Six years ago, a phony government that stole into the seat of the strongest military power in the world three years earlier by shameful and criminal judicial fiat, launched a criminal, unprovoked attack upon a sovereign nation in complete defiance of world opinion, or the opinion of humanity as a whole (opinions that, not surprisingly, have been proven 100% correct ever since that gruesome crime spree began).
In the collective, sordid aftermath of that criminal act over the past 6 years, the United States has, in many ways, outdone its own previous record of crimes against humanity, spread out over five hundred years across the globe.
Despite despicable efforts to conceal the facts of these gruesome, entirely unaccounted-for war crimes, in this age of advanced communications and information technology, the facts of the resulting genocide, mass-murder and crimes against humanity are out there for the world to see (except for those that have eyes, but see not). The unrepentant Bushco criminals have done everything possible, often quite effectively, to conceal their immeasurable crimes. Here is a small sampling:
(1) Body bags and coffins of dead soldiers were prohibited from being shown in broadcast or print media. Normally, this should be considered insulting to the core of any decent, democratic society. Obviously, this was intended to prevent adverse public reaction to the brutal and needless deaths of the children of (mostly) lower to middle families for the profit of ghastly plunderers in power.
(2) The treatment accorded to the oft-repeated “war heroes” (an expression rendered utterly meaningless by the pious hypocrisy of right-wing, religious-whacko, KKK-lite chicken-hawks that thrive on preying upon the flesh of other people’s children), despite all the parrot-like proliferation of the bumper-stickers and yellow ribbons, from the absence of body armor to the horrors of the Walter Reed Medical Center and elsewhere (recall the words of the Bushco Josef Mengele, Donald Rumsfeld- you go to war with the army you have, not the one you want)- none of this information was available for the public, except when exposed by non-corporate journalists and courageous whistle-blowers.
(3) The duplicity of a shamelessly compliant media. The American media’s active, criminal participation in the grievous war crime of the Iraq Invasion is beyond shameful. It is on the level (and I say this without hesitation) of the crimes chronicled at Nuremberg. Sadly, I see every day that the Western world, rather conveniently, does not see it (or the Anglo-American war crimes here in the 21st century) as such. CBS, ABC, NBC, the New York Times (which many have labeled, understandably, the NY Times, for its role in promoting the ghastly attack), the Washington Post (a pathetic and shocking far-cry from the organization that spearheaded the Watergate investigation), and the cable news propaganda machine (CNN, MSNBC (which fired the one sane voice prior to the launch of the war crime, Phil Donahue, in order to serve its criminal corporate bosses), and of course, the lunatic and frightfully hateful and racist Rupert Murdoch mouthpiece, Fox News)- these are all implicated in enabling and actively bolstering these ghastly war crimes. From these shining halls of journalism emerged such propaganda slogans (sometimes in consultation with their Masters in the government) as Shock and Awe, Operation Iraqi Freedom, War on Terror, Mission Accomplished, and the like.
(4) The devious and criminally clever act of using armed mercenaries and militia in order to augment the available military forces (I would presume that in this the Bushco criminals were wisely attempting to avoid the mistakes committed during the previous massive American genocide in Vietnam). This way, they would not have to deploy 500,000 or more recruits to serve as cannon fodder for their business of murder and profit. After all, unlike Vietnam, without a formal draft in place, chances are that they would not even find half-a-million recruits to carry out the war crimes.
(5) Using various means to run covert operations (including, as now asserted by such leading journalists as Seymour Hersh, assassination squads to eliminate targets in other countries) such as rendition, capturing and transferring citizens of other countries using bribery and other tactics; authorizing torture and other violations of international law. In addition, suppressing possible evidence by erasing vast number of incriminating file records, including emails.
(6) Suppressing civil and Constitutional rights in this country, including the stealthy authorizing of wire-taps (the dramatic episode of Alberto Gonzales approaching John Ashcroft in the hospital to obtain further illegal authorization of such acts, is well documented), suppression of habeas corpus, illegal search and seizure, and much more.
(7) Fabricating unending series of outrageous lies, beginning with repeated use of patriotism, Americanism (i.e., any dissent is un-American), terrorism, security, fighting them over there, and on and on- all the while manufacturing bogus tales of Iraq and 9-11, Iraq and WMDs, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, Niger and yellowcake, and plenty more. The most heinous part of this is that all this manufactured hysteria did not fool a vast majority of intelligent human beings in the world (except for a sizable number of party loyalists, kool-aid drinkers, and, sadly, a large number of Senate and House Democrats that supported the criminal invasion of another country, and the associated slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings).
Only a deranged or deluded mind-set would call this grievously criminal invasion a war (observe that since WW2, the U.S. has been looking for a worthy opponent to pick a fight with. For a long time, the Soviets provided that “Evil” opponent). However, since 1945, the U.S. war machine has taken on vastly weaker opponents, from Vietnam and Nicaragua, to Panama and Iraq. In any children’s book of fables, such actions of military muscle-flexing, and beating up of the weak, would be classified as the characteristics of a schoolyard bully. In fact, I consider such naked aggression the state-sponsored invasion (and mass murder) of one nation by another. This is what the U.S. has been in the past 60 years, and it is truly ironic that this country as a whole does not feel the slightest sense of shame in designating unilateral attacks upon vastly weaker nations as war. To call the naked attack upon Iraq a war is truly an insult to notions of valor and sacrifice exhibited by humans in true tests of character and resistance against a strong adversary. Even though I consider myself a strong Gandhian in matters of human conflict, and oppose war in principle as an expression of violence that demeans humanity, I still see the contrast between, say, a General Eisenhower, and a privileged, pathetic, cowardly phony such as the executioner from Texas.
For the vast series of destruction, death and worldwide calamities that have ensued in the wake of the illegal and immoral invasion of March 19th, 2003 (A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY IN HUMAN HISTORY- to paraphrase a more honorable American, Franklin Roosevelt), I hold the Bushco war criminals and their collaborators responsible, and well qualified for trials before a World Court. Beyond the direct network of Bushco criminals, the world has a sacred duty to include the following blighted names:
(1) Tony Blair- recommended by none other than Harold Pinter.
(2) John Howard- recommended by John Pilger.
(3) Jose Aznar.
(4) Silvio Berlusconi.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
