Thursday, July 06, 2006
Pacifica Commentary For July 5, 2006
The Twins
The most powerful military force in the history of the world continues its fifteen year assault on a weak and devastated nation called Iraq. The methodology includes collective punishment of civilians by indiscriminate bombing, house to house massacres, imprisonment without trial and routine torture. When our forces suffer a defeat such collective punishments have led to increased premeditated killing of countless civilians.
The people of Iraq are fighting to defend themselves and they are also fighting their fellow citizens who have submitted to the rule of a foreign empire. Citizens of Iraq who are doing what our United States citizens would do if we were invaded are called terrorists. Indeed, Iraqis are frequently referred to as members of an outside force known as Al Qaeda.
We are reminded of France when it was occupied by the Third Reich and how the French Resistance fought the French who submitted to the German occupation.
A handful of our troops, generally the lowest level of enlisted personnel, are brought before military justice on charges of torture, murder and rape. Actually the entire fifteen years has been nothing but torture murder and rape.
Not far from Iraq we can observe parallel behavior as the fourth largest military in the world continues its brutal attacks on Palestine. Collective punishment is and has been the rule for decades. One Israeli prisoner leads to the shelling of civilians and the willful destruction of an entire electrical system. Palestinian civilians suffer from direct bombardment, a cut off of food, medical aid and the withholding of economic assistance.
The government elected by the Palestinians is rejected with the same charges that were leveled at previous regimes. Thousands of Palestinians have been held captive, tortured and killed. Their homes have been bulldozed and their country divided into Bantustans of separation. The wall is the message.
For decades now, the long standing exceptionalism practiced by the United States has been granted to Israel. We can have ten thousand nukes but you can't have one. We can attack you but if you resist we will massacre your people.
No one is more aware of this crisis than the Israeli people and the Israeli Press. As one visiting Israeli scholar said, "You Americans are going to fight to the last drop of Israeli blood." Our nation, with Israel in its shadow, seems suicidally determined to create an international tsunami of resistance.
The most powerful military force in the history of the world continues its fifteen year assault on a weak and devastated nation called Iraq. The methodology includes collective punishment of civilians by indiscriminate bombing, house to house massacres, imprisonment without trial and routine torture. When our forces suffer a defeat such collective punishments have led to increased premeditated killing of countless civilians.
The people of Iraq are fighting to defend themselves and they are also fighting their fellow citizens who have submitted to the rule of a foreign empire. Citizens of Iraq who are doing what our United States citizens would do if we were invaded are called terrorists. Indeed, Iraqis are frequently referred to as members of an outside force known as Al Qaeda.
We are reminded of France when it was occupied by the Third Reich and how the French Resistance fought the French who submitted to the German occupation.
A handful of our troops, generally the lowest level of enlisted personnel, are brought before military justice on charges of torture, murder and rape. Actually the entire fifteen years has been nothing but torture murder and rape.
Not far from Iraq we can observe parallel behavior as the fourth largest military in the world continues its brutal attacks on Palestine. Collective punishment is and has been the rule for decades. One Israeli prisoner leads to the shelling of civilians and the willful destruction of an entire electrical system. Palestinian civilians suffer from direct bombardment, a cut off of food, medical aid and the withholding of economic assistance.
The government elected by the Palestinians is rejected with the same charges that were leveled at previous regimes. Thousands of Palestinians have been held captive, tortured and killed. Their homes have been bulldozed and their country divided into Bantustans of separation. The wall is the message.
For decades now, the long standing exceptionalism practiced by the United States has been granted to Israel. We can have ten thousand nukes but you can't have one. We can attack you but if you resist we will massacre your people.
No one is more aware of this crisis than the Israeli people and the Israeli Press. As one visiting Israeli scholar said, "You Americans are going to fight to the last drop of Israeli blood." Our nation, with Israel in its shadow, seems suicidally determined to create an international tsunami of resistance.
