[siljan]

<strong>Written By:</strong> siljan
<strong>Date:</strong> 2007-11-06 15:48:12
<a href="/article/142456377-war-against-terrorism-or-expansion-of-the-american-empire">Article Link</a>

And that's what I try to make people understand about US foreign policy. Goodness has nothing to do with it. It's the greatest myth concerning that policy, the myth that most often makes it very difficult for people like myself to get others to accept the ideas that we put forth.

This myth is the deeply-held belief that no matter what the US does abroad, no matter how bad it may look, no matter what horror may result, the United States means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are always noble. Of that Americans are certain. Even many people in the anti-war movement have a hard time shaking off this belief.

If I were to write a book called The American Empire for Dummies, page one would say: Don't ever look for the moral factor. US foreign policy has no moral factor built into its DNA. Clear your mind of that baggage which only gets in the way of seeing beyond the clichés and the platitudes they feed us, your government and mine.

It's not easy for most Americans to take what I say at face value. It's not easy for them to swallow my message. They see their leaders on TV and their photos in the press, they see them smiling or laughing, telling jokes; see them with their families, hear them speak of God and love, of peace and law, of democracy and freedom, of human rights and justice and even baseball ... How can such people be moral monsters?

They have names like George and Dick and Donald, not a single Mohammed or Abdullah in the bunch. And they all speak English. Well, George almost does. People named Mohammed or Abdullah sometimes cut off an arm or a leg as punishment for theft. We know that that's horrible. Americans are too civilized for that. But people named George and Dick and Donald go around the world dropping cluster bombs on cities and villages, and the many unexploded ones become land mines, and before very long a child comes by, picks one up or steps on one of them, and loses an arm or a leg, or both arms or both legs, and sometimes their eyesight. And the cluster bombs which actually explode do their own kind of bloody horror.

And the noble American leaders use another weapon even worse -- depleted uranium, one of the most despicable weapons ever designed by a mad scientist, which poisons the air, the soil, the blood, and the genes, and produces grossly deformed babies amongst its many endearing qualities, and which, in a civilized world not intimidated by the United States, would be categorically banned.

<a href="http://members.aol.com/bblum6/speech.htm">http://members.aol.com/bblum6/speech.htm</a>










[Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on November 7, 2007]

[Spanky]

<BLOCKQUOTE> Believe it or not, I do find things to be encouraged about. For one, the American people today are seeing through the lies much more; skepticism and cynicism -- good ol' healthy cynicism -- is very widespread, even in the media. Reporters at White House press conferences ask much tougher questions than I've ever heard them ask. And if they get a bullshit answer they often persist in their questioning. Some of them simply don't like being lied to so often and so shamelessly. It's about time.<BR><BR> And what happened in New Orleans has increased the cynicism about the government's words and actions.<BR><BR> And of course there's the worldwide anti-war movement, the anti-globalization movement, the peace and justice movement, and the World Social Forums, a lot to be optimistic about insofar as raising people's consciousness. Various polls in the US are also encouraging, and all kinds of prominent conservatives are heavily criticizing US policy in Iraq.<BR><BR> Whether all this will put a brake on the empire remains to be seen. But it's not like the 1960s where once the war in Vietnam ended, protestors figured their job was done and went back to the pursuit of careers and money; the activists today have a higher political consciousness and are not going to go away so easily even when the US leaves Iraq.<BR><BR> I urge all of you, if you haven't already done so, to become active in one of these movements. It's vital. It's easy. And it can be fun, except when a cop is massaging your head with his club.</BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR> And we shouldn't neglect the 9/11 Truth movement as possibly the best hope for bringing the Cheney/Bush's war and death machine to a grinding halt. <blockquote> <b>9/11 Truth Holidays!</b><br><br> 9/11 truth holidays? Well, not exactly. We don't yet have real cause for celebration: Justice for the victims and truth in the newspaper headlines and history textbooks.<BR><BR> But while we have not yet won the biggest battle—yanking the perps-in-chief out of office in chains before their terms expire—we are winning the war.<BR><BR> SNIP<BR><BR> For a story to function as a myth in the anthropological sense, it needs to be fervently believed by almost all members of the group it serves to unify and mobilize. If a group member questions the myth, he or she must be branded as a heretic and silenced. If widespread questioning occurs, the myth dies.<BR><BR> While the official 9/11 story is still functioning in the corporate monopoly media as if it were a living myth, it is no longer widely believed by the general population. According to a New York Times poll, only 16% of the American people believe the government is telling the truth about 9/11. That is why an ever-growing majority opposes the 9/11 wars. Americans are no longer being unified and mobilized by the 9/11 myth. Instead, they are being disunified and demobilized.<BR><BR> The battle for 9/11 truth and justice is the central theater of a larger cultural-political war: republic versus empire—or to put it bluntly, freedom versus slavery. In the end, no empire can survive without widespread public support, without public willingness to sacrifice, blood, treasure and liberty. 9/11 was a fabricated mythic event designed to mobilize support for empire. It succeeded for a few years, but is failing in the long term. To ensure that it fails—to ensure the triumph of liberty over slavery, of peace over war, of Republic over Empire—we of the 9/11 truth movement need to settle in for the long haul, and make it clear that we are not going away.<BR><BR> Those who grumble "It's like the JFK case. We'll never get to the truth" are missing the point. The JFK coup d'état was primarily designed to change leadership at the top of the chain of command. The 9/11 coup d'état was different. It was primarily a psychological operation, designed to mobilize the public for a long-term imperial project of "wars that will not end in our lifetime." To function effectively it had to give rise to a sacred myth. By progressively dismantling the myth, we are dismantling the empire and stopping the wars, regardless of whether or when we bring truth and justice to the courtrooms, headlines and history books.<br><br> <a href="http://www.mujca.com/911holidays.htm">www.mujca.com/911holidays.htm</A> </blockquote><br><Br> Here's the new trailer for the Loose Change Final Cut documentary to be released on November 11.<br><br> <A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDwi4hamFW8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDwi4hamFW8</a> <br><br> <a href="http://loosechange911.com">http://loosechange911.com</a>

[N Say]

Bill Blum is different from the 9/11 Truth Movement though.<br />
<br />
anyway, here's Blum's latest Anti-Empire Report which came out yesterday or something:<br />
<a href="http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer51.htm">http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer51.htm</a><p>---<br>"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

[ouhite]

Thanks for the article. I already know about Blum but browsed by chance and
found lots of valuable stuff... I'm currently doing a school project on his work,
actually. In particular that 1997 report on correlation between US interventions
and terrorism - I was actually looking for something like that but couldn't find
much in the way of official reports etc.

[ouhite]

"Here's a Department of Defense study in 1997 which concluded: 'Historical data
show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations
and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States.'"

[siljan]

Thanks for that new loose change trailer Spanky. Here's David Ray Griffin's latest article;<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rinf.com/alt-news/911-truth/new-evidence-that-the-official-story-about-911-is-indefensible/1449/">http://rinf.com/alt-news/911-truth/new-evidence-that-the-official-story-about-911-is-indefensible/1449/</a><br />
<br />
and here is where Bill Blum writes regularly. Lots of valuable stuff here;<br />
<br />
<a href="http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm">http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm</a><br />

[RPW]

If 2 out of every 3 Americans believe in creationism, and the literal 6,000 year old universe, if it isn't this war (on terrorism), then it will be another war.........<br />
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-07-evolution-poll-results_N.htm?csp=34">http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-07-evolution-poll-results_N.htm?csp=34</a><p>---<br>"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." <br />
-Max Planck<br />
<br />

[Diogenes]

Pay strick attention to the following quote <br />
"I'd like to begin with a question, an odd question. What does American foreign policy have in common with Mae West?<br />
<br />
For those of you who don't know who Mae West was, she was a Hollywood sexpot about 50 years ago. There's the story told about her showing off her luxurious home in Hollywood to a visitor, and the visitor exclaims "My goodness, what a gorgeous home you have." And Mae West replies: "Goodness has nothing to do with it."<br />
<br />
And that's what I try to make people understand about US foreign policy. Goodness has nothing to do with it. It's the greatest myth concerning that policy, the myth that most often makes it very difficult for people like myself to get others to accept the ideas that we put forth"<br />
<br />
For anyone to miss the American prestent administration's Hegelian dialectic* tactics is to miss the entire raison d’être for the War on Terror.<br />
<br />
* <a href="http://nord.twu.net/acl/dialectic.html#poll">http://nord.twu.net/acl/dialectic.html#poll</a> <p>---<br>"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."<br />
<br />
William Blake<br />
<br />