The CIA was on the job and ready to roll when it came time to overthrow a popularly elected leader in Iran to assist the interest of British Petroleum in Iran in 1953.

That same CIA was on the job to assist a future dictator named Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party gain power in Iraq.  It was the days of the Cold War so the rationale was that the Communists in Iraq must go, and so a dictatorship steeped in blood was launched.

There came a time when the New World Order, a term used reverently by President George H.W. Bush, decided that it was time to take over Iraq's oil interest and so conflict was launched.  

Can we suppose that U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie was just confused and making an independent blunder during that famous interview with Saddam Hussein when she said that an occupation of Kuwait on his part would be an "Arab-Arab" issue and not the concern of the United States?  Had she talked to no one in the Bush Administration in advance?

One of the grave tragedies of our times is how Iraqi deaths receive no accountability.  This occurs at the point where President Obama and others hold the U.S. out as a major source to achieve global stability.  

The question is this:  How can the U.S. hold itself out as a guardian of peace and security when the subject of Iraqi deaths extending from that first "shock and awe" aerial assault to the present is ignored?  

It should be recalled that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sought to assure Americans that newly developed U.S. "smart bombs" would penetrate the forces of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein but would bypass Iraq's citizenry.

As for the U.S. dodging accountability, a comment made by General Colin Powell in the aftermath of the earlier Gulf War is instructive for the tragedy of avoiding responsibility that it denotes.

Now that we have fallen as the world's leading economic giant, the burning question is why has the U.S. fallen into a crushing deficit?

First and foremost, we ignored the winged warning of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower to beware of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.

Conducting wars has proven to be such a money maker for every industry of the gigantic U.S. war machine.  It appears that the U.S. is now locked into a perpetual war machine mentality.  The airplane industry is making billions supplying the latest aviation technical expertise.  The oil services company Halliburton has made billions for their war services in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Vietnam War was a fiasco where almost 60,000 U.S. service personnel lost their lives, based upon the false fears that if Vietnam fell under Communist rule, a domino effect would take place and all of Asia would ultimately fall into the Red orbit.  

It can never be forgotten that the reason why the United States invaded Iraq was a lie involving international criminal conduct for which the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.

It can never be forgotten that Iraq's tyrannical dictator, Saddam Hussein, that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others in a neoconservative administration pursuing a New World Order were hell bent on removing since he allegedly posed a "nuclear threat" to America, had been placed in power by the same Central Intelligence Agency that was later run by Bush's father.

It can never by forgotten that Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, in conjunction with the New World Order and Carlyle Group that he has so notably served, launched a war against the same Saddam Hussein that to whom the U.S. provided weaponry and scientific wherewithal so that poison gas was able to be manufactured that had been used to kill Kurds in Iraq's northern provinces.

It can never be forgotten that Donald Rumsfeld concluded one of those agreements for the Reagan administration and was pictured with Saddam Hussein.  Both were smiling.  This was the same period when genocide was conducted against the Kurds.  When it came time for a power grab Bush the Elder referred to Saddam as "worse than Hitler."  

There was Barack Obama electrifying two hundred thousand Berliners listening with fascination to every word this spectacular presidential candidate had to say.

They welcome change in U.S. policies that have threatened world peace for eight years.  These were turbulent times, years fraught with hate, death and destruction.

Barack Obama's father was a black man from Kenya who tended his goats.  Barack's mother, an idealistic white woman, had left Barack with his white grandparents.

These grandparents guided his destiny from childhood to manhood.  

Mr. Hannity: "I'm no opponent of open and honest debate, even over questions of foreign policy...I would never claim that an earnest difference of opinion about foreign policy is unpatriotic....But when it comes to debate during wartime, I think one principle is clear: The only responsible argument is one that's made in good faith. The Democrats have violated that principle." (pp. 214-215)

Mr. Hannity: Saddam Hussein was an evil outlaw, a cruel tyrant who deserves death.

My response: News of the evil character of Saddam Hussein has been greatly exaggerated. Hussein did flaunt the UN by refusing weapons inspectors entry into some parts of Iraq between 1987 and 1991 and between 1998 and 2002. He invaded Kuwait in 1990, and a few dishonorable troops in his army butchered scores of innocent people during that invasion. He unquestionably ran a tight ship of the central Mideast country, denying the Iraqi people many freedoms we take for granted and executing thousands of political dissidents. And when some treasonous Kurds and revolutionary Shiites plotted to overthrow Saddam's government in the 1980s, he overreacted by killing 175,000 people, most of whom were innocent.

Mr. Hannity: Although Shah Pahlavi "led an often oppressive regime...our alliance [with him was]...strategically crucial". (p. 89)

My response: Here we observe two related ideas: the law of the balance of power and the principle of the lesser of two evils. Thruout history, nations have tended to collect into various loose federations in order to increase their security against an aggressive nation or to balance out one another's power. Through such politics, nations strove to preserve international harmony and to correct disharmonies and divisions. The principle of the lesser of two evils holds that a state party can side with a second state party which is generating or promoting certain evils for the purpose of mutually counteracting a third state party which is generating or promoting even worse evils.

Mr. Hannity (Quoting Jeane J. Kirkpatrick): "'[The] Carter administration...actively collaborated in the replacement of moderate autocrats friendly to American interests with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion.'" (p. 66)

My response: This statement typifies a biased Republican slant on history, which holds that Carter openly surrendered our national interests to foreign extremists, particularly to Iranian radical Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, this incorrect yet ingenious claim exhibits a quadruple negative, propounding a lie within a lie within a lie within a lie.

Mr. Hannity: "[Saddam Hussein] was capable of using WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] against America ...our invasion was a beneficial thing." (p. 17)

My response: After more than five years of intense searching by US weapons experts, it has become evident that, as the regime of Saddam Hussein itself insisted, Iraq did not create a single weapon of mass destruction later than 1991.

Mr. Hannity: "You cannot negotiate with evil...sweet-talk...compromise...give ground to it. You can only defeat it, or it will defeat you." (p. 6)

My response: As a Catholic, I agree wholeheartedly with this principle. In the great cosmic struggle between good and evil in which we are all participants, vigilance and unwavering determination are crucial for those fighting evil. Wishy-washiness in confronting evil allows the devil to take a person over. But Mr. Hannity's book fails to take into account the difference between the unchanging moral law and the application of that law to the political sphere.

Mr. Hannity: "The totalitarian regimes that support them [terrorists] are more difficult to trace, using every devious means available to hide their role in funding and training the terrorists." (p. 5)

Time Magazine in its July 16, 2007 issue had an article by Madeleine Albright and Hernando De Soto entitled:  "Giving the Poor Their Rights".  This article revealed the dire poverty in Kenya.

The formula for peace was spelled out in oversize bold print:  "When governments grant people means to control their assets, they empower them to invest and plan for their future."

If this is the wise policy for Kenya why isn't the U.S. government applying it to Iraq and its oil asset?  If the U.S. would let Iraq control its oil, which is claimed to be one-third of that contained in the entire world, perhaps Iraqis would be motivated to end this Iraq War disaster.

The U.S. has a plan on Iraqi oil distribution.  With 80 oil wells in Iraq, the distribution deal the U.S. is desperately trying to get Iraqis to sign is to provide "foreign investors" with long-term leases on 63 Iraqi oil wells.  That will leave Iraq in control of only 17 of their own nation's oil wells.

Ward and June al Cleaver and their two sons, Walli and Beav al Cleaver shown here in their Baghdad home.
The photo above is said to depict the President's vision of "the typical Iraqi family in the "post Saddam era,
by that I mean the era that is after Saddam," the President is reported to have said. The photo was leaked exclusively
to Worldwide Sawdust by an anonymous but highly placed source who told this reporter that "this will be the
President's final comment on what constitutes victory in Iraq."

An Iraq that has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency.

An Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.

An Iraq that is a partner in the global war on terror and the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, integrated into the international community, an engine for regional economic growth, and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region.

From the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq - Victory in Iraq Defined

1st Armored Division Soldiers conduct a combat patrol in Tal Afar, Iraq in their M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.
Photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon

Editors note: The photograph above was taken in February 2006 at a time when Bush was reporting Tall Afar as an Iraqi success story.
I think Bush saw the city as an example of the Iraqi version of "no child left behind."

The headline reads: "Gunmen Go On Rampage In Iraqi City" above a story by Joshua Partlow in this morning's Washington Post. It seems that the Malaki/Bush/Cheney/Hallibur ton Democracy left a few legal and procedural fundamentals out of their Police Academy training manual or perhaps they are using a revised Middle Eastern version of the Chicago Police manual which allows for the summary execution of Sunni suspects following violent episodes.

In the Chicago version you're only allowed to beat them up, in Tall Afar though, this is civil wartime, and the Shiite police and their auxiliaries have gone on yet another orgy of reprisal and revenge, killing as many as 70 Sunni suspects, men, women and children, some as young as fifteen, with a bullet to the back of the head in the Mesopotamian democratic tradition so reminiscent of other great democratic leaders like Saddam and Stalin.