Out of Iraq

[eyelidlessness]

I don't get you

It's mutual.

What wake up call are you talking about?

Do you mean 9/11?

Was that what it was, a wake up call?

It certainly should have been.

This essay more or less sums up my feelings on the subject. It's a long, but very important read.

[stilltrucking]

I suppose I should be grateful to Osama Bin Laden for waking us up.

[eyelidlessness]

I'm not really sure what your point is. I don't think gratitude is necessarily the appropriate response to terrorism, but I certainly think learning a lesson is. People don't fly planes into buildings without having some sort of grievance, and the particular expressed grievances were not only legitimate, but generally ignored by those responsible (symbolized by the targets hit in that attack: global capital and imperial military): oppression of Arabians due to US support for the Saudi regime; oppression of Iraqis due to the US/UK sanctions regime that took 1.5 million lives, following a war that took a few hundred thousand lives, following dozens of years of support for atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein; oppression of Palestinians due to decades of US support for the Israeli occupation.

These are real crimes, for which we're responsible. Just as at the end of World War II, German citizens were criticized for defaulting on their basic human responsibility to stop what was being done in their name, with their participation or complicity, we have defaulted on our responsibilities. The consequence for Germans was the firebombing of their cities, which is a terrible atrocity that should have been prevented. One such consequence for us was 9/11, which was also an atrocity which could have been prevented.

Unfortunately, Americans seem to still be unable to learn the lesson.

I'm not convinced that Iraqis, Arabians and Palestinians (for example... there are many more victims that bin Laden didn't speak to) can, or should, wait indefinitely for Americans to get a clue and bring them relief from this seemingly endless oppression. I certainly don't think they will. And I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they brought the conflict back to its source once again.

I'm not condoning this, and I'm not talking about gratefulness. I'm talking about consequences. Since arrogance and entitlement basically define American culture, and since few if any of us seem committed to doing what is necessary to stop these crimes, I'm afraid there are more consequences on the horizon.

Americans owe it to themselves and the world to read about US policy towards German war crimes trials after World War II, because they were remarkably honest and fair coming from a major world power. And while they might seem radical from this arrogant, entitled vantage point, they're downright conservative from the perspective that our victims are people too.

[stilltrucking]

I suppose my point about being grateful was sarcasm. I don't like sarcasm, but I still do it someimes. Sorry

doing what is necessary

Does this have something to do with Jaspers?

no sarcasm intended.

[eyelidlessness]

I suppose my point about being grateful was sarcasm. I don't like sarcasm, but I still do it someimes. Sorry

I love sarcasm. But I felt the sarcasm was used to mock something that I don't think deserves mocking.

Does this have something to do with Jaspers?

He's actually mentioned by name in the article I linked earlier. Did you read it?

[stilltrucking]

Yes,
I read the article.

Eyelidlessness said:

doing what is necessary

What is necessary?

I would say that we leaving Iraq would be a good first step.

Not sure what 9/11 has to do with that, except it was the bogus excuse for the war. So I would have to say 9/11 was more like a knock out punch or a sleeping pill than a wake up call.

To tell you the truth I thought your wake up call comment was plenty worthy of sarcasm. I suppose I don't like sarcasm cause so much was directed at me when I was a kid.

[eyelidlessness]

Yes,
I read the article.

I'm not convinced. The questions you're asking show that either you comprehended none of it, or that you read none of it. If you disagree with its premises, on the other hand, why not just come right out and say it, and explain why?

What is necessary?

Whatever gets the task at hand done. Since we're talking about the task of ending the war, the simple answer is: make the war cost too much (in whatever sense of cost you like) to maintain, forcing a withdrawal.

I would say that we leaving Iraq would be a good first step.

Great. Are Americans prepared to do what it takes to make that happen? I'm really troubled by what I've seen since 2003. The first protest I have ever attended was the one in February of that year. It was the largest (cumulative) protest in human history, which should be more than inspiration enough that we are the majority. What else did we need? Why have four years passed without any meaningful disruption of the war machine from our vantage point (with one small exception I can think of: activists in Olympia, WA, have, for now, prevented military shipments from leaving their port)?

The time is stale. If we don't act, we are likely to face further consequences such as 9/11.

Not sure what 9/11 has to do with that, except it was the bogus excuse for the war.

Which war? It seems like your history comprehension ends at March, 2003. 9/11 was also used as an excuse for another war that began prior to 9/11. No one seems to care about that. And if you had read the article I linked, you'd understand that what I'm saying is that 9/11 doesn't even begin in 2001, it begins in 1492. There are 515 years of imperial criminality that began when, to quote the article's author, "a lost Italian seaman flying the flag of Spain washed up on shore half a world away from where he thought he was, and got himself known as a great navigator." Columbus and his successors led a campaign of genocide that obliterated tens of millions of people.

There is a direct path from US expansion across the continent, into transcontinental imperial adventures of the Spanish-American war (where the US seized several Spanish colonies in the name of "liberation"); the war in the Philippines (where the US killed 30% of the population to "liberate" them); the battle of empires otherwise known as the Great War; the mass murder of Japanese and German civilians in firebombing attacks in World War II; the anti-democratic subversion of socialist and nationalist movements and fairly elected governments in Italy, Greece, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, Indonesia; the slaughter of over three million people in Indochina (Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos) to "liberate" them from the nationalist movements we called "communist domination"; support for anti-nationalist death squads in Colombia, el Salvador, Guatemala; coups in Venezuela; the support of repressive dictatorships such as the Saudi regime, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein (the "Butcher of Baghdad"); support for decades of military occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine; support for the Mujahideen who formed the basis for al Qaeda; support for al Qaeda itself; support for the Taleban which "harbored" al Qaeda as they planned 9/11; the murder of 500,000 Iraqi children and 1,000,000 Iraqi adults by forced starvation, poisoning and blocking of medical supplies from 1991 until 2003 (these numbers are very low, they were acknowledged by some of the architects of this atrocity as early as 1998).

This list is very incomplete (really glaring omissions are the slave trade and apartheid in the US, which extend over almost the entire period of time discussed), but it is a much more complete context for 9/11 than shrub lied, people died.

So I would have to say 9/11 was more like a knock out punch or a sleeping pill than a wake up call.

I didn't say it worked. I said it should have been a wakeup call. Any healthy society with any sense at all would have taken 9/11 as such (well, except that said healthy societies don't do the things that make 9/11 inevitable).

The correct response to 9/11 would have been:

1. Whoa, why did they do that?
2. What were they trying to accomplish?
3. What did we do to provoke it?
4. What do we need to do to prevent further consequences?
5. How can we make it up to the victims we haven't cared one lick about for centuries?
6. A long period of collective introspection and guilt, the result of experiencing which could lead to collective spiritual growth and recovery.
7. Stopping those who aspire to our then-former position in the world (I'm thinking China will take our place, but I could be wrong).

Instead, the response has been:

1. Bomb the shit out of Afghanistan.
2. Don't talk about Afghanistan anymore.
3. Round up thousands of immigrants and lock them up incommunicado.
4. Don't talk about the immigrants, many of whom remain locked up today, with no charge of criminal activity at all.
5. Ship some immigrants to places like Syria where they'll be tortured (despite their origins elsewhere).
6. Media circus about:
a) Why do they hate us?;
b) Tom and Nicole;
c) Tom and Angelina;
d) American Idol;
e) Hillary Clinton;
f) WMDs;
g) Hillary Clinton;
h) Is John Kerry a war criminal? (if not, he shouldn't be elected);
i) One of hundreds of rapes that went unpunished;
j) One of thousands of shootings;
k) Hillary Clinton;
7. Murder of another 600,000 Iraqis for no apparent reason.
8. Not an instance of protest worthy of the name since before the Iraq war started (with the one exception I mentioned earlier).
9. Continuation of the policies that made 9/11 inevitable: support for Israeli occupation; support for Saudi regime; support for one proto-Saddam after another; a coup in Venezuela; oppression of nationalists (primarily Muslim) in the Philippines; support for the royal family in Nepal as it puts down a popular uprising. (To name a few.)

I don't know how to be more clear, but I guess it'll be moot if you post again without understanding. So I hope this explains what I meant by "wake-up call" and that it should have served as such, but didn't, which is why further wake-up calls are inevitable.

[stilltrucking]

Yes you are right it began in 1492
I think we should blame Spain maybe




Not my intent to mock you but I suppose it sounds that way.

I was so sure of myself when I was young. For example, there was a time when I believed the USA were the good guys and all the evil in the world was in Germany.

We all want to save the world,
we all want a revolution
we all want to stop the blood shed

It is true
We have made one hell of a mess in the world
because we are Americans but also
because we are a disease called man

on an unretlated note.
You know Saddam was able to build all those presidential palaces during the sanctions, he was able to sell billions of dollars in bootleg oil, you would think he could have afforded to feed the children.

it is your thread e-dog what do you think of all this?

[eyelidlessness]

Yes you are right it began in 1492
I think we should blame Spain maybe

I don't think I even said anything about blame. I am talking about consequences for our actions, and I'm putting our actions into a context where it's clear that the supposed distinction between the morals of the old empires and the morals of modern democracies is blurred at best. The point is that the crimes that we perpetrate today are in direct lineage from the crimes that put us on this continent in the first place, and in that context, insofar as we don't alter this 515 year course of behavior we can expect only further misery and destruction.

Not my intent to mock you but I suppose it sounds that way.

Not sure why. I listed quite a few atrocities that had nothing to do with Spain, but had quite a lot to do with former English colonies we now call "America".

I was so sure of myself when I was young. For example, there was a time when I believed the USA were the good guys and all the evil in the world was in Germany.

I'm not terribly surprised.

It is true
We have made one hell of a mess in the world
because we are Americans but also
because we are a disease called man

I already addressed this elsewhere. If genocide and ecocide were human nature, everyone would do it. You can't escape your responsibilities as both a participant in an oppressive system and as a human being by blaming your actions on a false nature.

When people say this kind of stuff, it reminds me of that Simpsons parody of the meat industry, where they produced an infotisement video for schools that told students that if we don't eat cows, they'll eat us.

on an unretlated note.
You know Saddam was able to build all those presidential palaces during the sanctions, he was able to sell billions of dollars in bootleg oil, you would think he could have afforded to feed the children.

Well, Saddam had been a brutal dictator for years prior, but for some reason the starvation and birth defects and medical crises didn't happen on that scale until the sanctions had been applied. Why is that? I mean, Saddam was Our Man for a while, and wouldn't have had that power had we not put him there. And he didn't really concentrate the power necessary to isolate himself from the people until we helped him put down the popular rebellions following the "first" Gulf War (apparently the Iran-Iraq war didn't count because we didn't do the fighting directly).

At the time, while Saddam was an embarrassment, a suitable replacement couldn't be found that would protect American interests, so the US chose to protect Saddam by helping him consolidate power while starving the population and cutting off medical shipments.

We owed it to the Iraqi people to support their popular uprisings in 1991, but refused. Why is that?

Much has been made, rightly enough, of how U.S. governmental agencies, corporate media and academic elites collude to provide only such information as is convenient to the status quo. It is thus true that there is much of which the public is unaware. No such excuse can be advanced with respect to the fate of Iraq's children, however. Not only was the toll publicly predicted before U.S. sanctions were imposed, but two high UN officials, including Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, have resigned in protest of what Halliday described in widely reported statements as "the policy of deliberate genocide" they reflected. Asked by an interviewer on 60 Minutes in 1996 whether the UN's estimate of child fatalities in Iraq was accurate, U.S. Ambassador to the UN cum Secretary of State Madeleine Albright confirmed it before a national television audience.

"We've decided," Albright went on in a remark prominently displayed in the New York Times and most other major newspapers, "that it's worth the cost" in lives extracted from brown-skinned toddlers to "set an example" so terrifying in its implications that it would compel planetary obedience to America's dictates in the years ahead. Such were the official terms defining the "New World Order" George Bush the elder had announced in 1991.

[stilltrucking]

I first heard about Savak in 1970.
An Iranian student at American University told me about his experience.

You sound like you just discovered america
I suppose that is because I am forty years older than you.
My virginity lies somewhere between the SS St Lous, and the USS Liberty.

I think who is put on trial for war crimes depends on who wins the war.

When I say we are a disease called man, I don't think you understand me.

When you say wake up call it sounds to me like we had it coming


That sounds like blame to me. I will have to check the definition of the word blame.

But
I stopped blaming Germany long ago.

When you talk about the good Germans, I don't know what they could have done about it by the time the death camps were set up. I read that the first thing the N*zis did was confiscate the gunz, from the Jews first naturaly. Some tried many died. of the 17 million or so that died in the concentration camps only about 6 million were jews. I am first generation american. My father was born in the 19th century. He would be way over a hundred years old. Santayana said disgust in man is the begining of our dignity. Paraphrase from geezer memory. If we can understand each other half the time I think that is good considering we are two generations apart

Speaking of

crimes against hunanity

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/in ... luence.cfm

I am still reading Failed States
from the preface:

"That brings up a fourth issue that should deeply concern Americans, and the world: the sharp divide between public opinion and public policy, one of the reasons for the fear, which cannot ccasually be put aside, that 'the "American 'system' as a whole is in real trouble--that it is heading in a direction that spells the end of its historic values [of] equality, libety, and meaningful democracy"- see footnote 1 below

1 Far Alperovitz, America Beyond Captialism (Wiley, 2005) THe 'historic values" are those professed. On the operative values for the powerful, there is, as always a good deal more to say.

I am not sure what that footnote means. I think about China beyond Marxism. I am ignorant of political science. During my experience in the anti war demonstrations of the seventies the most sincere people I met were the veterans and the people from the Physics department. The poly sci goes sounded like power freaks to me


Maybe by chance I have touched on whatever this thread was about.

[eyelidlessness]

I first heard about Savak in 1970.
An Iranian student at American University told me about his experience.

Okay?

You sound like you just discovered america

Um, even if that were true, what difference would it make? The facts I've cited are true, and isn't it the least bit possible that since the stated reasons for 9/11 are factually true they might have actually been the reasons it happened?

I suppose that is because I am forty years older than you.
My virginity lies somewhere between the SS St Lous, and the USS Liberty.

I don't really see how it's relevant.

I think who is put on trial for war crimes depends on who wins the war.

I agree. This goes a long way to explain the half-century of colonial impunity that I described in earlier posts.

When I say we are a disease called man, I don't think you understand me.

It sounds like you're saying it's human nature (which you have said in multiple contexts) to do the things I've listed (which isn't the case for the reasons I've explained). What else is there to understand? I can't imagine the motivation for saying it other than to excuse yourself and your countrymen from any kind of responsibility for specific crimes committed.

When you say wake up call it sounds to me like we had it coming

Yep.

That sounds like blame to me. I will have to check the definition of the word blame.

Nope. I'm saying 9/11 is a natural, inevitable consequence of our actions, and that we should alter our actions if we don't like the consequences. That isn't blame, it's just reality.

But
I stopped blaming Germany long ago.

They also stopped being nazis long ago (well, most of them!).

When you talk about the good Germans, I don't know what they could have done about it by the time the death camps were set up.

Well, they could have not waited until the death camps were set up to do something about it!

I read that the first thing the N*zis did was confiscate the gunz, from the Jews first naturaly. Some tried many died. of the 17 million or so that died in the concentration camps only about 6 million were jews.

From what I'm reading, 5.5 million were killed in the camps, of whom 80% were Jews (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camps). And to my recollection, the estimation is that the nazis killed around 22 million people total, meaning that about 16.5 million were outside of the death camps (including in other concentration camps, having starved or been killed outside a systematic mass-murder campaign), of whom probably 3 million were Jews.

I am first generation american. My father was born in the 19th century. He would be way over a hundred years old.

Okay?

Santayana said disgust in man is the begining of our dignity.

Why? Also, I can't reconcile your vague objection to my comments about 9/11 with your misanthropy.

If we can understand each other half the time I think that is good considering we are two generations apart

I can communicate with people three and four times my age... provided they make sense.

Speaking of

crimes against hunanity

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/in ... luence.cfm

Yeah. The eugenics movement (and a lot of other things we associate mainly with nazis) was popular in the US for quite a long time.

I am still reading Failed States
from the preface:

"That brings up a fourth issue that should deeply concern Americans, and the world: the sharp divide between public opinion and public policy, one of the reasons for the fear, which cannot ccasually be put aside, that 'the "American 'system' as a whole is in real trouble--that it is heading in a direction that spells the end of its historic values [of] equality, libety, and meaningful democracy"- see footnote 1 below

1 Far Alperovitz, America Beyond Captialism (Wiley, 2005) THe 'historic values" are those professed. On the operative values for the powerful, there is, as always a good deal more to say.

I am not sure what that footnote means.

I think he's saying that "equality, libety [sic], and meaningful democracy" are not the actual values of the powerful who rule over us, just values they pay lip service to.

I think about China beyond Marxism. I am ignorant of political science. During my experience in the anti war demonstrations of the seventies the most sincere people I met were the veterans and the people from the Physics department. The poly sci goes sounded like power freaks to me

Well, most of the New Left was at least partly inspired by Maoism, so it's not a huge surprise.

Maybe by chance I have touched on whatever this thread was about.

I'm not really sure.

[stilltrucking]

I can communicate with people three and four times my age... provided they make sense.

That leaves me out.

Cause I just can't connect any dots between 9/11 and the war on Iraq.

[eyelidlessness]

Can you connect dots between 9/11 and the 1990-91 war on Iraq?

[mnaz]

Just a quick "step-in" here...

Thank you both for your personal and studied perspectives which span both the near-disastrous, "tipping point" 20th Century and much of the unheard, buried history leading up to it. Anyone who agrees to reduce world affairs to simple government-issue, buzz-word building blocks of "good vs. evil" at this point is living a lie.

[jimboloco]

we're a paper tiger
with a soft underbelly
we got stealth bombers with global reach
via tankers lots a gas
but we can't keep the peace
anywhere