Living Peacefully & The Nature of the Beast 09-09-08 mpg The Nature of the Beast... [Is to "play" off the tribes and nations against each other untill "it" wins. - mpg] A quote...."Native Americans lived for scores of years in Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan...They lived peacefully until the year 1673 when a traveler and mapmaker by the name of Louis Joliet, accompanied by a French Jesuit monk named Jacques Marquette "discovered" Chicago. Soon thousands of colonists descended upon it just like ants on a pot of honey." Now the author's blast at "Amerika" and her contention that Iraqis were living "peacefully" is not quite an accurate reflection of the true state of affairs and needs some clarification. After all, stating Iraq was "living peacefully" before the US's second invasion of that country reflects poorly on the US and its current policies. One has to keep in mind that it was the US's CIA which helped Saddam into power, supplied him with lists of thousands of "leftists" all of whom we encouraged him to round up and murder. It was also the US which thought it would be a real nifty idea if he would invade Iran and it was official US policy (think that photo of a happy smiling Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam) to supply, and encourage many other countries to supply, as much armaments as possible to "bleed both sides" in the war, including those lovely gas weapons which Saddam used on some of his own people (with nary a word of discouragement from the US). After that exhausting seven year struggle it was the US who slyly told Kuwait pump as much oil as possible to prevent Saddam and Iraq from recovering from the war while at the same time telling our ambassador to Iraq April Glispie to give the green light to the -- by than -- highly irritated, short of funds, Saddam, regarding his upcoming planned invasion of Kuwait. And of course after the invasion and the US's subsequent deployment of forces throughout Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates and Kuwait, it was the US who than encouraged the Kurds and Shi'as to "rise up" against Saddam only to later stand idly by, watching while Saddam crushed them. And finally let’s not forgot it was the US imposed sanctions which according to many estimates resulted in the premature deaths of over five hundred thousand Iraqi children. A tragedy commented on by none other than Madeleine Albright who, when asked about these terrible losses, stated rather pithily "we think the price is worth it." On second thought....maybe it's better if we think of Iraq as just living "peacefully". - mpg |