tagged w/ medea benjamin
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March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and that Iraqi oil money would pay for the reconstruction. Vice President Dick Cheney said the military effort would take "weeks rather than months." And Defense Secretary Assistant Ken Adelman predicted that "liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."
Eight years on, it's time to look back at that "cakewalk."
1. 4,400 U.S. Soldiers Lost for a Lie
More than 4,400 Americans have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- more than were killed on 9/11. Over 32,000 U.S. soldiers have been seriously wounded, many kept alive only thanks to the miracle of modern medicine.
But those numbers don't tell the half of it. Stanford University and Naval Postgraduate School researchers who examined the delayed onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) found that, by 2023, the rate of PTSD among Iraq war veterans could rise as high as 35 percent. And for the second year in row, more soldiers committed suicide in 2010 than died in combat, a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill -- and watch your friends be killed -- for a war based on lies.
2. Bankrupting Our Nation
In 2008, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University's Linda Blimes put the cost of the Iraq War at roughly $3 trillion, or about 60 times what the Bush administration first said the invasion would cost. But while a staggering figure, Stiglitz and Blimes now say that their estimate "was, if anything, too low." In an update published last fall in the Washington Post, they note that the war not only drove up the federal debt, but helped drive the skyrocketing oil prices that contributed to the crashing of the global economy.
According to the National Priorities Project, the money the U.S. government spent destroying Iraq could have provided yearly salaries for 12.5 million teachers or paid the annual healthcare costs for 167 million Americans. When elected officials tell us our nation is bankrupt, we should tell them to bring our war dollars home.
3. Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqi Dead
The ones who have suffered the most from the Iraq "cakewalk," of course, are the Iraqis themselves. For an invasion sold as an act of liberation and "profound morality" by propagandists like Jeffrey Goldberg, the U.S. and its allies sure managed to kill a staggering number of those they were liberating. The group Iraq Body Count (IBC) has documented at least 99,900 violent civilian deaths as a direct result of the U.S.-led invasion. But that's an extremely conservative estimate based largely off deaths reported in Western media, an approach bound to undercount the massive death toll from the invasion. Indeed, as WikiLeaks revealed last October, the U.S. government covered up the violent killings of more than 15,000 Iraqi civilians -- killings that weren't reported by any Western paper -- or roughly 20 percent of IBC's official count at the time.
Unfortunately, the number of Iraqi souls liberated from their bodies is likely a lot higher than IBC's count. A 2006 study by researchers at John Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal found that in just over three years there had been 654,965 "excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war," with Iraq's death rate more than doubling due to gunfire -- the leading cause of mortality -- and a lack of medicine and clean water. A January 2008 analysis by British polling firm Opinion Research Business, meanwhile, estimated "that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003."
4. Lights Still Out
Thirteen years of bombings and sanctions crippled the infrastructure and basic services of what was once a wealthy country. Then came the 2003 invasion, which destroyed electrical plants, sewage systems, water treatment facilities, hospitals and more. Eight years later, the living conditions of Iraqis are worse than under Saddam Hussein, with the country plagued by a continued lack of electricity, clean water, medical care and security. Iraqis wonder how it is, after the most powerful country in the world occupied it and ostensibly spent billions on reconstruction, they are still living in the dark.
5. Millions Flee Their Homes
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, since 2003 "more than 4.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes, many in dire need of humanitarian care" -- hardly an endorsement of life in the "liberated" nation. Many Iraqis fled their homes to seek asylum in Iran, Jordan and Syria, while roughly 1.5 million fled to other parts of Iraq, the majority of which "have found no solutions to their plight," according to the UN. In the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, millions will never be able to return.
6. Women and Girls Forced into Prostitution
Women in Iraq have been particularly hit by the invasion and occupation. The Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today. Meanwhile, violence against women -- including honor killings, rape and kidnapping -- has soared , forcing many women to remain at home and limiting employment and educational opportunities, according to a new Freedom House report. "A deep feeling of injustice and powerlessness sometimes leads women to believe that the only escape is suicide," the report notes.
Many Iraqi women who fled to neighboring countries have found themselves unable to feed their children. Just to make ends meet, tens of thousands of them -- including girls 13 and under -- have been forced into lives of prostitution, particularly in Syria.
"From what I've seen, 70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis," one refugee told the New York Times. "If they go back to Iraq they'll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available."
7. Poisoning Iraqi Society
The U.S. military dropped thousands of bombs across Iraq laced with depleted uranium, the radioactive waste produced from manufacturing nuclear fuel. Valued by the military for its density and ability to ignite upon impact, depleted uranium bombs continue to kill years after they've been dropped. In Fallujah, which was bombarded more than anywhere else in Iraq, British researchers uncovered a massive increase in infant mortality and rates of cancer, with the latter exceeding "those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," according to the Independent.
And it's not just Fallujah facing a cancer epidemic. Al Jazeera reports that in the central Iraq province of Babil, reported cancer cases rose from 500 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2008. And in Basrah, the last 15 years have seen the childhood leukemia rate more than double, according to a study published last year in the American Journal of Public Health.
ARTICLE CONTINUES AT LINK:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/medea-benjamin/ten-reasons-the-iraq-war-_b_836910.html
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org) and Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org). Charles Davis has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no... more
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When Jon Stewart was on Larry King's show talking about his Rally to Restore Sanity, he likened himself to Alice in Wonderland and the rally as the Mad Hatter Tea Party. But is Jon Stewart really Alice, trying to find sanity in an upside-down world? Or is he the March Hare, the ultimate "slacktivist" who thinks it's always teatime -- time to sit back and jibberjabber?
The 10-30-10 rally on the capital's mall is looking more and more like a celebration of "slacktivism." Stewart is courting people who do not want to open their window and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" As he says in the Rally for Sanity website, he's looking for the people who've been "too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs)."
So let's get this straight: people who were so horrified when the U.S. invaded Iraq that they joined millions of others to protest are not sane? We shouldn't speak out against Wall Street bankers whose greed led to millions of Americans losing their jobs and homes? It's irrational to be angry when you see the Gulf of Mexico covered in oil because BP cut corners on safety? Don't get upset when the Supreme Court rules that corporations are people and can pour unlimited funds into our elections?
Stewart often roasts the warmakers and corporate fatcats on his show, but he seems to think that his viewers should be content to take out their frustrations with a good belly laugh.
When Jon Stewart announced the Rally to Restore Sanity, he included CODEPINK among the "loud folks" getting in the way of civil discourse. He also equated progressives calling George Bush a war criminal with right-wingers calling Obama Hitler.
So we started a facebook page asking Jon Stewart to invite us on the show to set the record straight. Beware of what you ask for. We did, indeed, get a call from the producers but it was not for a live interview with Jon Stewart. No, it was for a taped session with myself, a Tea Party organizer and a tear-gas dodging, anti-globalization anarchist "giving advice" to Daily Show's Samantha Bee about how to organize a good rally. It was clear they wanted to portray us as the crazy folks who should not come to their rally for reasonableness.
I consulted with my CODEPINK colleagues. Some said, "Don't do it. It's a trap and will only further marginalize us." We'd already been ridiculed several times on the show, like when we stood up to question General Petraeus at a Congressional hearing or when we organized protests at the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley. But the majority of my colleagues thought it would be crazy to decline the chance to get an anti-war message out to millions of viewers.
The producers told us to come to the New York studio "in costume." The anarchist, Legba Carrefour, was all in black, including a black bandanna covering his face. The Tea Partier, Jeffrey Weingarten, came in patriotic red, white and blue. I decided to "go professional", with a CODEPINK t-shirt and a gray suit. The producers were disappointed. They had wanted me to appear in one of the wild outfits we have worn in Congress -- like a hand-lettered pink slip accessorized with a hot-pink boa and a glittery "no war" tiara.
But my attempt to look professional was thwarted by the fourth guest who suddenly appeared and was positioned right behind me: A huge, scary puppet head of Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
So there we were, four "crazies" being quizzed by Samantha Bee for over two hours. She started out with softballs -- what did we stand for, what activities did we engage in. Then the questions and the antics got sillier and sillier. By the end we found ourselves spinning a blind-folded Samantha Bee around, then watching her swing a baseball bat at Ahmadinejad's head to see if was really a pinata.
I'm sure that with over two hours of tape, there will be plenty of footage to turn into a four minute segment showing us as a bunch of nutcases. After all, it is a comedy show.
But it's too bad that Jon Stewart, the liberal comedian, is putting anti-war activists, tea partiers and black bloc anarchists in the same bag. And it's sad that he's telling his audience -- many of whom are young progressive thinkers -- that activism is crazy.
An anonymous assistant on the Daily Show's blog chastized CODEPINK on line. "Dipping hands in fake blood or screaming over everyone just makes you look crazy and then the rest of the country ignores you." He said that we should, instead, focus on solutions.
CODEPINK has been proposing solutions since the day we started. We risked our lives meeting with UN weapons inspectors in Iraq right before the U.S. invaded to see if war could be avoided. We have repeatedly traveled to Afghanistan to push for reconciliation. For the past eight years we have been posing solutions about how to deal with terrorism, how to extricate ourselves from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how to make us safer at home. Whether under Bush or Obama, our voices of sanity have been drowned out by a war machine that makes billions selling weapons and hiring mercenaries.
Meanwhile, we've witnessed the agony of mothers who have lost their sons in these senseless wars, the unspeakable suffering of our friends in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the lavish spending on war while our schools and hospitals are gutted.
It was because of this insanity that we began to interrupt the war criminals during their public appearances, shouting -- yes, shouting -- for an end to the madness. It was because of this insanity that we put fake blood on our hands to represent the hundreds of thousands of innocents who died as result of their lies. In our post-9/11 24/7 news cycle, we learned that the more audacious and outrageous the action, the more likely we were to get our anti-war message into the national conversation.
For this the Daily Show calls us crazy!
Don't get me wrong. CODEPINK women love to laugh and we try not to take ourselves too seriously. But we do feel that it's the sane people who protest crazy wars, who cry out against the dangers of global warming, who rail against big money in politics, who implore our politicians to spend our resources rebuilding America, not bombing people overseas.
So let's celebrate the people who walk the talk. Slacktivism did not end slavery, activism did. Slacktivism did not get women our rights. Activism did. Slacktivism won't end war or global warming. But activism just might.
Jon Stewart says he wants to restore sanity to Washington; so do we. We'll see you out on the mall, Jon.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange. CODEPINK will be organizing a Mad Hatter Tea Party at the Rally to Restore Sanity. To join, click here. Her "interview" with Samantha Bee will be aired on the Daily Show on Thursday.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457003774694&set=a.445158504694.245439.192052299694When Jon Stewart was on Larry King's show talking about his Rally to Restore... more
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New music video: Blackwater Makes A Killing (Out of Killing)
A music video... now that's a creative way to call out this criminal company for its violence and corruption.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUJYu6gtGW4New music video: Blackwater Makes A Killing (Out of Killing)
A music video... now... more
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BERKELEY -- Demonstrators are planning a protest today as the UC Berkeley law school professor who gave legal sanction to the Bush administration's views on torture returns to the classroom for the new semester.
The Boalt Hall School of Law class schedule lists courses, such as constitutional law, to be taught by John Yoo. Protesters have challenged Yoo's presence on campus because of legal memos he wrote that were instrumental in the development of military and CIA interrogation techniques that some consider to be torture.
Activist Cindy Sheehan, CodePink's Medea Benjamin and several attorneys will speak to the press, demanding that Yoo be removed from his teaching post, disbarred and prosecuted on war crimes charges. Speakers will announce upcoming events to pursue their demands during the school year, including a week of protests and events in October.
Yoo has said that the Bush administration did not authorize torture and that he did not consider waterboarding torture.
The news conference will be held at noon on the Boalt Hall School of Law steps near Bancroft Way and College Avenue in Berkeley. A procession will follow around 12:30.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15794110?nclick_check=1
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/wp-content/images/IMG_3073.JPGBERKELEY -- Demonstrators are planning a protest today as the UC Berkeley law school... more
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Code Pink is committed to bringing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end and holding Barack Obama accountable. Their goal: turn this country from a war making country into a peace making country. Celebrating the inauguration in DC, they were also reminding people of the US policy in the Middle East, the suffering in Gaza, and the importance of making a change in US diplomacy. GRITtv spoke to members of Code Pink in DC as they offered their Peace Menu to dignitaries and politicians on Capitol Hill.Code Pink is committed to bringing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end and... more
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