Won't Get Fooled Again?: The Truth Behind The Spanish American War (Video)

The Spanish American War had all the familiar elements of today's conflicts: A false flag event, bankers manipulating the presidency and pushing for war behind the scenes,  Rockefeller profiteering, and slick propaganda campaigns about "Spanish brutes" and "fighting for freedom and democracy."—James Perloff

Watching the Battle of Santiago from the deck of USS Iowa, July 3, 1898.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

_________

James Perloff is interviewed by James Corbett

Although it gets short shrift in the history textbooks, in many ways the modern American empire can find its origins in the Spanish-American War. Today we talk to James Perloff of JamesPerloff.com about his article on the war, “Trial Run for Interventionism,” and how the bankers used their media and political connections to launch the war and introduce foreign interventionism to the American psyche.


SHOW NOTES:
JamesPerloff.com  

Interview 925 – James Perloff on “Truth Is A Lonely Warrior”

Trial Run for Interventionism

The Kuwaiti Incubator Babies – LIE

Susan Rice’s Viagra Hoax: The New Incubator Babies

“Facts and Fakes about Cuba” by George Bronson Rea

“America’s 60 Families” by Ferdinand Lundberg

“The Politics of War” by Walter Karp

“The Spanish War: An American Epic, 1898” by G.J.A. O’Toole

Reprinted with permission from The Corbett Report.

The Secret History of Hitler’s ‘Black Holocaust’

Photo from Wikimedia.

By Eve Rosenhaft
The fact that we officially commemorate the Holocaust on January 27, the date of the liberation of Auschwitz, means that remembrance of Nazi crimes focuses on the systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews.

The other victims of Nazi racism, including Europe’s Sinti and Roma, are now routinely named in commemoration, but not all survivors have had equal opportunities to have their stories heard.

One group of victims who have yet to be publicly memorialized is black Germans.

All those voices need to be heard, not only for the sake of the survivors, but because we need to see how varied the expressions of Nazi racism were if we are to understand the lessons of the Holocaust for today.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, there were understood to have been some thousands of black people living in Germany—they were never counted and estimates vary widely. At the heart of an emerging black community was a group of men from Germany’s own African colonies (which were lost under the peace treaty that ended World War I) and their German wives.

They were networked across Germany and abroad by ties of family and association and some were active in Communist and anti-racist organizations. Among the first acts of the Nazi regime was the suppression of black political activism. There were also 600 to 800 children fathered by French colonial soldiers—many, though not all, African—when the French army occupied the Rhineland as part of the peace settlement after 1919. French troops were withdrawn in 1930 and the Rhineland was demilitarized until Hitler stationed German units there in 1936.

Denial of Rights and Work

The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with “people of German blood.”

A subsequent ruling confirmed that black people (like “gypsies”) were to be regarded as being “of alien blood” and subject to the Nuremberg principles. Very few people of African descent had German citizenship, even if they were born in Germany, but this became irreversible when they were given passports that designated them as “stateless Negroes.”

In 1941, black children were officially excluded from public schools, but most of them had suffered racial abuse in their classrooms much earlier. Some were forced out of school and none were permitted to go on to university or professional training. Published interviews and memoirs by both men and women, unpublished testimony and postwar compensation claims testify to these and other shared experiences.

Employment prospects that were already poor before 1933 got worse afterward. Unable to find regular work, some were drafted for forced labor as “foreign workers” during World War II. Films and stage shows making propaganda for the return of Germany’s African colonies became one of the few sources of income, especially after black people were banned from other kinds of public performance in 1939.

When SS leader Heinrich Himmler undertook a survey of all black people in Germany and occupied Europe in 1942, he was probably contemplating a round-up of some kind. But there was no mass internment.

Research in camp records and survivor testimony has so far come up with around 20 black Germans who spent time in concentration camps and prisons—and at least one who was a euthanasia victim. The one case we have of a black person being sent to a concentration camp explicitly for being a Mischling (mulatto)—Gert Schramm, interned in Buchenwald aged 15—comes from 1944.

Instead, the process that ended with incarceration usually began with a charge of deviant or antisocial behavior. Being black made people visible to the police, and it became a reason not to release them once they were in custody.

In this respect, we can see black people as victims not of a peculiarly Nazi racism, but of an intensified version of the kinds of everyday racism that persist today.

Sterilization: An Assault on Families

It was the Nazi fear of “racial pollution” that led to the most common trauma suffered by black Germans: the breakup of families. “Mixed” couples were harassed into separating. When others applied for marriage licenses, or when a woman was known to be pregnant or had a baby, the black partner became a target for involuntary sterilization.

In a secret action in 1937, some 400 of the Rhineland children were forcibly sterilized. Other black Germans went into hiding or fled the country to escape sterilization, while news of friends and relatives who had not escaped intensified the fear that dominated people’s lives.

The black German community was new in 1933; in most families the first generation born in Germany was just coming of age. In that respect it was similar to the communities in France and Britain that were forming around families founded by men from the colonies.

Nazi persecution broke those families and the ties of community. One legacy of that was a long silence about the human face of Germany’s colonial history: the possibility that black and white Germans could share a social and cultural space.

That silence helps to explain Germans’ mixed responses to today’s refugee crisis. The welcome offered by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and many ordinary Germans has given voice to the liberal humanitarianism that was always present in German society and was reinforced by the lessons of the Holocaust.

The reaction against refugees reveals the other side of the coin: Germans who fear immigration are not alone in Europe. But their anxieties draw on a vision that has remained very powerful in German society since 1945: the idea that however deserving they are, people who are not white cannot be German.


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Eve Rosenhaft is professor of German historical studies, University of Liverpool.

Reprinted with permission from The Conversation

The Pacific - The Warriors That HBO Forgot

Wilfred Jackson: United States Navy - SEABEES
World War II - "The Pacific"

________

The Warriors That HBO Forgot

It took me less than 5 minutes to find these photographs and
accompanying information online. So why were blacks almost
(if not completely) absent from HBO's World War II series "The Pacific"
(produced by Steven Spielberg & Tom Hanks)
and almost every other Hollywood movie
about WW II in "The Pacific?"

This video is dedicated to the black men and women
who served and died in The Pacific during WW II.

Iraq and Libya Was Invaded to Stop Them From Forcing Countries to Use Gold Instead of Dollars to Buy Oil (Video)

_________________

A White Supremacist Designed the Confederate Flag Symbol — Racist Fanatic Considered Flag an Emblem of 'White Superiority'

Anyone who claims that the confederate flag is about "Southern heritage" and not white supremacy is either poorly informed or a racist liar

By Kyle Kim and Priya Krishnakumar
By 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia's square battle flag was so popular among the Confederacy that it was incorporated into the upper left corner of the new flag. The white rectangle symbolizes the "supremacy of the white man," according to William T. Thompson, the flag's designer.

Early versions of the confederate flag based on Thompson's terror symbol

"As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race," Thompson wrote. The second flag faced criticism for being too white, with complaints that it could be mistaken for a truce sign in battle.

Read More

American Sniper: Anyone Who Takes History Lessons from Hollywood Learns Only That 'White Makes Right'

“So you’re not really viewing them as a person. They’re out there, they’re bad people, and you just take them out and you don’t think twice about it.” – Chris Kyle

Chris Kyle displays his book.

By Margaret Kimberley
Mass killer Chris Kyle should have been forgotten when he was killed by another Iraq war veteran in 2013. Kyle became rich and famous after he spoke and wrote publicly about the record 160 kills he committed in America’s war of terror in Iraq. He was the subject of the book, American Sniper: the Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, and enjoyed celebrity status until his death.

Kyle is now the subject of the film American Sniper. It has received Oscar nominations and is doing record breaking business at the box office. This movie is the latest instance of Hollywood’s love for American cultural propaganda. The entertainment industry happily exists as the promoter of white supremacy and Manifest Destiny. Movies taught generations of Americans that the Indians had no right to live on their own land and that black people are by definition dangerous unless subservient. Anyone who takes history lessons from Hollywood learns only that white makes right. Thus a killer is turned into a hero.

Murder is universally condemned both legally and morally unless the powerful group says otherwise. If soldiers in uniform are sent on missions of conquest they are suddenly exalted even as they kill other human beings en masse. In 2003 the Iraqis were the victims of that code of dishonor and people like Chris Kyle were applauded as they took many thousands of lives.

“I wonder if Conan O’Brien gave any thought to the people who were occupied.”

The new movie is not the first instance of Kyle being lionized. The corporate media played their part in elevating a man whose only skill lay in his ability to shoot people. Kyle’s book was published in 2012, well after the war became unpopular and the Republicans lost credibility with voters in large part because of the debacle. Watching Kyle’s interaction with so-called media professionals is difficult to stomach as none of them asked hard questions about what he and our political leaders did to Iraqis.

Perhaps a mere comedic talk show host like Conan O’Brien can be excused for fawning over Kyle. “I’m amazed by some of the things that you’ve accomplished. You’re an incredible sniper.” But Kyle got to the heart of the matter as he spoke about being an occupier and invader. He described the process of attempting to avoid attention while creating a kill zone.

“It depends if you take an occupied house or unoccupied. If you take occupied you have to take the family, feed them, make them go to the bathroom, all this other stuff. Let them do everything you just can’t let them go outside. By 9:00 in the morning they know you’re there.”

I wonder if Conan O’Brien gave any thought to the people who were occupied. What was it like to be kept prisoner in their homes so that an enemy soldier could kill their people? If O’Brien had any curiosity on this matter he kept it to himself.

“He also claimed that he and his fellow Navy SEALS shot looters in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.”

Supposedly serious media outlets such as Time magazine were no better than the stand-up comic talk show host. The questions from editor at large Belinda Luscombe would be amusing if they weren’t so awful.

“Are there any kills you regret?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Because you felt like it was either you killed them or they killed other Americans?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

One might expect the next question to be a hard hitting follow-up. Instead Luscombe asked, “When you’re at home do you get out your gun much?”

The most interesting thing about watching Kyle now is that he was so clearly not an interesting person. There isn’t a lot to say about this simple and dangerous man. The only way to bring any drama to his story is to lie about him. He followed orders, didn’t give much thought to what he did and was himself loose with the truth.

Kyle claimed to have fought with former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Ventura filed and won a defamation suit against him. Kyle claimed to have shot two men in Texas when there is no proof of any such incident. He also claimed that he and his fellow Navy SEALS shot looters in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. That may have been Kyle’s fantasy, but it never happened. The claim that his first victim was an Iraqi woman holding a grenade is probably also untrue.

The movie omits these stories but must rely on making an uncomplicated person appear otherwise. A good movie would have told the truth about the impact of the invasion on Iraq, and the complete story of a man who while dangerous was not unique. Like millions of Americans he had violent fantasies. The only difference is that he was able to act them out. Of course a plot like that wouldn’t break any box office records.

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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.

 Reprinted with permission from Black Agenda Report.

The Rock of Our Existence: One of Israel's Founders, Uri Avnery, Raises Questions About Founding of Israel

Keynote speech at the Kinneret College conference on “the Rock of our Existence – the connection between Archeology and Ideology”.

Uri Avnery. (Screen captured from YouTube video)

By Uri Avnery
First of all, let me thank you for inviting me to address this important conference. I am neither a professor nor a doctor. Indeed, the highest academic title I ever achieved was SEC (Seventh Elementary Class).

But like many members of my generation, from early youth I took a profound interest in archeology.

I shall try to explain why.

When asking themselves about my connection with archeology, some of you will think about Moshe Dayan.

After the June 1967 war, Dayan was a national – even international – idol. He was also known for his obsession with archeology. My magazine, Haolam Hazeh, investigated his activities and found that they were highly destructive. He started digging alone and collecting artifacts all over the country. Since the primary aim of archeology is not simply to discover artifacts but also to date them, and thus to put together a picture of the consecutive history of the site, Dayan’s uncontrolled digging created havoc. The fact that he used army resources only worsened matters. 

________________

Uri Avnery Speaks on Evolving from a Member of Zionist
Terrorist Group to Peace Activist

________________

Then we discovered that not only did Dayan expropriate the artifacts which he found (which by law belonged to the state) and stock them at his home, but he had also become an international dealer, getting rich by selling articles “from the personal collection of Moshe Dayan”.

Publishing these facts and speaking about them in the Knesset bestowed on me a singular distinction. At the time, a public opinion institute identified every year the “most hated person” in Israel. That year, I attained that honor.

However, the important question does not concern Dayan’s morals but a much more profound matter: Why were Dayan and so many of us at the time concerned with archeology, a science considered by many people as a rather dreary business?

It held for us a profound fascination.

That Zionist generation was the first one born in the country (though I myself was born in Germany). For their parents, Palestine was an abstract homeland, a land they had dreamed about in the synagogues of Poland and Ukraine. For their native-born sons and daughters it was a natural homeland.

They were yearning for roots. They trekked to every corner, spent nights around a campfire, came to know every hill and valley.

For them, the Talmud and all the religious texts were a bore. The Talmud and other scriptures had sustained the Jews in the Diaspora for centuries, but evoked no interest here. The new generation embraced the Hebrew Bible with unbounded enthusiasm, not as a religious book (almost all of us were atheists) but as an unequalled masterpiece of Hebrew literature. Since they were also the first generation for whom the rejuvenated Hebrew was their mother tongue, they fell in love with the lively, concrete Biblical Hebrew language. The much more sophisticated, abstract language of the Talmud and other later books repelled them.

The Biblical events had taken place in the country they knew. The Biblical battles had been fought in the valleys they knew, the kings had been crowned and buried in the localities they knew intimately.

They had looked at night at the stars of Megiddo, where the Egyptians had fought the first recorded battle in history (and where, according to the Christian New Testament, the last battle – the battle of Armageddon – will take place). They stood on Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elias had slaughtered the priests of Baal. They had visited Hebron, where Abraham had been buried by his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, fathers of the Arabs and the Jews.

This passionate attachment to the country was by no means preordained. Indeed, Palestine played no role in the birth of modern political Zionism.

As I have mentioned before, the founding father, Theodor Herzl, did not think about Palestine when he invented what became known as Zionism. He hated Palestine and its climate. Especially, he hated Jerusalem, which to him was a foul and dirty town.

In the first draft of his idea, which was addressed to the Rothschild family, the land of his dream was Patagonia, in Argentina. There, in recent times, a genocide had taken place, and the land was almost empty.

It was only the sentiments of the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe that compelled Herzl to redirect his efforts towards Palestine. In his founding book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), the relevant chapter is less than a page long and entitled “Palestine or Argentina”. The Arab population is not mentioned at all.

Once the Zionist movement directed its thoughts towards Palestine, the ancient history of this country became a hot issue.

The Zionist claim to Palestine was solely based on the Biblical history of the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the kingdoms of Saul, David and Solomon and the events of those times. Since almost all the founding fathers were avowed atheists, they could hardly base themselves on the “fact” the God had personally promised the land to the seed of Abraham.

So, with the coming of the Zionists to Palestine, a frantic archeological search started. The country was combed for real, scientific proof that the Biblical story was not just a bunch of myths, but real honest-to-God history. (Pun intended.) Christian Zionists came even earlier.

There started a veritable attack on archeological sites. The upper layers of Ottoman and Mamelukes, Arabs and Crusaders, Byzantines and Romans and Greeks and Persians were uncovered and removed in order to lay bare the ancient layer of the Children of Israel and to prove the Bible right.

Huge efforts were made. David Ben-Gurion, a self-appointed Biblical scholar, led the effort. The Chief of Staff of the army, Yigael Yadin, the son of an archeologist, and himself a professional archeologist, searched ancient sites to prove that the Conquest of Canaan really happened. Alas, no proof.

When remnants of the bones of Bar Kochba’s fighters were discovered in Judean desert caves, they were buried on Ben-Gurion’s orders in a big military ceremony. The uncontested fact that Bar Kochba had caused perhaps the greatest catastrophe in Jewish history was glossed over.

And the result?

Incredible as it sounds, four generations of devoted archeologists, with a burning conviction and huge resources, did produce exactly:

Nothing.
From the beginning of the effort to this very day, not a single piece of evidence of the ancient history was found. Not a single indication that the exodus from Egypt, the basis of Jewish history, ever happened. Nor of the 40 years of wandering in the desert. No evidence of the conquest of Canaan, as described at length in the Book of Joshua. The mighty King David, whose kingdom extended — according to the Bible — from the Sinai peninsula to the north of Syria, did not leave a trace. (Lately an inscription with the name David was discovered, but with no indication that this David was a king.)

Israel appears for the first time in sound archeological findings in Assyrian inscriptions, which describe a coalition of local kingdoms which tried to stop the Assyrian advance into Syria. Among others, King Ahab of Israel is mentioned as the chief of a considerable military contingent. Ahab, who ruled today’s Samaria (in the north of the occupied West Bank) from 871 BC until 852 BC was not beloved by God, though the Bible describes him as a war hero. He marks the beginning of the entry of Israel into proven history.

All these are negative pieces of evidence suggesting that the early Biblical story is invented. Since practically no trace whatsoever of the early Biblical story has been found, does this prove that it is all fiction?

Perhaps not. But real proof does exist.

Egyptology is a scientific discipline that is separate from Palestinian archeology. But Egyptology proves conclusively that the Biblical history until King Ahab is indeed fiction.

Up to now, many tens of thousands of Egyptian documents have been deciphered, and the work is still going on. After the Hyksos from Asia invaded Egypt in 1730 BC, the Pharaohs of Egypt took very great pains to watch the happenings in Palestine and Syria. Year after year, Egyptian spies, traders and soldiers reported in great detail on events in every town of Canaan. Not a single item has been found, telling of anything remotely resembling Biblical events. (A single mention of “Israel” on an Egyptian stele is believed to refer to a small territory in the south of Palestine.)

Even if one would like to believe that the Bible only exaggerates real events, the fact is that not even a tiny mention of the exodus, the conquest of Canaan or King David has been found.

They just did not happen.

Is this important? Yes and no.

The Bible is not real history. It is a monumental religious and literary document, that has inspired untold millions throughout the centuries. It has formed the minds of many generation of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

But history is something else. History tells us what really happened. Archeology is a tool of history, an invaluable tool for the understanding of what took place.

These are two different disciplines, and never the twain shall meet. For the religious, the Bible is a matter of belief. For non-believers, the Hebrew Bible is a great work of art, perhaps the greatest of all. Archeology is something entirely different: a matter of sober, proven
facts.

Israeli schools teach the Bible as real history. This means that Israeli children learn only its chapters, true or fictitious. When I once complained about this in a Knesset speech, demanding that the full history of the country throughout the ages be taught, including the chapters of the Crusades and the Mamelukes, the then minister of education started to call me “the Mameluke”.

I still believe that every child in this country, Israeli and Palestinian, should learn its full history, from the earliest days to this day, with all its layers. It is the basis of peace, the real Rock Of Our Existence.

The Voyages of Christopher Columbus Revisited: 'Hero' of American History Brought Nothing But Mass Murder, Slavery and Rape to the Americas

"The atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus  makes ISIS look like boy scouts."

Illustration from the era depicts the savagery of Christopher Columbus and his crew. (From the documentary The Canary Effect)

By Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola

To mark Columbus Day In 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents. Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, leaves little room for ambivalence when he says, "This is not your grandfather's Columbus.... While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing - not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture - to advance his ambitions.... Many of the unflattering documents have been known for the last century or more, but nobody paid much attention to them until recently. The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail - if it was recognized at all - in light of his role as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise."

    But does it?

"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells," Christopher Columbus wrote in his logbook in 1495. "They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

Dominican Priest and Writer, Bartolome de Las Casas: The savagery of Christopher
Columbus and his crew was so profound that he said his hands trembled as he wrote
about it. (From the documentary The Canary Effect)

Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas, in the multi-volume "History of the Indies" published in 1875, wrote, "... Slaves were the primary source of income for the Admiral (Columbus) with that income he intended to repay the money the Kings were spending in support of Spaniards on the Island. They provide profit and income to the Kings. (The Spaniards were driven by) insatiable greed ... killing, terrorizing, afflicting, and torturing the native peoples ... with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty."

This systematic violence was aimed at preventing "Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings. (The Spaniards) thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write."

Father Fray Antonio de Montesino, a Dominican preacher, in December 1511 said this in a sermon that implicated Christopher Columbus and the colonists in the genocide of the native peoples:

"Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before ..."

In 1892, the National Council of Churches, the largest ecumenical body in the United States, is known to have exhorted Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."

Yet America continues to celebrate "Columbus Day."

That Americans do so in the face of all evidence that there is little in the Columbian legacy that merits applause makes it easier for them to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of their government. Perhaps there is good reason.

***

In "Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History," journalist and media critic Norman Solomon discusses how historians who deal with recorded evidence are frequently depicted as "politically correct" revisionists while the general populace is manipulated into holding onto myths that brazenly applaud inconceivable acts of violence of men against fellow humans.

Native children were used as food for attack dogs and natives' lives were considered so worthless that they were literally used to test the sharpness of their swords. (From the documentary The Canary Effect)

For those of us who are willing to ask how it becomes possible to manipulate the population of a country into accepting atrocity, the answer is not hard to find. It requires normalizing the inconceivable and drumming it in via the socio-cultural environment until it is internalized and embedded in the individual and collective consciousness. The combined or singular deployment of the media, the entertainment industry, mainstream education or any other agency, can achieve the desired result of convincing people that wars can be just, and strikes can be surgical, as long as it is the US that is doing it.

Never has this process been as blatant and overt as in recent years when the time has come for America to legitimize the idea of global domination. A Department of Defense report titled Joint Vision 2020 calls for the US military to be capable of "full spectrum dominance" of the entire planet. That means total domination and control of all land, sea, air, space and information.

That's a lot of control.

How might this become accepted as "Policy" and remain unquestioned by almost an entire population?

The one word key to that is: Myths. The explanation is that the myths the United States is built upon have paved the way for the perpetuation of all manner of violations.

Among the first of these is that of Christopher Columbus. In school we were taught of his bravery, courage and perseverance. In a speech in 1989, George H.W. Bush proclaimed: "Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith."

Never mind that the monumental feats mainly comprised part butchery, part exploitation and the largest part betrayal of host populations of the "New World."

***

On their second arrival in Hispaniola, Haiti, Columbus's crew took captive roughly two thousand local villagers who had arrived to greet them. Miguel Cuneo, a literate crew member, wrote, "When our caravels ... were to leave for Spain, we gathered ... one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495.... For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island's fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done."

In 1500, Columbus wrote to a friend, "A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand."

Such original "monumental feats" as were accomplished by our nation's heroes and role models were somewhat primitive. Local inhabitants who resisted Columbus and his crew had their ears or nose cut off, were attacked by dogs, skewered with pikes and shot. Reprisals were so severe that many of the natives committed mass suicide and women began practicing abortions in order not to leave children enslaved. The population of Haiti at the time of Columbus's arrival was between 1.5 million and 3 million. Sixty years later, every single native had been murdered.

Today, "perseverance and faith" allow us to accomplish much more and with far greater impunity. The US continues to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan with 2,000-pound bombs in civilian areas and purge Pakistan via drone attacks on weddings.

Neither case is of isolated whimsy. It was and remains policy.

In "A People's History of the United States," celebrated historian Howard Zinn describes how Arawak men and women emerged from their villages to greet their guests with food, water and gifts when Columbus landed at the Bahamas. But Columbus wanted something else. "Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise," he wrote to the king and queen of Spain in 1503.

Rather than gold, however, Columbus only found slaves when he arrived on his second visit with seventeen ships and over 1,200 men. Ravaging various Caribbean islands, Columbus took natives as captives as he sailed. Of these he picked 500 of the best specimens and shipped them back to Spain. Two hundred of these died en route, while the survivors were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town where they landed.

Columbus needed more than mere slaves to sell, and Zinn's account informs us, "... desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, (he) had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

"The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed."

Read More

Israel Was Founded and Led by Terrorists — More Things You Don't Know: Former Israeli Prime Minister Committed Assassinations and Massacres

Yitzhak Shamir.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

By Mark Karlin
One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

One of the best examples of that may be the now-deceased former Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir.

Shamir, who died at age 96 of Alzheimer's disease in 2012, was a member of the now-dominant political party in Israel: the Likud. When Shamir passed away, Netanyahu effusively praised him: "Yitzhak Shamir belonged to the generation of giants who founded the state of Israel and fought for the freedom of the Jewish people. As prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir took action to fortify Israel’s security and ensure its future."

In the days of the British Mandate leading up to the independence of Israel in 1948, there was a primary Jewish paramilitary force, the Hagannah. The Hagannah more or less evolved into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) after statehood was established, and many of the state's military leaders for years were its veterans.

However, for some Jewish fighters, the Hagannah was too traditional in its military approach, too modeled on the British army … and not willing to engage in the assassinations of British soldiers. The British were seen by many Zionists as pro-Arab. They particularly incensed creators of Israel by aggressively limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine during the years of the Holocaust, and in the post-war years when Jewish refugees were seeking a place to live.

As a result, two Jewish terrorist groups were formed: the Irgun, and then an even more notorious offshoot which was nicknamed the Stern Gang. Shamir was a member of the Stern Gang, while former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin eventually headed the Irgun. Their mission was to drive the British out of Palestine, and also drive as many Palestinians out of what was to become Israel. The Irgun and the Stern Gang employed terrorist tactics, killing British military officials (and even the British minister of state for the Middle East) and massacring Arabs. Their most historically noted terrorist action against the British was the blowing up of much of the King David Hotel in 1946, then the headquarters for Britain overseeing Palestine. Around 100 people were killed, including 15 Jews.

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Why Israel Lost: Israel's Military Commanders Decided They Should Declare Victory and Withdraw While They Could

Masked Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad run with homemade rockets on the outskirts of Gaza City
to put in place before later firing them into Israel - January, 2009. (Photo by Amir Farshad Ebrahimi)

By Paul Rogers
A new, seventy-two-hour ceasefire in Gaza began to take effect on the morning of 5 August 2014. Whether or not it lasts, both the Israeli government and the Hamas leadership will need to claim success after twenty-eight days of bitter conflict that has left more than 1,800 Palestinians killed and thousands injured. Israeli politicians are saying that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have been able to withdraw from Gaza following the destruction of the infiltration tunnels, and that the air-force is still able to hit targets throughout the territory. The implication is that Israel has good cause to claim success.

A closer look suggests otherwise. Three incidents on particular days during the war indicate why.

The first was twelve days into the war, 20 July, when the IDF was moving ground-troops into Gaza, aiming partly to continue destroying rocket-launchers but also to uncover the tunnels. On that day alone, the elite Golani brigade lost thirteen men killed and well over fifty injured. The dead included a battalion deputy commander and the wounded the brigade’s commanding officer, Colonel Ghassan Alian (see “Gaza: Context and Consequences”, Oxford Research Group, 31 July 2014). The overall level of resistance, and especially the abilities of the Hamas paramilitaries, came as a shock to the IDF, even as it was coming to realise that the tunnels constituted a far more serious problem than expected (see "Israel vs Hamas, a war of surprises", 24 July 2014).

The second incident, on 28 July, confirmed this. By then, large numbers of IDF personnel were in Gaza, the emphasis being very much on detecting and destroying the tunnels. Yet in the midst of this intensive operation a Hamas group was in an extraordinary way able to use an undetected tunnel, emerge on the Israeli side of the border, and attack a border post (not civilians in a kibbutz, Nahal Oz, as was reported at an early stage). The group killed five young Israeli soldiers, all sergeants aged 18 to 21, who were on a leadership-training exercise.

The third incident, on 30 July, was the shelling of a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which killed twenty-one people, including children asleep at the time (it was 4.40 a.m.) and injuring scores. The attack is reported to have been carried out using long-range artillery, and to have been aimed at Hamas paramilitaries threatening an IDF unit attempting to destroy a tunnel entrance, within 320 metres of the school. A UN review found that ten shells were fired over approximately five minutes, three hitting the school and two more striking within fifty metres (see Ben Hubbard & Jodi Rudoreren, “Questions over deadly barrage on shelter”, New York Times, 5 August 2014).

At the time the school was sheltering 3,220 people in a twenty-four-room complex, part of a much wider UN sheltering programme catering for 260,000 people in ninety schools and other facilities. It was one of six UN sites hit during the four-week war, provoking severe criticism that using inaccurate long-range artillery against targets in densely populated urban areas is (at least) highly questionable (see "America, Israel, Gaza: missiles and politics", 19 July 2014).

The three incidents together highlight major difficulties for the Israeli government. The shelter attack, for example, is amplified by the new social media. Even since the last major ground-assault into Gaza - Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 - there has been rapid development of instant smartphone video-recording and distribution techniques.

The effect is twofold: to spread directly and worldwide graphic images of the impact on civilians, and to make western media outlets more likely to show that same impact in greater detail. Support for the war inside Israel has remained strong throughout, but the country's reputation has suffered considerably across the world, and some major western news outlets that would normally be broadly supportive express huge doubts about the long-term consequences of Israel's assault (see ("Israel and the world: us and them", Economist, 1 August 2014).

The war beneath

Even so, it might at first sight seem to be stretching it to talk of Israel “losing” this war. A fuller analysis does however point in this direction. Recall the stated initial aim, which was to suppress rocket fire. This has simply not happened, amid strong suspicions that Hamas and other militias may have expended less than half of their arsenals; the IDF itself estimates that Hamas still has 3,000 rockets available.

The second aim was to destroy the infiltration tunnels, and here too the operation is flawed. As of 3 August the IDF had uncovered forty tunnels, invariably with multiple access-points, far more than anticipated. Moreover, Hamas strategists will have prepared for just this kind of IDF operation. Building tunnels deep underground and completely back-filling the entry-points would make them difficult if not impossible to detect; with knowledge of the approximate location of the incomplete tunnels, they can be found, opened up and completed after the withdrawal of IDF forces.

It is not commonly realised just how remarkable are the tunnelling abilities that have been acquired in Gaza. A single infiltration tunnel ran for 2.4 kilometres, was twenty metres below ground level and utilized 350 tons of concrete in the lining (see Shane Harris, “Extensive Hamas Tunnel Network Points to Israeli Intelligence Failure”, Foreign Policy, 3 August 2014).

The explanation for this capability is in part the huge experience of building access tunnels for commercial transit under the border with Egypt over recent years. A report on Al-Jazeera says that over 500 of these tunnels have been constructed to connect Gaza with Egypt, with 7,000 Gazans employed in their building. Even if the IDF had destroyed all the Hamas infiltration tunnels, which is highly unlikely, constructing more would not take long. It is the knowledge and the trained workforce that count here.

In addition, perhaps the least recognized aspect of Protective Edge has been the level of Israeli casualties, which has far exceeded initial fears. (The Palestinian losses - over 1,800 killed and 9,000 injured, more than 68% of them civilians - are of course much greater). A comparison with Cast Lead in 2008-09 is instructive. In that operation the IDF killed 1,440 Palestinians over twenty-three days, and lost nine soldiers in combat, as well as four in a friendly-fire incident. This time the IDF has so far lost sixty-four soldiers in twenty-eight days. Military censorship has allowed reporting of deaths but very little information on injuries, but an informed Israeli source puts these at over 400.

The Jewish population of Israel is about one-tenth of the population of the UK. This means that the proportional losses in twenty-eight days exceed the UK’s combined losses in six years' fighting in Iraq and twelve years in Afghanistan. In a revealing assessment, a retired United States army major-general, Robert H Scales, and a defense analyst, Douglas A Ollivant, put it this way:

“Gone are the loose and fleeting groups of fighters seen during Operation Cast Lead in 2008. In Gaza they have been fighting in well-organized, tightly bound teams under the authority of well-connected, well-informed commanders. Units stand and fight from building hideouts and tunnel entrances. They wait for the Israelis to pass them by before ambushing them from the rear” (see “Terrorist armies fight smarter and deadlier than ever”, Washington Post, 4 August 2014).

Extending their analysis to wider regional developments, including the Islamists in Iraq, they deliver a somewhat bombastic concluding paragraph that (given the source) is still worth quoting:

“What we see in Gaza, Syria and Iraq should serve as a cautionary tale for any Beltway guru calling for a return of U.S. forces to Iraq. U.S. soldiers and Marines are still the global gold standard, but their comparative advantage has diminished. As terrorist groups turn into armies, pairing their fanatical dedication with newly acquired tactical skills, renewed intervention might generate casualties on a new scale - as the Israelis have been painfully learning.”

On 4 August, the Israelis first offered a short ceasefire and have now agreed a three-day pause. This contrasts markedly with prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence - just a day earlier - on "completing the mission". Perhaps the sudden change stems from reports from Israeli ambassadors around the world, perhaps the Barack Obama administration finally exerted pressure. But perhaps it was the IDF commanders who had a much clearer vision than their political leaders and simply said they should declare victory and withdraw while they could.

Reprinted with permission from openDemocracy.

The Obama Era of Counterterrorism in the Sahel-Sahara — A New Century of 'Light Footprint' Warfare, Using Africa as its Laboratory

"Stack and Rack": US Marines watch as Senegalese commandos fire their weapons
during force engagement training in Thies, Senegal. Flickr/Marines. Some rights
reserved.

By Zoë Pelter and Richard Reeve
This week, Africa’s leaders have congregated in Washington, D.C. for the first US-Africa Leaders Summit, with talks on trade, investment and security aimed at establishing stronger ties between the US and countries across the continent. President Obama has been widely criticised for the late timing of this summit, 14 years after China started holding its regular Africa summits, and his failure to prioritise the continent earlier in his presidency. In the eyes of many commentators, this is Obama’s attempt to etch out a legacy in Africa.

But, as African leaders sit down to discuss peace and stability, the Obama administration need not fear a lack of a legacy. Indeed, as a recent report from Oxford Research Group and the Remote Control project shows, for all the talk of the US lacking engagement with Africa, military forces under the new US Africa Command (AFRICOM, a legacy of the late Bush administration) have been pursuing a quiet but sustained “pivot to Africa” under the Obama administration. In the wake of recurrent security crises in the region this decade, the remote Sahel-Sahara region of northwest Africa has become the laboratory for experiments that will define counter-terrorism operations in the 21st century.

The global "war on terror" has come to the Sahel, but not with the lengthy, embedded military campaigns we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, AFRICOM and its allies are testing an open-ended, “light-touch” approach, with few boots-on-the-ground and a reliance on special forces, drones and private military companies. This emphasis on covert and deniable operations makes it inherently difficult to gauge the full extent of the war in the Sahel-Sahara. It also raises many questions about its effectiveness in countering violent extremism and what the long-term impact will be on regional stability.

The quiet pivot to Africa

The evolving importance of the Sahel-Sahara in the counter-terrorism strategies of the US, France and other western states cannot be overstated. Following the 2011 Arab uprisings, NATO-assisted overthrow of Libya’s Gaddafi regime and 2012-13 Mali crisis, the Sahel-Sahara has become the “new frontier” in global counter-terrorism operations. With three main active jihadist groups–Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram and Ansar al-Shari’a–it has risen high in US priorities.

September 11 is the key date for US engagement in the Sahel-Sahara, but 2012 not 2001. This was the date that jihadist militants stormed US diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya, killing the US Ambassador and three other citizens. The result of Benghazi has been a battle over blame in the US Congress and a profound rethinking of crisis response capabilities in remoter, high threat parts of the world. Called the “New Normal”, the new US concept calls for heavily armed air-mobile Marines to be able to deploy anywhere within hours to respond to threats to US citizens and interests.

US Marines already operate out of bases in Spain, Italy and Djibouti but, since Africa is a vast continent with scores of “high risk” US facilities, more bases will be needed to support the “New Normal”. Recent visits by Marines in their MV-22 Osprey vertical landing aircraft to Senegal and Ghana were part of this base-scouting process.

The US is also likely to seek more facilities to operate its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) drones in the Sahel-Sahara, both to track terrorists and to support the “New Normal”. Its one drone base in Niamey, Niger can cover most of West Africa–and North Africa is covered by drones operating from Sicily–but there are gaps, notably around Senegal and Chad. Responding to the humanitarian outcry over Boko Haram’s kidnapping of schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, has already seen US drones deployed from Chad. A web of drone bases in and off the Horn of Africa already surrounds Somalia.

Covert operations

These are the kind of current and future operations that we can broadly expect to know about because their bases and impacts are highly visible. The “New Normal” has already been tested in embassy evacuations in South Sudan (December 2013) and Libya (late July). But there is much more happening beneath the radar. Covert operations using Special Operations Forces appear to be an increasing feature of the US approach in the Sahel-Sahara. Several hundred are believed to be present in the region on undisclosed “contingency operations”.

Increased ISR capabilities have also depended on use of private military and security contractors (PMSCs), who have run key elements of AFRICOM’s covert counter-terrorism operations in the region. Using unmarked, civilian-registered aircraft, they provide ISR operations, transport special operations forces, and provide medical evacuation and search and rescue capacities.

Partnerships and alliances

Finally, US influence on counter-terrorism in the region extends to training regional security forces under AFRICOM’s Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP) and is likely to be expanded significantly under the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, announced by Obama in May, and as more Special Operations Forces are released from duty in Afghanistan. The EU, Canada and a number of more controversial US allies like Israel, Colombia and Morocco are also increasingly involved in counter-terrorism training programmes in the Sahel.

But it is France–the old colonial power, Saharan gendarme or legionnaire–that has most at stake in the Sahel-Sahara and on which the US so-far depends. Last week, France formally redeployed its military forces under Opération Barkhane, which sees French land, air and special forces establish an indefinite regional presence at eight bases and several other forward operating locations across five or more Sahel states. US forces and aircraft have a presence at least three of these bases (Niamey, N’Djamena and Ouagadougou) and probably use several others for “contingencies”.

Barkhane and the recently renewed mandate of the UN Multidimensional Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) entrench the presence of over 9,000 external security forces in the Sahel-Sahara with mission and mandate to combat terrorist groups. Remarkably, Dutch special forces and intelligence agents are embedded in MINUSMA with responsibility to track jihadist groups. UN-mandated French forces have carte blanche to seek and destroy whomever they decide is a threat to security in Mali. Not surprisingly, AQIM and its allies rarely distinguish in their targets between France and the UN.

Repercussions

Just as there is little mention of this rapidly expanding presence, so too is there little discussion of the effectiveness of this new approach to counterterrorism and the impact it will have on stability, governance, and accountability in a fragile region.

The 2013 French and African intervention in Mali stopped the southwards advance of jihadist groups and returned control of much of the north to the Malian government. However, this displaced AQIM and its allies into Libya, Niger and possibly Nigeria, threatening wider regional stability. Moreover, the intervention has done little to address the political and social nature of Mali’s northern rebellion and French and African forces have limited ability to protect civilians against a terrorist rather than insurgent threat. The heightened visibility of US and French forces in the Sahel-Sahara and the strengthening of Islamist militia during the Libyan civil war have significantly increased the profile and activity of jihadist groups. As the foreign militarisation of the region continues, the motivation for retaliatory attacks is likely to increase.

While AFRICOM and Washington have established a regular military presence in all regional countries through its TSCTP, there is little recognition of the often toxic nature of these partnerships. The US has made sure this week not to be seen to engage with selected authoritarian African regimes, withholding invitations to Sudan’s ICC indicted Omar el Bashir, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Eritrea’s Somalia-meddling Isaias Afewerki. Yet, in a nod to similarly uncritical alliances of the Cold War era, its expanding military engagement across Africa has depended on relationships with similarly dubious governments. Djibouti, Uganda and Ethiopia, the increasingly undemocratic pillars of US campaigns against Somalia’s al-Qaida franchise, are the most blatant examples.

In the Sahel-Sahara, the US and, to a larger extent, France rely hugely on Chad’s authoritarian government for basing and combat support. Military-based governments in Algeria and Mauritania have also been able to normalise their international relations, including arms imports, as crucial partners in Saharan counter-terrorism operations. To be fair, the US is choosier than France where it locates its overt bases–Niger and, potentially, Senegal and Ghana are among the best ruled West African states–but its covert operations and military-to-military partnerships span every country in the region.

Perceived international protection may discourage some regional governments from seeking internal political settlements. The elected Malian government seems to have interpreted its post-2013 French and UN guarantees of security enforcement as reason not to pursue a peace process with northern separatists. Similarly, Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara has shown no urgency in seeking reconciliation with supporters of the former regime since French and UN troops helped him to power in 2011. Governance, human rights and non-military solutions to existing conflict are thus considerably undermined by the securitisation of policy in the Sahel-Sahara.

A lasting legacy

With all of this in mind, US outreach efforts at this week’s summit seem readily undermined by the lack of ability to monitor–and thus hold accountable–its military expansion across Africa. While President Obama has stated that partnership with Africa must be "grounded in mutual responsibility and mutual respect", his willingness to leave a legacy of low accountability and low-key military support for undemocratic regimes suggests that this responsibility and respect is not intended for the people of Africa.

Outside of the limits of this week’s summit, the trend towards covert or “plausibly deniable” counter-terrorism–PMSCs, drones, rapid reaction special forces–and barely restrained mandates to wage war is indicative of the real and increasing power over Africa policy exercised by Defense departments in both Washington and Paris. In turn, securitisation of approaches to the region will undermine non-military approaches to insecurity and conflict resolution, moving regional autocrats further from domestic accountability and buoying the extremist ideology it seeks to discredit. For all the west may seek to tread lightly, there is a large footprint in the sands of the Sahara–one which will not be erased any time soon.

Reprinted with permission from openDemocracy.