Posted in iraq, iraq war, Tony Blair, tagged Chilcot inquiry, Irag War, iraq, Tony Blair on August 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Tony Blair will face scathing criticism from Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry over his role in the Iraq war, according to reports.
The former prime minister will be held to account for major failings in the war in which 179 British soldiers, 3,500 US soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqis died, it has been alleged.
He will be criticised for claiming it was ‘beyond doubt’ Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the Mail on Sunday reported.
Sir John Chilcot’s findings will also criticise Mr Blair for failing to admit to a ‘secret pledge’, allegedly made with former US president George Bush, that he would go to war.
In the report, due out this autumn, Mr Blair will also come under fire for failing to plan to avoid the post-war chaos in Iraq.
Former foreign secretary Jack Straw and ex-Downing Street spin doctor Alastair Campbell are also expected to be criticised.
Posted in Afghanistan war, iraq war, tagged Afghanistan, iraq, Memorial Day on May 30, 2011| 1 Comment »
I’m going to start this post out properly. This is a day meant to honor fallen veterans, so let’s do that first.
This is a list of United States Armed Forces members killed in Afghanistan in the month of May, 2011.
Army Pfc. William S. Blevins
Army Pvt. Andrew M. Krippner
Army Pvt. Thomas C. Allers
Army Sgt. 1st Class Clifford E. Beattie
Army Pfc. Ramon Mora Jr.
Army Cpl. Brandon M. Kirton
Army Staff Sgt. David D. Self
Army Spc. Bradley L. Melton
Army Pvt. Lamarol J. Tucker
Army Pvt. Cheizray Pressley
Army Spc. Brian D. Riley Jr.
Army Sgt. Robert C. Schlote
Army Sgt. Amaru Aguilar
Marine Lt. Col. Benjamin J. Palmer
Marine Sgt. Kevin B. Balduf
Army 1st Lt. Demetrius M. Frison
Army Sgt. Ken K. Hermogino
Army Spc. Riley S. Spaulding
Army Sgt. Kevin W. White
Does this bother you? It makes me sick to my stomach. It bothers me even more that we officially crossed the 6,000 dead mark in May of 2011 (Iraq and Afghanistan combined) and nobody noticed. We officially stand at 6,014; I do not have the latest death listed here because the name of the latest dead soldier has not been released, as far as I can tell.
Posted in Afghanistan, Afghanistan war, iraq, iraq war, Libya, war, war funding, tagged Afghanistan, Higher Education, iraq, Libya, Militarized Conservatism, military power, national security state, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, USA's military spending, war on April 6, 2011| 1 Comment »
The Pathologies of War
There can be little doubt that America has become a permanent warfare state.(1) Not only is it waging a war in three countries, but its investment in military power is nearly as much as all of the military budgets of every other country in the world combined. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute states, “The USA’s military spending accounted for 43 per cent of the world total in 2009, followed by China with 6.6 per cent; France with 4.3 per cent and the UK with 3.8 per cent.”(2) The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost Americans a staggering $1 trillion to date, second only in inflation-adjusted dollars to the $4 trillion price tag for World War II.”(3) Pentagon spending for 2011 will be more than $700 billion. To make matters worse, as Tom Englehardt points out, “We dominate the global arms trade, monopolizing almost 70% of the arms business in 2008, with Italy coming in a vanishingly distant second. We put more money into the funding of war, our armed forces and the weaponry of war than the next 25 countries combined (and that’s without even including Iraq and Afghan war costs).”(4) Moreover, the United States maintains a massive ring of military bases and global presence around the world, occupying “over 560 bases and other sites abroad”(5) and deploying over 300,000 troops abroad, “even as our country finds itself incapable of paying for basic services.”(6) In spite of how much military expenditures drain much-needed funds from social programs, the military budget is rarely debated in Congress or a serious object of discussion among the public. Rather than avoid squandering resources and human lives on foreign wars, we avoid “the realities and costs of war.”(7)
War is now normalized even as the United States becomes more militarized, moving closer to a national security state at home and an imperial/policing power abroad. Military historian Andrew Bacevich is right in arguing, “The misleadingly named Department of Defense serves in fact as a Ministry of Global Policing.”(8) War has become central to American character, but what is often unacknowledged is that its perpetual wars abroad are increasingly matched by a number of wars being waged on the domestic front. Such a disconnect becomes clear in the refusal of politicians, anti-public intellectuals and the general public to acknowledge how the federal deficit has been run up by our military adventures. As Frank Rich argues, “The cultural synergy between the heedless irresponsibility we practiced in Iraq and our economic collapse at home could not be more naked. The housing bubble, inflated by no-money-down mortgage holders on Main Street and high-risk gamblers on Wall Street, was fueled by the same greedy disregard for the laws of fiscal gravity that governed the fight-now-play later war[s]” in Iraq and Afghanistan and more recently in Libya.(9) Similarly, as the spirit of a hyper-militarized America bleeds into everyday life, politics increasingly becomes an extension of war, and right-wing, liberal and conservative politicians eagerly embrace a militaristic approach to policy and the need to cleanse the social order of any institution, mode of dissent, social group and public sphere willing to question its state of permanent war and its militarized and unchecked embrace of economic Darwinism. These foreign and domestic wars are not unrelated, given that they are waged in the interests of right-wing militarists, neoconservatives, liberals and corporate moguls – all of whom have a political and economic stake in such military incursions abroad and wars at home. Wars make the economic elite even richer just as they undermine civil liberties, public services and public dissent. A hyper-militarized America has not only fueled violations of executive power, it has also promoted armed conflicts that are directly related to an economic crisis that has produced a wave of political extremism in the United States, while furthering the rise of a punishing state that places the burdens of the current economic crisis on the backs of the poor. We seem to have no trouble in spending money for the production of organized violence designed to kill people, but we have little money to spend on education, health care, or other serious social problems facing the United States. As one educational journal pointed out:
This juxtaposition of robust war spending and inadequate support for education highlights the moral bankruptcy of political and economic leaders who seem to find endless piles of money to kill people abroad but not much to educate them at home. And, of course, the relationship is plain: The more dollars spent on war, the fewer available for human needs – whether alternative energy, food stamps, in-home elder care, public libraries or keeping teachers in their classrooms.(10)
Posted in iraq war, tagged Curveball, iraq war on February 18, 2011| 3 Comments »
Joschka Fischer accuses former CIA chief George Tenet over his knowledge of Iraqi defector’s sketchy background
Helen Pidd in Berlin guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 17 February 2011 14.08 GMT
Germany‘s former foreign minister Joschka Fischer has accused the former head of the CIA George Tenet of making implausible claims about the handling of the Curveball case by the US.
On Wednesday Tenet, the director of central intelligence between 1997 and 2004, issued a statement on his website saying he discovered “too damn late” that Curveball – the Iraqi defector who became a key source for the CIA and the German secret service (BND) – might be a fabricator.
Reprinting an extract from his autobiography, Tenet claimed he only found out in 2005, two years after the Iraq invasion, that the BND had doubts about Curveball’s claims to have witnessed first-hand Saddam Hussein’s bio-weapons programme.
Colin Powell demands answers over Curveball
Former US secretary of state asks why CIA failed to warn him over Iraqi defector who has admitted fabricating WMD evidence
Posted in America, iraq war, war, war crimes, tagged Bradley Manning, Iraq war atrocities, war crimes on December 7, 2010| 3 Comments »
By Marjorie Cohn , ZNet, September 29, 2010
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking military secrets to the public. [His] supporters are holding rallies in 21 cities, seeking Manning’s release from military custody. Manning is in the brig for allegedly disclosing a classified video depicting U.S. troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in Iraq in July 2007. The video, available at www.collateralmurder.com, was published by WikiLeaks on April 5, 2010. Manning faces 52 years in prison. No charges have been filed against the soldiers in the video.
In October 1969, the most famous whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, smuggled out of his office and made public a 7,000 page top secret study of decision making during the Vietnam War. It became known as the Pentagon Papers. Dan risked his future, knowing that he would likely spend life in prison for his expose.
The release of the Pentagon Papers ultimately helped end not only the Nixon presidency, but also the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 Americans and three million Indochinese were killed. Dan’s courageous act was essential to holding accountable our leaders who had betrayed American values by starting and perpetuating an illegal and deadly war.
Manning’s alleged crimes follow in this tradition. The 2007 video, called “Collateral Murder,” has been viewed by millions of people on the Internet. On it, U.S. military Apache helicopter soldiers from Bravo Company 2nd Battalion 16th Infantry Regiment can be seen killing 12 civilians and wounding two children in Iraq. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency.
Posted in Dick Cheney, iraq war, Tony Blair, tagged Dick Cheney, Irag War, Tony Blair on September 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Excerpted from: Tony Blair: Gordon Brown tried to blackmail me
The Daily telegraph
By Robert Winnett and Henry Samuel
Published: 6:31AM BST 01 Sep 2010
Tony Blair's book A Journey Photo: AP
The pressure on Mr Blair to step aside became so great that he admits he may have become reliant on alcohol as he faced coup attempts from Mr Brown’s supporters. He discloses that he began drinking every day and needed the “support” that alcohol provided.
He discloses his “anguish” over the Iraq war and admits that he failed to predict the “nightmare” in the aftermath of the conflict. But he insists going to war was correct and says he will devote the rest of his life to making amends.
He also discloses how American hawks, particularly Dick Cheney, the then US vice-president, were apparently keen to invade other countries in the Middle East, including Syria.
“Diana was a manipulator like me.”
George W. Bush did not recognise the prime minister of Belgium or understand why he was at a G8 meeting, Tony Blair has disclosed
The book also reveals:
Posted in Afghanistan war, America, iraq war, Troops, war, tagged Afghanistan war, illegal wars, iraq war, occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, Robert Jensen, U.S. military on August 24, 2010| 1 Comment »
by Robert Jensen, CommonDreams.org, August 23, 2010
When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”
While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans — military and civilian — to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.
This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism — or risk being labeled callous or traitors — undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.
Continues >>
Posted in America, bush, Bush Administration, Iran, iraq, iraq war, Israel, war, wmd, tagged Condoleezza Rice, FBI, Iran, iraq, Israel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nuclear Nonproliferation, Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz, Tony Blair, U.S. foreign policy, William Blum, wmd on August 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »
William Blum, Foreign Policy Journal, August 5, 2010
If and when the United States and Israel bomb Iran (marking the sixth country so blessed by Barack Obama) and this sad old world has a new daily horror show to look at on their TV sets, and we then discover that Iran was not actually building nuclear weapons after all, the American mainstream media and the benighted American mind will ask: “Why didn’t they tell us that? Did they want us to bomb them?”
The same questions were asked about Iraq following the discovery that Saddam Hussein didn’t in fact have any weapons of mass destruction. However, in actuality, before the US invasion Iraqi officials had stated clearly on repeated occasions that they had no such weapons. I’m reminded of this by the recent news report about Hans Blix, former chief United Nations weapons inspector, who led a doomed hunt for WMD in Iraq. Last week he told the British inquiry into the March 2003 invasion that those who were “100 percent certain there were weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq turned out to have “less than zero percent knowledge” of where the purported hidden caches might be. He testified that he had warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a February 2003 meeting — as well as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in separate talks — that Hussein might have no weapons of mass destruction.[1]
Posted in Afghanistan, Afghanistan war, iraq, iraq war, military draft, Rep. Charles Rangel, tagged Afghanistan, iraq, Iraq and Afghanistan, Military Draft, Rangel, Rep. Charles Rangel, Troops on July 16, 2010| 1 Comment »
Via: Raw Story- By The Associated Press
Friday, July 16th, 2010 — 8:29 am
Rep. Charles Rangel is again calling for a military draft to highlight the fact that relatively few families are bearing a disproportionate burden in fighting the nation’s wars.
The New York Democrat introduced a bill Thursday to reinstate the draft, a symbolic gesture that has no chance of becoming law. Rangel previously introduced similar legislation in 2003 and 2007.
Rangel said lawmakers who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should require “all who enjoy the benefits of our democracy to contribute to the defense of the country.”
Rangel said he supports President Barack Obama’s efforts to eventually bring troops home, but he wants it to happen faster.
Source: AP News
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