Wednesday, June 22, 2005

If My Home Is Invaded, Can I Shoot Back?


Over two years ago, the United States, under the leadership of a semi-literate and inarticulate, vainglorious and rigid, near-psychotic leadership and against the loudly proclaimed consensus of the rest of the civilized world, brutally invaded a sovereign foreign nation on the other side of the planet.

This foreign nation, Iraq, a former ally and recipient of American foreign aid dollars, had suddenly been proclaimed, based on fabricated evidence, “evil” and its leadership no longer worthy of existence. Further, on the basis that it owned valuable national resources that American corporations coveted, namely vast reservoir of crude oil, a National Emergency was declared by Executive Order 13303. Iraq’s cities were firebombed and laid waste and its citizens arbitrarily arrested or shot. A set of US stooges, including an indicted criminal, were installed in a puppet government after mock elections in which the electorate had no inkling as to who the candidates were until the very day of the elections. And, as amazing as it is to any rational human being, when the populace of that sovereign nation picked up arms and resisted that invasion and its resulting make-believe government, its citizens were proclaimed “insurgents” and “terrorists” and imprisoned, disappeared or “rendered. “

Leaving aside the sacking of the national treasury that this occupation is costing our country, the escalating animosity of the American people against its own government, the shredding of our Bill of Rights as an expediency in the “war on terror” and the transformation of the US’s persona into that of a rogue nation, the question has been raised, do these poor souls have the right to resist that occupation?

In an ordinary world, in a universe in which rationally prevailed, this question should not even have to be asked, but we apparently are not living in rational times, at least for this generation, ignorant as it is of world, that is to say, human history, and displaying an appalling lack of compassion. The sad fact of the matter is that arrogance and strength of arms have predominated in human affairs since the very beginning, when homo sapiens first encountered others who just happened to be standing too close to resources that the tribe wanted. They got wiped out. The entire history of the human race bears witness to this core fact.

Now the neo-conservatives have repackaged this human peculiarity into a philosophy, a mission and published their credo to the world. The United States is in the process of carrying out that mission, and woe to anyone who stands in the way. Astonishingly, even so-called American patriots and pundits have bought into this triumphal mission.

This mission, repackaged in fancy words and obfuscation, has as its primary goal the guardianship, nay, the ownership, of all the world’s most valuable resources, from it’s gold to it’s grain to it’s oil and to it’s to intellectual property rights. As an example of the latter, the neo-cons and their fellow travelers have usurped the English language, and in an Orwellian twist of logic, magically transformed reality into a place where failure is “mission accomplished,” quisling governance is “democracy,” hard-won international law is “quaint,” and dubbed persons who would resist their program as “insurgents” and “terrorists.”

Still, the magic wasn’t good enough to prevent the emergence of the smoking gun that reveals the cynical planning that went into this war for resources. This neo-con program has failed in its justification of this war for natural resources and yet the war goes on.

Not everyone agrees that this is the case, however, including almost all of the pundits and many so-called progressives, and, in their slippery grasp of reality, they wonder if in fact the Iraqi people have a right to their own resources, and whether they can justifiably defend their property, their homes, and not incidentally, their freedom.

So, the Question: does an invaded population have a right to defend itself against an aggressor? More specifically, do the Iraqis have a right to attempt to repel the American occupying army?

Well, do they?

Concepts in this article, in no particular order:

Self defense

Self-governance

Property rights/ownership of natural resources

Propaganda/deliberate misuse of language

Magic and misdirection

Hostile invasions

Misuse of government funds/national bankruptcy

Puppet governments

Civilization

Constitutionalism

Quislings

Executive orders

Democracy

Tyranny

Triumphalism

New American Century

Global capitalism

Personal responsibility

Freedom

If you are unfamiliar with any of these terms, try Google. You might be surprised at the results. And it's free.


No comments: