Published on Let's Try Democracy (http://www.davidswanson.org)
Home > Blogs > davidswanson's blog > ABC Shifts Blame from US Wars to
Doctors Without Borders
________________________________________
ABC Shifts Blame from US Wars to Doctors Without Borders
Aug
26
ABC Shifts Blame from US Wars to Doctors Without Borders
Written by davidswanson Tag: Peace and War [1]
ABC Television's 20/20 will air a program on Friday called "The Girl Left
Behind," the main thrust of which is already apparent on ABC's website [2].
The horribly tragic story is that of Kayla Mueller, an American held hostage
and reportedly raped and tortured by ISIS before dying -- it's unclear how,
possibly at the hands of ISIS, possibly killed by bombs dropped by U.S. ally
Jordan.
Another hostage who was freed reported that ISIS blamed Kayla Mueller for
U.S. actions in the Middle East. Among those actions, we learned this week,
was imprisoning future ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at Abu Ghraib, not
just at Camp Bucca as previously reported.
Mueller, like fellow ISIS victim James Foley, meant well and was in Syria to
try to help people nonviolently. But U.S. policy has made it unsafe for
Americans to travel to many places.
ABC will seek to pin blame for what happened to Mueller on Doctors Without
Borders. She was kidnapped out of a Doctors Without Borders car, and that
organization negotiated the freedom of its employees while refusing to help
Mueller or even to trust her family enough to share with them information
intended for them from ISIS.
But Doctors Without Borders was in Syria to help people and appears to have
meant well. Blaming the doctors is easy to overdo here, and not just because
the United States has been bombing its hospitals -- acts that may not
involve rape or torture, but do involve murder and maiming. The U.S.
government could have helped Mueller by never having destroyed Iraq in the
first place, never having sought to overthrow Syria, never having overthrown
Libya, or never having flooded the region with weapons. Or the U.S.
government could have negotiated with ISIS or allowed victims' families to
do so -- something it now allows, too late for Kayla Mueller. Or the U.S.
government could have announced new policies that ISIS would likely have
accepted as ransom.
ISIS asked, in exchange for Mueller's freedom, for the freedom of Aafia
Siddiqui or $5 million Euros. If the U.S. government had, instead, offered
an apology to the victims of its wars and prison camps, and massive
reparations to the region, ISIS might very well have responded in kind.
Instead, the U.S. government proceeded to bomb people, including many
civilians, for a cost many times greater than $5 million Euros.
The telling of Mueller's story is, in itself, worthwhile. But the focus on
an American victim of a war that is victimizing all kinds of people fuels
dangerous attitudes. Focusing on the crimes of ISIS, but not of Saudi Arabia
or Bahrain or, for that matter, the United States, looks like propaganda for
more war. When a New Yorker like Jeffrey Epstein rapes, nobody proposes to
bomb New York, but when Baghdadi allegedly rapes, the appropriate response
is widely understood to be bombing people.
I don't think the suffering of Kayla Mueller or James Foley should be used
to justify the infliction of more suffering. As 9/11 victims have been used
as a justification to kill hundreds of times the number of people killed on
9/11, some of the victims' relatives have pushed back [3]. James Foley is
pushing back from the grave. Posted online is a video [4] of Foley talking
about the lies that are needed to launch wars, including the manipulation of
people into thinking of foreigners as less than human. Foley's killers may
have thought of him as less than human. He may not have viewed them the same
way.
The video shows Foley in Chicago helping the late Haskell Wexler with his
film Four Days in Chicago [5] -- a film about a protest of NATO. I was there
in Chicago for the march and rally against NATO. And I met Wexler who tried
unsuccessfully to find funding for a film version of my book War Is A Lie
[6].
In the video you can watch Foley discussing the limitations of embedded
reporting, the power of veteran resistance, veterans he met at Occupy, the
absence of a good justification for the wars, the dehumanization needed
before people can be killed, the shallowness of media coverage -- watch all
of that and then try to imagine James Foley accepting the use of his killing
as propaganda for more fighting.
When Foley's mother sought to ransom him, the U.S. government repeatedly
threatened her with prosecution. So, instead of Foley's mother paying a
relatively small amount and possibly saving her son, ISIS goes on getting
its funding from oil sales and supporters in the Gulf and free weapons from,
among elsewhere, the United States and its allies. And we're going to
collectively spend millions, probably billions, and likely trillions of
dollars furthering the cycle of violence that Foley risked his life to
expose.
This site is maintained by a union shop at MayFirst.org
________________________________________
Source URL: http://www.davidswanson.org/node/5253
Links:
[1] http://www.davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/14
[2]
http://abcnews.go.com/International/fullpage/brian-ross-investigates-kayla-m
ueller-girl-left-41600838
[3] http://peacefultomorrows.org/
[4]
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/12/james_foley_on_the_dehumanization_of
[5] http://www.fourdaysinchicago.com/
[6] http://warisalie.org
Published on Let's Try Democracy (http://www.davidswanson.org)
Home > Blogs > davidswanson's blog > ABC Shifts Blame from US Wars to
Doctors Without Borders
ABC Shifts Blame from US Wars to Doctors Without Borders
Aug
26
ABC Shifts Blame from US Wars to Doctors Without Borders
Written by davidswanson Tag: Peace and War [1]
ABC Television's 20/20 will air a program on Friday called "The Girl Left
Behind," the main thrust of which is already apparent on ABC's website [2].
The horribly tragic story is that of Kayla Mueller, an American held hostage
and reportedly raped and tortured by ISIS before dying -- it's unclear how,
possibly at the hands of ISIS, possibly killed by bombs dropped by U.S. ally
Jordan.
Another hostage who was freed reported that ISIS blamed Kayla Mueller for
U.S. actions in the Middle East. Among those actions, we learned this week,
was imprisoning future ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at Abu Ghraib, not
just at Camp Bucca as previously reported.
Mueller, like fellow ISIS victim James Foley, meant well and was in Syria to
try to help people nonviolently. But U.S. policy has made it unsafe for
Americans to travel to many places.
ABC will seek to pin blame for what happened to Mueller on Doctors Without
Borders. She was kidnapped out of a Doctors Without Borders car, and that
organization negotiated the freedom of its employees while refusing to help
Mueller or even to trust her family enough to share with them information
intended for them from ISIS.
But Doctors Without Borders was in Syria to help people and appears to have
meant well. Blaming the doctors is easy to overdo here, and not just because
the United States has been bombing its hospitals -- acts that may not
involve rape or torture, but do involve murder and maiming. The U.S.
government could have helped Mueller by never having destroyed Iraq in the
first place, never having sought to overthrow Syria, never having overthrown
Libya, or never having flooded the region with weapons. Or the U.S.
government could have negotiated with ISIS or allowed victims' families to
do so -- something it now allows, too late for Kayla Mueller. Or the U.S.
government could have announced new policies that ISIS would likely have
accepted as ransom.
ISIS asked, in exchange for Mueller's freedom, for the freedom of Aafia
Siddiqui or $5 million Euros. If the U.S. government had, instead, offered
an apology to the victims of its wars and prison camps, and massive
reparations to the region, ISIS might very well have responded in kind.
Instead, the U.S. government proceeded to bomb people, including many
civilians, for a cost many times greater than $5 million Euros.
The telling of Mueller's story is, in itself, worthwhile. But the focus on
an American victim of a war that is victimizing all kinds of people fuels
dangerous attitudes. Focusing on the crimes of ISIS, but not of Saudi Arabia
or Bahrain or, for that matter, the United States, looks like propaganda for
more war. When a New Yorker like Jeffrey Epstein rapes, nobody proposes to
bomb New York, but when Baghdadi allegedly rapes, the appropriate response
is widely understood to be bombing people.
I don't think the suffering of Kayla Mueller or James Foley should be used
to justify the infliction of more suffering. As 9/11 victims have been used
as a justification to kill hundreds of times the number of people killed on
9/11, some of the victims' relatives have pushed back [3]. James Foley is
pushing back from the grave. Posted online is a video [4] of Foley talking
about the lies that are needed to launch wars, including the manipulation of
people into thinking of foreigners as less than human. Foley's killers may
have thought of him as less than human. He may not have viewed them the same
way.
The video shows Foley in Chicago helping the late Haskell Wexler with his
film Four Days in Chicago [5] -- a film about a protest of NATO. I was there
in Chicago for the march and rally against NATO. And I met Wexler who tried
unsuccessfully to find funding for a film version of my book War Is A Lie
[6].
In the video you can watch Foley discussing the limitations of embedded
reporting, the power of veteran resistance, veterans he met at Occupy, the
absence of a good justification for the wars, the dehumanization needed
before people can be killed, the shallowness of media coverage -- watch all
of that and then try to imagine James Foley accepting the use of his killing
as propaganda for more fighting.
When Foley's mother sought to ransom him, the U.S. government repeatedly
threatened her with prosecution. So, instead of Foley's mother paying a
relatively small amount and possibly saving her son, ISIS goes on getting
its funding from oil sales and supporters in the Gulf and free weapons from,
among elsewhere, the United States and its allies. And we're going to
collectively spend millions, probably billions, and likely trillions of
dollars furthering the cycle of violence that Foley risked his life to
expose.
This site is maintained by a union shop at MayFirst.org
Source URL: http://www.davidswanson.org/node/5253 ;
Links:
[1] http://www.davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/14
[2]
http://abcnews.go.com/International/fullpage/brian-ross-investigates-kayla-m
ueller-girl-left-41600838
[3] http://peacefultomorrows.org/
[4]
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/12/james_foley_on_the_dehumanization_of
[5] http://www.fourdaysinchicago.com/
[6] http://warisalie.org
