I wrote this the day the war started...shock and awe...

Now, I Am the Terrorist
by William Rivers Pitt
21 March 2003

The city of Baghdad, founded in 762 A.D. under the name Madinat as-Salam -- `City of Peace' -- is this day a lake of fire. The opening stage of the Bush administration's "Shock and Awe" attack plan began as night fell on Iraq, and lived terribly up to its terrible name. CBS news is reporting that great swaths of residential neighborhoods within Baghdad have been engulfed in flames. One can trust, perhaps, the ability of a cruise missile to hit a bullseye from many miles away. One cannot be so precise in predicting which way the resulting fires will blow.

In the great earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, people were not killed so much by the shaking. They were killed by the firestorm that sucked the air from their lungs and reduced them to ash before they could flee. So it seems to be today in Baghdad.

Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, half of whom are under the age of fifteen, most of whom are too poor to flee. Now, a great many of those people are dead, burned in their homes and on their streets.

The American television media provided all of us with a Dresden-eye view of the attack. Huge mushroom clouds bloomed from the streets as buildings blazed and fell. The thunder of the explosions was so loud that television speakers became distorted with the sound of the concussion. The sky lit up as though the sun was rising. It was a fitting image, for a new day in world history has dawned.

Much has been made of the precision of our vaunted arsenal of bombs and missiles, as if they can go into a building and find the second door on the left before they explode. The truth is far more dire. When a B-2 bomber drops a 2,000 lb. JDAM munition, everyone and everything within a 120 meter radius is instantly killed. Anyone within a 365 meter radius risks severe shrapnel wounds. To be totally safe, one must be 1,000 meters away from the epicenter of the explosion. Imagine how many homes can fit into 1,000 meters, and never mind the firestorm.

American Marines have died securing petroleum facilities, and in a helicopter crash. If Iraqi forces do not surrender soon, American forces will attack Baghdad from the ground. The loss of life among our people will grow exponentially if a Stalingrad-style fight unfolds in Baghdad and Tikrit. On Tom Brokaw's CBS News broadcast, the father of one of the soldiers killed in the helicopter crash held a picture of his son to the camera and shouted, "Take a look, Bush. You killed my only son."

Those who stand against this attack are dunned as "Not supporting the troops." One might suggest the best way to support troops is to see them brought home safely. One might also suggest that support continues after the shooting stops. This does not appear to be on the agenda for the Republican Party. A vote along party lines today in the House Budget Committee slashed $9.7 billion from veterans disability compensation programs, as well as from other programs. These cuts, pushed through the committee by the majority-holding Republicans, are part of the plan to see Bush's new $1.57 trillion tax cut through. Wave that flag, George.

Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, when asked by a reporter whether the Iraqi people would cheer Americans after this attack, stated that Baghdad's civilians would welcome us. This defies known history in Japan and Germany and Vietnam; those populations, after absorbing saturation bombing, hardened their resistance. American television purported to show Iraqi civilians cheering a soldier who tore down a picture of Hussein, but a Sky News reporter walking Baghdad's streets reported that, to a man, everyone he spoke with spat hatred and derision for this American attack.

On September 11th, I sat in numb horror as the images of carnage unfolded before me on the television. On that day, I was the victim of terrorism, along with every other American. Today, I sit in numbed horror as more carnage unfolds. Hundreds of massive missiles have rained down on a city far away, killing indiscriminately among the young, the infirm, the old and the innocent. My government did this. My nation did this. My leaders did this. Today, I am the terrorist.

So are you.

There is no justification for this attack. Saddam Hussein and his forces had been effectively disarmed by the first Gulf War, by the UNSCOM inspections, and by the more recent UNMOVIC inspections. According to Hussein Kamel, son-in-law to Saddam Hussein whose comments to the UN in 1991 were recently reported in a buried Newsweek story, Iraq was pretty much disarmed of mass destruction weapons even before the first war. The Bush administration, in pushing for this war, has foisted lie after lie after lie upon the American people and the world. The world didn't buy it, but they weren't dependent upon lapdog media sources like ours for their data.

We are the terrorists now, stupid underinformed terrorists who dance to the tune of a corporate media machine that will profit wildly from this attack. NBC, MSNBC and CNBC are owned by General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors on earth. They will be paid handsomely in military contracts because of this, as they always have been. Yet GE gives us the news we need to understand what is happening.

Americans are not often afforded the opportunity to witness a war crime live on television. Today's actions bring to mind a war crime from a generation ago: The shooting of a prisoner by Vietnamese General and American ally Nguyen Ngoc Loan. General Loan put a pistol to the head of this bound prisoner and blew his brains into the street, an image that millions of Americans saw after it had taken place. We are here again today. The poverty of the Iraqi people leaves them bound, unable to escape the wave of steel. We have blown their brains out. We have incinerated them in place. We will continue to do so, and you can watch it from your couch. Today, you are the terrorist.

So am I.

We are all still shocked, awed and very sad.

And, they have got one for any occasion.

There is not a single member of my genetic family that does not 'get it'.

What happened w/ the other members of my human family?

Why did so many of us see it, and so many others did not?

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2003/01/30/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


Bush's dangerous vision
By Rich Lewis January 30, 2003

The key question after President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night was whether he had crossed the line from saying we could go to war with Iraq to we will.

Some said no, not quite — but Bush's language, look and logic all indicated that he has made up his mind. He wants war and will almost certainly make it happen. Soon.

Ironically, Americans found Bush's father deficient as a president because he lacked "the vision thing" — a grand goal toward which to carry the country.

Well, be careful what you wish for. The son who is now president is consumed by a vision and is determined to drag us toward its violent conclusion.

That vision is of his own importance in world history. It is the conviction that we "are all that stand between a world of peace and a world of chaos." That we "are called to defend... the hopes of all mankind."

It is a grand and stirring notion. As a novel or an opera, it would be satisfying and uplifting. As real life, it is arrogant and frightening.

Anyone who has tried to keep a family or a business together knows that you cannot grab it by the throat and demand that it function according to some ideal. You muddle through, making whatever small progress you can. It's slow and frustrating work with few glorious moments.

The world is the same on a much vaster scale — a messy, dangerous place that refuses to be managed according to any one set of rules. It is made better in small steps, and even those come rarely.

The president dangerously exaggerates his own significance and treats us like children when he tries to paint things differently.

For example, on Tuesday, the president promised to bring the Iraqi people "freedom."

That is flat-out absurd. If Saddam dies, who will take his place? Abraham Lincoln? Dozens of factions are lying in wait to seize power in Iraq — many of them as bad as Saddam, none of them planning to turn Iraq into Ohio.

The president tried to manipulate our emotions by saying Saddam is torturing people, using "electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin... cutting out tongues and rape."

Horrible stuff, but these things and worse go on in many countries every day and the president is indifferent. On Tuesday, for example, there was a story in our paper that rebel soldiers in the Congo killed, cooked and ate at least a dozen of their enemies.

Bush himself said Tuesday the North Korean government is a "repressive regime" that keeps its people in "fear and starvation." You can bet they also shock and burn them.

We won't be sending a single soldier to rescue the endangered in those or any other countries. You don't start a war over torture, unless you're looking for an excuse.

The problems run deeper.

We accuse Saddam of trying to get nuclear weapons; the Koreans admit they are making them.

But with Korea, we want "to find a peaceful solution" and threaten North Korea only with "isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship."

These are exactly the tactics Bush insists have failed against Saddam.

Trusting in the "sanity and restraint" of Saddam "is not an option," the president says. But trusting in the sanity and restraint of the notoriously brutal and flaky North Korean government is no problem.

And at the heart of the war venture, a terrible dilemma.

Either Saddam has weapons of mass destruction or he does not.

If he does not, and we attack, we will have killed many thousands of people and endangered the safety and stability of the world for no reason.

If Saddam does have such weapons — as the president believes — then the surest way to provoke their use is to attack him. We might bring on the horror we purport to be preventing.

This war has not been justified. The reasons for it are unclear, the goals cannot be achieved, the risks enormous.

Just about a month ago, millions of Americans decked their homes with garlands, cards and ornaments asking for "Peace on Earth." They stood solemnly in places of worship in honor of the "Prince of Peace" and prayed and sang for peace.

It is now time to find out if we really meant it.

Thanks for sharing.

seems to give a shit. What you wrote, dear Mr. Pitt, is a thing of beauty and truth, yet your efforts and the efforts of many dissenting voices to "the war" were ground under the heel of a GANG of THUGS who were determined to prevail at any cost. How does a person of conscience combat such corruption without compromising oneself??

of humanity. No one seemed to care. I also cried at our leveling of Falujah, the city of mosques. No one seemed to care.

We went into Iraq without reason or purpose. No one seemed to care.

Now we look at www.icasualties.org and the lies of this administration, and we are finally beginning to care.

Turning on the teevee news and watching nothing but a bunch of complicit invasion-enablers. Everyone was gung-ho. All the war "experts" were on every news network drawing on the telestrator how we were going to march into Iraq and make our way to Baghdad.

Parroting the line that we would be greeted as "liberators."

Crowing about how the son was going to finish what the father couldn't.

Showing the video feed of bombs exploding; destroying electrical grids and knocking out power that is still not functioning to this day.

Not one person that I saw questioned why the hell we were there.

Not one person asked what this had to do with 9/11.

No one on the TeeVee.

But at least we had you and Ritter and a few other voices of truth in the midst of all that deplorable madness.

We destroyed history and people. We destroyed the history and the birthplace of humanity, and we did it without a second thought. We will NOT be looked on kindly in history for this. No way.

But at least we are now speaking up.

in shock and awe. And no one cared.

but no one was listening.

opportunity of a century. If we had a real and good leader they would have capitalized on that opportunity.

If they didn't hate us before...they do now.

expressed. What a shame the world didn't listen to you then. The world always heeds prophets too late though, if at all. History is replete with examples. somehow I naively assumed, that humanity had grown beyond those dark past ages, but this century has certainly proven me wrong. How do these beasts call themselves 'Christians,' when they are not even human.

And the Prince of Peace had nothing to do with the horrific act on an innocent people in the shock and awe campaign.

March 17, 2003
Lies of this war: Congressman Waxman challenges the President
Documents the Iraq nuclear hoax in a letter to the president
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2367.htm

Monday, March 10, 2003
Top 31 Bush - Iraq Lies: A Reference For Seekers of Truth
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/2003_03_10_weblog_archive.htm#90456873

Claims in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s UN Presentation concerning Iraq 5th Feb 2003
Dr Glen Rangwala, lecturer in politics at Newnham College, Cambridge University.
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/powell030205.html