Forum Post: Ten Years Later: Counting the Cost$ ~ Lies & Deaths ~ of the Bogus GOP War in Iraq
Posted 11 years ago on March 18, 2013, 4:32 a.m. EST by WSmith
(2698)
from Cornelius, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The invasion and occupation of Iraq defined a generation; the world’s largest anti-war protest was followed by the 3rd longest war in US history. 10 years later, American troops have officially left Iraq, but the occupation and its effects continue. On this edition, we look back at the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For Iraqis, for the US military, and for the anti-war movement; how have things changed? And what, if anything, has the world learned? BTW: I think the Statute of Limitations still has some time left for prosecuting Bush and Cheney!!
Featuring:
Donald Rumsfeld, former US secretary of defense; Tom Cahill, human shield in Iraq; Yanar Mohammed, Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq president; Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist co-founder; Catherine Lutz, Watson Institute’s Costs of War study co-director; Barack Obama, president of the United States; Bishop Desmond Tutu, Jean-Luc, Caroline Bridgeman Reese, Amanda Tattersol; Iraq war protestors; Lisa Hammid, Free Speech Radio News host; Miles Ashdown, FSRN reporter.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15153-ten-years-later-counting-the-costs-of-war-in-iraq
Found Pod Cast on 10 Years after Iraq War. He likes to list specifics.... I think we can call him a type of Whistleblower.
Steve Pieczenik is from Harlem New York, Psychologist, Film Producer, Writer, Hostage Negotiator, Terrorism Expert, CIA Insider. He holds a Cuban Passport as he was born in Cuba.
https://stevepieczenik.com/talks/index.html#.UXBK6CQo7IU (The first Video seems to be about naming names and listing the damage from the Iraq War)
After the first Video on 10 years anniversary of the Iraq War ... He goes on to Rip other Politicians and show the damage they are doing.
Later one of his Videos is about Cuban Artists. And then does one on the Uruguay President being a poor man who lives modestly.
Stellar video, 'Ma' !! You know me...I'm all about naming the .01% criminal elite (and their collusive minions)!
This is something we as citizens could actually do! Legally! Ordinary citizens don't realize what they/we are capable of!
Steve Pieczenik urges us to hold meetings and create...
"The American Nuremburg Trial for War Crimes Committed Against American Citizens and Innocent Victims Around The World".
https://stevepieczenik.com/talks/index.html#.UXBK6CQo7IU
Steve Pieczenik is a modern day hero and labels the .01% criminals and their minions as, "The Benedict Arnolds of the 21st Century in the United States".
How very, very fitting!
US Panel finds Bush, Obama are culpable in Torture, Rendition, excessive Secrecy ... and this indicates a Split in Politicians and a Split in Americans. A Schism has been revealed. But this could lead to Trials and Investigations and a US Resolution.
http://www.constitutionproject.org/
Published by the Constitution Project, the 580-page report (pdf) http://detaineetaskforce.org/report/download/
"Institutionalist" Panel Confirms US "Indisputably" Engaged in Torture Post-9/11
Report: Never before had there been such discussions "directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on detainees in our custody.”
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/16-5
Furthermore, the report argues that the use of torture has “no justification” and “damaged the standing of our nation, reduced our capacity to convey moral censure when necessary and potentially increased the danger to U.S. military personnel taken captive.”
The Board of Directors of the 'bipartisan' group behind the report, The Constitution Project, included such infamous notables as former Republican Congressman and director of the NRA's National School Shield Task Force, Asa Hutchinson; David A. Keene, current President of the NRA and long-time chair of The American Conservative Union; and William Sessions, former director of the FBI under Presidents Reagan and Bush.
Finding #1
U.S. forces, in many instances, used interrogation techniques on detainees that constitute torture. American personnel conducted an even larger number of interrogations that involved “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment. Both categories of actions violate U.S. laws and international treaties. Such conduct was directly counter to values of the Constitution and our nation.
Finding #2
The nation’s most senior officials, through some of their actions and failures to act in the months and years immediately following the September 11 attacks, bear ultimate responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of illegal and improper interrogation techniques used by some U.S. personnel on detainees in several theaters. Responsibility also falls on other government officials and certain military leaders.
Finding #19
The high level of secrecy surrounding the rendition and torture of detainees since September 11 cannot continue to be justified on the basis of national security.
Finding #21
The Convention Against Torture requires each state party to “[c]riminalize all acts of torture, attempts to commit torture, or complicity or participation in torture,” and “proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.” The United States cannot be said to have complied with this requirement.
The panel also found that the US rendition program "enjoyed widespread international co-operation," writes the Guardian, among countries including the UK, Canada, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Jordan.
The Constitution Project study was initiated after President Obama declared in 2009 that he preferred to “look forward, not backward,” declining to support a national investigation into the post-9/11 counterterrorism programs.
And while the findings namely cover the Bush years, the study is critical of the Obama administration's policies of "excessive secrecy."
As the New York Times reports, the study states that keeping the details of rendition and torture from the public “cannot continue to be justified on the basis of national security” and urges the administration to stop citing state secrets to block lawsuits by former detainees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/us-practiced-torture-after-9-11-nonpartisan-review-concludes.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/17/after_obama_shuns_probe_bipartisan_panel
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2013/04/16/nonpartisan-review-yes-the-u-s-engaged-in-torture-after-911/
http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2013/04/u-s-engaged-in-torture-after-911-review-concludes-2510138.html
Thanks so much 'Ma'!! There is much here that could be used as the basis for further investigation and presented to a court. Hopefully one like Steve Pieczenik urges us to create. One made 'By the people, For the People'.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/ten-years-later-counting-the-costs-of-the-bogus-go/#comment-962415
"The American Nuremburg Trial for War Crimes Committed Against American Citizens and Innocent Victims Around The World".
Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?!
Something like the one in Kuala Lumpur...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/kuala-lumpur-war-crimes-tribunal-bush-convicted-in-absentia-it-s-official-george-w-bush-is-a-war-criminal/30839
It has to start somewhere. Why not with OWS?
ZenDog & gsw were recently talking about a foundation for OWS. Its a remarkable idea. It really begs the question...
Why hasn't OWS, at the very least, created a foundation? A legal base from which we can organize, work and build strength from.
Thanks again 'Ma'! I see that you made your post above into a thread in the main forum as well, which was a wonderful idea. Truly important information that is now being suppressed from the main populace.
Thanks. I'm seeing Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in a whole new light. Actually I read 36 pages of Shock Doctrine. That puts Kuala Lumpur Court Conviction in a whole new light. As does the Tribunal that Convicted Canada, Canada's Leader, & Canada's Churches & the Vatican put everything in a new light.
I know! Its enough to make one feel......hopeful.....for a change, isn't it?!
Yes a bit. So does Matt Taibbi's Latest Article about the CFTC investigating LIBOR & ISDAfix & Other avenues of Price Fixing.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425?page=4
But.... I'm starting to think I'm a bit of a Negative Nelly. I should spend some time each day being positive, saying positive things, looking at goals, working on goals, taking some steps forward, and looking at the good things in all people.
Politics probably has to be balanced in these kinds of ways.
Thanks kindly for the link, 'Ma'! That's a brilliant article...but I wouldn't expect any less from Matt Taibbi. He always nails it.
The article is especially appropriate for me, given the first paragraph, hahahah!! Interesting too is the several mentions of the name Rothschild. That was a no-no in the MSM for a long time. So yes, 'Ma', encouraging indeed.
But the last paragraph says it best I think...
"The only reason this problem has not received the attention it deserves is because the scale of it is so enormous that ordinary people simply cannot see it. It's not just stealing by reaching a hand into your pocket and taking out money, but stealing in which banks can hit a few keystrokes and magically make whatever's in your pocket worth less. This is corruption at the molecular level of the economy, Space Age stealing – and it's only just coming into view."
Well, if only for your own health...a positive balance is essential. Meditation does wonders...But as far as this forum goes. I think you've struck a pretty good level of balance. Being here, doing what you do IS a step forward. I wouldn't change a thing, if I were you. ~.^
Thanks, 'LIL Darlin'.
You are talking about Purges of Washington DC. When will the US Purges Start? Remember Joseph Stalin's Purges? Remember Mao's Purges? Cambodia had Purges... Very Nasty Stuff.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/03/911-commission-deceived-an-unintentional-work-of-fiction-based-on-cheneys-communist-torture-program.html
911 was a vicious and treasonous exploitation of America at best, and a Plot Against America at worst.
I'm with you. Military Exercises increase the readiness to 100%, .. I've never heard of an Air Force Exercise that took down Air Defenses. Doesn't make any sense to anyone familiar at all with the purpose of Military Exercises. And they claim the Air Force and NORAD Stood Down during 9-11.
Here, I think you will like this. It's very reassuring.
http://www.thenation.com/article/171613/how-save-democratic-party
Though it borders on chasing unicorns, lol.
Group Think in Vietnam nearly 40 years later. Devastating Untold story.
The Secret History of the Vietnam War, By Daniel Denvir
http://www.vice.com/read/vietnam-and-the-mere-gook-rule
Ewell's signature operation was code-named Speedy Express. It began in December 1968 and ran until the end of May 1969. Ewell's troops reported almost 11,000 enemy dead, but they only recovered less than 750 weapons. This great disparity was somehow ignored, as it often was across the country, by reporters in Vietnam.
Ewell was responsible for both My Lai and Speedy Express.
You write about many failures of journalism during and after the war. Seymour Hersh nearly couldn't even find a publisher for his My Lai investigation.
Yeah, Hersh took this story to Look magazine, Life magazine, a whole bunch of publications. Nobody was interested. Some of these publications had even heard about it previously from the whistleblower who got the entire My Lai investigation started, Ron Ridenhour. Hersh finally had to take it it to Dispatch News Service, which was a brand new, fledgling anti-war news service. They were able to distribute it into the mainstream, but really second tier newspapers. And it was only after it became public, and some photos of My Lai were published, only then did the story really start to gain steam.
(After My Lai Army Staff would cover up the killing of civilians and ask the magazines not to print stories.)
I always thought it was very telling that at the time the My Lai massacre took place there were somewhere between 500 and 700 reporters in Vietnam. But when it was reported in the US, it was just a major victory over enemy forces: 128 enemies killed at a cost of no US lives. There was only a handful of weapons collected, but nobody thought to ask any questions. Basically the military press releases were just copied and put into the newspapers. It took a reporter back in the US to finally break the story.
But My Lai was also an anomaly because it was the one war crime that was completely and thoroughly investigated. Even the other investigations that I had in the files, nothing is the scope of My Lai.
This seems like such a profound and outrageous failure on the part of both reporters and academics. (It is)
There was this explicit campaign to break the ties binding Vietnamese people to their land, to drive them into cities. You quote a 1968 Foreign Affairs article by Samuel Huntington arguing that this, "forced urbanization and modernization" was a good thing.
This was seen as the one means to break Vietnamese support for the guerillas, to physically move the Vietnamese population. But the Vietnamese were so tied to their land, tied to their rice fields. This is where their ancestors were buried. And it's very important to Vietnamese to venerate their ancestors. So people were very reluctant to move. The only thing they had at their disposal was destructive force.
You write about an archipelago of American and South Vietnamese prisons that practiced not only torture but also placed prisoners in "tiger cages," small, submerged, windowless stone cells where they were shackled to the floor. Guards would throw lime powder onto prisoners as punishment.
The most infamous were at a prison island called Con Son. There were men and women who were imprisoned for sometimes years on end without ever being charged, let alone tried. And these were people who spoke out against the government or spoke up for peace. They were sent to Con Son as political prisoners and chained in these very tiny cells that had been built by the French in the 19th century. There had been for years rumors about what had gone on at Con Son, and it was only in the 1970s a US aid worker turned activist was able to sneak a couple of American congressmen in to get a first-hand look at these tremendously deplorable conditions.
When some tiger cage prisoners were released, a Time magazine report said 'you can't really call them men anymore. They're more like shapes.' They talk about them scuttling on the floor like crabs. If you watch the video of it, that's really the case. It happened to women too. Lower-limb paralysis from being chained so long in stress positions. They can no longer stand and they had to crawl in a very unnatural way.
And the US was fully aware of this?
There were US advisors inside the entire prison system. Con Son was the most infamous, but there were around 500 South Vietnamese detention centers around the country, mostly set up by the Americans, paid for by the Americans
And torture and summary execution were common in US-run facilities as well.
The anecdotal reports, and the few comprehensive investigations, show that torture was widespread. Things like electrical torture, water torture, what we now call waterboarding. And routine beatings.
And the powers of evil are still at it with an aggressive proxy war against Syria....
I understand Malaysia found George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee, and John Yoo, and also Tony Blair guilty of war crimes for plotting and carrying out an aggressive war against Iraq. I'm not a rich man, but I am putting up, and will give $1000.- to anyone who brings any of these men to Malaysia where justice will be served. I know that is not a lot of money, but maybe any of you other folks out there might like to chip in and contribute to this bounty. These war criminals need not be sleeping well at night.
This could be a really good idea for OWS. We could do something like a rolling jubilee as a fundraiser and offer the funds as bounties on these war criminals!
Yes, OWS do it!
Yep! Once caught though, tarring and feathering the war criminals isn't exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking perhaps we could roll them in honey, berries and salmon, and let them loose in North Canadian bear country.
Years ahead of you: http://www.prosecutegeorgebush.com/
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that it will take another $3 trillion just to cover the overall cost of medical care for wounded soldiers.
http://www.nationofchange.org/budget-s-doomed-fight-it-anyway-1363618183
NPR Did another Show on the Radio show "Fresh Air" today ... This time on the Veterans, their Treatment, their Criminal Lack of Benefits & Treatment, and the Resulting misery of Homelessness and Suicide.
-Apparently there was 1 Million Vets from VIetnam War Era.
-One analyst expect there may be 1 Million Vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars by 2014 (unless the numbers are higher and my memory is failing)
-Automated VA Systems are not in place, most often the paperwork is such a problem the VA Requires VETS to Resubmit all their Paper Work.
Good job. There was a show on NPR today on 10 years after the Iraqi War ... They had some studge from Haliburton justifying the war, and saying there was no contract fraud, no Big Wind Fall for KBR or Halliburton. I think it was Tom Ashbrook, on NPR ....
NPR Took good callers, but Tom GLossed over the great points they made. I'm sort of looking ascance at Tom Ashbrook these days. But he runs the show ... he brings on the guests ... he takes the calls ... and he lets the right wing guys justify their actions while some callers lay out the lies and the BS.
I think the show is available on NPR or Public radio after 6 PM... Pretty sure it was Tom Ashbrook...
this is a FANTASTIC thread
Bush’s Bloody Legacy in Iraq
April 25, 2013
Even as George W. Bush is honored at his new presidential library, the painful consequences of his disastrous eight years in office continue to be felt, both at home with high unemployment and overseas with unresolved wars, including a troubling spike in sectarian violence in Iraq, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
By Paul R. Pillar
The most prominent civil wars in recent years have not started with a clear, firing-on-Fort-Sumter beginning. Instead they have been slid into as protests grow, confrontations between the regime and an opposition become more physical, and the government’s use of lethal force is increasingly matched by oppositionists firing back. This was the pattern in the civil war in Iraq unleashed by the U.S. invasion and later in Libya and Syria.
Now the same process may be occurring again in Iraq. A spurt of lethal violence this weekbetween the Shia-dominated regime and a Sunni resistance has featured such war-like encounters as helicopter-borne government troops firing on a Shia village. This is another stage in an escalating confrontation between the opposing sectarian forces in Iraq.
Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2006. (U.S. government photo)
Again, there is no one point in the escalation at which anyone can declare that a civil war has now begun. But that does not mean one is not beginning.
Any new civil war in Iraq at this time would not really be altogether new but instead a resumption of the unresolved conflict that earlier reached a peak about six years ago. Resumption would be a reminder both of the overall results of the U.S. invasion and of the later surge of U.S. troops. We have known all along that the surge never led to the political reconciliation within Iraq that it was supposed to facilitate. Now we can say also that whatever improvement in security it fostered was temporary.
There are still two grounds for optimism that Iraq will not fall over the brink into a round of fighting anything like the earlier round. One is that unlike during Iraq’s earlier political history that the U.S. invasion and subsequent fighting disrupted, and also unlike present-day Syria, the majority religious sect in the country is also the dominant sect in the regime. This is not a situation of a subjugated majority trying to get its day of dominance. A minority that sees itself as repressed can still cause quite a ruckus, but maybe there is less potential for full-blown civil war than when there is a clear disjunction between demographic patterns and patterns of political power.
The other possible reason for optimism concerns the extensive ethnic and sectarian cleansing that occurred in the earlier round of fighting. With the confessional communities now being more thoroughly sorted out and separated than before, there is less of the street-by-street hostile interface that feeds civil war at the retail level.
Even if Iraq does not go over the brink, its teetering on the brink needs to be included in any comprehensive balance sheet on the Iraq War. Rather like the heavy cost of caring for wounded American veterans, the sectarian violence and instability in Iraq is an open-ended cost that keeps adding up as the years go by.
The purpose of noting this should not be just to refight old policy wars over the Iraq War. It should be to try to learn a lesson applicable to other situations. Syria is the most obvious relevant current situation, but there are sure to be others in the future.
The basic lesson, briefly stated, is that where there is strong communal antagonism but a weak political culture for managing such antagonism, even a big effort by outsiders is unlikely to have a lasting beneficial effect on political stability.
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University for security studies. (This article first appeared as a blog post at The National Interest’s Web site. Reprinted with author’s permission.)
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/04/25/bushs-bloody-legacy-in-iraq/
Iraq: War's Legacy of Cancer
Monday, 18 March 2013 09:11 By Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera | Report
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15166-iraq-wars-legacy-of-cancer
I don't know how W can sleep at night
~Odin~
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-02/iraq-receives-second-shipment-of-russian-jets-to-fight-militants.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-03-20/cia-and-fbi-counter-terrorism-officials-cheney-lied-about-911-hijacker
http://www.heist-themovie.com/image/Heist_Press%20Notes_4_2012.pdf
Good PDF Documentary Heist. Thanks.
Remember Don Rumsfeld Said Iraq War cost Estimate was $50 Billion Dollars .... Today everyone admits it would be at least $850 Billion in just Direct Costs.
You never get full answers from a politician. You get Obfuscation and half truths.
Like Lindsey Graham's Chart after Rand Paul's Filibuster a week ago. Graham showed the total number of people killed on 9-11 as Americans Killed by terrorists. Actually there were like 300 Foreigners Killed on 9-11. He used dead foreigners for his political grandstanding.
You know Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Kelly Ayotte are War Hawks and Neoliberals that support the Wealthy and Chamber of Commerce Lobby.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/01/12/sens-mccain-graham-ayotte-seek-oral-argument-time-ndaa-lawsuit-146927
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/03/22/dhs-denies-massive-ammunition-purchase
I bet the cost of 2 Billion Rounds of Ammo is like $1 Billion dollars - seems like we could Cancel the Contract and keep Air Traffic Controllers on the Job.
This (the bogus wars) was about oil, redistribution and weakening the country/government/99%.
The Cons have nothing viable to say, it's all games with them, appeasement, while they attend to their master's wishes.
The ammo? Death Panel BS!!!
[Removed]
[Removed]
Dear George Bush and Dick Cheney, You Are Guilty of Murder: A Letter from a Dying Veteran
"I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to beg for forgiveness."
http://www.alternet.org/dear-george-bush-and-dick-cheney-you-are-guilty-murder-letter-dying-veteran
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173382/tenth-anniversary-start-iraq-war-sixteen-media-outrages-followed#
http://www.democrats.com/node/6890
http://www.alternet.org/1-million-civilians-dead-37000-american-soldiers-dead-or-injured-and-weve-learned-nothing-iraq?akid=10208.153904.sXgthQ&rd=1&src=newsletter811738&t=5
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/19/america-s-lost-decade-in-iraq-a-marine-officer-looks-back.html
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15166-iraq-wars-legacy-of-cancer
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/03/19/world/middleeast/19reuters-iraq-violence.html?_r=0
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50143088n
“Happy” Iraq War 10th Anniversary! What do you get someone for the 10th anniversary of a mistake? The traditional gift for a 10th anniversary is tin or aluminum. Maybe a nice gift would be some aluminum tubes to commemorate the absurd reasons we were given for starting this war.
Today in Iraq, the anniversary was marked by car bombs and suicide attacks that killed over 50 people. In a sad and tragic way, the Iraqis may actually be marking the anniversary in the most appropriate way there is. The sad truth is that people everywhere have always marked the anniversary of killing with more killing. There is still constant violence in Iraq today. We never really ended the war in Iraq—we just left it.
I wonder what George W. Bush is doing today? Maybe he’s marking a quiet anniversary by just telling lies to his immediate family. At least this anniversary reminds us how much worse it is when Republicans are in charge of the White House. All that Republicans can do now is impede our way forward. When Bush was president, they could actively lead us backward.
Read more: http://www.randirhodes.com/main.html#ixzz2O3OL3xaq
Good summary.
Yea. Rumsfeldvand wolfowitz are literally celebrating their great successful liberation of the Iraqi people.
Like there was a victory.
Rachel Maddow had a good segment at the end of her show.
They should be shunned, tried for treason, and put on trial, and have their wealth confiscated, and forced to live on food stamps, or better, go live in Iraq permanently.
Where they should get an Iraqi trial
Render the combined assets of the members of the Carlyle group to the victims of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Ten Years After Iraq Invasion, Sunnis Who Backed Saddam Chafe Under Shiite Rule
Monday, 18 March 2013 10:05 By Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers | Report
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15169-ten-years-after-iraq-invasion-sunnis-who-backed-saddam-chafe-under-shiite-rule
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline
Instead of p'ng and moaning about sh*t that happened 10 years ago, why don't you think about what we are doing to Syria? Or what we are about to do to N Korea? Or ask yourself who will Obama drone tomorrow?
Yes, we know, you rightie zombies want to believe that the RepubliCon policies that brought us to this horrendous fucking mess never happened. But they DID! Cons caused all this! They/you hate America! They/you Hate democracy! They/you want Kings! That's why you cult worship the 1%, your kings. Sick, Twisted, and go the fuck away!! We're busy cleaning up your mess, once a-fucking-gain!!
People take notice: they piss on your heads and blame the rain!!! NO MORE CONS, EVER!!!!!
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9877
MSNBC 9PM NY time friday
great analysis of Iraq
"HUBERIS"
Yes, Rachel Maddow's piece.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9877