Trinicenter.com - Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

by Ben Roberts

It is absolutely mind boggling as this nightmare is fast becoming reality! As we speak America is building up troop concentrations in the Gulf to attack Iraq. In the first Persian Gulf War, the US used the lame argument that it was attacking Iraq because their troops had invaded Kuwait, and was brutalizing that country.

Remember the young girl plaintively making her case before the UN, imploring America to act because Iraqi troops were throwing babies out of incubators. It turned out the girl was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador. Her story turned out to be a lie as big and hollow as a hot air balloon. George Bush, Sr. and his British cohorts must have given themselves a stomachache from laughing at how they had conned America and the rest of the world into going along with an attack on Iraq. Now, years later, his son is trying to deceive us once again.

Enough is enough! Americans have to do something. Not just celebrities or well known peace activists. All of us who call America home have to stand and be counted for peace, for morals, for what is right, and for compassion. Rather than throwing up our arms in resignation and going along as this barbarism is duplicated on the people of Iraq simply because of 'A Few Greedy Men,' we instead need to be stamping our feet in defiance and saying, 'No! You will not use our sons and daughters to carry out September 11 many times over on people who are just as innocent as our flesh, blood, and spirit taken in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.' They will then be forced to listen. You voted for them, and they have to do what you say. All too often Americans underestimate the power their democracy provides them as individuals. Many people in other parts of the world would kill to have in their hands what the American democracy gives to its citizens. Now is the time to use it. Why you say? Here's why:

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said weeks ago that war with Iraq is not about oil. Read my lips. The only thing it has to do with is oil. The Bush Administration is not even attempting to cover its tracks in deceiving America and the world. They are out in the open with their monstrous and deplorable behavior. Bush at one point produced 'pictures,' claiming to show Iraqi installations that were making weapons of mass destruction. UN chief inspector Hans Blix countered that the pictures were familiar inactive sites from earlier inspections. Bush then said Iraq had Russian made unmanned aircraft drones that could threaten the US. It is virtually impossible for a drone to fly from Baghdad to the US mainland.

North Korea, however has restarted its nuclear weapons program and already possesses missiles that are capable of delivering this nuclear payload to the American mainland, while to date there is no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq. If Bush is speaking the truth when he repeatedly says that his goal is to make Americans safe from dangerous weapons, then shouldn't he be building up troop strength against North Korea? Or did he only manage to get a C grade in geography and thinks North Korea is located between Iran and Jordan.

The UN weapons inspectors are in Iraq searching for so called weapons of mass destruction. They have yet to find any. The Iraqis have been very cooperative. The US claims to have evidence that Iraq possesses such weapons. Shouldn't they now be introducing that smoking gun evidence to the world to counter Iraqi claims. Right about now they should be saying to the UN and the world, 'they say they have no weapons in building # 17, here are our satellite intelligence photos, nuclear and biochemical leakage reports, and human data showing the material is instead in building #18.' How can the US even entertain the thought of attack on Iraq without producing this damning evidence if they have it, as claimed?

Scant days before Iraq submitted its 120,000 page weapons inventory document to the UN, Colin Powell was in Colombia grinning like a Cheshire cat as he lavished gifts, touted American aid, and gushed about America's solidarity with that country. It seemed oddly out of place at the time. Then the picture came starkly into focus. Within days the Colombian ambassador to the UN assumed the revolving leadership role in the UN Security Council. Appropriating the single copy document, he handed it directly to US officials before any of the other members got to see it. In other words he was the inside man for the heist. US officials removed 8,000 pages from the document claiming it was 'sensitive' information. Sensitive for who? Good question. Those pages listed American companies that had done business with Iraq, helping it to acquire weapons of mass destruction, even while a government ban made such transactions illegal.

One has to ask this question. How can the US remove 8,000 pages from an Iraqi compliance document to the UN then claim that the country is lying and did not submit a true declaration? They have tampered with the document. It cannot be used as a reference to apportion guilt, or for that matter, innocence. It is the equivalent of a person having to submit a sample for drug testing. In the chain of custody someone gets to have the sample to themselves, remove some of the contents, add material, and do whatever they like. No court can, under this scenario brand the individual as guilty. Similarly, the court of American and world opinion can in no way conclude that Iraq is guilty. The only legitimate mechanism left now is the UN inspectors. But Bush is gearing up to attack Iraq irrespective of these inspectors and their findings. This can in no way be allowed to happen.

Such unconscionable behavior makes it clear that the US leadership is cheapening America in the eyes of the world and putting its citizens in even more danger than before. Bush himself said a few weeks ago that as the country gears up for war on Iraq, Americans face great threat of terrorist attacks. It was so sad to see TV photos of the three missionaries killed in Yemen a few days ago. These people look like they could be any of our parents, and represent what is good, compassionate and charitable about America. In their work they bring hope and possibilities to the lives of so many people. No one really wants to hurt them. But remember not long ago Bush sent a Hellfire missile hurtling into that country, extinguishing at least three souls suspected of terrorism, including an American not guilty of anything. So much for preemptive strikes making us safe. It was embarrassing and downright disheartening to read that many Americans civilians in Afghanistan at the outset of American hostilities, and even today, when asked if they are Americans often lie and say they are from Switzerland or Canada. Isn't that a shame. America is such a great country. One that most people wish could be their birthplace, and its citizens deny it as their home. There are people in this world from small islands only as big as cities and counties in America, with little in the way of resources. They would proudly and quickly tell anyone where they were from. Banish the thought of them claiming to be from somewhere else. Take note of something here. Americans claim to be from two countries. But not just any two countries. Switzerland and Canada lead the pack as the world's most peaceful, charitable, and non aggressive nations.

The question is what makes Americans have to resort to this distasteful habit of denying their proud place of birth? They, as individuals, surely have not done anything to generate the ill will that they are trying to insulate themselves from by claiming another nationality. In short, the ill will, real or imagined, was generated not by them, but by the all too often unpleasant and despicable actions of their government in these foreign lands. The war on Iraq is one more in a succession of such actions. It will make Americans no safer. They will once again have to hide their face and say with an absence of pride that they are from somewhere else. Americans have to change this. Their government is morphing into a distasteful monstrosity that is endangering them, and the world they live in.

What is to be done you say? Anything. Peaceful demonstrations. Writing your elected representatives. Inundating them with letters and emails, and telling them what you want. They need you more than you need them. A tax revolt. Not unheard of in this nation's history. The Boston Tea Party was such an event, employed when consideration for us as citizens was neglected, in this case by the British. Illegal you say? Not anymore so than this government attempt to do something that is contrary to the wishes of its citizens. One thing is certain. Sitting by, throwing up our hands and doing nothing is the least desirable option. Doing nothing means we cannot complain about consequences down the road.

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