|
CounterPunch
September
6, 2002
War Talk in the Post Office
by Kurt Nimmo
"Should
we bomb Iraq?" the man asked.
We both stood in the Post Office annex.
I was there to buy stamps and mail the monthly bills. He seemed
to be doing some sort of mass mailing. The man appeared to be
about fifty, overweight, the tail of his shirt drooping over
work pants. He waited for me to respond.
These days, in America, it is prudent
to measure your words, be circumspect in your responses. Go
against the tide--especially in small town America where I live--and
there may be consequences. The crowd is less faceless here
than in New York or Los Angeles. Black marks are easier to come
by.
"I'm tired of war," I finally
responded.
He smiled, pawed envelopes with large
hands. "Well, that Arzez guy--Ariz, whatever his name is--how
arrogant can you get?" He was talking about the Iraqi Deputy
Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who had discussed the return of United
Nations arms inspectors earlier in the day. "I say we don't
give those guys anything. Who the hell do they think they are?
They should be happy we don't start bombing tomorrow."
In fact, I wanted to say, the bombing
has never ceased, but thought better of mentioning it to the
talkative stranger. We have bombed consistently and savagely
within two large areas north and south known as no-fly zones--comprising
the greater part of Iraq--since Security Council Resolution
688 was put into place on 5 April 1991. The no-fly zones were
not authorized by the United Nations. Only the US and Britain
believe they should be used to bomb the Iraqis at will--and
without much provocation. The French have complained. They say
there is no basis within international law for such rampant
bombing. Of course, that hardly matters. We don't listen to
the French and we certainly don't listen to the UN--unless,
of course, it suits our purpose. In fact, we don't even think
we should pay our dues to the international organization.
Sick and tired of war. Yet large numbers
of Americans believed--up until that fateful moment almost a
year ago--we were at peace with our neighbors. So few Americans
know the truth--our government has waged unrelenting war for
over fifty years. When this truth is mentioned--we are not a
good neighbor, our government has engaged in adventurism and
intervention far and wide (in Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Chile,
the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Guatemala--and that's simply the
Americas and Caribbean)--public response is defensive, incredulous,
occasionally violent. Colonial tutelage, hegemony, imperialism,
transnational elite--these are difficult words incapable of
entering the common dialect, words you will never hear Dan Rather
speak, concepts unutterable by the likes of CNN, NBC, Fox, CBS,
et al.
As Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
point out in Manufacturing Consent (1988) corporate media is
a market system reflecting the class values and concerns of
owners and advertisers--in other words, media as the propaganda
organ of the corporate and ruling elite. Ramsey Clark: "The
media is owned by the same interests that profit from exploitation
of foreign people and weapons sales." This needs to be
kept in mind as political talking heads on the Fox News channel
begin "debating" what should be done about Iraq. The
next time you hear Cheney and Rumsfeld talk about what needs
to be done in Iraq think Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop-Gruman,
TRW, and, of course, the Carlyle Group where Dubya's daddy works.
I cannot in all fairness condemn the
stranger in the Post Office for his ill-informed opinions and
suspicions. Corporate media, in the words of Paul Street, "possess
awesome, structurally encoded power to shape popular perceptions
of current events." Since 911, this power has kicked into
overdrive, has worked tirelessly to build the necessary public
consensus for war and mass murder. "All propaganda,"
observed Terry Eagleton, "involves a putting of the complex
into the simple." It strives to elicit a visceral rather
than intellectual response. Who can resist the imagery? The
dead Kurdish mother with baby clutched in her arms, gassed by
the Butcher of Baghdad. How long before this madman develops
the capacity to do the same to you and your children? Shall
we sit idly by and wait for him to pass this terrible technology
on to al--Qaeda? War, not diplomacy or even arms inspectors,
is the only conceivable answer because, as vice president Dick
Cheney has characterized it, "the risks of inaction are
far greater than the risk of action." War is the answer.
Give war a chance.
In the coming weeks, Iraq will be dutifully
characterized as a Medusa sprouting snake-haired Scuds freighted
with biological, chemical, and nuclear horrors. Saddam, according
to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has "not been playing
tiddlywinks" all these years. A few weeks back, Rumsfeld
said Saddam has constructed underground bunkers and mobile
labs for his nefarious WMD scientists and engineers. And yet
the Secretary does not offer a shred of corroborative evidence.
His assertions are to be accepted prima facie. British Prime
Minister Tony Blair promises soon to make public a secret dossier
of evidence against the Iraqi dictator. This dossier--according
to Bronwen Maddox, foreign editor of The Times newspaper--is
likely devoid of any substantial evidence. In fact, there is
not a shred of evidence to indicate Iraq has nuclear weapons--unlike
India and Pakistan, those two implacable enemies who nearly
settled their long-standing differences a while back with thermonuclear
weapons. Nonetheless, in the weeks ahead, more flimsy and unsubstantiated
"evidence" will be manufactured. Iraq will be demonized,
ad nauseam, as Dubya and Crew prepares for a war that is already
a foregone conclusion.
I said nothing more to the stranger in
the Post Office. It is best to be circumspect. He was a talkative
sort--and soon changed the subject as we both went about affixing
stamps to envelopes. No more talk of war. Instead he mentioned
some actress, one I have never heard of and may never hear
mention of again. Lottery. Weather. In the two minutes we stood
together in the Post Office he changed the subject four or five
times. He didn't bring up the war again--the war that has yet
to start.
But has been with us for decades.
Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer
in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
Today's Features
Jeffrey St. Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- War Talk As White Noise:
Anything to Get Harken and Halliburton
Out of the Headlines;
- First Hilliard, Then
McKinney: Jewish
Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the
Middle East; Intimidation
is the Name of the Game; Smearing
"Insane" McKinney As Muslims' Pawn;
- The Missing Terrorist?
Calling Scotland
Yard: "Where's Atif?"
- They Never Booed Dylan!:
Tape Transcript Shows
Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter
Yarrow!
- New Shame from the Liffey
Shrike
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
September
3, 2002
Nabil Amro
Leadership
& Legitimacy:
An Open Letter to Arafat
Robert Fisk
A Forgotten
Holocaust:
The British in Palestine
Uri Avnery
The Return
of the Dinosaurs
September
2, 2002
Francis Boyle
Flashback:
US War Crimes During the Gulf War
Lou Cohan
Confessions
of a Downloader
Philip Farruggio
Labor
Day Antidote to Apathy
William Blum
Cuban Political
Prisoners
in the US
September
1, 2002
Dave Marsh
No Surrender:
Springsteen's The Rising
August 31,
2002
Gavin Keeney
Return to the
Charterhouse of Parma
David Vest
Porkland:
Confronting Republicans & Police in Portland
Ralph Nader
The Highway
Lobby
M. Shahid
Alam
CNN Reporting
(poem)
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Subjugation Strategy
Dr. Susan
Block
The Gangbang
Asthete
The Sexual Life
of Catherine M.
Kurt Nimmo
Clueless
at the State Dept.
August 30,
2002
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Hitchens, Kissinger, Springsteen, Haggard & Elvis
August 29,
2002
Chris Floyd
The Secret
Sharers:
The CIA and the Murder of Frank Olson
August 28,
2002
William Ring
War on Iraq:
The Brightest Scenario
August 27,
2002
Sam Bahour
The Violence
of Curfew
Wenonah Hauter
From Johannesburg:
Pacts with the Devil: Public-Private Partnerships and the Global
Environment
Jerre Skog
Wanted:
"Our Kind of Guy"
in Iraq!
Uri Avnery
Letter
to a Pilot
August 26,
2002
Sami Al-Arian
Fighting
for the Right of
Dissent and Due Process
Ruebner /
Turaani
What
is Israel Hiding?
Norman Madarasz
Brazil
and the IMF:
Democracy and Emerging Market Liberalism
Robert Fisk
War Crimes:
Reporters Aren't Prosecutors
Douglas Valentine
Phoenix,
CIA and Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor: From Vietnam
to Homeland Security
August 24
/ 25, 2002
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Of Clogs and Enron
Falk / Krieger
No War
Against Iraq
Ceylon Mooney
Fasting
for Iraq
Jonathon
Wright
Police
Brutality in Atlanta
Ralph Nader
Congress's
Pay Raise Scam
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Chainsaw
George
Alexander
Cockburn
Alterman
Cheapens Holocaust
August 23,
2002
Dave Marsh
Selling
Out?
Anthony Gancarski
Super-Duper:
Oil, al-Qaeda and a West African Adventure
William Hughes
Lieberman's
Conflict
of Interest?
Kurt Nimmo
The Lapdog
Conversion of CNN:
They Didn't Want to "Criticize" a Popular War
Sean Donahue
Hardline
in Colombia
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|