FEATURED ARTICLES
- SPREAD THE WORD!! THE WAR IS OVER!! by Michael O'Gorman, www.PeaceRoots.org
- The Motive for the Invasion, by Michael Doliner, antiwar.com
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"This follows also on another natural and common necessity, which always causes a new prince to burden those who have submitted to him with his soldiery and with infinite other hardships which he must put upon his new acquisition. In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those friends who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy them in the way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures against them, feeling bound to them. For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives.
"But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much more, having to consume on the garrison all the income from the state, so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated, because the whole state is injured; through the shifting of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their own ground, are yet able to do hurt. For every reason, therefore, such guards are as useless as a colony is useful."
- - Machiavelli, (from, The Prince)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - MAY 7th
1975 -- The Vietnam War officially ends.
1984 -- American Vietnam War vets reach an out-of-court settlement with 7 chemical companies in their class-action suit relating to the use of the herbicide "Agent Orange." 15,000 vets & families to get $180 million.
1985 -- City of Philadelphia (The City of Brotherly Love) bombs the house of the radical black group MOVE, killing 11 & destroying 62 other homes in the neighborhood. Surviving MOVE members are still imprisoned.
There's a newly released hour documentary about the Move history narrated by Howard Zinn, author of "The People's History of the United States". It's called, MOVE.
MORE AT: http://www.movefilm.com
RHINO HERE:
The Machiavellian Quote of the Day was used to begin today's BOTTOM LINE article entitled, "The Motive for the Invasion" by Michael Doliner for antiwar.com. Although the essay was written in November of last year, and the "The Prince" a long time before that, they both resonate with the brewing brouhaha these days.
Much to the consistent denial of rush & the right wing cheerleading squads, the war is just about over. The stories of shrub & company lies, defeats & deceits are bulging out worldwide faster than a herd of bloggers can even hope to keep up with. See what the NY Times had to say recently:
"Terrorists like Osama bin Laden have always intended to use their violence to prod the United States and its allies into demonstrating that their worst anti-American propaganda was true. Abu Ghraib was an enormous victory for them, and it is unlikely that any response by the Bush administration will wipe its stain from the minds of Arabs. The invasion of Iraq, which has already begun to seem like a bad dream in so many ways, cannot get much more nightmarish than this." (NY Times, May 3rd)
In response to the shrub's recent TV interviews with selected Arabic news, the BBC had this to say:
"There is no sign that President Bush has been able to undo the damage caused by the photographs of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by the very troops sent to liberate them. Looking at the front pages in Cairo this morning, President Bush might be forgiven for feeling he might as well not have bothered going on television to try to woo Arab opinion. The problem for the Americans is that no-one in the Arab world believes these are isolated incidents; everyone expects far worse yet to come." (BBC May 6th)
And Sydney Blumenthal in The Guardian:
"Bush has created what is in effect a gulag. It stretches from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantánamo to secret CIA prisons around the world. There are perhaps 10,000 people being held in Iraq, 1,000 in Afghanistan and almost 700 in Guantánamo, but no one knows the exact numbers. The law as it applies to them is whatever the executive deems necessary. There has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union. The US military embraced the Geneva conventions after the second world war, because applying them to prisoners of war protects American soldiers. But the Bush administration, in an internal fight, trumped its argument by designating those at Guantánamo "enemy combatants". Rumsfeld extended this system - "a legal black hole", according to Human Rights Watch - to Afghanistan and then Iraq, openly rejecting the conventions."
SPREAD THE WORD!! THE WAR IS OVER!!
by Michael O'Gorman, www.PeaceRoots.org, 5/4/04
I'm serious! The war is over. WE LOST!! A year ago today Bush said "Mission Accomplished." "Major hostilities are over." How tragically wrong he was. But today, a year later, I think its over. Not with the certainty and thoughtlessness of Bush - but I truly believe its over. Especially with the release of just a few of the damning pictures from Abu Graib prison, its been sealed - we've lost another senseless and tragic war.
What we went to Iraq for we will not now get. No, not getting rid of Saddam - that was one healthy pill in a shovelful of horseshit. And not building of democracy. If we wanted that we would have got it in Kuwait after our last Gulf War. We went to Iraq to set up a military base, to control the oil, to promote ''our'' religion, to trump the United Nations and to scare the American people further into submission. Now, just maybe, those things might not happen! Quietly we've surrendered our number one political objective to the UN - the selection of the Interim Government.
And now we've surrendered in Fallujah. The biggest military power in history and we could not defeat a ragtag insurgency. Six hundred dead and we could not take one block. We've surrendered to Saddam's general in Saddam's uniform. The Wizard has pulled back the curtain for all the world to see. Bush has no brains. Cheney has no heart. Sadly, Kerry is yet to show any courage. So like during our own Civil War, fighting may linger for another few weeks, or few months, or however long it takes to spread the word that the Americans have been whooped.
And while we must all fear the suffering that may occur in our vacuum I actually have some hope. My hope is with the Iraqi people. While the pundits ridiculed the Iraqi people for the results of the latest CNN/Gallup Poll, I found them extremely sophisticated and perceptive. They were glad to be rid of Saddam. But they want the Americans out. It may get more chaotic. But they still want us out. They want democracy. But they don't believe we do. Giving them back their country - for real - may just be the spark to unite the Iraqi people. And it may create the only thing left with which to really fight terrorism - a glimmer of hope.
8:24:55 AM 
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