Iraq, Sandy Hook, and America [View all]

[WilliamPitt]

Last edited Thu Mar 21, 2013, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Iraq, Sandy Hook, and America
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Thursday 21 March 2013

In my own country
I am in a far off land.
I am strong
but have no power.
I win all
yet remain a loser.
At break of day
I say goodnight.
When I lie down
I have great fear
of falling.

- Francois Villon

There is a certain miasmic symmetry to the fact that America passed the ten-year anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war in the same week that the assault weapons ban went down to dirty defeat in Congress with nary a vote passed.

The war in Iraq was a crime, as was the Sandy Hook massacre that temporarily inspired the ban.

The rank and ravaging cowardice of those who should have known better allowed the Iraq war to happen, just as the rank and ravaging cowardice of those who know better allowed the Sandy Hook massacre to happen through their inaction and indifference, and then allowed the ban to fail in the aftermath.

No one - not the politicians, or their hyper-enabling media whores, or the "defense" contractors who robbed the country blind, no one - has been punished for the crime that was Iraq, just as no one - not the gun manufacturers and sellers who armed the shooter, or the NRA shills who empowered them all, no one - has been punished for Sandy Hook.

And some got very well paid: the cash shelves in the Treasury are barren and empty because of Iraq, just as the ammo and weapon shelves in almost every gun store in the country are barren and empty after a season of heady and hearty sales. Cleaned out, pocketed, thanks very much, you pack of numb suckers.

Some got paid, no one is faulted or held accountable, and the dead lie still and voiceless in the cold ground.

That is America.

The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15241-iraq-sandy-hook-and-america