Submitted
by Glen Ford on Wed, 02/01/2017 - 14:17
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Americans
welcome only token numbers of people from countries devastated by U.S. wars of
aggression. Donald Trump’s current ban on travelers affects nations that were
already targeted by President Obama, “a perfect example of the continuity of
U.S. imperial policy in the region.” The memo from State Department
“dissenters” contains “not a word of support for world peace, nor a hint of
respect for the national sovereignty of other peoples.”
If Americans Truly Cared About Muslims, They Would Stop Killing
Them by the Millions
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Since 2001, war has been normalized in the U.S.
-- especially war against Muslims.”
In the most dramatic expression of insider opposition to a
sitting administration’s policies in generations, over
1,000 [3] U.S. State Department
employees signed on to a memo protesting President Donald Trump’s temporary
ban on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries setting foot on U.S.
soil. Another recent high point in dissent among the State Department’s 18,000
worldwide employees occurred in June of last year, when 51 diplomats called
for U.S. air strikes [4] against the
Syrian government of President Bashar al Assad.
Neither outburst of dissent was directed against the U.S.
wars and economic sanctions that have killed and displaced millions of people
in the affected countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Rather, the diplomatic “rebellion” of last summer sought to pressure the Obama
administration to join with Hillary Clinton and her “Big Tent” full of war
hawks to confront Russia in the skies over Syria, while the memo
currently making the rounds of State Department employees claims
to uphold [5] “core American and
constitutional values,” preserve “good will towards Americans” and prevent
“potential damage to the U.S. economy from the loss of revenue from foreign
travelers and students.”
In
neither memo is there a word of support for world peace, nor a hint of respect
for the national sovereignty of other peoples -- which is probably
appropriate, since these are not, and never have been, “core American and
constitutional values.”
“The diplomatic ‘rebellion’ of last summer sought to pressure the Obama administration to join with Hillary Clinton and her ‘Big Tent’ full of war hawks to confront Russia in the skies over Syria.”
Ironically,
the State Department “dissent channel” was established during one of those
rare moments in U.S. history when “peace” was popular: 1971, when a defeated
U.S. war machine was very reluctantly winding down support for its puppet
regime in South Vietnam. Back then, lots of Americans, including denizens of
the U.S. government, wanted to take credit for the “peace” that was on the
verge of being won by the Vietnamese, at a cost of at least four million
Southeast Asian dead. But, those days are long gone. Since 2001, war has been
normalized in the U.S. -- especially war against Muslims, which now ranks at
the top of actual “core American values.” Indeed, so much American hatred is
directed at Muslims that Democrats and establishment Republicans must struggle
to keep the Russians in the “hate zone” of the American popular psyche. The
two premiere, officially-sanctioned hatreds are, of course, inter-related,
particularly since the Kremlin stands in the way of a U.S. blitzkrieg in
Syria, wrecking Washington’s decades-long strategy to deploy Islamic jihadists
as foot soldiers of U.S. empire.
The United States has always been a project of
empire-building. George Washington called it a “nascent
empire [6],” Thomas Jefferson bought the
Louisiana Territory from France in pursuit of an “extensive
empire [6],” and the real Alexander
Hamilton [7], contrary to the Broadway
version, considered the U.S. to be the “most interesting empire in the world.”
The colonial outpost of two million white settlers (and half a million African
slaves) severed ties with Britain in order to forge its own, limitless
dominion, to rival the other white European empires of the world. Today, the
U.S. is the Mother of All (Neo)Colonialists, under whose armored skirts are
gathered all the aged, shriveled, junior imperialists of the previous era.
“The United States has always been a project of
empire-building.”
In
order to reconcile the massive contradiction between America’s predatory
nature and its mythical self-image, however, the mega-hyper-empire must
masquerade as its opposite: a benevolent, “exceptional” and “indispensible”
bulwark against global barbarism. Barbarians must, therefore, be invented and
nurtured, as did the U.S. and the Saudis in 1980s Afghanistan with their
creation of the world’s first international jihadist network, for subsequent
deployment against the secular “barbarian” states of Libya and Syria.
In modern American bureaucratese, worrisome barbarian
states are referred to as “countries or areas of concern” -- the language used
to designate the seven nations targeted under the Terrorist Travel
Prevention Act of 2015 [8] signed by
President Obama. President Donald Trump used the existing legislation as the
basis for his executive order banning travelers from those states, while
specifically naming only Syria. Thus, the current abomination is a perfect
example of the continuity of U.S. imperial policy in the region, and
emphatically not something new under the sun (a sun that, as with old
Britannia, never sets on U.S. empire).
The
empire preserves itself, and strives relentlessly to expand, through force of
arms and coercive economic sanctions backed up by the threat of annihilation.
It kills people by the millions, while allowing a tiny fraction of its victims
to seek sanctuary within U.S. borders, based on their individual value to the
empire.
“The mega-hyper-empire must masquerade as its
opposite: a benevolent, “exceptional” and “indispensible” bulwark against
global barbarism.”
Donald Trump’s racist executive order directly affects
about 20,000 people [9], according to the
United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees. President Obama killed an
estimated 50,000 Libyans in 2011, although the U.S. officially does not admit
it snuffed out the life of a single civilian. The First Black President is responsible
for each of the half-million Syrians that have died since he launched his
jihadist-based war against that country, the same year. Total casualties
inflicted on the populations of the seven targeted nations since the U.S.
backed Iraq in its 1980s war against Iran number at least four million -- a
bigger holocaust than the U.S. inflicted on Southeast Asia, two generations
ago -- when the U.S. State Department first established its “dissent channel.”
But,
where is the peace movement? Instead of demanding a halt to the carnage that
creates tidal waves of refugees, self-styled “progressives” join in the
macabre ritual of demonizing the “countries of concern” that have been
targeted for attack, a process that U.S. history has color-coded with racism
and Islamophobia. These imperial citizens then congratulate themselves on
being the world’s one and only “exceptional” people, because they deign to
accept the presence of a tiny portion of the populations the U.S. has mauled.
The
rest of humanity, however, sees the real face of America -- and there will be
a reckoning.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can
be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [10].
Links
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/syria-assad-obama-airstrikes-diplomats-memo.html
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Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB