Bring The Troops Home, Goddammit

A little reminder for all the Fortunate Sons:



Bring them back, goddammit, and not in body bags, either.

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In Memoriam: Veterans' Day 2010

Forever young, all those who fell. Forever wounded, all those who returned.

If you haven't already, do something today to honour your brothers and sisters in uniform. They have freely chosen to give their service to the nation. Many have lost their lives in doing so. Others have lost limbs, or minds.

Today, we have 6,500 homeless female veterans on the streets. That's double the number from a mere decade ago. What's worse is, they represent a mere ten per cent of homeless veterans. There are 65,000 people out there who risked life and limb to serve, and this is how we thank them?

Today, we here at La Casa de Los Gatos want to thank all those who served, in whatever capacity. Special mention to VoteVets founder Jon Soltz, relentless critic of the Iraq War, who learned today that he has been called up for military service. He will be part of the last contingent of American troops in Iraq, closing down our military presence there. Special mention to Roger Greenan, VN vet, now at Fiddlers' Green. Special mention to Pat Tillman, a modern-day Renaissance man cut down by supposedly "friendly" fire. Special mention to Louis Rochat, VN vet, also at Fiddlers' Green, no doubt telling tall tales to the men whose lives he tried so hard to save. Special mention to Warren Leeder, a conscientious objector who nevertheless served as a medic. He didn't carry a gun, nor did he sit on his ass at home. No, he carried his medic's bag into foxholes as bombs rained down around him. Thanks to him, at least a dozen came back who would otherwise be fertilizing some foreign field. RIP, Warren.

Those of you not named here, and you know who you are, you're too precious and important to be named in public. So there.

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Politics: Forgotten "Heroes" of a Forgotten War

It's heartwarming, to say the least, that despite the unpopularity of both the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars, the troops who are doing the fighting have not faced anything like the hostility and condemnation that Vietnam veterans faced when they returned from that unfortunate military episode. Despite the fact that the Vietnam "war" was never actually a war (that is, Congress never actually declared war) and that it was originally sold to the public and the military as a noble attempt to "contain" the "communists," it was, at least initially, quite popular with the American public.

It was not until later in the prosecution of this terrible adoration of Moloch that the American public, seeing their sons come home in body bags, turned against the war that was not a war. Some 58,000 dead sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, and friends later.

The legacy of that military orgy remain with us today. It'll be gone soon enough, when we sweep the last of the bodies under the rug and continue with the foolish militarism that Eisenhower's warned-of "military-industrial complex" continues to indulge in, at the expense of minds and bodies worldwide.

In the interim, what we have are incidents like these:



The elderly man in this clip is one Thomas Bruso, known throughout the Bay Area as "Tom Slick," or "Vietnam Tom." He is apparently well known throughout the Bay Area, having been involved in at least one other videotaped altercation. He swears like a fucking longshoreman, and as you visitors and friends at this fine blog can testify, that makes him exceedingly popular with los gatos de mi casa, given as we are to the fine art of fucking swearing.

Mr. Bruso is, some say, 62 years old, or perhaps 67. Nobody seems to know exactly. The other incident that brought him to the attention of the authorities involved an A's game. Mr. Bruso apparently brought his own alcohol to the game and sat in a seat that he was not entitled to deposit his arse in. Some irate motherfucker or the other called the police, and multiple pigs descended on this elderly gentleman and proceeded to taser the fuck out of him.

To the credit of the fine people of Oakland who were watching the game, the crowd pretty universally booed the pigs, and they have been forced to defend their use of a taser on an elderly man whose only apparent crime was to flip them a finger for interrupting his enjoyment of the game.

Of course, Mr. Bruso may be elderly but he is a motherfucking big guy, and apparently scares the shit out of a lot of people when he starts cussing. Buncha fucking pussies, if you ask me. Actually, los gatos de mi casa would like to repudiate the use of that term and refer you, our fine readers, to cats of your own acquaintance who, in the middle of a fight, have been known to call each other things that would make a longshoreman faint dead away.

In the event, it is not clear to us that Mr. Bruso actually *is* a vet, or actually served in Vietnam, but it appears to be the case, and we take the man at his word. As for his encounter with this dumbass, some people — a lot of people, sadly — are trying to make this about race.

To that, and to those people, let me just say a hearty "Fuck you." Black, brown, and white, all of us who saw this saw an idiot messing with a guy that he should have left alone. And he got his fucking ass kicked, and that's fine by me, and, apparently, by a huge honkin' slice of Oakland's nonwhite community. So don't try to make this about no white people's shit, because it ain't. Kudos to the black lady who tried to calm everyone down and keep the situation from escalating. And a heartfelt kick in the ass to the bitches who kept egging the parties on.

It's about acting tough and trying to fuck people over and getting what you deserve.

The people who videotaped this whole escapade apparently stole (as seen on the video clip) Mr. Bruso's bag, and although police returned it to him some time later, it was missing the money that had been it. I hope the thief develops the world's worst case of crotch rot that will only be alleviated by returning the money.

The upshot of this little incident is that Mr. Bruso was taken by the police to a psychiatric facility to be evaluated. Apparently, he had gone off his medication.

In the event, it ended reasonably well for Mr. Bruso. He was released, and his assailant has refused to press charges. I guess it's just too embarrassing to admit that someone your granddad's age fucking kicked your ass even though you were armed with a knife. It should keep the idiot, at least temporarily, from pulling knives on elderly bus riders.

Here is Mr. Bruso telling his story:



You can tell from listening to him that something is not quite right with Mr. Bruso. He might be developmentally disabled or delayed; he might be mentally ill. Nothing has been confirmed as yet. But there was no call for that bratty little thug to treat him the way he did, and I'm glad that Mr. Bruso escaped unhurt.

In the meantime, he's become an Internet sensation. Apparently, a lot of people are really really pissed off about the thug shit they see going down every day, and the unfortunate characters involved in this YouTube episode have attained the status of a meme. Mr. Bruso is now Epic Beard Man, although I'm not sure he understands any of it. Whatthefuckever, yaknow?

Just please note that if he actually is a Vietnam vet, Mr. Bruso represents a generation — some 3 million young men (mostly) and a few young women — who answered their country's call and (mostly) volunteered to serve in Vietnam because their leaders told them that they were protecting America and keeping her safe. And many of those who fought in that "war that was not a war" came home to a lukewarm welcome at best. More to the point, many of them came home severely fucked up, to a country that did not seem to want to address what they had gone through.

It's too late, probably, to fix whatever went wrong with most of the boys who were shipped over there with their young heads stuffed full of lies. But it's not too late to help the men they have become. If you know a vet who served in that war, thank them for their service. Give them a little respect. Understand that they've seen things, and lived through things, that would have you screaming from nightmares for the rest of your life. They didn't ask for it and they didn't know, but they and their families have had to deal with all kinds of toxic fallout — physical, mental, and emotional — for decades. So give them the kindness of your attention and your respect.

Note: As always, the jackals and vultures are already hovering. Someone's selling "I Am A Motherfucker" teeshirts and advertising it via YouTube, claiming they'll give some of the money to Mr. Bruso. I kind of doubt that. But who knows? We'll try to follow up on Mr. Bruso's story. In the meantime, if anybody tells you this is about race and white people kicking black folks' ass, or black "thugs" owning public transportation, please tell them to just go fuck themselves. The man is not quite right and I hope no one takes advantage of him.

That is all.

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Politics: Torturing Your Children

This is what making war does to us, people. This is what it's done historically, except we just can't seem to learn, can we?

What's "this," you ask? Yeah, I know, nobody wants to click a link anymore because you just don't know what kind of malware or spam or really depressing shite is on the other end.

See, what we have here, in today's story of the military and war and chickens coming home to roost is, we have a 27-year-old soldier admitting to the cops that he pushed his four-fucking-year-old daughter's face into a kitchen sink filled with hot water and held her under because "she could not recite her alphabet," and didn't know her colours and numbers.

The child had "severe bruising on her entire back," "scratch marks on her back made in a downward motion" and "bruising on both of her arms, her legs and her buttocks," the police report said.

Jesus fucking J.H. Christ. A fucking four-year-old. Oh, and, he

allegedly told police he'd chosen a water-based technique because his daughter was terrified of water.

I wonder why. He did it three or four times. He has sole custody of his daughter.

Now, why would a man do this to his own kid? I don't know. Lots of parents abuse their kids, and the things they do to them are often so horrible as to make you wish for the immediate destruction of the entire human race because, by god, what the fuck happens to a kid who has to live through something like that, can they ever trust in the goodness of any human being again? Do they all turn into malevolent little psychopaths themselves, lighting their little classmates on fire, or raping men or women at random or breeding their own little next generation of victims?

It is enough to choke a person with the bitter taste of despair.

But why I bring this story to your attention, dear ones, is: what he did to his kid, rather than why. Which is, something very close to waterboarding.

Technically, there are a few differences. The kid was not tied to a flat surface, did not have fabric covering mouth and nose, did not have water poured on those until it experienced a simulated drowning. I'm not sure, though, that it's a hella improvement. I am pretty sure that poor child really would not care to dispute the finer points of the difference.

This is why we, as a nation, should eschew torture: because we risk finding it used against ourselves, not just by "bad guys in black hats." Not just by terrorists. Not just by those who capture our troops on the battlefield, and, having heard of our despicable actions in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, want vengeance for our rape and sodomizing and beating and blinding of their brothers and sisters, whether biological or religious or cultural.

But because, worse yet, when we stand up and say that what we are doing is not wrong, we are giving permission to all those people that we train in these methods, or who hear about or read about these things, to practice them on us. On the civilians to whose supportive embrace they return after getting their heads well and truly fucked up out there, wherever they've been simulating drowning anybody they identify as "bad guys," regardless of whether those are defenseless women like Aafia Siddiqui or teenage boys. Or their own four-year-old daughters.

Who knows why this little girl is in her father's sole custody? I see many people blaming the mother, speculating about how much "worse" she might be than the father. We don't know. The mother might be terminally ill. Or mentally unstable. She might be a drug addict. She might have lost her job, or her home, or have no source of income. She might be so afraid of the child's father that she did not contest custody.

He was, after all, arrested for threatening to break his neighbours' windows with his Kevlar helmet.

Maybe he's psychotic. Maybe that resulted from his deployment. Maybe PTSD has finally broken him and made it impossible for him to distinguish anymore between the four-year-old child of his own body and the last guy he waterboarded.

According to his estranged wife, the guy has "anger management issues." Yeah, I'll just fucking bet he does. His current girlfriend agrees. When the police showed up at his home at 2 am, they had to coax the little girl out of the bathroom, where she had locked herself for fear of her father.

The child is now in the custody of her maternal grandparents, and has said she never wants to leave. Her mother flew in from Kansas to get the child, but the maternal grandmother apparently filed to assert custody. The father is out on bail, but restricted to base (Fort Lewis).

Somebody please get the father some help now. And the mother, too, if she needs it.

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War Crimes: Never Forget

Ishii Shiro

If you want to know why this Cat hasn't posted much of late, you should read about Ishii Shiro. Who, you might ask, is Ishii Shiro? And why should he keep a Cat from blogging politics?

WARNING: Graphic subject matter.

The preceding link takes you to a Wikipedia entry on Ishii. The information there is scant, and only linked so that you, should you choose to follow the link, will know who this man is. However, the article glosses over the fact that Ishii Shiro was a monster equalling any the world has ever known, in depth of depravity if not scope. He may not have murdered as many people as Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot, but that was for lack of opportunity, not intent.

For those who don't want to click the link, here are a few basic facts: Ishii Shiro was a microbiologist who joined the Japanese Imperial Army before its criminal aggressions in World War II. He was ultimately promoted to the rank of General. He started a military unit tasked with bacteriological and chemical warfare. In the course of his tenure at this unit (the infamous Unit 731), Ishii authorized and conducted experiments on living human beings, including babies. These experiments included bombing live humans, then observing their sufferings for weeks as the shrapnel from such bombs infected the test subjects with various bacteria, including plague, cholera, typhus, and the like. He authorized and performed vivisection on political prisoners and prisoners of war and unfortunate people seized for various reasons, or for no reason at all, by the Kempeitai, that group of sadists and malign misanthropes often miscalled "the Japanese military police."

Vivisection at Unit 731

Note the unfortunate subject's hands, bound, as he is being cut open while still alive and conscious.

You will ask why I chose to read about Unit 731. Quite honestly, I put off reading the book as long as I could. It was not pleasant reading. However, I highly recommend that anyone who would claim the label of pacifist, anyone who believes in non-violence, or ahimsa, anyone who opposes war, do the same.

We cannot fight a thing if we don't know what it is. Saying "war is evil" without knowing anything about war is mere bloviation.

War has been part of the human condition since the first proto-human brained his brother (literal or otherwise) with a rock as they fought over access to scarce resources.

Today our capacity to make war threatens every living thing on this planet. We could destroy our entire planet many times over, although it only needs destroying once to make the issue moot.

It bothers me that, of late, nearly every article on astronomy I read in scientific publications seems to contain the assumption that we are looking for a new home, a new planet to house our discordant species. Are we so close to the destruction of this, our home? Is there some plan afoot about which we, the labouring masses, know nothing and guess little? And, should we find it necessary to leave this planet, are we only taking with us the seeds of our future destruction?

We are still involved in two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we elected Barack Obama to the highest office in the land, he promised us that the troops would be coming home soon.

I have plenty of respect and admiration for President Obama. He's doing a great job, given the mess he inherited. But while we are drawing down troops in Iraq, and finally bringing them home; while we are closing for good that monument to the fall from grace of America The Once-Beautiful, the torture chambers of Guantanamo Bay Prison; while we have finally resolved the amorphous and overly-broad scope of the "War Against Terror" into a mission to seek and destroy Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, his evil stepchild — I cannot but be troubled over our sending more troops to Afghanistan.

I understand that in order to safeguard itself and attain its objective, the US/NATO force currently in Afghanistan does require reinforcements. And it will be no easy task to finally clean up the mess that our Former Dear Leader Dick "they call me Dick for a reason" Cheney/Gee, Dumb? Yeah! Bouchebag and that ambulatory purulence, Donald Rumsfeld, left behind in Afghanistan.

I understand we can't just pull our military out all over the world and "bring the troops home" en masse, no matter how much we want to. We must ensure that those troops have something to come home to — jobs, or opportunities therefor, at least; the rescaling and restructuring of the military; training that will allow members of the military to do something very different than what they've been doing for the past X years. Medical issues, contract issues, benefits, all have to be managed, and with minimum disruption.

Most importantly, I believe that, although a standing army is pretty much required of any nation in this day and age, we need — we all need — to learn how to be a nation at peace. The military budget is destroying this country. We are spending millions on machines that have only one purpose: to kill or maim other human beings.

Most of us find the thought of killing and injuring other people distasteful. If we did not, there would be no need to demonize the enemy. Apparently, we don't find it distasteful enough to stop our country from becoming a vast military-industrial Moloch that grinds our own children to death in its jaws. We sacrifice the best of ourselves, our humanity, our health, our lives, and the lives of others, casually, to feed the beast. And the same people who support the burgeoning military budget complain at having to spend less than one-fifth of that amount to ensure the nation's health. (FYI: 2009 military budget: $515 billion. Estimated yearly expenditure on the public option: $90 billion annually.)

The time has come for that to end. This means we all need to learn, to see, to feel, to think, without equivocation, without flinching, about war. About exactly what it is.

And this is what it is. Torture, sadism, cruelty, inhumane acts, evil. War represents the worst in the human spirit, that allows us to justify killing old men, blowing up pregnant women, blowing limbs off little children.

Could you cut open a living human being? Dr. Ishii could. He did. He ordered his subordinates to, as well. You might say, "But I am not responsible for Dr. Ishii. This happened many years ago, and I was not even alive, at the time."

This is why you cannot plead that defense: Dr. Ishii and the scientists of Unit 731 were never prosecuted for their crimes. In return for access to their research on live human subjects — experiments forbidden by any code of ethics — Douglas MacArthur, and through him the United States of America, offered these war criminals full immunity from prosecution.

What Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and their cohorts authorized in Iraq and Afghanistan bears plenty of resemblance (perhaps they didn't go as far as vivisection, although we don't yet know) to what was done by Unit 731. And these war criminals continue to walk among us, scot-free.

Here, for your delectation, some excerpts from this exceptional chronicling of Unit 731, Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II, by Peter Williams and David Wallace:

The unit was referred to under a number of different names at different times: Ishii Unit; Manchuria 25202 Unit; Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit.

...

One of Ishii's dreams could come true — doctors in combat alongside the glorious infantry.

Doctors in combat. Those who take an oath to preserve health and life, serving alongside, and assisting, those sworn to take both health and life from anyone they, or their superiors, identify as "the enemy." Ishii set up his headquarters at P'ing Fan, in Manchuria. It was by order of the Japanese Emperor of the time, Hirohito, that the size of the detachment was fixed at 3,000 personnel.

Ever since his trip to Europe, plague had fascinated Ishii. ... Plague could create casualties often out of all proportion to the number of bacteria disseminated. Ishii deduced, therefore, that it would make an efficient weapon and set about preparing the most dangerous strains. He looked to history, to the great plagues that had ravaged continents and delighted in the chaos that such a weapon would create. ...

Plague had another advantage for Ishii. Its origins could be concealed.

...

Russians from Hogoin were only one source of human guinea pigs. Most, around 70 per cent, were Chinese soldiers, intellectuals and local worker agitators apprehended by the Kenpeitai and Secret Service throughout Manchuria.

Such human experimental material included those designated as

suspected spy, saboteur, or ideological criminal, perhaps an opium smoker, pro-Soviet and anti-Japanese, "disloyal," of no value for "enlistment," unwilling for "re-education," of no fixed abode, or simply whose release was "undesirable."

...

Unsuspecting and innocent people were also tricked into the clutches of Unit 731. Some were lured by the prospect of employment. Young boys, mothers and children, even pregnant women were trapped.

Prisoners were referred to as "maruta," which is the Japanese word for a log of wood.

Talk about dehumanization!

A maruta was just a number, a piece of experimental material. They were not even regarded as human beings.

...

The prison was a vision of hell. Through the spyhole cut in the steel doors of each cell, the plight of the chained marutas could be seen. Some had rotting limbs, bits of bone protruding through skin blackened by necrosis. Others were sweating in high fever, writhing in agony or moaning in pain. ... An infected person would be put with healthy marutas to see how easily diseases spread.

...

Marutas were "used up" at the rate of two or three per day.

Among the prisoners on whom such inhumane tests were performed were 88,000 American and Filipino PoWs captured during the fall of Bataan and Corregidor. Some of these, together with Australian, British, and New Zealand PoWs (a total of 1,485) were sent to Manchuria. How many White Russians perished at P'ing Fan is not clear. At least the Chinese and the Allies have some record of how many of their people died.

The Soviet Union prosecuted those members of Unit 731 that they captured for war crimes. They were sentenced to lengthy terms but not put to death. Eventually, they were released and repatriated to Japan. Those who evaded capture by the Soviets ended up under the military authority of the United States. In exchange for their experimental data, Douglas MacArthur and, through him, the United States Government, shielded these war criminals from prosecution, essentially giving them a free pass. Many of them went on to win high honours in their quickly-resumed professional lives.

And the U.S. government took the data from Unit 731 and conducted bacteriological warfare against the North Koreans. Uninformed Americans wonder why the North Koreans are so paranoid. In their place, wouldn't you be? Information has only now, 50+ years later, begun to surface about war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Korea. But the truth about bacterial weapons used against the Koreans is not yet common knowledge even in the U.S.

While civilian Japanese paid with their lives and health at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ishii Shiro and his cohorts lived in comparative wealth and splendour to the end of their days. While his countrymen starved and suffered, Ishii Shiro and the commanders of Unit 731 lived well. Some of these monsters — perhaps all of them, by now — are dead. But their crimes must never die.

Chinese and Japanese protest war crimes of Unit 731

We must never forget that we human beings are capable of doing such things to each other. We invoke war as our excuse to dispel the last shreds of our humanity. It has often been said of humankind that we are "midway between angel and ape." The deeds of Unit 731 put the lie to that claim. No ape could, or would, cause such suffering to its fellow apes, and justify it so disingenuously.

In all honesty, although this book took weeks to read, and more weeks to recover from, this Cat has actually also been occupied with the monumental task of editing several books. That task is now drawing to a close, and this blog will resume its regular assault upon your consciousness.

Thank you for your attention.

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Obama: You Can Only Steal from the People For So Long ...

Like many people, I am so very disappointed in President Obama. He’s just not listening to the Peacemaker inside of him (shouting to come out!) -- but who is he listening to? Definitely not former President Eisenhower.

“I hate war,” said Dwight Eisenhower, “as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

He also said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

-- Using that quote from Pres. Eisenhower is how Bob Herbert started his column called “A Tragic Mistake” in today’s New York Times. It’s a very good essay. I recommend it to you.

Then there is Michael Moore’s letter to Obama. I recommend that you read that one too, dear Reader.

Mr. President, I’m just so disappointed -- even while I also held the thought that you were a centrist politician, nowhere near a progressive, really. Disappointed that you don't have the courage of your convictions. Or ... maybe you're just too tired for another fight. It’s been said recently that you are looking very very tired.

Plus, I guess you’re worrying about your re-election. In that sense, you are like every other politician. I guess that’s why I’m so disappointed. Because, even though you are not progressive, I thought you were different than other politicians.

War. It steals from us, the people. It has been bringing us down for a long time. Have we paid off the Vietnam War yet?

How can we pay for yet another war? And I mean in every sense of the word “pay.”

To many of us, we believe that this country is going the way of the Roman Empire ... the British Empire. Maybe that’s as it should be. We’ve had more than our fair share for a long time.

And, you, my president (for I did vote for you) ... you are going the way of all those other presidents who don’t know what regular folks’ lives are like. We are terrified. We are terrified for our children and our grandchildren. WAR STEALS FROM THE PEOPLE. It was that radical person, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would have said that. You can only steal from the people for so long.

Plus, Mr. President, I think it was really weasly of you to give your address at West Point. Why didn’t you come to Oakland, California, where I live, and give it here? Weasly. Can’t take the heat, eh? Come and look into the faces of regular folks, and the homeless and unemployed, and tell them that we will be making more bombs and armaments -- that’s how we’ll be spending our limited amount of money. Not on our beloved children who deserve the best education -- they too -- all of them -- deserve an “elite” education. (See this great article about all children deserving an elite education.)

A tragic mistake for all of us. You can only steal from the people for so long. It's always us regular folks who suffer, though, from the tragic mistakes of our arrogant leaders.

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Politics: War Atrocities

Goya, War

Because, as you know, this blog is dedicated to peace, to the end of war and its atrocities, to the hope of a brighter tomorrow when we will no longer throw our children — and everyone else's — into the gaping maw of Moloch.

The combat soldier, as an absolutely deprived person, responds to direct situational exigencies. [...] Deadening fear intermingles with acts of bravery. [...]

If enemy prisoners are taken, they may be subjected to atrocities in the rage of the battle or its immediate aftermath. The soldier's distaste of endangering civilians may be overcome by his fear that [the enemy], of any age or sex, can be responsible for his own death (Ed: Or the death of those of his comrades whom he has been trained to think of as his best and only friends.) Where the opportunity arises, looting often occurs. War souvenirs are frequently collected either to be kept personally or later sold to rear-echelon servicemen. (Italics added. Editorial note from ThePoliticalCat.)

— Charles C. Moskos, as cited inMalaya and Singapore During The Japanese Occupation

The "absolutely deprived person" status that is inflicted on servicemen as part of their basic training has the effect of deadening them to all that is human and humane. Apparently, such deadening no longer has the desired effect, for even these poor, pitiful humans retain some vestige of conscience and feeling. They come back from their war crimes with PTSD, and inflict upon their loved ones, neighbours, families, and society in general, the cost of rehabilitating them and dealing with their costly and painful suffering.

Thus, our armies now seek robots, "unmanned drones," that do not, and cannot, suffer any twinge of conscience about killing the innocent, the unarmed, the civilians who are so unfortunate as to live in a zone of war.

It is stated as a matter of fact in many of the memoirs written by PoWs in the Pacific Theater during WW II that their Korean and Taiwanese guards were often more brutal and inhumane than even the Japanese soldiers, who committed unparalleled war crimes in their imperialist expansion into Southeast Asia. Upon reading at greater length of the treatment meted out to these unfortunate "Imperial subjects" of Korea and Taiwan, it becomes clear that the dehumanization process to which these unfortunate "subjects" were subjected could only be remedied or stalled by inflicting upon their helpless prisoners torments that were at least as unpleasant as those that they themselves suffered.

Thus the cycle continues. Each person one rung up on the ladder of abuse directs their kicks and blows to those one rung below. Those at the very bottom of that ladder have no one upon whom to vent their frustrations and rage, and so turn them inward and punish each other and themselves, as they have been taught and shown to do.

Picasso, Guernica

When will humanity emerge from these dark ages? When will we evolve beyond the need of war? It must come soon, or we will surely destroy ourselves and all we hold dear. Iran announced the existence of a hidden uranium-refining facility, and everywhere, the neocons have crawled out of the woodwork demanding an immediate attack upon that unfortunate nation. Why? Because the government of the State of Israel, a bunch of neocon hacks and hawks to the last man, are "afraid" of the possibility that Iran might soon have nuclear weapons. Earliest estimates of this happening range from one to five years. Not that facts should get in the way of hysteria, of course.

Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons, but will neither confirm nor deny that it does so. Israel is not a signatory to the NNPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Iran is. Iran has notified the IAEA, as required by its membership in the IAEA, of its "secret" facility. Iran has also agreed to permit IAEA inspectors to assess its nuclear sites. Israel, not being a signatory to this, most important treaty, refuses to release any information whatsoever about what its doing with nuclear power. Israel is a hawkish state, constantly engaging in acts of hostility against its neighbours, supported by the U.S. to the tune of $10 million in taxpayer money PER DAY. In addition to obscene yearly quantities of military aid. Just this year, despite our own horrendous economic situation, we gave Israel nearly $3 billion in military aid.

The interests of the Israeli people are not being represented by their government, which prefers to use its own civilians as an excuse for further armament rather than negotiate peaceful solutions with its neighbours. Children of Abraham, of Hagar and Sarah, the time has come to beat your swords into plowshares. If you do not, then you will all be obliterated when the Third World War begins, because there are too many people who want it to begin on your doorstep. It is not a war that anyone will survive.

As Tom Lehrer sang, "We'll all go together when we go." Rather than contemplate the death of every living being on this planet, let us work together to a just solution. It can be done, if we all insist on it. Those Christian Dominionists who want Armageddon and The Rapture, do you think that teacher who said "Love thy neighbour as thyself; there is no greater commandment than [this]" would care for your efforts to create Armageddon?

Crossposted over at The Peace Tree

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World: Afghanistan

Welp, it looks like more and more Dems are coming around to Senator Russ Feingold's point of view on Afghanistan. And none too soon, given the recent news of rowdy fratboy misbehaviour by U.S. citizens in this deeply conservative Islamic nation.

What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan, anyway? It's a pointless war. The idea was to go in, get bin Laden and whoever else is in charge in al-Qaeda, and get the fuck out. But now, General Stanley McChrystal, top American commander in Afghanistan, is asking for more U.S. troops. And NATO is purportedly planning to increase its commitment to Afghanistan, according to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary-general of NATO. "As long as it takes," says Rasmussen. As long as WHAT takes, sir? What are you hoping to accomplish?

Afghanistan is a pathetically poor nation, historically torn by fighting. Everyone seems to want a piece of that poverty-stricken land, beginning with Sikandar (Alexander the Great to you Greco-Romanists), and moving through Britain and Russia to the United States, and now an alliance of Western powers fronted by NATO. So far, no one's had much luck winning a war there. The British gave up after multiple defeats. The defeat of the Russians occurred within our own lifetimes. And now the US/NATO Coalition of Teh Stupid is getting ground to dust.

Clausewitz has this, among other things, to say about war:

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

Given that Clausewitz is somewhat of an authority on war, it would behoove both NATO and the US to remember that. And what are the politics of Afghanistan?

Historically, Afghanistan has been a land of warring tribes, fierce and intransigent, deeply committed to a harsh version of the Muslim faith it adopted circa 650 AD. United for a little over a century into a kingdom comprising multiple dynasties and tribal alliances, these tribes have long resisted any semblance of comity, being more likely to invest their energies in settling grievances with each other by whatever means and having long since grown adept at manipulating foreigners against each other for their own survival and vengeance.

Thus, the question restates itself: What are the political aims of the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan? Uniting the country? That seems laughable. There is no "country of Afghanistan," only a series of tribes that have fought each other for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years and will continue to fight each other long after the latest in a series of invaders has been crushed into exhaustion by the hostile climate, terrain, and natives.

Alleviating the lot of the natives? Well, war is the worst possible way to go about that. We appear to be killing lots of innocent, and possibly also not-so-innocent, civilians. In the event, a country torn by war, poverty, corruption, crime, and suffering does not allow democracy to take root in its bitter soil. Democracy requires the active participation of informed people. The people of Afghanistan are too busy fleeing bombs, being killed and maimed, and attempting to stay alive to spend time gathering information. And our presence there, far from alleviating their lot, is killing them.



It doesn't help to have the examples of other failed wars in Asia: Japan's war in China, and the U.S. involvement in Korea, and VietNam. To quote Bernard Viscount Montgomery,

[...] Rule 2 of war [...] is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.
In the House of Lords, 30 May 1962 (Hansard, Col. 227)

And subsequently, upon the involvement of the U.S. in the VietNam conflict:

The US has broken the second rule of war. That is, don't go fighting with your land army on the mainland of Asia. [...]

As is always the case, corruption is rife in a land torn by war. No one seems to care about what the Afghanis themselves think about the Taliban, or the puppet dictator, Hamid Karzai, that we have foisted on them.

What exactly are we hoping to achieve in Afghanistan? Because if our aim is to ensure that natural gas flows from the rich fields around the Caspian Sea to ports where it can be transhipped to countries hungry for this rich natural resource, then perhaps we ought to be less hypocritical about it and either sterilize the entire nation of its inhabitants, or just buy it outright and pay the Afghanis to settle elsewhere.

Inhumane, you say? Of course it's inhumane. But how humane is it to prop up a corrupt, American-owned dictator who watches and pockets our riches anyway even as little girls and boys have their arms and legs blown off?

This is a problem that requires a political, not a military solution. So far, 21,000 troops have been sent there to fight and kill and be killed.

Photo by Julie Jacobson, AP

No more. Let's bring them home, people. Supporting the troops means not using them in the Gee, Dumb? Yeah! war of convenience. The Afghanis don't want us there. They want us to give them the training to become adept at defending themselves and then get the fuck out. What the fuck are we waiting for?

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R.I.P. Roger Greenan

Roger Alan Greenan

Roger Greenan died of a heart attack a week ago. He was a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam Conflict (as my friend, a VN vet, reminds me, it was not a war).

I met Roger in Singapore, when he was working in Indonesia, some years after his time in Vietnam. He was a neighbour, an acquaintance, and later, a friend. A very valuable friend. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that I would not be here today if not for Roger.

I lost touch with Roger long ago — he was a very dynamic individual, and moved around a great deal, and I — well, I was young and rootless and fairly directionless, as well, moving around a great deal myself.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to find Roger again. And, ironically, too late. Because the one thing I wanted to do was thank Roger for his kindness to me. He took it upon himself to talk to me about life and the art of living. For reasons unbeknownst to me, he worked to get past my rudeness and hostility towards him, and in so doing, made me understand that I had to make a choice, and spiraling downwards into depression and suicide was not a choice, but a renunciation of choice. It takes a little work to make a choice. Lying back and letting things happen is not making a choice, it's abdicating from one's responsibilities.

Other things Roger taught me: A person's first responsibility is to themselves. You, and you alone, are responsible for figuring out your life and living it. Only after you have discharged that essential responsibility are you in a position to take on any additional responsibilities. Life is a struggle, and a body has to do whatever they need to in order to survive. Survival is more important than dignity.

I'm sorry I never got to say thank you, Roger, but I've thought of you constantly throughout the years. So here's my public acknowledgement: Thank you, Roger Greenan, for all that you did for me. You were a good man, and generous to a fault.

Details of Roger's life and death are available here. As you can see from reading it, my high opinion of Roger was shared by many.

As an atheist, I feel the loss of Roger more keenly than those who might believe in some deity that ensures further contact with the dead. I'm not sure what "R.I.P." means, really, for people like me, except that, as Shakespeare said, so long ago,

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!

He was only 67 — rather young to have gone. My mother was 84 when she popped her clogs, and Dad is in his mid-nineties, and still with us. Undoubtedly, being sent to VN and serving in the frontlines of that conflict shortened his life. As it will shorten the lives of all those still among us, who served. Goodbye, Roger. Trouble will trouble you no more. Thanks for all you did, for so many. You were a good and courageous man.

Renownéd be thy grave.

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World: No Regrets?

No, it's not the Billie Holliday song. It's what's happening in the trials of the Khmer Rouge criminals right now.

Prisoner at Tuol Sleng, Pol Pot's notorious S-21 prison

No, my knowledge of Kampuchean history is not great. I know something about the early history of the Khmer and other peoples of that part of Southeast Asia, the Funanese empire, the Dong Son bronzes, but almost nothing about their modern history, except that my parents greatly respected and admired Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

I am about to begin my historical explorations of that deeply wretched nation.

However, today's report from Reuters does not bode well for my virtual travels thereto. According to Reuters, one Mam Nay, aka Chan, who served for a time as an interrogator under Pol Pot's head jailor, Duch (real name Kaing Guek Eav) testified in court today that he has no regrets for

what happened at the Tuol Sleng prison, where more than 14,000 men, women and children were killed, [...].

Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, is the infamous prison referred to in "The Killing Fields."

No regrets for this, Mr. Chan? Or Mam Nay, if you prefer?

Tortured Prisoner, one of 6,000 photographs left behind when Khmer Rouge jailors evicted Tuol Sleng prison in advance of invading VietNamese troops

Mam Nay, who is appearing as a witness for the prosecution in the joint Kampuchean-UN war crimes trials, has denied any part in torture or killings of prisoners and blamed the United States and Vietnam for undermining his country.

"My only regret was our country was invaded," he told the joint Cambodian-U.N. tribunal. "Frankly speaking, the Americans invaded us then Vietnam invaded us. That is my regret."

[...]

"I did not use torture in my interrogation. I believed I would not get a true confession."

Asked about the deaths of innocent people, Nay, 76, said: "None of them was innocent -- those people committed offences, either minor or serious.

"This was the reason for their arrest. How serious or how minor, I don't know."

Note: This guy was a schoolteacher. Maybe he was a brainwashed cadre turned schoolteacher. But how do you become a schoolteacher if you cannot empathize with frightened children? And some of the 14-20,000 imprisoned at Tuol Sleng were children. Ony six people survived that prison. The remaining 13,994 — or 19,994, no one really knows — died as a result of torture.

There is no denying that the US bombing of Kampuchea and various associated military actions led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. But who thought they would be so inhumane as to kill between 1 and 3 million of their own people? Between the U.S. bombing and the NVA attempts to escape U.S. military actions by slipping over the border into Kampuchean territory, evicting Kampucheans, and training members of the Khmer Rouge, Kampuchea's attempts at neutrality and Sihanouk's heroic efforts in that direction were virtually worthless. Here is a brief background on these aspects of Kampuchean history.

Mam Nay, or Mr. Chan, or whatever you call yourself, should a "minor" offense warrant waterboarding? Or, as Americans and other Westerners used to refer to it, "Chinese" or "Japanese" water torture?

Picture taken by Jonah Blank in 2005 at the Tuol Sleng Museum. Published on the Web by David Corn.*

Oh, well. I guess now that it's come to light that we waterboarded mentally ill or innocent or possibly innocent people ourselves, repeatedly, I guess we're in no position to quibble about anyone else's crimes.

Ain't torture egalitarian?

*See here for copyright/licensing information on this picture.

Incidentally, the still-adored ex-partner made a trip to those parts some years ago, and opined that "the whole place seemed haunted. It was like going to a ghost town. Even the people's faces look haunted." The ex is a tough businessperson who has had plenty of occasion to mock and deride my own claims of sensitivity and queasiness and unexplained oojie-woojies, so to hear those words from such a person, well. Virtual trips to Kampuchea is all I'm up to for now.

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Politics: Right-wing Terrorists

OMG WTF, where do they FIND these guys? Raw Story is reporting that one Wayne Simmons, a "pro-assassination CIA analyst," (fortunately now retired from the CIA) called Dick "Dick" Cheney:

“one of the most honorable men on the planet”

who would never break the law.

Are you fucking kidding me? Dick "Satan-spawn" Cheney, who has repeatedly lied to Congress, the President of the United States (his boss), and probably deity itself at this point? What the fuckin' fuck does this guy mean by honorable? A lying chickenshit chickenhawk who had "other priorities" keeping him out of the Vietnam War (five, count 'em, FIVE fucking deferments), but had no problem sending soldiers to die in a pre-emptive war in Iraq? The son-of-a-syphilitic-turtle dropped out of college as soon as he had spawned the sprog required to keep him from shedding his precious blood in foreign wars, but had no shame — none — about sending other people's sons and daughters to get killed, maimed, and permanently injured.



This is "honorable?" What dicionary is this motherfucker using?

FTA:

A story in the New York Times this past weekend, corroborated by the Washington Times on Monday, said that Cheney was aware of a secret CIA program that had been kept hidden from Congress for more than six years, and was part of the decision process to keep it from Congress — something that, if true, would be a violation of federal law.

Simmons told Fox News, “For anyone to think that Vice-President Dick Cheney would do anything illegal is nothing more than political grandstanding.”

You know, here Dick is openly and blatantly busted for violating federal law, i.e., committing a crime. And this brain-infected moron actually has the chutzpah to sit in front of a mike and say that the founding member of the Chickenhawk Brigade would never do anything illegal? Bud, is the sky blue on your planet, or is it some other colour?

Oh, wait, look, the scumsucking puke had this to write in a letter to the NYT:

“Suggesting that we intentionally misled the American people for partisan political purposes or some quid pro quo personal gain is an unconscionable attack on our honor and long service to this nation, [...].”

This, of course, was in response to an article in said paper that had exposed the fact that certain elements of the government and its agencies had "intentionally misled the American people for partisan political purposes or some quid pro quo personal gain."

I wonder if Simmons EVER served in the military? Or is he a member of the 82nd Chairborne? It seems one of the biggest problems with the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against is the fact that so many "military analysts" and theoreticians never actually had to serve on the ground.

Perhaps that's why they misunderstand the meaning of common terms such as "honourable" and "illegal." Perhaps that's why they have lied and continue to lie to us about virtually everything.

I'm about to embark on some serious reading about the Vietnam War. The only way to stop war is to understand it — its roots, its beginnings, its place in the history of our individual and collective lives. We must stop people like this from poisoning the well of common discourse. If this country is to be saved intact with its honourable Constitutional roots, we must all work together, Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Libertarians.

We cannot pretend that a government that is supposed to be "of, by, and for the people" is best served by those who would lie to us and kill our children. There is no honour in lying a trusting people into giving up their children's lives and saddling their grandchildren with debt just so that some very nasty, creepy old men can live with riches beyond what they can ever use.

Image from the Houston Press

While KBR — remember KBR? An "offshoot" of Halliburton, the company that Dick "Dick" Cheney helmed, and ran into the ground fiscally until he rescued it with no-bid contracts after finding himself the best possible candidate for VP? — was electrocuting the military in Iraq with substandard facilities and poisoning them with substandard food and water, it was using our tax dollars to buy — and throw away — people, as well as machinery, in the great swindle that we've been taught to call "Operation Enduring Freedom," or, more accurately, "This fucking hideous unprovoked war in Iraq."

That last link is to a Rolling Stone story about an ex-military man who went to Iraq as a civilian contractor and got seriously fucked up, so if you have a sensitive stomach, you might not care to read it. Alternatively, if you're, like, contemplating eating or anything like that, don't click any of the links about the poisoned food and water. I think I just gave up eating permanently. Jesus, what vomitous little shitbags like Dick Cheney and Wayne Simmons have done, and are doing to the military is enough to make you puke blood.

Those of you who are into that kind of thing might wish to let Faux Noise know that you don't approve of Mr. Simmons' somewhat cavalier interpretations of polysyllabi like "honour" and "illegal," and such. It appears words of one syllable are more his speed. Mr. Simmons also believes in assassinating foreign leaders. Something tells me the Founding Fathers would have happily given him a trial for such undemocratic beliefs, which would have surely led to a justified firsthand experience of execution, since they did not believe in assassination. What a walking enema!!

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The Opposite of Peace Is — War?

Been reading a lot about World War II lately. My father fought in that war. He lost the hearing on one side thanks to shrapnel that perforated his eardrum. He lost many of his friends. He nearly lost his life.

But my reason for reading is both greater and lesser than a desire to know a little piece of my father's history: I am writing a novel set in that period.

And today, I came across something that encapsulates very nicely the malaise that the reading of the past several weeks has engendered in me. FTA:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, War Is A Racket

While Japanese farmers, office workers, and civilians were restricted to the grayest of lives by the sumptuary laws enforced before and during WW II, while Japanese intellectuals trembled under the heavy hand of the thought police and suffered torture by the Kempeitai, while Chinese peasants starved and their children were forcibly inducted into the military to fight against superior armies and lose their lives for a pittance, the wealthy crooks who engineered these wars became wealthier still. Come rain or shine, they continued to find ways to profit from the vast human suffering.

George W. Bush paid for the war in Iraq by borrowing billions of dollars from the Chinese. Now your grandchildren will have to repay that debt. I hear some people say Obama is creating a huge debt by borrowing additional monies to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the hole that Bush left has to be patched before everything else leaks out of it. And the only way to patch that hole is to stimulate the economy into spending.

People forget that the U.S. economy runs on consumer spending. Before George Dumbya left office, the Iraq war had already cost us three TRILLION dollars. We are bringing our troops back now, but that costs money too. Then there's the issue of reintegrating them into the smashed civilian economy. All the while, the war profiteers like Dick "Dick" Cheney sit back on their seats and bwa-ha-haaa themselves into something like an orgasm. I wish it were an organism. Something intestinal and painful and lengthy.

How many kids have lost their parents in this war? Iraqi kids? Somewhere between one and five million? American kids? Somewhere between three and ten thousand? Nobody really knows. In 2004, when the total casualty figures were around 2,000, Scripps stated that 900 American children had lost a parent to the war. However, the casualty toll has doubled since then, and most of the soldiers in this war have been professional military and reservists, which means they tend to be older, married, and have more children.

How many kids are getting back parents who are not the people they used to be? Broken in body or mind or both? How many kids have to grow up really fast, to become caretakers to their parents instead of being children any more? Smedley Butler was right. War IS a racket.

Blackwater mercenaries made two to three times the salaries of military men for the same work. No-bid government contracts made a lot of people very rich. The wholesale plunder of Iraqi oil made other people (or sometimes the same people) very rich. To us, the taxpayers, is left the broken mess, the debris, the tortured, the cripple, the lame, the halt, the blind, the miserable, people who are still fighting the war in their heads, crying themselves to sleep or drinking or drugging to forget. And they are living among us as are their suffering parents and spouses and children.

The dividends of peace are happy human lives. However, these do not represent adequate profits to those whose greed drives them to profit above all else. And to achieve those profits they will willingly sacrifice every last man, woman, and child of us upon an altar of blood.

Crossposted over at The Peace Tree.

La Casa de Los Gatos apologizes for the dearth of recent posts. A bout of illness laid us low, and having had our first meal today in nearly a week, we can safely say we now have energy to start blogging again. To think that a little food can make so much difference ...

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World: Iran

Yes, we're unbelievably upset over what's going on in Iran. We know you all know. If you don't, you really ought to. You can start by checking out HuffPo's virtual 24/7 liveblogging, or Twitter, if you prefer.

Essentially, the Telegraph is reporting that Mir Hossain Mossavi, the "reformist" Iranian candidate, won the largest number of votes (19 million) in the recent elections, with everybody's favourite nutter and the puppet of the Mullahs, Ahmedi Nejad coming in third (5.x million). Other candidates who stood in the elections: Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi. Ahmedi took it upon himself to announce that he had won 63 per cent of the votes, the little liar, and proclaimed himself the winner.

If you have a strong stomach, you can view pictures of what's happening in Teheran here. Apparently, protests are occurring in other cities also. Approximately 170 people have been arrested and detained in Teheran. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have poured out into the streets to protest the fraudulent elections, and, as we say in certain parts of the world, much hangama has ensued. (You can get out your Hobson-Jobson for this one. I'm pretty sure it's in there.)

In the event, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the real power behind the throne, has ordered an investigation into Mousavi's claims of fraud, according to XinHua and the Belfast Telegraph.



How effective that will be, we have no idea. The neocons in the U.S. are, of course, slavering at the idea of starting a war with Iran. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of those purulent ambulatory slimebags with the departure of Bush the war criminal, eh? Not so fucking lucky. Think again. These bastards are clinging to power with every seta, the fucking cockroaches. They're starting the baying and howling on the right. Thank TPTB, President Obama is keeping a cool head over the whole issue. I don't think our Iranian brothers and sisters have forgotten that the U.S. deposed the lawfully elected Mossadegh and put the Pahlavi on the nation's throne. America SHOULD move carefully, very carefully, as any attempt to side with Mousavi's followers will only result in Iranians feeling threatened and paranoid about foreign meddling in their elections and cause them to back away from Mousavi and embrace Ahmedi Nejad.

The BBC claims that the Iranian government is doing everything it can to prevent news entering or leaving the country. Twitter has now become the medium of choice, if you're interested in what's going on. #iranelection, for those who care. Mousavi is warning his supporters not to show up at rallies any more, as the police are now using live ammunition against protesters. To show your support for our Iranian brothers and sisters, wear green, if you want. Don't, however, encourage your lawmakers or your idiot brother-in-law to do anything illegal or blatant. The Telegraph claims that Mousavi won, but won't publicize their source, and until we know more, we'd be fools to react.

Just because any creature with a working brain wishes Ahmedi Nejad would fall off the earth is no proof that his people did not elect him. I mean, I hate to rub salt in an old wound, but this country DID elect George Dumbya Bush — twice. So. Please tell everyone you know to calm down about this issue. We don't need to make the position of Mousavi's supporters worse by trying to meddle in a hamhanded way, or making stupid statements. Most important of all, we do not need to empower those fucking neocons who aren't happy unless somebody else's kids are being killed somewhere.

Iranian brothers and sisters, the people of the free nations of the world support your struggle towards democracy! Revolutionary Guard of Iran, please do not shoot your own people, your students and teachers, the brightest and best of your nation! We all hope that you resolve this issue in a way that causes the least harm.

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Memorial Day

It's the day to remember all those who served in their nation's military forces. We tend to blame soldiers for the crimes of war, but in reality, soldiers are drilled into obeying orders, mostly without thought. "I was only following orders" ceased to be a defense to charges of war crimes after World War II, when the victorious Allied nations tried their military counterparts of the Axis nations and put them to death for doing some of the same things we — or our nation's leaders, rather — are doing today. Waterboarding used to be called "Japanese" or "Chinese" "water-torture," an indication that our forebears knew quite well what it was and did not hesitate to call it by its proper name. What would they think of us, their descendants, and Dick Cheney's "enhanced interrogation"? Methinks they would weep for a nation that has so lost its moral compass.

To all the families of the soldiers who have died in service of their nation, thank you for your sacrifice. May you find peace. May we all find peace, and soon.

“War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli

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Politics: Telling It Like It Is

In case you hadn't already heard, our President has just warned Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's current and rabidly rightist leader, NOT to carry out a preemptive strike on Iran without the agreement thereto of the United States (my paraphrase — his exact words, according to Ha'aretz, were: "Don't surprise me with (an) Iran strike.")

Naturally, the rightwingnuttia of America is foaming at the mouth with their unconsidered, rageful, and rabid reaction. Loud cries of "fuck him," and "bomb 'em anyway," with no thought of the consequences. Although I suppose putting "thought" and "rightwingnuttia" in the same post ought to be the best example of oxymoronia.

Which leads me to believe that rightwingnuttia could not care less if the state of Israel and all its people, and all Jews whereever they may live, were to be wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow. They are just an excuse for the more rabid among them, to be used as a catspaw, with no value inherent in themselves except the ability to be used as a whipping post, as an excuse for military posturing, as a tool to permit this or that action against others, for example, the Muslims, or those who live in countries with vast oil resources. Because should Israel carry out ANY military action without the full support and military commitment of the United States, death and destruction for our Israeli brothers and sisters is sure to follow.

Sickened by the howling of these wretched beasts, I dug around and found within myself the wherewithal to post this comment on HuffPo, where I found the link to the Ha'aretz story:

This is a warning, not a request. One does not warn another without invoking consequences. What are the consequences if you warn someone not to do something and they do it anyway? You take away any privileges you might have previously afforded them, or any future benefits that you might award them. What does America have that Israel wants? Money. American money supports the troubled Israeli economy. Arms - American arms and armaments enable Israel to protect itself against hostile neighbours.

Israel engaged in two wars recently and lost them both. Israel's security is a matter of grave concern. Yet that concern must not outweigh pressing humanitarian concerns. President Obama has shown that he supports Israel by refusing to attend the recent conference at which Israel was vilified (in my opinion, not without grounds) for crimes against humanity. However, President Obama is not going to allow Israel to determine American foreign policy. This is a good thing. The tail should not wag the dog.

It is not unreasonable for President Obama to take such a stand. Many Americans do not wish to continue to support, financially, in a difficult economic time, an Israeli policy of expansion that continues to take land, water, and resources from Palestinian residents and give them to Israeli settlers. We all respect Israel's right to exist - with the exception of the most rabid anti-Israelis. But most of us also want peace in the Middle-East according to the agreements made half a century ago, signed and ratified by all parties thereto. Shalom, Salaam, let us live in peace. For peace benefits all, whereas war benefits only a few, and that few the worst among us.

Thanks to extreme pain (still?!) and the resulting heavy doses of medication, I'm not sure this makes much sense to me, much less anyone else.

Still, I think our President has done something most American leaders of past decades have been unable to do: he has told Israel, nay, warned Israel, that American support is not to be unconditionally assumed, and that American public opinion is tired of Israel's (1) refusal to engage in a good-faith process towards implementing the solution that Israel itself agreed to lo, these many years ago; (2) shameless meddling in American policy, domestic and foreign; (3) unwarranted assumption of unconditional access to the American taxpayer's assets; (4) acting as if laws agreed to by the entire international community do not apply to Israel alone, although everyone else should be bound by them. Well, this was long overdue. As a lifetime supporter of Israel, I am glad of this.

Israel must find a peaceful solution, because the martial solution puts the entire Israeli citizenry, and the Jewish people everywhere, at risk. Not all Jews are Israelis. Not all Jews want to live in Israel. Many have made their home elsewhere for generations, and have no wish to give it all up to return to Eretz Israel. Not all Jews support the policies of the Israeli government. Yet all Jews will pay the price for Israel's shortsighted policies, for some of those who oppose Israel will not hesitate to kill a Jew. Or many Jews.

Not even all Israelis support the Israeli government's policies, and many among them are courageous enough to call them what they really are, which is, mad, short-sighted, self-destructive. For the sake of the Children of Israel, the leaders must make peace with their brothers and neighbours, the Arabs. For are they not all the children of Abraham, and brothers belike?

I am very proud of my President today, for his courage and lucidity in speaking the truth to leaders who have so little care for their own people, who seek only to frighten them into perpetuating a cycle of hate and fear laid down a long time ago.

Enough!

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Health Care: I Ain't Feelin' Too Good Myself, Now

People, I guess we don't have to remind y'all that the suicide rate among our troops, whom we all support more than god or corned beef, or whatever the Republicans are flapping their gums about this week, has, like, seriously increased? We're talkin' this is the highest it's been in thirty years. (Thanks to nunya at ThePolitickyBitch for the ears-up on this. She has some good questions, so treat yourself to a worthwhile read.)

What, you thought Georgie Porgie was guilty of ordering some 200,000 troops into the field based on lies, and that's where it all ended?

It hasn't ended yet. Dumbya knocked the shit out of this country nine ways to Sunday. He destroyed it, as we all have been saying since, oh, about 2003 and Hurricane Katrina. Some of us were saying it way before, but most of us tried to rally behind the little shit for the sake of national unity. It wasn't until we say the bloated, floating corpses of Katrina that we finally lost all faith in the fucker.

Over at OOIBC, Anti-War, and other such sites, people with more energy and dedication than I have been keeping track of the numbers. Over 4,000 American troops dead, over 150,000 injured, some of them grievously maimed. Over 1 million Iraqis dead, uncounted numbers wounded and maimed (one assumes the injuries are proportionate to those of our troops). Between 3 and 5 million Iraqi refugees, internal and external. Entire neighbourhoods "ethnically cleansed," or to put it more accurately, relieved of any ethnic variety by open, genocidal killings. "Ethnically cleansed" sounds too much like a sanitary procedure, and there's nothing sanitary about pools of blood rotting in the hot desert sun.


We don't know how many Iraqis and Afghanis have committed suicide, other than by blowing themselves up. We don't know how many might be suffering from mental and emotional problems due to the stresses of living in a war zone. What we do know is that our own troops, upon returning home, are not doing so well. In fact, they're doing rather badly. Has anyone heard of anything that our bold Republican leaders and legislators, so quick to approve this war and to threaten anyone who argued against it, have done to take care of our suffering people?

Frankly, I'm feeling pretty shitty myself, today, and it's not just the depressing news. Did you know that certain kinds of medication can eat holes in your gut? That aside. This is a foodie household and when the chief Foodie In Charge can't eat none of that smackalicious pasta sauce with meatballs and sausage and all kinds of tasty stuff, ain't no one here gonna be happy. Not if I can help it. Two days of chicken soup is fucking enough.

So, people are killing themselves. No news there, you say. We're in a recession, you say. It's to be expected, you say. Yeah, I guess. I wish it weren't happening, I wish there was something I could do, or you could do, or we could all do, to fix it, but if there's one thing we learned surviving the mendacious Bushistas, it's that everything takes lots of hard work and the results are never immediate.

Here's a little gratuitous depressionism for those of you as are having just too fucking good a day. Please watch it right through to the end.



We need to do something about this. I can't do anything today. My body is on strike, and I get that. (I'm not as look as I dumb, OK?) But I can resolve to do something tomorrow, and hopefully, the day after, and the day after. One foot after another.

I found this story over at DailyKos, courtesy of nyceve, who has done more to enlighten me (and many others, I'm sure) about the state of health care in the US. We don't need more or better or diferent health insurance. We need health care.

In the interim, if time is weighing heavy on your hands, consider oozing on over to Care2's petition site, and signing a petition to have a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Bushifarious crimes of the recent era. I'm not sure petitions are entirely helpful but it's a throwaway gesture that does help assess the current mood of the populace.

I'm gonna have to create a torches-and-pitchforks icon for various action items, yaknow?

Finally, a little humour to leaven the endless depression of this post. I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully in better shape. The fight goes on!

Obama Reads Bush's Letter - watch more funny videos

He may not look like Our President, but he sure has the voice and mannerisms down, don't he?

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