Friday 29th of March 2024

snake oil .....

snake oil .....

from the green zone - on the eve of the 4th anniversary of the illegal invasion & occupation of Iraq …..

PRIME RATTUS:

Thank you very much Prime Minister, it's a great pleasure for me to again be in Baghdad and I have greatly valued the discussions that I have had with you today. I have expressed two very clear things to the Prime Minister today.

Firstly, the admiration of the Australian people for a country that on three occasions has voted in democratic elections in the face of most fearful acts of intimidation and terrorism, but to see millions of Iraqis vote for the first time in free democratic elections is a source of great inspiration to many people around the world and we Australians admire it.

I've also told the Prime Minister that Australia will continue its presence in Iraq to assist bringing about a situation where the Iraqi people are reasonably able to provide for their own future security. I have greatly valued the assessment that the Prime Minister has given me of the current security and political situation in Iraq. We both agree that the future lies in the appropriate combination of improved security and political reconciliation and progress.

We in Australia believe that denying the terrorists victory in Iraq is very important not only to Iraq but also to this region and also the worldwide resistance to terrorism. I bring the good wishes of the Australian people to the people of Iraq and I have on a personal basis, greatly valued the opportunity of meeting the Prime Minister for the first time and exchanging our views on the situation in his country. I wish him well; he has a difficult and challenging task, he has the friendship of Australia in discharging it.

yada yada yada

meanwhile, back at the ranch …..

‘……there are growing signs that the Bush administration has issued threats to its puppet government in Baghdad to meet US-dictated “benchmarks” or face the consequences. The White House aims not only to end the military disaster in Iraq and open up the country’s oil for exploitation, but to fashion an Iraqi regime more supportive of US preparations for aggression against Iran.

Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki feared the Bush administration would “torpedo” his government if it failed to meet US demands. The article highlighted a US threat to withdraw support from the government if it failed to pass a draft hydrocarbons law by the end of June that would open up Iraqi oil and gas fields to American corporations.

In line with its efforts to forge an alliance of so-called Sunni states against Shiite Iran, Washington is also demanding a government in Baghdad by the end of the year “acceptable to the country’s Sunni Arab neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt”. These governments are concerned that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the emergence of a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad have bolstered Iran’s influence in Iraq and throughout the region.

The Arab League, which consists largely of states controlled by Sunni elites, issued a statement earlier this month demanding an end to anti-Sunni discrimination and measures to enhance the political role of the Sunni minority, which formed the social base of Hussein’s Baathist regime. The comments provoked an angry statement from the ruling Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), denouncing the Arab League for its “flagrant interference in Iraq’s internal affairs,” which would “incite discord and acts of violence inside Iraq”.

At the end of last month, the Maliki cabinet, under pressure from Washington, adopted an oil law aimed at ending the bitter differences over the internal sharing of revenues …..

Officially, the Bush administration has denied issuing any ultimatum to the Maliki government. “The notion that we have in any way, shape or form threatened to bring down his government over this law is simply untrue,” US State Department spokesman Tom Casey told the media. Behind the scenes, however, US officials are not only insisting that the “benchmarks” have to be met, but are actively conniving with Allawi to undermine the Maliki government and prepare an alternative regime.

Allawi is a former Baathist thug who broke with the Hussein regime. A longstanding CIA asset, he was installed as prime minister in May 2004 by the US proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer III, but failed dismally in national ballots. In the December 2005 election, Iraqis overwhelmingly repudiated Allawi’s Iraqi National List (INL), which currently has only 25 seats in the National Assembly. After retiring to London, he then returned to Iraq and is attempting to make a comeback with obvious backing from Washington.

Allawi is positioning himself as the mouthpiece for the Bush administration’s policies: opposing anti-Sunni discrimination, posturing as a “secular” alternative to Maliki’s Shiite coalition and seeking support from neighbouring Arab states. His INL, which currently has five ministers, is threatening to pull out of Maliki’s government if its demands are not met. In a statement issued on March 1, the bloc warned “it will soon no longer be able to accept the responsibility of being in this government, because of its sectarian domination and narrow-mindedness”.

According to the newspaper, the “El Salvador” option is currently under consideration, which includes a gradual withdrawal of US forces and a renewed emphasis on training Iraqi fighters. “El Salvador veterans and experts have been pushing for the model of a smaller, less visible US advisory presence,” the article reported. “Some academics,” it noted in passing, “have argued the US military turned a blind eye to government-backed death squads or even aided them.” In fact, the US-backed death squads and savage military repression were the strategy used to eliminate leftist opponents of the regime in El Salvador and terrorise the entire population. At the height of the bloodletting in the early 1980s, over 13,000 people were being slaughtered a year.

Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations argued in the Los Angeles Times that the El Salvador option would not work in Iraq because of the country’s raging sectarian civil war. Any attempt to build a plan around training the Shiite-dominated government forces, he said, was bound to fail. The obvious solution is to get rid of the Maliki government and install a strongman who is prepared to do whatever it takes to stamp his authority on the security forces and unleash death squads to eliminate opposition to the US occupation.

Allawi certainly fits the bill. During his long exile from Iraq before 2003, he maintained close connections with dissident elements of the Baathist security and intelligence apparatus and has been accused of masterminding several terrorist acts against Hussein’s regime. After his installation as prime minister in 2004, he reappointed former Baathist officials to key posts to exploit their expertise in suppressing political opposition. During Allawi’s term of office, notorious death squads such as the Wolf Brigade were established with the assistance of US advisers such as James Steele, a veteran of the El Salvador campaign.

Allawi is not averse to getting his hands dirty. In July 2004, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that two Iraqi eyewitnesses saw Allawi shoot dead six handcuffed and blindfolded prisoners at the Al-Amariyah security centre in Baghdad the previous month. The cold-blooded executions, carried out in front of US special forces troops, were meant as a lesson to Iraqi police and troops that they could also kill with impunity. No adequate investigation has been carried out into this brutal incident.’

The Bush Administration Manoeuvres To Unseat Iraqi Government

now what was it that our prime rattus was saying about “free & democratic elections” ….. "the Iraqi people providing for their own future security" … "no nation wants to stay on foreign soil indefinitely" & "having the friendship of the Australian people"? Obviously still suffering from smoke inhalation .....

yada yada yada …..

Wrong war, sir.

Yes John...

and of all misunderstanding or propaganda of silly reach, this editorial from the Washington Post takes the cake:

Lessons of WarThe fighting in Iraq enters its fifth year.

Sunday, March 18, 2007; Page B06

 

TOMORROW MARKS the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, as appropriate a moment as any to take stock. What matters most is finding the best policy now -- doing whatever can be done to help Iraq and safeguard U.S. interests in a vital region. But looking back also is essential, particularly for those of us who supported the war.

We will never know what might have happened had Saddam Hussein and his sons been left in power. Nor do we know how Iraq will evolve; history's judgment in five years or 10 may look very different than today's. But the picture today is dire, and very different from what we would have hoped or predicted four years ago. The cost in lives, injuries and dislocations, to Americans and Iraqis, has been tragic; the opportunity costs for U.S. leadership globally have been immense. So there is an obligation to reassess. What have we learned?

The easy way out is to blame President Bush, Vice President Cheney or former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld: The decision was right, the execution wrong. 

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Gus: No sirree... The decision was wrong, and the execution was miserable. The decision to go to war was based on lies, the result of going to war was deliberately understated. Any average school kids could have seen that... but not the biased media enamored with death and biffo for sale... Many reasonable people knew before the invasion that the US desire for war against Iraq was only a fishing expedition for oil. More oil. Knowing that the Saudi oil fields could be approaching peak, the US needed to secure more oil. 

If after 60 years of conflict in Palestine, the US has not been able to solve it, even with, or despite, their forefront foot-soldiers — Israel — how do they think they can "solve" Iraq, a country nearly 10 times larger in population, a country where the larger part of the population is more inclined to be friend with Iran than with the US, despite the sweets? At the moment most of the money supplied by the US in Iraq is used to buy goods from Iran...

As it ever occurred to the US that no matter how many "long lasting" smiles they collect from the Iraqi population, these smiles hides a deeper attitude that can change into snarls within seconds because the minds are suspicious and the hearts are very angry...? And the more US guns appear, the more suspicion and anger is created...

Unless the US shows some extraordinary altruism, void of the grab for oil, void of the desire to impose their brand of democratic belief, void of US style expectations such as payback, the Iraqi people cannot trust them...

 

 

Termites in the Bush woods...

from the New York Times

..... 

White House officials insist that Mr. Blackwill’s support of Mr. Allawi does not represent administration policy. “Robert Blackwill represents whatever clients are paying him,” said Mr. Johndroe, the National Security Council spokesman.

Although administration officials spent much of the summer criticizing the current Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki — in August President Bush publicly acknowledged “a certain level of frustration” with the Iraqi government’s failure to unify its warring ethnic factions — the criticism has ceased. Administration officials say they see no viable alternative at this point to Mr. Maliki.

But that has not stopped Mr. Allawi, and Barbour Griffith & Rogers, from pressing his case. Shortly after the contract was signed, the lobbying firm blanketed Washington’s Congressional staff members and policy makers with e-mail messages on behalf of Mr. Allawi, describing Mr. Maliki’s government as a failure.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he was one of those who had received Mr. Allawi’s e-mail messages, most recently on Thursday.

“They’re not very subtle,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.

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Gus: Ah the smell of money... I could write emails for a lump sum and have long lunches for a fee... and have ministers on toast. But instead of being a lobbyist, I've become a hobbyist... My mistake.