- Believe it or not, there are still many people in this
nation, horrified and sickened over the deaths of numerous innocent civilians,
who endured numerous years with the monster Saddam that we created. And
now under the guise of "democray,freedom,liberation,soverigntry ?
" Oh, I forget; it now appears that being an Iraqi citizen can have
you shot down like a rabid dog in the streets. "Off with their heads.
Sentence now, verdict later". The Queen of Hearts.
-
- Haidar Khani is dead. Driving a beaten up Toyta near
Baghdad's administrative center, four American Humvees came up behind the
little car, slamming it up against the grille of an Anglican church. An
American soldier, than calmly fired two shots at the 31 year old man.
Exiting the car, blood streaming from his neck, he collapsed and died on
the sidewalk. The same soldier then aimed at the passenger, Mahmoud Jassam,
and shot him in the arm. Mahmoud, Haidar's cousin, told of how they just
ordered announcements for Haidar's marriage. Haidar is now dead. The
charge? DWI-Driving While Iraqi.
-
- Western journalists were on hand having witnessed this
senseless killing. "I was just arriving at the Hotel. I saw it all.
The Humvees were driving very fast and crashed into the Toyota. And the
American soldier fired on the driver and his passenger in cold blood. It's
really a crime", related Taher, a CBS television driver. Iraqi police
arriving on the scene were heard saying "These dogs, these sons of
whores"
-
- Beheadings, whole families shot up in their vehicles,
Shock and Awe- end of the world mushroom clouds, 500 lb Daisy Cutter bombs
rolled out of planes; rupturing citizens internal organs, and eyeballs,
melting weaponry; leaving people charred like briquettes, cluster bombs
filled with thousands of shards of ripping steel, suicide bombers strapped
with explosives, the world has gone mad with bloodlust.
-
- Seemingly, our military is now following the same tactics
as the Israeli Army, in bulldozing homes and ploughing under olive groves.
Doors are kicked in, and citizens dragged from their homes; bagged and
arrested. A recent report had soldiers throwing two young men into the
river and laughing, as one who couldn't swim, screamed for his cousin to
help him. He drowned this young nineteen year old Iraqi boy. Ali, the 11
year old boy who had both his arms severed, when at the start of,"
Shock and Awe," a cluster /incendiary bomb hit his family's remote
farmhouse. Dead were his entire family, including his pregnant mother.
Ali with arms gone and third degree burns, was eventually taken to Kuwait
and then Great Britain for treatment. He was fitted with artificial arms,
the left one, merely cosmetic, as there was nothing left to work with.
Numerous little boys like Ali never made it.
-
- What have we wrought, when for conquest, strategic location
and a nation's resources, we have children killing children? The average
age of today's soldier is nineteen. I can tell you from first hand knowledge,
that a nineteen year old, hardly has the sense he was born with (there
are noteworthy exceptions). Juiced up on testosterone, life's a beach.
Cars, girls, cruising, spring breaks, concerts, hanging out at the mall,
and keg parties. This is a rebellious, invincible age, where advice or
warnings are scored. Regretfully as a nation, we are observing how some
never do attain maturity. They merely dress up in designer suits, keep
their calloused hearts beating with medical wonder drugs, and surround
themselves with flags. Jocks without mettle, stamina, courage, integrity,
valor or honor, they have no problem training other people's children to
kill for them.
-
- These pompous, arrogant, egotistical, clowns with hatchets,
dress up in costumed flight suits and rub their beefy paws in glee as they
decide in bunkered war rooms; of technological wonderment, who to bomb,
shred, or annihilate next? What fun, bloodless war games. If not playing
with their newest global destroying weaponry, they're traveling the globe
meeting with others of their ilk. A conference call might save millions
upon millions of dollars, but then what fun would that be? Here they can
show their prowess and machismos ordering out thousands of couch potato
mercenaries to dress up as Ninja Warriors (just like TV) and club, gas,
shatter jaws (with plastic bullets), shock (with stun guns) and arrest
seniors, students, and working people who dare to question the plans of
a global plantation.
-
- How does one turn a smart alec kid into a trained killer?
Simple you send them to basic training. Soldiers are to kill. The sole
purpose of a soldier in the military is to kill the enemy, whether with
a knife or bayonet, gun, or rifle or machine gun, shooting a missile or
pushing a bomb down over an unsuspecting farmhouse. Because depriving another
person of their life is against human nature every recruit must be trained
to kill and be able to do so on command by his officer without affecting
his conscience. Boot camp training results in changing or obliterating
the inherent nature of the person. This is accomplished through indoctrination,
training in the use of weapons and through repetitious simulated techniques
of killing. The military is not in the business of creating better citizens
or psychologically healthier individuals. Many when discharged cannot
adapt. Military training socializes their members in such a way, that they
are less capable of handling the stress and strain of normal, everyday
life. The primary goal of the military-training is to make people obey
without regard for their own physical safety or the objective morality
of whatever it is that they are being told to do. Ex: The tortures-homicides-and
sexual degradation of prisoners. This is achieved through depersonalization.
The ideal graduate of military training is an individual in a dissociative
state, awaiting orders-capable of killing on command.
-
- Naturally those already unhinged or suffering undiagnosed
mental problems may find the military the perfect place to act out their
perverse, warped fantasies, of killing and doing it legally or with little
accountability. Think this isn't possible? Think again. Years ago I witnessed,
supposedly ordinary citizens, working in an institution commit the most
heinous of acts on helpless, voiceless individuals. Don't let appearances
or soft spoken eloquence fool you. Evil doesn't always exhibit itself as
a slithering, reptilian creature, from the outer darkness. Time Daily writer
Frank Pellegrini, took a leave of absence to join the Army Reserves. He
writes of his experiences in boot camp.
-
- "Kill! Kill! It was Sunday, and the platoon was
stuck with a training session. This was as good as it gets so far. Bayonet
drills. Fifty of us in an empty classroom, slashing, thrusting and smashing
our way through imaginary commies, yelling, 'kill' with every move and
tossing out the creeds in unison. Blood, blood, blood makes the green grass
grow, drill sergeant!" and "Kill, kill, kill with the cold blue
steel. But it's amazing what an eight-inch blade will do for an empty gun,
even sheathed, and what a little savagery will do for a soldier-in training
who's beginning to think he's going to maid academy. Kill! Goddamn right.
Kill! Oh yeah, this was the stuff."
-
- But why are we shocked? After all we're old hands of
witnessing killing right here on our own soil. We've got our own Drug War
with the same mentality of boot training camp killing. Who can forget
the little Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez with MP-5 machine guns in his face.
But while this elicited much outrage because of its coverage it's all too
ordinary. Only thing is we're too busy being distracted with the electioneering
of Red, White and Boo, OJ's massacre, Clinton's antics in the Oral Office,
Janet Jackson's sorry breast, her bleached brother dancing on car roofs,
being told how great the economy is, with America's towns echoing and
rusting; or the eight day test pattern of President Reagan's beatification
and send off, to that ranch in the great beyond. The only thing missing
was Dale and Roy Rodgers waiting on the distant hillside singing "
Happy Trails".
-
- Take the case of Scott Bryant. Thirteen Wisconsin sheriff's
deputies burst into the 29-year old's trailer on the night of April 17,1995,
executing a no-knock warrant. Bryant who was unarmed was shot and killed
during the assault while his 7 year old son looked on. Police seized less
than three grams of marijuana. On review, the county district attorney
found that the shooting was "not in any way justified". Too bad
Scott wasn't a baseball player, a politician's relative, or some movie
star. Sometimes victims possess no drugs at all. Just ask the family of
Annie Dixon, an 84 year old grandmother shot and killed during a 2 a.m.
drug raid of her east Texas home in 1992. No drugs were found on the premises.
One officer later hypothesized that his gun accidentally discharged when
he kicked open Annie's bedroom door. No less vicious was the 1998 shooting
death of Pedro Oregon Navarro by Houston police. Six officers stormed his
home at 1:40 a.m. in a military style raid after a man arrested for public
drunkenness said Pedro was a drug dealer. Agents shot the half-awake man
12 times, killing him. A search of his premises produced no illicit drugs
or weapons.
-
-
- Think that your wealth will protect you? California rancher
Donald Scott, 61, met a similar fate in 1992, when a team of local and
federal agents burst into his mansion during an early morning raid (with
forfeiture agents). When Mr. Scott, thinking he was being invaded by burglars
reached for a pistol to defend himself. He was shot dead. Mr. Scott had
a huge ranch worth 45 million dollars. An investigation by the Ventura
County district attorney later revealed that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department had fabricated evidence that Mr. Scott was cultivating pot because
it hoped to seize his property, which was adjacent to a federal park. Ventura
County officials eventually agreed to pay the Scott family $4million in
damages, the federal government agreed to pay $1 million. Nobody went to
jail. For this grave injustice and premeditated murder citizens of California,
and we paid the tab.
-
- On Sept 29, 1999, Denver Swat agents descended on the
home of Ishmael Mena. Mr. Mena was the 45 year old father of nine children.
He was shot eight times and killed by police in the unannounced raid. No
drugs were found. Police had an incorrect address. An equally vicious and
unthinkable raid claimed the lie of Revered William, a Black, 75 year old,
retired Methodist minister. His elderly wife had gone out to the store.
He was sitting quietly near the window, in his sparsely furnished apartment,
when Boston Police crashed through the door. Drug agents chased Reverend
Williams to his bedroom, shoved him to the floor, and pointed guns at his
head-inducing the vomiting and heart attack that killed him. Boston Police
Commissioner Paul Evans later admitted that the police raided the wrong
apartment. "If that is the case, then there will be an apology"
he said. An apology! Since when did an apology raise someone from the dead?
Two years later, the city (tax payers) paid a $1 million settlement to
Reverend William's widow.
-
- On and on it goes, dozens and dozens of people killed,
Rodney King beaten down in the street. Amadou Diallo was shot in the lobby
of his apartment. This man was merely coming home from work and taking
his keys out of his pocket in the lobby of his apartment. How was he to
know that cowboy drug agents (he never was involved in drugs) were lying
in wait to cut him down in a hail of bullets? Kent State, Move (they dropped
a bomb on this Philadelphia block) Waco, Ruby Ridge etc.
-
- Terrorism. "The unlawful use or threatened use of
force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property
with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments,
often for ideological or political reasons". Many of these drug busts
or actions such as Waco/Ruby Ridge (check out testimony of hearings) are
done for the purpose of future funding. Terrorism. "The act of terrorizing,
or state of being terrorized, a mode of government by terror or intimidation".
Jefferson. How can we, in all honesty say, that since 9-11 no acts of
terrorism have taken place in our nation? An act of terror isn't the method,
the group, or the number of people killed. Can one possibly imagine the
terror of Reverend William's last moments? Sitting peacefully in his home
and then attacked by a gang of police. What of Mr.Scott, asleep in his
home? His last moments filled with terror because government officials
wanted his property!
-
- One has to wonder who these masked men are? What training
have they had which would so cause them to brutalize people? These were
ordinary people asleep in their beds, reading in an armchair, returning
home from a day's work. All non-threatening, all unarmed, all no threat
to flak jacket-helmeted police with assault guns. What psychological testing
has been done on those entering the military or those involved in any type
of police work? If one has to now have a background check for the most
menial of jobs, what about those with guns, clubs, tanks, missiles, and
bombs? What utter hypocrisy has zero tolerance for normal childhood behavior
in schools, while those in positions of authority, suffer no consequences
when killing innocent people?
-
- No amount of duct tape or plastic sheeting would have
protected these people from harm. If we are training men to kill, that
everyone is the enemy; Iraqi or American (in civilian clothes). Who is
safe? Yes, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, can laud security.
Why not? Armies of troops surround them wherever they go in their armored
vehicles. Concrete barriers and snipers on rooftops watch every suspicious
move. Whole towns or countries are shut down when they travel. Mr. Cheney
went from bunker to bunker during the 9-11 crises. We were told to buy
duct tape and plastic sheeting! If a family, a grandmother in her bed,
a minister reading the Scriptures, is not safe in their own home then nobody
is safe. I say we stop the terrorism here on the home front before searching
out those hiding out amongst a population of 1.6 billion.
-
- William Pitt expressed the importance Americans once
placed on the sanctity of the home from trespass when he said, "The
poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown.
It may be frail-its roof may shake-the wind may blow through it-the storm
may enter-the rain may enter-but the King of England cannot enter-all his
force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." The fact
that our government and law enforcement now view the sovereignty of the
home as a quaint anachronism should frighten us all. Think of Reverend
William's last moments. Think of all those cut down in the rush and trill
of killing another. Haidar, of Iraq, was not a "camel jockey, towel
head, sand nigger or rag head". He loved and was loved, and now he's
dead. His "liberation" saw him bleeding to death in a gutter
shot by those who came to rescue him from Saddam! Will we ever know sanity
again with such acts as these? Let us pray. "In This Universe The
Night was Falling, The Shadows were lengthening towards an east that would
not know another dawn. But elsewhere the Stars were still young and the
light of morning lingered: and along the path he once had followed, Man
would one day go again." Arthur Clarke, The City & The Stars
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