THE INSANE SOCIETY<\/p>\n
The war criminals\u2019 freedom, the jesters\u2019 democracy, the fat banquet and those mountains of corpses that nobody cares. But the Emperor is naked.<\/p>\n
By Gabriele Zamparini (*)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.\u201d – Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, 1955<\/p>\n
What a banquet! The Independent reports: \u201cA total of 61 British companies are identified as benefiting from at least \u00a31.1bn of contracts and investment in the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg; Corporate Watch believes it could be as much as five times higher, because many companies prefer to keep their relationship secret.\u201d (1) But of course \u2013 as The Independent knows \u2013 \u201cOusting a dictator is one thing; sowing and watering the seeds of democracy where none existed is an undertaking of quite a different order.\u201d (2) Freedom! Freedom! Democracy! Democracy!<\/p>\n
The Guardian, that \u201cwith its honourable radical history is still very much a going concern. It is prepared to put hard questions to the government of the day.\u201d (3) publishes an article by Oliver Kamm, with the title \u201cWe were right to invade Iraq\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mixing up insults, untruths, denials, non-sense and obscenities, Kamm writes \u201cEven with personalities of greater competence than Hans Blix and higher morals than Jacques Chirac\u2026\u201d; \u201cthe Islamists and Leninists of the Stop the War Coalition\u2026 describing themselves as anti-war, rather than anti-American and anti-British\u201d; \u201cThe failures of the occupation are legion: delayed elections, inadequate security, eroding infrastructure, complacency over the tortures at Abu Ghraib, and a heavy death toll among Iraqi civilians and our troops\u201d; \u201cThe absence of WMD was a huge intelligence failure; so it is fortunate that we are no longer reliant on Saddam’s word.\u201d; \u201cBut we can be certain that the security of the region and of ourselves, as well as the welfare of those to whom we have obligations, will be damaged if we fail to support Iraqis against theocratic and Ba’athist totalitarianism. We at least have the advantage in that struggle of having confronted Saddam at a time of our choosing.\u201d (4) Freedom! Freedom! Democracy! Democracy!<\/p>\n
Among the \u201cfailures of the occupation\u201d, there might be as many as 300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. (5) If this number makes you shiver, hold your breath.<\/p>\n
In 1991, there were between 142,000 and 206,000 Iraqi deaths directly attributable to the Gulf War. (6) How many deaths as a result of the sanctions? Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1997-98) who resigned after thirty-four years with the United Nations, in protest over the effects of the embargo on the civilian population, said: \u201cI had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that had effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.\u201d (7)<\/p>\n
Since Hiroshima Day 1990, for the past fifteen years and with the complicity and silence of most of the so-called \u201cinternational community\u201d, Washington and London have waged a war against the people of Iraq that has slaughtered over 2,000,000 people. Most of them women and children.<\/p>\n
Proportionally to its population, it\u2019s as if a war against the United States had killed 23 million of innocent Americans. Freedom! Freedom! Democracy! Democracy!<\/p>\n
BBC State Department correspondent Jonathan Beale recently wrote: \u201cIndia is the world’s biggest democracy, a shining, though not perfect, example of the kinds of values President Bush wants to spread around the world.\u201d (8)<\/p>\n
One wonders which \u201ckinds of values President Bush wants to spread around the world\u201d. Don\u2019t wonder! \u201cYes democratic values. I write that on the basis that it\u2019s President Bush’s main foreign policy goal – the fact that the administration is spending billions of dollars every year on promoting democracy around the globe. I am sure you can decide as to whether it\u2019s working or not.\u201d (9)<\/p>\n
How stupid of me! Why asking the BBC State Department correspondent when I could read that directly from the source. The US State Department has just published \u201cCountry Reports on Human Rights Practices \u2013 2005\u201d. The introduction reads: \u201cPresident Bush has committed the United States to working with other democracies and men and women of goodwill across the globe to reach an historic long-term goal: \u2018the end of tyranny in our world.\u2019\u201d(10) Should we attempt the \u2018Hallelujah Chorus\u2019 ?<\/p>\n
On January 29, 2003, at the State of the Union speech, Bush said: \u201cAmerica is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers. Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America\u2019s gift to the world, it is God\u2019s gift to humanity.\u201d Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!<\/p>\n
According to Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, Bush said to a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.” \u2026 “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.” (11) Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!<\/p>\n
Recently, \u201cBlair answered \u2018yes\u2019 when asked (\u2026) if he had sought holy intervention\u201d when deciding whether or not to send UK troops to Iraq. (12) Getting ready for the carnage, Blair and Bush \u201cprayed together in the lead up to the Iraq war and shared a \u2018spiritual affinity\u2019\u201d. (13) War criminals, mass murderers and part-time acolytes? Revolting!<\/p>\n
Coming back to planet earth, kind of. \u201cAn overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately\u201d a recent Le Moyne College\/Zogby International survey shows. Not really surprising, isn\u2019t it? More interesting instead it\u2019s that \u201calmost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam\u2019s role in 9\/11″. (14) I wonder who told them this bloody lie\u2026 Despite all the propaganda bombing by the state-corporate media, Freedom! Freedom! Democracy! Democracy! must not have been enough to convince young men and women from South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin to go to fight an unknown enemy, far away thousands of miles, to some place they had never heard before.<\/p>\n
\u201cMirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?\u201d<\/p>\n
On February 25, 2006, the Guardian published \u201cExtremism: the loser’s revenge\u201d by Ian Buruma. In a 2,069 word essay the author asks \u201cDoes masturbation lead to suicide bombing?\u201d (15) It must be read to be believed!<\/p>\n
Paraphrasing the fascinating subtitle of the article \u201cCan sexual inadequacy or deprivation turn angry young men into killers?\u201d, shall we ask \u201cCan sexual inadequacy or deprivation turn angry young men into writers and journalists?\u201d ? At the Guardian, it would seem so.<\/p>\n
At the end of February, 67-year-old historian David Irving \u201cwas sentenced to three years in jail by an Austrian judge for denying, in two speeches he made 16 years ago, the existence of the gas chambers of the Second World War and the murder of six million Jews.\u201d (16) Voltaire could be happy and proud to have left such an indelible sign in the civilized Europe!<\/p>\n
Jumping from genocide to a trial for genocide. Now that Slobodan Milosevic died, my thoughts go to the International Defamation League. On The Times, David Aaronovitch writes: \u201cSome of these apologists have never gone away. Recently, after a published interview with the antiwar intellectual Noam Chomsky, The Guardian erased the article from its website and apologised to Professor Chomsky for the interviewer\u2019s suggestion that either he, or Diana Johnstone \u2014 an author whose work he praised \u2014 had denied that the Srebrenica massacre had taken place. This correction was entirely wrong. In the sense that the world understood there to have been an act amounting to genocide at Srebrenica \u2014 ie, an act that we would have been justified in attempting to prevent by force \u2014 Johnstone certainly, and Chomsky implicitly, had most certainly denied the massacre\u201d (17) What did Buruma write about \u201cthe loser\u2019s revenge\u201d?<\/p>\n
From the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to the International Criminal Court the distance is short. Is it really? On 9 February 2006, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, wrote a letter replying to the \u201cover 240 communications concerning the situation in Iraq. These communications express the concern of numerous citizens and organizations regarding the launching of military operations and the resulting human loss.\u201d Independently from the ICC\u2019s jurisdiction, the letter is a masterpiece of legal and moral hypocrisy and inanity, where formalities and legal technicalities hide facts, evidence and truth. (18)<\/p>\n
Finally, \u201cThe Emperor\u2019s New Clothes \u2013 The Sequel\u201d. Brian Kelly and Lauren Giaccone, two Pace University students in New York were threatened with disciplinary actions ranging from warnings to expulsion. Their \u2018crime\u2019? \u201cLauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly stood up and called President Clinton a war criminal and cited the atrocities he committed during his time in office. The two students referenced Clinton\u2019s inaction during the Rwandan genocide, the bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory, the increased ethnic cleansing in Bosnia as a result of U.S action and the renewed sanctions and bombings against Iraq which murdered countless people.\u201d (19)<\/p>\n
The insane society fears acts of sanity. The \u201cEmperor is naked\u201d can be contagious. This is why we must support Brian and Lauren (20), and with them cry THE EMPEROR IS NAKED!<\/p>\n
NOTES<\/p>\n
1) The War Dividend: The British companies making a fortune out of conflict-riven Iraq, By Robert Verkaik, the Independent, 13 March 2006
\nhttps:\/\/news.independent.co.uk\/world\/middle_east\/article350959.ece<\/p>\n
2) Leading article: The perils of planting democracy in a hostile land, The Independent, 13 December 2005
\nhttps:\/\/comment.independent.co.uk\/leading_articles\/article332758.ece<\/p>\n
3) In praise of\u2026\u2026The Guardian, John Eldridge, Fifth-Estate-Online
\nhttps:\/\/www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk\/comment\/inpraiseoftheguardian.html<\/p>\n
4) We were right to invade Iraq, Oliver Kamm, The Guardian, March 14, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/Iraq\/Story\/0,,1730400,00.html<\/p>\n
5) Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?, Les Roberts, AlterNet, February 8, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/www.alternet.org\/story\/31508<\/p>\n
6) Source: U.N. 1991 the Ahtisaari report; Daponte 1993<\/p>\n
7) The New Rulers of the World, by John Pilger, Verso, 2002<\/p>\n
8) US nurtures key South Asia ties, Jonathan Beale, BBC News website, Thursday, 2 March 2006
\nhttps:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/south_asia\/4759378.stm<\/p>\n
9) email from BBC State Department correspondent Jonathan Beale to Gabriele Zamparini<\/p>\n
10) Country Reports on Human Rights Practices \u2013 2005. Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. March 8, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/www.state.gov\/g\/drl\/rls\/hrrpt\/2005\/61550.htm<\/p>\n
11) George Bush: ‘God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq’, Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, October 7, 2005
\nhttps:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/usa\/story\/0,12271,1586978,00.html<\/p>\n
12) Blair ‘prayed to God’ over Iraq, BBC News website, Friday, 3 March 2006
\nhttps:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/entertainment\/4772142.stm<\/p>\n
13) Blair: God will judge me on Iraq, George Jones, telegraph.co.uk
\nhttps:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2006\/03\/04\/nblair04.xml&sSheet=\/portal\/2006\/03\/04\/ixportaltop.html<\/p>\n
[A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush, by David Aikman, W Publishing Group, 2004]<\/p>\n
14) U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006, Zogby International, February 28, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/www.zogby.com\/news\/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075<\/p>\n
15) Extremism: the loser’s revenge, Ian Buruma, The Guardian, February 25, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/comment\/story\/0,,1717676,00.html<\/p>\n
16) Irving gets three years’ jail in Austria for Holocaust denial, Ruth Elkins, The Independent, 21 February 2006
\nhttps:\/\/news.independent.co.uk\/europe\/article346727.ece<\/p>\n
17) The meaning of Milosevic: how the Butcher of the Balkans changed us, David Aaronovitch, The Times, March 14, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/article\/0,,22369-2084190,00.html<\/p>\n
18) https:\/\/www.icc-cpi.int\/library\/organs\/otp\/OTP_letter_to_senders_re_Iraq_9_February_2006.pdf<\/p>\n
19) Why We Called Bill Clinton a War Criminal, PRESS RELEASE March 7, 2006
\nhttps:\/\/leftist.ws\/2006\/03\/08\/why-i-called-bill-clinton-a-war-criminal\/<\/p>\n
20) Please, show your support to Brian and Lauren. More info here:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.traprockpeace.org\/pace_repression\/<\/p>\n
https:\/\/leftist.ws\/2006\/03\/08\/why-i-called-bill-clinton-a-war-criminal\/<\/p>\n
(*) Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker, writer and activist living in London. He’s the producer and director of the documentaries XXI CENTURY and Peace! and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers). He\u2019s a member of The Advisory Committee of the BRussells Tribunal. He can be reached at info@thecatsdream.com – Find out more about him and his work at https:\/\/TheCatsDream.com<\/p>\n
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