Category: Iraq

U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.

There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.

President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict “could be longer and more difficult than some predict.” He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”

Read about the cost of this war

Timeline

This Week in Peace History

eighth anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq.

Yep, and it seems now that the U.S. media is trying to spin their own rovian revisionist history as to why they didn’t do their jobs, eight years later!

And after all this time, questions still remain as to why the United States launched the war in the first place.

Really Simon, questions? Seems hundreds of thousands here with added millions, us ‘focus groups’, around this planet were questioning before, on the day the invasion started and all these years later, as well as paying attention to the better late then never Inquiries held as well as all the proof then and through these eight years. Where have all of you been?

So how did U.S. intelligence get it so wrong?

Did intelligence get it all wrong “who spun a web of lies which convinced America’s top spies”, or is it more reality that you all followed breathlessly what cheney and all his brother and sister neo-cons, who found a story line from a single source they could build up with what other ‘intelligence?’ they cherry picked, think powell at the U.N., and added to justify their destructive goals, sold you and few questioned, remember all that love towards rumsfeld!

I’m not going to add anything except this to what I’m posting below, we’ve got a decade plus of living the reality while also no mention of the Country demanding ‘Sacrifice’ for what they readily support,

The Country doesn’t even understand the damage they’ve created with the actions of these two now long running occupations and the hate rhetoric towards others, as a group, that still continues!

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point today…

In my opinion, any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wasn’t just cobbling together yet another version of the wishy-washy “Powell Doctrine” enunciated once upon a time by the former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, with all its easily miscontrued conditions: Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear attainable objective?

Yes, of course the Vietcong, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, penguins, liberals, and lolcats threaten vital national security interests!

This shit meant nothing, not even to the whore/general who dreamed it up and then turned into a cheerleader for invading Iraq, the Land of Imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction!

But there isn’t nearly as much wiggle-room about a big American army in Asia!

Or Africa!

Or the Middle East!

“Don’t go there!”

And after enunciating the “Gates Doctrine,” Gates launched a full-tilt attack on the bureaucratic imbecility of the Pentagon!

To find inspiring work for its young officers after combat deployments, the Army must encourage unusual career detours, Mr. Gates said, endorsing graduate study, teaching or duty in a policy research institute, Congressional office or other branch of government. The defense secretary urged the cadets to master foreign languages and cultures.

Mr. Gates said his main worry was that the Army might not overcome institutional bias that favored traditional career paths. He urged the service to “break up the institutional concrete, its bureaucratic rigidity in its assignments and promotion processes, in order to retain, challenge, and inspire its best, brightest, and most-battled tested young officers to lead the service in the future.”

Master foreign languages and cultures!

War as a liberal art!

What next? A Department of Peace, and an honest citizen for President instead of a cowardly, sadistic thug like George W. Bush, or a sociopathic con-man like Barack Obama?

As we approach the 8th anniversary of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, and having just passed the 20th anniversary of another, it’s worth reflecting on what’s been accomplished through two wars and the intervening sanctions that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright so famously approved of even at the cost of a half million children’s lives.

[snip]

Your tax dollars at work, my fellow Americans. You cannot destroy a nation and hire religious fanatics to attack other types of religious fanatics without creating hell on earth.

[snip]

As we busy ourselves denouncing the Republican budget for all of the traits it shares with Obama’s proposal, and as Obama fights off the teeny cuts to the Pentagon that the Republicans are seeking, bear in mind what that money is used for. If we really bear it in mind, if we really consider what the majority of every US tax dollar goes to fund, the day will come when Freedom Plaza in Washington DC resembles Tahrir Square in Cairo. May that day come before it is too late.

by David Swanson…

A Decade Later, a Year in the making. What should have been demanded by the Country right at the beginning of that destructive decade of lies, failed policy and increasing the threat to National Security as well as destroying our place of leadership on many issues on the World Stage. The Soldiers sent, over and over, and their Families are getting Support from across this Administration, this added to what the DoD and Veterans Administration have been doing, finally, these past couple of years.  

Retired Capt USAF, Myles Spicer, USAF 1954-57 retired from reserves, lays out the long over due ‘Support’ for those we send into occupations theaters and then forget about. The so called (T)’s {oh the fun with the ‘purple heart bandages’ as the wars raged}, once long ago (R)’s and even conservative, won’t like this, they want but don’t want to pay for, and not just war, as most of them were the ones that remained silent for over a decade, still ongoing silence, as to Real Support but very loud as to support of the failed policies and related lies and costs.

On January 2, 2002, the total number of civilians killed by American bombs in Afghanistan surpassed the number of Americans who died in the WTC on 9/11, but as far as I can determine, no one in the United States commemorated the ninth anniversary of that grim milestone, on January 2, 2011, and we’re still “getting even” or “getting ahead” by killing more and more civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and sacrificing the lives of more and more of our own brave soldiers even now, more than nine years later.

As Lieberman deliberated, the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), told HuffPost that the party would consider supporting Lieberman if he returned to the fold.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Joe & George the President

The feeling of ill will is mutual: Lieberman said during the health care debate that one reason he opposed a Medicare buy-in compromise was that progressives were embracing it.

Joe & John the Presidential Candidate

March 20, 2003

” What we are doing here is not only in the interest of the safety of the American people. Believe me, Saddam Hussein would have used these weapons against us eventually or given them to terrorists who would have. But what we are doing here, in overthrowing Saddam and removing those weapons of mass destruction and taking them into our control, is good for the security of people all over the world, including the Iraqi people themselves.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

Joe and John in Iraq

September 29, 2011.    10 years and 18 days after 9-11 attacks on NYC



” It is time for us to take steps that make clear that if diplomatic and economic strategies continue to fail to change Iran’s nuclear policies, a military strike is not just a remote possibility in the abstract, but a real and credible alternative policy that we and our allies are ready to exercise.

It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table. It is time for our message to our friends and enemies in the region to become clearer: namely, that we will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability — by peaceful means if we possibly can, but with military force if we absolutely must. A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities entails risks and costs, but I am convinced that the risks and costs of allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability are much greater.

Some have suggested that we should simply learn to live with a nuclear Iran and pledge to contain it. In my judgment, that would be a grave mistake. As one Arab leader I recently spoke with pointed out, how could anyone count on the United States to go to war to defend them against a nuclear-armed Iran, if we were unwilling to go to war to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran? Having tried and failed to stop Iran’s nuclear breakout, our country would be a poor position to contain its consequences.

I also believe it would be a failure of U.S. leadership if this situation reaches the point where the Israelis decide to attempt a unilateral strike on Iran. If military action must come, the United States is in the strongest position to confront Iran and manage the regional consequences. This is not a responsibility we should outsource. We can and should coordinate with our many allies who share our interest in stopping a nuclear Iran, but we cannot delegate our global responsibilities to them.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

http://lieberman.senate.gov/in…

So why are 200,000 American soldiers still serving long rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan?

If you look through the images on sites controlled by the Department of Defense, it’s obvious enough.

Playing pattycake!

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,

Put it in the oven for baby and me.

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Roll it up, roll it up;

And throw it in a pan!

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

Wreaths Across America

Honor our living brothers and sisters all the time! Fully Fund the Veterans Administration, no questions asked, as we fund the Department of Defense, no questions asked. Sacrifice comes from the rest who send those of us who serve into Wars and Occupations of others, they and their families are not the only ones who should be Sacrificing their all!

Back on Tuesday, December 26, 2006 I posted this VVAW Anniversary-Dec 26th 1971-Statue of Liberty, Liberation on my first blog, still in my infancy of blog posting but I had gotten better, like embedding links etc.. This action took place only months after I returned from Vietnam, my last year of my four, and getting discharged back into civilian life. I wasn’t with these brothers but I had already started down the path of activism against Wars of Choice and those that create them for profit and power. That post is below slightly refined and updated, had to find a link and embedded a document pdf player.

Over the past couple of months I have also moved my **IN HONOR TO THE FALLEN in Iraq and Afghanistan** posts from that original site to a stand alone site, this is a page listing each post on that site.