Information for American Patriots
by Dave Paulsen
It is time for all patriotic Americans to join together to defend our way
of life. The threat to our way of life is not coming from a foreign
source, but from within. This threat comes from the very top of the
current US administration, from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and
their most influential underlings - the majority of whom are associated
with the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The number of US
cities that have passed resolutions calling for repeal of the
unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act, as well as the even greater number of US
cities that have passed anti-war resolutions, demonstrates that many
Americans realize the danger we face.
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However, even more of the American public needs to be informed about
what's going on and educated about why. In a society that was founded on
the principles that citizens need to remain aware, informed, and to
perform their duty to fully participate in our democratic system of
governance, people need more than spin, propaganda, and a capitulating
press in order to make informed decisions about whether or not they truly
support the stated goals of the Bush administration's foreign and domestic
policies.
All messages against the proposed wide-spread slaughter in Iraq need to
include a call to bring Hussein to trial for war crimes. There is no doubt
in my mind that Hussein, his top henchmen, and the heads of his military
need to be captured/arrested and taken to the Hague to stand trial for war
crimes and crimes against humanity. However, trying to shore up the US
economy through militarization and committing war crimes ourselves doesn't
seem to be the proper manner to do this. The outright murder of at least
tens of thousands of Iraqis simply so the US can field test its own latest
generation of weapons of mass destruction doesn't leave me feeling proud
to call myself an American.
All messages against the Bush regime's plan of imperialism also need to
mention that a preemptive war against Iraq or any other country is both
immoral and illegal. And the US war machine is not planning to stop at
Iraq in the redrawing of the map of the Middle East. At the insistence of
Israel's current right-wing government, Syria and Iran will probably be
next. The attack on Iraq is contrary to both international and American
law: it is contrary to the UN Charter and Geneva Convention, the US
Constitution's restriction to the use of our military to the defense of
our borders, and the Monroe Doctrine's stance that the use of military
force is a last resort. First strike without provocation as well as the
use of depleted uranium weapons both leave US troops, commanders, and
political leaders open to face prosecution for war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
At what point do we, as civilized, rational, intelligent people stand up
for the truth that violence only begets more violence? At what point do we
insist that something be done about the main current threat to peace and
stability in the Middle East - Ariel Sharon? While Iraq may be in
defiance of 17 UN resolutions, Israel is in defiance of over twice as
many. It seems the sheer hypocrisy of the US stance is obvious to everyone
in the world except Americans.
The 12 years of economic sanctions against Iraq haven't harmed Hussein,
but they have been responsible for the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi
children. Why are we allowing an illegitimate president to put forth a
plan of conquest that is planned to start with a "shock and awe" campaign
of 8,000 bombs and missiles in 48 hours against a population that is 50%
under the age of 15? Bush has stated that he doesn't care what the
majority of US people think. After all, why should he? They didn't vote
for him.
If a war is truly the only resort to respond to a threat or to actual
aggression, why is the US propaganda machine turned up to 10? Why has the
stated goal of the Bush regime toward Iraq changed every week? Why has
every stated claim about Iraq that has spilled forth from Bush's mouth
turned out to be either a distortion or an outright lie? Uranium buys in
Niger, the aluminum tubes, the supposed chemical factory (which was
actually in US controlled Northern Iraq, outside of Hussein's control),
the drone plane which actually resembles a high school science project,
the faked satellite photos, alleged mobile and underground biological labs
- all either discredited or without any actual evidence - nothing from
this administration in regard to Iraq today contains a shred of
credibility.
Meanwhile, here on the home front, Bush is weakening ecological
safeguards, cutting taxes for the rich, overturning the constitution and
bill of rights, dismantling social programs and health care, and has
squandered what used to be a budget surplus and turned it into a budget
deficit.
And no one in the US government is willing to admit culpability for
supplying Hussein with chemical weapons in the first place. Members of the
current administration had a direct hand in this (as well as in
supplying North Korea with nuclear technology.)
While it may be true that the US peace movement needs to divorce itself
from the ideological sectarianism of groups like WWP, IAC, and ANSWER,
none of us can stand idly by to US aggression, especially when the stated
US plan will be at least as murderous and more devastating than
Hussein's gassing of the Kurds, and will cause much, much more long
lasting damage - not only to the people, but to the environment through
the use of depleted uranium weapons. People need to be made aware that
even though the death toll from the first Gulf War was less than 400 US
personnel, ten years later almost 20,000 are now dead, and another 185,000
(almost half of all who were exposed) are classified as disabled by the
Veterans Administration due to Gulf War Syndrome.
Even though some neo-liberal apologists and many administration supporters
like to insist that the proposed aggression against Iraq isn't about oil,
the primacy of that aspect simply can't be ignored. Consider, for
instance, the letter Rumsfeld and his deputy Wolfowitz wrote to President
Clinton in 1998 urging a war against Iraq and the removal of Hussein
because he is a "hazard" to such a large portion of the world's oil
supply.
In the letter, Rumsfeld says that America should go to war alone, attacks
the UN and says the US should not be "crippled by a misguided insistence
on unanimity in the UN Security Council." The letter further urges Clinton
to seize the "opportunity and to enunciate a new strategy that would
secure the interests of the US and our friends and allies around the
world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam
Hussein's regime from power."
The other signatories of the January 26, 1998 letter include Bush's
current Pentagon adviser, Richard Perle; Richard Armitage, the number two
at the State Department; John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, under-
secretaries of state; Elliott Abrams, the presidential adviser for the
Middle East and a member of the National Security Council; and Peter W
Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
PNAC has now become official American policy.
Control of Iraqi oil will mean the neoconservatives can finally attack
Saudi Arabia without risking the West's dependence on OPEC oil. It will
mean Europe and Japan, both more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than
America, must go through Bush for their energy needs. It will also stop
any plans for OPEC countries to switch their reserve currency to the now
stronger euro from the US dollar, which only Iraq has done so far, and
Iran has publicly stated it is considering. Might that have anything to do
with their being the number one and two countries on the "axis of evil"
list? Is this the real "hazard" that Hussein poses?
Saddam Hussein may be evil (although I have a bit of a problem with that
word itself), but when you look at what the US is doing in Columbia today
in support of terrorism, how the US is supporting the destabilization and
overthrow of the democratically elected government in Venezuela, how we're
supporting Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as well as what the
US government is proposing to do to Iraq, so is George W. Bush. For the
safety and security of the American people as well as the rest of the
world - for peace, justice, and equality within the interconnected web of
life - the Bush regime must be stopped.
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– Dave Paulsen
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