Frosty Wooldridge -- Illusions of security Stem From Illusions of Integrity

ILLUSIONS OF SECURITY STEM FROM ILLUSIONS OF INTEGRITY

By Frosty Wooldridge
October 30, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Integrity defined the office of president of the United States from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt defined honor as did Dwight D. Eisenhower. Most presidents subscribed to integrity in the past 230 years of our republic. Some did not. Grant, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon and Clinton displayed personal and moral corruption.

Johnson fraudulently worked his way into the White House after a life in politics that should have gotten him a life in prison. He didn�t get caught. However, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that thrust us into the Vietnam War, proven to be a lie, allowed Johnson to send 58,000 drafted soldiers to their deaths and horribly wounded 350,000 others. The Vietnam lie made a lot of corporate CEOs billions in war production.

Clinton�s immorality manifested in a ridiculous sex scandal that kept the nation mesmerized for over a year and kept him from working on the nation�s business.

But the greatest fraud early in the 21st century remains the lie of �weapons of mass destruction� whereby George W. Bush coerced the United States into a bogus war against a tyrant in a sandbox.

The evidence shows that Hussein did not possess WMD. United Nations inspectors could not find WMD. None existed! Hussein couldn�t deliver them even if he possessed them since he sat on the opposite side of the globe. He did not take part in 9/11. He did not sponsor training camps for terrorists. Saddam Hussein proved as impotent against the United States as a flea crawling up a female camel�s leg with rape on his mind.

Yet, this month, over 94 American kids have lost their lives and the total swells to over 2,700 young men and women killed in the miserable sands of Iraq. To add to that misery, 20,000 young men and women lost their legs or arms and other injuries after combat. According to a John Hopkins report, to add even more immorality to this death dance, Bush�s charade has killed, thus far, 655,000 civilian Iraqi citizens.

Where has the inhumanity of this onslaught taken us? What has it solved? When will it end? What is the rationale of so much suffering and death?

How can Bush pretend that �democracy� works in Iraq with over 50 percent illiteracy rates, when, in fact, daily horrific violence demonstrates in-congruency? How can he pretend that 1,600 years of �Sharia Law� will surrender to our advanced form of democratic governance in such a backward land? How can Bush justify �staying the course� with so many of our kids serving when it�s not his daughters serving or being killed on the front lines of the war?

Bush said we wouldn�t leave Iraq until we �win.� Does winning mean killing another 655,000 Iraqi citizens? Does that mean we must bomb Iraq back into the Stone Age? One of the simplest ways to stop the insanity would be to split the country into Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Otherwise, once we leave, another Saddam will rise out of the ashes like a phoenix.

What happened in Vietnam? The truth exposed the lie. How? Combat soldiers returned home with the truth. Finally, we left while that part of the world returned to its own ways.

Since few soldiers enjoy a �voice� in the lie of Iraq, finally, a famous voice speaks up via his brother. For an expose� on illusions note the following statements from Kevin Tillman after the death of his NFL football playing brother, Pat:

�It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice... until we got out.

�Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is.

�Projection makes perception. We see only what we project. (Bush�s projections)

�Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not� and condemns everything that it is. Or, do we?

�Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military. (Loss of integrity at the highest levels)

�Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartner scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat. (War is horrible death and totally insane when you can�t win, can�t lose, but die for nothing)

�Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes. (Bush says we must stay the course and we can�t leave until victory)

�Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground. (Weapons of mass destruction fabrication)

�Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started. (Referring to Vietnam and Cheney�s five student deferments as well as Bush hiding out in the National Guard engineered by his father)

�Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated. (Bush pretending to tell the truth)

�Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated. (Our kids are getting killed while Halliburton and Blackwater, 21st century Robber Barons, make a killing on the backs of American taxpayers)

�Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated. (To date: 655,000 Iraqi citizens killed)

�Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated. (Patriot Act)

�Somehow torture is tolerated. (Bush says you must determine what the meaning of �torture� is; something he learned from Clinton who didn�t know what the definition of �is� was)

�Somehow lying is tolerated. We behave as addicts. (Bush lies about Iraq while the American public injects itself with the illusion)

�Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense. (Senate voted to stay in Iraq against Kerry�s bill and so did the House vote against Murtha�s bill to leave Iraq)

�Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world. (Bush creates more terrorists seething with hatred as we bomb their region and 655,000 of their citizens to death)

�Somehow a narrative is more important than reality. (Bush, like the emperor wearing no clothes, speaks, with nothing substantive or with reason after three years of this charade)

�Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world. (You can fool some all of the time; you can fool all, some of the time; you can�t fool everyone forever. Bush�s latest approval rating is 38 percent; 68 percent of Americans want out of Iraq.)

�Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance. (If they volunteered for the military, it�s their problem)

�Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtue-less, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. (President, Vice President, U.S. Senate and House members)

�Somehow this is tolerated. (U.S. citizens sit back, watch, wait, listen, do nothing)

�Somehow nobody is accountable for this. (No one was fired for allowing 9/11 and no one has been fired for the carnage of three years in Iraq)

�In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites. (Unrelenting, massive illegal immigration)

�Luckily this country is still a republic. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday November 6th.�

Brother of Pat Tillman, in Love, former U.S. Army Ranger, Kevin Tillman

I echo these feelings because my college roommate was drafted into the military and killed in Vietnam. Phil was like my brother and best friend. He died for nothing in another contrived war. Every time I go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, I run my hands over his name carved in granite. I weep uncontrollably. His was a life unlived. Jefferson said, ��men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.� With Vietnam and Iraq, we suffer a disconnect.

While Bush deceives, I witnessed the truth at the border from Texas to California. Our southern border remains open to a plethora of terrorists, drug smugglers, killers, child molesters, transport of WMD, diseases and criminals. So much for the illusion of America�s security from terrorism.

What does it take for a president and Congress to address American citizens� needs? How about the fact that the average American credit card suffers a $9,240.00 balance? Let�s tackle the $8.4 trillion debt! What about the $700 billion annual trade debt? How about three million outsourced jobs leaving our middle class standing in unemployment lines? Instead of the $300 billion spent to blow up and rebuild Iraq, we could have spent $300 billion to rebuild our ghettoes, upgrade our schools, pave our highways, put our citizens to work, halt drug smuggling and crime within our country. Let Iraq take care of Iraq.

Again, we let old men lie us into wars where we don�t belong; we follow them blindly; we offer our children up for death; we suffer from corporate power and greed along with political insanity. Because of our silence�the Iraq War continues�and our nation degrades toward an uncertain future. Unless!

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Unless we join in a higher vision of integrity; a return to a noble stance in line with the honor of the U.S. Constitution; to the genius of our founding fathers in their time and you in your time, whereby the common man activates the equation; to the power of your spirituality, however you define it, and your subsequent actions that create benefit for all humanity.

Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents and six times across the United States in the past 30 years. His published books include: "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS" ; �STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE�; �IMMIGRATION�S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES�; �MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE TO ALASKA: INTO THE WIND�A TEEN NOVEL�; �BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD: TIRE TRACKS FOR YOUR IMAGINATION�; �AN EXTREME ENCOUNTER: ANTARCTIA.� His next book: �TILTING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY INTO A SWAMP.� He lives in Denver, Colorado.