U.S Imperial Forces Pay Homage to George Orwell, As It Were
By Robert Higgs on Oct 8, 2008 in Afghanistan, Iraq, The State, War
Suppose you are the publicity officer for a U.S. imperial legion in some God-forsaken hellhole, where your job is to tell the world what the forces have been doing there lately. What they’ve actually been doing, of course, is killing people, with little regard for who they are, and destroying a lot of property, with equal disregard for who owns it. Just “doing our job,” as the soldiers say.
As a rule, you describe the persons your forces have slaughtered as “militants,” “terrorists,” or “insurgents,” or you give them some other designation that renders them guilty by definition. No need to get into boring details, such as a man’s name, age, occupation, and how many surviving members of his family remain to mourn his death and suffer for want of his support. A militant is a militant is a militant; la la la. If these guys didn’t want to get killed, well, they just shouldn’t have been born in Afghanistan or Iraq or (fill in the blank).
The trouble with the standard reporting procedure is that very often your forces’ attacks leave behind the all-too-undeniable bodies and body parts of women, children, and old people. Of course, you can call them bad names, too: women are sometimes terrorists, kids can carry bombs, blah, blah, blah. But it’s a tough tale to sell. The sight of dead children, in particular, has a way of raising uncomfortable questions about what the hell you are doing in that God-forsaken hellhole and how you are going about doing it.
Recently, in one of the countless instances in which such questions had arisen, the U.S. military spokesman came up with a truly priceless turn of phrase. The military had already followed the usual procedure—first deny everything, then admit something might have happened and promise to conduct an investigation, then report the findings of your phony-baloney investigation, which almost invariably exculpates all your troops, then, when faced with incontrovertible evidence of your crimes, minimize their extent and spin the whole story so that you continue to evade responsibility for the innocent persons you’ve just slaughtered. At this late stage in the sequence, the media flack, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, explained that previous denials and minimizations were not actually wrong; rather, as the U.S. forces were compelled to face the facts more fully, their story had to change, too. As he put it, “sometimes the truth can change.”
Welcome to 1984, Mr. Whitman. You’re going to be very happy there.
It has often been opined that “military intelligence,” “military justice,” and “military music” are oxymorons. It is high time that we added to this list “military truth.”
UPDATE: Move along, nothing to see here.
They do this because the public could care less about some haji getting whacked. The British (I am one) during the time of ‘Empire’ called anyone who had the misfortune of living on a piece of real estate they had designs on ‘Johnny Foreigner’ or ‘Savage’ or ‘Jungle Bunny’ etc. They’re different to us, you see? Different and, consequently, disposable.
Trisha | Oct 8, 2008 | Reply
Is it true the US is a colonizing nation (albeit not on the same scale as Britain)? I know America colonized the Phillipines for a short while, but where else do they exercise control, officially?
Sukrit | Oct 8, 2008 | Reply
Sukrit,
Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, but that is just a title. We are, as history will tell you, a colony of the United States of America.
I personally don’t have a problem with this however. I believe that if not for the United States, Puerto Rico would be a worse place to live in. History will also prove me right here, as in the late 70s and early 80s the FBI took down a gang of policemen who formed what we the locals called the “death squad.” This is just one example of the level of corruption that can occur and is occurring here on a daily basis, with the local representatives and congressional officials among those being arrested at this very moment by the FBI for all types of corruption; bribery, fraud, etc.
The United States isn’t perfect. I too have criticized the federal government for throwing the constitution aside; and not just now, but since the second presidency!
Nelson | Oct 10, 2008 | Reply
What a completely ignorant thing to say.
Max | Oct 13, 2008 | Reply
Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and several Pacific islands and atolls are all under control of the United States without any voting rights or governmental representation (puerto Rico had Congressional representatives who may speak but not vote), making them colonies by definition. There is also a kind of neocolonialism, in which eighty some countries around the world are not technically under our command, but we have permanent military presence on their soil (though the areas where the bases are is called US territory). Also as a part of neocolonialism, there are many South American countries where we have used our military to affect their economies for American political or corporate interests. Short answer – yes, we are a colonial empire.
Adam | Oct 13, 2008 | Reply
Max, is this directed at me?
I wonder, exactly which statement(s) of mine do you find ignorant?
I bet I can prove each one of my statements as fact.
Puerto Rico is a colony of the USA, period.
Puerto Rico’s local justice dept. is a sham. Only the federal justice dept with the help of the FBI has done much to rain in corruption, that’s another fact. Go to any Puerto Rico newspaper websites and you will be clue in.
Or was it my comment about how the US has been trampling the Constitution since the second presidency? What do you call the The Alien and Sedition Acts signed into law by our second president? Unconstitutional, that’s what many have called them.
I wish people were as ignorant as I am. Maybe then we could wrestle control of congress from both of the major political parties; who are destroying the US economy.
Nelson | Oct 18, 2008 | Reply
Puerto Rico doesn’t have voting rights because they agreed not to pay taxes. That’s the trade-off. If they agree to become a state they get rights. Furthermore, as some who’s ACTUALLY BEEN TO IRAQ this blog is absurd. 9 out of 10 times the people who get killed are armed militants with intent to kill. But I suppose we should all lament the fates of the women and children being slaughtered by the trillions by the racist imperial forces of America, blah blah blah.
Drew | Oct 22, 2008 | Reply
Drew,
If you have a business that makes money from outside of Puerto Rico, even if you live in Puerto Rico, you have to pay federal taxes. Section 936, the law that allowed any business to keep its income from federal taxes, was done away with in the mid 90s.
The reason we don’t pay many of the US taxes has nothing to do with what we chose as our local government. Simply because we have no voting rights in Congress and can’t vote for the President is the reason we don’t. Until we have those rights, essentially turning us into a state, we don’t pay many of the US taxes because the Constitution prohibits it.
Nelson | Oct 24, 2008 | Reply