Let us pretend for a moment that the United States’ government — which we’ve caught in lethal lie after lie, whose financial credit is as shaky as the that of the homeowners its malfeasance forced into foreclosure, and whose worldwide empire relies on deception, torture and secret prisons — is finally and unprecedentedly telling the truth.
This blatantly unreliable source has long insisted that Osama bin Laden was the brains and bank behind 9/11. It now further alleges that despite repeated reports of his death or at least renal failure and other poor health, he nonetheless flourished in Pakistan. U.S. Navy Seals killed him there in a firefight Sunday.
Okaaaaaaay. I’m trying to figure out exactly which legal, constitutionally declared war counts him as a casualty. Because otherwise, the Feds murdered him.
Apologists for the American Empire might finesse the crime as an “execution.” But for what? No court of law ever tried or convicted Osama for 9/11’s atrocities; indeed, the Feds are unable to convince a substantial percentage of their own subjects that he pulled off the attack, so how likely is it their “evidence” would have withstood a jury’s scrutiny?
I’m also trying — but sadly failing -— to understand why it’s wrong for someone to have murdered 3,000 folks on 9/11 but heroic for the Feds to murder Osama, three men, and one woman on 5/1, let alone all the others their illegal, unconstitutional wars have massacred.
Alas, politicians who smeared anyone protesting their communism a few years ago as a “domestic terrorist” now tar us as “[in]decent” for questioning their right to murder – or the fact that they murdered at all, given the lack of a body.
This according to that arbiter of decency, Mike Huckabee. Perhaps your parents raised you to believe no decent person speaks ill of the dead or glories in the eternal damnation of a human being; Mike apparently missed that lesson: “Today Americans and decent people the world over cheer the news that madman, murderer and terrorist Osama Bin Laden is dead,” he gloated. “… It has taken a long time for this monster to be brought to justice. Welcome to hell, bin Laden.”
But that’s not all: Mike’s happy Our Rulers “brought” “this monster” “to justice.” He thereby warbles a common chorus. Also rejoicing at the “justice” of murder are Comrade Obama; Mr. Neocon Himself, Rudy Giuliani; our former führer, George Bush; playboy Bill Clinton; and corporatist Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Another guy thrilled with the U.S.’s decline from “land of the free” to “home of the Godfathers” is Tim Pawlenty, the presidential candidate who wants a shot at all of us after dictating to Minnesotans: “This is terrific news for freedom and justice. … Today, justice is done, but the fight against radical Islamic terrorism is not yet over.”
Of course it isn’t. Indeed, more astute neocons than Tim have assured us that the War on [So-Called] Terrorists [Who, Surprisingly Enough, Usually Turn Out To Be Former Allies No Longer Toeing the Line], like the One on Drug Users, will never end. Nor will the sexual assault at airports, the PATRIOT Act’s domestic spying, the tireless federal efforts to tag us with a national ID, or the other onslaughts against freedom that supposedly “protect” us from the terrorism that the Feds’ foreign meddling provokes. And now the murderers self-servingly fret that their slaughter of a man many Muslims admired might anger them enough to attack us. You guessed it: another excuse to steal more liberties. Indeed, “Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee,” concentrated the threat — and, obviously, any response to it — right here on the ol’ Homeland: “My concerns are the homegrown terrorists right now.”
Meanwhile, behold Our Rulers’ utter contempt for us in the silly, totally unbelievable lies they continue spewing. They dumped Osama’s body at sea? Oh, pu-leeeezzzze. Next they’ll claim they made the corpse walk the plank first. Not only did they allegedly exterminate their victim roughly 750 miles from the nearest body of salt water, but “a myriad of state and federal laws” regulate pitching the dead into Davy Jones’s locker. “Penalties for violating these laws are oppressive” — at least for you and me.
Imagine the disgust an earlier “terrorist” would feel for his murderous successors. George Washington took command of a mob of militia the British Empire condemned every bit as much as Our Rulers condemn Al-Qaeda. In both cases, the justice of the respective causes counted for nothing: only the combatants’ tactics mattered.
The farmers who shot at the British Army as it retreated from skirmishes in Lexington and Concord one fine day in April 1775 fired at those Redcoats from behind rocks and trees, sheds and fences. This was not only rebellion: it was murder in an age when governments defined “warfare” as armies advancing on one another across fields, firing volleys in the open, not from cover. This insanity arose from the musket’s technology: since the barrel wasn’t rifled, the shooter couldn’t control his ball’s path. Soldiers simply held the musket in front of them and fired without aiming. They mowed down opponents because the kings directing European warfare homicidally forced tight ranks of their serfs to march into that wall of death.
Americans sensibly disdained this royal tradition. Amateurs with inferior weapons evened the odds of challenging armed professionals by firing under cover.
Though this saved American lives, Britain and other nations would dismiss the colonists’ defense of liberty as mere murder until the Continental Army fought pitched, scripted battles like everyone else. So Gen. Washington and Baron von Steuben spent much energy and the horrific winter at Valley Forge training free Americans to stand, fight, and die à la European vassals.
Thanks partly to accidents of geography and timing — accidents that don’t bless Muslim countries today — this strategy succeeded. Americans defeated the British Army at its own game and won international recognition as an independent nation.
Muslims who want to free their countries from the American Empire may want to take a lesson and quit blowing up the taxpayers forced to finance the oppression.
I leave you with a happy thought from Mike Huckabee, of all people: “Let us all hope that [Osama’s] demise will serve notice … that the United States will be relentless in tracking down and terminating those who would inflict terror, mayhem and death on any of our citizens.”
No one inflicts more terror, mayhem and death on us than our own government. Track down and terminate away!
