- "We will perservere and defeat this enemy".
I listened to President Bush give his scripted speech last night (May 24-04)
at the War College.
A college where you can go and learn how to kill more effectively. Imagine
bragging to the neighbors over Johnny getting his degree in learning how
to build hysteria about weapons of mass destruction and ridding the world
of evil. Nobody is really sure what real evil looks like but we're going
to rid the whole world of it. As history shows evil is chameleon in appearance.
Sometimes it can be Japanese, German, Russian, or as of late--Muslim. Evil
can also be a corporate entity (they have personhood), but they stand removed
from any accountability. That's because when you go to look for the corporate
person they don't exist. It's just loophole stuff done on paper. Evil can
be your next door neighbor serial killer, child molester, or rapist. Evil
has all kinds of different names (never their own). When you give them
different labels it's easier to kill and hate them. It's not like you're
killing a real person.
Evil can be called, "geeks, gooks, slant eyes, sand niggers, mud people,
towel heads, rag heads, krauts, commies, japs, thugs, gangsters, vermin,
low life, collateral damage, sub-human or acceptable risks." This
killing of evil is pretty involved. There are special schools and training,
to learn all the various strategies and techniques. There are specialty
academies for officers, and the School of the Americas,' at Fort Benning
Georgia. The school in Georgia trains people from foreign lands (South
America-Mid-East-etc.). They then go back and kill their own people or
others (nuns and priests) who interfere with global business and politics.
Regular cannon fodder go through basic training, singing killing songs
and then they're off.
The War College was pretty impressive. The whole audience was filled with
men and some women, all spiffed up in dress uniforms, with lots of medals
on their chests. Two people in white blouses stood at each side of the
polished stage. I think they were the applause monitors. People who are
in the military don't do anything or think anything of their own volition.
Not even clapping. They have to be told. President Bush, his latest bruises
(falling off a bike) were well covered in makeup.
 I was thinking, 'What a country-who could
have imagined?' George Bush who by his own admission (interview on TV with
Laura), was a party animal and alcoholic into his forties. Every business
he'd had failed. Thankfully, the family fortunes and connections never
saw him on food stamps or in an unemployment office. The Vietnam era saw
him disappeared during reservist duty. Again--connections, lost paperwork,
saw him insulated from harm. There's everyday joblessness--foodstamps-prison
life for messing up, and then there's cushioned protected living. Get
out of jail free card an inheritance.
Now George is Commander-In-Chief! Only in America can a rich boy with
no experience grow up and be President (well with the right connections).
The people in uniform all clapped when they were told to. Mr.Bush read
his scripted speech pretty well. He should have practiced pronouncing Abu
Ghraib (the prison) a bit more. It just wouldn't come out--try as he may.
Apparently there's going to be a giant (someday) embassy in Baghdad with
4000 employees and a 'regional government'. He said that the Aba-daba-du
prison would be torn down and a new "maximum security prison"
built. This would "mark the beginning of a new Iraq". Hmmm--finally
we get a glimpse of what "sovereignty" means.
I think the remark that struck me most (the rest was yada nothing) was
when he said, "Iraq has a friend in America". My idea and the
President's idea of friendship are drastically different. Me, I believe
like Aristotle that " a friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies".
I just can't accommodate friendship with pre-emptive strikes, shredding,
melting, tanks, missiles, cluster bombs, bunker busters, depleted uranium,
M-16s, and Daisy Cutters (explodes eyeballs-internal organs). Some friend
huh?
I thought of little Ali asleep in his farmhouse last year. His arms shredded
off by a cluster bomb-his family dead. I thought of the grandfather lifting
his purple sweater grandchild from the debris of the first "friendship"
bombs. Dead-her little feet missing. I thought of the "friendship"
of all those "lit up" at check points--whole families blown to
smithereens. I thought of the recent wedding ceremony--and the cavalier
remark "even bad guys get married". I thought of the "friendship"
in the prisons; snarling dogs, hoods, sex orgies, sadism, brutality, and
savage barbarism. No "friendship" rings given----- just leashes
and handcuffs. A friend feels your pain---doesn't give it.
When I think of the thousands upon thousands of children dead or born terribly
deformed (Madeline Albright said it was worth it): Due to sanctions, bombings
and tons of depleted uranium, I can only think of a the silent cry from
the children of all lands made to war and kill each other for rich mad
men's conquests: " Cry the beloved country for the unborn child that
is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let
him not laugh gladly when the water runs through his fingers, no stand
too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not
be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much
of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he
gives too much". Cry The Beloved Country.
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