LiedAbout Wars
“Advertising campaigns, marketing schemes. The target is public opinion. Wars are sold the same way cars are, by lying.In August 1964, President Lyndon Johnson accused the Vietnamese of attacking two U.S. warships in the Tonkin Gulf.Then the president invaded Vietnam, sending planes and troops. He was acclaimed by journalists and by politicians, and his popularity sky-rocketed. The Democrats in power and the Republicans out of power became a single party United against Communist aggression.After the war had slaughtered Vietnamese in vast numbers, most of them women and children, Johnson’s secretary of defence, Robert McNamara, confessed that the Tonkin Gulf attack had never occurred.The dead did not revive.
In March 2003, President George W. Bush accused Iraq of being on the verge of destroying the world with its weapons of mass destruction, “the most lethal weapons ever devised.” Then the president invaded Iraq, sending planes and troops. He was acclaimed by journalists and by politicians, and his popularity sky-rocketed. The Republicans in power and the Democrats out of power became a single party United Against terrorist aggression.
After the war had slaughtered Iraqis in vast numbers, most of them women and children, Bush confessed that the weapons of mass destruction never existed. “The most lethal weapons ever devised” were his own speeches.In the following election, he won a second term. In my childhood, my mother used to tell me that a lie has no feet. She was misinformed.”
I begin this article with a quotation from famous Latin American author, Eduardo Galeano’s “Mirrors: The Story of Almost Everyone” as we find that a similar attempt is being made to sound the beat the war drum again. And like earlier occasions, this time also the U.S.A. is at the centre of this endeavour. In response to a question at the German Marshall Fund’s Virtual Brussels Forum 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeosaid:“The U.S. is reviewing its global deployment of forces to ensure it is postured appropriately to counter the People’s Liberation Army, given the increasing threat posed by China to Asian countries like India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.We’re going to make sure we’re postured appropriately to counter the P.L.A. We think that the challenge of our times, and we’re going to make sure we have resources in place to do that.”. He further said: “It has been a long time since there has been a strategic review of our force posture all across the world. The U.S. undertook that starting about 2.5 years ago, whether that was our forces in Africa, our forces in Asia, the force we have in the Middle East and in Europe.” In other words, the U.S. stands as a saviour to save other Asian countries from Chinese aggression. It is a lot like the‘Mexican cartel’. In Mexico, drug mafias come together for the benefit of the business and make one of them the chief. The person elected as the leader is one who has a connection at the political and administrative levelsand has the financial strength and brute power. But this is the system of the criminal underworld. Is a ‘cartel’ system acceptable in world politics and democratic policies? You or I may believe in it or not, but such a ‘cartel’ system has been formed in the world by some so-called democratic, developed countries through their shameless flattery of the U.S. power. The U.S. administration is the leader of the cartel. The U.S. administration and its allies were involved in 98 percent of all military coups in the world since World War II. War is their business, and their religion is to make and sell lethal weapons. According to the latest data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2018, top 100 companies manufacturing weapons in the world sold deadly weapons and military services worth around Rs30 lakh crores (approximately USD 420 billion). This list does not include the number of weapons sold by China. Eleven of the world’s 20 largest arms manufacturers are in the United States. Of the remaining nine, two are in France, two in Britain, one in Italy and one is spread across different countries in Europe, and the rest three are from Russia. The top five spots in the ranking are held exclusively by arms companies based in the United States. Naturally, for the prosperity of its country, the United States must ensure war elsewhere in the world.
While talks between the two countries are seen as a means of securing a peaceful solution to the Indo-China conflict, the U.S. Secretary of State says the U.S. military presence in Asia will be revamped. Numerous examples of how the U.S. administration intervenes or the presence of its military destroys a country’s social life have been recorded in modern history. The twentieth century began with the genocide by the U.S. military in the Philippines. In 1899, the then U.S. President William McKinley sent troops to the Philippines to educate, convert them into Christianity and “civilise” the people of the Philippines. That army brutally killed about 1.4 million Filipinos. Some historians and researchers have estimated this number to exceed 3 million. Galeanohas mentionedabout two historical wars fought for no reason. It is with the mentality that communists must be taught that U.S. President Lyndon Johnson had sent bombers and troops to Vietnam on 8th March, 1965. More than two million people in Vietnam were killed in that eight-year war. In that most embarrassing war in American history, 58,000 US soldiers had lost their lives. For decades, the United States has carried out one massacre after another in many countries, but still, it is not a terrorist country. When the president of the United States pats on the back of our Prime Minister, we are overjoyed. On the other side, the small country of Cuba, which has refused to accept U.S. hegemony, has been pushed to death by the U.S.A. through the imposition of an economic blockade. But still, we have to proclaim that America is the guardian of democracy. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) has been instrumental in carrying out military coups, assassinations of elected heads of states in secret attacks to bring the ruler of their choice to power in Latin American countries. Yet the U.S. administration is not undemocratic! At the beginning of this century, the world again had witnessed U.S. aggression and resulting genocide. In retaliation for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001, the U.S. created a new horror called ‘War on Terror’. U.S.A.was accompanied in this mission by the military cartel called NATO. The actual objective of the “War on Terror” was to take possession of control of the oil empire of the Arab World. Though Iraq and Libya had nothing to do with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, these two countries were devastated due to U.S. missile strikes and bombings.The Lancet, an international medical science journal of repute, has determined the death toll in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq after an extensive investigation. According to the investigative report published on 11th October 2006, 6 lakh 54 thousand 975 people have been killed between 20th March 2003, the first of U.S. aggression, and 30th June 2006. In the name of establishing democracy in Libya, 19 countries led by the U.S. have attacked Libya for over eight months. Attacks have stopped only after the assassination of the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.
Even after all these attacks on humanity, the White House, stained with the blood of millions of people around the world, will raise its voice against human rights abuses in China, send troops to protect Asian countries from Chinese aggression. Such a move will mark the latest example of the hypocrisy of the rulers of the U.S.A. Irrespective of the fact that whether the Republican or the Democratic Party candidate enters the White House after being electedas the president, the U.S.A. will never stop wars or discontinue its habit of intervening in domestic political affairs of other countries. America can never extend a hand of friendship in the fight for the establishment of genuine democracy or the struggle for the real independence and sovereignty of any country. It has been proved time and time again in modern history. We must be cautious as the warlords have begun training to fish in the muddy waters of the Indo-China conflict. There may be doubts about getting a visa to go for work in the United States, but there is no doubt about getting weapons from there. We should also remember that the United States, in the guise of democracy, is a country that was built on the soil soaked with the blood of thousands and millions of indigenous peoples. So it is hightime for us to decide whether we will rejoice at the war cry of the U.S.A. as they reorganise their military presence in Asia or we will resist their strategy of creating war frenzy!!
Asish Gupta is a senior journalist
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