Merry Shi'ites rejoice in front of reporters hotel - but what comes next?
Brent Herbert | 10.04.2003 00:25
The images of the statue being pulled down will probably become one of the iconic images of this war. Those destroying the statue were Shi'ites who had been kept in poverty and oppressed by Saddam. The protest took place, not coincidentally, right accross the street from the hotel where all the journalists were shacked up. Now we know that the extreme right wing in America has no love for the poor. How much did the CIA pay for that protest, and will it be enough for those impoverished Shi'ites to retire on (Uncle Sam, after all, doesn't do the charity thing)
The script throughout the last century remains the same. During the late fifties, Iran nationalized the oil industry, and cut out Big Oil and corporate interests from the United States. The Americans then 'liberated' Iran by murdering the Prime Minister in a CIA sponsored coup d'etat, installing the dictator the Shah of Iran and the Savak secret police force. Crowds of tens of thousands turned out to 'celebrate the liberation of Iran' and the installation of the new dictator. Reports were that the CIA paid ten dollars a head for the demonstators. After they had spent that ten bucks, and then had to spend the next couple of decades under a hated and brutal dictator, fearing the dreaded Savak, one has to wonder if they were paid enough.
The demonstration shown over and over and over again today, of Shi'ites toppling a statue of Saddam took place right accross the street from the hotel in Baghdad where all the journalists were staying. Quite a coincidence. The demonstrators were also the poorest people in Baghdad, from the slums as it were, and what poor people from the slums would be doing celebrating rule by Washington, D.C. is a really good question, since Washington does nothing for the poor except to lock them into for profit jails (over 2,000,000 giving the United States one of the highest rates of incarceration on earth). But then if they were all paid a few bucks to show up and demonstrate in front of those journalists, that would explain it now wouldn't it...
As for the rest of Baghdad, from what I hear most people are asking themselves, 'what comes next?' which is a really good question. Now you might recall that the word 'Nazi' is an abbreviation of 'National Socialist German Workers Party'. That's right. The extreme right wing in Germany was actually a socialist workers party. Suuuurrrreeee they were....when pigs fly. Similarly, we here from the most extreme right wing government probably in American history that 'the oil of Iraq will be developed for the benefit of the Iraqi people'. You see, at the moment the oil in Iraq is nationalized, and thus not open to exploitation by Big American Oil. However, the 'Iraqi exiles', kindly agreeing to be the front people for Iraq, have agreed that this must stop and have invited Big Oil into Iraq. The profits from the oil of Iraq will not be 'developed for the benefit of the people of Iraq.' That is Nazi talk, and just the extreme right wing trying to pretend to be the Iraqi socialist workers party. And the oil certainly won't be developed for those impoverished people from the slums of Baghdad who helpfully turned up to celebrate for the journalistic cameras in the hotel across the street. They will go back to the slums and just rot there, the same way the poor people of Aghanistan are rotting, after they came out to do their little dance for the cameras last year, and just as the people of Iran showed up to cheer America and the Shah of Iran a few decades ago, and also earn a few bucks on the side while doing so...As for the Kurds, well perhaps some of them don't yet understand that the United States paid billions in aid to Turkey so that Turkey could crush the Kurds in that country, and also , along with the Brits gave Saddam that poisoned gas, and blocked a U.N. resolution condeming that gas, well if they are expecting the Americans, who are after all the Great Lex Luther to all the worlds Kurds, to come bringing sunshine, lollipops and rainbows I guess they have some political awakening to do, but they have plenty of time to learn, with the Americans landing right on their doorstep...
It is ironic that the most 'anti-Nazi' people in society are usually found in the extreme right wing. Saddam they will insist, is like Hitler, and must be taken out. That's what Hitler used to say himself. The Czech Prime Minister, Benes, was a Hitler. He had to be taken out. Similarly the Polish government was acting like Hitler and doing savage things to the citizens of Danzig. They had to be taken out as well. And Nazi propaganda was full of the language of 'liberation' through the employment of what at that time was the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen. You see, the real Hitler is always a super power, just as Nazi Germany was the sole superpower of its day. And there is nothing on earth worse than having the extreme right wing in power during a time when they are the sole super power in a 'unipolar world'. It was just this super power status that made Hitler as bold and fearless as he was, and it was military superiority that created the myth of German invincibility that survived until the battle of Stalingrad.
Everywhere the Nazi was machine went, the German propaganda machine was able to churn out liberation propaganda as crowds flocked into the streets to cheer their German liberators. Liberation was the big theme of Nazi propaganda, just as it is the big theme of the extreme right wing of America today, and just like the Nazis before them, cheering crowds show up on cue to celebrate the prowess of the Nazi war machine, and the liberation and freedom it brings.
The two posters above are sarcastic examples of anti-nazi propaganda posters that were produced during the second world war, which mocked the Nazi claims to be 'liberators.
The poster above was produced by the Nazis, and the caption reads 'Germany's War, Europe's Liberty'.
There are many films and photos produced by the Nazis showing cheering crowds greeting the invading troops of the Waffen S.S. As hard as it might seem to believe today, on the other side of the second world war, the Nazis were actually greeted as Liberators and the S.S. and regular army were cheered and showered with flowers as the entered the countries of eastern Europe. In the photo above, rejoicing women, one crying with joy, give the Nazi salute to welcome the 'Liberation' of Austria by the Nazi troops. Other photos which I have not yet been able to locate show rejoicing mobs of East Europeans flocking to the streets to greet the storm troopers of the Waffen S.S. as the Germans were widely regarded at that time as liberators, much as some regard the American Extreme Right Wing today (hard as that might be to believe today, they did believe it back then).
You might be familiar with the history of the German attack on the Czechs. First the League of Nations helpfully agreed to force the Czechs to disarm. Meanwhile the Nazi propaganda machine kicked into high gear, portraying the Czech prime minister Benes as every bit as threatening to Germans as, well, as Hitler. As the Luftwaffe and the Waffen S.S. built up their forces along the Czech borders the League of Nations worked hard to get the Czechs to agree to disarm. Having succeeded in disarming the Czechs ahead of the coming Nazi blitzkreig, Chamberlain went back to Britain and waved some stupid piece of paper in the air while proclaiming that by disarming the Czechs and also carving a chunk out of their country and giving it to the Nazis the League of Nations had guaranteed 'peace in our time.' Sound familiar. In the photo above, fresh from his triumph at the Munich Conference, Czechs disarmed, Germany handed a nice chunk of Czech territory, Hitler made a speech to a crazed and jubliant Reichstag (the German version of the Congress and the Senate in the United States, who, you might recall, were doing the big Reichstag cheer and roar for that Bush speech just a few months back). If history teaches us any lessons it is that when it comes to the Extreme Right Wing, you can put no trust in the League of Nations or the Reichstag.
The real media file above captures Hitler's jubliant speech to the Reichstag, and all that roaring and cheering in the back ground are your congressional representatives and Senators. The text of the segment reads as follows ... "Instead we have arms like the world has never seen before. I have spent billions in the last five years and now the German people must know the reason why. We have the best tanks and the best anti-aircraft in the world. For five years we worked day and night. Nevertheless I have made every effort to carry out my peace policies of my former years. I am a front soldier and I know what war is."
Hitler: "It's good fortune for the government that the masses don't think. Otherwise, human society as we know it might cease to exist."
Hitler, Jan 1, 1939: "In general we have but one wish-- that in the coming years we may be able to make our contribution to this general pacification of the whole world."
Brent Herbert
