A few thoughts about the London bombings that will undoubtedly not apppear anywhere in the corporate media.
After the London bombings, supposedly by Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush said: "The war on terrorism goes on." This is an asinine statement. War is terrorism. The bombing and destruction of Falluja, a city of 300,000 people in Iraq, was terrorism. The torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo is terrorism. The use of depleted uranium, by poisoning the planet and causing cancers and birth defects for generations to come, is enduring and horrendous terrorism. The embargo against Iraq, which caused the deaths of a million Iraqi people, was an example of years of constant terrorism. George W. Bush's statement really reduces to "terrorism on terrorism goes on." Yes, it certainly does, and it is leading humanity straight off a cliff.
The imperial powers would like to propagate the view by means of their media prostitutes that the high-tech terrorism of cruise missiles, uranium-tipped weapons and high-altitude bombing is not really terrorism at all, but is merely a method of bringing democracy, freedom and elections to poor, oppressed people. It is only when these poor people, with bombs raining on their heads and seeing their loved ones killed and maimed, begin to fight back with any means at their disposal, including suicide bombers, that it deserves the appellation of terrorism by the media of the rich and powerful. Oh sure, Iraqis and other occupied people can cast meaningless votes for puppet candidates, while the resources of their country are stolen, their labor is exploited and their industries are privatized and sold for a pittance to foreign capitalists. This is called by the foreign imperialists' lackeys in the corporate media as "bringing them democracy."
This practice of labeling militarily less powerful people as terrorists is nothing new in world history. The Native Americans were called savages and terrorists and the Africans and Asians who fought back against the colonial powers were similarly labeled. Joseph Goebbels used the excuses of Czech terrorism against Germans in the Sudetenland and terrorism by Austrian communists for the Nazi annexations of Czechoslovakia and Austria. Ruling classes have long known how to manipulate fear and anger among the common people. They are even capable of manufacturing incidents to further their own interests. The Reichstag fire more than any other single event enabled Hitler to seize total power in Germany. It was started by the SS and blamed on the communists.
After an event like the bombings in London, the corporate media give glaring pictures of the carnage and will go on for days expressing outrage at the barbarity of the attack. Where is the comparable day by day pictures of the suffering in Iraq? If reporters attempt to cover it, they are shot at and often killed by American troops. Dozens of civilians were killed in the London bombings. An estimated 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the past few years. Which is really the greater atrocity?
It seems that the people of the world live in two parallel universes where the Third World people actually experience all the savagery, hypocrisy and injustice of the imperialist capitalist powers and many in the imperialist countries themselves live in a Disneyland world created by the corporate media, where celebrity trials, scandals and people eating the most disgusting things imaginable on television replace any serious news about US foreign policy. If US foreign policy is discussed, it proceeds on the assumption that the motivations of the US government are always the well-being of the rest of the Earth's people, rather than the further enrichment of its wealthiest, most influential capitalists.
I can't help but feel that there is a strong component of racism in this US war of aggression against Iraq, as in many past imperialist wars. If the shoe were on the other foot and Iraq were the stronger power and had bombed American and British cities, killed thousands of civilians and poisoned the land of the United States and Britain with tons of radioactive uranium, what would be the reaction? There would be so much outrage that such a war could not continue year after year. There are worthy victims and unworthy victims. Those of a darker-skinned complexion can definitely be classified as unworthy, especially if they are sitting on a lot of oil.
The immediate reaction to the London bombings of not only the corporate media, but of many leftists and liberals also, was to express great sympathy and solidarity with the suffering of the British people. I, too, feel sympathy for the victims of this bombing. After all, these were just common people-not the militarists and British capitalists responsible for the Iraq war. However, I feel even greater compassion for the suffering of Iraq's people. They must endure bombings and the imminent threat of death or disability day after day, while the American and British antiwar activists with all their demonstrations seem unable to stop this insanity and their antagonists, Bush and Blair, get reelected. As in all wars, it must be a natural reaction to want to strike back against the home country of those responsible for one's misery. That is, assuming this bombing is not a manufactured incident like 9-11 seems to be and intended to utilize fear and anger to increase support for war.
Before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even began, I and many other leftists predicted that these actions would not diminish the terrorism in the world as stated by many government officials and talking heads on television, but would instead greatly increase terrorism. We also predicted that resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan would increase and not be easily overcome. I find no satisfaction in being right because I and my loved ones are in greater danger now than before, all because of greedy, power-hungry American and British capitalists. Malcolm X was right, as was Ward Churchill. The chickens are coming home to roost.
The imperial powers would like to propagate the view by means of their media prostitutes that the high-tech terrorism of cruise missiles, uranium-tipped weapons and high-altitude bombing is not really terrorism at all, but is merely a method of bringing democracy, freedom and elections to poor, oppressed people. It is only when these poor people, with bombs raining on their heads and seeing their loved ones killed and maimed, begin to fight back with any means at their disposal, including suicide bombers, that it deserves the appellation of terrorism by the media of the rich and powerful. Oh sure, Iraqis and other occupied people can cast meaningless votes for puppet candidates, while the resources of their country are stolen, their labor is exploited and their industries are privatized and sold for a pittance to foreign capitalists. This is called by the foreign imperialists' lackeys in the corporate media as "bringing them democracy."
This practice of labeling militarily less powerful people as terrorists is nothing new in world history. The Native Americans were called savages and terrorists and the Africans and Asians who fought back against the colonial powers were similarly labeled. Joseph Goebbels used the excuses of Czech terrorism against Germans in the Sudetenland and terrorism by Austrian communists for the Nazi annexations of Czechoslovakia and Austria. Ruling classes have long known how to manipulate fear and anger among the common people. They are even capable of manufacturing incidents to further their own interests. The Reichstag fire more than any other single event enabled Hitler to seize total power in Germany. It was started by the SS and blamed on the communists.
After an event like the bombings in London, the corporate media give glaring pictures of the carnage and will go on for days expressing outrage at the barbarity of the attack. Where is the comparable day by day pictures of the suffering in Iraq? If reporters attempt to cover it, they are shot at and often killed by American troops. Dozens of civilians were killed in the London bombings. An estimated 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the past few years. Which is really the greater atrocity?
It seems that the people of the world live in two parallel universes where the Third World people actually experience all the savagery, hypocrisy and injustice of the imperialist capitalist powers and many in the imperialist countries themselves live in a Disneyland world created by the corporate media, where celebrity trials, scandals and people eating the most disgusting things imaginable on television replace any serious news about US foreign policy. If US foreign policy is discussed, it proceeds on the assumption that the motivations of the US government are always the well-being of the rest of the Earth's people, rather than the further enrichment of its wealthiest, most influential capitalists.
I can't help but feel that there is a strong component of racism in this US war of aggression against Iraq, as in many past imperialist wars. If the shoe were on the other foot and Iraq were the stronger power and had bombed American and British cities, killed thousands of civilians and poisoned the land of the United States and Britain with tons of radioactive uranium, what would be the reaction? There would be so much outrage that such a war could not continue year after year. There are worthy victims and unworthy victims. Those of a darker-skinned complexion can definitely be classified as unworthy, especially if they are sitting on a lot of oil.
The immediate reaction to the London bombings of not only the corporate media, but of many leftists and liberals also, was to express great sympathy and solidarity with the suffering of the British people. I, too, feel sympathy for the victims of this bombing. After all, these were just common people-not the militarists and British capitalists responsible for the Iraq war. However, I feel even greater compassion for the suffering of Iraq's people. They must endure bombings and the imminent threat of death or disability day after day, while the American and British antiwar activists with all their demonstrations seem unable to stop this insanity and their antagonists, Bush and Blair, get reelected. As in all wars, it must be a natural reaction to want to strike back against the home country of those responsible for one's misery. That is, assuming this bombing is not a manufactured incident like 9-11 seems to be and intended to utilize fear and anger to increase support for war.
Before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even began, I and many other leftists predicted that these actions would not diminish the terrorism in the world as stated by many government officials and talking heads on television, but would instead greatly increase terrorism. We also predicted that resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan would increase and not be easily overcome. I find no satisfaction in being right because I and my loved ones are in greater danger now than before, all because of greedy, power-hungry American and British capitalists. Malcolm X was right, as was Ward Churchill. The chickens are coming home to roost.
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