Tag: Saddam Hussein

From ‘War on Terror’ to ‘War on Covid’ – Lessons to be Learned

01MAY2003 – GWB declares victory in the War on Terror (too soon Bush II, too soon as Kabul, Afghanistan experiences a Saigon, Vietnam moment here in 2021)

I know this is extremely OLD news, but remember when the US Deep State accused Bin Laden and his gang (of 50-200) in Afghanistan of orchestrating 9/11? Remember when GW Bush accused Saddam Hussein of possessing WMDs (WMDs that we gave Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War 1984-1988)?

The RESPONSE to these two lies was excessively over the top. The response COULD have been a strategic targeted CIA/SpecialForces mission that involved 50 men in both countries to CSI. But no, the US decides to sacrifice our troops (both physical and mental death/PTSD) in both of these countries over the next two decades, sacrifice the innocent people in these counties (their life, their livelihood making many refugees while eradicating Christianity) while spending trillions of US taxpayer’s money.

What do we have to show for all that sacrifice here in 2021? Nothing!

The greater good was never achieved. Bringing “democracy” to the Middle East only brought death, heartache, pain and poverty.

So the US elite says: “Let’s bring this to the homeland”

Now consider the War on Covid.

Headlines read: “15 Days to Flatten the Curve”, “Hospitals are Overwhelmed” and “Vaccines are Totally Safe”

The RESPONSE domestically has again been over the top. Beginning with masks which Tony Fauci rightfully said initially as being a “comfort” mechanism before he went political and suggested 2x, this crowd submission method was a placeholder until the mRNA vaccines could be delivered less than a year later (thanks “Father of the Vaccine” Trump SARCASM).

When we think of the phases toward mandating the “vaccine”, I can’t help but think of the pressure the US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan accomplished when freedom fighters in those countries were hard pressed, they became ever increasingly resistant and resilient. “Terror” groups morphed overnight sporting names like Al Qaeda, Taliban and more. Geographic boundaries meant nothing as ISIS spread from Iraq to Syria. The result was opposite the stated goals of the US Empire’s CIA/Pentagon/MIC complex.

But no one remembers years later.

So too with this latest war. Fighting an obscure enemy (COVID is ONLY a set of ever evolving symptoms that can come from SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and other respiratory viruses like the flu), allows the fighters to shift their efforts while propping up their narrative, the “noble lie” (think Plato) that validates their forced mandates.

Consider the 1984 statement in the DHHS Federal Register, Vol 49 No 107 from June 1, 1984 in reference to the final rules concerning polio vaccination campaigns in the U.S.:

…any possible doubts, whether or not well founded, about the safety of the vaccine cannot be allowed to exist in view of the need to assure the vaccine will continue to be used to the maximum extent consistent with the nation’s public health objectives.

This is why the following narrative (propaganda) is enforced on the public by government, media, big tech, big pharma and large US corporations:

  • Herd immunity is required to enable economic and social recovery
  • Vaccines are the only route to achieving herd immunity
  • COVID-19 vaccines are perfectly safe
  • COVID-19 vaccines provide protective, durable immunity

This excessive push of mandatory vaccines is counter-intuitive and has some scary long-term effects not even thinking about the vaccine’s adverse effects themselves.

Vaccine expert Geert Vanden Bossche explains:

As of the early days of the mass vaccination campaigns, at least a few experts have been warning against the catastrophic impact such a program could have on global and individual health. Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated

The “hard press” on the virus is fueling the variants.

The “hard press” on the ‘terrorists’ fueled the variants.

I guess when you have a hammer like government .. everything is a nail.

George Washington knew this first hand when he led 15,000 troops into Pennsylvania to put down the “Whiskey Rebellion” which he and Alexander Hamilton caused due to the heavy tax (8x higher than King George’s taxes on the American colonies) on whiskey that they themselves had authorized.

A reasonable approach to this “War on Covid” would be as mRNA inventor Robert W. Malone suggests:

  • Full and complete disclosure on the vaccines
  • Comprehension of risks that the vaccines bring
  • Full voluntary participation with no coercion and no enticement

A healthy approach would follow more like Sweden’s strategy that has resulted in ZERO deaths there from COVID in the past weeks. A balanced response that allows the virus to move through the healthy younger population while protecting the older more frail population.

  • Provide personal risk assessment tools/apps
  • Provide clear and complete data on vaccine trials
  • Offer vaccination to high risk individuals
  • Understand that COVID is complex with different stages which means that allowing physicians to practice evidence-based medicine guided by laboratory testing
  • Use sequence-independent stage-appropriate medicines like Ivermectin, Famotidine/Celecoxib, Fluvoxamine, Apixaban, Vitamin D, etc.
  • Emphasize treating patients as soon as they develop disease in outpatient stage
  • Stop censoring and blocking repurposed drug development

Only when a healthier medical-industrial complex emerges will public confidence in healthcare rebound:

  • Public campaigns should be positive, ethical, truthful and empathic
  • People should feel empowered when making health choices
  • In both actions and words it is important to steer clear of fear, coercion and questionable ethics
  • Obey the law and be transparent about risks while not circumventing time tested processes and ethics
  • Trust, educate and respect citizens right to choose
  • Avoid authoritarian demands, information censorship and psychological manipulation via big media and big tech

I am not holding my breath. It took 20 years to unravel the “War on Terror”, so how long will it be for the truth to emerge around the “War on Covid”?

-SF1

The US / Iraq Spat: What is it Really About? (Occupation, Drones, Oil, Petro$ ..)

Critical thinkers, after a spat or confrontation, will reflect on the encounter and attempt to understand the motives of those involved. This requires getting out of your own shoes and into the shoes of others.

We usually assume the best in others by default. People we meet for the first time we try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Over time we can then compare words with actions and be a pretty good judge of character.

We are also influenced by our upbringing, and our schooling, and if that involves government schools or even most private schools, the bias is there. We have learned of George Washington and the cherry tree (myth), we have learned about Honest Abe (myth) and we have learned about good government.

There is no doubt that this base operating system allows most people to see government as a natural safety net, and a natural “go-to” for any life problem that comes along, the Nanny State can take care of it best. But I digress.

When it comes to thinking about the United States of America, or more accurately, the US Empire, there is a natural inclination to think of American Exceptionalism. Being proud of America to the point of thinking it knows best for every people group around the world is as American as “apple pie”.

So when President Donald Trump says:

Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil. (emphasis added)

.. you have to really wonder, what about all the times he references oil in Syria as being critical for the US to protect or wanting 50% of Iraq’s oil revenue to pay for all that the US has done in Iraq since the invasion, is it really about the oil, or things links to and through the oil?

Whitney Webb from a Mint Press article does a great job at looking at all the angles to determine motives. She even references another great thinker, Tom Loungo and his Gold, Goats N’Guns web page in her attempt to get her mind around what Trump, the Neo-Cons and the War Party are angling for:

Yet, given the centrality of the recent Iraq-China oil deal in guiding some of the Trump administration’s recent Middle East policy moves, this appears not to be the case. The distinction may lie in the fact that, while the U.S. may now be less dependent on oil imports from the Middle East, it still very much needs to continue to dominate how oil is traded and sold on international markets in order to maintain its status as both a global military and financial superpower.

Bingo Whitney.

This is the core that fuels the MIC, the Deep State, the War Party as well as the US Empire itself. Without the petrodollar, the US military can no longer have its $1T annual budget, and the whole US economic charade would be revealed.

 

The article continues to say:

As Kei Pritsker and Cale Holmes noted in an article last year for MintPress:

The takeaway from the petrodollar phenomenon is that as long as countries need oil, they will need the dollar. As long as countries demand dollars, the U.S. can continue to go into massive amounts of debt to fund its network of global military bases, Wall Street bailouts, nuclear missiles, and tax cuts for the rich.”

Yes, at its core, this is probably the only long-range thinking the US Empire cares about with the only exception of possibly Israel’s survival.

Historically, Iraq remembers:

It appears that the ever-present role of the petrodollar in guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East remains unchanged. The petrodollar has long been a driving factor behind the U.S.’ policy towards Iraq specifically, as one of the key triggers for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s decision to sell Iraqi oil in Euros opposed to dollars beginning in the year 2000. Just weeks before the invasion began, Hussein boasted that Iraq’s Euro-based oil revenue account was earning a higher interest rate than it would have been if it had continued to sell its oil in dollars, an apparent signal to other oil exporters that the petrodollar system was only really benefiting the United States at their own expense.

Libya also found out the hard way what happens to countries outside of the US Empire’s orbit.

The tilt away from the US Empire started earlier last year in AUG2019 when Iraq asserted its sovereignty on its border with Syria:

Luongo also argued that the current tensions between U.S. and Iraqi leadership preceded the oil deal between Iraq and China by several weeks, “All of this starts with Prime Minister Mahdi starting the process of opening up the Iraq-Syria border crossing and that was announced in August. Then, the Israeli air attacks happened in September to try and stop that from happening, attacks on PMU forces on the border crossing along with the ammo dump attacks near Baghdad ..

Then, it was Iraq looking at options for its own rebuilding (the US Empire has squandered billions of dollars on projects that help the US Empire more than it does the Iraqi infrastructure, even though the US invasion was a mistake and rightly should have the US bear the expense of rebuilding).

Iraq looked to the east, with China, and found a better deal than the one that Trump offered Iraq:

While Trump demanded half of Iraq’s oil revenue in exchange for completing reconstruction projects (according to Abdul-Mahdi), the deal that was signed between Iraq and China would see around 20 percent of Iraq’s oil revenue go to China in exchange for reconstruction.

It was right after that Chinese conference that Iraq started seeing unrest, “coincidentally”:

Abdul-Mahdi’s delegation to China ended on September 24, with the protests against his government that Trump reportedly threatened to start on October 1. Reports of a “third side” firing on Iraqi protesters were picked up by major media outlets at the time, such as in this BBC report which stated:

Reports say the security forces opened fire, but another account says unknown gunmen were responsible….a source in Karbala told the BBC that one of the dead was a guard at a nearby Shia shrine who happened to be passing by. The source also said the origin of the gunfire was unknown and it had targeted both the protesters and security forces. (emphasis added)”

This is exactly what the US did in Ukraine back in 2014 .. it has the US Empire’s fingerprints all over it.

Then ..

.. after my [Abdul-Mahdi] return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement.”

“I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist to this day on canceling the China agreement. When the defense minister said that those killing the demonstrators was a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically threatened myself and the defense minister in the event that there was more talk about this third party ..

Yes, this is the true character of the US empire, in actions, verses the words from George W. Bush in DEC2005:

Just over two-and-a-half years ago, Iraq was in the grip of a cruel dictator who had invaded his neighbors, sponsored terrorists, pursued and used weapons of mass destruction, murdered his own people, and for more than a decade, defied the demands of the United Nations and the civilized world. Since then, the Iraqi people have assumed sovereignty over their country, held free elections, drafted a democratic constitution, and approved that constitution in a nationwide referendum. Three days from now, they go to polls for the third time this year, and choose a new government under the new constitution.

Democracy arrived in Iraq in 2005, but now 15 years later, with the US still occupying this country that it wrongfully invaded, the US wants a monopoly on “re-building Iraq” and “keeping ISIS out of Iraq”.

Whatever, go home US Empire!!

Peace out

-SF1

Codependency: US Empire and Iraq

We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect, or take measures to ensure, that this war is a war to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form. The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation. – Randolph Bourne 1918

You might not have been taught this in your history class, but the United States has had its nose in Middle East affairs for over 70 years now. Specifically, there are a few dates that this relationship has in its timeline:

  • 1957 – The Ba’ath Party is a small, underground Arab nationalist group that supports the creation of a pan-Arab state and at age 20, Saddam Hussein joins the party.
  • 1959 – Saddam is selected by the Ba’ath Party to be part of seven-man hit squad to assassinate Iraqi leader Gen. Abdel Karim Kassem. The plot fails.  Saddam flees to Cairo and becomes caught up in Egypt’s own revolution under the charismatic Gamel Abdel Nasser, whose pan-Arabism Saddam finds appealing. Saddam also becomes a leader of the Ba’ath Party’s student cell in Cairo and reportedly regularly visits the U.S. embassy to meet with CIA agents interested in sparking Gen. Kassem’s overthrow.
  • 1963 – Kassem is assassinated by members of the Ba’ath Party and the CIA helps the Ba’athists by providing lists of suspected communists for the party’s hit squads, who kill an estimated 800 people. Saddam returns home to Iraq and rejoins the party as an interrogator, torturer and killer. Nine months later, the army overthrows the Ba’ath Party and Saddam is jailed.
  • 1968 -The Ba’ath Party seizes power in Iraq, this time under Ahmad Hassan Al Bakr, Saddam’s cousin. Bakr entrusts his 31-year-old relative Saddam with the most important job of all: running the state security apparatus to extinguish dissent both inside and outside the party. Within a year and a half, Saddam emerges as Bakr’s right hand man. CIA connections are intact.
  • 1970s – As Saddam’s power and influence grows, it is clear that he has designs on the presidency himself, but he also knows that Bakr has powerful support from the army. Saddam begins to plot against the military establishment and to systematically remove Bakr’s closest colleagues.
  • 1979 – Saddam stages a palace coup and President Bakr resigns for health reasons. Among Saddam’s first actions after assuming the presidency is purging the Ba’ath Party of any potential enemies.Several weeks into his presidency, Saddam calls a meeting of the Ba’ath Party leadership and insists it be videotaped. He announces there are traitors in their midst and reads out their names. One by one, the individuals are led out, never to be seen again. Tapes of the meeting are sent throughout the country, allowing Saddam to send a message to the Iraqi elite.
  • 22SEP1980 – With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran and during this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein’s power at home, allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. In one of the largest ground assaults since World War II, Saddam sends 200,000 troops across the Iranian border, initiating what would become a bloody eight-year conflict.
  • 1981 – When Ronald Reagan becomes president, he endorses a policy aiming for a stalemate in the war so that neither side emerges from the war with any additional power. But in 1982, fearing Iraq might lose the war, the U.S. begins to help. Over the next six years, a string of CIA agents go to Baghdad. Hand-carrying the latest satellite intelligence about the Iranian front line, they pass the information to their Iraqi counterparts. The U.S. gives Iraq enough help to avoid defeat, but not enough to secure victory.
  • 1986 -The Iran-Contra scheme is conceived by Reagan administration officials. Iran had been running out of military supplies in its war with Iraq and Reagan is advised that the U.S. could strike a deal in which secret arms sales to Iran could lead to the release of U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. Public exposure of the plan — which also involved illegally diverting the proceeds from the arms sales to the U.S.-backed Contras in Nicaragua — leads to the end of the U.S. policy. However, when Saddam learns of America’s actions, he vows never to trust the U.S. again.
  • 1987 – U.S. supplied chemical weapons are used when Iraqi forces unleash a devastating gas attack in the town of Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds.
  • 1988 – Iraq-Iran War Ceasefire
  • 02AUG1990 – (Sec. of State) James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to Iraq to emphasize that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. Apparently, Saddam Hussein took those words as a green light to invade Kuwait.
  • 17JAN1991 – Gulf War I – one of the most egregious acts that the U.S. military committed against the Iraqis was to intentionally destroy civilian water and sewage treatment centers and electrical facilities.

  • 1994 – Clinton sanctions on Iraq most effective when massive water and sewage issues plague a country, diseases such as cholera, measles, and typhoid had led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and a skyrocketing infant mortality rate, with many more deaths by 2000.
  • 30JAN2002 – US President Bush labels Iraq as part of the “Axis of Evil”
  • 20MAR2003 – Based on a lie, that Iraq had WMDs, the US and their coalition partners invade Iraq. Why did we invade and occupy Iraq? We were told Iraq was strong and dangerous. We were told that sanctions were not working, and Saddam Hussein was not in compliance with the UN disarmament regime. We were told that Iraq was working on a viable chemical, biological and nuclear program, had many of these weapons already, and was also working with terrorists who targeted and would target the United States. It was suggested repeatedly in Presidential and Vice Presidential speeches, in statements by the Secretary of Defense and other administration mouthpieces that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9-11 attacks on the United States. While the Pentagon, CIA and State Department knew Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda. Instead, we understood that they were competitors and adversaries on both governing and religious issues. Two things angered Osama bin Laden — US forces in Saudi Arabia, and a godless Ba-ath dictatorship in Iraq. We also knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11!

  • 2007 – Iraq is a country that once had 26 million inhabitants, but two million have fled, two million more are internally homeless, and nearly a million have lost their lives since we invaded in 2003. The 80% who have homes remain huddled and fearful, often behind large walls that separate them from family and friend, in the name of ethnic purification, something that the U.S. military is actively pursuing because it tends to make for better statistics. Everyone in Iraq has been touched, and not in a good way, by our invasion and subsequent occupation.
  • 2008 – Iraqi power vacuum and Syrian regime change appears on CIA vision statements prompting the birth of ISIS
  • 2011 – ISIS grows during Arab Spring as CIA vision statements also talk about regime change in Libya
  • 2014 – US and other coalition troops re-enter Iraq to ‘battle’ ISIS in Iraq
  • 2020 – The US kills the Iranian general who was most effective against ISIS forces

Symptoms of codependency:

In its most basic terms, codependency occurs at one of the extremes of relationship dynamics – when two partners draw more from each other than from their own inner strength.
This is not a stable condition.
Codependency deepens as partner feedback tends to grow in importance and self-confidence steadily diminishes as a result.
The relationship becomes highly reactive and fraught, with mounting tensions. Invariably, one partner hits a limit and seeks a new source of sustenance.
This leaves the other feeling scorned, steeped in denial and blame, and ultimately with a vindictive urge to lash out in response.

Iraq, I ask you, are you there yet?

In Eric Margolis’ latest column he reminds us of what Osama bin Laden saw:

Before he was murdered, Osama bin Laden called this monster Baghdad embassy and its twin in Kabul, `crusader fortresses.’ That is indeed their role, and to serve as the nerve center for all Mideast operations by the US. Iraq enjoys some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Where the profit from Iraq’s mammoth oil exports go remains a closely guarded secret.

He goes on to talk about Iraq’s ‘rich’ history and experience going back 100 years even with the British when they were the imperialists of the day:

Imperial Britain ruled Iraq … using the RAF to smash all opposition to the British-installed puppet ruler in Baghdad. In the 1920’s Churchill even authorized the RAF to use poison gas against rebellious Iraqi Kurds (as well as Afghan Pashtun tribes).

True to form, the US abuses Iraq in a similar way:

Washington has imposed an air exclusivity zone there. Real control of flat, largely barren Iraq comes from the air. US war planes based there and in Qatar can blast anything that moves in Mesopotamia.

It is for the following reason that the US will not be quick to exit Iraq:

Iraq has become the central military base and inexhaustible oil reservoir for the US that was envisaged by the Bush administration and its neocons. That is a major step in the total US domination of the Mideast and its energy resources.

Iraq, have you hit your limit yet? To what degree will you go to remove the US from what should be your sovereign nation with the consent of the governed?

-SF1

Epic Lies: Bringing Democracy to the World & Mission Accomplished

Usually, when the bombs start to drop, it is really the middle of the story. The start of the story is usually hidden to the public at large, both intentionally and by sheer ignorance.

The “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq by US forces in 2003 was not the reaction to something Saddam did wrong, like having WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), but was part of an agenda that was set in motion years if not decades before:

It’s surely clear to almost everyone now that we were lied into an illegal war which not only destroyed an entire country, but which also led directly to the rise of ISIS and helped bring terrorism to Europe too. – Ron Paul (2016)

While statism kills, empires kill on a whole different level. While nations like Germany (Jews) and China (farmers) and USSR (Ukrainians, etc) and USA (Southerners and American Indians) do their share of genocide, there is nothing like an empire that can take that to a whole different level.

But it was not always so. Take for instance a majority of the time the British Empire was a world power, as Eric S. Margolis in this article explains:

The British were always masters of efficient imperialism. In the 19th century, they managed to rule a quarter of the Earth’s surface with only a relatively small army supported by a great fleet. Many of their imperial subjects were so overawed by the pomp and circumstance of British rule that they often willingly cooperated, or at least bent the knee.

Call it colonialism 101. Ardent students of Roman history, the British early on adopted the Roman strategy of ‘divide et impera’, divide and conquer. The application of this strategy allowed the British Empire to rule over vast numbers of people with minimal force.

For over one hundred years, life in the American colonies were not bad at all actually. This is why there was 1/3rd of Americans that did NOT want to go to war with the British Empire, as up until the 1760s, the British ruled in a minimalist way!

When we reflect on the poor country of Iraq, and how it was somewhat abused by English power in the early 20th century especially after the discovery of oil, never really knew what was in store for them by 1990. From a post WWII transition that saw American influences in the Middle East region on the increase, and with Saddam Hussein in the employ and control of the CIA, even supplying Iraq with chemical weapons in its war against Iran in the 1980s, it is clear that the American Empire was in the driver’s seat.

In 1990, when the world was shocked that Hussein invaded Kuwait, there were those in the US Government that were not surprised as they gave him the green light. This even allowed the US Empire a “reason” to respond to this attack on an adjacent sovereign nation and allowed a “coalition” of UN nations to mount an attack on Iraq (Gulf War I) to place it under tighter control until the US again invaded 12 years later.

Eric S. Margolis goes on to explain:

I was in Iraq in 2001 and 2003 and saw how much it had developed in spite of the draconian rule of Saddam Hussein. I was one of only a few journalists trying to dispute the western lies about Iraq. The dim-witted Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me as a spy – after I revealed their germ warfare plant at Salman Pak had been set up and was secretly run by British technicians.

There was enough fake news in the early 2000s to convince the American public and the world that Saddam was bad and that the US and its allies were good.

Iraq, let’s recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia.

Truth be told, these “leaders” are in fact war criminals still walking free.

Most people don’t understand that Iraq remains a US-occupied nation. We hear nothing about the billions of dollars of Iraqi oil extracted by big US oil firms since 2003. For the US, Iraq was a treasure house of oil with 12% of world reserves. It was OPEC’s 2nd largest producer.

Recall one of the leading neocons who engineered the invasion of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, claimed the US could finance its entire invasion of Iraq (he estimated the cost at about $70 billion) by plundering Iraq’s oil. Today, the cost of the occupation has reached over $1 trillion. Wolfie is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, President Trump says the US will grab Syria’s oil fields.

It is all very sick, but the problems in Iraq do not make it into MSM these days:

Ever since the 2003 invasion, Iraq has been ruled by a succession of US-appointed figureheads who have proven as corrupt as they are inept. During the war, the US destroyed most of Iraq’s water and sewage systems, causing some 500,000 children to die from water-borne diseases, wrecking much of its industry and commerce, leaving millions of men unemployed. Public services have broken down.

Before the US invasion, Iraq led the Arab world in industry, farming, medicine, education and women’s rights. All that was destroyed by the ‘liberation.’

The fallout from this conflict and that in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have produced economic refugees that have invaded Europe and dispersed Christians out of the Middle East. Will we ever know the true statistics for all the chaos that was put into action in 2001 (Afghanistan) and 2003 (Iraq)?

How is that for the legacy of American Exceptionalism?

Blow-back (CIA term) is a thing, and we thought the 2000/2010s had seen enough terrorism as a result, just wait ..

-SF1