All posts tagged: Iraq

It is Time for George Versus the Dragon

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David Lindsay At least once every week, the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips, says something that would end the career of a Conservative, or of a Corbyn supporter, or of a man, or of anyone who was not Jess Phillips. Phillips supports the present Israeli Government. She has accused British Pakistanis of importing wives for their disabled sons. Her position on abortion, whatever one may think of that issue, is effectively a call for the full legal integration of Northern Ireland into Great Britain. She is rude and abusive towards Britain’s most prominent black politician, Diane Abbott. Or at least she claims to be; it is possible that she has built her reputation on lying about having used gutter language towards a woman who was old enough to be her mother. Phillips laughs at male suicides, at male cancers, at other men’s health issues, at violence against men, at problems in boys’ educational attainment, and at fathers denied access to their children. She has expressed the desire to stab Jeremy Corbyn. And …

The Nobel Peace Prize in Support of War

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On December 10, the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony will be held in Oslo, the capital of Norway. This analysis will try to look at how the prize fits in the bigger picture, but first, some general background is appropriate:

Norway is a member of NATO and has close ties to the United States and Great Britain. The political, economic and bureaucratic elites are firmly integrated in transatlantic networks, a nexus of economic connections, think tanks, international institutions, media and a thousand other ties that bind. They tend to identify with the liberal wing of the empire, (i.e. the Democrats, not the Republicans), but will work with any US administration. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are selected by the Norwegian parliament, and the Committee is nominally independent.

The Guardian’s Bush obituary plumbs new depths of sycophantic hypocrisy

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We’re no longer supposed to examine the lives, characters or morals of our leaders. Only “honor their memory” and be “grateful for their service”. History is presented to us, not as a series of choices made by people in power, but as a collection of inevitibilities. Consequences are tragic, but unavoidable. Like long-dead family squabbles – To dwell on them is unseemly, and to assign blame unfair.

Against the Stream

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So, when did the Trente Glorieuses (1945-1975) end, and the great counter-reformation begin exactly? Some would argue when Nixon took the dollar off of the gold standard in 1971, or perhaps with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, or again possibly during the late 70s early 80s when the Anglo-American duo, Regan and Thatcher, rewrote the political playbook. It seems probable that the inflexion point was reached when the interaction of these variables attained critical mass; but this exact moment cannot be known. What is known, however, is that an historical shift – probably irreversible – took place involving the demise of the social-democratic, welfare-capitalist, model in western Europe and New Dealism in the US.

The Emerging World Order

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Eric Zuesse The Post-World-War-II world order was dominated by the one WWII major combatant that had only 0.32% of its population (the lowest percentage) killed by the war: the United States. The Soviet Union’s comparable number killed by the war was the highest — it was 13.7% — 42.8 times higher than America’s. The US was the main force that defeated Japan and so won WWII in Asia. The USSR, however, was the main force that defeated Germany and so won WWII in Europe. The USSR suffered vastly more than did the US to achieve its victory. In addition to suffering 42.8 times the number of war-deaths than did US, the USSR’s financial expenditures invested in the conflict, as calculated by Jan Ludvik, were 4.8 times higher than were America’s financial expenditures on the war. Thus, at the war’s end, the Soviet Union was exhausted and in a much weaker condition than it had been before the war. By contrast, the US, having had none of the war’s battles occurring on its territory, was (by …

The Meaning of a Multi-Polar World

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Eric Zuesse Right now, we live in a mono-polar world. Here is how US President Barack Obama proudly, even imperially, described it when delivering the Commencement address to America’s future generals, at West Point Military Academy, on 28 May 2014: The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. [Every other nation is therefore ‘dispensable’; we therefore now have “Amerika, Amerika über alles, über alles in der Welt”.] That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us. [He was here telling these future US military leaders that they are to fight for the US aristocracy, to help them defeat any nation that resists.] In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. …

I Propose Americans Wear Gas Pumps on Veteran’s Day

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In the Commonwealth of Nations, the people get to wear poppies on Remembrance Day. I’m jealous. Poppies are beautiful.

In the United States, we get military glorification and propaganda. I don’t know how many marches and war stories we’ve endured over the years. This is not fair.

I think Americans need their own symbolic lapel pin for Veteran’s Day. I propose it be a gas pump.

WATCH: Who Are These Russians And Why Do We Hate Them?

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In his film, Regis Tremblay examines the history of US-Russian relations, talks to ordinary Russian people, deconstructs propaganda and attempts to answer the question – Who are these Russians? And Why Do We Hate Them? The escalating downturn of US relations with Russia has made the world a more dangerous place than at any time during the Cold War, including during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This film explores the many reasons why the US foreign policy establishment since the end of World War II hates all things Russian. With the exception of John Kennedy who sought to end nuclear weapons and to seek peace with Russia, every president since has used Russia as a threat to American interests, security and Democracy. Is Putin a thug and an assassin? Or he is a great, patriotic leader of a country that was nearly destroyed by President George Herbert Walker Bush’s CIA good old boys, Bill Clinton and the CIA asset Boris Yeltsin? But, perhaps the greatest fear is that Russia has regained its superpower status and because …

The US-Led Genocide and Destruction of Yemen

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“Only God can save our children”, say Yemeni fathers and mothers as they can do nothing but watch their children die, try to comfort them in their final agonizing hours, and pray for God to spare them from death. The fathers and mothers watch and pray, as one by another their children die from cholera, dehydration and starvation.

Your debt and mine to Julian Assange

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Philip Roddis In a recent post I referred to the vile treatment of a man who brought us irrefutible evidence, and in screeds, that the widely cherished notion of the West being democratic is a fat lie. True, some of us knew this already, but Wikileaks shocked even the most hardened critics of liberal democracy by the extent and unprecedentedly fine granularity of that evidence. In view of its shabby betrayal of Julian Assange – and the fact its readership demography maps closely onto that of my own site – I, pace Media Lens, singled out the Guardian for particularly scathing treatment. Two examples were columnists Deborah Orr and Suzanne Moore. It should surprise no one that both are women. Though Assange’s character assassination has involved many a male journalist – not least Russia Cold Warrior Luke Harding, whose uniquely personal betrayal of trust marked an all time journalistic low [1] – shills and hacks who also happened to be female had a spearhead role to play, given the precise form the assassination assumed. Here’s what computer …

See what the two main American political parties have become

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David Lindsay See what the two main American political parties have become. On any one or more of torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers’ rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions (that is, people like me), the President’s supposed immunity from indictment, and the President’s supposed power to pardon himself, Brett Kavanaugh could easily have been blocked by enough Republicans and all Democrats, plus Bernie Sanders. But instead, the useless Democratic Party made it about a #MeToo and #IBelieveHer story that it was impossible to prove. The party of Glass and Steagall repealed Glass-Steagall. The party that put a man on the Moon has become the party that puts a man in the ladies’ room. The eventual party of Civil Rights has regressed to being the party of the lynch mob. I am not going to do the line about the Democratic Party’s having gone “from a chicken in every pot, to a chicken on pot,” because the truth is even worse. Those who had cut their …

The NYT Whitewashes Haley

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The decampment of Nikki Haley from Trump’s military regime is, or ought to be, a nonstory. The United States’ ambassador to the United Nations is a ceremonial position that serves no purpose. The very idea of it is absurd. The US is a law unto itself, readily violating the UN Charter whenever the latter’s principles get in the way of the former’s imperial agenda. Washington didn’t bother obtaining a Security Council resolution for its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; nor did it get one for its bombing of, and deployment of troops in, Syria; nor did it get one for its protracted bombardment of Yugoslavia; nor did it get one for its various military operations in Yemen.

P is for Phosphorus and for Projection

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Hope K On Thursday September 6th, US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned Syria and its allies Russia and Iran that the US will act if chemical weapons are used against Syrian civilians. On Saturday September 8th, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that US jets shelled the Syrian city of Hajin with white phosphorus. White phosphorus is a gnarly chemical weapon that can burn human flesh down to the bone. So, does that mean that the US is going to “act” on itself? Probably not. The Pentagon denies the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim. Somebody’s lying. Who could it be? Well, I don’t know about you, but my mind immediately goes back to June of 2017, when the US military got caught using white phosphorus in Iraq and Syria after they said they didn’t. Then they claimed they just used it for smokescreens. The US signed a treaty in 2009 with the promise they would never again use the chemical weapon white phosphorus, except when they need to for smokescreen purposes. That’s an interesting exception. It sounds …

Conspiracies Are Not All Theoretical

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Alison Broinowski Before the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump told voters he would ‘find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center.’ His promise may turn out to be as empty as his predecessor’s undertaking to close down Guantánamo Bay. Or he may be prevented from keeping it by those who know the truth. Trump, an expert in false facts, questioned the version of events provided by the 9/11 Commission Report. More significantly, so did many scientists, engineers, and intelligence analysts. Experts from a wide range of countries at The Toronto Hearings on 9/11 in 2011 produced a DVD two years later, subtitled ‘Uncovering Ten Years of Deception’. The facts are presented in several books, including those by David Ray Griffin, Peter Dale Scott, Paul Thompson and Nafeez Ahmed: but many still can’t believe them. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked in 1996 if the deaths of half a million Arab children following Gulf War I was justified, she infamously replied, ‘I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we …

9/11 – A Firefighter’s Perspective

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Here we are, at the 17th anniversary of the event which shocked America–and most of the world–that was protected by massive lies still in use today. I am going to use two examples to show the readers why the official 9/11 story is a fraud and massive psyops campaign to give the USA an excuse to illegally invade nations, kill millions, wound millions more, create untold misery and fear for innocent people, at the same time knocking off predominantly Islamic states that Israel wanted destroyed and which would make Wall Street & defense contractors a ‘killing’ off the killings. And to use the 9/11 lies to justify an ever-growing police state both in the USA and most of the West, especially England.

So DID the Guardian back war on Iraq?

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Philip Roddis If I and a hundred likeminded others devoted ourselves 24/7 to rebutting the drivel above and below the line in the Guardian, we couldn’t make a dent. It would be like despatching midges, in August on a Highland bog, by crushing them one by one between thumb and forefinger. So I seldom bother. But a few instances this year have seen me obliged to make some sort of response to twaddle too egregious to let pass. One was Matthew d’Ancona’s smug desire to see market forces rein in the purveyors of ‘fake news’ via the kitemarking of such online crusaders for truth as Full Fact, led by tory party donor Michael Samuels. The other two were below the line. In an exchange with one btl commentator, back in April and over – what else? – Syria, I was told the idea of oil being a factor in the invasion of Iraq had been ‘thoroughly debunked’. I felt it incumbent, though it’s generally easier on such matters to spout nonsense than refute it, to put him straight on this …

NATO Actions Contradict their Values

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Gabriella Lima NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg regularly confirms the alliance’s commitment to strive for peace, safety and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN-Charter. “Our actions are aimed to defend individual liberty, human rights, democracy and the rule of law”. That’s what he usually claims at summits and meetings with chiefs of Foreign and Defense Departments of NATO member-countries. However, the alliance’s activity shows otherwise. Numerous heads of states and international organizations frequently denounce NATO war crimes and unauthorized use of forces. Thus, in the recent few months, the US and its allies have been accused of the following violations: warplanes of the US-led international coalition launched airstrikes in the countryside of al-Bukamal city in eastern Syria and killed at least 30 civilians, reported Syria’s news agency SANA on July, 13. While Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs recalled that the US presence in Syria is illegal, since the begining of the conflict.” according to a report, made by a group of Libyan nuclear experts, NATO used …

IRAN: US Regime Change Project is Immoral and Illegal

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Contemptuous of international law, the US makes no secret of its plots to overthrow the leaders of internationally recognized governments that reject the neoliberal New World Order. Iran is at the top of the US enemies list. The US has been at it since the 1979 Iran Revolution, when the Iranian people overthrew the US’s “our boy”, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah had become the US’s “our boy” as CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt referred to him in 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower overthrew the popular democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Overthrowing governments is illegal according to US law and international law. It is also immoral if one believes in democracy, self-determination, and the sovereignty of nations, respect for human life, and the rule of law.

No, Carole Cadwalladr, THIS is what war looks like…

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Carole Cadwalladr has been applying her fingertips to her keyboard again. This is usually bad news for anybody offended by giant leaps of logic or insufferable smugness, but it’s also usually inane enough you can just ignore it. Not in this case. The overall standard of Western Journalism has fallen, and it was never mountainously high to begin with, but this tweet is SO offensive, so hubristic and vain and insulting that it merits special attention. It deserves to be called out. Loudly, and often. No – Carole – Facebook profile pictures are NOT “what war looks like now”, and sitting behind a keyboard in the home counties, giggling about Russian bots whilst Wimbledon is muted on the TV behind you, doesn’t make you a fucking soldier. How DARE you write that? Do you have no sense of hubris? Of respect? It is the most disgusting sentence I have ever read. Words cannot express the smallness of the mind and the gargantuan scale of the ego that shat those words into the world, fully expecting …

Donald Trump – Despised by Europe, Despises Europe

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Andre Vltchek Why is Europe full of hate for Donald Trump? Is it, perhaps, because millions could soon die in yet another of the senseless and horrible wars unleashed by the Western empire? Or is it because Europeans suddenly ‘saw the light’ and realized that they mistreated billions of innocent people throughout history; that actually all people on Earth are equal and should be left alone and be allowed to live their lives as they please? Far from that; unfortunately, very far! Most of the Europeans simply hate Trump because he had enough of the status quo, of what could be objectively described as sneaky and sleazy games. Mr. Trump sees collaboration with Europe as an extremely bad business. Not that President Trump is a saint himself. Of course, he isn’t. He is a businessman – a very ruthless one, and in the past very daring and very successful. He has already managed to break the backs of hundreds of people, and now he would not hesitate to run hundreds of countries to the ground, …