SECRET WARS

[Col. Writ. 10/12/01]

Copyright  '01 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    As this is written, the obscene whine of bombs pierces the night sky over the capital city of Kabul, in the war- shattered nation of Afghanistan.  Once again, the American Empire has come to the Middle East, armed with the glittering array of war.

    Although national opinion polls assure us that this nebulous war against "terrorists, and all who support them," is a popular one, high opinion poll ratings mask the very real and very deep anxiety that people feel, in their hearts, and in their guts, about the prospect of victory.  That anxiety underlies a deep distrust that Americans have historically felt about the government. What don't they know?  What are Americans not being told?

How will this end?  

    In truth, there is a good reason for this sense of anxiety, as many Americans are, without their knowledge or okay, a part of the secret wars that are raging around the world.

    When the United States was a very young, and indeed, an infant nation, a well-known national leader hatched a secret plot to invade and overthrow Libya.  An agent of his was given tens of thousands of dollars, and 1,000 guns to raise a secret army against Libya.  This U.S. State Department official was attached to the Navy and given the title, "Agent for the United States Fleet in the Mediterranean."  This secret agent, working without the knowledge or permission of the U.S. Congress, entered Egypt, organized a mercenary army, and waged war against Libya, but was not able to destabilize the government.

    The government agent was Capt. William Eaton.  He was acting under the secret orders of U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, after a secret meeting of them on December 10, 1803. (See Jerry Fresia's Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution & Other Illusions (Boston: South End Press, 1988), p. 102).

    Such secret wars have dotted the history of the U.S., and made her the enemy of millions, on several continents.  For the poor in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in Africa and parts of Asia, the U.S. is seen as a powerful, yet schizophrenic  child. She will arbitrarily remove leaders of governments, insert  agents of disorder, and wage vicious propaganda wars against  other countries through her media machine.

    In an alleged 'democracy', why is there even  ever  a  need for secret war?

    In a nation that claims to represent the interests of the people, how can a secret war be waged?  The two are simply incompatible, for if the government is (in Lincoln's famous words) "... of the people", how can the government keep secrets from itself?

    While the media may manipulate public opinion to  justify the waging of wars, the real beneficiaries are rarely known, and indeed, rarely are the real causes known.  The causes are, more often than not, economic.  While citizens and soldiers wave flags, corporations wave wallets.

    For example, you may still find old-timers, who will tell you that the big, "WW II", was fought against the Nazi ideology of Hitler.  Few would argue with the old geezer.  But how many of us know that American corporations traded with the Nazis, even during the war?

  Charles Higham, in his 1984 book, Trading With the Enemy (Dell Books) wrote:

        What would have happened if millions of Americans
        and British people, struggling with coupons and lines
        at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard
        Oil of New Jersey [part of the Rockefeller Empire]
        managers shipped the enemy's fuel through the
        neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping
        Allied fuel?  Suppose the public had discovered that
        the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl
        Harbor was doing millions of dollars worth of
        business with the enemy with the full knowledge of
        the head office in Manhattan [the Rockefeller
        family among others]?  Or that Ford trucks were
        being built for the German occupation troops in
        France with authorization from Dearborn,
        Michigan?  Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn,
        the head of the international American telephone
        conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid
        to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's
        communications systems and improve the robot
        bombs that devastated London?  Or that ITT
        built the FockeWulfs that dropped bombs on
        British and American troops?  Or that crucial
        ball bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated
        customers in Latin-America with the collusion
        of the vice-chairman of the U.S. War Production
        Board in partnership with Goering's cousin in
        Philadelphia when American forces were
        desperately short of them?  Or that such
        arrangements were known about in Washington
        and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?
        [pp. 184-5] (Fresia's bk, pp. 108-90).

    There are wars, and there are  wars, apparently. Unfortunately, there are also secret wars, and the ones who are in the battle fields, or wave flags, are the last ones to know.

Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Share this page with a friend

International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: mailto:iacenter@action-mail.org
En Espanol: iac-cai@action-mail.org
Web: http://www.iacenter.org
Support Mumia Abu-Jamal: http://www.millions4mumia.org/
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
Make a donation to the IAC and its projects

 

The International Action Center
Home     ActionAlerts    Press