George Bush oversees torture and commits the “supreme war crime” of aggression, causing suffering and death for millions. Gets to go back to his ranch.
One of the victims of these crimes throws a shoe at the perpetrator. Gets 3 years in jail.
The Guardian did get one thing wrong in their report. Muntazar al-Zaidi is not just a hero in the Arab world.
Due to being in Iraq at the time I missed this interview with Saddam Hussein. Fascinating.
A huge controversy has blown up in the UK after a couple of comedians made a lewd phone call and it was broadcast on BBC radio. The broadcast received two single complaints on the day but after The Mail on Sunday lead with the story a week later that eventually ballooned into the tens of thousands.
As of tonight one of the comedians has resigned, one is suspended for twelve weeks and a senior BBC manager has also resigned.
The public outrage has more to do, probably, with their obscene pay packets than the anything else but what I find so repulsive about all this is the contrast between the accountability of people involved in a petty prank and the accountability of people involved in the unspeakably more horrendous matter of the invasion of Iraq.
Here we have a silly but ultimately harmless prank gone wrong. A few complain and people are apologising and resigning left right and centre.
Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and mob launch a war of aggression, the “supreme war crime,” on a pack of lies, resulting in the destruction of a country and untold people’s lives destroyed or ended. The largest protest in human history ensues and not only have these people never apologised, resigned or been brought to justice but a plurality of British voters re-elected them.
Shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 I wrote this opinion piece, which was published in my hometown newspaper, Hawke’s Bay Today, in New Zealand. It prompted this response, by way of letter to the editor, from Hardie Martin:
After reading his Opinion in Hawke’s Bay Today on April 12, it occurs to me that anyone seeking a Minister of (dis)Information of the same calibre as Iraq’s Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, need look no further than Christiaan Briggs.
I wonder what Hardie Martin would make of today’s occupation of Iraq:
US using debts to blackmail Iraq:
“Baghdad is under pressure by Washington to accept the security deal in exchange for clearing all of Iraq’s debts,” Iraqi lawmaker Mohammed Kamid al-Humedawi told Press TV on Wednesday. The US will be allowed to set up permanent military bases, if Iraq signs the agreement. Under the deal the US forces will also be granted immunity from legal prosecution inside their bases in Iraq.
Iraqi government fuels ‘war for oil’ theories by putting reserves up for biggest ever sale:
The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani. Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation’s reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces. Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today’s sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a “war for oil” that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves.
U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media
The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to “engage and inspire” the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.
I love how they refer to it as “Pro-American Publicity.”
No parent should have to see their child die, but if you were my son, Gordon, I would be immensely proud that you lived every minute of your allotted time to its utmost. A gentleman and a scholar, farewell brother.
Like many Kiwis on the net I enjoy reading Russell Brown’s blog, Hard News, but every now and then something goes terribly terribly wrong.
A recent poll of U.S. troops in Iraq shows that 85% say the mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9 – 11 attacks.”
While rummaging through one of my drawers today I came across a small memory card for the digital camera I took to Iraq in 2003, and it held photos that I’d forgotten I had.
A new documentary details the the use of white phosphorus against Iraqi people during the U.S. assault on Fallujah in November last year.