(October 9, 2004) - This is dedicated to those who read it and in particular to three gentlemen in alpha-order: Waddy Astaphan, Donald Boyd, and Wolsey Louis. Those men do not limit their knowledge only to pedestrian, run-of-the mill mainstream literature; or to CNN, FOX, CBS, ABC, BBC and other media giants.
I know this because they have given me on loan, and more often as outright gifts, books by independent and profound thinkers like NAOMI CHOMSKI, GORE VIDAL and HOWARD ZINN. They help me see events in the Middle East (and elsewhere) in a different perspective. I write with full cognizance that people tend to condemn an unordinary point of view as "radical", especially when that view has greater validity than their own.
Incidentally, veterans like Vidal and Zinn are precisely that; VETERANS OF WW II who fought for America. They are not enemies of the United States. They did not run away from serving as did Bush or Cheney. It is now clear that those who ran away and hide are those who too willingly send young people - not theirs, but other people's children - into harm's way. An American woman recently told me that of the several hundred Congressmen and women, only one has a child in Iraq.
In a couple of weeks Americans will pick a president. If I could influence the election I would choose Kerry. And not verily for his own sake, but because a president who lied to go to war does not merit a second term. Sometimes I doubt Kerry wants to win; by virtue of what he says and thanks to what he fails to say.
He voted for the war. At the first opportunity he should cease voicing support for the war. He should admit: If I knew then what I know now, I would not have voted for the war. He has not said that. So the war for oil and riches waged by Bush and Cheney for themselves and their friends has become a millstone around the neck of Kerry.
Kerry should have said what Al Sharpton said at the Democratic Convention, July 30, 2004:
'If I told you tonight, "Let's leave the Fleet Center, we're in danger," and when you get outside, you ask me, "Reverend Al, what is the danger?", and I say, "It don't matter. We just needed some fresh air," I have misled you. And we were misled.'I do not know what part of that over simplified case scenario that the American people cannot understand.
Harry Belafonte alluded to Colin Powell as a house slave who was in a position to make a difference and chose the option not to. Mr. Powell went to the United Nations (UN) and made Mr. Bush's case for war on grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Weapons inspectors, notably Hans Blix were already finding none, and were humiliated. Bush described the UN as close to irrelevant. He did not understand that there could be possible limits even to the might of a superpower. The anti-war sentiments of billions of people in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and elsewhere were no restraining influence. If to kill one person is a crime, to kill many Iraqis was merely an extenuating circumstance.
Meanwhile, good Christians such as Mrs. Laura Bush continue writing pretty children's books.
So Iraq is destroyed. Sadaam is caught and thousands of innocent Iraqis including women and children are killed and being killed.
Then his own inspectors report that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The reason given for going to war collapses. Mr. Bush substitutes other reasons: Sadaam was just too dangerous.
But ultra conservative Pat Buchanan had opposed the war and declared "The man is not threatening us." And Mr. Powell himself had not too long before admitted that Sadaam was not a threat: "We have him boxed in," through the no-fly zones established over much of Iraqi territory.
I have close to contempt for the big media. It is not enough to report from the hotel roof in Baghdad what the American commanders say without your having the freedom to confirm their reports. This mocks your concept of press freedom.
Where is the cry for impeachment of the brazen president who has shifted lying to a new dimension by giving false excuses when the old ones collapse? Where is the editorial condemnation, national, global and powerful, that should have exploded when the truth revealed itself?
To add injury to injury, it was reported last week that even if the Americans were in control, former nuclear facilities were systematically dismantled and transferred to no one knows where. So that, in effect, the world may be in additional nuclear danger now that the Americans are in charge!!
Nobody is saying that Sadaam was a good man. I am not sorry for that American creation called Sadaam Hussain. But if "we have him boxed in," he is irrelevant and cannot be an excuse for destroying a country and killing so many people, including well over a thousand of your own.
There is plenty that is irrational in some American thinking:
If Kerry flip-flops, and he does, what of Bush? The same irrelevant UN was quickly invited to come on board once the enormity of the Iraqi resistance and the cost of re-construction became apparent. As if to say, I want none of your help to devastate and kill. But your men and your US$200 billion are essential for the reconstruction. Cooperate, or else, without any tendering process even in the USA, we shall continue to give the most lucrative billion dollar contracts to ourselves, through Halliburton.
Here in Dominica, we have the flip sides of Astaphan, Boyd and Louis. For example, one well-meaning but thoroughly misguided person (whom I will not name) told me that the war will result in cheaper oil for nations including Dominica. You know, a year later, the price of crude has attained record levels, or close to that.
Another fellow made his most profound analysis and concluded that some people " do not love America, but they love America's biscuits." I hope he was speaking for himself and for no one else.
When I visit the USA, I spend several times more in Miami or New York than the average American visitor spends here. But the economics of American biscuits is another story.