In the first month after the war on Iraq’s fourth anniversary, the war and occupation enters its fifth year with more disinformation continuing to come to light (testimony of Jessica Lynch; Pat Tillman killed by “friendly fire”) and Bill Moyers PBS documentary ‘Buying the War‘.
Meanwhile, the Senate’s number two Democrat Dick Durbinadmitted he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but claimed that he was compelled to remain silent because as a member of the intelligence committee, he was sworn to secrecy: “I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn’t do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can’t walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress.” Someone please send him a whistleblowers manual: his silence has cost lives and revealed a corruption of accountability, to say the least.
And George Tenet, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency in the run-up to and after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, has released his book At the Center of the Storm, in which he says there was never a real debate in the White House about Saddam Hussein’s regime and whether the war war warranted. In the book he writes: “The true tragedy of Iraq is that it didn’t have to be this way. We were dismissive about the capacity of Iraqis to control their own future. We have struggled ever since.” While the book provides another damning indictment of the administration, one should also be mindful that Tenet went along with cooked intelligence and that the motive of the book is to hit back at the administration and attempt to absolve his own involvement in the criminal actions of the lead-up to the invasion (see this video clip arguing that Tenet’s complicity must also be recognized — thanks Fanonite).
I have plucked this month as another stocktaking point, with representative references from various MSM and alternative press sources to reflect upon these past four years since the awful Anglo-American invasion. Lest we let up our efforts to help end this war, to expose disinformation, to forget the destruction of lives and of a whole country on neocon lies.
In April, there is also some springtime hope. As the Congressional Democrats continue to slither and slide on representing the will of the American electorate (and more importantly, the will of Iraqis), perhaps the least known Democratic president candidate, Mike Gravel, made the best showing in speaking up about the war against Iraq (see video below) and has been the most noticed n the blogosphere, while fellow contender Dennis Kucinich bolstered impeachment proceedings by introducing House Resolution 333 for the Impeachment of Richard Cheney, amid the impeachment movement gaining ground and grassroots support.
6 minutes:
April Press Picks
Don Monkerud, We’ve Been Surging For Years: More troops in Iraq than reported, TomPaine, 6 April 2007
Robert Scheer, Iraqis Finally Unite—Against the U.S., Truth Dig, 10 April 2007
Robert Fisk, Divide and rule – America’s plan for Baghdad, Independent, 11 April 2007
Dahr Jamail, Refugees Speak of Escape from Hell, IPS, 11 April 2007
BBC, Iraq policy ‘spawned new terror’, BBC Report on Oxford Research Group findings, 11 April 2007
Patrick Cockburn, Under siege: A special report from war-torn Mosel, Independent, 12 April 2007
Matthew B. Stannard, Anna Badkhen, Tour extension hits families, soldiers hard, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 April 2007
Haifa Zangana, The Iraqi resistance only exists to end the occupation, The Guardian, 12 April 2007
Pepe Escobar, The Baghdad Gulag, Asia Times, 13 April 2007
Dilip Hiro, Sadr’s Rising Star to Eclipse Bush’s Surge?, TomDispatch, 15 April 2007
Keith B. Richburg, Iraqis Say Lynch Raid Faced No Resistance, Washington Post, 15 April 2007
IRIN, Thousands without food and supplies due to failing distribution system, 16 April 2007
IRIN, Thousands Missing Since War Began, 18 April 2007
Ed Crooks, Iraq may hold twice as much oil, Financial Times, 18 April 2007
IRIN, Walls will increase violence, specialists say, 23 April
German Press Agency, Work on Baghdad wall continues despite premier’s opposition, dpa, 23 April, 2007
Saul Landau, The Courage to Withdraw: Axis of Cowards – Bush, Congress and the Media, Counterpunch, 23 April 2007
Nir Rosen, Security Contractors: Riding Shotgun With Our Shadow Army In Iraq, Mother Jones, 24 April 2007
Mark Tran, ‘Little girl Rambo’ [Jessica Lynch] decries US propaganda, Guardian, 24 April 2007
Vivienne Walt, Iraqi Oil: More Plentiful Than Thought, Time, 24 April
IRIN, Decline in municipal services boosts violence and disease, 25 April 2007
“Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.” Edward Said (1994)
Timely Reminders
"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against
the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better,
but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse
than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking
primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions,
to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley
"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination.
All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.
"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"
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