‘Alternative-Facts’ Rule America (#24)
Trump’s campaign manager and White House advisor, KellyAnne Conway, made famous the words ‘alternative- facts’ when describing his Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s less than accurate version of the size of the crowd, and the overall turnout at the inauguration of Trump.
Now, ‘alternative-facts’ has become a popular catch-all phrase to describe untruthfulness and willful distortion of real facts. In these tumultuous early days of Trump’s Presidency, the Country has been inundated with alternative facts as Trump and the Republicans justify what the majority of Americans and the World see as a roll-out of a misogynistic, bigoted and essentially racist agenda, designed to turn America back to a more segregated society and culture.
To stop and slow down the feminization and colorization of America, through the implementation of patriarchal and white supremacists laws and regulations, Trump and his special inner circle team have moved swiftly to unravel Obama’s trademark and inclusive policies, and have enacted new laws and appointed new Heads of important agencies and departments, and to the Supreme Court, men (mostly) that are essentially in their own ideological and racial image.
The threat of erosion of political power of a predominantly white Republican Party, or the rise of ‘ethnic’ political voting power was something the Republican Party was very uncomfortable with. In the past years, increasingly, the Republicans through State laws, rules and regulations have engineered conditions that made it difficult for minorities to vote, eliciting charges of voter suppression from the Democrats and Civil Rights Groups. Financial power is still firmly and overwhelmingly in ‘white’ hands, and that is not about to change in the foreseeable future.
The thrust of this ‘re-whitening’ of Political Power in America got tremendous impetus and boost by the election of Trump who had tapped into the fears of a section of “white” America that felt weakened economically and socially, which in turn powered the Republicans to gain control of both the Houses, and the Supreme Court, making it a virtual conservative slam dunk.
Essentially a scared white mid-America voted Trump into power, and Trump wasted no time in continuously playing on that fear. He has used the fear of illegal aliens and desperate refugees (not terrorists), to turn back the liberalization of America decades, and to cater to his “white” conservative base, he has targeted civil and women’s rights, and foreigners, particularly Mexicans and Muslims.
Trump’s justification for the closing of American borders is firstly, the fears of uncontrolled illegal immigration as in the case of Mexicans, and hence the proposal to build the ‘Wall’; and, secondly the fear of terrorists travelling predominately from Muslim countries, in particular seven (7) that have been listed and targeted, with the goal of making ‘America safe again’, and hence the ‘ban’.
The real fact - that after 9/11, an incident that took place under a Republican administration, precipitated by the actions of an earlier Republican administration invading a Middle Eastern country - there have been no major terrorist attacks on American soil of that magnitude, and the smaller ones that did occur since then, were not so much from outside terrorists as from home grown ones, and have resulted in far less deaths than the regular annual deaths by gun violence in America by Americans.
This plain fact of Americans killing more Americans on American soil, than any individuals or groups of terrorists, is suppressed by alternative facts of the Republicans and the NRA (National Rifle Association), downplaying home grown gun violence while trumpeting loudly and endlessly the imminent and massive threat to American lives by crazed terrorists (which by the way makes good propaganda to sell more guns to an already over-armed and dangerous American public).
Every American expert on Islamic terrorism and its threat to the United States, brushes off these exaggerated claims of imminent danger to the American public by refugees, immigrants and terrorists, by Trump and his xenophobic team, as a shameless political exercise in alternative facts.
Under Trump’s latest edicts, for a given time, right now 90 to 120 days, almost no one will be allowed to enter the United States from most Muslim countries but in particular from 7 that are on a list, unless you are a persecuted Christian (although corrections have being made to allow people with the right paperwork to enter). And, all Muslims coming from these 7 and other Muslim countries, from here-on-out, will be subjected to something called ‘extreme vetting’, whatever that entails, considering the vetting processes already in place from these countries are some of the most onerous in the World.
The words ‘extreme vetting’ makes one cringe a bit, even though it probably, and hopefully, only entails extremely rigorous investigations and interrogations, yet, it conjures up images of brutal physical tortures, particularly as Mr. Trump has not been shy to publicly profess, over and over, his particular fondness for torture, ‘water-boarding, and/or worse!’ as methods to force information from suspects and detainees.
Having an American Commander-in-Chief, the supposed keeper of the humanity and justice flame, that enthusiastic about torturing people is first and foremost simply disgusting, as that puts him in the same league as some of the worst terrorists and dictators in history, and secondly, there will be some in the front lines of American enforcement that will take it as a welcome nod to freely unleash brutality. Not a practice that America wants to indulge in or be known for, as that would re-tarnish its painfully refurbished image under Obama, of being a humane and just country. Obviously the image of America abroad is not a worry that Trump indulges in, or his supporters care about, as his tough talk makes them feel safe from the bogey men out there just waiting to come and get them, and their women.
The details of his proclamations are still to be worked out we suppose, as American government officials tasked with carrying out these orders were themselves seeking clarifications, and were in a total state of confusion from the time of the surprise pronouncements. The chaos that had ensued in the following days was there for all to see, as travellers of all types fitting the loose profile of the instructions, got trapped mid-journey, to and from America, with orders that gave no warning and no preparation time to the enforcement agencies, and to the ill fated travellers.
It was a cynical manipulative campaign promise, rolled out hastily and incompetently, to score brownie points with his support base, and it went terribly wrong and cost the administration dearly.
Although no one argues the necessity of controlling one’s borders and limiting entrance to one’s country, and all countries do what they can to enforce it, but, America at this time under Trump and his like minded inner circle, is being turned into a comically skittish defensive fortress. America is already manned by totally paranoid officials on the lookout for a constant stream of Islamic terrorists, constantly storming their various points of entry on the Mainland (Which makes America a nightmare to enter).
The simmering fear of foreigners trying to enter the Country to harm Americans has now been fanned into a roaring flame by Trump and his willing accomplices, the Radical Right and the duplicit Republicans, and led them to enact policies that all their own Security, Immigration, Foreign Service and Economic experts call foolish, short sighted and harmful to America’s interests and security. But stoking and fanning fear is the key to political manipulation, and Trump who owes his victory to the active stoking of economic and security fears, isn’t going to change that which has worked for him so well, so far.
Their hyped fear mongering, based almost entirely on alternative facts, is making every American believe they are under imminent threat from terrorists from all Muslim countries in the Middle East, and beyond. This consistent theme, also propagated by the previous governments, to be fair, has been taken to another level altogether by the Trump Team, spearheaded by the alt-right Guru within the inner circle and now known as the de-facto alt-President, Steve Bannon, is based entirely on glaring alternative-facts, because the actual reality and the truth are strikingly, well, alternative.
For over a century, America and Americans have been safely and securely traveling to and fro, interfering with and stealing from the resource and oil rich countries of the Middle East and North Africa, with impunity.
During all this time, in spite of provocations that no American would have ever stood for, for even a day, had they been subjected to such treatment, Americans were neither threatened nor attacked at home or abroad. It is only after decades of aggressive meddling in the governance of countries, and installing, supporting, and protecting brutal dictators, such as the Shah of Iran, and the rest, through much of the Middle East, and the continued pillaging of oil resources at ‘preferential’ rates, and fostering brutal wars on those that didn’t want to comply, Iran, Libya, and Iraq that sentiment started to change and some people in those countries started to fight back. They became to the World and particularly to America and the West, yesterdays and today’s terrorists.
The propaganda that was ratcheted up against these countries in the past years was truly shameful, if you recall Senior Bush as U.S. President calling America’s former friend and ally, Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein “Hitler revisited”. The victims were labelled as the aggressors, and were mercilessly and frightfully crushed. Iraq is one of the prime examples of such destruction, even though neither Saddam Hussein nor an Iraqi ever targeted or carried out an attack on the United States.
That didn’t stop America from totally destroying Iraq, falsely accusing Saddam Hussein, and then hanging him, and then to add insult to injury, putting Iraq on the 7 worst list of countries singled out as possibly most dangerous by ‘alternative-facts’ preferred Trump.
Similarly, Libya and Khadafy were targeted from the time of Reagan, and later destroyed, because he had the audacity to challenge the U.S. and the West. In a similar fashion one could go down that list and find pretty much the same facts applying to most of the other countries on that list of Muslim countries.
The countries from which some of the most extreme Islamists did come from, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, that have attacked the U.S. and U.S. personnel through native terrorists, including the most infamous one, Osama bin Laden, were never put on that list, nor have they or their people ever been targeted by a vengeful America trying to keep itself safe from those terrorists.
This blatant hypocrisy has a rational, and that is, America has needed these countries in one capacity or another to keep other Sunni majority countries under control, these being the largest Sunni dominated Muslim countries of the World, and Sunnis being the vast majority of Muslims of the World, while Iraq, Iran and Syria were led by Shia governments, and the Shia sect is the minority in the Islamic World.
So there is a simple logic at work; keep the majority Sunnis on side as much as possible, but bomb the others into the stone-age. And if they retaliate, label them as crazed terrorists and exterminate them. Hence all the major Shia ruled countries have been destroyed, or are targets; Iraq, Syria destroyed - and Iran as a constant target (to be destroyed at some future convenient date).
This ongoing strategy, to keep the majority Sunnis onside, was suddenly jeopardized by Trump, as his total ban on almost all Muslims threatened to antagonize the entire Muslim World, and that had not been the game.
As America has gone rampaging around the World destroying whole countries, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in these countries in the name of ‘war on terror’, Americans cower in their own land by believing the alternative fact that it is they that are threatened.
If anyone should be cowering, it should be the people of the countries who are targets of America.
A terrified locked and loaded America, ideologically and economically motivated, and with a lying government, is the most dangerous country in the World (just ask the Vietnamese, Koreans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Yemenis, and Iranis, oh heck ask the whole Middle East – except Israel, of course). Combine that with an ill informed and gullible public that is compliant, and it is truly terrifying what America can get away with.
That is why, the American public that is NOT buying into the current administration’s alternative facts universe and is actively protesting, is a bit reassuring to the battered Muslim people of the World.
America and the Americans are generally great, but over the years they have started to believe their own bullshit that they are innocent victims of a hate filled World, to a degree that is truly unbelievable.
So let’s do a reality check and visit some real facts (gleaned from readily available internet based American publications). Note: the numbers below are estimates.
Let’s start with the big one: Since World War II, America has entered, caused and participated in wars throughout the World that has resulted in the deaths of other nationalities estimated to be between 20 to 30 Million! (Source: Global Research)
It is estimated by numerous sources that possibly over 2 Million Muslims have been killed by America’s ‘war on terror’ in Muslim countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. since 9/11/01.
The Physicians for Social Responsibility in Iraq, conservatively estimate the figure in Iraq of people killed by the ‘Iraq War’ to be over 1.2 Million deaths.
Considering how busy America has been attacking Middle Eastern Muslim countries, it would be fair to ask, when was the last time America was attacked by an Islamic Country?
Never!
How many Islamic Countries has America attacked directly, or messed with indirectly, to cause damage and deaths?
Almost all!
When was the last time a group of terrorists mounted a serious attack in America? September 11, 2001!
Note: Of most of the attackers, 15 out of 19 were from Saudi Arabia, 2 were from UAE, 1 from Egypt, and 1 from Lebanon. None of these countries are on the ‘ban’ list!! And NONE of the attackers of 9/11 were from countries on the list!
Most of ISIS fighters fighting abroad in Iraq and Syria are estimated to come from, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey, rather than the countries on the list. (Source: the Atlantic)
Americans killed on American soil by Islamic Immigrants (not American born Muslims)? None!
Most of attackers that have killed Americans on some jihadist or radical Islam related basis have been, overwhelmingly American born!!
Americans killed by Islamic terrorists on American soil since 9/11, (in over 12 years) less than 100.
Muslims killed by America since 9/11 – estimated at 2 Million!
The numbers of Muslims killed by America, on one pretext or the other, are estimated at two Million. Yet the American people are terrified that they are the victims of terrorists and hate filled others.
Americans need to seriously look at the facts, and these are readily available in American studies and articles all over the internet, and ask themselves honestly, who should be truly afraid of whom.
And when they are being told the threat to America is grave and they need to be vigilant, Americans need to realize that the gravest threat to America is really their own government, especially under people like Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, who live on and feed the American people lies. By the way, No Muslim Country where Trump and family own businesses, are on the 7 country ban list!
Trump’s whole exercise in ‘keeping America safe again’ is an elaborate exercise in ‘Alternative-Facts’.
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