So, what happens when we do WORSE than behead somebody? Say, for instance, gut-shoot a third-world person knowing full well that the only place in town which can treat an abdominal wound is a hospital associated with whatever torture regime we’re propping up, or a US Military Hospital who will patch the dude up and then turn him over to somebody like the Saigon Torture Regime? Which is what these rifles were designed for doing. Not for a humane quick kill.
The AR series, including the most infamous of all the M16A1 and its assorted A numbers derived therefrom, was designed specifically to gut-shoot. The bullet-barrel-powder combination was ordered so that it would cause massive rips inside the intestines with a very small entry wound. Until Dr Joseph Lister discovered a way to use antiseptic surgical techniques, a gut wound was an automatic death sentence. A slow, painful one that could last days. The theory behind the AR series is that in Third World countries, the Guerrilla Theater, (guerrilla is the Spanish word for “little war” not the fighter therein, A common misuse of the word) the fighters with a comrade so afflicted had a very few nasty choices. Take their wounded comrade with them, slowing them down so the Army would have an easier time capturing or exterminating them, killing him, or leaving him to be captured and his life saved long enough to be turned over to the Torture Regime.
We had a candidate for president in the last election, an Admiral’s Kid naviy pilot who was most famous for being a screwup, protected by his daddy’s rank.
Wrecked his third Very Expensive U.S. killer aircraft and the DRVN government took him prisoner. Technically, what he and his fellow pirates err Pilots were doing was an act of terrorism, not a war crime per se because nobody from either the Hanoi government, the Saigon government or the U.S. government had ever formally declared war. It was on the level of 9/11 only using more planes and the killers, instead of dying to accomplish their deeds, would fly back to their carriers or their bases in Thailand or Singapore, neither of which had ever declared war, have a steak dinner, get drunk at the O club and congratulate each other on what brave pirates err Pilots they were. The DRVN claimed to have shot him down, but with his flight record the notion that they were exaggerating sounds plausible.
He was given Prisoner Of War Status. The Viet Minh “cong” soldiers were not given such status. McCain bitches a whole lot about the treatment he received as a prisoner, but never once mentions that the prisoners in South VietNam were treated even worse. By the same legal traditions and conditions the U.S. Puppet government in Saigon used, the DRVN could have just as easily executed them as terrorists. Saigon did it routinely, with the help of the U.S.
The U.S. Army said they didn’t torture prisoners, which is bullshit, but let’s go with their Official Position. They merely turned them over to the ARVN forces who tortured and executed them.
The DRVN might not have had pure motives in declaring the Non-War criminals like McCain to be POWs. Probably didn’t. The double and treble and quadruple standards exercised in that non-“war” war were rife on all sides, The U.S. hasn’t had a pure, unbroken record for treating prisoners humanely, the term “Concentration Camp” was invented for US POW camps in the Spanish-American war. Just an observation.
So, yeah. Call me when WE behead somebody.
Western warmongers have caught on to viral videos for scaring up public support for military airstrikes against Iraq and Syria. So far three videos have emerged appearing to show a Western captive being beheaded by a faceless executioner presumed to represent “the Islamic State”. Though viewers are purported to be screaming for Islamic blood, the evidence at hand doesn’t implicate more than one person, himself faceless and of indeterminate identity, nationality and religious preference. It could be Mr. Califate himself, if the video is genuine –as usual we have only the CIA’s word on that– or it could be a mercenary under anyone’s employ. Apparently experts are convinced this is provocation enough to launch a war. I say, let the US and its military allies show the intellectual honesty to release videos of detainees they’ve tortured or of families they’ve executed with drones. If videotaped atrocities are going to govern international policy, let the global viewership determine whose side of the war they want to be on.