What Country Am I From?

Thomas Hutchings
24 August 2006

Ho Chi Minh City – Living in Southeast Asia, I access international news from various sources, not just those in the U.S. I was intrigued by a story in the August 23, 2006 Bangkok (Thailand) Post (Breaking News, 17:09 local). It reported on the arrest of 175 North Korean defectors in Thailand who had fled the dictatorship via China with the help of missionaries.

As it was reported in the Bangkok Post;

"No one has told us, so we don't know about it. We do not have information on this," a North Korean embassy official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "We will not go to immigration to see them. We have not been told about it," he added.

The story continues about the possible fate of the defectors and the option of being sent to South Korea.

But, that is not what interested me.

The interesting part of the story was a comment made by a UN official.

“Speaking privately it was "quite normal" for North Korean officials to shun their estranged compatriots.

Either you are with them or you are against them.

They (the North Korean authorities) can't really cope with people who think independently."

Gosh, where have I heard that before? That’s right, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Since November 6, 2001, Bush and his fear-mongering administration continue to lie to the American people, are “robust” in their efforts to illegally usurp the U.S. Constitution, and maintain the hackneyed “with us or against us” admonishment.

After the Connecticut vote where Bush-supporting Joseph Lieberman was ousted in a Democrat primary by newcomer Ned Lamont, Vice-President Dick (Halliburton) Cheney was quick to warn,

“that these votes would encourage "al Qaeda types" to think that "they can break the will of the American people."

Oh, that’s right. How could I forget? In a so-called U.S. democracy, people have the right to vote for whomever they feel is the best candidate, but not in the Bush-Cheney model of democracy.

An editorial by the Philadelphia News on August 11, 2006, stated it correctly;

THESE PEOPLE have no shame. Their contempt for democracy is so great they will stop at nothing to undermine it. Their adherence to fundamentalist beliefs that blinds them to reality is frightening. They must be stopped.

And that's just the Republicans.

Sadly, the Bush fear-mongering supporters in the press will work to maintain that “With us or against us” conflict motif. As reported in the Boston Globe (A convenient threat: Kuttner, August 12, 2006),

“DICK CHENEY was certainly farsighted when he declared Wednesday that Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman would comfort ``Al Qaeda types."

Kuttner’s comments focus on a Wall Street Journal piece written by editorial writer Daniel Henninger. His column was entitled, “Democrats Knifed Lieberman on Eve of Airliner Plot.”

For an editorial writer for WSJ to connect a democratic vote with a terrorism plot is unconcionable and demonstrates how far some are willing to go to maintain support for the illegal war in Iraq; a war based on the most blatant lies by George W. Bush and his administration.

Kuttner is correct in stating that the Bush administration will focus their immediate attention on critics of the single word “waronterror.”

Kuttner’s opinion is that as America goes into another voting season the main message from the Bush White House will be “and if you’re against the Bush strategy, you are of course with the terrorists.”

Kind of sounds like North Korea, doesn’t it?

The Murder of Lebanese by Israel

by Tom Hutchings
3 August 2006

Ho Chi Minh City - The question needs to be asked, "How many Lebanese have to be murdered by Israel to rescue two soldiers?" The answer, as of this date, is at least 548 and quite possibly 750. Of the 548 to date that have been killed in Israel's State Act of Terrorism, 477 have been civilians.

While I was in Cambodia this past week, seeking solace among the ruins of the Khmer Empire of the 12th Century, that peace was broken by the news of Israel's rocketing a refugee center, killing nearly 60 people. Of that amount, 37 were children.

Insincere apologies and statements by Bush, who is supporting Israel's acts of terrorism against the civilian population, mean nothing to the rest of the world. In Cambodia, I spoke with Canadians, French, Germans, Australians, Japanese and many others. They all find Bush's calculating nonchalance and allowance of this massacre to take place to be at the war crimes level. I told them others in the United States also believe George W. Bush is a War Criminal as is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

These two criminals have ignored pleas from the world to stop the violence. They are allowing the killing of civilians to continue in cold blood. Many believe that Bush is following an irrational belief in a two millenia old text and allows this genocide to occur in hopes of the return of a religious deity. Such irrational beliefs have no place or credibility in the modern world. Sadly, all sides in this horrific violence are fighting to preserve unverified religious dogmatic beliefs.

Regardless, the world must condemn Ehud Olmert and George W. Bush and brand them as war criminals and their fallacious positions of blaming Hezbollah for the calculated violence against Lebanese civilians.

It should be stated here that I do not condone nor tolerate the actions of Hezbollah. As a former police officer, I was taught to use only that force which was necessary to overcome the immediate threat. Israel, with Bush's tacit permission, is simply now on a killing spree.

How many more will die? The two criminals must believe in the Armageddon myth.