| "We
[Americans] are not who we believe we are and, in some
sense, others perceive us more accurately than we do
ourselves." - Andrew Bacevich |
 |
An Anomic Army Marches Home to America
(and they’ve been trained to kill)
18.10.03 Wars don’t end when victory is declared, the damaging
effects last long afterwards and not just in the theater of
operations but also back home. America is anything but insulated
from the damaging fallout from this discretionary and
unnecessary war based on lies from beginning to end. Reading
about the war in Iraq, one thing I can’t get out of my mind is
the after-effects, the future
Timothy McVeigh bombers and
John Allen Muhammad
snipers. They're
out there waiting to be sent home from a living nightmare to
become unemployed, angry and with a mountain of festering
psychological baggage.
Disillusion, anger and a thirst for revenge against the lying
string-pullers in Washington DC who’ve sent you and your best
friends into a no-win situation where you face death, struggle
and omnipresent pubic animosity every day. Someone is gonna pay…
Many of these soldiers are young, and in many ways naďve
and idealistic, they're victims of a massive gap of
expectations – between what they believe based on what
they’ve been told, and what they actually find out to be
true. Equally critical is the fact that most are male,
they're not especially adept at effectively expressing
the intense emotions of how they feel using words,
but violent
actions come easily. This coupled with a burned-in, battle-hardened
attitude is a recipe for disaster. Even more appalling is
the lack of counseling being given to returning soldiers,
especially Reserve troops, apparently due to lack of
resources!
 |
Wake up call for the 'GI Joe' generation - real
life be different than TV! |
William Gentry, an Iraq veteran and prosecutor in San Diego,
explained, “You are unleashing certain things in a human being
we don’t allow in civic society, and getting it all back in
the box can be difficult for some people.”
Indeed, much of military training centers around a deliberate
‘re-programming’ which encourages an “us or them,” “whatever
it takes” outlook, resulting in behaviors and attitudes that
are incompatible with civilian life and deep distrust and
confusion among mentally traumatized troops.
…
According to a letter written to
Nebraska state authorities by Strasburg’s former platoon
leader, Captain Benjamin Tiffner—who the Times noted was
killed by an improvised explosive device in Baghdad in
November—Strasburg needed care for combat trauma caused by
following orders. “Seth has been asked and required to do very
violent things in defense of his country,” Tiffner wrote. “He
spent the majority of 2003 to 2005 in Iraq solving very
dangerous problems by using violence and the threat of
violence as his main tools. He was congratulated and given
awards for these actions. This builds in a person the
propensity to deal with life’s problems through violence and
the threat of violence.”
From:
Mounting social distress among returning US troops, by
Naomi Spencer, February 7, 2008.
America's Economy is Based on Perpetual War
15.09.03
It's increasingly apparent that America is in a losing position
trying to fight threatening beliefs, like radical Islam, with
guns and bombs. But I have a feeling that one or more members of
W. Bush and Associates have an awareness of the futility in
their campaign of world war. From an electoral sense, as well as
from a shortsighted economic view, defeat of the enemy is not
the goal and in fact that would be counter-productive. The motivation
behind modern warfare is the confluence of short-term political
gain and medium-term economic realities.
Direct federal spending is the quickest and simplest means (but
most costly due to the interest due on the debt) of boosting the
domestic economy; it's directly equated into Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). Further, the simplest method of doing that is
massive defense spending. President Reagan read from the same
script during the Cold War spending federal cash wildly on every
conceivable weapons system from stealth aircraft to space based
weapons like the Star Wars Defense Initiative (SDI), and even
trying to build an entirely new class of nuclear-tipped
ballistic missiles, among other things. The primary aim was
boosting the domestic economy, but the secondary reason was
competition against the Soviet Union; it was a race to
bankruptcy.
The only way America can get away with deficit spending on the
scale it does is the fact the debt is Dollar denominated which
means paying it off is as easy as inflating the currency - just
print a new dollar to pay off an old one! Even better, from a
sitting politicians viewpoint the negative
financial consequences will nearly always fall on the following
administration not your own!
In practice the gainers from this system are not as obvious as
might be thought. Perpetual war gives the defense contractors
something to do, but anymore it only keeps their doors open as
the world arms market is saturated with competing products. A bigger windfall goes to private companies who work as
direct government contractors such as SAIC or
Halliburton. Few pundits
recognize the fact that most of the money isn't going into bombs
and tanks it's just a massive accumulation of little things, like
packaged food, uniforms, replacement parts, and especially
military support services. Predominately in the American
southeast, entire towns are employed by the military,
often around bases, and indeed massive unemployment there would
ensue if the military funding tap was cut off. Similarly, many
factories exist which do nothing but make products for the
military, everything from glass cleaner to hats, and many of
these small business are run by former military officers who get
their contracts based on personal connections.
|
One thing both
Republicans and Democrats conveniently ignore is that both
of them are rabid sponsors of welfare; it’s just in
different forms. Whether it’s packaged as national defense
(meaning military spending) or as anti-poverty (meaning
social welfare), the money still comes from the same
source.
However the
destination of the funding does differ in a key way.
Defense spending is primarily directed at the South and
Midwest, while social welfare is aimed at the cities.
The Republicans are using their government welfare
spending to placate and buy the votes of the White, rural
poor while the Democrats are targeting the poor, urban
Black and Latino voters.
War or poverty
both are money pits that can never be filled and needs
that can never be sated so the war, be it on poverty or on
terrorists, is a perpetual one. |
The war economy's effects and beneficiaries are not as thinly
spread as many think. But we often fall to realize that all
military spending in America is never turned off, it's like a
faucet spewing taxpayer money and it goes from medium flow to
full blast depending on Presidential whim. Further it's also
borrowed money, it isn't a gain like steel or computer chip
production, it's a loss. Now true, there's a certain economic
logic to direct federal spending because it can boost a sluggish
economy, but when it becomes locked-in and institutionalized
then it's like a subsidy, it's not in balance with supply and
demand. This is especially ironic when considering the
'free-trade' aim to remove government subsidies for national
industry. So the federal government can't legally help to build
a computer chip factory to give Americans jobs but it can build
a Navy base and employ both military people and a town full of
support civilians.
Clearly this system of perpetual war for near-term economic gain
is perverse, to say the least, but it helps to explain the need
for new enemies every decade and especially ones that are
amorphous and impossible to actually defeat, like 'terrorism' or
drugs.
And now the 'war on terrorism', along with the Department of
Homeland Defense, has spawned its own satellite industry of
security and technology-based factories and insider contracts,
it's like a second military! The war economy grows bigger by the
day while the legitimate, independent economy shrinks.
America spends more on its military
then about every other major country combined! The yearly budget
for the Defense Department is now estimated at $450 billion give
or take a few billion. No comparable military force exists
anywhere to compete with the United States military machine;
where's the justification anymore? It doesn't have to be this
way.
America absolutely has to create independently viable industries
for the 21st century, and hopefully ones that benefit the public
and not just give them idle employment. There are so many places
to put the money besides weapons and military support. Nanotechnology, biotech, why not find a synthetic fuel that
costs less than $20 a barrel and eliminate foreign fossil fuel
dependence? Or build a research colony on the Moon or Mars? Why
not replace the space shuttle or find a cheaper way to move
cargo into orbit and open up entirely new economies!? Explore
the bottom of the ocean or just give every American a huge cash
check - after all the spending would achieve the same goal from
a traditional Keynesian economic perspective as long as they
spend it (not a problem I'm sure)! The list is endless and
Americans are creative people for the most part, why can't they
translate that asset into novel government policy? There's never
been a better time.
Understanding bin Laden
11.09.03
For brevity I'm going to start out by using at least two
assumptions and one reasonable conclusion. The assumptions are
that al Qaida is a real, organized terrorist group with the
primary aim of attacking United States interests worldwide and
that Osama bin Laden is the leader of al Qaida. The conclusion
is that the attacks on the WTC towers and the Pentagon were, if
not directed by Osama, at the very least enthusiastically
approved of; Osama has stated as much himself.
Osama is himself a former money man and he knows how the
western business world works, for that is what he trained for and
did for a living before becoming a militant, religious radical.
He views the United States as an imminent threat to his religion
and his beliefs, and especially that of his ethnic brethren in
the Arab world and his religious brethren throughout the globe.
Why? Well, briefly here's the history:
All of this enmity goes back to the creation of the state of
Israel in 1948 which deprived Palestinians and Arabs of land
they considered to be their own by virtue of the fact they and
their ancestors before them had lived, farmed and died in that
geographic location for hundreds of years.
Similarly, for hundreds of years Jews lived dispersed throughout
the world (but mostly in Eastern Europe) united by their
religion.
Zionism was invented in the 19th century as a tool to connect
Jews throughout the world with something they had not had before
- a common home. Zionism used religious literature to define the
Jewish homeland as the land west of the Jordan River. Palestine
was not the first place considered, even Brazil and Madagascar
were tossed around at one point, but it was the most viable of
the options at the time because it was close to Europe and
controlled by a receptive nation - England. Influential Jews
made a deal with England during World War I to sponsor their
side of the war in return for assistance in creating their new
Zionist homeland. This alliance culminated in the Balfour
Declaration which committed England to the creation of a
Zionists state in that strategic wedge of land in Western Asia,
but it really only gave the Jews a foot in the door and a
tentative string of settlements.
The actual
British motivation behind the restructuring of Palestine was
much less one of charity towards Jews as it was of simple
opportunism. The British government colluded with Jewish Zionism
in order to cement control over a strategically important region
of the world while also denying control to opponents, especially
their inveterate economic competitors in central Europe
(Germany). The Balfour Declaration was also seen as a means of
getting the Jews out of the country; unfortunately for England
the ‘win-win’ situation never materialized.
During World War II the Jewish leadership again sided with the
allies and the return payment being full-blown statehood after
the war - in other words, completing what they had started.
Indeed this is quite ironic given the current Israeli government
resistance to the present Palestinian effort to achieve statehood, but as we'll see this sad tale is rife with
double-standards. Anyway, by the end of World War II England
was for all practical purposes defeated and their Imperial power
was eclipsed by that of the United States, but the objectives of
both remained interwoven.
Transfer of Power - Political Power Follows Economic
Two devastating, fratricidal world wars in the space of 40 years
had left Europe physically and economically ruined.
Control of the imploded British Empire, and basically everything
that colonial Europe controlled plus the direct influence of
world affairs that went with it, all were transferred to the
source of the money which financed both world wars - the United
States of America.
The United Nations was one of the primary elements in the
post-war restructuring of the world order.
The United States
helped found the United Nations which although created for
multiple, often humanitarian reasons, was essentially seen by
the elite in America as a tool for granting legitimacy to
certain international policy decisions, especially in this case
concerning the Jews and Israel. One of the first acts of the new
United Nations was to officially recognize Israel as a state in
1948. Wars followed, the Arabs lost, and Israel expanded -
that's the story up until the present.
Today the United States government is an unwavering and
uncritical ally of the state of Israel, and by extension Israeli
government policies such as the expansion of illegal settlements
in occupied territory. This alliance takes the form of billions
of dollars in military aid in equipment and technology, as well
as direct financial assistance in the form of cash payments as
'foreign aid' and loan guarantees, among other things. Since
Israel is an implacable foe of Arab states and Islam in general Osama bin Laden reasons, just as former General Ariel Sharon of
Israel does, that coexistence is impossible and defeat of the
enemy is the only path leading to victory. Further, since Israel
would not have the military tools or finances to survive
independently from the United States (they don't), in order to
stop Israel one must stop America, right? So now the question is:
how do you stop America?
Tactics of a Terrorist
It's very important to realize that Osama sees the United States
as a financial leviathan which can only be defeated by going to
the heart and stopping the blood flow of this enemy beast; the
heart is New York and the blood is money - Dollars. Osama's
conclusion defines the palette of targets for al Qaida. The
heart of the financial world, and thus the American financial
empire is New York which is the main center for world trade -
gold is priced and sold in Dollars, so is oil and most other
crucial commodities.
Two of the biggest strikes so far have been the WTC towers and a
hotel bombed in
 Bali,
both of which are clear attacks on western finances; WTC is
trade and Bali is tourism. Secondary targets for al Qaida
are military, hence the attacks on the USS Cole and the Pentagon.
But the widely dispersed range of targets in time and space
testify to the disorganized and haphazard nature of al Qaida's
terrorist network and its asymmetrical combat. The asymmetrical
nature of the conflict is necessary because the terrorists
cannot control the battlefield but must instead wait and plot in
order to find the most opportune moment to strike, and when they
do must attack a target with the highest reward to them and the
greatest damage to the enemy for the least effort; they seek the
biggest bang for the buck.
In a strategic sense Al Qaida faces a serious deficiency in the
pacing of attacks, they instead are essentially random and do
not escalate; this indicates a lack of central coordination and
tactical control of the battlefield. Such lack of coordination
has to be less than desirable from al Qaida's perspective but
may be an acceptable tradeoff for achieving the security of a
decentralized terrorist network.
Al Qaida may well be more of a
symbol than an actual coordinated entity, likely an umbrella
label for multiple, loosely connected gangs of hotheads and
Islamic religious radicals who identify with Osama bin Laden and
his ideals and band together on a local level to plot and attack
according to their resources. Al Qaida organizes training in
some cases and this allows for at least a semblance of
coordination in tactics and targets because at least one member
in each regional terrorist group has been clued in on the
goals and spiritual mission.
The Bankrupting of America
The frightening conclusion here is that if al Qaida,
meaning Osama bin Laden, truly sees success in their holy
crusade as being won through the financial destruction of
America then Osama has found about the most desirable opponent
he could pray for in President George W. Bush. No wonder Osama
is convinced his mission is sanctioned by Allah for Bush has
forced a discretionary war on America against Iraq without sound
pretext and without any discretionary spending to pay for it!
Today America is actually paying foreign countries, like Poland,
to send their troops into Iraq to create the illusion of an
international effort and get a few America soldiers out of the
firing line. The official cost of continuing operations in Iraq
is estimated at 4,000,000,000 US Dollars per month.
Further, there's still no evidence to connect terrorism, i.e. Osama bin Laden, with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who
ran a secular, socialist regime. Factoring in the costs for
fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and everywhere else brings annual
defense spending to
around half a trillion dollars
a year!
 The end result is that Bush got his war in Iraq and every
American is now paying for it, some with their very lives and
the rest with their own money as the carnage continues long
after victory was declared. To
pay for this stunning debacle the federal government is taking
out loans so fast the worldwide debt market is choking on the
volume of paper flooding it! The price of gold is rising
noticeably as it's seen as about the last safe-haven in times of
high debt and financial turmoil. Current federal deficits are
being compared to Reagan's tenure of reckless Cold War spending
and the war in Iraq is approaching
similar costs as that of the Vietnam
conflict.
So where's the reward? Where are the gains?
The truth is America
gains nothing from war in Iraq but loses on a scale too vast to
fathom. The financial loss is staggering and the political loss
is nearly as appalling, for not only has the United Nations been
undermined but the world community itself has been fragmented by
the unilateral approach of the Bush administration.
The winners are not America, or even her allies, but rather its
enemies. Osama has been completely justified in claiming America
is a menace to the Muslim world and gains a theater of direct
combat in Iraq with which to send fighters to attack and kill
Americans. New converts are flooding in to train, fight and die
for al Qaida amidst the rhetoric and polarization of dialogue
which obscures the real issues of ignorance, poverty,
injustice and flagrantly biased foreign policy.
Logic would dictate that the interests of a sovereign and
independent state like the United States would be best served
through fair and objective dealings with all foreign nations,
not with taking sides and then refusing to question or analyze
unhealthy relationships. Taking sides in any conflict, much less
one as fractious as that between the Jews and Arabs, should be
taken only with the greatest of trepidation and planning, and
likely should not be done at all. Promoting injustice and
getting deeply involved in foreign conflicts is a recipe for
violent retribution.
The present situation is entirely unsustainable, but America is
trapped between two formidable and seemingly immovable objects.
Over the past fifty years the Jewish lobby in America has built
an incredibly potent machine for manipulating United States
foreign policy to favor the state of Israel and its government
to the point that no federal representative can question this
state of affairs without swift and severe retribution. Questioning Israel, or American
foreign policy concerning the total support of that west-Asian
mini-state, means career suicide for an American politician and
instead the ones that want to climb the ladder do the opposite,
they ask how much more can be given to Israel!
It appears that America will continue down the same perilous
path until it either reaches financial oblivion and is
physically unable to sustain the current state of worldwide
warfare and military sponsorship of ultra-violent militant
regimes, or until it seriously reevaluates its external
associations and adopts a foreign policy as detached and
impartial as practically possible, thereby undercutting the
explosive fuel of injustice powering the likes of dangerous
terrorists like Osama bin Laden.
In
a dream ending for the chapter of history being written now in
Iraq, neo-conservatives fantasised before the war about a
privatised, pro-American Iraqi oil industry. This would have
access to the world's second largest hydrocarbon reserves and
produce so much oil that Saudi Arabia, in charge of Opec,
would lose its grip on petrol prices.
The world would then be swimming in inexpensive petrol - the
cost of which would be dictated by the market, not by an
anti-American price-fixing club run by Riyadh. Low prices
would also mean falling revenues for oil-producers, which in
the Middle East might precipitate the collapse of regimes
hostile to the US. These hopes are now being dissipated like
sand before the desert wind.
Oil is dribbling, rather than pumping,
from Iraq's bomb-blasted oil industry. Sabotage and theft mean
Iraq's oil production remains at a fraction of the levels
achieved under Saddam. With reconstruction failing to take
off, there is little sign of a post-Ba'athist dividend in the
form of low oil prices. The result is that US action in Iraq
has not weakened Opec, and hence Saudi Arabia, but
strengthened it. Oops!
Ironic isn't it that Iraq under Saddam produced far more oil
for worldwide consumption than under the 'liberated' rule of
President Bush?
From:
Bush's oil move backfires, The Guardian, August 5,
2003.
The Israeli Factor
14.04.03 One simply cannot understand
American foreign policy without Israel in the equation and this
war plan unfolding today is about Israel at least as much as it
is about oil. But the oil is not so much for American
consumption as it is political and economic control of a crucial
commodity. This is the same criticism leveled against Saddam
when he invaded Kuwait - he could control half the world's oil
supplies and extort world governments and influence policy, oh
no! But now Bush does the same thing and it's a wonderful new
world of freedom and democracy! The point is that oil is a commodity
that must be controlled in order to further American-Israeli
interests, with an emphasis on the second one.
Arab diplomatic sources said the
U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq shut down the Iraqi-Syrian oil
pipeline that extended from Kirkuk to the Syrian port city of
Banyas. The Iraqi oil then continued via pipeline to the
northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. - World Tribune
First task: turn off the spigot. Not only does the U$
now have military bases in the heart of west-Asia but Iran is nearly
surrounded, with nominally American controlled Afghanistan on the
other side, and Syria is nearly surrounded with Israel on the other
flank. All these enemies of Israel can be kept in line
through fear, and directly targeted through economic
warfare such as the sanctions about to be slapped on a
'non-compliant' Syria and the oil deprivation against Syria and
Lebanon of more limited effect. And of course the Palestinian
suicide 'martyr' families won't be getting those $10,000 dollar
payments from Saddam anymore.
Israel is set to get a
direct pipeline of Iraqi oil through Jordan, terminating at
the Israeli port of Haifa. What a deal! Let no one claim the
Bush administrations is difficult to predict anymore, Hitler's
policies of military aggression had more subtlety and nuance
than Bush & Associates. Look at the biggest supporters for this
war on Iraq, who are they? Neo-conservatives, Likud backers, Israel lobby and
the Christian Fundamentalists and Dispensationalists.
Much of the American public knows
they've been lied to about this war on Iraq, from beginning to
end, but the widespread attitude in America is - so what? Who
cares? Which itself is indicative of shortsighted ignorance
among other flaws, but whatever the case they should care
and here's why:
Public acquiescence shows
those in government that blatant, self-serving lies and
hypocrisy are deemed completely acceptable behavior by the
American electorate.
The root source of
terrorism is economic and social instability and this present
age of imperialistic warfare is like gasoline on that smoldering fire.
The political elite are
crafting a self-fulfilling situation wherein greater
worldwide instability plays directly into their plans. They
can use this artificial disorder as a pretext to consolidate
their power, deprive the public of its rights, negate the
Constitution and use increased warfare as a smokescreen and
diversion against escalating domestic problems.
Israel is not friendly to
American interests, they consume billions of American
taxpayer dollars in aid and economic subsidies, re-sell
sensitive, top-of-the-line American military equipment
around the world (China and India are major customers) and
kills American citizens without remorse,
compensation or even an official apology such as Rachel Corrie or Thomas Hurndall.* As the saying goes with friends
like Israel who needs enemies?!
Countries, just like
individuals, are known by the company they keep. The Israeli
government is regularly censured by the UN and multiple
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) for their apartheid
social-political structure, chronic abuse and degradation of
women, military-police brutality, and gross-violations of
human-rights, just to start with.
The Bush administration has
consistently stifled the efforts of developing world debt-relief
organizations, yet suddenly after Iraq has been 'regime changed': whoa,
these poor people need help with ! Iraq's foreign debts total up to 300 billion dollars. The double
standards of Bush & Associates are as blatant as they are
shameless, they don't even care - it seems that only divine
retribution for hubris can stop them now anyway. But in the
meantime they'll be busy knocking down all of Israel's enemies
one after the other. Witness that immediately after Iraq
is wasted and the countries money and natural resources
expropriated into U$ control, Rumsfeld and the rest start
vilifying Syria. Now it seems Syria has a vast arsenal of deadly
chemical weapons while protecting all of Saddam's minions
recently vanished from Iraq. Phase two begins.
"[Israel has] a long list of
issues we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians, and it would
be best done through the Americans." - Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz
 And of course the Bush
administration has so much credibility after telling the
world that Iraq had everything from chemical to nuclear
weapons hidden ready to torch the world (how?!) if
America didn't go in and 'take out' Saddam. Then where
are these weapons?! If the Iraqi military machine was so
big and bad why did they crumble like a sandcastle at
high tide?
So the American government has
defied world opinion to do this completely discretionary war
against Iraq, already spent at least $80 billion dollars to
begin with, trade and budget deficits are hovering around record
levels, unemployment is increasing and the world economy is set
for a 'double-dip' recession. Anger and resentment at the
hypocrisy and injustice has already fanned the flames of
fundamentalism and polarized opinion, setting the stage for even
more bloody and contentious conflict throughout the near future.
So then what do American's get from this prelude to perpetual
war? Where's the benefit to the public, the taxpayer, the voter,
the unemployed, the working mom, the small-business owner? I'm
at a loss.
Any consistent criticism of Israel
always draws out the same tired whine from the supporters of the
dysfunctional status-quo - 'you can't say that it's
anti-Semitism!' Look, if you're honestly trying to identify
facts and speak the truth you can't let spurious, emotionally
charged slander like anti-Semitism stop you and this is why: the
portion of the Israeli populace that actually wants to clean up
their corrupt and brutal government and integrate with the world
needs external support to achieve their task. As long as
American presidential administrations tacitly and overtly
support the worst excess' and regimes in Israel such as the Likud party and Ariel Sharon, Israel will not become safer,
livable or respected but rather more dangerous more hated and
more isolated throughout the world.
Further, if America continues to share the same bed with
Israel, America and Americans will get up with the same diseases.
* All right, Thomas Hurndall is British
and he's only brain dead, but the fact remains that the
killing of activists really is being done on purpose by
the Israeli military. And indeed it's difficult to conceive how a
sniper bullet through the head can be anything but
intentional. The Israeli military knows that if they just slay a
few they can claim it's an accident and maintain just enough
plausibility to cover their own butts and still scare away the protesters and cameras so they can
go back to the business of demolishing homes and fruit trees as
part of project: creeping colonies.
|
A Visual dictionary of
modern American warfare |
 |
You Can't Spell War
Without Dubya
21.02.03 Notice to Americans
and non-Americans living in those other countries
that are not America. Here is your official
George W Bush update, just in case you've been in
prison or an uncharted desert isle the past six
months.
The 'War on
Terrorism' has so far cost at least $28
billion dollars and
considering how much safer we all feel
it has to be money well spent, right? Headline: U$ budget
deficit at record levels as federal
spending runs amok. Spending
money is easy when it's someone else's
and they even let you sign checks with a
stamp!! Attention Federal Reserve:
America needs greenbacks, don't let her
down - keep those printing presses hot
boys!
After just a
few years of surplus' the
government has announced it's out of cash
and has to borrow more, a lot
more, or go bankrupt. Keen observers out
there may be feeling deja vu right about
now since the federal government just
went through the same debt ceiling
battle nine months ago. So, how much more
are we talking? $500 billion dollars
would likely be a very close guess. Sorry
guys can't help ya, my savings account is
already tapped out, try Japan. Bush buddy Donald
Rumsfeld pushes for abolition of the
Chemical Weapons Convention so he can
preemptively gas the Iraqis. The nightly
news may have forgotten to tell you that
one, probably just an honest mistake.
Bush and
trusty sidekick, the venomous Condi Rice,
declare that massive worldwide protests
against unprovoked war on Iraq are all
just working for the benefit of that
dastard Saddam. Further,
these significant efforts by the public
to voice a non-executive-approved-opinion
will be ignored by the President because
they just get in the way of freedom and
democracy. Whoa, and I was nervous there
for a second - stick to your guns Dubya (you've
got a lot of 'em).
Oil prices
are set to reach record highs in the near
future as they soar towards $40 dollars a
barrel, or in layman's terms $2.25 a
gallon for regular. Fill 'er up!
Oh yeah and
the Pentagon (with enthusiastic
Presidential approval of course) decided to
invade the southern Philippines. Thousands
of Marines are now chasing down an army
of a few hundred bad guys called the Abu
Sayyaf who like to kidnap for cash (Philippine
military intelligence estimates 100
members). Overkill you say? Hey it's a
big jungle and we need something to keep
the salivating news-crews busy until the
real fireworks kick off. Besides nobody
remembers what Jingoism is anyway.
[Note: This plan went down in flames in
early March. Turns out there are a few
people left in the Philippine government
that don't want to abrogate their
constitution. Sure surprised Rumsfeld. 06.03.03]
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America |
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Our 'Democracy' Is a Lie
07.11.02 Observing the most
recent U$ election, the only
consistent element to the results that I could
discern, because really a lot of it seemed almost
random if not outright foolish on the part of the
electorate, is that whoever spends the most money
on their campaign walks away the winner. This is
essentially given as a dirty fact within
political science, at least in the sense that
large financial advantages of one side or the
other rarely results in a loss at the polls for
the wealthy side.
If this is the case,
think about what it means for American
'democracy'? If democracy is a commodity to be
bought and sold, then there really is no
democracy is there?! Reality is somewhere between
a popularity contest and a very raw plutocracy.
One way to test this would be to chart the
winning side against the amount of money they
spent on advertising and campaign promotion. If
the correlation is as solid as I think it is then
it will directly show that indeed elections are
just another tradable commodity bought by the
highest bidder.
Certain exceptions
to this rule exist, for example if one candidate
runs a very negative campaign that flings mud
beyond the bounds of acceptability, they can
sabotage their campaign despite financial and
incumbency advantages. And theoretically if a
candidate is universally disliked by media
owners then the controllers of the primary
information portals can refuse to sell that
candidate airtime for commercials or billboards
for ads or, radio spots, etc. In this case even a
rich candidate could not win short of actually
buying their own media empire, which has happened.
Italy's Berlusconi is one example and I suppose
Bloomberg in New York would be a smaller scale
version too.
Initiatives that are
placed on ballots are usually too complex for the
average voter to figure out, and determining
their eventual consequences is a task beyond just
about anyone. So people just vote according to
whichever side pushes their position the hardest
using advertising. Tax increases are a little
different because the public can directly
understand the personal impact, but even there,
if the tax increase is small and the proponents
have serious cash to throw at it they can very
often push it through.
Thus I would
conclude that the November 2002 Republican party
'blow-out' if you want to call it that was
largely due to their superior funding. President
Bush has already broken records in his
fundraising efforts (many of them set by Bill
Clinton), so this election outcome really
shouldn't be too much of a surprise.
Another element
within American politics is the two party system.
This system won't change anytime soon because of
the above stated financial supposition. Only the
two primary parties, Republicans and Democrats,
possess the fundraising capability, the money
machinery to compete in the election process.
This is why even rich third party candidates have
a difficult time getting elected. Ross Perot had
to spend millions and millions of his own dollars
to compete in a presidential election and lose
anyway.
Democracy is based
upon numerous assumptions, most notably that each individual voter carefully
chooses the candidate that they perceive to be
the most qualified and most likely to represent
their needs and concerns in public office.
Secondly, once elected those candidates will
proceed to do what they promised they would do.
All right, you can stop laughing now. Seriously, you
and I both know neither assumption has any
bearing upon reality. The choices presented to us
on the ballot is rarely, if ever, what we really
want to choose between, and every politician is a
liar at some point or another.
Democracy is flawed
in a similar way capitalism is by virtue of the
disparity between promise and practical reality.
A free market is a myth, an illusion, and both
beliefs are predicated upon this mythical 'free
market' of information to make them fair. Both
democracy and capitalism are presented to us as
operating under a situation of totally free
information but in reality the information we get
is far from complete and usually corrupted. We
can't see all the outcomes and all the actual
possibilities, just a few, and of those
few we realistically see it is further narrowed
down by obstructions, meaning lies, disinformation, confusion as
well as the restrictions from the information portals that bring
us the news. Furthermore anyone that obtains the power to limit
information has an obvious interest in doing so against their
opponents and in support of the candidates, issues or whatever
they favor.
In a capitalist
system money buys just about anything,
not just information itself but more importantly
the control of that information. So when
people quip 'information is power' what they
really mean is 'control of information is power'!
This is why in our 'free' western society, the
open and unobstructed exchange of information is
not just a luxury but a necessity; anything less
is not democracy but dictatorship. The authors of
the American Constitution started well with the 1st
amendment, the freedom to speak and express
yourself, but that's only half the battle. As
we've already seen it's not enough to just be
able to say what you want we have to be able to learn and
find out what we want too.
The $200 Billion
Question
17.09.02 The latest figure on
war with Iraq puts the total cost at US $200
billion dollars, and even at that astronomical
level is widely deemed a conservative figure.
This is up from previous estimates of around 60-90
billion based on extrapolations from the original
Gulf War which was mostly reimbursed from allied
coffers, such as Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Clearly, an important question to
ask is, just what kind of war are we talking about, full blown
land invasion, pinpoint air strikes, intimidating insults,
diplomatic trash talk? Whatever the actual case will turn out to
be, the $200 billion price tag is as good as place as any to
start with, numerically speaking, since it comes from President
Bush's chief economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsey, head of the White
House National Economic Council.
So let's start with that. How much
is 200 billion? I don't really know, I can't imagine ONE billion
of anything and I doubt that anyone else can either. So the best
thing to do is find a comparison. The entire Apollo moon project
which was initiated by the visionary President Kennedy and
lasted over a decade, cost $25 and a half billion dollars.
That's 1960s dollars mind you. So, courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank
of Minneapolis, I
adjusted that figure for inflation to find out
how much it cost in today's dollars to put
astronauts on the moon for the first time in
history. If 1965 = $25.5 billion then 2002 = $145.15
billion. So the entire Apollo moon project
cost less than the official estimate of a
new war on Iraq will cost. Instead of blowing
up an impoverished third world country, we could
send 8 missions to the moon (Apollo 11-18) and
still have over 50 billion dollars left over!
Don't want to
explore space, perhaps send American's to Mars?
More materialistic in your desires? Think of 200
billion this way. If instead of allowing another
sad chapter in a personal vendetta between
national leaders to continue, we just treated
this money as a direct loan to the American
public (which indeed it is, all debt spending
anyway). If every man, woman and child living in
America, 270 million of them, were to get an
equal piece, that would mean everyone in America
got $740.74, not a bad deal. I could use a cool
700 dollars, how about you? Or more likely just
dealing it all out to every taxpayer. I'm
estimating 100 million since the IRS website was
of no help, that would be a very nice $2000
dollars for each one.
The outcome of a
question is dependent upon the options and how
it's phrased. I have a distinct feeling that
if instead of just asking the American public if
they support a war on Iraq but if they would
instead prefer a check for $2000, well, let's just say the
answer would be nearly universal.
The Use of Farce
Against Iraq
04.09.02 Anymore one can't
utter the word America without the word war
somewhere in the first few sentences. They say if
you've got it flaunt it, but I don't think that
was supposed to mean the shameless application of
superior military force against every weaker
nation within striking distance. Nevertheless
that seems the case, especially if your nation
happens to be on top of a large oil or gas supply.
Everything blamed on
Saddam the U$ has either done to its own people,
or even worse. The US has tacitly and overtly supported
Saddam's own actions, especially when he was an
ally against the big bad post-Shaw Iranian
monster. For instance, the U$ government covertly used poison gas on
its own soldiers during
cold-war era naval tests. That same democratic
government also turned a blind eye to Saddam's
very same gas attacks used by Bush and similar
warmongers today to justify a 'regime change' in
Iraq! And actually the U$ government has gone
even further than Saddam Hussein has. President Truman ordered the use of nuclear
weapons on a defeated enemy (so as to actually
test them in combat) not once but twice!
Endless talk of war on Iraq serves
as a smokescreen to hide the fact that American and UK aircraft
routinely strike sites in northern and southern
Iraq as part of the ongoing operation to control the
'No-fly zones' over the top and bottom thirds of
that country.
It started out
innocently enough, allied warplanes circle around
like vultures with a right to self-defense if
Saddam happened to fire any missiles or light up
any radars. However this limited targets of
allied rage to missile and electronic sites. Once
those were destroyed the rules of engagement had
to be altered, obviously. Now the rules are
pretty much - 'if it looks unfriendly, shoot it
up'. Either way most people have not a clue this
is going on, or don't care. So instead of
reporting air strikes over Iraq the mainstream
media can fight for ratings with endless talk
show debates on bombing Iraq 'today' or
'tomorrow' when in reality the only part of Iraq
left to attack is the central third of the
country where Baghdad and Saddam Hussein reside. The only thing
left to blow up in Iraq is Saddam.
No one really wins here, not the
long-suffering Iraqi people plagued by despotic abuse and
starvation inflicting sanctions courtesy of world authorities.
Not the America people who, despite the entertaining charge from
a televised carnage in another far off land, gain nothing but
worldwide enmity and another generation of suicide warriors. Not
even the 'W' Bush who will likely meet the same ignominious
electoral defeat as his father in a remarkably similar situation
about a decade earlier.
Those who care or
dare to look will find that a very serious crack
has formed in the foundation of The Empire of
Lies. This fracture was started when the first
American bombs fell on Afghanistan. Just since
the second world war America has attacked and
bombed: China 1945-46 and 1950-53, Korea 1950-53,
Guatemala 1954 and1967-69, Indonesia 1958, Cuba
1959-60, the Belgian Congo 1964, Peru 1965, Laos
1964-73, Vietnam 1961-73, Cambodia 1969-70,
Grenada 1983, Libya 1986, El Salvador 1980s,
Nicaragua 1980s, Panama 1989, Iraq 1991-?,
Bosnia 1995, Sudan 1998, Serbia 1999, Afghanistan
2001-? Not to mention various 'dirty-wars' and
'black operations' too numerous to mention. I
don't know about you but I think I see a pattern
of aggression here.
Essentially every
war recorded in the popular history of America
was (conveniently) started by enemies, thus neatly
absolving America of ensuing atrocities while
also justifying blatant jingoistic antagonism.
For example, we all should know that the
Vietnam war was officially initiated by the
concocted Tonkin Gulf incident, due to the
belligerency of President Lyndon Johnson. World
War II was a similar case. While not conducting
provocations in the North Atlantic against the
German Navy, the Americans actually fired the
first shot before Pearl Harbor against the
Japanese. This startling fact was proven thanks to
evidence discovered along with a sunken Japanese midget
submarine off the coast of Hawaii.
The first shot
against Japan was ignored by military and congressional
tribunals investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nine wartime
commissions of inquiry ignored the fact of the first American
shot, and the incident that sunk the Japanese submarine was
omitted from historical accounts.
Even more outrageous, the American government
actually had advance knowledge of
the Pearl Harbor attack having already broken the 'Purple' code.
Authorities in Washington delayed informing Hawaii to make sure that Pearl Harbor happened
and Roosevelt's war could get started.
Obtaining
crucial signals wasn't that much of a
problem on Halsey Street at the beginning
of the Second World War. U.S.
cryptographers had broken the Japanese
Purple Code and were able to tell the
Portland station which radio frequencies
to listen to and when to do it.
'We didn't
know exactly what we were monitoring,"
McCann said in 1971. "We just took
the stuff and sent it on." The
results should have given the United
States a huge advantage.
In mid-November
1941, McCann and his crew got orders to
pay close attention to a certain Tokyo
radio station. The codebreakers had
deciphered Special Message No. 2353 of
the Japanese Foreign Ministry ordering
its Washington embassy to "destroy
all code papers etc.' if the Tokyo
station used a certain phrase in a
weather forecast. "Higashi no Kaze
ame" — Wind-Rain" —
would mean that Japan had decided to
attack the United States.
Halsey
Street picked up the phrase twice in
plain language Nov. 19, and on Dec. 4
intercepted and forwarded a stream of
Japanese Imperial Fleet Headquarters
messages to a task force at sea. [1]
But that's only part
of what really happened, for in 1941 high ranking
Japanese Naval officers visited Pearl Harbor
where they were gladly sold every kind of map and
aerial photo they wanted while posing as tourists.
The attack plan they used was exactly the
same as the one created and tested in 1932 by
Admiral Harry Yarnell of the US Navy. All the
Japanese had to do was read it. [2]
The machinery of the
state run amok, as well as the institutions
functioning in conjunction, fight battles
with guns and lies. But never forget that we're
all in the middle of a war of the mind and no
ammunition is more devastating than revelations
of truth.
1. 'Northwest spy
station sees all, hears all', by James Long, The
Oregonian, Sunday April 28, 2002.
2. More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of The Story,
by Paul Aurandt, Morrow 1980.
Downward Spiral
24.07.02 Anti-American
sentiment is on the rise worldwide, a predictable
and understandable product of federal government
actions and rampant cultural misunderstandings.
The way in which America functions is something
both Americans themselves are often in the dark
about, because they have no other references, and
outside audiences have a difficult time figuring
out just who's really in charge and what the motives
are because they use a traditional domestic
template to understand a unique foreign
occurrence.
America is a vastly
misunderstood paradox for many reasons, mostly
because of media distortions but also simple
cultural misunderstandings. I think this is a bit
tough to adequately convey to external audiences
and perhaps explains much of the antipathy
towards American society, but we have no core
constituencies. All the power and all the resources
are divided up according to who has the greatest
influence at present within the spoils process.
Conversely, the European system for example is
much more academic, much more let's be nice and
we can agree upon a method of making everyone
happy, the socialist model has immense public
appeal. But there you have a core interest, a
consistent, singular culture and ethnicity. Hell,
even Mexico has this. Everybody understands what
to expect in Mexico, the culture, the people, etc.
But what is America?! It's Mexico on this block,
it's Greece on that block, it's China on that
block...
Revolution and direct social action
are often viewed in
radically different ways between America and the
rest of the world. In Europe these people are
usually seen as either communist agitators or
fascist thugs both of which want to take over the
government so they can tell others what to do.
Most Americans couldn't care less about the damn
government, they're concerned with their own
interests. Europeans see that aggression and
interpret it to mean "believe what I do or I
beat you up". In America this process isn't
for fun, this is for survival. We can't kick back
and collect unemployment for years like some
European welfare state, if we get sick or injured
there's no health care, and the ones with jobs
do 40,50,60 hour work weeks not 35. If you want
anything here you have to fight for it and all
you get is what you can take. This isn't a demo-cracy
it's a mob-ocracy! Welcome to the Balkanized
America 2002.
Community is
destroyed and undermined by good intentions and
flawed planning, zoning laws, inconsistent
building regulations, layers and layers of
government all trying to regulate a huge country
of vastly disparate norms, cultures and standards.
Federal and state policies carve everything up
into districts creating ghettos and ethnic
enclaves coupled with the rise of commercial
professionalism and the erosion of traditional
private and informal social ties, often wreaking havoc
with community bonds and healthy social connections. This is America
turned fully into a business and not a nation.
Asian gangs, skinheads, Crips, Bloods, I mean I
don't like gangs but I can completely understand
the reasoning driving people into them. They're
trying to protect themselves, their friends and
their territory. The structure of U$ politics and
how resources are apportioned creates this mess
because it doesn't address their needs. It gives
them no jobs, police harassment, discrimination,
and lip service to their deeply rooted problems.
Then wages a narco-war against its own people
and whines about drug abuse. No shit these people
are selling drugs, what the hell else can they do
for income?
Today we've got
middle-aged people reaching retirement but
instead of the pensions system their parents had
they have stock market portfolios. The stock
market has crashed and now they can't retire. The
generation of my parents will be working until
they die because they have no money. This means
people my age can't get jobs, can't break into
the marketplace and start a career because all
the open slots are filled.
We've got a 'Social
Security' system that most fear will be hollowed-out and full of
IOUs by the time my
generation reaches that age, yet we've still got
to pay a big chunk of our wages into it! We know
this because we see how the resources are
funneled off, we see how the government steals
from its own and how they do the exact same it
now accuses private corporations of doing -
cooking the books, lying about income, and
defrauding customers. Back during the Clinton
years the budget magically went from deficit to
surplus because of a cute little accounting
trick, counting Social Security money as income
even though it has to be paid out again later!
If you wait on
your ass here the avalanche will bury you.
One has to be an activist here, you wait in one
place long enough and you're dead meat. So to
survive one has to fight for what you need and
the bigger you are the more influence you have
and the better your slice of the pie, so to speak.
It's an ominous commentary on society that the
AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) is
the largest interest group in the U$A now. It
will only get bigger as the population gets older.
Leftists like to talk about 'unity,' 'solidarity'
and similar ludicrous fictions. How can we have
unity when everything you get is at my
expense? One can't co-opt this type of a system, a system
where equilibrium is maintained by the frantic distribution of
dwindling resources amongst competing factions, it can only be
exploited until it collapses.
Planet U.S.A.
(Axis of the Universe)
|
October
2004 |
12.08.02 From an article by The
Economist, A stigma that
never fades, "Roughly one in five
black men has been incarcerated at some point in
his life; one in three has been convicted of a
felony." I had to read
that part several times to get the full impact;
stunning if true. Connected to this but from
another unofficial source: "On any given day,
nearly a third of all young black males are in
prison, on probation, or on parole."
So
is the truth racist or are we just inundated by
misleading statistics? Well the Economist
being the race baiting rag that it is .... not ,I
decided I should check out the statistics myself.
Unfortunately since they didn't cite the report
they used it was pretty much impossible to find
that specific data point,
 but what I
did find was nonetheless quite interesting.
"In 1997, a quarter
of the people living with HIV or AIDS in the
United States had come out of prison that year.
The numbers are even higher for hepatitis C and
tuberculosis. When a resistant form of TB hit New
York city in the late 1980s, 80% of cases were
traced to prisons." See the 1996 HIV in prisons
report and keep in mind,
"The average prison sentence is
still only 28 months."
"In 2000, nearly 6.5
million people were under some form of
correctional supervision including:" 4 million just on
probation!
The
demographic information is buried within the
reports but the dollar amounts are much easier to find,
for example America spends $54 billion a year on the entire
prison system.
17.03.02
"I truly am not that
concerned about him. I know he is on the run," Bush on Osama, March 2002. Every
time the Bush administration people are asked about Osama they
say they're
"in hot
pursuit" but when asked where he's at they
say they don't know. How can you be in hot pursuit if you don't
even know where your target is?!
"The war on terrorism
was bigger than any one person." ibid. Now Bin Laden's vanishing act is so good that he's even
missing from much of the administrations dialogue
on terrorism to be replaced by 'axis of evil'
hyperbole and the imperative threat to humanity
posed by the dastardly Saddam Hussein.
But Osama is not the only one
versed in the art of vanishing into thin air, the
"eviscerated" Taliban seem to be remarkably adept
at doing the same against U$ military forces. One moment
"hundreds" of Al-Qaeda /
Taliban soldiers have been killed and the next
they find a dozen bodies and a smoldering
campfire in the newly liberated mountainside cave.
The war that's supposed to be over doesn't look
like it will be ending anytime soon. Instead the
brutal reality is American, Canadian and many
other western forces are now pitted against a
cunning, well trained army of guerrilla forces
sharp enough to take down helicopters with
small arms fire, spin their opposition in
circles while drawing their fire then leave
suffering only minor damage! At the same time U$
forces are being tricked by duplicitous local
warlords into bombing friendly Afghans who just
happen to be the warlords competition. This
highlights the fundamental difficulty plaguing
intelligence and planning in this operation, that
being just dividing the friendly from the
enemy.
And even a half-wit
can appreciate the absurdity
 of a B-2 stealth bomber dropping
precision munitions on a mountainside. It seems like a concerted
effort to use the most expensive weapons against the most
mundane targets.
The most glaring issue remains
unanswered - how does this operation serve American interests
and how is it making America safer?
-
"Officials
said blood was drawn from 300 al Qaeda
and Taliban fighters held at a U.S. base
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This could be
used to create a DNA database to track
them."
-
'Operation
Anaconda': "One senior
Afghan leader, Commander Abdullah, said
that the enemy fighters fled during the
heavy U.S. air bombardment. Another
commander Abdul Wali Zardran, said that
coalition forces did not wipe out al-Qaida's
fighters. "Americans don't listen to
anyone," Zardran said. "They do
what they want. Most people escaped. You
can't call that a success."
-
"If we
expect to kill every terrorist in the world, that's going to
keep us going beyond doomsday."
- Senator
Robert Byrd
Crisis Colombia
22.02.02 Colombia is best
known for its drugs and coffee, but it also
produces oil, and coupled with Mexico and
Venezuela, sates much of North America's voracious
appetite for gasoline, and best of all in a cheap,
reliable, non-Arab form. So it should be no
surprise the increasing frequency of interest in
Colombian events, especially as they've been
rapidly deteriorating lately.
The statistics tell
their own story. Colombia has been embroiled in a
civil war for 38 years. A large portion of
southern Colombia was ceded to the guerrillas as
a demilitarized zone by President Andres Pastrana
in peace talks. Over 3,500 people die every year in the
conflict and 40,000 have died over the past ten
years. Over 30,000 cars are stolen each year
which some say end up in the demilitarized zone
in the south. Those rebels are composed of
outlawed right-wing military commanders and their
associated death squads now numbering over 10,000
and ideologically murky, leftist rebels of which
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is
the most notable with around 15,000. The other
leftist group has 4,000 soldiers and goes by the
name National Liberation Army, or ELN.
It's difficult to
discern exactly what, if anything, ideology has to
do with the characters involved in this
tragicomedy being played out in the stifling
humidity of the South American jungle. More than
anything it really seems like just a power play
among disaffected leadership cliques barely
running, or trying to run the zoo that is
Colombia.
But of course from
the American standpoint it's never enough to let
a Western hemisphere nation get bogged down in a
civil war alone and indeed Washington has been
arming and training the Colombian military for
years on a rapidly increasing curve of cost and
involvement. The pretext for the past decade or
so has always been counter-narcotics, in other
words it was legal to support and arm an
untrustworthy government because it was for the
express purposes of stifling the supply of
illegal drugs reaching North American black-markets.
Of course, as even the lukewarm perceptions of a
fool can predict, depressing supply only at
one point without decreasing demand at the
receiving end only boosts production of drugs in
another unstable and impoverished portion of the
world. But herein lies a self-fulfilling prophecy
because Colombian drugs have not waned over that
time period but the apparent need for increased
military training and hardware to stem the rising
drug tide has increased remarkably.
If the
guerillas aren't going away, if the drugs
aren't going away, if American
involvement isn't going away, what are we
left with? Some pundits have called it
the next Vietnam (but Pinochet's Chile
might be a more apt comparison). It
certainly has many of the factors,
impenetrable jungle, guerilla safe zones
and the facade of your standard issue,
left-right ideological conflict.
Regardless of the parallels or
differences, America has spent over one
billion dollars just in the last year on
Colombia. Colombia receives more aid than
any other outside of the middle east,
meaning Israel and Egypt. The Clinton
administration devised 'Plan Colombia' to
funnel millions of dollars into that
south American regime while Bush has
adopted the same program but at higher
funding levels and more overt assistance.
 |
Welcome to FARC country,
Colombia |
Bush has also
requested $731 million for the Andean Counterdrug Initiative in
fiscal year 2003, including $439 million for Colombia, and an
additional $98 million in military aid to help train a Colombian
brigade to guard the 490-mile (780-km) Cano Limon pipeline whose
oil field is operated by U.S. firm Occidental Petroleum Corp.
- Reuters, February 2002.
President Bush's
latest maneuver has been to mostly drop the
flawed and failing counter-narcotics boilerplate
excuse and simply state that aid to Colombia is
for protecting the oil pipeline running out of
the southern part of the country. Yes the same
one that gets bombed and leaks all over the place
on a near daily basis. How is the big
question. Details, details. We all know oil and
related industries of exploiting natural
resources are very important to this
administration. And why shouldn't they be? Money
talks and when you can pump oil out of the ground
for pennies and sell it for $20 bucks a barrel on
the market, that's a serious profit margin! Are
the corporations involved in that scam ever going
to sincerely promote their replacement? Will they
ever openly allow alternate forms of energy to
reach the consumer in a cheap and reliable form
equal or better than gasoline? If they did it
would be suicide.
Now the crisis in
Colombia is about oil and the issue is made
complex by the simple fact that oil originates in
guerrilla held territory in the south and has to
be piped to the ports in the north. Even though
the Colombian government made peace deals with
the guerrillas, chronic, low level insurgency has
been ongoing throughout the country (and the
wider region actually). The Colombian President
has now declared war upon the guerrillas, dumping
dialogue, giving up on peace talks and sending
the military with American aid into guerrilla
territory. The timing of this move, although
superficially precipitated by a rather typical
guerilla kidnapping, is interesting because it
coincides perfectly with Bush's change in
approach from drugs to oil.
One thing is for
sure, Colombia's president Pastrana would never
have declared full war on the rebels if he didn't
have the unconditional backing of his powerful
neighbor to the north, the good 'ol US of A. And now it looks
like the jungle's of Colombia are set to get even hotter.
Triumph Over Reason
10.12.01 USA! USA! USA! Who
cares about Al-Qaeda anymore, the monstrous and
immense Taliban have been defeated because
they're now an amorphous guerilla group you can't
easily find or target - out of sight out of mind.
And let no one question the stellar ability of
the U$ war machine to slay the innocent for
vague, opportunistic geopolitical goals, then
play up the wrong victory for a few popularity
points from the dazed electorate while
creating a brutal, chaotic, destabilized
situation replete with increased anti-American
animosity in yet another impoverished country. It
should seem ironic that more American soldiers
have been killed by the ultra-accurate laser/GPS
guided munitions of their own military than the
enemy can claim credit for, oh but you'd have to
be getting your factoids and agenda driven sound-bite
from some other 'news' source than the redacted
domestic outlets, ABCNNBCBS et al.
The Pentagon's
Generals get a thrill from boasting of more
violence to come, since 'now the world knows the
consequences of supporting terrorism!' neatly
crystallizing dissociated sentiment into a
monomaniacal 'us first at the expense of everyone
else' mentality. It's not necessarily a new
policy just a convenient culmination in
presidential administration and chance events.
'So
fuck the rest of the world, it's just U$A and
Israel all the way and everyone that doesn't
totally support us is against us!' Evidence? Here's a
recent one, what of the Biological Weapons
Convention (BWC) consisting of no less than 144
countries. This December, just an hour before the
meeting was to conclude in agreement, the U$
delegation does a complete turnaround and demands
that any legally binding elements be removed, thereby
totally sabotaging the convention. This move left the
other members with a lot of wasted time and
effort as well as some appropriately unkind words
for America's egregious behavior. Just a few more
toes crushed with the cowboy boots, eh Bush?
Bush,
Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, America's
triumvirate of treason in the name of
'patriotism' and Israel's Sharon must be
reading the same book on domination and
repression through intimidation and abuse
of power. It's hardly any secret the two
nations are joined at the hip in foreign
policy goals. Both countries do the same
thing anymore, act conciliatory even
though you aren't, set up diplomatic
channels then trash them at the last
minute and blame everyone but your own
intransigence for the damage that ensues.
It shouldn't come as any surprise the
similar horrific conclusion that will
play out for America just as it already
is for Israel. But what's really
frightening is the shared attitude
apparent in the Bush administration's
overall tone since September 11th, namely
the repetition of America's completely
blameless nature coupled with the
absolute rejection of all appropriate
responsibility for past actions or
present policy. Just like the West Bank
Hamas suicide bombers, Bush like Sharon
is using September 11th as a blank check
to attack any country from Afghanistan to
Zaire, and any group or individual from
Middle Eastern-looking cab drivers to
Islamic charities in Texas, anywhere and
anytime. 'So who cares,
wars are brutal, people die, accidents happen
give 'em a break! '
|
|
Headline
in the Israeli newspaper Yediot
Aharanot reads,
'Bush: I would act exactly like
Sharon.'
|
Bush and Rumsfeld's
reckless and vindictive rhetoric against military
opponents and the demonization of enemies directly
undermines America's moral authority crucial to
winning this undeclared war (assuming it can ever
be won). Secondly, the public proclamations of 'no
mercy' are flagrant promotions of Geneva
convention illegality. Finally it magnifies the
fighting resolve of opponents, because if
they're sure of execution or torture upon
surrender the enemy becomes immensely more
dangerous and fanatical. This was a key point in
the Gulf War conflict. America's military
leadership carefully employed a reputation for
humane treatment of war prisoners in propaganda,
and for the most part in battlefield conduct, to
defeat the resistance of Iraqi soldiers.
Consequently despite Saddam's direct threats of
death against his own soldiers, Iraqi troops defected
in droves.
This is common sense
and psychological warfare 101, but the Bush
administration is throwing that reputation away
with wayward words and dastardly deeds, and once
it's gone it will essentially be impossible to
regain! Future conflict will be immensely more
violent and bloody because of their policy, all the while
Americans are immersed in a new world no longer able to glibly
believe they're protected from flawed foreign policy and distant
conflict.
A Menace To Society
11.12.01 You know the
September terrorists who perpetrated the attack
are bad enough but venal politicians exploiting
the tragedy to further their agendas, aggrandize
their authority and attack opponents are far, far
worse, especially the ones that find zeal in
vitiating the Bill of Rights - meet
 Attorney General
John Ashcroft, menace to American society (cue
ominous music). No one can really know what this
guy is thinking, maybe he actually believes he's
making America safer, he already believes Jesus
is giving him divine guidance on how to subtly
update the Constitution (with a blowtorch) so it
wouldn't surprise me. Not that it ultimately
matters given the irreparable damage being done
to the Bill of Rights and rule of law, all of
which would have been unthinkable only three
months ago.
Where did Bush
find this clown? Missouri, but they didn't
want him, they voted for the dead guy (Carnahan) instead, so
where else could an authoritarian religious
zealot find work but with the Bush
administration? Nobody voted for him to be
Attorney General, he was appointed by Bush who
most Americans didn't vote for either. The
Supreme Court appointed Bush to the office of
President and last time I checked the American
people were never asked for their electoral input
on determining the members of the Supreme Court
either, all are appointed. So much for
'representative' democracy where it counts and
when it really matters; no, this brand of
democracy is just a misnamed form of collective
punishment. So what's our unelected
representative sworn to uphold the Constitution
been doing in office lately?
On the fifth
of November the Justice Department
reported a total of 1,182 detained in
connection with the terror investigation.
All of those detained entered the country
completely legally but are being held on
thin or nonexistent pretexts, meaning
they didn't cross the t's on the work
visa, or whatever. For various excuses, er
I mean reasons, the justice Department is
unable to state exactly how many are
still locked away and how many have been
released. So, in other words they don't
know and aren't keeping track. Indeed not
even the identities of those being
detained can be released because it will
purportedly damage the case against them. And besides, the ever fair and benevolent
Justice Department is protecting
their identities you see! None of those
detained have been charged with a
terrorism-related offense.
Without a
twitch on his poker face Ashcroft has
denied singling out anyone on the basis
of race, creed, or national origin for
his worldwide roundup of 'suspicious'
people nearly or indeed all of which are
of Arab or Central Asian descent. So it's
all just a remarkable coincidence, right
John?
John
Ashcroft's public appeal to report "anything
suspicious" to the FBI has netted
over 400,000 tips from dutiful snitches
across America. Yet oddly enough none of
those leads have done anything but divert
FBI resources from other crimes while
yielding NO substantive clues in the
September 11th terrorist attack.
This terror
investigation has sent out lists of names
of vaguely, potentially suspect but
otherwise completely innocent people to
be rounded up and interrogated by police.
So far only one city has balked at this
flagrant violation of law, that being
Portland Oregon because it contravenes state
law. Not surprisingly Ashcroft's minions
fire back declaring his decrees
completely legal, you know don't worry
about it just do what we tell you, dammit.
The same
month Ashcroft already angered many
Oregonians for attacking their four year
old 'Death With Dignity' law passed twice
by state voters and functioning without
complaint or problem. Suddenly in
November 2001 during the middle of the
terrorist investigation and an undeclared
war on Afghanistan, Ashcroft, evidently
with little better to do, determines
Oregon is way out of line and orders an
immediate halt to all assisted suicides.
Complicated issues are always easier when
Jesus is telling you what to do, right
John?
Ashcroft has
mandated that prisoners no longer have
the right to private legal counsel,
granting his office the power to
eavesdrop on any such conversations at
his discretion.
The FBI has
invested some six million man-hours into
the largest criminal investigation in
American history yet remains completely
unable to prove any terrorist conspiracy
took place on September 11.
The argument
used by Ashcroft and the Bush
administration for its drastic actions
is inaccurate at best and completely
erroneous at worst because the United
States is not at war, only
Congress can declare war and no such
thing has happened. But Ashcroft has
already demonstrated his respect for the
spirit of freedom and Constitution by
personally stating that criticism of his
authoritarian measures aids the
terrorists.
How many
more bullet pointed outrages on American
civil liberties is dictator Ashcroft
going to perpetrate before he either
shuts down all dissent or shrivels up in
the sunlight of honest, open debate and
adherence to Constitution and law only to
ooze back into the dark crevice he came
out of?
The most likely
explanation, that everyone involved died a fiery
death in the plane crashes, seems logical to me. Yet it's clearly unacceptable to Ashcroft, Bush and
the FBI since they can't use it as a pretext for
establishing a police-state. Secret
trials, secret charges, no legal privacy, racial
profiling, extended detention, jailing without
charges and now even trial under military
tribunals with Bush's latest Executive Order;
does all this sound like an expression of
confidence in securing a conviction for the truly
guilty? Or more like this massive, globe-straddling security investigation combing the
world for weeks, so desperate for a patsy (or a
thousand) that it's reduced to framing innocent
people and trashing the Bill of Rights and
hundreds of years of legal procedure in the
process?
Seems to me like the
desperate maneuvering of a failed and
fundamentally flawed, illegal investigation
working from the singular pretext of de facto
guilt and the monomaniacal desire to guarantee
the desired verdict and maximize punishment
regardless of involvement. Those a part of this
including Ashcroft and President Bush are guilty
of far worse crimes than anyone they could
possibly trump up charges against and prosecute.
America, let's quit this foolish game of
hypocritical rhetoric and besotted language and
for once just call it as it really is. Anyone
supporting these flagrantly illegal policies
regardless of the purported expedient
justification or public placating excuses, is not
a patriot, they are not pro-American they are in direct
opposition to those estimable values - it's
called being a traitor.
Finding Patriotism
01.11.01 The entire allied campaign is
falling apart faster than a Mexican Rolex; Pakistan's
pronouncement that America's
"bogged down" is if anything an understatement.
And yet this would be difficult to perceive from purely domestic
American mass-media channels; even CNN has agreed not to show so
many sad pictures of shrapnel shredded refugees or flaming Red
Cross buildings that it could alter American public opinion.
Regardless of
whatever fantasy world the dominant American
media and its allied partners in Federal office
want to blithely inhabit, the remainder of the
planet is under no such false illusions.
Depending on who you ask it's either a plot to
run an oil pipeline through the country or yet
another Israeli proxy war utilizing the
enthusiastic dupe of the American military
machine to destroy their mortal Islamic opponents.
But that's of course assuming the Bush
administration even has a plan outside of the
immediacy of electoral, and more importantly
plutocratic, expediency; which is more than I
would personally posit given the superficial
evidence. Unfortunately the only thing clearly
not an issue or reason for the conflict is the
destitute situation of the Afghan people
themselves. Despite the halfhearted efforts by
the UN and the overlooked pleas of aid groups
it's remarkable how little official concern was
given to the abuses of the Taliban or the
brutality of Northern Alliance warlords before
September 11th, and equally remarkable is the
bombastic rhetoric applied to such abuses by Bush
and Blair in the opportunistic aftermath.
Yet the end result
is not leading anyone, let alone the world, to
victory as President Bush proudly proclaimed at
the ignominious start of it all. It's conveying
the message America is impotent to rectify even
the most black and white issues (superficially
speaking anyway), and that America is rudely
incompetent at defeating technologically
challenged opponents, like the Taliban militia,
despite the most advanced weaponry money can buy.
Furthermore, the global political order is equally
inept for America and her allies can agree on
virtually nothing, let alone a definition of
terrorist, because every leadership throws in its
own self-centered definition. Domestic security
is proving even more challenging as anthrax
letters keep popping up. Government is powerless
to stop even this seemingly tepid but decidedly
low-tech terrorism effort. The only ones arrested
so far have been pranksters. Given this
astonishing track record it should fill us all
with pride and hope that the nascent worldwide
recession will be met with equal aplomb and tact
by the 'experts' and elected officials alike.
Despite the
incessant calumniation to the contrary the true
patriots are the ones opposing this war with
reason and sanity because they're aware the whole
thing is a one way ticket to more of the same
terrorism it purports to eliminate. War and
social destabilization are gasoline on the fire
of religious extremism, completely undermining the tenuous
position of moderates and diplomats. Furthermore it's increasingly apparent that
military confrontation with Osama bin Laden and
Al-Qaeda through the proxy of Afghanistan is a
trap for America, it can only enhance the stature
and broaden support of fundamentalism around the
world. The day America dropped the first bomb
on Afghanistan is the day America's leadership
declared their divorce from reality and the best
interests of the American people.
Confirming
this hypothesis is the fact that instead of
stepping down the military mess, most of the
planners instead favor an increase in the
bombing campaign as means of achieving a solution. The vociferous senator Dean
McCain should know all about what 'military
advisors,' 'quagmire' and "Vietnam' means;
and tell us Senator super-pilot, how many
times were you shot down? And what of your wife's
booze empire that brought you the cash to even
become a hotshot politician in the first place?
Some American's will be dying to know.
The people looking
out for America and its citizens aren't the
brain-dead flag-wavers, the same "patriots"
that have never owned a flag until everyone else
started buying them. They certainly aren't the
reactionary politicians using American soldiers
to dig another mission-oriented morass to die in.
The real American patriots are the critical media
(the few left anyway) and those illuminating
America's suicidal foreign policy and fatally-flawed foreign entanglements among other issues.
The same ones that the "patriots" and
government want silenced and censored (for
national safety of course). Similarly it's
typical of the era to call black white, call war
peace and cogent criticism extremism or hatred, or
whatever the latest First-amendment-stifling euphemism is.
24.10.01
These Humanitarian
Daily Rations being air-dropped over Afghanistan
are just repackaged MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)
used by the military.
 Go to an Army
surplus store and pick one up if you've never
seen one. The stores near military bases have
loads of them, even though they're clearly marked
as government property and not for resale, but the
enlisted are so poorly paid they sell them as a
supplement to food stamps; well that and booze
money. The point is these meals are dehydrated to
reduce weight and preserve the food which means
that if you don't drink a lot of water while
eating these things you'll regret it. Contents of
one HDR:
"Beans with
Tomato Sauce, Beans and Tomato Vinaigrette,
Biscuit, Fruit Pastry, Fruit Bar, Short Bread,
Peanut Butter, Strawberry Jam, instructions, and
utensils package including salt, pepper, napkin
and a match." I have yet to see water
listed in the contents of these humanitarian rations or a
package of water shown in the pictures. Making the whole
concepts look like a sick farce on the part of the American
military and policy planners, but I'm open to alternate evidence
if found.
Food is of course
important in impoverished war torn regions, but
water is even more so. Look at the countryside in
Afghanistan, does it seem like they have a lot of
choices for potable water?
 The biggest concern
of immediacy for refugee populations is finding
clean potable water. In Kandahar for instance the
power grid has been bombed leaving the civilian
inhabitants without lights or well pumps, meaning no water. This
appalling situation is
undoubtedly typical of other population regions
in the war zone. The domestic American media do
nothing but report the air drops as flat factual
events, leaving out the remaining details such as:
are the needy Afghans actually receiving the
food, can they eat the high protein 'portable
McDonalds' contents? Do they understand the
instructions? Fearful of mines, do they even pick
them up? Are the Taliban thugs getting to the
food drops first, and where is the water? All
these issues remain (apparently) unanswered.
The Idiocy is
Palpable
22.10.01 Alert! Severe
weather warning emanating from the Capitol region
and headed for your suburb! Prediction: steady
showers of BS with scattered thunderstorms of
hollow rhetoric, followed by persistent stifling
smog of misinformation and propaganda blanketing
the heavily populated valleys.
The strategic
bombing campaign of U$ forces is set to starve to
death half a million in Afghanistan this winter,
far exceeding even the wildest despotic fantasies
of the Taliban theocracy. Always with an eye out
for a good public relations ploy the same
government drops 'Humanitarian Daily Rations'
into the smoking bomb craters next to the mine
fields, a heart-warming display of philanthropic
concern few would expect from the aggressive,
homophobic,  simplistic jingoism of the
American military. The fact that the refugees can't eat the high
protein food packets, being incompatible with their diet, is
likely an honest mistake. Just like the bombing of a clearly
marked Red Cross food warehouse, I mean, war happens
right?! Oh and deaths from the bombed hospital and senior
citizen home are just
"collateral damage" so there's no need to reprimand
anyone in the U$ chain of command. Meanwhile the
"eviscerated" Taliban army, to quote recent
statements from American military planners, demonstrates a
remarkable ability to counterattack their Northern Alliance foes
while simultaneously aborting any nascent faith in American aid
the opposition may have harbored.
Domestically the FBI
is moving to dump decades of crime-fighting
tradition for (surprise) counter-terrorism!
Thanks to the carefully planned whim of
reactionary policy courtesy of America's
homegrown King George II and enforced by his
legion of appointed lackeys. Why? Because America
doesn't have a crime problem, America
has a terrorism problem - quit living in
the past! No doubt the proud elite of career
federal police look forward to their new mission
consisting of sniffing white powders and pawing
through garbage at the Fresh Kills landfill until
retirement.
This radical change of mission makes
perfect since given the magnificent successes
already accumulated since September 11th. It's
just too bad none of over 900 arrested have been
shown to have participated in the attack, or
indeed to have much of anything to do with it at
all. But don't worry our leaders know what
they're doing, or at least what the Political
Action Committee position papers tell them to do,
which is why public opinion polls solidly reflect
a sharp boost in faith for official leadership, that perennial
benefit of war. In this era of hazard and
terrorism behind every dark corner, truth is too
dangerous to trust to just anyone. That's why all
the facts and purported linking evidence must
stay safely locked up within national security
departments. Which merely highlights the true
reason for it all: sound and fury, posturing to
placate a puzzled public at the price of violated
constitutional rights via illegal arrest,
detention based on secret or nonexistent evidence
not to mention the promise of torture to extract the
appropriate answers demanded by an increasingly
desperate investigation.
The more flawed the
scheme the greater the need for spin and
propaganda to project the necessary aura of
righteousness while obfuscating the policy
blunder and glaring contradictions. Starving
refugees and bombing caves in an impoverished and
desolate nation might seem inappropriate in a
milieu of reason, objectivity and sanity, but
sanity is being shouted down by the voluble,
omnipresent reminder of moral superiority
packaged in patriotic songs, store signs and
fervent flag waving. The dead weight of the dumb
masses always seeking an outlet for blind
conformity and ego-enhancement via the
contemporary collective stab at success, lose no
time or shame in bandwagoning onto a winning
battle preceding a losing war. Now Americans can
revive their unhealthy love-affair with
repetitive chants and mandated doctrine, dogma
and orthodoxy, reminding us that apparently the only way to be a
patriot is spout slogans and a express mindless obedience to a
singular interpretation of Americanism.
Muddled Military
17.10.01 It's patently
obvious as the present central Asian war on
Afghanistan unfolds that the Pentagon remains as
linear and ossified as ever in its imagination
and war-making. Instead of the premature
trumpeted triumph of an asymmetrical battle plan
striving to defeat this amorphous terrorist enemy
the conflict boils down to a pathetic redux of
the Gulf War, replete with laser guided Paveway's
through the "air-shafts" of mud huts
and B-52 carpet bombing of deserted camps with
the apparent goal being, surprise! once again to
merely bomb the enemy until they capitulate or, if
not, just give up and have the victory party
anyway with the ever complicit and unquestioning
major media outlets as guests of honor.
There is virtually
no place left in today's world for this type of
outdated warfare, strategic bombing is all but
useless for achieving political, economic and
social goals meaning goals that have significance
anymore. It's extremely expensive (how many
billions a piece for a B-2 bomber?) especially in
comparisons to the minuscule benefits it confers.
The U$ military is fighting World War III with World War
two techniques. Not that they care because
they'll jump at any chance to justify themselves
in a postmodern world of military obsolescence.
Economics and communications are the battlefields
of the present and to win the war here you can't
use a helicopter gunship and grunts with rifles.
Secondly, our present
social fixation with cyber-terrorism, steganography, bio-terror and similar fear
factors while remaining perfectly predictable
phantasms for a techno-culture, are only
significant in that they all miss the point! If a
'terrorist', or indeed anyone for economic or
criminal motive, wishes to disrupt the nation the
simplest means are the most cost-effective and
easiest to perpetrate. For example all they need
do is throw a wire across the power lines and the
lights go out, or for the less imaginative it's
even easier today, just spill some sweet&low
on the floor and call in an anthrax threat to the
building! Another example, the Trans-Alaska
pipeline was shot this month with one rifle
bullet by a local yokel. The subsequent half-inch
hole managed to not only spill thousands of
gallons of oil, create a horrendous environmental
mess costing plenty to clean up, but also shut
down 95% of Alaska's North Slope oil production!
The point is we
cannot protect everything, indeed to even attempt
to do so is doomed to failure because it's
fundamentally reactionary. Example: Bush's new,
brilliantly named, Department of Homeland
Security which promises to add over a trillion
dollars to the budget and still remain of
questionable legality and transparent redundancy.
Unless we address the root issues creating
terrorism, the desperation, the poverty and the
flawed foreign policy, we will always be unsafe.
In a country like America with so much internal
decay and a dearth of affordable public health
care it should seem ironic that the
President is spending the concocted budget
surplus consisting of a temporary peak in Social
Security funds for an illegal war of revenge against foreign
terrorists!
As
soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the
citizens and they would rather serve with their money than with
their persons, the State is not far from its fall. When it is
necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home:
when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and
stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by
having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to
sell it.
From: On The
Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762.
America - The Land
of Self-Created Enemies
|
Public Enemy
#1 Osama Bin Laden, CIA proxy soldier |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Saddam Hussein, armed by America as a
reliable ally for years |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Timothy McVeigh, US Army soldier |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Slobodon Milosivec, New York banker
and peace-dealer at Dayton |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Manuel Noriega, star student at School
of the Americas |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Ferdinand
Marcos,
Philippine dictator |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Augusto Pinochet, military dictator of
Chile |
|
Public Enemy
#1 Mobutu Sese-Seko, inveterate dictator
& CIA tool over Zaire (Congo) |
|
Public Enemy #1 Fidel
Castro, CIA sponsored freedom fighter until 1960. |
|
America -
how many more enemies do you need to
build-up and then tear down? Why not just
bomb the whole world? It won't make the
country safer but it's the American Way,
apparently. |
|
America - if
you really want to combat terrorism maybe
you should start at the source, your own
Capitol. |
Terrorism Brings Out
The Worst in Americans in the Form of Officially
Sanctioned Racism
12.09.01 In my
news page the very day before
the terror attack I ran a headline concerning an
Internet provider in Texas that was raided by the
FBI and shut down for hosting Arab and
Palestinian web sites. Serious speculation
concerns the motivation and legality of the
operation as well as the forces pushing to have
free expression silenced for political reasons.
The event may be related to the subsequent aerial
bombing of New York and Washington and even if not
it begins a very disconcerting story of the
erosion of cherished American liberties and
blatant racial double-standards throughout the
country.
Can you say witch-hunt?
On to the frenetic
search for the guilty parties, assuming perhaps
erroneously that they didn't all go up in flames
during the plane crashes. The FBI and police are
clearly approaching this investigation with a
sharply delineated preconceived idea of who they
want to crucify, and that's anybody that fits the
description of a Middle easterner. Don't believe
me? Read this excerpt from an MSNBC article:
Media outlets also
reported that a train that had passed through
Boston was halted, evacuated and searched
Wednesday in Providence, R.I. One man wearing a
green turban was led away in handcuffs.
Col. Richard Sullivan, the Providence police
chief, said later that the man did not appear to
have any connection with the terrorist acts. But
he was charged with a weapons violation for
carrying a knife, Sullivan said. He remained
in custody on Wednesday afternoon.
Italics were added for emphasis.
That's the complete description of the event, really, it's so
ridiculous it's laughable but scary too. It's not even the
description of an Arab, that's a Sikh! He carries a knife and
always wears a turban because that's his religious uniform.
These cops are so stupid (and racist) they're busting people
that have nothing to do with anything!
They don't have to
do this. If the federal police would just stop,
get their act together, effectively communicate
what they know and don't with the public and the
local police. In other words, 'don't panic arrest
and make a joke and a lawsuit victim out of your
police force.' But instead they allow witch hunts
and racially-motivated violence against the Arab
community fueled by ignorance intentionally
allowed to perpetuate in a vacuum of rumors and
spin. None other than Peter Jennings of ABC news
stated on television that every Synagogue in
Manhattan had a cop stationed in front of it
after the terror attack. But said nothing of
equal protection for the Mosque's which would
seem to me to be much more in immediate danger,
but I guess some are more important than others.
"These are the fruits
of the new U.S. order." - Iraqi TV
Come on here let's
try and minimize the credence that Iraqi TV has
and work not to substantiate their claims but
defeat them!
"This is perhaps the
most audacious terrorist attack that's ever taken
place in the world," said Chris Yates, an
aviation expert at Jane's Transport in London.
"It takes a logistics operation from the
terror group involved that is second to none.
Only a very small handful of terror groups is on
that list." Look it doesn't take a genius to
read between the lies here, these terrorists
 were so good that
the federal government has no clue what really
happened, they're reduced to arresting Sikhs on
trains and parading out the same old tired boogie
man Osama bin Terrorist. Painted into a corner by
their own foreign policy blunders, Bush is forced
to contemplate how to retaliate against a nation
already under attack: Iraq!
Many new recruits
are joining the American military as young and
old line up to sign their lives away to the
government for "job security" as the
recruiters call it, all to battle those dastardly
rifle-toting "towel-head" video game
bad-guys. Can you see what they're doing, using
racist sentiment and stereotypes established by
media to generate support for fratricidal orgies
of mutual suicide called war? A Near-East
conflict that nothing positive can emerge from; violence
begets violence. America has got to stop
building enemies and start building dialogue and
understanding.
"The question is not
who did it, but why America creates more enemies
than friends," Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed
America, why are you
making your "enemies" look more
reasonable than your own national policy?! If
there was ever any sanity in America it's
becoming increasingly difficult to find any
evidence of it.
You know, if
Americans really want war, if they want to fight for a
kid-killing conflict to vanquish only the
opponents of foreign nations yet again, they'll
have no trouble getting involved. But the only
way out is through the mass destruction of even
more American landmarks. If you claim to be anti-racist,
as most Americans do, then don't be a hypocrite
and act like it's fine to bash Arabs or allow your police,
government and news readers to do the same. And if you don't see
a problem with this policy then stop claiming to be opposed to
racism.
TV IS YOUR REALITY,
REALITY IS YOUR TV
 "It's
sort of like a terrorism movie
you see on television," said
terrorism expert Michael Gunter
at Tennessee Technological
University in Cookeville
"It
was something only Hollywood
could have dreamed up: The nation
under attack, the Pentagon in
flames. But here were military
officers in full dress uniform,
dazed and cowering as they
abandoned their offices and ran,"
said the Scripps Howard news
service.
"It's
incredible. I thought I was
watching a Hollywood movie,"
said Hong Kong school teacher
Doris Tang.
"I
can't believe what I'm seeing. I
never thought I would see
anything like this in my
lifetime," said 20-year-old
Beverly Evans of Dallas. "How
can we stop something like this
from happening?"
America,
time to wake up....
"The
Americans have forgotten that God exists.
They have us by the throat and now they
find themselves in a science fiction film
scenario, but this time Rambo's not there
to save the White House." Egyptian
taxi driver Abdel Karim.
"The
myth of the indestructible United States
has gone up in smoke." said Khalil
Matar, 43, soap factory worker in Egypt.
"They
brought America to our knees and it
scares the hell out of me," traveler
Beth Tabler of San Diego, waiting for a
flight at Lindbergh Field.
Headlines
scream out a DEATH TOLL: $$,$$$
The public
shrieks in horror, this can't happen to
America only by America in
places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya,
Panama, Iraq, Serbia... This isn't right,
they bomb us from the air and we can't
fight back!
Money
Matters More
"There
is no shortage of cash and no reason to
expect one,'' said Federal Reserve Bank
of Dallas President Robert McTeer on
Wednesday.
Glass and
steel emblems of perfectly exceptional
American progress explode and collapse in
a New York-sized cloud of smoke and
pulverized concrete -- a telegenic bout of
unscheduled urban renewal. Just two
buildings in a large city crumble to dust
and a meltdown of the modern markets
ensues.
"Economists
said there could be untold damage to the
U.S. financial system, noting many key
stock market players in the World Trade
Center building were likely killed."
The papers
of money rain from the sky like the
brimstone of an apocalyptic Sodom.
Guided
by Lies & Myths
Americans
listened to their meretricious media,
built and endured invasive security
arrangements for travel and recoiled in
Pavlovian fear at story after story of
impending biological and chemical terror.
Americans reveled in the glow of a world
dominating military, spent billions on
advanced weaponry and missile shields,
even braced for a technological Pearl
Harbor, only to be defeated by desire,
preparatory planning and a few madmen
with knives.
The entire U.S.
intelligence community, including all of its expensive
satellites, is helpless against any enemy that practices
operations security. That means, if they don't use the
phone, don't use a computer, and if they do all their
business face to face with single-trusted companions,
there is no way the existing intelligence infrastructure
can anticipate this kind of coordinated attack," Steele
said There's no way to defend ourselves against this
kind of thing. We actually have to spend money on
plowshares instead of swords.
A commander in chief
stunned like a deer in the headlights of a speeding
machine only able to hide and spout peculiar, hollow
phrases
"Today we've
had a national tragedy," and
"difficult
moment for America." A people stripped of
self-defense only to be let down when authorities fail
them yet again, serving themselves on military bases and
underground bunkers, plotting to protect their sweaty
behinds, American corporate interests and the American
public in that order. A public so misinformed and
misguided by media and authorities most can't even
comprehend the simple steps that led to such horrific
atrocities. Role models, idols and spin-doctors alike
left flabbergasted by an 'unpredictable' event lodged
deep within their scotomas.
"There is no
logic to these attacks." - James Zogby
It's only an
illogical world if you reject logic...
It's only an unpredictable world if you
refuse to entertain a future outside of
fantasy. 11.09.01
05.06.01 It should come as no
surprise that Americans act like a gaggle of
fools even off camera, just look at the public
faces, the mentors and role-models. All TV stars,
politicians and similar grade-A losers in a
culture where victims are the heroes and heroes
are the ones that get shot out of the sky on
bombing missions, kids afflicted by tragedy and
an endless sideshow of groveling talk show freaks.
The perpetual effort to appeal to mass audiences
necessitates dumbing-down the level of hero to the point that
instead of striving to emulate, the public can achieve smug
superiority simply by being passively average - the Homer
Simpson effect or the reason for the inveterate popularity of
the village idiot. Problem is far too many imitate the imbeciles
instead of ridiculing them.
American Psychosis
18.09.01 Americans seem both
fickle and inscrutable, they post 'God Bless
America' on the reader boards in front of their
stores, unashamedly equating fervent patriotism
with product purchasing, yet few complain. Every
plan is reactionary and usually doomed to failure
but they plow ahead and muddle through it, elated
to be doing something even if it only makes
things worse; few worry about it.
Now, the French for
example, have a powerful admiration for their own
culture and way of life but they, like all mature
nations, realize that the Chinese act like Chinese
and the Iranians act like Iranians. America has
the same admiration for its own culture but they
see the Chinese and wonder why they don't act
like Americans and look at the Iranians and can't
figure out why they don't want to be like us.
This pernicious befuddlement is coupled with a
boisterous, outgoing motivation to impose
Americanism upon these same peoples, and not so
much out of arrogance as just sheer ignorance.
Which is quaint at first but when the Americans
start pushing their weight around with force it's
only understandable that mature cultures start to
push back. And here the misunderstanding begins.
The misunderstanding
is on the part of the Americans not the rest of
the world, even though Americans don't see it
that way, (big surprise) they see everything from
their own perspective and are completely
incapable of grasping the motivations of other,
non-Americanized cultures and peoples.
They
failed in their wars against Vietnam because of
it, Korea because of it, and will continue to
succeed in spreading their values by force only
in spite of themselves. The more the world
rejects America the more America will feel the
need to employ force to install friendly
leaderships and reliable Americanized consumer
cultures, because they simply can't understand
anyone that doesn't want to be just like they are
and 'just because your nation has a thousand year
history and a proud culture is no excuse, all
that garbage is old and weird, you need
McDonalds and Disney animated characters'.
Unfortunately,
average America consists primarily of a nation of
infants, naive and vulnerable because they grow
up in simple, overprotected, and idealized
environments that breed foolish behavior and a wayward, naive
outlook. Because they avoid pain and tough choices in their
lives they grow up unable to maturely face difficult decisions and
realistic no-win situations. Americans have a distinct
inability to deal with a reality outside fiction and fantasy
which colors every conversation and comparison. Hence popular
perceptions of reality are so proscribed that entertainment and
mass-media references suffice to describe the sensations and
imaginations of the typical American.
The Gray Death
22.05.01 For such a young
country America is replete with old and dying things.
According to the latest census information the
median age of the U$ population went from 32.9 in
1990 to 35.3 just ten years later making
Americans as a whole older than ever before. The
average life expectancy in America for 1900 was
47. Today it's closer to 76 thanks to medical
advances and less strenuous lifestyles. Yet even
though geriatric science has succeeded in keeping
the bodies alive 30 years longer, the minds expire
long before creating a generation of mentally-atrophied invalids necessitating vast economic
expenditures in both time, money and social care.
The percentage of
the population over 65 is going from around 15%
up to 30% over the next 30 years, with this trend
even more pronounced in Western Europe and Japan
than North America. The old population is headed
towards a grand total of one billion people
worldwide in various states of terminal mental
and physical decline, along with the concomitant range
of resentment, incapacity and senility. But not
only can this demographic still vote, still drive
and still desperately attempt to do everything
they could before, they exercise significant
political muscle through influential Political
Action Committees and consistently activist
voting records (AARP, Gray Panthers, etc.) not to
mention the dangerous driving records.
Demographic ratios
will soon tip in favor of the elderly easily
exceeding the number of young healthy and
productive workers, generating serious financial
pressures upon welfare systems and unprecedented
social pressures upon disparate and distorted
coexisting groups. Today the average person over
65 takes at least 13 different medications in a
year, according to 1999 data. supporting entire
medical industries with tax dollars whose sole
purpose is to extend meaningless lives, not to
give them purpose or value to their existence
but merely to provide a drug-induced stay of
execution, like a credit extension for the
balloon payment on the mandatory debt of life.
Like dead-things on life-support housed in
storage units known as multi-dwelling-retirement-care-condominium-complexes.
These suburban monuments to a dying populace with
manicured lawns and young underpaid staff are
sprouting across the quiet parts of the country
like mushrooms, and inhabited by archaic, bitter
and brainless denizens kept alive by direct
government social security funding and massive
infusions of drugs. Tepid bodies with vapid minds
and depleting accumulations of cash accrued over
lifetimes of toil and mostly vain socialization.
The average cost per
year for nursing home patients is $47,000, with the cost shooting up as
disabilities accumulate. The primary
beneficiaries of this are the housing owners and
the pharmaceutical companies, as well as the
medical industry, all working to maintain above
room temperature body temperatures long enough to
keep the money rolling in. And when the 'old of
the old' generation finally expires they're ready
for the next, like the baby boomers (defined as
those born between 1946 and 1964) already
beginning to retire and estimated at 76 million
Americans. What keeps this warped stasis going?
Government complacency in grubbing for votes and
the ease of increasing the taxing of young labor
to keep the money funneled directly from federal
funds to the old age housing conglomerates and
the drug companies so they stay flush. Forget
productive economic participation, under the
present order the aged are deemed simply entities
to extort, bodies to exploit, fund accounts to
drain and scam. Without participation in the
outside society, an enclosed, gated, walled
and guarded community is just characterized by denial
and obliviousness, slowly waiting to die.
Psychologically speaking personal purpose is
crucial, it is a far greater crime than
euthanasia to keep persons around like living
fossils to generate resentment in
multiple parties.
In economically
modern countries old people have been made
redundant except as a means of direct federal
fund funneling into specific economic sectors.
And yet the role of the young has also been
rapidly altered in modern economies changing from
work-oriented responsible laborers to play and
learning-oriented irresponsible atoms. It need
not be this way but change is unlikely until the
working ages get squeezed hard enough with rising taxes and
decreasing benefits to fight back.
16.05.01 To understand
America and Americans one must embrace the
concept of the zero-sum game; simplistic
bifurcated competition consisting solely of
winners or losers void of any reasonable middle.
America is fertile ground for zealously and
preeminent self-righteousness where 'everyone
must believe what I do or else...' From
environmentalism to politics to religion we
encounter the same paradigm of either-or, but
rarely either-and. Whereas most countries seek at
least a superficial level of social harmony and
inter-party cohesion, if not social consensus
through either, say, Canadian cooperation or
Chinese authoritarian dictates, Americans are
thoroughly wedded to the notion of basal
Darwinian competition.
To grant an opponent's validity is a
sign of weakness and to value alternative input for forming
ideological balance is blood in the water. Yet instead of
fratricidal competition building stronger winners it far more
often merely destroys the competitors; and while this occurs the
space is made for the cooperators to emerge.
Freedom &
Potential
24.02.01 As much as I
criticize America it still has a lot going for it.
American pop-culture is surely reprehensible but
the traditional model has its own faults, not the
least of which being archaic, gender-driven
cultural artifacts entrenched within ossified
European society; kinde, kuche, kirche and
whatever the equally insulting French equivalent
is. Americans are in general a very dynamic group
capable of rapidly adjusting to changing
circumstances and successfully competing with
anyone when the need becomes unavoidably manifest.
Americans are a very adaptable group, they're quick to try new
things but slow to grasp the point or envision the consequences
which is where the incurable optimism comes into play.
By taking risks that most others
avoid they often gain, wealth and prosperity, and to some extent
that profit is able to offset the losses incurred from the
failures. How is this possible? Largely because of
their freedom from the above shackles of outmoded
stereotypes and primitive cultural notions. A
strong sense of merit based reward pervades
American culture that simply gets ignored
elsewhere with predictable consequences. The
'secret' is not mandating or imposing what people will be through
cultural structures, but
letting them determine that for themselves!
Yet despite the
marvelous success in freeing people from the
anchors of history America today is ironically
attempting to impose its own binders upon
success through quotas and hollow legalistic
guarantees imposed upon lines of disabilities,
gender, race, creed, and so on.
Regardless of the
implementation of these restrictions America has
decisively demonstrated like none before the
unparalleled success inherent within a system of
fairness based upon skill, ability and the free
expression of individual strengths within a structured society.
The future belongs to those who can amplify this concept not
limit it.
Are Cops Racist?
27.01.01 One's answer to the
question is quite nearly a litmus test for their
political stripe, but taking the issue seriously
for a moment, the answer may not be what it seems...
Although I don't wish to disparage the efforts of
police officers most of which are honest and
diligent, I am forced to disagree with the system
and it's errant rules. All police
officers are parts of the institution that pays
their wages, and therefore
they are the system, just as the hand works
for the mind of the body it's attached to.
The average citizen believes that only criminals fear the police, but police
aren't that discriminatory. Cops are far too often vultures
without sympathy for anyone but themselves and
perhaps fellow cops; they see everyone as the
same criminal scum because that's primarily what
they deal with on a daily basis. They develop a
moral-god complex where they begin to believe
they really are superior to the rest of the world
and above the rules because of the
endless series of losers they bust on a daily
basis.
But crime is an
interesting phenomenon in more than one way.
Although the ideal is to stop all crime cops know
that even if possible it would only put them out of a job!
In actuality a stasis emerges between visible
crime and police pressure. The crimes that affect
average people, visible crime and the crime trumpeted by the media, that's the high-profile
stuff that your city and state police go after
because it demonstrates results and it placates
the taxpayers. But that crime is just the tip of
the iceberg, the icing on the cake of criminal
activities. The stuff that's really going on, the
crimes that are less visible or take place mostly
in slums and ghettos anyway, gets a lot of (if not
total) free reign. That stasis allows for a lot of
bad stuff to happen just as long as it doesn't
directly affect the taxpaying public. The police
see little need to strain their already thin
resources on these zones, especially since it's
human nature that no one wants to do more work
than they have to. Of course those regions are inhabited
primarily by minorities. So in away the police
are racist in the sense of unequal protection.
Influence of the Mass-Media & Film
This stasis also has a cultural
component in that society believes a certain amount of trouble
is acceptable. For example, much youth hooliganism and
trouble-making are generally deemed normal rather than criminal,
and this also overlaps with cultural difficulties
in defining 'adult' as well as trying kids for
adult crimes. It's sort of a double standard
because if we could magically excise the entire
demographic of males aged 15-25 the violent crime
rate would drop to nil!
If our society was really
serious about battling violent crime they'd
target the root demographic, or at least make an
attempt to integrate the disassociated plethora
of subcultures and move them into productive
society. Instead, culture is defined by the media
which does the opposite by glamorizing gangs,
drugs, and violent crime through music, movies
and television. The cinema is a powerful tool
for molding behavior, especially of the young
viewer, because they lack the mature
discriminatory capabilities of their adult
counterparts. They all too often interpret the
confusing or the shallow and crass to be 'deep'
and meaningful because cinema is so heavily
symbolical in its method of informational
conveyance. Movies are about image and symbols
and both products are always much more
significant within the dimly lit subterranean
interpretations of the mind than on the 2D screen.
So not surprisingly how one feels towards a movie
is a very subjective experience. Another example,
the dead rapper Tupac Shakur poignantly stated
"I didn't have a [criminal]
record before I made a record." And this just goes to show that
rap artists need publicity to sell records, and the best way to
get the spotlight in a very competitive market is to stab or
rape and get a date in the courtroom. Who can argue that the
music business doesn't promote violence? It's a very sick
industry.
So instead of
prudence and discipline to attain positive life-goals we have a milieu that promotes hedonistic
foolishness and violent pseudo-solutions to the
increasing array of self-inflicted youth problems.
Considering that minority youth is so
predominantly involved in these self-destructive behaviors it's seems that the real racists are
the media moguls, rather than the reactionary force of the
police responding to criminal actions.
Legal Racism
08.11.00 According to Newsweek
"It can cost up to $71,000 a year to house
an inmate in New York's Rikers Island." $71,000?!
To send some loser to a roach infested, stinking'
cage for 20 years to effectively train him how to
be an even more vicious nogoodnik? For that much
money why don't we just cut out the middleman
here and give Mr. Deadbeat 70 grand a year if he
can stay out of trouble? Say 'hey bud here's a
TV, a recliner and plenty of beer. You think you
can keep from bothering anyone for a year if we
give you 70k in cash?' How about just six months
for $35,000?
|
Seems like a
pretty good enticement to me. Could you
hole up in your apartment for six months
and collect a check every week to stay
out of trouble with the law? Oh but then
we wouldn't have all those wonderful jobs
for guards and prison construction crews.
Our economy would no doubt collapse
without the slave labor provided by the
inmates. My God! The cost of license
plates would skyrocket; is that what you
want Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer? Is it! Career
criminals making better wages than you! |
 |
| World's
largest prison: the Los Angeles
Twin Towers complex. |
|
If it wasn't for the
fact people's lives, both innocent family and
hardened criminal, are being ruined everyday it
would be tough not to laugh at the sheer
absurdity of our entire criminal 'justice' system.
Tearing apart communities and incarcerating
people for actions they're largely incapable of
choosing a socially appropriate outcome for. The
apex of idiocy lies within the sheer racism of
the entire legal system in our western world.
Laws written by white men are applied equally to
Black, Latino and Asian regardless of disparate
cultures and morality! Colonialist imperialism
turned inward. Why does our society expect blacks
to act like whites, obey white laws, despite
chronic and blatant evidence of the completely
erroneous reasoning underpinning this mindset?
Racial statistics show that blacks and Hispanics
are overwhelmingly involved in crimes, crimes
codified in laws written by whites. Our laws are
racist, they are designed by whites, for whites,
but we subjects blacks Asians and Hispanics to
them equally. Forcing the square peg through the
round hole, it fails 1000 times but our society
seems to think that it will work on the 1001st
time. So are blacks and Hispanics more prone to
crime? Or are they just acting according to different rules from
different values?
Sarcasm Incorporated
28.09.00 Isn't it great how
every town looks like every other one now? I so
hate going to new places and finding regional
restaurants, new motels or unique stores. Do they
have a 'Red Robin' here, a 'Wal
Mart', Cine-multi-plex theaters, strip-malls,
what about 'Motel-6'? Great! I know exactly what
to expect, even which aisles to look for my
favorite Brand-Name™ merchandise at
the lowest® prices. And what's the point
in buying things if it hasn't been marketed and approved©
by New York or Hollywood ad-executives and PR
firms? I mean why trust anyone else? After all
they always know what's most fashionable and
which things are really the best buys. There's
nothing worse than spending one's hard earned
cash on products that may be supporting shifty,
crooked local businesses. And they don't even have
flashy ads and proper product posturing. A sure
sign of inferior goods; heck if they can't afford
to advertise how good can it possibly be? Without
doubt, if there's a God® in heaven he must be an American
wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a brand-name logo.
International Geographic
|
August 2009 |
Dangerous Precedent
21.10.00 The most popular
avant garde charity causes seem to increasingly
target Islamic culture, perhaps people lost
interest in the ozone hole and rescuing the Amazonian
rainforest, although Global Warming remains a
surefire donation magnet. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a good
example
and as senselessly hurtful as it seems to western senses it's at
minimum foolish and at worst dangerous to slide
down the slippery slope of moral interventionism.
I'm not saying this behavior should be condoned,
merely left alone so we can properly deal with
our own problems first over those of others.
America has been
steamrolling native cultures for decades, luring
them into adopting our religion, morality, dress
and way of life. Not only is this Imperialistic
and arrogant it's destined to fail, heaping scorn
and enmity upon America the 'benefactor' in the
near future. When one tries to intervene in the
mores and values of foreigners, attempting to
rectify their 'wrongs' and 'evils' through money,
legislation and force the end result may be to
superficially change behavior but it never
alters the mindset, the subterranean motivations
for their actions. The Imperialist comes off as
hypocritical because they intervene here and not
there, they aid one group but not another due to
the sheer impossibility of aiding everyone at
once but also because they're really motivated not
by eleemosynary altruism but by politics and
economic interests. Hence the Sudanese imbroglio
over oil and slavery, pure politics. Much of the
developing world wants the U$A to be the globo-cop
and beat up local bullies like Saddam Hussein;
but we shouldn't mistake this for a genuine
desire for American cultural and political
assimilation. As ego-deflating as it may be, the
real reason is they just want somebody to take
the heat for them, to be the shield and absorb
the arrows of criticism.
The rest of the world knows
American interventionism is pure hypocrisy, they know for
example that Israel determines near east foreign policy. Even a poorly educated Palestinian kid
can figure out what most Americans can't. But
then he's living it every day - he throws rock
while the Israelis use American military
equipment to blow-up his friends.
The point is every group believes
that their mode of life is superior, but you don't impress the
rest by bludgeoning them into adopting your ways. It is wiser to
lead by example than by meddling and force.
|
Never
underestimate the American capacity to figure out what's really
going on ... after it's too late to do anything about it.
|
|
|
