When Israeli president Isaac Herzog described the assault on Gaza as a war “to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization,” he wasn’t really lying. He was telling the truth — just maybe not quite in the way that he meant it.
The demolition of Gaza is indeed being perpetrated in defense of western values, and is itself a perfect embodiment of western values. Not the western values they teach you about in school, but the hidden ones they don’t want you to look at. Not the attractive packaging with the advertising slogans on the label, but the product that’s actually inside the box.
For centuries western civilization has depended heavily on war, genocide, theft, colonialism and imperialism, which it has justified using narratives premised on religion, racism and ethnic supremacy — all of which we are seeing play out in the incineration of Gaza today.
What we are seeing in Gaza is a much better representation of what western civilization is really about than all the gibberish about freedom and democracy we learned about in school. A much better representation of western civilization than all the art and literature we’ve been proudly congratulating ourselves on over the centuries. A much better representation of western civilization than the love and compassion we like to pretend our Judeo-Christian values revolve around.
It’s been so surreal watching western rightists babbling about how savage and barbaric Muslim culture is amid the 2023 zombie resurrection of Bush-era Islamophobia, even while western civilization amasses a mountain of ten thousand child corpses.
That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced.
This is western civilization. This is what it looks like.
Western civilization, where Julian Assange awaits his final appeal in February against US extradition for journalism which exposed US war crimes.
Where we are kept distracted by vapid entertainment and artificial culture wars so we don’t think too hard about what this civilization is and who it is killing and maiming and starving and exploiting.
Few are unaware of the devastating trauma unleashed by the Mongol invasions.
Essentially, empire building is typical of several cultures. Furthermore, since empires usually result in negative and positive effects, it would be prudent to judge them based on their long-term impacts. The truth is that Western empires are special, because notwithstanding their flaws, only in the West did freedom become a cherished value.
Of extreme interest to many in academia is the impact of Western imperialism on former colonies. Exploring the implications of Western hegemony has become a cottage industry. There is a litany of studies examining colonial legacies in the developing world. For instance, distinguished scholars James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu trace underdevelopment in some countries to the institutional legacies of colonialism. History shapes the future, so we should never suggest that examining the effects of Western colonialism is an unworthy goal. But the fascination with the exploits of Westerners is quite strange. Listening to some commentators, one would assume that only white people launched empires. For instance, Nikole Hannah Jones in a letter she penned as a college student perfectly demonstrates a mindset prevalent even among educated adults: “The white race is the biggest murderer, rapist, pillager, and thief of the modern world….Europeans have colonized and destroyed the indigenous population of every continent on this planet. They have committed genocide against cultures that have never offended them in their greed and insatiable desire to control…every nonwhite culture.”
Denigrating Western civilization for previous atrocities is the norm in intellectual circles. In a blistering critique of the West, Daniel MacMillen Voscoboynik concludes, “The full impact of colonialism would be revealed in its long-term impacts. It radically transformed landscapes, state relations, philosophies, and cultures, leaving as one of its inheritance[s] an intensive and plunderous economic model. In pursuit of resources, countries ran roughshod over limits, and destroyed many of the ecosystems necessary for preventing climate change.” The need for objective discourse mandates that these claims be scrutinized. Jones and Voscoboynik are not wrong to repudiate horrendous acts. Yet their biases are revealing. The false narrative propagated by these thinkers is that conquest is unique to Europeans. Clearly, it has become fashionable to portray imperial pursuits as peculiar to white people, though this outlook is historically inaccurate.
Let us unpack the lopsided assertion that “Europeans have committed genocide against cultures that have never offended them in their greed and insatiable desire to control…every nonwhite culture.” History tells us that people irrespective of race or culture have subjugated weaker groups for no other reason than to attain political power. Few are unaware of the devastating trauma unleashed by the Mongol invasions. Ira M. Lapidus in his indispensable text, The History of Islamic Societiespoignantly describes the damages inflicted on Iranians by their Mongolian overlords:
The first impact of the Mongol invasions in Iran was disastrous and amounted to a holocaust. The populations of many cities and towns were systemically exterminated. Whole regions were depopulated by invading armies and by the influx of Turkish and Mongol nomads who drove the peasants from the land. The conquerors plundered their subjects, made them serfs and taxed them ruinously. The result was a catastrophic falling population, income, and state revenue. For over a century fine pottery and metalwares ceased to be produced. A period of urban autonomy and cultural vitality was brought to an end.
Iran was negatively affected by foreign rule, but except for a select group of scholars interested in empire building, these tales are rarely rehashed in the popular press. Some writers will not allow us to forget the unfortunate consequences of colonialism in Africa. Yet they never discuss African imperialism. Contrary to popular beliefs, Africans have not been passive actors in world affairs. In the past, they also established empires intending to achieve political hegemony. Writing about the expansionist state in Africa, Kwame Arhin illustrates the prowess of the legendary Asante Empire: “Asante was collectively the greatest beneficiary from military conquests and political expansion. Its conquered territories were the greatest in extent and its empire had the longest run.” Another interesting point is that non-European conquerors were hardly known for their generosity. E. Ola Abiola (1984) offers a stinging rebuke of Fulani rule in the northern states of Nigeria after the jihad of 1804–08: “The conditions of these unfortunate people were in no way better than they were under Hausa rule. In fact, they seem to be far worse.”
To be nuanced, however, we must admit that not all aspects of Fulani rule were negative. Johnson Olaosebikan Aremu presents a more favorable picture:
The Jihad could be said to have brought unity to Hausaland. It would be recalled that through inter-state wars, Hausa states had for centuries tried without success to impose an imperial authority which could guarantee political order, stability and unity among the Habe states. Fortunately, the Jihad, by enthroning Islam provided the much-needed suprastate ideology for integration among the Hausa states. The Jihad brought a new peace to the north.
Moreover, dominant in the rhetoric of people like Jones and Voscoboynik is the assumption that European colonialists built rapacious institutions to serve their interests. This position is not false, but how does this make Europeans different from non-European colonizers? Critics fail to acknowledge that the purpose of organizing an empire is to enrich the conquerors, not natives. Imperialism may actuate some positive effects, but imperial ambitions are not undergirded by a desire to ameliorate the conditions of conquered peoples. To think otherwise is patently naïve. Even the Aztecs established extractive schemes to derive wealth from their subjects. Anthropologist Frances Berdan explains the goal of conquest in the Aztec Empire: “A primary goal of conquest was the exploitation of resources (natural and human) from conquered peoples. Subjugated city-states were required to offer their overlords obeisance and supply them with palace service, corvée labor, and support in future military ventures.”
Essentially, empire building is typical of several cultures. Furthermore, since empires usually result in negative and positive effects, it would be prudent to judge them based on their long-term impacts. The truth is that Western empires are special, because notwithstanding their flaws, only in the West did freedom become a cherished value. As eminent sociologist Orlando Patterson notes: “Freedom has been the core value of Western culture throughout its history….It is the West that must be scrutinized and explained for its peculiar commitment to this value.” Due to the primacy of freedom in Western society, institutions for protecting individual rights such as parliaments and the jury system were instituted in colonies.
Considering that respect for the individual is of paramount value in Western society, empires managed by the West often endowed natives with rights, despite the failings of Western imperialism. For example, Europeans abolished slavery in many of their African colonies after conquests. Additionally, in his publication “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” Robert D. Woodberry submits that Western missionaries were “a crucial catalyst initiating the development and spread of religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, and voluntary organizations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.” He further outlines the pivotal role of these missionaries in promoting mass education: “Another mechanism through which Conversionary Protestants dispersed power was through spreading mass education…CPs advocated mass literacy so that everyone could read the Bible and interpret it competently. Their attempt to convert people through education threatened other elites and spurred these elites to also invest in mass education.”
Similarly, there is strong consensus in some quarters that colonialism in the Post-Enlightenment era was advantageous for long-term political development. According to the findings of one study, “Colonial duration is positively associated with levels of democracy among countries colonized after 1850….Western penetration after 1850 during an enlightened (yet imperialist) age created an openness to Western ideas and ideals that facilitated the transition to democracy and modernization.”
Throughout history, humans have developed oppressive empires. Yet the moral revolution aiding the abandonment of imperialism and its associated evils first emerged in the West. Critics of Western imperialism should not be dismissed as flippant. However, they must admit that only Western empires succeeded in promoting universal freedom. What they ought to be wondering is not why Westerners built empires, but that they even entertained the thought that dignity could be extended to conquered peoples. Author:
Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and contributor to Mises.org, The Federalist, and the Jamaica Gleaner. He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or twitter @matthewslipton
Peter Ford, British Ambassador in Damascus from 2003-2006, recently described the group in an audio interview saying, “The White Helmets are jihadi auxiliaries. They are not, as claimed by themselves and by their supporters… simple rescuers. They are not volunteers. They are paid professionals of disinformation.”
…But perhaps there is no bigger fraud making the rounds than the so-called White Helmets. The recent media coverage derives from the documentary The White Helmets, which was produced by the group itself and tells a very convincing tale promoted as “the story of real-life heroes and impossible hope.” It is a very impressive piece of propaganda, so much so that it has won numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Documentary Short last year and the White Helmets themselves were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. More to the point, however, is the undeniable fact that the documentary has helped shape the public understanding of what is going on in Syria, describing the government in Damascus in purely negative terms.
The fawning Hollywood and Congressional depictions of the group go something like this: “the White Helmets are an ‘heroic’ impartial non-government humanitarian volunteer group that engages in ‘first response’ emergency rescue and medical treatment for all those who have been impacted by the fighting in Syria. The Syrian government hates the group because it assists victims of the fighting who are either rebels or living in rebel held areas. Recently, with the Syrian Army closing in on the last White Helmet affiliates still operating in the country, the Israeli government, assisted by the United States, staged an emergency humanitarian evacuation of the group’s members and their families to Israel and then on to Jordan.”
Virtually all the mainstream media coverage of the White Helmets is bogus, but by far the most ridiculous account of the Exodus from Syria came from the BBC. For those who are not familiar with it, the BBC, which once upon a time had a reputation for journalistic integrity, has become one of the worst pro-government propaganda shills of all time. Reading its articles is even worse that having a similar go at The Washington Post, which is the prime newspaper exemplar of fake news and phony journalism pretending to be a respectable news source in the United States. Let’s face it, Donald Trump has a point. Nearly all of the mainstream media lies persistently these days but some sources are worse than others. People complain about Fox, and rightly so, but CNN is the absolute pits when it comes to slanting its coverage, as is MSNBC.
BBC’s article is entitled Syria conflict: White Helmets evacuated by Israel. It makes the following statements, many coming directly from Israeli official sources, regarding the White Helmets, its activities and the group’s relationship to some governments, to include Britain:
“The IDF said they had ‘completed a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civil organization and their families’, saying there was an ‘immediate threat to their lives.’ The transfer of the displaced Syrians through Israel was an exceptional humanitarian gesture.”
“Although Israel is not directly involved in the Syria conflict, the two countries have been in a state of war for decades. Despite the intervention, the IDF said that ‘Israel continues to maintain a non-intervention policy regarding the Syrian conflict.’”
“A statement from Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said: ‘White Helmets have been the target of attacks and, due to their high profile, we judged that, in these particular circumstances, the volunteers required immediate protection. We pay tribute to the brave and selfless work that White Helmet volunteers have done to save Syrians on all sides of the conflict.’”
“Their official name is the Syrian Civil Defense and it began in early 2013 as an organization of volunteers from all walks of life, including electricians and builders. Its main task soon became to rescue civilians in war zones in the immediate aftermath of air strikes, and it says its volunteers have saved the lives of more than 100,000 people during the civil war.”
The BBC story could have been written by the White Helmets themselves or by their press department. Or alternatively by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. First of all, the Israelis do not do humanitarian gestures. They helped bail out the White Helmets at the request of the U.S. because capture by the Syrians would have produced embarrassing revelations about how the group was funded and what its affiliation with terrorists was all about. And Israel’s denial of involvement in Syria is nonsense, unless one considers demonstrated collaboration with the terrorist groups punctuated by nearly weekly bombing and missile attacks to be non-involvement.
The British too are into the deception up to their eyeballs. The comment by Hunt and Mordaunt is complete fabrication regarding what the White Helmets represent. The same goes for the BBC account of how the group developed, which comes directly from the White Helmet’s own propaganda division as amplified by Hollywood and the U.S. and U.K. governments.
Just as important as what is said about the White Helmets’ activities is the exclusion of a great deal of credible negative reporting on the group. The carefully edited scenes of heroism under fire that have been filmed and released worldwide conceal the White Helmets’ relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of “rebel” opponents. Indeed, the White Helmets only operate in rebel held territory, which enables them to shape the narrative both regarding who they are and what is occurring on the ground.
Exploiting their access to the western media, the White Helmets thereby de facto became a major source of “eyewitness” news regarding what was going on in those many parts of Syria where European and American journalists were quite rightly afraid to go. It was all part of a broader largely successful “rebel” effort to manufacture fake news that depicts the Damascus government as engaging in war crimes directed against civilians, an effort that led to several attacks on government forces and facilities by the U.S. military.
The White Helmets travel to bombing sites with their film crews trailing behind them. Once at the sites, with no independent observers, they are able to arrange or even stage what is filmed to conform to their selected narrative which consistently promotes tales of government atrocities against civilians to encourage outside military intervention in Syria and bring about regime change in Damascus. The White Helmets were, for example, the propagators of the totally false but propagandistically effective claims regarding the government use of so-called “barrel bombs” against civilians.
Peter Ford, British Ambassador in Damascus from 2003-2006, recently described the group in an audio interview saying, “The White Helmets are jihadi auxiliaries. They are not, as claimed by themselves and by their supporters… simple rescuers. They are not volunteers. They are paid professionals of disinformation.” He noted particularly the large size of the organization’s “press department”, saying, “This gives us an idea what the priority is for this very dubious organization… All their activities are directed at mobilizing Western opinion behind the jihadis with whom they associate. They co-locate their centers with the Al-Qaeda organization known as Al-Nusra and with other militant groups such as Jaish al-Islam. They have in the past been shown associating with and waving the flags of ISIS.”
The group is currently largely funded by a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) as well as governments, including the United States, Britain and some European Union member states. The U.S. has directly provided $23 million through the USAID (US Agency for International Development) as of 2016 and almost certainly considerably more indirectly. Max Blumenthal has explored in some detail the various funding resources and relationships that the organization draws on, mostly in Europe and the United States.
Perhaps the most serious charge against the White Helmets consists of the evidence that they actively participated in the atrocities, to include torture and murder, carried out by their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group’s jihadi associates regard the White Helmets as fellow “mujahideen” and “soldiers of the revolution.”
So Israel’s celebrated rescue of the White Helmets was little more than a theatrical performance intended to perpetuate the myth that the al-Assad government was thwarted in an attempt to capture and possibly kill an honorable non-partisan group engaged in humanitarian relief for those caught up in a bloody conflict seeking to oust a ruthless dictator. The reality is quite different. The White Helmets were and are part and parcel of the attempt to overthrow a legitimate government and install a regime friendly to western, American and Israeli interests. For Israel in particular the ongoing chaos in Syria was and is part of its plan for dividing all of its neighbors into warring ethnicities and sects, making them less viable as threats to the Jewish state…
American Values, an excellent Twitter account which publishes daily information about US atrocities, has just posted a thread for the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, and I think everyone should have a look at it today. It reads as follows:
“On this day in 1945, the US committed one the worst [atrocities] in human history when it dropped a nuclear weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people. The city was selected for its location in a valley, magnifying the bomb’s deadly power.
“The bomb detonated directly over Shima Surgical Clinic and destroyed 1 square mile, setting fires for 4.7 square miles. 70,000 people were immediately annihilated & 70,000 were wounded. The bombing killed 90% of all medical personnel in the city. The wounded were described by survivors as living pieces of charcoal, wandering mindlessly as their skin fell off until they collapsed and died. Many of the survivors would fall victim of radiation poisoning, some dying violently while vomiting out their insides.
“Astonishingly, just 3 days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the US dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The bombing was essentially a test, killing 80,000 Japanese in an attempt to see if a plutonium implosion bomb would detonate properly in wartime setting.
“Much of the US propaganda used during the war depicted the Japanese as subhuman and its this attitude that helped the US government justify these atrocities to itself and its population.
“One of the most reprehensible myths surrounding the bombings is the idea that they were ‘necessary’ to save lives. Serious historical work has disproven this. See here -> And here -> Nevertheless this myth remains because it alleviates the guilt Americans would otherwise feel for their government committing one of humanity’s most atrocious war crimes.”
Much of the US propaganda used during the war depicted the Japanese as subhuman and its this attitude that helped the US government justify these atrocities to itself and its population. pic.twitter.com/220krapn3I
For more reading on the historically indisputable fact that America’s decision to unleash the nuclear horror on Japan was a gratuitous act of barbarism which was completely unnecessary for winning the war, see this LA Times article by Oliver Stone and Pete Kuznick and this one by the Mises Institute. According to the generals and decision makers of the time, the real reason for the use of nuclear weapons on Japan was to intimidate the Soviet Union, which went on to acquire its own nuclear arsenal a mere four years later in 1949. That’s right, the horrors inflicted upon the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all the brainpower and treasure that went into making them, achieved nothing but a weapons advantage that lasted a total of four years. In exchange for four years of military superiority, we’ve had generations of nuclear standoff which could wipe every living organism off the face of this planet.
So of course we are seeing the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon celebrating this horror on Twitter today.
“74 years ago today, America’s Greatest Generation delivered a decisive blow against the enemies of freedom. The Free Beacon salutes our veterans. #Hiroshima,” the outlet tweeted, with a picture of a mushroom cloud.
The Washington Free Beacon, which the late Antiwar.com founder Justin Raimondo once described as “a down-market version of the Weekly Standard,” has served as a platform for neoconservative war propagandists since its founding. It is published by a think tank chaired by PNAC alum Michael Goldfarb, and its editor-in-chief, Matthew Continetti, is the son-in-law of arch-neocon Bill Kristol. The American supremacist values system of this tightly knit and highly influential clique of neoconservatives has been shoved so far into the mainstream that it is now in effect the bipartisan consensus worldview of US policymakers and mass media narrative managers, to the point that now if you get a voice like Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard questioning the US forever war in mainstream circles you immediately see that voice slammed as “un-American“, “isolationist“, and Kremlin-aligned.
74 years ago today, America’s Greatest Generation delivered a decisive blow against the enemies of freedom. The Free Beacon salutes our veterans. #Hiroshimapic.twitter.com/2WIWQ5jVX8
The fact that an arm of this influential clique is glorifying an unparalleled act of state-sponsored terrorism is made all the more jarring by the fact that, as an early driver of the bogus Steele dossier, the Washington Free Beacon has played a direct role in escalating the world-threatening nuclear tensions between Russia and America. The Steele dossier, whose sensationalist claims have been invalidated by the Robert Mueller report which found no evidence to support them, played a foundational role in the formation of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which in turn manufactured support for the many, many new cold war escalations that the Trump administration has implemented against Russia. Opposing détente and increasing US hawkishness toward Russia has been a primary aim of neoconservatism since its inception.
“Neocon rag celebrates the most heinous single act of state terrorism in world history,” tweeted journalist Dan Cohen in response to the Free Beacon‘s post. “They deserve just as much derision as Nazis.”
Cohen is absolutely correct. In a healthy world, members of the ideology which promotes endless acts of military slaughter and glorifies the pointless nuclear incineration of innocent human beings would be treated with the same ubiquitous social revulsion as Nazis, child rapists and serial killers. They are just as evil, and, in today’s world, they actually pose a far greater threat. We will know that we are living in a healthy society when neocons and their affiliates are treated just like any other kind of murderous monster.
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