Re: So now, John, what am I to think? Has America become a land of tyrants? Are we no longer a symbol of democracy and freedom in the world? Have we lost our way or have we always been like this.......hypocritical, arrogant, evil and bullying? I don't know what to believe any more....
No one deserves to die the way these people died. The fact that they died this way at the hands of Americans is almost too much to bear. I just don't understand.
Well, you would understand if you took the trouble to study the 1954-62 French-Algerian war... The US occupation troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq are merely aping the French turpitudes in Algeria.(*)
Also worth noticing is that all these torture stories somehow explode the fraudulent parallel with the 1945 liberation of Europe and the US-led transformation of Nazi Germany into a peaceful democracy. US spinmeisters have artfully resorted to WWII and the heroic deeds of Normandy, Eisenhower, the Allied, and so on, to draw a historical parallel between the occupation-liberation of Europe/Germany and the current mess in Iraq. Of course, they are now hard-pressed to tell us why there was no "Abu Ghraib" in post-WWII Germany, nor was there any humiliation of the Nazi leaders prior to their trial at Nuremberg: Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering, Heydrich, Himmler, Goebbels,... were not photographed in underpants to be displayed on British tabloids.(**)
Also, back in the 1950s, there also was a George Galloway of sorts who made it his duty to "rehabilitate" Germany --but he was no British MP, he was a US Senator, his name was Joseph McCarthy, from Wisconsin, a German-American enclave....
Again, I guess the whole explanation of all this boils down to "racism": Iraqis, Afghans, Arabs in general, don't rank as Whites in the race-conscious mindset of Americans. Unlike post-war Germans, Iraqis and Afghans are viewed as unruly barbarians who don't deserve the niceties granted to "civilized, white POWs". After all, that's the chief reason that prompted Harry Truman to drop two nuclear bombs on Japan, instead of Germany... The US was faced with a simple choice: either a massive army landing in Japan and the nuking of Germany or... the other way around. It's often alleged that one of the reasons why Truman dropped the A-bomb was to deter the Soviet Union. Well, but to deter it from what?!? From occupying Japan? China? If any deterrent made sense at the time, it should have been used in the European theater, not in the Far East! It was Central, and ultimately Western, Europe that was threatened by the Red Army advance --not Japan. Hence, Truman would have been wiser to drop the A-bomb on Germany, if only to draw the line at Stalin's land grab. Yet, the US did exactly the opposite: they spared fellow white Europeans a double nuclear apocalypse and planned massive, bloody landings in Normandy and Italy instead... Go figure, huh?
Gus
(*) Message 18893598
Message 19233405
(**) Paper Prints More Photos of Saddam in Jail
British Tabloid Publishes More Photographs of Saddam Hussein in U.S. Custody
By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq May 21, 2005 — A British tabloid published more revealing photographs of Saddam Hussein in U.S. custody on Saturday, a day after it ran a front-page picture of the former Iraqi leader naked except for his underwear.
The international Red Cross, which is responsible for monitoring prisoners of war and detainees, said the photographs violated Saddam's right to privacy. The U.S. military condemned the publication and ordered an investigation of how the pictures were leaked to The Sun.
Saturday's pictures included one of Saddam seen through barbed wire wearing a white robe-like garment, and another of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," in a bathrobe and holding a towel.
[...]
abcnews.go.com |
