To
the Victors Belongs Impunity
By Jason Miller
15 November, 2006
Countercurrents.org
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes
a little longer.”
---Henry Kissinger,
New York Times, October 28, 1973
Baghdad’s
kangaroo court has issued a verdict that virtually guarantees that Saddam
Hussein will launch his journey into the hereafter from the platform
of a gallows. Convicted of “revenge killings of 148 people, deportation
of 400, and razing of orchards,” (1), and still facing a charge
of genocide that resulted in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, Hussein is
undoubtedly a malevolent individual.
Yet to ensure public furor
against Hussein (and to distract the hoi polloi from focusing upon those
guilty of similar crimes), the corporate media have conveniently jettisoned
several important aspects of history down the Memory Hole:
1. Hussein committed his
crimes with the tacit approval and complicity of the United States government
because he was waging a war against their enemy, Iran.
2. Numerous members of our
own power elite (Democrat and Republican alike) share responsibility
for an ongoing United States genocide against the Iraqi people that
began with the Gulf War (2).
3. The Iraqi administration
prosecuting Hussein conducts its purportedly “sovereign”
governance in a nation occupied by 140,000 US troops.
4. And perhaps most disturbingly,
the United States is rife with government officials of varying capacities,
both active and retired, who have committed crimes as egregious as those
of Saddam. Acting with impunity and actually deriving prosperity from
their transgressions, these individuals have historically ridden off
into the golden hue of the setting sun, pausing just long enough to
turn and flash a sneer at their would-be jailers or executioners.
If the US criminal class
did actually face the Hammurabic style of justice they have imposed
upon their former ally, Bush, Kissinger, and a number of other revolting
miscreants would find that simply surrendering their sight and capacity
to chew would fall well short of satisfying the Babylonian arbiter.
And what punishment could
an international tribunal impose upon the American Empire’s ruling
elites to balance the scales of justice by retribution?
Nothing short of shattering
their cervical vertebrae with 1000 pounds of force, reducing them to
asphyxiated corpses devoid of the capacity to cause more suffering.
After days of twisting in the wind, unable to fend off persistent molestation
by an array of avian scavengers, their decayed corporeal shells would
be hastily laid to rest in rickety pine boxes buried in a potter’s
field.
Now that would restore the
gleam in Hammurabi’s eyes and probably inspire him to dance a
frenetic jig of mirth.
But despite obvious signs
of decay, the world still belongs to the American Empire. And it is
doubtful that the ancient law-giver will be enraptured any time soon.
Representing the victors
in the struggle for global supremacy, reprehensible individuals like
Donald Rumsfeld can engineer the liquidation of horrifying numbers of
human beings while blithely dismissing their victims as “collateral
damage” in “just wars”.
When the Empire’s architects
of conquest set their sites on sorely over-matched nations like Vietnam
or Iraq, infants are butchered and obliterated. Women are raped and
eviscerated. Men are decapitated and mutilated. Children are mangled
and dismembered. Innocent human beings are imprisoned and tortured.
Millions of people are displaced. Infrastructures are decimated. Resources
are plundered. Environments are severely contaminated….Hell is
unleashed.
Yet will the contrivers of
these decidedly evil US intrigues, campaigns, and invasions endure an
iota of Earthly castigation?
No. While men like Saddam
pay the ultimate price for their crimes, equally maleficent US American
leaders reap significant rewards.
Consider just three examples
of such US perpetrators (an analysis which does not even smudge the
surface, let alone scratch it):
Henry Kissinger is responsible
for the deaths of over a million human beings as a result of his machinations
in Cambodia, Greece, East Timor, and Chile.(3) He received the Nobel
Peace Prize.
As Ambassador to Honduras
(under Reagan) during US interventions to remove a leftist government
in Nicaragua, dedicated imperialist John Negroponte was “directly
complicit in the murder of at least 184 Honduran civilians officially
found to have been killed by the death squad by a 1994 Honduran truth
commission.”(4) George W. Bush subsequently appointed him as Ambassador
to the UN, then as Ambassador to Iraq, and finally to his current position
as National Intelligence Director.
And what of George W. Bush?
His well-documented lies, defiance of the UN, and violations of the
US Constitution have caused considerable carnage in Iraq. By October
of 2004, between 10,000 and 100,000 thousand Iraqis were dead [depending
on which estimate one believes](5). In November, Bush was granted another
four years to continue wreaking havoc and annihilating innocents.
Naturally, a rational mind
demands to know how such insanity and iniquity can persist.
It is quite simple, really.
Corporate-controlled media in the United States put Orwell’s Ministry
of Truth to shame. Slicing, dicing, and liquefying with an efficiency
exceeding that of a commercial grade Cuisine art, they deftly reduce
information to intellectual pablum for the multitude of minds they have
systematically stunted.
Sustained from birth on this
adulterated concoction, psyches inculcated with the notions of US entitlement
and superiority clamor desperately for more of their perpetual delusion’s
lifeblood. Starved for nutritive doses of truth and depth, minds gorged
on sound bites and pornographic images blended with select cuts of the
finest propaganda billions of dollars can buy suffer the malaise and
sloth of an obese individual addicted to fast food. Intellectually submissive,
they reflexively embrace the asinine mythology perpetuated by the MSM.
Hence, many US Americans
recently perceived a “seismic shift” in the political landscape
and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Democrats “rode
to our rescue” by wresting control of Congress from the evil GOP.
So despite the stark reality
that the Democratic Party is simply another vehicle of corporate interests
which has spawned as many malefactors as the Republicans:
1. A Democratic Congress
is going to right the wrongs of the Bush Regime and make the world “safe
for democracy” once again?
2. Nancy Pelosi is going
to oversee the restoration of a semblance of ethical conduct by the
US government without even attempting to impeach men guilty of virtually
innumerable crimes against our Constitution and against humanity?
3. Our “savior Dems”
are going to bring the troops home from Iraq when they insist on framing
the mistakes of the Bush Regime in strategic rather than moral terms?
After reflecting on those
questions, contemplate the fact that with the proliferation of democratically
elected indigenous Latin American leaders who are implementing policies
which defy the US brand of rapacious Capitalism, the bellicose fascists
in the Bush Regime are preparing to tighten the screws.
From the USA Today on 11/9:
"Concern about leftist
victories in Latin America has prompted President Bush to quietly grant
a waiver that allows the United States to resume training militaries
from 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries."(6)
Translation: After a brief
respite from years of misery, torture, and death inflicted by the United
States and its proxy dictators, the people of Central and South America
are poised to suffer renewed collective punishment for daring to establish
governments that reject the exploitation and economic manipulation of
the US Corporatocracy.
No wonder the Decider brought
Negroponte back into the fold.
While many US Americans of
conscience may be pacified with the Democratic revival, Chavez, Morales,
Ortega, and their people aren’t counting on Pelosi to save them.
They know the Dems will be too busy applauding the execution of genocidal
tyrants like Saddam Hussein and fulfilling Ms. Pelosi’s pledge
to “work together to find a new solution” with benevolent
humanitarians like George Bush.
(1) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/
1106/p01s01-woiq.html
(2) http://www.freepress.org/departments/
display/13/2006/1834
(3) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/
Kissinger/HKissinger.html
(4) http://ww4report.com/negropontedeathsquad
(5) http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/
10/29/iraq.deaths/
(6) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/
2006-11-09-waiver_x.htm
Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire
who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically,
his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at
a homeless shelter. He welcomes constructive correspondence at [email protected]
or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
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