Produced by the Anti-War Committee of Students in
Solidarity at the University of Pittsburgh
http://www.peacenowar.net/Lies.htm
How many people do you know who claim to be skeptical, who pride
themselves on their distrust for authority, who like to pretend that
they’re wise to the ways of the world—and then, every time there’s
a war, they swallow the lies of the government with all the
gullibility of a three-year-old child in the lap of a department store
Santa Claus? Don’t fall into that trap yourself! Learn to identify
and refute official misinformation when you see it. Let’s count down
some of the common misconceptions about this war:
Lie #5: « We’re not at war with the Afghan people—look,
we’re bringing them food! »
Reality: Afghanistan is in the midst of a severe drought which
threatens literally millions of people with starvation. Even
before the threat of US bombing, the World Food Program (WFP) said
that nearly 6 million people were in need of immediate food assistance.
When the threat of war caused massive movements of refugees and internally
displaced people, the WFP raised that number to 7.5 million. UN agencies
were keeping huge numbers of people alive, but the war danger—as
well as the US demand that Pakistan seal its border with Afghanistan—caused
the WFP to suspend deliveries of wheat flour to the country. We
have no idea how many people have already died as a result. Meanwhile,
the US dropped 37,000 individually-wrapped packages of food from
the sky. You do the math. That’s enough to feed about 37,000 people
for one day, in a country where seven and a half million are in danger
of starvation. Additionally, the spokesman for an international
charity active in Afghanistan told the London Independent that «
Random food drops are the worst possible way of delivering food aid.
They cause more problems than they solve. » Not the least of
which is the fact that Afghanistan has the highest number of unexploded
land mines in the world. There are already 10 or 15 mine incidents
every day, and with people scrambling into mine-ridden areas to pick
up random packages of food dropped from US planes, that number is
only going to go up.
Lie #4: « Oil? Who said anything about oil? »
Reality: The Caspian Sea region has potentially the world’s largest
oil reserves, likely making Central Asia the next Middle East. The
problem is piping it out. Afghanistan occupies a strategic position
between the Caspian and the markets of the Indian subcontinent and
east Asia. It’s prime territory for building pipelines, which is
why the oil company Unocal—as well as the US government—welcomed the
Taliban’s rise to power in 1996 as a promising source of « stability.
» That turned out to be a pipe dream (so to speak), but people
like our Commander-in-Chief and the oil men around him have never
given up on the tremendous profit possibilities that Central Asia
offers. And if you don’t think such considerations are crossing their
minds at this time of crisis, may we suggest a refresher course in
The Facts of Life?
Lie #3: « The US is trying to liberate the people of
Afghanistan from Taliban tyranny. »
Reality: The US, Russia, and Iran have been aiding a rough coalition
of armed groups called the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance’s
fighters are drawn mainly from ethnic minority groups in Afghanistan
who have been persecuted by the Taliban. But their record is also
a bloody one. Groups like the Revolutionary Association of the Women
of Afghanistan (RAWA), which have been fighting against fundamentalism
and for democracy in Afghanistan for years, have publicly stated
that the fundamentalist gangsters of the Northern Alliance are not
an acceptable alternative to the fundamentalist gangsters of the
Taliban. No wonder: Human Rights Watch implicates the Northern Alliance
in »indiscriminate aerial bombardment and shelling, direct
attacks on civilians, summary executions, rape, persecution on the
basis of religion or ethnicity, the recruitment and use of children
as soldiers, and the use of antipersonnel landmines. » By now
everyone knows that Osama bin Laden was among the mujihadin recruited
by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Meet the next generation.
Lie #2: « America is coming together. »
Reality: Tens of thousands of people have been laid off in the
airline industry alone. The government quickly responded to the airline
industry crisis with a multi- billion-dollar bailout package for
the companies in order to keep afloat the profits of shareholders
and the salaries of CEOs, but when it came to aiding the thousands
of workers laid off, Congressman Dick Armey said that that would
be contrary to « the American spirit. » Maybe it is.
Maybe it’s the « American spirit » to make common working
people pay for a crisis and to bear the burdens of an expensive war.
But it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with « togetherness.
»
And the biggest lie of them all . .
.
Lie #1: « It’s possible to win a ‘war against terrorism.’
» Reality: Terrorism is a tactic, not a political or social
force in and of itself. Anyone can use it, and the idea that you
can wage a « war » against it is as dishonest as the
idea behind the « War on Drugs. » The use of food as
a political weapon, indiscriminate aerial bombardment, and the arming of
gangsterish groups of religious fanatics all count as « terrorism
» by any reasonable definition of the word, and the United
States has long employed all of them—and more. This war is really
about sordid material interests and power (see especially Lies numbers
2 and 4, above), and in defense of these interests the US is prepared
to shift the label « terrorist » as it sees fit, to apply
to all manner of dissident political movements and not just marginal
bands of fanatics like bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida. Conversely, it’s willing
to call its own terrorists « freedom fighters » (see Lie number
3 above). Maybe some of them will get transformed into « terrorists
» again in a few years. It’s a sick game and a charade, and
the government is manipulating the very real grief and anger of the
people of the United States after the September 11 atrocities to
get us all to fall for it again.
Don’t believe them for a second.
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"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do
evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
---Einstein
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