Barack Obama aux Européens : « Notre liberté n’est pas gratuite »
►http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2014/03/27/barack-obama-donne-une-lecon-de-puissance-et-de-morale-aux-europeens_4390365
Le président américain a aussi dénoncé toutes les équivalences « absurdes » avancées par Moscou. Non, le Kosovo ne peut pas justifier la Crimée. « L’OTAN n’y est intervenue qu’après que les habitants y ont été brutalisés et tués pendant des années. » L’Irak « symbole de l’hypocrisie occidentale » ? M. Obama s’est pratiquement trouvé à défendre son prédécesseur : « Même en Irak, l’Amérique a cherché à passer par le système international. » Et, a-t-il ajouté, « nous n’avons pas revendiqué ou annexé le territoire irakien ». « Nous n’avons pas accaparé les ressources pour notre propre profit. »
Obama Suddenly Defends U.S. Invasion of Iraq—Mainstream Media Shrug
▻http://www.thenation.com/blog/179045/obama-suddenly-defends-us-invasion-iraq-mainstream-media-shrug
In fact, the U.S. forced Iraq to privatize its oil industry, which had previously been under the control of the state, and further required that it accept foreign ownership of the industry. The effort to transfer the resources to the control of multinational, largely U.S.-based oil companies has been hampered in part by the decade of violence unleashed by the invasion.
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Ross Caputi and Matt Howard, members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, spoke with Common Dreams by phone and said that President Obama’s argument was both weak factually and morally. As it happens, both IVAW members were together in Washington, DC on Wednesday, organizing an evening event focused on the devastating impacts of the Iraq War—both for veterans like themselves and the Iraqi civilian population—when they heard news about what the president had said.
“What President Obama said is false,” said Caputi. “The U.S. did not attempt to work within the international system. We acted unilaterally, without the approval of the UN Security Council.”
“We went from one lie, which was weapons of mass destruction, to another lie which was liberation and freedom,” said Howard. Citing the devastation cited by Iraqi civil society allies, especially women in the country, he continued, “This idea that Iraq is somehow better off or that the U.S. waged a so-called ’Good War’ is ridiculous.”