EXPEDIENCY vs. MORALITY

        A really big lie of omission is coming to the surface. It concerns what the Bushies have called the thousands of Iraqi found in mass graves. They cite this as an example of Saddam's evilness.

        They say that even if WMDs weren't found, the fact that he would murder all these people means that the Bush invasion of Iraq was a good thing. Well, yeah, maybe but let's take a look at recent history:

        Both President Reagan and GHW (daddy) Bush supplied precursors of WMD to Saddam. He was our ally fighting Iran. Saddam and Rummy were good buddies.

        Then Saddam was baited by Bush #1 into invading Kuwait. David Harvey wrote in his book, The New Imperialism:

        The first Gulf war was a case of entrapment: we wanted Saddam to invade Kuwait so that we could justify deploying forces and having greater control over oil resources in the region.
        Following the first Gulf War, Bush (daddy) encouraged the Iraqi people to rebel against Saddam. Implicit was his promise to come to their aid if they did.

        Well they did rebel and Saddam put down the rebellion viciously and cruelly and that's how so many of those mass graves were filled. Far from coming to their aid, Daddy Bush reneged on his promise and many Iraqi were cruelly slaughtered. Another reason that Iraqi do not trust Americans.

        It does not make Saddam any less of a cruel dictator but it does point to the effects caused by ignorance of history, cowboy bravado and brainless machismo. It has resulted in Bush's oil grabbing mission turning into a kill and be killed machine of Coalition troops.

        There's Mei Lei, Iran Contra, CIA atrocities and many, many more instances of American governments doing the dirty in foreign politics. The excuse always being that "it was to protect our country." A little torture here and there was deemed acceptable.

        Hey if this be true, then why hide it? Why the secrecy? But the Iraqi prison tortures did not become public knowledge until a reporter, Sam Hirsch, nosed it out and CBS broadcasted the pictures. And what does Bush tell us and the world? "This isn't America. We don't do things like that."  

        LIAR!

        The Bushies claim that it was an isolated incident, just some bad apples spoiling things for the thousands of true blue military. Yet the Red Cross and other sources dispute this and there is evidence that torture of Iraqi detainees was approved at the highest levels of government.

        Truly, most of us want to believe that our country always has the moral high ground and are reluctant to lift the curtain and look behind it at our government's deception. We want to believe that we Americans do not do things to human beings like we saw in those pictures.

        Additionally, there is the pressure on all of us to just shut up and not give aid and comfort to the enemy. What enemy? The ones we create more of every day by our government's greed for oil and world power?

        Unhappily there are those among us who, scared shitless by the Bush propaganda, think that torture is what those Iraqi deserve. Don Imus has suggested more than once on his talk radio/TV program that we nuke Iraq.

        Rush Limbaugh comments that the photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib "look like standard good old American pornography -- just like college initiation high jinks."

        The following is an email from one of GenderGappers's subscribers:

        Don't expect me to feel the least bit sad over the treatment of these islamic beasts. muslim men have been brutalizing, humiliating and abusing women, maybe it's time they got their cummupance. Worry less about them and more about our own country. islamo-fascists want to kill us, it's better we get them first. If torturing these beasts can force information to prevent another attack, then I believe it's perfectly alright to use torture. Liberals should not be so compassionate towards our enemy that it puts us in danger." -- LL
        Despite Bush's avowal that America doesn't torture prisoners it seems people in other countries believe we do and that SOME OF US think it is justified. Moralistic America has been and still is an unrealistic construct.

        We are being defined as a people that claim Judeo-Christian values yet are too fearful to practice them. Perhaps it would be more moral of us to be honest and stop hiding behind religious myths.

        There has to be a middle ground between bully and saint; between capitulation and preemptive war; between OUR forebrain and OUR fearbrain..

        twanda@sover.net

        2004-021

        Copyright 2004 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@sover.net.

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