NBC's Farcical Commander-in-Chief Forum

James Carden The Nation
This was a big missed opportunity for the network-and for voters. It showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will say just about anything to win in November. Hours before, Trump made an address in Philadelphia where he kowtowed to the Republican foreign-policy establishment, pledging to lavish tax dollars on the military. In a rambling answer to a question about Iraq, Trump noted the biggest mistake made in Iraq was that the U.S. did not 'take the oil.'

The Five Lamest Excuses for Hillary Clinton’s Vote to Invade Iraq

Stephen Zunes Foreign Policy in Focus
There’s no question that the United States is long overdue to elect a woman head of state. But electing Hillary Clinton — or anyone else who supported the invasion of Iraq — would be sending a dangerous message that reckless global militarism needn’t prevent someone from becoming president, even as the nominee of the more liberal of the two major parties.

Movie: We Are Many

On February 15, 2003, over 15 million people marched in 800 cities on every continent to voice their opposition to the proposed war in Iraq. This film documents how, this unprecedented global march was organised, against all odds, by a patchwork of peace campaigners. In theaters now.
 

books

A Love Story, A War Story and A Story About Brutal Work

Olivia Laing New Statesman
The Patriot Act is a nightmare for immigrants without papers already living precarious lives of dead-end jobs, zero-hour contracts, squats, and physical danger. When a young Asian woman, alone in the U.S., meets an ex-serviceman, himself traumatized by three tours in Iraq and living in a basement flat , the two bond in a tough but brilliant first novel absent stock characters or cartoon emotionality but with a profound and intimate knowledge of life on the margins.

Israelpolitik, the Neocons and the Long Shadow of the Iraq War

Danny Postel Pulse
A Review of Muhammad Idrees Ahmad’s book ‘The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War.’ The central question Ahmad attempts to answer is: Why did the 2003 Iraq War happen? In one of the book’s most valuable sections, felicitously titled ‘Black Gold and Red Herrings’, he goes through several prevalent explanations/theories and takes them apart one by one.

"American Sniper" - Dishonest, Racist Film Spawns Death Threats against Arabs and Muslims

Alex von Tunzelmann; Rania Khalek; Zaid Jilani
The film piles on Bush-era propaganda and sharp-shoots the facts. The message of American Sniper is that Kyle is the real victim of the war. The Iraqis he shot deserved it, because - as it has established to its own satisfaction - they were savages. As for non-savage Iraqis who may have reasonable grounds to complain about what happened to their country following the invasion, they must be in some other movie.

labor

No Renewed Iraq War

United Electrical Workers-General Officers United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America
In 2002 the members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, UE, approved a convention resolution opposing George Bush's plans to invade Iraq. Twelve years later the Officers of UE re-affirm their opposition to Obama renewing the war in Iraq.

The Second Iran-Iraq War and the American Switch

Juan Cole Informed Content
In the looming second Iran-Iraq War, the US will be de facto allied with Iran against the would-be al-Qaeda affiliate (ISIS was rejected by core al-Qaeda for viciously attacking other militant vigilante Sunni fundamentalists in turf wars in Syria). In fact, since ISIS is allegedly bankrolled by private Salafi businessmen in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Oil Gulf, the US is on the opposite side of all its former allies of the 1980s.
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