Iraq

America’s Peacetime Crimes against Iraq

by Anthony Gregory September 1, 2010

Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions by Joy Gordon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 359 pages. Between the Gulf War and the Iraq War, the United States enforced a comprehensive sanctions policy against the Iraqi people, under the auspices of the United Nations. Whereas the hot conflict of 1990 and the one that has run ...

How Abu Ghraib Was Politically Defused, Part 2

by James Bovard December 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 From the first days of the torture scandal, the Bush administration followed a “deny everything and praise American values” strategy to defuse the controversy over Abu Ghraib. In a May 28, 2004, interview, a French journalist mentioned Abu Ghraib and asked President Bush, “Do you feel responsible in any way for this moral failure in ...

How Abu Ghraib Was Politically Defused, Part 1

by James Bovard November 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 It is now more than four and a half years since Americans first saw the photos depicting the brutalizing of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. At that time, some commentators thought that the photos would be a political disaster for the Bush administration, perhaps even imperiling the president’s reelection. However, the Bush ...

The Forgotten Iraqi-Sovereignty Sham

by James Bovard July 1, 2008

The Bush administration and the Iraqi government are wrangling over the future role of the U.S. government in Iraq. The Bush team wants far more power over Iraqis than the current Iraqi government wants to concede. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in April 2008 that the dispute is concentrated on “sensitive issues,” including the U.S. military’s right to imprison ...

One Hundred Years in Iraq?

by Sheldon Richman April 4, 2008

John McCain, the Republican candidate for president who dubiously claims the status of war hero because he was imprisoned and beaten after bombing civilian targets in North Vietnam 40 years ago, apparently wants other young men to have the chance to become war heroes. He continues to be dogged by a ...

Iraq after the Gulf War: Sanctions, Part 2

by Rahul Mahajan December 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 Perhaps the most notable thing about the sanctions is the long delay before allowing Iraq to sell oil, its only significant source of external income: four years until passage of UNSCR 986, five until Iraq accepted it, five and a half until oil sales started. Since the United States was seemingly willing ...

Iraq 3.0

by Sheldon Richman November 28, 2007

One gets the feeling that even the White House realizes the mess it’s made of Iraq. The other day the newspapers reported that the Bush administration has scaled back its objectives rather substantially. We might call it Iraq 3.0. First the plan was to create a democratic paradise which, domino-like, ...

“Patriotic Grace” in Support of War Is No Virtue

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2007

How amazing it is to hear how some people still talk about the U.S. occupation of Iraq at this late date. You’d think even the most naive nationalist would have long ago realized that something is terribly wrong — intrinsically so — with the U.S. “mission” and that calls for “hanging in there” are preposterous. When will the war ...

Iraq after the Gulf War: Sanctions, Part 1

by Rahul Mahajan November 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 I am willing to make a bet to anyone here that we care more about the Iraqi people than Saddam Hussein does. — U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, CNN Town Hall Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, February 18, 1998 We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more ...

Blackwater and Bush’s War

by Sheldon Richman October 15, 2007

If Iraq is really a sovereign country, which is the fiction maintained by the Bush administration, then why aren’t the Blackwater USA personnel who are accused of murdering 17 innocent Iraqis accountable to the criminal justice system in that country? Private contractors such as Blackwater have had immunity from criminal ...

Randy Barnett’s Wrong-Headed Defense of the Iraq War

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2007

In an op-ed in the July 17, 2007, issue of the Wall Street Journal, Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett stated that President Bush’s war on Iraq could be defended on libertarian principles. He argued that the president’s attack on Iraq fell under the libertarian principle of self-defense. He also suggested that the reason that the occupation of Iraq has ...

Iraqi Persons: Children of a Lesser God?

by J.D. Chapman September 21, 2007

The taking of one human life We all agree to be high crime That usually demands a just punishment It is a sin That God abhors and will also judge But several hundred thousand lives Of mainly bystanders To massive military exercise By the world’s mightiest armies For goals that could never be justified Defies the bravest explanation