Spring in 2013

Spring in 2013

Spring is a wonderful and heavily joyful time of the year. It is a special era of the year where new beginning transpire and love can bloom obviously. The weather is just right or temperate. It is not too cold or too warm. The expression of art, music, dance, athletic, or any social or intellectual endeavor can sprout like the leaves from a tree. Society heavily has changed from even ten years ago. Yet, my core convictions from religious freedom and individual liberty are definitely inside of my conscience and inside of my heart. Certain events in my life remind me the preciousness of human life and the equal value among all peoples. For at the end of the day, it is not our differences that should be reviled. It our very differences and similarities that should be cherished and respected. All human beings breathe air, care for their neighbors, and desire equal opportunities and glorious equality to persist in this age of the twenty-first century. I will never give up for life is the avenue where excellent, transformative changes can occur in order for humankind to be blessed. Our gifts and talents are a signification that we have that great opportunities to fight poverty, to advance the rights of immigrants, to not discriminate, and to believe that human love is superior to state oppression. It is right to embrace the brilliant Holy Spirit and believe in redemption including salvation. All of us are not perfect, but we can have improvement in our daily conduct. It is no secret that we should always have a close eye on government. Institutional corruption is not only found in corporations or private institutions. It is found in many sectors of the government as well. It is not fair or right for the government to bailout the super banks of the elite and enable their fraud at the expense of the poor and middle class. Some have called this reality socialism for the rich and cut throat, sink or swim capitalism for everyone else. There has been a malignant merging or synergism between D.C. politicians and giant companies. We know we have a problem when the government spies on virtually every American and threatened to assassinate or indefinitely detain American citizens overseas. We know that President Barack Obama is not to be blamed for all of the evils in the world, but some of his policies are very similar to George W. Bush. President Barack Obama has continued many of the programs from Bush and Cheney from the Patriot Act to drone attacks in foreign lands that have killed innocent men, women, and children. It is not just to witness the government to have warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. There is still great inequality and harm to constitutional or human freedoms now. We ought to expose the real paradigm, warn humanity, and execute constructive solutions. Real solutions is better than the agenda of the globalists indeed. Mainstream Republican and Democratic parties are nearly identical on core issues. Each of them want to trample basic human liberties, they agree with launching preemptive wars of aggression, they want to redistribute the nation's wealth from the people into the super-rich (even some Democrats want to cut much of the social safety net), bailing out the big banks, each are funded by huge big corporate interests, etc. When you have the Fed and the Treasury looting bank accounts and taxpayer dollars, then we have a problem Houston. A new Pew poll shows that only 3 in 10 Americans trust their own government. Similar numbers have existed in other polls that spread across the political spectrum and demographic groups. Now, I will never be a reactionary. It is the FBI and the rest of the Intelligence community that terrorized not only Americans, but human beings across the globe via harassment, spying, and even assassinations or murder. Henceforth, as a human being, I will believe in economic justice (for we have a class struggle and the 1 percent has done great injury), equality, labor rights, rights for immigrants, the improvement of the environment, rights for all other minorities, and real activism. If we want to be real, we cannot ignore the conditions of ghetto and other poor communities of the world.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from 2011 found that 76% of Americans believe that the country's current financial and political structures favor the rich over the rest of the country. The Washington Post reported in 2011 that Congress was less popular than communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill or Nixon during Watergate. Now, we know about the weaknesses about Communism, but more and more we see the weaknesses of laissez faire cut throat capitalism (when the Maafa, Western imperialism, feudalism, etc. murdered millions of innocent human beings) as well. Cut throat capitalism has failed and an authoritarian form of Communism (when Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot murdered millions of innocent human beings in the 20th century alone. After a trip to China in 1973, David Rockefeller praised Mao Zedong) has failed as well. Yet, fascist like policies have been executed heavily by these internationalists. The good news is that we have alternatives like a mixed economy, commonwealth communities, cooperatives, etc. One of the reasons for our economic issues is that the world is too commercialized in the sense that the lust for wealth was glamorized instead of the love of God & our neighbors. We can't love money since money is a tool. It is neither man, Nature, nor God. Some have manipulated capitalism into a socially destructive avenue of imperialism and economic exploitation. Not everything should be treated as a commodity in the marketplace. Economic excess and hedonism financially contributed to the great depressions and recession throughout world history. Class oppression against the poor and the suffering ought to end fully. You can't have freedom without justice like social justice. Capital is never superior to Labor for there is a dignity in Labor. True spirituality including a living Christianity cannot live within laissez faire capitalism. Now, I am going to back down. I opposed the terrorism done by the CIA and any evil intelligence agency. I disagree with torture and I believe in fighting for true liberty and true freedom.

Some issues are used as wedge issues as a means to divide Americans while the oligarchy gets richer and richer. Wedge issues were exploited by numerous Republicans from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove as a means to deceive a majority of American in accepting reactionary policies. One example is how the Southern Strategy allowed human beings to vote against their economic interests. In the meantime, the GOP sought to maintain great reactionary powers in the old Confederacy. Much of this political agitation has been funded by Wall Street bankers, the Koch brothers, and some left gatekeepers have been funded by George Soros. We ought to address taxes, labor unions, federal regulations, and other like-minded issues. The interests of voters and all of humanity is needed not the plutocratic privilege of a select amount of human beings. It is also hypocritical for anyone to say that he or she disagrees with mass shootings, but agree with killer drones that have killed men, women, and children. Some want to use certain issues as a means to plan for more cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, child nutrition, food stamps, and Social Security -- which will inflict whole orders of magnitude more in the way of needless deaths and human suffering on all age groups than the gun crimes themselves, bad as these are. Likewise, it is wrong for those who claim to advance gun rights when they want to strip the American people of their economic rights. The reactionaries are wrong to demand an economy with low wages, no unions, no unemployment insurance, and virtually no social safety net. Overall U.S. standard of living including real wages has declined by about two thirds since the end of the Johnson administration. The deregulation and laissez faire globalization has influenced the rising consumer debt, the need for multiple jobs, the need to keep a home, etc. What we don't need are the extremes of neither tyrannical government nor neo-feudalism (which is made of a dismantling of real government).

We need efficient government that can help the masses of the people. Many libertarians like Ron Paul are right on much civil liberty issues, but are wrong to deny the American people the fundamental right to health care. Paul condemned parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He opposes the right of collective bargaining as natural rights. So, he is wrong on those issues. Despite FDR's flaws, he was right to fight for economic rights. He wanted an Economic Bill of Rights as said in his State of the Union address from January 11, 1945. FDR's proposed economic rights included a productive job; an adequate income for food, clothing, and recreation; a decent home for every family; adequate medical care; a good education; insurance for old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; protection for small businessmen against monopoly cartels; and parity prices for farmers. Radical libertarians will mostly not fight for these economic rights at all. That is why we need to have employment, wages, education, infrastructure, science, technology, and grow other parts of our land to have real economic development. A National Marshall plan for urban and rural communities suffering harsh realities is something that I will be for completely. The massive violence in the world is evil. One thing out of many to decrease this violence is a campaign that can eradicate poverty, grow unemployment, end poverty, decrease the amount of underemployment in the world, and handle other social related problems. A job creation program and a means to treat the causes of poverty not just the symptoms of it will grow our world. Therefore, whether we are male or female, we must continue to be strong, firm, compassionate, and courageous.

The 10th Year Anniversary of the Iraq War

It has been almost 10 years after the beginning of the Iraq War from March of 2003. Time is going fast since I remember 2003 like it was yesterday. I was in college as a Sophomore when the Iraq War came about. I was 100 percent opposed to the Iraq War in June of 2003. We know about the many lies that were created as a justification to start the war in the first place. The massive genocide in Iraq lasted for over two decades with sanctions, war crimes, and bombings by the West including others in the nation of Iraq. The truth is that Iraq never had tons of fully functional weapons of mass destruction that could have threatened neighboring nations let alone the nation of America. The Iraq War was illegal and immoral. It was an unique pre-emptive war. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said that they were wrong on the politicized information. It was bigger than that. The neo-cons wanted an Iraq War years before 2003 via their PNAC document· Then Secretary of State James Baker's vow to: "reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age" was being minutely executed over what was to become a forty three day blitz, which morphed in to a thirteen year, vicious, murderous, one sided war of attrition and ultimately illegal invasion and occupation. The Iraqi Holocaust massively began in 1990 with the advent of the Persian Gulf War. Dr. Polya, who has filed a Formal Complaint with the International Criminal Court, stated that:

"The Iraqi Genocide – still continuing under Nobel Peace Laureate Obama – is of a similar magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation)…"

They fabricated the information like the Yellow cake from Niger document· That document was forged. Much of the information shown by Wilkerson and Colin Powell was fabricated as a mean to create buzz for the preemptive Western war in Iraq. America did not just participate in this imperialism, but the UK and other nations as well. Millions of Iraqis have died by the UN approved sanctions and the war itself against the human beings of Iraq. We know the truth now more than ever. This war of aggression included many war crimes and crimes against humanity in general. We wasted billions of dollars in the war when alternatives can be made in order for the Iraqi situation to be resolved. Even the Japanese exposed the names of their major criminals. A lot of folks in America sit back and act like nothing occurred when men, women, and children died needlessly as a result of imperial aggression. Tenet, Powell, and others knew what they were doing when they expressed their distorted testimonies in the United Nations. Then Secretary of State Colin Powell was wrong to assume that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and that he wants to make more of them. Colin Powell now wants to make regrets about the situation. Whether you agree with his sincerity or not, the Iraq War was an evil endeavor indeed.


The decimation of Afghanistan existed too. Many soldiers like Joshua Key from his 2007 book entitled, "The Deserter's Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq" wrote that he apologized to the people of Iraq because of the injustices that transpired against the human beings of Iraq. Joshua was from Guthrie, Oklahoma. He joined the U.S. Army in 2002. He wanted to make enough income to support his young wife and children. He at first believed in the Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein was threatening America with terrorism and WMDs. In the first nine months of the war, he changed his mind. He deserted the military and soon returned to America. He went into Canada since that was a sanctuary for many deserters. Other deserters came to America to face lengthy prison sentences and dishonorable discharges. He co-wrote the book with Lawrence Hill as his memoir. Ex-President George W. Bush wanted to invade Iraq explicitly immediately after 9/11 in 2001. Bush Jr. ordered the CIA and his senior military commanders to draw up detailed military plans for the invasion of Iraq immediately after 9/11. This is ironic since the Americans and the Saudis actually backed Iraq during its eight year war against Iran from 1980 to 1988. America alone sold Iraq fifty billion dollars worth of weapons when Bush Sr. was President. Margie Burns writes that the U.S. Department of Commerce licensed 70 biological exports to Iraq between 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax. Under President H. W. Bush, shipments continued four more years, after the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988. So, some of the WMDs in Iraq came from the Western nations. Today, the Iraqi nation is exploited by corporate interests, terrorists, and other nefarious interests. After Iraq, we have Western attacks I Libya, Mali, Somalia, Yemen, and other nations suffering occupation, imperialism, drone attacks, or other nefarious activities done to them (by the military industrial complex).

The Iraq War was evil for numerous reasons indeed. The Iraq War was wrong. It was a war of aggression. There were no WMDs in Iraq that could threaten American soil and there was no firm collaborative link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in an extensive fashion at all. We know that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq long before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. We know that this invasion even violates the UN Charter. The U.S. signed this Charter back in 1945 after WWII. The Charter allows nations to use military force against another nation only in self-defense or with Security Council permission. Yet, the U.S. led invasion was neither satisfying some condition of the UN Charter. It was a war of aggression, which makes it a crime against peace that the Charter wanted to prevent. Bush Jr. said that the war in Iraq was needed as a means to protection Americans from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction or WMDs. The neo cons wanted to further politically dominate the oil rich Middle East. This is easily documented in the September 2000 report prepared by the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The report, commissioned by Dick Cheney, outlines a plan "to maintain American military preeminence that is consistent with the requirements of a strategy of American global leadership." It notes that while "the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." There was another document, which was produced for Vice President Dick Cheney's secret Energy Task Force. The document had a map of Iraqi oilfields, refineries, pipelines, and terminals including charts (that described Iraqi oil and gas projects). The "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" was another document that was dated on March 2001, which was six months before 9/11 and 2 years before Bush invaded Iraq. By early 2003, the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power. Yet, they wanted to also attack Iraq all along. So, they sold the war on the lies of weapons of mass destruction, ties to al-Qaeda in a hardcore level, and its complicity indirectly with 9/11. An August 2006 report prepared at the direction of Rep. John Conyers, Jr. found that "members of the Bush Administration misstated, overstated, and manipulated intelligence with regards to linkages between Iraq and Al Qaeda; the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iraq; the acquisition of aluminum tubes to be used as uranium centrifuges; and the acquisition of uranium from Niger." The report also noted that "[b]eyond making false and misleading statements about Iraq's attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, the record shows the Bush Administration must have known these statements conflicted with known international and domestic intelligence at the time." So, it is known that the Bush administration overstated or misstated intelligence information about chemical including biological weapons. The report concluded that "these misstatements were in contradiction of known countervailing intelligence information, and were the result of political pressure and manipulation." In other words, the Bush regime misused the information about the WMD threat as an excuse to invade Iraq. On 9/11, the Bush administration was told in the President's Daily Brief that the intelligence community had no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime has anything to do with 9/11. There was scant evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties to al-Qaeda. The reason is that Hussein ran a secular government that suppressed religious activity while al-Qaeda was made up of religious extremists. The Bush administration still said that Iraq aided al-Qaeda members. Although the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) determined in February 2002 that "Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical or biological weapons] knowledge or assistance." A February 2002 DIA memo said that al-Libi gave American interrogators false material about Iraq training al-Qaeda to use weapons of mass destruction. al-Libi's false testimony was one major part of Colin Powell's now discredited February 2003 claim before the United Nations that Iraq had developed WMD programs. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld wanted plans to attack Iraq as early as 2001. Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz argued that war against Iraq might be "easier than against Afghanistan." The 9-11 Commission Report noted that as early as September 20, 2001, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith suggested attacking Iraq in response to the 9/11 attacks. In late November 2001, Bush instructed Rumsfeld to develop an Iraq war plan. "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?" Bush asked. "What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret." The Security Council never authorized the war in Iraq. The Western use of cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and white phosphorous gas were real weapons of mass destruction. Children have been injured and killed by these weapons. The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War (Geneva IV) classifies "willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health" as a grave breach. The US War Crimes Act punishes grave breaches of Geneva as war crimes. The Bush administration has committed war crimes with its use of these weapons. The Nuremberg Charter defines "Crimes against Peace" as "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing." Bush's war on Iraq is a war of aggression, and thus constitutes a Crime Against Peace. So, a war of aggression is still immoral and wrong as said by U.S Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.

Far too often, we ignore the UK responsibility in the immoral war in Iraq. We know about the American involvement in the Iraq War, but not the British involvement in striking detail in a lot of cases. We have folks like Foreign Secretary William Hague. He has an arrogant mentality, because he has made it a career of talking down to human beings. According to the Guardian, with the 10 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq coming up, he has written to his fellow Ministers and asked them not to discuss the case or the legality of the Iraq War. According to a source close to Hague: 'The foreign secretary has written to colleagues to remind them that the agreed position of the coalition government is not to comment on the case or justification for the war until Chilcot has reported. This is about allowing the inquiry to reach its conclusion, not having the government prejudge them. Hague might have forgotten that the long awaited Chilcot Inquiry cannot deliver its report. Once, it has been told in November of 2011 that the report will be delayed until the summer of 2012. The reason is that the Whitehall departments were continuing to block the disclosure of documents about the events relating to the invasion of Iraq. Chilcot's panel read all of the classified documents. They knew that it was vital that these documents must be revealed to the public. Without that intrepid action, the public wouldn't learn fully about the lesson about the error of the invasion of Iraq. The report would be delayed again as told on July of 2012. The inquiry panel was frustrated by Whitehall's refusal to release papers still being held in secret. These papers involved the MI6 and the government's eavesdropping center called GCHQ. Chilcot's letter to David Cameron referred to the sharp exchanges with the former cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell over disclosing details about the correspondence and conversations between Blair and Bush. This would illuminate Blair's position at critical points in the run-up to war. By late 2012, news about a further delay as the issue about showing the documents was still being fought over by the Inquiry and the Cabinet Office. So, the documents are postponed for publication until late 2013 or even in 2014. It is unknown to the wider public. The evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry document about how legal advice was ignored and vital human beings were excluded from discussions. Chilcot and his panel had to recall many folks like Tony Blair. The reason is that much of their previous evidence has been rubbished by other witnesses. Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, told the inquiry that the cabinet should have been told of the Attorney General's doubts about the legality of invading Iraq before Blair went to war.

Sir Gus, before he retired, was the one blocking the much sought after publication of the classified documents. Diss Blair with one hand and protect with the other is the of some. Hague desired to block all meaningful discussion on the justification or the legal basis for invading Iraq until Chilcot has delivered his report. The government including Hague's own Ministry though was blocking the very action Chilcot needs from them in order to finalize the report. Hague wrote a letter to the cabinet to make it clear that 'not prejudging Chilcot should not prevent [ministers] acknowledging the sacrifices of the armed forces.' On the other hand, it is true that the illegality of the invasion of Iraq will lead into the exploitation the military. The military was sacrificed on the altar of Blair's delusional ambitions not in the defense of the United Kingdom at all. Many Conservatives in the UK political system advanced gender inequality and voted to go into war. Some Labour MPs voted against the invasion. Yet, even some Labour members kept their heads down. The LibDems found one MP guilt of harming the course of justice and facing prison. Nick Clegg or the deputy Prime Minister discussed about the accusation of the former chief executive being accused of sexual harassment. If someone wants to support the troops, then don't lie to the troops about an unjust, illegal, and immoral war.

By Timothy