Category: Iraq

Democrats share the blame for tragedy of Iraq War

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By Stephen Zunes

The Democrats who voted to support the war and rationalized that vote by making false claims about Iraq’s WMD programs – a minority of Democrats, but much over-represented in Democratic leadership councils – were responsible for allowing the Bush administration to get away with lying about Iraq’s alleged threat.

Here on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, it is important to remember that it was not just those in the Bush White House who were responsible for the tragedy, but leading members of Congress as well, some of whom are now in senior positions in the Obama administration.

Continue reading at truthout

Remembering those responsible on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War

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By Stephen Zunes

This March 19 marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The U.S. war and occupation has resulted in the deaths of up to half a million Iraqis, the vast majority of whom are civilians, leaving over 600,000 orphans.

More than 1.3 million Iraqis have been internally displaced and nearly twice that many have fled into exile.

Almost 4,500 Americans were killed and thousands more have received serious physical and emotional injuries which will plague them for the rest of their lives.Read More »

The Iraq War – 10 years later

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By Richard Falk

After a decade of combat, casualties, massive displacement, persisting violence, enhanced sectarian tension and violence between Shi’ias and Sunnis, periodic suicide bombings, and autocratic governance, a negative assessment of the Iraq War as a strategic move by the United States, United Kingdom, and a few of their secondary allies, including Japan, seems near universal.

Not only the regionally destabilizing outcome, including the blowback effect of perversely adding weight to Iran’s overall diplomatic influence, but the reputational costs in the Middle East associated with an imprudent, destructive, and failed military intervention make the Iraq War the worst American foreign policy disaster since its defeat in Vietnam in the 1970s, and undertaken with an even less persuasive legal, moral, and political rationale.

Most geopolitical accounting assessments do not bother to consider the damage to the United Nations and international law arising from an aggressive use of force in flagrant violation of the UN Charter, Read More »

Iraq and the betrayal of a people – Impunity forever?

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By Hans von Sponeck

Iraq’s recent history includes two far reaching events, on the 2 August 1990 Iraq’s invasion into Kuwait and on 19 March 2003 the US/UK invasion into Iraq. Whether political leaders will draw lessons from these events will be, at best, questionable. Iraqis continue to be wronged. Danger to life and turmoil remain a cruel part of Iraq’s reality in early 2013. The collective suffering of a nation is visibly all pervasive. It can not be hidden.

The Iraqi puzzle of life confirms an endless number of tragedies
Ethnic tension and sectarianism have become a major element in Iraqi politics since the US/UK invasion of 2003, a polarization of inter-group relations  Iraqis had not known before. This explains much of the existing hideous crime including murder, kidnapping, property destruction and, most noteworthy, the deteriorating relationships between Baghdad and the three northern Kurdish governorates.

Since the years of war, sanctions and occupation, Iraq’s once state-of-the-art medical system has all but collapsed. Malnutrition and diseases, almost forgotten in Iraq, such as respiratory infections; measles; typhoid fever and tuberculosis have re-emerged on a large scale. The planned destruction of water and sanitation facilities, especially in the 1991 war, and recurrent drug shortages, throughout the period of sanctions and after the 2003 invasion, promoted significantly ill-being, morbidity and mortality in the country (WHO). Read More »

The case against Kerry

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By Stephen Zunes

President Obama’s selection of John Kerry as the next secretary of state sends the wrong signal to America’s allies and adversaries alike. Kerry’s record in the United States Senate, where he currently chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, has included spurious attacks on the International Court of Justice, unqualified defense of Israeli occupation policies and human rights violations, and support for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, thereby raising serious questions about his commitment to international law and treaty obligations.

Furthermore, his false claims about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and his repeated denials of well-documented human rights abuses by allied governments raise serious questions about his credibility.Read More »

To an Unknown Iraqi

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2013 is the year that accountability and Justice for Iraq should be high on the agenda of the International Human Rights Community. Hans C. von Sponeck, member of the BRussells Tribunal, who resigned as Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq in 2000, wrote a moving apology letter to the Iraqi people in June 2003. We republish this letter again today.

By Hans von Sponeck

What we have done to you in the name of freedom and democracy has no parallel in history. We have trampled the truth concerning your suffering, we endeavoured to solicit allies through bribery and ruthlessly marginalized those who objected to our imperial intentions. Brute force became the substitute for the promise of 1945 “to save future generations from the scourge of war”. It was you who paid the price.

Will you ever forgive us?

The torture of dictatorship was terrible for you; we added the sword of sanctions. The curse of double punishment for something you had not done was the verdict against you. Two million of you died during those years, perhaps more. The figure does not really matter. None should have died because of us; everyone had the right to live, as we do, in peace. Let us not forget the many who are still alive may never live again, maimed and traumatized forever, reduced to empty human shells. We never really wanted to share with you the dream of freedom and democracy. All we were willing to pass on to you was naked hypocrisy.Read More »

Against a third world war – constructively

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By Johan Galtung

From Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany

The probability of a devastating Third World War is not zero, but very far away from 100%. Let us explore why.

The worst case scenario is a world war between the West–NATO, USA, EU with Japan-Taiwan-S. Korea–on the one hand, and the East—SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), Russia, China, Central Asia, with the observers India, Pakistan, Iran. With 4 vs 4 nuclear powers, and West vs Islam as a major theme.

In the center is the explosive mix of a divided territory, and a divided capital, by a wall.

We have been there before: the Cold War, Atlantic and Pacific theaters; 3 vs 2 nuclear powers, and West vs Communism as major theme.

In the center was the explosive mix of a divided Germany, and a divided capital, by a wall; and a divided Korea, by a zone.

And yet no direct, hot war, except by proxies; Korea, Viét Nam. Why?Read More »

The case against war: Ten years later

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By Stephen Zunes

Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war. At the request of the editors of The Nation – the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States – I wrote a version entitled “The Case Against War,” which appeared on their website September 12, 2002 and as the cover story of the September 30 issue. It became one of the most widely circulated articles in the magazine’s 147-year old history. Every congressional office received multiple copies.Read More »

The dangers of chemical weapons, Syria’s too

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By Jonathan Power

The Syrian government say that, unlike Saddam Hussein, it won’t use its sizeable stocks of chemical weapons on its own population, only on would-be attackers. That’s a comfort of sorts since nobody is going to attack it. Chemical weapons are regarded as weapons of mass destruction along with nuclear and biological weapons. Chemical agents like sarin that destroys the nervous system, VX and mustard gas can kill thousands of people in one blow.

If the UN were mandated to send in troops or the US did so unilaterally their forces could be devastated by a chemical attack. The main worry – as such an invasion is highly improbable unless a dying regime or a new regime asks for help – is that the chemical stockpiles could fall into the wrong hands – the hot-headed thorn in Israel’s flesh, Hezbollah in southern Libya or Al Qaeda which the regime says are part of the opposition.Read More »