Monday, November 20, 2023

They Never Learn

 

I’m sitting here in my comfortable home, as are most white people (at least those of us who have a home). We don’t have to constantly worry about being blown up. We don’t have to worry that we will have no water to drink at any time in the near future. We don’t have to endure necessary life saving procedures and surgeries with no anesthesia. We don’t have to worry about rampant infections and lack of antibiotics causing constant and growing health crisis.  We don’t have to worry that our children will be murdered en masse by the thousands by a government supposedly policed (damn, I hate that fucking word) by the the United Nations and their agencies, the  World Court and the WHO, and the ICC (International Criminal Court).


I sit here, as do so many others in this country, watching with horror as our government...our government...abets and arms the perpetrators of these horrific crimes. We seemingly have no power to stop this absurd policy. No matter how many of us protest, how many times we protest, in what numbers we protest, in what frequency we protest, or how many ways we tell our government to just fucking stop killing children in our name, they just won’t. And there is a good reason for that. They know,every one of them, that they will face no consequences for which they will have to pay. (The GOP is complicit here as well, but I am dealing with the hypocritical Democrats in this piece.)


It seems as if we would’ve learned that lesson when our war criminal leader and his cronies waged a war that killed hundreds of thousands, if not more, of innocent people. Democrats don't seem to understand Israel's justification of the decidedly disproportionate reprisal (revenge, not defense, but I digress), with which the Palestinian people are literally being bombarded. Look no further than the shameful way we dealt with reprisal in the post-911 wars (and countries with which we were not at war). For 3000 deaths (no, I’m not saying that is inconsequential, deserved, or not devastatingly horrid), we did not orchestrate a precision strike against those whom we cited as being responsible. Instead, we waged an all out war on the entire population of Afghanistan. We also saw fit to drop bombs on Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Libya, and Iraq. None of these countries had anything to do with the 911 attack. Yet, we murdered innocent civilians by the hundreds of thousands, and that does not include the journalists, medical and humanitarian aid workers, or our own so often vaunted troops. All in all, the human cost was in the millions.


Source: the Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs-Brown University



In the case of Iraq, the pretext for war was just that—a pretext. There was no threat against our country; there was no national security justification. In fact, there was no evidence we had any reason to attack the sovereign country, devastate its infrastructure, kill its people, and leave it in dire straights to this day while our military built bases in their country. Justified by an excuse based on lies. Lies that were known to be lies, both by those who championed the war as well as by those who actually knew there was no truth to the lie of a nuclear threat. And those deaths? They didn’t even require reprisal. Iraq was simply a grab for oil , military strategy and profits for the MIC. All the losses we suffered in Iraq were caused by our government's clear violation of the U.N. Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force.


At this point, loyal Democrats are smugly pointing their fingers at the GOP. Yes, the GOP certainly did concoct these wars, but a large percentage of elected Democrats actually went along with (or were taken in by) the lies. (Which is worse?) The Authorization of the Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iraq was passed by 81 (nearly 40%) of the elected House members of their party. In the Senate, over half of their party’s elected senators voted for the war. When their party took over the presidency, their beloved hope and change President Barack Obama actually succeeded in escalating and broadening the war (see the above listed countries. Yes, that was them) and failed spectacularly in closing the notorious Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (one of his cornerstone promises. Men are languishing in that hellhole even today.) Not only this, but he refused...refused...to prosecute torture he admitted to knowing was committed, by whom it was committed, and by whose orders it was committed. His response to this? 

“We tortured some folks.”

 even as he let the perpetrators off with zero consequences. None.  The reason seems pretty evident. A conviction of the executive office would set precedent, which the Obama administration could ill afford to do for obvious reasons.


Do Democratic voters not see the parallel? Do they not understand why Israel thinks it can get around its own atrocities? They would have to be willfully blind, if so. The Israeli government is merely following our example; just like our overreach (such a neutral word for genocide), hell is once again being inflicted on thousands of innocent civilians, nearly half of them children. Children! Even while this atrocity happens, our fellow Americans who are of the Demcocrat persuasion (especially the liberals who should know better) harass, demean, and excoriate those of us who dare to speak up and who knew and told everyone these things. In fact, in my own experience (though it has been true for much longer), we have been telling them for years—for decades. Though many do realize the corruption, still this behavior only strengthens as they threaten to blame us if we don’t make sure their choice for leader of this country does not fail in his/her attempt to hold on to power.


Here is where they make a big mistake (as if they weren’t already making so many more). They assume that saying they will blame us if things go from bad to worse will get us to listen to them, or acquiesce to their demands. They are passionate proponents of adhering to one's conscience, of upholding one's principles. Until, that is, you disagree with them and give them concrete reasons you hold your views. Evidently, only their consciences count. Only their principles are worth following. Only their reasoning counts. Only they have the choice of voting for their prefered candidate. That is one of the rights of which we are so proud, and is foundational to our system of government. No one should be telling others how to vote, or should we be able to tell them how to vote? Perish the thought, they are the only ones who have that right as they prove every time they open their mouths to browbeat others for their positions. We do try to point out the realities of voting, even as we respect others' choices even though we know them to be contrary to the welfare of the majority of Americans. That is the thing. We are for rights for everyone, even if they don't agree with us. That should not even be a consideration.


Here is a news flash for all the liberals who like to howl that we are traitors, that we are stupid, and that we don’t understand the significance of their superior intellectual admonitions to bow before their sense of justice, strategy, and sheer unequivocal knowledge; we will not throw our conscience or our principles aside in order to advance their agenda. We never have, and we never will. They can blame whomever they like, but only have one Trump card, literally. That is enough to cover all corruption, all shortcomings of their politicians, all of the betrayal those same politicians regularly serve them. If they think anyone should actually vote for either major party's murderous, mendacious, thieving candidates, they are the ones who should be ashamed for doing just that, and are complicit in the crimes they facilitate and perpetuate.


No comments:

Post a Comment

  THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN OUR LIFETIME Sound familiar? It should. We’ve heard it many, many times in reference to whatever th...