Free Iraq

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Further to the previous posting "They hate us for our Freedoms." September 12, 2010, the below Arabic article by Haifa Zangana is a further condemnation of the in-your-face abrogation of the U.S. occupier of its responsibility for its victims of the illegal occupation of Iraq:

"Christopher Crowley, USAID director in Iraq, said the push for Iraqis to take over the U.S. victims aid program is part of a general trend for all American assistance programs here. The U.S. is "seeking a larger contribution from the (Iraqi) government to these programs so they will become more sustainable as time goes on," he said.

But the move is rankling some Iraqis. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has criticized the U.S. for rushing to cut ties to Iraq, saying: "Their message to us is: 'Solve your problems quickly so that we can withdraw quickly."'

Crowley said many in the U.S. believe Iraq has the means to pay its own way to rebuild after the war, with the world's third largest proven reserves of crude oil -- though so far infrastructure woes mean Iraq is far from producing as much as it could.

"Presumably, when Iraq is reaching its full potential with regard to its oil resources, it's not going to need this kind of assistance," he said.

Asked why the Iraqi government should pay compensation for deaths during American operations, he said the victims "are Iraqi citizens. We would like to see an expansion of the definition of victims beyond those injured and wounded in U.S. military action" to include all the innocent war victims.
US wants Iraq to pay bill for war victims, August 12, 2010
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ـ16 أيلول 2010

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"Even for those who believe they're inured to the absurdities of imperial irony, this is almost too extreme to process:

The New York Times, Wednesday, September 8, 2010:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information. . . .

"To this date, not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture program has had his day in court," [the ACLU's Ben] Wizner said. . . . "If this decision stands, the United States will have closed its courts to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers. (emphasis added)"

Yahoo! News, yesterday, September 10, 2010:

Iraq to pay $400 million for Saddam's mistreatment of Americans.

Iraq has quietly agreed to pay $400 million in claims to American citizens who say they were tortured or traumatized by Saddam Hussein’s regime after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait. (emphasis added).

The controversial settlement ends years of legal battles and could help Iraq emerge from United Nations sanctions put in place two decades ago -- a step Iraqi leaders see as a prerequisite to becoming fully sovereign. . . . Settling the claims, which were brought by American citizens, has been seen as a key requirement for Washington to be willing to push for an end to the UN sanctions. . . . (emphasis added)

Despite Iraq’s potential oil wealth, the country has major economic problems, including widespread poverty, 30 percent unemployment, and an infant mortality rate among the highest in the region. . . .

The settlement is controversial not only because of Iraq's pressing developmental needs, but because it holds the current government accountable for Saddam Hussein’s actions.

“A lot of blood has flowed since then and a lot of it is Iraqi blood. It’s arguable that the suffering was not caused by the current Iraqi government or the Iraqi people,” says one senior Iraqi official. “This is politics, this is not justice.”

So, to recap: the U.S. creates a worldwide regime of torture, disappearances and lawless imprisonment. Then, the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and the American federal judiciary all collaborate to shield the guilty parties from all accountability (Look Forward, Not Backward!), and worse, to ensure that not a single victim can even access American courts to obtain a ruling as to the legality of what was done to them, let alone receive compensation for their suffering, even while recognizing that many of the victims were completely innocent and even though other countries have provided the victims with compensation for their much more minor role in what happened. Our courts even ensure that Blackwater guards are shielded from prosecution for the cold-blooded murder of Iraqi citizens.

But we invade, occupy and destroy Iraq -- while severely abusing, torturing and killing their citizens -- and then demand, as a condition for our allowing the end of crippling sanctions, that they fork over hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to American torture victims, even though it all happened 20 years ago, under an Iraqi regime that no longer even exists. They hate us for our Freedoms. (emphasis added)
America the Exceptional, September 11, 2010

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"“Iraq can still be a dangerous place at certain places for very short periods,” Col. Malcolm B. Frost, the commander of an advisory brigade in Diyala, wrote in a note to the soldiers’ families. “We will move around Iraq fully protected in armored Strykers and other armored vehicles, wearing full body armor, and fully loaded with ammunition to deal with the enemy if/when they raise their head in anger against us (emphasis added).” "
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There has also been a major increase in rocket and mortar attacks in the fortified Green Zone and at the Baghdad airport, according to Brig. Gen. Ralph O. Baker, the deputy commander of American forces in central Iraq. General Baker, who said there had been about 60 such attacks in the last two months (comment: see some of them in this previous posting) compared with “two or three” in the preceding months,..."
In Baghdad, U.S. Officials Take Note of Milestone, September 1, 2010
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ـ"وتدل تصريحات بعض العسكريين على انه حتى نزع البدلة العسكرية لن يتم لأن العدو (العراقي المقاوم للاحتلال) لن يتخلى عن القتال. اذ ذكر في مقال نشرته صحيفة 'نيويورك تايمز'، يوم الاربعاء، ان الكولونيل مالكولم فروست، قائد لواء الاستشارة (لاحظوا الاسم الجديد) في محافظة ديالى، كتب في مذكرة ارسلها الى أسر الجنود، مبينا لهم وضع ابنائهم الجديد: 'ان العراق لا يزال مكانا خطرا... لذلك، علينا أن نتحرك، لحماية انفسنا، في ارجاء العراق، بواسطة المدرعة سترايكر وغيرها من العربات المدرعة، وارتداء الدروع الواقية للبدن بكامله، ومحملين بالذخيرة بشكل كامل لنكون مهيئين للتعامل مع العدو إذا ما رفع رأسه غاضبا ضدنا'. وكان اللواء قد وصل الى العراق في تموز/يوليو 2010 وقد قتل حتى الآن اثنان من جنوده 'الاستشاريين' كما أصيب ثلاثة عشر منهم. وحسب العميد جنرال رالف بيكر، نائب قائد القوات الامركية في وسط العراق: 'ان هناك زيادة كبيرة في الهجمات بالصواريخ وقذائف الهاون على المنطقة الخضراء المحصنة، ومطار بغداد، و ان هناك نحو 60 من الهجمات، خلال الشهرين الماضيين، مقارنة مع اثنين أو ثلاثة في الأشهر السابقة'. ـ
هذه الحقائق ( وهي اقل من الواقع بكثير) لم يتحدث عنها نوري المالكي في خطابه عن 'الانسحاب' " ـ
سنضرب اذا ما رفع ' العدو' العراقي رأسه غاضبا ضدنا

ـ2 أيلول 2010

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The gut feeling

"For 20 years, I witnessed my country [Iraq], the land of my father, my mother, my ancestors, disintegrate before my very eyes...20 fucking years. 20 fucking years.

Story after story...image after image -- wheelchairs, amputations, limbs lost, eyes lost, fingers lost, a child dying, a woman raped and killed, a man tortured to death...story after story of -- poverty, disease, need, neglect, abandonment...story after story of an eternal fatigue that has settled upon us like a blanket..."
Vomiting Perfidy (definition: Deliberate breach of faith; calculated violation of trust; treachery), September 2, 2010
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Iraqi victims

The Horror And Reality Of The US-Anglo "OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM" (pictures)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
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Recent sample of the Iraqi Patriotic Resistance attacks (videos)

"We won! ... America, we brought democracy to Iraq!”
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War criminals

President Bush's "Bring Them On" Picture Album
Part 1
Part 2
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