As in Vietnam, The Mexican War, the Spanish American War, the pretext for going to war was manufactured by misrepresenting facts and whipping up public fury, usually a simple task when that well known toxin - patriotism - is in the air.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0127-26.htm


From Information Clearing House

She held up family photos of her son Casey as a toddler, at his confirmation, as a 21-year-old in boot camp and then, the photo that appeared in The New York Times last April, of his coffin, his brother kissing it to say goodbye.

http://www.mainelincolncountynews.com/index.cfm?ID=10361
http://tinyurl.com/3os77


From Information Clearing House

This message is a bit "off topic" but note in the article below where "internationally-recognized standards of protection" (sound familiar?) are openly being used to ensure protection for US corporate interests to the detriment of the Iraqi people.

Now that the so called democratic election in Iraq is over, the Americans can claim that the country has finally started its journey on the way to Western-style freedom. A convenient time for the US troops to leave for home ASAP with a victorias media blitz for war hero George W . Imagine the ticker-tape parades and orchestrated national celebrations throughout America. The citizens will lap it up as they always do.

Meanwhile the new Shia dominated government, no matter how much they hate the Americans will find that the US has left in place a few surprises to ensure that whatever the election outcome, the US oil corporations will get the oil in the end.

Some years ago, I remember Henry Kissinger saying words to the effect that 'when you control a country's food supply, you control that country' That is exactly what is now in the offering for the Iraqi agricultural sector under Order 81. Consider the following two articles and the possibility of future "oil for seeds-or you starve" deals with the US.

"Order 81" is diabolical but brilliant - unless the new Iraq government throws it out.


Don Maisch


http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KHA501A.html


Informant: The Webfairy


IRAQI ORDER 81
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/502698/

Order 81
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/496503/

Iraq War veterans face formidable challenges and Bush Administration funding cuts

by Bill Berkowitz

After the body bags are removed from the tarmac and the dead are buried; after children have said farewell to a father or mother and parents bid goodbye to a son or a daughter; after seriously injured soldiers are shuffled off to understaffed rehabilitation facilities and others are left to deal with their wounds on their own; and after soldiers that escaped physical harm return home with severe mental health problems, America will reap a whirlwind it hasn't seen since the end of the Vietnam War....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Berkowitz0128.htm

by Bernard Chazelle

The abject surrender of the media fed a slew of illusions to the public, none more craven than the belief that he whom we kill must be killed. Yeah, yeah, we occasionally obliterate the wrong house and incinerate its occupants, but that's just “friendly fire.” (A lovely phrase if there's one: Let's hear the surgeon who amputates the wrong leg inform his patient of his “friendly amputation.”) Minus the friendliness, however, our whiz-bang weapon wizardry never fails to separate the wheat from the chaff, the nursing mother from the crazed beheader. So goes the creed, anyway....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Chazelle0128.htm

by Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood

Predictably, the U.S. news media are full of discussion and debate about this weekend’s election in Iraq. Unfortunately, virtually all the commentary misses a simple point: There will be no “election” on Jan. 30 in Iraq, if that term is meant to suggest an even remotely democratic process....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Jensen-Youngblood0128.htm

by Dahr Jamail

Iraq Dispatches

01/27/05

Let me describe the scene on the ground here in 'liberated' Iraq. With the 'elections' just three days away, people are terrified. Families are fleeing Baghdad much as they did prior to the invasion of the country. Seeking refuge from what everyone fears to be a massive onslaught of violence in the capital city, huge lines of cars are stacked up at checkpoints on the outer edges of the city. Policemen and Iraqi soldiers are trying to convince people to stay in the city and vote. Nobody is listening to them. Whereas Baghdad is filled with Fallujah refugees, now villages and smaller cities on the outskirts of Baghdad are filling up with election refugees...

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000186.php


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Scott Ritter

Guardian [UK]

01/27/05

The invasion of Iraq was a crime of gigantic proportions, for which politicians, the media and the public share responsibility ... But, through the invasion of Iraq, a crime of gigantic proportions has been perpetrated. If history has taught us anything, it is that it will condemn both the individuals and respective societies who not only perpetrated the crime, but also remained blind and mute while it was being committed...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1399228,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Harry Browne

LewRockwell.Com

01/28/05

I don't believe human beings can predict the future reliably. So for my final 20 years in the investment business, I never made a forecast. But one future event seems about as certain to me as anything could possibly be. After the Iraqi elections this weekend, when the U.S.-installed interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party has amazingly won the most seats, the war team in Washington -- along with a good part of the media -- will somehow see the completion of the elections as a great victory for George Bush, a confirmation that his decision to invade Iraq was the right choice after all...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/browne/browne29.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp