David Bromwich has a fabulous post on ways that aristocracy perpetuates itself--Larry Summers's payday. And he offers this comment on James North's piece on Mahmood Mamdani's Darfur book, posted here yesterday:
The report confirms a suspicion about the way the legitimate cause of Darfur has sometimes served to distract attention from the catastrophe of Iraq. The distinction between the unpleasantness of responsibility and the pleasantness of philanthropy is exact and pertinent. There are 4,700,000 Iraqi refugees, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. What is the U.S. policy of assistance to Iraqi refugees whose lives were torn apart by the American bombing and occupation? Do we even have such a policy?
There are so many troubles in the world.
Darfur distracts from Iraq, Palestine, Congo.
And Iraq distracts from Palestine, Congo, Darfur.
And Congo distracts from Darfur, Palestine, Iraq.
Fix is the message.
while the refugee numbers out of iraq were expanding, the american public was being shielded from any of the grim realities surrounding it's war in iraq, including the shroud over the death of its soldiers as well… none of this ought to be any surprise as it was a key agenda of the bush admin to cover everything in secrecy, but one would hope that a few awake americans could have figured it out without too much difficulty… it seems there is very little outrage in americans at what is going on thanks to it's own military empire.. perhaps too many people work in the oil or military industry at this point… i don't know what explains it..
this is not a thread that is going to grow.
Initial Comments: Saviors and Survivors
Bak in 1949 Richard Hudnut, then Dean of the Graduate School of Design at harvard, made this observation: "Nothing is built without philosophy; nor is there any building which can be judged apart from the man who created it, from his vision of the universe, and the ideals which he entertained. Our buildings tell us not only what we value in architecture but what we value in human life."
He might as well have been describing the architecture of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Built on a foundation of the dead, the displaced, the dispensable. Surface deceits, the facade is all that matters. Some philosophy, some vision.
Witty's response is obtuse and cavalier.
WE are responsible for those over 4.5 million Iraqi refugees. Phil's question is precise: Do we even have a policy, and if so, what is it? We are the occupiers. We taxpayers directly support this catastrophe.
Similarly, with the I-P situation, for Americans. Direct responsibility. We pay the bills for the
occupiers.
We get blowback.
The events in Africa should be therefore way down on our focus and priorities.
Iraq is no isolated case. I just read on Timeson line that some 546,000 in the Afghanistan Pakistan border areaa are registered as displaced according to the UNHCR and thousands more unregistered. And Obama, the compassionate, is escalating the killing of villagers with unmanned "predator" drones. The faces change but not the atrocities we commit in the name of fighting "terror."
"The events in Africa should be therefore way down on our focus and priorities."
I think that is incorrect when you look down the line of "foreign aid" and who is receiving them. If you even glance at Chalmers Johnson's trilogy you would know that the U.S. has been embedded in so many continents that this "blowback" (Chalmers Johnson again) could stem from every corner of this earth, from Eastern Europe to the coasts of Bolivia to the tropics of Indonesia as well as the deserts of Ethiopia and Somalia. It really boils down to your definition of "direct responsiblity"; Okinawa has been a tipping point for the Japanese who refuse the U.S. base there as well as the South Koreans who want the U.S. expelled. All have boiling points.
"There are so many troubles in the world."
Yes and we must find out the ones where we're the most culpable.
If you count the Iraqi dead, we're over 5 million victims and counting, and no one seems to be considering war crimes against Bush – Cheney, or even disempowering the Neocon blunderbushes who created it all, and desperately want a do-over in Iran. Journalism in service to Neocon atrocities. Congress in the same service. Apathy in the population. It's time to throw open the windows and shout, I'm mad as heck, and I'm not going to take it anymore. It's time to run the Neocons out of town, with pitchforks.
Doppler,There are voices shouting " I'm as mad as heck", check out the activities of Human Rights lawyers like Phillippe Sands. Note that Dick Cheney is saying nothing about the 'T' word.
There are going to be more people asking questions about Torture. Mark Danner in the New York Review of Books is another concerned writer.
There will be Justice and some style of Enquiry or Commission if the USA is to hold its head high as a moral force in world affairs.
Witty,
The thing is, WE can do something to fix both Iraq and Palestine. In Congo and Darfur, all we can do is push the people that have influence in the region to do something about it.
@ Joshua
I'm all for withdrawing from nearly all our military bases around the world, starting with Iraq. I'm also all for ending foreign aid (no quotes) to Israel and Egypt. Like I said, priorities. We are the most culpable in Iraq and (by Proxy) the I-P Zone.
Followed by Afgan-Pakistan Zone.
"WE can do something to fix…Iraq"
No. You can't do anything to fix Iraq any more than a rapist can do something to fix his victims. The only decent thing you can do for Iraq is to leave it alone and let Iraqis fix it themselves without your "help".