Category: Iraq

Within the next few days, Congress will vote on a incredibly bloated $636 billion military spending bill, which includes $128 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At this time of economic and ecological crisis, the U.S. government wants more money than ever for indefinite war and occupation.

Tell your Members of Congress: vote NO on war funding.

A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is “not worth fighting.”1

However, President Obama is sending at least 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 21,000 he already sent earlier in 2009.

Make no mistake: our troops won't come home until we convince our Members of Congress to cut off funding for the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let them know where you stand today.

Tell your members of Congress: Vote NO on the fiscal year 2010 defense appropriations bill.

Notes:

1. Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen, “Public Opinion in US Turns Against the War.” 8/20/09, Washington Post.

This will be brief!  Brevity because of too much going on today, but I think it’s very important that everyone gets a glimpse of this. I can hardly digest this news, without a feeling of deep, down illness.  And, worse, it’s something that I don’t know if any of us have actually been anticipating or suspecting!

Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula

Yemen will become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Saudi Arabia – whose state-to-state relations are among the strongest and most durable of the entire post-World War II era – on one hand and Iran on the other.

It is perhaps impossible to determine the exact moment at which a U.S.- supported self-professed holy warrior – trained to perpetrate acts of urban terrorism and to shoot down civilian airliners – ceases to be a freedom fighter and becomes a terrorist. But a safe assumption is that it occurs when he is no longer of use to Washington. A terrorist who serves American interests is a freedom fighter; a freedom fighter who doesn’t is a terrorist.

Yemenis are the latest to learn the Pentagon’s and the White House’s law of the jungle. Along with Iraq and Afghanistan which counterinsurgency specialist Stanley McChrystal used to perfect his techniques, Yemen is joining the ranks of other nations where the Pentagon is engaged in that variety of warfare, fraught with civilian massacres and other forms of so-called collateral damage: Colombia, Mali, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Uganda.

BBC News reported on December 14 that 70 civilians were killed when aircraft bombed a market in the village of Bani Maan in northern Yemen.

The nation’s armed forces claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, but a website of the Houthi rebels against whom the bombing was ostensibly directed stated “Saudi aircraft committed a massacre against the innocent residents of Bani Maan.” [1] . . . .

The conjuring up of the al-Qaeda bogey, however, is a decoy. The rebels in the north of the nation are Shi’ites and not Sunnis, much less Wahhabi Sunnis of the Saudi variety, and as such are not only not linked with any group of groups that could be categorized as al-Qaeda, but instead would be a likely target thereof. . . .

Please read!  Be aware of this latest aggression!

Feeling near “faintness” right now — it all goes ahead without us or any resistance — it’s all so unstoppable, as is so far the reality!  

I really like that descriptive name used as to Mr Blair, fits him well, editorial link for same below along with others.

Will the statements open up what others will say or bring forward as they might try and distance themselves from him?  

First a few commentaries as this Inquiry moves along and the information and charges drip, drip, drip…………..out.

Iraq-Afghanistan-Afghanistan-Iraq…………

Leader: Our craven calculations in Iraq must not infect Afghanistan

The Iraq war was a ruinous mistake. The lessons from it have not yet been learned.

Two hundred and thirty-seven British troops have died in Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001 – but the name of Lance Corporal Adam Drane should never be forgotten. The 23-year-old soldier from the 1st Battalion the Royal AnglianRegiment became the 100th UK casualty this year when he was shot dead near Nad e-Ali on 7 December. It is the first time that 100 or more British soldiers have been killed in a single year since the Falklands conflict in 1982, when 255 servicemen died and, as Sir David Richards, the British army chief, has acknowledged, it reopens the debate as to whether “the sacrifice of another British soldier is worth it”. The sacrifices are not over. The number of the British dead will continue to rise. We have argued that the Afghan conflict, though its origins may have been just and necessary in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, has since become unwinnable and counterproductive, and the government should set a date for a strategic withdrawal…>>>>>

Today the British Military goes after the civilian government ministers sent in or making decisions after the invasion to try and apparently bring order to chaos building another government or to keep the country functioning so it wouldn’t completely fall into an Insurgency, I mean after all the U.S. expected throngs of people throwing flowers and kisses. Oh ya, even Bremer is mentioned, he apparently isn’t to great in the social circles, or war theaters, as to making friends with his counterparts.

You apparently also go to War with the leaders you have!!

You’ll see what I mean, below.

This is some of what happened on day ten of the Inquiry with a few reports and commentary coming out because of the Inquiry.

Remember the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein could launch a WMD attack on the United States in 45 minutes time?

It was one of the centerpieces of his claims as to why we “needed” to go to war.

Well, turns out that claim came from ….. (drum roll please) ……

A taxi driver.

I’m not making this up.

These soldiers are coming from pretty high unemployment number counties in South Carolina. Why they’re training in Wisconsin only the military can give that answer, what with all the bases in North Carolina and South Carolina you’d think they’s have had regional training spots closer to home. This is also probably hitting other units in other parts of the country as well.

Christmas homecoming in jeopardy for Fort Mill soldiers

More than $35,000 must be raised to get guardsmen home before leaving for Afghanistan

Drip, drip, drip, “”He recalled noting that: “the dog didn’t bark – it grizzled.” Don’t forget – this ‘grizzling’ for regime change was 6 months BEFORE 9/11.””. drip, drip, drip,  “”But there was a ‘sea change’ in attitude after the atrocities, with former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice targeting Iraq on the very day of the outrage.””, drip, drip, drip, “”George Bush tried to make a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida in a conversation with Tony Blair three days after the 9/11 attacks, according to Blair’s foreign policy adviser of the time.””, drip, drip, drip, “”There was “a touching belief [in Washington] that we shouldn’t worry so much about the aftermath because it was all going to be sweetness and light”.””, drip, drip, drip, “”Boyce mentions the “dysfunctionalism” of Washington. He says that he would find himself briefing his American counterparts on what was happening in different parts of the US adminstration. Rumsfeld was not sharing information””, drip, drip, drip………..!

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

It is said, as individuals, we can achieve all we conceive, if only we truly believe.  President Barack Obama once knew this.  He lived this veracity.  Indeed, candidate Obama’s audacity and accomplishments gave Americans hope.  When Barack Obama reached for the sky he realized what no one thought he could. The electorate was energized.  People came to expect the country was in for a change.   Now, it seems Mister Obama is bogged down by what Eisenhower understood, concerns of the Military Industrial Complex.  

The intricacy of the Armed Forces mission does not confine itself to forceful martial escalation.  Nothing escapes the wide reach of combative nation building.  Lives are lost.  Limbs crushed.  With bullets ablaze, brains are battered or blown to smithereens.  Hope suffers.  Hearts are hurt.

Friday, 12.04.09, was the eighth day of the British Iraq War Inquiry which has been bringing forth some very interesting, and adding to the possibility of incriminating, pieces of information pertaining to what had been going on within the administration of President Bush prior to what happened on Sept 11 2001, on the day of the destructive deadly attacks of Sept 11 2001 and in the immediate days following and leading up to the invasion and lack of concern about after the destruction and then occupation of Iraq.

Today, Dec 4th, they’re already into day eight of the Inquiry with that covering “Military Planning” and “The view from London and Baghdad 2004-2007”.

But so far some of what has come forth has been that the administration, long before Sept 11 2001 were focusing on regime change in Iraq and probably looking for ways to justify their wants. On 9/11 Condi Rice mentioned not only al Qaeda as being suspected guilty parties to the attacks that day but also Saddam might have had a hand in them. This while the rest of the Country was intently focused on the devastating Deaths and Destruction and while the President was flying around the Country instead of directly back to Washington from the Florida visit when the attacks took place. Not three days later even President Bush was talking up possible Saddam’s guilt