July 14, 2005
The Politics of 'Creative Destruction'
by Chris Moore
International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff recently reported that the Bush administration's new Bureau of Reconstruction and Stabilization, a State Department subgroup, has been tasked to prepare for a frighteningly expansive future of warfare.
"The bureau has 25 countries under surveillance as possible candidates for Defense Department deconstruction and State Department reconstruction," writes Pfaff. "The bureau's director is recruiting 'rapid-reaction forces' of official, nongovernmental, and corporate business specialists. He hopes to develop the capacity for three full-scale, simultaneous reconstruction operations in different countries."
Pfaff notes that this ambitious undertaking "occurs at the same time American military forces still are unable to pacify Iraq or Afghanistan, agricultural societies of less than 25 million people each, both largely in ruins." ,,,,,,
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http://antiwar.com/orig/cmoore.php?articleid=6649
Topic: Why do we ignore the civilians killed in American wars? (Read 708 times)
Simple human nature. If my tribe waging war on an other tribe, the bigger the pile of dead enemies is the better. After the victory we celebrate our heroes and who cares about the defeated enemy, they shouldn't have to fu**ing with us. This is how humans working. If you pair this natural behaviour with good propaganda then our heroes not just defeated the enemies of humanity but even rescued the people over there "from the tyranny of evil man" and yes, there was some collateral damage but that's just little price for of the millions of saved souls.
Yes, and Hollywood-Pentagon shows a very sanitized version of war to lull the populace into complacency. And the powers that be learned their lesson well from the Vietnam war. Since then only selected presstitutes have been "embedded" with U.S. forces. No more spilled guts from shell fragments. No more mowing down defenseless people by damaged individuals under the command of nutballs. It´s a very important part of the scam.
The main reason is mainly that the thought that is implaned in the minds of people, about the country which US invades being wrong. We see these movies and documentaries of people attacking the US army in Iraq or someplace, but in reality its the US who has invaded their homes, and that is why the civilian casualty in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq are never reported or thought of.
Most people are patriotic and when you're considering the lives and money lost in this american pursuit that almost no consideration is payed to the obscure no-named people that lost everything somewhere else. Also, most people get their perceptions from the media pieces they see on a particular thing.
By John Tirman January 6, 2012
As the United States officially ended the war in Iraq last month, President Obama spoke eloquently at Fort Bragg, N.C., lauding troops for “your patriotism, your commitment to fulfill your mission, your abiding commitment to one another,” and offering words of grief for the nearly 4,500 members of the U.S. armed forces who died in Iraq. He did not, however, mention the sacrifices of the Iraqi people.
This inattention to civilian deaths in America’s wars isn’t unique to Iraq. There’s little evidence that the American public gives much thought to the people who live in the nations where our military interventions take place. Think about the memorials on the Mall honoring American sacrifices in Korea and Vietnam. These are powerful, sacred spots, but neither mentions the people of those countries who perished in the conflicts.
The major wars the United States has fought since the surrender of Japan in 1945 — in Korea, Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan — have produced colossal carnage. For most of them, we do not have an accurate sense of how many people died, but a conservative estimate is at least 6 million civilians and soldiers.
........
The numbers can be confusing because some estimates include only those people killed by direct violence; others include deaths from “structural” violence — such as those resulting from a destroyed health-care system. That we do not have an official way of accounting for the dead is one sign of the uncaring attitudes that have accompanied our wars. ... much, much more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-we-ignore-the-civilians-killed-in-american-wars/2011/12/05/gIQALCO4eP_story.html
As the United States officially ended the war in Iraq last month, President Obama spoke eloquently at Fort Bragg, N.C., lauding troops for “your patriotism, your commitment to fulfill your mission, your abiding commitment to one another,” and offering words of grief for the nearly 4,500 members of the U.S. armed forces who died in Iraq. He did not, however, mention the sacrifices of the Iraqi people.
This inattention to civilian deaths in America’s wars isn’t unique to Iraq. There’s little evidence that the American public gives much thought to the people who live in the nations where our military interventions take place. Think about the memorials on the Mall honoring American sacrifices in Korea and Vietnam. These are powerful, sacred spots, but neither mentions the people of those countries who perished in the conflicts.
The major wars the United States has fought since the surrender of Japan in 1945 — in Korea, Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan — have produced colossal carnage. For most of them, we do not have an accurate sense of how many people died, but a conservative estimate is at least 6 million civilians and soldiers.
........
The numbers can be confusing because some estimates include only those people killed by direct violence; others include deaths from “structural” violence — such as those resulting from a destroyed health-care system. That we do not have an official way of accounting for the dead is one sign of the uncaring attitudes that have accompanied our wars. ... much, much more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-we-ignore-the-civilians-killed-in-american-wars/2011/12/05/gIQALCO4eP_story.html
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