Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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In this day and age it is easy for most to get caught up in the gung-ho mentality of fighting
terrorism at any cost and by any means necessary to ensure liberty and safety. Unfortunately, this zealous
drive for a sense of security has blindly led many to elect representatives that do not serve the interests of
the represented and to demonize anyone who dares ask questions or demand answers when they should be
given. The course of human history should not be determined by a small minority in power who “know”
best, and the reigns of control over lives, resources, and nations should not simply be handed over to the
unchecked, unquestioned hands of tyrants behind closed doors. The day that a populace subscribes to a
paradigm in which sustaining a routine becomes more important than the welfare of mankind as a whole
is the day when global compartmentalization has succeeded and true control over the entire planet
Having grown up in the dirt-street-villas of Argentina, I repeatedly heard about the impact of the
“milicos” on the nation and the following is a synopsis of the events. After the death of three-term,
controversial Argentine president Juan Peron, his wife took office but was not a strong political leader.
This allowed for a military coup in 1976 in which a junta, or committee of military leaders governed the
nation. Isabela Martinez de Peron was kept in protective custody while a seven year-long campaign by
the junta sought to quench opposition of its own citizens by any means necessary. During the junta’s
reign, many Argentine citizens, including critics of the government or anyone with strong political views,
were kidnapped. The death toll resulting from this regime is said to range anywhere from 10,000 to
30,000 people. The “disappeared”, as they are known, were taken to secret government detention centers
and the crimes committed against them include torture, rape, and murder. These historical events are
known as the “dirty war” which was a term coined by the junta itself, and in trials held in 1985 many
militant leaders defended their case claiming that the dirty war using multiple methods such as large-scale
torture and rape was necessary to “maintain social order” due to the fact that the nation was in “civil
war.” As global public opinion and civil rights groups grew in their disapproval for these acts, the junta
decided to redeem themselves and gain support from the people by launching a war in 1982 that would
regain control over the Islas Malvinas, or Falkland Islands. Originally, the Argentine people rallied
behind the government but as time passed this plan backfired as large protests were held against the war,
which lasted only 74 days and left 750 Argentine and 255 British soldiers dead, along with 11,400
prisoners of war held by the British military. Falkland Islands War. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica.
hoped to boost morale by having many publications report false information about the status of the war.
Several magazines posted fake pictures of British ships in flames and gave false eye-witness reports that
the Argentine were winning. Madres de Plaza de Mayo, an organization of women who became political
activists after having lost their children during the dirty war, were threatened to death by ordinary citizens
in pro-war hysteria. Three British reporters who had come to Argentina to cover the opposing side of the
issue were put in prison until the end of the conflict. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War. The United
Kingdom regaining control of the islands marked the death of the junta who then retracted their ban of
opposing political parties and gave control back to civilians when Raul Alfonsin was elected president in
1983. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/argentina.htm. Head of the junta, Jorge Rafael Videla, and his
navy commander, Admiral Massera, were both found on homicide and other charges and were sentenced
to life in jail. Three others, including militant successor of Videla as president, were given lesser charges
rights violations perpetrated by the junta caused US President James Carter to withdraw military aid to
Argentina, declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive in 2003 prove that
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other high-ranking US officials told Argentine militants to hurry
up and finish the dirty war while US aid was still flowing. In one of the documents, Ambassador Robert
Hill states, “When (Argentine Foreign Minister Guzzetti) had seen Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had
said he 'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.'
Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression
had been that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that Government of
The following are excerpts from a memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and Guzzetti,
"’Foreign Minister Guzzetti: The terrorist organizations have been dismantled. If this direction
continues, by the end of the year the danger will have been set aside. There will always be isolated
attempts, of course… ‘
The Secretary: ‘Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned
view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a
civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the
better.’"
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB104/index.htm
The issue of considering the proper context that Kissinger talks about is extremely important
when dealing with military conflict and resolving insurgency, however, it is crucial that we not allow
idealistic policies such as “defeating terrorism” to destroy the lives of countless innocent people that pose
no threat to anyone, as has been the case under direction of the State sometimes deliberately, and
sometimes simply as collateral damage. Of course the argument is always present that during war, there
will be innocent casualties, but it should be of utmost concern that thorough measures be taken to prevent
them. Such controversial matters can be exemplified in the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) use of white
phosphorus in the Palestinian territories. White phosphorus, a material which causes burns upon contact
and potentially death by inhalation or ingestion, has been widely used by American and British forces in
war via bombs, artillery, mortars and short-range missiles. Although it is legal for armies to use this
weapon against military adversaries, many international agreements including the Geneva Convention
forbid the use of white phosphorus against civilians. While the Pentagon openly states that WP is used
against enemy combatants, Israel is known to use American-given WP in Palestinian residential
neighborhoods because Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization according to the US, Israel, and 3
war where violent enemies hide amidst civilians in mosques, schools, hospitals, etc., potential IDF
methods include air strikes, sending in soldiers, or WP, which can serve as a smoke screen.
the UN Human Rights Council bring up Israel’s use of WP during Operation “Cast Lead”, and their
research concludes that the “Israeli Forces continued to employ tactics and weapons that resulted in
growing numbers of civilian casualties for the entire duration of the military offensive. This was despite
Israeli officials knowing from the first days of the military offensive that civilians were being killed and
A similar scenario recently generated much commotion due to a video released by WikiLeaks, an
organization which makes public documents that are considered sensitive, classified, or that are otherwise
kept secret from the public. The video, shot in Baghdad in 2007, is footage shot from a US Apache
helicopter that shows several people walking around the street with camera equipment, which was
mistaken for AK47s and RPGs. The soldiers on board the Apache sinisterly laughed and sought any
reason to engage with the men on the ground, as the audio reveals a pilot saying, “All you gotta do is pick
up a weapon.” Although no shots were fired by the men on the ground, the first wave of fire kills several,
and a van later stopped to pick up the wounded leading to a second wave of helicopter fire killing the people in
the van and critically injuring two children inside. Twelve people were killed including two journalists
employed by Reuters. “In the aftermath the US military claimed that some AK-47s and a grenade
launcher had been found at the scene. (Defense analyst Pierre) Sprey comments that, in the course of the
subsequent cover-up, the weapons may well have been planted, LAPD style. According to Reuters
their men had been working on a story about weight lifting when they heard about a military raid in the
neighborhood, and decided to drive there to check it out. Local witnesses say there was no fire fight
public knowledge as possible, further explanation had to be given once WikiLeaks brought the video to
light. “U.S. military denied that any error had taken place, its version of events faithfully cited by the
New York Times under the headline ‘2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. Forces Clash With Militias’:
“According to the [U.S. military’s] statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were
hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and
attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine [sic]
It is clearly shown in the footage that this was not the case. Once again we are presented with the issue of
identifying the enemy and the subsequent loss of innocent, civilian life due to what is euphemistically
Patrick Tillman was a professional American football player who, after the September 11 attacks,
turned down a $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals and put his new marriage in hiatus to enlist with
the Army due to his strong feelings for the cause of defending the United States. His family was told by
the Army that in 2004 he was killed by friendly fire in an epic, Hollywood style scenario in which “his
convoy had been ambushed and he had charged up a hill, forcing the enemy to withdraw and saving the
Five weeks later Army investigations determined that Tillman had been killed due to friendly fire
and had known so from the very beginning, but had kept the family in the dark. Medical examiners
concluded Tillman had been shot in the head three times from 10 yards away, and the coroner refused to
sign the autopsy for months because his examination did not match up with the scenario described by the
Army’s original story. His uniform was burnt, which is against Army protocol, and the eyewitness
statements that earned him a Silver Star were altered. When Secretary of the Army Pete Green was asked
who had altered the statements, his reply was, “Well, that's one of the questions that we will never
completely answer.” According to the Associated Press, "Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory
e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire
investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments." When discussing the topic
with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, General Wesley Clark said, “If there's even a hint that
there was something like a homicide or a murder in this case, it should've been fully investigated and
proved or disproved…” and that the decisions that his case shouldn’t be investigated, but instead just
given the Silver Star and claimed as a war hero came from “all the way to the top, because Pat Tillman
was a political symbol used by the administration when it suited their purposes.”
In a frighteningly similar way that the junta tried to generate chauvinism by creating a foreign foe
that the citizens could rally against, September the eleventh was a clear example of how fear was used to
manufacture a threat in order to prop up a war based on resources. Argentina’s widely read magazine
Gente published on its cover the supersized headline “We’re winning!” during fascist occupation when
Argentine forces were being decimated without a struggle; the cry for wolf echoed in the northern
hemisphere decades later and stirred pro-war sentiment with the clarion call of “WMDs!”
Military intervention in Iraq was spurred by what was described as a direct threat to all free
nations. Saddam Hussein was said to have given aid to the Afghani Taliban, largely blamed for the
September 11 attacks. Theoretically, there should be serious analysis of a situation before launching
multi-billion dollar wars with more deaths than anyone will ever fully document, however, all US
government officials needed to begin a reign of military occupation lasting to this day was a red herring
September the 11th, 2001 is still a topic of heated debated among people who still acknowledge
the fact that there is more to history than clear-cut, pre-digested propaganda. Many questions are still
unanswered but what is certain is that the mainstream news had a very concrete explanation of what had
happened and who the perpetrators were. Their storyline was ready to be sold to the afraid and ready-to-
act public as media outlets reported on the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 even before its
collapse. The fact that no other steel framed building in history had ever collapsed due to fire, the fact
that the hole left in the Pentagon was no bigger than 16 feet in diameter (much smaller than the width of a
Boeing 757), the fact that there were no plane parts or corpses found at the scene in Pennsylvania, the fact
that the Twin Towers collapsed in a demolition manner with no obstruction, the fact that thermate was
found and documented in video and satellite images at the site, the fact that NORAD was told to stand
down and not shoot the planes down by Dick Cheney, the fact that the majority of the authors of the 9/11
official Commission Report believe further investigations should be held, are all offensively ignored by a
government all too willing to reap the benefits of a counter-attack on the third-world masterminds of a
plot so convoluted that it makes the best Hollywood movie seem far-fetched.
Maintaining a consistent level of impartiality is one of the most difficult tasks a human being can
accomplish, but it is imperative that we do so, for logic and reason are great allies of compassion and
consideration. Emotion lends itself all too often among cultures of the world to manipulation and control,
making it the biggest co-conspirator of injustice. Passion and empathy, when founded in reason, can be
the solution to suffering if it ever were to be applied voluntarily on a mass scale. The truth is many
people are willfully ignorant and will continue to be so until it hits home; all an optimist can do is hope
that by the time the world is ready for change, it will still have the ability.