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'A Moral Catastrophe': The Final Reasons for Going to War are Being Swept Away
The allegations of allied complicity in torture point to a complete moral failure
There was no single reason why Britain and the US went to war in Iraq. The motives that inspired George W Bush and Tony Blair have been variously dissected, analyzed and psychoanalyzed. It is too early for history to have formed a settled view on the war, but the case that it was a monumental error gets ever more compelling.
Most of the official justifications for war, on grounds of security from terror and weapons of mass destruction, have been discredited. The only element of moral authority left in the decision might be that Saddam Hussein ran a murderous regime, characterized by torture and extra-judicial killing. It could indeed have been the duty of western powers to intervene against such atrocity. But the western occupiers quickly became complicit in atrocities of their own, as new leaked military documents reveal.
The files, passed to WikiLeaks and reported in today's Observer, reveal how allied forces turned a blind eye to torture and murder of prisoners held by the Iraqi army. Reports of appalling treatment of detainees were verified by the US army and deemed unworthy of further investigation. Responsibility for disciplinary action was passed to the Iraqi units that had perpetrated the abuse. In a handful of cases, allied soldiers are directly implicated in abuse.
The leaked files expose a cavalier attitude towards international law with regard to the treatment of enemy soldiers and disgraceful tolerance of civilian casualties.
The thrust of these allegations is not new. But each extra piece of evidence builds a portrait of a military occupation deeply implicated in practices that were illegal under international law and unconscionable in the eyes of any reasonable observer.
The terrible truth about British and American involvement in Iraq seems increasingly to be that it was not just a strategic failure, it was, for the occupying powers, a moral catastrophe.
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53 Comments so far
Show AllAnd what will be the consequences for the U.S.? Obama did not want to explore it. The US citizenry yawns. Unless there were some real consequence for the US government and its citizens there will be no reflection on past wrongs or change in foreign policy. You know what US citizenry really cares about? Whether its local NFL football team is winning. Go Steelers.
Yeah, I made the same point in my comment on the other article about this, the one titled "The World Wants Answer." Great minds think alike, eh?
This is sunday. Isn't football on today?
amerikan culture/ consciousness is a drop out/ avoid reality scene; they exist in the 51st state, da state of denial ! All part of the collapsing empire !
The release of these documents probably WILL increase the recruitment of west-hating Islamic terrorists and put the troops and we on the homefront at more risk. The truth hurts, especially when the Powers That Be have tried to hide it.
"The Truth Will Out" used to be one of those proverb-platitudes that one wished were true but only was occasionally. But now, in the digital age, it's becoming truer and truer. Governments and other big institutions are still successfully hiding some things, but the whole internet connected world is getting leakier and leakier.
More bad news surely to come.
"error"?!!?
There was no "error." The whole bloody event was premeditated for crying out loud. The reasoning was documented by the Project for the New Americaan Century and the War Department's policy of Full Spectrum Domination. Have you no eyes?
Thank you...you saved me writing the same thing.
I'm sick and tired of this not-so-subtle disinformation spewed by the anglo-american media. Just read The Grand Chessboard by Z. Brzezinski (1997) for god sake. It's really not that hard to find this information.
And guess what Observer? George Bush wasn't stupid. He had a role to play and he did it well. His real constituents (the rich oligarchs) benefitted mightily from his reign.
KARLOF: Right on! It was their own whistleblower who exposed the infamous Downing Street memo as per the case being FIXED for war! Here again we see history being rewritten as if the intelligence insisted upon by Rumsfeld and his neocon partners in crime also just reflected mere mistakes, as if torture was only the product of a "few bad apples." All these errors were just coincidental...
Those who control media get to devise their own official stories. Thank you for teaching history in a way that does not lend credence to the propaganda machine. I realize there are risks in speaking the truth about power these days. Thank you for taking it. I feel the same way as a writer.
Thanks for your reply, Siouxrose. It's gotten to the point where uncovering and denouncing the lies of the present are keeping me from discovering and denouncing the lies of the past. Truth is now a rarity; illusion has taken its place.
KARLOF, it it's any consolation, you share that fate with:
1. The honest climate scientists who are seeing their life work discredited by extensive PR campaigns contracted by energy companies (and the like) who profit from muddying the waters.
2. The honest journalists who realize that media is quite selective about what it allows into print, and in that regard, truth has become a low, if still existing, priority.
3. The few honest political animals who basically can't raise funds for their campaigns unless they become beholden to the corporate deep pockets willing to pony up the cash. Quid pro quo R'they.
4. All honest whistleblowers who put the greater good before self-interest or profit.
And us heretics, castigated for postulating belief systems that do not honor God the father as Divine war-monger, or excuse to design societies based on hierarchies extending from white male (of means) privilege.
Welcome to the club!
can i join that club? it beats the dickie crat crowd (neo liberal war mongers) or the repug lunatic crowd (right wing war mongers)
matt
harris county green party
Thankyou. The article is seriously deficient in that respect.
Moral catastrophes can only apply in the context of a moral framework. In this case, the framework is an underlying assumption of absolute superiority, both moral and otherwise: also sometimes expressed as "might makes right."
Regretably, it's not a totally invalid framework in today's global environment and appears unlikely to be replaced any time soon -- at least not until that global environment itself compels certain adjustments.
Hmmm
As pointed out in comments above clearly the zionsists ordered this war. In order to make it happen they needed to bribe members of our government to go along. And if you look you will find that the Bush family has gone from millionaires to billionaires. (well hidden of course) Just think in August 2001 Cheney was on the Hill trying to get a reduced 268 Billion defense budget passed. In 2010 we will spend on defense and the war well over 1 trillion dollars!! That is a lot of bribery money to spread around.
Like any crime look for the means, motive and opportunity. Israel in 2001 had all 3. Virtually every single major move which took place in the aftermath of 9-11 was planned will in advance of the Israeli operation on 9-11. No country on earth has benefited from
9-11 except Israel. Millions of Arabs are dead, the US and England are bankrupt. Our civil liberties have been ripped away. (Just in case we figure things out to soon)
Only a fool would believe 17 Arabs with box cutters perpetrated 9-11. Especially since half of them are still alive. Not to mention the hundreds of other pieces of factual evidence that point directly to Israel.
DEAR Born: Right. And the same Military Industrial Complex that Ike warned about, and that cannibalizes half the U.S. annually appropriated funds is not enjoying this embarrassment of riches, right? And how 'bout those Christian Theocrats who are close to seeing the fruition of a dream of absolute control of American citizens, as if that's what Jesus, the capitalist, would do?
There is almost never only ONE factor behind the emergence of an event. While some Zionists may have been involved in some capacity, that hardly excuses the others. I get the sense you watch Fox "news," but your assessment is neither fair not balanced.
The Observer: "There was no single reason why Britain and the US went to war in Iraq...[but] Most of the official justifications... have been discredited." On the brink of peak oil, the worlds second largest proven oil reserves were placed under Western control, with dozens of permanent military bases to protect it. The Ministry of Oil was literally the first place U.S. forces secured. Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia had made it clear: no U.S. military bases on the sands that gave birth to Muhammed would be allowed without 9-11-scale repercussions. Iraq makes these bases unnecessary.
I don't understand why this is never discussed or acknowledged. The Observer just admitted that all the given reasons for the War have been discredited; is it such a leap for them to acknowledge, finally, the one reason that made sense all along? If we don't know why we invaded Iraq, other than as some kind of 'monumental error', we're at risk of making the same error again. The larger implication of the U.S. military acting to secure global energy supplies for Western exploitation, is that the military may well be marching to a tune being played in Geneva, Tokyo, or anywhere else the oligarch's gather. Its a sad day when even the Observer doesn't want its readers to consider this.
As I recall, The Observer is complicit with abetting the war and its crimes along with the vast majority of the UK's media. So naturally, it can't find any reason for the crime--note that the word crime is absent. The Observer goes tsk, tsk and continues its job by disseminating lies about Iran, Afghanistan. Israel, etc. The Guardian is the same dispite its critical evaluation of the documents.
It's not discussed for the same reason that rivers of relevant facts and information about What Is Really Going On are ignored by the media - the elites dont want an informed populace who know what's going on.
Btw, after reading your post I googled "iraq invasion" AND "oil" and there are 121,000 hits. I'll bet the same goes for all the other major issues like health care, wall st fraud, etc.
It's a full time job keeping up with the lies and cover-ups, and the elites know this and take advantage of it.
Thank goodness for the internet. I have a bad feeling that many American's won't figure out who really runs their military until they wake up one morning and realize that the next country on the short list for invasion is one 'U.S.A.'
The invasion of the USA has already taken place. Not with a bang but a wimper. The truth behind the Iraq invasion was understood by millions around the world before the first bomb was dropped. Wilileaks revealed many facts about our cruel occupation. And we attack the messenger.
Thank you ubrew. I've been making the same comment myself on other threads. The Americans, the English and others are playing out Richard Heinberg's "Last Man Standing" scenario which is one of (and the worst) of the four responses he predicted to peak oil.
The reason no one wants to talk about it is because no one in government anywhere has any answer to it. They don't dare to tell their people, "Look, the world as we know it is going to change drastically; the economy is not going to improve, your lifestyle is not going to continue, and we don't have any answers. There is no substitue for oil. Alternative energy will help but everything is still going to be very different".
Cheney said it,"The American lifestyle is not negotiable". What he forgot to add was that America planned to bomb and kill as many millions as it must and destroy as much of the planet as it takes in order to control and plunder every bit of fossil fuel it can.
All wars are moral catastrophes. If wikileaks had existed at the time of WW2 or WW1 or any war in history, "our" side (and don't we always take sides) will prove to have behaved just as atrociously as "theirs". These crimes are inevitable whenever a war is declared for whatever reason. There *is* no just war, there is only the moral catastrophe of choosing violence. And all these horrific consequences are contained within the declaration of war the moment it is made. Those who declare war, whoever they are, are guilty the moment they send their country to war.
And, let us be clear, those who cheer on war, those who think of war as cleansing, liberating, ennobling, as the crucible in which manhood is made, they are guilty too.
if war is hell, why is it condoned by so many religions?
Even "Original Sin" is associated with carnality rather than the lizard-brained, hard-wired capacity for homicide. The Judeo-Christian tradition, despite its official policies, commandments, and such is remarkably tolerant, not to say indulgent, of war.
Oh, Cain acquired a "mark" for committing wanton murder, but The Mark of Cain pretty much began and ended with Cain. And even THAT probably turned out to be a babe magnet; God proposes, Satan disposes.
I guess it's just as well. Otherwise, we'd all be walking around like freaking unicorns.
Obedient Servant, i have come to the conclusion (well, i can't say others have never said the same, but i did come to it on my own journey), that 'original sin' as it is promoted by many religious organizations always comes right down to 'disobedience.' Isn't that helpful for the powers that be? ;-)
Disobedience, very good assessment. Original "Sin" also created unhealthy shame.One moment, no fig leaf no shame, the next moment a fig leaf and the creation of unhealthy. Phony christian doctrine[babel] is based on creating shame for the sake of obedience. Obedience training by the USG is best typified by the shoe removal exercise at airports, this is obedience training for adults which is done by the TSA goons, whom incidentally are the real fear at airports not some imagined fears created by the government and reinforced by the obedience training shoe removal exercise.
VDB: Many times I've explained how the concept of God/the deity has been modeled after Mars, the god of war. THAT explains this long-standing spiritual heist and counterfeit.
By making sex into the chief sin, human beings could be controlled. As Wilhelm Reich realized, a sexually free and expressive person doesn't need an outside "authority" telling him or her what is thus and so. They are naturally empowered... and empowerment is NOT what hierarchical societies run by small elites can or will tolerate.
(she is referencing The Mass Psychology of Fascism for those who haven't read it - I would STRONGLY recommend it to anyone who has not read it, as it lifts a few veils of illusion that have blinded many of the "progressives" in this world into doing the work of the regressives for them)
I suggest reading "The Chalice and the Blade".
Now I am not writing to you specifically but there a real misunderstanding the world over of the nature of "Monotheism" and of its roots.
Conventional wisdom has the Hebrews the first of the Religions that saw only "One God" a supreme diety. This is not the case. Early Judaism, acknowledged the existence of other "gods". Judaism was based on the premise that only ONE of them would be worshipped and his followers would be blessed as "His chosen".
The Jewish god then became modeled on ones already existing. Vengeful and Jealous and willing to destroy entire peoples by war plague and famine.
The "Nature of God" is the nature Gods followers have given that entity. These attributes are the one that best suit the purposes of "Man" so as to control their fellows.
Our religions condone war because ours are religions of war and our God is a "God of War".
"I am a jealous god."
Jealous of what?
Jesus said, "Put down your sword" but then, as G K Chesterton said,"It's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it's that it's been found difficult and not tried".
Briar,
our side did not behave like the facsists, not like Hitler, or Hirohito or Mussolini.
They might have been bad but not that bad, not by a long shot
Please, cut the idiocy. The US is the only heinous, degenerate nation to have ever used an atomic bomb (twice) on another. That alone makes Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini look like boy scouts. Your reasoning, excuses and apologies are revolting.
This is about the Iraqi Armed forces and how they tortured and abused.
Sure the Allies turned a blind eye.
But it was the Iraqis who did it.
People will argue they are just tools of US and Israel imperialism and that the US et al have the final responsibility.
I will use the same measure I have seen argued here.
They are war criminals. They could have refused orders, could have been conscientious objectors.
Anything else would be treating them as less than adults who make adult choices.
Morticia said: "Sure the Allies turned a blind eye."
Colin Powell said: "You break it, you own it."
I'll take Powells opinion over yours, Morticia. We broke a society. We protected the Ministry of Oil, and watched as Iraqi's turned into Jackels, and consumed each other. We knew exactly what kind of 'Dogs of War' would turn up in that kind of situation, and Wikileaks is simply detailing that decision, and the mayhem that followed (and would absolutely occur in your neighborhood, should the military-industrial-complex decide you have something they want).
I'm just arguing as the Devil's Advocate.
So, following your argument all those American kids who enlist are not responsible.
Israeli soldiers are not responsible.
They are all victims of the MIC. ( and isn't this society broke too? )
What I'm trying to say is we shouldn't have one set of standards for our own military and another for foreign countries.
Morticia you must not have ever been part of a team or cast or any other form of group that meets regularly to achieve a goal. Groupthink is a very real phenomenon in which deep-seeded concepts (ragheads are all worth torturing) trickle down through various voiceboxes or "leaders" of a group until a certain brand of thinking gets adopted. Once the rules are set, and once these concepts become a code, what might have previously been an easy decision (wait--ragheads aren't all worth torturing...) becomes infinitely more difficult. When coupled with the overwhelming obedience-themed rules within the ranks, this effect on free will is exponentially amplified.
So I don't think it's fair to say these soldiers could act individually, even if what they witnessed was horrific. They are not afforded the gift of an unblemished perspective. If it really is so important to level the blame at somebody, then I suppose you can start with the initiators of the soldiers' code...but who is this, exactly? Answering that disintegrates the importance of this line of thinking.
It sure would be great to see such enthusiasm as you (and other righties) are expressing towards nailing the Iraqis to the wall for their torture and war crimes, directed at the war crimes committed by your own nation.
You are a great example of the hypocrisy of the United States. When someone else tortures, we are the first to scream for justice. When someone else violates international law and invades a sovereign nation without justification, we scream bloody murder. When someone else tortures or rapes or kills its own civilians, we rev up the engines of war to go kick some ass.
But when the U.S. itself does those things....
:crickets:
Hypocrite.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
"a military occupation deeply implicated in practices that were illegal under international law"
WERE????
"Moral catastrophe"? Certainly.
"Error"? Nope!
As long as the Military-Industrial-Media-Congressional Complex rules, there will be endless wars for profit and the murderous delusion of world domination.
Not an error but a gigantic crime, following the cruel sanctions for 11 years to destroy an advanced, civilised country. Saddam Hussein was supported, armed and encouraged for decades by the "West"; the pretence of overthrowing a tyrant is despicable.
murderous regime
torture
extra-judicial killing
USUK never supports that stuff . . . unless there's a buck in it for the USUK boss class.
After a handful of American mercenaries were killed, their bodies burned and hung from a bridge, George Wanker Bush the Crusader ordered the razing of Fallujah to show the "wogs" who was Boss. That attitude was behind the invasion and ongoing occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan. It was and still is as simple as that. Forget terrorists, WMD, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. They never, at any time, entered into the equation except as convenient excuses. Our entire criminal escapade in the Middle East has been, at its very heart, motivated by the National Erection, the National Testicles and National Testosterone administered by one of history's greatest and most sinister cabals of murderous arrested adolescents and closet throatstickers.
The mercenaries were killed in retaliation for residents of Fallujah being fired upon by Americans when they assembled to protest.
Not only do the documents show we weren't there to help the Iraqi's it quashes the theory that if we would have pulled out things would get worse. We now have more evidence it was worse than what our media and politicians were telling us.
This moral catastrophe from war is a reflection of the cultural moral catastrophe; disconnection from Nature.
So is litter,
celluloid heroes, digital singers, dancers watched on plasma, right guards on Right Guard commercials.
Most everywhere I've ever been everyone drives and everyone speeds. What ever the limit, add ten, the cops do, then the real goofs go above that. Gasoline is burned for recreation.
Fake food, hosed with toxics gets passed through windows or delivered to your door and water comes in plastic bottles. Everyone is eating, drinking, and breathing oil. Everything is made from plastic, the people, oil.
Everyone locks their doors.
It's impolite to ask about another's finances, because its implied they cheat on their taxes, like you. Only suckers play by the rules. It's only against the law if you get caught, all the politicians do it, but they passed an exemption to cover their tracks, technical legal stuff. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows the names Capone, James, Dillinger, and Bush. No one laughs at that clown they call pope.
Everyone lives with multiple fears; physical breakdown, loss of loved ones, loss of freedom, death and disease, economic ruin, robbers, muggers and thieves, and their neighbors. So many hate other races, genders, religions, hair-does and shoes and what not?
Street lights are for your security. Police carry guns. Everyone knows people who have them. The sirens go on Tuesdays at ten.
You are supposed to respect anyone in a uniform, except garbage men and Andy Frains.
Hands over hearts;
they sing and salute,
make the kids say a pledge,
mount crosses in fields in long rows;
cut the trees down with giant machines,
fly them out under helicopters.
Everyone leaves their lights on.
Everyone has seen a homeless person.
No one looks at the stars.
No one cares about me,
they're capitalists.
This editorial is missing more explanation of the war logs.
To learn more about what the logs revealed, check out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq-war-logs
The reasons are simple really, look at any map.
Afganistan - Iran - Iraq - Syria - Israel.
Together these coutries form a bridgehead separating Europe and Asia from the Arabian oil fields.
The USA's global hegmony is propped up by its military. Its military runs on OIL. I dont think anyone has yet invented a military bomber that runs on solar power.
As the planetary supply of oil eventually runs out, either the USA ends its global supremecy, or keeps all the remaining oil for itself to support its military, which supports its hedgmony. "American Exceptionalism" at work
Simple really.
'-----it was, for the occupying powers, a moral catastrophe.'
Not a moral catastrophe. Everyone has known all along that the Anglo-Saxon section influence in the west is a moribund ethical force. This article tries to find wriggle room to allow what is an entirely discredited entity a chance to resume its preeminence.
Yawn! All so yesterday and what the Sunday Observer, the Guardian and the English need to get out of their system.
These wars are the end. It is really a small breach but it is the final and long awaited breach; the final moral and cultural catastrophe. Only an entirely new understanding of the place of the Anglo-Saxon culture in our world has any relevance. The structure of intention expressed in the English language in the entire Anglo-Saxon world is going to have change in order for the culture to survive. Those who don't acknowledge this are the problem.
This is news?
Amazing, Anti_Idiocy hasn't polluted this thread yet with his right-wing nationalistic defense of American crimes... :tick-tock-tick-tock:
It is the height or irony that the U.S. continues to justify and congratulate itself on its invasion of Iraq - most recently by that paragon of virtue, Obama - despite the fact that every single lame-ass excuse we used to do so has been thoroughly debunked. "Weapons of Mass Destruction?" Nope. The world knows we knew there were no WMD, and that we simply used that as our initial excuse to invade. "Taking down Saddam because he tortured and raped his own people?" Nope. The U.S. committed tons of torture and rape after we took over the country, as the world knows. And when we found out the new "elected" government of Iraq we put in power after our invasion was still torturing and raping on a massive scale, we looked the other way. So much for the excuse that we were trying to end torture. "Bringing democracy to Iraq?" Nope. That wasn't the reason, as our puppet government we installed is just as vicious as Saddam ever was clearly shows.
The U.S. is a joke, and our reasons for illegally invading other nations is a joke. The saddest part is that now the entire world knows we were lying about our reasons for invading, and the U.S. doesn't even have the good grace to blush about it.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."