Croesus

Croesus was told through an oracle, "You shall destroy a great empire." He thought it meant that he would destroy the Persian empire. It turned out, however, to be his own that was destroyed in the end.

"Pretext for War," by James Bamford, is a book that all folks should read that want a good understanding of how co-King Bush took the U.S. government and by extension, its people, to a war both illegal and unjust. This fucking of information and those that deal with it to bring about this horrific and unjust war being continually waged in Iraq is also heavily covered in the book, "Hubris," by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, which I am listening to on CD.

Basically, all that has been alleged, about co-King Bush and King Dick wanting a war with Iraq at any cost and forcing intelligence agencies to wrap the information around that idea are, indeed, true. Many people within the administration during the genocidal decision making process of this ideal couldn't believe it was happening as it was. They were also too scared to do anything about it. Much disinformation was put out and much of it published by Judith Miller was then quoted as fact by the administration so that it could reach its desired goal of acheiving, at least in part, co-King George's revenge against Saddam for attempting to kill his daddy.

As pointed out in "Pretext..." James Bamford makes note that the mass of the intelligence gathered about this alleged assassination attempt was gleaned, most likely via torture, from the alleged head participant.

That aside, basically, folks wanted to go to war and lied to get the U.S. government, intelligence agencies, and the mass of people who are unwilling to look beyond Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as great purveyors of truth, to back this illegal, immoral, genocidal, and unjust war. "Pretext..." and "Hubris" point this out in clear, easily substantiated facts.

Makes me think of when I got fired from a job for speaking out against the oncoming war (after several initial reasons were refuted by me, they said I just didn't fit in). One fella came up to me and arrogantly told me that Saddam was trying to get uranium from Africa, and thus the U.S. had to go to war. I hadn't heard about that at the time and told him so. I also told him it sounded like bullshit to me. Both these books go in depth into just how much BULLSHIT it actually is.

That aside, starting on page 261 of "Pretext..." there is a weighty discussion about three chickenhawks (those who support war, killing, genocide, war crimes, rape, murder, assassination, and many other dirty deeds to get their way, but are unwilling and have NEVER participated in such actions and never will [that is for us lessers]). There names are Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser. They authored a plan while working under the Clinton administration called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." What they wanted was for Israel to start a war with Iraq, illegal or otherwise, to secure that nation for the interests of the U.S. and Israel. Israel was also to attack Lebanon and Syria and get what they wanted from them as well, Lebensraum, elbow room. They were also to be given free reign to enact whatever measures they deemed necessary or desireable to bring about the destruction of Palestine and bring it into the fold of Israeli ideals.

Of course, what happened with this grand strategy was co-King Bush stole the election in 2000, and being revenge minded, along with King Dick's desire to return to an "imperial presidency," the leaders of the U.S. government on January 30, 2001, started making plans to start a war with Iraq. co-King George also stated that they would let Israel do whatever it wanted to solve the Palestinian problem. Today, that solution comes in the form of an all out attack against an almost defenseless peoples and slaughtering many civilians and children who were already suffering greatly under the horrific force of Israel and its ally, the U.S.

Croesus learned that greed and overextending oneself can lead to the downfall of an empire, let me point out that co-King George's desire for revenge led us into a prolonged occupation of Iraq costing approximately 4 trillion dollars thus far. I don't know how many billions has been spent on Afghanistan, and over $700,000,000,000 of our tax payer dollars was recently handed over to his wealthy banking buddies. Joblessness is increasing, jobs are decreasing, cities and states are going bankrupt, prolonged occupation is murdering millions of Iraqi's and others, massive numbers of people are suffering because of the U.S., the U.S. backed empire of Israel is ruthlessly slaughtering Palestinians to gain more Lebensraum... I think the empire is crumbling.

What say you?