“With a sectarian power-sharing agreement and interfering neighbours, Iraq is looking a lot like Lebanon,” writes Lamis Andoni at Al Jazeera.
Where else? Now that the Left is as invested in all Obama’s wars as the “Right,” sober assessment of regions made more backward and benighted for our interventions is hard to come by in American media. There is nothing new about the silence of collaborators in this country, Left and Right.
“The power-sharing framework agreed in Iraq has so far failed to end the eight month deadlock over the structure of a new cabinet. The stalemate, due to haggling over key posts, is reflective of how post-invasion Iraq has succumbed to ethnic and sectarian rivalry, which, in turn, has further obstructed its economic and political recovery. It is also indicative of how the country has become a playground for different regional and international powers who are competing for influence and the country’s oil resources.”
The agreement reached earlier this month would allow Nuri al-Maliki, the incumbent prime minister, to form a new government – even though the Iraqiya coalition took two more seats than his State of Law alliance in the parliamentary elections.
The accord would establish a Lebanon-style sectarian and ethnic formula – which might prove to be more of a recipe for constant instability than a guarantor of national reconciliation. It is ironic that we are witnessing the ‘Lebanonisation’ of Iraq at the exact moment when this type of power-sharing formula may be causing the ‘Iraqisation’ of Lebanon – as many fear that Lebanon is on the verge of inter-sectarian strife. …
Iraq’s emerging political system is a direct product of the US invasion and Iran’s complicity in both the invasion and the ensuing occupation. And Iran has, so far, come out of it with the strongest hand – as the prime minister is the main authoritative power. Neighbouring ‘Sunni’ Arab countries have also played a role in consolidating divisions within Iraq – either by directly helping the US forces or by failing to help Iraq maintain its unity.”
[SNIP]
Where there was once oppression and order, now there is just chaos and daily danger. What always gets me is the terror on the faces of children trying to survive in “liberated” Iraq.
The American people are not the only dupes to be patronized and bullied by the Empire’s congressional-military-media complex. According to RawStory.com, “A report (PDF) from the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) shows that 92 percent of Afghans surveyed had never heard of the coordinated multiple attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001. It also shows that four in 10 Afghans believe the US is on their soil in order to ‘destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan.'”
As the report would have it, these silly people simply don’t understand that the entity we call NATO, but is really the US, needs to be in Afghanistan for their own good; the good of the Afghan people. For example, to destroy their only source of income: the poppy fields.
And so a reeducation program must commence. “‘We need to explain to the Afghan people why we are here, and both show and convince them that their future is better with us than with the Taliban,’ ICOS lead field researcher Norine MacDonald said in a statement.”
Remember “Radio Sawa”? You should. If you are a tax payer, you pay for it. Part of the neocon’s democratic deal in Iraq was that we got to pipe into Iraqi ears pro-American propaganda interspersed with J. Lo’s caterwauling and Jay-Z’s gutter grunts. The idea was to make them both love us and want to be like us.
Why don’t we do the same for the Afghans? We could buy them all little radio transistors, and pipe “Radio Sawa” type propaganda into their long-suffering ears.
But first, let them get high on opium. Where I do agree with the think tank is in its proposal “that Afghanistan license the growing of opium.”
In December 24, 2001 I advocated, “Freedom and choice – not prohibition, incarcerations and coerced treatment – are the best salve for a people that has been infantalized and brutalized for too long. In a country with a poor infrastructure, the ‘relatively stable value of opium and its nonperishability means that it can also serve as an important source of savings and investment among traders and cultivators.'”
UPDATE: For those of you who are new to my opinion on America’s foreign policy, please read up on the term “Reeducation.” After you have searched my Articles Archive under the relevant categories, of course.
Today it’s “W.” I knew George Bush was one sick son of … Mommy Dearest. Barbara Bush, made Genghis B., then a teenage boy, drive her to the hospital after she had miscarried. On her lap this awful woman carried the remains of the expelled fetus, which she showed to boy George.
Did we really need to know this? And why oh why has this dreadful man come out of hiding!
I have no wish to re-litigate his murderous reign. But the idea that Bush was justified in waging war on Iraq is preposterous. The fact that “W” has come out with His Truth to loud applause reflects very badly on his base, which includes very many American historians.
Reducing this administration’s single-minded will to war to an erroneous 16 words ignores the big picture. First came the decision to go to war. The misbegotten illegality that was this administration’s case for war followed once the decision to go to war had already been made. The administration’s war wasn’t about a few pieces that did not gel in an otherwise coherent framework; it wasn’t about an Iraq that was poised to attack the U.S. with germs and chemicals rather than with nukes; it was about a resigned, hungry, economic pariah that was a sitting duck for the power-hungry American colossus.
By all means, dissect and analyze what, in September 2002, I called the “lattice of lies” leveled at Iraq: the uranium from Africa, the aluminum tubes from Timbuktu, the invisible “meetings” with al-Qaida in Prague, an al-Qaida training camp that existed under Kurdish—not Iraqi—control, as well as the alleged weaponized chemical and biological stockpiles and their attendant delivery systems that inspectors doubted were there and which never materialized.
But then assemble the pieces and synthesize the information, will you? Do what the critical mind must do. The rational individual, wedded to reality, reason, and objective, non-partisan truth saw Bush’s sub-intelligent case for war for what it was. He saw Bush as the poster boy for “the degeneracy of manner and morals” which James Madison warned war would bring—the same “bring ’em on” grin one can also observe on the face of a demented patient with end-stage syphilis. The rational individual saw all this, and understood that when Madison spoke of “war as the true nurse of executive aggrandizement,” he was speaking of the disposition of this dictator.
Hold the CIA responsible for giving in to the War Party’s pressure, if you will. But recognize that the CIA was only obeying the wishes of its masters. The CIA had attempted to resist. Witness the early statements by Vince Cannistraro, former counterterrorism chief, who scoffed at the concoction of an al-Qaida-Iraq connection. Having come under fire after September 11, the agency gave in to White House pressure to politicize and shape the lackluster information.
Unforgivable? Yes. But consider who the intelligence community takes its corrupt cues from. Perhaps New Jersey’s poet laureate Amiri Baraka had a point when he wondered, “Who know [sic] what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleezza.” The National Security Adviser has since September 11 been rocking the intelligence community with her antipathy to the truth. As if her Saddam-seeded nuclear-winter forecasts were not bad enough, on September 8, 2002, she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “We do know that there have been shipments into Iraq of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to nuclear weapons programs.” “That’s just a lie,” an appalled David Albright of the Institution for Science and International Security told The New Republic.
In her latest damage control interview with Blitzer, Rice continued to insist that Saddam Hussein was threatening his neighbors when the president pounced, and, as justification for the war, she still makes reference to Saddam’s effort to pursue a nuclear program in … 1991, and to the burying of old centrifuge parts prior to the first Gulf War. Rice, of course, continues to deny the Niger forgery.
Clearly, Whitehall and Washington will not willingly give up their dark secrets. With few exceptions, such as U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd; Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Dennis Kucinich; John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee; and Bob Graham of Florida, the utterly disposable and detestable Democrats have been only too pleased to aid and abet this (heritable) executive dictatorship.
And the media will continue to do what their collective intelligence permits: focus only on the one lie, thus making the lattice more impenetrable.
UPDATE I (Nov. 9): LOOTER. Genghis Bush is now openly exhibitingthe pistol his invading army looted off Saddam Hussein. At the very least, this is tacky. Primitive.
UPDATE II (Nov. 10): YOU LIE, W. SPIEGEL ONLINE: “Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has said that ex-US President George W. Bush is not telling the truth in his memoirs, released on Tuesday. Schröder said he never offered his unconditional support for Bush’s aggressive policy against Iraq.
In his memoirs, called “Decision Points” and released on Tuesday, Bush writes that Schröder told him in January 2002 that the US president had his full support when it came to his aggressive Iraq policy. Bush wrote that Schröder indicated he would even stand behind Bush should the US go to war against the country.
On Tuesday evening in Berlin, Schröder denied that he ever made such a promise. “The former American president is not telling the truth,” he said. He said the meeting in question focused on the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and whether those responsible were supported by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
“Just as I did during my subsequent meetings with the American president, I made it clear that, should Iraq … prove to have provided protection and hospitality to al-Qaida fighters, Germany would reliably stand beside the US,” Shröder said. “This connection, however, as it became clear during 2002, was false and constructed.”
UPDATE III: LOTS OF LYING. SPIEGEL ONLINE: “With its invasion of Iraq, the United States rid the Iraqi people of a tyrant. But it also broke the law and destroyed tens of thousands of lives. With the release of close to 400,000 Iraq logs by WikiLeaks and the coming publication of George W. Bush’s memoir, it is time to take stock of a war that was catastrophic for Iraq and America’s standing in the world.”
“In early October, there were 500 unidentified bodies in the Baghdad city morgues. According to one doctor, just as many bodies are being delivered to morgues today as in 2007. At least 630 people were shot to death with silenced pistols in the last three months alone. Although most were guards at checkpoints, the victims also included politicians and their relatives, as well as a television reporter who suddenly collapsed in the middle of a broadcast, in broad daylight. The source of the fatal shot could not be located. The atmosphere is eerie.”
“‘I have friends who returned from their self-imposed exile in Damascus last year. Now they’re packing their bags again,’ says Ahmed, a young attorney who is sitting under a ceiling fan in the Shah Bandar Café in downtown Baghdad”
“… MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has more street cred than most. The host of ‘Hardball’ spent the first two years of the Obama presidency in a state of delirium bordering on the sexual. Famous for experiencing something akin to a (daytime) nocturnal emission during Obama’s coronation – ‘thrill up the leg’ Matthews called the incident – Chris later begged Barack to be his ‘Enforcer,’ in the matter of sacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Understand: When a liberal like the president shows a bit of that manly magic, ‘girlie boys’ like Chris get giddy.”
Given Chris’ well-known carnal affections for Barack Obama, it is unfortunate that the op-ed segment with which he ends the ‘Hardball’ program daily is called ‘Let Me Finish.’
Yesterday, Matthews finished off by surmising that the ‘kick in the pants’ the president has sustained means that it was now up to Obama to make the Republicans an offer they could not refuse – especially with the entire country watching. The challenge for Obama, advised Matthews, is to force Republicans to join him, or look like creeps if they fail to join him. …
Yes, The 2010 midterm elections were a bloodbath for the Democratic Party. Because there are no mollifying messages to be had from such a political massacre, liberal pols, pundits, and other dominant interests, hastened to soften the “shellacking” by framing it in terms more tolerable. …”
UPDATED I (Nov. 5): BUT WHEN HE’S GOOD HE’S VERY GOOD.
Now how good is the following editorial by Chris Matthews?! And how good am I for being capable of seeing a good argument for what it is?! Why can’t Chris be as good at distilling the truth? In any case, this time “Let Me Finish” is a proper climax to the show (read “Beware Of Wolves In Bipartisan Clothing” to get all the sexual connotations):
Behold the transcript of this fabulous editorial. See the quality of intern/ignorant millennial (most probably) these large organizations are forced to hire (they love youth, and shun older, more literate workers). It’s one thing not to know the fine word “solipsistic”; it’s quite another to be bereft of the brains, the initiative, and the work ethic to look it up on an online dictionary before typing/transcribing the sentence.
Instead of “solipsistic,” which is what Matthews said, the moron MSNBC has hired to transcribe the audio (and do related work) wrote “solid cystic.” This is the kind of word salad one is treated to when watching the simultaneous translations offered up on the TV screens at the health club. The transcribing is being done by individuals who’ve almost no facility with the English language. That describes most American school and university graduates. Enjoy:
“Let me finish tonight with george w. bush. you know years ago a member of the british cabinet got caught in an embarrassment and of course denied it, to which his accuser said, well, he would, wouldn’t he? denial is the norm of political life especially of the awful. president bush says the iraq war was justified because it prevented another 9/11. well, 9/11 was a network operation involving cells in germa germany, heavy recruit in the saudi arabia and of course flight training down in florida. the one country not involved in 9/11 was iraq, the attack of 9/11 was conspired among a web of jihadists religion phanatics without loyalty to a particular state. saddam hussein was a baathist. so how would a war in iraq prevent another attack from elements of al qaeda? or is bushauring something that logically cannot be denied for the simple reason it has nothing to do with logic with the discernible cause and effect with anything tangible. is he saying that the war which caused 77,000 lives was justified because he thought it would prevent another terrorist attack like 9/11? in other words, if the connection between 9/11 and iraq, which no one else’s ever been able to substantiate, was in his own mental wiring, he’s guiltless before history. there’s a reason that bush lives in this solid cystic world. cause of effect or of tangible fact even, but of what george w. bush sees out there…”
UPDATE II: More on “compromising” from Diana West (who, I am sure, would have lots to say about the ill-educated non-adults who’re, increasingly, running this country):
If our new Republicans are as gullible as our old ones, instead of cutting taxes across the board, they just might “compromise” with Democrats, and that’s the end of that. Or instead of refusing to raise the national debt ceiling another trillion dollars, they just might “compromise” with Democrats and up it goes. Or instead of repealing Obamacare, they just might “compromise” with Democrats and fine-tune a few colossal programs. When all the votes are cast and backs patted, of course, “compromise” is a poor substitute for principle. But all we can do now is hope for change: that the GOP, backed by the tea party, stands strong this time even in the face of Democratic accusations that it is playing “politics as usual,” or acting like the “Party of No.” Because it’s a sure thing that such accusations are on their way. Indeed, even as voters were still heading to the polls on Tuesday, Michelle Malkin noted the Democratic National Committee had already released talking points that attacked Republican leaders who “are not willing to compromise.
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I would change “gullible to “venal” and “power hungry.”
