Masters of War

[Bob Dylan, author and artist of incisive musical poetry of the people’s sentiments and struggles for justice in the 1960’s, sharply described and condemned the horrific wars of the system in this song, Masters of War, performed in 1963.  An enduring expression of outrage and anger at the suffering of billions of people, it is all the more timely on this Armistice Day/Memorial Day, which the “masters of war” continually make into a glorification of their blood-soaked rule and wars of conquest — but which the people remember as the most hideous and callous destruction of generation after generation — since the 1914 beginning of the inter-imperialist World War I, touted falsely as “the war to end wars.”  Dylan himself has not always adhered to the clear vision and passionate advocacy of this song and others of that early period, but that does not diminish the timeless voice he has given to the struggle for justice and peace. — Frontlines ed.]

“Masters Of War”

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

Bush’s Legacy of Atrocities Is Nowhere to Be Seen at His New Library — and the Local Paper Won’t Even Run One Ad That Tells the Truth

AlterNet / By Jodie Evans, Charles Davis | April 23, 2013 

“Kill a few, they call you a murderer. Kill tens of thousands, they give you $500 million for a granite vanity project and a glossy 30-page newspaper supplement.”

George W. Bush presided over an international network of torture chambers and, with the help of a compliant Congress and press, launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. However, instead of the bloody details of his time in office being recounted at a war crimes tribunal, the former president has been able to bank on his imperial privilege – and a network of rich corporate donors that he made richer while in office – to tell his version of history at a library in Texas being opened in his name.

Kill a few, they call you a murderer. Kill tens of thousands, they give you $500 million for a granite vanity project and a glossy 30-page supplement in the local paper.

Before getting into that, some facts. According to the US government, more than 100,000 people died following the 2003 invasion of Iraq; of that number, 4,486 were members of the US military. Other estimates place the figure at closer to one million deaths as a result of Bush’s defining act in office: an aggressive war waged against a non-threat and which even some of his own advisers admit was illegal. So far, the wars started by Bush and continued by his heir, Barack Obama, have cost upwards of $3.1 trillion. That’s money that could have been spent saving lives and building things, not ending and destroying them.

But that’s not going to be the narrative at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, opening this week in Dallas, Texas. No, that’s going to be: 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 (see also: 9/11).

Called the “Day of Fire,” a main attraction at the new library will be a display on the events of September 11, 2001, where “video images from the attacks flash around a twisted metal beam recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center,” according to the Associated Press.

Memorial Day: While the system glorifies imperialist war, the people remember the victims of their war crimes — Vietnam

My Lai massacre — 16 march 1968 — Vietnam

Short clips with US service personnel describing how they participated in the Mi Lai massacre on 16 March 1968.

Memorial Day: While the system glorifies imperialist war, the people remember the victims of their war crimes — Iraq

COLLATERAL MURDER — 14:58
Update: On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United
States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an
unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr.
Manning a ‘hero’. He is currently imprisoned, facing military court trial. The Apache crew and those behind the cover
up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see
bradleymanning.org.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST–Statement from Wikileaks

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two
Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success
since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the
unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved
in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

US Army suicides up 80% since start of Iraq War

Suicide among young Army personnel rose 80% between 2004 and 2008, with 255 soldiers taking their lives in 2007 and 2008 alone.

Jill Langlois, Global Post, March 8, 2012

US Military suicide rates over the years of the Iraq war

Suicide among young Army personnel rose 80% between 2004 and 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the last two years that had data available for the study — 2007 and 2008 — 255 soldiers took their lives. The authors of the study, the Army Public Health Command (APHC), estimated that 25% to 50% of the suicides were directly related to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Suicide rates among active US Army personnel were decreasing between 1977 and 2003.

The number of suicides is “unprecedented in over 30 years of US Army records,” according to the APHC, and the increase in deaths parallels the increasing rates of depression and other mental health conditions among soldiers, reported The Daily Mail.

The study’s authors called the high presence of mental health disorders among enlisted personnel “sentinels for suicide risk,” according to The Baltimore Sun. From 2000 to 2008, adjustment disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and substance-abuse disorders have soared among Army personnel. During the same time, the number of visits for mental health disorders in the Army nearly doubled.

“This study does not show that US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan cause suicide,” said Dr. Michelle Chervak, one of the study’s authors, a senior epidemiologist at the APHC, to ABC News. “This study does suggest that an Army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances.”

Why Was No One Punished for America’s “My Lai” in Iraq?

[Imperialist wars and occupations always operate with absolute impunity for the war crimes committed against civilian victims.  Imperialist wars attempt to win allies and supporters by concealing their imperialist interests behind banners of “democracy” or “human rights” or “freedom” for the targets of their aggression.  For this reason, when war crimes are brought to light through determined exposures, there are some who campaign that the occupiers be held to standards of “human rights.”  But imperialist war criminals are never brought to justice, despite heroic and determined efforts and sacrifices of such campaigners and activists.  But, in time, the people will take matters into their own hands and find the ways to  bring justice to the war criminals of imperialist wars and occupations.   — Frontlines ed.]

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AlterNet / By John Tirman

The U.S. military presence in Iraq was marked by the callous American attitude toward civilians, and the thorough lack of accountability in the military justice system.

February 12, 2012

The plea bargain in the last Haditha massacre case handed down in January is a fitting end to the Iraq war. In the most notorious case of U.S. culpability in Iraqi civilian deaths, no one will pay a price. And that is emblematic of the entire war and its hundreds of thousands of dead and millions displaced.Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the squad leader who encouraged and led his marines to kill 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha in November 2005, was the last of eight originally charged in the massacre. The others were let off on technicalities, or to help the prosecution. One officer, not involved in the killing but the coverup, was acquitted in a military trial.

The responsibility for these killings came down to Wuterich’s role, but he never actually went through a full trial. The military prosecutor opted for the slap-on-the-wrist of demotion to private for the 24 civilian deaths. Wuterich, who admitted to much more in a “60 Minutes” interview in 2007—including rolling grenades into a house filled with civilians without attempting to make an identification—copped only to “dereliction of duty.”

The episode was often compared with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in which some 400 civilians were executed by Lieutenant William Calley and some of his army unit in 1967. While the scale and circumstances are quite different, they do bear one striking similarity, and that is the reaction of officials and the American public alike.

An interview with an Iraqi woman whose family was brutalized by US soldiers

[This voice of an Iraqi women on the US occupation must be heard.  As people in the US are being asked, once again, to support the war moves of the US and allied governments, the experiences she relates must be heard, in order to build the struggle and solidarity against imperialist war.  The views she expresses are drawn from her experience, and are not necessarily the views of Revolutionary Frontlines. We thank William T. Hathaway, the author, for submitting this article for posting.  — Frontlines ed.]

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by William T. Hathaway, author

SAMs for Uncle Sam,  from the book “RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War”

Merna al-Marjan is a young Iraqi who is currently in Germany studying European history. We talked in her dormitory room, a spartan but functional cubicle in a building that embodies a hopeful change in European history: it was constructed in the nineteenth century as an army barracks but now houses university students. That’s progress.

On Merna’s small table sat a pot of peppermint tea and a plate of baklava. She’s short and plump with smooth skin the color of clover honey and deep anthracite eyes; she was wearing a long skirt of light cotton, a long-sleeved blouse, and a green paisley headscarf.

Hathaway: “Headscarves have become a controversial item of clothing here in Germany.”

Al-Marjan: “Yes, you can’t teach in the schools if you wear one. It’s OK for a teacher to wear a Christian crucifix but not a Muslim headscarf. I didn’t wear a hijab in Iraq, but I’ve started doing it here to show solidarity. It’s ridiculous to ban an article of clothing, a simple piece of cloth. What sort of freedom is that?

“The West has such a distorted view of Arab women. Well, of men too, but since I’m a woman, I notice that more.

“What really makes me mad is when Westerners use the way women live in the Muslim world as a justification for invading it ― either with their armies or their ideas. They’re convinced we should be like them. If they were happy, that would be one thing. They could say, ‘Here, follow our example.’ But they’re much unhappier than most of us are. Their marriages and families fall apart, their children commit terrible crimes, commit suicide. Their society is fragmented into these isolated individuals who have to compete against one another. It’s a wreck, but they’re trying to force it onto us.

Revolutionary Front for the Defense of the People’s Rights (Brazil): Analysis of war in Libya

[This is an updated translation of an important analysis of the war in Libya, from the Revolutionary Front for the Defense of People’s Rights of Brazil. — Frontlines ed.]

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Down with the imperialist aggression against Libya!

Long live the war of resistance of the people of the world!

On March 19^th, with the U N’s approval, NATO imperialist forces composed of the USA, France, England, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Denmark and others, began bombing on Libyan territory, on the pretext of protecting the civilian population from massacres perpetrated by the fascist front of massive Gadaffi protests.

Imperialism is again using the pretext of defending human rights and democracy for promoting more aggression against the people. These same governments, mainly the USA, maintain feudal monarchical regimes in neighboring countries, such as Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and they do nothing before the massacres of the masses that these same governments have been committing. Much to the contrary, while advising caution in the international diplomacy with the excesses, they continue supporting these reactionary regimes which provide them with more arms and resources. Last December, the North American Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, praised the government of Bahrain for its “commitment […] towards a democratic path.”

More so, the USA and coalition forces maintain a criminal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, supported by mercenary armies, they have been perpetrating an ongoing genocide against the masses, on which the UN has said nothing.

Imperialist wars of domination — and worldwide revolution

The aggression undertaken by NATO/USA is a continuation of historical colonial oppression over the people of Africa and a new chapter of imperialist war of shares, facing the profound worldwide crisis that gives life to capitalism. It is a violation of the right of self-determination of the people and part of the counter-revolutionary offensive started by Bush and continued by Obama. It seeks to divert the just struggle of the masses against oppression and exploitation, to restructure bureaucratic capitalism in these countries, directing fractions and power groups of the grand bourgeoisie so that they can introduce “new” government puppets.

In the Belly of the Beast: How the Middle East events affect us

Nina Farnia on how the Middle East events affect us

In a program in Oakland, California in February 2011 — sponsored by The Committee to Stop FBI Repression — Nina Farnia spoke about the relationship of events in the Middle East to people in the US — people of Middle East origin and descent, and US solidarity activists.

For more information on government repression of Middle Eastern people and of international solidarity activists, see stopfbi.net

This is a video from Collision Course Video Productions of San Francisco.

Pentagon’s New Global Military Partner: Sweden

2 August 2010

Rick Rozoff

The longest war in U.S. history and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first armed conflict outside Europe, as well as its first ground war, is nearing the beginning of its tenth year.

Over 120,000 troops are serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in addition to 30,000 under American command, and the Western military bloc recently confirmed that Malaysia has become the 47th official Troop Contributing Nation (TCN) for the war effort.

Never before have forces from so many nations served under a common command in one country, one war theater or one war.

All 28 full NATO member states have supplied soldiers for the campaign, as have over 20 Alliance partners in Europe, the South Caucasus, the South Pacific, Asia, Africa and South America. With the inclusion of contingents deployed and pledged by nations such as Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Colombia and Tonga as well as the 47 official troop contributors, there are military personnel from every populated continent assigned to the West’s war in Afghanistan.