USA and UK Committed Genocide Against the Iraqi People: Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire
The U.S. and the UK Committed Genocide Against the Iraqi People
by Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate
TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 September 2014
USA/UK committed genocide against Iraq people between 1990/2012 killing 3.3 million including 750,000 children through sanctions and war.
On September 11, 2014 US President Obama, on the anniversary of 9/11, in his speech promised the world more war, and especially the people of Iraq and Syria when he promised that together with his coalition partners, they would kill every ISIS person in Iraq, Syria, or anywhere in the world they may be. He described ISIS as cancer cells and promised they would be all killed off. His Speech was chilling and had the desired effect of reminding us all just how low morally and intellectually the American administration, and their Coalition, has sunk.
For the President to ignore the fact that the USA/UK, NATO, have committed genocide against the Iraq people between 1990/2012 killing 3.3 million including 750,000 Iraqi children through sanctions and war, not including subsequent wars by USA/NATO, against Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and their attempted and well funded efforts through a proxy war to destroy Syria, is criminal. The Iraqi war (as indeed is the war against Gaza by Israel) is a classic definition of Genocide. These past and current foreign policies of military aggression break all International Laws, to which the President makes no reference, and will only result in more killings and more hatred of the West.
That the US Administration plans to escalate military attacks in Iraq and Syria and to increase funding and training of ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria, is a betrayal of all those people in these countries struggling through peaceful and nonviolent ways to solve their problems without guns and violence. If the US wants to stop ISIS, it can remove its funding and arms, which are coming from US allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and others and from the US itself, through intermediaries like the Syrian ‘rebels’. It is the USA and their allies that have created the conditions, funded and facilitated the growth of these reactionary Jihadist organizations. If USA/UK really want to stop ISIS they should work with the Syrian Government, support the people who have been the main victims of ISIS, and support the Syrian peace and reconciliation movement who are working to stop the violence and bring real change in their country.
The USA administration policy of air strikes against ISIS in Syria and increasing funding for the moderate rebels is illegal under international law, as it is illegal for the US to fund, train, weaponize and co-ordinate to overthrow the regime of a sovereign state. Also the airspace of any country is its own and USA must get Syrian authorization to fly over Syria. (Illegally Israel continues to fly over and bomb Syria). Having visited Iraq before the second war, and Syria in 2013 and 2014 and witnessed that the people of both countries were brave and courageous and trying to solve their problems ( in Syria, a proxy war with thousands of foreign Jihadists) through peace and reconciliation. In Syria, they asked that there be no outside interference and aggression on their country, as this would make things worse, not better. Under International Law the US Gov. NATO and any coalition forces should respect the wishes of the people of the Middle East and Syria, and recognize it is for the people of Syria to modify or change their government and not for the US or Saudi Arabia or NATO. Ending militarism and war is possible and restoring justice, human rights and dignity for all the people, will bring peace and we must each do all in our power to Resist and Stop this latest drive to war and demand our governments withdraw from this Coalition of war with USA.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book The Vision of Peace (edited by John Dear, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com.
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/09/usauk-committed-genocide-against-iraq-people/
Ms. Maguire isn't trying to make a point other than to make us aware of who is killing whom. Unlike our nation's news media and political leadership, she addresses our situation today directly: What are supposed to be modern democracies instead act as a global fascistic empire, killing millions of innocent people to control a region and its resources.
= new reply since forum marked as read
In response to the invented terror links of Iraq to September 11, they forged law that gave them invisible super powers like torture and "assassination" which is a formal or fancy, take your pick, word for murder. These laws are so secret, that not even our elected representatives can tell us about them.
Two Senators Have Been Harping on the Obama Administration's Phone Data Collection Policy for Years
By Emma Roller
Slate.com, June 6, 2013
Glenn Greenwald's scoop that the National Security Agency has been collecting phone data from Verizon customers has some people getting in touch with their civil libertarian side anew, but Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been after the NSA on this issue since well before the Obama administration, and his colleague Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has joined him in fighting to uncover the Obama administration's phone record policy.* Here's a roundup of Wyden and Udall's presaging efforts.
Floor speech on Patriot Act provisions (May 26, 2011):
Wyden: I believe there are two Patriot Acts in America: The first is the text of the law itself, and the second is the government's secret interpretation of what they believe the law means ... the American people will also be extremely surprised when they learn how the Patriot Act is secretly being interpreted, and I believe one consequence will be an erosion of public confidence that makes it more difficult for our critically important national intelligence agencies to function effectively. ...
Udall: I believe it's critical that the administration make public its interpretation of the Patriot Act so that members of Congress and the public are not kept in the dark.
Letter from Wyden and Udall to National Intelligence Director James Clapper (July 14, 2011):
Turning to another area of surveillance law, recent advances in geolocation technology have made it increasingly easy to secretly track the movements and whereabouts of individual Americans on an ongoing, 24/7 basis. Law enforcement agencies have relied on a variety of different methods to conduct this sort of electronic surveillance, including the acquisition of cell phone mobility data from communications companies as well as the use of tracking devices covertly installed by the law enforcement agencies themselves.
Unfortunately, the law has not kept up with these advances in technology. As a result, courts in different jurisdictions have issued diverse, conflicting rulings about the evidence and procedures required for the government to surreptitiously track an individual’s movements using a mobile electronic device.
Senate Intelligence Committee nomination hearing (July 26, 2011):
Wyden: The question is, does the government have the authority to use cell site data to track the location of Americans inside the country? ...
NSA lawyer Matthew Olsen: I think there are certain circumstances where that authority may exist. I do think it's a very complicated and difficult question, and I would ask your indulgence to allow that question to be prepared in an unclassified setting in writing to you, Senator.
Letter from Wyden and Udall to Eric Holder (March 15, 2012):
It is a matter of public record that section 215, which is a public statute, has been the subject of secret legal interpretations. The existence of these interpretations, which are contained in classified opinions issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or “FISA Court”) has been acknowledged on multiple occasions by the Justice Department and other executive branch officials.
We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act. As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says. ...
A number of the senators who are familiar with these secret legal interpretations (including the two of us) have pressed the executive branch to declassify these interpretations so that Congress and the public can have an informed debate about the proper scope of the law. We have personally raised this issue in meetings, hearings, and correspondence (both classified and unclassified) with senior officials (including you) on many occasions over the years, thus far to no avail. It was initially encouraging when the Departmnet of Justice and the Director of National Intelligence wrote to Senator Rockefeller and Senator Wyden in August 2009 to announce the establishment of a regular process for reviewing, redacting and releasing significant opinions of the FISA Court. Two and a half years later, howeer, this “process” has produced literally zero results. Not a single redacted opinion has been released.
So after four years of trying to persuade the administration publicly, Wyden and Udall finally got what they wanted from Greenwald's anonymous source—someone unfazed by trading in secrecy.
*Correction, June 6, 2013: This sentence originally misidentified the National Security Agency as the National Security Administration.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/06/06/nsa_collecting_verizon_phone_records_two_senators_have_protested_patriot.html
What kind of a country is that, where the People don't count -- except as sheep, slaves and cannon fodder for war without end?
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend the Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy at Duquesne University. One of the many important things discussed there was what author, historian and teacher, James DiEugenio reported on the important change in foreign policy JFK represented from his predecessor and his successors, immediate and otherwise.
DiEugenio said President John F. Kennedy did not undergo a change of heart from Cold War hawk to liberal dove Democrat only after the hair-raising nuclear crises he experienced in office. "John F. Kennedy was never a Cold Warrior," DiEugenio said. Throughout his 16-year career in the House and Senate, President Kennedy sided with the People, Justice and Democracy -- across the United States and around the world. This is a world view radically different from Eisenhower, and his foreign policy makers, principally the Dulles Brothers and their allies, including young Dick Nixon.
The JFK Administration may have represented a break in the action, H20 Man's Father explained to him and I agree. It was a special interlude, indeed. In only 1,037 days, we launched the nation toward the moon, creating a new type of economy; maintained the peace when several times the heads of the military and the secret organs of the national security state counseled all-out war; and started the nation on a path where all men are equal under the law, no matter race, color, or creed, and justice extended to economics and health, as under FDR and the New Deal.
DiEugenio’s research shows President Kennedy was working to defend the interests of democracy over those of colonialism, not only in Europe, as evinced in divided Berlin, but in Africa, Asia, South America and around the world. During less than three years in office, Kennedy turned official U.S. support from that of Eisenhower and the Dulles Brothers for supporting US commercial and colonial interests over democracy, such as in Guatemala and Iran, to respect for the nations and their democratically elected leaders, like Lumumba and Sukarno. In matters of war and peace, JFK always sided with peace, making overtures to North Vietnam. The Dulles Brothers and Nixon sided with France and the colonial powers, even drawing up plans to nuke the North Vietnamese Army at Dien Bien Phu, Operation VULTURE.
The record shows JFK's Foreign Policy of democracy over colonialism was immediately reversed by Lyndon B. Johnson, who reversed course in Vietnam and supported the pro-colonialist forces in Congo, Vietnam, Brazil, Dominican Republic and elsewhere around the world. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and most who followed continued the Business-As-Usual, advancing the interests of Big Money, Big Oil and Big Wars for Profit.
One of the things I am most proud of is how Democratic Underground covered many of these salient points on its boards, from DU1 through the present day. At the Duquesne conference, I was listening and nodding, knowing that many times we had discussed this on DU. In looking back to one particularly important post through GOOGLE, I found we sourced this information back to DiEugenio. That's what the Internet can do: Spread Truth.
Why it matters.
Democracy depends on Truth. The Republic depends on Justice. That is, the reality that ours is a nation under law.
Once a criminal is, or criminals are, allowed to go free, Justice has been denied. We find ourselves operating under a falsehood, we are living a Big Lie.
We as a Nation have been on the criminal path since November 22, 1963.
DUers know you don’t need to read a history book or watch a tee vee special to know: It shows. Since 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin, it’s been a series of wars without end for profit. And in the process, the rich became super-rich -- the richest and most powerful people in history.
Thanks for reading. Keep spreading the Truth, DU! The next 50 years can be different -- they can be decades of peace and prosperity for ALL: They can be Democratic.
PS: Apologies if you've read this before, JEB! The subject is too important not to re-post it as reply.
Only Western lives count 
You meant "Only WHITE Western lives count and only then if they have money and the more money they have the more they count."
Like this rich and famous painter of shower scenes:
Like his father, a visitor to Auschwitz*, and himself also a torturer, mass murderer and war criminal, the guy never was quoted in no newspaper or on any television on it, despite the reporters there when he said:
"Money trumps peace."
* "Do people challenge the accuracy of what you present?" -- George W Bush, then "president," at Auschwitz, May 2003
"Boy, they were big on crematoriums, weren't they?" -- George Herbert Walker Bush, then vice-president, at Auschwitz, September 1989
So, apart from DU, we likely wouldn't know any of that.
