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When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy
Journal of a Futurist - 16 December 2003
The three hit men from the West
Hooray Hooray, the Frankensteins of the West have finally captured the monster of their own creation, the monster that has cost so much to the people of Iraq, and who, even as a forlorn trophy, will incite more bloodshed. Saddam’s extinguishment will brighten the lights of Christmas trees in Washington and Westminster, despite the plumes of pillage, terror & war swirling through the world as the season of merriment approaches. Kill, torture, rip-off, humiliate – this is one of the themes of Christianity 2003, as the three leading liars of the Coalition, George W Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard sink into the delusional torpor of their fundamentalist Christian pud, appropriately laced with pieces of silver.
Around 2000 years ago, as the legend goes, the three wise men from the East trekked to a manger in Bethlehem, bearing their gifts of gold, myrrh & frankincense. This scene is now re-playing as a black comedy, starring three hit men from the West, armed not with aromatic herbs of purification, but with warheads of depleted uranium, concentration camps and dodgy building contracts. They come not with gold, a symbol of rare spiritual worth, but with golden arches. The birthplace of civilisation will be drained of its black gold to further to enrich the billionaires at the top of mammon’s pyramid, the same ones who instigated the invasion. The story of Jesus is supposed to celebrate the qualities of mercy, voluntary simplicity and truth, not revenge, greed and spin doctoring.
We in the West have been slaughtering innocents in Iraq since 1923, when the British set out to eliminate a troublesome sheik by bombing a market in Baghdad, with God, as always, cheering on his crusaders (see Journal of a Futurist, below,12 February 2003). How much longer can we bare to listen to the lies of our leaders – the bush, the teapot, and the donkey? Now that Saddam has been wrenched from his hell-hole and given a dental check-up, it will be fascinating to hear what pours from his mouth. Enough, enough, ‘tis the season to be merry. Let us look at some of the goodies the White House warriors for Christ are piling into the stockings bound for Baghdad:
Is the General Bonkers? Does Satan wear a Turban?
Free house demolitions for suspected resistance leaders and jail for their relatives and children, contrary to law, custom and justice. The Americans now hold more than 4,000 prisoners - a greater number, it is reported, than those incarcerated at any time by Saddam Hussein. The counter-insurgency linchpin, Lt GenWilliam Boykin has already publicly stated that his commanding officer is God. For him, this terror war is a struggle between Islam and Christianity: "Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. His name is Satan." That makes it okay to kill as many unbelievers as possible, so the US military has now recruited Israeli advisors, an obvious choice. Israel has already killed at least 117 terror suspects in targeted assassinations, as well as 88 bystanders. Tra la la. Hang high the mistletoe.
A Video Game Near You. Legal? Ha Ha
The CIA has entered into the Christmas splurge with a revamp of its Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which tortured hundreds of civilians to death, including children. Now re-branded as “pre-emptive manhunting” the revived operation focuses on the rump of the now leaderless underground Ba’ath party. Torture is used to flush out the suspects, who are then assassinated, (often on the basis of a single dubious mention). Friends and relatives are also considered fair game. Is it legal? Of course not, the targets are civilians. But that wouldn’t stop the world’s biggest terrorist network.
Operation Enduring Freedom has now evolved into Operation Enduring Free Enterprise, a lesson that Halliburton is driving home to admirers world wide. Sure, robber baron capitalism can have its dark side, such as the recent arrests of trade union leaders in Baghdad, the sacking of Iraqi mayors, the silencing of anti coalition media, but it can also play Santa Claus when big gestures are required. This gift is lavish, extracting a huge chunk of the $US87 billion earmarked by congress for “reconstruction”. Who says Uncle Sam doesn’t have a big heart? We’re talking about the gift of a privatised army. According to the Guardian (10/Dec/03), military freebooters have “penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon”. 10,000 private military contractors are helping to, er, liberate Iraq, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $US30bn. All in all, this is a “booming business which entails replacing soldiers wherever possible with highly paid civilians and hired guns not subject to standard military disciplinary procedures. ". Ex-SAS veterans in Iraq can charge up to $1,000 a day. And do anything they like. Like testing very nasty new weapons on the people of Iraq.
War is the Mother of Invention
Take this cute little stocking filler from Texas, an intelligent bullet, which penetrates steel and concrete, yet does not exit from a human torso. Instead, it “effectively explodes inside the body, ravaging tissue in all directions, creating untreatable wounds”. While not yet on the Pentagon production line, this bullet is now being tested by our privatized hoods on the streets of Iraq. Thanks to a report in Army Times, and further elaboration in Moscow Online, we can now make the acquaintance of Ben Thomas, a contracted irregular. Ben recounts what happens when he test his “frangible” Texan bullet in a skirmish near a rural village near Baghdad: "It entered [the Iraqi’s] butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower left section of his stomach," Thomas said, "Everything was torn apart”. None of his mates could believe this guy could die from a single shot in the butt. While this weapon has not yet been approved by the Pentagon, Ben is planning to supply a few for clips for his colleagues. Onwards, Christian soldiers.
Last April, General Richard Myers said coalition troops had fired off 1,500 cluster bombs in Iraq, but he was being uncharacteristically modest. Recent figures from the US Central Command reveal that 10,782 were fired by US soldiers and 2,200 by the British, comprising over two million munitions, often left as unexploded bomblets. According to Human Rights Watch,1,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by these gifts from West.
Why Am I Wasting My Breath?
Some will say the biggest gift of all is the capture of Saddam, which alone justifies the Coalition invasion. Nothing else matters, not even the lies about the weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, these were not technically lies, according to a war propagandist in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, because the delusions of the Bush, the Teapot & the Donkey were supported by others. On the same grounds, you could justify the belief the world is flat. In the intelligence industry, the WMD claims were widely regarded as bogus, even by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, as revealed in the John Pilger documentary, Breaking the Silence.
However, it is true to say that without the invasion, Saddam Hussain would still be torturing and murdering his countrymen. If the US had really been outraged by this, it could have joined the International Criminal Court and instigated his arrest. A judicious cocktail of rewards, threats and amnesties dangled at wavering generals, in return for his head, a police operation with full UN backing, a clandestine commando kidnap, the acceptance of the recently revealed Iraqi offer, pre-invasion, to host 2000 US troops on its soil, etc. Opposing the invasion was not about tolerating for the crimes of Saddam. It was about protecting the lives of Iraqis, about upholding the language of truth.
For the first month of the war alone, Associated Press has put the civilian death toll, based on information from only HALF of Iraq’s hospitals, at 3,240. According to an independent US think tank, Project on Defence Alternatives, as many as 5,726 Iraqis were killed in the US assault on Baghdad and that over half of these were noncombatant civilians. The estimate on www.iraqbodycount.net puts the civilian deaths between 8,000 and 10,000. The much maligned John Pilger says the Iraqi invasion caused the “deaths of what reliable studies now put at 50,000 people, civilians and mostly conscript Iraqi soldiers, as well as British and American troops. There is no estimate of the countless thousands of wounded”. No matter how you look at it – the US army doesn’t – it adds up to a lot of blood. More blood than ever filled the swimming pools of Saddam Hussein.
However loud they sing Silent Night at church this Christmas, the three hit men from the West will never silence the tears in the hearts of Iraqis.
ENDS
Feel free to send to anyone. Thanks to Peter Kingston for the cartoon, his first for me since our days together on a student newspaper
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