03-06-2011, 05:53 AM
June 2nd, 2011
by William Blum
http://www.killinghope.org
God Bless America. And its Bombs.
When they bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador and Nicaragua I said nothing because I wasn't a communist.
When they bombed China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, and the Congo I said nothing because I didn't know about it.
When they bombed Lebanon and Grenada I said nothing because I didn't understand it.
When they bombed Panama I said nothing because I wasn't a drug dealer.
When they bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen I said nothing because I wasn't a terrorist.
When they bombed Yugoslavia and Libya for "humanitarian" reasons I said nothing because it sounded so honorable.
Then they bombed my house and there was no one left to speak out for me. But it didn't really matter. I was dead. 1
The Targets
It's become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns of modern times 78 consecutive days was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (A) It poses an obstacle could be anything to the desires of the American Empire; (B) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
"Remember the scene in Battle of Algiers in which, after the French have 'killed off' the revolution, mist fills the screen and then, gradually, coming out of the mist, the Algerians appear waving their fists, ululating with that sound both thrilling and frightening? That's how I see 9/11 for those of us who grew up believing that the US stood for something grand, despite eras such as slavery, indigenous genocide, Jim Crow, etc. Many people say 'Everything changed on 9/11.' I think it's more that 'Everything became clear, finally, on 9/11.' The mist cleared away." Catherine Podojil
From a reader in Slovakia: I used the word "democracy" and not "capitalism", because we were told [after the dissolution of the Soviet Union] that democracy was introduced in Slovakia, not capitalism. Everything was done in the name of democracy and not in the name of capitalism.
"If someone other than Stalin had gained ascendancy in the Soviet Union, it is likely that millions of lives would have been spared but millions of others still would have been caught up in the maw of the state machine, because the system itself was based on violence, repression and lawlessness all in the name of 'preserving the Revolution,' a phrase which served the same function for the Kremlin as 'national security' does for the American elite, or the 'higher law' of God does for religious extremists of every stripe." Chris Floyd
Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, re the newly-formed International Criminal Court in 1998: The United States should be exempt [from the court's prosecution] because it has "special global responsibilities".
Russia might be a target of an American invasion some day because it's the most powerful geopolitical opponent of the United States, with the power to extinguish the US in 30 minutes. The US might want to control the Russian oil and have complete control of Central Asia. That's what's behind the many missile sites the US has been building in Europe, not the stated fear of Iran.
Bolivia has South America's largest hydrocarbon deposits after Venezuela.
"The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and somehow take control of the country strikes me as an extremely serious one, in terms of what we'd have to do when we got there. You'd probably have to put some new government in place. It's not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you'd have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of the struggle over who's going to govern in Iraq strikes me as the classic definition of a quagmire." Dick Cheney, when he was Secretary of Defense in 1991.
When the plans for a new office building for the U.S. military were brought before the Senate on Aug. 14, 1941, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan was puzzled. "Unless the war is to be permanent, why must we have permanent accommodations for war facilities of such size?" he asked. "Or is the war to be permanent?" (Steve Vogel, "The Pentagon: A History" (2007) p.84)
The combination of free trade and heavy US subsidies to American businesses has crippled the Mexican agricultural sector, causing impoverished former subsistence farmers to immigrate to the US by any means necessary. Conservative policies of supporting free trade while restricting immigration are inherently incompatible.
The head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the first US occupation administration of Iraq in 2003, Paul Bremer, made free enterprise a guiding rule, shutting down 192 state-owned businesses where the World Bank estimated 500,000 people were working. (UPI, July 25, 2007)
If an individual were behaving as Israel does as a country, that person would be removed to an institution for the criminally insane and subjected to intense drug therapy and a lobotomy. The person might find the guy next door to be named America.
The United States threatens other states sufficient to cause those states to engage in defensive responses in order to exploit these to justify increasing "defense" expenditures.
Bush, Obama and Western Europe have used criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin's authoritarianism as a way of showing their publics how they allegedly stand up for democracy.
US right-wingers have a desire to replace our constitutional form of government with an authoritarian theocracy, and to (militarily) spread that theocratic construct around the world. (Ironically, the exact same objective fundamentalist Muslims have!) Kerry Thomasi, Online Journal
"Behind the 'unexamined nostalgia for the "Golden Days" of American intelligence' lay a much more devastating truth: the same people who read Dante and went to Yale and were educated in civic virtue recruited Nazis, manipulated the outcome of democratic elections, gave LSD to unwitting subjects, opened the mail of thousands of American citizens, overthrew governments, supported dictatorships, plotted assassinations, and engineered the Bay of Pigs disaster. 'In the name of what?' asked one critic. 'Not civic virtue, but empire'." Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (1999)
... a more just world, a deeper democracy and a liveable planet ...
"Colin Powell's presentation at the UN, February 5, 2003 seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with plagiarism." Bill Moyers
"Venezuela's well-off complain endlessly that their economic power has been diminished; it hasn't; economic growth has never been higher, business has never been better. What the rich no longer own is the government." John Pilger
by William Blum
http://www.killinghope.org
God Bless America. And its Bombs.
When they bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador and Nicaragua I said nothing because I wasn't a communist.
When they bombed China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, and the Congo I said nothing because I didn't know about it.
When they bombed Lebanon and Grenada I said nothing because I didn't understand it.
When they bombed Panama I said nothing because I wasn't a drug dealer.
When they bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen I said nothing because I wasn't a terrorist.
When they bombed Yugoslavia and Libya for "humanitarian" reasons I said nothing because it sounded so honorable.
Then they bombed my house and there was no one left to speak out for me. But it didn't really matter. I was dead. 1
The Targets
It's become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns of modern times 78 consecutive days was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (A) It poses an obstacle could be anything to the desires of the American Empire; (B) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
"Remember the scene in Battle of Algiers in which, after the French have 'killed off' the revolution, mist fills the screen and then, gradually, coming out of the mist, the Algerians appear waving their fists, ululating with that sound both thrilling and frightening? That's how I see 9/11 for those of us who grew up believing that the US stood for something grand, despite eras such as slavery, indigenous genocide, Jim Crow, etc. Many people say 'Everything changed on 9/11.' I think it's more that 'Everything became clear, finally, on 9/11.' The mist cleared away." Catherine Podojil
From a reader in Slovakia: I used the word "democracy" and not "capitalism", because we were told [after the dissolution of the Soviet Union] that democracy was introduced in Slovakia, not capitalism. Everything was done in the name of democracy and not in the name of capitalism.
"If someone other than Stalin had gained ascendancy in the Soviet Union, it is likely that millions of lives would have been spared but millions of others still would have been caught up in the maw of the state machine, because the system itself was based on violence, repression and lawlessness all in the name of 'preserving the Revolution,' a phrase which served the same function for the Kremlin as 'national security' does for the American elite, or the 'higher law' of God does for religious extremists of every stripe." Chris Floyd
Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, re the newly-formed International Criminal Court in 1998: The United States should be exempt [from the court's prosecution] because it has "special global responsibilities".
Russia might be a target of an American invasion some day because it's the most powerful geopolitical opponent of the United States, with the power to extinguish the US in 30 minutes. The US might want to control the Russian oil and have complete control of Central Asia. That's what's behind the many missile sites the US has been building in Europe, not the stated fear of Iran.
Bolivia has South America's largest hydrocarbon deposits after Venezuela.
"The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and somehow take control of the country strikes me as an extremely serious one, in terms of what we'd have to do when we got there. You'd probably have to put some new government in place. It's not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you'd have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of the struggle over who's going to govern in Iraq strikes me as the classic definition of a quagmire." Dick Cheney, when he was Secretary of Defense in 1991.
When the plans for a new office building for the U.S. military were brought before the Senate on Aug. 14, 1941, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan was puzzled. "Unless the war is to be permanent, why must we have permanent accommodations for war facilities of such size?" he asked. "Or is the war to be permanent?" (Steve Vogel, "The Pentagon: A History" (2007) p.84)
The combination of free trade and heavy US subsidies to American businesses has crippled the Mexican agricultural sector, causing impoverished former subsistence farmers to immigrate to the US by any means necessary. Conservative policies of supporting free trade while restricting immigration are inherently incompatible.
The head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the first US occupation administration of Iraq in 2003, Paul Bremer, made free enterprise a guiding rule, shutting down 192 state-owned businesses where the World Bank estimated 500,000 people were working. (UPI, July 25, 2007)
If an individual were behaving as Israel does as a country, that person would be removed to an institution for the criminally insane and subjected to intense drug therapy and a lobotomy. The person might find the guy next door to be named America.
The United States threatens other states sufficient to cause those states to engage in defensive responses in order to exploit these to justify increasing "defense" expenditures.
Bush, Obama and Western Europe have used criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin's authoritarianism as a way of showing their publics how they allegedly stand up for democracy.
US right-wingers have a desire to replace our constitutional form of government with an authoritarian theocracy, and to (militarily) spread that theocratic construct around the world. (Ironically, the exact same objective fundamentalist Muslims have!) Kerry Thomasi, Online Journal
"Behind the 'unexamined nostalgia for the "Golden Days" of American intelligence' lay a much more devastating truth: the same people who read Dante and went to Yale and were educated in civic virtue recruited Nazis, manipulated the outcome of democratic elections, gave LSD to unwitting subjects, opened the mail of thousands of American citizens, overthrew governments, supported dictatorships, plotted assassinations, and engineered the Bay of Pigs disaster. 'In the name of what?' asked one critic. 'Not civic virtue, but empire'." Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (1999)
... a more just world, a deeper democracy and a liveable planet ...
"Colin Powell's presentation at the UN, February 5, 2003 seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with plagiarism." Bill Moyers
"Venezuela's well-off complain endlessly that their economic power has been diminished; it hasn't; economic growth has never been higher, business has never been better. What the rich no longer own is the government." John Pilger