Monthly Archives: May 2006
No Gun Ri

A letter has come to light, written by the American ambassador to Korea in 1950, which details the American intention to shoot Korean refugees should they approach American troops. This letter not only led to the next day’s massacre of hundreds of civilian at No Gun Ri, but documents what can now be understood as a systemic policy of shooting civilians. The US Army shrugged off such accusations at the time. This letter was declassified thirty years later, and was overlooked in the department review fifty years later.
Shall we extrapolate about the US military’s actions these days?
Most recently we’re learning about the US massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha: family members being executed at point-blank range by a handful of enraged marines. First there was a coverup, then a denial. Now the atrocity is being described as isolated. The press is even playing along -backhandedly- by asking if Haditha will become Iraq’s My Lai.
Such a comparison would be correct if we remember that My Lai was actually one among many US atrocities in South East Asia. Such massacres of civilians were policy in Vietnam. The Wintersoldiers tried to tell us about it then, we now know about Tiger Troop and their death squad missions.
American Iraq War veterans are already telling us about the common military response to IEDs: shoot at everyone and everything in the vicinity. Unembedded reporters have been recording since the invasion began about American soldiers breaking into houses and shooting the men, women and children inside. As was done in Haditha.
Micky Ds Token house
Here’s an unfortuante byproduct to what may have begun as an earnest environmental action. McDonalds was encouraging the recycling of aluminum cans. To offer credit for each can, to calculate a donation they intend for the Ronald McDonald House, McDonalds asks that you detach the flip-tops and collect them in a cute Ronald McDonald cardboard house.
Here’s what happened. People began recycling just the flip-tops. “They’re more important to recycle than the cans, apparently. Must be something about the density of the aluminum in the flip-top.” Uhuh.
The Pope thinks who should step in?
On Sunday Pope Benedict paid a visit to Auschwitz and asked “WHERE WAS GOD AT AUSCHWITZ?”
Why didn’t he ask where was the POPE at Auschwitz?!
We’re certainly asking where is the Pope now? Why is he touring sites of past atrocities when there are current crimes which the Pope could be trying to impede?
Where was the Catholic church when America launched its illegal war? Who has not been speaking out as America rains its state terror upon innocent populations?
We know Pope John Paul was showing some slowing of activity where he might otherwise have been more outspoken againt America’s illegal atack of Iraq. We saw him endure drowsily through George Bush’s 2003 visit. I’d like to think Pope John Paul was drugged to keep him from getting out of his chair and sock George one.
But this pope is freshly minted, doesn’t he want to speak out while there’s still a chance to stop today’s crimes against humanity?
This pope tells us that in his youth he was pressed against his will to join the Hitler Youth. Is he trying to pull a peer pressure excuse this time as well? This is the banality of today’s Nazis. Maybe we do indeed have a Nazi Pope.
Is Pope Ratzinger so confident that fifty years from now a future pope will only stroll through the gate at Camp Guantanamo and ask “where was God” and not where was he and his church?
Support our snively troops

We’ve had a spate of vandalism at Camp Casey of late. It’s usually the same thing: lights broken, cinder blocks smashed, chairs upturned, fire pit stolen, banners torn and taken. They’ve taken STOP THE WAR, END WAR, WHAT NOBLE CAUSE, DEMOCRACY DEMANDS NON-VIOLENCE and many others. We simply make more. But they always leave the banner that reads SUPPORT OUR TROOPS – BRING THEM HOME NOW. What self-serving ninnies!
There might be well-intentioned, ordinary Americans caught up in Bush’s lies, out in Iraq and Afghanistan thinking they are protecting our freedoms. But they are killing innocents. They are murdering innocents. They are aiding and abeiting their fellow soldiers who are murdering innocents. At some point we’d have to say that being an idealist idiot cannot be an excuse.
Let me at these troops we’re supposed to support. I’ll spit in the face of every one of them. Idiots. Moral degenerates. Cowards. They’re afraid to do the right thing and resist immoral orders, afraid to face the brig instead of putting themselves in the position to be forced to kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis. I sympathize with every one of them but I respect not a one. They are all cowards, idiots, killers, or scum. And their parents are indefensible.
Bring the troops home, yes. To save the lives of innocents. What should I care about the soldier’s lives? Three years into this war, it would be fair to say they’ve earned what’s coming to them in this life or the next. Cowards and bastards every one.
ERRATUM 7.26
I’ve gotten so much heat for writing this. As I deserve. I’ve met active duty soldiers who are fine human beings, whom I like, all with their own stories of how they were caught up in what’s happened. A number are involved in the anti-war effort. I applaud their actions and really my original sentiment was harsh.
I do believe that the end of this war will have to come, as it did in Vietnam, when the soldiers themselves refuse to serve. When soldiers say no, when officers fear that their men will not follow, is when the Pentagon tells the President that this war is over.
It’s a tall order to ask of a common soldier, but it would not be a selfless act. Opting to go to the brig would be wiser than risking a tour of duty with IEDs, PTSD, permanent moral trauma, exposure to DU, the Anthrax vaccine, etc.
Congress building lockdown
I spotted this schematic on BagNews. He put it together to suggest what thoughts might be foremost in a GOP legislator’s mind right now.
I’m wondering how many others are speculating about the chances that the lockdown at the Rayburn Building was orchestrated to cover for the removal of office files into the parking deck.
Let’s see: congressman thinks he hears gunshots and suddenly policemen are pointing their guns at everyone, including reporters.
McCain abdication
Senator McCain was commencement speaker at Jerry Falwell’s school. He stressed his support for the war in Iraq, but urged opponents of the war to be more vocal.
This is not leadership. Build me a parade and I’ll march at the head? Lead the parade and we’ll march behind you. Otherwise you’ll simply stand with those who want nothing? Those being the majority so we are told?
McCain represents the imaginary masses which media polls tell us want nothing.
Used American soccer balls
There’s a local drive to round up soccer balls to send off to the children of Iraq. And they don’t want new ones.
An eight year old friend of mine came home from school and explained the logic. “Iraqi children want soccer balls that have been played with by American children. Just like when I go to the ballgame and catch a ball that’s been hit into the bleachers. American kids are excited to have a baseball that’s been used by professional players. Iraqi kids are excited to have soccer balls used by American kids!”
Except that the distinction kids make between new and used is universal. Everywhere there are such things as hand-me-downs probably. Otherwise the concept of children of two nations sharing their toys with each other sounded nice.
Then I learned further instructions. If you do not have a used soccer ball to give and are inclined to purchase a new soccer ball, the organizers would like you to give the new ball to your local soccer league in exchange for a used one of theirs. Thus the local soccer teams will benefit from this program as well.
Does that sound like unmitigated self serving crap to you?
When charities solicit donations of toys for AMERICAN children at Christmas, they always specify that the toy must be NEW, not the least bit used.
Pictured: A soccer ball fit for Iraqi kids. Scuffed and scratched by American kids before the American kids got a new one.
Sept 11 – America Reaps What It Sows!
By Black Liberation Army prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim.
U.S. International Warfare Initiates World War III Human Rights During Wartime
By Jalil A. MuntaqimIn the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have displayed their true colors of jingoism, a militaristic spirit of nationalism. Similarly, it was witnessed how the people of Iraq rallied in support of their President, Saddam Hussein, after the U.S. bombed to death 250,000 Iraqis, and continued devastation of that country with collateral damage of 1 million dead women and children. Hence, people rallying in support of their government and representatives is a common phenomenon when a country is attacked by an outsider. The U.S. has been foremost in the world extending foreign policy of free-market economy, to the extent of undermining other countries cultures and ideologies expressed as their way of life. Such conflicts inevitably positions the U.S. as the centerpiece, the bulls-eye for international political dissent, as indicated by demonstrations against the U.S. controlled IMF, WTO and World Bank conferences. The attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon did not occur in a vacuum. The people that carried out the attacks were not blind followers or robots with an irrational hatred of the U.S. peoples. Rather, this attack was part of an overall blowback to U.S. imperialist policy in support of zionist Israel and opposition to fundamentalist Islam.
There are essentially three primary world ideologies or world views: the capitalist free-market economy/democracy; the socialist production economy; and Islamic theocratic government, of which has been in competition for many decades. However, in the last 20 years the socialist economies has been severely subverted and co-opted by free-market economies, the ideals of American style democracy. This isolated, for the most part, Islamic theocratic ideology and system of government as the principle target of the U.S. in its quest for world hegemony. This reality of competing world views and economies is further complicated due to religious underpinning of beliefs that motivates actions, especially as they are expressed by U.S. and Western European christianity and Israel zionist judaism in opposition to Islam. From the struggles of the Crusades to the present confrontation, the struggle for ideological supremacy reigns, as the faithful continue to proselytize in the name of the Supreme Being.
When geopolitics are combined with religious fervor in the character of nationalist identity and patriotism, rational and logical thinking is shoved aside as matters of the moment takes historical precedents. It has often been said that “Truth Crush to the Earth Will Rise Again”. Since truth is relative to ones belief, can it be safely said that America has reaped what it has sowed? The American truth of capitalist christian democracy and its imperialist hegemonic aspirations has crushed both socialist and Islamic world views. It has extended its avaricious tentacles as the world police and economic harbinger of all that is beneficent, in stark denial of its history as a purveyor of genocides, slavery and colonial violence.
The U.S. was the first to use biological-germ warfare on people when it distributed blankets infected with smallpox to Native Americans; it has refused to apologize for Afrikan slavery acknowledging it engaged in a crime against humanity requiring reparations; it is the first and only country to use the atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and intern thousands of Japanese and Italians in this country; it used carpet bombing and defoliates against the peoples of Vietnam; it has initiated embargoes, coup d’etats and assassinations against those it opposes, while propping-up right-wing military dictators; as well as continued military bombing of Vieques. In essence, the U.S. governments hegemonic goals has created the ire of millions of people throughout the world. While domestically, racial profiling, police killing and mass incarceration of Black and Brown people has eroded patriotic sentiments in opposition to white supremacy.
As America weeps and laments its loss, the public find itself joining the torn ranks of those whose heartaches beat opposing U.S. greed and international profiteering. The American public acquiesce to U.S. international folly has cause them to feel the economic pains of those who live daily in poverty. Indeed, Americans should brace for years of economic uncertainty, where the American ideal of freedom and liberty will resemble plight of those who live under the right-wing dictatorships the U.S. has supported. The tyranny suffered by others in the world as a result of U.S. imperialism, has come full circle to visit this country with the wrath of the U.S. own mechanization. Since the U.S. taught and trained right-wing military dictators in the School of the Americas, including the CIA training of Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan proxy war against the Russians, it will be this same kind of terrorist activist that will be unleashed on American soil, as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz stated after the assassination of John Kennedy, a matter of the chicken coming home to roost. Therefore, American civil liberties and human rights are being garrotted by the yoke of the right-wing in the name of national security. The legalization of U.S. fascism was initiated with the war against political dissent (Cointelpro); the war against organized crime (RICO laws); the war against illegal drugs (plethora of drug laws) and now culminating in the war against terrorism with the American Joint Anti-Terrorist Taskforce and Office of Home Security, further extending police, FBI and CIA powers to undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recently stated that the U.S. need to create a new language in defining how to combat terrorism. This Orwellian propaganda in the media espouses the U.S. is venturing in a new type of warfare to defend the American way of life. However, what this double-speak propagates as a long-term and sustained initiative against terrorism is essentially a way of embellishing and enlarging U.S. counter-insurgency activity it has been engaged in since the advent of the Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force and Navy Seals. The U.S. has been involved in counter-insurgency activity in Afrika, Latin America and Asia for decades. But due to the September 11, 2001, attack on U.S. soil, the government has seized the opportunity to offensively pursue left-wing revolutionaries and Muslim insurgents throughout the world. This U.S. military action extends and substantiates its position as the international police.
Since the establishment of the Trilateral Commission that initiated the process for the development of one world government, the U.S. has broaden its capacity to impose and enforce its will on oppressed peoples globally. The FBI and CIA has been operating in Europe, Afrika, Asia and Latin America establishing the long arm of U.S. law and order. Its bases of operations have conducted surveillance, investigations to arrest, prosecute or neutralize left-wing revolutionaries or Muslim insurgents. As the U.S. consolidates its political and economic influence throughout the world, it will seek to protect its overall hegemonic imperialist goals. After the Gulf War, and the air (bombing) campaign in Yugoslavia, the U.S. has employed its military might to ensure its foreign policy are achieved.
Because NATO has evolved into a European military entity that Russia is seeking to join, today, the U.S. has positioned itself beyond the mission of NATO. The U.S. now concentrates its military might in opposing Islamic countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Philippines, etc.) and those the U.S. deem as rogue nations (North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.). The new military initiatives will be directed to towards Southeast Asia as the secondary target, as it continues to direct the Middle East conflict to preserve its oil investments and zionist interest. As the U.S. expand its imperialist military mission, as seen with committing military troops in Uzbekistan to also protect oil interest in the Caspian Sea, it has sought to redefine itself by targeting what it identify as the terrorist thereat wherever in the world it might exist. Hence, with the employment of conventional warfare combined with counter-insurgency tactical activities, the U.S. has pronounced itself as the military guardian of the world.
Although, the U.S. states its actions are in its self-interest, in terms of what is euphemistically defined as defending the free world, the truth of the matter is this action is a prelude to evolving one world government with the U.S. as its governing authority. Once the Peoples Republic of China becomes a full member of the WTO, and North Korea and Vietnam has been compromised, with Russia becoming an ally of NATO, the U.S. political-military influence in the world will be consolidated. The U.S. geopolitical strategy is not confined to the present crisis in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack and targeting Osama bin Laden as the world’s nemesis. Rather, the U.S. strategy is to preserve its capacity to establish one world government as originally envisioned by the Trilateral Commission.
Nonetheless, there are some serious obstacles to this hegemonic goal, of which the world of fundamentalist Islam has become the principle target. Here, it should be noted that Islam condemns suicide or the mass killings of women, children and non-combatant males. Yet, the U.S., Israel, western Europe, Russia, India and China all view Islam as the enemy. Although, there are over 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the current alliance of economic interest headed by the U.S., are united to vanquish what they consider the growing menace of fundamentalist Islam. It is with this understanding of U.S. geopolitics one is able to comprehend why the U.S. has redefine its military mission, as opposition to globalization and U.S. imperialism metamorph into a political struggle without borders or territorial imperatives.
The ideological struggle between capitalist free-market economy and Islamic theocratic determinates has exploded into an international conflagration of insurgency with the potential of initiating World War III. The Islamic fundamentalist movements throughout the world has the potential to test the U.S. military, political and economic resolve as the world’s leader and authority of an one world government. With over 1.2 billion adherents, Islam has become a formidable foe to contend with for ideological supremacy in the world’s geopolitics. Even without discussing the religious (moral and ethics) aspects that motivates the geopolitics of Islam in opposition to U.S. imperialist hegemony, the call for Jihad/Holy War against the U.S. presents a serious threat that could precipitate WW-III. Therefore, the U.S. find it necessary to redefine its military mission, develop new language to codify warfare and legitimize its international political and economic purpose. Yet, many of the world’s oppressed peoples’ have already experienced U.S. military counter-insurgency tactics (Ethiopia, Somalia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Congo, etc.), including parts of the Islamic world. No matter how or why the U.S. attempts to persuade Americans that it is entering a new type of warfare, in reality it is more of the same, only extending the military arena to further protect its authority to establish one world government.
However, the U.S. is not the homogeneous country that people are deluded into believing exist. Rather, the U.S. has been held together due its ability to exploit the world’s resources and distribute (unequally) the profits amongst its citizens with its culture of conspicuous consumption. But, the recent attack on the U.S., and its aftermath may very well lead to the untangling and unraveling of the U.S. fabric as has been witnessed with the USSR and Yugoslavia. In understanding this true history of U.S. imperialism, outside and within its borders, essentially tells a story of why U.S. imperialism has been and will continue to be attacked.
Ultimately, the U.S. will eventually find itself at war with itself, as the ideology of a free democratic society will be found to be a big lie. This is especially disconcerting as greater restrictions on civil and human rights are made into law eroding the First and Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As during the Vietnam conflict, internal contradictions of racism, poverty and inequality will be exacerbated as a result of the U.S. military campaign and domestic undermining of civil and human rights. It is expected that strife in America will eventually become violent dissolving any semblance of the illusion of America the Beautiful. In anticipation of U.S. progressive activist opposing this claimed war against terrorism, the federal government will pass new laws to severely restrict protest, demonstrations and dissent. In the ’60s, U.S. progressive activists evolved the slogan “Bring the War Home!” – the question is what will be the slogan this time, now that the war has been brought home?
Free the Land!!
Michael Crichton World Outlaw
The kingdom of non-aligned animals should move to extradite Michael Crichton for his piece o’ crap novel which denied global warming. Not because he denied anything, nor fabricated a parallel non-ailing planet, but because his work was propaganda made to incite support for the fuel and chemical barrons who have still plenty of poison to sow. Crichton was lauded as having been a gifted scientist before he became a best-selling author. It suggested by the talking heads that Crichton was perhaps a more talented scholar than he was a novelist, to give his poohpooing of Global Warming more credibility. This statement addressed really the fact that his books are by no means literary. Crichton’s successful, he’s rich, but by no means brilliant. He takes home $60 million a year from publication and movie rights to his string of so popular novels. Apparently that’s not enough.
Selling arms to the enemy
200,000 Kalashnikovs collected from the streets of Bosnia by US forces were recently shipped off to Iraq via the usual arms dealers/contractors. It’s said the shipments were intended for the Iraqi-coalition soldiers but the guns have disappeared and it’s feared they are being used to fire at US troops.
Holy Fucking Shit wouldn’t you say? This would be the kind of story a so-called-liberal-press would love to expose! American war profiteers selling weapons to both sides! Where are the reporters? The world press is running with it, apparently our reporters are not.
WWII
The other day I was perusing a collection of paintings of WWII aerial dog-fights. The book had a not-so-subtle patriotic bent such that scenes mostly depicted American fighters shooting down enemy planes. My attention was thus grabbed by a dogfight depicting a swastika-clad Finnish plane having shot two red-starred Russian planes.
Noteworthy however was that both combatants were flying American planes. The US shipped thousands of planes to its Russian ally throughout the war. The Finns flew Hawker Hurricanes and Brewster Buffalos. These weren’t planes left-over from before the war. Our industrialists supplied these planes to Finland during the war. Our war-profiteers were making money from both sides of the war!
Recognize the plane? That doesn’t look like our swastika on the wings, does it?
Elementary school reenactment of failed suppression of colonial insurgency
COLO. SPRINGS- Last Friday D-12 fifth graders fought the Battle of Saratoga in a private park adjacent Broadmoor Elementary School. Their reenactment meant to teach the horrors of war, and to have fun.
The young British occupation troops in the foothills of Pikes Peak in 2006 discovered the fate of all empires.
Stepping up imperialism
The Colorado Springs Gazette recently reported on developments at Fort Carson. With improvements to its infrastructure, Fort Carson will be prepared to ship out over 1,200 soldiers a day. It sounds wonderously efficient. Is anyone asking why we would need to scramble that many soldiers per day? What kind of plans are afoot to suddenly require large contingents of soldiers?
Fort Carson was the primary shipping off point during the Vietnam War. Are we looking at that kind of operation?
Oil pundit
NPR’s Daniel Shore was talking recently about the rising oil prices. He was asked about what factors affect the price of oil. I think Shore’s answer refined punditry.
Shore suggested to use the news of Iran as an example. He explained that “oil prices” would look at developments in Iran and say “Oh my! Iran is creating trouble with its nuclear ambitions!” And as a result the price of oil would rise. (Shall we leave aside this attempt to blame Iran for America’s rising prices at the pump?)
Oh my! Punditry began as political opinion-giving. It became of late an opportunity for the media to give voice to what politicians would not say. Tired of receiving “no comment” from goverment authorities, reporters summarized for themselves. Soon pundits were speaking for the public or “some people” or entire populations or cultures or countries. “Christians” think this, or “China” says that.
Now apparently oil has a voice.
Mob rule
Not mob rule as in democracy gone awry. Not lynch mob. The mob mob. To borrow what Serbs used to say about their country:
Many countries have their own mobsters. America is the only place where mobsters have their own country.
While the television public is fascinated by the stereotype Italian Mafioso, the real mob is comprised of corporate dons who enforce their capitalist tyranny on anyone worth squeezing, turnups included.
The poor are starving, falling victim to plagues, genocide, war and catastrophe. The middle classes are falling into debt, soon to be poor, meanwhile the rich are hording more and more. Instead of caring for their indentured subjects, the rich build their castle walls ever higher.
Organic, range-fed, non-toxic food? Not for us. Reserved for their progeny. Instead of ameliorating the plight of the serf by sharing the bounty of the land, we get mad-cow infested gruel.
Freakonomics
Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt gave a lecture at Colorado College about how economics can explain everything and credited the inspiration for his book: Jerry Seinfeld. Which explained perhaps why Levitt was stuck in the minutia.
The Colorado Springs audience spilled over two venues to hear the author because economics presents a particularly galling mystery as Americans face the plunging dollar, joblessness and a real estate bubble. A good deal of the audience left before the question and answer period perhaps as they realized that this trust fund tenured professor’s thesis was the equivalent of bizarro theory proving irrelevancies.
Levitt linked legalized abortions to decreased crime, instead of linking abortions to less poverty to less crime. He demonstrated how criminal hiearchy in the hood mirrored the management structure of McDonalds, instead of pondering which was a mirror and which was the model.
Stephen Colbert and the missing laugh track
Stephen Colbert bombed. We know this because there was no laugh track.
I watched Colbert’s verbal pie-throwing at the Washington Correspondents Association Dinner. The press corps though it wasn’t funny big time.
First off, how do you make fun of this administration and what it’s done? War crimes, torture, theft, breaking the law, it’s not readily very funny. The emperor has no clothes. His bare willy might be funny if it wasn’t pushed deep into a writhing bloody world.
Stephen Colbert did the best he could and what was most unfunny about his effort was the reaction of his audience. They didn’t like what he said at all. The emperor doesn’t know he has no clothes, he’s oblivious. But his courtiers know better, they can see it. If they’re opting to say nothing, they certainly don’t welcome a Colbert coming in and making light of their eyesight or their motives.
At the dinner, Bush played up the adversarial relationship he has with the press. Stephen Colbert played along with this so-called rivalry when he explained why he should have been considered for the position of press secretary. Pointing to the audience Colbert told the president that he had “nothing but contempt for these guys.”
Which turned out to be likely, didn’t it? Stephen Colbert proved that the press were nothing but yes-men courtiers, conspirators and collaborators who couldn’t laugh.
Colbert’s press club jokes were funny. It’s just that the laugh track was missing. His jokes hit home, even if, as we’ve always suspected, no-one was home.
MRE garbage trail
A Meal-Ready-to-Eat is what we feed to our soldiers in the field. It’s a self contained meal, descendent of the C-ration. An MRE features a meat, vegetable, bread, dessert, choice of drinks, and plenty of packaging. Here’s what’s left after you consume the edible bits:
Heavy plastic MRE bag
cardboard box enclosing meat
plastic/foil heatable bag for contents
cardboard box enclosing side dish
plastic/foil heatable bag for contents
plastic bag enclosing heat pouch
cloth/chemical heat pouch
plastic bag for spoon
plastic spoon
plastic/foil bag for crackers
plastic/foil bag for cheese
plastic/foil bag for dessert
plastic Fresh Pax pouch
plastic/foil bag for drink mix
clear plastic bag for condiments
clear plastic bag for mint gum
brown paper wrapper for napkin
paper napkin
clear plastic Tobasco bottle
red plastic bottle top
cardboard matchbook
paper/foil bag for tea
tea bag
paper/foil bag for coffee sweetner
paper/foil bag for moist toilette
cloth/paper toilette
3 paper bags for sugar, salt and pepper
29 items total. 10 are biodegradable, 4 are partially biodegradable, and 15 are of non-biodegradable plastic.







