Re: Paul Craig Roberts: "A Third American War Crime in the Making"
"The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag."
-- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (1981-1940) Major General USMC. Source: from a speech in 1933
I spend my days crying most of the day.
How I live I would not wish on anyone else. And I do not wish it on anyone else, either. I see little hope of escaping either. I stood up and got counted and now I must PAY.
I think muchly about my sisters around the world - the ones who have had their illusions and dreams stripped away. Most are in remote places and don't even know I exist. But I know much about their plights and those of their daughters and sons.
I make it my business to know, you might say.
I try to harness my incredible brain power to try to help them -- reading, researching and writing away at all hours of the day and night and even my dreams I pretend I am their diplomat and that I can convince young people to take up the "Unpopular causes." Causes that must be taken up if this planet is to have any sanity left.
I analyze away using a higher brain function than most, and try to keep my feelings attached which is no small feat.
People are not too interested in what I have to say for many reasons. I refer to myself as a Cassandra - the woman who tells the future that no one wants to hear.
For I am a woman who has been living with the effects of The Big Lie for nearly 40 years. That lie is that "all men are created equal" and that somehow the US government is the protector of certain inalienable rights granted by God.
Unless a person is absolutely brain dead, that fact that the US is anything BUT a protector of such views and was founded on a phony premise. The premise is that under a court of law, equal justice will applied to all parties. In fact, it is to my mind a ridiculous premise to assume that most law cases where justice is demanded will even make it to court. And should it fall into some other venue, well, the same standard of equality is not a basic premise.
I was denied my rights in America. I came to Canada expecting to find (with God's help) equal justice as asylum seeker. Boy! was that ever naive. Yes, after a long and horrible wait, I seemed to achieve something like fairness and life was good for about six months and then the carpet was pulled out from under me, my son and my husband. And then "the wheels of justice" ground on so interminably that all three of us had bodies that just gave out. The human body can really only take so much stress when under the weight of oppression.
Eight years after I came here, I was denied refugee status in a kangaroo court where I was not even really allowed to speak in my own defense. Lots of attorneys got paid a bundle of money to be in on the "photo opportunity" though. Plenty of money was spent on the exercise of holding all the court sessions, generally. Plenty of money was spent surveilling me. Everyone went home from that courtroom in 2001 feeling "justice" had been served. Not surprisingly my son and I did not feel justice was served.
No one apologized. These people - 7 highly paid attorneys - all live comfortably now surrounded by their families, I am sure. They have letters after their names and also, they can insulate themselves from ongoing human pain.
I have an ex husband I put through law school. He is very very comfortable indeed. He has a very low moral standard, in actual fact and doesn't hold himself accountable the law to his own personal legal obligations. He owes me thousands of dollars. Dollars which I will never see. Years of outstanding child support payments which were ridiculously low to begin with, were never paid to me. This doesn't pain him one little bit. It pains me a great deal. I could surely use that money even without factoring interest payments. He's used that money he owed me to build his fame, his prestige in a community that we both grew up in. His reputation goes untarnished; I am disappeared. That was so very convenient.
Would he eat dinner with Richard Cheney? Would he eat dinner with me?
These seem like trivial questions: I assure you that that are not.
These are the kinds of questions that people from nice society are not supposed to ask. But these are fundamental questions that show how a lack of seeing the real consequences of one's choices can affect many people. Choices can have catastrophic effects on the lives of others.
Today, I watched in horror as I found myself set up by David Swanson's deceit just one more time. I fell for it once before and no one questioned why he did what he did. I don't think David Swanson would eat dinner with Richard Cheney; but then I think Richard Cheney wouldn't allow that. But I do think that David Swanson would eat dinner with John Conyers.
In fact, in my morose state tonight, laying in bed, hurting so badly with no one around, I had a distinct picture of David Swanson in a DC bar or coffee shop "hobnobbing" with those on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee after today's "action" - and I began to cry again.
I became one of the 9-year old prostitutes in Syria dancing and having sex with psychopathic men to make sure my mother had food to eat. She had this to say:
I wondered why David Swanson and his compatriots sold me out AGAIN in that big palace that they have where they make deals to fund the war in Iraq. I thought that they wanted an end to the war so that I could go back home to Baghdad again. Maybe in Baghdad we would find others who would help us plant a little garden. But I think David Swanson and his friends in that big palace forgot about that today.
I wondered why David Swanson had so many people supporting him today, but my diplomat had so little reach. Why did no one listen to her? Why was no one really was concerned with what she had to say. I so badly wanted to see someone acting on my behalf. I think everyone in the United States must be deaf these days! I know my diplomat keeps a picture of me on a table. This makes me feel better. She has one of me as a baby and one of me here, where I dance for the men, two different pictures!! She must care about me!!
I wondered why my diplomat works long hard hours to find out why my family and I got treated this way, but no one allows her to publish her findings, and no one asks her to speak on my behalf.
Today, I thought about my cousins who work in Saudi Arabia who make good money working in the oil fields but never sent my mother any money. They don't send anything and they don't even write us. I wonder how my cousins get through Ramadan and what treats they might eat after sunset when they need to replenish their energy. Ramadan is time to think about Mohammad might do, figure out what must be done to get back to doing right and then to atone. But I am not sure what that atonement means to older people. For me it means never forgetting that I sometimes scream at my sister for bossing me around - and then saying to her, that I love her anyway.
I wondered today if my cousins in Saudi Arabia go to other towns and have fun with other nine-year old girls like me, getting high and crazy with other Saudi Arabian men and having fun. And then I wonder: Do those men send checks to their Iraqi cousins? Or do they keep those cheques all for themselves like my cousins do.
The man who owns my club - he likes me and not my sister. Maybe I can get him to give me a little something extra one night and I can share that with my sister and my mother. We talk about being able to get enough money to buy gas masks if the shooting starts here, as it did in Baghdad - in that long ago time when my father was still alive and before my brother lost his leg.
I do not understand adults at all. But maybe I will when I grow up. I can act very adult now, but sometimes I just do not understand it all. I'd like to school but I cannot. My sister and I must be breadwinners and that's all we really have time to do. We must make sure our hair looks nice, that we have proper cosmetics. Fashions change - the magazines say so and we are always buying new ones!! When we look nice people fuss over us which is better than being ignored and sometimes then we make more money.
We would really like to buy some gas masks but the money just gets spend so quickly. There is so rarely enough money now. The magazines in the shops I go to don't have advertising for gas masks in them and we wonder how we would get them if we had the money.
I have to go now. Someone has asked me to dance. Do you think someone will speak for us in Washington DC tomorrow? Or will they forget about me and my sister and my brother here in Syria? Will they have drinks with my Saudia Arabian cousins instead? If I keep thinking about these hard things, I'll forget to smile, and no one will throw any money at me on the dance floor. Going home with no money will make the next day very hard for me, my mother and my brother.
I will write to my diplomat again. Maybe she will show people how sweet I am ask them to help me and my sister and my mother just one more day. I would really like to go home to Baghdad one day. At least I could go see where I used to live. But I don't want to go there until all the tanks are gone. And I not sure what I could do to make money if I went now so I can help my mother and my brother! I have another cousin in an orphanage in Baghdad - and I'd like to share some of my clothes with her; I have many clothes now and she might like some of them.
I really must go now. They are getting very angry with me.
I am sure the reader is confused why I write this. What possible connection can there be between me and this nine-year old girl? Why is my story like hers? Am I too presumptuous in thinking that there is?
No, I am not. People were presumed in the US government to be looking after our best interests. But they were not. People responsible for our well-being who were paid to look after our interests and keep our families together did not. Instead, we watch in horror as those we loved were taken away from us. The girl as yet, the one in my mind, is not yet a motherless daughter but one day, inevitably, unless the girl gets a STD or some other horrible form of physical decay sets in will probably outlive her mother and THEN she will be an orphan. This will have many many effects on her for the rest of her life. This is something I know quite a bit about - the emotional cost.
That's why despite my pain (and plenty of it) I get up each day and run from site to site, from email to email to try to keep people AWAKE and demand real justice. It's quite a tiring job, really. It demands constant, vigilant ability on my part to not go into the "disconnect zone".
Today, I noted with interest how many on the ACLU team going down to Guantanamo Bay to defend detainees were women. There were quite a number and I was very very proud of them all!! Some of them are really "sticking it" to Richard Cheney too!! RAH!! Not everyone is emotionally disconnected as Cheney and Halliburton/KBR make super profits off human misery, leaving death, destruction and the rape of souls in their wake. Some people got up today and DID THE RIGHT THING - and were doing their best.
I wish I could say the same thing about David Swanson and my ex husband. But I cannot. In my life time, I have seen many people not DO THE RIGHT THING when it comes to the interests of me and my sisters around the globe.
What follows now is a strategic summary by Paul Craig Roberts about the Cheney war plans - war plans that don't take women and children's into account in any way.
Roberts assessment is probably close to true - I am sure he has many sources "leaking" away to him.
Webster Tarpley will look like the idiot - for now - as setting up the war planning is taking up a lot of time. I think that using outsourced agents for intel is a factor in that time lag - Webster said 6 April, but I don't expect an attack this week myself, based on what I read in Seymour Hersch's article in The New Yorke.
Bill Gates, George Dubya, Dick Cheney and Isreali's running the White House are just going to have wait a bit to get that "VICTORY!" that they think history demands of them. As victors, surely, surely no one is going to come after them for WAR CRIMES. And the 2009 proposed US budget for defense will HAVE to be approved, eh? Can't let our troops down by not giving them what they need to get the job done? And the money is so easily printed now - by the time the full weight of the attack and the consequences for America are know, all US forests can be taken to print more lovely US dollar bill$.
I cannot definitely call the target of the next war of AGGRESSION. THEY, as I know refer to THEM, may go after Syria, using Israel as a proxy. They may expect that "doing" Syria may bring Iran to kowtow to Israeli government demands that Iran be without nuclear abilities. Take note: the failure to stop this is now equally the result of the Warcast Media and the "The Democratic Party" - and in my opinion the codepedent nature of the so-called US antiwar movement which still thinks being coopted time after time after time after time is stil the way to "go".
Here then, is Roberts' assessment of the next chapter in The MADMAN as Ruler of the World section of this phase of global history.
I would dispute his title: Many are the war crimes that have been committed. And I type those words with despair in my heart. I would like my nine-year old girl inside me living in Syria to make it back home to Baghdad some day. I would like to see the Witch Tree in Grand Portage one more time.
She has a lot of grieving to do to stay whole, a huge amount of crying needs to be done by her and her sister. They don't have time to shed them; they are too busy making money.
I may subcumb to the illness I have because my immune system is shot and my liver with it. And ditto on my thyroid. Small wonder about the thyroid. Constant stress is hard on me and my sister's around the world's thyroids.
Those young girls in Syria dance. I just continue to type away ...
Have you gone deaf yet? Can you hear what I am trying to tell you all?
Things are NOT right; people are not doing THE RIGHT THING.
IMPEACHMENT NOW, not after an attack!!
John Conyers, you are the biggest CRYBABY I have ever seen on this planet.
And ICH, a forum I once I held dear -- I am sick of you leaving us women FACELESS. Maybe then people would truly GET FED UP. Many of us women are SUFFERING daily. Right now, I don't want to go back. I got censored when I wrote about the women and children, even in the threads there. If some people miss me there, well, that remains to be seen.
Veeger
A Third American War Crime in the Making
By Paul Craig Roberts
31/03/08 "<http://www.informat ionclearinghouse .info/>
ICH" -- -- The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression-- a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard--by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited "a high-ranking security source: "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran." <http://en.rian. ru/russia/ 20070327/ 62697703. html>http://en.rian. ru/russia/ 20070327/ 62697703. html
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said "that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future."
The chief of Russia's general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last November that Russia was beefing up its military in response to US aggression, but that the Russian military is not "obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans." <http://www.mnweekly .ru/national/ 20071115/ 55289883. html>http://www.mnweekly .ru/national/ 20071115/ 55289883. html
On March 29, OpEdNews cited a report by the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi newspaper reported on March 22, the day following Cheney's visit with the kingdom's rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors." <http://empireburles quenow.blogspot. com/2008/ 03/worried- yet-saudis- prepare-for- sudden.html>http://empireburles quenow.blogspot. com/2008/ 03/worried- yet-saudis- prepare-for- sudden.html
And Admiral William "there will be no attack on Iran on my watch" Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing the way for Cheney's planned attack on Iran.
The Iranians don't seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group to the Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses to protect US bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and the American people have paved the way for Cheney's long planned attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the US government's explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats' refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging a "Polish attack" on a German radio station. On the night of August 31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler announced that "last night Polish troops crossed the frontier and attacked Germany," a claim no more true than the Bush Regime's claim that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. " Hitler's lie failed, because his invasion of Poland, which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack, had obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient civilization. It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime's case against Iran is based on the Bush Regime's desire to deny Iran its rights under the treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly reported that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the Iraqis who are resisting the American occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles to knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not have these weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery shells. The insurgents are helpless against US air power and cannot mass forces to take on the American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. The civilian infrastructure is essentially destroyed--electric ity, water and sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted uranium is everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops. There is no economy, and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi family has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence of the US invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become displaced persons. A developed country with a professional middle class has been destroyed because of lies told by the President and Vice President of the US. The Bush Regime's lies are echoed by a neoconservative media, and have gone unchallenged by the opposition party and an indifferent American public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest village from the air. America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against the civilian populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler's next horror and thus was always unprepared, the Iranians despite all the evidence cannot believe that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack Iran based on nothing but lies about non-existent nuclear weapons.
Iran's only chance would be to strike before the US delivers the first blow. Instead of using its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead of closing the Strait of Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi Shi'ites and moving them to insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial even as the US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki move to eliminate Al Sadr's Iraqi Shi'ite militia in order to avoid supply disruptions and a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is important to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war. Having tamed, blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US media, and US allies and puppets, Cheney might delight in the arrogance with which he can now attack Iran free of any restraint or fabricated provocation. On the other hand, he might cover himself by orchestrating an "Iranian provocation" to justify his attack as a response. But like Hitler's planned attack against Poland, Cheney's attack on Iran has long been in the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press reported that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi "poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders" at the Arab summit that day. Gadhafi told the Arab "leaders," many of whom are on the American payroll, that their American masters would turn on them all, just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a proxy war against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi reminded the Arabs, "but they sold him out." Gadhafi told the American puppets, "Your turn is next."
Gadhafi asked,
"Where is the Arabs' dignity, their future, their very existence?"If Arabs remain disunited, he predicted,
"they will turn themselves into protectorates. They will be marginalized and turn into garbage dumps."Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder at will in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, is forthcoming from Random House in March, 2008.
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