CSM: Extra, extra! Foreign press, translated

[Xipe Totec]

The headline reads, "Columbus' Discovery of America: History's 'Biggest Mistake.' " That might sound harsh to an American audience, but it's less likely to ruffle Iraqis reading it in Arabic. Another zinger, this one from Tunisia, bluntly states, "The United States: a Country Beyond the Law." A Mexican headline declares: "Time Near for Bush to Pay the Piper."

The stories offer a glimpse of how foreigners feel about the only superpower. And they were all available recently on www.WatchingAmerica.com, a website launched earlier this year that simply culls, without comment, the foreign online press for commentary about America.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0714/p11s01-stin.html

[merwin]

1. Every time i see CSM I think 'Cigarette Smoking Man'

[Xipe Totec]

2. LOL! What an odd juxtaposition n/t

[Verve]

3. Wasn't that the evil guy on the X Files? n/t

[merwin]

4. Bingo :-)

[Xipe Totec]

5. That's what I thought was so weird

to have the imagery of X-files and Christian Science Monitor in my mind at the same time.

brain freeze

:thumbsup:

[Igel]

6. I like the Columbus one.

"One such broadside is from the Iraqi paper Azzaman, whose story about 'History's Biggest Mistake' goes on to say, 'If Columbus was alive today and witnessed the scandals of abuse and torture inside the US detention centers of Abu Ghraib, Umm Qasr, Guantánamo, and Afghanistan, he would have discovered the magnitude of his error and headed back to Spain ... to apologize to the world for the wars, disasters, and calamities that he had brought forth.' "

Apart from religion, Columbus was engaged in monopoly busting and price fixing. (And I'm afraid that he'd find Gitmo to be a sad, sad business.)

[scarletwoman]

8. If Columbus "...witnessed the scandals of abuse and torture" he would

heartily approve.

Read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States -- this is the opening chapter about Columbus:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Columbus_PeoplesHx.html

<excerpt>

Columbus wrote: "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."

The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold?

<snip>

He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage "as much gold as they need . . . and as many slaves as they ask."

<snip>

Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives.

<snip>

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold.

In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

A colonial enterprise is ever thus, Columbus would be right at home in Iraq, suppressing insurgents by any means.

sw

[ixion]

7. more (sad) headlines from WatchingAmerica.com

We Must Resist U.S. Court's 'Assault' on the Free Press
“This is something that should concern the media fraternity all over the world.”
—EDITORIAL, The Standard



Tunis Hebdo, July 11-July 17 Issue, Tunisia
American Blunders Have Made Terror Inescapable \


Toronto Star, July 10, Canada
Bush's War on Terror Is a Monumental Failure


The Daily Star, July 8, Bangladesh
Bush's Policies Are the Fuel of Islamic Fundamentalism

:-(