[Peace-discuss] B. Blum. Get to know him.

[Morton K. Brussel]

He's a guy who sees things clearly, and says it without mincing  
words. Of course, it's only my opinion--mkb

 From William Blum: http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer31.htm

The Anti-Empire Report.
Some things you need to know before the world ends.

March 22, 2006,
   by William Blum



"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens." Friedrich Schiller
.

  "With stupidity, even the gods struggle in vain."

	I'm often told by readers of their encounters with Americans who  
support the outrages of US foreign policy no matter what facts are  
presented to them, no matter what arguments are made, no matter how  
much the government's statements are shown to be false. If these  
Americans have no other defense of the policies they will declare how  
glad they are that the United States rules and polices the world;  
better America than someone else. They include amongst their number  
those who still believe that Iraq had a direct involvement in the  
events of September 11, that Saddam Hussein had close ties to al  
Qaeda, and/or that weapons of mass destruction were indeed found in  
Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
       My advice is to forget such people. They would support the  
outrages even if the government came to their homes, seized their  
first born, and hauled them away screaming, as long as the government  
assured them it was essential to fighting terrorism (or communism).  
My (very) rough guess is that they constitute no more than 15 percent  
of the population. I suggest that we concentrate on the rest, who are  
reachable.
       Inasmuch as I can not see violent revolution succeeding in the  
United States (something deep inside tells me that we couldn't quite  
match the government's firepower, not to mention their viciousness),  
I can offer no solution to stopping the imperial monster other than  
increasing the number of those in the opposition until it reaches a  
critical mass; at which point ... I can't predict the form the  
explosion will take.
       So I'm speaking here of education, and in my writing and in my  
public talks I like to emphasize certain points which try to deal  
with the underlying intellectual misconceptions and emotional  
"hangups" I think Americans have which stand in the way of their  
seeing through the bullshit; this education can also take the form of  
demonstrations or acts of civil disobedience, whatever might cause a  
thaw in a frozen mind.

Briefly, here are the main points:


       (1) US foreign policy does not "mean well". It's not that  
American leaders have miscalculated, or blundered, causing great  
suffering, as in Iraq, while having noble intentions. Rather, while  
pursuing their imperial goals they simply do not care about the  
welfare of the foreign peoples who are on the receiving end of the  
bombing and the torture, and we should not let them get away with  
claiming such intentions.


       (2) The United States is not concerned with this thing called  
"democracy", no matter how many times George W. uses the word each  
time he opens his mouth. In the past 60 years, the US has attempted  
to overthrow literally dozens of democratically-elected governments,  
sometimes successfully, sometimes not, and grossly interfered in as  
many democratic elections in every corner of the world. The question  
is: What do the Busheviks mean by "democracy"? The last thing they  
have in mind is any kind of economic democracy, the closing of the  
gap between the desperate poor and those for whom too much is not  
enough. The first thing they have in mind is making sure the target  
country has the political, financial and legal mechanisms in place to  
make it hospitable to globalization.


       (3) Anti-American terrorists are not motivated by hatred or  
envy of freedom or democracy, or by American wealth, secular  
government, or culture. They are motivated by decades of awful things  
done to their homelands by US foreign policy. It works the same all  
over the world. In the period of the 1950s to the 1980s in Latin  
America, in response to a long string of Washington's dreadful  
policies, there were countless acts of terrorism against US  
diplomatic and military targets as well as the offices of US  
corporations. The US bombing, invasion, occupation and torture in  
Iraq and Afghanistan have created thousands of new anti-American  
terrorists. We'll be hearing from them for a terribly long time.


       (4) The United States is not actually against terrorism per  
se, only those terrorists who are not allies of the empire. There is  
a lengthy and infamous history of support for numerous anti-Castro  
terrorists, even when their terrorist acts were committed in the  
United States. At this moment, Luis Posada Carriles remains protected  
by the US government, though he masterminded the blowing up of a  
Cuban airplane that killed 73 people and his extradition has been  
requested by Venezuela. He's but one of hundreds of anti-Castro  
terrorists who've been given haven in the United States over the  
years. The United States has also provided close support of  
terrorists in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq and elsewhere, including those  
with known connections to al Qaeda, to further foreign policy goals  
more important than fighting terrorism.


       (5) Iraq was not any kind of a threat to the United States. Of  
the never-ending lies concerning Iraq, this is the most insidious,  
the necessary foundation for all the other lies. This is the supposed  
justification for the preemptive invasion, for what the Nuremberg  
Tribunal called a war of aggression. Absent such a threat, it didn't  
matter if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it didn't matter if  
the intelligence was right or wrong about this or that, or whether  
the Democrats also believed the lies. All that mattered was the Bush  
administration's claim that Iraq was an imminent threat to wreak some  
kind of great havoc upon America.  But think about that. What  
possible reason could Saddam Hussein have had for attacking the  
United States other than an irresistible desire for mass national  
suicide?


       (6) There was never any such animal as the International  
Communist Conspiracy. There were, as there still are, people living  
in misery, rising up in protest against their condition, against an  
oppressive government, a government usually supported by the United  
States.


       (7) Conservatives, particularly of the neo- kind (far to the  
right on the political spectrum), and liberals (ever so slightly to  
the left of center) are not ideological polar opposites. Thus,  
watching a TV talk show on foreign policy with a conservative and a  
liberal is not "balanced"; a more appropriate balance to a  
conservative would be a left-wing radical or progressive. American  
liberals are typically closer to conservatives on foreign policy than  
they are to these groupings on the left, and the educational value of  
such "balanced" media can be more harmful than beneficial as far as  
seeing through the empire's motives and actions.


How to be (duh) happy

Renowned conservative writer George Will penned a column last month  
celebrating the fact that a survey showed that conservatives were  
happier than liberals or moderates. While 34 percent of all Americans  
call themselves "very happy", only 28 percent of liberal Democrats  
(and 31 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats) do, compared  
with 47 percent of conservative Republicans. Will asserted that the  
explanation for these poll results lies in the fact that  
conservatives are more pessimistic and less angry than liberals. If  
that seems counter-intuitive concerning pessimism, I could suggest  
you read his column{1}, except that it wouldn't be particularly  
enlightening; the piece is little more than a vehicle for attacking  
the welfare state and government interference in the god-given,  
wondrous workings of free enterprise. "Pessimistic conservatives put  
not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that  
happiness is a function of fending for oneself," writes Will.
        I would propose that one important reason conservatives may  
be happier is that their social conscience extends no farther than  
themselves and their immediate circle of friends and family. George  
Will gives not the slightest hint that the sad state of the world  
affects, or should affect, conservatives' happiness. In my own case,  
if my happiness were based solely on the objective conditions of my  
particular life -- work, social relations, health, adventure,  
material comfort, etc. -- I could, without hesitation, say that I'm  
very happy. But I'm blessed/cursed with a social conscience that  
assails my tranquility. Reading the hundred varieties of daily  
horrors in my morning newspaper -- the cruelty of man, the cruelty of  
nature, the cruelty of chance -- I'm frozen in despair and anger.  
Often, what makes it hardest to take is that my own government, at  
home and abroad, directly and indirectly, is responsible for more of  
the misery than any other human agent. I would have been incredulous,  
during the first half of my life, to think that one day my own  
government would scare me so. But if I were a conservative, I could  
take great comfort, even happiness, in convincing myself that it's  
largely "the bad guys" who are being hurt and that all these horrors  
are for the purpose of extending democracy, freedom, and other joys  
to the dark corners of the world. And at a profit.


The Cuban punching bag

	
The Committee to Protect Journalists{2}, located in New York, calls  
itself "An Independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending  
press freedom worldwide". In December it issued a report that said  
that "China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Ethiopia are the world's leading  
jailers of journalists in 2005".
       On January 7 I sent them the following email{3}:
"Dear People,
       "I have a question concerning your report on imprisoned  
journalists. You write that you consider journalists imprisoned when  
governments deprive them of their liberty because of their work. This  
implies that they've been imprisoned because of WHAT THEY'VE WRITTEN  
PER SE. You show Cuba with 24. And I would question whether your  
criterion applies to the Cuban cases. The arrests of these persons in  
Cuba had nothing to do with them being journalists, or even being  
dissidents, per se, but had everything to do with their very close,  
indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American  
government officials.
       "The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is  
to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. During the  
period of the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro  
Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba damage greater than  
what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. In  
1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion  
in compensation for victims of (at that time) forty years of  
aggression. The suit accused Washington policies of being responsible  
for the death of 3,478 Cubans and wounding or disabling 2,099 others.
       "Would the US ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from  
al Qaeda and engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that  
organization inside the United States? Would it matter if these  
American dissidents claimed to be journalists? In the past few years,  
the American government has arrested a great many people in the US  
and abroad on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less  
evidence to go by than Cuba had with its dissidents' ties to the  
United States.
       "Moreover, most of the arrested Cubans can hardly be called  
journalists. Their only published works have appeared on websites  
maintained by agencies of the United States."

	On February 10, having received no reply, I sent another email  
referring them to my January 7 letter. As of March 21 I still have  
not received a reply. In the United States one does not have to  
defend attacking Cuba for any reason. You just do it, and if by some  
oddball chance, some oddball person asks you to defend what you've  
said ... Who cares? The sports section of the Washington Post today  
brings another mindless knee-reflex attack. Alfonso Soriano, the  
Washington National's new player, has refused to play left field,  
insisting on his regular second-base position. "Imagine," writes  
Thomas Boswell, "Soriano refusing to change positions if he played  
for the Cuban team in the WBC title game. Fidel Castro might have  
disposed of the body before game time."{4}
       Incidentally, it might also be noted that amongst America's  
prison population of more than two million, there are
probably at least a few hundred who have practiced journalism at one  
time or other, in one manner or other.


September 11, 2001


Many readers have asked me why I haven't expressed any opinion about  
the events of that infamous day. The reason is that I preferred to  
not get entangled in all the complexity and controversy, the  
arguments and hard feelings, without any clear answers. But, very  
briefly, here goes.
       Almost all of those who have asked me this believe that it was  
all planned and carried out by US government officials. I don't think  
so. Not that I would put it past the imperial mafia morally. I just  
think the complications would have made it next to impossible to  
stage with such "success", and without making it obvious to virtually  
everyone. I think what's more likely is that the government knew that  
some terrorist act involving aircraft was being planned and they let  
it happen so as to make use of it politically, or they watched the  
progress of the planning to see where it would lead, and perhaps  
capture other plotters, and they waited too long, which is apparently  
what happened in the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center  
in 1993. There is an impressive body of evidence indicating that  
various government officials had knowledge of the broad outline of  
the 2001 planned deed, if not every detail.
       I also think that some of the questions raised by 9-11  
researchers are not very impressive. Like no one has given me a good  
explanation as to why the government would want to destroy building  
7. And the fact that Bush quietly spent time in a class with young  
students after hearing about the first plane -- If it was being  
staged he would have reacted in a different way. Or that several of  
the hijackers turned up "alive" in the Middle East. Why couldn't  
their identity have been stolen? And more things like that.
       There are numerous questions about the official version --  
which leaves the government completely innocent, albeit incompetent  
-- that make it very difficult to take the story at face value, but  
one doesn't therefore have to jump to the other extreme of a  
government operation.


And now for something completely different

Question for discussion, class. Why does a lottery whose jackpot  
reaches $200 million or more attract so many more players than one  
where the jackpot is only about $20 million? It's as if winning only  
$20 million wouldn't change one's life radically and dramatically.  
What dream do these people have that could be realized by $200  
million but which would be unfulfilled with only $20 million?


NOTES
{1} Washington Post, February 23, 2006, p.19
{2} http://cpj.org/
{3} To: info at cpj.org
{4} Washington Post, March 21, 2006, p.E1


             William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
            <www.killinghope.org >
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
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