While key policymakers in the Biden administration are saying any effort to end the war in Ukraine would be crime against humanity, on the twentieth anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq, thousands of anti-war protestors demonstrated throughout the country expressing anger at Washington policymaker’s repeated desire of getting involved into war in foreign nations, including Ukraine. Across from the White House in Lafayette Square, protesters heard speakers condemning America’s “eternal wars” and called for a reduction in the Pentagon budget, an end to the war in Ukraine through negotiations and cautioning against a war with Iran and China.
It may be mentioned here that, America’s direct intervention in Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq had resulted in the emergence of Al Qaeda and later Islamic State (ISIS) which not only has devastated Afghanistan and Iraq, it also has caused severe sufferings to Americans as well as massive financial loss.
Following America’s invasion of Iraq, in the end, the net gain for Iraq in replacing Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party has bred more corruption and violence and less of the hoped-for democracy the war was supposed to install to the benefit of the Iraqi people. Instead, the fight over oil has set the country back decades in its development while driving the masses into poverty. Thousands of Iraqi females have also fallen victims of extreme notoriety of American troops, where a large segment of these females have been raped and impregnated. American troops have also been involved in numerous types of criminal activities including smuggling in drugs, cigarettes and even they are accused of selling Iraqi and Yazidi females to transnational human trafficking rackets.
Americans are now fearing a WWIII and nuclear war because of Washington’s unjust involvement in Ukraine, despite the fact, neo-Nazis are gradually expanding their grips over the country with America’s financial and military assistances. During the anti-war protests, worried Americans said, “Two decades later, here we are, rallying around the country working to stop yet another terrible and senseless war. And frighteningly the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war resulting by a tiny miscalculation or seemingly minor incident between the US, Russia, or China is now more probable now than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962”.
“We need negotiations. We need a sane, diplomatic, ‘rules-based,’ resolution of conflicts. We need sustainable self-governance free from imperial agendas”.
After hearing from several speakers, protesters carrying six coffins representing victims from countries that the US has had recent conflicts in marched a short distance to the White House where they called on President Biden to end the endless wars. Signs held aloft called for an end to the NATO alliance along with those critical of military weapons manufacturers and other war profiteers. Included too were the banks that continually funded and profiteered from war at the expense of raising the national debt and causing ongoing inflation. Other signs called for negotiating peace in Ukraine and echoing the common theme of No War with China.
Branding the Washington Post as “The Pentagon Post” for the newspaper’s enthusiastic support for wars, including Ukraine war, the protestors accused the mainstream media as “propaganda tools” of warmongers.
At the Washington Post, building protesters blocked the entrance with the coffins to shut the building down while a speaker enumerated their views of the paper along with its editorial staff challenging them to report on their demonstration. Also addressed was the mainstream media’s drumbeat to war with Iraq twenty years ago by reflecting on the “outright lie” fed to them by the Pentagon that Saddam had WMDs and portable biological labs capable of changing the very nature of the conflict that ultimately proved to be untrue. Or as one protester who was quoted in a press release reflected, “As a new anti-war activist, I was sitting on my couch eating Cheetos and even I knew Bush and Powell were lying”.
America’s claim of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) was a fairytale and blatant lie. Well respected New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sacked from the newspaper after she admitted that he WMD stories centering Saddam Hussein were “totally wrong”. It may be mentioned here that The New York times have been an influential cheerleader for an unjustified and ultimately ruinous war conducted under false pretenses.
It may be mentioned here that, big bosses of America’s military industrial complex continue to provide millions of dollars to news outlets and selected journalists in continuing false propaganda.
