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During his 1967 New York sermon, which made bold headlines in newspapers across the world, Martin Luther King cried out”A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.” What would Rev. King say today about Americans bringing massive death and destruction to the innocent citizens and their children in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan?
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During his April 4th 1967 New York sermon, which made bold headlines in newspapers across the world, Martin Luther King cried out to his fellow Americans,
“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
So what the Hell would Rev. King say today about Americans bringing massive death and destruction to the innocent citizens and their children in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan over decades of time?
Man! That’s a lot of betrayal –
– Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan!
And it’s not all ‘silent betrayal.’ Lots and lots of active betraying genocidal criminal behavior by thousands of Americans in someone else’s far away non-Caucasian country (and ‘just following orders’ doesn’t wash anymore, actually following criminal orders never did.)[1]
… all the while that great American ‘silent majority’ betrays, betrays, betrays in blasphemous silence
… betrays what besides their country?
… betrays their children’s admiration and trust, with their silence re multiple invasions and bombings
… betrays their own humanity – millions of fellow human beings dead, maimed, tens of millions mourning loved ones – lives ruined
… betrays their professed religion, its teaching, its injunctions, in a murderous silence of apostasy, Hey! Any silent or gun toting Americans believe in Hell anymore? Apparently not.
Nobody seems fearful. Judgement Day is a long way off. Why not follow the Devil’s invitation to accept and silently watch the murder of innocent people, innocent people who just by the way happen to be nominally of other than white complexion. Maybe Matthew 25:40 only applies to what you do or don’t do to white people. “When you did it to one of the least of these My brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me!”
… and with this mention of race distinction,
… last, but not least, is the betrayal of the only American whose birthday is celebrated with a national holiday – a three day holiday at that!
In that New York sermon one year before ‘The Man,’ the deep state, the Military Industrial Complex, had Rev. King shot to death [2] and four years after his ‘I have a dream’ speech, King shocked Vietnam war supporting Americans with,
“I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart … We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together … in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
King’s martyrdom notwithstanding, Americans continued to slaughter the soft-spoken Buddhist Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians for a further seven years after he himself had been shot to death. A substantial amount of support for the ‘anti communist’ war continued in spite of the many photos of American atrocities [3] which today’s CIA overseen criminal American media is careful not to provide about American atrocities in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. To this end your author reviews below the American crimes against humanity in these nations of the Middle East and Africa.
(Be good if someone punished Americans. Or else, Americans will most likely continue their horrific crimes because that is what Americans have been doing in the Middle East and North Africa for decades, following decades of atrocity wars in Latin America and Asia.)
Afghanistan
American crime began in 1979, with President Jimmy Carter having the CIA, Pakistan and Saudi secret services fund, arm and train the armies of Afghanistan war lord hill tribes to terrorize and overthrow the then new popular women liberating Socialist government in Kabul. [4]
When the Soviets made the mistake of coming to defend the Socialist Kabul government, demon David Rockefeller’s man, Carter’s Presidential Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, declared jihad and invited extremist Islamic warriors from around the world, including Osama bin Ladin, into Afghanistan (as if Afghanistan belonged to him).[4]
When the Soviet military pulled out, it still took two years for the US backed forces to overthrow the Kabul government. Then the US backed forces made a super devastating civil war between themselves until the Taliban (‘Students of Islam’) defeated the US backed war lords and proclaimed an Islamic Republic, recognized by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
After 9/11 suicide attack by Saudi Arabians, Americans murderously invaded all Afghanistan claiming to be looking for Osama bin Ladin, and have remained for 20 years with a coalition that includes every single Caucasian nation on Earth [5]supporting a drug lords backed quisling Afghan government. 20 years of US, Australian and European troops killing troops of the Taliban government which has continued to govern more than half of Afghanistan. The invasion of Afghanistan was illegal under international law. The UN Security Council had not given authorization for the invasion of Afghanistan.
Iraq
January of 2021 marks the 29th anniversary of the brutal and destructive war the Americans and their allies waged on Iraq in 1991. A war of massive destruction and genocide that was waged with the pretext of getting the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. After inflicting a cataclysmic proportion of destruction and death, the Americans imposed harsh comprehensive economic sanctions on the Iraqi population for more than 13 years. Resulting in more than 1.5 million civilians dead, most of which being children, women, and sick people.
The years of criminal sanctions were followed by the UN unauthorized illegal 2003 American invasion of Iraq along with troops from the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland. This author was working in Kolkata at the time and read Indian newspapers filled with tragic photos of piles of bodies resulting from American bombings – horrific to behold. Upon my return to New York, I went to the library and searched through the Times of the 21 days I had been in India. In all those 21 days of the New York Times were published only two photos of Iraqi suffering. One of a pick-up truck transporting a man with a leg wound, the other, a photo of a crowd of Iraqis waiting for a morgue to open. Lots of photos of American troops playing basketball on their free time among other photos of US soldiers and of course striking photos of explosions from US bombs and artillery. The New York Times, America’s newspaper of historical record, did not cover the carnage of thousands innocent people by American military during those first three weeks of slaughter. The total destruction of once prosperous oil rich Iraq over the years that followed is most graphically described by international news agencies’ photos of the of the town of Fallujah, a once beautiful city of mosques, leveled by Americans with the use every illegal weaponry imaginable.[6]
Jan/13/2021
U.N. human rights experts said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s pardon of four American men (mercenaries) convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated U.S. obligations under international law,
Somalia
In Somalia, during the 1980s, the US backed a brutal dictatorship without regard to famine on a massive scale, resulting in the deaths of more than 300,000 Somalis, mostly children.
In 1992 US Marines and Rangers killed many Somalis before being pulled out of danger after Blackhawk helicopters were shot down. Over the next seven years, the US government attempted overtly and covertly with funding and arming to keep the warlord most cooperative for US investment banking interests in power.
2003-2005, Increased US funding and support for the warlords being defeated by a new and immensely popular conservative Islamic Courts Union government.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “it was wrong for the United States government to support warlords in Somalia.”
In 2006, the Islamic Courts reopened Mogadishu International Airport,. The first airplane chartered by the Arab League flew from the airport for the first time in 11 years picking up Islamic Courts delegates to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
When the popular Islamic Courts Union government forces finally defeated the warlords despite foreign troops and US helping the warlords, the US trained Ethiopian Army and Air Force invaded and murderously temporarily defeated the Somalian Islamic Courts.
January 3, 2007 – Ethiopian, U.S. airstrikes force ICU withdrawal from Kismayo.
On February 9, 800 Somali demonstrators in Mogadishu, burn U.S., Ethiopian, and Ugandan flags. Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Burundi had committed troops to the “peacekeeping mission’,
By the end of March, 2007,the fighting intensified in Mogadishu – more than a thousand people, mostly civilians killed.
Al Shabaab, the militant youth wing of the Islamic Courts rose to leadership role.
Ethiopian helicopters attack rebel positions, while the insurgents were calling on the people of the city over mosque loudspeakers to resist.
On March 3, 2008, the United States air strike on Dhoble kills the leader of Al-Shabab Aden Hashi Eyrow; does nothing to slow down the Insurgency.
July 1, 2008, Somali opposition fighters ambush Ethiopian army convoy.
August 22, 2008, Al-Shabaab retakes Kismayo US warplanes from aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in strikes ( AP ); AC-130 plane rained gunfire down on the southern village of Hayo – “many dead bodies and animals.”
The Islamic Courts’ Youth Wing, al Shabaab (Shabaab = “youth’ in Arabic), with great cost in deaths and casualties to themselves heroically pushed the heavily weaponized Ethiopians back out of cities, though UN authorized African Union “Peace Keeping’ forces invaded as well to protect the remnants of a revamped warlord coalition,
January 25, 2009 [oft defeated] Ethiopian troops completely pulled out of Somalia.
In 2011, Kenyan armed forces entered Somalia with US attack aircraft support, to combat al-Shabaab
Result: More death, maiming, destruction and more importantly creating
STARVATION [“Between 2010 and 2012, more than a quarter of a million people died in the famine in Somalia” ” Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures” Oxfam. In Somalia’s case, it was because the US of genocide destroyed Somalia’s chosen government, a normal colonial procedure. During all these above decades famine relief has taken second priority to Western exploitive business interests in Somalia with genocidal consequences.
U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia
August 2011, the United Nations, African Union’s AMISOM ,United States, and the TFG battling Al Shabaab claim control of Mogadishu.
July 24 Christian Science Monitor, “corrupt TFG had foreigners defeat Islamic Courts.”
In October, US launches drones from Ethiopia BBC
The release of WikiLeaks cables in 2010 documented the plans and the role of the State Department in Kenya’s invasion of Somalia.
(In addition to U.S. NATO and the UN involvement in Somalia and Kenya, the state of Israel has close ties with the government in Nairobi and has contracts to train the Ethiopian Armed Forces.)
During 2020, US special forces have killed a number of al-Shabab leaders through a series of air and drone strikes, cruise missile launches and even a helicopter-borne commando raid.
Dec 5, 2020 — US President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all US troops from Somalia by 15 January.
Libya
UN Quality of Life Index of 2010 had Libya ranked the 53rd highest nation, ahead of nine European nations (including Russia), a beautiful well kept Arab Socialist country, where everyone owned their own home, enjoyed free and modern health care, free good education up through PhD, a low infant mortality, the cheapest imaginable gasoline for cars everyone had and free from exploitation as even all wage labor was strictly forbidden in the Libyan constitution of a real decentralized democracy in which everyone participated at the local assemblies level where all issues of state concern were discussed before sending delegates to the central assembly of government in Tripoli. Political parties, or gangs of foreign backed profession politicians, were illegal.
In Gaddafi’s Libya was Africa’s Most Prosperous Democracy, Zimbabwean Garikai Chengu a fellow at the Du Bois Institute for African Research at Harvard University, writes, “Contrary to popular belief, Libya, which western media described as “Gaddafi’s military dictatorship”, was in actual fact one of the world’s most democratic States,” and describes this in detail. “The New York Times, which was always highly critical of conceded that in Libya, the intention was that “everyone is involved in every decision…Tens of thousands of people take part in local committee meetings to discuss issues and vote on everything from foreign treaties to building schools.”
CNN, NY Times et al. have never reported that Libya, as opposed to desperately poor Egypt and Yemen had been enjoying a higher standard of living than nine European nations including Russia. Rather, they continued emphasizing Western media concocted misnomer ‘Arab Spring’ and long term condemnation of Gaddafi over his entire four decades of leadership of Libya and funding the movement for African Union as it Chairman.
In mid February, the empire struck with clever vengeance as armed insurgents suddenly appeared in prosperous socialist Libya amid a CNN and Al Jezeera media campaign of disinformation, distortion and preposterous lies of large peaceful protests, with Human Rights Watch blowing CNN undocumented false reports up to grand and horrific proportions. As over and over again in the past, never mind that it was the same CNN that since its inception has hailed Americans who killed millions of poor Asians and Latin Americans as wonderful heroes protecting people. As CNN reports fit Western media inculcated prejudices, they are hailed as truth.
The colonial powers had sprung the surprise beginning of what will go down in history as one of the greatest feats of media mind control of childishly gullible, blindly self-indulgent, malleable Western public and a stadus quo obediant diplomatic corp, both empty of any sense of responsibility and therefore dangerous to themselves and the rest of humanity.
Following a well prepared surprise military attack planned by a CIA funded exile group in London led by Libyans long resided near CIA headquarters near Washington, and using past al Qaida and other veterans of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the citizenry of Benghazi was made to look as rebelling by CIA fed CNN and Al Jazeera 24 hour news coverage.
Coordinated gangs with heavy weapons occupied the centers of cities, then as they were almost immediately being rolled back and out of the towns recaptured by Libyan police, army and militias, liberating them from rebel occupation, US, UK and France pressured the UN Security Council for permission to bomb Libya to protect these gangs (propagandized as innocent peaceful protestors) from defeat.
But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confessed, “This has nothing to do with a popular uprising. The Libyan people love Gaddafi, as I was able to see when I went to Libya. Powerful people decided to give life to a new era by trying to oust Gaddafi.” When reporters asked Berlusconi why he had kept silent, “What choice did I have considering America’s pressure, President Georgio Napolitano’s stance, and the Parliament’s decision?”
A month before French and British planes would eventually destroy Libyan Armed Forces and militias, and hunt Gadaffi down there was a massive pro-Gadaffi Green Libya demonstration of a near million Libyans and Gadaffi address the multitude from hiding even while NATO planes bombed. It went unreported in Western media and recently videos of the event have been removed, blocked were for years they could be viewed at HUGE PRO GADDAFI RALLY IN TRIPOLI – RAW FOOTAGE, 7/2/2011, http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=14505
And at One Third of Libya Turns Out to Support Qaddafi in World’s 2,2011, www.intifada-palestine.com/…/one-third-of-libya-turns-out-to-support-qT. Just try to bring these URLs up!
The $44 billion in gold in Libya’s State Bank which was beginning to be minted in arrangement with fourteen nations to supplant the use of the US dollar in commerce is unaccounted for, and Libya is in ruins, with foreign fighters supported civil wars keeping it that way. Your author published:
Time to Expose Media Manufactured Uprising CIA Terrorists US-NATO Air Strikes On Wealthy Libya 8/10/2019 Libyans in Tripoli are again under siege, anti-imperialists should be encouraged to use this window of topicality to have the public know the truth about the colonial powers’ annihilation of Africa’s most prosperous nation. Let us look back at a peaceful and prosperous Libya, just five weeks before the UN Security Council voted to bomb it.https://countercurrents.org/2019/07/time-to-expose-media-manufactured-uprising-cia-terrorists-us-nato-air-strikes-on-wealthy-libya/
Syria
Your author had the following articles published by CounterCurrents of Kerala, India, Minority Perspective, UK, Greanville Post and OpEdNews,
January 10, 2019 Greanville Post
An American Senator Writes of ISIS “Hellish Filth We’ve Recruited, Armed and Trained for 8 Years!” “The Syrian War had ” much to do with clandestine actions of CIA, MI-6, Mossad, Turkish MIT, French DGSE, Saudi GID and others. “would never have occurred without American planning and execution.” (and criminal CBS NBC ABC CNN FOX PBS genocidal fake news) https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/01/08/an-american-senator-writes-of-isis-hellish-filth-weve-recruited-armed-and-trained-for-8-years/
October 9, 2016
Ask Hillary Who Buys ISIS et al Terrorists Helping US Oust Assad NewToyota Trucks/ Heavy Weapons Sec. Hillary oversaw regime change wars in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, S. Sudan, Syria, Yemen; should be asked to explain new Toyota trucks/heavy weapons coming to ISIS/other terrorists, who have been mass murdering US designated enemies in Assad’s Syria and Shiite wherever they are; why superpower US ‘fighting’ for 5 years can’t defeat ragtag force of 25,000; involved false flags attacks on US to prove innocence?
April 18, 2012
Syria Savaged by US UK France Israel Turkey Arabia Qatar al Qaeda & Media for Whom? Death, destruction in Syria, arranged by armed insurrection sustained covertly by foreign powers including the US, NATO nations, Israel, Arabia, Qatar, al Qaeda, and made into an “Arab Spring’ by imperialist media managed “reporting.’ Armed insurgents belonging to Islamist organizations cross the border from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. US State Dept. proudly admits involvement. Why? for whom? brought into historical context
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Why Not Emphasize Assad Had No MOTIVE To Use Gas! He Had Defeated the Terrorists Sent by USA Assad Had No MOTIVE To Use Gas When He Already Defeated the Terrorists Sent and Armed by USA and Saudi Arabia, While Assad’s Enemies Had a Reason to Stage a Gas Attack To Give USA a Pretext To Bomb Yet Again.
While the Syrian population suffers life threatening food and medical deprivation,
“Syria has accused President Donald Trump of stealing the country’s oil,” Newsweek, August 20, 2020.
In remarks delivered Tuesday and sent to Newsweek by the Syrian permanent mission to the United Nations, representative Bashar al-Jaafari told the U.N. Security Council that “the U.S. occupation forces, in full view of the United Nations and the international community, took a new step to plunder Syria’s natural resources, including Syrian oil and gas” through the recent establishment of a company called “Crescent Delta Energy.”
This firm, “with the sponsorship and support of the US Administration, has entered into a contract with the so-called ‘Syrian Democratic Forces/SDF’ militia, an agent of the US occupation forces in northeastern Syria, with the aim of stealing Syrian oil and depriving the Syrian state and Syrian people of the basic revenues necessary to improve the humanitarian situation, provide for livelihood needs and reconstruction.”
But that same day, Trump again voiced his view on the Syria mission: “As you know, in Syria we’re down to almost nothing, except we kept the oil. But we’ll work out some kind of a deal with the Kurds on that. But we left, but we kept the oil.”
Recommended Reading:
ISIS IS US: The Shocking Truth: Behind the Army of Terror 2nd Edition
by John-Paul Leonard (Author), Washington’s Blog (Author), Wayne Madsen (Author), Syrian Girl Partisan (Author)
Who would have ever thought that “ISIS is made in America” it seems so absurd! We Americans are at war with ISIS or so they want you to believe. The be-headings, mayhem, and murder in the Middle East are being orchestrated from Washington DC
This book exposes the false flags on the war on terror – Isis is a cruel barbaric USA concocted death squad.
Yemen
July 20, 2020
Americans Are Guilty of Genocide Right Now in Yemen Somalia Afghanistan Libya Iraq Syria Many tens of thousands of precious Yemeni children have already starved to death, died of cholera, or been blown to bits by US made and managed missiles. It is the American public’s cruel indifference that makes Americans guilty of genocide. As Martin Luther King once said, “comes a time when silence is treason.”
Noting the history of the child genocide in Yemen as only one example of America’s genocidal foreign policy and cruel criminal media managed political distraction away from any compassionate public interest in what Americans in uniform are doing abroad that might possibly arise.
Under international law, Americans during both the Obama and Trump administrations could be prosecuted as co-belligerent with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have already caused immense carnage and destroyed much of the country’s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure…Weapons transfers, assistance in identifying targets, and midair refueling of Saudi and allied aircraft— make Washington a co-belligerent in the war under international law.
If there is a God in heaven, He or She is aware that it is the cruel indifference of American citizens that is responsible for the tens of thousands of precious Yemeni children that have already starved to death, died of cholera, or been blown to bits by US made and managed missiles. So this historian had published:
March 12, 2019
How To Enjoy Dinner Knowing Fellow Americans Have Caused 85,000 Yemeni Kids to Starve to Death? The news that one’s compatriots have brought death to 85,000 darling Yemeni children being hard to stomach, the author wonders how other Americans feel or manage not to feel.
August 27, 2018
Dead ‘Yemeni Kids? Murdering Children By the Millions For Money and Power Is An American Way of Life 3rd World must demand justice for her kids! Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s, cry “God bless America? No, no, God damn America for her crimes against humanity!” And American film maker Michael Moore’s “sick and twisted violent people that we’ve been for hundreds of years, it’s something that’s just in our craw, just in our DNA. Americans kill people, because that’s what we do. We invade countries. We send drones in to kill civilians.”
Rev. King in 1967
Towards the end of his 1967 New York sermon Rev. King explained “In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: “To save the soul of America.”
And Rev. King indicated where Americans need to start to “save the soul of America” Regarding the genocide and mega monstrous destruction Americas perpetrated in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, King insisted, “We must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary” .
Boy! Now add in all the small countries invaded since King spoke. Considering the many millions Americans have murdered in so many devastated countries, the only way Americans could find at least some of the $trillions that would be needed for reparations, indemnity and compensations, would be to end its ultra mega costly preparations and plannings for wars, most especially nuclear wars. In 2018, the U.S. Defense Department’s budget of $649 billion was larger than the combined spending of the next seven largest militaries: $609 billion (China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, UK, Germany).Jan 26, 2020 The Independent, UK, 2/12/2018
Way back in 1967, Rev. King cautioned re preparing and planning wars, “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.”
Today’s planning and preparing for nuclear wars is the ultimate betrayal of the criminally insane American investors in war, but an infinitely greater betrayal is the mind-boggling betrayal of that American silent majority’s indifference to its own yawning extinction.
Endnotes
1.
GIs Who Invaded Vietnam, Iraq, etc. Were Criminals By International Law & US Army’s Own Law Regarding any order to invade and or kill in another country: “An order which is unlawful not only does not need to be obeyed but obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution of the one who obeys it. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders — if the order was illegal.
2.
Martin Luther King Day 2021: Memphis, Tenn. Court Decision, U.S. “Government Agencies” Found Guilty in Martin Luther King’s Assassination
By Carl Herman
3.
What comes to mind are photos of dead babies and their mothers lying in a ditch in South Vietnam shot point blank by American soldiers.[click here ] “of America soldiers setting fire to the straw roofs of village homes with their cigarette lighters”of an American tank dragging a roped Vietnamese ‘enemy’ behind it down the road ” of naked children with burnt skin running from fiery napalm dropped from an American fighter plane over farm houses ” of photos of B-52 bombers high-altitude carpet bombing ‘free fire zones’ ” of planes dropping Agent-Orange to destroy whole forests in South Vietnam ” of super heroes like US Senator and presidential-candidate-to-be pilot John McCain, who dropped bombs for months on Hanoi city before being shot down, and who Nuremberg Trial Prosecutor Gen.Telford Taylor would have prosecuted as a war criminal.
4.
Carter Had CIA Armed Fundamentalist Terrorists War Against Afghan Women’s Liberation & Education Carter Had CIA Armed Fundamentalist Terrorists War Against Afghan Women’s Liberation & Education
5.
Every nation of Caucasian population, even tiny Andorra and Monaco, have been within the coalition occupying Afghanistan under American leadership.
6.
See First Battle of Fallujah and Second Battle of Fallujah, Wikipedia
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.
