Why of course the people don’t want war… But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship… Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  

Refugees pouring out of Iraq by the millions in search of food and shelter, children too weak to flee, a landscape poisoned by chemical or biological weapons, relief workers are preparing for the worst if war breaks out in Iraq. President Bush, on February 6, 2003, directed that up to $15 million be made available for helping the refugee crisis that may arise (while spending over $200 billion to kill them).

• The Game is Over

• Weapons of Muslim Destruction

• Perpetual Fear and Spin

• “Let’s Roll!”

• Postscript

The Game is Over

Mr. Bush is correct about one thing: his foreign policy has been a “game” -- a game of monopoly of lies, greed, hegemony, and “utter contempt” for the world, its peace, its people, and its environment.  

The game of controlling the Middle East, reshaping it as a western colony for theological and economic domination, is as old as the Zionist belief that “no gentile,” meaning no Arab or Palestinian, need live in God’s promised land for His “Chosen People.”

The game was brutally expanded with the Christian empire, where “regime change” of the Muslim world was “blessed” by God himself and His Popes into an eternal crusade against Islam that continues today under the latest bearer of the “Cross”---the compassionate, conservative, God fearing, born again and again from sin and alcoholism, protector of “fetus and life,” unifier of people, evangelical Methodist-----President George W(ar) Bush.

Lying to kill, steal, enrich, and annex is as old as time, beginning with Cain’s murder of Abel. Yet, the art of “sound byte murder” has never been as perfected in human history as it has been by Israel and America, whereby Muslim blood is miraculously transformed into needed water and oil.

Cain’s lie killed one person, Bush and Sharon’s lies can kill humanity, it’s faith in God, its decency, dignity, morality, and love. 

Utilizing the art of “demonization” and inherent belief of the “superiority” of the white man perfected by Europe – from the Crusades to Nazism, Israel and it’s gullible super powers, Britain and America, are poised once again to re-colonize the Middle East and “reform Islam.”

Bush’s introduction and indoctrination into this perfected “Zionist” art began with his helicopter ride over the “promised land” of Judea/Samaria, the West Bank, with his tutor Ariel Sharon. That Bush couldn’t or didn’t want to see Israel’s brutal occupation, its American funded illegal settlements, and its mosaic of “Jew only” highways inflicted upon Palestinians, is a testament to either the man’s ignorance or his extremist evangelical beliefs. Neither knew that in due time both will lead their nations into an abyss of a new “Pandora’s box and crusade” in the Middle East.

Indeed, President Bush has perfected “the game” where might is right and unparalleled power can determine the future of humanity, at least in the short term.

Weapons of Muslim Destruction

Bush’s Declarations of “you’re either with us or against us” and “pre-emptive strike” laid the foundation to a crusade against any, if not all, labeled enemies. The fact that all such enemies happen to be Israel’s enemies is lost on Bush, but not the world.

Developing such a “list” became the obsession and justification for all nations to destroy their internal and external “enemies”---from America’s Israeli inspired “List of Terrorist Organizations and Nations,” to Israel’s, Europe’s, Russia’s, China’s and, most inspiring of all, to Muslim dictators’ “jihad” against their own people to serve America.

“Security” and “defense” are now the democratic principles to justify murder, violation of human rights, international conventions and treaties, and above all to disobey God’s supremacy and love of humanity. Religion became an advertising and convenient “sound byte,” an ideology of murderous intent. The common denominator for such leaders is to launch a war with weapons of Muslim destruction.

Thus the Bush-Sharon-Blair strategy was formulated against the Muslim world to ensure conflicts, military bases, theft of cheap oil and water, and an era of Muslim submission.

Like the ashes of the Holocaust gave rise to Israel, the ashes of 9/11 gave rise to Bush’s crusade du jour for corporate oil on a Muslim world that unjustly holds 60% of the world’s oil reserves and stands opposed to Israel’s dream of hegemony in the Middle East. At a recent Christian Coalition Conference where Vice President Dick Cheney spoke, a bumper sticker was being sold that read: “No Muslims… No Terrorists.”

Anti-War Signs say it all: “How Did Our Oil Get Under their Sands?” and “How Many Lives Per Gallon?” I would hasten to add:  “What if Iraq was Jewish?”

After a one sided Persian Gulf War in 1991 that devastated Iraq back into the dark ages, massively destroying water, electrical and sewage plants, dams, food storages, pharmaceutical companies, roads, bridges, schools, orphanages, nursing homes, and mosques; after 12 years of the severest sanctions that denied medicine and water purification chemicals, claiming they were “dual use weapons”; after 12 years of non-stop British and American bombing in the illegal and unsanctioned “no-fly zones” to ensure future division of Iraq into three zones, Bush inexplicably focused like a laser on Saddam Hussein’s imminent threat to America and the civilized world. 

Perpetual Fear and Spin

Bush needed a strategy of “Perpetual Fear and Spin” upon Americans, whose ignorance and gullibility on foreign affairs make them patsies for Israel and the military-industrial-media complex. So was the respectable Colin Powell sent to the UN Security Council with a “speech” of lies, tapes, and videos to galvanize and intimidate the world into accepting an imminent war on Iraq.

The title of the speech itself was a clue to its lack of facts or evidence regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction: “Iraq’s Failure to Disarm: Denials and Deceptions.” Hence, the bottom line was Iraq’s lack of compliance with Security Council Resolution 1441 and NOT its possession of WMD.

To Powell’s eternal shame and career ending performance, the “evidence” he presented was contradicted by Chief Weapons Inspectors Dr. Hans Blix and Dr. Muhammad El Baradiay, by the CIA and FBI who deny al-Qaeda’s link to Saddam, and by the British Intelligence who on the same day leaked a report denying such a connection.

As to Powell’s claim of an al-Qaeda camp operating in Kurdish Iraq, on February 6, 2003, the New York Times reported that a senior Kurdish official, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who is familiar with the intelligence on the Ansar group mentioned by Powell, said he had not heard of the laboratory Mr. Powell displayed.

Kurds also questioned whether Mr. Powell mislabeled the photograph. Khurmal, the village named in the photo, is controlled not by Ansar al-Islam but by Komala Islami Kurdistan, a more moderate Islamic group. Abu Bari Syan, an administrator for Komal Islami Kurdistan, took an even stronger stand about Mr. Powell’s claim. “All of it is not true,” he said.

The extent to which Bush is willing to intimidate and lie to the American people to support an unjustifiable war is quite alarming. The British intelligence report that was quoted by the Secretary of State in his speech was revealed to be a total fabrication lifted and plagiarized from a research paper written by Ibrahim al-Marashi which appeared in the Middle East Review of International Affairs last September. Is it “civilized” to electronically cut, paste, and plagiarize dossiers for murder?

Bush, Blair, and Sharon will have their war short of a miracle. They will invade Iraq, setup a puppet government, pay for the war with Iraqi oil, and start looking around for “Who’s Next?”

The Middle East will be neutered and pipelines for water, oil, and gas will flow to Israel. Israel will determine the price of oil for Americans, Europeans, Japanese, and the rest of the world. Bush finally succumbed to Sharon’s blackmail of either attacking Iraq or he’d do it with nuclear weapons, similar to Yitzhak Rabin’s blackmail of President Nixon during the October War of 1973: either re-supply us immediately with conventional weapons or I’m nuking the Arabs. Israel always gets what it wants while laughing all the way to the US Treasury.

“Let’s Roll!”

Reporter: “A question about your foreign policy, if I may, sir.”

President: “Saddam is a threat to America and we’ll stop him. Let’s Roll! The game is over.”

Reporter: “My question had to do with North Korea. Are you aware that North Korea already has nuclear weapons, long range missiles, is the world’s fourth largest army and is threatening the United States with preemptive strikes? Sir, do you realize the danger of your “Preemptive Strike” becoming a precedent for the world?”

President: “Saddam is a threat to America and we’ll stop him. Let’s Roll! The game is over.”

Reporter: “You didn’t answer my question, sir. What about the American economy, Mr. President? You are aware that the economy is dipping rapidly into a recession with the highest unemployment in 20 years, that the budget surplus is now a large deficit, that the stock market has lost much value, that consumer confidence in you and the economy is very low, yet you propose a $678 billion tax cut for the rich, ballooning the federal bureaucracy with massive spending, and you’re actually giving Israel another $20 billion in aid this year alone?”

President: “Saddam is a threat to America and we’ll stop him. Let’s Roll! The game is over.”

Reporter: “On another issue, sir, why are we getting more involved abroad with our military and spending billions in Columbia’s war against its rebels? Can’t this become another Vietnam?”

President:  “Saddam is a threat to America and we’ll stop him. Let’s Roll! The game is over.”

Reporter:  “Mr. President, Americans are still grieving from the Columbia tragedy, no not the country, the space shuttle. Don’t you think the country needs time to grieve over the deaths of the astronauts before we can begin to grieve over our military men and women who’ll die in the war and for the American nationals around the world who’ll die as a result of that war?”

President: “Saddam is a threat to America and we’ll stop him.  Let’s Roll! The game is over.”

Reporter: “Sir, why did we give Saddam his biological and chemical weapons when he was killing Iranians? Sir, why didn’t America publicly condemn Saddam when he allegedly ‘gassed’ the Kurds? Sir, why did your father lie about “babies in incubators” being killed and of the massing of Iraqi troops on the Saudi border in 1991? Sir, why did Vice President Cheney love Saddam when he made millions off Iraqi oil yet now calls him a “threat to western civilization”? Sir, why are all your administration officials who are desperate for the war more loyal to Israel than they are to America?”

President: “Enough is enough! Saddam must go now. Let’s Roll. The game is over. He’s violated 17 UN resolutions for 12 years and he’s shown nothing but utter contempt for the UN and the international community. The UN must enforce its resolutions and give me my war or it’ll cease to be relevant. I want Saddam’s head with or without them. This is America, no one tells us what to do. 

Reporter: Mr. President, what of Israel’s ‘utter contempt’ of 100 UN resolutions since 1949? What of Sharon’s ‘utter contempt’ for you and the American people when he said: “we control America”?

President: You look like a Muslim to me. Someone call John Ashcroft, NOW!!”

Postscript

May 20, 1991 – President George Bush: “At this juncture, my view is we don’t want to lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.” James Baker, Secretary of State: “We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.” (Weapons of Mass Destruction were simply a Distraction: Regime Change was Goal)

January 14, 1993 – In the face of criticism, particularly from the New York Times, that he might lift sanctions and even normalize relations with Iraq, Bill Clinton backtracks: “There is no difference between my policy and the policy of the present Administration… I have no intention of normalizing relations with him.” (See the New York Times and Boston Globe, January 15, 1993)

May 12, 1996 – On 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl asks Albright: “We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?” Albright responds: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it.”

Immediately after the Gulf War in 1991, General Powell, routinely referred to in the media as the “dove” inside the Bush administration, when asked at a press briefing about his assessment of the number of Iraqi soldiers and civilians killed, which had been put at over 100,000, answered, “It’s really not a number I’m terribly interested in.”

Approximately 250 people die every day in Iraq due to the effect of the sanctions. “One out of every 4 Iraqi infants is malnourished-- UNICEF, April 1998

The amount of explosives dropped on Iraq in the first day of air and naval attacks (January 17, 1991) was equivalent to the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This military onslaught on a defenseless people included the first-time use of 300 tons of depleted uranium shells plus a frightening array of other internationally banned radiological, biological, and chemical weapons. All in all, over 140,000 tons of explosives, equivalent to 7 nuclear bombs, were used against the Iraqi society in destroying their environment and infrastructure.

Twelve Years of suffocating sanctions have already claimed over one and a half million civilian lives, the vast majority of whom are children and the elderly. More than 500,000 toddlers and infants have died due to the consequences of the sanctions (UNICEF, 1999). Twenty-three percent of all children in Iraq have stunted growth.

“We call on the president of America, the vice president and the congressmen to come to Iraq and see the little children… to go to the cancer ward and give us an answer… what was their crime?” --Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez-Esquivel of Argentina who traveled to Iraq in March 1999 (AP).

“I asked myself many times where do the rights of children fit in here? Why should any, but especially children under the age of five, suffer so much and die in such numbers? Sadly, I had to witness ever repeated scenes of children dying as I walked through hospital wards…” --Margarita Skinner, UNICEF Health Coordinator in Baghdad from 1991-1992.

Dr. Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim physician and a native from the Middle East. With national and international health experience, he has worked in Academic Medicine and Public health. He is also a freelance writer who often writes on Islam, the Palestinian issue and America’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East. He lives in Washington D.C.

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