Are Bombs Aliens?

Twelve million! That's how many illegal immigrants members of Congress say are in the United States. Our Leader wants them welcomed; businessmen want that low wage work force, one which by nature of their status, have no legal remedies. It's been printed that only 1 in 20, 5%, of ship-borne cargo is inspected at our ports. Who knows what percentage of incoming tractor trailers get thoroughly checked? I would guess that if a terrorist were going to bring a "suitcase" nuke to our shores it would get here that way: a boat into a harbor. So, open borders for people, open ports for ships. Are our Leader and his minions that incompetent or just not serious about protecting us from terrorism? Why not both? It's known and been written that the threat of terrorism, as well as the reality, is worse since the invasion of Iraq, and it was known and prophesied beforehand, even within the regime, that the invasion would increase it. So Iraq hasn't helped protect us (knock on wood). And I suppose that is the point. If our Leader truly cared about citizens he would work to change the health care system and to provide well-paid jobs for all and use that pea brain of his to turn enemies into friends instead of creating new ones and trying to kill them all. But judging by the record, the regime's interests are only to increase their business friends' wealth and American domination of the world. Terrorism just provided a convenient excuse for foreign excursions and control of the home front. In Philadelphia, a Senate-convened immigration forum had the New York Mayor claiming we need foolproof national ID cards. Since they cannot and have not been able, or willing, to control illegal aliens who currently have no proper ID such national cards would only serve to control us, the citizenry. That is what the newly developing Pentagon strategy is all about, the so-called Fourth Generation Warfare.

Wars these days are forecast to be against non-state groups, those our Leader is pleased to call terrorists. But dear Leader's words in threatening Iran, and in reading the "riot act" to the Iraqi government, amount to terroristic threats. War itself is terrorism. In the lexicon of the administration and its apologists terrorists are those they don't like. It's as simple as putting domestic opponents into the enemy camp and that is precisely where all this is headed. For more than a generation our local police forces have been becoming militarized and they frequently respond to incidents with their own version of the "Powell Doctrine:" overwhelming force. Watch your local nightly newscasts for examples. And our "real" military is being honed to become policemen. It seems we will no longer fight the armies of nation-states but more amorphous groups. Get used to Iraq, just as we seem to have become used to Israel/Palestine. These days it's all about being occupiers. They need only find some group(s) to demonize and some fears to inflame and people will go along with living in occupied territory. They won't like it but they'll be too isolated, disorganized and fearful to step out of line.

After 9/11, it was easy to arouse passions for expeditions against Muslims just as it's not too hard to whip up hysteria about criminals in an ethnically divided America. When the day comes, perhaps not far in the future, that the state's guns and jails are turned against the majority Anglo population, then people may start to grasp that "terrorism" was only a shell concept, the response of the weak to the powerful. When the day comes that America is occupied territory, with Green Zones for the wealthy and favelas for the vast majority, people will wonder what happened and how and where did it all start? Frankly, it's been going on for centuries and an America "occupied" by Americans is a logical outcome. Since 9/11 and the whipping up of a retrograde patriotism we're supposed to put our interests ahead of any others' simultaneously hating ourselves and sacrificing our rights (as well as our soldiers). Remember the nasty portrayal of the French, even though most Americans probably couldn't find France on a map of Europe.

Bush's answer to turmoil is "bombs away!" As he said at West Point in 2002: "America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge." Let's hope he doesn't get too carried away in proving that strength. We don't need nukes falling on Iran. I read that the Mexican election is close and in dispute. We could lend them our Supreme Court to help their decision. After the 2000 election here I read, more than once, a quotation supposedly from Stalin: what matters is who counts the votes. I tried to check up on that (there are even online resources for Stalin!) but the search was unsuccessful. Recently, while reading about the history of nuclear weapons I ran across another supposed Stalin quote when he was queried about America's nuclear weapons. It's also most likely apocryphal but given the troubles in Iraq, so reminiscent of troubles in Viet Nam (and we know how war that turned out) that, true or not, might be apposite now. Supposedly, Stalin said: "Bombs don't win wars; people win wars."