Ghosts of America: At the End of Empire

Drifting overhead through two centuries
on warm summer breezes like butterflies
wisps of cotton from the cracked fingers of
black African hands with faces reflecting
over the oil-slicked seas to Ms. Liberty
likewise a heartbeat of drums in the distance
chanting a magical reality through ages
above monuments & asphalt horizons
challenging: "what planet are you from?"

Driving by us the limousine of J.F.K.
replaying that day in Dallas for every child
upon the screen of public conscience
in the silence at the back of the theatre
now our main feature the Twin Towers of NYC
amidst swirling clouds of demolition dust
we cannot hear the ghostly screams & truth
no mention made of Building 7 blowing up
collapsing in an obvious planned event

An army of youth in uniform with missing limbs
minds askew burning with shame & pain
line the corridors of our wars for "freedom"
trying to tell us the truth about dying
while secrets are swept behind screens
until our story becomes an avoidance
a series of shadows pasted over the truth
in the silence filled with spies & aliens
where the Bush family hides its Nazi fortunes

Entire cultures exist in America’s ghostlands
Native nations Hawaiians veterans refugees
the war machine grows armed with secrecy
money changes accounts billions behind us
noone dares mention the outstanding crimes
or murderous tactics & nuclear warheads
the unanswered questions about 9-11 so
we continue to tumble through time
in a CIA-spy clown-show culture of lies
we’re Alice the American in blunderland

Now ghosts of Rome join our legion
whispering warnings about wickedness
truth denied justice delayed war above all
until we are surrounded by ghosts & shadows
terrorized by ourselves into silence
allowing the killing to continue on & on
our bombs to be deployed & children
charged the future cost of colonial rule
because our truth is not being told
our destiny is measured by ghosts

"Buying the War," a documentary film from Bill Moyers, examines the media’s coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy. And four years after the invasion, Mr. Moyers wonders what has changed? Truthout provides the full documentary and a transcript of the program.

Listen and see if Servum’s words resonates with a child within yourself who wants the same thing.

Listen and take action.

"I am Only A Child"

A Must Watch 6 Minute Video

BBC - 05/08/2007 13:14:00 PM PDT
An attack by a US helicopter against suspected insurgents in Iraq has killed a number of children at a primary school, Iraqi security sources say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6637307.stm

Everything that opponents of a pullout say would happen if the U.S. left Iraq is happening already, says retired Gen. William E. Odom, the head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration. So why stay?

By William E. Odom

If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.

Here are some of the arguments against pulling out:

1) We would leave behind a civil war.

2) We would lose credibility on the world stage.

3) It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.

4) Iraq would become a haven for terrorists.

5) Iranian influence in Iraq would increase.

6) Unrest might spread in the region and/or draw in Iraq’s neighbors.

7) Shiite-Sunni clashes would worsen.

8) We haven’t fully trained the Iraqi military and police forces yet.

9) Talk of deadlines would undercut the morale of our troops.

But consider this:

1) On civil war. Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That’s civil war. We created the civil war when we invaded; we can’t prevent a civil war by staying.

For those who really worry about destabilizing the region, the sensible policy is not to stay the course in Iraq. It is rapid withdrawal, re-establishing strong relations with our allies in Europe, showing confidence in the UN Security Council, and trying to knit together a large coalition including the major states of Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, and India to back a strategy for stabilizing the area from the eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until the United States withdraws from Iraq and admits its strategic error, no such coalition can be formed.

Thus those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.

2) On credibility. If we were Russia or some other insecure nation, we might have to worry about credibility. A hyperpower need not worry about credibility. That’s one of the great advantages of being a hyperpower: When we have made a big strategic mistake, we can reverse it. And it may even enhance our credibility. Staying there damages our credibility more than leaving.

Ask the president if he really worries about US credibility. Or, what will happen to our credibility if the course he is pursuing proves to be a major strategic disaster? Would it not be better for our long-term credibility to withdraw earlier than later in this event?

3) On the insurgency and democracy. There is no question the insurgents and other anti-American parties will take over the government once we leave. But that will happen no matter how long we stay. Any government capable of holding power in Iraq will be anti-American, because the Iraqi people are increasingly becoming anti-American.

Also, the U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.

President Bush’s statements about progress in Iraq are increasingly resembling LBJ’s statements during the Vietnam War. For instance, Johnson’s comments about the 1968 election are very similar to what Bush said in February 2005 after the election of a provisional parliament.

Ask the president: Why should we expect a different outcome in Iraq than in Vietnam?

Ask the president if he intends to leave a pro-American liberal regime in place. Because that’s just impossible. Postwar Germany and Japan are not models for Iraq. Each had mature (at least a full generation old) constitutional orders by the end of the 19th century. They both endured as constitutional orders until the 1930s. Thus General Clay and General MacArthur were merely reversing a decade and a half totalitarianism — returning to nearly a century of liberal political change in Japan and a much longer period in Germany.

Imposing a liberal constitutional order in Iraq would be to accomplish something that has never been done before. Of all the world’s political cultures, an Arab-Muslim one may be the most resistant to such a change of any in the world. Even the Muslim society in Turkey (an anti-Arab society) stands out for being the only example of a constitutional order in an Islamic society, and even it backslides occasionally.

4) On terrorists. Iraq is already a training ground for terrorists. In fact, the CIA has pointed out to the administration and congress that Iraq is spawning so many terrorists that they are returning home to many other countries to further practice their skills there. The quicker a new dictator wins the political power in Iraq and imposes order, the sooner the country will stop producing well-experienced terrorists.

Questions for the administration: "Why do the Iranians support our presence in Iraq today? Why do they tell the Shiite leaders to avoid a sectarian clash between Sunnis and Shiites? Given all the money and weapons they provide Shiite groups, why are they not stirring up more trouble for the US? Will Iranian policy change once a Shiite majority has the reins of government? Would it not be better to pull out now rather than to continue our present course of weakening the Sunnis and Baathists, opening the way for a Shiite dictatorship?"

6) On Iraq’s neighbors. The civil war we leave behind may well draw in Syria, Turkey and Iran. But already today each of those states is deeply involved in support for or opposition to factions in the ongoing Iraqi civil war. The very act of invading Iraq almost insured that violence would involve the larger region. And so it has and will continue, with, or without, US forces in Iraq.

7) On Shiite-Sunni conflict. The US presence is not preventing Shiite-Sunni conflict; it merely delays it. Iran is preventing it today, and it will probably encourage it once the Shiites dominate the new government, an outcome US policy virtually ensures.

8) On training the Iraq military and police. The insurgents are fighting very effectively without US or European military advisors to train them. Why don’t the soldiers and police in the present Iraqi regime’s service do their duty as well? Because they are uncertain about committing their lives to this regime. They are being asked to take a political stand, just as the insurgents are. Political consolidation, not military-technical consolidation, is the issue.

The issue is not military training; it is institutional loyalty. We trained the Vietnamese military effectively. Its generals took power and proved to be lousy politicians and poor fighters in the final showdown. In many battles over a decade or more, South Vietnamese military units fought very well, defeating VC and NVA units. But South Vietnam’s political leaders lost the war.

Even if we were able to successfully train an Iraqi military and police force, the likely result, after all that, would be another military dictatorship. Experience around the world teaches us that military dictatorships arise when the military’s institutional modernization gets ahead of political consolidation.

9) On not supporting our troops by debating an early pullout. Many US officers in Iraq, especially at company and field grade levels, know that while they are winning every tactical battle, they are losing strategically. And according to the New York Times last week, they are beginning to voice complaints about Americans at home bearing none of the pains of the war. One can only guess about the enlisted ranks, but those on a second tour – probably the majority today – are probably anxious for an early pullout. It is also noteworthy that US generals in Iraq are not bubbling over with optimistic reports they way they were during the first few years of the war in Vietnam. Their careful statements and caution probably reflect serious doubts that they do not, and should not, express publicly. The more important question is whether or not the repressive and vindictive behavior by the secretary of defense and his deputy against the senior military — especially the Army leadership, which is the critical component in the war — has made it impossible for field commanders to make the political leaders see the facts.

Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried to unmask the absurdity of the administration’s case that to question the strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our troops. Most officers and probably most troops don’t see it that way. They are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size of the Army.

As I wrote several years ago, "the Pentagon’s post-Cold War force structure is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants." The Army, some of the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly "supported the troops." The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not firing his secretary of defense.

So why is almost nobody advocating a pullout? I can only speculate. We face a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now.Why are the Democrats failing the public on this issue today? The biggest reason is because they weren’t willing to raise that issue during the campaign. Howard Dean alone took a clear and consistent stand on Iraq, and the rest of the Democratic party trashed him for it. Most of those in Congress voted for the war and let that vote shackle them later on. Now they are scared to death that the White House will smear them with lack of patriotism if they suggest pulling out.

Journalists can ask all the questions they like but none will prompt a more serious debate as long as no political leaders create the context and force the issues into the open.

I don’t believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see.

Look at John Kerry’s utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign. He said “It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interest to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interest? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

The US invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of:

1) Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al Qaeda, positioned US military personnel in places where al Qaeda operatives can kill them occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America’s most important and strongest allies – the Europeans – and squanders US military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al Qaeda in Pakistan.);

2) The Iranians (who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight year war with Iraq.);

3) And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don’t really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war between the United States and most of the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.)

The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the US occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the US interest and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army’s senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people.

"There are people in Washington ... who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they’re looking for 10, 20, 50 years in the future ... the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region, and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that 10 years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq."
– former President Jimmy Carter, Feb. 3, 2006

For all the talk about timetables and benchmarks, one might think that the United States will end the military occupation of Iraq within the lifetimes of the readers of this opinion editorial. Think again.

There is to be no withdrawal from Iraq, just as there has been no withdrawal from hundreds of places around the world that are outposts of the American empire. As UC San Diego professor emeritus Chalmers Johnson put it, "One of the reasons we had no exit plan from Iraq is that we didn’t intend to leave."

The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130 countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose of defending the economic interests of the United States, what is euphemistically called "national security." In order to secure favorable access to Iraq’s vast reserves of light crude, the United States is spending billions on the construction of at least five large permanent military bases throughout that country.

A new Iraq oil law, largely written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is planned for ratification by June. This law cedes control of Iraq’s oil to western powers for 30 years . There is major opposition to the proposed law within Iraq, especially among the country’s five trade union federations that represent hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United States is working hard to surmount this opposition by appealing directly to the al-Maliki government in Iraq.

The attack upon, and subsequent occupation of, Iraq can be seen as a direct result of the 2001 National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as vice president Cheney’s energy task force) that was comprised largely of oil and energy company executives. This task force — the proceedings of which have been kept secret by the administration on the grounds of "executive privilege" — recommended that the U.S. government support initiatives in Middle Eastern countries "to open up areas of their energy sector to foreign investment." As Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International wrote last month in the New York Times, "One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve."

The people of the United States have indicated, in the national election last November and in countless polls, that they no longer support the Bush administration’s war. The Scooter Libby trial revealed that top administration officials, including the vice president, "cherry-picked" and distorted intelligence in order to sell a "pre-emptive" war to a spooked public. The squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars, some billions of which, according to Seymour Hersh writing in the New Yorker, is being siphoned into "black-ops" programs being run out of Cheney’s office (a stunning redux of Iran-Contra carried out by many of the same actors), has also strained the patience and credulity of the American people.

Another betrayal is the "contracting out" of "war-related activities" to corporations such as Halliburton, Bechtel, Chemonics and Blackwater. Halliburton, Vice President Cheney’s previous employer, calls itself an "energy services company" but has tentacles reaching into nearly every aspect of the war (originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation until some bright bulb among the Bushies realized that "OIL" might not be the best handle for this venture). Halliburton has also profited handsomely from no-bid government contracts awarded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the construction at the national embarrassment known as "Gitmo," and most recently, from the fiasco at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Unfortunately, all this corruption, mayhem and death are good for some (or it wouldn’t go on).

The U.S. military budget, larger than the military budgets of the rest of the world’s nations combined, continues skyward, even without all the "supplementals" passed regularly by Congress to fight the "war on terror."

The question we must ask as citizens is this: Is the United States a democratic republic or an empire? History demonstrates that it’s not possible to be both.

Lewis Seiler is president of Voice of the Environment. Dan Hamburg, a former U.S. representative, is executive director.

Shortly after the death of Hindenburg the Nazi took control of Germany and set up a parallel system of government separate from the regular German bureaucracy. This included:

a) Party police (SA, SS and Gestapo) functioning outside of regular police force chain of command
b) Party court system acting separately from the regular German courts
c) Concentration camps independent of the conventional German prison system

If these three points don’t sound familiar in modern day America, they should.

USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 included the creation of a new federal police force called the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division (USSSUD) to be headed by Department of homeland security Michael Chertoff (technically the USSSUD has been around a long time but was very limited in scope and the jurisdiction was limited to Washington DC).

National police force operating outside of regular police force chain of command, check.

The Bush administration now has the legal authority to use military tribunals for "enemy combatants." An enemy combatant can now be anyone the president decides, including American citizens. Of course the regular rights given to the accused including Habeus Corpus no longer apply.

Parallel court system to evade the regular American court system, check.

From Guantanamo Bay to secret prisons in Eastern Europe to Military brigs to FEMA camps on American soil. No shortage of places to put the “terrorists” or "enemy combatants" rounded up by homeland security and found guilty by the military tribunals.

Concentration camps outside the regular prison system, check.

These comparisons between Nazi Germany and America today are disturbing and are not limited to these few short points. The similarity between the Nazis and the neo-cons is not what concerns me because governments always strive toward greater power. The more frightening aspect is the similarities between the German people of the 1930’s and the American people of today.

Nazi archive to be opened

Obenliegend treiben durch zwei Jahrhunderte auf warmem Sommer saust wie Schmetterlinge Bündel von Baumwolle von den gebrochenen Fingern der Hände des schwarzen Afrikaners mit den Gesichtern, die ebenfalls über den Öl-slicked Meeren an Ms Liberty einen Herzschlag der Trommeln im Abstand mitteilen, der eine magische Wirklichkeit durch Alter über den schwierigen Denkmälern u. Asphalthorizonten singt: von "welchem Planeten sind Sie?" Durch uns die Limousine von J.F.K. fahren, das jetzt diesen Tag in Dallas für jedes Kind nach dem Schirm der allgemeinen Gewissenhaftigkeit in der Ruhe an der Rückseite des Theaters unsere Haupteigenschaft die Doppelaufsätze von NYC unter wirbelnden Wolken des Demolierungstaubes replaying ist, den wir nicht hören können, daß die gespenstischen Screams u. die Wahrheit keine Erwähnung vom explodierenden Einstürzen des Gebäudes 7 in einem offensichtlichen geplanten Fall bildete Eine Armee von Jugend in der Uniform mit fehlenden Gliedern kümmert, sich mit Schande seitwärts zu brennen u. füllte Schmerzlinie die Flure unserer Kriege für "die Freiheit", die versucht, zu erklären uns, welche, die Wahrheit über das Sterben, während Geheimnisse hinter Schirmen gefegt werden, bis unsere Geschichte eine Vermeidung ein Reihe Schatten wird über der Wahrheit in der Ruhe klebte, mit Spionen u. Ausländern, in denen die Bush Familie seine Nazi Vermögen versteckt Gesamte Kulturen bestehen Hawaiianer-Veteranflüchtlingen Nationen ghostlands Amerikas in den gebürtigen, welche die Kriegmaschine mit Geheimhaltunggeldänderungen Kontomilliarden hinter uns bewaffnet wächst, noone Erwähnung die hervorragenden Verbrechen oder mörderischen die Taktik- u. Kernwarheads die unbeantworteten Fragen ungefähr 9-11 wagt, also fahren wir fort, durch Zeit in einem CIA-spy zu stolpern Clown-zeigen Kultur von Lügen wir Alice der Amerikaner im blunderland sind Jetzt verbinden Geister von Rom unsere Legion, die Warnungen über Gemeinheit Wahrheit flüstert, verweigerten Gerechtigkeit verzögerten Krieg vor allem, bis wir durch Geister umgeben werden u. Schatten durch uns selbst in Ruhe terrorized, die Tötung auf fortfahren lassend u. auf unseren entfaltet zu werden Bomben u. Kindern die zukünftigen Kosten der Kolonialrichtlinie auflud, weil unsere Wahrheit nicht unser Schicksal wird gemessen durch Geister erklärt wird Biene Zee @ Bombshelter.org Vorstellung Wiederaufnahme Kollektivmauna Kea Mutterschiff