Its a shame to realize that racism against Muslims plays such a big part in America's foreign policy. Not surprising as Obama has pointed out racism is still not talked about openly and seriously in America .
In case you missed it which most people did since the Media gave the event almost zero coverage. The difference between the Vietnam War and the media now in regards to the Iraq War is striking . That is in the sense that the peace marches and other protests against the Vietnam War received a lot more attention than does any protests against the Iraq War. It is so unsettling that this war has gone on for five years even though everybody knew by the second year that the invasion was based on lies and it was not the cake walk that it was supposed to be. Is it just about the oil and other plunder. Maybe the Americans are the true Barbarians . Maybe America has become a " failed state " . This doesn't affect most of the superwealthy who if in trouble Bush will bail them out.
Iraq War vets speak about unnecessary killings and atrocities as an everyday experience for US soldiers in Iraq.
Preview of Winter Soldiers Part 1.
Unfortunately it seems the mainstream media ignored the hearings . This is not much of a surprise since most Americans have been told the war is going much better since the surge. There are fewer American deaths and that of course is all that matters. The fact that this is an unnecessary war of aggression is unimportant as far as many Americans are concerned. Besides Americans do not want to hear unpleasant stories even if they are true.
The number of Iraqis who have now died as a result of the war is estimated to be about a million. Whereas only about 4,000 Americans have been killed . But as we know American lives are of much greater value than are Iraqis.
The problem with Americans and many Canadians and other Westerners is that they see all Muslims as the same. It makes little difference to them whether those Muslims who took part in the 9/11 attacks were from Egypt or Saudi Arabia which they were. They were not from Iraq or Iran . Only a minority of Muslims support the actions of Al-Qaeda or other extremist groups. But once people accept this racist attitude it is difficult to question or undo it. Besides people find some comfort in their stereotypical views of other people .
" They're just Hajis , who cares !!! "
Racism from the top down
Winter Soldiers at Democracy Now!
And from Alternet.org we get this disturbing article:
Iraq Vets: 'Racism Endemic; Comes from the Top of Command Chain'
At its core, the "War on Terror" is inherently racist. Its central tenet is that all Muslims are interchangeable.
To a significant degree, the invasion of Iraq was sold on that premise. At the time of the invasion, a majority of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of 9/11 (a third still believe that, as did 90 percent of soldiers deployed in Iraq in 2006, according to a Zogby poll). Only a populace that thinks all Arabs are the same could be convinced that it was possible to avenge Osama Bin Laden's attack -- carried out mostly by Saudis and Egyptians -- by invading Iraq.
There probably isn't a single American who would link an IRA bombing in Belfast with an abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham, despite the fact that both are the actions of Christian extremists who justify violence against civilians in the name of religious affinity. In the 1970s and 1980s, Europe had a dozen terrorist groups, all with vaguely similar grievances and with some minor contacts between them. Nobody ever suggested that those groups were parts of a cohesive entity that was waging a war on Western civilization.
But our response to the attacks of 9/11 was, and continues to be, built on the premise that disparate conflicts in predominantly Muslim countries are part and parcel of the same global struggle. Palestinian militants and fundamentalist tribesman in Pakistan's hinterlands and Abu Sayyaf rebels in the Philippines and Algeria's GIA are stripped of history and context and offered by Bush and his supporters as a collective justification for launching a global war in response to a single, if stunning, terror attack.
The reality is that they're conflating a series of independent conflicts, including many that have nothing to do with the United States. Dangerously, that plays right into Osama Bin Laden's preferred narrative of a grand Clash of Civilizations, as far-flung Islamic extremist groups have indeed found value in allying themselves with Bin Laden's "global jihad" since the launch of Bush's terror war.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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