Landau: Hillary Clinton Plays Blame the Puppet
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Landau: Hillary Clinton Plays Blame the Puppet
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Progreso Weekly - Jul 5, 2007
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=1183611600
Blame the Puppet
By Saul Landau
Hillary Clinton blamed the Iraqi government for failure to make
progress. "The American military has succeeded, she declared to a
stunned public. They got rid of Saddam Hussein, they gave the Iraqis a
chance for free and fair elections. It is the Iraqi government which
has failed to make the tough decisions that are important for their own
people," she said, unable to finish her sentence because of a chorus of
boos. ("Take Back America" conference, June 13, Washington, DC) The
other leading candidates (Obama and Edwards) blamed Bush and stood
strongly for rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Hillarys casting blame on the Iraqi government showed that she
accepted Bushs extreme twist on reality: that Iraqs government
possesses sovereignty ("supreme and unrestricted power). In June,
Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Baghdad and scolded Iraqs
government for not making more progress. Former Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld had done the same as did Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice. They castigate the people they fashioned as U.S. puppets.
Imagine, a puppet master blaming its creation for disobedience, but
refusing to cut the strings!
After Bush installed Iraqs Interim Government in 2004, he arranged
for elections. That begat media and political praise: Bush has brought
democracy to Iraq. But laws of war dictate U.S., not Iraqi
accountability. (Paragraph 366, U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956):
Local Governments Under Duress and Puppet Governments)
The restrictions placed upon the authority of a belligerent government
cannot be avoided by a system of using a puppet government, central or
local, to carry out acts which would be unlawful if performed directly
by the occupant. Acts induced or compelled by the occupant are
nonetheless its acts.
Responsibility for Iraqi police and army members operating as death
squads belongs to Washington, not Baghdad -- and Hillary knows it.
The Bushies throw blame at their puppet and anyone else they can think
of. But their lies now haunt them -- phony evidence of weapons of mass
destruction and links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, which somehow
presumed a threat to U.S. security. Bush lied about improvement in
Iraq, from Mission Accomplished in May 2003 to were making progress
in securing parts of Baghdad in 2007. Most Members of Congress voted
for Bushs authority to make war even though they had the opportunity
to inspect the very flimsy evidence behind Bushs bellicosity. Indeed,
Hillary still defends her vote with language that reminds one of her
husbands linguistic twirls trying to explain how he didnt have sex
with that woman.
Hillarys tortured logic has her supporting the troops, anxious to
bring them home -- but not all of them -- and having all Democrats
united against Bush. But Hillary has not said: The war was illegal,
immoral and cannot be excused. I was wrong I am ashamed and I want to
repent.
Instead, she blames the puppet for the U.S. failure to resolve the
Iraqi bloodshed. Bushs government in Iraq has less autonomy than the
old Soviet bloc states or the Banana Republics of Central America. The
U.S. military commands, trains and arms Iraqs repressive forces and
decides what missions they can undertake. Some sovereign!
For Hillary to accuse this hapless creation should raise concerns not
only about her morality, but her intelligence. We always assumed she
was bright, but did she think she could pawn off this shabby pretext on
her own voters?
Or, possibly, Hillary believed the ever truthful Condoleezza Rice (then
National Security Adviser) who assured the world that the Iraqi leaders
chosen by the Bush Administration are not America's puppets. This is a
terrific list and really good government, and we're very pleased with
the names that emerged. (White House Press Briefing June 24, 2004)
Her aides might have slipped her a copy of the report of The UN
Assistance Mission in Iraq, (covering the period from the 1 January to
31 March 2007), which stated that 34,452 civilians were killed and
more than 36,000 wounded in 2006. Some non-official monitoring groups
considered this estimate on the very low side. Ivana Vuco, a U.N. human
rights officer, said government officials had made it clear during
discussions that they believed releasing high casualty numbers would
make it harder for the government to quell unrest. (LA Times April 26,
2007, Tina Susman)
Lancet, the British medical journal, counts as many as 655,000+ total
deaths (civilian and non-civilian) due to the war. (This is based on a
2006 Lancet survey of mortality, based on surveys and sampling methods
up to July 2006. The figure includes death from increased lawlessness,
degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare.)
The UN report said some 3,000 people have been arrested in security
sweeps since the Baghdad security plan began in mid-February. It
criticized Iraq for failing to guarantee due process rights to the
arrested. Thirty-seven thousand people remain detained in Iraqi and
U.S. prisons, many without charge or trial. Some 200 academics were
killed since 2003; 12,000 doctors have fled the country. Fifty-four
percent of Iraqis live on less than a U.S. dollar a day and the
unemployment rate is near 70%.
Iraqs courts deliberate for a few minutes at trials involving life
imprisonment or the death penalty. Iraq suffers from a rapidly
worsening humanitarian crisis, the report concluded.
Who broke Iraq? Saddam Hussein or is it the U.S. military praised by
Hillary for toppling Saddam? The U.S. military certainly has attained
an impressive kill ratio. Aside from estimates of civilian casualties
since March 2003, over 4 million have fled the country. Hillarys
verbal ass kissing of the military doesnt correspond to its actions as
dictated by Rumsfeld, Gates and the White House. After four years of
war and occupation, the Coalition forces -- read U.S. forces -- has
not established peace, law, order, employment, basic services or any
form of security. The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq summarized: The
challenge facing the Government of Iraq is not limited to addressing
the level of violence in the country, but the longer term maintenance
of stability and security in an environment characterized by impunity
and a breakdown in law and order. In this context, the intimidation of
a large segment of the Iraqi population, among them professional groups
and law enforcement personnel, and political interference in the
affairs of the judiciary, were rife and in need of urgent
attention. (BBC April 25, 2007)
The horror of the numbers becomes enhanced by the horror of
non-learning. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s
similar statements flowed from politicians mouths, placing blame on
U.S. puppet governments of South Vietnam for not making enough
progress. When U.S. forces finally withdrew in 1973, the South
Vietnamese army outnumbered their northern adversary 3 to 2 and
possessed immensely better equipment. The faade quickly fell apart as
soon as battle erupted. The puppet army disintegrated.
In Iraq, the U.S. military destroyed Iraqs government and its national
integrity. The U.S. fabricated a government and now places
responsibility on that miserable entity for failing to solve problems
created by the United States.
The United States lost in Vietnam because it could not defeat a people
fighting on their own soil, nor could the U.S. sustain indefinitely
ongoing casualties. When this concocted government failed in its
elementary duties -- as the Iraq government fails -- whiners blamed its
lack of will and institutionalized corruption. They then turned on the
U.S. media and accused it of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
In January 1968, official word in Washington had the North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong forces defeated. In February, however, this powerless
enemy launched the Tet offensive. It took 500,000 U.S. soldiers to stop
the Viet Minh and Viet Cong from capturing the entire country. Indeed,
after Tet, the United States suffered some 25,000 casualties.
In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the United States invaded another country and
established its puppet, one incapable of capturing the allegiance of
the majority. Why? Was it imperial control or exporting democracy?
Eisenhower noted in his Memoirs: I have never talked or corresponded
with a person knowledgeable in Indo-Chinese affairs who did not agree
that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly
80 per cent of the population would have voted for the communist Ho Chi
Minh as their leader.
In Iraq, U.S. forces are far worse off than they were after they
invaded Iraq. Yet Bush foresees U.S. presence in Iraq for decades.
Hillary agrees -- leave some troops in bases already built across Iraq.
She doesnt apparently understand that their presence will incite
jihadists everywhere. Hillary must have seen a declassified April 2006
National Intelligence Estimate called Trends in Global Terrorism:
Implications for the United States. It stated: The Iraq conflict has
become the ~cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of
U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the
global jihadist movement. Go Hillary, chants bin Laden.
The wily old fiend knows that the U.S. elite want to control Iraqs oil
wealth and thus the military bases. He might indirectly help fund
Hillarys campaign.
[Saul Landaus new book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD.]
Copyright 2007 Progreso Weekly.
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