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Dubya's
'Axis of Evil'
February
1, 2002
by Carlos Kelly
"An axis of evil," huh?
Nice little catchy one-liner to get those "it's my way or
the highway," "dissent is un-American" heart-strings
strumming in unison across the country, I guess.
Bush's speech writers inserted the term "axis" into his speech
so as to deliberately invoke some good ol' World War 2 nostalgia
and whet the appetite amongst Dubya's fellow warmongers for
yet more bombing and killing. That's people who, when they
themselves were called upon to fight for their country either
hid in national guard units or as in Big Dick Cheney's case,
"had better things to do."
Oh, there was never any doubt that our pretzel-challenged
president would sooner, rather than later, pick a fight with
that other schoolyard bully, Saddam Hussein, but his public,
official declaration of war on Iran and North Korea should
have us all shaking in our boots. There has not been any proof
of Iranian involvement in global terrorism for years now.
That country, a democracy whose people were among the very
first to offer their condolences to the United States after
the September 11 attacks, has been making steady progress
in recent years, and for the US to start bombing that country
indiscriminately, like it did to Afghanistan, will only once
again brew up anti-American feeling throughout Iran and anger
the rest of the Middle East.
Where is the sense in that? There is none.
As for North Korea, it is quirky and inward looking. It has
never been directly associated with groups like al-Qaeda,
in fact it seems to be not in the slightest bit bothered with
global terrorism at all, although the Bushies are adamant
that the North Koreans will one day soon have the capacity
to lob a nuclear weapon from Pyongyang to Washington D.C.
The fact that surely the North Koreans must understand that
such an action, if they could ever achieve it, would mean
their certain destruction from the subsequent US nuclear retaliation
seems lost on the Bushies.
One need not cast one's mind back too far to when both Koreas,
at the urging of President Clinton, were actually making some
progress towards re-unification, before the Bushies were installed
by the supreme court. And once they had finished their false
accusations of vandalism by ex-Clinton administration staffers,
they wasted no time in putting an end to the Korean talks
and declaring North Korea the latest "Evil Empire."
Now, if I wasn't such a damn cynic, I'd believe what George
W. Bush was ranting about on Tuesday night.
I'd believe that Iraq, Iran and North Korea were all together
plotting the total destruction of the United States, although
the blatant truth of the matter is that not one of those states
had anything to do with the September 11 attacks, let alone
all three being part of some triumvirate Bush labels the "axis
of evil." Iran hates Iraq and vice-versa. In fact, it's
more likely that they'd be plotting the destruction of one
another before they bothered with the U.S - while North Korea
has nothing much to do with any other country, let alone Iran
and Iraq.
So where's the evidence of their plotting, George?
Well, he's probably a little thin on evidence, although when
has the US ever needed too much of that to carry out some
much needed bombing in order to replenish the coffers of their
pals in the military industrial complex? No, there is only
one reason why Bush continues to play up the threat from countries
like Iran and North Korea (especially) and that is the crazy
Missile Defense Shield.
The Bushies need a reason to pursue it. If they cannot sell
the American people a need for their faulty missile defense
umbrella, then the people may actually begin to question the
wisdom in spending upwards of $95 billion on something that
has never actually worked in practice, will more than likely
never work, and will probably be obsolete by the time it is
ever commissioned.
It doesn't take an Einstein (or even George W. Bush, if he
ever did some critical thinking) to come to the conclusion
that $95 billion, if pointed in the right direction, would
go much further towards preventing another September 11 than
any missile shield could.
If that money was spent on intelligence, airport security,
research into alternative fuel sources so that the US no longer
had dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and helping to improve
the social and educational infrastructure in countries like
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and dare I say it, Iraq, instead
of on some inter-galactic umbrella that cannot even stop a
penknife wielding hijacker from converting a commercial jetliner
into a flying bomb, would that not make both the US and the
world a safer place for us all?
Well, of course it would. It's only logical. But when has
logic ever stood in the way of George W. Bush and his masters'
plans?
Logic sure is the safer route for us all to follow - but
it wouldn't make George W. Bush's friends in the military
establishment any more money, and let's face it, that's all
that matters to our boy George and those who pull his strings.
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