URGENT ALERT:

URGENT ALERT:IMMINENT THREAT TO IRAQI LAWYER BADEE IZZAT AREF
We have received information that the liberty and life of Badee Izzat Aref, prominent Iraqi lawyer to Tariq Aziz and several members of the government of President Saddam Hussein, is in danger.Aref has been under US house arrest for 17 days and the Maliki government is demanding he be handed over by US authorities to face charges of defaming the Iraqi judicial system following comments he allegedly made on the unfair trials and summary executions of President Saddam Hussein and others.Given the Maliki government's eagerness in summarily executing its political opponents -- including their lawyers -- we have firm reason to believe that Aref is in immediate danger of being tortured and/or assassinated.On 21 June 2006, lawyer Khamis Al-Obaidi, defence counsel for late President Saddam Hussein, was tortured and assassinated in Baghdad, joining lawyers Sadoun Al-Janabi, killed in October 2005, and Adel Al-Zubaidi, killed in November 2005. In all cases, witnesses alleged the Iraqi government was involved. Al-Obaidi was the ninth person connected with the trial of President Hussein to be killed.Throughout the proceedings of the Iraqi Special Tribunal lawyers were repeated threatened. This fact alone is testament that all defendants before the Iraqi Special Tribunal faced unfair trials.The United States is directly responsible under international lawWe remind occupation authorities that Badee Izzat Aref is a protected person under international humanitarian law, which governs the US occupation, and has guaranteed rights under international human rights law.[i] International humanitarian and human rights law outlaws torture and summary execution, incommunicado detention, the ill treatment of detainees, or denial of access to legal counsel.Further, Aref -- as a human rights defender -- is additionally protected by the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.[ii] It is a grave violation of international humanitarian law to put protected persons in danger by consciously handing them over to any party that might violate their fundamental human rights. Given the appalling human rights record of the Maliki government, we believe that Aref will be subject serious violations of his human rights -- including his right to life -- unless there is urgent intervention on his behalf and US authorities respect their duty to protect him.The BRussells Tribunal demands assurances of the wellbeing, liberty and security of Badee Izzat Aref. The US occupation is directly responsible for Aref's welfare and must guarantee his security.The imminent danger faced by Badee Izzat Aref illustrates once again that the US-Maliki plan for Iraq has failed and that all they can now propose is repression and executions.Take action now!We call on all news agencies, human rights organisations, national and international press associations and freedom of expression advocacy groups to stand in solidarity with Badee Izzat Aref and all patriotic human rights defenders in Iraq and take immediate action to help secure his rights and all those defending the integrity of law against the ravages of the occupation.The BRussells Tribunal Committeehttp://brusselstribunal.orgPlease circulate this alert widely. For information contact: info@brusselstribunal.org[i] See Articles 6-7 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 113 and 116 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.[ii] See UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the UN General Assembly (A/RES/53/144) 8 March 1999. Article 12, subsections (2) and (3) read: "The State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration. In this connection, everyone is entitled, individually and in association with others, to be protected effectively under national law in reacting against or opposing, through peaceful means, activities and acts, including those by omission, attributable to States that result in violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as acts of violence perpetrated by groups or individuals that affect the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms."Dr Ian DouglasVisiting ProfessorPolitical Science DepartmentAn-Najah National UniversityNablus, Palestine+44 207 067 8399 (fax)+972 59 9 426 906 (mobile Nablus)+972 54 794 1029 (mobile Jerusalem)+20 12 167 1660 (mobile Cairo)www.najah.edu

The AMERICAN OCCUPIERS ARE ORGANIZING THE DEATH SQUDES TO KILL THE IRAQIS

PLEASE IRAQIS, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE IRAQ:
Enough is enough, do not say SUUNIS and SHIITES; the AMERICANS who directed the DEATH SQUDES in El Salvador are the same BLOODY AMERICANS. They are ready to eliminate the whole IRAQIS to make IDIOT BUSH touches the victory he is insisting on his war in Iraq. Those Sunnis and Shiites who are killing each other, their leaderships are being paying highly by the Americans.. IRQAIS BE AWARE, YOU ARE GOING TP LOSSE EVERY THING.
Because of the DEATH SQUDES the Iraqis stopped speaking about the occupation; they are speaking about the SUNNI TERRORITSTS and SHIITE DEATH SQUDES.. IRAQIS your first enemy is the American occupation.According to Neweweek, the American weekly, «the Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq"
Read the following American article to realize the truth. The Americans organized and financed death squads in El Salvador killed even Americans just to demonize the resistance in El Salvador.


‘The Salvador Option’
The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq


By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
Jan. 14, 2005

Jan. 8 - What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras. There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time. The Iraq ambassador, in a phone call to NEWSWEEK on Jan. 10, said he was not involved in military strategy in Iraq. He called the insertion of his name into this report "utterly gratuitous.")

Silence Is No More Golden

With the fifth anniversary of the ongoing Iraqi agony, President Bush is still trying to change the World but not himself. We should go through the changes he brought creating the “New” Iraq: according to the international organization and UN more than 20% from the Iraqis became under poverty line, more than 700 000 civilians lost their lives; more than 4 million Iraqis became refugees inside and outside Iraq because of the ongoing violence; more than 300 000 poor women were widowed; more than 2 million women became the bread winners of their families; the Baghdad morgue receives more than 60 dead bodies on daily bases. Iraq was destroyed as a country and state by the decrees of Bush viceroy in Iraq Paul Bremer who established the so called the Governing Council on sectarian and ethnic bases that led to the sectarian violence. By dismantling the Iraqi military and security forces; Bremer and the occupation forces let Iraq to be the battle field of Bush war against the alleged terror to make the world safer for the Americans!! on the expense of the Iraqi blood. The whole infrastructure systems were bombed and the general services including electricity, drinking water and fuel became very rare. Yet and to be fair; one should admit the achievements of the “new” Iraq: Iraq became on the top of the corrupted states according to the International Transparency Organization by reaching 70-100% corruption, more than 10 billion dollars were lost! (stolen), Iraqis are gaining perfect bodies because of walking due to the concert barriers and barbwires blocking the streets in front of the cars and running away from the explosions and terrorist actions; the whole ex air forces bases turned into jails!!Bush, Blair and the others coalition invaded Iraq according to false documents regarding the Iraqi WMDs and Saddam’s links with Al-Qaeda. Bush himself had admitted this painful fact yet UN did not ask him to apologize, rebuild Iraq and withdrew. UN even did not ask him to apologize when Abu Gharib scandal was disclosed. Security Council did not ask urgent meeting while Bush was and still violating the all international laws and Geneva Treatments. Four painful years, the world is watching the Iraqi ongoing bleeding silently. It is time that silence in no more golden. We all should recall what Nelson DeMille, the American writer who participated as an officer in the American military forces in Vietnam War, he said, “If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity.” It is time to shout: enough is enough; Bush should try to change himself and the Americans should try to change their regime. Almost one million civilian Iraqis bloods is enough for giving the Americans safer world, more fuel for their cars and more prosperity. We should all shout put in mind that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said those who watch injustice silently are evils and Martin Luther King said that silence is betrayer

Do Appeal Now

Dear friends,
Sorry for not writing every day or at least every week.. The situation is too painful that could not be described. Yet I received the following letter from a friend; please do read it well and raise your voice; do appeal. Read it well to discover that JUSTICE in Iraq is not but a BAD JOKE.
the following is the letter:
Below is disturbing information we received from Iraq . The imminent execution of three Iraqi women: Wassan, Zainab and Liqa, without a fair trial, is expected to take place on March 3.

The executions of what they call " Terrorists" and " criminals" in their dozens have been going on over a year now. A public execution took place in Mosul City , North of Iraq, two months ago. however, this is the first time we hear about sentencing women to death. Amnesty International has led the way demanding an end to this practise in the " new Iraq ".

According to Mohamed Khorshid, head of Human rights orgs in Iraq in his statement to Asharq Al Awsat newspaper on 6th April 2006, there are over 2000 women classified as " security detainees " under the supervision of both the occupation and the Iraqi puppet regime, in various prisons, camps and detention centres.

In a recent statement at the Parliament, the Iraqi Minister of Human rights, said that there are over 1000 women security detainees, only to deny her own statement within a day after a public outcry.

This is the signal of the opening of an era of "legal" executions in Iraq . It is a horrible proof that the illegal executions of Saddam Hussein and other Baath leaders were not "isolated" or "exceptional" incidents, but that they laid the groundwork for employment by the Iraqi ruling clique of "judicially sanctioned" executions as a legitimate "measure" against those who oppose their puppet regime and the illegal US occupation.

We believe it is vitally important to protest and take action, to compel the Iraqi authorities to revoke this sentence. Do appeal to relevant institutions and ask them to intervene to stop this. Send your protest letters to Iraq ’s Justice minister: Hashim al Shilbi: head-minister@iraqi-justice.org.

Let’s all raise our voices. NOW !!

Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty, Member BRussells Tribunal advisory committee.
Ayse Berktay, World Tribunal on Iraq organiser.
Dirk Adriaensens, Member BRussells Tribunal executive committee.
Hana Al Bayaty, Member BRussells Tribunal executive committee.

Helped to write this appeal: Haifa Zangana. Additional comments from Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty –in French-, Tahrir Numan and the appeal of Amnesty International underneath.

The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court sentenced the death by hanging of three women, on charges of complicity in the murder of Iraqi police loyal to the occupation in Baghdad and participation in what the Court considered Terrorism.

News from a source in the Iraqi Lawyers Union :

The three women are:

- Wassan Talib (31 years old). The charge is killing five police officers through the participation with gunmen in an attack on police.

- Zainab Fadhil (25 years). The charge is attacking a joint patrol of the Iraqi army and the the American army last September with her husband and Her cousin in Baghdad .

- Liqa Omar Muhammad (26 years old). The charge is the participation with her husband and her brother in the killing of an official from the Green Zone.

Walid Hayali, lawyer and member of The Iraqi Lawyers Union, said the Court issued a ruling against the three women under item 156, without allowing them to engage counsel from a lawyer.

The lawyer asks the whole world to move to stop the execution of the three women and to Condemn the Court's ruling.

He points out that Liqa Omar Muhammad gave birth to her daughter in prison a few months ago and is still nursing the child, and

Wassan Talib has a three-year-old daughter. He explained that the three women are now in "Kazimiah prison" in the Kazimiyah region.

The execution is scheduled for 3 Mars and the trial was not revised in appeal as there was no lawyer to ask for this.

Dear all,

It seems such a terrible crime to execute women who have allegedly killed members of the Iraqi police, when the story of Luana Martiri, a 22-year-old Christian student in Iraq tells us what members of the police and the army are capable of. Two months ago she was raped by an Iraqi soldier following a raid at her home. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57547&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=Iraq
This must be the good US training.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140052007
URGENT ACTION
Iraq: Fear of imminent execution/death penalty
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 14/005/2007 09 February 2007UA 33/07 Fear of imminent execution/death penalty IRAQ Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah (f), aged about 25Wassan Talib (f), aged 31Zeynab Fadhil (f), aged 25Liqa’ Qamar (f), aged 25The four women named above have been sentenced to death, and at least one of them is in imminent danger of execution. The president has the power to pardon them, or commute their sentences.Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah was sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) on 15 August 2005 for the murder of her uncle, his wife and three of their children in the al-Khudra’ district of Baghdad. She reportedly blamed the killings on her fiancé, who, she said, had carried them out in order to rob her uncle. Her fiancé was said to have been arrested, but Amnesty International does not know what charges, if any, have been brought against him. Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah's death sentence was upheld on appeal, and she is facing imminent execution.In a separate case, Wassan Talib and Zeynab Fadhil were sentenced to death by the CCCI on 31 August 2006 for the 2005 murder of several members of Iraqi security forces in the Baghdad district of Hay al-Furat. Both women denied they had been involved, and Zeynab Fadhil reportedly claimed that she was abroad at the time of the killings. Liqa’ Qamar was sentenced to death on 6 February 2006 by the CCCI, for a kidnapping which reportedly took place in 2005. Her husband is said to have been detained and accused of the same crime. No further details are available.All four women are held at Baghdad 's al-Kadhimiya Prison. Two have young children with them: Zeynab Fadhil her three-year-old daughter, Liqa' Qamar her one-year-old daughter, who was born in prison.

Justice minister: Hashim al Shilbi: head-minister@iraqi-justice.org
Talabani's office: http://www.iraqipresidency.net/greetings_send.php?language=arabic
regards

Executing Saddam; Executing Iraq

After Execution of Saddam; Iraqis lost forever the relations that destroyed their country. Saddam was not sentenced to death because of 148 Iraqis were executed when they planned to assassinate him while visiting Dujail in 1982 when he was President; this sentence came to save the “face” of the White House and many Iraqi politicians who are now key players in Iraq. The whole world remember Bush the father, the vice US president in 1983, saying; “he (Saddam) is our man in the there”! What was the relation between Bush the first and their (man) who drove Iraq to this end? The Iraqis will never discover the odd relation between Saddam and Masoud Barzani whom he helped against the militia of Jalal Talbani, now the Iraqi President, in 1996, to ”liberate” Erbil? Iraqis will never know again the odd relations between Saddam and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak whom Saddam helped to restore leading Arab League which was shifted to Tunisia after the Egyptian former President Anwar Sadat visited Israel in 1977? Iraqis will never know the reason of the strange meeting between Saddam and Tanzanian retired President Julius Nayriry who visited Baghdad on the last day of 1988; then Saddam announced the forming of the Arab Cooperation Council in February 1989. On that visit, Nayriry said that he came to advice Saddam to establish regional councils to lead the region!! That council made Mubarak knew every thing about Iraq giving the data to US becoming one of the leading Arab leaders toward destroying Iraq. Execution Saddam is the last step of eliminating secrets would make the world to discover how America played changing the face of the region and destroying Iraq. The first step was the Tons of Iraqi official documents taken by US officials on the day Baghdad was occupied. Saddam was executed in the coming days. Who would sentence Bush who executed the whole Iraq? Bush made Iraq drown in Iraqis bloods while still until now telling lies after lies and smiling!! The all crimes committed by Saddam is being committing in Iraq now by the American occupying forces.
Executing a President in Iraq is not a strange matter. Going through the history of the modern Iraq; one can easily see that the all rulers of the modern Iraq, since 1921, were assassinated, executed and massacred brutally. The only President escaped this fate was Abdul Rahman Arif (1966-1968) who toppled by the Ba’thists in 1968.
While Saddam was buried one piece; I mean his body was one piece; only AlMighty Allah knows how the Iraqi “new” rulers would be buried?

Regarding the Iraqis new rulers, the execution is a “victory”. The followers of the Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr who suspend their participation in the political process protesting the meeting between Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister weeks ago, said they will activate their participation after the execution. The Iraqis who are losing their country after losing more than 100 civilians every day know very well that the trial of Saddam was not but a political play to give “glory” to Bush who cheated the whole world alleging “Saddam is threatening US security”. Saddam’s lawyers who met him on the day of ratifying the sentence said he was smiling with high morals!! If he was smiling or not; the question is how the Iraqi cause would be finished?
Like it or not; one image no body will forget it: Saddam went to the gallows refusing wearing head cover while his executers were covering their heads and faces!!

Any Body Could Help Marwa?

Marwa Adel Karam, 13 years old, lost her eye because of an American mistake.
Her mother interviewed by iraqirabita.org. The following is the story:
At 3.30am, Oct. 30the 2006, a unit from the American DIRTY Tasks Force raided our house in Al-Safina neighborhood- Al-A'dhamiya district. Their pretext was: searching to find the kidnapped American soldier. (An Iraqi tear: An American soldier from Iraqi origin was called Qusay Al-Qaisi was kidnapped from Karrada while he was visiting his Iraq wife family. Al-Qaisi was the cousin of Intifadh Qamber, the spokesman of Ahmed Chalabi the liar who gave Bush the false documents about the Iraqi WMDs.. Qamber was given a military post, he was appointed as the Iraqi military attaché in the Iraqi embassy in the States. That soldier was not found until now). The mother continues saying: their armored vehicles blocked the street. They exploded our door. There was no man in the hose; my husband died years ago; my son in law was detained by the police for sectarian reason. The Americans found no body and nothing in the house. They stole our money, passports and IDs. While exploding the door, shrapnel entered into the right eye of my child Marwa. When they found the crime they committed against an innocent family; they apologized and took Marwa to Ibn Sina hospital in the Green Zone. She was brought back home after 3 days confirming that she needs more two operations as Dr Hamilton recommended. Yet; they did come back again to take her.
Young Marwa; according to her mother, was very clever in her school; but she refused going to her school this year because of her eye.
The operations need $15 000.. If there is any could help her; please send a comment; I will give you the email account you can be in touch with Marwa campaign through it.

Another American Crime

The Baker-Hamilton report said that unless the Iraqi government made "substantive progress" on national reconciliation, security, and good governance, the US would have to reduce its political, military, and economic support to that government.
The Kurds were displeased with the report, which recommended that the central government supervise the "distribution" of the oil revenues. Shiites disliked the fact that the report urged dialogue with Baathists and blamed the militia for massacres. And Sunnis were annoyed because the report gave Iran a legitimate role in Iraq.
The strange thing is that those Iraqi officials who often say that Iraq is a sovereign country are the same ones who want the occupation forces to stay in the country. Where is the sovereignty when the US forces killed 17 civilians in Al-Ishaqi, 40 km north of Baghdad, one day after the report? Those who reject the report do so because it conflicts with their own interests. The Kurds, for example, want to annex Kirkuk to their areas -- and the militia leaders want to maintain their grip over the country.
In a telephone conversation, Dr Ayadah Al-Jaghifi, chief of forensic medicine at Tikrit Hospital, told the repoeters that the hospital has received the bodies of 17 people, including two women and five children. All had been killed with a bullet to the head with a small weapon. A US statement earlier claimed that US planes shelled two houses in Al-Ishaqi, killing 17 terrorists, including two women. This would be the third massacre of Iraqi civilians in Al-Ishaqi since May. The families of the victims are stunned by the silence of the government and the Arab and international media. But some are hoping against hope that a US serviceman would speak out to clear his conscience or that a US or western journalist would pick up the story. Otherwise, the case would never be investigated.
Untill that day, when such journslist would publish the story; the Maliki government will stay silence; Bush will say nothing; no invistigations would be.. The victims were IRAQIS; who does care about IRAQIS or of IRAQI blood.

Iraq and Different Reports!!

Of Repetition Compulsion, War Crimes, and National Narcissism (Again)
Arthur Silber
Once Upon a Time...December 9, 2006As a followup to my observations yesterday that nothing will fundamentally alter with regard to our Iraq policy -- regardless of the supposed "seriousness" of the Iraq Study Group, and regardless of the new Democratic Congress -- here are some key excerpts from a recent column by Norman Solomon:
The lead-up to the invasion of Iraq has become notorious in the annals of American journalism. Even many reporters, editors and commentators who fueled the drive to war in 2002 and early 2003 now acknowledge that major media routinely tossed real journalism out the window in favor of boosting war.But it's happening again.The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the U.S. war effort must keep going. And again, in its news coverage, the New York Times is a bellwether for the latest media parade to the cadence of the warfare state....During the weeks since the midterm election, the New York Times news coverage of Iraq policy options has often been heavy-handed, with carefully selective sourcing for prefab conclusions. Already infamous is the Nov. 15 front-page story by Michael Gordon under the headline "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say." A similar technique was at play Dec. 1 with yet another "News Analysis," this time by reporter David Sanger, headlined "The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody's Leaving Right Now."Typically, in such reportage, the sources harmonizing with the media outlet's analysis are chosen from the cast of political characters who helped drag the United States into making war on Iraq in the first place.What's now going on in mainline news media is some kind of repetition compulsion. And, while media professionals engage in yet another round of conformist opportunism, many people will pay with their lives.With so many prominent American journalists navigating their stories by the lights of big Washington stars, it's not surprising that so much of the news coverage looks at what happens in Iraq through the lens of the significance for American power.Viewing the horrors of present-day Iraq with star-spangled eyes, New York Times reporters John Burns and Kirk Semple wrote -- in the lead sentence of a front-page "News Analysis" on Nov. 29 -- that "American military and political leverage in Iraq has fallen sharply."The second paragraph of the Baghdad-datelined article reported: "American fortunes here are ever more dependent on feuding Iraqis who seem, at times, almost heedless to American appeals."The third paragraph reported: "It is not clear that the United States can gain new traction in Iraq..."And so it goes -- with U.S. media obsessively focused on such concerns as "American military and political leverage," "American fortunes" and whether "the United States can gain new traction in Iraq."With that kind of worldview, no wonder so much news coverage is serving nationalism instead of journalism.In this manner, the status quo protects itself and its prerogatives -- and its propaganda is dutifully amplified by a subservient press. This is why I have maintained that, even after the journalistic debacle of the leadup to the Iraq invasion, the media in this country have learned absolutely nothing. And Ralph Peters may be a repellently extreme and destructive example of this nationalistic narcissism -- with his endless emphasis on what "we" must do in Iraq, even though there never was and never will be any justifiable reason for our invasion and occupation, and despite the slaughter that is the direct result of our actions -- but the identical underlying perspective is revealed by most Americans, and by almost all of our press. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and horrifically injured -- and still, it's almost all about us.For a further discussion of the moral implications of these incontestable facts, implications that our national leaders, our media and most Americans resolutely refuse to understand and acknowledge, I turn once more to Jacob Hornberger:
Hanging over the Iraq debacle, however, is that one overriding moral issue that unfortunately all too many Americans have yet to confront: neither the Iraqi people nor their government ever attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. That means that in this conflict, which has killed more than 600,000 Iraqis, the United States is the aggressor nation and Iraq is the defending nation.Why is that issue so important? Because it involves morality, not pragmatics. Do U.S. troops have the moral right to be killing people, when they are part of a military force that has aggressed against another country? Do they have the moral right to kill people who have done nothing worse than defend their nation from attack or attempt to oust an occupier from their midst? Does simply calling an action "war" excuse an aggressor nation from the moral consequences of killing people in that war?In other words, does the United States have the moral right to violate the principles against aggressive war, for which it prosecuted Germany at Nuremberg and condemned the Soviet Union in Afghanistan?By invading and occupying Iraq, Bush and Cheney have put the American people in the uncomfortable position of either supporting their government and its troops or supporting morality. Should a person support the actions of his government and its troops or should he obey the laws of God, when the government has placed its actions in contravention to those laws? What are the moral consequences for each individual faced with that choice?Americans, quite naturally, want to continue believing that the federal government projects its power around the world just to help people. They want to believe that their government invaded Iraq just to help the Iraqi people -- well, at least after the WMDs failed to materialize and that primary justification for the invasion fell by the wayside.But it's all a life of the lie -- a life of self-imposed deception and delusion -- a life that has refused for decades to confront the brutal and hypocritical role of the federal government in the affairs of other nations, including ouster of democratically elected leaders (e.g., Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala), assassinations and miltary coups (e.g., Vietnam and Chile), the support of brutal dictators (e.g., Saddam in Iraq, the Shah of Iran, and Musharraf in Pakistan), brutal and deadly sanctions and embargoes (e.g., Iraq and Cuba), foreign aid to socialist or authoritarian regimes (e.g., Israel and Egypt), the teaching of torture to Latin American military brutes at the School of the Americas, interference in the domestic affairs of other nations (e.g., Venezuela) under the guise of promoting "democracy," and, of course, the far-flung secret empire of torture camps run by the CIA.But the prospect of indefinite failure and continuous death might well cause people to face reality and cause them to confront the painful facts and truth about U.S. foreign policy.I deeply hope that Hornberger is correct that ongoing slaughter and destruction might cause people "to face reality" and "confront the painful facts and truth about U.S. foreign policy" -- but thus far, the signs are not at all encouraging.The myth of Western, and more particularly, of American "exceptionalism" is a fundamental part of our nation's view of itself. It is deeply embedded in our national psyche, and I strongly doubt it will be dislodged in the foreseeable future. I recently quoted from Hampton Sides' new book, on the subject of the U.S. war against Mexico. Recall this sentence especially:"To conquer Mexico, in other words, would be to do it a favor. "And that remains the American perspective, and it very accurately captures our colonialist, condescending, and racist national attitude toward Iraq and its peoples: we were doing them a favor. If it turned into a genocidal murder spree, well, that's only because it was managed "incompetently." Most people still will not see the inescapable moral meaning of what we have done. And most people will never acknowledge that if we had implemented a murderous plan of conquest "competently," that would only make the results infinitely worse, not "better."We have murdered an entire country, and an unconscionable and entirely unforgivably huge number of innocent Iraqis. We have murdered them, without even the merest shadow of a justifiable reason.Remember it for next time. And unless our entire perspective and worldview is challenged and rejected, there will be a next time. That is the single fact of which you can be absolutely certain.
:: Article nr. 28904 sent on 10-dec-2006 04:28 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=28904:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet .