At a recent meeting with big-money donors to the Democratic Party, Genocide Joe Biden blurted out two profound truths… and an even more profound lie. At this meeting, Biden for the first time publicly accused Israel of “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza. This charge of indiscriminate bombing at this point is like “Duh?” Israel has dropped 2,000-pound “bunker-busting” bombs on apartment buildings, hospitals and other buildings containing masses of people, and has at this point killed at least 18,000 people, including more than 10,000 children!
According to Genocide Joe, in a private conversation, Netanyahu—or rather, Netan-nazi—responded to U.S. criticism of some of Israel’s tactics by shooting back that “You carpet bombed Germany, you dropped the atom bomb, a lot of civilians died." In this case, Netan-nazi, for his own purposes, hit back at Biden with the truth about who are the biggest practitioners of mass death of civilians from the sky—none other than America.
So, the two truths: One, that Israel is in fact indiscriminately bombing Gaza. And two, that such bombing is the very practice used by America to set up and maintain its empire (though, of course, Netan-nazi didn’t put it in quite those terms).
The Profound Lie
Then the profound lie of Genocide Joe’s response: "Yeah, that's why all these institutions were set up after World War Two to see to it that it didn't happen again…”
No, motherfucker. A, “these institutions” (the United Nations, NATO, and so on) were “set up” to ensure that the fruits of empire that America ripped away from the other imperial powers in World War 2 would stay under American domination, even as other powers were to be dealt in—or dealt out—according to the interests of the U.S. And B, instead of not happening again, mass murder to serve U.S. imperialist interests has been American practice for the entire period since World War 2.
Here are four examples of massive destruction by U.S. air power during this period when these institutions were supposedly preventing this from happening:
Korean War, 1950-1953
From a series of U.S. Army photos depicting the summary execution of 1,800 South Korean political prisoners over three days in July 1950 carried out by the U.S.-installed puppet Syngman Rhee.
In 1950, with the full endorsement of the United Nations, U.S. waged war on Korea and “carpet bombed” North Korea with more than a half million tons of bombs. Koreans killed in the war: estimates range from three to five million. (“American Crime Case #93: U.S. Invasion of Korea—1950”)
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
For 12 days, from December 18 to 29, 1972, U.S. round-the-clock bombing pounded and decimated North Vietnam’s densely populated capital city of Hanoi as well as its nearby seaport and industrial center of Haiphong.
America’s genocidal war in Vietnam—involving repeated and massive bombings of civilian areas as well as massacres, rapes, and other crimes—resulted in at least two to three million Vietnamese deaths and possibly as many as four million; 5.3 million were injured, and 11 million were displaced from their homes. (“American Crime Case #8: America’s War in Vietnam and the Sexual Subjugation of Women”)
War and Sanctions on Iraq, 1990-2003
On February 25, 1991, Iraqi forces were retreating north from Kuwait City to Basra in a long convoy of tanks, personnel carriers, trucks, buses, and cars. Planes of the U.S.-led coalition attacked both ends of the convoy, blocking off any escape, and for the next 48 hours coalition aircraft and ground forces attacked anything that moved along that strip of roadway. Thousands were slaughtered, and the six-lane “highway of death” was left littered with burnt-out vehicles and charred bodies. Photo: AP
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991 started with a 43-day nonstop campaign of bomb and missile attacks—including over 109,000 combat sorties that dropped some 250,000 munitions, or some 6,000 a day. An estimated 70,000 to 200,000 civilians died in that war. Crippling sanctions—a form of economic warfare—imposed by the U.S. on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 caused widespread disease and malnutrition, with civilian deaths estimated as high as 1.5 million, including more than 500,000 children under five years old. (“American Crime Case #32: The 1991 Persian Gulf War—‘Operation Desert Storm’”
Invasion and Bombing of Afghanistan, 2004-2020
October 16, 2015: Doctors Without Borders’ hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after U.S. airstrike killed 42 staff and patients. “The attack was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy. We don’t know why.” Photo: AP
From 2004 to 2018, the U.S. and allied forces dropped 38,000 bombs on Afghanistan. By 2020 the U.S. had conducted at least 13,000 drone strikes, most of these in the countryside—including repeated attacks on wedding parties. The U.S. claimed they avoided civilian casualties, but in reality, tens of thousands of civilians died as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation. (“Costs of War: Afghan Civilians,” Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, Brown University)
For much more on these and other crimes carried out by the U.S., go online to the American Crime series at www.revcom.us.
[I]t is a basic truth that without breaking with American chauvinism—without confronting the very real horror of what this country has been, and what it has done, here and all over the world, from its founding to the present—and without coming to deeply hate this, it is not possible, in the final analysis, to retain one’s own humanity and act in the highest interests of all humanity.
—Bob Avakian, from “The Problem, the Solution, and the Challenges Before Us”