Western war criminals take refuge in denial - International Injustice/Law

Adept propagandists and rhetoricians enlisted by the conservatives have all failed to disguise the horrendous facts! Due to the failure of the mass media to monopolise the dominant discourse the people have learned the truth via alternative sources. The result is our former conservative leaders are experiencing high levels of GUILT and FEAR, which has forced them to seek refuge in revisionism and fantasy. Leaders of the United States and allies have been engaged in murder, plunder and banditry of the highest order and the entire world has become aware of the facts! Where to hide or how to justify criminal activity of enormous proportions?

I believe it was Cheney who first offered ‘assurances’ to Bush and other members of the conservative criminal coalition that they would be ‘vindicated by history’ – how so? Faced with mountains of verifiable information and reams of irrefutable evidence to the contrary, one wonders which specific pathology allows conservatives to take such profound flights into FANTASY. Bush offered the following ridiculous remark, while demands for war crimes trials continue to increase; "we'll all be dead" [before history vindicates my presidency]. Perhaps it is as simple as no other options available; when reality presses in on ALL sides only fantasy is able to offer refuge for the guilt-ridden criminal or simple mind!

A short anecdote at this stage may assist in understanding the broader issues:

During my youth I once shot a hummingbird out of a tree with an air-rifle; upon inspecting my ‘kill’ I found the hapless bird to be alive. This situation afforded me the opportunity to ‘admire’ my ‘handiwork.’

The beautiful, glimmering bird lay in the grass with one of its wings almost completely torn from its body by my air-rifle pellet. I was confronted with finishing ‘the job;’ I loaded another pellet into the breech of the rifle and shot the bird through the neck at point blank range. The bird jerked violently then slowly contracted in death, the profundity of my irresponsible action triggered an unexpected response; I burst into tears! I began to cry out loud for the bird’s life, I was overwhelmed by grief and remorse, I cried for every injustice ever committed, I cried for the entire world and I cried for my own miserable life!

Though I possessed the means I had no right to kill this exquisite creature. I became inconsolable as the full implication of my action overwhelmed my consciousness – how precious ALL life is and how easily it is taken by arrogance, thoughtlessness or more sinister reasons. I was weeping like a baby, an act that young men my age were trained to avoid at all costs, nevertheless I continued to cry out loud, I was profoundly shaken!

Fortunately, I had no religion, ‘God’ or other means of escape; I was therefore FORCED to CONFRONT the RESPONSIBILITY of MY ACTION. Today I am happy to declare that I am a vegetarian, active ‘pacifist’ and needless to say, I have not killed another creature since that fateful day.

Religion offers justifications and a means to avoid taking full responsibility for murder, theft and every other human vice you care to name. You will note that Evangelicals and Islamists are the principal supporters of Bush and Bin Laden, respectively. Without the socially acceptable escape or justification that religion provides we are forced to CONSCIOUSLY ACCEPT the RESPONSIBILITY for all our actions.

It is the consequences or ‘weight’ associated with certain actions that makes them less attractive to pursue. Religion perverts our natural instincts, de-sensitises us to life and robs us of our potential and the full impact of life-transforming joys, grief and a host of other emotions/experiences.

Murder for example is abhorrent to all well-adjusted human beings yet Evangelicals and Islamists justify war and killing, brazen hypocrisy is characteristic of all religionists. There is a reason most people find all violence repugnant; this repugnance also extends to allowing known murderers to remain unpunished and at large. Our innate sense of justice demands that we hold all criminals accountable regardless of their station.

Regardless of how we are trained or what devices/justifications we utilise to momentarily escape the responsibility of our actions, the full import and effect of every action is absorbed by our being; we cannot separate ourselves from the consequences of our actions, everything exists as ONE interrelated, interdependent, DYNAMIC, Whole!

Imagine the enormous burden carried by those responsible for the needless deaths and mutilations of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings – how much greater a human life than that of a bird?

Our lives are transformed by acknowledging our faults and experiencing the joys and pain associated with each transformation. Life is a series of such evolutionary steps. If we fail each other we fail ourselves if we fail to bring those guilty of the most heinous crimes imaginable to justice we fail society and that society is doomed to failure, this is self-evident.

Taking responsibility for ourselves, society and the planet is an active process. We are able to unite in one voice for JUSTICE and REAL CHANGE by placing our former criminal leaders on trial. Not only would this action ultimately benefit the guilty it benefits society as a whole by restoring values that criminals view with contempt.

Though it may take many years our former leaders would slowly learn RESPECT from programs specifically designed for the purpose. It would be hoped they also learn to accept responsibility for their actions, abandon their previous lives as VANDALS, MURDERERS, THIEVES AND DESTROYERS and finally become CONSTRUCTIVE, CONTRIBUTORS/members of society!

The media handlers of former PM, John Howard, arranged to have a TV series made, “The Howard Years,” starring of course, John Howard, who was more than happy to continue lying through his teeth throughout the entire series. This feeble attempt at historical revisionism will indeed go down in history BUT not for the reasons hoped for!

The series is an obvious sham, a transparent attempt to gloss over and justify every ill deed Howard committed or was party to. Howard, Bush and Blair -- the coalition of willing murderers -- are KNOWN war criminals; all attempts at revisionism serve only to highlight the existence of a singular interest behind these puppet leaders.

Unsurprisingly, Bush and Cheney are also engaged in revisionist activities -- would YOU be ‘astonished’ to learn that Cheney, Bush and Howard are all chirping the same line, ‘history will vindicate us?’ Now consider the massive amount of evidence to the contrary and you would have gained an insight into how FRIGHTENED and DESPERATE these men actually are!

These men are not really relying on history to “vindicate” them they are hoping that WE either forget or justify their actions by remaining passive and compliant in the face of the most heinous war crimes committed this century. However, WE have a COMMON RESPONSIBILITY TO OURSELVES AND SOCIETY TO PLACE ALL CRIMINALS ON TRIAL regardless of the positions they once held – what is a king but a crowned clown, after all!

The “Howard Years” was of course, a miserable failure for a number of reasons, not the least being that history is written by historians who take their job seriously.

History constantly strives to arrive at greater accuracy through its disciplines and methodologies, attempts at revisionism from commercial interests are laughable; observing the commercial and obviously inaccurate renditions of those that would present Cheney, Bush, Blair and Howard in a manner contrary to known facts is amusing to say the least.

Historians are acutely aware of events, that is their job; need I remind myself of Colin Powell’s deceptive performance at the UN, Tony Blair’s preposterous lie that Saddam Hussein was capable of mounting an attack on the West in ‘45 minutes’ or John Howard’s ridiculous lie (exposed by local intelligence) that Iraq was engaged in the acquisition of ‘aluminium tubing’ specifically utilised in the manufacture of weapons grade nuclear material! These lies led to an illegal invasion and the deaths of over one million innocent men, women and children. An entire nation was reduced to anarchy. The price of stolen oil is now measured by a failed global economy.

Taking responsibility and consciously confronting the totality of our lives demands that we hold the guilty to account; our future tenability and the viability of our respective societies depend on it.

Peace.

Barack Obama suggested he's not likely to actively pursue criminal charges against national security officials who were directly involved in unlawful interrogations or wire-tapping, and said it would be difficult to quickly close down Guantanamo Bay.

On Guantanamo — which he repeatedly promised to shutter during the campaign — Obama, in an interview on Sunday with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," reiterated his intent to do just that but also sounded a pragmatic note.

"That's a challenge," the president-elect said about the prospect of closing down to the detainee facility within the first 100 days of taking office. "I think it's going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do.

On the question of prosecuting crimes that may have been committed during the Bush presidency in the course of the war on terror, Obama continued the theme of "looking forward as opposed to backwards" he took on the campaign trail and reaffirmed since winning the presidency last November.

While aimed at attracting consensus from a broader electorate, the position is not exactly what many in the liberal base of his party would prefer.

As Stephanopoulos noted, the most asked question on Obama's own transition website relates to investigating the "crimes" of the Bush administration.

Asked if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate such matters as warrantless wire-tapping and torture, Obama demurred.

"We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth," he said. "And obviously we're going to be looking at past practices, and I don't believe that anybody is above the law.

"On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering."

Pressed, Obama said twice more that he wanted to get "things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past."

Asked specifically about the idea of a "9/11 Commission with independent subpoena power" to look at torture and warrantless wiretapping during the Bush years, Obama said, "We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward."

Obama also reiterated his desire for a "new approach" to Iran — something he frequently mentioned during the Democratic primary — but was quick to add a stick to go with the carrot.

Asked if U.S. relations with Tehran would include a "new emphasis on respect," Obama replied: "Well, I think a new emphasis on respect and a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are."

© 2009 Politico

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