“Of Incorrigible Transgressors, Tacit Complicity, and Lady Justice’s Conspicuous Absence”
by Jason Miller
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
—Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
Baghdad’s kangaroo court has issued a verdict that virtually guarantees that Saddam Hussein will launch his journey into the hereafter from the platform of a gallows. Convicted of “revenge killings of 148 people, deportation of 400, and razing of orchards,” (1), and still facing a charge of genocide that resulted in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, Hussein is undoubtedly a malevolent individual.
Yet to ensure public furor against Hussein (and to distract the hoi polloi from focusing upon those guilty of similar crimes), the corporate media have conveniently jettisoned several important aspects of history down the Memory Hole:
- Hussein committed his crimes with the tacit approval and complicity of the United States government because he was waging a war against their enemy, Iran.
- Numerous members of our own power elite (Democrat and Republican alike) share responsibility for an ongoing United States genocide against the Iraqi people that began with the Gulf War (2).
- The Iraqi administration prosecuting Hussein conducts its purportedly “sovereign” governance in a nation occupied by 140,000 US troops.
- And perhaps most disturbingly, the United States is rife with government officials of varying capacities, both active and retired, who have committed crimes as egregious as those of Saddam. Acting with impunity and actually deriving prosperity from their transgressions, these individuals have historically ridden off into the golden hue of the setting sun, pausing just long enough to turn and flash a sneer at their would-be jailers or executioners.
If the US criminal class did actually face the Hammurabic style of justice they have imposed upon their former ally, Bush, Kissinger, and a number of other revolting miscreants would find that simply surrendering their sight and capacity to chew would fall well short of satisfying the Babylonian arbiter.
And what punishment could an international tribunal impose upon the American Empire’s ruling elites to balance the scales of justice by retribution?
Nothing short of shattering their cervical vertebrae with 1000 pounds of force, reducing them to asphyxiated corpses devoid of the capacity to cause more suffering. After days of twisting in the wind, unable to fend off persistent molestation by an array of avian scavengers, their decayed corporeal shells would be hastily laid to rest in rickety pine boxes buried in a potter’s field.
Now that would restore the gleam in Hammurabi’s eyes and probably inspire him to dance a frenetic jig of mirth.
But despite obvious signs of decay, the world still belongs to the American Empire. And it is doubtful that the ancient law-giver will be enraptured any time soon.
Representing the victors in the struggle for global supremacy, reprehensible individuals like Donald Rumsfeld can engineer the liquidation of horrifying numbers of human beings while blithely dismissing their victims as “collateral damage” in “just wars”.
When the Empire’s architects of conquest set their sites on sorely over-matched nations like Vietnam or Iraq, infants are butchered and obliterated. Women are raped and eviscerated. Men are decapitated and mutilated. Children are mangled and dismembered. Innocent human beings are imprisoned and tortured. Millions of people are displaced. Infrastructures are decimated. Resources are plundered. Environments are severely contaminated….Hell is unleashed.
Consider just three examples of such US perpetrators (an analysis which does not even smudge the surface, let alone scratch it):
Henry Kissinger is responsible for the deaths of over a million human beings as a result of his machinations in Cambodia, Greece, East Timor, and Chile.(3) He received the Nobel Peace Prize.
As Ambassador to Honduras (under Reagan) during US interventions to remove a leftist government in Nicaragua, dedicated imperialist John Negroponte was “directly complicit in the murder of at least 184 Honduran civilians officially found to have been killed by the death squad by a 1994 Honduran truth commission.”(4) George W. Bush subsequently appointed him as Ambassador to the UN, then as Ambassador to Iraq, and finally to his current position as National Intelligence Director.
And what of George W. Bush? His well-documented lies, defiance of the UN, and violations of the US Constitution have caused considerable carnage in Iraq. By October of 2004, between 10,000 and 100,000 thousand Iraqis were dead [depending on which estimate one believes](5). In November, Bush was granted another four years to continue wreaking havoc and annihilating innocents.
Naturally, a rational mind demands to know how such insanity and iniquity can persist.
It is quite simple, really. Corporate-controlled media in the United States put Orwell’s Ministry of Truth to shame. Slicing, dicing, and liquefying with an efficiency exceeding that of a commercial grade Cuisine art, they deftly reduce information to intellectual pablum for the multitude of minds they have systematically stunted.
Sustained from birth on this adulterated concoction, psyches inculcated with the notions of US entitlement and superiority clamor desperately for more of their perpetual delusion’s lifeblood. Starved for nutritive doses of truth and depth, minds gorged on sound bites and pornographic images blended with select cuts of the finest propaganda billions of dollars can buy suffer the malaise and sloth of an obese individual addicted to fast food. Intellectually submissive, they reflexively embrace the asinine mythology perpetuated by the MSM.
Hence, many US Americans recently perceived a “seismic shift” in the political landscape and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Democrats “rode to our rescue” by wresting control of Congress from the evil GOP.
So despite the stark reality that the Democratic Party is simply another vehicle of corporate interests which has spawned as many malefactors as the Republicans:
- A Democratic Congress is going to right the wrongs of the Bush Regime and make the world “safe for democracy” once again?
- Nancy Pelosi is going to oversee the restoration of a semblance of ethical conduct by the US government without even attempting to impeach men guilty of virtually innumerable crimes against our Constitution and against humanity?
- Our “savior Dems” are going to bring the troops home from Iraq when they insist on framing the mistakes of the Bush Regime in strategic rather than moral terms?
After reflecting on those questions, contemplate the fact that with the proliferation of democratically elected indigenous Latin American leaders who are implementing policies which defy the US brand of rapacious Capitalism, the bellicose fascists in the Bush Regime are preparing to tighten the screws.
From the USA Today on 11/9:
“Concern about leftist victories in Latin America has prompted President Bush to quietly grant a waiver that allows the United States to resume training militaries from 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries.”(6)
Translation: After a brief respite from years of misery, torture, and death inflicted by the United States and its proxy dictators, the people of Central and South America are poised to suffer renewed collective punishment for daring to establish governments that reject the exploitation and economic manipulation of the US Corporatocracy.
No wonder the Decider brought Negroponte back into the fold.
While many US Americans of conscience may be pacified with the Democratic revival, Chavez, Morales, Ortega, and their people aren’t counting on Pelosi to save them. They know the Dems will be too busy applauding the execution of genocidal tyrants like Saddam Hussein and fulfilling Ms. Pelosi’s pledge to “work together to find a new solution” with benevolent humanitarians like George Bush.
(1) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1106/p01s01-woiq.html
(2) http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/13/2006/1834
(3) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/HKissinger.html
(4) http://ww4report.com/negropontedeathsquad
(5) http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/iraq.deaths/
(6) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-09-waiver_x.htm
Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at a homeless shelter. He welcomes constructive correspondence at willpowerful@hotmail.com or via his blog, Thomas Paine’s Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
