Posts Tagged ‘Washington Post’

The Forgotten U.S. War on the Iraqi People

October 21, 2008


By Ghali Hassan | Axis of Logic,  Oct 16, 2008, 19:42

On October 3, 2008, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is paying $300 million to U.S. contractors to produce pro-U.S. propaganda for Iraqi audiences “in an effort to ‘engage and inspire’ the local population to support U.S. objectives and the puppet government”. The aim of this psychological warfare is to normalise the murderous Occupation and cover-up the slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians.

As Iraqis continue to suffer, the war on has receded from mainstream media headlines in order to remove people’s historical memory and to provide the Republican Party with a fictitious victory and improves John McCain’s chances of winning the presidency. In the same way the decade-long genocidal sanctions that killed 2 million innocent Iraqi civilians were normalised, journalists and media outlets in the U.S. and in occupied Iraq are promoted and paid to write “good news” stories about the ongoing Occupation.

As a result, few Americans are against the war, and most of the US population still find it acceptable to perpetuate barbarism against defenceless population. The justification and rationalisations for the application of barbaric violence have been based on U.S. euphemistic doctrines with disregard to international law and civilised norms.  Despite the enormity of the atrocity in Iraq, Americans have re-elected George Bush in 2004 and continue paying $12 billion per month to propel a criminal war which is destroying an entire society.

Indeed, since World War II, the U.S. has committed unimaginable war crimes against defenceless civilian population, more than any other nation on earth. It is astonishing that a large segment of US society is proud of these horrendous war crimes, and violence continues to play an important role in the US psyche. Just take a look at how the bigoted John McCain is portrayed by the media as a “maverick” and a war “hero” (not a war criminal) and even allowed to (deceptively) distance himself from George Bush and his own Republican Party’s ideology. His incompetence in foreign policy, the economy, and his erratic character and criminal record in Vietnam and Iraq have largely been ignored in the media.

It is certain, if the Republicans are re-elected and John McCain become president, the U.S. will declare a police state and will embark on a war agenda reminiscent of Hitler’s war agenda. The Republican ideology is a Nazis’-like ideology seeking to dominate the world through violence, racism and propaganda. With thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed on U.S. streets to control the population, the people of the United States do not need more serious warnings.

The world ignores U.S. war crimes

Why is the world ignoring the U.S.-perpetuated war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq? The primary reasons are: Western media complicity in U.S. war crimes through disinformation and distortion of the situation on ground; and most importantly, Islamophobia. The U.S.-Zionist media play an important role in spreading anti-Muslims propaganda throughout the world, demonising Muslims and distorting Islam in order to manipulate public opinion and justify war crimes against Muslims at home and abroad. Additionally, a deep-seated and inherently widespread dehumanisation of Arabs and Muslims by Western media, the Western ruling classes and opportunist politicians encourages silence and moral bankruptcy.

Recall how in 2003 the US people and a large segment of Western population were manipulated and deceived to support an illegal war of aggression against an entirely defenceless Iraqi population. Deep silence prevailed despite it was well-known that Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction nor any link to “terrorism”, and that the pretexts were outright lies fabricated in Washington and London. The aggression against Iraq was and still is a crime against humanity and those who supported the crimes have blood on their hands.

Pretexts used to justify the illegal war and occupation

Immediately after the pretexts to justify the invasion were exposed, the U.S. began to engineer and used countless pretexts to justify the ongoing Occupation, including the incitement of massive outbreak of violence. For instance, the U.S.-drafted “Iraqi Constitution” defines Iraqis according to their ethnicities and religious sects. It was designed to divide Iraqis and sow the seeds of hatred and division that defined Iraq today. Hence, the Occupation-generated violence is a deliberate strategy to justify the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. It is the Bush regime’s strategy to “stay the course”. It has achieved what the U.S. regime has planned before the aggression; the destruction of Iraq’s unity and the establishment of a U.S. military foothold in Iraq.

More than five years of murderous Occupation, George Bush and his criminal accomplices remain unindicted. Moreover, the Bush regime is refusing to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and restore the Iraqi freedom and independence. Instead, the Bush regime is bribing and coercing members of the criminal puppet government – whose survival depends on the Occupation – to sign a deal to permanently station U.S. troops in Iraq against the will of the Iraqi people. It is now clear to everyone that the motives for the premeditated aggression and subsequent Occupation are:

  1. to establish a colonial dictatorship in Iraq through an open-ended military presence and use the country as a launching pad to attack other countries;
  2. enhance Israel’s Zionist expansion in Palestine and the Middle East in general; and
  3. guard Western multinational oil corporations seizing control of strategic Iraqi oil reserves.

The “surge” and ethnic cleansing in Iraq

Meanwhile, the propaganda for a new “victory” in Iraq is in full swing. The so-called “reduction” in violence against Iraqi civilians has much to do with the mass killing and widespread ethnic cleansing that have left less people to kill not the “surge” in troops number as the Bush’s regime alleges. According to the Pentagon Quarterly Report, Iraq has become a nation of ethnically cleansed neighbourhoods, separated by concrete walls dividing communities and preventing free movement. This so-called “neighbourhood homogenisation” has been achieved only through a U.S.-controlled reign of terror and mass murder of Iraqi civilians. Today, a large part of Baghdad’s neighbourhoods have been emptied of their original population. At least 5 million Iraqis are either internally displaced or refugees in neighbouring countries.

Other studies have also pointed out to the ethnic cleansing perpetuated by U.S. forces and U.S.-controlled death squads and militias in reducing some of the violence against Iraqi civilians and have rejected the Bush’s regime propaganda that the “surge” is responsible for the “reduction” in violence. One of these studies is the UCLA Study. While the Study found that “the surge has no observable effect”, it is also deliberately misleading. The Study suggestion that the “surge” designed “to improve the materials condition of life and create a breathing space for political compromise between major factions” in Baghdad is a falsehood. The “surge” is part of the Republicans propaganda campaign which is designed to mislead the American public and provides John McCain with something to say about a murderous Occupation. The reality is that the Occupation remains the root causes of violence and destruction in Iraq.

Furthermore, Iraqi sources reveal that conditions are worsening in the Baghdad once again ‘despite the heavy presence of Iraqi security forces and a surge in number of checkpoints’. U.S. officials say the “surge” is “success”, but they also called the situation “fragile” and “reversible”, means the Occupation will continue.

Another factor that has contributed to the “reduction” in violence is that the U.S. began paying militias, including the Kurdish militia and collaborators to collaborate and stop carrying out killings (executions) anti-Occupation civilians. Additionally, Iran role in restraining Iranian criminals and Iranian-controlled militias and encouraged them to collaborate with the Occupation must be acknowledged.

At the timing of this writing, U.S. troops killed 11 people from one family while conducting a dawn raid on a house in the Seventeen Tammuz neighbourhoods, west of Mosul. It is an established fact that the ongoing violence is controlled by U.S. forces and their collaborators. This has been the norm since 2003. Of course, every time U.S. forces perpetuated a massacre of Iraqi civilians, they cover-up their war crimes by alleging that they have killed “al-Qaeda” fighters. The phantom, which the U.S. created to justify terrorism, keeps growing wherever U.S. forces invade a foreign nation.

The unprovoked criminal invasion and subsequent Occupation of Iraq have resulted in deliberate mass killing and physical destruction of Iraq in whole or in part.  Every major population centre has been targeted by a campaign of terror and indiscriminate aerial bombings using all kinds of legally banned weapons of mass destruction. At least 1.3 million innocent Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed since 2003. While this figure is a conservative figure, it is still much higher than the Rwandan genocide.

Only the U.S. and Israel (and their allies) could get away with such unimaginable war crimes against innocent civilians and terrorism. In every country the U.S. and its allies have invaded, they brought chaos and insecurity rather than “freedom” and “democracy”, they destroyed rather than build, they brought poverty rather than prosperity, and they sowed the seeds of violence rather than seeds of peace. The ongoing atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan are just the current examples.

According to the UN Convention on Genocide, there is an ongoing genocide in Iraq. Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group such as:

  • killing members of the group;
  • causing serious bodily or mental harm;
  • deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  • imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
  • forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Hence, there is overwhelming evidence to charge George Bush and his willing allies and accomplices with war crimes and genocide. An indictment of Western leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity could pave the way for a peaceful and just world and reduce the eventuality of premeditated and unprovoked war of aggression.

Finally, the Pentagon-funded propaganda campaign is a psychological warfare designed to whitewash a murderous Occupation. The only way to end the colonial Occupation of Iraq and stop the mass slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians is the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq.

© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a “live link” to the article. Thank you!

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U.S., Iraqi Officials Question Terms of Draft Security Deal

October 18, 2008

At Issue: Legal Authority Over Troops

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers, Saturday, October 18, 2008

BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 — A number of senior Iraqi and U.S. politicians expressed strong reservations Friday about the terms of a draft agreement that gives Iraq the “primary right” — subject to U.S. acquiescence — to try American soldiers accused of serious crimes committed during off-duty hours outside U.S. military bases here.

Some political leaders in Baghdad, who got their first look at the controversial agreement to extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, said it did not go far enough in guaranteeing Iraqi sovereignty. The bilateral accord was presented Friday to the Political Council for National Security, an advisory body including political, legislative and judicial leaders, whose support is necessary before it can be submitted to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki‘s cabinet and then to parliament for final approval. After an initial review, the council said it would continue discussions next week.

In Washington, congressional Democrats questioned ceding any authority over U.S. troops to Iraq. “I am very concerned about reports that U.S. service personnel may not have full immunity under Iraqi law,” said Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the House Armed Services Committee chairman. The Bush administration allowed a small group of senior congressional aides to read the document at a White House briefing this morning but did not allow copies to be made.

A provision in the draft would give the United States “primary” jurisdiction over military personnel and Defense Department employees who are on bases or engaged in authorized military operations.

Iraq, it says, would have the “primary right to exercise judicial jurisdiction” over “premeditated and gross felonies . . . committed outside the agreed facilities and areas and when not on a mission.” Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Friday that any disagreement would be resolved by a joint committee. “If the crime is very grave or serious, the U.S. may waive its jurisdiction,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that “there is not a reason to be concerned.” He said top U.S. military officials “are all satisfied that our men and women in uniform serving in Iraq are well protected.” U.S. officials have emphasized that off-duty American troops in Iraq rarely, if ever, venture outside their bases, and said that they consider language in the document vague enough to ensure absolute U.S. control in all circumstances.

Administration officials also said they are confident that withdrawal dates in the document — June 30, 2009, for U.S. forces in Iraqi cities and Dec. 31, 2011, from all of Iraq — contain sufficient caveats to address any future downturn in the security situation. Before the final deadline, the draft says, “on the basis of Iraq’s assessment of conditions on the ground,” the Iraqi government could ask for U.S. troops to remain for “training purposes” or to “support Iraqi security forces.”

The accord also would prohibit U.S. forces from detaining any Iraqi citizen without an Iraqi warrant, and says any detainee would have to be handed over to government custody within 24 hours. All Iraqis in U.S. custody as of Jan. 1 — when the agreement would go into effect upon expiration of the current U.N. mandate authorizing foreign troops here — would have to be turned over to the Iraqi government. Home and property searches also would require an Iraqi warrant, except during certain combat situations.

U.S. and Iraqi officials confirmed the wording of the document, portions of which were widely circulated in both capitals Friday.

The sensitivity of the draft agreement, which has been under negotiation since March, was illustrated when Maliki lashed out at the top American commander here for saying that U.S. intelligence indicated Iran was trying to bribe Iraqi lawmakers to reject the pact.

“The American commander has risked his position when he spoke in this tone and has complicated relations in a deplorable way,” Maliki told a group of Kuwaiti journalists in an interview broadcast by Iraqi state television Friday. Maliki expressed astonishment at the remarks from U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno, whom he described as a “kind and good man.” Iraqi members of parliament, he said, had not accepted any bribes.

Maliki was reacting to a Monday article in The Washington Post in which Odierno said Iran was conducting a “full-court press” with its Iraqi contacts to sabotage the pact, including “coming in to pay off people to vote against it.” A U.S. military spokesman later said there was no confirmation that bribes had been accepted by lawmakers.

A number of Iraq’s leading political leaders spent years in exile in Iran during the presidency of Saddam Hussein and maintain warm relations with the Tehran government. Several expressed sharp offense at Odierno’s comments.

Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir, a top lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Maliki’s main political partner, said in an interview that he saw “serious problems” in the proposed accord, “especially after Odierno’s statements.”

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Friday that there was a misunderstanding about Odierno’s comments. “I don’t think General Odierno was implying that there are crooked Iraqi politicians, but rather that there are Iranian agents who, in their attempt to derail the [agreement], are trying to bribe Iraqi politicians,” he said.

In Najaf, the religious capital of Iraq’s Shiite majority, a leading cleric blasted the idea of giving U.S. forces any immunity from Iraqi law. “We consider this a basic point because it represents sovereignty,” Sadir Addin al-Qobanchi said in a sermon at the city’s grand mosque. “If someone commits a hostile act against your house and family, and you say it is fine and don’t hold him responsible, it means that you don’t have dignity or sovereignty.”

U.S. military and political officials have expressed concern that the agreement may not make it through Iraq’s slow-moving political process by year’s end. An extension of the U.N. mandate, the most likely option if a final agreement is not reached, poses political and legal complications for both sides.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, said the agreement could gain the approval of the political council and the cabinet. But in parliament, supporters of the agreement “will face opposition,” he said. The accord, which must win a majority in the 275-seat parliament, is strongly supported by the Kurdish bloc, the second-biggest with 54 seats. Various Sunni and independent parties representing scores of seats have also indicated their approval.

But Othman said the backing of some politicians was not solid.

“They tell the Americans, ‘We are okay, we’ll sign it.’ Then they tell their people in parliament not to vote for it,” he said.

The U.S. Congress does not have similar veto power over the agreement, which requires only a presidential signature. But senior Democrats, and a number of Republicans, have questioned its terms. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement Friday that complete American jurisdiction over U.S. service members was “critical” and that they could not be “subject to criminal prosecution in an Iraqi judicial system that does not meet due process standards.” Levin said he would “reserve judgment” on the draft until he was given an opportunity for a “complete review” of its terms.

DeYoung reported from Washington. Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson in Washington and special correspondent Qais Mizher in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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The trail of torture

October 17, 2008

That the White House authorised ‘waterboarding’ is disturbing. But that no one in mainstream US politics seems to care is worse


The revelation, in yesterday’s Washington Post, that the Bush administration “issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency’s use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaida suspects” will increase calls for the administration to be held to account for its actions.

It is unlikely, though, that this revelation will lead to significant activity, beyond adding more voices to grassroots impeachment campaigns in the United States – although it may lead to a strengthening of plans in various European countries to indict senior officials for war crimes. As law professor Scott Horton explained in June, the best that opponents of the regime can hope for is that the “Bush administration officials who pushed torture will need to be careful about their travel plans.”

The problem for all parties concerned is that the administration itself still refuses to concede that it has engaged in torture, and is being allowed to get away with it in the two places where opposition could really count: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Rather than pursuing senior officials, house Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi declared that impeachment was “off the table” after the Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives two years ago. A month earlier, politicians had endorsed the executive’s attempts to shield itself and its employees from any liability for their actions by passing the Military Commissions Act, parts of which were clearly intended to exempt US officials from being prosecuted for war crimes.

Freed from direct challenges, the administration has, instead, attempted to stifle all mention of torture in its dealings with prisoners seized in the “war on terror”.

A case in point is the British resident Binyam Mohamed. According to his lawyers at the legal action charity Reprieve, Mr Mohamed, who was seized in Pakistan in April 2002, was sent to Morocco by the CIA (before the agency brought torture “in-house”), where proxy torturers extracted a number of false confessions from him. As a result, he was accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a US city, and was put forward for trial by military commission at Guantánamo.

However, just last week, when a judge in Washington, DC finally had the opportunity to review his case, the US justice department chose to drop the charges relating to the “bomb plot” rather than pursue them, presumably because senior officials were aware that the entire trail of decision-making as to why Mr Mohamed was rendered to Morocco led to the highest levels of government, and to the kinds of discussions between the CIA and senior officials – including Vice President Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld – that were discussed in yesterday’s article in the Washington Post.

Even so, Mr Mohamed may still face the same charges in a trial by military commission, because the defence department, safe from judicial scrutiny, still believes that it can pursue prosecutions in a system that is so rigged that, when one of the prosecutors, Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, resigned two weeks ago, he expressed his profound doubts that the system was “capable of delivering justice”.

The fact that some of these cases – like that of Mr Mohamed – involve the alleged use of extraordinary rendition and torture by or on behalf of the CIA only serves to confirm that even confirmed critics and opponents of the administration’s detention and interrogation policies in the “war on terror” are a long way from holding senior officials to account. Perhaps the greatest shame, however, is that out on the campaign trail, where these issues ought to count for something, they are not being mentioned at all.

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An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

September 1, 2008

MichaelMoore.Com, Sunday, August 31, 2008

Dear God,

The other night, James Dobson’s organization asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.

I see that You have answered Dr. Dobson’s prayers — except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don’t blame You, I know You’re angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an “Act of God” — when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized — and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush’s FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, “There you go again!”

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven’t been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America’s “wholesale slaughter of unborn children.” His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don’t do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven’t sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time — they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don’t know what, Bush’s head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government’s response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W’s to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It’s done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I’ll leave that to the followers of Dr. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God’s fellow children who are reading this, the city of New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.

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John McCain’s Party of Hate

August 18, 2008

Brent Budowsky | Consortiumnews.com, August 16, 2008

Editor’s Note: To many Americans who expected better from John McCain, the surprise of Campaign 2008 is that the Republicans are operating almost exactly the same as they have in previous presidential election cycles — relying on personal attacks, wedge issues, tough-guy talk, and media complacency.

In this essay, former Democratic congressional aide Brent Budowsky ponders this disturbing reality:

As Campaign 2008 unfolds, it is increasingly clear that the Republicans are a party with little left but hate, anger and the politics of slandering their opponent.

John McCain has become a candidate reduced to doing a Karl Rove imitation as a sleazy, divisive campaigner, while making bellicose pronouncements about war reminiscent of the childish Confederates at the beginning of “Gone With the Wind,” drinking their brandy and smoking their cigars with fantasies about the glorious war that they hunger to fight.

Now, right on cue, comes the latest Swift Boat attack book from one Jerome Corsi, the great white hope of modern Republicanism who has published a new book tearing down Barack Obama, much like he did four years ago in producing the thoroughly discredited Unfit for Command to demean John Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam.

In other writings, Corsi also called Pope Paul II “senile” and referred to Hillary Clinton as a “lesbo.” So enough of Corsi. He deserves no more camera, ink or bandwidth than noting his history of slanders.

There is a much larger issue than a punk like Corsi. It is that John McCain, who promised to run a civil campaign, has become an embarrassment to the notion of civil discourse in public life.

As the campaign has worn on, John McCain speaks less and less about himself and his policies and more and more about Obama, attacking his Democratic opponent in the most personal, derogatory and often slanderous ways.

For instance, McCain said Obama wanted to bring reporters on his proposed visit to wounded troops in Germany. A lie. He said Obama wanted to bring television cameras to the wounded troops visit. A lie. He said Obama wanted to bring political staff on the visit. A lie. McCain’s campaign accused Obama of refusing to see wounded troops in order to play basketball. A lie.

These are not philosophical differences or public relations spin. These are outright lies, spoken or approved by John McCain, incorporated into his television commercials, repeated endlessly by a compliant news media when the truth was immediately known to the journalists on Obama’s Germany trip who raised little objection in the first key days when the lies did their damage.

Indeed, much of the mainstream media continues to give aid, comfort and protection to McCain by repeating and perpetuating his phony image as an independent and a maverick. The mainstream media also reruns McCain’s attack ads ad nauseum, for free, only spreading the damage of the lies further.

When the news media isn’t recycling McCain false accusations, it often creates its own, reinforcing McCain’s negative campaign narratives about Obama.

The newspaper that used to be the Washington Post ran a derisive and demeaning attack on Obama by “reporter” Dana Milbank, who relied on a bogus quote by one unnamed source that no reporter at the Post, including Milbank, even talked to.

Without checking the accuracy of the quote or trying to ascertain its context, Milbank made it the centerpiece of a column portraying Obama as a megalomaniac claiming credit for the international reaction to his overseas trip, when he actually had said he could take no credit for the crowd in Berlin, that it was really about the world’s high regard for America.

So, a comment that represented modesty and patriotism was turned into its opposite, supposed proof of Obama’s arrogance and hubris.

Continued . . .

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Why McCain May Well Win

August 9, 2008

By Robert Parry | Consortiumnews.com, August 6, 2008

It might seem unlikely that the United States would elect John McCain to succeed George W. Bush when that would ensure continuation of many unpopular Bush policies: an ill-defined war with the Muslim world, right-wing consolidation of the U.S. Supreme Court, a drill-oriented energy strategy, tax cuts creating massive federal deficits, etc., etc.

But there are reasons – beyond understandable concerns about Barack Obama’s limited experience – that make a McCain victory possible, indeed maybe probable.

Here is one of the big ones: The U.S. news media is as bad as ever, arguably worse.

On Monday, Obama gave a detail-rich speech on how he would address the energy crisis, which is a major point of concern among Americans. From ideas for energy innovation to retrofitting the U.S. auto industry to conservation steps to limited new offshore drilling, Obama did what he is often accused of not doing, fleshing out his soaring rhetoric.

McCain responded with a harsh critique of Obama’s calls for more conservation, claiming that Obama wants to solve the energy crisis by having people inflate their tires. McCain’s campaign even passed out a tire gauge marked as Obama’s energy plan.

For his part, McCain made clear he wanted to drill for more oil wherever it could be found and to build many more nuclear power plants.

These competing plans offered a chance for the evening news to address an issue of substance that is high on the voters’ agenda. Instead, NBC News anchor Brian Williams devoted 30 seconds to the dueling energy speeches, without any details and with the witty opening line that Obama was “refining” his energy plan.

So, instead of dealing with a serious issue in a serious way, NBC News ignored the substance and went for a clever slight against Obama, hitting his political maneuvering in his softened opposition to more offshore drilling.

Williams’s quip fit with one of the press corps’ favorite campaign narratives, Obama’s flip-flopping. But the coverage ignored far more important elements of the story, such as the feasibility of Obama’s vow that “we must end the age of oil in our time” or the wisdom of McCain’s emphasis on drilling – and nuking – the nation out of its energy mess.

And, as for flip-flops, McCain’s dramatic repositioning of himself as an anti-environmentalist – after years of being one of the green movement’s favorite Republicans – represents a far more significant change than Obama’s modest waffling on offshore oil.

The Sierra Club, one of the nation’s premier environmental organizations, has repudiated McCain and now is running ads attacking his energy plan. But McCain’s flip-flops – even complete reversals – remain an underplayed part of the campaign story. They just don’t fit the narrative of maverick John McCain on the “Straight Talk Express.”

Loving the ‘Surge’

The major U.S. news media has been equally superficial in dealing with the Iraq War and the “war on terror.” It is now a fully enshrined conventional wisdom that George W. Bush’s troop “surge” was a huge success and vindicates McCain’s early support for it.

On Obama’s overseas trip, it became de rigueur for each interviewer to pound him for the first 10 or 15 minutes with demands that he accept the accepted wisdom about the “surge” and admit that he was wrong and McCain was right.

Continued . . .

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Bush, US Military Pressure Iraqis on Withdrawal

July 26, 2008
Inter Press Service, July 25, 2008

by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON – Instead of moving toward accommodating the demand of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a timetable for U.S. military withdrawal, the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military leadership are continuing to pressure their erstwhile client regime to bow to the U.S. demand for a long-term military presence in the country.0725 03 1

The emergence of this defiant U.S. posture toward the Iraqi withdrawal demand underlines just how important long-term access to military bases in Iraq has become to the U.S. military and national security bureaucracy in general.

From the beginning, the Bush administration’s response to the al-Maliki withdrawal demand has been to treat it as a mere aspiration that the United States need not accept.

The counter-message that has been conveyed to Iraq from a multiplicity of U.S. sources, including former CENTCOM commander William Fallon, is that the security objectives of Iraq must include continued dependence on U.S. troops for an indefinite period. The larger, implicit message, however, is that the United States is still in control, and that it — not the Iraqi government — will make the final decision.

That point was made initially by State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos, who stated flatly on Jul. 9 that any U.S. decision on withdrawal ‘will be conditions-based’.

In a sign that the U.S. military is also mounting pressure on the Iraqi government to abandon its withdrawal demand, Fallon wrote an op-ed piece published in the New York Times Jul. 20 that called on Iraqi leaders to accept the U.S. demand for long-term access to military bases.

Fallon, who became something of a folk hero among foes of the Bush administration’s policy in the Middle East for having been forced out of his CENTCOM position for his anti-aggression stance, takes an extremely aggressive line against the Iraqi withdrawal demand in the op-ed. In fact the piece is remarkable not only for its condescending attitude toward the Iraqi government, but for its peremptory tone toward it.

Fallon is dismissive of the idea that Iraq can take care of itself without U.S. troops to maintain ultimate control. ‘The government of Iraq is eager to exert its sovereignty,’ Fallon writes, ‘but its leaders also recognise that it will be some time before Iraq can take full control of security.’

Fallon goes on to insist that ‘the government of Iraq must recognise its continued, if diminishing reliance on the American military’. And in the penultimate paragraph, he demands ‘political posturing in pursuit of short-term gains must cease’.

Fallon, now retired from the military, is obviously serving as a stand-in for U.S. military chiefs for whom the public expression of such a hard-line stance against the Iraqi withdrawal demand would have been considered inappropriate.

But the former U.S. military proconsul in the Middle East, like his active-duty colleagues, appears to actually believe that the United States can intimidate the al-Maliki regime. The assumption implicit in his op-ed is that the United States has both the right and power to preempt Iraq’s national interests in order to continue to build its military empire in the Middle East.

As CENTCOM chief, Fallon had been planning on the assumption that the U.S. military would continue to have access to military bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan for many years to come. A Jul. 14 story by Washington Post national security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus said that the Army had requested 184 million dollars to build power plants at its five main bases in Iraq.

The five bases, Pincus reported, are among the ‘final bases and support locations where troops, aircraft and equipment will be consolidated as the U.S. military presence is reduced’.

Funding for the power plants, which would be necessary to support a large U.S. force in Iraq within the five remaining bases, for a longer-term stay, was eliminated from the military construction bill for fiscal year 2008. Pincus quoted a Congressional source as noting that the power plants would have taken up to two years to complete.

The plan to keep several major bases in Iraq is just part of a larger plan, on which Fallon himself was working, for permanent U.S. land bases in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Fallon revealed in Congressional testimony last year that Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is regarded as ‘the centrepiece for the CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia’.

As Fallon was writing his op-ed, the Bush administration was planning for a videoconference between Bush and al-Maliki Jul. 17, evidently hoping to move the obstreperous al-Maliki away from his position on withdrawal.

Afterward, however, the White House found it necessary to cover up the fact that al-Maliki had refused to back down in the face of Bush’s pressure.

It issued a statement claiming that the two leaders had agreed to ‘a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals’ but that the goals would include turning over more control to Iraqi security forces and the ‘further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq’ — but not a complete withdrawal.

But that was quickly revealed to be a blatant misrepresentation of al-Maliki’s position. As al-Maliki’s spokesman Ali Dabbagh confirmed, the ‘time horizon’ on which Bush and al-Maliki had agreed not only covered the ‘full handover of security responsibility to the Iraqi forces in order to decrease American forces’ but was to ‘allow for its [sic] withdrawal from Iraq.’

An adviser to al-Maliki, Sadiq Rikabi, also told the Washington Post that al-Maliki was insisting on specific timelines for each stage of the U.S. withdrawal, including the complete withdrawal of troops.

The Iraqi prime minister’s Jul. 19 interview with the German magazine Der Speigel, in which he said that Barack Obama’s 16-month timetable ‘would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes’, was the Iraqi government’s bombshell in response to the Bush administration’s efforts to pressure it on the bases issue.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack emphasised at his briefing Tuesday that the issue would be determined by ‘a conclusion that’s mutually acceptable to sovereign nations’.

That strongly implied that the Bush administration regards itself as having a veto power over any demand for withdrawal and signals an intention to try to intimidate al-Maliki.

Both the Bush administration and the U.S. military appear to harbour the illusion that the U.S. troop presence in Iraq still confers effective political control over its clients in Baghdad.

However, the change in the al-Maliki regime’s behaviour over the past six months, starting with the prime minister’s abrupt refusal to go along with Gen. David Petraeus’s plan for a joint operation in Basra in mid-March, strongly suggests that the era of Iraqi dependence on the United States has ended.

Given the strong consensus on the issue among Shiite political forces of all stripes as well as Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shiite spiritual leader, the al-Maliki regime could not back down to U.S. pressure without igniting a political crisis.

Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam“, was published in June 2005.

© 2008 Inter Press Service

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