Title: Can we officially call 4um an anti-war forum? Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Jan 14, 2012 Author:Mite we be the only one on the net? Post Date:2012-01-14 21:51:59 by Jethro Tull Keywords:None Views:531 Comments:28
MASS KILLINGS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN “WINK AND NOD” ARMY POLICY
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Over 40 years ago, I was in Vietnam, part of an American military effort draped with shame and failure. My Lai was the crowning achievement of the war, nearly 600 women and children mowed down by automatic weapons fire. The man we know as General Colin Powell helped shove it under a rug. Lt. Calley, worse than many of Himmler’s SS executed for war crimes during World War II, became a hero to many Americans. Killing civilians was “policy” in Vietnam. You could murder anyone you wanted as long as they could be made to look like enemy combatants. If you killed them with a knife, even if others held them to the ground, you were awarded a Silver Star. This isn’t conjecture, I know this to be a fact.
When the Bush Administration sought legal protection from accusations of war crime, shopping the dregs of the legal world and coming up with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, someone willing to sign off on virtually anything, we could see it coming. We had an administration of “Chickenhawks,” psychotic war mongers who were physical cowards, shirking wartime service through trickery, influence and excuses. Thus we ended up with a President who claims to have been a National Guard mail clerk in Alabama, missing the 10 years of combat during Vietnam, a war mongering Vice President who piled up student deferments and a Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who did a short peacetime stint in the Navy.
Congress was worse, with the “war party,” the GOP, lined from one end to the other with draft dodgers. Their only noticeable veteran was John McCain. The real mastermind of the Bush Administration was radio host Rush Limbaugh who claims he was rejected for service in Vietnam because of an anal cyst.
What those of us who actually fought in a war knew is that the leadership of the military itself, called by Colonel David Hackworth “the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon,” was utterly corrupt and bereft of real combat experience, leadership ability and moral character. That leadership has, if anything, gotten worse.
As our two most recent disastrous wars played out, one seemingly forever, we began with stories of prisoner abuse, kidnappings, torture on a mass scale. The Wikileaks video showing two Apache helicopter crews murdering unarmed Samaritans was quickly ignored. In fact, dozens, perhaps hundreds of incidents of criminality have been covered up, the press delightfully complicit, never asking why nothing is done, never asking why the military never calls anyone of rank and power to account.
When reports come in, such as those from FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, that planeloads of narcotics and moved across the world by the US military or we hear that bales of American aid money are being transported out of Afghanistan to, well, we don’t know, do we? Are we really sure that it isn’t the military itself that is stealing the money, running the drugs, managing the $65 billion dollar a year drug operation in Afghanistan? Is there any reason, any scrap of proof that can show they aren’t doing it?
When the Bush administration decided to “outsource” the war, “outsource” the CIA, turning a third of our massive defense budget over to political cronies, shouldn’t all of this been expected?
When the American “Taliban,” we can’t call them anything else, Christian Evangelists, read “Christian Zionists,” not really Christians at all, but a distorted, a perverted form of Christianity more science fiction, heavy on apocalypse, heavy on “end times” and very light on real scripture, a “Christ free” version of Christianity, was pushed onto our military, mass killings, drunken orgies, drug use, torture and inhumanity had to be expected.
What is the worst possible situation imaginable? How could we have found so many wartime cowards to lead a nation during a period of threat? What was the threat? Was it real or one concocted by the endless nest of military and intelligence geniuses, best call them what they are, phonies and vermin, the golfing partners of the military industrial complex.
Hadn’t we better admit that we have allowed ourselves to be led into, not only wars, but a total sacrifice of American freedoms and values, entirely for the glorification of cowards, phonies and sociopaths? Does this seem a bit harsh?
Excuse me for being angry.
Last week, Dr. Aafia, a housewife from Boston who was kidnapped while visiting her father in Pakistan, was convicted of trying to kill several Americans. She had been in detention, raped and tortured for years. Were the people she was accused of trying to kill, a totally fictional crime, themselves like the death squads that roam Iraq and Afghanistan, shooting innocent civilians from armored vehicles, helicopters, tossing hand grenades into crowds?
Today we learn that the current murder squad being investigated in Afghanistan operated in Iraq. This is one such unit, there could be dozens. Today we learn that the Army knew about this all along, members of these military units that claim they were under threat of death, forced to participate in war crimes, had reported the incidents.
Nothing was done. ABC News carried the story today, parents were told, the Army was called.
Were hundreds killed? More?
It is one thing losing a war. It is one thing seeing America pass laws nullifying our constitution and civil rights. It is one thing watching so many Americans cheer war crimes, atrocities, injustice, torture.
Imagine how this is going to play out. Afghanistan has a population between 30 and 40 million. Pakistan has nearly 200 million people. They are all going to hear about this. We spend billions, not millions, not tens or hundreds of millions but billions winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people, all so we can be “safe from terrorism.”
What a crock.
We hope people are afraid of us because if they aren’t, they certainly hate us. Do people in Pakistan and Afghanistan get afraid? Don’t we hear, every day, all day long, about how crazy they all are, wanting to blow themselves up? Are we stopping terrorism by sending Americans over there, so they can be murdered conveniently, none of those phony visas, passports or magic trips through Israeli run airports for them.
Who is ultimately responsible? The answer is easy, the American people. All the signs were there. The 2000 election had a smell about it, the jackals behind the scenes during Iran Contra, you remember that, don’t you? The Reagan administration? Whatever you want to call it, it was our government getting into the “crack” business and, as a sideline, peddling arms to Iran, you know, missiles and such, by the shipload.
Oh, you forgot?
It wasn’t more than a few months before we got 9/11, the largest coordinated attack on America in its history, confounding our air defenses, intelligence services, even the laws of physics were violated. Learn what you can do when defense contractors own TV networks.
Who is ultimately responsible? The answer is easy, the American people.
This is an outstanding piece, and yes, WE are responsible. Well, not most of us, but certainly those people who routinely call returning vets "heroes." These kids are heroes? The word is a misused and overused and the invasion of sovereign nations at the whim of our Presidential "kings" is hardly heroic.