Shock and Yawn

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Last month the Pentagon revealed its “Shock and Awe” plan for an assault on Iraq. This strategy—named to glorify the heinous physical and psychological effects from which millions of innocent civilians would suffer during the detonation of 800 missiles in only two days—is designed to incite instantaneous surrender. “The United States is planning to suck all the oxygen out of the air with a fireball over the heads of the five million residents of Baghdad,” seethes Geov Parrish in a workingforchange.com editorial. Americans, meanwhile, seem indifferent to an act that, if successfully executed, will amount to one of the most horrific war crimes “ever committed in our name and with our money.”

While “Shock and Awe” is a white-hot topic on the Internet, it’s getting zero coverage in the mainstream media. As a result, many Americans are dismissing the news as “conspiracist nonsense.” Although such an attack may never occur, Parrish says America’s worldwide reputation has been irrevocably damaged by the Pentagon’s revelation of this reprehensible plan and worse, by our perceived apathy. Even notorious terrorists appear more sympathetic than President Bush when Parrish reports of “captured Al-Qaeda documents” detailing plans to fly airplanes into American nuclear facilities; a strategy that was eventually rejected on “‘humanitarian’ grounds.”

With the Bush Administration so eager to engage in war crimes, why should terrorists show any mercy in the next attack on America? And do war planners realistically expect that such implementing “Shock and Awe” would actually improve international relations or decrease the likelihood of terrorist retaliations? On the contrary, it appears the United States. is provoking other countries to justify its “lust for global military dominance.” Why don’t Americans give a damn? Rather than blaming the corporate controlled media, Parrish suggests that the horror of our deeds is simply beyond our grasp. “Such images of mass suffering are so overwhelming in their scope that they mean nothing to most of us.” In the end, Parrish reminds us that the international protests of February 15 demonstrate that many of us do care, even though we are not recognized by “leaders [who] think themselves above accountability for their actions. Or crimes.”
-Erin Ferdinand

Go there>> http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14544

Related Link:

• Read the DOD Text “Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance”

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