Global Eye by Chris Floyd

[russian33]

On Sept. 14, 2001, as the Twin Towers in New York were still smoking, this column spoke of the coming response: "Blood will have blood; that's certain. But blood will not end it. For murder is fertile: It breeds more death, like a spider laden with a thousand eggs."

Almost 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks: a vast crime, a deep-dyed evil. The whole world rose up against it in condemnation and solidarity. The perpetrators claimed justification in the immense suffering their people had long endured at the hands of the West and West-backed tyrants, a death toll running into the millions. But the people of the world -- including the Muslim lands -- rejected that argument. There is no justification for shedding innocent blood, we all said, not even as "collateral damage" in a self-proclaimed "pre-emptive" war to avenge and protect your people, not even if you believe God Almighty has endorsed your cause. The terrorists' justifications were rightly thrust aside, and they were branded betrayers of our common humanity.

But the eggs laid by Osama bin Laden have hatched in George W. Bush's brain. He has perpetrated his own vast crime on the world. We now know that up to 10 times as many innocent people have been killed as a result of Bush's invasion of Iraq than died in the Sept. 11 attacks. The most conservative estimates of innocent Iraqi deaths place the figure at 15,000; credible reports from independent, anti-Hussein groups in Iraq put the civilian death toll at more than 30,000. Even today, occupation forces are killing twice as many Iraqis as the brutal insurgency spawned by Bush's war, Knight-Ridder reports.

<snip>

George W. Bush has laid his thousand eggs of murder in Iraq. Each one will hatch and in its turn breed more hatred, vengeance, death and terror: an endless cycle, a self-perpetuating engine of evil fueled by human blood. Even if Bush is removed from office, the engine will grind on and on for decades. This is his legacy to the world. Whatever happens in the election, he will be joined forever with the betrayers of humanity. His name, like bin Laden's, will be cursed for generations.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/10/29/120.html