Saturday, October 07, 2006

American Presidents

In 1947, Truman ordered 74,000 tons of military equipment to the right-wing government in Athens, including artillery, dive bombers, and stock of napalm. Weapons for death and destruction manufactured and stockpiled in the United States since World War 2.

In 1971 Nixon ordered the US Air Force to drop 800,000 tons of bombs on Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Weapons for death and destruction worth in the Billions of Dollars.

When the Vietnam war ended, Jimmy Carter declined to give aid to Vietnam for reconstruction, despite the fact that the land had been devastated by American bombing. Asked about this at a press meeting, Carter replied that there was no special obligation on the United States to do this because “the destruction was mutual.” As if the United States did not have to cross half the globe with an enormous fleet of bombers and 2 million American soldiers, and after eight years of mission not accomplished, left a tiny nation with over three million dead and its land in ruins.

Bill Clinton continued to supply arms to nations all over the world. While he enjoyed converting the Oval Office into his Oral Office with the consent of a tuti frutie employee in the White House.

By the way, this is the same White House constructed in 1792 that required the influx of African slaves to lay its foundation. The same Africans in slavery and poverty that enriched not only the treasury of the US government at the local, state, and federal levels, but also responsible for the wealth and privilege of quite a few powerful US corporations that manufacture weapons for war, death and destruction in foreign countries.

As the Commander in chief of the US military, President George W Bush has nuclear subs at his disposal. These subs are loaded to the hatches with nuclear warheads that can be targeted to within a centimeter of Osama Bin Ladin’s nose. And yet, with all of that sophisticated technology, the US government, since 2001, could not, with any precision, find Osama Bin Ladin hiding in the mountain caves of Afghanistan for his so-called crime against the destruction of the World Trade Center. And to think that this is the same Osama Bin Ladin who had millions of dollars deposited in various banks in the United States.

The social critic, H. L. Mencken, wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” By frightening the American people to the attention of certain governments like Iraq, Iran, Korea, Cuba, or by inventing or exaggerating how dangerous these governments are – the failures of the US government itself could remain hidden or un-exposed. In the meantime, I ask: what value has the utility of freedom if lies and other falsehoods were more politically useful than the simple truth? Poch Suzara

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