Robert Fisk: The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn

[LiberalArkie]

Please read entire article. It is far better than these snips.


<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-the-only-lesson-we-ever-learn-is-that-we-never-learn-797816.html>

snip

"They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before. The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history."

How easily the little men took us into the inferno, with no knowledge or, at least, interest in history. None of them read of the 1920 Iraqi insurgency against British occupation, nor of Churchill's brusque and brutal settlement of Iraq the following year.

snip

Yet one of the terrible ironies of our times is that the most bloodthirsty of American statesmen – Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfovitz – have either never heard a shot fired in anger or have ensured they did not have to fight for their country when they had the chance to do so. No wonder Hollywood titles like "Shock and Awe" appeal to the White House. Movies are their only experience of human conflict; the same goes for Blair and Brown.

Churchill had to account for the loss of Singapore before a packed House. Brown won't even account for Iraq until the war is over.

It is a grotesque truism that today – after all the posturing of our political midgets five years ago – we might at last be permitted a valid seance with the ghosts of the Second World War. Statistics are the medium, and the room would have to be dark. But it is a fact that the total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is well over the number of American casualties suffered in the initial D-Day landings at Normandy (3,384 killed and missing) on 6 June, 1944, or more than three times the total British casualties at Arnhem the same year (1,200).

They count for just over a third of the total fatalities (11,014) of the entire British Expeditionary Force from the German invasion of Belgium to the final evacuation at Dunkirk in June 1940. The number of British dead in Iraq – 176 – is almost equal to the total of UK forces lost at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45 (just over 200). The number of US wounded in Iraq – 29,395 – is more than nine times the number of Americans injured on 6 June (3,184) and more than a quarter of the tally for US wounded in the entire 1950-53 Korean war (103,284).

Iraqi casualties allow an even closer comparison to the Second World War. Even if we accept the lowest of fatality statistics for civilian dead – they range from 350,000 up to a million – these long ago dwarfed the number of British civilian dead in the flying-bomb blitz on London in 1944-45 (6,000) and now far outnumber the total figure for civilians killed in bombing raids across the United Kingdom – 60,595 dead, 86,182 seriously wounded – from 1940 to 1945.

Indeed, the Iraqi civilian death toll since our invasion is now greater than the total number of British military fatalities in the Second World War, which came to an astounding 265,000 dead (some histories give this figure as 300,000) and 277,000 wounded. Minimum estimates for Iraqi dead mean that the civilians of Mesopotamia have suffered six or seven Dresdens or – more terrible still – two Hiroshimas.

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-the-only-lesson-we-ever-learn-is-that-we-never-learn-797816.html>

[Birthmark]

1. There's a reason Shakespeare still rings true. nt

[Lasher]

2. And these morons didn't learn from the 1980 - 1990 Savings and Loan crisis either. n/t

[mac2]

3. For Empire?

They didn't belong there in the first place and are committing war crimes and genocide. We need to learn that first or why do we have a UN with no teeth?

We kill without apology. Our leaders even acted like they were "Presidential" and "strong leaders" by going to war in places they did not belong. Fact is they are war criminals since the other countries did not attack us. No treaty allows for that. Every society regards murder as a punishable crime.

No Bin Laden didn't do 911...and the FBI said so. No Saddam didn't attack us and we found no WMD but we did rob them of their future and culture. It was a "hate crime" (against Islamics even though the ME has many Christians). It was also robbery and revenge since they wouldn't hand over their oil to the Oil Barons of the twenty first century.

They are not Neo Cons for Empire but just plain "Cons" who rob, murder, and leave destruction everywhere. They are world crime gangs.

Peace and prosperity is just that. Our huge war debt and reputation in the world gone in just five years. No one wins in a war so why do they keep doing it? Yes..they've never been in battle and are "couch warriors".

At least they should be punished for being "environmental destroyers of the earth". Depleted Uranium stays around for many years polluting the water, humans, and the air. What goes around comes around is an event to think about here.

New York State Governor and reformer Spitzer was decried and asked to leave his office over sex (in a shocking period of time) but not this administration who has killed and destroyed whole nations for Empire (even our own). Yes...they broke the law but let the punishment fit the crime!

Read: Lying for Empire.