The Disappeared - A Coming American Horror
Everyone should read a recent Buzzflash editorial, "Torture, Murder, Bush, Kissinger and The Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina: America on the Brink of Horror."
We may not like to think about it, it may still be the sort of thing that will only happen to other people in other countries, but fascism with all it's horrors is about to blossom on our soil. With 9/11 as it's public progenitor, the overlords have quietly been laying the foundation to make the unthinkable perfectly legal. Putrid legislation like the Patriot Act and the recent Military Commissions Act sealed our fate.
We should be warned about our future by remembering the past. Fascist repression in South America peaked in the 70s with Operation Condor, a despicable program of government repression that killed tens of thousands:
"What happened during Operation Condor is so horrific – all done in the name of the safety and security of "the nation" – that it is barely speakable. The torture included one of the Bush Administration’s favorite techniques – waterboarding – and many other methods. Families were forced to watch or listen to their love ones being mutilated. Friends were required to conduct torture on those that they knew. Pregnant women were allowed to stay alive until their babies were born, then they were murdered. Their children were given to military families who adopted them.
In a New Yorker article a few years back, a former member of the Argentinian military recalled flights over the Atlantic where drugged and bound Argentinians, whose interrogation was finished, were thrown alive into the ocean. Bodies of the already killed were dumped into the Rio de la Plata, which divides Argentina and Uruguay."
The same forces in this country who aided and abetted that nightmare, and in some instances the same people, are about to birth a new and improved American version very soon. The enabling acts have been passed, the camps have been constructed and all it will take to bring it to fruition is another synthetic terror event. At that point the full nature of what Bush meant when he said "You're either with us or with the terrorists" will become perfectly clear.
Opposition to the fascists will automatically be branded treason.
Every thursday in Buenos Aires the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo still march in front of the Presidential Palace, carrying pictures of loved ones who simply disappeared under state fascism.
"Many Americans will say that this horror cannot happen in the United States, but they are wrong. Legally, as a result of the legislation passed in September, it is now quite possible."
We may not like to think about it, it may still be the sort of thing that will only happen to other people in other countries, but fascism with all it's horrors is about to blossom on our soil. With 9/11 as it's public progenitor, the overlords have quietly been laying the foundation to make the unthinkable perfectly legal. Putrid legislation like the Patriot Act and the recent Military Commissions Act sealed our fate.
We should be warned about our future by remembering the past. Fascist repression in South America peaked in the 70s with Operation Condor, a despicable program of government repression that killed tens of thousands:
"What happened during Operation Condor is so horrific – all done in the name of the safety and security of "the nation" – that it is barely speakable. The torture included one of the Bush Administration’s favorite techniques – waterboarding – and many other methods. Families were forced to watch or listen to their love ones being mutilated. Friends were required to conduct torture on those that they knew. Pregnant women were allowed to stay alive until their babies were born, then they were murdered. Their children were given to military families who adopted them.
In a New Yorker article a few years back, a former member of the Argentinian military recalled flights over the Atlantic where drugged and bound Argentinians, whose interrogation was finished, were thrown alive into the ocean. Bodies of the already killed were dumped into the Rio de la Plata, which divides Argentina and Uruguay."
The same forces in this country who aided and abetted that nightmare, and in some instances the same people, are about to birth a new and improved American version very soon. The enabling acts have been passed, the camps have been constructed and all it will take to bring it to fruition is another synthetic terror event. At that point the full nature of what Bush meant when he said "You're either with us or with the terrorists" will become perfectly clear.
Opposition to the fascists will automatically be branded treason.
Every thursday in Buenos Aires the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo still march in front of the Presidential Palace, carrying pictures of loved ones who simply disappeared under state fascism.
"Many Americans will say that this horror cannot happen in the United States, but they are wrong. Legally, as a result of the legislation passed in September, it is now quite possible."
posted by nolocontendere at 11:31 PM
2 Comments:
Noam Chomsky wrote a couple of great books about US interference in Latin America during the 1970s, especially re: the coup staged against Salvatore Allende, the elected president of Chile. I recommend them to you. Indeed you are correct that the architect of those horrors was Henry Kissinger. I got a chill when I heard that he is now advising King George. He's an evil, evil man.
Thanks, RSB, I've been an avid Chomsky reader. He's been the best chronicler of ugly american foreign policy for decades.
That Kissinger is back in the news is bad news indeed.
Post a Comment
<< Home