Gun Sights for Jesus

US military personnel taking aim at 'the enemy' with their fancy Trijicon ACOG gun sights can do so secure in the knowledge that they are 'shooting for Jesus'. May be that will make the more religiously-inclined among them feel better about killing 'Ragheads'; but what of the locals they claim to be training to do the job for themselves?

The picture is of a group of them - no doubt devout Muslims all - being trained with 'Jesus rifles'. Wonder how they're going to feel about that when they find out?

My guess is that those doing the training will have good reason to feel even less secure in the loyalty and reliability of their charges than they do already.

Stupid? - Pig-bloody-ignorant? - Is there a a word or phrase in the English language that can adequately describe the insufferable sanctimonious arrogance of the US Military, its sponsors and suppliers?

This from ABC News:

... with additional pictures here

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious “Crusade” in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as “the light of the world.” John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.” The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.
The company’s vision is described on its Web site: “Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom.”
“We believe that America is great when its people are good,” says the Web site. “This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals.”
Spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both said their services were unaware of the biblical markings. They said officials were discussing what steps, if any, to take in the wake of the ABCNews.com report. It is not known how many Trijicon sights are currently in use by the U.S. military.
The biblical references appear in the same type font and size as the model numbers on the company’s Advanced Combat Optical Guides, called the ACOG.
A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.
“It’s wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws,” said Michael “Mikey” Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.
‘Firearms of Jesus Christ’
“It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles,” he said.
Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they’ve told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as “spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ.”
He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of “those who are calling this a Crusade.”
According to a government contracting watchdog group, fedspending.org, Trijicon had more than $100 million in government contracts in fiscal year 2008. The Michigan company won a $33 million Pentagon contract in July, 2009 for a new machine gun optic, according to Defense Industry Daily. The company’s earnings from the U.S. military jumped significantly after 2005, when it won a $660 million long-term contract to supply the Marine Corps with sights.
“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country,” said Weinstein. “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

 

Conspiracy and the Morality of Politicians.

I've been a regular reader of Jean Michael Greer's Blog - 'The Archdruid Report' - since its inception. The guy has a handle on the implications of 'peak-oil/energy' for our globalised industrialised economic/political systems that produces regular keen insights into the way things are likely to unfold. His analyses of human societies' handling of unwelcome change is deeply thoughtful and clearly springs from extensive pondering of the issues it raises. Put all that together with with a certain gift of expression and you have a highly informative and readable blog.

So it happened that I was enjoying his latest piece when I was struck by a couple of jarring notes. They are the subject of this post.

Jean Michael is clearly a gentle man who seeks the best in people. I have no issue with that and admire him for it. But it was his repeated use of the term 'Conspiricist' and his assertion (to paraphrase) that politicians are broadly representative of the populations that they spring from - good and bad - that jarred.

Firstly the term 'Conspiracist'. Like other pejoratives, (Holocaust denier, Anti-semite, Communist, Fascist Flat-Earther etc) its use is generally intended as a debate changer by making those it is applied to appear 'beyond the pale' or 'ridiculous' and thus unworthy of a hearing. So, what is it supposed to mean? and why is it ranked right up there with those other powerful debate changers?

Jean Michael uses it to dismiss those who he sees as proposing wide-ranging or all-encompassing conspiracies as having a significant role in human affairs. Put that way it seems to me that the 'anti-conspiracists' are the ones with some explaining to do. At the most basic level of meaning, it really ought to be beyond dispute that conspiracy by constituent cliques and cabals prior to ANY type of  minuted, publicly accountable meeting or action - from the lowly local club right up to the highest reaches of government decision-making - is actually the driving force behind pretty much any and all collective human endeavour. IOW the Public Agenda is largely driven and determined by hidden, private agendas that are furthered by conspiracy. It is simply the way the world works.

So why is it that the terms 'conspiracist' and 'conspiracy theorist' have become such powerful debate-clinching pejoratives? 

Since it is invariably applied to those suggesting conspiracy and complicity by elements of the State in violence against its own people, I suggest that it has to do with peoples' overwhelming need to believe in the basic good intent of the State, its Government and Agencies. Granted they can be stupid, bungling, incompetent - even corrupt at times, but the idea that they would or could EVER act deliberately and with calculation against the interests of the general population, let alone be involved in persistent gross deception and/or deliberate acts of domestic terrorism, is simply too abhorrent and downright scary to countenance - And that in spite of overwhelming evidence that latter day Western Governments are literally up to their necks in all of those things.

Which brings me to the morality of politicians.

At the outset of a political career and discounting the allegiances that political dynasties impose, I guess the aggregate of wannabe politicians are indeed representative of the aggregate of the populations they spring from. Self-evident really and in that sense Jean Michael is quite right in his assertion. However, it is the attributes required to produces a 'successful' political career that are the nub of the matter. 'Successful' here meaning one that achieves ministerial/cabinet/Privy Council Rank in the UK or their equivalents elsewhere.

I suggest that, whatever genuinely altruistic public-service ideals may originally have motivated a politician or 'public servant', it is the progressive compromise and ultimate abandonment of any such principles that is the sine-qua-non of elevation to the high offices of State. The career progression of such an individual can be likened to the degrees of initiation bestowed by a Masonic Order. Following initial elevation by the masses, any further advancement is by invitation and appointment by superior initiates. Ability and merit may have a bearing on the matter but if so, it is ability and merit in the promotion of the official narrative of events and the State's part in them that is the crux of the matter. Such narratives effortlessly accommodate the divisions between the major political parties which boil down to little more than froth. But on their substance, no departure from orthodoxy is tolerated.

Thus, an alliance of superior, freedom-loving democracies is valiantly striving to fight the evil of terrorism and generally to do good in the world; with its heroic armed forces sacrificing their lives selflessly in multiple distant desert countries that we might avoid having to fight their malign evil in our own lands.

Take a step back and try to look at that as might a visitor from another world - or better yet as a young innocent staring at his naked Emperor. It is so self-evidently absurd as to be risible, yet it IS the basic official narrative of the early 21st century, lapped up by a fearful, insecure and gullible population. It is trotted out endlessly by mainstream political parties and media of ALL persuasions in the manner almost of a religious creed and woe-betide anyone - especially an ambitious politician - who dares question it.

It is the sordid realities behind that and other absurd 'official narratives' that the ambitious politician is gradually initiated into such that, by the time the higher degrees are reached, there is little of principle left in the initiate beyond defence  of the existing power structures at any price. My latest (somewhat seasonal) analogy for the relationship between the State and its general population is that, as a matter of rigid orthodoxy, communication is conducted around an intellectual and emotional framework not unlike that of a parent and 5 year old child but absent any altruistic/parental bond - such that the official narratives of most events of importance are massaged to a level of factual accuracy resembling those of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. In other words - in the interests of an over-riding imperative to maintain 'The System' and protect its corrupt, self-serving interests, we are lied to systematically as a matter of time-honoured and sanctified practice - PERIOD. In the immortal words of that venerable Irish muckraker Caud Cockburn therefore: "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied".

On the narrow subject of 'conspiracy theories' and terrorism, I personally doubt more than about 10% of all so-called terrorist outrages in the West occur without deep complicity on the part of our SIS's and their 'assets' - its called 'calibrating the level of violence and tension the better to further the policy agenda and secure compliance from a fearful population',  and anyone who thinks that an exaggeration - or more likely absurd - should first of all read up on 'Operation Gladio' as a primer before moving onto the more outrageous stuff. The information is readily available; it is just studiously ignored, other than as the occasional butt of ritualised ridicule, by the MSM.

So personally and in spite of JMG's admonitions, I'll stick with 'conspiracy theory' rather than 'coincidence theory' as a consistently superior explanation of events, with States, their Governments and especially their SI Agencies - per Spymaster extraordinaire Robert Cecil and his foolhardy dissident victim Guy Fawkes - as the model conspirators.

Drone Wars or - The Point, Click, Kill Brigade

"The West did not conquer the world through the superiority of its ideas, values or religion, but through its superiority in applying organized violence....". So said Samuel P Huntington, military/political philosopher and inspiration of Neocons, in his seminal work "The Clash of Civilisations". Whilst the subject of this post is somewhat somewhat narrower, Huntington's aphorism sprang to mind whilst pondering how different things would be in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Caucasus - indeed the whole world, were it not for the West's overwhelming superiority, both qualitative and quantitative, in military technology.

With the UK military death toll in Afghanistan now substantially higher than for Iraq we are subject to a constant steam of patriotic MSM coverage aimed at bolstering public support for our wars. From the ostentatious ra ra visits of national football and cricket team Reps to our boys (and girls) in Helmand, to the sombre long-focus shots of coffins descending from the rear of Hercules planes at RAF Lynam and the parades through nearby Wootton Bassett. We are regularly treated to earnest patronising lectures from General This and Colonel That on the valour of our service personal in their dual tasks of 'protecting our freedom' and 'helping the Afghans'. Last week there was a National service of commemoration for those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan - and all of this impossible to miss no matter your 'news' sources or degree of attention.

I have no issue with the valour of our service men and women. The loss of a single one is as tragic as is the loss of a son, daughter, husband or father to any family - including afghan and Iraqi families who God knows have suffered rather more than ourselves in these perpetual wars of ours. My issue is with our so-called leaders. In particular their bare-faced lies about the reasons for our involvement together with the sickeningly jingoistic/patriotic masquerade to which the grief of bereaved families is, as a matter of routine, harnessed by them.

However, be all that as it may (or rather IS), were our armed forces, valiant and professional though they undoubtedly are, to be deployed on equal terms with their alleged enemies - ie without monopolistic precision GPS guided air power and with arms limited to aging Kalshnikovs, RPG's and cannibalised mines from the Soviet era - it is unlikely their deployment would last long against similarly armed 'insurgents' who, for the most part, simply see themselves as defending their homeland against foreign invaders.

Which brings me to the 'Point, Click, Kill Brigade' or 'Remote Control Warriors' as the US military likes to characterise them -

The Drone Pilots.

The following is a brief paraphrased resume of articles and interviews published in various US media here, here and here.

Absent serious traffic, it takes a certain USAF Captain (we'll call him Adam) about 45 minutes to drive from his four-bedroom suburban home outside Las Vegas to his place of work at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada. He is an instructor and 'Remote Control Warrior' piloting drones flying some 7,500 miles away on 'combat operations' in Afghanistan and that damned commute is likely the most harrowing part of his day.

His first kill in Adam's own words:

"A month after I began flying combat UAVs, me and the crew were watching a trigger house, which gives insurgents a vantage over a roadway to detonate an IED as a vehicle passes. We had spotted two people stringing wires from the house to the road the night before, but that wasn’t enough to go on. This night, however, the figures appeared to pull back a dark spot on the road and crouch, plugging in wires. Seeing that feed, the ground unit gave me clearance to fire, and I launched a missile. I saw it reach one of the men. It landed right at his feet, and - PAUSE - he was gone.”

On his 45 minute drive home Adam noted (with or without irony) the usual illuminated signs cautioning him to "... Drive carefully - this is the most dangerous time of your day". His wife gave him a hug and said she was proud he took his first shot. He’ll never forget the date. It was his daughter’s second birthday, and he had had some cake with her before heading off to work that morning.

The stuff of latter day military heroes eh?

Perhaps the most infamous example to date of the work of these 'Remote Control Warriors' is the attack on a wedding party in June 2009. The BBC and Reuters initially reported the death toll at about 45 with the all usual official obfuscations and equivocations dutifully repeated - they were 'suspected militants', 'suspected insurgents', 'we had solid evidence...' etc ad nauseam - Because of course, if the West suspects an Afghan of being 'A MILITANT', why then it's perfectly OK to incinerate him isn't it? The actual death toll was soon established at over 80, most of them women and children.

Where was the outrage? - Answer: there wasn't any, just the routine mendacity of 'military spokesmen' followed by sheepish embarrassed silence.

With more of the same now almost a daily occurrence it is no longer news at all unless the innocent civilian death toll is more than about 10, in which case it may warrant a paragraph or two on an inside page. And all the while our leaders seriously expect us to believe that we occupy the moral high ground.

The moral high ground. THE MORAL BLOODY HIGH GROUND?

The place we in the West ACTUALLY occupy is more akin to a moral sewer. With the attention span of the general population reduced to the blink of an eye on anything that does not portray us as poor misunderstood heroes or titillate our insatiable appetite for trivia about the lives of our air-head celebrities, or our propensity to self-righteous outrage at the alleged misdeeds of this that or the other villain du-jour.

Here's a video of a 'Kill' - and that from 7,500 miles away with USAF Captain Adam commentating. Don't worry. All is well. These are professionals and their prey ARE after all suspected militants - and in any event mere 'Ragheads' - so that's OK then.

Torture: The Justification

"Our aim is to put you in hell so you will tell the truth. These are the orders we have from our superiors, to turn your lives into hell." --- US soldier to Abu Ghraib detainee [1]

Coming out of the woodwork ... as if from the woodcut of waterboarding in the Spanish Inquisition, stepping out, into our lives, assuming three dimensional features, taking on flesh tones, inhaling and exhaling... figures who declare with serious faces that ... torture .... Works.

They tell us:

• We will extract confessions from you.
• We know that you know what we want.
• We will tell you what we know about you and your co-conspirators and what we know that you know.
• We will tell you again and again and again and again until you tell us what we have told you so that we may know the truth. [2]
• We will pour jugs of water onto your face till you choke and struggle against your binds, to purify you.
• We will tell you that if you don't talk that you will surely die.
• We will put you in coffin-sized boxes for hours.
• We will throw you against the walls. Repeatedly.
• We will strip you naked and set dogs upon you.
• We will deny you sleep for days upon days.
• We will tell you that we will not ever stop until you have made your peace with us and confess freely and fully.
• We will slap you and beat you until you tell us what we want.
• We are, you must know, a merciful people, a kind people, a just, and a moral people.
• There are no more merciful, more kind, more just, more moral people than us.
• We are so just and moral that we can do these things to you and not be sullied by it.
• We remain moral and righteous as we beat you because our intentions are so pure. [3]
• We are protecting Americans' lives and if we have to suffocate you or beat you to death, we do so in the name of the American people, whose lives are more precious than your pitiful lying life.
• Our morality and justice is so great – Lord Be Praised - that you envy us this righteous life that we live, which is why you hate us so.
• But we are stronger and mightier than you.
• For we have God on our side.
• And you, you have nothing but superstition.
• We spit on your Quran.
• We are God's soldiers. [4]
• We will put your heads on sticks and rock your world. [5]
• We will demonstrate the superiority of our All Mighty compared to your pitiful heathen beliefs.
• We shall turn your life into a living hell.
• We shall teach you a lesson that you will not forget, nor your family, nor your neighbors, nor your mosque, nor your countrymen.
• In the Middle East, in Asia, in the world as a whole, we are the One.
• For you have no power. We have it all.

Notes

1. From Andy Worthington, 'Seven Years of Torture: Binyam Mohamed tells his story'.
2. "Understandably unable to resist the effects of the torture, Binyam proceeded to confess to whatever wild theories were put to him by his torturers. 'They had fed me enough through their questions for me to make up what they wanted to hear,' he said. 'I confessed to it all. There was the plot to build a dirty nuclear bomb, and another to blow up apartments in New York with their gas pipes.' As Rose noted, 'This - supposedly the brainchild of the 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - always sounded improbable: it was never quite clear how gas pipes might become weapons.'"Binyam added, 'I said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had given me a false passport after I was stopped the first time in Karachi and that I had met Osama bin Laden 30 times. None of it was true. The British could have stopped the torture because they knew I had tried to use the same passport at Karachi both times. That should have told them that what I was saying under torture wasn't true. But so far as I know, they did nothing.'" From Worthington, 'Seven Years of Torture'.
3. "Obama credited not Mr. Bush but the former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael V. Hayden and the former director of national intelligence Mike McConnell, who 'really had America's security interests in mind when they acted, and I think were mindful of American values and ideals.'" (From Helene Cooper and Stolberg Gay Stolberg, 'Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban', New York Times, March 7, 2009.
4. "'You are the sovereign. Your name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb,' a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them." The scene was reported by Agence France-Presse on Nov. 6, 2004" (From Mark Crispin Miller, 'Bush and Cheney's War on the Enlightenment', in Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips (eds.), Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006) 193. - And, "At Fallujah, the Marines used napalm and white phosphorous - weapons banned by international law - to immolate the people living there, and saw that it was good; for in King David they thought they could see themselves, Agence France-Presse observed: "'The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.'" Miller, 'Bush and Cheney's War', 194.
5. "With regret," the Russian official said, "I have to say that you are going to get the hell kicked out of you [in Afghanistan]." One of the Americans responded... "We're going to kill them," the U.S. official asserted. "We're going to put their heads on sticks. We're going to rock their world." From Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 103.

Source: Dennis Loo

The American Torture Memos

These memos really are sick, sick SICK!

I've been acutely aware of the whole, undeniable, gross mistreatment of prisoners thing for years now but reading those documents is still shocking - not surprising but truly shocking. I was forcefully reminded of the NAZI's penchant for legalistic documentation of their atrocities. The US really has lost the plot when it comes to any shred of a claim to 'the moral high ground' - but, like its protege Zionist Israel, appears oblivious to its wretchedness.

There was an interview with a young black 'CIA Spokesman' on Channel 4 TV News last night. The guy was maybe 30-35 years old, handsome, clean cut, a bit like a young Sidney Poitier in appearance. His brief was clearly one of damage limitation and his performance was surreal. As usual with our MSM, he was given an easy ride by Krishnan Guru-Murthy the interviewer but in the event it made no difference. He was like a smiling automaton. I lost count of the stock phrases: 'Terrorism is worlds biggest threat'; 'to keep Americans safe from terrorism'; 'to keep Americans free from the fear of terrorism', 'Terrorism', 'Terrorism', 'Terrorists', 'Terrorists', 'Americans this', 'Americans that' - like clockwork. Substitute 'Terrorist(ism)' with 'Witch(craft)' and the meaning would have been unchanged. Inevitably - and quite unprompted - he invoked 9/11 with the words 'we lost over 3,000 lives to terrorists on 9/11 and we want to make sure that does not happen again'. Had I been that interviewer I would have shot back something like "..... but you have lost over 300,000 lives on your roads since then - that's the equivalent of over 100 9/11's !! - with maybe a further million dead and over 3 million displaced lives ruined by your military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not think it high time we found some sense of proportion here?"

But of course such a question is absolutely verboten and more than any interviewers job is worth - and the interviewer knows it too (not to mention that the interviewee was clearly incapable of understanding such a question). So we are fed pap: "Americans have the right" etc etc ad-infinitum and of course, as loyal poodles we in the UK must support and assist in the enforcement of those 'rights'.

Frankly I am sick, weary and tired of hearing about 'Americans' - 'My fellow Americans' hand-on-heart, misty-eyed stares into the middle-distance to the strains of the 'By the Dawn's early light' - It's enough to make any sane human being want to puke. Patriotic nationalism - particularly of the sickly sentimental goodies -v- baddies American variety has one hell of a lot to answer for.

Winning hearts and minds the American way

The foul-mouthed pig ignorance of the US Imperial soldier. Every nth word F*** and women are used to insult men as 'f-ing women' & 'pussies'. Anyone think he isn't fairly typical of the breed? This guy is The Boss. He clearly sees himself as a big heroic hard man - out to teach these stupid f-ing' Rag-heads the superiority of the 'America Way'; to make sure they know all about the sacrifices he's making for them and how superior he is. He'll take ANY of them on - ANYtime so he will. And they can't even pronounce the name of their own country properly either! - it's f-ing EYE-RACK doncha know?

He reminds me of that boasting, loud-mouthed British Army Corporal in the 1959 film 'North West Frontier' during the part where the train comes under sustained attack by mounted 'insurgents' (that word again). His loud mouth deserts him and when it's over he's found cowering in the bog. Likewise with this guy. He's just sooo full of himself. Makes you wonder how he'd really behave in a genuine one-to-one without all that whiz-bang technology - probably shit himself and run.


Hat-tip to Lenins Tomb and Dennis Perrin

Gallows Humour

Hilarious, wry, black humour - US style. The general principles illustrated being equally applicable to the UK.

In the teeth of self-evidently unsustainable, fossil-fuelled, exponential economic and population growth on a finite planet, and with the real implications of 'peak-oil' becoming unsettlingly clear, this video encapsulates many of the State's instinctive responses; not to mention the true nature of its government.

I particularly liked 'Democracy at gunpoint', Celebrating uniformity of speech', 'One media - one voice', 'Fighting terrorism by creating it', 'Lest they forget - we'll remind';

and my favourite: 'Financial security through financial insolvency' which of course is the established (but teetering on the brink of collapse) first principle of Western globalised economics.

And ........ with all coins minted in depleted uranium - what else?

oh! - and watch for the 'a proportion of every Halliburton purchase is donated to.....' bye-line at the end - priceless !

"Phoney Soldiers"

The following is an extended comment from a post on a US military blogg. The post itself is by Alex, a young soldier (pictured) who has just returned from an extended 1 year tour of duty in Iraq. It is his second post dealing with Rush Limbaugh, a US MSM columnist, dubbing those in the military who voice opposition to the Iraq war as 'Phony Soldiers'. The post comment encapsulates a burgeoning domestic disillusionment with 'The American Dream'. It's description of the gross subordination and corruption of the political process to the interests of Plutocratic Globalised Corporate America and its military enforcers in a largely phony 'War on Terror' rang some loud bells with me.

Well Alex, I knew it would happen. Your last post got Americans sided off and slinging shit in the now usual polarized way, wasting the American dream with all of its great potential unrealized. We could have been a better country than this. I for one am no longer willing to argue with people who are bitterly, viscerally opposed to everything I believe and know.

All any of us have is our own reality, arrived at carefully or carelessly. Me, I'm a Democrat, lifetime. I study the Constitution and read the writings of the Founders. I think about what is required of an American citizen if our grand experiment is to survive. I read all I can from as many diverse sources as I can find to understand what's going on in the world. I arrive at my own views. I don't want them spoon-fed to me.

I didn't believe Bush even while he campaigned for the White House with his promise of a "humble" foreign policy. I knew who was behind him. I was right. When 9/11 came I was as traumatized and angry as anybody. But I also knew there was something fishy about it, and something very convenient for the neoconservatives. Apparently, by the way they responded to Bush's way of talking about it, a lot of Americans thought 9/11 was as simple as a glass of spilled milk. They still do today.

When within weeks 9/11 rage was steered onto the need to crush Iraq, I KNEW there was something fishy about it. I knew a lot about Iraq. After all, we'd been to war there ten years earlier. I was highly skeptical of the allegations coming from the White House all pressing for war. I was 100% skeptical about the flowers and chocolates and cakewalk talk, because I knew about the way the horrible Hussein had with blood and fear held together the incompatible ethnic and religious divides in that country, had been keeping the lid on what would explode into chaos without him or someone like him.

I knew Iraq and al Qaeda in league was an impossible farce. I knew it. I knew it, damn me. I knew it but I let the administration sow doubt in my mind. And then, the only way I can put it is, Americans became the victims of terror for the second time in a year. What am I referring to? I am referring to the specter of a "mushroom cloud over an American city" -- Saddam's nuclear weapons given to his partner bin Laden and blowing us up. Who could have the gall to terrify Americans, reeling from 9/11, with this if it wasn't true?

Cheney said it. Bush said it. Rice said it. Rumsfeld might have said it, I can't remember. Then Limbaugh screamed it. Hannity screamed it. O'Reilly screamed it. All of FOX TV and AM talk radio screamed it. A bunch of Paul Reveres, apparently... patriots sounding the call to arms.

And then, like 95% of Americans, I blinked. I flinched. I turned my back on everything I knew about the matter, because in my heart of hearts I did not believe any US government could lie to the American people about something like that. To do so would be an unspeakable act of cruelty and cynicism inflicted on a whole country suffering varying degrees of PTSD from watching those planes hit the skyscrapers again and again, hundreds of times, thousands of times. I fell back to the usual place we go when we surrender our freedom and sovereignty as citizens, accepting that I did not have the intelligence that the White House had, that this was something only they could know, something they would never say if it wasn't true, and doubt it as I might, I could not afford to disbelieve it, which would be tantamount to inviting the blinding sun-bright mushroom of death over my own city and my own loved ones. So when Shock and Awe came, I was all right with it.

But I was wrong and 95% of America was wrong. Bush lied. Cheney lied. Rice lied. They knew they were trick-fucking a defenseless public and they had the cold heart to go right ahead and do it. And so did their cheerleader Rush Limbaugh.

Americans want to trust their leaders. But the unspeakable has happened and we've been had. It's all out in the open now. But many still can't face the truth.

And here we arrive at the end of my little confession. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. I will not be a child who trusts his child molester daddy. I will not be a wife who trusts her wife-beater husband.

The architects of this war, and their media mouthpieces, have committed the ultimate acts of savagery and contempt against the very people who depend on them with their lives for nobility, for courage, for selfless leadership, for the TRUTH. They have betrayed us, over and over again, day in, day out, with their lies and their fear mongering.

Look at the comments on your last post. Why are we a divided nation, as divided as we've ever been since the Civil War, divided friend against friend, father against son, family against family? Because of LIARS, cynical, heartless liars with hidden self-serving agendas that cannot stand the light of day. Liars do not heal or unite or produce happy outcomes. But they can divide. Look at us.

I don't care about Rush Limbaugh or George Bush. Just don't tread on me any more, fellas. Keep the snake oil to yourselves. I am awake again. And I'm not going back to sleep. I am committed to only one thing: trying to pick my country up from the rubble of division, confusion and fear to which it has been reduced, and to attempt CPR on the American Dream until somebody pulls me off the body politic and pulls a sheet over it. That's all there is left to do.

The rest of the blogg provides unvarnished insights into the ugly realities of the occupation. As for example in Alex's description of a relatively trivial incident consequent on revised tactics intended to get the military to interact with Iraqui civilians more:

We were one of few units to see Iraq before and after the surge. If the media got anything right, it was that the surge failed. The idea, as birthed in a bloody, mucous-y blob of counter production by General Petreaus, is quite simple on paper, impossible to execute in a meddling reality. The concept is that combat troops would move from their huge bases that housed obscene luxuries like beds, flushing toilets and running water, and into outposts within the most dangerous parts of the city. The key to it all would be 24/7 interaction with Iraqi Army and a constant presence among the Iraqi citizens, giving them confidence in the mission of coalition forces. The building we picked used to be a whiskey distillery, and we've been busy putting up concrete barriers and wire around it. A house was too close to where the wall was supposed to be, so engineers blew it to smithereens and sent the family packing. The father owned the plot for forty years and comes by every so often to collect the useful bricks left scattered a hundred yards in every direction. Before he entered once, I patted his seventy year old frame down like a common criminal.

Talk about community interaction!

Bedless in Basra. A Review of a Predictable Disaster

A view of the British Basra withdrawal and the whole UK/US involvement in Iraq that you will not find in our supine mainstream media, where a consensus degree of 'Patriotism' (that last refuge of scoundrels) is de-rigeur. It would simply be too painful for us to have to recognise ourselves as anything other than the Goodies, wouldn't it? - 'With guns in our hands and God on our side' as the old Bob Dylan song has it; but the road to Iraqi Hell has been paved with Blair's claimed 'good-intentions'.

Felicity Arbuthnot is an Irish reporter who cuts through all the crap about our noble intentions to the catastrophe that we have visited upon Iraq. Her view is far closer to the truth of the matter than the official sanctimonious arrogance - and accords very much with my own. Here are a couple of brief excerpts:

"So the British have finally slunk off, in the dead of night, from their squatted palace in central Basra, to the old air base at Shuaiba, west of the city. The new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has worked hard to dress up slinking as victory. Our brave boys, he said, have brought to the South stability, they have rebuilt schools, hospitals, electric power stations (which they destroyed over thirteen years of illegal bombings during the embargo and then finally flattened in an illegal invasion.) Actually, speak to any one in Basra and they say they are by far worse off than under Saddam Hussein, who restored some semblance of normality, after 1991's forty two day carpet bombing, in just months, in spite of the embargo on a country which broadly, imported seventy percent of everything, including maintenance and essential materials."

During the embargo, the British and Americans flew together, in the south and the north, bombing painstakingly reconstructed essentials, built from cannibalized parts from another facility beyond hope. As soon as they were finished, Basra airport, water purification plants, electricity sub-stations, they were bombed again. The Iraqis repaired again, only for them to be bombed again. Now, we are told, the invaders must stay 'until Iraqis can stand on their own feet'. (Read: until we have helped steal the oil.) The bombing was often continual. One day, sitting in a cafe, a bombing rocked the area, the blast deafening. Crockery and cutlery rattled and fell. I jumped. No one else even looked up. It was the norm. Children were still losing life and limb from the 'bomblets' which were dropped in 1991, made to look like tempting shiny toys. How seriously sick are weapons designers?

Do yourself a favour. Read the entire piece and help yourself 'to see ourselves as others (with ample justification) see us'.

Thousands flee as Iraq violence deepens

The situation in Iraq goes from bad to worse - and worse - and worse.

How much longer can the West keep up the pretense that it is acting 'in the interests of the people' (of Iraq) - a platitude used to camouflage most of the worst excesses of state sponsored violence in history - INCLUDING THIS ONE

This from Reuters
______________________________
Update 21 July 2006

UN: Over 3,000 Iraqi Civilians Killed in June.

Civilian deaths: January 1,778. June 3,149. Progress?

Tags: Iraq, War on Terror, World war 3

Al Jazeera Memo update

The Guardian reports that a High Court application to allow the case for publication of the 'Al Jazeera Memo' to be heard in public has been rejected:

"The public must be prevented from learning the contents of a conversation between Tony Blair and President George Bush about the conduct of the war in Iraq - crucial evidence in a forthcoming official secrets trial - an Old Bailey judge ruled yesterday.

Any discussion of an already partially leaked document - in which Mr Bush purportedly said in April 2004 that he wanted to bomb the Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera, and Mr Blair expressed concern about US military tactics in the Iraqi city of Falluja - must be heard behind closed doors, Mr Justice Aikens ruled. He also banned the public and the media from hearing the prosecution's arguments on the grounds of national security."

And the real reason? :

"Defence lawyers who have seen the four-page document argue that its contents are at most embarrassing."

We can't have The UK Prime minister and the US President being embarassed now can we? After all that's what the Official Secrets Act was designed to prevent wasn't it?

See here for information on attempts obtain information under both the UK and US freedom of information legislation

Tags: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera Memo, Iraq, War on terror, FOIA

The Jihadis of Penzance

For all you Gilbert & Sullivan fans

I came across this in the Asia Times whilst trawling for views on the Middle-East crisis. It was linked from its authors current column piece , in which he compares Dubya to Forest Gump. Some serious insights here, and the G&S spoof is a hoot.

"US policy has turned to dust and ashes. Watching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on television, it occurred to me that she had borrowed a makeup artist from Night of the Living Dead. On reflection, it is more likely that she has not slept in a week.

Rather than a stable and democratic Iraq, Bush will leave Iraq a killing field. Oil-supply disruption will derail the world economic recovery......

Gumpishness in Washington arose from a fallacy of composition: the belief that if US democracy could be constructed from immigrants of every culture and creed, then it could be exported to countries of every culture and creed. But Americans abandoned their cultures to join a new one. They are self-selected to be Americans. By adverse selection, those who clung to their cultures remained behind.

Only a delusion of surpassing consolation could prompt the extremes of denial that Washington has evinced over the past year. If a stupider idea possessed statesmen than the proposition that democracy could thrive in Lebanon in the presence of an Iranian-controlled military organization more powerful than the Lebanese army, I do not know what it was. Bush believed that drawing Hezbollah into democracy would persuade them to abandon terrorism. In a March 16 press conference he said:

Our policy is this: We want there to be a thriving democracy in Lebanon. We believe that there will be a thriving democracy, but only if - but only if - Syria withdraws ... her troops completely out of Lebanon ... I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's - I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.

The whole matter was so preposterous that I framed it as a Gilbert and Sullivan spoof."

Here is one of the Choruses from that spoof - sung to the tune of "When the Felon's Not Engaged in His Employment"

(The President with White House chorus:)

When the suicidal bomber's not a-bombing,
(Not a-bombing)
When the sniper isn't looking down his sight,
(Down his sight)
There is nothing in their actions that's alarming,
(That's alarming)
And surely not a pretext for a fight.
(For a fight)
I had promised them a bully war on terror,
(War on terror)
But of terrorists made not a mention one,
(Mention one)
Let's assume the other fellow was in error,
(Was in error)
And if asked to, will make plowshares of his gun.
(Oh! But of terrorists he made not mention one, mention one,
And we hope they will make plowshares of their gun, of their gun.)

Forest Gump piece here
The Jihadis of Penzance piece here

Tags: Jihad, Gilbert & Sullivan, Pirates of Penzance, Lebanon Crisis

The Gravity of Middle East Situation

Reflecting on my last post, that sense of foreboding remains. There can be little doubt that Hizbullah could not have ratcheted up their activities on Israel's Northern border without both the agreement and support of Iran and Syria. In the words of Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze Leader and no apologist for Israeli interests:

"One must not forget that Hizbullah works according to a Syrian-Iranian plan in one way or another. But I hope that Sayyed Hassan [Hizbullah chieftain Sheikh Nasrallah] has a margin of freedom allowing him to put the interest of Lebanon above the Syrian and Iranian interests."

Both Iran and Syria well understand the potential for the conflict to spread. It is therefore safe to assume that they judge a wider conflict to be either a risk worth taking or a deliberate ploy to produce it. Whatever their judgment, it is a considered and calculated one. They are not fools and both are implacably opposed to both Israel's continued existance as a State and the presence of the the Western Alliance in the Middle East.

Set that against the US (and in the final analysis the entire Western Alliance) as guarantor(s) of the existence of the State of Israel, together with the rapidly deteriorating imbroglio that is Iraq; mix it together with the sub-text of the entire Western involvement in the Middle East (which on any reasonable measure ought to be none of our damned business), namely continued access to and control/influence over what remains of the worlds oil endowment; and a 'peacful settlement', whatever meaning such a platitude can now have, appears remote indeed.

I have little doubt that the US considers its continued - and probably even expanded - military presence in the Middle East as absolutely fundamental to its national security interests. Things are not about to get better.

Tags: World War 3, Lebanon Crisis, Middle East

Did World War III begin this morning?

I've been watching developments in the Middle East all day with mounting foreboding.

The markets are nervous - heading for the second day of 1% + fall in the DJIA (could even hit 2% by close today). Oil is about to hit $77; and I just heard Dubya with Angela Merkel getting his tongue tied around his 'working for peace' 'working for freedom', 'fighting the enemies of P & F' etc etc refrain yet again. I've long passed laughing at him. It was surreal and deeply deeply depressing.

This post from the 'Running on Empty' Yahoo discussion group is pretty close to how I see things right now:

The great thing about predicting human events is that you are so often wrong. In this case, nothing would make me happier than to be in error. But, God help us all, I think the odds are better than 1in 5. The beginnings of wars are often hard to identify. Which act like the spark on the tinderbox? Which straw was the final one? Like peak oil itself, the beginnings of war are often visible only in retrospect. Why today? Why, when we might make the case that the war began when the US invaded Iraq? Why when this particular cause might turn out to be just another brush fire? We don't know. We can only guess. This morning, Israel invaded Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, and began shelling. Hezbollah is demanding the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Israel is threatening to return Lebanon to the war of 20years ago. Iran and Syria are both making noises in support of Hezbollah, and our president has demanded the release of all prisoners.

Our government has been looking for an excuse to invade Iran, and here is one ready-made - Iran's longstanding economic and military support of Hezbollah. Moreover, American strategy in the middle east is deeply tied into Israel, and there is no question that we will provide support of some sort or another if Israel fully commits to war with Lebanon and perhaps Syria. Another American beach head, run through Israel, is likely to spark more conflict with Iran and other nations in the middle east. And full-scale, multi-national war in the middle east is something no independent nation in the world can afford to ignore. As Iraq fragments and the US is increasingly overcommitted, China and Russia are caught between their economic and energy ties to Syria and Iran, and their desire not to antagonize the US. But if the Middle East fully ignites, neither China nor Russia will be free not to choose sides. They will have to protect their own interests. And I believe nothing good could possibly come from so many people with big guns and nuclear bombs trying to decide how to take sides. I could be wrong. It could all just peter out. But the crisis pattern resembles a few we've seen before in our history books. I pray I'm wrong, but I won't be surprised if someday, today is named the beginning of the next world conflict. As I said before, God help us all, and may I look as silly as everyone else who makes predictions and is wrong.

Sharon in upstate NY

And if Americans and Brits want to know what ordinary educated Iraqis really think of them, they could do worse than read this from a young Baghdad Blogger

Tags: World War 3, Iraq, Lebanon Crisis, Middle East