Progressive Movie Theater: Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"

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By MARC McDONALD

After a hiatus, we're back in action. And today, we're unveiling a new regular series on this blog.

Welcome to the first edition of Progressive Movie Theater, a series in which we take a look at notable progressive/left-leaning cinema.

Our film today is Michael Moore's 2004 documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11. After more than a decade, the film still is an effective indictment of the disastrous Bush/Cheney years.

I recall watching Fahrenheit 9/11 in the theater here in Texas (not exactly a blue state). After the film was over, I heard the loudest and most enthusiastic applause I've ever heard in a movie theater. Similar reaction was noted in theaters across the U.S.

It was clear that many people across the U.S. were frustrated and fed up with the Bush administration. And Fahrenheit 9/11 did a good job of expressing our frustrations. It's important to note that, at the time, Bush was still being treated with kid gloves by the mainstream media.

Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Bush's approval rating had soared to 90 percent. I'm still unclear as to exactly why this was. After all, the 9/11 attacks represented a spectacular failure on the part of the mega-trillion-dollar Military Industrial Complex's presumed first priority (to protect the homeland). As Commander-in-Chief, Bush hardly displayed competent leadership in the period leading up to the attacks.

And yet the nation rallied around Bush after 9/11. It's impossible to fathom something like that happening today if another 9/11-style attack occurred. The fact is, there would certainly be no honeymoon for President Obama. Let's face it: from Day One, there would be constant calls for Obama's resignation, as well as calls for impeachment. The attacks would in fact haunt the Democratic Party as a whole for decades to come.

In any case, back to Fahrenheit 9/11. I maintain that Moore's angry film was probably the first successful high-profile pinprick of the Bush White House. For Bush, it was all downhill from there. After the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush's popularity went into a nose dive and never recovered. Indeed, today, he is still widely regarded as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.

But back in 2004, Moore was there, on the big screen, telling us that Bush was a disastrous president---really back before any other major media figure dared express such a view. In the years to come, Moore was vindicated, time and again.

As Moore stated in his Oscar speech on March 23, 2003 (only four days after the start of the Iraq War):

"We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons."

It was a remarkably prescient remark, made at a time when all the serious "conventional wisdom" was in agreement with Bush's insistence that Saddam had WMDs. Of course, as it turned out, Moore was right and Bush/Cheney and the other warmongering NeoCons were revealed to be a bunch of liars.

I find that Fahrenheit 9/11 holds up very well over a decade later. There are still many important questions the film raises that have never been adequately explained.

But one thing I find fascinating is that, if you really listen to the film's message, it's clear that the villain of Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn't really the Bush/Cheney NeoCons. It was the mainstream media.

After all, one can't really blame Bush/Cheney for their warmongering and illegal and immoral behavior, any more than you can blame a lion who eats a small child who wanders into his cage. That's what lions do. And invading other nations on false pretences to steal their oil is what you'd expect from a bunch of corrupt thugs like the Bush/Cheney NeoCons.

No, let's take a look at the film's real villains: the mainstream media. It's clear that, at every step of the Bush/Cheney administration, the media completely and totally failed to properly investigate what was going on and to deliver the truth to the American people. If the media had done its job, I believe the Iraq War would probably have never taken place. But instead of doing its job, media outlets like The New York Times assured us that Bush's case for war was solid. Those were the real villains of the Bush/Cheney years.

Incidentally, Moore has a new film on the way, Where to Invade Next. It should be released in the next couple of months. Below, you can view the trailer for this film.
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What Would President Gore Have Done After 9/11?

By MARC McDONALD

I've often wondered: if Al Gore had been allowed to assume the presidency that he won in the 2000 election, how would he have responded after the 9/11 attacks? Actually, I think it's pretty likely 9/11 would never have happened in the first place under President Gore.

Gore was (and is) a reader and a scholar, you see. One of those dreaded "Liberal book learners." Unlike Bush, Gore didn't make decisions "based on his gut." Gore read about and studied the issues. He listened to experts. Oh, the horror!

And on Aug. 6, 2001, when the CIA hand-delivered a Presidential Daily Brief to President Gore, he would have actually read the goddamn thing (particularly after glancing at the alarming headline, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in U.S.")

Unlike Bush, Gore wasn't fond of endless 5-week vacations on the taxpayer's dime. So it is entirely possible that Gore wouldn't have been on vacation at the time. I'm think it's also highly likely that if Gore had been on vacation, he'd have cut it short to deal with the PDB.

What's important, though, is that President Gore would have take action. For example, it's a virtual certainty that he would have called a meeting of his top security people. (Maybe such a high-level security meeting would have brought attention to issues like the FBI's July 2001 reporting about suspicious Middle Eastern men who were learning to fly passenger airliners at U.S. aviation schools).

I'd also suspect that President Gore would have ordered possible terror targets like airports to step up security a notch.

Sadly, none of this actually happened. Of course, that's because in the previous year, a blatantly pro-GOP Supreme Court in 2000 awarded Bush a presidency in an election that Gore won by over half a million votes.

And so when Aug. 6, 2001 rolled around, Bush was handed the fateful Bin Laden PDB and took no action, as he continued to enjoy his 5 week vacation.

And so 3,000 Americans died on 9/11. And later, hundreds of thousands of civilians were slaughtered in the trillion-dollar fiasco called the Iraq War.

Of course, Bush and his supporters have long maintained that, "No one could have predicted the Sept. 11 attacks."

That, of course, is utter bullsh*t.

As David Plotz explained in a piece on Slate, there were in fact, "tons of warnings of exactly this kind of attack."

"The (2003) congressional report on the 9/11 intelligence failures lists a dozen pre-9/11 indications that terrorists were plotting a suicide hijacking. For example, in 1994 Algerians hijacked an Air France airliner with the intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. (They were tricked by French officials into landing in Marseilles to refuel, where they were overpowered.) In 1995, police in the Philippines uncovered an al-Qaida plot to fly a plane into CIA headquarters. (One of the plotters: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.) A year later, al-Qaida had the idea of flying a plane from outside the United States and crashing it into the White House. Two years later, al-Qaida planned to fly a plane from outside the United States and crash it into the World Trade Center. And so on."

I suppose it could be debated endlessly as to whether a President Gore could have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks. I personally believe it is likely. But in reality, we will never know.

We do, however, know that President Gore almost certainly wouldn't have marched the U.S. into invading the wrong country after 9/11. This is where Gore's "book learning" would have come in handy for the nation. I think it's likely that Gore wouldn't have been under the misconception, shared by the Bush crowd, that Saddam somehow was connected to 9/11. (In fact, he likely would have known that, in fact, Saddam and Bin Laden were bitter enemies).

I suppose, in fairness, it's possible that even this can't be known for certainty.

But there is one thing that is absolutely certain. President Gore would have taken firm decisive action to protect America (and the world) from a threat that is actually vastly larger than Al-Qaeda.

That is: the oncoming major threat to humanity called Global Warming.

Christopher Hitchens: A Champion of Reason Or A NeoCon Toady?

By MARC McDONALD

On the excellent Infidel753 blog, I recently noticed that the site owner was paying tribute to Christopher Hitchens with a YouTube video that praises the man and his work.

Personally, I believe Hitchens' work on atheism and other topics is commendable--but outweighed by his despicable support for the Iraq War and his shameful propagandizing on behalf of Bush/Cheney and the rest of the NeoCons who have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on their hands.

The comment thread below, which originally appeared on the Infidel753 blog, sums up my thoughts about this. I'd be curious to know: do readers of this blog agree or disagree? Does Hitchens' fine and intelligent body of work outweigh his support for the Iraq War? Or does Hitchens' parroting of Bush/Cheney lies damage his integrity and his reputation for intellectual honesty?

The comment thread, from Nov. 13, 2011:

I like this blog and you have a lot of good content. But frankly, I must disagree with all this praise for Christopher Hitchens.

Personally, I will always despise Hitchens for his outspoken support for the Iraq War. That horrific gang-rape of the Iraqi people was probably the world's greatest tragedy since Vietnam.

And every step of the way, Hitchens had his nose firmly up Bush's ass and loudly supported that fiasco.

I consider what Hitchens did to be even more reprehensible that the war-mongering coverage at "news" networks like Fox.

Hitchens' cheerleading for the war was actually more sickening than the likes of Limbaugh. After all, to any sensible, informed person, Limbaugh is a clown and his words carry little weight.

But many Americans (even the well-informed) bizarrely seem to believe that anyone who speaks with a British accent is somehow more intelligent than the rest of us.

As Hitchens is regarded as an "intellectual", his words on Iraq were far more influential to reasonable, intelligent opinion-makers than the likes of Fox News.

What's worse, is that Hitchens downright LIED about Iraq on many occasions. It's one thing to support this evil war. But to lie through his teeth about it was just downright evil. Memo to Hitchens: there was NO CONNECTION between Al Qaeda and Saddam--despite what you and Bush claimed otherwise on many occasions.

Hitchens may have done some good in his philosophical writing. But these were far outweighed, in my opinion, by his support for the evil that was the Iraq War.

A message to the many middle-class people in this video, sitting in their cushy, comfortable homes sipping scotch: please, spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians---all senselessly slaughtered in a war of lies that Hitchens passionately supported.

A response from site owner, "Infidel753":

MM: I consider Hitchens a great intellectual because of his writings and speeches against religion, not because of his accent. Yes, he was wrong about Iraq, but there is no one out there who has never been wrong about something.

To me, his contribution to the central struggle -- the struggle against religion -- far outweighs his errors on Iraq.

My response:

re:
>>Yes, he was wrong about Iraq,
>>but there is no one out there
>>who has never been wrong about
>>something.

Yes, I agree with you here. However, eight long years after the invasion of Iraq, it'd be nice to finally hear Hitchens say, "OK, I was wrong on this issue."

I don't expect to ever hear that from the likes of Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld. But it'd be nice to hear Hitchens say it after all this time. It'd be nice to also hear an apology for the vicious attacks he made on the likes of Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and other anti-war figures.

Having said that, I did read Hitchens' God is Not Great some time back and I do admit, it was a very good book.

BTW, sorry about the tone of my previous comment. I do tend to get blinded by rage over all matters, re: Iraq War. Rather than "despising" Hitchens, I guess the more accurate term would be that I'm disappointed in him, at least on this issue.

After 8 Years, U.S. Officials Still Recklessly Lying To Troops In Iraq

By MARC McDONALD

The disastrous Iraq War was originally built on a colossal lie. Now, eight years after George W. Bush ordered the invasion of that country, American officials are still lying to our troops. And the Big Lie today is just as dangerous and reckless as when Bush first told it.

On July 11, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, during a visit to Baghdad, sounded very Bush-like when he connected U.S. invasion of Iraq with 9/11.

Speaking at Camp Victory, Panetta said, "The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked," Panetta told the troops. "And 3,000 Americans--3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings--got killed because of Al Qaeda. And we've been fighting as a result of that."

After eight horrific years of war in Iraq, it's clear that Panetta is still peddling the same lies Bush told in 2003.

It's clear why Panetta follows the Bush party line. After all, the truth would be too terrible. We certainly couldn't tell the troops that, all these years, they've been fighting an illegal, immoral war that had absolutely no connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda. We certainly couldn't tell the troops that the Iraqi people want them out now. Not to mention the U.S. public. (Or, for that matter, the entire rest of the world).

No, the truth is too horrible. It'd be too depressing and demoralizing for both the troops and their families, who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

It's a Big Lie that Bush/Cheney peddled endlessly when they worked to sell their war to the American people. Recall how Bush worked tirelessly for months to try to connect Saddam to 9/11.

And (as it usually does for Republicans) the Big Lie worked. One poll, in 2006, revealed that nearly 90 percent of U.S. troops believed that the Iraq war was retaliation for Iraq's role in 9/11.

If we're going to send young people into battle, I've long believed that we at least owe them the truth. That was one thing America never offered our soldiers in Iraq.

But, as the Iraq War has shown, Bush's lies to the troops have also had dark consequences for the people of Iraq.

As author Mark Crispin Miller noted in his 2004 book, Cruel and Unusual:

"Bush sent a very different message to our troops....by harping on Iraq's alleged complicity in 9/11, and by hyping the fictitious `terrorist threat' posed by that nation. Because of such inflammatory propaganda, our troops were motivated mainly by a craving for revenge, as after the destruction of Pearl Harbor. Throughout the march to war, and through the first year of the war itself, payback was on everybody's mind. `The only thing that motivates all the soldiers fighting in Iraq is payback for Sept. 11, 2001,' reported Reuters."

Miller continued:

"That lust for righteous vengeance has helped push our troops toward barbarism---which is often frightening even to themselves."

When you have a situation in which troops are filled with anger and a desire for revenge, you increase the odds that atrocities will occur. And of course, we've seen plenty of horrific atrocities in the eight years of war in Iraq. And we'll likely continue to see atrocities on the battlefield as long as our leaders brazenly lie to our soldiers.

Remember the Iraq War? It's Baaack

By MARC McDONALD

The U.S. mainstream media, as well as the American public, grew tired of the Iraq War a long time ago.

Americans got weary of the depressing, mind-numbing stories of daily violence and bombings. So sometime around 2008, we just started tuning out the Iraq War. After all, we had other, more pressing issues. Like Paris Hilton's latest hairstyle. Or Britney's new boyfriend. Or Charlie Sheen's new porn star lovers.

Never mind that we Americans had been responsible in the first place for plunging Iraq into the violent hell that now consumes that nation. And all for a war based on lies and bullsh*t.

Gradually, the Iraq war just disappeared off of our radar screens. Oh, sure, we the American people, were still paying billions of our tax dollars a month, for ongoing war costs. And, of course, our troops were still dying there.

But by and large, we just lost interest. Never before in U.S. history has a war been so invisible to the American public (at least invisible to the people who aren't actually shedding their blood on the battlefields of Iraq).

But guess what?

The Iraq War is baaack.

A new savage cycle of violence is again wracking that country. And it's going to make it awful difficult for Americans, as well as the MSM, to tune out this ongoing fiasco much longer.

Consider the violence and bloodshed that has torn through Iraq in just the past month:

1. On Monday, five U.S. service members were killed in a rocket attack near Baghdad in the worst single toll for American troops in the country in at least two years.

2. Elsewhere in Iraq on Monday, violence killed 16 people, including 12 struck by a car bomb driven by a suicide attacker in Tikrit.

3. On Friday, attacks killed 24 at a Tikrit mosque and hospital where victims were being treated.

4. On Thursday, 10 people died in at least three explosions near provincial government offices in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi.

5. On May 27, an Iraqi official in charge of keeping former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party out of government was assassinated in Baghdad.

6. On May 23, a car bomb killed five policemen and two bystanders in the city of Kirkuk.

7. On May 22, at least 18 people were killed and 80 wounded in a series of roadside and car bomb bombing attacks in Baghdad.

8. On May 19, back-to-back bomb blasts in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed at least 27 people and wounded another 70 Thursday, officials said.

9. On May 5, a suicide bomber attacked a police training center in Hilla, killing at least 30 people and wounding 75 Thursday. 95 people were killed or injured in a series of other bombings that day.

And so it goes, on and on, day after day. And keep in mind, the above examples are only the tip of the iceberg. Dozens of smaller violent attacks occur daily.

The spiralling violence makes it difficult to believe that the U.S. will honor its agreement to pull out the remaining 46,000 combat troops by Dec. 31.

The problem is, if the troops do stay, it's difficult to imagine how the Iraq War doesn't descend into even greater chaos. Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is already rallying thousands of his supporters on the streets and vowing to lift his ongoing cease-fire and battle U.S. forces should they remain in Iraq after Dec. 31.

The latter pretty much seems inevitable, given the increase in violence in Iraq over the past few months. It's clear that the Iraq War will be grinding on and on, for a long time to come.

Rumsfeld Jumps The Shark in Bizarre FT Interview

By MARC McDONALD

In his weekend "Lunch With the FT" interview with Britain's Financial Times
newspaper, Donald Rumsfeld, was stubbornly defensive, as always, about his actions as Defense Secretary in the administration of George W. Bush.

He also jumped the shark in his surreal, bizarre justification for the disastrous Iraq War.

In the interview, one of the ways Rumsfeld defends the invasion of Iraq was by noting the "godawful prisons" that existed under Saddam Hussein.

It appears that Rumsfeld is a man without a sense of irony. Or shame.

This, after all, is a man who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal.

In fact, in November 2006, the prison's former commander, U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, said that Rumsfeld knew about, and was responsible for, what happened at Abu Ghraib.

In a written statement, Karpinski said:

"It was clear the knowledge and responsibility (for what happened at Abu Ghraib) goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."

Rumsfeld, like Bush, still fiercely defends anything and everything that occurred on his watch. Anyone looking for Robert McNamara-style regrets over the Iraq War fiasco will be disappointed with Rumsfeld's stubbornly unrepentant approach.

The Most Nauseating Lie in Bush's New Book

By MARC McDONALD

George W. Bush has had two years to carefully work out a strategy for rehabilitating the legacy of his disastrous presidency. And now, we are seeing the first major salvo in that effort: Bush's new book, Decision Points.

As could be expected from a man who brazenly lied his way through his presidency, Decision Points is a book filled with outrageous lies and distortions of history.

Clearly, Bush is channeling his mentor, Karl Rove. Rove's credo has always been: if you want to get a message out, don't worry about whether it's true. Just repeat it loudly, over and over. It's a blunt force tactic that usually works with the sort of simple-minded people who voted for Bush and who are lining up to buy his book today.

Reading Decision Points is a surreal experience. It's from a man whose worldview comes straight from the likes of Fox News and Rush. It is remarkably detached from reality.

The most nauseating lie in Bush's new book comes, as you might expect, from the central event that defined the Bush years: the disastrous Iraq War.

In his book, Bush writes that he was astonished to find after the invasion that there were no WMDs in Iraq. "No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons," Bush writes. "I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do."

Indeed, Bush should have had a "sickening feeling" every time he thought about the non-existent WMDs. It should haunt him for the rest of his life.

But the record shows otherwise. In fact, a mere year after he ordered the Iraq invasion, Bush was already flippant about the missing WMDs. Incredibly, he even thought the topic was suitable fodder for humor.

In one of the most jaw-droppingly offensive performances by any U.S. politician in history, Bush laughed and joked about the missing WMDs in Iraq, during his March 24, 2004 appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than a butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.

"Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere," Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office. "Nope--no weapons over there! Maybe they're under here," he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.

Meanwhile, the assembled "Liberal" media elites at the White House Correspondents Dinner were laughing heartily during Bush's performance.

Bush joked about the same non-existent WMDs that represented his case for taking the nation to war with Iraq. Recall how in the 2002-2003 build-up to the invasion of Iraq, every other word out of Bush's mouth was "WMD."

Bush and the other chickenhawk NeoCons constantly did their best to make the case that Saddam had WMDs that posed a threat to America. The NeoCons in effect used WMDs as a club to beat over the head of anyone who dared question whether the U.S. was following a wise course in invading Iraq.

We Progressives never bought Bush's case for war. We tried to point out to anyone who would listen that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We also tried to point out that Iraq was a small Third World nation with less than one-tenth of America's population, a nation with little industry.

Indeed, if Iraq did pose some sort of threat to America, we argued, then the question wasn't whether the U.S. should invade. Instead it was this: exactly why wasn't the Pentagon, with its trillion-dollar budgets, up to the job of protecting America? (Note that the U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined).

Indeed, many of us progressives rejected the very term, "Weapons of Mass Destruction." It was nothing more than a deliberately scary, propagandistic term, meant to frighten Americans into doing whatever the Bush/Cheney regime wanted. WMD was a term that belonged in a Marvel comic book, not in the real world.

Fast-forward to 2010. Bush is now trying to whitewash his presidency and hawk his book--the advance for which he reportedly pocketed a cool $7 million. Apparently unaware of the existence of sites like YouTube, Bush is now trying to pretend the 2004 White House Correspondents Dinner never happened. And now, he have us believe that the non-existent WMDs left him feeling "shocked," "angry" and with a "sickening feeling."

Actually, that exactly how I felt upon reading Bush's pack of lies.

Update:
I like Mother Jones writer David Corn. But I have to admit, I was a bit dismayed to see his Nov. 19 piece, "Bush's Biggest WMD Lie?" which makes exactly the same point as my Nov. 9 article above. (No, I'm not saying Corn copied my article----I doubt he's aware of my obscure blog). But the coincidence is spooky indeed.

Iraq War Grinds On, Ignored By Mainstream Media

By MARC McDONALD

Remember the Iraq War? That bloody conflict disappeared off the American public's radar screen a long time ago.

Americans got weary of the endless stories of violence and bombings and turned their attention elsewhere. We've now gone back to our usual MSM diet of stories about Paris Hilton's latest hairstyle and Britney Spears' latest tabloid escapades.

Unfortunately, someone forget to tell the Iraqi people the war is over. And that's a shame, because it's the Iraqi people who have to live with the continuing horrific violence that continues to plague the nation.

All told, George W. Bush's Iraq War is probably one of the great tragedies of human history. It's an illegal, immoral war that cost the American people $3 trillion. And it has thus far cost 1.4 million Iraqi people their lives.

What's worse is that the Iraq War continues to grind on, day after day----all but ignored by the U.S. media. Sure, the MSM will devote coverage to the occasional spectacular bombings that periodically kills dozens. But the day-to-day horrific violence, which still continues, has long ago disappeared off the MSM's radar screens.

Consider the violence that occurred in Iraq just this past week (a very ordinary week that was no bloodier than any other week). Just in the past seven days, Iraq was hit by the following violent attacks:


1. News Item: On Oct. 19, a roadside bomb hit the convoy of the top U.N. official, Ad Melkert, in Iraq after a meeting with Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf. Melkert was unhurt, but the blast killed an Iraqi policeman and wounded three others.

That same day, three explosions targeted the houses of police officers in Tikrit city north of Baghdad on Tuesday morning. 11 people from one family were killed in the first explosion and two members of another family were wounded in the second explosion.

2. News Item: On Oct. 18, a roadside bomb detonated targeting the convoy of Jasim Ali Mahmoud, Baghdad provincial council member in downtown Baghdad. Jasim was killed and three of his guards and five civilians were wounded.

3. News Item: On Oct. 17, gunmen stormed several goldsmiths' shops in Baghdad, killing three shop owners. A citizen ran to inform the nearby police patrols and police clashed with gunmen as they left the building. Gunmen used grenades and machine guns killing two policemen and the citizen that informed the police. Police returned fire and killed two of the gunmen.

4. News Item: On Oct. 15, a magnetic bomb that was stuck to the car of a college professor, Saad Abdulwahab, detonated in Baghdad, late Thursday, killing the professor and seriously injuring two civilian passers by.


The preceding just included some of the highlights of daily violent attacks that continue in Iraq, day after day, week after week, month after month. As horrific as the violence was during the past week, the fact is, it was just another typical week of bloody mayhem in a country that remains very much at war.

True, few U.S. troops are dying in Iraq these days (mainly because most troops are confined to their bases). But the fact is, U.S. soldiers are still dying in Iraq. The latest casualty, Pfc. Dylan T. Reid, 24, of Springfield, Mo., died Oct. 16 in Amarah, Iraq.

Just how bleak is it in Iraq these days? One telling indication is the ongoing humanitarian crisis of millions of Iraqis who have fled their country and are afraid to return home. Over 2 million Iraqis continue to live in neighboring Syria. Another million have fled to Jordan. And those few who've been brave enough to venture back home are regretting their decision, a recent poll indicates.

Although Americans don't pay much attention to the Iraq War these days, it's still costing us plenty. After all, 50,000 troops remain in the country. The Congressional Research Service reports that the Pentagon continues to spend $5.4 billion per month in Iraq (and another $8.6 billion per month in Afghanistan).

Much has been made of President Obama's decision to reduce the number of troops in Iraq. But less attention has been paid to the fact that the U.S. has greatly expanded the number of private contractors working in the country. As the Nation has pointed out, "using private forces is a backdoor way of continuing a substantial US presence under the cover of 'diplomatic security.'"

There have been many losers in the ongoing Iraq War fiasco. The Iraq people. The American people. U.S. troops, who suffered in a war based on lies. The moral standing of America, which has now been shattered forever.

But for all the mayhem and violence, there has been at least one winner in the Iraq War: the multinational oil corporations. After all, as Alan Greenspan noted in his 2007 book, the Iraq War really was about oil.

ExxonMobil and Shell are among those who've lined up to reap the massive reward of Iraq's oil fields. And Halliburton, of course, hasn't been left out either. On Oct. 14, Dick Cheney's old outfit was awarded a nice, fat contract by ExxonMobil Iraq Ltd.

The Pentagon's Hypocrisy On Iraqi Civilian Deaths

By MARC McDONALD

At long last, the U.S. is preparing to heed the wishes of the rest of the world (not to mention the Iraqi people) and begin the process of winding down the disastrous occupation of Iraq. In order to save face from this whole fiasco, U.S. leaders and the Pentagon have decided to declare the war a "success."

But there's only one problem for the Pentagon. Violent deaths in Iraqi are sharply up. In fact, 535 civilians were killed by bomb blasts or other attacks last month, an increase of 50 percent from the previous month, according to Iraqi government figures.

This inconvenient fact has posed a problem for the Pentagon.

So what's the solution? The Pentagon has bizarrely begun disputing the Iraqi government figures as unreliable.

This is truly surreal, not to mention hypocritical.

After all, throughout this whole 7-year fiasco of a war, the Pentagon has never cared about the stats of Iraqi civilian deaths. The Pentagon's stock, glib answer to the whole question of Iraqi civilian deaths has always been the same: "We don't do body counts."

Now, the "We-don't-do-body-counts" people are attacking the Iraqi government's own official civilian death statistics. The whole thing stinks of hypocrisy--the same sort of hypocrisy that has defined this war from the beginning.

I can't imagine why the Pentagon would think that the Iraqi government was exaggerating the death count. Or, for that matter, why the Pentagon would think it has more accurate statistics than the Iraqi government.

The fact is, the Pentagon has never cared about how many Iraqi civilians have died in this war. And when you don't care, you don't do body counts. (For the record, over 1.3 million Iraqi men, women and children have died in this war).

On countless occasions since 2003, the Pentagon brass have proven themselves to be liars, over and over. They lied about Jessica Lynch. They lied when they stage-managed the phony photo-op that showed the toppling of Saddam's statue. They lied when they initially claimed that they hadn't used horrific, flesh-melting white phosphorus chemical weapons in Fallujah.

In reality, the Pentagon's only real role is to secure Iraq's oil for the multi-national oil corporations that ultimately will be the only beneficiaries of this war. Clearly, the wishes of the Iraqi people don't enter the picture.

The Day Dick Cheney Told the Truth About Iraq

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By MARC McDONALD

Any sane, rational, clear-thinking adult knows that Dick Cheney is a war criminal and a liar. But just as a stopped clock can tell the correct time twice a day, there was one occasion where Doctor Evil actually told the truth about Iraq.

In a 1994 interview, Cheney defended George H.W. Bush's decision not to topple Saddam. Interestingly enough, Cheney actually makes some sense in this interview. He even uses the word "quagmire."

Just like Donald Rumsfeld wishes the 1983 video of him shaking hands with Saddam would just vanish, I'm sure Cheney wishes that this video never existed. Because today, the 2010 Cheney (who still strongly defends the Iraq War) is a totally different person from the 1994 Cheney (who correctly predicted that invading Iraq would be a fiasco).

Infamous Episodes in GOP History: Bush Jokes About Missing WMDs

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By MARC McDONALD

The Iraq War is one of the great tragedies of human history. It has cost over 1.3 million Iraqi men, women and children their lives. It has led to the deaths of over 4,700 coalition forces. It has cost at least $3 trillion. And it has completely destroyed America's moral standing in the world.

But to George W. Bush, the Iraq War is nothing more than fodder for "humor."

In one of the most jaw-droppingly offensive performances by any U.S. politician in history, Bush laughed and joked about the missing WMDs in Iraq, during his March 24, 2004 appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Bush joked about the same non-existent WMDs that represented his case for taking the nation to war with Iraq.

Recall how in the 2002-2003 build-up to the invasion of Iraq, every other word out of Bush's mouth was "WMD."

Bush and the other chickenhawk NeoCons constantly did their best to make the case that Saddam had WMDs that posed a threat to America. The NeoCons in effect used WMDs as a club to beat over the head of anyone who dared question whether the U.S. was following a wise course in invading Iraq.

We Progressives never bought Bush's case for war. We tried to point out to anyone who would listen that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We also tried to point out that Iraq was a small Third World nation with less than one-tenth of America's population, a nation with little industry.

Indeed, if Iraq did pose some sort of threat to America, we argued, then the question wasn't whether the U.S. should invade---instead it was this: exactly why isn't the Pentagon, with its trillion-dollar budgets, up to the job of protecting America? (Note that the U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined).

Indeed, many of us progressives rejected the very term, "Weapons of Mass Destruction." It was nothing more than a deliberately scary, propagandistic term, meant to frighten Americans into doing whatever the Bush/Cheney regime wanted. WMD was a term that belonged in a Marvel comic book, not in the real world.

And yet, in 2002, the corporate mainstream media obediently did Bush's bidding and worked hard to sell the upcoming Iraq War to the American people. There were a few exceptions (such as Knight Ridder's brilliant work that questioned Bush's case for war), but these were few and far between.

In short, our media failed the country---as it did so many times during Bush's eight disastrous years in office.

Which leads me to another point. If there's anything that was more chilling than Bush's "comedy" sketch, joking about the missing WMDs, it's this: the fact that the assembled media elites at the White House Correspondents Dinner were laughing heartily during Bush's performance.

Iraqi Shoe-Throwing Journalist Speaks For A Lot Of Us

By MARC McDONALD

I'm not sure what the specific grievance was that motivated an Iraqi journalist to throw two shoes at George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. Throwing shoes at someone is a considered a supreme insult in the Middle East.

But I do know this: if I could speak to that Iraqi journalist, I'd tell him that I share his contempt for Bush.

Indeed, I wish those shoes had hit Bush squarely in the middle of his smirking face.

After all, Bush now has only a few weeks left in office. Bush will leave the White House without ever having faced any consequences whatsoever for his reckless, illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq.

Throughout history, other world leaders have faced serious consequences for comparable crimes. They've faced international court tribunals. They've been tried in The Hague. They've gone to jail. In some cases, they've even faced the firing squad.

But thanks to the spineless, wimpy Democrats, Bush will apparently never face any consequences for the Iraq War, a $3 trillion fiasco that has resulted in the deaths of over 1 million men, women and children.

No, Bush will any face any consequences for the Iraq horror that he unleashed. He'll never be arrested. He'll never be tried. He'll never face justice.

Indeed (like all ex-presidents) Bush can look forward to a nice, cushy, lucrative career after the White House. Presidents generally land multi-million-dollar book deals (and thanks to ghost writers, they don't even have to bother to write their books).

And ex-presidents can generally command enormous multi-million-dollar fees on the lecture circuit. (Note that although most of America despises Bush, there are still plenty of Kool-Aid-drinking Bush cultists who will glad shell out money to hear him speak).

So like Jack the Ripper, Bush is a monster with blood on his hands who is going to get off scot-free and never face any repercussions for his crimes.

Like I said, the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist speaks for a lot of us in his contempt for Bush.

How Bush and the NeoCons Lied America Into the Iraq War

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This video does a good job of summing up the blatant, outrageous lies that George W. Bush and the NeoCons told in leading America into the $3 trillion Iraq War fiasco, which has led to the deaths of over 1 million Iraqi men, women and children.

Slicing Through 'Surge' Propaganda: Haven't We Heard It All Before?

By MANIFESTO JOE

Full disclosure: I have no military background. I do have 30 years of experience as a professional journalist, and have known enough U.S. history, for long enough, that at 17, I earned 6 hours of college credit in that subject just by taking a test. Take those for whatever they're worth.

My perhaps-risky thesis: The "surge" in Iraq, now being touted as some kind of unequivocal success, is yet another deception in a military campaign that will be remembered as the war that keeps on costing.

Granted, al Qaeda in Iraq has apparently been dealt some crushing blows (for now), and U.S. military casualties are sharply down. These things are being widely reported as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is on his overseas trip, which included a stop in Iraq.

But, the latter point, about the decline in U.S. casualties, reflects the ethnocentrism with which Americans tend to look at foreign conflicts. Juan Cole, writing on Informed Comment, points out:

Despite all the talk about Iraq being "calm," I'd like to point out that the month just before the last visit Barack Obama made to Iraq (he went in January, 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF Iraqi casualties. In June of this year, 2008, there were 554 according to AP. These are official statistics gathered passively that probably only capture about 10 percent of the true toll.

That is, the Iraqi death toll is actually still worse now than the last time Obama was in Iraq! (See the bombings and shootings listed below for Sunday). The hype around last year's troop escalation obscures a simple fact: that Obama formed his views about the need for the US to leave Iraq at a time when its security situation was very similar to what it is now! Why a return to the bad situation in late 05 and early 06 should be greeted by the GOP as the veritable coming of the Messiah is beyond me. You have people like Joe Lieberman saying silly things like if it weren't for the troop escalation, Obama wouldn't be able to visit Iraq. Uh, he visited it before the troop escalation, just fine.

To read the entire Cole article, click here.

What we seem to be hearing is that when fewer Americans are being killed and maimed as a result of the "surge," that makes it an unequivocal success. When the furrenurs is gettin' whacked a little faster than they wuz two and a half years ago, well, that's their tough luck. It's an A-Murkan world.

And, we've heard all this before, at other times and in other places. And it hasn't been so long since we've heard it. I seem to recall that "we" (in the editorial sense) were supposed to have pretty much routed the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies in Afghanistan. Been reading or hearing any news from there lately? It ain't over till it's over. And that one, the war "we" actually have reasonable justification for, is far from over.

I also seem to recall a day in 2003 when, just weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Il Doofus staged a landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared major military operations in Iraq to be over.

The MSM mouthpieces remain very much on the Pentagon bandwagon (not to mention the Straitjacket Express), with a mantra of "Obama was dead wrong" on the outcome of the "surge."

True, Obama didn't call it right in predicting that the "surge" would bring an increase in violence.

But, given the continued toll on Iraqi civilians, reports of success seem greatly exaggerated. I think the "surge" could be pronounced a success on the day that there are no unusual civilian deaths in Iraq, that the millions of refugees can return home safely, and that a stable Iraqi government can be elected without being propped up by a U.S. military presence. Perhaps in 100 years?

I'll venture a possibly risky prediction, but one firmly based on recent U.S. history.

In January 1973, the Nixon administration finally reached that elusive "peace with honor" deal with North Vietnam. The "peace" lasted a while. Then, a couple of years later, communist troops were overrunning South Vietnam. The American people were so sick of that bottomless pit of lives and money that they said a loud and resounding "NO" when the Ford administration had the nerve to propose that "we" go back in there.

The bottom line is that the U.S. is an occupier in a land generally hostile to the occupation. And, it should come as no surprise that the resistance will hide and play possum with every "surge" that our taxpayers can be conned into bankrolling. That's the name of the game in guerrilla warfare.

I'll gamble, and predict an outcome similar to the previously cited ones. For Americans, this will be the war that keeps on costing.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Why Al-Maliki Had Better Watch His Back

By MARC McDONALD

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is starting to become a real pain in the ass for the Bush White House. Instead of being a good little client state puppet, he keeps shooting his mouth off, asking for a timetable for the U.S. military to leave his shattered nation.

If Al-Maliki is smart, he really needs to start watching his back. His days are clearly numbered.

In order to realize this, you don't have to put on a tin foil hat. All you have to do is look at America's own sordid history in dealing with foreign heads of state who don't stick to the script. Time and time again, they wind up deposed or dead.

Take Saddam Hussein, for example. For decades, he was a U.S. ally in the Middle East. We armed him and funded him and even helped him ruthlessly purge his opponents in Iraq. It was only when he stopped following the script from Washington that he became an enemy of the U.S.

But Saddam is hardly alone among heads of state who ran afoul of U.S. policy over the years (and wound up dead or deposed as a result).

In fact, the CIA has been running around the world deposing foreign heads of state for decades, (including such democratically elected leaders as Iran's Mohammed Mosaddeq and Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz Guzman).

Now, Al-Maliki is latest leader to run afoul of U.S. policy. In the latest controversy, he has expressed approval of Barack Obama's plan to get U.S. troops out of Iraq within 16 months of next January. He made the remarks in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel.

This latest stunning development has the NeoCons reeling. In a desperate attempt to spin the story to their advantage, the NeoCons have been claiming that Al-Maliki's words were mistranslated or misinterpreted.

Much to the NeoCons' dismay, however, Der Spiegel has stood by its story. As Juan Cole points out, Der Spiegel still has the audio recording of the interview and what's more, it turns out that the translator involved works for al-Maliki, not for Der Spiegel.

Thus, the last fig leaf that the NeoCons could hide behind has been removed. The whole incident has become an enormous embarrassment for Bush and his allies.

There can no longer be any doubt: Al-Maliki now clearly wants a firm timetable for getting U.S. troops out of his nation and he even explicitly supports Obama's plan.

It's clear that Al-Maliki has turned into a big, big problem for Bush and the NeoCons.

Unfortunately for Al-Maliki, he lives in the most dangerous nation on earth: a country where bloody shootouts and bombings occur on a daily basis. What's worse is that he has increasingly turned into a thorn in the side of the NeoCons who fiercely reject any timetables for withdrawal.

Like I said, Al-Maliki had better start watching his back. His days are clearly numbered.

The Problem With "The Dark Knight"

By MARC McDONALD

One of the most heavily-hyped and highly rated films in years, The Dark Knight is more than just a mere movie: it's an industry unto itself. This juggernaut, which cost an eye-popping $180 million to produce, opened to rapturous response, and massive crowds on Friday. As of Saturday afternoon, it had already raked in a one-day box office record $66 million and is (at least at the moment) the all-time No. 1 highest rated film on IMDB.com, just ahead of The Godfather.

The back-story of The Dark Knight is causing a media frenzy, led by the tragic death earlier this year of Heath Ledger, who plays The Joker.

The film itself is being hailed for its dark, menacing atmosphere, as well as the sheer amount of graphic bloodiness (unusual for a comic book movie). But overall, everyone seems to be happy: from comic book fanboys to Time Warner shareholders.

However, I can't help but think that there's something horribly wrong about the whole Dark Knight phenomenon that is symbolic of what's wrong with our nation as a whole these days. And it goes well beyond the dumbing-down of our culture, which is so easily entertained by a movie based on a comic book (a mediocre comic book at that----I can think of dozens of manga and underground comics that are vastly superior to "Batman").

For a start, there is the matter of misplaced priorities. Between The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's death, our national media has once again devoted acres of column space to a movie, during a time in which the ongoing Iraq War has all but disappeared from our nation's media radar.

The long-suffering people of Iraq have no need to go a movie to see bloody shootouts and spectacular explosions: they see them all the time in real life, every day.

In fact, while the people of America are idly distracting themselves with comic book movies, the people of Iraq are still suffering a horrible ongoing nightmare.

Despite the proclamations by the GOP and the corporate media that Iraq is "getting better," the Iraqi people still have to contend with daily shootings and bombings on a mind-numbing scale.

Take Tuesday, for example. Just on that one day, guerrillas killed around 40 people and wounded dozens in several attacks in northern Iraq.

Did you hear about this story? Of course not. The U.S. media had more important priorities, such as gearing up the Great Hype Machine for The Dark Knight.

Tuesday's attacks were the sort of horrific violence that would dominate the news for years if it happened here. But since it happened in Iraq, it barely even gets reported in the U.S. these days. Our politicians are too busy proclaiming the "success" of our operations in Iraq.

I'm sure some readers will complain that I'm being a spoilsport. "Americans are weary of the war," they'll say. "We need an occasional break from reality with escapist fare like The Dark Knight."

Therein lies the problem. America is responsible for the horrific mess in Iraq. The disaster there may no longer interest Americans, with our short, MTV attention spans. But Iraq is OUR disaster and it ought to be relentlessly rubbed in our faces every single day until we demand and scream that this disastrous, illegal, immoral war be brought to an end now.

$10 Billion Pentagon Program Fails To Defeat IED Threat In Iraq

By MARC McDONALD

Taking a look at the latest troop casualties from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq, it quickly becomes apparent that IEDs remain a lethal threat to the U.S. military. In April, May and June, IEDs killed at least 54 U.S. troops, causing over half the 104 combat deaths suffered by the military in those three months.

It's clear that the U.S. military's $10 billion program to defeat the IED threat isn't working. The program (officially called the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization) was launched by the Pentagon in 2005 to foil IED attacks.

The program has increasingly come under fire as ineffective and poorly run. As WorldTribune.com reported in September, the program is a "boondoggle" that a Joint Forces Staff College review concluded is "mired in red tape and has relied excessively on technology."

Astonishingly, the U.S. has now spent more on this anti-IED program, in equivalent dollars, than it spent on the Manhattan Project installation that produced plutonium for World War II's atomic bombs.

Insurgents have enjoyed great success with IEDs, despite the fact the devices are remarkably low-tech and are often detonated with ordinary remote controls or cell phones.

What is particularly stunning about the whole IED saga is the fact that ordnance used in these devices was looted by insurgents in the first few weeks of the Iraq War. The Pentagon admits that over 250,000 tons of ordnance was looted--enough to build 1 million 500-pound bombs.

One might wonder why arms depots across Iraq were left unguarded in the early stages of the war. Well, it appears the U.S. military had higher priorities.

One of the few buildings left untouched by looters in April 2003 was the massive Oil Ministry building in Baghdad, which was heavily guarded by U.S. troops. When U.S. forces entered Baghdad, they immediately surrounded the building with 50 tanks, while sharpshooters positioned themselves on the roof and in the windows.

Oil fields in Iraq were also heavily guarded in the early days of the war. Amnesty International criticized the attention placed on controlling oilfields, which it noted must have taken "much planning and resources."

But while the U.S. military lavished great care on securing the Baghdad Oil Ministry and Iraq's oil fields, hundreds of arms depots remained unguarded in April 2003.

Five years later, the ordnance looted from those arms depots continues to be used to build IEDs. And despite spending $10 billion to defeat IEDs, the Pentagon has yet to come up with an answer to this lethal threat to our troops.
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WSJ Bizarrely Claims Surge's "Success" Means Troops Must Stay

By MARC MCDONALD

In its lead editorial Friday, The Wall Street Journal took a swipe at Barack Obama for calling for a withdrawal of American troops from the fiasco in Iraq. That much was predictable from this right-wing rag. But what's bizarre was the Journal's reason for opposing the withdrawal of our troops: the "success" of the surge.

Huh?

Since it was bought by Rupert Murdoch, the Journal has increasingly begun to sound like an unhinged right-wing blog---fanatical in its support of George W. Bush and its foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of Democrats. And like the lunatic fringe blogs MichelleMalkin.com and Little Green Footballs, the Journal is increasingly disconnected from reality.

On Friday, the Journal predictably took aim at Scott McClellan, along with the rest of the Great GOP Noise Machine. In the middle of an editorial bashing McClellan, the Journal paused to take a shot at Obama:

"Mr. Obama has staked out a position for immediate troop withdrawal that looks increasingly untenable amid the success of the "surge" and improving security in Baghdad and Basra."

Let me see if I understand this correctly: the surge is a "success" and, as a result, this means our troops can't be brought home? Then, exactly, when can Americans look forward to our troops coming home and the end of this bloody fiasco of a war?

The Journal follows the same sort of infantile "heads I win, tails you lose" logic that the NeoCons use so often these days. If horrible violence continues in Iraq, the Right-Wing demands that our troops stay there. But if violence declines, this also means our troops must stay in Iraq.

In any case, it's highly debatable whether the surge has worked at all. And as Middle East experts like Nir Rosen have repeatedly reminded us, the recent decline in violence has nothing to do with the increase in troops announced by Bush in January.

McClellan Reports Bush Said, "I Honestly Don't Remember Whether I Tried (Cocaine) Or Not"

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Scott McClellan has raised eyebrows with his new book, which says George W. Bush misled the nation into an unnecessary war in Iraq. Note that this isn't a left-wing blogger making this claim---it's none other than the former White House press secretary.

Among the revelations in McClellan's book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, due out Monday, is a conversation that he reports on the topic of cocaine use, in 1999 when it briefly became a campaign issue, much to Bush's annoyance.

McClellan writes:

"'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"

AJC.com reports McClellan writes that he was mystified by Bush's comments.

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?" McClellan wrote. "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."

Read more here.

If You Liked Fallujah, You'll Love The Upcoming Bloodbath In Sadr City

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As Chris Floyd writes, George W. Bush and David Petraeus are now gearing up to make a new Fallujah in Sadr City, home to 2 million Shiites in Baghdad.

Like Fallujah, it should be quite a bloodbath. Not that the American people will ever know. No, we'll continue to live our carefree lives, mindlessly listening to American Idol and eagerly following the latest exploits of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

God forbid that our corporate mainstream media should ever bring us the reality of the Iraq War. Just as in the case of Fallujah, the upcoming horrific Sadr City bloodbath will be carefully censored and sanitized.

As Floyd notes, the horrors of Fallujah were rarely reported by the MSM.

Americans "were spared shots of engineers cutting off water and electricity to the city – a flagrant war crime under the Geneva Conventions, as CounterPunch notes, but standard practice throughout the occupation. Nor did pictures of attack helicopters gunning down civilians trying to escape across the Euphrates River – including a family of five – make the TV news, despite the eyewitness account of an AP journalist. Nor were tender American sensibilities subjected to the sight of phosphorous shells bathing enemy fighters – and nearby civilians – with unquenchable chemical fire, literally melting their skin, as the Washington Post reports. Nor did they see the fetus being blown out of the body of Artica Salim when her home was bombed during the "softening-up attacks" that raged relentlessly – and unnoticed – in the closing days of George W. Bush's presidential campaign, the Scotland Sunday Herald reports."

In case you never saw it, the video Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, (which documents the war crimes in the 2004 assault) can be viewed online here.