WALKING ON THIN ICE

collage by smith

3 days ago was the 6th anniversary of 9/11. while the terrorists killed 2,750 americans, cheney-bush have since caused the deaths of 3,774 american soldiers in iraq, plus over one million iraqi civilians, and another 100,000 american soldiers wounded. there are also 440 american soldiers killed in afghanistan. that makes 4,214 americans dead due to cheney-bush, 1,024 more than the terrorists killed.

there is a good deal of evidence the 9/11 terrorists had help from the cheney-bush regime. that may or may not be true - but it’s not as if we don’t have ample example of previous u.s. government lying: there’s the faked gulf of tonkin attack president johnson used to escalate the vietnam war… the self sinking of the battleship uss maine in havana harbor which we used as an excuse to declare war on spain… franklin delano roosevelt not acting on advance knowledge of the pearl harbor attack in order to get the u.s. into wwII… the cheney-bush phantom weapons of mass destruction… the list is endless, and it all involves american governments killing american citizens.

what we do know is neither cheney nor bush have any trouble lying, nor letting others die in their place. cheney was a draft dodger in the vietnam war, and bush actually ran away, becoming a vietnam war deserter when he went AWOL from the Texas National Guard in 1972-’73.

i don’t know why i keep talking politics and morality because i know my blog readership goes down every time i do. actually i do know why - silence is complicity. keeping quiet about cheney-bush is the same as the germans keeping quiet about hitler during wwII.

here are some words of regret from a german who did keep quiet about the nazis:

“If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

“And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God.

“Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing).”

An excerpt from They Thought They Were Free - The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer

this is why i won’t shut up - even though no one listens, i have to try, if for no other reason than to save my soul. it will be interesting to see if i have any trouble re-entering the united states next time after my many blogged warnings about our murderous war profiteering criminals in the white house.

to be fair, it’s not only cheney-bush - every congressman and senator who has not voted to end the war has blood on their hands and are guilty of war crimes. every soldier over there is an accessory to shedding civilian blood (i say this having a brother-in-law over there, and i say this having served 5 years in the navy myself), as is every american who does not speak out. if everyone spoke up, these traitors in office would back down (just like they did about privatizing social security) because like all neocons they’re chicken shits, a bunch of bullies hiding behind the sacrifices of others.

but you’d best know that speaking out has its costs - of the 7 soldiers in iraq who signed and sent a war protest letter to the Times 3 weeks ago, 2 are now dead and a third was shot in the head - that’s 43% of the signers dead or damaged in a 3 week period.

if you’re curious, here’s an array of some of the less rabid, more reasoned sites that present some seriously disturbing information - check it out, and make up your own mind who’s telling the truth:

what new york city fire fighters have to say about 9/11:
nyc fire fighter testimony

what architects and engineers say of 9/11:
architects & engineers

an incredible array of long and short documentaries:
documentary library

some radio programs:
radio programs

iraq war stats & articles:
information clearing house

these are for the open-minded, something in short supply in our closed society.

collage by smith - original painting Melissa Jay Craig