My research, based on what I think are reliable sources, indicates that over a million innocent Iraqi civilians have unnecessarily lost their lives as a result of our illegal war in Iraq. If you consider UN sanctions put in place by the US during the Clinton years, you have to add over half a million dead Iraqi children to those stats.
Many thousands or hundreds of thousands of children have been killed, maimed, starved, or orphaned by this war and many thousands of surviving children now have birth defects or cancer because of the depleted uranium weapons we used there. Iraqi women will continue to give birth to such unfortunate children well into the future. You can't quantify the suffering we have inflicted on these people. The land has been poisoned with radiation and large areas may be uninhabitable, or ought to be uninhabited, for maybe tens, hundreds or thousands of years. Many millions of people have been displaced from their homes or have otherwise become impoverished by the war. Essentially the country has been destroyed. And I'm only talking about Iraq here, not all the other countries subject to our military intervention.
What I am describing are horrendous war crimes perpetrated against these people by our leaders and their followers. We were told that the reason we had to employ our military might against this nation was because their leader was developing weapons of mass destruction that would be used against us. These were all lies and there's plenty of evidence that they were intentional lies and not simply mistakes. I believe, based on my research, that we went into Iraq to secure their oil resources and also to make sure Saddam Hussein didn't have the opportunity to influence other countries to trade oil in currencies other than dollars.
Hussein was in the process of trying to end the monopoly of the US dollar being the world's only reserve currency. He was set on selling his country's oil to other nations in currencies other than dollars. This of course would undermine the US monopoly, a great advantage the United States has over the rest of the world. So we took him out. I can understand why the powers that be wouldn't like this. But that didn't give us the right to commit grievous war crimes against those people. All people have a right to live in peace and pursue their own destinies on a level playing field based on international law and basic human rights. Killing them and their children and making them suffer did not enhance their human rights, advance their society towards democracy, or help them to understand what real democracy means. And it didn't help us either... or our posterity.
And I will tell you this. I don't hate anyone, not even people who commit dastardly deeds. But we all have a responsibility to stop criminals in their tracks and to correct any injustices they perpetrate in our name. They are not bad people. (I don't really think there are any bad people.) But I do think there are plenty of people who are simply intellectually and emotionally unprepared to occupy positions of leadership and ought not to be given the opportunity to mistreat others. It's part of our job as citizens, and also a key function of government, to make sure our fellow citizens and other world citizens are protected from intellectually, emotionally and spiritually unenlightened people.
When you give people who are unprepared to handle the responsibility of what amounts to almost unlimited military and economic power, the damage they can do to others is enormous. People can and do become corrupted by such power.
It's important to understand that as citizens we have a responsibility, and it's our primary duty to stop people who represent us from doing unsavory things in our name. We need to be vigilant. It's our job. We haven't done that. We've lost sight of who we are and what our responsibilities are.
Most of our leaders are not qualified to hold the offices they hold. They get elected by way of a system that is drastically flawed. We haven't been mature and wise enough to modify our systems so as to become well enough informed and intellectually prepared to hire (i.e., vote for) qualified people to represent us.
And so our leaders have not preserved our freedoms, advanced human rights, or insured the sustainability of life on our planet. We have instead accepted a worse than mediocre status quo. We don't educate our children on how to handle the responsibilities of citizenship. We don't even educate them on how to handle economic life when they leave school. And we don't properly educate them on the importance of having intellectual integrity as a critical part of their character.
We too were educated by that system. Maybe that's why we're a little bit confused about why things seem to be going in the wrong direction. This has been going on for a long time now. Many of o ur schools are failing, and so are many of our most important institutions. We're beginning to see that our way of life is collapsing under the strain and weakness of years of moral decay and neglect. Our people feed on myth, propaganda, lies, and corruption handed to us by confused people in authority. If we don't reverse course, there's no telling how much despair we and our offspring will eventually have to endure because of it.
We need to understand the power of the truth. We understand the power of lies now very well. We see how lies allow some of us to control and manipulate others. We've sometimes been the victim of those lies and sometimes the perpetrators. Now it's time to experience the power of the truth. I'm not talking about some airy fairy existential truth. I'm talking about the simple act of telling the truth about our own experience, as opposed to using lies as a short cut to get what we think we want, or to avoid responsibility for our behavior or lack of it.
Living in a sea of lies removes us from reality. We live now on the edge of insanity and/or collapse. If you look at the death, despair, devastation, hunger, war, and pain being experienced in the world now, what I'm saying should start to appear somewhat obvious. Our leaders have killed or ruined the lives of millions of innocent people in our name. Our Constitution and the rule of law is in shreds. If you think there will never be a price to pay for this treason, you are living in a dream world.
We can turn this around. I think I can help. We all can help once we all understand the challenge. I don't have all the answers. But I think I can help. So can you.
Q8. You don't sound presidential to me. I appreciate your efforts but I don't think you can be elected. Sorry.
A8. Well... I understand why you see it that way, but here's the thing: If you go on the internet you will find bloggers and commentators, accurate and inaccurate reporting, and enough opinions to make your head spin. But as far as offering any real solutions or alternatives... well... not so much. Electing me to this office would be real change and a beginning towards cleaning up the mess. The other people running are not more qualified to do this job than I am. Few of them have kept their oath of office or inspired us to do better. Such lack of integrity and competence is destroying our country and other countries too.
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