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| Monday, January 28 | | · | The History - and Hypocrisy - of US Meddling in Venezuela |
| · | Canada Is Complicit in Venezuela's US-Backed Coup D'état |
| Wednesday, September 26 | | · | Why Israel Demolishes: Khan Al-Ahmar as Representation of Greater Genocide |
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| Saturday, August 25 | | · | How Long is the Shelf-Life of Damnable Racist Capitalist Lies? |
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| Sunday, May 20 | | · | The British Royal Wedding, Feelgoodism and the Colonial Jumbie |
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| Tuesday, March 20 | | · | Finally, Some Good News |
| Thursday, March 15 | | · | Zimbabwe Open for Business, Code for International Finance Capitalism |
| Friday, January 12 | | · | Shadow Armies: The Unseen, But Real US War In Africa |
| Wednesday, December 13 | | · | The U.S. is Not a Democracy, It Never Was |
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War and Terror: After the Fall A Day of Reckoning
Posted on Wednesday, February 19 @ 08:58:14 UTC
Topic: Protest
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 by Wayne Madsen
The day of reckoning may be close at hand for Bush's "Coalition of the Willing." The worldwide February 15 protests that saw millions of people in the streets protesting the reckless adventurism of the Bush administration has begun to eat away at the periphery of Bush's "Dominion of Deception." Just as the Roman Empire fell, province-by-province, the "Coalition of the Willing" also looks set to collapse. The signs that our global nightmare may soon be over are evident. When French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin received an unprecedented ovation after his speech at the UN Security Council and the world witnessed a miffed Colin Powell unceremoniously depart the chamber with his apparatchiks, those who favor peace over war received a much-needed shot of adrenalin.
And as American city councils - most notably those of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta -- continue to pass anti-war resolutions, the end of the Bush regime may, thankfully, also be in sight. Bush and his allies, who dismiss their own peoples' protests as irrelevant and unpersuasive, will eventually face their wrath at the voting booth. The people will eventually prevail. However, it is now time to decide how to effectively deal with the purveyors of war and disinformation once they are out of power. The war mongers must never again be permitted to unjustly threaten other nations with war and military occupation.
In addition, the police who enthusiastically maced and tear gassed the elderly, the handicapped, and children should be identified. Textual, photographic and video records of their identities and behavior should be maintained. After the war mongers and gangsters are run out of the White House, Congress, and state houses, civilian commissions should be established with the power to indict law enforcement officers who engaged in motiveless violence. Politicians who oppose these moves should be summarily voted out of office and replaced with those who will support an ultimate accounting by the civil rights violators.
Similarly, politicians who refuse to repeal the draconian USA Patriot and Homeland Security Acts should be shown the door. The Teutonic and fascist-sounding "Homeland Security" term must be eliminated from government and popular usage and replaced by "Civil Defense." That term worked during the Cold War with the very real threat of global thermonuclear warfare. It will also suffice in the War on Terrorism. And no longer will the U.S. government haphazardly be able to label countries as an "Axis of Evil" without legitimate provocation.
News organizations that cooperated with the war mongers' agenda should also be identified and vilified. The Associated Press continues to massively undercount the numbers of anti-war demonstrators. Its dispatches from Paris reported the number of demonstrators there to be in the "thousands" when, in fact, the number was well over one million. Other AP stories relied exclusively on numbers obtained from police departments charged with deliberately low balling figures. This is not journalism. It is disinformation, pure and simple. Readers and viewers should expose the AP, the cable news channels, and newspapers like The New York Times by writing letters to the editor and sending and posting e-mail.
The right wing Babelists on the radio airwaves should be constrained by a return to fairness doctrines. Every minute of broadcast racism, xenophobia, and verbal thuggery should be matched with opposing words of reason and sanity. Returning the public airwaves to the public itself will eliminate many of the Rush Limbaugh clones who, on a daily basis, try to outmatch this modern day Father Coughlin's right-wing rhetoric with their own unacceptable diatribes against "frogs," "krauts," "towel heads," "camel jockeys," and "wet backs." For the more egregious purveyors of hate, broadcast regulators should impose heavy fines on their radio stations and syndicators. After all, the United Nations has indicted Rwandans for broadcasting hate-filled messages in 1994. If radio hate broadcasts were an international war crime then, they should be now.
Political sell outs should also be run out of office and embarrassed from ever again seeking elective office. Tony Blair comes to mind as the primary example of a person willing to sell out his political party and country for a few photo ops with George W. Bush. Like his predecessor John Major, Blair may have been promised a lucrative position with The Carlyle Group, an international cabal of corporate manipulators tied to the Bush family. The Labor Party should hasten its cleansing process with an immediate vote of no confidence in Blair and his Cabinet supporters.
And, alas, Senator John McCain turns out to be the biggest sell out in modern American political history. Many of the people who have always questioned the motives of the Bush family were among McCain's most ardent supporters. I feel betrayed that after voluntarily working for McCain's 2000 presidential primary campaign - an effort that helped secure a record 61 percent victory over Bush in Arlington County, Virginia - McCain now chooses to glom on to the xenophobic and nationalistic rhetoric of the right wing. The so-called straight-talking McCain now opts for demagoguery - saying that while people have a right to protest they don't have a right to be "foolish." McCain's shameful duplicity will forever be enshrined in America's political hall of shame.
Pseudo-Democrats like Joseph Lieberman, who owes his Senate seat to right-wing paragon William F. Buckley, should be pounded into irrelevancy in the early Democratic primaries. Likewise, pretty boy politicians like John Edwards, who recently sponsored a bill to create yet another spy outfit - the Homeland Security Intelligence Agency - should not only be sent packing from the presidential primary but also from his next North Carolina senatorial primary run.
But take heart! The effects of the reaction to the Bush agenda are already having positive effects. The so-called willing coalition is collapsing. Bush's chicken hawks who drone on about some 30 countries supporting the war will soon have to face the fact that many of these nations will soon join France, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Mexico in opposition. One country often cited is Bulgaria. Bulgaria's monarchist-based conservative government is on the verge of collapse and will be replaced by one opposed to Bush's war plans. A newly resurgent Dutch Labor Party is now within striking distance of the conservatives after surging ahead of a xenophobic anti-immigrant party in January elections. In a recent poll, 43 percent of Dutch said they had "zero confidence" in Bush.
Spain's pro-war conservative government has united the opposition against it with 65 percent of Spaniards opposed to a war with or without UN approval. Public opinion polls in Donald Rumsfeld's "New Europe" are running heavily against Bush's war aims. Only 24 percent of Czechs favor Bush's war, while 62 percent of Slovenians and Poles are against their governments' support for Bush. Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan quickly did an about face after signing a pledge of support for Bush. The reason: a poll showed 81 percent of Croatians opposed to war. The same results are repeated across Eastern Europe with 66 per cent of Estonians opposed to war and 76 percent of Hungarians.
Italy's scandal-plagued Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi is once again under a cloud of suspicion for questionable financial deals. He may soon be vocing his support for Bush from an Italian prison. Denmark's conservative Prime Minister is under fire from Danish opposition parties for unconstitutionally backing Bush without consulting with the Danish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. Bush's favorite organ grinder monkey, Tony Blair, was sweating before a Labor Party conference in Glasgow while the ever more popular Liberal Democratic leader Charles Kennedy had an anti-war audience of 1.5 million in the streets of London.
Bush's Coalition of the Willing is a mere paper tiger. No wonder a senior U.S. intelligence official recently scoffed at the term, calling it an overused "phrase." The real coalition of the willing are the millions who protested against the Bush regime. Croats and Muslims, once at war with one another, protested together in Bosnia. Greek and Turkish Cypriots united at a protest at a British airbase on their divided island and Israelis and Palestinians jointly staged an anti-war protest in Tel Aviv. Hundreds of Americans joined in the Paris anti-war protest, receiving thunderous cheers from the French protestors who jammed the streets with them.
Judging from the body language of the Bush shills who hit the television talking head shows the day after the global protests, they are absolutely shell shocked after a week of the world saying in unison to the Bush regime, "Enough!" National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice appeared to be on the verge of tears and/or a nervous breakdown. Colin Powell was visibly boiling after he received a drubbing from the Security Council. The maniacal Rumsfeld continued to lash out against Europeans, the latest target being Austria for its insistence on maintaining its constitutional obligation of neutrality. Tom Ridge, the dullard in charge of "homeland security," had to tell people not to wrap their homes in plastic sheeting and duct tape after telling them they should be prepared to do exactly that. John Ashcroft, the "Singing Nazi," announced, with Ridge behind him playing second fiddle, that the nation was at Code Orange. It was later revealed that the alert was based on bogus information. And Bush Junior appeared more and more mentally challenged, uttering juvenile words like "gooder" in war rally speeches. Fortunately, for the people of the world, once these pathetic fools are finally run out of office, the political futures for them and their ilk will be relegated to oblivion. The People must firmly pledge to ensure that never again will the seats of power be handed over to such a cabal of crooks and gangsters.
The good news for the millions of people who have braved the elements and the kilometers to demonstrate in the streets against the Bush war machine is that The People will soon regain the reins of political power. The bad news for the mindless war mongers is that The People of the world have long memories and, ultimately, The People will have their day in court.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.
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