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TechnoratiAre Afghan Lives Worth Anything?
Mourning Michael Jackson, Ignoring the Afghan Dead
It was a blast. I'm talking about my daughter's wedding. You don't often see a child of yours quite that happy. I'm no party animal, but I danced my 64-year-old legs off. And I can't claim that, as I walked my daughter to the ceremony, or ate, or talked with friends, or simply sat back and watched the young and energetic enjoy themselves, I thought about those Afghan wedding celebrations where the "blast" isn't metaphorical, where the bride, the groom, the partygoers in the midst of revelry die.
In the two weeks since, however, that's been on my mind -- or rather the lack of interest our world shows in dead civilians from a distant imperial war -- and all because of a passage I stumbled upon in a striking article by journalist Anand Gopal. In "Uprooting an Afghan Village" in the June issue of the Progressive magazine, he writes about Garloch, an Afghan village he visited in the eastern province of Laghman. After destructive American raids, Gopal tells us, many of its desperate inhabitants simply packed up and left for exile in Afghan or Pakistani refugee camps.
One early dawn in August 2008, writes Gopal, American helicopters first descended on Garloch for a six-hour raid:
"The Americans claim there were gunshots as they left. The villagers deny it. Regardless, American bombers swooped by the village just after the soldiers left and dropped a payload on one house. It belonged to Haiji Qadir, a pole-thin, wizened old man who was hosting more than forty relatives for a wedding party. The bomb split the house in two, killing sixteen, including twelve from Qadir's family, and wounding scores more... The malek [chief] went to the province's governor and delivered a stern warning: protect our villagers or we will turn against the Americans."
That passage caught my eye because, to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only person in the U.S. who has tried to keep track of the wedding parties wiped out, in whole or part, by American military action since the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan in November 2001. With Gopal's report from Garloch, that number, by my count, has reached five (only three of which are well documented in print).
The first occurred in December of that invasion year when a B-52 and two B-1B bombers, wielding precision-guided weapons, managed, according to reports, to wipe out 110 out of 112 revelers in another small Afghan village. At least one Iraqi wedding party near the Syrian border was also eviscerated -- by U.S. planes back in 2004. Soon after that slaughter, responding to media inquiries, an American general asked: "How many people go to the middle of the desert... to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?" Later, in what passed for an acknowledgment of the incident, another American general said: "Could there have been a celebration of some type going on?... Certainly. Bad guys have celebrations." Case closed.
Perhaps over the course of an almost eight-year war in Afghanistan, the toll in wedding parties may seem modest: not even one a year! But before we settle for that figure, evidently so low it's not worth a headline in this country, let's keep in mind that there's no reason to believe:
* I've seen every article in English that, in passing, happens to mention an Afghan wedding slaughter -- the one Gopal notes, for instance, seems to have gotten no other coverage; or
* that other wedding slaughters haven't been recorded in languages I can't read; or
* that, in the rural Pashtun backlands, some U.S. attacks on wedding celebrants might not have made it into news reports anywhere.
In fact, no one knows how many weddings -- rare celebratory moments in an Afghan world that, for three decades, has had little to celebrate -- have been taken out by U.S. planes or raids, or a combination of the two.
Turning the Page on the Past
After the Obama administration took office and the new president doubled down the American bet on the Afghan War, there was a certain amount of anxious chatter in the punditocracy (and even in the military) about Afghanistan being "the graveyard of empires." Of course, no one in Washington was going to admit that the U.S. is just such an empire, only that we may suffer the fate of empires past.
When it comes to wedding parties, though, there turn out to be some similarities to the empire under the last Afghan gravestone. The Soviet Union was, of course, defeated in Afghanistan by some of the very jihadists the U.S. is now fighting, thanks to generous support from the CIA, the Saudis, and Pakistan's intelligence services. It withdrew from that country in defeat in 1989, and went over its own cliff in 1991. As it happens, the Russians, too, evidently made it a habit to knock off Afghan wedding parties, though we have no tally of how many or how regularly.
Reviewing a book on the Soviet-Afghan War for the Washington Monthly, Christian Caryl wrote recently:
"One Soviet soldier recalls an instance in 1987 when his unit opened fire on what they took to be a 'mujaheddin caravan.' The Russians soon discovered that they had slaughtered a roving wedding party on its way from one village to another -- a blunder that soon, all too predictably, inspired a series of revenge attacks on the Red Army troops in the area. This undoubtedly sounds wearily familiar to U.S. and NATO planners (and Afghan government officials) struggling to contain the effects from the 'collateral damage' that is often cited today as one of the major sources of the West's political problems in the country."
And, by the way, don't get me started on that gloomy companion rite to the wedding celebration: the funeral. Even I haven't been counting those, but that doesn't mean the U.S. and its allies haven't been knocking off funeral parties in Afghanistan (and recently, via a CIA drone aircraft, in Pakistan as well).
Following almost two weeks in which the U.S. (and global) media went berserk over the death of one man, in which NBC, for instance, devoted all but about five minutes of one of its prime-time half-hour news broadcasts to nothing -- and I mean nothing -- but the death of Michael Jackson, in which the President of the United States sent a condolence letter to the Jackson family (and was faulted for not having moved more quickly), in which 1.6 million people registered for a chance to get one of 17,500 free tickets to his memorial service... well, why go on? Unless you've been competing in isolation in the next round of Survivor, or are somehow without a TV, or possibly any modern means of communication, you simply can't avoid knowing the rest.
You'd have to make a desperate effort not to know that Michael Jackson (until recently excoriated by the media) had died, and you'd have to make a similarly desperate effort to know that we've knocked off one wedding party after another these last years in Afghanistan. One of these deaths -- Jackson's -- really has little to do with us; the others are, or should be, our responsibility, part of an endless war the American people have either supported or not stopped from continuing. And yet one is a screaming global headline; the others go unnoticed.
You'd think there might, in fact, be room for a small headline somewhere. Didn't those brides,
grooms, relatives, and revelers deserve at least one modest, collective
corner of some front-page or a story on some prime-time news show in
return for their needless suffering? You'd think that some president or
high official in Washington might have sent a note of condolence to
someone, that there might have been a rising tide of criticism about
the slow response here in expressing regrets to the families of Afghans
who died under our bombs and missiles.
Here's the truth of it, though: When it comes to Afghan lives -- especially if we think, correctly or not, that our safety is involved -- it doesn't matter whether five wedding parties or 50 go down, two funerals or 25. Our media isn't about to focus real attention on the particular form of barbarity involved -- the American air war over Afghanistan which has been a war of and for, not on, terror.
Now, we're embarked on a new moment -- the Obama moment -- in Afghanistan. More than seven-and-a-half years into the war, in a truly American fashion, we're ready to turn the page on the past, to pretend that none of it really happened, to do it "right" this time around. We're finally going to bring the Afghans over to our side.
We're ready to light out for the territories and start all over again. American troops are now moving south in force, deep into the Pashtun (and Taliban) areas of Afghanistan, and their commanders -- a passel of new generals -- are speaking as one from a new script. It's all about conducting a "holistic counterinsurgency campaign," as new Afghan commander General Stanley A. McChrystal put it in Congressional testimony recently. It's all about "hearts and minds"(though that old Vietnam-era phrase has yet to be resuscitated). It's all about, they say, "protecting civilians" rather than killing Taliban guerrillas; it's all about shaping, clearing, holding, building, not just landing, kicking in doors, and taking off again; it's all about new "rules of engagement" in which the air war will be limited, and attacks on the Taliban curbed or called off if it appears that they might endanger civilians (even if that means the guerrillas get away); it's all about reversing the tide of the war so far, about the fact that civilian casualties caused by air attacks and raids have turned large numbers of Afghans against American and NATO troops.
The commander of the Marines just now heading south, Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, typically said this:
"We need to make sure we understand that the reason we're here is not necessarily the enemy. The reason we're here is the people. What won the war in al-Anbar province [Iraq] and what changed the war in al-Anbar was not that the enemy eventually got tired of fighting. It's that the people chose a side, and they chose us... We'll surround that house and we'll wait. And here's the reason: If you drop that house and there's one woman, one child, one family in that house -- you may have killed 20 Taliban, but by killing that woman or that child in that house, you have lost that community. You are dead to them. You are done."
The Value of a Life
As it happens, however, the past matters -- and keep this in mind (it's what the wedding-party-obliteration record tells us): To Americans, an Afghan life isn't worth a red cent, not when the chips are down.
Back in the Vietnam era, General William Westmoreland, interviewed by movie director Peter Davis for his Oscar-winning film Hearts and Minds, famously said: "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."
In those years, there were many in the U.S., including Davis, who insisted very publicly that a Vietnamese life had the same value as an American one. In the years of the Afghan War, Americans -- our media and, by its relative silence, the public as well -- turned Westmoreland's statement into a way of life as well as a way of war. As one perk of that way of life, most Americans have been able to pretend that our war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with us -- and Michael Jackson's death, everything.
So he dies and our world goes mad. An Afghan wedding party, or five of them, are wiped off the face of the Earth and even a shrug is too much effort.
Here's a question then: Will what we don't know (or don't care to know) hurt us? I'm unsure whether the more depressing answer is yes or no. As it happens, I have no answer to that question anyway, only a bit of advice -- not for us, but for Afghans: If, as General McChrystal and other top military figures expect, the Afghan War and its cross-border sibling in Pakistan go on for another three or four or five years or more, no matter what script we're going by, no matter what we say, believe me, we'll call in the planes. So if I were you, I wouldn't celebrate another marriage, not in a group, not in public, and I'd bury my dead very, very privately.
If you gather, after all, we will come.
41 Comments so far
Show AllThey're worth less than the TAPI pipeline project, according to imperial calculation.
I would suggest everyone read Sherwood Ross's article in the July 7, 2009 on line issue of Atlantic Free Press titled:
Obama has no legal authority to escalate the Afghan War....
I think this article should be emailed to every state and national legislature, political party, newspaper, etc. and since I am only a one person crusader, I need some help.
We MUST stop this insanity right away or we will see our country falling very rapidly into a right wing dictatorship.
"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?..." ―Lamentations 1:12
Were the lives of Cherokee, Wampanoag, Pequot, Seneca, Cheyenne, Sioux, Apache, Confederates, Brits, Mexicans, Cubans, Spaniards, Nicaraguans, Filipinos, Japanese, Germans, Chinese, North Koreans, Vietnamese, Panamanians, Grenadans, Iraqis, Italians, and others I've obviously overlooked worth ANYTHING. No, all must die for unfettered American predatory capitalism. And we are all complicit. We blubber in praise of a Constitution institutionalizing that capitalism.
godistwaddle --
you wrote EXACTLY what I had in my thoughts all day after reading the article!
let us not forget : the over 20 million africans enslaved , added to the "imported" chinese and other asians to create railroads etc...and build the foundations of the "prosperity" of the "shining city on the hill"....or the expansion westward of the "our infant empire" (george washington) by stealing california, new mexico from Mexico..which foundations stand to this day on which Americans "oh - so proudly we" stand with the so-wonderful song of "patriotism".
and ALWAYS the pattern has been:
planting US soldiers or "emissaries" or other agents in land that does not belong to the USA - then, when the locals complain one way or another and show their displeasure --
america CRIES "we are UNDER ATTACK - we are at WAR"!!!
================
General Smedley Butler. US MArines. 1933 speeches after 30 years of "suspending my conscience..knowing that what we do is EVIL"....
"OUR FOREIGN POLICY has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of others...war is a Racket by Big Money, Big Corporations, Big Banks, and I was their high class Chief Muscle Enforcer..the trouble with us Americans is....if our Dollar can not buy 6% more of its value at home...we get uneasy and want to go abroad so it can buy 100% more ...and where the Dollar goes...our flag follows...where the Flag goes...our Army follows....We are a Nation of Predators and Racketeers...and our Army's true purpose is to make the world safe for our Supernationalistic Capitalism.our BIG BOSS...and for our Cultural and economic Assault".
An American poet summarizes it further:
"We americans carefully nurture an attitude of studied indifference to the suffering of others ......even if WE are the cause of it".
Back in 1984, when the photo of 13 year old Sharbat Gula was on the cover of National Geographic,many people around the world were able to envision the massive suffering of all the victims of war. Sharbat Gula's parents were killed during the Russian bombing of Afghanistan. Her tattered clothing and her sad green eyes pierced through the layer of insensitivity to the victims of the Russian war in Afghanistan and inspired compassion. American media is willing to show the pain and suffering of victims of other nations evil policies of aggression and oppression but they learned from Vietnam not to show the pain and deaths of the innocent victims of U.S. policy. And when Americans go to the streets now, like we did to oppose the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, we get little media attention unlike the brave people of Iran and other Nations.Instead of support from our neighbors, we ar labeled unpatriotic. I often wonder if this innocent woman, who's beautiful green eyes in the 1984 photo, found later living in the mountians of Torra Bora, survived the U.S. search for Osama bin Laden.
this is why -- despite the claims about how media manipulation "keeps americans from being informed" -- it is really an untenable position .
it is simply NOT possible in the times of great technological advances that bring unbelievable access to entertainment even in their most far-flung and obscure sources - and 300 million americans could NOT be at the VERY LEAST have a SENSE of what is being done in their NAME
and REMAIN ATTACHED to the idea of "patriotic duty" so as to AVOID OWNING UP truthfuly to THEIR own complicity AS a culture -- through what they boast is "the american way of life , with our FREEDOMS" -
and ultimately NOT be COMPLICIT in crimes committed by the USA against other nations and cultures.
that is simply NOT possible.
it does not take a genius to merely GUESS that a nation that considers it so important for its "national interests"
EXPANDS itself outwards to be involved in wars thousands of miles away - whether it is vietnam or iraq....
and when the all too obvious comes spilling out despite americans' "studied attitude of indifference" to save themselves from confronting their own truth of being members of a society that HABITUALLY commits war and crimes against humanity to preserve "our freedoms" - americans STILL maintain their glorification of what their empire represents:
"america" ....as if it is STILL the "Shining city" that they imagine it to be ...but really -- NEVER WAS..and ISN"T.
as the conservative patrich buchanan correctly observes:
"WE americans have many fine qualities...seeing ourselves as OTHERS see us ...is NOT one of those".
and this is really because as a society - americans collectively PREFER - MAKE A CHOICE subconsciously or not - of WANTING to believe in the MYTH they have created for themselves of being so "exceptional" as to justify all the wars and crimes against nations and peoples and make it all "worth it" because ..........AMERICA says SO.
Thomas Jefferson - clearly was AWARE of what they had been doing - the genocide of indians that was commencing, the enslavement of africans and many more crimes to be committed to "secure the nation" ....and probably in a moment of candor said:
"when I contemplate if there REALLY is a god of justice......i TREMBLE for OUR nation".
As longs as wars are fought far away, nobody really cares, while at the same time we feel we can identify with Michael Jackson. The 'enemy' is a faceless entity you can kill by remote control, like in any other computer-game. Maybe there's something to be said for showing pictures of blown-up people, gruesome as is may be. Would that wake us up?
"Are Afghan Lives Worth Anything?"
Possibly. Depends on whether the Afghan life in question was expended in defence of USA Incorporated (a.k.a. the U.S. version of "freedom and democracy") and, if so, whether its expenditure actually achieved a result in accord with those imperial interests. Otherwise, the question itself is utterly irrelevant to any worthwhile discussion by American participants of any importance whatever.
Most news casts these days do not report much real news. News shows have morphed into entertainment. We get to know about Anna Nicole Smith and the father of her baby or about the love affair of South Carolina's governor or about Larry Craig,s shoe wanderings. But we learn little about the rest of the world. Perhaps entrtainment draws bigger audiences and sells more products??
something can be said about the media and establishment and institutions - from government t0 education, to cultural normas, private "enterprise" - ALL having coerced and "shaped" public "tastes" , intellectual depth , curiousity, ability to discern and discriminate between falsehood , propaganda, advertisement and "selling" -- FROM perceptiveness, sharp observation and study .
but something can also be said about american public and personal habits and mores and norms that - despite obvious falsehoods - the public WILLINGLY participates in undermining its own responsibility to become truly informed, because to do so would force the individual and communities to confront TRUTH - outside of their reality in america which is described by some as :
"THE MOST ENTERTAINED but also the LEAST informed People on Earth".
americans seem to CHOOSE entertainment above being INFORMED - even if shown they are or have been "shaped" by the sources for their "entertainment" or what they consider "news".
a people can not be entirely INNOCENT and jsut be "led by the nose" - after a while - there comes a time when the OBVIOUS repeats itself again and again - and YET - the people CHOSE to ignore being INFORMED, EDUCATED PROPERLY , and HONEST with what they are confronted with - because it is too difficult and too inconvenient....
so - it is really a TWo_WAY street.
I just watched Paris Jackson's tearful goodbye to her dad, I couldn't help the tears. How could one not tear up at the heart wrenching sadness of a child loosing a loved one?
Will we be seeing a poor Afghan peasant child get in front of millions and choke out a tearful goodbye to her father, or mother, or sibling, who was just blown to pieces by a US drone. How do you say "I just want to tell them I love them so much" in Pashtun?
Thanks Tom. I have not kept track of wedding parties, but i have made a real effort- and it does take an effort- to keep up with what is happening to the people of Afghanistan. I will never, ever understand how anyone in their right mind could ever justify this murderous assault.
In the fall of 2001, Afghanistan, one of the very poorest countries in the world, was trying to recover from a drought induced famine , and was not doing very well. They had been dying of hunger and exposure since the preceding January. Relief organizations warned that bombing would bring their efforts to a halt, and cause extreme misery and many deaths. That is why it was a major war crime from the start. The people who were getting bombed had never harmed the u.s. Most of the victims were illiterate peasants who did not know there even was a new york. A constant and persistent theme from the villagers
through all these years has been confusion and puzzlement: "why are they doing this?" they keep asking each other. over and over. "What's the problem? can you at least tell us why us? what did we do?"
And no wonder. There never was any reason to do this. there never can be.
it should also be recalled -- that Afghanistan is really at least a 30/40 year old "project" of the USA towards another of its Imperial "interests".
the TALIBAN was strengthened , as well as Al Qaeda, BECAUSE the USA originally SUPPORTED those entities - helped enlarge their power and presence and influence as the USA's PROXY WAR against the Soviet Union due to the USA's capitalist-inspired OBSESSION with communism or ANYTHING that will challenge capitalism.
and as soon as the USA "succeeded" - to take one of the architects of drawing the USSR INTO afghanistan to "bleed russia" by supporting internecine wars in afghanistan - which NATURALLY the USSR saw as potential threats that could SPILL INTO the USSR (which it did in chechnya) - :Zbigniew Brzezinski
who gloatingly reported to Jimmy Carter:
:"WE HAVE JUST GIVEN THE USSR HER VERY OWN VIETNAM" .
has any nation REALLY matched the USA in its MALICE ?. and the CALLOUSNESS of its hypocrisy in PRETENDING it was NEVER the SOURCE of such malice..... a malice that PREDATES EVEN the Nazis? with its long-ago "manifest destiny?" or genocide of Native Indians and Slavery?
i believe there is NONE on earth that does so.
"...has any nation REALLY matched the USA in its MALICE ?. and the CALLOUSNESS of its hypocrisy in PRETENDING it was NEVER the SOURCE of such malice....."
-Has any citizenry ever been so blind about the actions of their government?
OUT!
I believe the Republicans worked out the equation--one American fetus is worth 100,000 Iraqi or Afghan lives.
Jeevee
Tears from those who were brought up to think that this is a noble country.
We had to travel half way 'round the planet to discover, to our shock, how much Americans are hated. And now we'll probably not be granted passports for revealing that fact. Have we outdone the Nazis — and communist Russia?
Tears from those who were brought up to think this was a noble country.
Mr. Engelhardt does a fine job in describing just why I am so ashamed of this US government today. Truly, we are a country of wicked criminals.
as GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER, US MARINES - 30 year veteran of Global IMperial projects to "in three continents....our WAR RACKET for our BIG MONEY, BIG Corporations, BIG finance, BIG BANKS and our Chamber of Commerce to make thje world safe for our BIG BOSS - our supernationalistic capitalism and our cultural and economic assault" - revealed :
"WE ARE A PREDATOR NATION...a Nation of Racketeers.....Al Capone has nothing on me... i could have taught him a trick or two...his RACKET was only in Chicago and a few US cities....MINE for our big money spanned Three Continents....Our Foreign Policy has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of others".
============
and THEN -- where afghanistan is a neighbor to Russia -- where the USA "we have given the USSR her very own vietnam" (Zbigniew Brzezinski under carter) -
remember the words of ANOTHER US STATE secretary --
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT - 30 years LATER - and connect THESE with OBAMA'S "updated" US policy of the SAME thing since HIS WHITE MASTERS first "conquered" america --
:
"
IT IS SO UNFAIR that one country (russia) has ALL those natural resources and wealth .........SOMETHING OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT"........
guess what it is?.............
can anyone SAY anything OTHER than that -- the USA
IS a PREDATOR nation and a nation of THIEVERY of the resources of other nations - behind the Facade of "freedom and democracy?"
DISTRACTIONS - That is what our culture is made of.
Michael Jackson is just one of many distractions. People here know more about what is going on with the lives of the characters on the TV show LOST then they know what is going on in the real world.
At work I have to listen to people talk about True Blood and Top Chef, but I never hear them talk about the WARs going on around the world.
I see more Lakers flags on cars than I see Political Slogans.
Our culture is disposable, It is distraction based - Our Presidency is nothing more than show biz, entertainment fluff! This is why Our country is falling apart. People do not care about life. They do not care about most anything that goes on outside of their little living rooms and what they are told to care about on mainstream television in mainstream news, by mainstream presidents.
Obama is as BIG a distraction as Michael Jackson is. They painted EVIL's face Black to distract the masses, to make them think Change has come - But look around, nothing changed, unless it is for the worse - We are STILL at WAR (illegal WARS) more WARS now than when Bush was President. Unemployment is higher than a very long time, People lose their homes and jobs daily - Their is a power grab going on, the administration is handing over our National Treasure to the "federal" reserve (it's as federal as federal express) but the majority of people on the street do not even know what the federal reserve is.
This is Ludacris! Wake Up People - Wake Up America - Wake Up Soon, Before You End up Waking Up On the Street
One
Big
Ass
Mistake
America
We The People NEED to TAKE Back Our Country!!!
Support
Ron Paul
Dennis Kucinich
Cynthia McKinney
Ralph Nader
Support the Adam Kokesh's and Rand Paul's who are running for Congress and Senate
Let us save our nation before it is too late!
Enough with the Distractions already
Where is Adam Kokesh running?
Sadly, most folks, even many so-called liberals, are not even aware or choose to ignore the continued slaughter. Our corporate tabloid media and imperial govt. propaganda don't want us to know what is really going on.
Like the old British administrators (Lord Cromer, Lord Balfour, Mountbatten et al.) used to say: Yes, but we are bringing these savages Western Civilization, bringing them into the modern era. If we have to kill some of them to do it, it is for a greater good and for their own good. They will thank us for it later. It appears that the English-speaking imperialists still have a bad case of White Man's Burden. And of course the geo-strategic positions and pipelines factor in as well, behind the scenes and very few indeed know about that.
But hey, let's not crack open a history book; Studying history and IR does not pay well.
Looks like you recently read some history.
Keep it up!!!!!
Love
Zero
Americans can't be bothered by death and sorrow and suffering and refugees and chaos and undermining of cultures thousands of miles away -- caused by ITS own Grand Imperial Army and meddling....americans are TOO concerned with looking GOOD in THEIR own caskets when their time comes - and prepare themselves for THAT wonderful moment.........
Deepa
USA formed on the principle that the life of Native Americans was less valuable than that of Native American.
The founding fathers shared common characteristics. All four valued "white" supremacy and promoted the extirpation of Indian society. The United States' founding fathers were staunchly anti-Indian advocates in that at one time or another, all four provided for genocide against Indian peoples of this hemisphere.
George Washington:
In 1779, George Washington instructed Major General John Sullivan to attack Iroquois people. Washington stated, "lay waste all the settlements around...that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed". In the course of the carnage and annihilation of Indian people, Washington also instructed his general not "listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected". (Stannard, David E. AMERICAN HOLOCAUST. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. 118-121.)
In 1783, Washington's anti-Indian sentiments were apparent in his comparisons of Indians with wolves: "Both being beast of prey, tho' they differ in shape", he said. George Washington's policies of extermination were realized in his troops behaviors following a defeat. Troops would skin the bodies of Iroquois "from the hips downward to make boot tops or leggings". Indians who survived the attacks later re-named the nation's first president as "Town Destroyer". Approximately 28 of 30 Seneca towns had been destroyed within a five year period.
Thomas Jefferson:
In 1807, Thomas Jefferson instructed his War Department that, should any Indians resist against America stealing Indian lands, the Indian resistance must be met with "the hatchet". Jefferson continued, "And...if ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, " he wrote, "we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or is driven beyond the Mississippi." Jefferson, the slave owner, continued, "in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them".
In 1812, Jefferson said that American was obliged to push the backward Indians "with the beasts of the forests into the Stony Mountains". One year later Jefferson continued anti-Indian statements by adding that America must "pursue [the Indians] to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach".
Abraham Lincoln:
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution, by hanging, of 38 Dakota Sioux prisoners in Mankato, Minnesota. Most of those executed were holy men or political leaders of their camps. None of them were responsible for committing the crimes they were accused of. Coined as the Largest Mass Execution in U.S. History. (Brown, Dee. BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1970. pp. 59-61)
Theodore Roosevelt:
The fourth face you see on that "Stony Mountain" is America's first twentieth century president, alleged American hero, and Nobel peace prize recipient, Theodore Roosevelt. This Indian fighter firmly grasped the notion of Manifest Destiny saying that America's extermination of the Indians and thefts of their lands "was ultimately beneficial as it was inevitable". Roosevelt once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth".
The apathy displayed by these founding fathers symbolize the demoralization related to racial superiority. Scholars point toward this racial polarization as evidence of the existence of Eugenics.
Eugenics is a new term for an old phenomena which asserts that Indian people should be exterminated because they are an inferior race of people. Jefferson's suggestion to pursue the Indians to extermination fits well into the eugenistic vision. In David Stannard's study American Holocaust, he writes: "had these same words been enunciated by a German leader in 1939, and directed at European Jews, they would be engraved in modern memory. Since they were uttered by one of America's founding fathers, however...they conveniently have become lost to most historians in their insistent celebration of Jefferson's wisdom and humanity." Roosevelt feared that American upper classes were being replaced by the "unrestricted breeding" of inferior racial stocks, the "utterly shiftless", and the "worthless".
Deepa
Sorry for the blunder in the opening statement of my post.
It should be: "USA formed on the principle that the life of Native Americans was less valuable than that of the European Americans."
Good edit and great post(s). Have you developed a complete article form for this theme of human (mostly European American, though the virus spreads) irreverently hunting other humans (and other animals)? If not I hope so as the piece could be powerful; the use of the Mt. Rushmore figures is very poignant, showing the depth of the strain and what we're up against. I remember hearing a few times about a letter or diary from the beginning of the irreverent war virus in the Philippines: something like, "...come on over, hunting these people is more fun then shooting the buffalo"(as that atrocious irreverent slaughter was almost complete).
Deepa
Since the times of the USA founding fathers, has the European American mindset about OTHERS changed?
Read this about the training of Marines:
At a recent conference on urban warfare in Washington, D.C., James Lasswell, a retired Marine Corps colonel who now heads the Office of Science and Technology at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, noted that, as part of an instruction course named "Combat Hunter," the Marines have brought in "big-game hunters" to school their snipers in the better use of "optics." According to a September 2007 article by Grace Jean in NationalDefense Magazine, "[T]he lab conducted a war game with Marines, African game hunters and inner city police officers to search for ways to improve training." The program included a 15-minute CD titled "Every Marine a Hunter."
Earlier this year, according to an article by Kimberly Johnson of the Marine Corps Times, Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), a unit based in Camp Pendleton, California, that took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, indicated that its commanders "believe that if we create a mentality in our Marines that they are hunters and they take on some of those skills, then we'll be able to increase our combat effectiveness." The article included this curious add-on: "The Corps hopes to tap into skills certain Marines may already have learned growing up in rural hunting areas and in urban areas, such as inner cities, said Col. Clarke Lethin, I MEF's chief of staff."
Ever since white Europeans arrived here with their metal swords, guns and muskets, the slaughter of tribal and peasant peoples has been a continuing bloody part of US history for 500 plus years, starting with that ill-celebrated thug, Christopher Columbus. With weapons, disease and starvation, the grand pioneers of bringing the glories of "Christian western civilization" to the savages reduced the native tribal people to a fraction of their former numbers. Since then it is one long list of peoples and places where the most advanced weaponry available has been used to attack mostly tribal and peasant peoples all over the world: in our own time Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Panama, Central America; and earlier vast slaughters in the Phillipines, Mexico and on and on. A State Department study listed 103 US "interventions" between 1798 and 1895 from Argentina to Japan to Angola and many places in between. The carefully policed study of US history here from grade school to grad school rarely gets even close to most of this dire history, prefering to stick with idealized images of the shining city on a hill and God's chosen people notions. A well controlled educational system and a corporate media have worked assiduously to produce an ill-informed and dumbed down population that is easily distracted by show biz and media circus and a majority who cannot locate Iraq on a global map, even after 18 years of wars and sanctions. The corporate/government ruling elites are more than pleased by this result. After all they spend tens of billions annually on these weapons of mass distraction. Today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, 21st century weaponry technologies are used to attack remote villages in a setting from the 12th century of mud brick homes, no plumbing, no electricity, no nearby medical care and life expectancy of 40 to 50. Peasants who pose no threat whatever to the people of the US but who might resist the US ruling elites grab for regional oil and gas resources cannot be left to their own lives. That two million plus peasant farmers and rural villagers have fled the US instigated attack on Pakistan's Swat valley is hardly a blip on US media. Imagine two million sudden refugees from one large US city--I doubt we would know how to handle it, witness what happened with the much smaller number of Katrina refugees.
But when even most educated people in this college town cite NPR--National Propaganda Radio, The PBS News Hour and the NY Times as their ultimate sources of information, and steadfastly resist any attempt to point them toward more critical and analytical thinkers (like Tom Dispatch and Common Dreams and Counterpunch or revising their views of US history by reading Zinn's People's History of the US)--indeed they are often insulted that their sacred text sources be doubted--what to do?
Good article Tom. Blowing up a wedding party and then attacking the ensuing funeral has to be the ultimate act of terrorism. Orwellian for sure; the US inflicts terror in order to defeat terror.
Imagine the media coverage if a Taliban managed to sneak into the US and attacked a wedding party, killing the bride, groom and guests! Even Michael Jackson's funeral would be eclipsed by 24/7 round the clock coverage and calls for revenge against the savages.
The Christian community in this country are anything but Christian.
They willingly serve up their children to become military heroes sent to protect the homeland in Gods name while turning a deaf ear to the truth.
And the truth is, that Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA to oust the Russians using our military aid, and that when the Taliban stopped Unocal from putting in a nationwide pipeline in the ninetys, the Necons wanted in to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
As a result, who pulls the strings on Osama Bin Laden, long time Bush family acquaintances?
Just like that nut on Glen Becks show the other night proclaiming we need another attack from Osama so that Americans will cry out for their government to protect us.
Its nuts like that that are the real enemy, true domestic terrorist , not a patriot looking to find ways to protect us.
600000 men , women and children dead in Iraq, does the evangelical right wing care? No , not a Christian word form the high and mighty ministers of the land.
Their should be 100's of thousands of Christians on the streets protesting these wars, but their silence is deafening.
The fear mongering and the DHS color code alert system has them shaking in their shoes and defending this policy of war mongering to the point where we now have 1000 times as many enemy's. At least one revengeful person for every innocent killed in the middle east.
Where is Jesus now?? What would you do , kill every last Muslim because you believe the fear mongering.
And lets not forget the warrant less surveillance crowd that is practicing gang stalking torture. Right wing lunatics.
End the Wars , Bring are troops home, and let these country's heal. And pray they find a way to forgive us, but lets stop living in fear, and know that we do not make Gods will.
For If Jesus were here walking amongst us What would he do???
What would Jesus do?
Realistically the right wing Christians would think him a nut and want to put him away.
Jesus was clearly a non-conformist socialist revolutionary, that is why he was eliminated.
Deepa
The question is: what would Americans do to Jesus?
The answer is: Americans shout: "CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM". And the government would CRUCIFY him.
I believe I have seen more than enough evidence that the US has evolved from a seriously flawed traditional empire, with the wars, exploitation, domination, and thievery normally associated with such, into some kind of bizarre and sickening fiendocracy, where the fiends in control of Wall Street, the MIC, the federal government, and the corporate media are so confident that they have turned the populace into a collection of complete and spineless idiots (see Michael Jackson coverage) that they make virtually no pretense that they are pursuing truth or justice or the common good.
"...some kind of bizarre and sickening fiendocracy..."
That fits -- couldn't agree more, and the international community now has a clear and urgent duty to form a coalition aimed at putting us (the U.S./Israeli alliance from Hell) out of their misery. The question is will/can they?
The power elites have done masterful job of brain washing and stupefying the population by controlling and dominating the message with pop-culture diversions. The military learned it's lesson in Vietnam, abolish the draft, create an all volunteer army, use contractors and state militias, send the dead home in secret, hide the wounded and ignore the traumatized by refusing to acknowledge them.
If you spend half your income on building bombs and such you just gotta use them...Amerika best country in the world///ra ra ra....
Just put a smiley face on the flag.
The United States of America rationalized dropping Nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wherein hundreds of thousands of Civilians were killed, because it would save the lives of American soldiers.
Should there be any surprise that they continue to believe that the lives of "Brown people" are worth less?