The Military Commissions Act; A Different Look

I have started this piece numerous times, and on each occasion I’ve been unable to keep the momentum going. This subject matter is so vitally important to me, to you, and to all Americans, that it must be dealt with carefully and thoroughly. I thought of doing what I usually do, toss out some facts and surround it with my opinion and interpretation of whatever the subject matter was about. In this case, the facts would be that Habeus Corpus has always been a mainstay of our judicial system, a last bastion for those who are facing less than credible charges. Or, that I began to see the impact of the erosion of these rights soon after the Republicans took office in 1994, as avenues of appeal disappeared for those who could least afford their absence, those being Death Row inmates. Done with the simple goal in mind of speeding up the death machine, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused or convicted. Or that now, the destruction of this once standard of American jurisprudence, has unalterably changed all of our lives. All of that would have been true, make no mistake about it.

The new Military Commissions Act, recently signed into law by George W. Boosh does just that, changes all of our lives. It erases the line between “us and them,” in more ways than one. It hurts us morally and in world standing by allowing us to detain and torture whoever we want to without regard to any law, either international or domestic. At least as, if not more importantly, it allows the US government, OUR government, to treat any of the thousands of Muslims or would be Muslims, Al Qaeda operatives or would be Al Qaeda operatives, or ANY ONE OF US who happen to fall within the bizarre fantasy world definition by Boosh or one of his thugs, as an “enemy combatant.” We could end up in Gitmo or any other CIA hellhole at the whim of a madman, without recourse. Yes, this act allows for all of that. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, you can be simply whisked away without notice to anyone nor access to any court for however long they choose to keep you. This possibility is now indisputable. Yes, that is what I could have done, but in this case it just wasn’t working. I don't know, maybe later I will come back and cover this topic in a more conventional manner. But for now, I decided not to “stay the course,” but to change direction entirely and look at this from a different angle, an angle that allows me to use my father as Exhibit A. This is not an easy thing for me to do, and may well be why I have struggled with it so much. Any of you who had a father, grandfather, uncle, or anyone close to you who fought in WWII might to be able to relate.

Fighting For Your Country

In my view, the last war that was fought under the grand old US notion of “fighting for your country” was WWII. Since then, each and every war we have entered into has had nothing to do with actually protecting America or the American people, but has always had some hidden agenda that would allow for us to gain something that we needed at the time. Sometimes that agenda is obvious, such as the current Iraq fiasco and its connection to Oil, other times the agenda has not been so obvious. Some to this day are inexplicable, at least to me. Regardless, they have not been fought for the right reasons. But, back to my father.

My Father and WWII

My father was an Army soldier in WWII, a “grunt” if you will. He also became a Prisoner of War, held on a German Hospital ship for a few months. His “company” was attacking a wooded position held by the Germans outside of Woelfling, France. Specifically, according to letters received by my grandfather from the Adjutant General’s Office of the War Department, his “point of departure” was: FIFTY YARDS OF RAILROAD, 1 ¼ MILES NORTH OF WOELFLING, FRANCE. There my father dove into what he thought was an empty machine gun nest, only to find that it was not empty. He was shot five to seven times in the neck, jaw and face. It was only when his “company” regrouped that it was realized that he was not with them, along with an unknown number (to me at least) of other soldiers. This event occurred on January 6, 1945. Using today’s terminology that is when he officially “went missing.” After spending 90+ days on a German hospital ship, then in a land based hospital, he was eventually located by American Military Officials on April 8, 1945. The Army, in a telegram, notified my grandfather that he had been found, hospitalized “IN EUROPEAN AREA PERIIOD (sic) HOSPITAL.” My father was released to the US Army shortly thereafter, and eventually returned to the United States where the long process of rebuilding his face began. Thankfully, he recovered for the most part, physically at least. Mentally, I’m not sure he ever left that machine gun nest FIFTY YARDS OF RAILROAD, 1 ¼ MILES NORTH OF WOELFLING, FRANCE.

This all happened many wars ago, and 11 years before my birth. I only knew that I grew up with a father who had been wounded in WWII, an obvious thing when one looked at his face and tried to dig into his tortured soul. I wish that I could tell you that you would know who my father was, that he was some Great War hero whose name you would recognize, but I can’t. He was merely a man who entered the military to fight for his country, at a time when his country and the rest of the world were in grave danger and truly needed his service.

My father returned home, married my mother and immediately became a functional alcoholic. His alcoholism was not noticeable to me until I became an adult, or close to it, because he hid it well, and quite frankly I wasn’t paying much attention. I had a life to live, sports to be played, girls to chase and growing up to do. As I became older, I asked him on several occasions about the war. He would never speak of it, at least not until one of the last civil conversations I ever recall having with him. During that conversation he told me that “war was hell,” that he had “killed many people,” and that “had the Germans not run out of gasoline they would have won the war.” That was pretty much the extent of it, as near as I can recall today.

You see, my father and I didn’t get along too well near the end. His alcoholism was too much for me to deal with, I didn’t understand how, or why one would “choose” to be the way he turned out to be. I didn’t understand the complexities of what forms a human being and alters their conduct, nor should I have been expected to. I was simply too young. Now I do understand that he did not “choose” to be what he was, or became, but was simply escaping the “hell” that lived inside his mind. My father could have been the poster child for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. That phraseology didn’t exist back then, it was simply known as shell shock. Whatever you call it, I witnessed and lived it up close and personal. Now that I better understand it, I can forgive him for all that happened.

What does any of this have to do with the Military Commissions Act, you must be asking by now? To me, it has everything to do with it. My father, who by the way I am now proud of, was a prisoner of war during a brutal engagement with perhaps the future of the entire world at stake. Yet, he wasn’t tortured. My father was “fighting for his country” in the truest sense of the phrase, against perhaps the most brutal dictator the world has yet to produce, and still he wasn’t tortured. I guess even Adolph Hitler believed in and played by a few rules. My father gave his life for this country, for the freedoms we have or at least had. No, he didn’t die in combat, like over 3000 of our young men and women have during this version of the Iraq war. But, he gave his life nonetheless. Because he never recovered from the horrors of the war. Though functional, he was not far from the Vets that you see on the street these days mumbling to themselves. I would venture to guess that he would have been died a happier man had he not survived the incident FIFTY YARDS OF RAILROAD, 1 ¼ MILES NORTH OF WOELFLING, FRANCE. That is a sad statement, but one I believe to be true.

The stroke of a Pen

A short time ago, with one stroke of a pen, George W. Boosh made folly of the price that my father and thousands just like him paid for our freedoms, freedoms including the protections of the Geneva Conventions and Habeus Corpus. A man chosen to lead this nation; a dimwit cowboy who would make a poor used car salesman; a coward who could not manage to fulfill the minimum requirements of service to keep himself out of a later war so that he had to be bailed out by Daddy and his name; a man so desperate to hold onto power for his political party that he is willing to do anything to cover up his lies and deceit; a man who in pursuit of OIL is willing to send our children and fathers and mothers and husbands and wives, but not his own, into the abyss called Iraq; a man who without hesitation feeds the rich and starves the poor and laughs about it along the way while calling the rich his “base,”; a man who I despise more than any on the face of this earth; with one stroke of his pen, spit on the grave of my father. He also spit on the graves or in the faces of all others who fought in the last legitimate war this country has been involved in. He lied before he did it, lied while he did it, continues to lie afterwards, and will undoubtedly continue with his lies until he carries his smirk to his grave. George W. Boosh has crossed a line that has never before been crossed, not even by the likes of a monster like Adolph Hitler. I hope that I can someday learn to forgive him, like I learned to forgive my father.

Cyclone

A New Cold War? We Had Better Hope So

As anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock over the last week or two knows, there has been a massive buildup of military hardware in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. These arms come from a wide variety of countries, all of whom, if you believe George W. Boosh are our “allies.”

Who is Coming to the Party?

Ships and war items are arriving in the arena from the long list of the following countries:

Turkey, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Denmark, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Poland, Bulgaria, Egypt, Canada, Great Britain, Israel; plus assets from members of the Selective Security Treaty Organization, Russia, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. Venezuela is backing the effort with supplies but thus far no troops.

As you can see, this is quite a list of folks who I presume Boosh is speaking of when he tells the Iranians and North Koreans that the “world is against you.” Though I would love to believe that he is right, the problem is I don’t. What I foresee happening with this group of “amassed thunder” in the Persian Gulf area and in the Mediterranean Sea is far different from the vision Boosh has of the same group. I will explain.

Over the course of writing the Real Deal, I have said too many times to count that the world has had enough of our arrogance, bullying and presumption that they will stand for us telling the rest of them how to live. Who are the rest of them? Take a look at the list above. How many of those countries do you believe that we can count as true allies should the unthinkable occur, the unthinkable being George W. Boosh deciding that it is wise to fire upon Iran? I would say three, and two of those are tenuous at best. Maybe none, when push comes to shove. The three are Great Britain, Canada, and Israel. The citizens of Great Britain have shown that they will not tolerate for much longer the blind faith that their soon to be ex leader, Tony Blair, has placed in the United States and specifically the Boosh administration. Canada joins us almost by default; since they join borders with us they really have no other option at this point. Israel, on the other hand, may or may not be with us. I wrote long ago that I am suspicious of their true alliance, and remain so today.

North Korea

To do this subject true justice, you must consider what has occurred recently in the fiasco with North Korea and the proposed UN sanctions. At the behest of the United States, with the usual Boosh cowboy “my way or the highway” rhetoric, the UN pushed through emergency sanctions against the PRNK. To see how meaningless these sanctions will be, one only has to look at the Republic of China. After the US gave up most of what it really wanted, a full embargo of the North, the Chinese announced that they would not inspect cargo headed into or out of North Korea. They did this before the ink was dry on the sanctions document, thus immediately rendering void any hope of these sanctions having any meaningful deterrent. Now Condi Rice will go through the song and dance of visiting Asian countries, attempting to get them on board, something that should have been done long before now. Keep this situation and the Chinese stance in mind when considering the rest of this subject.

The Showdown

It is time that the façade came down and that the Boosh administration stop pretending that the upcoming standoff with Iran is about anything other than what it is really about, and that is OIL. To suggest anything else is beyond believability. Not that I need to tell you guys, but this is what Iraq was about, Iran is about, and the future of this country is about. It has nothing to do with democracy, caring for the people of other countries or any other such nonsense that this administration spews. End of story. The problem is that other countries, including large and powerful countries such as China and Russia need oil as well. They are also not overly fond of the fact that we use much more than our fair share of this resource. To think for one second that they are going to stand by and watch us ramrod our way through the Middle East to continue our current status as the largest user of imported oil in the world and continue the status quo is naïve at best, deadly at worst. So, what might happen?

Go back to the above mentioned countries that are arriving in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea. Take a close look at who is there, what alliances have been building over the last 5 or so years, all 25 of them. Then try to imagine who is on who’s side. Boosh would like to pretend that all of these nations are arriving in the region in step with the US to show massive force to Iran and Syria, proving once and for all that the world will not stand for anyone other than Israel being a nuclear power in the region. Like most of his thinking, this is simply delusional. These other powers assembled there are not afraid of admitting the real reason that this is happening; they don’t have to try to fool their electorate. Not being worried about mid-term elections or legacies affords these countries the luxury of being there simply to protect their interests, and of saying so aloud. And, regardless of what this administration chooses to believe, catering to the United States of America, the bully on the block, is not an exercise that they wish to continue following. They have bowed to us and feared us long enough, and now it has become a life or death struggle. Not just for us, but for the entire world, as we all best position ourselves for a share of the last of the worlds dwindling oil supply.

My guess is that once everything is in place, once all countries have arrived and have their weapons directed at Syria and Iran, and that once the US decides to make the final take it or leave it offer to the Iranians, we are going to be in for the shock of our lives. I foresee the ships, warplanes and missiles of our “allies” to change targets and turn directly towards the US. Why? Because everyone likes a winner and the US will not be the winner in this situation. We will not be the winner because we have lost the moral authority to rule this planet, something that we have talked about on numerous occasions in the past. We will not be the winner because THE WORLD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF US.

Can you blame them? What have we done for the rest of the world lately? We have promised untold amounts of aid for everything from food to AIDS money and medication, and delivered none of it. We have blown Afghanistan and Iraq to hell and back, with nothing to show for it other than a resurgent Taliban in one, a Civil War in the other, and a whole bunch of dead people, including American kids in between. We have destabilized the Middle East, never a bastion of stability in the first place, to the point that it has become a powder keg, a powder keg that happens to hold the future of the world in its fragile hands. That is because it has the oil that we all need simply to survive. If you look around the Middle East today, can you tell me who is in charge? On second thought, don’t bother. I know you can’t. I can tell you a few folks who are NOT in charge though, that being the new democratic governments that we have put in place in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor the United States of America. Beyond that, chaos is the rule of the day in those two countries. Should we begin the same type operation in Iran and Syria; the entire Middle East will go up in flames, resulting in similar chaos throughout the region. The world can’t afford that, and everyone seems to get that fact but Boosh and his cronies. Business as usual is not an option anymore, and we are the last to realize it.

Saving Grace?

The good thing is this. China, Russia, and most of the above mentioned countries will not allow us to further destabilize the world or its oil supplies. They won’t because, like us, their very survival depends upon those supplies. The bad news is that we don’t have a clue how Boosh or his administration will react when faced with the very real possibility of being given the middle finger by the rest of the world. Hopefully, he will do the sane thing and we can have the 21st century version of the cold war. A long term standoff with warships poised and ready to go, staring each other down, much like the soldiers in the Korean DMZ. Boosh can then continue talking tough and doing nothing and maybe we can all stay alive for a little while. That is the best possible result that can come from this latest Boosh atrocity. The alternative is his arrogantly calling what he perceives as a bluff and triggering today’s version of the shootout at the OK Corral. We all know how that turned out.

Conclusion

This upcoming showdown was and is inevitable. We as a nation cannot continue to march around the world and tell others how to live, taking what we want and think we need along the way. Boosh said that he had “political capital” and that he was going to spend it. Whether or not he actually had any political capital is doubtful, but regardless he has more than spent his share. He spent it from Abu Ghraib to the shameful legislation that was recently passed allowing us to torture prisoners at will. There are simply too many examples of where he has overdrawn his account, and you all know where they are anyway. So do others in the world, which brings us to where we are today.

I will say it one more time. The world has had enough of us, and they will not take it any more. We have pushed and shoved, bullied and rattled our saber one too many times. Now we have forced the showdown of all showdowns. The forces are assembling as we speak, and they are assembling in close proximity to one another for the first time in the history of this world. In mass quantities, from more nations than one should care to count. The question is, in whose direction will the guns be aimed? I shudder to think.

Cyclone

A Redo: The Real Deal Exposed; Part 1

A day or two ago I looked back through a few old posts from the Real Deal, something that (believe it or not) I have never done before. I have always written and moved on, never looking back to see what I've said. I think that this approach is probably not a good one, considering the subject matter with which this blog deals. I actually enjoyed the review, though due to time constraints, I was only able to read three posts from the past. I plan to do so more often in the future, because it was fun. Anyway, in doing this, I thought it might be interesting to repeat two posts that were originally presented on November 27th and 28th of 2005. These posts dealt with my view of where our country was headed at that time. They are unchanged, the only editing I have done is to add this statement and to slightly change the title. I would be interested to hear what you guys think about where we really are as a nation and world in comparison to what was proposed nearly a year ago. I have my own beliefs about this, but will hold onto those for a while. My interest lies in what the rest of you think, so please comment when you can. I think for the issues to be placed in proper context, both posts must be read, and in the proper order. So, here they are, have fun.

Cyclone


November 27, 2005

Here is what we face, folks. Pure and simple, unvarnished, and what choices face us heading into the future. And, it's going to take a while, so stay with me. This will be a dialogue over several days. But, reality check time is here. We'll start with Option #1 that faces us, move to Option #2, and then build to some solutions. But problems are many, and solutions are few. So be prepared.

As anyone who has read my writings over the last couple of years knows, and especially over the last six months or so, I have nothing but the deepest respect for Patrick Fitzgerald. I believe that he has proven himself to be a legal genius, completely non-partisan and will not sell himself out under any conditions, to anyone. Period. But, Mr. Fitzgerald has the same problem as all attorney's, be they prosecutor's or defense attorney's. The problem is that he works on "attorney time," rather than "everybody else" time. That is not a criticism of the man, simply a fact. The American legal system is set up and functions solely on a basis of built in, unfettered delays. Due to the fact that the system is overburdened and filled with cases that should never have been filed, the backlog is staggering. All attorneys and judges know this, thus delays are merely a part of life. In fact, they become a way of life for those inside the system. This presents a problem.

In dealing with the current administration, we no longer have time for the inevitable delays that the legal system requires. If the Madman Boosh and his Jackass cronies are left in place for three more years, without immediate intervention from an outside influence, America as we know it is over. It is really that simple, and it is really that dire. There are really only two ways that we can go, outside of the legal realm, and neither option is pretty nor painless. So, here we go.

OPTION # 1----TOTAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE
The first way, and the most likely to occur if we "stay the course," in my view, is the total collapse of the American monetary system. What do I mean by total collapse? I mean that if you have $1.00 in your pocket you are as wealthy as someone with $100 million dollars. You are both broke. Your dollars are not worth the paper that they are printed on. And it could happen. In fact, we are not even in control of whether or not that happens. As much as we would like to think that it "can't happen here," I'm telling you that it can happen here, and will, if Boosh is left in power. Here's how.

The Chinese and the rest of the world own us, pure and simple. We owe staggering amounts of money to the Chinese, among others. They could call in those notes tomorrow, and POOF, we're gone. But that doesn't need to occur for us to fail economically. It can happen much easier than that. And, it goes to the very heart of how Boosh, Cheney and the cancer that surrounds them have driven us over the cliff in 5 short years. And, why they ALL must be removed, regardless of what it takes to do so. We cannot survive three more years of this madness. Now, stay with me here. This might take a while, but I will tie it into the economic picture eventually.

For all of my 50 years on this Earth, we have, for the most part, been the good guys. We were always the ones to lend a helping hand to third world countries, defenders of the oppressed against the oppressors, always holding the high Moral Ground, at least on the surface. We were always being compared to the world's other superpower, the USSR, and we were held in higher esteem than they by the vast majority of the world. Although the differences between us and the Soviet's were really not all that great, the perception of the difference was what mattered. This is what I mean. In the days of the Cold War, we always were able to use them as the example of how not to behave, and the world bought it. Now to the difference.

If the Soviets wanted something that others had, they simply went and took it, by force. People did not like being conquered and burglarized, but, unless we intervened, other smaller countries were powerless to stop them. The Soviet's were the ultimate military industrial complex in the world. We did intervene on occasion, but only when WE had something to gain from it. Now to us. If another country had something that we wanted, we did not invade them and steal it, but we talked them out of it. The USA, the great protectors, and the greatest con artists in the world. We would talk people out of their resources and make them like it. We would toss in some cash, a few promises that we would keep, get what we wanted, and everyone left happy. In comparison to the Soviet method, ours proved to be much more palatable to the world. As long as we had the Soviet model to be compared with, we always came out looking like the "good guys." Then a strange thing happened. The USSR collapsed from within, and suddenly we were left alone as the world's only superpower. Everyone in America breathed a sigh of relief, no longer had to worry about the "Rooskies" blowing us up, or starting WWIII. A good thing, right? Well, as it turns out, that was the worst thing that could have happened to us. Without evil to compare good to, how does good really look? Without that evil buffer, our emporor lost her clothes. Like the Great Oz, the curtain was pulled back and we were exposed for what we really were.

For me, this realization struck back during the Iranian Hostage crisis. If you recall, the Iranian's had 400 some odd American citizens and held them for a long time. President Carter tried every avenue of negotiation that he knew of to gain their safe release. He eventually succeeded, although not before he had lost the election to Ronald Reagan. To rub salt in Carter's wound, the Iranian's decided to wait until Reagan was sworn in to actually release our people. That fact is irrelevent to my point here, but another fact is not. President Carter had made some promises to the Iranians in exchange for the release of the hostages. After their release, President Reagan, on behalf of the American people, then essentially told the Iranians to go screw themselves, that we were not keeping our end of the deal. Many Americans agreed with this, after all, the Iranians were certainly in the wrong for holding our people. But, they ignored the bigger picture. They ignored the fact that we are/were supposed to be the "good guys," and that our word was once our bond. In my view, it has been all downhill from that moment to today. The fall of the Soviet Union has only exacerbated our downfall. Now we must move to the Nuclear Power/Superpower deal.

Since the fall of the Soviets, ESPECIALLY SINCE BOOSH HAS BEEN IN OFFICE, we have been obsessive about keeping other countries from producing or acquiring Nuclear Weapons. The standard argument has been nothing short of exploitation of the fear factor, we simply don't want another country to fire nuclear weapons at us. You know, the safety thing. Bullshit, that doesn't even pass the smell test. Oh sure, some rogue madman like Saddam Hussein could conceivably get control of one and maybe, just maybe, try to use it on us. The "mushroom cloud" crap that Boosh spoke of during the leadup to the current Iraq war. Anyone with an IQ in double digits can see through the fallacy of this thinking. No country, I repeat, NO COUNTRY, would dare fire a nuke in our direction. It would be instant and sure suicide for the entire citizenry of the country who dared do so. That is a given, we would obliterate them in a heartbeat. We have thousands of nukes, and could take out the entire population of the world if we chose to. And, if any rogue nation like Syria or Iran thought about trying it, we would certainly have the intelligence in place to know that it was going to occur before it happened. If we didn't have the intelligence on the ground, we would simply buy the information with our fiat dollars. No, the real reason that we fight so hard to keep other countries from having nuclear weapons is far less about them using them against us, but about what we began discussing originally, the US economy. See, I promised you we would get back here eventually.

The Chinese, in combination with Europe and the rest of the world, could collapse our economy overnight if they wished to. You could go to bed a millionaire tonight and wake up peniless in the morning. Sound far fetched? It's not. This is the real reason that we want to be the only nation in the world with nuclear weapons.

We have always managed to keep the American Dollar afloat and viable as an accepted currency worldwide by maintainging two very simple concepts. We have nearly completely abobanded concept number one, and are rapidly approaching the end of concept number two. In short, we are in trouble, serious trouble.

The first concept comes from what I mentioned above, the Moral High ground that we used to enjoy. When we were thought of as the "good guys," willing to help less fortunate countries and back up our word with deeds, things went rather well for us. However, over the last two or three decades, our "word is our bond" way of life has fallen by the wayside. Because of this, countries that used to hold us in high esteem no longer do so. George Boosh and his policies have done more damage to our world standing in 5 years than any damage the rest of the Presidents, combined, have managed to inflict in over 200 years. By promising aid and not delivering it, no one trusts us any more. Fifteen Billion Dollars in funding pledged for the global fight against AIDS is one example. This pledge was made well over one year ago, and to date we have delivered 15 Million Dollars. That is a lot of missing zero's. Yet Boosh will tell you today of the 15 Billion in AIDS money that we are giving. Well, there is a lot of difference in pledging a certain amount, and then after the fact attaching unreasonable strings to the money before doling it out. Strings that, by the way, make certain that the money would not be wisely spent. Sounds great in press releases, saying that we are giving XXXX Billions of Dollars, but he never mentions that the money isn't sent. The rest of the world, unlike the blind sheep that make up the vast majority of Americans, know that the money has not been delivered. They are catching on to the game. That is but one of countless examples of unkept promises made by this administration. One closer to home that might ring a bell is NO Child Left Behind, mandated but unfunded. It is irrelevant to this discussion, in the sense that he is only fooling American's, but you get the idea. The rest of the world doesn't like being lied to by a country that was once thought of as one that could be counted on to help the downtrodden. The smokescreen has been lifted. We have lost the Moral Highground.

The second reason that the dollar has remained relevant is the real reason that we wish to be the only country in the world to have nuclear weapons. Other countries in the world have known that if they tried to do anything to crash our economy, we could simply blow them off the face of the earth. Our being the Superpower that we were, and I do mean were, was a real incentive for them to play along with our game. Our military might alone was enough to keep them in line, but that was okay because we were the "good guys" that were always ready to help when help was desparately needed. That is no longer the case, our word can no longer be taken seriously.

We are becoming increasingly suspect in being able to properly defend ourselves as well, and the world is starting to recognize that. They see the same things that we see, our military stretched to the limit attempting to fight two wars simultaneously, recruitment bottomed out with no incentive large enough to reach goals, and we are increasingly looking vulnerable. Combine that with the loss of the Moral Highground, and the world is suddenly wondering whether they really need us anymore. If we can't be depended on to give aid when needed, if we show that we will invade a soverign country under some trumped up pretenses, such as "national security," what is the point in helping us? Our word is no good, we might invade any of them who has something that we want (think OIL), so is our downfall really a bad thing for the rest of the world? These are conclusions that they are starting to come to on their own, and the conclusions point toward their deciding that they no longer need our ball to play with anymore. What are we going to do, blow up the rest of the world?

How could the rest of the world crash our economy overnight? Very simple. Decide, en masse, to base their economies on Euros or some other form of currency instead of American Dollars. In conjunction with this, they pull all of the foreign money out of our stock market and convert it to whatever currency they choose to use. Our stock market crashes in the grandest of styles. Should that once unthinkable act occur, and China calls in it's loans to us, it's over. Just like that. Our dollars are no longer accepted as good currency by anyone in the world except us. So, what happens then?

We do not have the ability nor the resources to manufacture goods or grow food in this country anymore. Certainly not to the extent necessary to take care of 300,000,000 people. Our dependence on foreign goods is such that we could not survive for long, once our dollars are no longer accepted as payment for those goods by the other countries. We'd be lucky to keep the State of Kansas alive for a decade, much less the rest of the country. If the dollars that you earn at work were worth nothing, unspendable, would you continue to show up at your job every day? Maybe for a day or two, a week at most, while you tried to figure out what was going on. What happens when the clerk at the gas station decides not to show? How do you get gas? And when the Supermarket runs out of food, is the driver that supplies them going to continue to drive to resupply the store without compensation? No, I don't think so. Or Walmart runs out of goods? Or the pharmacy, or anywhere? How long do you think it would take for this country to look like a scene from Escape from New York? Not long, I imagine. And, where would you escape to? Los Angeles? What would be different there? Nothing. There would be nowhere to go. It would be the 1800's all over again, only this time there would be 300,000,000 people, many with automatic weapons, running wild in the streets of America. Chaos. Utter, mass chaos would ensue. Farfetched? Not really. In fact, if we stay the course, I would surmise that this is one of only two options available to us.

Without intervention, that is. Don't worry, we'll get to the intervention avenues a little later. But before then, we need to understand that the trouble that we are in is very real. And, just so you'll know, we do not have until the 2008 election to wait for the intervention. We simply will not survive that long. That is why I mentioned Patrick Fitzgerald at the very beginning. Mr. Fitzgerald, you must get on "everybody else" time. Staying on "attorney time" will finish us. Give us what you've got, Mr. Fitzgerald, and give it to us quickly. If what you have is not enough, we need to look to further intervention. It is in place, but someone has to sound the alarm.

This is the price that we pay when we, as a nation, become moral lepers. When the rest of the world finally has had enough.

So, there is a cliff notes version of Option #1. Tomorrow or the next day, we'll look at option #2. I believe that Option #2 is what the Neocons have planned for us, and it must be stopped. Anything, aside from the above worst case scenario, would be preferred, over Option #2.

Cyclone

A Redo: The Real Deal Exposed; Part 2

Originally Posted November 28th, 2005

(If you did not read Part One of this, please do so before reading this. It will make more sense that way.)

Now things will get interesting. Both interesting and scary. Option #2 is where the Neocons decided we should go the first day that Boosh entered the office of the President of the United States. Get ready for:

The Worlds Greatest Military Complex, Courtesy of the Grand Old USA
Brought to you by the Authors of the Patriot Act

The alternative to Option #1 that I wrote about is no less frightening, and should give great pause to anyone that cares about our country and the freedoms that it used to afford. People with children between the ages of 8 and 35 should wake up, and wake up soon. It should also bring home how serious the problem is when Neocons are in total control of our government. And, it should show why they must be stopped at all costs. So, here we go.

We need oil. This is no secret to anyone. Many believe that we have reached Peak Oil, and are on the downside of the slippery slope to oblivion. Our entire existence is structured around the availablility of not just oil, but cheap oil. And, we are running out of it, rather quickly. Don't for one second buy the Katrina bullshit, it had nothing to do with the price gouging that occured during that 60 day period following the disaster. Profit was the goal, and the goal was met in startling fashion. So startling that the Senate dragged the CEO's of the Big Oil Companies in for a little sit down, nothing more than a charade put on for the benefit of the American people. The pissed off American people, and rightfully so. We are being violated daily, and there is no sign of it letting up. Winter heating costs are expected to rise as much as 30% in parts of the country, and you can't blame Katrina for that. You can only blame greed, cronyism, and intentional misguided policy from Booshco. Booshco is in reality Cheneyco, but that is another matter. And, by the way, have you heard anything more from the Senate on this issue lately? Didn't think so, and you probably won't. A mere 3 day headline and we'll move on to other issues.

So what is the grand plan? To become a Perpetual War Machine, fighting wars all over the world and taking what we want and need to survive. Survive and have a select few make a huge profit, that is. We are already on the road to this very thing happening. Look at what has occured since the day Boosh was appointed, and follow up to today. The signs are everywhere, and becoming less and less subtle by the minute.

It was clear from Day One of the Boosh administration that he had every intention of invading Iraq, and was looking for any plausible excuse to do so. When 9/11 occured, he twisted that into something that made the invasion possible. We already know all of the crap that was done in the leadup to war, so I will not go into that. We started a real war based on phony intelligence, phony connections, and a phony alliance. I believe that the reason for war was two-fold, revenge for Saddam trying to kill Daddy Boosh and Oil. Screw the people who get killed and maimed, screw the fact that we have bankrupted our nation both morally and financially, the profit margin for Booshco is too great to pass up. But, after a few years in Iraq, we are realizing something else. Everyone hates us. How do we handle that? What do we do?

Since everybody hates us anyway, why put up the nice guy facade any longer? Find More Oil. In order to successfully control the world's oil, we need the necessary military force to handle such a mission. And, we do not currently have the capability to do it. We cannot raise incentives high enough to get young mostly African American men to gleefully enlist, they are realizing that the price is too steep. Maybe losing a leg or two, if not their very lives. So, recruiting is turning into a failing business, and that has to be fixed. The next step, passed through the House and Senate by a very close vote just last week, is to drastically cut funding for student loans. At a minimum of $10,000 per year and with costs rising each year, education is becoming impossible for many families to afford. All a part of the longer range plan. By making college essentially unaffordable for the masses, the military may be the only way for most to get an education.

Along with this, we are witnessing the dismantling of the middle class. This project is nearing completion. The housing bubble is about to burst, but in the meantime, banks continue to loan money to people that they know they have no chance to repay. Want a $300,000 house that is really only worth $150,000? Just call a friendly mortgage lender. He'll figure out a way to extend your loan to 40 years, just to keep the payment on the very upper edge of what you can pay. Want to pay off those credit card bills? Further leverage your home, pay them off, and start charging all over again. After all, you have to have furniture to fill that larger home you just bought. And, in 2007 you will have to replace your $150 27" color television that works perfectly with a $2000 LCD or a $4000 Plasma set that is able to receive a digital signal, or buy a box to make your old one work. How much will the boxes cost? No one knows, yet. But why buy a box anyway? After all, this is the digital age. Buy a few new TV's for your new home, and charge it all. High energy costs? Don't worry, we have great insulation in these "nice" homes. The vast majority of middle class America, or what's left of it, is one blown automobile engine away from bankruptcy. Oh, I forgot, we already took care of that little bankruptcy loophole. Silly me. And credit cards? A bill was recently passed that forces credit card companies to DOUBLE the minimum amount due on all credit card bills. Of course, this is done for the "good of the American people," because we know that if you only pay the minimum it will take 20 years to pay off the credit cards. So, they are doing us a favor. Especially those that can barely scrape by making minimum payments. Health insurance? Employers are phasing out health insurance faster than I change socks. So, again, the military may become the only way to be insured. And on and on and on. Middle class? What middle class? What is this leading to? A MILITARY DRAFT.

We are now in the position that a military draft will become a reality, not if but when. And this draft will not include the old gang, males 18-21 years of age. That would hardly support the numbers necessary to fulfill the Industrial Military Complex that the Neocons deem necessary for our survival. So, we must include females, and expand the age range a bit. Say, between 18-35. Now the numbers of troops are getting up where we need them.

Now all we have to do is figure out a way to supply them with uniforms, guns, tanks, body armor (if we deem that important enough), Hummers, airplanes, food, housing, transportation, a doctor and a dentist. Not a problem. Before we are done, virtually every business that stays afloat in the New America will be entirely devoted to providing just those very things to our troops. Everyone will be a part of the largest military force in the history of mankind. Either fighting, or building toys and uniforms for those who are spilling their blood.

Look at all the problems we have just solved. Health insurance provided by the military. Jobs provided by the military. Housing provided by the military. Education provided by the military. Population control provided by the military. Budget problems? Solved. All we need is a Defense Fund, and everybody is taken care of. Problems solved, and we can go around the world and take whatever we want.

Does any of this ring a bell? USSR anyone? They tried it and it didn't work too well. But, we are a lot smarter than they were, so we can do it! We also have more resources than they ever had. Sure, if you want to include borrowed money from China and other countries, and the phony money that exists in our country today. Money that is backed up by nothing other than printing presses. We've got all we need.

Enough. You people aren't stupid and can figure the rest out on your own, simply by doing a little reading about bills that have been recently passed by our Leaders, and connecting the dots. I will make you one promise, though. Three more years of Booshco and we are at either Option #1 or Option #2. These are our choices. Neither one looks very attractive to me, and hopefully not to you either. The Neocons hope that we can reach Option #2 before Option #1 occurs, but they realize that it is literally a race against time.

Now, please hang with me over the next few days. We'll begin to tackle how to dismantle the potential disaster that confronts us. There are ways out of this, but none will be easy. Nor painless. And, like the neocons, we are literally in a race against time. See you tomorrow or Wednesday.

Cyclone

From Murph: The New World Order

Here is a new post from Murph.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER (NWO)

The concept of a one world government has been around for a very long time now. I remember it was talked about in the 60's. It seemed like such a great idea in many ways; An end to war and national ideologues, a more equitable distribution of resources and wealth. You can find a bunch written on it at the library and on the web. What is difficult to find though, is how it is to be implemented and what the nuts and bolts would look like. In essence, the United Nations would administer the one world government, under the direction of the U.S. since we are the one super power left at this time.

Part of this one world government has to do with military power. What edicts and rules are put forward have to be enforced, no matter who it hurts or benefits. That would mean that sufficient military presence by multinational military forces would have to be stationed all over the world, and be able to deploy to any location where there was resistance to the world government.

From what I have learned, the U.S. is already preparing for this. What I am going to tell you about sure has the surface appearance of right wing-nut propaganda. But bear with me. If you try and do searches with multiple search engines on the presence of U.N. troops stationed on U.S. soil, you will find you will have to wade through a huge collection of side information that is not applicable. Now I just wonder if this is deliberate or not. I remember in the 70's reading about sightings of cargo on trucks, trains and unloaded transport planes in various locations throughout the U.S. ( with photos) that contained U.N. marked military hardware and vehicles, quite a number of them also with Russian markings. At the time, this was discounted as nut case stuff, debunked and discredited as the ravings of the KKK and other rather distasteful right wing organizations. Well, seemingly these reports were right.

It appears that we have, throughout the United States, bases with rather large contingents of foreign troops. In total they are over 200,000. Quite a large percentage of them are on the West Coast. These troops come from a wide variety of nations, some of them known for their rather blood thirsty military. There are multiple depots with foreign war equipment. Coupled with the rather extensively researched information about the new Halliburton detention camps scattered around the country, obviously something is about to take place. These troops, bases, detention camps and hardware are not here strictly for training purposes or for a socially benign reason.

So let us take a look at who is behind and how this new world order is progressing. Those of you that have been reading analysis' of the present state of affairs, putting it into historical perspective, including some of my previous writings, should be able to conclude that we are living in a Fascist state, and that most of the world is being pushed into it also. By this is meant the fusion of corporate interests and power with the system of governance, also called corporatism.

From all that I can ferret out, the prime mover in all of this can be traced back to the family of Rothschild. Not only is it the world’s most wealthy family, it is also huge. Located in most countries, the family in total controls somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of the total world’s wealth in all its forms. Now folks, if this information is correct, that is concentrated power. Also, according to what I have read, the Rothschild’s were responsible for the vast power of the Rockefeller family, the Morgan’s and many more, which of course means that they are beholding or responsible to the Rothschild interests.

This family has been around a very long time and has been very wealthy for most of it. For this post, I am not going to go into what is known about the very early history of the family. Suffice it to say that this family has been pursuing world domination for generations, and it appears that they are about to get it, and one of the vehicles is the United Nations.

So how do individuals and their families get in control like this? We can write volumes about it, but in essence, it comes down to societies valuing wealth over nearly any other value. Thus the wealthy can offer a piece of the pie for a favor or two and they are off and running. When this takes place, they have control and then it becomes a chess game to increase the wealth and the control that can be bought.

In my view, that is essentially what has happened. In America, it has reached a form of pathology that I cannot find parallels to in history. Nearly every aspect of our culture is about obtaining wealth and what it can buy, clear down to the small shop owner with power over his workers. If you have any doubts about this, start picking up business magazines and read carefully what they say concerning how to run a business and why you should consider moving your business to China or Mexico. Take a college course on business or one that deals with the subject. I’ve taken some of these courses. It is about control that is obtained by wealth. Why do you think that the labor unions are virtually powerless in this country? Why do you think that real wages for the blue collar workers have been decreasing for 5 years, while management increases has gone up exponentially? Why do you think that management is overjoyed with our porous borders with Mexico?

So, in the final analysis, the population of this country compromised any semblance of rational or ethics for the buck and the consequences are rather apparent. And, it has played right into the hands of families like the Rothschild's. As I have mentioned before, the propaganda, promises and lies did the convincing. But in the end, the people decided to buy into it. We have lost our ability to discern consequences of action and replaced long term goals with immediate satisfaction. This whole new world order in its idealistic form sounded too good to be true, we bought it anyway, and the first step is to take away the ability to look at consequences. That was begun in the 19th century by the corporations influencing, and in many cases taking over, the educational system. Don't believe it? There is excellent research out there on this subject. Take a look at; “Education And The Rise Of the Corporate State” by Joel Spring, or “The Nationalization Of the Masses” by George Mosse, or “The Sorting Machine” by Joel Spring. Who do you think has the power to decide what goes into text books? Who decides curriculum today? Who decided on the standardized multiple choice tests that students are saddled with today? Corporations and the stooges in government. Thus a case is made for well done home schooling. How else do you think that a man with an IQ of 91 can be elected to the presidency? http://www.lovenstein.org/report/