July 12, 2006
by Steve Osborn
Thom Hartmann wrote an excellent article in Common Dreams, titled Reclaim the Issues - "Occupation, Not War" which I would urge every American to read carefully, then adjust their thoughts to comply with it. I think his argument is impeccable, but BushCo under the guidance of Karl Rove has manipulated us into accepting their own language and criteria, for their own use.
Think about it. Remember back to when the appointed President, Mr. Bush, stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in his specially tailored flight suit and declared a United States victory with the Mission Accomplished banner unfurled behind him? It was true. We had won the war. The Iraqi army didn't stand a chance with its ten year old tanks and no air force. We even had some gratitude from the Iraqi people at the time for getting rid of Saddam.
We lost that gratitude when the chaos and looting started and we, the occupiers, did not protect a single hospital, power plant, water works school, university or museum. We put an impenetrable wall of steel around the oil ministry and otherwise stood and watched. Rumsfeld said, "Shit happens." and that was the end of it, but the beginning of a resistance to the occupation.
Look at history. Every time an hostile force occupies a state, the people start a resistance movement. Nazi Germany whipped France and occupied over half the country. Thousands of Frenchmen went underground to drive the Nazis out. The Nazis set up punishments. For every act of sabotage, x number of people would be randomly selected and killed. For every German soldier killed, so many would be killed in reprisal. Dungeons were filled with partisans and randomly picked up Frenchmen and women. They were tortured and killed. Thousands were shipped off to death camps or to work as slave labor until they died, but still, the resistance went on. We sent in supplies, explosives, OSS operatives to teach their use. In Bush's parlance, the French Resistance would be terrorists and the OSS outside agitators and terrorists.
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The story is the same in many countries and many times. Whenever a conqueror becomes an occupier, if he stays, he faces resistance. The same would pertain here in America if we were invaded and conquered. Hundreds of thousands of American men, women and children would do everything they could to get rid of the invaders. This, regardless of reprisals, concentration camps, exterminations.
It is beginning to look like we may be facing an occupation from within, as BushCo tries to bolster its military, its secret police, and its increasing iron grip on the citizens of the United States. Its contract with Halliburton, et al, to build more concentration camps here in the United States, ostensibly to hold illegal immigrants, bird flu victims, or such other programs as may be determined. The day may come when "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union," may have to rise against the forces of totalitarianism in our own country, putting our own lives and fortunes on the line, as did the signers of the original Declaration of Independence and tens of thousands of others, to rid ourselves of the tyranny of the original King George.
Thom's article is right on. From now on, we must refer to the Occupation of Iraq rather than the Iraq War. As he points out, that was over years ago. I think we should turn Iraq over to the Iraqis and let them do what they wish with their own country. It will probably not go the way we wish, but they are the ones who have to live with it, not us.
The alternative is many years trying to hold a country down where every person's hand is increasingly turned against us. Unless we want to take the Nazi way and put them all in camps and kill them off, we had better just get out. Then, perhaps, someday, we can regain some honor and respect from the community of nations, but not on our present course.
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Stephen M. Osborn [send him email] is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.
