#2003 War in Iraq

[thenewdemocratus]

Foreign Affairs: Gideon Rose: 'Iraq in Retrospect'

SourceForeign Affairs– welcome to Iraq, also known as Hell on Earth. Source:FRS FreeState “Ten years ago this week, the United States and a few of its allies invaded Iraq, writing the final chapter in Washington’s checkered decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein. Thanks to problems of both conception and execution, the Iraq war ended up becoming the most egregious failure in half a century…

[vertigoartgore]

Arrested Development's pilot turn 20 today. Feel old yet ?

[lobsterenthusiastt]

MORDECAI AND RIGBY! FIND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION OR YOU'RE FIRED!

[on-this-day-btvs]

March 25, 2003

Lies My Parents Told Me aired for BTVS season 7, episode 17. In the Buffyverse timeline, these events should have occurred just before ATS episode Orpheus. However Lies My Parents Told Me aired one week later than planned. (*)

You can tell the intended Buffyverse timeline because in Lies Willow gets a phone call from Fred and heads to L.A. And in Orpheus Willow appears in L.A.

This was the last BTVS appearance of Drusilla, played by Juliet Landau. This was also the last appearance of Nikki Wood, and the second appearance of Nikki played by K.D. Aubert.

(* longer mod note below) According to wikipedia: "It [Lies] was originally intended to air on March 18, 2003, a day before the Orpheus, but was postponed due to the start of the Iraq War." The show was airing Tuesday night so this makes some sense. However, war criminal and President George W Bush made his infamous 13 minute speech on March 19, not March 18.

(mod note: So many US war criminals started this war and have faced zero real consequences, but that's not the point of this sideblog. Fuck US imperialism, in 2003 and today.)

[todaysdocument]

U.S. forces invaded Iraq 20 years ago, on March 20, 2003. 

Here, U.S. Marine Corps personnel with Bravo Command 1st Tank Battalion sit in their Humvees in the dispersal area near the Iraqi border. 

Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files

Image description: A line of sand-colored Humvees stretches into the distance. Marines sit in and on top of the vehicles. The sky is a dusty blue and the ground is flat desert. In the foremost vehicle, the driver’s side door is open with the driver stretching their legs out to rest in the open window. 

[mapsontheweb]

Support for Iraq War among EU citizens in 2003.

[dubyaposting]

original comic by @twistcmyk

[drsonnet]

Media Ethics and Society: Manipulated (scrippsmediaethics.blogspot.com)

On April 1, 2003, Walski was fired for a composite of two images he had captured while covering the war in Iraq for the paper.

[from-around-the-globe]

NBC Reporter attempts to interview an annoyed marine during the initial invasion of Iraq.

April, 2003

[angelkarafilli]

The Day The World Said No To War

Piccadilly Circus,  London

15 February 2003

Protesters march through Piccadilly Circus in London, 15 February 2003. After assembling at different points, the two mass groups of protesters converged at Piccadilly Circus.

On 15 February 2003, mass marches were held to protest against a planned invasion of Iraq led by the United States. The invasion was part of an aggressive American military strategy against extremist Islamic terrorism following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The US Government accused Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, of having links with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that had carried out the 9/11 attacks. It was also claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, strongly supported US President George W Bushand his plans for invasion. However, other countries such as Canada, France, Germany and Russia urged continued diplomacy. There was also no United Nations resolution to support the action. 

Anti-war groups around the world organised a number of protests. The event on the 15 February 2003 was the largest and involved an unprecedented amount of international coordination. 

Some of the largest protests took place in Europe. In Rome in Italy, around three million people were involved in a protest that entered the Guinness Book of Records. Thousands took part in a demonstration in the Turkish capital of Istanbul, despite local authorities having banned the protest. The events of 15 February were recorded as the largest protest of its type in human history.

In the UK, a huge protest was organised by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) in partnership with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Muslim Association of Britain. It attracted a diverse group of people, many of whom had never taken part in a protest before. London's march involved up to 2,000,000 people – a record for any British protest. 

Despite the international protests and the lack of support from the UN, troops from the US, UK, Australia and Poland launched the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. 

Source and more on:https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/5-photographs-from-the-day-the-world-said-no-to-war

[philsmeatylegss]

Decided to do the Abu Ghraib prison as a project for one of my history classes. Not too big of a project; I have to do three a semester and they have to be detailed, but not like a final. Knew of Abu Ghraib, knew it was bad and a war crime and all that. I’ve skimmed only a few articles and yall,,,, I have never felt more like an ignorant dumb American than I have right now. Dark shit doesn’t affect me. I’m really interested in it. This is really one of the first times I’ve researched something and I’ve had to look away. I love history so much and I am so happy I am studying it and choosing to go into the field for a job, but sometimes you stumble upon something and you realize why ignorance is bliss.

[cinnabargirl]

Its crazy how much the adage "a lot of you would have gone crazy about WMDs un 2003" holds up time and time again

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

So weird to see elements of the mainstream media in love with the United States and its ideals after spending the Obama and Trump years trashing the shit out of the United States and its ideals

[todaysdocument]

Poster showing “Iraqi Most Wanted” playing cards distributed to U.S. military personnel during Operation Iraqi Freedom, April 24, 2003. 

Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files

Image description: Detail of poster, showing the joker (Iraqi military ranks), Ace of Spades (Saddam Husayn al-Tikriti), Ace of Diamonds (Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti), Ace of Clubs (Qusay Saddam Husayn al-Tikiriti), King of Clubs (Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri), King of Hearts (Hani Abd al-Latif Tilfah al-Tikriti), Queen of Spades (Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi), Queen of Diamonds (Muzahim Sa’b Hasan al-Tikriti), and Queen of Clubs (Kamal Mustaba Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti). 

Image description: Poster showing each card in a standard deck. Each card has an image of a person, their name, and their position in the Iraqi government. 

Transcription: 

[text at bottom of poster, under images of cards]

IRAQI'S MOST WANTED

By Tom Infield, Knight Ridder - European edition, Saturday, April 12, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Saddam Hussein, of course, drew the ace of spades. The U.S. Central Command has introduced a new way for troops to pass the time: a pack of playing cards depicting the ousted Iraqi dictator and 51 of his key henchmen. Saddam's elder son, Odai, is the ace of hearts in the deck, which has a desert camouflage design on the back of the cards. Odai has been accused of serial rapes and murders of young women. Saddam's younger son, Qusai, is the ace of clubs. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks publicly introduced the cards Friday at a news briefing in Qatar. "This deck of cards is one example of what we provide to soldiers out in the field, with the faces of the individuals and what their role is," he said. Officials said the cards, which also include several jokers without faces, had a purpose besides helping to kill boredom. They're a military version of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted. As they get passed around, they might help a soldier or Marine catch one of the figures. At the Pentagon, an official said that only a couple of hundred decks had been sent to the combat zone, but that more could be dealt out in a jiffy. The cards were made up by wags at the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is on the hunt for the depicted characters. The Pentagon has not copyrighted the cards, which means that anyone could produce them, a defense official said. Beyond Saddam and his sons, only a few of the faces or names would likely be familiar to a soldier. One, perhaps, is Tariq Aziz, the longtime foreign minister, who for some reason is the lowly eight of spades. Nowhere to be found is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi information minister whose daily briefings--in which he denied the all-too-obvious advances of American troops had made him the object of comedy spoofs. He was quite a card, but he's not in the deck.

[violetsssss1]

Do you ever just sit and think about how truly desensitised people in the west are to the suffering, massacres, and death of Palestinian and ME children in general through conflicts. Like what do you mean eight *thousand* children have been fully identified as deceased in Gaza with an estimate of 13,800 *children*. Bro, kids, like literal teenagers, kids, babies. I can’t even close my eyes and imagine what a crowd of 13,800 look like. Like you mean each and every one of those *thousands* THOUSANDS are dead? How does one go from scrolling through instagram reels, tumblr, tiktok from a video of un@lived children to the next of someone playing with slime? What kinda mind fuck is this that we get live broadcast of literal beheaded *infants* in rafa, and no government has taken any action against Israel despite them ignoring rulings from the UN? How are people so greedy, corrupt, and downright disgusting that they can witness these things and just ignore them? Has there been that many deaths in the Middle East of civllians that the west decided “well you guys are pretty much built for it”?? Why does no one really, truly care? To me it’s mind boggling that I live in a country where I can pass by a person that will see me as unworthy of living

[turkwriter]

if you think biden is the best available candidate and the choice that most reduces harm, great. All we can realistically ask of each other is to make what we think is the best tactical move to reduce harm.

please vote for biden if you truly think he is the best choice. Thank you for seeking a better world.

But please don’t make fun of or dismiss the blood on Biden’s hands. He was the prominent voice for the Democrats guiding the country into an invasion that killed hundreds of thousands of humans. It was not a guaranteed thing. Many in the military correctly believed this was a bad long-term solution, and non-British international partners were split to say the least.

Biden very quickly set the tone of helpful/submissive opposition where an unprompted invasion of a sovereign nation was absolutely on the table, it was just about negotiating specifics. The American people needed to be better convinced for this to happen, he said. He provided cover for and instruction to the second Bush administrative on how to sell the war. He campaigned for the invasion process to last “at least 4-5 years” for “stability”.

He both set the goal posts and knocked the ball in. He said that the American people would have to be 100 percent convinced that Hussein had nukes and would use them, on us. And then he backed the lie, the great WMD lie that was always a lie and resulted in the death of one very bad man, yes, but also hundreds of thousands of innocents. Without that proof the American people would “need” ever surfacing.

he was not hoodwinked, he was a ranking foreign affairs senator, he had access to the best most convincing data, which as we all know was a big fat goose egg. he backed the lie anyway.

if you still think, despite being the candidate with the most blood on his hands, Biden is the best choice for harm reduction, maybe he learned his lesson and won’t do it again, then fair enough. Thank you again for wanting to reduce harm. Wanting that is enough for me even if we disagree on tactics.

Just please don’t throw the truly countless victims of Biden’s active complicity under the bus and belittle bringing up his bloody record. People call him Genocide Joe and Bloody Biden for a reason. A deeply sad reason involving hundreds of thousands of dead people. Please don’t make light of that. Thank you.

Literally no one but you is calling him Genocide Joe over the Iraq War Senate votes from decades ago. They're calling him Genocide Joe because the same people who tried to push the Tara Reade hoax and Dementia Joe bullshit last election cycle are trying to find something that sticks this time.