You have never told the truth about Iraq, and never will.
See: Occupation Iraq: U.S. Training Terrorists
Occupation Iraq: Tortured Logic
Even the Iraqis know this is bulls***.
"Raid uncovers plot to bomb Iraq ministries; Search brings activity in capital to halt; tensions rise ahead of vote" by Katharine Houreld, Associated Press | January 13, 2010
BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces seized a large cache of explosives yesterday and arrested suspected insurgents accused of planning to target government ministries, in a crackdown across the capital that brought parts of the city to a standstill.
The security measures demonstrated the ever-present fear that insurgents will carry out more bombings....
So the SURGE FAILED, 'eh?
Related: Occupation Iraq: Hell on Earth
All relative, right, MSM?
PFFFT!
The government’s announcement that it had arrested 25 suspects and seized 880 pounds of military grade explosives also set off bitter accusations from some Sunni politicians that the government had exaggerated the incident to burnish its security credentials.
Oh, no, GOVERNMENTS would NEVER DO THAT!
They would NEVER PLANT EVIDENCE to "find!"
The charges laid bare once more the stark lack of trust in Iraq between the Shi’ite-dominated government and the Sunni Muslims who oppose the government.
And CUI BONO?
WHO wants to keep Iraq DIVIDED and FIGHTING?
I'll give you ONE LINKED GUESS, eh?
Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, the capital’s top military spokesman, said security forces had seized 440 pounds of TNT, 440 pounds of C4 explosive, and 66 gallons of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient to make explosives, and 60 mortar shells. Twenty-five suspects who had been planning an attack that morning were arrested, Moussawi said.
Legislator Abdul Karim al-Samarraie, the deputy head of Parliament’s security and defense committee, said the insurgents were planning to target government ministries, although he said he did not have details on which ones.
There was no way to independently verify the reports.
You smell something, readers.
An explosives specialist said if....
“This will not prevent the insurgents from attacking, but it will slow their operations,’’ said Tim Brown, a security analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. “If the reports prove true, it represents a major success for the Iraqi government.’’
The sweep followed hours of cordon and search operations across the capital.
This is STINKING to HIGH HEAVEN!
Such operations have become rare since security in Iraq improved in 2008. But
Have you HAD ENOUGH of THOSE WORDS in the "news reports," America?
every couple of months, insurgents still succeed in carrying out horrific bombings.
Yeah, AND WE KNOW WHO is BEHIND THEM, false-flag cover-up artists of the MSM!
Hundreds have been killed over the last several months when blasts targeted government institutions in central Baghdad.
And the MSM here has kept it pretty damn quiet!
Related: Occupation Iraq: Violence Up, MSM Coverage Down
The issue of security is becoming increasingly politicized ahead of the March 7 voting. Sunni lawmakers were quick to question whether the lockdown ordered by the Shi’ite-dominated government yesterday was really necessary and emphasized the inconvenience it caused ordinary Iraqis who could not get to work or school.
“The government is trying to leave the citizens with the impression that there is a battle. They terrified and shocked the people,’’ said legislator Saleh al-Mutlaq. “We think that these measures are totally unjustifiable.’’
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Sunni lawmaker Dhafir al-Ani said that the government is preying on people’s fears with the security operations to boost their chances in the polls.
“Now [the government] is afraid of losing their authority, they have started to beat the drums of war and making people live in a military atmosphere . . . We also noticed how people were greatly annoyed by these measures.’’
Oh, DON'T I KNOW the FEELING!!!!!
Iraqi security forces are increasingly taking over duties from the US military, whose combat units are scheduled to leave by the end of August.
How much you want to bet we "can't?"
The stakes are especially high for the prime minister’s Rule of Law coalition, which is campaigning for the upcoming elections on its ability to protect citizens and its record in reducing violence.... Iraq’s nationwide election will be a crucial test whether Iraqis can vote in a government capable of overcoming deepening ethnic and sectarian rivalries, or whether those divisions will dissolve into violence that threatens the country’s unity and regional stability.
Translation: If Maliki doesn't win the place is going to become a western intel, false-flag festival!
Related: Occupation Iraq: Maliki Shuts Down News Media
Occupation Iraq: Resurrecting Saddam Hussein
Meet the new boss, 'eh, Iraqis?
Tensions have already arisen after a government committee charged with keeping supporters of the Saddam Hussein regime out of politics recommended that Mutlaq’s party and 13 others be banned from the elections over alleged links to the former dictator.
“Members of those entities were personnel of the former regime’s repressive security apparatus, or Mukhabarat [secret police] officers, and some of them were collaborators with the former regime,’’ said Ali al-Lami, the head of the committee....
In a reminder of the continuing instability, four policemen were killed and another wounded when a bomb exploded near their vehicle in Al-Saadiyah, 90 miles northeast of Baghdad, a policeman and a morgue official said yesterday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.....
Not much of a reminder, MSM.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Uptick in Violence
The potential exclusion of Mutlaq, who holds the second largest bloc of Sunni seats in parliament, raised fears that Sunnis might boycott the polls again, as they did in a January 2005 election. That boycott was followed by a surge in insurgent attacks.
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"Iraq: A New Civil War?
The "good war" in Afghanistan isn't going so well, but the Obama administration may soon learn that the "bad war" -- that would be the one in Iraq -- isn't over yet.
Yeah, JUST as we were about to LEAVE, America, how about that?
Shameless, swaggering and STILL lying: Alastair Campbell 'stands by every word' of 45-minute dodgy dossier that took us to war with Iraq
Yeah, Globe forgot all about that. I notice they often cover the beginning of things and then ignore them until the very end. Sick of it, too.
And I'm sick of giving you MSM propaganda, too, readers!
Try this instead!
"Reality check: If China "liberated" US like we "liberated" Iraq, here’s how we would look
How bad is the death and injury toll in Iraq since the US invasion? Let’s extrapolate the data from Iraq onto the US and see the effects. Imagine that China is playing the role of the US and the US is in Iraq’s position.
A 2008 UN report documents over 800,000 displaced children, most of whom are so impoverished that they don’t have access to clean water.[5] There are now about 2.8 million displaced Iraqis within the country, having fled from their homes to escape sectarian violence.[6] In addition, the war has caused over 2 million Iraqis to flee their country, 7.7% of their population,[7] with many of the most desperate families using their young girls and women for prostitution.[8] The unemployment rate in Iraq is 60-70%.[9] Getting clean water is a daily struggle, and sanitation is a nightmare with 250 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the water system daily.[10]
The US is using illegal WMD in Iraq that kills and damages US troops and Iraqi civilians: depleted uranium shells (DU).[11] The UN declared DU weapons in violation of several International Laws and UN conventions in August 2002. Independent medical research found increases in cancer and birth defects at 400% of previous rates in areas of DU use.
In 2004, the US military planned to spend $100 million to hire at least 100 people as covert counter-intelligence agents in Iraq to provoke terrorist groups to cause acts of terrorism against the Iraqi people. The stated purpose of this project was to expose terrorist groups for counterattack by US forces.[12] This means that the US planned to incite terrorism that would injure and kill Iraqi civilians, making the US an accomplice to terrorism.
Among the provisions of US occupation of Iraq is that it is now illegal for Iraqi farmers to use their own seeds; this in the Fertile Crescent where much of agriculture began. Iraqi farmers must buy their seeds from US companies, and only use genetically modified seeds where farmers pay a licensing fee for each use.[13] This act is done under US rhetoric for “freedom for the Iraqi people.”
In December, 2004, the US announced a military siege of the Iraq city of Fallujah, home to 300,000 Iraqis (equivalent to 15 cities of 20,000 such as where I live). The US gave the city residents the ultimatum of abandoning their homes or being attacked as terrorists. 250,000 left the city, becoming refugees with no provisions for their care. The US military estimated that Fallujah contained a “few thousand” terrorists; but all remaining 50,000 residents were targeted as the enemy. When the US attacked Falujah, their structural targets included the four water purification plants, destroying three and severely damaging the fourth. Again, this is a War Crime.[14]
Beginning in November, 2005, US war strategy increased the use of air strikes against Iraqi urban areas to nearly 1,000 sorties a month, deploying 500 and 1,000 pound bombs. The most respected medical journal in the UK, The Lancet, reported that the US and coalition forces cause 85% of all violent deaths in Iraq, with 95% of those coming from aerial attacks.[15]
The Bush administration repeatedly assured the American public that our stay in Iraq is temporary, just until the Iraqi people can manage themselves. However, the US has built four military “super-bases,” each housing tens of thousands of personnel that appear permanent.[16] The new US Embassy in prime-area Baghdad on the Tigris River is over 100 acres and will house over 8,000 people (in comparison, my large local high school is 18.5 acres, the Los Angeles Zoo is 80 acres [17] and Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld is 107 acres with the Southern California location also about 100 acres[18]). This huge complex in the middle of another nation's capital is certainly designed to manage greater responsibility than diplomacy in someone else’s country.[19]
What the US would look like if Iraq’s war data were applied to us: Iraq has a population of 26 million. Those percentages translated to the US population of 300 million would be as if China came to “liberate” us, built 48 permanent military bases, caused the violent deaths of 16,000,000 Americans, forcing 23 million Americans to leave the US, and creating over 30 million Americans to become homeless.
A comparison to California’s 34 million population: the ensuing violence from China’s invasion has killed close to two million. To translate to my city’s 20,000 population: the violence claims 15 lives a month, with over 50 wounded (conservatively assuming ~5 wounded for every kill in Iraq; half the US troop ratio of over 10:1). Since 2003, close to 1,000 residents have died in car bombs, drive-by-shootings, and general violence, with 5,000 wounded. Four thousand of us have fled our homes, about half leaving the city, and about 2,000 homeless.
Finally, since I teach 17 and 18-year-old students, on a scale of a 2,600 student high school: intra-school wars kill 1-2 students a month, wounding ~15. The class of 2010 will have seen just under 100 of classmates killed since their 8th grade year, with one quarter of the student body having been wounded. The new principal elected under the supervision of the invading power assures us that their “surge” of troops and Blackwater’s private military company is working, the school is now safer, and they’ll stay until they defeat our “terrorists.” One in every 20 students has been killed since “liberation.” Thirty-five percent of the students have had a parent killed, over 600. Any student can be labeled a “terrorist suspect,” detained indefinitely without habeas corpus or communication to friends and family, and be tortured[20] (controlled drowning, naked in 45° F. cells for days, sleep and food deprivation for days, shackled in painful positions for days, threats to sexually assault and torture your family members, and if Abu Ghraib tactics are included: sodomizing with broom handles and lights, forced homosexual acts, rape, pouring on phosphoric acid, smearing faces and bodies in feces, etc.). China’s forces say they need to stay for the safety of the students because the school would become more violent if they left. After all, they say, North America has a violent history. They also talk openly about expanding their “War on Terror” to the neighboring city; a military option is “on the table” because their “terrorists” are also involved.
Over 4,300 American troops have been killed in the War on Terror, with over 30,000 wounded, according to official government statistics.[21] CBS News commissioned an extensive study to measure how many US military veterans are committing suicide. Their report: over 6,000 a year.[22] Among active duty soldiers, over 580 have committed suicide since the war began.[23] The Veterans Affairs Department received over 22,000 calls from desperate veterans in its first year of opening a suicide hotline.[24] Over 10,000 active American troops are diagnosed with the most severe classification of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,[25] with one in eight returning troops reporting symptoms.[26] There are increasing reports that returning veterans are not receiving proper care for PTSD and other ailments, as the suicide numbers of CBS suggest.[27]
The endgame for US occupation of Iraq was legislated by the Iraqi Parliament on November 27, 2008. Under the Status of Forces Agreement, all 150,000 US troops will withdraw from all cities, towns, and villages by June 30, 2009 and remain upon their bases unless authorized to leave by Iraq’s government. All US troops shall withdraw from Iraq by December 31, 2011. Blackwater and other US security firms shall be subject to Iraq law rather than legal immunity after the end of 2008.[28]
Policy response: Gandhi and Martin Luther King advocated public understanding of the facts and non-cooperation with evil. I’m among hundreds who advocate:
- Understand the laws of war. These were legislated after WW2 and are crystal-clear that only self-defense, in a narrow legal meaning, can justify war. This investment of your time takes less than an hour and empowers you to legally stand for ending these unlawful US Wars of Aggression.
- Communicate. Trust your unique, beautiful, and powerful self-expression to share powerful information as you feel appropriate. Understand that while many people are ready to embrace difficult facts, many are not. Anticipate your virtuous response to being attacked and give it in the spirit of competition, just as you do in other fields.
- Refuse and end all orders and acts associated with these unlawful wars and constant violation of treaties. Those involved with US military, government, and law enforcement have an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution. Unlawful acts only move forward with sufficient cooperation and public tolerance. Stop cooperating with the most vicious crime a nation can commit: war.
- Support global security through cooperation, dignity, justice, and freedom. End poverty through global cooperation to achieve the UN Millennium Goals by developed countries investing 0.7% of their income. End extremism by providing all humanity with an opportunity to live a life of peaceful creativity. Create a US Department of Peace to help.
- Prosecute the war leaders for obvious violation of the letter and spirit of US war laws. You can only understand how these wars are specifically unlawful by investing the time to do so. Because the crimes are so broad and deep, I recommend Truth and Reconciliation (T&R) to exchange full truth and return of stolen US assets for non-prosecution. This is the most expeditious way to understand and end all unlawful and harmful acts. Those who reject T&R either by volunteering their name and/or responding when named are subject to prosecution after the window of T&R closes.
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