US troops left behind a devastated, tortured Iraq. Our real obligation, to the people of Iraq and the region and the rest of the world, is to transform our government and our country so that these resource-driven wars, shaped by lies and fought for power and for empire, whether in Iran or somewhere else, can never be waged again.
Comparing Hugo Chavez’s accomplishments to his U.S. obits was like taking a trip through Alice’s looking glass. Virtually none of the information about poverty and illiteracy was included, and when it was grudgingly admitted that he did have programs for the poor, it was “balanced” with claims of soaring debts, widespread shortages, rampant crime, economic chaos, and “authoritarianism.”
We cross desert sands to burning oil wells,
poised on banks of poison water that corrodes everything
but hooves of apocalyptic horses, wheels of humvees and tanks.
When we reach the adamantine gates of Iraq
it’s too late to turn back.
For all the dissimilarities, botched analogies, and tortured comparisons, there has been one connecting thread between the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan that, in recent years at least, Americans have seldom found of the slightest interest: misery for local nationals. Civilian suffering is, in fact, the defining characteristic of modern war in general, even if only rarely discussed in the halls of power or the mainstream media.
President Obama’s selection of John Kerry as the next secretary of state sends the wrong signal to America’s allies and adversaries alike. Kerry’s record in the United States Senate, where he currently chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, has included spurious attacks on the International Court of Justice, unqualified defense of Israeli occupation policies and human rights violations, and support for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Susan Rice’s announcement that she would withdraw her name from consideration to be the next secretary of state is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it marks yet another example of the Obama administration’s failure to defend its appointees from concerted and misleading Republican attacks. On the other, Rice’s willingness to state demonstrable falsehoods to defend actions by the United States and its allies that violate international norms would have made her a poor choice for secretary of state.
In March 2012, the United States led a resolution calling on the government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which examined the breakdown of the truce between the country’s warring factions, and “to take all necessary additional steps” to “ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans.” But is the U.S. more interested in military cooperation than human rights?
Here we are on brink of a major historical moment. We’re beginning to wind down the longest period of war in our history. And we’re about to turn around a 13-year-long surge in Pentagon spending. It’s not just longtime advocates for such changes like me who think so.
It couldn’t be clearer now that, from the shirtless FBI agent to the “embedded” biographer and the “other other woman,” the “fall” of David Petraeus is playing out as farce of the first order. What’s less obvious is that Petraeus, America’s military golden boy and Caesar of celebrity, was always smoke and mirrors, always the farce, even if the denizens of Washington didn’t know it.
Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war.