In light of the attempted character assassination of Ward Churchill today

[el_gato]

I would like to post a few quotes of his along with some links to what he actually has to say on the subject of 9/11. Reading something in context rather than responding to an article that was intentionally written to cause the knee-jerk reactions is necessary if you want to
actually understand the issue.


On the Justice of Roosting Chickens by Ward Churchill
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html
On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.

The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable – in fact, widely predicted – result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival.

If the nature of the bombing were not already bad enough – and it should be noted that this sort of "aerial warfare" constitutes a Class I Crime Against humanity, entailing myriad gross violations of international law, as well as every conceivable standard of "civilized" behavior – the death toll has been steadily ratcheted up by US-imposed sanctions for a full decade now. Enforced all the while by a massive military presence and periodic bombing raids, the embargo has greatly impaired the victims' ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers.

All told, Iraq has a population of about 18 million. The 500,000 kids lost to date thus represent something on the order of 25 percent of their age group. Indisputably, the rest have suffered – are still suffering – a combination of physical debilitation and psychological trauma severe enough to prevent their ever fully recovering. In effect, an entire generation has been obliterated.

The reason for this holocaust was/is rather simple, and stated quite straightforwardly by President George Bush, the 41st "freedom-loving" father of the freedom-lover currently filling the Oval Office, George the 43rd: "The world must learn that what we say, goes," intoned George the Elder to the enthusiastic applause of freedom-loving Americans everywhere. How Old George conveyed his message was certainly no mystery to the US public. One need only recall the 24-hour-per-day dissemination of bombardment videos on every available TV channel, and the exceedingly high ratings of these telecasts, to gain a sense of how much they knew.

In trying to affix a meaning to such things, we would do well to remember the wave of elation that swept America at reports of what was happening along the so-called Highway of Death: perhaps 100,000 "towel-heads" and "camel jockeys" – or was it "sand niggers" that week? – in full retreat, routed and effectively defenseless, many of them conscripted civilian laborers, slaughtered in a single day by jets firing the most hyper-lethal types of ordnance. It was a performance worthy of the nazis during the early months of their drive into Russia. And it should be borne in mind that Good Germans gleefully cheered that butchery, too. Indeed, support for Hitler suffered no serious erosion among Germany's "innocent civilians" until the defeat at Stalingrad in 1943.

There may be a real utility to reflecting further, this time upon the fact that it was pious Americans who led the way in assigning the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not for things they as individuals had done, bur for what they had allowed – nay, empowered – their leaders and their soldiers to do in their name.

If the principle was valid then, it remains so now, as applicable to Good Americans as it was the Good Germans. And the price exacted from the Germans for the faultiness of their moral fiber was truly ghastly. Returning now to the children, and to the effects of the post-Gulf War embargo – continued bull force by Bush the Elder's successors in the Clinton administration as a gesture of its "resolve" to finalize what George himself had dubbed the "New World Order" of American military/economic domination – it should be noted that not one but two high United Nations officials attempting to coordinate delivery of humanitarian aid to Iraq resigned in succession as protests against US policy.

One of them, former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halladay, repeatedly denounced what was happening as "a systematic program . . . of deliberate genocide." His statements appeared in the New York Times and other papers during the fall of 1998, so it can hardly be contended that the American public was "unaware" of them. Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State Madeline Albright openly confirmed Halladay's assessment. Asked during the widely-viewed TV program Meet the Press to respond to his "allegations," she calmly announced that she'd decided it was "worth the price" to see that U.S. objectives were achieved.

more at link http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html

You can also hear some of his spoken word here:
http://www.alternativetentacles.com/mp3.php?page=5&sd=rEg0yQb-lReo5ye6VPt

[Lautremont]

1. And if you've ever heard, read or met Ward Churchill,

the idea that he's a RW stooge is a pretty funny one.

I firmly agree with the concept of reading something in context before exploding.

[el_gato]

2. so true, I don't know why some people here are so uninformed

[UdoKier]

4. I don't think he's a RW stooge. I think he's an asshat.

Every thing he says about Iraq is true, but to tie it to 9-11 and imply that somehow the victims there were anything other than innocent people going about their business is reprehensible.

That's aside from the fact that, as we have all been reminded ad nauseam, NONE of the hijackers were IRAQI. They were Saudis, and any complaints by AQ about Iraq were ancillary. Their gripe was about US presence in Saudi Arabia, not our continuing stranglehold on Iraq.

Making 9-11 into an act of revenge for the thousands of children who starved in Iraq during Clinton's term almost makes a case for OUR invasion of Iraq.

I don't see how the context of what he said makes it any better. When I converse or correspond with people outside of DU, I am very careful to never say anything in a way that could be misconstrued as sympathetic to terrorism. Should a university professor not have the same common sense?

[bloom]

5. "...careful to never say anything in a way that could be misconstrued..."

I know a lot of people who do that. Some may have to - to keep their jobs.

I think it's very refreshing to have people who aren't afraid - for whatever reason - to speak their truths.

What Chruchill said was very similar to what I heard a lot of people saying soon after 9/11. I was listening to the liberals.



I don't agree that 9/11 happened in a vacuum - or some Saudis delusion - that the US had nothing to do with.

[comsymp]

3. Best of luck

Readin' a big ole essay is hard work, y'know. Much, much easier to simply pop off about some total stranger's synopsis, don'tcha think? And it's not as if a newspaper reporter would skew a story just to sex it up a little, now is it?


/did rtfa