Why the US is an 8,000 lbs Gorilla

It has been over a year since the US invaded Iraq and removed Saddam from power. The President and his inner circle continue to say that the action will make us safer from terrorism.

The Iraq war and somewhat the Afghanistan operation in October 2001 are parts of a new post 9/11 policy of preemptive strike against nations and groups that pose a threat to the US.

We were also told by President Bush recently, as detailed in Bob Woodward’s book Plan of Attack, that the US is suppose to free people and spread democracy around the world.

Actually the policy isn’t new. It was first purposed in 1992 by then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz who is a neo-conservative, someone who believes the US should create an empire.

In 2000, a think tank, Project for the New American Century, drafted a similar proposal. That report was copied almost word for word into President Bush’s National Security Strategy report released on 9/20/2002.

It calls for increased defense spending, the placement of troops in all areas of the world, and imposing US will and keeping world peace through military and economic power without any input from our allies.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 became the Neo-conservatives “Gulf of Tonkin” when the US Congress gave away its oversight over the use of US power allowing the President, with the influence of Neo-conservtives like Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby, John Bolton, and Stephen Cambone, to implement the National Security Policy. We have seen the results so far in Iraq, the naming of the “Axis of Evil”, and rushing troops to Georgia and the Philippines.

Since the Congress has given the President a blank check to piss off everyone in the world by changing the traditional operation of this country in relation to the world, the ONLY answer is to remove the President come November. Our security depends on it.

For further reading:
The president’s real goal in Iraq

Prison abuse is disgusting (addendum)

The Islamic insurgents in Iraq beheaded a American hostage as revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops.

Killing is NOT revenge for abuse.

The morass expands.

Will there now be Apache gun ships streaming missiles into residential buildings to target the insurgent leadership?

Prison abuse is disgusting

The Iraq prison abuse story keeps spinning out of control and it seems to highlight what is wrong with humans today.

From conservative pundits comparing the abuse to fraternity hazing to the family of one soldiers who is in the pictures telling the world that the soldier was just following orders to Secretary Rumsfeld sitting on the reports for months, it seems everyone involved or who have knowledge of the abuse don’t want to take personal responsibility.

The National Guard unit that lacked the proper training and who carried out the orders given by superiors who should have known better will end up taking the worse heat while the commanders in charge all the way to the Secretary will go on in their jobs as if the incidents were just bumps in the road.

I wrote the following in a letter to the editor of my local paper to express how I really feel about the issue:

I am writing today to comment on the Dispatch editorial “Keep it in perspective The U.S. will atone for its human-rights sin, but what of the world�s other sinners?” and the related Cal Thomas column “Keep despicable photos in context of a despicable enemy” that appeared in the May 7, 2004 edition of the Dispatch.

It is simply unconscionable for anyone to even try to rationalize the despicable actions of the soldiers who appeared in those Iraqi prison photos.

Humiliating and abusing prisoners, not just POWs, is dead wrong. There is no justification nor rationalization for those actions.

All though the build up to the war and even during the war the Bush administration took great pains to explain that our values and actions were better than that oppressive regime in Baghdad that we needed to remove. Was that a lie too? It seems it is to the average Iraqi, not to mention the other Muslims in the Middle East, who saw the pictures of the smiling and laughing Americans while “playing” with their charges. What better recruiting material is there than having proof that Americans are despicable people.

The argument used by the Dispatch and Thomas that they did it first or what about the other people just doesn’t hold any water.

Remember our playground days when the bully would cause you to lash out and hit him? You almost always got in trouble for hitting him yet you might say to the Principal, “He hit me first…” or “Why am I in trouble? They were doing the same thing…” Did such excuses work. Of course not and it doesn’t work here for this issue.

You leave the moral high road as soon as you start the “Yes, but…..” explanations. We should know better. That’s what we tell everyone else.