Tag Archives: Sunni

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

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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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Failed US Policy in the Middle East

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By Ellen Rosser. Published 2-29-2016 by Common Dreams

(Photo: Mark Holloway/flickr/cc.)

(Photo: Mark Holloway/flickr/cc.)

The United States has been involved in the Middle East for almost one hundred years because of the vast oil reserves there, and the US has been militarily involved since 1967, when the US began supplying Israel with weapons with which to defend itself. However, the US has only been involved in the “quagmire” of Middle East wars since 2001. Continue reading →

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Deaths Reported as MSF-Linked Hospital Bombed in Yemen

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The medical charity said it ‘cannot confirm’ attacker but noted the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for the two other air strikes in last three months

By Sarah Lazare, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-10-2016

Photo: Gordon Zammit [GFDL 1.2] via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Gordon Zammit [GFDL 1.2] via Wikimedia Commons

A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-supported hospital in northern Yemen was bombed Sunday morning, killing at least four people and wounding eleven—marking the third attack in as many months against a facility associated with the medical charity.

MSF said in a statement that it “cannot confirm the origin of the attack” on the Shiara Hospital, which is located in the Razeh district. But the organization noted that “planes were seen flying over the facility at the time.”  Continue reading →

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Growing Support in America for a Ground War in Iraq: Why a Sequel is a Worse Idea than the Original

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If you are a regular reader of ours, you are fully aware of our verbose writings regarding Iraq, America’s involvement in the 2003 invasion, our steadfast support of Peshmerga forces and belief in a free and independent Kurdistan, and our disdain of US contractors pilfering the peoples of Iraq to profit from the spoils of an illegal war.

Baghdad on May 28, 2015. Photo via Twitter

Baghdad on May 28, 2015. Photo via Twitter

So it should come as no surprise that we now are horrified to see a growing support for going back into Iraq to “help defeat ISIS.” But we are not alone in our view. In an article published in August, 2014 via The Diplomat, in a piece titled “Iran Didn’t Create ISIS; We Did,” Ben Reynolds write: Continue reading →

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