Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Hollywood uses ‘American Sniper’ to destroy history & create myth

By John Wight | RT | January 23, 2015

The moral depravity into which the US is sinking is shown by American Sniper glorifying the exploits of a racist killer receiving six Oscar nominations, whereas ‘Selma’ depicting Martin Luther King’s struggle against racism has been largely ignored.

American Sniper is directed by Clint Eastwood, and tells the story of Chris Kyle, a US Navy Seal who served four tours of duty in Iraq as a sniper credited with 160 confirmed “kills”, and earning him the dubious honor of being lauded the most lethal sniper in US military history.

Played by Bradley Cooper, in the movie Kyle is an all-American hero, a Texas cowboy who joins the military out of a sense of patriotism and a yearning for purpose and direction in his life. Throughout the ‘uber-tough’ selection process, Kyle is a bastion of stoicism and determination, willing to bear any amount of pain and hardship for the honor of being able to serve his country as a Navy Seal – America’s equivalent of the Samurai.

The personal struggle he endures as a result of what he experiences and does in Iraq is not motivated by any regrets over the people he kills, including women and children, but on his failure to kill more and thereby save the lives of American soldiers as they go about the business of tearing the country apart, city by city, block by block, and house by house.

If American Sniper wins one Oscar, never mind the six it’s been nominated for, when this annual extravaganza of movie pomp and ceremony unfolds in Hollywood on February 22, it will not only represent an endorsement of US exceptionalism, but worse it will be an insult to the Iraqi people. In the movie they are depicted as a dehumanized mass of savages – occupying the same role as the Indians in John Wayne Western movies of old – responsible for their own suffering and the devastation of their country, which the white man is in the process of civilizing.

Anything resembling balance and perspective is sacrificed in American Sniper to the more pressing needs of US propaganda, which holds that the guys who served in Iraq were the very best of America, men who went through hell in order to protect the freedoms and way of life of their fellow countrymen at home. It is the cult of the soldier writ large, men who in the words of Kyle (Bradley Cooper) in the movie “just want to get the bad guys.”

The ”bad guys” are, as mentioned, the Iraqis. In fact if you had just arrived in the movie theatre from another planet, you would be left in no doubt from the movie’s opening scene that Iraq had invaded and occupied America rather than the other way round.

Unsurprisingly, the real Chris Kyle was not as depicted by Clint Eastwood and played by Bradley Cooper. In his autobiography, upon which the movie is supposedly based, Kyle writes, “I hate the damn savages. I couldn’t give a flying f**k about the Iraqis.”

It is clear that the movie’s director, Clint Eastwood, when faced with the choice between depicting the truth and the myth, decided to go with the myth.

But it should come as no surprise, given that the peddling of such myths is the very currency of Hollywood. Over many decades the US movie industry has proved itself one of the most potent weapons in the armory of US imperialism, helping to project a myth of an America, defined by lofty attributes of courage, freedom, and democracy.

As the myth has it, these values, and with them America itself, are continually under threat from the forces of evil and darkness that lurk outwith and often times within. The mountain of lies told in service to this myth has only been exceeded by the mountain of dead bodies on the basis of it – victims of the carnage and mayhem unleashed around the world by Washington.

Chris Kyle was not the warrior or hero portrayed in American Sniper. He was in fact a racist killer for whom the only good Iraqi was a dead Iraqi. He killed men, women, and children, just as his comrades did during the course of a brutal and barbaric war of aggression waged by the richest country in the world against one of the poorest.

They say that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. In the hands of a movie director with millions of dollars and the backing of a movie studio at its disposal, it is far more dangerous than that. It is a potent weapon deployed against its victims, denying them their right to even be considered victims, exalting in the process, when it comes to Hollywood, those who murder and massacre in the name of America.

With this in mind, it is perhaps fitting that Chris Kyle was shot and killed by a former Marine at a shooting range in Texas in 2013. “Man was born into barbarism,” Martin Luther King said, “when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence.”

January 24, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I’m confused, can anyone help me? Part Three

RT | November 18, 2014

I’m confused. The first thing I’m confused about is democratic legitimacy after elections are held in war-torn countries.

Western leaders have hailed the recent parliamentary elections in Ukraine, as a great triumph of “democracy.”

Barack Obama said it was “an important milestone in Ukraine’s democratic development.” Top EU officials said it represented “a victory of the people of Ukraine and of democracy.”

Yet large parts of war-torn Ukraine took no part in the vote. Turnout, according to the Ukraine Central Election Commission was just 52.42 percent.

In May’s presidential elections, turnout, according to official figures, was 60.3 percent. They were won by Petro Poroshenko with 54.7 percent of the vote. Again, western leaders hailed the results as a great victory for “democracy.”

Now let’s consider the case of Syria, another war-torn country where there were also important elections this year.

Unlike Ukraine’s elections, leading western politicians did not say the result of Syria’s first multi-candidate presidential election in over forty years represented an “important milestone in Syria’s democratic development”- even though, according to official figures, the turnout was much higher than in Ukraine, at 73.42 percent.

Far from it, the same people who hailed the elections in Ukraine haughtily dismissed the election in Syria as a “farce.”

“This election bore no relation to genuine democracy. It was held in the midst of civil war,” said British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

“Today’s presidential election in Syria is a disgrace,” said US State Department spokesperson Maria Harf.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Syria’s election a “fake.” Fabius did not telephone Bashar al-Assad, the winner, to offer his “warmest congratulations” as he did with Poroshenko.

How come one election held in a country divided by war is hailed as a “victory of the people and of democracy” but another election- where the turnout is higher -denounced? Why are Poroshenko and the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk deemed to be the legitimate representatives of the Ukrainian people but Bashar al-Assad, despite his higher level of popular support, denied any kind of democratic legitimacy? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?

At the recent G20 summit in Brisbane, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine.” Leaving aside the fact that there’s no hard evidence that Russia is in Ukraine – and that Harper didn’t produce any- the statement seems to imply that the Canadian Prime Minister doesn’t like other countries interfering in the affairs of others and believes in state sovereignty and the inviolability of state borders.

But in 2003, Harper was a strong supporter of the US-led invasion of Iraq (and wanted Canada to join in), a clear example of one county “getting” into another. He actually thought it was a “mistake” of the then Canadian government not to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Why is Stephen Harper so concerned about a non-existent Russian invasion of Ukraine, but happy to support a real, actual, and blatantly illegal invasion of Iraq?Does the Canadian Prime Minister support state sovereignty and the inviolability of state borders, or doesn’t he? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?

David Cameron tells us that ISIS poses a “clear and present threat to the United Kingdom.” Yet only last year he was trying desperately to persuade Parliament to vote for air strikes against a secular Syrian government that was fighting ISIS and other radical extremists associated to al Al-Qaeda. Cameron describes ISIS as “an evil against which the whole world must unite,” but even now the British government, in common with other western governments is still working for the violent overthrow of the government in Damascus whose forces are the only ones on the ground in Syria capable of defeating ISIS. If defeating ISIS really was so important, why is the west trying to topple the anti-ISIS Syrian government? Why, if “the whole world must unite” against ISIS, won’t the British and western governments work with the Syrian government? I‘m confused. Can anyone help me?

To coincide with the launch of RT UK, we’ve seen a wave of attacks on RT by self-proclaimed “democrats” and “liberals” in the British media.Some of these attacks have urged Ofcom – the broadcasting regulator – to take action against RT. I always thought that being a “democrat” and “liberal” meant support for alternative voices being heard, not trying to stop people from hearing them. John Stuart Mill, the author of On Liberty, a classic text on liberalism, wrote of the “peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion” and that “all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.”

So how come western “liberals” want to silence the opinions expressed on RT? Why are those who claim to be anti-censorship, so censorious when it comes to RT? I would have thought people calling themselves “democrats” and “liberals” would welcome a wide variety of news channels for people to watch, yet instead of that supporters of “free speech” are attacking a channel which broadcasts opinions which they don’t agree with it. I’m confused. Can anyone help me?

Western politicians say that they are appalled by the “barbarism” shown by ISIS in the various beheading videos they have released.But if beheading people is so bad (as most people would agree that it is), why is there no similar condemnation of the beheadings which take place in Saudi Arabia? In August, Amnesty International reported a “surge” in beheadings in Saudi Arabia, amounting to at least 23 in three weeks. Why are beheadings by ISIS “savage” but the ones carried out in Saudi Arabia acceptable? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?

Pussy Riot, the Russian punk protest group who were jailed after a demonstration in an Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow are feted as heroes in the West, with a whole range of public figures including the pop star Madonna coming forward to express their support. But there was no such celebrity support for Trenton Oldfield, a protestor who was jailed for six months in Britain after trying to disrupt the Oxford- Cambridge University boat race in 2012. Oldfield said he was protesting against elitism, inequality and government cuts. If Pussy Riot’s cause is deserving of “progressive” support, then why isn’t Oldfield’s? Why are some anti-government protestors who go to jail hailed as heroes, but others totally ignored? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?

You can read I’m confused, can anyone help me Parts One and Two.

November 18, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fighting against peace: Why US doesn’t want an end to wars

By Neil Clark | RT | November 6, 2013

The only surprising thing about the news that the US is sabotaging peace moves in Afghanistan and Pakistan is that anyone should find the news surprising.

As reported on RT, Pakistan has accused the US of sabotaging peace talks between the authorities in Islamabad and the Taliban following last Friday’s drone assassination of the Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

“The murder of Hakimullah is the murder of all efforts at peace,” Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisa said. “Brick by brick, in the last seven weeks, we tried to evolve a process by which we could bring peace to Pakistan and what have you [the US] done?”

The killing of Hakimullah Mehsud comes less than a month after the US effectively wrecked the Afghan government’s efforts to engage with the Taliban by capturing Latif Mehsud, Hakimullah’s lieutenant. Latif Mehsud was the man that the Afghan government hoped would be a go-between for peace talks with the Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was reported to have been furious about the US operation. Karzai has also said that the drone strike against Hakimullah Mehsud “took place at an unsuitable time.”

The fact is that on several important occasions in the last 30 years or so, the US has wrecked peace efforts and used its power to provoke or prolong conflicts which could have been avoided or solved without further bloodshed.

1. Iraq 1990-1991

From August 1990 to January 1991, there were plenty of chances to achieve a diplomatic solution in relation to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and which would have resulted in an Iraqi withdrawal, but Washington was determined to go to war. When the war started, they rejected diplomatic moves, such as the plan put forward by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, to end the conflict before ground troops were deployed in Kuwait.

Saddam Hussein’s forces could have been removed from Kuwait without a war in which many thousands were killed, but Washington didn’t want it.

2. Kosovo

That was at the start of the ’90s. Now let‘s fast forward to the end of that decade. In order to complete the destruction of Federal Yugoslavia, Washington aggressively championed the cause of a hardcore terrorist group, the Kosovo Liberation Army, in the late 1990s. The US marginalized Kosovar leaders who wanted to pursue a peaceful path towards independence, such as the politician Ibrahim Rugova, who urged passive resistance. Instead they pushed for a violent solution to the problem of Kosovo’s status: their strategy being to provoke a retaliation from the government in Belgrade, which would then provide the pretext for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

The Rambouillet Conference of March 1999 was ostensibly about trying to broker a peace deal between the Kosovar Albanian delegates and the Yugoslav authorities. But the terms were deliberately made so onerous – Appendix B allowed NATO forces freedom of movement throughout the whole of Yugoslavia – so as to guarantee its rejection by Belgrade.

“I think certain people were spoiling for a fight in NATO at that time,” revealed Lord Gilbert, a UK minister of state for defense procurement, in 2000. “If you ask my personal view, I think the terms put to Milosevic at Rambouillet were absolutely intolerable. How could he possibly accept them? It was quite deliberate.”

Even Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state and a man who can hardly be labeled a ‘peacenik‘, admitted: “The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing.”

Again, Washington had sabotaged a peaceful solution to a dispute and war ensued, with all its horrors.

3. Iraq 2002-2003

In 2002/3 we had the contrived WMD ’crisis’ with Iraq.

If Washington had genuinely been concerned about the possibility of Iraq being in possession of WMDs, they would simply have waited for Hans Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors to finish their job. However, as we all know, the WMDs issue was merely a pretext for war, with the US knowing full well that the country was disarmed. The Iraqis were desperate to avert an attack on their country, but diplomatic offers from Baghdad in the lead-up to the illegal invasion were dismissed.

The result of the US opting for war and not peace in Iraq has been the deaths of at least 500,000 people since 2003.

4. Libya

In 2011, a UN resolution ostensibly about protecting civilians was used by the US and its NATO allies as a pretext for forcibly removing from power the government of Libya. During this ‘humanitarian’ intervention, which led to a sharp spike in the death toll, Washington and its allies frequently rejected calls for a ceasefire and a diplomatic solution. Today, Libya is – like Iraq – a wrecked country. But it all could have been very different, if Washington, instead of opting for war, had worked to bring warring factions to the negotiating table.

5. Syria

In Syria too, the US has set out since 2011 to prevent a peaceful solution to the country’s internal divisions. While an outright NATO attack on Syria has, at least for the time being, been avoided, it’s been public opinion in Western countries and adroit Russian diplomacy which has prevented World War III from breaking out in the Middle East this year, rather than America’s leaders suddenly turning over a new leaf.

If the US genuinely wanted an end to the terrible bloodshed in Syria they’d be encouraging the so-called ‘rebels’ to halt their campaign of violence and sign up to the political process and contest elections.

The Baathists have made significant reforms in Syria in the past two years, not least ending the party’s near five-decade long political monopoly, but Washington hasn’t been interested in peaceful democratic change, only in the violent overthrow of President Assad and his replacement by someone who will do its bidding. The result of this policy has been catastrophic for the people of Syria who, like the people of Iraq and Libya, watch as their country is destroyed before their very eyes.

While promoting itself as the great ‘peacemaker’, it’s the sober truth that no country has done more to stoke up conflicts and sabotage peaceful solutions to them in recent years than the US, with the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud being only the latest example.

Why does the US act in this destructive way? It’s important to understand that the US government doesn’t act in the interests of the ordinary, decent Americans, who are sick and tired of war and military ‘interventions’, but in the interests of Wall Street and what President Eisenhower famously referred to as ‘the military-industrial complex’.

The very last thing that Wall Street and the military-industrial complex want is peace. They thrive on wars and conflicts. Wars and conflicts mean profits. Nice, big, juicy profits. As Charlie Chaplin‘s anti-hero Monsieur Verdoux put it, “Wars, conflicts – it’s all business.”

Last month a report by the Public Accountability Initiative revealed that many of the leading ‘commentators’ who went on US TV stations to call for military strikes against Syria had undisclosed ties to military contractors. The report “identifies 22 commentators who weighed in during the Syria debate in large media outlets, and who have current industry ties that may pose conflicts of interest. The commentators are linked to large defense and intelligence contractors like Raytheon, smaller defense and intelligence contractors like TASC, defense-focused investment firms like SCP Partners, and commercial diplomacy firms like the Cohen Group.”

Among the ‘commentators’ supporting strikes on Syria was Madeline Albright, the US secretary of state at the time of the phony ‘peace’ conference at Rambouillet in 1999.

Bombing Yugoslavia, bombing Syria. With the violent destruction of Iraq and Libya along the way, to say nothing of the turmoil US policies have brought to Afghanistan and Pakistan. John Lennon implored us to ‘give peace a chance’, but until the US radically changes its political system and power is returned to ordinary people and away from those with a vested interest in endless war, its stoking up of conflicts and sabotaging of peace initiatives will only continue.

November 6, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brazil to press for local Internet data storage after NSA spying

RT | October 29, 2013

Brazil is urging a plan to introduce local data storage for Internet giants like Facebook and Google in order to keep the information they get from Brazilian users safe –as part of a complex of measures to oppose US spying.

The new law could impact Google, Facebook, Twitter and other Internet global companies that operate in Brazil, Latin America’s biggest country and one of the world’s largest telecommunications markets.

The country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, is urging lawmakers to vote as early as this week on the law, according to Reuters who have seen the draft of the legislation.

“The government can oblige Internet service companies … to install and use centers for the storage, management and dissemination of data within the national territory,” the draft of the document read.

Rousseff’s calls come after surveillance leaks by the US in Brazil that went as far as tracking the personal phone calls and e-mails of the President herself.

Last month, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff canceled a scheduled meeting at the White House after leaked documents showed the NSA spied on her country’s state oil company.

“We are not regulating the way information flows, just requiring that data on Brazilians be stored in Brazil so it is subject to the jurisdiction of Brazilian courts,” Rousseff spokesman Thomas Traumann said. “This has nothing to do with global communications.”

However, the companies disagree saying that the legislation will increase costs of services, and damage the economic activity connected with information.

Last week a coalition of business groups representing dozens of Internet companies including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and eBay sent a letter to Brazilian lawmakers.

“In-country data storage requirements would detrimentally impact all economic activity that depends on data flows,” the letter read, Reuters reported.

Many also threatened the law will scare the companies, while others, nevertheless, were of the opinion that the companies would comply if faced with no other options.

This week, Brazil is expected to vote on a cyber-security bill to create a state system to protect the country’s citizens from spying.

When the news on the bill emerged two weeks ago, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tweeted the news, stressing the need for greater security “to prevent possible espionage.”

The latest legislation project comes against a backdrop of Brazil set to host a conference next April to debate ways to guard Internet privacy from espionage.

The meeting is to be held by ICAAN, the body that manages web domain names. It is thought to be neutral and includes governments, civil society and industry.

Meanwhile, BRICS companies are working to create a “new Internet”.

In particular, Brazil has been reported to be building a “BRICS cable” that will create an independent link between Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Russia, in order to bypass NSA cables and avoid spying.

The cable is set to go from the Brazilian town of Fortaleza to the Russian town of Vladivostok via Cape Town, Chennai and Shantou.

The length of the fiber-optic cable will be almost 35,000 kilometers, making it one of the most ambitious underwater telecom projects ever attempted.

Last week, most of the BRICS countries joined talks to hammer out a UN resolution that would condemn “indiscriminate” and “extra-territorial” surveillance, and ensure “independent oversight” of electronic monitoring.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “contacts [between Moscow and Washington] never stop,” when asked if the latest publication of secret files leaked by the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor would affect relations between Russia and the US.

Also, Lavrov made it clear that the situation surrounding Snowden is irrelevant to Russia.

“We have formulated our position on Snowden and have said everything,” he said.

Related article

October 29, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment