ldsvswar.lege.net/the_facts
http://ldsvswar.lege.net/the_facts/
CONTENT
The Facts Are All Important --
Appeal For An Enlightened Public Opinion
Foreword
Betrayed
War Propaganda
Getting reliable news
Deceit and Deception
The Bias Myth
Conservative Silence
Grassroots Dissent
Earthly Kingdoms
Deceit Necessary to Start a War
Attempts to establish a link Iraq - Al Qaeda
began well before 9-11
The U.S. as an International Terrorist
Well-trained intellectuals
Congress passed an illegal law
Should we always follow our leaders?
More U.S. Supported Terror
Obedience to the commandments of God
Is U.N. the Anticrist?
Fundamentalists of Power
Truth is truth whoever speaks it
Without righteousness no justification
Contempt for law and human rights
inside and outside the U.S.
Anti-Americanism
Whether to support terror or civilization
Does might make right?
APPENDIXES
A real eye-opener
THE RULE OF FORCE
An Excerpt from Rogue States
Exactly the wrong conclusion
Articles of Impeachment
Confronting the Empire
History of the Church, 1805 - 1847
Why Pro-War Advocates Have Got It Wrong
The "New World Order" in Practice
Iraq War - Legality without a UN Mandate
UN did not give a mandate for violence
The so called no fly zones and the U.N.
The Raid on Baghdad -- Lawfulness and Implications
Bush War: Military Necessity or War Crimes?
Iraq War Unleashes Barbarism
Did Saddam gas his own people?
QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ
20 Lies About the War
Better Late Than Never
Top 40 Bush Administration Lies on Iraq War and Terror
I write this to you in fear of my immortal soul
Human Rights Watch Letter to Donald Rumsfeld
'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...'
The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values
Do We Really Have Free Speech?
You are with us or against us
Defying Law, Bush Administration Locks Up Americans
Showdown Nears Over Terrorism Detentions
Mormonism And The American System
The following was added after the essay was already finished
Searching for a Christian Response to the War on Iraq
Media control:
The Spectacular Achievements Of Propaganda
Impeachable Offenses
We Stand Our Ground
A Debate Over U.S. 'Empire' Builds in Unexpected Circles
Personal Notes to the Recipient
The Facts Are All Important --
Appeal For An Enlightened Public Opinion
The Facts Are All Important --
Appeal For An Enlightened Public Opinion
Essay by Leif Erlingsson, July 2003
There are times when we must stand up for right and decency, for freedom and civilization. This is such a time. The greatest sedition is now silence.
(Don't read this if you prefer fiction to truth, or if you honestly believe that the facts doesn't matter.)
Foreword
No doubt I'll be attacked for writing this essay. Therefore, let me immediately make perfectly clear that I do _not_ share every opinion with every quoted source. Quotes are used to illustrate reasoning and facts that may not be well known. I believe the facts but I do not necessarily share in all of the conclusions. Forming the proper conclusions is something I hope we can do together, though naturally I have already formed a substantial number by myself. In any case, this essay supplies most of the needed facts, since most of these facts have not been widely known or discussed inside the U.S..
I know how easily some jump to the conclusion that because you criticize things that are rotten in the U.S. society, you therefore criticize everything that America is about, as if Bush, America, God, patriotism, apple pie, Route 66, oil profits, unilateral vigilante-ism and support for the right wing were all the same thing. I sincerely hope that my readers will understand that I have very high regard for America, and wish it the best, and that is exactly why I want to do everything in my power to help spread the word about the rot that will otherwise destroy it, and the rest of the world with it.
If it is possible to both make a detailed list of lies and deceptions such that it can be easily verified to be accurate and true, and at the same time make the text spiritually uplifting to read, I lack the skills to do so. But I do know that it is vitally important to speak up about the evil that will otherwise be done in our name. I imagine that only those who oppose the evil will be able to feel entirely without blame for it. And speaking up can make a difference. It has in my own country, and in so many other countries. I am a Swede, and the prime minister in my own country is morally corrupt. His original concern about the Iraq war was that it would, he felt, be good for the economy. But after 100,000 Swedes went out on the streets to demonstrate against the war, and after he understood just how few Swedes supported the war, he quickly turned around and opposed the war. So your and mine opinion matters. In the kind of democracy we have in "old Europe", public opinion matters. The voice of the people matters. I wish that all the world will have the same kind of democracy, the kind where the leaders listen to the will of the people.
Betrayed
I feel betrayed. I had bought in to much the same story as millions and millions others worldwide about the U.S. as the champion for human rights, justice, human dignity, democracy and all of that. This is essentially the story of how I changed my most basic perception of the U.S. of America into a not quite that naïve and not quite that positive perception. And I tell the story by telling what I found out. Since my own changed perception was no isolated occurance but rather one that happened to millions of other people around the world at about the same time, I think this may have some interest for a wider -- especially Latter-day Saint -- audience. (Also see the APPENDIX A real eye-opener by myself.)
However, I want to emphasize that even though I touch on much of the rotten things, there is indeed _a_ _lot_ that is very good in America -- especially the American people!! And this gives me and others a lot of hope and it makes it worthwhile to work with the American people, spreading the word "mouth to mouth". Americans are basically very decent people, not easily corrupted.
War Propaganda
When in the autumn of 2002 I was shown a flick of Fox News I immediately recognized it for what it was; blatant war propaganda. [*] I could not ignore this. I had to find out what was going on in America, because war propaganda is of course a war crime (except in some backwards terrorist countries -- and in America), so this definitely caught my attention. I started to research the reporting in U.S. media. I have access to Fox News via satellite. And CNN. And BBC News. And the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite network. And many U.S. newspapers via the web. It didn't take long to see that most media didn't even touch vital and essential news. But as if that wasn't bad enough, especially U.S. cable networks but also most mainstream U.S. media in general put a spin on what they can not ignore. In 1945 that was called "propaganda". Again, Fox News was worst, (and there, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly with his "spin-free zone" is the worst of the worst), tightly followed by CNN. BBC News has been surprisingly independent from the U.K. administration though, and have on the whole been very dependable during this crisis. And the Al-Jazeera network have published news that would perhaps not have made it to BBC News otherwise. (But at a heavy price for the Al-Jazeera network. Apparently, elements of the U.S. military wants to take out journalists, which has costed al-Jazeera several casualties in a number of U.S. attacks, starting in 2001 with a cruise missile at al-Jazeera's office in Kabul. Then in April 2003 an U.S. jet turned to rocket al-Jazeera's office on the banks of the Tigris at 7.45am local time. Other journalists are also targets for these elements of the U.S. military. A few hours later that day Reuters television bureau in Baghdad was the next target when a U.S. tank opened fired on the Palestine Hotel, killing José Couso, a cameraman for Spain's Tele 5 channel, and Taras Protsyuk, cameraman for Reuters. Reporter Samia Nakhoul and photographer Faleh Kheiber -- both of Reuters -- suffered facial and head wounds. Al-Jazeera and Reuters had given the U.S. military exact coordinates and obtained promises that they would not shoot at these locations. And in any case, shooting at journalists constitutes a war crime.) As has been amply explained by e.g. Chomsky, ``To escape the impact of a well-functioning system of propaganda that bars dissent and unwanted fact while fostering lively debate within the permitted bounds is remarkably difficult.'' [ Necessary Illusions -- Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky, Chapter Three, The Bounds of the Expressible; http://zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c03-s07.html ]. For this reason no one should feel bad about having been deceived, but just happy for having seen through it all.
*) War propaganda is easily detected when you know what to look for. When one part is consistently mentioned in derogatory terms, like e.g. "the regime", and the other part is consistently mentioned in neutral or positive terms, like "the U.S. government", you know that you are dealing with war propaganda. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to list other derogatory terms for the one part and match them with neutral or positive terms for the other part. ``Heroes and Devils: As the authors of children's tales understand, life is simple when there are heroes to admire and love, and devils to fear and despise. One goal of a well-crafted propaganda system is to dull the mental faculties, reducing its targets to a level at which they will respond with appropriate enthusiasm to slogans carrying a patriotic message. Accordingly, the cast of characters in international affairs includes heroes, who stand for freedom, democracy, reform, and all good things, and devils, who are violent, totalitarian, and generally repellent. Most of the players are irrelevant, part of the background scenery. Entry into the two significant categories is determined by contribution to elite interests, or harm caused them.'' [ Necessary Illusions -- Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky, Appendix V, Heroes and Devils; http://zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s08.html ]
Getting reliable news
I quickly discovered that the safest way to get massive amounts of reliable news about U.S. foreign policy and deceit was to listen to some of the people from the left side of the political spectrum. There may exist reliable and informative sources at the other end of the political spectrum as well, but unfortunately I have not been able to locate any significant such sources. At least not between September 2002, when the war propaganda really heated up, and March 2003, when the land-invasion of Iraq started big-time.
Deceit and Deception
Anyway, what I discovered was that whereas the previous U.S. president was nearly impeached for lying about a personal matter, the present U.S. president has been able to lie all day long, and there has been no mention of it in the press at all except during the last few weeks. The lists of lies and deceptions ( see e.g. 20 Lies About the War http://truthout.org/docs_03/071403C.shtml or Top 40 Bush Administration Lies on Iraq War and Terror http://truthout.org/docs_03/080103F.shtml -- both also included in the APPENDIXES ) are so long that the present U.S. president is frequently and perhaps correctly labeled "a compulsive liar". But not by U.S. media (as of mid July 2003). It is common knowledge and well proven that not only has the president lied about his own background in the military -- he deserted in wartime -- but he drove the U.S. into war by lies and deceptions, all of which was disproved already when he spoke them, like the several lies and distortions in his State of the Union speech. But the U.S. media was overall pretty silent about it whereas the media in the rest of the world weren't. Not all U.S. media was silent though, there were local newspapers and sometimes even national newspapers like the New York Times that sometimes allowed glimpses of what was really going on. But there was no debate. The dissenting voices were just that, dissenting voices. No discussion. No media scandal. I have in my possession a huge archive with articles mainly from U.S. and U.K. press but also from Arabic and European origin stretching from October 2002 to the present that clearly show that most of the phony case for war against Iraq was exposed well before the war. However most of the media just kept quiet about the crimes and the lies that paved the way to the Iraqi Oil Ministry. (Which was the only official building in Baghdad that was protected from the looting that the U.S. troops initiated by the murder of two Sudanese guards outside a local administration building at the Haifa avenue and the destruction of the door to that and other buildings, and the instructions in Arabic by the Arabic translators in the tanks to the people on the street to get in and take whatever they wanted. The witness is Khaled Bayomi from Malmö, Sweden, who was only 300 meter away.) It is the criminal silence of the U.S. domestic media that is making it (or should I say have made it?) politically possible for the present U.S. president to stay in power even though he has lied more to the U.S. public than any other person in history.
The Bias Myth
The silence of the U.S. media would have been all the more strange if Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, that the present U.S. president so conspicuously carried with him on a trip to Maine in January 2002, would have been right. Because this book says that there is a liberal bias in U.S. media. If there is, why on earth didn't the U.S. media jump on the endless scandals around Bush that are a thousandfold more damning than ever Clinton's womanizing and lying about it under oath that have been well known in many circles since well before GWB became president? Isn't it more damning to start wars using lies and deception than to commit adultery and lie about it? But Bernard Goldberg never bothers to systematically prove the existence of liberal bias in the news, or even define what he means by the term. Rather, he simply uncritically repeats and quotes popular opinions held by both high and low. As I have been editing this text in July 2003, U.S. media has however started to expose the deceptions used to scare the U.S. public into accepting the Iraq war. The lid is finally off.
Conservative Silence
But what about the silence from conservatives? This has been particularly difficult for me to understand. Surely it is not a conservative value to support deceit, lies and deception? I have concluded that maybe the lack of critizism is partly because so many people are in or have been in denial. And are engaging in wishful thinking. We really don't want the Bush administration to be evil because it stands for so many of our own values, and speaks our language.... BUT BY NOT FACING THE EVIL, BY NOT ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THE EVIL IS EVIL, WE IN FACT CONDONE THE EVIL. WE IN FACT ACCEPT THE EVIL. WE IN FACT BECOME IMPLICIT PARTNERS IN THE EVIL.
Grassroots Dissent
It must be said that not all conservatives are silent. There is e.g. a small grassroots movement "Republicans Against Bush". I also seem to recall some critical Republican Senators, etc. And a few critical articles in conservative newspapers. Dissent has not been totally quiet. And there are military families against the Iraq war and there's the 9-11 families fighting for a real investigation and against using 9-11 as an excuse to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq. [*] And there's a widespread grassroots uprising with people from all backgrounds that have now in 132 cities and counties and in 3 states passed resolutions stating their intention not to cooperate with some provisions of USA PATRIOT. Elected office-holders in these communities have publicly declared that they will not abide by federal laws and orders that would compel them to accord the people in their jurisdiction less than full rights and protections guaranteed to all persons in the U.S. Constitution.
*) According to many different sources there is a 9-11 coverup, see this Guardian article about witness intimidation: http://truthout.org/docs_03/071203C.shtml . While it is true that the people behind 9-11 operated from Afghanistan, without the Taliban stopping them, it is also a sad fact that the U.S./U.K. operations in Afghanistan has killed more civilians than was killed in the U.S. on 9-11. Many people feel that the U.S./U.K. have gone too far. It is also a sad fact that Human Rights organizations are kept at a distance. This is what U.S.S.R. used to do, and China. Now the U.S./U.K. is doing it.
Earthly Kingdoms
John Taylor, Third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, cautioned that ``You who have made yourselves acquainted with the political structure and the political intrigues of earthly kingdoms, I ask, whence did they obtain their power? Did they get it from God? . . . Go to any power that has existed upon this earth, and you will find that earthly government, earthly rule and dominion, have been obtained by the sword. It was the sword of men that first put them in possession of this power. They have walked up to their thrones through rivers of blood, through the clotted gore and the groans of the dying, and through the tears and lamentations of bereaved widows and helpless orphans; and hence the common saying is, "Thrones won by blood, by blood must be maintained." By the same principle that they have been put in possession of territory, have they sought to sustain themselves the same violence, the same fraud, and the same oppression have been made use of to sustain their illegitimacy. . . . -- JD, 1:223-225, April 8, 1853.'' [The Gospel Kingdom, selections from the Writings and Discourses of John Taylor, Third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, p.315.]
Gordon B. Hinckley, current President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gives a similar warning in his War and Peace Sunday Morning Session talk on the April 2003 173rd Annul General Conference: ``We sometimes are prone to glorify the great empires of the past, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and in more recent times, the vast British Empire. But there is a darker side to every one of them. There is a grim and tragic overlay of brutal conquest, of subjugation, of repression, and an astronomical cost in life and treasure.'' With prophetic clarity, President Hinckley also stated in the same speech: ``In the course of history tyrants have arisen from time to time who have oppressed their own people and threatened the world. Such is adjudged to be the case presently, and consequently great and terrifying forces with sophisticated and fearsome armaments have been engaged in battle.'' I am of course aware that most listeners understand President Hinckley to refer to Saddam Hussein in the present situation when talking about tyrants who oppress their people and threaten the world. But note the choice of the word "adjudged". The word means "formally pronounced" or "officially pronounced". That is to say, the prophet is stating what we all know, that the official story [of the U.S. government and the coalition of the willing] is that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who threatens the world. This is important because of what President Hinckley is _not_ saying. Technically, President Hinckley is _not_ saying that Saddam Hussein threatens (or threatened) the world. And this is important because it has been well known in most parts of the world at least since March 2003 -- before the land-war really started in Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein did indeed _not_ threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Deceit Necessary to Start a War
Lies and deceptions are the rule, not the exception, when it comes to justify war. It seems that most people are peaceful, and do not want to go out in war. So they have to be deceived. Five Examples of many:
* In 1898 when the USS Maine exploded violently in Havana harbor the U.S. public was decieved that this was the work of Spain. Captain Sigsbee on the other hand urged that no assumptions of enemy attack be made until there was a full investigation of the cause of the explosion. For this he was excoriated in the press for "refusing to see the obvious". In 1975, an investigation led by Admiral Hyman Rickover examined the data recovered from a 1911 examination of the wreck and concluded that there had been no evidence of an external explosion. The most likely cause of the sinking was a coal dust explosion in a coal bunker imprudently located next to the ship's magazines. Captain Sigsbee's caution had been well founded. Also in 1898, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal were arguing for American intervention in Cuba. Hearst is reported to have dispatched a photographer to Cuba to photograph the coming war with Spain. When the photographer asked just what war that might be, Hearst is reported to have replied, "You take the photographs, and I will provide the war". Hearst was true to his word, as his newspaper published stories of great atrocities being committed against the Cuban people, most of which turned out to be complete fabrications.
* ``The morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941 began as any other day in Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base in Hawaii. At 7:49, the Japanese fleet of carriers that had been making it's way toward the Hawaiian Islands sprang into action. Wave after wave of Japanese aircraft screamed into the harbor and pounced on the American fleet as it sat helpless (Ienaga 136). No one saw the attack coming, so defense to the brutal assault was minimal. In the aftermath of the carnage, the final tallies shocked the nation. Five U.S. battleships and ten warships had been destroyed, and three more battleships were severely damaged. The human death toll was also high. Over 2,400 American soldiers were slaughtered in the strike.'' [ http://cyberessays.com/History/169.htm ] This is how history usually describes this horrible event. But lets back up a little: ``President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed a war. He needed the fever of a major war to mask the symptoms of a still deathly ill economy struggling back from the Great Depression (and mutating towards Socialism at the same time). Roosevelt wanted a war with Germany to stop Hitler, but despite several provocations in the Atlantic, the American people, still struggling with that troublesome economy, were opposed to any wars. Roosevelt violated neutrality with lend lease, and even ordered the sinking of several German ships in the Atlantic, but Hitler refused to be provoked.
Roosevelt needed an enemy, and if America would not willingly attack that enemy, then one would have to be maneuvered into attacking America. . . . The way open to war was created when Japan signed the tripartite agreement with Italy and Germany, with all parties pledging mutual defense to each other. Whereas Hitler would never declare war on the United States no matter the provocation, the means to force Japan to do so were readily at hand.
The first step was to place oil and steel embargoes on Japan, using Japan's wars on the Asian mainland as a reason. This forced Japan to consider seizing the oil and mineral rich regions in Indonesia. With the European powers militarily exhausted by the war in Europe, the United States was the only power in the Pacific able to stop Japan from invading the Dutch East Indies, and by moving the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Roosevelt made a pre-emptive strike on that fleet the mandatory first step in any Japanese plan to extend it's empire into the "southern resource area".
Roosevelt boxed in Japan just as completely as Crassus had boxed in Spartacus [a reference to similar tactics in the Roman Empire]. Japan needed oil. They had to invade Indonesia to get it, and to do that they first had to remove the threat of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. There never really was any other course open to them.
To enrage the American people as much as possible, Roosevelt needed the first overt attack by Japan to be as bloody as possible, appearing as a sneak attack much as the Japanese had done to the Russians. From that moment up until the attack on Pearl Harbor itself, Roosevelt and his associates made sure that the commanders in Hawaii, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, were kept in the dark as much as possible about the location of the Japanese fleet and it's intentions, then later scapegoated for the attack. (Congress recently exonerated both Short and Kimmel, posthumously restoring them to their former ranks).
But as the Army board had concluded at the time, and subsequent de-classified documents confirmed, Washington DC knew the attack was coming, knew exactly where the Japanese fleet was, and knew where it was headed.
On November 29th, Secretary of State Hull showed United Press reporter Joe Leib a message with the time and place of the attack, and the New York Times in it's special 12/8/41 Pearl Harbor edition, on page 13, reported that the time and place of the attack had been known in advance!'' [ http://whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/ (also compare the Cover notes from the book Day of Deceit at http://pearlharbor41.com/notes.htm )]
* In August 1964, after U.S. destroyer Maddox together with the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force unprovoked had attacked North Vietnam in the Tonkin Gulf, and some U.S. destroyers two days later had been firing on ghosts also in the Tonkin Gulf, President Lyndon Johnson went on national TV to decieve the U.S. public that there had been a North Vietnamese torpedo attack. Washington Post on August 5, 1964, reported that "American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression" [ http://fair.org/media-beat/940727.html ]. The same day the front page of the New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin." But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam -- no "renewed attacks against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War, leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties. President Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened. Read more details at http://fair.org/media-beat/940727.html .
* In August 1990 it was good ol' pal Saddam who was deceived into invading Kuwait, and this was of course the justification needed to try to crush him. See details at http://foreignpolicy.com/wwwboard/walts.html, look up "The Gulf War, 1990-91". There was numerous other lies used, like the story about the "gassing of his own people", used to sell the war to the world. Many of us bought it at the time, I know I did. But Pentagon knew otherwise. See "Did Saddam gas his own people?" http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24960 (included in it's entirety among the Appendixes). ``A Pentagon investigation at the time ... turned up no hard evidence of Saddam gassing his own people. This is serious stuff, because the U.N. tells us that 1.4 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the sanctions, which is 3,000 times more than the number of Kurds who supposedly died of gassing at the hands of Saddam.'' (October 17, 2001) Also see http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr091002.htm .
* 11 September 2001, New York and Washington happened. And the administration immediately set out to implicate Saddam and Iraq. See http://truthout.org/docs_03/071403C.shtml . And all 9-11 inquiries have been sabotaged. See http://truthout.org/docs_03/071403I.shtml .
As I already stated, virtually every war that the U.S. started has required lies and deceptions. These two books explain why: Necessary Illusions http://zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ , Deterring Democracy http://zmag.org/chomsky/dd/ . This essay written in the context of the 1998 Iraq crisis will also be helpful: Rogue States http://zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html .
Attempts to establish a link Iraq - Al Qaeda began well before 9-11
These notes may also be helpful in order to understand why Iraq was implicated in 9-11: ``On October 23, [2002,] the Wall Street Journal published an article on its front page indicating that the administration has lied about the alleged connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The article quoted a speech delivered by Bush the week before in which he described Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as "a man who we know has had connections with Al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use Al Qaeda as a forward army." Based on its own investigation, the Journal, by no means an opponent of the current administration, concluded: "There's no evidence of contact between Al Qaeda and the Iraqis, according to current and former intelligence officials." Significantly, the article indicated that the administration's attempt to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda began almost as soon as Bush was installed in the White House. "When the Bush administration took office in 2001, officials at the Pentagon immediately began peppering intelligence agencies with requests for studies on Baghdad's links to terrorism," the article stated. "At a meeting of senior administration officials in April 2001 to discuss Al Qaeda, a top Defense Department official asked Mr. Clarke [Richard Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism coordinator] about whether Iraq had connections to Mr. bin Laden's group. Mr. Clarke said no, according to two people in the room." The administration's demands led to a concerted drive to link Iraq to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing," the Journal reported, adding that these efforts "have come up empty." Thus, while Washington portrays its military buildup against Iraq as a response to September 11 and a defense of the U.S. against an imminent terrorist threat, it now emerges that top Bush administration officials were desperately seeking evidence to tie Iraq to terrorism-and specifically to Al Qaeda-at least five months before any planes crashed into World Trade Center and the Pentagon.'' (Bill Vann, 24 October 2002)
The U.S. as an International Terrorist
At this point I must digress in order to describe some of the not so pleasant things I have discovered about U.S. international terrorism and U.S. support of international terrorism.
``The meaning of the term "terrorism" is not seriously in dispute. It is defined with sufficient clarity in the official U.S. Code and numerous government publications. A U.S. Army manual on countering the plague defines terrorism as "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear." Still more succinct is the characterization in a Pentagon-commissioned study by noted terrorologist Robert Kupperman, which speaks of the threat or use of force "to achieve political objectives without the full-scale commitment of resources." [ US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism Counteraction (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984); Robert Kupperman Associates, Low Intensity Conflict, July 30, 1983. Both cited in Michael Klare and Peter Kornbluh, eds., Low Intensity Warfare (Pantheon, 1988, 69, 147). The actual quote from Kupperman refers specifically to "the threat of force"; its use is also plainly intended. ]'' [ Necessary Illusions -- Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky, Appendix V, "The Evil Scourge of Terrorism"; http://zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s03.html ]
The U.S. in the 80's gave substantial support to Saddam Hussein at the same time that he commited his worst crimes. In the 80's the U.S. also fought a big war in Central America that left about 200,000 tortured and mutilated dead, millions of orphans and refugees and four countries ravaged. The U.S. was convicted by the International Court in Hague for International Terrorism -- for illegal use of violence in a sentence listing almost 300 reasons and 16 discrete decisions saying either that the U.S. are in the wrong or that the U.S. must make reparation for all injury caused to Nicaragua by the unlawful actions of the U.S. [ http://ldsvswar.lege.net/images/pdf/icj_19860627.pdf ]. The U.S. ignored the judgment and instead increased the violence until the democratic Nicaraguan government eventually was overthrown. The U.S. also blocked a Security Council resolution that would have declared that all countries must abide by international law. In 1985 the U.S. exploded a car-bomb in Beirut that killed 80 innocent civilians. The U.S. also supported the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that costed 18.000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilian lives. Terrorism is illegal in the U.S., but frequently used. Who built al-Qaida? -- The U.S., in order to trick the Soviet Union into the "Afghan trap". There are so many more examples, involving millions and millions of victims even not counting Vietnam. The target has traditionally usually been either the Catholic Church or Communism, but there are notable exceptions. Take Guatemala. After CIA overthrew the democratic capitalist government of Guatemala in 1954, "Many Guatemalans are passionately attached to the democratic-nationalist ideals of the 1944 revolution," particularly to "the social and economic programs" of the democratic capitalist government overthrown in the CIA coup. (Quotes originate from Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1955-57, Vol. VII, 88f. and from National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 1955, 82-85. [ http://zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c05-s01.html ].) This was a problem. The U.S. killed a democracy because the democracy in question didn't have the sense to act according to the will of the U.S., but rather according to the will of the people. And after the invasion the people of the former democracy was clinging to democratic values. So 40 years of U.S. supported reign of terror ensued. Recently the U.S. severely criticized Turkey for listening more to the will of the people than to the will of the U.S.. And "old Europe" as well. But Italy is "new Europe" because even though over 80% of the public was against the war, Berlusconi supports the U.S. (and made a law that he himself couldn't go to jail while president).
Well-trained intellectuals
As you can imagine, I've seen through several layers of smoke screens during the last 3/4 of a year. Therefore it has not escaped my attention that in the U.S., the well-trained intellectual will translate e.g. "aggression and state terror in the Third World" into e.g. "defense of democracy and human rights", and further will consider "democracy" to be successfully achieved when the government is safely in the hands of "the rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations," as in Winston Churchill's prescription for world order [Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 5 (Houghton Mifflin, 1951, 382)]. Hypocrisy, Milton wrote, is "the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone." [Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. III, 682-84, from http://zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c05-s01.html ] In our own times, the device, thanks to Orwell, is called Newspeak. It may come as a surprise to some people, but a lot of Europeans actually believe in the values that the U.S. rhetoric preach; in equality before the law -- not separate justice for the rich and well connected -- and all of that. Maybe we simply aren't cynical enough -- or maybe we do not want to be "cynical enough"... And I'm not talking politicians, I'm talking public opinion.
One of the prime motives used for an Iraq war has been that Saddam Hussein was supposed to be irrational or that the conflicts in the region in general have been impossible to get a handle on. This reasoning may well be honest in that them who reason like so actually believe and think like so. But if they do, they reveal more about themselves and their own paradigm that they are constrained by, than that of Saddam or the other people in the region. It has been very clearly demonstrated that Saddam in no way acted irrationally. In fact, it is the U.S. that has an explicitly formulated and resurrected "Madman theory" [*] saying that the U.S. should appear crazed and unpredictable, etc. It is a neat propaganda trick to turn the tables and make it appear that it is really Saddam that is "crazed and unpredictable", or that it really is the other leaders and peoples in the region that is, but it is not true. All of their motives and actions are easily understood, once you take the same facts into consideration as they do. But by insisting on ignoring the facts -- or being unable to see them because they are not thinkable within ones paradigm -- and instead trying to construct complex philosophical arguments based on ones own imaginings, one will ``not seem able to get a handle on [these issues]'' [ Our World-Historical Gamble by Lee Harris March 11, 2003 http://techcentralstation.com/031103A.html ]. By the way, the article just referred to is a splendid example. I started to take it apart, and I think that by changing some of the labels in it, it can be used to accurately describe the difficulty the rest of the world is having to get a grip on the U.S. "crazed and unpredictable" "Madman" behavior. But it was written with the intent to form some sort of philosophic argument for why the U.S. needs to throw law and order out the window. It is the excuse of the madman, so to speak.
*) ``A secret 1995 study of the Strategic Command, which is responsible for the strategic nuclear arsenal, outlines the basic thinking. Released through the Freedom of Information act, the study, Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence, "shows how the United States shifted its deterrent strategy from the defunct Soviet Union to so-called rogue states such as Iraq, Libya, Cuba and North Korea," AP reports. The study advocates that the U.S. exploit its nuclear arsenal to portray itself as "irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked." That "should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries," particularly the "rogue states." "It hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed," let alone committed to such silliness as international law and treaty obligations. "The fact that some elements" of the U.S. government "may appear to be potentially `out of control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision makers." The report resurrects Nixon's "madman theory": our enemies should recognize that we are crazed and unpredictable, with extraordinary destructive force at our command, so they will bend to our will in fear. The concept was apparently devised in Israel in the 1950s by the governing Labor Party, whose leaders "preached in favor of acts of madness," Prime Minister Moshe Sharett records in his diary, warning that "we will go crazy" ("nishtagea") if crossed, a "secret weapon" aimed in part against the U.S., not considered sufficiently reliable at the time. In the hands of the world's sole superpower, which regards itself as an outlaw state and is subject to few constraints from elites within, that stance poses no small problem for the world.'' [ Major essay written by Noam Chomsky in the context of the 1998 Iraq crisis; Rogue States; http://zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html ]
Congress passed an illegal law
This is where I feel betrayed. The U.S. says one thing, or at least have been saying -- that it upholds international treaties, law, etc, but it acts another way. The U.S. didn't even try to act within international law by applying to the Security Council for lawful authority to enter Afghanistan in order to capture and suppress the bands of armed terrorists who had carried out criminal acts against the U.S.. Instead the U.S. itself became guilty of unlawful warmaking, since the U.S. is a party of the U.N. Charter. In fact, Congress passed a resolution authorising the President to use force not only against Al-Quai'da terrorists, but also against those harbouring Al-Quai'da. I.e. Congress passed an illegal law. The domestic law is illegal according to international law binding for the U.S. This web page explains the legal issues in great detail, and even gives a plausible explanation why the U.S. quite intentionally would choose to violate the law: http://www.eurolegal.org/uscivilrightspage4.htm (bad link), local transcript: http://legal.lege.net/new_world_order/ . As a footnote, it is worth mentioning that the U.S. is working hard to sabotage The International Criminal Court, the ICC, and is breathing threats towards anyone who would contemplate bringing a U.S. citizen to justice. Not surprising, since, according to international law, anyone who actively supports the current U.S. administration is in the same league as the guys that was tried and executed at the Nuremberg Tribunal. It may be noted that in 1946, Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, said: "The very essence of the Nuremberg charter is that individuals have international duties which transcend national obligations of obedience imposed by the state." No wonder the U.S. is sabotaging the ICC. There's even a "scientific" theory for this behaviour; The Bobbitt Theory. But as they say, nothing is new under the sun. The international behaviour which Bobbitt advocates for the United States of America is precisely the behaviour which the United Nations was established to prevent. Of course, that was when the perils of fascism were fresh in everybody's mind. [ The Bobbitt "New World Order" necessarily undermines the authority of the United Nations - of what value is that institution if a gang of powerful states (decribed in Bobbitt 1984-speak as "a coalition of the willing") can arrogate to themselves the power of decision as to which countries and governments are to survive and which to be overthrown?! See http://www.eurolegal.org/uscivilrightspage4.htm (bad link), local transcript: http://legal.lege.net/new_world_order/ for more details. ]
Should we always follow our leaders?
There is an interesting ethics question here: Were we wrong to convict Nazis for following their leader? Was President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrong in 1956, when he on 31st October said to the American people: ``My fellow citizens, as I review the march of world events in recent years, I am ever more deeply convinced that the processes of the United Nations represents the soundest hope for peace in the world. For this very reason, I believe that the processes of the United Nations need further to be developed and strengthened. I speak particularly of increasing its ability to secure justice under international law. In all the recent troubles in the Middle East, there have indeed been injustices suffered by all nations involved. But I do not believe that another instrument of injustice -- war -- is the remedy for these wrongs. There can be no peace -- without law. And there can be no law -- if we were to invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us -- and another for our friends.'' [ http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/ike56.html ] ? But even if we erred by convicting the Nazis, we did indeed establish law. And just like Ike said, ``There can be no peace -- without law. And there can be no law -- if we were to invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us -- and another for our friends.'' But that is exactly what the U.S. is doing. And unfortunately, not even Ike is off the hook on that one -- it was his administration that illegaly helped invade Guatemala. [ http://zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c03-s05.html ]
It appears that in 1937 Latter-day Saint Church President Heber J. Grant had visited Germany and instructed the German members to be loyal to the Nazi government. This seems to be a recurring theme, to be loyal no matter what. This may be just one of these things were my own preconceptions are wrong. When I have ascertained which is right in this, I'll abide by what is right. But at the moment I am very confused; Does the Church tell us to support any leader no matter what? Which is right, the Nuremberg charter (that individuals have duties transcending the state) or the principle to always follow your leader, no matter what? April 2003, President Gordon B. Hinckley said in General Conference that ``I believe that God will not hold men and women in uniform responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do.'' Should we from President Hinckley's remarks conclude that the Nazis in uniform, who were agents of their government in carrying forward that which they were legally obligated to do, were entirely justified in this? Should we conclude that the Nuremberg Tribunal was in error? Maybe the Nuremberg Tribunal expects more of man than does God?
I have ever since I studied Nazi-Germany in school had the absolute conviction that our individual responsibilities transcends our responsibility to the state. Tell me, am I wrong? If I am wrong, so are millions and millions of Europeans -- and millions of Americans as well. If we are in the armed forces, we must follow orders. But we should write to our Congressman. We should vote. And if crimes against mankind are perpetrated, we may have to risk our lives by betraying the lawless state, for the good of humanity.
More U.S. Supported Terror
It doesn't ever seem to end. Noam Chomsky writes in February 01, 2003: ``Last month [i.e. January 2003] I was in southeastern Turkey, the scene of some of the worst atrocities of the grisly 1990s, still continuing: just a few hours ago we were informed of renewed atrocities by the army near Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of the Kurdish regions. Through the 1990s, millions of people were driven out of the devastated countryside, with tens of thousands killed and every imaginable form of barbaric torture. They try to survive in caves outside the walls of Diyarbakir, in condemned buildings in miserable slums in Istanbul, or wherever they can find refuge, barred from returning to their villages despite new legislation that theoretically permits return. 80% of the weapons came from the US. In the year 1997 alone, Clinton sent more arms to Turkey than in the entire Cold War period combined up to the onset of the state terror campaign -- called "counterterror" by the perpetrators and their supporters, another convention. Turkey became the leading recipient of US arms as atrocities peaked (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category).
``In 1999, Turkey relinquished this position to Colombia. The reason is that in Turkey, US-backed state terror had largely succeeded, while in Colombia it had not. Colombia had the worst human rights record in the Western hemisphere in the 1990s and was by far the leading recipient of US arms and military training, and now leads the world. It also leads the world by other measures, for example, murder of labor activists: more than half of those killed worldwide in the last decade were in Colombia. Close to 1/2 million people were driven from their land last year, a new record. The displaced population is now estimated at 2.7 million. Political killings have risen to 20 a day; 5 years ago it was half that.
``I visited Cauca in southern Colombia, which had the worst human rights record in the country in 2001, quite an achievement. There I listened to hours of testimony by peasants who were driven from their lands by chemical warfare -- called "fumigation" under the pretext of a US-run "drug war" that few take seriously and that would be obscene if that were the intent. Their lives and lands are destroyed, children are dying, they suffer from sickness and wounds. Peasant agriculture is based on a rich tradition of knowledge and experience gained over many centuries, in much of the world passed on from mother to daughter. Though a remarkable human achievement, it is very fragile, and can be destroyed forever in a single generation. Also being destroyed is some of the richest biodiversity in the world, similar to neighboring regions of Brazil. Campesinos, indigenous people, Afro-Colombians can join the millions in rotting slums and camps. With the people gone, multinationals can come in to strip the mountains for coal and to extract oil and other resources, and to convert what is left of the land to monocrop agroexport using laboratory-produced seeds in an environment shorn of its treasures and variety.'' [ ZNet | Terror War, Confronting the Empire, Noam Chomsky February 01, 2003, http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=2938 (Included in it's entirety among the Appendixes.) ]
Sadly, these cases are just examples, there's so much more. But it's just depressing so I'll stop here. In essence, America still concentrates "on the task of felling trees and Indians and of rounding out their natural boundaries," as diplomatic historian Thomas Bailey described it in 1969. [ Year 501 -- The Conquest Continues By Noam Chomsky, Chapter One; "Felling Trees and Indians", http://zmag.org/chomsky/year/year-c01-s08.html ]
Obedience to the commandments of God
President Gordon B. Hinckley started his "The Times in Which We Live" speech on the October 2001 General Conference with the words "Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God." And indeed, this is the key. Obedience to the commandments of God. And what are the commandments of God? In the same speech, President Gordon B. Hinckley clearly state that we are people of peace, that we are followers of the Christ who was and is the Prince of Peace but that there are times when we must stand up for right and decency, for freedom and civilization. And indeed, this is such a time, when Denial and Deception is continually being used to deceive us into more and more war. President Gordon B. Hinckley also pointed out that the terrorist organizations must be ferreted out and brought down, and that the "terrible forces of evil" must be confronted and held accountable for their actions. And indeed, they must. The greatest sedition is indeed silence.
In his "The Times in Which We Live" speech, President Gordon B. Hinckley seemed to be under the impression that these evil forces of which he spoke were to be found outside his own country, outside America. But are they really? This is very important, because without obedience to the commandments of God, the land of America has no special promises -- and as if that isn't reason enough for members of the church to hesitate in our support of America, some of us doesn't feel very comfortable with promoting an organization that supports terrorism, and if we are not careful, the church may become just such an organization. And there are even those among us who has strong ethical barriers stopping them from in any way cooperating with evildoers.
Is U.N. the Anticrist?
Here is a great divide of how the world is perceived. The war on Iraq has been portrayed by President G W Bush as part of a battle against evil and, therefore, as a devout act that pleases God. And he has the Christian Right on his side in this. Since the attacks on September 11th, the apocalypse of John, Book of Revelations, is experiencing a booming comeback in the fundamentalist churches of America. To many of them, the United Nations represents the preferred forum of the Antichrist, because Revelations 17:13 teaches that the kings of the earth "shall give their power and strength unto the beast." The Pope, also an opponent of war, is chastised as a "whore of Babylon" because, according to Revelations 17:9, its throne is on "seven mountains," just as Rome lies on seven hills. The fact that the EU exists as a result of the Treaties of Rome makes all of Europe an instrument of the devil. Many are firmly convinced that the attacks on New York and Washington have started the process that will lead to the end of the world, the return of Jesus Christ, and the dawning of the promised thousand-year reign of God. When these people hear their president talk about the "Axis of Evil," they are convinced that he is speaking their own language, that he, like they, is a holy warrior. [ Much borrowed from english translation of War Out of Compassion by Hans Hoyng, Gerhard Sporl, Der Spiegel, 17 February 2003, see http://truthout.org/docs_03/041003E.shtml http://truthout.org/docs_03/printer_041003E.shtml http://spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,236692,00.html ]
But is President Bush really a holy warrior? Is this Iraq war, and any war that may result, really a holy war?
Fundamentalists of Power
It cannot be questioned that President G W Bush gives a very frank and straightforward appearance. His radicalism no doubt needs religious faith as its justification. But the same cannot be said of hard-liner duo Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, who manage without making reference to a higher being. To them, the United States' own claim that it is the world's only superpower is sufficient justification - Rumsfeld and Cheney are fundamentalists of power. In the words of Hans Hoyng, Gerhard Sporl, Der Spiegel, 17 February 2003 (see above), the obvious implication is that [Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney] are taking advantage of [President G W Bush's] religious zeal, his urge to convert others, to further their own highly worldly goals. [ Much borrowed from english translation of War Out of Compassion by Hans Hoyng, Gerhard Sporl, Der Spiegel, 17 February 2003, see http://truthout.org/docs_03/041003E.shtml http://truthout.org/docs_03/printer_041003E.shtml http://spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,236692,00.html ]
It has been amply demonstrated and there is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials deceived the United States of America into war. In Paul Krugman's words June 24, 2003, in a NYT OP-ED: "Leaks from professional intelligence analysts, who are furious over the way their work was abused, have given us a far more complete picture of how America went to war. Thanks to reporting by my colleague Nicholas Kristof, other reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and a magisterial article by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman in The New Republic, we now know that top officials, including Mr. Bush, sought to convey an impression about the Iraqi threat that was not supported by actual intelligence reports." Exactly how the the present Iraq war was sold on us -- with the most important details of the administrations clever deceptions -- has to date not been better described anywhere than in an article by John B. Judis & Spencer Ackerman that can be read here: http://truthout.org/docs_03/070703A.shtml or here: http://tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis063003 .
Truth is truth whoever speaks it
I understand that many in the Christian Right (think Ann Coulter, with her latest book Traitor) would prefer to level The New York Times to the ground, not to speak of The New Republic. And probably all of Europe as well. But truth is truth whoever speaks it. Neither Truth nor God is a respecter of persons! (See Moroni 8:12, D&C 1:35.) "For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion." (D&C 1:35.)
Without righteousness no justification
And this is really the crux of the entire matter, that without obedience to the commandments of God, without righteousness and truthfulness, the Christian Right has no right and no justification to support wars of agression and terrorism in other countries, which is exactly what it is doing in Iraq and other places, past, present and yet to come. While this will probably be entirely without merit for true believers, it may still be worth mentioning that the collective minds of law scholars across our planet nearly unanimously agree that the United States and it's allies are in violation of it's own internatinal treaties and the international laws it has signed with it's war of agression against Iraq. Many law scholars also agree that the United States and it's allies have been conducting an illegal air-war against Iraq for over a decade, and that Iraq has had every right to defend it's air-space against the U.S./U.K. aggression. In fact, the very U.S. Constitution declares valid treaties "the supreme law of the land," particularly the most fundamental of them, the U.N. Charter. The Constitution further authorizes Congress to "define and punish...offenses against the law of nations," undergirded by the Charter in the contemporary era. It is unfortunate indeed that ``contempt for the rule of law is [so] deeply rooted in U.S. practice and intellectual culture. Recall, for example, the reaction to the judgment of the World Court in 1986 condemning the U.S. for "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua, demanding that it desist and pay extensive reparations, and declaring all U.S. aid to the contras, whatever its character, to be "military aid," not "humanitarian aid." The Court was denounced on all sides for having discredited itself. The terms of the judgment were not considered fit to print, and were ignored. The Democrat-controlled Congress immediately authorized new funds to step up the unlawful use of force. Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to respect international law -- not mentioning anyone, though the intent was clear. When the General Assembly passed a similar resolution, the U.S. voted against it, effectively vetoing it, joined only by Israel and El Salvador; the following year, only the automatic Israeli vote could be garnered. Little of this received mention in the media or journals of opinion, let alone what it signifies.'' [ Essay "Rogue States" http://zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html (an Excerpt is included among the Appendixes). ]
Contempt for law and human rights inside and outside the U.S.
This ``contempt for the rule of law [that] is [so] deeply rooted in U.S. practice and intellectual culture'' may also help to explain the secret internment without trial of so many people with roots in the Middle East. This contempt may also explain why human rights organizations are despised and ignored even in the U.S.. And the contempt for the millions and millions of peaceful and dignified protesters around the world. ``Why do they hate us'', many Americans ask themself. We don't hate. We love. All mankind, Americans too. One in every 40 of the 2,000,000 dead in Vietnam was American. We love you no less than the other 2,000,000 and their families. The same in every conflict -- we feel the same love towards the familiy and friends of the occasional U.S. casualty as we do towards the many other families and friends of all the other casualties. Take Iraq, there's a lot of mainly Iraqi people that loose their life there now, not to speak of the dreadful social situation after the society was destroyed by the occupation forces. And some Americans too. We feel equally for both -- none of them deserve to be in this situation. The U.S. soliders should never have been sent there and the Iraqi people should never had to endure a foreign occupation force. I cannot of course speak for everyone, but I felt the spirit in the demonstration in Stockholm, there was love. A lot of love. Not hate. Never hate.
Anti-Americanism
In a private letter from one American to another American about facts similar to the ones in this essay, that I had brought up in private correspondence, the first American wrote (March 3, 2003) to the second, with a copy to me: ``while Leif is certainly entitled to his opinions, he has crossed over the line of rational debate, and entered the realm of emotionalism and hyperbole. Many of his statements are not only insulting, but false. I am trying hard to give Leif the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he is misinformed. But many of his statements betray a deep anti-Americanism.'' It is very difficult to know how to respond to sentiments like these when you know that you have done all in your power to present the truth as accurately as you possibly can. And in the case of my private correspondence, it was even very much "cushioned" compared to the present text exactly because I care so deeply for the recipient. I think Air Force veteran Todd Altman puts the finger on what is behind this kind of reaction (i.e. that I and others criticizing the hypocrisy would be anti-American): ``Consider first the claim that war protestors are "anti-American." Is this accusation valid? I don't believe it is. Here's why. The term "America" is virtually synonymous with individualism [ http://www.bartleby.com/61/3/I0110300.html ] , and one of the central tenets of individualism is that there is a fundamental difference between the government of a country and the country itself. Thus, in the very act of accusing dissenters of being "anti-American," pro-war advocates unwittingly reveal themselves to be anti-American. Why? Because the premise of their accusation is the collectivist [ http://www.capitalism.org/faq/collectivism.htm ] notion that there is not a fundamental difference between the government of a country and the country itself, and that it is therefore impossible to criticize one without criticizing the other. There is an eerie sense of Orwellian doublethink to this sort of "patriotism," and I think more and more Americans are starting to realize this. Consider next the issue of historical context. If you oppose this war, and often find yourself being viciously attacked by those who support it, you've probably figured out by now that there are certain things about the federal government's foreign policy -- both past and present -- that pro-war advocates simply don't want to know about. . . .'' [ Why Pro-War Advocates Have Got It Wrong -- Facts versus Propaganda, by Air Force veteran Todd Altman: http://progress.org/2003/altman07.htm (Included in it's entirety among the Appendixes. I recommend it's reading in full.) ]
Gunter Grass, who is finally proud to be German because his country has learned from history, writes April 7, 2003: ``No, it is not anti-Americanism that is damaging the image of the United States; nor do the dictator Saddam Hussein and his extensively disarmed country endanger the most powerful country in the world. It is President Bush and his government that are diminishing democratic values, bringing sure disaster to their own country, ignoring the United Nations, and that are now terrifying the world with a war in violation of international law.'' [ The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values by Gunter Grass, Los Angeles Times April 7, 2003: http://commondreams.org/views03/0407-05.htm (Included in it's entirety among the Appendixes.)]
This little incident is _very_ telling for Europeans and Jews alike: ``A reporter visits Guantánamo Bay and asks a guard about the sign at the front gate of the prison camp. The sign says: "Honor bound -- to defend freedom." The reporter asks "Isn't that a little strange, a slogan about freedom on the gate of a prison camp?" The guard replies "Doesn't seem strange to me-- does it seem strange to you?"'' [Ted Conover, In the Land of Guantánamo, New York Times, June 29, 2003; http://why-war.com/cgi-bin/read.cgi?id=3210 (original was at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/magazine/29GUANTANAMO.html) ]. This exchange appeared in a New York Times Magazine story. One can't help but wonder if either of these persons are aware that over each of the front gates of the Auschwitz I concentration camp, the Dachau concentration camp, the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the Terezín ghetto-camp, the Nazis had beautiful signs each reading "Arbeit Macht Frei", or "Work makes one free." [ http://rudyfoto.com/hol/arbeit.html ] So, who is anti-american here?
Whether to support terror or civilization
As for the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what remains is to decide if one wants to support international terrorism in the name of ones God and country, or if one wants to support commandments of God, right and decency, freedom and civilization . . . It has and is truthfully said about the United States of America that it is the most dangerous terrorist state on the face of the earth, and on top of that, one controlled by fanatical fundamentalists far more unpredictable than Usama bin Laden. That this truth isn't shouted from the roof-tops and in every international assembly is just a consequence of the raw power of the United States, not of it's righteousness. But it should give reason for pause that the United States has made everything in it's power to stop the International Court from having jurisdiction over United States citizens. And it is a great thing that gives hope for humanity yet that so few countries have allowed the United States to bribe or bully them into supporting the United States in this Gadiantonry; to woo the people with sophistry, and to take control of the society. With the words of President Gordon B. Hinckley, "We see the same thing in the present situation." (Hinckley was referring to other terrorist states, not the United States, when he said this.)
Does might make right?
A common justification for unilateral "policing" (an insult to the police, who are supposed to enforce the law, not tear it to shreds) is that ``it is morally and intellectually dishonest to claim respect for "International Law" as embodied in U.N. resolutions while at the same time expressing disdain for the only nation with the ability to enforce those resolutions.'' [ Private correspondence ]
Similar views are mentioned here: http://zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html : ``Senator John Kerry added that it would be "legitimate" for the U.S. to invade Iraq outright if Saddam "remains obdurate and in violation of the United Nations resolutions, and in a position of threat to the world community," whether the Security Council so determines or not. Such unilateral U.S. action would be "within the framework of international law," as Kerry conceives it.''
My response is: I'll use a metaphor. God is the ultimate lawenforcer. He is all mighty. He can do anything. Yet He will abide by His word. He will keep his word (as long as we keep to Him). God the lawenforcer will not contrary to his law subject us to injustice and He will not tear the law to shreds. Our disdain is for the hypocrisy of the nation that perverts it's own Constitution. (The same Constitution that declares valid treaties "the supreme law of the land," particularly the most fundamental of them, the U.N. Charter. The Constitution further authorizes Congress to "define and punish...offenses against the law of nations," undergirded by the Charter in the contemporary era.) Our disdain is for a nation that on the one hand criticize other countries for their lack of conformance to International Law and U.N. resolutions but who on the other hand regularly disobey or sabotage such laws and resolutions. The U.S. is the country that has most often used the veto power. Several times exactly to prevent otherwise virtually unanimous resolutions AGAINST the U.S.. In the extent that the U.N. doesn't work this is largely because the U.S. wish it to be so.
Maybe the reply would be: ``You have been deceived by the anti-Americanism in European media. If your news had been more balanced you would understand that the countries that oppose the war have financial interests in Iraq.''
To this I might reply: ``You think we have been deceived? Isn't it just that we insist on less hypocrisy?'' "Follow the money," someone wrote to me. Sure, Russia and France have interests in Iraq. But what companies are getting all the contracts now? Can you spell to Vice-President Cheney's old "Halliburton Petroleum"? Only companies with the best of contacts with the U.S. administration gets to share the loot. [ IslamOnline 23/03/2003, The Real Motives for War in Iraq By Noor ad-Deen Ingalls (Staff writer) http://islamonline.net/English/Views/2003/03/article14.shtml ] The U.S. and U.K. doesn't exactly have clean hands. ``There are legitimate ways to react to the many threats to world peace. If Iraq's neighbors feel threatened, they can approach the Security Council to authorize appropriate measures to respond to the threat. If the U.S. and Britain feel threatened, they can do the same. But no state has the authority [ -- not legally -- ] to make its own determinations on these matters and to act as it chooses; the U.S. and U.K. would have no such authority even if their own hands were clean, hardly the case.'' [ Essay "Rogue States" http://zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html ( is included among the Appendixes). ] Also, how can we trust a "law enforcer" who routinely plants false evidence (e.g. the "gassing of his own people" story that many including the U.N. bought at the time), and who on top of that routinely ignores the verdicts of the court that it deceives (the U.N.)? The most incriminating evidence against Saddam -- agreeably a really unpleasant ruler -- is simply false. But the resulting sanctions have killed 1.4 million Iraqi civilians (October 17, 2001). This is 3,000 times more than the number of Kurds who supposedly died of gassing at the hands of Saddam. [ "Did Saddam gas his own people?" http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24960 and "QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ" http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr091002.htm (Both included in their entirety among the Appendixes.) ] The U.S. has corrupted all of us. The change that you see as anti-Americanism is that the _grassroots_ in the U.S. and Europe alike has caught on, and some "strange" democracies have actually listened to their voters and changed policy. I know, it's not the american way, but nevertheless this is what has happened. And European media have to a much larger degree reflected public opinion than in the U.S., where the peace marches were ridiculed and falsely reported.
As I just stated, the U.S. has corrupted all of us. We are all guilty. Let me illustrate: ``In 1998, Denis Halliday, the first coordinator of humanitarian relief in Iraq, resigned after 34 years of service with the UN. Halliday stated: I have been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. History will slaughter those responsible. Halliday's replacement, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned in 2000. "How long," he asked, "should the civilian population of Iraq be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?" Sponeck described the oil-for-food program as providing the Iraqi population with $177 per person per year-50 cents a day-for all of the needs of each Iraqi citizen. Numerous policy papers and studies issued by UN agencies and legal scholars have determined that the sanctions program violates international human rights and humanitarian laws. In 1999, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights published a working paper which described sanctions as "unequivocally illegal" and stated that sanctions had caused a humanitarian disaster "comparable to the worst catastrophes of the past decade."'' [ Searching for a Christian Response to the War on Iraq: a Call to Repentance and Resistance http://counterpunch.org/mcdowell02122003.html ] It is precisely when the Security Council yields to the pressure from the U.S. (or any other Rouge State) that it is "out of control". U.S. media would have us believe precisely the opposite, that whenever the Security Council opposes the dictates of the U.S., it is therefore demonstrably irrelevant. The idea of course being that the U.N. exists at the sole discretion of the U.S.. Maybe that is why the U.S. Congress didn't pay the huge U.S. debt to the U.N. until it felt it could use the U.N. for it's own purposes.
[ Statistics on the debt: United Nations Financial Crisis:
Tables and Charts http://globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/index11.htm
1996: http://globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/dbttab96.htm
1999: http://globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/dbttab99.htm
2000: http://globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/dbttab00.htm
2001: http://globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/core/un-us-01.htm
2002: http://globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/core/un-us-02.htm
Also see UN Financial Crisis & USA Debt http://betterworldlinks.org/book75d.htm and LIAISON Vol. 3, No. 5, September 1999: ``The most powerful country in the world still owes a total of 1.6 billion to the UN.'' http://unac.org/en/library/liaison/vol3_no5_word.asp ]
``In God's government there is perfect order, harmony, beauty, magnificence, and grandeur; in the government of man, confusion, disorder, instability, misery, discord, and death. In the first, the most consummate wisdom and power are manifested; in the second, ignorance, imbecility, and weakness. The first displays the comprehension, light, glory, beneficence, and intelligence of God' the second, the folly, littleness, darkness, and incompetency of man. The contemplation of the first elevates the mind, expands the capacity, the second produces doubt, distrust, and uncertainty and fills the mind with gloomy apprehensions. In a word, the one is the work of God, and the other that of man.'' [The Government Of God by John Taylor, one of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ch.1.]
Human governments are of necessity imperfect. We all know that. Still, it is the policy of the church to support worldly leaders. It's even one of the articles of faith; We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
But contempt for obvious truths will hardly win any friends to the church. By ignoring the plain truth -- or refusing to take any part of it -- members and leaders of the Church will gain no respect outside the circles of religious fundamentalists and fanatics. For ``We are called of God to be an upright people, a virtuous people, an honorable people. We are called upon to maintain correct principles, and to introduce them among the peoples of the earth, and especially among the people of this nation. -- JD, 25:93, February 10, 1884. By and by, you will find they will tear the Constitution to shreds, as they have begun now. They have started long ago to rend the Constitution of our country in pieces; and in doing so they are letting loose and encouraging a principle which will react upon themselves with terrible consequences. For if lawmakers and administrators can afford to trample upon justice, equity, and the Constitution of this country, they will find thousands and tens of thousands who are willing to follow in their wake in the demolition of the rights of man, and the destruction of all principles of justice, and the safeguards of the nation. But we will stand by and maintain its principles and the rights of all men of every color, and every clime. We will cleave to the truth, live our religion, and keep the commandments of God, and God will bless us in time and throughout the eternities that are to come. -- JD, 26:38-39, December 14, 1884.'' [ John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, Chapter 29, p.310: Calling Of The Latter-day Saints. [The people of this nation Will Tear The Constitution To Shreds. We are called upon to maintain correct principles.]] ``We have reason to deplore [our governments] maladministration, and I call upon our legislators, our governors and president to pause in their careers and not to tamper with the rights and liberties of American citizens, nor wantonly tear down the bulwarks of American and human liberty. God has given to us glorious institutions. Let us preserve them intact and not pander to the vices, passions, and fanaticism of a depraved public opinion. -- JD, 23:65-66, April 9, 1882.'' [ John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, Chapter 29, p.311: Appeal For An Enlightened Public Opinion.]
With Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles I therefore exclaim, ``Peace is a prime priority that pleads for our pursuit''! [ Blessed Are the Peacemakers, General Conference October 2002, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-315-13,00.html ]
Leif Erlingsson
Leif currently serves as
Ward Executive Secretary
Hägersten Ward
Stockholm Sweden South Stake
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
APPENDIXES
A real eye-opener
THE RULE OF FORCE
An Excerpt from Rogue States
Exactly the wrong conclusion
Articles of Impeachment
Confronting the Empire
History of the Church, 1805 - 1847
Why Pro-War Advocates Have Got It Wrong
The "New World Order" in Practice
Iraq War - Legality without a UN Mandate
UN did not give a mandate for violence
The so called no fly zones and the U.N.
The Raid on Baghdad -- Lawfulness and Implications
Bush War: Military Necessity or War Crimes?
Iraq War Unleashes Barbarism
Did Saddam gas his own people?
QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ
20 Lies About the War
Better Late Than Never
Top 40 Bush Administration Lies on Iraq War and Terror
I write this to you in fear of my immortal soul
Human Rights Watch Letter to Donald Rumsfeld
'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...'
The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values
Do We Really Have Free Speech?
You are with us or against us
Defying Law, Bush Administration Locks Up Americans
Showdown Nears Over Terrorism Detentions
Mormonism And The American System
The following was added after the essay was already finished
Searching for a Christian Response to the War on Iraq
Media control:
The Spectacular Achievements Of Propaganda
Impeachable Offenses
We Stand Our Ground
A Debate Over U.S. 'Empire' Builds in Unexpected Circles
Personal Notes to the Recipient
A real eye-opener
A real eye-opener
by Leif Erlingsson; July 26, 2003
For me, this period since September 2002 has been a real eye-opener. In September I discovered the U.S. war propaganda, and started to investigate. And hasn't really stopped since then. Let it be enough to say that I am still in the process of re-evaluating everything I "knew". I was shocked indeed to discover that many, many of my fellow Latter-day Saints were _for_ the war. But maybe this is not so strange if you consider that they have been led to believe that the war was justified. Latter-day Saints believe -- indeed have been prepared by the Book of Mormon to understand -- that war in order to defend your land, freedom and families are justified before God. And George Walker Bush has "sold" the war in exactly these terms. Of course, in reality the war is not justifiable in any way. The U.S. is outside the law, even it's own law. [ http://www.eurolegal.org/uscivilrightspage4.htm (bad link), local transcript: http://legal.lege.net/new_world_order/ or http://truthout.org/docs_03/072503D.shtml ]. The three-part series "Military Necessity or War Crimes?" at http://legal.lege.net/military_necessity/ or at #1: http://truthout.org/docs_03/071403D.shtml , #2: http://truthout.org/docs_03/072503D.shtml , #3: http://truthout.org/docs_03/072603D.shtml clearly show both that the war is and was illegal in all respects and also that it was not justifiable by any "Military Necessity" either. In short, it is and was a War Crime, which makes the epithet "regime" for Saddam's Iraq and "government" for Bush's U.S. seem quite unjust. (Why should one be called a "regime" and not the other?)
About me personally: I was born 1958 in Sweden, where I still live and raise a family. Wife, 11 year old boy, 9 year old girl, newborn boy (June 5, 2003). Are active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have a brother in Miami Springs with his own family, that have no affiliation with the abovementioned church, but we are both very active in the "anti-war-propaganda-movement".
THE RULE OF FORCE
``THE RULE OF FORCE. -- . . . You who have made yourselves acquainted with the political structure and the political intrigues of earthly kingdoms, I ask, whence did they obtain their power? Did they get it from God? Go to the history of Europe, if you please, and examine how the rulers of those nations obtained their authority. Depending upon history for our information, we say those nations have been founded by the sword. If we trace the pages of history still further back to the first nation that existed, still we find that it was founded upon the same principles. Then follow the various revolutions and changes that took place among subsequent nations and power, from the Babylonians through the Medo-Persians, Grecians, Romans, and from that power to all the other powers of Europe, Asia, and Africa of which we have any knowledge. And if we look to America from the first discoveries by Columbus to the present time, where are now the original proprietors of the soil? Go to any power that has existed upon this earth, and you will find that earthly government, earthly rule and dominion, have been obtained by the sword. It was the sword of men that first put them in possession of this power. They have walked up to their thrones through rivers of blood, through the clotted gore and the groans of the dying, and through the tears and lamentations of bereaved widows and helpless orphans; and hence the common saying is, "Thrones won by blood, by blood must be maintained." By the same principle that they have been put in possession of territory, have they sought to sustain themselves the same violence, the same fraud, and the same oppression have been made use of to sustain their illegitimacy. . . . -- JD, 1:223-225, April 8, 1853.'' [The Gospel Kingdom, selections from the Writings and Discourses of John Taylor, Third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, p.315.]
An Excerpt from Rogue States
[ Full (and most interesting) text at http://zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html ]
An Excerpt from Rogue States
by Noam Chomsky
The concept of "rogue state" plays a pre-eminent role today in policy planning and analysis.
The current Iraq crisis is only the latest example. Washington and London declared Iraq a "rogue state," a threat to its neighbors and to the entire world, an "outlaw nation" led by a reincarnation of Hitler who must be contained by the guardians of world order, the United States and its British "junior partner," to adopt the term ruefully employed by the British foreign office half a century ago. The concept merits a close look.
[...]
A secret 1995 study of the Strategic Command, which is responsible for the strategic nuclear arsenal, outlines the basic thinking. Released through the Freedom of Information Act, the study, Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence, "shows how the United States shifted its deterrent strategy from the defunct Soviet Union to so-called rogue states such as Iraq, Libya, Cuba and North Korea," AP reports. The study advocates that the US exploit its nuclear arsenal to portray itself as "irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked." That "should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries," in particular the "rogue states." "It hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed," let alone committed to such silliness as international law and treaty obligations. "The fact that some elements" of the US government "may appear to be potentially `out of control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision makers." The report resurrects Nixon's "madman theory": our enemies should recognize that we are crazed and unpredictable, with extraordinary destructive force at our command, so they will bend to our will in fear.
[...]
Iraq has displaced Iran and Libya as the leading "rogue state." Others have never entered the ranks. Perhaps the most relevant case is Indonesia, which shifted from enemy to friend when General Suharto took power in 1965, presiding over an enormous slaughter that elicited great satisfaction in the West. Since then Suharto has been "our kind of guy," as the Clinton Administration described him, while carrying out murderous aggression and endless atrocities against his own people; killing 10,000 Indonesians just in the 1980s, according to the personal testimony of "our guy," who wrote that "the corpses were left lying around as a form of shock therapy." (Cited by Charles Glass, Prospect (London), March 1998.) In December 1975 the UN Security Council unanimously ordered Indonesia to withdraw its invading forces from East Timor "without delay" and called upon "all States to respect the territorial integrity of East Timor as well as the inalienable right of its people to self-determination." The US responded by (secretly) increasing shipments of arms to the aggressors; Carter accelerated the arms flow once again as the attack reached near-genocidal levels in 1978.
In his memoirs, UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan takes pride in his success in rendering the UN "utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook," following the instructions of the State Department, which "wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about." The US also happily accepts the robbery of East Timor's oil (with participation of a US company), in violation of any reasonable interpretation of international agreements.
The analogy to Iraq/Kuwait is close, though there are differences: to mention only the most obvious, US-sponsored atrocities in East Timor were vastly beyond anything attributed to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait.
[...]
The concept "rogue state" is highly nuanced. Thus Cuba qualifies as a leading "rogue state" because of its alleged involvement in international terrorism, but the US does not fall into the category despite its terrorist attacks against Cuba for close to 40 years, apparently continuing through last summer according to important investigative reporting of the Miami Herald, which failed to reach the national press (here -- it did in Europe). Cuba was a "rogue state" when its military forces were in Angola, backing the government against South African attacks supported by the US. South Africa, in contrast, was not a rogue state then, nor during the Reagan years, when it caused over $60 billion in damage and 1.5 million deaths in neighboring states according to a UN Commission, not to speak of some events at home -- and with ample US/UK support. The same exemption applies to Indonesia and many others.
The criteria are fairly clear: a "rogue state" is not simply a criminal state, but one that defies the orders of the powerful -- who are, of course, exempt.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Exactly the wrong conclusion
``Geoffrey Biddulph cites all the right scriptures in his article on the Book of Mormon and Iraq and comes to exactly the wrong conclusion. As he notes over and over the Book of Mormon does not justify aggressive war. Yet we will be conducting a preemptive strike if the United States attacks Iraq. Granted the people of the United States are not filled with anger against that nation, but the President surely is. Unfortunately, we all will suffer if he continues in his course. The surest way to provoke a retaliatory terrorist attack from Iraq is for us to attack first. If not from Iraq itself, our invasion of a Muslim country will throw fuel on the fires in the mideast and create more recruits for terrorist organizations. I thought we had learned the lessons of patience in our policy of containment and deterrence with the Soviet Union, but the aggressive desire for action against an enemy is too much for our President to resist. We are likely soon to be plunged into war in contradiction to the Book of Mormon policy.'' [ Richard Bushman, Columbia University, in feedback on website http://meridianmagazine.com/editorial/021007bofm.html to essay by Geoffrey Biddulph ]
Articles of Impeachment
http://votetoimpeach.org/articles_rc.htm
Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:
1) Threatening Iraq with a first-strike war of aggression by overwhelming and indiscriminate force including specific threats to use nuclear weapons while engaged in a massive military build-up in surrounding nations and waters.
2) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties are unavoidable.
3) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently proclaiming an intention to change its government by force while preparing to assault Iraq in a war of aggression.
4) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
5) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
6) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
7) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."
8) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.
9) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
10) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
11) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.
12) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.
13) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.
14) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."
15) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.
16) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.
17) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and recission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.
Confronting the Empire
http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=2938
http://zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=2938§ionID=40
ZNet | Terror War
Confronting the Empire
by Noam Chomsky; February 01, 2003
We are meeting at a moment of world history that is in many ways unique -- a moment that is ominous, but also full of hope.
The most powerful state in history has proclaimed, loud and clear, that it intends to rule the world by force, the dimension in which it reigns supreme. Apart from the conventional bow to noble intentions that is the standard (hence meaningless) accompaniment of coercion, its leaders are committed to pursuit of their ``imperial ambition,'' as it is frankly described in the leading journal of the foreign policy establishment -- critically, an important matter. They have also declared that they will tolerate no competitors, now or in the future. They evidently believe that the means of violence in their hands are so extraordinary that they can dismiss with contempt anyone who stands in their way. There is good reason to believe that the war with Iraq is intended, in part, to teach the world some lessons about what lies ahead when the empire decides to strike a blow -- though ``war'' is hardly the proper term, given the array of forces.
The doctrine is not entirely new, nor unique to the US, but it has never before been proclaimed with such brazen arrogance -- at least not by anyone we would care to remember.
I am not going to try to answer the question posed for this meeting: How to confront the empire. The reason is that most of you know the answers as well or better than I do, through your own lives and work. The way to ``confront the empire'' is to create a different world, one that is not based on violence and subjugation, hate and fear. That is why we are here, and the WSF offers hope that these are not idle dreams.
Yesterday I had the rare privilege of seeing some very inspiring work to achieve these goals, at the international gathering of the Via Campesina at a community of the MST, which I think is the most important and exciting popular movement in the world. With constructive local actions such as those of the MST, and international organization of the kind illustrated by the Via Campesina and the WSF, with sympathy and solidarity and mutual aid, there is real hope for a decent future.
I have also had some other recent experiences that give a vivid picture of what the world may be like if imperial violence is not limited and dismantled. Last month I was in southeastern Turkey, the scene of some of the worst atrocities of the grisly 1990s, still continuing: just a few hours ago we were informed of renewed atrocities by the army near Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of the Kurdish regions. Through the 1990s, millions of people were driven out of the devastated countryside, with tens of thousands killed and every imaginable form of barbaric torture. They try to survive in caves outside the walls of Diyarbakir, in condemned buildings in miserable slums in Istanbul, or wherever they can find refuge, barred from returning to their villages despite new legislation that theoretically permits return. 80% of the weapons came from the US. In the year 1997 alone, Clinton sent more arms to Turkey than in the entire Cold War period combined up to the onset of the state terror campaign -- called ``counterterror'' by the perpetrators and their supporters, another convention. Turkey became the leading recipient of US arms as atrocities peaked (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category).
In 1999, Turkey relinquished this position to Colombia. The reason is that in Turkey, US-backed state terror had largely succeeded, while in Colombia it had not. Colombia had the worst human rights record in the Western hemisphere in the 1990s and was by far the leading recipient of US arms and military training, and now leads the world. It also leads the world by other measures, for example, murder of labor activists: more than half of those killed worldwide in the last decade were in Colombia. Close to 1/2 million people were driven from their land last year, a new record. The displaced population is now estimated at 2.7 million. Political killings have risen to 20 a day; 5 years ago it was half that.
I visited Cauca in southern Colombia, which had the worst human rights record in the country in 2001, quite an achievement. There I listened to hours of testimony by peasants who were driven from their lands by chemical warfare -- called ``fumigation'' under the pretext of a US-run ``drug war'' that few take seriously and that would be obscene if that were the intent. Their lives and lands are destroyed, children are dying, they suffer from sickness and wounds. Peasant agriculture is based on a rich tradition of knowledge and experience gained over many centuries, in much of the world passed on from mother to daughter. Though a remarkable human achievement, it is very fragile, and can be destroyed forever in a single generation. Also being destroyed is some of the richest biodiversity in the world, similar to neighboring regions of Brazil. Campesinos, indigenous people, Afro-Colombians can join the millions in rotting slums and camps. With the people gone, multinationals can come in to strip the mountains for coal and to extract oil and other resources, and to convert what is left of the land to monocrop agroexport using laboratory-produced seeds in an environment shorn of its treasures and variety.
The scenes in Cauca and Southeastern Turkey are very different from the celebrations of the Via Campesina gathering at the MST community. But Turkey and Colombia are inspiring and hopeful in different ways, because of the courage and dedication of people struggling for justice and freedom, confronting the empire where it is killing and destroying.
These are some of the signs of the future if ``imperial ambition'' proceeds on its normal course, now to be accelerated by the grand strategy of global rule by force. None of this is inevitable, and among the good models for ending these crimes are the ones I mentioned: the MST, the Via Campesina, and the WSF.
At the WSF, the range of issues and problems under intense discussion is very broad, remarkably so, but I think we can identify two main themes. One is global justice and Life after Capitalism -- or to put it more simply, life, because it is not so clear that the human species can survive very long under existing state capitalist institutions. The second theme is related: war and peace, and more specifically, the war in Iraq that Washington and London are desperately seeking to carry out, virtually alone.
Let's start with some good news about these basic themes. As you know, there is also a conference of the World Economic Forum going on right now, in Davos. Here in Porto Alegre, the mood is hopeful, vigorous, exciting. In Davos, the New York Times tells us, ``the mood has darkened.'' For the ``movers and shakers,'' it is not ``global party time'' any more. In fact, the founder of the Forum has conceded defeat: ``The power of corporations has completely disappeared,'' he said. So we have won. There is nothing left for us to do but pick up the pieces -- not only to talk about a vision of the future that is just and humane, but to move on to create it.
Of course, we should not let the praise go to our heads. There are still a few difficulties ahead.
The main theme of the WEF is ``Building Trust.'' There is a reason for that. The ``masters of the universe,'' as they liked to call themselves in more exuberant days, know that they are in serious trouble. They recently released a poll showing that trust in leaders has severely declined. Only the leaders of NGOs had the trust of a clear majority, followed by UN and spiritual/religious leaders, then leaders of Western Europe and economic managers, below them corporate executives, and well below them, at the bottom, leaders of the US, with about 25% trust. That may well mean virtually no trust: when people are asked whether they trust leaders with power, they usually say ``Yes,'' out of habit.
It gets worse. A few days ago a poll in Canada found that over 1/3 of the population regard the US as the greatest threat to world peace. The US ranks more than twice as high as Iraq or North Korea, and far higher than al-Qaeda as well. A poll without careful controls, by Time magazine, found that over 80% of respondents in Europe regarded the US as the greatest threat to world peace, compared with less than 10% for Iraq or North Korea. Even if these numbers are wrong by some substantial factor, they are dramatic.
Without going on, the corporate leaders who paid $30,000 to attend the somber meetings in Davos have good reasons to take as their theme: ``Building Trust.''
The coming war with Iraq is undoubtedly contributing to these interesting and important developments. Opposition to the war is completely without historical precedent. In Europe it is so high that Secretary of ``Defense'' Donald Rumsfeld dismissed Germany and France as just the ``old Europe,'' plainly of no concern because of their disobedience. The ``vast numbers of other countries in Europe [are] with the United States,'' he assured foreign journalists. These vast numbers are the ``new Europe,'' symbolized by Italy's Berlusconi, soon to visit the White House, praying that he will be invited to be the third of the ``three B's'': Bush-Blair-Berlusconi -- assuming that he can stay out of jail. Italy is on board, the White House tells us. It is apparently not a problem that over 80% of the public is opposed to the war, according to recent polls. That just shows that the people of Italy also belong to the ``old Europe,'' and can be sent to the ashcan of history along with France and Germany, and others who do not know their place.
Spain is hailed as another prominent member of the new Europe -- with 75% totally opposed to the war, according to an international Gallup poll. According to the leading foreign policy analyst of Newsweek, pretty much the same is true of the most hopeful part of the new Europe, the former Communist countries that are counted on (quite openly) to serve US interests and undermine Europe's despised social market and welfare states. He reports that in Czechoslovakia, 2/3 of the population oppose participation in a war, while in Poland only 1/4 would support a war even if the UN inspectors ``prove that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.'' The Polish press reports 37% approval in this case, still extremely low, at the heart of the ``new Europe.''
New Europe soon identified itself in an open letter in the Wall Street Journal: along with Italy, Spain, Poland and Czechoslovakia -- the leaders, that is, not the people -- it includes Denmark (with popular opinion on the war about the same as Germany, therefore ``old Europe''), Portugal (53% opposed to war under any circumstances, 96% opposed to war by the US and its allies unilaterally), Britain (40% opposed to war under any circumstances, 90% opposed to war by the US and its allies un