The Never-ending War Story - the Prequel

6 months before the US invaded Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, were building bases and installations in preparation for the invasion.

The PBS documentary ‘Private Warriors’ presented this fact in June, 2005. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/view/
(Chapter three, ‘Embedded with KBR’; at 5:10)

To repeat:

The decision to invade Iraq had been made and Halliburton had been hired to provide logistical support for an armed assault of Iraq long before the fabricated evidence re: WMDs and Saddam/Al-Qaida connections were presented by the White House to the US people and their greedy, jello-spined representatives.

It might seem beyond credibility, given what we know now, that neither the director, Tim Mangini, nor producers, Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith thought to pursue a line of questioning pertaining to this fact in this ‘hard look at private contractors’. Too off-topic perhaps. (IMHO, the documentary quickly descends into a ‘human interest piece’. Perhaps the tragic story of ex-Navy Seal, Scotty ‘the Bod’ Helvenston and others was too alluring. Helvenston was one of the Blackwater mercenaries killed, burned and strung up from the bridge in Falluja.)

Call me naïve, but I would have thought that drilling to the core of the investigation to fathom the grand reason why we were truly at war in Iraq and in need of all these private contractors would have been the preferred tact to take. (Call it 20/20 hindsight, if you wish.)

If the reporter was correct, sometime in September, 2002, 6 months before the Bush Administration bullied the US into violating international law by invading the sovereign nation of Iraq on March 20, 2003, contracts had been signed and contractors were on the ground building bases and installations in preparation for the invasion. This presumably included the ‘permanent bases’, and quite likely improvements on what is to be the largest embassy compound in the World. A ‘Vatican City’ to serve as the base of future operations in the Middle-east. Most certainly, they were busy building some of the more than 60 sites that KBR operated in Iraq at the time of this documentary.

In his January 28, 2003, state of the Union address, Bush denounced Saddam as “the dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons” and listed vast quantities of biological and chemical weapons. What Dubya didn’t tell us is that his cabal of war-criminals had already bargained away any peaceful, diplomatic solutions in a no-bid contract to Halliburton/KBR, three months earlier.

Lest we forget, Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, a 26-year veteran of the agency, revealed to CBS’ Ed Bradley on ‘60-minutes’ which aired on April 23, 2006, that in the fall of 2002, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others were told by CIA Director, George Tenet that Iraq’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri — who agreed to act as a spy for the United States and was reportedly paid more than $100,000 by the CIA — had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0321-09.htm

Mr Drumheller went on to say that the administration didn’t care about this revelation, no matter the source. Of course not, by that time, in September, 2002, the real decisions had been made by the people who truly matter, the high mucky-mucks of corporate America, and the ink was drying on the dotted line. The gravy-train was leaving the station with a full head of steam and no red flag was going to stop it.

You can almost hear an echo from the addled, collective brain-pan of Bush’s Inner Circle, ‘We can’t renege on the deals we’ve made with our friends at Halliburton. That wouldn’t be kosher. A deal is a deal.’ One must suppose that the ‘finder’s fee’ on the estimated umpteen billion dollars in no-bid, cost-plus contracts awarded to Halliburton/KBR would be a handsome one. And if one had similar connections with other corporations that supplied materiel and services to Halliburton and KBR at inflated cost, one could wolf down the slop at both ends of the trough. Hog heaven, as they say.

That’s a mighty temptation. Mountains of cash up front and on the back end, lots of powerful friends who’d be happy to give you a corner office, a princely salary and a diamond parachute when you conclude your ‘service’ in the US government.

Beyond the dreams of avarice.

And all you have to do is undermine the Constitution, betray your solemn oath to uphold and defend the precepts of that document, lie to the US citizens you swore to serve, deceive the world with bald-faced falsehoods and steel yourself to live with the fact that the blood of thousands or even tens of thousands of human beings are on your greedy hands.

Such a deal.

So, General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, when can we expect to bring home our troops and our contractors? When will this war end?

The answer is simple.

The war will end when Dubya, Dicky-boy, Donnie the Rum, Condi, Wolfie, and all those of their sickening ilk can force themselves from the slop of the trough.

Then again, I’m an optimist.

Post Script:
I am very sympathetic to Mr Helveston's friends and family members. I also can understand the reasoning revealed by Mrs Katy Helveston, Scotty’s mom when she told PBS,”When you’ve been in Special Forces for 13, 14 years, you’re trained to do one thing. And there’s not a whole lot of jobs out there for people trained to kill.” Being a private contractor seemed to be a solution to the deteriorating US economy for many of the 10,000 who were in Iraq in 2005.

Flame out!

“The Olympic flame is in trouble. The Associated Press reports the International Olympic Committee is considering scrapping the international leg of the Olympic torch relay as a result of a series of pro-Tibet protests. On Monday, officials in Paris were forced to extinguish the Olympic flame and carry it by bus when protesters tried to seize it”. Democracy Now! Headlines, April 9, 2008.

Watching the scenes of the progress of the torch from Beijing and back again, with concentric ‘bubbles’ of security is quite a statement in and of itself. Roller-blades and mountain bikes? Like a bad TV pilot nobody picked up. And fascists in powder blue jogging suits – how chic!

Aside from the side-show, the flame of peace, hope, and brotherhood is under threat from radical political activists. How dare they interfere with ritual? Especially ritual that has already been bought and paid for!

Well, it just goes show that a symbol, when placed in impertinent, dishonorable hands and utilized improperly with a blatant disregard of higher moral value, can lose all of its meaning and even, as in this case, affect the reversal of the symbol’s traditional denotation.

The protestors are not attacking the spirit of the Olympic flame. They are attacking the perversion of it and its callous use as a PR tool by a ruthless, totalitarian regime.

Not to exempt other previous hosts of the Olympic Games from their own questionable policies, foreign and domestic, but the People’s Republic of China is a totally inappropriate host for this prestigious event, particularly given the current butchery in Tibet. Would Beijing have been allowed to host the Games the summer of the Tiannanmen Square massacre?

Yet in Lhasa, we see similar scenes of brutal political repression to those of 1989. This time the crack-down is based additionally on cultural and religious grounds. If the community of nations cannot withdraw a prestigious social prize of the magnitude of the Olympic Games from a rogue state that is murdering people who are only guilty of wanting to live their own lives under their own laws and by their own traditions, of what value is the honor and its trappings? The prize and its symbols cannot retain their lofty, moral significance when a bloody hand wields them. They can only be valued in the crass financial terms of a butcher shop.

Show me the money! Is that what the Games are about?

If the IOC had hair one, they would stop the whole charade right now. The government of the PRC does not deserve to have the Games. Cancel the Beijing Games. Move the site. Stage reduced Games. Utilize sites in multiple countries. But do not allow the PRC to enjoy the prestige of a civilized nation. If they want to be the Olympic hosts they can stop the bloody suppression of the Tibetan people.

Stop the Games. Boycott the Games. The medals are all deeply stained with the blood of innocents. They hold no honor.

Extraordinary rendition.

Extraordinary rendition.

In times gone by, that phrase would most likely have been used in the context of ‘Yasha Heifetz’ extraordinary rendition of Saint Saens’ Rondo Capriccioso thrilled the audience’ or ‘the extraordinary rendition by Pablo Casal of 'BACH’s Suite no 1 for Cello' brought the listeners to their feet’. It was a term about something beautiful and creative. It was a phrase relating to revelation by an artist of the most noble part of the human spirit.

Now ?

It’s a shameful indictment of the American people and American institutions for their complicity in inhuman extra-judicial torture and imprisonment.

Dubya in Bucharest

Is this just more unbridled hubris, simply another case of sheer stupidity or both? Perhaps it’s just a grandstand move, like the recent Mid-East ‘Peace’ effort to try to balance the historic record of Dubya’s administration.

Bush went to the NATO summit in Romania to campaign for the admission of the former Soviet states, Ukraine and Georgia, into the ranks of NATO and to pressure allies to increase troop commitments in Afghanistan.

First of all, the war there should have been resolved years ago. With the full assistance of the UN and NATO and clear, concerted attention to the stated objective of capturing Bin Laden and neutralizing Al-Qaeda, it quite probably could have been.

The grand distraction of the illegal war in Iraq allowed the primary mission to fail as it was turned over to Pakistan to fulfill; Pakistan which had fully supported the Taliban before and after 9-11. That failure allowed the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to become resurgent by escaping, regrouping, rearming and reinforcing in the Tribal Areas along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border from which they launched a campaign to re-take Afghanistan. (Mullah Rashid Akhond, the overall military commander of the Taleban in Wardak, a central province bordering Kabul, claims to have 2,000 active fighters ready for a spring offense.) Hence, Bush is using what little clout is left him as an out-going president at his last NATO summit to insist on additional military assistance from NATO countries.

In his own little world of Biblical import, Bush also chose to take several punches at Putin, the out-going president of Russia by promoting missile bases and radar installation in Russia’s front yard and the pushing for the admission of two former Soviet states, Ukraine and Georgia, as NATO members.

Putin, obviously not understanding that Bush serves a higher power, counter-punched with a combination of logic and reason. He first questioned the reason for the very existence of NATO, saying the purpose of the alliance was to counter the perceived threat during the Cold War of a country which doesn’t exist anymore, the Soviet Union. He added, "This thesis is rather strange – if one is a member of NATO, there is democracy, and if not, no democracy. This is nonsense. NATO is not a democratizer," he said.

But Bush is the ‘Democratizer’ bunny who has never let reason or logic stand in his way and he wants the Ukraine and Georgia to join the ranks of the newly ‘democratized’ NATO countries which were formerly Warsaw Pac members. There are already ten such members and two more waiting in queue. Bush would like to ask them all to supply troops to the fight in Afghanistan.

Evidently, he and his advisors have forgotten what took place in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. It is unlikely that the people of the Ukraine, Georgia, Romania and the other former members of the Soviet bloc which are now NATO members have forgotten.

Nearly 14,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed and nearly half a million suffered wounds, injury and debilitating illness before Moscow withdrew its forces in defeat. It is generally accepted that the collapse of the Soviet Union, at least in part, came as a result of that war.

I would doubt that any of the former Soviet Bloc would want to go through that again, especially given the dire situation in Iraq and the state of the US economy. The fact that the hat-in-hand request is coming from Dubya, the lame duck would be enough to give them pause. Time will tell.

NATO, responding to the strong objection from Moscow, rejected the admission of Ukraine and Georgia. More troops from Canada, Spain and France will be headed to Afghanistan, though, so the quagmire will mire on. That should make Dubya and the other remaining neo-cons happy; two never-ending wars spiraling out of control at the same time. That must be an historical first.

http://www.newssafety.com/hotspots/documents/AKEAfghanistan27.03.2008.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7327944.stm

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,544189,00.html

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080401/nato_afghanistan_080401/20080401/?hub=Specials

http://www.thestar.com/World/Columnist/article/410713

A Million Iraqi March

An odd combination: military action leaving hundreds dead followed by a call for peaceful demonstrations.

On Thursday Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for 1 million Iraqis to march against U.S. “occupation” next week, to “express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honorable people.”

One million is the estimate currently given for the number of Iraqis who have died since the illegal invasion of their country by the US-led Coalition Forces.

The date of the march will be on the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad in the city of Najaf, an Islamic Holy City, site of the shrine of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph. Najaf also contains one of the largest cemeteries in the world and according to Imam Ali, any Muslim buried there will enter paradise.

Let’s pray that the cemetery will not grow larger as a result of this demonstration.

Contemptible News Ninnies

You know, what irks me about CNN (other than the fact that for all of the people and equipment they have in the field, they barely clear the bar as a news source at all) is their incessant self-promotion. Why are they compelled to tout themselves as a news source and lionize their reporters? Why do they insist on telling us again and again that CNN can be seen in all the finest hotels around the world?

I’m watching. I’m watching. You have me as a viewer, now give me something engaging to watch.

If you got the goods, CNN, stopping jawing about it and hold forth. Stop boring us with hype on how good you are and show us some solid evidence of your professed excellence in the form of comprehensive, responsible, unbiased journalism on substantive and relevant topics.

Greed and the Rumba Line

Sorting through all of the information, dis-information, lies, obfuscations and specious assertions, one might never know 'WHO' pulls the strings in this world. Labeling 'THEM' Bilderbergers, CFA, NSA, Tri-lats, WMF or the Illuminated Seers of Bavaria, only allows the mind to focus for awhile on the problem. The problem is as old as humanity, one of the Cardinal sins - Greed. Greed for power and money to be exact; the other sins, Pride, Sloth, Envy, etc, all follow in a demonic rumba line to Greed.

Perhaps the most important precept to keep in mind is the dictum made by 'Deep Throat' to Woodward and Bernstein - 'Follow the Money'. For it is the adoration of money and the power it buys that has brought us to this condition. I know that is a very simplistic assessment. It is a 'thumbnail'. The 'elevator pitch'.

My intention here has not been to demonize Bush or any of his administration. They are not demons. They are ruthless, greedy men who should be held accountable for their actions the same as any other criminal. For what they have perpetrated are crimes against the Constitution of the United States, the American People and the World. Impeachment is one legal process by which we call an elected governmental servant of the people to accounts. The unelected members of his cabinet should also be indicted and prosecuted by the World Court just as Milosevic and other war criminals have been.

I understand fully that impeachments and indictments will not solve the problems of the world, no more than prosecuting murderers and rapists will end murder or sexual assault. As a country founded on the rule of law, impeachment, indictment and prosecution are the tools that we have allowed ourselves to utilize to keep in check those who would illegally serve themselves to the detriment of the greater good.

I feel as many do: I fear for our country. I fear that we may have lost our constitutional republic except as a formality of hollow rituals and meaningless elections. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild said "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."

That is the heart of the matter. Our nation has devolved into a corporate fascism: corporatism. It's not as heinous as the brand of fascism witnessed in Germany or Italy. It is a kinder, gentler form of fascism that allows its subjects to go about the business of making a comfortable life for themselves but only within certain prescribed parameters by which the rulers, the corporate managers will benefit. Democratic self-rule, government by the people is off the agenda except as a sop to keep the people pacified.

Whether, Johnny Mac, Hillary the Pill or Barack O'Mama gets elected, they will be ham-strung by all of the concessions and deals and compromises they have already made to the corporate managers in exchange for the millions in their campaign war chests.

The War in Iraq was a series of monumental blunders brought about by greed and hubris with horrendous, far-reaching consequences. Anyone who cannot accept that is being willfully blind. It may well bring about the unraveling of the American Empire and the near collapse of the economy. McCain and ‘more of the same’ of the past 8 years is not what I would prefer for the USA. Whether Hillary or Obama can set some things to right is a question I hope both of them will have a chance to answer to our satisfaction.

As black as that vision is, I do have faith. Not in Divine Intervention or the Second Coming. I have faith in the spiritual evolution of humanity. The spirit I refer to is that by which each of us can look beyond our petty desires and see and fell empathy with the great family of Man. Like any faith, it is constantly being tested.