Last night, as part of its pledge drive, KQED public television repeated the Frontline documentary, “Bush’s War.” What struck me, aside from the devastating impact of seeing closeup once again the behavior and machinations of the criminal cabal that ruled this administration, was the lack of any analysis of the actual rationale for war. If you remember, Bush was persuaded by Colin Powell to go to the United Nations in order to provide some legitimacy for his plan to invade Iraq. Accordingly, the United States was able to browbeat the Security Council into passing Resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002. This resolution gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations.”
Iraq did comply, allowing Hans Blix of UNMOVIC and his inspectors to come into the country and inspect numerous facilities, and providing 12,000 pages of documents testifying to the destruction of its weapons (These documents were later borne out by the inability of the United States inspectors to find any WMD anywhere in Iraq). The inspectors found nothing except, on January 16, 2003, 11 empty 122mm chemical warheads previously undeclared. Iraq said they were old and forgotten; be that as it may, there were no chemicals detected to prove noncompliance.
Lack of evidence notwithstanding, the United States insisted that Iraq was lying. The US “cemented” this position when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his infamous presentation to the United Nations on February 5, with its mockup of so-called mobile chemical and biological weapons labs, its allegation that Iraq’s aluminum tubes were being used in a nuclear weapons program, and its allegation that Iraq had ties with al-Quaeda. It maintained these charges even after February 14, when Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baradei presented a detailed update on the situation in Iraq to the Security Council—in which Blix stated not only that “the Iraqis were now more proactive in their cooperation,” but also that the arguments presented by Colin Powell were not credible: the satellite images were not convincing, and Iraqis never received early warning of inspector visits (it was not known, at the time, that the mobile lab mockups were fabrications invented by the informant known as “Curveball”). El Baradei added that it was his conclusion that Iraqis did not have a nuclear weapons program (this, too, turned out to be correct.)
Undeterred by these setbacks, the United States then tried to pass a new resolution in the Security Council. Supported by Great Britain and Spain, the draft resolution on February 24, 2003, declared that “Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it by resolution 1441.” Therefore, it could be invaded in accordance with the “serious consequences” provision. Unfortunately for the U.S. position, most of the member states (save for the aforementioned England, Spain, and Bulgaria) in the Security Council refused to back this resolution. France and Germany stated their intention to veto the resolution. It was therefore withdrawn without a vote.
This left the United States with NO United Nations authority to invade Iraq. Resolution 1441 had not authorized an invasion, but merely urged Iraq to comply or face unstated “consequences”. The US’s proposed resolution, finding Iraq in “material breach” of its obligations and therefore subject to invasion, had been dropped for lack of support.
At this point, the United States, unwilling to abandon invasion plans already underway, resorted to a thirteen-year-old UN resolution—# 678. Resolution 678, issued on November 29, 1990, was directed against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. It authorized the use of force against Iraq to “uphold and implement resolution 660 and all subsequent resolutions to restore international peace and security.” Resolution 660 of Aug. 2, 1990, in turn, had condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and demanded a withdrawal of Iraq’s troops. So 678 authorized force only to get Iraqi troops out of Kuwait—something that had been accomplished 13 years ago. This did not deter the Bushies. Another old resolution, # 687, was dusted off, and combined with 678 to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, to give what was essentially an unprovoked invasion additional cover. Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, had issued the formal ceasefire ending the Gulf War, adding several conditions: 1) Iraq destroys all its chemical and biological weapons and all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km; 2) Iraq agrees not to develop nuclear weapons; 3) Iraq submits a declaration of its weapons programs and voluntarily agrees to on-site inspections. UN inspectors, including Scott Ritter, had testified to the fact that Iraq had complied with virtually all of these conditions. Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baradei had added their confirmations that Iraq was in near total compliance in February/March of 2003. Furthermore, in Great Britain, as George Monbiot makes clear, senior legal counsels to Tony Blair had advised the Prime Minister that such resolutions could not be used to justify a new war with Iraq. Neither could Article 51 of the UN Charter, which gives States a right to defend themselves “if an armed attack occurs against them,” and even then only until the Security Council can intervene. Since Iraq had not attacked anyone in 2003, there was no legal justification for war. Period.
None of this mattered to the Bush administration. Announcing that it had authority to invade via Article 51 of the UN Charter, and via Resolution 678, for the reasons (shortly to be proven totally bogus and manufactured out of whole cloth) that Iraq was in violation of 687, it invaded anyway. In the years since, despite not finding the alleged WMD, Bush and his henchmen have continued to insist that the United Nations authorized the invasion.
Again, “Bush’s War” is riveting television, if for nothing else than to see the faces and hear once again the laughable justifications of those who promoted this costly, devastating war. But this leaves the viewer thinking only that this group resembled the “gang who couldn’t shoot straight.” The problem lies far deeper than that. This gang was made up of liars, propagandists, and war criminals. Their invasion of Iraq constituted an international crime—especially against Iraq and the Iraqi people who have suffered the destruction of their country, their lives, their families, their most elementary hopes. As such, it deserves not only the condemnation, but the prosecution of those responsible—beginning with the President and the Vice President, and including the Secretary of Defense, the head of the CIA, and countless other lawyers and enablers like John Yoo who did the dirty work. Until they are brought to account, this nation will continue to live in shame and infamy.
Lawrence DiStasi
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Winter Soldier
I don’t know how many of you had the opportunity to listen to the Winter Soldier conference put on by Iraq Veterans Against the War this weekend, but it was a riveting, emotionally devastating primer on the cost of the Iraq War in lives, treasure, and the mental and physical health of the soldiers who have been induced to fight it. Panel after panel, presenter after presenter revealed personal stories about the damage that has been done. Nearly every panelist referred to the “war” as what it really is: an OCCUPATION, an illegal occupation of a people who were already prostrate from a dozen years of our sanctions and bombing, and who, with the arrival of American soldiers, were treated like criminals in their own country, arrested without cause, curfewed in houses that, in Iraq’s summer heat, were literally ovens.
And then there were the horror stories of what each soldier had done, the atrocities each was led to commit as part of that occupation. The brutalizing of women and children. The random arrests of every Iraqi male caught in the frequent sweeps of neighborhoods. The killing, without thought, of anyone who made or appeared to make a false move. All of it made possible by the training each had received, to wit, that Iraqis are subhuman, that they are “ragheads” or “haggis” responsible for 9/11 (it has been proven Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Quaeda) and thus undeserving of any human compassion whatever. One soldier described how the term “haggi” actually derives from the Islamic tradition of the Hagg, the pilgrimage to Mecca every Muslim is supposed to make at least once. Hence, he said sadly, the holiest tradition of an entire religious faith is trampled and reduced to a term of utter contempt.
Some of these soldiers and marines were interrogators at Abu Ghraib, and described the brutal tactics they used, and, when they were unwilling to perform as expected, those used by others. A soldier named Michael told of one detainee who was writhing strangely and acting crazily. Sensing insulin deprivation, Michael took a sugar reading and found it at 450, many times the normal range. Michael called the hospital, asking permission from the doctor to transfer the detainee, clearly in shock, to her facility. The captain refused, refused several times. The detainee was then taken to another area, and when his strange behavior continued, classified as a resister and put outside, manacled, in the hot sun as punishment. He died roasting and writhing in agony.
Another soldier related his experience with stop loss—the ploy by which the military, unable to attract new recruits, has been forcing troops who have finished their duty tours to be corralled into repeated deployments. This, and the brutality he was forced to employ in Iraq (at one point, he had his sights trained on a 6-year-old boy on a roof), eventually turned a gung-ho teenager eager, after 9/11, to kill all Middle Easterners, into a broken alcoholic who tried to commit suicide. But instead of giving him help, the United States Army discharged him with a general discharge for insubordinate behavior, leaving him with no benefits whatever, able to hold only a job as a pizza delivery boy. Among the military duties that led to his breakdown, he said, was his task of photographing dead Iraqis and sending the photos to superiors for use in “building the morale” of American troops.
A Marine, Jason Wayne Lemue, served three duty tours in Iraq. On his first, he learned the rules of engagement. “My commander told me, ‘Kill those who need to be killed, and save those who need to be saved,’ that was our mission on our first tour,” he said of his first deployment during the invasion nearly five years ago. Lemue went on to relate that, “After that the ROE changed, and carrying a shovel, or standing on a rooftop talking on a cell phone, or being out after curfew” meant that people were to be killed. “I can’t tell you how many people died because of this. By my third tour, we were told to just shoot people, and the officers would take care of us.” (Quoted in “Rules of Engagement Thrown out the Window” by Dahr Jamail, Common Dreams, 3/15/08.)
Of course, Marine corporal Jason Washburn also explained the corollary—that American troops were instructed to carry shovels and “drop weapons” on their missions in case of an accidental shooting. A shovel or weapon found near a dead Iraqi was sufficient evidence to justify his death as a terrorist.
Such testimony, along with apologies by many of the panelists for the destruction they inflicted on innocent people, is enough to make anyone weep. Many in the audience did. And so, to the cost of this illegal and criminal war—now estimated at $300 billion a year by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz in The Three Trillion Dollar War (that is nearly a billion dollars every day just for keeping the war machine going, nevermind the cost of replacing a broken military when it’s over and the broken human beings who will be needing veterans’ benefits for years to come)—there is the human cost. The cost of devastated lives and devastated psyches and devastated families, and, let us never forget, a country and an entire people that lies in ruins.
As one contemplates the horror of what the United States has done, and keeps doing, and the fact that we cannot, after Winter Soldier, claim ignorance, the words of T.S. Eliot come, almost unbidden, to mind:
“After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”
Lawrence DiStasi
And then there were the horror stories of what each soldier had done, the atrocities each was led to commit as part of that occupation. The brutalizing of women and children. The random arrests of every Iraqi male caught in the frequent sweeps of neighborhoods. The killing, without thought, of anyone who made or appeared to make a false move. All of it made possible by the training each had received, to wit, that Iraqis are subhuman, that they are “ragheads” or “haggis” responsible for 9/11 (it has been proven Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Quaeda) and thus undeserving of any human compassion whatever. One soldier described how the term “haggi” actually derives from the Islamic tradition of the Hagg, the pilgrimage to Mecca every Muslim is supposed to make at least once. Hence, he said sadly, the holiest tradition of an entire religious faith is trampled and reduced to a term of utter contempt.
Some of these soldiers and marines were interrogators at Abu Ghraib, and described the brutal tactics they used, and, when they were unwilling to perform as expected, those used by others. A soldier named Michael told of one detainee who was writhing strangely and acting crazily. Sensing insulin deprivation, Michael took a sugar reading and found it at 450, many times the normal range. Michael called the hospital, asking permission from the doctor to transfer the detainee, clearly in shock, to her facility. The captain refused, refused several times. The detainee was then taken to another area, and when his strange behavior continued, classified as a resister and put outside, manacled, in the hot sun as punishment. He died roasting and writhing in agony.
Another soldier related his experience with stop loss—the ploy by which the military, unable to attract new recruits, has been forcing troops who have finished their duty tours to be corralled into repeated deployments. This, and the brutality he was forced to employ in Iraq (at one point, he had his sights trained on a 6-year-old boy on a roof), eventually turned a gung-ho teenager eager, after 9/11, to kill all Middle Easterners, into a broken alcoholic who tried to commit suicide. But instead of giving him help, the United States Army discharged him with a general discharge for insubordinate behavior, leaving him with no benefits whatever, able to hold only a job as a pizza delivery boy. Among the military duties that led to his breakdown, he said, was his task of photographing dead Iraqis and sending the photos to superiors for use in “building the morale” of American troops.
A Marine, Jason Wayne Lemue, served three duty tours in Iraq. On his first, he learned the rules of engagement. “My commander told me, ‘Kill those who need to be killed, and save those who need to be saved,’ that was our mission on our first tour,” he said of his first deployment during the invasion nearly five years ago. Lemue went on to relate that, “After that the ROE changed, and carrying a shovel, or standing on a rooftop talking on a cell phone, or being out after curfew” meant that people were to be killed. “I can’t tell you how many people died because of this. By my third tour, we were told to just shoot people, and the officers would take care of us.” (Quoted in “Rules of Engagement Thrown out the Window” by Dahr Jamail, Common Dreams, 3/15/08.)
Of course, Marine corporal Jason Washburn also explained the corollary—that American troops were instructed to carry shovels and “drop weapons” on their missions in case of an accidental shooting. A shovel or weapon found near a dead Iraqi was sufficient evidence to justify his death as a terrorist.
Such testimony, along with apologies by many of the panelists for the destruction they inflicted on innocent people, is enough to make anyone weep. Many in the audience did. And so, to the cost of this illegal and criminal war—now estimated at $300 billion a year by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz in The Three Trillion Dollar War (that is nearly a billion dollars every day just for keeping the war machine going, nevermind the cost of replacing a broken military when it’s over and the broken human beings who will be needing veterans’ benefits for years to come)—there is the human cost. The cost of devastated lives and devastated psyches and devastated families, and, let us never forget, a country and an entire people that lies in ruins.
As one contemplates the horror of what the United States has done, and keeps doing, and the fact that we cannot, after Winter Soldier, claim ignorance, the words of T.S. Eliot come, almost unbidden, to mind:
“After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”
Lawrence DiStasi
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
How Can We Win the Iraqi Civil War?
How do you win as a referee
In a game among three
Rabid teams amid screams of “foul”
And combat of tooth and jowl
With Shiia, Sunni and Kurd
Without becoming absurd?
As I look at the war in Iraq and listen to the spin that we are winning, I am stunned by the absurdity of speaking of a fourth party “winning” a civil war, but maybe it is our addiction to sports analogies. Sports analogies make war friendlier and they enable the average white male to grasp the basics of Waging War 101.
Football is the current AOC (Analogy of Choice) as we build up to the Super Bowl and recover from the BCS Bowl. It conjures up the image of two gallant teams, well coached and identified by crisp uniforms, rules and cheering sections encouraged by cheerleaders. Unfortunately, the civil war in Iraq is among three major factions divided on religious and ethnic lines as well as myriad splinter groups with long held tribal and economic or other grudges. More interesting, we have assigned ourselves the role of referee sometimes granting decisions one way and then another depending on how we see the play. It is inconceivable to explain to the average white male that we have a contest where it is likely that nobody wins and especially, that the referee cannot win.
As I write this, I am fully aware that our losses in Iraq have taken a sharp downturn in the last year. That is a good thing. But to invert the words of General Douglas MacArthur, are we “sowing the seeds of defeat that we will reap on other fields on other days?” What have we done to assist or encourage reconciliation in land renown for revenge?
During the reign of the venerable lord and plenipotentiary Paul Bremer, the United States disbanded the entire Iraqi Army to enforce restriction of Baathists in the government. Recall that the Baathists were the ruling class that had virtually all the Iraqi administrative experience as well as the clout of Sadam Hussein behind them. In their place we put…nothing, initially. Later when we realized that the Sunni Baathists did not like our referee’s call on de-Baathification and they recruited and fielded a large team of insurgents, we looked to the many Shiia militias to counter that move.
What is happening now to reduce the bloodletting in Iraq? Surely, you acknowledge the use of “special teams” as the way to stem the violence. We need to force some turnovers! One special team is the “surge” of an additional 30,000 troops. Let’s hear it for the surge! Another special team is the Sunni night watchmen that we have stood up as the Sunni insurgency stood down. Incidentally, that pre-dates the surge by a few months. We pay these Sunnis $10 per day to watch out for their own villages and right now that is working. We are also arming these Sunnis so that they can defend their villages from Shiia militia. Let me pose a question or two. What if another referee, say Saudi Arabia or Syria, etc. found a way to finance these same Sunni groups at $12.50 per day. Would they stay “loyal” to us or would they jump for a 25% raise. Recall that Saudis financed the attacks on 9/11/2001 and that Saudi Arabia adjoins Iraq. Are we arming Sunnis to reduce long term casualties or Saudi investment?
Don’t let the spin make you dizzy. This land has a history of betrayal and we have done nothing to change that. Let us enjoy the respite in casualties, but be wary of the analogy that we are ”winning.” The only way to win this civil war is to be on one of the three major sides, but recall again that we are only the referee. And, maybe we should dump this sports analogy entirely because it simply makes no sense. In fact the only analogy that makes sense is probably that of General W.T. Sherman as he burned his way through Georgia. “War is Hell.”
Peace,
George Giacoppe
8 January 2008
In a game among three
Rabid teams amid screams of “foul”
And combat of tooth and jowl
With Shiia, Sunni and Kurd
Without becoming absurd?
As I look at the war in Iraq and listen to the spin that we are winning, I am stunned by the absurdity of speaking of a fourth party “winning” a civil war, but maybe it is our addiction to sports analogies. Sports analogies make war friendlier and they enable the average white male to grasp the basics of Waging War 101.
Football is the current AOC (Analogy of Choice) as we build up to the Super Bowl and recover from the BCS Bowl. It conjures up the image of two gallant teams, well coached and identified by crisp uniforms, rules and cheering sections encouraged by cheerleaders. Unfortunately, the civil war in Iraq is among three major factions divided on religious and ethnic lines as well as myriad splinter groups with long held tribal and economic or other grudges. More interesting, we have assigned ourselves the role of referee sometimes granting decisions one way and then another depending on how we see the play. It is inconceivable to explain to the average white male that we have a contest where it is likely that nobody wins and especially, that the referee cannot win.
As I write this, I am fully aware that our losses in Iraq have taken a sharp downturn in the last year. That is a good thing. But to invert the words of General Douglas MacArthur, are we “sowing the seeds of defeat that we will reap on other fields on other days?” What have we done to assist or encourage reconciliation in land renown for revenge?
During the reign of the venerable lord and plenipotentiary Paul Bremer, the United States disbanded the entire Iraqi Army to enforce restriction of Baathists in the government. Recall that the Baathists were the ruling class that had virtually all the Iraqi administrative experience as well as the clout of Sadam Hussein behind them. In their place we put…nothing, initially. Later when we realized that the Sunni Baathists did not like our referee’s call on de-Baathification and they recruited and fielded a large team of insurgents, we looked to the many Shiia militias to counter that move.
What is happening now to reduce the bloodletting in Iraq? Surely, you acknowledge the use of “special teams” as the way to stem the violence. We need to force some turnovers! One special team is the “surge” of an additional 30,000 troops. Let’s hear it for the surge! Another special team is the Sunni night watchmen that we have stood up as the Sunni insurgency stood down. Incidentally, that pre-dates the surge by a few months. We pay these Sunnis $10 per day to watch out for their own villages and right now that is working. We are also arming these Sunnis so that they can defend their villages from Shiia militia. Let me pose a question or two. What if another referee, say Saudi Arabia or Syria, etc. found a way to finance these same Sunni groups at $12.50 per day. Would they stay “loyal” to us or would they jump for a 25% raise. Recall that Saudis financed the attacks on 9/11/2001 and that Saudi Arabia adjoins Iraq. Are we arming Sunnis to reduce long term casualties or Saudi investment?
Don’t let the spin make you dizzy. This land has a history of betrayal and we have done nothing to change that. Let us enjoy the respite in casualties, but be wary of the analogy that we are ”winning.” The only way to win this civil war is to be on one of the three major sides, but recall again that we are only the referee. And, maybe we should dump this sports analogy entirely because it simply makes no sense. In fact the only analogy that makes sense is probably that of General W.T. Sherman as he burned his way through Georgia. “War is Hell.”
Peace,
George Giacoppe
8 January 2008
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