Thursday, June 01, 2006
Pacifica Commentary For May 31, 2006
Massacre
This age will be remembered for its love of fiction. The Left Behind Series sells tens of millions of copies fostering a nineteenth century mythology about the end of days. Many readers fanatically grasp on to the myth as if it were reality. Dan Brown writes a book called the Da Vinci Code and people are saying, "See I told you so."
Both books are legitimate, that is legitimate fiction. The fascinating element is how so many people have absorbed these writings as non-fiction.
I think we can understand what is happening here. Many people are so terrorized by reality that they want to live happily in fantasy land forever.
Just think how many hard fact, heavily researched books have come out regarding
the war crimes our administration commits each day. Fear of the truth and the desire to say, "Oh, I didn't know that," seems to lead the way in this quest for fantasy.
And now Time Magazine uncovers a massacre in Iraq. We are grateful for this legitimate journalism. But we must watch for the spin. We can't let this go with a few privates and sergeants condemned as bad apples. The Haditha Massacre includes a series of flat out denials and cover-ups by the military, just as the Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam or the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. These are not isolated incidents, on the contrary, these acts personify our policy. The atrocity was not simply Mai Lai, it was the sheer evil of killing three million people in Vietnam. The atrocity is not simply Abu Ghraib, it is the fact that torture was routine then and has continued to be routine now.
The atrocity is not simply Haditha, it is fifteen years of butchering innocent people in Iraq. The invasion of homes and massacre of civilian inhabitants is a daily occurrence in Iraq. Many of these massacres are punitive actions like the punitive attacks on the people who lived in Fallujah, Some 6,000 civilians were killed during that November 2004 assault. This was simply not news until unimbedded reporters, at great personal risk went for the facts and not the fantasy.
As we lost the war in Vietnam every massacre was declared to be an attack on insurgents. And the same is happening in Iraq. A massacre of civilians is reported by the military as an Iraqi offensive. That is why we continue to identify dead insurgents who are two and three years old.
We definitively lost in Vietnam and now our behavior in Iraq mirrors the deception, deceit and treachery that is leading to our absolute failure there. Fiction continues to be popular. But only non-fiction can make us free.
This age will be remembered for its love of fiction. The Left Behind Series sells tens of millions of copies fostering a nineteenth century mythology about the end of days. Many readers fanatically grasp on to the myth as if it were reality. Dan Brown writes a book called the Da Vinci Code and people are saying, "See I told you so."
Both books are legitimate, that is legitimate fiction. The fascinating element is how so many people have absorbed these writings as non-fiction.
I think we can understand what is happening here. Many people are so terrorized by reality that they want to live happily in fantasy land forever.
Just think how many hard fact, heavily researched books have come out regarding
the war crimes our administration commits each day. Fear of the truth and the desire to say, "Oh, I didn't know that," seems to lead the way in this quest for fantasy.
And now Time Magazine uncovers a massacre in Iraq. We are grateful for this legitimate journalism. But we must watch for the spin. We can't let this go with a few privates and sergeants condemned as bad apples. The Haditha Massacre includes a series of flat out denials and cover-ups by the military, just as the Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam or the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. These are not isolated incidents, on the contrary, these acts personify our policy. The atrocity was not simply Mai Lai, it was the sheer evil of killing three million people in Vietnam. The atrocity is not simply Abu Ghraib, it is the fact that torture was routine then and has continued to be routine now.
The atrocity is not simply Haditha, it is fifteen years of butchering innocent people in Iraq. The invasion of homes and massacre of civilian inhabitants is a daily occurrence in Iraq. Many of these massacres are punitive actions like the punitive attacks on the people who lived in Fallujah, Some 6,000 civilians were killed during that November 2004 assault. This was simply not news until unimbedded reporters, at great personal risk went for the facts and not the fantasy.
As we lost the war in Vietnam every massacre was declared to be an attack on insurgents. And the same is happening in Iraq. A massacre of civilians is reported by the military as an Iraqi offensive. That is why we continue to identify dead insurgents who are two and three years old.
We definitively lost in Vietnam and now our behavior in Iraq mirrors the deception, deceit and treachery that is leading to our absolute failure there. Fiction continues to be popular. But only non-fiction can make us free.
