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Critical Issues

By http://www.ActiveResource.org/ - Oct 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm EDT

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Jobs Search Site map Why does it matter? What is at stake?
Critical Issues for 2007
Freedom at home, War in Iraq, and Changing Course
Active Resources Bookmark Page Links Get Active!

About
Big Brother, wiretapping, torture, betrayal, delusions, denial,
destruction, cynicism, arrogance, hubris, death,
disaster, incompetence, & dishonor.

Big Brother, circa 2007...   Can it happen here...?
http://www.writingresource.org/bigbrother.html

The first requirement for defeating a pubic enemy is to pay attention.
Thundering silence from the right-wing apologists is most telling.
As this administration's excesses unravel, the behaviors which have been
revealed make civilized people shudder. Our nation is at risk.

Three plus years ago, right-wing spinners scoffed at what were accurate
predictions of wiretapping and torture, and dismissed well-considered
reservations about cronyism, corruption, and the potential for diluted liberties.
When these betrayals were revealed,
self-serving pundits tried justification or denial.

Time and history have proven the case against the hacks and hucksters
who inhabit the White House. They not only cannot govern, they have no interest in governing.
Their agenda is corporate hegemony, pure and simple. If the American people and
their scrap-of-paper "rights" get in the way, that is evidently just too bad.

As freedom slips away, conservatives and military strategists alike say Bush is mad.
It becomes ever more critical that our Democratic congress find the spine to remove
these traitors, so we can restore the rule of law, avoid catastrophe, and heal the nation.

Timothy Martin Flanagan
On Losing and "Winning" in Iraq...

and what is at stake...

winning, corporate adventurism, military-industrial collaboration,
fundamentalism, faith, freedom, fascism, lies, corruption,
denial, deferral, insanity, a question of balance, the rule of law,
or the rule of the jungle...

Get Active.
We are losing in Iraq, because we do not know what it is we are
supposed to "win."
It was good when Powell belatedly weighed in. It was useful for the
George Herbert Walker Bush Iraq Study Group to weigh in. Even Senator Gordon Smith's
belated "conversion" was a useful wake-up call. But in the midst of these studies,
assessments, and attempts at revisionism... we need to pay closer attention to the facts
on the ground. We are "winning" according to the Bush agenda.

But is it worth the price?

1. Why did we invade Iraq?

a. George hears voices in his head.
b. George's father's friends wanted to control oil resources with military bases in Iraq.
c. The Bush family and their friends want to make money.

2. Why are we occupying Iraq?

a. Because God told George to do it.
b. To enforce no-bid, cost-plus contracts.
c. So the Bush family and their friends (Bin Laden and Saudi royalty) can make money.

3. When and how can we leave?

a. When God tells George it is OK.
b. When we are sure that the no-bid, cost-plus contracts are enforceable, and that
    "privatized" Iraqi oil rights are secured by transnational cartels.
c. When we are certain that Bush, Cheney, and their ilk (Bechtel, Halliburton et al...)
    have effectively established dominance and control of Iraqi natural resources.

4. Are these goals achievable? Hmmm...

a. It depends on what voices George hears next.
b. Unending corporate occupation of Iraq will be expensive, lethal, and counterproductive.
    But as long as Americans remain willing to sacrifice ethics and lives for corporate profits...
    the short answer is Yes.  We can continue to exploit our position.
c. Everything so far is going according to plan:
    Long-term bases are under construction, Saudi Arabia has signed onto the Bush agenda,
   and so far, the American people are willing to sacrifice fiscal responsibility, national
    security, our reputation, international credibility, and American lives so that Bush and his
    "base" can make money at our expense.

Grim reminders of where we stand today....
Timothy Martin Flanagan

Winning in Iraq and losing faith in America
http://activeresource.org/wordpress/archives/56
And how we turn up the heat...

accountability, and holding their feet to the fire...
Invasion, Occupation, Failure, Studied Ignorance,
Conflagration, Surrender, Reconciliation, Political Organization
Hubris, Religious fundamentalism, Corporate ambitions,
Vietnam, Betrayal, Faith, Disaster
Carnage, What is success?

Re-bid
redeploy
reconcile
rebuild
and
renew

commitment to
who we are.

Civil Rights

Corporate Surrender..So the game plan is to replace the "Axis of Evil" (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea)
with governments imposed on those nations and Syria....by a "Troika of Terror"
(United States, Britain, and Israel)

This is beginning to sound more and more like a retro-colonial corporate-sponsored
fundamentalist crusade...  And a recipe for disaster.

Iraq, before we invaded, was functioning in spite of ten years of sanctions, had not
invaded her neighbors in ten years, and posed no threat to the United States.
Iran was marginalized due to her over-the-top leader, but did not have the capacity
to produce nuclear weapons, thanks to engagement by the west and oversight
by inspectors.  North Korea was already a nuclear power with which we needed to
engage in serious discussions.

Now, after six years of efforts by the Troika, Iraq is in chaos... a breeding ground for terror
and a failed state.  Iran has become more powerful, due to our feckless invasion of Iraq.
And North Korea is stronger, has more weapons, and eludes our damaged intelligence
apparatus.   And the middle classes in Iraq, Iran, and Korea, have fled from the onslaught
of shock, awe, & fear-mongering... leaving those nations further at risk-more vulnerable.

If Bush ignores the American people, his advisors, and the Pentagon, and Blair ignores
the British public, his advisors, and his intelligence services, and Olmert ignores majority
voices of moderation in Israel, we will then be plunged into the devastation of a conflict
which could easily become World War Three.

What can prevent such surrender?  In the USA, our no-longer silent majority will have to
bypass the corporate press and take it to the streets to wake up the halls of congress and
remind the justice system of their constitutional obligations.  In Britain, Israel, and across
Europe and the rest of the globe, grassroots organizers will help people take control
of their nations so we can end this mindless corporate push for an un-winnable war.

The most potent enemy we face is not the straw man of Islamic fundamentalism. Nor
do any nations pose serious military threats to our country.  The enemy we face is
the corporate seizure of the US government. This undermines democracy and threatens to
globally disinherit hard-working, good-hearted citizens.

We cannot allow Bush and his ilk to continue to "surge" more troops into a "Vietnamization"
of Iraq. Such studious ignorance can only deliver surging body counts and disastrous deficits....
It is time we demand that our leaders stop the madness.

"Duty, honor, and country" do not mean you turn a blind eye to the corruption and depravity
of an un-winnable war with no defined goals.  Waiting until you retire to speak the truth
is a gross abdication of responsibility unbecoming an officer, a gentleman, or any honest
person of good faith.

We cannot continue to watch the spiraling disaster of Iraq's unraveling, deeper divisions in
an uncontainable civil war, and rampant lawlessness in the chaos which is now Iraq.

Responsible military officers must not wait until retirement to be truthful with our civilian
leadership and the American people.  The day of reckoning will not wait until Mr. Bush
wakes up.  There is a glaring truth beyond the horizon. The neo-colonialists have no
intention of turning back. Regardless of how many lives and resources are wasted.

Seven hours of electricity per day in Baghdad is not "success."  Rudderless response to
events is not leadership.  And it is time to stand up to these pretenders before they
take us the rest of the way down a path of no return.

This is not about "winning" or "victory."  This is about accountability, democracy, and the rule
of law.  We can re-bid the no-bid, cost-plus contracts which are an affront to the American
and Iraqi people.  We can engage the Iraqi people and their neighbors in rebuilding their
own nation, by ending the over-reaching corporate ambitions of "privatizing their oil" and
selling off their natural resources to the best-connected corporate cartel.  The elephant
of corporate hegemony is trampling freedom, democracy, self-determination, peace, and
security.  Not just in Iraq and America, but around the globe.

Studious ignorance is not a solution. Civic-engagement is the answer.

We voted, and now it is time to turn up the heat.

best regards, Timothy Martin Flanagan
A Resource for Writing, Writers, & Creative Arts
lwww.AlternativeNewsResource.org/
Coretta Scott King    After the Bush league: Where do we go from here?
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