Somebody Needs To Say It - They Died For Nothing

The propaganda began immediately after George W. Bush was sworn in for his first term, in January of 2000. Small two and three paragraphed blips began appearing in the back pages of the big city conservative rag that passes for a newspaper in the corner of Southern California where I live. Once or twice a week, regularly, the small articles vilified Saddam Hussein. I thought it strange since not much attention had been paid to Saddam Hussein in the years prior to George W. Bush's being elected president. The news from Iraq had centered instead on the Sanctions and the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children due to malnutrition and the lack of medicine.

Suddenly, it was all about Saddam yet the only thing that had changed was the American president. "Saddam is a really bad guy who still rules in Iraq....." and the next paragraph would describe the wrong doing. "Hussein was a worse monster than anyone ever imagined", an article several days later would proclaim. "We really have to do something about this Saddam guy"....the next little propagandistic blip would urge.

I call this propaganda technique "seeding". Barely noticeable seeds of information or misinformation are dropped here and there, in the media, over a long period of time. Gradually, the subject moves to mention in the mainstream media, and finally, after a heavy application of fertilizer, the plant bears political fruit which the "conditioned" public is ready to bite. And bite it did after 9/11 when the Bush Administration's Great Lie ripened into the American War on Iraq.

There were several invalid reasons for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, all of them selfish, and all for political, financial, or personal gain. Shock and Awe (when you are helping people, you do not name your action "Shock and Awe") and the on-going war have never been about the Iraqi people.....they were simply in the way: collateral damage, too unimportant to count.

Israel wanted Saddam Hussein removed from power along with any Iraqi weaponry. The military-industrial interests of the United States stood to make huge profits from the sale of everything from uniforms to weapons and gas masks. George W. had a personal reason. He had inherited the Bush family genetic predispostion for vindictiveness. George would enforce regime change upon the Iraqi people to punish Saddam for disloyality to the Bush Dynasty, correct what he saw as his father's failure to remove Saddam, and prove himself a man while doing so. This war originated in the American Neo-conservative movement who's members include Israel-first Zionists, Christian fundamentalists, those with oil interests, defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, Halliburton (building and secure the oil contracters), and bankers.

The American - Israeli attempt to dominate the entire Middle East has failed miserably, instead producing millions of angry, anti-American Arabs. Americans were told Saddam was a direct and dangerous threat to the North American continent. Americans were told that we needed to fight for our freedom over there. Lies, all lies.

During the rush into the War against Iraq, I said many times that it was an unnecessary war of choice, and that thousands of innocent people would be maimed, or die horrible deaths for nothing. American patriots along with people the world over took to the streets to stop this tragic, unjust war but Bush and the neo-cons prevailed cheered by a mass of mindless followers.

Over 1,700 American men and women have died in Iraq since Shock and Awe. Thousands more have been injured. They have lost limbs, suffer from PTSD, have killed themselves and have been reduced to life-long dependency on caretakers as the result of debilitating traumatic brain injuries.

No one seems to know how many innocent Iraqi people have been killed by this aggressive, hegemonic American war and what's worse: no one seems to care, except perhaps Al Qaeda, and the thousands of newly inspired suicide bombers throughout the Middle East.

Somebody has to say it so I am going to put it into words. They all died for NOTHING. I am a veteran. I said the same about the Vietnam war and the lies that led to so much human suffering and death. They all died for NOTHING! I do not say this to add hurt to the families who have lost a loved one. I say it because their loved ones would not have been killed if our leaders had not conspired to advance an Empire and lied to garner political support. We cannot allow this to happen again!

The best that can be said about our fallen troops is that they died to protect one another in a nightmare situation. What can we say about the Iraqi men, women, and children, who were, and are still, victims of this war?

The men and women in this administration responsible for this cycle of murder and misery must be held accountable. Impeachment is the first step supported by the evidence in the Downing Street memo. All who took part in the creation of this destructive war should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity before an international tribunal.

Somebody needs to say it so I will...They all died for NOTHING but the dreams and schemes of bad men.

...................Kitchen Window Woman..................