Friday, August 22, 2014

"THE TYRANT HAS FALLEN, AND IRAQ IS FREE." George W. Bush


"We have now reached a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror."
George. W. Bush

"Washington’s blithe unconcern with the post-Axis world order it helped craft via the UN, which forbids unilateral wars of aggression, led to the quagmire in Iraq. Obama once campaigned on a more lawful and multilateral international policy. It is important not only that the president receive congressional authorization for a war (that is what it is) in Syria but that any action be conducted so as to strengthen, not weaken, international legality. ISIL is lawless and brutal, and can only be countered by its opposite. Joining it in lawlessness and brutality is to surrender to it, not combat it."
Juan Cole

Would a US/ NATO war in Syria be Legal in International Law?




"As for the United States, historians may one day concur with the late Gen. Bill Odom. For the lone superpower to survive that century, the decision to invade and occupy Iraq was the most disastrous blunder in its history."
'George W. Bush held out the promise of a peaceful Mesopotamian democracy as a magnet for all Arab nations. What we produced is a broken land awash in blood, a country severed by tribe and faith: a Kurdish north, Shia south and a Sunni west controlled by the savages of an “Islamic State” even al-Qaida hates and fears.'

[From "To Defeat the Islamic State"

 











NOTE:
Further (or farther?) down are some interesting opinions about what ISIS is.  I apologize for the riotous colors.

 

What the blue blazes is going on in Iraq?



Maybe Dick Cheney and George W. Bush would like to tell us. 

Correction: Only Dick Cheney (without his shotgun), because God only knows what would come out of Bush's mouth.

 


*
 

I blogged and blogged about Iraq, Dick, and Bush way back then when we weren't supposed to be critical of what they were doing IN & TO Iraq.

(In fact, I published these Letters in a book called Why Are We In Iraq?-Letters from Mad Plato. I don't think any copies were sold.).



It was all shucks and golly gee whiz...Shock and Awe...

Wow! 

 Look at and listen to those cruise missiles pound down on Baghdad...what a lovely, fiery orgy!



Our TVs were entertaining us back then.



Bush would swagger, spit, and grin...Cheney mostly just grinned.



And, now, not too much is shown.



Not enough bombs yet.



Have to have more bombs before it's good enough for prime time.



We've got to watch all those singers, dancers, and bachelors frolic, until War revs up the decibels, drones, and bombs.



Meanwhile, as if it had been planned on the strategic chessboard all along***, jihadists and terrorists are now more dangerous to the world than before:







Listen as the shiny gold falls into the coffers of the giddy Military-Industrial Complex.



Yes, just listen as gold falls into the coffers of the giddy Military-Industrial Complex...and know that Corporations are people just like you and me. 

 Right, Supreme Court?

 

Stay tuned.





IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES AND OIL!


 



***
ISIS: Made in USA
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a creation of the United States and its Persian Gulf allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and recently added to the list, Kuwait. The Daily Beast in an article titled, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS,” states:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

Despite the candor of the opening sentence, the article would unravel into a myriad of lies laid to obfuscate America’s role in the creation of ISIS. The article would claim:

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

However, the US goal in the region was never “stability” and surely not “moderation.” As early as 2007, sources within the Pentagon and across the US intelligence community revealed a conspiracy to drown the Middle East in sectarian war, and to do so by arming and funding extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda itself. Published in 2007 – a full 4 years before the 2011 “Arab Spring” would begin – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article titled, “”The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” stated specifically:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coƶperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

[The above is from ISIS “Made in USA”. Iraq “Geopolitical Arsonists” Seek to Burn Region by

Global Research, June 18, 2014]






Now there is a dandy, good chance for Global Terrorism---a self-fulfilling prophecy---to take off like a rocket (if it hasn't already).

The Islamic State or ISIS is not bad like the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.

 
It is worse.

It is more dangerous.
 
***
The plan, from the beginning, was to raise an extremist expeditionary force to trigger a regional sectarian bloodbath – a bloodbath now raging across multiple borders and set to expand further if decisive action is not taken.”
 
Despite an open conspiracy to drown the region in sectarian strife, the US now poses as a stakeholder in Iraq’s stability. Having armed, funded, and assisted ISIS into existence and into northern Iraq itself, the idea of America “intervening” to stop ISIS is comparable to an arsonist extinguishing his fire with more gasoline.”
 
These are the worst people on earth. They openly, proudly crucify enemies, enslave women, and murder men en masse. These are not the usual bad guys out for land, plunder or power. These are primitive cultists who celebrate slaughter, glory in bloodlust and slit the throats of innocents as a kind of sacrament.”
[ From “ Stopping the worst people on Earth” By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, August 21, 2014]
 
The “war on terror” has failed because it did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed and a movement. The U.S. did not do so because these countries were important American allies whom it did not want to offend. Saudi Arabia is an enormous market for American arms, and the Saudis have cultivated, and on occasion purchased, influential members of the American political establishment. Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population of 180 million and a military with close links to the Pentagon.
[From the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising]











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