AND NOW THE CONCLUSION TO LEIS AND LIES - WHY HAWAI'I AND IRAQ ARE BIRDS OF A FEATHER
From The Popular Website The Simon
By Matt Hutaff
29,000 native Hawaiians signed petitions denouncing annexation. They were never seen by the Senate, the issue never put to a popular vote. Even though Congress had no legal authority to do so (having no legal standing in a foreign country, which is what Hawai'i was, even under the provisional government), that’s what it did in 1898. The will of the people had been overturned in the interests of profit and strategic military operations.
61 years later, Hawaiian was a non self-governing territory under Article 73 of the United Nations charter. Under the charter, such territories were supposed to be given three options for governance – remain a territory, become part of its trustee nation (a state in the U.S.) or become independent. Hawai'i’s vote was missing the third option in 1959, denying the people the chance to self-govern again.
The UN stated that Hawai'i’s statehood is in violation of its charter. The United States Justice Department has confirmed that Hawai'i’s 1898 annexation wasn’t under the authority of Congress and is therefore illegal. The United States government even signed into law Public Law 103-150 acknowledging not only its illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government but that Hawaiians never surrendered their sovereignty.
Hawai'i is, by the United States’ own admission, an independent nation. So why hasn’t the federal government given Hawaiians the chance to choose for once and for all the fate of the islands? Granted, in the more than one hundred years since the annexation the ethnic heritage of Hawai'i has been diluted, and those who live there may overwhelmingly support the option to legally become a state. So why not allow a vote? Is the status quo so important? Justice delayed is justice denied.
Looking at the “provisional authority” in Iraq, it’s fairly obvious that the United States doesn’t want to take any chances. It certainly won’t with a state that brings in major tourism revenues. How big of a black eye would it be on the international scene to have a state leave the union, after all?
Organizations like the Nation of Hawai'i have been promoting the idea of Hawaiian independence for years. As one of the most culturally rich and diverse regions in the world, it’s important to let our own citizens chart their own path.
Will the United States grant more rights in the end to war-torn Iraq than to a nation that has literally spent two centuries bending over backwards for American interests?
Let Hawai'i decide its own fate, lest we show what hypocrites we really are.
