Signs point to Armageddon

[Guest guest]

I guess I am not the only one who thinks these things are leading to Armageddon.

The signs are there fo those who want to see. Read on.

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Bush's Messy War is Courting Total Disaster

By Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | Report

Tuesday, 30 July, 2002

At the same time Americans were celebrating what is left of their

freedoms on the Fourth of July, civilians in the Uruzgan Province of Afghanistan

were burying women and children massacred by U.S. forces during a wedding

ceremony. According to reports, 48 civilians were killed and 100 more were

wounded when Air Force attack aircraft swooped down and strafed the wedding with

bombs and cannon fire.

The simple fact is bad enough. This disaster is no secret in Afghanistan

and the rest of the Muslim world. The deaths of these innocents has undoubtedly

birthed new would-be terrorists who will someday seek to die for the privilege

of seeing Americans die. Our bombs and bullets have done marvelous recruiting

work for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

A preliminary United Nations report on its investigation of that attack

is said to have found evidence of an attempted coverup by American forces of the

attack. Shrapnel, bullets and bloodstains were removed from the scene. Civilian

women at the site are reported to have been bound at the hands by our forces

while the evidence was removed and destroyed. The massacre of civilians was

horrific. The fact that we tried to cover it up is monstrous.

So it goes with Mr. Bush's war on terrorism. The fight in Afghanistan is

far from over, as evidenced by recent attacks upon our troops in the Khost

region. Several major media outlets reported some days ago that some of our

troops were in fact killed, a claim the Pentagon vehemently denied. The UN

report of American efforts to cover up the facts of the wedding massacre make

such denials difficult to believe.

While American troops and Afghan civilians continue to bleed, Bush is

shopping around for a new battlefront. Momentum is building across our national

political landscape for a war with Iraq. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee

will hold hearings beginning Wednesday, July 31st, to explore the threat to

America represented by Saddam Hussein. It is unlikely that any politician will

stand up and ask the central questions - Where is the evidence that Hussein

poses a threat? If he has weapons of mass destruction and we know it, why didn't

we go to war against him months ago? Thanks to this cowardice, the Committee

hearings will be little more than a rubber stamp for conflict. It seems all too

likely that our forces will soon be engaged in Iraq.

The fallout from this conflict will be enormous. American troops will

die, unless we engage in antiseptic aerial bombardment that will utterly fail to

dislodge Hussein or his purported weapons. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians

will die no matter how we decide to wage the war. If America decides, in pure

Bush unilateralist action, to wage war without the blessings of the

international community or a United Nations mandate, our prestige on the world

stage will be annihilated.

Worse, war in Iraq will drive the Middle East into a state of utter

chaos. Reports from the British Foreign Affairs office paint a picture of a

teetering Saudi Arabia on the brink of collapse. Infighting between the ruling

Prince Abdullah and pro-Al Qaeda members of his royal family, fueled by

Abdullah's pro-Western stance, has led observers to wonder how long this

American ally within the House of Saud can stay on the throne. Popular uprisings

against Abdullah have added fuel to this fire.

An American attack upon Iraq could very easily be the spark that ignites

a terrible conflagration. If Prince Abdullah falls to an uprising exacerbated by

our conflict in the region, the Saudi oil fields will come under the control of

fanatics loyal to Al Qaeda's cause. This is precisely what Osama bin Laden

wanted - the oil. Were this to happen, it is certain that Bush would commit our

forces to defeating the insurgents. American war in the land of Mecca and Medina

would precipitate a global crisis that would make the events of September 11th

seem tame by comparison.

With the fight in Afghanistan still unfinished, with no evidence on the

table to make the case that Saddam Hussein poses a threat to America, and with

the terrifying implications of chaos in the Mideast if we do go to war there,

why on earth would Bush and his people want to push towards battle?

In all likelihood, the answer lies within the geometry of the voting

booth and the American marketplace. The Congressional midterm elections will be

taking place in 99 days. Instability in the stock market, combined with reports

of massive corporate fraud and mounting evidence that Bush and Cheney behaved

like Lay and Fastow, augmented by a war on terror that does not seem to be

getting anything done, has stripped the GOP of anything to run on in their

respective races. By most reports, Republicans are facing an electoral wipeout

to rival the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. A splendid little war, combined with

the inevitable demands for patriotism, would serve to create Bush coattails

where none currently exist.

Beyond that lies a motivation that is chilling in its inception. Larry

Kudlow, a market analyst for CNBC, put forth the proposition in a column

published on July 28th that war in Iraq is necessary to save the stock market.

The article is entitled, 'Taking Back the Market - By Force.'

" The shock therapy of decisive war, " opined Kudlow, " will elevate the

stock market by a couple thousand points. We will know that our businesses will

stay open, that our families will be safe and that our future will be unlimited.

The world will be righted in this life-and-death struggle to preserve our values

and our civilization. "

If thinking such as this is mirrored within the Bush administration, and

all indicators point to the sad fact that this is indeed the case, there will be

little left of our civilization. The world will burn, the markets will crumble,

and many more innocents will die. This war, already a mess on so many levels,

flirts with Armageddon.

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© : t r u t h o u t 2002

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