Friday, October 29, 2010

"No Statute of Limitations on War Crimes"


It is one of many terrible ironies of our time that war criminals like Condi Rice and George W. Bush are launching their memoirs and their lie-braries just as the Iraq War Diaries are being released on wikileaks, providing actionable evidence against them.

In one of the pukiest news stories I've read recently, we learn that Condi was fawned over by middle school students and their parents at a fundraiser for a service learning program in Winchester, Mass. Showing a profound misunderstanding of the dynamics and theoretical underpinnings of the American civil rights movement, she appears to have boasted (or perhaps was misquoted by a reporter) that her father did not believe in "passive resistance." The image of Pa Rice on the porch with a shotgun is offered as a kind of parallel to Pa initimidating the cracker department store Santa Claus. Angry men always need and deserve guns in this kind of bullshit narrative.

In another astonishing display of ignorance she compliments the school thus: “I’m so glad to see the band room here, because in so many schools music has been cut out of the curriculum,” she said.

And why might that be, former cabinet level member of the executive branch of government? Not enough angry dads with guns storming the school board meetings? (Note to Condi: check out these Bring Our War $$ Home websites for an explanation of where the money for school programs went instead.)

Preaching the gospel of 9/11, she testified to her faith in violence as well as Jesus with some Orwellian doublespeak. I hope no one at the school makes students diagram these sentences:
“The world was more dangerous on Sept. 10, when we didn’t know what was coming at us,” she said. “We’re not blind any longer, and that’s a very good thing.” Rice said the country’s wars on terror have reduced Al Qaeda to a shadow of its former self..."They’re less likely to pull off something really big like 9/11, but it doesn’t mean they can’t pull off something, and that means to me that we are safer but not yet safe.”

Also, "She vehemently attacked the recent WikiLeaks “Iraq War Logs” because she said there will be foreign agents who helped the United States who will likely be executed because their names appear in the files."

Or maybe Condi's also thinking about former government officials who might be prosecuted because their names appear in the halls of power during a time when the U.S. goverment had full knowledge of crimes like torture, slaughter of civilians, rape, and other forms of mayhem.

Financed by the tax dollars that could have saved the music programs at middle schools all over the country.

It was reported that Winchester resident Alan Field and others were on hand to protest Condi's appearance at the school. “I don’t believe there is any question that Ms. Rice was among a core group of people…that made the decision to invade Iraq and also to authorize the use of torture,” he wrote...“The feeling is that she is an unindicted war criminal."

Another protester held a sign that read, "No Statute of Limitations on War Crimes." Amen to that, brother.

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