{"id":65067,"date":"2015-10-19T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=65067"},"modified":"2015-10-13T16:08:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T15:08:05","slug":"the-us-way-of-war-from-columbus-to-kunduz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/10\/the-us-way-of-war-from-columbus-to-kunduz\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018US Way of War\u2019 from Columbus to Kunduz"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we celebrate Columbus Day, we can’t help but think about the deep levels of cultural violence in the U.S. But what can be done to change a country dominated by war culture into one of a humanitarian culture?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>

In Operation KIDS, a 5 year old \u201cleads her squad home.\u201d From www.af.mil.<\/p><\/div>\n

12 Oct 2015 – <\/em>The confluence of Columbus Day Weekend and the Kunduz hospital bombing has us thinking about the deep levels of cultural violence in the United States and what can be done to change it. How does the US\u00a0move from a country dominated by war culture to one dominated by a humanitarian culture? And, how do we do it in time to avoid war with China and Russia, which both advanced closer this week.<\/p>\n

What does Celebrating Columbus say About the Character of the United States?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Popular Resistance has reported on the\u00a0the legacy of Columbus<\/a>.\u00a0Howard Zinn<\/a>\u00a0describes the true history of Columbus and the Indigenous people of North America. There is a great need for the Columbus myth to be\u00a0revised with realities<\/a>. When the truth is understood, it is evident the US\u00a0is celebrating a brutal war criminal<\/a>\u00a0and that it is\u00a0time to abolish Columbus Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"columbus<\/a>After-all, Columbus lost at sea, \u201cdiscovered\u201d a continent, or an island near it, where up to a hundred million\u00a0people already lived. He enslaved the indigenous peoples, treating them as workhorse animals and sex slaves; he fed live natives to his dogs and cut off the hands of those who did not work hard enough; he slaughtered tens of thousands, beginning a process of ethnic cleansing across the continent, and his son was one of the originators of the African slave trade.<\/p>\n

Many\u00a0Indigenous peoples of North America do not celebrate Columbus<\/a>\u00a0Day because the reality of his human rights violations make it a celebration of\u00a0a brutal war criminal<\/a>. Cities are renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People\u2019s Day, or after local Indigenous Peoples. The most recent are\u00a0Albuquerque<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0multiple cities in Oklahoma<\/a>. Others include\u00a0Seattle<\/a>,\u00a0Bellingham<\/a>,\u00a0Minneapolis<\/a>, St. Paul,\u00a0Berkeley, Portland, Lawrence, and Santa Cruz. Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon, do not recognize Columbus Day, which did not become a US\u00a0federal holiday until 1937.<\/p>\n

This is an international movement.\u00a0In 1977<\/a>, the International Indian\u00a0Treaty Council, the international arm of the American Indian Movement,\u00a0called for the global end of the celebration of Columbus Day and declared\u00a0instead the International Day of Solidarity and Mourning with Indigenous\u00a0Peoples. \u00a0Throughout the years we have seen aggressive protests in Latin American countries over Columbus Day. In 2013\u00a015,000 protesters, organized by Indigenous Peoples in Chile<\/a>, called for an end to Columbus Day and the police turned water cannons on them. Thousands more marched in 2014 in\u00a0Chile and the police attacked Columbus Day protesters<\/a>\u00a0with tear gas and water cannons. The Columbus protests are tied up with disputes between the largest Indigenous community over rights to the ancestral lands. This July, in Argentina after years of protest, a\u00a0statute of Columbus was taken down and replaced by a female freedom fighter<\/a>\u00a0central to their fight for independence. Progress has come with conflict:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1982<\/a>, Spain and the Vatican proposed a 500-year commemoration of\u00a0Columbus\u2019s voyage at the UN General Assembly. The entire African\u00a0delegation, in solidarity with Indigenous peoples of the Americas, walked\u00a0out of the meeting in protest of celebrating colonialism-the very system\u00a0the UN was supposed to end. The commemoration was crushed, and the UN\u00a0declared a celebration of the World\u2019s Indigenous Peoples Day and the Decade\u00a0for the World\u2019s Indigenous Peoples, which began in 1994. The second Decade\u00a0was declared in 2005, and the UN adopted the Declaration of the Rights of\u00a0Indigenous Peoples in 2007.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Columbus<\/a>

Columbus statute pulled down in Caracas, Venezuela in 2004, now Indigenous Resistance Day.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Vatican continues to show ongoing blindness on Indigenous issues. The Pope failed to denounce\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe Right Of Conquest\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which provided legal justification for colonization and stealing of land and resources from Indigenous Peoples.\u00a0 Pope Francis, in his visit to the United States, canonized a California missionary, Junipero Serra, some now call the Saint of Genocide. He refused to meet with 50 Indigenous Nations to discuss the issue. \u00a0People protested the canonization<\/a>\u00a0by replacing Serra\u2019s name on street signs with the name Toypurina, an Indigenous woman who led a revolt against Serra for his treating Indigenous as slaves, destroying cultural rights and actions which led to the deaths of thousands.<\/p>\n

It is not just about renaming the day, it is about ending discrimination against\u00a0Indigenous peoples. Albuquerque\u2019s Indigenous People\u2019s Day proclamation declares the day \u201cshall\u00a0be used to reflect upon the ongoing struggles of Indigenous peoples on this\u00a0land.\u201d\u00a0 The reality is that Indigenous men aged 20 to 24 are the\u00a0group most likely to experience police violence<\/a>. There is a massive, inadequately addressed reality\u00a0of missing and murdered woman<\/a>, especially in Canada. Indigenous people continue to\u00a0fight for the survival of their culture<\/a>\u00a0and to stop the\u00a0sale of sacred artifacts<\/a>. And, they continue to fight to\u00a0keep their land and rivers<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0against extraction<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0energy<\/a>, minerals and resources from their land.\u00a0 At the root of many problems with the ongoing ethnic cleansing is the failure to recognize treaty rights.<\/p>\n

\"WarCulture<\/a><\/p>\n

The US Way of War<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United States has conducted war in brutal ways since before the country was founded. In the \u201cIndigenous People\u2019s History of the United States<\/a>,\u201d Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, writes about the origins of the \u2018US Way of War:\u2019 \u201cThis way of war, forged in the first century of colonization \u2013 destroying Indigenous villages and fields, killing civilians, ranging and scalp hunting \u2013 became the basis for the wars against the Indigenous across the continent into the late nineteenth century.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week the US military received intensive worldwide criticism for bombing a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. \u00a0The\u00a0DoD has changed its story multiple times<\/a>, after\u00a0MSF refuted each version<\/a>, evolving from a mistake, to that the Afghans requested it, to that it was ordered in the US chain of command in violation of US rules of engagement. When Margaret Flowers, MD was sitting in the audience before the Senate\u00a0Armed Services Committee hearing and General John Campbell walked in to testify, she wanted to make sure he heard the anger of people over the Kunduz bombing and she said \u201cBombing hospitals is a war crime. Stop the bombing now.\u201d Sen. John\u00a0McCain ordered her arrested<\/a>\u00a0for making this statement.<\/p>\n

\"Kunduz<\/a>

Kunduz hospital after US bombing.<\/p><\/div>\n

The DoD will be investigating itself, so we know how that will turn out before it even begins. An independent investigation is needed. The DoD\u2019s latest is to\u00a0deny a congressional request for the audio and video cockpit tapes of the bombin<\/a>g. A request for the tapes was made in closed door congressional hearings this week. DoD acknowledged they had reviewed the tapes which provided important evidence but refused access to Congress because of the ongoing investigation. Edward Snowden first suggested these tapes would provide valuable evidence and\u00a0Wikileaks has offered a $50,000<\/a>\u00a0reward to find out.\u00a0DoD should release the audio and video tapes of the bombing run.<\/a>\u00a0Sign our petition to President Obama demanding release of the tapes so the truth about the bombing can be known to all.<\/p>\n

The Kunduz bombing and recent US wars are all consistent with the \u201cUS Way of War\u201d which includes terrorizing communities, killing civilians of all ages, denying them healthcare and even food. We see the latter two in tactics like economic sanctions that increase poverty or make prescription drugs unavailable. These tactics go back to the founders.<\/p>\n

George Washington ordered the Six Nations of the Indigenous Peoples\u00a0in New York attacked with orders to kill or capture civilians of all ages:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more. I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed. But you will not by any means listen to any overture of peace before the total\u00a0ruinment\u00a0of their settlements is effected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Artist\u2019s<\/a>

Artist\u2019s rendition of early Americans slaughtering Native Indians; it was the worst Genocide in recorded history.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Vietnam does anyone think that the widespread use of napalm did not result in mass killings of civilians? From 1965 to 1973, eight million tons of napalm bombs were dropped over Vietnam. And, Agent Orange, the chemical poison that not only kills people, causing serious health problems for\u00a0generations,\u00a0but poisons the land was also used. \u00a0Between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 gallons of Agent Orange over Vietnam. By 1971, 12 percent of the total area of South Vietnam had been sprayed with defoliating chemicals, at an average concentration of 13 times the recommended level of use. Five million acres, 20 percent of forests and 24 million acres of agricultural land were destroyed.<\/p>\n

And, Tom Hayden asks in\u00a0Democracy Journal<\/a>\u00a0whether people remember \u201cthe US bombing of Hanoi\u2019s Bach Mai hospital on December 22,\u00a01972,\u00a0when 28 doctors and nurses lay dead among the civilian casualties? That sparked American and global outrage, caused the Pentagon to go into a defensive crouch, and spurred the mass movement for medical aid to Indochina [MAI].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"US<\/a>

US spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam.<\/p><\/div>\n

During the Iraq War, when the US attacked Fallujah, days after George Bush won re-election,\u00a0health services were the initial targets of attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy Saturday, November 6, the assault on Falluja began. U.S. rockets took out their first target: the Hai Nazal Hospital, a new facility that was just about ready to open its doors. A spokesman for the First Marines Expeditionary Force said, \u2018A hospital was not on the target list.\u2019 But there it is, reduced to a pile of rubble. Then on Sunday night the Special Forces stormed the Falluja General Hospital. They rounded up all the doctors, pushed them face down on the floor and handcuffed them with plastic straps behind their backs. With the hospital occupied, those wounded by the U.S. aerial bombings headed to the Falluja Central Health Clinic. And so at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, November 9, U.S. warplanes bombed that clinic as well, killing 35 patients, 15 medics, 4 nurses, 5 support staff and 4 doctors, according to a doctor who survived (The Nation, 13 December). U.S. fire also targeted an ambulance, killing five patients and the driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"During<\/a>

During the Vietnam War B-52 bombers completely destroyed Bach Mai hospital in Hanoi.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jon Schwarz of the Intercept<\/a>\u00a0provides a series of examples of the bombing of civilian facilities since 1991 including: Infant Formula Production Plant, Abu Ghraib, Iraq (January 21, 1991), Air Raid Shelter, Amiriyah, Iraq (February 13, 1991), Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory, Khartoum, Sudan (August 20, 1998), Train bombing, Grdelica, Serbia (April 12, 1999), Radio Television Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia (April 23, 1999), Chinese Embassy, Belgrade, Serbia (May 7, 1999), Red Cross complex, Kabul, Afghanistan (October 16 and October 26, 2001), Al Jazeera office, Kabul, Afghanistan (November 13, 2001), Al Jazeera office, Baghdad, Iraq (April 8, 2003), and the Palestine Hotel, Baghdad, Iraq (April 8, 2003).<\/p>\n

Throughout the Obama presidency and during the end of the Bush presidency, the US has been using\u00a0drones<\/a>\u00a0to bomb multiple countries. There have consistent\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0of drones\u00a0killing civilians<\/a>\u00a0including\u00a0Obama killing at least 8 Americans<\/a>. This week the Obama administration took these killings a step further, trying to deny legal access to the victims\u2019 families by\u00a0seeking dismissal of their case<\/a>. The US is seeing\u00a0protests even in allied Germany<\/a>\u00a0against their use of drones. Efforts to bring transparency to the use of drones have resulted in\u00a0blacked-out responses to FOIA<\/a>\u00a0requests.<\/p>\n

This week the US moved toward direct confrontation with Russia and China. In Syria, the US\u00a0is engaged in an unauthorized war supposedly against the Islamic State in Syria, but also to achieve its\u00a0long term goal of putting in place a US friendly government in Syria<\/a>. There is a lot of\u00a0misinformation<\/a>\u00a0and confusion about this war, which has now been joined by Russian aerial attacks. Unlike the US, Russia was asked by the Syrian government to help prevent terrorist attacks in Syria. The US has been covertly using the CIA for ground operations with supposed moderate Syrian terrorists while also conducting an aerial campaign. There are widespread deaths of civilians and a\u00a0massive exodus of refugees<\/a>. Rhetoric is escalating, former National Security Advisor\u00a0Zbigniew Brzezinski<\/a>\u00a0is calling for retaliation against Russia while\u00a0Senator John McCain<\/a>\u00a0says the US is in a proxy war with Russia. Talks in Geneva, without any preconditions as to the status of President Assad, are urgently needed.<\/p>\n

\"Doctors<\/a>

Doctors at Falluja General Hospital handcuffed and pushed to the floor when U.S. troops seize the facility, November 8. (Photo: New York Times)<\/p><\/div>\n

Regarding China, last week\u00a0the US announced<\/a>\u00a0that within the next two weeks it was going to send US war ships inside\u00a0the 12-nautical-mile zones that China claims as\u00a0territory around\u00a0islands it has built in\u00a0the Spratly Chain. The next day\u00a0China responded<\/a>\u00a0that it would not tolerate violations of its territorial waters and told the US not to\u00a0take any provocative actions. This sets up a potential conflict that the US has been stoking in the region, using allies like the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam as proxies for conflicts with China over the Islands.<\/p>\n

War Is Not the Answer, Time to\u00a0End US War Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ralph Nader<\/a>\u00a0points to the recent war losses in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and says there are lessons for the United States. The US has been unrestrained by international law and used \u201cmilitary power anywhere and everywhere, regardless of national boundaries and the resulting immense civilian casualties.\u201d The US has created \u201cwonton destruction and violent chaos\u201d and destroyed functioning governments.<\/p>\n

Nader describes the blowback caused by \u201creckless slaughter of civilians \u2013 wedding parties, schools, clinics, peasant boys collecting fire-wood on a hillside \u2013 from supposedly pinpoint, accurate airplanes, helicopter gunships, drones, or missiles. Hatred of the Americans spreads as people lose their loved ones.\u201d As a result, the US is perceived as \u201cinvaders on a rampage\u201d resulting in countries producing an endless supply of \u201cmotivated fighters\u201d and \u201csuicide bombers.\u201d US wars\u2019 \u201c\u2019blowback\u2019 policies are fueling the expansion of al-Qaeda offshoots and new violent groups in over 20 countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"1war1-300x173<\/a>Nader points out that \u201call this could have been avoided\u201d as there were scores of retired military officials who warned all-out war was a mistaken course. Further, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their off shoots are not winning the \u2018hearts and minds\u2019 of the people with their brutal policies but their promise of law and order is better than the chaos of US militarism.<\/p>\n

These war policies seeking to achieve full spectrum dominance have also had negative effects at home. Nader points to \u201cthe harm to and drain on our soldiers, our domestic economy, the costly, boomeranging, endless wars overseas and what empire building has done to spread anxieties and lower the expectation level of the American people for their public budgets and public services.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do we get out of these depraved quagmires of our own self-creation? Nader gives an answer \u2013 a change in approach to the world, an end to war culture and a move toward a humanitarian culture. As Nader says it:<\/p>\n

\u201cNot repeatedly doing what has failed is the first step toward correction. How much better and cheaper it would be if years ago we became a humanitarian power \u2013 well received by the deprived billions in these anguished lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s stop repeating the mistakes that have been with us since Columbus.Let\u2019s end the American culture of war.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

Kevin Zeese is an attorney who has been a political activist since graduating from George Washington Law School in 1980. He works on peace, economic justice, criminal law reform and reviving American democracy. His twitter is @KBZeese.<\/em><\/p>\n

Margaret Flowers is an organizer with Popular Resistance, which provides daily movement news and resources.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

As we celebrate Columbus Day, we can’t help but think about the deep levels of cultural violence in the U.S. But what can be done to change a country dominated by war culture into one of a humanitarian culture?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65067","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=65067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}