A Taxpayer Protest Against A Global War

The Nation: If Bush Goes To War With Iran, Americans Should Deny Him The Money He Needs

(The Nation)  This column was written by Chris Hedges.

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I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran - which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election - will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d'état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.

Let us hope sanity prevails. But sanity is a rare commodity in a White House that has twisted Trotsky's concept of permanent revolution into a policy of permanent war with nefarious aims - to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to strip citizens of their constitutional rights.

A war with Iran is doomed. It will be no more successful than the Israeli air strikes on Lebanon in 2006, which failed to break Hezbollah and united most Lebanese behind that militant group. The Israeli bombing did not pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 65 million people whose land mass is three times the size of France?

Once you begin an air campaign it is only a matter of time before you have to put troops on the ground or accept defeat, as the Israelis had to do in Lebanon. And if we begin dropping bunker busters and cruise missiles on Iran, this is the choice that must be faced: either send U.S. forces into Iran to fight a protracted and futile guerrilla war, or walk away in humiliation.

But more ominous, an attack on Iran will ignite the Middle East. The loss of Iranian oil, coupled with possible Silkworm missile attacks by Iran against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, could send the price of oil soaring to somewhere around $200 a barrel. The effect on the domestic and world economy will be devastating, very possibly triggering a global depression. The Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proven petroleum reserves and nearly half its natural gas. A disruption in the supply will be felt immediately.

This attack will be interpreted by many Shiites in the Middle East as a religious war. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia (heavily concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern Province), the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey could turn in rage on us and our dwindling allies. We could see a combination of increased terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and widespread sabotage of oil production in the Persian Gulf. Iraq, as bad as it looks now, will become a death pit for U.S. troops. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which has so far not joined the insurgency, has strong ties to Iran. It could begin full-scale guerrilla resistance, possibly uniting for the first time with Sunnis against the occupation. Iran, in retaliation, will fire its missiles, some with a range of 1,100 miles, at U.S. installations, including Baghdad's Green Zone. Expect substantial casualties, especially with Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies calling in precise coordinates. Iranian missiles could be launched at Israel. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, will become treacherous, perhaps unnavigable. Chinese-supplied antiship missiles, mines and coastal artillery, along with speedboats packed with explosives and suicide bombers, will target U.S. shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers.

Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, closely allied with Iran, may in solidarity fire rockets into northern Israel. Israel, already struck by missiles from Tehran, could then carry out retaliatory raids against both Lebanon and Iran. Pakistan, with its huge Shiite minority, will become even more unstable. Unrest could result in the overthrow of the already weakened Pervez Musharraf and usher Islamic radicals into power. Pakistan, rather than Iran, would then become the first radical Islamic state to possess a nuclear weapon. The neat little war with Iran, which many Democrats do not oppose, has the potential to ignite an inferno.

George W. Bush has shredded, violated or absented America from its obligations under international law. He has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, tried to kill the International Criminal Court, walked out on negotiations on chemical and biological weapons and defied the Geneva Conventions and human rights law in the treatment of detainees. Most egregious, he launched an illegal war in Iraq based on fabricated evidence we now know had been discredited even before it was made public. He seeks to do the same in Iran.

This President is guilty, in short, of what in legal circles is known as the "crime of aggression." And if we as citizens do not hold him accountable for this crime, if we do not actively defy this government, we will be complicit in the codification of a new world order, one that will have terrifying consequences. For a world without treaties, statutes and laws is a world where any nation, from a rogue nuclear state to a great imperial power, will be able to invoke its domestic laws to annul its obligations to others. This new order will undo five decades of international cooperation - largely put in place by the United States - and thrust us into a Hobbesian nightmare. We must as citizens make sacrifices to defend a world where diplomacy, broad cooperation and the law are respected. If we allow these international legal systems to unravel, we will destroy the possibility of cooperation between nation-states, including our closest allies.

The strongest institutional barrier standing between us and a war with Iran is being mounted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Adm. William Fallon, head of the Central Command; and Gen. George Casey, the Army's new chief of staff. These three men have informed Bush and Congress that the military is too depleted to take on another conflict and may not be able to contain or cope effectively with a regional conflagration resulting from strikes on Iran. This line of defense, however, is tenuous. Not only can Gates, Fallon and Casey easily be replaced but a provocation by Iran could be used by war propagandists here to stoke a public clamor for revenge.

A country that exists in a state of permanent war cannot exist as a democracy. Our long row of candles is being snuffed out. We may soon be in darkness. Any resistance, however symbolic, is essential. There are ways to resist without being jailed. If you owe money on your federal tax return, refuse to pay some or all of it, should Bush attack Iran. If you have a telephone, do not pay the 3 percent excise tax. If you do not owe federal taxes, reduce what is withheld by claiming at least one additional allowance on your W-4 form - and write to the IRS to explain the reasons for your protest. Many of the details and their legal ramifications are available on the War Resisters League's website.

I will put the taxes I owe in an escrow account. I will go to court to challenge the legality of the war. Maybe a courageous judge will rule that the Constitution has been usurped and the government is guilty of what the postwar Nuremberg tribunal defined as a criminal war of aggression. Maybe not. I do not know. But I do know this: I have friends in Tehran, Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Jerusalem and Cairo. They will endure far greater suffering and deprivation. I want to be able, once the slaughter is over, to at least earn the right to ask for their forgiveness.

[gkc99]

There''s only one military tactic short of all-out invasion that would stop Iran from making nuclear weapons--direct nuclear strikes on the underground facilities. Ground bursts of nuclear weapons are the dirtiest in terms of radioactive fallout, so millions of innocent bystanders would die, and the US would be guilty of a nuclear first strike.

Is it worth it to keep the Neoconscum in power? Darth Bushit may think so.

[quatrops]

What a sad commentary on the state of our nation that this article NEEDED TO BE WRITTEN! It has been evident for some time that the neo-cons and proto-fascists in the Bush/Cheney administration are capable of such destructive, extra-constitutional behavior (as well as being out of touch with the will of Americans), and initiating a military confrontation with Iran may well be on their drawing boards.

The possibility of a taxpayer protest suggested in this article would be one of the milder responses the administration should expect, so one might be inclined to "sign on". I don''t think those in power, including many Democrats, appreciate the anger extant in much of the electorate.

Unfortunately, a more militant response than a tax protest would probably fail, resulting in an even more repressive regime than we now have. I have no doubt Cheney''s Nazis already have various military scenarios on paper.

I plead with all Americans to be more outspoken in your disagreement with the administration. Make your protest as public as possible. And pray that maybe, just maybe, we can hold on for another 421 days until this nightmare is over.

Remember FDR''s admonition about FEAR (which Bush & Co. not only disregarded, but instead packaged FEAR and sold it to the electorate since 9/11). Their phony, misnamed "War on Terror" was primarily an effort to provide new, lucrative markets for their corporate sponsors.

[tylenol6]

Colin Powell even stated, "Iran is NO WHERE CLOSE to making a nuclear bomb. Wake up people. Bush is pulling
another Iraq go to war LIE........

[crusherking]

Trotsky.. hmm. Funny you would exhalt a Marxist in bashing an American President. I also enjoyed how you came up with all the scenarios.. Sounds like typical leftist alarmist rhethoric..

[Razzl]

You can be sure that the barricades will be up in the streets of Washington long before any troops can be deployed anywhere. The "blue dog" Democrats and obstructionist Republicans will face a whithering assault of anger from their constituents that they cannot possibly imagine in their present state of Bubba Gump flag-waving nationalism; and the Democrat who will be president will be forced to stand as the opposition because there won''t be a middle ground left. Sitting Democrats in Congress need to be proactive in stopping these war plans rather than expecting to hold hearings afterward to assign blame, for the sake of the country. And when it''s all over we need to insist that Cheney and Rumsfeld and their criminal henchmen sit in the docket for their war crimes prosecutions and not simply be allowed to retire quietly...

[denn034]

Cowards! Iran is a threat to the region, Israel, and our interests in the region so, we should attack Iran. Not attacking enemies, Ahmadinejad''s harsh rhetoric undeniably makes him an enemy, is cowardly to say the least.

[denn034]

One more comment. They may want to bend over and take it but, I''m not going to.

[vet_sk]

denn034: You are calling me a coward to and I am far from it. I just returned from spending a year in Iraq. I bet you were not there. Am I correct?

I can''t believe that we would even consider attacking Iraq and here we are. Iran uses some harsh words, yes, but we''re the ones who invaded Iraq under false pretenses and then were fully unprepared, as the Geneva Conventions require, to take care of the country after words.

[naturaltwo]

Why aren''t the big war talkers here over in Iraq doing it to the enemy? because they are really cowards.

Big cowardly bullies that let others do their fighting for them, just like their in the closet buddy from Idaho, and the fat coward Rush.

It is time to take these war mongerers to heart and start a civil war here where we can then give these cowardly war mongerers what they deserve.

A rope around the neck.

[trillion1]

Idiots think Iran will be a push. Not to mention they have both Russia and China backing them.

[quatrops]

Someone like denn034, along with all others who voted for Bush in 2004, should not even be allowed to use the word "coward".

The cowards were those who bought the FEAR package (called, in an inappropriate misnomer the "War on Terror) that the Bush/Cheney neo-con team put together after 9/11. They felt FEAR, they packaged FEAR, they sold FEAR, and 50% of you bought FEAR in 2004.

Now, THAT''S COWARDICE ! ! Big time ! !

So please, denn034, take care of your own yellow streak before you call anyone "coward" !

[wogerwabbit]

denn034 ... so you''re enlisting?

[noloyalisti]

The day the traitor neocon bushies start any hostilities toward Iran, I will immediately raise my deductions to married with 12 dependents.

That will stop my tax money going out to the government. I will take the money that I was paying and put it into a savings account so that I can pay it sometime later.

[tburzio]

General Arnold stood on principal and aided the enemy. He is well regarded at CBS News.

[mcvet]

General Arnold stood on principal and aided the enemy. He is well regarded at CBS News.


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Posted by tburzio at 08:12 PM : Nov 26, 2007
+ report abuse


So let me see here... in YOUR poor small mind, if we do not support your fuhrer, we are traitors? Sorry Sparky but that bird just won''t fly. Bush has NO creditability and neither does Cheney. I am concidering doing just what this person recomended. The cost will be well worth it.

[mcvet]

Cowards! Iran is a threat to the region, Israel, and our interests in the region so, we should attack Iran. Not attacking enemies, Ahmadinejad''''s harsh rhetoric undeniably makes him an enemy, is cowardly to say the least.


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Posted by denn034 at 04:12 PM : Nov 26, 2007
+ report abuse

This is AMERICA and we do NOT do these things... WE do NOT attack nations who has leaders we do not like. It is time people stood up and showed they still BELIEVE in the PEOPLE of this nation, not a pathetic little man who''s never told us the truth... NOT ONCE!!

[mcvet]

I can''''t believe that we would even consider attacking Iraq and here we are. Iran uses some harsh words, yes, but we''''re the ones who invaded Iraq under false pretenses and then were fully unprepared, as the Geneva Conventions require, to take care of the country after words.


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Posted by Vet_SK at 04:34 PM : Nov 26, 2007
+ report abuse

Welcome home Vet! Yeah these people are whats know as Chicken Hawks. When you have been there, you are not so all fired ready to go back. Attacking another country with the condition our military is in would be an act of a Mad Man for certain.

[jowand]

coward adj.
Word History: A coward is one who "turns tail." The word comes from Old French couart, coart, "coward," and is related to Italian codardo, "coward." Couart is formed from coe, a northern French dialectal variant of cue, "tail" (from Latin cda), to which the derogatory suffix -ard was added. This suffix appears in ***, laggard, and sluggard, to name a few. A coward may also be one with his tail between his legs. In heraldry a lion couard, "cowardly lion," was depicted with his tail between his legs. So a coward may be one with his tail hidden between his legs or one who turns tail and runs like a rabbit, with his tail showing

[jowand]

Chicken Hawk:
1. Any of various hawks that prey on or have the reputation of preying on chickens.
2. Vulgar Slang A man who seeks out boys or young men as his sexual partners

[jowand]

spark7y (spdrk)
adj. spark7i7er, spark7i7est
Animated; lively.

[noloyalisti]

It is cowardly to attack unarmed civilians like we did in Iraq. Is it brave to drop bombs from 20,000 feet on people who did nothing to us? Shame on anyone who believes this.

Sign me up to raise my deductions as high as I can to cut off the government from their funds. Who is with me?

[alanrobisch]

Remember FDR''''s admonition about FEAR (which Bush & Co. not only disregarded, but instead packaged FEAR and sold it to the electorate since 9/11). Their phony, misnamed "War on Terror" was primarily an effort to provide new, lucrative markets for their corporate sponsors.

Posted by Quatrops at 02:10 PM : Nov 26, 2007

Quattrops though we don''t often agree I have come in most cases to at least understand your reasoning AND OFTEN see logic in it, but your statement that the war on terror was created to give money to corporations is crazy. You do remember 9/11 or the anthrax scare or the railway bombings in spain.

It would seem that Bush can''t win. We have had no attacks therefore therefore there is no danger, yet i remember multiple attacks on him for not doing well enough in protecting certain industries. On the other hand one could say that his strategy has worked because we have suffered no attacks since 9/11.

If you detest bush as many do it is easy to say that it is simple there is no threat. I believe there is a legitmate threat and that we have been both lucky and maybe he has even done an effective job. I know this last comment will draw jeers but if we do have a legitmate threat can you explain why we have not been attacked. If you think there is no threat, what happened to al quaeda? Have they given uP?

[kansas1946]

H e l l, we already voted to get out of Iraq, but unfortunately the American citizens are not the ones to control the purse strings, congress is. And it doesn''t seem like they listened in 2006 because they are still funding anything Bush wants. They are so afraid of losing a vote if it looks like they are not playing nice with the troops, but getting the troops out of Iraq IS playing nice with the troops.

[kansas1946]

I think even Iran knows that Bush is nuts and the American people are not behind any attack of Iran. We need to just let Iran know, that no matter what Bush does, it will be over January 2009.

[quatrops]

Indeed, welcome home Vet_SK! I''m at a loss for words (for once!) to express my gratitude to you for speaking out against this insanity. And my sincere thanks, too, to all of you posters who not only recognize the destructiveness of Bush and the neo-cons and the damage they have done to our democracy, but are willing to take the time to speak out. LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD !

It takes only a couple minutes to send an e-mail to your elected representatives. Even if their current stand on the "War on Terror" isn''t what you would like it to be, most of these twits can count !

Letters to the editor. Bumper stickers. Prayers. Discussion groups. Tax protests. Whatever ! ! With enough "noise" from us, they just might stall on attacking Iran for 421 more days. After that, we can go to work rebuilding our democracy.

Thanks again!

[zoopster1]

OK, well what if "Bush" doesn''t go to war against Iran? What if THE UNITED STATES does? Will you pay your taxes then? What if an Iranian-sponsored terrorist group sets off a bomb in a New York subway? Or blows up an American embassy? Or takes American hostages (again!!)? Will THAT be a reasonable justification for war? Or is it your position that there is never any justification for any war, ever? That any terrorist attack against America HAS to be engineered by our own government just to keep the dumb people in line??? Are you even willing to concede that maybe, just maybe, there really ARE terrorist killers out there who AREN''T working for the Bush administration??

I get so sick of reading nonsense like this. Do I want to see us attack Iran? No. Do I think it''s worth even one American life to attack Iran? No, I think if war winds up being necessary we should just glass the entire place. Do I accept that we may end up having to fight every Muslim on Planet Earth at some point because of our support for Israel, which any Muslim will tell you is the number one place they would bomb if they actually had representative governments? Yes I do.

We''ll see if this is still all about Bush 2 years from now, when he''s gone, the war against radical Islam is still being fought, and suicide bombers are detonating themselves at YOUR KIDS'' SCHOOLS. Get a grip, get real, and get with the program already!

[ubrew12]

zoopster1 said: "Do I accept that we may end up having to fight every Muslim on Planet Earth... because of our support for Israel..? Yes I do...get with the program"

What a sad, existential, litany of failure you represent! In a like manner, because you''re eventually gonna die, why don''t you kill yourself now? People protesting here think they can make a difference... and PROTECT Israel and the U.S. by not inflaming the Middle East into a terrorist spiral! And all you can offer is Armageddon! If you think we''re doomed to this path, and to the eventual, islamic terrorist response, then you are truly lost. Your embrace of fatalism is unAmerican at its most neocon... Cheney would be proud of you. For the rest of us Americans, true Americans, we''ll find a future for our children that doesn''t involve inflaming the MiddleEast unnecessarily. And still supports Israeli and American independence.

[quatrops]

"Do I want us to attack Iran? No!" says zoopster1.

Well tell us, zoopster, did you want us to attack Iraq? I would think your answer to that would be "No!" also, since they didn''t threaten us any more than Iran has. Probably not as much. But "we" did, didn''t "we"?

Poll after poll indicates that the American people do not, and would not support the Iraq war once the lies and the Cheney-forced mischaracterizations of intelligence were revealed. So it''s NOT America''s war, it''s BUSH''S (AND THE NEO-CON''S) war.

And if you think it is so important to retaliate against REAL terrorists (which most of us do), why aren''t we going after Bin Laden instead of throwing away lives (and $) elsewhere. If you truly can answer that question for yourself, all the concerns you expressed in your diatribe will be answered.

You bought into the package of FEAR that Bush/Cheney and the neo-con cowards were selling, and now it seems you FEAR hearing the objections of your fellow Americans who no longer are buying that package (if they ever did!)

[brianbwb-2009]

"...and suicide bombers are detonating themselves at YOUR KIDS'''' SCHOOLS. Get a grip, get real, and get with the program already!..."
Posted by zoopster1

Yeah, right. Your grandfather hated the Russians, because "they were coming to get us", then your father hated the Vietnamese, because "they were coming to get us".

Save us the fear mongering, it doesn''t work anymore, there is no one "coming to get us". But there will be much more motivation, if we continue killing people based on "what they might do" in some future timeline, for "them" to apply the same logic, but with much more evidence, to us.

[zoopster1]

"For the rest of us Americans, true Americans, we''ll find a future for our children that doesn''t involve inflaming the Middle East unnecessarily."

Right, because the passions of the people in the Middle East are ONLY inflamed because we invaded Iraq. And if we turn all our attention inward to building a better America, the nutcases will leave us alone. Right? You live in such an anti-Republican dreamworld that you think al Qaeda will just call the whole war off if we pull out of Iraq, and take no action against Iran? I suggest you read a book or two before you go very far into that fantasy.

Osama bin Laden, very clearly and eloquently, laid out his reasons for the declaration of war against America. Read it here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html. Learn it. Understand it. This was not written by George Bush, and the complaints it lays out are clearly defined. This is why we fight, and this is why we may have to commit genocide in order to prevail.

We may not have found the WMD''s we were looking for, but we ARE fighting al Qaeda in Iraq now. They declared war on us remember? They will go WHEREVER our soldiers go. That is their goal: to destroy everything we try to build, to kill anyone who cooperates with us. This is total war, without restrictions, so wake up.

I''m done.

[zoopster1]

Hey ainttaken, maybe you weren''t paying attention, but on 9/11, 19 of those fanatics succeeded in killing almost 3000 of your fellow citizens. Elsewhere in the world, a few hundred fanatics willing to sacrifice their lives have been responsible for the deaths of thousands more innocent people. Did those people somehow have it coming? Do they wear any kind of military uniform? Have they committed any wrongs against the perpetrators of such agony?

Look closely at what those fanatics have in common. They were willing to DIE FOR THEIR BELIEFS. How do you stop people like that? Send a couple of policemen to their house to serve a warrant? Hold a meeting? Ask nicely?

No. You find and kill them before they have a chance to carry out their plan. You use any and all means at your disposal, including the dirtiest and most uncivilized tactics imaginable, in order to preserve your society and way of life. You use deception. You use subterfuge. You use brute force. You use whatever you can get hold of. How hard is that to understand?

[quatrops]

"What a sad, existential litany of failure you represent."

Thus begins a post by ubrew12 at 12:46 11/26, in a response to zoopster. If you haven''t read the post, it is worth your while to scroll down. It''s a masterful piece of prose. Thanks, ubrew ! !

Osama Bin Laden sits back in his cave with a smug smile of satisfaction when he reads zoopster and the like, imagining his goal has been achieved. Not only did he get the Bush/Cheney/Neo-con cabal to respond exactly the way he wanted, but he''s got cowardly Americans buying their FEAR package.

And not just ordinary fear, but change-your-underwear-six-times-a-day fear. Cowards like zoopster believe that genocide, nuclear attacks, and torture against perceived terrorists are going to reduce the liklihood of another 9/11. In his fear, he can''t understand the opposite is true.

Gateway1 thinks peaceful Muslims don''t speak out. They do, gateway, but our media don''t find it newsworthy. Try asking a Muslim, or attend a forum on the subject at your local mosque. Hopefully you can find one that zealous cowards like zoopster haven''t grafittied or firebombed!

[adian1-2009]

Perfect article by Mr. Hedges. But we should not expect that reason will prevail in our present WH. And to worsen things, we do not have enough spine in Congress nor Senate to refuse funding Bush/Cheney''s future wars just like they haven''t have stopped funding the attack and invasion against Irak. Not much can be expected from Bush, or from Pelosi, or from Reid. All three are incompetents.

[grumpas]

Thanks to you idiots like you zoopster1 we now have two failed wars going and counting. You have elevated a few rag tag terrorist''s to a major threat to the free world! A distinction they do not deserve. Mostly because you are dumb enough to buy into Bush''s propaganda rhetoric that is as erratic and illogical as your sorry thinking. Thanks to people like you Bin Laden (who was actually responsible for 9/11) hasn''t been caught he is still loose and probably will remain loose. Because people like you can''t get your reasoning together enough to go after the right people. Instead you moron''s have been attacking anyone on the planet but the right people who were responsible. If you want to cower in a corner with fear be my guest but I am sick of you and the fear mongers who drive this country!

[zoopster1]

You know, I thought I was dealing with moderately intellectual people here. But if the only response you have to my very valid points are personal insults, I must say you disappoint me. Go back over what I said and point out ONE area of factual error. Just one. That''s all I ask. I''ll concede that point immediately.

I supported the initial Iraq invasion. I knew Saddam was a bad guy who had gotten away with a lot of bad things. Do I think we have made all the right choices since then? Of course not. I''m not stupid. I believe the neo-con hawks sold us a bill of goods based on assumptions that took no lessons from history, and that was a colossal mistake. When you invade and conquer a country, you do it with an army of millions, not a paltry 180,000. Any smart general knows that. I blame Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others for those failings. They also failed to take the local tribal politics into consideration. Who do you think is doing most of the killing over there now? Not us. We give those people their country back, and the first thing they do is turn their guns on each other, to settle scores that Saddam''s regime wouldn''t allow them to?? Sorry, but when I see that, THAT is when I lose hope. Anything Bush does is insignificant compared to that.

[zoopster1]

Ah finally, "avoice" of reason in the midst of all the wishful thinking. You are correct on nearly all counts, although I can''t really say whether or not we could have *predicted* what would happen after Saddam. Nobody can predict the future. What we should have done was hoped for the best (which they did), and planned for the worst (which they clearly did not). I also take issue with the assumption that our invasion somehow "created" another al Qaeda "franchise". Most of the al Qaeda fighters we are facing there are NOT native Iraqis and never were. They are Saudis, Syrians, Yemenis, Qataris, Jordanians, etc. That supports what I said earlier, about al Qaeda sending its soldiers wherever ours are, to fight us. The native Iraqis are Kurd, Sunni and Shiite and affiliate themselves with their tribe, not with an organization based thousands of miles away. Where the code of the Marine Corps is "unit, Corps, God, country", the code of the average Iraqi is "family, tribe, imam, Allah". There is no "country" to them; their country was created for them by the British back in the 20''s. They don''t own it, and they don''t care. We can''t instill a sense of national pride in a people who don''t consider themselves a nation.

So what do we do? I don''t know. It''s very grim and I expect that a lot more people will have to die before things get better. No matter who sits in the White House.

[kesac4650]

Another silly little Liberal fear monger. He wouldn''t have to pay our taxes if he had gone to Canada in 2000 and 2004 like he promised then.

[tejasdemo]

I agree. I wont pay my taxes either or allow poor kids to get sent off to get killed in war. Maybe then all these blowhard cowards who call themselves patriotic conservatives will have to put their kids and money on the line for these flat out insane ideas.

[mandylou4u]

I believe in what alot of this guy is saying. But, if we want to be a united people here, we have to trust that if we stick together, we can accomplish anything. If everyone stoped paying parts of their taxes, are they gonna build more jails to put us all in? They wouldn''t get our "tax paying dollars" to build them. If you haven''t noticed, they impose taxes on us all the time. Some taxes are just now being taken off that were there for some old thing and nobody even noticed they were still paying for something that was over. We have to start really paying attention to what we are putting out of our checks. That is our money and like I said before, we shouldn''t be scared of our government, they should be scared of us. They should at the least, respect us.

[gkc99]

" If everyone stoped paying parts of their taxes, are they gonna build more jails to put us all in? "


Yup. KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, is already building them. Promoting non-payment of federal income taxes can easily be classified as an "extremist ideology" by the feds, so under the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act of 2007, any person so advocating could be rounded up by federal troops acting on the say-so of Darth Bushit and put into one of those shiny new concentration camps.

This is what "freedom" means to Neoconscum and the Bushits.

[mandylou4u]

I guess I''ll have to be like some of my ancestors, you will have to kill me and my family before you enslave or imprison us. But I will fight for what I believe in because it''s not money or who''s got the biggest suv. It''s about being free, something we haven''t been for a while if ya look at it a certain way.

[noloyalisti]

Are they going to put 50 million people in the concentrations camps? All this works when huge numbers of people join in and become involved.

Look at what happens in France and other countries when the wealthy corporate government folk try to hold the people liable. Of course the French and other Europeans have so much more security than us for health care, retirement and their jobs. We might be too far gone here.

However, at this point we really have not choice but to hold out our taxes or start general strikes. Otherwise it is possible we will end up in the camps anyway.

[logicanada]

FREEDOM FRRRRIIIIEEEESSSSS!

[logicanada]

Correct me if I''m wrong but Hasn''t the I.R.S. lost every case of NOT FILING or FAILURE TO FILE in court?
Seems there is no law you requiring to file, but if you do, then you have to pay.
It has to do with income of an individual for labor being a barter instead of services rendered.
Anyone know for sure?

[logicanada]

If I were a prophet I would envision huge private prisons springing up around massive private farms and the inmates collected from the poor and rebellious would be released from their cells only to plant and harvest, while at night they are drugged into slumber with sedatives from a massive pharmaceutical concern.

[guysdigdirt]

cynic= someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

[alanrobisch]

Sign me up to raise my deductions as high as I can to cut off the government from their funds. Who is with me?


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Posted by noloyalisti at 08:55 PM : Nov 26, 2007

You mean unlike 9/11 where fanatics killed 3000 people in one fell swoop.

[ioweign]

Correct me if I''''m wrong but Hasn''''t the I.R.S. lost every case of NOT FILING or FAILURE TO FILE in court?
Seems there is no law you requiring to file, but if you do, then you have to pay.
It has to do with income of an individual for labor being a barter instead of services rendered.
Anyone know for sure?

Posted by logicanada at 05:27 PM : Nov 27, 2007

This might help !!

Expert: Helen P. O`Planick, EA
Date: 1/7/2005
Subject: Willfully not filing of federal income taxes

Question:
What are the penalties/punishments for neglecting to file your taxes? This individual owes me several thousand dollars in back child support, and, knowing that his return is due to be intercepted, hasn''t filed his taxes in 2 years. Is there a way to force someone to file there taxes? What should I do or who should I contact so that this does not keep happening?


Answer:
The sad part is that if he is due a refund, he has no obligation to file and you don''t get your support. And it is not right.

You should contact your Congress Critter and ask them to work to change the laws. That is about all that is available to do.

I''m sorry and I feel for you, there are many in your situation.

Helen, EA in PA

[logicanada]

Ioweign...Merci beaucoup!
How about if you owe and don''t file? Would they know?

[ioweign]

Ioweign...Merci beaucoup!
How about if you owe and don''t file? Would they know?

Posted by logicanada at 06:44 PM : Nov 27, 2007

################

The IRS has 3 years to audit your tax return or to assess any additional tax liabilities.
This is measured from the day you actually filed your tax return. If you filed your taxes before the deadline, the time is measured from the April 15th deadline. For example, you filed your 2006 tax return on February 15th, 2007. The 3-year time period for an audit begins ticking from April 16th, 2007, (the filing deadline) and will stop ticking on April 16th, 2010. On April 17th, 2010, the IRS cannot audit your 2006 tax return unless there is a suspicion of tax fraud.

The IRS has 10 years to collect outstanding tax liabilities.
This is measured from the day a tax liability has been finalized. A tax liability can be finalized in a number of ways. It could be a balance due on a tax return, an assessment from an audit, or a proposed assessment that has become final. From that day, the IRS has ten years to collect the full amount, plus any penalties and interest. If the IRS doesn''t collect the full amount in the 10-year period, then the remaining balance on the account disappears forever. The statute of limitations on collecting the tax has expired.