L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 266, April 11, 2004 Taxation is the Root of All Evil The Kaptain's Log
Exclusive to TLE "You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it..." So said Malcolm X. This quote is typical of brother Malcolm, who cut through the agitprop with plain speaking and clear thinking. His words are well worth pondering as we watch the unfolding unravelling of the latest US imperial scheme in Iraq. As I write this, on Thursday, the 8th of April, the Coalition of the Coerced is coming undone. The combined Shia/Sunni uprising is accelerating this process, and US hopes, of conning the UN or Nato or any other saviour of taking more of the casualties, are fading. The imperial forces are already talking about extending the "tours" of some 25,000 US soldiers who had been promised that they would be allowed to leave hell and go home soon. Those troops are not going to be happy campers. So, despite the fact that the current upsurge in fighting was the result of the dictatorial policies of the occupation "authorities" combined with the brutality of the frustrated US and British troops in Iraq, the imperial forces are going to react with massive violations of human rights in a desperate effort to annihilate the armed opposition to the occupation. That's stupid, of course, but what aspect of The War to Make the World Safe for Imperial Oil doesn't qualify as such? Anything like the level of brutality necessary for the "pacification" of Iraq will, of course, be a massive violation of the relevant Geneva Accords, international laws, basic human decency, and more than one of the Ten Commandments. A cursory glance at US activity in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and the Balkans makes it clear that the empire doesn't care about such inconveniences as human rights, however. So I predict that the US is about to begin a major slaughter of Iraqis. Hitler had to resort to such measures (to suppress what he called, interestingly enough, "terrorism") in the occupied lands of the Third Reich. The US empire will have no qualms about increasing its terrorising of Iraqi civilians. Which brings me to the quotation at the top of this article... these activities are war crimes and should be called such. The murder of unarmed demonstrators, the closure of newspapers, unannounced, warrantless searches and arrests and imprisonment without trial and theft and destruction of private property these are all policies of the occupation forces in Iraq, and they are war crimes. I call on all antiwar, anti-imperial forces and individuals to compile and publish evidence of these crimes (and, if my prediction is correct, they are about to grow in frequency and scope), and to besiege the UN, the US government, the International Red Cross, Amnesty International and everybody at the neighbourhood bar with these indictments. Of course, there's no international court which would dare stand up to the New World Order, but the individual criminals, from Bush on down to el generalissimo Ricardo Sanchez, should know that the people of the world are watching them and recording their crimes. Believe me, that is enough to make those swine sweat (yes, I know that real pigs don't have sweat glands, but the humanoid ones do). After all, why should the real terrorists sleep easily or feel welcome in any place where there are people who believe in...
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