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News :: International |
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Santiago de Cuba to Host Documentary Film Festival |
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by Bárbara Deás Trobajo. |
20 Feb 2005
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Over 80 works will compete in this event, which for the first
time will have an international presence, with moviemakers from
Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Germany, Canada, Puerto Rico,
United States, France, Argentina, Peru, Spain, Chile, Uruguay
and Morocco, among other nations presenting their screenplays
and documentaries. |
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Announcement :: Education |
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The Second Wave |
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by John Kaminski |
19 Feb 2005
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You can never hide the truth with scum, just Bush it aside and the light of truth shines forth again...hmmm |
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False Pride of the "Super Outlaw State" |
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by Messenger |
19 Feb 2005
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"Much of the world regards the United States as a rogue state and the greatest threat to their existence." - Samuel Huntington, Harvard Professor, Foreign Affairs
"Bush has -- his administration has succeeded in a few years in making the United States the most feared and often hated country in the world." - MIT Professor Noam Chomsky
America is a country built on genocide, slavery, exploitation and war. In America's short and bloody history there have been millions murdered by extremist politicians and profiteers, usually in the name of freedom and democracy.
Of all the war crimes committed by America, the mass murder of millions of Native American Indians stands out as one of the most poignant examples of genocide in human history. In 1838 Government troops enforcing the "Indian Removal Act", captured or killed every Cherokee American in North Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. The Cherokees had discarded their traditional Indian ways and were wearing their hair and clothing exactly like white settlers. They also built their farms, homes, schools and towns exactly like the whites, and they had printing presses and printed their own newspapers. The Cherokees understood that nothing could stop an expanding American civilization from enveloping their world and they made every effort to conform and become part of that new civilization. In the end it proved impossible for them to gain acceptance because of American racism.
The Cherokee Americans were herded together into collection camps with inadequate food water and shelter. These were the first concentration camps and many died in them. After the United States government had collected well over the officially stated 17,000 people, a number closer to 17,000 families, the exhausted and sick Cherokee people were forced to make a 1000 mile march north to prison camps in Okalahoma. This march, which took place in winter, was probably the first forced "death march". The Cherokees called it, "The trail of tears", because of the thousands who died along the way.
Although few Americans realize that their country was the first to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing and use forced death marches, these historical facts didn't escape the Third Reich and Adolph Hitler. He admired the American government for their efficiency in removing the American Indians. It gave him precedence for his "Master Race" objective, which was similar to John Luis O'Sullivan's 1845 "Manifest Destiny" declaration, justifying the unbridled and murderous westward expansion of the United States in the 1800's.
It is true that men like James Madison and others were moral enough to write into the United States Constitution that, "all men are created equal", but they didn't intend for Negroes or women to share in that equality. For nearly one hundred years after ratifying the United States Constitution America continued to use hundreds of thousands of African Negroes as slaves, literally building the wealth of a nation with the blood sweat and tears of a race stolen from their land.
For 144 years women were not allowed to vote in America. According to the white Christian males who ruled and continue to rule the country, the American Constitution said nothing about women being equal. At the time of the writing of the US Constitution in puritanical America, women had been denied the right to vote and were conveniently relegated to a permanent second-class status only slightly above that of the Negro. This punishment for women was justified by the early American 'religious right' because of the perceived biblical sins of Eve in the Garden of Eden.
American history proudly records that in World War II, American military might and technology saved the world from Hitler and Nazism, but America's contribution to the war against Germany was minimal. Near the end of World war II, America had 94 divisions spread around the world fighting on multiple fronts, It was Russia, which concentrated 491 divisions against the bulk of Hitler's forces, killing well over four million German soldiers, and it was Russia which lost over twenty million citizens and rose like a phoenix from the ashes of her own destruction to save the world from Nazism.
America has been involved in so many wars in its short history that war has become an integral part of the American economy. Both the Korean War and the Vietnam War were waged to generate profits for the corporate military industrial complex and a hand full of right wing politicians. On June 27, 1950 president Truman ordered U.S. forces into Korea to "protect the world from communism". It was to be the beginning of a long "for profit war", which John Foster Dulles, a government appointed International attorney, had secretly instigated between North and South Korea.
On Oct. 26 the Chinese army under the command of Mao Tse Tung, put an abrupt end to the scheme. Entering the war with 300,000 men, China dealt America a crushing defeat beating the U.S. back to the 39th parallel. By the time of the Armistice negotiations of 1953, North and South Korea, and China combined had suffered a total of 4,000,000 casualties, 500,000 more than Japan in World War II, and America lost 54,246 soldiers. Had America successfully instigated a civil war between North and South Korea, it could have lasted for decades and cost the lives of tens of millions of human beings. The American corporate military industrial complex and their political lackeys in Washington didn't get the war they were hoping for. They did however get $263 billion taxpayer dollars and kill over 4,000,000 innocent human beings in the name of freedom and democracy.
Vietnam was a much more financially successful repeat of Korea. America instructed their corrupt South Vietnamese puppet dictator Prime Minister Diem to halt democratic elections in Vietnam to prevent the establishment of a united Vietnam. America assured Diem that if hostilities resulted United States armed forces would help him to appose the North Vietnamese. With the backing of America, Diem promptly cancelled the elections. In 1958 Civil War started and within two years guerrilla war erupted throughout southern Vietnam. Diem asked Washington for assistance and the American military industrial elite had their war.
On January 27, 1973, in spite of American saturation bombings during the peace talks, a peace agreement was signed that stipulated the immediate end of hostilities and the withdrawal of U.S. troops. US involvement in the, "Vietnam slaughter for profit war" had lasted 25 years and resulted in the deaths of 3,000,000 of the Vietnamese people and 58,000 Americans. $570 billion taxpayer dollars were consumed in the war, generating obscene profits for the Federal Reserve banking system and the military industrial complex.
The most recent Gulf wars were also fought for profit and oil and are based on lies to justify blatant attacks by America. In the first 1990-91 Gulf war waged by George Bush Senior, Kuwait had been slant-drilling the Iraqi oil field of Rumallah as well as driving down the price of oil at a time when Iraq was in desperate need of funds to rebuild its infrastructure after the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein notified Washington that Kuwait was slant drilling his oilfields. Since Saddam had been armed by Washington and was their ally, he never expected to be attacked when Washington gave him permission to attack Kuwait. Bush Sr. punished Saddam and his people severely by wiping out most of the Iraqi army and imposing sanctions, which killed well over a million innocent people, mostly children. Although the first Gulf War had lasted less than a year it had cost the American taxpayers some $63 billion.
The second war against Iraq waged by George W. Bush Jr. was based on nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and a non-existent connection between Iraqi and the destruction of the World Trade Center. In two years the Bush administration has killed over 100,000 innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq and wounded over 500,000 in the name of Democracy and freedom. Although the original reasons for attacking Iraq have proven to be completely fabricated and baseless, the ensuing war of resistance has provided Bush with an excuse to maintain a constant US military presence. Already $165 billion dollars have been looted from the American people to pay for the Iraq war, with an additional $82 billion recently requested by the Bush administration.
In Bush's junior's Iraq war there have also been many war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions committed by his administration: Bombing civilians, attacking hospitals, and torture to name a few. Probably the worst war crime committed in the history of man has been the dumping of over 1000 metric tons of the deadly U238-isotope, America's nuclear waste, on Iraq and Afghanistan by the Bush administration. This monstrous act has made childhood leukemia and spontaneous abortions commonplace, and has doomed the people of both countries to endless suffering and premature death. According to a UN Sub Commission report, cancer in Iraq has increased 1000%, and deformities 600%. Depleted Uranium has rendered Iraqi lands infertile, entered the food chain, and contaminated the ground water. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years the Uranium 238 dropped on Iraq by Bush Jr. and his father has rendered much of the country permanently unfit for human habitation.
Today the world is told constantly that America is in a so-called "never-ending war" against terrorism. But over the past 35 years American leaders have been the single greatest purveyors of terrorist acts throughout the world. The US government or their CIA trained mercenary forces have used terror-bombing campaigns against unarmed civilian populations in many countries. America has participated in destroying churches, hospitals, schools, houses, hotels, farms, and factories, and other nonmilitary targets. America has killed millions in Laos, Cambodia, the Congo, East Timor, Panama, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Mozambique, Somalia, Angola, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and numerous other countries. In dozens of countries with democratic movements, which threatened the power of American corporations to exploit the native populations, US leaders have used death squad terrorism to successfully eliminate social and democratic reform. America has also contributed to the death and destruction of the Palestinian people, leaving generations without mothers and fathers, bent on revenge.
When Spanish president Aznar, announced that Spain would participate in the American war against Iraq he had the support of 2% of the population of Spain. He was therefore hailed by the Bush administration as a great leader of what was called the New Europe. Old Europe, the bad guys, were countries with governments that took the same position as the large majority of their population. New Europe were the countries like Spain and Italy where the governments overruled the vast majority of the population and followed orders from Crawford, Texas, proving that they understood the nature of democracy according to the administration. Turkey, dared to follow the will of 95% of the population, and rejected Washington's orders to participate in the war. They were bitterly condemned by some in US leadership such as Paul Wolfowitz, who berated the Turkish military for not ignoring the will of 95% of the people and forcing the government to take their marching orders from Bush. Democracy is an acceptable concept for the US elite as long as we the people do what they the political and economic leadership say.
The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is very respectable and not given to exaggeration, ran an article by two prominent strategic analysts, John Steinbrenner and Nancy Gallagher. They pointed out that the military programs and aggressive stance of the Bush administration, carry in their words, "appreciable risk of ultimate doom," They go on to say that, "If the United States is to remain a democracy worthy of the name, the political system will have to acknowledge that the United States is now the dominant threat to everyone else." The "super outlaw state." They go on to explain that the terrifying technology that is being developed in Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the military will "assuredly defuse to the rest of the world. There will be a competition in intimidation and action/reaction cycle creating rising dangers, potentially unmanageable ones, for Americans as well,"
http://liberty.hypermart.net/voices/2005/False_Pride_of_the_super_outlaw
© Copyright 2/17/05 by Raymond Ponziny. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged. |
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