Colonialism Only Works for the Few (And Chances Are, You Ain't One O' Them!)

Colonialism: The extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory and people outside its own boundaries, often to facilitate economic domination over their resources, labor, and markets. The term also refers to a set of beliefs used to legitimize or promote this system, especially the belief that the mores of the colonizer are superior to those of the colonized.

Where did the spirit of colonialism, subjugation and cultural eradication manifest itself? I’ve always been of the opinion that no matter how much I hate them at large, human beings are at heart; kind, curious, loving and all around amazing creatures. We are capable of achieving so much, yet the leaders of our nations never seem to grow tired of squandering the remarkable qualities of our species on their never-ending game of conquest, greed and violent idealism. Many people of the world have historically had no choice in who plunges their people into war. Throughout ancient history, there is more than enough evidence that a fearful population is an obedient one. From feudal-era China to the Baathist regime of Iraq, leaders have treated their populace with abuse. They give those born into nobility, the rich and the influential the benefits of working the controls behind the proverbial curtain while the impoverished and working classes toil to uphold these systems that completely disenfranchise them. Classically, resistance is met with arrest, torture and death in order to make an example to any more would be boat rockers. Colonization is the practice of forcing others to take on this form of control.

If you find that frightening, perhaps you should consider that the most powerful nations in the world actually elect these kinds of rulers today. You, my fellow Americans, are living in the greatest example of how far it can go since right before the fall of the Roman Empire.

US hegemony began long before George W. Bush. In fact despite what the popular opinions of most democrats today would tell you, GW couldn’t have done it without the help of Bill Clinton and of course George Sr., Ronald Reagan and even Jimmy Carter before him. If anything, Bush is doing the worst job of upholding US colonial mandate of the lot of them. Clinton was a genius at carrying out successful capitalist wars. He managed to keep American interests in the Middle East, South America and Eastern Europe from erupting into much more than “skirmishes” or isolated battles in the public eye. Of course, these skirmishes consisted of consequences such as tens of thousands dead after weeks of bombardment in Baghdad, ethnic Albanians left to fend for themselves after a bungled intervention in Kosovo and last but not least, an open invitation to Kim Jong Il and North Korea to engage us in nuclear war. Clinton may have smirked his way through UN summits, NAFTA signings and a galaxy of press conferences and “peace talks” over foreign policy, but he didn’t fool anyone residing in Columbia, Ecuador, the Caribbean and countless others that felt the short end of the free trade stick. Let no one forget that it was the Clinton administration that brought the brave new world envisioned by the WTO and IMF/WorldBank into the public eye. It was received with open arms by the prevalent happy capitalist attitude that accompanies a country’s population during a booming economy, but it also began the polarization of the very left that had placed so much misguided hope in the Clinton administration. I was in Seattle on N20 and remember the battle in the streets during the WTO conference. It’s a damn good thing they didn’t pick New York City as their place to meet. I think the World Trade Center would have fallen six years ago if they had.

George Herbert Walker Bush’s transgressions are certainly no secret to the American population. He was incredibly unpopular as a president – constantly under the scrutiny of the press, house democrats and more importantly ethnic minority rights groups. Understandably, an oil-rich Texan in the White House was not the most settling feeling for black Americans.

Bush Sr. was an outright racist and no matter what redeemable qualities the man may or may not have had, his supporters and detractors should agree on this point. He was vehemently against affirmative action, tossing its pleas for a fair and equal opportunity work force onto his study room fire like so much Duraflame. Colin Powell may have been the only American black man that he ever really got to know outside of the realm of politics and even then saying he showed the man respect outside of the military context is a stretch. Even Ret. Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf, who now criticizes the lil’ Bush’s Big War on Terror, mentioned that Powell was deserving of more recognition for his service in the first Gulf War. Powell eventually got his recognition by becoming Secretary of State in 2001 and of course was fated to be one of many internal Bush people to resign after 9/11 because he had the common sense to heed it as something other than an open invite to attack Iraq.

Before becoming Reagan’s VP and a major player in the attempted homogenization and marginalizing of the American public that seemed to be that administration’s objective, George HW Bush was the director of the CIA. Keep in mind that this was during the Carter administration and it eventually led to what was known as the “crack epidemic”. In the true spirit of Colonial meddling, the CIA was supplying an obscure band of Colombian rebels with weapons and training to fight the Sandanista movement in the area.

Throughout this underhanded operation, CIA agents were carrying out an act of genocide against the poorest African American neighborhoods in LA by introducing their already at-risk youth to crack. By the time this sinister plot came to fruition, Bush was already on the campaign trail. It reeked of his blatant disregard for all things poor and not white. Additionally, he made a “war on drugs” part of his primary agenda and went on crusade to censor the music of “gangstas” coming out of LA; the irony being that he was trying to shut up the very monster he created.

So what do these men have in common with men like Jacques Chirac, Ariel Sharon and Tony Blair?

They are all the modern incarnation of Colonialism. They are the embodiment of the sort of thinking that would have made them conquistadors, pirates or warlords in ancient times. There is no better tomorrow for these men and their allies and supporters. They see only wealth, power and proliferation as worthy objectives and any presence of opposition, no matter where in the world it is, must be crushed. Take note of where the mighty US military arm extends itself – primarily the Middle East, where one of our most prized and gluttonously consumed natural resources is abundant. Our media portrays our government on a crusade to “liberate” the nations of the Mid East under the rule of “terrorists, dictators and murderers”, yet there are under a few thousand Allied troops stationed in the civil-war inflicted countries of Africa, where slavery and torture are every day realities carried out by real murderers.

There are 150,000 troops in Iraq right now. 3.5 billion people died in the Republic of the Congo over the last few years and there is a violent humanitarian crisis between African and Arabic militants in the Darfur region of the Sudan. We are supposed to believe that somehow, the resistance groups and guerillas in Iraq are more deserving of our martial attention than self interest rebel groups in Africa that put hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths every year.

Put 2 and 2 together. Africa is not keeping our SUV’s on the road or our poorly designed yuppie condos heated during the winter. The neo-cons have no interest in the relief of truly oppressed people, just so long as they can comfortably sit back and watch the killing take place. However, scratching just beneath the surface will reveal that there are now several resolutions, some put forth by former Democrat hopeful John Kerry, to seize the Darfur region in the name of Democracy… and probably secure it as a base of military operations from across the Red Sea.

A perfect example of Colonialism being utilized by Western powers would be the quagmire known as Israel. It’s incredible how such a tiny stretch of land can become a fixture of all struggles in the world combined. Jewish settlers have been at war with the Arab population since shortly after Theodore Herzl put forth the idea of Zionism at the Basel conference in Switzerland, circa 1897. At the time of the first exodus, the Arab population of Palestine (there was no state of Israel till 1948) was 95%, shared with a few remaining Jews from unknown lineage and a handful of other ethnic groups. Today Israel is comprised of 80% Jews, most of whom subscribe to the doctrine of Zionism. In theory, the Jews were separated from Israel in ancient times, doomed to wander into central and Eastern Europe and to be forced to live in struggle and strife. It was Amos the prophet who once wrote that “no people had God-given rights to the land they inhabited”. According to this theory, what became known as Zion, or Utopia, was where you made it and that there was always room enough to live peacefully among neighbors of differing ways of life.

Of course, a minor bad-apple focus group that eventually entered aggressive politics called the Nazi Party changed this evenhanded outlook for many Jews. After the holocaust, a Zionist movement became a rallying of the people under the premise that building a strong Jewish nation would keep such a travesty at bay for all time. It was time to repatriate with the Holy Land and after fifty long years of massacres, colonization, apartheid and adoption of a completely militarized state, you have the present state of Israel.

The US and Great Britain have had long term interests in the region as well. The British mandate of the 20’s provided Arab resistance groups with arms while providing the Jewish army with intelligence, thus perpetuating the violence in the colonial zones of Palestine. Up until recently, Israel, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been engaged in an arms contract with the United States that has provided the IDF with tanks, jet fighters, Dolphin-class nuclear submarines, infantry artillery and armor, helicopters, cruise missiles and enough nukes to take out six Palestines in an afternoon.

This arms contract has recently been frozen, due to the continuing effort to throw everything and everyone America has at the Iraqi resistance. Conversely, this turn of events has forced the Israelis to withdraw their settlements from the Gaza Strip in order to better consolidate their forces in areas they absolutely do not want to lose to Palestinian guerillas such as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Hebron. Consequently, they have built the Wall along the West Bank, cutting Palestinian farmers off from their crops and breaking up families. This is considered strategic withdrawal by Sharon’s government and it’s US allies. Most of us would call it apartheid. But, in Sharon’s own words: “Our forefathers did not come here to build a democracy, but to build a Jewish state”. The colonized Palestinian population has been reduced to subhuman serfdom, the Israeli army is proliferating it’s military presence in the Middle East and the United States stands to benefit from yet another strategic jump-off point with some real muscle.

Those nuclear subs the US sold to Sharon’s army are now patrolling the Persian Gulf and international spy planes are photographing their nuclear reactors.

But the mess left uncleaned in Iraq is still holding back the master plan.

The media stateside would have us all believing that we won the war in Iraq years ago and that every thing subsequent to GW’s chivalrous “mission accomplished” speech is just a clean up operation for the country we recently liberated. Wait, though – the death count of allied troops has surpassed 3500 and blatant disregard for humanitarian standards has left 100,000 Iraqi civilians slaughtered. Millions are without homes and are fighting a daily battle for survival that makes Hurricane Katrina look like a camping trip. As a young Iraqi woman, you have the pleasure of playing a game of chance – your rapist could be a Jihadist insurgent, a local paramilitary or a horny US soldier. What a deal! CNN and Fox news (?) will show you footage upon footage of Iraqi people dipping their fingers in fraud election ink, but when do you see the severed heads of resistance suspects lopped off by Marines? Where are all those dismembered children and DU damaged babies that are littered all over the Googlesphere online? Could it be that any violent incidents that actually leak out into publications about the war are nothing but photoshopped mock-jobs conspired by leftist fruitcakes?

If you believe that, I’d like to set you up with a dream vacation in beautiful Rwanda.

The US occupation of Iraq is beginning to look incredibly similar to the occupation of the Philippines in 1898 after the Spanish-American war. This act of reckless colonialism left 200,000 Filipinos dead at the hands of the Americans, who were vengefully put off by the native resistance movement to send the invasion forces back where they came from. The death count in Iraq will be equal if not greater to this figure within another year, not to mention twice as many US soldiers, if there is not some sort of strategic withdrawal from the area. As much as the average American citizen wants to believe this is a black and white, good vs. evil struggle, it is assuredly not. The enemy is not just a singular group of “terrorists” or “insurgents”. Nor are they an incomprehensible confusion of factions and individual interest religious zealots.

To break it down and give you an idea of how thick the soup is, it goes something like this:

Al -Zarqawi, if he exists, is definitely the driving remnant of the previous Baathist regime under Sadam Hussein. This is one "fact" intelligence has actually managed to nail. Al – Zarqawi is currently using his families’ multibillion-dollar bankroll to support Sunni guerilla groups with weapons in exchange for intelligence on the occupational forces. Many of the urban guerilla groups are signing on under the Army as the Iraqi paramilitary police force. Yes, the very one the Army is supposed to turn control of law and order in Iraq over to upon leaving. Now, believe it or not some of these groups, such as the Islamic Army are dismayed by having to wantonly kill innocent civilians and Shiites in order to maintain favor with Al – Zarqawi so they have deserted the neo-Baathist agenda and distanced themselves from guerilla groups with conflicting interests. On the flip side, Al – Zarqawi has convinced his longtime followers and admirers in the Jihadi Salafi that the Holy War of all time is upon them in the form of infidel invaders from the West. These are the self-proclaimed martyrs that are responsible for the elusive “suicide bombings” that the media is so eager to buzz on.

It is clear now; that with so many enemies coming from so many political and spiritual divisions that the US is in way over its head.

There is a war going on internally too, waged by the politicians’ lust for a unanimously capitalist America.

Here in Chicago, like many other major cities in the US, you won’t find Army recruiters around Lincoln Park on a Friday afternoon. You’ll find them stalking basketball courts in the hood or maneuvering a block and a half away from the youth centers in the barrios. The Army promises a life of two paychecks a month, three square meals a day, room and board and a chance to see the world. This life has attracted millions of lower income American kids into signing on for some of the worst wars in history from Vietnam on up to our present mess. With the unpopularity of a draft well spoken to the white house and an all time low turnout for recruitment, the military think tank has raised it’s promises, but not it’s pay scale, and taken to slick marketing by way of action packed ads, celebrity endorsement and even Army licensed video games that boast that their “source of inspiration is not creativity”. It could lead one to a sense of doom for America’s disenfranchised youth. Even more dismaying is the fact that cloak and dagger organizations like Project Prevention and No Child Left Behind trick ghetto kids into submitting themselves to eugenics campaigns and releasing all of their information to recruiting offices.

Last November 3rd, I was fortunate enough to hear former US Special Ops commando turned Far-Left Revolutionary Author Stan Goff bestow some words of hope on this most dire and genocidal situation.

As a soldier, Goff has had first-hand experience with colonialism while doing wet work for its benefactors. He took part in the 1994 US invasion of Haiti and describes this experience in great detail in his book Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti. It’s a deep and unsettling read and like all of his work, well worth checking out.

As jaded and disgruntled as Goff could have turned out as a result of his experiences, which ended with a discharge in 1996, he is surprisingly optimistic. Looking around a room comprised of a Latino majority, he proclaimed that we were all soldiers and that although we didn’t have guns, we all had weapons. If you can’t figure out what that weapon is, well, you may not have one. He announced that the US is tactically and politically losing in Iraq. He pointed out that pan-African anti-colonialism and Puerto Rican anti-occupation sentiment are more than just a few more burs in America’s side. They are rising intifadahs. The forces of the West are consolidating their resources on the Middle East, therefore paving the way for revolutions to succeed in Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and dozens of other countries yearning to break free of the reach of hegemonic capitalism.

But the most important message Goff delivered was that we need to start turning the tide of war in on itself from right here at home. If there is a unanimous truth learned during this war, it is that a soldier is not a symbol of blind obedience and inhuman violence. Men like Jimmy Massey are exemplary of this revelation ignored for too long by the protest crowd. They can be liberatory and for the most part, they fight for their families, communities and homeland above anything a politician tells them. Soldiers are blue-collar workers with a job that is much harder than a sewer worker’s. Most who enlist do so to get out of bad economic situations and the burden of being a lower class citizen in a neo-liberal capitalist society. When these boys and girls come home, they will know the truth and they will be the movement’s most powerful allies if they believe what they see and know it is wrong.

At present, America’s troops are given five weeks to come home for every eighteen months they spend in Iraq. Five weeks of relative safety to make up for over a year of chaos, bloodshed and the after effects of active duty.

It is uncertain if there will be an end to colonialism, at least within my lifetime, but I am positive that the fight will begin here. The problem the younger generation is faced with right now is gaining an awareness of how colonialism damages the entire world community. The bigger problem is enlightening them as to why they should care. That is the burden of my generation, which is already at great risk of slipping into the comforts bestowed on them by the empire.
Well, that goes for those of us who had a choice.

There is always a mass exodus of soldiers who come home from the front after every war throughout history. It is imperative that this time they understand that even though they are home, the war is still on and we need them on our side. After all, standing against colonialism and hegemony is the true defense of freedom – when the world police are responsible for blatant inhumanity, how can we say any of us are free?