Dear Editor,
Recently we were told that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine were a good thing. These people, we were told by “our leaders” and elite media were “pro-democracy protestors”. “Our government” warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these ‘pro-democracy protestors’. Some of these “protesters” were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails at the police and setting fire to buildings.
Now, a short time later, with a new “government” we’re told that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine are not ‘pro-democracy protestors’ but ‘terrorists’ or ‘militants’. Why was the occupation of government buildings in Ukraine a good thing in January, but a bad thing in April? Why was the use of force by the authorities against protestors completely unacceptable in January, but necessary now?
The anti-government protestors in Ukraine in the winter received visits from prominent politicians, including Senator John McStain, and Victoria Nuland from “our” State Department who handed out cookies. There have been large anti-government protests in many Western European countries which have received no support from such figures or from media commentators and those protestors haven’t received cookies from State Department officials.
If they were enthusiastic for anti-government street protests, seeing them as the truest form of ‘democracy’, McStain and Nuland would also be showing solidarity with street protestors in Madrid, Rome, Athens and Paris?
Secretary of State Kerry recently said, “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretexts in order to assert your interests.” “Our government” and Israel have done just that on more than one occasion. Has Kerry forgotten the “Iraq WMDs claim”? In 2002 and 2003 politicians and Neocon pundits appeared on TV daily telling us that we had to attack Iraq because of the threat from Saddam’s deadly arsenal.
Why is a democratic vote in Crimea on whether to rejoin Russia worse than the brutal, murderous invasion of Iraq which has led to the deaths of at least one million people?
We’re told by “our government” and media ‘experts’ that the Crimea referendum wasn’t valid as it was held under “military occupation” but I’ve seen coverage of elections in Afghanistan, held under military occupation, which were applauded by western figures as a “historic moment for Afghanistan” and a great success for “democracy.” Why is the Crimean vote dismissed, but the Afghanistan vote celebrated?
Syria is also mysterious since we’re told that radical Islamic terror groups pose the greatest threat to our peace, security and our ‘way of life’ in the West, Al-Qaeda and other such groups need to be destroyed: that we needed to have a relentless ‘War on Terror’ against them. Yet in Syria, our leaders have supplied such radical groups in their war against a secular government which respects the rights of religious minorities, including Christians. Now those radicals are swallowing Iraq defeating those we spent billions training.
When Al-Qaeda bombs go off in Syria and innocent people are killed there’s no condemnation from “our leaders”: their only condemnation has been of the Syrian government which is fighting radical Islamists and which our leaders and elite media commentators have said we’re at war with.
We’re told that Russia is a very bad and backward country because it has passed a law against promoting homosexuality to minors. “Our leaders” who boycotted the Winter Olympics in Sochi because of this law visit Gulf states where homosexuals can be imprisoned or executed, and warmly embrace the rulers there, making no mention of the issue of gay rights.
The imprisonment or execution of gay people must be worse than a law which forbids promotion of homosexuality to minors? Why, if they’re concerned about gay rights, do our leaders attack Russia and not countries that imprison or execute gay people?
In America police believe they must launch military-style assaults on civilians suspected of selling politically incorrect drugs, knowing that there’s certain to be “collateral damage” like innocent dead citizens sporadically. Officers raiding a Georgia home searching for a drug suspect used a flash grenade severely burning a toddler who was sleeping just inside the door. This same police force recently killed a young minister. After they recover from the injuries caused by “our government” is there any adequate explanation?
Our legal system has become an oppressive machine instead of a statement of America’s moral and ethical requirements.
Throughout the Cold War, national-security state advocates assured us that the only reason “our government” needed this totalitarian-like machinery was because of the international communist conspiracy: Soviet Union and China. Once the Cold War was won we were told America would restore the limited-government constitutional republic that our Constitution established.
And then unexpectedly The Cold War ended. Suddenly, justification for the national-security state apparatus, which had fundamentally changed the American way of life, was gone. One option was obvious: dismantle the national-security state by closing all the overseas bases, bring the troops home, dismantle the enormous standing army, close military bases, abolish the CIA and the NSA, and end the taxes that supports this enormous, privileged force in America.
Terrorism was the answer. The new excuse is as good as the old one. “Our” war on terrorism could easily be perpetual, especially since “our government” easily produces anti-American terrorism with its interventionist policies. The whole thing is a perpetual terrorist-producing machine: Send the troops to combat terrorism, which produces the anger that leads to terrorism, which is then used to justify keeping the war on terrorism. Now, the war mongers/profiteers have a continual source of power and money with your support because you’re afraid.
Can you imagine a more ideal scam than that? Especially when gullible “consumers” easily embrace the lie: “Anti-American terrorism has nothing to do with American intervention abroad. Terrorists just hate us for our freedom”. The war on terrorism is like the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps going and going and going.
“This country has a mental health problem disguised as a gun problem and a tyranny problem disguised as a security problem.” Joe Rogan
Craig Dudley