[Peace-discuss] Chris Floyd on our atrocities

[Laurie Solomon]

It may be what closes Saturday Night; but people have to be smart enough to 
know it is satire and get it, which may be too much to ask of the Amerikan 
public..  After all it is a community of immediate gratification, immediate 
self-interest, and  short ahistorical  memories wherein events are soon 
forgotten and then justified and forgiven as being old news.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 9:07 PM
To: "peace discuss" <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Chris Floyd on our atrocities

> ["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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