The United States is the sole super-power on the world scene. It
is the richest entity on earth. It is Babylon the Great. Part of
the description of Babylon the Great is that "in her was found the
blood of prophets and of holy ones and of ALL those who have been
slaughtered on the earth"
Of course this is hyperbole meant to emphasize the exceeding blood
guilt of Babylon the Great.
It is clear that Dakota Red, Amazing and others in this forum have
been duped by the propaganda machine into thinking the US is the
noblest nation to have ever occupied a place on this earth. There
used to be an excuse for that kind of ignorance before the world
wide web. Before the internet the voices of criticism of the US
were confined to obscure pamphlets and coffee house discussions. Do
a little searching on the internet. Look under key words Viet
Nam, Somosa, El Salvador, Aliende of Chile, Shah of Iran, secret
police, amnesty international, globalism, massacre, Marcos,
Batista, Wounded Knee, King David Hotel, etc.etc.
The Web has freed a few from the Watchtower Propaganda. But the
Web needs to clear the US press propaganda out of your heads. Some
of you have given up the nonsense of Religion for the nonsense of
Patriotism.
I list below just a few quotes that I have found that might
disabuse you of notions that the War Propaganda Machine has put in
your brains. Some of what I quote is ALSO propaganda but there are
sufficient facts contained here to work as an antidote to some of
the mental poison fed the American Public.
"The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500
killed when Israel _ backed by the U.S. _ invaded Lebanon in 1982,
the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands
of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel's occupation of the
West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia,
Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic,
Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and
genocidists who the American government supported, trained,
bankrolled and supplied with arms."
_ Arundhati Roy
East Indian activist and fighter for women's rights
Author of The God of Small Things
"The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign
policy."
_ Ramsey Clark
former U.S. Attorney General
"There was no war. No combat. There was only a deliberate,
systematic genocide of a defenseless population while barely
setting foot on Iraqi soil. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in
1967, `The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own
government', he could not have dreamed in his worst nightmare what
the U.S. did to Iraq."
_ Ramsey Clark
"Fire and Ice: The Devastation of Iraq by War and Sanctions"
"I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that
several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over
150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans
testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not
isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with
the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. ...
"They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off
ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent
of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks
and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition
to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular
ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this
country."
_ John Kerry
Navy lieutenant, leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War
in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
April 23, 1971
"We're going to become guilty, in my judgement, of being the
greatest threat to the peace of the world. It's an ugly reality,
and we Americans don't like to face up to it. I hate to think of
the chapter of American history that's going to be written in the
future in connection with our outlawry in Southeast Asia."
_ Senator Wayne Morse
(D-OR)
1967
"I sat there in agony thinking about all that had led me to this
private hell. My idealism, my patriotism, my ambition, my plans to
be a good intelligence officer to help my country fight the
communist scourge _ what in the hell had happened? Why did we have
to bomb the people we were trying to save? Why were we napalming
young children? Why did the CIA, my employer for 16 years, report
lies instead of the truth?
"I hated my part in the charade of murder and horror. My efforts
were contributing to the deaths, to the burning alive of children
_ especially the children. The photographs of young Vietnamese
children burned by napalm destroyed me."
_ Ralph McGehee
former CIA intelligence analyst
Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA
"Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the
shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and
elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into
flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the
day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear
ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools
demolished _ only after that gruesome experience will we realize
what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina..."
_ William Shirer
author
1973
"If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn
SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. They know we own their country. We
own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And
that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing,
especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need."
_ U.S. Brig. General William Looney
Washington Post, August 30, 1999
referring, in reality, to the brutal mass-murder
of hundreds of civilian Iraqi men, women and children
during 10,000 sorties by American/British war criminals
in the first eight months of 1999
"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar
soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations
so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a
solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must
be of the violent type because the `haves' refuse to share with the
`have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be
their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and
above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
_ General David Sharp
former United States Marine Commandant
1966
"We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal
expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain
social stability for our investments. This tells why American
helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru.
Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who
refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the
immense profits of overseas investment."
_ Martin Luther King, Jr.
"A Time to Break the Silence"
speech given at Riverside Church
New York City
April 4, 1967
"The trouble is that when American dollars earn only six percent
over here, they get restless and go overseas to get 100 percent.
The flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
"I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to defend some lousy
investment of the bankers. We should fight only for the defense of
our home and the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply
a racket.
"There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang
is blind to. It had its `finger men' to point out enemies, its
`muscle men' to destroy enemies, its `brain men' to plan war
preparations and a `Big Boss' _ supernationalistic capitalism.
"I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-
class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of
Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially
Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to
the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City
Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a
dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
"War is a racket."
_ General Smedley D. Butler
former U.S. Marine Commandant
in Common Sense
November 1935
"Death squads have been created and used by the CIA around the
world _ particularly the Third World _ since the late 1940s, a fact
ignored by the elite-owned media."
_ Ralph McGehee
former CIA analyst
CIABASE; The Crisis of Democracy
also author of Deadly Deceits: My 25 years in the CIA
"In American spy parlance, it's called `blowback' _ the unintended
consequences of covert activity kept secret from the U.S. public.
The covert recruitment of a Nazi spy network to wage a shadow war
against the Soviet Union was the CIA's `original sin' and it
ultimately backfired against the United States."
_ Martin A. Lee
author of The Beast Reawakens
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what
Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great
propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."
_ Michael Parenti
political scientist, author of
To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media
"Patriotism, like religion, meets people's need for something
greater to which their individual lives can be anchored...
America's state religion, [is] patriotism, a phenomenon which has
convinced many of the citizenry that `treason' is morally worse
than murder or rape."
_ William Blum
author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower ; and
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War
II
"I will never apologize for the United States of America _ I don't
care what the facts are."
_ President George Bush
1988
Bush was demonstrating his patriotism by excusing an act of cold-
blooded mass-murder by the U.S. Navy. On July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy
warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial airliner. All 290
civilian people in the aircraft were killed. The plane was on a
routine flight in a commercial corridor in Iranian airspace. The
targeting of it by the U.S. Navy was blatantly illegal. That it was
grossly immoral is also obvious. Except to a patriot.
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already
earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake,
since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to
civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command,
senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how
violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I
would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action!
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing
but an act of murder."
_ Albert Einstein
"It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in."
_ General Colin Powell
War Criminal
when asked about the number of Iraqi people
who were slaughtered by Americans
in the 1991 "Desert Storm" terror campaign:
200,000 Iraqi men, women and children
"Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be
inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership
in the foreign policy establishment... People capable of expressing
a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway
powerless strangers...do not become president of the United States,
or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security
adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to."
_ William Blum
author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower ; and
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War
II
"The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government."
_ Martin Luther King Jr.
April 4, 1967
exactly one year before he was murdered
by the U.S. government
"The fact that some elements [of the U.S. military/government] may
appear to be potentially `out of control' can be beneficial to
creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an
adversary's decision makers...
"That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital
interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we
project to all adversaries... It hurts to portray ourselves as too
fully rational and cool-headed..."
_ U.S. Strategic Command
Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence
1995
(The U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, is the military entity
responsible for formulating U.S. nuclear policy.)
"Never before in modern history has a country dominated the earth
so totally as the United States does today. America is now the
Schwarzenegger of international politics: showing off muscles,
obtrusive, intimidating. The Americans, in the absence of limits
put to them by anybody or anything, act as if they own a kind of
blank check in their McWorld."
Der Spiegel
Germany's leading newsmagazine
1997
"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden
fist _ McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnel Douglas, the
designer of the F-15."
_ Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times columnist
"A Manifesto for the Fast World"
New York Times Magazine
March 28, 1999
"One of the great attractions of patriotism _ it fulfills our worst
wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to
bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that
we are profoundly virtuous."
_ Aldous Huxley
British writer
1894-1963
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities
committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not
even hearing about them."
_ George Orwell
author of 1984
"The U.S.A. has supplied arms, security equipment and training to
governments and armed groups that have committed torture, political
killings and other human rights abuses in countries around the
world."
Amnesty International
"United States of America _ Rights for All"
October 1998
"... the United States has given frequent and enthusiastic support
to the overthrow of democracy in favor of `investor friendly'
regimes.
"The World Bank, IMF, and private banks have consistently lavished
huge sums on terror regimes, following their displacement of
democratic governments, and a number of quantitative studies have
shown a systematic positive relationship between U.S. and IMF/World
Bank aid to countries and their violations of human rights."
_ Edward S. Herman
economist, U.S. media and foreign policy critic
author of The Real Terror Network
"We have had our last chance. If we do not devise some greater and
more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door."
_ General Douglas MacArthur
September 2, 1945
"To maintain this position of disparity [U.S. military-economic
supremacy]... we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and
day-dreaming.... We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal
objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standard
and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to
have to deal in straight power concepts.... The less we are then
hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
_ George Kennan
Director of Policy Planning
U.S. State Department
1948
"The United States spends more on arms annually, $275 billion
presently, than the rest of the Security Council combined. U.S.
arms expenditures are approximately 25 times the gross national
product of Iraq. The U.S. has in its stockpiles more nuclear bombs,
chemical and biological weapons, more aircraft, rockets and
delivery systems in number and sophistication than the rest of the
world combined. Included are twenty commissioned Trident II nuclear
submarines any one of which could destroy Europe."
_ Ramsey Clark
former U.S. Attorney General
Letter to the U.N., November 1998
"Today, the United States spends more on military arms and other
forms of `national security' than the rest of the world combined.
U.S. leaders preside over a global military apparatus of a
magnitude never before seen in human history.
"In 1993 it included almost a half-million troops stationed at over
395 major military bases and hundreds of minor installations in
thirty-five foreign countries, and a fleet larger in total tonnage
and firepower than all the other navies of the world combined,
consisting of missile cruisers, nuclear submarines, nuclear
aircraft carriers, destroyers, and spy ships that sail every ocean
and make port on every continent. U.S. bomber squadrons and long-
range missiles can reach any target, carrying enough explosive
force to destroy entire continents with an overkill capacity of
more than 8,000 strategic nuclear weapons and 22,000 tactical
ones."
_ Michael Parenti
Against Empire
1995
"Inaugurated this week, `Yodaville' is the first urban bombing
range for the U.S. military... The Marines hope their `town' 35
miles southeast of Yuma will help the military develop more
efficient and safer ways to attack villages, towns and cities from
the air...
"Military experts predict that cities, where up to 70 percent of
the world's population will live, will be the likely battlefields
of the next century."
San Diego Union Tribune
June 18, 1999
"For the future, mounted forces (tanks) must be ready to operate in
urban settings... To meet the challenges that urban areas pose, the
army must develop doctrine, training, organizations, materiel, and
soldier-leaders. At Fort Knox, a facility is arising to fill these
gaps. This new facility, a test bed for Force XXI, will integrate
heavy weapons and mounted forces in urban operations... it will
provide an unequaled opportunity for joint training across the
spectrum of conventional and special forces... The site will be
large and sophisticated. Plans include a 26-acre spread located on
Fort Knox's northern training area... Its features will represent
typical residential, municipal, and business districts found in
cities."
_ Robert S. Cameron, Ph.D.
from the article:
"It Takes a Village to Prepare for Urban Combat...
And Fort Knox is Getting One."
This open declaration of intent to slaughter civilians is on the
official website of Fort Knox, which bills itself as the "Home of
Mounted Warfare".
"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname
empire, and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace."
_ Tacitus
Roman historian
c. 55-120 A.D.
"They call it `The Night of the Witches', those horrible hours that
began at precisely 1 a.m. April 18, when NATO bombs and missiles
rained in force on this Serbian city [Pancevo]. Within seconds,
they demolished a refinery, a fertilizer plant and an American-
built petrochemical complex that released a toxic cloud so dense
and potentially lethal that its effects can be felt here even today
_ and will be, perhaps, for decades."
Los Angeles Times
"Yugoslav City Battling Toxic Enemies"
July 6, 1999
"According to the log he (Professor Mico Martinovic) maintained,
NATO bombed the chemical complex at Pancevo on 23 days, hitting it
with at least 56 bombs or missiles."
Chicago Tribune
"Serbs Allege NATO Raids Caused Toxic Catastrophe"
July 8, 1999
"Following the Pancevo incidents, a cloud of smoke some 15
kilometres [over 9 miles] in length lasted for ten days."
The Regional Environmental Center
for Central and Eastern Europe
"Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Military Activities
During the Yugoslavia Conflict"
June 1999
"[T]he ground in and around Pancevo is saturated with ammonia,
mercury, naptha, acids, dioxins and other toxins that leaked and
burned out of the factories that night..."
Los Angeles Times
"Yugoslav City Battling Toxic Enemies"
July 6, 1999
"Come back, my friend, in 10 years. Then you will find half the
people of Pancevo are dead, just like the fish."
_ Dragomir Djuric
Serbian fisherman in Pancevo
Chicago Tribune
July 8, 1999
"I did not know how much was ended. When I look back now from this
high hill of my old age, I can see the butchered women and children
lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as
I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else
died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A
people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream..."
_ Black Elk
Oglala Holy Man
on the aftermath of the Massacre at Wounded Knee
The massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota took place in December,
1890. Soldiers of the United States Army Seventh Cavalry used
gattling guns to slaughter 300 helpless Lakota children, men and
women.
"The use of terror is deeply ingrained in our [national] character.
Back in 1818, John Quincy Adams hailed the `salutary efficacy' of
terror in dealing with `mingled hordes of lawless Indians and
negroes.' He wrote that to justify Andrew Jackson's rampages in
Florida which virtually annihilated the native population and left
the Spanish province under US control, much impressing Thomas
Jefferson and others with his wisdom."
_ Noam Chomsky
What Uncle Sam Really Wants
"America was born in blood. America suckled on blood. America
gorged on blood and grew into a giant, and America will drown in
blood."
_ Thomas W. Chittum
Vietnam veteran
in his book Civil War Two
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending
spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of
diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may
murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence
merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence
multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already
devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do
that."
_ Martin Luther King, Jr.
