about loyalty, Loyalty is not listed among the virtues for a very good reason. Loyalty, in and of itself, is not a virtue. The Nazis were loyal too, Scott. Having faith, real faith in your own mind, heart and instincts, working in balance, and the courage to step up or down, whatever the situation calls for, is a virtue. Scott, you, like Coln Powell should have stepped down and told the American people the truth then. It doesn't do much good now. But thanks for saying what most of us already knew.

"Unfortunately, subsequent events have showed that our willingness to trust the judgment of Bush and his team was misplaced."

Misplaced isn't the word for it. This administration has committed war crimes and should be in the dock at the Hague and I'm afraid, Scott, confessions in book form, from which you will probably make a mint, won't help you if that day ever comes.

McClellan worked for Bush from 1999, when he signed on as a deputy in the governor's press office, until 2006, when he was forced out as White House press secretary.

"President Bush has always been an instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader. He is not one to delve into all the possible policy options — including sitting around engaging in extended debate about them — before making a choice," McClellan wrote. "Rather, he chooses based on his gut and his most deeply held convictions. Such was the case with Iraq."

Which makes him an idiot, just as we have all suspected, People like him, while seeming decisive, are not. Long intellectual, insightful discussions bore him or throw him off balance because he already knows what he wants to do and he's going to do it, because the god-damned Supremes put the idiot in power. Had there been no George Bush in the White House, there probably would have been no 9/11 and if there had been, I doubt very seriously that Al Gore would have started WWIII over it.

In an interview Tuesday, McClellan said he retains great admiration and respect for Bush.

Then you, Sir, are as big an idiot than he is. Why don't you tell that to the grieving families and friends of our fallen.

"My job was to advocate and defend his policies and speak on his behalf," he said. "This is an opportunity for me now to share my own views and perspective on things. There were things we did right and things we did wrong. Unfortunately, much of what went wrong overshadowed the good things we did."

Just following orders, eh? That didn't fly to well at Nuremberg, as I recall.

He said the Bush administration fell into the "permanent campaign" mode that can cripple a White House and has tainted much of Washington.

Of course it did, because from the get-go, it was all about power and creating a one party rule for generations to come. Just ask Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Junior made a very good cheerleader and that was, essentially, his job....well, that and firing any general that disagreed with him.

In the book — subtitled "Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception" — McClellan said that Bush's top advisers, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "played right into his thinking, doing little to question it or cause him to pause long enough to fully consider the consequences before moving forward," according to McClellan.

"Contradictory intelligence was largely ignored or simply disregarded," he wrote.

Or intercepted by Cheney

Bush's real motivation for war

In Iraq, McClellan added, Bush saw "his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness," something McClellan said Bush has said he believes is only available to wartime presidents.

So, that is why we now have the deaths of millions and their blood on our hands? The man is a twisted sociopath, one of the most narcissistic people I have ever encountered. He should be tried for murder, right along with Cheney, Rice, and all the rest that aided and abetted this insane individual.

The president's real motivation for the war, he said, was to transform the Middle East to ensure an enduring peace in the region. But the White House effort to sell the war as necessary due to the stated threat posed by Saddam Hussein was needed because "Bush and his advisers knew that the American people would almost certainly not support a war launched primarily for the ambitions purpose of transforming the Middle East," McClellan wrote.

Of course we wouldn't. Because, it is not our place to transform anything or anyone. We can assist a peoples' own efforts to over throw a cruel dictator and to join with other countries in stopping genocide, But the very thought that this war was about re-creating the middle-east is nothing more than a NeoCon wet-dream and it is sickening. Furthermore, the NeoCons should be treated as just what they are: Real modern day Nazis who feel that it is quite OK to murder millions of innocent people because they have a theory of how wonderful things will be, once the enemy, which seems to be the entire Muslim world, gives up the fight and does what they are told.

Well, problem is, you murderous egg-heads, you don't know your enemy. They won't give up, You can nuke them, and they still won't give up. These people have seen evil empires before. They have seen shock and awe before. All you have done is manage to cause more and more people to hate Americans. You should all be rounded up and put on trial, just like the Nazis, because that is who you really are.

"Rather than open this Pandora's Box, the administration chose a different path — not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth," he wrote of the effort to convince the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, an effort he said used "innuendo and implication" and "intentional ignoring of intelligence to the contrary."

Oh screw all that. They flat out lied to the American people and to Congress, over and over again. Deception and fear-mongering like I have never seen before was on the news every damned day. Calling anti-war people traitors and questioning everyones' patriotism, while all the while, shredding the Constitution and habeas corpus. If I had my way, you would all be hanged on the National Mall, an example to any other presidential candidate and any future administration: The American people will not put up with international criminals in power in this nation, nor enemies of our constitution.

"President Bush managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option," McClellan concluded, noting, "The lack of candor underlying the campaign for war would severely undermine the president's entire second term in office."

Well, of course he did, because he was planning to invade Iraq long before he was even selected. Get real Scott! Do you really believe that he told his public spokesperson the truth about everything? What president does that?

Bush's national security advisers failed to "help him fully understand the tinderbox he was opening," McClellan recalled.

He would have fired them if they did. Just look at all the fired generals, you know the ones he always claims he listens to? General who know w heel of a lot more about war than the slackers in the White House.

"I know the president pretty well. I believe that, if he had been given a crystal ball in which he could have foreseen the costs of war — more than 4,000 American troops killed, 30,000 injured and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis dead — he would never have made the decision to invade, despite what he might say or feel he has to say publicly today," McClellan wrote.

He would have busted it into a gazillion pieces and gone to war anyway, because he wanted to be a war president. He told any one who would listen that that is what he wanted.

'Plenty smart enough'

In a summation, McClellan said the decision to invade Iraq "goes to an important question that critics have raised about the president: Is Bush intellectually incurious or, as some assert, actually stupid?"

"Bush is plenty smart enough to be president," he concluded. "But as I've noted his leadership style is based more on instinct than deep intellectual debate."

Then, he isn't smart enough. We should not think with our gut. That is not the purpose of the gut, Scott.

McClellan also expresses amazement that Bush seemed flummoxed by a query by NBC's Tim Russert in February 2004 as to whether the invasion of Iraq was "a war of choice or a war of necessity."

"It strikes me today as an indication of his lack of inquisitiveness and his detrimental resistance to reflection," McClellan wrote, "something his advisers needed to compensate for better than they did."

How in the hell can anyone compensate for a stubborn mule who believes he is God's chosen president, with help, I'm very sure, from the TheoCons, and therefore can make no mistakes. No one can compensate for someone who is truly delusional. Besides, they did not want to compensate for it, as his delusion played right into the NeoCon vision as plainly laid out in the Project for the New American Century. Like Mien Kemp, any one who had read the PNAC document, knew exactly what was coming the minute Cheney was chosen as Vice President. I knew when Bush was selected that we would be in Iraq within two years. Afghanistan slowed Bush down a bit, but it would have been hard to ignore Osama all together. That would have seemed too strange even for the most retarded among us, especially the vengeance seekers.

McClellan tracks Bush's penchant for self-deception back to an overheard incident on the campaign trail in 1999 when the then-governor was dogged by reports of possible cocaine use in his younger days.

The book recounts an evening in a hotel suite "somewhere in the Midwest." Bush was on the phone with a supporter and motioned for McClellan to have a seat.

"'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?" McClellan wrote. "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."

That's not all that odd for a full blown alcoholic at a young age, when still partying hardy. He may well have blacked-out regularly. There is no memory trace made-while a person is in a blackout from bathing their CNS in a sedative anesthetic on a regular basis and in large quantities. Of all the insanity that has gone on in the Bush administration, this is run-of-the-mill stuff for an alcoholic. It would have been a good thing to know that he said that before he was president, but now the damage is done.

It is however another plank in the platform for the public demanding that anyone wanting to run for president or vice president have a thorough mental work up, and then every two years, if they should win. If campaigns are so damned rigorous that it causes people to imagine they were under sniper fire when they weren't, just think what the presidency must be like. I would like to be told whether or not he is off his rails. This administration, if not a number of them in my lifetime, convince me that we need reports on the president's and vice president's complete health. This is especially true of a president and vice president who are in office when something terrible does happen, like 9/11.

Bush, according to McClellan, "isn't the kind of person to flat-out lie."

Not unless he has to. He would prefer to leave the lying to others. Plausible deniability and all that, don't you know.

"So I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine. It's the first time when I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true," McClellan wrote. "And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious — political convenience."

Uh huh. That's the reason for everything all of you did because the main goal of this administration, other than the NeoCon thing, was holding power in the Republican party forever.

In the years that followed, McClellan "would come to believe that sometimes he convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment." McClellan likened it to a witness who resorts to "I do not recall."

The greatest deceiver of all is the deceiver who first completely deceives himself. Scott, you are a Bible-toting republican. Do you remember who the great deceiver is?

"Bush, similarly, has a way of falling back on the hazy memory to protect himself from potential political embarrassment," McClellan wrote, adding, "In other words, being evasive is not the same as lying in Bush's mind."

Of course not, because he is a liar. People who aren't born-liars, like most really good politicians and corporate officers are, know that a lie of omission is as bad as a lie of commission, as long as it is intentional and meant to deceive for personal purposes of self-gain or protection and we know by now that Bush lies are intentional because, you see, they are always done to further his goals or to protect his political power.

And McClellan linked the tactic to the decision to invade Iraq, a decision based on flawed intelligence.

A decision, based on ignored intelligence - not so much flawed as ignored, Scott. Here's the question for you, Scott. How come we all knew, and in "we," I include Obama? We all know that the chances of Saddam having a nuclear weapon within the next 20 years was almost nil and that's the one that always scares Americans witless and your bosses knew that Scott. Americans have a huge fear of karma, especially the nuclear kind, as well we all might. When our very own government uses that against us, then our very own government can be called terrorists. Then they also played the vengeance card, Scott. Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and was tennis partners with Osama at the Baghdad country club or whatever. It was ludicrous, absolutely, ludicrous, and anyone who had the good sense to educate themselves about Islam and its history, after 9/11, would have known it, but you guys count on us being anti-intellectual, dumb-bells, totally incapable of picking up a few books and reading them or even, God forbid, asking Muslims to educate us about what they knew about their own religion and its laws or being capable of understanding anything longer than a sound bite. Didn't God say, "vengeance is mine," Scott? Oops. So, much for the moral high ground, let alone the Christian one.

"It would not be the last time Bush mishandled potential controversy," he said of the cocaine rumors. "But the cases to come would involve the public trust, and the failure to deal with them early, directly and head-on would lead to far greater suspicion and far more destructive partisan warfare," he wrote.

Partisan warfare? If you ask me, there was far less partisan warfare than I would have liked to see, but then I don't trust either of the political parties any further than I could throw Dennis Hastert, and the whimpy way the dembulbs have behaved just proves my point. Anytime some president, I don't care with which party he or she identifies him or herself, makes a lame attempt to lie the American people into an illegal, unjust war, all hell should break lose. The opposing party should go crazy and the news media should go ballistic. (That's how you get the average American's attention.) It isn't patriotic to keep mum at a time like that, nor is it in the best interest of this country or her people.

'Too stubborn to change and grow'

The book also recounts Bush's unwillingness or inability to come up with a mistake he had made when asked by a reporter to do so.

"It became symbolic of a leader unable to acknowledge that he got it wrong, and unwilling to grow in office by learning from his mistake — too stubborn to change and grow," McClellan concluded.

God' chosen president does not make mistakes, Scottie.

The next president had better know how to admit mistakes, because there are a number he will have to admit to, on behalf of our nation. We cannot fix anything until we admit there is a problem. We cannot possibly expect to regain the trust and friendship of the world until we admit that Iraq was not only a huge blunder but was a crime as well and that we, as a people, intend to do all we can to see justice served and the people of Iraq are safe from outside interference at the point of a gun and it's borders secured by a multinational force, including their neighbors, and be able to re-build there own country with the help of the world community. They are a damaged but proud people. What's more, they are a part of the same human family that the we all belong to.They must be protected from those who would harm or steal from them, while they decide what kind of government and life they want for themselves and their progeny. If that is some form of democratic socialism, so be it. The Scandinavians seem to do that well. They are a lot better off than we are.

Capitalism (or the worship of capital) is not the only economic system that goes well with democracy. As a matter of fact, we are seeing that it does not go so well, when it becomes corporatism or fascism, which are the same thing and where capitalism goes off the rails with greed gluttony and lust for power fascism is the result, just as when socialism goes too far, it can become a totalitarian communism that is just as bad for the people. Odd, isn't it, that it is almost always the same "cardinal sins" that push any economic system over the edge; greed is always number one and lust (for power), a close second.

A page later, he recounts what he perceived as a moment of doubt by a president who never expresses any. It occurred in a dimly lit room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a room where an injured Texas veteran was being watched over by his wife and 7-year-old son as Bush arrived.

The vet's head was bandaged and "he was clearly not aware of his surroundings, the brain injury was severe," McClellan recalled. Bush hugged the wife, told the boy his dad was brave and kissed the injured vet's head while whispering 'God bless you' into his ear.

"Then he turned and walked toward the door," McClellan wrote. "Looking straight ahead, he moved his right hand to wipe away a tear. In that moment, I could see the doubt in his eyes and the vivid realization of the irrevocable consequences of his decision."

Scott, if you were much of a history student, you would know that Hitler, the greatest evil in modern times, one would think, although I can name quite a few more, could not bear to look at the soldiers coming home from the eastern front, the opening of which was a stupid move on his part. Maybe looking at them made him question his own wisdom, as it certainly should have and perhaps it also made him sad. (Of course, Hitler, was a delusional psychopath, made that way by years of self-hatred, a terribly dysfunctional family, fighting in WWI and, finally, the people who surrounded him as he rose to political power, who fueled Hitler's delusions until he thought that he was sent by God to spread the "glories of Nazism" and get rid of what was then called the "Jewish problem."

But, he added, such moments are more than counterbalanced by deceased warriors' families who urge him to make sure the deaths were not in vain.

Since when does more blood honor those already fallen in a senseless war such as this. The best way to honor our fallen is to try our own war criminals or, even better, send them to the Hague and then make it really plain, once and for all, that there will always be a band of citizens watching this government and that a similar fate will befall other leaders who lie to their people about something as serious as war crimes. When America is restored as a nation, a true democratic republic and not a corporate empire, and the people who created this mess are held up before the world and punished according to the roles they played, these soldiers will not have died in vain.

Rice, Cheney not spared from criticism

McClellan's criticism of Rice — who he pegs as "hard to get to know" — is blistering.

"I was struck by how deft she is at protecting her reputation," he wrote. "No matter what went wrong, she was somehow able to keep her hands clean, even when the problems related to matters under her direct purview, including the WMD rationale for the war in Iraq, the decision to invade Iraq ... and post-war planning and implementation of the strategy in Iraq."

With the outstanding exception of Richard Clarke who nailed her big time in his testimony before the 9/11 commission.

McClellan predicts a harsh historical review of Rice.

We are not fooled by her one iota, so don't worry Scott. When war crimes trials are held, she will be right up there with the big boys. If war r=crimes are not held, she will be on someone's hit list.

"But whatever her policy management shortcomings, Rice knew public relations well. She knew how to adapt to potential trouble, dismiss brooding problems and come out looking like a star," he wrote. "Few performed better under the spotlight, glossing over mistakes with her effortless eloquence and understated flair."

In other words, she is intelligent evil, the worst kind.

McClellan brands Vice President Cheney as "the magic man" mysteriously directing outcomes in "every policy area he cared about, from the invasion of Iraq to expansion of presidential power to the treatment of detainees and the use of surveillance against terror suspects."

"Cheney always seemed to get his way," McClellan wrote.

Cheney is a pit viper, slithering around the back halls of power, accountable to no one, unavailable to the press, except for Faux News, almost as evil as he is.

The book is so critical that it becomes difficult to imagine a future scene that Bush predicted on the day that McClellan's forced resignation was announced.

"One of these days," Bush, with McClellan at his side, told reporters that day, "he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, 'Job well done.'"

Maybe McClellan no longer cares to hang out with this bunch. I know I wouldn't be wanting to, especially after they leave the White House.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

What's Really Going On With Iraq And Iran?

Last week Bill Moyers sat down with Leila Fadel while she was stateside to receive a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. In this interview she bluntly lays bare all the spin on Iraq and Iran in a way that is all too rare these days.

I can’t say enough good things about this brave woman, but I would echo all of what Spencer and Matthew have written about her and then some. McClatchy, one of the few sane voices on Iraq since before the invasion (when they were still known as Knight-Ridder) continues to impress.

Watch the full interview on Moyers’ PBS website, and you can check out Leila Fadel’s McClatchy blog, Baghdad Observer and her team’s Inside Iraq.

Transcript:

BILL MOYERS: Just this week Iraq was struck by a fresh wave of violence. At least 50 people died from a bombing at a funeral - a funeral! Sixty people were killed earlier in the week, and 120 wounded.

It’s difficult … but gruesome news doesn’t go away because we look away. So consider these photos taken in Baquba, Ramadi, and Mosul — victims of car bombs and suicide attacks.

Such scenes are routine for the people in Iraq and the journalists who still cover them. One of those journalists is Leila Fadel - the Baghdad bureau chief for the McClatchy Newspaper Group. She was born in Saudi Arabia of a Lebanese father and a mother from Michigan. The fact that she speaks Arabic may have saved her life when she was covering the war between Hezbollah and Israel.

She’s reported on everything from Iran’s relationship with Iraq… to the impact of war on families in ethnically torn neighborhoods …to the constant stress on US troops. And she does it all so well that this week she received a George Polk award for foreign reporting - an honor bestowed for courage under fire.

- - - - - - - - - transition - - - - - - - - - -

BILL MOYERS: [W]e read a lot about the thousand Iraqi soldiers who quit the fight in Basra, laid down their arms. And this week there were stories of more defectors in Sadr City. Are these people cowed? Are they afraid? What’s happening?

LEILA FADEL: I think it’s a combination of things. I think there are people who don’t feel that they should be fighting the Mahdi Army, who don’t feel that they should be killing their Shia brothers because most of the Iraqi security forces are Shia. And I think there is also threats. I mean, we had reports of the Mahdi Army going house to house in Sadr City and if they were Iraqi security forces, they would say, “We know where you live. We know where your family is. And if you fight us, we’ll find you.” And so I think it’s a combination of the fear that their families will be killed and that they’re being killed as well as a moral objection by some of them.

BILL MOYERS: Moral objection?

LEILA FADEL: I think so, yes.

BILL MOYERS: To?

LEILA FADEL: To fighting who the people they consider their brothers.

BILL MOYERS: You broke the story that it was an appeal to an Iranian source. You broke the story that the Iranians actually intervened to stop the fighting in Basra, right?

LEILA FADEL: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right.

BILL MOYERS: So there’s real evidence on the ground that Iran is influential in Iraq.

LEILA FADEL: Yes. I mean, I don’t think anybody questions that Iran is influential in Iraq. I don’t know that all of Iran’s influence in Iraq is bad influence. Iran has chips on every table, you know? They’re betting on everybody. You’ll talk to Iraqi officials who say that the Iranians are willing to give money to anybody. You have Sunni leaders going to meet with Iranian officials in Iran. The man who is the Iraqi affairs man is the head of the Qods force in Iraq in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who the United States says is a terrorist.

He is the man that deals with Iraqi affairs. He is the man that deals with Iraqi officials. He is the man that was involved when an Iraqi delegation went to Iran in March to stop the fighting in Basra and apparently was the one that was helping get Moqtada Sadr to say stand down. Now maybe it’s a bad thing that the Iranians have so much influence, but what do we expect when we put a Shia government into power? These men took refuge and had funding in Iran.

BILL MOYERS: Let’s listen to what President Bush said recently about Iran’s influence in Iraq.

PRESIDENT BUSH:The regime in Tehran also has a choice to make. It can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties. Or it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups, which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran. If Iran makes the right choice, American will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops and our Iraqi partners.

BILL MOYERS: What’s your reaction hearing the President talk that way?

LEILA FADEL: First of all, just in the practical sense, the American Army’s tired. They’re on third and fourth rotations in Iraq. Can they really go after Iran at this point? And secondly, what are we going to do if we go into Iran, the United States? They say that the Iranian government is bringing weapons into Iraq and funding and training the Shia militias. I don’t know if the Iranian government is doing that.

I know that they say that the rockets hitting the Green Zone are 107-millimeter rockets that are made in Iran. I know they say the deadliest weapon used against U.S. troops are the EFPs, and those are deadly. But do you really go and invade the neighboring country of the unstable nation that you’re already in?

BILL MOYERS: But do you, as a reporter, find evidence of mischief on the part of Iran?

LEILA FADEL: Oh, definitely. I don’t think Iran is not mischievous. I don’t think the United States is not mischievous in Iraq. I think Iran has a vested interest in having a weak Iraq next to them because they did have an eight-years war with Iraq. They did have a hostile environment between the two nations. And I think it’s in their interest to have some control over that neighbor. And that’s what they have. I mean, they have groups, the parties that are in power are the parties that were created in their area, are the parties that thrived and fought Saddam from Iran. And so when the best friend in the government of the United States, which I explain the Islamist Supreme Council of Iraq, when Hakim is coming to the White House and speaking to President Bush but also going to Iran and speaking to Ahmadinejad and is very, very much influenced by Iran, it’s really unclear what we’re complaining about. I mean, we should have expected that this government would be Iran friendly.

BILL MOYERS: Here’s Senator Joe Lieberman speaking on this when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were in town recently.

SENATOR LIEBERMAN: Let me ask you first, are the Iranians still training and equipping Iraqi extremists who are going back into Iraq and killing American soldiers?

GENERAL PETRAEUS: That is correct, Senator.

SENATOR LIEBERMAN: Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups in Iraq are responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?

GENERAL PETRAEUS: It certainly is. I do believe that is correct. Again some of that also is militia elements who have then subsequently been trained by these individuals.

BILL MOYERS: What about that?

LEILA FADEL: Well, I don’t, you know, the U.S. military says that they have people in detention that say they were trained and supplied in Iran and apparently have killed U.S. soldiers. I don’t know. That’s what they say. I don’t know that it’s true. They have– and they also, you know, they’re calling these Iranian-backed special groups. The entire Iraqi government is Iranian backed. You know, all these– they say that if the United States pulls out, Iran says they can fill the security vacuum in Iraq. That’s what Iran says. And Iran says, on their side of the story when they’ve never admitted to being involved in these things publicly. And when you ask them about it, they say, “Well, actually the problem is the United States. They want unrest in Iraq so they’ll never leave.”

BILL MOYERS: So, on the one hand, Iraq is working behind the scenes to broker a cease fire in Sadr City. And yet we’re, again, making Iran out to be the one behind the violence. I mean, there’s a paradox there, right?

LEILA FADEL: Right. Right. I don’t think Iran is nothing’s black and white. I don’t think Iran is the white knight or the evil villain either. I think that Iran is playing a political game in Iraq. …

Full video and transcript here.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Who Said Junior Isn't A Uniter?

So far, he has united:

The whole world against us.

The bitter enemies, Iraq and Iran.

Masses of Americans, who normally would not have much in common, against their own government, but not their country.

Yep, that boy is a uniter!

Ahmadinejad: US Fueling Iraqi Violence

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and JOHN AFFLECK

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on an historic trip to Baghdad Sunday that America fueled the violence in Iraq, portraying his nation as a close friend of the neighbor it once fought in a bitter eight-year war.

Ahmadinejad, the first Iranian president to visit Iraq, disputed U.S. allegations that Tehran is training and equipping Shiite militias there. The American presence, he said, was responsible for drawing terrorists.

"The Iraqi people do not like the Americans," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference with U.S.-backed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the Green Zone — the heart of the American diplomatic presence.

"Six years ago, there were no terrorists in our region. As soon as the others landed in this country and the region, we witnessed their arrival and presence," Ahmadinejad said Sunday night after meeting Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite political bloc.

The trip by Ahmadinejad, who once fought Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime as a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, was a dramatic illustration of one of the unintended consequences of the 2003 U.S. invasion — the replacement of Saddam with Shiite forces closely allied to the cleric-led Islamic republic next door.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, greeted Ahmadinejad with an honor guard and a band that played both countries' national anthems. The two held hands at the red-carpet welcome ceremony in a traditional display of friendship. Talabani told Ahmadinejad to call him "Uncle Jalal," as he known in Iraq's Kurdish north.

Talabani said he and Ahmadinejad discussed economic, political, security and oil issues and planned to sign several unspecified agreements.

"We had very good talks that were friendly and brotherly," Ahmadinejad said. "We have mutual understandings and views in all fields, and both sides plan to improve relations as much as possible."

Then he cut through the Green Zone to visit al-Maliki in his Cabinet offices.

The sprawling, American-controlled zone contains a massive new U.S. embassy and is heavily protected against occasional rocket attacks, which the Americans have blamed on Iranian-backed Shiite extremists.

Ahmadinejad denied the charges at least twice during the day.

"Such accusations increase the problems of the Americans in the region," he said.

Al-Maliki said Ahmadinejad's visit was "an expression of the strong desire of enhancing relations and developing mutual interests after the past tension during the dictatorship era."

About 1 million people died in the catastrophic war that erupted after Saddam invaded Iran in 1980. But when Saddam's regime fell to the U.S.-led invasion and Iraq's Shiite majority took power, long-standing ties between the Shiites of both countries flourished again.

Ahmadinejad said he was "very pleased with his visit to an Iraq not ruled by a dictator," and stressed that Iran wanted a stable Iraq that would benefit the region.

"A united Iraq, a sovereign Iraq and an advanced Iraq is to the benefit of all regional nations and the people of Iran," he said.

He announced the dates of his visit in advance, landed at Baghdad International Airport in daylight and drove through the capital, albeit in a heavily guarded convoy, on a relatively quiet day. Iraqi forces provided security.

President Bush's visits are typically a surprise and involve trips to U.S. military bases, like his journey to an air base in Anbar province last September.

Bush said Saturday that he had advised al-Maliki to tell the Iranian leader to "quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens." And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, came to Baghdad unannounced to visit with commanders and Iraqi officials.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman, said Sunday that the U.S. hopes the Iranian-Iraqi meetings produce "real and tangible results," which in the American view would include Iran ending its alleged training and funding of extremists.

Iraqi officials have said in recent weeks that they don't want the country torn apart in a power struggle between the U.S. and Iran.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Fallujah, the scene of two battles between U.S. troops and Sunni insurgents, and demonstrated for an hour against Ahmadinejad's visit.

"The chieftains of Fallujah condemn the visit of Ahmadinejad to Baghdad," one of their banners read. Another 50 people demonstrated against the visit in northern Kirkuk, and tribal chieftains in the country's Shiite-dominated southern region signed a petition against the visit.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, one of Iraq's most influential Sunni politicians, called for restraint. He said the visit indicated the strong Iranian influence in Iraq but hoped it would decrease tension between the two countries.

"We call upon the United States and Iran not to make Iraq a field for their struggle," he said.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

That's Tax Payer Money You're Squandering, Junior

Well, of course they are blocking it. We're talking fraud and, probably, outright theft.

The Bush administration is blocking an inquiry into the delay-plagued construction of the $736m US embassy in Baghdad, a senior Democrat in Congress said today.

Henry Waxman, who is chairman of the oversight committee in the House of Representatives, asked US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice today to explain why her department certified the embassy as "substantially completed" in December despite inspections that reveal continued deficiencies in the facility's water, fire alarm and kitchen systems.

The Baghdad embassy, which stands to become the largest US diplomatic facility in the world, had an original opening date of mid-2007. But the project stalled amid ballooning cost estimates as well as charges of corruption and shoddy work by the private contracting company overseeing the project.

In addition, two US state department employees who worked on the embassy project are now under criminal investigation. Waxman urged Rice to release subpoenaed documents related to the Baghdad embassy project next week or risk being forced to do so.

"It appears that the state department is concealing from Congress basic information about the status of the embassy project and the activities of the individuals and contractors involved," Waxman wrote to Rice. "This continued intransigence is inappropriate."

The private construction company, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, declined repeatedly to provide safety inspectors with reports on fire protection systems at the embassy, according to reports released by Waxman. First Kuwaiti, based in Kuwait, remains the target of a separate US criminal probe into allegations of labour trafficking.

The state department has not yet received Waxman's letter but plans to address the Democrat's concerns by his March 7 deadline, spokesman Tom Casey told reporters today.

Casey defended the delay in construction of the embassy, asserting that the building would not be occupied until its fitness for use could be certified.

"[W]e certainly have no intention of taking occupancy or establishing occupancy in a facility that doesn't fully meet all our standards," Casey said. He reminded reporters that First Kuwaiti is required under its contract to bear the cost of any needed additional work.

The new director of building operations at the state department has ordered a review of the embassy project and may revoke the building's "substantially completed" certification, McClatchy news service reported this week.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.