[Peace-discuss] Parallels

[Morton K. Brussel]

We need to be continually reminded of the vicious state of affairs  
which our government has created. Here's an excerpt from John Pilfer:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10442

…The struggle in Palestine is an American war, waged from America's  
most heavily armed foreign military base, Israel. In the West, we are  
conditioned not to think of the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" in  
those terms, just as we are conditioned to think of the Israelis as  
victims, not illegal and brutal occupiers. This is not to  
underestimate the ruthless initiatives of the Israeli state, but  
without F-16s and Apaches and billions of American taxpayers'  
dollars, Israel would have made peace with the Palestinians long ago.  
Since the Second World War, the U.S. has given Israel some $140  
billion, much of it as armaments. According to the Congressional  
Research Service, the same "aid" budget was to include $28 million  
"to help [Palestinian] children deal with the current conflict  
situation" and to provide "basic first aid." That has now been vetoed.

Karma Nabulsi's comparison with Iraq is apposite, for the same  
"policy" applies there. The capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a  
wonderful media event: what the philosopher Hannah Arendt called  
"action as propaganda," and having little bearing on reality. The  
Americans and those who act as their bullhorn have their demon – even  
a video game of his house being blown up. The truth is that Zarqawi  
was largely their creation. His apparent killing serves an important  
propaganda purpose, distracting us in the west from the American goal  
of converting Iraq, like Palestine, into a powerless society of  
ethnic and religious tribalism. Death squads, formed and trained by  
veterans of the CIA's "counterinsurgency" in central America, are  
critical to this. The Special Police Commandos, a CIA creation led by  
former senior intelligence officers in Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party,  
are perhaps the most brutal. The Zarqawi killing and the myths about  
his importance also deflect from routine massacres by U.S. soldiers,  
such as the one at Haditha. Even the puppet Prime Minister Nouri al- 
Maliki complains that murderous behavior of U.S. troops is "a daily  
occurrence." As I learned in Vietnam, a form of serial killing, then  
known officially as "body count," is the way the Americans fight  
their colonial wars.

This is known as "pacification." …
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