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| http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=47601
Choose from the following:
* USA -- imperial state
* USA -- terror state
* USA -- criminal state
* USA -- rogue state
* USA -- corporate state
* USA -- military state
* USA -- aggressor state
* USA -- torture state
* USA -- all of the above
Answer[s] found below.
One other choice can be added ... a state of disgrace.
One choice not included ... a model democratic state.
One choice not needed is a state of confusion ... the evidence is clear,
overwhelming and conclusive.
VHeadline.com guest commentarist Stephen Lendman writes: This essay is a review
of US predatory and exploitive policy since the founding of the republic. The
difference between now and then is that what began modestly in 13 colonies and
then expanded south and west to include all land between the 2 oceans south of
Canada and soon half of Mexico, now extends to a stated intent to dominate the
planet and space above it.
Another difference is the overwhelming military power through modern
technology and super-weapons that might allow such a plan to succeed -- at least
for a while.
Today the goal is "grand" and "imperial" and is clearly delineated in strategic
plans and documents discussed later on below. No terminology explains it better
than the language of "full spectrum dominance" which means the intent to achieve
total control of land, sea, air and space by any means including war.
No nation gets a pass, and any that dares deviate or tries to govern outside the
US orbit or western style so-called "free market neoliberal" model is certain to
become a target for hostile action against it by one means or other -- economic
isolation, attempted coups or assassination or, when all else fails, war. It's
happened endless times before and is ongoing now in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti
with at least Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Hugo Chavez' Venezuela (and
possibly Evo Morales' Bolivia) in an unknown queue on the target list.
Already since 2002, the US has tried and failed 3 times to oust Hugo Chavez --
by a failed 2002 coup, a painful and economically disruptive late 2002 and 2003
oil strike and a failed 2004 recall referendum.
Always in the past, failure never deterred renewed and innovative attempts to
achieve success. There's little doubt another plan is now in the works or will
be shortly, this time possibly involving an attempt to remove Hugo Chavez
forcibly by invasion and/or assassination or both.
Because of the US' desire and intent to control Venezuela's vast hydrocarbon
reserves, it's only a question of when, not if, the next attempt against him
will unfold.
The early evidence of something brewing or imminent will be the ratcheting up of
anti-Chavez demonizing rhetoric that will gain intensity and repetition through
the US complicit corporate media. Then like a storm follows a darkened sky and
low rumble of thunder, action will follow by what ever means intended -- at this
time with an unknown result.
Looking back throughout our us history, expansion and a desire and intent to
dominate has always been the plan. As a result, our claim to be a model
democratic state and standard for all other nations to emulate has been and
still is hollow and false. This nation and its leaders always failed the test of
practicing what it preached. Even our venerated Founding Fathers, elevated to
near-sainthood by succeeding generations, were fatally flawed. A few hundred
years of slavery and the near extermination of our native people ("merciless
Indian savages" they were called in our Declaration of Independence) are just
two stark examples that come to mind.
And incredible as it seems, this nation since its birth has been at war with
one or more adversaries every year without exception up to the present day.
That's in addition to all our other attempts to destabilize or overthrow
governments of other nations for the "audacity" of their wanting to decide how
to govern in their own national interest rather than do it in service to ours.
With so many instances of US meddling and unwarranted intrusion to choose from,
it's hard to cite a single example. But a little known and now forgotten event
is especially important.
As early as 1917, the US and UK [then the powerful British empire] were on
record as wanting to destroy the newly-emerged Soviet state. In 1918 [3 months
before the end of WW1] the UK, commanding a multi-nation force including
thousands of US marines, invaded Russia intervening in their civil war to fight
against the Bolsheviks, who, of course, won. The importance of this act of
aggression [unimagined at the time] and the seminal effect it had on events that
followed changed history.
We stayed embroiled until 1920, caused great upheaval and added human suffering,
contributed to the rise of Stalin and Hitler, probably helped cause WW2 and all
the fallout thereafter, and [aside from the Philippines] was the first
international intervention that would eventually transform the US from a
regional to a world imperial power displacing the British.
Those "great democrats," Lloyd George of Britain and Woodrow Wilson, began it
along with France, Canada, Japan and over a dozen other nations. The even
"greater" most Machiavellian of modern statesmen, Winston Churchill [the
Minister of War and Air in the Lloyd George government and 22 years before he
became the British Prime Minister] fully supported it. Both nations feared the
creation of a serious rival economic model that might spread like a virus to
other nations and undertook a policy of "preventive war" to annihilate it at its
birth. They also later allied themselves shamelessly with Mussolini, Hitler,
Franco [during the 1930s before WW2] and all other fascist and tinhorn tyrants
after the war as long as they embraced the capitalist economic model and
dutifully genuflected to US authority.
An important footnote to the campaign against the new communist/socialist state
was the "great red scare" and Palmer raids from 1918 -- 1921. Initiated by A.
Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General [the John Ashcroft of his
day] and his aide, J. Edgar Hoover, the raids capitalized on a post-Soviet
revolution state-induced climate of fear and repression against communists,
socialists, anarchists, radical unionists and even 5 time socialist presidential
candidate Eugene Debs who served time in prison for opposing and speaking out
against the US entry into WW1. Debs, in fact, ran his 1920 and last presidential
campaign while in prison and received 1 million votes losing to that "great
American president" Warren G. Harding. Harding wasn't all bad -- he released
Debs on Christmas day, 1921, a sort of backhanded Christmas present to a great
man.
Through the years as the nation grew and matured, things got worse. In wealth,
influence and dominance we peaked post-WW2.
With most of Europe and much of Asia devastated by war, only the US, unscathed,
stood preeminent as the world's only superpower, militarily, politically and
economically. Even though the Soviets, once they acquired nuclear weapons, were
anointed as "the other superpower" and a dire threat to the "free world" by our
political establishment, that country was in such ruin it didn't begin to return
even to modest normality until about 1960. And the truth was, especially post
WW2, the Russians were never coming and the "cold war" scare was that era's "war
on terror." It was used as a convenient ruse to scare the public to support the
building of the military-industrial complex Dwight Eisenhower warned against --
while he himself went along with it.
The US, in fact, had no threatening enemy [but the Soviet Union did, and we were
it], and was mostly free to decide how the post-war world would be run with it
in charge and using the political and financial institutions it helped create to
carry out its bidding. It built and maintained enough military power to enforce
its will against any potential challenger including those nations' leaders not
beholden to US authority. The Soviet Union could never match us, except for
their nuclear weapons and effective delivery systems that could be used against
us in retaliation had we launched a nuclear strike against them first.
As disgraceful as our past record was, Bush-Cheney took it to a new level of
shame and outrage with the onset of their extreme reactionary, statist and
sociopathic administration.
Let's be clear, the current Bush-Cheney leadership in essence is a continuation
of and natural extension of all that preceded it. It's pursued much the same
policies seeking the same ends as its predecessors. What sets this regime apart
from all those it followed is its brazen uncompromising methods, fanatical
extremism, bold rhetoric and almost pathological insistence on secrecy. All
other US administrations at least paid lip service [and most often adhered] to
the Constitution, the rule of law, international law, the sacred Geneva
Conventions we're a signatory to, multilateralism, international treaties and
more.
Not the Bush administration.
From its inception in January, 2001, and especially after 9/11, the mask came
off and the true face of its intent and methods were revealed -- make or break
the rules as it chooses, ignore long-standing international norms, pursue its
policies unilaterally and unchecked, let no other nation interfere or stand in
its way and back it all up with a strong military ready and willing to act
against any outlier.
Nobel laureate Harold Pinter expressed it well several years ago when he said
"US foreign policy can be defined as follows: kiss my arse or I'll kick your
head in." And he said that during the Clinton years.
The record of Bush-Cheney policies is unambiguous -- a permanent state of war
against a so-called and ill-defined "terrorism" threat [Dick Cheney's "global
war on terrorism" for decades to come]; an unstated class war at home against
the poor and most disadvantaged and a partly hidden one against most middle
income working people and families; the most massive transfer of wealth in our
history from lower and middle income workers and families to the wealthy; an
undisguised extreme alliance between the federal government and corporate
America [the most extreme hard-wiring of government to business interests in US
history, especially in the energy and defense sectors] -- a literal takeover or
buyout of government by giant corporations for their own benefit; a systematic
assault against all social services including an attempt to end those held most
dear -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; a continued campaign to weaken
the role and destroy the power of organized labor; the remaking of the US into a
garrison state; an attempt to go further and move the nation closer to a
full-blown police state -- through legislation like the USA Patriot Act and its
newer proposed version that would make it even more extreme if enacted, stacking
the federal judiciary including the Supreme Court with the most extreme far
right ideologues, attempting to subvert the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that
prohibits use of the US military for domestic law enforcement, and most
insidiously the use of Executive Orders under the radar to give the Chief
Executive near dictatorial power and a policy of extreme secrecy along with it
to keep the public unaware of what's happening.
* All that and a weak-kneed opposition willing to support nearly all Bush
policies with only a hint of some opposition recently.
Further, add to the above Bush-Cheney's assault on the environment; disregard
for human and civil rights; the desire to privatize everything including the
most essential elements of the commons like all health care [including for
seniors now on Medicare and public health services]; Social Security; education
[using vouchers to destroy the public system], water, you name it if it can
yield a profit -- maybe even the air we breathe one day if they can meter it;
the corruption of the political/electoral process to a level never before
achieved -- with corporate dollars more than ever before able to buy the
government they choose and corporations able to control election results through
easily manipulated electronic voting machines they produce, program and service
[with no verifiable paper trail as a validity check]; the transformation of the
US into a pariah state reviled and/or feared by the great majority around the
world; the creation of a modern-day Sparta writ large with unchallengeable
military might and openly claiming the exclusive right to use it as it chooses,
including a nuclear first strike, along with a formidable national homeland
security apparatus and intelligence network -- all of which combined poses the
most dire threat to world and national security and to democracy at home.
The Bush-Cheney administration has recklessly and wantonly pursued policies to
create and secure a global US empire to control and exploit with no rivals the
world's resources, markets and cheap labor. It has openly made its intentions
clear through its belligerence and diplomatic bullying at the UN and in
one-on-one dealings especially with developing nations. At other times it's
acted more furtively to get its way as it has and continues to do in its trade
negotiations.
Under the guise of so-called "free trade" the US goal has been to gain every
advantage for US transnational corporations while giving up little in return.
But beginning in Chiapas, Mexico on New Year's Day 1994 the Zapatista National
Liberation Army [EZLN] staged an armed rebellion against the newly enacted NAFTA
"free-trade" agreement. Then in Seattle in 1999 they encountered a level of
"people resistance" at home they had never before experienced, and after a
temporary pause post-9/11, that resistance ontinues unabated to the present.
At the November, 2005, 34 nation summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata,
Argentina, as many as 100,000 Argentines protested the Bush visit to their
country in a mass expression of contempt and derision against this president and
US neoliberal and imperial policy while huge crowds greeted and cheered their
Bolivarian populist hero and champion, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias
who spoke out in support of the people and railed against the destructive
policies of Bush-Cheney.
At the end of the summit, the US proposal for a sweeping hemispheric "free
trade" zone failed after it met stiff resistance and was rejected by 5 attending
nations including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. The stage then was set for a
lively WTO Doha ministerial round ahead in Hong Kong in December for which
difficult pre-negotiations have already lowered final agreement expectations.
After the September 2003, failed round in Cancun, Mexico, there's no guarantee
about the outcome this time but a certain guarantee of extreme US pressure and
intimidation to force opposing nations to succumb to our will. Those doing it
guarantee great benefits for the transnational giants and the elite in their
countries and more poverty and human misery for their own people. And working
people here at home are also affected with the continued loss of higher paying
skilled manufacturing and other jobs exported to lower wage countries.
Nothing characterizes the Bush-Cheney junta more than its policy of military
aggression post 9/11. In its first 4 years it committed two acts of illegal
aggression against countries posing no military threat [Afghanistan and Iraq],
carried out a middle of the night coup against a third country with a
democratically-elected leader beloved by his people [President Jean Bertrand
Aristide in Haiti], and attempted and nearly succeeded in carrying out one other
coup against another democratically-elected leader [President Hugo Chavez Frias
in Venezuela].
They did this claiming these 4 nations posed a threat to our national security
or were unstable or failed states and/or their leaders were corrupt, dictators
or demagogues and that we acted to "liberate" those nations and bring
"democracy" to the people in each instance.
All untrue and deliberate lies.
More on this below...
In 2001, his first year in office, Bush's ratings were sinking, and his inner
circle was seeking a way to revive them. 9/11 solved their dilemma transforming
overnight a mediocre president, put in office by 5 arrogant Supreme Court
Justices who annulled the will of the people, into a larger-than-life "leader"
spoken of in the same breath as Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR. The republican spin
machine along with their complicit corporate media partners played no small role
in this near-miraculous reshaping. All significant policies and events that
followed were only possible because of the effect of that fateful day, which has
now been investigated independently in great detail revealing a sinister and
disturbing story far different from the official explanation and the so-called
9/11 Commission investigation and report that suppressed the truth in their
shameless whitewash.
* Had we known early on what's now known, and had that information been
revealed to the public, Bush-Cheney probably would have been impeached and
removed from office.
Instead, until the Iraq war began turning sour and the stated reasons for
undertaking it were shown to be false, George Bush was portrayed as worthy of
Mt. Rushmore status instead of ignominy or even criminal guilt.
We now know beyond any doubt, from thorough investigation and documented
evidence, that the US intelligence community knew as early as 1995 of terrorist
plans to strike the World Trade Center by an air attack, but nothing was done to
prepare for, prevent it or inform the public. In fact, from 1995 to 9/11/01
efforts to counter such a terrorist attack were deliberately curtailed and
obstructed. It's also now known prior to 9/11 that hijacked civilian planes
would be used to attack key US buildings like the World Trade Center, Pentagon
and/or others in New York and/or Washington, and it was known these attacks
would occur on or around 9/11/01.
Since that day, a deliberate and systematic effort has been made at the highest
levels of government to suppress the evidence to allow the Bush-Cheney
administration to be able to pursue its extremist policies without opposition
and with strong support from a public ignorant of the truth.
To gain public support for a state of permanent war abroad and oppressive
assault on civil liberties at home, Bush-Cheney used a proven effective golden
rule technique. They created a climate of fear in the public mind to allow them
license to do as they pleased to appear to achieve promised homeland security.
[In fact, we're now far less secure because of their actions.]
At key moments, they cited supposed credible [but unsubstantiated and likely
fabricated] intelligence claiming an imminent potential terrorist attack. They
further heightened the level of fear through clever color-coding, highlighted
and repeated round-the-clock by their complicit corporate media partners, and
then sought to allay it by clear and forceful action including going to war,
witch-hunt mass roundups and illegal detentions with no allowed contact with
families or legal counsel, and immigrants-of-color and fundamentalist Islam
bashing to create an illusory bogeyman -- all done, they claimed, to protect the
public and national security.
All deliberate calculated lies.
Reichsmarschall Herman Goering, second in command to Adolph Hitler, explained
the technique well in a private interview conducted at his Nuremburg trial after
WW2 [before he took his own life] by prison psychologist US Army Captain Gustave
Gilbert. When asked how the Nazis ever convinced the German public to go along
with all they did, Goering candidly explained that "common people don't want
war." But it's easy for leaders "to drag people along whether it is a democracy
or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. All
you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists
for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same
in every country."
It worked well for Bush-Cheney, at least for a while.
The US record of illegal aggression against weaker adversaries goes back to the
beginning of the republic. However, it can be argued that it became standard
practice post WW2 once the US became the preeminent world power. From Korea to
Vietnam to Granada to Panama to the Gulf War to Yugoslavia/Serbia/Kosovo, the US
in each instance committed an act of illegal aggression against other nations
posing no threat whatever to this country.
In each case we were lied to about the reasons for doing it, and in each case
the chief executive with no congressional authority [as constitutionally
required] acted on his own.
In each of the foregoing instances, the president did pay lip service to and
made a pretense of adhering to the law and common international norms. With the
onset of the current Bush-Cheney administration everything changed post 9/11.
This administration on its own, with no pretense and no regard for the law in
any form or concern about world opinion, committed acts of illegal aggression
against Afghanistan and Iraq that continue under an equally illegal occupation
of these countries by the US and forces from other countries the Bush
administration has enlisted as war crime allies.
The Bush-Cheney administration is guilty of the same crime as high level
Nazis, including Herman Goering, were tried for and convicted of at the
Nuremberg trials after WW2. But victors aren't indicted and brought to trial ...
only losers. That's victor's justice, which is no justice at all when the victor
is the war criminal.
US and especially the Bush-Cheney administration's designs on Afghanistan and
Iraq go back at least to 1992 and a Pentagon document written by Paul Wolfowitz
and the now-indicted Richard Cheney aide Lewis Libby. Rejected at the time as
off-the-wall and over-the-top, the document was an outline of a plan for US
world dominance with no allowed challenge from other nations.
In September 2000, the neo-conservative think tank Project for a New American
Century [PNAC -- established in 1997] revived the plan and put meat on its bones
in a document they called 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and
Resources for a New Century.' PNAC members included Richard Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and many other high ranking current Bush-Cheney administration
officials. This document was an imperial plan and for US global dominance to
extend well into the future and to be enforced with unchallengeable military
power. The PNAC plan was a blueprint for the current "war on terror" and
"preventive war" and was a 21st century update of the Truman Doctrine, conceived
by State Department advisor and analyst George Kennan who was the ideological
godfather of "containment" and the "cold war." Kennan's plan became the first
post WW2 formulated strategy for US global military, political and economic
dominance.
In September, 2002 the Bush administration made its intentions even clearer in
its National Security Strategy. This "imperial grand strategy" was nothing less
than a declaration of "preventive war" against any nation or force this
administration claimed to be a threat to our national security or an unstable or
failed state [not defined] on its unsubstantiated say-so only. And it got still
worse two months later when the Air Force Space Command issued their Strategic
Master Plan FY 04 and Beyond which outlined their plan to "own outer space" as
an exclusive franchise and weaponize it with the most advanced and destructive
weapons and technology, including nuclear ones and unmanned space vehicles to
surveille the entire planet.
Two other important US planning documents are also key to understanding current
Bush-Cheney policy and intent. One is the Department of Defense's Joint Vision
2020 issued in May 2000 that outlined a plan for "full spectrum dominance" by
any means including war as a strategy for achieving total global military and
political control. The other is the Nuclear Policy Review of December, 2001 that
shows how we might unilaterally decide to wage future war using first strike
nuclear weapons. Both of these plans and the ones discussed above clearly show
the great danger we all are in should the Bush-Cheney administration continue to
act as they already have in Iraq and Afghanistan without restraint and with no
regard for the potentially disastrous consequences.
Containing communism during the "cold war" became today's permanent "war on
terror" and current doctrine of "preventive war." Invading and controlling
Afghanistan and Iraq are two key parts of it and were planned long before 9/11.
They were part of an overall "grand strategy" to control and/or contain all
Central Eurasia and its essential resources to include all nations east of
Poland to the Pacific, including China and Russia, the Middle East and the
Indian subcontinent. Afghanistan was key to establishing an opening to that vast
area as well as being in a strategic location for pipelines to transship Caspian
oil to the west. And, of course, the US had long coveted direct control of
Iraq's vast and largely untapped oil reserves [second in amount only to Saudi
Arabia].
All this, with more to come, is a modern-day version of the 19th century "Great
Game," today pitting the US against Russia, China and even possibly a united
block of western European and/or Asian nations.
One can only tremble trying to imagine how it all will play out.
It's likely by all the current signals the US is next targeting Iran, Syria and
possibly Lebanon to solidify its iron grip on the Middle East, gain control of
Iran's vast oil reserves and serve the interests of the government in Israel by
removing a threat it sees to its security, especially from Iran.
And without a doubt, the US is again targeting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Frias and the "viral threat" of his populist Bolivarian government for
elimination by any means [preferably by elections they can manipulate] including
assassination.
But with 2 out-of-control tigers already by the tail, it seems hard to
imagine Bush-Cheney would want to risk tangling with 3 or 4 more. They already
know they've created in Iraq possibly the greatest blunder and disaster in US
history and that the battle for control of that country can't be won.
They also know as renown Middle East journalist Robert Fisk has said that "they
must leave [Iraq], they will leave, and they can't leave."
But in spite of this hopeless quagmire, they don't seem ready to let it or
any other formidable obstacle stand in their way [or maybe they're just
afflicted with tunnel vision], so it's quite possible and maybe likely they'll
add new battlefronts in the new year.
Should they do it, the consequences would be enormous, far-reaching,
incalculable and even devastating.
In its ruthless policies at home and abroad, the Bush-Cheney junta is a rogue,
criminal, terror state unlike any other that's ever preceded it -- likely the
most unrestrained and dangerous ever. It's overwhelming power, with weapons and
technology of almost unimaginable destructive capability, and an out-of control
and reckless intent to use them with impunity against any stated adversary is a
classic definition of criminal terror and a rogue state.
The US doesn't just wage war. It does so without restraint using every weapon in
its arsenal thought necessary to achieve its objective, including nuclear,
illegal chemical and possibly biological agents [in the 1950s and later, the US
tested the effects of toxic biological agents through aerosolization and
dispersal on our own unwitting population in selected U.S. cities including New
York and San Francisco].
Through the years post WW1, the 1925 Geneva Protocol and various succeeding
Geneva Weapons Conventions specifically outlawed the use of chemical and
biological agents in any form for any reason in war. Although no Geneva
Convention or other treaty specifically bans the use of radioactive uranium
weapons including so-called depleted uranium [DU], these weapons are, in fact,
illegal de facto and de jure if only judged by the standard of the Hague
Convention of 1907 which prohibits use of any "poison or poisoned weapons." DU
weapons in all their forms and uses are radioactive and chemically toxic, and
thus clearly fit the definition of poisonous weapons banned under the Hague
Convention. Any use of them for any purpose is a war crime.
The US military under Bush-Cheney in Afghanistan and Iraq has and continues to
use these outlawed chemical and radioactive DU weapons in clear violation of
international law this country is a signatory to. The US uses various toxic
substances and agents that fall into these two categories, the two most
prominent being DU used in projectiles fired from aircraft and tanks and
napalm-like white phosphorous bombs and shells, known as Willy Pete, that burn
flesh to the bone and an updated version of napalm called Mark 77 firebombs
which do about the same thing to flesh.
Used against civilians, these weapons are illegal under the 1980 UN
Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, and as US forces use them, they
really are weapons of mass destruction. The US military admits to using them --
in their words "very sparingly."
That's a deliberate lie based on clear documentary evidence from Fallujah alone
that these weapons are used freely and indiscriminately against civilian and
military targets and that use of these and all other of the most dangerous and
destructive weapons are authorized by officials at the highest level of the
Bush-Cheney administration.
In the Iraq border town of Al-Qaim as part of operation "steel curtain" and in
nearby Husaybah in western Iraq, US forces have attacked civilians as part of a
broader effort against the Iraqi "resistance" using these and other illegal and
questionable weapons like chemical gases, cluster bombs and a terror weapon
called "flashettes" which explode and shoot out 1000s of nails in all directions
with deadly results. White phosphorous shells and DU weapons are also being used
in an operation based on the "Fallujah model" to destroy these cities and the
people in them.
Along with these terror weapons, all water and electricity in these towns were
cut off, homes, schools and mosques destroyed or severely damaged, hospitals
entered violently and the patients in them terrorized and/or taken prisoner and
doctors targeted as they might treat the wounded thought to be part of the
"resistance."
Overall, just as in Fallujah one year ago, in Tal Afar in September this year
and elsewhere, a scorched earth policy is being employed to terrorize and
destroy everyone and everything in the targeted areas.
This seems to be the central depraved US strategy to "win hearts and minds"
and bring "democracy, humanitarian intervention and liberation US style" to the
Iraqi people.
I doubt Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine would approve.
The latter's historic quote -- "These are the times that try men's souls" -- is
most apt in Iraq today and sadly here at home as well. And I wonder how Martin
Luther King, if he were alive today, would update what he said in 1967 [one year
before he was murdered] when he called this country "the greatest purveyor of
violence in the world."
All the weapons discussed above as well as the more conventional ones are deadly
and destructive and especially so when used against weak or defenseless
adversaries and innocent civilians who just happen to be in the area attacked.
However, DU weapons are especially dangerous and lethal. They're the likely main
cause of "Gulf war syndrome" causing chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue,
memory loss, birth deformities and a significant increase in cancer among those
exposed -- both Iraqis and US Gulf war veterans. As many as 200,000 U.S.
soldiers complained of these symptoms and problems following the 1991 war.
No one knows how many Iraqis were and are affected, but clearly this illegal
weapon along with about 12 years of brutal economic sanctions caused the death
of over 1 million Iraqi civilians, at least half of them children, as well as an
incalculable number of cancers and other serious and fatal illnesses that add to
the death toll each day under an illegal occupation -- in sum, a massive war
crime of clear and deliberate genocide. The effects of DU exposure are already
showing up in our military from the current Iraq war and probably from
Afghanistan as well. With much longer deployment now in those countries than in
the 1991 Gulf war, it's likely hundreds of thousands more of our military will
be affected by a new "Iraq and Afghanistan war syndrome."
And vast areas of Iraq especially are so contaminated with lethal radiation
and other toxins in soil, water and air [that's easily ingested into the lungs]
they should be judged uninhabitable for many thousands of years.
In its campaign against Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military, despite repeated
denials, systematically violated the rules and established codes of warfare [as
established at the Geneva and Hague Conventions going back to the 1850s]
including using banned weapons, mistreatment of prisoners and denying proper
care for the sick and wounded. It also invented the category of "illegal
combatant" that has no legal basis whatever. In addition, it's done little to
avoid civilian casualties and at times deliberately and willfully attacked
civilian targets as part of an overall assault against a neighborhood, town or
city.
* While always claiming to be targeting only "terrorist insurgents,"
al-Qaeda elements or foreign fighters, nearly always those most affected were
innocent civilians including women and children.
No target symbolized these brutal attacks more than Fallujah, a city of about
350,000 and site of repeated resistance against the illegal occupiers. After the
killing of 4 American private military contractors [aka "paramilitary hired
guns" with license to kill with impunity] in March, 2004, the US military began
a campaign of retribution against the city that culminated in November with a
full force assault killing a large but unknown number of mostly civilians and
injuring a great many more, causing vast destruction, and forcing half the
population out of the city and into temporary camps under harsh conditions. The
city was largely destroyed using "scorched earth" tactics in the manner
described by a special forces colonel in Vietnam when he stated regarding the
city of Ben Tre that "we had to destroy the town in order to save it." Iraqis
thought otherwise and haven't forgotten the atrocities committed against them in
Fallujah, a war crime by any standard of international law.
Since the March, 2003 illegal assault and invasion, war crimes have been
widespread, systematic and sanctioned by those at the highest level in the
Bush-Cheney administration.
Probably no crimes resonate more than the systemic and officially approved use
of torture. Since the first photographs and reports surfaced of US personnel
torturing prisoner/detainees held at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, it became
apparent from eyewitness accounts and detainees later released that often brutal
physical as well as cruel, inhumane, and degrading psychological torture has
been systematically used as standard practice.
Further evidence was obtained from leaked International Committee of the Red
Cross [ICRC] reports, inquiries by Physicians for Human Rights and some reports
by investigative journalists.
At this time, it's clear that torture is widely used at least at most US prisons
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo as well as being "subcontracted out" to
other willing terror state partner countries like Syria, Jordan, Egypt and
elsewhere in a practice known as "extraordinary rendition." In addition, secret
CIA run prisons have been revealed in Romania, Poland and other unnamed
countries where torture is used.
* Using torture routinely as a way to break down resistance and obtain
intelligence not only doesn't work, as is widely known, it's a practice of
extreme depravity for those nations using it, especially those claiming to be
"democracies."
Because of all the practices discussed above, the US under Bush-Cheney is the
world champion rogue, criminal, terror state. Thanks to them and their
high-level officials and policies, the US is feared and overwhelmingly reviled
as a pariah nearly everywhere abroad and heading there at home.
The term "ugly American" when first coined referred to the misbehavior of
American tourists when traveling abroad. Today the term might be used to apply
specifically to George Bush, who can't escape mass protests against him whenever
he travels abroad and at times at home, far greater and more frequent than any
previous US president would ever experience even occasionally.
Through its reckless, outrageous and criminal practices, this administration
squandered the overwhelming [but unjustified] world sympathy it had after 9/11
when Bush's approval rating jumped from 51% on September 10 to 86%, 5 days later
as polled by the Gallup organization. Today his approval rating at home is below
40% and dropping -- surprising since his "base" is about 40%.
As judged by world public opinion, Bush's world is unmasked and clearly
understood by the world's majority. It's one based on brazen unrestrained
imperial world domination and rule; aiding the rich; depriving, demonizing and
oppressing the poor and disadvantaged, especially people of color and immigrants
from developing countries; ignoring the rule of law and international norms and
backing it all up with overwhelming military power used willfully, brutally and
recklessly around the world to achieve its ends.
There's no sign of a change in this policy. There's every sign it will get
worse.
But the Bush administration may have an achilles heel that could prove its
undoing. It's afflicted with the sometimes fatal disease of hubris and is
blinded by the notion that its way is not the right way. It's wrong, dead wrong,
and hopefully its miscalculation will be our salvation.
Overwhelming public disapproval alone may prove their undoing. But if there's to
be any true justice, Bush and Cheney should be impeached and made to answer for
their crimes against the American people and against all those people abroad
affected by their administration's illegal aggression. Bush-Cheney and all
officials at all levels in their administration connected to their criminal acts
should be indicted and tried in federal courts, convicted of the most egregious
possible crime of deliberately and willfully lying to take the nation to war and
given the harshest penalty for their crime without the possibility of parole or
pardon.
They should also be taken to the International Criminal Court [ICC] at the Hague
[even though the US refused to ratify the Rome Statute it signed but 100 other
nations did] which was established in 2002 to try individuals for war crimes,
crimes against humanity and genocide.
Bush, Cheney and those administration officials complicit with them are guilty
of all three crimes. They should all be held and brought to trial at the ICC,
convicted and again sentenced with no leniency to the harshest possible penalty.
Might this happen?
Probably not.
Could it?
Absolutely, if mass public opinion demands nothing less.
Short of achieving real justice, thoughtful, caring people everywhere should
wonder when this appalling criminality and reckless endangerment will end, where
it will lead us and what will be its consequences. We must ask, can we even
survive unless and until a way is found to stop this out-of-control force that
may consume us. We better hope so and soon. At this time the US Senate just
passed the Graham amendment to the Defense Authorization Act revoking the right
of habeas corpus for Guantanamo prisoner/detainees, reversing an earlier Supreme
Court decision [Rasul vs. Bush] This sacred firewall protection right is based
on the enshrined 800-year-old principles of the Magna Carta and our
constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Should the Graham amendment as it now stands become law, this will be a reckless
first step that puts the president above the law. It could then lead to habeas
and due process denial for us all.
That's called a police state where the people have no recourse through the
courts to protect against government abuse. We should all be very worried. We
should also be fed up and willing to act in our own defense. We can't afford to
lose hope and should take heart and be driven by the words of famed civil rights
activist Fannie Lou Hamer when she said over 40 years ago she was "sick and
tired of being sick and tired" -- a call to action.
And we should be inspired by the wonderful aphorism of equally famed Italian
political theorist and revolutionary Antonio Gramsci who spoke of the "pessimism
of the intellect and the optimism of the will."
Stephen Lendman
Alan
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/mylinks.html
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