Dear Friends, As Salaam Alaikum (Peace be upon you)
Please read the article below documenting the growing evidence straight from the mouths of White House officials about how the Iraq-war has always been about oil...
Iftekhar Hussain
Published on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 by TomDispatch.com
How the Bush Administration’s Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry
Greenspan’s Oil Claim in Context
by Dilip Hiro
Here is the sentence in The Age of Turbulence, the 531-page memoir of former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, that caused so much turbulence in Washington last week: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Honest and accurate, it had the resonance of the Bill Clinton’s election campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But, finding himself the target of a White House attack — an administration spokesman labeled his comment, “Georgetown cocktail party analysis” — Greenspan backtracked under cover of verbose elaboration. None of this, however, made an iota of difference to the facts on the ground.
Here is a prosecutor’s brief for the position that “the Iraq War is largely about oil”:
The primary evidence indicating that the Bush administration coveted Iraqi oil from the start comes from two diverse but impeccably reliable sources: Paul O’Neill, the Treasury Secretary (2001-2003) under President George W. Bush; and Falah Al Jibury, a well-connected Iraqi-American oil consultant, who had acted as President Ronald Reagan’s “back channel” to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88. The secondary evidence is from the material that can be found in such publications as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Read more at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/26/4106/
Showing posts with label Iraq War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq War. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
A Blackwater and US Government gift to Americans
Dear Friends, As Salaam Alaikum, (Peace be upon you)
Blackwater continues to live up to its reputation for aggressive and 'outside of the law' behavior in the killing of over 20 Iraqis while providing security services for US diplomats in Iraq.
The Maliki-governemnt has pulled its license to operate but Blackwater continues to operate with impunity.
The US government's decision to hire private firms for essential military-type security services protected by the immunity from prosection granted by proconsul Paul Bremer to private foreign contractors is at the root of this injustice.
There are no rules to constrain Blackwater operations in Iraq. Their aggressiveness will give rise to another generation of people with hate for Americans. And the vicious cycle will continue.
This is the gift of our government's folly in Iraq; and the sad result of our silence in the face of this madness!
Iftekhar Hussain
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/20/3984/
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/17/3895/
Blackwater continues to live up to its reputation for aggressive and 'outside of the law' behavior in the killing of over 20 Iraqis while providing security services for US diplomats in Iraq.
The Maliki-governemnt has pulled its license to operate but Blackwater continues to operate with impunity.
The US government's decision to hire private firms for essential military-type security services protected by the immunity from prosection granted by proconsul Paul Bremer to private foreign contractors is at the root of this injustice.
There are no rules to constrain Blackwater operations in Iraq. Their aggressiveness will give rise to another generation of people with hate for Americans. And the vicious cycle will continue.
This is the gift of our government's folly in Iraq; and the sad result of our silence in the face of this madness!
Iftekhar Hussain
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/20/3984/
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/17/3895/
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
911, Why do they hate us and Islamophobia
Dear Friends, As Salaam Alaikum (Peace be upon you)
Today is the 6th anniversary of 911, a day of tragedy and hurt for the world. Actions perpetrated by the 19 hijackers have resulted in a causal effect of immense proportions for the world.
To those of us who suffered the loss of loved ones on that fateful day, I fervently pray that the Almighty eases our pain over the course of time.
Over the past 6 years, the question 'Why do they hate us' continues to be asked with its attendant racist assumptions of Muslims and Arabs as 'they', all other Americans as 'us' and the projection on Muslims and Arabs of a monolithic hate of 'us'. The right-wing coupling of purported 'Arab/Muslim anti-Americanism' with the supposed radicalism of Islam is a lethal combination in creating the rise of Islamophobia in the USA today.
Muslims and Arabs of the United States are law-abiding citizens; they oppose not only the religious extremism of the 19 hijackers and their cohorts but also the foreign policy extremism of the Bush administration. This is not a unique profile among Americans; it is actually quite mainstream.
Islam as a faith tradition informs the lives of over a billion and a half of this world and their aspirations to goodness and happiness for themselves and their neighbors. Yet it is maligned and assigned charges of innate extremism. From studies by right-wing think tanks to 'moderate' Islam by creating policies for dictators in Muslim countries to enforce to blogs by internet hate-mongers maligning and stifling the work of American Muslims in the civic life of this country, we find an atmosphere of hate and anger brewing against Islam and Muslims.
Understanding the rise of religious extremism in the Muslim world as an unintended consequence of Cold War foreign policy is key to understanding the historical perspective. Extremism can be leveraged anywhere and invoked in any religious tradition. The fact that the CIA and other spook agencies fueled religious extremism in Muslim countries to further national interests is well documented in multiple studies and books released after the events of 911 (see references below). What remains tragic is that this historical perspective is so ill understood.
Beyond Islamophobia in the USA, we have seen the launch of 2 wars and await the potential launch of a third. The war in Iraq, based on lies and driven by geo-political and industrial interests, has resulted in the rise of extremism in that country. Sectarian extremism has risen due to the utter absence of security and the daily lives of Iraqis have been turned upside down. Refugee numbers have grown beyond 3 million and continue to rise everyday. The reconstruction of Iraq is a story of corruption and war profiteering at the hands of global companies such as Halliburton and Blackstone and companies in the Middle East that are their partners. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize winner, co-authored a study out of Harvard University documenting the over $1 trillion the Iraq war has cost the US Treasury and yet their is no practical end in sight to this folly and tragic waste.
A framework of mutual respect and equitable dealings among nations, driven by the populations of each country, can hope to counter this maelstrom that we find ourselves in.
The Qur'an, the revealed word of God for Muslims, suggests the following:
' O people! Behold, We have created you out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another. Verily the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of him. Behold, God is all knowing, all aware.'
It is time that a deep cognizance of our infinitely merciful Creator take place front and center to drive our public policies and form the basis of a healing of this world weariness.
Iftekhar Hussain
Reference List:
Good Muslim Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and the Roots of Terror: By Mahmoud Mamdani
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism: By Robert Pape
Tinderbox: By Stephen Zunes
Blood and Oil: The dangers and consequences of America's growing dependence on imported petroleum: By Michael T. Klare
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century: By Kevin Phillips
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: By John Perkins
On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Consequences of American Conquest and Carnage: By Ward Churchill
Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East by Rashid Khalidi
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy: By Noam Chomsky
Imperial Hubris: By Michael Scheuer
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East: By Robert Fisk
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death: By Norman Solomon
Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam: By Robert Dreyfuss
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America: By Chris Hedges
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance - by Noam Chomsky
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire - by Chalmers Johnson
The Case for Islamo-christian Civilization - by Richard W. Bulliet
America's "War on Terrorism" - by Michel Chossudovsky
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror - by Stephen Kinzer Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 - by Steve Coll
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq - by Stephen Kinzer
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America - by Peter Dale Scott
Challenging Christian Zionism - edited by Naim Ateek, Cedar Duaybis and Maurine Tobin
Today is the 6th anniversary of 911, a day of tragedy and hurt for the world. Actions perpetrated by the 19 hijackers have resulted in a causal effect of immense proportions for the world.
To those of us who suffered the loss of loved ones on that fateful day, I fervently pray that the Almighty eases our pain over the course of time.
Over the past 6 years, the question 'Why do they hate us' continues to be asked with its attendant racist assumptions of Muslims and Arabs as 'they', all other Americans as 'us' and the projection on Muslims and Arabs of a monolithic hate of 'us'. The right-wing coupling of purported 'Arab/Muslim anti-Americanism' with the supposed radicalism of Islam is a lethal combination in creating the rise of Islamophobia in the USA today.
Muslims and Arabs of the United States are law-abiding citizens; they oppose not only the religious extremism of the 19 hijackers and their cohorts but also the foreign policy extremism of the Bush administration. This is not a unique profile among Americans; it is actually quite mainstream.
Islam as a faith tradition informs the lives of over a billion and a half of this world and their aspirations to goodness and happiness for themselves and their neighbors. Yet it is maligned and assigned charges of innate extremism. From studies by right-wing think tanks to 'moderate' Islam by creating policies for dictators in Muslim countries to enforce to blogs by internet hate-mongers maligning and stifling the work of American Muslims in the civic life of this country, we find an atmosphere of hate and anger brewing against Islam and Muslims.
Understanding the rise of religious extremism in the Muslim world as an unintended consequence of Cold War foreign policy is key to understanding the historical perspective. Extremism can be leveraged anywhere and invoked in any religious tradition. The fact that the CIA and other spook agencies fueled religious extremism in Muslim countries to further national interests is well documented in multiple studies and books released after the events of 911 (see references below). What remains tragic is that this historical perspective is so ill understood.
Beyond Islamophobia in the USA, we have seen the launch of 2 wars and await the potential launch of a third. The war in Iraq, based on lies and driven by geo-political and industrial interests, has resulted in the rise of extremism in that country. Sectarian extremism has risen due to the utter absence of security and the daily lives of Iraqis have been turned upside down. Refugee numbers have grown beyond 3 million and continue to rise everyday. The reconstruction of Iraq is a story of corruption and war profiteering at the hands of global companies such as Halliburton and Blackstone and companies in the Middle East that are their partners. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize winner, co-authored a study out of Harvard University documenting the over $1 trillion the Iraq war has cost the US Treasury and yet their is no practical end in sight to this folly and tragic waste.
A framework of mutual respect and equitable dealings among nations, driven by the populations of each country, can hope to counter this maelstrom that we find ourselves in.
The Qur'an, the revealed word of God for Muslims, suggests the following:
' O people! Behold, We have created you out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another. Verily the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of him. Behold, God is all knowing, all aware.'
It is time that a deep cognizance of our infinitely merciful Creator take place front and center to drive our public policies and form the basis of a healing of this world weariness.
Iftekhar Hussain
Reference List:
Good Muslim Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and the Roots of Terror: By Mahmoud Mamdani
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism: By Robert Pape
Tinderbox: By Stephen Zunes
Blood and Oil: The dangers and consequences of America's growing dependence on imported petroleum: By Michael T. Klare
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century: By Kevin Phillips
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: By John Perkins
On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Consequences of American Conquest and Carnage: By Ward Churchill
Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East by Rashid Khalidi
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy: By Noam Chomsky
Imperial Hubris: By Michael Scheuer
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East: By Robert Fisk
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death: By Norman Solomon
Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam: By Robert Dreyfuss
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America: By Chris Hedges
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance - by Noam Chomsky
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire - by Chalmers Johnson
The Case for Islamo-christian Civilization - by Richard W. Bulliet
America's "War on Terrorism" - by Michel Chossudovsky
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror - by Stephen Kinzer Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 - by Steve Coll
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq - by Stephen Kinzer
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America - by Peter Dale Scott
Challenging Christian Zionism - edited by Naim Ateek, Cedar Duaybis and Maurine Tobin
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Bush smiles and Iraq and the US Treasury burn
President Bush visited Iraq over Labor Day weekend and announced that the surge is bringing the promised security improvement to Iraq. The soldiers listened but were not convinced. NPR is running a series of interviews with soldiers on the ground about the effectiveness of the surge and you get a different picture than the one left by a smiling President as he posed with American boys and girls who are giving their lives for neo-conservative pipe-dreams of US world dominance.
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize winner, co-authored a study out of Harvard University documenting the over $1 trillion the Iraq war has cost the US Treasury and not a peep out of the media which thinks a million here and a billion there is business as usual and quite manageable. Of-course with a debt that will be passed on to our children, we do not have to bear the cost of this massive borrowing !
Voters need to wake-up and bring bring about a change of leadership
Iftekhar Hussain
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
War Deadenders Take Hope: The Surge May Not Be Working, But a US-Allawi Coup May Be On Its Way by Arianna Huffington
Published on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 by Huffington Post
War Deadenders Take Hope: The Surge May Not Be Working, But a US-Allawi Coup May Be On Its Way
by Arianna Huffington
As we all await the Petraeus Report on the state of the surge, we may also need to be anticipating the Allawi Coup.
I’m talking, of course about Ayad Allawi, longtime C.I.A. asset and former interim prime minister of Iraq. He’s making quite the PR push to get his old job back, penning an op-ed for the Washington Post, hooking up with Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition on Sunday, and even putting the high-powered GOP lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers on a $300,000 retainer....
read more below
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/28/3454/
War Deadenders Take Hope: The Surge May Not Be Working, But a US-Allawi Coup May Be On Its Way
by Arianna Huffington
As we all await the Petraeus Report on the state of the surge, we may also need to be anticipating the Allawi Coup.
I’m talking, of course about Ayad Allawi, longtime C.I.A. asset and former interim prime minister of Iraq. He’s making quite the PR push to get his old job back, penning an op-ed for the Washington Post, hooking up with Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition on Sunday, and even putting the high-powered GOP lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers on a $300,000 retainer....
read more below
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/28/3454/
Monday, August 27, 2007
Pitching the Imperial Republic by Juan Cole
Published on Thursday, August 23, 2007 by TomDispatch.com
Pitching the Imperial Republic
Bonaparte and Bush on Deck
by Juan Cole
French Egypt and American Iraq can be considered bookends on the history of modern imperialism in the Middle East. The Bush administration’s already failed version of the conquest of Iraq is, of course, on everyone’s mind; while the French conquest of Egypt, now more than two centuries past, is all too little remembered, despite having been led by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose career has otherwise hardly languished in obscurity. There are many eerily familiar resonances between the two misadventures, not least among them that both began with supreme arrogance and ended as fiascoes. Above all, the leaders of both occupations employed the same basic political vocabulary and rhetorical flimflammery, invoking the spirit of liberty, security, and democracy while largely ignoring the substance of these concepts...
read more below
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/23/3346/
Pitching the Imperial Republic
Bonaparte and Bush on Deck
by Juan Cole
French Egypt and American Iraq can be considered bookends on the history of modern imperialism in the Middle East. The Bush administration’s already failed version of the conquest of Iraq is, of course, on everyone’s mind; while the French conquest of Egypt, now more than two centuries past, is all too little remembered, despite having been led by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose career has otherwise hardly languished in obscurity. There are many eerily familiar resonances between the two misadventures, not least among them that both began with supreme arrogance and ended as fiascoes. Above all, the leaders of both occupations employed the same basic political vocabulary and rhetorical flimflammery, invoking the spirit of liberty, security, and democracy while largely ignoring the substance of these concepts...
read more below
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/23/3346/
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