[Peace-discuss] Chris Floyd on our atrocities

[C. G. Estabrook]

["Satire is what closes on Saturday night." --George S. Kaufman]

	The Muted Plain: Anticipating the Wake of the Wikileaks Revelation
	Written by Chris Floyd
	Tuesday, 06 April 2010 23:53

So, thanks to Wikileaks.org, Americans now know that their soldiers often gun 
down civilians in occupied countries during reckless missions based on little or 
no intelligence (in every sense of the word). This will no doubt come as a great 
shock -- yea, a veritable political earthquake -- in a land where the top 
commander in what is now its chief war just recently confessed that his troops 
were slaughtering an "amazing" number of civilians who posed no threat whatsoever.

We all recall the vast hue and cry that greeted this astounding admission by 
Afghan top gun General Stanley McChrystal, who was hand-picked by the Nobel 
Peace Laureate himself to lead America's noble crusade to stamp out Muslim 
extremism in Central Asia by killing innocent Muslims all over Central Asia. No 
less than the New York Times its own self reported prominently on McChrystal's 
chilling candor. To be exact, the "Good War" general told his troops, by 
videoconference:

     “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has 
ever proven to be a threat."

Remember how the Democrats in control of Congress rushed to set up special 
committees to investigate the murderous facts behind this admission of atrocity? 
Remember how the media went 24/7 on wall-to-wall coverage of the 
Potomac-churning aftermath of McChrystal's unprecedented mea culpa? Remember how 
the president himself held a special news conference to offer "America's sincere 
and shamed apology to the innocent victims we have killed so tragically in such 
amazing numbers"?

And hey, remember how just this weekend, the purple mountain majesties and 
fruited plains rang with howls of righteous rage when it was confirmed that 
American Special Forces troops really did kill three innocent women (along with 
two officials of the American-installed Afghan government) during a savage night 
raid on a compound of sleeping civilians in February? Remember how all the 
weekend TV talk shows were filled with America's great and good lining up to 
denounce the weeks and weeks of outright lies that the Pentagon had told about 
the killings? Remember how the Democrats in Congress, once again, launched a 
special committee of investigation into the charges by American-backed Afghan 
officials that the U.S. Special Forces troops had actually dug their bullets out 
of the bodies of the slaughtered women in order to cover their tracks after the 
massacre?

While I am certainly no prophet, I think I am safe in saying we will see a 
similar reaction to the gut-wrenching footage unearthed by Wikileaks. The 
American people are simply too good, too just to let stand such a foul 
besmirching of their national honor. After all, didn't they rise up as one after 
the Abu Ghraib atrocities were revealed in 2004, and boldly oust the architects 
of these crimes in the ensuing presidential election? Didn't they take to the 
streets in their millions when first Bush and then Obama claimed the right to 
have any citizen put to death without charges or trial simply by declaring the 
victim a "suspected terrorist"? Didn't a great groundswell of public ire force 
Congress to open impeachment proceedings against George Bush and Dick Cheney for 
their Soviet-style gulag of concentration camps and systematic tortures -- and 
threaten similar justice for Barack Obama's continuation and cover-up of this 
system? Didn't the American people demand a national day of mourning and 
atonement when they realized that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis had 
been murdered in a war based on false pretenses and cynical manipulation?

So let us have faith in the American people. They have proven time and again in 
this last decade that they will not countenance crimes and atrocities being 
committed in their names. They will not abide leaders who unleash a war machine 
of blood money and blind fury against innocent people. When push comes to shove, 
when the truth is revealed to them, they will always -- always -- do the right 
thing.

http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1952-the-muted-plain-anticipating-the-wake-of-the-wikileaks-revelation.html

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