|
The war in Iraq began with
mini-mushroom clouds over Baghdad in a Shock & Awe attack. This was the
first failed attempt to destroy Saddam but one that marked the quadrupling
of background radiation in Europe, just three days later When the
super-bunker-busters missed the target, we killed perhaps a hundred
civilians in those pre-dawn hours, but we also ignited a phosphorescent
blood pool that continues to seep into every corner of so many lives around
the world. With the fires of indignation there also flared the white-hot
heat of greed and hate and racism.
As the enormity of the crimes of
this war deepen, in the memories of all it touches - the world will
remember. Even as the embers of those flame-smeared memories continue to
burn, the crimes themselves will live on, long after those who did them
have ceased to be. And over all of this history will one-day spread her
ignoble shroud of timeless ashes, but not before the deaths of how many
thousands more that will die for the lies and power of others?
At the time of our attack there
were international laws that forbid what we did, long before there was a
president Bush or the obscenities of Dick Cheney. The reasons for the
international treaties were to prevent exactly what has now happened in
Iraq. We lost this invasion because all of what we supposedly invaded to
prevent; actually had exactly the opposite effect: thus creating the very
things we said that invasion was necessary to prevent. On this Anniversary
the "experts" who underwrote the heresy, are now fighting over the
arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic failures of this war; a war
that is irrevocably sinking ever-deeper into the fires that those same
experts started when they made their unilateral and unprovoked war upon
Iraq.
This was something that
Washington, London and Tel Aviv could have and should have tried to do with
diplomacy and negotiation - yet they opted for the completely
self-defeating stance of bombs and bullets to do what they would not allow
ideas or dialogue to even try: The arrogance and haste in this total lack
of leadership at the highest levels, clarifies the intent of the amoral
cabal that had only power on its collectively imperial mind.
Americans were told that we had to
fight this war to preserve our way of life and that we were in a war on
terror that will be unending. The only way to protect ourselves, according
to them, was for the USA to embrace their paranoia of this outlawed view of
international relations. No credence was given to statecraft nor were other
options allowed to influence the debate. So, led by a cowed and cowardly
media we allowed ourselves to be swept up in the ever-changing reasons for
the obscenity of international crime, of mass murder, torture, theft, and
chaos. Now is the time to remember what happened, to look at the
consequences of those actions we approved by silence and in our failure to
demand the answers that would have stopped this Crime against Humanity.
This is not hindsight, because almost all of what the US tried to do was
being challenged on the internet and by the world, from long before the
bombs began to fall - yet Americans chose for a variety of reasons to
remain unmoved by what we could and should have known - that this was
wrong!
Cheney is still saying that if we
had not done this, our way of life would have been forever changed, our
freedoms would be destroyed, our democracy would be endangered, and our
people would be subject to attacks from those who hate us. Well, all of
that has already happened but the damage was not done by the terrorists he
describes, but by the direct actions of the US government against the
people of this nation. And just a few days ago Bush declared that he would "stay the
course" despite all the damage of the outcome so far. It is worth
noting that no one of consequence has been fired for any action taken
during this entire war.
What has changed since the war
began is that our policies have been radically altered; we have gone from a
nation in league with the world, to a nation against the world. Our
treasury has been drained and our national debt is approaching unmanageable
proportions; just as our way of life is about to implode from the
outsourcing of American jobs and the denigration of American enterprise in
favor of profits for American corporations that now operate from foreign
shores.
The destruction of our way of life
hinges on the distain shown by this administration for the health and
welfare of every man, woman or child who is trying to live in this country.
By choosing to place all Americans under the microscope of secret wiretaps,
illegal monitoring, and the folly of the police-state tactics of HOMELAND
Security (a term not of this country, but borrowed directly from the Nazi's
of old) - the complete collapse of our way of life has nearly become
assured. Where we once had other points of view and challenges and
questions from the public; now there is only room for suspicion, for
enemies lists and secret trials without charges, licensed and protected
torture by US personnel and mercenaries against anyone
who dares to disagree with new
policies that will enslave us all, if they are not stopped, and against
those who authored them that should be charged with the crimes that their
enactment so recently created.
Leadership has failed the people,
not only in the USA but in the international community as well - because of
the example that Cheney-Bush created, when we became a rogue nation-state -
immorality and lawless became our new standards in the new century.
Our policies since inauguration
day 2001 have been indefensible by any standard, and the world has seen and
will remember how the fortunes of this lonely blue planet have begun to
falter, because of the wet-dreams of the very few who dreamt of unending
Empire. Perhaps to bastardize a phrase from Churchill: "it could be said
that never have so many suffered at the hands of so few, for the global
loss of such potential that puts 'at risk' whatever might be left of any
future - for the wider world."
At the end of this day of
remembering - it is worth recognizing what the goals of this administration
and their co-conspirators are. When the war began there was a strange new
twist that flew in the face of previous practice. We were NOT asked to do
our part; no sacrifice was apparently required of the American population,
despite the beginning of this "WAR Without End" and our illegal
departure from all the rules of international law: Bush told us instead to
"Just go shopping."
The reason for this anomaly was
horrifyingly simple - because all his government really wanted from the
American public was that we should blindly "trust" their every
pronouncement and go about our lives as usual, while they continued to
destroy every aspect of our lives with the secret deeds they chose to do.
That's everything from killing human rights and national integrity, to our
commitment to international treaties, along with the wholesale slaughter of
what was thought to be "American values."
Yet - in this third year of the
War there are daily new corruptions and new secrets unearthed that give lie
to what the cabal has maintained from the beginning. What we are beginning
to learn the hard way, after the supposed facts were acted on, is that all
this security and secrecy was created to hide one overriding fact: The real
target of these foreign wars as well as all the security and secrecy here,
had only one purpose which was to transform America and its people into a
slave society that will no longer resist a takeover by authoritarian powers
- whose only interests lie in power and unquestioning obedience - from a
public that is no longer moved by what is done in their name.
Recently "Boston Public"
on the ABC television network aired a controversial monologue that ABC
wants to remove from all re-broadcasts of Boston Legal.
TRANSCRIPT OF JAMES SPADER'S
"BOSTON LEGAL" MONOLOGUE
"When the weapons of mass
destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people
to rise up. Ha! They didn't. Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing
surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition,
a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who
specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard
from. We stood mute.
Then came the news that we jailed
thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the
right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly,
we would never stand for that. We did.
And now, it's been discovered the
executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic
surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled
myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough.
Evidentially, we haven't."
As everyday people we must
remember who we thought we were, and decide what we shall become, if we do
not remove this criminal element from the top of the American government.
The wars must stop and a new spirit needs to challenge Americans to
consider what that phrase from the Declaration of Independence really means
when it mentions:
"our lives, our fortunes and our sacred
honor."
|
studios