Support 'our' troops: You give your blood, we take the oil

By Gabriele Zamparini

Summary:

- New Orleans: "If you ain't got no money in America, you're on your own."
- Support 'our' troops: You give your blood, we take the oil
- The Oil-for-Food program, the UN sanctions and the New York Times


New Orleans: "If you ain't got no money in America, you're on your own."

A few days ago the hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the coast around that city. Thousands of people were left to die, alone and with no help. The majority of these lives could have been saved. As Michael Parenti wrote

"When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island [Cuba] last year, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.3 million people, more than 10 percent of the country's population, with not a single life lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press." (1)

But in New Orleans the majority of these people were poor and black. Does it make any difference? Of course it does, as Ms. Barbara Bush tells us:

"And so many of the people in the arena here were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them. What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality." (2)

Many people have written about the causes of this terrible tragedy, from the global warming to the grotesque injustice that allows, in the United States alone, 37 million people living in poverty and 45 million without health insurance. (3) And once the tragedy happened, the shameful response from a government that doesn't care for its own people. Katrina has been more powerful than the many balloons that every day scream lies on TV and from the pages of newspapers; under the mask, we could see what the corporate media are so good to hide: a country raped by its own elites and their religion, the 'free' market, which is summarized perfectly well by Malik Rahim:

"If you ain't got no money in America, you're on your own." (4)

Now Mr. Bush appointed himself (please, don't laugh!) to lead the investigation:

"I'll lead an investigation of what went right and what went wrong" (5)

A thought for the US men and women in uniform fighting in Iraq: Are you sure to be fighting the right enemy in the right place?

Support 'our' troops: You give your blood, we take the oil

Now, you are in Iraq, fighting for them. For "them", you know, not for your own country. For that 1% who owns your country (and much more!) and see you as "economic cannon fodder". You're giving your lives for those responsible at home to let your people down. You are giving your lives to make the fat cats even fatter. Where do you think their children are? Do you think their children are among you, in Iraq? Don't be silly. They live in comfortable houses, sleep in soft beds, have good jobs and stay away from the battlefield. They are too busy to count the money that you, with your blood, are making them make. You give your blood, they take the oil. It's that simple, man!

If you are so lucky to get back home alive, do you think "they" will be grateful for what you're doing now in Iraq? Here is what David Cline, a pluri-decorated Vietnam veteran and now president of Veterans for Peace told me:

"If they tell you to go, there is something you should know: They wave the flag when you attack. When you come home, they turn their back."(6)

Just take a look at the statistics to know how many veterans are in prison or live in the streets as homeless. And then those who died for military contamination, such as the Agent Orange in Vietnam and now the Depleted Uranium in Iraq!

What you are doing in Iraq is not heroic. There is nothing heroic in murdering innocent civilians. More than 100,000 civilians have been murdered since this madness started. Probably twice as many. And then the tortures and the massive human rights abuses. How do you feel about that? How big 'your' flag should be to cover the shame of killing innocent people?

Those who sent you there made you war criminals, not heroes. They destroyed your lives and the lives of those Iraqi guilty only to be born in a country rich of oil. Those who sent you to Iraq are your enemy, not those Iraqi you keep murdering every day and nothing have done to you or to your country.

You are a foreign occupation army and you are occupying Iraq against International law, against the will of the Iraqi people and against any moral or religious principle. Your governments lied to you and to the world about the reasons you were shipped there for. You governments made you war criminals. Your occupation is criminal, no much different from the Nazi occupation of much of Europe sixty years ago.

The only moral thing you can do at this point, the only act of real courage and real justice you can do is mutiny, desertion, disobey the orders and refuse to keep fighting an immoral and unjust war. Refuse to kill innocent lives. That's not only an option, it's a moral and lawful obligation, recognized by International law and certainly by your own conscience.

Be real heroes: Stop killing innocent people. Come back home now! Your family needs you. Your children need you. They need you alive, not a medal and a photo in uniform to look at on Memorial day.


The Oil-for-Food program, the UN sanctions and the New York Times

From The New York Times Editorial, September 8, 2005:

"The Volcker panel has performed a valuable service - and underlined the need for bold reforms - by documenting how these conflicting forces let Saddam Hussein game the system." (7)

From The New York Times Editorial, October 14, 2004

"everyone needs to remember that on the most critical count, sanctions worked."(8)

Let's see what the "system" was and what "everyone needs to remember":

"The very provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration of Human Rights are being set aside. We are waging a war, through the United Nations, on the children and people of Iraq, and with incredible results: results that you do not expect to see in a war under the Geneva Conventions. We're targeting civilians. (...) I had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide" (Denis Halliday) (9)

Notes

(1) "How the Free Market Killed New Orleans" By Michael Parenti, ZNet, September 3, 2005

(2) "Bush launches inquiry and puts himself in charge of it" By Rupert Cornwell in Washington, The Independent, September 7, 2005

(3) "Poverty Rate Rises to 12.7 Percent" The Associated Press, August 31, 2005

(4) "This is criminal" by Malik Rahim from New Orleans, San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper, September 1, 2005

(5) "Bush launches inquiry and puts himself in charge of it" By Rupert Cornwell in Washington, The Independent, September 7, 2005

(6) From the documentary "XXI CENTURY" and now the new book "American Voices of Dissent" (Paradigm Publishers)

(7) "The Oil-for-Food Failures", The New York Times Editorial, September 8, 2005

(8) The New York Times Editorial, October 14, 2004

(9) Denis Halliday resigned in 1998 after thirty-four years with the United Nations in protest against the effects of the embargo on the civilian population. He was then Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN's Co-ordinator of Humanitarian Relief to Iraq. "The New Rulers of the World" by John Pilger (Verso)


Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer living in London. He's the producer and director of the documentary series "XXI CENTURY" and author of "American Voices of Dissent" (Paradigm Publishers).