TGIF: The Iraq Invasion after 15 Years

On the 10th anniversary of the U.S. government's criminal, catastrophic, and still-to-this-day consequential war against Iraq in March 2003, I wrote:

It is no exaggeration to say that most news operations were little more than extensions of the White House Office of Communications. Abandoning even the pretense of an adversarial relationship with the government, the media became shameful conduits for unsubstantiated and outright false information about Saddam Hussein’s alleged threat to the American people. Included among the falsehoods were reports that Saddam had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, had trained al-Qaeda fighters, and had attempted to obtain uranium ore and aluminum tubes for nuclear bombs. 

Put bluntly, the disastrous invasion of Iraq, which was sold on the basis of lies told by President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, [CIA Director George Tenet,] Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and others might not have happened without the enthusiastic help of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and others. The blood of more than a hundred thousand — perhaps more than a million — Iraqis and 4,500 [now nearer to 5,000] Americans is on their hands too.

Read TGIF at The Libertarian Institute.

TGIF (The Goal Is Freedom) appears on Fridays. Sheldon Richman, author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, keeps the blog Free Association and is executive editor of The Libertarian Institute. He is also a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com.

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Trump Wrong Again

Trump still doesn't (want to) get it. ISIS is not the result of U.S. weakness, as he says, but of strength, i.e., power.

Any Banner Will Do

The Islamic State doesn't give people a reason to commit mass murder. It gives people disposed to commit mass murder a banner to hoist. Take one banner away and they'll select another -- religious, secular, whatever is at hand. There's always a banner to hoist.

Ya Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

Since we can never make airports perfectly safe, I guess we'll just have to liquidate the empire and stop bombing Muslim countries. Oh well, ya gotta do what you gotta do.

Put This on Your Resume, Mrs. Clinton

Can you imagine Hillary Clinton sitting in judgment over who is and is not qualified to be president? 

Ponder this: in 2011 ISIS was not in Libya, first, because Libya was not an open war zone and, second, because ISIS did not exist. Then the US, at Clinton's insistence, bombed Libya, helping to overthrow the government, while fomenting a jihadist war against the Syrian government. Today the US is fighting ISIS in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. 

Put that on your famous resume, Mrs. Clinton. 

Sanders and Trump Are Too Establishment on Syria

Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton both want the U.S. government to set up a "safe zone" in Syria to care for refugees from the raging civil war. You may assess their judgment by noting that Secretary of State Clinton and Sen. Rubio also pushed for bombing and regime change in Libya, which was crucial in spreading bin Ladenite mayhem far and wide, and that Rubio thinks knocking out the Sunni Islamic State would hurt Shi'ite Iran.

TGIF: The Season of Peace Requires Action Not Songs

It's the time of year when people sing about peace and goodwill. Unfortunately in the United States, too little thought accompanies the nice words. Otherwise Americans would be in the streets demanding that President Obama shut down the war machine. They would also be repudiating every presidential candidate who endorses the fundamentals of America's criminal foreign policy, and that means every presidential contender in the major parties. Each one of them thinks it's the U.S. government's obligation to destroy ISIS (which it helped create), and most of them think -- contradictorily -- that Americans should overthrow the Syrian government, even though massive noncombatant casualties would result, fanatics would benefit, and neither ISIS nor Bashar al-Assad pose an existential threat to our society.

TGIF: America's Asymmetrical War Against the Muslim World

The demagogic exaggeration of the "terrorist threat," which was the centerpiece of the last Republican debates, is easily deflated with just a moment's thought. What is the chance that any particular resident of the United States will happen to be in the same place as someone who intends to murder in the name of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, or some other cause? Less than minuscule. Many commonplace things are likely to kill you long before you encounter an Islamist, white-supremacist, or anti-abortion terrorist in the United States. Typically, we don't find it worth the money it would take to substantially reduce those other risks. We could cut traffic fatalities considerably by outlawing left turns and reducing the speed limit to 5 MPH. But who would support those measures? So why tolerate the government's spending trillions of dollars (not to mention the violations of liberty) in its futile attempts to save us and our open society from all possible terrorism -- especially when it could make us safer by spending less money and respecting our liberty through a noninterventionst foreign policy?

Of course, the assessment of the small risk would change -- although not significantly, given the size of the U.S. population and land mass -- if we knew that the number of would-be terrorists was growing. But we can be confident, as John Mueller and Mark. G. Stewart note, that the number is tiny. How do we know? We know because we don't see much terrorism in the United States. As Mueller and Stewart note, 9/11 was an obvious outlier and many of the foiled terrorist plots were instigated or at least advanced by FBI informants. (Attacks at military facilities should not be counted as terrorism, a loaded term coined to let the U.S. government and Israel get away with murder.) And what terrorism we've seen has not been terribly sophisticated.

A Conspiracy of Fear-Mongers

Over the weekend CNN breathlessly reported as "Breaking News" -- it breathlessly reports everything as "Breaking News" -- a new poll indicating that people are increasingly frightened about terrorism. The accompanying web story stated, "Terrorism has eclipsed the economy as voters' top pick for the biggest issue facing America, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. Last month only 4% of Americans said terrorism was the most important problem, according to the New York Times. Now nearly one in five -- 19% -- believe it is."

How the U.S. Inspires Anti-American Terrorism

From Stephen M. Walt:

Our reluctance to consider whether certain aspects of U.S. foreign and defense policy inspire anti-American extremism began as early as the 9/11 Commission. As the late Ernest May, a distinguished historian who worked with the commission, later acknowledged: 

“[T]he report skirts the question of whether American policies and actions fed the anger that manifested itself on September 11…. [it] is weak in laying out evidence for the alternative argument that the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol might not have been targeted absent America’s identification with Israel, support for regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan, and insensitivity to Muslims’ feelings about their holy places. The commissioners believed that American foreign policy was too controversial to be discussed except in recommendations written in the future tense. Here we compromised our commitment to set forth the full story.” 

Wow....

As I pointed out back in 2009, the United States is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims over the past three decades, a sum vastly greater than the number of Americans killed by Muslims. It would be remarkable indeed if our actions had not led a small fraction of their co-religionists to want to retaliate in some way.

Walt is of the realist school of foreign policy.

Cruz Is Bad Too

I've voiced my share of criticism about Donald Trump, but I've been aware from the start that doing so might lead some people to think that I see the other candidates (in both major parties) as more acceptable. I don't see them that way, and early on I said that the reason the Republican establishment is so upset with Trump is that he is a caricature of it. Trump's special iniquity lies in his strategy of forcefully stating what others soft-pedal, so there's no mistaking his unambiguous call to the worst in people. In other words, his form -- the Mussolini-esque strongman cult of personality -- better matches his substance (such as it is).

As if to prove that he can be as bad as Trump -- and arguably worse -- Ted Cruz now says, "We will utterly destroy ISIS. We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out!"

He might have meant ISIS when he said he would "carpet-bomb them," but the them would include more than the leaders and fighters of ISIS. It would include noncombatants as well, lots of them.

Cruz was no more specific than that, but as Robert Parry of Consortiumnews.com points out, "the phrase 'glow in the dark' popularly refers to the aftermath of a nuclear bomb detonation."

Perhaps Cruz could enlighten the rest of us as to exactly what he has in mind should he reach the White House.

At any rate, add Cruz, if you haven't already, to the list of advocates of mass murder.

A Qualified Judge If Ever There Was

"I don’t think there’s much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there [in  the U.S. war against ISIS].  --William Kristol

Potential Terrorists Everywhere

Couldn't an American become "radicalized" just sitting at home watching CNN's coverage of the Middle East?

The Phony Mystery of Why "They" Hate Us

What do Barack Obama and Donald Trump have in common? Among other things, they have -- or pretend to have -- no clue why some Muslims hate us. Trump says (I almost typed believes, but I'm not sure anyone, including Trump, knows what he believes) Muslims should be barred from the United States until "until the country's representatives can figure out what's going on."

Why Assad Isn't "Our Son of a Bitch"

While Franklin Roosevelt may not have said that Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza "may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch," he probably thought it -- just as other presidents have had similar thoughts about myriad brutal rulers.

Foreign Policy Comes Back to Haunt Us

From the start, opponents of the American empire warned that the government could not violate the rights of foreigners without eventually violating the rights of Americans. An excellent example is William Graham Sumner's post-Spanish-American War classic "The Conquest of the United States by Spain." The anti-imperialists were spot-on, and the evidence for their case keeps piling up.

TGIF: Let the Refugees In

Hysteria over the Islamic State is now focused on the refugees seeking to escape the violence in Syria and Iraq. Predictably, the Republican-controlled House yesterday voted to increase background checks on potential refugees, a demand for omniscience that would amount to exclusion. The bill faces trouble in the Senate, however, and President Obama, who wants to admit 10,000 refugees over the next year, has threatened to veto it.

How to Respond to the Paris Attacks

Look, even authoritarian and totalitarian states can't prevent domestic terrorism. What hope do relatively open societies have? Open societies abound with "soft targets," that is, noncombatants going about their everyday lives. They are easy hits for those determined to inflict harm, especially if the assailants seek to die in the process.

Uproot the Tree of Empire

The horrendous attacks in Paris are more fruits of the tree of empire and colonialism. Needless to say, this is not to absolve the immediate perpetrators but only to acknowledge that they did not act in a vacuum. They murdered, maimed, and terrorized innocents; however, they did not initiate the violence.

If you abhor the harvest, work to uproot the tree.

Obama Wades Further into Yemen

“The U.S. Navy … has dispatched the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt toward the waters off Yemen to join other American ships prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the rebels, U.S. officials said,” the Chicago Tribune reported on Monday.

Thus does the Obama administration risk war with Iran while embracing the mischievous agendas of Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and Israel. 

Iran has not been found shipping arms, but you won’t learn that from mainstream news accounts. Nor do the media ask why the United States and its allies -- but not Iran -- may intervene in Yemen.

The Tribune, like all mainstream news outlets, refers to “Iran-backed Shiite rebels,” that is, the autonomy-minded and long-burdened Houthis, who are portrayed without evidence as agents of the Islamic Republic. The media are mere conduits for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab Gulf states, which have an interest in falsely portraying the turmoil in Yemen, long racked by civil war, as an instance of Iranian expansion. The Sunni Arab states don’t want Shiite Persians playing a prominent role in the region and becoming friendlier with the United States, while Israel uses Iran to take the world’s mind off the Jewish State’s brutality against the Palestinians. All this goes on while the United States negotiates curbs on a nonexistent Iranian nuclear-weapons program -- to Saudi and Israeli consternation.

While the media fill American minds with almost nonstop propaganda about Iran’s ambitions, the U.S. intelligence agencies have their doubts. Why don’t the media report this, considering that Obama has facilitated the Saudis’ naval blockade against Yemen and its off-again/on-again bombing campaign? As a result of this war, Yemen suffers a humanitarian catastrophe, complete with refugees, food shortages, and the slaughter of civilians.

Fortifying doubts about Iranian backing of the Houthis, the Huffington Post, citing “American officials familiar with intelligence around the insurgent takeover,” reports that “Iranian representatives discouraged Houthi rebels from taking the Yemeni capital of Sanaa last year” (emphasis added).

This conflicts with the popular belief that the Houthis, who practice a Shiite offshoot that differs significantly from Iranian Shiism, moved on the capital under orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“The newly disclosed information casts further doubt on claims that the rebels are a proxy group fighting on behalf of Iran,” continue the authors, Ali Watkins, Ryan Grim, and Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “suggesting that the link between Iran and the Yemeni Shiite group may not be as strong as congressional hawks and foreign powers urging U.S. intervention in Yemen have asserted.”

Do congressional hawks and foreign powers, that is, Israel and Saudi Arabia, care what the facts show? Facts have nothing to do with this. Iran is the bogeyman, so all troubles must be traced to its door. Nothing -- especially the truth -- can be allowed to stand in the way.

The article adds that “the revelation that the Houthis directly disobeyed Iran gives credibility to the White House's argument that Iran is not directing the rebels” (emphasis added). It quotes Bernadette Meehan, a National Security Council spokeswoman, who says, “It remains our assessment that Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen.”

To drive the point home, the authors quote a U.S. intelligence official: “It is wrong to think of the Houthis as a proxy force for Iran.”

So why does Obama help the Saudis murder Yemenis?

Directing the Houthis and aiding them are two different things, of course, but Iranian support in the face of long-standing Saudi and U.S. intervention hardly seems remarkable. Reuters reported in December 2014 that “exactly how much support Iran has given the Houthis … has never been clear.” Moreover, the ships “suspected” of carrying arms are probably part of Iran’s anti-piracy patrol. (See Gareth Porter's "Houthi arms bonanza came from Saleh, not Iran.")

And let’s face it: the U.S.-backed Saudi war creates opportunities for al-Qaeda in the Iraqi Peninsula (AQIP) and ISIS, which the Houthis oppose.

The United States risks unlimited war with Iran by interfering in a civil war on behalf of malign outsider objectives. (It’s been droning Yemen since 2001.) By seeing the conflict through the Saudi and Israeli lens, Obama magnifies the human catastrophe.

Sheldon Richman keeps the blog "Free Association" and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society.