Tag Archives: Torture

Review of Call of Duty: Black Ops

3 Jan

Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) is yet another first-person shooter fetishizing imperialist war and allowing children to be their own one-man death-squads in a virtual world. America’s youth will be tossing grenades, firing automatic weapons, slitting throats and even occasionally committing torture on another battlefield waged across the living rooms of America and, when they tire of this, will be embarking on a cheesy add-on quest to defend the White House from hordes of zombies with John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon as their companions.

With a single-player campaign mode that rips off more Vietnam War films than one can count (with notable references to Apocalypse Now!, The Deer Hunter and even themes from The Manchurian Candidate) and a frenetic multiplayer mode that has players killing one another for money to be spent on in-game weapons-upgrades, Black Ops has everything that adolescent American wants. Yet, while this game will satiate this boyish bloodlust for a few weeks, this will inevitably be remembered as merely “another Call of Duty game.” The significance of this review is not to analyze necessarily what this game is, but what it represents in terms of capitalism’s fetishization of violence and the implications of this fetish in our understanding of American imperialism.

Call of Duty: From World War to Whatever Sells

The Call of Duty series wasn’t always the degenerate cliché of online butchery combined with a lame excuse of a story trying desperately to hold itself together that it is now. Rather, it had its beginnings as a World War II shooter that drew on historical accounts, interviews of veterans and a more-or-less earnest attempt to create an immersive WWII experience. To its credit, Call of Duty was one of the first shooters of this kind to allow the player to play as a Soviet soldier fighting against the Nazis on the Eastern Front and, while the first game was bogged down in the Enemy at the Gates portrayal of the Red Army being disorganized and having as much to fear from their own officers as the enemy they were fighting, later installments were less chauvinist in their portrayal of the Soviet resistance to fascism. Call of Duty: World At War even allowed the player to play the part of a Soviet soldier whose journey takes him from the victory at Stalingrad to the capturing of the Reichstag.

The franchise began to deviate away from its focus on WWII with the release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare, which sought to apply Call of Duty 2‘s gameplay to a fictional contemporary war between the US and Russia, with a side campaign in the middle east. Here the emphasis was less on story and more on creating a gameplay experience that was more easily adapted to Call of Duty’s successful online mode. Rather than having players fighting one another online using WWII era weapons and being dressed either as Allies or Nazis, they would now be able to do battle with modern weapons complete with scopes, laser sights, under-the-barrel grenade launchers and being outfitted either as Marine Force Recon, the British SAS or a Russian Spetznaz instead.

The result was that Modern Warfare was wildly successful, leading to its own independent sequel, Modern Warfare 2. With the overarching plot having been resolved in those games, the makers of Call of Duty tried to get the same utility of having modern weapons for their online gameplay while not retelling the same stories they had been thus far. Their solution came in the form of Call of Duty: Black Ops, combining a “cowboys and Indians” Cold War narrative with gratuitous violence and action-movie plagiarism. Become Imperialism’s Hang-Man

The “plot” of Black Ops’ single-player campaign, revolving around the Soviet Union plotting to release chemical weapons against the United States, has the player doing imperialism’s dirty work, from attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs to participating in the Tet offensive and slaughtering hordes of Cuban, Russian and Vietnamese along the way. As well, every effort is made to make the Cubans, Russians and Vietnamese appear to be savage and brutal. At one point the character must escape from a labor camp in the USSR and is forced to play Russian Roulette while being beaten and shouted at.

The attempt to tap into latent American anti-communism is obvious, resulting in characters talking about how they need to stop “the communists” as if they are a collective horde of unwashed barbarians beating at the doors of American empire (all while ignoring the United State’s role all throughout the Cold War). Anyone who makes any effort to understand the geopolitics of the Cold War era would find this national-chauvinist perception both typical and laughable, yet it is obvious that the Black Ops production team wasn’t looking for the sort of historical accuracy they sought out in earlier titles. Rather, the “enemy” simply makes for a convenient adversary to be slaughtered in droves. Some on the left have focused their criticism chiefly on the anti-communism of Black Ops, yet the more important message of this game is less specifically anti-communist than pro-imperialist.

One Irony Worth Noting

There are many inconsistencies, ironies and other aspects of this game which would make the class-conscious player grimace, laugh out loud or otherwise be incapable of taking the game seriously. One such irony is the focus of this games plot around a former Nazi scientist who is working with the Soviets to release chemical weapons against American cities. This is ironic, being that the greatest ally to former Nazis after the war was the United States, who collaborated with former members of the Third Reich to construct think tanks for the purposes of undermining the Soviet Union in the early Cold War.

More Blood, Less Substance

One characteristic of Call of Duty’s degeneration has been an increase in the brutality with which the character is made to kill their enemies. For instance, the first games had the option of hitting one’s opponents with the butt of their rifle or pistol if the enemy got too close. In Modern Warfare and other later installments the rifle butt was replaced with a combat knife for slashing the enemy. Additionally, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops have an increase in “special” melee kills in which certain opponents can be killed in a non-standard melee attack. These “special” kills are often excessively brutal, involving sawing through an enemy’s neck with a knife or even hacking into their spine with a hatchet later on. If one combines this with an increase in the power of weapons to dismember enemies and burn opponents alive while they writhe and scream, the experience becomes a visceral orgy of blood and death on par with the Postal games.

The Torture Scene

As if this weren’t enough, there is also a part of the game wherein the player must torture a man by inserting glass into their mouth and punching them in the jaw until they surrender the desired information. While this scene isn’t very prolonged, the idea that this would make it into a game released after the United States’ role in directly torturing detainees (as well as outsourcing torture to private contractors and rightist groups) has become public knowledge demonstrates an extremely reactionary sentiment towards the use of sadistic measures for advancing the cause of imperialism. The idea that adolescent children, who represent the chief demographic for games like this one, would have first-hand experience within the virtual realm of committing acts of torture in the name of imperialism is alarming to say the least.

The Murder behind the Mundane

The most alarming aspect of Black Ops’ brutality is that it demonstrates just how desensitized America’s youth are to such violence. Typical first-person shooters have become mundane, necessitating higher levels of violence, gore and brutality to keep adolescents entertained. To keep hawking their wares, game makers need to take it to the next level because they have exceeded in numbing their consumers to the reality of war through repetition. To merely kill within the virtual world is not enough; one needs to be able to break their enemies apart into little pieces and watch with sadistic glee as armies become limp, bloody piles at their feet.

The child develops the perfect mentality for a soldier fighting imperialism’s battles, able to slaughter men, women and children without a second thought for the humanity of those they destroy. It’s no wonder that games have consciously been used as recruitment tools by the United States military, or that the CIA itself has been responsible for contributing funding and expertise in games that involve the enemies of US hegemony.

Conclusion: Fascist “Art” for the Xbox Generation

In the United States, there is often a glaring double-standard with how violent media is perceived. Whenever a school shooting or other tragedy involving youth violence in suburbia occurs, the focus immediately turns to the music they listen to or the video games they play. However, when American soldiers open fire on civilians from a helicopter and shred journalists with 50 caliber rounds, no one stops to consider how violent media may have brought them to where they are. What could make it so that a soldier can murder men, women and children without batting an eye? What force, what socialization, can work to desensitize the agents of imperialism to the atrocities they visit on other human beings?

The answer is that capitalist media, from music to film, from its documentation of its history to the video games that end up on store shelves, seeks to fetishize violence and dull the senses of its consumers to the horrors of imperialist war. The same efforts are undertaken whenever an empire seeks to undertake wars for the purposes of expanding their dominion. Call of Duty: Black Ops is an exemplary example of such media.

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Review of “Severe Clear (This is War)”

26 Nov

Severe Clear, or This is War, is a documentary made from footage shot by First Lieutenant Mike Scotti on his own personal camera as he is deployed in Iraq as part of the invasion force sent in to capture the city of Baghdad. The story follows him and his platoon from Lieutenant Scotti’s living quarters to his being sent back to the United States after the capture and occupation of the Iraqi capital. The documentary contains scenes from the every day life of the soldiers as they advance through the country and of frenetic combat during the march to Baghdad and in the capture of the city itself.

Soldierism as Boyhood

In the daily lives of the soldiers, beginning with them being ferried to the Middle East via warship, the troops themselves appear to act in ways similar to adolescent boys. They swear, rough-house, drink, tell raunchy stories and otherwise behave in a manner that reminds the viewer of something between a high school locker room and a college frathouse. One scene has a soldier wearing a chain around his neck as a leash, being led around by another soldier, acting as if he were a rabid dog. Other scenes show the soldiers engaging in actions that can only be described as homoerotic. This happens while the soldiers jest in a homophobic manner, saying “you guys are so gay.”

As he narrates such scenes, Lieutenant Scotti argues that the press does “PR work” rather than actually capturing the “real life” of soldiers. Ironically, however, the result of Scotti’s filming and narration does its own “PR work” by re-articulating the age-old propaganda paradigm as a country’s soldiers being “their boys.”

When one is encouraged to view their military as consisting of rough-housing and juvenile man-children, who are also patriotic and selfless soldiers whose sole aim is protecting their parents and loved ones from dangers abroad, one is compelled to support their efforts no matter what situation they are in. From the laughing bugle boys and playful soldiers in Triumph of the Will to the marines in Severe Clear, pro-imperialist propaganda efforts have tried to emphasize “boyhood” as a virtue of their armed forces. This serves to put soldiers on a level above criticism, being that to criticize them is to criticize the children of a nation who only have their nation’s best interests at heart. Bloodlust as Sincere Motivation

A frequently repeated line of commentary from Scotti’s narration is that the soldier’s purpose is to kill other soldiers. “Our job is to kill — pure and simple,” he says, and in his commentary he asserts that the hardest part about being a soldier isn’t actual combat, but the waiting in between bouts of fighting. As Scotti’s artillery unit is called in to launch ordinance at an enemy position for the first time, soldiers make jovial comments such as “it’s like training with live targets!” and “this is the coolest fucking thing ever!” As well, when Scotti encounters the dead bodies left behind from the efforts of him and his fellow marines, he claims that “all I see is a job well done.”

While Scotti and his fellows lament over the occasional civilian who stumbles into their line of fire, the attitude towards those perceived to be the “enemy” can be summed up in the phrase “fuck ‘em,” which is frequently used in reference to the butchered corpses and flaming vehicles that the marines leave in their wake.

At the same time, even when the presence of WMDs is uncertain and the whole purpose for the occupation is in doubt, Scotti insists that “it doesn’t matter.” Even when the capture and occupation of Baghdad has the Iraqi people resisting US forces, Scotti narrates “Do they really want us here? Do they really want democracy? It doesn’t matter.” He then goes on to harp more on about a soldier’s “duty” and how they have “a job to do.” This was a particularly revealing quote in that it wipes away all of the excuses and pretenses surrounding their activity.

US imperialism was never bringing the Iraqi people “freedom” or “democracy” in the first place and, as such, the soldier’s actions are not bogged down by this pretense. Even though “revenge” is a major theme and motivation early on, with Scotti carrying around a picture of a victim of the September 11th World Trade Center attacks, the notion that he feels it “doesn’t matter” whether there was any reason to invade Iraq or not. They were there to kill, to carry out the orders they were given faithfully and to enjoy combat. The Soldier is Never Wrong

One important aspect of this documentary is that it seeks to place any conceivable blame on those other than the soldiers. The idea is that a soldier is merely “doing his job” and “looking out for his buddies.” If there is any wrong-doing in the chaos of battle, the blame can be left at the doorstep of “politicians.” When civilians are killed in the crossfire, including one particularly gruesome account of a father and his young daughter being blown apart by 50 caliber rounds when they ran a checkpoint, Scotti provides the excuse that “we weren’t trained to be police.”

Such excuses and the assertion that U.S. soldiers are only “doing their job the best they know how” speaks to a Nuremberg-esque dodging of any fault in carrying out the orders that they are given. To Scotti, soldiers are above guilt or blame because they don’t make the larger decisions in the war effort. It is almost as if this rhetoric would seem to dehumanize the soldiers themselves in the same way they must dehumanize the enemy, in that they merely see themselves as tools for the purposes of carrying out the orders they are given.

This situation translates into Scotti’s biggest criticisms revolving around the inadequacy of the supplies soldiers are given, including the lack of body-armor and other necessities that would help facilitate the carrying out of their mission. There is no real criticism of the war effort itself, of the geopolitics of an imperialist invasion of a country with no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and certainly no criticism whatsoever of his fellow soldiers. Soldiers are never wrong, only their commanding officers and the politicians are culpable. “Gritty” Propaganda Replaces the Idealized Soldier

This film is a propaganda film to its very core. It does not try to make its point by providing an idealized image of combat; instead it tries to espouse sympathy for invading forces by showing a “gritty” first-person perspective that shows soldiers photographing corpses, vomiting, drinking, cursing and any number of things that would seem counter to the fetishized “citizen soldier” perception that the military hawks in their recruitment efforts. These boyish, patriotic ruffians are to represent a “real face” of war that, while not being idealistic, does have an appeal. Military service is made out to be a unique, exotic experience that, while posing challenges, provides young men with brotherly bonds and an unparalleled adrenaline rush.

In addition, there is a disturbing “reality show” quality to this documentary. The footage is genuine, capturing scenes of both the mundane and of camera-jolting combat, yet the circumstances of the filming and editing of this documentary ensure that a good deal of the experience is lost. For one, the knowledge that they are being filmed by one of their fellow soldiers has a bearing on how a solder behaves. For two, this footage that inevitably contained then-classified information about the war effort would have had to be handled by military authority at some point.

Would any of these soldiers, say, utter a racial epitaph in reference to his enemy if he knew this footage may end up being made public? Would any number of compromising actions be allowed to be recorded in the first place and, if they were, what are the chances they wouldn’t be edited out? For those who have seen the testimonies at the Winter Soldier Investigation of 2008 it would seem that a good deal of the sort of things that veterans have reported, such as casual racism and trigger-happy attitudes towards civilians, do not rear their head in this documentary. Is that because they were edited out, were concealed under the pressure of a camera lens, or was it the case that none of these things happened among this particular group of soldiers? Many questions arise to the surface which leave the credibility of this kind of documentary in question as well.

Conclusion: Avoid

This film isn’t particularly enlightening, entertaining or useful. It demonstrates a propaganda effort that, while operating under the pretense of being “real” only uses its gritty content to reinforce the “support the troops” rhetoric. There is no concrete criticism provided for the invasion, occupation and violence that has been committed against the Iraqi people and no criticism for the soldiers themselves who volunteered to invade someone else’s country and kill their people. The most this film does is speak in retrospect about the regretability of the Iraq War, yet never ceases to drone on about “honor” and “duty” as if these words could wash away the blood of imperialist war from the hands of those made to be its perpetrators. The story of the soldiers themselves, their triumphs and hardships in the context of this invasion and occupation, is prioritized over the story of the Iraqi people, which makes this documentary all too typical.

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Update from Comrade Talha Saad on PTCL Strike

14 Oct

The workers of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) have been engaged in a historical battle with capital for past two months. The Pakistani state and media tried their best to prevent the workers’ voice from being echoed not only in Pakistan but also around the world. In order to create awareness and solidarity for the PTCL workers strike internationally I wrote a report for the Red Phoenix. This report may be considered its sequel.

As I had mentioned previously, the police used brutal force to crush the strike and the protests organized by the workers and their sympathizers. All of the union leaders were arrested in police raids on the PTCL, along with many other workers. The union leaders were subjected to inhumane torture and maltreatment. Cases were prepared under the Anti-Terrorism Act in which a special tribunal was arranged. The Anti-Terrorism Act is a powerful tool used by the Pakistani state to crush all sort of political dissent in the name of the “War on Terror.” The reason given to try the workers under the Anti Terrorism laws was because a police officer had suffered an abrasion during a protest.

During the trial, one of the judges admitted that the trial of the workers under the Anti-Terrorism Act was unjustifiable as they had taken out a peaceful and legal protest demanding a right given to them by the Parliament. Despite this admission, the Judges refused to scrap the case and free the workers unconditionally. Bail was only granted when the union leaders agreed to recognize the agreement reached between the PTCL management and the pocket union, and called off the strike. The judiciary has been an old enemy of labor in Pakistan. It has justified military coups and jailed union leaders in the past. Nowadays, the “Free Judiciary” is busy portraying itself as a messiah in front of the people. The Chief Justice takes Suo Motto action on petty issues but does not act to protect the future of 26,000 workers. The media also played a very negative part in breaking the worker’s strike. It gave a complete blackout when the police were launching operations against the workers. However, in order to protect the interests of the shareholders of PTCL, the TV channels started broadcasting false news about the strike ending, which created a lot of confusion in the worker’s ranks.

False news was aired about the reinstatement of the 1200 workers sacked during the strike. The wages which were stopped for two months during the strike were not released, nor was any increase in pay, in accordance with the announcement of the government, given. These issues were not highlighted by the satellite channels or the newspapers. Instead, articles condemning the workers were published; in fact even the news reports contained biased statements.

Last week more than 200 workers who actively participated in the movement were banned from entering the PTCL premises for an indefinite period. This shows that despite the fact that the strike is over, the management plans to continue its onslaught against its employees. The workers are well aware of this, and are planning a new wave of resistance to defend their rights. Comrades, once again we appeal to you to take our voices to the workers and youth of your country. Expose the tyranny and hypocrisy of the Pakistani state before your people. The Pakistani state has become an international player thanks to the War on Terror. It uses this status as a “moderate enlightened” state to fight its own working class and national minorities. The Pakistani judiciary and media are portrayed as free and democracy-loving institutions, but their reality is that they are nothing but authoritarian institutions, with the sole aim to keep the people oppressed.

The greatest lesson we have learned from this movement is that the working class stands isolated when it fights any segment of the ruling class. Its ally can only be the peasantry and oppressed nationalities who are similar victims of state terror. We hope that this struggle earns us the sympathies and solidarity of our working class comrades around the world.

Talha Saad

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On the Ninth Anniversary of the Afghanistan War

7 Oct

October 7, 2001 – Present

Today, the war and military occupation in Afghanistan continues onwards for its tenth year, marking the ninth anniversary of the invasion on October 7th, 2001. The so-called “Global War on Terror” has escalated into a full-scale invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the bombing and terrorization of Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen and other countries. Since then, the financial costs of the Afghanistan War have trampled that of the Iraq War. In February 2010, the monthly cost for Afghanistan was $6.7 billion, while the Iraq War was $5.5 billion. Costs aside, let us take a look at where the Afghan War has taken the Afghan population nine years down the line.  “Operation Enduring Freedom” (OEF) has brought nothing but destruction, a military dictatorship, legalized rape and the re-opening of Afghanistan’s poppy and opium fields to fuel the global drug trade.

In addition, NATO airstrikes and ground operations have not ceased for a moment. Even pro-US Afghan President Hamid Karzai is calling on the US to withdraw. The death tolls for both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have independently claimed thousands of lives. Some civilian death estimates for Afghanistan say between 11,443 and 14,240 deaths have been recorded total as “direct deaths,” with 6982 since 2007. Some estimates go as high as over a million dead in Iraq alone. The recent escalation of the war in Afghanistan by the US imperialists is the beginning of President Barack Obama’s plan to send 30,000 more troops in the coming months before a supposed gradual drawdown of troops (much like the recent Iraq “drawdown” no doubt) in 2011. The CIA remains poised and ready to borrow armed bomber drones from the US military in order to expand their covert assassination campaign, which has been known to violate the borders of Pakistan in North Waziristan and commit political assassinations.

Current State of Afghanistan

A global public opinion survey involving 47 nations conducted in 2007 found that only 2 out of the 47 countries possessed a majority that supported the continued US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan. These two were Israel (59%) and Kenya (60%) (1). More breaking news included that “The Taliban issued a statement marking the invasion anniversary, claiming 75 percent of Afghanistan was now under its control. ‘The strongholds of jihad and resistance against the invading Americans and their allies are as strong as ever,’ it said. ‘The invading Americans spent hundreds of billions of dollars in order to continue this illegitimate war, lost thousands of soldiers — with tens of thousands of them being injured — and faced heavy losses in terms of military hardware.’ The Taliban urged the U.S. and its allies to immediately leave the country” (2). A report by the Open Society Foundations, a think-tank, said that “Afghans are increasingly angry and resentful about the international presence in Afghanistan and do not believe insurgents are responsible for most attacks and civilian deaths” (2).

Just to give our readers an idea of just how bad the drug trade in Afghanistan has gotten since the US occupation, on Wednesday a “joint patrol [...] seized a vehicle with 1,700 pounds (760 kilograms) of heroin, 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of hashish, 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of wet opium, five anti-personal mines, and bomb-making materials in Kandahar [...]” (2).

As Afghanistan was getting ravaged with bombs, the U.S. government enlisted the help of the Northern Alliance led by warlord Rashid Dostum to do their bidding on the ground. In a U.S. orchestrated operation, the Northern Alliance captured the Taliban stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif. Thousands of Taliban fighters were taken prisoner in the nearby town of Kunduz. Kunduz fell in November of that year, and in December, New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall reported, “dozens…of prisoners asphyxiated in shipping containers used to transport them to [the] prison in Shibarghan, a journey that took two or three days” (3). The NA needed to transport thousands of “potentially dangerous men” and as such they were stuffed into sealed containers that often line the roads of Afghanistan and are used to transport prisoners. This figure of “dozens” comes from the prison commander who admitted that 43 had died during the journey, most from combat injuries. However, inquiry with inmates held in Shibarghan lead Gall to believe that the actual number of deaths may be much higher. The following May, Gall offered a follow-up report, offering the news, “A tangle of abandoned clothes, half-covered in sand, lies just off the desert track. Pieces of white bone are strewn among the mess and the smell of decaying bodies drifts over the site” (4). She then went on to offer some background information on what she had discovered: The desert outside Shibarghan “hides what are suspected to be large-scale killings committed five months ago by Afghan allies of the US” (3). “Kill Team” in Afghanistan Exposed for War Crimes

As for a more recent event, rogue members of a platoon from the fifth Stryker Combat Brigade, second infantry division were charged with killing civilians for sport and for dismembering and photographing corpses. According to the army’s own charge documents, an Afghan man approached the platoon in the small village of La Mohammed Kalay. One soldier, falling back on the excuse that they were under attack, threw a fragmentary grenade and ordered others to open fire. This unprovoked attack, taking place on January 15th, was the beginning of a wide-reaching shooting spree against civilians. The subsequent investigation has pressured the belief that the military ignored warnings of the rouge soldiers and what they were doing.

One of the soldiers facing charges, Spc. Adam Winfield, wrote home to his parents after he was notified of the killings done by his fellow soldiers, “I’m not sure what to do about something that happened out here, but I need to be secretive about this” (5). He wrote this on a Facebook message to his parents, dated January 15th, 2009. About a month later, he was able to present his family with the details. Soldiers in his unit were on patrol and killed, “some innocent guy about my age, just farming” (5). He then added that those who had committed the murder suggested that he “get one of his own.” The soldier’s father, Christopher Winfield, went to contact the Army through a hotline in order to prompt an investigation. However, his efforts were all for none. Months later, two more Afghan civilians were killed. Spc. Winfield later told his parents that he had “proof that they [the soldiers in his unit] are planning another one in the form of an AK-47 they want to drop on a guy” (6). He added that he felt a strong concern for his personal safety if he made the decision to report the killings to the authorities. “Should I do the right thing and put myself in danger for it? Or just shut up and deal with it,” adding, “There are no more good men left here. It eats away at my conscience every day” (7). Winfield had good reason to worry. Another soldier in the same unit, Pfc. Justin Stoner, who told superiors about hashish-smoking among soldiers, was savagely beaten by several members of the platoon. Staff Sgt. Gibbs and another soldier further intimidated Stoner by displaying on the floor a set of severed fingers, telling Stoner that “if I don’t want to end up like that guy…shut the hell up” (6). This led Stoner to tell investigators about the murders of the three Afghan civilians.

Spec. Jeremy N. Morlock, 22, and a member of the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade admitted to taking place in the killings, which took place in the Kandahar province between January and May 2009. He attempted to shift the blame entirely on Gibbs, claiming that he was the one that planted the idea with their unit to kill innocent Afghans. “Gibbs had pure hatred for all Afghanis and constantly referred to them as savages,” Morlock said in one statement, details of which were first reported by the Associated Press (8). Morlock, Gibbs and three other U.S. soldiers have been charged with murder in the deaths of the three Afghan civilians. In some of the most gruesome allegations against American military personnel since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, they and other soldiers from their platoon also face charges of using hashish, dismembering and photographing corpses, and possessing human bones. Morlock’s defense attorney sought to toss out his client’s statements by arguing that he was on heavy medication at the time of his discussion with Army investigators in May of that year.

Works Cited:


  1. http://pewglobal.org/files/pdf/256.pdf

  2. http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/10/07/dozens-of-taliban-killed-as-war-enters-10th-year/

  3. http://www.antiwar.com/orig/rissman1.html

  4. http://articles.sfgate.com/2002-05-01/news/17543799_1_human-rights-taliban-prisoners-taliban-s-northern-alliance

  5. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/travelnews/article-1310540/Twelve-US-soldiers-face-trial-Afghan-civilians-killed-sport–whistle-blower-originally-ignored.html

  6. http://www.sa.org.au/imperialism-and-war/2908-afghanistan-atrocities-exposed

  7. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39380805/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

  8. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/RegLib2/stryker-soldiers-murder-c_n_740810_61861513.html

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Cold War Killer File: Augusto Pinochet

11 Sep

“Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood.” – Augusto Pinochet

“Not a leaf moves in this country if I’m not moving it.” - Pinochet, October 1981

Remember September 11th, 1973

During the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States stepped up their efforts in assuring Western hegemony in Latin America by propping up the most barbarous and fascistic regimes for their economic benefit. The United States government supported, trained, funded and armed military tin-pot dictatorships in order to “defend” democracy and the free market from progressive movements made up of the workers in colonized countries. In the name of securing profits, the United States funded anti-communist killers, military regimes and corrupt autocrats who did the dirty work for the government in violently repressing all opposition. There is perhaps no better example in history of US intervention bolstering an authoritarian government than the infamous reign of the Chilean fascist Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet was a general in the Chilean army who seized power in a violent coup d’état against Salvador Allende on September 11th, 1973. He did so with the full knowledge and material assistance of the CIA. What followed was a widespread massacre of political opponents and a brutal fascist dictatorship in Chile that lasted from 1973 to 1990. Many Chileans were killed during the coup—official statistics put the number at 3,197, although the following decades under Pinochet’s rule claimed many lives, some estimates as high as 30,000, with 400,000 tortured and over a million Chileans forced to flee the country. The actual number will probably never be known, since many of the victims were “disappeared” and never heard from again. Pinochet was charged with genocide and war crimes but never stood trial. He died in his sleep at age 91.

Today’s generation needs to remember what happened on September 11th, which is a day that should be remembered. There is mourning over the New York attacks in 2001, but none over the victims of the CIA. Yet, the 2001 attacks killed far less people than the Pinochet regime, which massacred tens of thousands of people in Chile and tortured many thousands more as a direct result of US policy. Today of all days it is important for all peoples who desire freedom, national liberation, democracy and socialism to remember the crimes of the United States and the Pinochet government. The world still has lessons to learn from the events of the other 9/11.

Allende Speaks to Supporters

“Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!” – President Salvador Allende’s farewell speech, September 11, 1973

The Bloody Coup against Salvador Allende

In September 1970, Dr. Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile, heading the Popular Unity coalition (UP or Unidad Popular in Spanish) of leftist parties. At the time, the Unidad Popular coalition contained almost all of the Chilean left-wing, including the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Radical Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario and the Christian Democratic Party. Allende, a co-founder of the Socialist party and a student activist in his youth, openly proclaimed and supported redistributive economic measures while serving in the Chilean congress. His idols included Che Guevara and Patrice Lumumba.

For the next three years of Allende’s term he pursued a course of moderate progressive measures, such as nationalizing Chile’s extremely profitable copper industry, including Cerro Corp., Kennecott and Anaconda, which combined controlled eighty percent of the copper production in Chile and brought in revenues in the eight to nine digits every year. Chile also pursued government-subsidized services and a land reform which mainly benefited poor families. Allende’s parliamentary approach had nonetheless exposed too much of a leftist lean for the superpowers and threw them into a panic—he had to go. During this period, US economic sanctions were imposed on Chile, and there was an attempted coup in June 1973. Finally, on September 11th, 1973, the military forces led by General Pinochet succeeded in overthrowing Allende’s government. Soldiers and tanks flooded the streets and planes rained bombs on the Moneda Palace. Allende himself was killed during the coup. It is still in dispute if he committed suicide or was murdered. Regardless, any semblance of justice in Chile died with him. The coup happened with the full support and advisement of the Nixon Administration.

“After sabotaging Allende’s electoral endeavor in 1964, and failing to do so in 1970, despite their best efforts, the CIA and the rest of the American foreign policy machine left no stone unturned in their attempt to destabilize the Allende government over the next three years, paying particular attention to building up military hostility. Finally, in September 1973, the military overthrew the government, Allende dying in the process.

They closed the country to the outside world for a week, while the tanks rolled and the soldiers broke down doors; the stadiums rang with the sounds of execution and the bodies piled up along the streets and floated in the river; the torture centers opened for business; the subversive books were thrown into bonfires; soldiers slit the trouser legs of women, shouting that ‘In Chile women wear dresses!’; the poor returned to their natural state; and the men of the world in Washington and in the halls of international finance opened up their check-books. In the end, more than 3,000 had been executed, thousands more tortured or disappeared” (Blum).

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” - Henry Kissinger, quoted in The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (1974). The quotation was censored prior to publication due to legal action by the government.

CIA and Imperialist Backing of Pinochet

It is a well-known fact that the United States continued to support Pinochet to the end. The National Security Archive reports: “Documents declassified from the CIA in September 2000 revealed that the head of DINA [Pinochet’s secret police – Editor] in 1975 was a ‘paid CIA asset.’” American corporations also had an interest in Chile—the International Telephone and Telegraph Co. (ITT) once offered the CIA a million dollars to orchestrate a coup and worked with CIA agents in giving orders to Pinochet’s forces. Neo-liberals have always been among Pinochet’s fans, ignoring his atrocities for “defending against communism.” The administration of Richard Nixon, which was at the time in the middle of the Cold War and the bloody war in Vietnam, threw itself behind Pinochet willingly and knowingly.

Henry Kissinger showed his support unequivocally. “‘Cut out the political science lectures,’ he once scrawled on a cable from the US Ambassador to Chile reporting on atrocities” (Kornbluh). Kissinger also expressed this sentiment to Augusto Pinochet personally. “‘I want to see our relations and friendship improve,’ [Henry] Kissinger says in a passage [in a CIA document] not found in the memoir: ‘We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. Otherwise Chile would have followed Cuba. Then there would have been no human rights’” (Kornbluh). In 1976, “Kissinger made clear how much he backed Pinochet, saying, ‘In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward Communism. We wish your government well.’” (Komisar). The American government likewise sought to preserve Pinochet’s dictatorship. “Kissinger said, ‘We welcomed the overthrow of the Communist-inclined government here.’ By overthrowing Allende, Pinochet had done a great service to the West, Kissinger told Pinochet. ‘We are not out to weaken your position’” (Komisar). Sure enough, Pinochet remained the head of state until 1990 and commander of the armed forces for eight years afterwards. The human rights abuses in Chile under Pinochet were, at that time, public and completely common knowledge: “[a]n earlier OAS report had detailed those tortures: women beaten, gang raped, and electric current applied to their bodies; men subjected to electric current, especially to their genitals, burned with cigarettes, hung by the wrists or ankles” (Komisar).

Despite this, Kissinger, representing the Nixon administration, the CIA and the entire government, said,

“My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going Communist. But we have a practical problem we have to take into account, without bringing about pressures incompatible with your dignity, and at the same time which does not lead to U.S. laws which will undermine our relationship.”

Pinochet’s Economic Policies

Almost immediately after getting into power, Augusto Pinochet subjected Chile to merciless privatization and social program rollbacks. Tariff barriers were kicked down and trade unions were banned. International finance capital was once again invited into Chile, opening the door even wider for greater exploitation of Chilean employees. Resources were shared out to imperialist governments that consented with Pinochet’s Draconian free market economics. The “Chicago Boys,” a group of young Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, who Pinochet employed in his government, openly praised this restructuring of the Chilean economy and authored a 700-page book about how the junta should go about the privatization.

The country of Chile is upheld today by the media as a “free market miracle” in Latin America. Typically, they never go into detail about exactly what sectors of society were brought wealth, or how this wealth was built on torture, mass murder and the bodies of thousands of Chileans. It owes its legacy to the Pinochet group, who sold the state-controlled industries, including the copper industry, at criminally low prices to financial oligarchs and corporate sponsors. Education was privatized, making educational centers atrociously expensive and regulating most workers to second-and-third-class schools. In 2006, seven hundred thousand students protested for the de-privatization of the educational system, calling themselves the “Penguin Revolution” after their school uniforms. These policies dramatically increased inequality, unemployment, inflation and poverty as well as ruining human services. In 1982, Chile suffered a monetary crisis because of these policies, which are still upheld (even by the “Socialists”) in Chile’s bourgeois government. During these years, unemployment was at 30% and 55% of the population was below the poverty line.

Victims of Operation Condor

“Operation Condor” & Campaign of Terror

Under Pinochet, the Congress was formerly dissolved and rival political parties were banned. Military officers were appointed to the highest posts in the government and the private sector. A reign of terror followed his ascension to power—books were burned publicly and increasing numbers of people were taken to secret torture chambers. Tens of thousands were rounded up into the soccer stadium in Santiago to be tortured and executed. A U.S. filmmaker named Charles Horman was “disappeared” by Pinochet and was never heard from again. Declassified documents later revealed he was most likely tortured before his death. Pinochet enacted severe anti-terrorism laws that were mainly used to repress the million-strong Mapuche populations in Chile. Under these laws, their land was seized and their civil rights were restricted. The laws enacted by Pinochet continue to be used against them to this day.

The most infamous incident of the terror, called “Operation Condor,” was a sequence of international political assassinations carried out in 1975. 60,000 lives were claimed across South America from this operation, many of them in Chile itself. Manuel Contreras, the chief of the Chilean secret police (DINA), helped formulate the plan to exterminate all leftist influence in South America with Pinochet’s support. CIA operatives provided torture equipment and training to the leading pro-US dictators of Latin America at US military institutions, among them the infamous “School of the Americas” complex in Georgia’s Fort Benning, now called the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” or WHINSEC. Chilean units trained here also provided training to death squads in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Paraguay and other countries. Between September 30 andOctober 22, 1973, the Chilean death squad called the “Caravan of Death” flew by helicopter to northern and southern Chile, making stops along the way to order or carry out the execution of political prisoners. Many of the victims had surrendered themselves voluntarily to police or military authorities. Many were also in custody already, had committed no violent crimes or even threatened to, and posed no threat. The killings were carried out using small personal arms and machetes, ending with the body being dumped in an unmarked grave. At least 97 people (26 in the south and 71 in the north) at various military institutions are known to have been killed this way.

Victor Jara, one of the most popular and progressive Chilean folk singers and a member of the Communist Party of Chile, was arrested, tortured and executed after the coup. Since his horrific death at the hands of Pinochet’s torturers, Jara has become a martyr figure for young Chilean revolutionaries. Juan Eduardo Fuentes, a judge in Chile, re-opened the case of Jara’s death in 2008. Since then, the events surrounding his death have now been made public. Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured. One of the officers played one-sided Russian roulette with Jara by spinning his cylinder and placing the barrel against Jara’s head repeatedly. His ribs were broken, and then the bones in his hands (he was a guitar player). The generals cut out his tongue to keep him from singing his songs, but he defiantly clapped his hands and stomped his feet in rhythm to the song “Venceremos” (“We Will Win”), a pro-Popular Unity Coalition song.

“Finally, the military brought Victor Jara and other political prisoners to the Stadium of Chile, the place where the concert for Allende [had] previously been held. There the military men tortured and killed many people. They broke Victor Jara’s hands (Note: many stories indicate that Victor Jara’s hands were cut off, but Joan Jara’s book about Victor indicates that when she saw him after his death, his hands were broken, so that is the version being used in this essay) so that he couldn’t play his guitar, and then taunted him to try and sing and play his songs. Even under these horrible tortures, Victor Jara magnificently sang a portion of the song of the Popular Unity party. After this, he received many brutal blows, and finally was brutally killed [September 15th] with a machine gun and carried to a mass grave. After his horrible death Joan Jara, the wife of Victor, was shown to his body and gave him a proper funeral and burial. Because of all of the problems in Chile following his horrible coup, she was forced to leave the country in secret with tapes of Victor Jara’s music” (“Revolutionary Democracy”). Torture Under Pinochet

There is no singularly terrible chapter in the saga of Augusto Pinochet than the widespread and institutionalized torture that he oversaw. On June 14th, 1974, the military junta issued Decree #521, which granted the military and the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) under Manuel Contreras the right to detain any individual indefinitely during a declared state of emergency—such a state existed for the entire length of Pinochet’s dictatorship. The DINA often carried out political kidnappings and murder across national borders, killing even those granted asylum abroad. One such case was Orlando Letelier, US ambassador and former Defense Minister in the Allende government. Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, his assistant, were both killed by a car bomb in Washington D.C. in 1976. Documents released in 2000 show that the CIA had advanced knowledge of the plans for the murder but did nothing.

Torture and rape of detainees was common. On the Chilean ship Esmeralda, a popular site of torturing prisoners, interrogation methods included “the use of electric prods, high-voltage electric charges applied to the testicles, hanging by the feet and dumping in a bucket of water or excrement” (A.I. Library). A commission assigned to gather testimony about torture under Pinochet found that torture “consisted of electric shocks to the victims’ genitals, immersion in feces-filled waters to simulate drowning, the rape of female prisoners by men, dogs, and rats. Fully 28,500 people came forward to recount the most physically, spiritually, and psychologically destructive torture, which has marked them for life” (Hite, and Loveluck). The commission “took testimony from 35,868 individuals who were tortured or imprisoned improperly. Of those, 27,255 were verified and included. An unknown number of victims did not come forward to give testimony. Scholars estimate that the real number is between 150,000 and 300,000 victims” (Foote).

Furthermore, the commission found that “94 per cent of the verified testimonies include incidents of torture. The short list of methods includes repeated kicking or hitting, intentional physical scarring, forcing victims to maintain certain positions, electric shocks to sensitive areas, threats, mock execution, humiliation, forced nudity, sexual assault, witnessing the torture or execution of others, forced Russian roulette, asphyxiation, and imprisonment in inhumane conditions. There are many individuals with permanently distorted limbs or other disfigurations. For others, the memory of the humiliation is what remains. One man testified, ‘While they interrogated me, they took off my clothes and attached electrodes to my chest and testicles…They put something in my mouth so that I wouldn’t bite my tongue while they shocked me.’

For women, it was an especially violent experience. The commission reports that nearly every female prisoner was the victim of repeated rape. The perpetration of this crime took many forms, from military men raping women themselves to the use of foreign objects on victims. Numerous women (and men) report spiders or live rats being implanted into their orifices. One woman wrote, ‘I was raped and sexually assaulted with trained dogs and with live rats. They forced me to have sex with my father and brother who were also detained. I also had to listen to my father and brother being tortured.’ Her experiences were mirrored by those of many other women who told their stories to the commission” (Foote).Arrest & Death

One of the most outrageous acts by the junta under Pinochet was to appoint him as “Senator-For-Life” and to make both himself and his top officials completely immune from prosecution for any of the crimes committed on their orders. In 1998, years after fleeing Chile after surrendering power, a Spanish judge placed Pinochet under house arrest in Britain on charges of genocide, terrorism and murder. Worldwide demonstrations called for his trial and punishment, especially in Chile. 16 months later, a court determined that the 84-year-old Pinochet, who claimed to be senile enough not to remember his family’s names, was too sick and frail to stand trial. The British released him and allowed him to return to Chile to the sound of international outrage. When his plane landed, Pinochet was brought out in a wheelchair, but upon reaching the ground lept to his feet unaided and embraced his military entourage.

Augusto Pinochet died peacefully on December 10th, 2006. At his time of death he had 300 pending criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, human rights violations, tax evasion and embezzlement. During his rule of Chile, his personal fortune is supposed to have grown to $28 million. He never stood trial for any of his crimes.

Conclusion

The legacy of Augusto Pinochet is one of the most well-documented reigns of terror to ever exist. US involvement in planning and running the dictatorship and its death squads and torture chambers is also well-proven. The crimes of Pinochet must also be the crimes of the US imperialists, but the installment of the Pinochet dictatorship is just one more crime in the sea of crimes committed against the peoples of Latin America during the Cold War.

Sources Cited:

“Chile: Torture and the Naval Training Ship the “Esmeralda”.” A.I. Library. Amnesty International, 26 June 2003. Web.

“CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet’s Repression.” The National Security Archive. Chile Documentation Project, n.d. Web. <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20000919/index.html&gt;.

“The Life of Victor Jara.” Revolutionary Democracy 9.2 (2003): n. pag. Web.

Albion Monitor 03 Aug. 1999: n. pag. Web.

Blum, William. “A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present.” Z Magazine. June 1999: Print.

Foote, Lauren. “Torture Under Pinochet.” TheHarvard Crimson. 07 Feb. 2007: Print.

Hite, Katherine, and Eliana Loveluck. “How to Remember Pinochet.” CommonDreams.org 03 Jan. 2003: n. pag. Web.

Komisar, Lucy. “Kissinger Encouraged Chile’s Brutal Repression, New Documents Show.”

Kornbluh, Peter. “Kissinger and Pinochet.” The Nation. 29 March 2009: Print.

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Review: Genocide, War Crimes and the West

1 Aug

Adam Jones’ book Genocide, War Crimes and the West: History and Complicity is an incredibly revealing anthology containing accounts of atrocities carried out by Western imperial capitalism and those who serve its interests abroad. Articles describing the little-known and little-understood history of imperialist actions from Algeria to Vietnam, Armenia to Yugoslavia, and even the genocide of Native peoples by colonialism in the United States and Canada are reproduced in this essential text. Jones’ book serves as an important lesson to its readers about the reality behind the United States and other powers’ attempts to “spread democracy and civilization” at gunpoint, as well as to remind those who advocate “peaceful resistance” to imperialism of the futility of their position.

Imperialism at the Forefront

One strength of this work that makes it useful to those who seek to understand and resist imperialism is how the authors of this text never forget the broader context behind the events chronicled. Unlike some more traditional perspectives on genocide and war crimes that seek to address the issue via the psychology of the perpetrators, these authors correctly connect the geopolitical agenda of capital as the root of these events. In essence, this text provides not only the what, but the why, behind the greatest crimes of the 20th century – and the why is capitalism. Several chapters discuss US interventionism in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and while outlining the extent of crimes committed by Henry Kissinger and other imperialist agents, the context of the Cold War and the yearnings of US capital to maintain its hegemony over what it saw as its “back yard” are not forgotten. Rather than merely catalog the violence in Somalia under Siad Barre, the text talks about how funds and arms from the United States made it possible. Behind the many horrors being perpetrated all over the globe at any given moment, there is the presence of capital, the influence which leads to war, genocide and poverty for much of the world’s peoples, and Jones’ book is faithful in recognizing this connection.

Understanding Vietnam and Iraq as Genocide

This book makes an important contribution to the understanding of the Vietnam War and the sanctions against Iraq as genocidal actions. This is important, because these direct attacks on civilian population centers have yet to be admitted as genocidal actions by the United States. Apparently, the targeting of defenseless villages in Vietnam and the starving of 500,000 Iraqi children do not count as genocide because it was the United States who perpetrated it. If the Soviet Union is perceived as being slow to provide aid to the Ukraine during famine, then it was clearly Stalin who intended to starve the populous into submission, yet when the United States imposes crippling sanctions after bombing raids targeting sanitation facilities and other essentials to civilian life, starvation and illness are merely a convenient accident. And, when it comes to the bombing of civilian population centers within “free fire zones” in Vietnam, the United States would attest that in wartime such atrocities are unavoidable. The double standard put forward by Western propaganda in the context of Cold War does well to whitewash the crimes they committed, and in engaging these accounts of mass murder, Jones’ text serves to reveal the true nature of imperialist violence. Capitalism: Itself a Genocide

The most important chapter of this anthology is an article entitled Collateral Damage: The Human Cost of Structural Violence in which the author, Peter G. Prontzos, outlines how international capitalism itself is a genocide. In this chapter, Prontzos compiles a wealth of statistical data about death associated with poverty world-wide, and argues that this structural violence is generated by the capitalist system itself; that since there is no material reason for the disparities in this world, the ultimate source of this death and despair is imperial capitalism’s imperative to reap profits from the labor and material resources of the rest of the world. Even without warfare, without bombing raids on civilian population centers in the name of profit margins, capitalism itself functions as a system of the organized exploitation and murder of the world’s laboring masses. Prontzos begins his essay quoting Darwin, saying, “If poverty is not a result of nature, then great is our sin.” This quote is appropriate, being that the misery of world capitalism is not the cause of nature and the sin of its structural violence and imperialist warfare falls on the capitalist exploiters themselves.

What about Israel?

This text does well to incorporate important examples of genocide and war crimes throughout the 20th century, but unfortunately makes no reference to the crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the people of Palestine. This myopia towards a nationalist state which sees fit to drop white phosphorus on schools and hospitals, or impose an illegal blockade which is driving the standard of living of Palestinians to incredible squalor, cannot be viewed as anything other than intentional. Jones admits that his work is not exhaustive, and makes reference to the fact that material regarding Israel and British crimes in Ireland have been left out, though we at the APL must protest to this decision, being that not addressing such crimes is what allows them to be perpetrated.

Conclusion: This Text is Essential

This book is essential for those who wish to understand the true nature of Western imperial capitalism. Capitalism is a system of organized crime; an economic construction built to allow a small minority of the population plunder and exploit the laboring masses. When this system doesn’t break out into earnest warfare against the world proletariat by shooting and bombing men, women and children at will, it seeks to reinforce its hegemony through structural violence. Adam Jones and the authors of the various articles included in this anthology do a great service by offering these accounts. Poverty and imperialist war, genocide and the multitude of atrocities presented by both, are the crimes of capital. Only when one understands this essential truth is one able to wage an effective resistance to it, and this book is incredibly useful in bettering that understanding.

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On the Day of American Independence

4 Jul

Today is the 4th of July, a holiday celebrated all over the nation as the date of American Independence from the British crown. I was considering burning an American flag to protest US foreign policy, imperial aggression, indigenous holocaust, sponsorship of terrorism, slavery and discrimination of minorities, etc., and promptly began wondering if flag-burning on public property is considered to be a fire hazard. Today is a holiday that is spent trying to spread patriotic feelings among our people, and thus in effect to try and goad them into flag-waving, chauvinism, jingoism and xenophobia. Patriotism, the way the imperialists see it, means love for their government and love for their class of oppressors. It means love for the police, the prison complex, the courts, the army and the ruling class dictatorship. It means love for the exploitive system of capitalism and the settler-fascists that have run it from the start.

On this celebrated day of the creation of the American state, it is time to take a look back at our long, star-crossed history, and it is time to present a challenge to ourselves—what has American really been about all this time? As Frederick Douglass famously said about this particular holiday in 1852:


 “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

He continues,
“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
There are those who might say that Douglass’s words no longer ring true because of the Obama presidency, and then there are those who know that a change in the ruler’s skin color does not abolish racism and oppression overnight. In addition, Major General Smedley Butler from the US Marines speaks about what real role the US military has been playing over the years:
“I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force – the Marine Corps… And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect money in. I helped in the raping of a half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street… I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped get Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.”
These revelations are by no means new, since they have been given by many anti-imperialist and anti-colonialists since the beginning of the domination of American imperialism, which started after World War II and strengthened itself through the selling-out of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the collapse of socialist Albania.

To give a more detailed or complete account of American foreign policy, which has always been driven by nothing more and nothing less than the capitalist system’s desire for global hegemony under American leadership, would take many pages and several lifetimes of research into the history of the modern-day Roman Empire. But this 4th of July, and keeping with our challenge to ourselves, a few examples taken from the recent history of the United States alone should serve to give an idea of what this class dictatorship has really been about since the beginnings of its foundation.


A History Lesson
 In 1945, the US invades the Korean peninsula and declares a “temporary” partition of Korea. America installs an illegitimate American-friendly regime in the South, backed by a force of 50,000 troops. After 2,617 troop incursions in the Northern Pro-Soviet half, sometimes with as many as a few thousand troops, a war ensues when North Korea finally invades South Korea in response. A three-year war takes place and millions are killed. Thousands of American troops remain in South Korea to this day.


 In 1966, a US-backed coup ousted President Sukarno of Indonesia and replaced him with the fascist butcher Suharto. Over a million people were hunted down and killed, including thousands of popular leftist leaders, whose names were given to the military by the American Embassy. Suharto would go on to rule Indonesia with an iron fist for two decades. Newly-liberated East Timor was then invaded by Suharto’s Indonesia the day after President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (both butchers of the Vietnam War) gave them permission. By 1989, over one-third of East Timor’s 700,000 people had been killed. Indonesia had US backing, including armaments, throughout its 24-year occupation.


 In 1967, a US-backed military coup took place to prevent Greek politician George Papandreou being elected Prime Minister. The colonels declared martial law, implemented torture, beatings, arrests, leaving 8,000 dead in the first month. The coup leaders were fiercely anti-communist and pro-American, working closely with the CIA. The colonels held power until 1974.


 In 1970, Marxist reformist Salvador Allende was elected as President of Chile. He nationalized the giant US companies. Soon, the right-wing, backed by the CIA and US foreign policy, engineered a 1973 coup lead by the infamous General Augusto Pinochet. Allende was overthrown and replaced by a fascist military dictatorship that used mass executions and torture. Thousands were murdered and disappeared. Chile became an economic experiment that led to economic growth for the richest while leaving many homeless and greatly decreasing economic equality.


 In 1978 in Nicaragua, the popular and progressive Sandinista movement overthrows the US-backed dictator Anastasio Samoza. The US then launches a military occupation in order to prevent “another Cuba.” A program of terrorism and economic sabotage is begun, which leads to the US support of the infamous Contra death squads. The Contras prove to be one of the most brutal fighting forces Latin America has ever seen, infamous for burning down schools, churches and hospitals as well as using mass murder, rape and torture. The Contras massacre whole villages though to be sympathetic to the Sandinistas. Over 60,000 die. President Reagan labels them as “freedom fighters.”

Summation
 From these examples alone—Korea, Indonesia, East Timor, Greece, Chile and Nicaragua, which are merely the most prominent of many dozens more ready-made examples including the Vietnam War—we can see that United States foreign policy has never been driven by a devotion to any kind of morality, nor by any kind of longing for freedom or democracy. From the start, the United States has been driven by the necessity to make the world safe for investment by capitalism, to enrich US armaments who contribute generously to Congress members, to prevent the development of any society which becomes an example of an independent alternative to the capitalist model and to extend its political and economic control over as much of the globe as possible.
 Everyone alive today remembers the media immediately after the events of 9/11. “Why Do They Hate Us So Much?” the newspapers asked. Gee, I don’t know. Perhaps dropping bombs really pisses some “less civilized” people off. This is a simple list of the nations bombed since World War II:

China 1945-46, Korea 1950-53, China 1950-53, Guatemala 1954, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959-60, Guatemala 1960, Congo 1964, Peru 1965, Laos 1965-73, Vietnam 1961-73. Cambodia 1969-70, Guatemala 1967-69, Grenada 1983, Libya 1986, El Salvador 1980s, Nicaragua 1980s, Panama 1989, Iraq 1991-2002, Sudan 1998, Afghanistan 1998, Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001 and Iraq 2003 (1).

It is worth noting that violence and exploitation are also not limited to outside the US borders, either. Of all western nations, the US has the greatest income inequality. 40% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population. The US has the greatest discrepancy in the world between the wealthy and the poor when it comes to health care, and also when it comes to life expectancy.

Finally, the Land of the Free has the highest number of its population in prison than any other state in the world (2). And all this is without mentioning the minute details of the oppressive structure of the class society as it exists for us every day. These sorts of atrocities will continue until this capitalist system is done away with through struggle and revolution in the US.

On the day of American Independence, among all other days, this is a fact for all of us to remember.
(1) Taken from Australian Options Quarterly No. 31, Summer 2002.
 (2) From Scientific American, Dec. 2005

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Head General Fired from Afghanistan Occupation

1 Jul

The Facts

The resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, the US/NATO commander of the Afghanistan War, has been accepted by President Obama amidst a controversy of remarks he made in an interview with Rolling Stone. Within 36 hours of the uproar over the magazine article, Obama had dismissed his General. On June 30th, General David Patraeus took control of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and “Operation Enduring Freedom” as well as the wars in Pakistan, the Arabian Peninsula and various parts of Africa. Days after resigning, McChrystal announced his retirement. Obama said that McChrystal’s departure represented a “change in personnel, not a change in policy.”

Perspective on the Comments

In the first place it is appalling that a Rolling Stone journalist managed to find out more truth about imperialist wars in the Middle East than the media. This news also comes after the release of the Wikileaks massacre video (which shows US troops machine-gunning civilians and reporters from a helicopter) and the video showing children throwing rocks at a vehicle bearing US soldiers, with the soldiers vocally complaining that they are not allowed to shoot such children who throw rocks. Predictably, there was no upset over these two videos. Instead, there was uproar over an article in a rock music magazine in which the General was critical of Obama.

In the same article, it is mentioned that McChrystal quadrupled the number of Special Forces units on the ground in Afghanistan. He tells one soldier to hit at least “four or five targets tonight.” These units, as we all know, kill civilians indiscriminately. McChrystal also famously said, “We’ve shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat” (1). Yet, there are thousands of freshly-pressed articles in the mainstream media quoting McChrystal insulting the Chiefs of Staff, and none about such atrocities.

Here’s a radical idea: before we talk about how Obama and Biden’s feelings were hurt, let’s talk about the quotes from McChrystal about shooting civilians, or perhaps the videos of his soldiers carrying out such orders.

The Two Generals’ Crimes Examined

The news has been filled with praise for Obama in accepting McChrystal’s resignation and appointing Petreaus, the leader of the deadly “troop surge” in Iraq. The two Generals are called experts in “counter-insurgency warfare,” the same type of strategy that has the US slaughtering any local national liberation movements, allying with reactionary warlords and causing more civilian casualties each year. Stanley McChrystal was also the man who urged Obama to add 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and the man who quietly increased drone strikes into Pakistan, killing “insurgents.” McChrystal’s war has resulted in cluster bombing, indefinite detention, torture, widespread opium addiction, the legalization of rape, massive displacement and of course, countless civilian deaths in one of the most occupied and oppressed countries in the world. America recently began training Afghan and Iraqi military and police to help carry out the duties of the imperialists. The military regime of Hamid Karzai, the US comprador puppet imposed on Afghanistan, is highly unpopular and has lead to mass riots in reaction to stolen elections. As if to prove that Afghanistan is now a colony, Hamid Karzai has been one of the most vocal supporters of McChrystal. His opium-dealing crime kingpin brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was next in line to call McChrystal an honest chap in public.

General Petraeus is now being touted as the “savior of Afghanistan,” as if the Iraqi occupation, with over a million dead and displaced, riots, ethnic fighting and little to no remaining infrastructure, is a model to be pursued. A leaked protocol statement by Petraeus’s staff announced on Memorial Day weekend exposed an Executive Order from Obama which allowed Petraeus to commit air strikes with bombs in any country of the world, including the US itself, with no further authorization. Essentially, this gives the new General of the Afghan and Iraqi Wars the power to go to war at will, setting the stage for mass murder in increasing numbers in the global war. Crimes are Crimes No Matter Who Commits Them

No matter who the commanding general or the Commander-in-Chief, the “liberators” are being fought by a movement of the populace. The U.S. and NATO are fighting a losing war of occupation. US soldiers are dying not for “freedom,” but rather as a result of the heroic resistance of the Afghan people to foreign invasion and occupation. The imperialist wars in the Middle East have taken away freedom for the people there by subjecting them to outside rule by force.

Wars under capitalism are for markets and resources. These are reasons for an imperial power like the United States to continue occupying a country, or several. This war is nothing more and nothing less than a conflict over who will control the vast trillion-dollar oil and mineral wealth of Afghanistan, as well as the poppy fields for opium and the exclusive property rights to the oil and gas reserves in the basin of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The only rights being defended are the “rights” of multinational companies to exploit the wealth of these nations and the “rights” of the CIA to fuel itself with the sale of drugs.

The imperial harvesting of Afghanistan’s resources has strong historical parallels in the exploitation of the mineral resources of the Congo by the various world powers, which also resulted in millions of indigenous people dead and displaced. This does not bother the conscience of the imperialists—so long as they turn a profit from endless global war, they do not care how many countries they invade, how many they kill or how many suffer.

This “changing of the guard” attempt to keep the United States of America from falling into the graveyard of empires will fail, as all such attempts will fail.

There are now two roads, and two roads only—socialism and peace, or imperialism and war.

1) http://www.alternet.org/media/146251/shocking_admission_on_killing_civilians_by_top_us_general_almost_completely_ignored_by_corporate_media

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Anniversary of the Iraq Occupation

20 Mar

Seven Years of War

The 20th of March, 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. After seven years, over 100,000 dead Iraqi citizens, 700+ billion dollars and almost 5000 US soldier deaths later, what does the American Empire have to show for its expense? Not much. Iraq, even still is a county ruined and torn apart by war. Power in Baghdad is often only on one or two hours per day, crime and ethnic violence are still rampant, and much worse. That country, so rich in oil, is now in debt—a large debt too. The oil fields themselves have been mainly privatized and although they are pumping oil, the efforts of the American exploiter corporations in Iraq are hampered by the heroic efforts of the Iraqi Resistance.

In these past seven years it has been remarkable how much the original reasons behind the invasion have been widely proven to be a lie. By now, everyone knows that the so-called Global War on Terror has nothing to do with terrorism, the Taliban, democracy or womens’ rights in the Middle East. It is also common knowledge that Iraq held no responsibility for attacks against the US, and that the old WMD claims of Saddam’s government possessing biological and nuclear weapons was a lie.

Let’s discuss the fact that the US government stated it was “freeing” a subjugated people. We need not look far to disprove that. Despite claims of “fighting radical Islam,” Saddam’s Ba’ath Party was a secular party throughout its history. The US supports the Saudi Arabian monarchy financially, politically and militarily. The United States and the Bush Administration did not enter the war because it was liberating anyone. Iraq was also not filled with “terrorists” until a military coalition invaded it.

Operation Iraqi “Freedom”

The former Administration of George W. Bush seized the opportunity after the events of 9/11 to launch an occupation against two nations and interfere in several more. The US government assembled a military coalition to secure the economically and strategically crucial Persian Gulf. Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructures have been mostly obliterated by sustained military bombardment and on-the-ground invasion. Predictably, this involved overthrowing Middle Eastern regimes that interfered with US corporate interests in exploiting vast oil fields in Central Asia. This has ended in the installation of a “democratic” government hand-picked by US forces, which of course support the ongoing military presence.

Some Statistics

It’s been seven years since the United States launched its occupation into Iraq, and that means it is time for us to review the numbers. First, take a note. At the time we began writing this article an estimated $712,156,525,787 had been spent on the war.

Number of Coalition Forces who have Died in Iraq: 4,693

4,375 US Military, 179 British Military, 139 Other Country Coalition Forces

Number of Civilians Dead (Iraqi and Other): 151,000

Number of Iraqi Security Forces: 8,745

Number of Insurgent Deaths: 20,987

Number of Private Military Contractor Deaths: 1,186

Number of Journalists: 170

218,397

Source:
http://www.icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

[Due to chaos and civil war, actual totals for Iraqi deaths are most likely much higher than the numbers recorded on this site. As well, the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as the UN can be seen as a group led by the US and therefore cannot be trusted in it's listing of Human Rights Violations. We post these numbers as merely one possible source. Some have listed as high as over 1,000,000 dead.]

That number is 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded. This is the human cost of a war propagated by the United States government not for the liberation of a people, but for imperialism and the dawn of a New Age of American Colonialism. By the time we finished writing this article an estimated $712,164,983,347 had been spent. That is $8,457,560 dollars worth of writing.

Announcement

With seven years, 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded under its belt, need this war, now turned into an out-and-out occupation, continue? It will unless the American people stand up and put a stop to imperialist war once and for all.

In light of all that has been said here and must continue to be said, the American Party of Labor must reiterate the call it began making a year ago during the 6th anniversary of this tragedy:

Troops Out of Iraq! Troops Out of Everywhere!

Seven Years of WarThe 20th of March 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. And after seven years, over 100,000 dead Iraqi citizens, 700+ billion dollars and almost 5000 US soldier deaths later, what does the American Empire have to show for its expense? Not much. Iraq, even still is a county ruined and torn apart by war. Power in Baghdad is often only on one or two hours per day, crime and ethnic violence are still rampant, and much worse. That country, so rich in oil, is now in debt—a large debt too. The oil fields themselves have been mainly privatized and although they are pumping oil, the efforts of the American exploiter corporations in Iraq are hampered by the heroic efforts of the Iraqi Resistance.In these past seven years it has been remarkable how much the original reasons behind the invasion have been widely proven to be a lie. By now, everyone knows that the so-called Global War on Terror has nothing to do with terrorism, the Taliban, democracy or womens’ rights in the Middle East. It is also common knowledge that Iraq held no responsibility for attacks against the US, and that the old WMD claims of Saddam’s government possessing biological and nuclear weapons was a lie.

Let’s discuss the fact that the US government stated it was “freeing” a subjugated people. We need not look far to disprove that. Despite claims of “fighting radical Islam,” Saddam’s Ba’ath Party was a secular party throughout its history. The US supports the Saudi Arabian monarchy financially, politically and militarily. The United States and the Bush Administration did not enter the war because it was liberating anyone. Iraq was also not filled with “terrorists” until a military coalition invaded it.

Operation Iraqi “Freedom”

The former Administration of George W. Bush seized the opportunity after the events of 9/11 to launch an occupation against two nations and interfere in several more. The US government assembled a military coalition to secure the economically and strategically crucial Persian Gulf. Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructures have been mostly obliterated by sustained military bombardment and on-the-ground invasion. Predictably, this involved overthrowing Middle Eastern regimes that interfered with US corporate interests in exploiting vast oil fields in Central Asia. This has ended in the installation of a “democratic” government hand-picked by US forces, which of course support the ongoing military presence.

Some Statistics

It’s been seven years since the United States launched its occupation into Iraq, and that means it is time for us to review the numbers. First, take a note. At the time we began writing this article an estimated $712,156,525,787 had been spent on the war.

Number of Coalition Forces who have Died in Iraq: 4,693

4,375 US Military, 179 British Military, 139 Other Country Coalition Forces

Number of Civilians Dead (Iraqi and Other): 151,000

Number of Iraqi Security Forces: 8,745

Number of Insurgent Deaths: 20,987

Number of Private Military Contractor Deaths: 1,186

Number of Journalists: 170

218,397

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

[Due to chaos and civil war, actual totals for Iraqi deaths are most likely much higher than the numbers recorded on this site. As well, the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as the UN can be seen as a group led by the US and therefore cannot be trusted in it's listing of Human Rights Violations. We post these numbers as merely one possible source. Some have listed as high as over 1,000,000 dead.]

That number is 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded. This is the human cost of a war propagated by the United States government not for the liberation of a people, but for imperialism and the dawn of a New Age of American Colonialism. By the time we finished writing this article an estimated $712,164,983,347 had been spent. That is $8,457,560 dollars worth of writing.

Announcement

With seven years under its belt, 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded, need this war, now turned into an out-and-out occupation, continue? It does, if the American people stand up and put a stop to imperialist war once and for all. In light of all that has been said here and must continue to be said, the American Party of Labor must reiterate the call it began making a year ago during the 6th anniversary of this tragedy.

Troops Out of Iraq! Troops Out of Everywhere!hcuf

Sev

Seven Years of War

The 20th of March 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. And after seven years, over 100,000 dead Iraqi citizens, 700+ billion dollars and almost 5000 US soldier deaths later, what does the American Empire have to show for its expense? Not much. Iraq, even still is a county ruined and torn apart by war. Power in Baghdad is often only on one or two hours per day, crime and ethnic violence are still rampant, and much worse. That country, so rich in oil, is now in debt—a large debt too. The oil fields themselves have been mainly privatized and although they are pumping oil, the efforts of the American exploiter corporations in Iraq are hampered by the heroic efforts of the Iraqi Resistance.
In these past seven years it has been remarkable how much the original reasons behind the invasion have been widely proven to be a lie. By now, everyone knows that the so-called Global War on Terror has nothing to do with terrorism, the Taliban, democracy or womens’ rights in the Middle East. It is also common knowledge that Iraq held no responsibility for attacks against the US, and that the old WMD claims of Saddam’s government possessing biological and nuclear weapons was a lie.

Let’s discuss the fact that the US government stated it was “freeing” a subjugated people. We need not look far to disprove that. Despite claims of “fighting radical Islam,” Saddam’s Ba’ath Party was a secular party throughout its history. The US supports the Saudi Arabian monarchy financially, politically and militarily. The United States and the Bush Administration did not enter the war because it was liberating anyone. Iraq was also not filled with “terrorists” until a military coalition invaded it.

Operation Iraqi “Freedom”

The former Administration of George W. Bush seized the opportunity after the events of 9/11 to launch an occupation against two nations and interfere in several more. The US government assembled a military coalition to secure the economically and strategically crucial Persian Gulf. Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructures have been mostly obliterated by sustained military bombardment and on-the-ground invasion. Predictably, this involved overthrowing Middle Eastern regimes that interfered with US corporate interests in exploiting vast oil fields in Central Asia. This has ended in the installation of a “democratic” government hand-picked by US forces, which of course support the ongoing military presence.

Some Statistics

It’s been seven years since the United States launched its occupation into Iraq, and that means it is time for us to review the numbers. First, take a note. At the time we began writing this article an estimated $712,156,525,787 had been spent on the war.

Number of Coalition Forces who have Died in Iraq: 4,693

4,375 US Military, 179 British Military, 139 Other Country Coalition Forces

Number of Civilians Dead (Iraqi and Other): 151,000

Number of Iraqi Security Forces: 8,745

Number of Insurgent Deaths: 20,987

Number of Private Military Contractor Deaths: 1,186

Number of Journalists: 170

218,397

Source:
http://www.icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

[Due to chaos and civil war, actual totals for Iraqi deaths are most likely much higher than the numbers recorded on this site. As well, the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as the UN can be seen as a group led by the US and therefore cannot be trusted in it's listing of Human Rights Violations. We post these numbers as merely one possible source. Some have listed as high as over 1,000,000 dead.]

That number is 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded. This is the human cost of a war propagated by the United States government not for the liberation of a people, but for imperialism and the dawn of a New Age of American Colonialism. By the time we finished writing this article an estimated $712,164,983,347 had been spent. That is $8,457,560 dollars worth of writing.

Announcement

With seven years under its belt, 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded, need this war, now turned into an out-and-out occupation, continue? It does, if the American people stand up and put a stop to imperialist war once and for all. In light of all that has been said here and must continue to be said, the American Party of Labor must reiterate the call it began making a year ago during the 6th anniversary of this tragedy.

Troops Out of Iraq! Troops Out of Everywhere!

en Years of War

The 20th of March 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. And after seven years, over 100,000 dead Iraqi citizens, 700+ billion dollars and almost 5000 US soldier deaths later, what does the American Empire have to show for its expense? Not much. Iraq, even still is a county ruined and torn apart by war. Power in Baghdad is often only on one or two hours per day, crime and ethnic violence are still rampant, and much worse. That country, so rich in oil, is now in debt—a large debt too. The oil fields themselves have been mainly privatized and although they are pumping oil, the efforts of the American exploiter corporations in Iraq are hampered by the heroic efforts of the Iraqi Resistance.
In these past seven years it has been remarkable how much the original reasons behind the invasion have been widely proven to be a lie. By now, everyone knows that the so-called Global War on Terror has nothing to do with terrorism, the Taliban, democracy or womens’ rights in the Middle East. It is also common knowledge that Iraq held no responsibility for attacks against the US, and that the old WMD claims of Saddam’s government possessing biological and nuclear weapons was a lie.

Let’s discuss the fact that the US government stated it was “freeing” a subjugated people. We need not look far to disprove that. Despite claims of “fighting radical Islam,” Saddam’s Ba’ath Party was a secular party throughout its history. The US supports the Saudi Arabian monarchy financially, politically and militarily. The United States and the Bush Administration did not enter the war because it was liberating anyone. Iraq was also not filled with “terrorists” until a military coalition invaded it.

Operation Iraqi “Freedom”

The former Administration of George W. Bush seized the opportunity after the events of 9/11 to launch an occupation against two nations and interfere in several more. The US government assembled a military coalition to secure the economically and strategically crucial Persian Gulf. Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructures have been mostly obliterated by sustained military bombardment and on-the-ground invasion. Predictably, this involved overthrowing Middle Eastern regimes that interfered with US corporate interests in exploiting vast oil fields in Central Asia. This has ended in the installation of a “democratic” government hand-picked by US forces, which of course support the ongoing military presence.

Some Statistics

It’s been seven years since the United States launched its occupation into Iraq, and that means it is time for us to review the numbers. First, take a note. At the time we began writing this article an estimated $712,156,525,787 had been spent on the war.

Number of Coalition Forces who have Died in Iraq: 4,693

4,375 US Military, 179 British Military, 139 Other Country Coalition Forces

Number of Civilians Dead (Iraqi and Other): 151,000

Number of Iraqi Security Forces: 8,745

Number of Insurgent Deaths: 20,987

Number of Private Military Contractor Deaths: 1,186

Number of Journalists: 170

218,397

Source:
http://www.icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

[Due to chaos and civil war, actual totals for Iraqi deaths are most likely much higher than the numbers recorded on this site. As well, the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as the UN can be seen as a group led by the US and therefore cannot be trusted in it's listing of Human Rights Violations. We post these numbers as merely one possible source. Some have listed as high as over 1,000,000 dead.]

That number is 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded. This is the human cost of a war propagated by the United States government not for the liberation of a people, but for imperialism and the dawn of a New Age of American Colonialism. By the time we finished writing this article an estimated $712,164,983,347 had been spent. That is $8,457,560 dollars worth of writing.

Announcement

With seven years under its belt, 186,781 dead and 31,616 wounded, need this war, now turned into an out-and-out occupation, continue? It does, if the American people stand up and put a stop to imperialist war once and for all. In light of all that has been said here and must continue to be said, the American Party of Labor must reiterate the call it began making a year ago during the 6th anniversary of this tragedy.

Troops Out of Iraq! Troops Out of Everywhere!

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On Torture

24 Oct
Camp X-Ray: the USs Prime Concentration Camp

Camp X-Ray: the United States' Prized Concentration Camp

Who Are the Real War Criminals?

On the surface, the promise to close Guantanamo—delayed as the closing is, of course—seems like the ending to a fairy tale story straight out of daytime drama. At last righteousness has triumphed over evil, the wicked man has been deposed, and the greased wheels of life are going back to turning the right direction. Upon second thought however, the tale is less simple and less happy.

It is immensely unlikely that Obama’s administration will ever put the torturers or those that sanctioned and legalized them on trial. After all, the list of those guilty would include Obama’s own Vice President Joe “Interventionalist” Biden and Secretary of State Hillary “Annihilate Iran” Clinton, both of whom helped beat the war drums for Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, and both of whom are beating those same well-worn drums against Iran and Sudan in the present.

Moreover, there is nothing they can accuse them of that hasn’t already been committed by US foreign policy. It must firmly be asked: exactly what crime has been committed in Guantanamo that has not already been committed by the United States ruling class for hundreds of years prior? The latest debates blasting from the television are mind-boggling—where does the “We Do Not Torture” declaration come from?waterboarding-2-water-boarding-torture-interrogation-above-the-law-blog

Indeed, there is not one act committed by the Bush-era torture chambers between 2001 and 2009 that has not been committed in other wars for empire, the wars lauded to the skies by the very people who are now in charge of the country and promising to bring torture to an end. Very little coming out of the Obama Administration differs in any significant way from Bush. Only one major difference presents itself: the main facts—from the invasion of the Middle East to the intentional widespread devastation of infrastructure to the bombing of Pakistan and Somalia by robotic drones—nothing is denied anymore. The US government has become confident and secure once more in its violence.

Torture has always been part of US foreign policy: Above Left: US soldiers waterboard a Vietcong soldier for information. Right: A South Vietnamese Soldier interrogates a South Vietnamese suspect. South Vietnamese were trained by the US.

The list of charges for the CIA torture chambers opened in many countries, and not just Guantanamo, is an impressive one. Autopsy and death reports coming from detainees held in US facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan show many dying while being interrogated. Detainees are frequently hooded, gagged, strangled, beaten, subjected to sleep deprivation as well as temperature extremes. There are also reports of dog attacks, deprivation of hydration and mental torture, such as placing a prisoner terrified of insects in a cage with a swarm of them (a method actually mentioned by White House memos). “There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths,” says Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. Many of the cases have been ruled homicides, such as the cases of strangulation, suffocation and “blunt force injuries” inflicted by CIA operatives and Navy Seals.

Infamous Picture of Gitmo Prisoners

Infamous Picture of Gitmo Prisoners

What Are They Hiding?

Still, the most disturbing part of the matter is not what has been revealed about the nature of the US ruling class and the international imperialist system in general, but the lurking thought of what lies beyond—if what they have chosen to admit is this bad, exactly what are they hiding?

This brings us to the infamous “torture memos.” Not only has Obama’s Administration refused to release the many photographs and videotapes depicting the torture of prisoners, but lately he has been working overtime to distract the public from his own General’s testimonies before the press. As even the capitalist media has been forced to report, there are videos and photos shot where prisoners are beaten and raped, which I’m sure rank bottom among the worst atrocities, if I know our Dear Sweet CIA.

Being Simply “Against Torture” is Not Enough

The conservative and liberals in the media alike howl with shocked reactions at these reports. “What have we become?” they ask, astonished that their Dear Sweet America, land of liberty and freedom, would do such vile acts. Torture, apparently, is not a practice of the United States and doesn’t reflect “real” American values. Honestly—are these people kidding?

To believe that statement, that America has suddenly become a dictatorship when it was not one before, one would have to assume that up until around late 2001 the US had been a shining beacon of light for the rest of the world and the living embodiment of justice and peace.

For a little perspective, we might bring up America’s unprovoked invasion of Vietnam, in which almost 4 million Indochinese people were killed, or perhaps their invasion of Korea, where several more million met their deaths. If incidents of torture suddenly make America a raging monster according to the media, one wonders how they would react if one added the dead from Nixon and Johnson’s carpet-bombings of Laos.

This is not even to mention that a few hours’ drive from Bush’s former and Obama’s current house lies the infamous School of the Americas, where many generals that have led US-backed military coups in Latin America were trained in the art of torture, most of them—hooding, isolation, forced nudity, sensory overload and stress positions—have been since practiced at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, as well as the hundreds of other bases in occupied countries. In Georgia’s Fort Benning many of the same techniques being used across the globe were devised.

Clearly, to say that the US has “lost its morality” from these latest and most fashionable examples of torture is like condemning a slaughterhouse for using slightly more-brutal-than-usual methods of killing their livestock. So now suddenly the US is a dictatorship? Sorry guys—we passed that level long ago, in fact I think we passed it a few centuries ago.

Soldiers Wheel a Prisoner to Interrogation in Camp X-Ray

Soldiers Wheel a Prisoner to Interrogation in Camp X-Ray

What Is the Solution?

One cannot be against torture and at the same time for a more “refined” warfare—there is no such thing. It is considered “torture” by many to waterboard subjugated peoples, but it must also be considered torture to bomb their homelands and invade them with hundreds of thousands of gun-wielding troops. This entire system is guilty of Crimes Against Humanity, not simply a few individuals. We cannot get rid of such atrocities until we get rid of the capitalist system which spawned them. The only way out is armed revolution.

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