Truth and lies
As the first phase of the war in the Middle East draws to a close it is worth re-examining some of the facts peddled in our embedded media. The opinion polls show increasing support for the Iraqi war. However only a minority of the UK population has been able to look beyond the security forces manipulated media. My old student colleague Robert Fisk has tried to nail some of the lies in the Independent. The rest of the media have gone along for the ride, or are doing as they told by their US bosses.
- The liberation of Iraq by US and UK troops is in reality an invasion.
- The United Nations did not sanction this invasion because the US and the UK failed to put a resolution to the UN Security Council.
- The Labour Party under Blair replaced the old socialist Clause 4 with a commitment to the United Nations. The National Executive of New Labour has failed to bring Blair to account for its constitution or any of the MPs who voted for war. Instead they looking at removing those MPs like George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn who loyally voted to support the constitution.
- There was no French veto because there was no resolution. Something Colin Burgon MP for Elmet and George Mudie MP for Leeds East Leeds deliberately failed to understand. But some thing francophiles like Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) and Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) grasped.
- The "Coalition" forces consist of UK troops and US with a handful of Australians. Nobody else in the entire world has sent anyone to fight. This includes open supporters of the US like Iceland and the Solomon Islands as well as obviously the so-called "secret" supporters like Monaco. There is no coalition, only UK and US aggreession.
- They have not found any weapons of mass destruction. To be such a weapon there has to be a method of delivering it. The Iraqi regime has used a handful of rockets that just managed to stagger across the border to Kuwait.
- There has been been no practically resistance by Saddam's supporters. There has been some tough resistance by irregulars who want to defend Iraq against foreign invaders.
- From day one there has been no air resistance to UK and US bombers. There is no air war. The bombers come over and just bomb.
- For every UK and US soldier killed in action around 250 Iraqi civilians have been killed, mainly by bombing.
- The US intends to keep the UN out of Iraq. They are putting a retired, pro-Israel US General as military dictator. He will be supported by group of completely discredited Iraqi including one wanted for fraud in Jordan. The UK has already put group of ex Saddam supporters back into power in one town. In another they have installed a tribal leader paralleling their restoration of tribalism in Africa during their previous imperialist expansion, in the nineteenth century.
- The UN's "food for oil" programme has been stopped. The oil money is now needed to pay for the US firms who have been given contracts not only to reconstruct building but to run the infrastructure of Iraq. Bush hopes this influx of money will hold off the US recession until after the Presidential elections and also provide him with funds to fight the election.
- There is absolutely no intention of introducing any kind of electoral representation in Iraq. The US intend to stop the main opposition group to Saddam's Baathist thugs, the Iraqi Community Party from operating. This political organisation had over 2,000 of its leading members massacred by the Baathists. This was more than all the other non-Kurd resistance groups put together.
- The vast majority of the UN are against the action. However when calls were made for special UN assembly, something actively backed by the Alliance for Green Socialism, the US and the UK have tried to block them.
- The US has announced that any leading Iraqis, who are caught, would be tried by US military or civilian courts. This would be a court of the conquerors over a nation whose soldiers have never attacked the US. Jack Straw remains completely silent.
- There will be no extension of freedom for the Kurds
A Warmonger Explains War To A Peacenik
A more enlightened approach to the war is taken by the site below. It approaches the events from a US perspective.
http://www.minimumeffort.com/nutshell.html
War Roundup
Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
The US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and tanks would be needed to fight a war in Iraq according to the New Yorker Magazine. Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.
It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance. "They've got no resources. He was so focused on proving his point -- that the Iraqis were going to fall apart," the article, by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as saying.
The article goes on to claim that of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment.
This might explain why one RAF pilot was explaining the efficacy of dropping lumps of concrete on the Iraqis. Perhaps the UK has also begun to run out of "normal" bombs so has been forced to use Hoon's beloved cluster bombs.
A false choice.
Robin Cook has insisted that he does not advocate British capitulation in the war in Iraq. In an article for the Sunday Mirror the former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the Commons wrote: "I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed."
But he later denied that he had meant he wanted Britain to give in. "I am not in favour of abandoning the battlefield and that is not my position. There can be no question at this stage of letting Saddam off the hook," he told the BBC. "I wasn't in favour of starting this war, but having started this war, it's important to win it. The worst possible outcome will be one which left Saddam there. ... We were promised we would be greeted as liberators, and that's not happened yet, and if we have a prolonged siege of Baghdad it's unlikely to happen when we get into Baghdad."
Mr Cook said that following the war he would help to close the divisions within the Labour Party. "After this is over there will be divisions within the Labour Party that need to be bound up and the party needs to come together and I will certainly want to play my part in ensuring that we do that."
But he denied that he would challenge Mr Blair for leadership of the party. "I want him to continue being the leader. I want him to continue being successful."
However the choice is not between Saddam and Blair but between Iraqi freedom and Saddam. When Saddam fought the Iranians, and the UK and US armed him, Blair and his supporters stood on one side. The fight to withdraw British troops is about establishing a regime in Iraq which is truly democratic and not imposed by the West.
Hundreds rally to support UK troops
Hundreds of people have taken part in a rally to support British troops in Iraq in a rare example of public support for the war. Ken Hill, a former member of the Royal Corps Signals, organised the event, which took place in Exeter city centre. Mr Hill estimated that more than 500 people attended while police put the number at nearer to 200.
But police said that at the same time some 200 people were at a Stop The War Coalition protest in the city's Princes Haye pedestrianised precinct. The first rally was widely reported in the UK media while the second hardly got a mention.
UK bosses try for the spoils of war
Business leaders from across the UK have secretly met Government officials to discuss how they can make a profit out of the war. Members of the British Consultants and Construction Bureau (BCCB) discussed how they could secure contracts for reconstruction projects in Iraq before the blood was even dry.
Trade Partners UK, a government agency, has confirmed that one of its senior directors had been at the meeting. British companies have voiced concerns that non-US firms would not get a fair share of the contracts. A statement from chief executive Colin Adams, published on the association's website, confirmed that 75 of its 300 member firms had already expressed interest in helping to rebuild Iraq. Sixty of those firms already had "a great deal of experience" of working in Iraq...
... ie, they had been helping Saddam's regime.
Paying for the war
Defence experts have predicted that the £3 billion set aside by Chancellor Gordon Brown to pay for war in Iraq may have to nearly double. The Royal United Services Institute said £5 billion is a more realistic expectation, mainly because of the cost of supplying and maintaining the massive ground force operation through southern Iraq.
The Chancellor, in last November's pre-Budget report, originally allocated £1 billion for the Iraq conflict, adding an extra £0.75 billion in February. The £3 billion does not include the cost of post-conflict reconstruction and stabilisation, although £30 million has been ringfenced for the Ministry of Defence to supply immediate humanitarian aid. This money will be diverted away from hospitals, public transport, pensioners and social services. Brown intends to raid the balances of all public sector bodies in order to pay for the war.
George Mudie (MP East Leeds) and the war
George has always regarded big political events as getting the way of his control of his base areas of Seacroft and Harehills. But the war caught up with him at the Bangladeshi Centre at his Friday night surgery. As I mentioned in my last Umbrella George seemed to have missed his way over the war, accepting a temporary posting in New Labour whips' office to browbeat MPs into voting for the war.
200 constituents turned up to the surgery. George fled upstairs. The riot police decided there were too many to tackle and got back into their van. This left a couple of community police officers holding the staircase. They went up and told George he had to see his voters. They assembled in the main hall. George had told several of them he would never vote for a war without UN approval.
He twisted and turned under repeated hostile questioning and he then blamed the French for cowardly Blair failing to put a resolution to the Security Council. The response was dramatic with 200 people shouting, "We love the French". A person stood up from the crowd and said "George you are liar" and they all left him except a couple who wanted to carry on shouting at him. Of course the energetic and former Liberal and Labour councillor Javaid Akhtar was there encouraging the crowd. However if George makes the assessment this has been stirred by a few agitators, he would be dead wrong. I was last week at a meeting at which prominent members of his own Labour Party were denouncing his stand over the war. And of course with Liberal Democrat twists and turns over the war the Alliance for Green Socialism's candidate Azar Iqbal should do well.
-- Half-Celestial Khan
