PrintDecember 11, 2010
On Innocent Blood
Our politicians cast Julian Assange as the ultimate villain, because -- they claim -- he has innocent blood on his hands. But so far, there has been no evidence of that.
Last month, the Pentagon concluded that the WikiLeaks release "did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods" and that "there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak."
You can be certain, however, that the moment someone is able to link WikiLeaks to a death, the politicians will cry foul. They will then redouble calls for the execution of Assange, because innocent blood was shed as a result of his actions.
But if the issue of innocent blood is so important to them, let us ask a very solemn question:
Don't our politicians also have innocent blood on their hands?
We know that a result of the military operations they oversee, tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed. They were men, women, children.
The other day, I saw a photo of a young Afghani boy with both of his arms gone. They said it was a result of an American stray missile. It was an excruciating sight. It may have been a fake, and I hope it was. But we know from the military's own logs that there were hundreds of other boys like this. Many of them were not even so lucky. They did not survive
This was, of course, not intended. But does it mean that there was no innocent blood spilled?
And do you believe that American politicians would themselves never willfully sacrifice innocent people for their own advantage?
Late in his life, Robert McNamara, President Johnson's Secretary of Defense, admitted that relatively early into the Vietnam War, he realized that it was a lost cause. And yet they still sent scores of our soldiers to their death. American politicians cold-bloodedly sacrificed the lives of thousands of American citizens.
That should quickly disabuse everyone of the idea that our politicians are angels who would never do anything untoward. They have shown that they are capable even of spilling the blood of their own fellow citizens if they find it politically expedient.
Do you think that the present administration would not be capable doing the kind of things that the Johnson administration did?
Which team do you think has more moral fiber: Johnston and McNamara or Obama and Clinton?
Do you think Obama and Clinton would never put their own interests above the lives of others? I pray and hope not, but I certainly do not trust them.
I am glad I am not president, because in a moment of weakness, I may have sacrificed the lives of others for the sake of my own gain. I would love to think that I would always act nobly, but we often fail in moments of trials and temptation.
A long time ago, the great Jewish prophet Jeremiah observed that the human heart is deceitful above all things. That is very true, and it applies to us all. We always somehow convince ourselves that we act out of pure motives, but the human heart has an astounding propensity for self-deception.
Bill Clinton asked us to trust him. That was a setup. People should never ask strangers to trust them. Politicians always do. We foolishly go along, and then we come to grief.
I would never trust Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to act with my interest in mind. I would also not trust them to place their interests below those of American soldiers. Or of innocent Afghani civilians, for that matter.
Their careers give us no reason to trust them. Everything they have done -- it would seem -- has been all about them. The interests of others are to them a distant second at best. I do not hold it against them. That's human nature. But they should not pretend otherwise. Such pretense is ugly.
Few can rise above human nature. Those who can are real saints. Politicians are not saints, even though they want us to believe that they are.
I do not trust them with anything. I would not trust them with my money, and I would not trust them with my life.
I have never believed a single word Barack Obama said. I have also never believed a single word Hillary Clinton said. It seems to me that the truth is usually the opposite of what they say.
I will not believe them now when they want to get rid of a guy who exposed them with an argument about innocent blood.
If the politicians want to judge Assange on the basis of innocent blood spilled, let them fill out this scorecard:
Innocent lives snuffed out
Politicians: Assange:
The final score would be extremely one-sided, I fear.
Everything these people say turns out to be untrue. I have never bought their arguments about anything, and I will not buy this one.
You should not buy it, either.
