This is a well known story to those who look into such things
but the bulk of the public knows nothing about it.
After World War II the US government was (to put it mildly) out
of control. The new Security State abandoned all ethics and believed they had a
moral imperative to do so. They believed the moral position for the new Cold War
(largely generated by the United States I might add) was to fight from a
position of moral supremacy without ethics. One is left in despair when an attempt
is made to reconcile this way of thinking.
Actually it's not too hard. The nation is god and must
survive at all costs. Anything is permissible as long as it perpetuates
American power and greatness.
This type of thinking quickly succumbs to the calculus of the
slippery slope. Every potential scenario is imagined and must be countered. If
you're thinking of it, so must the enemy and a programme must be developed to
counter it.
It quickly spins out of control and situations arise wherein
(you hope) someone asks, "Just what exactly are we doing?"
Having lost the forest through the trees, the US engaged in a
multitude of vicious crimes against humanity. The experiments in Guatemala are
but one small chapter. As is the case today, there are some experiments and
exercises easier to conduct outside US borders, beyond the reach of US law
enforcement.
The story is much bigger. It wasn't just syphilis and gonorrhea
but radiation and many other experiments that in some cases were so pernicious
that the CIA scrambled to destroy the evidence. Some of these chapters cannot
be re-opened. Many seeming exposes are in reality exercises in damage control.
The Guatemala experiments are but one chapter or outworking
of the ethical imperative that led Washington to recruit a host of former
Nazis. While many have heard something of the story, few have really looked
into it or grasped the scale of America's collaboration with former members of
the Third Reich. They were recruited in the realms of science, medicine,
industry and espionage. They became critical components of the American
Security State apparatus developed for the Cold War.
At the very least it was calculated that the Americans had to
utilise them so that the Soviets would not. This kind of tortured ethic leads
to the horrors and crimes that took place in Guatemala. And of course racism played no small part. Elitist Americans could shrug their shoulders. Using brown people as lab rats was no great crime, right?
Thanks for sharing this Slate article. This was deeply disturbing, but enlightening. Over the past couple of days, I was thinking of the American coverage of the supposed chemical warfare Assad is using against his own people. For anyone knowing even a little bit of what is happening on the ground in Syria, and with a little bit of common sense, the likelihood of Assad using these missiles borders on the absurd. But what do we hear: No, he obviously used them, because he's a bad guy and bad guys do bad things. There's an implied sense that brown people are just savage and irrationally brutal, even though, surprise, the US has everything to gain, especially the increasingly vocal pro-war faction of the deep-state. And after thinking about this, I thought, wow, I basically live in a rogue terrorist state.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying this as if the above was some actual turning point in US policy, but it just dawned on me even more how insane this all is. It's so powerful and secure that writing a stupid comment on the internet is nothing, the people are all behind the war drums of the corporate media, and its global military-corporate-banking complex. I think you said somewhere Goebbels' jaw would literally be on the floor in awe of the American media apparatus. It has ascended to a level of propaganda that defies anything he would ever accomplish. And it's incredibly true. We, as a nation, are basically erecting a throne built on blood and bone, encircled with the cacophonous symphony of the Earth groaning and crying beneath our boot, and the only thing we care about is whether the empire should wear the rainbow colored cape of a sodomite or not.
Thanks again for all your work. It's a constant reminder that I live in a country that is the haunt of every foul bird and unclean spirit; or so it seems, there's perhaps yet greater iniquity to fill up on.
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