Tag Archives: Saddam Hussein

Could Putin’s war crimes charges give ICC more authority over Western leaders?

Comparisons between destruction in Iraq and Ukraine could boost the International Criminal Court’s authority in the West

By Paul Rogers  Published 3-25-2023 by openDemocracy

Vladimir_Putin. Photo: Kremlin/CC

In the space of a week, three very different events have occurred that have done much to shape the future of the war in Ukraine. One is the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring war crimes charges against Vladimir Putin; the second is the three-day visit of China’s president Xi Jingping to Moscow; and the third is the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War and the end of the Saddam Hussein regime. All three are set against a background of a bitter and devastating war in Ukraine that could well continue for many months or even years.

As to the war itself, Western states – and especially the United States – continue to provide a wide range of weapons and materiel, certainly enough to make it difficult to envisage a Russian victory. Yet the degree of Western support isn’t sufficient to allow Ukraine to force the Russian military out of eastern Ukraine, still less Crimea. While Ukrainian military forces are bearing the brunt of the war, they are simply not getting sufficient military supplies to put them in a winning position. The whole pace of the war continues to be dictated by Washington. Continue reading

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20 years on, George W. Bush’s promise of democracy in Iraq and Middle East falls short

An Iraqi person walks down a road blocked by burning tires in Basra in August 2002.
Hussein Faleh/AFP via Getty Images

 

Brian Urlacher, University of North Dakota

President George W. Bush and his administration put forward a variety of reasons to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the months before the U.S. invasion, Bush said the looming conflict was about eradicating terrorism and seizing weapons of mass destruction – but also because of a “freedom deficit” in the Middle East, a reference to the perceived lag in participatory government in the region.

Many of these arguments would emerge as poorly grounded, given later events. Continue reading

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Kurdish group claims Turkey is using chemical weapons. Why is nobody investigating?

The international community is failing in its duty to investigate allegations that Kurdish forces are being killed in Turkish attacks

By Sarah Glynn  Published 11-5-2021 by openDemocracy

Kurdish protesters attend a demonstration against Turkey’s military action in 2019. Photo: The Left/flickr/CC

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has called on international organisations to investigate its claims that Turkey has used chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq more than 300 times. The party invited international delegations to visit the region and inspect the mountain tunnels where it alleges chemicals still linger and examine the bodies of PKK guerrillas whom it says were killed in the attacks.

The PKK has published videos of gases welling from tunnel entrances, as well as details of those who have allegedly been killed and accounts of survivors. Continue reading

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‘Great News’: Biden Backs 2002 AUMF Repeal as Schumer Announces Senate Vote

“This marks the first time in memory that a president has called for the repeal of a war authorization, a significant step towards ending the forever wars.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-16-2021

“I strongly and fully support repealing the 2002 reauthorization for the use of military force in Iraq. It’s the first time I’m formally announcing my support for repeal.” Screenshot: Craig Caplin/Twitter

Just ahead of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announcing a vote on repealing the Iraq war authorization later this year, the White House this week declared its support for legislation to end the 2002 measure—a development welcomed by Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups that have demanded an end to “endless wars.”

At issue is Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-Calif.) H.R. 256, which would repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 that passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The repeal measure—whose supporters now include even right-wing groups like Americans for Prosperity—has 134 bipartisan co-sponsors. The House is set to vote on the bill Thursday. Continue reading

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At the end of the Israel-Gaza clash, the arms industry is the only victor

Global military analysts will take the lessons from this bout to accelerate the move towards unaccountable (and highly profitable) remote warfare

By Paul Rogers  Published 5-22-2021 by openDemocracy

Photo: suhair zakkout/Twitter

As the 11 days of clashes between Gaza and Israel ends in a ceasefire, the military analysis truly begins. The Israeli army will painstakingly review all of its operations, especially the new weapons and tactics, to judge how successful they were and what improvements are needed.

Hezbollah in Lebanon has far more rockets than Hamas in Gaza, so one of the Israeli army worries will be how Hamas and other factions were able to carry on firing from such a small area right to the end, night after night. Continue reading

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Iraqi President: US Has No Right to Use Iraq as ‘Staging Post’ for Attack on Iran

“There is no military solution to this problem.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-26-19

raqi President Barham Salih speaking in an interview that aired Tuesday with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. (Screengrab/CNN)

Iraqi President Barham Salih said Tuesday that the United States has no right to use his country as a launchpad for a strike against Iran.

Salih, in his interview with CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour, also talked about the adverse impacts his own country has felt as a result of U.S. imposed sanctions, stressed the need to prevent another war, and warned that tearing up the nuclear deal entirely “could be disastrous for the entire neighborhood as a whole.” Continue reading

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Replicating Regime Change Playbook, Pompeo Says US Obligated to ‘Take Down’ Hezbollah in Venezuela

“It’s no coincidence that this seems copy/paste from Bush’s lies to justify his wars.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-7-2019

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday claimed the designated terrorist organization Hezbollah “has active cells” in Venezuela. (Photo: Fox Business)

As a U.S.-backed effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro continues,U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late Wednesday that Hezbollah “has active cells” in Venezuela—a claim that was immediately scrutinized and compared with the second Bush administration’s lies to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Hezbollah, a political and militant Shi’ite Muslim group based in Lebanon, has been on the U.S. State Department’s “Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations” list since 1997. In the interview with Fox Business, Pompeo, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s CIA director, also charged that Iran and Cuba are strongly influencing the country. Continue reading

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6 Reasons We Should All Hope Trump Doesn’t Add John Bolton to His Cabinet

The president’s rumored replacement for H.R. McMaster is an Islamophobic ultrahawk.

By Jacob Sugarman. Published 3-15-2018 by AlterNet

John Bolton. Screenshot: Fox News

 

Earlier this week, Donald Trump tapped a charter member of the Tea Party to lead the State Department and an established torturer to head the CIA. Both appointments were perfectly monstrous, but if there is a governing law of this administration, it’s that things can always get worse. Consider the president’s rumored replacement for national security adviser H.R. McMaster: According to multiple outlets, Trump has met with John Bolton at the White House and could offer him the position as early as next week.

That the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has the president’s ear at all should be a cause for concern. Over the course of his checkered career, Bolton has proven himself a hawk of the first order, enthusiastically endorsing the war in Iraq and more recently calling for a first strike on North Korea. He’d almost certainly encourage Trump to flex his military might, and with the president’s approval numbers floundering and a wave election looming, there’s every reason to believe Trump could take his advice. Continue reading

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Southern Kurdistan’s Referendum: Self-Destiny doesn’t need Permission

Every flower that sprouts in the mountains had to first break through a rock.

By. Dr. Thoreau Redcrow. Published 9-22-2017 by the Region

Rallies and celebrations take place throughout Kurdistan as the referendum vote approaches Monday’s date.. Photo: Al Arabiya/Twitter

 

In a few days on September 25th the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of Southern Kurdistan / Bashur (i.e. northern “Iraq”) is set to hold a non-binding aspirational referendum on their region’s independence. For many of the 6+ million Kurds of Bashur it is undoubtedly a day they have dreamt of or longed for; perhaps even a chance which seemed all but a fantasy through the billowing smoke of chemical bombs in Hełebce, or Saddam’s mass graves of the 1980’s.

Moreover, although this referendum is only related to one of the four regions of Greater Kurdistan—leaving those 20+ million Kurds of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), 12 million Kurds of northwestern Iran (Eastern Kurdistan), and 2-3 million Kurds of northern Syria (Western Kurdistan) awaiting their own eventual ‘independence day’—I have still anecdotally witnessed a surge in Kurdish patriotism and excitement throughout wider Kurdistan and the diaspora at the possibility that the first of the four dominoes may finally fall. Continue reading

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The People will only take so much – and we have reached that point

Written by Carol Benedict

White supremacists beating Deandre Harris in a Charlottesville parking ramp. Photo: Zach Roberts/Nation of Change

Across this country, we are witnessing the general population respond to the Charlottesville tragedy. Never since the Civil War have we seen such a divisive point. Even the Viet Nam era protests were more civilized than this, notwithstanding the killings at Kent State that to this day have never been served justice.

But what we are not talking about is scarier and even more detrimental to our way of life and what it says about Americans overall. What we are witnessing is the degeneration of a once proud society, now brought to its knees by what would have been considered just one year ago as preposterous and impossible.

In 1945, at the end of WWII, the world recoiled when the death of Benito Mussolini was reported in April. By 1956, civilization took to tearing down of the statues of dictators and rulers who were later judged to be on the wrong side of humanity, beginning with Stalin’s statue in Budapest. Saddam Hussein’s statue met the same fate in 2003 in the town of Firdos, Iraq. It followed with similar actions in other countries; Iran, Egypt, Ukraine and Poland, to name a few.

When Hussein’s statue was pulled down to a screaming throng of angry citizenry, many Americans looked on in horror, grateful nothing like THAT could ever happen in America. We were, after all, a nation of law and order, respect and civilized discourse.

In 2008, the world congratulated America for finally elevating itself to a seemingly post-racial society. Since that time, we have seen eight years of political obstruction referred to as “governance” in Washington DC, championed by Mitch McConnell , who proudly stated that the number one goal for the GOP was to obstruct any policy put forth by the Obama Administration.

In 2016, America responded to that recognition by our international friends and allies through electing a recognized businessman and self-elevated media celebrity with absolutely no political prowess or experience, to lead a country as if it were a corporate enterprise and all that matters is the bottom line profit margin at the end of the day. Along the way, he has collected the most incompetent cabinet that represents what Americans refer to as “the good ole’ boys” of white Caucasian men making the decisions for all of the country.

We now must ask ourselves, “What have we become? What will we accept as a society? Where do we turn when our own President praises the actions of racist bigots while promoting divisiveness through despicable stances on the first amendment protections for freedom of religion and freedom of the press?”

When it takes a ground-swelling effort from the veterans of this nation to protect the family of the victim killed in Charlottesville, we have said we will not take this any more.

Perhaps what we really need to say is, “The People will only take so much, and we have reached that point.”

About the Author:
Carol Benedict is an indépendent researcher and human rights activist. She is also an independent Journalist and a professional member of the US Press Association.

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