Friday, October 07, 2005

FREEDOM PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

"But the big picture, the strategic picture, we're losing. If they kill one of us for every thousand we kill -- they have over 20 million people, we have 123,000. You know, the numbers are just against us. And once one begins to look at it objectively like that, it – you’ve got to ask what this is worth, what you gain by doing this."

"I'm trying to think like a strategist, and in war, as well as in politics and diplomacy, one has to know when to withdraw and when to attack. This was a misguided act and it requires a strategic division and moral confidence to turn it around."

"The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."
Lt. General William Odom

Today I wasn't feeling well.
Then I read the transcript of the War President's speech to the National Endowment for Democracy (10-6-05).
I felt worse when I finished reading "his" words.
The first parts were inspiring.
I was impressed.
"Who’s writing this stuff?" I wondered.
But, then, my shit detector kicked into high gear.
I started recognizing the glittering, patriotic and cliché-filled sound bites, and between them, as they came at me fast and furious, I remembered that the War President and his happy warriors lied to me, to you and to the world.
It still sounded to me like a doctor who says that you are going to be fine even though your heart and lungs are in a pan under your bed.
"Son, you're almost dead, but fight on...stay the course...victory will arrive."
This speech had me swooning and believing until all of the catchwords, clichés and platitudes appeared.
I wanted to believe what the War President (was reading) repeating.
I really wanted to accept his descriptions of what & why the U.S. was fighting.
But I know too much about what has already happened.
Before, after and during this war.
Freedom, peace, democracy...these are just empty words if the people (for whom we are supposedly helping to obtain them) have been irradiated and killed with weapons that "liberated" them.
Freedom, peace & democracy are meaningless to any family who has lost a brother, a sister, an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, a mother, a father, a grandmother or a grandfather as a result of "collateral damage" during the process of their liberation and acquisition of Freedom, Peace & Democracy.
Bush and Cheney have some gifted writers writing the words which they speak.
But the War Presdident is still wrong.
Afghanistan should have been the focus of our vengeance and payback for 9-11.
The hijackers were not Iraqi---or even from Afghanistan.
They were from the Bush family's oil buddy Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden should have been the enemy to be killed.
Al-Qaeda was located in Afghanistan and Pakistan---not Iraq, as it now is, and which the War President now reminds us of and scares us with.
If you were befuddled by the words that the War President read and spoke on October 6, 2004, you are not alone.
But it is always the War Presdent's delivery of his speech that finally tells us how much we can believe or accept.
Watch how he speaks.
Watch his facial expressions.
Watch his eyes.
Watch his mouth.
What did YOU see?
What do YOU believe?

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