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In
a recent American film there is a bit of dialogue that explains the very
difficult position in which Americans now find themselves. The film was
"Shooter" and the motivating proposition imbedded in the drama
is one that we all must begin to think about.
". . .the truth is that
nothing, no matter how horrible, ever really happens without the approval
of the government-over there and over here. The problem isn't in the
doing-it's the people in power having to admit that they 'knew'!
The prisoners are tortured at Abu
Ghraib and only the underlings go to jail. Their bosses knew: we know
their bosses knew but you don't say it. There is no 'head' to cut off. If
one of them betrays the principals of money and power then the others
betray him. What it is - is human weakness and you can't kill that with a
gun."
Then a different character later
adds . . . "There are no sides; there are no Sunni's no Shia's; no
democrats or republicans: There is only the "haves" and the
"have nots"! This is a country where the Secretary of Defense
can go on TV and tell the American public that this is about 'freedom' -
it's not about oil. And nobody questions him-cause they don't want to hear
any answer because it's all a lie. There's only so many places at the
table: Now are you on the inside or you on the out! . . . This is the
world we live in!"
The connection between this
portion of 'Shooter' and the world at this moment is what happened on July
17, 2007, the day that the Bushwhacker added yet another Executive Order
to his personal list of crimes against this nation and its people.
"Bush Outlaws War Protest - Citizens Face Full Asset Seizure".
In one of his most chilling moves
to date against his own citizens, the American War Leader has issued a
sweeping order this week outlawing all forms of protest against the Iraq
war.
President Bush enacted into US
law an 'Executive Order' on July 17th titled "Blocking Property of
Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq", and
which says:
"By the authority vested in
me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as
amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50
U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States
Code,"
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of
the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and
extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the
United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and
stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic
reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian
assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United
States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in
Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional
steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order
13364 of November 29, 2004." (1)
This proclamation represents the
height of US governmental hypocrisy - as the only reason our troops are in
Iraq now and our forces have remained there during all the years since
1991, was and is to smash that nation back into the stone-age. And all of
this comes from the orders issued by the US commander-in-chief: the same
George W. Bush who signed this new Executive Order.
This 'act' is supposedly meant to
bolster and rehabilitate a nation that we are spending over $12 billion a
month on, to simply annihilate the viability of that state. Iraq is the
same nation that this Commander-in-Chief has brutalized by denying water
and electricity to them, while turning ordinary daily life in Iraq into a
gauntlet of privation; compounded by murder, kidnapping and random
military actions of dubious military value. These 'actions' can have huge
humanitarian costs to those still trying to live in their own country.
Four million have fled into exile, millions more have died, and more have
been maimed starved or imprisoned. And just today Bush and his compliant
'generals' want to grant themselves yet another year of this nightmare to
continue to keep the profits flowing into the coffers of his friends and
directors.
Now suddenly it is Americans who
must not speak of these things, or ask any questions about why our
government did this, or why we are continuing to do this to a country that
did not attack us? "President Bush's newest executive order states
that any American citizen who threatens the peace and stability of Iraq
and undermines efforts to promote reconstruction and reform there may have
all their property and interests seized by the Treasury department without
warning".
In fact the people who should be
arrested and held for what is happening in Iraq are the upper echelon of
the entire Bush Administration: for it is they who have relentlessly
attacked that nation, they who have unjustifiably arrested millions of
people, ninety-five percent of whom it turns out did nothing wrong except
to be Iraqi citizens.
The sheer gall of these American
imposters would now have the world believe that it is they who care about
Iraq, and they who have come to defend the reconstruction and
reconstitution of that place where we have tried and failed so very many
times since GWH announced "Mission Accomplished" so very long
ago-back when the American numbers there still lingered near 120 dead.
Add to that sad military record
of total incompetence, from the generals, the politicians and our huge
cadre of 'yes-men": that has only managed to produce this virtually
constant drumbeat of "Stay the Course" that calls for total and
unconditional "victory" over an idea, and not an army. By any
measure this "war" has been a colossal failure, and can not end
in anything but defeat for this country, for the region, and for the world
in general. But this is only a "Defeat," for humanity and for
the peoples of the world: For those who hold the secret contracts, and
those who know what happened to the $2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld told us
has "gone missing" from the Pentagon-this farce has been a
bonanza of illicit and illegal war-profiteering that has never before been
equaled. For them, every day this war continues is a victory for them! Oil
was only $18 a barrel when the US invaded Iraq, so who profited the most
from the obscenities of this war?
Had we asked about the character
of this recycled male cheerleader, this self-deluded person with an
additive and corrosive personality, someone incapable of compassion,
reason or common sense-then we might have investigated his status as
something more dangerous than an AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard
during the Vietnam War. Had the media done its job before the elections of
2000, then Bush-the-Lesser would never have made it to the run-offs of
that star-crossed "election." But we were not vigilant then so
that's history now.
What is missing from recent
history is the following chilling bit of information. Written, directed,
and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play strand, its
depiction of the impact of Soviet nuclear attack on Britain caused dismay
within the BBC and in government and was banned for 20 years. It was
scheduled for transmission on August 6, 1966 (the anniversary of the
Hiroshima attack) but was not transmitted until 1985, the corporation
publicly stating that "the effect of the film has been judged by the
BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting". It was
widely viewed before its BBC debut on video and in art-house cinemas,
often using prints provided by Watkins. The film won the Academy Award for
Documentary Feature in 1966. (2)
This information is critical to
anyone's understanding-if we are to correctly measure our responses to the
idea of surviving a nuclear exchange. This is especially true of anyone
seeking to comprehend the importance of the current trend toward
"Imperial Assumptions." Yet this is information that no
government wants its public to become aware of as this information could
severely alter how many people might begin to see international affairs
and the real need for actual political dialogue over mutually assured
destruction. We no longer live in a John Wayne world, and the wars we 'fight' are no longer wars of defense, because as the whole
world knows the USA is conducting a continuing massive offensive against
the entire region of the Middle East: And if Cheney gets his way, we won't
quit until we've widened this war into several other nations in that
region. That would create the next World War, and nothing would ever be
the same for Americans again.
In light of these oddly yet
severely connected two things-the latest Executive Decree from the worst
war-time leader the world has ever seen, and from the hidden truths of the
reality in nuclear death-perhaps it's time that the global-public begins
to understand just how serious this current situation really is.
Of the 535 people in the congress
today only about 43 have any integrity, all the rest have already sold
their votes and what might remain of their consciousness to the enemies of
what was once the USA.
The opening quote in this article
briefly outlines what we are all up against. True they are just lines from
a film, yet equally true is that they can become hauntingly real, once you
realize what is being done to all of us, in the name of the corrupted
leaders in many countries: Countries where their greed and the arrogance
of their passion for that which is not theirs remains uppermost. Only a
serious public outcry from the majority of people here could alter the
current reluctance of congress to act. And yet 'act' we must: or that
cryptic phrase:
"This is the world we live
in!" could easily become our national epitaph.
Jim Kirwan
NOTES:
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