President Obama spoke to Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where President Bush in 2003 rallied support for the war. (Jim Young/Reuters)
The War is Not Over
By JOHN ROSS, Counterpunch, March 12, 2009
The day we human shields rolled into Baghdad in February 2003, 12,000,000 protestors were pounding the pavement all over the world in a global tidal wave of protest aimed at stopping the criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq before it began and for once I entertained a sliver of hope that we would be heard. Fat chance. Bush dismissed the rest of the planet as a “focus group” and proceeded to eviscerate the cradle of civilization.
Seven years later nearly to the day, his successor showed up at Camp Lejeune North Carolina for a presidential photo op before 10,000 marines ready to storm the next Halls of Montezuma (Afghanistan) to frame his mendacious declaration of an end to the U.S. invasion of that ravaged country. Before he delivered the goods, Barack Obama felt obligated to dial up Bush at his Texas ranch and apprise him of the speech.
Bitter bile rose to the tip of my tongue when I reviewed the details of this flimflam as reported in the New York Times. Bush had marched into Iraq, overthrown a leader he did not like – hanged him actually, sewn the seeds of hatred amongst the populous, caused the death of a million Iraqis not to mention 5000 of his own troops (20,000 wounded), destroyed the nation’s infrastructure, forced 4,000,000 citizens into internal and external exile, embezzled $2,000,000,000,000 from the taxpaying public to finance these war crimes, and doled out billions to his corrupt cronies and the cronies of his cronies in lucrative contracts to perpetuate this egregious slaughter – and now here was Obama calling this butcher to advise him of his plans. Now the U.S. was washing its hands of Iraq, walking away from the genocide without even an apology to those who had been so grievously wounded. Indeed, Obama congratulated the killer marines for having completed their mission “with honor.” Arrrggghhh!
The first step in this charade of false closure is Obama’s drawdown. The next is to make the citizens of the occupying power forget Iraq ever happened – a brainwashing that has been in process since the “success” of Bush’s “surge.” One problem though: how do you brainwash the brain dead?