Well, we did it.

We finally did it.

We have allowed our country to become a dictatorship:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/812825.asp?cp1=1

Lest anyone with a lick of sense think otherwise, let me say it again.

We have allowed our country to become a dictatorship.

Despite the fact that our elected representatives have betrayed their mandate in favor of slavishly bowing to our new Fuhrer, despite the fact that every other country in the universe is against Iraqi combat save Israel, despite the fact that our "elected" leader (forgive me a moment while I scoff) is generally considered here and abroad the biggest BOOB to ever hold high office, we're going to war.

Yep! And not only that, we've stripped the Constitution bare and let Dubya wipe his pock-marked ass with it, as Congress has vested in him unilateral powers that we'll never see taken away. When has a politician ever relinquished power?

None of you should be surprised. Not at my reaction, nor at the outcome. In fact, we've been bombing the Iraqis for months. Illegally, of course. We've struck a civilian airfield in Iraq three times in the past month. Each attack was a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Let's also not forgot the unconstitutional bombings that have been going on for months. Unconstitutional even WITH Tonkin Resolution leeway (a Resolution brought about by deception and treachery, but hey, it gave us the Vietnam War, and look how cool that was), since we've been bombing for SIX MONTHS - four full months longer than the President has before Congress can declare war.

Since our nebulous, phantom decision that Iraq is the mother of all evil (discounting, naturally, that Israel already has the weapons of mass destructions, nuclear armament and UN violations that Bush finds so egregious), our Dope in Chief has almost systematically isolated our bewildered nation from its allies. Germany's current Chancellor ran for re-election solely on his refusal to enter his country into a war against Iraq without solid international reasons. France and Canada, the creators of mimes and Celine Dion, have decried our stupid perogative that we rule the world. Canada, God bless 'em, has also begun to revoke tax-exempt status of organizations that support Israeli attacks on West Bank settlements (regions they have zero right to be in, and wouldn't be, if the United States didn't veto any and all UN action against "the only working democracy in the Middle East").

This is, of course, all meaningless, as Bush's new mandate charges him to ignore our global neighbors and incur a battle that favors no one, yet manages to drive us deep into debt, kill our children and make ourselves a laughingstock... and a menace.

A menace that cannot be controlled, or counted on reliably. We are a nation that bombs civilians, trespasses on foreign soil, rapes, kills and does it all in the name of democracy.

All countries that do not subjugate their resources to us can count on "regime change" one way or another. Need I really list off the African, Asian, Central and South American countries that have "benefitted" from our involvement?

I can do it easily. There are NONE.

Iraq stands accused of wanting to defend itself. While I will not back Iraq as a model government or Saddam Hussein as the greatest leader since Charlemagne, at the very least they are abiding by international law. They have invited inspectors to tour anywhere they damn well please, and, contrary to popular (i.e. misconstrued) belief, UN Weapons inspectors were NEVER thrown out - they were evacuated before ANOTHER illegal US/UK aerial bombing mission.

While the U.S. stonewalls and demands new concessions that no country should be forced to agree to (all the easier to say that Iraq will not listen to diplomacy), our public is force-fed a diet of misleading and blatantly biased news accounts that make people who watch "The West Wing" feel that they're up on current events.

All of this matters not. Our Fuhrer has spoken. The tens of thousands who protest, call their representatives and demand that we take the unprecedented step of listen to our peers and FIXING OUR FAILED ECONOMY (failed by Alan Greenspan and our favorite layabouts, the CEOs), they protest in vain. And we will be at war again... just like Vietnam. A war with no boundaries, no conditions, no goals and NO VICTORS. The next time you think about "bombing the towel heads back to the Stone Age" look into the hollow eyes of your relative that came back from Southeast Asia questioning everything he's ever known. Study his face, and if you're brave and he's even braver, you'll ask and be told about the atrocities that we gloss over when we drive to the multiplex.

I know a man who is like an uncle to me who absolutely will not discuss Vietnam. All I know is that he wakes up at night screaming and has once almost asphyxiated his wife in his sleep, all because of a distant memory that he cannot bury... or redeem.

Do you want that for your sons and daughters? For your brothers or sisters?

Clearly you cannot, but guess what? They'll be shipped off, not the relatives of our Senators and Congressmen. SL4ever can be pro-war all he wants; his lazy, bulbous ass couldn't be pried from his desk chair if R. Lee Ermey himself came up to him and tried to whip him into shape.

Ask Yeontoo how she feels now that so many of her thousands of children are of draft age.

Ask yourself if you believe your country has the right to set aside its representative government and the basic tenets that formed it in favor of granting unheralded powers to an idiot. Ask if democracy matters to you.

Ask if you're willing to live in a country that is more modeled on 1930s Germany at present than the 1790s.

If you are in favor of this coup d'etat, than you are the biggest asshole and idiot whoever lived, and I have absolutely no use for you. If you think that Iraq is such a massive threat that it requires us to spiral our debt and economy to the bottom of the barrel, kill our citizens and isolate ourselves on the world political stage, then I beseech you to PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND STICK IT IN A POT OF BOILING OIL.

Prostrate yourself at the Gods of Stupidity and Convenience. For it takes an ill-informed ass to think our government is legitimate and correct in its current action. And it takes a lazy blob of carbon to not be critical of the things around them, or to learn that what they are being told is wrong.

And then, in your final act of "patriotism," enlist and go to war so that rich men can get richer and we can secure more oil.

Wave that flag proudly.

Because we're fucked.

"I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
- George Walker Bush (http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html)

PEACE.
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