Mosul’s “Liberation”: Another Fallujah, Dresden or Hiroshima? by Felicity Arbuthnot

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
June 1, 2017

“In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.” — Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

When the US, UK and their fellow destroyers of nations embarked, in October last year, on erasing Iraq’s ancient Mosul in order to save it, did they reflect on the enormity of the cost to humanity and history of their actions now and that of their genocidal, illegal invasion and fourteen year occupation – and counting? (Not forgetting the bombing of the country 1991-2003.) There was a quasi pull out in 2009, but a reported 16,000 mercenaries remained in the US Embassy compound.

General Mark Kimmitt’s Easter Day Mistruths and “The Sound of Freedom” by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
April 13, 2014

“We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected round the world.” (President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, 24th January 2012)

As Easter was celebrated in the US and UK with, for believers, the message of hope, Fallujah, the region and much of the country is again under siege, not this time by US mass murderers, but by the US proxy government’s militias armed with US delivered weapons.

Noam Chomsky: From Hiroshima to Fukushima, Vietnam to Fallujah, State Power Ignores Its Massive Harm

Dandelion Salad

with Noam Chomsky

Image by sun_line via Flickr

democracynow on Mar 11, 2014

democracynow – World-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky traveled to Japan last week ahead of the three-year anniversary of the Fukushima crisis. Chomsky, now 85 years old, met with Fukushima survivors, including families who evacuated the area after the meltdown.

US and UK Continues Arming a Tyrant in Iraq by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
February 1, 2014

Image by seanhagen via Flickr

“The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.” — Former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, b 1927

On February 10th 2003, German Green MP Joschka Fischer, then Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor, stunned an international security conference, in Munich’s opulent 19th century Bayerischer Hof hotel discussing the proposed invasion of Iraq, by banging on the table, switching to English to guarantee Donald Rumsfeld understood and shouted of the US arguments for war: “ … I am not convinced.”

Fallujah: “It Wasn’t a War, it Was a Massacre” by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
January 24, 2014

Image via Idaho Sagebrush

“The United States Marine Corps … its hallowed rituals, and its unbending code of honor …”  — Thomas E. Ricks; Making the Corps, 1997

As the US-unleashed Grim Reaper continues to cull Iraqis in ever rising numbers, this month of the twenty third anniversary of the 1991 US led onslaught on Iraq and just weeks away from the eleventh woeful wake for the 2003 illegal invasion, yet another atrocity in a litany of those under the illegal US-UK occupation has come to light.

Fallujah, Symbol of Iraq’s Unending Tragedy + Profiting from the Destruction of Basra by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
January 4, 2014

If war should come, whichever side may claim ultimate victory, nothing is more certain that victor and vanquished alike would glean a gruesome harvest of human misery and suffering.

– UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, July 31, 1939, to the House of Commons

Fallujah has become a symbol of Iraq’s suffering since the onslaught on the country in 1991, numerous, uncounted interim US-UK bombings, then the 2003 invasion, occupation – and misery unending.

Two Births: A Gilded Arrival and a Poisoned Legacy by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
August 13, 2013

Image by Larisa Epatko on PBS NewsHour via Flickr

” … war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.” (Howard Zinn, 1922-2010)

On 22nd July two babies were born – in different worlds. Prince George Alexander Louis, son of Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, arrived in the £5,000 a night Lindo Wing of London’s St. Mary’s Hospital, weighing a super healthy 8lbs 6 oz.

Depleted Uranium: The BBC’s John Simpson does a hatchet job on Fallujah’s genetically damaged children by William Bowles

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
1 April 2013

Image by NewsHour via Flickr

Under the title ‘Fallujah’s children’s ‘genetic damage’ that old war horse ‘literally’ of the BBC’s foreign propaganda service, John Simpson, manages not to mention the phrase ‘depleted uranium’ when allegedly reporting on the alarming rise in birth defects that include cancer, leukaemia and a horrific rise in child mortality since the US demolished the city of Fallujah in 2004. And it’s not until right at the end of the piece that the US attack on Fallujah is even mentioned, let alone depleted uranium!

“The Crime of the Century”: Napalm Use in Iraq by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 28, 2013

Image by NewsHour via Flickr

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths … I mean, it’s not relevant, so why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that …” (Former First Lady, Barbara Bush, Good Morning America, 18th March 2003)

In these days of the tenth anniversary of the illegal invasion and near destruction of Iraq, answers are owed not alone for the dead, but to the cancer stricken, the deformed, to their parents, their siblings and all Iraqis. They were left with a land poisoned by depleted uranium in 1991, the burden ever building over twelve more years of (illegal) US and UK bombings, then the enormity of 2003.

Dahr Jamail Returns to Iraq to Find Rampant Torture and a Failed State Living in “Utter Devastation” + Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers

Dandelion Salad

Image by mugley via Flickr

democracynow·Mar 20, 2013

www.democracynow.org/ – Investigative journalist Dahr Jamail reported for Democracy Now! throughout the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq 10 years ago. Now with Al Jazeera, Jamail has just returned from Iraq once again, finding what he calls a “failed state” living in “utter devastation.” In part one of our interview, Jamail discusses the harrowing security situation for Iraqis living in fear of bombings, executions, and kidnappings, the widespread torture in Iraq’s prisons, and the breakdown of security in what he calls a “a lawless state.”

Jamail is the author of “Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq” and “The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

An Attack On Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Would Be A Nuclear War by Ed Ciaccio

by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
March 9, 2012

An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, by Israel, the United States, or both, would be a nuclear war for two important reasons:

1. The GBU-28 “bunker buster” bombs which would be used to destroy hardened Iranian nuclear sites use depleted uranium to penetrate concrete. This means lethal radioactive contamination from those exploding bombs would be spewed into the air, ground, and water of Iran, with long-term health consequences to all the people of Iran as well as those in surrounding regions. The people of Fallujah, Iraq, already suffer these horrible consequences from the criminal U.S. & NATO use of depleted uranium there, war crimes which remain unpunished.

Iraq: Toppling a country: From Statue to Legality Part II by Felicity Arbuthnot

Warning

This article and links to other websites may contain words/graphics depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read/viewed by a mature audience.

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Global Research
8 November, 2010

“The abused are only Iraqis”, a US General to General Antonio Taguba.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the latest, vast cache of documents from Wikileaks, is that anyone was surprised at the revelations. For Iraqis, Afghans and the region, and Iraq and Afghanistan watchers across the globe, countless millions of words have been written and eye witness reports sent since day one of the highly questionable legality of the Afghan invasion the absolute illegality of that of Iraq.

Toppling a country: from Statue to Legality by Felicity Arbuthnot

Warning

This article and links to other websites may contain words/graphics depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read/viewed by a mature audience.

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
21 October, 2010

“The welfare of the people, in particular, has always been the alibi of tyrants.” (Albert Camus, 1913-1960.)

Throughout Iraq, Americans bringing “freedom from tyranny”, with their British auxiliaries, and their few arm twisted “coalition”, largely morphed in to tyrants overnight. As with Saddam Hussein’s statue, the U.S., simply covered legality with an American flag – and toppled it. And as across the country, indiscriminate, unaccountable killing sprees started early on – and continue still.

Noam Chomsky: Israel’s Loyalty Oath, War Crimes in Fallujah, and more

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

AntonBatey | October 13, 2010

Interview with Professor Noam Chomsky.

Topics in this interview:

– “Bias” in teaching at the high school/college level
Fallujah, Iraq cancer rates higher than Hiroshima and Nagasaki due to the U.S. bombing
– The United States violating international law, the U.N. Charter
– United States being the ONLY country to be condemned for international terrorism by the World Court in 1986, Nicaragua v. United States, and how the United States dismissed the decision
– Provisions in the UN Charter, World Court and Genocide Conventions which exempt the U.S. from being accountable
– The so-called “Oil for Food scandal”, which people use to dismiss the U.N.
– U.S. sanctions on Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands being the real “scandal”
– Claim made that the insurgents are not protected by the Geneva Conventions because they’re not in uniform
Guantanamo prison case of the 15 year old boy who attacked a U.S. soldier in his own town
– Israeli “loyalty oath” and its clearly racist implications of Israel
– Treatment of Arab Israelis
– UN-led sanctions on Iran, namely 1929 on June 9th, 2010 and why China or Russia didn’t veto the Security Resolution

The Nightmare by Felicity Arbuthnot

Warning

This article and links to other websites may contain words/graphics depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read/viewed by a mature audience.

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
9 October, 2010

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” François-Marie Arouet -“Voltaire” (1694-1778.)

I have a deeply held belief that the duty of a commentator is, to the best of one’s ability, to record, to shine light in often dark places, to act as a voice for those whose own voice, fears, plights might not be heard or known. To write about the emotions one sometimes feels when doing it, is an anathema and anyway a redundancy. The purpose is to attempt to draw attention to wrongs, not to whinge about the effects they can have – and any way, a private life should be just that. If politicians wish to strip themselves of their dignity and allude to everything from their sex life, to using private grief to gain sympathy votes, those with a shred of self-respect do not wish to emulate them. Here, I am breaking my taboo, for a reason.