Feb 27, 2003
The gathering of troops for a coming, yet undeclared, war against Iraq generates unrest. There is a queasy feeling, unsettling, that permeates into the innermost parts of the soul. It festers, day after day, as a pustule pressuring a nerve, putting peace of mind to flight. What is it, this splinter in the mind, this irritating thorn that torments the day? The question cries for an answer, begs to know. War is very serious, with grave consequences. There must be a compelling reason before war can be considered.
The reasons are not compelling. The arguments are nebulous. Why is this war being promoted? The answer, when it finally comes, is simple enough ... we are being seduced. It is the BIG LIE returned, a psych-war operation being conducted by leaders against their own people. It is put before us repeatedly, as it always is, shouted into our ears, spit into our eyes, punched into our teeth. What is the Big Lie this time? It is the insistence that Iraq is an imminent threat to the world.
The BIG LIE originates in Bush's Washington, and is parroted by Blair in England. The idea for an Iraq war was born in the mid-90's, in the minds of strategists interested in Middle Eastern affairs. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were parties, writing to Clinton twice, arguing that there must be another war in the Middle East, and that it must result in the complete destruction of Iraq. Their rationale was, "our friends and allies" are threatened.
Who, in the region of Iraq, are the "friends and allies" of the US? What country, exactly, is being threatened? Israel is the only one. Who are the men who are in favor of this war, who insist on it, embarrass themselves repeatedly by constructing false evidence? The war hawks are the "friends and allies" of Israel within and alongside the Bush administration. If they are not Israeli citizens, they are de facto sympathisers of Zionist theory and practice. It is possible to line them up, to call their names. The overall impression is that Israeli interests have managed to take the reins of the US political wagon. It has been done quietly, but effectively.
Why do the hawks want this war? Moreover, why is it so difficult to make a case for it? If war is necessary, why is it deemed appropriate to fabricate facts? Why must leaders of the war party resort to manufactured evidence, offering plagiarised and purloined documents in the attempt to make a credible case? Such immoral behaviour more than convinces us that the war itself is a contrived affair. We are being sold a snake oil war, and we aren't buying.
The great fear of the Israeli leadership is that the Palestinian refugee groups will soon be able to defend themselves. Every move of the Israeli army is to prevent anti-tank rockets and land mines from entering the encircled occupied territories. They have failed. The Palestinians have learned to manufacture them, and have successfully used them to stop the tanks. Soon they will be able to punish Israeli military incursions into the occupied territories, to mount a defense that can force Israel to withdraw its tanks and bulldozers into a fortified zone.
Israel now wants a war to re-establish regional dominion. The United States, whose economy is dependent on cheap oil, has an enormous investment in Israel. The position of Israel must be militarily supported. Saddam Hussein has been a supporter of the Palestinians, offering them financial and other support. The defense of Israel is the only credible purpose for the manufactured war.
Saddam Hussein has done nothing to attract negative attention in the twelve years since the Gulf war, other than aid the Palestinian refugees. Under the umbrella of 9/11, he has been pulled up, like a rabbit from the crumpled hat of a confidence man, for the sole purpose of perpetrating a pustulous parody of pious police action in a spurious pursuit of peace. The sham is clearly seen. The world naturally reacts. There is widespread anger and resentment, both toward the hawks and toward Israel. Nobody can stomach being lied to for long. We are all sick of it.
We are being sold a fecal little war, designed to further the interests of a tiny racist country with a cesspool morality. The real purpose for this war is camouflaged, concocted by a vocal conclave of machiavellian mischief-makers, using as pretext the BIG LIE that Saddam Hussein of Iraq is a dangerous tyrant, an evil man, a murderer, and that in Iraq, there are bombs and other weapons that he intends to use to kill people by the thousands.
We are repeatedly told, with great passion and finger pointing, that certain weapons exist, and that Iraq has them hidden in the sand somewhere. Solid and credible evidence is always promised, but when the delivery date arrives, all we receive is an empty sack of cheap, shoddy goods seemingly clapped together in haste. We get only an amateurish attempt to gratify the gullible. We have had quite enough of that.
We were told that there is credible evidence, and that it would be presented in the halls of the United Nations. Expectantly we waited for the day of revelation, when the satellite pictures, the secret intelligence documents, the reports of spies, and the collected data from twelve years of electronic espionage would be presented to us. We were properly forearmed with knowledge any necessary evidence can be created by artistic technicians, and our antennas were tuned in preparation.
Powell, a respected general, a veteran of Vietnam and the Gulf War, now elevated to Secretary of State (the first of his ethnic group to be so honored), came in with his carefully prepared dossier. He exuded a statesmanlike bearing. People admire him for his rational and moderate approach to statecraft. He is the best foot put forward. He sat down sternly before the cameras. We all thought, "He will not lie to us, will not try to deceive us." We were disappointed in that, and in him.
His lengthy disquisition of the evidence fell flat before a slack-jawed audience. There was no applause. It is obvious that he was selected to abuse our confidence. He showed the satellite pictures, acquired at the cost of millions of dollars. The pictures were expanded onto the big screen, while his commentary gave his background analysis.
"Here .. right here," he told us, is the place where the poisons are stored, where the bacterial toxins are being manufactured. He spoke with an air of utmost assurance, oozing complete confidence that the pictures he showed truly proved that Iraq was to deceiving the UN inspectors, the Security Council, and the world. After Powell's presentation, reporters went to visit the site shown on the big screen, and found it was in Kurdish hands, innocent and incapable of biological or chemical weapon production. It was located where no Iraqi soldiers or scientists dare go.
He referred to the heralded report prepared by the famous, expertly-trained intelligence forces of Great Britain, which later proved to be a cut--and-paste portfolio, more appropriate for a freshman incapable of writing an original essay, than a delivery of rare and damning evidence by a major world power. The hard won reputations of US and British intelligence services were destroyed in an hour. The evidence necessary to justify the expenditure of thousands of lives, the enormous expense, the disruption of the economy was not there.
Soon the audience was fuming. It is not the Iraqi's who are attempting to deceive us, it is our own leaders, seemingly eager to drench the desert sands in blood. We, the trusting audience, are indeed being deceived. The infuriating thing is that we are not being deceived by Saddam Hussein or other Iraqi leaders, but by our own leaders. This is inexcusable. In a democracy, elected representatives carry out the wishes of the people they represent. They tell us they know better than we, that they have secret information, collected in our name, but that we cannot be trusted with it.
When we insist, they inform us that they "must protect the sources", and as elected representatives, they now are free exercise the powers of their office as they wish. The leaders are telling us that we have given them a mandate to depart from their instructions, to make decisions without regard to the wishes of the people they represent, which is a corruption of democratic theory. This tendency to independent action, free of public constraint, is autocracy in action. It taints the entire argument for any war at all. The troops must be brought home.
The history of the intrigue is suspicious in itself. The first Gulf war was the result of an invasion by Iraq into Kuwait, an effort to annex oil-bearing sands that have long been the subject of dispute between the two countries. Before Iraq began preparations for the operation, the American Ambassador to Iraq visited Saddam Hussein in his office, and the report of their conversation is not public. Both sides have confirmed that the United States raised no objection, and agreed to stand aside while Iraq took the oil-bearing land.
Looking back, one must wonder where the initiative arose, in Baghdad, or Washington? The Iraqi’s do not say they were encouraged by anyone, nor do they say they were betrayed. However, when Iraq took possession of the disputed Kuwaiti oil fields, the US responded in anger, and the American President, George Bush Sr., declared that the annexation “would not stand.”
Was Saddam double-crossed? A massive programme of psychological warfare and disinformation was perpetrated on the American public, in order to get backing for an American war to reclaim the oil fields. “Iraq must not be allowed to have such power over the essential flow of oil to the West,” was the argument. The United Nations provided a limited accord to sanction the coalition’s massive buildup and attack, which proved disastrous to Iraq’s buildings, bridges and electrical infrastructure.
It was reported that the intent was to “punish Iraq, by bombing them back to the Stone Age.” This scenario is to be continued in the coming weeks, this time with or without any limitations or proscriptions placed by the UN. It appears to be a family affair, passed from father to son, lubricated by oil, and paid for by the American and British taxpayers. No deaths were reported among the politicians during the Gulf war, who are basically the same fellows seen today ducking into deep concrete bunkers whenever a vehicle backfires. “The Secret Service made me do it,” they say, in a fatuous attempt to avoid laughter at such cowardice.
The Western nations supplied munitions to Iraq in the eight years of war against Iran. The equipment and technology sold to Iraq by Western corporations (much of it on credit) included chemical, biological and possibly high explosive bombs. The records of these transactions were submitted recently to the United Nations by Iraq, responding to a request. United States operatives, wrongly censoring the document before it could be formally presented, deleted the mention of weapons sales, with a list of suppliers. Why was this done in stealth? It is because it destroys the argument, that Iraq is the originator and sole possessor of such evil weaponry. If Iraq is 'evil', then the West is equally full of sin. It is the knowledge of such guilt that motivates and guides every aspect of this dirty little affair, to be performed by innocent young men, full of testosterone, on a ancient land and culture.
Where is Bush Sr. today? He is not in the public eye. He makes no speech, he makes no comment. He is a private man, living well on a generous pension paid by the US taxpayer to ex-presidents. He is probably not idle, totally vegetating in the leisure of retirement from political life. Nor can he be unaware of the policies of his son. He is said to have a high and comfortable position with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm, and one that has extensive investments in the defense industry. When high-level public servants enter private life, the public takes note of what appears to some as though the Carlyle Group rewards them for services rendered.
John Major, the Prime Minister of Britain at the time, was also very active in the conduct of the Gulf war. He has retired from politics, and is enjoying life at the pastoral trough. He, too, is reported to have a private position, and it is with the same Carlyle Group. Is this purely a coincidence? How, one asks, does the Carlyle Group employ the energies of these retired ex-politicos. What, exactly, do they do? What is to be the future relationship of George Bush Jr. to the Carlyle Group? Is he to find a cozy desk beside his father with them? Does the Carlyle Group have another executive position awaiting Tony Blair? The relationship between military contractors and politicians is an unhealthy one at best, tending to drain the public treasury under a guise of defense spending, while enriching those with an itch to be rich through proposing little wars that make those defense contracts seem necessary.
Iraq accumulated a debt of over $USD 50 billion during the Iran war, and that debt is largely unpaid. The misappropriation of oil from the Kuwaiti fields was an effort to honourably (dishonourably?) settle these outstanding bills. The UN sanctions against oil sales, put in place after the Gulf war, have kept the debts unpaid. We must ask if the current plans for war are largely to take as spoils enough oil to appease these creditors? It is widely noted that the weak coalition being formed in favor of the war is largely a bought one, bought with promises of money that is not immediately apparent to a casual observer.
The US and Britain are going to war on credit. Neither have the fiscal capability to meet existing national budgets. It is as though one were to find all the credit cards over-extended, with interest and principal due, and no funds available. If the world bond market refuses to put up additional cash, where is it to come from, if not by making a promise that the spoils of the planned war (Iraqi oil) will be used to settle all claims. This back room dealing to get access to invasion jump-off sites, use of airports, and Security Council votes, is a despicable affair. What do the citizens of the US, Britain, Australia and Spain think of this type of international monetary diplomacy? They don't think highly of it at all, judging from published poll results.
We are being lied to, and by men of middling mentality, men with beady eyes set too closely across the nose. We are being cajoled, threatened and duped by those we ourselves have given positions of trust. Let history record that many people were not deceived, though sickened to death, by their lies and deception. We are disgusted with them, and demand an end to this arrogant disregard for truth and honesty in foreign affairs. We are embarked on a course of war against our wishes, with its brutality, insane killing of the innocent, destruction of civil engineering and basic infrastructure. The conclusion is obvious, the troops must be recalled home.
If there is to be a rational resolution, it will be by a revolution of the humble people of the earth, aroused from docility, from a placid willingness to believe the BIG LIE. The meek, revolted by the malevolence of greedy and self-righteous corporate wolves wearing the sheepskin of public office, now act to reclaim their rightful heritage
The methods and madness of a rotten little regime at the end of the Mediterranean have infected and infested the greatest defender of freedom the world has known. The barbarous practices of targeted assassination and preemptive action (treacherous and unannounced) have long festered in the Israeli soul. Torture in Israeli prisons is routine, and now the US has caught the contagious bug of its racism. Or, one may ask, has it always been smouldering there, awaiting a weakness in the lid to burst into full flame? However that may be, the world will not willingly become a slave. Bending too far in an effort to avoid anti-Semitism tends to result in support of Holocaust II, perpetrated by the victims of Holocaust I.
The institutions, the mechanisms for achieving accord in a world troubled with population and environmental despoliation, are in place and working. It is inexcusable to denounce and sabotage them whenever the weight of opinion is against you. Land mines, torture and greenhouse gasses are among the issues on which America has refused to cooperate. The refusal to endorse and approve the World Court arouses suspicion of the motives of this once honourable country.
To the warmongers, those who every day promote the BIG LIE to us, who attempt to deceive us in order to achieve selfish ends, we say, "Confess your perfidy. Repent. Call home the troops, the ships and planes. They are for defense, not aggression. Make amends to the peoples of the world. Turn and give full attention to the immense domestic problems that are the real threat.
Withdraw support from that filthy little country, with its faulty foundation of racist and inhumane policy. Defend and give generously to assist the oppressed Palestinians, aiding them to establish the self-rule they desire and deserve. Enforce the Balfour Declaration, which protects the rights of all existing residents of Palestine. Do this, and a blessed peace will descend as never before, for there are none who hate you. Go about your domestic duties with a good heart, be honest and truthful, and sin no more."
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