6f719b6a   
   XPost: alt.war.iraq, alt.war.vietnam   
   From: btrworld@yahoo.com   
      
   Oct 2001 Illegal neo-colonial war on Afghanistan, a dirt poor country   
   of 28 million in Central Asia, by rich white western powers - US+UK   
   nearly 400 million people.   
      
   March 2003 Another, even larger neo-colonial war on an oil-rich   
   country in the Middle East, a country of about 30 million people, by   
   rich white western powers - US+UK nearly 400 million people.   
      
   Both wars were global war crimes and the names of the 7 main mass   
   murderers follow:   
   Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Rice, Wolfowitz, Powell.   
      
   Their names will not be forgotten. Of course their crimes will not be   
   investigated.   
      
      
   18 March 2013   
   The Iraq War Was Not A Media Failure   
   By David Edwards   
      
   Ten years ago today, on March 18, 2003, Tony Blair delivered a speech   
   to parliament prior to a vote that resulted in MPs authorizing war on   
   Iraq. The war began two days later.   
      
   Last month, a Guardian leader recalled Blair's role:   
   'A decade ago, Tony Blair was lifting his sparkling rhetoric to new   
   heights, whipping up fears of an imminent threat, claiming to hear   
   echoes of Munich, and encouraging dreams of a post-Saddam world where   
   tyranny was in retreat. As the forgotten and fraudulent second dossier   
   was being foisted on journalists, he was perfecting the lines that   
   would soon carry a belligerent majority in the Commons, lamely   
   indulged by Iain Duncan Smith's excuse for an opposition. Most   
   politicians, and too much of the media, swallowed it all wholesale.   
   The public, however, smelled a rat.'   
      
   They certainly did. At the time, however, a Guardian leader described   
   Blair's March 18 performance as 'an impassioned and impressive speech   
   by the prime minister which may give future generations some inkling   
   of how, when so many of his own party opposed his policy so   
   vehemently, Tony Blair nevertheless managed to retain their respect   
   and support...'   
      
   The editorial added:   
   'Mr. Blair spoke powerfully. He was serious in tone, respectful to   
   backbenchers, and at times he reached levels of oratory that he rarely   
   achieves in the Commons. He seemed to sense that, though the argument   
   has not been won, it is swinging his way.'   
      
   About one-fifth of the article, four sentences, offered oblique, minor   
   criticisms of Blair's 'failure to respect the arguments... In   
   particular he remains deaf to the revulsion against the gratuitous   
   actions' of his US ally with its 'disdain for international opinion'.   
      
   Remarkably, the rest of the piece, almost half, contained 14 sentences   
   of discussion on constitutional history:   
      
   'But the historians will also look at yesterday's debate because it   
   marks a really important moment in constitutional history. Over the   
   centuries, the decision to go to war has rested, first, with kings   
   alone, then with monarchs in the privy council, more recently with the   
   council acting on the advice of the prime minister, sometimes (as in   
   the Falklands war) largely with the cabinet. Yesterday, all this took   
   a fresh twist. Though the formal prerogative power to declare war   
   remains with the Crown, the de facto authority passed yesterday to   
   MPs.'   
      
   The change 'gave parliament the power to stop the war before it   
   begins. Parliament did not take its chance, alas.'   
      
   This was the extent of the Guardian's outrage and dissent the day   
   after Blair had successfully urged parliament to commit one of the   
   biggest, most brazen war crimes of recent times. In this March 19,   
   2003 editorial, there were no sarcastic references to Blair's   
   'sparkling rhetoric', to his 'claiming to hear echoes of Munich', or   
   to the Conservatives' 'excuse for an opposition'. When it mattered,   
   the Guardian took Blair seriously, respectfully, offering not a word   
   of criticism of anything he had actually said.   
      
   The Guardian could have joined the millions of people in the UK and   
   across the world excoriating Blair for waging a needless, illegal and   
   immoral war of aggression without even the fig leaf of United Nations   
   support. It could have denounced yet another superpower assault on a   
   country already devastated by war and 12 years of US-UK-led sanctions;   
   a country that represented precisely zero threat to the West.   
      
   Like the rest of the corporate media, the Guardian had been unable to   
   declare the 'threat' from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction the fraud   
   it clearly was. The 'WMD issue' was a classic 'necessary illusion'   
   required to justify a war that the United States, with ruthless   
   opportunism, had decided to fight shortly after the September 11, 2001   
   attacks. WMD provided a fictional but functional link to 9/11,   
   allowing US neocons to exploit the suffering of that day to enable   
   this second, very much larger atrocity. As Alan Greenspan, former   
   chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, wrote:   
      
   'I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what   
   everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.' (Greenspan, The   
   Age of Turbulence, Penguin, 2007, p.463)   
   Instead, the Guardian offered a deceptive 'balance':   
      
   '[It] is necessary to be as hard on many of the opponents of war as on   
   its proposers, as well as to clear away the misleading idea that   
   evidence that Saddam is concealing weapons of mass destruction is at   
   the center of the argument. It is at the center of the maneuvering,   
   yes, but not of the argument. Among those knowledgeable about Iraq   
   there are few, if any, who believe he is not hiding such weapons. It   
   is a given.'   
   (Martin Woollacott, 'This drive to war is one of the mysteries of our   
   time - We know Saddam is hiding weapons. That isn't the argument,' The   
   Guardian, January 24, 2003)   
      
   The truth of the Guardian's muted 'opposition' to Blair and his war   
   was revealed two years later when the lies and catastrophic loss of   
   life were evident to all. Even then, a Guardian leader, 'Once more   
   with feeling,' advised voters in the upcoming general election:   
      
   'While 2005 will be remembered as Tony Blair's Iraq election, May 5 is   
   not a referendum on that one decision, however fateful, or on the   
   person who led it, however controversial...' (Leader, 'Once more with   
   feeling,' The Guardian, May 3, 2005)   
      
   The editors concluded:   
   'We believe that Mr. Blair should be re-elected to lead Labour into a   
   third term this week.'   
   Last year, in an article titled 'Return of the king to heal divisions   
   within the Labour tribe,' the Guardian's chief political   
   correspondent, Nicholas Watt, reported that the former prime minister   
   was the 'star guest' at a Labour party fundraiser, which 'provided the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)