Freedom Came Today

A Commentary concerning the events of October 7, 2023.

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The poem that will be featured toward the latter part of this video, following some introductory comments, was written some twenty years ago. When the thoughts and emotions bubbled to the surface and came together to form the soon-to-be-played poem, the focus of the composition’s phenomenology was directed toward the insanity, barbarity, propaganda, lies, duplicity, depraved indifference, unholy machinations, and murderous activities of the United States Government and its allied oppressors with respect to their invasion of Iraq – a country that was blamed – falsely -- for helping to organize the events of 9/11 and for allegedly hiding stockpiles of mass destruction which didn’t actually exist but whose actual sin in the eyes of its attackers was that Iraq had begun to disengage from the petro-dollar and was selling its oil through other means. In truth, however, aspects of the American government – with a little help from its friends in British and Israeli intelligence, along with rogue elements from the CIA – were responsible for helping to organize the events of that horrendous day in September and, this led to a reprehensible set of policies being invoked into so-called law (starting with the Patriot Act and continuing on with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) that were designed to use the falsehoods surrounding the carnage and tragedy of 9/11 as leverage for shamelessly seeking to justify the government’s own intent to unleash very real stockpiles of mass destruction upon the people of Iraq and elsewhere. 

If, when one listens to the forthcoming poem, one substitutes the words: Palestinian and/or Gazians for Iraqis, and: Zionists for American government, nothing else that is being said in the poem – and this is said with considerable sadness -- has changed. The names have changed, but the cruelty, terrorism, and destructiveness that is being inflicted on innocents has not changed at all.

We are still witnessing the insanity, barbarity, propaganda, lies, duplicity, depraved indifference, unholy machinations, and murderous activities of a government as it commits atrocities against unarmed people. On this occasion, however, the Israeli government is the one which is leading the charge against the unsuspecting people of Gaza, rather than against the unsuspecting people of Iraq, while being assisted by self-serving oppressors from the American government as well as several other governments populated with witless, morally challenged sycophants. 

Nonetheless, what continues to be a common theme between now and twenty years ago is the manner in which the Israeli government is pretending (just as the American government did following 9/11) that it had nothing to do with enabling someone – in the present case, Hamas – a group that the Israeli government helped protect, support, and fund since 2007 – to breach, in fifteen different places, the security fence system that separates Israel from Gaza. One might note in passing how there has been an array of independent testimonies given by a number of former IDF members (individuals who were intimately familiar with the capabilities of that security system) who recently indicated that what happened on October 7, 2023 was completely impossible based on what they knew, via direct experience, about that security system’s capabilities and the numerous back-up protocols that were entailed by that system.

The implications of the testimonies of Israeli citizens and former members of the IDF which are being alluded to in the foregoing comments is that October 7, 2023 was not the result of a breakdown in Israeli intelligence or incompetence on the part of the IDF. Rather, the events of October 7, 2023 were the calculated, deliberate, with malice aforethought, evil spawn of Israeli intelligence, government officials, and IDF leaders.

Furthermore, evidence from inside Israel has been leaking out in which Israeli citizens who – much to their dismay -- had been caught up in the tricks being played out on October 7, 2023, are testifying that it was the IDF – operating in accordance with the Hannibal Protocol that first came into use during the 2014 Gaza War – that was deliberately seeking to kill both members of Hamas and Israeli citizens during Israel’s terrorist operations. In addition, not only were more than half of the Israelis who died on that day members of the IDF, but none of the allegations about the beheading of Israeli babies, or the raping of Israeli women, and other alleged charges of atrocities that were being directed against the members of Hamas have been demonstrated – on the basis of evidence rather than propaganda -- to be true. 

Did Hamas take hostages? Yes, they did. Were members of the IDF killed by members of Hamas on October 7, 2023? Yes, this did happen. 

However, evidence indicating that Hamas tortured, raped, and killed unarmed Israeli citizens or perpetrated an array of unspeakable atrocities on October 7, 2023 has not been independently substantiated. To be sure, if credible evidence concerning such allegations should ever surface, then, the perpetrators deserve whatever fate has sought them out because such acts are entirely antithetical to Islam and Christianity. Nevertheless, as far as actual evidence is concerned, there are testimonies given by a number of Israeli citizens who were taken captive on October 7, 2023 which indicated that the latter individuals had been treated with humanity by their Hamas captors. 

None of the foregoing is meant to excuse the culpability of members of Hamas from, knowingly or unknowingly, allowing themselves to be used to provide the Israeli government with a purported, but woefully inadequate – indeed, psychopathic and criminal -- justification for conducting a genocide against innocent Palestinians. If the raid of Hamas into Israel was done unknowingly with respect to the Israeli Psy-Op that was being conducted, then, how could the members of Hamas have been so callous in their mode of unthinking, self-aggrandizing lack of insight and discernment to suppose that their actions would not subsequently boomerang, with deadly and devastating results, on the millions of innocent people in Gaza – people who knew nothing about, nor had they given their approval to, the actions of Hamas on October 7, 2023. Surely, Hamas had considerable understanding concerning the sophistication and complexity of the security system that was inherent in the fence structures that separated Gaza from Israel, and, yet, apparently, none of the members of Hamas or its leadership were suspicious of the information that led them to believe that an impenetrable security system could be breached in fifteen different locations on the morning of October 7, 2023. How foolish and careless can one get with the lives of the millions of people in Gaza that were supposed to be protected by Hamas and for whom Hamas had a fiduciary responsibility? … a responsibility which they have failed to observe.

Supposedly, the members of Hamas are ready to resist the IDF when the latter forces enter Gaza, as the IDF already has begun to do. Hamas fighters did actively resist the IDF during some of the earlier IDF intrusions into Gaza and did so successfully on a number of occasions.

Trying to protect Palestinians within Gaza is one thing. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against a brutal, oppressive, and tyrannical occupier.

 Walking into a trap, however, seems like a bridge too far. Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor.

Hamas has had years of experience involving the sadistic ways in which the Israeli government tortures, abuses, manipulates, lies, steals, beats, maims, and kills for the sheer joy of doing so. Indeed, the Israeli government and its occupying forces are very devoted – pathologically so -- to the details of the foregoing kinds of exploits.

Consequently, it would seem to run overwhelmingly contrary to years of the foregoing sorts of experiences for Hamas to suppose that, somehow, all of the Israeli government’s years of meticulous attention to detail would completely evaporate on the day that Hamas leaders had been induced to attack Israel. Indeed, one wonders what the ultimate source of the alleged “Intel” was that had led Hamas to conduct their “al-Aqsa Flood” operation because the idea that the Israeli stand-down and the Hamas decision to attack during that stand-down was just a coincidence seems to be rather overly coincidental.

Just as was true in relation to the American government, following September 11th, 2001, the Israeli government wouldn’t mind being charged with having suffered a massive intelligence failure as a way of gaslighting the idea that they were quite prepared to kill their own people and, in the case of the Israelis, perhaps, induce Hamas to assist them in that task in order to prepare the path to a genocide that the Israeli government had been planning to do all along.  If – and I emphasize the word “if” --  some of the leaders and members of Hamas colluded with, if not conspired with, the Israeli government to bring about the colossal tragedy of October 7, 2023, then, the level of the evil that has been let loose into the world has been increased by a multiplicity of levels in magnitude. 

If the aforementioned scenario turns out to be true, then, not only did people in the Israeli government betray its own Israeli citizens, but, as well, the leaders of Hamas – or, perhaps, some of them -- might also have betrayed the people of Gaza. There is some degree of uncertainty surrounding the issue of whether the actions of the leaders of Hamas exhibited a knowing or unknowing lack of discernment concerning the situation on October 7, 2023, but notwithstanding such uncertainty, nevertheless, all of the available evidence indicates that the Israeli government was deliberately willing to put its own people in harm’s way in order to provide a pretext for moving forward with its genocidal plan to destroy the people of Gaza – and government leaders in America, England, Germany, and elsewhere appear to be quite prepared to join in to support, fund, arm, and, if necessary, participate in such genocide.

The right to self-defense – a right which belongs to both Palestinians and Israelis – is one thing. Nonetheless, the collective punishment and terrorism which is being egregiously imposed on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government – and, knowingly or unknowingly, with the assistance of individuals from Hamas -- has nothing to do with a right to self-defense and everything to do with the war crimes, as well as the crimes against humanity, which are being conducted against the unarmed people of Gaza.

None of what is said in the foregoing is said against the thousands of Israelis and people of Jewish faith who have been demonstrating in Tel Aviv, New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere to protest against the heinous actions of the Israeli government. My heart and soul goes out to those thousands of Jewish individuals, and I pray that they will be protected against the lunatics in their governments, as well as those people in the general public, who are sufficiently ill-educated and ill-informed that they can’t tell the difference between, on the one hand, someone who is Jewish or Israeli -- and, who, like individuals from Palestine, wish to be able to live free from hatred, bigotry, or oppression -- and, someone, on the other hand, who is a deranged zealot who wishes to inflict harm on innocent individuals and against whom we all – whether Jew or non-Jew -- need to be protected.

Please keep the foregoing considerations in mind, when one listens to the following poem, entitled: “Freedom Came Today.”
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Freedom came today for Iraqis 

In a measured display of shock and awe 

That bestowed gratuitous wounds 

On thankful souls who’ll line the streets 

And greet us as compassionate heroes.

Freedom came today for 600 thousand innocents 

Which, of course, we deny as being far too high a figure 

Based on data that do not keep track of dead Iraqis.  

Freedom came today for poor Sami 

Who was looking for safety but found some kindness 

Which blew him away, so let us play taps to mark 

When he became part of America’s dream.

 Freedom came today for journalist Ali 

Thrown in jail for, possibly, thirty years 

Because he didn’t have the sense to write lies 

Rather than truth about ruthlessly earned liberty.

Freedom came today for ‘Aisha who was raped by 

Those who set her free. This sort of special gallantry 

Is, of course, an anomaly since they normally 

Stick with search and destroy.

Freedom came today for unlucky Hassan 

Who was trying to see his family, but ended up 

Naked in Abu Ghraib, with dogs growling, 

Devoid of shame, at his dignity. 

Freedom came today for Ra’bia who was caressed 

By white phosphorous which made her feel 

All warm and fuzzy inside, right down to her small 

Little bones. Surely, her cup runneth over. 

Freedom came today for the masses who can,

Whenever they like, turn on faucets empty 

Of water, or switch on lights with no electricity 

To illumine tyranny’s just end. 

Freedom came today in such neatly 

Wrapped packages of hypocrisy 

And lies … democracy at its best, sold as a

Capital idea to people hungry for sovereignty.

Freedom came today to greedy ones, who,

Out of duty, lobbied their way to no bid, cost-plus 

Contracts, made in the secrecy of self-serving facts

That enriched only non-Iraqis. 

Freedom came today in uncivil ways,

One brother, against another, 

Locked in malignant enmity,

Set loose by U.S. magnanimity.

O’ beautiful with rapacious eyes.

 Freedom came today to plans, where bands 

Of hired guns are inspired to kill sand-dwellers 

So wars will not wash up on homeland shores,

And mangled lives can be sanitized through illusions. 

Freedom came today when night-vision goggles 

Found opportunity in their sights, and those who 

Never saw it coming were liberated.

Strange how we see their bodies but not their hearts.

Freedom might come today if the good old USA --

Despite a touch of delusion about it’s assumed 

Place in God’s space – would attend to the 

Ten commandments and leave Iraq alone.

Freedom might come today if knowledge 

Took hold in citizens’ souls about democracy’s 

Decay through abuse of power, which shackles 

Conscience, and mindless fears of created demons.