5 years of war:
This is an illegitimate occupation begun by proven liars: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and a slew of military and private operatives. The justifications for invading have all been proven wrong: no weapons of mass destruction; no ties to Al Qaeda; no Iraqi capability of attacking the U.S.
It’s not a “war on terror.” It’s a war for empire.
Toll: 1.2 million Iraqis; 4.5 million displaced. A country with no functioning government & civil war brought on by the occupation. 4000 US military killed; tens of thousands injured & incapacitated.
The Bush Regime is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity:
The invasion of Iraq, a country which had not attacked the
United States, was on its face a war crime, and contravened
international law.
The occupation has left everything in Iraq worse: almost no
functional health care, water, sewage, electrical, judicial or
educational systems (where Iraq before 2003 had modern systems, even
though they suffered under sanctions). Women’s access to education,
divorce, work, and living in safety are much worse under the new
Constitution.
The Bush regime deliberated destroyed functioning civil life;
fostering and fanning divisions, sectarian violence, and setting up a
series of puppet governments answerable to the U.S.
The siege of Fallujah, after Bush’s reelection in 2004, destroyed 40% of the homes, leaving 200,000 civilians homeless and thousands dead. US military forces deliberately fired on ambulances and hospitals, a war crime.
U.S. military, contractors and CIA created a torture state extending from the Middle East to unnamed countries, secretly rendering people, including children, without rights to trial or habeas corpus, using interrogation methods defined by international law as torture, a war crime.
We don’t support the war; we don’t support the troops:
Everyone in the US military is part of an institution carrying out a war for empire, against the interests of people living here. Each person has the responsibility not to follow orders that are illegal or immoral.
While individual soldiers and marines have been singled out and scapegoated for punishment in some of the incidents of collective punishment of civilians, this was done in attempts to cover up systematic patterns of abuse.
The Commander in Chief and command structure who trains, indoctrinates and issues orders to the troops are responsible for the crimes, and they should be held accountable.
Too many reports from training facilities and in-country bases have come out to discount the widespread culture of dehumanizing Iraqis. “Officers sang cadences about blood, death and destruction, and referred to the Iraqi people over and over again as “ragheads,” said a Marine veteran.
The growing number of veterans and active duty troops who are resisting the war and what they are led to do deserve our respect and support, and they will need it, because the military is getting more desperate.