The House endorsed the continued war in Afghanistan on Thursday despite acknowledgment from Republicans and Democrats that the American people are war-weary after more than a decade of conflict.
By a vote of 303-113, lawmakers rejected an amendment that would have swiftly ended combat operations in Afghanistan by limiting funds only to the "safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Afghanistan."

More than 10 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, American public support for the overseas conflict has deteriorated. An Associated Press-GfK poll released last week showed that backing for the war has hit a new low and is on par with support for the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. Only 27 percent of Americans say they support the war effort, and 66 percent oppose it, according to the survey.

In the end, the real proof that we were lied to about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. That means that every single piece of paper that purported to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was by default a fraud, a hoax, and a lie. There could be no evidence that supported the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. In a way, the existence of any faked documents about Iraq's WMDs is actually an admission of guilt. If one is taking the time to create fake documents, the implication is that the faker is already aware that there are no genuine documents.

A protest of Iraq war veterans at the NATO summit being held in Chicago this weekend is intended to send a strong message to Washington and the European alliance.

Some members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War plan to return their medals to NATO generals on Sunday, claiming they were given their honors for bravery or suffering for "a war based on lies and failed policies."

Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday Iraqi authorities were still running a jail they said had been shut over a year ago after reports of prisoners being beaten and electrocuted, but the government denied this, saying the site was empty.

Human Rights Watch said in a Feb. 1 report that security forces were torturing inmates at Camp Honor, citing interviews with former detainees.

As well as electrocution, asphyxiation and beatings, the group said prisoners were packed into windowless cells that "reeked of human excrement".

Torture was widespread in Iraq under Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and executed in 2006. Disclosures in 2004 that U.S. jailers had abused and sexually humiliated Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison outraged many Iraqis.

It’s safe to say that foreign policy was not the strong suit of this year’s contenders for the GOP presidential nomination. Rick Perry labeled the Turkish government “Islamic terrorists.” Newt Gingrich referred to Palestinians as “invented” people. Herman Cain called Uzbekistan “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan” and memorably blanked when asked what he thought of NATO’s incursion into Libya. Michele Bachmann pledged to close the US embassy in Iran, which hasn’t existed since 1980. Rick Santorum gave a major foreign policy speech at a Jelly Belly factory in California.

Yet though the candidates and their views were often hard to take seriously, their statements on foreign policy reflected a more disturbing trend in the GOP. Despite facing a war-weary public, the candidates—with the exception of Ron Paul, an antiwar libertarian, and Jon Huntsman, a moderate internationalist—positioned themselves as unapologetic war hawks.

I’ve written [3] repeatedly [4] about the terrible dictatorship [5] and lasting sectarian violence [6] Washington left in Iraq after the troop withdrawal of December 2011. Contrary to the lies of these indecent politicians, the enduring effects of the illegal U.S. war in Iraq are still causing havoc and bloodshed throughout the country. Iraq is neither secure, nor is it a democracy as was promised by warmongers in Washington.

Many of the Fallujah families whose children have been born with what doctors call "congenital birth anomalies" prefer to keep their doors closed to strangers, regarding their children as a mark of personal shame rather than possible proof that something terrible took place here after the two great American battles against insurgents in the city in 2004, and another conflict in 2007.

After at first denying the use of phosphorous shells during the second battle of Fallujah, US forces later admitted that they had fired the munitions against buildings in the city. Independent reports have spoken of a birth-defect rate in Fallujah far higher than other areas of Iraq, let alone other Arab countries.

The United States must resolve that ‘never again’ is not just an ‘empty slogan’, said U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday, in a statement marking Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet, I am left bewildered, what does president Obama refers to? Is ‘never again’ a universal message pointing at genocides in general or did he refer to Jewish suffering only? With 1,455,590 dead Iraqis due to an Anglo American criminal war, it seems as if the USA is actually complicit in an actual genocide.

Many in the media have long since repudiated their failures in the lead-up to the Iraq War, acknowledging that they were too quick to accept the false notion that Iraq possessed a sizable and dangerous cache of weapons of mass destruction. The question today is whether they have learned from those mistakes.

But fast forward to today, and the media's coverage of Iran's nuclear program suggests that some outlets have not learned from Iraq reporting failures and risk repeating history. Media Matters reviewed transcripts of ABC's World News, CBS' Evening News, and NBC's Nightly News between November 8, 2011 and March 31, 2012. The examination reveals that once again the media is frequently misrepresenting the expert opinion of the intelligence community.

This book, eloquently written by a former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is a must read, both for the wealth of information it provides on the contentious issues of global nuclear diplomacy as well as for the passionate and compelling case that it presents for a war crime tribunal to prosecute United States and British leaders who instigated the calamitous invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction.

At Fallujah hospital they cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects – there are just too many. Parents don’t want to talk. "Families bury their newborn babies after they die without telling anyone," says hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi. "It’s all too shameful for them.

The pictures are difficult to look at. And, those responsible for all this have closed their eyes.

"In 2004 the Americans tested all kinds of chemicals and explosive devices on us: thermobaric weapons, white phosphorous, depleted uranium...we have all been laboratory mice for them," says Hadidi, turning off the projector.

Overall violence in Iraq has gone down since the last U.S. troops finally withdrew in December, but Washington’s avid support for the emerging dictator in Baghdad has troubling implications for Iraqis.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has demonstrated an increasingly authoritarian rule as he consolidates power over the country’s institutions and security forces. He has marginalized his political opponents through force and coercion, which has stoked sectarian tensions and even threatened a break-up of the nation. And Obama is supporting all of it.

I was fresh from the massive anti-war marches in New York and questioned the truth of any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, although President Bush and Vice President Cheney had drawn the association with regularity. My seatmate's whole body leaned over to the right -- literally. "I feel so sorry for you," he said. "How cynical you must be to think that the president would lie."

Now, nine years later, I feel sorry for all of us. If only, like the Beatles' Revolution 9, played backwards by disc jockeys of the day, we could rewind this tune.

The subcommittee found that Israeli intelligence agencies used information from foreign intelligence services without recognizing that the other states obtained the data from Israel in the first place.

But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

Fallujah: A Lost Generation? by Iraqi filmmaker Furat Alani investigates the dramatic increase in cancers, birth defects, and infant mortality since the second siege of Fallujah, Iraq,in 2004 and its human rights implications. Mr. Alani interviews Fallujah residents, doctors, veterans, and weapons experts to shed light on the cause of this health crisis. More specifically, he explores the possibility that weapons used by the U.S. in 2004 are the cause, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and anti-personnel theromobaric weapons.

In an interview today with the Washington Times, former Iraqi Prime Minister and Iraqiya party leader Ayad Allawi reiterated his regular warnings of an “emerging dictatorship” in the nation, warning that Maliki continuing to centralize power under his control.

Allawi’s Iraqiya Party threatened earlier this week to withdraw its ministers from the coalition government unless Maliki agreed to a number of concessions, notably ending summary detentions and a general amnesty for those being held on political charges.

The U.S. Central Command plans to bolster military capabilities against Iran by fielding new laser target-trackers for machine guns, enhanced sensors for underwater vehicles, improved protection against drone attacks and upgrades of U-2 spy planes.

“There’s no significant area where I’ve got to come in and say, we’ve got a big problem here.” Central Command commander General James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on March 7. “They’re just areas I want to make certain we maintain our edge.”

In a speech retired US Army General Wesley Clark gave in August of 2001, we are reminded that many wars and major military theater operations are planned years or sometimes even decades in advance and that the excuses to justify them are likely fabricated. In this short speech that General Clark gave more than 10 years ago, he stated that the US had already planned to invade Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Iran. We already know that Iraq has fallen, that Libya has been taken out, that there is a brutal ongoing war in Syria and in the Sudan now, that there has been ongoing war in Somalia since 2009, and that war in Iran now seems inevitable.

Why was the hoax so successful?

The easy answer is to simply call everyone who falls for the joke a momentary idiot. But the Gulf War virus plays to a uniquely American trait: a child-like belief in gadgets and technology and the people who make them as answers to everything. Secret National Security Agency computer scientists made viruses that hobbled Saddam’s anti-air defense without firing a shot! Or maybe it didn’t work but it sure was a good plan!

In this respect, the joke is ageless. People are just as able to nebulously theorize about the tech of it and its implications in 2003 as they were in 1991. Will an updated version of the nonexistent AF/91 virus be used against unwired Iraq? Stay tuned… April 1st is less than a month away.

Under an electronic image display perched atop the US Military Recruitment Centre showing the macho military life to be gained if one joins up …. the vigil took place.

Iraq has approved a plan to expand its oil export routes by adding capacity from its northern fields and building a pipeline to ship oil from southern fields to Ceyhan in Turkey, a government spokesman said.

The contingency plan was set by the government's energy and economic committee to deal with any potential crisis should Iran close the Strait of Hormuz, which would halt about 80 percent of Iraq's oil exports.

“No one will be able to blackmail us,” the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu answered the inflammatory plan proposed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in which Israel should support the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) against Turkey. Until now, this was one of the most dramatic events in the war of words between former allies Israel and Turkey, surpassed only by the clear declarations of Turkey and Lebanon that the new gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean are casus belli if Israel will exploit them. It would be easy to dismiss Lieberman’s words as a weather balloon aimed at checking out Turkey’s reaction, or an attempt to divert Turkey’s attention from the Mediterranean front to its Kurdistan’s backyard.

Gunmen staged a horrific attack north of Baghdad where they stormed the home of a bodyguard, killing five people. Unfortunately, it was not the only home invasion today. At least 11 more Iraqis were killed and 14 were wounded in other violence.

The campaign sugar daddy of Newt Gingrich (and soon, Romney) is Sheldon Adelson, a multibillionaire casino owner and hawkish Zionist who endorses Gingrich’s view that the Palestinians are “an invented people” who have no historic claim to a homeland. Gingrich told Aipac that “if an Israeli prime minister decides that he has to avoid the threat of a second Holocaust through pre-emptive measures, that I would require no advanced notice to understand why I would support the right of Israel to survive in a dangerous world.”

When President George W. Bush was pretending to want to avoid a war on Iraq while constantly pushing laughably bad propaganda to get that war going, we had a feeling he was lying. After all, he was a Republican. But it was after the war was raging away that we came upon things like the Downing Street Minutes and the White House Memo.

Chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee says blockade should precede military action, in bid to pressure Iran to cease its drive for nuclear weapons.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

Back in 1981, Israel claimed that Iraq was building nuclear weapons underneath the power station at Osirak. Israel bombed the power station. Following the 2003 invasion, IAEA inspectors examined the wreckage and concluded there had never been a weapons factory underneath it (as Israel has underneath Dimona). Then in 2008, Israel started screaming that Syria was building nuclear weapons and bombed again, destroying what was later shown to be a non-nuclear military construction site.

The hard fact is that Israel is batting absolutely zero in terms of actually finding anyone who is building bombs under their reactors (as Israel does underneath Dimona), so it begs the imagination that with a track record like that, why is anyone still listening as Israel points the finger at Iran? Nuclear duck? Netanyahu is the little boy crying nuclear wolf!

At least 90 Iraqi teenagers with "emo" appearances have been stoned to death by religious extremists in Baghdad in the past month after an inflammatory interior ministry statement dubbed it "devil worshiping", activists said.

A group of armed men dressed in civilian clothing led dozens of teenagers to secluded areas a few days ago, stoned them to death, and then disposed their bodies in garbage dumpsters across the capital, according to activists.

Lt.Col. Anthony Shaffer breaks down how Anwar al-Awlaki Was a triple agent, and an FBI Asset Before 9/11.

Just in time for the “Friends of Syria” conference led by former imperialists Britain and France who appear to be piecemeal reassembling their empires under the cover of US-led, NATO-backed “revolutions,” the world was treated to a spectacularly timed “casus belli.” It was dubiously reported by Western media that the Syrian government had intentionally shelled the position of British and French journalists in the city of Homs for the explicit purpose of “silencing them.” The reports claimed that the attacks were planned and broadcast over easily intercepted radio traffic picked up by intelligence officers in Lebanon. It would turn out that these journalists had illegally entered the country.

So to all those who went along with these wars because you believed it when Bush and Robertson, et. al. said this was God's will, you are all damned. Damned, damned, damned! Damned to hell. And there can be no redemption while the warmongers are still in power. There is no absolution if you know a war of conquest against an innocent people is going on and you do nothing at all to stop it. There is no absolution if you know torture of innocent people is going on and you do nothing at all to stop it. The priests cannot forgive your sins if they share those sins, no matter how expensive those beads are. Having worked so hard to trick you into sin, would they really be eager to get you out? Just whose side are they on? Which God is it they really serve?

In the 1990s, the FBI considered a sting operation against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich after sifting through allegations from a notorious arms dealer that a $10 million bribe might get Congress to lift the Iraqi arms embargo.

Officials say more than 1.3 million Iraqis remain homeless after being forced to flee six years ago during widespread sectarian violence that threatened their lives.

The FBI knows of a man who was caught entering the lab where the Anthrax used in the letters was kept, after he had been fired for a racially motivated attack on a co-worker. So, why is the FBI wasting its time with Steven Hatfill and Bruce Ivins?

How can it be, less than a decade after the U.S. invaded Iraq, that the Iran debate is breaking down along largely the same lines, and the people who were manifestly, painfully wrong about that war are driving the debate this time as well?

The US has between 2,000 and 8,000 and has
already used them twice in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki genocides..
Russia has between 2,000 and 11,000, the UK between 100 and 200, Israel between 75 and 400, France around 300, China around 200, India
around 100, Pakistan around 100 and North Korea supposedly less than 10. And we’re worried about Iran getting one?
*

Belgium-based SWIFT, which provides banks with a system for moving funds around the world, bowed to international pressure on Friday and said it was ready to block Iranian banks from using its network to transfer money further isolating Iran's economy on the global stage.

Expelling Iranian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication would shut down Tehran's main avenue to doing business with the rest of the world - an outcome the West believes is crucial to curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

In the end, the real proof that we were lied to about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. That means that every single piece of paper that purported to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was by default a fraud, a hoax, and a lie. There could be no evidence that supported the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. In a way, the existence of any faked documents about Iraq's WMDs is actually an admission of guilt. If one is taking the time to create fake documents, the implication is that the faker is already aware that there are no genuine documents.

Military strikes expected! Weapons inspectors called in! A murky al Qaeda connection! And Cheney says time's up for Ira...

Wait. Haven't we seen this movie before?

The horrors of Syria, which Washington so loudly denounces, should not blind us to the fact that American policy in the Middle East is itself a reason for the turmoil throughout the region.

I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.

"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war -- what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"

"In war? How?"

The American public has been told that the Iraq War is a thing of the past. Even still, the US Department of Defense is asking the federal government for almost $3 billion for “activities” in a country that they shouldn’t be in.

Syndicated columnist and political commentator, Charles Krauthammer, appeared on FOX News over the weekend, addressing the issue of a possible Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities prior to the American general elections. He saw it as inevitable.

They’ve got to sell it to you like it’s good, that’s why they call themselves ‘pro-democracy’ groups, but as this clip lays bare, so-called pro-democracy groups don’t always promote democracy.
*
In fact, stirring the pot in favor of the U.S. government is, more often than not, far from promoting democracy and more akin to stirring up trouble…

The helicopter crews had been told that a number of detainees were under armed guard at the side of the highway. They were to pick them up after dark and take them to a prison camp. What followed was far from routine: before the night was out, one man had died on board one of the helicopters, allegedly beaten to death by RAF personnel.

The incident was immediately shrouded in secrecy.

A useful example to highlight the contrast between Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is found in the funding of wars. Between 2001 and 2009, Congresswoman Kaptur voted for $545 billion in war funding, voting Yes over and over again for Bush's wars. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a total of $17 billion. (See the chart below.)

In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, Kucinich's was the clearest voice against it. He circulated evidence of war lies to his colleagues. He organized many of them to vote No with him. Kaptur, too, voted No on the authorization.

The Shi’ite-led government in Iraq has selected new targets for harassment: Iraqiya spokesman Haider al-Mulla and two other lawmakers. This comes despite recent efforts by Iraqiya to lessen political tensions that threaten to ignite a sectarian war. Meanwhile, at least two Iraqis were killed and 26 more were wounded over the last two days.

An Iraqiya lawmaker, Haidar al-Mulla, says he was informed of a request to have his immunity as a member of parliament dropped so that prosecutors can try him on charges of insulting the judiciary. Two other lawmakers also face arrest.

CIA drone strikes tend to be reported on a case-by-case basis. Yet it became clear to the Bureau that a number of specific tactics were being deployed. These included multiple attacks by drones on rescuers attempting to aid victims of previous strikes. There were also a number of credible reports of funerals and mourners being attacked by CIA drones.

With the aid of Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai in Peshawar, the Bureau has spent four months working with independent researchers in Waziristan seeking to validate the reports. Villagers, militants and local officials have been questioned, and attempts made to identify those killed in the strikes.

Findings

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the reconciliation of rival Palestine factions Fatah and Hamas.He says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' agreement to head the caretaker cabinet shows Abbas has “abandoned the path of peace.”

Words by Mark Twain

Illustrations by the United States Government

And, America’s FCM consistently ignores the official NIE when writing news stories hyping Iran’s nuclear threat. However, if you read the articles very closely you may see references to Iran supposedly working toward the “capacity to build” nuclear weapons, not that Iran is actually working on building a nuclear bomb.

The distinction is important, but it is so subtle as to be misleading. Most casual readers would simply assume that Iran is building a nuclear bomb.

The FCM’s rhetorical shift from accusing Iran of “building” nukes to seeking a “capacity to build” them is reminiscent of Bush’s sleight of hand when he went from talking about Iraq’s supposed WMD “stockpiles” to its WMD “programs” – after it turned out there were no WMD stockpiles.

Hey, Iraq, don’t say we never gave you anything. In addition to hundreds of thousands dead and untold injured, the United States is leaving behind enough toxic waste sites to kill your rats.

As our roads crumble, and our schools close, and our quality of life collapses, still the attention of the nation's leaders remains focused on war and killing. They love it, They are entranced by it. The glory in it. Death excites them, and the more horrible it is, the more orgasmic they are to contemplate it! No amount of other people's money is too great to spend, No number of other people's children too many to sacrifice. There is nothing but greed in our leaders' domestic policy; their hearts are in their weapons! Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia; on and on and on, without pause, without satiation! In their minds they are gods incarnate, able to bring death to whole cities with the flick of a finger.

OVER A million Iraqis are dead from America's war.

That sentence is a cognitive litmus test. Some people's immediate reaction is, "That can't be right," because the United States couldn't do that. Or because crimes on that scale don't still happen. Or because they do happen, but only in horrible places that the United States hasn't rescued.

One million is a "Grandpa, what did you do to stop it?" number. It's a number that undeniably puts the American state among history's villains. Those who are not willing or able to accept this are physically unable to retain the fact that over a million Iraqis are dead. Their brains expel it like a foreign germ.

While quietly casting lines to draw Tehran into talks on their nuclear dispute, PresidentBarack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands – Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.

Do you see how it works now? Do you see why we are always at war? Do you understand that as long as private central bankers control the economies of nations that wars murdering millions of innocents are inevitable?

The Obama administration will begin talks with the Iraqi government on a new long-term defense agreement that may include an expanded number of U.S. troops, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s chief policy aide.

The scope and depth of the new defense relationship is not decided yet, but the Obama administration is reportedly “open to Iraqi suggestions.”

More than 30 people were executed by Iraqi authorities on Thursday following their conviction for various crimes, the United Nations reported on Tuesday. It is the largest number of confirmed executions within a single day in years.

So here is the deal. Some of the people walking around Palestine, Gaza, and the West Bank are blood relatives of Jesus. Distant blood relatives, but still blood relatives. Given 2000 years, it is possible that the vast majority of present day Palestinians are remote relatives of Jesus.

Israel is killing them.

And YOU are paying for it, which means you share the guilt. YOU are paying for the weapons used to kill the modern day family of Jesus. The moment you sign that 1040 form, you sign a confession, admitting before all the world that you are an accessory in the murder.

Think you are going to get into heaven after an insult like that?

So, who is the danger to world peace?

We all need to be Joe Wilson right now. We need to stand up and scream, "LIAR!" at every politician and every talking media moron that is pushing this war in Iran. And we need to keep dong it until they get the message that we will not be deceived any more.

Israel wants to send your kids off to die in Iran, and YOU are the only one that can stop them.

More than six years after Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich led a squad of Marines into two Haditha, Iraq homes and massacred two dozen civilians, the American serviceman in charge has reached a plea deal.

For nine counts of manslaughter, Wuterich will get three months of confinement.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s security forces have detained and brutally tortured more than 1,000 political opponents in secret prisons and denied them access to legal counsel, according to allegations by Iraq’s former prime minister.

Ayad Allawi, the secular Shiite Muslim leader of the opposition Iraqiya bloc in parliament, has formally submitted these allegations to Iraq’s supreme judicial council.

Allawi also claims that Maliki aims to extract false confessions that implicate his political rivals and justify taking legal action against them. Some of the confessions obtained through torture claimed that Allawi plotted to foment violent unrest around the country.

don’t necessarily have much to do with fighting terrorism. See this, this and this.

They are, in reality, about oil.

And protecting Israel (and read the section entitled “Securing the Realm” here).

But as AFP reports today, there is another major motivation for the expanding wars:

The latest round of American sanctions are aimed at shutting down Iran’s central bank, a senior US official said Thursday, spelling out that intention directly for the first time.

“We do need to close down the Central Bank of Iran (CBI),” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity, while adding that the United States is moving quickly to implement the sanctions, signed into law last month.

A curious glance at the current crop of presidential candidates makes it clear that Ron Paul stands alone when it comes to the issue of US engagement in foreign wars. He stands with George Washington against foreign entanglements while the rest of the candidates stand with Teddy Roosevelt and the attempted creation of America’s first empire one hundred and twelve years ago.

Mark Twain responded to that effort by creating the Anti-imperialist society while he caustically satirized the effort in his depiction of the massacre of the Moros in the Philippines. Now we have more massacres, using drones instead of canons, on equally hapless civilians who are caught unawares or hiding from the wrath of America’s righteousness as we drive to bring virtue to a primitive world.

Though the US has denied using prohibited weapons in Fallujah, a study in September 2011 found chemical contamination in local soil and water samples, as well as hair samples from the families of children with birth defects. Mercury, uranium, and bismuth are among the suspected culprits causing this unprecedented rise in congenital abnormalities.

Research has also shown a 12-fold increase in childhood cancers since 2004. The normal birth rate has also been skewed, with only 86 boys now being born for every 100 girls in Fallujah. The birth defect rate is more than 14 times that found today in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"Nice one, the Semper Fi bunch, pissing on the dead Taliban, doncha think?

Idiots. Semper Fi my entire ass."

And, I then continued:

"But, then, upon immediate second thought, the second one bursting inside
the initial thought, came this:

But, hey -- this is what we expect them to do, figuratively -- they just
took it literally."

he same neocons who persuaded George W. Bush and crew to, in Ron Paul's inimitable words, "lie their way into invading Iraq" in 2003, are beating the drums of war more loudly these days to attack Iran. It is remarkable how many of these war-mongers are former draft dodgers who wanted other Americans to fight the war in Vietnam.

With the exception of Ron Paul, who actually knows the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, the Republican presidential contenders have declared their belligerency toward Iranian officials who they accuse of moving toward nuclear weapons.

The Iranian regime disputes that charge, claiming they are developing the technology for nuclear power and nuclear medicine.

No, seriously, how much would you charge me to let me kill your kid? I'll make up a whole batch of comfortable lies about it so you can assuage your guilt when your kid comes home in a cheap box with a cheaper flag draped over it, but, c'mon, let's talk money here. How much?

No?

Ummm, okay, how much will you charge me to let someone else's kids get killed? Better deal, huh? You don't have to know them, and I'll try to make sure you don't have to see them.

...

Mitt Romney wants 100,000 more sacrificial lambs on
the altar of Iraq, but not his own 5 sons.

Terminally in debt, mass poverty at record levels, rampant militarism, draconian curbs on civil liberties, government by the rich for the rich, and lately the reactionary, debased cat-fight that passes for political debate among Republican contenders for the Presidency. Cringing is the sight of super wealthy career politicians throwing sand in each other’s eyes to scrabble up the pole for yet further personal accumulation of capital; disturbing is the easy way that psychopathic targeting of imagined enemies whether at home or abroad is worn like a badge of honour. It is a sign of how depraved the American political mind has become when would-be presidents can so openly talk of conducting foreign policy in terms of unquestioned international aggression.

The works of our Associate artist Carlos Latuff were part and parcel of every protest that took place in the world this past year as can be seen in this video produced for the Islam Channel.

After a disappointing fifth place finish in the Iowa Caucuses, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is looking to build some momentum to salvage his campaign and, as is so often the case with candidates, is looking to do so with hawkish policy statements.

But while other candidates have focused on starting new wars, usually in Iran, Gov. Perry promised to re-start an old war, saying that not only did he believe withdrawing from Iraq was a “huge error” but that if elected he would reinvade.

The FUKUS Three (France, UK and US) are getting worried. Certain sectors of the Iranian authorities have hinted that the Islamic Republic could decide to close the Straight of Hormuz. The reaction? Sabre rattling and cries that such an act would be "illegal". Interesting word, from these three...

Illegal? How interesting. What was the war in Iraq if not illegal? Did Saddam Hussein have Weapons of Mass Destruction, which posed a "direct and immediate threat" to the USA and its allies? OK then, where are they?

America's deadliest sniper viewed the 255 Iraqi insurgents he killed with his long-range rifle as 'savages' who were terrorizing civilians and trying to kill his comrades in uniform, he has revealed. For US Navy SEAL marksman Chris Kyle, the only regrets from four tours of duty where the friends he lost in combat. He also revealed that he's not to be trifled with in civilian life, too. He claims he knocked Jesse 'the Body' Ventura to the floor during a bar fight after the former professional wrestler bad-mouthed the troops serving in Iraq.

Fallujah, Iraq - While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as "catastrophic" levels of birth defects and abnormalities.

Dr Samira Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, has taken a personal interest in investigating an explosion of congenital abnormalities that have mushroomed in the wake of the US sieges since 2005.

Rockets were fired against Baghdad’s Green Zone as Iraq’s military marked its anniversary with a parade Friday, a day after the country suffered its worst attacks since August and weeks after US troops left.

Further violence against Shiite pilgrims, who were the targets of Thursday’s bombings, killed two people, the latest in a spike in attacks against the majority community amid a political crisis that has stoked sectarian tensions.

Meanwhile, top officials in Nasiriyah, worst hit by Thursday’s bloodshed, held a funeral for two Sunni soldiers who, officers said, tried to prevent a suicide attack that killed 47 people in the southern city.

'The dog returns to its vomit, and the sow returns to her mire/ And the burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire." Kipling was right. Britain is out of Iraq and desperate to get out of Afghanistan. So why gird ourselves for a fight with Iran, a proud country of 75 million people with whom we cannot go to war without taking leave of our senses?

Mitt Romney announced his shadow national security council to advise him on foreign policy. How many of these people were against the Iraq Attaq? Any of them? How many were with the Project for a New American Century? Don't these people have a college football team they could root for instead of starting wars?

War means killings. Invariably, these demand a justification process, an ethics system sanctioning the unacceptable violence. This is when war is translated into slow talks conducted at dark classrooms while they await their next brutal attack on innocents.

Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with big lies. Never forget.

The Obama administration is moving ahead with the sale of nearly $11 billion worth of arms and training for the Iraqi military despite concerns that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is seeking to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite-dominated state and abandon the American-backed power-sharing government.

Reporting from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.—
Mary Coghill Kirkland said she asked her son, 21-year-old Army Spc. Derrick Kirkland, what was wrong as soon as he came back from his first deployment to Iraq in 2008.

He had a ready answer: "Mom, I'm a murderer."

He told her how his team had kicked in the door of an Iraqi house and quickly shot a man inside. With the man lying wounded on the floor, "my son got ordered by his sergeant to stand on his chest to make him bleed out faster," Kirkland said. "He said, 'We've got to move, and he's got to die before we move.'"

The US first Black secretary of state, Dr. Conoleeza Rice 56, is being discussed by GOP to take-on Obama’s possible running-mate Hillary Clinton in November 2012 election. Her selection would certainly mute the long-held views that most Republican leaders are racists toward Blacks and religious bigots against women.

Condi has several other sellable credentials – She is a pro-Israel Christian Zionist. When she visited Israel in 2000 for the first time, she told Israel daily Yediot Aharnot: “Ihave a deep affinity with Israel“.

It is not as if the US and its "Coalition of the Willing" didn't know what were the effects of DU, its effects were well documented and discussed. A quote from "- Lt. Col. M.V. Ziehmn, Los Alamos National Laboratory memorandum,March 1st 1991 states, "There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no-one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus be deleted from the arsenal. I believe we should keep this sensitive issue in mind when action reports are written."

As Pat Buchanan put it in the run-up to the invasion:

"Until recently, the war in Vietnam was considered the worst disappointment in U.S. military history. It seems, however, that the Iraq war far exceeds it: the U.S. strategy in Iraq failed miserably, as the United States and its allies failed to manage the conflict, and also domestic support gradually diminished," says Loren Thompson in an article entitled, "The Iraq war, the biggest mistake in the military history of the U.S." published December 15 in Forbes.

A suicide attack killed five people at the interior ministry in Baghdad as a key political bloc called for early elections in a worsening standoff that has stoked sectarian tensions.

The blast, which left dozens wounded on Monday, came just days after the capital was struck by its deadliest violence in more than four months.

The parliamentary coalition loyal to anti-US Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said it backed the dissolution of parliament and early elections in a dispute that has seen Iraq's Sunni vice president accused of running a death squad and a deputy prime minister call the government a "dictatorship".

Iraq’s prime minister warned Saturday that efforts to create an autonomous Sunni region within Iraq would divide the country and lead to “rivers of blood.”

Since al-Maliki formed his government last December, minority Sunnis have been complaining of being marginalized by the Shiite-led government, prompting some Sunni provinces to call for turning into an autonomous region similar to the northern Kurdish region.

As an autonomous region, they would be able to conduct their own security affairs and have more independence in attracting investment. While the regions would still be part of Iraq, it would weaken Baghdad’s control. Many worry that it would be the first step to breaking up the country along sectarian lines.

As Iraq erupted in recent days, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in constant phone contact with the leaders of the country’s dueling sects. He called the Shiite prime minister and the Sunni speaker of the Parliament on Tuesday, and the Kurdish leader on Thursday, urging them to try to resolve the political crisis.

And for the United States, that is where the American intervention in Iraq officially stops

Iraq’s government marked its first anniversary Wednesday in turmoil as its premier urged Kurd officials to hand over the Sunni vice president on terror charges, in a row that has raised communal tension.

Washington has urged calm, but Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki threatened to replace ministers belonging to the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc if they did not end a cabinet boycott, while Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, currently holed up in the autonomous Kurdish region, rejected claims he ran a death squad.

Soldiers who just returned from Iraq are among several thousand being ordered to Afghanistan in six months as part of a mission designed to beef up Afghan forces ahead of a planned 2014 U.S. military withdrawal, officials said.

A day after visiting Iraq, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke to reporters in Turkey on Saturday and said this, according to the DoD’s own site:

"There is no question that the United States was divided going into that war," he said. "But I think the United States is united coming out of that war. We all recognize the tremendous price that has been paid in lives, in blood. And yet I think we also recognize that those lives were not lost in vain. . . .

"As difficult as [the Iraq war] was," and the cost in both American and Iraqi lives, "I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world," he added

The Iran question is often posed, as it was in last week's debate to Ron Paul, as a hypothetical. If Iran was proven to have a nuclear weapon what steps would be taken by the US to assure they did not attack Israel? The establishment media is skillful in the presentation and structure of the debate. The question assumes it is the responsibility of the US to protect Israel from a strike by Iran. But more importantly it assumes that Iran has the ability and strategic desire to attack Israel.

This unclassified assessment of Iran's military capability by the US Department of Defense clearly states that "To ensure regime survival, Iran's security strategy is based first on deterring an attack."

An Iraqi judicial committee has issued an arrest warrant for the country's Vice-President, Tariq al-Hashemi, according to security officials.

In March of 2007, I witnessed SSG Platt shoot and wound an Iraqi national without cause of provocation. The Staff Sergeant said that he suspected the Iraqi be a “trigger” man. We had not been attacked and we found no evidence on the man to support the suspicion. As the Iraqi lay bleeding on the ground, PVT Smith requested to administer first aid to the Iraqi. SSgt Platt said no and “let him bleed out.” When SSG Platt walked away, Pvt Smith and PVT Mullins went to the Iraqi, dragged him to an alley, and applied first aid. They then drove him to the cache for further treatment.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s suggestion that the end of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is part of a U.S. military success story ignores the fact that the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military had planned to maintain a semi-permanent military presence in Iraq.

The real story behind the U.S. withdrawal is how a clever strategy of deception and diplomacy adopted by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in cooperation with Iran outmaneuvered Bush and the U.S. military leadership and got the United States to sign the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement.