- Poor President Bush.
-
- He apparently wants to invade Iraq more than anything
else in the world. And just when he thought he had sufficient support to
do so, foreign leaders started backing out.
-
- So he went to the U.N. and gave a stirring speech - saying
Saddam Hussein must allow weapons inspections or the U.S. will invade -
only to have Hussein agree to allow the inspectors in.
-
- What is the point?
-
- In his quest to go to war, the president is supported
by writers and commentators who never saw a war they didn't like. That
may be because they never have to go to war themselves - they just send
others to their deaths.
-
- To these people, the object isn't a democratic Iraq or
U.S. security. The object is war.
-
- The goal isn't peace in the Middle East or removing dangerous
weapons. The goal is war.
-
- The warmongers demonstrate that war is the purpose of
it all by the way they promote it.
-
- If you try to deal with any of their claims, they change
the subject.
-
- If you point out that Pakistan (a military dictatorship),
India, Russia, China, France, Britain, Israel and the United States all
have "weapons of mass destruction" (including chemical and biological
weapons), the war-mongers say, "But Hussein gassed his own people."
-
- If you point out that Bill Clinton gassed the Branch
Davidians at Waco, the warmongers say, "But Hussein invaded Kuwait."
-
- If you point out that the U.S. invaded Panama and Grenada
- and has bombed numerous countries that didn't attack the U.S. - the war-mongers
say, "But Hussein operates a brutal dictatorship."
-
- If you ask if this means we must invade several dozen
other countries in the world who are suffering under brutal dictatorships,
the war-mongers say, "But Hussein has violated a dozen U.N. resolutions"
(this is usually claimed by someone who doesn't think the U.N. should even
exist).
-
- If you point out that the U.S. also violates U.N. resolutions
- and didn't even pay its dues for many years - the war-mongers say, "But
Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," and we've come full circle
and can start all over again.
-
- If any of these claims were a truly serious concern,
the war-mongers wouldn't be jumping around from one contention to another.
-
- Lies and damned lies
-
- After every war, the historians dig through the archives
and discover that a great deal of what our government claimed as the reason
for going to war was untrue.
-
- After World War II, we found out that the Pearl Harbor
attack was neither "unprovoked" nor a "surprise."
-
- After the Vietnam War, we discovered that the Vietnamese
didn't really fire on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, and so the
Senate resolution escalating the war was based on a fraud.
-
- After the Gulf War, it turned out that the Kuwaiti woman
who told Congress that she witnessed Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait - and thereby
incited several senators to vote for war - wasn't even in Kuwait at the
time she "saw" the atrocities.
-
- And so it goes. The politicians get us all whipped up,
and only later do we discover that what we knew about the war and the enemy
was a lie.
-
- These are our leaders
-
- But, of course, it isn't just war that politicians lie
about. They lie about their loyalty to the Constitution, they lie about
their voting records, they lie about the contents of the bills they pass,
they lie about the non-existent "budget surpluses."
-
- And as though that weren't enough, they vote for bills
they haven't read and don't understand. They browbeat committee witnesses
on subjects the politicians know nothing about. They seize on any imaginable
event as an excuse to arrogate more power to themselves and to take more
liberty away from us.
-
- And they expect us to go to war on their say-so.
-
- You believe what you want. But as for me, until George
Bush lays out specific, credible, verifiable, understandable evidence that
Saddam Hussein poses an immediate threat to the security of the United
States of America (not just to the "interests" of the U.S., as
defined by power-hungry politicians), I prefer to keep my self-respect
and oppose any thought of going to war.
-
- I love America, not its government.
-
- I am loyal to the Constitution, not to the politicians.
-
- I love the traditional American way of life, not the
1984 version we're living today.
-
- And I don't understand why it is so great to live in
a country that's constantly at war with someone somewhere in the world.
___
-
- Harry Browne is the director of public policy at the
American Liberty Foundation. You can read more of his articles and find
out about his network radio show at HarryBrowne.org.
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Bob Barnes
- 9-21-2
-
- Jeff...
-
- Once again, Harry has deluged us with a litany of truisms,
but no solutions for them. We know what the problems ARE, Harry. What do
we DO about them?
-
- How 'bout writing some logical dissertations on how we
Americans can wrest control of our country from the hands of those who
would squander thousands of innocent lives for a few oil wells? So many
of us have so little money with which to fight the PACs, the AMA, and all
the crooked corporations that fund politician's elections and re-elections.
Once a Senator or Congressman lands in office (for which they are ready
to spend millions--millions that special interest groups are all too ready
to provide) their only concern is to be re-elected. Again and again and
again. We've lost the only weapons we've ever had against the big business/crooked
politician (or crooked business/big politician) coalitions:
-
- The ballot box: We go to the poles to cast votes that
may or may not be counted--or simply may NOT count.
-
- A Free Press: We come forward having witnessed suspicious
persons or activities only to be embarrassed by major news organizations
who are all too ready to put us on "trial" by national TV.
-
- A Valid Judicial System: Judges and courts are overrun
with frivolous, un-warranted civil and criminal cases instituted on the
mere chance of winning a jackpot. Judges no longer serve behind the bench--they're
croupiers at a very-large-stakes crap table.
-
- Was it Mark Twain or Will Rogers who said, "America
has the best politicians money can buy." How DO we cut off their gravy
train and bring some common sense and basic American values back to our
government? That truly is "the billion dollar question."
-
- Got any answers, Harry? If so, post 'em quick, 'cause
if it ever does come to a thermo-nuclear gunfight at OK Corral, there's
a very good chance it'll be a one-shot fight. The question is, will it
be their shot or ours? If it's theirs, we're dead. If it's ours, we're
damned. Either way, no one wins.
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