Salim
Thanks for posting this piece I have been trying to
retype it for I failed to get it on line, it is a good reading for an open
minded
Em
The Mulindwas communication
group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 2:38
AM
Subject: [Mwananchi] I'M AN AMERICAN
TIRED OF AMERICAN LIES-Woody Harrelson
WOODY HARRELSON THE
ACTOR
ON THE USA HIS COUNTRY
"This
is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers
who stole the White House (you
call them "hawks", but I would
never disparage such a fine bird) have
hijacked a nation's grief and
turned it into a perpetual war
on any non-white country they choose to describe
as terrorist."
"I am a father, and
no amount of propaganda can
convince me that half a
million dead children is
acceptable 'collateral damage'. The fact is that
Saddam Hussein was our
boy. The CIA helped him
to power, as they did the Shah of Iran and
Noriega and Marcos and
the Taliban and countless
other brutal
tyrants."
I'M AN AMERICAN TIRED OF AMERICAN
LIES
By Woody Harrelson*
[The Guardian - 17 October 2002]:
The man who drives me to and from work is named Woody too. A relief to me,
as it minimises the chance of my forgetting his name. I call him Woodman
and he calls me Wood. He has become my best friend here, even though he's
upset that I have quit drinking beer. He's smart, funny, and there's
nothing he hasn't seen in 33 years behind the wheel of his black cab. He
drove me for a while before I felt confident he liked me; he doesn't like
people easily, especially if they have a rap for busting up black cabs.
Woodman and I agree about a lot of things, but one thing we can never
agree about is Iraq. He thinks the only language Saddam understands is
brute force. I don't believe we should be bombing cities in our quest for
one man. We've killed a million Iraqis since the start of the Gulf war -
mostly by blocking humanitarian aid. Let's stop now. Thankfully, most of
the Brits I talk to about the war are closer to me than to Woodman. Only
your prime minister doesn't seem to have noticed.
I have been here
three months doing a play in the West End. I am having the time of my life.
I love England, the people, the parks, the theatre. The play is great and
the audiences have been a dream. Probably I should just relax, be happy and
talk about the weather, but this war is under my skin - it affects my
sleep.
I remember playing basketball with an Iraqi in the late 80s
while Iran and Iraq were at war. I didn't know at the time that the US and
Britain were supplying weapons to both sides. I asked why they were always
at war with each other and he said something that stayed with me: "If it
were up to the people, there would be peace. It's the governments that
create war." And now my government is creating its second war in less than
a year. No; war requires two combatants, so I should say "its second
bombing campaign".
I went to the White House when Harvey Weinstein was
showing Clinton the movie Welcome to Sarejevo, which I was in. I got a few
moments alone with Clinton. Saddam throwing out the weapons inspectors was
all over the news and I asked what he was going to do. His answer was very
revealing. He said: "Everybody is telling me to bomb him. All the military
are saying, 'You gotta bomb him.' But if even one innocent person died, I
couldn't bear it." And I looked in his eyes and I believed him. Little did
I know he was blocking humanitarian aid at the time, allowing the deaths of
thousands of innocent people.
I am a father, and no amount of
propaganda can convince me that half a million dead children is acceptable
"collateral damage". The fact is that Saddam Hussein was our boy. The CIA
helped him to power, as they did the Shah of Iran and Noriega and Marcos
and the Taliban and countless other brutal tyrants. The fact is that George
Bush Sr continued to supply nerve gas and technology to Saddam even after
he used it on Iran and then the Kurds in Iraq. While the Amnesty
International report listing countless Saddam atrocities, including gassing
and torturing Kurds, was sitting on his desk, Bush Sr pushed through a $2bn
"agricultural" loan and Thatcher gave hundreds of millions in export credit
to Saddam. The elder Bush then had the audacity to quote the Amnesty
reports to garner support for his oil war.
A decade later, Shrub
follows the same line: "We have no quarrel with the Iraqi people." I'm sure
half a million Iraqi parents are scratching their heads over that. I'm an
American tired of lies. And with our government, it's mostly lies.
The history taught in our schools is scandalous. We grew up believing
that Columbus actually discovered America. We still celebrate Columbus
Day. Columbus was after one thing only - gold. As the natives were
showering him with gifts and kindness, he wrote in his diary, "They do not
bear arms ... They have no iron ... With 50 men we could subjugate them all
and make them do whatever we want." Columbus is the perfect symbol of US
foreign policy to this day.
This is a racist and imperialist war.
The warmongers who stole the White House (you call them "hawks", but I
would never disparage such a fine bird) have hijacked a nation's grief and
turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to
describe as terrorist.
To the men in Washington, the world is just a
giant Monopoly board. Oddly enough, Americans generally know how the
government works. The politicians do everything they can for the people -
the people who put them in power. The giant industries that are polluting
our planet as well as violating human rights worldwide are the ones nearest
and dearest to the hearts of American politicians.
But in wartime
people lose their senses. There are flags and yellow ribbons and posters
and every media outlet is beating the war drum and even sensible people can
hear nothing else. In the US, God forbid you should suggest the war is
unjust or that dropping cluster bombs from 30,000ft on a city is a cowardly
act. When TV satirist Bill Maher made some dissenting remarks about the
bombing of Afghanistan, Disney pulled the plug on him. In a country
that lauds its freedom of speech, a word of dissent can cost you your job.
I read in a paper here about a woman who held out the part of her
taxes that would go to the war effort. Something like 17%. I like that
idea, though in the US it would have to be more like 50%. If you consider
money as a form of energy, then we see half our taxes and half the US
government's energy focused on war and weapons of mass destruction. Over
the past 30 years, this amounts to more than ten trillion dollars. Imagine
that money going to preserving rainforest or contributing to a sustainable
economy (as opposed to the dinosaur tit we are currently in the process of
sucking dry).
I give in to Woodman, and we stop for a few beers. He
asks me what I'd do in Bush's shoes. Easy: I'd honour Kyoto. Join the world
court. I'd stop subsidising earth rapers like Monsanto, Dupont and Exxon.
I'd shut down the nuclear power plants. So I already have $200bn saved from
corporate welfare. I'd save another $100bn by stopping the war on
non-corporate drugs. And I'd cut the defence budget in half so they'd have
to get by on a measly $200bn a year. I've already saved half a trillion
bucks by saying no to polluters and warmongers.
Then I'd give
$300bn back to the taxpayers. I'd take the rest and pay the people teaching
our children what they deserve. I'd put $100bn into alternative fuels and
renewable energy. I'd revive the Chemurgy movement, which made the farmer
the root of the economy, and make paper and fuel from wheat straw, rice
straw and hemp. Not only would I attend, I'd sponsor the next Earth Summit.
And, of course, I'd give myself a fat raise.
Woodman drops me at home
and I ask if he likes my ideas. He offers a reluctant "yes". As he pulls
away he yells out, "But I'd never vote for a man who can't handle a few
pints at the end of the day!"
* Woody Harrelson appears in On an
Average Day at the Comedy Theatre, Panton Street, London SW1 until November
3. Box office: 020-7369 1731.
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