Iraq

Blackwater Founder Free, Former Employees Go Down On Murder Charges

October 23, 2014 Jeremy Scahill, www.firstlook.org Educate! Blackwater, Corporatism, FBI, Iraq, Wars and Militarism

A federal jury in Washington, D.C., returned guilty verdicts against four Blackwater operatives charged with killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians and wounding scores of others in Baghdad in 2007. The jury found one guard, Nicholas Slatten, guilty of first-degree murder, while three other guards were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter: Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard. The jury is still deliberating on additional charges against the operatives, who faced a combined 33 counts,according to the Associated Press. A fifth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, had already pleaded guilty to lesser charges and cooperated with prosecutors in the case against his former colleagues. The trial lasted ten weeks and the jury has been in deliberations for 28 days.

Jury Convicts Blackwater Guards In 2007 Killing Of Iraqi Civilians

October 22, 2014 Dan Roberts, www.theguardian.com Educate! Blackwater, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Iraq, Wars and Militarism

Now, after a 10-week trial and 28 days of deliberation, a jury in Washington has found three of the men – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard – guilty of a total of 13 charges of voluntary manslaughter and a total of 17 charges of attempted manslaughter. The fourth defendant, Slatten, who was alleged to have been first to open fire, was found guilty of a separate charge of first-degree murder. Slough, Liberty and Heard were found guilty of using firearms in relation to a crime of violence, a charge which can alone carry up to a 30-year mandatory sentence. Prosecutors had claimed Slatten, the convoy’s sniper, viewed killing Iraqis as “payback for 9/11” and often “deliberately fired his weapon to draw out return fire and instigate gun battles” or tried to smash windscreens of passing cars as his convoy rolled through Baghdad.

Stop The Killing

October 21, 2014 Kathy Kelly, www.vcnv.org Organize! Iraq, ISIS, Latin America, Religion, Syria, usa, Wars and Militarism

On August 9, 1983, three people dressed as U.S. soldiers saluted their way onto a U.S. military base and climbed a pine tree. The base contained a school training elite Salvadoran and other foreign troops to serve dictatorships back home, with a record of nightmarish brutality following graduation. That night, once the base’s lights went out, the students of this school heard, coming down from on high, the voice of Archbishop Oscar Romero. “I want to make a special appeal to soldiers, national guardsmen, and policemen: each of you is one of us. The peasants you kill are your own brothers and sisters. When you hear a man telling you to kill, remember God’s words, ‘thou shalt not kill.’ No soldier is obliged to obey a law contrary to the law of God. In the name of God, in the name of our tormented people, I beseech you, I implore you; in the name of God I command you to stop the repression.”

Toxic Legacy Of US Assault On Fallujah ‘Worse Than Hiroshima’

October 14, 2014 Patrick Cockburn, www.independent.com Educate! health, Iraq, US, Wars and Militarism

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents. Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s.

War Propaganda: The Fourth Estate In Flames

October 12, 2014 Medea Benjamin, www.codepink.com Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Syria, US, Wars and Militarism

A war-weary American public that a year ago resoundingly rejected US military intervention in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime now is rallying behind the use of force to destroy the so-called Islamic State (Isis). In just three months, from June to September, support for US airstrikes in Iraq soared from 45% percent to 71%, and to 65% for airstrikes in Syria. How did such an astounding turnabout occur? Certainly it wasn’t due to the persuasive powers of President Obama, who seems to have been reluctantly dragged into a conflict that he once acknowledged has no military solution. The credit for selling Obama’s war on Isis must go to the mainstream American media. Day after day, night after night, the press relied on propaganda from both Isis and the US government to whip up fear and a thirst for revenge in the American public. Gruesome beheading videos distributed by Isis were played over and over.

Where Is US Congress? Failing To Do Their Duty

October 8, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Canada, Iraq, Syria, Wars and Militarism

In a speech in the Canadian Parliament, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Canada, Thomas Mulcair, raised many issues that should be of concern for people in the United States as well as their representatives. Congress should come back from recess before the election and debate these issues. Their failure to return is fulfilling their constitutional responsibility and allowing the US to sink into another war-quagmire. He pointed out how Prime Minister Stephen Harper has failed to answer the most basic questions on why Canada is signing-on to this war, such as: - What are this mission's objectives and how do we define success? - What rules of engagement are in place to avoid civilian causalities? - How much will this mission cost? - How many years are we willing to be embroiled in Iraq? - How can we effectively contain ISIS without deploying substantial ground forces or expanding into Syria? - What is our exit strategy? - Do we have a plan to take care of our veterans after we leave Iraq?

Once More, Into The Quagmire

October 5, 2014 Jason Hirthler, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Syria, Wars and Militarism

More than 191,000 dead in Syria during the civil war. Four to five million displaced. Nearly 3,800 slaughtered in Iraq in September alone. The numbers mount. But America is back on the case. President Obama has assembled a crack cabal of international criminal satraps to fight the world-historical scourge known as ISIS, the band of some 30,000 fundamentalist killers marauding through Iraq and Syria. True, ISIS is laying waste to the Iraqi Army and the slightly more respectable Kurdish Peshmerga. These mad jihadists par excellence are said to be within an hour’s drive of Baghdad, a reality that has more irony beneath it than the Middle East has petroleum. Baghdad trembles behind the new, untested al-Abadi government, which has yet to show it is any more “inclusive”—that magic touchstone—than the U.S.-installed al-Malaki government before it.

Home Grown Axis Of Evil

September 29, 2014 Heather Gray, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Capitalism, Food and Agriculture, History, Iraq

As is now well known, oil is but one of the major interests the US has in Iraq. Because wars are invariably a pretext for economic expansion and opportunities for corporate greed, I knew that US corporate agribusiness was not about to be left out of the picture. My concerns were realized when, in April of 2003, Bush’s Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman appointed Daniel Amstutz, formerly an executive of the Cargill Corporation, to oversee the "rehabilitation" of agriculture in Iraq. With Cargill having the reputation of being one the worst violators of the rights and independence of family farmers throughout the world, I knew Iraqi farmers were doomed. Cargill is massive. This corporate agribusiness grain trader has 800 locations in 60 countries and more than 15 lines of business. It is the largest private company in the US and the 11th largest public or private company in terms of sales.

Five Arrested At White House In Anti-War Protest

September 23, 2014 Anne Meador, DC Media Group, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Iraq, ISIS, Nonviolence, Syria, Wars and Militarism

A few dozen proponents of nonviolence demonstrated in front of the White House the morning after U.S.-led airstrikes on targets in Syria. They attempted to deliver a letter to President Obama calling for drastic changes in policy regarding militarism, poverty and the environment, and they engaged in a civil disobedience action by blocking a White House entrance. Five were arrested. At the same time, President Obama delivered remarks about the airstrikes in front of Marine One on the White House lawn, touting the strength of a multinational coalition. He then departed for the United Nations in New York. Signs at the protest said things such as "No U.S. Military Intervention in Syria,” “Reparations Not More Bombs,” and “There Is No Military Solution." Three demonstrators wore orange jumpsuits and black hoods and carried a banner protesting Guantanamo Bay prison. Several wore blue scarves, symbolizing their identification as global citizens, and expressing solidarity with women and youth in Afghanistan, where the blue scarf movement originated.

How Does This End?

September 19, 2014 Staff, www.bravenewfilms Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Syria, Wars and Militarism

No one is saying that ISIS or al Qaeda or any other extremist organizations are a bunch of nice guys, or that they wouldn’t deserve all the terrible things the US military could do to them. The problem is that we’ve been kicking terrorist ass over the world, but in doing so, we’re not pausing for a moment to consider the unintended consequences. In the 1980s, we decided that the enemy of our enemy, the Soviet Union, would make great friends. We handed off hundreds of millions of dollars to arm and train the Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan. We did not fully understand who these fighters were, nor did we fully appreciate or seem to care about the radical social policies they would enact if they won, so long as they could be a pain in the side of the “evil empire." The problem was that those same fighters included Osama Bin Laden, and future members of the Taliban.

How The West Created ISIS

September 18, 2014 Nafeez Ahmed, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Iraq, ISIS, Wars and Militarism

Military action is necessary to halt the spread of the ISIS/IS “cancer,” said President Obama. Yesterday, in his much anticipated address, he called for expanded airstrikes across Iraq and Syria, and new measures to arm and train Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces. “The only way to defeat [IS] is to stand firm and to send a very straightforward message,” declared Prime Minister Cameron. “A country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers.” Missing from the chorus of outrage, however, has been any acknowledgement of the integral role of covert US and British regional military intelligence strategy in empowering and even directly sponsoring the very same virulent Islamist militants in Iraq, Syria and beyond, that went on to break away from al-Qaeda and form ‘ISIS’, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or now simply, the Islamic State (IS). Since 2003, Anglo-American power has secretly and openly coordinated direct and indirect support for Islamist terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda across the Middle East and North Africa. This ill-conceived patchwork geostrategy is a legacy of the persistent influence of neoconservative ideology, motivated by longstanding but often contradictory ambitions to dominate regional oil resources, defend an expansionist Israel, and in pursuit of these, re-draw the map of the Middle East.

Tell Congress “No” To More War

September 17, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Petitions and Online Actions CODE PINK, Iraq, ISIS, Syria, Wars and Militarism

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Martin Dempsey testified before the war-friendly Senate Armed Services Committee on September 16, 2014 about the extent of the US military's role in fighting Islamic. The hearing was interrupted by peace protesters from CODE PINK and Popular Resistance. Non-Profit Quarerly began noting “The hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday morning began with repeated disruptions from antiwar protesters.” They went on to urge more action from the antiwar movement, writing: “History would suggest that it’s time for the antiwar movement to raise important issues about the U.S. plan to deal with ISIL. Maybe this war against ISIL is different; maybe this is an instance where U.S. military action is necessary to stop ISIL, which has now gathered a large military force and deployed it like a professional army. Maybe ISIL can’t be dealt with the way that the U.S. is addressing Al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia. But it is nevertheless the role of the anti-war movement to engage in and elevate the quality of the debate when American civilian and military leaders contemplate military action overseas.”

Why We Oppose The War On ISIS

September 12, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Obama, Syria, War crimes, Wars and Militarism

Below are views of people whose voices are not often heard in the corporate media but who have worked on issues of militarism and war for many years. We asked people who recognize that war is not the answer to complex foreign policy issues for their views on President Obama’s recent speech declaring war on ISIS. Obama did not use the word “war” as he prefers to explicitly state what is really happening by talking about “air strikes” and “counter terrorism.” In reality his speech was a declaration of war. And, he says it will last three years, which we suspect underestimates the war-quagmire he is beginning. As we have said in previous columns President Obama needs to get (1) authorization for the use of military force from Congress, and (2) authorization from the United Nations before the attack he has announced. He is not pursuing either but instead has taken on the power to send the United States into a new war on his own.

Another War Announced: 94,000 US Air Strikes Since 9/11

September 11, 2014 Nicolas J. S. Davies, www.alternet.org Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Syira, Wars and Militarism

Since 9/11, the United States has launched more than 94,000 air strikes, mostly on Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Rumsfeld's plan has undoubtedly achieved his goal of changing the way people live in those countries, killing a million of them and reducing tens of millions more to lives of disability, disfigurement, dislocation, grief and poverty. A sophisticated propaganda campaign has politically justified 13 years of systematic U.S. war crimes, exploiting the only too human failing that George Orwell examined in his 1945 essay, "Notes on Nationalism." As Orwell wrote, "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." Orwell listed "torture, the use of hostages, forced labor, mass deportations,imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians." The U.S. has committed all these atrocities in the past 13 years, and Americans have responded exactly as the "nationalists" Orwell described.

Perpetual War, And Shame, Is Our Policy

September 11, 2014 Matthew Hoh, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Syria, Wars and Militarism

The United States' official policy in the Middle East is now perpetual war. What has been known for some time, including by those of us who have served overseas, by the millions who have suffered through our bombs and our bullets, and, of course, by the hundreds of thousands whose lives have been ripped from their families and from any promised futures, President Obama solidified last night. The United States, by agreeing to airstrikes without end in support of a corrupt and sectarian government in Baghdad; by championing a Shia and Kurdish invasion of Sunni lands; and by promising arms, munitions and money to rebel groups in the middle of the Syrian Civil War, the same groups that sold Steven Sotloff to his beheading, has adopted a policy that will exacerbate the civil wars in both Iraq and Syria and deepen the nightmare existence of their people. President Obama's speech will be remembered as a mark of moral shame on the United States, so very opposite and so very contradictory to the courage shown by the president five years ago in Cairo, Egypt.

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