By Tim Giago
Similar articles in the media and speeches in the mosques in the Nations of Islam expressed similar views of Americans. This laid the groundwork for 9/11. A lie repeated often enough becomes a fact in the minds of impressionable people. Indians are savages, Americans are infidels and Arabs are heathens. Do you see how this logic works?
Just as the Crusaders believed it was their Christian duty to conquer and kill those Arabs they considered as sub-humans and heathens, so too did America duplicate their misguided logic against the First Americans. The people of the Islamic Nations never forgave nor forgot. The Indian people have largely forgiven, but they have not forgotten. The Christians of the Crusade de-humanized the Arabs, the early Americans de-humanized the Indians and the People of Islam now de-humanize Westerners. It is a vicious cycle that is centuries old.
Just as news stories and movies about Arabs portrayed them as less than human, so did the media portray the indigenous people of America. Their lives then became expendable and meaningless and therefore easily sacrificed for what is believed to be a greater cause. Westerners are now fitted into this same category by the Islamic terrorists.
Regardless, Giago has succinctly explained how a society's propaganda machines work to demonize the people's enemies. Europeans began that process with Indians five centuries ago. We continued that process with blacks and other unwanted immigrants. Now we're doing it to Muslims while they do it to us.
Of course, there's at least one key difference. A small group of Muslim terrorists has attacked Americans on US soil once. In contrast, the US has invaded the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq and bombed Somalia, Sudan, and Libya, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, while supporting Israel's illegal occupation of Arab territory. Muslims have good reason to dislike Americans, if not the other way around.
Anyway, this helps explain how we came to label Osama bin Laden, a real terrorist, with the codename "Geronimo," someone considered a terrorist at the time. And why we didn't choose a codename such as "Andrew Jackson," "Jefferson Davis," or "Harry Truman," who killed more civilians in one action (Hiroshima) than anyone in history. Everyone defines themselves as freedom fighters or heroes and the other guys as terrorists or villains.
For more on the subject, see Bin Laden, Geronimo, and King and Alternatives to "Geronimo" Codename.
Below: The greatest instance of mass-murdering civilians in history.
5 comments:
Rob, as I read this I noticed Giago's carelessness in style on 'Nations of Islam'. The phrase itself is clunky, even without the confusion with Farrakhan's organization. After all, does anyone ever say or write "Nations of Christianity" or "Nations of Hinduism".
The same goof is found with "First Americans". "First" should not be capitalized in the middle of a sentence like this, unless it is a specific name for a group, such as the First Nations people in Canada. Such sloppiness can go over for blog posts and comments, but it is surprising coming from a newspaperman.
Then on to your much more substantive errors:
"Of course, there's at least one key difference. A small group of Muslim terrorist have attacked America once"
Remember, history does begin before 9/11. Not only were there Al Qaeda attacks on us before 9/11, terrorists also bombed the World Trade Center prior to 9/11 also. And aside from this there's a long history of terror attacks from so-called Islamic groups going back for decades. The list is long and extensive.
"In contrast, the US has invaded the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq and bombed Somalia, Sudan, and Libya, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people"
The actual death tolls are a mere fraction of this. And it seems odd to classify Clinton's bombing of the "aspirin factory" as the invasion of the Sudan. If Clinton invaded the Sudan by doing this, then Clinton surely invaded Iraq by bombing it extensively before Bush came along.
Also, the Persian Gulf is a region of international waters. How does one "invade" that?
There's no such thing as "were indigenous," Rob. If a people is indigenous to some area then it's indigenous for as long as it exists, otherwise we can go saying the American Indians are no longer indigenous to America, and then your whole blog goes kaplooie.
Arabs are indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula, Jews are indigenous to Palestine. By definition, Jews cannot be illegally settling Palestine. By definition, all Arab inhabitations on Palestine are illegal settlements, because they are outside the indigenous territory of the Arab nation and on the indigenous territory of the one and only true Palestinian nation, the Jewish nation.
I am pro-Israel, basically to the point of defending a nation faced with annihilation from neighbors whose #1 goal is exterminating her people.
But Z goes to an extreme, really. In reality, you can't make claims of illegal settlements unless you are referring to laws. Which Z quite simply is not doing.
You invade the Persian Gulf by infringing on the sovereign territory--land or water--of Persian Gulf countries. As the US did in the first Gulf War.
Al Qaeda didn't bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 and its other attacks weren't on US soil. No mistake there.
As for the death toll, six different sources say the number for Iraq alone is 100,000 or more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Your opinion that you know better than these sources isn't worth much. Feel free to justify your claim of "error" with something resembling evidence.
If your definition of "indigenous" held, Ziontruth, the Sioux would be indigenous to the Carolinas, the Navajo to Alaska and northwest Canada, and all Natives to Asia, where they supposedly came from. And most white Americans would be indigenous to England, Germany, or whichever part of Europe they came from.
Since nobody thinks these things, I conclude you don't understand the meaning of "indigenous." Get back to us when you do understand it, okay?
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