Opinion Editorials, June 2007
June 2007 Opinion Editorial Links
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Rule of Law In Iraq: My address to
the Berkeley-Albany Bar Association
By Jane Stillwater
ccun.org, June 14, 2007
I am delighted
to be here today. During the course of my 15 minutes of fame
upon returning from being an embedded reporter in Iraq, I have
been asked to speak by NBC, ABC, NPR, CBS, the BBC and even
Fox News. That was no big deal. But when the BABA asked
me to speak? I was really excited and pleased.
Thank you for having me here today.
Once you have
been to Iraq, you see that country very differently. You not
only sympathize with the poor Iraqi schmucks over there who are
being shot at by US troops, various militias, 12 different kinds of
terrorists, both Sunni and Shia resistance fighters, wannabe mafia
dons, opportunistic looters, cold-hearted kidnappers, Al Qaeda and
Islamic extremists but you also come to sympathize with and really
identify with the American soldiers as well. And when I just
missed getting blown up when a suicide bomber blew up the Parliament
cafeteria and I was there at the hospital when the injured
Parliametarians started pouring in, I came to hate war as well.
I would
also like to talk for a moment about the fundamental disintegration
of the rule of law in Iraq -- and if I do, then maybe you might be
able to get some MCLE credits from this talk after all. In
2003, George W. Bush unleashed Shock and Awe on the country of Iraq and,
in my opinion, this was the equivalent for the poor Iraqis to the
carnage recently done to Virginia Tech by a gun-crazed shooter.
But then Bush did something equally bad or even worse. As
far as I can tell, after his bloody assault on Iraq, Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Paul Bremmer then systematically went
about dismantling all established systems of rule of law over there,
including the court system, the public safety system, the legal
system and the military. And without its structure to
enforce rule of law, the country basically fell apart at the seams.
There's a moral here.
The American justice system may be the brunt of a lot of bad
lawyer jokes, but it is also the glue that holds this country
together as well. Allegedly.
If there is one
thing I've learned from working with lawyers -- it's always to end
every statement with "allegedly".
Another thing I
have learned from working in law offices is how many times that
you guys get hit up for free advice. So I'm gonna force myself
to be forbearing here and not ask you for any today either.
I'm NOT going to say, "After my experience in trying to get
embedded in Iraq and being repeatedly turned down for no valid
reason, should I sue the Department of Defense for discrimination?
Or not?"
And I'm
definitely not going to lay out my case about how they -- allegedly
-- continuously kept me from receiving an embed even though I was
sponsored by Senator Boxer, Congresswoman Lee and four different
news services including the San Francisco Chronicle. Or how it
took me almost a full year to finally get permission to embed.
Or how even after being given basic permission to get credentialed,
I was repeatedly denied an actual embed.
And you will
not hear it from me that even after I got over there, I was not
allowed out of the Green Zone while other reporters freely came and
went. And neither will you have to listen to me
complain about how I have been seeking permission for over a month
to return to Iraq for another embed over there and have even had
actual units request me and they are STILL not letting me back into
the country. Allegedly. I'll protect you guys from all
that. And I won't even demand that you all take my case up to
the Supreme Court!
But I will,
however, take the witness stand here and answer any questions
you might have regarding my Iraq experience -- and if any
of you want to cross-examine me, go ahead. Then you can
be the judge of whether or not our troops should leave
Iraq. But after my own experiences there, I say that we
should.
And we should
also put Bush and Cheney on trial for war profiteering -- and
genocide.
Sinking to their level: Bush's
flea-bitten mafia is dragging America down -- and me too!
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
For the last seven years,
I've watched in horror as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, etc. have dragged
America down to a whole new moral low. I can't stand it any more!
First this gang of thugs stole the 2000 election. Then
they paraded GWB around after 9-11 just like he was a hero and not the one
who had made all the so-called mistakes that "allowed it to
happen". Then there was Katrina and Abu Ghraib and Osama bin
Forgotten and the lies leading up to the slaughter in Iraq and their
systematic murder of the Rule of Law in that country.
I could go on and on.
There's the Jeff Gannon scandal, the Enron ties, Jack Abramoff, and
the attack on Valerie Plame. And the systematic use of our tax
dollars as their own personal piggy bank -- giving tax breaks to the rich,
tax money to Halliburton, tax havens to off-shore companies who benefit
from America but don't have to pay their dues, our taxes being sequestered
in Bush's Swiss bank accounts, tax money from Social Security
disappearing, tax-generated welfare for corporations....
What else? Moral
decay! Let's not forget moral decay. And failed foreign policy
-- the whole Middle East is in flames thanks to these Soprano-wannabe
mafia dons whose extortion racket kills hundreds of thousands of
women and children indiscriminately. It's the St. Valentine's Day
Massacre writ large.
Guess what, America.
If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. And in the last
seven years, America has become just another flea-bitten, sorry-arsed
[female dog]. That's just pathetic. By not putting a flea
collar on these mutts in the White House, we Americans have allowed our
whole country to become infested. Health hazard! This is not
what I want for my country. No no no. I want to be able to
look UP to the people who guide our country -- not be forced to sink to
their level and go around scratching myself all the time.
We always come
to resemble the type of people that we associate with. Sorry-arsed
flea-bitten corrupt mafia dons? Is that who I want to resemble?
Not on your life! I want to see true statesmen [and women] running
my country and setting the tone for myself and for America -- not
just a bunch of moral-less mongrels with no ideals whose answer to every
problem comes from the barrel of a gun or from seeing just how LOW
they can go and still get away with it.
I'm sorry but I just
can't stand to watch the Bush-Cheney-Rove trainwreck any more. What
if I too get corrupted by their example -- and start to lie, steal,
extort, murder and torture too? "Hey! I get to do
that! My president does it and nobody minds. Why can't I do it
too!"
Please! Someone!
Set me an example. Set an example to America. Set an example
to the world. Put those crooks in jail. J-A-I-L. Now.
Do it now before I get corrupted too. I've already lied to
someone once today. And the next thing you know I might begin thinking
about stealing some little kid's lunch money. Help!
If nothing else,
let's do what Bobby Kennedy did with the old-school mafia dons -- send
them up the river for tax evasion. Then I won't be tempted to
sink to their level. And you won't be either.
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