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Part 1:  The crimes against the people of the United States.  

A.  Lies to distort the past and present, create fear and hate, deny truth, corrupt the mind, distort morality, confuse, mislead, manipulate, disenfranchise, disarm, obstruct justice.

Consider the soldier in the video:  he believed that Saddam Hussein, Iraq, and the Iraqi people had something to do with 911, which they did not; he didn't know that Saddam Hussein rose to power supported by the CIA and past administrations;  he didn't know that the US supplied Saddam Hussein with the chemical weapons that he used on his own people; he didn't know that the US did not object to the use of those weapons when they were used.  He believed that Iraqi citizens were his enemies when in fact, they were not.  Under international law, his Commander-in-Chief had a supreme responsibility to protect them, keep the citizens of Iraq safe, properly fed, and well cared for, as well as keep all their property safe and secure.  I bet he didn't know that.  Why not?  

He didn't know that Iraqis who despise Americans do not distrust us because of our freedoms and democracy, which is what they were told by Bush and his enablers, but rather because we have systematically over the years betrayed them and others, including the people of Palestine, Iran, Saudi Arabia... in fact probably all the countries in the region.  Iraqi citizens know, although he doesn't know, that sanctions and embargos that we imposed in the 1990s caused the death by disease and starvation of approximately 600,000 of Iraq's children, in addition to the fact that almost all Iraqis now have family members and/or friends who were killed by Americans directly or indirectly.

Not only did he not know that, but he didn't know that our use of depleted uranium weapons, which is a war crime, has resulted in an epidemic of birth defects and cancers among Iraq's children. And it is likely that these birth defects and cancers will persist now for generations.  A great many Iraqis know this.  Much of the world knows this even though most American citizens do not.  He didn't know that the reason the US is in Iraq is to control their oil and water resources and/or to reverse Iraq's policy of selling oil for Euros rather than Dollars.  Saddam Hussein had nationalized Iraq's oil industry for the good of his own people.  We are there to reverse that policy so that their oil industry is structured for the good of the American people at the expense of the people of Iraq.  Some Americans know this and approve of the theft, but I don't believe that most Americans know this, or believe this, and they would not approve of it if they did.  US policy makers have decided to trade our humanity for oil;  to sell our soul to insure that we can keep driving our SUVs.  I don't think this is a good trade. I realize that some people who are insecure, are afraid of living up to their responsibilities, and live in fear, might think it's a good trade.

In short, this soldier did not know that we are not there for any legitimate purpose, nor did he know that our invasion is illegal under international law.  In fact, he believes that torture is acceptable given that the CIA came to teach him and others how to improve their torture techniques.  That the CIA came there at all implied that crimes committed at Abu Ghraib were legal, approved and sanctioned higher up the chain of command.  In short... this soldier's mind and morals have been purposely and systematically corrupted. Our government cheated him out of his morality and good sense... out of his ability to think clearly.  We therefore cheated him out of his dignity, his freedom and his pursuit of happiness.  We cheated others out of their lives and limbs, their relationships with loved ones and friends, and for some, their ability to ever live successfully in society.  

He believes that his behavior and the behavior of others at that post were somehow acceptable; that the crime was not what they did, but that they took pictures of what they did and got caught.  He was purposely misled and betrayed to make him willing to terrorize the people of Iraq so that the people of Iraq would give up their will to resist, so that the US could do and take what it wanted from them, namely their oil and their sovereignty.  

He is the logical result of policymaking at the highest levels of our government and his crimes are their crimes even though the strategy of his Commander-in-Chief and his Commander's closest associates is designed to give them plausible immunity from prosecution and accountability... all at his expense.  This is cowardice and betrayal at the highest levels of government.

What I have described in the preceding paragraphs are crimes against an American citizen, someone's son, maybe someone's brother, perhaps someone's father... who was once in touch with reality and the decent values he was taught growing up by his parents, teachers, and other people in his life. 

The truth is, he was mentally abused by our government before he ever enrolled in the military.  He was lied to in order that he would be easy prey for military recruiters.  In basic training, his indoctrination and dehumanization began.  That's when he first heard the terms 'raghead' and 'haji.'  That's when systematically he was slowly and purposely taught to fear and hate Muslims, to shoot and kill them, and even to rape their children, without remorse.  That's what lies do.  That's what lies did to him and others.  And that's what lies did to citizens that never even joined the military... corrupting their judgment and their perspective.  Not everyone succumbs to this treachery.  But those who do are deeply injured and their injuries affect the whole of society.

This is not just a failure of leadership.  This is moral turpitude.  It is the use of leadership, knowledge and experience for the purpose of cheating trusting citizens out of their intelligence, their humanity and their free will. 

The information this soldier was fed, were crimes in and of themselves, lies designed with purposeful intent to get him to believe that the military was engaged in legal activities for the good of humanity, when, in fact, the military is being used for criminal purposes in an illegal war.  His training in the military... that taught him to hate and despise 'ragheads' and hajis' ... that too was a crime.  Slowly his mind and spirit were degraded so that he would now follow orders without question, even though those orders were illegal and criminal.  In Iraq he saw that some of his fellow soldiers who perpetrated criminal acts, rather than being reprimanded and punished, were praised instead.      

In fact, it is likely that this person, without a great deal of love and healing attention, can not be expected, or trusted, to function successfully in society as a responsible citizen... at least not in the state of mind we see him in in this video.  He is, in a real sense, mentally ill.  He was made that way through lies and deceit... atrocities for which I don't really have a name.  He has been crippled.  Who will treat him and bring him back into the family of man?  Who will make him whole again?  Who is responsible for this?  

Now this is just one man; someone's son, perhaps someone's father or husband.  Do a Google search.  How many Iraq veterans commit suicide every day, every week, or every month?  Who is responsible for this tragic toll, this loss of human potential.  How do you quantify or even talk about all the crimes connected with what he saw and did?   This is Operation Iraqi Freedom:  More than a million Iraqi citizens dead, five million displaced, millions grievously injured, a nation destroyed, fraud and corruption rampant,  permanent bases under construction, oil on the verge of being stolen, Americans dead and wounded, our treasury depleted, our people confused, disoriented, ineffectual.  Our Constitution, national pride, self-respect all in tatters... and the perpetrators of these crimes and their enablers still in power not being held accountable.

In the US media, every soldier is a hero... support our troops.  Well, I think we should.  For I am not saying that the military is not populated with loyal, conscious, honorable people.  But whether they are that or not, they are being led by people who are not.  And that puts every soldier at risk.  We are all at risk.

B.  So in the paragraphs of Part 1. A. above, I illustrate how lies have effected the mind, heart, spirit and life of one soldier and everyone who loves him.  And by inference, the same is true for comrades he knew and worked with... and one beautiful innocent girl who he calls a 'raghead.'   How many soldiers have succumbed to this inhuman indoctrination?  I have seen other videos, heard testimony, read interviews and reports of many similar atrocities.  How many like him does it take to destroy a nation, theirs and ours?  While we contemplate the atrocities perpetrated against our soldiers and the victims they traumatized in return, we realize that it is our own government who does this in our name... and now contemplate what they have done to our own civilian population.  Lies take away our dignity, our ability to function normally, our ability to learn from history, our ability to progress as a people, our happiness, and our freedom.

Surveys of the beliefs and attitudes held by average American show that a very large percentage of the population still believe the lies that were purposely told to allow the Bush administration to attack and occupy Iraq.  We remember that the war was opened with one of the most cowardly acts our military could have conceived of... Shock and Awe... an act of terrorism designed to put fear into the heart of every Iraqi man, woman, and child.  I wrote about this before the war began.  I pointed out that more than half the population of Iraq were children under the age of 15.  I asked what the toll on them was going to be?.  Read my book, The Answer.

The purpose was to frighten the people of Iraq into submission even before our soldiers set foot on their soil.  Thus the war started with the murder and dismemberment of innocent civilians in order to insure that none of our soldiers would come into harms way, even though international law requires that civilians be protected.  It was a dastardly, dishonorable thing to do.  A failed strategy from the first moment, creating a host of civilian enemies where before there were hardly any at all.

Lies not only corrupt those to whom they are told, but in order to lie, the perpetrators of those lies must be corrupt themselves and so it was, and is... the lies never stop... the mind that tells them is corrupted... as are all the illegitimate policies and strategies they invent to pursue, justify, and defend their illegitimate occupation.

In addition to lies there is the misuse of language itself for the sole purpose of hiding and/or misrepresenting the truth. For example, calling our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq a 'war on terror.'  What it really is, is a 'war of terror.'  Before we attacked Iraq, there was no evidence of so called terrorists in Iraq.  For the most part, we are fighting ordinary citizens— citizens who have lost friends and/or family members — and who are now motivated by revenge or trying to defend their homeland against an illegal occupation. When they try to defend themselves, we call them insurgents.  Lies and more lies.  

Now what happens to ordinary American citizens who are inclined to believe the lies told by a government and a corporate media they thought they could trust.  Their trust is turned against them, for in trusting and believing their government and key institutions, they are rewarded only with a lost perception of reality... a direct attack on freedom, honor, and decency. 

The unconscious mind is forced to somehow deal with the incongruities between what is really happening in the world as it is reported by foreign journalists and various independent sources vs. what we are told is happening by the White House and our own mainstream media.  To defend themselves against the discord between believable lies and uncomfortable truths, some people refuse to look at readily available information and instead turn blindly to more propaganda for reassurance, and so the lies persist.  Most people don't realize that foreign and independent media outlets are reporting things that our own news sources regularly self-censor and distort.

But eventually it becomes impossible to hide the truth.  Soldiers come home and some tell their stories. After years of believing lies, the pain of hearing the truth is just too much for some folks to bear.  So many people continue to believe the lies.  And so we end up with a confused society that is at war with itself.  A society that is divided is a society that is at risk of being conquered.  And so it is.  A people out of touch with reality.  Divided.  Few are able to see the big picture because too many people are afraid to tell the truth while others are too afraid to hear the truth.  

The truth is, there are those who want us to be confused... our confusion insures their hold on power.  Who then is able to respond appropriately when the fundamental rights that we thought were once carved in stone and recorded on a document we call our Constitution have somehow been erased.  That's when we begin to realize that the conspiracy about which I speak has been in place for decades.

Now who are the conspirators.  Many are conscious of what they are doing, but others, maybe even most, have simply, without thinking or questioning have just accept the norms of the institutions and colleagues with whom they interact — like cogs in a wheel — they play their part, hoping to get ahead, without ever giving a thought to how their decisions impact other people far removed from their space.  This is easily accomplished because indeed, people in powerful positions are often far removed from those who pay the price for what they do.  Like armchair generals, they send in the troops, pawns in a game, to bring back the spoils, no questions asked. 

Why does our educational system leave so many children behind?  One important reason is that there are those who do not want every child to become educated; they don't want too many people to have the ability and wisdom to rigorously and with intellectual integrity think for themselves.  If too many people became intellectually competent, we as a society would no longer tolerate the government we have, for we would realize that the government we have no longer operates of, by, or for The People; it operates in the interest of an elite segment of a powerful and wealthy few.  

These are the people who use their accumulated wealth and power to distort the past and present, create fear and hate, deny truth, corrupt the mind, corrupt morals, confuse, mislead, manipulate, disenfranchise, disarm, and obstruct justice in order that they might remain in control of their power and resources. And their ability to do that now reaches into every aspect of life.  It is embedded in our culture and until and unless we raise our consciousness to the point that we can recognize how we are being manipulated, nothing will change.  

How is it possible that other nations have a shorter work week, free education for all who are able to learn, and free healthcare that outperforms our own and does so at less cost.  Our tax laws are skewed to benefit the rich.  We spend more money on military power than nearly all other countries combined.  It doesn't make us safer; it puts all of humanity at risk.  But it does make a lot of people wealthy who by all rights shouldn't be.  Brilliant engineers and scientists are at work their whole lives wasting their talents when society needs their creativity more than ever.  This foolishness has corrupted our government, squandered our resources, and puts us at risk of losing our freedoms and our identity.  

If you understand what I have been saying, you must realize how important you are to our future, for too many people do not, cannot understand, or will not understand.  Without your leadership, if we continue down this road, we will slide into such a state of mediocrity and injustice that there will be no turning back anytime soon.  We will be a defeated nation... defeated not by any foreign terrorist or enemy, but by our own greed and small mindedness.  

In our culture today, too few Americans value and respect intellectual integrity and wisdom.  And yet if we are to survive as a free nation or even as a species, that's what we're going to need.  Today we are being driven into intellectual incompetence by our own lack of integrity, curiosity, and moral courage.  We almost recognize that we excuse ourselves by saying that we are too busy trying to make a living to think.  

Meanwhile those who control the media are busy feeding us propaganda that keeps us uninformed and ineffectual. We are not a mentally healthy society.  In many ways we are out of touch with reality.  We live in a society where baseball scores are more interesting and important to some of us than even congressional votes that give away our freedoms or steal the resources that belong to other people, including our own grandchildren, and generations yet unborn. 

Our best chance to turn this around is right now and we should take advantage of that opportunity while we still have the chance.

Part 2:  The crimes against the people of other countries. 

Return to my announcement as a candidate...