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US Exit from Iraq: 'This is Not a Withdrawal, This is an Act on a Stage'
Iraqi people greet pullout ceremony with ambivalence mixed with concern over an uncertain future
There was no triumphalism and certainly no shock or awe. The end of the war in Iraq was subdued and simple: a small band playing as the US forces flag was furled with 200 troops watching on quietly.
US soldiers hold the US and Iraqi flags during the symbolic flag-lowering ceremony marking the end of the US mission in Iraq. (Photograph: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP/Getty Images) In a makeshift parade ground in a corner of Baghdad airport, time was called on the war just after 1pm on Thursday, eight years, eight months and 26 days after its far more dramatic opening in March 2003. Nearby a plane was waiting to take home the US high command. And in southern Iraq, the 4,000 US troops who remain were steadily streaming towards Kuwait.
By Sunday all the troops will be gone, called home for Christmas by an administration that decided there was little point sticking to the original end date of 31 December. The Iraqi government had made clear that it no longer wanted a US presence here and any soldier who stayed behind would not be granted legal immunity.
To the end, the relationship between Iraq and the departing US commanders remained difficult to gauge. The prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the president, Jalal Talabani, did not turn up to the ceremony, with uniformed US soldiers belatedly moved into seats carrying the two Iraqi leaders' names.
Some of the soldiers who will soon cross the border will remain in Kuwait for several months more. But the vast majority of people in a country that has seen about 1.5 million US soldiers rotate through are unlikely to ever see another. Only 159 uniformed troops and officers as well as a marine guard corps will remain in the US embassy in the heart of Baghdad's green zone.
"You came to this land between the rivers again and again and again," said the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, who arrived from Afghanistan just over an hour before the ceremony began. "You will leave with great pride, lasting pride."
Minutes earlier, the last US commanding general in Iraq, Lloyd J Austin III helped wrap the USFI banner around a flagpole, then cover it in camouflage.
Panetta, previously CIA chief, said the war was worth the enormous price in blood and treasure – about $750bn (£484bn), 4,500 dead, 32,000 wounded, and that's just on the American side.
Iraqi casualties are far higher, with civilian deaths well over 100,000, many more maimed and up to several million people displaced at the height of what became a vicious two-year sectarian war.
What will now become of Iraq is preoccupying its people. There are many here who had grown accustomed to the safety net of US forces, which despite Thursday's formal departure had rarely been seen on the streets of the country's cities since mid-2009 when a joint security pact came into effect. Many Iraqis fear profound uncertainty ahead and a reluctance to face up to yet another jolt to Iraq's power dynamic. Panetta, as well as the commander of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, framed the past two years as a steady withdrawal that had led to Thursday's highly symbolic moment. Both men set an optimistic tone for what they see as a country that found its feet and no longer needed them.
On the streets of Baghdad, the ceremony caused little fuss. It was carried live by state television, but groups of men in several coffee halls in the city's eastern suburbs largely remained ambivalent.
Assad Mohammed, 48, a spare parts shop owner said. "I don't have any emotions about the events of today. I'm not happy and I'm not sad.
"Whether they are here or not, it's the same. Stability isn't in the hands of the government, or the Americans. It's in the hands of the Iraqi people.
"Sovereignty is not something that will be given to us. Sovereignty is when the people step forward and take it."
Another man, Mundhar Kamel, 65, said the departure changed little. "This move is them exiting from one door and entering from another. In the embassy they still have 15,000 people and there is talk about 3,000 more [military] trainers. This is not a withdrawal, this is an act on a stage.
"We haven't gained anything from the country. They destroyed the country and now they are leaving."
Adham Abul Razzak, 30, saw hope in the withdrawal. "I am very happy because of this withdrawal. I wish that this step would be the first towards unifying Iraqis and expelling sectarianism.
"The effect of the occupation is still with us because of the relations between the two sides and the presence of such a large embassy. I don't think there will be violence after the withdrawal, the opposite in fact. But only if the neighbouring countries do not interfere in our business."
64 Comments so far
Show AllNow the fun begins for the military contractors, developers, oil companies, anyone else who wants to get their hands on Iraq's resources. Western nations are lined up to steal what is available, the oil, the minerals, cheap labor. Iraq would be a great place for sweat shops and Walmarts.
Yes bluegrass, and as you can see THE RESENTMENT OF THE PEOPLE IS NOT GOING AWAY... IN FACT NOW THEY CAN ACT ON THEIR FEELINGS ABOUT HOW OUR WAR RAPED THEM. (sorry for the caps.... I am shaky in my senior years.)
So here is my prediction of the business of Iraq. (Lucky you, bluegrass, and I love your name). They will now be free to do biz with other nations who harbor a similar grudge against the imperial war machine biz of USA/Israel with Britain having second thoughts about preventive war.
Who are the allies of the US War machine now, Columbia maybe? And Israel is waiting for the Messiah and they aren’t the only ones.
NASA is waiting for “God’s Particle” (gotta keep up the search to find some tiny particle that this science guy named Higgs, thinks must be holding us all together like “Glue”...) I think he has a point that only glue can hold most small stuff together.... but a sub atomic particle does not seem like glue to me...but what am I supposed to know when we have NASA's paid experts...thousands of them looking at power point images of neutrons colliding in a 17 mile loop. What the hell are we waiting for anyway? If there is God who is responsible for polluting space with stuff, why would not all particles be his... or maybe the other guy's?
So here is where I’m goin with this 50’s beatnik rant:
NASA is an arm of the military and the mission is full spectrum domination of Earth and Space... and I don’t think I made that up, but it sounds like I did and if you want to give me credit for having an overly energetic imagination, Ill take it.
THIS IS NOT HONEST SCIENCE, this is a fraud of virtual government mind control using the pride of man to fog the field of their excuses for keeping the public guessing by classifying the truth with mountains of censored information.
So we live in a world of mandated confusion as if reality was not a messy enough mystery.
As soon as they admit there is no "God’s Particle” there and the universe did not pop out of a nothingish “singularity" that they still can’t define, with a really, really, really Big Bang, we will be in the right frame of mind to tackle the Deficit and Iraq is not going to have our problems on their front burner.
Jim Glover -- I got interested in your comment, which I am not sure I follow in its entirety, because you brought in the search for the Higgs boson.
I don't think that has much to do with the Amerikan military empire or 'Full Spectrum Dominance' -- or 'God' for that matter. First, Higgs does not work for NASA and he is not even an Amerikan -- he is English. (Sort of a lesser Amerikan, I suppose.)
Second, like many theoretical physicists, Peter Higgs is quite enlightened in his political views. He was involved in campaigning against nuclear weapons, he has been a member of Greenpeace, and he refused to fly to Jerusalem in 2004 to accept the Wolf Prize in Physics because he is opposed to the Israeli domination of Palestine. (He has shown some support for nuclear power and GMOs -- so he would be excoriated by the purists of CD should he dare to show his face here.)
As to the "God particle...."
"As an atheist, Higgs is reported to be displeased that the particle is nicknamed the 'God particle'. This nickname for the Higgs boson is usually attributed to Leon Lederman, but it is actually the result of Lederman's publisher's censoring. Originally Lederman intended to call it 'the goddamn particle', because of its elusiveness."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Higgs
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/04/higgs-seen-at-lhc.html
The decline of Amerika in primary science is, most likely, another symptom of the nation having entered the diseased & declining empire phase of its existence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers
The Amerikan Empire is no longer a functional democracy (if it ever was); its focus now is on indulgent greed and commercial success for its corrupt plutocracy; its primary output is war and garbage -- having discovered that war, usurious banking, and garbage--both cultural and physical-- are the ideal pathways to a QUICK BUCK.
It is the 'decadent' Europeans who are leading the world's research into the fundamental particles of the universe at their research facility CERN (although the Amerikan facility at Fermilab in Chicago is in the hunt).
http://press.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html
http://www.suntimes.com/business/9442651-420/cern-scientists-pass-fermi-in-race-to-find-god-particle.html
In almost any measure of fundamental science and technology, Amerikan domination is waning. The plutocracy and its political servants are no longer focused on scientific progress, education, or anything remotely resembling intellectual enlightenment.
In weapon research, of course, Amerika remains Number 1.
More and more of Amerikan wealth is diverted from important science --such as the search for the fundamental particles of the universe, SETI, climatology, etc. -- and diverted to forever wars, corporate profits, and keeping bankers fat and happy.
The search for the "God Particle" not only has nothing to do with the Amerikan Empires invasion of Iraq, in many respects they represent projects opposed to each other both philosophically and financially.
Yes, let's see if the US/UK/Israel can create another of the Pentagon's Holocausts in Iraq like they did in Africa:
http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/2011/12/fwd-gearoid-o-colmain-rwanda-pentagons.html
"Keith Harmon Snow has been researching the real facts of the tragedy known to the world as the "Rwandan genocide" (put in quotes?) since 1994, and has, along with many other experts, evidence to prove that the United States, Britain and Israel were responsible for the training, financing and covert military and logistic support of Kagame and Museveni's forces."
Americans tend to frame their actions heroically and, as individuals, some tried. But the intervention was never going to help the country in any meaningful way.
Colin Powerll was reputed to say, "You break it, you bought it." But that idea was never understood either.
This is a source of national shame, like so many of other self-interested adventures...
From the point of international laws and treaties, the US invasion/occupation of Iraq in 2003 is NO different from the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
It IS.....the SUPREME international crime, the planning, starting, and waging a war of aggression.
see: Nuremberg war crimes trials
I'm not sufficiently a historian to agree or disagree but I tend to agree with the statement that, "History doesn't often repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes."
Uncle Ho...I agree. The US owes Iraq reparations to be paid by US taxpayers. And all US contractors and corporations should be forever kept out of Iraq. End war profiteering by the US.
Yes, Uncle Ho, and the leaders of the US imperial war crimes are as guilty as Hitler --- and should hang.
I sent this comment regarding today's NYT front-cover paean trying to polish/hide the war crimes of the Iraq war:
__________________________________________
The Times soft peddles this massive and disgusting war crime, perpetrated by neo-fascists Bush and Cheney, and buried by Barack 'look forward not back' Obama.
___________________________________________
Bush's 2004 Washington Correspondents Dinner video joke about not finding the WMDs used to LIE his way into war in Iraq is the most disgusting and callous performance every seen in the world --- even outdoing Hitler's victory jig --- and the virtual pardon of this world-class war crime that has now killed and wounded tens of thousands of American working-class soldiers and orders of magnitude more Iraqi children is clear cause that all these international war criminals; Bush, Cheney, and Obama should be hung by the neck until dead.
__________________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6luiMINQ
___________________________________________
Sorry about not playing along with the Times's glossy facade of helping to 'fog-up' the fog of war crimes as by-gone issues to be softly avoided.
___________________________________________
Best luck and love to Occupy Empire.
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
over
violent/Vichy
empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
MollyJ -
I agree. One thing that is such a failing on our part is the seeming inability to feel any national shame at all. We have the obscene ability to wrap up the most appalling acts of war/brutality and thuggish interventions in some myth of our national benevolence and good will. We destroyed that country to bring them "Freedom and Democracy" (TM) and that apparently justifies anything, even civilian massacres, more evidence of which is coming to light. The truth is that we broke the back of this sovereign country which represented no threat to us for the purpose of creating a client state that would be useful for resources and as a springboard for further incursions in the ME. The people of Iraq just got in the way and died in great numbers. The legacy, if such a word could even be used, a minimum of 100,000 civilians dead (likely many, many more), millions of refugees whose lives are shattered, a political whore installed in power to reflect our corporate "interests", and a toxic and poisonous landscape with depleted Uranium and God knows what else. Plus the abiding enmity of Muslims all over the world who have been given yet another brutal example of what the U.S. and its allies are willing to do to extend our Empire. It would be good to recall that scene in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" which showed that meeting of corporate reps who were discussing how to rake in the money from the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. It would be refreshing if a bagman like General David Petraeus had the courage to tell us who he really works for. Marine General Smedley Butler did but that was a very rare example.
"They destroyed the country and now they are leaving."
American involvement came be wrapped up in the quote above. Oh yes, they also came to pilfer and steal certain natural resources on behalf of the corporations they and the United States government serve. They also ruined hundreds of thousands of lives, those of Iraq and their own.
"they make it a desert, and they call it Peace"
" This not a withdrawal, this is an act on a stage". Yes, now that we have installed our quisling government in Iraq, we can act like we are leaving Iraq!
They're not all Quislings. There are Iraqi patriots there as well, Al Sadr for example. Over time our stooges will be weeded out and the Iraqis will get their country back. Hopefully, the first thing they do will be to cancel the contracts with the American and UK corporations.
Yeah, and then we will have to invade and attack them all over again, what could be better for the war profiteers? Oh, and by the way, this time they will have WMD"S because we will make sure that we have the receipts to prove it!
Let us hope so. It would be good if Iraq could become a sovereign country as before, minus a dictator. However, that HUGE embassy and those military bases tell me that we have long-term plans there and elsewhere in the ME. We are never really going to leave.
Remember, the code name for the invasion was originally
Operation Iraqi Liberation
Until somebody pointed out that that spelled OIL
Then they changed it to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
They were right the first time.
So now it's official: We destroyed Iraq in order to save it--for ourselves. This staged exit, which few in Iraq are fooled by, is merely the next stage in our perpetual occupation of the country. We own the place, having broken it entirely 8 years ago. How long before escalating sectarian violence demands our speedy military return, mainly to protect Our Interests: "our" embassy fortress, "our" access to oil fields, and all the other riches we've secured for US corporations?
Iran will immediately have to be perceived as meddling into Iraq's affairs, and the US MSM will eagerly comply with the next Big Lie, so we can invade Iran. It's what we do. If Newt doesn't do it, Obama will. How else can the Most Powerful Country in the World be expected to hold its head up? How else can we serve as the moral example other countries must strive to emulate?
American hypocrisy at its finest!
Speaking at an antiwar rally when he was an Illinois state legislator, Barack Obama famously referred to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq as "a dumb war." Obama was right, of course. And whatever happens in Iraq after December 31, 2011 will not enable many Monday morning quarterback pundits to re-write that understated epitaph.
Former legislator, former CIA director, current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta proclaimed to the troops at the Baghdad flag lowering ceremony, "You came to this land between the rivers again and again and again. You will leave with great pride, lasting pride." The keynote speaker apparently uttered these remarks oblivious to their irony.
Nouri al-Maliki and Jalal Talabani snubbed the invitation to attend on behalf of the post-Saddam government of Iraq, and according to the Guardian the pagentry of farewell American triumphalism generally met with shrugs and yawns from the Iraqi people.
Like the brave general who marched his troops up the hill in order to then march back down, it was a dumb war, but we are leaving with our pride intact.
Hubris going in. Hubris coming home for Christmas.
Bill from Saginaw
Panetta's bloviating reminded me of an similar exhibition of the pathological, delusional hubris of Amerikan exceptionalism, eloquently expressed by Hillary Clinton in a March, 2008 campaign trail speech:
_________________________________________
It has been five years this week since our president took us to war in Iraq. In that time, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything we ask of them and more.
They were asked to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring him to justice and they did.
They were asked to give the Iraqi people the opportunity for free and fair elections and they did.
They were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time for political reconciliation, and they did.
So for every American soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission, we should imagine carved in stone "they gave their life for the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom."
_________________________________________
The self-serving, pious fictions employed by monsters like Clinton and Panetta is their way of letting the world know that the tender mercies of the Amerikan Imperium is the gift that never stops giving.
"...the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom."
an equally opportune chance to be hated!
Can anyone imagine dough boy Panetta, willingly getting anywhere near the exploding hell that Iraqi children had to endure from US bombers, tanks, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, etc., etc.? That is, the Iraqi children that still have their heads attached to their torsos, now teenagers, haunted by that murderous attack.
Misallocation of resources, EMPIRES crash and burn!
Our appointed boy-president and his willing stooges (Republicrats) in Congress murdered over One Million people, made refugees of 5 million, devastated a once-fertile country with DU, and robbed Americans of over 5 trillion dollars, and 4500 or so lives (some remains dumped in landfills). We're to be proud of this egregious crime? (CD commentators seem not so much proud). If the issue is removal of dictators, there are clear-cut cases--Saddam, Assad, Kim Il Sung,Ghadaffi, Mubarek etc. The tricky part comes when we consider Putin, House of Saud, the brutal Chinese emperorship, ...Obama?, Gingrich?. All need(ed) removing, but since one's dictator is another's Great Leader, WHO is to do it? Maybe all the people of the world.
"... one's dictator is another's Great Leader"
Also, ones democracy is another's plutocracy or bought and bribed puppet government. Rarely is this true rule by the people. We all should know that our democracy has long been broken and ruled by the 1%.. We all should know that smaller democracies where the USA owns the media and extorts the politicians are in fact puppet governments.
"Mission Accomplished." A million dead, five million refugees, infrastructure in ruins. Heckuva job, Shrub.
Memory_Hole
Shrub? Well, yes, but....
For three out of the eight years and nine months that the U.S. has occupied Iraq, Barack Obama has been the Commander in Chief.
Moreover, Obama didn't want to withdraw the troops at the end of December 2011, in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by Bush and the Nouri al-Maliki government in 2008. Obama lobbied hard for a "residual force" to stay in Iraq well beyond that exit date.
Obama and Biden and Gates and Clinton and Panetta all made multiple and serial "surprise" visits to Baghdad, during which they tried their damndest to convince the Iraqis to allow the U.S. to keep a military "presence" based in Iraq beyond 2011.
It was the Iraqis who said, "No" to Obama.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good points, Sarah. Obomber bears some important responsibility for this war crime too.
Although in respect to Iraq he is a lesser war criminal than Bush Jr. he is still a war criminal. Indeed, Bush Sr., Clinton, Shrub and Obomber should all face a war crimes tribunal for their crimes against humanity, first the illegal sanctions which caused at least 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, and then the Iraq invasion and occupation, which caused anywhere from 150,000 to a million deaths, and 5 million refugees.
These war criminals, assisted by a cravenly criminal corporate media, caused nothing short of a holocaust in Iraq in the years 1991 - 2011. The US needs, first a revolution, to re-establish just government that is truly democratic, and then a Truth Commission and Tribunal to mete out justice to these vicious sociopath/war criminals who deserve a swift trial followed by hanging.
Memory_Hole
I would have to take issue with the death penalty as an outcome.
The purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission format is to allow the truth to emerge without prosecution or punishment -- the "reconciliation" part of the process is the essential ingredient in the interest of a society that has experienced a previous violent civil war or apartheid to heal the wounds and move on.
Actually, I prefer a model more akin to the International Criminal Court at the Hague, whereby war crimes and war criminals are prosecuted and brought to justice but without the barbaric inclusion of the death penalty since that practice has been abolished by those countries that claim the mantel of "civilized" as part of their national identity.
Otherwise, your observations are spot on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total acuerdo, justice, but without the violence of death; enough of death, which the empire dishes out daily.
Sarah B., I too am opposed to the death penalty in general, because the state cannot be sure it does not execute innocent people--and in fact the record shows unambiguously that about ten percent of the time, innocent people ARE executed, at least in Amerika. I am undecided on whether my opposition to the death penalty should extend to war criminals who have engaged in serial mass murder. This is a contradiction, or at the very least a tension, in my thinking.
If one tries to use a restorative justice model, there is no way someone like a Clinton or Bush could possibly promote enough healing in the world to balance out the misery and death they have inflicted on millions of people. They would need several more, perhaps scores more lifetimes to do so.
As for reconciliation, I don't know. I suppose, should we ever have a revolution--for without that all these matters are moot--we might ask their victims--in Iraq, in Yugoslavia, etc.--what *they* think should be the punishment for these serial mass murderers.
Memory_Hole
When the victims are allowed to recommend or prescribe the method and nature of the punishment -- even with regard to war crimes and crimes against humanity -- it's called retribution and/or revenge and only serves to perpetuate more violence.
Justice, on the other hand, is based upon the rule of law and must therefore be impartial and humane in its administration...even when imposed on the most heinous criminals.
The purpose of justice is to prosecute individuals accused of a crime or crimes based on the evidence presented at trial and carried out in a way that adheres to the principles of fairness and due process. If the defendant or defendants are found guilty of the crimes in question, the imposed sentence should be proportionate to the seriousness of crime(s) but should exclude capital punishment as an option.
The purpose of justice is to restore law and order and to ensure that the defendant or defendants pay a debt to society, not to provide reconciliation or "closure" for the victims. Capital punishment is a grotesque act of barbarism that should be abolished by any nation that claims the "civilized" mantel before the world. Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is appropriate, humane, and sufficient to fulfill the letter and the spirit of the law in a civilized manner.
According to Amnesty International, the following 23 countries carried out executions in 2010:
Bahrain (1), Bangladesh (9+), Belarus (2), Botswana (1), China (2000+), Egypt (4), Equatorial Guinea (4), Iran (252+), Iraq (1+), Japan (2), Libya (18+), Malaysia (1+), North Korea (60+), Palestinian Authority (5), Saudi Arabia (27+), Singapore (0+), Somalia (8+), Sudan (6+), Syria (17+), Taiwan (4), USA (46), Vietnam (0+), Yemen (53+). (h/t Wiki)
Is this really the company we want to keep?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah B.~
"The purpose of justice is to restore law and order and to ensure that the defendant or defendants pay a debt to society, not to provide reconciliation or "closure" for the victims."
Then what is the purpose and nature of the "reconciliation" in "Truth and Reconciliation" Commissions? I agree with the essence of your post. It just seems to me (and many others) that the justice system in the US is broken. There is essentially a two-tiered system: one for the rich and well-connected, who can engage in mass murder, grand larceny, fraud, molestations, rape--any crimes at all, and be assured of not doing any serious jail time; and the other for the rest of us.
White collar crime is not even tabulated as crime in FBI crime statistics, even though it costs the nation far more than street crime. That in itself speaks volumes about "justice" in Amerika.
You have in the U$ essentially a failed state, one that is failing in very fundamental ways: failing to provide jobs to millions who need work; failing to provide medical care to 50 million without it; failing to deal with crumbling infrastructure; failing to reign in an out-of-control military-industrial-complex and its wars; failing to deal with planetary warming. . . Meanwhile it continues, like a sad, deluded person in an asylum to repeatedly tell himself he is "Number One," "The Greatest Nation on Earth," etc. etc. Someone, I think it was JFK or MLK, said that when you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable. It is all well and good to proclaim the virtues of nonviolence; I have done so often, and abide by that code in my life. But we must be also realistic about where the U$ was, is, and its trajectory.
Memory_Hole
The purpose (and value) of truth and reconciliation commissions is to establish a court-like process in which the goal is restorative justice and to promote unity in countries that have long histories of political division, violent dictatorship, death squads, and ethnic, racial, tribal, and religious civil wars -- and apartheid in the case of South Africa -- countries in which there are no established and reliable systems of jurisprudence that haven't been tainted by factionalism, corruption, violence, revenge, blood feuds, and widespread mistrust of government institutions.
During the truth and reconciliation process, witnesses identified as victims of gross human rights violations are invited to give statements about their experiences, some of which are selected for public hearings. The perpetrators of violence can also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.
Truth and reconciliation commissions have been used with varying degrees of success in the following countries:
Argentina; Brazil; Canada; Colombia; Chile; El Salvador; Fiji; Ghana; Guatemala; Kenya; Liberia; Morocco; Panama; Peru; Philippines; Sierra Leone; Solomon Islands; South Africa; South Korea; Sri Lanka; East Timor; United States. (h/t Wiki)
On occasion even countries with well-established systems of jurisprudence use the truth and reconciliation process to provide a forum for restorative justice in cases that are especially sensitive and difficult to resolve, to wit:
Canada:
The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a currently active (as of February 2011) commission investigating human rights abuses in the Canadian Indian residential school system. (h/t Wiki)
United States:
The Greensboro massacre occurred on November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Five protest marchers were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. The protest was the culmination of attempts by the Communist Workers Party to organize mostly black industrial workers in the area. (h/t Wiki)
The United States has had a two-tiered system of justice since its founding -- one for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and powerless -- which provides yet another reason to abolish the death penalty. And while there are exceptions which one could cite that prove the rule, the overall trend is unrelentingly clear.
The essential problem with the truth and reconciliation process is that while the victims receive recognition and support and even material forms of restoration, the self-confessed guilty perpetrators are granted amnesty for their war crimes and crimes against humanity and thus are not held accountable via lengthy prison terms, including life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How about that billion dollar embassy?
look on the bright side, you Iraqis.
Unca Sam trusts you enough now to sell you more weapons.
So, which Saddam Palace is the Bush Family going to keep for their 'snow birding' activities this winter do you suppose...?
Band of Brothers: Bush Cheney Obama Panetta = Seamless Continuity
The U.S. "Withdrawal" from Iraq -- Day of Shame!
"Iraq war ends with a $4 trillion IOU: Veterans’ health care costs to rise sharply over the next 40 years"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/iraq-war-ends-with-a-4-trillion-iou-2011-12-15?dist=countdown
"The nine-year-old Iraq war came to an official end on Thursday, but paying for it will continue for decades until U.S. taxpayers have shelled out an estimated $4 trillion."
[...]
"Those costs include interest payments on the billions borrowed to fund the war; the cost of maintaining military bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain to defend Iraq or reoccupy the country if the Baghdad government unravels; and the expense of using private security contractors to protect U.S. property in the country and to train Iraqi forces."
The referenced exit costs sound rather ambitious for a defeated Empire, $15 trillion in debt, in the process of slouching toward the exits after destroying Iraq and decimating the Iraqi people for prestige, profits, oil contracts, and projected regional hegemony. The Iraqis rightfully despise the U.S. and the so-called "coalition of the willing"...and it is not for our "freedoms."
The numbers in the above piece support the research published by Professors Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz in February 2008, to wit:
"Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts"
http://threetrilliondollarwar.org/
When I heard warmongers Barack Obama and Leon Panetta bloviate about the bravery of the troops and the honor of their "great sacrifice" during almost nine years of carnage and torture visited upon the Iraqi people in a war of conquest and aggression and brutal occupation -- waged against a country and a people who had never posed even a remote threat to the United States -- I felt physically ill.
PS -- The reference to the U.S. maintaining military bases in Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain to "reoccupy the country if the Baghdad government unravels" should make everyone more than a little nervous.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is interesting that you use the expression of "Band of Brothers" which was very much en vogue in the Confederate States of America when they seceded.
Crowsnest
I'm very much aware of the Civil War association, but I was actually making a sarcastic reference to Democratic warmonger John Kerry's sycophantic, smarmy, cornball appropriation of the term "Band of Brothers" during his hapless and hopeless presidential campaign in 2004. What a total buffoon.
The point is that warmongers who engage in illegal invasions and wars of aggression and occupation are rotten and vile regardless of whether they have an "R" or a "D" after their names -- the death and destruction they inflict upon the world has the same effect on the victims of their violence.
A plague on both their houses!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wow. I realize that nefarious U.S. meddling in Iraq's affairs is only beginning, not ending. But you'd think there'd be some cheering of the fact that we have, finally, pulled 150,000 occupying American troops out of that country. (The Iraqi people themselves seem to be pretty happy about it ... but, hey, what the hell do they know about Iraq?)
Hmmm. Just remind me not give out any $25 gift cards at the Common Dreams Holiday Party. Whoever opens those gifts will only bitch that those gift cards should have been for $100. Happy Holidays.
Perhaps some Iraqis "seem to be pretty happy about it" ... not particularly those interviewed in the article, but perhaps some. The larger issue is that the Supreme Crime Against Humanity, the invasion of one nation by another, in this case on false pretense, goes unpunished. Hell, it is even lauded by the current War Criminal in Chief and his lackeys. It was Shocking and Awful then, and it is no less now. You want me to cheer? Start the War Crimes trials, haul GEORGE WALKER BUSH et al, before a court of law, and while we're at it, let's give Bradley Manning a medal and let him out of jail... Until then you'll get no cheers from me on this, another criminal chapter in United States history.
I agree: it is quite simply an obscene insult to decent humanity that Bush & Cheney & Rumsfeld are still running around free, and raking in six-figure book deals for god's sake, rather than rotting away in some prison where they belong.
But. I'm still happy the last of our troops are being pulled. At long last. Put them to work planting trees, or maintaining trails, or repairing school buildings, or doing something productive for the world, and where they can't get into more international mischief.
"Put them to work planting trees, or maintaining trails, or repairing school buildings, or doing something productive for the world, and where they can't get into more international mischief. "
That would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Besides our current administration has granted them immunity. And you can bet subsequent administrations will uphold it.
Memory Hole -
Heckuva job indeed.
And don't forget the ecological damage, the looting of Iraqi cultural antiquities, and all those shrink wrapped pallets of freshly minted United States currency that mysteriously vanished after being unloaded in Baghdad, green stuff which remains missing in action and unaccounted for. Those inadvertantly mislaid billions were frozen oil revenue assets belonging to Iraq's public treasury that were thawed out after Saddam's demise, dollars designated for reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, I believe during the Paul Bremer transitional stage of the US occupation. Oh well, mistakes happen in the fog of war you know.
Hard to believe it was only three years ago that the Bushies were toxic figures due to the military fiasco in Iraq, the related torture and NSA warrantless eavesdropping scandals, then consummating in the great banking meltdow and economic crisis in the fall of 2008. Even within the Republican Party, political figures shunned association with Little George the war president, deadeye Dick Cheney, and most of the other prominent hawk architects of the Iraq debacle. Bush was slinking out of the White House in 2009 in even lower public esteem than when he had first slipped into the back door of the Oval Office in 2001 courtesy of a United States Supeme Court ruling, 5 to 4. No matter how loud and long the mantra "9/11 changed everything" was chanted, it seemed not to have changed everything permanently.
But on the other hand, just look at how successfully the Bush regime's wretched legacy has been resurrected in only three years. The Democratic Party establishment and the Obama Justice Department gave them all a pass. Then suddenly there was the Shrub, paired alongside Bill Clinton in bipartisan bliss, doing TV spots on behalf of humanitarian aid to Haiti. There was George W smirking and tossing out a ceremonial first pitch at the World Series, with scarcely a boo bird to be heard (granted, it was a Texas Rangers house crowd, but still.....).
Part and parcel of that remarkable rehabilitative effort was the hype over the self-proclaimed "success of the surge" during the last year of Bush's second term. That framing campaign appears to be culminating in the Obama administration's repeated reassurances that now, as promised, America can collectively leave Iraq by the end of 2011 "with great pride, lasting pride."
Amazing.
Absolutely amazing, how the Washington DC war machine's official narrative can shape a feel good revisionist history before our very eyes, if we all can be persuaded only to look forward, never back.
Nobody, anywhere else on the face of the planet outside of the mainstream media bubble world of the United States of America, believes a word of it. They can scarcely believe their own eyes.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill from Saginaw -- Thanks for another well thought out and cogent statement.
My thoughts return to the 100,000 Iraqis killed and many more maimed. The grieving widows, fatherless or orphaned children; the devastated infrastructure; the thousands of Christians who had to flee Iraq and now have little chance of return; and as you mentioned, the looted and wasted wealth of a country that should have been assisted as a leader in the Middle East's evolution from backwardness. Where are the MSM stories about these tragedies? Where, for that matter, are the non-MSM stories? All people in the U.S., liberal, conservative, or in between, seem to have accepted the illusion, promoted by the studied refusal of the MSM to tell the truth, that the surviving people of Iraq have simply buried their dead, bandaged their maimed, and gone on as if nothing happened. Americans are more excited by the murder of a child or a young wife (especially the pretty, white ones) in this country than the horrible devastation caused by Bush and too long continued by Obama. Until Americans get a sense of what really happened in Iraq, the illusion that automatons reside there, not people, will continue, and with it, the illusion that no great moral wrong was done.
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"Iraqi casualties are far higher, with civilian deaths well over 100,000"
Well over by more than a million. The apologists the last few days are making the same 09/11 and democracy noises they did during the lead up to this atrocity. I can't help but feel nauseous.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
"We came, destroyed, then left."