Biden’s Ukraine War Judgment: Fool You Twice, Shame on You

With the track record he earned throughout the Iraq debacle, Biden should never have been trusted with regard to Ukraine. And now the Ukraine self-inflicted adventure is clearly and predictably turning into a debacle that risks nuclear war. The video in the Tweet (below) is a stunning reminder of how Biden shut down debate on Iraq, just as he has now done on Ukraine.

Biden had no end game in mind on either of these imperialist oil-driven excursions. And BTW, still no mention of Biden's culpability (based on Sy Hersh's article) regarding the Nord Stream pipeline in NYT, WaPo, CNN, NPR or MSNBC. Biden is as good at shutting down the corporate left-leaning "news" media as he is in shutting down the Nord Stream Pipeline. He bragged that he was going to shut down the Nord Stream. There is evidence that he gave the order to blow it up and then the news media became clueless about who did it, lacking even a drop of curiosity once Biden ludicrously blamed Russia for blowing up its own pipe line. That nonsensical claim was code for the corporate media to get in line and take orders from the White House. That's what goes for journalism these days.

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Untallied Iraq casualties

What are the U.S. casualties so far from the Iraq invasion and occupation? It is a huge number that has not yet been calculated, according to this article by Dan Froomkin:

The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American servicemembers who have come back from Iraq less than whole. The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you take into account all the men and women who returned from their deployments with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term health problems. We don't have anything close to an exact number, however, because nobody's been keeping track.
These numbers, whatever they might be, are a tiny portion of the total human casualties caused by the decision to invade Iraq.

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On the quiet end to the war in Iraq

Gloria Bilchik sums up the non-event of the end of the Iraq War at Occasional Planet:

Of course, there was no dancing in the streets, no victory parades, no flashy photos of sailors kissing nurses in Times Square. Why would there be? No one is proud of what the U.S. did in—or should we say “to”—Iraq. No valid mission has been accomplished. There’s no victory and nothing to celebrate. It’s just, sort of, over. Poof.

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Lessons learned from Iraq re Iran?

From Huffpo:

[Rachel] Maddow wondered specifically what the Republican candidates learned from waging what she called "preemptive war." Maddow played clips of the various candidates responding to questions posed to them about a nuclear Iran. Maddow said by exception of Ron Paul, "every single Republican running for president says that he or she would gladly consider starting a preemptive war in the Middle East. No problemo." [Frank] Rich said that "half of [the candidates] don't know where Iran is," and described the candidates' responses as "empty posturing." He added that "they've learned nothing, they don't even care if they've learned anything," from the war in Iraq.

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Inside look at collateral damage

Many of us have wondered what really happened to the Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.Look what was accidentally left behind in Iraq, as reported by the New York Times: Interview transcripts describing the conduct of American soldiers serving in Iraq. One question these interrogation transcripts raise is why these sorts of documents should have ever be considered classified. Their disclosure illustrates the abject immorality of the Iraq occupation, rather than revealing any particular strategy or tactics. Thus, it would appear that they were kept secret in order to help pretend that the United States does not do the sorts of horrific things that it does. Until their recent disclosure, the secrecy allowed us to maintain that the United States is the "greatest country in the world" regardless of the facts.

But the accounts are just as striking for what they reveal about the extraordinary strains on the soldiers who were assigned here, their frustrations and their frequently painful encounters with a population they did not understand. In their own words, the report documents the dehumanizing nature of this war, where Marines came to view 20 dead civilians as not “remarkable,” but as routine. Iraqi civilians were being killed all the time. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar, in his own testimony, described it as “a cost of doing business.”
Why aren't similar records being maintained and disclosed to the public?
[Maj. Gen. Thomas Richardson]said that over the course of several weeks he had burned dozens and dozens of binders, turning more untold stories about the war into ash. “What can we do with them?” the attendant said. “These things are worthless to us, but we understand they are important and it is better to burn them to protect the Americans. If they are leaving, it must mean their work here is done.”
In your name and my name they carried on this war under false pretenses. In your name and my name they keep atrocities secret.

Continue ReadingInside look at collateral damage