In portraying the U.S. as the blameless victim of terrorism, the bush regime is able to draw on a long tradition of racism. Malcolm X once said, "Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research." If we look at U.S. history we can see that the idea of the "civilized white man" defending himself against barbaric attacks is not a new excuse for making war. We need to confront that racism, which values European and European settler lives over the lives of Afghans, Palestinians and people of color.

But let's keep in mind something about racism. Malcolm also used to say that racism is like a Cadillac. There's a new model every year. Racism is dynamic, it's not static. Racism adapts to new conditions. That's why it's so powerful and so persistent. For example, before the Civil Rights Movement the U.S. armed forces were strictly segregated. Now the U.S. army is an integrated, multi-ethnic force. African Americans, like Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice, are prominent leaders. Yet, those on the front lines are disproportionately people of color. The enemy is still considered morally inferior. U.S. deaths justify any retaliation, while those who die in U.S. attacks are "collateral damage." The line between "us and "them" has shifted, but it is still there.
The recent arrival of hundreds of U.S. troops in the Philippines, supposedly to help Filipinos fight the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, brings to mind another period in Philippine history. U.S. troops also arrived in the Philippines just before the turn of the 20th century, purportedly to help Filipinos fight Spanish colonizers. But after the Spanish surrendered the U.S. occupied Manila. When U.S. soldiers stationed in Manila were sent out into territory controlled by Filipinos, and fired on them, President McKinley told reporters, "that the insurgents had attacked Manila." This was a blatant lie, but it justified a U.S. war on the Filipinos who had fought Spain. Filipinos declared independence from Spain in 1899, but their war for independence from the U.S. officially lasted until 1902, and skirmishes and local rebellions continued for another ten years. At least 600,000 Filipinos died in the Philippine-American War.

U.S. forces ordered the concentration of Filipino civilians into "protected zones" as part of their counterinsurgency plan to isolate the Filipino army from its civilian base of support. Poor conditions in these camps led to the deaths of as many as 11,000 Filipinos. At the time, the war was described by Senator Albert Beveridge as "the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world." Dean C. Worcester, U.S. Secretary of the Interior for the Philippines (1901-1913) described, in 1914, "the regime of civilization and improvement which started with American occupation and resulted in developing naked savages into cultivated and educated men." Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers wrote home about fighting the savage "dagos", "niggers" and "natives."
Colonel Funston, of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers wrote in 1899: "The boys go for the enemy as if they were chasing jack-rabbits...I, for one, hope that Uncle Sam will apply the chastening rod, good, hard, and plenty, and lay it on until they come into the reservation and promise to be good Injuns." The racism of the Philippine-American War should be obvious today. The fact that the U.S. provoked the war and lied about a Filipino attack on occupied Manila has been historically verified. The parallels to the Vietnam War, where the U.S. manufactured the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" to justify military involvement, forced Vietnamese into "strategic hamlets", and fought a long war against an indigenous, nationalist guerilla army, have been frequently pointed out.

We should make sure this history is remembered as the U.S. once again begins a military campaign in the Philippines. Like the "war on terrorism", the Spanish-American War started as a way to avenge U.S. deaths. On February 15th, 1898, 254 seamen on board the U.S.S. Maine died when their ship sank in Havana harbor. Despite the fact that the cause of the explosion which sank the Maine was never determined, the U.S. took advantage of the outrage over the incident to declare war on Spain, which controlled Cuba at the time. Hundreds of editorials demanded that U.S. honor be avenged. "Remember the Maine!" became a battle cry. Soon U.S. army units which had been fighting the "Indian wars" in the west were headed to Cuba and U.S. Navy ships were headed for Manila.
Remember the Alamo? The battle of the Alamo has been replayed continually, in John Wayne's 1960 movie "The Alamo", and at the Imax Theater where "Alamo: The Price of Freedom" shows every day in San Antonio. But the story has not been about the U.S. seizing the northern half of Mexico. It has been about the white heroes of the Alamo defending themselves against the Mexican army. But what they were really fighting for was the right to own slaves.

To prevent growing immigration from the United States, the Mexican government had passed an emancipation proclamation in 1829 forbidding slavery. Slavery was not common in Mexico. This law was instead aimed at the growing number of U.S. slave holders settling in the Mexican province of Texas. The Texas rebels fought for the restoration of the 1824 Mexican constitution which did not outlaw slavery.
Those who died at the Alamo and those who died on the U.S.S. Maine were used as a justification for U.S. aggression, just as those who died on 9/11 justify the bombing of Afghanistan and victims of suicide bombings in Israel justify the U.S. funded war on the Palestinians.

The United States, and the European settlers who founded the United States, have always claimed victim status to justify the unjustifiable. During the European conquest of North America there were stories of "primitive" and "wild" Indians attacking European settlers and kidnapping "their" women.
These stories obscured the reality that the settlers were stealing Indian land. The "captive narratives" of kidnapped settler women hid the fact that some European women chose to live with the Indians. The famous example is Mary Jemison who lived with the Seneca. Many settlements, such as Jamestown, had specific laws to prevent settlers from escaping and joining Indian nations. Throughout the European settler conquest a mythology was constructed to portray the conquerors as the victims. What is the most famous massacre of the "wild west"? Some might remember the massacre at Wounded Knee creek on December 29, 1890 when over 300 Sioux men, women and children were murdered by the U.S. army under Colonel James Forsyth. Some might remember November 29, 1864, when an Indian village on the banks of Sand Creek, in what is now Colorado, was attacked by the U.S. Cavalry under Colonel John Chivington and more than 150 Cheyennes and Arapahos, mostly women, children and elderly men, were murdered. But many more remember "Custer's last stand."
What we don't remember is that Lieutenant-Colonel George Custer was responsible for another massacre, the murder of Chief Black Kettle of the Southern Cheyenne, his wife and at least a hundred others. The Cheyenne had been ceded territory in western Kansas and eastern Colorado under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. But the 1859 Pikes Peak gold rush sparked an enormous onslaught of setters onto Cheyenne land and the Southern Cheyenne were eventually forced onto two small reservations in what is now Oklahoma. This is where Black Kettle was murdered without provocation by the Seventh Cavalry commanded by Custer on November 27, 1868. "Custer's last stand", or the battle of the Little Bighorn, in 1876 was the result of Indian resistance to continued intrusions of settlers into the Black Hills, the sacred lands of the Sioux and Cheyenne. It became legendary through reenactments, beginning in 1883, as the climax of Buffalo Bill's "Wild West Show", and continuing today with the "Custer's Last Stand Reenactment" performed every June six miles west of Hardin, Montana. It has become symbolic of the "courageous white victim." It is a story we tell ourselves to justify the genocidal war European settlers fought against the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the process, Native Americans, the victims of genocide, become the aggressors. The relationship between perpetrator and victim becomes inverted.

This is eerily similar to the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan and the recent Israeli military offensive against the Palestinian people. i don't mean to suggest that those who died on September 11th were not victims or that those who die in suicide bombings in Israel are not victims. Their deaths are tragic. But we need to point out that using their deaths to justify more killing is not justice. We need to explain the larger context, which includes the crimes committed against the Palestinian people and the people of the global South in general.
It may be difficult for many North Americans to see that the Israeli settlers, most of whom emigrate from the U.S. and Europe, are stealing Palestinian land. Republican leader Dick Armey (speaking on MSNBC's "Hardball", 5/2/02) explained, "most of the people who now populate Israel were transported from all over the world to that land and they made it their home." Yet, like many in the U.S., he failed to understand what this influx of European and European American settlers means to be Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. It means living under the control of a foreign and hostile government which makes everyday life into a series of ritual humiliations. Even under "normal" circumstances Palestinians have to seek the permission of the Israelis as they go about their daily lives. Their land can be taken from them by force and given to settlers from Europe or North America simply because they are Jewish. Those Palestinians driven from their homes in 1948 and their descendants, the roughly 4 million Palestinians living around the world, are denied their right to return to their homeland, but a Jewish person from anywhere in the world can have Israeli citizenship for the asking.

By now North Americans should understand that the theft of land from the American Indians by European settlers was wrong. That has been well established. But what we need to remember is that to the participants at the time it was justified. The European settlers saw themselves as bringing "civilization," and defending themselves against "savage attacks." They were instruments of "manifest destiny." These justifications have collapsed under the weight of history. But the justifications of our current "war on terrorism" are just as illegitimate. The U.S. "war on terrorism" is no more justified than any of its' previous wars of conquest. Israeli settlers from Brooklyn have no more "historical" or "god-given" right to Palestinian land than settlers from London had to Iroquois lands.

On April 20th, 75,000 people marched in Washington D.C. and 35,000 marched in San Francisco in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In D.C. and in a thousand smaller events across North America, these activists continue to demonstrate that the bush regime's rhetoric of fear, retribution and militarism has not won over everyone. We need to continue to build a mass movement of North Americans who are willing to stand with the victims of U.S. terrorism. We need a movement which is explicitly anti-racist and which is focused on women's rights. History will recognize these activists as those who stood up for justice against one of the most powerful empires in history.
This won't be easy. Despite the U.S. empire's new, multicultural facade (represented at the top by Powell and Rice), many European Americans are still emotionally invested in the myth of the "heroic white victim." Last Winter New York real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner paid for a memorial to the 343 firefighters who died on 9/11 for the New York Fire Department headquarters. The proposed bronze statue was based on a photograph of three firefighters raising an American flag amid the World Trade Center rubble. But when firefighters found out that the sculptor planned one African American, one Latino and one European American fireman, they accused their bosses of caving in to "political correctness" and abandoning "historical accuracy." Despite years of struggle, the New York Fire Department is still the reserve of white men. In a city which is 26.6 percent African American and 27 percent Latino, the department is 94.1 percent white. Opponents of the statue collected the signatures from more than 1,000 firefighters and stopped the plans for the memorial.
We don't need heroes like these. We need to make sure that the grief felt by North Americans after 9/11 does not become a monument to white supremacy and patriarchy.

Part 2

Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has launched its “War on Terror”.  The idea behind this war is to dismantle the terrorist networks (mostly headed by Osama Bin Laden) in the Middle East (specifically, Afghanistan).  The search for weapons of mass destruction along with the discovery and capture of many confessed terrorists is all an attempt to prevent the horrific event of September 11 from happening anywhere else in the world.  However, this pursuit has escalated to an “us vs. them” mentality.  “Us” being the white, male, Christian United States and “them” being the stereotypical fundamentalist Muslim terrorists living in the Middle East.
   
Images of this particular ethnic group have been displayed by the media and contributed to the anxiety and fear that is felt in American towards them.  Racial profiling of those resembling, either physically, culturally, or through beliefs, the picture of what the media has shown us Middle Easterners look like has escalated to an all time high.  Many Americans have to come to hold an “inherent” fear of anyone resembling the terrorists of 9/11.  Extensive background checks as well as blatant prejudices and discrimination have unfairly drawn attention to those citizens who produce no threat to the safety of themselves or others.  This can be seen locally within the community as well as nationally at all of the major airports.

This problem is fostered by the dehumanization of Middle Easterners by the United States.  The American media often dehumanizes these people in order to excuse the wounding, killing, or overturning of life of them by the United States military.  The U.S. holds itself as the standard for a civilized country and takes it upon itself to civilize other nations around the world.  The War on Terror has grown to be more than just a war to ensure the safety of our nation.  It has become a mission in which the United States is doing whatever it takes to make the Middle East a series of nations that resemble itself.

Some related links:
http://www.whiteprivilege.com/categories/war-on-terror/
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/607/how_racial_profiling_undermines_the.html
http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~writling/professional/TechWrite/1-1/macias/web.html

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Perspective of Class

United States

As of 2005, there were 2,000 American deaths in the War on Terror.  A large number of these deaths are of men of the working class in their 20s.   This statistic lead me to look deeper into who makes up the military today. 
The article that contained most of the information presented here is http://userpages.umbc.edu/~lindenme/hist201/Soldiers.htm. 
Here are some of the details I discovered:
    -soldiers are largely from the South or small towns
    -raised in areas where uniformed men are well respected
    -median income of families that include a soldier is lower than for those without one serving
    -they are distant from the nation's political, cultural, academic and media centers

We must now take into account the history of this particular area.  Research shows that the South through the years has lead the way in providing soldiers and also in soldier deaths.  The above website says this, “The South contains 35 percent of the youth population but provides 41 percent of the Army's new soldiers, according to Army officials. The Northeast contains 18 percent of the youth population but provides 13 percent of recruits.” 
The eastern United States is also home to ancestors of those soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.  The South specifically is home to battles of the Civil War.  The respect for war and war veterans
 has largely been ingrained in the language of the South. 

However, let us look at another statistic presented in the article, “there are only a handful of members of Congress who have sons or daughters in the military, although a third of the Army generals have children in uniform.”  Why is it that Congress has so few of their family members in the military?  Is it because of their class level?  Congress is at a level with a number of upper class people in the United States, while members of the military tend to be more at the working class level.  Would it be a disgrace for members of Congress to send their children into the military rather then lobbying as a politician and taking up the family line?

http://www.defendamerica.mil/profiles/june2006/pr060206tj1.html
This picture and link tell the story of a father and son who both are fighting in the War on Terror.
Caption:  U.S. Army 1st. Lt. Michael Miller, platoon leader, 2nd Platoon, Company D, 1-8 Combined Arms Battalion, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Task Force Band of Brothers, and his father Lt. Col. Jack A. Miller, provost marshal for Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, share some time together atop an M1 Abrams tank at Forward Operating Base O’Ryan. U.S. Army photo
(Photo from  www.defendamerica.mil/ )



Iraq
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/army.htm

•    Iraqi army is composed primarily of civilians who feel the need to be loyal to their country. This is also driven by ‘religion.’
•    About 1500 – 3000 people go on active duty- WEEKLY!
•    Similar to the US Army, Iraqi military recruits begin at the age of 18. However, many young boys are taken at any earlier age.
•    Majority of the people are MUSLIM but are divided up into further religious groups- SUNNI’s and SHIA’s
•    Ethnicity includes: Kurdish and Arab
•     http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2005/04/iraq-050408-afps01.htm
•    Iraq's ground forces are only about a third the size of what they were before the 1991 Gulf War, and postwar sanctions have further eroded the combat readiness of equipment. But it still has an estimated 430,000 soldiers            and another 400,000 personnel in paramilitary units and security services. (CNN.COM)
WHAT TYPE OF WEAPONS? CODE NAMES? BASE? DUTIES?
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/iraq/army/
The following is taken from www.democracynow.org (bits and pieces)
President Bush was asked about the Iraqi civilian death toll on Monday following his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council.
•    Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.
•    THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.
President Bush’s comments took many by surprise because the administration has said little over the past 1,000 days on how many Iraqis have died because of the war and occupation. Since Bush spoke on Monday, several officials denied the government was keeping a tally on Iraqi deaths. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that Bush was "citing public estimates," not a government-produced figure. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said there is no official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq. However, Venable said the U.S. military does collect data on deaths from insurgent attacks. If the government did keep close tabs on Iraqi civilian deaths, they might likely find the number is far higher than 30,000.
Last year the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet published a study estimating that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died because of the war. The study determined that the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion. We are joined in Washington by the lead researcher of that report.
•    Les Roberts, co-author of a 2004 study on civilian mortality in Iraq since the invasion. He is an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq as reported by http://www.iraqbodycount.net/  
                                                Min         Max
                                               38725     43140

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Perspective of Gender

No place for Women: War on Terror

Many believe just because women are not the majority fighting in the wars they may not have a place or say in anything. Who is to say what women’s place on war on terror is? The United States at war with Iraq for many reasons and one is so the people in Iraq can have a better life. This includes women having a better life. Will they have a voice in the new government or will they just continue to be the shadow of a male.

The population in Iraq is made with over fifty five percent being women. Most of the people that are being killed are women in the war. Woman are the ones taking care of the wounded and trying to have a better future being out of the shadow of the males.  Women are quiet warriors because despite of them being raped, caring for the wound and trying to keep their family together the women have no place in war on terror. The war is aimed to make a better government in Iraq that includes women’s rights and voices being heard
(Picture below from { www.thewe.cc/.../ brother_died_long.jpe) )


After all the pain that the war has caused all the Iraqi’s and the promises to women they have seen nothing. Is there a place for women? Many women in Iraqi ask themselves this question.  Just after purposing the new plan for women’s rights in Iraq, Women are still being marginalized and have not seen any change. There are many educated women in Iraqi that have much to contribute to the change in Iraq yet there voices are not being heard. It is sad because women are being put to the side because of what they were born with.
{www.socialistworker.co.uk/.../ 1918/hijab_p03.jpg)

 War on terror has not even made an impact of who women are in Iraq. They are still being put to the side as if they do not exist. While there have been many meeting of reforming Iraq there has been no mention on women. After so many years and many obstacles women face there is always something that what’s to keep holding the power of women down. Yet after so many obstacles that have been overcome by women, the war on terror would be another where eventually the women in Iraqi will have there voices heard and a place where they feel comfortable.

All information in the 'gender' section obtained from: http://www.zmag.org/content/TerrorWar/evans_deconstructingwar.cfm

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