{"id":27221,"date":"2013-04-01T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=27221"},"modified":"2013-04-08T19:10:23","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T18:10:23","slug":"american-anniversaries-from-hell-what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/04\/american-anniversaries-from-hell-what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you\/","title":{"rendered":"American Anniversaries from Hell: What You Don\u2019t Know Can Hurt You"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s true that, last week, few in Congress\u00a0cared to discuss<\/a>, no less memorialize, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.\u00a0 Nonetheless, two anniversaries of American disasters and crimes abroad — the \u201cmission accomplished\u201d\u00a0debacle<\/a>\u00a0of 2003 and the\u00a045th anniversary<\/a>\u00a0of the My Lai massacre — were at least noted in passing in our world.\u00a0 In my hometown paper, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, the Iraq anniversary was memorialized with a lead op-ed by a\u00a0former advisor<\/a>\u00a0to General David Petraeus who, amid the rubble, went in search of all-American \u201csilver linings<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, in our post-9\/11 world, there are so many other anniversaries from hell whose silver linings don\u2019t get noticed.\u00a0 Take this April.\u00a0 It will be the ninth anniversary of the widespread release of the now infamous photos of torture, abuse, and humiliation from Abu Ghraib.\u00a0 In case you\u2019ve forgotten, that was Saddam Hussein\u2019s old prison where the U.S. military taught the fallen Iraqi dictator a trick or two about the destruction of human beings.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t there be an anniversary of some note there? \u00a0I mean, how many cultures have turned\u00a0dog collars<\/a>\u00a0(and the\u00a0dogs<\/a>\u00a0that go with them),\u00a0thumbs-up signs<\/a>\u00a0over dead bodies, and a\u00a0mockery<\/a>\u00a0of the crucified Christ into\u00a0screensavers<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Or to pick another not-to-be-missed anniversary that, strangely enough, goes uncelebrated here, consider the passage of the\u00a0USA Patriot Act<\/a>, that ten-letter acronym for \u201cUniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism\u201d?\u00a0 This October 26th will be the 11th anniversary of the hurried congressional vote on that 363-page (essentially unread<\/a>) document filled with right-wing hobbyhorses and a range of provisions meant to curtail American liberties in the name of keeping us safe from terror.\u00a0 \u201cSmall government\u201d Republicans and \u201cbig government\u201d Democrats rushed to support it back then.\u00a0 It passed in the Senate in record time by 98-1, with only Russ Feingold in opposition, and in the House by 357-66 — and so began the process of taking the oppressive powers of the American state into a new dimension. It would signal the launch of a world of\u00a0ever-expanding<\/a>\u00a0American surveillance and secrecy (and it would be\u00a0renewed<\/a>\u00a0by the Obama administration at its leisure in 2011).<\/p>\n

Or what about celebrating the 12th anniversary of Congress\u2019s\u00a0Authorization for Use of Military Force<\/a>, the joint resolution that a panicked and cowed body passed on September 14, 2001?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t a declaration of war — there was no one to declare war on — but an open-ended grant to the president of the unfettered power to use \u201call necessary and appropriate force\u201d in what would become a never-ending (and\u00a0still expanding<\/a>) \u201cGlobal War on Terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or how about the 11th anniversary on\u00a0January 11th<\/a>\u00a0— like so many such moments, it passed unnoted — of the\u00a0establishment<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0Guantanamo Bay detention camp<\/a>, that jewel in the crown of George W. Bush\u2019s offshore Bermuda Triangle of injustice, with its indefinite detention of the innocent and the guilty without charges, its\u00a0hunger strikes<\/a>, and abuses, and above all its remarkable ability to embed itself in our world and\u00a0never go away<\/a>?\u00a0 Given that, on much of the rest of the planet, Guantanamo is now an icon of the post-9\/11 American way of life, on a par with Mickey Mouse and the Golden Arches, shouldn\u2019t its anniversary be noted?<\/p>\n

Or to look ahead, consider a date of genuine consequence: the CIA\u2019s first known assassination by drone<\/a>, which took place in Yemen in 2002.\u00a0 This November will be the 11th anniversary of that momentous act, which would embed “targeted killing” deep in the American way of war, and transform the president into an assassin-in-chief<\/a>.\u00a0 It, too, will undoubtedly pass largely unnoticed, even if the global drone assassination campaigns<\/a> it initiated may never rest in peace.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, there are the little anniversaries from hell that Americans could care less about — those that have to do with slaughter abroad.\u00a0 If you wanted to, you could organize these by the military services.\u00a0 As last year ended, for instance, no one marked the 11th anniversary of the first Afghan wedding party<\/a> to be wiped out by the U.S. Air Force.\u00a0 (In late December 2001, a B-52 and two B-1B bombers, using precision-guided weapons, eradicated a village of celebrants in eastern Afghanistan; only two of 112 villagers reportedly survived.)\u00a0 Nor in May will anyone here mark the ninth anniversary of an American air strike that took out<\/a> wedding celebrants in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border, killing more than 40 of them.<\/p>\n

Nor, this July 12th, to switch to the U.S. Army, should we forget the sixth anniversary of the infamous Apache helicopter attacks<\/a> on civilians in the streets of Baghdad in which at least 11 adults were killed and two children wounded?\u00a0 All of this was preserved in a military video<\/a> kept secret until released by WikiLeaks.\u00a0 Or how about the first anniversary of the \u201cKandahar massacre,\u201d which passed on March 11th without any notice at all?\u00a0 As you undoubtedly remember, Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales allegedly spent that night in 2012 slaughtering<\/a> 16 civilians, including nine children, in two Afghan villages and, on being taken into custody, \u201cshowed no remorse<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to the Marines, here\u2019s a question: Who, this November 19th, will mark the eighth anniversary of the slaughter of 24 unarmed civilians, including children and the elderly, in the Iraqi village of Haditha<\/a> for which, after a six-year investigation and military trials, not a single Marine spent a single day in prison?\u00a0 Or to focus for a moment on U.S. Special Forces: will anyone on August 21st memorialize the 90 or so civilians, including perhaps 15 women and up to 60 children, killed<\/a> in the Afghan village of Azizabad<\/a> while attending a memorial service for a tribal leader who had reportedly been anti-Taliban?<\/p>\n

And not to leave out the rent-a-gun mercenaries who have been such a fixture of the post-9\/11 era of American warfare, this September 16th will be the sixth anniversary of the moment when Blackwater<\/a> guards for a convoy of U.S. State Department vehicles sprayed Baghdad\u2019s Nisour Square<\/a> with bullets, evidently without provocation<\/a>, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding many more.<\/p>\n

All of the above only begins to suggest the plethora<\/a> <\/strong>of blood-soaked little anniversaries that Americans could observe, if they cared to, from a decade-plus of the former Global War on Terror that now has no name, but goes on no less intensely.\u00a0 Consider them just a few obvious examples of what former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once called<\/a> the \u201cknown knowns\u201d of our American world.<\/p>\n

Impossible Anniversaries<\/strong><\/p>\n

In anniversary terms, Rumsfeld\u2019s second category — the \u201cknown unknowns\u201d — is no less revealing of the universe we now inhabit; that is, our post-9\/11 lives have been filled with events or acts whose anniversaries might be notable, if only we knew the date when they occured. \u00a0Take, for instance, the Bush administration\u2019s warrantless wiretapping program<\/a>.\u00a0 Sometime in the first part of 2002, President Bush granted the National Security Agency the right to eavesdrop without court approval on people in the United States in the course of its terrorism investigations.\u00a0 This (illegal) program\u2019s existence was first revealed<\/a> in 2005, but it remains shrouded in mystery.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know exactly when it began.\u00a0 So no anniversary celebrations there.<\/p>\n

Nor for the setting up of the \u201cSalt Pit<\/a>,\u201d the CIA \u201cblack site<\/a>\u201d in Afghanistan where Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman kidnapped<\/a> by the CIA in Macedonia (due to a confusion of names with a suspected terrorist) was held and mistreated, or other similar secret prisons and torture centers in places like Lithuania<\/a>, Poland<\/a>, Rumania<\/a>, and Thailand<\/a>; nor for the creation of Camp Nama<\/a> in Iraq, with its ominously named \u201cBlack Room,\u201d run as an interrogation center by the Joint Special Operations Command, where the informal motto was: “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.”<\/p>\n

Or how about the anniversary of the date — possibly as early as 2006 — when Washington launched<\/a> history\u2019s first known cyberwar, a series of unprovoked cyberattacks<\/a> ordered by George W. Bush and later Barack Obama, against Iran\u2019s nuclear program (and evidently some Middle Eastern banks<\/a> dealing with that country as well).\u00a0 Given its potential future implications<\/a>, that would seem to be a moment significant enough to memorialize, if only we knew when to do it.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t for a moment think, though, that any little survey of known knowns and known unknowns could cover the totality of America\u2019s unacknowledged anniversaries from hell.\u00a0 After all, there\u2019s Rumsfeld\u2019s third category, the \u201cunknown unknowns.\u201d\u00a0 In our advancing world of secrecy, with the National Security Complex and parts of the U.S. military increasingly operating in a post-legal America<\/a>, shielded from whistleblowers and largely unaccountable to the rest of us or the courts, you can be guaranteed of one thing: there\u2019s a secret history of the post-9\/11 era that we simply don\u2019t know about — yet.\u00a0 Call this last category “the unknown anniversaries.”\u00a0 We not only don\u2019t know when they began, but even what they are.<\/p>\n

A Hidden History Waiting to Be Written<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was a boy, I loved a CBS TV series\u00a0 called<\/a> “You Are There,” “anchored” by Walter Cronkite.\u00a0 It took you into history — whether of Joan of Arc\u2019s burning at the stake, the fall of the Aztec ruler Montezuma, or the end<\/a> of the U.S. Civil War — and \u201creported\u201d it as if modern journalists had been on the spot.\u00a0 (For years, I used to joke that the typical moment went like this: \u201cGeneral Lee, General Lee, rumor has it you\u2019re about to surrender to Grant at Appomattox!\u201d \u201cNo comment.\u201d)\u00a0 The show had a signature tagline delivered in one of those authoritative male voices of the era that still rings in my head.\u00a0 It went: “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… all things are as they were then, and you were there.”<\/p>\n

If such a show were made about the post-9\/11 years, it might have to be called \u201cYou Weren\u2019t There.\u201d\u00a0 Our days, instead of being filled with \u201cthose events that alter and illuminate our times,\u201d would be enshrouded in a penumbra of secrecy that could — as with Bradley Manning<\/a>, CIA agent John Kiriakou<\/a>, or other whistleblowers<\/a> — only be broken by those ready to spend years, or even a lifetime in prison.\u00a0 If the National Security Complex and the White House had their way, we Americans would be left to celebrate a heavily cleansed and censored version of our own recent history in which the anniversaries that should really matter would be squirreled away in the files of the state apparatus.\u00a0 There can be no question that a hidden history of our American moment is still waiting to be uncovered and written.<\/p>\n

And yet, despite the best efforts of the last two administrations, secrecy has its limits.\u00a0 We should already know more than enough to be horrified by the state of our American world.\u00a0 It should disturb us deeply that a government of, by, and for the war-makers, intelligence operatives, bureaucrats, privatizing mercenary corporations, surveillers, torturers, and assassins is thriving in Washington.\u00a0 As for the people — that\u2019s us — in these last years, we largely weren\u2019t there, even as the very idea of a government of, by, and for us bit the dust, and our leaders felt increasingly unconstrained when committing acts of shame in our name.<\/p>\n

So perhaps the last overlooked anniversary of these years might be the 12th anniversary of American cowardice.\u00a0 You can choose the exact date yourself; anytime this fall will do.\u00a0 At that moment, Americans should feel free to celebrate a time when, for our \u201csafety,\u201d and in a state of anger and paralyzing fear<\/a>, we gave up the democratic ghost.<\/p>\n

The brave thing, of course, would have been to gamble just a little of our safety — as we do any day when we get into a car — for the kind of world whose anniversaries we would actually be proud to mark on a calendar and celebrate.<\/p>\n

Among the many truths in that still-to-be-written secret history of our American world would be this: we the people have no idea just how, in these years, we\u2019ve hurt ourselves.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the <\/em>American Empire Project<\/em><\/a> and author of <\/em>The United States of Fear<\/a> as well as a history of the Cold War, <\/em>The End of Victory Culture<\/a>, runs the Nation Institute’s <\/em>TomDispatch.com<\/em><\/a>. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is <\/em>Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2013 Tom Engelhardt<\/i><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomdispatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s true that, last week, few in Congress cared to discuss, no less memorialize, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Nonetheless, two anniversaries of American disasters and crimes abroad — the \u201cmission accomplished\u201d debacle of 2003 and the 45th anniversary of the My Lai massacre — were at least noted in passing in our world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,57,65,55,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus","category-militarism","category-anglo-america","category-capitalism","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}