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[casi] Comments on Rice #2: Revisionist History



As it seems, there are not so many comments out there on Rice's recent
presentation of her WMDs (Warped Moral Dimensions) aka - slightly
overtacted - CPU (Condie's Parallel Universe)
--> "Critics of US policy are racist".

Surely not in the media main & mudstream.

Apart from #1 I posted here:

"Rice Explains Why You Should Support the Occupation"
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

as well as this #2, do you know of any other reactions?


Best

Andreas

==================

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08122003.html

August 12, 2003

Revisionist History

The Bush Administration, Civil Rights and Iraq

By RON JACOBS

According to a recent statement by Condoleeza Rice at a convention of black
journalists that compared the war on Iraq to the civil rights movement in
the United States, I am a racist. Why? Because I don't believe the war on
the people of the middle east is about bringing democracy? Because I, along
with most people in the rest of the world believe the US/UK war is about
control of oil access and oil profits? Because I don't accept that the
killing of thousands of Iraqis by US firepower is "the moral mission of our
time", like Condoleeza Rice does? Or is it because I find the ethnic
cleansing practices of the Sharon regime in Israel--practices which are
supported by the Bush administration--to be morally repugnant? Perhaps it
even simpler: because I believe that the war on the peoples of the Middle
East is about colonialism, plain and simple.

Like the colonialism of past centuries, the drive for power and profit is
cloaked in words of morality. The western powers used to go in and
Christianize the natives, now we bring them western democracy--a concept
that is a figment of someone's imagination, much like western civilization.
Much like the conquerors of old killed the "natives" when they met up with
indigenous peoples who didn't feel like being Christianized, the modern
colonizers kill those who don't want to be "democratized." Of course, if
they kill enough, thereby destroying the opposition, soon the colonizers can
realize their dream of democracy.

By making these comments, the Bush administration's feeble attempts to make
the US/UK war on Iraq a moral war have become more than a sad farce. They
are an insult to our intelligence. Even more, this most recent utterance is
an insult to the legacy of the grassroots movement to destroy legal
apartheid in the United States. For Ms. Rice to take the mantle of that
movement and attempt to overlay it on her administration's shabby and
immoral assault on the country and people of Iraq is a disgusting and
cynical blow to integrity of the people who risked their lives and their
freedom in their attempt to make this country a more just place to live and
work. If he could, Martin Luther King, Jr. might tell Ms. Rice to read the
speech he gave on April 4th, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York city.
It was on that night that Dr. King drew the existing lines between racism in
the streets of the United States and the racist war on the people and
country of Vietnam.

These lines were not new. They existed long before Vietnam. Indeed, they are
part of the white people's legacy in the settling of this nation. our
ancestors came here and tricked, enslaved, lied to, and killed those who
were here before them in order to occupy their land. Then, when the
indigenous peoples refused to be enslaved, the growers and traders joined in
the growing international slave trade, becoming its biggest customers. It
was this involvement, more than any other part of our history, that has
stained our thinking ever since. To this day, there are reminders of that
legacy--whether that be the disproportionate numbers of black men and women
in our prisons or the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of black
voters in the state of Florida during the 2000 election. It was this
disenfranchisement that gave Mr. Bush (and by default, Ms. Rice) their jobs.
It is also this disenfranchisement that represents Ms. Rice's western
democracy. In other words, it is democracy only for those who are allowed in
the club.

The Bush administration can call this a war about WMD. THey can call it a
war to get rid of Saddam Hussein. They can call it a war to fight terrorism.
Heck, they can even call it a war to bring democracy to the country of Iraq.
All of these public relations attempts might gain an adherent or two.
However, for them to send out Ms. Rice and have her tell the people in this
country that their dirty little war is on moral par with the movement to end
legalized racism and apartheid in the United States is going way too far. If
they had any shame, they would know this and be appropriately ashamed. Since
shame is not a part of their thought processes, however, one can only hope
that the true spokespeople for the civil rights movement--those anti-racist
Americans of all skin tones who are not part of the privileged few who put
us in this war--will remind them whenever and wherever they can of Martin
Luther King's words that night in 1967: "Somehow this madness must cease."

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather
Underground.

He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu






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