Category Archives: Iraq War

Tariq Aziz: ‘Britain and the US killed Iraq. I wish I was martyred’

Iraq, Iraq War


Tariq Aziz with Saddam Hussein before the fall

by Martin Chulov in Baghdad , The Guardian, August 5, 2010

Tariq Aziz is slumped on a tattered brown sofa seat cradling his walking stick and cigarettes, his gaunt face topped, incongruously for a practising Christian, by a Muslim prayer cap. It is perhaps only the familiar black-ringed spectacles that signal to the visitor that this was Iraq’s former face to the world – Saddam Hussein’s right-hand man, his most powerful deputy.

Apart from his captors and lawyers, Aziz, says he has not seen or spoken to a foreigner since the fall of Baghdad. But after years rotating between solitary confinement and a witness box in court, he is now more than ready to speak.

“It’s been seven years and four months that I have been in prison,” he told the Guardian. “But did I commit a crime against any civilian, military or religious man? The answer is no.”

Iraq has been through hell since Aziz was last seen in public, days before Baghdad fell in April 2003, toppling Hussein and the totalitarian Ba’athist regime that Aziz had helped lead for 30 years. Continue reading Tariq Aziz: ‘Britain and the US killed Iraq. I wish I was martyred’ →

Fallujah Fallout

Ethics, Iraq, Iraq War


Genetic damage and health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima

Brussels Tribunal, Press release
July 2, 2010

Results of a population-based epidemiological study organized by Malak Hamdan* and Chris Busby are published on 03 July 2010 in the International Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health (IJERPH) based in Basle, Switzerland. They show increases in cancer, leukemia and infant mortality and perturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Results of a survey in Jan/Feb 2010 of 711 houses and more than 4000 individuals in Fallujah show that in the five years following the 2004 attacks by USA-led forces there has been a 4-fold increase in all cancer. Interestingly, the spectrum of cancer is similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionizing radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout. By comparing the sample population rates to the cancer rates in Egypt and Jordan, researchers found there has been a 38-fold increase in leukemia (20 cases) almost a 10-fold increase in female breast cancer (12 cases) and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. Continue reading Fallujah Fallout →

Payback for No Pay

Afghanistan, Development, Iraq, Iraq War


Haji Layeq says an American company failed to pay a construction company he has ties to; photo by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Much of the world, despite what many Americans think, does not trust the United States intentions in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Both countries have seen corruption and favoritism at the highest levels. In theory “America” stands for citizens’ rights and equal treatment under the law, but in practice such principles may conveniently be ignored in war zones. Such a case was reported on yesterday in The New York Times by Carlotta Gall. She writes:

The failure of American companies to pay for contracted work has left hundreds of Afghan workers unpaid in southern Afghanistan, and dozens of factories and small businesses so deep in debt that Afghan and foreign officials fear the fallout will undermine the United States-led counterinsurgency effort to win the support of the Afghan people.

Continue reading Payback for No Pay →

Mr. Peabody and Sherman Rewrite Middle East Policy

Film and Video, Iran, Iraq, Iraq War, Terrorism Issue, YouTube Watch

For those of us who grew up on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, Mr. Peabody and his not-so-bright sidekick Sherman taught us the “real” story behind history. Mr Peabody has long since retired and I suspect Sherman is still working on his B.A. somewhere, but a new episode has appeared that explains how we got into the mess in Iraq. If, as Napoleon is credited with saying, history is a pack of lies agreed upon, one might as well agree with this as with the multiple official versions.

Check it out on Youtube.

More than just (a) war

Afghanistan, Conferences and Talks, Ethics, Iraq War, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue


President Obama speaking to the Nobel Prize Committee

As the season has arrived in which “Peace on Earth” fills the airwaves and resonates from church choirs, the recent choice of President Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize becomes ironic as well as iconic. The icon is obvious, as no president since John F. Kennedy has elicited such fanfare at his entry into office. As the chairman of the Nobel committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, introduced President Obama, it was clear that in part the real choice was the man who pledged to reverse the isolationist and publicly entrenched private sectoring of George W. Bush. Had our previous president not been the bearer of two made-for-Hollywood wars in the guise of a nebulous “War on Terror,” Obama would have had to wait his turn. The irony is manifold. American dissatisfaction with the costly war in Iraq led to a political surge for the Democrats for a change; the man who pledged to end the war mongering is still saddled with the two wars he did not start. On the home front, the financial tsunami he inherited now tarnishes virtually every attempt to pull the economy out of its cross-the-boards harm from the combustable engine of Wall Street to the reckless drivers on Main Street.

The liberals and centrists who voted to give hope a chance have all too soon decided not to give it much of a chance. Those who actually prefer to call themselves liberals no doubt hoped that Obama was just politicking when he touted centrist positions to secure some of those Red State votes. But the man from Illinois, who kicked off his run with the symbolic capital of an earlier president-to-be from Illinois, is decidedly centrist, the mad ravings of vanity pouting Glenn Beck and publicity whoring Sarah Palin notwithstanding. If you want to probe the postmodern meaning of irony, just listen to what President Obama said about war in being honored as a man of peace: Continue reading More than just (a) war →

Why they hate us: You can count on it

Iraq War, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media

Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?(II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

by Stephen M. Walt, The New ForeignPolicy.com, November 30

Tom Friedman had an especially fatuous column in Sunday’s New York Times, which is saying something given his well-established capacity for smug self-assurance. According to Friedman, the big challenge we face in the Arab and Islamic world is “the Narrative” — his patronizing term for Muslim views about America’s supposedly negative role in the region. If Muslims weren’t so irrational, he thinks, they would recognize that “U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny.” He concedes that we made a few mistakes here and there (such as at Abu Ghraib), but the real problem is all those anti-American fairy tales that Muslims tell each other to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.

I heard a different take on this subject at a recent conference on U.S. relations with the Islamic world. In addition to hearing a diverse set of views from different Islamic countries, one of the other participants (a prominent English journalist) put it quite simply. “If the United States wants to improve its image in the Islamic world,” he said, “it should stop killing Muslims.” Continue reading Why they hate us: You can count on it →

The War Within

Iraq War, Journalism and Media


Sgt. Blaylock in Iraq

On Dec. 9, 2007, Sergeant Blaylock, heavily intoxicated, lifted a 9-millimeter handgun to his head during an argument with his girlfriend and pulled the trigger. He was 26.

“I have failed myself,” he wrote in a note found later in his car. “I have let those around me down.”

Economics trumps politics, even though the two are always in bed together. The bailouts on Wall Street and the impending end of unemployment handouts on Main Street have occupied the news channels, while the back roads of Iraq have receded in the wishful rear-view thinking about the war. But along comes a New York Times video report that brings it all back. The video documents the suicide of Sgt. Jacob Blaylock, who was haunted by the death of two close friends, to the point of posting dark poems on his Facebook page. Suicides, despite the comedic Mash theme are not painless. For the full article on the issue of suicides of returned Iraqi war veterans, click here.

Even Iraqi Snakes are Terrorists

Animals, Apocalypse Watch, Iraq, Iraq War


The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface.

Webshaykh’s Note: Cyberspace harbors a host of apocalyptic websites that relate current events in the Middle East to biblical prophecy. From the site Heaven Awaits it would seem that even Iraqi snakes are suspected of being terrorists… after all these snakes have horns. The following commentary stems from a news item in The Independent.

Snakes preparing the way for demons?

from Heaven Awaits website

The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface. Interesting ….that it has “horns.”

The Bible predicts that the Euphrates River will dry up, and demons will come out. See the latest headlines from Iraq. Continue reading Even Iraqi Snakes are Terrorists →