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AMERICA’S MOST POWERFUL WEAPON

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 9 March 2005
15 comments

Edito Discriminations-Minorit. USA

Forget nukes. Forget laser-guided missiles. Forget cluster bombs. The most powerful weapon in the U.S. arsenal is xenophobia. This ugly trait is possessed by the majority of U.S. citizens and is widely practiced.

You may ask how a thought process could be more devastating than the hardware the U.S. has used in killing foreigners in genocidal proportions. Xenophobia allows the U.S. government to venture into foreign realms for the purpose of annihilating the people without question by the public. And, if that’s not bad enough, xenophobia triggers the public to cheer while the slaughter is occurring.

Many non-U.S. citizens have no idea of this aspect of the U.S. citizenry. When they denigrate the U.S. government, they fail to realize that the actions are supported by a majority.

At one time, people of dark skin or of non-Christian religions were the prime targets. In the past few years, the list has been vastly increased to include almost anybody who does not live in the geographical U.S., and those inside who do not agree with the status quo.

This morning’s Opinion page of the San Diego Union-Tribune included letters that typify the attitudes now current in the U.S. toward foreigners. An astute psychiatrist could write volumes on these letters that included about 1,500 words in totality.

On writing about the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlawing the death penalty for minors, Bob Wood wrote: "I suggest that each minor convicted of a capital crime be sent to a European country and barred from re-entering the U.S. Both countries would be culturally enriched and we?ll save a fortune on prison costs."

Europe, in general, is a bastion of horrible things in the writer’s mind. I doubt he has ever been outside his own state, let alone to a country other than the U.S.

On the same issue, Paul Determan wrote: "We are left with a judiciary that fawns on and is inspired by the opinions of its morally decayed intellectual cousins in Europe. God save us from "enlightened" intellectuals who won’t be satisfied until the U.S. declines to the same level as France and Germany."

Again, Europe is the bad guy. I differ on his use of words. In referencing France and Germany in a cultural manner, I would use the word "ascends" instead of declines.

Here’s a take on the Dutch emigrating from their country in large numbers. Richard Ayers stated: "Almost anything goes in Holland - drugs, crazy sex and deviant behavior are all OK. Those people are going to Canada, New Zealand and Australia, not to the U.S. Bottom line, move to another country that is liberal and socialist like Holland."

This same writer probably would praise Australia for joining in with the slaughter of Iraqis. I find it problematic that he considers Australia to be a "socialist" country. Tell that one to the Aussie opposition in the country’s parliament and it would be met with guffaws.

On the tight security currently in place and the targeting of Muslims in the U.S., Sean Hixson says: "I don’t feel all Muslims are terrorists, yet the case can be made that non-Muslims, whites, blacks, Latinos, etc. are not as inclined to be terrorist threats."

Now that was nice of him to concede that not ALL Muslims are terrorists. However, his facts differ considerably from reality. Each year in the U.S., hundreds of terrorist incidents occur, such as the bombing of churches, office buildings and houses. In addition, kids in schools and adults in the work place have been violently killed in random terrorist acts. The overwhelming majority have been committed by white U.S. citizens.

Last week, a mass murderer was apprehended in the U.S. Midwest. Authorities had been seeking him for years. Currently, about a dozen murders have been attributed to him, with the possibility of many more. He is white, has a family and was an assistant pastor of a Lutheran church as well as a Boy Scout leader. I have not yet heard of an outcry from the public to scrutinize all Lutherans or Boy Scout officials. If he were a Muslim, we would be undergoing a witch hunt that would make that of Salem pale in comparison.

The U.S. government has performed a masterful job in creating an atmosphere of distrust and paranoia. Officials know this fully well and use the xenophobia to their benefits.

Now, we come to Iraqis. They are considered cannon fodder because they are not exactly human like most white flag-waving U.S. citizens. They do not have feelings nor do they have families or morals.

For 42 consecutive nights in 1991 I visited my local produce store that was owned by Tony, an Iraqi-American. On each of these nights, Iraq was heavily bombarded by every imaginable kind of projectile in the U.S. arsenal. I listened to and talked to anyone who would reciprocate - Iraqis, Jordanians, Syrians, Iranians, Egyptians, etc. This period enhanced my scant knowledge of Arab culture immensely.

One evening, when I entered, Tony was sitting in a chair and had an appearance of sadness on his face. I asked what happened and he answered, "Somebody just came in my store, called me a "camel jockey" and ran out. I’d never seen a camel in my life until I went to the San Diego Zoo." He then told me that there were few camels in Iraq and most were in the bleak desert areas. Most people from Baghdad had never seen a camel. Shortly after, a customer walked in and I asked, "Are you Iraqi?" He nodded in an affirmative manner. Then, I queried, "Have you ever seen a camel?" He quickly stated, "Yeah. On TV once."

The above incidents show American xenophobia at its worst. Many U.S. citizens refer to Arabs as "camel jockeys" or "sand niggers." Then, they include Iranians in the same mold. When confronted with the facts, some unflattering remarks ensue. I have told many people that Iranians are of Persian stock and Iraqis mostly are Arab. A common response is, "You know what I mean. Eye-rain-ians (Iranians), Eye-rackis (Iraqis) ... they’re all fucking A-rabs. They’re all the same."

I live in an area with over 40,000 people of Arab descent (mostly Iraqi with major contingents of Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians) and the hatred toward them is very evident. Because I am of the Caucasian race, white people occasionally tell me of their distrust and hatred toward Arabs. When I tell them that they are bigots, they usually deny this fact. When I enter a conversation like this, I quickly terminate it.

Make no mistake. Arabs in San Diego County have had their businesses blown up, ravaged, vandalized and shut down. It is no wonder that Iraqis are being treated with disrespect in their own country by U.S. officials and servicepeople when, for years, they observed the anti-Arab sentiments at home.

There are many terms used to demonize Arabs - thieves, dishonest, dirty, unreliable, etc. However, not one has any real merit. They are no more dishonest or unreliable than any of their American counterparts.

Neil Clark of The Guardian newspaper in Britain wrote an outstanding article (The Return of Arabophobia) that was published on October 20, 2003. His insight is formidable. Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

– Arabophobia has been part of western culture since the Crusades, with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden only the latest in a long line of Arab bogeymen. For centuries, the Arab has played the role of villain, seducer of our women, hustler and thief - the barbarian lurking at the gates of civilization. In the 20th century, new images emerged: the fanatical terrorist, the stone-thrower, the suicide bomber ?

– The British and American officers who now talk of Iraqi "dishonesty," and seek to portray Iraq as a backward and savage land, would rather we forget that up until the imposition of sanctions by Britain and the U.S., independent Ba’athist Iraq, although a dictatorship, had the most developed infrastructure, the best healthcare and the best universities of any country in the Middle East.

Clark’s astute assessment of Arabophobia makes the point of why the U.S. has killed, tortured, and humiliated about three million Iraqis since 1991. Now, the stakes have risen. The current craze of xenophobia in the U.S. will allow the government to go after any concocted adversary in the future, regardless of race or religion, except Israel, of course.

www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html

Forum posts

  • And then there is that other co-habitating weapon, nationalism (right out of Hilter’s handbook). Have you ever read Rumi, do you have any idea how much these hated Arabs love God?

  • I have witnessed what you speak of so many times. Americans are frightened of the unknown, so cast a evil shadow on it. I often wonder if this fear of the outside isn’t fostered in someway by our government.

    As benign as the UK is perceived, my mother was the only one brave enough to visit me (she has seen most of the world now) when I lived there. My siblings and dad had this image of Jack the Ripper, bad plumbing, bad food, backwards everything. That is how it was potrayed in the 80s and 90s in "our" media. The fact of the matter is I had at that time more techinology than what I knew to do with and it was common place, the best food I had ever eaten all over the UK, never one clogged tiolet, I had a hands free cell phone with gps in 91, I never wrote cheques, that’s what debit cards are for, grocery shopped on the internet, etc. Hollywood makes and promotes stereotypes for a reason, they need to create a "enemy" to sale tickets. So they pick on groups who aren’t going to bleep them to death with boycotts.

    I have to say since I am a dual national and have traveled in countries which are now considered "risky" (the middle east and China) I am checked extra hard for many things (I am blonde and blue eyes) and have even been "held" and questioned over my activities.

    The only time I have ever dealt with crime (I’ve beeen all over Russia, Spain, Chile, Dubai, most major cities in the world, etc) is in KY, when a white guy pulled a gun on me and slit someone elses throat. The only crime my mother has ever endured (bless her heart) is when she was taken hostage at a big grocery store in KY in a "wealthy" part of suburbia. The true enemy of America, is within.

    Suburbia is crime ridden, Americans need to open their eyes to reality and the true enemy. The only place I am ever frightened is walking in suburbia.

  • This article is—and I’ll try to be as polite as possible—simplistic tripe. America is xenophobic? Compared to what, Europe? Try telling that to Arab immigrants who get herded into the high-rise slums that ring Paris, or to the Jews who are leaving Europe (again) in droves for places where their synagogues won’t get burned down. By way of contrast, on a daily basis, I’m watching the American southeast go through the remarkable process of absorbing millions of Latino immigrants, and considering how horrible human nature is, I’m amazed at how well it’s going.

    After the Marshall Plan, 40 years of pledging New York and Washington as collateral for Bonn, and America’s immediate and unconditional support for German reunification, how did Germany respond to 9-11? By cutting it’s already paltry military every year since. “Actions speak louder than words” is a popular saying in America. Candlelight vigils for the dead are truly touching (I mean that sincerely—it looks ironic and snide in print, unfortunately), but dropping smart bombs on the sons of bitches who pulled off the massacres is a more tangible way of showing you care.

    Remember when Germany’s justice minister compared the American president to Adolf Hitler. I can’t imagine Attorneys General Reno OR Ashcroft comparing Joschke Fischer to Hitler, and at least Fischer has a personal history of political violence. But really, comparing the leader of any liberal democracy to Hitler or Mao or Stalin simply displays ignorance. It also cheapens the deaths of millions.

    Yeah, it’s time to end the occupation . . . of Europe. Really. Let Europe solve its own problems the next time a Slobodon Milosevic continues Europe’s historical pattern of genocide. The US should send food, medicine, weapons, spare parts, clothing, whatever, but let’s see if Europe can stop European genocide itself.

    As for crime, the only place I’ve seen criminals beat people up personally was in England, where I spent a year. That’s also the only place anyone’s ever broken into my home. I also spent a year in Mexico City, a wonderful place with horrible crime. My next-door neighbor was murdered at an ATM.

    I love Mexico and Europe. Europe has a lot to be proud of, and a lot of potential. But Europe’s got to wake up and stop thinking history is over. Hard power compliments soft power. And if it’s not needed, it’s still useful. Ask the thousands saved after the Tsunami by the military might of America and Australia. France sent one (1) helicopter. Germany and Canada sent . . . nothing. They’ll write a check after the US and Australia saved all who could be saved.

    More importantly, Europe has to get over its obsession with hating America. As one pundit recently pointed out, when a Michael Moore book makes a bigger splash in Germany than real democracy developing in the Ukraine, something is really, really wrong with Europe’s view of the world.

    Wake up, Europe. History is not over. You are needed in the struggle for human liberty and human dignity. For the sake of the Maquis, for the sake of those who rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto, for the sake of all freedom-loving people, get in the game.

    • Not bad, but not good enough. Your still watching too much corp. tv. You can tell.

      "but dropping smart bombs on the sons of bitches who pulled off the massacres is a more tangible way of showing you care."

      It’s just that Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 9/11, and al qaeda was created by the CIA, and you sound like most fascists do, but don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.

      "Remember when Germany?s justice minister compared the American president to Adolf Hitler."

      Guess who said this: [my emphasis]

      But it remained for the Jews[terrorists], with their unqualified capacity for falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists[liberals] ... By placing responsibility for the loss of the world war[wtc] on the shoulders of Ludendorff[bush] they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland[homeland] to Justice. All this was inspired by the principle? which is quite true in itself ? that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. - Adolph Hitler Mein Kampf Chapter 10

      I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards, whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters but victory. Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally, eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The strongest man is right. Adolph Hitler

      Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. Adolph Hitler

      Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live. Adolph Hitler

      What luck for the rulers that men do not think. Adolph Hitler

      "One cannot rule by force alone...it is equally important to have this psychological something...They must be convinced that we are the victors." Adolph Hitler

      No amount of genius spent on the creation of propaganda will lead to success if a fundamental principle is not forever kept in mind. Propaganda must confine itself to very few points, and repeat them endlessly. Here, as with so many things in this world, persistence is the first and foremost condition of success. Adolph Hitler

      9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, osama who, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, bomb iraq, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11,

      Wake up dude and just admit you got duped by the corp. media, and now your pissed like the rest of us, that is unless your a fascist. Then at least have the B*lls to admit.

      Argue with this.
      http://www.bushflash.com/14.html

      I expect a 14 point rebuttal.

    • Hey name-caller,

      Anybody who confuses liberal democracy with fascism usually isn’t worth debating, but I’ll fight the windmill anyway. “Dude.”

      If I’m not mistaken, this web site is Communist, so it figures that most people who hang out here think everyone who’s not a Communist is a Fascist. This misses the obvious truth that Communism and Fascism are opposite sides of the same coin, in that both are competing forms of totalitarianism based upon collectivism. Communists criticizing Fascists is sort of like K-Mart criticizing Wal-Mart. Ask the Poles.

      What on earth do you mean by “corporate news”? CNN? BBC? The Guardian? Fox News? PBS? NPR? The Australian? Deutsche-Welle? Expatica.com? El Pais? Jane’s? Drudge? Le Monde? Yeah, I get my info from all of those sources and a lot more. Where do you get yours?

      “The CIA created Al Qaeda.” Really? That’s a popular coffee shop conspiracy theory, but I’ve never heard anybody explain it. Is there any evidence to back it up, other than that a fairly insignificant rich son of a crony-capitalism construction magnate (OBL) and a few CIA agents were in the same country (Afghanistan) at the same time during the 1980’s? That’s the closest thing to a connection I’ve ever heard of. Any other evidence that you’re aware of?

      I don’t care if you expect a 14-point reply or not. I’ve got work to do.

      You have a lot of handy Hitler quotes. The one about faith is the most interesting, especially since the SS incorporated a lot of the occult into its rituals and ideology before removing all of the crucifixes from Catholic parishes in occupied France. And murdering not a few priests, by the way. I don’t think any serious historian would argue that Hitler was a religious man. Yes, historically, the religious have killed a lot of people, but those numbers pale compared to what the godless did in the past century. People are flawed, and Christianity has certainly cleaned up its act in the 20th C.

      People who compare Bush to Hitler are intellectually lazy. They say “Look! Bush gets photographed with children! Bush gives speeches! Hitler did those things, too!” Right, and so did Churchill (the real one), FDR, Tojo, Stalin, JFK, Pope JP2, MLK, Mao, Fidel, and the mayor of my hometown. I guess they’re all the same, huh?

      Amigo, you’re not engaging in debate. You simply attack what I say because you “can tell” that I watch “corporate news” ergo I’m a “fascist.” Then you wrap up with an ultimatum: either I’m supposed to agree with whatever it is you believe (still not sure what that is) or I have to accept that I’m a “fascist.” I decline both offers. I’m a free man. I live in a free country. I want others to enjoy basic liberties, too, even people like you who deny and slander the liberty and prosperity they enjoy. (How many North Koreans will participate in a web site debate this year?)

      Since you seem to have everything all figured out, let me ask you this: how do YOU think the free world should have responded to 9-11? And I’m asking specifically about actions here, not a bunch of gobbledy-gook about increasing global understanding and promoting abstract concepts like peace and justice.

      You have the floor.

      – Mike

      PS – the link you posted wouldn’t load in. It sounds like a link to Dubya doing a strip-tease, which I’d rather not see anyway.

    • The great thing about waving a flag, Mike, is that it covers the eyes and blocks out all of those disagreeable things that, if seen, would cause terrible discomfort. Just have a look at the photo of your peer holding the sign. Who is the "morAn?" Your country has been taken over by organized crime, big time, which is now waging aggressive war in a bid, that will ultimately fail, for world domination. Did Saddam have WMDs? No. Was he in league with al-Qaeda? No. So, what was the real reason for invading Iraq? Your support for the War on Terror is really silent acquiescence for the Arbusto Junta’s War OF Terror. You agree with the government because you are afraid to disagree with it. I could easliy profile you - how many generations from an immigrant background are you, anyway, one, two? - but that would only further irritate your already highly emotional nature. "Hey, I don’t have to think if I don’t want to. It’s a free country, ain’t it?" I see you Mike. You hide your fear and sense of second class citizen status behind your hyper patriotism. Three cheers for you, Mike. You have been accepted, but will or have already only achieved middling success despite your undying obedience to authority.

    • Hey, Mike, you actually sounded like a nearly rational person until you said that this site (bellaciao) was Communist (where’d that come from?) and then followed it up with the statement that Communism and Fascism were opposite sides of the same coin. Close, but, using your words, "intellectually lazy."

      I would say that this site is maybe, progressive? or socialist? or even liberal (not a dirty word) or maybe it’s just "open." Now, there’s an idea. A place where people can just come and post what they like. That’s how I found this place. I posted a story about my site - it wasn’t even relevant to anything - just to see if it would be published. And, presto, there it was. Nobody gave me a hard time about it and it just drifted down the list and away over time. The people who run bellaciao are just open to free expression. A far cry from communism, which, BTW, has many forms and is not inherently "evil." Fascism is. Big difference.

      Anyhow, I think there’s hope for you, though you need to stop watching FOX entirely. It’s just bad brain candy and most of it is slanted and BS. Also, stay away from Rush Limbaugh. He’s just warped.

      My question of the day, week, month, is, just what are our soldiers doing in Iraq? They aren’t training Iraqis for the most part, they aren’t out on missions very often and they aren’t really fighting anyone. They are mostly hanging out waiting for orders or for the permanent bases to be set up or for the Green Zone to be fully fortified. So, really, what the hell are they doing there? My guess is that if you leave soldiers with nothing much to do for too long, they will either become lazy, irritated, bored, homesick or a combination of some or all of those. In any case, they will be less than fully prepared, mentally and physically, for the next mission - a condition that puts them at serious risk.

      IMO, they need to either mop up and get out or just get out. They’re not doing anybody any good over there, are they?

    • Get a press pass like Gurckett and go kiss Bush’s ass why don’t you?

    • Mike, that is al-cia-duh, get it?

  • Hey y’all,

    Well, I surmise that this is a Communist website because, among other things, of the "Evolution of Revolution" art displayed on the left side of this page. Is that not Karl Marx’s face? And if it is, is the message not that we’re all on the inevitable march towards global communist utopia that he promised? If this site is really just a social-democrat site, and you all just vote Labour in the UK or whatever, then I stand corrected.

    I’m not trying to call you names here, and for those of you who bristle at being labeled a Communist and therefore apparently know there’s something wrong with being one, then good for you.

    I like the previous poster trying to profile me. This is a common approach, and fits in well with the "shoot the messenger" strategy used by those who don’t want to debate anything. To the guy who guessed that I’m a new immigrant: hey buddy, you’re 100% wrong. My peeps came over a long time ago, but I don’t think that’s relevant. I know a 25-year-old Mexican guy who installs carpet, doesn’t speak English, and became a proud U.S. citizen two years ago. He’s got an American eagle and "USA" tatooed on his arm. America, thank God, is a land of us mutts. But if you automatically assume that the most patriotic Americans are the ones who just left their native countries, you might want to ask yourself why that seems to be the case.

    Another thing that wears thin are efforts to question my motives for believing what I believe. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, even if I just conclude that they’re dumb. Somebody said I support the prez because I’m "afraid." How on earth could you conclude that? Most people who read this web site are the ones who seem to be jumping at shadows, afraid that non-existent secret police are going to arrest them and take them to invisible prison camps in some alternative-universe America. I’m not scared of the prez. Hell, I’ll condemn him completely for signing the McCain-Feingold bill. That law is the direct attack on our Constitution that y’all should be worried about. I think he signed it out of political cowardice, assuming that the Supreme Court would do its duty and strike that new law down. Unfortunately, the SC shirked its duty and we’re all stuck.

    As for the guy who noted how uneducated the guy looks in the photo, fine, I’ll grant you that. You don’t think I could find an equally dumb-looking guy in photos of mass-demonstrations that leftists attend? I’ve seen plenty where the sign the protestor is carrying is so random as to be incoherent. Most educated people don’t bother to go to demonstrations anyway, because they’ve got these annoying obligations called "jobs."

    Lunch time. Have a nice day.

    – M.

    • Hey, "y’all, m."

      It’s Charles Darwin. And, what if it were Marx? My Encyclopedia Americana has a picture of Marx in it. Does that make it a "Communist" publication? I hope you’re having brain food for lunch. You need it. Let’s see...baseball caps, NASCAR, cheap beer and pickup trucks.

    • I can agree that some Americans fit the description from the article, and that some areas in America have more crimes committed than others. But many Americans here are against the war in Iraq, and it was almost split down the middle for who wanted Bush and who wanted Kerry for president. I personally didn’t like either. My point is, don’t judge all Americans based on what a few Americans are doing, and don’t think that all Amerians support Bush’s actions. I hear all the time complaints against Bush from people around me, especially after his re-election. That article is only showing one side of the story.

    • It would appear that "the other side of the story," at least in this instance, is not worth telling.

    • Hey dumbass...for your information the "commies" are our new best friend here in Murka, they are loaning us enough money each day to keep us from tanking completely as the dollar plumets and our jobs are the only thing Murka exports, the Bush Butt Kissers, that would be you, are busy worring about the commies....when the biggest threat here is stupid people like you.

  • The perfect answer to your dribble: "NUTS"