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Just Like a Movie
By John Weir
On Sunday, December 7, 1941
the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked American Naval forces docked
in Hawaii. President Roosevelt addressed the nation on the radio
condemning the "sneak attack" with a speech now known to have been
written a day before the Japanese bombs started to drop.
Americans, the majority of whom didn't want to fight in another
foreign war after being so disappointed in the outcome of the last
one, got behind Roosevelt and marched off to war. The fact that
the Japanese attack came as a result of an American ultimatum to
Japan and the cutting of Japanese oil supplies didn't seem to matter.
Americans didn't question what the U.S. State Department had been
doing up to that point. They thought their country was minding its
own business and was now threatened by Japanese aggression.
ASLEEP IN THE BACK SEAT
Most Americans were minding their own business,
but their government wasn't. What looked to people, who weren't
paying attention, like Japanese expansionism and a threat to the
American way of life, was actually an attempt to cripple the U.S.
Navy in the Pacific. The Japanese sought to guarantee their supply
lines after the U.S. State Department demanded that Japan quit her
imperial colonies on the Asian continent. The American demand on
Japan was based on the U.S. desire to open trade with China, which
Japan regarded as being within her sphere of influence.
America was rallied for a fight with evil. The people were told
Japan and Germany wanted to take over America, if not the world.
These lies were time-tested and continue to work today.
Four and a half years and several million horrific deaths later,
Japan surrendered. Afterward, China went communist and trade with
that country, which never amounted to much, ended. Millions more
Chinese died. The U.S. Navy took over the job of protecting Japanese
supply lines in the Pacific Ocean. It is odd how things work out.
If the U.S. had offered to protect Japanese oil supplies in exchange
for her scrapping the Imperial Navy and permission to trade in China
instead, maybe ... My brother tells me such musings are called "counterfactuals"
by political scientists.
ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS
Three generations later, New York's World
Trade Center was destroyed in another air attack--this time by "Muslims."
That is about as descriptive as one can get about the perpetrators
of the attack. Media spokesmen ask, "How could this have happened?"
That is, however, the wrong question. The media understands that,
but fears that asking the right questions will deliver answers that
they won't like.
Someone concluded that it could happen because there were plastic
knives in airport restaurants. Therefore, in order to defeat terrorism,
everyone should henceforth eat with their hands. Plastic knives
were quickly banned from airport eateries and airliner kitchens.
Will sporks be next?
This is the same sort of logic that was used to ban the purchase
of firearms through mail order after it was learned the rifle used
to shoot President Kennedy was purchased through the mail. Has this
restriction prevented the shooting of Martin Luther King Jr., George
Wallace, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, Larry Flynt or a host of others?
No, but it has kept me from buying a squirrel gun through a catalog
and have U.P.S. deliver it to my home. It is hard to understand
how that makes anyone safer. Yet--over thirty years later--the law
stands despite its impotence.
A long list of such pointless restrictions could be made. People
are too willing to trade their liberty for "security." In the end
all that happens is their liberty is lost. The President requests
patience while more American liberties are put into protective custody.
It is doubtful we will ever see them again.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, so "how" is only limited
by the human imagination. Removing one method will not prevent another
from appearing when there is a motive. The media should therefore
be asking instead, "Why did this happen?" The reasons then need
to be picked apart until an answer appears which will prevent future
attacks on America while at the same time not restricting the liberty
of U.S. citizens and, hopefully, not requiring the loss of more
American lives.
EXCELLENT SPECIAL EFFECTS
Witnesses to the destruction repeated that
what they saw was just like a movie. Commentators compared the attack
to Pearl Harbor - a surprise attack on American soil and the topic
of a recent Hollywood production. While they were thinking PEARL
HARBOR, others were thinking STAR WARS as the Empire's twin-towered
"death star" crashed to the ground.
Why? Why would anyone see it that way? Americans were minding
their business and then ka-boom. There was so little happening here
that the hunt for a missing government intern who was screwing a
married man old enough to be her father had dominated the national
news for months. In the background, Israelis and Palestinians continued
to shoot and blow each other to pieces. Nobody paid much attention
other than to plan to vacation somewhere other than Israel. Most
Americans don't believe it has much to do with them. Bill Clinton
ran his 1992 campaign on domestic issues, because he knew Americans
don't pay attention to international relations. They know little
about their country's foreign policies and they really don't care.
Come election time, Americans will vote for a candidate based
on the issue of abortion, gun control, Social Security, health care
and a dozen different other issues, but for everyone--other than
perhaps a small group of Zionists--foreign policy doesn't measure
high in polls. Zionist Jews, however, are well organized and politically
active. They contribute to candidates. They are involved in the
political parties. When it comes to foreign policy, they have no
domestic competition in setting the agenda.
WHORE OF BABYLON
While Americans worry about things at home,
their representatives send billions of dollars every year to countries
in the Middle East to keep "our friends" in power. Even though Jonathan
Pollard spied for Israel and Israelis have spied on U.S. government
officials since the Carter administration or before, Congress still
contributes four to seven billion dollars to the Zionist cause every
year. This is true in spite of the fact that U.S.-made weapons are
used by Israel to kill civilians in violation of agreements. And
sales of these weapons continue despite Zionist misbehavior: Lockheed
announced a week before the towers collapsed the sale of 52 new
F-16 fighter planes to Israel.
"Sale" really isn't the proper term however. "Gift" would be
more accurate since U.S. tax payers will foot the bill -- Congress
will vote the money to give to Israel which will in turn pay Lockheed
for the planes which Israel will use in its terror campaign against
Palestinians and other Arabs.
Israel has been called America's friend. The argument is made
that America must support its friends. There is term for buying
a relationship in this manner, and it is illegal in most states.
Israel is only a "friend" because Israel wants the money. Foreign
aid is a source of corruption. It corrupts the giver as well as
the receiver. There is no good reason to continue supporting Israel.
The U.S. gets nothing from this relationship - except the tab.
IS IT STILL WORTH IT?
If America's supplying of Israel with the
weaponry to terrorize her neighbors was the only problem with our
Middle Eastern policy, it might be more easily remedied, but there
is the matter of Iraq and the last ten years of sanctions against
that country. An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis, mostly children,
have died as a result of our campaign against Saddam Hussein. Hussein
is fine, of course, but a lot of kids are dead because of our government's
actions and policies.
Several years ago, Clinton's future Secretary of State, Madeline
Albright commented that 500,000 dead Iraqi children were "worth
it." There has been no change in policy in the time since Albright
made her comment. It can be concluded that the State department
thinks 1,500,000 dead Iraqi children are worth it. Now over five
thousand Americans have also lost their lives. Is it still worth
it? As angry as Americans have become over 5,000 deaths, how much
hatred would they muster if over one and a half million deaths were
suffered? Why would Arabs act differently?
HATE WEEK
Even though the names of the hijackers were
not immediately known, the name and image of Osama bin Laden was
almost immediately pulled from the news archives and displayed on
all the Television networks in direct association with the image
of the destruction in New York. America needed a focus for its anger
other than the U.S. Federal government which has bungled its foreign
policy in a way only out done by its domestic policy. So as a diversion
from Washington's bad policy that has led to the murder of over
5,000 Americans, the public has been treated to an Orwellian "hate
week" with an Arab living in Afghanistan serving as Goldstein.
The American people, notorious for their short attention span,
has been fed the lie that Arabs and Muslims hate America because
America is free, powerful, rich, and successful. Are Americans supposed
to believe what the United States has done with its blessings the
last half-century in the Middle East has had nothing to do with
the attitude cultivated there toward the U.S.? An arrogant U.S.
policy that has ignored the Palestinian refugee problem, encouraged
Zionist tyranny in Lebanon and the occupied territories is more
likely at the root of the problem. It has also enforced misery in
Iraq for a decade. Surely that has also been a motivator.
Our representatives appearing in the media have the audacity
to tell Americans that the hostility emanating from Asia Minor is
toward "our way of life." This is not only an insult to our intelligence;
it is an insult to the American way of life. The attack was from
their bad foreign policy, not the American lifestyle.
CONCLUSION
As citizens, Americans have to be aware of
what is being done in their name and with their money around the
world. Our country's representatives must be held responsible -
in a real way - for abuses committed in America's name.
Actions have consequences. Former Attorney General Janet Reno
cynically told the American people that she took full responsibility
for the botched raid on Mount Carmel in Texas. Then she did not
resign. There was no punishment of anyone for the deaths that resulted
from her mistakes. For our government officials, accepting blame
had come to mean nothing. Being responsible the tragic blunder and
being held accountable for it were two different things.
Two years later a bomb destroyed a government building--killing
hundreds more innocent people--in Oklahoma city by a man motivated
by what he saw as his government's murder of innocent people in
Texas and its cavalier attitude toward the result of its actions.
The government was to be accountable and not just responsible.
Now what has been happening outside the American consciousness
in America's name has motivated others to kill more innocent people
--this time in New York City.
American citizens can't control what foreign people and governments
do. Hating them is not productive either. The practical cure is
to pay closer attention to what our representatives do with our
money and in our name. Stay informed not only what it happening,
but who in the U.S. government is implementing policy. Contribute
to their election campaigns or to that of their opponents. Vote.
Hold them accountable in a way that will affect their actions. It
is more than just the economy, stupid. Lives depend on an alert
electorate. Be alert.
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Bradley R. Smith, Publisher 