chronicle live rail
chronicle live rail
chronicle live rail
Iraq War once upon a time
Iraq War, An opportunity for the new generation
to discover American approach of political principles
Once upon a time, during the dark ages in the Middle East when tyrants, military dictatorship, and one party rule were the norm in countries like Egypt, Iraq and Israel/Palestine, at a time when the sun of democracy had not yet risen for ordinary people living in misery, there lived a great and wise man who believed that one day “freedom” and “democracy” would rule the earth. This man’s name was George W. Bush, the dragon slayer who, with the help of his great advisors, restored the confidence of share holders in the future of the dollar and God almighty who resides in Wall Street … or does this legend perhaps have a different ending?
In November 2003, George W. Bush delivered a well-known speech to one of the most influential neo-conservative organizations in Washington, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). In his speech, Bush told the audience:
“Our commitment to democracy is [also] tested in the Middle East, which is my focus today, and must be a focus of American policy for decades to come. In many nations of the Middle East – countries of great strategic importance – democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.”
Is this true? Can we believe Bush when he says that he believes every person has the right to be free? One can hardly believe him when the election in Iraq was fraudulent, and let’s not forget the elections in the US. How can we believe him when civil liberties are under attack in the US, when he refuses to withdraw US troops in Iraq and let the Iraqis democratically handle their own affairs?
Escape from Reality
For a long time, the American people took a “wait and see” approach to see if what their leaders told them about the war was true. They waited for evidence of a 9/11 connection, for caches of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), for mobile WMD laboratories, for plans for WMD, for WMD hidden in Syria, for Iraqi sovereignty to be handed over, for “democratic” elections to take place, for Iraqi troops to be trained in enough numbers to allow the U.S. to start to withdraw, etc. In the end there was no connection with 9/11, no WMD, and no timeline for withdrawing the troops. “Democracy” and “freedom” are as far away as they were under Saddam. In fact, for millions of Iraqis, things are worse now than they were 3 years ago. At least then they had electricity and water, and didn’t have to worry about being blown up by suicide bombers at the local market.
“It’s Just Wrong What We’re Doing”
“In an exclusive interview, repentant Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara breaks his silence on Iraq: The United States, he says, is making the same mistakes all over again.
‘Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.” With those words, written nine years ago, Robert McNamara began an extraordinary final phase of his career — devoted to chronicling the errors, delusions and false assumptions that turned him into the chief architect and most prominent promoter of the Vietnam war.
He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself. “We’re misusing our influence,” he said in a staccato voice that had lost none of its rapid-fire engagement. “It’s just wrong what we’re doing. It’s morally wrong, it’s politically wrong, it’s economically wrong.”
US army and Iraq War
The threat posed by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to face all threats. The future of the US military is at risk. The US military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We can not allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls at our bases in the U.S.
”George Washington said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” We must rebuild our Army. Our deficit is growing out of control. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office recently admitted to being “terrified” about the budget deficit in the coming decades. This is the first prolonged war we have fought with three years of tax cuts, without full mobilization of American industry and without a draft. The burden of this war has not been shared equally; the military and their families are shouldering this burden. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. Our military captured Saddam Hussein, and captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. Deaths and injuries are growing.”
Iraq war ‘costlier than Vietnam’
“The monthly cost to the US of the war in Iraq is now greater than the average monthly cost of the Vietnam War, a report by two anti-war groups says. The report put costs in Iraq at $500m (£278m) a month more than in Vietnam, adjusted for inflation. This makes Iraq the most expensive US war in the past 60 years, they say. The report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), called The Iraq Quagmire, calculates the cost of current military operations in Iraq at $5.6bn (£3.1bn) every month. By comparison, the eight-year campaign in Vietnam cost on average $5.1bn (£2.8bn) a month.”
Bush’s 2006 Budget:
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the 2006 fiscal deficit is projected to be $296 billion. This does not include the costs of the Iraq War, so in the simulation the deficit has been increased by $105 billion, the costs of the supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan operation for fiscal 2005, for a total projected deficit of $401 billion. These costs and the associated deficits can be adjusted in the simulation based on your estimates of the likely continuing costs of the war or whether to scale back or end those operations.
The Simulation also allows the administration to adjust the costs of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, either cutting or canceling them to raise revenue, or increasing them to create larger tax cuts. It also allows the administration to increase or decrease tax expenditures, also known as tax deductions, credits or “loopholes.
“In presenting his Administration’s proposed budget, President Bush has shown the real face of his “compassionate conservatism” – guns before butter. Mr. Bush and his allies in both parties are prepared to gut a whole range of programs, from Medicaid health services to the nation’s only passenger rail service, AMTRAK. As these programs which serve the least paid and most over-worked section of working people in the “First World” are cut, the hawks in the Pentagon want even more of Congress’ largess for new ships and missiles and the bloody occupation of Iraq. While defense spending will reach yet another new record, Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent will in effect become permanent while the level of the payroll tax paid by workers remains at its highest rate. President Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” would ring truer if it were called “compassionate imperialism” instead.
The Administration’s proposed budget would create an estimated annual deficit of $229 billion by 2010, without the costs of the Iraqi occupation or Social Security “reforms” included. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the Bush budget would yield a total $2.58 trillion deficit by the ten year period ending in 2015, again without the costs of occupation or Social Security privatization included. This massive deficit is the result of unprecedented military spending and the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This deficit, as well as the proposed cuts will all weigh very heavily on the shoulders of the U.S. working class, who now not only produce the nation’s wealth but must also pay for the capitalists’ wars against our class brothers and sisters around the world.”
Summery:
When the police in any country investigate a crime, the first question they tend to ask is, who stands to gain from the crime? In whose interest was it committed? Who had the motivation? Whose aims were achieved? The same question may be put about the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has turned into a crime of vast and mushrooming proportions.
The current tensions and conflicts may well fuel further waves of terrorism, especially if the US fails to take a powerful lead, together with international support, to help establish a “just” Middle East peace settlement. It may also lead to destabilizing regime changes in other Arab nations, replacing family dynasties with anti-American Islamic fundamentalism in countries like Saudi Arabia. But the current spats are unlikely to lead to destruction of the UN, nor the break up of the EU, nor the rapid neutering of American power – quite the opposite.
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