Category Archives: Iraq

The Death Heads Are Just Dandy

Iraq, Journalism, Just War, Media, Military, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Republicans, The State, War

The New Individualist’s Spring 2010 edition doesn’t carry one of my columns (The Winter issue featured two), but it has a good, much-needed photo-journalism spread titled “This is War.” Iraqi family homes flatted by SCUDS (ours), streets in the aftermath of stupid bombs (from the US with love), the purest of the pure—the body of a beautiful little girl—washed for burial (“we love ya, democratized Iraqis”).

Scrutinizing the ever-so sad images of war brought back those horrible years during which, in vain it seemed, I pelted my readers with non-stop facts and doses of reality, the kind these images transmit with such ease. I tried the power of the Jewish teachings; these instruct Jews to robustly and actively seek justice; Just War Theory, developed by great Christian minds like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, the libertarian axiom, which prohibits aggression against non-aggressors. And I mentioned over and over again the natural law, and what the Founding Fathers provided: “A limited, constitutional republican government, by definition,” I wrote in March 12, 2003, doesn’t, cannot, and must never pursue what Bush is after—a sort of 21st-century Manifest Destiny.”

If you have a moral compass I ask you to patronize moral writers (provided they have talent, of course), not the apologists who supported this wicked foray, and are still unapologetic about it. All of them, I wager, are doing well—walking around, grins on their smug, death-head mugs, their claws dripping with blood, their wallets stuffed with wads, the Empire’s counterfeit currency. Incitement to murder and war profiteering are lucrative occupations in fin de siècle America.

The blowhards and blonds who slithered on their bellies for Bush (still do)—why do you read them? Buy their sick-making “Obama-this; Obama That” Micky-mouse books? (Okay, some like Coulter and Malkin have real talent, but the rest? Nothing but a T & A show all.)

It’s the story of Job, that Hebrew individualist, all over again; the wicked and the foolisher prosper, the righteous suffer, isn’t it?

Iraq Wants What … Saddam Provided

Bush, Democracy, Elections, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Neoconservatism, War

The poor Iraqis have bought what our crooked politicians and theirs have impressed upon them with the aid of smart bombs and a lot of suffering: If you brave bombs and ink a ballot, you’ve struck a blow for freedom.

Freedom is the exact opposite. “Casting a vote to give someone power does not make a man free; freedom is the knowledge that even if one abstains from that ritual, nobody can exercise power over one’s life, liberty, and property.”

In Iraq, ink and blood stains mingle, just like the Jacobins like it. Elections yesterday left Iraq 40 people short—they died for democracy by improvised bombs. “Authorities in Baghdad announced a curfew,” which Americans, the public and the pols, do not consider a limitation on liberty given the monumental importance of the act of voting.

AND LISTEN TO THIS:

About 6,200 candidates from more than 80 political entities are vying for seats. [Read: a steady income from the USA] At least a quarter of the positions — 82 — are guaranteed to go to women, and eight more have been allocated for minorities. [We’ve Americanized them: they abide by quotas; yippee.] They include five set aside for Christians and one each for the Shabak, Sabaeans (Mandaeans), and Yazidis.

With so many candidates fighting to get in on the political game, no wonder “the leading political parties are expected to take until late spring or even summer to strike the bargains needed to form a coalition government.“

STRONG CONTENDERS ARE “Maliki’s State of Law alliance, former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya party, or the Iraq National Alliance, which includes Ahmed Chalabi and radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr. … The two main Kurdish parties and a breakaway Kurdish group are expected to be a key part of any coalition.” [McClatchy]

Chalabi, right-hand man to the neoconservatives in their push for war in 2003, is striking another blow for freedom. He heads the “Justice and Accountability Commission, tasked with purging Baathists from political life.” It has “barred hundreds of candidates from running in these elections.” Way to go.

So what do The People want from the hordes of politicians they are electing?

CNN’s most excellent Arwa Damon took the popular pulse:

“We want basic services (like water and electricity) and jobs for our husbands and children,” Umm Rasha told CNN at a campaign rally in central Baghdad.
“And someone to deal with the displaced people, the retirees, and the widows,” her sister Umm Hassan chimes in. … “We want stability … security,” said a young man who didn’t want to be named. “Even now, there are still kidnappings and bombings.”

Essentially impoverished traumatized Iraqi’s, whom one can forgive for wanting so much from the state, crave what Americans extract from their social democracy—and what Saddam provided to a greater degree than the Obama/Bush approved goons.

If the state is going to provide, it must also control.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Under the socialist Ba?th Party, the economy was dominated by the state, with strict bureaucratic controls and centralized planning. Between 1987 and 1990 the economy liberalized somewhat in an attempt to encourage private investment

Although Saddam’s judiciary was relatively independent, “The political system, however, operated with little reference to constitutional provisions, and from 1979 to 2003 President Saddam Hussein wielded virtually unlimited power.”

But before the radical G. I. Jacobins arrived in 2003, Iraq was undergoing slow, evolutionary progress, much like in Iran—:

In 1989 a committee was set up to draft a new, more democratic constitution, which would extend the power of the National Assembly and permit the formation of new political parties. A draft constitution was prepared and approved by the National Assembly in 1990 …

During Saddam HEALTH AND WELFARE were heaven on earth; it’s something Iraqis want but are now without:

Between 1958 and 1991 health care was free, welfare services were expanded, and considerable sums were invested in housing for the poor and for improvements to domestic water and electrical services. Almost all medical facilities were controlled by the government, and most physicians were (and still are) employed by the Ministry of Health. Shortages of medical personnel were felt only in rural areas. Cities and towns had good hospitals, and clinics and dispensaries served most rural areas. Still, Iraq had a high incidence of infectious diseases such as malaria and typhoid, caused by rural water supplies contaminated largely by periodic flooding. Substantial progress, however, was made in controlling malaria. … After 2003 the health care system relied heavily on donations from abroad and the efforts of international aid organizations.

What do you know? Saddam’s socialist Ba’ath regime had a little more than K to 12. Darn dem Arabs:

Britannica again: “The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research have been responsible for the rapid expansion of education since the 1958 revolution. The number of qualified scientists, administrators, technicians, and skilled workers in Iraq traditionally has been among the highest in the Middle East. Education at all levels is funded by the state.”

* Iraq. (2008). Encyclopædia Britannica. Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

Updated: No More Making Whoopy In The Military?

Classical Liberalism, Feminism, Free Speech, Gender, IlanaMercer.com, Iraq, Military, Morality, Private Property, Sex, The State

Oh dear, some industrious Army general in Iraq wants to limit the wages of whoring in the military. Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III, quite reasonably, reports ABC News, issued a policy on Nov. 4 “forbidding pregnancy among his soldiers.”

His policy statement said violation of the rule could be punishable by court martial, and that it would also apply to the men who get female soldiers pregnant, even if the couple is married.
Pregnant soldiers are immediately redeployed out of combat zones to bases where they can get comprehensive medical care.

“The true purpose behind this is to cause them to pause and think about, ‘Okay wait a minute. It was written in the order and I’m going to leave my team. I’m going to leave an outfit shorthanded,'” Cucolo said.”

[SNIP]

NO MORE MAKING Whoopy In The Military? What next? Leaving Iraq for lack of recreational outlets? We can only hope.

Anyone with a brain cell knows that the military, other than being an arm of the state, subject to all the malignancies that entails, is one of the Biggest Whore Houses around.

The authority on the subject is “Stephanie Gutmann, a Jewish woman out of Manhattan,” as Fred Reed forthrightly fingers her. Reed writes the following about Stephanie’s apolitical “reportorial” effort, which,

[D]escribed perfectly the fraud and double standards used to make women look successful in the army. Much of it would be hard to credit, except that I had seen it from outside … In the course of events I met Steph a couple of times, chatted on the phone, and lost contact with her. The book got few and bad reviews because it was not what the media wanted to hear. It was a fine book.

As is “Steph’s” Other Book. Read about it here. (I too have had a pleasant exchange or two with this lovely lady.)

Update (Dec. 23): To the distracting diversions in the Comments Section, including my responses (by necessity), let me repeat: The Posting Policy of BAB states: “Please note that ‘Barely A Blog’ is private property. Posts are published at the proprietor’s discretion.” Apparently this requires explanation, as participants prefer the fun of expressing themselves without the discipline of acquaintance with the philosophy espoused here.

THE CONFUSION about this statement demonstrates even more the need for participants to become “vaguely familiar with the political philosophy championed on this forum and the Mother Site, ilanamercer.com. Accordingly, there is no such thing as absolute free speech; there are only absolute rights of private property. Speech is circumscribed by private property rights. I’m afraid you may deliver a disquisition in my virtual or tangible living room only if I let you so do.

Update II: Make Me Thankful: Don't Enlist!

Criminal Injustice, Government, Homeland Security, Iraq, Islam, Jihad, Military, Political Correctness, Terrorism

The excerpt is from my new WND.COM column, “Make Me Thankful: Don’t Enlist!”:

“Instead of tough, immediate action against every cog in the military machine that promoted, pampered and palliated the mass murderer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, victims got a commission of inquiry.

Or in Pentagon speak, ‘a broad 45-day review.’

The state’s response to the slaughter at Fort Hood of 13 of its own by a Muslim Army psychiatrist, who also wounded more than 30 in the shootings at the Texas military post on Nov. 5, will be met, first, with more bureaucracy – more salaries for more slackers – and, thereafter, with a brick-thick report! …

Thinking of enlisting? You’ll be fighting not for country and countrymen; but will be granting a banal bureaucrat a lien on your life.

As for the inquiry cobbled together to stop future Hasans:

Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, a fictitious, but oh-so-real character in the brilliant British satires ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister,’ would agree with me when I say that government commissions are where accountability goes to die.”

The complete column, now on WND.COM, is “Make Me Thankful: Don’t Enlist!”

Update I (Nov. 27): A correction to our friends over at the Libertarian Republican’s blog post: I’ve made it abundantly clear that it is not merely the military under Obama that suffers the afflictions highlighted in “Make Me Thankful: Don’t Enlist!”, and in “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program”—but the military, period.

Hozanas to the generic Hasan were the norm during Bush’s reign over the Army.

Patriotic Americans, as highlighted in “Take this, Mr. President, For Ramos and Compean,” were prosecuted and persecuted with equal zeal under Genghis Bush.

In the waning years of Bush’s G-d-awful term, I offered a flip-side argument: “Support The Draft … for politicians and bureaucrats”:

Having expatiated against the illegal, immoral and unconstitutional Iraq war from its inception, I’d recommend a different course of action in furtherance of freedom. For one, crying for the carping consular staff is a bad idea. They seem to want to enjoy the favors of office without bearing the burdens—to pick and choose those policies they are prepared to promote.

Creating a risk-free workplace for the already privileged government employee will do nothing to curb the State’s endless exploits. Coddling its recruits won’t place a dampener on government’s callous, confiscatory practices. The riskier the stakes faced by the political class, the better. Let as many of them as possible shoulder the consequences of the Iraq policy. Force more of the state’s pen-pushing laptop bombardiers to the empire’s fronts. Then, perhaps, will we witness policy changes that percolate down to The People.

Update II: The response to this column, public and personal, has been better than I had hoped. To think of the filthy hate mail I used to get when I wrote against the Iraq war for all those years!

If in writing this column, I’ve helped to save one life — then that is more of a reward than I could have hoped for. As is written in the Talmud (and plagiarized by Islam), “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” [Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a)]