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by William Blum
In the past year Iran has issued several warnings to the United States about the consequences of an American or Israeli attack. One statement, issued in November by a high Iranian military official, declared: "If America attacks Iran, its 200,000 troops and 33 bases in the region will be extremely vulnerable, and both American politicians and military commanders are aware of it."[1]
Iran apparently believes that American leaders would be so deeply distressed by the prospect of their young men and women being endangered and possibly killed that they would forswear any reckless attacks on Iran. As if American leaders have been deeply stabbed by pain about throwing youthful American bodies into the bottomless snakepit called Iraq, or were restrained by fear of retaliation or by moral qualms while feeding 58,000 young lives to the Vietnam beast. As if American leaders, like all world leaders, have ever had such concerns.
Let's have a short look at some modern American history, which may be instructive in this regard. A report of the US Congress in 1994 informed us that:
Approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and lewisite [blister gas]. Most of these subjects were not informed of the nature of the experiments and never received medical followup after their participation in the research. Additionally, some of these human subjects were threatened with imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth if they discussed these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents, and family doctors. For decades, the Pentagon denied that the research had taken place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill after the secret testing.[2]
In the decades between the 1940s and 1990s, we find a remarkable variety of government programs, either formally, or in effect, using soldiers as guinea pigs — marched to nuclear explosion sites, with pilots sent through the mushroom clouds; subjected to chemical and biological weapons experiments; radiation experiments; behavior modification experiments that washed their brains with LSD; widespread exposure to the highly toxic dioxin of Agent Orange in Korea and Vietnam ... the list goes on ... literally millions of experimental subjects, seldom given a choice or adequate information, often with disastrous effects to their physical and/or mental health, rarely with proper medical care or even monitoring.[3]
In the 1990s, many thousands of American soldiers came home from the
Gulf War with unusual, debilitating ailments. Exposure to harmful
chemical or biological agents was suspected, but the Pentagon denied
that this had occurred. Years went by while the veterans suffered
terribly: neurological problems, chronic fatigue, skin problems,
scarred lungs, memory loss, muscle and joint pain, severe headaches,
personality changes, passing out, and much more. Eventually, the
Pentagon, inch by inch, was forced to move away from its denials and
admit that, yes, chemical weapon depots had been bombed; then, yes,
there probably were releases of deadly poisons; then, yes, American
soldiers were indeed in the vicinity of these poisonous releases, 400
soldiers; then, it might have been 5,000; then, "a very large number",
probably more than 15,000; then, finally, a precise number — 20,867;
then, "The Pentagon announced that a long-awaited computer model
estimates that nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers could have been exposed to
trace amounts of sarin gas."[4]
If the Pentagon had been much more forthcoming from the outset about
what it knew all along about these various substances and weapons, the
soldiers might have had a proper diagnosis early on and received
appropriate care sooner. The cost in terms of human suffering has been
incalculable.
Soldiers have also been forced to take vaccines against anthrax and
nerve gas not approved by the FDA as safe and effective; and punished,
sometimes treated like criminals, if they refused. (During World War
II, soldiers were forced to take a yellow fever vaccine, with the
result that some 330,000 of them were infected with the hepatitis B
virus.[5])
And through all the recent wars, countless American soldiers have been
put in close proximity to the radioactive dust of exploded depleted
uranium-tipped shells and missiles on the battlefield; depleted uranium
has been associated with a long list of rare and terrible illnesses and
birth defects. It poisons the air, the soil, the water, the lungs, the
blood, and the genes. (The widespread dissemination of depleted uranium
by American warfare — from Serbia to Afghanistan to Iraq — should be
an international scandal and crisis, like AIDS, and would be in a world
not so intimidated by the United States.)
The catalogue of Pentagon abuses of American soldiers goes on ...
Troops serving in Iraq or their families have reported purchasing with
their own funds bullet-proof vests, better armor for their vehicles,
medical supplies, and global positioning devices, all for their own
safety, which were not provided to them by the army ... Continuous
complaints by servicewomen of sexual assault and rape at the hands of
their male counterparts are routinely played down or ignored by the
military brass ... Numerous injured and disabled vets from all wars
have to engage in an ongoing struggle to get the medical care they were
promised ... One should read "Army Acts to Curb Abuses of Injured
Recruits" (New York Times, May 12, 2006) for accounts of the callous,
bordering on sadistic, treatment of soldiers in bases in the United
States ... Repeated tours of duty, which fracture family life and
increase the chance not only of death or injury but of post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).[6]
National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", on December 4 and
other days, ran a series on· Army mistreatment of soldiers home from
Iraq and suffering serious PTSD. At Colorado's Ft. Carson these
afflicted soldiers are receiving a variety of abuse and punishment much
more than the help they need, as officers harass and punish them for
being emotionally "weak."
Keep the above in mind the next time you hear a president or a general
speaking on Memorial Day about "honor" and "duty" and about how much we
"owe to the brave young men and women who have made the ultimate
sacrifice in the cause of freedom and democracy."
And read "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo for the ultimate abuse of soldiers by leaders of nations.
The conscience of our leaders
After he ordered the bombing of Panama in December 1989, which killed
anywhere from 500 to a few thousand totally innocent people, guilty of
no harm to any American, the first President George Bush declared that
his "heart goes out to the families of those who have died in
Panama".[7]
When asked by a reporter: "Was it really worth it to send people to
their death for this? To get Noriega?", Bush replied: "Every human life
is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it."[8]
Speaking in November 1990 of his imminent invasion of Iraq, Bush, Sr.
said: "People say to me: 'How many lives? How many lives can you
expend?' Each one is precious."[9]
While his killing of thousands of Iraqis was proceeding merrily along
in 2003, the second President George Bush was moved to say: "We believe
in the value and dignity of every human life."[10]
In December 2006, the White House spokesman for Bush, Jr., commenting
about American deaths reaching 3,000 in Iraq, said President Bush
"believes that every life is precious and grieves for each one that is
lost."[11]
Both father and son are on record expressing their deep concern for God
and prayer both before and during their mass slaughters. "I trust God
speaks through me," said Bush the younger in 2004. "Without that, I
couldn't do my job."[12]
After his devastation of Iraq and its people, Bush the elder said: "I
think that, like a lot of others who had positions of responsibility in
sending someone else's kids to war, we realize that in prayer what
mattered is how it might have seemed to God."[13]
God, one surmises, might have asked George Bush, father and son, about
the kids of Iraq. And the adults. And, in a testy, rather ungodlike
manner, might have snapped: "So stop wasting all the precious lives
already!"
In the now-famous exchange on TV in 1996 between Madeleine Albright and
reporter Lesley Stahl, the latter was speaking of US sanctions against
Iraq, and asked the then-US ambassador to the UN, and Secretary of
State-to-be: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I
mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and you know,
is the price worth it?" Replied Albright: "I think this is a very hard
choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."[14]
Ten years later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, continuing the
fine tradition of female Secretaries of State and the equally noble
heritage of the Bush family, declared that the current horror in Iraq
is "worth the investment" in American lives and dollars.[15]
And do not forget that pulling out of Iraq now would dishonor the troops who haven't died yet.
The American media as the Berlin Wall
In December 1975, while East Timor, which lies at the eastern end of
the Indonesian archipelago, was undergoing a process of decolonization
from Portugal, a struggle for power took place. A movement of the left,
Fretilin, prevailed and then declared East Timor's independence from
Portugal. Nine days later, Indonesia invaded East Timor. The invasion
was launched the day after US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia after giving President Suharto
permission to use American arms, which, under US law, could not be used
for aggression. But Indonesia was Washington's most valuable ally in
Southeast Asia and, in any event, the United States was not inclined to
look kindly on any government of the left.
Indonesia soon achieved complete control over East Timor, with the help
of the American arms and other military aid, as well as diplomatic
support at the UN. Amnesty International estimated that by 1989,
Indonesian troops had killed 200,000 people out of a population of
between 600,000 and 700,000, a death rate which is probably one of the
highest in the entire history of wars.[16]
Is it not remarkable that in the numerous articles in the American
daily press following President Ford's death last month, there was not
a single mention of his role in the East Timor massacre? A search of
the extensive Lexis-Nexis and other media databases finds mention of
this only in a few letters to the editor from readers; not a word even
in the reports of any of the news agencies, like the Associated Press,
which generally shy away from controversy less than the newspapers they
serve; nor a single mention in the mainstream broadcast news programs.
Imagine if following the recent death of Augusto Pinochet the media
made no mention of his overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, or
the mass murder and torture which followed. Ironically, the recent
articles about Ford also failed to mention his remark a year after
Pinochet's coup. President Ford declared that what the United States
had done in Chile was "in the best interest of the people in Chile and
certainly in our own best interest."[17]
During the Cold War, the American government and media never missed an
opportunity to point out the news events embarrassing to the Soviet
Union which became non-events in the communist media.
Man shall never fly
The Cold War is still with us. Because the ideological conflict that
was the basis for it has not gone away. Because it can't go away. As
long as capitalism exists, as long as it puts profit before people, as
it must, as long as it puts profit before the environment, as it must,
those on the receiving end of its sharp pointed stick must look for a
better way.
Thus it is that when Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced a few
days ago that he plans to nationalize telephone and electric utility
companies to accelerate his "socialist revolution", the spokesperson
for Capitalism Central, White House press secretary Tony Snow, was
quick to the attack: "Nationalization has a long and inglorious history
of failure around the world," Snow declared. "We support the Venezuelan
people and think this is an unhappy day for them."[18]
Snow presumably buys into the belief that capitalism defeated socialism
in the Cold War. A victory for a superior idea. The boys of Capital
chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has
been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will
notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the past
century has either been corrupted, subverted, perverted, or
destabilized ... or crushed, overthrown, bombed, or invaded ... or
otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not
one socialist government or movement — from the Russian Revolution to
Cuba, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the FMLN in Salvador, from
Communist China to Grenada, Chile and Vietnam — not one was permitted
to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure
enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and
freely and fully relax control at home. Even many plain old social
democracies — such as in Guatemala, Iran, British Guiana, Serbia and
Haiti, which were not in love with capitalism and were looking for
another path — even these too were made to bite the dust by Uncle Sam.
It's as if the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines
all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight.
And then the good and god-fearing folk of America looked upon this,
took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely,
and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly.
Tony Snow would have us believe that the government is no match for the
private sector in efficiently getting large and important things done.
But is that really true? Let's clear our minds for a moment, push our
upbringing to one side, and remember that the American government has
landed men on the moon, created great dams, marvelous national parks,
an interstate highway system, the peace corps, built up an incredible
military machine (ignoring for the moment what it's used for), student
loans, social security, Medicare, insurance for bank deposits,
protection of pension funds against corporate misuse, the Environmental
Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, the Smithsonian,
the G.I. Bill, and much, much more. In short, the government has been
quite good at doing what it wanted to do, or what labor and other
movements have made it do, like establishing worker health and safety
standards and requiring food manufacturers to list detailed information
about ingredients.
When George W. took office one of his chief goals was to examine
whether jobs done by federal employees could be performed more
efficiently by private contractors. Bush called it his top management
priority. By the end of 2005, 50,000 government jobs had been studied.
And federal workers had won the job competitions more than 80 percent
of the time.[19]
We have to remind the American people of what they've instinctively
learned but tend to forget when faced with statements like that of Tony
Snow — that they don't want more government, or less government; they don't want big government, or small government; they want government on their side.
And by the way, Tony, the great majority of the population in the last
years of the Soviet Union had a much better quality of life, including
a longer life, under their "failed nationalized" economy, than they
have had under unbridled capitalism.
None of the above, of course, will deter The World's Only Superpower from continuing its jihad to impose capitalist fundamentalism upon the world.
Unwelcome guests at the table of the respectable folk
Sen. Joseph Biden, Democrat from Delaware, the new chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has announced four weeks of
hearings focused on every aspect of US policy in Iraq. He really wants
to get to the bottom of things, find out how and why things went so
wrong, who are the ones responsible, hold them accountable, and what
can be done now. The committee will hear the testimony of top
political, economic and intelligence experts, foreign diplomats, and
former and current senior US officials, like Condoleezza Rice, Brent
Scowcroft, Samuel Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger,
Madeleine Albright and George Shultz.[20] All the usual suspects.
But why not call upon some unusual
suspects? Why do congressional committees and committees appointed by
the White House typically not call experts who dissent from the
official explanations? Why not hear from people who had the wisdom to
protest the invasion of Iraq and condemn it in writing before it even
began? People who called the war illegal and immoral, said we should
never start it, and predicted much of the horrible outcome. Surely they
may have some insights and analyses that will not be heard from the
mouths of the usual suspects.
Likewise, why didn't the September 11 Committee, or any of the
congressional committees dealing with the terrorist attack, call upon
any of the numerous 9-11 experts who have done extensive research and
who question various aspects of the official story?
Traditionally, of course, such committees have been formed to put a
damper on dissident questioning of official stories, to ridicule them
as "conspiracy theorists", not to give the dissidents a larger
audience.
Speaking engagements January 25 — Flagstaff, AZ
March 9 — Venice, CA
March 10 — Irvine, CA
March 17 or 18 — Columbus, OH
See www.killinghope.org for the details
NOTES
[1] Fars News Agency, November 21, 2006
[2] Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, "Is Military Research
Hazardous to Veterans' Health? Lessons Spanning Half a Century",
December 8, 1994, p.5
[3] Ibid., passim
[4] Washington Post, October 2 and 23, 1996 and July 31, 1997 for the estimated numbers of affected soldiers.
[5] "Journal of the American Medical Association", September 1, 1999, p.822
[6] Washington Post, December 20, 2006, p.19
[7] New York Times, December 22, 1989, p.17
[8] New York Times, December 22, 1989, p.16
[9] Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1990, p.1
[10] Washington Post, May 28, 2003
[11] Washington Post, January 1, 2007, p.1
[12] Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, statement attributed to
President Bush in the Lancaster (Pa.) New Era newspaper from a private
meeting with Amish families on July 9. The White House later said Bush
said no such thing. Yes, we know how the Amish lie.
[13] Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1991, p.1
[14] CBS "60 Minutes", May 12, 1996
[15] Associated Press, December 22, 2006
[16] National Security Archive — www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ — Search <Ford Timor>; William Blum, Rogue State, p.188-9
[17] New York Times, September 17, 1974, p.22
[18] Washington Post, January 10, 2007, p.7
[19] Washington Post, March 23, 2006, p.21
[20] Washington Post, January 5, 2007
William Blum's Speaking
engagements 2007
January 25 -- Flagstaff, AZ
March 9 -- Venice,
CA
March 10 -- Irvine, CA
March 17 or 18 -- Columbus, OH
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