Monty Python, Colin Powell and the Terror Industrial Complex

Leave it to Monty Python's Terry Gilliam - Python's 'Yank-in-the-wood-pile', director of 'Brazil', 'Twelve Monkeys' and other cinematic adventures - to pitch a zinger to Keith Olbermann. To wit, "Why didn't Colin Powell's interview about the 'Terror Industrial Complex' become a bigger story?"

Indeed; Why? The answer, of course, is revealed by asking another question; why aren't US forces and contractors out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
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Keeping Terrorists Away

Just read an article entitled ‘Two Dangerous Bush-Cheney Myths’. One is that ‘the Surge’ worked. The other is that torture – or something very much like it - is rationalized (justified?) by the fact that there have been no more attacks on the US since Bush II militarized the war on terror.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/122608.html

This strikes me as much the same rational as related in an old anecdote:

A man is observed shredding newspapers every day in Central Park. After witnessing weeks of this behavior, a passer-by finally asks, “Why are you shredding all that newspaper, day after day?”

The compulsive shredder replies matter-of-factly, “To keep the tigers away.”

To which the passer-by retorts, “There are no tigers in New York.”

The shredder winks and says conspiratorially, “Works pretty well, doesn’t it?”

This is the sort of insane pretzel logic Bush and Cheney are dishing out for us swallow.

I guess we're to assume that attacks on US service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are not to be considered in this most preposterous syllogism.

Prosecute these people and make them account for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis that have been murdered and the thousands of Americans who have died as a direct result of their insanity.

“God damn the US…”

No, this isn’t another quote from a fire-brand minister. This denunciation was voiced by philosopher and anti-imperialist, William James in 1898. The full quote is “God damn the US for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles.” by which James referred to the slaughter and brutal subjugation of the Philippine people by the US military following the Spanish-American War.

Today, it is a cry that would rally many in the world given the ghoulish light of the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war on Terror and the proposed war in Iran for which Bush-ite Neo-conmen such as John Bolton are hysterically beating the drum. The former US Ambassador to the UN and Under-Secretary of Defense continues to make the rounds bleating out this message of insanity, this time in conjunction with the release of his new screed, “Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations”.

JOHN BOLTON: “I think this is a case where the use of military force against a training camp or to show the Iranians we’re simply not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do, and then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.”

To summarize, the most prudent course of action according to the former UN Ambassador and US Under-Secretary of Defense is to attack another Moslem country and kill its people. Is there any wonder, with psychotic minds like Mr Bolton’s directing US foreign policy that the rest of the world considers the USA the biggest single threat to peace?

(See previous article about the attempted citizen’s arrest of Bolton by activist, George Monbiot.)

http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/30/stories/2008053061311800.htm

http://books.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2282556,00.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=57811&sectionid=3510203

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1551726/We-must-attack-Iran-before-it-gets-the-bomb.html
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/2008/05/29/campaigner-fails-in-war-crimes-arrest-bid-at-hay-91466-20989099/