Not even in Ghana can you escape the US propaganda surrounding the final pull-out of troops (but not oil companies) from Iraq. They leave Iraq “sovereign and free”, a variety of thuggish looking and dull Americans have just told us.
But being in Ghana I probably see rather more balance on TV than I would in the UK. For example, while there is still no official body count from the war, there is an official count of those wounded. The Iraqi Ministry of Health states, officially, that over 3 million were maimed.
Even though the Iraqi healthcare system was damaged by a decade of sanctions before the invastion, on the eve of the attack there were still over twice as many functioning healthcare clinics and hospitals as there are today, and nearly five times as many doctors working in them.
You won’t see that on BBC or Sky.
Correct Craig.
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‘The US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, told troops that the mission had been worth the cost in blood and dollars.’
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US to lower flag to end Iraq war
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16192105
Pulling out of Iraq beause were not allowed to remain, not because Obama decided so. And, in any case, remain they do, with an “embassy” with up to 17000 staff (!!), control of the waterways to the gulf, borders and air space. What a joke.
On a lighter note, you should check out this:
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2011/12/13/scientists-capture-first-glimpse-of-elusive-clegg-boson/
Very funny!
“final pull-out of troops (but not oil companies)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tT2UEyZ3QY
Off-topic: Craig, maybe your Freedom of Information Act request shook things up a bit. Or maybe this is a message from the Information commissioner to UK activists: “Private Whitehall emails ‘are covered by info laws'”:
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16197167
Watching Obama praise the ‘extraordinary achievement’ of the US invasion force made my skin crawl. Not to put to fine a point on it, this isn’t the first time I’ve watched Obama pontifiwibble on the television and wondered exactly what kind of man this President might be. I hope he really is the empty suit that the Republican’s always say he is; the alternative is far more troubling …
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You get no decent coverage of our various wars anywhere on the MSM. This is a sad but true fact, and I suspect it was ever thus, I’m just getting older, and noticing more. I was particularly appalled by The Guardian’s laughably stupid support for Cameron’s little Libya strike, which as predicted by anyone with half a brain has ended up with many thousands dead, a new regime of nut cases, reprisals – oh, and fat oil contracts for Western oil companies. If I could see that from another continent, and without any journalistic training, you do wonder why the smart professional journalists with Oxbridge degrees somehow missed the obvious …
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More bullshit on the way re: Iran. Tragic.
Nice of them to leave thousands of ” security contractors ” in place to ensure the continuing flow of oil to the US…
The scary Krazies on Newsnight were a General Caslen, Kori Schake and Ian Bremmer, not counting Paxman and Urban.
37 mins in
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018b9kf/Newsnight_14_12_2011/
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Note Paxman’s throwaway line about Iran at about 45 mins in.
Schake is on some substance I should imagine. The soft voice and the empty smile and the rats’ tail hair!!
{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kori_Schake}
They have not gone to far. After all we are on the path to Persia
http://www.darkpolitricks.com/2011/12/us-special-forces-mass-on-syrian-border/
“The US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, told troops that the mission had been worth the cost in blood and dollars.”
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No doubt doing grim yet kindly US hero to camera.
No doubt Halliburton et al agree on the dollars. But I somehow doubt that the Iraqis will agree on the blood. Were they asked, before this fatuous soundbite was uttered?
Geirge Aligaiah, who has his good moments, told the Iraqi Deputy PM on BBC World News that most Iraqis were against the invasion and occupation. But of course the BBC only actually interviews well-paid US puupets from the Iraqi government or western “think-tanks”.
Utterly shameful behaviour – American politics and most of it military are thoroughly corrupt. The invasion of Iraq slaughtered tens of thousands in the most agonising ways imagineable, and the subsequent chaos led to the deaths of many thousands more. As well as the refugee problem of roughly 2 million departing from Iraq while a further 2 million were displaced, becoming internal refugees within their own country. Yet Washington (and a great many Americans) show no sign of remorse or regret, and the iron-fisted corporate sector goes on stuffing its pockets and accounts while prepping for possible acts of international thuggery against Iran.
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Of course, we have our own burden of guilt to bear here as well.
@ Mike Cobley
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It took US almost 30 years to apologise for all horrors in Vietnam. So probably in the next 20-30 years we will get apologies from an American president.
Well, there will still be “several hundred” US military living in the giant US Embassy. And Balad, Al Asad, Taji and Talil? These were previously scheduled to be “stay-behind” bases. Reports vary, but four or five bases will be occupied until the end of the year.
Gigantic US Embassy – details –
http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/AmerPalace.htm
Various pertinent sites on, eg. Facebook currently seem to be being almost flooded with pro-US material re. to both Iraq and Afghanistan (and Libya). Criticism of the USA/NATO seems often to be met with accusations of being pro-Taliban and/or pro-Pakistan military-security and/or pro-Iran state Islamism and so on. Failing that, one often seems to be being assigned the role of ‘Hopeless Leftist’ or ‘Hopeless Hippie’. Lots of pro-Imperialist argumentation, as well as Jihadism, White Supremacism masquerading and anti-Islam/anti-religion, etc. Lots of sensible people, too, of course. I guess, the whole range of possible opinions. But there is a concerted propaganda/PR/’comms’ effort/operation going on, one senses (as one would expect there to be).
Uzbek in UK : but they never apologised for their role in bringing down the democratically elected/nationalist government of Mosadiq in Iran, even though they acknowledged their involvement.
And as the others have said as well, they are not leaving Iraq, they are leaving 17000 Embassy personnel (at least 10,000 are either military or spies or both I bet), the security firms to protect their oil for them, and the oil companies to send the oil to them and in the process make themselves lot of money. The USA government comprises of lot of SOBs…
“So probably in the next 20-30 years we will get apologies from an American president.” Uzbek in the UK.
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I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Suhyal, I periodically put links up (Anti Zionists, Anti USA, etc) from various sources on Facebook, and I get lot of comments, even from my American friends who are totally against the USA policies. I must say I have not come accross what you have. In fact I see the opposite!
“You won’t see that on BBC or Sky.”
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I never thought I’d live to see the day when I trusted Russian state propaganda (Russia Today) more than the BBC. But here we are. I’d rather have half the truth than an eighth of it.
“We went in to liberate Iraqi oil, and set it free from Saddam Hussein to serve our Cadillacs, yachts and aeroplanes. I asked a group of barrels of Iraqi oil yesterday if they were happy to be piped to the USA. Not one made any protest. In fact, accordingly to intelligence reports, Iranian and Afghan Hydrocarbons are longing to be liberated next. How can we turn away from their cries for liberation? By the teetotalling beard of GW Bush, they will be next!” – General Cheese Burger, 100th division in the clouds
As Naomi Klein points out in “The Shock Doctrine”, soldiers are just being replaced by “contractors”.
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Nobody kicks up a fuss when “contractors” die (they’re mostly foreign); they’re not subject to /any/ American or foreign law; and the American taxpayer doesn’t realise that he or she is paying their wages. Brilliant!
“Criticism of the USA/NATO seems often to be met with accusations of being pro-Taliban and/or pro-Pakistan military-security and/or pro-Iran state Islamism and so on.”
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Good lord, no. I’m pro-global capitalism, bombing civilians decently from a safe distance, ripping off their oil, blackmailing their governments, teaching their kids materialism, selling them crap and trashing their infrastructures. I have the moral high ground, me….
@ Azra and Suhayl Saadi
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I am not sure if you got it but my comment was rather sarcastic.
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Western democracies including US have done a lot of wrong in so called third world. When USSR collapsed people lost their life savings in a matter of one night. Millions woken up poor, but somewhat free (at least we believed that we were free). But with the help of the US, Russia, China who cares less for freedom and liberties millions of people in the former USSR are in even worse off today (freedom wise). And today US and EU closely cooperate with even more brutal regimes in Central Asia.
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On the other hand why would anyone expected US/UK to start a war that cost them trillions just in the sake of the freedom of Iraqis.
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People here seem keep ignoring my comments about neo-colonialism but this is what it is. Iraq was the most dramatic consequence of this but around the world there are billions of people who DO NOT benefit from what they supposedly own. There are billions of ‘slaves’ who day and night work to make very few richer and richer.
George Aligaiah said this:
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“The reputation of the Americans appeared seriously damaged. It was beginning to look like America versus the Somalis. And if it was going to come to that, I was with the Somalis… Why, when the rich world intervenes, does it still have to do so in such an overbearing and insensitive way?”
“It was the celebration of the weak when the strong are brought down to size. They(Somalis) were rejoicing in the belittling of America’s power, not the murder of one of its sons.”
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Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate to the world that the United States of American fails to learns lessons, fails to understand the mounting antipathy of illegal invasion and war in pursuit of dominion.
Don’t forget that the invasion was helped, more than any other country, by various thuggish and dull people from the UK.
Does anyone still remember who opposed the invasion?
Did anyone notice on the Snoozenight Paxman’s remark; “I know 9/11 was predicted”? That coming from an outfit, that soon after the events aired a Panorama program with a panel of movie directors, play-writers, and thriller writers debating the nature of the attacks that no one ever knew, could have ever crossed anyone’s mind!
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Also the consensus that US people have no stomach for more wars, yet the Kori Schake character whose credentials include being an advisor to Bu$h, as well as to both McCain-Palin 2008 and Rudy 9/11 Giuliani 9/11, in addition to penning down “great pieces” about “Managing American Hegemony”, “How America Should Lead”, “Dealing with Nuclear Iran”, this thoroughly unpleasant specimen maintained the same line as Lorna Fitzsimons; “public opinion does not influence foreign policy in Britain. Foreign policy is an elite issue.” Although hers was in a nuanced fashion; “it will be difficult for the president to encourage public support for major interventions overseas, …public hesitancy is a problem, but that is amenable to the leadership, and when it matters for the US to use force, it is the president job to build public support for that”.
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However, the inescapable facts are; US is in no position to start another war, from the financial stand point, as well as the tolerance of the US population for any more wars are no longer at the levels before the wars of the choice in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are not likely to yield easily, even in the event of a false flag operation, as reflected in the words of Ian Bremmer;”the era of 9/11 is over”
A rare glimpse of truth from the BBC:
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– But in the city of Falluja, a former insurgent stronghold which was the scene of major US offensives in 2004, people burned US flags on Wednesday in celebration at the withdrawal.
“No-one trusted their promises, but they said when they came to Iraq they would bring security, stability and would build our country,” Ahmed Aied, a grocer, told Reuters news agency.
“Now they are walking out, leaving behind killings, ruin and mess.” –
Off topic but..
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Iceland formally recognises Palestinian state’
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Iceland formally recognised the Palestinian state at a ceremony in Reykjavik on Thursday, becoming one of the first Western European countries to do so.
“This is the day I formally submit to you the declaration of Palestine independence in accordance to the will of the Icelandic parliament,” Icelandic Foreign Minister Oessur Skarphedinsson said, addressing his Palestinian counterpart Riad Malki at a news conference.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/iceland-formally-recognises-palestinian-state-114410483.html;_ylt=A7x9QYi3BupOSjoAVwTOfMl_;_ylu=X3oDMTNxaWRmdG9zBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBXb3JsZFNGBHBrZwMxNzlhODQyOS1kZTE0LTM3YmItYTVhYy0zNjQwM2Q2M2IyMGYEcG9zAzcEc2VjA3RvcF9zdG9yeQR2ZXIDNTAzMGRlMjAtMjcxMi0xMWUxLTg3N2QtY2RjNDhiYzg5YTBi;_ylg=X3oDMTFwcGsyZXJqBGludGwDZ2IEbGFuZwNlbi1nYgRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAN3b3JsZARwdANzZWN0aW9ucwR0ZXN0Aw–;_ylv=3
The old capofamiglia Leon Panetta (I always want to call him Pancetta) said that the cost was $1 trillion.
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Some years back Joseph Stiglitz was saying $3 trillion. I believe him.
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http://threetrilliondollarwar.org/2011/12/07/what-have-we-learned-from-iraq/
Did you listen to Today this morning? Dr Naji at 7.32 right on to 8.20+ A description of the evils of the USUKIs cabals. I missed Perle at 8.46. ‘Should have left it to the Iraqis post-invasion’. Of course, the chaos was what they wanted. Listen to the PTSD men at 8.10 BUT no lesson is taken from them by Humphrys that the best way to prevent harm to mind and body is not to fight aggressive wars
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In all, we know that fascism is here. 24,000 troops for the Olympics – London and at ‘other centres’. Central unit to deal with ‘failed families’. Ms Hodge’s database will be useful. Tattoo or chip them in the neo-natal ward.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9662000/9662348.stm
Even John Humphrys seems to have a suspicion that not all is well in Iraq. Interviewing Rchard Perle this morning (and that’s something no amount of money would induce me to do) he listened to Perle claiming that Iraqis were better off now, and replied “Those of them who are still alive”. But the BBC still sticks to the formula that “tens of thousands” of Iraqis were killed. True, but they don’t give uninformed listeners any hint that, in fact, it was probably more than 150 tens of thousands. Not to mention the maimed and bereaved, or the millions who have been rendered permanently homeless and stateless.
Yes, mission accomplished indeed. Another nation ruined; another people who will never get in the USA’s way again.