Issue 114 - November 18 2004

 

Freedom Rider
American Terror
by Margaret Kimberley

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"The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Fallujah and we're going to destroy him." Col. Gary Brandl, U.S. Army

Ever since 2000 millions of Americans spent countless hours thinking, planning and working for the defeat of George W. Bush. John Kerry’s shortcomings were obvious, but progressives settled on him and went through with the match anyway. Their efforts were in vain because the people in power decided to stay there. After years of warnings about the dangers of electronic voting the Republicans hacked the system to make sure that King George stayed on the throne. 

Immediately after stealing an election a gang of thieves cravenly attacked the helpless civilian population of Fallujah, Iraq. What went through the minds of the Arab and Muslim world as they saw photographs of American soldiers “securing” a hospital, handcuffing physicians, nurses and patients? What did they think when they saw a photo of an American machine gun decorated with a rosary and crucifix? It is difficult to argue that America is not the land of the infidel.

The one institution that could have told the truth, from November 2000 through the present day, is the press. Instead they play their usual role of doing the bidding of the powerful by manipulating the public with triviality and falsehoods. The television networks and major newspapers ignored the story of the stolen vote and happily spread awful propaganda that has turned entire regions against one another by drawing dubious conclusions from a phony result.

The press tells us that we are hopelessly divided and we respond like Pavlovian dogs. Residents of red and blue states eye one another with suspicion because talking heads declare with certainty that one group sees the other as dim witted yokels or as snobby elitists out of touch with the heartland.

In the meantime the facts of election fraud go uninvestigated by the corporate media. The same pundits and reporters who give mind numbing analysis on anti gay marriage proposals neglect to tell us that vote tallies in Broward County, Florida defy the laws of physics and move backwards. They also dismissed the absurd story that Homeland Security ordered a vote count quarantine in Warren County, Ohio.

Democratic politicians assist in the peddling of foolishness. For four long years they obviously made no preparation to combat electronic vote fraud. The Democratic army of lawyers was clearly stationed at the wrong battlefield.

The Bushmen are diabolically clever. They didn’t know if Iraq was still playing to their advantage so they kept it off the evening news. Now they have been unleashed, unencumbered by a continuing vote count that might have kept them in check. They sneer that the majority of Americans have spoken in their favor and warn everyone else to go along and keep quiet.

Iraqis were terrorized in a place of healing because the same administration that told the world, “We don’t do body counts,” now accuses Iraqis of inflating civilian casualty figures. They either know how many Iraqis they have killed or they don’t. Who is the flip flopper now?

In any case, the world must be kept in the dark about who Satan has actually endorsed. The Bushmen can’t maintain a façade of liberating the Iraqi people if the truth is known about death and destruction in Fallujah. If that means manhandling physicians and keeping pesky aid workers and unembedded journalists out of a hospital so be it.

Just one week after the election the Bush administration not only resumed killing in Iraq, but also elevated one of the men responsible for the horror of torture and humiliation at Abu Ghraib. Alberto Gonzales has been nominated to serve as Attorney General. Gonzales should be a prisoner in the legal system, not the person in charge of it.

In his role as chief counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales gave the seal of approval to torture in Iraq and detention without trial at Guantanamo. Instead of being disbarred as he should have been he will now hold the highest legal office in the land. The Republican majority in the Senate assures him of his position, and some Democrats have already announced they will give Torquemada a pass because they don’t want to be seen as obstructionist.

An appeasement strategy can only lead to another defeat four years from now. Democratic supporters of the Gonzales nomination should get angry letters in their offices and dirty looks when they walk down the street. They should be snubbed when they pretend to pay homage to the memory of Martin Luther King and they must face primary challenges when they run for office.

If an advocate of torture becomes Attorney General the 55 million Americans who said no to Bush must unequivocally voice their disgust and anger with this shameful turn of events. If they don’t the word infidel will be synonymous with America, and it ought to be.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in   Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City.  She can be reached via e-Mail at [email protected]. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/

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