Home » Posts tagged 'Iraq' (Page 6)

Tag Archives: Iraq

We’ve been through this before: the trumped-up threat from Iraq based on false evidence in 2003 is the harrowingly similar model to what is emerging for Iran in 2018, argues John Kiriakou.

I spent nearly 15 years in the CIA. I like to think that I learned something there. I learned how the federal bureaucracy works. I learned that cowboys in government – in the CIA and elsewhere around government – can have incredible power over the creation of policy. I learned that the CIA will push the envelope of legality until somebody in a position of authority pushes back. I learned that the CIA can wage war without any thought whatsoever as to how things will work out in the end. There’s never an exit strategy.

I learned all of that firsthand in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. In the spring of 2002, I was in Pakistan working against al-Qaeda. I returned to CIA headquarters in May of that year and was told that several months earlier a decision had been made at the White House to invade Iraq. I was dumbfounded, and when told of the war plans could only muster, “But we haven’t caught bin Laden yet.” “The decision has already been made,” my supervisor told me. He continued, “Next year, in February, we’re going to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein, and open the world’s largest air force base in southern Iraq.” He went on, “We’re going to go to the United Nations and pretend that we want a Security Council Resolution. But the truth is that the decision has already been made.”

Next Year: Saddam

Soon after, Secretary of State Colin Powell began traveling around Europe and the Middle East to cultivate support for the invasion. Sure enough, he also went to the United Nations and argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, necessitating an invasion and overthrow because that country posed an imminent threat to the United States.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fuck You, Actually.

April 29, 2018

Fuck You, Actually.

For months leftist analysts have been warning that the increasingly hysterical anti-Russia narratives being aggressively promoted by the western media would eventually be used to target the political left. Those warnings went largely unheeded in the United States where the Russiagate narrative was being ostensibly used to undermine the Trump administration, and the McCarthyite feeding frenzies which have become normalized for American audiences have now metastasized across the pond to the UK.

As a result, the Poms have now quickly found themselves in a political environment where anyone who remembers the Blair government’s lies about Iraq is smeared as a “useful idiot”, a private British citizen can be falsely labeled a Kremlin bot by a mainstream publication without retraction or apology, and a BBC reporter can admonish a veteran military analyst for giving a truthful analysis about the alleged Douma chemical attacks on the grounds that it could hurt the “information war” against Russia.

And now, in what is undeniably a whole new level of Russophobic shrillness, Russia is being blamed for the gains made last year by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

View image on Twitter

✔

Tomorrow’s front page: Russians tried to swing election for Corbyn #tomorrowspapertoday

5:00 PM – Apr 28, 2018

According to a tweet from The Sunday Times, tomorrow’s headline will read, in all seriousness, “Exposed: Russians tried to swing election for Corbyn”. According to the text in the preview, the Times has allegedly found evidence that Russian bots have been retweeting publicly available posts supporting Labour and criticizing the Tories. Not creating fake news, not even circulating articles from RT or Sputnik, but retweeting conventional, publicly available political commentary.

This would be the same publisher, by the way, whose expertise on Russian Twitter “disinformation” recently led to a false allegation against an antiwar Finnish grandmother in an article about Kremlin trolls.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Is A ‘Fair’ Price For Oil?

April 24, 2018

What Is A ‘Fair’ Price For Oil?

Last week, oil prices hit their highest level since late 2014 on the back of continued global and U.S. stockpile drawdowns and expectations that oil demand growth will stay strong this year.

Analysts and officials are once again trying to predict what a ‘fair’ price for oil is – a prediction that must take into account the summer driving season, the possibility of new sanctions on Iran, elections in Venezuela and Iraq, continuous OPEC chatter about “mission accomplished or not”, and reports of OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia aiming for oil prices of $80 to $100 a barrel.

Some analysts and officials believe that oil prices could hit $80 this year, although such a price would probably be due to the geopolitical risk premium rather than market fundamentals.

Even if oil prices were to rise to $80, such an increase would be short-lived, and would be mostly fueled by fears of a supply disruption, especially in the Middle East with possible new sanctions on Iranian oil and with tenser situations in and around Syria and Yemen. Then there’s Venezuela, with its oil production plummeting and elections expected to be held in May—and if the U.S. were to slap further sanctions on Venezuela, such as on its oil industry, it would be yet another wild card for oil prices later this year.

Yet, around $75 oil is as good as it’s going to get in the short term, according to some investment banks and oil officials. No one is predicting oil at $100 yet.

“I think $65 to $75 is more realistic numbers for the rest of the year, but there are so many factors that can change that,” Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhi, the oil minister of non-OPEC participant in the production cut deal, Oman, told CNBC.

“In my opinion, where we are is not too bad and we can live with it. That’s $65 to $75, give or take, for the foreseeable future,” said the minister.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Returning to the Commonplace

April 18, 2018

Returning to the Commonplace

There are times when the twilight of the American century takes on a quality of surreal absurdity I can only compare to French existentialist theater or the better productions of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and this is one of them. Over the weekend, in response to a chemical-weapons incident in Syria that may or may not have happened—governments on all sides are making strident claims, but nobody’s offering evidence either way—US, British, and French military units launched more than a hundred state-of-the-art cruise missiles at three Syrian targets that may or may not have had anything to do with chemical weapons, damaging a few buildings and inflicting injuries on three people.

James Howard Kunstler, in a recent and appropriately blistering essay, termed this “kabuki warfare.” It’s an apt term, though I confess the situation makes me think rather more of John Cleese and the Ministry of Silly (Bombing) Runs, or perhaps a play by Camus in which Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin sit around talking while they wait for the endlessly delayed arrival of an American cruise missile named Godot. What, exactly, was accomplished by Donald Trump’s red-faced bluster, the heavily rehearsed outrage and cringing subservience of our European lapdogs-cum-allies, and all those colorful photo ops of missiles blasting off?

To be sure, there’s nothing even remotely new about the latest skit from this transatlantic flying circus. For most of a decade now the US military has been carrying out a similar sort of warfare against jihadi militias in Syria and Iraq, pretending to fight Islamic State in much the same way a mime pretends to be trapped in a phone booth—a habit pointed up by the way that the Russian military, which has a less ineffectual notion of warfare, pushed Islamic State into prompt collapse by having their cruise missiles and bombs actually hit something.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How US Has Virtually Destroyed UN

April 17, 2018

How US Has Virtually Destroyed UN

Under President Donald Trump, the US has basically eliminated the only real international authority the UN used to have. Here is how this was done:

The equivalent, in international law, to a domestic-law crime involving murder, rape, and theft, is an international invasion that’s purely for aggressive purposes and not at all authentically a defensive act against an authentic foreign threat that was coming from the invaded foreign country. Consequently, for the US Government now to have removed the UN from any authority over international invasions, is, in domestic-law equivalency, like removing a national government from authority regarding murders, rapes, and thefts, which occur inside that nation. Such a ‘government’ is no government at all. But, tragically, this is what has happened; and, so, we are now careening into World War III, in this international “Wild West” world, which we live in (and may soon die in, as things thus head into WW III).

The US Government no longer even nominally cares whether or not the UN authorizes its invasions; but, as recently as 2003, it used to, even if only nominally, care. The US has thus effectively disgarded the UN altogether, whenever violating the UN is the only way to impose its will against a given target-country.

In late 2002 and early 2003, US President George W. Bush nominally expressed a desire for the UN to authorize an invasion of Iraq, but failed to receive that authorization and then did the invasion anyway, along with only UK, Australia, and Poland, joining the US-led gang, in this destruction of Iraq.

At a press conference on 6 March 2003, just 14 days before he ordered the UN weapons-inspectors to leave Iraq so that he could invade Iraq on March 20th (as he did), Bush said:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump’s Disastrous Syria Attack

April 16, 2018

Trump’s Disastrous Syria Attack

Over the weekend, President Trump celebrated firing more than 100 missiles into Syria by Tweeting, “Mission Accomplished!” They say if you cannot learn from history you are condemned to repeat it. So I guess we are repeating it.

We all remember that “Mission Accomplished” was the banner behind then-President Bush as he gloated aboard a US navy ship that the war in Iraq had been won. After his “victory,” however, some 4,000 US military personnel were killed, perhaps a million Iraqis were killed, and the country’s infrastructure and social fabric were so badly destroyed that they probably can never be repaired.

Actually, there is much about the US attack on Syria that reminds us of Iraq.

With Iraq, the US moved in to start bombing before international inspectors had completed their mission to verify whether or not Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Had they been allowed to complete their mission and verify that he did not, imagine the suffering, death, and destruction that could have been avoided. In Syria, the US decided to start bombing before the international inspectors were even allowed to start checking claims that Assad gassed his own people in Douma. Why? What was the rush? Was Washington afraid they might not find Assad guilty?

Who really benefits from US attacks on the Syrian government? There were reports that ISIS began making moves immediately after the air strikes. Do we really want to be al-Qaeda and ISIS’s airforce? Is that going to keep us safer? I remember when al-Qaeda was actually considered our enemy, not an ally in overthrowing the last secular government in the Middle East.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Taking the World to the Brink of Annihilation

April 13, 2018

Taking the World to the Brink of Annihilation

Western neoconservatives and hawks are driving the international situation to increasing tension and danger. Not content with the destruction of Iraq and Libya based on false claims, they are now pressing for a direct US attack on Syria.

As a dangerous prelude, Israeli jets flying over Lebanese airspace fired missiles against the T4/Tiyas Airbase west of Palmyra.

This was Predicted

As reported at Tass, the Chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, predicted the current events almost a month ago. The report from March 13 says, “Russia has hard facts about preparations for staging the use of chemical weapons against civilians by the government forces. After the provocation, the US plans to accuse Syria’s government forces of using chemical weapons … furnish the so-called ‘evidence’ … and Washington plans to deliver a missile and bomb strike against Damascus’ government districts.”

Gerasimov noted that Russian military advisors are staying in the Syrian Defense Ministry’s facilities in Damascus and “in the event of a threat to our military servicemen’s lives, Russia’s Armed Forces will take retaliatory measures to target both the missiles and their delivery vehicles.”

The situation is clearly dangerous with risk of sliding into international conflict and even WW3. If that happens, it would mean the demise of civilization. All of this so that the West can continue supporting the sectarian armed groups seeking to overthrow the Assad government … in violation of international law and the UN Charter.

US President Donald Trump, joined by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, Vice President Mike Pence, second from left, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, speaks to the media as he arrives at the Pentagon in January 2018

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

April 10, 2018

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

At this writing, President Trump is considering “the possibility of retaliation in Syria in response to a suspected chemical attack on young children and families in the Syrian city of Douma,” reported CBS News. “If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out,” Trump said. “Nothing’s off the table,” including a military attack by the United States.

Whether that possibility involves a cruise missile strike, drone attacks or conventional bombing raids by fighter jets, this is deadly serious business. People, mostly innocent civilians and Syrian grunts who had nothing to do with the “suspected” chemical attack, will die. People will be injured. Survivors will be traumatized. An attack could escalate and expand the current conflict, leading to more death and destruction.

The stakes are high, but U.S. policymakers are as glibly insouciant as if they were choosing between Hulu and Netflix. This is not new or Trumpian. It’s always been like this. American leaders don’t take these life-and-death decisions seriously.

If the United States were a sane country populated by rational, civically-engaged citizens, Americans would pour derision and ridicule on anyone who seriously considered raining bombs over a “suspected” anything. And the skepticism in this case ought to be exponentially greater considering that this is Syria.

We’ve already been down this “Syria’s Assad regime used chemical weapons against their own people so we should bomb his forces” road. It happened under Obama. What is certain here is uncertainty: maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. As legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh pointed out in 2014, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) believed that at least one major faction of the Syrian opposition, the al-Nusra Front, possessed significant manufacturing facilities and stockpiles of sarin nerve agent and other proscribed toxic chemicals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Crime and No Punishment for the Iraq War

April 6, 2018

Crime and No Punishment for the Iraq War

It is unlikely that former US President George W. Bush or any member of his administration will ever stand trial for initiating a war of aggression in Iraq. But it is still worth recounting the illegality of that act, not least because it is directly relevant to official US thinking on Iran and North Korea today.

PRINCETON – Last month, the New York Times marked the 15th anniversary of the US-led war against Iraq with a poignant column by Sinan Antoon, an Iraqi novelist living in the United States, entitled “Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country.” Antoon opposed both Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship and the 2003 US-led invasion, which plunged the country into chaos, inflamed ethnic tensions, and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. By destabilizing the region, the war enabled the rise of the Islamic State, which at its height occupied a substantial slice of Iraqi territory, beheading its opponents, attempting genocide against the Yazidi minority, and spreading terrorism around the world.

The war to overthrow Saddam was, beyond doubt, a tragic blunder. Antoon maintains that it was also a crime. If that is correct, its perpetrators are still at large. Few Americans will take seriously the assertion that President George W. Bush and other members of his administration – including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and John Bolton, recently appointed by President Donald Trump as his next National Security Adviser – are war criminals. Nor will many Britons think of Prime Minister Tony Blair in that light. Yet the case for saying that they committed a crime is surprisingly strong.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. and Russia Making Preparations for World War III

April 2, 2018

U.S. and Russia Making Preparations for World War III

The anti-neoconservative Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who had been the chief aide to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and had opposed America’s invading Iraq, spoke on March 2nd explaining how the U.S. and Russia are drifting ever-more-rapidly into World War III. He said it’s essentially the same way that England and Germany drifted into WW I: being sucked in by their entangling web of foreign alliances. However, as he sees it, the role that Sarajevo played to spark world-war in 1914, is being performed this time by Israel. Instead of the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip igniting the war by assassinating in Sarajevo the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Benjamin Netanyahu is igniting this war throughout the Middle East, by escalating his campaign to conquer Shiites in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon — overthrowing and replacing the governments there (which would then become controlled by allies of the anti-Shiite Sunni regime in U.S.-Israel-allied Saudi Arabia), and also aiming ultimately to expand Israel itself, to take over Jordan so as to confirm biblical prophesy.

And, as Wilkerson sees it, Netanyahu is also fronting for the Saud family: the Israel lobby is fronting not only for Israel’s aristocracy, but for Saudi Arabia’s. (Whereas Israel works both inside and outside the U.S. Government to control the U.S. Government, the Sauds, which are the world’s richest family, work only inside the U.S. Government, by outright buying it; so, unlike the Jewish billionaires who control Israel, they don’t need acceptance by the American people; and each time the Sauds try, they fail at it.) However, since Wilkerson’s speech was being sponsored by organizations that oppose Israel’s lobbyists, most of it dealt with Israel’s side of the Israel-Saud alliance that controls U.S. foreign policies (especially in the Middle East). (The U.S. aristocracy’s hostility toward Russia is, however, its own; it is primary for America’s billionaires, but not for Israel’s aristocracy, and also not for the Sauds — both of which aristocracies are instead focused mainly against Iran and Shiites.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia ‘Novichok’ Hysteria Proves Politicians and Media Haven’t Learned the Lessons of Iraq

April 2, 2018

Russia ‘Novichok’ Hysteria Proves Politicians and Media Haven’t Learned the Lessons of Iraq

The current state of anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of earlier dark chapters of American history, including the rush to war in Iraq of the early 2000s and McCarthyism of the 1950s, Patrick Henningsen observes.

If there’s one thing to be gleaned from the current atmosphere of anti-Russian hysteria in the West, it’s that the US-led sustained propaganda campaign is starting to pay dividends. It’s not only the hopeless political classes and media miscreants who believe that Russia is hacking, meddling and poisoning our progressive democratic utopia – with many pinning their political careers to this by now that’s it’s too late for them to turn back.

Donald Trump and Theresa May during a NATO summit in Brussels. Photo Reuters

As it was with Iraq in 2003, these dubious public figures require a degree of public support for their policies, and unfortunately many people do believe in the grand Russian conspiracy, having been sufficiently brow-beaten into submission by around-the-clock fear mongering and official fake news disseminated by government and the mainstream media.

What makes this latest carnival of warmongering more frightening is that it proves that the political and media classes never actually learned or internalized the basic lessons of Iraq, namely that the cessation of diplomacy and the declarations of sanctions (a prelude to war) against another sovereign state should not be based on half-baked intelligence and mainstream fake news. But that’s exactly what is happening with this latest Russian ‘Novichok’ plot.

Admittedly, the stakes are much higher this time around. The worst case scenario is unthinkable, whereby the bad graces of men like John Bolton and other military zealots, there may just be a thin enough mandate to short-sell another military conflagration or proxy war – this time against another nuclear power and UN Security Council member.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Americans Trust ‘Our’ Intelligence Agencies. Should We?

March 31, 2018

Americans Trust ‘Our’ Intelligence Agencies. Should We?

The record is clear that ‘our’ (that is, the ruling Establishment’s) intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, have lied to the public many times, actually lie routinely — but these lies are always revealed only decades later, by historians, which is too late, because the damage was already done. Think, for example, of just two of the now-famous cases, Iran 1953, and Chile 1973, in both of which instances the US Government ended a democracy abroad, and established a brutal dictatorship there (the Shah in Iran, and Pinochet in Chile) — but what good can a historian do, when the Government and its ‘news’-media were persistently lying, and they had fooled the US public, at the time — which is all that really counted (and ever will count)? Can a historian undo the damage that the Government and its propaganda-agencies had perpetrated, by means of their lies, and coups, and invasions? Never. But this Government, and its propaganda-agents, claim to defend democracies, not to end them. Can it actually be a democracy, if it’s doing such things, and doing it time after time?

Something’s deeply wrong here. Government by deceit, cannot be a democracy. And, yet, the public still don’t get the message, even after it has been delivered to us in history-books. By then, it’s no longer in the news, and so only few people really care about it. The message of history is not learned. The public still accepts the ongoing lies — the new lies, in the new ‘news’, for the new atrocities.

During the period after the Soviet Union, and its communism, and its Warsaw Pact military alliance, all ended in 1991, the US-and-allied historical record (all now after the Cold War has supposedly been over) is even worse, and is even more clearly evil, because the ideological excuse that had formerly existed (and which was only the excuse, and not the reason, in most cases, such as in Iran, and in Chile) is gone.

Iraq in 2003 was a particularly blatant demonstration of the US-Government’s psychopathy regarding foreign affairs. So: let’s consider this example (hopefully, to learn a lesson from it — which still hasn’t yet been learnt):

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

15 Years of War: To Whose Benefit?

March 28, 2018

15 Years of War: To Whose Benefit?

As for Iraq, the implicit gain was supposed to be access to Iraqi oil.

Setting aside the 12 years of “no fly zone” air combat operations above Iraq from 1991 to 2003, the U.S. has been at war for almost 17 years in Afghanistan and 15 years in Iraq. (If the word “war” is too upsetting, then substitute “continuing combat operations”.)

Since the burdens and costs of these combat operations are borne solely by the volunteers of the U.S. Armed Forces, the American populace pays little to no attention to the wars unless a household has a family member in uniform who is in theatre.

Permanent combat operations are now a barely audible background noise in America, something we’ve habituated to: the human costs are invisible to the vast majority of residents, and the financial costs are buried in the ever-expanding mountain of national debt. What’s another borrowed trillion dollars on top of the $21 trillion pile?

But a nation continually waging war should ask: to whose benefit? (cui bono) As near as I can make out, the nation has received near-zero benefit from combat operations in Afghanistan, one of the most corrupt nations on Earth where most of the billions of dollars “invested” have been squandered or stolen by the kleptocrats the U.S. has supported.

What did the nation gain for the tragic loss of lives and crippling wounds suffered by our personnel and Afghan civilians?

As for Iraq, the implicit gain was supposed to be access to Iraqi oil. As near as I can make out, the U.S. imports about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Iraq, a relatively modest percentage of our total oil consumption of 19.7 million barrels a day.

(Note that the U.S. was importing around 700,000 barrels a day from Iraq before Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched in March 2003–and imports from Iraq declined as a result of the war. So what was the energy-security gain from launching the war?)

Meanwhile, Iraq exports over 2 million barrels a day to China and India, where the presumed benefit to the U.S. is that U.S. corporations can continue to produce shoddy goods using low-cost Asian labor that are exported to U.S. consumers, thereby enabling U.S. corporations to reap $2.3 trillion in profits every year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Turkey’s Erdogan Announces Iraq Military Incursion, Threatens Americans Over Manbij

March 26, 2018

Turkey’s Erdogan Announces Iraq Military Incursion, Threatens Americans Over Manbij

On Sunday President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the beginning of Turkish military operations in Iraq’s Sinjar region a week after Turkey and allied Syrian FSA groups captured Afrin from Kurdish fighters. During that prior victory speech immediately on the heels of the Syrian Kurdish retreat from Afrin, Erdogan had promised further “extensions” of his forces in the region, including into Eastern Syria and Iraq, while making repeat historical references to the Ottoman empire.

Erdogan warned at the time that Turkish troops would keep pushing east further into Syrian Kurdish YPG territory (Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” which Turkey considers an extension of the terrorist PKK), which would eventually pit his forces against the US armed and trained Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

During Sunday’s speech he pledged to take Tal Rifaat (northwest of Aleppo) and Manbij: “the U.S. needs to transfer the control of Manbij to its real owners from the terrorist organization as soon as possible,” according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet. US-backed forces are present in both places.

Turkey’s president on Sunday: “**We said we would go into Sinjar [Iraq]. Now operations have begun there.”**

Erdogan also in typically brazen fashion put Iraq’s government on notice, saying “We have told the central [Iraqi] government that the PKK is establishing a new headquarters in Sinjar. If you can deal with it, you handle it. But if you cannot we will suddenly enter Sinjar one night and clear this region of terrorists.”

It appears he is ready to make good on that promise, as the AP reports:

Turkey’s president has announced the country is conducting operations in northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels it deems “terrorists.”

Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said “operations” have begun in Sinjar to clear the mountainous area of Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, fighters.

Erdogan later said that if the PKK does not vacate Sinjar and Qandil, where it has its headquarters, “it would be inevitable for us to do so personally.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The West’s ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mantra is wrecking lives & international relations

March 24, 2018

The West’s ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mantra is wrecking lives & international relations

Imagine the following scenario: You are a star football player at the local high school, with a number of college teams hoping to recruit you. There is even talk of a NFL career down the road. Then, overnight, your life takes an unexpected turn for the worse. The police show up at your house with a warrant for your arrest; the charges: kidnapping and rape. The only evidence is your word against the accuser’s. After spending six years behind bars, the court decides you were wrongly accused.

That is the incredible story of Brian Banks, 26, who was released early from prison in 2012 after his accuser, Wanetta Gibson, admitted that she had fabricated injurious claims against the young man.

Many other innocent people, however, who have been falsely accused in the West for some crime they did not commit, are not as fortunate as Brian Banks. Just this week, for example, Ross Bullock was released from his private “hell” – and not due to an accuser with a guilty conscience, but by committing suicide.

“After a ‘year of torment’… Bullock hanged himself in the garage of the family home, leaving a note revealing he had ‘hit rock bottom’ and that with his death ‘I’m free from this living hell,’” the Daily Mail reported.

There is a temptation to explain away such tragic cases as isolated anomalies in an otherwise sound-functioning legal system. After all, mistakes are going to happen regardless of the safeguards. At the same time, however, there is an irresistible urge among humans to believe those people who claim to have been victimized – even when the evidence suggests otherwise. Perhaps this is due to the powerful emotional element that works to galvanize the victim’s story. Or it could be due to the belief that nobody would intentionally and unjustly condemn another human being. But who can really say what is inside another person’s heart? Moreover, it can’t be denied that every time we attempt to hunt down and punish another people, tribe, sex, religion, etc. for some alleged crimes against victims, there is a real tendency among Westerners to get carried away with moralistic zeal to the point of fanaticism.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: Iraq

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts