Sunday, December 04, 2022

Barack disses Samantha, some pretend its normal for Turkey to have a military base in Iraq

At WSWS, Erik Schrieber reviews the propaganda film THE POWERS OF CORRIDOR and notes:


The very first talking head we see is former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, an extreme right-winger who seized on the September 11 attacks to press for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Next comes former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who, under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, supported the carpet bombing of Cambodia, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor and right-wing dictatorships in Chile and Argentina. Former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright, who urged President Bill Clinton to send troops to Bosnia, and Colin Powell, who lied to the United Nations about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, also appear. What qualifies any of these blood-soaked criminals to pontificate about questions of human rights? Their appearance in this context is frankly repulsive and immediately reveals the film’s fatal flaws.

The documentary not only fails to challenge the statements of these mass murderers, but also covers up incriminating information to paint a more favorable (or at least slightly less damning) picture of US policy. For example, the film shows Clinton’s visit to Rwanda, during which he apologized for not having intervened to stop the genocide of 1994. But it does not mention that US policy in Rwanda was guided by the aim of inflicting a serious defeat on its rival, French imperialism. The policy succeeded, at the cost of at least 500,000 Rwandan lives.

Similarly, the film tacitly accepts the Clinton administration’s professed humanitarian motives for intervening in Kosovo in 1999. There is no discussion of the terrorist campaign of the US-backed Kosovo Liberation Army or of the economic and geopolitical motives behind the US intervention. Nor does the film mention the atrocities against Serbs that Croatian President Franjo Tuđman oversaw with American approval.

We do, however, occasionally get glimpses of the truth. Power mentions that Washington was willing to overlook Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds in 1988, because it considered Iraq’s interests (e.g., undermining Iran) to be parallel to those of the US. Revealingly, Power remarks that Obama, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, often dismissed her concerns about genocide with comments like “We’ve all read your book, Samantha.”


Bitchy Barack.  He couldn't even end the Iraq War.  


Or, for that matter, resolve the disputed areas in Iraq.  Iraq is a failed state riddled with violence and corruption which helps to conceal the failure to resolve the disputed areas -- a resolution sorely needed as pointed out by Brookings long before Barack was president.


If everything aligned and fell into place immediately, Iraq would still have to resolve the disputed areas -- something the Iraqi Constitution required by done by the end of 2007 per Article 140.


Due to the oil rich nature of disputed areas, it will be a very messy process.  And Barack, like everyone else, played kick the can.


POLITICAL DISCOURSE notes, "A military base in northern Iraq where Turkish troops are stationed was hit by rocket fire on Sunday without any casualties, a security source said."

Apparently, that's all that they can note.


Not a word about how or why Turkey has a military base in Iraq.  Or that Iraq's accused of violating Iraq's national sovereignty.  

Unlike POLITICAL DISCOURSE, MEHR NEWS AGENCY does point out, "Turkish forces are stationed at Zelikan base in Bashiqa region, northeast of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, Iraq. The Iraqi government has repeatedly asked Turkey to end its military presence in northern Iraq and withdraw its troops. Baghdad also considered the Turkish army's repeated air and artillery attacks on northern Iraq as a violation of their country's sovereignty and demanded an end to those violations."


In other news, XINHUA reports:


The sixth edition of the Ancient Civilizations Forum kicked off in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Sunday, as Iraq stressed the need for joint mechanisms to reduce the smuggling of cultural property.

"This forum is a diplomatic approach to promoting strategic partnerships between civilizations and cultures as well as sustainable coordination to support global efforts in facing humanitarian and cultural challenges," Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein addressed the opening ceremony.

Hussein stressed the need to find a joint mechanism to curb the smuggling of cultural property, to which countries around the world fall victim.

The following sites updated: 




Posted by at