Six Years of War
For what?
Three days from now, on the 19th of March, the United States invasion of Iraq will mark its sixth year. A million dead Iraqis, more than 4,000 dead U.S. military persons, an eventual cost, according to the economist Joseph Stiglitz, of 3 trillion dollars.
Many people who voted for President Obama believed, quite irrationally as far as I’m concerned, that once elected, Obama would remove all U. S. troops from Iraq within sixteen months. I said many times on my radio program that Obama was being too clever by half with his semantics about withdrawal. He said then, and he confirmed my worst suspicions a couple weeks ago, that he would remove “combat” troops from Iraq, as if every service person there is not in combat. His intension during the campaign, confirmed in a late February speech, was to leave thousands of U.S. military personnel in Iraq beyond the now 19 month period of his supposed withdrawal. 50,000 troops to be exact. Non-combat troops to be sure. I suspect that by the time August 2011 rolls around the 50,000 will have grown considerably, more in line with the 60 to 90,000 I predicted during the campaign.
According to the withdrawal agreement drawn up by W. and his puppet in Iraq, the United States must have all troops out of Iraq by the end of 2012 - - just in time for the November 2012 election. Don’t count on it.
The speech Obama gave at the end of February could very well have been delivered by W. We found no mention in the speech of the on-going and worsening conflict between the Shia and the Kurds that will undermine any Iraqi government. We heard no mention of what is now to happen to the Suni forces the United States has been paying not to kill U. S. soldiers for the last two years.
According to the highly respected military correspondent Tom Ricks, author of The Gamble, Obama’s plan for exiting Iraq is the “sixth plan he has covered that attempts to get U. S. forces out of Iraq.” Mr. Ricks warns in his book that Bush’s war is about to engulf Obama. He writes that the United States will be in Iraq for many years to come, “and that in the end, we will be the losers.” What will emerge, Ricks told MSNBC’s Keith Olberman, “is not a democracy, not an American ally, run by a strongman, probably tougher, smarter and more adept than Saddam Hussein and who is, ironically, an even worse guy.” The winners, as far as I’m concerned, are the mullahs in Iran who will be quite content to have the war continue to bleed billions from the United States every month.
If you are concerned about the continued occupation of Iraq and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, join with your fellow citizens for an anti-war vigil on Thursday, 19 March, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm at Zelasko Park, in Aberdeen, Washington.
Labels: Afghanistan, costs of war, Iraq, Iraq War, war crimes, war dead
Obama Inaguration
As I write this commentary, Barack Obama has just been sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.
The first black president.
Now, we can begin the process of redemption for our original sin as a nation - - slavery. Obama’s inauguration does not mark the end of white racism, it does not mean that the inequalities and discrimination faced by generations of black people in this country has ended.
It does mean that finally, the process has started.
As one who has long fought for racial equality, openly and defiantly since that day in 1967 when the commanding general at Keesler Air Force base in Bilouxi, Mississippi attempted to cover-up a racial incident and ordered several of us to deny the truth, which we refused to do, I am feeling an overwhelming sense of pride that that a black man will lead this country.
I can still hardly believe it.
I did not vote for Obama. I couldn’t - - not after spending the last eight years protesting the illegal and immoral actions of the United States’ government and demanding the impeachment and prosecution of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell and the rest of the criminal conspiracy in control of our government.
I could not vote for Obama because he promised to continue some of those policies and embark on similar crimes.
How could I protest Bush’s illegal war in and occupation of and then vote for Obama who intends to continue that occupation through the too clever by half manipulation of language regarding “combat troops?”
How could I protest Bush’s illegal war in and occupation of Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires, and then vote for Obama who promised during the campaign to escalate that war? Not only escalate the war in Afghanistan but enlarge that war by continuing Bush’s covert invasion of Pakistan Pakistan
How could I vote for Obama when, like Bush, he attempts to erase the Palestinians as if the root of the solution to the crisis in the Middle East did not go through Jerusalem.
The inauguration of Barack Obama holds great promise for our country. I want Obama to succeed. I want our country to succeed as a beacon of freedom and justice. I’m just not sanguine in either case. I guess I read too much history.
Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq War, Obama, war crimes
