Trimming The Bush (No Pun Intended) It Should Be Dug Up
By Al Cronkrite The Covenant News ~ July 07, 2006
When concepts become embedded in the social order they often endure without being subjected to serious analysis.
This phenomenon is apparent in modern dentistry. Teeth are life sustaining and their care should be a concern to everyone. The roots of a tooth extend into the bone and are sustained by the blood supply creating the possibility of serious physical problems with improper treatment. Nevertheless, dentistry is primarily a mechanical process. Tooth extractions, bridgework, caps, fillings, cleaning, and even tooth transplants are primarily mechanical. Analyzing the shenanigan involved in extracting $800 to $1,000 from a patient for grinding down a tooth and gluing on a cap should cause a revulsion in everyone forced to pay it. The reasons for this robbery are for another essay.
American citizens are fatally naïve. Their failure to perceive the farcical nature of dentistry carries over into the realm of government as well.
A case in point involves a recent essay written by John W. Whitehead, an attorney, President and Founder of the Rutherford Institute. Whitehead describes his organization as a “leading advocate of civil liberties and human rights, litigating in the courts and educating the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting individual freedom in the United States and around the world”. He and his organization are on the side of righteousness and undoubtedly accomplish some good.
Whitehead provides a quote from a 2005 John McCain speech given on the floor of the Senate: “We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people, no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security. It also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not any other country. We stand for something more in the world—a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They do not deserve our sympathy. But this is not about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.”
Fifty years ago that quotation would have contained a recognizable measure of truth; today, it is a fancy bit of probably ghost written fiction to be quoted by naïve lawyers like John Whitehead. It is but one of an ocean of platitudes heaped on citizens to convince them that the duplicitous connivances being worked by our bribe infested elected officials are tempered by periods of sound judgment.
The War on Terror has never been a legitimate war and its mobilization has been short on real offensive success and long on defensive assaults on individual freedoms.
At the beginning of the article Whitehead mentions that the Supreme Court decision concerning the rights of Guantanamo prisoner Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver, accused of aiding and abetting al-Qaeda, was a message that President Bush, in attempting to strip him of his rights and try him and other prisoners in a military tribunal, had exceeded his authority.
He goes on with an effusive approbation of American righteousness and confirms our government’s intention to spread its own “freedom and democracy” throughout the world. Describing the essence of the 200 page Supreme Court ruling he writes “America’s fundamental commitment to justice and fairness is necessary to everyone, even alleged terrorists, in a time of war“.
He then states that Hamdan would probably never go free even though in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld the Supreme Court had decided in favor of Hamdan. Is Attorney Whitehead aware that show trials were prevalent in the early Soviet Union, that they serve no legitimate purpose, and in United States in former times innocence was assumed until guilt was proven?
Now let’s take a look at the condition of freedom in America - the land of the free and the home of the brave. Like President Bush, Attorney Whitehead brags about freedom but fails to mention that the Bush Administration has codified unprecedented freedom robbing laws. Using the questionable 9/11 attack as an excuse, our airports are now under the heavy foot of government inspectors, the Posse Comitatus Act has been breached, the Patriot Act has overridden several sections of the Bill of Rights, our police forces have become black-suited Storm Troopers, and our government regularly invades the privacy of its citizens. In January Halliburton was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to construct retention camps to be used to house illegal aliens or others in case of emergency.
Osama bin Laden has not been apprehended and since he still serves as another of the perennial boogie men needed to keep our populace on edge he will probably not be captured and his periodic trumped up threats will continue. Bin Laden is only a threat to Americans when our own government allows him to be. He and the entire phony war on terror should be easily recognized and severely condemned by attorney Whitehead.
Also missing from Attorney Whitehead’s essay is the recent discovery that our own FBI does not include the 9/11 attack in the crimes of Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden claimed he had nothing to do with the attack and since no mention of that crime appears on his rap sheet, the FBI apparently agrees with him.
Most American citizens have fallen for the propaganda that describes all enemies, real and created, as unrepentant barbarians. Every American should consider the manipulations Western nations have imposed on the Middle East before condemning their retaliations.
The Nation of Iraq was formed following WWI by the British. Alan Bock writes, “At the end of the war the League of Nations gave Great Britain a mandate to administer Iraq until an independent government could be established. The borders were thus based on British imperial and commercial interests and the fortunes of war rather than being drawn along traditional frontiers or historic tribal or ethnic lines.”
In the war between Iran and Iraq the American government supported Saddam Heussein providing him with weapons. Prior to that war our government had installed the Shah of Iran and supported his government until it was overthrown by Muslim religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Then to the enduring chagrin of all Arabs the Balfour Agreement and subsequently the United Nations (remember the League of Nations after WWI) were involved in creating the Nation of Israel on land that had for centuries (in fulfillment of God’s own prophecy) been owned and occupied by Arabs.
Historic imperialism in the Middle East has left a well of resentment in people that have never possessed the strength to overcome it. This resentment spills over into the hideous terrorist attacks that regularly occur in Israel and make America, Israel’s major supporter, a target as well.
The complaint that Arabs do not recognize the right of Israel to exist is an illegitimate complaint. The land on which Israelis live was stolen from its rightful owners against their will and against the Will of God. The result of that theft has been continual strife; a strife that any sentient person would properly expect.
Not long ago General Tommy Franks, former Commander in Iraq, stated that one more terrorist attack would result in the imposition of Marshall Law. Thank God another attack has not yet occurred since the legal structure to impose a police state is in place at both national and state levels.
I totally agree with the contention that any nation desiring to provide an example to the world of freedom and justice must treat everyone, including prisoners of war, with the same immutable justice. However, it is not only naïve to assert that United States fills that role but a disservice to truth and to the very justice Attorney Whitehead claims to support. Most of the world now considers our former City On A Hill to be the world’s most dangerous nation.
Whitehead’s essay is entitled “War Crimes Trials: Proving Bin Laden Wrong” and begins with this quote “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in—and the West in general—into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” — Osama bin Laden, October 21, 2001
Whitehead’s essay attempts to refute bin Laden’s quote with a litany of erroneous platitudes. His failure to provide an accurate and truthful word picture of our present dilemma is typical of most of our Christian leadership and is responsible for the impending demise of freedom in America.
I am very much afraid that Osama bin Laden is more truthful than Attorney John Whitehead!
P. S. I do not wish to provide any support to Islam which is a cult and an enemy of Christianity that should be confronted and countered wherever it appears.