Getting flushed right down the toilet…
More claims of the american taliban (bush and his born-again chronies) are getting washed down the toilet, together with the promise of finding WMDs.
American soldiers are being killed by Iraqi sniper bullets at an ever accelerating rate. The very people Governor Bush claimed to be liberating are suddenly, and oh so unexpectedly, turning against the liberators. Ooops, there goes the ‘we’re there to liberate the iraqi people’ justification. Or are they shooting the ‘liberators’ just because they’re so misguided and ignorant? Or wait, whats that word the righteous like to use… evil?
More claims of the american taliban (bush and his born-again chronies) are getting washed down the toilet, together with the promise of finding WMDs.
American soldiers are being killed by Iraqi sniper bullets at an ever accelerating rate. The very people Governor Bush claimed to be liberating are suddenly, and oh so unexpectedly, turning against the liberators. Ooops, there goes the ‘we’re there to liberate the iraqi people’ justification. Or are they shooting the ‘liberators’ just because they’re so misguided and ignorant? Or wait, whats that word the righteous like to use… evil?
Maybe, but maybe they are realizing that that the american government has come only to rape their lands of oil, and perhaps that is why they are suddenly sabotaging the oil lines. And maybe they aren’t willing to take it without a fight.
Speaking of Israel, the region has exploded in yet more conflict after Sharon’s government suddenly decided to blow up one of Hamas leader’ cars in a botched assassination attempt. And of course after Bush initially rightfully condemned Israel, he quickly got nailed by the Israeli lobby (AIPAC), after which he immediately started talking of the evil terrorists, in fear that the same thing will happen to him that happened to Rep Cynthia McKinney when she dared to speak the truth about Israel’s murderous policies, and specifically their US tax-dollar funding.
So much for the truth. Credit to the unelected moron though for speaking the truth, even if for only a moment. But the reality is that we do need to ask about the truth, not only about the nasty and powerful christian lobby, but the equally nasty and powerful jewish lobby and the power of religion in our politics. When you combine religion and government, things get bad, but toss in ridiculous amounts of money into the picture and you go from a democracy to a theocracy quicker than you can blink.
Israel has a defense budget of nine billion dollars. Of those nine, four billion are direct US tax dollars. Something is very wrong with that picture, especially given Israel’s blatant disregard for international law and all reasonable notions of what being a democracy means. Not to mention the fact that they are occupying palestinian territories, in violation of far more UN resolutions than Iraq ever had gotten against itself. And one only needs to remember the struggle against the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto, or the struggle against apartheid, or any other civil rights fight to understand that when people are oppressed, the same way as Palestinians are, they will fight back.
There is this funny line of reasoning where we can go overnight from calling someone a freedom fighter to calling them a terrorist, just depending on which angle one views the struggle from (think about Mandella for example). If you put a gun to someone’s head, how can you possibly expect them to do anything but try to kill you? The Israeli people are continually electing and funding a government that directly oppresses millions of people and murders thousands. How else can one expect those people to react but with all and any means necessary?
However is the Hamas terrorism the most effective way of dealing with the Israeli oppression? Obviously and clearly not, and that is probably the clearest, most direct reason for condemning the use of violence. The simple reality proven by history (certainly in this particular conflict) is that violence is a never ending cycle, one that cannot be broken with more violence. This is a cycle that can be broken only either by the outright elimination of either side (an unlikely but non-the-less truly scary option) or through peaceful direct action. There is no other way.
The reality is that in between the religious extremists on both sides, innocent people are caught, and to the fathers, the brothers, sisters, mothers of the dead, it really often doesn’t make one bit of difference why their loved ones are dead. The only thing that matters to them is that their beloved will never again be with them.
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