BLOOD & OIL: GEORGE W BOGUS & HIS BAND OF BUGGERS
“War is the pursuit of politics by other means” - Karl Marie von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 1833
There’s a wise old proverb which, roughly paraphrased, goes something like this: if you go hunting dragons long enough, you become a dragon yourself. But in the case of the Bush regime in its fake "war on terror" it has NOT turned into a dragon.
Why not, you ask? Well, quite simply because the Bush Regime - and the U.S. Government in general - always WAS a bloody “dragon”. OK, let’s scrap the crap metaphor and cut to the chase.
The world did NOT change on 11 September 2001. The U.S.A. did. Dubya fucked up, Democracy was dismantled, dissent became dangerous, and war-crimes were outsourced.
Austsurrealia's bumbling Foreign Minister Mrs Alexandra Dowager recently described the USA as "the most powerful and prosperous" nation on earth. Prosperous? Depends where you sit on the cannibalistic, capitalistic, "free-market" food-chain.
The U.S. is the pre-eminent economic and military powerhouse it is today because it was established through the genocide of its native population and the use of black slave labour. Indeed, of all nations involved in the bloodbath of WW2, the U.S. alone emerged even richer and more powerful than when it (belatedly) joined in the fight against Hitler’s fascism.
Never invaded by foreign forces itself, the U.S. maintains hundreds of military bases around the world that it established during WW2. These forward bases are maintained not only for military purposes, but for strategic political and economic reasons also.
Such remains the case today with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It has always been U.S. government policy, but nothing so clearly demonstrates von Clausewitz’ premise that “war is the pursuit of politics by other means” as the unilateralism of the dangerous and incompetent Bush/neo-con regime.
The hijacked plane crash atrocities in Amerikkka conducted by Saudi fanatics on 11 September 2001 provided the Bush regime with the excuse it was looking for in its secretly planned military putsch into the heart of Middle East oil supply.
It feigned outrage and reacted with the regressive and draconian measures of a dictatorship, not a democracy. As Adele Horin recently wrote, instead of “treating the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon as acts of terrorism or crime, with perpetrators subject to criminal law, it treated them as acts of war”. And then having done that, the Bush regime ignored international rules of war. And any other global treaty or agreement that didn’t serve its purpose.
In fact, 9/11 was immediately taken as carte blanche for any damn thing the Bushies wanted to do. Always considering themselves “above the law”, U.S. corporate robber barons, fundamentalist christian fanatics, and arms industry carpetbaggers were overjoyed when deranged coup leader George W. Bush tore up global treaties and spat in the eye of the international community.
Hallelujah and thank gawd, they prayed, as Bush declared his guilt-free, god-inspired, never-ending “war on terror” throughout the known universe. This from a man who never owned a passport and had no idea what a d'ang'd atlas was, y'all.
The Bushies even started dismantling the U.S. Constitution, with nary a peep from the comatose, non-voting majority of Joe Shmo’s in front of their cable TVs. Neo-cons, big business campaign contributors, and evangelical christian groups all orgasmed together: thank gawd for the evil anti-christ Osama bin Laden!
These days we know that Osama bin Laden’s jihad against Amerikkka was aroused by the close financial partnership between the U.S. government – particularly the Bushes, large and small – and the corrupt Saudi government dominated by the venal King Fahd.
The Bush regime’s attempts to fraudulently link Al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein were – and remain – a desperate effort to deflect those very real links. Far from seeking ties with Saddam, Osama despised the secular despot. In fact, when Osama bin Laden heard that Saddam Hussein had threatened to invade Saudi Arabia, he volunteered the services of El Qaeda – battle hardened from fighting the Soviet forces in Afghanistan – in defence of Islam.
King Fahd spurned Osama’s offer and turned instead to his more powerful U.S. supporter and cash-cow, then President George H.W. Bush – the wily old Shrub.
A strictly devout Muslim – or as we say up here in the mountains of darkest Monstralia – just another religious nut with a gun - Osama went ape-shit when U.S. troops marched into Saudi Arabia instead. But when the Yanks invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam, Osama couldn’t believe his luck. The rest, as they say, is history – or, as Dim Dubya so memorably put it: mission accomplished, as I'm sure Osama agrees, even if nobody else does.
Many critics of U.S. policy have pegged Amerikkka today as a modern day Roman Empire (Bush as Caligula? Nero? Syphilis?) And we all know what happened to that particular global power. Arrogance, corruption, cruelty, collapse.
Hey, folks, imagine this: during Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, an Australian citizen – a civilian - is captured by Iraqi forces and transported to Iraq where, for almost 3 years, he is imprisoned without trial, without access to legal representation or international scrutiny, and is even refused contact with his family back home.
He is kept in solitary confinement in a small cell. Imagine that Saddam accuses the Australian of conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. Now imagine this: the Howard Government shrugs its collective shoulders, refuses to pursue the release of this hypothetical Aussie, and pathetically defers to Saddam Hussein’s authority.
Not bloody likely, right?
Less likely still after 13 brutal years of international sanctions that all but destroyed Iraqi infrastructure, inflicting untold (literally) deaths and suffering on millions of innocent Iraqis, but leaving Saddam securely in command.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S had deliberately targeted and destroyed Iraq's drinking water system, which could not be repaired because of "dual use" restrictions, insisted on by Amerikkka.
This was mass murder, pure and simple, guaranteed. No wonder the Bushies opposed the creation of the International Criminal Court. The numbers of child deaths attributed to this cold-blooded policy alone is estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Saddam Hussein couldn’t have done it better!
Now that Iraqis have been liberated by that glowing global example of US moral superiority, death and suffering continues. All in the name of Democracy? All in the name of Halliburton, the Saudi monarchy and Zionism! Jesus Crisis, what a stench!
Indeed, as U.S.-occupied Iraq continues to boil and bubble in blood and oil, less than 100 of 6000 insurgents held captive by US forces are foreign fighters – another label the Bush regime is anxious to proclaim. But those battling the occupation forces are almost all IRAQIS! The US and its coalition of obsequious cowards are the foreigners. Clearly, they are NOT winning Iraqi "hearts and minds", let alone the "war of terror". What they ARE doing is fanning the flames of terrorism.
Even members of the Iraqi soccer team, free at last from the tyranny of the vicious Uday Hussein, have angrily condemned Bush and the U.S. occupation. Having advanced to this weekend's Olympic quarterfinals in Athens, they were pissed-off to learn of Bush re-election campaign ads featuring their Olympic participation as a dazzling by-product of the “war on terror”. Team leader Salih Sadir told reporters "I want the violence and the war to go away from this city (Najaf). We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away." Midfielder Ahmed Manajid angrily added, "How will (Bush) meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes."
Ungrateful buggers, ain’t they, George! Maybe you should lock 'em up in Abu Ghraib as terrorist suspects!
According to a New York Times report, a September 2002 top secret CIA study suggests that many of the “detainees” in the notorious US Army gulag of Guantanamo Bay are low-level Taliban supporters or innocent bystanders.
As for the plight of kidnapped Australian citizens David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, the Bush-neo-con meat-grinder is finally gathering momentum after years of Guantanamo secrecy and sadism. Released “detainees” have described the violence and abuse being inflicted upon them by their Yank captors.
In fact, newly released secret documents show that U.S. Defunct Sickretary daffy Donald Dumsfeld approved the use of "stress positions", hoods, forced nudity, and dogs to “instil fear during interrogations” of prisoners, back in December 2002.
And the uniformed young girls and boys – Amerikkka’s finest! – got into it with gusto, getting their rocks off by watching men piss and shit in fear.
The latest rather coy official U.S. "enquiry" nonetheless confirms worse abuses occurred than were revealed in photo snapshots, and that Dumsfeld and top Pentagon officers - including the Joint Chiefs - contributed to the Abu Ghraib disaster.
They should be sacked.
But given that "the world has changed since 9/11", naturally, they'll all receive a pat on the head. And a potted plant. As in Abu Ghraib, sleep deprivation, humiliation, beatings and “other abuse” are probably just the tip of the ice-pick.
And don’t forget, the U.S. imprisons “terror suspects” in more than two dozen jails worldwide, about half of which operate in total secrecy. Sorry about the broom handle up your arse Ali, but no Red Cross parcels for you, mate!
Yet our very own very sincere, non-core, weasel-word, pork-barrel Prime Minister John W Howard reckons Washingtoon has assured him Hicks and Habib are being treated humanely.
And we all know what an honest, truthful straight-talker the right honourable fucking Rodent is, right?! Never ever, folks?! Alert but not alarmed??? Shit-on-a-hotplate, the Mendacious Midget wouldn't know a terrorist threat if it sat in his lap and wriggled, as the victims of the Bali bombings very well know.
In fact, while the PM was assuring Australians joining the Yank invasion of Iraq would reduce the threat of terrorism, he was being repeatedly warned by Australia's intelligence agencies that such action would have precisely the opposite effect.
Ah, I feel soooo relaxed and comfortable, knowing the treacherous old bastard's got his claws firmly clamped to the tiller of U.S.S. Austsurrealia. Captain Queeg, I presume?
So anyway, according to Bush and his bird-brained Australian parrots, Hicks will get a fair trial in Guantanamo. And in true weasel fashion, our gutless PM - who has let Hicks rot for the past two and half years - had the gall to proclaim that if the David Hicks is found innocent by the kangaroo court, he will be set free.
Among the first handful of captives to appear before the so-called “military commission” was a Yemeni man kidnapped by invading US forces in Afghanistan and spirited away to Amerikkka’s military gulag at Guantanamo Bay. One of the "worst of the worst" terrorists, the bloke was apparently Osama bin Laden's... what for it... CHAUFFEUR!
Obviously a clear and present global threat, given the way folks drive in Afghanistan!
Like Hicks, this poor bastard has been locked up in Guantanamo’s legal (i.e. illegal) limbo for almost three years. Like Hicks, he will appear before a 5-member panel of U.S. army officers.
Readers of Xenox News won't be surprised to learn that four of these officers have absolutely no legal experience. The fifth was in charge of transporting victims of U.S. vengeance in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay and was once praised by his superiors for "tracking and killing" Taliban fighters.
In other words, not one of them is a “judge” in any acceptable sense of jurisprudence. Impartial?
These blokes are just soldiers, grunts, more Bush stooges. And as such they will act as judge, jury and... executioners? Well, they obviously do have the experience for the latter role.
Indeed, the barking mad Bushies had refused “detainees” access to counsel and the right to file petitions for habeas corpus. Despite White House opposition, that fundamental democratic principle was only recently hammered home by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Guantanamo Bay inmates have the right to challenge their “detention”.
In recent months dozens of illegally held prisoners have been released from Guantanamo Bay to governments that – unlike our repugnant parrot of a PM - lobbied hard for their rights.
They included a bewildered 90-year-old shepherd, confused cobblers, terrified taxi drivers and some Taliban cannon-fodder, conscripted to fight against their will. Of the 147 released, only 13 have subsequently been jailed, according to the Centre for Constitutional Rights in the US. So much for "the worst of the worst".
The vast majority – as with the tortured prisoners of Abu Ghraib – were and are innocent of any crime. Rather, the crime continues to be Amerikkka’s.
It’s no coincidence that in Iraq, foreigners kidnapped and sometimes murdered by Iraqi rebels are made to wear bright orange coveralls similar to those “detainees” are forced to wear in Guantanamo Bay.
The Bush Klan wants an October trial, having had 3 long years to prepare its so-called “case”. Lawyers for Amerikkka’s captives, only recently granted access to their helpless, faceless clients, have protested they need more time to organise their defence. Disingenuously, our mean and tricky PM questioned the legitimacy of their protest, given that lawyers' initial complaints were about the lack of judicial process. Austsurrealia's Suckhole of Steel really does take great personal pride in the fact that he's a ratbag.
Whatever the outcome of the disgraceful farce being orchestrated by the Bush regime in its Guantanamo gulag, justice won’t get a bloody look in. Whatever the outcome, truth will remain locked in solitary confinement for the duration of the Bush war on democracy, covered in a hood, beaten senseless, and corn-holed by neo-cons.
Yup, the rabid Bush regime is “trying to overturn one of the most fundamental principles of Anglo-American jurisprudence and international law” (“Guantanamo: What the World Should Know” by Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray, Chelsea Green Publishing). “This is a principle that is found in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We have gone back to a pre-Magna Carta medieval system, not a system of laws, but of executive fiat, where the king-or in this case the president-simply decides, on any particular day, I'm going to throw you into some prison”.
How far back we might regress is anyone’s guess, but I’d say the stone-age is looking pretty bloody good!
Or maybe back to the Third Reich?
Or "forward" to the Forth Reich? Heil Bush!
As for Captain James Yee (remember him?), the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay who was falsely accused of spying, the U.S. military has dropped all criminal charges against him. Not surprisingly after all the vicious bullshit - including being locked in solitary confinement for more than two months - Yee, a 1990 graduate of West Point, is resigning from the army. He's going back to college.
Pity Hicks and Habib. They can't resign. They can't go anywhere. All they can do is suffer. The deranged Shrub in the Oval Orifice has already announced that, in HIS Amerikkka, they will remain imprisoned “indefinitely”, even if they are proven innocent.
And Habib - kidnapped by U.S. Pakistani stooges, secretly send to Egypt for torture, then dumped and tormented in Guantanamo Bay - hasn't even been "charged”.
But David Hicks, 29, of Adelaide, had his preliminary hearing today (26/08 EST) and declared "Sir, to all charges, not guilty” to the arbitrary charges of “conspiracy to commit war crimes, aiding the enemy, and attempted murder for shooting at U.S. forces” (my guess, the Yanks were shooting at him, too!).
Supposed a Muslim convert, he studied Islam in Pakistan, then allegedly went to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban when the U.S. attacked. Whatever Hicks did or didn’t do in Afghanistan, legal experts and human rights groups around the world agree that, by their very nature, the Guantanamo “commissions” ordered by Bush won’t be fair because they aren’t independent.
It ain't justice, bub, it's simple, dumbass revenge... Texas-style?
Too bad Bush let Osama get away by taking his eye off the ball and invading Iraq instead. I’m sure the families of the 9/11 dead sure are relieved Saddam Hussein is under lock and key at last!
Truth, justice, and the Amerikkkan way!
Faster than a speeding bullshit! More powerful than a loco neo-con! Able to leap tall tales in a single lie! Superman would boot Bush's arse all the way to Krypton!
The bogus U.S. President reckons his neo-con crusade is right because God told him so. I wonder what God is telling Osama bin Laden?
This was Max Gross for Xenox News, proclaiming a war on error, a habeas on corpus, and a beer in the hand is worth two in the friggin fridge. Cheers!
