'Genocide by design?' Bush Administration Plans to 'Stay' in Iraq for the Oil
Is it reasonable to expect NBC to report critically on the Well, it's certain that extending the US presence in Iraq by But that's okay, since war is the optimum business condition for many industries -- banks, weapons makers, raw materials suppliers, machine tool makers and so on -- GE looks to sell many billions of dollars more of its killing machinery, all the while telling Americans via NBC how peace is just 10 or so years down the road. And GE is just one of the main offenders. We'll leave for another day a discussion on how thoroughly Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has polluted the national discourse. Or how the acquisitive tentacles of Viacom, CBS, TimeWarner and Disney have managed to take a relatively engaged population American mass media lost the thread of the story decades ago and are now only qualified to dish pop culture infotainment masquerading as news; report breathlessly on the latest D-class celebrity screw-up; and act as stenographers and cheerleaders for the latest batch of official Bush administration lies. Among other insults, this explains why John Stossel is a network star while Bill Moyers is on PBS.
Just as Bush's attack and invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, the Iragi resistance has nothing to do with 'terrorism'. The original code name --Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) --gave the game away and was changed. Never called 'resistance', the Orwellian linguists inside the Bush White House called the resistance 'insurgents'. a term which implies an opposition to a 'legitimate' authority. But there is nothing legitimate about the US occupation, in fact, a theft of Iraq's most valuable natural resource. The US presence is, in fact, a war crime. Those resisting the US occupation are, therefore, not terrorists nor are they 'insurgents'
The Bush regime is responsible --legally and morally --for the deaths of some 1.2 million Iraqis and some 15,000 who die each month. [See: Michael Schwartz, Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?]. The US, under Bush, is a terrorist nation and outlaw. Iraqi resistance, by contrast, is that of 'patriots' defending a 'homeland' against the crimes of mass murder, terrorism, and grand larceny. The opposition by Iraqis is therefore legal and justified under international conventions. Even before the US attack and invasion, the Bush administration was laying the groundwork for one of his most pernicious lies: that the US is opposed in Iraq by terrorists. There is simply no reason whatsoever to believe that any part of that statement is true. The opposition to the US 'occupation' is, in fact, legitimate. It is the right of every people to defend a homeland against an aggressor and that is precisely what the Iraqi people have done in Iraq. As William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, put it when his mother England was at 'war' with rebellious colonies on the American continent: If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -- never! never! Never!”--William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Speech in Parliament on the Excise Bill
It is stupid of the Bush administration to expect the Iraqi people to abandon their country to Halliburton or Exxon-Mobil. But that appears to have been forced upon them. Thursday, 5 June 2008, Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractorsA secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November. --Patrick Cockburn, Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
It is a recognized principle of international law that citizens have a right to take up arms against forces of aggression and occupation. Even America's delusional right wing must know that by now. If they have not, it's time they learned a thing or two. The Americans had not brought what they’d promised: a new order. The war wasn’t over, Iraq had no government, the liberators had become occupiers, and the occupation was slapdash, improvised, and inadequate—at best, a disappointment, and more often an insult. So, in the fever heat, month after month of a hundred and ten and a hundred and twenty degrees, alienation set in. Frustration gave way to hostility, hostility gave way to violence, and by summer’s end the violence against Americans was increasingly organized. It was demoralizing. Every Iraqi might be the enemy. What was the point of being there, unwanted? Nobody from the 372nd was killed in Al Hillah, but on patrols there was shooting, in the night there were explosions, and Sabrina had her nightmare. At least the picnic tables had seemed to her fanciful, the random furniture of dreamscapes—until she got to Abu Ghraib, and there they were.--Exposure, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, New Yorker
War crimes --wars of naked aggression --may be as unfair to the military forces required to fight them as they are to the victims of the aggression. Bush premised his wars on Afghanistan and Iraq upon a pack of lies. We have every right to judge Bush by his record of war crimes and lies. We have every right to suspect that Bush is lying now to begin another 'resource' war against the people of Iran. Bush could never had gotten away with it, if he had not been assisted by a cancerous growth upon the body politic: the 'mainstream media'. And when discussing media consolidation, someone might tumble to the fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's largestarmaments manufacturers in 2006 and among the six largest media conglomerates. GE makes and maintains engines for the F-16 Fighter jet, Abrams tank, Apache helicopter, U2 bomber, Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), A-10 aircraft and numerous other military equipment, including planes, helicopters, tanks and more.
There is every reason to believe that Bush and the oil consortium that supports him intends to maintain a military presence, perhaps, forever. As John McCain said --for '10,000 years'.
status and duration of the Iraq occupation? Or is it predictable that NBC's occupation coverage will tell us that the "surge" is working, that US troop deaths are down, that the Iraqi
puppet regime is gaining traction and, if we can hang on for another
decade, things should turn out hunky-dory.
a decade will have a very positive impact on GE's profit and loss statements. It's probably going to be somewhat less beneficial for the people who actually have to fight this insane proxy war on behalf of GE's bottom line.
and, in 30 short years, turn it into a nation of compliant, ill-informed, politically illiterate chowder heads content to consume their quota of goods, services and ideologies with an equally uncritical eye.Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors. A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilized Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country. --Patrick Cockburn, Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control, THE INDEPENDENT
It would seem that Bush, the GOP, neocons, and the Military/Industrial Complex studied Orwell --not as a cautionary tale, but a 'textbook', a 'how to' re-invent the language such that their lies become 'true' and black is white. Although they did not know it at the time, the lack of experience and training in handling prisoners in wartime made the soldiers of the 372nd ideally suited to Abu Ghraib, where almost nothing was run according to military doctrine. Since May, 2003, America’s war in Iraq had been waged as a chapter in the war on terror, and the military’s long-standing rules for running prisons in wartime had largely been ignored. By midsummer, the great majority of prisoners of war who were seized during the invasion had been released. Those who remained in captivity—along with all new prisoners seized by the military—were designated “security detainees,” a label that had gained currency in the war on terror, to describe “unlawful combatants” and other prisoners who had been denied POW status and could be held indefinitely, in isolation and secrecy, without judicial recourse.--Exposure, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, New Yorker
But these 'categories', this 'nomenclature' was entirely made up by the Bush regime and the Department of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. There are no exceptions to the codes of military conduct. There are no exceptions for a 'war' that is not a 'war'. There are no exceptions to the rights accorded 'prisoners of war', taken into custody during what was called a 'war' on terrorism --a war that is a war when it is convenient for Bush to be at war but not a war when being at war requires of Bush standards mandated by the treaties and conventions to which the US has agreed and is bound by US Codes. Why are crimes against Americans punishable by death and the same crimes perpetrated against Iraqis outside the law are not?Pitt also said: "Where law ends, tyranny begins". I often wonder if Pitt were truly prescient to have foreseen the Bush administration, certainly the most lawless administration in America history, and, perhaps the world. The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter,—but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!--William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Speech in Parliament on the Excise Bill
Pitt would not have liked George Bush who represents everything that Pitt detested --state arrogance, arbitrary rule, state subversions of the rule of law, lies, hypocrisy, mass murder and stupidity! Additional rsources
