[Mb-civic] History Lessons

[TSawyer456 at aol.com]

This is a brilliant piece -- as far as he goes with it. Keep in mind as you  
read it that he omits a few important examples, such as Roosevelt's lies that  
enabled Pearl Harbor to take place, albeit with only our obsolete ships still 
at  anchor there. And he omits the fact that Vietnam was also about 
protecting the  oil in Indonesia from the "godless commies", as well as all of our  
wars since WWII enabling the buildup of the Military/Industrial Complex  that now 
runs our lives.
 
Nonetheless, the heart of it is, sadly, absolutely on the mark.  Would that 
there was a politician out there who was willing to say  it...
Tom
_www.ThomasBSawyer.com_ (http://www.ThomasBSawyer.com)  
 
Lessons of Iraq War Start  With US History
By Howard  Zinn
The Progressive  
Tuesday 14 March  2006 
On the third anniversary of  President Bush's Iraq debacle, it's important to 
consider why the administration  so easily fooled so many people into 
supporting the  war. 
I believe there are two reasons,  which go deep into our national culture. 
One is an absence of historical  perspective. The other is an inability to 
think outside the boundaries of  nationalism. 
If we don't know history, then we  are ready meat for carnivorous politicians 
and the intellectuals and journalists  who supply the carving knives. But if 
we know some history, if we know how many  times presidents have lied to us, 
we will not be fooled  again. 
President Polk lied to the nation  about the reason for going to war with 
Mexico in 1846. It wasn't that Mexico  "shed American blood upon the American 
soil" but that Polk, and the slave-owning  aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico. 
President McKinley lied in 1898  about the reason for invading Cuba, saying 
we wanted to liberate the Cubans from  Spanish control, but the truth is that 
he really wanted Spain out of Cuba so  that the island could be open to United 
Fruit and other American corporations.  He also lied about the reasons for our 
war in the Philippines, claiming we only  wanted to "civilize" the Filipinos, 
while the real reason was to own a valuable  piece of real estate in the far 
Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of  thousands of Filipinos to 
accomplish that. 
President Wilson lied about the  reasons for entering the First World War, 
saying it was a war to "make the world  safe for democracy," when it was really 
a war to make the world safe for the  rising American power. 
President Truman lied when he  said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 
because it was "a military  target." 
And everyone lied about Vietnam -  President Kennedy about the extent of our 
involvement, President Johnson about  the Gulf of Tonkin and President Nixon 
about the secret bombing of Cambodia.  They all claimed the war was to keep 
South Vietnam free of communism, but really  wanted to keep South Vietnam as an 
American outpost at the edge of the Asian  continent. 
President Reagan lied about the  invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that 
it was a threat to the United  States. 
The elder Bush lied about the  invasion of Panama, leading to the death of 
thousands of ordinary citizens in  that country. And he lied again about the 
reason for attacking Iraq in 1991 -  hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait, 
rather to assert U.S. power in the  oil-rich Middle East. 
There is an even bigger lie: the  arrogant idea that this country is the 
center of the universe, exceptionally  virtuous, admirable, superior. 
If our starting point for  evaluating the world around us is the firm belief 
that this nation is somehow  endowed by Providence with unique qualities that 
make it morally superior to  every other nation on Earth, then we are not 
likely to question the president  when he says we are sending our troops here or 
there, or bombing this or that,  in order to spread our values - democracy, 
liberty, and let's not forget free  enterprise - to some God-forsaken (literally) 
place in the  world. 
But we must face some facts that  disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous 
nation. 
We must face our long history of  ethnic cleansing, in which the U.S. 
government drove millions of Indians off  their land by means of massacres and forced 
 evacuations. 
We must face our long history,  still not behind us, of slavery, segregation 
and  racism. 
And we must face the lingering  memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
It is not a history of which we  can be proud. 
Our leaders have taken it for  granted, and planted the belief in the minds 
of many people that we are  entitled, because of our moral superiority, to 
dominate the world. Both the  Republican and Democratic Parties have embraced this 
 notion. 
But what is the idea of our moral  superiority based on? 
A more honest estimate of  ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the 
next barrage of lies that  will accompany the next proposal to inflict our 
power on some other part of the  world. 
It might also inspire us to  create a different history for ourselves, by 
taking our country away from the  liars who govern it, and by rejecting 
nationalist arrogance, so that we can join  people around the world in the common cause 
of peace and  justice. 
--------   
Howard Zinn, who served as a  bombardier in the Air Force in World War II, is 
the author of "A People's  History of the United States" (HarperCollins, 
1995). He is also the co-author,  with Anthony Arnove, of "Voices of a People's 
History of the United States"  (Seven Stories Press, 2004). 
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