Westers Terrorisme 4

Dit zijn foto's van het huidige Irak. Dit is in naam van ons gedaan. Het Westen zal in de komende jaren een hoge prijs hiervoor moeten betalen. De Amerikaanse publicist Tom Engelhardt, redacteur van The Nation Institute schrijft over de welhaast apocalyptische verwoestingen: 'A glance at the history of American war tells us air power is as American as apple pie and that Americans were dreaming of cities destroyed from the air long before anyone had the ability to do so. As H. Bruce Franklin tells us in his book War Stars, The Superweapon and the American Imagination, as early as 1881, a former naval officer, Park Benjamin wrote a short story called "The End of New York" that caused a sensation. In it the city was left in ruins by a Spanish naval bombardment. By 1921, air-power visionary Billy Mitchell was already flying mock sorties over New York and other East coast cities, "pulverizing" them in "raids" sensationalized in the press, to publicize the need for an independent air force. ("The sun rose today on a city whose tallest tower lay scattered in crumbled bits…" began the New York Herald after Mitchell's "raid" on New York City, a line that should still send small shudders through us all and remind us how much the sensational of the previous century has become the accepted of our world.) ... It would seem hard to forget that the "invasion" of Iraq began from the air -- as much a demonstration of power meant for viewers around the world as for Saddam Hussein and his followers. Who could forget those cameras strategically placed on the balconies of Baghdad hotels for the shock-and-awe son-et-lumière show -- dramatic explosions in the night (with everything but a score to go with it). Does no one remember Air Force claims that air power alone could win wars? In all the articles now being written about our overextended ground forces, does no one want to write about how the military is trying to fill the urban gap with air power?' Zie: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2047