Iraq War - Selling Another "ism" to the Masses

"..., one cannot change the past, but everyone can work together for a peaceful future..."

-Phan Thị Kim Phúc

The year was 1972 and the David and Goliath "conflict" was still going strong in Vietnam and back stateside, there were conflicts as well between those who opposed the war and those who either had no opinion at all or were blindly behind our government's decisions, no matter what and believed that there was a good reason for it all. Knowing why wasn't that important to most people then, as it is today. Even today the reasons behind our invasion of Vietnam are unclear to most, perhaps to all. It's difficult to find a solid answer because the reasons we have, looking back, are almost more vague than they were in real time. We know it was a "cold-war", involving Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and the public was fed a lie of communist fear based propaganda that was finally ended with our, anything but heroic, democratic or humane "get-away" from Saigon on April 30, 1975. Nine year old Phan Thi Kim Phúc was burned, running and screaming down the road on June 8, 1972 from napalm, when Nick Ut took this Pulitzer photograph and we didn't do anything to stop it until almost 3 years later. The burning of people alive from the air continued for three - more - years. My youngest daughter is nine and I try to imagine her face on the tiny, badly burned body of Phúc and attempt to fathom the unfathomable.

The year was 2003 now and the David and Goliath "conflict" was about to reemerge under the name of "Shock and Awe", in similarly horrific and typical U.S. Military way; overwhelming air-support. One more battle that we saw from a distance, a war not seen on the ground, as to not offend those Americans with weak stomachs or consciences. This time a different people, a different nation and location. Still, the fact remains that we are burning people alive from the air..., again. This time a different "ism" than before was endangering freedom, a far more menacing threat than Communism..., or so it seemed. TERRORISM. Makes Communism petty in a visual comparison. The cold-war only threatened violence, in the form of a nuclear "mushroom cloud", that never resurfaced after the end of WWII, when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, again an example of the U.S. burning people alive from the air. The whole world got to see the pictures of the devastation left behind and the massive loss of life and inflictions of the CIVILIANS of Japan. It was enough to bring fear of nuclear attack to this day, and for good reason, no doubt. The question, and a different topic altogether, is whether or not it was necessary. The evidence shows it was NOT a necessary show of force to end the fight with Japan as they were already beaten and had all but officially surrendered. It was however necessary to continue be able to successfully sell the "ism" to the world.

During the heat of the cold-war, we were shoveled fear-mongering propaganda against communism and grew up not only fearing but hating Russia. What happened? Why aren't we still afraid of communism today? Is it because of the new "ism"? Why is it that today, most of the clothes you're wearing, the toys your kids are playing with and the food you'll order for delivery tonight is from a communist country like China? Where's the threat today? Did it simply disappear or was it ever there? With an "ism" there is no defined enemy and so a war against an "ism" can be manufactured at will and deflated even faster. All through the media and whatever slant is decided; so we get what they want us to get and we take it as news, when it's not. We don't support China in their indecent treatment of an oppressed people and a heavy handed, trigger-happy Government but we'll buy their crap, cuz it's cheap! After all, we're consumers at heart, not welfare guardians of the world. We just play one on T.V.!

As I said before, the beauty of basing a war for profit on an "ism" is that there is no clear-cut enemy. I could be one or you could be one. It's an idea, not a color or way someone talks or looks. It's as vague of an enemy as the reasoning behind chasing said enemy. Chasing our tail is what we get in the long run, safety is not. Fear is the outcome, comfort is what's eliminated, not gained. You can't ever defeat an "ism" and they don't wear the same funny hats, so you can't easily spot one in baggage claim and to be part of an "ism", one does not have a special card he shows or a colored "spot" or "mark" on his ID. There is not way of knowing who is one or isn't one, they simply must search and suspect us all. An enemy like that one, creates wealth and means of power reaching epic proportions, known to man and a grip on the neck of the liberty of a people who are willing to support the fight.

Another "ism" was formed out of communism that I must remind you of and that is "McCarthyism"

source wikipedia: McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence.

A shameful similarity of these two "conflicts" are that the American people got the aerial view G-rated version of WAR. The propaganda war machine was up and running once again in Iraq, this time in HD

SHOCK AND AWE: source wikipedia.org

"... It is the desired state of helplessness and lack of will. It can be induced, they write, by direct force applied to command and control centers, selective denial of information and dissemination of disinformation, overwhelming combat force, and rapidity of action..."

In other words, terrorizing and terrifying the ever-loving shit out of a comparatively defenseless people on a nightly basis until they ALL confess to being whatever it is we're accusing them of. We can all get bent out of shape fairly easily by inhumanity and cruelty. You've all seen the stray dog commercials and starving children or save the whales and we get a soft spot in our hearts when we hear of cruel acts committed on a defenseless animal. Somehow, we're undaunted and desensitized by human bloodshed, as long as it's not our own of course. Some brown people? Sure, why not. We hate those brown men anyway. Let me ask you something? Where is the humanity for the civilians of Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh, because you don't have to watch it happen up close, so it's not a concern? If it were happening in your town, to your neighbors and to YOUR KIDS, would it be a concern then? Out of sight, out of mind. Believe me, if California were being occupied by some far away country or foreign troops were calling Floridians "terrorists" and running vicious raids, rounding up civilians, you'd care. Do you think the civilians of Mississippi would fight back and try anything they could, no matter how outnumbered and outmatched it was? Don't you think we (Americans) would be "insurgents" too? The difference between us and them in Iraq, is we're there by choice and they're fighting for their lives! The people we're killing had nothing to do with threatening freedom, most of all ours and that doesn't seem to really matter. Why? Our media is showing coverage of the war 24/7. Have you ever noticed, they're all PRO-war? When was the last time you saw a spot on CNN about some ANTI-war subject? Think about it. You won't see one because they don't exist. Not one that isn't garnished with disinformation.

Are we as Americans getting the whole story? We can argue about why we're there and whether or not we should have gone all the live long day and it doesn't matter; we're there now. What are we prepared to do about it. Obama's promises are fading more quickly than the memories of why we're there in the first place. He lied when he said it would be the first thing he did when he took office and Bush lied to us all to get us there to begin with. Those are FACTS.

Start here but don't end it here.

Do some research and open your mouth and ears a little more than you have been because whether you think you've done all you can or not, we're still occupying two countries with absolutely no just cause. If you can give me a valid reason why we're there on my comments, I'll gladly shoot enormous holes through it for the world to see, if you like. :)

Shock and Awe must be an awesome sight to Iraq's civilians. A not-so-virtual Armageddon coming down on them from above indeed.

wikileaks.org has revealed just a fraction of what we as Americans should know about these wars, other things as well, but this for sure. Perhaps with a more honest look into the cause and the effect of reality, we'd have a more intelligent perspective. So, why don't we then? True journalists like Julian Assange are viewed as sinister and Katie Couric is "cute", Dan Rather is reliable and Ted Koppel is blunt or so it would seem. Anderson Cooper is a handsome way for boys and girls to get their news spoon fed to them, he's universal. He serves as more of a cross-gender appeal. By giving off the hints of being homosexual, without coming out and saying it, but also in a butch manly tough journalist kind of way, he remains in a sexual neutral limbo, as to not turn away any potential sheep regardless of the origin. He's America's sweetheart of what we think is real journalism but all he really reports is what he's told to report. It's not his fault, and I actually don't mind Anderson, it's his producer's owners that I'm after. :)

If we could get a good look at a few of the results of what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think we'd start to get the idea. Hey, that's why I'm here. To get you to think. Not to get you to think like I do, but creatively and individually, motivated by the need to be human and do something good for once in your life that's TRULY worthwhile. SAVE A FAMILY TODAY! Do some thinking and some talking, it's free to share. It doesn't cost you a few pennies a month and you're not going to get a picture of the family you save and all you really have to do is THINK. Think about how you'd feel if it were your brother running for his life down YOUR street and how your perspective may be different and the understanding of why it's happening to YOU is as unclear to you as it is to the people of the supposedly great nation that is occupying your country. What would you do and wouldn't you be begging the people of that country to take the time to see what they're doing to yours?

Let's take one more look at "McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence."

By definition, isn't that how we're treating Julian Assange and others like him who are trying to report what they see? Assange isn't making the news, he's merely providing a way to release to the public, what the public shares with his company. The idea of Wikileaks is not espionage, it's journalism..., the same thing OUR media SHOULD be showing us but won't and the same media who knows they should but understand they can't. We can't get Assange for treason because he's a national citizen of Australia but we can get him for espionage, whenever Sweden is done with him. Is he really such a threat to our national security by leaking secrets to the public? The leaks are not Top-Secret, they're of a sensitive nature, definitely confidential and embarrassing to those who should be embarrassed but certainly not dangerous to anyone, especially nationwide. He's no threat and neither is the information he was responsible for leaking out to the world, well not to the public anyway, so who is in such a panic to slap this guy around for basically being like a whistle-blowing, heroic journalist on steroids! Here, he should be up for the peace prize that Obama won. He should be up for the Oscar that Gore won. He should be up for the all the awards that the puppets got, that he never will. Why? Because he was telling the truth and when you do that, you are bound to piss people off eventually.

Here is an example of what wikileaks has done to show the world the truth inside Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, you tell me which is more "criminal"? Him pointing it out to the world or the training, arming and supplying the men who carried it out? I'll let you be the judge of that after you see an example of the unauthorized news we call wikileaks.