Iraq

The collective cynicism is ugly. The innocent Syrian people are now doomed. The author hopes that his predictions shall soon be proven wrong… This article was published at 02:36, about 4 hours before the HTS terrorists occupied Damascus. • Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen reports tonight, December 8, 2024, that Russia, Iran, Turkey call for immediate end to hostilities in Syria. My cynical interpretation of this – beyond pathetic – “call” is the following: Turkey knew and did/does all it can – again – to destroy Syria. Russia and Iran were surprised or act surprised; they can do nothing given their own malaise. Or their “intelligence” services failed miserably? Their common statement is devoid of constructive steps in this uniquely urgent situation. It does not even mention the Syrian government or its President. They “call for” terrorists who are approaching the outskirts of Damascus and have declared long ago that they want to...

Marjorie Cohn* January 24, 2023 The Houthis say their attacks in the Red Sea will continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza In response to Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza in early October, Yemen’s Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, began mounting attacks on commercial ships in and around the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at Israeli-connected or Israel-bound ships and they would continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the pressure on this vital trade route is impacting the global economy as ships are being redirected to more expensive routes. On January 11, South Africa presented its case documenting Israel’s genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice. The following day, the U.S. and U.K. attacked 28 sites in Yemen. Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a ballistic missile submarine killed five Yemenis and injured six. Four days later, the U.S. fired...

Arie Pauil, Julie Hollar and Jim Naureckas May 4, 2023 On the 20th anniversary of the US- and British-led invasion of Iraq, the New York Times continued to dedicate itself to a waffling narrative, one that writes out most of history and opts for a message of “it’s complicated” to discuss the disaster it can’t admit that it helped create. On Saturday, the Times (3/18/23) published an article on its website headlined, “20 Years After US Invasion, Iraq Is a Freer Place, but Not a Hopeful One.” The next morning, the article (under the headline “Lost Hopes Haunt Iraqis, Two Decades After Invasion”) was featured at the top-right corner of its front page—making it one of the most prominent articles in the English-speaking world that day. Originally published at FAIR on March 22, 2023 The article, by Baghdad bureau chief Alissa Rubin, began and ended in a Fallujah cemetery, and it certainly painted a gloomy picture of both...

Composite portrait: (top) President George W. Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln announces the end of major combat in Iraq, May 1, 2003 (Stephen Jaffe, AFP); (middle right) U.S. Marines arrest Iraqi council members (hooded) in Baghdad, Nov. 2, 2004 (Anja Niedringhaus, AP); (bottom) Mosul’s Old City neighbourhood reduced to ruins by U.S. bombardments in a campaign against ISIS, July 14, 2017 (Andrea Dicenzo, AFP) Ralph Nader March 22, 2023 23 Feb 2023I wrote the following column ten years ago. Note the absence of any accountability or regret by Bush, Cheney and their co-war criminals. Ten years ago [now 20 years ago, on March 19, 2003], George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as war criminals, launched the sociocide of the people of Iraq – replete with embedded television and newspaper reporters chronicling the invasion through the Bush lens. That illegal war of aggression was, of course, based on recognized lies,...

Writing this, I must admit that my rage and pain build up inside, still twenty years later. Below, see what TFF and I wrote back then and why we were, simply put, making better predictions on a shoestring budget than the US and other NATO decision-makers on multi-billion-dollar budgets. Like other wars and interventions, this was no “mistake”. It was an unavoidable consequence of Western MIRE – Militarism, Imperialism, Racism and Exceptionalism. The West has learned nothing. Militarism is now its main cohesive force into its manifest destiny: Decline and fall. President George W. Bush announcing that he has just started the war on Iraq. Listen carefully! All the arguments and aims he presents were either false, mistaken or outright lies. And sanctimonious. TFF’s fact-finding missions and scattered memories Permit me start out with a quotation from the British Stop The War Coalition’s newsletter: “A report released this week by...

Even during wartime – maybe especially during wartime – you should be allowed to ask uncomfortable questions Robert Wright at Nonzero Newsletter March 7, 2022 Twice over the past two decades I’ve felt outraged by a massive invasion that violated international law. One time was last week, when Russia invaded Ukraine. The other time was in 2003, when the US invaded Iraq. This post is originally from Nonzero Newsletter You’re not supposed to talk like that! To bring up America’s past wrongdoing as if it’s comparable to some other country’s wrongdoing is called “whataboutism”—as in “Yeah, they did something bad, but what about the time America did something that was bad in kind of the same way?” Most American foreign policy elites hate whataboutism, and they especially hate it at times like this, when a war is going on and you’re expected to focus all your rhetorical firepower on the enemy. Consider...

Relatives mourn as bodies of Iraqi residents of west Mosul killed in an airstrike are placed and covered with blankets on carts on March 17th, 2017. Photo: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images Imogen Piper & Joe Dyke October 31, 2021 Airwars tally offers assessment of the direct civilian impact of 20 years of US strikes Originally posted on Airwars homepage on September 6, 2021 You often find a similar refrain in US media reporting of the cost of two decades of the so-called ‘War on Terror.’ The trope goes something like this: “more than 7,000 US service people have died in wars since 9/11,” an article or news report will say. In the next line it will usually, though not always, try to reflect the civilian toll – but almost exclusively in generalities. Tens, or even hundreds, of thousands. Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist atrocities, and the subsequent launch of the...

U.S. bombs and bullets have claimed at least hundreds of thousands of civilian lives this century. Here, a U.S. airstrike against Islamic State militants in densely-populated Mosul, Iraq on July 9, 2017 is shown. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images) March 29, 2021 Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies Unbeknownst to many Americans, the U.S. military and its allies are engaged in bombing and killing people in other countries on a daily basis.  On February 25th, President Biden ordered U.S. air forces to drop seven 500-pound bombs on Iraqi forces in Syria, reportedly killing 22 people. The U.S. airstrike has predictably failed to halt rocket attacks on deeply unpopular U.S. bases in Iraq, which the Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution to close over a year ago.  The Western media reported the U.S. airstrike as an isolated and exceptional incident, and there has been significant blowback from the U.S. public, Congress and the world community, condemning the strikes...

Chris Hedges September 4, 2020 Chris Hedges discusses “Ghost Riders of the Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge,” with author Danny Sjursen, combat veteran and West Point. It’s RT’s “On Contact”. If you want to know more about Sjursen, here is his SceptialVet homepage. Originally posted on Scheerpost’s website on August 17, 2020. Please help TFF remain truly independent by contributing if you benefited from this article Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact. He has written 12 books, including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe...

June 16, 2020 The war in Syria, now in its sixth year, has been ferocious and deadly. In 2016, the death toll was estimated at 400,000. In Iraq, the fight against the Islamic State (IS) has destroyed cities and displaced around 3.3 million people. Yet beyond the immediate consequences of these conflicts, the environmental degradation in both countries could have a far-reaching impact. Originally posted on Fanack.com on December 16, 2017 In a country at war, preserving the environment is not usually a high priority. However, it is a key issue that must be addressed before rebuilding begins. According to Living under a black sky, a report published by the Dutch peace organization PAX in November 2017, Iraq was severely affected even before the [IS] attacks in 2014 by the legacy of three wars and climate change, resulting in weak environmental governance and more frequent droughts. ‘Since then, you can also add illegal oil refineries, spills and fires, as well as...

May 19, 2020 Lawrence Wilkerson, US Army Colonel This is a stunning piece of documentary and a clear and sharp analysis of the moral and intellectual decay of the foreign interventionist policy of the United States. By a man who obviously knows. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, says the escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Iran today is a continuation of two decades of U.S. policy disasters in the Middle East, starting with the 2003 run-up to war with Iraq under the Bush administration. “America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is,” says Wilkerson. “We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is...