[Mb-civic] Mission Accomplished...and it just gets worse

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Much talk about the bombings in London this week.  Lurking behind it is Iraq.  
I was just watching PBS news hour with Jim Lehrer interviewing the outgoing 
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Meyers, talking about how well 
things are going over there.  Lehrer didn't challenge him much.  Never mind 
Fox News!  So, my fellow Americans, we need to read pieces like the two 
below to stay in touch with what our tax dollars are really doing, to stay out of 
denial, because the brutal facts are always required before anything better can 
happen.... --mha atma


Progreso Weekly - July 7, 2005
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=11
20798800

Mission accomplished: Iraq is broken

By Saul Landau

It's hard to believe that supposedly intelligent people like Senators
Joseph Biden (DE), Hillary Clinton (NY) and John Kerry (MA) call for
"staying the course" in Iraq and acting responsibly by sending more U.S.
troops with more fire power over there. Don't they understand that
American soldiers break, not fix? The more U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the more
damage they will do and the more enemies they will make. To limit damage,
to act morally and responsibly, remove the cause of violence and chaos in
Iraq: the U.S. military presence.

Since the early 1950s, U.S. Presidents have used troops and the CIA to
break other countries, not fix them. In 1953, the CIA shattered Iran's
integrity by overthrowing the elected Mossadegh government. Twenty-six
years later, Iranians overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah. In 1979, Iranians
showed the depth of their rage by also seizing scores of U.S. officials as
hostages. The Ayatollah's regime labeled the United States "The Great
Satan" - for screwing their country.

In 1954, the CIA smashed Guatemala by overthrowing a democratically
elected government and replacing it with a military gang that killed
and looted for forty years. Embraced by the Pentagon, these gangsters in
uniform slaughtered as many as 100,000 Guatemalans (mostly indigenous
peasants) and stole their land. The country has not yet recovered.

On September 11, 1973, Richard Nixon helped rupture Chile by
"destabilizing" its elected government. For seventeen subsequent
years, Washington supported a bloody military dictatorship led by
General August Pinochet, a specialist in assassinating, disappearing
and torturing his opponents at home and abroad. In 1991, the civilian
government's National Truth and Reconciliation Commission listed
Pinochet's crimes: 3,197 people assassinated or disappeared, tens of
thousands tortured, hundreds of thousands forced into exile.

In March 2003, George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to break Iraq. The
U.S. arsenal destroyed the electricity and water supply, damaged sewage
treatment and other vital sanitary facilities and pulverized bridges,
other public places and thousands of homes. On May 1, 2003, dressed in a
jump suit, Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced: 
"Mission
Accomplished."

His critics, myself included, laughed at such braggadocio. We
misunderstood him. He had accomplished the standard post-WWII US
military mission: He broke another country.

The U.S.-led Coalition has not restored what it demolished in Iraq,
nor reestablished services to the level of Saddam Hussein's regime.
They imprisoned tens of thousands of Iraqis, subjecting many of those to
systematic torture.

Former prisoner Ali Abbas told journalist Dahr Jamail that to break
the will of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib "used
electricity on us" while millions of homes lacked electricity for
hours each day. "They also shit on us, used dogs against us...and
starved us." As Abbas told Jamail, "the Americans delivered
electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house" (Jamail
testimony at the World Tribunal on Iraq, June 25, 2005, Istanbul).
Estimates of Iraqis in prison range as high as eighty thousand, most
of whom have not been charged.

In 1991, during the first Gulf War, the breaking began. U.S. planes
and artillery delivered more than 300 tons of uranium tipped bombs and
shells to targets in southern Iraq alone. Residue from these weapons
turned into particles that people - including U.S. troops - inhaled. In
2003, more U.S. toxic material rained down on the Iraqi environment.

In September 2002, I saw dying kids in the Baghdad Children's
Hospital. Iraqi doctors had already surmised that only the presence of
depleted uranium could have caused such a profound spike in the cancer
rates among children.

In June 2005, Dr. Thomas Fasy of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
concluded that data from Iraqi hospitals indicated that depleted
uranium's effect had shown up dramatically in a more than 400% rise in
children's cancer in just over a decade.  Uranium ions bond with DNA and
this, he said, has also caused a notable leap in children's leukemia rates
along with sharply elevated incidences of congenital birth defects. The
United States literally released cancer-causing material into Iraqi air,
soil and water.

This toxic metal had performed the coup de grace to the Iraqi health
system, already devastated by US bombing and embargo, Fasy said. The
cost of such breakage: human life (World Tribunal on Iraq, June 26,
2005).

In November 2004, U.S. soldiers carried out punitive action in
Falluja, a city of some 300,000 residents, an operation that surpassed the
1936 Nazi bombing of Guernica in Spain. Falluja was reduced to rubble.
Thousands died.

On the economic front, Washington broke Iraq as well - of its
socialist habit. U.S. colonial administrator J. Paul Bremer forced a
constitution down Iraqi throats - to break their statist economic
system. He planned to privatize some 200 state-owned enterprises.
Management of port facilities at Umm Qasr went to Stevedoring Services of
America, a U.S. company. "Bremer studiously ignored the rapidly rising
unemployment and social disorder that arose from the destruction of a
social order." "If privatization isn't halted," wrote Naomi Klein, `free
Iraq' will be the most sold country on earth" (The Nation, April 28,
2003).

But Iraqis resist. They continually sabotage the oil pipeline. Indeed,
such tactics have caused major oil companies to lose enthusiasm for owning
Iraqi oil. Besides, they do well under the current OPEC arrangement - $60
a barrel - and have no wish to change it.

Iraqi workers also have not welcomed the selling of state-owned
factories to foreigners. Some work forces have even threatened to
assassinate prospective buyers. This does not make investors feel as
if modern Iraq provides a welcome climate (Naomi Klein, speech at Cal Poly
Pomona, November 2004).

The chaos that engulfs Iraq does not improve from the presence of U.S.
troops. Iraqis who testified in the Istanbul World Tribunal on Iraq told
about intense hatred of their people for the occupiers. The Iraqis feel
abused by far more than the publicized incidents at Abu Ghraib. On routine
U.S. patrols and raids, trigger-happy young soldiers gun down innocent
Iraqis. Pilots drop bombs on coordinates where people live. The 2004
documentary Gunner Palace resembles scenes from the TV show Cops. GIs 
bash down doors, charge into homes with fingers on rifle triggers shouting 
"on the floor motherfucker," while women scream and children cry. The
humiliated and handcuffed men go to prison. The soldiers then return to
their posh living quarters and count the days remaining before they can go
home. Like the GIs in Vietnam three plus decades ago, those in Iraq
sacrifice lives, limbs and psyches. But as the film makes clear, most
don't know the purpose of their military mission.

Indeed, Iraqis recall well how U.S. troops watched passively while
massive looting took place of their national, historic treasure [How
does one fix a broken Babylon? A crime wave swept the country and
Armed Americans shrugged. Women can no longer walk the streets in
safety as they once did. U.S. occupations have also pitted Sunnis
against Shiites, Kurds against Turkmen. Some Iraqi Christians have
fled in fear to Syria. Bush omitted these facts and ignored the
violence and chaos that define daily life. US personnel avidly train
young Iraqis into constabulary form - those that survive the regular
suicide bombings and other attacks aimed at the police.

This scenario - reality - does not penetrate the heads of key
Democrats who continue to talk about "our obligation" to fix Iraq.
Words don't fix broken lives or property. Commitment to democracy
calls for more than the United States appointing an Iraqi government
and calling it democratic or forcing an Iraqi election in which
millions bravely voted, but for what never got reported. The media and the
White House ignored the startling fact that the majority of Iraqis voted
against the U.S.-chosen Iyad Allawi and for the United Iraqi Alliance,
which demanded "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces
from Iraq" (The Nation, February 11, 2005).

Instead of picking up on the withdrawal demand, before more breakage
occurs, foolish Democratic Senators demand that Bush send in more
troops. Bush ironically appears as more moderate as he appeals for
patriotic unity in the form of flying the flag on July 4.

What must Iraqis feel at the sight of that flag on July 4? In its
name, the U.S. military has destroyed their cities, tortured their
people, shot many of them for no reason at checkpoints or wherever the
troops happened to be patrolling. Iraqis have scarce electricity, food and
water and no secure jobs. Yet, Bush keeps repeating that he "liberated
Iraq."

On June 28, addressing the Special Forces at Fort Bragg, Bush asked
implying that "our" people had given up a lot to wage his war : "Is
the sacrifice worth it?" He quickly answered his own question. "It is
worth it..."

The Iraq war has cost him nothing - perhaps a few hours of missed
video golf. "We have more work to do," he stated. Yes, Bush stands as a
national model of sacrifice and hard work! And Iraqis must think that
those Democrats who ask for more troops are either crazy or stark
opportunists. It will take them that much longer to restore some integrity
to their broken society.

[Landau testified before the World Tribunal on Iraq June 24-27, Istanbul.]

***

It Just Gets Worse
    By Bob Herbert
    The New York Times
    Monday 11 July 2005

    Back in March 2004 President Bush had a great time displaying what he
felt was a hilarious set of photos showing him searching the Oval Office
for the weapons of mass destruction that hadn't been found in Iraq. It was
a spoof he performed at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television
Correspondents' Association.

    The photos showed the president peering behind curtains and looking
under furniture for the missing weapons. Mr. Bush offered mock captions
for the photos, saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be
somewhere" and "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"

    If there's something funny about Mr. Bush's misbegotten war, I've yet
    to
see it. The president deliberately led Americans traumatized by the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into the false belief that there was a link
between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that a pre-emptive invasion would make the
United States less vulnerable to terrorism.

    Close to 600 Americans had already died in Iraq when Mr. Bush was
cracking up the audience with his tasteless photos at the glittering
Washington gathering. The toll of Americans has now passed 1,750. Tens of
thousands of Iraqis have died. Scores of thousands of men, women and
children have been horribly wounded. And there is no end in sight.

    Last week's terror bombings in London should be seen as a reminder not
just that Mr. Bush's war was a hideous diversion of focus and resources
from the essential battle against terror, but that it has actually
increased the danger of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

    The C.I.A. warned the administration in a classified report in May
    that
Iraq - since the American invasion in 2003 - had become a training ground
in which novice terrorists were schooled in assassinations, kidnappings,
car bombings and other terror techniques. The report said Iraq could prove
to be more effective than Afghanistan in the early days of Al Qaeda as a
place to train terrorists who could then disperse to other parts of the
world, including the United States.

    Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who served as deputy director
    of
the State Department's counterterrorism office, said on National Public
Radio last week: "You now in Iraq have a recruiting ground in which
jihadists, people who previously were not willing to go out and embrace
the vision of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, are now aligning themselves with
elements that have declared allegiance to him. And in the course of that,
they're learning how to build bombs. They're learning how to conduct
military operations."

    Has the president given any thought to leveling with the American
    people
about how bad the situation has become? And is he even considering what
for him would be the radical notion of soliciting the counsel of wise men
and women who might give him a different perspective on war and terror
than the Kool-Aid-drinking true believers who have brought us to this
dreadful state of affairs? The true believers continue to argue that the
proper strategy is to stay the current catastrophic course.

    Americans are paying a fearful price for Mr. Bush's adventure in Iraq.
In addition to the toll of dead and wounded, the war is costing about $5
billion a month. It has drained resources from critical needs here at
home, including important antiterror initiatives that would improve the
security of ports, transit systems and chemical plants.

    The war has diminished the stature and weakened the credibility of the
United Sates around the world. And it has delivered a body blow to the
readiness of America's armed forces. Much of the military is now
overdeployed, undertrained and overworked. Many of the troops are serving
multiple tours in Iraq. No wonder potential recruits are staying away in
droves.

    Whatever one's views on the war, thoughtful Americans need to consider
the damage it is doing to the United States, and the bitter anger that it
has provoked among Muslims around the world. That anger is spreading like
an unchecked fire in an incredibly vast field.

-
-- 
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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