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Imagine that across the planet, back in the early months of 2003, millions of people marched in the streets of global cities and small towns, protesting, toting handmade signs, making their voices heard in every way they could to indicate that the prospective Bush administration invasion of Iraq would be an immoral disaster (and no matter what he says now, Donald Trump was not among them). And imagine that they were right in ways that perhaps even they couldn’t have dreamed of. And what of the few like the late Jonathan Schell, who, even earlier, spoke out against the invasion of Afghanistan? Yes, we’re talking about a world of right and yet here’s the curious thing: ever since then, when the media focuses on our failed wars, still ongoing and spreading so many years later, or asks for comments on what went wrong, they regularly turn to those who were involved in launching them, sustaining them, or cheering them on. This has been a commonplace of the last 13 years. The very people who couldn’t have been more off the mark remain the official “experts,” the go-to guys, on the subject. Those who got it right at the time have essentially been disappeared. The uniquely vast antiwar movement that preceded the invasion of Iraq has essentially been obliterated from history.
It’s not that I haven’t offered this complaint before (more than once over the years), and yet the story always seems to remain the same. The latest example: 50 Republican national security figures have come out staunchly against Donald Trump and that has been a headline story — all the Mr. Rights finally take out after Mr. Wrong — even though many of them bear a responsibility for the very world of war and failure that helped produce the moment of The Donald. In frustration, I asked TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon who knows a thing or two about the criminal wars of these last years (and has written American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes) to make some sense of this latest round of expertise and Election 2016.
- What Does It Mean When War Hawks Say, “Never Trump”?
The Enemies of My Enemy May Be War Criminals
Rebecca Gordon • August 21, 2016 • 3,000 Words
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In May 2013, one half of the famed Jewish investigative journalist “Bernstein and Woodward” team which helped break open the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, 69-year-old Carl Bernstein, told Joe Scarbrough at MSNBC that Jewish neocons pushed president Bush into the 2003 war on Iraq.
“This was an insane war that brought us low economically, morally. We went to war against a guy who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. It was a total pretext! It’s explicable and there you go to Cheney, there you go to Bush, there you go to Jewish neocons who wanted to remake the world (for Israel). Maybe I can say that because I’m Jewish,” said Bernstein. Watch the video below.
One cannot argue with Bernstein that only Jews can make such statements in the West. For example, Professor Melvin A. Goodman John Hopkins University), a former CIA analyst and author wrote in February 2013 that lies about Iraqi WMDs were fabricated by Lewis “Scooter” Libby and other Jewish neocons.
The 9-11 Commission member, Philip Zelikow, a Zionist Jew, told an audience at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002: “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 – it’s the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”
Joshua Muravchik, a Jewish scholar at Israel advocacy groups WINEP and AEI, weote in American Jewish Committee’s mouthpiece, Commentary Magazine (September 2003): “The neoconservatives, it turns out, are also in large proportion Jewish- – and this, to their detractors, constitutes evidence of the ulterior motives that lurk behind the policies they espouse.”
Robert J. Ellisberg wrote in Zionconservative mouthpiece, Haffington Post (June 25, 2009): “The neocon wing of the Republican Party has rarely found a war it doesn’t love to start (finishing, optional), most especially, if they themselves don’t have to risk fighting it. And now, it seems like most conservative Republicans have their trigger fingers itching to start yet another Middle East war (against Iran).”
Leslie H. Gelb, Jewish journalist, author and president emeritus of America’s most powerful pro-Israel advocacy club, the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in Jewish-owned The Daily Beast (October 19, 2011), that the neocons who gave us clueless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – are back into power under Obama and setting more clueless wars in the Middle East (Syria, Iran, Lebanon, etc.). In response, Justin Logan, researcher at Jewish Cato Institute, said that neocons had never left the power.
https://rehmat1.com/2013/07/07/carl-bernstein-jewish-neocons-started-us-iraq-war/
“Imagine that across the planet, back in the early months of 2003, millions of people marched in the streets of global cities and small towns, protesting… And imagine that they were right in ways that perhaps even they couldn’t have dreamed of.”
Not really. They weren’t real anti-war idealists but partisans, cynics, opportunists, or radicals looking for something to bitch about.
Many protested because it was Bush’s War, pure and simple. Bush, being a ‘conservative’, was someone they had to oppose for ideological reasons. As for Europeans, Bush was the dumb trigger-happy cowboy because of his faux-folksy ways and his heavy-handed pressures on Europeans. Europeans never respected Americans intellectually and culturally, and Bush II seemed like the embodiment of the Ugly Dumb American with Too Much Power. They weren’t really concerned about Iraqis.
Also, many protested because they feared the war would be a great success, thus securing more power to the Conservatives. Most experts, Liberal and Conservative, thought it would be a cakewalk, which is there was such vast bi-partisan support. Democrats sensed that the war would lead to Great Glory, and they wanted a piece of it. And indeed, soon after the invasion, the French regretted not having joined the Coalition of the Swilling. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Chirac invited the First Lady and tried to make amends.
The Iraqi Army vanished without fighting. Iraqi people seemed to welcome the Americans(at least according to media accounts). And it seemed like Iraq would become a democracy and a model for the Middle East. So, many people opposed the war in the conviction that it would be a great boon for Dumbass Bush.
If indeed the Left knew that the war would be a debacle, they would have been glad to see Bush fall in that trap. But all the experts were predicting an easy war. After all, Iraqi military was only a shell of itself after so many yrs of sanctions.
Another reason for the mass protests was US was going to invade with boots on the ground. That makes all the difference. Americans and Europeans, ‘left’ and ‘right’, don’t care what America does to the world AS LONG AS Americans don’t send boots on the ground. In that sense, the anti-war rhetoric about the War Guilt of killing so many foreigners is just a lot of caca. What Americans(esp of leftist persuasion) don’t like is the prospect of American soldiers dying or killing people. But if Americans kill just as many through OTHER means, most Americans(even those on the Left) don’t much care.
Suppose Americans had not directly involved itself in Vietnam but had pulled strings and intervened in proxy ways that led to the death of 2 million Vietnamese. Would there have been mass protests? No. After all, US used proxy means to aid the Indonesian military regime in its mass slaughter of communists(and suspected communists). Estimates range from 500,000 to 1 million dead. But who gave a crap?
America used proxy means to support Guatemala’s war that led to 300,000 dead. Were there protests about it? Some leftist publications bitched about it, but that was about it.
Or look how US pulled the strings in Afghanistan that led to the Mujahadeen war with Soviets that cost up to 1.5 million Afghan lives. Did anyone protest? Maybe some radicals griped about in Nation Magazine, but there were no mass protests.
Or consider war by sanctions and other dirty means. US sanctions killed 100,000s of Iraqis in the 90s. Some estimates go as high as 300,000. Did anyone protest? If you listened to NPR back then, you might have heard a report about the suffering over there(which was my reason for supporting Bush’s war), but most Americans didn’t care what was happening OVER THERE as long as their internet stocks were riding high, they were hooked the OJ trial, or they were arguing about Bill Clinton’s white house performance of ‘my dingaling, your dingaling, everybody wants to play with my dingaling’. All those women and kids were suffering in Iraq from sanctions, but no one dared to organize mass protests. The Left griped about it but in perfunctory way without making it a central issue. And who cared about US’s role in the economic disaster in Russia that led to unnatural deaths of millions of people?
In 2003, I thought more or less in the line of Christopher Hitchens. He found the anti-war Left totally hypocritical. It complained about the sanctions were killing all those innocent children in Iraq. But when Bush wanted to do something about it and remove Hussein, the Left said the West should stick to sanctions. And kill 100,000s of more kids?
And many people thought ending the sanctions with Hussein in power would be unconscionable since he could declare himself the ‘winner’ over the West, make big bucks, and start building up his military all over again. So, in order to end the sanctions and let Iraq grow, Hussein had to go. So, the invasion was necessary. This seemed like compelling moral argument, and I(like many people) bought it even though I never believed in WMD crap.
The anti-war Left back then made no sense. They decried(even if not very vocally) the terrible impact the sanctions were having on Iraqis. But they called for continued sanctions. And they balked at the removal of Hussein even though he was a scum-sucker of extraordinary magnitude. There was no moral logic or consistency in the anti-war Leftist rhetoric. It was just knee-jerk anti-Bush. And I think the Left opposed the war because, deep in their hearts, they thought it would really be a cakewalk and be a great success for the much loathed Bush. Bush could play like a victorious Roman Caesar, and with wind on his back, he would enact more ‘reactionary’ agenda. So, when the war went south and blew up in Bush’s face, the Left actually LOVED IT. It sure made Michael Moore, indeed much more than his ROGER AND ME movie.
As for Obama and Hillary’s wars, the silence from the anti-war Left is all too obvious. Obama is a black guy, a ‘historic president’. He even got a Nobel Peace Prize just for the hell of it. The Left is invested in propping up Obama’s reputation and image. So, even though many on the Left are really disappointed with Obama, his symbolism(the first Negro president) is too important. So, they dare not make too much trouble for him by marching.
But more crucially, sneaky and smooth Obama did his killings by ‘leading from behind’. Actually, the death tolls from Libya, Syria, and newly imploded Iraq(under Obama) is likely higher than the death toll in Iraq under Bush. And on top of that, there is the mess in Ukraine.
In some ways, Obama is worse than Bush. Due to 9/11, Bush had to act on Afghanistan to flush out Alqaeda. Bush didn’t do it well, but he had too. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but, as the saying goes, ‘never let a crisis go to waste’. As Hussein had been a thorn in the side since the Gulf War, Bush regime thought 9/11 offered a golden opportunity to get rid of him. Also, there was naivete as Americans had never gotten involved in such venture for a long time. They thought they finally overcame the Vietnam syndrome and could it right this time.
Obama came to office knowing what happened to Iraq. He saw the devastation. He surely understood what US meddling could do the Middle East.
Also, he had no compelling reason to meddle. There was nothing like 9/11 under his watch. Also, Gaddafi had offered the olive branch to the West. And Assad, though a ruthless bugger, is a modern secular Arab leader who was better than most in the region. So, for Obama to mess up those countries via air war and proxies was most irresponsible. Actually criminal. Obama and Hillary are War Criminals.
BUT, as long as Obama didn’t use ground troops, the anti-war Left didn’t care. As long as American troops aren’t OVER THERE, Americans of either political suasion don’t care how many people get killed abroad by US machinations. And the GLOB-run media certainly don’t care and would rather the news about some celebrity gossip instead. Because most Americans are vain and pop-culture-obsessed(and into the cult of the ‘cool’), they don’t care about all those uncool foreigners dying by the bushel AS LONG AS US troops are not on the ground. (And because they are so uninformed about the world, they can easily be manipulated to support anything. Consider Russia. Most celeb-obsessed Americans know nothing of recent Russian history and why Putin came to power. They know nothing of the terrible 90s and America’s role in it. So, the media say PUTIN IS NEW HITLER BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE ELTON JOHN CANNOT MARRY IN RUSSIA, stupid and shallow Americans feel ‘moral’ outrage and would easily support New Cold War with Russia.)
Obama Regime has been clever. It would do the bidding of the Zio-GLOB but without sending troops. As long as troops were not sent, Obammy had a free hand to mess up nations on Israel’s ‘most hated list’. And there are theories that Gaddafi was brought down because he had a plan to bypass the dollar in the trading of oil.
To most Americans, it’s not war unless American Troops are fighting in huge numbers in other nations. So, maybe the notion of ‘anti-war’ isn’t useful. After all, there are many non-direct-combat ways by which US regularly messed up the world. There is economic war, aka sanctions, that can kill 100,000 and lead to mass suffering of millions. There is war by proxy, as in Afghanistan in the 80s(though partly justified as a theater in the Cold War). There is air campaigns, which don’t count as war to most Americans as long as there are no boots on the ground. (Following this logic, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor wasn’t war since Japan didn’t invade with boots on ground.)
So, maybe what we need is anti-search-and-destroy movement. Or anti-dirty-war moviement. Obama has been fighting a ‘dirty war’ in Syria by not-so-secretly aiding the ‘moderate rebels’ who are mostly a hopeless bunch of ragtag nihilists and fanatics. Deep down inside, Obama prolly knows he’s done terrible things. He knows he repeated the same ‘mistakes’ of his predecessors. So, why did he? Power. He has far less power than those who made him what he is. They pull his strings. Just like Colin Powell(or Bowel) had to do as told and go before UN with his dog-and-pony show about Hussein making nukes with aluminum beer cans, Obama had to do as his masters told him. After all, he is just a House Negro.
Video Link
Tom’s Long, Valiant Fight against Reality.
“Conservatives” oppose Trump because they’re universalist Leftists just like you. And the Left never stops; there is always righteous war to be waged for the cause of freedom and “human rights” somewhere. No man is free until the Kabul City Council is issuing Pride Parade permits.
And when that happens, the Left will expand the sphere of “rights” again, and be off fighting for bestialty somewhere.
The 60’s are over and you won, Tom. Happy now?
I’m okay with administration officials including the president being charged for their crimes – all of them, war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape, murder, etc. As long as we are at it, make certain Bill Clinton and his officials and everyone involved (FBI, BATF, etc), in the Waco massacre are charged with crimes against humanity, torture, mass murder, and violating the human and constitutional rights of the Branch Davidians.
advocating war crimes – the invasion & occupation of iraq – is something to be ashamed of. the legacy of war is death and suffering. an aggressive war, based on lies, misinformation, and propaganda, is a most evil enterprise that in another era got the protagonists hanged. but, the american empire is exceptional, so we give our cowards freedom medals instead of the stocks.
shock & awe was a made-for-tv extravaganza. armchair warriors swooned. vicarious thrills lit up the screen. the intellectually challenged were gonna give those sand n****rs a dose of super hero american payback. yeah! a few clicks on the web is all it took to debunk the nonsense spewed by the msm. but blood for oil was all the rage. mass hypnosis won the day. so a million iraqis had to die.
you thought war with hussein was the best way to end sanctions? sanctions that killed 500,000 children? sanctions, of which neocon harpy madeline albright declared were ‘worth it?’
just end the sanctions. duh. they only harm the civilian population. but, that’s the point isn’t it?
bin laden set a trap. guileless types stumbled blindly into it. and, of course, we have to spend 6 trillion dollars american for the chance at imperial collapse. empires go extinct. that’s what empires do. they rot from the inside. take a good look around.
somewhere over the rainbow munchkins sing happy songs and a yellow brick road meanders to the wonderful wizard of oz.
well, madame anonymny, i hope you won’t be so easily seduced when the next wizard hides behind a curtain of lies and blows smoke up ur gumstump.
The people who protested the idiotic Iraq war were the best Americans in the land.And I was one of them,who realized it was all a shrub electoral victory slaughter built on the deaths of innocent victims of our own bad boy,Saddam Hussein,who we set up in power and backed right up until the elder Bushes ambassaador gave him the green light to invade Kuwait,a province stolen from Iraq by the British.These are all incontestable facts.
A collossal clusterf*ck we still are neck deep in over there.Another incontestable fact.