Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure

By Robert Parry
July 1, 2009

President Barack Obama and Iraqi leaders may try to sugarcoat the bitter pill for the United States by talking up the achievements of the six-year occupation, but the public celebrations by Iraqis marking the American pullout from Iraq’s cities tell the painful story of a U.S. strategic failure.

Read on.
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6 comments:

BARB said...

Under the US Occupation, the situation of Iraqi women has continued to deteriorate. In addition to torture and sexual violence perpetuated by U.S. Occupation forces, a great number of Iraqi women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. Since the invasion of Iraq, Iraqi women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment.

Prior to the 1991 U.S. war and the 13 years of the genocidal sanctions, Iraqi women enjoyed unquestionable quality rights to education and health. Iraqi women had the most progressive human rights in the region and Iraqi women were the first Arab women to hold high positions in academia, law, medicine and government. Before the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, Iraqi women made up 40 per cent of the public-sector work force. Men and women received equal pay for work, education and health care were free at all levels. In the 1980s, a government program to eradicate illiteracy among Iraqi women was exceedingly successful, and women have traditionally enjoyed freedoms not found in other Arab and Muslim countries.

In addition, Iraq's Constitution was the most advanced in the Middle East, if not the Muslim World. Women rights are enshrined in the Constitution, which was dissolved (together with Iraqi Police and Security) by the U.S. Occupation and replaced by a U.S-crafted "Interim Constitution", produced without women's representation, which deprives Iraqi women of their rights and dignity. In today's Iraq, crimes and abuse against women were back to the levels before independence from colonial Britain 1958. The crime of rape was capital offense under Iraq's Constitution.

Wed Jul 01, 08:57:00 AM 2009
Anonymous said...

Cogent analysis and a brilliant piece, Ivan. No amount of "spin" nor patriotic bravado can obscure the facts. We've already seen events "they said couldn't happen" i.e. Obama in the White House. We can only hope that other improbable events i.e. prosecution of Bush and his minions eventuate.

Status of women: Obviously it was not a priority to the thugs who orchestrated this war. As has been written elsewhere, "where ever the US military goes, the sex industry follows". That's one reason our nation is hated in many parts of the world.

Wed Jul 01, 12:41:00 PM 2009
John L.Opperman said...

Maybe its time to remind President Obama he too can be impeached, as Bush should have been, and tried for the very same bush-crimes.
Clinton could very well join them...
~John L.

Wed Jul 01, 12:53:00 PM 2009
James Young said...

Saddam Hussein and his bloodthirsty regime are dead; 25 million people are free, and you call it a "failure."

Please stop confusing what you want to see with what is obvious to all who have eyes with which to see.

Wed Jul 01, 01:40:00 PM 2009
Anonymous said...

The bitterness of "failure" in Iraq is amplified by the fact that there was never any good reason to be there at all. The invasion was illegal, immoral, and unnecessary. And of course, No one in the Iraqi government had anything to do with 911. Nor was Iraq in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Bush's failure (and now Obama's) is well deserved.

Thu Jul 02, 03:53:00 AM 2009
JOHN L. OPPERMAN said...

Commentor JW has clearly been imbibing the cool-aid. No one is free because of our attack, invasion, and long brutal occupation of Iraq, long shown to be innocent of 911.
Millions have been slaughtered since Daddy Bushs run on slaughter alley, many more displaced and the countrys infrastructure ruined.
Every law on the books broken, these all YOU choose not to see.
~John L.

Thu Jul 02, 09:22:00 PM 2009

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