Flocks of chickens are coming home to roost, signaling the Pirates’ inevitable
departure from Iraq. The fallout of the Abu Ghraib abomination is yet
another example of “blowback”: the unintended consequences of American
aggression.
In the Seventies and Eighties, U.S. intelligence agencies spent billions
of dollars to create the anti-Soviet jihad that metastasized into Osama
bin Laden’s global “movement” – the ghastly legacy of the mad political
sorcerers at the CIA. We can thank the same “permanent government” for
systematically creating the infrastructure of the global narcotics
network, through their alliances with criminal classes in every opium-
and coca-growing country in which they operate. U.S. society became
massively drug-polluted: blowback.
The Bush administration’s war against world order seeks to ring the
Earth with law-free, American diktat zones, run by U.S. secret police – the
truest expression of the Pirate’s global vision. The expansion of the
hellish Guantanamo Bay prison regime to all of Iraq sanctioned wholesale
depravity among the Abu Ghraib guards, as will be revealed in the coming
days and weeks.
Blowback occurs when the Gestapo-like, global police state mechanism
becomes generally known to the publics in the aggressor and victim
nations – and to an alarmed planet full of potential victims. American
psychological warfare, crafted to “break” the will of Iraqis, has exploded
like a fumbled grenade. The blowback reverberates in American church
congregations, such as the one in Dayton, Ohio where frequent contributor
Maddi Bee posed the question: How Golden is This Rule?
Torture Orders roll downhill. Let’s not kid ourselves, people,
that the High Command of our U.S. nazi administration doesn’t know
almost every move in this torture/sexual abuse horror in Abu Ghraib
prison and in prisons throughout Iraq and elsewhere.
Watch as the “excuse-makers” scurry around like cornered rats
trying to find people to blame. Listen to the weak rhetoric bandied
about by the Commander-in-Chief, the U.S. War President. Unlike
H.S. Truman where the buck stopped, this weak president can’t abide
bucks stopping anywhere near the vicinity of his soul.
Can you hear the screams of the tortured, sexually and mentally
abused people in the middle of the night? Can you feel the tears
of the Almighty falling from the sky? Can you even bear to know
the traumas of the parents and spouses of these sons and daughters
of Iraq and the US? Can you gaze at the swaggering, braggadocios
military women and men pointing guns at genitals and snickering
over the nudity of Iraqi men? Can you imagine how we would behave
if our women were raped and our children tortured?
If we have any Collective Memory at all, we know the same things
have been visited upon Native Americans and African Americans and
others by the ruling powers here in the US. So, what do we expect
our military and mercenaries to do in other lands?
Tell me, how does this Invasion/Occupation of Iraq solve any of
the World’s Terror Problems? What I see is MORE EVIL unleashed
from the pits of hell! Again, remember this: What goes around
comes around. The Golden Rule has been stomped on and smashed.
It has been Urinated on and Stuffed up the Asses of the Captured. Idolaters
have laughed at it. It has been bombed and shot at. It has been
Nuked and Mocked!
What do we do now? Because the Buck Stops With Us.
Maddi Bee invites your responses. Send to: [email protected]
Fatally warped
“In the Abu Ghraib pictures we see U.S. soldiers performing a slave
master’s ritual, a specific, American kind of grotesquerie,” we wrote
in our May 6 Cover Story, “America
Unfit to 'Change the World'.” White
American Manifest Destiny, a killer ideology if ever there was one,
doesn’t work so well in 21st Century Iraq.
Thoroughly ordinary young men and women pretend to be gods, lording
over darker humanity. U.S. culture empowers them to act out their
most hideous fantasies at the expense of “lesser” peoples. Lynndie
England demanded that Iraqi men surrender their dignity by masturbating
for her sick enjoyment. The Iraqi victims knew that the Americans’ pornographic
theater could turn into a snuff film at any moment. To the Arab
men, Pvt. England and Specialist Megan Ambuhl must have seemed
like “Bay Watch” from Hell….
“This is not America,” said George Bush on Wednesday, pleading
the national case to the Arab world. “America is a country
of justice and law and freedom and treating people with respect.”
No, America is a country built on genocide, slavery and insatiable
land-piracy, where even the lowest status white person is a king
or queen compared to a “hajji” or “gook” or some other variety
of “nigger.” This is the cultural well from which springs America’s
ceaseless domestic and international wars, the fountainhead of
aggression as a national trait.
It is also the national characteristic that renders Americans
unfit to “change the world” – Bush’s favorite
refrain. The
same racism that encourages Americans to believe they have a right
to dominate the planet, prevents them from perceiving non-whites
as human beings – and brings out the dominatrix in Pvt. England.
Buffalo, New York activist Loretta Renford registers her outrage:
I urge all people to state their outrage about these abuses. While
it is nothing new, it points to a systemic problem that few have
dealt with. Certainly no president.
England and Graner as well as others are pathetic and
obviously mentally ill to grin and do the things that they have
perpetrated against these human beings. I don't care if they are
prisoners. Where is their discipline and moral restraint? Every
human being has a stop watch in their brain…unless they are mentally
dysfunctional. The rules of punishment should take place.
Ms. England had the mental capacity to note that one prisoner, was “getting hard."
Please spare me the rhetoric that she is innocent and was just
following orders.
Let's not play games as has been done with police brutality throughout
the years. The buck stops here.
Bush stands before the American public and rambles aimlessly to
convince us that the troops are doing a good job. What
the hell is this? Stop
playing us like you play your instruments. Our daughters
and sons are dying for what? I wonder how sympathetic many of you
would be if it were your loved one on display like we are observing?
In North Carolina, Fayetteville State University Professor Victor
Hebert is appalled at the misuse of language to minimize high crimes.
The media and pirates have done it again. Playing word tricks,
the horror, violence, degradation, depravity, murder, atrocity,
demoralization, sexual assault, rape, destruction of humanity,
and assault on human decency and dignity perpetuated by the basest
of animal aggression and violence, has been labeled "abuse."
My understanding of abuse is simple mistreatment. We call abuse
not feeding our dog or cat, and not feeding our kids on time. We
use criminal terms to describe offenses against persons such as
rape, violent assault, aggravated murder, violent aggression, murder,
forcible rape, etc. I don't know of any instance where “abuse” is
a crime.
What the criminals did in Iraq were crimes of the highest order,
and not abuse as we know it. And, these crimes were perpetuated
by men and women at the highest levels of rank in Iraq, the finest
that money can buy.
If what is done in Iraq is abuse, then we owe Kobe Bryant an apology,
and many others who did what these people did and condoned that
are now locked away for life, or executed.
I get sick every time I see the word abuse attached to what has
happened in Iraq. The stage is now set to pardon these people,
or as the headlines in our local paper assert: “Rumsfeld apologizes
for prison ‘abuse.’" And, "Soldier charged with ‘abuse.’" What
happened and is happening is beyond abuse or we will have to throw
out our own criminal "injustice” system and call what Charles
Manson did a "boys will be boys" party.
Is the term "abuse" now truly redefined? It is a palpable
travesty to see grown men and women in the United States Senate
and Congress asking questions about "abuse" when they
ought to be describing what is happening according to our own laws.
That whole inquiry is a "dog and pony" show.
Murder is murder. Violent, forcible rape and sodomy
is just that, not simple abuse. I now watch the worst examples of
depravity laboring to "label and dismiss" this violence
against humanity. My only consolation is that there is a divine law
that operates whether one has faith in Jesus Christ or not. The law
of sowing and reaping never fails. There is a Price for this mess.
The USA will pay in ways that are as yet not perceived.
Minister Salaam and Sister Halimah
Allah write:
We could not agree more with
your May 6, 2004 article, "America Unfit!" The
analogy is that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely!" Few of those in power ever concede
that might does not make right!
The scriptures of the Holy
Qur'an say: "Corruption has appeared upon the land
and upon the seas on account of what man's hands have wrought."
The planet
Earth has never seen a more corrupt, rebellious, and hypocritical
government than America. There is much for them to reap, including
the whirlwind!
Jennifer Thompson, from St. Louis, Missouri, sees the hand of a
third party in the U.S.-Iraq mix.
I recently listened to the Honorable Louis Farrakhan in a
press
conference held in Washington, D.C. He brought a great
deal of clarity to some issues of this engagement in the Iraq war.
Your article also brought clarity. I am now listening
to learn how much this country is committed to protect Israel at
the expense of occupying Iraq, soon going after Iran, Syria, and
any other Middle Eastern country threatening the survival of Israel. Farrakhan
implies that it is the occupation of America in Iraq that has created
the recent deaths of soldiers. I totally agree with that,
but more importantly the American people, all of us, are now targets
for any retribution for trying to protect Israel.
However, I also agree with you that it is that good ole American
hatred that is responsible for the photos of prisoner abuse currently
being played all over the world. Farrakhan has also stated
that these were "home-grown" examples of the hatred in
America. The fact that they were socialized to become arrogant
and demeaning of difference is what being an American is today.
But if you understand what Farrakhan is suggesting, it makes perfect
sense. American neo-conservatives are on a mission to eliminate
any country that could be threatening to Israel and its current
existence. It is believed Israel has all of the weapons of
mass destruction and no other Middle Eastern country should stockpile
them. But it was WMDs that served the purpose to
go after Saddam. Bin Laden was lost in the search, but he
continues to create havoc in Afghanistan.
What is not being discussed is how the Administration believes
it needs to change how the world does business, and should adopt
the policies and mindsets of America.
As your article eloquently demonstrated it is the mentality of
hatred that is perverse in America, and has contributed to its
success as a world leader. Unfortunately, the servicemen
and women who are involved in the photo fiasco are only expressing
what they have been taught by their trainers. You have a
president who says, “Go get 'em boys," and now a country that
cannot stomach how dirty American military tactics are.
For those of us who know no better, we can only assume that these
activities do not impact our lives, but in fact they do. What
will happen if Israel becomes more powerful than America? Why
is it so important to protect Israel? It is totally unfathomable
that no one can explain why we are fighting in this war on terror,
except Farrakhan. None of the major networks covered the
story, but I can tell you the room was full and C-Span was there.
I cannot express how disturbing these events affect me, since
I have a daughter serving as a United States Marine in this awful
mess. The nation could withdraw, but Bush is not having it,
just like he would not admit that weapons of mass destruction did
not exist, but launched his missiles anyway.
May Peace be with you and this wonderful publication.
Alicia Balassa has a plan to stop the madness.
Black Commentator is hard-hitting today! Can it get any worse
out there in Bush La-La land? As a woman, as a human being,
as an American citizen, I am filled with shame after the last incident
of torture of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib jail. I am
filled with shame for my country, for my nation, and most of all
for the poor people of Iraq, and all the poor people across the
Third World who have and continue to suffer from the unethical,
immoral practices of our country in the name of "safe-guarding
American interests" and in the name of "Democracy."
I'm just praying we pull out of Iraq as soon as possible, and
bring our troops home immediately!!! Give Iraq back to the Iraqi
people, and for God's sake, for the sake of our national pride
and honor as a people, let us stop dominating the world with our
unfair business and environmental practices, our total disregard
for peoples' cultural and religious differences (if they are different
from the Anglo white American norm), and whose resources,
land, and cheap labor is all we want, leaving them to live in slums,
landless, devastated by our funneling money to corrupt governments
and militia armies of our own making. It's just got to stop.
We are the most corrupt country in the whole world, without a
doubt. If there are countries that are corrupt and use sadistic
tactics with their prisoners, you can be sure we taught them how
to do it. Our country is the most sadistic, ethnocentric, religious
right wing warmongering culture of obscene mass consumption, sucking
the world's resources as fast as we can while the rest of the world
falls further and further into poverty and misery. It appears
we seem to have total disregard for life. Why can't they
(the Pirates who control this nation and the world) see we all
come from the same Great Mother.
Let's begin, on this Mother's Day, to honor her in all her manifestations
and glory. It is time to bring the "Grandmother Council" back
into our own system of government, as the original Seneca and Iroquois
tribes had as their system of government. If we had such
a council, there would be no more war. One man, such as the
maniac we now have leading our country, is a recipe for disaster. To
rectify the damage that has been done by this administration and
this one maniac will take many, many years. Our democracy
is, as Fela, the great Nigerian singer, said: “Dem all Crazy!”
I hope someday I will be able to say I am an American
with pride. At this point I am just hanging my head in shame,
and praying for a better day, a day when the tribal council of the
Grandmothers is brought back and we are all redeemed from this shame
that is being committed by our country, our young men and women,
in our name and in the name of democracy. For shame, America,
for shame.
Eloise Bradley sees the nation through the wide lens of time.
Of all the websites and all the writing on any given subject you
cover, I have found yours to be the clearest, sanest, strongest
and most devastating to our feeble minded powers that
be. You cannot loathe Bush, et. al. more than I do but you certainly
state it better.
I am a "white" (hate that term but for description's
sake use it here) lady of nearly seventy. I have been a left-leanin'
commie pinko liberal all my adult life. I was southern born but
NEVER bought into the thinking of my time. I do recognize that
I was, indeed, stunted by it all the same. It gets into your bones
and bloodstream like heavy metal contamination. It is a sickness
that I don't see many folks fighting and yet it MUST be fought
and fought hard if it is to be driven back.
Your intelligent commentary is an excellent tool
in that fight. I wish members of your staff were available as pundits
for the mainstream media. You have ideas that cry out to be heard.
From Gamila Zahran’s vantage point, Uncle Sam is naked to the world.
This is a good article. I am not surprised that truth
is uttered by an African American brother. I think you
are right, this is America. And this is the American culture, with
its sick racist mind-set. The America that was founded upon
the genocide of the natives, and the slavery of the Africans. It
is a culture that is morally, spiritually and thus humanly bankrupt.
And they are not fooling human beings, the world over, no
more. All can see now that the emperor has no cloths. He has no
morals, no values, no humanity, no sense of shame, of justice, of
truth, of human decency, dignity...none, totally naked, and so repulsively
ugly at that.
A very smart couple by the name of John and Diane Stanley sent us
this letter from Ireland.
“America unfit
to change the world” – another excellent Iraq commentary!
All the more insightful and poignant because apparently
only a black American commentator has the inside information – to
spell out the demonic confluence of racism, violence and
imperialism that drives US foreign policy under Bush. Well done.
Donald Webber is an American now living in Seoul, Korea.
Having just read your piece "America Unfit to Change the
World" (via the link provided at Rense.com), I would like
to thank you for your remarkably keen, sharp-witted analysis.
Surely, as I know you will agree, the racist underpinnings of
American worldwide hegemony have not yet begun to be challenged
in the mainstream press as a thoughtful approach to the topic would
require.
We’re always glad to hear from Maria Luisa Etchart, an Argentine
currently living in Costa Rica.
I love the English language, maybe because I devoted many hours
of my life to learning the little I know. The main reason for learning
English was to be able to read some authors I considered vital
in their original version.
But the use of the English language by American authorities sets
me off balance. In recent years I had to incorporate terms such
as "friendly fire" (firing at a person can't possibly
be considered as a friendly action), "preemptive attack" (even
the media enjoyed the perspective of attacking and destroying a
distant country that few Americans know anything about, except
that it is sitting on an enormous oil well), "collateral damage" – fancy
words to express that civilians, women and children included,
can be easily killed ignoring the Geneva Convention, cities can
be bombed, houses destroyed without producing any visible emotion
of repulse in most of the inhabitants of "the land of the
free."
We could also assume that before pronouncing the word "democracy" they
should remember it means "government of the people, by the
people and for the people" and not just having the chance
to vote for the least of several evils and keep fingers crossed
hoping they don't do too much harm while in office. As of
yesterday I have to add the word "contractor" to this
preposterous list, as "somebody hired to torture and interrogate
prisoners." Among these contractors I can guess there must
be a number of beings (human is omitted on purpose) with vast experience
in training South American army men during the "cold war" (can
a war be cold, can blood be cold?) to catch, torture and disappear
people with the wrong political ideas. Remember the School of the
Americas in Panama?
But perhaps the most revolting use of the English language is
to hear Rumsfeld and Bush say they are “sorry" about the torturing
of prisoners in Iraq. Of course, that is because they were not
brave enough to end the sentence they had in mind: "I am sorry
the photos and videos...became public." The general
impression I had after hearing the senators debate this issue is
that they are also sorry because those monsters don't really represent
the American citizens’ values and it's bad for business that people
around the world might think they are capable of such vile actions.
To the millions of us who don't practice hypocrisy as a way of
living, all this didn't come as a shock – believe me, most of us
have degrees in "American double speech" – but anyway,
we can't help shivering because hypocrisy is one of the most corrosive
evils in the world against which people of good will have no defense.
In a couple of years we will also have to put up with some movie,
the kind we are now and then given as a way to exorcise demons
and clean consciences which will attempt to show some of the true
facts and prove to the world that the American society is capable
of self-criticism, provided sufficient time has elapsed so that
it's too late to correct errors.
I am sorry too.
Freedom Rider
Margaret Kimberley’s May 6 column, “White
Supremacy in Iraq,” elicited “Amens” from
around the globe. The Freedom Rider sees no mystery in the Abu Ghraib
revelations.
The cheerleaders for war don’t believe that Iraqis are human beings.
If the Iraqis have no humanity then one can believe anything about
them that is convenient. Of course Iraqis have feelings of pride
for themselves and for their nation. The media may tell us that “insurgents” have
taken up arms against the U.S. military, but in fact many ordinary
citizens have decided to defend their country for the simple reason
that they don’t want to be an American colony….
If pictures are worth 1,000 words we should no longer hear the
clueless question, “Why do they hate us?” Americans are hated because
we want to control and dominate, which always leads to killing,
stealing or helping others who want to do the same thing. They
hate us because we say we want to free a country from the grip
of an evil dictator when we really want to take a nation’s resources
and turn it into a military base. They hate us because it is inevitable
that the theft and destruction will lead to using the dictator’s
torture chambers for our own torture sessions. They hate us because
after we kill and destroy we ask stupid questions as if we were
innocent.
John D. Bartram writes from Scotch Plains, New Jersey:
Your article, "White Supremacy in Iraq” was superb. I guess
it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the whole concept of
the war in Iraq, from the lies to justify it to the torture and
killings are facilitated by appealing to a racist image of the
Iraqis. However, I don't see much mention of this in any media,
so I was pleased to see your article.
In my opinion, Americans are basically not interested in the suffering
of Iraqis at all, just as they are not interested in the suffering
of Africans anywhere. The reasons are based on racism as you describe.
Thanks for a very good article on an important
subject.
The following letter to Ms. Kimberley was signed, New Millennium
Panther.
I've read several of your articles since subscribing to Black
Commentator. It feels good to see that there are a few of us out
there that see things as they really are and willing to call a
spade a spade.
I am angry but not surprised at these atrocities. These people
felt safe in doing this because they thought that they were amongst
those who wouldn't expose this type of behavior. I never accepted
the [9-11] statement, " We as Americans must put race behind
us, and stand together as one as this was an attack against us
all." In fact, I went into what the military used to call
Defense Condition (DEFCON) Alert, because when they say
that, they need us for some hidden agenda. Once they've achieved
that agenda, it’s back to business as usual.
I'm also sure that Confederate Flags went up in
these camps as they did during Gulf War I.
Dahlia Wasfi is on the Freedom Rider’s wavelength.
What a powerful piece of writing. Thank you for your eloquence
in saying what MUST be said.
I have family in Iraq (my dad's country of origin), and I am always
encouraged by the courage of those like you who dare to speak out
the truth.
Many thanks for your excellent work.
A reader named Nabeweya writes Ms. Kimberley from Cape Town.
Thank you for having the strength of character
to speak out. I am in South Africa and deeply admire people
who hold justice and truth close to their hearts. I have seen
many a journalist who have almost been programmed to only say what
pleases the ruling power. Truth is very often the casualty.
Chico’s Review
Joe Osorio is known as “Chico” to all his friends (and enemies)
in Oakland, California.
Another excellent issue. Jenel Few's article (“The
Odds are Against Them: The Black Male Education Debacle”) really hit
home, in particular the paragraph below:
"…minority students aren't likely to be well counseled about
college preparations or expectations and the importance of advanced
courses, Kirst said. Even middle-class blacks aren't always fully
aware because they are typically first generation middle-class
and don't travel in circles where these things are common knowledge."
That's us, too. I'm one of those parents who always coached my
kids’ teams, took them to museums and libraries. Read them stories,
and stressed pride in our heritage. My people think I
did a great job ‘cause the girls all graduated high school
without being pregnant. I always assumed they'd go to college,
but I didn't know all the college prep stuff. How White people
start planning college when they're first in high school. Nobody in
my family had ever gone to college. I can tell you this without
embarrassment.
Whites would probably think I was stupid or lazy and blaming them
for everything.
Freedom Rider – great work as usual. The last sentence is classic: “They
hate us because after we kill and destroy we ask stupid questions
as if we were innocent.”
Unfit to Change the World – the kind of analysis which so impresses
me. Stan Goff wrote another excellent analysis this week [“Another
Open Letter to the Troops in Iraq”] which pointed out how those
who think the Abu Ghraib abuse is the exception must then believe
that the only abuse occurred on camera, when no cameras were around
no abuse took place and our 1% bad apples were all in one
place, one shift, in just that one prison.
Just when I thought our occupation couldn't be
any stupider – the new Iraqi flag!
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