By David Swanson
A bill in Congress with bipartisan support would require post offices and various government buildings to fly from September 11th to September 30th every year a flag that looks like this:
While war monuments are being toppled, a war flag is being raised.
Of course, efforts will be made to give this gore-soaked death flag a non-idiotic, non-dishonest, non-warmongering meaning.
Unfortunately for that cause, the flag comes from a foundation that has got schools in some parts of Virginia teaching an expanded version of its flag-worship curriculum. Should the United States make this monstrosity its official flag for 20 days a year, that curriculum will gain a major boost in prestige and respectability. Will people be able to stop their school boards around the United States from implementing it merely because it’s packed with ridiculous lies and leads to mass slaughter?
Below are images showing samples of what is being taught to innocent children. They are given a chance to “get to touch the steel” from the World Trade Center and to answer the question “Why is the object more than just an object?”
Terrorism, in this telling, arises out of nowhere, has no origin or explanation, and is committed by “Arab terrorists from the Middle East” who devise the “worst attack ever on American land” with zero mention of the genocide of Native Americans or the current Trumpandemic or any other horror.
“President Bush told Afghanistan’s rulers, the Taliban, there would be war if they did not give bin Laden to the United States. The Taliban did not listen.” Those bad children should have listened! There is no mention of the fact that the U.S. government repeatedly turned down offers to hand Bin Laden over to a third nation to be put on trial, preferring instead a war that would go on for almost 19 years so far.
But the war on Afghanistan ends as a topic in 2004 with “freedom” having been brought there. Then we learn that the Persian Gulf War created “freedom” in Kuwait, and that Iraq’s dictator refused to say what had become of “weapons of mass destruction,” which compelled Bush to attack him. And “the United States helped to rebuild the country’s schools, roads, hospitals and oil fields.” Also, Iraq was given “freedom,” and that was that. No death. No bloodshed. No suffering. Nothing to mourn or enshrine or worship.
The odd note in this predictable propaganda is that it states at the top: “Terrorism has been a very big problem since 2000.” Hmm. How, then, is the War on Terrorism working out?
Before the U.S. military masquerading as a government adopts a new war flag (its current flag is a war flag too), it should spend a few moments with a sampling of the kids who’ve already been subjected to Freedom Indoctrination, just to answer that important question from George W. Bush: “Is our children learning?” Here are a few questions that might be asked of such students:
Where is the United States currently at war?
How many people have been killed by the War on Terrorism?
Has all that killing made anyone feel terrorized?
Have you come into contact with the understanding that “if the CIA had not spent over a billion dollars arming Islamist militants in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, empowering jihadist godfathers like Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden in the process, the 9/11 attacks would have almost certainly not taken place”?
Are you familiar with the U.S. plans for war on Afghanistan that pre-dated September 11, 2001?
Have you seen the predictable excuses that Bin Laden gave for his murderous crimes? They each involve revenge for other crimes committed by the U.S. military.
Are you aware that war is a crime under, among other laws, the United Nations Charter?
Are you aware that al Qaeda planned September 11th in numerous nations and U.S. states that, unlike Afghanistan, the United States has thus far chosen not to bomb?
Are you familiar with the gross failures of the CIA and FBI leading up to 9/11, but also with the warnings they gave to the White House that went unheeded?
Are you aware of the evidence of the role played by Saudi Arabia, close U.S. ally, oil dealer, weapons customer, and partner in the war on Yemen?
What is hidden by claiming that 9/11 was the work of terrorists “from the Middle East”?
Did you know that British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed to the future war on Iraq as long as Afghanistan were attacked first?
Are you aware that the Taliban had practically eradicated opium prior to the war, but that the war made opium one of the Taliban’s top two sources of funding, the other being, according to an investigation by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. military?
Have more people gotten upset about the U.S. military funding its own enemies, or about baseless claims accusing Russia of doing so? What could cause such a response?
Are you aware that the war on Afghanistan has killed huge numbers of people, devastated the natural environment, and left the society very vulnerable to coronavirus?
Are you aware that the International Criminal Court is investigating the overwhelming evidence of horrendous atrocities by all sides during the war on Afghanistan?
Have you noticed the habit of just-retired U.S. military officials admitting that much of what they’ve been doing is counter-productive? Here are just a few examples in case you’ve missed any of them:
—U.S. Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August 2014: “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict.”
—Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer, who says the more the United States fights terrorism the more it creates terrorism.
—The CIA, which finds its own drone program “counterproductive.”
—Admiral Dennis Blair, the former director of National Intelligence: While “drone attacks did help reduce the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan,” he wrote, “they also increased hatred of America.”
—Gen. James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “We’re seeing that blowback. If you’re trying to kill your way to a solution, no matter how precise you are, you’re going to upset people even if they’re not targeted.”
—Sherard Cowper-Coles, Former U.K. Special Representative To Afghanistan: “For every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge.”
—Matthew Hoh, Former Marine Officer (Iraq), Former US Embassy Officer (Iraq and Afghanistan): “I believe it’s [the escalation of the war/military action] only going to fuel the insurgency. It’s only going to reinforce claims by our enemies that we are an occupying power, because we are an occupying power. And that will only fuel the insurgency. And that will only cause more people to fight us or those fighting us already to continue to fight us.” — Interview with PBS on Oct 29, 2009
—General Stanley McChrystal: “For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.”
— Lt. Col. John W. Nicholson Jr.: This commander of the war on Afghanistan blurted out his opposition to what he’d been doing on his last day of doing it.
Did you know that terrorism predictably increased from 2001 through 2014, principally as a predictable result of the war on terrorism?
Are you aware that 95% of all suicide terrorist attacks are indefensible crimes conducted to encourage foreign occupiers to leave the terrorist’s home country?
Did you know that on March 11, 2004, Al Qaeda bombs killed 191 people in Madrid, Spain, just before an election in which one party was campaigning against Spain’s participation in the U.S.-led war on Iraq. The people of Spain voted the Socialists into power, and they removed all Spanish troops from Iraq by May. There were no more bombs in Spain. This history stands in strong contrast to that of Britain, the United States, and other nations that have responded to blowback with more war, generally producing more blowback.
Are you aware of the suffering and death that polio used to cause and still causes, and how hard many have worked for years to come very close to eradicating it, and what a dramatic setback these efforts were handed when the CIA pretended to be vaccinating people in Pakistan while actually trying to find Bin Laden?
Did you know that it isn’t legal in Pakistan or anywhere else to kidnap or to murder?
Have you ever paused and listened to whistleblowers about their regrets? People like Jeffrey Sterling have some eye-opening stories to tell. So does Cian Westmoreland. So does Lisa Ling. So do many others.
Were you aware that much of what we think about drones is fictional?
Are you familiar with the dominant role the U.S. plays in weapons dealing and war, that it’s responsible for some 80% of international arms dealing, 90% of foreign military bases, 50% of military spending, or that the U.S. military arms, trains, and funds the militaries of 96% of the most oppressive governments on earth?
Did you know that 3% of U.S. military spending could end starvation on earth? Do you really believe, when you stop to consider it, that the current priorities of the U.S. government serve to counter terrorism, rather than to fuel it?
Have you ever asked any visitors to the United States what they make of the incredible presence of flags and of the Pledge of Allegiance? Have you asked any visitors from nations that experienced fascism?
The Pentagon has been Nazi headquarters for many decades. Of course they really would have preferred the flag of the Third Reich. As Hunter Thompson wrote “Americans are killers with hate in their hearts. “Fuck theses Nazi Swine. ” We had to become more blood thirsty than Hitler to overcome him and that has been the bar for US foreign policy ever since.