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Special Investigation:
Have Journalist Been Deliberately Murdered in Iraq by the US
Military?
Our new
CounterPunch newsletter, just out, Christopher Reed examines
the growing body count of journalists in Iraq and documents numerous
incidents where US troops have deliberately targeted reporters.
Charles Glass offers a
stark comparison of the uprooting of Palestians in the Galilee
during the 1948 war to the lush compensation of Israeli's living
on the same land who were displaced by the war on Lebanon. Remember, we are funded
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Now
Tens of millions of Americans want President
George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies and deceit he used
to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office
to uphold the US Constitution.
Millions of other Americans
want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague.
The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.
The president of the United
States is so deep into denial that he is no longer among the
sane.
Delusion still rules Bush three
weeks after the American people repudiated him and his catastrophic
war in elections that delivered both House and Senate to the
Democrats in the hope that control over Congress would give the
opposition party the strength to oppose the mad occupant of the
White House.
On November 28 Bush insisted
that US troops would not be withdrawn from Iraq until he had
completed his mission of building a stable Iraqi democracy capable
of spreading democratic change in the Middle East.
Bush made this astonishing
statement the day after NBC News, a major television network,
declared Iraq to be in the midst of a civil war, a judgment with
which former Secretary of State Colin Powell concurs.
The same day that Bush reaffirmed
his commitment to building a stable Iraqi democracy, a secret
US Marine Corps intelligence report was leaked. According to
the Washington Post, the report concludes: "the social
and political situation has deteriorated to a point that US and
Iraqi troops are no longer capable of militarily defeating the
insurgency in al-Anbar province."
The Marine Corps intelligence
report says that Al Qaeda is the "dominant organization
of influence" in Anbar province, and is more important than
local authorities, the Iraqi government and US troops "in
its ability to control the day-to-day life of the average Sunni."
Bush's astonishing determination
to deny Iraq reality was made the same day that the US-installed
Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki and US puppet King Abdullah II
of Jordan abruptly cancelled a meeting with Bush after Bush was
already in route to Jordon on Air Force One.
Bush could not meet with Maliki
in Iraq, because violence in Baghdad is out of control. For security
reasons, the US Secret Service would not allow President Bush
to go to Iraq, where he is "building a stable democracy."
Bush made his astonishing statement
in the face of news leaks of the Iraq Study Group's call for
a withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq. The Iraq Study
Group is led by Bush family operative James A. Baker, a former
White House chief of staff, former Secretary of the Treasury,
and former Secretary of State. Baker was tasked by father Bush
to save the son. Apparently, son Bush hasn't enough sanity to
allow himself to be saved.
Bush's denial of Iraqi reality
was made even as one of the most influential Iraqi Shiite leaders,
Moqtada al-Sadr, is building an anti-US parliamentary alliance
to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
Maliki himself appears on the
verge of desertion by his American sponsors. The White House
has reportedly "lost confidence" in Maliki's "ability
to control violence." Fox "News" disinformation
agency immediately began blaming Maliki for the defeat the US
has suffered in Iraq. NY governor Pataki told Fox "News"
that "Maliki is not doing his job." Pataki claimed
that US troops were doing "a great job."
A number of other politicians
and talking heads joined in the scapegoating of Maliki. No one
explained how Maliki can be expected to save Iraq when US troops
cannot provide enough security for the Iraqi government to go
outside the heavily fortified "green zone" that occupies
a small area of Baghdad. If the US Marines cannot control Anbar
province, what chance is there for Maliki? What can Maliki
do if the security provided by US troops is so bad that the President
of the US cannot even visit the country?
The only people in Iraq who
are safe belong to Al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents or are Shiite
militia leaders such as al-Sadr.
An American group, the Center
for Constitutional Rights, has filed war crimes charges in Germany
against former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A number
of former US attorneys believe President Bush and Vice President
Cheney deserve the same.
Bush has destroyed the entire
social, political, and economic fabric of Iraq. Saddam Hussein
sat on the lid of Pandora's Box of sectarian antagonisms, but
Bush has opened the lid. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians
have been killed as "collateral damage" in Bush's war
to bring "stable democracy" to Iraq. Tens of thousands
of Iraqi children have been orphaned and maimed. Hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis have fled their country. The Middle East
is aflame with hatred of America, and the ground is shaking under
the feet of American puppet governments in the Middle East.
US casualties (killed and wounded) number 25,000.
And Bush has not had enough!
What better proof of Bush's
insanity could there be?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of
National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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