home

zurück

 
 

SDS-Website

 
 

Irak - Iraq: Hat die künstliche Kreation Churchills eine Überlebenschance?

 

CYNTHIA TUCKER: Big Oil's slick no-bid contracts will keep us mired in Iraq.  A consortium of Western oil companies — the very definition of Big Oil — is on the verge of receiving no-bid contracts in Iraq, giving them access to one of the most sought-after prizes in the petroleum industry, according to The New York Times. Can it be mere coincidence that the leading companies in the deal — ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Total — are the very same companies that Saddam Hussein threw out when he nationalized the Iraqi oil industry more than three decades ago? "It's been a long road, but the oil companies seem set to get much of what they have been seeking," said James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum. "The Iraqi public is overwhelmingly opposed to this privatization of Iraqi oil, just like they are overwhelmingly opposed to the so-called security pact with the U.S."..... The U.S. government could have spent $500 billion on an Apollo mission-like search for alternative energy and still had about $500 billion to hand to Americans as gasoline subsidies. And we would have been well on the way toward freeing ourselves from the troubled Middle East. (AJC, 22.6.08).
Angelina Jolie: Deshalb ist es zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt nicht möglich, den Irakern jetzt einfach die Zügel in die Hand zu drücken und abzuziehen. Die USA haben nicht nur die moralische Verpflichtung, den irakischen Flüchtlingen zu helfen, sie müssen auch im Hinblick auf ihre eigene nationale Sicherheit ein Interesse daran haben, diese Krise zu beenden. (FR, 2.7.08).

Irak: Die Kriegslüge nun nachgewiesen. The War Lies Now Documented.

Tom Hayden: "Widerstand, bis Hoffnung keimt"

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NYT, July 6, 2008): Truth Commision for US War Crimes. When a distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of detainees, you know that we need a new way forward. “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
It’s a national disgrace that more than 100 inmates have died in American custody in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo. After two Afghan inmates were beaten to death by American soldiers, the American military investigator found that one of the men’s legs had been “pulpified.” Moreover, many of the people we tortured were innocent: the administration was as incompetent as it was immoral. The McClatchy newspaper group has just published a devastating series on torture and other abuses, and it quotes Thomas White, the former Army secretary, as saying that it was clear from the moment Guantánamo opened that one-third of the inmates didn’t belong there. McClatchy says that one inmate, Mohammed Akhtiar, was known as pro-American to everybody but the American soldiers who battered him. Some of his militant fellow inmates spit on him, beat him and called him “infidel,” all because of his anti-Taliban record.
These abuses happened partly because, for several years after 9/11, many of our national institutions didn’t do their jobs. The Democratic Party rolled over rather than serving as loyal opposition. We in the press were often lap dogs rather than watchdogs, and we let the public down.

Myths About That $3.18 Per Gallon
By Lisa Margonelli (WP, June 3, 2007).

'War for oil' claim doesn't fit the facts. By Gal Luft, Baltimore Sun, September 30, 2007
Steven Mufson:
A Crude Case For War? (WP, 16.3.08).
How the Bush Administration’s Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry. by Dilip Hiro / Sept. 27th, 2007
Bob Herbert: President Bush and Vice President Cheney, both former oil-company executives, have long tried to tell us this war was about terrorism, about weapons of mass destruction, about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people, about anything but oil. One of the starkest examples of U.S. priorities came during the eruption of looting that followed the fall of Baghdad. With violence and chaos all about, American troops were ordered to protect one particularly treasured target — the Iraqi Oil Ministry. How convenient that the peculiar perspective of the oil-obsessed Bush administration can now be put to use advising the Iraqi government on its contracts with big oil. The contracts themselves are not huge. They are like the keys on a coveted ring that will begin opening the doors to Iraq’s vast oil reserves. As The Times reported Monday, “At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country with some of the world’s largest untapped fields and potential for vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry.” A prize, yes. But at what cost? (NYT, 07/01/08).

     
 
     

The Washington Post (09/27/07): Report Says Sadam Hussein Was Open To Exile Before 2003 Invasion. Less than a month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein signaled that he was willing to go into exile as long as he could take with him $1 billion and information on weapons of mass destruction, according to a report of a Feb. 22, 2003, meeting between President Bush and his Spanish counterpart published by a Spanish newspaper yesterday. El Pais, a leading Spanish daily and a critic of the war, said the transcript of the conversation was prepared by Spain's ambassador to the United States, Javier Ruperez, who was at the meeting in Crawford. Aznar returned to the subject. "Is it true there's a possibility Saddam Hussein might go into exile?" "Yes, it's possible," Bush responded. "It's also possible he could be assassinated." Aznar: ¿Es cierto que existe alguna posibilidad de que Sadam Hussein se exilie? Bush: Sí, existe esa posibilidad. Incluso de que sea asesinado. Here is a further part of the English translation.
Kommentar: Wer immer nach einem politischen Grund für den Krieg sucht, ist auf dem Holzwege. Bush wollte den Krieg auf Teufel komm raus. Das Bush/Cheney Team tut nichts ohne Profitinteresse. Folgt dem Geldinteresse ihrer Geschäftsbeziehungen und ihr werdet fündig.
Auch
Rumsfeld nutzte die Gunst der Stunde von 9/11: Ein Memo von Rumsfeld, das wenige Stunden nach den Anschlägen vom 11.9. verfasst und letztes Jahr bekannt wurde, machte deutlich, dass der Verteidigungsminister sofort daran dachte, die Gunst der Stunde zu nutzen, um auch gegen den Erzfeind Saddam Hussein vorzugehen. Rumsfeld forderte General Myers auf, möglichst schnell Informationen und Beurteilungen herbeizuschaffen, um nicht nur militärisch gegen Bin Laden, sondern gleichzeitig auch gegen Saddam Hussein vorgehen zu können: [b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]" (
"Hit SH at same time -- not only UBL"
). (TP, 2.11.07).

Jacob Heilbrunn: Five myths about neoconservatives (Sacramento Bee, 13.2.08).

Gräueltaten im Irakkrieg: US-Veteranen enthüllen schockierende Details (netzeitung, 20. Mrz 2008 15:34). Vor wenigen Tagen wandte sich eine Gruppe von ihnen – unter dem Namen «Wintersoldaten» – an die Öffentlichkeit, um über diesen schmutzigen Krieg zu berichten: über das Vorgehen der Armee, irrwitzige Befehle und grauenvolle Erlebnisse, die sie bis heute nicht mehr loslassen. Unterstützt wird die Gruppe von den «Veteranen gegen den Irakkrieg» (IVAW). Einige Aussagen wurden von IVAW aufgezeichnet und ins Internet gestellt.

Die Dschihadisten und der Westen. Von Wolfgang Günter Lerch. Gemessen an der Absicht, die Dschihadisten zu vernichten, war der Irak-Krieg ein Fehler. Die Kämpfer für den „wahren Islam“ sind eine Bewegung, die im Islam selbst entstanden ist - und dies im 18. Jahrhundert, als es weder das moderne Amerika noch Israel gab, noch westlichen Kolonialismus in der islamischen Welt. Über deren klassischen Kernraum herrschten vielmehr die muslimischen Osmanen. Bis heute ist nicht überall begriffen worden, dass es sich hier um eine religiös inspirierte Vision der Welt handelt, die schon der große Orientalist Johann Jakob Reiske im 18. Jahrhundert als dem christlichen Weltentwurf gleichgewichtig ansah.(FAZ, 19.12.07).

 

Sword of the Shia. He can deal out death through his black-clad followers and roil the government any time he chooses. Why Moqtada al-Sadr may end up deciding America's fate in Iraq. By Jeffrey Bartholet | NEWSWEEK, Dec 4, 2006 Issue

 

Blackwater? Ask England about mercenary troubles. By George McEvoy. Palm Beach Post Columnist (PBP, 17.11.07)

War crimes? Nope. We're the law. By Tom Blackburn. Palm Beach Post Staff Writer (PBP, 19.11.07). The Nuremberg precedent was that if crimes were committed on the authority and orders of the state, leaders who held the authority and gave the orders would be at least as accountable as those who actually carried out the orders. Dealing with World War II offenders, the United States sentenced a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, to 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding a civilian. Now we have an attorney general who couldn't know if waterboarding is torture until he read the secret documents in which his predecessor said it isn't torture if the president wants it.

Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist Christopher Hitchens measures his words against a family's grief and a young man's sacrifice. (Vanity Fair, November 2007).
Robert Redfords „Von Löwen und Lämmern“ setzt sich mit den Argumenten für den Krieg In Afghanistan und Irak auseinander. (Welt, 1.11.07). Er erläutert weshalb.
LIONS FOR LAMBS. Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep
In the Valley of Elah (2007). Tommy Lee Jones

Tony Judt: Der Irakkrieg ist nicht die Lösung, sondern das eigentliche Problem (TP, 25.9.07).

Thomas Friedman übt Selbstkritik: "Our reaction to 9/11 -- mine included -- has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again....We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy." (NYT, Spiegel, 2.10.07).

Bob Woodward (Washington Post, 17. Sept. 07): Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In his new book “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Greenspan wrote: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.” (MSNBC, 17.9.07).

Discussion in Democracy Now (24.9.07):

AMY GOODMAN:
Alan Greenspan, let's talk about the war in Iraq. You said what for many in your circles is the unspeakable, that the war in Iraq was for oil. Can you explain?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Yes. The point I was making was that if there were no oil under the sands of Iraq, Saddam Hussein would have never been able to accumulate the resources which enabled him to threaten his neighbors, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. And having watched him for thirty years, I was very fearful that he, if he ever achieved -- and I thought he might very well be able to buy one -- an atomic device, he would have essentially endeavored and perhaps succeeded in controlling the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz, which is the channel through which eighteen or nineteen million barrels a day of the world eighty-five million barrel crude oil production flows. Had he decided to shut down, say, seven million barrels a day, which he could have done if he controlled, he could have essentially also shut down a significant part of economic activity throughout the world.
The size of the threat that he posed, as I saw it emerging, I thought was scary. And so, getting him out of office or getting him out of the control position he was in, I thought, was essential. And whether that be done by one means or another was not as important, but it’s clear to me that were there not the oil resources in Iraq, the whole picture of how that part of the Middle East developed would have been different.

Cynthia Tucker: Far from reality, Bush dares to invoke Vietnam (AJC, 26.8.07).

A WAY OUT: THE UNION OF IRAQI STATES
Pauline H. Baker, The Fund for Peace. Report #7,
March 2003 to June 2007
Pauline H. Baker of the Fund for Peace calls for the "managed" break-up of Iraq into three separate states with their own governments and representatives to the United Nations, but continued economic cooperation in a larger entity modeled on the European Union.(By Robin Wright, Washington Post, 17.8.07).

A soldier's account: Is the war manageable?
The Iraq War As We See It.
By Buddhika Jayamaha (NYT, 19.8.07).
Im Irak kämpfte er für Freiheit, Demokratie und für seine Kinder. Heute ringt er damit, sein Leben wieder in den Griff zu bekommen. Herold Noel ist einer von tausenden Irak-Veteranen, die den Krieg zurück in die Heimat tragen und das Gesicht Amerikas verändern. (Spiegel, 4.11.06)

New books on the "War On Terror" (NYT, 29.7.07).

Simulation zeigt das Ende des World Trade Centers (Spiegel, 18.6.07).

 

Der Ritter der lebenden Toten. Überlegungen zu den Geständnissen von Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - und darüber, was die Legalisierung von Folter zerstört - von Slavoj Zizek (derStandard, 31.3./1.4.07).

Gewinnen die USA im Irak? - "Nein, Sir." Es ist eine deutliche Absage an die Politik seines Vorgängers. Der designierte Verteidigungsminister Robert Gates hält es unter den gegebenen Umständen im Irak für ausgeschlossen, den Krieg zu gewinnen. Die Truppenstärke nach dem Feldzug sei viel zu klein gewesen, sagte er im Senatsausschuss. (SPIEGEL, 5.12.06).

9/11 - ein Inside Job?
Auch Matthias Bröckers fasst seine Thesen zum Thema zusammen.
Die US-Regierung versucht zu kontern.

Molly Ivins: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006) . Folter in den USA legalisiert?

The torture debate in the USA. "Failures of Imagination" by Eric Umansky
Cheney facht Folter-Debatte (Waterboarding) wieder an (Spiegel, 27.10.07).
CIA-Kenner Ron Suskind im Interview mit SPIEGEL ONLINE sagt, im Kampf gegen al-Qaida handle Amerika wie "ein kopfloses Huhn". Gerade die CIA-Foltermethoden seien kontraproduktiv. (26.10.07).
Why the Torture Bill Matters. By Molly Ivins, AlterNet, September 28, 2006.

John McCain, der aussichtsreichste republikanische Nachfolger George W. Bushs, lenkt von eigenen Versäumnissen ab und will den Europäern die Schuld am Terrorismus zuschieben: "Die Bedrohung durch diese in Europa herangezüchteten Terroristen ist keine amerikanische... Wir müssen besser auf das politische und soziale Klima anderer Länder achten. Wir sollten auf das Umfeld schauen, in dem Menschen muslimischen Glaubens in Europa leben. Auf den ersten Blick mag das nichts mit Terrorismus zu tun haben, aber die jungen Muslime, die in den Gettos von Paris leben, waren willens, Tausende Autos anzustecken. Die Lage dort ist fraglos unberechenbar, das könnte sich leicht zu einem weiteren Umfeld für islamischen Extremismus entwickeln".

Militärexperte Martin van Creveld: Irak - der dümmste Krieg seit Augustus Feldzug gegen Germanien. Wie in Vietnam ist der Rückzug aus dem Irak unausweichlich.
Moshe Dayan questioned American goals in Vietnam. What would he say about Iraq? The Blemish of Conquest. We might add: What would he think about Gaza and Lebanon?
Kriege gegen Iran? "Das wäre das nächste US-Desasters"
Die Ablösung des "trinitarischen Krieges" durch den "low intensity conflict" und die Auflösung der Staaten.

 

Hans-Christian Ströbele (MdB Bündnis90Grüne): Abweichender Bericht zur BND-CIA-Zusammenarbeit
Germany was listed in Iraq as "noncoalition but cooperating.
German Intelligence Gave U.S. Iraqi Defense Plan (NYT, 27.2.06) 
by Michael R. Gordon
Germany Denies Giving U.S. Iraq's Plan to Defend Baghdad, NYT, 28.2.06

Greg Thielmann, Powel's director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs: Powel lied to the UN. Thielmann believes the decision to go to war was made - and the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion. CBS, 60 Minutes II, 15. Oct.03

Neue Literatur zu Bushs neuer Weltordnung

Documents of Neocon-Strategies: Project for the First People's Century

Pierre Georges: Bush Prie. Le Monde, 8.3.2003

Yves Roucaute: Une guerre juste. Le Monde, 8.3.2003

Martin Amis: The palace of the end. Guardian, 4.3.2003

In göttlicher Mission. Krieg aus Nächstenliebe
HANS HOYNG, GERHARD SPÖRL
, Spiegel 08/2003

Debatte: Das Ende des US-Imperiums?
Die Burg zieht die Zugbrücke hoch
Oliver Fahrni, woz 3.4.03

God's own country: Religiöse Grundlagen des Imperiums
Peter Steinacker, Hessischer Kirchenpräsident, FR

Regierungen aller Länder, bewaffnet Euch!
Von Harald Schumann (Spiegel-online, 20.3.03)

Der Untergang des US-Imperiums
Emmanuel Todd, taz 15.3.03

TRÄGT DIE "BLUT FÜR ÖL"-HYPOTHESE?
von Friedemann Müller

Getrieben von Versager-Komplexen, gestärkt vom fundamentalistischen Gotteswahn: George Bush ist für den Psychoanalytiker und Theologen Eugen Drewermann besessen davon, einen noch besseren Krieg als sein Vater zu führen. (Spiegel-online-Interview, 11.2.03)

Anti-Europeanism in America
By Timothy Garton Ash, NYRB, Febr. 13, 2003

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Febr. 03
Interview with Greg Palast by Hustler Magazine

Joseph Stiglitz: The myth of the war economy
"war will be unambiguously bad in terms of what really counts: ordinary people's standard of living". (Guardian, 22.1.03)

Habermas und Derrida für das "alte Europa"

Wann ist ein Krieg gerecht?
von JEFF GEDMIN (Leiter des Aspen-Instituts Berlin), in taz 18.1.03
"Ebenso heiter stimmen die frommen Verlautbarungen über die Unantastbarkeit des Völkerrechts. Fast alle, die das als Argument gegen eine Intervention im Irak nutzen, übersehen bequemerweise, dass die Intervention im Kosovo vor nur wenigen Jahren völlig illegal war".
Nach Stalingrad, vor Bagdad
Sind die Deutschen tatsächlich die intellektuellen Waisenkinder der Geschichte?
Brief von Norman Birnbaum an Jeff Gedmin

"Informeller Imperialismus": Historiker: USA wollen globale Vormachtstellung festigen (Tgsp., 16.1.03)

National Security Strategy
transmitted to Congress on September 20
Monthly Review Nov. 2002

The logic of empire  The US is now a threat to the rest of the world. The sensible response is non-cooperation
by George Monbiot, Guardian 6. Aug. 2002

"Fubar" - Fucked up beyond any recognition: 
Wie bei einem Naziaufmarsch

Bob Woodward, "Bush at War", Simon&Schuster, NY 2002, 369p, $28 (Spiegel 48/2002)

Outbreak. Let's take over. 
American Empire als Wille und Vorstellung 
von Rainer Rilling

The U.S.-Europe Divide
by Robert Kagan, Washington Post, May 26, 2002

Joschka Fischer zu Verbrechen und Wohltaten der USA, zu Europa etc. im Spiegelinterview vom 18.5.2002 

Brief von US-Bürgern an europäische Freunde: Gegen Bush
deutsch           English          francais

Die aufgeklärte Variante des Dschihad
Warum der Aufruf amerikanischer Intellektueller zum gerechten Krieg anmaßend ist.
von Peter Schneider

What We’re Fighting For: A Letter from America Feb 12, 2002
Sixty scholars make the moral case for the war on terrorism.
"
Nächstenliebe verlangt Gewaltanwendung"
gekürzte deutsche Version im tagesspiegel vom 12.2.2002

Martin Shaw
-
Ten Challenges to Anti-War Politics
to appear in Radical Philosophy 111 (Jan/Feb 2002), pp. 11-19

-
A regressive crystallization of global state power: theorising a response to the 'war against terrorism'

-
Progressive politics in Bush's global state?
from
Renewal, journal of new Labour politics, December 2001

Terror and Empire by Robin Blackburn

Glaubenskrieg: Kritik an Bahamas. Von Jens Wissel

Konservative Kritik an Bush: Islam and moral equivalence by Greg Swann

The USA - Its Own Worst Enemy By Tony Judt

America and the War By Tony Judt, NYRB 15 Nov. 2001

"Militärische Studien im Heiligen Krieg gegen die Tyrannen"           Deutsche Mittäter

Webster G. Tarpley/Anton Chaitkin, George Bush - The Unauthorized Biography

Das "amerikanische Familiengeheimnis": 
George bin Laden und Osama Bush sind Brüder in Geist und Geschäft

Günter Langer

The Bush - bin Laden Connection 

Die müde Jagd des FBI auf den "Anthrax-Man"
Von Carsten Volkery, New York (Spiegel-online 13.6.02)

Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks
by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Federation of American Scientists