Comment from five years ago

Comment (somewhat updated) made on 11/7/07 on Iraq Today blog.

Whenever we put these posts together, we do read a lot.  And a great deal of it is confusing.  I have read that America invented al Qaeda, al Qaeda is the true Iraqi resistance, and al Qaeda is run and funded by Saudi Arabia.  I read that the Kurds causing trouble for the Turks are actually Turkish Kurds.  I read the US is really running the PKK.  I read about tribes in Iraq turning on al Qaeda - but it seems to me that they are fighting US troops LESS not because they turned on al Qaeda, but because the US is paying them off (I am all for that, by the way, although it does have it's problems).

I remember the US military saying their policy was to "villainize Zarqawi, leverage xenophobic response"-- which just makes me sick to think they have (had?) a policy of making ordinary people afraid.  But of course, that was the whole point behind "shock and awe" wasn't it?

So, would they invent al Qaeda?  Is Sy Hersch right in claiming that the bush administration is arming and funding Sunni extremist groups in parts of the Middle East?  I think so.  But there are a few things that are true - I know they are true – in this post.  First, is the picture of the ordinary man calling his family to reassure them.  That is (or was) 95% of Iraqi people.  And a couple more true things are in the articles under COMMENTARY below.

Americans are willfully ignorant.

And, we are also a nation of people deep in denial - we have a new candidate for Attorney General who cannot figure out if torture is torture - or if it is illegal.  And that is because about 40% of our willfully ignorant nation supports torture.  They stupidly believe that it will give us good information, and excuse it on that ground.  And then there is a small minority who are just sick sadistic fucks.  And lately, we have the myth being pushed by our politicians that the occupation of Iraq was a noble endeavor, with great sacrifice and bravery by our US troops, that was just mismanaged AND/OR ruined by the ingrate Iraqis.  In short, our intentions are good and our actions are benign (or we try our best to be benign).

THIS IS A FUCKING LIE.

I recently came across articles from Rep. Waxman asking if was worth it to have US troops die for Mylaki's corruption..... with no mention of the corruption and plunder done by US citizens and troops in Iraq, which is vastly worse.  I often here or read about US Democratic candidates talking about how our "brave" and "unselfish" troops are just being asked to do too much, and do it under incompetent leadership (meaning Bush - they
never see their own part in it - they too are willfully ignorant).  They never seem to notice the Iraqi people and how many of them are suffering from the presence of US troops in their country.  I really recommend reading the articles under the COMMENTARY (link above) in full.

And I wonder if American society can ever be stopped from all this militarism and war-mongering and human rights abuses -  in short, from all this EVIL.

I really wonder.

COMMENTARY

Mad Cow Nation: America'sWilling Surrender

Michael Massing has written a very important story about at very important truth: the main reason that the American people are so deeply uninformed about the reality of the war of aggression being waged in their names in Iraq is that they do not want to know.

Massing shows that the rigorous self-censorship practiced by the American people and the media is actually worse than the machinations of Big Brother in Orwell's 1984; at least in that fictional world, the draconian repression of reality was imposed by force at the hands of an all-powerful state – but today we are doing it to ourselves. Not that the Bush Regime isn't giving Big Brotherism the old college try, but as Massing points out, there are too many venues and formats of information dissemination for the state to control it all, especially in the United States, where many vestiges of freedom remain. Yet one of the most disheartening aspects of American society today is how very little use the people make of those freedoms they still have.

Indeed, Massing's observations on Americans' self-censorship – the surrender of the awareness of reality in exchange for self-regarding fantasy – have implications far beyond war reportage. In our time, we are witnessing a society voluntarily surrendering its liberties, its rights – its gumption – to a harsh and malevolent authority. We are
witnessing a society surrendering its pride and its moral core to torturers and thieves, liars and killers. And it is a willing surrender, as if vast swathes of the American people are relieved that they can finally lay down the burdens and responsibilities of freedom.

We are the Thought Police

Orwell's Big Brother never showed up. Instead of centralized Iraq war propaganda, we have an America in which the public and the press jointly impose their own controls.
……How can such a critical feature of the U.S. occupation remain so hidden from view? Because most Americans don't want to know about it.  The books by Iraqi vets are filled with expressions of disbelief and rage at the lack of interest ordinary Americans show for what they've had to endure on the battlefield. In "Operation Homecoming," one returning Marine, who takes to drinking heavily in an effort to cope with the crushing guilt and revulsion he feels over how many people he's seen killed, fumes about how "you can't talk to them [ordinary Americans] about the horror of a dead child's lifeless mutilated body staring back at you from the void, knowing you took part in that end."

Writing of her return home, Kayla Williams notes that the things most people seemed interested in were "beyond my comprehension. Who cared about Jennifer Lopez? How was it that I was watching CNN one morning and there was a story about freaking ducklings being fished out of a damn sewer drain -- while the story of soldiers getting killed in Iraq got relegated to this little banner across the bottom of the screen?"  In "Generation Kill," by the journalist Evan Wright, a Marine corporal confides his anguish and anger over all the killings he has seen: "I think it's bullshit how these fucking civilians are dying! They're worse off than the guys that are shooting at us. They don't even have a chance. Do you think people at home are going to see this – all these women and children we're killing? Fuck no. Back home they're glorifying this motherfucker, I guarantee you."

…..In most wars, nations that send their men and women off to fight in distant lands don't want to learn too much about the violence being committed in their name. Facing up to this would cause too much shame, would deal too great a blow to national self-esteem. If people were to become too aware of the butchery wars entail, they would become much
less willing to fight them. And so the illusion must be maintained that war is a noble enterprise, that the soldiers who wage it are full of valor and heroism, that in the end their intentions are good and their actions benign.