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War and Terror: The American People Have a Right to Know
Posted on Sunday, January 26 @ 00:00:00 UTC
Topic: USA
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 by Ben Roberts
How much times do we see American politicians and leaders spouting off about
how 'the American people have a right to know.' Especially when it is something
they want to push through that is more in their interest than that of the American
people. The truth is that Americans expect to be informed and kept up to the
minute on what is going on around them. This is borne out by 24 hour cable
news, being able to check email while on the go, call forwarding, and most
recently the constant briefings in the sniper case that gripped Washington,
America, and the world. So you see it everywhere. Americans do expect to know
what is going on. But if we think for one moment that those parroting the phrase
that the American people have a right to know have any intention of keeping us
informed, then we are terribly mistaken. The truth is that more often than not
they want us to know what they want us to know. Using a combination of smoke
and mirrors and censorship, they play us for fools and suckers. Nowhere is this
more pronounced in recent times than in this current Bush Administration.
Recently, Bush was on TV talking about how the General Accounting Office
wanted documents about his Administration's connection with Enron and the
stock market disaster. He bragged defiantly how he refused to give them such
information. Wait a minute. The GAO is as the name implies. From what I gather
it is an agency that keeps government accountable and earnest. They should be
promptly furnished information of what is going on, so we the citizens can know
what is going on. But Bush is blatantly claiming that he refused them information.
Is this in keeping with democracy, transparent government, and our leaders oft
touted claim of our right to be informed? We have a situation where hard working
everyday Americans put away their pennies for a rainy day nest egg. This nest
was plundered by the unscrupulous captains of industry. All indications are that
these power drunk greedy men were well connected to our government, and we
are not allowed to know the facts? So much for America's right to know.
Not so long ago Iraq submitted an extensive military inventory document to the
United Nations. This single copy document listed the weapons in Iraq's arsenal,
and must surely have included invoices of what was purchased and from whom.
Guess what. The Bush Administration pirated the document before the other
Security Council members got to see it and removed 8,000 pages from this
document. They claimed it was 'sensitive' information. What? Sensitive to who?
The truth is that many of those pages listed the American companies that had
been assisting Iraq, in violation of American law, in its efforts to acquire weapons
of mass destruction. The Administration did not want the world, but most
especially Americans, to know about this. So much for our right to know.
The Bush Administration is poised to attack Iraq because it accuses it of
harboring weapons of mass destruction. It claims to have evidence to back up its
charges. The UN says to date its inspectors have found no evidence of such
weapons. Should Bush not be at this time be falling over himself providing
intelligence data to the world and to Americans to counter this finding? Instead
he is positioning himself to attack Iraq without showing Americans such
convincing information. Should our citizens not be made aware of such evidence
before allowing their sons and daughters to be marched into battle to shed
innocent blood, along with theirs? Do they have a right to know George Bush?
In the Persian Gulf War, father Bush and his government heavily censored what
took place in the war. We were fed video pictures of smart bombs going down
chimneys and cruise missiles detonating at airfields. General Norman Swarzhkof
came on TV, rosy cheeked and beaming with delight as he informed us how
precision bombing and surgical strikes had minimized loss of Iraqi lives and
given us a resounding victory. When Swarzhkof was asked how many Iraqis had
been killed his countenance changed as he blanched, squirmed and said, 'we
will never know.' What? Don't we have a right to know? So Americans came
away feeling at peace, with the impression that we did not kill much soldiers and
innocent civilians. This quickly turned out to be a false impression, when the Red
Cross provided numbers showing that many thousands of Iraqis had died at the
hands to America. Now do you see why Americans have a right to know?
A few days ago an Israeli government delegation was here seeking $15 billion in
aid from this country. There was no report of their being here, what was being
negotiated, or what was the outcome. For all we know they might still be here
negotiating. When Richard Boucher, a White House spokesman, was asked
about it he refused comment on anything having to do with these meetings, only
saying, 'we always take care of our friends.' Wait a minute. Is this the Twilight
Zone? $15 billion dollars of American citizens money given to bankroll a
government, allowing them to build more West Bank settlements in violation of
UN resolutions, produce more massacres like in Jenin, and finance and facilitate
their military in its attacks on Palestinian civilians. Is this safe for America? While
Americans are losing jobs and collecting unemployment benefits another country
is siphoning $15 billion of their resources, and they are not allowed to know
anything about it? Does America belong to Richard Boucher, George Bush, and
his cast of characters? If America was striking such a deal with say Libya or Iraq,
one could envision such deafening silence, because it would be illegal and
embarrassing. Israel is touted as America's friend. Why the silence? Is it
because the deal does not withstand the test of daylight? Ask George Bush?
Newspaper and TV headlines these days leaves one not knowing whether to
keep a serious straight face or burst out laughing. Around the beginning of this
year we were asked by our government to be on the lookout in helping to
apprehend a group of terrorists in this country, somewhere near the New York
area, who were on a mission to undertake terrorist activity against US citizens.
Faces were splashed across prime time TV screens. One of the faces was that
of an upstanding Afghani, in Afghanistan, who has never been in, or near
America, from what reports indicate. After seeing his face as one of the
dangerous suspects, the man made a ruckus in setting the record straight. It was
at this point that US intelligence admitted that it was some kind of wild goose
chase. First, why are we as citizens, novices in intelligence, being asked to help
find terrorists in the first place when we pay professionals to do that? Is it
because the government wants us to feel they are on the job, and we are in this
together as part of a potent crime solving team. These are the same people who
refuse to tell us how they were connected with stock market highwaymen who
robbed us, and that $15 billion dollars of our money is being generously doled
out to a foreign government while our jobless benefits are allowed to run out.
If that were not enough intelligence drama for one month, the government now
tells us that they are searching for Iraqi spies in America. Yes, the Associated
Press is carrying a report today about how the FBI is scouring the country
looking for an Iraqi spy cell operating in the United States. Desperation reigns as
the Bush Administration grab at straws in an attempt to convince America and
the world of a credible reason to attack Iraq. On top of weapons of mass
destruction, threat to Saudi Arabia, threat to Israel, starving his people, and
empty chemical warhead shell casings, we now tack on an ominous Iraqi spy cell
on American soil. If you conclude that this last gasp spy business sounds like
fiction, you are not far off. The racy action adventure novel, 'Jackals of Samarra,'
employs a scenario of a fictional military confrontation between the US and Iraq.
It makes reference to an Iraqi sleeper cell operating in America. Maybe our
intelligence maestros read this book. If not then maybe they should, since the
fictional scenario outcome might help them blow the case wide open.
The Iraqis are accused by America of having weapons of mass destruction. Our
government is using the weapon of mass fear to divide and rule, just as Prince
Metternich did in controlling the Austrian Empire. Americans are told that they
have a right to know, and actually do expect to be informed. In its behavior the
Bush power elite is telling them 'you have a right to know...nothing, or whatever
mumbo jumbo we want to feed you.' My 'weapon of mass deduction,' also known
as my brain, is telling me that George Bush is taking the American citizen for a
ride as he smirks and mumbles, 'Nothing beats a good ole American sucker.'
Ben Roberts is a newsletter editor, freelance writer and published author. His book, Jackals of Samarra, was published in January 2001. Ben can be contacted by email at: grandt730@aol.com
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