North America

US government deceives society

ciaThe United States government uses ‘bread and circuses’ to suppress the truth, a prominent political analyst tells Press TV.

The US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan have rejected a United Nations report that accuses American troops of killing hundreds of Afghan children over the last four years – the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of combating terrorism.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Scott Rickard, a former US intelligence linguist from Florida, to further discuss the issue. Rickard is joined by Khushal Arsala, a former Afghan diplomat from San Francisco, and Saul Landau, senior fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies from Berkeley. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Let’s look at the reaction by the US. I’m holding in my hands this official statement – a copy of it – from the headquarters of the United States forces in Afghanistan in which the US has categorically rejected these findings, quoting ISAF of which US forces are the majority, reduced civilian casualties by 49 percent in 2012 compared to 2011.

Meanwhile, reports of a number of children killed doubled from 2010 to 2011 and about 700 kids were killed last year alone. Just the mere fact that the US is categorically rejecting this, what does that show?

Rickard: It shows a clear lack of empathy. You’re looking at being proud by reducing it by 50 percent when you doubled in the year prior. So, you went back to 2010 statistics. It’s not about statistics, unfortunately, but that’s what drives the military machine.

Obviously, as the gentleman was mentioning before, they used to do body counts back in the Vietnam War and they got up clearly beyond five million people when the Americans only lost 58,000.

The fact remains that the American government continues to be a murderous nation around the world. It’s unbelievable that they’ve used bread and circuses to hoodwink the society.

Nobody is watching the war in the United States. This society is so sidetracked by their entertainment and the value of their lifestyle that they have no clue. They’ve been lied to for so long that they just really aren’t fighting against a government that’s been corrupted since well over WWII. It started in the early 19th century.

It’s unbelievable how little people know about history and how few understand the maniacal, criminal activity going on around the world in their nation’s name.

The fact remains that the only way to stop it and the only way to get behind it is to get in front of the people and to get people the right message that tells them over and over again that you are murdering people around the world just indiscriminately.

The numbers are well over – they claim at the Congress that the number killed in Afghanistan is somewhere under 20,000 and obviously at least a third of those were children because the children are always in the way of people trying to commit atrocities.

There’s atrocities going on and the families don’t separate themselves from the children. They have to live and they live among themselves and they live among their tribes and that’s what happens.

Not that it’s a fact of war; it’s a fact of aggression. The Americans have been so aggressive around the world for so many years. It is way beyond time for them to stop.

Unfortunately, as I’ve said many times, the economy is tied to the military industrial complex. In order to stop the military industrial complex in the United States, the economy will fail miserably and nobody will accept that.

Press TV: What I’m trying to understand is that here we are and the US is engaged in this war so they should be following some type of respect, some type of protocol, adherence to international law, Scott Rickard.

On the other side, we’re looking at this report in which it says the detention of juveniles under the age of 18, they’re languishing in these detention facilities, they don’t have access to legal, full humanitarian assistance and, meanwhile, they’re abused in these US detention facilities and then maybe then transferred to Afghan custody. Over there, again, they’re abused.

Why isn’t there some protocol being followed in order for this report to not come out and then cite what is going on with children under the age of 18? Of course, the case of Omar Khadr is the famous one under the age of 15 when he was detained by US forces.

Rickard: It’s a clear lack of disrespect. When you talk to most soldiers, they dehumanize their victims.

In fact, the entire culture in the United States has become incredibly Islamophobic including anyone whether it’s from South Asia or whether it’s from the Middle East. You’re looking at a society that’s been completely trained to be dehumanized what they consider ‘the enemy.’ For them to disrespect children is not a surprise. For them to abuse children is not a surprise. It’s been engrained in their activities that they’ve been trained to do.

Now, to say that they’ve been taught to be professional soldiers and you hear the good side from the military, sure, they have been trained to be professional soldiers, but unfortunately, they’ve also been trained to completely disregard the enemy and consider the enemy less than human. That’s been a problem in every war that the Americans have been involved with.

My goal, just as the gentleman said, how do we change the policies of a government gone wild? The government – this is nothing new.

Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. You’ve got bankers running the military in the United States basically going ad hoc going against country after country after country where we are the aggressors.

Until the policy changes, these reports and these statistics are not going to change. Maybe they’ll lower it by 50 percent this year and then it’ll go up by 50 percent next year. That’s not the case.

Back to top button