MANY AMERICANS QUIETLY SUPPORT THE COURAGEOUS IRAQI RESISTANCE!
AMERICAN - by citizenship, but EMBARRASSED! | 09.11.2004 08:22 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Repression | Cambridge
In the Oliver Stone Vietnam War movie "Platoon", one African American soldier says that, "The U.S. has been going around kicking everybody else's ass for so long, I know that it's about time that the U.S. got its *own* ass kicked." THAT TIME HAS COME AGAIN!!
The success of the COURAGEOUS Iraqi resistance will save the rest of the developing Third World from further American [or with "Bush's poodle"] military adventures! The brave Iraqi resistance will save many tens - maybe hundreds - of THOUSANDS of other people in other places in the world from being massacred and *terrorized* by American troops by setting the example of bravery against an international bully.
The Iraqi resistance will make the price too politically high for the U.S. and make the Americans pay the only price that counts to Americans: not, unfortunately, maimed and dead Iraqis (especially civilians, even entire families), but, unfortunately, maimed and dead American soldiers. Once again, we have, especially, the young and the poor killing and dying for the old and the rich.
You all should know that plenty of truly progressive Americans, especially those who are younger, SUPPORT the Iraqi resistance. (This, as do most American people of color who are not in America's 'poverty/working-class draft'. American people of color never had to ask of the 9-11 attackers, "Why do they hate 'us'"?: a *white*-American question of sheer psychological denial.) Although more progressive Americans should OPENLY say so, that they support the Iraqi resistance, especially anti-war activists, as I do, many are afraid to. It would be a great blow to U.S. propaganda - just as the anti-war marches at home and all over the world were - for more Americans to do so.
Openly supporting the Iraqi resistance would also force many American tin soldiers to THINK about what they are doing in Iraq (like those at abu-Graeb or those terrorizing Iraqi families in the middle of the night, randomly busting in their front doors and shouting obscene profanities in ENGLISH!). Too many anti-racist, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, native-born Americans (whose rights are still not as easily stripped away) are too afraid to use the free speech rights that we, indeed, still have, before it might indeed be too late one day.
Non-native-born Americans and non-citizens (like those of "permanent resident" status), especially Arabs, South/Southwest Asians, and Muslims, are not accorded the same free speech protection (even of personal opinion) by police or federal agents and the courts. Legal loopholes have been steadily created and enlarged to take away their rights.
Nonetheless, progressives in the U.S. know who the REAL terrorists are: the United States government - who, like Israel, Britain, and a number of other allied Western countries, define terrorism in a way that excludes state terrorism or anything those imperialist countries and their client regimes might do, but includes anyone fighting state/imperialist oppression.
It was the United States government, starting under Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1978/'79, and continuing under Reagan and Bush I in the 1980's, who turned Islamic fundamentalists into a world power in the CIA's largest operation in its history to mightily goad the Soviet Union into attacking Afghanistan. Brzezinski still believes that, what we call, the ultimate "blowback" (see Chalmers Johnson's book of the same name) or "chickens coming home to roost" on 9/11 was "a small price to pay" for his belief that his initiated war in Afghanistan "toppled the Soviet Union". 'What can we be concerned about the ruffled feathers of a handful of Arabs', Brzezinski still even says today - although he is a critic of the U.S. war in Iraq, after first trying to play both sides of that debate. Old Soviet-Afghanistan War Russian generals must be, secretly, heartily laughing today.
Incidentally, Brzezinski recognizes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the central problem in the world today, as far as U.S. foreign policy interests, and he says that 'the Palestinian Question' must finally be solved. But his "solution" for the indigenous Palestinian people is basically for them to accede to Israel's demands (and further annexations of the best land), to shut up and be happy to even have an "independent" bantustan state in the end - surrounded by "Israel".
(Most white-Americans, of course, are so STUPID they don't even know that the Palestinians were already living in PALESTINE and were originally the vast majority of the indigenous population - that Palestine was, essentially, an *Arab* country. This, of course, was before the Zionist leaders - in order to gain personal political power of their own with the support of imperialist Western allies - were exploiting the suffering of their own people, and pressured, coerced, or hoodwinked post-WWII European Jewish refugees into invading Palestine!)
There are millions of Arabs or Muslims who politically (if not theologically) agree with bin Laden - millions who are *NOT* Islamic fundamentalists and would *NEVER* fly passenger jets filled with people into skyscrapers filled with people. And so do I! Bin Laden opposes U.S./Western imperialism and U.S./Western skulduggery and political interference in other peoples' countries in the Arab and Muslim world. (This, for behavior that the U.S., domestically, would call espionage or sedition and mete out long prison sentences.) He opposes the U.S.'s, essentially, absolute support for semi-theocratic Israel's decades-long ethnic cleansing, mass dispossession, and abject oppression of the Palestinian people - the longest humanitarian crisis in the contemporary world.
Bin Laden's quite reasonable statements have said NOTHING about his wanting to impose Islamic fundamentalism upon the West or destroying what, less and less, passes for "democracy" in the U.S.. And even bin Laden was correct when he said (as close as I can quote off-hand), "If we (al-Qaeda) just hated freedom & democracy, then why didn't we also go attack SWEDEN?: there's more freedom & democracy there than in the United States."
The U.S. government originally *LURED* Saddam into attacking Kuwait (killing tens of thousands, maybe much well over 100,000 Iraqis in the first Iraq war) - something Western governments persistently overlooked (and most Western people have not realized). This was because Saddam, then, no longer 'needed' - from the U.S. government's interests - the military weapons, systems, and technology that the U.S. gave or sold him to kill *other* brown-skin people - the Iranians. Luring Saddam into attacking Kuwait was a way for the U.S. government to have an excuse to destroy most of Saddam's heavy military equipment, since the Iraq-Iran war was over.
Keep this in mind!: *NEVER* in the entire history of the United States, has the U.S. government *EVER* directly intervened - either with its military or its covert action intelligence services - in the non-European, developing Third World for the purposes of establishing a democracy: NEVER!!
Quite to the contrary!: the U.S. government has intervened to OVERTHROW/SUBVERT democracies and/or KILL/ASSASSINATE pro-democracy leaders and leading activists all over the economic or political Third World - even in the Middle East (as with the U.S. and the British in 1953 Iran).
This is the same U.S. government that recently kidnapped the democratically-elected president, Aristide, of Haiti and installed another death squad regime. This is the same U.S. government that encouraged the (thankfully, failed) overthrow, by the rich, of the democratically-elected president of Venezuela.
So, whenever you hear the U.S. government say that it is intervening anywhere to bring democracy to some Third World country, you can know from history that the U.S. is *LYING*!!: it's just the _cover story_ for more U.S. imperialism. The U.S. didn't go into Iraq to establish a democracy!: the U.S. went into Iraq (with a 'suitable' cover story) to install another dictatorial or repressive autocratic regime that will do what the U.S. government says to do - or else that regime will be gone too!
In the Oliver Stone Vietnam War movie "Platoon", one African American soldier says that, "The U.S. has been going around kicking everybody else's ass for so long, I know that it's about time that the U.S. got its *own* ass kicked." THAT TIME HAS COME AGAIN! And now, for many jingoistic white-Americans who thought that they could go pick on another smaller isolated country - as the U.S. has repeatedly done since recovering from "the Vietnam syndrome" - to boost America's highly narcissistic ego, suddenly WAR AIN'T FUN NO MORE!
The Iraqi resistance will make the price too politically high for the U.S. and make the Americans pay the only price that counts to Americans: not, unfortunately, maimed and dead Iraqis (especially civilians, even entire families), but, unfortunately, maimed and dead American soldiers. Once again, we have, especially, the young and the poor killing and dying for the old and the rich.
You all should know that plenty of truly progressive Americans, especially those who are younger, SUPPORT the Iraqi resistance. (This, as do most American people of color who are not in America's 'poverty/working-class draft'. American people of color never had to ask of the 9-11 attackers, "Why do they hate 'us'"?: a *white*-American question of sheer psychological denial.) Although more progressive Americans should OPENLY say so, that they support the Iraqi resistance, especially anti-war activists, as I do, many are afraid to. It would be a great blow to U.S. propaganda - just as the anti-war marches at home and all over the world were - for more Americans to do so.
Openly supporting the Iraqi resistance would also force many American tin soldiers to THINK about what they are doing in Iraq (like those at abu-Graeb or those terrorizing Iraqi families in the middle of the night, randomly busting in their front doors and shouting obscene profanities in ENGLISH!). Too many anti-racist, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, native-born Americans (whose rights are still not as easily stripped away) are too afraid to use the free speech rights that we, indeed, still have, before it might indeed be too late one day.
Non-native-born Americans and non-citizens (like those of "permanent resident" status), especially Arabs, South/Southwest Asians, and Muslims, are not accorded the same free speech protection (even of personal opinion) by police or federal agents and the courts. Legal loopholes have been steadily created and enlarged to take away their rights.
Nonetheless, progressives in the U.S. know who the REAL terrorists are: the United States government - who, like Israel, Britain, and a number of other allied Western countries, define terrorism in a way that excludes state terrorism or anything those imperialist countries and their client regimes might do, but includes anyone fighting state/imperialist oppression.
It was the United States government, starting under Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1978/'79, and continuing under Reagan and Bush I in the 1980's, who turned Islamic fundamentalists into a world power in the CIA's largest operation in its history to mightily goad the Soviet Union into attacking Afghanistan. Brzezinski still believes that, what we call, the ultimate "blowback" (see Chalmers Johnson's book of the same name) or "chickens coming home to roost" on 9/11 was "a small price to pay" for his belief that his initiated war in Afghanistan "toppled the Soviet Union". 'What can we be concerned about the ruffled feathers of a handful of Arabs', Brzezinski still even says today - although he is a critic of the U.S. war in Iraq, after first trying to play both sides of that debate. Old Soviet-Afghanistan War Russian generals must be, secretly, heartily laughing today.
Incidentally, Brzezinski recognizes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the central problem in the world today, as far as U.S. foreign policy interests, and he says that 'the Palestinian Question' must finally be solved. But his "solution" for the indigenous Palestinian people is basically for them to accede to Israel's demands (and further annexations of the best land), to shut up and be happy to even have an "independent" bantustan state in the end - surrounded by "Israel".
(Most white-Americans, of course, are so STUPID they don't even know that the Palestinians were already living in PALESTINE and were originally the vast majority of the indigenous population - that Palestine was, essentially, an *Arab* country. This, of course, was before the Zionist leaders - in order to gain personal political power of their own with the support of imperialist Western allies - were exploiting the suffering of their own people, and pressured, coerced, or hoodwinked post-WWII European Jewish refugees into invading Palestine!)
There are millions of Arabs or Muslims who politically (if not theologically) agree with bin Laden - millions who are *NOT* Islamic fundamentalists and would *NEVER* fly passenger jets filled with people into skyscrapers filled with people. And so do I! Bin Laden opposes U.S./Western imperialism and U.S./Western skulduggery and political interference in other peoples' countries in the Arab and Muslim world. (This, for behavior that the U.S., domestically, would call espionage or sedition and mete out long prison sentences.) He opposes the U.S.'s, essentially, absolute support for semi-theocratic Israel's decades-long ethnic cleansing, mass dispossession, and abject oppression of the Palestinian people - the longest humanitarian crisis in the contemporary world.
Bin Laden's quite reasonable statements have said NOTHING about his wanting to impose Islamic fundamentalism upon the West or destroying what, less and less, passes for "democracy" in the U.S.. And even bin Laden was correct when he said (as close as I can quote off-hand), "If we (al-Qaeda) just hated freedom & democracy, then why didn't we also go attack SWEDEN?: there's more freedom & democracy there than in the United States."
The U.S. government originally *LURED* Saddam into attacking Kuwait (killing tens of thousands, maybe much well over 100,000 Iraqis in the first Iraq war) - something Western governments persistently overlooked (and most Western people have not realized). This was because Saddam, then, no longer 'needed' - from the U.S. government's interests - the military weapons, systems, and technology that the U.S. gave or sold him to kill *other* brown-skin people - the Iranians. Luring Saddam into attacking Kuwait was a way for the U.S. government to have an excuse to destroy most of Saddam's heavy military equipment, since the Iraq-Iran war was over.
Keep this in mind!: *NEVER* in the entire history of the United States, has the U.S. government *EVER* directly intervened - either with its military or its covert action intelligence services - in the non-European, developing Third World for the purposes of establishing a democracy: NEVER!!
Quite to the contrary!: the U.S. government has intervened to OVERTHROW/SUBVERT democracies and/or KILL/ASSASSINATE pro-democracy leaders and leading activists all over the economic or political Third World - even in the Middle East (as with the U.S. and the British in 1953 Iran).
This is the same U.S. government that recently kidnapped the democratically-elected president, Aristide, of Haiti and installed another death squad regime. This is the same U.S. government that encouraged the (thankfully, failed) overthrow, by the rich, of the democratically-elected president of Venezuela.
So, whenever you hear the U.S. government say that it is intervening anywhere to bring democracy to some Third World country, you can know from history that the U.S. is *LYING*!!: it's just the _cover story_ for more U.S. imperialism. The U.S. didn't go into Iraq to establish a democracy!: the U.S. went into Iraq (with a 'suitable' cover story) to install another dictatorial or repressive autocratic regime that will do what the U.S. government says to do - or else that regime will be gone too!
In the Oliver Stone Vietnam War movie "Platoon", one African American soldier says that, "The U.S. has been going around kicking everybody else's ass for so long, I know that it's about time that the U.S. got its *own* ass kicked." THAT TIME HAS COME AGAIN! And now, for many jingoistic white-Americans who thought that they could go pick on another smaller isolated country - as the U.S. has repeatedly done since recovering from "the Vietnam syndrome" - to boost America's highly narcissistic ego, suddenly WAR AIN'T FUN NO MORE!
AMERICAN - by citizenship, but EMBARRASSED!
