Tag: WMDs

Evil, Sheep and the Lions

It does seem that the world is seriously out of balance having so many evil, so many sheep and not enough lions. It is disheartening, but only to those who critically think. The masses are oblivious and always will be in their search for a leader to inspire them even if it leads to a boxcar or a yellow star on their coat.

This latest season towards a Great Reset needs a Greater Reset. There needs to be as Allen Stevo says in his recent piece:

What is to be obsessed over is this exactly: the steel-spined, the lions, the righteous, those who know good from evil, those who cherish that line between good and evil as boundaries and values, who seek to live a righteous life, who of course screw up from time to time, who of course make mistakes, but who will defend and advance what is right and do the important work against that which is wrong …

… I am here to wake the lions, to rouse them from their slumber, because once that’s done, I know how masterfully they will stand up and breathe freedom into the world around them through their every free breath, through their every free action. It is impossible for a roused lion to avoid rippling freedom and goodness into the world around him. They are not perfect, but they are pretty good at that ..

…All you really need to do, in order to end this all in victory, is to live life as truly free as you can…

Live life as freely as you can, and you will naturally inspire other sleeping lions to do the same. Stay the course!

Those of us that can see through the state’s BS should see the recycling of old ideas is the only thing evil has. Reflecting on the whole Iraq War I to 9/11 to Iraq Invasion (WMDs) with millions impacted, trillions USD spent and US debt/veteran suicides the end result SHOULD prompt us to see this military industrial complex’s agenda has now been hijacked by the medical industrial complex’s.

As Laurie Calhoun states in her recent piece:

In the build up to every new war, many people who do not stand to benefit from the intervention and may even be harmed by it often succumb to the propaganda and enthusiastically take up the cause. In the current crisis, the false dichotomization into two exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories, the enlightened science lovers and the anti-vaxxers, is also a part of a propaganda campaign. The persons who have declined vaccination, either because they already survived Covid-19, or because they prefer to wait for longterm safety data and do not believe that the possible benefits outweigh the unknown risks, are dismissed as crackpots, when in fact they are simply being prudent. Yet the media persists in propagating a misleading depiction of vaccine hesitancy in this specific case as proof of hostility toward science. This sort of polarization of the populace is, needless to say, on display during wartime as well, when anyone who dares to oppose a military intervention is depicted as a supporter of a tyrant abroad or an irrational pacifist or, when all else fails, a simple traitor.

So the hunt for WMDs and all the collateral damage (innocent lives lost/adversely impacted) have now morphed into the hunt for SARS-CoV-2 origin, when in fact, in BOTH cases the USA itself was the ultimate source.

Ultimately, it is the evil sociopaths that see the $ USD as the focus of the path forward. Just like once Iraq had been invaded, this served as the pretext for sacrificing even more blood and treasure as the quagmire intensified and spread to other countries, so too when the Covid-19 virus arrived on the scene, it became the pretext for a massive and abrupt transfer of wealth.

Just as the daily suicide rates for vets are ignored by the media, so too will the fallout from the ongoing lab trial of the recent set of experimental biological agents on the millions who see their ticket back to “normal” though this act of service.

Just as the 20-30 year war on terror required a “booster shot” of a new enemy from time to time .. so too will this war on a virus require new enemies to keep the narrative alive and the people frightened. Just know that the blending of these two wars is always possible and that Iran, Russia and China are each in the evil elite’s mind as the next cash cow to sustain their wicked ways.

To again divert from the consequences of politician’s decisions in this “Covid-Season”, the state will again turn to war as mentioned by Chuck Baldwin in his recent piece:

War is always Plan A for Western globalists, especially when it comes to distracting people from the crimes the Western elite have committed against their own people and creating a shadow economy for the war profiteers.

All the talk we are now hearing from both Trump and Biden and from both Republicans and Democrats about Covid being a bio-weapon from China will make that country the next monster that Washington, D.C., must pretend to destroy.

Of course, it’s all a façade, as the globalist elite in DC, London and Tel Aviv have been propping up the communist regime from the beginning—and still are. The war with China will be as bogus as America’s War on Terror.

So remember, live life as truly free as you can … and stay the course!

-SF1

The US (Working on Behalf of Israel) Made War on Afghanistan and Iraq – Next Up: Armenia?

When I talk of a people group/religion being impacted by US foreign policy, I do so only to confront the myth that the US is a Christian nation. Now we may have a lot of Christians in this country, but the nation, the federal government and its policies are not currently setup to protect Christians from persecution. Of course the Bush II push into Iraq was designed to “protect our freedoms” as an American people, but even this is questionable in the long run.

So a little review is in order. Over the past 30 years since the US gave Saddam (who protected Iraqi Christians) the green light to invade Kuwait and then wagged war (Gulf War I) on him, putting him on lock-down and having the Clinton-era dear Madeleine Albright say to Leslie Stahl about the 500,000 Iraqi children deaths cause by the US’s actions against Iraq:

This was followed during the Bush II administration by blaming Iraq on 9/11, accusing them of having WMDs and while instead of having the CIA root out any possible 9/11 conspirators (they should have looked within their ranks first) in Afghanistan, the USA invaded both countries to the benefit on ONLY Israel and possibly Saudi Arabia.

The result is that Afghanistan no longer has ANY Christian churches and Iraq lost a million plus (1.4M in 1987 to under 200,000 recently) at least bringing those number now almost to the point of extinction. So much for “democracy” that allows freedom of religion. Oh, that is wrong, democracy is mob rule, so I guess that is what we have in Iraq and Afghanistan today with the expulsion of Christians from there homes. This is very similar to Israel’s policy, knowing that 65% of Israel is Atheist where as almost all the Christians in the lands that Israel ruthlessly controls are Palestinians.

But I digress ..

So what does that have to do with two countries that most Americans could not pick out on a world map? Well, the US allied with Israel, in partnership with Turkey is at it again. Azerbaijan, the most secular country on the planet is invading Armenia, the most Christian country on the planet (98% Christian).

In summary, the US favors both Turkey and Israel, and Azerbaijan has oil – and is also favored by Turkey and Israel. Of course, we know Israel’s view of Iran. Iran is not allowed to be seen as a positive force in any manner whatsoever. So this makes Armenia expendable as far as the US is concerned.

There is a major disconnect between the US’s proud Christian heritage and supporting never-ending wars in the Middle East that seem to always work towards persecution of the Christians. We have evangelical Christians in the US totally rooting for Israel and their ally Azerbaijan with the US helping (and infusing the region with its old friend ISIS, which a majority are secular as well).

Moon of Alabama connects the dots well in his article:

Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan by supplying it with Turkish drones and with ‘moderate Syrian rebel’ mercenaries from Syrian and Libya. All are flown in through Georgian air space. Other mercenaries seem to come from Afghanistan. Additional hardware comes by road also through Georgia. Another supporter of the attacker is Israel. During the last week Azerbaijani military transport aircraft have flown at least six times to Israel to then return with additional Israeli suicide drones on board. These Harop drones have been widely used in attacks on Armenian positions. An Israeli made LORA short range ballistic missile was used by Azerbaijan to attack a bridge that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Allegedly there are also Turkish flown F-16 fighter planes in Azerbaijan.

The silver lining is that Russia holds the trump card and ends up ONE MORE TIME protecting innocent nations including their Christian populations (while the US has partnered with ISIS in both Iraq and Syria only to have Russia and Iran kick them to the curb in both countries while the US “claimed” to be fighting ISIS since the Obama administration. Pure BS. Pure lies.

The war seems already to be at a stalemate. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan can afford to use air power and ballistic missiles purchased from Russia without Russian consent.

This is some good news in a region where the US, Israel and Turkey would have all loved another war distraction. Iran and Russia PLUS Armenian Christians all stand to lose.

Here is proof of what they were really up to:

U.S. plans to ‘overextend Russia’ by creating trouble in the Caucasus just as it is now happening. Fort Russ notes:

The current director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, was doing field assignments in Turkey in the early stages of her career, she reportedly speaks Turkish, and she has history of serving as a station chief in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the late 1990s. It is, therefore, presumable that she still has connections with the local government and business elites.

The current Chief of the MI6, Richard Moore, also has history of working in Turkey — he was performing tasks for the British intelligence there in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Moore is fluent in Turkish and he also served as the British Ambassador to Turkey from 2014 to 2017.

The intelligence chiefs of the two most powerful countries in the Anglosphere are turkologists with connections in Turkey and Azerbaijan. It would be reasonable to assume that a regional conflict of such magnitude happening now, on their watch, is far from being a mere coincidence.

Before President Trump stopped the program the CIA had used the Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines in more than 350 flights to bring weapons from Bulgaria to Turkey to then hand them to ‘Syrian rebels’. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is not only a CIA station but also a Mossad center for waging its silent war against Iran.

So you see, our intervention abroad to spread democracy only causes despots at home and abroad. The US is a virus on the world stage:

Peace out.

-SF1

The US Empire Has Blamed Other Nations in the Past, Wrongly, and Now Blames China?

A bully has to deflect any blame for anything and everything. One has to wonder it this is the proverbial blaming someone else before one gets blamed themselves, for something they actually did. First impressions are like that.

Lincoln knew if the South fired the first shot they would historically receive the blame for their peaceful secession that was spun to be an “insurrection”.

FDR knew if Japan struck first, he would get his ticket to join WWII which would hid his disastrous attempts at pulling the US out of the Great Depression with his New Deal programs ad nauseum.

Bush I knew Iraq would get the blame even though the US signaled to Saddam Hussein that it was his purview whether to invade Kuwait or not for infringing on Iraqi oil fields with horizontal drilling.

Bush II knew Iraq would get the blame after accusing them of WMDs.

Obama knew Libya would get the blame after accusing them of .. sorry, can’t even remember the excuse for turning Libya over to ISIS and other radical groups. Obama also tried this with Assad in Syria and that he used chemical weapons against his own people.

Now Trump, the GOP and the Democrats are all turning to blame China for ‘Rona. Seriously?

Yes, I call it ‘Rona since I ain’t following any government guidelines or laws that infringe on my NATURAL right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Just livin’ the life!

So Moon of Alabama has a pretty good article about the timeline that China had in sharing their own Covid-19 journey:

The U.S. claims that China did not inform it sufficiently. The timeline as published by China and confirmed by media reports does not support that claim.

On January 3 the head of the U.S. Center of Disease Control was personally informed by his Chinese counterpart that there was an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan. On January 8 the “unknown cause” was identified as a novel coronavirus. A full genome sequence of the virus was published on January 12 and preliminary testing kits were developed and made available in Wuhan. By January 13 another test and test protocol had been developed in Germany and on January 17 the WHO adopted its refined version.

In the U.S. the CDC insisted on developing its own test and failed by contaminating its test components. It then failed for more than a month to correct the issue.

When you point a finger at someone else, you have to realize that you have three other fingers pointing at yourself! However, American Exceptionalism keeps the blinders on as to the US’s stupid decisions at every turn of this pandemic turned plan-demic.

The whole blame game smells fishy as it becomes apparent that the wet market in Wuhan was not the source of the epidemic. For one, it did not and does not sell bats. Another point is that the epidemic started in December at a time when bats hibernate. The first know case was not related to the market at all.

As far as a lab source to this bat-sourced theory:

Edward Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney and a fellow of the respected Royal Society in London, said the Wuhan laboratory blamed by some for the pandemic does have specimens of the bat virus RaTG13, the closest relative of Covid-19 source SARS-CoV-2, but the two are not genetically linked.

RaTG13 strains, he says, are from the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, not the central city of Wuhan, the pandemic’s initial epicenter.

Genome tracing has revealed that the bat virus RaTG13 has at least 20 years of genetic divergence, or evolutionary change, from SARS-CoV-2, and possibly as much as 50 years, ruling it out as the source of the pandemic.

OK then. What is it that the US wants. You know whenever there is COOPERATION across the political aisle from Democrats and GOP, there is some stupid agenda going on as Democrats are evil, GOP are stupid and together they are STUPID to the 2nd power.

1. Financial: I am pretty sure since the US has chosen the path of financial self destruction to cover their own super sick financial fundamentals and a QE hell that they could never exit without saving face, this Covid-19 became a convenient camouflage. The US wants to keep China on its heals as the US fire-sale domestically heats up and Chinese investors come looking for good deals.

2. Military: I am pretty sure with all the Covid-19 infected aircraft carriers and nuclear bomber fleets are heading back to the US mainland which leaves China to do what they want in the South China Sea, and the Pentagon is not happy about that but its hands are tied between that and exiting bases in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

We can call this a lame pre-emptive strike in order for the US Empire to stay in the world stage without looking like it is no longer empire material.

The obvious solution is to do this financial reset is not to bailout corporate America, but to do the hard work of moving through bankruptcies WHILE drastically paring down federal government giving responsibilities back to the states and recall the military from their global outposts to the United States mainland. The core piece of this is the removal of the central bank, the FED, as this has allowed the United States to live well beyond its means ($25T debt and $250T unfunded liabilities) and enslave the generations to come.

Will our existing political class figure this out? Not a chance.

Will voting help? Not a chance.

The US still has the USPS and Amtrak, if they can be trusted with little things, you can safely say they can’t be trusted with MAJOR things.

This nation will have to split into many smaller republics before any of this can be addressed.

Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things. Whoever is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in big things too. – Luke 16:10 (Bible)

Peace out.

-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