Candobetter Editor: We welcome essays and papers from Dr Robert Bowman. Robert Bowman was in charge of the program to build an outer space missile defense shield in the early 1970s under Presidents Ford and Carter. He retired in 1978. In 1980, when President Reagan took over the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) it was put into the hands of a group of people who wanted to turn it into a means to launch a first strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Many of the top brass under Reagan were opposed to this but could not speak out publicly. Robert Bowman, as he was already retired, was free to speak without incurring any penalty. Because he was free to speak, the top generals, who themselves felt unable to speak up, appealed to Robert Bowman to use his voice to stop the SDI. Bowman gave thousands of public speeches against the SDI and, of his own efforts, turned American public opinion around, so that the SDI, as a first strike weapon, had to be abandoned.
Address to Australian Conference “Is It a War on Terror or a War on Truth”
Sydney, Australia 16 Mar 2008 25 min
By Dr Robert M Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.
I’d like to talk to you for a minute about “sedition,” because it’s something I’ve been accused of in my country. It’s my understanding that you have laws in Australia against sedition, laws made more stringent by your last Prime Minister. So let’s start by seeing what this word means. My dictionary defines sedition as “inciting to rebellion against the authority of the state.” OK. The next question is, “What is ‘the state’?” The dictionary defines it as “the supreme public power within a sovereign political entity.” Of course I’m not sure about Australia, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that different from my country. In the US, sovereignty belongs to the people. They are the supreme public power. Therefore sedition is rebellion against the authority of the people. It’s my contention that this is exactly what George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and John Howard did. You and I, on the other hand, are attempting to uphold the power of the people against the seditionists in our governments.
An alternative view is that the supreme public power is in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I’m sure you have something comparable. These documents protect the sovereignty of the people from usurpation by tyrants. Once again, you and I are not rebelling against these documents and what they stand for. We are upholding them and attempting to protect them from tyrannical fascist administrations who violate them, denigrate them, and ignore them. Indeed, when it was pointed out to George W. Bush that his warrantless wiretaps, spying on US citizens, denial of habeus corpus, and use of torture were violations of the Constitution which he swore to protect, he cursed it as being just a “Goddamned piece of paper.” No, my friends, THEY are the seditionists, and you and I – the dissenters, the questioners, the hecklers, the protesters – WE are the true Patriots!!
Let me hasten to point out that this is not a partisan issue. Though our Republican Bush Administration and your Liberal Howard Administration have carried Western fascism to new heights, the opposition Democrats in our country and Labor in yours have done little better. They give lip-service opposition, but cave in when it’s time to vote. Indeed, your old opposition party, Labor, is now in power … but how much has changed? Are all your troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan? Has your government called for a new investigation of 9/11? Ten months from now, we may very well have a Democrat in the White House … and yet what real change can we expect? The Democrats have been in control of Congress for over a year and have failed to cut off funds for the occupation, failed to initiate a new investigation of 9/11, failed to demand a say in any attack on Iran, failed to bring impeachment against a rogue president and vice president who have openly and arrogantly violated their oath of office and committed acts of treason.
Both major parties in both our countries support the phony “War on Terror” which, in fact, is really a war on truth, a war on human rights, a war on the people themselves. No, we dissenters are not mere partisans in a political power game. We are the protectors of our people, of their God-given rights, of the philosophical basis for our governments, and of the very survival of our nations. In every sense of the word, we are the Patriots!
Ask questions? You bet! Demand answers? You better bloody-well believe it!!
At home, I like to end by giving people a positive vision of the future. I do this by asking them to pretend that I have somehow become President of the United States, and am giving my State of the Union Address. It’s an hour long, so I am just going to give you a few brief excerpts. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas to apply in your own country. Again, you are the assembled Congress and dignitaries, and I am the President of the United States.
Madam Speaker, Madam President, distinguished members of Congress, honored guests, and my fellow Americans, we have at times (including, I think, the last few years) had a government with bad policies. But we are a good people. What we have long needed is a government which reflects the values and goodness of the American people.
Our values and goodness are not reflected by an imperial presidency that builds concentration camps for its own people. The Constitution of the United States does not make me “the decider,” only the proposer and the implementer. You, the people’s representatives, are the deciders. I am therefore revoking Presidential Directives 20 and 51, which give me dictatorial powers. I ask for repeal of the misnamed Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and all the martial law and special and dictatorial powers acts passed in the last seven years.
But I warn you members of Congress. If you continue to violate your Constitutional responsibility to serve your constituents, and instead serve only yourselves and the big money interests you are indebted to, if you ignore the Constitution and attempt to protect the crooked corporate-dominated status quo, I will go over your heads to the American people and ask them to retire all of you, regardless of party.
Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which violates international law in its conflicts and denies its own citizens their Constitutional rights. I have therefore ordered the release of all those being detained without charge, the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay (we’ll find somewhere else for Bush and Cheney), and the end of the “rendition” program in which suspects are kidnapped and taken to secret foreign prisons to be tortured. All contracts for mercenaries, including all contracts with Blackwater, are being cancelled. This includes contracts with DoD, CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security (which, by the way, is being abolished).
Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which launches unnecessary wars of aggression. And for what? We have alienated our friends and made new enemies. We have created thousands of new recruits for Osama bin Laden, and further endangered the American people.
I have asked the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Iraq to do a job we can’t do as an occupying army. Whether or not they comply, within three months we are going to support what’s left of our troops by bringing them home while they are still alive.
Our values and goodness are not reflected by creating thousands of disabled veterans in wars of aggression and then refusing to take proper care of them. The signature wound of the Iraq War has been brain trauma. Yet the Bush Administration slashed the budget for the Brain Trauma Center by 50%. The cost of caring for the disabled veterans from the Iraq War alone will be in the trillions of dollars, but it is a cost we must bear. The care of our soldiers wounded in action, wracked with PTSD, and poisoned by Depleted Uranium is not a discretionary expenditure to be avoided by delay, denial, and bureaucratic red tape. It is a solemn obligation of this government, and it will be met!
Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which promotes a globalization which depresses living standards at home and allows corporations to destroy the quality of life in banana republics and client states all over the world. The WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank have caused untold suffering. If we can’t reform them, we will abolish them.
Our values and goodness are not reflected by a system in which all our personal income taxes go to pay interest on a staggering national debt created out of thin air. The Constitution authorizes Congress to print our money, not a private cartel. I ask Congress to pass legislation abolishing the Federal Reserve.
Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which uses our money to train death squads in the techniques of torture, intimidation, and assassination. The School of the Americas (by whatever name they choose to call it) will be closed.
Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which gives Most Favored Nation status to the butchers of Tienanmen Square and places an illegal secondary embargo on the impoverished people of Cuba. The embargo of Cuba must end! And it just did.
No more Iraqs. No more Kosovos. No more El Salvadors. These are not isolated incidents of stupidity. They are part of a long, bloody history of foreign policy being conducted for the financial interests of the wealthy few. It is a new form of colonialism. It violates our Constitution. It endangers our national security. It mortgages our future. It sacrifices our children. It must stop … and it just did.
As president, I will use the men and women in our Armed Forces to protect our borders and our people, not the financial interests of Folgers, Chiquita Banana, Exxon, and Halliburton. Needless to say, there will be NO nuclear attack on Iran. My special envoy to the Middle East, Jimmy Carter, will be meeting with them to solve our differences. Once he has finished there, he will straighten out the Israelis and Palestinians.
Finally, I’d like to speak directly to the American people. I am unlikely to finish out this term -- partly because I have terminal cancer from Agent Orange, and partly because there are powerful interests with hundreds of billions of reasons for wanting me assassinated. (By the way, if you hear that I have suddenly committed suicide … by shooting myself in the back … with a shotgun … three times, you might be just a little suspicious. They’ll call you a conspiracy theorist, but be suspicious anyway.) But, you know, it won’t matter. They can kill me, but they can’t kill what we have started. It’s too late for that. My words, heard today by a few, will tomorrow reach many. You, the people, will not let it die.
I am unlikely to get there with you, but like Brother Martin, I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the Promised Land.
What I have seen is an America in which every person (regardless of their race, creed, color, age, or sexual orientation) is valued and lives in dignity, every person is cared for, and every person is free to reach his or her full potential.
It is an America in which every family can be supported by one wage-earner with one job paying a living wage. It is an America in which health care is provided to all as a right through a single-payer national health program. It is an America in which educators and teachers are highly valued and financially compensated accordingly. It is an America in which policemen, nurses, poets, firefighters, teachers, and garbage collectors can afford a good house in a nice neighborhood and live in comfort, along with scientists, brain surgeons, CEOs, rock stars, lawyers, and basketball players. It is an America whose borders are secure, immigrants are legal, and workers are amply rewarded. It is an America in which faith is respected, culture is preserved, the arts are supported, and the Constitution is followed.
It is an America that seeks not to be king of the hill nor subservient to the World Trade Organization, but to be a responsible sovereign member of the family of nations (nothing more, and nothing less) … an America that is free of the threat of terrorism because it is no longer feared and hated … an America that leads the world -- not just with military might, but with its vision, its compassion, its democracy, its productivity, its freedom, its standard of living, its care for the global environment, its treatment of its own people, and its goodness. Above all, it is an America at peace with the world and with its own people. That’s the America I have seen, the America our people deserve, and the America you can build.
Spread the word. Keep the dream alive. Drop your own pebbles in the pond and make some waves. Ask questions and demand answers. Demand a government which follows the Constitution, honors the truth, and serves the people. It matters not if my presidency is real or fanciful. My part is done. It is finished. The rest is in your hands. The future and the dream itself depend on you. May God sustain you in your struggles and bless America through your actions. We the people CAN win. We the people MUST win. We the people WILL win. Thank you, and good night.
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