Here's some interesting reading
MORE BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD
(Col. writ. 2/24/01)
Copyright 2001 Mumia Abu-Jamal
"What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war."
-- Simone Weil (1909-1943), French Philosopher
Once again, after almost a decade has passed, the fiendish roar of American and British jets echoed in the suburbs of Baghdad, Iraq, and a deadly rain of bombs once again hits one of the oldest cities on earth.
Immediately, the corporate media rushed to the airwaves to promote the bombings, and Bush Administration officials announced that the aerial attacks on the Iraqi capital were acts of
"pre emptive self-defense."
Once again, the corporate-political media launch into the demonization game, with attacks on a "Hitler"-like Saddam Hussein, with foreboding threats of Iraq developing "weapons of mass destruction," -- yeah, uh huh.
George Bush II announces that this, his first substantive international action (other than a contemporaneous photo-op with Mexico's Vicente Fox), was meant to "send a message" to Hussein. His Dynastic, Unroyal Highness did not deign to tell his subjects what the "message" really was.
This writer will try.
The great English writer, George Orwell, in his prophetic novel of an intrusive, panoptic, totalitarian state, "1984", illustrated with brilliant clarity the capacity of such states to utilize words that mean exactly the opposite of what they were proferred to mean. In "1984" the State states:
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
Similarly, "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is a term that evokes fear, but fear stifles thought and cripples reason.
Consider the fact that never has either Israel or the apartheid-era South Africa been described as states wielding "Weapons of Mass Destruction," although both possessed nuclear capabilities.
If having a 'weapon of mass destruction' is a violation of international law, then the USA must be a global criminal, for no nation possesses so much nuclear weaponry (moreover, no nation has formerly used such weapons -- except the US).
If most Americans are asked to name the country that sells the most arms to the rest of the world, even reasonably well-informed folks would say, "Russia," "China," "France," or "Brazil." Few would answer, "USA." In selling weapons the US truly is 'Number One.' Iraq waged a bitter and vicious war for almost a decade against her Shi'a neighbor and rival, Iran. Almost a million men, women and babies perished in that southwest Asian holocaust. Guess who sold the most arms to Saddam Hussein's army?
The United States of America.
Back during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, it was the Ayatullah Khomeini who was being demonized by the media. Iraq's Hussein was "our guy."
What the bombing of Iraq was and still is all about -- is oil.
Don't take my word for it.
Several years ago, when another US-UK bombing spike was going on, an American general, Brig. William Looney, spoke openly of the "message" that America was trying to send to Iraq:
"If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs (surface-to-air missiles). They know we own their country. We own their airspace ... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, *especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need*."
-- (Blum, Wm., p. 159, *Rogue State*, Common Courage, 2000)
The general sez, "oil." Shouldn't he know why Iraq is being bombarded?
This is the Voice of Empire, as real and as omnipotent as any empire in history; the Roman, the Byzantine, or the Ottoman Empire. And empires do what they do for one real reason: they can.
