Category Archives: Iraq

Wages Of War Waged By A ‘Good Country’

As was pointed out in “Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?,” military intervention by the US is considered a good thing by the Bill-O’Reilly school of “thought,” because the US is “a good country.”

Naturally, the American media are not chronicling the wages of a war waged by their “good country,” but Al Jazeera is. Here’s what Iraqi’s must endure daily thanks to the war waged by Bush (who is surely not a “thug” like Putin):

“According to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq [UNAMI], a total of 703 Iraqis were killed and another 1,381 were injured in February. These figures do not include those killed and injured in Anbar province, where 189 were killed and 550 were injured in Ramadi and 109 were killed and 648 were injured in Fallujah.”

A series of deadly attacks in Iraq have killed about 50 people and injured 80, police officials have said.

In one of Friday’s incidents, an explosive-laden tanker was driven into the federal police headquarters in the village of Injanah, 55km north of Baquba, killing 12 people and wounding five, including the head of the federal police, Brigadier General Raghib al-Umairi, and his assistant.

In Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, an attack killed 10 people and injured 27.

AFP news agency reported that a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral inside a mosque. Anbar has been the scene of protracted fighting between anti-government fighters and security forces, leading to months of bloodshed and the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

In the Sarha region of Salaheddin, clashes early on Friday led to a series of explosions, including one near an army base, that killed 12 people and injured 13.

In separate incidents, police said gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint near the city of Samarra, killing two people, while car bombings killed nine and injured 25 in Dibis, a town located near Kirkuk.

Medical officials confirmed the casualties from Friday’s attacks. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media, according to Associated Press news agency.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks.

MORE.

Who’s The Biggest Liar Of Them All?

Barack Obama, Bush, Iraq, Morality, WMD

In this scribe’s opinion, “Obama’s assurances of keeping your insurance plan if you like it” is on par only with Genghis Bush’s deceit about the imperative of going to war with Iraq. Pat Buchanan thinks that Obama’s rank lie “now enters presidential history alongside George H.W. Bush’s ‘Read my lips! No new taxes,’ Bill Clinton’s ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,’ and George W. Bush’s tales of yellow cake in Niger and hidden arsenals of WMDs.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano begs to differ:

… According to Napolitano, President Obama’s lie is the most egregious. “Richard Nixon told a lie about his personal knowledge of a third-rate break-in, burglary. Bill Clinton told a lie about a personal sexual liaison. Barack Obama has told a lie repeatedly, readily, consistently, systematically, over and over again that will affect the wealth, the health of millions of innocent Americans. The first two […] are so insignificant compared to these lies.”
On today’s Your World, Neil Cavuto drew a comparison between Bill Clinton’s denial that he had a relationship with Monica Lewinsky to President Obama’s assertion to the American public that they could keep their health care plans.

Judge Napolitano weighed in saying that the president “doesn’t have to worry legally about lying.”

“Even though the president and the Justice Department can prosecute people, Americans, who lie to the government, the president and the whole governmental apparatus are free to lie to us,” the judge said.

In terms of sheer economic destruction, I suspect that Obama and Bush are tied in ignominy. Christopher Conover of Duke University estimates that “129 million, or 68 percent of Americans, may not be able to keep their current health care plans once ObamaCare is fully implemented. The study also suggests that 18 to 50 million people will lose their plans altogether.”

More on how Conover arrived at these figures, at The Daily Caller.

UPDATE II: His Highness’s Collateral Damage

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Just War, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Republicans

“… And if you’re so dead-set against the killing of children that you are willing to send us into yet another conflict, will you guarantee that the 1000-pound Tomahawk missiles that you will heap on Syria won’t kill children—or are they simply your collateral damage?”

These powerful words were delivered by Judge Jeanine (written, no doubt, by her show’s writers), five minutes and 28 seconds into her weekly Opening Statement.

Judge Jeanine was speaking about the thing no Republican cared about during Iraq: collateral damage.

Let us hope that this wonderful, country wide awakening is no brief jaunt, but a return to an America-First, do-no-harm foreign policy.

Photos: Nine Years of War in Iraq.

UPDATED I (9/8): And “Will the murders of those children be less significant than those we go to avenge?” I failed to transcribe Jeanine’s last clincher. This is the sort of sharp logic missing from most tele-commentary.

UPDATE II: In reply to the thread on Facebook: Other than as an economist, Thomas Sowell is unpersuasive. No serious libertarian should take him seriously on issues of just war. Sowell was full-throttle for the war against Iraq.

Arab Neoconservatives For The Missionary Position In Middle-East

Anti-Semitism, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Neoconservatism

There are plenty Arab neoconservatives who want to see the US adopt the missionary position vis-a-vis the countries in the Middle East, on top, of course. Some of these neoconservatives were once close to Bush, but have reinvented themselves as perfectly legitimate (because not Jewish) agitators for US intervention in that part of the world.

Today the affable Zhudi Jassar, a Syrian Arab, was on “Money With Mellisa Francis” (a smart lady who, nevertheless, posts nothing but silly banter on Facebook) to shout down all opposition to striking Syria. Zhudi, understandably, wants to improve the lot of people he cares about back home (home, being Syria).

Fouad Ajami, another Arab neocon, once even called for a Marshal Plan for the Arab countries. Now he contends himself with advocating (eloquently) that the US lead from above, behind, on top; who knows?

The local chalabies, if you will.

Ahmed Chalabi agitated on American TV for American intervention in Iraq. In the ramp-up to war, Chalabi fed Judith Miller,the New York Times’ birdbrain now perching at FoxNews, with the pro-invasion “intelligence” she presented to the public.

When American Jews advocate for Israel by erroneously and cunningly conflating American and Israeli interests—the usual suspects are ready with derogatory comments implicating the Zionist lobby, treason, disloyalty, etc.

The same libertarians, so obsessed with the Jewish lobby, don’t seem as eager to convict influential Arab neoconservatives of similar “sinister” motives when these Arabs urge intervention in the Middle East.