A good article by Tom Englehardt on America’s withdrawal issues.
Now that we’ve zoomed past the seven- and eight-year marks on the shamefully tragic occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s instructive to remember that America’s involvement in WW1 was merely one year and WW2 only four.
America is now, sadly, quite addicted to war.
Glenn Greenwald tells the remarkable story of a little website called WikiLeaks.org. Here’s their mission statement:
Our publisher, The Sunshine Press, is an international non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists, lawyers and the general public. Since 2007 we have exposed thousands of military, political and corporate abuses — fighting off over 100 legal attacks to do so. No WikiLeaks’ source been ever exposed and the organization has yet to lose a legal case. Our disclosures have triggered many reforms, including the removal of two corrupt national governments. We have found that knowledge is suppressed because of its power to change and that only new knowledge brings meaningful change. Ultimately, the quality of every political, economic and personal decision depends on understanding the world and how it came to be that way. By revealing the true state of our world, through millions of pages of suppressed information, we are creating the primary ingredient for a better civilization. Although our work has won many awards, it is your strong support that preserves our continued independence and strength.
Greenwald’s story focuses on a few of their more recent releases. One is a CIA document acknowledging that even though the majority of French and German citizens are against the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan, apathy prevails and their governments remain involved in the aggression. In order to perpetuate this highly un-democratic arrangement (while also anticipating an upcoming “bloody summer” in Afghanistan) the report recommends ways to manipulate public opinion and perpetuate citizen apathy in these countries. It’s a remarkable read, and a glimpse into the depth of political “marketing” that American tax dollars fund these days. A second document comes from the Pentagon, discussing WikiLeaks at length, and suggesting ways to damage or destroy the fledging effort.
I recommend reading Greenwald’s article first, for some good overview and context, and then diving into the pertinent documents…
After delving into this material, I could not help but think of the Star Wars series, pitting the ragtag Rebel Alliance against the all-powerful Empire. Here’s how the editor of WikiLeaks explains himself:
This information has reform potential. And the information which is concealed or suppressed is concealed or suppressed because the people who know it best understand that it has the ability to reform. So they engage in work to prevent that reform . . . .
There are reasons I do it that have to do with wanting to reform civilization, and selectively targeting information will do that — understanding that quality information is what every decision is based on, and all the decisions taken together is what “civilization” is, so if you want to improve civilization, you have to remove some of the basic constraints, which is the quality of information that civilization has at its disposal to make decisions. Of course, there’s a personal psychology to it, that I enjoy crushing bastards, I like a good challenge, so do a lot of the other people involved in WikiLeaks. We like the challenge.
Remember that holiday pounding Israel gave Gaza last winter, taking advantage of the last dark days of the Bush Administration?
Well, in April of this year the United Nations initiated an independent investigation into violations of humanitarian law, and by September that fact finding mission was reporting “strong evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity” and calling for an “end to impunity.” Sounds good, right? Wrong…
Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives took time out of their “busy” schedule to vote on a bill titled “Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora.” (Turns out “fora” is the latin plural of “forum.”) I think a better name would have been “Hear No Evil, See No Evil” (the accompanying graphic could be two of the three monkeys, since “Speak No Evil” remains on vacation).
The billed passed easily, 344 yeas (yeah, Mike Thompson voted “yea”) to 36 nays. “Impunity” has nothing to fear with this mob at the helm. Here’s what Congressman Kucinich had to say, just before the vote, “Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.” Mission accomplished.
What can we do about all this nonsense? Let’s start by prying Barnacle Mike out of our congressional seat (California’s First District). Until we start sending representatives to Washington to represent our interests, nothing will get better.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
That was Martin Luther King in 1967. 42 years later, I would say the approaching part is over. America is not only at spiritual death’s door, we’ve let ourselves in, gotten comfortable on the couch, helped ourselves to beer and pretzels, and have that glazed-over look we get when the Superbowl goes on too long.
At the time, King was addressing not only the Vietnam War but also the underlying reasons for America’s misguided foreign policy. He recognized that unless we grappled with these deeper motivations, there would be many more Vietnams to come. And he wondered whether America was mature enough to do it.
Well, the good news is that America is finally mature enough to elect itself a black president. This is certainly cause for celebration, but racism was only part of the problem King spoke of. He also identified materialism and militarism, and noted how America’s violence-prone foreign policy was often guided by naked concerns of wealth and investment.
Naomi Klein’s recent book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism does an excellent job of looking at America’s international meddlings and illuminating their base economic interests. Assimilating the truths of her work will be America’s first step away from the spiritual death that King warned us of so many years ago.