by Hugh Manatee Wins » Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:13 pm
16. Noteworthy propaganda campaigns, hoaxes, and other lies qua casus belli utilized by the United States:
It is well known that German Fascists transformed their buffoonish leader, Hitler, from a national joke into der Fuhrer die Reich by means of a) securing moneys from large industrialists and financiers (they liked his extremely rightwing ideas on race, labor, religion, nationalism, capitalism, imperialism, etc) and b) by using multiple propaganda hoaxes in order to sway domestic opinion.
The Reichstag fire in 1933 allowed for Hitler to be proclaimed leader of the state as well as for the Night of the Long Knives the following year (violence against leftists) and all of the anti-jewish bullshit that came soon after. As we all know, the Reichstag was burned by fascist thugs and blamed on communists; they even got a disabled Dutch guy to “admit” to both arson and communism—smoking gun! woohoo!
In 1938, the Nazis claimed that they needed to perform a “humanitarian intervention” in the Sudetenland (in the modern Czech Republic) in order to stop “ethnic violence.” Of course, it was Nazi thugs carrying out the “ethnic violence” in the first place, but never mind that small detail.
In 1939, the fascists contrived Operation Canned Goods—a faked attack on a German border patrol, which was allegedly a surprise massacre, carried out by Polish military personnel. Evil Slavic Untermenschen Evildoer Terrorists! Too bad, however, that we now know those corpses in German uniform shown on Nazi TV to be dead Poles, kidnapped and murdered; the German public, though, went insane with jingoism, calling for invasions and genocide.
As we shall see, this is a technique learned by the Nazis from the masters of such things in the US (Hitler credited the development of the “Final Solution” to his study of US treatment of Native Americans), and something that was then perfected by the US after it recovered and reconciled with its mad dog Nazi assets during the Cold War.
The overall pattern is using irrelevant, misinterpreted, or completely fabricated events in order to convince all of the clarences (who had nothing to gain from militarism, but who were susceptible to jingoism, racism, ethnocentrism) that…war is a great fucking idea! NB that many of these propaganda hoaxes seem to be more effective now than they were when first produced. Also NB, these are the times that the state was forced, for whatever reasons, to consult with the public—either Congress or the people. Most US crimes are committed without recourse to either, or with only a general, vague acknowledgement: “Oh, that CIA is just protecting Freedom from Evil! We can’t tell you what they’re doing specifically, because that would compromise them to the Forces of Darkness!”
1775 – Britain: so it begins, and the story runs that Evildoer British imperialists took away Our Liberty, &c.; produced Evil Boston Massacres, Stamp Acts, Massachusetts Uprisings; and tried to import tea. While the British were certainly imperialistic, and tea is the mark of the ruling class in colonial times, we should take heed that the first offensive of the American War for Independence was a colonial invasion of Quebec. Huh? You mean, before they even signed the Declaration, the proto-United States was invading other countries? You bet. What’s at stake here is the Proclamation Line and the Quebec Act, both of which prevented the fledgling colonies from expanding. And be sure to recall that during the next US war, a conquest of Canada would again be attempted.
1812 – Britain: ah…tales of “naval impressments.” Too bad that this narrative, of war caused by US sailors being conscripted, like slaves, into the British privateering fleet, is a lie; too bad that the landowners all across the infant US wanted the British, French, Spanish, and natives off the continent so they could expand their holdings, import more slaves, and thereby make more money; too bad that plans for such expansion existed way before the declaration of hostilities. The keys here are Florida, the Caribbean, and the western frontier.
1846 – Mexico: the US is forced to retaliate against the Mexicans, since Mexican troops ruthlessly attacked US regiments, who just happened to be occupying slave-owning Texas. Why would the Evildoers in Mexico do that? Not, I hope, because Texas was part of Mexico? Not, I fear, because Mexicans were anti-slavery (abolished since 1829)? Not, I believe, because the US had aggressively assaulted Mexico multiple times already, including the original secessionist agitation in Texas? No, none of that matters; they’re just Evil.
1898 – Spain: the “Remember the Maine!” incident as well as Hearst newspapers proclaiming that Cuba needed a “humanitarian intervention”—both obvious lies—help sway people in the US to genocidal furor. Enter Empire, the subjugation of the people of Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, and the Philippine genocide.
1917 – Central Powers: the Lusitania incident and the Zimmerman Telegram fire up US war fervor; too bad the Wilson administration provoked the Germans by aiding the British under a flag of “neutrality,” generated tons of anti-German racialist BS, and managed to invade every country in the Caribbean, including Mexico several times. Also, we needn’t forget that the Wilsonian declaration of War was timed perfectly with Lenin’s “April Theses.” All in the name of “protecting democracy,” from Evildoers, no doubt! An honest student of history will note that it’s more like “protecting certain segments of Kapital from others, whilst destroying genuine democratic resistance.”
1918 – USSR: “Communists eat babies!” “Bolsheviks seek to conquer world!’ “International Jewry grabs power in Russia!” “Reds to start war in India next!” “Socialism and incest: partners in Sin!” So ran the newspapers, every day, in every city, after Czarist absolutism was broken by popular resistance, no thanks to the US. Wilson’s administration used such imbecilic pretenses in a failed attempt to “strangle bolshevism in its cradle,” as one imperialist from a different genocidal nation put it. Of course, the real motives behind western intervention weren’t mentioned: Capital Capital Capital Capital.
1941 – Axis Powers: the Pearl Harbor attack was known in advance, no matter how “sudden” or how much “infamy” Roosevelt would later claim for it. NB FDR’s well-planned provocation strategy to ensure that Japan would attack the US, thus allowing the US to dictate terms to the rest of the world, which would be destroyed by war’s end. NB that the overrated Operation Overlord was delayed just long enough for the Soviet Union to be shattered by Kapital’s mad dog Hitler, but just timely enough to prevent the Soviets from taking out all of the fascists in Europe, from the Volga to Gibraltar.
1945 – Japan: event—nukes; propaganda lie—“saving Japanese and American lives”; bitter truth—self-serving genocide and terrorism to intimidate Stalin. Only assholes can believe the US story here.
1950 – DPRK: despite claims that “the Totalitarian North ruthlessly invaded the Free South,” it looks as though a communist North reacted to a long series of provocations carried out by a fascistic South, which included border skirmishes, coordinated raids, and artillery battery. But who cares? America to the rescue! Of fascism!
1952 – East Germany: despite Soviet attempts to get out of Berlin, requiring only assurances from the US that Germany would be a) democratic, b) demilitarized, c) united, and d) neutral, the US insisted on the precarious, ignorant status quo, obviously preferring it to the just Soviet proposal. Up, then, went the Berlin Wall in 1961, which was called an act of tyranny by moronic US commentators, but was intended by the Soviet Union to keep fascists, CIA operatives, saboteurs, assassins, and other agents of Kapital away. This event is largely responsible for much escalation of the Cold War during 50s, which would predictably and wrongly be blamed on the USSR.
1953 – Iran: Commies are gonna get us! Or so it was said by flag-waving retards. The unfortunate truth: a democratic regime thought it was allowed to use its own resources for its own benefit. The US disagreed with Mossadegh.
1954 – Guatemala: Commies are gonna get us! Or so it was said by flag-waving retards. The unfortunate truth: a democratic regime thought it was allowed to use its own resources for its own benefit. The US disagreed with Arbenz.
1964 – Vietnam: the USS Maddox got hit by some lightning, but LBJ thought it’d be a good idea to bow before the banking cartels, the Seven Sisters, the Pentagon, and crusty McCarthyoids, thereby inventing the notion that the (repeat the old script) Red North ruthlessly invaded the Free South—or, at least they ruthlessly attacked an innocent US naval vessel in international waters. Turns out that there was no attack, that the ship was in Hanoi’s waters, and was not-at-all-innocently deploying special forces and other anti-communist swine into the North for the normal roster of Kapitalist Karnage.
1973 – Chile: Commies are gonna get us! Or so it was said by flag-waving retards. The unfortunate truth: a democratic regime thought it was allowed to use its own resources for its own benefit. The US disagreed with Allende.
1981 – Nicaragua: Commies are gonna get us! Or so it was said by flag-waving retards. The unfortunate truth: a democratic regime thought it was allowed to use its own resources for its own benefit. The US disagreed with Ortega.
1983 – Grenada: Commies are gonna get us! Or so it was said by flag-waving retards. The unfortunate truth: a democratic regime thought it was allowed to use its own resources for its own benefit. The US disagreed with Bishop.
1986 – Libya: Evil Terrorist Nation! Quit doing Terrorist things! We will bomb you! Turns out that the Libyans weren’t responsible, after all, for the acts of “terror” of which they’d been accused. Hmm…a high publicity bombing mission right in the middle of the Iran-Contra Affair? What a coincidence! And at a time when Gorbachev was making peaceful overtures and the US was in danger of having no enemies? Amazingly coincidental!
1989 – Panama: They said that Noriega was an Evildoer Drugdealer! You must go Evil Doper! USA All The Way! Humanitarian Intervention! We should mention that Noriega was attempting to institute some democratic reforms and social services, had been a CIA asset, and largely oversaw US drug smuggling—and could document his and US involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. But why trouble anyone with the facts? Especially the fact that the true meaning of the words “Operation Just Cause” is that US Delta Force teams secretly attacked US Army units so that the US could claim “Panamanian terrorists are shooting us!”
1991 – Kuwait: the famous “dead babies” hoax, which was revealed to be a lie. Other tidbits: Kuwait had provoked Iraq in numerous ways; Iraq got approval from its imperial master, the US, before invading; Bush had personal investments in the region; and US strategy had long called for a way to control the Gulf States directly. With the USSR gone and the Kuwait-Iraq border dispute, the US now had both pretext and opportunity.
1992 – Bosnia: never mind all of the dead Serbs. Instead, check out this photo! The Evil Serb Evildoers have Evilly put some guy in a concentration camp at Trnopolje! Look at the barbed wire! Look at how starved he is! Oh…wait a minute…looks like that the barbed wire is around someone’s shed, that the photographer is in the shed, that the starving guy is a refugee on the outside of the barbed fence, that the headline “Belsen 92” is a lie, that there were no concentration camps, and that the entire series of US operations in the early 1990s were resurrected Nazi policies on Yugoslavia, which still maintained some socialistic economic policies. Well, I’ll be damned: another “humanitarian intervention” for Kapitalism.
1993 – Somalia: Yet another “Humanitarian intervention!” Thing is, the famine was nearly over, the US wasn’t anywhere near where it had been, the Somalis already hated the US for thrusting Barre on them, and the US was only there now for 1) oil prospecting, 2) uranium mining, 3) military basing, 4) public relations, and 5) a “paid advertisement” for the Pentagon, in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell’s cynical phrase..
1998 – Sudan: Evil terrorists are making VX nerve gas in that big factory! Tomahawk it! Turns out, though, that the plant manufactured antibiotics for half the country. Given that the Sudan was in the midst of a disease crisis, the destruction of their medical infrastructure only served to exacerbate the problem. How many died as a result? Who knows—the US, as is typical, doesn’t care to investigate, apologize, or acknowledge.
1999 – Kosovo: “Humanitarian intervention!” Now for something completely different. Racak, Srebrenica, Izbica, Trepca—all more complicated than they seem, as according to numerous international organizations, the FBI, and so on. Ethnic cleansing? Only if we are talking about the cleansing of Serbs by NATO. And the banner hoax here: the “Serbian MIG,” allegedly attacking civilians, is revealed as a fraud in state-press photos, which obviously display English writing on the alleged fuselage.
2001 – Afghanistan: Evil Terrorists got us! We will get them back! Of course, the true story is much more complicated, involving US complicity, deception, and strategic planning at all levels, as noted in the recent historical record (cf. “the complete 9/11 timeline”).
2002 – Iraq?: Evil! Smite Evil! Get oil! Did I say oil? I meant that Evildoer tried to kill my daddy! One excellent hoax, besides the manufactured general “threat” rhetoric, is the alleged 15 kg of “weapons-grade uranium” recovered in Turkey in mid 2002, allegedly bound for Iraq from “Eastern Europe.” Too bad that this “weapons-grade uranium” has “Made in West Germany” written on it—in English.