Have a Nice World War, Folks
Thursday 25 March 2010
by: John Pilger, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army, Reto Stöckli / NASA)
Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and, now, the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, American missiles have been placed in four Persian Gulf states, and "bunker-buster" bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
In Gaza, the sick and abandoned population, mostly children, is being entombed behind underground American-supplied walls in order to reinforce a criminal siege. In Latin America, the Obama administration has secured seven bases in Colombia, from which to wage a war of attrition against the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. Meanwhile, the Secretary of "Defense" Robert Gates complains that "the general [European] public and the political class" are so opposed to war they are an "impediment" to peace. Remember this is the month of the March hare.
According to an American general, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is not so much a real war as a "war of perception." Thus, the recent "liberation of the city of Marja" from the Taliban's "command and control structure" was pure Hollywood. Marja is not a city; there was no Taliban command and control. The heroic liberators killed the usual civilians, poorest of the poor. Otherwise, it was fake. A war of perception is meant to provide fake news for the folks back home, to make a failed colonial adventure seem worthwhile and patriotic, as if "The Hurt Locker" were real, and parades of flag-wrapped coffins through the Wiltshire town of Wooten Basset were not a cynical propaganda exercise.
"War is fun," the helmets in Vietnam used to say with bleakest irony, meaning that if a war is revealed as having no purpose other than to justify voracious power in the cause of lucrative fanaticisms, such as the weapons industry, the danger of truth beckons. This danger can be illustrated by the liberal perception of Tony Blair in 1997 as one "who wants to create a world [where] ideology has surrendered entirely to values" (Hugo Young, the Guardian) compared with today's public reckoning of a liar and war criminal.
Western war states such as the US and Britain are not threatened by the Taliban or any other introverted tribesmen in faraway places, but by the antiwar instincts of their own citizens. Consider the draconian sentences handed down in London to scores of young people who protested Israel's assault on Gaza in January last year. Following demonstrations in which paramilitary police "kettled" (corralled) thousands, first-offenders have received two and a half years in prison for minor offences that would not normally carry custodial sentences. On both sides of the Atlantic, serious dissent exposing illegal war has become a serious crime.
Silence in other high places allows this moral travesty. Across the arts, literature, journalism and the law, liberal elites, having hurried away from the debris of Blair and, now, Obama, continue to fudge their indifference to the barbarism and aims of Western state crimes by promoting retrospectively the evils of their convenient demons, like Saddam Hussein. With Harold Pinter gone, try compiling a list of famous writers, artists and advocates whose principles are not consumed by the "market" or neutered by their celebrity. Who among them have spoken out about the holocaust in Iraq during almost 20 years of lethal blockade and assault? And all of it has been deliberate. On January 22, 1991, the US defense Intelligence Agency predicted in impressive detail how a blockade would systematically destroy Iraq's clean water system and lead to "increased incidences, if not epidemics of disease." So, the US set about eliminating clean water for the Iraqi population: one of the causes, noted UNICEF, of the deaths of half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five. But this extremism apparently has no name.
Norman Mailer once said he believed the United States, in its endless pursuit of war and domination, had entered a "pre-fascist era." Mailer seemed tentative, as if trying to warn about something even he could not quite define. "Fascism" is not right, for it invokes lazy historical precedents, conjuring yet again the iconography of German and Italian repression. On the other hand, American authoritarianism, as the cultural critic Henry Giroux pointed out recently, is "more nuance, less theatrical, more cunning, less concerned with repressive modes of control than with manipulative modes of consent."
This is Americanism, the only predatory ideology to deny that it is an ideology. The rise of tentacular corporations that are dictatorships in their own right and of a military that is now a state with the state, set behind the façade of the best democracy 35,000 Washington lobbyists can buy, and a popular culture programmed to divert and stultify, is without precedent. More nuanced perhaps, but the results are both unambiguous and familiar. Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, the senior United Nations officials in Iraq during the American and British-led blockade, are in no doubt they witnessed genocide. They saw no gas chambers. Insidious, undeclared, even presented wittily as enlightenment on the march, the Third World War and its genocide proceeded, human being by human being.
In the coming election campaign in Britain, the candidates will refer to this war only to laud "our boys." The candidates are almost identical political mummies shrouded in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. As Blair demonstrated a bit too eagerly, the British elite love America because America allows it to barrack and bomb the natives and call itself a "partner." We should interrupt their fun.
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Comments
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ah, 'tis Pilger; the
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 13:49 — Anonymous (not verified)ah, 'tis Pilger; the communism-apologist. Yawn
The right: ever ready to
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 15:08 — drosera (not verified)The right: ever ready to throw an epithet, never ready to erect an argument in favor of a point of view.
Mr. Pilger, I have to
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 15:21 — Michael Gass (not verified)Mr. Pilger,
I have to comment on one part of your article; the "report" of bunker-busters being shipped to Diego Garcia. That "report"is questionable at best.
First, the "report" states that a shipping company was paid almost $700,000 to ship "military items" to Diego Garcia, and, supposedly, included in the shipment were 192 bunker-buster bombs.
In order to believe this "report", we must then believe that the United States military would trust a 3rd party to ship military ordnance of a highly classified nature instead of using military aircraft.
Next, the "report" states that the manifest was posted on the internet. We aren't talking about generators here, but, classified ordnance going to a classified location.
I wouldn't believe that report.
In his time, Mailer could
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 15:22 — Vic Anderson (not verified)In his time, Mailer could have settled on "halfascist era"; now, it's BushCo-dependent FULL FRONTAL FASCISM of the FATHERLAND with Company Man Gates allowing his Buffalo Soldier-in-Chief to Barack and Obomber the natives for "security" at home and abroad. World War III? Poppyclock counting down and Poppyglock pistol raised for the starting shot!
Excuse me, we are already in
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 16:29 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Excuse me, we are already in World War IV. The neolib-neocons and one of O-bomb-a's primary advisers "Ziggy" Brzezinski, war-hawks and the principal globalist parties bringing in U.S. corporate-military-industrial-fascism and ushering in the "New World Order (NWO)", aka one-world government, believe that the Cold War was World War III. So the "War (OF!) Terrorism" is World War IV, not III. "King George the IVth", aka George "World War IV" Bush, was selected and put in place to kick off World War IV after the NeoCONS, BushCONS, "al-CIA-duh", much of the Pentagon, Mossad, and the ISI, etc., carried out 9/11, their "new Pearl Harbor" that they literally said in print in the "PNAC" [Project for a New American (Twenty-First) Century] document and plan, was what they needed in order to kick it off.
So, in the interests of getting our facts completely straight, and making them the most accurate, World War III ended when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended; thus, in-truth, we are presently in World War IV, not World War III. I hope we at least have gotten that straight.
Otherwise, excellent article, Mr. Pilger.
It's been obvious now for
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 16:49 — Anonymous (not verified)It's been obvious now for nearly a decade, the process underway since at least the 1950's: America is, today, the most evil nation on the face of the earth, "Americanism" the most overall deadly "ism" since the end of the Stalinist era. Nothing counts other than money and power, the complete denial of the individual in favor of an "authoritarianism," as noted recently by Henry Giroux, which is "more nuance, less theatrical, more cunning, less concerned with repressive modes of control than with manipulative modes of consent."
As one who has lived through the last years of WWII, Korea, McCarthy, the 60's assassinations, Vietnam, Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, and all of the intermittent treacheries including Cuba, Central and South America, Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else, I hang my head in shame for what they've done, that I could do nothing to stop them. The Death of a Nation is now nearly complete. How sad.
See section 2.3, or better
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 16:50 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)See section 2.3, or better yet the entire page, of the following webpage factoid on the foregoing matter, in which John Pilger, William Rivers Pitt and TruthOut are mentioned, and their comments, as well as the comments of others', surrounding the matter are spoken of and delineated:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_American_Century
[CORRECTION(S), ADDITION(S)
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 16:55 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)[CORRECTION(S), ADDITION(S) AND/OR CLARIFICATION(S)]: ...So, in the interests of getting our facts completely straight, and making them the most accurate, World War III ended when THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT COLLAPSED, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended; thus, in-truth, we are presently in World War IV, not World War III. I hope we at least have gotten that straight...
What a fascinating list of
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 19:00 — Jan Boudart (not verified)What a fascinating list of comments. Most of them attempted to refute Pilger's opinions and facts. People are reading Truthout with an eye to casting doubt among its supporters. This is really interesting. Hey Truthout! What are you doing right to have deserved this?
Genocide has been going on
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 19:15 — Anonymous (not verified)Genocide has been going on since the dawn of civilization and will continue by those who are powerful enough to go at it with impunity. The irrational world of fear and utter selfishness dictates to those in control of command and control to kill or be killed. The mere mortals, the average people just supply the manpower and the funds. The only hope is if some one form outer space comes in and shape the planet's "human" structures. I will not hold my breath, though. Nice exposition of the militaristic prospects!!
It is ironic that the
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 19:55 — Rodrian Roadeye (not verified)It is ironic that the Anglo-Saxon, about to cause his own genocide, seeks to take the world with it in one last big bang (whimper?). In centuries to come we will be remembered as "The Failed Camelot"by a race of raving mad genetic mutations..
Yes, the comments have
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 19:55 — Jackie (not verified)Yes, the comments have devolved to attacks rather than thoughtful responses to the issues raised. But hey, this is America, where you can graduate and not be able to read. Thinking and analyzing is unnecessary, just shout out anything that comes to mind. And wait until a few more people unload and they start fighting amongst themselves, totally ignoring the original article.
The Saudis and the Iranians
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 20:44 — brother_unknown (not verified)The Saudis and the Iranians must be chastised for their misuse of the people of Palestine. Has either country ever invested a dime in Palestine's infrastructure? built factories in Palestine so that its people might have employment and a decent standard of living?
No for Saudi Arabia and Iran, the people of Palestine are simply canon fodder.
Jan Boudart, I'm not
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 22:03 — Michael Gass (not verified)Jan Boudart,
I'm not refuting the entire article with my above comment. I am merely stating that the inclusion in the article of a "report" that originated in a Scotland paper may not be accurate.
That doesn't mean that bunker-busting bombs aren't already at Diego Garcia, and, more than likely, have been there far longer than the report states.
But, that "report" sounds more to me to be a psy-op by our government than an actual true report.
The "attack Iran" rhetoric has been out there for some time. Every time some piece of information is released, it is grabbed by the media.
I find the "report" that classified ordnance is being shipped to a classified location by a 3rd-party shipper, not by military aircraft, and, that the manifest was posted online, to be totally non-believable.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Let's flood the
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 22:47 — Anonymous (not verified)Let's flood the nation/homeland/U.S.A. with ... PEACE SIGNS ... right now. Let them blossom on flagpoles, bumper stickers, lawn signs, church/mosk/synagogue placards, businesses big and small.
With PEACE SIGNS, we will declare that the tea baggers and gun-toting crazies DO NOT REPRESENT US. For the world to see ...
And there's money to be made on it, if peace-loving people get behind it, and churches, community groups, ethically-minded businesses get behind it. Google, Microsoft, are you on board?
We are not the hate-frothing fools the money-making media/special interests/blogosphere try to paint us in !!!
You may be right, Michael;
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 23:06 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)You may be right, Michael; but the U.S. government is trusting and giving security clearances to corporations to a greater and greater extent; and the report could have been leaked by a chagrined government and/or military, or military contractor, employee and/or whistleblower who doesn't agree with and doesn't like what's going on, and realizes that all of this endless war is unconstitutional, and/or in violation of international law(s) against wars of aggression, and/or wars that the U.S. government and military initiate, when the U.S. is ONLY supposed to be about defensive war(s) ALONE, etc.
...That is, the U.S. is ONLY
Thu, 03/25/2010 - 23:26 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...That is, the U.S. is ONLY supposed to be about TRUE defensive war(s) ALONE...
Neo-neo-colonialism is not
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 00:05 — Bob Dodds (not verified)Neo-neo-colonialism is not foreign resource rape but rather US domestic taxpayer rape by foreign fakewar--quite real war for foreign civilians!
"Bourgeois capitalism" is misnomer and oxymoron. Oligarchy/capitalism is anti-people war. Middle class were made by trade and industrialization, not capital, so watch out middle class; you're(we're) next. Until then, though, sleepers, ye are racist mind-controlled cannibals only faintly enfranchised by those dirty deeds of fakewar on behalf of war sellers.
S. Wolf Britain, Diego
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 01:22 — Michael Gass (not verified)S. Wolf Britain,
Diego Garcia housed, or houses, B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers. Do you think they don't already have all the ordnance for them already on hand?
The government uses contractors, yes. But, consider who they are using and for what. KBR does laymen work. Wiring. Dining halls. Contractors ship generators and mundane items.
Contractors don't ship sensitive stuff, much less, would the government allow such shipments to be announced in full online. At least, not without a purpose in doing so.
Diego Garcia was a major launching point of bombers in 2003. Do you really think they are just NOW getting the ordnance that is claimed to being shipped?
Well, I wrote an, in my
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 07:50 — Nuance (not verified)Well, I wrote an, in my opinion, important comment, but it keeps getting blocked by a "spam filter". Maybe it should just be renamed "filter".
(Butchered into a hardly
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 07:53 — Nuance (not verified)(Butchered into a hardly recognizable short extract of my original comment, to avoid the "spam filter")
The tone and texture of this column is piercing, poignant and incisive, and it manages to summarize and correlate many currently unfolding events and world affairs.
Events that instill fear, trends that cause great concern for freedom-loving Westerners. We see our societies sliding evermore rapidly down the slippery slope.
But: why is it always necessary to apologize for, exculpate and excuse other regimes, ideologies, countries and cultures when making this point?
"Communist - apologist" You
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 08:21 — Seph (not verified)"Communist - apologist"
You do realise we dont live in the 80's anymore? Throwing around redundant terms like that do not carry any weight. How about you rebut the argument rather than trying to dismiss it in such an arrogant manner.
Someone wrote: "In order to
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 08:47 — Luis (not verified)Someone wrote: "In order to believe this "report", we must then believe that the United States military would trust a 3rd party to ship military ordnance of a highly classified nature instead of using military aircraft."
Ummmm, we've been outsourcing our "wars" to mercenaries for some time now; have had an administration lie about, oh, WMD; have administrative "experts" overrun the capabilities and expertise of seasoned military folk; and so forth and so on...
So why wouldn't the egotistical money-grubbing corporatist leaders have 3rd parties do this sort of thing again?
With an intricate balance of
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 10:30 — Jonathan Mark (not verified)With an intricate balance of nuance and perception, John Pilger reveals our participation, conscious or not, with the military industrial complex occupation-invasions-sanctions all for the "New World Order." It is pure hypocrisy and insanity, but greed sneaks up to us where we will vaguely recognize a coup d'etat and devaluation of science and society by deception and cover-up of what happened on September 11, 2001. Our liberal press has avoided this subject like one would the plague. However, should we really want to stop this war, which 9/11 "justifies", we would look into and respond appropriately on the evidence of Treason and use of explosive demolitions in 3 World Trade Center buildings. My site, FlybyNews.com has more information on this.
John Pilger has been consistent in his accuracy on the war of deception for a long time, but getting to the root of the deception will take even more gusto . . . since the truth of what really happened on September 11th could change everything.
Jonathon, Well said. I
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 11:28 — Democracydiva (not verified)Jonathon,
Well said. I couldn't agree with you more.
Pilger says:
"In Gaza, the sick and abandoned population, mostly children, is being entombed behind underground American-supplied walls in order to reinforce a criminal siege."
Not to in any way diminished the horrific suffering of the Palestinian people, but in the US, its citizens are being entombed behind the walls of the corporate, and in most cases the "independent" media who refuse to allow an honest discussion of the anomalies surrounding the events of 9/11/01, which also serves to reinforce a criminal siege.
While we feint and argue,
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 14:54 — mikel paul (not verified)While we feint and argue, deke and condemn or stand in complacent waiting or rail in anger for the good parts of our humanity, we miss entirely how utterly void we are of empathy.
I shall defer to no one what life is.
It is not about you. It is not about me. This is about us.
Pilger gets it. Many do. How alone we choose to live. We brought this on.
peace
You do need to back up just
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 15:31 — Mark (not verified)You do need to back up just a little from 9/11. The coup d'etat started Nov. 2000.
So right, Seph, Luis,
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 15:56 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)So right, Seph, Luis, Jonathan and "Democracydiva"!
Actually, Mark, it started
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 17:17 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Actually, Mark, it started before that, especially from the Reagan administration onward, and particularly from the Clinton administration onward. The Neolib-NeoCONS during the BushCON years were just putting some of the major finishing touches on it, and now the Ob(o)m(b)aCONS are putting the final coup d'gras to the entire coup d'etat. We better rise up en masse, People, or we're done for.
I am not an Americanist, but
Fri, 03/26/2010 - 18:29 — Rachael K. (not verified)I am not an Americanist, but I have not done enough.
Lord, have mercy.
Kool. This news serves me as
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 00:28 — The Great Procrast... (not verified)Kool. This news serves me as a splendid surprise- I begged the universe to give me an excuse to smoke cigarettes again.
smoke em if ya got'em.
Maybe it's not to smoke, maybe it to relieve us from our boredom. Lets face it, we lost interest in the quality of our flatscreens and now we require more electric shock to our nervous system- WW3. Yummy!
Who's at fault? jewden? the north gooks? The small group of afghans that were disappointed with the new Osama mix tape? No! You are you piece of intelligent design.
We crave chaos. We need challenge. We want a war. Visions of bend making and living among deers and dandelions get boring real fast.
There a spiritual part of us that want to be strapped to a antiaircraft gun. Stuffing chile sauce in our eyes to stay awake and pray it doesnt rain fire.
With love,
The Great Procrast...
Johnathon has it right.
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 05:30 — Mercury (not verified)Johnathon has it right. Until such times as people get their heads around the hoax that was 9/11 they will continue to believe that our media tells the whole truth and our insitutions are benign.
I caught the latest edition of loosechange recently - its a $1m film - on www.joiningthedocs.tv. Its only available outside of the US and its €4 to watch but it was worth it.
the pentagon wars are all
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 07:35 — Anonymous (not verified)the pentagon wars are all legitimated by the profit it generates,Time is money! war is more money, the longer it goes, its a simple equation.
by the way the government in USA is not a democracy,is the best plutocracy that money can buy
The first comment: "ah,
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 09:40 — hark (not verified)The first comment: "ah, 'tis Pilger; the communism-apologist. Yawn"
Ah, 'tis the right; the dismissal of all things they find uncomfortable with the tainted labels of communism or socialism or liberalism. A simpleminded model of the world for the simpleminded.
I am not a political person.
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 17:16 — Anonymous (not verified)I am not a political person. I am reading this article because a friend posted it on Facebook.
Is this true, NOW or are you posting a future scenario?
"In Latin America, the Obama administration has secured seven bases in Colombia, from which to wage a war of attrition against the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay."
thanks for including the G a
Sun, 03/28/2010 - 10:26 — Anonymous (not verified)thanks for including the G a z a n t r a t i o n camp on the list of endless global warring!
When is a War A
Sun, 03/28/2010 - 14:17 — jens (not verified)When is a War A War?...because a couple of houses fall
down!..or A hole country are being run down!...
@Anonymous, 22:16, Yes, it
Sun, 03/28/2010 - 21:59 — Jonas Rand (not verified)@Anonymous, 22:16,
Yes, it is current, and it is truthful. The Obama administration has built seven US military bases in Colombia, a move that is designed to intimidate the Bolivarian nations (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc). There is no other possible purpose behind that.
...And, Jonas, to control
Mon, 03/29/2010 - 20:23 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...And, Jonas, to control the South American drug trade, and importing of the drugs into the U.S., etc., even more than the CIA, et al., have already been doing for decades.
I personally believe that this is one of the reasons that the completely bankrupt U.S. government, aside from printing more and more money out of thin air, can fund the operations worldwide of the now completely military-industrial-corporate-fascist "national security", militarized police state that the U.S. has become.
The U.S. government, "intelligence" agencies, FBI, ATF, DEA, the Pentagon, and the U.S. military, much of local police agencies, etc., have become The International Mob, and now control ALL of the organized crime AND TERRORISM worldwide, including in the United States...
...So they have to have more
Mon, 03/29/2010 - 20:24 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...So they have to have more bases from which to not only control all of it, but to use for creating the patsies and scapegoats to carry out more the terrorism, and to control the kidnapping, arrest, indefinite detention, no due process of law, torture, and murder of the latter in order to convince most of the U.S. citizens and the world that the fraud that is the "War (OF!) Terrorism" is (supposedly) "real", and that "we have to" carry out endless war and lawlessness in order to "fight" and "stop" what those supposedly "fighting" and "stopping" it actually control.
"Welcome" to George Orwell's draconian "1984" in reality.
The really worrying thing is
Tue, 03/30/2010 - 00:10 — HG (not verified)The really worrying thing is that the explanation of the fundamental cause and the simple solution to all the things reported on in TO articles and complained about in the reader comments, have been explained before the public since 1879 in the international bestseller "Progress and Poverty", but the people haven't gotten it, yet. People have bought into the system and live a matrix-like existence. We have to break that cycle of ignorance and irresponsibility. The "red pill" to take, to wake up and see the Matrix for what it really is. Now, the first thing your "reasonable" Matrix mind says is, "There is no simple explanation or solution to our oh-so-complex modern problems, so any book or proposal that claims such must be at best naive or utopian." And so you keep complaining impotently... Or you could take the red pill.
Spot on, John. D0 you
Tue, 03/30/2010 - 06:20 — Kathy van Praag (not verified)Spot on, John. D0 you remember that Dwight Eisenhower, when he left the presidency, gave a warning to the nation in a speech about the stranglehold the military industrial complex developing on the country and to do something about it before it was too late?
Psychological operations
Tue, 03/30/2010 - 21:07 — Anonymous (not verified)Psychological operations upon the US public, and attempts upon the people of the rest of the world are business as usual after Daniel Ellsberg and Walter Cronkite.