Congress and the Surge

Congress Should Vote on Troop Surge in Iraq, Kennedy Says - New York Times: "Troop escalation “would be a policy of desperation built on denial and fantasy,” Kennedy said. “It would compound the original misguided decision to invade Iraq.”"

Senator Edward Kennedy is American democracy's Great Uncle in Chief inheriting the Mana of the Kennedy clan. Bring the Iraq war into the light of day, he says, discuss openly the merits of troop escalation or disengagement and do not continue to form grand errors of judgment into history.

He is right to question the wisdom of current plans which can not bear the light of day in discussion without jeopardising the hidden goal it appears to have of installing American ownership in Iraq. If at the end of this war, Halliburton owns oil fields in Iraq I am sure the people of Iraq will benefit from employment. Someone has to own that which the Saddam regime assimilated as it executed its piracy of Iraqi capital.

In Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud), New Zealand, 1840 - a treaty was entered into between the Maori population and the Crown. Legally, the land is owned by the Crown and yet the Waitangi tribunal changed that - and has granted back large parts of the Crown owned lands to Tribal ownership - and that benefits and returns Mana to the decendants of the owner of the land. Gradually, a sense of justice is being returned to the custodians of the land in the role they envisioned taking in the Maori language version of the Treaty. The fact that New Zealand has a Treaty, and not a Constitution as its basis, maintains a legal position for Maori as equals to the Crown in regard to the custody of the natural environment of New Zealand.

The justice accorded to Maori has seen an evolution of all things Maori and added something fierce and exciting to the world. Just go to an All Black rugby match to see Te Reo at work in the haka.

Maori evolved an extraordinary series of cultures in their 1000 year civilisation before the colonial industrial revolution sequestered them into permanent poverty.

Through extraordinary diplomacy, two cultures were merged but it was through the extraordinary politics of our MMP system of proportional representation that has seen Maori arise as a potent and viable political force with its own identity and sense of maturity.

If the British has run away from Aotearoa due to the Maori Wars, the Maori civilisation would have flourished and survived. British forces were to discover the superiority of a force that was in tune with its environment

If the British had invaded and wiped out many Maori due to far greater power (as happened in Australia), then racial dominance would ensue.

Iraq is a different kind of tinder box but presents a similar problem. American forces are there to economically colonise the Iraqi Oil Fields - let's assume that is the raw truth - and if it is - the the American voter must be aware that is a choice they are making - before the government lurches into it. The acts of George Bush have proven themselves directed by concerns that do not benefit the US people. They should impeach their president - but that is rather hard when he is at war. Let's get this straight - George Bush invaded Iraq on false pretexts and as a direct result of his interference a trump card was given to the probably constructed "Isalmo-facsist warrior" - he provided a battlefield for the Shia / Sunni war were the pretext given to the Muslim world is "insurgency against foreign invasion" but in fact they run around doing the ethnic cleansing under the American's noses. What is wrong with sending in more soldiers? Nobody has discussed what they are going in to achieve, will they make even more terrorists out of the poisoned minds of young men who see America as Satan? Or will they just kill these young men and allow their surviving widows to bring up their children to continue the cycle of hate?

There is something wrong with war. But it is better than the alternative.

There is something very wrong with war when it was not required and creates new problems.

There is no choice. The people will have to impeach their president - it is a lose-lose war they way it is being fought. The goal being achieved is a worsening future. Way past time for a rethink.