The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
[Main archive index/search] [List information] [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq Homepage]
[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] Crazed kiddiesHow dare they oppose unprovoked U.S. aggression?By BILL KAUFMANN -- Calgary Sun Elementary school-aged activists in legendary protest precinct Berkeley, Calif. recently waved placards and chanted anti-Iraq war slogans, stated a newspaper article. A local Republican operative was horrified at the "unconscionable" use of children as political puppets. This is what it's come to -- kids being told unprovoked aggression and bullying are bad. That sage Republican should certainly know all about political puppetry. Her boss George W. Bush is such a master at it, he doesn't even need to pull strings; he does it by remote control. You can't blame him for using a compliant TV media to help him convince channel-surfers a hungry, battered Iraq that doesn't even frighten its neighbours is a threat to world peace. If the medium is there, why wouldn't he use it to tell the world Iraq is mere months away from nuclear weapons capability, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which he quotes, flatly denies such information exists? Satellite photos IAEA inspectors insist are meaningless look menacing when brandished by Bush on the tube. Who wouldn't grab the opportunity to relentlessly broadcast the connection between Osama bin Laden and his arch foe Saddam, to compensate for an inconvenient lack of evidence? A man on a crusade has no choice to but to take to the airwaves when even his CIA boss says little threat exists from the toothless tyrant, unless of course he's attacked. It's more ethical to frighten those Berkeley kids with dark fantasies of non-existent pilotless Iraqi drones delivering weapons of mass destruction to their doorsteps. Those kids should be taught to respect the flag and the morals of a president eager to send their parents into harm's way for the reasons listed above. When their president says war means peace and human rights, those children shouldn't ask why their country sends a third of its foreign aid budget to Israel, which lobs missiles indiscriminately into crowds and vandalizes Palestinian schools and clinics and grabs their land. They've no right to know aid to such countries is illegal under U.S. law, or that their nation has trained and supported Latin American terrorists -- as long as they're taught there's only space at Guantanamo Bay for the really bad people. A war would also protect the Kurds, says Bush, who can be excused for supplying vast quantities of arms to Turkey which has routinely slaughtered that ethnic group; after all, we should know by now that some Kurds are more equal than others. Invading Iraq would fill the ranks of terrorist groups, playing into the hands of all the bin Ladens, we're told, but give Bush credit -- he always said the war against terror would be a long one. If it's long and destructive enough, it's only proper that corporations like a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton -- who've profited from all manner of war-related contracts -- would once again enrich those same close friends. It's a perfect fit -- public money goes to blow everything up, then pays those companies to clean up the mess; it's a model of corporate welfare that could revive a moribund Wall Street. And it's easy to imagine Canada being asked to ante up to rebuild Iraq, since we don't have the military to destroy it -- otherwise, "what kind of ally are you?" Americans, suddenly deeply in debt thanks to Bush's massive tax cuts, would quite rightly bellow. We're all in this together -- it's our democracies and civil liberties the terrorists want destroyed, but with the one-year-old USA Patriotic Act, those are much smaller targets now. We're winning this war one step at a time. Bush's impatience to wage peace with bombs and employ his corporate cronies is utterly admirable; they'll be able to cleanse a contaminated Iraq that much faster of all the depleted uranium left behind by U.S. Gulf War munitions. It's the stuff the Pentagon insists is safe, but warns its own personnel to avoid or wear protective clothing around. Understandably, it's safe for Iraqis, but not Americans. And it's not at all strange the "O" word hasn't once escaped the lips of the petro-patch president and his veep during all this. Oil as a factor is just a flimsy rumour, kind of like the Osama-Saddam link, but the president likes talking about that one, which is a prerogative when you're the president. Back in Berkeley, those pint-sized neo-hippies don't mince words, mouthing platitudes like "no blood for oil." Kids say the darndest things. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk