who writes the history books ...

Whose History Will Judge the U.S. and Iraqi War?
Beverly Darling, WorldNews, 27 Mar 2006

{'The greatest tragedy in all of this is that Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and George Bush have not only denied tens and thousands of peoples voices, but they have also denied them a place in history, for they have been killed and murdered.'}

If the recent statements by Ms. Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield are any indication how America will remember the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, then our collective memory is in grave danger and our future is at stake. Mr. Rumsfield recently wrote, ’Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis.’ Comparing the Iraqi Resistant Fighters to millions of Nazi troops who carried out the Final Solution in killing six million people is a gross misrepresentation of attempting to apply the past to the present. In suggesting that a few thousand terrorists around the world are similar to the military might of the Third Reich, which included millions of soldiers, tens and thousands of war planes and tanks, and the subjugation of nations and regions such as Poland, France, southern Europe, and eastern Eurasia, is an over-exaggeration beyond belief. But then the U.S. Military-Corporate-Political Establishment (MCPE) has always fed its citizenry a steady diet of deceits and lies, especially in reference to major events and wars. The ’judgment of all this needs to await history’ really means that the MCPE must be given time to repress and rewrite, in the minds of future generations, the U.S.-Iraqi War. Unfortunately, the MCPE’s mass media propaganda machine has a lengthy and abusive history of ‘repressing voices’ and ‘stealing lives’.

The MCPE, which produces school textbooks and dominates the mass media, is masterful in manufacturing history and denying U.S. citizens, past and present, along with other peoples around the world, their voice and place in history. Accordingly, the European patriarchal settlers knew best how to improve the land and what role women and minorities should play in the ‘New World‘, which was really an ‘Old World’ and in many ways more advanced than their conquerors. The settlers were justified in committing acts of genocide and mass extermination in the name of progress and freedom. Yet four hundred years before the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, the Iroquois had already established the first known representative government. The invasion and occupation of the Philippines in the late 1800‘s and early 1900‘s by U.S. forces in search of resources, markets and naval stations throughout the Pacific were more important than the promise of independence made to the Filipinos and their leader Emillio Aguinaldo. The U.S. policy of Total War and orders to shoot any male over 10 resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Filipinos. There is the complete omission of Operation Archangel where thousands of U.S. troops invaded Russia and fought against the Bolsheviks after WW I hoping to destroy the ideas of economic redistribution and workers uniting around the world. On the domestic front, labor unrest was often met with death. The Tulsa Race Riots are nonexistent. Hundreds of minorities were arrested, beaten and killed and for the first time airplanes were used to drop incendiary devices destroying Black neighborhoods. During the Cold War, the deterrence of elections in countries like Vietnam, Chile and Guatemala along with numerous assassinations and attempted coups in Iran, Panama, Cuba, and Mozambique, just to name a few, have stolen the memories and histories of millions of people, forever!

In a standard U.S. History text that is popular and used in many public schools around America, the last chapter addresses the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. and the events that led to the U.S.-Iraqi War. Included in the last seven pages is the chapter title, ’The War On Terrorism.’ Subtitles are, ’Terrorists Attacks on 9-11’, ’Middle East Terrorism’, ’A New Terrorist Threat’, ’Citizens Respond To Terrorism’, ’A National Emergency’, ’Cutting Terrorist Funding’, ’Fighting Terrorism At Home’, ’Bio-Terrorism Strikes America’, ’War In Afghanistan’, and ’Confronting Iraq’. There is one Map Skill entitled, ’Major Terrorist Attacks Affecting America 1970-2001 that shows twelve terrorist attacks around the world. There are seven photos consisting of the Pentagon and World Trade Center burning, two pictures of Ground Zero with the American flag being raised, a photo of a candle-light vigil remembering the victims of 9-11, and children holding flags with the words ’We Love America’. Only two people are given voices. First, Colin Powell’s infamous speech to the UN in which the U.S. accuses Iraq of lying about and hiding WMD’S. Second, the speeches and words of President George Bush fills the final seven pages. Mr. Bush is given the closing statement, in reference to the war with Iraq. “’The U.S. did not want war’ the president explained, but ’sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all.’ On March 20, the war began in Iraq.” There is no mention of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; the CIA aiding and then abandoning the Mujahadeen of Afghanistan; the Tanker War with Iran; the Iranian Air-bus Massacre; the Persian Gulf War I and economic sanctions against Iraq that killed 400,000 Iraqi children; the No Fly Zone War; the attempted assassination of Osama bin Laden and the accidental bombing of the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan; the backing of ruthless Middle Eastern regimes and training their secret police; a history of covert wars and secret coups; and the hundreds of U.S. military and naval bases found especially in Saudi Arabia-where the holy places of Mecca and Medina are. According to the text the only reason that terrorists attacked the U.S. was, ’The U.S. had made many Middle Eastern countries rich because of oil, and this wealth was not evenly distributed.’ In relation to the events leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, absent are the Downing Street Memos and August 6 PDB stating that (along with 42 other warnings before 9-11), ‘Osama bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S….following the examples of the WTC bombings. Al-Qaeda members are now in the U.S. and are planning to hi-jack planes,’; the hundreds and thousands of pro-peace demonstrators and members of Congress that urged Mr. Bush to ’use all means necessary’ before committing U.S. troops to war; the UN Security Resolution and inspectors headed by Hans Blix that wanted more time to investigate signs of WMD’S in Iraq but were repeatedly threatened and forced to leave because Mr. Bush could no longer wait and wanted to go to war; and the millions of suffering Iraqis. With history like this, who needs propaganda?

The question remains, ‘Whose history will judge the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq?’ Will it include the voice of the former Iraqi PM Allawaii who claims Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and on average loses 50-60 people each day, or the voice of the Bush Regime claiming that Iraq would be a ’cake-walk’ and the people will ’greet us with flowers and open arms?’ Will it include the eye witness reports of Iraqi farmers that claim, after U.S. Marines lost one of their own, they went on a rampage attacking several farmhouses and handcuffing and executing 15 people including 7 women and 3 children? Will history include the Fallujah Massacre and the Abu Graib Torture Scandals? Will it include the tens of thousands of Iraqis, Christians, and Palestinians that are now fleeing? Will it give the original reason President Bush invaded Iraq but due to the manipulation of intelligence it has continually changed its rationale to removing Saddam Hussein, oil, fighting terrorists, preventing a civil war, and establishing a democracy (sic)? Will it include the $20 billion in reconstruction aid that has been squandered? Will the pictures of the 37,832 dead civilians, according to Iraqi Body Count be shown? (Some organizations claim 125,000)

Will history include voices of the millions of people around the world who marched against the U.S. occupation of Iraq on the third anniversary of the war? Will it include the handful of veteran peace marchers who are marching from Tijuana to San Francisco and now number in the hundreds? Will history record the people marching for peace from Mobile to New Orleans and carrying signs, ’Every bomb dropped in Iraq, explodes along the Gulf Coast’? Will it include the Gallup students who recently walked out of class protesting U.S. involvement in Iraq and calling on the impeachment of President Bush? Will history include the teacher who was placed on leave and has received death threats and hate mail for comparing and contrasting one of President Bush’s speech and a speech by Adolf Hitler? Will it include the voices of those falsely arrested and murdered after 9-11because they were Muslim? Will history record how the NSA spied on peace groups and Mosques? Will voices like Jim O’Connor, an Iraqi veteran who claimed, ’We’re killing innocent people, just like Hitler did to the Jews,’ be heard? Will the voice of a mother, whose daughter is AWOL and refuses to return to Iraq because, ’Iraqi children are never in school, I don’t know what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq, how can we liberate countries when we can’t even feed and clothe our own,’ be recorded? Will the 150,000 Iraqi and Afghan vets be remembered who have visited the VA and where 46,000 have sought mental help? Will the Air Force mechanic’s words be in future textbooks, when asked how long he thought the U.S. would be in Iraq exclaimed, ’I think we’ll be here forever.’ Will a sister’s poem of a soldier who was killed in Iraq and entitled, ’Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son,’ be recorded? Will there be photos of flag draped coffins and the wounded returning to American soil?

The greatest tragedy in all of this is that Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and George Bush have not only denied tens and thousands of peoples voices, but they have also denied them a place in history, for they have been killed and murdered. A greater tragedy may be that we are ALREADY allowing history to be suppressed and rewritten by the MCPE. Instead of fighting foreign wars and destroying the opium fields of the Middle East, or the coca plants of Bolivia, America may want to destroy its own drug…self-serving history and begin listening and recognizing the voices of all peoples and nations. As the MCPE are trying to de-Baathify Iraq-destroying the symbols and history of Saddam Hussein’s party, the American people should start de-Bushifying the U.S. by marching, protesting, petitioning, and regaining symbols of peace, justice, and cooperation. By the way, while Ms. Rice was speaking, several students in the audience expressed their contrary opinions about the U.S.-Iraqi War. As they were being forcibly removed from the auditorium, she said, ‘Isn’t democracy great?’ When one person is denied their voice and place in history, we are all denied a voice and place in history. Let everyone be heard equally and lived justly.