Iraq War: An Eight-Year Massive Crime—But the US Political Class & Press Ask, ‘Was It Worth It?’
Kevin Gosztola | FireDogLake | March 18, 2013

“It cannot be said there was no cost or suffering for Americans, however, that should not be the focus of reflection. It should not matter whether Americans think it was “worth it” or not, whether those who engineered the war still find it to have been “worth it,” or even whether troops who served happen to believe what they did was “worth it.” The primary focus should be the cost to Iraqis.

As the ten year anniversary of the US invasion approaches, updated research shows that both the human and financial costs of the preemptive and prolonged military adventure in Iraq are higher than the most Americans even now realize and astronomically higher than its proponents assured the public as they made their case for war a decade ago.

by David Swanson  |  March 18, 2013

Ever More Shocked, Never Yet Awed

The following is a brief summary of a much longer, and fully documented, report available at warisacrime.org/iraq and being made available in an attractive 88-page PDF at coldtype.net.

It has always been painful for me to write about Iraq and Baghdad, the land of my birth and the city of my childhood. They say that time is a great healer, but, along with most Iraqis, I feel the pain even more deeply today. But this time the tears for what has already happened are mixed with a crippling fear that worse is yet to come: an all-out civil war. Ten years on from the shock and awe of the 2003 Bush and Blair war – which followed 13 years of murderous sanctions, and 35 years of Saddamist dictatorship – my tormented land, once a cradle of civilisation, is staring into the abyss.

Samatha Goldman:
Ten years ago, I was a student in high school when the war in Iraq began. At 15, I threw myself wholeheartedly into resisting the war. I remember the agony and outrage I felt when despite mass protest, a war based on lies was waged in our names. Ten years later a lot has changed, in the world and in my life. But the essential fact remains that the invasion of Iraq was horribly wrong and that the occupation that followed (and still continues) is criminal. It is also true that all those who continued to speak out and resist the Bush program and its reincarnation are right and precious.

The truth-telling of the imprisoned Bradley Manning continues to bear rich fruit, even as he faces a lifetime in prison for acting on principle to save innocent lives and prevent his country from staining itself further with war crimes. This week, the Guardian released a special investigation into the hideous regime of torture that the United States imposed and empowered during its years-long rape of Iraq.

10 years ago today was the largest one-day mass outpouring of opposition to war in history, when as many as 15 million people worldwide came into the streets to oppose the Bush regime's impending attack on the people of Iraq. Two points we must contemplate and take to heart:

by Chris Floyd

Years ago, I wrote several pieces about the savage decimation of Fallujah by American forces in 2004. Some of those pieces [here and here, for example] pointed to the highly credible evidence that chemical weapons were used against the people of Fallujah -- most of them non-combatants locked into the city by an American ring of steel.

Larry Everest:

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