COASTAL POST
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August, 2005
Operation Wake Up
by Frank Scott
Our murderous foreign policy led to the tragedy of 9/11, and its
ramifications continue. The taking of innocent life in Iraq has caused
the taking of innocent life in Spain and England. But still, the
impenetrable blobs that lodge between the ears of our leaders send
messages to their lips to repeat incantations about war on terror,
mindless that they are responsible for terror s origin, perpetuation and
growth.
Many are suspicious at the timing of the London attacks, not yet
realizing that our governments do not need to conspire at killing their
own people in order to rationalize killing foreigners. Their policy has
been killing foreigners for more than a generation now ; that is why we
were attacked on 9/11, and why Europe has been attacked since then.
Arrogant support for the American destruction of Iraq, by governments
unconcerned about their people's wishes, is why Madrid and London have
suffered terror bombings. Conjecture about which group of fanatics
conducted one or another bombing misses the point. The attacks are
retaliation, and no amount of frat-boy tough talk by the draft evader in
D.C., or whining from the lapdog in London, will do anything but cause
more suffering in the west, as retaliation for much greater suffering
inflicted on the east.
Political propaganda cannot change reality, nor can language abuse,
like, calling what goes on in Palestine a peace process . That s like
watching a woman s rape and calling it a love process . The theft of
Palestine can no longer be rationalized as the fair, humane reaction to
a tragedy in Europe. Blatant disregard for the Palestinians has led to
suffering, displacement and vicious oppression for those who had nothing
to do with any European atrocities. Continued disregard for the role the
US and Europe play in perpetuating the degradation of the Palestinian
people can only mean further disregard for life and limb in the US and
Europe.
The slaughter of innocents in Afghanistan and Iraq only adds to the
grievances of people whose hatred for us grows, as our total disregard
for their humanity moves them further into extreme groups whose beliefs
are based on the same patriarchal scriptures revered by
Judeo-Christians. The sanctioned hate speech and hate politics directed
towards Islamic and Middle Eastern people will only add fuel to a fire
which threatens to engulf far more than one location. Serious and ever
more bloody social breakdown is threatened, and its cause is not
terrorism , but the political economics of empire .
The present Karl Rove sideshow will do nothing to stop the occupation in
Iraq or the suppression in Palestine. It has given dismal Democrats an
opportunity to come out from under their beds and pretend boldness, but
that only proves the insignificance of this diversion. Those whose
politics are themselves weapons of mass destruction , who support the
policies in Iraq and Palestine, are calling for the head of the hustler
who advises Bush. They believe that having created murderous chaos in
Iraq, we can somehow supervise its uncreation. They may also believe
that carriers of the HIV virus must somehow uncreate AIDS . But even if
Rove s lynching is successful - unlikely - it will be meaningless as
long as Democrats maintain policies which threaten more lives at home,
the more lives we take abroad.
The struggle for global domination was supposed to have ended when the
Soviet Union succumbed to our ability to spend far more money on weapons
. But we were a creditor nation then; now we are the world s biggest
debtor, and the situation is far more dangerous. While Japan, Europe and
especially China, prop up the American economy by purchasing our debt,
enabling Americans to shop without money, grinding strains have
developed in the engine room of our consumptive ship of state,
threatening to sink it into the enormous sea of debt on which it floats .
Nonsense about foreign threats are merely further attempts to distort
reality. China, and eventually Europe, will overtake the USA, by sheer
strength of dollars and consumers . But that is hardly a threat for most
Americans, who should rejoice, or at least heave a sigh of relief. The
sooner this nation stops trying to run the planet, the sooner it may
create solutions to far more serious problems. And terrorism ranks well
below several hundred others, especially when we consider that it would
vanish, in seconds, once we stopped infesting the middle east with our
ugly and bigoted form of marketing .
It is complete delusion to claim, as one of our regime s manic minions
did, that the Iraqi resistance is in its last throes. It could be merely
wishful thinking to say it is the Bush administration whose days are
numbered. But realization of either delusion or dream may depend on
others, more than it does on the U.S.
If we are not able to exercise democratic control over our government,
others will have to do it, and in ways that may cause far more pain. The
lessons that have not been learned from 9/11, Madrid and London will
lead to further suffering if the global and US majorities which have
always opposed this policy do not act up, now.
There is hope in the growing demand for immediate withdrawal from Iraq,
as well as in calls for impeachment. But we will not end terror or stop
the empire simply by impeaching Bush, since his loyal opposition is
almost as bad. And even those two desires will need to be joined with a
further, most important demand: that policy towards Israel change
radically, to not only observe the rights of the Palestinians, but to
confront and end the power of the Israeli lobby over the U.S.
government. To some , that may seem a tall order, but to those who truly
want peace and social justice, it is an absolute necessity.
Copyright (c) 2005 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.
This text may be used and shared in accordance with the
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Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on
other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author
frank scott
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