College Park, MD
July 29, 2011
By: Solomon Comissiong
American led military operations rage on from Afghanistan to Libya, and many places between. US bombs have indiscriminately destroyed the dwellings of civilians, while ripping the life away from countless men, women and children. The US military machine is a monster that devours the lives of innocent civilians without remorse or regret. Global conquest, imperialism, and securing “strategic interests” for the corporations that influence the American political landscape, are among the real reasons this serial killer roams the planet.Much of the world sees the US military for what it really is—a monster, while tens of millions of obedient Americans remain oblivious to these facts. Americans are continually programmed to serve as cheerleaders for an out of control “Frankenstein” that has perfected the art of murdering, maiming, and massacring. War and killing are glorified throughout America, from video games to the big screen. The US propaganda machine is not only effective; it is a master of creating lies to support its global endgame.
War for “humanitarian reasons” is a prominent lie within the Pentagon’s arsenal. This lie is routinely fed to the sycophantic corporate media. The lies run throughout their digestive system in the same manner harmful fast food does within the intestines of millions of Americans. The capital driven media ultimately defecates poisonous lies upon the unsuspecting collective consciousness of innumerable Americans. Americans rarely question the reasons why “their country” goes to war, until it is usually much too late. The invasion of Iraq is a prime example of this— a war built upon mountains of lies. Most Americans were so bloodthirsty for vengeance after 9/11; they cared little about who their government said was responsible—they wanted death.
Most Americans did not even think twice about the hundreds of thousands of potential civilian murders that the US military would ultimately cause —the hypocritical actions were nowhere within their radar. The fact that roughly the same numbers of innocent civilians were killed in the US’s initial strike of Afghanistan, alone, as were killed on 9/11, meant nothing to most Americans—-nor was it anywhere within their realm of consciousness. Innocent civilians being killed is something that many Americans seldom think of when their country decides to bomb another nation, especially when the nation is replete with people of color. Americans think what the media and their government tell them to think, which is why US involved wars are not protested by the tens of millions. When the wars begin to drain the economic resources from US taxpayers, amoral politicians (and their constituents) use that as a reason to stop their country’s death campaign—rarely do they use the reason that wars are killing innocent civilians. The killing of innocent civilians should always be the number one reason these wars should stop, and never start in the first place.
In a country so dependent on the exploitative system of capitalism; why would we think these politicians might be motivated to do the right thing—if money is not factored in? However, let’s just say, for one moment, that the bombing of countries, like Libya, was for so-called humanitarian reasons (which it wasn’t). And let’s say we believed the US government’s lie that they began the war in Libya to save its citizens from being killed by their own government. If that lie were actually true, then any critical thinker should ask the question, “but who will intervene on behalf of Black people in America”?
The previous question is a most legitimate query given the fact that Black/African people in America have been catching hell for the past 400 plus years. In 2011 Black/African people in the US continue to be gunned down by America’s state sponsored police force with regularity. America’s police shower terror upon Black and Brown communities with virtual impunity. They have even been known to murder seven year old black girls as in the case of Aiyana Stanley Jones. In 2010 this little Black/African girl was fatally shot by a Detroit police officer when he and his thug colleagues burst into her home and began shooting with reckless abandon. These things simply do not happen to little white girls in America, and if they did the punishment would be swift. Aiyana’s murderer still walks the streets, with his job intact. Who will intervene on behalf of little Black/African girls trapped within America’s stolen borders?
Police in America have grown accustomed to killing Black/African men, and subsequently getting away with it. America has a virtual laundry list of Black/African men it has systematically assassinated. Names include, but are not limited to; Sean Bell, Adolf Grimes, Timothy Stansbury, and Trey Joyner. And in cases where the evidence is overwhelming the police officers get little to no time at all.
Oscar Grant was murdered, unarmed—execution style, by an Oakland police officer. This heinous crime was caught on camera—and still the murderous cop served little more than one year of jail time. If the roles were reversed, the black man would face capital punishment. There is no justice in America for the Black/African man—none. Recently a 19 year old Black/African man was shot at least 10 times in the back by San Francisco police officers. Numerous eyewitnesses reported that he, too, was unarmed. Video of the aftermath can be seen here. Where is this young man’s justice? He was gunned down as if they were hunting wild game. To quote street poet, Monte Smith, “the darker you are, the more hunted you are”. Who and what country will intervene on behalf of Black/Men in America?
The United States reigns supreme when it comes to incarcerating Black/African people. No other country comes close. The US even incarcerates more Black people than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid. This incarceration trend has been referred to as “The New Jim Crow” by scholar-activists like Michelle Alexander, however, in reality—Jim Crow never ended. Black/African people within America are disproportionately preyed upon by the American criminal “justice” system, and therefore disproportionately incarcerated. Black/African people are seen as a commodity in America—they are a valuable labor force within the reprehensible prison industrial complex. Some call it “modern day slavery”, this author calls it “America”.
Unequal practices, predicated on race, are not restricted to incarceration in America—they can be found in almost every sector of within the empire. Black/African-Americans control 10 cents of wealth for every one dollar of wealth that a white family does. And Black/African people earn approximately 60 cents for every dollar that whites earn in the US. If these inequalities existed in a country like Libya, the US government, as well as its corporate media, would highlight this and utilize it as an additional justification for waging war on the African nation. However, within America’s manufactured borders, Black/African people languish with no end in sight. There is certainly no intervention, on their behalf, from a government that routinely says it is bringing democracy and humanitarianism to some country it is about to bomb into the Stone Age. No intervention for the millions of Black/African youth who are asked to learn within vastly separate and unequal public schools, as contrasted to their white counterparts. Who the hell will intervene on behalf of these children within this Apartheid state?
The US is a fork tongued hypocrite and global serial killer. America has mastered the art of waging war and destroying civilian lives abroad. Fredrick Douglass was spot on in 1852 when he said, “Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival….”
The US has mastered its art of global destruction by practicing on the lives and communities of Black/African people within its own illegitimate borders. Torture, brutality, and murder are things we know have been done to people within US detention camps like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib; however many of these crimes have historically been inflicted upon America’s people of color. Despite America’s track record of committing crimes against humanity on Black/African communities no country has charged the US or threatened to take it to the selective International Criminal Court—they seem to only wish to indict African leaders. The US deserves to be prosecuted by the real international community for its crimes against its own Black/African citizens. Where is the United Nations? Where is England, Norway, France and all the other NATO countries that are currently bombing Libya? Why aren’t they speaking out against America’s crimes against Black/African people—crimes that pale in comparison to the allegations they accused the Libyan government of as a pretext for war? Where is the damn coalition of countries demanding the US end its inhumane policies against Black/African-Americans? Who will intervene on behalf of Black America, thus demanding equality and justice for all Black/African people in America?
That justice, equality and right to self-determination that Black America needs will only come from those same people. It won’t come from the disingenuous white liberals nor will it come from the US government; it will have to come from the will of African-Americans to demand those things. The African Diaspora and Internationalist community can play a supportive and strategic role, however it will have to be Africans within America organizing, mobilizing and thus leading the way toward real freedom, justice and equality. Black people in America will have to establish their own national agenda, one that is free from the involvement of poverty pimps and frauds like the Democratic Party, and certainly not the white nationalists on the Republican side. Blacks/Africans in America will have to work in solidarity and protest for however long it takes. We must look to start and/or build upon strong political organizations whose focus has our interests as top priorities. Egos will have to be shed and a critical mass of Blacks/Africans will have to be willing to play strategic roles within this movement where consistency must be paramount. These things must be done if relief is ever to reach Black/African communities in America—there simply is no other tangible alternative. The intervention we, as Africans in America, seek—must come from our collective interests, unity, and struggle.
Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the host of the Your World News media collective (www.yourworldnews.org).
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