Americans
are rarely thought of in this category, but that level of ignorance and
denial is inexcusable. America exists because of the atrocities which
took place from the moment the first Europeans arrived on this
continent. It all began with the killing of millions of indigenous
people and then the ensnarement of millions of Africans into the hell of
chattel slavery. If crimes against humanity were ever committed, they
were committed here.
Those
crimes didn’t stop at these borders and they weren’t all committed in
centuries past. Numerous invasions and occupations should have put this
country on the war crimes map, and one of those atrocities is ongoing
but has been disappeared by the corporate media and Republican and
Democratic politicians.
"Only
those Americans intrepid enough to seek out their own sources of news
know about the degree of horror their government brought to the Iraqi
people."
If
there is anything worse than the United States destruction of Iraq and
the killing of one million people, it is the fact that this crime has
gone largely unreported. Most Americans don’t know very much about the
invasion and occupation for the simple reason that the corporate media
didn’t tell them much of anything important about it. Media
consolidation into ever larger corporate conglomerates, and political
subservience to big money guaranteed that only those Americans intrepid
enough to seek out their own sources of news know about the degree of
horror their government brought to the Iraqi people.
They
don’t know that shells and missiles made of depleted uranium have
poisoned Iraq’s air and water and that it was first used in the Gulf War
of 1991. They don’t know that thousands of Iraqi children were killed
when sanctions prevented them from getting food and medicine. They don’t
know about the city of Fallujah and how it was destroyed by United
States forces in 2004.
A
campaign to "pacify" this city began after U.S. military contractors
were killed there in 2003. In April and then in November of 2004 the
city was decimated by a campaign meant to destroy popular resistance.
The U.S. military attacked Fallujah’s hospitals in order to prevent the
international media from seeing the carnage they had produced. Civilians
trying to flee were turned back or even killed and soldiers cut off
supplies of water and electricity. Mark77 firebombs, a variant of napalm,
and white phosphorus, a weapon which melts skin and bone, were used
during the attacks. All of these ghoulish concoctions are banned by
international law and so is using collective punishment against a
civilian population.
"The
U.S. military attacked Fallujah’s hospitals in order to prevent the
international media from seeing the carnage they had produced."
The result of the use of depleted uranium and other weapons is a rate of genetic damage higher than that of any other population
ever studied. Rates of cancer, leukemia, and infant mortality are
higher in Fallujah than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were bombed
with nuclear weapons in 1945.
Babies in Fallujah are born without eyes, or only one eye, or organs outside of their bodies, or no heads or two heads. The gruesome toll has gone on since 2005 and now nearly ten years later continues unabated.
The
United States is not a signatory of the Treaty of Rome which
established the International Criminal Court. That is not by accident.
Former president George W. Bush, his vice president and all of his
foreign relations and national security team would be in the dock in the
International Criminal Court if it hadn’t been created to punish only
Africans. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell and company are easy targets for
blame but the denunciation must go much further. Only two members of
congress, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, ever made an effort to
investigate the number of civilian fatalities in Iraq. No candidate for
president or any other high office ever raised the subject. Newspapers
and television networks were eager to curry favor with the Bush
administration and never directed their embedded reporters to say
anything about the war’s toll on civilians.
Now
the Bush administration has been out of power for four years. Newspaper
editorial boards no longer have to worry about them. Most combat troops
have left Iraq and reporters have left with them. What now prevents the
New York Times
from doing a story on the high rate of cancers and congenital
deformities in Fallujah? MSNBC is supposed to be the Democratic Party’s
cable news network. Why haven’t they covered this story?
"Only
two members of congress, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, ever made an
effort to investigate the number of civilian fatalities in Iraq."
The
questions are rhetorical. They won’t do it because they support their
government and powerful people more than they support democracy or our
right to know anything important. Democrats are no better than
Republicans because they acted as accessories to their crimes, supported
them outright or are committing some of their own.
There
are still war criminals and they aren’t all Congolese or Rwandans. Some
of them are Americans. Some are Republicans while others are Democrats.
They are the people who leave office and go on to make fortunes giving
speeches or writing books. They are considered respectable when they are
anything but and if they are constantly allowed to go unpunished more
carnage will surely be the result.
Margaret
Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely
reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as
at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
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