Dissident Voice

April 10, 2003

New images are being transmitted from Iraq now. Little Iraqi girls are shown smiling and holding U.S. flags. Old men are recorded speaking in broken English the words "Freedom" and "Liberty". One radio reporter described a scene of urban crowds looting stores of consumer goods, such as televisions, with the reports explaining in a convoluted way that this was not "looting", but "freedom" from the Saddam Hussein rule now in progress.

A thinking person exposed to these reports must wonder: Where did that little Iraqi girl get that U.S. flag, and where did she get the willingness to present herself as a living advertisement for U.S. war aims? And where did persons who obviously do not speak English learn to say with barely understood pronunciation words such as "liberty" or "freedom"?

It is instructive to take a look to the past to understand the present. It is useful to examine the colonization of the North American continent and the expulsion (even historic genocide) of the native inhabitants to see how the U.S. military has a proven history of conquering peoples by dividing them and turning them against their own people.

For instance, perhaps the single most freedom-loving human ever spoken of in recorded history of the North American continent was Crazy Horse, the warrior of the Oglala Lakota people. Crazy Horse saw the invasion of huge armies of white people into his native land. Crazy Horse loved his land and he loved his people. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice his own basic needs of food and shelter to provide for his people, sometimes going hungry for days so that others could eat food he had obtained by hunting.

Crazy Horse surely knew that military victory against such huge numbers of heavily armed invader/colonizers was improbable. But he loved his freedom.

He loved his Lakota way of life, and he refused to surrender his freedom, or to sell out his people. But, ultimately his people sold Crazy Horse out.

The U.S. Army was able to recruit Indian Scouts, not only from the hated Crow nation to fight against the Lakota, but Lakotas were recruited as scouts into the U.S. Army. Crazy Horse and his small band could probably never have been tracked, much less captured by U.S. soldiers working alone.

But with the aid of Indian Scouts, they were tracked and trailed and pursued until they were captured. In prison, at Camp Robinson, Nebraska, Crazy Horse was ultimately bayoneted and killed by U.S. soldiers. No, not by white soldiers, but by Lakotas enlisted in the U.S. Army. Crazy Horse lost his freedom and then his life under the U.S. military' policy of divide and conquer.

Geronimo was an Apache from the desert in Arizona. Like his fellow Apaches, he was an expert at what is now called "guerilla warfare." He fought all his life against Mexicans and American settlers until the U.S. Army came and divided his people and took his freedom. Like Crazy Horse, Geronimo could have evaded capture if only white soldiers had tried to pursue him. But his fellow Apaches took the handouts and the horses and the rifles of the U.S. Army and they tracked Geronimo down. But, unlike Crazy Horse, Geronimo ultimately became comfortable in his new lifestyle. He learned how to "capitalize" on his warrior fame, and would charge for his photograph and make money off his fame. Geronimo died an old man, part of the system that had divided his people and conquered his own freedom-loving spirit.

The people of Iraq were a prosperous people for a number of years due to the presence of oil under their homeland. If their leader, Saddam Hussein, had been willing to sign a contract with Bechtel corporation of the U.S. (for an oil pipeline between Iraq and Jordan; amazingly with cooperation of the Israelis and an Isreali "cut" in the profits), they would likely be prosperous still, and Saddam Hussein's lot in life would likely be very different than it is right now. We know that the U.S. prioritized support of the regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran/Iraq war, even arming him and turning their heads from action against his known use of chemical weapons in warfare. If Saddam had been willing to do continued business with Donald Rumsfeld, George Schultz, and other high-level American officials connected to the petroleum industry, the Iraqi people would likely never have had to suffer through years of economic deprivations enforced by the U.S. military after America's client, Kuwait, provoked Saddam into an ill-considered retaliatory invasion.

So it is that Iraq has become a poor country, with a high death rate of its children and now massive suffering from a pre-emptive war brought against it by America and a coalition partner or two. The Iraqi people are very much like American Indians were a couple hundred years ago, when the U.S. military waged war on them. The tactics of divide and conquer used against the Lakota and the Apache are now used against the Sunni and the Shia. And these tactics work!

So, we see Shiites trading smiles for wheat wafers. We see Iraqis waving flags for the camera and speaking in broken English for their conquerors.

We see the U.S. ferrying in Iraqi warriors to fight against their brethren.

We see freedom loving Iraqis who do not consent to colonization slain as they defend their freedom and their homes and homeland. Soon we will see puppet leaders of Iraq who do just like their Native American counterparts did -- sell out to the powerful and make out like bandits against their own people.

Divide and conquer does work. Watch the media. Proof exists each and every day.

Stan Moore lives in San Geronimo, CA. He can be contacted at: hawkman11@hotmail.com