What militarism and greed have done

 

May 27

GUEST: Mike Ferner, journalist, author of Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq, and former president of Veterans For Peace, talks about the identity crisis facing the American Empire.

Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq

Talking to Mike Ferner reminded me of the unusual group of people to which we both belonged. We had both ended up in the US military at exactly the wrong time. All through my training as a radio operator, news kept coming back that this one or that one had been killed. It was like being in a cancer ward. Of course, a radio operator in Viet Nam was the first platoon member to be shot in an ambush. Not only did you have an antenna on your back, but you also were the only contact the platoon had to the outside world. Radio operators got chewed up so fast that the Army was desperate to train more. 

In a twist of fate, I ended up at an Army camp near the DMZ in Korea. Mike became a hospital corpsman in a stateside Navy hospital. Even from those vantage points we came to understand the carnage and the destruction that the US military was bringing to a Third World country. We both ended our military careers certain that our country was headed in the wrong direction when it came to its brutal and wanton assault on Viet Nam. 

In the years that followed my supposed "service" in the US Army, I came to generalize. I studied the Korean War and concluded the US invasion and occupation of that country was another monstrous war crime that killed millions of civilians. By the time of US military interventions in Central America and later the Middle East, I saw my country as an empire, ever willing to murder any number of foreign people for geopolitical advantage and economic gain. 

The US empire depends on a majority of American people believing in its benevolent intentions. That is why many of us who have experienced US occupations and wars abroad have spent the rest of our lives speaking out. We are in a unique position to use the credibility and the high esteem that veterans are given in the US empire to point out its utter moral bankruptcy. 

And we can expose the Orwellian irony of our country's supposed wars for democracy and human rights. Our empire eliminates democracy, as empires have always done. Our empire crushes human rights, as all empires must do to impose their military will on subjugated peoples yearning to be free. Veterans have seen it firsthand, and if there is anything that we can do to expiate the guilt of our own "service" to the empire, it is to let our fellow citizens know what militarism and greed have done to our beloved country. 

Fairy tale worlds, like Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

May 20

GUEST: Ron Jacobs, writer for Counterpunch Magazine and author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies, talks about his latest article on Blinken-Biden foreign policy, entitled "Biden, Blinken and DOD."

Biden, Blinken and DOD

How is it that US citizens are so completely unaware of their own empire? 

The British were always proud of the fact that the "sun never set" on English soil. But most of our fellow Americans simply don't know the extent of US occupied territory. The less educated they are, the more likely that their sons and daughters have fought in some Third World country, and have come home to share their PTSD nightmares. 

But even the educated are clueless about what the US really does with all its economic and military power. That's because if you have learned the extent of US dominance, you have also been taught the propaganda of why we have left so many countries torn and blasted. 

Lesson number one is that any bad outcome (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Haiti, Somalia and so many more) were just good intentions gone astray. Invasions were always done for the benefit of the people. Maybe it was to bring education and freedom to women. Or to restore democracy to an oppressed population. All pure bullshit by the way. How can educated people be so stupid?

Lesson number two is that all bad outcomes (like killing  2 - 3 million Vietnamese) will be turned into noble failures by our educational system and our media. Many war torn countries will be judged "not ready for democracy," after all that red white and blue sacrifice. You would think that those war torn nations would show a little gratitude. 

Lesson number three. The weapons industry, the oil industry, the mining companies, etc. have nothing to do with America's serial invasions of other countries. No respectable media outlet would ever even hint at the basic truth that endless wars bring endless profits, and that US imperialism is mostly motivated by the greed of the very richest of our citizens. 

So ignorance is learned from a finely tuned propaganda machine. One that puts us in a fairy tale world, like Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. 

 

Idealistic beginnings

Here is the email I received last night from "The Blogger Team" at Google. Looks like the team had discovered some malware or virus on this blog posting and one other. And the postings were gone, leaving nothing but blank space.

As you may know, our Community Guidelines (https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Our everlasting complacency" was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at http://classwars2.blogspot.com/2021/03/our-everlasting-complacency.html. 

Why was your blog post deleted?

Your content has violated our Malware and Viruses policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more. 

We encourage you to review the full content of your blog posts to make sure they are in line with our standards as additional violations could result in termination of your blog.

For more information, please review the following resources:

Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms
Blogger Community Guidelines: https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy

   Sincerely,

   The Blogger Team

Visiting the "Community Guidelines" page produced nothing more than the above statement. Where had the posting disappeared to? And why? Were the links I provided really virus laden? Or perhaps it was the  jpgs?

One other posting was also identified as virus laden and it too was taken down.

 As you may know, our Community Guidelines (https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Courtney's photographs point the way" was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at http://classwars2.blogspot.com/2021/03/courtneys-photographs-point-way.html.

And who was I supposed to contact to figure out how to rid my blog of the supposed malware and viruses? The email came from no-reply@google.com and there were no other links except the very general ones above.

Was there really a "team" working on this at all, or  just a computer program that was not well thought out?

This morning I got another message from the team:

Hello,

We have re-evaluated the post titled "Our everlasting complacency" against Community Guidelines https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy. Upon review, the post has been reinstated. You may access the post at http://classwars2.blogspot.com/2021/03/our-everlasting-complacency.html.

   Sincerely,

   The Blogger Team

No mention of how the team had re-evaluated the postings (I got a similar email about the other one). But there the postings were again, and I was able to upload them to the blog. 

I makes me understand how dependent we are on these giant internet corporations. Somewhere in the distant past Google proclaimed "Do no evil," although the statement was eventually deleted from Google's Code of Conduct. I wonder if the team knows about it? Do computer programs have some old code like that lying around?

So someday if this whole blog is gone, please realize that it wasn't me, but some poorly written code from our internet giant who has moved on from its idealistic beginnings. 

Empires eventually create the catastrophes that destroy them

 

May 13

GUEST: Jim Keys, filmmaker, cultural activist and guerrilla muralist from Derry, Northern Ireland, talks about the history of the "Troubles" and how the Irish people resisted colonial racism and oppression.

2021: a century of Ireland divided

Jim and I worked together on a Zoom program entitled "Equal Rights for All: Resisting Settler Colonialism and White Nationalism in the United States, Northern Ireland, and Palestine.”

Joining Jim on the panel was a local Black Lives Matter organizer, and a Palestinian professor, Mazin Qumsiyeh. So our conversation moved easily into colonialism and how intricately linked it is to racism. Very few US media outlets put such concepts together for listeners or readers. To have colonies, a country has to be militarily aggressive. A nation can't colonize a country before it is conquered, at least a country that is already inhabited. Not even our country's genocide of its indigenous peoples is explained in terms of ethnic cleansing and colonial racism. Americans have never even read about their empire, or about how aggressive its military has been over the last 70 years. 

Aggression, in international politics, is commonly defined as the use of armed force against another sovereign state, not justified by self-defense or international authority. Any state being described as aggressive in foreign or international reporting, therefore, is almost by definition in the wrong.

It’s a word that seems easy to apply to the United States, which launched 81 foreign interventions between 1946 and 2000 alone. In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or occupied the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.     FAIR, April 30, 2021 

Oppressed peoples like African Americans, Palestinians, and Catholics of Northern Ireland know what empire and occupation means. Would the empire implode if the people of our country suddenly realized the reality of their "sweet land of liberty"? It took a war to awaken the German people. But empires eventually create the catastrophes that destroy them. Whether it is climate collapse or nuclear way, the US empire will be at the bottom of it. We are all in the belly of the beast.

Giving us hope that our system isn't too far gone

May 6

GUEST: Chuck Collins, author, activist and Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, talks about his most recent book, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions.

The Wealth Hoarders by Chuck Collins

Chuck Collins is one of my favorite guests. His books are about as clear as one can get about the last several decades. We are now officially ruled by the very rich, who pour funds into all the coffers of our elected officials. 

And these investments in candidates have really paid off for our richest of citizens. They pay virtually no taxes, and the IRS is so pitifully underfunded that nobody looks at their dubiously legal tax evasions.

The goal is to perpetuate wealth for generations to come, turning the US into a caste system for working people. Of course, our democracy gets shattered in the process. Money becomes more important than serving the people, and eventually the majority looses confidence in the corrupt system. When that happens, tens of millions will follow anyone promising to "drain the swamp." 

Obama promised to drain the swamp (Change we can believe in). Over the last several decades, our country has had its share of fraudsters and con artists, always lying to the public and setting the stage for an even worse leader. The ignorant and unstable Donald Trump revealed what happens when the public gets lied to for generations.

As I write this, Biden is increasing the funds for the IRS. Taxes on capital gains taxes and inheritance are in the works too. Collins' new book is really the only place our members of Congress need to go to. He spells out all the necessary changes, and give us hope that our system isn't too far gone yet. 

 

The greatest threat to peace in the world

Perhaps it is not US militarism that is the greatest danger to peace in the world. It is the ignorance of its citizens.

The following information has been gleaned from the works of David Swanson, international peace activist and author of War Is a Lie.

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The Brits show us the way to imperialism:

Of the almost 200 current member states (and one observer state) of the United Nations, the British have, at some point in history, invaded and established a military presence in 171 of them.

This is what British historian Stuart Laycock learned after his son asked him how many countries Britain had invaded. He dug into the history of almost 200 nations and found only 22 that the Brits hadn’t marched into. He talks about each one in All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To, released in 2012.

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The US bombing list since WW II

Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-1961

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Iran 1987

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)

Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1993

Bosnia 1994, 1995

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

Yemen 2002

Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)

Iraq 2003-2015

Afghanistan 2001-2015

Pakistan 2007-2015

Somalia 2007-8, 2011

Yemen 2009, 2011

Libya 2011, 2015

Syria 2014-2015

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Most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the "greatest threat to peace in the world," and a Pew poll found that viewpoint increased in 2017.

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Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 84 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries. 

The United States is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and over 1 million just since 2003 in Iraq.

Since 2001, the United States has been systematically destroying a region of the globe, bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines. The United States has “special forces” operating in two-thirds of the world’s countries and non-special forces in three-quarters of them.

The U.S. government as of 2017 provided military aid to 73% of the world’s dictatorships.

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Over 50 foreign leaders whom the United States has attempted to assassinate:

1949 – Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader

1950s – CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany to be “put out of the way” in the event of a Soviet invasion

1950s – Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life

1950s, 1962 – Sukarno, President of Indonesia

1951 – Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea

1953 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran

1950s (mid) – Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader

1955 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India

1957 – Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt

1959, 1963, 1969 – Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia

1960 – Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq

1950s-70s – José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life

1961 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, leader of Haiti

1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)

1961 – Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic

1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam

1960s-70s – Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life

1960s – Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba

1965 – Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader

1965-6 – Charles de Gaulle, President of France

1967 – Che Guevara, Cuban leader

1970 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile

1970 – Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile

1970s, 1981 – General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama

1972 – General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence

1975 – Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire

1976 – Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica

1980-1986 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several attempts upon his life

1982 – Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran

1983 – Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander

1983 – Miguel d’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua

1984 – The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate

1985 – Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)

1991 – Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq

1993 – Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia

1998, 2001-2 – Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant

1999 – Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia

2002 – Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord

2003 – Saddam Hussein and his two sons

2011 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya

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list of instances of the United States attempting to suppress a populist or nationalist movement (* indicates success):

China – 1945-49

France – 1947 *

Italy – 1947-1970s *

Greece – 1947-49 *

Philippines – 1945-53 *

Korea – 1945-53 *

Haiti – 1959 *

Laos – 1957-73

Vietnam – 1961-73

Thailand – 1965-73 *

Peru – 1965 *

Dominican Republic – 1965 *

Uruguay – 1969-72 *

South Africa – 1960s-1980s

East Timor – 1975-1999 *

Philippines – 1970s-1990s *

El Salvador – 1980-92 *

Colombia – 1990s to early 2000s *

Peru – 1997 *

Iraq – 2003 to present *