Absolut Corruption

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Public Comment at the Port of Olympia Commission Meeting

Here is a copy of written testimony that I submitted earlier this evening at the Port of Olympia's Commission Meeting. I also gave oral testimony. They had a long agenda, so I kept it brief and outlined the major points:

• The war is illegal.
• the war is unethical.
• The American Service men and women are not to be blamed, condemned or even necessarily judged, but the war planners are culpable and are to be held accountable.
• We in Olympia have an opportunity to send a message, loud and clear: Abuse of the American Military is unacceptable, and we will not enable it via the use of the municipal port for military shipments destined for Iraq.

That was the gist of what I said. Think it'll make a difference? I have been hammering away on this issue with the port commissioners for 3 or 4 months now, so that we are getting to know each other somewhat. Though I don't think all of them would be too terribly distraught if I gave up and stopped commenting on the militarization of our municipal port.
Here's a link to the Port of Olympia's web-site. Meeting minutes will be published within the next month or so.
Cheerio!

Port Commission Meeting
Public Comment
November 14, 2005


Dear Commissioners,

Congratulations on your recent electoral victories, Commissioners Pottle and Telford.

I am here to express my dissent toward the ongoing use of the port for military shipments, so long as the shipments serve to further the war effort in Iraq.

The American people were deliberately deceived – duped into supporting a war that was and is based on faulty assumptions and criminal motives:

• There have been no significant WMD caches found in Iraq – this was the primary factor in the marketing and build-up to war.
• The Iraqi people have not been liberated. In fact, Iraq has been plunged into a bloody chaos of widespread violence and systemic corruption and collusion between the newly established Iraqi government and its US and British overseers.

Various groups have thoroughly and rigorously documented the fabrications and lies of the administration and its associated war-planners from well before the war up until the present day. The truth of the matter is not hard to find, unless there is an intentional effort to hide and be shielded from it. I suggest looking at the stratagems and dictates of the neoconservative think tank PNAC (Project for a New American Century) and also the points of intersection between the policy makers and the press via the WHIG (White House Iraq Group.)

The concept of invading another country, and conquering it so as to secure its natural resources is anathema to the vast majority of Americans. That is why they had to sell us a bill of goods, and market this effort as a “war against terrorism.” In reality, the war has only exacerbated international terrorism and changed the landscape of Iraq into a bitter, divided place. It has split the power of one despotic leader into the hands of many, smaller ones – so that ultimately, tyranny will be more difficult to eradicate for the Iraqi people

A war of aggression is against the law under both internationally and domestically recognized legally binding codes of conduct. One reason we have local government is to provide a check against any potential abuse or tyranny of the federal or state governmental systems. I am here to urge the commission to take a stand against a federal government that has gone horribly astray.

We have an opportunity to speak out against this bad excuse for a war by establishing a moratorium on military shipments. So long as this current White House administration and its associated interests seek to abuse the US military with unjustified and illegal use, they deserve to have access to the port denied.

I oppose this war on ethical, as well as legal grounds. I am not condemning the military service men and women, but rather the planners of this obscene war effort. It’s time to bring the soldiers home, my hope is that we can do our part in Olympia to make that happen.

Sincerely,

Robert Whitlock

Driftwood

from Priest Point Park, Novermber 6th, 2005

Maples with a Blue Sky

Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophylla) at Olympia's Priest Point Park
image captured on November 6^th, 2005 at 3:30 p.m.

Humanity - A Cancer upon the Earth?

A thought I had earlier today, spurned by a discussion of the differences between traditional hunter/gatherer societies and agrarian ones; classmates were arguing and trying to convince me that agrarian culture is older than the culture of those it has conquered in N. America. Personally I disagree, the legacy of hunter/gatherer societies is storied much more greatly throughout humanity's past, hunter/gatherer societies have also proven to be more successful over the long-haul, when compared to "fixed" agrarian based societies. Anyway, the discussion prompted this question for me:

Has humanity (or at least Western Society) become a cancerous life form, feeding on the Earth's limited resources, incapable of governing its own growth - as it destroys the very systems upon which it depends for life?

"Mountains of Creation"

Astronomy Picture of the Day November 11th, 2005

Credit: Lori Allen (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA

Explanation: This fantastic skyscape lies at the eastern edge of giant stellar nursery W5, about 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. An infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, it features interstellar clouds of cold gas and dust sculpted by winds and radiation from a hot, massive star outside the picture (just above and to the right). Still swaddled within the cosmic clouds, newborn stars are revealed by Spitzer's penetrating gaze, their formation also triggered by the massive star. Fittingly dubbed "Mountains of Creation", these interstellar clouds are about 10 times the size of the analogous Pillars of Creation in M16, made famous in a 1995 Hubble Space Telescope view. W5 is also known as IC 1848 and together with IC 1805 it is part of a complex region popularly dubbed the Heart and Soul Nebulae. The Spitzer image spans about 70 light-years at the distance of W5.

The Last Lie of the Iraq War Exposed

November 10, 2005
The Last Lie of the Iraq War Exposed
by Paul Sperry

"Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

"Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgment day comes, yeah."
- Black Sabbath, "War Pigs" (1970)

It seems like only yesterday U.S. deaths in Iraq had reached the grim milestone of 2,000. Now they're already up to 2,055, reminding us all that the only ones really paying for this dishonest war are young GIs, with their lives and limbs.

The White House and its shameless surrogates continue to try to squelch criticism over the soaring body count by saying it dishonors and demoralizes the troops on the ground over there. In other words, if you don't support the war, you don't support the troops.

Excuse me, but who doesn't support the troops? The war pigs need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Let's not forget it was the secretary of defense who told them to stop whining about missing Humvee armor, and then minimized their brutal roadside deaths by comparing them to random U.S. highway traffic fatalities on the Sean Hannity radio show last year.

For that matter, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy couldn't even remember how many of their soldiers had been killed in action.

Asked about the toll at a House hearing last year, during the deadliest month at that time for American troops, Paul Wolfowitz sat there with his face flapping. "It's approximately 500 … I can get the exact numbers," he stammered. He was off by nearly 250 soldiers – 250 brave Americans who left behind grieving mothers, fathers, wives, children – for what?

But Wolfowitz no doubt was thinking of other "metrics," as he's fond of saying, such as how many more pawns he'd need to make the Middle East safe for Israel. Never mind that the bastards who attacked this country are still on the loose.

Rumsfeld is so out of touch with fallen soldiers, he used a machine to sign his name to letters of condolence to the families of the first 1,000 service members who died in Iraq. He stopped only after he was caught.

Certainly their commander-in-chief is less callous, right? Fat chance. After sending troops into a shooting gallery with bull's-eyes on their backs, he egged on their killers from the safety of the White House with the cry, "Bring 'em on." He no doubt said the same thing about the VC while knocking back bourbons in Alabama.

We've already taken more casualties than in the first three years of Nam. In fact, just by wounding more than 15,000 of our soldiers, the Iraqi insurgents have taken out a full Army division.

And these aren't flesh wounds. These soldiers have had arms and legs ripped from joints, eyeballs blown from sockets, and skulls crushed in, permanently damaging gray matter. These wounded won't be going back for another tour. They face a lifetime of painful rehab and depression.

For what? To capture Osama bin Laden? No. To keep WMD out of his hands? No. To protect America? No. To liberate Iraq? No. The only thing that's been liberated is Islamic fundamentalism from under the thumb of secular Saddam Hussein. The new Iraqi constitution contains all the provisions necessary for an Islamic state, including Article 2: "No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established." Praise Allah.

And the insurgency is not going to die with this election, or any election, so long as we're over there. Listen to near-amputee Terry Rodgers tell it:

"There's always gonna be insurgents trying to blow us up. There's just too many of 'em that are willing to do it. You're never gonna catch all of 'em. And it seems like they have unlimited amounts of ammunition. So I don't think it's ever gonna end."

Rodgers, who was maimed by a roadside bomb while on patrol with the Army, is so mad at Bush for "getting people killed and mutilated for no reason" that he's refused to see him in the few times the president has visited Walter Reed Hospital. And Bush hadn't even tried to visit amputees, or attend funerals, before his reelection campaign.

But he had plenty of time to attend a black-tie dinner in Washington to joke about getting people killed and mutilated for no reason. "Nope, no WMDs there," he quipped to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on a slide showing him looking under White House furniture. Ha, ha.

Last year, an equally glib Bush was spotted taking in a baseball game with Rice just after wires reported several female marines were killed in an Iraq ambush that shocked the nation. That didn't seem to faze either of them. Cameras caught Bush and his gal pal Condi yucking it up in a VIP box. It's apparently all one big game to them.

The last lie of Iraq has been exposed – that Bush and the neocons care about the troops they sent needlessly into harm's way in Iraq. This is the ultimate betrayal.

Now, more than 160,000 are deployed there as sitting ducks, and an increasing number will be picked off, as the insurgents perfect their methods and their attacks grow bolder and deadlier.

And when the death toll tops 3,000, it will mark a most tragic irony in U.S. history. Three thousand brave American soldiers died avenging the murder of 3,000 of their fellow Americans – all on the wrong front, thanks to the war pigs who sent them there.

The Return of Chalabi

November 9, 2005
Some Democrats are outraged, but both parties sired this scamster "liberator"
by Justin Raimondo

As blowback from the lies that duped us into war plunges Washington into a maelstrom of investigations and counter-investigations, Ahmed Chalabi adds insult to injury by making a return trip to the Imperial City. He's staying at the ritzy-glitzy Ritz-Carlton, where he's staked out a whole bloc of rooms at (U.S.) taxpayers' expense, and is slated to meet with Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Treasury Secretary John Snow, and the Chalabi fan club over at the American Enterprise Institute.

Gee, that's funny: I could've sworn Chalabi was under investigation for turning over highly sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians, and had his Iraqi home and headquarters raided by American and Iraqi troops last year. Not to mention the fabrications he retailed to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who reported them as fact and plastered them all over the front page of the "newspaper of record."

The article can be read in its entirety here.

Surveillance Society

By Ivan Eland
November 9, 2005

Since 9/11, the FBI, once organized to fight crime, has been undergoing a makeover to focus its efforts on preventing future terrorist attacks.

To help the agency in its efforts, in 2001, the Congress recklessly passed and is now about to renew the USA PATRIOT Act, which dramatically increased the surveillance powers of law enforcement.

Yet, the truth is that terrorism (even including the 9/11 attacks) is a rare phenomenon in North America that kills far fewer people than ordinary crime, car accidents, or medical problems. As tragic as the 3,000 deaths from the aberrant 9/11 strikes were, the worst effect of those incidents was the self-inflicted wound from the conversion of America from the “land of the free” to the “land of the watched.”

The Oil Factor

Tonight, I went to a screening of The Oil War: Behind the War on Terror hosted by writer/director Gerard Ungerman. The film was deeply informative regarding the oil assets of Central Asia, and America's relationship with that part of the world vis a vis oil and gas supply and demand.

America and the people of this nation are in a deep ethical quandry regarding the demand for oil. 3/4 of America's oil comes from abroad. Americans are responsible for fully 25% of the world's daily oil consumption - even though the American population accounts for less than 5% of the world's population.

We are dependent on oil and gas in so many ways: the food we eat, transportation, storage, the multitude of technological devices, (which we have so rapidly, and readily, become accustomed to using.)

I recommend your viewing of this film, especially if you have any doubt about the motivating factor of oil behind the wars on (attacks of) Iraq, Afghanistan and more broadly "terror."

What gives America the right to spread death and disaster in the Middle East, so as to benefit our own energy markets and economy? What gives us the right to trample on the lives and well-being of others for our own benefit?

Here's a link to the website (Free Will Productions.)

I also wrote a diary entry at Daily Kos on this same topic, there is a poll associated with that: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/9/11649/2779