From: 00dclefevre@bsu-ucs.uucp
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.desert-storm
Subject: OPERATION DESERT BLUNDER and our rights
Date: 16 Apr 92 20:25:55 GMT


       
     It's over one year since the beginning of the "great" undertaking and
"triumph" of George Bush, Operation Desert Storm.  If Bush gets re-elected,
this so-called triumph will be the only reason he does.  It's really
laughable to call this major American blunder a triumph.  Only now are the
actual, horrible details of the rights abuses of this war coming out.  
     As many alert people realized and tried to tell us at the time, the
rights of the people during this "great event" were stepped on.. possibly
more than any other time in history.  Before and during the war, the press
were gathered into pools.  These press pools allowed the U.S. government to
only release the information that it wanted given to the public, basically
making the huge American media the biggest propaganda machine since Nazi
Germany.  
     But, are the press partially at fault for the creation of the Gulf War
propaganda machine?  My assertion is no.  What choice the media have in this
situation?  It was either give into the government's demands and become an
instrument of the Gulf War machine or die.  The media had to use the
information that they could get in order to fill the information of the
public.  They had, in order to fulfill the information lust of their
listeners, viewers, and readers, to leave out the information that the
government wanted left out or even to lie.  If they didn't they would have
had to the face the fact that all their information would be cut off, which
would mean death to their ratings.  With only the threat of information cut-
off, the government was able to effectively control the media and create a
huge propaganda machine.
     Instead of questioning, the U.S. public, like a fold of sheep, passively
ate all the information up and took it at face value causing the worst wave
of false patriotism this country has ever known.  Vietnam was promptly
forgotten, and all those that had the nerve to question the government had
the old "love it or leave it" line slapped in their face.  These same people
were also saying, however, as it is always said in American war, that the
troops were fighting for freedom (for a country that was ruled by a despot,
but that is another paper).  Garbage.  If those troops were really freedom
fighters, these bozos would be celebrating the fact that there is protest,
that people are using their rights that were currently (and previously) being
fought for.  No way!  Many "patriots" made every legal effort to stop this
"subversive" speech.  Forget legal remedies, they did many illegal things, as
well (and, I have heard, there were a number of such incidents right here at
BSU..surprise!).
     It is not this huge propaganda effort that is the most disheartening,
however.  Our country commented three other huge rights violations.  First,
Americans of Arab dissent who were not even suspected of wrongdoing were
subjects of FBI investigations.  Does this remind you of what we did to the
Japanese in World War II?  Second, President Bush ordered that an untested
vaccine for diseases common to that area of the world be administered to
troops.  What would of happened if all those men and women got sick or died? 
Would the government pay (or even be able to afford) all those hospital bills
or funerals?  Would the government have been able to stand up under such an
international embarrassment?  And finally, doctors are now finding that
hundreds of troops are sick with radiation sickness... yes, you read that
right, RADIATION SICKNESS.  I, personally, find it incredibly to believe that
the United States, with its "great" CIA and military, did not know that there
was radiation in the area.
     These instances of propaganda and rights violations should be enough for
any good American who cares about the constitution wince with pain and anger,
however, this is not the average response, at least not of most BSU students. 
Recently, in a Pol 130 class, during a discussion of the so-called
"emergency" powers, the professor listed off many of these violations that I
listed above and asked the class if they had any reservations about the
President being able to institute these clear violations of the constitution. 
While I indicated that I did, the vast majority of the rest of the class
indicated that THEY HAD NO RESERVATIONS ABOUT ANY OF THESE PRESIDENTIAL
ACTIONS!  What a horrible statement on the state of rights in this country! 
By the time our generation gets to power, will these people, who wear their
"Kick Ass U.S.A." tee-shirts and conveniently forget that we killed 100,000
innocent victims of a military dictator, have any democracy left to protect?
     Well, with the current state of mind in this country, it might not
matter.  The next crisis the U.S. gets into will probably, because of this
new war lust created by Desert Storm, also be settled by armed conflict. 
Another more devastating Vietnam could be right around the corner.  We might
not be able escape it the next time.   

00DCLEFEV@VIRGO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,talk.politics.misc,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.sex,alt.sex.bondage