The American
philosophy of colonialist imperialism under George W. Bush has reached such low
standards of consistency and comprehension that trying to guess its logic is
futile.
While the British
love to brag about their experience in the details of colonialism, and the
French love to reminisce about their former �mission to civilize,� U.S.
crusading imperialists love to scramble all conventional terminologies of
conquest with contradictory statements for the obvious purpose to confound and
deceit. The latest of which is �Handling sovereignty to the Iraqis,� followed
by �But, with limited authority.� This is equivalent to saying to a prisoner,
�You are free to go, but you cannot leave the prison.�
This apparent
contradiction to explain what the U.S. wants to do with Iraq is not
contradiction at all. It is a shrewd strategy with a defined audience in
mind�the American people�who, once commence to interact with the slogan of
�Iraqi sovereignty� without considering its hidden meaning, could approve of
it, thus acclaiming the good intentions of the Bush administration. While
planners and spin-doctors are waiting to see if the strategy will work, the
true motives behind the statement remain obscure to many. Chief among these
motives are presenting a fake sovereignty transfer as an �accomplishment� of
Bush in the coming presidential elections, buying time to remedy errors in the
physical application of conquest, inventing new ruses for new emerging
situations in the fight between invaders and Iraqis, and last, giving time to
deceptive policy to settle and then to spread by repetition.
While we know that
the invasion is about oil, Israel, Zionism, Armageddonists, and imperialist
world domination, Bush and his entourage are telling us that their war is about
�weapons of mass destruction,� �opposing tyranny,� �installing democracy,�
�spreading human rights,� and �fighting terrorism.� Sure, these are great
slogans, except that great pretenders pronounced them. As all pieces of the
scheme that led to invasion fell one by one: no WMD; Saddam is in American
custody, but conveniently not in Abu Ghraib; no democracy of any type
has taken any root and that is by design; no human rights for those whom the
U.S. went to Iraq to �liberate,� and no links to �terrorism.� Instead, the U.S.
unleashed its own time-tested terrorism where we ended up with more destruction
of Iraq, more Iraqis and invaders dead. We also ended up with nervous occupiers
that now shoot at a tree because its leaves rustle, kill people because they
dare to look in their direction, destroy people and lands that are resisting
unprecedented fascist occupation, and forcing prisoners to masturbate with
hoods covering their heads while joyful soldiers are watching the bestial
degradation of their humanity. Maybe Iraq is not Vietnam, but the U.S. is
definitely repeating in Iraq the abominable horrors that it inflicted on
Vietnam in that war, but this time with added Zionist incentives to humiliate
Arabs and Muslims.
Therefore, one
might ask, �what magic is the U.S. using domestically to stay afloat in an
ocean of blatant deception, lies, and atrocities?� To borrow a stock phrase
from George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, how do U.S. imperialists manage to
�stay the course� of destructive interference in the world?
There are three
related mechanisms inherent to this management: 1) power of the state through
rigid institutions that on the surface appear normal (see for example the
difficult procedures to repeal a law, and the undemocratic mechanism of popular
vote versus electoral vote), 2) indoctrination, and 3) thought contagion. I
tend to believe that while rigid institutions and indoctrination play a
principle role in the matter, thought contagion is the one dynamic method where
ideas reproduce themselves like bacteria, thus allowing the crowd to parrot
ideas and consecrate their entrenchment, and consequently allowing both,
institutions and indoctrination to proceed undisturbed. If you can remember the
widespread, insidious slogan, �I oppose the war, but support the troops,� then
you surely know how contagion works.
Thought contagion
and propagation of ideas in human societies, however, are universal and
ageless. They are not limited to specific epochs, societies, or regions. The
four things that distinguish them among diverse societies are grade, speed,
depth of transmission, and settling. In the case of industrial and advanced
societies, in particular, the American society, thought contagion and
propagation are essential tools of indirect political control. The means by
which both actions materialize are countless. They include exposure to
relentless propaganda, deception, lies, manipulation of news, secrecy over the
state�s internal deliberations, exclusion of informative news, exploitation of
ignorance, adroit perpetuation of ignorance, and selective individual detachment
from all realities except personal, entertainment, and business realities.
Example of indirect
thought control is when CNN proposes (late February 2004) to its Internet site
readers that they respond to an opinion poll under the title: �One year later,
has the war in Iraq been successful?� [1] First, CNN omits the fact that there
is a war of aggression, and that there is as an imperialist conquest in
progress. Second, CNN confounded the identity of who is waging war by dropping
the U.S. from the phrase, �War in Iraq� that should have been, �U.S. War
against Iraq��there was no war in Iraq until the U.S. invaded it. Third, to
manipulate thought to lead to an expected response between two technical
choices, CNN chose only one enquiring phrase, as in �Has the war been
successful?� CNN did not give a choice between success and failure that
normally qualifies an enterprise, but left it to viewers with no yardstick to
measure success or failure to select the vague �yes� or �no� based on personal
impressions and media perceptions.
Fourth, by limiting the poll to one item only, CNN had practically eliminated
all critical data related to the subject of U.S. war and the people who made it
happen.
CNN, for the sake
of minimum objectivity, could have proposed the following questions for
example, �was the war justified?� and, �if so, explain why, and based on what.�
Other questions could have been, �do you accept the killing of Americans and
Iraqis based on deception?� or, �do you accept that the U.S. colonize Iraq?�
etc. It is more than probable that whatever response the readers will give to
the preceding questions, it would be at least more balanced and informative.
Of course, these
questions cannot find their way onto CNN or other controlled media outlets; I
formulated them to demonstrate the public mechanism of how thought contagion
and manipulation propagate. The most interesting aspect of thought control is
when, for curiosity, you decide to vote, you will find at the bottom of the
poll a disclaimer (most people will not read) that reads like this:
�This QuickVote is not scientific and
reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to
participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of
Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole. The QuickVote sponsor is
not responsible for content, functionality or the opinions expressed therein.�
Well, even the name
given to this moronic voting mechanism (QuickVote) is an indication of insipid
indoctrination, as if the conquest of a distraught but rich country, such as
Iraq, is a pastime at a coffee break where a CNN reader can have some fun by
clicking on an icon. We know that the poll is rubbish and has no scientific or
statistical value; however, the people who wrote and put it on CNN site
achieved their purpose: they preempted critical participation of CNN readers
and allowed manipulation to set in the mind of those pliable to manipulation.
Paradoxically, the
three things that facilitate thought manipulation are specific mechanisms of
democracy: freedom of thought, elections, and nominal change of personalities
controlling power. In a culture dominated by a one-dimensional structure where
critical thought moves on a flat plane, and cannot find space to expand,
revise, or elaborate difficult information, these mechanisms act as a powerful
eliminator of true democracy, hence, of free thought. While democracy is about
freewill, free thought, responsibility, and accountability, no such things
exist, in a significant way, in the so-called, �leader of the free world.� This
is because now societal structures heavily and maybe exclusively rely on
perceptions, polls, brief news, political spins, and periodic elections to
sanction the system and its biological-like reproduction.
In the end, the
entire debate of American �democracy� rotates on who can win an election based
on how many children�s faces a candidate can caress in a given day, and on his
ability to manipulate a population overdosed with propaganda and sedated with
untruth and one-liners. If the contention that elections are the core of
democracy, then even a criminal organization can hold its own election and
choose a leader. The comparison is appropriate as in both cases freewill is
under control. On one hand, and in a democracy, freewill, as based on
expectation of progress, is under control through organized manipulation. An
example: U.S. rulers accentuate the need for tight security, the people respond
on the premises of that need, but without debating why personal or national
security is under attack in the first place. In a criminal organization, on the
other hand, freewill, based on fear and momentary personal coalitions and
allegiances, normally drive members to elect a new leader through
heart-palpitating plebiscite.
As for freedom of
thought, this is the most abused phrase in the universe. For instance, from the
cradle to the grave, human societies are nothing but a continuous reproduction
of generations receiving their elementary and inherited cultures from the preceding
ones, and with food culture, language, and social habits being the first three
items on the indoctrination menu. It is normal, therefore, that manipulated
thought patterns can reproduce and multiply as if by genetic code. In a society
that is prone to extreme manipulation, such as the American society that tends
to accept most things at face value, thought manipulation could be persuasive
and genuinely accepted as a symbol of deliberation and freewill.
Pat Robertson, an
insidious Zionist Christian minister and a passionate Muslim hater, is a
perfect example on the propagation of manipulated ideas. From the podium of his
TV program, the 700 Club, Robertson proclaimed on March 13, 2004, that the
�violence in Iraq has nothing to do with us� (meaning the Americans). He
continues, �What is happening over there is merely an �inter-Islamic� struggle
for power between violent factions of Islam.� Of course, he skipped the most
important elements: U.S. colonial invasion, occupation, the American
destruction of and dissolution of Iraqi civilian and security structures, and
the armed resistance against the pestilent imperialist conquest and its
expressions. This is in addition to the fact that the violence in Iraq has only
one origin: a war of aggression and occupation. It is obvious that Robertson�s
proclamation was a refined amalgam of deception. His manipulation of facts,
however, has probably reached the minds of millions of his predisposed and
misinformed viewers who are not only ready to absorb his message, but to relay
it to those who may have missed the opportunity to see the program.
Pat Robertson is
only a minute example in the culture of deception that animates the moves of
American Hitlerism. Generally, if an idea can propagate through contagion,
imitation, and uncritical acceptance�all seemingly based on freewill�then would
that not generate contradictory behavioral dualism? In other words, how is it
possible that the entire ruling class and society can become embroiled in
performing interventions and atrocities throughout their history, while
presenting the same as if they were the exact opposite of what they are? The
newest examples: a war of conquest becomes pre-emptive defense, and the killing
of civilians is fighting insurgency . . .
The answer lies in
the incessant amplification of disparate ideological or cultural manipulations.
Situation A creates situation B; situation B creates situation C; situation C
creates situation D; situation D reproduces parts of situation A and B, and
introduces new part E; and situation ABE reproduces situation ABCDE while, at
the same time, minimizes and/or aggrandizes partial traits of each, and so on.
In this guise, interminable cycles of acceptance, rejection, adaptation, and
reproduction of all themes that the initial cycle started, finally consolidate
to perpetuate the system and guarantee its basic nature.
How does this
relate to American Hitlerism? When I previously discussed the use of depleted
uranium in U.S. wars of aggression, my purpose was to frame that use, find its
ideological rationalization, and channel it in the wider subject of Hitlerism
of which the American Empire shares all active ingredients. What the U.S.
ruling class has been trying to achieve since time immemorial, however, is to
make us believe that a �democracy� such as the U.S. cannot but be good, and
that any adjective that could denote its violence is not applicable to a
beatified, pacifist, and a romantic republic-empire.
This is not going
to work for two reasons. First, our time is the time of alternative mass
communications where we can test information and motive. Second, because of how
history works. History is a stern lecturer without tenure, an impartial judge
without a court, and an omnipresent witness to the passing of events. History,
in its authoritative ways, has dedicated many chapters on U.S. imperialism
where acts of Hitlerian violence have become the most prominent aspect of U.S.
existence. To mention just a few: Indian Holocaust, slavery, nuclear
experiments in New Mexico and in the Bikini Atoll, without considering
consequences on local populations [2], the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, chemical weapons experiments on U.S. population, [3], and [4], Agent
Orange in Vietnam [5], depleted uranium in Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Kosovo,
and in Iraq again. The other act of brazen Hitlerian violence was the mass
destruction in Iraq through economic sanctions. [6], [7], and [8]
To seal the charge
of Hitlerism, we can cite, for the umpteenth time, the case of Madeleine Albright.
Albright who, when asked on CBS program 60 minutes (5/11/1996) if the killing
of over 500,000 Iraqi children because of sanctions is worth the price for
containing Saddam Hussein, she replied, "It's a hard choice, but I
think, we, think, it's worth it."
[Italics added] In replying so, �Madam Secretary,� did not only beat Hitler�s
fascism, but she, the so-called escapee, with her family, from Nazism,
confirmed that AMAH goes beyond Hitlerian Nazism. Why should anyone proclaim he
or she despised Hitler�s violence, but then condones his or her own equal
violence? At this point, I must postulate that when one tries to emulate
someone else on a given practice or quality, the ultimate intent then is not
emulation but surpassing.
Can we argue that
AMAH includes a premeditated will to inflict mass murder of a genocidal nature
upon nations that the U.S. chooses to attack? The answer is yes with capital
letters, and I shall give you examples of this intentionality during my
elaboration of the subject. From the very inception of the U.S., there appears
to be definitive inclinations to cosmic cruelty in its thinking. The engine of
this thinking has been always the awareness of disposing of both military power
and unaccountability. In turn, both of these factors promote supremacist racism
where a gelid indifference to mass killing conclusively lead to the formation
of beliefs that make hidden or patent racism the perfect alibi for
imperialistic wars of conquest. Consequently, mass killing resulting from the
application of these beliefs is only of a marginal significance to those who
exercise power within the auspices of empire. In the ongoing hyper-imperialist
phase, you can see this attitude so distinctly when you hear U.S. imperialists
refer to war scheduling as, �Time of our choosing.�
In further
analysis, the concept of �American Modified and Accepted Hitlerism� is also a
key to the understanding of extent, entrenchment, reach, and durability of both
political and/or military powers. This is especially true, when this power has
an exclusive and unhindered access to exercise violence as a means for a wider
purpose and, of course, without impunity. There could be, however, historical
circumstances, were forces external to that power could interrupt that access. For
example, had Hitler just occupied Austria, but did not invade Czechoslovakia,
and Poland, but opted to kill the last innocent Jew, Gypsy, or communist in
Germany and in Austria, his power base would have remained intact, as Britain
and France would have never declared war against him. In this retrospective
historical hypothesis, Hitler�s domestic crimes would have not urged Britain or
France to declare war against Germany, as these two countries, accustomed to
the killing of colonial nations, would have not given a damn about the fate of
the innocent people that he was killing.
Decidedly, the
Anglo-French declaration of war against Germany did not happen because Hitler
was committing heinous crimes; and it did not happen because Hitler was an
imperialist, racist, and supremacist leader, at par with British and French
leaders. It happened, because Hitler threatened the colonial power bases of
Britain and France. Hitler, indeed, reclaimed the African colonies that Germany
lost consequent to WW I, and actively wanted to institute a new European order
based on what he called the accommodation of Germany�s vital space.
Speculatively, had Hitler, after taking Austria, offered to attack only the
Soviet Union and no one else, but still wanted to kill all Jews, the U.S.,
Britain, and France would have blessed Germany, showered her with flowers and
rice, and run to supply Hitler with unlimited war needs, including the offer of
an adjunct Anglo-French invasion force under his command.
The European
scenario where external forces can deny access to power by a specific
state is not applicable, so far, to the U.S. when it decides to go to war for
any invented imperialistic reason. The U.S. is capable now of two things at
once. On one hand, it can exercise its brands of extreme Hitlerism undisturbed,
as if in the hypothetical case of Germany with or without a war. On the other,
after declaring Latin America its backyard, it now added the entire world as a
playground for its troops, and waged war after war against weak nations. The
reason for this state of affairs is not complicated to explain: momentary
imbalance of military powers among imperialist and non-imperialist states makes
direct military confrontation with the U.S. an enormously difficult enterprise.
One might ask a
pertinent question as to why do I keep indicting America and its wars, while
many other nations go to war and commit atrocities as well. This is very true;
but most wars in developing countries are always between adjacent states vying
for control of claimed territory or national boundaries. Alternatively, all
colonialist powers, including the U.S., European, Japanese, and Israeli, have
committed atrocities, made wars, and traveled thousands of miles to consume
their aggressions (Israel is now acting only on a regional level). However,
among all modern colonialist-imperialist empires the U.S. is the only power
that attacked everyone else, no matter where they were situated on the globe.
(With the exceptions of the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and
the attack on the continental USA in New York and in Washington, DC, attributed
to al-Qaida, the U.S. has never been a victim of external attack since the end
of the Civil War in 1865. Further, the participation of the U.S. in WW I and WW
II are special cases that require different treatment and go beyond the scope
of this work.)
Decisively, the
charge that the U.S. is a relentless user of Hitlerian or Nazi methods
(examples: the premeditation in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Eisenhower�s fascist treatment of German prisoners of war, and the very recent
bombing of Falluja, Iraq) is a verifiable charge. As I articulated before, many
other significant events in U.S. history can substantiate that charge. Still,
analyzing these methods is a prerequisite to the understanding of how the U.S.
has transformed from its early �visionary� republic to a viciously criminal
hyper-empire. Further, the nature, mentality, and military interventionism of
the U.S. have not changed despite the passing of time or the ruling party. In
short, the U.S. has been a repeat international offender that unceremoniously
trampled on the natural rights of almost every nation on earth with arrogance,
and without revision, recoil, apology, or regret.
Indicting U.S. supremacist
ideology, culture of war, and ingrained violence that produced such a strange
anomaly in history is, therefore, mandatory. The anomaly being: a country that
could have become the greatest in history, despite its immense atrocities and
dark origins, has become a synonym with virulent fascist aggressiveness. There
have been many empires in history, but none of them killed so many people and
destroyed so many nations as the U.S. did. As for U.S. social achievements and
scientific advancement, those no one can ever detract or minimize, but that is
another subject and has no relevance or connection to the nature of the
American super-state externally, which is the focus of this study.
Because the scope
of this work is debating the failure of hyper-imperialism in cowing Iraq to the
ideas of Bush�s brand of colonialism, discussing the ideological mechanisms
that guided U.S. colonialist enterprise was inevitable. From comparing
hegemonic and imperialistic movement through out history, I came to understand
that similarities, albeit with diversity, unify these movements despite their
origins. For example, the crimes against humanity of the Croatian Ustashi,
Stalinism, Nazism, Zionism, and Japanese fascism in China and in Korea, French
fascist colonialism in Vietnam, British fascism everywhere, Saddam�s fascism
against Iraqis, and American global fascism are all identical in the ultimate
result.
Consequently, my
position regarding the definition of American Hitlerism in relation to
classical fascism and Nazism is unequivocal, linear, unidirectional, and
irreversible. I base the strength of this position on the simple law of
mathematical equivalence:
If action A
and its consequences AA are equal to action B and its
consequences BB in all attributes except by the ideology, philosophy,
and the circumstance that originated them, then the intrinsic value of both
actions is equivalent and interchangeable regardless of the ideology,
structure, motivation, epoch, personalities involved, and everything between.
Accordingly, AA is equal to and coincides with BB.
For example, the
ultimate value of the Mongolian invasion and destruction of Baghdad in 1258
(spoils, pillage, and change of order) is equal and interchangeable with the
American invasion and destruction of Iraq (spoils, pillage, and change of
order) in two wars�1991 and 2003�regardless of the set of historical
circumstances.
A question: where
is the specific role of ideology in each of the aforementioned invasions?
Further, how did the concept of �AMAH� become the prevalent way of thinking of
U.S. ruling classes and society? There is no specific answer to these
questions, as the role of ideology alone is debatable. As I stated previously,
imperialism needs ideology, but only as an alibi. For example, Zionist America�s
war against Iraq did not spring up from the presumed �danger� that Saddam posed
for America and Israel, but from a specific predatory agenda. As for the role
of ideology in war, it is instructive to look at the following situation. For
instance, the Macedonian Alexander and the Mongol Genghis Khan did not write
any essay or deliver any speech about their motivations for invading and
conquering other tribes and lands. From history, we know, however, that their
exploits were about predation. By comparing both, we can deduce that while
Genghis Khan may have had an undefined ideology of conquest, Alexander,
although he preceded him by over a millennium, reportedly, was more defined in
his imperialist outlook, as he was looking for �empires to conquer.�
On the recent and
modern side of colonialism as an instrument of pillage, the ideological bent of
Andrew Jackson, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Mendes-France, Ben Gurion, and
Sharon share aplenty with established historical precedents. In fact, U.S.
hyper-imperialism follows in the same footsteps, but in addition, Bush,
Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Perle, have ideological manifestos that openly rely on
supremacist hegemonic agendas such as �A Clean Break: A New Strategy For
Securing The Realm� [9], �Project For The New American Century� [10], and �.The
National Security Strategy of the United States of America� [11]. Invariably,
all recent headings and subtexts of U.S. manifestoes point to global
imperialism, recycled colonialism, and projected post-Zionist imperialism via
U.S. military domination over the world.
Let us recapitulate
by posing more questions on Hitlerism and violence: does formulating a concept
make it valid? Is Hitlerism a monstrous accusation, and since Hitlerism is now
only a mild euphemism for racist violence as advocated by its founder, Hitler,
is there a term that can go beyond it? Why Hitlerism, and is Hitlerism
equivalent to Nazism; in addition, is there anything wrong with either one? Are
there other criteria by which we can describe a super-militarized and
ideological state that sings melodic hymns to its "democracy on the
shinning hill," to the "Founding Fathers" and to its uniqueness
in history, while unleashing its firepower to massacre defenseless people? Can
a term such as "Democratic" Hitlerism serve our purpose of
nomination? In the end, was the passage from the idealism of American
"democracy" to the American brand of Hitlerism so smooth that
successive American generations could not notice it was happening?
Although each of
the preceding questions requires its own answer, I am going to answer them
collectively by their common denominator: conquest and its requirements. I can
explain this as follows: the ideology of conquest, primitive or advanced, is
only a qualifier for violence as a means to an end�without violence there can
be no conquest. The U.S. tried but failed to affect the first bloodless
colonialist-imperialist conquest in history, as when it gave Saddam 48 hours to
leave Iraq before the Anglo-American hordes could conquer his country without
firing a shot!
In the end, to push
my argument to a climax, I shall repeat my previous assertion: if consequence AA
and consequence BB are similar, then the ideologies that produced them
must be equivalent regardless of dissimilarities and contents. Accordingly, I
submit that although the ideologies of Nazism, Stalinism, Churchillism,
American imperialism, and Zionism are all dissimilar in philosophy and aim,
they are similar in the means applied to achieve those aims and share one
fundamental denominator: cosmic violence to impose an order.
Having addressed,
thus far, the general mechanisms of �AMAH,� I shall discuss next, the specific
domestic mechanisms that enable the U.S. to practice its �American Modified and
Accepted Hitlerism� outside its borders with ease and glamour.
Notes:
[1] http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/wolf.blitzer.reports/
(Note: copy of vote no longer available on CNN site.)
[2] http://www.greenpeace.org/features/details?features_id=17957
[3] http://www.world-action.co.uk/biological.html
[4] http://www.porcaro.org/war/usbioterrorism.html
[5] http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/orange.htm
[6] http://www.bustanbooks.com/articles/01_dec_2003.htm
[7] http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/articles/0211/page6b.htm
[8] http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1992/56/56p16.htm
[9] http://www.why-war.com/files/read.php?id=120
[10] http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
[11] http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html
Next, Part 12: American Modified and
Accepted Hitlerism: Domestic Considerations
B. J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American anti-war activist. He can be reached at: bjsabri@yahoo.com.