Manufactured
Incidents: Lessons from History
by Sadu Nanjundiah
Dissident Voice
November 27,
2002
It all seems like
a slow dance of death and destruction, for the helpless, innocent majority of
Iraqi people.
First came the
overwhelming support from Congress where the Democratic Party meekly acquiesced
in supporting shrill Republican calls for a war resolution.
Then we had the
recent victory at the polls which gives Republicans total control of both houses
of Congress. And now the Bush administration has the unanimous support of the
U.N. Security Council for an intrusive inspection for weapons of mass
destruction in
Iraq.
The Pentagon has
deployed nearly 250,000 troops in the Gulf region. One of the principal hawks
in the Bush government, Richard Perle, has even said that even if no weapons of
mass destruction are discovered in Iraq, the invasion of Iraq will happen. The
Iraqi government has all along complained, justifiably, that they are being
asked to prove a negative. But with world opinion, and increasingly even within
the U.S. itself, not supportive of the planned, illegal and immoral war on
Iraq, the Bush administration will still need a trigger for the eventual
invasion, to make its actions seem "justifiable".
What
will it be? For the moment, Iraqi anti-aircraft fire against the U.S./British
warplanes monitoring the self-imposed "no fly zones" over the
northern and southern parts of the country have been ruled out as candidates
for the casus belli. It could change if a "coalition" warplane is
hit. While the Pentagon is going through its playbook to figure out what
"incident" might look plausible for its massive retaliation, it might
be useful to look at past wars overseas that were harbingers of U.S
imperialism, its subsequent consolidation and final rise to unbridled supremacy
in the world. They provide eerie but prescient glimpses into how the U.S.
manufactured incidents to make a doubtful and reluctant public climb aboard its
war juggernaut.
The Bush
government - none of whose officials or relatives will have to face the dangers
of conflict except watching it on CNN from the comfortable confines of their DC
estates- is discovering that Saddam Hussein's past notoriety is washing thin
with a restless and skeptical public. In the outside world, there is no support
for the invidious plan of "regime change" other than from the utterly
dependent Middle East cats-paw, Israel. Even in Britain, Tony Blair's pliant
poodle displays of fidelity to the circus-master in Washington evinces mainly
shame and ridicule from most of his fellow citizens. Even mainstream media in
the U.S. has reluctantly recognized the growing public opposition to war
against Iraq, both in the U.S and in Europe (100,000 demonstrated in October in
D.C, 500,000 rallied in Florence, Italy in November). More Americans are
becoming aware of past U.S. support for Saddam Hussein from the Reagan/Bush I
administrations until Gulf War I.
So, is the real
reason for waging another brutal war with the resulting thousands of Iraqi
deaths the elimination of weapons of mass destruction? Or because the dictator
and his oil are no longer under U.S. control? Is Bush using his weapon of mass
distraction to deflect public attention from a sorry?
The trigger
necessary now for the U.S. to invade Iraq, especially as the "canny"
Saddam Hussein has accepted a return of the inspectors, is "evidence"
of non-cooperation or evasion on the part of the Iraqi authorities, which
should not take long, or an incident that shows that Iraq (in collaboration
with al-Qaeda) "attacked" U.S. interests first. The Bush
administration has covered all bases by asserting (without evidence, of course)
that Iraq possesses, and is likely to use, weapons of mass destruction; that Iraq
supports terrorists from al-Qaeda; that Iraq threatens its neighbors (i.e
Israel) and its own people (Kurds in the North and Shiites in the South).
Americans are
asked to support a war that could cost as much as $ 200 billion on the mere
sayso of chicken-hawks in the Bush administration. They have succeeded in
scaring the population and instilling fear to promote their agenda. When honest
skeptics ask for proof for any of these unsubstantiated assertions on Iraq,
they are accused of being traitors. In any case, such "evidence"
cannot be revealed for fear of "compromising sources"! There is
little outrage at the duplicity of past American governments (including the one
led by the present Bush's father) which supplied Iraq with all manner of
weapons, technology and loan guarantees. As the former Democratic Congressman
from Connecticut and Chairman of a House subcommittee , Sam Gejdenson stated,
From 1985 to 1990, the United States Government approved 771 licenses for the
export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech
equipment with military application. The United States spent virtually an
entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted...
The Administration has never acknowledged that it took this course of action,
nor has it explained why it did so. In reviewing documents and press accounts,
and interviewing knowledgeable sources, it becomes clear that United States
export-control policy was directed by U.S. foreign policy as formulated by the
State Department, and it was U.S. foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam
Hussein. Source: U.S. Congress
Subcommittee Report, "United States Exports of Sensitive Technology to
Iraq"
Here's how some
past American wars, in a century that saw U.S. power exerted around the world,
were initiated.
In the
Spanish-American War of 1898, strong anti-Spanish feelings were fomented in the
U.S. through the "hardship" suffered by American businesses in Cuba.
President McKinley promised support for Cuban independence when, mysteriously,
the American battleship 'Maine', sent to protect U.S. interests in Cuba,
blew-up in Havana harbor. Over 250 sailors were killed. Even as terms of an
ultimatum sent by McKinley to Spain were being debated in Congress, war was
declared against Spain. Subsequently, Admiral Dewey, commander the U.S. Navy in
the East, destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila harbor (the Philippines was
another Spanish colony). To this day there is suspicion that the explosion
aboard the 'Maine' was planned to provide justification and support for the war
against Spain. George Kennan, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow speaking at the
University of Chicago in 1951 said that Dewey's attack on the Spanish fleet
"looks very much as though the action of the U.S. government had been
determined on the basis of a very able and very quiet intrigue by a few
strategically placed persons in Washington, an intrigue that received ... a
sort of public blessing by virtue of war hysteria." The Treaty of Paris
(December 1898) ended Spanish rule in Cuba and led to the emergence of the U.S.
as an imperial power with its takeover of Guam, the Philippines and Puerto
Rico.
After Germany
and Japan were vanquished in WW II, American supremacy and triumphalism was at
its height, except for the irritation of two challengers - Stalin's Soviet
Union and Mao's Peoples Republic of China. Of all the protagonists in the
victors' camp, only the U.S. was not completely overwhelmed by war fatigue. The
military economy was strong and resilient, with the newfound invincibility
afforded by nuclear bombs. President Truman and his advisers felt emboldened
enough to try and snuff out the upstart socialist challenges to Western
imperialism. It came in the form of the Korean War (1950-53). The war was
blamed by the U.S on the North Koreans who were accused of launching an
unprovoked attack on the South. The reality may be different. The leaders who
benefited the most from this war was Synghman Rhee, dictator of South Korea,
and Taiwan's generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, who gained from U.S. involvement
in Korea because it delayed indefinitely the merger of Taiwan with China as the
former became an American protectorate. Rhee would not have to face the
electorate in a unified Korea and potentially lose to the popular communists in
the North. During the conflict, U.S./South Korean troops (mainly) fought
against North Korean forces (and later, troops from the Red Army of China)
under a United Nations Security Council resolution that did not have the
support of the USSR (which did not participate in the deliberations leading to
the resolution because, against Soviet objections, Chiang's Taiwan was seated
as the representative of all China and not the government of Mao Tse-tung that
controlled the mainland). The U.S/South Korean forces repeatedly and illegally
provoked the North Korean army and instigated conflict by crossing the 38th
parallel that divided the two halves of the country. Later, they employed the
same tactics against the Chinese Red Army by crossing the Yalu River that
separated North Korea from China. American planes even bombed
("mistakenly") targets inside the Soviet Union (the small part that
borders North Korea) and China, hoping to broaden the war and end, once and for
all, the "threat" of communism. As the American investigative
journalist I.F. Stone wrote in his classic, The Hidden History of the
Korean War, "The whole American economy became a prisoner of war
fever and war addiction."
In the 1999 war
against Yugoslavia, the Racak massacre (in which over forty Kosovo Albanians
were killed by Serb forces) plays a big part. This incident most galvanized
Western opinion for the U.S/NATO war. The Racak massacre was
"verified" by none other than U.S. Head of the Kosovo Verification
Mission, William Walker, sealed Yugoslavia's, and Milosevic's, fate (as Walker
himself believes). This self-same Walker was exposed in a 1993 episode of 60
Minutes for his role in suppressing the investigation of death squad
killings of Jesuits in El Salvador (1989) where he served as U.S. ambassador.
Respected French and German correspondents have seriously doubted Walker's
version of the massacre .
Two other U.S.
wars which provide a more detailed documentation of "manufactured
incidents" that bolstered public and Congressional support for war are the
Vietnam War and Gulf War I. In the first, we have the notorious Gulf of Tonkin
"incident" where North Vietnamese patrol boats were claimed to have
launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on
"routine patrol" on August 2, 1964. President Johnson went on
national TV on August 4 to announce intensification in the bombing missions
against North Vietnam and subsequently launched the devastating aerial
defoliation campaign of the entire country.
In Gulf War I
against Iraq, the media devoured the infamous Incubator Baby lie where Nayireh,
the Kuwait ambassador's daughter, was coached by the public relations firm of
Hill & Knowlton to tell a Congressional hearing in October 1990 that she
personally witnessed Iraqi soldiers occupying Kuwait dump babies out of
incubators in the Kuwait City hospital. This was used by Bush I to depict
Saddam Hussein as the new Hitler and convince a divided Congress and public of
the legitimacy of attacking Iraq even as diplomatic efforts were ongoing in the
United Nations to effect an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.
American author
Gore Vidal writes in his latest collection of essays, Perpetual War for
Perpetual Peace, "All the tax money that has gone for defense
against an enemy that had wickedly folded when our back was turned (the former
Soviet Union) is now being exacted even more from a gullible public to fight
the pre-emptive wars against terrorism " (to be defined by the U.S.
oligarchy and kleptocrats).
Let the world's
people be forewarned of what might come in the perilous days ahead. While the
American citizens ignorance is not entirely their fault, they contribute to it
through a preference for distraction over information and for passivity over
responsibility.
But more
important are the external factors that people don't control - the mainstream
corporate media and big business with their lobbyists who create ignorance and
confusion, obfuscating reality and exploiting peoples' fears. The multinational
corporations control Congress and the White House, both of who, willy-nilly, do
their bidding.
One who knew
very well the art of deception and control said over half-a-century ago,
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the
leaders...All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country." (Hermann Goering, Hitler's deputy, at his
1946 Nuremberg War Crimes trial).
Sadu Nanjundiah teaches physics at Central Connecticut State University in
New Britain, Connecticut, and works with the Coalition for Social Justice, a
group of faculty and students at CCSU that discusses and acts on issues of
peace and justice, locally and internationally. Email: sadanand@ccsu.edu