Monday, October 17, 2005

How Do You Explain This To Your Children?

Back in the Clinton Administration, there was a lot of self-righteous indignation from Republican conservatives vis-a-vis the Lewinsky Affair. You remember, "How do I explain this to my children when they ask about it?" How do you explain an over-zealous prosecutor, who, after spending millions of dollars investigating a shady land deal, finally had decided to interrogate a sitting President about an affair between two consenting adults that had nothing to do with the original investigation? (Something to keep in mind as conservative pundits try to limit the scope of the Valerie Plame affair) The only crime was when the prosecutor put the president under oath and asked the president point blank about the affair, the moron lied about it, leading to his being impeached.
Now we have the Bush administration committing many crimes from lying to the country about the need to go to war, to the treasonous outing of an intelligence official in retaliation for her husband blowing the whistle on some obviously forged document. But, in my estimation, the most heinous crime is this:
How do you explain to your children that the official policy of the Bush administration is torture of innocent Iraqis. Why are they being tortured? They know that Saddam had no WMD, yet for some sick reason, they tortured Iraqis, some, like this one, to death. Other times, we just torture children in front of their parents to get their parents to admit to something we know doesn't exist. And I know some of you try to pin it on scapegoats like Lynndie Englund, but if it is not an official policy of the Bush administration, why is Bush fighting a bill passed by the Senate to outlaw further torture of detainees?
Yesterday, as I took a walk with my sons, my oldest picked up an apple off the ground. A few steps later, he found a thorn bush and picked a thorn from it. A little bit later, he began to poke the apple with the thorn, saying, "Dad, this is an Iraqi-"
Now I know he didn't get that from me, so I explained to him that the United States is the bad guy in Iraq. We are there illegally, in defiance of the UN and international law. Iraq was no threat to the United States, and all the claims made against them by the Bush administration were, in fact, a lie. The people we are fighting there are the citizens of that country, repelling a foreign invader intent on stealing their oil to enrich a few billionaires in this country. Sure, we all get cheap oil from it but when you consider all the death to the Iraqis and American forces there because the Commander-in-Chief and all his cronies are greedy heartless bastards, the cost isn't worth it.
Because we aren't just stealing the oil. We are smearing the good name of the US by torturing civilians as policy. This violates the Geneva conventions, as well as the Constitution, and we haven't gained any thing from it. The fighting still goes on. We are fighting to save our sorry currency because politicians have been slowly selling out the American people. They have sold out labor. Now they are intent on selling out the middle class. And the American idiot goes along with it because they think someday, they'll be rich.
You won't be rich when the housing bubble bursts. You'll be stuck paying for a house that was overvalued when you refinanced it, but when the bubble bursts, you won't even be able to pay off the mortgage if you sell it, because it won't be worth the same. You won't be rich when peak oil hits. Remember how you cried when gas prices started to creep up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? When peak oil hits, you'll be lucky to have a job.
Well, you might get a job working security for all those gated communities where the rich people do live. Or, possibly, you could join the armed forces, where you will be asked to torture people. There will always be wars of conquest for oil, with Syria, Iran and Venezuela on the drawing boards. And, amazingly enough, the same lies will be used to sucker the American idiot in to supporting them. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me, can't get fooled again.

5 comments:

Lily said...

Indeed this is a tough conversation, Lew. And very hard to counter what the kids hear and are in fact taught about violence.
If adults are so easily mislead, its no wonder kids would be.

Anonymous said...

Well first off, we are not getting cheap oil from this Iraq deal, as the other members of OPEC have jacked the prices, and unless we were very obvious in our "crimes" in Iraq, we could not lower the oil rates.
The torture thing, its a shitty job, but it often works. The United States is not full of sadists(well at least not in the armed forces), and the work that is being done to extract usable intelligence from detainee's is difficult, but neccesary. I know you believe that the war in iraq is Illegal, but to hold that belief one must presume that the United States has someone else to answer to, and quite frankly we don't, except the small amount of voting liberals. I understand if you are uncomfortable with the concept of a super power, but the United States is just thatL; so our actions(like invading Iraq) are made with the intent to keep said "super power" intact.
I find Michael Moore quite entertaining, but I don't buy into therories simply because of a well edited movie. I like guns, but I still enjoyed "Bowling For Columbine", because it was entertaining: the 9/11 flick was the same to me, fun too watch, but with nothing earth shatering learned.
I guess its like this, you saying the "WAR WAS ILLEGAL" sounds as stupid to me as it does when "Muslim" black leaders say the "LEVIES WERE BLOWN UP INTENTIONALLY". Another words, quite stupid.
So, with that said, your explanation to your children that the war is illegal, and that the US are the bad guys, to include my son's mom, even though she's just a social worker, well that kind of sucks. So here is what I will do as far as counter intelligence. NOTHING.
I will not mention anything that I might guess will sway the opinion that there Dad has taught them, even though I am tempted. I will stand silent, and I will make sure to tell none of them about the depleted Uranium, because we have to keep that quiet.

Lew Scannon said...

Mark,
The torture thing as you refer to it, is illegal according to the constitution of the US, which says nothing about maintaining America's place as a superpower. What information have we extracted from it? There were no weapons of mass destruction ever found in Iraq, which is the lie we were told by the President to get us into this war. Iraq posed no threat to the US, had no links to 9/11, or ties to alqaeda, we invaded the country in violation of international law and in defiance of the UN. Just because a bully is big dumb and belligerent doesn't give him the right to do what ever the fuck he wants, that's why we have laws, there has to be a cassius belli.
Your saying that the we need to keep the "super power" intact sounds as stupid to me as when Bush said "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me, I can't get fooled agian." It's pointless. If the uS is not bound by international law, then no other country should be either, a mindset that will lead to total anarchy because a bunch of impotent old men with small dicks got to wave them at each other.
And I'm sure that you have a plethora of lies you could say to sway them, since you and your ilk are nothing but a bunch of cowardly liars. I never said this was about cheap oil, it's about the US controlling the world's remaining oil resources to cover a trade deficit and national debt run up by years of corporate Republican and Democratic governmental mismanagement. How Michael Moore figures into this whole post is beyond me.( I read Michael Rivero)

Anonymous said...

Well although I am tempted to respond to your comment with something like "whatever", it is early Sunday morning and I find myself with nothing to do, so here is a response to your response.
The torture thing does in fact work, and your interpretation of the United States Constitution is not, well, accurate. Torture is an effective tool for withdrawing information from a subject. The information that is drawn from a person is then passed onto intelligence operatives, who use said information to track down people who we consider a threat. This is primarily done in the Afghan, but sometimes in iraq as well. Its like this, you get some punk who just detonated a imd. You then strap down said punk, and pop his ear drum. Now that hurts, so the punk tells you where his other punk friends are, then you send out a group of cowards( your words) to kill them. Its simple, and it works.
On the whole wmd thing..so what. I personally think Bush is a moron, so it does not surprise me that his intelligence data was faulty. Other then whining about it on your blog, what do you propose be done about it? Pack up and leave Iraq? That would be kind of shitty, especially to the 75% of iraqi's who publicly support the over throw. I know it is your liberal instinct to run away and hide when things get tough, but my instincts tell me to continue to fight until dead or declared a winner.
On the whole super power thing, yes, being in iraq is a good form of preventive soddering to keep our status as a super power strong. You see, although North Korea has nukes, there not a threat to our way of life. Now fundamentalist Muslims are a threat to our way of life, so having one of the largest countries in the middle east under our control(well sort of) is a good thing. That way, cowards(your words) can go over there and fight, and hero's like you can stay at home and call them cowards on your blog's, see how it works.
Now I'm going to leave the whole small dicked impotent old men thing alone, personally I think the image is creepy.
OK then, onto the my ilk of cowardly liars. Not really sure what you mean, but now you can understand where I got the whole cowards thing from, because last time I checked, my ilk is the US armed forces. Maybe your refering to my specific occupation in the armed forces. Well, I haven't had to lie yet, and I'm really quite good at getting my job done. And it pays well, which is important considering I have four people to support.
Michael Moore only figures into this because I know your a fan of his lies, but not a fan of the current administrations lies. You see how that works.
On it being about controling oil to cover a trade deficit and national debt, well that is just plain weird. Your suggesting that we are spending a fools amount of money to cover a trade deficit and national debt, well if your right, I hope we start seeing a return on the billion dollar a day investment soon.

Lew Scannon said...

Mark, Don't give me that "I'm not a liar" bullshit, that statement is and of itself is a lie.
As for the cowardly thign, I've noticed that you won't link back to your blog. Why? because you don't want me to stalk your blog, the very thing you are doing to me which makes a fucking hypocrite as well as a coward and a liar (plus a creep to boot)
As for Michael Moore, i do respect the man for having the temerity to stand up against the lies perpetrated by the Bush administration at a time when every other person was a waving a flag or burying there head in the sand as far as iraq goes, and I don't believe any more of what he says than I do Al franken, Bill O'reilly, or any of the other shills for the so-called two party system that have ground down this great country to serve the purpose of evil men.
As far as my interpretation of the Constitution being inaccurate, the kind of information gathering you described was similar to the type used against the patriots by the British, that is specifically why they banned "cruel and unusual" punishment.
As for Bush getting faulty intelligence, that is simply not the case. The intelligence they got was cherry picked by the White House Iraqi Group. The Downing Street Memo clearly states that the administration had a policy of invasion and intelligence was being fixed around the policy. The Niger yellow cake uranium documents touted by both Colin Powell and George Bush were forgeries, investigated by Joe Wilson, who then made the forgeries public and had his wife's cover blown in retaliation. I know they don't talk too much about it on Fox News (which i know plays all day at your house) but this is the basis for the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation that's due to close on Wednesday
Saying we should fight till the last man is dead in a war that has no just cause, no attainable goals and no exit strategy is as stupid as spending $100,000 to fly the president on to the USS Abraham Lincoln emboldened with a banner reading "Mission: Accomplished" in a war that is still raging on two and a half years later.