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The US is Blind to the Price of War That is Still Being Borne by the Iraqi People
On 19 November 2005 a US marine squad was struck by a roadside bomb in Haditha, in Iraq's Anbar province, killing one soldier and seriously injuring two others. According to civilians they then went on the rampage, slaughtering 24 people. They included a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair and a three-year-old child. It was a massacre. "I think they were just blinded by hate … and they just lost control," said James Crossan, one of the injured marines.
When he heard the news, Major General Steve Johnson, the American commander in Anbar province at the time, saw no cause for further examination. "It happened all the time … throughout the whole country. So you know, maybe, if I was sitting here [in Virginia] and heard that 15 civilians were killed I would have been surprised and shocked and done more to look into it. But at that point in time I felt that it was just a cost of doing business on that particular engagement."
Eight soldiers were originally charged with the atrocity. Charges against six were dropped, one was acquitted and the other is awaiting trial. We know this because a New York Times reporter found documents from the US military's internal investigation in a rubbish dump near Baghdad. An attendant was using them to make a fire to cook smoked carp for dinner.
The article ran on the same day that Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of American troops last week, hailing the almost nine-year war a "success", resulting in "an extraordinary achievement" that the troops can look on "with their heads held high". And so it is that America moves on, casting evidence of its war crimes in the trash, holding nobody accountable and choosing to understand defeat as victory and failure as success.
While the departure of American troops should be greeted with guarded relief (guarded because the US will maintain its largest embassy in the world there along with thousands of armed private contractors), every effort must be made to thwart those who seek to embellish and distort their lamentable legacy. You'd think that would be easy. The case against this war has been prosecuted extensively both in this column and elsewhere. (The argument that the removal of Saddam Hussein somehow compensates for the lies, torture, displacement, carnage, instability and humans rights abuses is perverse. They used a daisy cutter to crack a walnut.)
This war started out with many parents but has ended its days an orphan, tarnishing the reputations of those who launched it and the useful idiots who gave them intellectual cover. Nobody has been held accountable; few accept responsibility.
In any case, they could not have done it alone. It was only possible thanks to the systemic collusion of a supine political class and a jingoistic political culture, not to mention a blank cheque from the British government. When the war started, almost three-quarters of Americans supported it. Only politicians of principle opposed it – and there were precious few of those. When Nancy Pelosi was asked why she had not pushed for impeachment of Bush when she became speaker in 2006 she said: "What about these other people who voted for that war with no evidence … Where are these Democrats going to be? Are they going to be voting for us to impeach a president who took us to war on information that they had also?"
Today, withdrawing the troops is about the only truly popular thing Obama has done in the last two years. Polls show more than 70% support withdrawal, roughly two-thirds oppose the war, and more than half believe it was a mistake. But there is a difference between regretting something and learning from it. And while there is ample evidence of the former, there is little to suggest the latter.
According to Christopher Gelpi, a political science professor at Duke University who specializes in public attitudes to foreign policy, the most important single factor shaping Americans' opinions about any war is whether they think America will win. This solipsistic worldview is hardly conducive to the kind of introspection that might translate remorse into redemption.
It's a mindset that understands the war in Vietnam as being wrong not because an independent country was invaded, flattened, millions murdered and thousands tortured. It was wrong because the US lost.
And it pervades the political spectrum. Even when the war's critics slam the blood and treasure squandered, they usually refer only to American lives and American money. This is also the way pollsters frame it. A recent CBS poll asked: "Do you think removing Saddam Hussein from power was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not?" (50% no, 41% yes), and "Do you think the result of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American lives and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not?" (67% no, 24% yes). The cost to Iraqis simply does not feature.
"It is the end for the Americans only," wrote Emad Risn, argued an Iraqi columnist in a government-funded newspaper. "Nobody knows if the war will end for Iraqis too." And few Americans seem to care. It's been some time since Iraq featured at all on the nation's priorities, let alone high. Rightly Americans fret about the fate of veterans returning to a depressed economy with a range of both physical and mental disabilities. But Iraqi civilians barely get a look-in.
According to the New York Times report, among the discarded testimony was an interview with Sergeant Major Edward Sax. "I had marines shoot children in cars, and deal with the marines individually, one on one, about it because they have a hard time dealing with that." When they told him they didn't know there were children on board he told them they were not to blame, claiming killing would impose a lifelong burden on them.
Progressives, seeking to link the economic collapse to military misadventure, often argue that nation building should begin at home, not in Iraq, thereby – wittingly or not – transforming Iraqis in the public imagination from victims of illegal warfare to recipients of illicit welfare. Without any apparent irony, Obama marked the end of the occupation by calling on others not to meddle in Iraq's internal affairs.
The combined effect of all of this is like breaking someone's jaw with your fist only to bemoan the excruciating pain that has been visited on your hand.
America is not alone in this. Amnesia and indifference are the privileges of the powerful. It is for the Kenyans and Algerians to recall the atrocities committed by the British and French under colonialism while the colonizers remain in flight from their history. "The essential characteristic of a nation is that all its individuals must have many things in common," wrote the 19th-century French philosopher Ernest Renan, "and must have forgotten many things as well."
No wonder then that a recent Pew poll found that despite all the evidence to the contrary 56% of Americans said they thought the invasion had succeeded in its goals while the number of those who think the invasion was the right decision stands at its highest in five years. The cost of doing business always seems more reasonable when someone else is paying the price.
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61 Comments so far
Show AllEXACTLY!!! Excellent article, Gary! The overall message has been (and continues to be) that, in spite of supposedly going to "war" to "help" Iraqis, HARDLY ANYONE REALLY CARES ABOUT THE IRAQIS!!!
the us is is blind - period
and overweight, underfed, underemployed, unhoused and uncouth
We are a careless, selfish, callous nation, only interested in ourselves as individuals. Compassion and empathy are rarely inculcated and almost never exemplified, either in real life, or in our media. And we resolutely refuse to take responsibility for the atrocities we commit as a nation. In fact, we never even admit that we commit atrocities. Only other nations commit them.
Compassion and empathy are rarely inculcated and almost never exemplified, either in real life.
In fact these virtues, once highly regarded, are now viewed as sings of weakness, of enabling the poor, the victim, the abused; to remain poor, to thrive as victims, to foster their own abuse. Those who are not like me and mine are our enemies, simply because they are NOT me and mine. How did we get to this point as a society? Not hard to find the answer, once property (and money) become more important in the law than people we turn away from humanity and towards greed.
Perhaps its appropraite at this time of year to repeat the words of Marley's ghost to Scrooge...'Business? Mankind was my business'
MARL; I agree with your post for the most part, and realize you meant to say SIGNS when you wrote:
"are now viewed as sings of weakness." (along with other spelling errors)...
Nonetheless, although repeated ad nauseum, part of the whole truth in a fair accounting of why it is that high percentages of U.S. citizens "favored" this abomination of a war... is based on media's power to frame the discussion, LIE about the facts, and use its powerful influence to get citizens to go along with what the crowd seems to think is real. Conformity happens to operate as a substantial conditioning device.
Until people in this forum cease and desist from blaming "Those stupid Americans," and look to the factors that lead to engineered opinions (while also easing up on the use of the word "We," since it validates what is being done in our names, without our consent) the understanding of the organs in place to manufacture consent will fall on deaf, or is it prejudiced, ears.
It takes a LOT of conditioning to get people to identify with the worst, most brutal forms of human expression. The "like me and mine" is an extension of the "with us or against us" Mars rules ethos. Its suspicion of outsiders is seen in the jingoistic reaction to all those "illegal aliens" taking all those cushy jobs. There could be no scapegoat population, nor would the very premise exist, if inclusion rather than exclusion was taught... starting with those institutions that slay the word Spiritual in their misuse of The Teachings, as well as the term.
The Citizens of the "United States of America" seeing themselves as some blessed nation destined to bring justice and peace to all corners of the earth is a process that was 200 plus years in the making.
It begins with that hallowed Constitution and the hallowed founding fathers being framed as some superior beings who were motivated out of Compassion for their fellow man.
To break down this conditioning one must go back to the beginning and not 30 or 40 years ago. The birth of the United States of America was built on slavery and genocide and by people who committed genocide and who owned slaves.
ALL of these myths must be set aside in order for the nation to progress and evolve just as they must be in any nation on this Earth.
And yes while it true the people have been conditioned it is still up to those same people to break that conditioning and if they refuse to do so because it more comfortable for them as people to keep believing those myths then that MUST be pointed out.
The War of 1812 was sold to the people. The War against Mexico was sold to the people. The various wars against the native tribes was sold to the people. The Spanish American war was sold to the people. All of those wars had the support of the people.
There comes a time when claiming one ignorant of the facts and thus supported the war can no longer be an excuse, no matter what war it is.
Who you mean by "we" in this comment? That is a fair statement about our corrupt government but not the people of this nation. We are, I fear, ignorant of many facts about the actions of the rotten government, but we, the people, are not blind to the price of war that is being borne by the people of this nation. That evil government that creates and funds war after war of aggression of numerous sovereign is blind to the cost to the nations we attack as well as the damage done to people here in the 'homeland'. This last Saturday the Pres signed on to the massive cuts in our badly needed domestic programs. We will all feel the pain of these cuts. Our stinken government will not consider taxing the very wealthy to fund needed programs. Oh, no! The rich create jobs for us and they deserve tax cuts and scams. Well, who of you believe this? Get real! We must change this government. Your choice---riot in the streets and bring out the guillotine for the top 1%; or shall we vote out every single person in Congress today? I prefer the bloodless approach.
Who elected the government you blame for these crimes? I seem to remember that tens of millions of Americans came out to vote for Bush, and millions more voted for him the second time he ran. They were lied to, of course. But they willingly swallowed those lies, and they now willingly ignore the massive harm their troops did in Iraq.
After WWII, many Germans pretended that they either did not know what Hitler was doing, or supported him because they were fooled. More recently, the German people have courageously taken their share of the blame for enabling the Nazis to commit their crimes.
I hope Americans too will begin the difficult but liberating work of taking responsibility for the actions of the people they elect, of the troops they fund and admire.
That's what they want, and that's why they've been getting it.
I totally agree with you, too. Unless *we* take ownership of our government, *we* are still going to let our tax dollars fund "wars" that are totally illegitimate and unjust. *We* are the problem! And, I'm even saying this from an Iraqi-American perspective (BTW there were some right-wing Iraqi-Americans who wanted the U.S. to "liberate" Iraq and who worked for the invaders and occupiers).
When I say we, I still feel that I am apart of this country and I am responsible for its well being. We also means we are not educated, we cannot read, we are not taught to critically think, we are being herded into jobs that do not support ones’ self or one’s family. The ‘We’ are so dumbed downed that anything going on beyond the we is like hearing a foreign language. We must educate, and if we have to, we feed, we shelter and we nurture the we that is out there unit the we has blossomed into a massive movement that stands up and becomes of such size that it will change the present destructive course of this country.
And, unless the ‘WE’ is committed to the we and staying the course, the WE is screwed. We stand together and together WE reeducate the one percent as to WHOM this country really belongs. We is more than they.
I totally agree with you.
"Eight soldiers were originally charged with the atrocity. Charges against six were dropped, one was acquitted and the other is awaiting trial.
We know this because a New York Times reporter found documents from the US military's internal investigation in a rubbish dump near Baghdad. An attendant was using them to make a fire to cook smoked carp for dinner."
This is inexcusable. Mainly for the fact that no one except this NYT reporter bother to followup. He wasn't following up he merely found the documents by accident.
"According to the New York Times report, among the discarded testimony was an interview with Sergeant Major Edward Sax. "I had marines shoot children in cars, and deal with the marines individually, one on one, about it because they have a hard time dealing with that." When they told him they didn't know there were children on board he told them they were not to blame, claiming killing would impose a lifelong burden on them."
They were to blame. They pulled the trigger. Just because you wear a uniform doesn't give responsibility a pass. And they will have a lifetime burden on them. I hope it's so heavy they never feel justified in taking another life. But I know that's unlikely.
Vietnam and all wars are wrong for that same reason. Have we forgotten the My Lai Masacre? We ignored how many innocent civilians were killed in Panama.
"Human Rights Watch's 1991 report on Panama in the post-invasion aftermath, stated that even with some uncertainties about the scale of civilian casualties, the figures are "still troublesome" because
"[Panama's civilian deaths] reveal that the 'surgical operation' by American forces inflicted a toll in civilian lives that was at least four-and-a-half times higher than military casualties in the enemy, and twelve or thirteen times higher than the casualties suffered by U.S. troops. By themselves these ratios suggest that the rule of proportionality and the duty to minimize harm to civilians, where doing so would not compromise a legitimate military objective, were not faithfully observed by the invading U.S. forces. For us, the controversy over the number of civilian casualties should not obscure the important debate on the manner in which those people died.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
Reasonable intelligent people think war any war is wrong. For the very reason that we know young men armed with killing weapons are not known for thinking first. In fact they are trained not to think. Ask Pat Tillman's family.
Good article, Mr. Younge. The MSM is largely at fault for not reporting facts and for allowing themselves to be "embedded" rather than independent. Now the American people are starting to feel the result of this and other wars where it hurts....in their pocket books as a neglected nation loses jobs, revenue and self-respect. Yet still the MIC demands more money to keep its machine running and its dreams of imperial power alive. Small comfort for a devastated Iraqi population.
I would venture to guess that the average American does not know why we invaded Iraq. The average American would look at you quizically if you talked about bogus, manufactured evidence, about the obvious evidence that the war was about resources, oil in particular. In 2003 soldiers died in Iraq guarding oil fields. It was always about the oil, but most Americans, as the writer states, have a solipsistic view of this war and any war that the U.S. enters into. Americans will not reject war until all Americans have some skin in the game and the associated pain of war is felt by all.
On another note, it's interesting that GWB has been willing to sit back and let Obama take credit for the Iraq exit. The neocons created the nightmare that became Iraq, leaving the dems to clean it up. How ironic that Obama would so willingly step into the sweeper role that the neocons created for him.
Thank You Mr. Younge.
Now this is the basis for judgment, that the light has come into the world but men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked. John 3:19
flunkdaddy:
I accept and know about your reference. Shall we, who acquiesced
in the dark deeds of the incursion in Iraq, shine light on the deeds
and seek some repentance, or shall we leave everything in a darkness
of practiced unknowing?
The question, whether we who might admit some complicity should
do so merely regarding ourselves, is more complicated. After all, we
know an extensive "selling job" was done on us. A "manufactured"
connection between 9/11 and Iraq was presented to us as though it
were the truth. Both the Secretary of State and the National Security
Advisor were put on TV to sell the connection. The congress voted
to authorize the invasion of Iraq. We should have seen through the
lie of an Iraqi connection to 9/11, and we should have seen the reality
of a connection between the invasion of Iraq and the schemes of vile
men of power. We didn't then. We must do so now. In the context
of the 2008 financial crash and the 2011 OWS movement, a lot of
eyes have been opened. The underlying fact of an underworld in
American politics and governance is obvious now to anyone who will
just LOOK at the evidence.
What should be done about our nation's "sins" in Iraq? First and
furiously, we should "out" the deceivers who took us into Iraq. That
was all for oil and their own "lifestyle of the rich and famous". They
should be infamous! Then, we as a nation should APOLOGIZE to
the Iraqi people and the world. Yes, there should be apology for the
misdeeds of the war. I reckon some of those were violations of the
Geneva conventions for any "permissible" war. Even more, the U.S.
should apologize for perpetrating a war without any justifiable cause.
It was a war of choice, not a war of necessity.
In the news of today, our doing anything to partially mend the U.S.'s bad
reputation in Iraq has just been made more difficult insofar as sectarian
confrontation has re-arisen. The U.S. false "leaders" didn't understand
what they were getting us into in Iraq. "The evil that men do lives after
them ... ".
Regarding this "liberal" use of the word "we," as follows:
"We should have seen through the lie of an Iraqi connection to 9/11, and we should have seen the reality of a connection between the invasion of Iraq and the schemes of vile men of power. We didn't then..."
Speak for yourself! I saw through it. I knew 911 was an Inside Job from the moment it came down. And I knew it would be used as a pretext to go to war. I also sensed it would be used as a pretext to crack down on Civil Liberties, while empowering the Bush presidency. I admit, I had NO idea things would get this bad under Obama. In the past, the Democrats usually threw some bones to "the masses," and made a lot more noise about justice. Too much $ is involved these days, and both parties are too deeply entrenched in big business' interests.
Also, a lot of people were against the war against Iraq. Millions staged marches and protests around the world. Meanwhile, the MSM news media was PUSHING the agenda, following Bush's lead as a faux Christian so readily equating VENGEANCE (going after them, dead or alive, like some sheriff making up his own laws and rules as he goes) with Justice!
GW NORTH: I hear you, as per the necessary awakening. The last line in my book about this era, the End of the Piscean Age asks: "How will the dreamer come to recognize the awakened state?" By dreamer, I mean all those souls so long processed in lies and illusions as to be unable to discern actual reality from the type manufactured by the likes of Rumsfeld, one of the originators of the doctrine (sounding like script taken out of the old TV show, "The Outer Limits") that stated something along the lines of US officials making up their our own reality, which historians would judiciously study.
One of the things that keeps me sane these days is an unwavering belief in Universal Justice as established through the law of karma. It does not balance all scales in one lifetime; and for many people, that's as good as it not operating at all. The instant gratification society has led many to think that all things are designed to process as fast as a coke machine. Pity.
Siouxrose:
I don't know what significance you wish to convey by writing
"liberal" in quotes. I reckon you put "we" in quotes to state
that I said "we", but that you should not be inferred to be part
of any such "we". OK. If you want to be separated from what
I posted, I'll agree; you are so separated. I meant WE as in
"We The People", as that was written into the prolouge of
the Constitution of the United States of America. I meant WE
as a people, who granted certain limited powers to a government
that should act for us in certain duties, which would be not entirely
feasible for each of us to do individually. I meant to admit, in the
context of my post, that it is WE -- in having granted powers to a
government to act for us -- who retain some responsibility for what
is done (even putatively) FOR us. I meant that it is WE who have
a duty, at least, to apologize for what was done in our name as one
nation invading and ruining another nation. I meant that it is WE who
should have known and/or been informed about what some men
(in putatively acting for us) really intended to do inside Iraq. As I
remember the time of W's "selling job" for invading Iraq, there were
indeed protests, both in the U.S. and by leaders of other nations,
that "we" (the U.S. as a nation) had no REASON to invade another
nation. I admit all that. Nevertheless, even all that was apparetly
not enough to make members of congress admit to KNOWING that
they were being sold a deceptive bill.
Well, I didn't KNOW that 9/11 was, as you say, an inside job. I
had my suspicions when I saw (on TV) the buildings fall; but I did
not KNOW. I did not have in my possession incontrovertable
proof that someone with power in the U.S. planned and instigated
the terrroristic acts. It would have been quite a revelation if some
one had proof and let it become widely known. I reckon it would
have pointed to an act of treason.
definitely.
I had to laugh when the Obama apologists were saying they had to intervene in Libya for humanitarian reasons because if there is one thing Americans really couldn't care less about it is the suffering and slaughtering of the people whose countries they invade. Remember how thrilled they were to be killing 'gooks' in Vietnam or the 'rag heads' in Iraq. They killed hundreds of thousands of innocent women, children and men in Iraq for nothing and instead of apologizing to the world they brag about how they have helped that country. The Americans are a very sick people.and we can only hope that they run out of money before their next disgusting crusade.
Too many Americans are those you describe, but not all. It might be useful to make a distinction.
Thalidomide:
Americans are -- in I reckon at least one-half of our numbers --
an early 21-st century, unthinking and significantly uncaring
people. [We were not always unthinking. We changed the world
for the better by our thinking, writing and doing in the 18-th century.]
We are very ill-led. We are not ill-intentioned. We just are not now
in any position to take control of our own government, and so one-half
of us don't think much about it, and so choose not to care much about
it. We have fallen under domination by vile men of power. All history
would have warned us of the danger of domination by men of power.
We were so privileged in our material pleasures that we didn't heed
such a warning. We have suffered military loss or stalemate most
recently. We must take back our government now. It was only
chartered by ourselves [the ultimate sovereign power of our own fate]
to representatives and other officials AT OUR PLEASURE, and with
intentional restrictions on the officials' powers. WE ARE NOT SICK.
All consequences to a target nations people have never ever mattered enough. US is still in national rape and murder mode in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. Still getting ready for Iran. This is a "feature" of all imperialist nations. It is a natural, unavoidable consequence of a decision to intervene. All interventions are like this, in magnified degree for each tiny difference, between invaders and targets, of peoples land, culture, religion and wealth. Distance, remoteness and marginalisation of people, magnify the depth of ongoing atrocity. Since everything the US does is from a great technological and remote distance, devestating long term atrocity and results are guaranteed. Remoteness, and lack of personal consequences are essential for efficient callous dispatch. By calling Palestinians an invented people, Newt Gingrich sets up their remoteness and non-existance for guilt free disposal.
Enforcement without personal consequences rapidly descends into the worst cases, because groups of people armed with powerful weapons amd soft moral understanding will sooner or later learn to fire them in anger, revenge, self-defence, self-gain and eventually just boredom, or sadistic fun, at anyone not loved or respected.
atfault:
I reckon SOME INDIVIDUALS in the U.S. are getting ready,
and are seeking to get US ready, for military intervention in
Iran.
I say to all readers: Please try to hold in mind the present
context of news about Iran; and then think back to the context
of the Bush II administration's selling of the Iraq invasion.
I suggest for discussion and thought that we the common
people couldn't do much to stop the Iraq invasion, and we
can't do much to stop an intervention in Iran. Decisions have
already been made by vile men of power -- whether they be
men "at the top"-so-called, as in the Pentagon, or whether they
be men in the underworld of politics and shadow governance --
the scripting is the same.
For the sake of simple politeness toward each other, we should
not say that WE are the war-mongers, or that WE stood by and
let war be waged again. WE, at present, don't have any power
to stop the war planners. Any remedy must be put in place as a
person-to-person organization, and by building a base of like
thinking people.
-"No wonder then that a recent Pew poll found that despite all the evidence to the contrary 56% of Americans said they thought the invasion had succeeded in its goals while the number of those who think the invasion was the right decision stands at its highest in five years."...this means tat the majority will support the coming fascist lockdown and opening/use of the nationwide network of fema (concentration) camps...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oSRKfcDJ5qI#!
The end-times "Christians" don't care about Iraqis or anyone else who they think might be a Muslim.
There is a perverse "greater good" frame about the [somewhat hidden] religious crusade aspect of the wars the U.S. started, and that is a belief that only killing those who don't care to "accept Jesus" will satisfy "the Lord" enough to let humanity have its long-awaited "second Coming"- at which point, or soon thereafter (or so the belief goes) everything will be better than Sesame Street, and there will be no more pain, and there will be no more problems, and the cat will lay down with the dog, and pit bulls won't bite any more, and anyone who "believes" the right way will go to Heaven, even if he spent his Lord-given life exploiting, stealing, lying, killing, and purposely doing everything possible the exact opposite way that is recommended in the Gospels. And best of all (that is, in the minds of the warmongers ), all the blankety-blank Muslims will either be dead or converted.
Yes, then it will be a big happy "Left Behind" kind of world, and Jesus will live in "America", natch, and will join either the Democratic or the Republican party. Things will be so wonderful that Jerry Falwell, and Father Coughlin, and Increase Mather, who liked to put heads of native Americans on poles in the village green, will all rise up out of the grave to join the fun. And everyone will be awestruck, all the time.
"Let us thank the Lord", one will say, and prayers and hosannas and cliche-ridden patriotic songs will ring out across the ruined landscape from the crow-like voices of ruined souls who are convinced, though wrongly, that they have found true life and joy as the fruit of their passionate adoration of pain and death.
To such people, any compassion for Iraqis conflicts with their spiritual beliefs.
And of course, it's not just Iraqis who are the unfortunate recipients of for this type of mindset.
The same attitude, more or less, is applied to Afghanis, Iranians, Pakistanis, etc. (list all Middle Eastern countries here), or to anyone who looks as if someday, sometime, he might be one of "them", or failing that, anyone who looks as if he someday, sometime, he might accidentally become temporarily acquainted with one of "them". And in case someone was missed, a blanket attitude towards anyone brown or swarthy will take care of that, because as all good modern "Christian" Americans know, "God" told America that brown and swarthy is the very definition of "terrorist" and the very definition of "Satanic" and the very definition of evil.
Finally, in case some potential enemy of Christ was missed, another blanket attitude includes all people with a native language other than English, since the only language Jesus understands, or will tolerate, is English- and not English English, either,but American.
Just as a farmer might spray to destroy insects before planting, the U.S. Christian radical Right, which is now well-placed throughout the military and the federal government, believes that it is not only necessary, but morally and spiritually right, to exterminate Islam, because it is only being done for the future "crop" of bliss and happiness- for all the people who believe right, that is- that Jesus is going to give them as soon as He gets here.
Which is, the nut jobs believe, right after they clean up the Earth of all the people they are convinced that Jesus doesn't like, because, I guess, they are brown and swarthy, and don't speak good English the way Jesus and his lobbyists do.
To ask people who have the kind attitude I describe to have compassion for Iraqis is almost pointless. It is not very different from asking a farmer to have compassion for the bugs he is about to spray. It won't make sense to him, and compassion for Iraqis or Muslims or non-Americans in general doesn't seem to make sense to the particular brand of "Christian" that I'm talking about.
Maybe I am exaggerating too much in this comment. But then again, maybe I'm not exaggerating enough.
The war has other causes besides religious craziness, to be sure. I am not claiming the religious aspect is the whole thing. But it's a real part, and is mostly ignored because it's not politically correct to publicly suggest that these good pious folks are really aiming to accomplish genocide, not salvation.
But the end-times war-lovers, or the "Armageddon-ites" as I call them, are not my fantasy. I suspect that these end-timer religionists are, whether they realize it or not, just tools for the corporatists, when it comes to their role in the war, and will be discarded the minute they are no longer useful.
But in the meanwhile, some of these ardent fans of the Apocalypse are in positions of great power, with access to terrible weapons. Of course they do not want to come out and say that they are working to accomplish genocide. But I think the Iraqis and others who have felt the hell of the U.S. war crime- it's ALL a war crime, you see- might agree with me.
Great rant!
This being a day on CD full of articles veering toward religion, a poem I couldn't quite recall kept tugging at me. But for all those who think they're going the right way in this Apocalyptic frame of mind, I finally found the poem. I hope they all get this type of heaven.
By Robert Creeley:
"Oh No
"If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit
for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places."
That's right. Just sit there and be pleasant--for farking ever. These Armageddon types deserve nothing less than such a fate. It would be worse for them than perpetual waterboarding.
Another possibility would be to get stuck in an elevator for eternity while a Muzak version of "Mrs. Robinson" is playing, also for eternity.
(source: Paul Simon in an old SNL skit.)
Thanks. It IS a rant, isn't it? I admit it.
It's nice to have a place to rant once in a while.
FROD: There's a lot of truth in your post. What some in this forum don't get is that there IS no reasoning with someone who's effectively brainwashed. There are people who do not want to question, their idea of faith is JUST to believe. They are usually not very intellectually curious, and seldom well-read. They allow outside authorities that CLAIM to speak "The Word," or for God, to do their thinking for them. This is why it was so important to The Founding Fathers to build a firewall between church and state. They saw what happened all through Europe when state power melded with religious power, and fell under the influence of those who alleged to be brokers of the Divine will.
And you're also correct that this topic is not well received in this forum. Invariably, a few will show up to argue about the Christian Greats like Dorothy Day or Martin Luther King. Those who TRANSCEND their faith and become truly inspired by the examples left behind by spiritual Masters, are not the same as those who blindly follow along, especially when religious identification is used as a reason to bludgeon another people.
Religion became coupled with the god of war before the time of The Old Testament, and since then, a great many take war and violence FOR God's will. This is why I've recommended the book, "The Chalice and the Blade." Its author uses evidence from what's left of the archaeological record to show the transition from peaceful, egalitarian social systems to those based on violent conquests and ther rites of conquerors. The material is not only fascinating, it sets forth a challenge to the misplaced belief that mankind has ALWAYS been (and thus always will be) violent.
Thanks for the comment, Siouxrose. You mention Dorothy Day and MLK, which reminds me that I neglected to mention that I have a very high regard for the principles of real Christianity, and I do realize that many churches and many Christians have done much good for the past 20 centuries.
I know some people that I consider to be "real" Christians. Their faith and devotion are not trumpeted, but shown by their actions.
What I object to is the hijacking of the Christian church, and then the hijacking of the government by the same people- people who can talk loudly and say all the right words, but it is all hollowness and hypocrisy. They are like the people Jesus criticized in the Bible for praying in public, making a show of prayer.
These days all candidates for public office have to pass the unofficially required religious test, which is not supposed to exist, but it's crept into public policy big time.
It's sickening.
FROD: I couldn't agree more! Well-stated.
There is one very fundamental difference between the US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the German soldiers of Hitler's Wermacht. The American army is a VOLUNTEER army and if those American soldiers had refused to kill civilians on grounds of conscience they might have been been court martialled but they would not have been shot on the spot. In WW2, the German soldiers were mainly conscripts, and would simply have been shot for disobeying orders. What would you or I have done in that circumstance? Yes, there were brutal sadistic soldiers in the German army and the SS, just as there are in the Israeli armed forces of today. But the volunteer soldiers in the US, and indeed the conscripts in the Israeli armed forces, who shoot and bully civilians are as answerable to a moral authority higher than any military order, as was any German in WW2, some of whom were hanged or imprisoned by the Nuremburg War Crimes trials, and subsequent trials, for "just obeying orders" . The only American soldier to have come out of Iraq with any courage in this respect seems to have been Bradly Manning; I can only hope, for the sake of the USA, that there have been others. As for those criminal politicians who launched these wars, and the attack against Vietnam beginning in 1956, and indeed the murder of 216 000 Philippinos (US Library of Congress figures) in the early part of the 1900s, I hope that indeed the fundamentalist Christian view of Hell is correct as all those politicians and senior military officers would certainly find themselves there in the next 30 years or so, as nature takes its course.
"would simply have been shot for disobeying"
Look up Eddie Slovik.
There goes your "fundamental difference" argument.
p.s. I didn't mean to sound so cranky, sorry. I was a draft resister during the Vietnam War. I expatriated for several years back then, rather than risk two to five at Danbury for refusing to murder people. So whenever I read comments about a military draft, I tend to pay attention. I didn't mean to be insulting. Your post is excellent. I just wanted to mention that the U.S. has also killed its own soldiers for disobedience.
Oil, A.Q. Khan, Saddam Hussein and history. That is why America correctly took out Saddam and the threat he posed to the world.
Saddam had already demonstrated an irrational manic mind when he attacked and occupied Kuwait and was ready to do the same with Saudi Arabia with his fifth most powerful military in the world. Saddam had already murdered a significant number of his own citizens. Saddam had already fought a brutal war with Iran. Saddam was a threat to the free world's supply of oil, absolutely vital to our way of life.
In spite of our victory in the first Iraqi war, Saddam remained belligerant and continued the murder of his own people, and remained a continued threat to the middle east. And a threat to the world when he had atomic weaponry in his hands.
Whether Saddam had WMD was irrelevant. A.Q. Khan had a super market of atomic bomb technology and offered to build one for any taker for 250 million dollars. He had built the atomic capability of Pakistan and North Korea, and had offered to build one for Gadaffi in Libya. There was a supply of weapon's grade enriched Uranium available for a price after the breakup of the Soviet Union - as well as some missing suitcase sized atomic weapons built for the KGB. And Saddam had a stockpile of 500 metric tons of Yellowcake, the raw material for Uranium. All Saddam had to do was to give the go ahead to A. Q. Khan and he would have had an atomic capability in less then a year.
In the twentieth century Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Imperial Japan were allowed to murder hundreds of millions of their own people and those of the nations they conquered because people of the free world didn't want to interfer in other nations' affairs - until it was too late. If, like George W. Bush, America and others would have stopped Hiter and Imperial Japan while they were building their military, and stopped Stalin's murder of his own people, over a hundred million souls might have been saved. Who knows the lives that have been saved by our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq - Korea and Viet Nam?
Our leaders had learned the lessons of WWII by the pro active use of force against the Saddams of the world.
As for the atrocities allegedly committed in our wars to save lives and our freedoms -- well, more atrocities are committed in our homes and on our streets and highways each year. The examples Younge give are miniscule compared to what has been saved. His anacdotes pale compared to the horrors of the total wars that we will no longer have to wage as the world has joined in a near universal democracy. .
The end result is that Iraq has the ability to join the family of nations now joined to solve the world's problems.
FREDY, In your pledge of allegiance to the MIC flag post, you left out the parts about the U.S. arming Saddam; and you also seem to think he may have been responsible for 911. The premise of the Free world is that it theoretically distinguishes itself from lesser, more primitive systems, due to the rule of law. That means the accused stands trial. The U.S.worked with Saddam until word was, he was going to make oil deals that skirted around the U.S. dollar and its hegemony. The rest is just PR and cover for a naked War of Aggression.
And what a disgusting use of Truth's inversion to suggest that:
"As for the atrocities allegedly committed in our wars to save lives and our freedoms -- well, more atrocities are committed in our homes and on our streets and highways each year."
First of all, if you're talking about the 45,000 killed annually in accidents, much of that is due to people driving much faster than they should. That is HARDLY the same thing as murdering civilians at a 10:1 "enemy combatant" ratio. Secondly, estimates are that over ONE MILLION people were killed in Iraq; and 4 million made homeless; and the land is now littered with toxic things like Depleted Uranium. Babies, at high rates, are being born with deformities. And here you are with your casual dismissal of these WAR CRIMES right on a par with Rush Limbaugh comparing the torture that has gone on at Quantanimo with Fraternity party pranks.
Boy do you need to GET a life AND a brain.
How can anyone have the slightest idea "what has been saved"? There is no substance to that idea. It's pure concept. It's speculation. It's projection. It's wishful thinking. And I think it's an attempt to rationalize wars that by our own laws and principles as well as international laws and principles, must be honestly named for what they are: "war of aggression", and therefore by definition the "supreme war crime". Twice. At LEAST twice. It depends on whether the shadow wars should count.
Your essay sounds very reasonable, but sometimes things that sound reasonable, but are false, are the most treacherous things of all. I say that there was no valid excuse for invading either Iraq or Afghanistan, and that both operations were criminal enterprises from the start, and were in fact planned before 9/11. Bush the Young and Stupid had to drag the other 315 million of us into his creepy daddy problem, and wanted to make daddy love him by giving daddy someone's head, and Saddam was bitterly hated by Bush the Old and Stupid. And the rest is history, as they say... the only problem is it's history we don't fully know yet, and may never know.
Actually more and more, as I learn more about the Bushes and the Bin Laden and Saddam, it looks more and more like it could have been a love affair gone wrong... murderous rage and unreasoning hatred because someone rejected someone else's advances. Maybe what we were never told about was that George was actually madly in love with Osama, but Osama turned him down, and so Georgie's love turned to homicidal hate. And for George 1, the same, only with Hussein. I'm not saying this is true. I mean, I am making it up. But on the other hand, it would explain things better than the explanations we were given.
I wonder. I would not be one bit surprised is something really creepy like that was behind the whole 9/11 + war on terror situation. Seriously.
Frod: You are absolutely right. The concept of living a life like Jesus the Hippy is a good one, perhaps the only thought in the Bible worth saving for all these years. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Or, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Or "Love thine enemies," Etc.
This, however, didn't last through the ages, and the doctrine that did is bigotry, condescension, and 'justifiable war.' All the Military-Industrial gang has to do to sell a new imperial war to this "Christian Nation," is to pick a country that has resources our corporations want, and make sure the population is non-white and non-Christian.
Sold.
FROD: Your post strangely leaves out the oil issue, the geographical moves on the NEOCON/PNAC chess-board, and the fact that war itself becomes the MIC's life blood (how else to justify the mega-funds both sent and lost its way). All for what? Suggesting an Oedipus-like myth? If you're going to focus on the HUMAN drama, then at least give equal time to the deeper causative factors at work. And yes, 911 was the necessary Pearl Harbor to get the whole operation going using fear & the prospect of terror as cloak and dagger. Plus, think of all those "Unitary Executive" goodies the man in the Oval Office (and his handlers) get to thrust on citizens when the nation is "at war."Dang! This was a massive two-fer! Transfer $ to militarism (and the interests that profit thereby), while stripping a citizenry of the very rights fought for over long centuries. The Architects of Deceit & Destruction had all the moves worked out and acted once the "necessary players," (including a compliant Supreme Court) were in place, and media under lock & key elite ownership (for the all-important Control Of The Narrative portion of this plan).
....poor, poor amerikans. the n.y times didn't explain what happens in a war (deaths to little girls and stuff) and of course, they're poor memories kept them from remembering what was done in their name in vietnam and cambodia for example. (how many little girls into red mist there....commie bitches)
it's bernays that's at fault. he's the one who keeps amerikans from feeling shame (there still isn't sufficient information to form anything like a negative appraisal of any thing amerika has done.right? RIGHT?!)
it's not from the MEDIA that you learn to have a conscience. a conscience makes you feel shame and disgust. what are americans ashamed of? ever!
it's not a matter of poor sources of information....the info that it was a war crime and a scam was there from the beginning. selective attention is easy for the exceptional!
We killed 100,000 and lost less than 5,000. Call it 20 to 1. I believe the population there is 15 million (what I recall, could be way off). With the proper tactics and the multiplier effect of disease and famine, we could have tossed in another 45,000 American deaths, thereby equaling our losses in Vietnam, and simply have done away with the whole place. That would have helped with our unemployment situation and given those punks in Iran and North Korea something to think about. Woulda put those Mexican shooters on notice, too. No reason they can't be next. What the hell, if 100k and 5k don't bother us, why should a few more cause any sleeplessness? We ARE talking people here, right?
Sometimes I think U.S. foreign policy is based on the fact that oil and minerals are nonrenewable resources, but people are a renewable resource. Therefore, oil and minerals are of more worth than human beings.
Dear Frodnonag,
Sometimes I think U.S. foreign policy is based on the fact that ther are too many dfdwnings in our State Department
dfdwnings?
"Your search - "dfdwnings" - did not match any documents."
Google won't tell me what that means.
help!
we killed way over a million in iraq....we killed three million in viet-nam, and are responsible, by overthrowing the neutral, successful gov't of prince sihanouk and installing the right wing fascist gov't of lon nol, for the rise of and thus the massacres by, the khmer rouge in cambodia...
Dear Gary, I fought in a very similar conflict, Viet Nam 1967-1968, and from the looks of things, not much has changed in the last 43 years. As of this date there have been 143,000 deaths and 355,000 wounded in Viet Nam by "unexploded" ordinance since the end of that conflict. ( I refuse to call it a War, as none was ever declared.) The trail of human tragedy and dessicration of the land in Iraq is eerily similar to that of Viet Nam. Unfortunately, that is simply the final chapter to almost all armed conflicts and Wars I'm familiar with.
Another staggering statisic you may find interesting for the future is the 17,000 U.S. personnel still in Iraq at an annual cost of over 1 Trillion Dollars (U.S.). And, our government is declaring "Mission Accomplished", once again!
Thank you for a great article, Gary! It's a breath of fresh air! Keep up the good work!
This is a great article, thanks to Commondreams for making it available for us to read, and thanks to Gary Null of writing it. My only comment is that America is not blind to what she has done to Iraq, she is just deliberately ignoring what she has done.
She knew she was wrong, Bush lied, she illegally invaded Iraq, thousands of soldiers died and tens of thousands of Iraqis died, she now occupies that country against the will of the Iraqis. America claims to withdraw all her soldiers yet she has 15,000.00 soldiers at that behemoth of an Embassy she built there. That is continuous occupation.
America has not truly left Iraq, she is still there. We need to get the hell out of Iraq completely, they were existing before our illegal invasion and they will continue to exist after we are gone. Of course we have to stay there for Big Oil and the Defense Industry. They are planning to make lots of money from Iraq, the invasion was all about oil and getting rid of Saddam. Mission accomplished.