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Xlea321
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Iraqs epic suffering made invisible
#1912872 - 09/13/03 02:05 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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In his latest New Statesman column, John Pilger describes viewing videotape of the attack on Iraq that was not shown in the West and is horrific evidence of a great crime. : Pilger : 11 Sep 2003 IRAQ'S EPIC SUFFERING IS MADE INVISIBLE
For the past few weeks, I have been watching videotapes of the attack on Iraq, most of them not shown in this country. The tapes concentrate on the epic suffering of ordinary Iraqis. There are photographs, too, that were never published here. They show streets and hospitals running with blood, as American and British forces smashed their way into Iraq with weapons designed to incinerate and dismember human beings.
It is difficult viewing, but necessary if one is to understand fully the words of the Nuremberg judges in 1946 when they laid down the principles of modern international law: "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
Guiding me through this visual evidence of a great crime is the diary of a young law graduate, Jo Wilding, who was in Baghdad with a group of international human rights observers. She and the others stayed with Iraqi families as the missiles, bunker busters and cluster bombs exploded around them. Where possible, they hurried to the scene of civilian casualties and followed the victims to hospitals and mortuaries, interviewing eyewitnesses and doctors. Their work received scant media coverage.
Jo has described to me, in detail, attacks on civilian targets that were - she is in no doubt - deliberate. In any case, the sheer ferocity of the assault on elusive Iraqi defenders could not fail to kill and injure large numbers of civilians. According to a recent study, up to 10,000 civilians were killed.
"One of the stunning things about the quick coalition victory," John Bolton, George Bush's under-secretary of state for international security, told me in Washington recently, "was how little damage was done to Iraqi infrastructure, and how low Iraqi casualties were."
I said, "Well, it's high if it's 10,000 civilians."
He replied, "Well, I think it's quite low if you look at the size of the military operation."
Quite low at 10,000. And multiply that many times when the figure includes the killing of mostly teenage conscripts who, as a Marine colonel said, "sure as hell didn't know what hit them". Keep multiplying when the wounded are added: such as 1,000 children maimed, according to Unicef, by the delayed blast of cluster bomblets.
What does it take for journalists with a public voice and responsibility to acknowledge the truth of such a crime? Are those who stand in front of cameras in Downing Street and on the White House lawn, incessantly obfuscating the obvious (a technique they call objectivity), that conditioned? The resistance to the illegal Anglo-American occupation of Iraq is now propagated as part of Bush's "war on terror". The deaths of Americans, Britons and UN people are news; Iraqis flit across the screen: otherwise, they do not exist.
For Blair's ministers, the cover-up, like almost everything, originates in Washington. Read the armed forces minister Adam Ingram's replies to the tireless questioning by Llewellyn Smith MP and his message is almost identical to Bolton's. The "regrettable" loss of life is really not too bad, considering "a military operation of [this] size". As to numbers of people killed, "we have no way of establishing with any certainty..." Whoever Adam Ingram is, remember the name, for he embodies the mundane, routine, amoral apologist for state murder.
Of course, if the great crime in Iraq was represented not by the poignant moment of a dead squaddie's flag-draped coffin returning, but by the unrelenting horror I have watched on unseen videotape, the cover would crack. And the illusion presented by the Hutton inquiry would be revealed. As it is, Hutton is the magician Blair's best trick so far, for an inquiry into the death of one man ensures that real public investigation into why Blair took Britain into war will not happen. It ensures that while we are allowed to read internal e-mails in Whitehall, we are denied scrutiny of the traffic between Blair and Bush, which almost certainly would expose the biggest lie of all, and reveal that the decision to invade was taken long before Washington dreamt up the charade of weapons of mass destruction. That would sink Blair.
Instead, we have glimpses of truth. On 17 September 2001, six days after the attacks in America, Bush signed a document, marked Top Secret, in which he directed the Pentagon to begin planning "military options" for an invasion of Iraq. In July last year, Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, told another Bush official: "That decision has been made. Don't waste your breath" (Washington Post, 12 January 2003; New Yorker, 31 March 2003). On 2 July last, Air Marshal Sir John Walker, the former chief of defence intelligence and deputy chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, wrote a confidential memo to MPs to alert them that the "commitment to war" was made a year ago. "Thereafter," he wrote, "the whole process of reason, other reason, yet other reason, humanitarian, morality, regime change, terrorism, finally imminent WMD attack... was merely covering fire."
The unfettered disclosure of this would present an uncontrollable crisis to the clique that runs Britain: the secret service, the civil service, Downing Street, the favoured City and the courted media. Few spooks and mandarins have much time for the strange, Messianic Blair, but they will strive to protect him in order to protect themselves and to ensure that their version of Lord Curzon's "great game" (ie, imperialism), continues unopposed.
It is a game exemplified by the arms fair that opened in London on 9 September, hosted by a government and an arms industry that are together the world's second-biggest merchant of death, selling to the usual tyrants and state killers. Their ruthlessness was expressed when the same fair last convened in 2001, and 11 September happened. Public events, such as the TUC conference, were abandoned out of respect for the victims in New York and Washington. The arms fair was told to keep going.
"The kaleidoscope has been shaken," Blair said in the wake of 11 September. "The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us." Whoever wrote that inanity might have left Downing Street now; but Blair tells us constantly that he believes what he says, and perhaps he does. Several of the defendants at Nuremberg offered the same plea, and so have other state murderers at The Hague. Like them, Blair should have his day in court. http://pilger.carlton.com/print
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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Learyfan
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: Xlea321]
#1913136 - 09/13/03 03:30 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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OH THANK YOU MR. BUSH! THANK YOU MR. BUSH. YOU ARE GREAT MAN!
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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RandalFlagg
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: Xlea321]
#1913185 - 09/13/03 03:48 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Why the hell we chose to get involved in that mess over there... I'll never know.
That part of the world is a cesspool and probably always will be. Religious wackos and totalitarian regimes run amok. It's really too bad that most of the oil in the world is buried under those people.
With all of the money we send to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, we could invest in other sources of energy, whether it is oil in other parts of the world, or non-oil resources.
Sometimes I fanasize about dropping neutron bombs on the Middle East and killing every Jew and every Arab. The world would be a much more peaceful place.
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Edame
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913365 - 09/13/03 05:16 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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-------------------- The above is an extract from my fictional novel, "The random postings of Edame". In the beginning was the word. And man could not handle the word, and the hearing of the word, and he asked God to take away his ears so that he might live in peace without having to hear words which might upset his equinamity or corrupt the unblemished purity of his conscience. And God, hearing this desperate plea from His creation, wrinkled His mighty brow for a moment and then leaned down toward man, beckoning that he should come close so as to hear all that was about to be revealed to him. "Fuck you," He whispered, and frowned upon the pathetic supplicant before retreating to His heavens.
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Learyfan
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913388 - 09/13/03 05:27 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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luvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913451 - 09/13/03 06:00 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Even I have to add a
-------------------- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
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Baby_Hitler
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913459 - 09/13/03 06:04 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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If it bothers you that much, maybe you should just stop watching news.
-------------------- "America: Fuck yeah!" -- Alexthegreat “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” -- Thomas Jefferson The greatest sin of mankind is ignorance. The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally. --Salena Zeto (9/23/16)
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RandalFlagg
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1913582 - 09/13/03 06:58 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Even I have to add a
I see that the intent of my statement was misconstrued..
My statement about wanting to drop a bunch of neutron bombs on the Middle East was not serious. I don't seriously think about doing it. I was merely trying to express my absolute disgust and frustration for how things are over there.
I am angry at the Israelis for treating the Palestinians like shit. I am angry at the Arabs for their inability to do anything but engage in totalitarian states and jihad. It is such a goddamn mess and we are in the middle of it. It just makes me so angry that because of that cesspool(I am not being facetious when I say that...I am 100% serious), we Americans have to fear for our lives. It is something that we should not be involved in at all.
The scary thing is, if we were to stop all aid to that part of the world, I have no doubt that certain governments would fail and there would be even more chaos than there already is. It is a quagmire with no end and no conceivable exit.
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Xlea321
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1914891 - 09/14/03 07:41 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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But the americans arn't in the middle of it out of the goodness of their heart, they're in it because having strategic control of the area is vitally important to their oil interests.
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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RandalFlagg
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: Xlea321]
#1914894 - 09/14/03 07:49 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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But the americans arn't in the middle of it out of the goodness of their heart, they're in it because having strategic control of the area is vitally important to their oil interests.
I absolutely agree with you. The only reason we give a shit what happens over there is because of the oil. Africa is a warzone and we aren't involved there because Africa doesn't have much of anything that we need.
Certain aspects of America's foreign policy are fucked up. But, I disagree with how people chastise America for displaying self- interest. America is demonized when it displays self-interest, but whenever another country displays self-interest it is ignored. Envy, jealousy, and bitterness are things one must deal with when you are on the top.
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shakta
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1918246 - 09/15/03 01:25 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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How many Africans have flown planes into our buildings? I agree with you on the second point of the US being unfairly demonized compared to other countries.
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Enlil
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: shakta]
#1918261 - 09/15/03 01:32 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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How many Iraqi's flew planes into our buildings?
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shakta
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: Enlil]
#1918269 - 09/15/03 01:34 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Zero. What is your point? I was showing that there aren't many African terrorists attacking us. The links between Saddam and terrorism are there. People choose to ignore them. I would say he was the biggest terrorist of all anyway. He definately terrorized his own people for thirty years.
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Enlil
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: shakta]
#1918285 - 09/15/03 01:37 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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My point is that one african did participate in sept 11th, no proof or even evidence has ever linked saddam to 9-11.
-------------------- Censoring opposing views since 2014. Ask an Attorney Fuck the Amish
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Xlea321
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: shakta]
#1918287 - 09/15/03 01:38 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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You're on a roll today.
Could you get to how Saddam is the biggest "terrorist" of all?
btw, if he was then why the fuck were Reagan and Bush supporting him to the hilt for years?
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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shakta
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: Enlil]
#1918291 - 09/15/03 01:39 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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The war on terror is not just against Al Qaeda and those responsible for 9-11. It is against all terrorist organizations, and regimes that provide them support. The real reason for the war, was to get rid of Saddam anyway. He was the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
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Xlea321
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: shakta]
#1918300 - 09/15/03 01:42 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Saddam supported terrorist organisations? Do you just make this up off the top of your head or what?
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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Enlil
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: shakta]
#1918309 - 09/15/03 01:43 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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The war on terrorism is to remove more of our civil rights. Any other reason is bullshit. Terrorism isn't fought on a battlefield, it is fought in the hearts and minds of people. We drop a bomb, and kill someone's dad...That someone grows up and remembers that...That is where terrorism comes from. Don't kid yourself into thinking that it isnt personal. War is always personal to the people in it. We can watch it on CNN and enjoy the big picture, but when you see your mom get shredded by shrapnel, it is hard to let go of that image.
-------------------- Censoring opposing views since 2014. Ask an Attorney Fuck the Amish
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Xlea321
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: Enlil]
#1918313 - 09/15/03 01:44 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Good point Enlil. The "war on terror"? How can you make war on an abstract noun?
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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Anonymous
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Re: Iraqs epic suffering made invisible [Re: shakta]
#1918327 - 09/15/03 01:48 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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fuck his people. what about our people?
fuck 80billion for a war, how about 80 billion for education and healthcare?
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