{"id":1109947,"date":"2023-06-29T03:10:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T03:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/?p=13077"},"modified":"2023-06-29T03:10:10","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T03:10:10","slug":"aging-iraq-invaders-keep-accidentally-saying-iraq-instead-of-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/06\/29\/aging-iraq-invaders-keep-accidentally-saying-iraq-instead-of-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Aging Iraq Invaders Keep Accidentally Saying \u2018Iraq\u2019 Instead Of \u2018Ukraine\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"President Biden accidentally referred to Putin\u2019s war in \u201cIraq\u201d when answering questions from the press, a year after former president George W Bush made the same gaffe. Both men played crucial roles in the push to invade Iraq.<\/p>Asked on Wednesday whether the short-lived Prigozhin rebellion was a sign that Putin was weakening, Biden\u00a0replied<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell really. But he\u2019s clearly losing the war in Iraq.\u201d<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>During the 2020 presidential race, Current Affairs\u2019 Nathan J Robinson\u00a0wrote the following<\/a>\u00a0about Biden\u2019s pivotal role in manufacturing support for the Iraq invasion:<\/p>In 2003, Biden\u00a0was<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca senator bullish about the push to war [in Iraq] who helped sell the Bush administration\u2019s pitch to the American public,\u201d who \u201cvoted for \u2014 and helped advance \u2014 the Bush agenda.\u201d He was the war\u2019s \u201cmost crucial<\/a>\u201d senate supporter. Biden repeated the myth that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,\u00a0saying that<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthese weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.\u201d The resulting war was one of the most deadly catastrophes in the history of U.S. foreign policy \u2014 the Iraqi death toll was in the\u00a0hundreds of thousands<\/a>\u00a0or possibly\u00a0even the millions<\/a>, and 4,500 American troops died.<\/p><\/blockquote>That Biden\u2019s decomposing brain would find the word \u201cIraq\u201d when reaching for the word which means \u201cnation that has been illegally invaded by an evil government\u201d is positively Freudian.<\/p>In May of last year during a speech in Dallas, George W Bush made a similar Freudian confession,\u00a0saying<\/a>, \u201cThe result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension with the words, \u201cIraq too. Anyway.\u201d He then quipped that he is 75 years old, leaning harder on his \u201cAw shucks gee willikers I\u2019m such a goofball\u201d persona than he ever has in his entire life.<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>I defy you to find me anything that is more quintessentially representative of the state of the US empire than these two clips. Two decaying empire managers fumbling around in their skulls for the name of nation that\u2019s been invaded by murderous thugs, and coming up with the name of the nation they themselves invaded. It\u2019s truly a thing of beauty.<\/p>It\u2019s absolutely ridiculous that they\u2019re trying to charge Putin with war crimes while these two mass murderers are walking free. As American law professor Dale Carpenter has said, \u201cIf citizens cannot trust that laws will be enforced in an evenhanded and honest fashion, they cannot be said to live under the rule of law. Instead, they live under the rule of men corrupted by the law.\u201d This is all the more true of laws which would exist between nations.<\/p>It\u2019s not a \u201cwhataboutism\u201d to say it\u2019s absurd to charge Putin with war crimes without charging men like Bush and Biden \u2014 it\u2019s a completely devastating argument against the claim being made. If the law doesn\u2019t apply to everyone, then it\u2019s not the law, it\u2019s just corruption. It\u2019s a tool of the powerful.<\/p>____________<\/p>All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is\u00a0<\/em>entirely reader-supported<\/em><\/a>, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on\u00a0<\/em>Patreon<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Paypal<\/em><\/a>, or\u00a0<\/em>Substack<\/em><\/a>, buying an issue of my\u00a0<\/em>monthly zine<\/em><\/a>, and following me on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Soundcloud<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a>. If you want to read more you can\u00a0<\/em>buy my books<\/em><\/a>. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list\u00a0<\/em>on Substack<\/em><\/a>, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I\u2019m trying to do with this platform,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/em><\/a>. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.<\/em><\/p> <\/picture><\/div> <\/figure>Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2<\/p> \n

This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Biden accidentally referred to Putin\u2019s war in \u201cIraq\u201d when answering questions from the press, a year after former president George W Bush made the same gaffe. Both men played crucial roles in the push to invade Iraq. Asked on Wednesday whether the short-lived Prigozhin [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1775,1778,1826,14538,192,1864,376,204],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109948,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109947\/revisions\/1109948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}