Upside Down World

Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

It took 25 years longer than George Orwell thought for the slogans of 1984 to become reality.

“War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength.”

I would add, “Lie is Truth.”

The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

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I will be blunt, for certain conclusions are now inescapable, even this early in the miraculous, transcendent Age of Obama. Insofar as those who regularly follow political matters are concerned, and especially with regard to those people who write about politics and foreign policy -- which is to say, insofar as commentators and reporters in the mainstream media and on blogs are concerned -- to continue to believe that Barack Obama represents any kind of "improvement" over the abomination of George W. Bush is not an innocent error. To persist in delusions of this kind requires that one intentionally and deliberately blind oneself to evidence that assaults us every day.  full post here

STORY HERE: http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Cheney_Rumsfeld_Pushed_for_Torture_to_Find_Non_Existent_Saddam_9_11_Link_90424

• PDF | Senate Armed Services: Inquiry into the treatment of Detainees, part 1
• PDF | Senate Armed Services: Inquiry into the treatment of Detainees, part 2
• PDF | Aug. 1, 2002, Bybee memo to CIA regarding treatment of Abu Zubaydah
• PDF | May 30, 2005, Bradbury memo to the CIA on whether interrogation techniques violate U.N. Convention Against Torture (Part 1)
• PDF | May 30, 2005, Bradbury memo to the CIA on whether interrogation techniques violate U.N. Convention against Torture (Part 2)
• PDF | Office of Legal Counsel's April 15, 2009, repudiation of previous memos regarding harsh interrogations
• On the Web | Update: 2006 Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence gathering
• On the Web | Archive of McClatchy's Iraq intelligence reporting
• On the Web | McClatchy's investigation of Guantanamo Bay detainees

Editor's note: Nadia Keilani is an attorney in San Diego and a member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and of the Arab-American Advisory Committee to the City of San Diego Chief of Police. She is an anti-Iraq war activist who frequently speaks at peace demonstrations.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- I left Iraq in 1981, at the age of 9. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. My mother, sister and I left together, while my father stayed behind for a few weeks to finish dismantling a lifetime in a country he loved.

At the time of our departure, Iraq was waking up to the suffocating power of Saddam Hussein. For those intuitive enough, it was the ideal time to leave. To my great sorrow, I have never been back. To my even greater sorrow, my children will never experience the Iraq that I loved. That Iraq is now only a memory, replaced by a dark and hopeless country that I no longer recognize.

Whenever someone discovers that I'm from Iraq, it inevitably leads to being asked about my religious affiliation.

I belong to a religious minority called Mandaean, also known as Sabeans or Sabean-Mandaean. We are a Gnostic sect that claims Adam as the first in a line of "teachers" and John the Baptist as the last. Even today, our baptisms are conducted in the same manner that John the Baptist baptized Jesus and others of his time.

full article here


for more information on the Mandaeans, see: http://www.mandaeanunion.org/

for an online collection of Mandaean texts, see: http://www.egnu.org/~mandaean/

 

By Peter Custers

30 October, 2008
Countercurrents.org

1.Introduction

In the first part of 2007, there was a striking coincidence between two kinds of speculative talk - speculation about the then impending recession in the US economy, and speculation about an open war by the US against Iran. Both forms of speculation were rife when the US's financial crisis had just started. As the incapacity of small house owners to pay for rising interest rates on their mortgages backfired against American banks who had provided them with loans, - the former president of the US Federal reserve, Greenspan, warned that these troubles could well snowball into a recession. Simultaneously, speculation in March/April of 2007 intensified about plans by US policymakers to launch air strikes against Iran. Such speculation about the eventuality of yet another US war, in which nuclear weapons would likely be employed, was of course not new. However, quite noteworthy is the fact that such speculative talk about war expansion ran parallel to talk about a new recession.  full article here

from http://jktarot.com/nosupport.html
x While criticism of the US war in Iraq continues to mount, even in circles, such as the US mainstream media, where it had been effectively censored up till fairly recently, one theme is continually promoted amongst critics: we may be against the war and Bush’s policies but we obviously DO support the troops. In the face of quite reasonable conservative attacks which equate opposition to the war with opposition to the troops fighting it, the war’s critics have allowed themselves to be bullied into an intellectually and morally contradictory position. “Thumbs up!” to torture and murder in Iraq signaled by US soldier at Abu Graib prison, Saddam’s torture den now under new American management but serving the same Saddamite menu to clients.
How can someone be opposed to the war, be convinced that it is in every way an illegal and immoral policy of the US government, and yet still claim to support the troops charged with carrying out the illegal and immoral policy? Some critics have responded by claiming the apparent paradox stems mainly from a disagreement about the true meaning of “support the troops”. They allege that conservatives have sought to equate that phrase with “support the war”, and that this is an unfair or unnecessary view, given that one of the things antiwar types wish to do is to save the troops by bringing them home and out of harm’s way. In other words, the war critics say, it is certainly possible to be FOR the troops, in the sense of being sympathetic with their plight of being ordered into a dangerous place, while still being opposed to what they’ve been ordered to do there. The problem with that view is that it ignores a basic premise of the duty of any soldier—to carry out his orders even if he should disagree with the political wisdom of them. Thus, if one thinks the policy of this war is bad, for example in that it has resulted in many Iraqi citizens, of all ages, losing their lives at the hands of the US military, and if on the other hand it would have been possible to spare some of those Iraqis by having some American soldiers die instead, how does one truthfully or consistently maintain that he supports the troops but not what they do? Aren't honest opponents of the war facing a choice of saying they either support American troops, or they support the Iraqi victims of those troops? Is there really room for a nuanced position when life and death are the choices being fought over? And if there was, somehow, room for nuance in one’s view of US troops and their actions, was that not destroyed forever by the revelations and the pictures from Abu Graib? One cannot any longer hide behind the fact that the US military and the US media have conspired to paint a picture of the war as mainly the effort of America’s “finest” to bring democratic virtues to the poor oppressed of Iraq. What the United States clearly intended on bringing Iraqis was a heavy dose of “do what the hell you are told or get ready to be tortured and killed.” In other words, as someone pointed out, we didn’t close the store of torture and murder in Iraq, we just changed its management. We now know that the war crimes committed by US troops in Iraq (and elsewhere) were not the acts of a few depraved soldiers, who somehow all ended up in the same unit and guarding the same cell blocks in Abu Graib, but that their acts were the end product of a policy, approved by George Bush and his top military leaders, of tossing out the “inconvenient” Geneva Convention rules and adopting the ones favored by Saddam Hussein. This is hardly surprising when one understands that the Iraq war was fought partly for the purpose of Bush obtaining personal vengeance upon Saddam and partly to give the US control over Iraq’s oil reserves, and had nothing to do with any moral problem on the part of US leaders—who after all left Saddam in power in 1991—concerning Saddam’s treatment of his people. Indeed, this minor rationale, of saving Iraqis from Saddam, was initially far down the list of reasons given by Bush for America to go to war with Iraq. Since subsequent to the “end of major hostilities” and Bush’s declaration of “mission accomplished”, the claimed primary mission of finding stockpiles of Iraqi WMD was NOT accomplished at all, and nor was the secondary one of demonstrating any responsibility of Iraq for the 9/11 attack on the US, nor the related claim that Saddam had Qaeda links (an idea which the US government has constantly hinted was true but at the same time admitted had no factual basis), Bush was left with the least important mission of all—pretending to give a damn about bettering the lives of Iraqis.. In the end, if supporting the troops means supporting Bush’s dishonest and criminal war in Iraq, and if one is opposed to that war, he must not support the troops who fight it any more than he supports the appointed President who orders them to do so. If supporting the troops instead is held to mean getting them the hell out of Iraq as quickly as possible, that worthy goal has to be measured against the fact that for every day they are not liberated from their terrible unaccomplishable mission, American troops are serving the interests of a clearly unfit and probably insane commander-in-chief. We may pity the men and women forced into the service of such a leader. We should pity more the people upon whom their service is inflicted. May 31, 2004
©2004 by J. Karlin, all rights reserved

This is reprinted from 2005 - but just as applicable today...

Still looking for the "lesser evil;" As Bush flounders, Liberal Left left leaderless

Roy Rollin, Left Hooke

 

October 27, 2005

With George Bush's political capital plummeting faster than the value of Enron stock, one would think that the ostensible "opposition" party would be cashing theirs in just as quickly. From the debacle in Iraq to the disaster in New Orleans to the rapid rise in gas prices, the "mandate" that Bush claimed to have following his theft of last year's elections seems hopelessly out of date. Then there's Republican heavyweights Tom DeLay and Bill Frist getting caught with their hands in the till while Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby are obviously behind the "outing" of a CIA agent, something that got Philip Agee into hot water years ago. But since the administration's official "opposition" happens to agree with them on almost every issue of substance, Bush is probably losing little sleep over any challenges coming his way from the Democrats.

Thus, his nominee for Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts, despite a reactionary and racist record second to none, sailed smoothly through the Senate. Long time liberals like Russ Feingold and Patrick Leahy wasted no time in giving Roberts thumbs up in the Senate Justice Committee. Considering the kid glove treatment the rest of the Democrats gave him in the Senate as a whole, it appears that Bush would have to appoint someone wearing a white sheet and brandishing a burning cross for the Democrats to even entertain the idea of actively opposing him. Or her, for that matter, as they get ready to roll over for Bush's latest nominee, anti-abortion zealot and corporate mouthpiece Harriet Miers. And lest we forget, stopping Bush from packing the Supreme Court with his conservative cronies was one of the main reasons cited by the liberal left last year for yet again backing the Democrats.

Of course if there is any one issue that has brought Bush's approval ratings tumbling down it is the war in Iraq. Poll after poll shows that a clear majority of the population not only oppose the war but that an increasing amount of Americans are starting to agree with Cindy Sheehan that the immediate withdrawal of all American troops is clearly on the agenda. The massive antiwar demonstrations that took place across the country on September 24 were clearly a reflection of that. Only the one place that this sentiment has yet to find an echo is amongst the Democrats. As if to prove, once again, the old adage that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the twin parties of the ruling rich, Howard Dean, last year's scourge of the DLC, who is now the party chairman, took Karl Rove's advice that "no serious politician should embrace immediate withdrawal" when he told Cindy Sheehan that opposition to the war had no place in the program of the Democratic party … even though the majority of the country agrees far more with Sheehan than with Rove, or Dean, for that matter.

This, of course, is nothing new. During the run-up to invasion of Iraq, Democrats in the Senate, like Hillary Clinton, were besieged by calls and letters from constituents urging them not to vote in favor of giving Bush a blank check to go to war. Needless to say, these stalwart "democrats" and self-styled "representatives of the people" chose to vote with the millionaires and not the millions. Dean, in fact, was never a real opponent of the war to begin with.

Nor were, or are, the Democrats as a party. Whatever "opposition" they may have mustered back in the days of "WMDs" and "links to Al Queda," Dean and the more risqué Democrats only opposed the Bush regime's "unilateralism," preferring to get the seal of approval from the UN for multi-lateral aggression instead. After all, Bill Clinton starved a million and a half Iraqis to death with the blessing of the UN. Since becoming chair of the DNC, a move hailed as a great victory by many a "progressive," Dean has gone so far as to wish Bush success in carrying out the occupation of Iraq, since "now that we’re there, we can’t leave". But how could it be otherwise? John Kerry, who pushed Dean aside as the party's standard-bearer last year, campaigned as being even more pro-war than Bush was. Thus he called for 40,000 additional troops in order to better wage the war. He repeatedly used the word "kill" in all the debates in order to better hammer home that point. Even Hubert Humphrey displayed more opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968 - when he was still second in command of the regime waging it!( Read more... )

from Counterpunch:

By RICHARD W. BEHAN

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

--Article III, Section 3, United States Constitution (emphasis added)

T he mainstream Democrats-represented, say, by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Christopher Dodd-have not levied war against the United States. Their treason lies instead in committing the second offense: they adhere to enemies of the country, giving them aid and comfort.

The enemies are President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney. Like no other president and vice president in history, these men attacked their country.

It was not our geography George Bush and Richard Cheney invaded. Instead they abandoned and subverted the bedrock institution of our Constitutional democracy: the rule of law. By word and deed, Mr. Bush repeatedly and arrogantly sets himself above the law, claiming obedience to be a matter of Presidential choice. Mr. Cheney orchestrates, coaches, applauds and iterates.

This cannot stand if the country we know and cherish is to survive. George Bush and Richard Cheney are literally enemies of the state; long before now and by any measure of Constitutional justice they should have been impeached and removed from office.

Abjectly, continuously, and stubbornly refusing to hold them accountable, however, the mainstream Democrats adhere to this criminal president and vice president: nothing they have asked for has been denied, no barriers placed in their way. That is giving them aid and comfort, and that is treason.

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McCain launches fall campaign as Obama embraces Iraq “surge”

The events of Thursday, September 4 demonstrate the two overriding political facts of the 2008 US presidential election campaign: a Republican Party in deep political crisis and widely hated for its program of social reaction and war, and a Democratic Party that represents no alternative whatsoever, galloping to the right.

Senator John McCain gave an acceptance speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention. The 72-year-old candidate, a 26-year veteran of Congress, postured absurdly as the proponent of change, seeking to run as far away as possible from his own party and the Bush administration whose major policies he has supported for the past eight years.

Only a few hours earlier, Democrat Barack Obama, in an interview on Fox television, waved the white flag on what had once been the principal issue in his campaign, the war in Iraq. He told right-wing talk show host Bill O’Reilly that the escalation of US military aggression in Iraq, dubbed the “surge” by Bush and McCain, had “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.” He went on to threaten military action against Iran as well.  full article here

An Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq
from Stan Goff

from Counterpunch:

On February 1, 1996, I retired from the United States Army. I had served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam as an infantryman, the 82nd Airborne Division, the 4th Infantry Division, 2nd Ranger Battalion, the Jungle Operations Training Center, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta, the United States Military Academy at West Point, 1st Ranger Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, 75th Ranger Regiment, and finally 3rd Special Forces Group. I worked all over "hot spots" in Latin America during the 80s and early 90s. I participated in Grenada and Somalia; and I was the team sergeant for a Special Forces A-Detachment during the 1994 invasion of Haiti. In all that time, I was one of those atheists in the foxholes they say don't exist. I could never have known that I'd find the faith to follow Christ and be baptized on Easter of my 56th year. But I did, even when I'd never grasped for spiritual reassurance as I slogged through the Central Highlands of Vietnam, leapt from airplanes into the night, or had helicopters shot out from under me. I've been taking up residence close to death for a long time. My faith isn't about jumping over death. It's about reconciling with God, who Jesus Christ showed us is Love.

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CNN is claiming that the China may misrepresented the age of some members of its Olympic gymnastic team. 

Meanwhile, let's look at some of the lies told about the current occupant of the U.S. Presidential Palace::

1) The massive stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons allegedly possessed by the Iraq government

2) Saddam Hussein's alleged direct responsibility for the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon

3) "We don't torture" (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/eveningnews/main1979106.shtml)- while Bush was operating torture chambers at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, and a whole chain of franchised CIA prisons across the globe.

4)  and 935 more lies about the war against the people of Iraq - see http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/?gclid=CN7byvT2opUCFQNvHgodAm2skQ

Compared to Bush's lies, which amount to war crimes according to the Nuremburg Charter, China's fudging of a few birthdays seems pretty minor.

from Alternet:

Michael Moore Dares to Ask: What's So Heroic About Being Shot Down While Bombing Innocent Civilians?

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on August 21, 2008, Printed on August 22, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/95906/

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan featured testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

This four-day event brought together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists gave context to the testimony. These panels covered everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support.

• Watch testimony video
• Listen to audio archives at warcomeshome.org (a project of KPFA)
• High-quality video of Winter Soldier is available - click here for more information.
• Winter Soldier media coverage and press information
• Winter Soldier Liveblog
• Winter Soldier on the Hill (May 15th) on CSPAN
• Winter Soldier on the Hill (May 15th) audio from KPFA
• Winter Soldier on the Hill PBS NewsHour coverage
• More info on Winter Soldier on the Hill

The noise and pageantry of the Presidential election makes it easy to forget some of the basic issues.  Beyond the fluff about "change" and "experience", there are the basic facts of the criminal occupation of Iraq - racism, greed, and brutality...

April 28, 2004

The Consequences of Colonization in Iraq

We Are the Barbarians

By M. JUNAID ALAM

A significant thing: it is not the head of a civilization that begins to rot first. It is the heart.
-Aimé Césaire

Jaw agape and fangs unsheathed, American colonialism has lashed out with severe brutality against the newly-unified Iraqi resistance, counting on its military might to crush the aspirations of Iraqis who seek to liberate their country from foreign control.

Relying so heavily on the force of arms against a people it claims to liberate, the US has inverted Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other means; our policy now is politics as a continuation of war by other means.

But it so happens that this is a double-edged sword ­ with both edges thrust firmly into the heart of the occupation. For no matter how many Iraqi patriots America kills, ten more will spring forward for each who has fallen; and no matter how many are silenced by American bullets, the viciousness and arrogance with which those bullets were fired will speak loudly and convincingly to thousands of Iraqis who will be inspired to resist.

To illustrate our point it is necessary only to direct our gaze upon that great unfolding tragedy of Fallujah, the epicenter and icon of Iraqi resistance. US forces surrounded and attacked the city on the grounds of pursuing Iraqis who killed and then mutilated the bodies of four American mercenaries. The massive assault was carried out with the usual concern for civilian life: namely, none.

'Precision' weapons such as 2,000 lb. bombs and the massive Specter gunship, armed with four high-powered machine guns, were brought to bear against the town, as were attack helicopters and 60-ton tanks. Our troops employed such life-saving tactics as lobbing 18 tank shells into one house to kill one person and firing helicopter missiles at a rebel wielding a slingshot. (1) One Fallujah resident explained to the press, "As soon as the Americans see a group of people in the streets, they shoot at them, people venture out only if their homes risk being bombarded or if they must carry the dead or wounded to the city's clinics." A young Iraqi member of the US-created Civil Defense Corps saw "heavy bombings" with the town market hit, and "tanks ringing the town." (2) US snipers in the city, perhaps the only precision weapons deployed, have put their uniqueness to good use: shooting through ambulance windshields and killing their drivers. (3)

What were the broad consequences of this operation for the people of Fallujah? Thousands have fled and over 600 have been killed; the main hospital director said "most of the 600 dead in Fallujah were women, children, and elderly." (4)

from http://www.resisters.ca/actions.html

STOP THE DEPORTATION OF U.S. IRAQ WAR RESISTERS – LET THEM STAY!