CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO. WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Aug 15, 2010 8:56 AM PDT

This essay is dedicated to all who worked to assure that the United Nations would declare that access to safe drinking water is a human right. They are truly Soldiers For Peace acting on an international level, as are all of the readers of this book.

The recent declaration by the UN that access to safe drinking water is a human right signals a challenge to the international corporate terrorists who are threatening the lives of millions around the world. From Bechtel in Bolivia to Israel in Palestine, the corporatocracy threatens to limit access to water to those who can pay for it, generally at the expense of others in their respective nations. As Soldiers For Peace, we simply cannot stand by and let this happen.

The military experience of those of us who are who have or are serving in the military has taught us that access to water is a vital component of maintaining fighting strength.

In this case, we are soldiers truly fighting for universal peace, justice and freedom. Since humans cannot live without water for more than three days on average, it is essential that we secure water supplies for all the Peoples of the world if we are to end the threat of enslavement by the international corporate terrorists. Our choice is clear. We must decide collectively whether to submit to worldwide fascist rule or to fight together in peace to spoil their evil designs.

Water is the stuff of life. It travels the world and flows into and through us, connecting us to each other as does the Holy Spirit that is our love for one another. It is no coincidence that all religions use water as a parable for the miracle of life on Earth. It is in fact the most important substance on Earth, composing the vast majority of the planet and of its inhabitants. Competition for water sparked the conflicts in the Middle East that gave rise to Islam and competition for the resource may set the stage for Armageddon in the Mideast if we do not stop it now.

Israel and the United States provide important examples of how the international corporate terrorists and their mercenary thugs in the CIA/MI-6, Mossad and other intelligence agencies  backed by corporate-controlled governments conspire to control the world's oil supply for the benefit of the rich over the poor. It is past time that we admitted that this is only possible in a fascist New World Order. Only the power of a united People of the world can fight this .

In the United States, we have stolen all of the water from the Colorado to water lawns from Los Angeles to Phoenix. The trickle that crosses the border is unfit to drink and would kill crops in Mexico if used without desalinization. The aquifers that supplement this source are being mined of water that is millions of years old and the table is sinking faster than land value in Las Vegas as a result.

In the Southeastern United States, the Ogalla aquifer is suffering the same fate and the water is being replaced by treated sewage water. This leaves residents of Florida to drink water that is  as bad as what Palestinians are forced to drink, if they are lucky enough to live where proper sewage facilities exist. Maybe Florida voters should think of that when Jeb floats the idea of becoming the next President of Amerikka, Inc. We do not need another George III, thank you very much.

In Palestine, the situation is much more dire. Disease is rampant in large part because the Israeli government has pushed the people of Gaza and the West Bank into marginalized areas where they control water supply and the quality of water available to Palestinians. The disregard of the needs of the indigenous population of Palestine is reminiscent of the US treatment of  displaced Cherokees along the Trail of Tears. As in Israel, the United States has a shameful history of exerting its will under the claim of Manifest Destiny, at the expense of native populations whose land they were usurping. Every time gold was discovered the Native American was displaced. Water is like gold to the Peoples of the Middle East, and it is growing scarcer.

Despite intensive efforts at illegal immigration prior to statehood, Palestinians were the overwhelming majority in the British Mandate before the UN violated international law in 1947 in creating Israel. Israel has gone beyond its mandate ever since in acquiring Palestinian land far in excess of that which the UN treacherously took form the Native Palestinians.

In acquiring these lands through war, fraud and violation of international treaties, it has become an outlaw state, thus endangering the life, liberty and happiness of the Israelis themselves even as the Palestinian people suffer the immediate consequences. These consequences reverberate around the world in that they are a frequent rationale for terrorism directed at civilian populations in the US, the Mideast and elsewhere within the Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds.

It is up to the people of the United States to declare that enough is enough. They are as much the victims of corporate criminals as are the Palestinians. It is ironic that in the suffering Southern United States, as in Israel, the fear that the neo-fascists have engendered in their conservative supporters has been a useful tool in keeping the people of those states from joining the international revolution against world fascism.

In playing the protector while promoting conflict around the globe, the far right in the United States has done more to promote terrorism than any other nation. Meanwhile, the United States taxpayer funds the Israeli war machine to the tune of over billions of dollars each year, in addition to what flows in from private donors that have a disproportionate influence in Congress.

It is time that we target politicians who willingly play this game of Good Cop/Bad Cop in order to hold on to the seats they misuse to serve the corporatocracy that pays for their obscenely expensive races, particularly in the Senate. Ron Wyden, my opponent in the current senate race in Oregon, publicly accepts money from AIPAC and votes to “defend” Israel while actually working against its interests in supporting the crimes of the Netanyahu government. He was privileged to speak at their Northwestern convention this year while I was barred from even attending. That is why I stood outside with hundreds of protesters, to the cheers of hundreds of passers-by.

There were more Jews than Muslims in the crowd of protesters, reflecting the changing sensibilities of progressive Jews in Portland and around the nation. We are working together to fight for justice for Palestinians and the survival of Israel, which we believe must ultimately accept a one-state solution devoid of the current apartheid policies that threaten Israel with annihilation as collective punishment for the sins of the Netanyahu and past governments and the voters in Israel who put them there.

Objections to Zionism aside, Israel is a fait accompli. I believe that our job now as Soldiers For Peace is to ensure that the rightist Netanyahu coalition bends or breaks. Israel will never be safe as long as the citizenry allows its government to subjugate their Semitic brothers and sisters in the name of “freedom.” In like way, the people of the United States must tell their Senators clearly that they will not accept being forced to continue to fund these crimes against humanity.

In the immortal words of Don McLean, creator of “American Pie”:

By the waters,

the waters

Of Babylon.

We lay down and wept

and wept,

for thee Zion.

We remember,

thee remember

thee remember

thee Zion.

Rick Staggenborg, MD

Bandon by the Sea, Oregon