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Shocked And Horrified:The Iraq War

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Shocked And Horrified:The Iraq War
Safia
07/01/02 at 17:07:52
SHOCKED AND HORRIFIED
BY LARRY MOSQUEDA, PH.D.,
The Evergreen State College
15 SEPTEMBER, 2001
 

Like all Americans, on Tuesday, 9-11, I was
shocked and horrified to watch the WTC Twin
Towers attacked by hijacked planes and collapse,
resulting in the deaths of perhaps up to 10,000
innocent people.  

I had not been that shocked and horrified since
January 16, 1991, when then President Bush
attacked Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq and began
killing 200,000 people during that "war" (slaughter).

This includes the infamous "highway of death"
in the last days of the slaughter when U.S. pilots
literally shot in the back retreating Iraqi civilians
and soldiers.

I continue to be horrified by the sanctions on Iraq,
which have resulted in the death of over 1,000,000
Iraqis, including over 500,000 children, about whom
former Secretary of State Madeline Allbright has
stated, their deaths "are worth the cost".
 
Over the course of my life I have been shocked and
horrified by a variety of U.S. governmental actions,
such as the U.S. sponsored coup against democracy
in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of
over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed
dictatorships over the course of four decades.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the horror
I felt when the U.S. overthrew the government of the
Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped to murder
3,000 people. And it reminded me of the shock I felt
in 1973, when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile
against the democratic government of Salvador Allende
and helped to murder another 30,000 people, including
U.S. citizens.  

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the shock and
horror I felt in 1965 when the U.S. sponsored a coup in
Indonesia that resulted in the murder of over 800,000
people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over
250,000 innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian
regime, with the direct complicity of President Ford and
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.  

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during
the U.S. sponsored  terrorist contra war (the World Court
declared the U.S. government a war criminal in 1984 for
the mining of the harbors) against Nicaragua in the 1980s
which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent
people (or as the U.S. government used to call them
before the term "collateral  damage" was invented --
"soft targets").  

I was reminded of being horrified by the U. S. war against
the people of El Salvador in the 1980s, which resulted in
the brutal deaths of over 80,000 people, or "soft targets".  

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during
the U.S. sponsored terror war against the peoples of
southern Africa (especially Angola) that began in the
1970's and continues to this day, and has resulted in
the  deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000.

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt as the
U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas season
of 1989  and killed over 8,000 in an attempt to capture
George H. Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy,
Manual Noriega.  

I was reminded of the horror I felt when I learned about
how the Shah of  Iran was installed in a U.S. sponsored
brutal coup that resulted in the deaths of over 70,000
Iranians from 1952-1979. And the continuing shock as
I learned that the Ayatollah Khomani, who overthrew the
Shah in 1979, and  who was the U.S. public enemy for
decade of the 1980s, was also on the CIA payroll, while
he was in exile in Paris in the 1970s.  

I was reminded of the shock and horror that I felt as
I learned about the  how the U.S. has "manufactured
consent" since 1948 for its support of Israel, to the
exclusion of virtually any rights for the Palestinians
in their native lands resulting in ever worsening
day-to-day conditions for the people of Palestine.

I was shocked as I learned about the hundreds
of towns and villages that were literally wiped off
the face of the earth in the early days of Israeli
colonization.

I was horrified in 1982 as the villagers of Sabra and
Shatila were massacred by Israeli allies with direct
Israeli complicity and direction. The untold thousands
who died on that day match the scene of horror that
we saw last Tuesday. But those scenes were not
repeated over and over again on the national media
to inflame the American public.  

The events and images of last Tuesday have been
appropriately compared to the horrific events and images
of Lebanon in the 1980s with resulted in the deaths of tens
of thousand of people, with no reference to the fact that
the country that inflicted the terror on Lebanon was
Israel, with U.S. backing.
 
I still continue to be shocked at how mainstream
commentators refer to "Israeli settlers" in the "occupied
territories" with no sense of irony as they report on who
are the aggressors in the region.
 
Of course, the largest and most shocking war crime
of the second half of the 20th century was the U.S.
assault on Indochina from 1954-1975, especially Vietnam,
where over 4,000,000 people were bombed, napalmed,
crushed, shot and individually "hands on" murdered
in the "Phoenix Program" (this is where Oliver North
got his start).

Many U.S. Vietnam veterans were also victimized by
this war and had the best of intentions, but the policy
makers themselves knew the criminality of their actions
and policies as revealed in their own words in "The
Pentagon Papers," released by Daniel Ellsberg of the
RAND Corporation. In 1974 Ellsberg noted that our
Presidents from Truman to Nixon continually lied to
the U.S. public about the purpose and conduct of the
war. He has stated that, "It is a tribute to the American
people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to
us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled."
 
I was continually shocked and horrified as the U.S.
attacked and bombed with impunity the nation of Libya
in the 1980s, including killing the infant daughter of
Khadafi. I was shocked as the U.S. bombed and invaded
Grenada in 1983. I was horrified by U.S. military and CIA
actions in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil,
Argentina, and Yugoslavia. The deaths in these actions
ran into the hundreds of thousands.  

The above list is by no means complete or comprehensive.
It is merely a list that is easily accessible and not unknown,
especially to the economic and intellectual elites. It has just
been conveniently eliminated from the public discourse
and public consciousness.

And for the most part, the analysis that the U.S. actions
have resulted in the deaths of primarily civilians (over 90%)
is not unknown to these elites and policy makers.

A conservative number for those who have been killed
by U.S. terror and military action since World War II is
8,000,000 people.
 
Repeat -- 8,000,000 people.
 
This does not include the wounded, the imprisoned,
the displaced, the refugees, etc. Martin Luther King, Jr.
stated in 1967, during the Vietnam War, "My government
is the world's leading purveyor of violence."
 
Shocking and horrifying.
 
Nothing that I have written is meant to disparage or
disrespect those who were victims and those who
suffered death or the loss of a loved one during this
week's events. It is not meant to "justify" any action
by those who bombed the Twin Towers or the
Pentagon. It is meant to put it in a context.


[A HUGE AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE IS NOW SHOWING
THAT IT IS PEOPLE IN THE HIGHEST ECHELONS
OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT WHO PLANNED
AND EXECUTED THE ATTACKS OF SEPT 11, 2001.]
 

If we believe that the actions were those of "madmen",
they are "madmen" who are able to keep a secret for 2
years or more among over 100 people, as they trained
to execute a complex plan. While not the acts of madmen,
they are apparently the acts of "fanatics" who, depending
on who they really are, can find real grievances, but whose
actions are illegitimate.  Osama Bin Laden at this point has
been accused by the media and the government of being
the mastermind of Tuesday's bombings.

Given the government's track record on lying to the
America people, that should not be accepted as fact
at this time. If indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind of
this action, he is responsible for the deaths of perhaps
10,000 people - a shocking and horrible crime.
 
Ed Herman in his book The Real Terror Network:
Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda does not justify
any terrorism but points out that states often engage
in "wholesale" terror, while those whom governments  
define as "terrorist" engage is "retail" terrorism. While
qualitatively  the results are the same for the individual
victims of terrorism, there is a clear quantitative
difference.

And as Herman and others point out, the seeds, the
roots, of much of the "retail" terror are in fact found
in the "wholesale" terror of states.
 
Again this is not to justify, in any way, the actions of
last Tuesday, but to put them in a context and suggest
an explanation. Perhaps most shocking and horrific,
if indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind of Tuesday's
actions; he has clearly had significant training in logistics,
armaments, and military training, etc. by competent and
expert military personnel. And indeed he has. During the
1980s, he was recruited, trained and funded by the CIA
in Afghanistan to fight against the Russians. As long as
he visited his terror on Russians and his enemies in
Afghanistan, he was "our man" in that country.  

The same is true of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who was
a CIA asset in Iraq during the 1980s. Hussein could gas
his own people, repress the population, and invade his
neighbor (Iran) as long as he did it with U.S. approval.

The same was true of Manuel Noriega of Panama, who
was a contemporary and CIA partner of George H. Bush
in the 1980s. Noriega's main crime for Bush, the father,
was not that he dealt drugs (he did, but the U.S. and Bush
knew this before 1989), but that Noriega was no longer
going to cooperate in  the ongoing U.S. terrorist contra
war against Nicaragua. This information is not unknown
or really controversial among elite policy makers.
To repeat, this not to justify any of the actions of last
Tuesday, but to put it in its horrifying context.
 
As shocking as the events of last Tuesday were,
they are likely to generate even more horrific actions
by the U.S. government that will add significantly to
the 8,000,000 figure stated above.

This response may well be qualitatively and quantitatively
worse than the events of Tuesday. The New York Times
headline of 9/14/01 states that, "Bush And Top Aides Proclaim
Policy Of Ending States That Back Terror" as if that was a
rationale, measured, or even sane option. States that have
been identified for possible elimination are "a number of
Asian and African countries, like Afghanistan, Iraq,
Sudan, and even Pakistan."
 
This is beyond shocking and  horrific - it is just as
potentially suicidal, homicidal, and more insane than
the hijackers themselves.


[MUCH EVIDENCE HAS COME OUT THAT THE WTC AND
PENTAGON ATTACKS WERE VERY 'HIGH TECH', AND
THE PLANES WERE TAKEN OVER BY SOPHISTICATED
REMOTE CONTROL. DO A SEARCH ON THE INTERNET
AND FIND THE DATA - IT IS ALL ON THE NET: 'WTC/911';
'9-11'; '9/11'; 'WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACKS', ETC.]
 

Also, qualitatively, these actions will be even worse than
the original bombers if one accepts the mainstream premise
that those involved are "madmen", "religious fanatics", or
a "terrorist group." If so, they are acting as either individuals
or as a small group.

The U.S. actions may continue the homicidal policies
of a few thousand elites for the past 50 years, involving
both political parties. The retail terror is that of desperate
and sometime fanatical small groups and individuals
who often have legitimate grievances, but engage in
individual criminal and illegitimate activities; the wholesale
terror is that of "rational" educated men where the pain,
suffering, and deaths of millions of people are contemplated,
planned, and too often, executed, for the purpose of
furthering a nebulous concept called the "national interest".
 
Space does not allow a full explanation of the elites'
Orwellian concept of  the "national interest", but it
can be summarized as the protection and expansion
of hegemony and an imperial empire.
 
The American public is being prepared for war while
being fed a continuous stream of shocking and horrific
repeated images of Tuesday's events and heartfelt
stories from the survivors and the loved ones of those
who lost family members. These stories are real and
should not be diminished. In  fact, those who lost family
members can be considered a representative sample
of humanity of the 8,000,000 who have been lost
previously.

If we multiply by 800 -1000 times the amount of pain,
angst, and anger being currently felt by the American
public, we might begin to understand how much of the
rest of the world feels as they are continually victimized.
 
Some particularly poignant images are the heart
wrenching public stories that we are seeing and
hearing of family members with pictures and flyers
searching for their loved ones. These images are
virtually the same as  those of the "Mothers of the
Disappeared" who searched for their (primarily) adult
children in places such as Argentina, where over
11,000 were "disappeared" in 1976-1982, again with
U.S. approval. Just as the mothers of Argentina
deserved our respect and compassion, so do the
relatives of those who are searching for their
relatives now.
 
However we should not allow ourselves to be
manipulated by the media and U.S. government
into turning real grief and anger into a national
policy of wholesale terror and genocide against
innocent civilians in Asia and Africa.

What we are seeing in military terms is called
"softening the target." The target here is the American
public and we are being ideologically and emotionally
prepared for the slaughter that may commence soon.  

None of the previously identified Asian and African
countries are democracies, which means that the people
of these countries have virtually no impact on developing
the policies of their governments, even if we assume that
these governments are complicit in Tuesday's actions.

When one examines the recent history of these countries,
one will find that the American government had direct
and indirect influences on creating the conditions for the
existence of some of these governments.

This is especially true of the Taliban government of
Afghanistan itself.
 
The New York Metropolitan Area has about 21,000,000
people or about 8 % of  the U.S. population. Almost
everyone in America knows someone who has been
killed, injured or traumatized by the events of Tuesday.
I know that I do. Many people are calling for "revenge"
or "vengeance" and comments such as "kill them all"
have been circulated on the TV, radio, and email.

A few more potentially benign comments have called
for "justice." This is only potentially benign since that
term may be defined by people such as Bush and Colin
Powell. Powell is an unrepentant participant in the
Vietnam War, the terrorist contra war against Nicaragua,
and the Gulf war, at each level becoming more responsible
for the planning and execution of the policies.

Those affected, all of us, must do everything in our
power to prevent a wider war and even greater atrocity,
do everything possible to stop the  genocide if it starts,
and hold those responsible for their potential war crimes
during and after the war. If there is a great war in 2001
and it is not catastrophic (a real possibility), the crimes
of that war will be revisited upon the U.S. over the next
generation. That is not some kind of religious prophecy
or threat, it is merely a straightforward political analysis.

If indeed it is Bin Laden, the world must not deal only
with him as an individual criminal, but eliminate the
conditions that create the injustices and war crimes
that will inevitably lead to more of these types of attacks
in the future. The phrase "No Justice, No Peace" is more
than a  slogan used in a march, it is an observable
historical fact.
 
It is time to end the horror.


BY LARRY MOSQUEDA, PH.D.,
The Evergreen State College
15 SEPTEMBER, 2001


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http://www.world-action.co.uk/horrified.html


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