Bush-Era Neocons Should Shut The Fuck Up About Iraq (And Everything Else)

Caitlin Johnstone | March 15, 2023

David Frum and Max Boot, two neoconservatives who helped grease the wheels for the invasion of Iraq, have some thoughts they’d like to share with us as we approach the 20th anniversary of that horrific and unforgivable war. Both of these perspectives can be read in widely esteemed mainstream publications, because everyone who was responsible for inflicting that war upon our species has enjoyed mainstream influence and esteem to this very day.

Both men concede in their own ways that the war was a mistake, while simultaneously cheerleading the US proxy war in Ukraine that has brought humanity closer to nuclear armageddon than it has been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both men mix their Iraq War retrospectives with war apologia, historical revisionism, and outright lies. And both men should shut the fuck up. About everything. Forever.

Frum’s article is posted in The Atlantic, where he is a senior editor, and it is titled “The Iraq War Reconsidered“. Frum is credited with authoring George W Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, which marked the beginning of an unprecedented era of US military expansionism and “humanitarian interventions” in geostrategically valuable nations after 9/11.

Biden’s Lawless Bombing of Iraq and Syria Only Serves the Weapons Industry Funding Both Parties

Glenn Greenwald

US President Joe Biden (L) salutes along with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin before delivering an address at the 153rd National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day in Arlington, Virginia on May 31, 2021. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

For the second time in the five months since he was inaugurated, President Joe Biden on Sunday ordered a U.S. bombing raid on Syria, and for the first time, he also bombed Iraq. The rationale offered was the same as Biden’s first air attack in February: the U.S., in the words of Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, “conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region.” He added that “the United States acted pursuant to its right of self-defense.”

Embedded in this formulaic Pentagon statement is so much propaganda and so many euphemisms that, by itself, it reveals the fraudulent nature of what was done. To begin with, how can U.S. airstrikes carried out in Iraq and Syria be “defensive” in nature? How can they be an act of “self-defense”? Nobody suggests that the targets of the bombing campaign have the intent or the capability to strike the U.S. “homeland” itself. Neither Syria nor Iraq is a U.S. colony or American property, nor does the U.S. have any legal right to be fighting wars in either country, rendering the claim that its airstrikes were “defensive” and an “act of self-defense” to be inherently deceitful.

$150 billion of oil money has been stolen from Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003

IMPERIALISM 

Countercurrents | May 26, 2021

An estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi President Barham Salih said Sunday.

CNN and The New Arab reports said:

“Of the close to a thousand billion dollars made from oil since 2003, an estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq,” Salih said in a televised speech.

Iraq Condemns US Air Strikes, Warns of Consequences

teleSUR | March 13, 2020

The Iraqi military warned the air strikes would have consequences while the foreign ministry said it summoned the U.S. and British ambassadors.

Iraq condemned overnight U.S. airstrikes on Friday, saying they killed six people and warning of dangerous consequences for a “violation of sovereignty” and targeted aggression against the nation’s regular armed forces.

The US warned Iraq: Access to an account holding billions would be in jeopardy if Iraq expelled U.S. troops

A Journal of People report

The United States government flexed its muscles to Iraq over Iraq’s threats to oust some 5,300 US troops from the country.

The U.S. State Department warned that if its troops were expelled, the U.S. could cut off access to a key Iraqi bank account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that holds billions in oil revenues, Iraqi officials told The Wall Street Journal.

Shutting off the spigot to Iraq could squeeze the country’s access to cash, gumming up its financial system and wreaking havoc on its economy.

The warning to Iraq was the latest in the fallout from the US missile strike on Iraqi soil last week that killed a top Iranian general.

Why Doesn’t the US Move out Despite the Iraqi Parliament’s Decision?

by Peter Koenig

teleSUR | January 18, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a trilateral meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

The stakes are too immense for the US. It has all to do with their move towards world hegemony by territory and by finance – meaning by the U.S. dollar.

 

Why doesn’t the U.S. respect the decision made by the Iraqi Parliament and move out of Iraqi territory? – The short answer is, because the U.S. doesn’t respect anybody’s – any country’s – decision or sovereignty, as long as it doesn’t meet their objectives.

Now, the U.S. is steadfast and will not leave the region. Already President Assad has requested that the U.S. leave Syrian territory. They didn’t. The stakes are too immense for the US. It has all to do with their move towards world hegemony by territory and by finance – meaning by the US dollar.

Mourners pay respects to Iraqi communist poet

Morning Star | December 12, 2019

Posters of Anti-government protesters who have been killed in demonstrations are displayed in Tahrir Square during ongoing protests in Baghdad

MOURNERS paid their respects to Iraqi communist poet Ali Najim al-Lami as he was laid to rest yesterday, a day after his assassination in Baghdad.

The Iraqi Communist Party member was shot dead in the al-Shaab district as he made his way home from a protest in Tahrir Square.

The Unions of Iraqi Writers condemned “this cowardly act,” which took place as demonstrations against the Iraqi government continued, despite widespread repression.

Iraqi Communist Party calls for a new system replacing the present

 Countercurrents | December 02, 2019

Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) calls for the resignation of the government, a total replacement of the current system by a new system, and for continuing the uprising with the same motivation and power until people’s demands are met.

As massive demonstrations over unemployment, rampant corruption, poor delivery of services, and sectarianism are gaining momentum, the ICP – the country’s oldest existing political party – issued a statement calling the current system a “terrible failure at all levels.” The ICP said the popular revolt has created “a new reality” with people taking to the streets and risking their lives not for “partial solutions and cosmetic reforms.”

Why, Indeed, Aren’t Americans Rising Up Like the People of Chile, Lebanon, Iraq, Hong Kong, etc.? A Response to Benjamin and Davies

 by Mary Metzger

Countercurrents | November 20, 2019

It is a very good question that Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies pose  in their recent Countercurrents article – “Why aren’t Americans rising up like the people of Chile and Lebanon?”  It is a good question and they give several very good answers to it; answers the people of America and the people of the world need to hear in order to truly understand American life.  In fact, I thought the article so informative and so worthy that I copied parts of it to hand out to the Russians who come to hear my biweekly lectures at the American Cultural Center in Moscow. (Which, since Russia threw out most of the American diplomatic representatives last year,  is no longer run by Americans but rather by the Russian Ministry of Culture.)  I had them read it aloud in class and when they were done, they were stunned silent by its message.

Iraq Witnesses Largest Protests Since the Fall of Saddam

teleSUR | November 01, 2019

Demonstrators try to put out a tear gas canister during an anti-government protests in Baghdad, Iraq November 1, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

“We are peaceful yet they fire on us. What are we, Islamic State militants? I saw a man die. I took a tear gas canister to the face.”

A massive demonstration took place in central Baghdad on Friday as tens of thousands of Iraqis thronged the capital city demanding the root-and-branch downfall of the political elite in the biggest day of mass anti-government demonstrations since the fall of Saddam Hussein.