Articles
The Abominations of War: From My Lai to Haditha, by Cindy Sheehan, 6 Jun 2006
Responds to those who demand to "support our troops" and the President by listing various immoral and illegal actions, suggesting instead that George W. Bush be prosecuted as a war criminal and offering support to those who disobey unlawful orders
The following list of illegal, immoral, and atrocious behavior is ... not all-inclusive ...:
... - The invasion of Iraq is a preventive war of aggression against a country that was no threat to the USA or the world and was expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
- "Shock and awe" targeted civilian centers and killed many innocent people.
- Use of chemical weapons, especially white phosphorous enhanced with napalm ...
- Targeting hospitals, clinics, and threatening Medical Doctors with execution if one treats "insurgents" (which can apparently include babies and pregnant women).
...
Americans Have Lost Their Country, by
Paul Craig Roberts, 1 Mar 2007
Discusses (and lists) the neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration and the rationale for their actions furthering wars in the Middle East
The regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the lie to the UN that the Bush-Cheney regime had conclusive proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Having conned the UN, Congress, and the American people, the regime invaded Iraq under totally false pretenses and with totally false expectations. The regime's occupation of Iraq has failed in a military sense, but the neoconservatives are turning their failure into a strategic advantage. At the beginning of this year President Bush began blaming Iran for America's embarrassing defeat by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in Iraq.
The American Sniper Was No Hero, by
Sheldon Richman, 28 Jan 2015
Considers whether Chris Kyle, depicted in Clint Eastwood's
American Sniper, was a hero or a competent government-hired killer
Kyle was part of an invasion force: Americans went to Iraq. Iraq did not invade America or attack Americans. Dictator Saddam Hussein never even threatened to attack Americans. Contrary to what the George W. Bush administration suggested, Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Before Americans invaded Iraq, al-Qaeda was not there ... The only reason Kyle went to Iraq was that Bush/Cheney & Co. launched a war of aggression against the Iraqi people. Wars of aggression, let's remember, are illegal under international law. Nazis were executed at Nuremberg for waging wars of aggression.
Anti-Life Ethics in Iraq, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 15 Dec 2006
Criticizes the conclusion by George Weigel, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, that the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was a "just war"
Unfortunately, in his article Weigel failed to note [that] to achieve those political goals, U.S. military forces had to kill ... large numbers of Iraqi people — people whose government never attacked the United States. The estimates of the number of Iraqi dead range from a "low" of 30,000 ... by President Bush, to a high of 650,000 ... by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. In [concluding] that the war on Iraq was warranted, Weigel is implicitly claiming that it is morally justifiable for U.S. soldiers ... to kill Iraqi people (none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks) in order to achieve regime change in Iraq.
"Anti-War" Poseurs: All Whine, No Spine, by Terry Michael,
RealClearPolitics, 23 Nov 2005
Criticizes liberal Democratic politicians to stand up against the neoconservative arguments that eventually led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
Weapons of mass destruction was always a marketing ploy, as admitted to by Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the madness ... Playing on homeland insecurity, the neo-cons ... succeeded in getting the pre-emptive ('we're powerful and can do anything we damn well please') war they so badly wanted. Meanwhile, the actual bad guy who orchestrated 9/11 is still hiding in a cave somewhere thats not Iraq.
Atrocities in the 'Good War': A Tract for Today, by
Robert Higgs, 19 Jun 2006
Introduces excerpt from Edgar L. Jones' article "One War is Enough",
Atlantic Monthly Feb 1946, pp. 49-50, as "valuable lessons" for those reflecting on the atrocities committed in the Iraq War
Even Americans who detest war ... generally make an exception for World War II, the so-called Good War. ... Perhaps they do so in part because so many of those ... composed the so-called Greatest Generation ... In any event, their actual actions in that war, which contrast starkly with the story line of the prevailing myth, might well teach valuable lessons to Americans today, as they ponder the meaning of atrocities such as those committed by U.S. soldiers, airmen, and Marines at Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and Haditha, among many other places in Iraq yet to receive comparable publicity.
The Bill of Rights: Searches and Seizures, by
Jacob G. Hornberger,
Freedom Daily, Oct 2004
Discusses general warrants (and the British case of
Entick v Carrington) and writs of assistance in colonial America as precedents for the framing of the Fourth Amendment and the latter's imporance in the present
In occupied Iraq, armed U.S. soldiers routinely barge into people's homes and businesses and conduct intrusive searches of the premises and of the persons who are unfortunate to be there at the time. If they find any contraband, including weapons, they seize it and take it with them. Not having to answer to any court, they operate with omnipotent power, and their searches and seizures in Iraq are arbitrary and indiscriminate. ... With omnipotent power, U.S. officials have behaved much more abominably in occupied Iraq, especially in the area of search and seizure, than British officials behaved in colonial America ...
The Bill of Rights: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, by
Jacob G. Hornberger,
Freedom Daily, Aug 2004
Discusses the fallacies in gun-control arguments, comparing possible gun prohibition to the war on drugs, highlighting the behavior of U.S. officials in occupied Iraq and concluding with several quotes by Founding Fathers and Framers
How have federal officials, including the military, conducted themselves as rulers in Iraq, with no pesky federal judges ... or constitutional "technicalities" to get in their way? They've shot demonstrators; closed down newspapers critical of the military; searched people's homes and businesses without warrants; killed suspected criminals as well as innocent bystanders; arrested people without warrants; detained criminal suspects indefinitely; denied detainees due process of law ... And, of course, they have imposed gun control and gun confiscation and enforced their measures with deadly force.
The Bill of Rights: Trial by Jury, by
Jacob G. Hornberger,
Freedom Daily, Jan 2005
Explains why a trial by a jury of ordinary people was considered an essential constitutional guarantee and discusses jury nullification in real and hypothetical cases
How many [members of Congress, the FBI, and the U.S. armed forces] have questioned the legality of invading and waging a war of aggression against Iraq, a sovereign and independent country that had not attacked the United States? How many of them have condemned the Pentagon's continual whitewash and cover-up of the torture, rape, sex abuse, and murder scandal at Abu Ghraib prison? How many have questioned the Pentagon's indefinite detention of Iraqis, the unreasonable searches of their homes and businesses and seizures of their property, gun-control measures, curfews, and censorship ...?
A Bogus Libertarian Defense of War, by
Sheldon Richman,
Freedom Daily, Oct 2007
Criticizes Randy Barnett's
Wall Street Journal op-ed "Libertarians and the War" (17 Jul 2007) and his follow-up post "Antiwar Libertarians and the Reification of the State" (20 Jul 2007) at the Volokh Conspiracy blog
[T]he prohibition on wars of aggression rules out the war in Iraq, which never threatened the American people. Barnett disagrees. He says the war can be justified as part of the defense against Islamic jihadis. But as noted already, the anti-American jihad grew out of decades of oppressive intervention in Arab and Muslim countries. It's the blowback Barnett refers to. Moreover, conquering a secular Westernized Arab country that was a natural barrier to both Sunni jihadis and Iran's Shia government seems a peculiar way to defend against jihad. It's far more likely to create new mortal enemies.
Brian Williams Helped Pave the Way to War, by
Sheldon Richman, 10 Feb 2015
Comments on the mainstream broadcast and cable TV network "journalists" who unquestioningly supported and support government military actions around the world
Williams, like nearly all of his mainstream media colleagues (with precious few exceptions) [passed along official lies] incessantly in the run-up to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. As conduits for the Bush administration's baseless claims about weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to 9/11, Williams and the others did Bush's bidding in manufacturing public support for the illegal and morally outrageous invasion and occupation that would wreck Iraq even more than it had been wrecked in the 1990s through the military and economic warfare waged by George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Bush's Doublethink, by
Sheldon Richman, 19 Jan 2007
Analyzes President Bush's most salient statement and possible implications, of a speech made on 10 Jan 2007 announcing a troop "surge" plan
[Bush] has spent too much time lecturing us that Iraq is the central front in his "war on terror," "the decisive ideological struggle of our time," and that failure would be catastrophic for America. If that's all true, how could he pull out simply because the Iraqi government isn't making nice with the Sunnis? ... Perhaps he's threatening something else: regime change ... "Surge" may be the word du jour, but what Bush intends is not a surge, just a plain old phased-in increase in troops. A small one at that, considering what the neoconservative hawks think is needed for victory.
The Case for Impeachment: Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush, by Lewis H. Lapham,
Harper's Magazine, 27 Feb 2006
Editorial discussing John Conyer's Dec 2005 resolution seeking establishment of a congressional committee to, among other things, "make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment" of George W. Bush, and the bases for taking such action
[T]he purpose of [Conyers'] House Resolution [was] the production of a report ... that describes the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq as the perpetration of a crime against the American people. It is a fair description. Drawing on evidence furnished over the last four years by a sizable crowd of credible witnesses ... the authors of the report find a conspiracy to commit fraud, the administration talking out of all sides of its lying mouth, secretly planning a frivolous and unnecessary war while at the same time pretending in its public statements that nothing was further from the truth.
China: From Brutal Oppressor to Terrorist Victim, by
James Bovard,
Freedom Daily, Dec 2003
Describes how both the U.S. and Chinese governments changed their policies with respect to certain "terrorist" groups, in particular, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in China, to suit their own ends
[As] the Bush administration strove to build international support for its plan to attack Iraq, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage stunned the international community when he announced that the U.S. government had added the East Turkestan Islamic Movement [ETIM] to its official list of terrorist organizations ... Wang Yong, a specialist in international relations at Beijing University, observed, "The U.S. action on ETIM was probably a posture in exchange for China's support on Iraq." (China is a member of the UN Security Council and could veto a UN resolution endorsing military action against Iraq.)
Confessions of an "ex" Peak Oil Believer, by F. William Engdahl, 14 Sep 2007
Explains why the fossil fuel theory is wrong, the Russians successes with their "a-biotic" oil origin theory, and the possible reasons for the Iraq invasion
Why then the high-risk war to control Iraq? For a century US and allied Western oil giants have controlled world oil via control of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Nigeria. Today, as many giant fields are declining, the companies see the state-controlled oilfields of Iraq and Iran as the largest remaining base of cheap, easy oil.
Election 2006: A War Referendum, by
Justin Raimondo, 16 Oct 2006
Discusses the then forthcoming 2006 U.S. congressional elections as a referendum on the Iraq War and commentary from Markos Moulitsas and Nick Gillespie in a Cato Unbound debate titled "Should Libertarians Vote Democrat?"
After all, a Republican administration ... lied to [voters]: according to a Newsweek poll, a whopping 58 percent say Bush and his team "purposely misled the public about evidence that Iraq had banned weapons in order to build support for war" ... Someone has to be held responsible for what one retired American general calls "the greatest strategic disaster" in American military history ... But seriously, wasn't the invasion of Iraq more than a mere "war of choice"? Didn't it portend a foreign policy that ensures us more than a lifetime of conflict, declaring a state of war between two civilizations?
Elizabeth de la Vega, Bringing Bush to Court, by Elizabeth de la Vega, Tom Engelhardt,
TomDispatch, 27 Nov 2006
Foreword by Engelhardt, followed by excerpt from the introduction of de la Vega's
United States v. George W. Bush et al, where she compares the Enron scandal to Bush's words and actions in bringing about the invasion of Iraq
Certainly, scholars and experts ... have written brilliantly about the legal grounds for impeachment that arise from the President's misrepresentations about the grounds for an unprovoked invasion of Iraq. ... The question is not whether the President subjectively believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The legal question that must be answered is far more comprehensive: Did the President and his team defraud the country? ... The President will not be held accountable for misrepresenting the prewar intelligence unless and until Congress conducts hearings similar to the Watergate hearings.
Ellsberg's Lessons for Our Time, by
James Bovard,
Freedom Daily, May 2008
Reviews Daniel Ellsberg's
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2003) and points out how its commentary applies to the then current conflict in Iraq
[T]he experience in Iraq indicates that Americans have learned little if anything from the Vietnam-era deceits ... [Bush's] lies on Iraq were not widely recognized until after Baghdad had fallen and the WMDs failed to materialize ... It's hard to imagine any U.S. government official even suggesting to Bush ... that the [U.S.] should make sure that the Iraqi elections were fair and square ... The same failures permeate the U.S. military's experience in Iraq. The Pentagon and White House have concocted one bogus standard after another to sanctify whatever recent policy change they announced.
Foreword, by
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.,
A Foreign Policy of Freedom, 2007
Examines the historical precedents for the Paulian view that American foreign and domestic policy both be conducted in the same non-interventionist manner
[Ron Paul] never believed the nonsense about how U.S. bombs would transform Iraq into a modern democracy. He never went along with the propaganda lies about weapons of mass destruction. Nowadays, we often hear politicians say that they have changed their minds on the Iraq War and that if they had known then what they know now, they never would have gone along. Well, hindsight is child's play in politics. What takes guts and insight is the ability to spot a hoax even as it is being perpetrated. In any case, they have no excuse for not knowing: Ron Paul told them!
The George W. Bush 'What Me Worry?' Quiz, by Jim Cox, 2 Apr 2007
Twenty questions on what was George W. Bush's response to various situations; the answers provide links to supporting information
When Saddam Hussein made feelers through Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's son about the possibility of going in to exile prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the reaction of George W. Bush was to: a. pursue this behind-the-scenes appeal to avoid a war in which thousands of American soldiers would likely be killed. b. ... In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, George W. Bush: a. conscientiously sought information from the C.I.A., D.I.A., State Department, and I.A.E.A. in determining the likelihood of WMDs and other such vital concerns. b. did a 'What Me Worry?' ...
The GOP Purge, by
Justin Raimondo, 22 Oct 2007
Describes efforts by some Republican partisans to unseat GOP incumbents who oppose the Iraq invasion, such as Walter B. Jones of North Carolina
Rep. Jones ... attracted more serious attention when he turned against the war he had championed, and began to denounce the president's war policies in no uncertain terms ... he has personally written to thousands of military families who have lost loved ones in this futile and apparently never-ending war ... Walter Jones supported this war in the beginning: he was, indeed, one of its most fervent advocates. It takes character for him to admit he was wrong ... VoteVets is running pro-Jones ads in which retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, former commander of the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, lauds Jones for his "moral courage."
The Great Unknown, by James Ostrowski, 17 Jan 2007
Argues that Hillary Clinton, considered to be the Democratic nominee by the author, would prefer to face McCain rather than the "Great Unknown" of Ron Paul
Pre-Ron Paul, John McCain was the presumptive nominee in my view. For many reasons I believed Hillary would beat him. Reason number one is his ferocious support of the failed war in Iraq. If it's Hillary versus McCain, Hillary has the good fortune of being the antiwar choice even though she supported the war. ... Now, consider the fact that on the key issue of the campaign, the Iraq War, Ron Paul beats Hillary. He voted against the war and she for it.
Heroic, by
Sheldon Richman,
The Goal Is Freedom, 23 Aug 2013
Discusses the inspiring yet naïve actions of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning when she realized she could no longer participate in the atrocities of war
Americans aren't about to be outraged, much less moved to action, by a mere video—"Collateral Murder"—showing "our boys" murdering Iraqi civilians and wounding children from the safety of an Apache helicopter ... Glenn Greenwald wrote,
Like millions of people, Manning concluded that the war in Iraq, far from being a magnanimous endeavor to help the Iraqi people, was in fact an inhumane, monstrous act of aggression that indiscriminately killed huge numbers of innocent people; but unlike those millions of war critics, Manning decided to take action rather than remain passive.
How Did We Get Here?, by
Justin Raimondo, 24 Oct 2007
Recapitulates the actions of various media outlets and "semi-credible sources" in making the case for the Iraqi invasion and supporting its continuation after the 2007 "surge"
The Saddam-has-nukes narrative was the overarching theme that administration spokespersons sounded whenever they got the chance: Condi Rice’s now infamous "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” meme spread like a viral infection ... It was [Vanity Fair's David] Rose ... whose four-page spread ... made the most extreme claims about the imminent danger posed by Saddam: the Iraqis were feverishly working on a long-range missile project, which was perilously close to becoming operational ... When none of this turned up in the aftermath of the invasion, did the editors of Vanity Fair cry "mea culpa"?
How Empires Bamboozle the Bourgeoisie, by
Lew Rockwell,
Mises Daily, 28 Oct 2006
Speech at the Mises Institute Supporter's Summit; comments on two issues related to the U.S. population reaching 300 million: what kind of economy is needed to support that population and do all these people need to live under the same central government
The more implausible the imperial war, the more a variety of rationales becomes necessary. Iraq has been justified on grounds of security, safety, religion, vengeance, and economics, each rationale carefully tailored to appeal to a certain demographic group ... And at this late stage in the Iraq conflict, the Bush-run state is asking us to forget even how the Iraq war began. Recall that the idea was to bomb Baghdad, create shock and awe, decapitate the head of state, and then watch as the rest of the country celebrated their liberation from Saddam. Today, Iraq is a country in ruins.
Related Topics:
American Revolutionary War,
Capitalism,
Thirteen Colonies,
Democracy,
Germany,
Government,
Patrick Henry,
Imperialism,
Mises Institute,
Ludwig von Mises,
Murray N. Rothbard,
Socialism,
United States,
Washington, D.C.
How Lincoln Gave Us Kwanzaa, by
Joseph Sobran,
The Reactionary Utopian, 7 Dec 2006
While planning for his holidays, Sobran discusses a couple of books about the Gettysburg Address
Meanwhile, the bipartisan James Baker commission has finally issued its report on Iraq. Bipartisan is the usual term for a bunch of old white guys, even if they include an old black guy like Vernon Jordan ... The report says we need to send more troops to Iraq (but of course!), yet it dodges the real issue: whether Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein than under George W. Bush. ... Though [Saddam] may have eliminated a lot of people, he had too much sense to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. You could get hummus and tabouleh without risking life and limb. ... Is it time to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq?
How Much More Harm Can Bush Do?, by
Paul Craig Roberts, 7 Mar 2006
Discusses the casualties resulting from the 2003 Iraq invasion, the changed world opinion of the United States and the lobbies that benefit from the continuation of hostilities
The media have done a good job for the government of keeping the blood and gore out of the living room. ... Every day 100 or more Iraqi civilians are killed and 100 or more are maimed and injured. ... Iraqi casualties for [March 6] totaled 621, with 215 killed and 406 wounded. U.S. troops routinely kill Iraqi civilians mistakenly or from frustration, but the heavy daily casualties are the result of the civil war made possible by the U.S. overthrow of the Iraqi government. ... The March 6 toll of 621 civilian casualties is high even for Iraq. Assume 200 casualties each day and the result is 73,000 Iraqi casualties per year.
I'd Like My Money Back, by Mary Theroux, 14 Apr 2009
Letter to President Obama, California Congresswomen, the California Governor, the Alameda County Tax Collector and the Mayor of Oakland, pleading that they return "all monies previously remitted, for non-performance of services"
Contrary to the promise of a "Peace Dividend" ..., you have alternatively pursued a series of reckless adventures and preemptive "actions" globally that have reduced the security of residents of the United States. Despite other promises, the U.S. will not leave a rebuilt country, stable society, or democracy when and if it ostensibly pulls its troops out of Iraq. As you may recall, pre-invasion estimates for achieving "success" in Iraq ranged from $30-60 billion; as of December, 2008, the cost to date is estimated at $900 billion—projected to climb to $2.3 trillion or more.
Iraq Exit Strategy: America's Path Forward [PDF], by
Libertarian Party, 29 Jun 2005
Proposal by the Libertarian National Committee for the U.S. to remove its troops from Iraq and a direct-aid program to allow Iraq to reconstruct its infrastructure (note: the occupation lasted another six years)
On March 19, 2003, the U.S. invasion of Iraq began with a massive bombing campaign and a large ground invasion. The active campaign lasted forty-four days, with an end to major combat operations announced by President Bush on May 1, 2003, aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. American and coalition troops have remained in Iraq for over two years since Bush's declaration of victory ... Now is the time for the United States to initiate an exit strategy, as the main military objectives have been accomplished. Saddam Hussein has been captured. He will be tried for war crimes in an Iraqi court.
Iraqi Sanctions and American Intentions: Blameless Carnage? Part 2, by
James Bovard,
Freedom Daily, Feb 2004
Further examination of the effects of the Iraqi sanctions and the hypocritical comments from the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, after the 2003 invasion
At a March 27, 2003, joint press conference for Bush and Britain's ... Tony Blair, Blair declared, "Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the regime under which they are living. Now, that is why we're acting." Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild observed that Bush and Blair "refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for those deaths and instead seize upon them simply to justify their war of aggression." After the war started, the suffering caused by sanctions became further proof of Saddam's depravity.
Iraq: One Year Later, by
Sheldon Richman, 19 Mar 2004
Comments on the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, including statements by the White House and Donald Rumsfeld, as well as the outcome of 2004 Spanish elections which took place after the Madrid train bombings
It's got to be embarrassing to anyone who backed the war that terrorism is spreading, not receding, since ... Saddam Hussein, was deposed and arrested. Iraq itself is writhing from the violence, now aimed at civilian social workers and missionaries ... No matter how devastating the evidence against ... — no weapons of mass destruction, no Iraqi alliance with bin Laden — the president and his people have only clichés to offer ... When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked whether the deaths of the Americans were worth it, he said, "Oh, my goodness, yes ... Twenty-five million people in Iraq are free."
Iraq: The Hidden Horror, by
Justin Raimondo, 13 Oct 2006
Discusses the responses to a study by John Hopkins University professors estimating, as of July 2006, 654,965 "excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the [Iraq] war"
I have no technical expertise in statistical analysis, so ... I'll just cite the testimony of someone who is on the scene and has to deal with the horror on a daily basis: "Some readers and viewers think we journalists are exaggerating about the situation in Iraq. I can almost understand that because who would want to believe that things are this bad? ... I don't know a single family here that hasn't had a relative, neighbor, or friend die violently. In places where there's been all-out fighting going on, I've interviewed parents who buried their dead child in the yard because it was too dangerous to go to the morgue."
The Iraq War Crash, by
Justin Raimondo, 2 Mar 2007
Discusses a 9% drop in the Shanghai Stock Exchange on 27 Feb 2007, which also affected other markets, in the context of the Iraq War and a potential conflict with Iran
According to the estimates of economic experts, the Iraq war drained off one trillion dollars from the U.S. stock market before the first shot was fired. After the war was "won," however, the real costs began to kick in, which economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz estimate at another trillion bucks (in direct costs), and possibly two trillion when all the other variables are factored in. The Bilmes-Stiglitz study shows that one of the costs of the Iraq war has been that stock prices have been tamped down considerably ... The prosperity we lost is not as great ... due entirely to the war.
Is This Really War?, by
Sheldon Richman, 16 Jun 2006
Discusses the Haditha killings and argues that U.S. troops in Iraq were acting more as a police force for the new Iraqi regime, which was incompatible with their military training
President Bush invaded Iraq, a country that represented no threat to the American people or the territory of the United States. In other words, the U.S. forces that bomb and shoot Iraqis don't have to be there. They are not responding to impending danger to Americans. They are in someone else's country with 500-pound or heavier bombs ... How would we feel if things were the other way around? ... The crime is not the rules of engagement but the mission itself: the invasion and policing by a foreign occupying army. The culprits are those who ordered these things and those who carried them out.
Kerry's Entangling Alliances, by
Michael Badnarik, 28 Oct 2004
Cautions antiwar voters (particularly Iraq War opponents) on voting against Bush and for John Kerry, considering the possibilities of the latter waging a more "successful" (and "more efficient") war
Kerry might ... be able to prod the French, Germans, and Russians into anteing up to continue the Iraqi occupation. But we have to ask ... Is waging a non-defensive, imperialistic war okay if you have more people on your side? The Iraq war is a war of aggression. Although Kerry laments that the United States is absorbing "90% of the casualties" (not true – both Kerry and Bush ignore the civilian "collateral damage," which dwarfs military casualties), the war would not magically become justified if more of the people doing the dying were subjects of other governments, cajoled by John Kerry into participating.
Killing Iraqi Children, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 19 Jun 2006
Comments on a
Detroit News editorial condoning the bombing, rather than the arrest and prosecution, of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the "collateral" death of a five-year old girl
U.S. military forces have no right, legal or moral, even to be in Iraq killing anyone. Why? Because neither the Iraqi people nor their government ever attacked the United States ... [T]his was an optional war ... one that President Bush and his military forces did not have to wage ... [W]hat people often forget is that the United States is no longer at war in Iraq. This is an occupation, not a war. The war ended when Saddam Hussein's government fell ... U.S. forces could have exited the country. (Or they could have exited ... when it became obvious that Saddam's infamous WMDs were nonexistent.)
Know When to Fold 'Em, by
Sheldon Richman, 19 Feb 2007
Discusses the attitudes of Sen. John McCain and other war hawks who opposed a non-binding resolution against a troop "surge" in Iraq
Surely we can imagine situations in which the most awesome military power cannot "win" because those situations are not essentially military in nature. Iraq appears to be such situation. It is a country with deep-seated, multidimensional sectarian and political conflicts ... Guerrilla warriors have many times humbled great powers. The Shias and Sunnis in Iraq are highly motivated, and they have the home-field advantage. What offsetting advantage do invading and occupying troops have against that? ... Bravado and messianism won't turn the loss in Iraq into a win. Bush, McCain, and the other hawks should know when to fold.
The Lethal Legacy of U.S. Foreign Intervention, by
Sheldon Richman, 12 Feb 2014
Presents examples of the deadly lasting effects of U.S. foreign intervention: continuing sectarian conflicts in Iraq and unexploded bombs in Laos
"The tragic upsurge of violence in Iraq ..." Zunes writes, "is a direct consequence of the repression of peaceful dissent by the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and, ultimately, of the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation." ... "Until the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation, Iraq had maintained a longstanding history of secularism and a strong national identity ... despite sectarian differences," Zunes writes.
Not only did the U.S. invasion and occupation fail to bring a functional democracy to Iraq, neither U.S. forces nor the successive U.S.-backed Iraqi governments have been able to provide the Iraqi people with basic security ...
Libertarianism and the Great Divide, by
Justin Raimondo, 16 Mar 2007
Review of Brian Doherty's
Radicals for Capitalism (2007) concluding with remarks about a Cato Unbound debate on the book
[T]he unfolding story of how and by whom we were lied into [the Iraq war] has become our national drama, the central story-line of the Bush years ... While Doherty's book was in the pipeline, the issue of the war was settled, not only in libertarian circles, but in the political culture at large, and the verdict is: it was a mistake, and a very bad one. While more than a few neocons have come in from the cold and recanted, I have yet to hear a single member of the "libertarian" contingent of the War Party confess their sins and seek absolution. And I’m not going to hold my breath, either.
Libertarianism and the War, by
Justin Raimondo, 2 Apr 2007
Criticizes a Cato Unbound symposium titled "Libertarianism: Past and Prospects" with contributed essays from Brian Doherty, Brink Lindsey, Tyler Cowen, Tom G. Palmer and Virginia Postrel
What accounts for the [strange] atmosphere of a discussion that doesn't even mention the Iraq war and only tangentially touches on the "war on terrorism," both of which Lindsey and Virginia Postrel were quite enthusiastic about? Lindsey in particular was quite vocal about the justice of George W. Bush's war, arguing that the libertarian injunction against aggression had to stop at the water's edge ... What's significant here is that all of these people, to one extent or another, supported the Bush administration's decision to go to war, or ... supported some significant aspect of it ...
The Libertarians' Albatross, by
Butler Shaffer, 3 Nov 2004
Recounts Shaffer's introduction to objectivism and provides critical analysis of the philosophy's shortcomings, highlighting Objectivists support of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars and the "war on terror" and disregard of innocent casualties
For a philosophy with a basic tenet of opposition to the "initiation of force," and considering that Saddam Hussein's regime was never a threat to America, one might have expected to find Objectivists in the forefront of opposition to the war against Iraq. But Yaron Brook ... co-authored an article criticizing America for its "self-effacing and compassionate" war against the Iraqis. ... As I write this ... the British medical journal, The Lancet, is reporting that as many as 100,000 Iraqis–many of them women and children–have thus far been slaughtered in America's war of "liberation."
The Meaning of Haditha, by
Justin Raimondo, 2 Jun 2006
Comments on the Haditha massacre shortly after it was disclosed by major news outlets and also responds to critics of congressman John Murtha
A pattern emerges: Haditha, Abu Sifa, Abu Ghraib, and all the others now bound to come out in horrifying detail. These place names will become the new slogans of the Iraqi insurgency, which will be fueled as never before – and perhaps immeasurably strengthened by rising Shi'ite anger. ... Both Iraqis and Americans will be locked in a deadly embrace of indignities that will soon escalate into everyday atrocities. The Iraqis ... will become captives in their own land, and their jailers will get progressively more abusive and cruel as a matter of sheer necessity. Iraq is the [Palestinian] occupied territories writ large ...
Mission Creep in Iraq, by
Sheldon Richman, 21 Aug 2014
Examines how the initial Aug 2014 "humanitarian" intervention in Iraq, following the Sinjar massacre, keeps morphing into something bigger
Anbar province was the location of some of the toughest resistance to the American occupation and the scene of two U.S. attacks on Fallujah in April and November 2004. As Reuters put it, "The United States mounted its biggest offensive of the occupation against a staggering variety of Islamist militants in the city of Fallujah in Anbar [in November 2004], with its soldiers experiencing some of the fiercest combat since the Vietnam War." U.S. forces were reported to have used cluster bombs and white phosphorus artillery shells, while other war crimes were alleged against American troops.
Mr. Bush, Meet Walter Jones, by Patrick J. Buchanan, 16 Jan 2007
Discusses the Iraq War, the announcement of a potential strikes against Iran, and the Joint Resolution introduced by Rep. Walter Jones (R, NC) to prevent such action
America is four years into a bloody debacle in Iraq not merely because Bush and Cheney marched us in, or simply because neocon propagandists lied about Saddam's nuclear program and WMD, and Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, anthrax attacks, and 9/11. We are there because a Democratic Senate voted to give Bush a blank check for war. Democrats in October 2002 wanted the war vote behind them so they could go home and campaign as pro-war patriots. And because they did, 3,000 Americans are dead, 25,000 are wounded, perhaps 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, 1.6 million have fled, $400 billion has been lost ...
The Mugging of Murtha, by
Justin Raimondo, 17 Nov 2006
Comments on how the the U.S. congressional Democrats, after having gained control of both houses in the 2006 elections, chose Steny Hoyer instead of John Murtha as House majority leader
Back when the Democrats were AWOL on the Iraq issue, Murtha changed the debate over the war by coming out for a rapid American withdrawal. His stance caused a sensation: here was a conservative Democrat, a veteran Marine, whose campaign chest is heavy with cash from the defense sector, ... and he wants us out now! Close to the military establishment, Murtha is seen to reflect opinion in the senior ranks that this war is unwinnable and likely to spread, stretching the fighting capacity of the world's last superpower to the breaking point. His high-profile stance represented a threat and had to be smashed – as it was.
A Nightmare in Iraq, by
Sheldon Richman, 24 Sep 2003
Examines the situation in Iraq six months after the March 2003 invasion, including the Bush administration reportedly "considering using Israel as a model for managing an occupied people"
Americans soldiers are killing innocent Iraqi civilians almost on a regular basis. In recent days and in separate incidents they killed eight Iraqi policemen, an Iraqi interpreter working for the U.S. occupiers, a woman and her child at a wedding, and a young teenager at another wedding. Many more have been seriously injured. ... No wonder that U.S. government analysts believe that the troops have more to fear from average citizens than from the remnant of Saddam Hussein sympathizers ... This has got to be an eye-opener to all those who insisted that the Americans would be greeted as liberators.
The non-debate on the war, by Terry Michael,
The Washington Times, 25 Aug 2005
Criticizes the media for its lack of discussion about ending the 2003 Iraq War
But how can mainstream journalism now be excused for quarantining stop-it-now voices from outside official Washington, after justification for the war has shifted from: 1) eliminating weapons of mass destruction, which didn't exist; 2) getting rid of a brutal dictator, who was a secularist thug, not an associate of Osama bin Laden; 3) spreading democracy ... 4) fighting Islamic terrorists, who need the United States in Iraq, not out, as their bete noir for recruiting more terrorists.
The Noninterventionists Told You So, by
Sheldon Richman, 18 Jun 2014
Analyzes the 2014 Iraqi situation from the vantage point of noninterventionism, contrasting it with those who still want the Obama administration to intervene
Yet it still must be said: those who opposed the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in March 2003 — not to mention his father's war on Iraq in 1991 and the sanctions enforced through the administration of Bill Clinton — were right. The noninterventionists predicted a violent unraveling of the country, and that's what we're witnessing. They agreed with Amr Moussa, chairman of the Arab League, who warned in September 2002 that the invasion would "open the gates of hell." ... In the buildup to the 2003 bipartisan war on Iraq ... little time and ink were devoted to the principled opponents of intervention.
Obama's Iraqi Fairy Tale, by
Sheldon Richman,
The Goal Is Freedom, 28 Mar 2014
Examines, in detail, Obama's 26 March 2014 remarks about the 2003 Iraqi invasion compared to Russia's annexation of Crimea
Let us count the lies.
The Iraq War was a subject of vigorous debate not just around the world, but in the United States as well.
Note [Obama] did not say "honest debate," for how honest can a debate be when the government fills the mostly willing media with lies about WMD and suggestions that Saddam Hussein was connected to the attacks on 9/11? Every top member of the Bush administration having anything to do with "national security" lied to the public at one time or another. People who questioned the "slam-dunk" intelligence were dismissed as pusillanimous or soft on Saddam.
Our Patience on Iraq Should Be Exhausted, by
Sheldon Richman, 4 Apr 2007
Comments on George W. Bush's request that the 2007 Iraqi troop "surge" be given a chance and on congressional efforts to impose a 2008 withdrawal deadline
President Bush started the fifth year of his war in Iraq by pleading with the American people for patience. Give the escalation ("surge") a chance to work, he said ... In the discussion over ... the recent increase in troops ... the big picture is getting lost. Even most war critics in Congress seem to not fully see it. They routinely criticize the Bush administration for its incompetent execution of the war, but by doing so they have dropped the more important ball: regardless of how the war is being run, the invasion was illegal, unconstitutional, and contrary to the interests of the American people.
Our Terrorism, and Theirs, by
Justin Raimondo, 5 Jun 2006
Comments on the responses to the Haditha massacre and other Iraq War reported atrocities, particularly from Peter Beinart and Bill Kristol
To begin with, all meaningful moral and legal restrictions on American behavior were swept aside with the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of a country that had never attacked the United States, and represented no threat to us. Having embarked on a war of aggression, it wasn't too long before we began to slide down the slippery slope all the way to the bottom ... American bombers strafe the Iraqi countryside, killing hundreds of innocents in the course of the war; U.S. soldiers routinely fire on Iraqi civilians with little or no provocation, they drown them, they torture them ...
Pathetic Arguments for Foreign Intervention, by
Sheldon Richman, 25 Jan 2008
Criticizes comments made by
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens about Ron Paul's call for a full U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East
[John] McCain, for example, says he would have no problem keeping troops in Iraq for a hundred years or more. What matters to Americans, he says, is not how long the troops are away, but whether they are taking casualties. How about what matters to the Iraqis or other people forced to host a foreign army? And perhaps Americans too will mind if "blowback" occurs and resentful Iraqis engage in terrorism in the United States ... The trade issue is a distraction, actually. George Bush did not go to war against Iraq and hasn't thought about going to war against Iran to protect world commerce.
Pentagon Conduits, by
Sheldon Richman, 25 Apr 2008
Discusses the revelations by
The New York Times about TV military analysts, appearing to be independent observers, but briefed by the Pentagon and connected as lobbyists, executives or consultants of sundry military contractors
While most of the American people came to oppose the Iraq invasion and occupation anyway, we can’t say the Bush administration didn’t try to sell its military policy. It was willing to mislead its own mouthpieces when the real news was bad ... The analyst scandal shouldn't surprise anyone. The American people were deceived into supporting the Iraq invasion, from claims about WMD to hints that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. So why wouldn't the administration continue the deception by disguising its propagandists as objective analysts?
The Poison Called Nationalism, by
Sheldon Richman,
The Goal Is Freedom, 6 Feb 2015
Discusses nationalism as exhibited by those who defend sniper Chris Kyle as a hero (in response to the earlier article "The American Sniper Was No Hero", 28 Jan 2015)
We see naked ugly nationalism in many defenses of [Chris] Kyle ... It matters not that Kyle was a cog in an imperial military machine that waged a war of aggression on behalf of the ruling elite's geopolitical and economic interests, that he did his killing on foreign soil, and that no Iraqi had come to the United States seeking to harm him or other Americans. (Contrary to what Kyle defenders seem to believe, not one Iraqi was among the 19 hijackers on 9/11, although had that been otherwise, the murder of millions of other Iraqis and the displacement of millions more would not have been justified.)
The President Seems Out of Touch With Events on the Ground in Iraq, by
Robert Higgs, 31 May 2006
Contrasts a George W. Bush speech given at West Point with nearly concurrent news reports about the Haditha massacre
Anyone who has bothered to follow the reports of the war, especially in the foreign press, knows that wanton murders have occurred repeatedly, often from the air, owing in part to the use of high-explosive bombs and rockets in densely populated areas ... however, every person the U.S. forces have killed in Iraq is the victim of a murder, because the U.S. forces had no just grounds for invading and occupying the country in the first place—this war is a textbook case of unprovoked aggression—and the Iraqis and their friends have a just right of self-defense against these violent foreign invaders.
Q & A with Karen Kwiatkowski, by
Karen Kwiatkowski,
Brian Lamb,
Q&A, 2 Apr 2006
Video and transcript of the C-SPAN program; Lamb interviews Kwiatkowski about the 2003 invasion of Iraq and her participation in the 2005 film
Why We Fight
[It] was in May of 2002 ... when my eyes began to be opened about how our policy towards invading, destroying and occupying Iraq, although I'm not sure if that's the right order ... I saw a type of politicization almost from the very first week of my assignment in Near East-South Asia policy, which really violated the idea of an apolitical military. This was an agenda-setting organization, and the agenda was war. The agenda was an invasion of Iraq ... the plans ... envisioned by neo-conservatives for Iraq ... included [Hussein's] destruction and a changing of Iraq, a transformation somehow of that country.
Rambo Was A Chump: John Kerry Should Be Ashamed of Vietnam Service, by Ted Rall, 27 Aug 2004
Discusses comments made by then Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry about the 2003 Iraq war, including the change in his Senate appropriations voting record, and the Vietnam War
Banking that the percentage of hawks would soon increase, [John Kerry] voted with the winning team. Indeed, by March 2003 72 percent of the U.S. public supported attacking Iraq. Kerry's cynical calculus, it seemed, had paid off. Five months after the fall of Baghdad, Bush asked Congress for $87 billion to finance the occupation of Iraq. But with 130,000 troops bogged down by a resistance movement that was killing at least one soldier a day, the war had already become unpopular. Only 41 percent of Americans—the number kept sliding—remained sweet on regime change.
Rationalizing Haditha, by
Justin Raimondo, 7 Jun 2006
Additional comments on responses to the Haditha massacre and similar incidents, from Rich Lowry, Christopher Hitchens, Nouri al-Maliki and Andrew Walden
If the elected Iraqi government conducts its own investigation into Haditha ... it could mark the beginning of a rupture between the Shi'ite majority and the occupation forces. This will ... show that the real tug-of-war is not between the U.S. and the Sunni insurgency, but rather one that pits the occupiers against important elements of the ruling Shi'ite coalition ... The great irony is that Iraq's much sought-after "unity" may be achieved by a common hatred for the occupiers, which is beginning to transcend the deep divide separating the country's ethnic and religious cantons.
Regime Libertarians, by
Lew Rockwell, 12 Jul 2005
Criticizes the "Iraq Exit Strategy: America's Path Forward" proposal, made by the Libertarian National Committee on 29 June 2005, and suggests the name "Regime Libertarians" for those who make that kind of proposals
It is a plan for dealing with the Iraqi fiasco that involves gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq only to station the troops in Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, and Oman, followed by new foreign aid to Iraq (at "substantial cost to the American taxpayers") which is said to be "essential for the creation of viable infrastructure" ... We are told that the "direct aid program will give Iraq vital assistance while giving the Iraqi people, through their government, control over the disbursement of funds." ... There is some good material in the plan, of course. It is critical of the invasion and the lies.
The Repudiation of Bush, by
Sheldon Richman, 10 Nov 2006
Comments on the results of the November 2006 U.S. mid-term elections and on replacement of Donald Rumsfeld by Robert Gates, formerly in the George H. W. Bush administration
[Defense] Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ... was in charge of carrying out the plan to remake Iraq in America's image, but he was hardly the architect of that plan. The architects were the utopian neoconservatives who now are jumping ship and blaming Bush and Rumsfeld for bad execution of their excellent idea ... Bush needs to come clean with the American people. Does he see his Iraq adventure as a terrible mistake or not? ... Let's keep our fingers crossed that what some people are saying is true: that the Iraq Study Group ... is actually a device to give the current President Bush cover for getting out of Iraq soon.
The Revolutionary Candidate, by Thomas Woods, 26 Mar 2007
Discusses and comments on the reactions of various organizations in the early days of Paul's 2008 presidential campaign
... Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes of Columbia and Harvard, respectively, now say that their initial estimate of $2 trillion as the long-term cost of the Iraq war is too low ... the 'liberal media,' including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the cable news networks, overwhelmingly supported the Iraq war. ... A writer for The Nation argued that 'this Constitution-wielding contender, who voted against authorizing Bush to invade and occupy Iraq and has steadily opposed that war since its launch four years ago, would certainly make the GOP debates worth watching ...'
Ron Paul's Goldwater Moment, by
Justin Raimondo, 11 May 2007
Critiques Washington-centric "conventional wisdom" about Ron Paul's presidential candidacy
[T]his Washington-centric "wisdom" has been spectacularly wrong in recent years, notably about the invasion of Iraq. Before the war, "everybody" knew Saddam harbored "weapons of mass destruction." ... And remember how the Washington wags were all so certain we'd be greeted with showers of rose petals and hailed as "liberators"? They were wrong about that one, too ... [T]he District of Columbia know-it-alls were wrong on all counts about the war–its rationale and its results ... [T]he [2008] election will surely be all about the war in Iraq ... Popular opposition to the Iraq disaster is at an all-time high ...
Ron Versus the Huckster, by
Justin Raimondo, 7 Sep 2007
Analyzes Ron Paul's response to Chris Wallace's questions on the Iraq invasion and Paul's exchange with Gov. Huckabee, at the 5 Sep 2007 Republican presidential debate
As the US position in Iraq becomes more untenable ... the urge to hold someone responsible for what General William E. Odom rightly calls the biggest strategic disaster in our history grips large portions of the electorate. ... we hear very little about how [McCain] would manage to occupy a nation of some 30 million souls that resent and have come to hate the American presence. ... The only way to recapture [our honor] is to retrace our steps, to conduct a thorough investigation in order to discover how and why we were deceived into invading and occupying Iraq – and, most important of all, by whom.
Terrorism Comes with Empire, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 8 Jul 2005
Reflects on the 7 July 2005 London bombings (and 1993 and 2001 attacks in New York and the Pentagon) and why England and the U.S. were the targets rather than Switzerland
... President Bush's recent war on Iraq — a war against a sovereign and independent country that never attacked the United States ... or even threatened to do so. It is a war that has produced the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people — not just American ... soldiers, but also Iraqi soldiers and civilians — none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 terrorist strikes ... Consider the torture, rape, sex abuse, and murder scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Why wouldn't Middle Easterners react in much the same way that Americans would react if American men were treated in a similar manner in some foreign prison?
That Death Toll, by
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., 21 Jun 2006
Comments on White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's remark ("It's a number") about the death of the 2,500th American soldier in the 2003 Iraq War
There is something morally creepy about the way the White House responded to the news—released as inconspicuously as possible—that the 2,500th American soldier has died in Iraq. "It's a number," said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow ... What's more, it's a number that continues to grow even as the opposition grows in Iraq. It is no longer plausible to even speak of an isolated insurgency. The US has sparked a full-scale civil war between tribes, a war that cannot be won no matter which side the US takes in the struggle. Perhaps 100,000 Iraqis have already been killed.
They Deserved to Lose, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 8 Nov 2006
Comments on the results of the 2006 United States congressional elections and finds the Republican Party losses well-deserved
Republicans deserved to lose ... because of the horrible death and destruction they have brought to Iraq, a country that never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so ... When President Bush announced his intention to invade Iraq, congressional Republicans hopped to attention, clicked their heels, saluted, and said, "Mr. President, we are here to serve you. Issue your orders and we shall obey." Not one peep about the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war. Not one peep about the fact that a war of aggression is a war crime under the principles of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
They Lied About the Reasons for Going to War, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 23 Oct 2006
Examines various items of circumstancial evidence that would lead most reasonable people to conclude that George W. Bush and his administration lied about the rationales for invading Iraq in 2003, and then explores the real purpose behind the invasion
The circumstantial evidence with respect to the invasion of Iraq leads inexorably to but one conclusion: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other U.S. officials lied about their reasons for invading Iraq. Those lies have profound consequences not only for the Iraqi people, who have borne the brunt of the invasion and subsequent occupation of their country, but also for the American people, including U.S. soldiers who have killed and maimed people whose government never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so.
The Threat of Militarism, by
Karen Kwiatkowski, 9 Jul 2006
Presentation to Global Scholar seminar, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia; discusses "the nature of modern United States foreign policy" while reflecting on what Eisenhower, Smedley Butler and Mark Twain said and wrote
After retiring, I spoke and wrote publicly about what I believed in 2002 and 2003 were lies told and falsehoods fabricated and promoted by the administration in order to gain public support for an invasion of Iraq. Key among these were of course that Hussein had WMDs that could and would harm the United States, that Hussein was allied with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 attacks. I wrote what I saw in the Pentagon for both the right-leaning [The] American Conservative Magazine, and for the left-leaning Salon.com.
Trapped in Lies and Delusions, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 20 Nov 2006
Predicts that U.S. troops would not withdraw from Iraq for at least two more years, because it was politically implausible for Bush and Cheney to backtrack on their positions, and laments American attitudes towards the war and countless interventions
Let's not forget that this is Bush's and Cheney's war and occupation. It was they who chose not to go to Congress for the ... required declaration of war, no doubt convinced that some sharp members of Congress would challenge their WMD justification for attacking Iraq ... It was they who decided not to give the UN inspectors more time to search for what turned out to be nonexistent WMDs. It was they who ignored and disregarded massive anti-war protests around the world. It was they who knew that as soon as they ordered the invasion, Americans would come on board through the skillful use of the "support the troops" mantra.
U.S. Foreign Policy Is a Shambles, by
Sheldon Richman, 7 Jan 2014
Examines the 2014 status of United States foreign policy in various Middle East countries
The 2003 Iraq invasion raised even more questions about the ability of policymakers to engage in clear thinking. Under Saddam Hussein, the minority Sunni Muslims ruled the Shi'ite majority, many of whom were sympathetic to Shi'ite Iran, America's supposed bête noir. Take out Saddam, and Iran's friends would rule. Indeed, the man who became Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was handpicked by Iranian authorities. (Ironically, the Shi'ite leader that the Bush administration chose to fight, Muqtada al-Sadr, was the most nationalist of Iraqi Shi'ites and least sympathetic to Iran.)
U.S. Regime Change, Torture, and Murder in Chile, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 24 Nov 2004
Discusses the unwelcome reception given to George W. Bush on a visit to Chile and various reasons for Chilean animosity towards the U.S. government, contrasting it with general opinion about these matters in the U.S. and the lack of action by Congress
Unlike so many Americans, the Chilean people have not fallen for the "We invaded Iraq to spread democracy" line that U.S. officials moved up to rationale number one after failing to find those infamous weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ... the next U.S. attorney general is likely to be the very man who provided [Bush] with the "Geneva Convention is quaint and obsolete" memo that ... opened the door to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the Pentagon's suspension of habeas corpus and due process [and] conveniently provided [Bush] and other U.S. high officials with "legal cover" when the U.S. Army's human-rights abuses came to light.
War Loses, Again, by
Lew Rockwell, 8 Nov 2006
Reflects on the results of the 2006 U.S. mid-term elections, both what voters thought about the Iraq War and lost opportunities by the Republicans in reducing economic interventions
The loss of the House and perhaps the Senate is all the more extraordinary considering that the failed (no longer any dispute about that) war on Iraq was the decisive issue at every level ... The Iraq War is in the news constantly but it has little impact on most American voters ... The war debt is high but hidden. What do regular Americans care whether we were lied into war or that Iraq suffers under military occupation that is driving the country into the hands of fanatical Islamic theocrats? Well, apparently many voters do care, even those who don't have family members fighting and dying.
War, the God That Failed, by
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., 15 May 2004
Contrasts the general reaction to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse vs. the mass deaths caused by the 2003 Iraq War, and the rationalizations made about the war with excuses made by early Bolsheviks
We are right to wince and then condemn pictures of naked prisoners in dog collars; not even Paul Wolfowitz was willing to defend such practices in testimony. And yet those private groups that bother to count civilian dead point to figures that exceed 10,000 in this war alone ... These aren't deaths by injection but by machinegun bullets shot, and smart bombs dropped, by US soldiers and paid for by US taxpayers, and the US doesn't even bother to mention them much less count them. Torture is awful; but should it really be necessary to point out that the mass death of innocents is worse?
The War the Government Cannot Win, by
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., 1 May 2007
Discusses how government cannnot win the war on terror because economic law is more powerful than the state; talk given at the Wisconsin Forum in Milwaukee
Four years ago, Bill O'Reilly said: "I will bet you the best dinner in the gas-light district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week." Tony Snow said: "The three week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptic's complaints." ... Monthly spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan averaged $6.8 billion in 2006. That ... is now closer to $8 billion ... Before the invasion ..., Colin Powell warned ... that if you break it, you buy it. At last count, we've bought the equivalent of 10 Iraqs ... [I]nstead ..., the money has gone to completely destroying one ...
Related Topics:
Cold War,
Economics,
Government,
Iraq,
Liberty,
Ludwig von Mises,
Socialism,
Society,
The State,
Terrorism,
United States,
War
What Is the Mission?, by
Charley Reese, 3 Jun 2006
Is it to overthrow Saddam Hussein? He's been overthrown ... Is it to allow the Iraqi people to hold elections? They've held three elections ... But if the purpose was to install an elected government, why are we still there? Why are we spending half a billion dollars to build the world's largest embassy ...
What's Become of Americans?, by
Paul Craig Roberts, 22 Mar 2006
Ponders the lack of reaction by Americans to events related to the Iraq War and the Bush administration, such as the missing WMDs, Abu Ghraib, mass surveillance, "free speech" zones, the death toll and the Haditha massacre
The Bush regime acknowledges that 30,000 Iraqi civilians, largely women and children, have been killed as a result of Bush's invasion. Others who have looked at civilian casualties with greater attention have come up with numbers three to six times as large. The Johns Hopkins study accounted for 98,000 civilian deaths. Andrew Cockburn, using more sophisticated statistical analysis, concluded that 180,000 Iraqis died as a result of Bush's invasion. ... Some were killed by 'smart bombs' that weren't very smart and dropped on hospitals, schools, and weddings. Others were mistaken for resistance fighters and killed.
What's to Lose?, by
Sheldon Richman, 20 Apr 2007
Explains the benefits to most Americans if the U.S. government would admit defeat and withdraw its troops from Iraq, contrary to George W. Bush's claims
What would an American defeat in Iraq mean? Would evil Iraqis conquer the United States, force us all to speak Arabic, and convert us to Islam? Hardly. There is no threat whatsoever to the American people from the sectarian fighters in Baghdad or elsewhere in that country ... If anything holds the disparate Sunni factions together, it's their common animosity to the U.S. occupation. So in what sense would "we" lose? From the standpoint of the American people, it would be no loss at all. Rather, it would be a victory. How so? Because we are losing now! Americans are killed every week, and the wounded are scarred for life.
Who Lost Iraq?, by
Justin Raimondo, 13 Nov 2006
Reviews and reflects on the title question posed in an opinion essay by retired U.S. Army Colonel and professor Andrew J. Bacevich
The media didn't create the fact that, three years after U.S. troops entered Baghdad, we have lost control of Iraq's capital city – and the situation in the rest of the country is rapidly approaching meltdown. They are merely reporting it. We had plenty of warning about this from military commanders and war critics before the launching of the invasion. ... The neocons could argue that the war would be a "cakewalk," as Kenneth Adelman infamously proclaimed in the run-up to the invasion, as long as our principal enemies were the Sunnis who still supported Saddam and fought to restore the Ba'athist dictatorship.
Will Congress Finally Face Up to Their Responsibility and Debate Iraq?, by Kevin B. Zeese, 31 Mar 2006
Discusses the proposal by a group of six congressmen to have 17 hours of "open and honest debate about the future of U.S. policy in Iraq"
We are in the midst of a military quagmire in Iraq — a conflict that is costing precious American and Iraqi lives, leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis seriously injured, costing the United States more than a billion dollars a week with no end in site and feeding anti-Americanism around the world — yet the Congress has never declared war. ... Even U.S. troops in Iraq support returning to the United States within a year. ... Do we continue to occupy ... Iraq? Can the occupation be successful? How do we end the Iraq occupation? How much money and how many troops are we willing to lose to the Iraq War?
Would You "Support the Troops" in Bolivia?, by
Jacob G. Hornberger, 27 Dec 2006
Discusses U.S. military contracts and the hypothetical case of a soldier objecting to being deployed for an invasion of Bolivia on orders from the President, contrasting it to the real scenario of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
How do we know that ... U.S. troops would faithfully do their duty by carrying out the orders of their commander in chief to invade Bolivia? Easy—because we know that they followed the president's order to invade Iraq, a country that never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. And on invasion day, they would dutifully drop 500-pound bombs ..., fire missiles into cars and buildings, and shoot ... soldiers who resisted the invasion. Women and children who would be killed as part of the operation would be considered the unfortunate collateral damage of war.
