Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiStop The Dirty War
Why Should American Blood and Taxes Be Spent on Propping Up a Sectarian Shi’a State Engaged in Ethnic Cleansing and Daily Human Rights Abuses?A Time For Congressional Hearings
The time has come to understand the new de facto US policy in Iraq: to support, fund, arm and train a sectarian Shi'a-Kurdish state, one engaged in ethnic cleansing, mass detention and murder of Sunni Arabs.
If this description seems harsh, it is only because our minds are crowded with false or outdated paradigms. First was the dream of Baghdad as an exemplary democratic domino. Then the kumbaya notion of a unitary neo-liberal state with proportional representation and revenue-sharing among Shi'a, Kurds and Sunnis. All along, the US has described itself as a neutral arbiter among warring factions, a promoter of the rule of law and human rights in the Iraqi jungle.
Even as former US ambassador Khalilzad left Baghdad, he was struggling to clinch deals over oil revenue-sharing, reversal of de-Baathification laws, and inclusion of Sunni interests in constitutional reform and local governance. The Shi'a, muttering that Khalilzad was a Sunni apologist, seemed uninterested in anything but window-dressing reforms.
Whether by accident or design, the reality since 2006 is that the Shi'a, with Kurdish approval, are carrying out a sectarian war against the Sunni population with American dollars and trainers.
Critics, commentators and Congressional members concerned about Iraq must shed past illusions to focus on this new reality.
The existing model for ending the Iraq conflict needs to be scrapped for a new one. As promulgated by the Iraq Study Group, the Center for American Progress, the Congressional majority and most of the media, that dubious model is to withdraw American combat troops but leave behind an embedded training force of 10,000 to 20,000 Americans [up from 3,000-4,000 currently. Figures from ISG Report, p. 71] Other American forces, under Congressional proposals, would remain behind to defend US facilities and battle al-Qaeda.
The Pentagon's own estimates, like those of the ISG and reporter James Fallows, show little evidence that the Iraqi security forces will "stand up" anytime soon. Fallows' 2004 essay was titled "Why Iraq Has No Army". Yet Fallows, in a typical mindset, while seeing "no indication that such a force is about to emerge", still concluded that the US should make "very long-term commitments to stay" and train Iraqis. [Fallows, Blind into Baghdad, p. 182, 186]. This same faith-based proposal was echoed by the ISG despite a finding that the Iraqi National Police
routinely engage in sectarian violence, including the unnecessary detention and targeted execution of Sunni Arab civilians…the police are organized under the Ministry of the Interior, which is confronted by corruption and militia infiltration…" [p. 10]
That was at the end of 2006, which was promoted as "the year of the police."
The IRG report at least emphasized that the crisis was more than incompetence, a problem that training might reduce. The larger problem was the sectarian brutality of security forces dominated by Shi'a militias.
In December 2005, a rare analysis indicated that at most seven percent of the Iraqi armed forces were Sunni, despite being twenty percent of the population. [NYT, Dec. 27, 2005]
At the same time, the Interior Ministry was placed in the hands of Bayan Jabr, a leader of the Badr militia, an organ of the Supreme Command of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI]. The commandos and so-called "public order brigades" under the same ministry are from the Shi'a militia.
The notion that the militias are lawless groups outside the state is completely false. The militias are protected by the state, and carry out its sectarian mission. US officials may be discreet in their public statements, but the "El Salvador model" has influenced their planning and appeared in Congressional testimony. If that approach were followed literally, government-backed death squads would be unleashed against suspected insurgent communities, backed by thousands of US advisors or contractors. [LAT, Mar. 12, 2007]
Gen. Petraeus, the counter-insurgency specialist now in charge of all US forces, was involved directly in the creation of the Iraqi "commando teams", a fact never explored at his recent Congressional confirmation hearings.
US officials claimed in March 2006 that they only "recently learned" that 7,700 members of the paramilitary "public order brigades" were all Shi'a. [NYT, Mar. 7, 2006] The total number of paramilitaries under the Interior Ministry, "nearly all accused of tortures and illegal killings", were 126,500 at the time. [NYT, Mar. 7, 2006]
But on Dec. 13, 2005, Gen. Martin Dempsey, in charge of training Iraqi security forces, had told ABC News, "we are fighting in a very harsh environment..these guys are not fighting on the streets of Bayonne, New Jersey." Dempsey was defending forced confessions as an acceptable cultural practice, according to ABC's Elizabeth Vargas' account.
Dempsey was discussing the Iraqi Wolf Brigade, identified by the US State Department as responsible for dragging 36 Sunnis from their homes, shooting them in the heads, and pouring acid on their faces. {NYT, Aug. 24, 2005]
SCIRI's Bayan Jabr was in charge of the Interior Ministry in November 2005 when a secret prison bunker and torture chamber was uncovered in Baghdad with 172 victims inside. He directed a Special Interrogations Unit which reported only to him. There are up to ten "unofficial" jails in Baghdad operated by these special units, holding many of the country's 29,000 inmates detained without any legal basis. [NYT, Nov. 17, 2005. See also UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, Human Rights Report, Nov.1-Dec.31, 2006, which reports on "Site Four", where 1,431 detainees gave evidence of "physical and psychological abuse."]
Direct US abuse of Iraqi detainees has occurred since early 2004 at sites like the "black room" at Camp Nama, the headquarters of the secret Task Force 6-26 near the Baghdad airport. The American motto at Camp Nama is "No Blood, No Foul." [NYT, Mar. 19, 2006]. Inmates are beaten, kicked, blindfolded, and forced to crouch in 6-by-8 foot cubicles in a compound called Hotel California. Despite 2003 warnings by military investigators, the right-wing Christian Gen. William Boykin found no misconduct at the site in an official investigation.
BBC television reporter Deborah Davies confirmed on film in November 2006 the widespread patterns of torture and ethnic cleansing in an eyewitness report on the rounding up and killing of Sunni civilians. "It's all happening under the eyes of US commanders, who seem unwilling or unable to intervene", she concluded on a Channel Four report. [BBC, Nov. 7, 2006]
Any media or Congressional investigation of these atrocities should interview James Steele, Gerald Burke and Ann Bertucci, who were attached to the US Civil Police Assistance Training Team in Baghdad. [NYT, May 22, 2006]. Steele, a retired general, was quoted in 2006 as "not regretting their creation" but worried that they had grown out of control. Bertucci admitted that American advisers were attached to the so-called Iraqi Volcano Brigade, later known as the Wolf Brigade. Burke told BBC of his frustration at trying to prevent police kidnappings and murders of Sunnis by the Shi'a units.
Baghdad, once an evenly-balanced city of five million, is being ethnically-cleansed of Sunnis at a rapid rate. "District by district, Shiites remake Iraq's capital in their own image", reported a NY headline on Dec. 23, 2006. Fifty of 51 members of Baghdad's governing council, which controls neighborhood services, are Shi'a. The government's Ministry of Public Works is proposing to take lands from six Sunni towns surrounding Baghdad and turn them over to the Shi'a. [NYT, Dec. 23, 2006] Other officials speak of building networks of dams, highways and security fortifications over previously-Sunni neighborhoods. It is too late to preserve any of the city's mixed neighborhoods, a principle objective of the military surge announced in January. The sectarian die is cast. A March report by the Times' Alissa Rubin described Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods as
"a world of ruined buildings, damaged mosques, streets pitted by mortar shells, uncollected trash and so little electricity that many people have abandoned using refrigerators altogether…
The contrast with Shiite neighborhoods is sharp. Markets there are in full swing, community projects are underway…
[NYT, Mar. 26, 2007]
Forty thousand Baghdad Sunni residents have been forced to relocate in Falluja, where they stand in a parking lot surrounded by razor wire, are hand-searched, given retinal scans, and provided ID's to enter the town or are sent into detention. [LAT, Jan. 4, 2007]
The current escalation or "surge" in Baghdad has worsened conditions significantly. The detention center in Mahmudiya recently held 705 inmates in a space designed for 75. Another on Muthana airbase held 272 in a space for 50. [NYT, Mar. 29, 2007]
In conclusion, it's a dirty war. Typically the explanation is that both sides are savagely killing civilians. That's true, but fails to note that our government, our troops and our taxes are on one side. It is impossible to deny responsibility once the facts are known. Others will claim that we "accidentally" tumbled into this disaster and can't simply walk away. Congressional hearings on this point might prove useful. Clearly, the White House and Pentagon, including the outgoing ambassador, preferred a tidy unitary state to follow after the 2003 invasion. But the role of our clandestine services has not been examined. Are we seeing the unfolding of what's been labeled "Plan B"? Who knows, but a sectarian bloodbath does have its advocates.
For example, according to Laura Rozen in an LA Times op-ed piece, significant elements of the Administration were discussing "unleashing the Shiites" at a secret meeting last November. [LAT, Nov. 16, 2007]. The idea of backing one side was explained as more efficient than trying to mediate a civil war by experts from Harvard's Kennedy School and the Center for Strategic and Military Studies. During the same month, the New YorkTimes opened its op-ed page to a Marine author who advocated unleashing the Iraqi army and police against the Sunnis, in a latter-day revisionist argument that the US should have supported the Saigon dictator Ngo Dinh Diem against the insurgents of his time. [Mark Moyar, Marine Corps University, NYT, Nov. 21, 2006].
So what is to be done?
- peace advocates and critics must focus on the new reality that American blood and taxes are being spent on propping up a sectarian government that wants to carry out an ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population.
- that it is most unlikely that this faction of Shi'a [led by Dawa and SCIRI] will ever be content to co-exist and share resources with the Sunnis.
- That the US global reputation, already ruined by Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, cannot withstand an association with sectarian death squads in a dirty war.
- That "unleashing the Shiites" will have unknown military and geo-political consequences, including increased advantages for Iran.
- That the solution is to identify, sharply regulate, or cut all US aid for police training programs, embedded advisors, etc.
- And clarify that one of the key benchmarks contained in the current supplemental funding proposal is the termination of sectarian control of the Iraqi security forces and prison system.
- Current "reconciliation" proposals, however weak, are being rejected by al-Maliki's circle. The proposed changes in the de-Baathification orders, for example, allow for re-employment of Sunnis only if they sign a pledge to make no political statements about the government, a form of indentured servitude sure to be rejected. [NYT, Mar. 27, 2006]
The current policies are leading directly to one of the three outcomes already identified in the January 2007 National Intelligence Estimate [NYT, Feb. 3, 2007]: [1] "chaos leading to partition", [2] "emergence of a Shia strongman", or [3] "anarchic fragmentation of power."
There is an alternative to these scenarios. The US needs to begin talks with representatives of the 131 Iraqi parliamentarians who already have signed a call for a US withdrawal deadline, which also is the consistent demand of 75-80 percent of the Iraqi public. There is something deeply troubling about an Administration that refuses to recognize what most Iraqis want, and which instead imposes by force what the White House wants for them. This imperial arrogance makes repression, including ethnic cleansing and secret prisons, a necessary approach to controlling a hostile population.
The US should announce its intention to withdraw, preferably with, but, if necessary, without the al-Maliki government. The announcement of a US withdrawal commitment will diminish the chief cause of violence in Iraq, and serve as a powerful inducement to end the insurgency. Sunnis insurgents, after all, are attacking the Shi'a primarily for being collaborators with the occupation. A withdrawal announcement also will be an incentive for the Arab Shi'a [for example, the two million sufferers in Sadr City] against the more theocratic and pro-Iranian Shi'a followers of Badr and SCIRI. Of course, the level of sectarian strife will not diminish overnight, and battles with al Qaeda of Mesopotamia will continue. But al Qaeda's support will diminish as the Americans leave.
In short, the problem of sectarian police violence cannot be detached from the Frankenstein state that US policies have fostered in the vacuum after Saddam Hussein. More professional training and human rights seminars will never stop the Shi'a parties from taking their revenge made possible by American money, weapons, and political support. Only a US withdrawal deadline coupled with the urgent diplomatic offensive proposed by the ISG, can possibly save Iraq "from rapid decline to rapid deterioration with grave humanitarian, political, and security consequences" as forecast in the NIE document.
The Congress should investigate just what kind of regime American troops are being ordered to defend with American dollars. If cutting off tax funding for the overall war is too much for our lawmakers at present, how can they justify the funding of secret prisons, official militias, ethnic cleansing of a US-sponsored dirty war? When did that become the authorized mission of our forces in Iraq?
There is a reason for the establishment's fear of that the story of the dirty war will come out. The American people won't stand for it. A February survey by the Washington Post/ABC showed that 70% of Americans blamed the Iraqi government, more than the US, for "failing to control the violence"; further, 66% favored cutting aid to Baghdad if the regime fails to achieve national unity and civic order. If the public becomes aware of the funding for secret prisons, torture and ethnic cleansing, support for the war itself could come to an end. #
Tom Hayden is the author of Ending the War in Iraq [Akashic, June 2007]. He teaches a course on Iraq at Pitzer College, in Claremont, California.
© 2007 Huffington Post
22 Comments so far
Show AllImpeachment, win or lose, must be initiated to save the soul of this nation.
Not only for others to see, but for us to be able to face ourselves and our children and give them anything resembling a civilized heritage, we cannot allow this kind of egregious behavior to be accepted.
Sadly, achingly, the U.S. has been moving in a bad direction for decades with the complicity of both major political parties (if that were not true, this message would not be necessary).
It almost goes without saying that they have been co-opted by total corporate influence, giving us two flavors of corporate mindset and "logic" from which to choose. That is how we have gotten to this brink, our nation under seige by one faction, and enabled by the other who are embroiled in contradictory, unsatisfactory attempts at remedying it.
The first oligarchic faction has wholeheartedly been working for decades to subvert our Constitution, disrespect her people, undo America's attempt at a social pact (the New Deal), to funnel her treasury into private hands, and to hijack our foreign policy and military.
If we should allow them continue in power without being at least charged with the crimes they commit daily just because we are near an election year, we will become MORALLY bankrupt and have nothing to pass on to our children. America will have died.
Both parties have already colluded to make elections nearly meaningless rituals that have little influence on power or actual policy.
While (free, fair) elections are (theoretically) to remedy bad policy, they are not meant to remedy blatant, deadly, subversive crimes. Impeachment is the appropriate means -- as a first step -- for that. Nothing else will do.
For our future, our planet, our dignity, our sanity, we must push this Congress to impeach!
IPENEK:
(….follow the "El Salvador model", fund death squads until the Sunni are wiped clean or so far diminished that they're a non-issue. A Shia strong-man will emerge, completely beholden to the US. Corporate oil-interests will be secure, everything will be just right.)
We should conclude with: until, the strongman, like Saddam, a business partner turned sour, becomes again the so called 'radical element', a product and reflection of predation, our propping up and support of the 'strong man' that support our exploits, until time morphs the exploited into the radicalism of blow-back.
What really irked Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Bush dynasty is that Saddam was beginning to show signs of shaking off the shackles of the U.S./Zionist ideologues and their designs upon the region.
We must remember not to refer to this invasion as a War. It is nothing more, nothing less than a Congressionally sanctioned 'Police Action' for purposes of plunder.
Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
IPENEK:
(….follow the "El Salvador model", fund death squads until the Sunni are wiped clean or so far diminished that they're a non-issue. A Shia strong-man will emerge, completely beholden to the US. Corporate oil-interests will be secure, everything will be just right.)
We should conclude with: until, the strongman, like Saddam, a business partner turned sour, becomes again the so called 'radical element', a product and reflection of predation, our propping up and support of the 'strong man' that support our exploits, until time morphs the exploited into the radicalism of blow-back.
What really irked Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Bush dynasty is that Saddam was beginning to show signs of shaking off the shackles of the U.S. neocon ideologues and their designs upon the region.
We must remember not to refer to this invasion as a War. It is nothing more, nothing less than a Congressionally sanctioned 'Police Action' for purposes of plunder.
Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Can we please refer to things by their proper names?
ethnic cleansing = murder
sanction = deprivation of basic needs
surge = more murder
How will "spoiling America's global reputation" have any effect on the lice at the head of our government?
Our Constitutional guarantees against government doing whatever it pleases are broken. They have to be mended before we can go about making sensible changes to the way we oversee our government servants.
"First was the dream of Baghdad as an exemplary democratic domino. Then the kumbaya notion of a unitary neo-liberal state with proportional representation and revenue-sharing among Shi'a, Kurds and Sunnis. All along, the US has described itself as a neutral arbiter among warring factions, a promoter of the rule of law and human rights in the Iraqi jungle."
No, first was the fear based on lies of WMDs and mushroom clouds created by Iraqi Al Qaida. The U.S. public and even our weak kneed lawmakers would never have voted to engage in an illegal invasion and occupation based on the idea that we were going to create a domino democracy in the middle east.
To forget how this war was started is to doom us to repeat the same mistake again at some future date. We have already done it twice in 40 yrs, it has to stop now, this time, never to be repeated again.
Lobo Gris
lpenek April 5th, 2007 4:30 am
"A Shia strong-man will emerge, completely beholden to the US. Corporate oil-interests will be secure, everything will be just right."
It will be Shia religiuos mullahs with a weak president like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that runs around making statements but has no real power rather than a shia strong man, and they will align with the shia religious mullahs that control Iran rather than being beholden to the U.S.
Lobo Gris
So this is it; As has been said "you can't win a conventional war against an insurgency" But you can win an unconventional one. All it takes is taking sides, and we've sided with the Shia, the winners. It's so simple, when you think of it: follow the "El Salvador model", fund death squads until the Sunni are wiped clean or so far diminished that they're a non-issue. A Shia strong-man will emerge, completely beholden to the US. Corporate oil-interests will be secure, everything will be just right. Of course, there's that little matter of genocide against the Sunni -- children that come home to their parent's heads on dinner plates and such. But Americans are too dumb to notice.
As the Bare Naked Ladies sang: It's all been dooooooooone before...
Yep, we're never leaving Iraq, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.
jp...
Yes I agree, and chances are Negroponte was intentionally positioned in Baghdad to oversee and organize those vary same Death Squad atrocities there.
Here is a piece from another article:
Bush's appointment of John Negroponte as America's first ambassador to Iraq is grim news for Iraqis looking forward to freedom. Negroponte was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras who covered up the murders by right-wing death squads. This ambassador of death helped contribute to the genocidal terror waged by the Reagan administration in Central America. A report on the terror in Guatemala states: "In 626 massacres government forces completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their dwellings, livestock and crops." Additional proof that Reagan was waging a genocidal war in Guatemala comes from the statement of a fundamental minister visiting the Reagan White House after his return from Guatemala: "The Army doesn't massacre the Indians. It massacres demons, and the Indians are demon possessed; they are communist."
Negroponte will now be free to set up right-wing death squads in Iraq and will be helped by some of the worst thugs that South America has to offer. Blackwater USA, a military contractor has hired mercenaries from Chile for security duty in Iraq......
Full Text Here:
http://colombia.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/14189.php
Best Wishes and Hope
Rebel Farmer,
I understand your motive.
However, the reason to switch NOW (and then, if you wish, switch back to vote in the primaries) is to get the visible registration and political leverage NOW, when we need it to put pressure on how Congress ACTS in our behalf -- now.
Your plan of waiting, relegates this whole tactic to merely an electoral strategy and repudiation.
What I am talking about is seeking real political leverage NOW, to put their feet to the fire for them to know NOW that the people want a different action right away, while they can still do something meaningful. This should not be simply a message saying, "we didn't like your choice of candidate," -- because waaayy too much time will have gone by and waaayy to many people will have died.
A sudden (excuse the expression) "surge" of Green registration NOW will, because of the Green Party positions on crucial issues like troop withdrawal and impeachment says, like no other way available to us at this moment: "CHANGE direction now!"
A switch to "Independent" is not nearly so clear and meaningful.
The Re-registration as Green Movement (see switch2green.org) is like an intermediary "mid-term election", solidifying and making more visible America's solid "Stop the War" movement BEFORE the Primaries -- and thus capable of influencing the not only debate and the quality of legislation at a time when this Congress NEEDS to be pushed, but also actually improving the chances of ALL progressive candidates in the Primaries (because of increased visibility of support for progressive goals) now when they need it.
"VOTE" with your Registration!! Why not?
This isn't a joke nor a self-serving Green Party maneuver. It is, rather, a sobering realization that new political tools are available to us -- if we are smart enough to use them to make our otherwise silenced voices HEARD.
This is a War ON America, even though our Congress seems not to get (or admit) that. WE, the People, must now use every arm at our disposal (unlike this wavering Congress) to get THEM -- who ARE in a position to exercise great leverage -- to ACT as though OUR OPINIONS, and the fate of our nation, mattered.
It bears repeating:
Let us act in the Spirit of '76, not in the Spin of '08.
If we say, loud and clear, there IS a political Party, the Green Party, which much better represents what is in our hearts and minds now, they will get what to do. The ball will be in their court.
Can you think of any better way/tactic to send this message so strongly? If so, let's all use it, as well ... but do this one, too. We need to win this war.
In cases like yours, Rebel Farmer: Switch NOW, switch for primaries, then switch BACK -- and don't forget to send a letter to your Representatives telling them of your Move to end this war -- so they really get that we mean business.
Let's spread this message and get things moving.
I am utterly disgusted at the casualness of references to the "El Salvador model." That was one of our most horrendous proxy wars, lots of innocent people died, including a Catholic bishop who tried to stand up to the oppression. Our history of intervention in Latin and Central America is one of the most shameful aspects of our history.
alank - Everything you said makes a lot of sense. I still beleive that the message would stronger if, after voting for Kucinich in the primaries, and Hillary gets the nomination (YUK!). The message of switching Green then would be unmistakable! The Democratic Party won't be confused about what message you are trying to send.
I hope that we can all take this two step approach - Give Kucinich the support he so desparately deserves, AND take away your support of the Democratic Party as it is constituted today.
What do you think?
Well...register Dem for only as long (a few weeks) as you think you need, if that is your desire to push for Kucinich.
Otherwise...
Turn up the People's Pressure.
A massive tactical change to the Green Party can cause an immediate effect we can barely imagine — certainly one the duopoly never counted on.
Progressives can gain some leverage for a change.
Let them know: "Yes, there IS a place to go, and one that stands for things I actually believe in. Now you can't claim you don't know what people want! Start acting accordingly!"
Getting change is the overriding reason to make the change NOW — and getting others to do the same. Numbers count.
Once you do, check out more about the party, your input will be heard there.
Dems will change their tune only when they suddenly realize they can't count eternal support of those they take for granted.
Switch to the Green Party. Ally YOUR voice with the Party which says: "We want out of Iraq NOW" and which has been calling (since '03) for the Impeachment of the biggest criminal operation in office this nation has ever seen: Bush and Cheney. (Either together, or Cheney first, I say.)
There's a site, "Switch2Green.org", that talks more about this idea.
The re-birth of Democracy must start now, as it is under attack. Saying what we want, what we need, and what direction we should be moving vis-a-vis life on the planet, human decency/respect/dignity, and participatory democracy is the best first step.
Tom Hayden says, "There is a reason for the establishment's fear of that the story of the dirty war will come out. The American people won't stand for it."
This should bring to public mind Negroponte's real purpose and mission to Baghdad, his involvement with the Death Squads and the Contra affair, and now similar finger prints all over Iraq.
Check out the following article:
NEGROPONTE - Sleeping Ambassador or Death Squad Diplomat?
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/04/con04178.html
Best Wishes and Hope
Register Democrat for the primaries and vote for Kucinich. He may not get the nomination, but at least he will have a platform to promote his Department of Peace. If enough of us do this, the Dems are going to have to face the fact that we don't want any more prez candidates that are just the "lessor of two evils".
P.S. After the primaries, you can go back to whatever official affiliation you chose to send ANOTHER message to the Dems that their candidates do NOT represent you!
Rebel Farmer, alank - great discussion (and I always enjoy your posts RF), but waiting 19 more months is not going to work. We need action NOW.
General strike. We can moan and complain, write to congressional leaders as much as we want, but that will get nowhere. Even marching in the streets will not get any attention. But a general strike? Bring the country to its knees for 1 day. Repeat the following week. And on, until either congress finds its backbone, or we discover the true nature of the US dictatorship when the army is called onto the streets.
This is the nature of democracy, not the meek waiting for sanctioned voting days. This is not "American Idol"!
"If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 7
frank...
Amen to your comment!!! We need to drive a stake through the heart of this oil sucking vampire!
The term 'War' should be routed out from the description for this illicit invasion. The correct term is a 'Congressionally Sanctioned Police Action' for the purpose of plunder.
Why do we continue couching this action in the euphemistic term of War?
Listen to anti 'police action' rally cry here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-NRriHlLUk
Best wishes and hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Ah, so much to say but I don't want to bore everyone with a long philosophical debate on several issues about this war. But I will first begin with the idea of spreading democracy, or more accurately, having other cultures adopt ours. This is just not possible. We can't change a culture with such a long history to adopt the values of another. That would be like telling China that their "quaint" Confucianism where care for the elderly is an accepted part of their culture. But, because we don't demand or expect this in our society well, the Chinese just have to change their ways. Oh, and they also shouldn't place such importance on education either, because we certainly don't.
This is just a bone headed idea that Western culture is somehow better than other cultures.
And I'll end with one last note. Sanctioning torture is simply immoral. I won't get into the one-time need for torture in cases involving the possible deaths of thousands. I'll just stick to legalized torture of anyone. It is morally wrong, period. And once the military, police or prisons begin to use torture as a common practice, it never stops there. Pretty soon everyone is being tortured, innocent and quality alike; that is why no civilized nation has ever legalized the use of torture. There are many other reason why torture isn't simply wrong but also ineffective.
Unfortunately, the USA is no longer a civilized nation. Or, more accurately, we are being lead by a group of people who have no respect for established norms and laws. We have regressed to the time of the caveman when might meant right.
Spot on, as usual, except for one tiny little thing:
There is no war. That is the most important word to this administration, and also the biggest lie.
The USA is not officially, legally, or even figuratively at WAR with any country on Earth. Continuing to refer to our "mission" in Iraq as a war allows the Puppet in Chief to claim "war powers" he does not possess. And it's clear the man does love his war powers.
Repeat after me: illegal invasion, illegal occupation. There never was a "war."
No surprise there.
Spike...
Sanctions are nothing more than 'Political Blackmail'...do as I say or we will deprive you of any means of survival.
Look at Cuba.
Look at Iraq under the hand of Bush I.
Best Wishes and Hope
Dear Dennis Kucinich:
I don't know if you heard that Gore may be running as a Green candidate. After all, the grassroots Green Party includes every progressive value while the Dems are also held in Big Money's iron grip. People are saying that you have been planted here in order to keep progressives in the Dem's fold. I don't want to believe that.
But imagine what change it would cause in the Dem Party if you and all other progressive candidates switched to Green! Or even threatened to unless Dems adopted the entire Green Party platform.
People are not turned on by standard safe Democrat issues or by Dem politician's promises. They realize that progressives have never won and will never win in this new corporate Democratic Party. They've been saying that in the end, you will roll over and endorse the corporate candidate like you did before. Sorry, but that's what's out there.
The Republicans took all three branches of government and state governments by giving the former non-voting religious right what they wanted, but Dems refuse to give progressives an inch, so many of us refuse to vote. Dems rubber stamped lots of Republican issues and are seen as wimps because they are afraid get off the corporate dole.
So yes, I may vote for progressive Dems, but I will do it as a Green Party member. I hope you will also consider switching and taking your supporters with you. If you do, and with this volatile electorate, you can win.
Best regards
That's true, Frank1569(?).
This country has not been at war since WW2.
"Congress shall have the power to declare war."
Too sad the founding fathers did not say, "and to declare peace".
Please keep reminding us.