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They Lied: A Letter to the Troops in Iraq
By Paul Street at Nov 10, 2006 |
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This is a letter to United States military personnel stationed in occupied Iraq:
Dear Soldiers in Iraq:
They LIE. They LIED to You. And they LIED to us. And they are still LYING to all of us.
Today some of you heard and/or saw a special videotaped message from the recently deposed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an open war criminal who worked to secure U.S. support for Saddam Hussein during the middle 1980s and who sent you without adequate support and equipment into an illegal occupation in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. In his goodbye message, Rumsfield thanked you for responding to a terrorist attack on the American homeland by “taking the fight to the enemy.” You certainly deserve Rumsfeld's gratitude, but his thank you shows that he insists on LYING to you to the bitter end.
As more and more of you certainly know every day, Rumsfeld, Bush and others further down the command structure deceived you with the claim that Rumsfeld's old freind Saddam Hussein was linked in any relevant way to the 9/11 terror attacks. As a growing number of you certainly suspect and is evident to an ever-larger share of the American populace, the occupation in which so many of you are both experiencing and inflicting irreparable harm has been predicated on a series of deep DECEPTIONS developed and disseminated by rich and powerful policymakers who expect you to kill and die for their crimes, their LIES, and their “mistakes.” They have put you in harm's way on the criminal basis of one unforgivable FALSEHOOD after another.
First there were the Big WMD, al Qaeda and 9/11 LIES. At the outset, dominant U.S. media dutifully relayed White House myths about Saddam Hussein's “weapons of mass destruction” and his alleged connections to al Qaeda and 9/11. It did this despite the abundant availability at the time of evidence showing that Saddam's regime possessed so significant WMD stocks and had no connection either to al Qaeda (or other Islamist-terrorist forces) or the terrible events of 9/11/2001. “Mainstream” journalists like to say that they know better now, but the FALSE nature of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's claims was readily apparent to numerous observers well in advance of the invasion.
Then came the Big “Mission Accomplished” LIE. With cameras positioned to deceptively sell the toppling of Saddam's statute (torn down with the help of an American tank) as a great moment of popular Iraqi rebellion, American media played along with the nonsense that a quick and sweeping “victory” had been attained.
I don't need to tell you that this claim was pure, unadulterated bullshit. What you might not know is that there existed at the time numerous, readily available reasons to know that the occupation was going to lead to mass U.S. casualties while killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and triggering a terrible chain of events guaranteed to produce widespread devastation across Iraq, including civil war.
Then came the Big “Bad Intelligence” LIE. When it became belatedly clear to “mainstream” war media that there were no Iraqi WMD, that Saddam was not connected to al Qaeda et al. or 9/11 and that the occupation was becoming a prolonged and bloody nightmare for the Iraqis (and for U.S. soldiers), leading news and communications institutions transmitted the irresponsible notion that the occupation had been undertaken on the basis of “honest mistakes” rooted in “faulty intelligence.” this was complete bullshit: we know very well that the “bad intelligence” about Iraq was being “fixed around the [pre-existing] policy” (to quote the July 2002 “Downing Street Memo”) of invading Iraq. The “intelligence” that supported the invasion of Iraq was not “bad;”it was “cooked”: made to order for enactment of Bush's “preemptive” war doctrine. It was good (for Bush and Rumsfeld et al,) DECEPTIVE intilligence.
There have been numerous other Iraq War LIES told to you and the American people by the administration and its many enablers during the war on Iraq. We've been told TALL TALES about the invasion of Iraq being part of the “war on terror” when it was widely understood in numerous intelligence circles that invading the sovereign Iraq would increase the threat posed to America and the world by stateless terror networks.We've been told little public relations LIES about U.S. soldiers like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. We've been instructed to think that the killing of a leading terror operative (Zarqawi) was a major step forward in the reduction of violence in Iraq. We've been asked to childishly believe that the U.S. torture of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib and other locations was the result of the misconduct of a few deranged rank-and-file GIs and not explicit, top-down U.S. policy ordered by people like Rumsfeld, Bush, and current U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.We've been told foolish TALES about ethnic violence the U.S. supposedly did nothing to create, had no reason to expect (not true…it was widely predicted) and which supposedly necessitates a continuing U.S. military presence to guarantee “public safety” (wrong: it is widely understood that the U.S. presence is provoking and sustaining violence in Iraq).
Many of you have, like us, been told the Big Democracy Promotion and Exporting “Freedom” LIE. This big FAIRY TALE was quickly disseminated once it became clear to all Americans that there were no relevant WMDs in Iraq. According to this great DECEPTION, the real reason you are in Iraq was the White House's desire to export democracy and create a truly free and sovereign Iraq. Never mind that:
? the preponderant majority of Iraqis want U.S. troops to leave their nation. According to a recent poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, 78 percent of Iraqis now believe that the U.S. military presence is “provoking more conflict than it is preventing” and that 61 percent of Iraqis now approve of attacks on American soldiers. .
? a poll commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence last year found that fully 82 percent of Iraqis were “‘strongly opposed' to the presence of foreign troops and that less than 1 percent believed the troops were responsible for improvement in security.”
? a poll conducted by our own State Department reports that almost three-fourths of Baghdad's residents would “feel safer” if U.S. forces left their country.
? 72 percent of Americans surveyed by the mainstream Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 2004 (the percentage is certainly higher today) said that the U.S. should remove its military from Iraq if that's what a clear majority of Iraqis want.
? more than half the U.S. population now says the war on Iraq is NOT morally justified.
? a majority of the population now rejects administration's efforts to link the war on Iraq with the so-called “war on terror.”
? 60 percent of the U.S population opposes the war.
? Sixty-one percent believe that some troops should be removed before the end of the year and 57 percent want a timetable for full withdrawal.
? These policy choices supported by the American popular majority have been denounced by the LIAR-in chief George W. Bush as naïve elitist “appeasement” – so-called “cut and run” – even while he insists that the war is being fought on behalf of the idea that government should reflect the “will of the people.”
? one of the first actions of the U.S. occupation authorities was to open up much of Iraq's economy to multinational corporate ownership – an action that would never have been supported by the Iraqi majority and which violated core principles of national independence.
? the U.S. is building a large number of permanent military bases in richly oil-strategic Iraq (Iraqis who believe the U.S. seeks permanent bases are especially prone to support attacks on U.S. troops)
? the U.S. is a close ally and sponsor of the feudal, arch-repressive Saudi Arabian regime along with numerous other authoritarian state and political forces in the Middle East and around the world. U.S. policymakers have long been willing to collaborate with Saudi Arabia and other harshly anti-democratic states in the region for one very simple and obvious reason: American access to, and control of, that region's unparalleled petroleum reserves.
And never mind that that the notion of the Iraqi people doing whatever they wish with their own state's critical petroleum resources – second or third only to those of Saudi Arabia – is completely unacceptable to U.S. foreign policy makers from either of the nation's dominant two parties. As is widely understood around the world and is apparent to some inside the U.S., the White House sent you off to kill; and die in Iraq because that occupied nation possess stupendous oil resources, mostly untapped, and is located in the center of the world's super-strategic energy system. Even Bush has recently acknowledged (in his own backhanded sort of way) that his war on Iraq is largely an oil invasion that is all about dominating the leading petroleum centers of the planet. That's why some of you and your comrades have been ordered from the start to set up permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.
We have long possessed abundant evidence that Rumsfeld, Cheney, and other highly placed “neoconservative” policymakers saw 9/11 not as a national tragedy as a great opportunity for them to rally popular support for their preexisting goal of invading Iraq – a nation whose people and dictator had nothing to do with al Qaeda or 9/11. We know very well that Rumsfeld was plotting to use the jetliner attacks as a pretext for attacking Iraq even before the smoke had cleared from the Pentagon. We can be sure that he was planning for the U.S. chain of command to pass down to you the big LIE that Saddam and Iraq were linked to the attacks.
We know that the Iraq War is completely and monumentally illegal under international law and that it commits the ultimate crime under that law: an aggressive and unprovoked war with no remotely just basis in the requirements of self defense. From the moment that American and other “coalition” forces initiated hostilities without authorization from the United Nations Security Council, the invasion was illegal. The Charter of the United Nations, universally accepted as legally binding, is quite clear on this: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" (Article 2(4)). It is for the Security Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" which would allow for any possible limited resort to armed force (Article 39).
The recent defeat of George W. Bush's Republican War Party in the mid-term congressional elections this week was driven largely by popular U.S. dissatisfaction both with Bush and Rumsfeld's war and with the endless series of deceptions that have accompanied that war. Since the new party in congressional power lacks a clear policy on the war and largely shares Bush's imperial determination to maintain a permanent military presence in oil-rich Iraq, however, the elections do not mean that all or many of you will be coming home and escaping apparently deepening danger (the U.S. body count has escalated significantly during the last two months) anytime soon. Numerous leading Democrats will be content to see hundreds, perhaps thousands, more of you die for the criminal LIES of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney over months and maybe years to come.
It is important for you to know that Bush and Cheney were of military age when the U.S. was fighting a war on Vietnam – a war that both of them supported. Both of them made sure that they themselves would NOT have to put their own precious bodies on the line in a war they supported and in which 58,000 Americans died (along with 2 million Vietnamese). Bush got himself placed in a safe National Guard position; he skipped out even on that. Cheney recalls having “other priorities” during the war. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are all millionaires at the same time that they are LYING war masters. They remind many observers of the following lines from a song that Bob Dylan wrote more than forty years ago:
Like Judas of Old
You LIE and Deceive...
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
You sit back and watch
While the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansions
While young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And gets buried in the mud
(Masters of War, 1962)
Today's wealthy war masters, like those of the Vietnam era and in other wars, believe that the rich and privileged shouldn't have to fight in bloody imperial campaigns that make them yet richer. They believe that they are too good to have to suffer the terrible physical, mental, and spiritual dangers you regularly face by having to participate in an illegal and unjust war that has so far killed at least 650,000 Iraqis. Like your predecessors in Vietnam after early 1968, you are expected to sacrifice your lives and/or your physical and/or mental and spiritual health to provide cover for American rulers' LIES, crimes, and “mistakes” even after those LIES. crimes, and "mistakes" have become shockingly clear to a dissatisfied majority at home.
Many of us at home don't think you should have to do this. Please consider taking immediate action to end this illegal war. There is currently no legitimate reason for any more of you to have to die or receive terrible injuries or kill or maim others in Iraq. There never has been, but the illegitemacy of the war in now more evident than ever inside the U.S. The Bushes and Rumsfelds and the rest of their war-master ilk (a group that includes plenty of Democrats, unfortunately) can't commit these terrible crimes if you refuse to accept their LIES and if you refuse to participate in their monumentally illegal and mass-murderous occupation of Iraq.
It's good news that Bush's party has been defeated, swept out of congressional power by a wave of popular revulsion against his war and the LIES that created and sustained that war. But the Democrats are divided, confused, frightened, and significantly confused about what to do. They will spend a good period of time dithering and collaborating with Bush while you are asked to kill, maim, die, and suffer for LIES and policies you never made. The good news is that there is a new opening now at home for a more intelligent and democratic discussion of U.S. policy options in Iraq.
Soldiers on the ground know more about the suffering imposed by this war than any other Americans. You can encourage, expedite, and inform the discussion at home and help end the murderous tragedy over there by refusing to participate any further in crimes that have been advanced and sustained by monumental LIES from the beginning and through the present.
Peace
A U.S. Citizen in the American Midwest
Re to the Re
By Gmycio, Sgtr at Nov 17, 2006 17:45 PM
Paul doesn't like the U.S. electoral system. His criticism appears to be two fold. The populous isn't represented and neither are his views. To borrow a phrase, “the Man” is keeping everyone down. Unbeknownst to Paul, the “establishment” does not keep people off the ballot.
Candidates are on the November ballot as a result of the primaries. To be placed on a primary ballot, all one needs to do is collect a certain number of signatures. Anyone can do it. If peaceniks, Paul's candidates of choice, were on the primary ballot but not on the November ballot that means those candidates lost the primary election, i.e., people/the electorate did not support their views. Simply, those views were not November electoral options because the electorate did not choose those to be options.
Paul's implied cynicism shows a great distrust in a) the voting process, and b) the public's ability to choose a candidate. Both choices reek of his arrogance: “Paul knows better.” Perhaps third parties such as the Greens and the Reform Party are not viable simply because they are not encompassing the greatest number of views needed to be elected. If Paul is interested in a broad number of interests being represented, a parliamentary system may be to his liking. Unfortunately, that too is contradictory to his familiar claim that the masses should rule. In a parliamentary system, small competing interest groups vie for influence, not the masses that Paul continuously holds in high regard. So again, Paul is full of double speak, “the masses should be represented, but the masses don't represent my point of view, which should be represented.”
The War on Terror is a repeated target of Paul's. He often cries, “Bush lied, people died” or words to that effect. To paraphrase Paul, the intelligence agencies of every government were wrong about Saddam Hussein's intent and WMD capability. Paul, however, knew the truth prior to the actual invasion of Iraq. He relies on Scott Ritter, the same Scott Ritter that had been on Saddam Hussein's payroll. While Ritter may appear be right, he was not credible because of his incredible monetary bias. That alone would normally be enough to lose Paul's support. Additionally, Ritter was also the only member of the team in Iraq looking for WMDs to say there were no WMDs – yet another reason he was discredited - no one else using the same evidence agreed with him. Again, that would normally be enough to lose Paul's support. So why did Paul believe Ritter? Because Paul himself is bias and chooses to simply criticize anything the U.S. government does. In an argument over the justness of U.S. actions, the U.S. always loses. Subjective wins over objective every time. The fact remains, EVERY intelligence agency in the world, and even Hussein's own people, said WMDs existed. The evidence now points to those very same WMDs having been exported to Syria. In other words, the jury is still out. If the jury doesn't come back with a verdict of “not-guilty,” however, Paul will surely cry foul.
As Paul's reliance on Scott Ritter shows, the weight of the evidence is of know importance unless it supports his view. For example, in specific criticisms of the Iraq War, Paul mentions 650,000 Iraqi deaths. One can only presume he is referring to the widely discredited Lancet Report. It is discredited 1) because of its methodology, and 2) because the math doesn't add-up. It would mean more than 350 Iraqi's per day are being killed. There is simply no evidence for this except for the widely discredited Lancet report. Additionally, when Paul is asked to reference the international laws that make the Iraq war illegal, he simply chooses to ignore the very same international law that justifies the war. Paul's assertion to the legal status of the war is enough. Paul is now ruler of the universe.
If Paul wants to argue based on accusation and emotion, fine. But if Paul wants to be taken seriously, he's going to have to do a much better job.
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hey jim
By Kissenger, Clark at Nov 12, 2006 17:39 PM
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Mariam
By Kissenger, Clark at Nov 12, 2006 13:12 PM
Mariam, I dont know if you are aware but zmag blogs have RSS enabled wich means you can have direct wiriting from Paul into your web pages and blogs.. I kinda think its cool, sometimes I go you yahoo answers and answer few questions, if someone does click on my profile, the RSS are active.. I think its a good thing because it can bring people to think a littel bit more about problems facing our society, at any rate it has the potential to bring good political discussion.
see RSS example below
http://360.yahoo.com/profile-1s6pNr4yYrS6UEPcq9nM2Sry
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MSNBC Poll: 87 percent say Impeach Bush
By Kissenger, Clark at Nov 11, 2006 19:12 PM
The populace is left of the Democratic Party. We might have Pelosi and Conyers launching preemptive non-war on the president. We also have 87 percent - I said 87 percent -- of participants in an MSNBC online poll (you have to vote to see the results) say that Bush should be be (imagine) impeached (do ya think?). No that's not a full blown sociial scientific poll (not even close), but still that's a helluva number and consistent with Bush's current and now all time low approval rating of 31 percent. He's heading into Nixon's Watergate territory. The people in that 31 percent must be a strange and scary bunch indeed.
Here is the David Brooks' column (the source for my Brooks reference in my last comment) in which the Lieberman-loving Republican NYT columnist expresses his bipartisan awe for Obama.
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I read the article after I wrote my rant
By Russell, Mariam at Nov 11, 2006 16:43 PM
You said it more completely than I so everybody read Paul´s article on z-net home page.
I have to warn you, Paul, I will steal bits and pieces of it for some of the lamebrains I encounter on other sites. I will tell them you said it.
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As I said,,,,
By Kissenger, Clark at Nov 11, 2006 12:24 PM
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There's a lot of sentiment like this I think....
By Kissenger, Clark at Nov 11, 2006 12:20 PM
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CHANGE.......
By Russell, Mariam at Nov 11, 2006 11:57 AM
How in the world are we to change anything with Nancy Pelosi genuflecting and kissing the ring?
In the 72 hours since she has taken the mantle of the next Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi repeated her pledge that “impeachment is off the table.” In her victory press conference, she didn't speak of the need to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that revoked habeas corpus and legalized torture. She didn't decry the unending death and destruction that is daily terrorizing the people of Iraq. She did not pledge to stand firmly against the new war being prepared against Iran. Nor did she make a peep about defending women's right to abortion and gay rights – even as Roe V. Wade is under increasing threat and gay marriage bans passed in an additional seven states.
Instead, she recast this election as a mandate on manners and effectiveness: "The American people spoke out for a return to civility to the Capitol in Washington and how Congress conducts its work…And Democrats pledge civility and bipartisanship in the conduct of the work here, and we pledge partnerships with the Republicans in Congress and the president, not partisanship."
I DID NOT VOTE FOR THIS.
MANNERS?
KILLING PEOPLE IS THE ULTIMATE BAD MANNERS.
BIPARTISANISM?
ONLY IN THE SENSE OF CLEANING UP THE GROTESQUE MESS CREATED BY THE COLLABORATION OF THE REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS IN THE LAST 6 YEARS.
50% OF THE TAXES COLLECTED IS EARMARKED FOR THE MILITARY AND INTREST ON THE DEBT!
THAT DOES NOT LEAVE MUCH FOR A COUNTRY OF 300,000,000 PEOPLE TO CREATE A DECENT LIFE FOR ALL......WHICH AFTER ALL IS ONE OF THE CHIEF REASONS FOR PEOPLE TO BAND TOGETHER AND WORK WITH POOLED RESOURCES, CALLED GOVERNMENT.
I KNOW, WE ARE INVITED TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS SO THAT A FEW OF US CAN BECOME OBSCENELY WEALTHY AND THE CRUMBS FROM THEIR TABLES WILL TRICKLE DOWN TO FEED THE REST OF US WHO, NOT BEING SO EXALTED AS THESE FEW, DO NOT NEED THINGS LIKE DECENT HOUSING, HEALTHCARE, JOBS THAT PAY A WAGE THAT WILL SUPPORT MORE THAN A CANARY, YOU KNOW, TRIVIAL THINGS LIKE THAT.
IT ALSO DOES NOT EVEN LEAVE ENOUGH TO PROVIDE THE CARE NEEDED FOR THE VETERANS RETURNING WOUNDED IN BODY, MIND, AND SOUL. THAT MEANS YOU GUYS WILL GET TO JOIN THE VIETNAM VETS LIVING IN THE STREETS OR UNDER THE VARIOUS BRIDGES WHEN YOU GET OUT OF THE VETERAN´S HOSPITAL THAT YOU WILL BE PRIVILEGED TO SHARE WITH RATS AND ROACHES, I UNDERSTAND FROM READING RON KOVIC AND A FEW OTHERS.
DO I SOUND PISSED? YOU BET! I AM 65 YEARS OLD AND HAVE NEVER BEEN AS PISSED IN MY MEMORY.
.
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that aint no victory
By Kissenger, Clark at Nov 10, 2006 20:25 PM
Paul, it seem that a lots of democrats take Rumfeld's fall from grace like a victory.. also I always find it odd that whenever there is some sort of democrat advance some al-quaida video or audio does surfaces (BBC audio).
Paul it seem that the bad cop, good cop theory be use to deal with Iraq will be prevalent with the Democrats..
Trivial Media in "the Nation that Stands Taller and Sees Farther"
"The Same Opportunities as a Kid from the United States"
If We're Lucky, Bush Will Make Things Worse:" Bush, Kerry, and the Pitfalls of Backlash Theory
I can't to see improvements from the democrats, I too am failing to grasp the difference in position between the political parties.
I am taking the morbid guess that american death in Iraq will become higher under the democrats.Reply this comment