March 3, 2003
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I was there...
• When leaders of democracy and freedom were extremely economical with the truth • When devout Christians sought God's aid to slaughter Muslims they had never met • When special military forces of the North engaged opponents with overwhelming force • When Air Force pilots dropped WMD and were rewarded with a medal of honour • When claims for evidence were made in defiance of centuries of scientific and legal procedure • When thousands were made homeless because the price was worth paying • When bomblets were dropped disguised as emergency rations • When respectable colleagues in every discipline refrained from public comment • When trained interrogators of democracies engaged in unchecked torture • When the United Nations was cynically perverted and corrupted to dubious ends • When government policy became too important for public consultation • When associations supporting guns-for-citizens had the president's ear • When other countries were encouraged to disarm by every means • When official institutions became inherently untrustworthy • When governments promoted panic in order to ensure support • When democratic governments formally dispatched death squads to other countries • When blatant government greed for oil was cynically cloaked in the highest values • When hard work of decades on many fronts was shredded without challenge • When dissent from government policies was sanctioned as treason • When heroes were those who beat up any they chose to suspect • When all chose to forget dangerous historical parallels • When project funding suddenly became subject to political allegiance • When hit squads were dispatched to eliminate any form of opposition • When God's name was invoked as justification for every form of abuse • When considered intelligence service opinions were replaced by wishful thinking • When planting and fabricating evidence was ignored as a possibility • When allies formerly supplied with weaponry were transformed into enemies • When abuses of long-standing allies were systematically tolerated and compensated • When the trappings of democracy became a fraud for all to see • When corporations claming respectability were revealed as dangerously flawed • When only those with little to lose were willing to speak for those about to die • When religions failed to protest against acting violently in their name • When unimaginative good guys fed on movies were trapped in bad scenarios explored therein • When dialogue with opponents was excluded in favour of slaughter • When once again arms traders claimed innocence in supplying both sides • When nations were stampeded into war to guarantee re-elections and campaign debts • When those most complicit in perversity acclaimed the possibility of business as usual • When leading insiders once again ensured their financial advantage from war • When cynicism prevailed concerning humanitarian response to the aftermath • When perversion of good people and principles became the normal response to the unsavoury • When the wise in transcending polarization sought refugee in irresponsible silence • When dutiful soldiers were brainwashed into dishonourable combat • When media reports on every side became high exercises in spin • When the twisted initiatives of the "good" guys became more venal than those of the "bad" • When provoking undiscerning panic over terror became a weapon of mass distraction • When concerns of the world's peoples were set aside by flailing governments • When institutional leaders chose to live their lives in fear ...but I cannot remember what I did! · · · · · ·
Resources The 1991 Gulf War Rationale - Gilles d'Aymery Iraq on Swans Anthony Judge is Assistant Secretary-General, Director of Communications and Research of the Union of International Associations (Brussels, Belgium), a nonprofit clearing house founded in 1907 for information on over 40,000 international organizations and constituencies. This piece was first published on his own personal Web site, laetus in praesens. To learn more about Anthony Judge please read his bio. Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this article on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting a few paragraphs or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work. |
This Week's Internal Links
The Political Economy Of Oil And The War Against Terrorism - by Haider A. Khan
Daily Dose Of Anxiety, Fear And Aggression, Courtesy of The New York Times - by Gilles d'Aymery
Remarks to the Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement - by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz
Adam Smith Is Still On Our Side - by Milo Clark
Free-Style - by Michael Stowell
Making the World Safe for Oilgarchy - by Philip Greenspan
The Palette Of Fear - by Jan Baughman
Iraq's Economic Problems - Book Review by Tanweer Akram
Excerpt from Victims of Groupthink - by Irving L. Janis
War Sonata II - Poem by Kahnupad Haider