Withdrawal is a lie: Stop the rebombing of Iraq

Nearly every day this week, I’ve been listening to NPR radio and many days I find myself turning the radio station to good ol’ rock stations that play a combination of oldies and ‘90s rock. But it is not just a case of preferring rock music over news. NPR has focused on Iraq. And not on whether or not the US should be engaged in a country it invaded and conquered. No—they focus on the strategy the US needs to save its puppet government- protect our (US) interests and stop ISIS (actually Islamic State) from encroaching on our puppet regime. No one seems to believe that ISIS can be negotiated with. All the pundits and talking heads seem to believe that ISIS is evil and ‘even if we agree that we should not have invaded Iraq, we should all agree to save those people from the tyranny of ISIS.’

I am not a fan of ISIS and I do have concern about the Kurds and religious minorities who may find themselves being persecuted by Islamic fundamentalism, but I know better than to support US intervention and bombing of territories that ISIS controls. I may not like Islamic fundamentalism, but I am less found of US imperialism. That subject is what I don’t hear on NPR and I get tired of hours and hours of discussion on ‘how the US can and must act to maintain the “democracy” the US has developed in Iraq.’

So let’s not mince words here. The US is an empire and ISIS is trying to carve out its own state from part of a lack luster puppet regime. So I am posting this article from Kasama Project.

- សតិវ​ អតុ

By MIKE ELY and NAT WINN

The U.S. military has launched a massive attack in the Sunni heartland of Iraq.

We now know that Obama'S talk about “withdrawal from Iraq” was a lie.

What the U.S. did was “withdraw over the horizon” to the world’s largest nuclear navy that floats around the Persian Gulf. From its ships and base in Bahrain it has continued to threaten Iraq, Iran and everyone else in that region.

The U.S.  shattered Iraq in its 2003 invasion. Iraq had once been a relatively prosperous, secular, coherent, capitalist oil-state ruled by a brutal strongman. After a decade of U.S. bombing and occupation, it has now been reduced to a nightmare of three-sided civil war, with a broken infrastructure, a collapse of daily security, and the massive empowerment of religious based death squads.  Women are now confined to their homes. Work and commerce are in chaos.

The people there, and in a growing arc of surrounding countries, have no stability or justice visible in their future. The U.S. pursued a policy of “rule or ruin” – and the people have been ruined.

Now, to re-make its basic point, the U.S. military has been sent in an even deeper engagement in the fighting for control of Iraq.

According to the official story their target was ISIL forces around the city of Erbil – the capital of the virtually autonomous Kurdish state in Northern Iraq. They claim they are merely saving Yezidi refugees from genocide.  But the Obama White House adds that this bombing intervention will be open ended and ongoing.

Who knows who else is threatened with attack? Who truly knows where else they are actually attacking? Who knows what else they have introduced into the crumbling of Iraq?

An act of both failure and determination

This much is obvious: What we do know is that this is another self-interested U.S. intervention into a region long tortured  for the control of oil.

This White House has unleashed a vicious act - born out of both failure and determination.

The U.S. has failed to remake Iraq after a decade of war and occupation. The broad middle swath of Iraq – described as the  Sunni heartland has fallen to a coalition of former Baathists and Syria-based Caliphists.

The U.S. faces a similar failure in many other places where they make their threats and draw their “red lines” to control events: in Afghanistan, in Palestine, in Crimea, with North Korea, and elsewhere.

But those ruling the U.S. remain determined to enforce their interests anyway – if necessary based on raw military supremacy. They may have turned Iraq into a “failed state” – but they now use that chaos to justify using their bombers (yet again!) to kill anyone who they disapprove of.

For the rest click here.