Archive - Opinion
THE HIDDEN IRAQ WAR
February 25. 2005
Democracy and freedom have not been as easily purchased by the Iraqi people as have been the words spoken by our elected leaders on the five O’clock TV newscasts where such pictures of war are not permitted.
The war is old news now. It has happened. It continues. George Bush points to the success of the attack and to the democracy rising out of the ashes as if success were pre-ordained. Perhaps it is. That remains to be seen.
What is the real issue of this war?
It was, and is, the presumption by a group of financial moguls [who make their billions of dollars in profits manufacturing, marketing, and commanding our weapons of mass destruction] that they may assume the unilateral privilege of attacking any nation preemptively when they choose.
This is intemperate thinking. This is immoderate thinking. This is dangerous thinking. This is hypocritical thinking. The moguls did not attack China when she invaded Tibet and murdered thousands of Buddhist Monks and destroyed their temples. They do not invade Bangladesh and relieve those thousands of oppressed poor. They do not invade Darfur where thousands are today being slaughtered. There are many undemocratic, oppressive countries the moguls do not invade.
Why Iraq? Iraq contains the second largest reserves of oil in the world. The United States is the largest consumer of oil in the world. The United States does not have any substantial oil reserves of its own. America refuses to conserve oil and other resources. Most of us are addicted to cars twice the size we need. Therefore, driven by our own immoderate consumption habits, we need a Middle East we can count on. We need to be geographically close to the Middle East and all its oil countries.
Why don’t the moguls say so plainly, in English?
The U.S. now has the largest supply of nuclear warheads, plans to build more nuclear weapons, is planning a multi-billion dollar new Defense Internet enabling its worldwide troops to view the same world battleground on hand-held computers to coordinate their firepower. The moguls proudly tout it as “The next generation of war.”
The highest accumulation of financial and military power ever organized on the planet is all in the same hands. This militant leadership has collaborated with media allies who have bought up 90% of all U.S. radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines.
This permits them to manufacture both the weapons and control the sanitized news you see every day, and to hide, except on the Internet, photographs such as those on the site above. Twenty million U.S. citizens now surf the Internet. That’s too close for comfort for the moguls. They are working to bring control to the Internet too.
International news people estimate conservatively that the United States has killed over 16,000 Iraqi civilians achieving their democracy. Some have estimated as high as 100,000. Who knows? The moguls don’t report such figures as they did in past wars. That sort of information is privileged these days.
Many international journalists report that numerous photographers who tried to release photographs such as the above were literally killed by United States’ friendly fire under what they consider suspicious circumstances.
Am I accusing the United States of such? I don’t have the facts at hand to do that. When one’s media is so controlled, such facts are hard to come by. I do not wish to be as duplicitous as I judge our leaders today to be. They are not my role models.
However, I believe in the old saying that what goes around comes around. I believe we are going to pay for our ilitancy in ways we cannot yet imagine. We are already paying for it with our taxes to the tune of about $3,500 each a year.
I am wrought by a nagging question of whether the moguls are building a conceptual political edifice that many nations of the world will judge to be so dangerous it will cause them to unite against the United States.
I could be wrong. Perhaps all the millions of Muslims who consider us their enemy will change their minds and become our friends. Perhaps all the Latin American countries who have felt the sting of our financially invading corporations will decide we really mean well for them. Perhaps the millions of starving will come to accept that possibly they don’t even deserve the life we could give them at a fraction of the cost of our ever increasing weaponry.
Perhaps I’m missing the point. Perhaps God has decreed that we are supposed to be the fattest, most militant, oil guzzling nation on the earth, telling the world where it’s all at. And now, I’m being as silly as those who propose He is on their side, guiding them to an earthly pinnacle with sublime exactitude.
I titled this piece The Hidden Iraq War. The most important hidden part, I hope, is the camouflaged thinking by millions of Americans who know the moguls running the show are wrong. A real star wars is not a viable alternative to the intelligent use of the assets of the earth and its people’s minds.
The Internet appears to be the battleground of choice in this pivotal dialogue. You might want to stay tuned. Pass the word.
***
You may reach me at the Contact button. I’ll get back to you, whether you’re Right, Left, In-between, or Beyond.