Response to David Swanson Article
Response to David Swanson's 'Afghan Judges Accuse U.S. of War Crimes'
by Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Dear David Swanson,
Hello, If they applauded to your:
‘Well, what would I do? That’s what they wanted to know: what would I advise Obama? I told them that I would announce that the military occupation was ending soon, that there would be no bases left behind and no weapons left behind, that I would immediately prosecute war crimes, that I would fund educational and civic and aid organizations run and controlled by Afghans, that I would facilitate open and honest elections, and that I would support any temporary international peace-keeping force favored by Afghans’ elected representatives. As this was being translated, every one of the six judges began applauding and declaring things like “You speak from our hearts.”’ ;
what would they have done for this:
‘The DU ravaged Afghanistan whose several generations have been offered in blood-sacrifice to the great game of the white man, will surely take more than just the withdrawal of military occupation to restore its shattered tabula rasa. Restitution and punitive damages alone will dwarf what is being spent on the war in Afghanistan today – last time I checked costofwar.com, which was just before completing this letter, the monetary cost of war in Afghanistan to the United States’ peoples was projected to be: $432,241,617,128. The Jews have extracted far more in damages for their holocaust. They have been compensated by gifting them another peoples’ land. What has befallen the Afghan people, now into its fourth decade, is no less than a holocaust of their entire civilization which dwarfs anything experienced by the Jews in the Third Reich. No – let’s not be the house negroes and water-down the restoration of Afghanistan so trivially as just demanding an end to the occupation like the Americans do because it is costing them too much. When you have already admitted in your opening statement in your talk that “I think it was absolutely wrong for the United States to attack and invade Afghanistan, because Afghanistan as such had nothing to do with 9/11… ”, then demand it with the uninhibited eloquence to match the cataclysm that’s been purveyed upon an entire innocent civilization.’
White man’s dissent, his gift of generosity to the victim, can be as tedious as the white man’s burden which makes the victims in the first place. The downtrodden, out-gunned, out-classed, victim of every hegemon in every case applauds the white man while meekly begging for justice from his victimizers. This was Martin Luther King Jr. style. He is happy at whatever crumbs might fall off the massa’s table into his empty bowl. But Malcolm X was a tad more insightful. Read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, for its immediate pertinence into the mind of any victim when they deal with a superior victimizing civilization. I believe Chapter 15, titled Icarus, which delves into some interesting psychology when dealing with the issue of integration vs. separation among the black peoples, lends immediate insight into the pertinent matter here for those able to extrapolate first principles to other scenarios of conquest and victimization.
The applause you received is the applause of the powerless, the downtrodden, dear David Swanson. Not the applause of the free man.
If roles were reversed, I would like to hear not just from you David, but from any who belong to the civilization that has wrecked its havoc upon Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, all along the “arc of crisis” in the “global zone of percolating violence”, whether your demands for restitution, compensation, justice, from your own victimizers would be any different from what is quoted above from my letter to an Afghan-American which can be read here:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/07/letter-afghanistan-zaher-wahab.html
Then, when you rush to serve the ‘lesser victims’, why are your demands different?
I will answer it for you if you wish. I am certainly not shy speaking to the white man directly. But I suspect that staring into the mirror would lead to a more insightful self-understanding, and perhaps a more productive outcome. Thus, I will chose the valor of silence here in expectation of a more profound outcome.
To the reader: I appreciate the work of David Swanson, as he well knows from my many letters to him over the years thanking him. But as with his previous impeachment drive against president George W. Bush with the 35 articles of impeachment by congressman Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, which is now being murmured for president Obama in Sherwood Ross’ “Impeach Obama”, unless I disclose what appears to be top-secret to the prominent dissenting chiefs of America, I’d be held to account someday when scores are finally settled, for why I didn’t speak up when “justice-lite”, the white man’s version of justice, was being promulgated to the ‘untermenschen’. Read it here if interested:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/06/impeachment-does-not-solve-problem.html
David, I hope you will respond to this critique publicly. Tear it apart if it is short-sighted. Or, boldly admit to it and revise your own demands. Make them principled.
Thank you,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Comment submitted to: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/07/22/afghan-judges-accuse-u-s-of-war-crimes/#comment-249490
Source URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/07/response-davidswanson-afghan-judges.html