"He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
-Thomas Paine

While summer barbecues and coolers of beer never lost their value for me, three years ago I lost my childhood fixation on seeing the annual fireworks display. The thought that somewhere somebody was hearing those same sounds yet witnessing the death of their friends, family, or countrymen to the bombs of the global civil war, made me shirk from my national obligation to celebrate all things explosive.

This July 4th, it appears to be every decent, fatherland loving American's calling to attend this or that primary state parade, or inspirational message from our modern day warrior-chief. President Bush, in front of a receptive audience 35 minutes away from the White House, pleaded patience and courage for the long struggle against violent extremism, which has claimed over 3850 lives in Iraq alone.

Thing is, Bush forgot what Independence Day was all about--passivity, freedom from obligations, instant gratification and a feeling of pride in your country that ignores the most reasonable assessment of the challenges facing the world's self-proclaimed "preemptive" Empire.

Well-financed and philandered Democratic hopefuls, marching amicably alongside their Republican counteparts, whispered nothing in order to defame this rote ideology of full Spectrum Dominance, and ultraviolence. And speaking of instant gratification, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby should have felt quite gratified to have played the essentially pardoned scapegoat in the perennial nightmare that is the Republicrat hegemony of corruption, nepotism, and double-dealing. He just has to cough up some dough, and a pardon is neither ruled "in or out."

At this juncture, it should be worthwhile to recall a hot July 22 years ago, when the US hired Israel to supply HAWK missiles to our proxy turned enemy Iran, in order to negotiate the release of American hostages thought to be held by Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, a foundling of the now world-famous Hezbollah. Part of the purpose of the sales too was to illegally fund a civilian-targeted guerrilla warfare campaign in "Red" Nicaragua. Then too, scapegoats (Oliver North of Fox News fame and John Poindexter of OIA fame) emerged, were convicted of lying and subsequently faced no punishment on technicalities of their testimonies. Only "Cap the Ladle" Weinberger would face conviction, to be pardoned as a fait accompli by the man who would later be revealed to have known about the entire Iran-Contra affair, President George H.W. Bush. My hero; can't wait to spit on your statue in a week.

And then as with the outing of Valerie Plame's identity to journalists, the Republican president could plausably claim deniability and a lack of control over his subordinates, and demand investigations and resignations that led to little substantial change in the corrupt practices of our star-spangled corporatocracy. The buck stops where again?

So this July 4th I am celebrating Interdependence Day, because we are intimately woven with the bloody fabric of our own creation in the Middle East, and because borders cease to have much significance in the increasingly globalized and militarized world (unless you put a billion dollar separation barrier on them). The third world is increasing American, and as Colon Powell blithely stated, "we broke it, we bought it."

We indeed own it now, although "we" is a foreign word in America next to the almighty "I," and it is up to "US" to grant the independence that we fought for through the centuries to those peoples whose countries we occupied, armed terrorists, and bombed to high hell in order to maintain it. Otherwise we very well face a long war that will be our undoing, and the lack of extra sulphur dioxide in the air and pork on the Bar-B should be the least of our concern.