Friday, May 22, 2009

Noam Chomsky on American amnesia: We Forget Our Atrocities Almost As Soon as We Commit Them

Historical amnesia is a dangerous social phenomenon because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.

The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so.

For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law -- a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration's "black sites", or secret prisons, and for extraordinary rendition, and they were fulfilled.

17 comments:

  1. A MUST READ:
     
    Biden does Beirut
     
     
    http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/22/biden-does-beirut/

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  2. It is really sad when real hsitory becomes novel because it is repressed, and truth becomes subversive.

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  3. Actually, the other day I was thinking of posting this on my site.

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  4. Is there evidence that more than three detainees were tortured in Guantanomo Bay? Guantanamo was a luxury resort for its inmates. However, I don't think the US government should be able to detain people against their will without trial, even in a 5 star hotel. I support Obama closing Guantanamo Bay. (As does McCain.)

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  5. Sometimes I say to myself "Hey, maybe this Anand guy is just a lost soul, a blabbering monkey that sometimes says a few things that are right and sound decent and humane, and thus, should be treated with some respect".  But then again I come upon repulsive comments like the above; comments that not just politically wrong, but disgusting in their lack of humanity and common sense; comments that only someone lacking any true compassion and principles would utter, and I have to say to myself "No, this person cannot be just a confused spirit. He's in fact a hypocrite that displays on the one hand a facade of a contradictory but basically decent human being, while with the other, he constantly plunges his poisonous dagger in the backs of all those who suffer exploitation, discrimination, deprivation, destitution and spiritual and physical destruction by capitalism and imperialism. Anand, you truly are a moral abortion.

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  6. There is speculation if anand was ever born, so the abortion may even be questionable.

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  7. What do you mean speculation if he was ever born?

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  8. ANAND ON THE LOOSE
     
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pEnTGmGizzw/Rl9Iffwa4qI/AAAAAAAAAB8/__5Wa9IHOdM/s400/pinhead.jpg

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  9. thankgodimatheistMay 22, 2009 at 4:06 PM

    Ha ha! This a is my anand my boy!!!!
    Sigh*

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  10. thankgodimatheistMay 22, 2009 at 4:07 PM

    Ha ha..This is anand my boy!
    Sigh*

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  11. thankgodimatheistMay 22, 2009 at 4:10 PM

    Why don't you post that evidence that no more than 3 detainees were tortured? Any links to this trash?
    .

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  12. thankgodimatheistMay 22, 2009 at 4:12 PM

    anand
    Why don't you post or link to that evidence that no more than 3 detainees were tortured?Stating things does not make them right.

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  13. TGIA and V, you may enjoy this.
    http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/conservative-radio-hosts-waterboarded/
     
    Conservative radio host (alas,not Hannity)gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture! >:o
     
    starts at 2:20

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  14. thankgodimatheistMay 22, 2009 at 6:30 PM

    Thanks DJ..I made a post.

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  15. Chomsky is the only other person that I know who has made this a specific point in his article -
     
    ""The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime ... [Cheney and Rumsfeld] demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration... 'There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder'.""
     
    As I said before, torture is an elite method used to get the confession that the perpetrator wants. In fact, it was on a confession elicited by torture that the previous administration used, in part, to start the Iraq war.

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  16. Conquistador of mexico, the zulu and the navaho
    The belgians in the congo short memory
    Plantation in virginia, the raj in british india
    The deadline in south africa short memory
    The story of el salvador, the silence of hiroshima
    Destruction of cambodia short memory
    A smallish man afghanistan, a watch dog in a nervous land
    Theyre only there to lend a hand short memory
     
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idstQmng4UM

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  17. THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA
     
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGgiHyEGrV8

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