Thursday, February 28, 2008

Just call it war

By Capt. Fogg

Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?

Macbeth Act 5, scene 1



Frankly, I'm not as disturbed by the images of torture and mayhem perpetrated by American "warriors" as by some of the public response you can see at Wired.com where Abu Ghraib photos have been published. It's the ones that argue "this is a war and in a war. . ." and the ones that say "but these are Muslims and they would be happy to eat your children, yada, yada" that make me most ashamed to have any association with this self righteous and evil nation. They've made me evil too; Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and their puppet George Bush. I'm part of it because all I do is complain. I don't risk losing my life to end it, nor even my freedom. All I do is blog and go about my life of comfort and safety.

I got a video in my e-mail yesterday. I don't know whether it was staged or real, but it showed some US military personnel walking through an airport while people stood up and applauded. No one could have been thinking of the archive of pictures on view at UnderMars.com They aren't returning from a parade ground, but from hell and a hell the United States of America created with eagerness and enthusiasm and lies.

Men with plastic bags on their heads being beaten, smiling "warriors" posing with corpses, a man's severed penis in a mousetrap, blood and pain and shit; these are things many Americans think "you do in a war" even though you started the war and of course anyone caught up in the grinder is promoted to the ranks of the "terrorists" who bombed New York even though they didn't.

So clap when you see our soldiers; I'm sure nearly all of them are good people, but don't call them warriors. Warriors take scalps, soldiers are responsible for their actions. Warriors represent themselves, soldiers represent us and when there's blood on their hands, it's on our hands too and remember, when John McCain tries to tell you this is noble, this is about protecting your sainted mother, your back yard barbecue and your civil rights - it isn't. It's about water up the nose, the cattle prod up the ass, bloody teeth spilling out like corn from a popper; it's about rape, about shit and piss and blood on the floor being wiped up with the flag we're supposed to worship like some tawdry pagan idol.

It's about millions of homeless innocents, about a lost generation of uneducated children brought up in terror and squalor and hate. It's about people whose crime was fighting for their homes being tortured like John McCain who once was tortured by those whose homes and children he was destroying. It's about evil. It's about me and about you justifying it all by just calling it war.

Cross posted from Human Voices

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is this photogragh of an American soldier standing over an Iraqi, or is it of an Israeli soldier standing over a Palestinian?

12:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This has been of great distress to me; the idea that my fellow Americans would commit this kind of inhumane torture of others. It's war, it's the enemy and yes, the enemy probably would and in fact have done terrible things to our people. But, there is a line we cannot cross if we want to remain civilized human beings. What upsets me the most are the photographs that show young soldiers taking such obvious pleasure in these criminal acts. I really don't want these people walking freely amongst us. I come from a military family and I am proud of them for the service they have given their country, but I feel sure none of them would have the stomach to participate in such evil acts. How any decent human being can justify this is mindboggling to me.

1:55:00 PM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

No, it's not an Israeli - sorry to disappoint you, nor is it a "palestinian" standing over an Israeli or a Sunni torturing a Shia. It's a US soldier bringing "freedom" to Iraq.

It puzzles many people how it's only a small step for many people and we are not the first or last civilization to become the beast or the first or last to excuse itself in the name of "War"

4:35:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

It's not even a war. It's an armed occupation. We should never call it a war. It just feeds the false meme that the White House created.

7:40:00 AM  

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