By Quill
Glenn Greenwald has a recent post that questions the Colin Powell-with-the-jar-of-anthrax-like "evidence" behind the Bush administration's latest claim that North Korea is helping Syria to develop a plutonium-producing nuclear facility.
The only scary thing about this news is how eerily similar it sounds to the sketchy arguments made by the same administration five years ago about the relationship between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Furthermore, as Greenwald points out, very, very few media outlets are actually getting a second opinion on the validity of this relationship, and are simply parroting the administration's talking points without questioning them.
Is it too much to ask "respectable" news organizations like the Associated Press, The Washington Post and Reuters to question these claims? It can't be that hard to find critical voices on the subject, as the The New York Times has managed to dig up a few. Instead, they're just giving Bush and his sycophants a free pass to spew highly questionable allegations similar to the ones that led to a disastrous, ongoing war.
My question is, has the press corps simply not learned its lesson, or do they just not give a shit?
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Friday, April 25, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Secret US Plan Outlines "Open-Ended" Occupation of Iraq
By Farol
In a story that (sadly) should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following the ongoing U.S. occupation, The Guardian reports that the Bushies are planning for an "open-ended" (read: permanent) military presence in Iraq:
At this point, it should be increasingly clear that the entire purpose of the "surge" was not to create enough stability for political reconciliation (as we were told), but to lay the groundwork for a permanent U.S. presence in the region, the better to control its oil resources and launch other wars of aggression. (The plan assures us that the U.S. doesn't intend to use Iraq as a base to attack other countries. Right. The peace-loving USA would NEVER preemptively attack another country!)
But, with the war becoming ever more unpopular at home, the administration is resorting to increasingly desperate scapegoating to keep popular support afloat. In his latest article for Salon.com, Gary Kamiya notes that the Almighty General Petraeus has been accusing big, bad Iran of supporting the Sadr army in the recent intra-Shia clashes. Kamiya debunks this as falsehood, and demonstrates that its purpose is to provide a new Grave Threat to justify the ongoing occupation:
In a story that (sadly) should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following the ongoing U.S. occupation, The Guardian reports that the Bushies are planning for an "open-ended" (read: permanent) military presence in Iraq:
Needless to say, the administration does not intend to submit this plan for congressional approval. And—also needless to say—this Congress probably won't do anything besides whine about that.A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.
The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security" without time limit.
The authorisation is described as "temporary" and the agreement says the US "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq". But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces - including the British - in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.
Iraqi critics point out that the agreement contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries. The agreement is intended to govern the status of the US military and other members of the multinational force.
At this point, it should be increasingly clear that the entire purpose of the "surge" was not to create enough stability for political reconciliation (as we were told), but to lay the groundwork for a permanent U.S. presence in the region, the better to control its oil resources and launch other wars of aggression. (The plan assures us that the U.S. doesn't intend to use Iraq as a base to attack other countries. Right. The peace-loving USA would NEVER preemptively attack another country!)
But, with the war becoming ever more unpopular at home, the administration is resorting to increasingly desperate scapegoating to keep popular support afloat. In his latest article for Salon.com, Gary Kamiya notes that the Almighty General Petraeus has been accusing big, bad Iran of supporting the Sadr army in the recent intra-Shia clashes. Kamiya debunks this as falsehood, and demonstrates that its purpose is to provide a new Grave Threat to justify the ongoing occupation:
It's the same, endless cycle of lying and scapegoating used to justify more imperialist aggression. I wonder when we'll ever get bored with it. On second thought, maybe we've already become too bored with it.It's blame-blame-blame, blame-blame Iran. We've heard this song before. The Bush administration warbles it every time it needs to justify its failed Iraq policies and rally a skeptical public. Evil Iran, our archenemy, a charter member of the Axis of Evil, is killing American troops, and we can't leave Iraq, or Ahmedinejad and his cronies will take over the whole country. It's an updated version of the Cold War "domino effect" argument, with Iran taking the place of the communist menace. And in the latest version, Muqtada al-Sadr, the vehemently anti-American cleric, is portrayed as Public Enemy No. 1, an Iranian tool fighting the good guys in the Maliki government. U.S. troops have been fighting Sadr's militia in Baghdad's Sadr City in the last few days, making it even easier to portray him this way.
There's just one problem with this story: It's nonsense.
The truth is that the Maliki government and its allied Shiite faction, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI, formerly known as SCIRI), are much closer to Iran than the Sadrists are. Maliki's campaign against Sadr isn't a noble crusade by the good Iraqi government against the bad Iranian-backed Sadrists, but a battle waged by a weak Shiite leader backed by one militia, ISCI's Badr Corps, against another, stronger Shiite leader, Sadr, with his own militia, the Mahdi Army. Not only that, the "good" militia, the Badr Corps, was created in Iran by Iran's Revolutionary Guard -- the same organization whose Quds Force the United States notoriously declared to be a "terrorist organization" last year. The maraschino cherry on this sundae of absurdity: It was the head of that Quds Force, an Iranian general, who bailed out Maliki after Maliki's assault on Basra ignominiously failed, forcing him to send officials to Iran to broker a truce.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Blackwater's Contract Renewed
By Farol
Well, this is quite shocking. I mean, who could have guessed that after all the righteous outrage in Congress and the establishment press regarding Blackwater's killing of 17 civilians last September that...absolutely nothing would be done about it, and the mercenaries' contract would be renewed with barely a whisper of indignation from anybody?
Except, of course, for the Iraqi people themselves, who now have the renewed opportunity to be massacred at random. From Reuters:
Make no mistake: Blackwater isn't going anywhere anytime soon, not even if the "progressive" Barack Obama wins the presidency. In a story that largely escaped the attention of the Obama-worshipping liberal blogosphere, Jeremy Scahill reported that Obama has explicitly refused to support legislation banning private contractors from Iraq.
Aren't you glad there are so many stark differences between our left-wing and right-wing candidates on foreign policy issues?
Well, this is quite shocking. I mean, who could have guessed that after all the righteous outrage in Congress and the establishment press regarding Blackwater's killing of 17 civilians last September that...absolutely nothing would be done about it, and the mercenaries' contract would be renewed with barely a whisper of indignation from anybody?
Except, of course, for the Iraqi people themselves, who now have the renewed opportunity to be massacred at random. From Reuters:
BAGHDAD, April 5 (Reuters) - Iraqis expressed anger on Saturday at news the United States had renewed the contract of Blackwater, a private security firm blamed for killing up to 17 people in a shooting incident last year.But what the Iraqi people think does not, of course, matter to the corporate crooks who run the occupation of their country.
"Renewing this contract means we will see this sort of thing again in the streets," Abbas Hasoun, a grocer, said. "I wish we could turn the page on this, but keeping this company here means bloodshed will continue."
A traffic policeman who said he was questioned in Turkey by the FBI about the shooting was patrolling on Saturday the same busy traffic circle where the incident took place.
"I went to Turkey and testified about what I saw, but all my efforts were in vain when I heard the news," said the policeman who asked that his name not be published for security reasons.
Make no mistake: Blackwater isn't going anywhere anytime soon, not even if the "progressive" Barack Obama wins the presidency. In a story that largely escaped the attention of the Obama-worshipping liberal blogosphere, Jeremy Scahill reported that Obama has explicitly refused to support legislation banning private contractors from Iraq.
Aren't you glad there are so many stark differences between our left-wing and right-wing candidates on foreign policy issues?
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Report: US Lawmakers in Bed with Defense Companies
By Quill and Farol
A new article in the International Herald Tribune sheds some light on congressional investing practices. Surprise, surprise: it turns out members of the U.S. Congress have about $196 million invested in defense companies. Which might just explain the prolonged dragging-of-feet on the part of Congress in getting us out of the quagmire that is Iraq.
Something that actually comes as a shock, however, is that Democrats have significantly more investments in defense companies than Republicans ($3.7 million vs. $577,500, respectively).
Clearly, Democrats who go along with Bush policies regarding "national security" or the "war on terror" (see "Feinstein, Dianne") don't do so because they are afraid of looking "soft" on terror and/or national security.
The truth is that Congress has too much invested in the ongoing occupation of Iraq to do anything to mitigate it. The only possible way the US will ever end the occupation is if the people demand it—and, according to polls, they DO demand it. Too bad our egomaniacal press corps still has its head too far up its ass to relay that demand.
A new article in the International Herald Tribune sheds some light on congressional investing practices. Surprise, surprise: it turns out members of the U.S. Congress have about $196 million invested in defense companies. Which might just explain the prolonged dragging-of-feet on the part of Congress in getting us out of the quagmire that is Iraq.
Something that actually comes as a shock, however, is that Democrats have significantly more investments in defense companies than Republicans ($3.7 million vs. $577,500, respectively).
Clearly, Democrats who go along with Bush policies regarding "national security" or the "war on terror" (see "Feinstein, Dianne") don't do so because they are afraid of looking "soft" on terror and/or national security.
The truth is that Congress has too much invested in the ongoing occupation of Iraq to do anything to mitigate it. The only possible way the US will ever end the occupation is if the people demand it—and, according to polls, they DO demand it. Too bad our egomaniacal press corps still has its head too far up its ass to relay that demand.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Silent War Against Women in Iraq
By Quill
The New York based global women's rights organization MADRE has a brief but disturbing factsheet about the growing number of atrocities being committed against women since the beginning of the Iraq War five years ago. According to MADRE:
Perhaps even more grotesque is that the Bush Administration and its taxpayer funded war industry need do little to nothing to keep this atrocity under wraps - their complicit pals in the media do it for them. The growing level of violence against women in Iraq continues to fly low under the radar of the mainstream media here in the states.
Glenn Greenwald has an informative post that demonstrates just how rare it is to hear any sort of dissenting opinion from the false trope of the U.S. as welcomed liberators in Iraq perpetuated by the media, and what happens when someone slips up and lets a survivor of the occupation speak their mind in a national media venue. As Greenwald puts it:
The Iraqi people, promised freedom and self-determination for them and their families, are instead continually denied a voice in Western outlets, making them silenced and vulnerable to further deprivation of their human rights. Iraqi women in particular are left reeling in the aftermath of the invasion, their bodies subject to the punishment of those wishing to control them and their families to form a more perfect "Islamic state". There has been no liberation for them, and there will never be as long as the Bushies and their complicit comrades in the media keep censoring what Americans watch and read everyday.
The New York based global women's rights organization MADRE has a brief but disturbing factsheet about the growing number of atrocities being committed against women since the beginning of the Iraq War five years ago. According to MADRE:
- Since the US invasion of 2003, Iraqi women have endured a public campaign of harassment, beatings, abduction, rape, and assassinations.
- The main perpetrators are militia fighters who see violence against women as a way to enforce their vision of Iraq as an Islamist state.
- Anyone perceived to challenge that vision is in danger from the militias. Women professionals, artists, intellectuals, lesbians, and human rights activists have been specifically targeted.
- he largest Islamist militias are the armed wings of Iraqi political parties brought to power by the US.
- In 2003, US authorities hand-picked Islamist leaders to sit on the Iraqi Governing Council. The Council was presented in the US as the gateway to Iraqi democracy, yet these US appointees openly declared their intent to restrict women's rights.
- Once empowered, Islamists quickly moved to rescind Iraq's 1959 family law which guaranteed women equal rights in crucial areas of life.
- They also produced a constitution—with strong backing from the US—that discriminates against women in numerous ways.
Perhaps even more grotesque is that the Bush Administration and its taxpayer funded war industry need do little to nothing to keep this atrocity under wraps - their complicit pals in the media do it for them. The growing level of violence against women in Iraq continues to fly low under the radar of the mainstream media here in the states.
Glenn Greenwald has an informative post that demonstrates just how rare it is to hear any sort of dissenting opinion from the false trope of the U.S. as welcomed liberators in Iraq perpetuated by the media, and what happens when someone slips up and lets a survivor of the occupation speak their mind in a national media venue. As Greenwald puts it:
The American media has a script to which they loyally adhere. The U.S. can make mistakes and government leaders can be criticized for incompetence, but we can never do anything that is actually destructive or evil or which justifiably provokes hatred towards us by people in other countries -- not even bombing them and occupying them for years and imprisoning tens of thousands of them with no charges and replicating the behavior of their hated dictator. Any views that suggest such a thing are simply not heard.In the same post, Greenwald provides scripts of interviews with less-than thrilled Iraqi citizens conducted by two of America's most distinguished and regurgitative government parrots: Charlie Rose and Peter Jennings. While it's funny to think about how somebody could have fucked up so badly as to place angry anti-occupation Iraqis on the phone with Peter Jennings on national television, the viewpoints heard are quite sobering.
The Iraqi people, promised freedom and self-determination for them and their families, are instead continually denied a voice in Western outlets, making them silenced and vulnerable to further deprivation of their human rights. Iraqi women in particular are left reeling in the aftermath of the invasion, their bodies subject to the punishment of those wishing to control them and their families to form a more perfect "Islamic state". There has been no liberation for them, and there will never be as long as the Bushies and their complicit comrades in the media keep censoring what Americans watch and read everyday.
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