On Dubya' and Obama

Bill Maher, with no expletives, on Former President George W. Bush compared to President Barack Obama.  Republican war hawk vs. Democratic negotiator.



It's difficult to believe we have to talk them out of these things and people.

The Iraq War, By the Numbers

From the article of the same name from  the Business Insider:

BY THE NUMBERS: The Staggering Cost Of The Iraq War

The Iraq War was so messy and costly that the best attempt to assess the sheer damage is through numbers.

We drew from sources including various news reports, The Brookings Institute 's Iraq Index, and the Costs of War Project to document money and blood spent on the war. 

189,000: Direct war deaths, which doesn't include the hundreds of thousands more that died due to war-related hardships.

4,488: U.S. service personnel killed directly.

32,223: Troops injured (not including PTSD).

134,000: Civilians killed directly.

655,000: Persons who have died in Iraq since the invasion that would not have died if the invasion had not occurred.

150: Reporters killed.

2.8 million: Persons who remain either internally displaced or have fled the country.

$1.7 trillion: Amount in war expenses spent by the U.S. Treasury Department as through Fiscal Year 2013.

$5,000: Amount spent per second.

$350,000: Cost to deploy one American military member.

$490 billion: Amount in war benefits owed to war veterans.

$7 trillion: Projected interest payments due by 2053 (because the war was paid for with borrowed money).

$20 billion: Amount paid to KBR, contractor responsible for equipment and services.

$3 billion: Amount of KBR payments Pentagon auditors considered "questionable."

$60 billion: Amount paid for reconstruction, (which was ruled largely a waste due to corruption and shoddy work.)

$4 billion: Amount owed to the U.S. by Iraq before the invasion.

1.6 million: Gallons of oil used by U.S. forces each day in Iraq (at $127.68 a barrel).

$12 billion: Cost per month of the war by 2008.

$7 billion: Amount owed to Iraq by the U.S. after the war (mostly due to fraud).

$20 billion: Annual air conditioning cost.

Missing: $546 million in spare parts; 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47s.

40 percent: Increase in Iraqi oil production.

$5 billion: Revenue from Iraqi oil in 2003.

$85 billion: Revenue from Iraqi oil in 2011.

$150 billion: Amount oil companies are expected to invest in oil development over the next decade.

$75 billion: Approximate amount expected to go to American subcontracting companies, largest of all Halliburton.

0: Nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction found (though a bunch of chems were discovered).

Perhaps most importantly, this list doesn't account for the emotional damage caused to service members and their families as well as the destruction to the homes, social fabric, and psyche of the Iraqi people. 

For some visual accounts, check out Buzzfeed's Iraq war in front pages and Time's Iraq war in images.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iraq-war-facts-numbers-stats-total-2013-3#ixzz3bm3Zc9mJ

___________________________________________

So yes, next time someone says "You're still blaming George W. Bush", be sure to tell them they're right. We sure as hell are.

Never Forget

No, never, ever forget.

A Poem: From an Iraq War Veteran

Maybe a poem for the American people:

I Hate: A Poem

I hate being a veteran of war

I hate the constant triggers

I hate the never ending avoidance of emotions

I hate the constant reminders of what I’ve lost

I hate that I’m not alone in my pain

I hate that people say “Thank you for your service”

I hate that the VA does little to help the people they serve

I hate that Americans still crave war

I hate that our children play war video games

I hate that every day is a day of pain and anger

I hate that so many of us take our own lives because the pain is too much

I hate that there are no reparations I can make to fix my faults

I hate that I cry whenever I think about Iraq

I hate that I can’t fully express the anguish and resentment I feel

I hate that this poem may only get read once before you close your laptop and move on to something less painful

--published by Jennifer Cole on 01/23/15 10:31am

posted to: 

New York City

. I wrote this poem this morning after trying to fill out even more VA compensation paperwork and seeing one too many commercials for preventing veteran suicide and for the new film "American Sniper". Life just becomes so overwhelming at times, and poetry is one of the few ways I can express my feelings in a way that is safe for me. 

We must never forget.

Link:  Iraq Veterans Against the War

Americans must never forget

Timeline Photos

 

Remember this?

Ten years ago today, then-President George Bush delivered his now notorious, premature speech in which he declared American operations had ended in Iraq.

Mission not so accomplished. 

 

Far from it.

Read more here: http://on.msnbc.com/ZAcsYl

 

By: Hardball with Chris Matthews

Lies, liars and the real reason for George W Bush's chosen war

"...that's how George Bush won the war in Iraq. The invasion was not about "blood for oil", but something far more sinister: blood for no oil. War to keep supply tight and send prices skyward.

Oil men, whether James Baker or George Bush or Dick Cheney, are not in the business of producing oil. They are in the business of producing profits.

And they've succeeded. Iraq, capable of producing six to 12 million barrels of oil a day, still exports well under its old OPEC quota of three million barrels.

The result: As we mark the tenth anniversary of the invasion this month, we also mark the fifth year of crude at $100 a barrel.

As George Bush could proudly say to James Baker: Mission Accomplished!"

Links:

Full article here:  The Real Reason for the Iraq War | VICE United Kingdom

Greg Palast | Facebook

Greg Palast - Wikipedia

The local KCMO Vet on the 2nd Iraq War

Link to original post:  I Dare You Watch This Clip From A Dying Veteran

The Letter--from the local Iraq Veteran to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

The previous post pointed out that a local, Kansas City, Missouri veteran wrote a letter to now former-President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney.  Herewith, the entire letter:

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

Veteran from KCMO pens letter to Bush, Cheney

From The Huffington Post yesterday and TruthOut earlier:

Tomas Young, Dying Iraq War Veteran, Pens 'Last Letter' To Bush, Cheney On War's 10th Anniversary

Days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Tomas Young, then a 22-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., made a decision repeated by many other Americans around the country: He was going to enlist in the military in hopes of getting even with the enemies who had helped coordinate the deaths of nearly 3,000 men, women and children.

Less than three years later, Young's Army service placed him not in Afghanistan -- where then-President George W. Bush had told the nation the terrorist plot had originated -- but in Iraq. On April 4, 2004, just five days into his first tour, Young's convoy was attacked by insurgents. A bullet from an AK-47 severed his spine. Another struck his knee. Young would never walk again, and in fact, for the next nearly nine years, he would suffer a number of medical setbacks that allowed him to survive only with the help of extensive medical procedures and the care of his wife, Claudia.

The incident turned Young into one of the most vocal veteran critics of the Iraq War. He has, however, saved his most powerful criticism for what he claims will be his last. Young says he'll die soon, but not before writing a letter to Bush and former Vice President Cheney on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War.

From Young's letter, published on TruthDig:

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Young goes on to attack the "cowardice" of Bush and Cheney for avoiding military service themselves, and to encourage them to "stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness."

(Read Young's entire letter here.)

Young was the subject of the 2007 documentary "Body of War," which was about his recovery process and the Iraq War. At a February screening of the film, Young told the audience that he planned to end his life in April.

According to the Ridgefield Press, Young announced that he would stop taking all nourishment and life-extending medications at that time. He's since said that the deterioration to his body from the injury and ensuing complications would make it physically impossible for him to commit suicide in any other way.

"It's time," he told the audience over Skype, while seated beside his wife. "When I go I want be alert and aware."

Young spoke more about his decision in a recent interview with journalist and Iraq War critic Chris Hedges.

“I made the decision to go on hospice care, to stop feeding and fade away," he said. "This way, instead of committing the conventional suicide and I am out of the picture, people have a way to stop by or call and say their goodbyes. I felt this was a fairer way to treat people than to just go out with a note."

For the rest of Hedges' interview with Young, click here. For the rest of The Huffington Post's coverage on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, click here.

Surely we''re not THIS stupid

Surely not.

Surely we're not that stupid.

But we are if we believe Jeb:

Jeb Bush on 2016 run: 'I don't think there is any Bush baggage at all'

Why George W Bush can never be forgiven

 

 

And Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, at minimum.

Links:  The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War

"Hubris": New Documentary Reexamines the Iraq War

 

HUBRIS's Michael Isikoff: W's "Disengagement" from Iraq - YouTube

 

 

How does this not make one yet more cynical about the George W Bush administration?

Iraq War Crimes? (Guest post)

"The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportations and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth? Days before George W Bush and Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, I called the White House and spoke to Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, to urge that United Nations weapons inspectors be given more time to confirm or deny the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Should they be able to confirm finding such weapons, I argued, dismantling the threat would have the support of virtually the entire world. Ms Rice demurred, saying there was too much risk and the president would not postpone any longer.

On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers' circuit, bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush's chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.

But even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.

Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?

Leadership and morality are indivisible. Good leaders are the custodians of morality. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level.

If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?"

--Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in a column in The Observer (see link below)

Link to original article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/02/desmond-tutu-tony-blair-iraq

War by the Numbers (from The New York Times)

Published: September 8, 2011 6,204 American military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan operations. 141 Military women killed. 2,300 American contractors killed. 144,000 Service members in either country as of Aug. 25, 2011. 1,192 Foreign coalition forces killed. 18,678 Iraqi and Afghan security forces killed. 102,339 Minimum number of Iraqi civilians killed, including by other Iraqis, according to Iraq Body Count. 172 million Meals Ready to Eat (M.R.E.’s) sent to personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. $1,645 Monthly pay for an Army private, with $225 additional for combat. 779 Detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002. 14 Percentage of former Guantánamo detainees who returned to terrorist activity. 1 Former Guantánamo detainees who have been tried in the United States. My own addition: 3.7 trillion dollars Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan wars at least $3.7 trillion (and counting)* Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/index-war-abroad.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629

Quote of the day--on war

"Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war?" --Elie Wiesel

On now former President George W. Bush

From a posting yesterday at Truthout (http://www.truthout.org/) because we haven't learned, collectively, and we need to, badly:

A Small Fraction of a Man

Saturday 13 November 2010
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t
Op-Ed

This is the guy, I thought to myself when I saw his face or heard his voice. This is the guy.



This is the guy who took a massive Clinton administration budget surplus and gave it away to his friends at the top of the tax bracket, a move that laid the groundwork for our current economic calamity.


This is the guy who breezed past a pointed warning about Osama bin Laden, terrorism and airplanes on August 8, 2001, because he was on vacation and couldn't be bothered.


This is the guy who parlayed that massive failure into a constant goad of fear to be wielded with impunity against the people he purported to lead. Plastic sheeting and duct tape, anthrax under your pillow, and of course, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.


This is the guy who, not even a month after the Towers came down, looked into a television camera and said, "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates."


Oh yes, this is the guy who stood before the American people in January of 2003 and proclaimed that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, mobile biological weapons labs, uranium from Niger for use in a "robust" nuclear weapons programs, and that Iraq enjoyed connections to al Qaeda that led directly to the attacks of September 11.


This was the guy who presided over the outing of a deep-cover CIA agent after her husband had the temerity to call him a liar in the public prints. That agent was running a network for the purpose of thwarting any person or group that might try to deliver weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.


This is the guy who strutted like a bantam rooster under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," bragging about the end of a war that was to grind on for seven more years, and grinds on even to this day, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.


This is the guy who said "Bring it on" and put a target on the backs of tens of thousands of US troops. This is the guy who is personally responsible for the death and injury of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings. The body count from his administration is breathtaking in size and scope.


This is the guy who allowed the intelligence services of this nation to violate the Constitutional rights of its citizens in a way never seen before.


This is the guy who turned the entire world against America after that same world embraced us so completely after September 11. World leaders could not stand to be in the same room with him, and openly mocked him, thus humiliating us all.


This is the guy who literally fiddled while Hurricane Katrina devoured the city of New Orleans.


This guy actually said he considered dropping Cheney from the administration? It would be comic if it were not so pointedly fraudulent. Cheney ran the government, ran roughshod over every right he found meddlesome, and Bush sat by and let him do it with that same simpering smirk on his face.


This is the guy who set stem cell research back more than a decade because of his overarching fealty to "snowflake babies" over living, breathing, suffering people.


This is the guy who unleashed all the horrors of the torture chamber because the lawyers said it was OK. If the president does it, it's not illegal, right? Nixon came up with that line, but this is the guy who took it farther than it has ever been taken before.


This is the guy, and now he's back on my television again, and it makes me want to eat my own teeth. I endured him for eight long, brutal years, and have often thought since that no matter how bad things get - and they have, indeed, gotten pretty damned bad - I don't have to endure his face or his voice or his abject serial failures anymore.


But now he's back, and it is like returning to a nightmare.


I don't know what this George W. Bush Reputation Rehabilitation Tour will actually accomplish in the end. The same 20% of the country that kept his approval ratings from slipping into single digits - said group now being known as the "Tea Party" - will go out and buy his book. They will lap up his mealy-mouthed pabulum like cats into the cream, and some of our "mainstream" commentators will try to shoehorn the idea that he is missed into the national conversation.


He is not. George W. Bush was, and likely will forever be, the single worst American president in the nation's history. To outstrip his remarkable record of failure, criminality and disgrace, a future president will have to personally cause the Earth to crash into the sun.


All I can do for now is avoid the TV, stay away from the newspapers, and pray to God on High that this small fraction of a man will soon retreat back into the ignominy from which he has emerged. There is no salvaging him, and thanks to him, there may be no salvaging America in his aftermath.


We are all children of this bastard fool now. The least he can do is stay in the shadows where he belongs, while we toil and sweat to repair what he wrought.

Link to original post:  http://www.truth-out.org/a-small-fraction-a-man65077

More proof of George W Bush's lies to get us into war in Iraq

Lest you question my source for the following, please note that it's from and by Iraq Veterans Against the War:

General Accuses Bush Officials of "Deception"

On October 13, Thomas Ricks in Foreign Policy quoted former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Hugh Shelton from his book Without Hesitation:  The Odyssey of an American Warrior:

"President Bush and his team got us enmeshed in Iraq based on extraordinarily poor intelligence and a series of lies purporting that we had to protect America from Saddam's evil empire because it posed such a threat to our national security.

Spinning the possible possession of WMDs as a threat to the United States in the way they did is, in my opinion, tantamount to intentionally deceiving the American people."

So just so we're clear on this, Iraq Veterans against the Iraq War are quoting one of their own--a general in our own military and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for that matter--as saying this president--President George W. Bush and his administration (because I'm not leaving out Former Vice President Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney on this, for sure), et. al--mislead us at minimum, if they didn't outright lie to us in order to get our country into war with and in Iraq, for which we have paid and are paying, dearly.

But here, to me, is the beauty of their experience and of their writing now and what they ask:

Every American citizen at this point has access to enough evidence to substantiate allegations of a deliberate effort to deceive members of Congress into authorizing military force against Iraq.  The only thing lacking is an Attorney General with the moral courage to do what is right no matter how many of President Obama's political opponents or fellow party members pressure him not to.  Everyone who has worn the uniform or seen a family member off to war deserves to know the truth about how and why we got into Iraq.


The only thing lacking, other than the will of the American people.

Link to original post:  http://www.ivaw.org/blog/general-accuses-bush-officials-deception

Yes, folks, we were lied to--big time--about going into Iraq

It's absolutely no consolation at all, being able to say "We told you so", to be clear.

Quote of the day--on the Iraq War and the lies that took us to it

"I hate to lose, don't you? But the fact is, we lost the very day we invaded a sovereign nation that posed absolutely no threat to us and had nothing to do with 9/11. We lost lives (more than 4,400 of ours, hundreds of thousands of theirs), we lost limbs (a total of 35,000 troops came back with various wounds and disabilities and God knows how many more with mental problems). We lost the money our grandchildren were supposed to live on. And we lost our soul, who we were, what we stood for as a once-great country -- lost it all. Can we now ask for redemption -- for forgiveness? Can we be... 'America' again?" --Michael Moore Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/never-forget-bad-wars-are_b_718337.html#

More brilliance from the Iraq War

I was just given more reasons to bang my head against a wall when I saw this: After destroying Iraq's army, US retrains former foe by Jacques Clement; Ten years ago the military machinations of Saddam Hussein were a security obsession for the United States, but American forces in Iraq now aim to make the army of their former foe stronger than ever. The US army has the right to self-defence and has already used it, despite Washington's declaration that "combat operations" are officially over, but the bulk of America's military might is now focused on a training mission. US money has paid for hundreds of workshops at Iraqi military bases, in the wake of the American-led invasion that ousted Saddam from power in 2003, part of the estimated trillion dollars that has been spent on operations here. Just one example of the stupidity of the George W. Bush's administration, in handling this war they chose and created: US training of local forces started in 2004, just months after the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the post-invasion governing body headed by American diplomat Paul Bremer and charged with running the country, disbanded the Iraqi army. Although the army was suspected as a refuge for Saddam's allies, its break-up is seen as one of the CPA's biggest mistakes as it made tens of thousands of armed men unemployed and left Iraq's borders unguarded, allowing insurgents to pour in and wreak havoc in subsequent years. Then, Lieutenant General Michael Barbero, the deputy commander for Operation New Dawn said this: "In December 2011, I am convinced the ISF will be fully capable of internal security," Barbero said, noting that the Iraqi navy will protect coastlines and oil platforms. "But they will not have the capability to provide air sovereignty, to fully protect the skies over Iraq, because they will lack a multi-role fighter," he added. Now, it also sounds like we've set ourselves up to be the supplier (read: salesperson) of the Iraqis for the fighter jets our corporations can supply. Hopefully they'll never use them on us, right? Once again, I'd like to take a moment to thank Former President George W. Bush and Former Vice President Dick Cheney and that administration for the ignorance, tragedy and waste that is and was this Iraq War. It can't be said enough. I will never forget. Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100909/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusmilitarytraining/print