The Hyping of Hawke 2

Here's Paul Kelly's version of the late former PM Hawke's contribution to the Gulf War (August 1990 - February 1991), otherwise known as Operation Desert Shield:

"In early 1991 after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and his defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions, Hawke authorised Australia's most important military commitment since Vietnam. For Hawke, the argument was irrefutable - it was a repelling [of] aggression, it involved support for the alliance since US President George H W Bush was spearheading the action; but, more decisively, it meant support for the UN authorised position. In November 1990 the Security Council passed its 'war resolution' approving 'all necessary means' to reverse the invasion. Australia's contribution was a modest three ships. Hawke had considered five but, worried about casualties, opted for caution. For the Labor Party and the Left - still shaped by the Vietnam experience - this was a turning point. Many feared a disaster but the war was short and successful. While Australia's contribution was small, the significance of the decision was great - the nation had moved beyond the psychology of Vietnam." (Lover, fighter & peacemaker, The Australian, 17/5/19)

Needless to say, Kelly's is a caricature of the reality, designed solely to burnish the image of St Bob. The following data has been culled from The Case Against Australian Participation by Janet Powell & Richard Bolt, in Australia's Gulf War (1992). (Powell was the parliamentary leader of the Australian Democrats, 1990-91.) I set it out here by way of rebutting each of Kelly's propaganda points in the order in which they are raised:

Saddam's alleged "defiance of UNSC resolutions":

"In fact Iraq had in several statements demonstrated sufficient realism to comprehend that it would have to withdraw for the crisis to end. Its recent history shows reversals of apparently intractable positions as the pressure of circumstances demanded; for example, in handing back territory won from Iran during their recent war... This was clear from a leaked UN transcript of Secretary-General [Peres] de Cuellar's 13 January meeting with President Saddam Hussein, in a last minute bid to avert war. Despite public claims that the Iraqi leader had refused to even discuss withdrawing the transcript reveals that President Hussein 'produced a map of Kuwait and asked... 'Where should Iraq withdraw to?' But he also said that open discussion of withdrawal 'as war was looming' would be damaging to him. Contrary to the rhetoric of war advocates, a negotiated settlement backed by sanctions would not have required that Iraq be appeased with unprincipled enticements to withdraw. Assurances could have been given that withdrawal, payment of compensation, and the dismantling of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would be followed by increased efforts to convene a Middle East peace conference, and agreement that the World Court should adjudicate on Iraq's claims over the disputed Rumaila oilfield on its border with Kuwait... Such assurances were ruled out simply to reduce the prospects of success in the contrived eleventh hour-hour negotiations initiated by the United States." (p 32-3)

"It was a repelling of aggression":

"The Australian Government justified its commitment of naval forces as a contribution to the enforcement of sanctions, which it claimed could not be effective without policing. However, other successful sanctions regimes, such as that against South Africa, were not enforced. And the multi-national naval task force in the Gulf was far larger than needed for enforcement... In fact, the predominantly US naval force was structured from the outset to give the Bush Administration the option of launching war against Iraq. It was based on Operation Plan 90-1002', an existing contingency plan for an oil war in the Middle East... Sanctions enforcement was thus a convenient pretext for deploying warships in anticipation of war." (pp 29-30)

"It meant support for the UN authorised position":

"The US-led blockade usurped the Security Council, which has the power to authorize a blockade where sanctions 'have proved to be inadequate'. The UN Charter requires that the military forces contributed to a blockade by member countries be subject to the 'strategic direction' of the Council's Military Staff Committee. Because sanctions had not proved to be inadequate, with diplomatic pressure serving an effective means of sanctions enforcement, and to avoid the shackles of the Military Staff Committee's control, the Bush Administration bypassed the United Nations by citing Section 51 of the UN Charter, which upholds nations' right of collective self-defence. President Bush obtained an invitation from the Emir of Kuwait to impose a blockade in defence of his country. Prime Minister Hawke fully supported the United States by announcing on 10 August that Australia's deployment of two warships and a supply vessel was primarily to 'enforce the blockade on Iraq and Kuwait'. But no request for Australian help had been received from the Emir of Kuwait (it arrived some time later) and no blockade had been approved by the Security Council. This was such a blatant breach of the UN Charter that it was later disowned by Senator [Gareth] Evans. After weeks of wrangling, the Security Council finally gave its retrospective blessing for the sanctions to be enforced by those countries that were already doing so. However, its Military Staff Committee was not placed in overall command; this was a US, not a UN blockade." (p 30)

"The advocates of war cited Security Council Resolution 678 as evidence that this was a UN war, consistent with its Charter's provisions for military action. But 678 was worded to leave all decisions on the war... to the US. The Security council had simply rubber-stamped a decision of the Bush Administration. As UN Secretary-General Peres de Cuellar said as his alarm at the loss of life grew, 'This is not a United Nations war'." (pp 36-37)

"The war was short and successful":

"The pre-war suffering of Iraqi civilians was magnified economically by the war, as the [US-led] coalition systematically bombed Iraq's civil infrastructure: power stations, water purification plants, communications facilities, roads and bridges. Thousands died from the direct effect of the blasts - homes, hospitals, markets, mosques... were incidentally destroyed - and many more from the resultant collapse of health and transport services, the loss of clean water, and food shortages. The most authoritative estimate so far is that 9,000 to 21,000 Iraqi civilians died from the effects of the war. The resultant civil uprising crushed by the Iraqi leadership left 20,000 Iraqis dead, with another 15,000 to 30,000 refugees dying on the road or in camps. The war 'resulted in the largest movement of people in the shortest amount of time in any modern war', as millions fled their homes. The civilian death toll is mounting as normally treatable diseases - diarrhoea (causing infant death from dehydration), typhoid, gastroenteritis, hepatitis, meningitis, polio and cholera - sweep the country. A Harvard University team estimates that 170,000 Iraqi children will die from the after-effects of the war.... Finally, the slaughter of Iraq's armed forces raises serious humanitarian questions. Some 100,000 to 120,000 perished with half dying in the last few days, many while retreating to Iraq. They were mostly a dictator's conscripts who faced execution for deserting, and whose lives could have been spared by reliance on sanctions." (pp 34-36)

Then there's this uncritical, almost casual assertion of Kelly's that deserves attention: "The nation had moved beyond the psychology of Vietnam." The nation had moved, or Hawke had moved? Was this necessarily a good, or a bad thing? Should not the lessons to e learnt from of our uncritical and overzealous involvement in Vietnam have been uppermost in the mind of any prime minister worth his salt, let alone in that of a Labor prime minister? All of these matters are, of course, bypassed in Kelly's hagiographical account. More broadly, could it not be said of Hawke that, by involving Australia in America's first assault on Iraq, he helped pave the way for Liberal prime minister John Howard to involve Australia in America's war on Iraq in 2003?

Finally, just to highlight Hawke's (and Bush senior's) hypocrisy on this matter, consider these pertinent words of Powell's:

"This was not a war which saw the United Nations at last fulfill its Charter, free of Cold War shackles, but one in which the United Nations was hijacked by the United States in pursuit of largely national interests and in violation of the spirit of the UN Charter. Contrary to Mr Hawke's claim, this was not a war which carried a message that big nations cannot invade small ones and get away with it. Syria is still in Lebanon, Israel is tightening its grip over the Occupied Territories, the United States has not renounced its unlawful invasion of Panama, Indonesia's annexation of East Timor remains appeased by the United States and Australia, Turkey still occupies Cyprus, China is in Tibet, and so on. None of these countries are under threat of sanctions, let alone war, despite numerous UN resolutions which have not been complied with. The Gulf War was an oil-based exception to this pattern of appeasement." (p 38)

To be continued...

More Fake Noos

Hmm...

"Those who remain [in Raqqa] include Chechen veterans, former al-Qaida militants and Iraqi Ba'athists who fought for Saddam Hussein. They are ready to die for the 'caliphate' but have amassed hundreds of thousands of civilians around them as human shields." (Teen army tightening net on ISIS in Raqqa, Louise Callaghan, The Sunday Times/The Australian, 2/8/17)

Iraqi Ba'athists who fought for Saddam Hussein???

You're kidding me, Louise. That was 2003. This is is 2017.

Are you seriously telling us that a bunch of Iraqi blokes, brought up on a diet of secular Ba'athist Arab nationalism, and now over 14 years older than they were in 2003, are prepared to die for a... 'caliphate'... in Syria?

Pull the other.

Unpacking Trump's Saudi Speech

* Wahhabi Saudi Arabia is to become HQ for combatting the spread of... Wahhabism:

"Later today, we will make history again with the opening of a new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology - located right here, in this central part of the Islamic World. This groundbreaking new center represents a clear declaration that Muslim-majority countries must take the lead in combating radicalization, and I want to express our gratitude to King Salman for this strong demonstration of leadership..." (Trump's speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit, Riyadh, 21/5/17)

* Ignoring the fact that Wahhabist Saudi Arabia spawned 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, Trump cites...  "the atrocities of September 11th":

"With God's help, this summit will mark the beginning of the end for those who practice terror and spread its vile creed... But this future can only be achieved through defeating terrorism and the ideology that drives it. Few nations have been spared its violent reach. America has suffered repeated barbaric attacks - from the atrocities of September 11th..."

(After, of course, once blaming 9/11 on the Saudis.)

* Trump, borrowing from Netanyahu's script, illegitimately conflates national resistance movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas with globalist Islamist movements:

"The true toll of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and so many others, must be counted not only in the number of dead. It must also be counted in generations of vanished dreams."

* The leader of the country that has done the most to promote sectarianism in the Middle East tells assembled Arab leaders that:

"This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, different civilizations."

(And this as the Saudi army is engaged in a military assault on the Saudi Shiite town of Awamia.)

* Trump takes square aim at the very forces - Iran, Syria and Hezbollah - who are fighting to roll back the Wahhabi/jihadi/takfiri terrorist gangs in Iraq and Syria:

"From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room. Among Iran's most tragic and destabilizing interventions have been in Syria. Bolstered by Iran, Assad has committed unspeakable crimes..."

***

Saddam Hussein presciently told his CIA interrogators following his capture in December 2003 that:

"Wahhabism is going to spread in the Arab nation and probably faster than anyone expects. And the reason why is that people will view Wahhabism as an idea and a struggle... Iraq will be a battlefield for anyone who wants to carry arms against America. And now there is an actual battlefield for a face-to-face confrontation." (Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein, John Nixon, 2016, p 4)

His prophecy of an Arab world turned Wahhabi battlefield has, of course, stood the test of time.

The process began, of course, with Bush's war on Iraq in 2003, which saw the emergence, first of al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI), and then Islamic State (IS), both of whom have since spread into Syria.  But even someone as experienced as Saddam could hardly have imagined the US, post 9/11, both backing ('moderate') and battling ('extremist') Wahhabi gangs in Syria.*

Moreover, Trump's $US460 billion (110bn upfront/350bn over 10 years) sale of WMD to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia will not only enable it to further fuel existing Wahhabi fires in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, but light new ones in Iran and Lebanon.

And then there's Zionist Israel, now a de facto ally of the Saudi Wahhabis, and with an even greater stockpile of American WMD...

Stop the world, I want to get off.

[*FYI: "This chapter [12. Washington, terrorism & ISIS: the evidence] has presented sufficient evidence for us to safely draw these conclusions. First, Washington planned a bloody wave of regime change in its favour in the Middle East, getting allies such as the Saudis to use sectarian forces in the process of 'creative destruction'. Second, the US directly financed and armed a range of so-called 'moderate' terrorist groups against the sovereign state of Syria while its key allies the Saudis, Qatar, Israel and Turkey financed, armed and supported with arms and medical treatment every anti-Syrian armed group, whether 'moderate' or extreme. Third, 'jihadists' for Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS were actively recruited in many countries, indicating that the rise of those groups was not due to a simple anti-western 'Sunni' reaction within the region. Fourth, NATO member Turkey functioned as a 'free transit zone' for every type of terrorist group passing into Syria. Fifth, there is testimony from a significant number of senior Iraqi officials that US arms have been delivered directly to ISIS. Sixth, the ineffective, or at best selective, US 'war' against ISIS tends to corroborate the Iraqi and Syrian views that there is a controlling relationship. In sum we can conclude that the US has built a command relationship with all of the anti-Syrian terrorist groups, including al Nusra [and] ISIS, either directly or through its close regional allies, the Saudis, Qatar, Israel and Turkey. Washington has attempted to play a 'double game' in Syria and Iraq, using its old doctrine of 'plausible deniability' to maintain the fiction of a 'war on terrorism' for as long as is possible." (The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change & Resistance, Tim Anderson, 2016, pp 251-52)]

'Republic of Fear' Revisited

In his moving feature, The women of Mosul & liberation from IS, Fairfax journalist Michael Bachelard writes that:

"Repression of all kinds was routine. Conservative Islam might require modesty but IS demanded invisibility. Under strictly enforced clothing rules, it was virtually impossible to visit the public square - certainly not without a male relative. 'Everyone was looking at you, all the time. Everyone was watching your movements,' says mother-of-five Ayat, at the Jada'ah camp near Qayyarah. 'We were to afraid to do anything... so we stopped going out at all.' Failing to wear gloves, flat shoes, or the double veil; even allowing a glimpse of flesh by lifting the veil a crack to check money at the market or to sip a drink - any of these breaches could lead to punishment. Some women were fined 50,000 ($50) or 100,000 dinars, others were whipped or hit with a wooden baton." (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/3/17)

This is Iraq 2017, 14 years on from the US overthrow of the secular, Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. While Saddam's Iraq may now be just a distant memory for women like Ayat, older Iraqi women would perhaps remember it with  more than just nostalgia, even, relative to the present, as a kind of paradise lost.

It is worth remembering just how that relative paradise was viewed in the West before it was swept away in 2003, and replaced with the current nightmare world of Shia sectarianism in Baghdad and Wahhabi sectarian madness in Mosul.

Perhaps the most influential book on the subject of pre-2003 Iraq was the best-selling Republic of Fear (1989), written by Iraqi expat, Samir al-Khalil, the nom de plume of Kanan Makiya,

Makiya's thesis is that "Fear is the cement that holds together this strange body politic in Iraq. All forms of organization not directly controlled by the party have been wiped out. The public is atomized and broken up, which is why it can be made to believe anything. A society that used to revel in politics is not only subdued and silent, but profoundly apolitical. Fear is the agency of that transformation; the kind of fear that comes not only from what the neighbours might say, but that makes people careful of what they say in front of their children." (p 275)

Makiya, it should be pointed out, along with the likes of Ahmad Chalabi and Fouad Ajami, went on to become the 'native informant' component of the US ziocons, whose strident advocacy of regime change in Iraq was critical to the Bush/Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq, and he is on record as having described the initial US 'shock and awe' bombing of Baghdad as "music to my ears."*

Needless to say, without that invasion and occupation, first Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), and then its even more extreme offspring, Islamic State (IS), would never have appeared on the Iraqi scene, let alone gone on to take key Iraqi cities such a Mosul and transform them into the kind of Wahhabi sectarian hellholes described by women such as Ayat.

Makiya, writing on the subject of Iraqi women under Baathist rule in Republic of Fear, depicts, relative to the lives of women in Mosul under Islamic State, what must seem to us now as a near golden age of feminism:

"The entry of women into the educational system as a whole is another noteworthy Ba'thist accomplishment. In 1970-71, there were 318,524 girls in primary school, 88,595 at the secondary level, and 9,212 at the university level. For the 1979-80 school year the absolute numbers were respectively as follows: 1,165,856, 278,485, and 28,647. By 1980 women accounted for 46% of all teachers, 29% of physicians, 46% of dentists, 70% of pharmacists, 15% of accountants, 14% of factory workers, and 16% of civil servants [...] The important thing about all the legislation on women was precisely where it chose to make the break with tradition. Islamic law has always been clear regarding its view of the subordinate status of women in relation to men as a direct consequence of their sex... Moreover, there is nothing in the very sincere and far-reaching efforts of the Bath to involve women in the labour force or to mobilize them that is un-Islamic, although it certainly represents a radical break with traditional society and deeply cherished values. One need only mention the masses of veiled women mobilized by the Islamic movement in Iran, not only against the Shah, but to break up some of the early feminist demonstrations against Khomeini's edict on the veil." (pp 89-91)

All of which only accentuates the culpability of Bush, the Ziocons, and their Arab fellow travellers, for the appalling plight of the women so vividly described by Bachelard.

[*See Advocating a war in Iraq & offering an apology for what came after, Tim Arango, nytimes.com, 13/5/16]

Destiny & Powerlessness: The American Odyssey of GHW Bush

Israeli settlers are illegally invading occupied East Jerusalem and the Palestinian West Bank as we speak.

Their numbers have metastisised from 100,000 in 1982 to 850,000 today. They control 42% of the West Bank (itself only 22% of historic Palestine), and consume 80% of its water. (If you want to know what else they do, just google 'Dawabshe'.)

And American presidents, reputedly the most powerful men on the planet, have had about as much success as the legendary King Canute in halting this toxic tide.

The last substantial (this is a relative term) attempt to do so came from President George Herbert Walker Bush - Bush senior - in 1990. You can read about it, and Bush's ignominious backdown, in my 9/6/09 post 'Only One Lonely Little Guy'.

Jon Meacham's new biography of GWH Bush, Destiny & Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (2015), does not, of course, do the subject of the raw power of Israel over the United States justice. (It's a Pulitzer Prize winner for God's sake!)

The following anecdote from his book, however, says it all about who holds the whip hand in the US-Israel relationship and the sheer cluelessness of American presidents in this matter. Read and weep:

"The politics of the Middle East were always in play. Despite their cooperation in the Gulf war, the American president and the Israeli prime minister did not have the warmest of relationships. In 1989, when Yitzhak Shamir had come to the United States, Bush had urged Israel to stop building settlements in the occupied territories in the hope that such a concession might improve relations with the Palestinians. As Richard Haass, who was in the Oval Office with the two leaders, recalled it, Shamir gestured dismissively and said 'no problem.' The exchange led to great confusion. 'Bush thought he had an understanding from Shamir that the Israelis would not cause any problems with their settlement activity, meaning that they would cease building new ones,' Haass recalled. 'Shamir, I later learned, thought he was telling the president that the settlements... should not cause any problem and that all the debate was much ado about nothing. Shamir thus continued authorizing them; Bush thought the Israeli leader had broken his word'." (p 494)

Think of the implications here:

'... in the hope that such a concession might improve relations with the Palestinians."

Concession? When did this word start creeping into use in this matter? International law does not call for concessions from occupiers (or the occupied for that matter). International law demands that occupiers end their illegal occupations NOW - no ifs or buts or maybes - or face the consequences.

After all, wasn't that GHW Bush's message to Saddam Hussein when he invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990? And when Saddam refused to comply? Why, Bush dislodged the Iraqis from Kuwait by force in the same year.

But, hey, that was Iraq. This is Israel.

"Shamir gestured dismissively and said ' no problem'."

And Bush just accepts that, no questions asked? A bloody rude hand gesture and two muttered words plus eye-roll? That's it? You're kidding me!

Did Bush even know he was dealing with the former leader of the Stern Gang whose hands were dripping with blood? Rhetorical question, of course.

And did Bush lie down on the floor on the floor of the Oval Office so the Stern Gang boss, with a smirk on his face, could walk over him on his way out?

Meacham doesn't say. His book's title is Destiny & Power. Power? What power?

Remembering Iraq

This month is the 25th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the US's devastating Operation Desert Storm. Iraq was then subjected to crippling UN sanctions for 13 years, before American forces delivered the coup de grace in 2003.

The rest, as they say, is history.

To mark the occasion, Radio National's Fran Kelly interviewed Anas Altikriti of the Cordoba Foundation on 7/8/15. When invited by her to compare the Iraq of today with that of 25 years ago, Altikriti answered:

"Iraq 25 years ago [was] ruled by a brutal, miserable dictator and a regime which was inhumane, but in comparison with what the Iraqi people have today, they look back on those days with dewy eyes and fondness to be perfectly honest."

Lest we forget.

I'm Tony, I'm From Australia & I'm Here to Help

According to rambammed (2014) Sydney Morning Herald journalist, David Wroe, PM Tony Abbott used "conspicuously strong language to slam the post-2003 handling of Iraq led by the US administration of George Bush and Dick Cheney, and supported by former prime minister John Howard, Mr Abbott's political mentor." (Abbott blasts Iraq's post-war 'chaos', 6/1/15).

These are Abbott's words, cited by Wroe in his report:

"Iraq is a country which has suffered a very great deal. First, decades of tyranny under Saddam Hussein. Then, the chaos and confusion that followed the American-led invasion. Most recently, the tumult, the dark age, which has descended upon northern Iraq as a result of the the Da'esh death cult. But Australia will do what we can to help."

To begin with the highlighted sentence. The problem here is Abbott's use of the passive voice. It obscures the direct connection between the American-led invasion and the "chaos and confusion" that followed it. It suggests that, well, war is war, and that, to use an expression beloved of Abbott, 'shit happens'. There is no recognition in Abbott's words that the "chaos and confusion" was in fact meant to happen, was, in fact, the actual goal of the invasion.

As I've pointed out in many posts over the years, the whole point of the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq was to destroy it as a functioning nation and break it into mutually hostile, sectarian statelets (a process bluntly described by neocon warmonger Michael Ledeen as 'cauldronization') on behalf of Israel. (See, for example, my posts Absent-Minded Professors Inadvertently Set Iraq Ablaze (22/12/08), Revolted (3/12/09), Neocons: No Beautiful Dreamers (19/6/14) & 30 US Neocons Screw 13 Million+ Arabs for Israel (4/11/14))

Abbott's take on the 2003 invasion is, in fact, a misrepresentation, and entirely in keeping with his 2009 characterisation of it as an altruistic war of liberation. (See my 17/6/14 post Iraq According to Abbott: 2003-2014.) (Notice too, how Abbott omits all mention of the horrendous suffering inflicted on Iraqis by draconian sanctions imposed on the country following the first Gulf War of 1990-91.)

Unsurprisingly, the rest of Abbott's words - on Saddam and on Islamic State  - also misrepresent Iraqi history.

To take the former first, I've written many times before on the theme of Iraq under Saddam vs Iraq under the US boot, tendering testimony after testimony to the effect that life under Saddam was heaven compared to the hell which followed his overthrow. Just click on the 'Saddam' label below if you wish to read any of them. Here's another. The speaker, Scottish civil engineer Chris Walker, worked in Iraq in the 1980s:

"The majority of Iraqis had a very good life under Saddam by any normal standards, including our own. That he himself was an absolute bastard there is no doubt and the large minority of Iraqis who suffered under him suffered terribly. Those who opposed him at a political level often paid with their lives, as they have done in Iraq since time began... Saddam's position and that of the Baath was that in order to have a secularist Iraq he had to have a policy of brutal repression, not least of those we might now call Islamists, especially but not exclusively Shia religionists. However, those religious people who did not challenge his political hegemony such as the Christians of Iraq were left largely to their own devices. The Christians of Baghdad represented the largest Christian community in the Middle East. If you looked across the skyline of Baghdad you could see as many Christian symbols as Islamic.

"Even with the austerities of war (with Iran), for an Iraqi living his daily life was good. Medical services were the best in the region and free. Education was also free and to Western standards. Utilities were very good, especially water. Standard of living generally would be at the level of an Eastern European country at the same time (ie 1980s) and alcohol freely available at corner shops. They even manufactured their own beer (Ferido). Middle-class people enjoyed a life-style as good as blue collar workers here. Her daily life was different from that of his, inasmuch as religious mores kicked in. But if she was from a non-religious background, at least in emphasis, these differences were small. She could drive, shop and conduct her daily life in a normal way... Although 50% of all marriages were mixed - Sunni and Shi'ite - there is no doubt that Sunnis were the ones who enjoyed the more privileged existence, and while middle class Shia did exist in numbers, middle-class tended to connote Sunni middle-class. The poorest tended to be overwhelmingly Shia... I have tried to convey some sense of light and shade here. It is a million miles away from the Baghdad/Iraq of today and from that represented here [in the UK] before the war. But the Land of the Two Rivers has been destroyed as 'freedom and democracy' have been introduced by philistines."  (You'll find the full interview with Chris Walker (An interview with Chris Walker) at duncanmcfarlane.org

Finally, notice how the "Da'esh death cult" and its "dark age" (the American aggression and occupation presumably being something of a 'light age'), simply "descended upon" Iraq, meteor-like, seemingly out of the blue. Not so. The hard truth is as follows:

"IS must be understood as the worst of the succession of US military campaigns since the 9/11 era - the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The US war in Iraq was primarily responsible for creating the conditions for foreign Islamic extremists to flourish in that country. Furthermore, the groups that coalesced ultimately around IS learned how to create 'adaptive organisations' from a decade of fighting US troops, as then Defence Intelligence Director Michael Flynn has observed. And finally, the US made IS the formidable military force that it is today by turning over billions of dollars of equipment to a corrupt and incompetent Iraqi army that has now collapsed and turned over much of its weaponry to the jihadi terrorists." (The real politics behind the US war on IS, Gareth Porter, middleeasteye.net, 2/1/15)

Far from being strong, slamming words, Abbott's speech is, as you'd expect from a supporter of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a complete evasion of the truth.

Sheridan Sheds Tears for Middle East Christians 2

Just to finish off:

"The Syrian civil war has been a catastrophe for Syria's Christians. Many have been killed. Many have fled."

And who, O Suppository of All Wisdom, do you suppose is killing Syria's Christians (and other non-Christian minorities)?

Sectarian gangs, armed and trained by that pinnacle of 'Western civilisation', the US (and its camp followers).

"It must drolly and with some bitter irony be recalled, too, that Christians fared a little better in Iraq under Saddam Hussein than during the past 10 years."

Now there's an admission for you! But how grudging is: "fared a little better"?

Do I have to wheel in an Iraqi Christian here? So be it:

"Rana stepped out of church in Baghdad December 2006 to find an envelope wedged against her car windshield. Inside was a bullet - a message that she and her family were next on an assassin's list. They fled the city the next day, leaving behind a business, a home - everything. 'I don't like Saddam Hussein, but he didn't bother the Christians,' said Rana, 29, after a church service in London. 'He was a dictator. When he went, the gangs came from everywhere'," ('People turned on Christians': persecuted Iraqi minorities reflect on life after Saddam, Andrew Testa, worldnews.nbcnews.com, 19/3/13)

And who unleashed those sectarian gangs?

Correct, 'Western civilisation'.

Mission Accomplished

"Driving down Saadoun Street, we swing past Firdos Square. There, the stump of the plinth from which a bronze of Saddam Hussein was famously toppled - the dictator's right foot remains - prompted a local to observe: 'Everyone talks of how safe it was, if not good under Saddam - you were safe if you didn't discuss politics.' Now, it seems, everyone is talking about politics - and no one is safe." (The city of burnt trees and bravado, Paul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/10/14)

Iraq According to the Herald

Whatever happened to holding your tongue on a subject you know bugger all about?

In yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald editorial, Unity government the only hope for Iraq, we get a history lesson that'd make any reputable specialist on the subject weep:

"It has taken almost 1500 years for the ME to reach the latest stage of sectarian schism."

The entire history of the Arab world... reduced to the Sunni-Shia divide.

"Recall that almost a century ago, Britain and France in effect created nation states such as Iraq and Syria."

No they didn't. They created colonies, euphemistically known as Mandates.

Indeed, far from creating nation states, they each in their own own way destroyed the first brave attempt at a united Arab nation by the Amir Faisal, who had led the Arab revolt (1916-18) against the Turks in alliance with the British, following a promise of British support for (in the words of the Hussein-McMahon Treaty of 1915) "independence of the Arabs within the territories... proposed by the Shereef of Mecca," the latter (Hussein) being Faisal's father. That is, all of the Arab Middle East, with the possible exception of Lebanon.*

Faisal's vision of a united, non-sectarian Arab nation can be found in a speech he delivered in Aleppo on 11 November 1918:

"I am an Arab and I have no superiority over any other Arab, not even by an atom... I call upon my Arab brethren irrespective of their different sects to grasp the mantle of unity and concord, to spread knowledge, and to form a government that will do us proud... The Arabs were Arabs before Moses, and Jesus and Muhammad. All religions demand that [their adherents] follow what is right and enjoin brotherhood on earth. And anyone who sows discord between Muslim, Christian and Jew is not an Arab." (Faisal I of Iraq, Ali A. Allawi, 2014, p 167)

Britain's promise of an independent Arab nation, of course, wasn't worth the paper it was written on, with the British going on to divide it, in secret, between themselves and the French (the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916). In a further act of betrayal of its wartime Arab allies, Britain then proceeded to promise Palestine to the incipient Zionist movement (the Balfour Declaration of 1917).

The French, for their part, would go on to smash the repository of Arab national hopes at the time - Faisal's Damascus-based Kingdom of Syria (1918-20) - at the Battle of Maysaloun.

"Those concocted borders... paid no heed to the ethnic or religious ties of the people who lived there."

What?! Just the opposite. In Syria, French policy was to divide and rule, in true colonial style, by pitting sect against sect, while in Palestine the British resisted all moves towards representative government by the majority non-Jewish population, intent instead on laying the foundations of "a National Home for the Jewish people," eventually to become the mother-of-all sectarian states, Israel.

Yet not a peep about any of this in the Herald editorial, just 1500 years of indigenous Arab Muslim "sectarian schism," and nonsense about "concocted borders [which] paid no heed to the ethnic or religious ties of the people who lived there."

Even when dealing with more recent history, the editorialist still can't get it right:

"Recall, too, how the West overthrew Saddam Hussein's brutal, Sunni-supported but purportedly secular dictatorship..."

"Sunni-supported but purportedly secular"? Consider this Iraqi assessment:

"When an objective study of the history of the Arab East in the 20th century is carried out, one fact should stand out irrespective of other successes and failures. It is that the Ba'ath [Party] had succeeded more than many nationalist parties in other countries in appealing to the whole society and uniting people across all divides. It was the Ba'ath nationalist ideology in Iraq and Syria which prevented tragedies like the sectarian Lebanese civil war, the continuous friction between Muslims and Christians in Egypt, and the carnage of the 1990s in Algeria taking place in either state... [When the 3 men considered to be the founders of the Ba'ath ideology and party] Zaki al-Arsouzi, an Alawi Muslim, Michel Aflaq, an Orthodox Christian, and Salah ad-Deen Al Bitar, a Sunni Muslim, got together to advocate an ideology and form a political party appealing to the entire Arab society, people from the whole of society flocked to adopt their propagated ideology and join the Party. That is the success of the Ba'ath in the Arab world if everything else failed: its ability to express and entrench the existence of the Arab nation. The disintegration of Iraq following the 2003 invasion and the overthrow of the Ba'ath is a living proof of that success and the failure of the invasion." (The Trial of Saddam Hussein, Abdul-Haq Al-Ani, 2008, p 34)**

"Indeed, for the first few years after Saddam, a Western presence in Iraq looked promising enough in keeping Sunni-Shiite divisions in check."

What utter rubbish! It was the occupying power ("Western presence" LOL) which undertook the de-Ba'athification of Iraqi society.

"None of this historical reflection serves to blame the West, including Australia, for the crisis facing Iraq now."

Gobsmacking!!!

"Many believe a redrawing of the Middle East map into a series of ethno-nationalistic states will have to come, sooner than later."

Oh, really? Anyone without an Israeli axe to grind?

[* Excluding "portions of Syria lying to the west of... Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo," that is, today's Lebanon;** See my 18/12/08 post Life Under Saddam...]

Friends

"Never have a companion that casts you in the shade." Baltasar Gracian

Liberal MLC David Clarke, whose anti-BDS motion and Zionist rant in the NSW Legislative Council I dealt with in my previous post, has had a circuitous route, to say the least, to Zionism - as Greens MLC John Kaye, outraged by Clarke's predictable smearing of the BDS campaign as anti-Semitic, made clear in his contribution to the 'debate':

"He is the same David Clarke who twice - once in April 2005 and then in April 2007 - attended a commemoration of the rise of the fascist Ustasha Government into power in Croatia in April 1941. He is the same David Clarke who was reprimanded by the chief executive officer of the Jewish Board of Deputies, Mr Vic Alhadeff, who I acknowledge is present in the gallery today. In The Jewish News of 26 April 2007, Mr Alhadeff said of the Hon. David Clarke: 'The function-' that is, the function attended by Mr Clarke- 'celebrated Hitler's establishment of the Nazi state of Croatia... This is a state that supported the Jasenovac extermination camp, where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, including 60,000 Jews... It is very troubling that such a brutal regime still finds support in democratic Australia'. There is no excuse for the Hon. David Clarke moving this motion when he so shamefully supported the celebration of the Nazi regime in Croatia. Like so many who come from the extreme Right, today he finds himself with the fanatical support of Israel. He joins with groups such as the Australian Protectionist Party and others in opposing the BDS campaign. Many in the Jewish community will be shocked to see the way the Hon. David Clarke summons up the memory of the Holocaust when his mentor-" At which point Clarke, obviously stung, raised a point of order, claiming he found Kaye's comments "offensive" and asking that they be "withdrawn."

By 'mentor' Kaye meant Lyenko Urbanchich, Nazi collaborator and propagandist in Slovenia during WWII and NSW Liberal Party heavyweight until his death in 2006.

Mark Aarons'* obituary of Urbanchich throws the following light on the relationship between Urbanchich and Clarke:

"The peak of Urbanchich's success came in 1977 with the formation of the Liberal Ethnic Council. As council president, he automatically had a seat on the state executive. Other council executive members included his close ally, David Clarke, who learnt ethnic branch stacking techniques from his mentor and today leads the 'Uglies' faction established by Urbanchich 40 years ago. Clarke helped organise the numbers to narrowly save Urbanchich from expulsion from the Liberal Party after a 1979 ABC radio documentary (which I produced) exposed him as a Nazi propagandist. Urbanchich initially defended himself by claiming that documents used in the program were communist forgeries. When copies of his propaganda were found in Western archives (including contemporaneous British intelligence microfilms), he switched to arguing that German censors had inserted the pro-Nazi content. This was rejected by the Liberal inquiry, but, despite the evidence, the 1980 vote to expel him fell just short of the 60% required. The NSW Liberals' moderate faction bitterly regrets this failure. In the following 15 years, Urbanchich successfully continued his ethnic branch stacking. In 1996, Urbanchich and Clarke established the far-right's ironically named 'central committee'. By 2005 Clarke controlled the NSW state executive, the Young Liberals (in NSW and federally) and the NSW Women's Council. From this powerful position, the faction Urbanchich founded in the 1960s has embarked on a purge of moderates, especially in the NSW parliamentary party. Clarke's support base today is the same far-right constituency that Urbanchich built through ethnic branch stacking, especially using extremist elements in the Croatian and Christian Lebanese communities and often involving violence." (Ardent Nazi took Liberal to extremes, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/3/06) [*Aarons is the author of War Criminals Welcome, 2001)

But that was then. This is now. Urbanchich's old-fashioned anti-Semitism must seem a bit musty these days, what with Israel kicking ass with the 'best' of them. Now it's Arabs and Muslims who are the new Jews, so perhaps it's time, as many on the far-right seem to have concluded, to trade in their Judeophobia for Islamophobia. Not that any of the former ever rubbed off on David Clarke, of course. After all, as he explained in a 2005 interview with ABC journalist Monica Attard (abc.net.au/sundayprofile, 18/9/05), Urbanchich had a perfectly satisfactory explanation:

MA: You knew [Urbanchich] well?
DC: Well yes, I mean he was a member of the State Council of the Liberal Party, I mean most people who are members of the State Council of the Liberal Party would know him to varying degrees.
MA: And were you shocked when you learned of his links to the Nazis?
DC: It came as a surprise but at the same time he put forward an explanation that he was working in his position at the behest of the underground. He put forward a proposition supported by some documents that he was part of the underground that was loyal to the government of King Peter which was in exile in London during the war years.
MA: But was it your belief in his story, was that what made you back him and his case against expulsion?
DC: I opposed his expulsion from the Liberal Party and sufficient people did oppose his expulsion on that basis.
MA: And your friendship with him continued thereafter?
DC: I still know Ljenko Urbancic and you know, many people do, he's still a member of the State Council of the Liberal Party.
MA: So you have a friendship now?
DC: Yes I would. Look, I would have friendly relations with him, yes. He's getting on in years, he's into his eighties, it's quite infrequently that you see him at Liberal Party gatherings.
MA: Did you sort of have to take a bit of a lower profile in those years because of what happened with the Liberal Ethnic Council?
DC: No, absolutely not. I'm not ashamed of anything that I've done; I've always stood for good values.
MA: And you're not... you're certainly not ashamed of the continuing relationship with Urbancic?
DC: The situation is: I accept people as I find them and the Liberal Party found that he should remain as a member of the Liberal Party and the Liberal Party accepts that and he's continued as a member of the Party ever since.

We've already glimpsed Vic Alhadeff, for whom the anti-BDS gibberings in the parliamentary bearpit must have been music to the ears, in the gallery, smiling down as Clarke and co strutted their stuff and nonsense. But who else is David Clarke rubbing shoulders with these days?

Well, with some seriously worried (& worrying) people as it happens. The kind who curl up in a foetal position at the mere sight of a hijab. Yes, Clarke was most assuredly among friends at that 'National Conference for All Concerned Christians' in November 2009, according to my impeccable source, Islamophobic website islammonitor.org.

The theme of the conference, which "represented an alliance of Assyrian and Australian Christians," was "Australia's Future & Global Jihad," and its attendees are described as "wanting a halt to Muslim immigration into Australia in order to stop its Islamification." (An emerging Australian-Assyrian Christian alliance?, Gaspar, 28/11/09)

Clarke was lovingly introduced to the assembled concerned Christians by fellow MLC, and Christian Democrat crusader, the Reverend Fred Nile, as "a fearless and uncompromising leader on moral and Muslim issues."

So why exactly have Muslims become an 'issue' for Clarke? Well, 'Gaspar' reports him as telling his audience that "Christianity is under threat from MUSLIM EXTREMISTS [Islam Monitor's capitalisation] (who he sharply distinguished from peaceful Muslims)." Oh dear! The turbanned, scimitar-waving, moustache-twirling hordes are probably advancing on St Mary's Cathedral as we speak! Hijabs in the rear, of course.

The other speakers made up a stellar cast, including Jenny Stokes of Saltshakers, who discussed "Islam and the way it cynically exploits the interfaith movement"; Keith Piper of the Liberty Independent Baptist Church, who spoke about 'Leading Muslims to Christ', which, he claimed he had done - in shopping centres, no less - by "showing them they are victims of lies"; and the incomparable Danny Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries, who, among other things, talked about "how President Bush opened up the whole Middle East for Bibles to be brought in."

This lot'd do old Lyenko proud. Still, every cloud has a silver lining as they say, and this conference was no exception. It came in the form of Emmanuel Michael, chairman of the Assyrian Federation of Australia who must have stirred up no end of cognitive dissonance among the anxious Anglos when he expanded thus on the subject of life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein:

"Saddam was a dictator. But he did something for us [Assyrian] Christians. I want you to know this. He was a dictator for people who were against him. Saddam built churches for us. [The] Australian government doesn't do that. Saddam built a church for our community. I want to mention this because he was a dictator. But he did a few things good. One of them was that. And the other was [when] he went to my village, called Sharafiya, north of Mosul. He was surprised. He said to the priest who was greeting him... 'Why are your houses built of mud-brick?' They said, 'Because this land is not ours, it belongs to the Catholic Church' and we have to pay rent'. He said, 'Alright'. He went immediately to the head of the [Catholic] Church and said, 'I'm buying this village'. Saddam bought the village and came back less than 2 hours later and said, 'The village is now yours. It's your property. You can build on it'. And he gave $15,000 to each family. At that time the dinar was worth $3. Now it is worth nothing. You see, he did things to help us, to protect us."

Poor old David, Fred, Danny and the rest must have had heart attacks. Even the guy who'd faithfully recorded the conference's goings on for islammonitor.org, calling himself Gaspar, felt compelled to append the following bracketed comment: "Now there's a bandwagon for the mainstream media to jump on: life was better for Iraqi Christians under Saddam Hussein than under America."

But I digress. Yes, whatever the vibes passing between Urbanchich and Clarke in the old days, Clarke's obviously got a bee in his bonnet about them Muslims these days, and that obviously goes some way toward explaining his conversion to Zionism.

But is that all there is to it? Perhaps Aaron's references to Urbanchich's ethnic branch stacking and use of violent extremists provides the key. David Clarke, of all people, must surely know a good old ethnic branch stack when he sees one. And God knows if Israel isn't the mother of all ethnic branch stacks. Think about it.

The US Withdraws From Iraq...

... after having f****d it real good (and kicking some truly spectacular own goals in the process):

"With the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq, the administration, the military and the media are trying to put a positive spin on this grim chapter of US history. It would certainly give some comfort to the grieving families of the over 4,400 soldiers killed in Iraq if their sacrifices had left Iraq a better place or made America safer. But the bitter truth is that the US intervention has been an utter disaster for both Iraq and the US.

"First let's acknowledge that we should never have attacked Iraq to begin with. Iraq had no connection with our 9/11 attackers, had no weapons of mass destruction and represented no threat to the US. We were pushed into this war on the basis of lies and no one - not George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld - has been held accountable. The 'think tanks', journalists and pundits who perpetuated the lies have not been fired. Most of them can be found today cheerleading for the war in Afghanistan.

"It's true that Iraqis suffered under the brutal rule of Saddam Hussein but his overthrow did not lead to a better life for Iraqis. 'I am not a political person, but I know that under Saddam Hussein, we had electricity, clean drinking water, a healthcare system that was the envy of the Arab world and free education through college', Iraqi pharmacist Dr Entisar Al-Arabi told me. 'I have 5 children and every time I had a baby, I was entitled to a year of paid maternity leave. I owned a pharmacy and I could close up shop as late as I chose because the streets were safe. Today there is no security and Iraqis have terrible shortages of everything - electricity, food, water, medicines, even gasoline. Most of the educated people have fled the country, and those who remain look back longingly to the days of Saddam Hussein'.

"Dr Al-Arabi has joined the ranks of the nearly 4 million Iraqi refugees, many of whom are now living in increasingly desperate circumstances in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and around the world. Undocumented, most are not allowed to work and are forced to take extremely low-paying, illegal jobs or rely on the UN and charities to survive. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has reported a disturbing spike in the sex trafficking of Iraqi women.

"The Iraq war has left a terrible toll on our troops. Over 4,400 have been killed and tens of thousands severely injured. More than 1 in 4 US troops have come home from the Iraq war with health problems that require medical or mental health treatment. 'PTSD rates have skyrocketed and in 2009, a record number of 245 soldiers committed suicide', said Geoff Millard, chair of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War. 'If vets coming home from Iraq don't get treated, we will see a rise in homelessness, drug abuse, alcoholism and domestic violence'.

"It has also drained our treasury and contributed to the present financial crisis. As of August 2010, US taxpayers have spent over $750 billion on the Iraq war. Counting the cost of lifetime care for wounded vets and the interest payments on the money we borrowed to pay for this war, the real cost will be in the trillions. This money could have been used to invest in clean, green jobs, or to rebuild our nation's schools, healthcare and infrastructure-ensuring real security for Americans.

"In addition to harming our troops and economy, the war has deeply tarnished our reputation. The US policy of torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, violent and deadly raids on civilian homes, gunning down innocent civilians in the streets and absence of habeas corpus has fueled the fires of hatred and extremism towards Americans. The very presence of our troops in Iraq and other Muslim nations has become a recruiting tool.

"And let's not forget that our presence in Iraq is far from over. There will still be 50,000 troops left behind, some 75,000 private contractors, 5 huge 'enduring bases' and an embassy the size of the Vatican City. As major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: 'In practical terms, nothing will change'.

"So let us mark this moment with a deep sense of shame for the suffering we have brought to Iraqis and American military families, and a deep sense of shame that our democracy has been unable to hold accountable those responsible for this debacle.

"The lessons of this disastrous intervention should serve as an impetus for Congress and the administration to end the quagmire in Afghanistan. It's time to end those unwinnable, unjustifiable wars and bring our war dollars home to tackle the most strategic task for our national security, ie rebuilding America." (The Iraq legacy: tell it like it is, Medea Benjamin (cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace) opednews.com)

Greg Sheridan: The End is Nigh!

Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan has me aquiver with his apocalyptic prophecy of a mad, bad Ahmadinejad acquiring "a nuclear arsenal [which] encompasses the possibility of the destruction of us all." (Tehran on path to our destruction, The Australian, 18/2/10)

And you'd better believe him because, as the prophet explains, "[t]he truth is that history is littered with states behaving irrationally and pursuing irrational ends, and doing so in often destructive ways... Saddam Hussein was such a canny, realist calculator of the odds that his regime ended up gone and he ended up dead. It is intensely ahistorical to believe political regimes will always act according to Western conceptions of enlightened self-interest." (ibid)

Saddam? OK, he may have been as bad as Ahmadinejad, but was he as mad as Ahmadinejad? You see, back in 2003, "Greg Sheridan was a constant and loyal disseminator of the line that the Baghdad regime had WMDs and was prepared to use them. The fact that they hadn't been used early in the 2003 conflict was put down to the efficiency of the coalition forces in deploying 'its vast intelligence strength' ('without the presence of coalition forces it could have used WMDs easily'); and to Saddam Hussein's rational thinking ('Use of chemical weapons would therefore be little short of a suicide gesture'.)" (Americans try to psych rational opponent, The Australian, 22/3/03 - quoted in Getting the Story Straight: Greg Sheridan in the Shifting Moral Sands of Iraq, Martin Hirst & Robert Schutze)

Ah, but who remembers what "the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia*" was writing back then? Certainly not Australia's "most influential foreign affairs commentator." [*According to The Australian's website]

Yes folks, it's all doom and gloom from hereon in: "Stand by for some bad news. No, I mean really bad news. The world is not going to apply crippling sanctions to Iran. Even if it did, Iran would not be deterred from developing nuclear weapons."

The only ray of hope, it seems, would be the roar of Israeli F16s winging their way east: "The only way that Iran can be significantly delayed in its pursuit of nuclear weapons is through an Israeli air strike on its nuclear facilities." (Tehran on path to our destruction)

Wait a minute! Hold your horses! Put the sackcloth and ashes back in the box! Wasn't Australia's "most influential" once of the view that "Iraq remains the most likely source of WMDs for al-Qa'ida" (A threat we ignore at our peril, The Australian, 14/10/02)?

More 'Quality' Journalism at The Australian

"Saddam Hussein was evil, but he was no genius. According to declassified FBI prison interviews with the Iraqi dictator he wanted the world to believe he was armed with weapons of mass destruction. His purpose was to intimidate Iran, which he feared more than the US... But by encouraging the US and its allies to overestimate his arsenal he designed his own destruction. These revelations end arguments the US invaded Iraq to make it an American puppet... And the way US energy companies pulled out of the bidding for petroleum concessions on offer in Iraq this week demonstrates arguments the war was all about oil were always nonsense. While the West's intelligence effort was utterly inadequate, all GW Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard are guilty of is being gulled by Saddam. He did his best to make them believe he was armed with chemical and biological weapons... [I]n invading Iraq the allies acted in good faith. Saddam wanted the world to believe he was armed and dangerous - and he succeeded." (As inept as he was evil: Saddam wanted the world to believe he was dangerous, The Australian editorial, 4/7/09)

Run that past me again: "[H]e wanted the world to believe he was armed with WMD." Did he now? What did Saddam really say in those declassified prison interviews?

"Saddam acknowledged Iraq had made a mistake in destroying some weapons without UN supervision. In Saddam's view UN inspectors wanted all their expenses... paid for by Iraq. Instead of waiting for the inspectors and bearing these expenses, Iraq commenced destruction of the weapons. Iraq did not hide these weapons. Regarding destruction of weapons, Saddam stated, 'We destroyed them. We told you, with documents. That's it.' When asked about restrictions placed on locations... Saddam replied, 'By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the United States'." (The Saddam Files: His final interviews, The Independent, 5/7/09) Nothing here about wanting the world to believe he had WMD.

Or here: "Saddam stated the development of WMD was for the defence of Iraq's sovereignty. Iraq demonstrated this with the use of WMD during the Iran-Iraq War, as Iran had threatened the sovereignty of Iraq. Yet Iraq did not use WMD during the 1991 Gulf War as its sovereignty was not threatened... Saddam claimed his position was that Iraq prior to the invasion did not have them." (ibid)

In fact, in the years leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam denied having WMD. Hans Blix, head of the UN's Monitoring, Verification & Inspection Commission in Iraq (2000-2003), quotes from a letter of Saddam's (7/2/02) to the Turkish PM (cited by US Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation Robert Einhorn): "As pertains to the WMD, Iraq, which no longer has any of these weapons, and has no intention of producing them, is in the forefront of those who are keen that our region be free of WMDs." (Disarming Iraq: The Search for WMD, p 60)

The Australian's editorial is quality alright - quality bullshit.

Life Under Saddam...

"The thousands of people who have marched in Iraq in support of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W Bush are proof of Iraq's advance along the road to democracy. Imagine what would have happened to a reporter who tossed his shoes at Saddam Hussein? It's even more difficult to imagine people being allowed to march peacefully but militantly in the streets under the old fascist regime. Counter-intuitive though it may be, the war really was about overthrowing tyranny and establishing the foundations of democracy." Barry York, Lyneham, ACT (The Australian, 18/12/08)

Yes, Barry, we can imagine what would have happened to Muntazer az-Zaidi if he'd thrown his shoes at Saddam. However, the bleeding obvious seems to have escaped you: az-Zaidi's protest represents the awful fact that, however bad life was under Saddam, for Iraqis in general life under US occupation is actually worse. And here's why: "According to John Pace, former director of the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, 'Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK. But now, no. Here you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone'. Under Saddam the scale of abuse was 'daunting', but now, 'It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam'." (An inventory: Better off under Saddam, Garry Leupp, counterpunch.com, 31/3/06)

Consider also:-

"Life for ordinary Iraqis is now worse than under Saddam Hussein as the country descends into violence 'much worse' than civil war, Kofi Annan has said. The Secretary General of the United Nations gave his hardest-hitting assessment yet of the present situation as he prepared to leave office. 'If I was an average Iraqi, I would make the same comparison', he told the BBC. 'They had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets: they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back without a mother or father worrying 'Am I going to see my child again?'. 'A society needs minimum security and a secure environment for it to get on. Without security, not much can be done'." (Annan says Iraq life 'worse than under Saddam', Joe Churcher, independent.com, 4/12/06)

"Life was 'better' for Christians in Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein than it is today, according to the only Anglican vicar working in Baghdad." (Life 'better' under Saddam says vicar of Baghdad, Joanna Sugden, timesonline.co.uk, 21/12/07)

"Iraq is now in a 'worse shape' than it was under Saddam Hussein, with millions living without even the most basic medical care or access to clean water... The grim picture emerged as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) published a report warning that Iraqi hospitals were still lacking beds, drugs and medical staff, while the poor public water supply has forced some families to use at least one-third of their average monthly income buying clean drinking water." (Red Cross: life in Iraq is worse than ever, Ian Bruce, theherald.co.uk, 17/3/08)

"Iraqi women say they they are now worse off than they were during the rule of dictator Saddam Hussein and that their plight has deteriorated year by year since the US-led invasion in March 2003. Now they are demanding not just equal rights but the very 'right to live', says Shameran Marugi, head of the non-governmental organisation Iraqi Women's Committee. 'The 'right to live' is a slogan that we have begun using because a women's life in Iraq is being threatened on all sides. Laws are not being implemented equally and society is ignoring women', Marugi told reporters. Before the 2003 invasion it was possible for a woman to lead a normal life as long as she followed state policy', she said, adding, 'It was even possible for a woman to engage in political and economic activities through the official Union of Iraqi Women'. She said, 'When the regime change occurred in 2003, women, men, and children went out on the streets to celebrate. We were very happy. Unfortunately there was no qualified leadership to handle the situation and society was not equipped to deal with the changes'. The Union of Iraqi Women was dismantled after the invasion as it was affiliated to the former Baath Party of Saddam. Marugi said in the past few years, violence against women has significantly increased. 'At home, a woman faces violence from her father, husband, brother and even from her son. It has become a kind of a new culture in the society', said the women's rights campaigner. She said out in the society, women were subjected to verbal abuse on the streets if they did not wear a veil, and in extreme cases face being abducted by unnknown gunmen, who sexually abuse and then kill them. It has also become normal for women to recieve death threats for working for example as a hairdresser or tailor, for not wear a veil or not dressing 'decently' ', said Marugi, adding, 'In addition to equal rights, we are now demanding the 'the right to live'." (Many Iraqi women say life was better under Saddam, Agence France-Presse, 26/3/08)

And there's more: See my earlier posts, Main Street, Dujail (17/10/08) & What Iraqis Really Think 5 Years On (4/4/08).

And no, the war was never about "overthrowing tyranny and establishing the foundations for democracy," but I'll keep that one for an upcoming (soon) post.

Main Street, Dujail

"I truly believe that Iraqis are nationalists. They want to choose on their own what's best for their country and they don't want somebody else to decide what's in their best interests," said US General Ray Odierno without a hint of irony (Iran accused of Iraq bribes, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/10/08).

General Odierno was the commander, in Iraq, of the US Army's 4th Infantry Division: "an active-duty two-star general, the commander of an armoured division, one of the Army's premier units. He was the youngest division commander in the Army. And he was physically imposing, 6' 5" tall and weighing 250 pounds, with a bulletlike shaved head. Everyone around him knew he was destined for three or four stars, and might be chief of staff of the Army one day." (Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, Thomas E Ricks, 2006, p 295)

According to Ricks, what General Odierno and the 4th ID are best remembered for is the December 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein. Odierno crowed, "'The former regime elements we have been combating have been brought to their knees... Capturing Saddam was a major operational and psychological defeat for the enemy'. He described the insurgency as a 'fractured, sporadic threat, with the leadership destabilized, finances interdicted, and no hope of the Baathist's return to power'. These were just a 'handful of cells' left fighting in his area, the northern and eastern parts of the Sunni Triangle, he said... He even offered a time line: 'I believe within 6 months you're going to see some normalcy. I really believe that'." (ibid, pp 263-264)

"Saddam Hussein was hanged for killing 148 Shi'ite men and boys in Dujail in 1982. But today, some people in this town on the Tigris say they miss life under the Iraqi dictator because they felt more secure. Even some of those from Dujail whose family members were murdered and imprisoned during Saddam's iron-fisted rule seem seduced by the idea of a strong leader after years of chaos, bloodshed and deprivation since the US-led invasion in 2003. 'If someone like Saddam came back, I'd not only support him, I'd invite him to dinner. My uncle was killed in 1982 in the Dujail incident. Still, life then was a million times better than now', said Saad Mukhlif, a Shi'ite. Nostalgia for Saddam and his Sunni-led government in this largely Shi'ite town mirrors a country-wide sense of frustration despite a drop in attacks and killings... '(Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki is sitting in (Baghdad's fortified) Green Zone. What's he doing to protect us? What's the point of this government?' said Muhammad Mehdi, a Shi'ite whose cousin was jailed in 1982 and whose brother was killed in a car bomb in Dujail last month. 'Saddam Hussein is the only noble leader we've had', he added, before shouting 'God bless Saddam 1,000 times', within earshot of US troops accompanying reporters visiting the town, 50 km north of Baghdad. Mehdi and Mukhlif's views were echoed elsewhere as Reuters spoke to around 15 passers-by and shopkeepers in Dujail's high street." (War-weary Saddam victims miss his iron rule, Mohammad Abbas, Reuters, 11/10/08)

Bulletheaded, shit-for-brains Americans just don't get it, do they?