Monday, 18 March 2013

Tale of a Whistleblower A Different Kind of War Hero

I conducted the following interview with the most famous American veteran of the Iraq War, Private First Class Justin Watt. Watt came to public attention in 2006 for revealing the gang-rape and murder of a 14 year old Iraqi girl by US soldiers, in what is now known as the Mahmudiyah Killings. The event, which is too lengthy to describe (see Wikipedia: Mahmudiyah killings) showed the upmost humanity and courage from Watt in unimaginably dangerous and tense circumstances; and in 2007, it was adapted into a major Hollywood motion picture by Brian De Palma (the director of Scarface) called ‘Redacted’.

What made you want to volunteer in the army? Was it mainly a feeling of wanting to defend your country after 9/11, or were you vested in the President Bush’s claims in the build-up to the War in Iraq?
It was a number of things - mainly the 9/11 attacks. It’s a strange story - believe it or not, I had planned on enlisting well before 9/11. I had always had great respect for soldiers, as my father was a veteran of the army post Vietnam. I was always amazed with his unbreakable will, his tenacity and his toughness. I admired it so much that I wanted to cultivate the same qualities in myself. I had planned on joining the navy to become a SEAL; there was a program where you could enlist with a friend, and go through SEAL training together. Two weeks prior to shipping after I had turned 18, my friend bailed on me, and the computer specialist job on the SEAL teams no longer existed. I dropped out of the program and my ambitions for military service were put on the back burner for years. After 9/11 I was cleaning my room. My girlfriend had broken up with me recently, and I was throwing away all of our pictures etc. I went into my desk drawer, and found my DEP ID card (for allowing me on military bases to train etc.) - and I noticed the ship date. 9/11 - 2001. I felt like somebody was in my place. I felt like I had let my country down. I enlisted, and 12 days later I was in basic training in the army. My job was infantry, with the 101st airborne (air assault). I wanted to do something significant. I wanted to fight on the front lines. I wanted to help people. I wanted to defend my country, and help the Iraqi people get rid of what we thought was a horrible dictator.
What years were you deployed into combat? What were your objectives?
I was deployed from 05-06 with the 101st. I knew I wasn’t fighting a conventional army right away. It was as I expected. My objectives were to disrupt and destroy anti Iraqi and anti-American forces in the region of the Sunni Triangle.
What happened to you in Mahmudiyah, with the other marines; how did you come to the knowledge they had raped and murdered Abeer Qassim Hamza along with her entire family? What triggered you to want to tell the authorities when you found out, and how did you cope in Iraq for the remainder of your tour knowing if they found out you were planning on telling the authorities, you would have been murdered?
There were death threats against me in theatre - and yes, I would have been killed had they not moved me into a different unit and had the offenders arrested, once one of them confessed. I was sitting in the tent with my team leader, Sergeant. Yribe. Earlier in the day, Al-Qaeda forces had overrun one of our undermanned checkpoints and abducted two soldiers, and were in the process of torturing them to death. At that point we were two of maybe 14 guys of the starting 30 we deployed with who were not dead/maimed/evacuated out of the country. We were alone in a tent, and just talking about how messed up this deployment was. How it was so unbelievable they would send us to cover such a huge and combat heavy AO without more soldiers. We were just trying to cope. He then said to me - ‘you know what else is messed up? You remember that family that got murdered back in March?’ I didn’t remember at first, we found tons of dead families and people on a day to day basis from sectarian violence. He told me about the family that had the girl that got burned, and the little girl that got murdered. She was about 4. I remembered after he filled me in on the details. He said, ‘That was us man, that was Green’ - referring to PFC. Steven Green. I couldn’t believe it - I was appalled. In one sentence he had totally dismantled every sliver of honour we had in that deployment. Every good thing we did - every hospital we built, every school we protected. We guarded the first ever democratic election in Iraq. All of those accomplishments were now meaningless - and more importantly, the men we had lost were now dishonoured. I felt betrayed, disgusted, ashamed....and even more so - I was angry. I said we had to turn him in. He told me no - that God would judge them. It wasn’t our job. I didn’t accept that. I knew nobody would ever find out about it if we did nothing. He told me not to tell anybody and he went to sleep. I laid there, trying my best to piece together what I heard - trying to figure out how it was physically possible. From a tactical perspective, I knew after thinking about it - that it was impossible for a single man. No way could a single soldier sneak outside of a checkpoint without being caught by our own guards, hump 200m through shit terrain and canals - break into a family’s house and pull security on a family while conducting a rape - then murdering them with an AK47 and a shotgun - and at the same time have the checkpoint not hear a single shot. I knew that there were more people involved. I knew that it took more people to commit the crime, and I knew it took more people to cover it up. I referenced my log book I kept of all the sig-acts that happened on a day to day basis. I found out who was at the checkpoint that day, and I decided to confirm my suspicions. Coincidentally, I ran into two other soldiers from my platoon up at the base we were at. I pretended I knew more than I did  because I knew they were there at the checkpoint the day the family was murdered. I knew they had a part in covering it up. I pretended I knew what had happened - that somebody else had told me. He believed me and confirmed all the details for me. I did it under the pretence that Yribe used. I started the conversation by talking about how messed up it was: our boys were missing, being tortured to death, and to top it all off I had just found out that that happened. He told me everything. After I knew my suspicions were correct, and had information from a man who was there and confessed to me directly that he took part in the cover-up,  I knew I had to turn them in. How? That was the question. I decided the best course of action was to alert a group outside my chain of command and let them tackle it from the outside. They could plan an extraction for me, to get me out of the area before they arrested the people involved.

Like all things in the army - this didn’t work out. The guy I trusted with my life to be covert and notify the authorities went to the Commander. He decided that he was going to conduct his own investigation. In the process, he let everybody know that it was me who accused them of the crimes, and tried to leave me out there with them at a checkpoint in the middle of the Sunni triangle. Lucky for me , one of my friends saved my life and broke ranks and forced the Commander to take me out of there. His name is John Diem - and he is a fucking hero. He saved my life that day. I was extracted and brought for questioning by CID to fob Mahmudiyah. I was kept in confinement for 3 days being interrogated. They thought I was lying, trying to get out of the army. I stuck to my guns, and didn’t budge. I was terrified though - by this time I had realised there was no evidence. There was just my word against theirs. They threatened me with charges - false official sworn statement, perjury etc. They wanted to dishonourably discharge me and put me in jail. I was destroyed. It was hopeless. Because of the commander decision to blow the whole thing up and let everybody know what was happening, all the criminals had time to get their stories straight. It was my word against 5 people.

On the day we did the funerals (we didn’t have the bodies recovered yet, but Al-Qaeda had released videos of them being tortured/killed - so we knew they were dead) for Tucker, Menchaca and Babs, Howard, one of the criminals who covered it up broke during interrogation. He confessed that while he had no part in it, he was there and covered it up for the criminals, Cortez, Barker, Speilman and Green. He also told them that Yribe had covered it up as well.

Yribe copped a plea deal right away for immunity. With their testimony, the story broke and everybody knew I was telling the truth. I would have died, for sure. Murdered by my own men - had it not been for John Diem saving my life, forcing the Commander to pull me off the line at that checkpoint and bring me up to the base he was at.

I would have died if it wasn’t for the CID agent who broke Howard during interrogation. But he did - he broke him, and then everybody knew I was telling the truth. The only part left was owning it to the world. His name was Ryan Lenz. To this day he has protected his source who I think I know; I believe the source knew I was a good soldier - I had many friends die, I had gotten blown up, shot at, and picked up pieces of my friends and never quit once. I never asked for a break. I never felt sorry for myself. The source knew I wouldn’t lie - and knew that I wouldn’t try a stunt like this to get out of the army. I think that when the source found out that they were trying to charge me with crimes they leaked the story to the reporter to keep me safe. 
How did Americans react when you returned, knowing you had brought other American Soldiers under the weight of the law? The soldiers who broke the My Lai Massacre were called traitors and denigrated, were you treated the same?
Some people called me a traitor, I got some death threats - and many thought I was a hero. My friends all turned on me because I got a lot of attention from the media, and I was the only one who looked good. And all of them were branded as disgraceful soldiers, even though 99% of them have served honourably and never did anything wrong. It was hard. It was the hardest time of my life. Soldiers have a code of honour. The army is the most trusted group in our country - proven by studies that have been done. We are not perfect - but our creed demands that when things go wrong, we own them. In this case, to the world. Most Americans supported me, they don’t want their soldiers murdering innocents. Most soldiers support me now. My story is taught at West Point.
Are you satisfied with the sentences given? And how did the trial and media coverage change your life?
I have no opinions of the sentences. It is not my job to determine what the army or civilians deem fit for punishment. I believe in our system - and the system did what the system did. As far as the media coverage goes - nobody has any idea who I am except you (he laughs). I’m not exactly a big deal. I rent a house in Salt Lake City. I work a job. I have a girlfriend - I live a normal life. I worry about bills etc. just like the rest of the world.
Because of the poignancy of the Mahmudiyah killings and Brian Depalma, you’re the most famous American veteran of Iraq. Did you know Redacted was in production? If so, did anyone come to you for advice on how the film should look or on the script, for it to be accurate?
If I was in a room with Hitler, UBL (Osama Bin Laden) and De Palma, and I had a gun with 3 bullets, I would shoot Brian De Palma 3 times. His film is an abomination. He never asked for facts - he took a horrible event, twisted it around to suit his ends, profited from it - and gave me and a lot of other people a bad name. Fuck Brian De Palma - it’s not accurate at all, and he should be tried for what he did. I would never actually hurt him - but I wish I fucking could.
In America, 9/11 is commemorated as the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon when 3,000 people were murdered in cold blood. In Chile, 9/11 is commemorated as the anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet ascending to power in a military coup d’état in 1973, with crucial help from the CIA and US government. He went on to murder thousands and torture tens of thousands. Do you think Americans’ lack of knowledge of their government’s actions and their own history makes it easier to subvert them into supporting every action abroad?
Without question most people are clueless about domestic policies and how it affects people, let alone foreign policy. That is not some uniquely American problem though - that is EVERYWHERE. There are plenty of intellectual pundits as well though, who have absolutely no idea how the real world works outside of books written by other pontificating idiots. Idiots who think that we are some elevated species who when left to our own devices aren’t total savages. If we were all more towards the middle of the spectrum of course things would be better. We responded to a terrorist attack, which is unconventional warfare, in a conventional way. The battlefield today is asymmetric. One man with a bomb and an idea is an insurgency. You can’t respond to that with conventional means. Of course ignorance plays a part in making it possible for horrible policy to come to fruition, but so does fear.
 Looking back at how America responded in the ten years that followed 9/11 - and specifically the invasion of Iraq – would you have wanted the administration to handle things differently? (I.e. Invading two countries, killing US civilians without due process using drones, passing the NDAA[2] and Patriot Act[3], opening Guantanamo Bay[4], torturing detainees etc.)
It’s hard, Aqib. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t understand so many things. To be honest, I thought I would understand the war after going. All I can say is that after coming home, after getting out - I am more confused than ever about every facet of what has happened. NDAA is terrible. Drone striking American citizens without due process is terrible. Rendition, extraordinary or otherwise is a terrible and scary thing. I guess all I can say is this - after it came out that the invasion of Iraq was essentially unjustified - what would have been the correct thing to do? After destroying the government, the military and disbanding the police - what would have been the best thing to do? We had achieved conventional military victory in roughly 40 days. Should we have just up and left? There were tribes of Sunnis destroying water treatment facilities and cutting off water to Shiites. There were factions just outright murdering each other in the streets. Then there were the Al-Qaeda operatives. They were using the poor via bribery, and themselves to conduct attacks against us, while we were trying to attack them but help everybody else. I'm sure there are myriad other outcomes that would have been more favourable, but none of them would have been able to make right the wrongs that had been done. The horrible things that have happened, not only the expense of human life, but also freedom - both here and abroad for innocent law abiding citizens - Iraqi, Afghani, American, British etc. - it’s a horrible mess. Only time will be able to tell if the world will be able to make this right. As a wise man once said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t think the US military at any point EVER thought they were there to hurt innocent people. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I know I didn’t have a single bone in my body that wanted anything but the best for innocent Iraqi people. It’s horrible how things turned out.
From overwhelming international sympathy immediately after 9/11, the United States’ standing in the world today - due to the response to 9/11 by jumping into Iraq- is at an all-time low. As a result of this, have you encountered anti-American hostility abroad? How did you feel about it?
Yeah, I experienced some anti-American hate in South Korea once, in Mexico once etc. It is what it is. Ignorant people are always going to be around. It’s like people who blindly hate soldiers and cops or think we are all war criminals or horrible weak minded people, or even bullies. People stereotype all the time and make brash judgments about huge groups or sects of people. It’s sad. Look at how people view Muslims now as an example.
A lot of the culture of any war that surrounds the reality is the gravity of a soldier’s first kill. Can you remember the first person you killed? Did you hesitate? Along with that, for the average person, where war is what they see on the 6 o’clock news comfortably from their sofa on in the theatre, was the fighting similar to how it’s made out in Hollywood?
It was more intense. Having somebody try and take your life is more intimate than the strongest love you have ever felt. More intimate and intense than the strongest fear - or even joy. It’s the most intimate and intense thing in the world. I do remember the first person I killed - he was trying to kill me - and no, I did not hesitate. He was about my age. 22-23 years old. People don’t die how they do in movies. It’s not a quick shot to the chest and they drop. Unless you hit somebody in a small horizontal rectangle overlapping both eyes, about 2 inches in height, they will not die right away. (Brain stem shots essentially.) We don’t train for head shots either. It is too hard to hit, and unreliable. When you are experiencing an adrenal dump because you are in a life or death scenario, or what we call a body alarm response (fight or flight) your gross and fine motor function go out the window, Your sense of time is altered. You get tunnel vision. Your breathing becomes erratic - and you might be capable of only 50 per cent of what you are during training. I shot him centre mass until he dropped - probably 12 to 15 times in about 2 - 2.5 seconds, then moved on once he dropped and continued to engage the other insurgents once he was no longer a threat. Hesitation will get you killed. He was still alive when we did our SSE (Sensitive site exploitation). This is once we have cleared an objective, and we are looking for Intel, identification, weapons, money, documents etc. After we cleared the objective and established security, it was our duty to provide medical aid to the wounded enemy forces and our own. The one I am talking about, my first kill, was still alive. I will never forget the way he looked. He was surprised - sobbing a bit in disbelief. I think he thought his god was going to protect him. He must have thought his god was going to save him, and destroy me instead. This is why I know there is no god now - and I think all religion is a disease upon the world. I also realized at this moment - that there are no good guys and bad guys. It occurred to me, and this may sound naive, but nobody wakes up and thinks they are the bad guy. That man who died, fighting against me that day, woke up committed. He woke up committed to the fight, thinking he was the righteous one. That he was fighting against evil. I woke up that morning thinking the same thing. I used to kill with anger in my heart. I used to take it personally. After that day it all changed. The scariest thing in the dark is us. Him, me - it’s all the same. I was his nightmare; he was mine - both evil in each other’s eyes. Both of us thinking that our side was right, and that god would save us and smite the other. I know now there are no evil factions in the world. Everyone is justified in their own mind. Perception really is the only truth, and violence really is the only authority - at least the root of all authority.

There is no dignity in a violent death, Aqib. You don’t get to tell your wife you love her. You don’t get to say goodbye to your children. There is no music, or slow motion camera pan. You die on a dirty floor, a million miles away from home, bleeding all over yourself - suffocating on your own blood - until you pass out from low blood pressure. He expired when we were trying to save him. I do not know his name.

A professional will always try hard to save his enemy. Intelligence that can be gathered is crucial. Alive enemy are always better than dead. There is also honour in it. We always tried hard to save the enemy we captured. 
There’s no beating around the bush, the trauma amongst returning soldiers is fuelling a pandemic. Latest figures suggest 6,500 US veterans are committing suicide yearly. With your experience as a soldier, what factors contribute to suicidal thoughts? If you had any, what helped you get through yours?
You lose everything in some cases. You are a million miles away - maybe your wife cheats on you and leaves you - takes your kids etc. Maybe you lost all your friends. Maybe you can’t make sense of your life anymore. Why did you live and your buddy died? Can you imagine the pressure of having to live a life that would honour those people? Maybe you get PTSD, you can’t sleep, you get angry all the time, you alienate people. Maybe you can’t relate to this world anymore. People are so disconnected with national events and specifically violence - that when you get back after doing my job - you often feel like a fish out of water. People don’t know what it’s like over there. People have no idea. It’s hard coming home man. Sometimes it’s really hard. As far as I go? I was lucky. Genetics maybe. I am pretty mentally tough - but at the same time, I spent a lot of time and energy as a soldier preparing for war. I was ready to die, and I was ready to kill. I never took a shot I didn’t have to; I was never more violent than I had to be. I was kind when I could be - and because of those things - the lack of regrets I guess you can say, I’m OK you know? I also am very introspective. When I knew I had problems, I went to the VA and got care. PTSD is not like cancer. It’s not a death sentence. You can overcome it.
After the previous decade or so the world’s been through, what were your perceptions of Muslims/Arabs before the Iraq War, during your time there and now?
I didn’t have any perceptions of Muslims or Arabs prior to going. Now? I know they are just like me for the most part. Hospitable, friendly etc. Being honest I think that Islam is holding back the development of most of the Arab world, but it’s really not a concern for American life. Islam has its radicals, just as Christianity has its radicals that blow up abortion clinics, or bomb federal buildings. We have our moderates just as they do. I am going to marry a girl from a Muslim family actually. (She is not a practicing Muslim, but they are.) Her family is from Pakistan - so between the deployment, and the relationship, I feel that I have as good a grasp as anybody can here in America of how the culture works. I am significantly more sensitive now to anti-Muslim propaganda than I used to be.
Looking forward, Are you hopeful for America’s future? Has your perception of your country changed?
I’m not always proud of the policies that we put in play, or of our politicians - but I am proud of America and what it stands for - what it was built on. I hope things change - and I do what I can to make sure they do. I speak to soldiers every month on behalf of the army and talk about moral decision making. I talk about my experiences and try to make our ARMY and our country better. I take time to answer questions like these, and give people a positive perception of Americans/soldiers. I think America is founded on intrinsically good principles - and we need to get back to that before we start working on everybody else’s business. Justin Watt now lives a calmer and more peaceful life in Utah with his girlfriend, whom he intends to marry.
Terms explained:

[1] The Sunni Triangle (not to be confused with the ‘Triangle of Death’, a separate entity, 90km to the south of Baghdad) is an area defined by its high population of Sunni Arabs (as opposed to Shi’ites in the south east of Iraq and Kurds in the north) located roughly between the cities of Baghdad, Tikrit and Ramadi, and also contains within it the cities of Samarra and Fallujah. These cities were subject to the most intense fighting of the Iraq War, with almost 100 Coalition fatalities in just one month of fighting in Fallujah, and over 1,400 killed in Baghdad alone. The close proximity of the cities, high casualty rates for Coalition soldiers, resistance fighters and civilians, earned the Triangle the title of the ‘most dangerous place on Earth’.

[2] The NDAA passed by President Obama gives the federal government the power of ‘indefinite detention without charge or trial’ of any civilian suspected of terrorism or plotting against the United States, effectively dismantling the core of western civilisation going back to the Magna Carta.

[3] The PATRIOT ACT gives US law enforcement agencies unprecedented powers to search, and wiretap, an individual’s phone and allocate their financial transactions without them being notified.

[4] Guantanamo Bay, see ‘Gulag’. 
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Tuesday, 12 March 2013

Hugo Chavez: Another textbook example of media distortion



The mainstream media once again showed its adherence to state orthodoxy, providing a performance which would make any dictator envious of the conformity of our press. The BBC in their official Venezuelan biography fails[1] to mention the US role in the 2002 coup attempt against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, as does practically every other major news outlet following his death. For the New York Times, his removal was a ‘purely Venezuelan affair’, because US involvement does not exist - by definition. We in the west are only wonderful people. Contrary to this, any scholar of international affairs would state, as does a U.S. State Department document: ‘…it is clear that [the]… Department of Defense (DOD), and other U.S. assistance programs provided training, institution building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chavez government[2]’.
With Chavez’s death, the wide range of thought, provided by the ‘competition’ of our news outlets, was on full display, with each outlet offering its own view on him. Newsweek managed to compare him to Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, in a single article, no less. To the BBC, he was ‘the worst type of autocrat, intent on building a one-party state and ruthlessly clamping down on any who opposed him.’[3] Whilst the establishment press was busy keeping minds under satisfactory control, Jimmy Carter - who won a Nobel Prize in monitoring elections with his Carter Centre - acknowledged ‘of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.’[4]
According to PBS, the media in Venezuela is ‘virtually under the control of Chávez.'[5] In actuality, studies have shown the privately owned Venezuelan media possess 90 per cent audience share, and routinely pump our anti-Chavez propaganda.[6] PBS which was paid until recently $2million annually by Chevron[7], should be true to its initials, and be renamed the Petroleum Broadcasting Station. In nationalising the oil wealth of Venezuela and handing it to the poor rather than to Washington and London, as Saudi Arabia does, Chavez quickly made powerful enemies in powerful places, and the media quickly began contorting reality to feed the public accordingly.
To the Washington Post, there was much ‘economic pain caused by Mr Chávez’, specifically to the people. According to the World Bank from 1999-2011, because Chavez nationalised the oil wealth, extreme poverty fell from 23% to 8%; and, because Chavez nationalised large sectors of food production, food consumption for the average person increased by 23% over the same period. The oil wealth also helped fuel social programmes: five million children now receive free meals through the School Feeding Programme; in 1999 the figure was 250,000.  From 1998-2006 infant mortality rates fell by more than 1/3 and social spending per capita more than tripled. From 1998-2012 the unemployment rate fell from 15% to 6% with GDP per capita rising from $4,100 to $10,810. Nationalising the oil industry and keeping profits in Venezuela instead of exporting them to Washington, allowed Chavez to introduce universal access to education in 1998, which was an overwhelming success; with UNESCO declaring in 2005 Venezuela had eradicated illiteracy.[8][9]
CBS Evening News’ epithet read ‘Chávez has made a career out of bashing the United States.’ To this it must be stated, if a Latin American government had attempted to overthrow the United States government via an internal military coup, and failed, one need only imagine the resulting American response…it would surely be a different type of ‘bashing’. We, the wonderful people in the West, would rightfully be outraged over this breach of our sovereignty. But for the ‘un-peoples’ of the world, this is merely routine. In 1984 for example, the US was taken to the International Court of Justice by Nicaragua, for arming terrorists which tried to topple the government, which was implementing similar reforms as Chavez. The United States found tackling illiteracy and poverty was unacceptable, and began an act of state terrorism. The US was found guilty of breaking international law, but vetoed the decision at the UN Security Council[10]. The US cabinet which launched this act of state terrorism will never have their names and crimes added into history books; another trademark of a propaganda system.
The New York Times, America’s premier ‘liberal’ newspaper, argued in 2002 during the failed American orchestrated military coup: ‘Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.’ In reality, of the 16 elections held during Chavez’s tenure, which Jimmy Carter declared as the fairest he had ever observed, Chavez won 15.[11] Elections are only democratic if they conform to the interests of the Western powers; otherwise, they are un-democratic. Another trademark of a propaganda system. The NYT then bemoaned ‘Mr Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.’[12] In non-Orwell speak, the military coup which overthrew a democratically elected leader put in power a former petro-chemical executive, showing where Washington’s (and the media’s) true interests in Venezuela really were, only for the coup to be reversed by popular pressure. One need only ask how ‘pro-Venezuelan’ we would be if it had been done to us by Chavez.
The New York Times then complained ‘He courted … Saddam Hussein’. This tactic is a similar one used by the rest of the mainstream press. Chavez did meet Saddam, and spoke to him. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein’s worst crime - the gassing of 100,000 Kurdish civilians in the 1988 Al-Anfal campaign - was committed during the period when Western support for him was at its greatest, and using Western weapons[13]. To ensure this fact would not humble international news cameras in the courtroom, Saddam was executed for the killing of 148 civilians in 1982 in the city of Dujail, before the Al-Anfal trial could make headway[14]. But of course, to hear that in the press is unthinkable, another trademark of a propaganda system.
One needn’t have read Propaganda Model by Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky to know how press manipulation occurs, but rather be aware of its dangers, as presented in Orwell’s invaluable 1984: ‘If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, IT NEVER HAPPENED—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?’
Hugo Chávez, que en paz descanse. 

[2] http://southoftheborderdoc.com/2002-venezuela-coup/ South of the Border, Oliver Stone
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
[14] [10] Human Rights Watch, ‘Iraq: Saddam Hussein Put to Death Hanging After Flawed Trial Undermines Rule of Law’, December 30, 2006, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/12/29/iraq-saddam-hussein-put-death and CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-534798.html

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Thursday, 14 February 2013

The Twenty Year War on Iraq: An Inconvenient Truth


The following excerpt is from an interview conducted during the Nuremberg Trials, between an American Psychologist - Gustave Gilbert, and Herman Goering, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe:
‘Goering: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? … But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives…
Goering: Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.’[1]
In February of 2003, a month prior to invasion, the BBC reported - and fails to remind the public - information from a leaked British Intelligence document that concluded ‘there are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network’ due to ‘ideologies [in] conflict’ with one another.[2] The national dialogue surrounding the invasion seemingly dismisses this evidence to the memory hole, and shifts the focus from accountability, to 'bad evidence' and 'remembrance'; avoiding inconvenient outcomes in knowledge the war was unjustified. The realities of the 'evidence' which led to the Iraq War are almost unthinkable to hear within the confines of the mainstream, post-mortem analysis. The leaked Downing Street Memo - invaluable minutes from July 2002 between senior members of British Intelligence, including the head of MI6, and the British government confirmed: ‘Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy’. Truths contrary to policy which required ‘fixing’, were five years prior the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded ‘there are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance’, [3] as was the conclusion of Hans Blix recalling his inspections of 2002 ‘there were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction’.[4] The memo also documents what is widely accepted, the US ‘had no patience with the UN route’ - the validity of the international consensus is contingent on agreeing with US foreign policy, and invalid otherwise. The Memo further disclosed the British government was trying to somersault its way through any legal loophole which could be disguised as legal: ‘The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC [UN Security Council] authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case.’ Self-defence from Iraq 'could not be the base in this case' for an invasion, for reasons which were widely known: ‘Saddam was not [even] threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.’ Colin Powell, shared this sentiment in 2001 ‘[Saddam] is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours’ and ‘he threatens not the United States.’[5] Within five years, the media - in proportion to policy - inflated Saddam Hussein, into a WMD possessing Genghis Khan. Using drip marketing, the press build Saddam up, slowly over time, as commander of a vast Asian horde ready to conquer Eurasia - with swarms of jihadists - unless valiant Americans, and their brave European compatriots rose and stopped him. In reality, Saddam could not even threaten 'his neighbours'. The press kept dissenting views limited them to its fringes, and evidence contrary to the government's position was ignored or forgotten, subverting the national dialogue from accountability, to 'mistaken evidence' once the invasion occured. A propaganda blitzkrieg to trigger conflict, remains the most trusted method for ‘democracies’ to manipulate the public into facilitating war; and, is essential to shift the national dialogue from accountability for illegalities, to a dialogue of 'mistakes' and 'bad evidence'.
Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) - in one of the most thorough critical evaluations of the main stream media in the build-up to the Iraq War - concluded reporting was a ‘disaster’, not due to a monochrome position by reporters on the facts, but due to ‘critical journalists and analysts’ being ‘ignored by the bulk of the corporate press’[6]. Corporate media acquiescence was crucial to manufacture public consent to invade, and to cover-up concrete truths by scarcely repeating them.  In this regard, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung[7] discovered only 2% of the BBC’s war coverage was contrary to the government’s position, with ABC at 7%. Furthermore, the once alternative news out-let - Al Jazeera - before it succumbed to its Qatari rulers and became a lackey for Washington - was outright condemned by the mainstream media, and US officials, for committing the error of reporting civilian casualties once the occupation commenced. The New York Times in one example, displayed its objective standards by being a mouth-piece for the government, urging readers to return to ‘authoritative’ news outlets.[8] As a result of media acquiescence, by 2006, 50% of Americans believed Iraq still possessed WMD when the US invaded[53]. The establishment press remained vehemently adherent to the 'noble cause', and was at its most critical when the justifications for war could no longer be sustained. In confining mainstream discourse to regard the war as a debate between: a 'noble cause', and a ‘mistake’ a ‘strategic blunder’ a ‘dumb war’ - rather than a ‘war crime’ or ‘illegal’ as the UN Secretary Generaldid [16] - and most of the rest of the world - the press orchestrated the gold standard of the Orwellian state: we can never commit crimes; we can at worst only commit mistakes. Hitler would have called the Battle of Stalingrad a 'noble cause', until it went sour, and then labelled it a ‘mistake’ a ‘strategic blunder’, but objective observers note otherwise. If Iran, an old British foe, in 'good intention' invaded Saudi Arabia without UN authority, and overthrew their tyrannical Islamic theocracy, the British press, and establishment, would, rightly, create an orthodoxy for Ahmadinejad to be put in The Hague, for what the Nuremberg trials declared to be 'the supreme international crime', and would 'denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism'. Whilst the mainstream Iranian press would still debate - if the war had gone sour - if the 'great mistake' was 'worth the price', but never seriously challenge its legality. Notice, if the Iranian press were to do the latter: it is propagandist - unable to escape its own paradigm, and not objective. Yet ours does the same, but we draw different conclusions.
The justifications promulgated for continuing the occupation were then carefully selected as those for starting it withered away. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair told the public just six days after the war had begun ‘I have always said to people throughout that our aim has not been regime change’. The statement was dumped into the memory hole. When an ‘execution strike’ failed to kill him on the opening night of the Iraq War, Saddam Hussein was hunted down, convicted in a court condemned by Harvard’s International Law Journal as a ‘show trial’[9], by Human Rights Watch as ‘deeply flawed’[10] and by Amnesty International as ‘unfair, due to political interference’[11]; had a hood placed over his head as onlookers taunted; was led onto a trap door that opened falling straight through with his neck snapping on the end of a rope. A fair trial, would include many members of the administrations that launched the 2003 invasion - partnering Saddam in the defendant’s chamber. Saddam Hussein’s worst crime - the gassing of 100,000 Kurdish civilians in the 1988 Al-Anfal campaign - was committed during the period when western support for him was at its greatest, and using western weapons[12]. To ensure this fact would not humble international news cameras in the courtroom, he was executed for the killing of 148 civilians in 1982 in the city of Dujail, before the Al-Anfal trial could make headway[13]. That sentence by itself would be enough to make Orwell weep. Expert on International Criminal Law and former U.N. human rights investigator, Professor Charif Bassiouni of DePaul University made candid analysis of the proceedings: ‘all efforts are being made… to make sure the U.S. and other western powers are not brought in cause. This makes it look like victor’s vengeance’. A leading authority on the Nuremburg Trial and International Law, Professor Richard Overy of King’s College London, aligned with Bassiouni’s position and accurately described the way the current world order operates: ‘International law works only against weaker states. Big powers have an unmerited, but unassailable, [self-induced] immunity’ [14]. The nature of empire, has adhered to this paradigm- rather Platonically- and has done since Antiquity. St. Augustine tells us of a pirate, captured by Alexander the Great who declared in victor's triumph: 'How dare he molest the sea'. To which the pirate stated a truth of clear relevance to the current world order: 'How dare you molest the whole world. Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor.' The tale is not analogous to the current world order, however. For one, Alexander was not complicit in the pirate taking dominion over Mesopotamia; Alexander did not arm the pirate to wage war on Persia which refused to be Alexander’s client state; and, Alexander did not turn a blind eye whilst the pirate committed his worst atrocities - then use those same atrocities to justify an invasion of Mesopotamia a decade later. That level of mendacity requires a propaganda system - where modern media streams are used to cover-up historical truths by never speaking them, and in doing so, control future outcomes. This system was made infamous by George Orwell, in his Earth shattering 1984: 'Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.' Saddam Hussein’s worst crimes were committed during the period when Western support for him was at its greatest, and using Western weapons. Those same crimes were then used to justify an invasion of Iraq. But it is unthinkable to hear such truths within the confines of mainstream discourse.
Orwell, before he departed, left within 1984 a panacea to the propaganda system within which we inhabit: the shared vocalisation of dissent. Sharing truths that are unthinkable to hear within the confines of mainstream discourse – the propaganda system - is how Winston Smith managed to un-shackle his own mind and confirm his own sanity. ‘Surely, we were allied with Saddam Hussein just moments ago when he committed all these crimes?’ Winston would ask, ‘Surely the Pentagon and CIA have repeatedly warned, US policy in the Middle East is radicalising the Muslim world!’, Winston would scream, as the chants against ‘Goldstein’ (the official enemy of the state) increase, for ‘hating our freedoms’. The sharing of information kept out of mainstream institutions is increasing - due to greater connectivity between individuals.  For this reason, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, is warning of a coming ‘crisis’ in American global power, or as he puts it ‘leadership’, due to ‘global activism’ (through networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikileaks, Anonymous and an emerging anti-war movement) which is un-shackling more and more minds from the systematic propaganda, as people turn to alternative sources of information from the establishment, and as a result is ‘generating a surge in the quest for cultural respect …in a world scarred by memories of colonial or imperial domination[15]’; or, in non-Orwell-speak, making  increasing numbers of people less susceptible to propaganda. Shared vocalisation of dissent is the way to resist in a propagandist society – that was the true message of Orwell’s 1984 – which will only increase as the ‘global political awakening’ as Brzezinski labels it, takes greater hold, and the establishment’s control of the past, erodes.
Metonymically to the invasion, a crude level of mendacity surfaced in the memo. The bombing of Iraq actually began in 2002 - to provoke Saddam's retaliation; when he did (which he didn’t, he instead took the issue to the UN), and a casus belli had been invented, it was, logically, left to the mainstream media to dupe the public into believing ‘they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.’ One could regress government mendacity to antiquity. Nazi Germany staged Operation Himmler as a false flag attack to justify an invasion of Poland; to stop, ‘Polish atrocities’[51], resulting in the Second World War. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - which triggered the dramatic escalation of the American invasion of Vietnam – in the words of Robert McNamara (the US Secretary of Defence at the time), and recently released internal archives: ‘didn't happen’ [52], but resulted in the deaths of millions of Vietnamese, in arguably, what was pound for pound, the most viciously fought war in human history. The sinking of the USS Maine, which is now acknowledged to have sunk due to technical failure, was blamed on the Spanish in the build up to the Spanish-American War, turning public opinion in favour of war. The Creel Commission was set up by President Woodrow Wilson during World War 1, to launch enough propaganda subvert the American people into hating everything German, and ease the path to entering the war. The list is endless. And one need only compare mainstream to alternative news outlets to easily recognise modern propaganda. This is, undoubtedly, the mother of all Orwellian systems. But it gets better. An insight into why the government kept with the UN route even though it had ‘no patience’ with it, and began bombing in 2002 regardless of international opinion, was given by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card in September 2002: ‘from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.’[17] Mainstream media compliance in filtering out dissenting opinions is the trademark stamp of the Orwellian state. ‘Marketing’ war to the public like an advertisement however, is a strictly Western affair. 
One, in fallacious reasoning, could, ignoring my previous statements from a leaked British Intelligence memo, ponder that the case was rooted in lies, but the benefits of preventing terrorism from spreading through state sponsorship, outweighed the costs. Richard Perle, for example, adheres to this 'logic'. But the very notion of invading Iraq was known by intelligence professionals, before the invasion had occured, as counter-productive to an official aim of combatting terrorism. Quite contrary, it would plant the seeds for its exponential growth. James Bamford, an expert on the intelligence community reflected before the war ‘there is a predominant belief in the intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there have been so many lies out of the administration…over Iraq.’[18] The American National Intelligence Council warned an invasion of Iraq would ‘increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict’ [19]. Michael Scheuer, prominent historian, former senior CIA intelligence officer and the man tasked with tracking Osama bin Laden from the mid 1990’s, confirmed these dire warnings after the invasion had occurred: ‘there is nothing bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, (which is) Osama bin Laden’s gift from America[20][19]… U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s…it is fair to conclude the United States remains Bin Laden’s only indispensable ally’. [21] To quantify the damadge caused by invading Iraq, terrorism experts Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank calculated world-wide terrorism, excluding the civil war in Iraq and fighting in Afghanistan, had increased 'sevenfold' directly after the invasion had occurred[22].  More strikingly, the world’s leading expert on the jihadist movement, Fawaz Gerges, found the 9/11 attacks were overwhelmingly condemned by jihadist groups[23]; offering an opportunity to split the movement from Bin Laden, and then to extract Bin Laden from Afghanistan for trial as the Taliban originally offered[24], possibly avoiding ten years of bloodshed in the process. Instead, by dumping the offer and invading Afghanistan out of bellicosity, and then marching into Iraq out of imperialism, the jihadist movement was welded together with Bin Laden and provided an unlimited number of fresh recruits - radicalised by the invasion of Iraq. The resulting concoction is a much more fearsome foe, which will, by definition, facilitate perpetual warfare and untold bloodshed across the world. Quite literally, the seeds of global jihad were planted by the West in Baghdad the moment the bombs fell during 'Shock and Awe'. This was predicted to have occurred before, and confirmed after the invasion, thus refuting any claims of wanting to end the state nourishment of terrorism, even though it had already been acknowledged ‘Rumsfeld … on 10 separate occasions…asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed.’[45]
If ever there was an open secret, the true motives to invading and occupying Iraq, surely instantiate one. Iraq lies in the energy heartland of the world, and as imperial planning in Britain - shortly after World War One - between elements of the armed forces and petroleum industry acknowledged: ‘if we secure the supplies of oil now available in the world, we can do what we like’. The same planning in the United States after World War Two- when it emerged as a superpower- acknowledged that the Middle East oil reserves were ‘a stupendous source of strategic power’ and ‘one of the greatest material prizes in world history’ [25]. These opinions resonate half a century away. Dick Cheney, urging the Senate Armed Services to go along with the first Iraq War in 1991, made clear what was at stake: Saddam Hussein would be able to ‘dictate the future of worldwide energy policy’ by controlling the region’s vast oil reserves - which is a right solely for the United States, 7000 miles away; and its Arab clients in the Gulf and Saudi Kingdoms. He then gave a speech in 1999 to the Institute of Petroleum where he professed: ‘oil is unique in that it is so strategic in nature... The Gulf War was a reflection of that reality.’ [26] In that Iraq War, it was acceptable for officials - speaking to special interests - to associate the war with controlling oil - thus an immoral war of empire - but publicly making the same deduction twice following the second Iraq War, is considered 'extreme' for the opinions that are tolerated within the mainstream press.

Instead the press consciously - or sub-consciously according to Propaganda Model - chooses to ignore the real stories, for the trivial, but drama-esque. The Iraq War quickly followed the genesis of the 'Project for a New American Century', which, as the name suggests, is an influential think-tank by leading American officials designed for global US control, and in a letter to the President in 1998, called openly for war on Iraq: 'Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy...[we must] protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN'.[48] The media ignored this trivial fact - of senior politicians, including John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle - senior members of the Bush II administration - casually urging the head of a state, to declare war on a sovereign nation without the 'misguided insistence' of the United Nations - in other words to declare it illegally. The mainstream media instead chose to focus on a much more important event happening around the time - the Lewinsky affair... These three men then went on to hold key positions in the Bush cabinet, and fulfilled their long-standing fantasies. But hearing that is un-thinkable in the mainstream press. The war also followed Saddam Hussein selling Iraqi oil in Euros rather than US dollars in 2000, breaking the petro-dollar world order the US economy relies on [46], posing a grave threat to US global hegemony. With the invasion, the US quickly began to sell Iraq’s oil wealth back into dollars. In 2003, Jack Straw the British Foreign Secretary at the time, addressed British ambassadors and officials who had speculated at the war’s true motives, and quite candidly tried to persuade them the government was ‘bolster[ing] the security of British and global energy supplies’ and, blatantly: ‘I can't say that energy is irrelevant (to the Iraq conflict)’[47]. Paul Wolfowitz, the former Deputy US Secretary of Defence, was asked what distinguished Iraq from North Korea, and merited it with occupation, to which he replied: ‘...the country swims on a sea of oil.’ [48] More recently, President Bush consolidating his gains in 2008 stated he would bypass a piece of congressional legislation that would prevent the ‘United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.’[27]Deducting Iraq’s vast energy resources motivated the invasion, and that the Iraqi connection with Al-Qaeda - the perpetrators of 9/11- and possession of WMD was created ex-nihilo to cause a panic coinciding with brute patriotism - in what was a titanic battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (and other infantile terminology)- to dumb the level of discourse down and get the public to go along with it, is however, automatically relegated from mainstream discourse as the ponderings of: Marxists, YouTube conspiracy theorists, overly zealous teenagers writing for university newspapers, and George Galloway. Having obvious truths dismissed is another trademark of a propagandist society.
The greatest achievement of the press, is not in dismissing truths, keeping them hidden, and instilling a fear in anyone willing to speak them, and is not even limiting discourse between a debate of 'mistakes' and 'noble causes', but the maintenance and adequate care of the public's consistent questioning, in the form of an age old conundrum that has baffled 'experts' on mainstream news outlets, namely: 'why do they hate us?'. This I will address, only briefly due to its stupidity. If the conflict in Vietnam taught historians anything, it is wars have conflicting start dates depending on the definition of ‘war’. The start date of the Vietnam War is now commonly placed ten years earlier than the grand 1965 invasion [28]. The 2003 invasion of Iraq will, in time, only be considered the second attack in an overarching war on the country that began with the First Gulf War in 1991, and continued with sanctions throughout the 1990s. In 1996 when U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was asked if the sanctions - which had killed half a million Iraqi children through: malnourishment, filthy water and lack of access to medical supplies, and left them as rotting carcases in the blistering heat - were worth the price, she replied ‘we think the price is worth it [29].’ Denis Halliday, the man in charge of administering the sanctions resigned at their destructive effects stating ‘I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide’. He continued: 'I feel extremely uncomfortable flying the UN flag, being part of the UN system here...4,000 to 5,000 children dying unnecessarily every month due to the impact of sanctions because of the breakdown of water and sanitation, inadequate diet and the bad internal health situation'. But the conundrum remains, why do they hate us? He also warned 'what should be of concern is the possibility at least of more fundamentalist Islamic thinking developing... We are pushing people to take extreme positions.' [54]  His statements were addressed by the State Department 'This man in Baghdad is paid to work, not to speak'.[55] His successor Hans von Sponeck, also resigned, labelling it a ‘human tragedy’ [30]. Both were barred by the United States' and UK governments from informing the UN Security Council. But hearing the crimes of Bill Clinton, Tony Bair and G. H.W. Bush is unthinkable in the press, and history books, because only foreigners can commit crimes, by definition. Another trademark of an Orwellian system. The sanctions, as is acknowledged, increased the people’s reliance on Saddam for survival, removing any possibility of toppling him, and is acknowledged as a major cause for 9/11. The war on Iraq then continued with the 2003 invasion, which was filled with innumerable unspeakable acts, but to put things into historical context: the city of Fallujah - after the 2004 onslaught with uranium filled bullets and shells - now has higher cancer, infant mortality and sexual mutation rates than those that were present after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during WW2[31][32]. But the conundrum remains, why do they hate us? One doctor described how young women ‘are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers’ [33]. But the conundrum remains, why do they hate us? Surely, 'They' hate us due to our freedoms? Our civilised nature must be what the barbarians detest. 'They' in a broader sense, being every victim of Western imperialism since 1492, namely the Native Americans, Africans, Aborigines- and just about everyone else in between. Away from the ‘un-peoples’ of the world, Tony Blair - the self-delusional un-repenting messiah - received a multimillion pound book deal[34]once leaving office, brokered billion pound contracts between multi-national corporations netting millions[35], and had a prominent role in the London Olympics[36], probably so he could be ‘marketed’ back into the public conscious successfully. He then moved to a new post, appointed as the Middle East Peace Envoy, whilst simultaneously pushing for war with Iran…[37] This is the world Orwell warned of when he wrote 1984.
If you ask a member of the Republican Party fundraising committee - it is predicted in another book. The Book of Revelations. George W. Bush, managed to turn a war of empire into the Tenth Crusade by repeatedly invoking ‘God’ [42] and religion in public; tunnelling through, what he, and his Republican apparatchiks, were up to in private. Donald Rumsfeld, his Secretary of Defence, unfolded Bible passages and matched verses of the Bile against images of the unravelling situation in Iraq during war briefings[43]; confirming in the eyes of Bush - glimmering with destiny - what Jacques Chirac had denied, in blasphemy, over the phone: that Bush was getting one up and over ‘Gog and Magog’ by launching wars in the Middle East[44]; and, it can only be concluded, setting the stage for the second coming of Christ the Redeemer, and the rather unfortunate end of the world. Chirac stunned by the ‘leader of the free world’, was put into contact with Bible expert Thomas Romer to explain Bush’s prophecy, Romer then broke the story to the press. It can only be presumed during the affair, Dick Cheney, Shakespeare’s Iago of the White House, was busy ruling the country, as Bush remained in awe of his Biblical destiny- whilst chewing on pretzels.  With such insanity running rampant throughout, the Iraq War could not have been left intact as another illegal act of Western imperialism, continuing a trend since 1492. It was morphed into pornography then injected with religious extremism from both sides. Stock-catalogue phrases were thrown around in increasing frequency and zeal. Binary positions were deduced and paraded, bringing the level of discourse down to primitive levels. Like pornography, everything was seemingly increasing in intensity, leading to a forthcoming ultimate climax; and, both like pornography and religious extremism, involved the brutal trans-mutation of reality into a product, which required more and more ‘marketing’ (as Andrew Card put it) as it went sour. This ‘crusade’ Tony Blair gave credibility to, was ‘completing the radicalization of the Islamic world’; and, closer to home, eviscerating an entire generation’s faith in a democracy politicians had ignored. Election turn-out for each of the past three UK general elections, ranks historically lower than all others, back to - revealingly - the election held during the World War of 1918 [49], when faith in political dialogue and diplomacy must have been all but annihilated. The cause of the increasing apolitical orthodoxy is multi-faceted, but with government-press cohesion to this scale (made infamous with the Murdoch affair), no accountability for genocidal illegalities, banksters who are paid bonuses after crashing the economy - powerful people protecting powerful people, is there little wonder people regard voting as pointless? Rather than foreign, domestic threats are winnowing out British 'democracy', leaving a Monarchical carcass governed through Polyarchy.
Cumulating the death-toll of the twenty year war on Iraq, Professor of International Law Francis Boyle in an address to the International Conference on War-affected Children, totalled the figure at 3.3 million dead Iraqis. This, according to Professor Boyle, fits Genocide Convention Article II of ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’ [38]. He was later part of the prosecution in a week long mock trial in Kuala Lumpur, which found both Tony Blair and George Bush guilty of war crimes against humanity [39]. That trial, although administered by international lawyers and judges, unfortunately, had no authority and was purely symbolic. Its conclusions however, were widely shared with other specialists in International Law, Bassiouni states ‘what had happened in Iraq was a major crime against humanity, and Bush and Blair could be in the dock’. One can almost hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a statement? The answer is that I do not have the right not to do so [40]. Robert H. Jackson, the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials 70 years ago, stated a truth that is seldom acknowledged, or labelled insane: ‘we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us...the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.’ He was of course referring to the invasion and destruction of a sovereign state, which Nuremberg declared as ‘the supreme international crime differing from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole’ [41]. Jackson then summated a paradoxical truth of international law: ‘to pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well’. Paradoxical due to its instantiation being unheard of in any nation that claims to adhere to it - unless convenient. In the anniversary to the illegal ten year invasion, and the continuation of the twenty year war on Iraq,  our collective consciousness must decide to either posthumously pardon the defendants at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, or uphold the principles which we set against them and trial our former leaders, in The Hague, under the auspices of international lawyers and judges, by them. Doing neither is a mockery of Nuremberg, and our ‘democracy’. 
As for individual citizens, it is their duty following the most blatant imperialist land grab of the 21st century - thus far - to seek and acquire information kept out of the establishment press, to watch foreign and alternative news outlets such as RT News, Tom-Dispatch and TRNN, support organisations which exemplify respectable journalism yet which are attacked, such as Wikileaks, and to share the vocalisation of dissent.
[1] G.M Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary, (1995) Edition: 1st Da Capo Press Ed p.278
[2]BBC News ‘Leaked report rejects Al Qaeda links’, Wednesday, 5 February, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2727471.stm
[3]Centre for American Progress, ‘Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings’, January 28, 2004, www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2004/01/28/457/neglecting-intelligence-ignoring-warnings/
[4] UCBerkely News, Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, 18 March, 2004, http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml Blix was inspecting Iraqi sites prior to the war, but made the statement in 2004
[5] See, Centre for American Progress, ‘Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings’ 2004
[6] Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, ‘Iraq and the Media, a Critical Timeline’ March 19, 2007, http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/iraq-and-the-media/
[7] The Guardian, David Miller, Tuesday 22 April, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/apr/22/iraqandthemedia.politicsandthemedia
[8] Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, ‘CNN to Al Jazeera, Why Report Civilian Casualties’, April 15, 2004, www.fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/cnn-to-al-jazeera-why-report-civilian-deaths/
[9] Harvard International Law Journal, Jeremy Peterson, ‘Unpacking Show Trials: Situating the Trial of Saddam Hussein’, Volume 48, Number 1, Winter 2007, http://www.harvardilj.org/attach.php?id=93
[10] Human Rights Watch, ‘Iraq: Saddam Hussein Put to Death Hanging After Flawed Trial Undermines Rule of Law’, December 30, 2006, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/12/29/iraq-saddam-hussein-put-death
[11]Amnesty International, ‘Document - Iraq: Amnesty International condemns Iraqi Appeal Court verdict against Saddam Hussein and co-accused’, 28th December, 2006, 
[13]See footnote 10 and footnote 12, and http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-534798.html
[14][14] Global Research, Centre for Research Into Globalisation , Ghali Hassan, ‘Show Trial of the Century, Trial of Saddam diverts attention from US-UK war crimes’, October 20th, 2005, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-show-trial-of-the-century/1116
[16]The Guardian, Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger, ‘Iraq War was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan’, September 16, 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq
[17] See, FAIR, ‘Iraq and the Media, a Critical Timeline’ March 19, 2007
[19]Noam Chomsky, Failed States (2007) Penguin Books Ltd 80 Strand London WC2R 0RL England pp.18
[20]Noam Chomsky, Interventions (2007)  Penguin Books Ltd 80 Strand London WC2R 0RL England pp. 5
[21][20] Global Issues, Jim Lobe, ‘War on Terror Looks Like a Loser’, September 11, 2004,  http://www.globalissues.org/article/513/war-on-terrorism-looks-like-a-loser
[22] Noam Chomsky What if Iran had invaded Mexico?, Tom Englehardt ‘The World According to Tom Dispatch’, Verso 2008 Page 72
[23] See Chomsky, Interventions, page 5
[24] Staff and agencies, Sunday 14 October 2001 22.19 BST,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5
[25]Noam Chomsky, Failed States pp.36
[26]Tomgram, ‘Michael Klare, the Cheney Effect in the Obama Administration, June 21, 2012, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175560/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_the_cheney_effect_%28in_the_obama_administration%29_/#more
[27]Boston.Com, ‘Michael Savage, Bush Asserts Authority to Bypass Defence Act’ January 30, 2008 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/30/bush_asserts_authority_to_bypass_defense_act/?page=full
[31]The Independent, Patrick Cockburn, ‘Toxic Legacy of US assault on Fallujah “worse than Hiroshima”’, July 24th, 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html
[32] Global Research, Centre for Research Into Globalisation, Tom Eley, ‘US War Crimes: Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima’, July 23rd, 2010, http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-war-crimes-cancer-rate-in-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima/20241
[33] Global Research, Centre for Research Into Globalisation, ‘Deformed Babies in Fallujah. Iraq’s letter to UN’ http://www.globalresearch.ca/video-deformed-babies-in-fallujah-iraq-letter-to-the-united-nations/16156
[34] The Guardian, David Leigh and Ian Griffiths, ‘The Mystery of Tony Blair’s Finances’, December 1st, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/01/mystery-tony-blair-finances
[35] Daily Mail, Rob Davies, ‘Million Dollar Man: How Tony Blair Wafted into Claridges to Secure Massive Pay Day for just Three Hours Work’, September 9, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200655/The-million-dollar-man-How-Tony-Blair-wafted-Claridges-secure-massive-pay-day-just-hours-work.html#axzz2K7hQGalL
[36] BBC News, ‘Tony Blair: London Olympics to Raise the Roof’, July 27, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19021657
[37] New Statesmen, Mehdi Hassan, ‘Why is Blair the peace envoy so desperate for war on Iran?’, September 19, 2011, http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2011/09/iran-blair-tony-afghanistan
[38]Global Research, Centre for Research into Globalisation, Professor Francis Boyle, ‘US Sponsored Genocide against Iraq 1990-2012. Killed 3.3 Million, Including 750,000 Children’  December 6th, 2012, www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-genocide-against-iraq-1990-2012-killed-3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461
[39] Foreign Policy Journal, Yvonne Ridley, February 6th, 2013, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/
[40]Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood Speech, which I quoted due to its brute force http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
[41] Chomsky, Failed States, (2007) pp.65
[42] BBC News, Tom Carver, ‘Bush puts God on his side’, April 6th ,2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2921345.stm
[43] Daily News, Helen Kennedy, ‘George Bush got memos from Rumsfeld that used scripture to push for Iraq War’, May 18th, 2009, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/george-bush-memos-rumsfeld-scripture-push-iraq-war-article-1.411419 & The Guardian, Daniel Nasaw, ‘Iraq War briefings headlined with Bible quotes’, May 18th, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/18/rumsfeld-gq-iraq-bible-quotes-bush
[44] The Guardian, Andrew Brown, August 10th, 2009, ‘Bush, Gog and Magog’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush
[47] The Guardian, Ewan MacAskill, ‘Straw Admits oil is key priority’ 7 January, 2003,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jan/07/uk.iraq
[48] PNAC, 1998, http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm  
[49] The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/16/uk-election-turnouts-historic
[50] http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Noam_Chomsky_Foreign_Policy.htm  
[51] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler#Aftermath  
[52] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident and
[53] World Public Opinion, 'Percentage of Americans believing Iraq had WMD rises' http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/238.php
[54] BBC News, 'UN official blasts sanctions', September 30, 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm
[55] New Statesmen, After the Journey, one UN inspectors letter to Tony Blair, Septemebr 2010 http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2010/09/iraq-humanitarian-sanctions?quicktabs_most_read=
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