A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal

[Q]

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness so close around us... We are called upon to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1967, Riverside Church in New York City

[T Bone]

1. 2 good quotes there

thanks...

[anarchy1999]

2. Just awesome and thank you.

n/t

[Q]

3. Their blood is on all our hands...

...the blood of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and CHILDREN. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers. The blood of Nick Berg.

- We blame Bush* and his blood-sucking vampires for all this carnage...but we're just as much to blame for our silence when our country needed us the most.

- Let's look to our inner selves and admit the whole truth:

The 2000 election wasn't a 'close race'. It was stolen...taken from us in a bloodless coup. Enron and Halliburton weren't about corporate corruption...but about their close ties to George Walker Bush* and Dick Cheney. Bush* didn't hide the Reagan/Bush presidential papers because he wanted to protect their 'privacy'. He hid them to cover their trail of blood, treason and aiding the very enemy we fight today. Cheney didn't refuse to turn over public energy policy documents because he was concerned about 'executive privilege'. He was hiding more crimes against the people and smirking at their Constitution.

I won't bother you with a list of the dozens of other scandals and wrongdoing of the Bush* administration. Suffice it to say that allowing this malfeasance to go unpunished has emboldened them to take and do whatever they want without fear of consequences.

As we spew our hate at Wormtongue Bush*...more than a few on our side have joined with him to make sure his plans succeed. Why? Because his plans are their plans. They wanted to 'take out' Saddam...and they don't care how many innocents they have to kill to do it. They wanted a 'larger military'...and the illegal, immoral war in Iraq gives them the opportunity to increase the size of their Standing Army. They knew Bush* was lying this nation into war...but they supported it anyway for the sake of their own political careers.

- The blood of the innocents. There is no way to forgive anyone who voted for these crimes against humanity. God help us.

[anarchy1999]

6. Thanks Q, I just so much don't like to go here. The blood is on our hands

Why are we not making it stop? Breaks the heart, if you let it. Most oftentimes does.

[Solly Mack]

Thank you. You're right, it is.

What was done in our names can not be undone.

[Cleita]

4. I have no comment to add to this except

[carpediem]

5. thank you n/t

.

[Tellurian]

7. Playing the noble blame game does no one any good..

We're all to blame. We allowed the election to be stolen without hardly a whimper. Why didn't we take to the streets. We've all been witnesses to history repeating itself. Are we now going to wallow in 100 posts or more of mea culpas and/or rage?...

What do we do next is the million dollar question?

Have we learned anything from the past?

Suggestions, please.

[Q]

8. How about...

...STOP THE KILLING?

- Wouldn't that at least be a good start?

[Tellurian]

9. Easier said than done... If Bush were removed post haste..

That would be a start. With our troops in Iraq, stabilization is the best we can hope for at this point in time. Stabilization that develops into order, hopefully evolving into a sovereign Iraqi government. This can only be accomplished with the help of coalition troops and UN intervention...I can not forsee that happening as long as Bush is in power...imo of course.

[Q]

11. Heard the same thing about Vietnam...

...we can't stop killing them because, because....we can't. We were told the very same thing about Vietnam...just 'stay the course'...give it one more year and 50,000 more troops and we'll 'kick their asses'.

- THERE WILL NEVER BE STABILIZATION IN IRAQ. THERE WILL NEVER BE A 'SOVEREIGN' GOVERNMENT UNTIL THE US LEAVES. How difficult is this to understand? They hate our guts and occupation and will continue to pick us off like sitting ducks.

- Young Americans are cannon fodder the Bush* corporate state and Iraqis are their new 'minorities' to enslave and lynch. The Iraqis KNOW this...which is why they'll never be peace.

- Leave Iraq now.

[Tellurian]

18. Yes, we've all learned from Vietnam...

I want the troops home as much as you do, Q..
We didn't leave Vietnam until a government was in place.
I expect the same formula will be applied to Iraq.
Things will either get better or a whole lot worse
after the June 30th handover. Until then, we haven't
any choice other than applying pressure to end the war.

[Q]

14. What should 'frighten' Democrats...

...more than Bush's* arrogance and stupidity is their leadership's complicity. Hillary 'it takes a bomb to destroy a village' Clinton has become a Hawk...sending signals that she's ready to join with the other side in pouring yet more of our hard-earned resources into a 'larger military' and more killing in the name of a 'war' that's just as phony as the war on drugs.

- And then we have Daschle and Lieberman saying they think George* is doing a great job in Iraq and the 'war on terror'...except for that torture thingy. But that's a minor thing for them. Just tear down a prison and take away cameras...and everything will go back to 'normal'.

- There are two major parties in the US. Bush&Company will NEVER stop until the opposition rises up against him and tells him NO MORE.

[Tellurian]

19. I don't think it's prudent to see things at face value at this time...

Because there is much strategy going behind the scenes.

The June 30th, deadline for the handover of power to Iraq coincides with the expiration of the ICC agreement which coincides with the sunsetting of many provisions of the Pats Agreement. If June 30th passes without the handover in Iraq completed, as Spaz just mentioned, we will be occupiers subject to the ICC.

We are living in turbulent times and have never in the history of the world been privy to so much first hand information regarding the operation of government that in prior years has always enjoyed the cover of public ignorance.

[Karenina]

10. Not just betrayal...

COMPLICITY.

[Q]

12. We Democrats fear that word and cover our ears...

...because it means that the Bushies wouldn't have been able to start a war and kill lots of human beings without our help. The blind faithful will say that there was nothing we could have done. That the 'other side' was 'mean' and had a majority and complaints or protest from Dems would have been called 'unpatriotic'.

- But there are only a handful more GOPers than Dems in DC. Democrats didn't rise up against unprovoked, aggressive war because (most) of them wanted it as badly as the Bushies. That's why they voted for it. Not because they were 'duped' or 'lied to' or deceived. They KNEW what was about to happen and they did nothing. They knew and said nothing so they could plead ignorance later on.

[Guava Jelly]

13. a few more

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. ~Martin Luther King Jr.~

I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their
government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor. ~Martin Luther King~

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed." Martin Luther King

Gosh he was a good man

"How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book" ......bob marley

[Q]

15. We never seem to learn...

...from history OR our enemies. We're in this situation because the Bushies are ever as brutal and inhuman as Saddam in his 'glory days'. It falls upon deaf ears when Americans are warned that the enemy we fight today was financed and equipped by those who now control our government. What hurts even more is that Democrats know this and remain silent.

- How long will it take to wash this blood from OUR hands? How long will we continue to pretend that everything will work out fine and Iraqis will find 'democracy' if we only spend another 300 billion, send more troops and show them that we 'mean business'?

- This 'war' was over before it ever began.

[JCMach1]

16. "Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction"

[Nlighten1]

17. Inaction is betrayal too.