man made & natural disasters

on november 28, reuters reported that during a 3 day span 169 whales and dolphins beached themselves in tasmania and in new zealand. assuming that most americans haven’t a clue of any geography unless the u.s. is spreading freedom and democracy at the barrel of a gun tasmania is an island of the southern coast of mainland australia and new zealand is southeast of australia . there is speculation in the scientific community that recent “sound bombing” or seismic tests of ocean floors to test for oil and gas are possibly involved.

turns out that the source level of the sound waves used are at such high decibel levels that the whales and dolphins realize they can’t live in that kind of environment any longer. these sound bombings are fired every few seconds, from 10 meters below the surface 24 hours a day in search of liquid gold. on december 24th there was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake 500 miles southeast of tasmania and an aftershock of 6.1 on december 25th was registered on the rector scale. on december 26th the 9.0 earthquake caused the tsunami which now claimed over 150,000 lives.

if nothing else the tragedy gave americans another opportunity to believe they are the most generous people on earth even though the reality is that of the world’s 30 most wealthy nations americans give the least. our government was finally embarrassed into donating 350 million dollars to the tsunami relief after initially pledging less than the 40 million dollars raised to celebrate the coronation of a moral coward. as a people we now seem to be self satisfied with that amount while we ignore the reality that our government is spending one billion dollars a week to finance the carnage in iraq.

all those pictures of death and destruction from the tsunami, that natural or man influenced natural disaster, yet not one picture of the death and destruction based on deceit and deception from a man made natural disaster in the cradle of civilization. not a single photo in the so-called liberal media of the once thriving city of fallujah now reduced to rubble where rabid dogs roam streets littered with the rotting corpses of people made in god’s image, scattered among lakes of raw sewage that now breed disease and vengeance where once 300,000 people lived a better life before they were liberated from it. why didn’t the nightly news have the courage to show the picture recently posted to antiwar.com – the one of a young girl no more than 5 or 6 years old, her cloths, her hands, her face covered in terror with the blood of her parents who were murdered at a check point.

“the devastation in the region defies comprehension. our flags will fly at half-staff to honor the victims of this disaster. we mourn especially the tens of thousands of children who are lost. we think of the tens of thousands more who will grow up without their parents or their brothers or their sisters. we hold in our prayers all the people whose fate is still unknown”. (george bush – January 7, 2005)

but this compassionate cheerleader claiming to be the conservative caesar who is carrying out god’s will wasn’t talking about the 400,000 iraqi children, the victims (collateral damage to those who carry out the policy of war) of his preemptive war, who are now suffering from a condition called wasting “a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein. most of them will die before their teenage years – no boyfriends or girlfriends, no proms, no college, no weddings, no children, no grandchildren, no hope and never an opportunity to develop their human potential to make this is a far better world in this lifetime.

that the press choose to exercise it’s freedom of the press by publishing the claims of our “macho aw shucks” president that the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward iraq and therefore “there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath indicates the press is no longer acting independent of the government. besides doesn’t a real man or woman take responsibility for his or her actions? when the press fails to hold this pretender to the throne responsible for waging war against another country posing no threat to our safety nor to our happiness based on deceit and deception one should not seek truth in the press.

how ironic that on january 20, 2005 the greatest threat to world peace was sworn in as the president of the country claiming to champion freedom and democracy. in a just world this pathological liar, this contemptuous obscurant fraud would be exposed for the terrorist he is, charged with war crimes, and sentenced to life in a prison where class privilege and a complacent press would not protect him from the realties of his crimes committed against humanity.

by building consensus for a “natural disaster” as in “shit happens” or by describing the event as an “act of god” and reinforcing the beliefs of a right wing religious cult following the course of a false god that is running out of rationalizations for their crimes against their fellow man and their planet directly or indirectly did we just miss another opportunity to accept reality and the responsibility for our actions? did we miss another chance to make right that which is so very wrong?

but by accepting another four years of empty rhetoric repeated ad nauseam by a spineless press we are ignoring the “man made disaster” in iraq and condemning ourselves to a self fulfilling prophecy that precludes the possibility of a peaceful world for all the generations that follow. can we really afford to forget that one of osama bin ladens reasons for 9/11 was the 500,000 mostly women and children who died in iraq as a result of our first gulf war, the willful destruction of iraqs infrastructure, and the subsequent sanctions? are we prepared to accept the consequences of our government’s actions when reality reminds us that violence begets violence?