New Sign of Racism In The US

I admit this comes as a shock:

The number of those who approve of the drone strikes drops nearly 20 percent when respondents are told that the targets are American citizens. But that 65 percent is still a very big number, given that these policies really should be controversial.

I used to think that the American government is the sole culprit in all the misdeeds done in America's name all round the world, while retaining a warm feeling towards at least half of the Americans (assuming they are divided 50-50 between liberals and conservatives).  No longer.  

I use the word 'racism' since I believe that the 20% are OK with the drone attacks on non-Americans because they (the targets) are 'brown people'.

India No To US' Iran Sanctions - Why So Late?

After kow-towing to the US for the better part of UPA-I and II terms, we seem to have suddenly decided to go against its wishes.  India rejects US embargo, to import oil from Iran

NEW DELHI: Even as China cuts down drastically its oil imports from Iran, which is soon likely to run into fresh sanctions from the US and the EU, India on Tuesday declared it will continue to import crude oil from the country. 

Brushing aside US sanctions that prevent financial institutions from doing business with Tehran and its central bank, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai stated that India will only accept sanctions imposed by the UN. 

Refreshing, but what took us so long?  And can we get going on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline while we still have the gumption?

"US Leaves Iraq Weaker, Less Secure, More Unstable"

Lamentable legacy

But the Iraq [US] troops have left behind is far weaker, less secure, and infinitely far more unstable than when they invaded it. The war unleashed and empowered the forces of religious fundamentalism in Iraq. Washington is patting itself on its back for leaving behind a democratic Iraq. But whether Iraq today is any more democratic than under Saddam Hussein is questionable.

...The US-led invasion of Iraq was shrouded in lies. Leaders in the US and Britain claimed they had irrefutable evidence that it possessed weapons of mass destruction. This duplicity continued right through the occupation. And now at the war’s end, Washington claims the war is a success, resulting in ‘an extraordinary achievement’ that Americans can look on ‘with their heads held high’. Can the US look the Iraqi people in the eye while telling them what exactly it means by ‘success’? 

Has Washington forgotten that as early as 2005, a former head of the US National Security Agency had declared the invasion of Iraq as ‘the greatest strategic disaster in United States history’?

Many Americans and Britons will want to forget their ignoble adventure in Iraq. They must not. All wars are wrong but their war in Iraq was particularly so. The US and its allies invaded and occupied Iraq when it posed no threat to them or any other country. Forgetting the past, glossing over blunders and refusing to learn lessons will condemn the US to repeat its mistakes. 

That repetition appears to have been set in motion with American officials already issuing threats to Syria and Iran. Historians and spin masters will make every effort to twist facts and embellish the US’ Iraqi misadventure and to wipe clean its lamentable legacy in Iraq. They would do well to record the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as marking the starting point of the US’ decline as a superpower. 

Iraq, Libya... now Iran?

 UK softening up its population for a possible war with Iran

Many in the UK swore that it would never happen again. A hugely unpopular decision to go to war at the time, Tony Blair is still vilified to this day by large sections of the British public for his decision to support the Bush administration and illegally invade Iraq.

Fast forward eight years, and the now British prime minister David Cameron and foreign secretary William Hague are spewing out a similar brand of finger pointing bravado that we once heard from Blair towards Iraq, but this time in the direction of Iran. 

The ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran has served to ratchet up existing tensions between Britain and Iran a few notches more. 

Hague, the blood on his hands not yet dry from Libya, has used the embassy episode to exploit to the full what have become ‘common sense’ perceptions of a demonic Iran that have become prevalent among the British public. And the British media can always be relied on to fuel such beliefs and then cheer-lead the public into supporting aggressive actions and policies towards other states, as it did over Iraq and Libya. 

During the past few years, the British public has become used to media stories about  Ahmadinejad ‘the crazy man’ and the ‘mad mullas’ in Tehran, as well as the Iranian regime being hell bent on wanting to acquire a nuclear bomb that would only threaten the ‘peace and stability’ of the region.

We are all democracies in name only.  Otherwise these things wouldn't happen.  And what a topsy-turvy world we live in:

What peace and stability? Look what the meddling and carnage by the US has done to neighbouring states, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. And why single out Iran over the nuclear issue? Iran is a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory, and there appears to be no firm evidence that it is in breach of it. 

Nuclear armed Israel and India are not NPT signatories, yet it’s Iran that has been subject to economic sanctions and nuclear inspections for years, while India basks in the warm glow of US ‘favour’, if that’s what compliance with US hegemony can be termed.

Iran Shoots Down a Drone - Bloodless War

Beastly Affair:

From a military point of view, three things become apparent other than that electronic warfare has arrived as the norm rather than exception. One, US has lost the monopoly of a military technology it developed at great cost. 

Tehran proposes to do ‘reverse engineering’. But, will it do so all by itself or with friends from, say, Beijing or Moscow – or Pakistan? Two, Iran seems to possess reserve capabilities, which it has been chary of publicising, and in turn would leave the US and Israel guessing what all Tehran might ultimately do by way of retaliation if attacked. 

Three, there is laughter echoing in the hills and valleys of North Waziristan. The Haqqanis are laughing. With US being evicted from Shamsi air base and Pakistan threatening to shoot down anything in the sky crossing its border, and Iran showing how to do it, is the drone saga of the Afghan war ending? 

Not to worry, drone manufacturers, you have a new market: US.  See The growing menace of domestic drones.

Regime Change Hangover in Iraq

Huge numbers of Iraqis still adrift within the country

As many as 2 million Iraqis — about 6 percent of the country's estimated population of more than 31 million — are thought to have been forced from the cities and towns where they once lived and are housed in circumstances that feel temporary and makeshift.

Tough luck.

via eschaton. 

Pesky Questions

From The Hindu:

The Americans hate to admit that they were wrong - nobody does, for that matter. But few have taken so many undemocratic and illegal actions in world policy as they have. In the United States, those guilty of such actions may face life imprisonment, if not a lethal injection, electrocution or gas chamber (how can democracy be preached by a country where 35 states allow capital punishment by such revolting methods?). Erosion of international law started with Serbia - the bombing of Belgrade in 1999. Iraq followed.

Robbery and murder

In terms of criminal law, these global actions qualify as robbery and murder. In Arkansas and Texas, these crimes are punishable by death penalty. These are home states of the last two Presidents that started wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq in violation of international law. But at home, U.S. Presidents do not behave like this - they are decent gentlemen playing the sax and riding a bike. But once they go outside, everyone had better scatter.

The last two Presidents liked to talk about the U.S. mission before the start of a war: "The United States is called upon to guarantee...." Depending on the situation, they would continue with such phrases as "Kosovo's freedom," "peace and prosperity," or "democracy all over the world." None of them has specified who imbued the United States with this mission and what rights they had for that.

But these are details that ordinary Americans should not go into until someone in their family is killed in action. For the time being, Americans are not dying in Kosovo like they do in Iraq; and for this reason they don't ask who has urged America to help the Kosovars and whether the Kosovars had the right to do so.

Have the Kosovars appealed to the Americans? What if the Basques, Catalans, or Corsicans appeal to them? Quebec has a hard life as part of Canada, and is closer to the United States. Does the United States want to help the Turkish Kurds? Probably not, separatism is a bad word in Turkey.