Letters to the Editor
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Here's the thing
The Iraq war is going exactly like the neo-cons hoped it would. This war wasn't started for good reasons it was started for evil reasons. Always keep that in mind.
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The Apex of An International Shit Storm
War, schmore. This is not now nor has it ever been a "war".
One must assume an "enemy" in a "war". Iraq was not our "enemy" before, during or after 9/11. Kuwait was Iraq's enemy as they were stealing Iraq's oil through slant oil drilling and after Saddam complained to April Glaspie, Bush Sr.'s Ambassador to Iraq, we will all recall her response to him: " The United States has no opinion about your border dispute with Kuwait."
That was a front page New York Times quote in August of 1990:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie
Saddam Hussein was our man in the Iraq/Iran war. Heck, there are pictures of him canoodling with Rumsfeld!
After he decided to "solve" the Kuwait problem and we went in to kick the Iraqi's collective
asses back into Iraq, can you imagine that our soldiers were facing Saddam's potential use of "the poor man's nuclear weapon" against them? And who might you suppose supplied them with that weapon? The United States. Honeywell?
Yes, Saddam was tolerable to us until he decided to sell Iraq's oil in Euros instead of U.S. dollars. The entire world knew then and knows now that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with bin Laden or Al Qaeda. For God's sake, as horrible as he was, he had created a secular society where women carried on their lives as doctors and teachers. They walked about in normal attire. They were a welcome part of Iraqi society.
The truth of the matter is, that after 9/11 we needed to take control of Saddam and his oil. Period. And by our illegal pre-emptive invasion and occupation we created a terrorist haven there! We destroyed a country that had done us no harm! (All this I might add after our sanctions caused the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi's during the 90's).
Since we launched our illegal "Shock and Awe" campaign, we have killed perhaps hundreds of thousands of human beings (it's not easy to find the most reliable statistics), and polluted the entire region with depleted uranium. Women are no longer allowed to participate in society as they were before. They are being threatened by the wahabist inspired theocratic wacko's to "stay covered and stay in their place".
Our economy is in the toilet now partly because of the nearly trillion dollars we have spent on what I believe is an international war crime. Now with Iran and Venezuela talking about moving into the Euro with their oil sales this further threatens the economic stability of the United States. Let's be crystal clear. We want to control the world and all the natural resources, including water. This isn't about Iran possessing nuclear weapons or Chavez calling Bush the devil. It's about raw power and control and global hegemony.
But I digress.
We are in now at the apex of an international shit storm of illegality. There is an elephant of lies, trickery, fraud, deceit, death, destruction, mayhem and heartbreak in American and Iraqi "living rooms" and I can smell the stench and feel the shame. Can you? Do we even CARE what the Iraqi people feel? Do we care about their loss and pain? Do we care about the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of homeless and displaced Iraqi's do to our military hubris?
These are my questions: Who will stand up and speak the absolute truth of what our country has done in our names, with our assets? Who will indict the guilty parties? Who will convict them and carry out the sentences they are given? John McCain? Hillary Clinton? Barack Obama?
They are all just as guilty as the perps.
Who are we to rely on to correct our ship of state that has gone so horribly off course?
We cannot rely on the American people to take action. How can cowards and traitors to the Constitution be called on to speak the truth and demand indictments of the guilty?
Will the American people EVER stand up and demand a cessation of the crimes being perpetrated in our names and with our funds?
But the biggest question to me, on this Good Friday, is this: Will we ever seek atonement from the world for what we've done? Can we ever be forgiven?
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Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
Dear Salon staph:
Your hypothesis that "America bungled the war" is incorrect; the military performed their part well, but, should never have been in Iraq in the first place. The only "bungling" came from our lunatic President and his minions who foisted this clusterfuck on us and then mismanaged the affair completely by virtue of arrogance, ineptitude, hubris and jingoism.
If you love "bungling", though, be prepared for Dubya bungling us into another war prior to his eagerly-anticipated departure...this time with Iran. What will your staph then conclude when oil becomes $200 a barrel following war with Iran? "Mismanagement"? "Oopsies"? "My bad-ism"?
No, the proximate cause of all our difficulties at home and abroad is simple...as simple as the man himself: George W. Bush.
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Nobody Will Believe It
And not a word about oil or the administration's connection to the companies and merchants who benefited from the war.
I don't think it's because it doesn't exist--only that it's a testament to what "our" (the taxpayer's money) bought, and the Bush gang's ability to control the press and the perceptions of the war.
It's going to take a major effort by a major figure to bring the truth forward. These books tell almost nothing new that I can see. The blackout has been such that there's little raw data that can be put together in some sort of compilation, and the task of even beginning is still a long way off.
Viet Nam now appears the manifestation of a far simpler, more innocent time--a mere misguided defensive reaction--compared to the premeditation and lies that went into Iraq. The question is whether American triumphalism has reached a peak, or the climb to a new form of post colonial empire has just begun.
For a nation to be as blind and ignorant as this one indicates a lot of complicity. Until the dependency on oil is at least dented in some definite way, the story of Iraq will not be told, or even if it is nobody will believe it.