Below is a link to a blog about one attempt to save one child at a time from the horror of war and get them to hospitals in the US. One might think that this is so futile as to be stupid. But, in the face of impossible circumstances, saving one at a time is at least something even if it is too few. It shows just how far out of whack the current balance between violence and mercy is that so few are being saved.

But the point of citing the URL here is to show that there is a body of experience that shows that the US military is really shooting at civilians. Apparently the logic is that killing a few innocent people in your family or your neighborhood will show you that America is not to be fucked with.

This is the logic of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Does anybody seriously lack the ability to connect the dots and conclude anything but that we are generating a whole lot of future adults whose childhood memories could motivate them into suicide attacks for vengeance?

The brutalization of the young adults in the US military should also give us pause. What sort of civilians will these people make in the future? How do you go from a killing machine in a situation where everybody is shooting at eveybody without a lot of thinking going on to a civil society based on respect for those you differ with?

Certainly we cannot thank the mainstream media for considering such questions.

Check out the blog about 3 year old Alaa'
www.documentaryphotographs.com

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There is nothing about war that is decent, humane, or civilized. It is organized barbarism at best. When any nation or group of people resort to violence and warfare to achieve their objectives, it is a costly failure whose price is too high to pay. War is nothing more than a political tool, and politics is a show produced by economics. Those that profit from war are the true enemies of humanity.

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First, some advice.

Do yourself a favor and drop the labels. I realize they weren't used in excess here, but it's good to eliminate them from your political vocabulary. There are no 'liberals', there are no 'conservatives', only extremists and moderates with varying goals and ideals. (The same applies to Democrats and Republicans - nevermind that they're now practically one unchallengable party.) The concepts of liberalism and conservatism are subjective, and the images of both supposed groups have been crafted specifically to capture the loyalty of two specific sects of the population in order to support one ultimate cause sponsored by those in power, or those who wish to be in power. We know that these bastards in office are all crooks; the warmongering conservatives and the 'liberal hawks' alike, who stand idly by while this massacre continues, or worse yet, stand behind it and push it forward. I think you've done good, however, to target individuals specifically - and as always, mercilessly tear them many a new asshole.

As for your article as a whole, it's good that you've brought this 'ugly' matter up. The article also brings to light the notion that this is far from a classic 'Good Versus Evil' war, and that everyone loses in this battle. I too also get satisfaction from knowing that the perpetrators of these horrific deeds will be tortured in their minds for the rest of their miserable days, but I regret that so many others who have done no such wrong will be similarly tortured, much like your Grandfather. It's too bad we can't simply string up the whole lot of lunatics that orchestrated this war, and while two wrongs don't make a right, I myself would find it quite cathartic to bludgeon a certain handful of politicians to death with an aluminum baseball bat. The war's a mess, as are all wars, and by the looks of it, it will only get messier unless a real regime change is carried out here at home and the war is brought to an end.

Oh, and do try to avoid typographical errors. I know it's hard to write coherently - if at all - when you're extraordinarily pissed, and I certainly don't blame you.

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Wow, where to start. We all know that Bush and co. love to send soldiers to war, they cannot stomach it themselves but love to watch and dictate. The question is how do we get it across to humanity that it is outdated and primitive to take aggresive and horny 19 year old males and turn them into cold blooded killing machines. What a question this is.

For the last twenty years I have studied martial arts to the level that I feel confident that I could take on three navy seals in a knife fight and would have a fifty fifty chance of being the winner. BUT I do not study martial arts to be a macho killer, I do it to protect the weak (like the mother and child murdered while praying to god for their lives). In fact I am sure that these Marines were wearing crosses aroung their necks when they broke Gods commandment not to kill. (Don't believe in god myself).

So as someone who LOVES martial arts it is so hard for me not to judge those murders harshly, except I Know they were brain washed, hell a couple of Canadians commandos I knew hated civilians after some intense training. As a civilian and their training partner I proceeded to kick their asses, they were tough. Hell its easy to be tough for a brainwashed soldier.

Man this story gets me going.

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My neighbor, Vinnie, was a young 19 year old Canadian who needed a job. Joined the Canadian army and went to Korea.
Jumped out of planes, rose to sergeant, mowed down chinese soldiers with a ww1 vickers machine gun then helped with the mass graves to bury the thousands of dead. Took a gut full of mortar shrapnel, broke both his legs and saw many, many of his comrades die. Some slowly, some lost their heads. In fact he fought with a american unit for awhile.

To this day this kind hearted man is on anti-anxiety meds. Wow.

He was decorated by McArthur. I asked him what he thought of the great American General. "I wanted to shove that fucking pipe down his throat", was the reply. He wanted too invade and Nuke China". This man is not a fan of Just wars.

I guess a medal just does not bring back the dead, or eliminate the horrible memories.

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What do you mean "almost"?

It defies my powers of mind to take in a response to a story as brutal as this second coming of a nightmare which includes very little about the content, and lots of vaporings about labels and typos and personal martial arts experiences. I should really know better than to be surprised.

Our American character is marked by extreme self-satisfaction and the desire to airbrush unpleasant facts. I can imagine the conversation here reproduced in ordinary homes, coffee shops, water coolers, bank lines, and church socials. To the extent that it helps us cope, it's not a bad thing. To the extent that it helps us turn away, it is.

Sorry if I offended anyone. Not sorry if, in the process of being offended, you did not stop to think again, and maybe put yourself in the place of a child who saw her family killed in cold blood.

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I can't say this article has changed my mind, as I'm already passionately opposed this war. But I just can't comprehend the cruelty, the utter lack of anything remotely resembling basic ethics, basic decency, or god forbid compassion. I don't use the word hate lightly, but I really have nothing but hate for the people who, knowing full well the nature of this war, continue to rationalize and equivocate about it. I'm not sure which outrages me more, the utterly despicable fascistic pro-war "conservatives," or the equivocating, rationalizing pro-war liberals. Doesn't anyone give a shit about right and wrong? Doesn't anyone actually believe in morality as a restraint on their own behavior, and not just an excuse to bash someone else's brains out of their head? History won't excuse our country's hypocritical, amoral cynicism; the rest of the world has long since grown sick of it.

Under the War Crimes Act, violators of the Geneva Conventions can be tried and receive the death penalty; not just the direct violators, but those who order violations, and those who know of violations, and do nothing to stop them. If we're anything remotely resembling a just society, some day we'll ruthlessly apply that law to everyone responsible, from these shit-for-brains Marines to Bush and Cheney themselves.

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The above title is a line from the Jackson Brown song "Tender is the Night". Although he wrote it in reference to conflicts in a personal relationship, it applies just as well to war. Everyone involved gets hurt. While on the subect of my favorite singer/song-writer, consider this warning from "For America"
'By the dawn's early light,
By everything I know is right,
We're gonna reap what we have sown.'

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I don't have anything happy to say, but thanks for writing this, Joshua. This war has to stop.

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97% of all people on earth are incapable of the tragedy of murder... leave it up to the 3% in possession of WMD's and other instruments to bring humanity to this level

some day, only the innocent will live

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I had a Republican friend (four days ago I told him that I did not want to be around him anymore) who would sit across from me at supper and tell me that it is OK to kill innocent civilians in Iraq and turtore prisoners because the Islamist are going to take our way of life away.

You can imagine my response. But it made no difference and did not change his mind. Indeed, like Christian zombies he and his wife stand by Mr. Bush and his murderous policies.

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Granted, I'm a supporter of the war, so discount this accordingly. But I can't help pointing out the contemptible dishonesty of this article. It stinks of phoniness, right down to the photo illustration. It's a picture of an American soldier, in grief as he cuddles the bloodied body of a child--killed by a jihadist bombing.

How vile is it to illustrate this story by pointing to an atrocity commited by the enemy? Second, the writer talks about the ever-so-many atrocities committed by US troops that we don't know about, but that he's sure are happening. Well, that photo should remind you that we don't have to guess about whether this war is leading to the mass killing of helpless civilians. It happens every single day--when some Baathist die-hards murder police recruits, or some al Qaeda freak blows himself up outside a Shiite mosque. Who's committing the atrocities over there, every single day? We know who; it's no secret. Except, perhaps, to the deceitful phonies at Alternet.

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When people make this excuse, and make no mistake this is very much an excuse, all i can here is, "But he started it!"

lets get to nuts and bolts, THEY are killing people, WE are killing people, the difference: WE ARE AND INVADING AND OCCUPYING FORCE...with that said, we have no rights in this country, we only have responsibilities to hand them back their country as fast as humanly possible, and that timeframe was passed long ago...every moment we force our boys and girls to perform police duties is another moment where the fatigue of war erodes basic human morals, anyone who thinks we have some sort of moral highground, or are doing something to better Iraqis are kidding themselves, is it good that Sadaam is gone, sure, but to ignore the fact that "any means necessary" to accomplish a goal will lead to nothing more than 10 more years of occupation (which is already written into halliburton/KBR contracts) and the breeding of more willing martyrs, do you really expect the people who cry for God to save them from us will forgive and forget when they have satellite TV and garbage pick-up...I mourn the death and carnage on both sides, and have actually brought myself to prayer to a God I don't know is listening anymore...peace...PLEASE!

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It has nothing to do with Haditha, the infantryman in the photo is not a Marine, the child was not killed by American forces and the photo wasn't even taken this year.

If you are going to use Michael Yon photos, you should at least be familiar with him and his work. The photo is not in the public domain, and does not belong to an agency or a news organization. It is the intellectual property of an individual, a veteran who derives his living as a freelance journalist.

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As the poster above notes, the photo used in this post had nothing to do with the massacre at Haditha. Those soldiers shot children in cold-blood, without any remorse. The soldier in the photo is clearly moved by the loss of the child he holds. That's a huge difference.

I could have chosen one of thousands of photos of dead Iraqi children. By choosing one with a soldier who is obviously anguishing over the loss of a child, I tried to convey a larger point: while the soldiers who committed these crimes are culpable, it's the people who chose to send 19- and 20-year old kids into a situation where they're fighting for their lives and half the time can't tell the good guys from the bad guys -- in a war where "winning" is impossible to define -- who are ultimately to blame.

"Bold-faced lie?" Try "larger truth."

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The left has been telling us "larger truths" for the past century or more, largely because the "true truth," the literal, precise facts of the world, generally make left-wing ideas look so dumb. But this devotion to "larger truths" helps explain why Americans generally don't trust you guys. You routinely lie, then when called on it, you say that it doesn't matter, because it's all in the service of a "larger truth."

Crap. Start by telling the plain old truth. Then more people might take you seriously.

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Check this webpage out and if your think it's worthwile, e-mail it to everyone you know.

Thanks!

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You people don't really want to think about this, do you?

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Good article, but your name-calling, use of labels and cuss words detract from the effectiveness of what you have to say. Your writing sounds less credible when you are foaming at the mouth.

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I object to the almost universal description by reporters of these massacres as cold-blooded killings. The massacres are wrong but they are anything but cold blooded. These are irrational reactions to fear and frustration in an irrational situation.

I believe that one reason for misrepresenting these as cold blooded is that on some level we recognize that we might do the same if we were in that situation. We condemn the soldiers to convince ourselves that we wouldn't.

Mr. Holland also illogically condemns the soldiers. He writes that the real culprits won't be punished, yet he wishes a living hell on the soldiers who are arguably victims of the same culprits.

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Some posters above are trying to change the argument away from the depravity and hatred of war. And why wouldn't they? They support the killing and will do anything to conceal it.

But our job is not to let them confuse the issue.

Have a look at my Iraq war timeline. Bush challenges Iraqis to kill our troops. He jokes about there being no WMD in Iraq. Wolfowitz openly admits the US govt intends to take Iraqi oil assets to fund US govt programs. The Democrats trick liberals into thinking there's an electoral opposition, ensuring the war will go on. The government badly wants to continue the war. Do you?

BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!

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America is done. Too many crimes, too much genocide, too many horrors. Karma is coming, and it's gonna be a bitch. And if that really does happen, I see no reason to continue with USA. I plan to help start up a new North America filled with true constitutional democracies, nations where your vote matters, corporations are not erroneously considered to be persons due to an insane ruling on the 14th amendment in 1886, and the rule of law really means something. Sorry, America can't be fixed. It's time to stop trying. Yelling at blood-covered Democrats might feel really good, but the real answer to stopping the insanity is to replace their poor leadership by becoming a leader yourself. And not at the federal level, where broke is broke is broke. Done.

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We walked down to a nearby vest pocket park to watch the veterans bring out the colors. We said the Pledge, sang the anthem, heard the history of the day. My mother and I cried like babies. We both get very sentimental. We've always been that way.

We always go to this neighborhood event with my father, who was in combat in WWII and a military lawyer during the Korean Conflict. He retired just before Viet Nam heated up, and his law firm represented pro bono almost a hundred Viet Nam era conscientious objectors. Only two of them were given CO status. The rest scattered. Some went, some fled, a few went to jail. He kept track of a lot of them, and their families.

Dad takes no active part in this kind of veteran's activity, but goes to see five or six of his cronies march and wheel the flag of the 71st American Guard. The head of our family is now a slim, straight 85, and is a fixture at an uptown vet's center. He leads a group and helps the men and women Veterans of Foreign Wars who have legal difficulties.

We saw Helen, who looks so handsome in her W.A.C. uniform, a Korean veteran. Gina was a nurse in Viet Nam, and sets up a re-enactment of the kit and tent of one of the WWII flying nurses who puddle-jumped throughout India and Burma treating the sick in fifty field hospitals.

I'm saying all this because from the Revolutionary War on down to the men who went into Haditha and killed some people in retaliation for the loss of one of their number, soldiers are not green and tan things with no faces. No matter how bad we feel about war, we need to imagine their fear and their loss of faith in the idealism they were sold, and their resentment, and extend to them the mercy of our hearts.

We ask them to go into danger and exist knowing they could be killed. But that isn't the worst of it. We literally ask these men and women to step out of their skins and leave behind their most basic human sensibilities, for this is what combat training is designed to accomplish, and be ready to kill.

Kudos to those of you who did address the substance of the saddest report to come out of the tragedy of Iraq, no matter what your point of view. Those of you who picked grammatical nits, objected to a writer's style, upheld the rights of someone you don't know who took a photograph, bandied about labels, and talked about sports, with either lip service to the story or no statement on it at all, need to invite your minds to lunch with reality, give your unending self-regard a furlough, or double down your Prozac so you can handle the anxiety of looking straight at the state of our country.

I hope there aren't a lot of you out there.

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"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

...I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. "

Rev. Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

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I just read a new book which outlines the long history of America's torture and abuse, called American Methods. More info below:

Closing Gitmo is only the start. Find out why in American Methods

Available From South End Press

American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination
by Kristian Williams

The US "should cease to detain any person at Guantánamo Bay and close
this detention facility," proclaimed the United Nations Committee Against
Torture.

The call to close Guantánamo Bay is important, but to view Gitmo as a bad
apple is to ignore the rest of the report, which is deeply critical of the US
relationship with torture.

The committee also:

* said that the US should end interrogation techniques "including
methods involving sexual humiliation, 'water boarding,' 'short shackling'
and using dogs to induce fear"
* questioned the lack of prosecution of those involved in the Chicago
Police Area 2 and 3 torture "scandals"
* challenged the use of prolonged isolation in SuperMax prisons.

The fact that the report called into question practices in military detention
camps, US prisons, and US police stations comes as no surprise to Kristian
Williams, author of *American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination*.

"The UN report, damning as it is, really just hits the largest targets—the
most widespread practices, the most well-documented cases. What I
found in the course of my research is that the sort of abuse the UN
condemns aren't just add-ons. They're characteristic of the operations of
American power, whether at the hands of law enforcement within our
borders or of soldiers overseas."

It is this everday quality of state violence that launches Kristian Williams's
extensively researched and annotated new book *American Methods*. And
Williams's rigerous audit of the US record in underwriting human rights
violations around the globe--at home and abroad--doesn't stop at what,
but explores why. What emerges is the distinct character of American
torture, particularly its emphasis on sexual violence, misogyny, and
racialized spectacle.

"Torture is nothing new for the US. My book looks at the past 25 years,
but it would clearly be possible to trace it further back, all the way to the
Colonial period. One thing that really stands out if you examine the
country's record is the use of sexual violence as a model and method of
maintaining state power. The UN report also highlights the sexual aspect of
torture, but the report's questions are mainly, 'What abuses are occurring?'
and 'Do they violate the Convention Against Torture?,' whereas I was also
asking, 'What does torture say about our society?' and 'What does it show
us about the nature of state power?'"

* * *
Support Independent Media and get American Methods at 25% off the
cover price when you get it online from the South End Press website
through June 30th. (www.southendpress.org/2005/items/87530)
* * *

Kristian Williams's writings have appeared in CounterPunch, Columbia
Journalism Review, and We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global
Anti-Capitalism (2003). A member of Rose City Copwatch in Portland,
Oregon, Williams also authored Our Enemies in Blue (2004).

www.southendpress.org
read. write. revolt.

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