OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #120, APRIL 5, 2023
PEACE MOVEMENT
[I am more comprehensively
identifying the “Peace Movement”
in two parts: I.
Opposition to preparation for war and war (the worst of all crimes
according to the UN Charter), , and II. Alternatives to war—diplomacy, etc.].
OPPOSITION TO WAR AND PREPARATION
FOR WAR
Chris Hedges. "The Lords of
Chaos" [US war crimes]. The Chris Hedges Report, March 22, 2023.
TEXTS
US War Crimes, National Moral
Reckoning, Ethical Amnesia, WWIII
Chris Hedges. "The Lords of
Chaos." The Chris Hedges Report, MAR 22, 2023.
The politicians and shills in the
media who orchestrated 20 years of military debacles in the Middle East, and
who seek a world dominated by U.S. power, must be held accountable for their
crimes.
Listen to This Article. Narrated by Eunice Wong. Text originally published 03/19/2023. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/listen-to-this-article-the-lords?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#details
[I highlight words and passages
mainly to help me more quickly reread the essays, so many there are. –Dick)
“. . .Yes, Saddam Hussein was brutal and murderous, but in terms of a body
count, we far outstripped his killings, including his genocidal campaigns
against the Kurds. We destroyed Iraq
as a unified country, devastated its modern infrastructure, wiped out its
thriving and educated middle class, gave birth to rogue militias and installed
a kleptocracy that uses the country’s oil revenues to enrich itself. Ordinary
Iraqis are impoverished. Hundreds of Iraqis protesting in the streets against
the kleptocracy have been gunned down by police. There are frequent power
outages. The Shi’ite majority, closely allied with Iran, dominates the country.
The occupation of Iraq, beginning 20 years ago today, turned the Muslim
world and the Global South against us. The enduring images we left behind from
two decades of war include President
Bush standing under a “Mission Accomplished” banner onboard the USS Abraham
Lincoln aircraft carrier barely one month after he invaded Iraq, the bodies of
Iraqis in Fallujah that were burned with white phosphorus and the photos of
torture by U.S. soldiers.
The U.S. is desperately attempting to
use Ukraine to repair its image. But
the rank hypocrisy of calling for “a rules-based international order” to
justify the $113 billion in arms and other aid that the U.S. has committed to
send to Ukraine, won’t work. It ignores what we did. We might forget, but the
victims do not. The only redemptive path is charging Bush, Cheney and the other
architects of the wars in the Middle East, including Joe Biden, as war
criminals in the International Criminal
Court. Haul Russian President Vladimir Putin
off to The Hague, but only if Bush
is in the cell next to him.
Many of the apologists for the war
in Iraq seek to justify their support by arguing that “mistakes” were made,
that if, for example, the Iraqi civil service and army were not disbanded after
the U.S. invaded, the occupation would have worked. They insist that our
intentions were honorable. They ignore the hubris and lies that led to the war,
the misguided belief that the U.S. could be the sole major power in a unipolar world. They ignore the massive military
expenditures spent annually to achieve this fantasy. They ignore that the war
in Iraq was only an episode in this demented quest.
A national reckoning with the military fiascos in the Middle East
would expose the self-delusion of the ruling class. But this reckoning is not
taking place. We are trying to wish the nightmares we perpetuated in the Middle
East away, burying them in a collective
amnesia. “World War III Begins
With Forgetting,” warns Stephen Wertheim. . . .
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/listen-to-this-article-the-lords?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#details