America’s Dirtiest Open Secrets

(Or Five Things Everyone Must Know About America)

The Americans admit it themselves and I agree: They are a bunch of oblivious folks too engrossed in their struggle to obtain the American Dream to pay heed to anything else. They have too much of a blind faith in their democratic values and in their elected leaders. Therefore, they do too little to keep a check on the activities of these leaders. Resultantly, they pursue policies which, despite being in negation to the American values, go unchecked—even supported at times.

This post attempts to introduce to them—and to all of my readers—some of the dark policies pursued by American politicians.

America created the biggest and most dangerous terrorist organization—Al-Qaeda. Yes, America created Al-Qaeda. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan in the late 70s, Al-Qaeda emerged as an international Jihadi movement against the Soviets. It was funded directly by the Pakistanis and Saudis and indirectly by America, which channeled its military hardware and other logistics through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. For more details, read this Wikipedia article. America created the Taliban. Again yes, America created the Taliban. Ahmad Rashid, a widely acclaimed Pakistani intellectual, writes in his book, Taliban, that: “The Taliban originated when the CIA with ISI recruited radical Muslims from around the world to fight with the Afghan mujahadeen against the Soviet Union.” Ahmed Rashid also estimates that after 1982 more than 100,000 Muslims from dozens of countries received political or military training in the CIA-backed camps of Pakistan and Afghanistan. For more details, read this Wikipedia article about Taliban. America sold arms to Iraq and urged it to use WMDs against civilians in Iran. During Iraq’s war with Iran, many American policymakers, arms suppliers and makers benefited immensely by selling large amounts of weaponry to Iraq. These weapons included chemical agents like cyanide. In addition, America also encouraged Iraq to use chemical weapons against Iranian civilians and helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal. For more details, read Iraq and Chemical Weapons: the US Connection by Daniel E Boles. America helped Iran to start its nuclear program. During the Shah’s period, America signed two agreements–the Atoms for Peace Program and the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation Agreement–with Iran to urge it to start its nuclear program. These two pacts, which would help Iran build up to 20 nuclear reactors, brought the US corporations as much as $6 billion in profits. However, after the Iranian revolution of 1979, America stopped backing Iran and its nuclear program. Resultantly, the program remained suspended for some time. Today, however, Iran is still trying to pursue what it calls a peaceful nuclear program. For more details read this Wikipedia article and this report written from an Iranian perspective. America is the only country to have used WMDs against civilians. Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki? American bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, killed 66 and 39,000 innocent civilians respectively. This Yale University website has a very good report.

America also used Depleted Uranium (DU) in the Gulf War, in the Balkans and allegedly in its recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. DU is a highly penetrating, toxic element which can cause an increase in cancers and severe birth defects. The use of DU not only affected American war veterans, but has also thousands, maybe millions of innocent people in areas it was used. DU is considered to be a WMD and its use is prohibited by many international agreements. For more details, read this BBC report, this Information Clearing House article, this Sunday Herald report and this report by Prof. M. Miraki, an Afghan expatriate [WARNING: This last report contains extremely graphic images which most visitors may find disturbing].

America’s use of the herbicide, Agent Orange, not only caused health problems and damage to its own veterans in Vietnam, but also to millions of Vietnamese who live in areas sprayed by this toxic agent. Currently there are 150,000 Vietnamese children with birth defects caused by Agent Orange. For more information, read this BBC report, this Wikipedia article, and the Department of Veterans Affairs website.

With all these hideous crimes, I fail to find a reason why Americans still back administrations which are not only against American values, but also against the common human morals; which kill indiscriminately and which only think of their own personal ends and those of a few corporations. This makes Noam Chomsky’s claim that thought control is conducted to spread a matrix of necessary illusions, true; and, the necessity of ‘an intellectual self-defense’, inevitable.

Links Worth Visiting:

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