When
is a Holocaust Not a Holocaust?
By William
Blum
When is a
holocaust not a holocaust?
When the
perpetrators call it a victory.
04/10/08
"ICH" - -- Although the "surge" has failed as
policy, it appears to be succeeding as propaganda. It seems
to be the only thing that supporters of the war have to
point to, and so they point, and they point, and they point.
Allow me to point out that while there has been a reduction
in violence in Iraq -- now down to a level that virtually
any other society in the world would find horrible and
intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion
and occupation -- we must keep in mind that thanks to this
lovely little war more than half the population of Iraq is
either dead, crippled, traumatized, confined in overflowing
American and Iraqi prisons, internally displaced, or in
foreign exile.
Thus, the
number of people available for being killers or victims is
markedly reduced. Moreover, extensive ethnic cleansing has
taken place in the country (another good indication of
progress, n'est-ce pas?). Sunnis and Shiites are now living
more in their own special enclaves than before, none of
those stinking mixed communities with their unholy mixed
marriages, so violence of the sectarian type has also gone
down; and the powerful movement of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr
has had a cease-fire in effect for many months, unconnected
to the surge. On top of all this, US soldiers, in the face
of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads,
have been venturing out a lot less (for fear of things like
... well, dying), so the violence against our noble lads is
also down. Remember that insurgent attacks on American
forces is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first
place.
Just imagine
-- If the entire Iraqi population over the age of 10 is
killed, disabled, imprisoned or forced into exile there will
probably be no violence at all. Now that would really be
victory.
No American
should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been
destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost
everything -- their homes, their schools, their
neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers,
their professionals, their health care, their legal system,
their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their
security, their past, their present, their future, their
lives. But they do have their surge.
William Blum is the
author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions
Since World War 2. Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
Superpower. West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir. Freeing
the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire. Portions
of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
www.killinghope.org
- BBlum6@aol.com
