Zinn: An Occupied Country

[dw]

In the October issue of The Progressive:

It has become clear, very quickly, that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with the term "occupied country" during World War II. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied other countries.

Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the United States established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. U.S. corporations moved in to Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The United States was deciding what kind of constitution Cuba would have, just as our government is now forming a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation, an occupation.

And it is an ugly occupation. On August 7, The New York Times reported that U.S. General Ricardo Sanchez in Baghdad was worried about Iraqi reaction to the occupation. Iraqi leaders who were pro-American were giving him a message, as he put it: "When you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family." (That's very perceptive.)

MORE

[quilp]

1. Dignity is not high on an Americn agenda.

Anywhere.

[scarletwoman]

2. Bless Howard Zinn!

So eloquent, so perceptive! Truth spoken with such clarity and humanity!

Thank you for posting this -- an excellent read!

sw

[Red_Storm]

3. Great article

from one of the few American political magazines I read on a regular basis.........

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

4. I loved his use of Rummmy's use of quote

You get some sense of what this government means by the "war on terrorism" when
you examine what Rumsfeld said a year ago when he was addressing the NATO
ministers in Brussels. "There are things that we know," he said. "And then there are
known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know that we don't
know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we
don't know. . . . That is, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. . . .
Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that
you have evidence that it doesn't exist."

Well, Rumsfeld has clarified things for us.

That explains why this government, not knowing exactly where to find the criminals of
September 11, will just go ahead and invade and bomb Afghanistan, killing thousands
of people, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes, and still not know where
the criminals are.

That explains why ....

more