ERIC ZUESSE -- Who Are the Winners From America’s Destruction of Iraq and War Against Iran?

Who Are the Winners From America’s Destruction of Iraq and War Against Iran?

Eric Zuesse

January 11, 2020

© Photo: Af.mil

Americans are unfortunately severely reluctant to disbelieve the lies that normally spew forth from the U.S. Government about foreign countries and especially about foreign countries that it invades or wants to invade. Consider, for examples, the lies that were told against Iraq when Saddam Hussein ruled it, or about Libya when Muammar Gaddafi ruled it, or about Iran right now. But Americans widely believe their Government’s lies, nonetheless. They are deceived, above all, about whom the U.S. military is fighting for. It’s not fighting for the American people’s benefit. (In World War II, it was, but that was the last time in American history when it was.) And that Government-lie, about “Who benefits?”, is the basis of all the others.

On the morning of January 6th, the Republican Party ‘News’-site Fox News Channel, headlined near the top of their homepage an opinion article, “Democrats still delusional about Trump even after Qassem Soleimani death”, and interviewed there an American soldier in the war against Iraq, who hates Iran’s Government. He compared Qasem Soleimani to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of ISIS, (he said “Soleimani was really Zarqawi in uniform,” at 3:44 in the article’s accompanying video of the interview) but actually Soleimani was the world’s most effective general fighting against ISIS, and he led the elimination of ISIS from Iraq. (That American article linked-to says “Soleimani and his commanders were on the front lines in Iraq and his name became synonymous with victories attributed to Iraqi ground forces. He had presented himself as the face of the offensive in Tikrit, a city which fell under ISIS control in 2014 [HE WAS FIGHTING AND BEATING ISIS THERE].” So, the U.S. soldier speaking on Fox was profoundly misinformed about Soleimani, and about Iran (which has always been staunchly against ISIS). However, notwithstanding the deceit in Fox’s presenting this Republican propaganda for a Republican President, the most “Liked” reader-comment to that article was “A vote for a democrat is a vote for an enemy of America. I am proud to be an American citizen with Donald Trump as our President, and I certainly will never vote for a democrat again.” The facts didn’t matter to these viewers, the internal-U.S. political partisanship, the political Parties, blinded almost every one of the reader-comments there. Those commenters didn’t think, at all, about the U.S. Government’s lies that had persuaded the American public to boost their approval of George W. Bush from 57% immediately before his 2003 invasion of Iraq to 71% immediately after his lie-basedinternational war-crime in invading that country, and everyone who clicked “Like” on that January 6th reader-comment supporting Trump’s January 3rd aggression against both Iraq and Iran, had obviously learned nothing from that historical example from 2003, in which the opponents of the U.S. Government’s Iraq invasion (including mainly Democrats at that time, since Bush was a Republican President) were the actual American patriots (other than the Democrats who were against the invasion merely on account of its being done by a Republican President).

So: how do we know who actually benefitted from that particular international war-crime — the invasion and military occupation of Iraq?