Life, Love, and Liberty

I read The Onion!

U.S. Not Planning To Attack Iran, Says U.S. Iran War Czar

USS STENNIS, PERSIAN GULF—U.S. Iran War Czar Gen. Glenn Jacobs, the general director of the U.S. Center of the Invasion of

On a more serious note, I am entirely disillusioned by the current political situation in America. I can see why someone would want to be apathetic in it. I honestly can.

I recently wrote the following:

Fuck the odious political entity known as the United States of America. Fuck its murderous wars. Fuck every member of the American populace that sees fit to defend this:

February 08, 2008
More Bombing Creates New Enemies

Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (IPS) - Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble settled, residents of a group of bombed Iraqi villages see the raid as really a U.S. loss.

Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.

“The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq,” Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. “U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery.”

The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads.

“On Jan. 10, huge aircraft started bombing the villages,” Ahmad Alwan from a village near Juboor told IPS. “We took our families and fled. We have never seen such bombardment since the 2003 American invasion. They were bombing everything and everybody.”

Residents said two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

“The al-Qaeda name is used once more to destroy another Sunni area,” Akram Naji, a lawyer in Baghdad who has relatives in Juboor told IPS. “Americans are still supporting Iranian influence in Iraq by cleansing Baghdad and surroundings of Sunnis.”

The cluster of Sunni villages was bombed just weeks after the U.S. military encouraged families to return to their village after heavy bombing earlier in which scores of people were killed. Many residents had fled fearing sectarian death squads, which they say were backed by the U.S.

Few people in the village now talk the language of reconciliation of U.S. President George W. Bush and of some Iraqis in the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

“We have no alternative but to fight this occupation and its allies,” a former army officer in Baghdad speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. “We can see clearly now that Americans came with the idea that we, Sunni Arabs, are the enemies they have in mind no matter what we do to please them. We will fight for our existence, and this massacre will not go unpunished.”

“It was a miracle that I could evacuate my family at the last minute,” said Omar Hussein, who fled for Dora in Baghdad from the bombarded area. “My house and farm are on the outskirts of the village. I took my family out the minute I saw the aircraft in the sky.

“Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area, and killed so many civilians. They took some wounded people to their military base. I am sure hundreds of people would have been killed. It is just like the Fallujah crime.”

Thousands died in prolonged attacks on Fallujah to the west of Baghdad, particularly in 2004 and 2005.

Taha Muslih al-Joboory, his wife and three sons were among those reported killed in the bombing. Juboory was an Iraqi journalist who lived all his life in the area. Many families were reported buried under the rubble of their houses.

The U.S. military said that the aircraft which bombed the area targeted “suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions.”

“We know they will get away with their crime now, but we will teach our children that America and the whole West are our enemies, so that they take revenge for these crimes,” 35-year-old Nada, a woman who has relatives in the village told IPS.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)

I am usually much more restrained in my criticisms. I just lose it when I read accounts like the one I quoted though.

I mean, this is the reality of what the U.S. is doing in Iraq, and nobody with any major political power in America will acknowledge it. Instead, we get treated to odious comments from Hilary Clinton about how “Those savage Iraqis won’t do what we want”, to paraphrase this:

Our troops did the job they were asked to do. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They conducted the search for weapons of mass destruction. They gave the Iraqi people a chance for elections and to have a government. It is the Iraqis who have failed to take advantage of that opportunity.

– Hillary Clinton, New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate, June 3, 2007

You know, because Americans would have constructed a Jeffersonian republic by now. It’s really easy when your infrastructure is shot to hell and military checkpoints abound. Furthermore, even if Iraqis don’t want to construct a Jeffersonian republic, why should the U.S. government be allowed to bomb them into dust?

A very intelligent person I know once told me that most Americans are on the ethical level of Germans during World War 2 or something. The nation’s main complaint with a war tends to be that Americans are dying and “we” aren’t winning. For god’s sake, what about the lives of the people on the receiving end? I don’t give a fuck about the nonexistent credibility of the United States. I don’t care if anyone turns up their noses at the U.S. government. In fact, I’d encourage them to do so. What matters to me are the lives of the dead and injured. Yes, it’s important to revolt against an unnecessary war, because the government is treating the lives of “its” citizens as expendable, but it’s not all about us.

As much of an egoist as I am, I still quite egoistically believe in the preservation of human life. I feel joy at knowing that others are alive and not dead. This cuts across national boundaries, and I will not reflexively take the side of “my” country over the preservation of human life.

The United States of America is a political entity that deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history. In its place, a free America could take root.

Note: to be entirely clear, I am not advocating violent revolution in this post. I am talking about an ideological shift among the populace, and the subsequent creation of new social relations. I don’t really expect the people in Washington to care about the distinction though.

Fuck the odious political entity known as the United States of America. Fuck its murderous wars. Fuck every member of the American populace that sees fit to defend this:

February 08, 2008
More Bombing Creates New Enemies

Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (IPS) - Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble settled, residents of a group of bombed Iraqi villages see the raid as really a U.S. loss.

Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.

“The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq,” Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. “U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery.”

The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads.

“On Jan. 10, huge aircraft started bombing the villages,” Ahmad Alwan from a village near Juboor told IPS. “We took our families and fled. We have never seen such bombardment since the 2003 American invasion. They were bombing everything and everybody.”

Residents said two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

“The al-Qaeda name is used once more to destroy another Sunni area,” Akram Naji, a lawyer in Baghdad who has relatives in Juboor told IPS. “Americans are still supporting Iranian influence in Iraq by cleansing Baghdad and surroundings of Sunnis.”

The cluster of Sunni villages was bombed just weeks after the U.S. military encouraged families to return to their village after heavy bombing earlier in which scores of people were killed. Many residents had fled fearing sectarian death squads, which they say were backed by the U.S.

Few people in the village now talk the language of reconciliation of U.S. President George W. Bush and of some Iraqis in the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

“We have no alternative but to fight this occupation and its allies,” a former army officer in Baghdad speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. “We can see clearly now that Americans came with the idea that we, Sunni Arabs, are the enemies they have in mind no matter what we do to please them. We will fight for our existence, and this massacre will not go unpunished.”

“It was a miracle that I could evacuate my family at the last minute,” said Omar Hussein, who fled for Dora in Baghdad from the bombarded area. “My house and farm are on the outskirts of the village. I took my family out the minute I saw the aircraft in the sky.

“Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area, and killed so many civilians. They took some wounded people to their military base. I am sure hundreds of people would have been killed. It is just like the Fallujah crime.”

Thousands died in prolonged attacks on Fallujah to the west of Baghdad, particularly in 2004 and 2005.

Taha Muslih al-Joboory, his wife and three sons were among those reported killed in the bombing. Juboory was an Iraqi journalist who lived all his life in the area. Many families were reported buried under the rubble of their houses.

The U.S. military said that the aircraft which bombed the area targeted “suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions.”

“We know they will get away with their crime now, but we will teach our children that America and the whole West are our enemies, so that they take revenge for these crimes,” 35-year-old Nada, a woman who has relatives in the village told IPS.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)

Can anyone read accounts like this and still talk about supporting the troops? There may be individual soldiers in Iraq who are quite wonderful individuals. I know there are troops who are caught in a terrible bind and can’t leave. I am not opposed to individual Iraqis and groups of Iraqis enlisting the services of Americans in defending themselves from Muslim statists, but I am not going to defend individual members in the military, who are acting as enforcers for the gang of thugs in Washington D.C. I am not going to defend the pilots who dropped these bombs. They are murderers, and they deserve no respect from anyone concerned with the sanctity of human life.

I’ve pulled an Arthur Silber with this post. I’ve stopped playing it nice, and I am speaking from the heart. Like Arthur said, I am prepared to go to Guantanamo now. Let me just kill myself before the state’s minions show up to cart me off.

If anyone is concerned about me actually killing myself, then I want to assure them that the above was a rhetorical flourish. Consider it very dark humor.

In closing, I want to make it very clear that I am most definitely not a supporter of anti-American terrorists. What happened on September 11th was truly horrific, and I have shed light tears in viewing a slideshow of what happened that day before. I am referring to the “United States of America” which is simply the idea that there should be a central Federal government with layers of authority beneath it. I am not advocating the violent destruction of Americans.

Any NSA or FBI people reading this should take note of that.

“Re: Vietnam war (was Re: [LeftLibertarian2] Re: Justin Raimondo)

tony_hollick wrote:

> I do want you to understand that I _do_ understand the point
> you’re making.

I’m not at all sure that you do, since if you did, it would be much
harder to make sense of responding with this:

> I do not believe that the pilot who dropped the napalm that
> burned the little girl worke up that morning and thought: “Let’s go
> out today and deliberately napalm some children.” I believe he flew a
> mission, and was directed erroneously by the Forward Air Controllers
> to drop his bombs on what were believed to be military targets.

Well, hey, at least his heart was in the right place.

If you are claiming that someone is acting as “the defense” in a
particular conflict, then it ought to make some difference to you
whether the violence that they use actually succeeds in defending anyone
against anything, whether or not the means that they select are
appropriate to the task of proportional defense, whether or not the
people–the *actual individual people*, not The People in the mythical
political sense–that they claim to be defending ever actually asked for
their protection, or asked to be protected in the way that their
“defenders” set about protecting them, whether or not the putative
defenders actually tend to succeed, or had any realistic hope of
succeeding, in protecting those individual people as claimed, etc. Their
private thoughts and hopes have a lot less to do with any of this than
their outward actions and the context of those actions, particularly the
context of how those actions affect those they are putatively
protecting, and whether those they are putatively protecting ever wanted
that kind of “defense.”

My question is what the (ARVN, under a U.S. chain of command) pilot who,
as per the requirements of his mission, dropped napalm on the village of
Trang Bang, and then wheeled around and — oops! my bad! — burned the
fleeing refugees alive, mistaking a crowd of screaming children (among
them Phan Thi Kim Phuc) and ARVN soldiers for a military target, was
actually defending, and what he was defending it against. If you think
that incendiary bombardment of villages — knowingly and deliberately
burning people’s homes, and running a substantial and perfectly
predictable risk of burning the people themselves alive — villages
where few or none of the people, and especially not the people ruined,
maimed, or killed by the bombardment, ever asked for your “defense” –
is a good way of defending individual people’s lives or livelihoods,
then I think it obvious that you are trying to get to a predetermined
conclusion rather than reasoning in good faith.

Judging from the means, mission, and context, I think it is perfectly
clear what the ARVN and the U.S. military were trying to defend at the
burning of Trang Bang. It wasn’t Phan Thi Kim Phuc, or much of anyone in
Trang Bang. It was the U.S. occupation and the south Vietnamese State,
both of which were separate from, parasitic upon, and generally hostile
to, ordinary people like Phan Thi Kim Phuc. But if you think that I give
a good god damn about the “defense” of either of those, particularly
when the human cost of that defense is what’s happening in that photo
and in millions of unrecorded “missions” of fire, maiming, and death,
forgotten now by everyone but the surviving victims, the kind of
missions that immediately turned “It became necessary to destroy the
village in order to save it” into cliché, then you’ve got another think
coming.

> The little girl recovered from her awful injuries, and has
> visited the West, giving interviews.

Yes, I know that she has. She wouldn’t have except that someone who had
nothing to do with the military assault — Nick Út, the Vietnamese AP
photographer who took the photograph — took her and the other surviving
children to a hospital in Saigon, where surgeons exhibited actual
heroism and defense by defying all odds (it was initially believed she
could not have survived such severe burns) by saving her life.

Many of the children who were burned alive at Trang Bang were not as
fortunate as Phan Thi Kim Phuc. Many of them, including two of Kim
Phuc’s cousins, died in the bombardment.

> Lt. Calley’s misconduct was brought to trial after the bravery
> of a helicopter pilot there, and has recently been released from
> prison.

Yes, again, I know. Thompson’s decision to put himself in the line of
fire in order to defend villagers from rampaging U.S. “defense”, and his
decision to report what happened, is a good example of genuine heroism
and a genuine effort to defend realm people from aggression. The U.S.
military command’s well-known reaction to the report — a year and a
half of white-washing, stonewalling, downplaying, and conscious deceit,
until Seymour Hersh’s investigative report finally forced their hand –
is not.

> Ten million Germans were killed during WWII. Between half a
> million and a million German prisoners-of-war were murdered in US and
> British prison camps _after_ WWII had ended, and after they had
> surrendered in response to air-dropped Safe Conduct passes (James
> Bacque, “Other Losses”). Every female in Berlin between the ages of
> 14 and 55 was raped, usually many times, by Red Army “liberators.”
> Between nine million and fourteen million Germans died _after_ the war
> from the deliberate withholding of fertilizer and farming tools.
>
> Was smashing the Nazi State worth the price? You tell us.

The price to whom? Worth it for whom?

It may well be that the price to 40,000 people in Dresden was worth it
for you. But I’m not sure that you’re the one that should be asked.

Since I didn’t pay the price, I wouldn’t presume to say what would be
worth it or wouldn’t be worth it. But, as a logical matter, I certainly
wouldn’t recognize the savage conquest of half of Europe for Stalin’s
Red Empire, or the aerial terror-war that the RAF and US Army waged
against German cities, or the deliberately brutal occupation of Germany
by the corporativist-Stalinist Alliance, as examples of what you might
call “the defense.” And I think it’s interesting that you would treat it
as just obvious that an anarchist, of all people, would somehow just
have to concede the moral legitimacy of the conduct of the governments
involved in the single most destructive war in the entire history of the
world, no matter what the human cost inflicted upon innocent bystanders.

-C”

~ Charles Johnson

“Even today, America is certainly among the best places to live inside, despite its many troubles. For one thing, we still have many freedoms, at least tacitly, that most other countries do not. For another, living in America, we have much less a chance of being bombed by the U.S. government than do foreigners.”

~ Anthony Gregory

That last point gave me a real laugh. I am not sure if Anthony intended it to be funny or not though. It’s actually quite true!

The quote of the day feature is back!

“It’s no secret that after 9/11, the administration authorized the use of waterboarding, and that the technique was used on a number of detainees in 2002 and reportedly stopped in 2003. But the administration has never explicitly admitted that.

In fact, when Dick Cheney, seduced into loose talk by a friendly interviewer, confirmed that “a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives,” the White House furiously backpedaled, and Tony Snow did his best to proclaim that “a dunk in water” had not been a reference to waterboarding, but just “a dunk in the water.”"

~ Paul Kiel

Thanks, Tony. I feel much more reassured now.

Comrades,

I need advice on how to stop paying taxes for war. What are the legal ways to do this?

Sincerely,

Venus Cassandra
Independent Citizen of Cassandrastan

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism…. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others.”

- Emma Goldman

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

- William James

“Toward the conclusion of a recent essay, I wrote:

The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for.

And who says otherwise? The Democrats could — and the most forceful means of doing so, the only method that is appropriate to this historic moment, the method that is absolutely required if we are to turn away from this catastrophic, murderous course, is impeachment. That is the one method the Democrats will categorically, absolutely not utilize — because the Democrats are a crucial, inextricable part of the identical authoritarian-corporatist system that has led us to these horrors. They have all worked toward this end over many decades, Democrats and Republicans alike, and now the horrors manifest themselves explicitly, without apology, even with the sickening boastfulness of the mass murderer who is proud of what he has done, and who vehemently believes he is right.

So the dare goes unanswered. These horrors are what the United States now stands for.

I repeat once more: these horrors are now what the United States stands for. Thus, for every adult American, the question is not, “Why do you obey?” but:

Why do you support?

Or will you refuse to give your support? Will you say, “No”? These are the paramount questions at this moment in history, and in the life of the United States. We all must answer them. Our honor, our humanity, and our souls lie in the balance.”

- Arthur Silber

Please donate to Arthur’s continued existence.

We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of it endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.

Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire [2004]