Imperial
Rulers And
The Deadly Games They Play:
Lamentations for the Sacrificial Pawns
By Jason Miller
31 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
As
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz recently boasted of “changing
the reality on the northern border,” the citizens of Israel became
the subjects of a serious reality change.
Appearing in a video-taped
monologue aired on Al-Jazeera, Al Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman
al-Zawahiri, called for a Muslim holy war against Israel and its Neocon
enablers cowering behind their ramparts on Turtle Island:
"The shells and rockets
ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli
(weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition.
Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price."
Make-shift morgues are amassing
corpses of the civilian victims of the American Empire, its combative
proxy in the Middle East, and Great Britain. Aside from these direct
victims (the anonymous Islamic denizens of the Middle East slaughtered
by the United States and British militaries and the IDF), there is another
group of human beings who have died as a result of the predatory and
rapacious actions of the “leaders of the free world”. While
the unjust, grossly disproportionate, and murderous acts committed by
the West in Iraq, Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon have resulted in
unspeakable horrors which sometimes draw an overwhelming pathos from
people with a social conscience, the innocent Israeli, British, Spanish,
American and other Western non-combatant victims of this miserable conflict
are equally worthy of our grief.
Annihilated, maimed, or psychologically
devastated because of the actions of their own governments, Western
casualties of the “War on Terror” suffer insult upon death
or injury as their mainstream media exploit their misfortune to motivate
their fellow citizens to demand vengeance. Those whose blood lubricates
the ruthless machinery of capitalist imperialism are indeed deserving
of our deep sympathy.
Why Would They Want
to Hurt Us?
Self-defense is the only
truly moral justification for taking the life of another human being.
If one accepts this assertion, then neither the United States/Israeli/British
alliance nor the enemies they have created in the Middle East are morally
justified in the taking of human lives in the “clash of civilizations”
which is escalating to frightening proportions.
Yet considering the staggering
imbalance of military and economic power, the imperialistic behaviors
of the United States and its proxies, and the fact that most of the
blood has been shed in the backyard of Arabs and Persians because of
their large reserves of oil, it is small wonder that we are mourning
the loss of Western civilians.
Thanks to foreign policy
blunders, gross miscalculations, monumental arrogance, and avarice that
stretches the human imagination to its limits, Israel and the United
States have drawn the ire of much of the Arab, Persian, and Muslim world.
Both nations have now exposed their people to the wrath and enmity of
Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Iraqi Resistance, the Taliban, and the
government of Iran.
The fates of Israel and the
United States are inextricably linked by their incestuous relationship.
American and Israeli ruling elites have joined forces to gravely jeopardize
the security and welfare of virtually all of humanity by further destabilizing
a world already teetering on the brink of chaos.
Boundless Capacity
to Inflict Cruelty
Evidence has now come to
light indicating that Israel’s latest invasion of Lebanon was
planned over a year ago. Some have concluded that the incursion was
intended to ignite a war with Iran. Not content with limiting their
transgressions to Apartheid and ethnic cleansing, invading and occupying
Iraq and Afghanistan, holding suspected terrorists indefinitely without
trial (even the Nazis received the “luxury” of a trial),
committing torture and abuse against suspected terrorists, and massacring
civilians, the amoral regimes in Tel Aviv and DC determined they needed
to invade Gaza and Lebanon to push Iran to the brink of war.
Crushing much of the civilian
infrastructure of the fragile democratic state of Lebanon and thrusting
the Palestinians further into the depths of poverty and misery are two
more ingredients in the Neocon/Zionist recipe for creating an enemy
from scratch. An enemy they need to justify their preemptive wars.
Exploring the Roots
of “Terrorism”
Western governments and their
compliant corporate media entities would have us believe that we are
warring against barbaric savages whose goal is to rape, pillage, plunder,
and enslave. However, the reality is that our militaries are committing
blatant war crimes in Iraq, Gaza and Palestine against the propagandistically
dehumanized Muslim, Persian and Arab populations to advance the cause
of United States global hegemony (as outlined in the PNAC), to crush
opposition to Palestinian genocide, and to advance US and Israeli geopolitical
interests in the oil-rich Middle East.
Like the millions of Black
males in the United States who spend their lives shuttling between the
hopelessness of inner-city ghettos and the barbaric prison industrial
complex, suicide bombers, kidnappers, car bombers, and guerilla fighters
who comprise our “foes” in the “War on Terror”
are the creations of the ruthless political, social, and economic machinations
of an oppressive imperialist power-house that keeps them impoverished,
disempowered, and uneducated.
As evidenced by numerous
sociological studies and analyses in America’s predominately Black
and impoverished ghettos and decaying urban cores, heavy concentrations
of people experiencing poverty, inadequate education, isolation, racism,
and unemployment are crucibles for violence and self-destructive behaviors.
While many inner city Black males turn to drug, gang, and prison cultures
to find meaning and connection, many young, impoverished and angry males
in the Middle East naturally embrace the empowerment and affirmation
offered by Islamic Fundamentalism.
Desperate, abused human beings
often resort to desperate behaviors. Here in the United States, our
profoundly inhumane leaders have responded to their “negro problem”
in an almost exclusively punitive fashion. Rather than directing significant
resources toward social programs to address the causes of criminal behavior,
they perpetuate a vicious cycle of violence through legislation which
ensures that ghettos endure and that the United States continues to
maintain the largest prison population on the planet, half of which
is comprised of Blacks, who comprise a mere 13% of our population.
Acting in a similar punitive
fashion in the Middle East, the United States and its counterpart in
Israel have brutalized, exploited, and extinguished the life force of
many amongst the indigenous population. Conveniently, the sickeningly
faithful corporate media and textbook industry provide revisionist versions
of the truth in which they reverse cause and effect and distort the
chronology of events. Believers of their nonsense are convinced that
it is the “mongrel hordes” of “ragheads” who
are the evil aggressors against the “morally upright Christian
and Jewish capitalists” who are simply trying to “mind their
own business and earn an honest dollar”.
We’re Not Gonna’
Take It….
Unbelievable as it may sound,
there are actually human beings not content to passively succumb to
the jackboot of the American Empire crushing their windpipes. These
people refuse to wear manacles, to submit to cultural genocide, to stand
idly by while their resources are plundered, to acquiesce to ethnic
cleansing, or to live in abject poverty so that the ruling elite in
the West can skim off the cream for themselves, sustain their indispensable
working class with the milk, and allow the world’s impoverished
the “benefit” of their urine “trickling down”
upon them.
Ravaged by the Cancers
of Capitalism and Neoliberalism
Dysfunctional and malevolent
as it is, the murder of innocent civilians by individuals or autonomous
groups to gain political or economic advantage is simply another glaring
symptom of the devastating cancers plaguing humanity and the Earth.
Acts which the Western media and governments label as terrorism are
desperate reactions to malignant political, economic, and social systems
which exploit and abuse people and our planet.
The prevailing paradigms
of capitalism and neoliberalism (both religiously maintained by the
heavily militarized United States and its close allies) ensure that
major corporate share-holders, high level politicians, corporate executives,
members of plutocratic dynasties, oligarchs, and their attendant sycophants
arise each morning sheltered by an insanely powerful military and satiated
by a massive cornucopia overflowing with abundance. Leading privileged
lives, they groom their children for succession by educating them at
private institutions, limit their social contact to others of their
exalted standing, and insulate themselves from the world in their trophy
homes within gated communities or behind Apartheid Walls.
The guardians of capitalism
further endear themselves to those they have impoverished to create
their own prosperity by slaughtering millions of innocent civilians
in imperial conquests disguised as noble endeavors to “spread
freedom and democracy”. In their cowardice, most hide behind expansive
arsenals of technologically advanced weaponry, armies of the poor and
working class, and rules of war which they make and apply to suit their
needs.
From within their moated
castles, these de facto rulers of the world order their minions to mow
down the enemies they have manufactured like a Lawn Boy felling blades
of grass in July. But since their fighters wear uniforms, represent
“moral nations”, make “precision strikes”, and
express regret at causing “collateral damage”, their acts
do not constitute “terrorism” or war crimes.
Adding to Middle Eastern
antipathy toward the West is the United States government’s unwavering
support for dictatorships, oligarchies and monarchies friendly to Western
corporate interests, often to the extreme detriment of their own people.
Examples include the Shah, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarek, and the House
of Saud. Time and again the self-proclaimed standard bearer of human
rights has turned a blind eye to flagrant abuses perpetrated by their
proxies in the Arab and Persian world.
How Dare You Get
Rough With Your Rapist!
In the delusion with which
the ubiquitous Western corporate media floods our psyches, beheading
an American civilian contractor is an act of terrorism while dropping
a bomb and obliterating an apartment building occupied by twenty Iraqi
women and children is a morally justifiable act of war. When they kill
one of “us”, it is an act of terror. When we kill twenty
of “them”, it is an unfortunate consequence of the war we
“must wage” to “protect our freedoms”.
In the warped logic of Western
imperialists, the burden of achieving peace in the region lies squarely
on the shoulders of the oppressed and invaded. Justice does not enter
into the equation. Being the “lesser beings” that they are,
Arabs and Persians are expected to neuter themselves and unconditionally
surrender to their Occidental Overlords.
According to pathologically
twisted policy makers and pundits like Daniel Pipes, Charles Krauthammer,
and Dick Cheney, Israel is entitled to help itself to as much Palestinian
land and water as it wishes and to inflict as much collective punishment
on the Palestinians as tickles its fancy. Their rhetoric and policies
also support the utterly irrational belief that the United States has
the unconditional right to brutally impose its will upon nations throughout
the Middle East to achieve its goals of protecting Israel and sustaining
the flow of precious oil.
In the Neocons’ and
Zionists’ perverse view of humanity, the “cockroaches”
inhabiting the Middle East have no right to resist or defend themselves.
Those who do so are branded terrorists and the nation (allegedly) hosting
them becomes a target of preemptive war. Even if that war jeopardizes
the lives of citizens of Western nations too.
We Don’t Care
Who Gets Hurt….As Long as it isn’t us….
Our depraved leaders do not
care who lives or dies as long as they advance their twisted agenda.
Need evidence? Look no further than Bush’s decree that a cessation
of the hostilities in Lebanon is contingent on the unilateral disarmament
of Hezbollah.
Also consider that despite
its technological superiority and military might, the United States
has been unable to quell the Resistance since it invaded Iraq in 2003.
Now Israel has opened a second front in the War on Islamic People in
the Middle East Who Have the Oil We Want and Oppose Palestinian Ethnic
Cleansing (Western propagandists call it the War on Terror). Seemingly,
our ruling elite learned little from Vietnam (or our own Revolutionary
War for that matter). Brute military force is no match for a large indigenous
population determined to expel imperial invaders. And our ruling elites
have now challenged multiple adversaries in the Middle East who fit
that description.
Applaud their Resistance
and Loathe their Tactics
While the ruling elite of
the Western capitalist war machine are proving to be slow learners,
their oppressed have been quick studies. Realizing they faced overwhelming
odds and had limited resources, the Middle Eastern Resistance began
employing the advantages at their disposal, including superior manpower,
an inhospitable climate, rugged terrain, a willingness by many of their
fighters to commit suicide for their cause, and stealth. Given the odds
against them, they have done well in fending off their usurpers.
Ideally, the Middle Eastern
Resistance would have chosen the non-violent paths of Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, or the increasingly powerful Socialist movements in Latin
America to overcome their imperial oppressors. Unfortunately for civilians
in Western imperialist nations, their governments’ myriad crimes
and provocations have driven many young Middle Eastern men into the
arms of Islamic extremists and left the people of the Middle East with
little choice but to resort to violence in the form of “terrorism”.
The hostile actions and murder
committed by the various Middle Eastern opposition groups and Islamic
Fundamentalists are deplorable and abhorrent. However, the ultimate
responsibility for the deaths of non-combatant citizens of Western nations
lies on the doorsteps of ruling elites like Bush, Blair, and Olmert.
Perpetual War is
not Inevitable in the Middle East
If humanity is to experience
a semblance of peace in the Middle East, the United States needs to
withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, close its permanent military
bases in the region, pay reparations to Iraq and Afghanistan (with no
strings attached), and end its support of autocratic states like Egypt.
Israel needs to pay war reparations
to Lebanon and the Palestinians and allow the creation of a fully sovereign
Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.
The United States needs to
end Israel’s parasitism by eliminating the $3 billion per year
in military and foreign aid payments to this relatively wealthy and
extremely well-armed nation, eliminate Israel’s undue influence
on American foreign policy, and severely curtail its own obscene devotion
of resources to military pursuits.
Middle Eastern nations need
to follow the lead of Latin American nations like Venezuela and implement
political and social structures that benefit a broad spectrum of the
population rather than a corrupt few in the oligarchy at the top. Secular
governments need to replace those guided by radical Islamic principles.
A significant reduction or end to Western intervention would facilitate
this evolution by pulling the rug out from under the oligarchs and diminishing
the opportunity for reactionary forces to seize power.
Western and Middle Eastern parties to the conflict need to surrender
their war criminals to the International Criminal Court for prosecution
and life imprisonment.
Estamos en la Lucha
As Martin Luther King once
said:
Our only hope today lies
in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes
hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
While justice remains as
scarce as water in the arid lands of the Middle East, rivers of blood
and tears will continue to fill the streets. Western hubris, avarice,
and belligerence will continue to beget mayhem, suffering, and the fetid
stench of death.
The militant Neocon and Zionist
leaders in the United States and Israel are deaf to lamentations and
blind to scenes of carnage. As long as they remain in power and have
pawns to sacrifice, the “War on Terror” will continue to
escalate.
May the Higher Power rest
the souls of the innocent men, women and children who have perished
as a result of the Middle Eastern conflict, regardless of their religion,
ethnicity, or nation of origin.
And may the rest of us find
the strength and the means to expel the numerous despicable human beings
who have hijacked our political, economic, and social institutions.
Jason Miller is
a 39 year old sociopolitical essayist with a degree in liberal arts
and an extensive self-education (derived from an insatiable appetite
for reading). He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter
of Oxfam International and Human Rights Watch. He welcomes responses
at [email protected]
or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.