This diary began as a possible commentary to the Hartford Courant. I get disgusted when the pro-war crowd continue their Iraq war lies with the rewriting of history. Now we are now told about the benefits of war to justify their original bad judgment, and their contunued war-mongering. This was not published, apparently the corporate media sees no problem with misinforming their readers or viewers.
12/27/11 To: Opinion Editor: The Hartford Courant has probably never published a commentary from a USA infantry grunt who actually served in combat. This is an opportunity to be fair in your Iraq-war commentary. This is a rebuttal to a 12/27 Dennis Byrne pro-war rant filled with lies and fabrications that was given prominent space. A simple letter to the editor would not begin to cover the problems.
I was the first scout in an infantry squad that was wiped out in Korea--each day of my life I think about my fellow grunts who died in the frozen mountains, in a foreign country, away from home and their loved ones. In a war that no one understood.
I had enlisted into the army for three years when I was 17. In 1951, at 20, I was involuntarily extended for a year and sent to Korea. I spent a half year on the front line, including a winter in the field with below zero weather. Many casualties were due to frostbite.
I will never forget seeing crows feeding through the eye sockets of bleached faces spread out on the battlefield. Picking up the bodies in no-mans’ land and carrying them back up the steep mountains to safety--and dropping them off not knowing wether they were dead or alive. The benefits of war. Sure.
When I read horrid article (Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune commentator, Leaving Iraq: Was It All For Naught? --Hartford Courant 12/27/11) that falsifies facts in order to paint the ‘benefits” of war, I can only shake my head in disbelief and sadness for the contempt this shows to all who have served their country, especially those killed for the “benefits” of wars.
Byrne, a bomb thrower is given a platform for his hawkish views by the Chicago Tribune. In November 2005, he touted Iraqi elections under a military occupation as being superior to those held in Chicago. In July 2007 he wrote that Senators Durbin and Obama were “knee-jerks” whose comment were “too simple-minded to deal with....” The Tribune can spread its progaganda through a dozen major newpapers, 23 TV stations, and 50 Web sites.
Like many who supported the March 20, 2003 Iraq war, Byrne creates strawman arguments to help ridicule all who speak out against war. To justify his responsibility for promoting a war that killed and maimed a couple millions human beings and has cost our treasury more than a $1 trillion, he rewrites history. I will review a few of the lies.
1. Byrne claims the Iraq war had “the support of much of the American public.” That depends on how the question was phrased. In a November 2002 Gallup poll, only 31% of American the public favored war without UN authorization. Moreover, this support for war was largely because the corporate media led a majority of American into believing the lie that Iraq had been involved with 9/11. And also on the lies tha Iraqi WMDs were a threat to the USA homeland.
2. Iraq war deaths: “tens of thousand killed” This figure is used by to minimize the scope of the terrorism of war. Even the Iraq Body Count site that only counts confirmed civilian casualties and no military deaths shows that this number is at least 104 to 114,000. The Opinion Research business survey found that 1,033,000 died. A Lancet medical journal survey estimated that 645,965 excess deaths (through 2006) were related to the war.
3. Byrne claims that war “broke an unbroken chain” of dictatorships linking Syria, Iraq and Iran. Another fabrication. Prior to our war on Iraq, that country fought an eight year war against Iran (with USA support) that resulted in the loss of a million lives. There never was a strong link between a Sunni governed Iraq and a Shiite Iran. However, the idiotic and costly Iraq war has now created such a link.
4. Byrne, writes that the “sole claim” against war was to “discover the weapons of mass destructions.” I participated in about a hundred anti-war actions and the crowds felt that “oil” was a primary reason for war. Support from our huge military-industrial complex, a pro-war media, pro-Zionist Christians and Jews, and pro-war politicians were other important reasons-- in additions to the propaganda and lies.
5. Byrne not only demonized Saddam, he fabricates all kind of criminal things Saddam would have done. Hence, by citing things that were never done, he justifies killing a million human beings. He completely ignored that Iraqis were better off before the war than they are now. The infrastructure that was completely destroyed is still broken. Under Saddam there were no frequent bombings, and no sectarian violence as is now the case. And reople had reliable electricity which is no longer the case. Prior to war Time magazine did a story showing how pre-war Iraq had the superior road, schools, hospitals, and healthy diets compared to all other Arab/Muslim countries.
6. Byrne closes his pro-war rant against pulling out of Iraq with “it looks like Obama has made a good start of botching it.” Actually this unjust war was botched from the beginning. Ironically, the same bunch of war-profiteers who gave us war on Iraq are now promoting a new war on the people of Iran. A war that could become nuclear. A war that would bring the price of gas and heating oil more than $8.00 per gallon, and lead to a great depression.
Importantly, Iraq may never recover from of tons of depleted uranium in our bombs and shells. This is being blame for thehuge rise in infant deaths and mortality in areas that were hardest hit with our DU bombs and shellsThis radioactive matter has physical half-life 4.468 billion years.
Reuters on 12/1/09 reported “In the city of Falluja in western Iraq, scene of two of the fiercest battles between U.S. troops and insurgents after the 2003 U.S. invasion, a spike in the number of births of stillborn, deformed and paralyzed babies has alarmed doctors. “Some families decide to end the matter from the beginning. They choose to end the life of child, by refusing surgery for them -- 90 percent of the children whom we don’t treat die in the first year,” said a Falluja doctor who declined to be named.
We cannot bestow democracy with the waging of wars.