Charade

It's still happening, in fact, it's getting worse.

Are you okay with the fact that our President is ignoring the war in Iraq more than ever? He's parading around Asia, acting quite the benevolent white supremo, the great Western Benefactor to Vietnam and others, while dozens or more people die per day in the nightmare he and his folks have wrought in the land between the rivers.

Let's make sure we don't miss the important word there: PEOPLE...are dying. People. These are not numbers, these are not increments on a voters poll, or cost to benefit ratios in the secret Halliburton balance sheets. No, people are dying and many who survive are losing limbs, skin, eyes, teeth, sanity, homes, livelihoods, peace of mind, children, grandparents, hometowns, neighborhoods, futures, possessions, savings, valuables....everything. We are taking everything from them, for what, precisely? So now the administration wants to "finish the job"...why? To save face politically. So only a few hundred thousand more Iraqis need die and a few millions more will lose everything else I've mentioned above.

Do you think this new democratic Congress is going to stop the war? They can't. I hope they try, and they may succeed in shortening it by a few months (and that is a difference not to be ignored when dozens are dying every day, I understand this) but you can keep your money off the table that our troops and those of the other coerced nations will be there for years to come. The machinations of the great American military octopus never act according to public opinion or by "doing what's right". Never. When it becomes consistently unprofitable, when the disaster of the war goes beyond the front pages and penetrates the homes of those who control the tentacles, then it will end, and not one minute before then. At this point the politicians have less power than they've had in almost a century. I guess with the Dems in office, at least they won't make things worse. Probably.

It is beyond tasteless that Bush has chosen now to visit Vietnam, it is also not an accident. This is last-ditch Rove-esque desperation: Let's stand tall in a "new and glorious" Vietnam, a country that clearly is where it is today because of the sturdy involvement of the self-sacrificing US army and the courageous politicians who put them there...right? Okay then. Never mind that we left the country far worse than when we invaded it...or that whatever success it enjoys now (which is suspect) is the result of decades of recuperation and rebuilding from the disaster of our creation in the 1970's. Never mind that the truth contradicts the presented image in sanguine, ugly scars: For at least the last two years of that war our politicians and military brain trust knew that the war was lost, and further that continued involvement would accomplish nothing except to increase the body count and cost the country further billions (a significant percentage of which always goes directly into the pockets of powerful western businessmen, a detail which must not be overlooked). So Bush thinks it's a good idea now to remain in Iraq when even Kissinger, hardly the dove, announces that military victory is impossible. Against this critical backdrop, he stumbles along in southeast Asia like the mindless political whore that he is, as if to show everyone that past American blunders are actually a reasonable yardstick to measure the certain success of our half-trillion-dollar engineered slaughter in Mesopotamia. Hmm, actually he's right!

Let's stick with the Vietnam theme for a moment. So, anyone think that perhaps that despite the carnage we should see it through in Iraq, that otherwise chaos would reign in the region? Chaos that somehow we have the capability to stop? As if chaos hadn't already been wrought by us in a theater of ongoing chaos for the last 1400 years. No increase in troops, tactics, or tanks or added hundreds of billions against taxpayer wishes (not only is it not the administration's or military establishment's children sent to die over there, but it sure as hell isn't a drop of their fortunes that are being spent to finance this catastrophe, just the futures of the rest of us, that's all) will bring victory or even a settled peace. "Cut and Run" sounds like a damn good idea to me right about now. It is your future, and your children's future, that is being spent like water over there...drastic reduction in college funds, social security, care for the elderly, education for children, anti-pollution measures and urban blight restoration projects. That's all gone now. Funding for the arts? Please. Research for stem-cell measures, or AIDS research? Gone. Of course hundreds of millions will still pour into our medical infrastructure, but only in the form of investment in profit-generating technology and methods, not in anything that can simply and cheaply help cure the diseased...nor of course in any sound form of socialized health care. But that's another subject for another blog. Let's tiptoe back to southeast Asia...

Every year in the Vietnam War, especially the final three, the body count increased at a mind-boggling rate. As Nixon vainly sought "Peace with Honor" (translation: Less Egg on Face of America's Politicians and war-hawks), hundreds of thousands died. The civilian cost in Vietnam was 2.2 million, and that's a conservative estimate. And what came of that? Defeat, desolation, misery...but not for us. We got to go home. Except for several hundred thousand of our servicemen and women. They came home in a pine box. Several large pine forests had to be cut down entirely to make the cheap coffins provided by an ungrateful American military establishment.

So, folks, that's what you've got to look forward to. Right now we're counting the dead (according to grudgingly released numbers by the army censors and I'm sure those aren't doctored, right?) by the tens and twenties, and stand aghast when we cross three thousand! Oh my gosh!

Just wait. If this is permitted to continue we're going to start seeing the number increase exponentially. By thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, and the civilian death toll (but do we really care about that? Have we ever really cared?) will skyrocket. This war has to stop now or this dreadful future may come to pass, and I'll hardly be the only one to have predicted it.

Just ask a Vietnam Vet.

.

GET MAD DAMNIT! Your rights are being taken away!

President Bush signs away the rights of Habeas Corpus and this country doesn't seem to give a damn. What's worse? That our President signs away the most basic right of freedom under the auspices of "protecting our freedom against the Great Threat", or that we stood by and did nothing?

NOTHING!!!

So you understand, in case you were all watching "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives", I'll sum up this issue: President Bush signs what is entitled the "Military Commissions Act" in this year, 2006. This gives our President, one man alone, carte blanche to decide who is a threat to this country at any time, and his decisions are only overseen by a military tribunal which is so laughable that they might as well have not even put that line in there.

One man can decide if you are a threat to the United States. So, by the way, can the Vice President under this act. At any time you or I can be picked up off the street and whisked off to any secret location they choose and this is completely within the law now, thanks to the "Military Commissions Act". The best "detail" may be the last: At no time whatsoever are they ever obligated to provide you with legal representation or even to tell you what the charge is against you! You or I could rot in prison for the rest of our lives never knowing what it was we supposedly did, and never have a chance to represent ourselves in court, never face our accusers or even receive visits from family members, simply because someone in power decided that we were a threat!

Do you think I am overstating the severity of this issue? Am I giving in to "liberal hysteria"? Don't take my word for it, research the facts. You will see that I am not adding one iota of extra fear or gloom into this blog entry. Not one.

Does anyone seem to understand that to suspend or eradicate Habeas Corpus is to take away the most basic, the most essential freedom of any supposedly free and democratic society? What is Habeas Corpus? In case you don't remember, in this usage it represents the right we as citizens have (or had) to not be taken to prison (or held against our wishes) without substantial charges not only being legally brought against us, but also our right to know those charges and face a fair and impartial jury in a court of law to defend ourselves against those charges, and to be fairly represented by legal counsel during the entire process. What this means when it's at home is this: If you look at any of the worst dictatorships and Facist regimes in the history of civilization, you will see a lack of Habeas Corpus. You will see the Stalins of history throwing thousands of people daily into prisons, to be tortured and eventually shot or to spend the rest of their lives in gulags. Their crimes? They were deemed "Enemies", by The State, which in that case meant anyone that Stalin and his cronies (many of whom themselves eventually saw the inside of a prison or the business end of a rifle pointed at them) decided were enemies.

Do you think it's okay that this President, or any that come after him, can at any time decide whom to send to prison for whatever reason they please? And to see those people languish in prisons without any chance of defending themselves, of pleading their case to get out again? How long is it before people guilty of something as "American" as free speech (like me writing this very blog) can be deemed as "material supporters of terror" and thrown in black site prisons...so that the security of American can be defended? How long before all the Universities are state-sanctioned and any professors who teach anything but government-approved curricula are thrown into Guantanamo Bay, and we're not even free to post rants like this one? I'm telling you it's not a long step, it's a single step.

Are you going to do anything? You might ask if I am? Well, it's a good question, but you should be asking it while you're planning your own action. And yes, I am going to do something. I'm educating myself, I'm reading, watching and absorbing everything I can find about this and other crimes perpetrated on American citizens and the citizens of the world by this administration. I'm posting my thoughts online, I'm sharing my outrage with others. Maybe it's not much but at least it's something. I'm going to barrage my representatives with letters demanding the immediate repeal and complete eradication of this act, and urge as many people as I can to do the same. At least a letter a month, e-mails, faxes, hell...hire some skywriter to do it over Washington! Oh wait, they'd just shoot him down...unlike 9-11 when they just waited until the planes being "flown by terrorists" (yea right) crashed into all those buildings, wrought all that carnage, misery, death and destruction and...oh my stars!...created the IDEAL environment for the usurpation of power that this criminal administration has launched against the United States of America and subsequently the rest of the world.

One man now has the power to send you to prison for any reason he pleases. Actually two, if you count the Vice President. The only oversight in the process is a military tribunal which will be, in effect, chosen by the same apparatus that arrested you in the first place. But we can trust them to be fair and impartial, right?

You will not be represented by legal counsel, you will not be told your crime, and you will not have a chance to stand trial and defend yourself. You will not be free until they, in their great benevolence, decide to do so, if at all. Maybe you'll be tortured, maybe you'll die during the torture (there's virtually no law any more which limits them from doing so, except the Geneva Conventions which this government considers optional), maybe you'll be shot and lie forgotten in an unmarked grave.

There are many examples in history where a leader or small cadre of leaders has taken this power unto themselves and in nearly every case it has been done so under the promise of "keeping the people safe". In every single case it has gone wrong. In every single case it has been used as a tool of oppression and terror (oops, there's that buzzword..."terror", hmm) and has not been rescinded until revolution came.

Are you willing to sit back and let this internal rot continue? Is "Lost" more important? If so, the title is at least appropriate.