According to UN estimates over 10 million Iraqis will be killed, injured,
displaced or traumatized by the U.S. war of aggression. It is highly likely
that U.S. military intelligence figures coincide. Washington has put in place
a military plan involving hundreds of war planes and a sea armada directed
to dropping thousands of tons of explosives on Iraqi cities, towns, essential
infrastructure and defense installations. The mass media around the world
report each and every ground, air and sea deployment in greater or lesser
specificity. U.S. public officials openly speak of the systematic destruction,
plunder and prolonged occupation of Iraq.
Genocide - massive, systematic destruction of a people and a nation - is
planned down to the last tactical detail. The minutely calculated costs of
troop movements, bombing and population displacement is determined by economists
who then estimate the war's impact on the national budget, future oil revenues,
and the length of the occupation and its projected costs.
This is scientific pre-meditated genocide, similar to what took place in
Nazi Germany at the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 when the high command
decided on extermination of the Jews. The major difference with the Nazi
experience is that Washington's decision on genocide precedes the war and
is widely publicized in public documents and in official speeches by its
executioners.
The architects of annihilation come from a plurality of ethnic, racial and
religious backgrounds: two are blacks, some are Anglo-Saxons, several are
Jews and one is Hispanic-American. With the exception of Powell, all avoided
military service or any combat role during the Vietnam War. All have been
previously involved in planning or supporting previous wars of aggression
or military atrocities. During the Vietnam War Powell wrote a report justifying
the My Lai Massacre - the U.S. Army's slaughter of hundreds of unarmed peasants.
During the Reagan Administration, Rumsfeld was a strong advocate of military
intervention and support of terrorist surrogates in Central America, Asia
and Africa. Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle designed the strategy for the
systematic destruction of the Palestinian state as advisors to Likud - a
policy since put in place by the Sharon regime.
What in the past were theoretical exercises in ethnic cleansing, planning,
localized massacres and fabricated justifications are now fused into a systematic
doctrine of international genocide. Each member of the genocide elite brings
to bear their particular pathologies: Powell, his capacity to systematically
fabricate "evidence" justifying massacres; Condeleeza Rice, her boundless
embrace of power at any price; Rumsfeld, the frustrations of never having
been anything but a mediocre non- combatant now posturing as the world's
greatest military strategist; Wolfowitz and Perle, their visceral hate for
Palestinians, Arabs and their unconditional embrace of Israeli ethnic cleansing
and terror.
What matters to the genocide elite is not primarily oil or Wall Street -
but unlimited power and world domination. They see no evil on the extreme
right - only allies like Sharon. They see only evil and "obstacles" among
critical NATO partners like Chirac and Shroeder. They patronize and promote
their ignoble and servile vassals in Eastern and Southern Europe. The beer
hall bluster and insults of Rumsfeld, echo through the silent chambers of
the United Nations. The tinny voice of Bush seeks the complicity of the American
people in order to proceed with his genocidal invasion of Iraq. Each with
their idiosyncratic style, the militarist elite move in military formation
toward the systematic destruction of an entire nation with a high sense of
impunity and blind arrogance.
But their advisers and publicists have brought to their attention that the
people are restless. Hundreds of thousands of citizens are out in the streets
in all the major cities and many of the small towns throughout the U.S. The
genociders at first dismissed those reports as " the usual leftists". But
then tens of thousands of others including prominent writers, artists, former
ambassadors and generals joined their voices to those in the street. The
genociders became shrill - they moved to deny the detonator of active public
opposition: "ban the street protests", "deny them all media coverage". They
now fabricate more audacious lies, give more press conferences, write more
belligerent speeches and send the Emperor Bush out to read them wherever
a safe audience can be guaranteed.
The genociders are becoming more hysterical - their insults grosser as they
face "obstacles" in NATO and the UN and growing opposition on the domestic
front. They feel that they are running against the clock, the longer the
Europeans delay the genocide, the greater the public awareness of the horror
of the undertaking and its implications, the more likely that the opposition
will grow to millions - beyond the control of the mass media and the police.
They want genocide now: they are obsessed that all their planning, their
fantasies of world power and a Middle-East under Anglo-Israeli power free
of Arab resistance will go to naught - that they personally will fail and
go down in history as the genociders who were defeated by their own people
and not by invading armies as their predecessors in the Third Reich.
At the cupula of power the leaders of Europe and the U.S. argue over the
conditions and timing of war: the U.S. mobilizes the Eastern European satellites
it has inherited from the former USSR, while the French, German and Belgian
governments count on the vast majority of the voters opposed to war. Washington
and Britain call up the military reserves and mobilize right wing Christian
and Zionist fundamentalists, while English, French, Italian and Spanish trade
union confederations threaten strikes and mainstream Christian churches join
with millions of citizens locking arms across nations in civil disobedience
and public protest.
The coming war in the Middle East is not simply an imperialist colonial conquest
- though it is all of that. It is a clash between barbarism and civilization:
the outcome and consequences of which will not be limited to the military
result in Iraq. We are looking at a historic confrontation between the advocates
of genocide who believe in one, two, many Afghanistans and Iraqs and the
burgeoning opposition of millions of humanity, their best writers and intellectuals,
the noble and worthy among their religious and spiritual spokespeople and,
above all, their natural leaders among the popular classes. There can be
no compromises, there will be no end, until and when, either the world embraces
a civilization cleansed of imperialism, genocide and ethnic slaughter or
we descend to an inferno of a world ruled by genocidal psychopaths who see
war as a means for perpetual domination.
As Jean Paul Sartre once wrote there is 'no exit'- we all have to make choices
and face the consequences. Wherever we live and work, we must become engaged
because the empire is everywhere from Northern Mexico to downtown Buenos
Aires, from the oil fields of the Middle East to the banks in Jakarta. So
too the people's movement is everywhere. In the streets of Rome, London,
Paris, Madrid, Athens, Seoul, Manila, New York, and hundreds of smaller cities
and towns, millions of workers, urban poor, peasants, retirees, members of
the middle class and students are mobilized.
The great confrontation has been joined. We are living history. I believe
we will win. Not from visionary faith, but from the conviction that what
we are fighting for represents the best of humankind.
Patrick J Sloyan | The Unreported Desert Slaughter of '91
http://truthout.org/docs_03/022703B.shtml
Nat Hentoff | A U.S. License to Kill
http://truthout.org/docs_03/022403A.shtml
William Rivers Pitt | Blood Money
http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml
The Facts About Rebellion
by Charley Reese
Which political leader made war on his own people, killing 262,000 of them,
burning their cities, destroying their food supply and placing the survivors
under military occupation?
If your answer is Saddam Hussein, you're wrong. The answer is Abraham Lincoln.
Accepting the Northern but incorrect view of the War Between the States,
Lincoln did exactly the same thing Saddam Hussein did. When "his own people"
rose up in armed rebellion, he crushed the rebellion, brutally and decisively.
I'm making this point not to disillusion you about Lincoln but to point out
how propaganda works. One effective way to propagandize people is to take
a fact out of context. Much has been made of the fact that Saddam Hussein
crushed the Kurdish rebellion. Any leader of Iraq would have crushed the
Kurdish rebellion. If the Scots rose up in armed rebellion today, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair would crush, or try to crush, the rebellion. What
do you think the British have been doing in Ireland lo these many years?
Any government will assert the right to self-defense. When our forefathers
chose to secede from the British Empire, the British tried to crush what
they considered a rebellion. And before you give up the delicious and high-quality
products of France, you should remember that without French troops and the
French fleet, the British would likely have succeeded.
I know it's idealistic foolishness to expect the government to tell the truth
rather than to resort to propaganda. For that reason, we, as citizens, have
to learn to recognize propaganda. To sell the war, the Bush administration
has demonized Saddam Hussein. The fact is, Saddam is a run-of-the-mill dictator,
worse than some, better than some. In the war against Iran, a nation with
three times the population of Iraq, the Iraqis used chemical weapons. So
did the Iranians. In World War I, the United States, the British, the French
and the Germans used chemical weapons. In World War II, we used nuclear weapons.
In Waco, Texas, in 1993, the Federal Bureau of Investigation used chemical
weapons against American civilians.
It's quite true that, like any other dictator, Saddam treats his political
opponents harshly, but it's also true that if you stay out of politics, you
could live as freely in Baghdad as you can in New York City. Unlike a communist-style
dictator, Saddam doesn't give a damn what Iraqis think or do unless it involves
a threat to his hold on power. There are two categories of dictators: totalitarians
who want to control every aspect of a person's life, and gangsters who just
want to stay in power. Saddam is in the gangster category. Iraqi women, for
example, are entitled to free education, just the same as men, and are free
to choose any vocation they wish. Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had one of
the largest middle classes in the Middle East, one of the best education
systems and one of the best health care systems. We, not Saddam, have destroyed
all three with the war and economic sanctions.
Another propaganda technique is to focus on Saddam. To hear the Bush administration
and to watch American television, you'd think Iraq was occupied by one individual,
Saddam. He's only one of 25 million people, and the overwhelming majority
of Iraqis are just like us, with the same dreams and hopes we have.
I don't give a damn about Saddam Hussein. He's a tough guy and a killer.
He's lived 66 years in a tough and dangerous world. I'm sure he's ready to
die if it comes to that. But why should Iraqi children have to die or be
maimed or orphaned just because our political leader doesn't like their political
leader? It's too bad we can't give Bush and Saddam each a knife, put them
both in a dark room and let them settle the matter between themselves.
World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil
January 27, 2003
Many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know
that under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in
suits are hard at work.
While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies, we
know that contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipelines
are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatized,
and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq.
If we look at this conflict as a straightforward eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation
between "Empire" and those of us who are resisting it, it might seem that
we are losing.
But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered here, have,
each in our own way, laid siege to "Empire."
We may not have stopped it in its tracks - yet - but we have stripped it
down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It
now stands before us on the world's stage in all it's brutish, iniquitous
nakedness.
Empire may well go to war, but it's out in the open now - too ugly to behold
its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won't be long
before the majority of American people become our allies.
Only a few days ago in Washington, a quarter of a million people marched
against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum.
Before September 11th 2001 America had a secret history. Secret especially
from its own people. But now America's secrets are history, and its history
is public knowledge. It's street talk.
Today, we know that every argument that is being used to escalate the war
against Iraq is a lie. The most ludicrous of them being the U.S. Government's
deep commitment to bring democracy to Iraq.
Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption is,
of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here in Latin America, you know
that better than most.
Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (whose
worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States and
Great Britain). There's no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without
him.
But, then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr. Bush.
In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.
So, should we bomb Bush out of the White House?
It's more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against Iraq, regardless
of the facts - and regardless of international public opinion.
In its recruitment drive for allies, The United States is prepared to invent
facts.
The charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government's offensive, insulting
concession to some twisted form of international etiquette. It's like leaving
the "doggie door" open for last minute "allies" or maybe the United Nations
to crawl through. But for all intents and purposes, the New War against Iraq
has begun.
What can we do?
We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to
build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can turn the war
on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government's excesses.
We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair - and their allies - for the cowardly
baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that
they are.
We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other
words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in
the ass.
When George Bush says "you're either with us, or you are with the terrorists"
we can say "No thank you." We can let him know that the people of the world
do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs.
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it.
To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music,
our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness
- and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from
the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are
selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons,
their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need
them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I
can hear her breathing.
- Arundhati Roy
for the whole talk go to http://www.zmag.org
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Patriots and Traitors
by Dave Hunter
I just finished watching Tuesday's Donahue show featuring Media Benjamin
of Global Exchange http://www.globalexchange.org and Jesse Jackson scrapping
it out with 3 self avowed patriots who leveled charges that all the peace
protesters were traitors & hated America. It's fascinating to me that
the difference between "Patriot" and Traitor" is just two letters, and ironically,
they're "PR". How can these blustery dunces appear on national TV with a
straight face claiming that they & THEIR president & his cronies
are patriots? Get this:
We know Saddam has Anthrax, as well as botulism & bubonic plague, because
the Reagan Administration GAVE him the starter cultures. The emissary on
that mission? Donald Rumsfeld. Don't believe it? Type "Rumsfeld" + "Anthrax"
+ "Iraq" into your search engine.
That Dick Cheney's sure a patriot! He'd never aid our enemies, right? Think
again. As CEO of Halliburton, he went around the UN embargo by using foreign
subsidiaries Dresser-Rand & Ingersoll-Dresser Pump to rebuild Iraq's
oil infrastructure just 3 years ago. Not only did he seek to do business
with the enemy, he broke the law doing it. Estimates of the deal vary from
between 23 and 78 million. Cheney's take amounted to approximately thirty
pieces of pirate silver (adjusted for inflation from 33 A.D.) Need proof?
Type "Halliburton" + "Iraq" into your search engine.
Admiral John Poindexter, recently put in charge of going over your e-mails
& credit card receipts, is a convicted felon who sold Stinger missiles
to the Iranians, used the profits to fund an international terrorist organization,
then lied to congress about it. Along with the Stinger missiles, Poindexter
delivered to the Ayatollah a Bible and a key-shaped cake. Go ahead and and
call us protestors as unpatriotic as you like, at least we didn't bake any
stinking cakes for the Ayatollah. Too young to remember this? Keywords are
"Poindexter" + "Iran".
Worried that you or a loved one may have to serve in the Persian Gulf? Take
a tip from shrub.
Keywords "George Bush" + "AWOL"
http://whitehouse.org
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PEACE IS PATRIOTIC
by Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, Ret. President, Institute for Space
and Security Studies, National Advisor, Veterans For Peace, Presiding Archbishop,
United Catholic Church.
I'm here representing Veterans For Peace, an organization of thousands of
combat veterans. All of us have put our life on the line for this country.
And all of us are opposed to a war with Iraq.
Saddam Hussein is a bad guy. I don't know anyone who disagrees with that.
He's a bad guy now. He was a bad guy in 1990 when April Glaspie of the State
Department gave him the green light to invade Kuwait. He was a bad guy in
the 1980s when Donald Rumsfeld sat down with him for a chat while he was
gassing the Kurds. He was a bad guy in 1977 when Zbigniew Brzezinski met
with him and proposed the invasion of Iran. And he was a bad guy in the 1960s
when the CIA hired him to assassinate Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim and
then helped him take over Iraq.
He's always been a bad guy. But he was always our bad guy. Right up to 1990,
official DOD documents praised Saddam for vastly improving the education,
medical care, and standard of living of his people. His regime was called
one of the most enlightened, progressive governments in the region and it
was.
But there was a problem. The Berlin wall had come down and the Soviet Union
had collapsed. The first Bush White House had to find another bad guy --
fast. And they did -- Saddam Hussein. They suckered him into attacking Kuwait,
and the first Gulf War was on. This was the war the first Bush administration
wanted, the war they planned for, the war they instigated, the war they salivated
over, the war that Saddam's unconditional withdrawal wasn't going to deny
them, the war that would show off our smart bombs better than a hundred trade
shows, the war that would prove George wasn't a wimp, the war that would
make billions for the future president George W. Bush, who had exclusive
rights to offshore oil in the Gulf, the war that would kill the "loser" image
from Vietnam once and for all.
Now the second President Bush wants his Gulf War too. Planning for it started
long before 9/11, even before he became president. In September 1990, his
advisers set "regime change" in Iraq as a primary objective of US foreign
policy should Bush become president. They made it clear that the purpose
of moving against Saddam is to set the stage for occupying the entire Middle
East (and therefore controlling its oil, no matter who's in power, especially
in Saudi Arabia).
The problems with starting a preemptive war against Iraq are several: (1)
It would be immoral and would probably be judged illegal by the World Court.
(2) It would be costly, in terms of American lives and in dollars. (3) It
would require us to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely. (4) It would fracture
NATO, split the United Nations, and come between us and our allies. (5) It
would incense the Arab world, probably causing the downfall of friendly governments
who cooperate with us (like Saudi Arabia and Turkey). (6) It would provide
Osama bin Laden with thousands of new recruits ready to die in a Holy War
against Americans. (7) It would therefore cause an enormous increase in the
terrorist threat to Americans at home and abroad. It might even cause World
War III. It would destroy our national security and further endanger the
American people.
As a combat veteran, I will not stand idly by and watch our security destroyed
by a president who went AWOL rather than fight in Vietnam. I say, "NO" to
war against Iraq. As one who has devoted his life to the security of this
country, I will not stand by and watch an appointed president send our sons
and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so the oil companies can sell
the oil under their sand, making us the target of terrorists.
I say, "NO" to war against Iraq. I joined the Air Force to protect our borders
and our people, not the financial interests of Folgers, Chiquita Banana,
and Exxon. I say, "NO" to war against Iraq. As a pilot who flew 101 combat
missions in Vietnam, I can tell you that the best thing our government can
do for its combat veterans is to quit making more of them. I say "NO" to
war against Iraq.
Peace is patriotic; a preemptive war is immoral, illegal, unconstitutional,
and a war crime. I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies -- foreign and domestic. That includes a renegade president.
If this war happens, I will call for the impeachment of George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the whole oil Mafia. I say "NO" to war against
Iraq. We are the people. We are sovereign. The whole world is with us. And
we say, "NO!" "NO" to war! "NO" to preemptive war. "NO" to wars of aggression.
"NO" to war against Iraq. "NO!" "NO!" "NO!" This war would be treason! PEACE
is patriotic. God bless America! And God save us from George W. Bush!
http://www.veteransforpeace.org
http://www.gwbush.com/
"The time for peace is now. At the dawn of a new millennium, there is no
better time to review age old challenges with new thinking that peace is
not only the absence of violence, but the presence of a higher evolution
of human awareness with respect, trust and integrity toward humankind. Our
founding fathers recognized that peace was one of the highest duties of the
newly organized free and independent states. But too often, we have overlooked
the long-term solution of peace for instant gratification of war. This continued
downward spiral of violence must stop to ensure that future generations will
live in peace and harmony."
-- Dennis Kucinich
"It has never happened in history that a nation that has won a war has been
held accountable for atrocities committed in preparing for and waging that
war. We intend to make this one different. What took place was the use of
technological material to destroy a defenseless country. From 125,000 to
300,000 people were killed... We recognize our role in history is to bring
the transgressors to justice." --Ramsey Clark
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"If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no
hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are
opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to
making a better world. That's your choice"
-- Noam Chomsky
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in
a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil must
be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
annihilation."
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless
or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its
corruption and lawlessness."
-- Mohandas Gandhi
All information posted on this web site is
the opinion of the author and is provided for educational purposes only.
It is not to be construed as medical advice. Only a licensed medical doctor
can legally offer medical advice in the United States. Consult the healer
of your choice for medical care and advice.