connecting*the*dots

The Black Iris
The Charade

The leader never carries out the killing himself but will always get his hands dirty. So how will the execution of Saddam be seen 200 years from now?

A quarter of a million American troops invade Iraq. Hunt down its leader and set up a tribunal with all the trappings of ‘fairness’ and he is in the end found guilty for being involved in the killing of 148 Shias over two decades ago during a time when America was openly heavily funding Saddam and silent over all these killings.

Americans hand over Saddam to Iraqis to carry out the hanging. On Eid Al-Adha no less; a good PR move to make sure every Arab is at home watching on TV.

In the last 3 years the presence of a quarter million of American forces on Iraqi soil have been responsible for killing an estimated quarter of a million Iraqis.

American forces are still occupying Iraq.

What will a student of history ask himself 200 years from now? Or will history still be written by the victors at that time?

Will they ask about why so many Arabs remained silent? Will they ask whether it made sense that one leader be executed for killing 148 people while another be praised for killing a quarter of a million of those same people? Will they see ancient footage of Colin Powell at the UN displaying doctored satellite photos of now unfound WMDs? Will they understand that 200 years ago, suggesting that a leader from a ’superior’ nation be held to the same standard of accountability as everyone else in the world was unheard of? That suggesting an American is equal to an Arab is equal to a Brit is equal to an African is preposterous? Will they understand that someone like me who had no love for Saddam thought the whole situation to be preposterous?

Bush was right today: ‘a dark and painful era is over in Iraq’, but a new one, that he as a leader is directly responsible for, has already begun.

And the charade goes on and on and on… more Iraqis are being slaughtered…

So to anyone celebrating the execution of Saddam I’m forced to ask: what the fuck are you cheering for?

If you’re cheering the execution of Saddam Hussein, you damn well better be doing everything you can to voice your opinion that this war is illegal and that this administration needs to be held accountable.

Otherwise, you’re nothing but a hypocrite.

(originally uploaded by Eleventh Earl of Mar)

Colin Powell (.pdf):

[…] “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism” […]

White House reporter last Friday:

Mr. President, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, says “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.”

If the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State feels this way, don’t you feel that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you’re following a flawed strategy?

President Bush:

“If there’s any comparrison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed, flawed logic. It’s just, it’s just, I simply can’t accept that. It’s unnaceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparrison between the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children and to understand, to ah, to achieve an objective.” […]

Don’t you love how President Bush hides behind the compassion and decency of us, the American people, in order to segue into a defense of his administration? I love how he says that it’s unnaceptable to think that we are fighting a flawed and immoral fight against terrorism, as if we have any say in the matter whatsoever.

As for his administration’s war, here are the facts:

• > 50,000 dead Iraqi citizens
• Abu Ghraib
• Secret torture facilities
• Guantanamo Bay

Man, those are some seriously evil, rhetorical skills President Bush is flexin’ about. People really need to stop calling this man an idiot. He’s not. He’s an evil genius. Too bad for him and his neo-con buddies we’re all starting to call him on this type of shit.

Keith Olbermann wasn’t enunciating as clearly in October of 2002 — when President Bush urged us, the American people, to call our congressmen to back the invasion of Iraq — as he has these past few weeks. Thankfully, he seems to have found his groove:

This president has no shame, whatsoever.

Another milestone in Iraq has come and gone. As of yesterday, America’s occupation in Iraq has officially eclipsed the length of time America spent in World War II.

No matter your personal view on the potential of terrorist tactics, we’re not at war to stop an advancing fascist or an existing genocide dead in its tracks (such as modern-day fascist Kim Jong-il of North Korea or the current genocide in Darfur).

There’s only one similarity between WWII and the occupation of Iraq; in both cases, it took an attack on US soil to rally and motivate the American public to back entering an armed conflict. Of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor directly emanated from the ongoing conflict of WWII, whereas the emotional ties between the events of 9/11 and the perception of Iraqi leadership remain simply that — emotional.

Iraq has never been an immediate threat to our nation; no weapons of mass destruction ever threatened our safety from afar. Could that situation have changed for the worse over time? Sure, but so could any number of scenarios in the world, which is exactly why the tactic of preventive war is considered state-sponsored terrorism in many people’s eyes.

Fact: The combined death toll from all major, classically defined terrorist activities over the past twenty years pales in comparison to the loss of life at the hands of the Nazi fascist state.

This administration twisted false stories of Iraq hunting for yellow cake in Niger into a narrative that fit our administration’s desire to go to war in Iraq and delivered this false case to Congress to justify an invasion.

In a post-9/11 America still freshly licking its wounds, we all should have known what would happen within our political arena:

Who Lied To Whom?: …”Two days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing before a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also cited Iraq’s attempt to obtain uranium from Niger as evidence of its persistent nuclear ambitions. The testimony from Tenet and Powell helped to mollify the Democrats, and two weeks later the resolution passed overwhelmingly, giving the President a congressional mandate for a military assault on Iraq.”…

When that cover was blown by, well, reality, our government simply began to whisper false ties to 9/11 to go after a client-state that refused to play nice anymore, all beginning with its 1991 invasion of Kuwait.

What we have “accomplished” in Iraq since the occupation began in 2003 is quite amazing, actually. A Shi’ite majority has now been voted into power — something that no US planner would have hoped for, but constitutes a perfect example of what democracy at the end of the barrel of a M-16 will get you.

Essentially, we’ve backed the formation of a government and a constitution that leans in the opposite direction from modernity and strengthened the potential for a collaborative, radical mid-east region, at the cost of more than 2 billion dollars per week, while losing close to 3,000 US patriots and killing at least 50,000 Iraqi civilians.

One can only imagine how that loss of life is going to be avenged.

(photo by Vincent44)

Donald Rumsfeld vs. Ray McGovern, former CIA (video)

McGovern: and so I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people, why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I did not lie then. (applause) Colin Powell didn’t lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. the president spent weeks and weeks with the central intelligence people and he went to the American people and made a presentation. I’m not in the intelligence business. they gave the world their honest opinion. it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

McGovern: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and we were…..just…(crosstalk)

McGovern: You said you knew where they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words…. my words were that …. no, no, no wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

McGovern: This is America, Huh.

(applause)

RUMSFELD: You’re getting plenty of play, sir.

McGovern: I’d just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD: I’m giving it to you.

McGovern: Well we’re talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. Was that a lie? or where you mislead?

RUMSFELD: Zar…, Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.

McGovern: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That’s where he was.

RUMSFELD: He was also… (crosstalk) He was also in Baghdad.

McGovern: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital. Come on, these people aren’t idiots. They know the story.

RUMSFELD: You are… Le…,Let me, Let me give you an example it’s easy for you to make a charge, Um, but why do you think that the men and women in uniform every day when they came out of Kuwait and went into Iraq put on chemical weapon protective suits, because they like the, ah, style (laughter) They honestly believed that there where chemical weapons Saddam Hussein had used Chemical weapons on his own people previously, he’d used them on his neighbor the Iranians and they believed he had those weapons. We believed he had those weapons.

McGovern: That’s what we call a non-sequitur, it doesn’t matter what the troops believe, it matters what you believe.

(crosstalk)

Moderator: I, I Think, I think, I think mister secretary the debate is over we have other questions, that courtesy to the audience.

We could be tried as war criminals based on the 1991 war, primarily for images like the one below.

No, that’s not ‘The Mummy’ from a bad 1930’s flick. That’s one of the many Iraqi troops/civilians from the infamous ‘Road of Death’ during the retreat from Kuwait. This type of damage suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incendiary bombs, which were all outlawed in 1977.

And, by the way, it’s also against international law to fire upon troops who are "out of combat." But we always seem to take things one step further. We didn’t even attempt to differentiate between Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians and Iraqi troops; we just created a massive traffic jam and annihilated over ten thousand people.

I was watching film last night of our helicopter pilots hovering over the desert at night, with night vision goggles, tearing apart individuals as they strolled across the desert in a haze, trying to reach some sort of civilization. There was no way they could have been confirmed as combatants. We even paused to fix upon bodies laying on the ground to dump tons of rounds into them. These were the types of images that forced Colin Powell to suggest an end to the war.

Now, I know war isn’t pretty. Supposedly, “All’s fair in love and war” and whoever coined that phrase, they were absolutely right about love. But there are laws concerning warfare and they were created to honor the humanity of all combatants, including US troops. I highly doubt we could ever be held to such standards.

We’re so quick to flash our badges of honor, respect and heroism as a country, and then we run rough shot through the UN and the rest of the world as if they don’t even matter.

Okay, back to being quietly steamed.