This is a personal message from Sean Bell (03.01.28)
A new war for oil is about to begin. The lives of non-combatants are being targeted (the Pentagon is planning to launch 800 cruise missiles – each able to sink ships and topple buildings – into Baghdad within a 48 hour period. This is double what we used in the 40 days of the first Gulf War. Baghdad is populated with over 5 million civilians). The use of nuclear weapons is once again being contemplated by the only country that has ever used such annihilating power. Believe me when I tell you that this is no game. This is no movie. We are not the good guys in this scenario, should events unfold as they are being attempted by this administration. This will be murder on a massive scale for a reason most know to be a lie by a leader most did not vote for, and one which most are often equating to the most fanatical tyrants we’ve read about in our school history books.
Tonight’s state of the Union will be a moment in the history of our nation and world that shapes the rest of our lives. Should the United States of America act out in a preemptive first strike attack on the sovereign nation of Iraq, a series of events could very likely unfold causing such turmoil and destabilization that blow back and terrorists attacks here at home can be guaranteed.
911 was a moment of awakening for many. And for those who lost families on that day, they found another new awakening – their own government refused to conduct an independent investigation into the attacks. How and why would this happen? And when those family members would not stop and demanded an investigation as to why so much went so very wrong with our defensive strategies which should have stopped the last plane – Bush assigned Henry Kissinger, a poster child of secrecy and lies and a war criminal under indictment in several countries, to conduct the investigation.
As Albert Einstein once said, “It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”, and as a former infantry Marine who knows first hand the desire to want to wipe out threats to our friends and family, such acts mostly hurt the innocent, and never have created a stable world worthy of justifying those acts. But the larger picture is rarely understood to most. The same very wealthy people and corporations who influence our political process with legalized bribes (soft money and pacs just to name a few) also avoid war for themselves and their family, letting the poorer members of society do their dirty work. Many in our current administration stand to make huge profits from this war – probable cause for the murder to take place by any reasonable account. Dick Cheney, through his own company Halliburton, has already been profiting from the last Gulf War. This will be no different. There is serious money to be made from this very sick business. Those reasons are the real motivation for those who use the flag and patriotic images and sound bytes designed to appease the largest segment of society based on a PR campaign of polls and research, and surround themselves in large rooms with other like minded people – safe from the scrutiny of the real public. As Marine Corps legend Smedley Butler noted at the end of his very long career when he ws able to step back and recount his own actions as a military leader, “War is a racket!”
May you live in exciting times. This is true especially for our time now. We all work hard. We all want fun and good things for us, our family and those we care about. We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those who have come before us have made sure that we are able to live like we do today. I tell you those many people living under Hussein’s brutal dictatorship want the same as us. Many in our country have found ways to manipulate our own ability to form educated opinions simply by controlling the media outlets where most of us obtain our information. It is sad but true that often, it is the questions that are not being asked, that could lead to some real answers.
I can not sit by, and have not been able to for several years now, watching those who exploit and push for war, while they also undercut readily available solutions to permanently avoid war, without doing something in my power to fight it. We are a powerful country. But are we acting as a just and moral leader in the world? It is your country. Your taxes support these policies. The actions our nation takes will have consequences – whether it be reduced civil liberties, terrorist blow back, plundered social programs including education, medical and health benefits, heightened military presence in your lives, or many other likely possibilities.
America has been able to pull through difficult times only because of the mass amount of people who took a public stand and made an example to demand something that they should have never had taken from them. But things have been taken from us. Many haven’t realized it because a lot of what has been occurring has been shielded by the corporate news. In this case, being on a winning team does not equate to being on the right team.
Keep in mind, if we attack Iraq, it will be a dramatic shift of policy our nation has never taken. It will set as an example for other countries to point to this moment in time as justification for their first strike attacks in the name of preventative security. Our politicians are failing miserably at their jobs because they are beholden to the special interests that placed them in office to begin with. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets around the globe against this war. If you didn’t see it on the news or if it was presented as insignificant, it was no accident. War sells. War is profitable. War kills the innocent. War is a racket!
Sean Bell
Sean Bell is a Gulf War era infantry Marine vet
and recently co-founded a San Diego Chapter of the Veterans for Peace .
Please pass this on to those who you think might use it to help stop this damn war!
Sean Bell
www.anti-sheep.com
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“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy
of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic
words and the violent actions of the bad people, but the
appalling silence and indifference of the good people. Our
generation will have to repent not only for the words and
acts of the children of darkness, but also for the fears
and apathy of the children of light.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
