Expendable Pawns, Collateral Damage

opinion by Donald Torrence

A few months ago, Washington congressman George Nethercutt, Jr. was quoted in the press as saying that the positive aspects of our occupation are "a better and a more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." The families who have lost their sons and daughters in the war in Iraq would not likely share Nethercutt's arrogant and unsympathetic acceptance of the death of their loved ones. Nethercutt objectified and dehumanized both the Iraqi people and US troops. Both are relegated to sterile statistics in his mind and the minds of the Bush security managers who control our predatory war machine. American soldiers are putting their lives in jeopardy for oil and geopolitical dominance. They are being asked to make the ultimate sacrifice while the war profiteers (like Haliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle) and their supporters make their way to the counting house to stash their booty, booty that is earned through the sweat, blood and tears of the majority of the American people.

But times are a-changin' and we are witness to the re-birth of a new consciousness that questions the traditional nationalist ideology. The Peoria Journal (Illinois) recently quoted Tim Predmore, a hometown soldier, 101st Airborne Division, based near Mosul, Iraq. According to Predmore, "This looks like a modern crusade to control another nation's natural resources. I once believed I was serving for a cause--to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States. Now, I no longer believe that, I have lost my conviction. I can no longer justify my service on the basis of what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies. We have all faced death in Iraq without reason and without justification. How many more must die? How many more tears must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men and women whose job is to protect them rather than their leader's interests?"

Tim Predmore has connected the dots and transcended the lies used to justify the Iraqi quagmire and he no longer views it as a just war to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Rather, Predmore sees the war for what it is--a war for oil and US dominance in the region. Predmore and other US soldiers are nothing more that expendable pawns and the Iraqi people are nothing more than collateral damage to the Bush regime bent on world domination.

The connected dots reveal a frightening reality of an evolving oligarchic fascism. The American people are being manipulated and controlled by an oil soaked regime that is bent on unleashing the dogs of war and causing famine, pestilence and death in a world that is already suffering from the machinations of corporate elites and their mandarins.

Like Predmore, an ever growing number of people throughout the world are connecting the dots and a resilient, determined opposition is building and challenging the imperialistic fantasies of Bush and his security managers. Their message is simply that a more just, humane, equitable and sustainable world is possible. Arundhati Roy writes, "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."