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Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with  Chris Cook - CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.

The site is a sister to Atlantic Free Press.

The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.

 

The U.S. Has No Friends, Only Interests Print E-mail
Written by Tom Chartier   
Saturday, 06 January 2007
by Tom Chartier

The United States has no real friends. The United States only has “interests.” With the exceptions of Number 10 Downing Street and the militant Israeli leadership, it’s all business.

Not only are friends people who care about you, but also they are those on whom you can depend when times are tough. The maintenance of friendship requires goodwill and honor. Alliances can be made between nations to address enemies in common and to serve economic goals.

Should a nation abandon goodwill, honor, economic integrity and rational defense plans, that nation risks losing friends and allies.

America’s friends have been discarded by a reckless Administration aided by a complicit Congress. Inside the smoke and mirrors of Washington DC, allies are sacrificed in pursuit of empire.

Much has been written about the execution of Saddam Hussein. Soon he will fall into little understood pages of seldom read history. I find profoundly disgusting the closing of his chapter in President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished.”

Don’t misunderstand me. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator whose execution may well have been deserved. Unfortunately, the same country that installed Saddam, a country currently led by another vile excuse for a human being, orchestrated Saddam’s downfall and death. Sadly, there are plenty squabbling, ruthless men eager to take Saddam’s place.


However, the manner of his capture, trial and termination is beyond reproach for a nation, which swaggers about pretending to be a beacon of justice. Has justice been served? Or, was Saddam essentially “whacked” by one powerful crime family asserting its strength over a boastful, operator encroaching on forbidden turf. No offense Saddam. It was only business.

Control of “interests” is paramount. America’s one time friend and ally, Saddam Hussein, became dispensable when he ceased to uphold his part of the bargain.  Saddam’s failed war against another U.S. demon, Iran, his 1990 invasion into Kuwait threatening U.S. oil interests, and his alleged plot to kill former president George H. W. Bush, sealed the fate of “Don” Hussein. He had to go. He had outlived his usefulness. It was in the best “interests” of The Bush Dynasty. Today, the interests of the Bush clan take precedence over those of the U.S. With some media encouragement, Bush runs the US government like a “family” business.

After a decade of carefully executed demonizing, it was easy to sell a gullible U.S. public on the mission to remove Saddam. Never mind the fact that many of Saddam’s shockingly oppressive murders of Iraqi citizens were sanctioned by the White House which chose to turn a blind eye as long as Saddam served “American” interests.

When he became less useful, Saddam was portrayed as “Public Enemy Number One.” Overnight, Saddam’s use of torture, Geneva Convention banned substances on his own people, and his possession of and intentions of using weapons of mass destruction were the biggest crimes against humanity. What changed? Hadn’t those crimes always been heinous?

A good, old-fashioned war was convened, the “mission” was declared “accomplished,” and the bad guy was captured, locked up and made to face “justice.”

The Pandora’s Box of chaos, long held tightly shut under Saddam’s fist, popped open spilling out anarchy.  Pity the fate of the “coalition of the willing.”

No WMDs were found, no rose petals were strewn on the path of the triumphant “liberators,” no democracy formed in Iraq and no one in Iraq believes they are safer today than they were before Bush’s March 2003 invasion.

Saddam was subjected to a show trial more in keeping with “Uncle Joe” Stalin. Then the US military handed over “physical control” of Saddam to the Iraqi government which entity proceeded in thirty minutes to lynch him. No blood on U.S. hands! What corrupt backdoor deals and secrets have been silenced with him? We’ll never know. Looks like someone thought it was best to play it safe and make sure Saddam, the rat, didn’t squeal. The interests of The Dynasty must be protected… oil.

In a pathetic last minute attempt to stave off execution, Saddam’s lawyers actually resorted to a desperate plea for mercy to the United States! Unbelievable. Had they not read the statistics on Texas executions during George W. Bush’s tenure as governor? Was George’s reaction another mocking “please don’t kill me?” Not only does George talk to God but also he thinks he is… the Old Testament God of vengeance. This is what is so revolting.

Bush has used the furor about the execution to distract the media from the real issue at hand: his plan to ignore the Iraq Study Group Report and to escalate the war.  In the past Bush has used Saddam to justify a variety of crimes. Even the Hussein verdict date was “rigged” to help Bush’s party in the recent mid-term congressional elections. How will Bush function without Saddam? Go after Osama bin Laden?

Well, Saddam is gone. For Bush interests, Saddam dead may be more dangerous than Saddam alive. For the Sunni minority in Iraq, the memory of Saddam may become a rallying point. In the Guardian newspaper, Brian Brivati argues that Saddam’s “death may well come to be a defining moment in which the terrorists are given their symbolic martyr to avenge. An evil genocidal dictator dies and, in death, perhaps becomes more powerful than he ever was in life.”

Being the leader of Iraq has rather lost its charm. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki wants to depart the office as soon as possible. Would you want that job?

Eventually another version of Saddam Hussein will gain sufficient dictatorial control of Iraq to end the civil war through the exercise of another iron fist aided by popular, secular support. As long as American interests are protected, will Washington turn a blind eye to a new Iraqi dictator’s brio and send over yet another envoy eager to shake the hand of the ruler of the new regime? Most likely.

Ironically, that would be a happy ending to the Bush family adventures in Iraq. Less salubrious prospects such as a protracted Sunni-Shia fight to the death could spill over into and unsettle other Middle East countries. And that would be bad for business.

Meanwhile, woe to America’s few remaining  “friends and allies” who fail to serve U.S. and Bush Family “interests.”

Elizabeth Gyllensvard contributed to and edited this story.
Comments (7)Add Comment
And you think you have friends?
written by james, January 06, 2007
Typical Netherlander columnist criticizing American. Look at yourself for a change and your screwed up anti immigration minister, and extreme right politics. talk about having no friends. The Netherlands is not only unimportant to the world, but acts like a legend in it's own mind. Nobody is interested in immigrating to your little nothing of a country and yet you make it more and more unattractive with your aggressive racist politicians by passing more and more stringent anti immigration laws that even turn off American, Canadian and Australian businesses! You may be doing well now financially, but keep your anti-American slander up in your columns, you may start to lose the 19 billion a year from American businesses that provided thousands of jobs to you ungrateful Dutch! By the way, I am a Dutch American and proud of being born in the United states, thanks to my parents that left your facist country!
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Netherlander?
written by Richard Kastelein, January 06, 2007
Read Tom's Bio.

The writer is American.

And I am a Dutch Canadian who helped scrub the Dutch Parliament by watering down the CDA. Then again - what do you know about Dutch politics? Very little it seems... the 'Left' here would be considered 'Commies' in your country. The Dutch 'Right' is somewhere left of the US Democrats.

Holland has more than enough trade with Europe - thanks - we do quite well without American dollars as one of the wealthiest nations on earth per capita and one where you don't find jails chock full of blacks, you don't find homeless people in every urban alley, you don't die waiting for a hospital administrator to check your insurance (if you have any), prostitution is recognized - they have a union, pay taxes and are kept healthy, and you can ask a cop to help you roll a spliff. You have the audacity to call Holland a fascist state when America not only has the most people behind bars in the world (over 2 million) - that number represents a higher percentage of their population than anywhere else (including China and Russia).

The most ironic part of your post is the fact that you think it's a Dutchman who wrote it - when it's really an American.

Is your head exploding yet?
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Americans are from Mars.
written by Jimmy Montague, January 07, 2007
Nederlanders are from Venus. I'm from Earth. Too bad for me.
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Fascist Tendancies
written by blue, January 07, 2007
The Netherlands is a country where free speech is attacked and candidates for parliament are forced to recognize politically motivated parliamentary motions on historically contentious events or face being removed from election lists.

http://www.armeniandiaspora.com/archive/68364.html

Racism with respect to Muslims is alive and kicking in the Netherlands, as it is in most of Europe.

Blue
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blue.
written by Richard Kastelein, January 07, 2007
Have you ever lived in Holland?

Didn't think so.

It's hardly a 'fascist' country - where Freedom of Speech is smothered.

Where else in the world could an admitted pederast sit in Parliament?.

Last time I saw a picture of Cindy Sheehan she had cuffs on.
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Tendencies Mr Kastelein, Tendencies
written by blue, January 07, 2007
These tendencies are not just for the Netherlands, but the EU, generally. And, yes, I have been to Holland, and lived for a time in Italy, Latvia and England.

True, the US and UK may be more advanced in these tendencies than Holland is. Yet, religious hate mongering and injustice is still being avidly provoked in much of Europe. Do not imagine that ordinary Europeans are that much more enlightened than Americans.

Blue
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US/Israel 'genocide twins' - Time to send them home - in body bags?
written by TheAZCowBoy, January 08, 2007
After seeing the US' massacure totals in Iraq (655,000 ) and Afghanistan (45,000 )and in Palestine, the brutal massacures (Beit Hanoun, Rafah, Jenin, Ramallah to name a few) by the killer Zio/Jews (390 since July in Gaza ) of Israel, I have come to the realization that Messer Ahmaindejad is perfectly correct "Peace" will not come to the Middle East until we have a nucler free Middle East - (Just kidding). Actually there will not be any peace in the Middle East until we have a 'Judenrein" (Jewish free) Middle East and the Iraqi insurgency 'finishes off' what's left of the Whitehouses 'idiot Savant's' Coalition of the "Dead men walking" and the 3,850 that have been murdered by the brave young Iraqi 'Freedon fighters" that are willing to attack a US M1A1 Abrams tank with a Russian RPG-6 on his shoulder and a Chinese IED in his back pack with its deadly shaped charge - all in the name of removing the US aggression from thir country - NOW!

Yassar America, the war has been lost (for some time now, actually) and all that the US and its Jewish hemmoroid can do now is "head for the hill's" and if they are 'real' lucky, Hezbollah will not be there to finish the job of cleaning out the US/Israel riff-raff with their advanced antitank high tech Russian RPG-29 that made the IDF's 'invincible' Merkava tanks look like swiss cheese after a Tom & Jerry cartoon 'rumble' by Walter Lantz
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