Dead man rising Upon hearing that Bin Laden has been officially pronounced dead, I thought: 1) Since this man has been dead for nearly a decade, the US killed a look-alike; 2) Maybe previous rumors about Bin Laden's demise, reported in the New York Times, The Guardian and Fox News, among many other places, were false, after all.
Still, the US has long known where he was, but only decided to kill him now to a) lift up American spirits as economic despair becomes ever more acute, b) help Obama get reelected, since he is such a great tool of the establishment. Although his policies hardly differ from Bush, his charms and skin color have dampened protest from many quarters, c) set up a false flag "retaliation from Al Qaeda," which would renew sagging support for the War on Terrorism.
In any case, it would be interesting to get all the details of this operation and see the physical evidences. For every assassination or murder, there must be a corpse, but alas, there is no corpse! Less than six hours after news came that Bin Laden had been killed, it was announced that he had already been buried at sea. The official explanation: The US must respect the Islamic tradition that a corpse be buried within 24 hours, and since no country was willing to be his final host, not even Saudi Arabia, his homeland, Bin Laden had to be dumped into a place where he could never be exhumed. How convenient. Case closed!
Such respect for a Muslim corpse from a country that seems to be fighting Muslims everywhere, that kills, imprisons and tortures Muslims, whose soldiers draped panties and smeared shit on Muslim heads, raped Muslim women and collected Muslim ears as trophies. America hasn't exactly been shy about abusing Muslims, dead or alive, so why this sudden delicacy? Remember also that Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed by American troops on July 22, 2003, then buried on August 2, 11 days later.
Had Bin Laden been captured, and I will insist there was never any intention of catching this man alive, he would have to be tried in court, where his involvement with 9/11 would have to be proven, counter theories could be introduced and questions about 9/11 raised. In short, a nasty can of worms to be avoided at all cost.
Though long gone, Bin Laden had been extremely useful as a boogeyman for the American military industrial complex, but this ruse was running out of gas. Even with a fake, CIA-produced audio every now and then, the Bin Laden brand no longer captured, so it was time to close out this product line, not with a bang, exactly, since there's no cadaver, but with plenty of noise nevertheless.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a just released novel, Love Like Hate. He's tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union.
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/1826
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The Muslim Holocaust: The legacy of American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq American mass media have covered up the most important fact in the ongoing wars—the number of people slaughtered. From the initial invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq major media have served as cheerleaders for the bloodshed, spreading the lies that led us to war. As an old combat vet still shocked by what I saw 45 years ago in Vietnam, where we slaughtered more millions in war based on lies, I decided to look into what is happening in the current wars, discovering that as many as 7 million innocents may have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I first looked for government or mass media reports for this article, but found little help from them, concluding they are not at all interested in the victims of war.
The charge of a cover up by mass media seems obvious, as it is unconscionable that major media, a multi-billion dollar industry, could not find the numbers. It seems obvious as well that such numbers would shock the public and turn them against the wars, perhaps the reason for the silence of mass media in contributing to their avid war support by adhering to the words of General Tommy Franks that "We don't do body counts."
As far as the people of Iraq are concerned, the Iraq war is now more than 20 years old. It began in 1990 with deadly economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, followed by a 1991 attack by President George HW Bush against Iraqi forces, continuing with sanctions after the hot war ended, more hot war with President Clinton's Operation Desert Fox, and continued sanctions until lifted in 2003 with the Iraq invasion, while the occupation still crawls forward.
In 2001, Iraqi Cultural Minister Hamid Yusuf Hammadi, speaking at a conference against the UN embargo, estimated that 1.7 million Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions and other violence directed against Iraq by the USA up to that time under presidents GHW Bush and Clinton.
Before that, in 1996, Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark estimated that 1.5 million Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions, bringing charges against the USA and others for genocide.
But all of that suffering was before Shock and Awe.
In 2007, Opinion Research Business of London estimated the number of Iraqis killed in the 2003 invasion of that country and following war up to that time to be 1.2 million, based on face to face interviews with 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths).
Taking these numbers from the invasions, sanctions and occupation of Iraq alone, we are already over 2.5 million dead.
And then there is the Afghanistan affair.
In 2001, President George W Bush authorized an invasion of Afghanistan, where, we were told at the time, 7 million people were being fed by NGO's because they were on the verge of starvation, meaning they would die in a short time without emergency food.
Noam Chomsky reported in 2002 on the time of the invasion, "A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees warned that 'We are facing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions in Afghanistan with 7.5 million short of food and at risk of starvation,' while aid agencies leveled 'scathing' condemnations of U.S. air drops that are barely concealed 'propaganda tools' and may cause more harm than benefit, they warned."
No one has counted how many Afghans starved to death as a result of the invasion, as NGOs who had been feeding people on the verge of starvation had to withdraw because of the bombing. Those starving people were among the poorest on earth, probably lacking birth and death certificates, so we may never know what happened to them.
Australian scientist Gideon Polya did a study of the effect of war on the Afghanistan population and concluded that as a result of the invasion and occupation up to 2009,"This carnage involving 4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess Afghan deaths constitutes an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention."
So if this estimate is correct, there are 4.5 million dead in Afghanistan as a result of the invasion and occupation. Combined with the 2.5 million who died from 20 years of war and sanctions in Iraq, we arrive at the rough figure of 7 million dead.
But if 7 million people died, why is it that few seem aware of these numbers? After all, anyone you ask on the street can tell you 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. Why aren't 7 million Muslims important enough to notice?
The owners, board members and advertisers of our mass media are interlocked in "defense" contracting investments, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most lucrative in history, with more contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan than there are troops.
Our politicians own "defense" investments as well, and their political campaigns depend on contributions from "defense" industries, at great expense to taxpayers. Many Members of Congress legally vote for "defense" projects which personally enrich them because of their investments.
Even though the majority of the public oppose the wars and want our troops to come home, it is imperative to the corporate media and corporate government, and those above them (the ruling Forces of Greed) that as much support as possible be maintained to keep the wars going.
If the public were informed that as many as 7 million people might have been slaughtered, more war supporters might fall off the bandwagon, making it harder to keep the bloodshed flowing for the billions in profit.
It would appear that violence has become the primary diplomatic tool of our government. Gandhi said "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
Our government and mass media are still covering up the evil, but it may be permanent for seven million.
Jack Balkwill has written for publications as varied as the little-read English Honor Society's Rectangle to the millions of readers USA Today. He may be reached at libertyuv@hotmail.com.
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/1580
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