<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16981" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, February 24, 2010 7:36 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Conquest and Censorship</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><BR>
<DIV><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt" size=5><B>Conquest and
Censorship</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT size=4>by <A
href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/douglas-valentine/">Douglas
Valentine</A>, February 24, 2010 </FONT></DIV>
<DIV id=navcontainer dir=ltr>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><A
href="http://original.antiwar.com/douglas-valentine/2010/02/23/conquest-and-censorship/">http://original.antiwar.com/douglas-valentine/2010/02/23/conquest-and-censorship/</A></DIV></DIV>
<DIV>After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror’s army buried
its fallen comrades but left the corpses of the English defenders to rot in the
fields where they lay. </DIV>
<DIV>Such is the brutal nature of war: the victor inflicts all manner of
suffering and humiliation on the vanquished.</DIV>
<DIV><IMG height=240 src="" width=120 align=bottom name=Object1></DIV>
<DIV>What the United States is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is only marginally
different.</DIV>
<DIV>William the Conqueror made no pretense about his brutal subjugation of the
English. They hated him and resisted his occupation for 20 years, during which
time he took all their property and gave it to the Norman upper class. Over
300,000 English people were murdered and starved (one fifth of the population),
and some 300,000 French and Normans were planted in England in positions of
authority. </DIV>
<DIV>An English nobleman was likely blinded, castrated, and thrown in a dungeon
in one of the hundreds of prison William built across the countryside to
terrorize the population into submission.</DIV>
<DIV>England ceased being England, and William repented his sins on his
deathbed.</DIV>
<DIV>While the U.S. subjugation of Iraq and Afghanistan is following much the
same pattern, it is different in one respect. Unlike William, whose oppression
was done in the light of day, the U.S. conceals its crimes to preserve the
pretense of moral superiority that defines American "exceptionalism."</DIV>
<DIV>Covert operations, cover-ups, and deception are essential because without
the belief in its inherent moral superiority, the American public might not
support its government’s plundering of foreign nations on behalf of America’s
ruling class.</DIV>
<DIV>The U.S. policy of not identifying or accurately counting foreigner killed
in recent American conquests is a good example of why this Big Lie is
employed.</DIV>
<DIV>The U.S. has an official policy of not counting the number of people it has
killed and crippled, rendered homeless, starved, or condemned to sickness,
disease, and insanity. Thus it is impossible to quantitatively measure the
amount of misery America has visited upon Iraq, which of course makes it easier
for the U.S. government to pretend that all this death and suffering was for
Iraqis’ benefit. </DIV>
<DIV>There are reports of <A
href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?Itemid=74&id=31&jumival=1478&option=com_content&task=view">5
million orphans</A> in Iraq. That’s three times the number of Englishmen William
conquered. </DIV>
<DIV>In the face of such immense numbers, it is easy to forget that each person
matters, as much as you matter. Someone knows who these people are.</DIV>
<DIV>More to the point, in many if not most cases the U.S. government – the
hired killers in the military and the CIA – know perfectly well the names and
identities of each and every person they murder, maim, or render an
orphan.</DIV>
<DIV>They don’t tell you, but they know.</DIV>
<DIV>In Afghanistan, for example, the CIA and military have been conducting,
through Provincial Reconstruction Teams, other "civic action" programs, and a
secret army of informants, a census of every village, town, and city in the
country – much like William’s <A
href="http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/index.html">Domesday Book</A>. </DIV>
<DIV>As commander of the U.S. occupation army, Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants to
<A href="http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=20554">know every Afghan
by name</A>, so he can decide who is Taliban and who is not. McChrystal wants to
know where each man lives, how many people are in his family, who his wife and
children and relatives are, and where he works. </DIV>
<DIV>In places like Marjah, McChrystal is at a bit of a loss, but he still wants
to know, and tries to know, largely through spies and all manner of electronic
surveillance, <A
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/20/world/fg-afghan-intel20">including
satellites</A>. </DIV>
<DIV>All this biographical information on Afghans is entered into a computer in
McChrystal’s office. The CIA carefully monitors that computer, and with its
military special operations counterparts, keeps a separate folder for the
Taliban alone. (Facts about CIA and military special operations sources and
methods are taken from the author’s book <A
href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000006206"><I>The
Phoenix Program</I></A>.)</DIV>
<DIV>Within that Taliban folder, every man is identified by the same
biographical criteria as very other Afghan. In addition, each Taliban is
categorized by his rank and position within the organization. Low-level fighters
are left to the Marines. High-value targets have their own folder and belong to
the CIA and military special operations.</DIV>
<DIV>High-value targets are given the same special attention that William the
Conqueror afforded to English noblemen. High-value targets have the property
(intellectual as well as, say, opium fields) that McChrystal wants, and thus
more biographical information is gathered about them. Their movements are
tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Through spies and sophisticated
electronic surveillance, McChrystal even has a very good idea when they are
leaving one safe house and traveling to another.</DIV>
<DIV>The jets are fueled and the drones are in the sky, waiting. </DIV>
<DIV>And this is how and why 27 Afghan civilians were summarily murdered on Feb.
21, 2010, while traveling between remote provinces in a caravan of minibuses.
The CIA and military special operations forces were alerted that such and such a
high-value target was traveling with his family, and McChrystal seized the
opportunity to kill them all.</DIV>
<DIV>In a dirty war like the one in Afghanistan, killing high-value targets
almost always involves hitting them while they are home or traveling with their
families; otherwise they are underground and inaccessible. </DIV>
<DIV>Because this psychological warfare tactic of killing important enemy
leaders along with their entire families is policy (albeit secret policy), it is
called "black propaganda." </DIV>
<DIV>It is psychological warfare because it has a sobering effect on low-level
Taliban who wish to rise in the ranks. It is propaganda because every Afghan
citizen is aware of this policy. And it is black because Americans can’t believe
it is true.</DIV>
<DIV>They can’t believe it is true for two reasons. First, because Gen.
McChrystal looks like an American nobleman and, like William, he expresses
remorse. </DIV>
<DIV>And they believe because the mainstream media goes along with the Big
Lie.</DIV>
<DIV>And yet, despite the PR work of correspondents at Newsweek, Gen. McChrystal
is no less savage than William the Conqueror. His job is fighting battles,
killing enemies, and dismembering their bodies. </DIV>
<DIV>The only difference is that William did his killing personally, up close,
with a battle ax and a sword for everyone to see, while McChrystal stands far
away from the carnage, without witnesses, and allows other to do his dirty work
for him, with 2,000-pound bombs, missiles fired from drones, shotguns, and
censorship.</DIV>
<DIV>Most of all it works because no one ever knows the names and biographies of
the innocent victims.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></DIV><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both"></DIV></FONT><br />--
<br />This message has been scanned for viruses and
<br />dangerous content by
<a href="http://www.mailscanner.info/"><b>MailScanner</b></a>, and is
<br />believed to be clean.
</BODY></HTML>