Hypocrisy Rules the West
Shame has vanished from Western "civilization." Hypocrisy has taken its place.
On Sept. 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown could be heard on National Public Radio decrying the use of violence against democratic protesters by the government in Burma. Brown declared the British people's revulsion over the violence inflicted by the Burmese government on its people. But Brown said nothing about the violence the British government was inflicting on Iraqis and Afghans.
George W. Bush also struck the blameless pose when he declared, "The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals."
Bush and Brown do not have the same sympathy for the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither Bush nor Brown stands in solidarity with those who are demanding their freedom from foreign occupation by American and British troops. Indeed, Bush and Brown, as commanders in chief, are on a killing spree that makes the government in Burma look extremely restrained by comparison.
Why were British soldiers sent to kill Iraqis and Afghans? Sept. 11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the United Kingdom. No doubt but that the corrupt Tony Blair was paid off to drag the British people into Bush's Middle East war for American-Israeli hegemony, but Brown has done nothing to terminate Bush's use of the British military as mercenaries.
The NPR announcers also supported the Burmese people, but they, too, show little disturbance over Bush's five-year-old wars that we now know were based entirely on lies. Al-Qaida is not the Taliban, and Iraq had no WMD. Neither country was a threat to the United States. Now that we know this, why do the media still give Bush and Brown a free pass to use violence against Iraqis and Afghans?
To cut to the chase, what is the difference between Bush and Brown on one hand and the murderous Burmese government on the other? Bush and Brown are actually worse. They pretend to be democrats concerned with what people actually want. The Burmese government doesn't pretend to be anything but a military dictatorship. Moreover, the Burmese government is clean by comparison, as it hasn't committed acts of naked aggression—war crimes under the Nuremberg standard—by invading other countries and attempting to occupy them.
Despite all the killing Bush has accomplished, he thirsts for yet more blood. Iran is in his and Israel's sights. All indications are that Bush is going to attack Iran. Propaganda, demonizations and crass lies are pouring out of the Bush regime and its media and academic propagandists, such as Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. Both parties in Congress have lined up behind the coming attack on Iran. The despicable Sen. Joe Lieberman even snuck language into a bill to give Bush the go-ahead.
Who is going to stop Bush from a third war crime? Not his vice president. Not his national security adviser. Not his secretary of defense. Not his secretary of state. Not Congress. Not the U.S. military. Not the corporate fat cats. Not the Israel lobby. Not the bought-and-paid-for "allies." Not the antiwar movement. Not the American people. Certainly not the media.
Americans are content with whatever crimes their government commits as long as the justification is Americans' safety.
Americans' willingness to murder others out of fear for their own safety is a result of Sept. 11. The antiwar movement is impotent because it has accepted the government's 9-11 story. To oppose a war when you accept the government's reason for the war is an indefensible position.
The Bush regime knows that if people will believe its 9-11 story, they will believe anything. Propaganda silences facts, and Americans fall for one set of falsehoods after another. The alleged 9-11 hijackers all came from countries allied with the United States, principally Saudi Arabia, but Americans believe the government's lies that Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria are responsible. Americans have been convinced that without "regime change" in these countries, the American superpower will remain helpless in the face of stateless Muslims armed with box cutters.
Americans have been brainwashed to believe that Muslims hate us for our "freedom and democracy," whereas in fact the problem is the U.S. government's immoral foreign policy and interference in the internal affairs of Muslim countries. Bush's message to the Middle East is clear: Be a puppet state, or be destroyed.
In the meantime, to prevent democracy and civil liberties from getting in the way of making Americans safe, Bush has set aside habeas corpus, due process, right to legal representation and privacy, and the separation of powers mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Otherwise, Bush says, we will lose the "war on terror."
Bush says he has made Americans safe by ridding them of these constitutional impediments to their safety. And once American bombs fall on Iran and Syria, those countries will be free and democratic, too, like Iraq and Afghanistan.
In leading Americans to this conclusion, Bush has sunk the United States to a new low in human intelligence and morality.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
"Bush’s message to the Middle East is clear: Be a puppet state, or be destroyed."
What's amusing is that people are jumping and down in consternation over the efforts of various "rogue nations" to acquire nuclear weapons.
Gee, I wonder why all these guys are so keen on acquiring their own deterrent/threat capability?
If I were a "rogue leader" (isn't that a *Star Wars* character?) I'd want a weapon of mass destruction too, once I reflected upon what the US feels free to do to states (such as Iraq) that lack the clout & leverage such weapons carry with them.
Generally speaking, isn't extreme phoniness a basic American "national" characteristic? All visitors seem to strongly agree on that one. It, perhaps, stems from this country's all-business history, "I am as you want me to be", whatever "works" and sells, all is image, never mind substance. It merely spills into politics.
"... Shame has vanished from Western “civilization.” Hypocrisy has taken its place. ..."
Hasn't the latter always been around?
What is more, one could argue almost exactly the opposite.
In the "Cold War" era Western countries were trying very hard to "show" their supposed "goodness" to the Third World - in contrast to the "evilness" of Communist block. The sheer magnitude, intensity and effectiveness of that propaganda battle could be fully appreciated by all those who lived through it.
The moment the Soviet Empire fell apart, however, the Western mask fell and all the pretense disappeared. So suddenly in fact, it was truly stunning. The rest is in records of history.
Here's the ISSUE:
We're ALL hypocrites to some degree (fortunately). It's the distance between how we profess we'd like to be and HOW in the imperfect world we inevitably are - with the Christian virtue of hope toward improvement. And as adults we KNOW this, know we are all sinners and thus hyporcrites inevitably and when by accident or great sin we cross the line even farther away from where we profess we'd like to be - we Feel SHAME. ... However when shame as well goes as it has in the (all too liberal) West the PROBLEM becomes people do NOT even know when they are being hypocritical like Brown and Bush, don't know. It becomes comical. We're all hypocrites to some degree but those who don't even Know that they are = Philistines.
Today we're not only - no longer christian - We're, both jews and some christians alike, no longer even jewish... Yes, we're the new PHILISTINES, one, and for the most part ALL. Just like bush and brown... SICK. BLIND. DISGUSTING. (questions?)
Civilization is green... not a dead brown bush. Oh where shall I take a pee ok might as well be on the brown dead bush, i'm responsible. Civilization is green.
Guten Abend, mein Freund! Wie gehts? Ich remember you were mein patient halb a month ago, very sick, called youhrself Jeff Springer, ja? Multiple personality, mein Freund, multi multiple personality ... Lord Karth, E.A., Evan Almighty, und so weiter...
Aldebanlohoperaldi Huffghaffson, hmmmm... From which cemetery did you dig this name?... Hmmm... Mein Studenten like write doctorats on you, gut, ja?
OK, hier is ze couch, and you lie and tell Herr Doktor all about, no shy, bitte.
"... Today we’re not only - no longer christian - ..."
Ah?
"... We’re, both jews and some christians alike, ..."
Have fever?
"... no longer even jewish… ..."
Have high fever?
"... Yes, we’re the new PHILISTINES, one, ..."
Ich must call mein two assistants...
"... and for the most part ALL. Just like bush and brown… ..."
Du bist aus of your marbles...
"... SICK. BLIND. DISGUSTING. (questions?) ..."
Is getting cold, October, ja, und you need a nice jacket, straitjacket is called here.
"... Civilization is green… not a dead brown bush. ..."
We take you sleep nice warm rubber wall room ...
"... Oh where shall I take a pee ok might as well be on the brown dead bush, i’m responsible. Civilization is green. ..."
... force two Prozaks immediately, we examine in ze morning. Gute Nacht...
I am afraid that Roberts is becoming ever more shrill and irrational. The war was wrong from the beginning for many reasons,(and Chronicles rightly predicted the very quagmire that we are now in) but to repeat the lies of the lunatic left does not help the cause. There were WMDs. They were used before the war, materials have been found since the war, and there is evidence that some were moved prior to the war. Bush and Brown are not equivalent to the Burmese government. Fighting a war against people with guns and bombs is not the same as killing the innocent civilians of your own country. I think that Roberts usefulness to the cause is past. Our foreign policy is wrong from beginning to end and indeed brings animosity down on our heads from many countries, but I fear a tone that equates the US government ("regime") with Hitler etc. is counter productive and turns more moderate Americans away from our cause even before they hear our arguments.
"Why were British soldiers sent to kill Iraqis and Afghans? Sept. 11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the United Kingdom... but Brown has done nothing to terminate Bush’s use of the British military as mercenaries."
This borders on the silly. Vietnam had nothing to do with the Australians but they sent troops.
The Falklands had nothing to do with the U.S. but we assisted the British attack.
Whatever the merits of the war (and they're aren't many) allies do tend to help one another at times.
To suggest that the British Army are mercenaries for the United States is absurd.
This type of shrill overstatement does little to help valid arguments against the war.
I agree with Bruce and Chris. Lets remember who straps bombs to their mentally challenged children and pushes them into crowds of people. Unless I missed something, Catholics, Mormons, Episcopalians, Baptists, Lutherans, etc. weren’t sacrificing their young via homicide bomb. Only one "religion" is doing that.
Let me join in the chorus of #s 3, 6, 7 and 8. And comment:
"I fear a tone that equates the US government (”regime”) with Hitler etc. is counter productive and turns more moderate Americans away from our cause even before they hear our arguments."
Definitely. Daniel Larison said a while back that, so long as the opposition to this war has a Democratic face (ironic, I know, since one can scant find a Democrat at the federal level who actually OPPOSED the war or seems to believe that it was truly a mistake), an anti-war sentiment among the general population of real people (if you consider deracinated but decent-living suburbia "real," but I suppose it's the closest we come) in this country will not be forthcoming.
Chemical weapons are genarally not considered to be weapons of mass destruction. The US was not the least bit concerned that Saddam Hussien used Chemical weapons.
If the Bush adminstration really beleived that Saddam Hussien had WMD, there would have been no invasion of Iraq.
Americans don't strap bombs on mentally challenged children and then send them out into public.
No no, the "heroic" and "well intentioned"America economically coerces 17 year , 98 pound White teen age girls from West Virgina into the US Army where she can drive trucks in one of the most dangerous places on the planet.
I think that it is reprehensible that women are drafted into the military. In more civilized times, it would have been unthinkable for any nation to send women into battle.
For once, Mr. Wheeler has a point (#11), but just to clarify, women can be recruited, but not (yet) be drafted into the military.
Nicholas Moses
With stop loss orders it is a defacto draft. Even before the stop loss orders, for thousands of Young Euro-Americans in the American Heartland it is a draft. The options offered by American society were/are rather bleak. There have been reports of pre-teen White girls in Ohio attending shool malnourished(reported on Lou Dobbs show three years ago) It is well known among economists that starvation is caused by low incomes(research by nobel prize winning economist Amatyra Sen)
Thanks to post -1965 legal immigration-and the non-white baby boom it generated-and affirmative action, financial aid has become much more scarce.
Jessica Lynch was 98 pounds soaking wet.
Are we doomed? Very likely.
I beleive that the only thing can save America after Bush nukes Iran would be for the American people to pack up George W Bush,his mulato mistress Condalezza Rice,Elliot Abrams, Colin Powell,Prussian militarist Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and send them to the Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity. The general public may enjoy the public hanging of these war criminals. This would be the only sincere way that the American people can peace with the rest of the human species.
But of course, Russia and China will be in a nuclear hair-trigger mode. I hope the human species can survive George W Bush.
If we are this close to the end of humanity's little experiment on the blue planet,well, it is an obscentity to be plopping ones spotted bottom on the couch more depressed that the New Yankees lost last night. What a way to end the experiment:soft,stupid and flatulent. God help us.
Re: Brian Wheeler: "Even before the stop loss orders, for thousands of Young Euro-Americans in the American Heartland it is a draft."
You apparently don't care that the Army also recruits Blacks and Hispanics. You apparently don't care that women per se are recruited, just that *white* women are.
About Amartya Sen, are you sure he's white? Or is just one of the Mud People? Better check his ancestry back to the sixteenth generation to make sure he's pure Aryan, Mr. Wheeler, before you believe a word he says.
Didn't you read Dr. Fleming's post on the last thread, Mr. Wheeler, where he basically called you a stupid little Nazi turd and told you to find some other website to pollute?
I apologize. I did not intend to say "draft."
Guess I missed something in Dr. Roberts' article. Oh yes, it was the comparison of Bush to Hitler. Hitler is nowhere mentioned in his essay. He does mention that waging wars of aggression was considered a war crime at Nuremburg. But of course, the US will not try and execute its own leaders for war crimes as it does the leaders of its enemies. Trial of US leaders for war crimes awaits US defeat and occupation - which will eventually come; nobody wins forever. Interesting to see that some still believe the WMD myth - even long after Bush himself has admitted that there weren't any. Sure Iraq used them in the late 1980s, with the approval and assistance of the US, against the Iranians and the Kurds. But in the aftermath of the 1991 war, they were destroyed as the UN inspectors such as Scott Ritter accurately testified. Anyone who claims that Saddam still had them at the time of the US invasion should explain the great mystery of why he did not use them - not merely to save his regime but to save his own life. As for Bush, being like Hitler - no I wouldn't make that comparison. He's more a would-be Napoleon without the military talent.
General Curtis Lemay clearly defined "War Crimes" to a lower officer that was questioning the fire bombings of Tokyo in WWII.(And I paraphrase) "Only the loser is charged with war crimes, which is why we have to win this GD war!"..........Clarity on the ongoing conflicts regarding middleastern oil for the last 100 years is explained in "Imperial Playground: The Story of Iran In Recent History" by Andrew G. Marshall at GLOBALRESEARCH.CA 10/4/07. I found it to be very informative.
This may be the last chance...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsP-YdOLAu4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Einformationclearinghouse%2Einfo%2Farticle18503%2Ehtm
(Re. comment #19)
"... This may be the last chance…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsP-YdOLAu4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Einformationclearinghouse%2Einfo%2Farticle18503%2Ehtm ..."
A most refreshing surprise. Well worth the 17' and 35".
This is remarkable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3gQfz8GC0o
Dr. Jay above is a quack. He hasn't even read enough Lord Byron.
'Quacks laugh at quacks who once their patients bled
Thus was Byron unplugged then much less was said.' -A.H.
But Dr. Jay above is funny. HAHAHA funny universe. Long as God still loves us he'll still dawdle us kindly upon His knee... HAHAHA funny universe.
P.S.
Hypocris[P]y rules the West (especially england/u.s/israel). They bomb everyone [defenseless] - Don't read the 'story' [seriously] just look at the Facts - they're THERE for You to look at, and they make everyone crispy. Hypocris-p-y rules the west.
It's like the first monkies who could climb Up into the treeTop...throw coconuts down. BONK.
HypocrisPy rules the west.
Dr. Jay take two coconuts, and call me in the morning... HAHAHA funny universe. Doc, be too crispy to call. HAHAHAHA funny universe.
______________________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7029370.stm
Pet two and call me in ze morning :-!
I'm cured. To think after all these years it was just due to the lack CATS! I thought we'd got rid of those with the advent [discovery and manipulation] of fire? Well, at least the bigger ones who suddenly didn't know who we were anymore waving those big matches [torches] in their faces. -?-huh the big CATS must have wondered - who d'ese monkies now? The wisest Cat said well, they're now on the road to HypocrisPy. Pet-pet... i'm cured. We ought to take the show on the road Dr. Jay ... - Sigfreid & Roy - or Aldiban & Dr. J. (you be the one who gets eaten?) I'll be the one who commiserates? I'll remind the world - he's gone to a crispier place.
Guter Tag mein Freund! Wir all gathered in das internationale Symposium dedicated to you, und ze unanimous solution we come up its gut, ja ... wir recommend you pet two of these
http://theseventhvoyage.com/sabre.htm
- und morgens gibt es kein "Aldebanlohoperaldi Huffghaffson".
Guten bye...
Dr. J you are a true friend. I almost wish i wasn't Sinbad, I was Trog - and you were Sinbad. That's what friends are for.
Subtext... it's always most difficult for those left behind.
See I'm selfish as usual. Trog's worries are over.
____________________________________________
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/19BEF4BF-0381-4B59-81CE-5166E785A9AE.htm
Mr Roberts is right on. There are so many lies that the liars have to start overlapping the old lies with new ones. This current Iraq fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. Gulf war 1 was nothing but lies from beginning to end and it set the stage for the current neocon/Likud wet dream.
Shrill?
One million plus ( and counting, in this "war" alone ) lives flushed down the toilet for a pack of lies is damn shrill if you ask me, and I won't even get into the budding police terror state here in the "Homeland".
To borrow a line from the movie Braveheart : "If you're Americans, then I'm ashamed to call myself one".