When death is okay [Archives:2004/773/Opinion]

Hassan Al-Haifi
This observer read recently in Slate Magazine (A Microsoft web publication) that some 10,000 Iraqis have lost their lives in Baghdad alone since the Americans entered the city a year and a half ago, both from insurgent and criminal acts. This number could easily double if all the cities of Iraq are included if not tripled. This large number of people comprises of mostly innocent people, most of whom are not even involved in any “insurgency” acts, and are victims of both insurgent acts as well as American bombardment or reprisal attacks. Such a great loss of human lives can never provide the right grounds for any Iraqi population approval of the American misadventure in Iraq. Nor does it lend any weight to the often stated aims of the American neo-con leadership that their intentions in Iraq are to liberate the Iraqis or to carry on the war on terror, thus making the world safer. The assertions of the present White House Administration that their occupation of Iraq was necessary to remove the Iraqi WMD threat against the United States, later modified to continuing the war on terror, etc., have been proven as misleading deceptions. Yet the icons of the neo-con establishment continue to blare out the same boring rhetoric to the American electorate, believing that the American people can easily be gulled into not holding their leaders accountable for lying to them so persistently. The atmosphere of the Republican Convention in New York and the continuing diatribes of Dick Cheney and co, with their warlike mongering seem to display a confidence that the American people can indeed continuously be deceived that their present leadership is the only one that knows what is best for them. Never mind that they have yet to see from this leadership any real genuine progress towards achieving a world free of terror. Never mind that the awesome cost of their adventures in human lives in both Iraq and Afghanistan are bleeding the lives out of these two countries. Almost daily, the observer cannot help but note the scores of deaths that are sprawled out in the different urban centers of Iraq, by American ordnance and by ill targeted insurgency attacks, that have taken far more innocent lives than would lend credence to the honest intentions of the forces that are directing these insurgents. Yet, the Bush Administration continues to suggest to us that this is all right and necessary for the sake of Iraqi freedom and almost make it out to look like a blessing to Iraq. As for Afghanistan, the story has a different tragic flair. The failure of the US to complete its stated aims of avenging the 9/11 victims and restoring the face of American might seems to indicate that the White House and the neo-con clique are talking to the world in one way and proceeding on a whole different course from their supposedly genuine intentions. Unfortunately, thanks to a double-think and newspeak venue, the neo-con establishment and its powerful media infiltration have managed to distort the reality of the situations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, especially to the American people. Not only that, they have actually insisted on conveying to the American people that this is the only path for America to take, without regard to the consequences on the people actually forced to suffer from all this and without regard to the heavy cost borne by the American taxpayers. In fact, the Vice President of the United States is actually unabashed at stating that any thought of having their opponent ticket elected to the White House is tantamount to having terror attacks of the caliber of 9/11 become a fact of life for the American people.
Of course, this is unethical campaigning by any standards, and only goes to show that these people have no mores whatsoever. Moreover, to rely on fearsome threats connotes a desire to rely on institutional political scare tactics to put down adversaries as being not worthy of sharing any sense of national security concerns as the ruling establishment and should be considered as even dangerous to live with, let alone reside in the White House. As if all the mess that the Bush Administration has brought to the world should not be taken into consideration by the American electorate, since the opponents have hidden dangers that the American people are bound to face if they elect them to office. This in itself is really dangerous and plays on the misconceptions generated by a hard and well financed propaganda campaign to twist the perceptive capacity of the American electorate in truly analyzing and assessing the performance of their leaders. Never mind that 9/11 actually occurred in the midst of the Bush Administration, with obvious evidence that there were sufficient indicators to stimulate the Administration to take the appropriate actions for preventing the tragedy. Yet to suggest to the American people that another Administration will bring about a repeat of 9/11 is somewhat absurd. In other words, it is all right for the Bush Administration to have allowed 9/11 to occur, but the American people should never allow another Administration to bring about any calamity that is otherwise acceptable of the Bush Administration. No matter what happens in the United States or elsewhere, even if the Bush Administration is fully responsible for the consequential demise resulting thereof, the American people should accept it with heartfelt assurance that it is in their national interest and security. So what if thousands of Iraqis have died needlessly, since America's President once lied to the whole world that Saddam is out to destroy the American way of life? So what if the President continues to tie a tragic war in Iraq with a failing war on terror, without any score points on it achieved to date by its leading advocate. On the contrary, terror has been given a chance to grow and spread, thanks to an Administration that sees absolutely little regard for human life and places its own political life and that of the cronies that surround it above all moral and humanitarian considerations.
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[archive-e:773-v:13-y:2004-d:2004-09-16-p:opinion]