When The Will Must Triumph, Find A Way

by pessimist

Initially, I wasn't sure that the electoral victory of Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany was a good thing. But the longer she is in office, the more I am coming to repect her. For example, she is telling Bu$hCo that they should change their evil ways:

Germany's Merkel says Guantanamo should be shut

Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention center in Cuba denounced by human rights activists and many governments, is deeply unpopular in Germany. There is widespread skepticism in Germany about the way the United States is fighting its "war on terror," compounded by the recent scandal over the CIA's abduction and detention of German citizen Khaled el-Masri -- later acknowledged to be a mistake.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an interview published days before her first visit to the United States, said Washington should close its Guantanamo Bay prison camp and find other ways of dealing with terror suspects. "That's my opinion and my view and I'll say it elsewhere just as I have expressed it here.

"An institution like Guantanamo can and should not exist in the longer term," Merkel said in an interview with the weekly magazine Der Spiegel published on Saturday. "Different ways and means must be found for dealing with these prisoners."

Unfortunately, Frau Merkel, you left Bu$hCo an opening big enough to drive a Hummer through:

'Guantanamo Detainees to be Transferred to Afghan Prison'

The British daily newspaper The Financial Times talks about a US plan to transfer detainees in Guantanamo to prisons in Afghanistan in its Thursday edition. Since the Washington administration is accused of holding captives without trial, it is under heavy international pressure; with this alternative solution the American government wants to dissolve the pressure.

Is that why the Moonie Times of Washington wants to gag the off-duty blogging of their 'reporters'? It would help make the already-too-compliant GOP media meachine even more so if there was just the slightest chance that, under the 'Patriot' act, anyone suspected of not being a full-fledged Kool-aid drinker could wind up in the Afghan clinker!

Not to fear! Bu$h signed a bill banning torture and inhumane treatment! What a wonderful action! Pretending to care about the law by completing the creation of a ban against the very evil acts he and Unka Dickie are adamant they need to continue their 'War on Terrah!'

I feel better already!

Maybe we Americans would be wise to heed these words - first spoken by our pRedzidint of Vice:

Cheney says Iraq not worth the casualties

According to a Seattle newspaper, in August 1992, when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense in the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, he made a public speech in Seattle 18 months after the end of the first Iraqi War.

After the speech, he entertained questions from the audience and responded to a particular question by saying, "The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right -- we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq." (Imagine that.)

Now we fast-forward almost 14 years to the second war with Iraq, a war that was started on bogus information; that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction they intended to use and that we must do it to them before they did it to us. The Bush administration looked only at the evidence that supported the existence of WMDs and conveniently ignored all evidence to the contrary.

Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, was complicit in supporting the Administration's actions. No one looked under the carpet or around the corner. No one held anyone's feet to the fire. The Administration said it was so, consequently it must be so.

Certainly significant things have happened in the world since 1992, most notably the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But the terrorist attacks were not the primary reason we invaded Iraq the second time.

Although we knew that terrorists were operating in Iraq, we also knew they were operating in several other countries around the world and, as far as could be determined, no Iraqis were on any of the planes commandeered on September 11th.

Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11. We used that horrific day in part to justify forcing regime change in a country that didn't want us there in the first place. The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicates that 61 percent of the American people are dissatisfied with the way the President is handling the Iraqi situation and Nebraska U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel was recently quoted as saying that it is in no way unpatriotic to question the current Administration's Iraqi policy. In fact, he said, it is unpatriotic NOT to do so.

He's absolutely right.

We are repeating history. This administration is using the same strategies that were used by both the Democratic and Republican Administrations to initiate and continue the Vietnam War. Misstatements, half-truths and outright lies were told the American people leading up to and during the Vietnam War to justify our participation in that theater, just as misstatements, half-truths and outright lies have been imposed on us this time around as well.

It has always been a mystery to me that those who so vehemently oppose abortion are often the same people who support sending our young people into harm's way to fight and die in wars we ought not be involved in.

He's talking about your kids. Just what are you willing to allow to happen to them? Have you drunk too much Kool-aid to care about them as long as the (mi$)Admini$tration achieves its goals of world domination through military takeovers of the world's energy supplies?

If so, may your 'Christian' soul rot in Hell.

Copyrighted [©] source material contained in this article is presented under the provisions of Fair Use.

FAIR USE NOTICE

This article contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of democracy, economic, environmental, human rights, political, scientific, and social justice issues, among others. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this article is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes.