Howard Zinn: US trying to bludgeon Iraq into submission

Ultimately we are going to have to get out of Iraq. It is only a question of how many people are going to die.

excerpts from an interview on cspan which can be viewed here
http://www.cspan.org/videoarchives....

There are serious problems in this country and there is no money to solve them. There is no money for education, no money for health, no money for child care. While these problems are going on here, 40 million without health care, we are spending huge sums of money trying to conquer another country. Let’s face it, we are trying to conquer and plant ourselves in Iraq. We are not trying to create democracy in Iraq. We are not trying to bring liberty to Iraq. We are trying to bludgeon them into submission.

People in other parts of the world are asking the question what’s wrong with the United States? Why is it behaving like a bully in the world? Why is it insisting on solving problems with military might?

We are going into the second Bush administration in a very very sorry state of the nation. I think it will take a lot of waking up on the part of the American people in order to insist that the government change its policy.

caller- He is so unamerican that I am ashamed even to be listening to him. He is the most unamerican I have ever heard of. Everything he says is so unamerican.

Zinn- I think the problem is, I think this gentleman thinks that Bush is America, or that the government is America. And therefore if you criticize this government, or if you criticize the president that you are unamerican. America is the people of this country. It is the principles on which this country stands. It is possible for the government to be unamerican. It is possible for Bush to be unamerican.

I think if you criticize this government, that you are acting in the spirit of democracy, you are acting in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence says that governments are not holy. Governments are set up for certain purposes to protect life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness. When the government becomes destructive of those rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government. So certainly that means you should have the right to criticize the government without being called unamerican.

audio with music- made for radio
http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/zin...

No question about that. Saddam Hussein violated all sorts of resolutions. But he was not the first country to violate resolutions. The United States has violated resolutions. Israel has violated resolutions.

It wasn’t the violation of these resolutions which was unique. The United states was simply determined to find an excuse, a reason to go to war in Iraq. And you can see that because we created the excuse of Weapons of Mass Destruction and when that fell apart it created the excuse well we really want to get rid of this tyrant,we care about whether the Iraqi people are being tyrannized.

The truth is the United States did not care about the tyranny of Saddam Hussien when we were buddies with Saddam Hussein, that is during the war of Iraq vs.Iran, where the US stood by while Saddam Hussein was gassing the Kurds. This is real hypocrisy for the United States to claim they cared about the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. It has not cared about the Tyranny in Saudia Arabia, Algeria, Burma...there are tyrants all over the world.

When Saddam Hussein was finally found and imprisioned, did the United States say okay he is gone, we will leave? No. We are still there killing people in large numbers. Up to 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of this war. There is something shameful about that, something wrong about that. No imminent threat. No Weapons Mass Destruction.

If you look at the huge profits being made by Halliburton and Bectel, billion dollar contracts, very often without competetive bidding.
First we destroy Iraq and then give billion dollar contracts to corporations to rebuild Iraq. This is the United States following the same course as imperial nations throughout history.

Ultimately we are going to have to get out of Iraq. It is only a question of how many people are going to die.

caller- I think what we are doing is helping the plight of the women over there who are treated worse than dogs.

Zinn- I would like to address this last question. Clearly we didn’t go into Iraq to better the status of women. Ultimately when you destroy and invade a country and you kill alot of the women, you are not helping the cause.

listen to audio MP3 excerpt
http://twincities.indymedia.org/use...