This article from Truthout is noteworthy for many reasons, one of them being that it’s one of the few sources to document the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children under the Clinton administration.
It is is an excerpt from Henry A. Giroux’s forthcoming book, Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror, to be published by Paradigm Publishers. Giroux writes:
Nowhere is there a more disturbing, if not horrifying, example of the relationship between a culture of cruelty and the politics of irresponsibility than in the resounding silence that surrounds the torture of children under the presidency of George W. Bush – and the equal moral and political failure of the Obama administration to address and rectify the conditions that made it possible. But if we are to draw out the dark and hidden parameters of such crimes, they must be made visible so men and women can once again refuse to orphan the law, justice, and morality. How we deal with the issue of state terrorism and its complicity with the torture of children will determine not merely the conditions under which we are willing to live, but whether we will live in a society in which moral responsibility disappears altogether and whether we will come to find ourselves living under a democratic or authoritarian social order. This is not merely a political and ethical matter, but also a matter of how we take seriously the task of educating ourselves more critically in the future.
I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it many more times; “I DON’T TRUST MY GOVERNMENT ANY FURTHER THAN I CAN OVERTHROW IT.” Anyone who does is either naiive, foolish, or part of the problem.
This kind of education will never be disseminated by the state. It will be down to micro-cultures and base communities that valorise education differently to the state.
Of course, ever since Thomas Hobbes articulated a credible political philosophy tantamount to “keep the people stupid, that way you can control them better” statecraft has been able to justify a controlling mandate on pragmatic grounds, which the advent of globalised media, has been able to disguise through mastering the art of decoying. Of course, critical awareness is not going to be furnished to victims of a decoying culture of mind-laundering.
It’s SO easy now. Yesterday the British Government was harping on about strategic planning in Afghanistan and having ‘underestimated the Taliban’ – aided dutifully by the broadcasters. This is pure fiction, decoying, that happens constantly in news reporting, such that virtually no one notices.
The agenda is to sell the lie that our presence there is valid and that it really is about the Taliban. By emphasising operational details (Panther’s Claw, the Hollywood designation) the mission’s ‘validity’ is reinforced. Notice how, when the reporter is describing the lie, a split screen will appear and you will see soldiers ‘in action’ firing mortars and crouching behind walls, then firing out into open spaces across fields! “Lights, camera, action!!” Let’s roll..
It’s kind of “How scandalous that we didn’t prepare properly for the details of this very specific mission” and so “our heroes on the ground have been sold out” etc with a smattering of “let’s plan better for these righteous campaigns in future so our poor troops don’t suffer” all so that the lying reasons for being there in the first place (really securing Afghan gas for our vested corporate interests) are obscured.
Decoying is the stock-in-trade of the conman and, as I’ve highlighted before on these pages, critical reading of the subtext is crucial, in order to avoid brainwashing.
One of the things I recommend heartily to all who watch the broadcast news is uncork the laughing gas – it will help keep you sane. Practice noting inconsistencies and lies that are dressed as red herrings. And do not believe for a second that broadcasts will ever be intended to inform and empower you.
Educate yourself and your kindred at every opportunity and stay awake!
No doubt, regarding the torture of children, the rhetoric of “acceptable casualties” will be trotted out some time soon.
Thanks for posting this – I’m looking forward to reading his book in full. Giroux’s last statement in this excerpt underscores so much of what has brought us to our knees, does it not?
“This is …also a matter of how we take seriously the task of educating ourselves more critically in the future.”
To take the subject of education literally; Prime Time nightly news or the requred curriculums in public schools hardly address the subject of education, learning, critical thinking nor do they initiate enthusiasm and desire to become educated or for the life-long need to learn.