Here's a provocative post by Byron Williams at Huffpo. For instance, Williams asks what if the "Democratic president's secretary of defense were Ted Kennedy and our military committed Abu Ghraib-like torture? At that point, would conservatives still be content with their "a few bad apples alibi"? Williams asks a good question: …
Would you like to know how things are going in Iraq? Check out the White House National Strategy for Victory in Iraq issued November 30, 2005.
Here’s the backdrop to this report. Smack in the middle of this report (under “OUR STRATEGY TRACKS AND MEASURES PROGRESS”) you can see that all-important connection between the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. occupation of Iraq:
“The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi, and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden. For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch.”
— President George W. Bush
June 28, 2005
[emphasis added]. There’s only one problem with this guiding assumption, of course. It’s totally untrue. For example, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported . . . that Osama bin Laden met with a top Iraqi official in 1994 but found “no credible evidence” of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida in attacks against the United States.
But back to the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” In the section called “Victory Will Take Time,” you can find this White House claim:
…Our strategy is working: Much has been accomplished in Iraq, including the removal of Saddam’s tyranny, negotiation of an interim constitution, restoration of full sovereignty, holding of free national elections, formation of an elected government, drafting of a permanent
This, according to Dr. Bob Edgar, who was interviewed by CBS News. Edgar is General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, which represents about 50 million Christians in America — the majority of them mainline Protestants. "Jesus never said one word about homosexuality, never said one word about civil…
I've been thinking about why terrorism is such a hot topic these days. I mean, bombs aren't new; they've been around for centuries. Religious fanatics obviously aren't new; they've been around for millenia. Fear isn't new; it's been around since the Dawn of Mankind. People who are desperate or angry…
In November 2003 a major from the judge advocate general’s office working on establishing an Iraqi judicial process told me that there were at least 7,000 Iraqis detained by American forces. . . . A lieutenant colonel familiar with the process told me that there is no judicial process for the thousands of detainees. If the military were to try them, there would be a court-martial, which would imply that the U.S. was occupying Iraq, and lawyers working for the administration are still debating whether it is an occupation or liberation. Two years later, 50,000 Iraqis had been imprisoned by the Americans and only 2% had ever been found guilty of anything.
The above was reported by Nir Rosen. On his website, Rosen describes himself as follows:
Born in New York City in 1977, Nir Rosen is a freelance writer, photographer and film-maker who has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and other popular tourist destinations.
Rosen, who speaks Arabic and who passes as Middle Eastern, recently wrote “The Occupation of Iraqi Hearts and Minds,” a piece that was published on Truthdig.com. In this disturbing piece, he sized up the American occupation of Iraq:
…In reality both Abu Ghraib and Haditha were merely more extreme versions of the day-to-day workings of the American occupation in Iraq, and what makes them unique is not so much how bad they were, or how embarrassing, but the fact that they made their way to the media and were publicized despite attempts to