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thinkahol *

Surprise, Surprise: Iraq War Was About Oil | Truthout - 0 views

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    Afghanistan may be the graveyard of empires, but Iraq is home to a graveyard sense of humor. Iraqis wonder aloud whether the U.S. and Britain would have invaded Iraq if its main export had been cabbages instead of oil. However obvious the answer, a remarkable array of American pundits and pseudo-savants have resisted giving the oil factor any pride of place among the motives behind the U.S./U.K. decision to invade Iraq in 2003. To this day, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) continues to play its accustomed role as government accomplice suppressing unwelcome news. So, if you don't tune in to Amy Goodman's Democracy Now or read the British press, you would have missed the latest documentary evidence showing that Great Britain's Lords and Ladies lied about how big oil companies, like BP, lusted after Iraqi oil in the months leading up to the attack on Iraq. Oil researcher Greg Muttitt's new book Fuel on Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq presents that evidence, since Muttitt had better luck than his American counterparts in getting responses to his Freedom of Information requests. After a five-year struggle, he obtained more than 1,000 official documents which - how to say this - do not reflect well on the peerage, the captains of the oil industry, and the government of Tony Blair.
thinkahol *

The US Isn't Leaving Iraq, It's Rebranding the Occupation | CommonDreams.org - 0 views

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    For most people in Britain and the US, Iraq is already history. Afghanistan has long since taken the lion's share of media attention, as the death toll of Nato troops rises inexorably. Controversy about Iraq is now almost entirely focused on the original decision to invade: what's happening there in 2010 barely registers.
thinkahol *

U.S. schools: grooming students for a surveillance state | Privacy News - PogoWasRight.org - 0 views

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    Schools are increasingly invading student privacy both in school and outside of school. Are schools grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state
thinkahol *

Can we learn the real lesson of Bin Laden's death? : Johann Hari - 0 views

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    Scramble the film backwards. Rewind. Go back to the day 10 years ago when the air here in Manhattan was thick with ash and Osama bin Laden was gloating. There were two options for the United States government -- to pick up a scalpel, or to pick up a blowtorch. With the scalpel, you go after the fundamentalist murderers responsible with patient policing and intelligence work, and steadily drain them of their support. With the blowtorch, you invade a slew of countries with a great blunderbuss of slaughter and torture -- and swell the army of enraged jihadis determined to kill. History branched in two possible directions that day.
thinkahol *

The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of "Terrorism" - Glenn Greenwald - Salo... - 0 views

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    That Terrorism means nothing more than violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes has been proven repeatedly.  When an airplane was flown into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, it was immediately proclaimed to be Terrorism, until it was revealed that the attacker was a white, non-Muslim, American anti-tax advocate with a series of domestic political grievances.  The U.S. and its allies can, by definition, never commit Terrorism even when it is beyond question that the purpose of their violence is to terrorize civilian populations into submission.  Conversely, Muslims who attack purely military targets  -- even if the target is an invading army in their own countries -- are, by definition, Terrorists.  That is why, as NYU's Remi Brulin has extensively documented, Terrorism is the most meaningless, and therefore the most manipulated, word in the English language.  Yesterday provided yet another sterling example.
thinkahol *

William Blum: Libya and the Holy Triumvirate - 0 views

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    ‎"Six countries that Barack H. Obama has waged waragainst in his 26 months in office. (To anyone who disputes that dropping bombs on a populated land is an act of war, I would ask what they think of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.) America'sfirst black president now invades Africa. Is there anyone left who still thinks that Barack Obama is some kind of improvement over George W. Bush?"
thinkahol *

NationalJournal.com - To Tell the Truth - Thursday, December 2, 2010 - 0 views

  • As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both.”
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    Judging by the press accounts, Washington is still buzzing over WikiLeaks' release of classified U.S. government information, with both Republicans and Democrats expressing outrage over the disclosures. Meanwhile, many media outlets seem to be practically mute on the subject, avoiding comment on whether WikiLeaks provided a public service or disservice.
alex thorn

Think Progress » Blog Archive » Krauthammer: McCain Has 'Hidden Agenda' To 'K... - 0 views

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    McCain appears to be calling for a new international alliance focused on democracy. But isn't that alliance the United Nations? McCain's "leage of Democracies" would undoubtedly resemble a tougher, more militarily aggressive, UN dominated by American players and ideologies. Kind of like a UN you can invade the world with.
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    Numerous media outlets interpreted McCain's speech as a call for "cooperation" and "collaboration" with allies and the rest of the world, "drawing a sharp contrast to the past eight years under President Bush." But last night on Fox News, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer revealed the true meaning behind McCain's "League of Democracies":
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    That is EXACTLY what I thought when I read about this..."league of democracies" = tool of US to keep certain players out of the mix
Ahmad Al-Shagra

Saddam is Hanged for His Crimes, Who will Hang Bush/Blair for Theirs? - 0 views

  • Rumsfeld's famous hand shake with Saddam provides the proof on tha
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      Ridiculous misinterpretation to back such a statement
  • Saddam was originally a CIA man recruited to assassinate the previous Iraqi president Abdel-Karim Qassem
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      First time I hear this one, also not substantiated with references, this article should be in the science-fiction section
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm Info on Saddam's relationship with the CIA
  • his war of aggression against Iran
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      From this I can safely say a Pro-Iran biased writer is the author
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 - partly instigated from a border dispute between the 2 countries - Iran was supplying the Kurds with weapons in the border areas. http://www.brucekelly.com/saddam-hussein-iran.html Both countries deployed chem weapons http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960702/72566_01.htm The US supported Iraq against Iran. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/irq8-m29.shtml
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      From a Facebook commentor on the article: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in... Read More Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      From a commentator on the article on Facebook: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Why doesn't this diigo thingy remove my posts when I tell it too ... grrrrr
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • 700 thousands mostly civilian Iraqis during the last three years of American occupation
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      actually 6 years, and more than 1,000,000
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      The article refers to the past 3 years - the last estimate by Lancet (as we know the US doesn't count the results of its carnage) was in 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War 654,965 to 2006 - so a ballpark for the last 3 years around the 700000 mark is plausible if one accepts the Lancet methodology. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ OTOH says around 100,000 all told.
  • hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      Millions in Syria Alone
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Which incident are you referring to here?
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Death counts from wars - good link is here: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm
  • Saddam is just a "baby" ruthless dictator compared to Bush and Blair.
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      Is this still an article?
  • when he converted Iraq's reserve funds from Dollars to Euros
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      This happened in the 21st century, not the 80's, but its agreed on by many that it changed the game
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Saddam's fatal mistakes of trading oil in euros, not dollars happened twice - In 1999 and in November 2000. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Saddam's fatal mistake of switching to euros from dollars for oil happened in 1999. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
  • that were used to bomb Kurdish Halabja
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      CIA published a report back in the 80's stating Iraq did not own the Chemical Weapons used in Halabja, yet, coincidently Iran did.
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Some still dispute the events, yet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack and see discussion.
  • last three years
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      For the last time, 6 years - not 3
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Sure - the article refers to the last 3 years though. I can't find any stats that cover the last 3 years death toll, so it's a fuzzy figure to me also.
Bakari Chavanu

The root cause of war is oligarchic capitalism | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • After World War Two, Britain and the USA pressured the United Nations into confiscating Arab land to form the state of Israel, making the Arabs pay for the crimes of the Germans. In addition to providing a nation for the Jews, Israel would be a forward base for Western economic and military power in the Middle East. To the Arabs it was another European invasion of their territory.
  • In the early 1950s, the USA and Britain overthrew the government of Iran because it tried to nationalise its oil industry, which was under Western control.
  • In the mid-1950s, Egypt decided to nationalise the Suez Canal and use the income from it to help their people out of poverty. They were willing to pay its British and French owners the full market value for their shares, but Western governments and Israel responded violently, invading and bombing Egypt into submission.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The USA and Britain committed similar atrocities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Indonesia and Afghanistan. We overthrew their governments, installed dictators, undermined their economies - all to strengthen our business interests. In every nation where we now have terrorism, we had first assaulted them.
  • Capitalism is always at war. The violence, though, is often abstract: forcing us either to accept low-paying, exhausting jobs or starve; denying us adequate healthcare, education and economic security; convincing us that human beings are basically isolated, autonomous units seeking self gratification. But when this doesn't suffice to keep their profits growing, the violence becomes physical, the cannons roar, and the elite rallies us to war to defend "our" country and destroy the fiendish enemy.
  • Since 9/11 the USA has killed over 300,000 - a hundred times more than died in the World Trade Center. The overwhelming majority have been civilians.
  • As Martin Luther King stated with simple eloquence: "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government."
  • Since they don't have our military power, they resort to guerrilla warfare. As Mike Davis wrote, "The car bomb is the poor man's air force."
  • www.amazon.com/dp/1897455844
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