OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #120, APRIL 5, 2023

 

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