I sit here numb reviewing
A decade of tragedy
Of a war long foretold
Of a country lusted after
For her oil… until the madmen
Achieved power when despite
50 million people marching in
The streets elicited the response
That public opinion does not count
Long foretold and telegraphed by the president’s
Small pox vaccination
By the sudden construction of a pier
On Pendleton’s pristine beach
Followed by the stacking of all the
Utensils of war on the ocean side of I-5
The whole base emptied of men and
Materiel overnight — months before the invasion
Foretold by Paul O’Neil’s incredulous
Description of the first meeting after
The twin towers were destroyed where
The first response was to attack Iraq–
Following — a PNAC plan in the works
For 10 years – and Bush’s veto saying
Afghanistan must be first as the American
Public would not understand
Foretold by the reverberating charges of Al Queda links
And mushroom clouds echoing on the airways
Of yellow cake uranium and mobile germ labs
Of big lies told with perseveration- the stove
Piping of intelligence information
Where the for rush to war
required twisting of truth and machinations…a working backwards
to that foregone conclusion
Scott Ritter and Hans Blix’s
accurate assessments were unwanted and irrelevant
No the intent was clear
Their PNAC philosophy demanded war
They had the power, like the mob they take.
The intent was clear to seize this asset
Of stupendous strategic and economic value
And the heartless shock and awe campaign
A brutal warning of their barbarity and
A warning of intimidation to others in the region:
Fuck with us: this is your fate.
A rapid victory followed by a slow defeat
Hussain’s statue toppling a staged photo op
Complete with American flag
And the priceless artifacts in the Baghdad
Museum left unprotected for looters—
And the intended destruction of Iraqi cultural heritage and identity
And a president making a grand entrance
On the carrier Abraham Lincoln and
Proudly proclaiming victory in what has to be
One of the most egregious miscalculations in
Recent history
Then Bremer rewriting Iraqi law—
An unbelievable act of hubris
Clearly illegal by international law
But fueled by the lust for Iraqi oil
As documented in Fuel on the Fire.
Not only that, the simplistic goal
Of American control from Baghdad to Tehran
And the Wal-Martification of the Middle East
The imperial strategy of divide and conquer–
Neighborhoods were ethnically cleansed
Sunni pitted against Shia and separated into walled
Ghettos as in the holocaust
Against all laws of war they came
The contractor response: we get to destroy the country and
Then rebuild it—doubling their revenues so to speak
Night raids, torture and abuse.
Falluja—a city the size of Cleveland flattened
With white phosphorus—once attached burying
Down to the bone
Abu Graib a symbol of American depravity
Renditions and evidenced America’s barbarity
The predicted sectarian violence
Turned the country into a inferno
worse than Dante could ever have imagined.
Aside from being illegal, and immoral the war
was also monumentally stupid
Firing the Sunni military
Assured that Iran emerged winner of the conflict—
The belated culmination of the Iran-Iraq war,
Iraqi oil workers fought for the country’s main asset
They thwarted the American intent –
Like the British before in Iran
To gain control of the country’s precious oil
Knowing long term contracts might collapse in
International courts.
And the human toll on our troops
Young men trained to kill
Of millions forced to flee or live
In abject poverty and fear…
Contractor abuse in Falluja leads to the
Decimation of an entire city and a rallying
Cry to the young….
And the soldiers now commit suicide at a
Horrific rate and PTSD and depression make
Them wish themselves dead.
Iraq after Gulf war one rebuilt itself in 6 months
When left to it’s own devices
The country now may never return to normalcy
While the infrastructure may be eventually restored
The culture-cide may be permanent.
Families split asunder—from being
15 minutes away from all members
To seeing them flee to the ends of the earth.
The suffering and grief of the Iraqi people
Is beyond belief
And the perpetrators in their certitude
And self justification express no
Contrition.
The magnitude of this heinous crime
Taxes the imagination and leads
to this summation:
The Accumulated Evil of the Whole
To gain a new possession;
By initiating a war of aggression
Is the supreme international crime
In our– or any other time
Because you see this loathsome role
Contains the accumulated evil of the whole.
These acts are committed by mortal men
Who should be punished for their sins.
The PNAC in prose as plain as day
Has had this very simple thing to say:
With Russia gone we alone have the might-
And their philosophy asserts the right-
No duty –to take what they require by force
And disdainfully let history run its agonizing course.
What has been done in our name is quite real
And astoundingly audacious—to blatantly steal
Not petty things– guns butter or a ration
But in effect the wealth of an entire nation!
This certainly is no mystery and we must understand
This crime represents the biggest theft in the history of man.
Howard P. Charman, M.D. March 20, 2013
Comment:
During the Nuremberg Trials, the chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, stated:
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
…Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced.”
John Dyer Consortium News Re: Fallujah
“Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling these grievances or for altering these conditions.”
Chomsky though does point out that this is a tribunal of the victors, and that equally horrific crimes (Dresden, Hamburg, Hirosima, Nagasaki) were not crimes as they were committed by us.