Coronado Crosses the Jordan
By James BrooksİAugust
2004
The
occupier: ‘We will keep your land indefinitely under
our control. Until you stop fighting us, we will take
more and more of your land and resources. We will dig
ourselves in deeper and deeper, until you stop fighting
us. We will direct your government, rape your economy and
attack your resistance with overwhelming force. We will
teach you to stop fighting us. When you stop fighting us,
then we’ll talk.’
The resister:
‘You may take some of our land but you cannot take
us. We were here before you came and we will be here long
after we have driven you out. Brutal foreigners have no
place in our affairs. We will not rest until we have the
power to determine our own national destiny.’
The twin
polarities of Israel and Palestine, the US and Iraq. The
first is the acknowledged master of modern occupation
theory and practice, a slow grind to the death. The
second is a clumsy and deadly attempt to emulate the
teacher on a much larger human and geographic scale. Both
proceed from a blatantly illegal claim of international
eminent domain; we know better than you and we deserve to
seize control of your land, for your own good.
This used to be
called colonialism. A century ago, European Zionists
began the last of the white race’s 19th
century colonial campaigns; the conquest and colonization
of Palestine by Zionism, posing as "the Jewish
people". Billed as a national liberation movement to
save the Jews from repression and pogroms in Europe,
political Zionism was a racist response to racist
oppression. Jews are superior, it said, and ought to live
apart from non-Jews, whose lives are not equal to the
lives of Jews, whom God commands to live in Palestine,
etc. Thus the die was cast.
Although Israel
is commonly thought to be a response to the Holocaust,
the planning, funding, and momentum for the creation of
the Jewish State were underway by the end of World War I.
That the Zionist campaign is still raging today is a
testament to the fanaticism intrinsic to the colonial
mindset. Colonialism has always been energized by racism,
and this case is no exception. From the outset, Zionists
denied (‘A land without people for a people without
land!’) and demonized (‘cockroaches’,
‘vermin’ etc.) the indigenous Palestinians in
the classic manner, with precious little of the
missionary attitude.
But Americans
in Iraq aspire to do more. Israel drops one-ton bombs on
apartment buildings full of sleeping children. The US
blows up an entire neighborhood in one night. The
Israelis build their walls and settlements and grab more
land every week, bent on achieving Greater Israel, i.e.
the disappearance of the Palestinians. The US won't rest
until it controls the planet’s last reservoirs of
dwindling petroleum. All the while protecting its mate
Israel against the world.
The centuries
of ignorant and brutal acts of genocide committed by
European colonizers are supposed to be behind us, but
aside from the stakes, the gadgets, and the rhetoric,
much remains the same. In Iraq, the blundering US
ignorance of local culture rivals the writings of Capt.
John Smith. Although Israel now trains US troops in the
modern arts of urban slaughter, their general tactics are
reminiscent of the conquistadors: Go in guns blazing and
slaughter thousands. Then torture, rob, pacify and
economically enslave the natives. Destroy or damage their
holy sites, defame their religion, and allow the
destruction of their historical artifacts. Assign new
leadership beholden to the Crown and drain the colony of
its natural resources. Move on and repeat.
Colonialism was
supposed to have matured into imperialism. But as it did,
its fundamentally racist assumptions and urges solidified
into internal and external regimes of control. In the US,
the possession of absurd amounts of military power
encouraged an equally absurd national mythology of
domestic security through endless war. Such myths enable
the public to understand the need to fund a planetary
military machine to protect and advance corporate-finance
interests. The ‘savages’ must be subdued, and
the old racist and xenophobic seeds of colonialism grow
again in our fallow and arrogant minds.
For several
decades the American public has been fed a steady diet of
narrow and vicious Arab stereotypes, conveniently
preparing us for our government’s current crusade to
Democratize the Middle East. The marriage of the United
States and Israel (back when Henry Kissinger was Justice
of the Peace) accelerated this propaganda tilt. Now the
ruthless 9/11 attacks and an equally ruthless (and
pre-existing) bipartisan war-lust have excused its
transformation into official policy. Here’s how they
say it when they think they’re being polite:
"Islamic ideology is the enemy."
The mass
psychosis required to support this scenario is generated
by what America swallows every day from its imposter
government and its embedded doses of "news",
"analysis", and "background". Take your pills, citizens, and pay no
attention to the abyss ahead.
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