The Reality behind "The End of the Iraq War"

“Our war there will be over. All of our troops will be out of Iraq,” President Barack Obama said in his Dec. 17 weekly radio address. But while combat troops are leaving, for now at least, the U.S. government is creating a staff of 16,000 for its newly constructed embassy in the heart of Baghdad. Although Iraq has only 28 million people, the new U.S. embassy is the largest in the world. It is a massive compound that is one and a half square miles-—an enormous complex of 22 buildings and the size of 94 football fields. Half of the 16,000-person staff will consist of a private military army made up of mercenaries under the control of the State Department. The State Department budget for the embassy is estimated at $25-30 billion over the next five years.

In addition, the Pentagon retains a vast network of bases, sea and air power surrounding Iraq. Washington’s intention clearly is to dominate Iraq for many years to come in a colonial-type relationship. Iraq possesses the second largest oil reserves in the world. Obama’s speech was the latest in a series of appearances seeking to bolster the president’s re-election prospects by associating himself with “the end of the war in Iraq.”
The dishonesty of this presentation would be considered breathtaking except for the fact that his deception fits exactly into the pattern of lies and deceit practiced by all other Democrats and Republicans who have served as the CEO of the U.S. imperialist state. While trying to ingratiate himself with the service members, veterans and their families, Obama vastly underestimated the real damage done to them, stating that “tens of thousands have been wounded.”

The official Pentagon figure of U.S. wounded is around 32,000. But a Brown University 2011 study reported that, of the 1.25 million service members who had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan at that time, nearly half had filed disability claims—in others words, 600,000, a big majority Iraq veterans. Nor did the president mention that many thousands of returning vets are now homeless, living in the streets—a number that grows daily. No mention either that the war in Iraq has already cost more than a trillion dollars and will likely end up costing more than $3 trillion in the end due to long-term interest, disability and health cost.

But the most glaring omission was the catastrophic impact of the war on Iraq and its people. “For nearly nine years, our nation has been at war in Iraq,” said Obama. In reality, the war in Iraq has been going on for more than two decades: The 1991 “Desert Storm” destruction of the country’s infrastructure and a lethal 13-year sanctions blockade preceded the 2003 invasion and occupation. More than two million Iraqis have died as a result of war and sanctions, an estimated 4.5 million have been displaced and an unknown number, but one which must be counted in the millions, wounded. There are over one million widows in Iraq. All this in a country of just 28 million people.

The U.S. occupiers disbanded the entire government and shut down all vital service systems, such as health care and food distribution. The occupation deliberately pitted religious and ethnic groups against each other, using the classic methods of colonial divide-and-rule. This policy greatly exacerbated sectarian violence that took a toll in the hundreds of thousands and continues to plague Iraq today. A once relatively stable society was ripped to shreds.

There is not a single reference in the president’s proclamation about the horrific crimes committed against Iraq. Just colonialist-style statements like, “Iraq’s future will be in the hands of its own people.” As if the U.S. occupation had, instead of inflicting untold destruction, been a training session for the Iraqi people in self-government. Iraq had been an independent country for 45 years after kicking out the British colonizers in 1958, and was one of the most economically and socially advanced countries in the Arab world prior to the 1991 war.

Despite all that they have suffered, the Iraqi people have a long and proud history of struggle against imperialism and injustice, a struggle that will continue. 

For more on the hidden history of Iraq, read 
“Our view on modern Iraq: An anti-colonial revolution in perspective”

THE END OF AMERICA: House and Senate pass final version of NDAA!

By Madison Ruppert
End the Lie 

Today the United States House of Representatives and Senate both passed their final versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, or H.R. 1540. This represents the complete destruction of everything that America is supposed to stand for, the most essential of rights have been stripped away and we are left wondering what the traitors in Washington will do next. It has become painfully clear that the true terrorists are not hiding in caves in Afghanistan shooting at NATO troops with rusted second-hand assault rifles, but instead wear $5,000 suits and stroll happily through the halls of power in the United States.

The House passed their final version of the NDAA with a massive majority of 283 to 136 and the Senate passed it with a vote of 86 to 13, once again proving that our so-called Representatives do not represent us in any way and in fact are traitorous criminals and enemies of freedom. No longer do we need to fear our country being attacked by foreign forces hell bent on destroying the American way of life, as these forces can be found calling themselves our “Representatives” while living large on the backs of the American people.

The signing of the NDAA with the detention provisions – that is, sections 1031 and 1032 most importantly – intact represents the final nail in the coffin of our once Constitutional Republic. I can honestly say that I previously thought that the PATRIOT Act would be the worst legislation I would ever see in my lifetime and quite unfortunately, I was wrong. Deadly wrong. As I said when first covering S.1253, the precursor to S.1867 which the Senate passed with a 93% majority, this legislation makes the PATRIOT Act look like the Bill of Rights, and that is not in any way hyperbolic.

I previously exposed the fact that the claim that Obama would veto the NDAA was wholly without merit, and unfortunately I have been proven right once again when the White House withdrew the veto threat completely.

With the detention provisions intact, and thus the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial on nothing more than suspicion, the NDAA is the most dangerous legislation to come before the President in recent history. 

Some have attempted to amend the NDAA to explicitly protect American citizens and lawful permanent residents from being targeted, but to no avail. This is the most major problem with so many proponents’ arguments: if they did not intend to leverage this against the American people, especially dissidents who are standing up to the rampant corruption and pervasive police state measures, why wouldn’t they pass such an amendment?

The answer is quite obvious, really. They have every intention of using this against so-called “belligerents” which could be anyone who refuses to bow down to the megalomaniacal ruling class, including people like myself who explicitly reject any and all forms of violence. When the NDAA is signed by the President – which is all but ironclad at this point – it will only be a short time until the military can begin rounding up American citizens and the FEMA camps could be activated and utilized thanks to KBR’s National Quick Response Teams. Yet there is indeed a silver lining to this nightmarish cloud, although I’m still holding back from jumping for joy at this point. This last bastion of hope is known as the “Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011” which was proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. The bill is intended, “To clarify that an authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States”.


The bill is intended to amend Section 4001 of title 18, United States Code, known as the “Limitation on detention; control of prisons”. The bill would insert the following after subsection (a), “(b)(1) An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention.

“(2) Paragraph (1) applies to an authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority enacted before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011.”
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, there are still a few glaring problems, the most major of which is that this only applies to American citizens and lawful permanent residents who are apprehended within the United States.
Furthermore, it only protects us so long as an Act of Congress does not expressly authorize such detention.

Given the fact that the Congress has already betrayed us in passing the NDAA, can we really rely on hoping that they wouldn’t pass an Act nullifying the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011, if it indeed passes? I think such a hope would not only be misguided and naïve but indeed ignorant and divorced from the reality which has presented itself to us in the past months. Moreover, we are relying on what is arguably an equally nonsensical hope: that the Senate – which voted with a massive majority in favor of the NDAA both times – would actually vote for the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011.

I, for one, am not going to hold my breath in hopes that they will come through and do the right thing as they have proven that they are some of the most untrustworthy, despicable individuals all too well as of late. Another major problem for me is that Feinstein, who unfortunately is one of my so-called Representatives, actually voted for the NDAA as you can see in the Senate’s roll call for today’s vote.

She also voted in favor of S.1867, the Senate’s version of the NDAA. Can we really expect her to pass something that will protect us after actively working against us in such a blatant manner? I think not, and unless there is a massive change in how our government views the American people I do not expect to see positive events unfold as a result. However, the future is ours to determine at this point and the situation could unfold in any number of ways.

Either we could see the most hellish police state imaginable with Americans being arrested and detained indefinitely by the military for any reason or no reason at all, or we could see the military step up and honor their oaths and refuse unlawful orders and arrest those who issued them, or we could see a second American revolution. It is impossible to say which we will see, but I hope that the military will pause and remember their sworn oaths and who the real enemies are.

“We the People” are not the enemies of the Constitution; instead it is those traitors in Washington who would love to see nothing other than all of our most essential liberties stripped away in the name of fighting the fraudulent war on terror. Hopefully the military would realize this and act accordingly, or else the situation would likely be one in which the vast majority of people in the United States would suffer for an unimaginable length of time.

U.S. to leave Iraqi airspace clear for strategic Israeli route to Iran

The U.S. military’s fast-approaching Dec. 31 exit from Iraq, which has no way to defend its airspace, puts Israel in a better place strategically to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iraq has yet to assemble a force of jet fighters, and since the shortest route for Israeli strike fighters to Iran is through Iraqi airspace, observers conclude that the U.S. exit makes the Jewish state’s mission planning a lot easier. Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the Iraqi military will maintain radars to monitor the country’s airspace, but it has not taken possession of American F-16s to guard that space. “The country has a capable and improving capability to see the airspace, a viable system to provide command and control, but no system to defeat incoming air threats until it gets either the F-16s or ground-based systems or, optimally, some of both,” Gen. Buchanan told The Washington Times.

Iraq made the first payment in September for 18 F-16s that will not arrive until next fall at the earliest. This means Israel would have a theoretical window of about 12 months if it wants to fly over Iraq unimpeded by the Iraqi air force. Retired Air ForceGen. Thomas McInerney, who advocates a U.S. strategic bombing raid to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, agreed that Iraq’s open airspace would make it easier for an Israeli mission.

“Yes, it will be,” he said. “However, it will be much easier for Iranian forces to get to Israel through Iraq via land and air.” Gen. McInerney said he thinks there is a good chance that Iran, stretched economically by Western sanctions and fearing threats from Israel, will launch a war against the Jewish state through Iraq.

“Our departing Iraq will be a huge strategic mistake,” he said of the Dec. 31 deadline for all U.S. forces to leave.

Iraq’s ruling Shiite majority has historic ties to Iran’s dominant Shiite society, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned Tehran against meddling in his country’s politics. Unknown is the role of U.S. jet fighters stationed outside Iraq but within striking distance from Navy carriers in the Persian Gulf, or possibly Kuwait.

“I would hope we would jump to defend Iraqi airspace,” said James Carafano, a military analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “These are the kinds of contingency plans that ought to be put in place.” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, like his predecessor, Robert M. Gates, has downplayed the impact that an airstrike might have on Iran’s quest for an atomic bomb. The Islamic republic has denied that it is trying to make a nuclear weapon.

In an appearance this month at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Panetta said U.S strikes might set back the nuclear program two years and acknowledged that some Iranian targets remain elusive. “The indication is that, at best, it might postpone it maybe one, possibly two years,” said Mr. Panetta, who also has mentioned three years as a possible delay. “It depends on the ability to truly get the targets that we’re after. Frankly, some of those targets have been difficult to get at.”

He added: “You always have the last resort of military action, but it must be the last resort, not the first.”

Zalman Shoval, a special envoy for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that when dealing with someone like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a three-year detail may turn out to be significant.

“When you look at someone who denies the Holocaust and makes no secret of his intention to wipe out the state of Israel, and is making a major effort to lay his hands on a nuclear weapon in order to do that then you say to yourself lots of things can happen in three years in Iran,” Mr. Shoval told The Times. “You don’t have to take it for granted that if something is held up for three years, then after the three years he comes back with a bang. Who knows?”

Israeli news reports say that Mr. Netanyahu has tried to build a political consensus to strike Iran. Israel’s potent air force includes long-range F-15Is, a specially configured version of the U.S. Air Force Strike Eagle. It is capable of flying low and at night while carrying bunker-busting bombs. The problem Israeli pilots would face is first getting to Iranian airspace, then penetrating the country’s multilayered air defenses.

Link: http://www.pakalertpress.com/

Stop the Axis of Evil: Stop the criminals in charge of the USA/UK/Israe/NATO.

Libya is being destroyed by the evil regimes of London, Washington and Tel Aviv because the people are free from the terror of international materialism. This despicable war against the most advanced nation in Africa follows the same model as the criminal tyranny imposed by the enemies of humanity on the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq. All the nations under attack by the barbaric NATO forces share the common ideal of wishing to remain free - this will not do.


On the 11th September 2001, the London-based global terror network, murdered over 3000 civilians in the infamous World Trade Centre atrocity. They then further insulted those they murdered by using their deaths as the justification for the slaughter of thousands more in Iraq and Afghanistan. The action of the Taliban which invited these heinous war crimes was the destruction of the opium poppy fields. The impact upon the profits to be made by the heroin dealing governments of the West were such that they sent their military butchers in to smash the Taliban and replant the opium poppies. This has ensured the deaths and suffering of many in the West. The official tale that the Taliban were somehow involved in the 11/9/01 attacks have long since been exposed as lies, but the murderous occupation of the nation which dared to say no to the profiteers of the heroin trade continues to this day.


Following the New York Massacre and the War for Heroin Profits, the Axis of Evil turned its attention to Iraq. Repeating the yarn that 'Al Qaeda' (MI6) had to be stopped to ensure the safety of the world (ironically this is very true, MI6 must be stopped), the fabled Establishment foot soldiers (oops, the Islamist enemy!) were said to be in Iraq. The fact that Iraq was opposed to religious and political extremism was ignored by the Establishment media. We were told that Saddam Hussein was plotting to murder millions in the West with mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction which he had fiendishly hidden somewhere in an oil field. 'We' (the people in Rothschild-owned Europe , Australasia and America) had to stop this monster. When the people failed to swallow the lie, MI6 murdered ordinary serfs in Bali, Madrid and London. Scared witless by the anti-humans of MI6 (MOSSAD, CIA etc), support for the War for Oil was gained and the cradle of civilisation was crushed. There were of course no WMDs. Iraq had dared to defy the international financial cabal and had to be punished for trying to be free. The result of this outrage is hundreds of thousands dead and the most advanced nation in the Middle East reduced to an irradiated killing ground for the assassins of the true terrorists in London.


Now we had Libya. The prosperous OIL RICH nation had the highest standard of living in all Africa. So rich was Libya that it provided employment for much of the continent and even for many Chinese migrant workers. Unlike the despotic usurious regime in London, the wealth created in Libya was not stolen by the Establishment, but shared amongst its people. Far from having a tyrannical government, the Libyan people were genuinely involved in running their own land. Libya was a beacon to the world, showing how life can be once a nation is free of the international banking cartels. Right now this beacon is under attack and thousands have already been murdered by the military thugs of the diabolical Axis.


NATO is the military arm of the enemies of humanity who wish to enslave the whole planet. They are the butchers of Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and many other nations. To see headlines in the British press praising these inhuman killers is shameful. Support for the killers of ordinary people in wars for finance and global conquest is to be expected of the likes of the brain-dead morons of the EDL, but to see otherwise sane people swallowing the Establishment propaganda is worrying.


So-called patriotic organisations which insist that 'we' must support the troops regardless of the motives of those who control them, are unwittingly aiding the internationalist imperialists. People who feel this way are welcome to join the army and with any luck get killed - but they have no right to demand we do likewise or support those who do. There is an attitude amongst the indoctrinated public that to oppose the global War OF Terror is to be un-patriotic, and to be siding with the enemy. This is lunacy.


The butchers of NATO who unquestioningly obey the orders of the despots in London (where the real power ultimately resides) are right now murdering people across the globe for the crime of not kowtowing to the international terror network. The military thugs of NATO are loyal only to their commanders, not to any nation. Anyone who thinks that they would not murder people in the host nations is deluded.


We have been bombarded with the lie that NATO and the Coalition against Terror(!) are fighting against Islamic extremism. Look at what has happened wherever NATO has attacked: In Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, the criminal KLA have ethnically cleansed swathes of land which they now control. The KLA was created by the internationalist cabal in order to more easily (and profitably) smuggle heroin into Europe. The people of the Balkans and indeed all Europe have suffered immensely at the hands of these Establishment gangsters. In Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, moderate Islam has been subverted and Western-created extremists have power they could only have dreamt of under the former regimes. NATO establishes political/religious extremism wherever it bombs. It bolsters criminal organisations (which in truth are fronts for NATO's political masters). NATO hasn't made the world safer - it has made the Establishment stronger and the people much weaker, which of course is the whole intention.


It is vital for the freedom of humanity that NATO must be stopped. Supporting the troops who fight for NATO is not an option. We must campaign to undermine the grip of the State on the minds of the soldiers who wear the NATO emblem. Those who blindly obey orders deserve only the respect one would give to a machine - they are simply expert killers and nothing more. The military of a nation should serve to defend its borders, not to terrorise people in their own lands. NATO are the enemies of humanity. Soldiers who refuse to serve NATO should be commended as true heroes. Soldiers who blindly obey and help oppress people the world over deserve nothing less than absolute contempt.


In the UK we are about to have a Royal Wedding. The Establishment pariahs are to mark the joining of two of their own for further inbreeding. This is the perfect opportunity to expose the truth about NATO and the criminal wars being fought for the Royal-led Establishment. We must refuse to celebrate this sham wedding but instead agitate for the overthrowal of the Monarchy and the end of the wars they profit from. If this is unpatriotic, so be it. If patriotism means supporting your oppressors, then being labelled unpatriotic is a badge of honour. In reality, patriotism is defence of the nation - the greater family - and to fight those who are destroying not only our own individual nations, but nations the world over, is the greatest patriotic duty. Stop the Axis of Evil by refusing to be loyal to it. We don't need NATO, we don't need a Monarchy. We need freedom!