13 May 2004

Found on .::Bartcop::.
Subject: You don't want to watch it
There are a number of web sites on the Internet that have the whole video of Nick Berg getting his head cut off.

Having viewed the video - you don't want to watch it. I decided to watch it because it is what really happened and it is the price of fighting a fraudulent war. But having watched it I strongly recommend that you don't. It's enough to know that the guy was beheaded alive and that it was not a quick death. I'm still in shock as I write this.

Having said that - I think that every single member of Congress who voted for the war and every one of those generals in the chain of command who decided that torture was a good idea and let this happen - they should all be forced to see the video - and see the results of what happens when you have a clueless president. Had we gone after the real terrorists instead of Saddam this would never have happened. We are on the verge of losing this war because we have wasted our resources fighting the wrong enemy. It's time we got out of Iraq - turn it over to the UN - and go after Osama bin Laden. Let's go after the real terrorists who actually cut the man's head off and were behind 9-11, instead. —Marc Perkel

I don't know what made Marc want to watch it, and I don't want to know.

Things are going from bad to worse over there. I can't help but think about the cheerleaders (of the black skin persuasion) for war, who ignored the racist nature of the illegal invasion. Most of them, I'm certain, will begin to backpedal as support steadily erodes. They are the weak of mind who cannot bear NOT to be on the good side of loudmouth, malicious white folks. Their stupidity is sickening.

12 May 2004

Berg Refused to Leave Iraq?

Nick Berg, the 26 year old telecom business owner whose beheading was videotaped, had been advised to leave Iraq according to US officials.

There are some odd details to this one.
  • If the tape identifies Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, why did all of the men (except Nick Berg) have their faces covered.
  • Since when have those kidnapped by resistance fighters, or al-Qaida, been clad in US-prison orange jumpsuits.
  • Where did they get those flak jackets (bulletproof vests), I've never seen them wear those either . . .


  • Here's the .::link::.

    11 May 2004

    So the Red Cross has a Report . . .
    Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested ''by mistake,'' according to coalition intelligence officers cited in a .::Red Cross report::. disclosed Monday.

    Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was widespread and routine, the report finds—contrary to President Bush's contention that the mistreatment ''was the wrongdoing of a few.''

    Red Cross delegates saw U.S. military intelligence officers mistreating prisoners under interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison and collected allegations of abuse at more than 10 other detention facilities, according to the report.
    .::Chicago Sun-Times::.

    That's it! That is last bit of information necessary to determine that:
    • There are more people involved in the human rights abuses than the half dozen Guard members put on the hotseat.

    • Contrary to the lame excuses of the rabid right wing, US soldiers had no reason to direct their anger, or fear, at the detainees under their control, because the majority of them shouldn't have been arrested in the first place.

    • Abu Ghraib is not an aberation; abuses were happening in other US controlled prisons and in other US instigated war zones in years past.

    • The problem is not that the abuse was captured on camera and distributed all over the world, the problem is that it happened!

    • The abuses could not have been as widespread without the ok of leaders in Washington.

    • Violence begets violence.
    I cannot understand why there are American citizens who deny that America (its government and its military) can be just as brutal and amoral as any other country. It doesn't help us grow (collectively) to be a better nation.

    We cannot claim moral superiority, or the right to tell others how to live, and then try to excuse what happened at Abu Ghraib. Are there Americans who don't want to be better or to learn from our mistakes (egregious or slight) and the mistakes of others? Is acknowledging our own human frailties a sin?
    Legitimacy Can't be Earned at the Point of a Gun
    “There has always been a tension in our occupation between control and legitimacy. And the more we’ve sought control, the less legitimacy we’ve had. I think we have erred in general, from the start, much too heavily in the direction of control at the expense of legitimacy, and that has come back to haunt us.” —So says .::Larry Diamond::. senior fellow at the Hoover Institution (right wing think tank)
    Liberation, American Style
    "... former CIA official who collected enemy ears, dropped decapitated human heads from the air on to communists and stuck heads on spikes. . . [Tony Poe ] twice won a CIA Star -- the Central Intelligence Agency's highest award —from directors Allen Dulles, in 1959, and William Colby, in 1975," the obituary reported.

    '"I used to collect ears," a cheerful Poshepny was quoted as telling Roger Warner in his book, .::Shooting at the Moon::. ...'I had a big, green, reinforced cellophane bag as you walked up my steps. I'd tell my people to put them in, and then I'd staple them to this 5,000 kip [Lao currency] notice that this [ear] was paid for already, and put them in the bag and send them to [the Laos capital] Vientiane with the report."

    "We were murdering these people, incinerating them. My efforts had resulted in the deaths of many people and I just – for me it was a period when guess I was – I considered myself nearly insane – I just couldn’t reconcile what I had been and what I was at the time becoming," McGeehee said.
    See .::Agitprop::. for the rest of the story.
    The Fish Still Rots from the Head Down
    "Some psychological warfare [psywar] guy in Washington thought of a way to scare the hell out of villagers," CIA officer Pat McGarvey confided to Seymour Hersh. "When we killed the VC there, they wanted us to spread eagle the guy, put out his eye, cut a hole in the back [of his head] and put his eye in there. The idea was that fear was a good weapon"
    See .::CounterPunch.org::. article to learn more about how mutilation of the declared enemy isn't what only Iraqi resistance fighters do.

    10 May 2004

    Those Who Don't Learn From History...
    "I lost my brother in Vietnam," added Hughes, a veteran Army strategist who is involved in formulating Iraq policy. "I promised myself, when I came on active duty, that I would do everything in my power to prevent that [sort of strategic loss] from happening again. Here I am, 30 years later, thinking we will win every fight and lose the war, because we don't understand the war we're in."
    .::Complete Ariticle::.