But the casualties were actually the Iraqi children and youths, men and women, babies and the elderly. Over 1,033,000 Iraqis were killed within six years by the invaders who along with the mercenaries they employ, are not interested in body count if the victims are not their own troops. Over five million, or 50 percent of Iraqi children were made orphans.
Three years into the 2003 invasion, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, reported that 1.8 million Iraqis had fled into exile mainly in Jordan and Syria and that an average 100,000 were fleeing monthly. By that 2006, the UNHCR said 1.6 million additional Iraqis were internally displaced. Journalists killed in combat by 2009 were 136 while 51 media support staff had also been killed.
The US which led the invasion has suffered over 4,491 deaths and 32,000 injured. The British servicemen killed are 179 with 3,500 injured. While the violence has continued, it is the civilians that have been most affected, especially the minorities. In one bomb explosion alone, on August 14, 2007, 796 Yazidis were killed.
The Iraqi invasion has also given birth to more wars, including the on-going ones waged by the Islamic State, ISIS. With Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein hanged by the conquerors who also massacred his children and grandchildren, that once viable and prosperous country has not only become a killing field, but also a failed state. It is not certain how many governments rule today in that chaotic country, but they cannot be less than four.
Tony Blair
These crimes against humanity were initiated and executed by two main personalities: George Walker Bush, who was American President, and his side kick, Tony Blair who was British Prime Minister. The two-some who have remained gleeful about their crimes have not, and may never be brought to justice.
This week, Blair appeared on CNN to insult once again, the collective intelligence of humanity. While claiming to apologise for his infamous role in Iraq, he was actually indulging in self-justification.
On September 24, 2002 the Blair government released a document on Iraq called the “September Dossier” in which it claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, WMD, including chemical and biological weapons. Blair in his foreword to the Report claimed that: “The document discloses that his (then Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein’s) military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them”.
The British Parliament was summoned to discuss the so-called Report that same day. Based on these claims, US and Britain led their allies to invade Iraq. But when the invaders could not produce any shred of evidence of the so-called WMD, the world realised that the whole story had been cooked up as an excuse to invade and destroy Iraq.
This week, Blair rather than accept responsibility and confess his crimes, attempted to blame British Intelligence for what he, Bush and former American Vice President, Dick Cheney had cooked up. Even at that, he refused to acknowledge the outright falsehood; rather he rambled that “the programme in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought. So I can apologise for that” .
The shifty Blair added: ”I can also apologise by the way for some of the mistakes in planning and certainly our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.” Is it really possible that the so called Coalition of the Willing which invaded Iraq, did not think of a country after removing Saddam? That they did not think about the destruction and the aftermath of the invasion? This is another cheap lie by the originator of Blairism, a political philosophy of mass deception.
Saddam had been a very good boy of the West. He had been used to invade Iran shortly after the Islamic revolution in that country. In that September 1980 – August 1988 war, about 300,000 Iranians were killed as well as over 200,000 Iraqis. But Saddam and his Western bosses fell out and they saw the need to cut him to seize. There was also the Iraqi oil, and the desire of the leading invaders to lay their hands on it. Oil was also behind the subsequent invasion of Libya and its transformation into another failed state. In any case, Blair never told the British people or the world that the invasion’s objective was the removal Saddam
While there is an umbilical cord linking the 2003 Iraqi invasion and the establishment and rise of ISIS, the double-speak Blair merely says:
“I think there are elements of truth in that.”
So what crimes did the Iraqi leadership, including Saddam and his sons commit for which the allies and their cohorts in Iraq had them executed? It is okay for Blair to make a hypocritical apology and dodge back into the comfort of his home to lunch with his family and drink with friends. The same things he has denied millions of people in Iraq.
If in Britain, people can seek to make a citizen’s arrest of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe just because he does not agree with their homosexual culture, then there should be a rush to apprehend Blair for horrific war crimes. His apology song should be from prison.
0 comments:
Post a Comment