Mustafa Kaya: "Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld and facts you need to know"

Mustafa Kaya: "Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld and facts you need to know"
Date: 4.7.2021 17:00

Milli Gazete columnist Mustafa Kaya writes on the process and consequences of the Iraq war. Here is the full article.

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I would like to start today's article by admitting that today is the 4th of July, that is, a day when we are made aware as a result of the mass media impacting so many people living on the planet.
 
As it is known, on July 4, 1776, 245 years ago, the American colonies declared their independence from England. This Independence Day is celebrated every year with the typical, familiar American pomp, exaggeration and parade. On today's anniversary, which the rest of the world imposes as if they should know and celebrate, they actually reveal how fond they are of their independence, emphasizing the importance of it. However, it should be stated at this point that they do not consider these rights worthy of others.
 
Today is so important to them that they know how to use it for a show of power. Unfortunately, we also have a painful 4th of July experience that concerns us in the recent past. After the Iraq Bill, which was not passed by the Parliament on March 1, 2003, they put a sack on the heads of our soldiers in Iraq on July 4, 2003, because the army did not support the memorandum. We tried to pass this grave and humiliating event by reducing it to the level of "musical note" and took revenge (!) with the Valley of the Wolves (a famous Turkish serie).
 
Before this process, which started to interest Turkey in terms of the above dates, on September 9, 2002, on the eve of the United States' bringing democracy to the Middle East and ridding all humanity of weapons of mass destruction (!), an eight-page letter to the US Chief of Staff (Air General Richard Myers) with the phrase top secret. A note (Iraq: Weapons of Mass Destruction Program Evaluation Report -WMD) was submitted. In summary, according to these notes:
 
 * We consider that Iraq has made significant progress in terms of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
 
* Our opinion is based on analytical assumptions and judgments rather than concrete evidence.
 
* Evidence regarding the nuclear power of Iraq is negligible.
 
* In our meetings with the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, they constantly denied our evaluations about the WMD.
 
In fact, a sentence such as "We don't know what we don't know and how much" was added to a box that would make the reader doubt and hesitant. In other words, they wanted to say that we do not know how sensitive/dangerous/grave the issue is, but our ignorance increases the level of danger.
 
After creating such a climate of influence, suspicion and even fear in the reader, the note states that it is not certain whether Iraq has ever acquired a nuclear weapon from outside, but that it has the knowledge and capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons, and that even though it is not yet in use, the uranium enrichment plant has been built. contained. Interestingly, in another box on this page, it was stated that the opinion about Iraq's nuclear weapons program was 90% based on the analysis of imprecise intelligence information.
 
In an autobiography published years later, Donald Rumsfeld, the owner of this briefing, tried to explain his thoughts on what happened: Known And Unknown: A Memoir (Penguin Group USA, 2011).
 
According to his own statement, he wrote notes under the title of "snowflakes", which were reminding but mostly informative and guiding to those who worked for him at the Pentagon, where he worked since 2001.
 
As far as we can understand from both these notes and his memoirs, Rumsfeld considered it a success to be able to make his opponents accept his thoughts easily by using assumptions such as "known knowns", "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns", which are frequently used in various branches of social sciences. However, the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider Middle East was based entirely on intelligence reports that he himself was not sure of. The fears of the world public were addressed with the "unknowns" and the US operations were somehow legitimized. When we look back today, with the help of imperialism and its domination of information, the international public can be convinced of almost anything, so to speak.
 
Their hearts are so hardened that they do not regret the loss of millions of innocent people because of their failures and incompetence, which emerged through the distortions of the intelligence organization.
 
Here goes the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who died last week, with blood on his hands and a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. According to our belief, wherever he goes, he will be held accountable for all this. Almost all of the things written about him after his death are not positive at all.
 
On the other hand, a fourth, unknown known, was added to the three categories in the Known-Unknown relationship, and it was used as an irony to express especially Rumsfeld's helplessness but also his ambitious hawk. Rumsfeld actually took these steps and made these decisions in order to “Forcing God to Doomsday”. So he never even looked at the distinction between what we can know and what we can't, which is the subject of ancient philosophy. Of course, the ability to distinguish these two is one of the greatest wisdoms bestowed upon man.
 
What we are trying to say here is that Rumsfeld himself is aware of what he knows. That is, Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction nor nuclear weapons technology. Based on this "known", he built an opinion on the frightening "unknown" phenomenon.
 
In the interviews made in the documentary film directed by director Errol Morris for Donald Rumsfeld in 2013, he admits between the lines that he knows what he does not know, but that he manipulates as he sees fit. In fact, what we know very well is that after these wars, thousands of innocent people were tortured and lost their lives in Abu Ghraib prison. If the truth is to be reached from the known to the unknown in the shortest way, it is clear as day who caused the bloodshed of people groaning under oppression by weapons of mass destruction. We have and will continue to hope that the formerly unknown but now known perpetrators of those who deem themselves worthy of celebrating their independence day but worthy of genocide, persecution, oppression, violence and torture to others will one day be held accountable.

YEREL HABERLER

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