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Dear Unknown News:
Day after day I am spellbound by your ignorance and especially your stubbornness. America has won a war. Yes, there are problems in administering Iraq, it is a nation and a people unaccustomed to freedom. But can there be any doubt that things are better for Iraqis NOW than under Saddam Hussein? Could you at least acknowledge that the concerted efforts of hundreds of thousands of American troops putting their lives on the line have indeed accomplished some good and made Iraq and made THE WORLD a better place? --Peter D.
We haven't said it every day, so you could easily miss it, but we've said the essence of the nice things you suggest need to be said. We've also said some not-so-nice things you've left loudly unsaid. Our answer is here; please read it and let us know what you think.--H&HH
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Why I won't be at the victory paradeAnd why Bush should be charged with treasonby Helen & Harry Highwater April 30, 2003
To get to the truth, it is first necessary to swat the lies out of the way.
America's latest war against Iraq isn't about "weapons of mass destruction." Most of the pre-war suggestions that Saddam Hussein had chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or projects have been debunked as fabrications. UN inspectors couldn't find these weapons before America attacked, and in the weeks since Iraq's military melted away no such weapons have been found. If Iraq had such weapons, surely they would have been used during the so-called war. Such weapons are not easy to hide; the longer it takes to find them, the less credible any such ‘finding' will be.
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"This was retaliation for September 11." That's the impression President Bush has created, by months of mentioning "September 11" and Saddam Hussein in the same sentence every time there's a microphone nearby. In reality, however, Hussein and Osama bin Laden are enemies, and always have been. None of the hijackers were Iraqi. Under Hussein, Iraq has had little or nothing to do with terrorism, and there is simply no credible evidence that connects Iraq or Saddam Hussein to the events of September 11, 2001.
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America may have "won" this battle, but the price of victory will almost certainly be a future with:
• increased terrorism against Americans,
• more wars than would otherwise have occurred, and
• reduced freedoms in America.
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"America has liberated Iraq." A tyrant has been overthrown, certainly -- a tyrant who owes his long reign to extensive underwriting from the same US government which has now toppled him. Whether Iraqis will now be 'free' in any honest sense of the word remains to be seen. Is Afghanistan free? Like that nation, Iraq will have a native-born leader ... a leader chosen by America, backed by America, and either tolerated or despised by the people he allegedly "leads." Iraq will have whatever freedoms and government America decides it will have, which doesn't sound like 'liberation' to me. As in Afghanistan, Iraq's people will wait, simmering, sometimes seething, until the Americans are gone and they are free to rule themselves. As in Afghanistan, this means at least years, probably decades or generations of turmoil, warfare, chaos and violence.
"We can all be proud of America's victory." Proud? America invaded, and Iraq fell. No other outcome was remotely possible. Iraq's military budget was $1.3 billion annually, according to the CIA Factbook, less than one twohundredth of America's annual military budget, $276.7-billion. I'm unable to find a reliable estimate of Iraq's actual military strength, but the same source tells us Iraq had 3,430,819 males age 15-49 ("fit for military service") in 2002, while America had more than twenty times as many, 73,597,731. It's like a fistfight between Mike Tyson and Bob Hope: I'm sure Tyson could kick the stuffing out of Old Ski Nose, but it wouldn't be fun to watch, and I wouldn't whoop and holler and celebrate "victory" afterwards.
Whether it's "victory" remains to be seen. I doubt that Iraqis will obediently sit still as an occupied nation.
I won't be at America's victory parade. I won't be waving a little American flag to celebrate the beating administered on Iraq.
So much for the loud lies. Now, let's look at the quiet lie some people have told themselves as they mouthed the above arguments, knowing full well they were bogus. That lie, of course, is that the ends justify the means.
The means were lies, so let's look at the ends: What will be the result of kicking Iraq's national hiney?
Obviously, American military spending will increase, as many weapons will need to be replaced, or updated. Many American soldiers will come home with Gulf War Syndrome and other injuries, and suffer with these for the rest of their lives. Many other American soldiers won't come home for years -- it takes a lot of
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One-hundred and twenty-eight Americans are dead, so far, with more casualties every day.
These men and women have died because of lies mouthed by American officials at the highest level.
George W. Bush has parlayed world events into an unnecessary, unjustified war that will make America less free and less secure for many years to come.
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manpower to hold an occupied nation. And the economic rape and pillage -- destroying a nation's infrastructure, rebuilding it, and sending the victims the bill -- will make a killing for a few well-connected American corporations. Iraqi construction firms have not been allowed to even submit bids.
An important but often overlooked result of this war is that, in the future, no nation will have any reason to cooperate with the United Nations. Hussein swallowed the pride of a dictator, allowed UN inspectors unfettered access anywhere in his country. But when UN inspectors found nothing, America attacked anyway. So what's the point of cooperation? Why should the world's next despot (Korea's Kim Jong Il, for example) cooperate with any diplomatic effort at resolving any crisis? In the plainest words possible, this war has made future wars far more likely.
American officials refuse to make any public estimates, but at a minimum thousands of Iraqis are dead, thousands more injured or maimed. It stretches credulity to imagine that conquering an Arab nation might reduce terrorism against Americans; more realistically, people get angry when someone kills their friends. All across the Middle East, enormous numbers of people who didn't hate America a few months ago sure do now, while many who already hated America now hate America more. Some of these angry people will see only one way to take revenge: terrorism.
One of the most ominous and obvious end results is the predictable groundswell of support any American President receives after a victorious war. It will probably be brief, as such surges in the polls usually are, but this window of popularity will probably allow Bush to enact more of the draconian laws that are already eclipsing freedom in America -- laws allowing US citizens to be secretly arrested, jailed, held without charges, and denied attorneys, trials, or appeals.
The men and women of America's military have volunteered, worked hard, and put their lives on the line for America, to defend our freedoms. This is one of the grandest forms of patriotism, and with tears in my eyes I salute the American servicemen and women who defend America and American freedom. It is infuriating to see these men and women used as pawns, sacrificed for lies.
In fact, it's more than infuriating. When American soldiers' lives are taken for nothing, there's another word for it.
It's a word the liars love to throw about lightly, a word you'll hear any time anyone questions the lies behind the attack on Iraq, 2003. It's a word I rarely use, and never lightly. The word is treason.
Treason, according to dictionary.com, means: "Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies."
American troops have been ordered into a war where American freedom and security were not at stake. As of this morning, 128 Americans have lost their lives in this messy affair, and it goes on.
When the men and women of America's military put their life on the line, they deserve to know why. They deserve the truth. Sending American soldiers to fight, kill, and die, but lying to them and lying to the American public about why, is a perversion of patriotism.
We get a flood of hate mail every time we suggest any doubts about this war, so I'm sure I'll be called a traitor, or worse, for writing these words. It's quite a conundrum, being called a traitor by people who endorse and actually cheer the squandering of American soldiers' lives, in a war based on lies.
So, to clarify this for the dense and the liars: I'm not accusing America's troops of treason. Quite the contrary, I 'accuse' America's military of following orders, and of courage and valor on the field of battle.
When it comes to their Commander-in-Chief, however, the facts are clear: America may have "won" this battle, but the price of victory will almost certainly be a future with:
• increased terrorism against Americans,
• more wars than would otherwise have occurred, and
• reduced freedoms in America.
When a moviemaker rants after winning an Oscar or a Dixie Chick mouths off to a reporter, some people may be offended but nobody dies. When it's real, literal treason, lives hang in the balance.
One-hundred and twenty-eight Americans are dead, so far, with more casualties every day. These men and women have died because of lies mouthed by American officials at the highest level.
George W. Bush has parlayed world events into an unnecessary, unjustified war that will make America less free and less secure for many years to come. If this is not treason, what is?
© 2003, by the author.
Comments? newsuneed @yahoo.com
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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