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William Blum, US Policy Critic Derided by NYT, Dies at 85

99 points by cinquemb 8y ago

peisistratos 8y ago
The New York Times headline could be changed to "William Blunt, U.S. Policy Critic Cited by bin Laden (U.S. erstwhile ally, armed by the CIA to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government), Dies at 85". Blum covered a lot of the US's Operation Cyclone in Killing Hope - the financing and arming of bin Laden in his jihad against the secular Afghan government in the 1970s and 1980s.
tor_user 8y ago
Washington post running the same headline, bravo whoever wrote the headline on hn.
csours 8y ago
When an organization puts its interests ahead of its ideals, you can do a few things: 1. Ignore it. I feel like this is the most common reaction. 1a. Accept the dissonance - hope the difference between interest and ideals is temporary, etc. 1b. Accept that the ideals are only ideals and besides the other guy is cheating anyway. 2. Stay inside the organization and try to change it. 3. Leave the organization and denounce it. 4. Various "subversive tactics".
starchild_3001 8y ago
RIP. Oh, god when will US learn from its past mistakes? I did enjoy reading Blum's books ~15 years ago. "Basically it's US foreign policy which creates anti-American terrorists. It's the things we do to the world. It's not, as the White House tells us, that they hate our freedom and democracy. That's just propaganda."[8] "It’s not clear how “unpopular” Blum’s views were—in a 2013 YouGov poll, 61 percent agreed with the statement, “In the long run, the United States will be safer from terrorism if it stays out of other countries’ affairs”—but what is certainly “not unique” was the Times‘ attempt to use an obituary to settle ideological scores."
- dgut 8y ago
  It's not US foreign policy alone that creates anti-American terrorists. You don't see Cubans burning US flags or chanting N things against the US despite >50 years of embargo and what not. You don't see the Vietnamese doing that either. There is another element to it. As a Cuban, I wish the US had intervened in Cuba when it had the opportunity, back in 1959.
  - gammateam 8y ago
    Yeah the other element is the definition of Jihad It is a requirement to excise foreign invaders from Islamic lands and this is totally incompatible with the Western mentality and propaganda of "lets punish them in retaliation for that" The US masquerades 9/11 as the start of this, more accurately that its rouge asset attacking us was the start of this. Decades of meddling in the middle east stirred a hive, and the rouge asset intentionally created a decentralized adhoc army (Al Queda) that exploits the definition of Jihad for the SOLE REASON of entrapping a large scale army in a war of attrition until its budgetary constraints tears that country apart from the inside. THATS THE LITERALLY THE POINT AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED, Bin Laden says it in his cave livestreams, watch them again because they probably never played them verbatim on your local news channel back in the early 2000s except to guess whether he was still alive or pre-recorded it. But they were relevant messages, and he played everyone like a fiddle: Corporations, nation states, and the American condition which they would both predictably exploit for support to walk right into his construct. The US - and more specifically Europe which is now forcefully conscripted in NATO and is more easily accessible and attacked - would be safer by leaving the Middle East to regional powers. Yes, the regional powers that maintain order in a way that we disagree with.
  - dsr_ 8y ago
    If the US foreign policy apparatus hadn't had its head jammed quite so firmly up its ass, they would have accepted the overtures of friendship from both Castro and Ho instead of scorning them. Imagine Vietnam coming out of their war for independence from France with a democratically elected government starting in 1954. Imagine Cuba being the major US ally in the Caribbean and primary vacation destination, with Fidel Castro serving as President from 1960 through 1970 in a constitutional republic. Both of those scenarios were within the realm of possibility -- but not with the Yale and Harvard asshats ruling the State Department.
sjburt 8y ago
I don't understand what the NYT seeks to gain from this kind of headline. Blum's positions were not unpopular or unusual, except maybe within the DC bubble.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  > DC bubble Far as I can tell, inside the DC Bubble they worship one thing and one thing only; power. The idea that they should have to deal with other countries and peoples as equals or at least respect is alien to them.
- astrange 8y ago
  NYT article writers are somewhat respectable (though they have to keep their sources happy), but the headline writers have never met a war they didn't like.
starbeast 8y ago
Reading the NYT obituary. It includes this gem; >Mr. Blum repeatedly challenged the idealistic premise of American exceptionalism and argued instead that world hegemony was Washington’s covert goal, for economic, nationalistic, ideological and religious reasons. You shouldn't try and parse meaning from that sentence without a respirator, goggles and a crochet needle.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
Synaesthesia 8y ago
Killing Hope is a must read. A chronicle of US interventions globally since WW2, often supporting very reactionary and dictatorial governments against democracy.
ezoe 8y ago
Recently, I've learned Nepal history just because I really like the nepal curry at a restaurant nearby, . In 2001, Nepalese royal massacre happened, and King Gyanendra crowned. He stop the parliament and started absolute monarchism. Resulting civil war between The King, the Politicians and the Maoists. Guess which side US aided with weapons? The King! Fortunately, all the political parties came to term quickly and threw out the king, establish the parliament, publish interim constitution, separation of religion and state, and the rest of the things democracy should have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre To me, US is not a supporter of democracy and freedom, it's just a weapon merchant.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  > Guess which side US aided with weapons? The King! After the Vietnamese Army pushed the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh into western and northern Cambodia, guess who the US supported over the next 15 years? The Khmer Rouge.
- ncmncm 8y ago
  Recent Nepalese history is very interesting. Someone machine-gunned the entire royal family except the one guy. He claimed it was one of the dead, who had skipped killing him, and shot himself instead. Everyone reported this as-is, without comment, ever since. I have never seen a hint in print, since, that the new king had shot them all, although everyone must have been thinking it. All I can conclude is that no one knew when he might need to go to Nepal, so could not risk writing anything that might turn out to endanger himself.
  - ezoe 8y ago
    Yeah. Very very suspicious. No proof though.

99 points by cinquemb 8y ago

The New York Times headline could be changed to "William Blunt, U.S. Policy Critic Cited by bin Laden (U.S. erstwhile ally, armed by the CIA to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government), Dies at 85". Blum covered a lot of the US's Operation Cyclone in Killing Hope - the financing and arming of bin Laden in his jihad against the secular Afghan government in the 1970s and 1980s.

tor_user 8y ago

Washington post running the same headline, bravo whoever wrote the headline on hn.

csours 8y ago

When an organization puts its interests ahead of its ideals, you can do a few things: 1. Ignore it. I feel like this is the most common reaction. 1a. Accept the dissonance - hope the difference between interest and ideals is temporary, etc. 1b. Accept that the ideals are only ideals and besides the other guy is cheating anyway. 2. Stay inside the organization and try to change it. 3. Leave the organization and denounce it. 4. Various "subversive tactics".

starchild_3001 8y ago

RIP. Oh, god when will US learn from its past mistakes? I did enjoy reading Blum's books ~15 years ago. "Basically it's US foreign policy which creates anti-American terrorists. It's the things we do to the world. It's not, as the White House tells us, that they hate our freedom and democracy. That's just propaganda."[8] "It’s not clear how “unpopular” Blum’s views were—in a 2013 YouGov poll, 61 percent agreed with the statement, “In the long run, the United States will be safer from terrorism if it stays out of other countries’ affairs”—but what is certainly “not unique” was the Times‘ attempt to use an obituary to settle ideological scores."

dgut 8y ago
It's not US foreign policy alone that creates anti-American terrorists. You don't see Cubans burning US flags or chanting N things against the US despite >50 years of embargo and what not. You don't see the Vietnamese doing that either. There is another element to it. As a Cuban, I wish the US had intervened in Cuba when it had the opportunity, back in 1959.
- gammateam 8y ago
  Yeah the other element is the definition of Jihad It is a requirement to excise foreign invaders from Islamic lands and this is totally incompatible with the Western mentality and propaganda of "lets punish them in retaliation for that" The US masquerades 9/11 as the start of this, more accurately that its rouge asset attacking us was the start of this. Decades of meddling in the middle east stirred a hive, and the rouge asset intentionally created a decentralized adhoc army (Al Queda) that exploits the definition of Jihad for the SOLE REASON of entrapping a large scale army in a war of attrition until its budgetary constraints tears that country apart from the inside. THATS THE LITERALLY THE POINT AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED, Bin Laden says it in his cave livestreams, watch them again because they probably never played them verbatim on your local news channel back in the early 2000s except to guess whether he was still alive or pre-recorded it. But they were relevant messages, and he played everyone like a fiddle: Corporations, nation states, and the American condition which they would both predictably exploit for support to walk right into his construct. The US - and more specifically Europe which is now forcefully conscripted in NATO and is more easily accessible and attacked - would be safer by leaving the Middle East to regional powers. Yes, the regional powers that maintain order in a way that we disagree with.
- dsr_ 8y ago
  If the US foreign policy apparatus hadn't had its head jammed quite so firmly up its ass, they would have accepted the overtures of friendship from both Castro and Ho instead of scorning them. Imagine Vietnam coming out of their war for independence from France with a democratically elected government starting in 1954. Imagine Cuba being the major US ally in the Caribbean and primary vacation destination, with Fidel Castro serving as President from 1960 through 1970 in a constitutional republic. Both of those scenarios were within the realm of possibility -- but not with the Yale and Harvard asshats ruling the State Department.

sjburt 8y ago

I don't understand what the NYT seeks to gain from this kind of headline. Blum's positions were not unpopular or unusual, except maybe within the DC bubble.

Gibbon1 8y ago
> DC bubble Far as I can tell, inside the DC Bubble they worship one thing and one thing only; power. The idea that they should have to deal with other countries and peoples as equals or at least respect is alien to them.
astrange 8y ago
NYT article writers are somewhat respectable (though they have to keep their sources happy), but the headline writers have never met a war they didn't like.

starbeast 8y ago

Reading the NYT obituary. It includes this gem; >Mr. Blum repeatedly challenged the idealistic premise of American exceptionalism and argued instead that world hegemony was Washington’s covert goal, for economic, nationalistic, ideological and religious reasons. You shouldn't try and parse meaning from that sentence without a respirator, goggles and a crochet needle.

dang 8y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Synaesthesia 8y ago

Killing Hope is a must read. A chronicle of US interventions globally since WW2, often supporting very reactionary and dictatorial governments against democracy.

ezoe 8y ago

Recently, I've learned Nepal history just because I really like the nepal curry at a restaurant nearby, . In 2001, Nepalese royal massacre happened, and King Gyanendra crowned. He stop the parliament and started absolute monarchism. Resulting civil war between The King, the Politicians and the Maoists. Guess which side US aided with weapons? The King! Fortunately, all the political parties came to term quickly and threw out the king, establish the parliament, publish interim constitution, separation of religion and state, and the rest of the things democracy should have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre To me, US is not a supporter of democracy and freedom, it's just a weapon merchant.

Gibbon1 8y ago
> Guess which side US aided with weapons? The King! After the Vietnamese Army pushed the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh into western and northern Cambodia, guess who the US supported over the next 15 years? The Khmer Rouge.
ncmncm 8y ago
Recent Nepalese history is very interesting. Someone machine-gunned the entire royal family except the one guy. He claimed it was one of the dead, who had skipped killing him, and shot himself instead. Everyone reported this as-is, without comment, ever since. I have never seen a hint in print, since, that the new king had shot them all, although everyone must have been thinking it. All I can conclude is that no one knew when he might need to go to Nepal, so could not risk writing anything that might turn out to endanger himself.
- ezoe 8y ago
  Yeah. Very very suspicious. No proof though.