Tag Archives: Massacre

The Waco Police Massacre and Coverup

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The photo of the bikers in Waco is as upsetting to me as it is to many of us. Many years ago I saw a photo of a naked starving child in the Sudan. I was so shocked by this photo that I had to turn away. And there-in lies the power of a photo. The photo that Eric used in his article has the same effect. It’s hard to look at, but we must not forget the message of the article. The photo serves to remind us of the carnage the Waco Police Department is capable of, this is where we need to keep our focus, they need to answer their role and why these men lay dead in that parking lot. We should never let them investigate themselves. We have already heard too many lies from them about this incident ( Premeditated Murder). Our call needs to be for an honest independent  investigation.  At the present there are far too many holes in the stories the police spokesman is putting out. The photo itself is proof of their lies.

The Bikers were getting together to make “Peace”. There was such a large number of them that it scared the shit out of the police. The police used tactics we know all too well, disruption and then blame the victims. I saw an article that police are now calling for all bikers to be removed from the streets. Of course that fits right in with their plans.

Ludlow 100 year anniversary feted by social class that committed massacre

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Cover of WestwordDENVER, COLO.- I might be sensationalizing a technicality, but in effect it’s what happened: the remembering of Ludlow has been commandeered by the class who perpetrated it. The preliminary series of events commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre (April 20, 1914) concluded tonight at Denver’s History Colorado Museum with a panel discussion featuring only establishment voices. “Is Ludlow relevant?” was the question posed to five participants among them three professors, a soldier, and a union rep. That’s like asking “is global warming real?” The question is loaded with the suggestion that the opposite is equally plausible. I would have preferred to hear HOW is Ludlow relevant. Though the union rep skillfully skirted the issue, no one pushed back at another flawed presumption, that the coal strike was an armed conflict. Yes the massacre provoked the ten day “Coal Field War” during which striking miners retaliated against the mine company employees, but the death toll was still but a fraction of the number of miners killed in the mine accidents which precipitated the Ludlow strike. It took an audience member to address that omission. Alas nobody mentioned the aftermath that found many miners under arrest, others scattered, and no mine owner, operator, guard, strikebreaker, Baldwin-Felts thug, or National Guard save one, was punished for the atrocity. Yes many immigrant miners were veterans of Bulkan wars, but some Colorado soldiers were veterans of the US campaign in the Philippines, where villages were dispatched with flame and machinegun fire. Not mentioned. Instead a Colorado National Guard representative was let to say that burning the tents at Ludlow was not a tactical error -and since the “non-combatant” deaths were unintended, Ludlow was not technically a massacre.

Pueblo museum excises Mine Workers Union from Ludlow Massacre exhibit!

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PUEBLO, COLORADO- 2014 marks one hundred years since the Ludlow Massacre of 1914. A variety of commemorations are planned before the formal anniversary on April 20. I attended one such event on Wednesday, a lecture by a CSU professor to footnote the “Children of Ludlow” exhibit at El Pueblo History Museum. I’m always excitied when attention is paid to Ludlow, a subject regularly left out of American schoolbooks, but I was disappointed to find key elements of labor history excised from the museum’s narrative. Literally. The United Mine Workers of America, the organization central to the strike, which supplied the tent city, and which even today maintains the memorial site, was mentioned only once, IN FINE PRINT! The Ludlow miners voted to strike because the mining companies refused to recognize the UMWA. Unmentioned. The horrors of the atrocity were not tempered, in their explicitness perhaps we think them enough, but there was also the apologist suggestion that some culpability belonged to the miners. I questioned one curator who admitted they were at pains to keep the story “balanced” and that the squeakiest wheel thus far has been the National Guard. Apparently the Guard is offended that its role will be misconstrued. What balance do they want, I wondered. Had they lost children in the “battlezone” too?

Children are at the heart of commemorating Ludlow and at the heart of this preversion of the massacre’s memory. Were they recklessly endangered by their parents and union organizers? Were they dragged into a battlezone? The museum seems to suggest as much, highlighting the beligerence of the miners, mischaracterizing the soldiers, and leaving the union actions largely unexplained.

First I’d like to declare how I tire of the objective irrelevance which results when academics seek the approval of government technocrats. I am also disturbed by educators who pretend blindness to subtle inferences which shape a political takeaway. To them, “remembering” Ludlow seems sufficient in itself. I can hardly see the point to remembering Ludlow unless we have discerned its lessons. Until we are remembering the LESSONS OF LUDLOW, our educators’ self-proclaimed raison d’etre will be self-fulfilling: “history will repeat itself.” This Pueblo exhibit suggests no lesson other than the exploitation of tragedy, and leaves me fearful about the Ludlow commemorations to follow. The anti-union, pro-military climate which prevails these hundred years since the massacre will make for a travesty of a remembrance unless someone with a worker’s perspective speaks up.

NOT BROUGHT TO YOU BY…
Let’s start with this exhibit, which alas has already escaped critique since September. Its full title, as evidenced in the photo above: “Black Hills Energy presents: Children of Ludlow, Life in a Battlezone, 1913-1914.”

I’ll bet curators thought it a measure of truth and reconciliation that the Ludlow presentation was sponsored by a local extraction industry business. Black Hills Energy trades not in coal but natural gas. In fact they’re among the frackers tearing up Southeastern Colorado. I think the irony more likely suggests how the UMWA’s starring role was left on the cutting room floor. There are generic mentions of “the union”, as at right, keeping a ledger of which families were assigned tents, but only in the fine print is the UMWA named as owning the ledger.

BATTLEZONES
More troubling is the skewed framing of the museum’s narrative. It begins with the subtitle, “life in a battlezone.” That’s taking a rather curious liberty don’t you think? The event we accept now as “Ludlow” became a battlezone on April 20, and the regional Coal Field War which followed was a battlezone to which both revenge-seekers and militia thronged, but the tent colonies in which 12,000 lived, 9,000 of whom were the children of the title role, were camps full of families. That they were straffed regularly by the guards makes them shooting galleries not battlegrounds.

Calling Ludlow a battlezone is like calling Sand Creek a “collision” or calling the Middle East a “conflict”. All of these mask the role of the aggressor.

I will credit the curators for offering a candid detail of horrific import. In a description of the day before the massacre, when the Greeks among the immigrants were celebrating Greek Easter, mention is made of the mounted National Guards offered this taunt: “You enjoy your roast today; we will have ours tomorrow.” No one should deny today that the events of April 20, which culminated in the torching of the tents and asphyxiation of women and children, was a premeditated act.

THE CHILDREN
Should the miners have put their children in harm’s way by defying the mining companies? How could they not? As immigrants they didn’t have nearby relatives to foster their children away from the random bullets. Also left unsaid by the display: many of the children had already been working in the mines and counted among those on strike. This was before child labor reforms.

Curiously, the exhibit did include a famous photograph of the notorious activist Mother Jones leading a childrens’ march through Trinidad. The caption explained that Jones “wasn’t above using real children to advance the cause of Colorado’s coal miners.” Emphasis mine. While technically true in a modern context, it’s probably disingenuous to imply someone is using the children when a key issue of the demonstration is CHILD LABOR.

No really. Mother Jones was leading a march of children, many of them workers of the mines, for the reform of labor practices which abused children. This and subsequent campaigns eventually led to child labor laws. Is saying “Mother Jones wasn’t above using children” in any way an accurate characterization?

Compounding the inference that the Children of Ludlow were jeopardized for the cause, was the implication that the miners were combatants who contributed to the battlezone. As the displays progressed in chronological order, the first weapon on display was a rifle used by the miners. Immediately behind it was an enlarged photograph vividly depicting miners posed with two identical specimens.

Moving along the exhibit chronologically, anticipating the rising violence, the museum goers is apparently supposed to register that the strikers were firing too, if not first. Recent historical accounts have deliberated about who fired first. I think the motive is suspiciously revisionist in view of today’s dogma of nonviolence absolutism: if your protest devolves into violence, you deserve every bit of the beating you get.

Whenever it was that the miners began firing, the single militia and three guard casualties were not recorded until after the massacre took place, belying the narrative that the miners invited the massacre. Witnesses conflict about when the three union leaders were executed. I’ll give the museum credit for defying the National Guard in summarizing that among the casualties, three of the miners were “executed”.

PARITY OF WEAPONS
Students of the Ludlow accounts know that many of the miners were better riflemen than the soldiers. Many were immigrants who’d served in Bulkan wars and outmatched Colorado’s green guardsmen. That is not to suggest that the miners and their harrassers were equally armed, yet…

The only other weapon on display is a rifle of vintage used by the national guard. It shares a case with a uniform and sabre, lending it official authority. Also, the rifle is not presented as having been used at Ludlow, so it doesn’t project an aura of culpability. Missing is the machine gun depicted in the photograph of the machine gun nest which fired down upon the camp. It’s depicted with a caption about the Guard being a welcome presence. Missing too is the armored car dubbed the “Death Special”. Obviously the armor protected its operators from being hit by striking-miner bullets as it drove through the canvas encampment, straffing the tents with its mounted machine gun.

HUMANIZING THE PERP
Right after the photo of armed miners was the display at right, with a very contrived bit of spin catering to today’s military families. Although the photo shows soldiers actively aiming their gun at the camp, the caption assures us that the “Ludlow families feel relief with the arrival of National Guard”. This supposition is based on the fact that when the soldiers first arrived they were serenaded with the “Battle Cry of Freedom” and greeted with American flags. Most of the miners being immigrants, they were eager to show their patriotism, but the conclusion drawn here is a terrible mendacity. The miners and union organizers knew full well the purpose of the National Guard. They knew the strikebreaking role it played in famous strikes of the past. The miners feted the soldiers hoping to sway them from their eventual task. Protesters of all eras hold out this hope every time they face riot police.

A following paragraph suggested that by the time the massacre was committed, most of the soldiers had been mustered out and replaced with militia members and company guards. This is slight of hand. After the official inquiry, which was prompted by the public outcry, twenty National Guard soldiers were court martialed. All were acquitted. Is the Guard wanting us to believe they were acquitted because they weren’t there?

This attempt to put a friendly face on the National Guard, coupled with an abdication of effort to give the union its due, seems engineered to appeal to the average Pueblan of today, many probably related to an active-duty soldier and long since indoctrinated against evil unions. When I asked the lecturer about the omission of the UMWA, she prefaced her answer for the audience, explaining that unions of old were not like those despised today. I told her I thought failing to describe the hows and whys of the strike was a real teaching opportunity missed.

HISTORY COLORADO
It’s probably important to point out that the Ludlow presentation at the History Museum was developed with the assistance of History Colorado, which finally shuttered a contested display: a Sand Creek Massacre exhibit with a similar flavor of whitewash. Like labeling Ludlow a battlezone, History Colorado tried to typify Sand Creek as a “collision.”

Also typical of History Colorado is the propensity to address their exhibits to children. Programming for school bus visits invariably dumbs down what can be presented and I hardly think the compromise is worth it. If children ran the world, maybe Disney versions of history would suffice.

I’d like to have seen it highlighted that the Ludlow miners were mainly immigrants who were looked down upon by the residents of Colorado. If the museum audience were the “Children of Ludlow” in the extended sense, as a few descendants probably were, more of us were the children of the soldiers of Ludlow, or the citizens who cheered them on, or joined the militia or built the armored car at Rockefeller’s Pueblo factory. If we’re going to remember Ludlow, we ought to remember our role in it so we don’t do that again. It’s easy to pretend we were the martyrs. In all probability that’s who we will be if the lessons of Ludlow are discarded.

Bear Creek Massacre, January 29, 1863

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The year 2014 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, on November 29, two days after Thanksgiving. But on this day, January 29 of the year before, a Shoshone village suffered an identical fate. The Bear Creek Massacre was also once called the Battle of Bear Creek, but the only grounds which western military history buffs have to argue that such engagements were “battles” not massacres, is that was how the US cavalry waged its fights against the hostiles, its only victories were raids upon unsuspecting villages.

Here is the official contemporary report of Colonel Connor’s attack. First the cover letter which sets the scene. From the Official Records of the War of Rebellion (what the Civil War was called then), series 1, volume 50, part 1:

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC,
San Francisco, February 20, 1863.
Adjt. General L. THOMAS, U. S. Army,
Washington, D. C.:
SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith the report of Colonel P. E. Connor, Third Infantry California Volunteers of the battle fought on the 29th of January, on Bear River, Utah, Ter., between U. S. troops and hostile Indians. Our victory was complete; 224 of the enemy left dead on the field. Colonel Connor’s loss was heavy. Out of 200 men engaged 14 were killed on the field and 4 officers and 49 men wounded; 1 officer and 5 of the men wounded have since died. Colonel Connor’s report of the suffering of his troops on the march and the gallant and heroic conduct of both officers and men in that terrible combat will commend the Column from California and its brave commander to the favorable notice of the General-in-Chief and War Department.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. WRIGHT,
Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, Commanding.

I’ll parse those totals for you. Cowboy casualties: 20 dead, 47 wounded. Indians: 224 dead, 0 wounded.

Here are the more relevant passages of Connor’s report. Notice he puts plenty of emphasis on the fight he encountered, even suggesting that the Shoshones initiated the attack. Connor sheds much less light on the aftermath. (I’ve bolded some parts of import:)

Report of Colonel P. Edward Connor, Third California Infantry, commanding District of Utah. (Excerpt)

As daylight was approaching I was apprehensive that the Indians would discover the strength of my force and make their escape. I therefore made a rapid march with the cavalry and reached the bank of the river shortly after daylight in full view of the Indian encampment and about one mile distant. I immediately ordered Major McGarry to advance with the cavalry and surround before attacking them, while I remained a few minutes in the rear to give orders to the infantry and artillery.

On my arrival on the field I found that Major Mcgarry had dismounted the cavalry and was engaged with the Indians who had sallied out of their hiding places on foot and horseback, and with fiendish malignity waved the scalps of white women and challenged the troops to battle, at the same time attacking them. Finding it impossible to surround them in consequence of the nature of the ground, he accepted their challenge.

The “scalps of white women” was a common motif used in justifying ensuing slaughters. Colonel Chivington cited the presence of same at the Sand Creek camp, although none were ever produced.

The position of the Indians was one of strong natural defenses, and almost inaccessible to the troops, being in a deep, dry ravine from six to twelve feet deep and from thirty to forty feet wide, banks and running across level table-land, along which they had constructed steps from which they could deliver their fire without being themselves exposed. Under the embankments they had constructed artificial covers of willows thickly woven together, from being which they could fire without being observed.

After being engaged about twenty minutes I found it was impossible to dislodge them without great sacrifice of life. I accordingly ordered Major McGarry with twenty men to turn their left flank, which was in the ravine where it entered the mountains. Shortly afterward Captain Hoyt reached the ford three-quarters of a mile distant, but found it impossible to cross footmen. Some of them tried it, however, rushing into the river, but, finding it deep and rapid, retired. I immediately ordered a detachment of cavalry with led horses to cross the infantry, which was done accordingly and upon their arrival upon the field I ordered them to the support of Major McGarry’s flanking party, who shortly afterward succeeded in turning the enemy’s flank.

Up to this time, in consequence of being exposed on a level and open plain while the Indians were under cover, they had every advantage of us, fighting with the ferocity of demons. My men fell fast and thick around me, but after flanking them we had the advantage and made good use of it. I ordered the flanking party to advance down the ravine on either side, which gave us the advantage of an enfilading fire and caused some of the Indians to give way and run toward the north of the ravine.

At this point I had a company stationed, who shot them as they ran out. I also ordered a detachment of cavalry across the ravine to cut off the retreat of any fugitives who might escape the company at the mouth of the ravine. But few tried to escape, however, but continued fighting with unyielding obstinacy, frequently engaging hand to hand with the troops until killed in their hiding places.

The most of those who did escape from the ravine were afterward shot in attempting to swim the river, or killed while desperately fighting under cover of the dense willow thicket which lined the river-banks.

Most were shot, but Connor skimps on the detail. The wounded Shoshones and those feigning injury were prodded with bayonettes then shot, violated sometimes before, sometimes after. Few escaped this fate. Like any population of civilians, the village was at least seventyfive percent women and children.

I have also to report to the general commanding that previous to my departure Chief Justice Kinney, of Great Salt Lake City, made a requisition for troops for the purpose of arresting the Indian chiefs Bear Hunter, San Pitch, and Sagwich. I informed the marshal that my arrangements for our expedition against the Indians were made, and that it was not my intention to take any prisoners, but that he could accompany me. Marshal Gibbs accordingly accompanied me and rendered efficient aid in caring for the wounded.

…

Of the good conduct and bravery of both officers and men California has reason to be proud. We found 224 bodies on the field, among which were those of the chiefs Bear Hunter, Sagwich, and Leight. How many more were killed than stated I am unable to say, as the condition of the wounded rendered their immediate removal a necessity. I was unable to examine the field. I captured 175 horses, some arms, destroyed over seventy lodges, a large quantity of wheat and other provisions, which had been furnished them by the Mormons; left a small quantity of wheat for the sustenance of 16 and children, whom I left on the field.

Latest massacre in Syria has almost all the hallmarks of a US military atrocity

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The victims are civilian, most of them women and children, killed with disproportionate force, with the usual un-Islamic effort made to burn the bodies to cover it up. Hell, this could have been an all-American lone-GI “Kandahar Shooting Spree”, if you believe the DoD and don’t want to credit our US Special Forces Death Squads. If only the dead had been peed on or had trophy fingers removed, we’d know for sure. Now President Bashar Assad’s forces are reportedly preventing western “monitors” from either coming upon, or leaving the crime scene, to spin NATO’s nauseatingly regular calling card and frame Assad for the atrocity to justify Western intervention. Said Assad of last week’s massacre of Syrian civilians, it “was the work of monsters” which is codeword for Israelis and their habitual inhumanity toward non-Jewish Semites, but clearly now must include US standard practice as it pursues its global war on Islam.

About Juan Cole on the bloodshed in Houla, Syria…

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Houla was bombed by the Syrian government and 30 to 40 children were killed among the 90 casualties in this portion of the US attack on Syria as the Syrian government fought back by bombing US backed rebels. Juan Cole though, like many of the liberal-Left humanitarian imperialists, simply refuses to acknowledge that the US is orchestrating any war on Syria or, by extension, any war against the Syrian government’s ally, Iran. He demands of people opposing his support of US imperialist military intervention inside Syria, that they MUST denounce Assad for resisting US allied forces! What a line of crap!

‘Those who ridicule the idea of an international responsibility to protect as a mere stalking horse of neo-imperialism will please have the decency at least to denounce the Baath regime for this bloodbath.’

Answer to your challenge against us, Professor Cole…. FIRST, just why is it so hard for you yourself though, to have the decency at least to denounce the US Obama regime for this bloodbath? Do you think that by arming the opposition to the Baath regime in Syria, that this somehow frees the US of responsibility when Assad fights back to remain in power against US government wishes? Where is YOUR DECENCY here when you are unable to mention that responsibility for this bloodshed? You are a petulant fraud, Professor!

Yes, the Baath regime has some responsibility for killing people, and SO DOES THE MUCH BIGGER US EMPIRE AND IT’S ALLIES. Shame on all the (and there are quite a few, in fact) US humanitarian imperialist Lefties for forgetting that though! The blame for this war is not at all ALL ALONE upon Assad, Juan. You and other liberal types who are so damn quick to denounce and hyperventilate about the Gaddafies, Assads, and Husseins of the Middle East while forgetting to build a real international movement to end the US war making around the planet make us sick. What Stupid Assholes you all are! The US has initiated this bloodshed, and you of the liberal and socialist mindset are truly lost souls if you are unaware of that???

Oops. Add two rapes to the feat of Staff Sgt. Bales, death squad of one (Aghans say 1/16th) behind Panjwaii Massacre

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An Afghan parliamentary fact-finding mission reports that two women were raped before being killed in the US NATO night raid on Panjwaii. Yeah, Americans still can’t pronounce My Lai. The same US corporate press is raping Afghanistan.

Oh, he’s Mr. Nice American Guy alright

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‘Bales, a student of Middle Eastern history and customs, often admonished younger GIs to treat noncombatants with courtesy and respect, Alexander said. “Some guys had a pretty negative attitude, but Bales wasn’t like that at all. He said there was no need to be a jerk. Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet if you need to.” (from The Seattle Times report about Robert Bales …Oh, he’s Mr. Nice Guy alright! He’s the all American guy, from an all American family, with an all American attitude!

Did US Staff Sergeant Robert Bales engage in a US military revenge killing?

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(Robert Fisk) ‘The Afghan narrative has been curiously lobotomised – censored, even – by those who have been trying to explain this appalling massacre in Kandahar. They remembered the Koran burnings – when American troops in Bagram chucked Korans on a bonfire – and the deaths of six Nato soldiers, two of them Americans, which followed. But blow me down if they didn’t forget – and this applies to every single report on the latest killings – a remarkable and highly significant statement from the US army’s top commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, exactly 22 days ago. Indeed, it was so unusual a statement that I clipped the report of Allen’s words from my morning paper and placed it inside my briefcase for future reference.

Allen told his men that “now is not the time for revenge for the deaths of two US soldiers killed in Thursday’s riots”. They should, he said, “resist whatever urge they might have to strike back” after an Afghan soldier killed the two Americans. “There will be moments like this when you’re searching for the meaning of this loss,” Allen continued. “There will be moments like this, when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back. Now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to look deep inside your souls, remember your mission, remember your discipline, remember who you are.”‘ … from Robert Fisk commentary: Madness is not the reason for this massacre.

Yes, this Pentagon propaganda effort to blame some sort of PTSD for Staff Sergeant Robert Bale’s war crime is rather disingenuous.

I’ll see your Staff Sgt Robert Bales and raise you 15 death squad members

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Everyone from the US Department of Defense to the School of the Americas knows it takes a village to raze a death squad, or vice versa. According to the manual, if you want to storm houses in the middle of the night, gather the male family members for execution, shoot everyone in the head, gather stray bodies into a pile, pour gasoline over them and burn them, then repeat the operation in a neighboring village, you need a death squad, possibly two, especially if everyone’s drunk. US forces have pulled off so many of these massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan, that it’s a wonder military analysts don’t recognize the Panjwayi raid as a textbook operation. If the official US spin is to be believed, and one drunken staff sergeant can do the work of 15-20, I’m thinking our entire NATO force in Afghanistan could be reduced by the same factor without jeopardizing US kill goals.

Spinning US atrocities, words matter: shooting sprees & shopping rampages

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Headlines about Sunday’s midnight massacre in Kandahar transformed quickly from NATO FORCES RAID to become LONE GUNMAN KILLS 16, as the attributed sources shifted from Afghan locals on the scene to US military spokesmen. One might argue it’s in the interest of national security to attribute the murders in Balandi and Alkozai to a solitary stalker, to tamp the swelling anger of the Afghan populace, but what’s the truth? Making a rare concession, the NYT has revised its headline a 3rd time to read LONE SOLDIER SAID TO BE KILLER OF 16 AFGHANS, and the BBC puts “ACTED ALONE” in quotes. (UPDATE: AP adds “allegedly” and LA Times “apparently”)
 
Pundits stroke our soldiers’ egos by asking could one special forces soldier alone kill so many (?!), but more difficult to imagine is how a rogue fighter can equip himself and pass through multiple security defenses unobserved. Also doubtful is how and why a stealth assassin would burn the victims’ bodies as he moved about. Easier to believe is that damage control decided it best that one man take the fall for his comrades, God and country, probably the one too drunk to object.

Bahrain King Hamad fells monument at Pearl Roundabout to efface revolution, also so his hanging won’t be iconic

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The prevailing talking point on Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is that he’s a “good man.” So is his son the Crown Prince, apparently both “good men,” which stands at odds with the ongoing murderous repression of their fiefdom’s pro-Democracy demonstrators and the doctors trying to save them. How genteel an argument, to dismiss reports of massacres, arrests and beatings out of hand, because their reality would simply be too out of character to be believed. Media spokesman for the proto-Saudis and their Western Boyars assure viewers the news is inherently inconsistent with the much-self-beloved royals. How does that square with the sudden calculated move to tear down the monument at the center of the Pearl Roundabout which had become the iconic symbol of Bahrain’s popular uprising and its resilient demonstrators? Oh the sculpture resembled less political symbolism than cake decoration, the usual garish erection by born-in-a-tent nouveau riche. But what are we to conclude was the king’s benevolent motive? A sudden aesthetic enlightenment” I would advise the self-bolstered monarch to fell every structure in Bahrain from which his subjects might be able to string a noose.

The Original Intent of Guns in Schools

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Since a lot of the jackass political hacks who feel that more guns in schools will actually reduce school violence ALSO believe that they have the “original intent” of the founding fathers, the mythical group of Holy Men anointed by God Himself to dictate the course of American history and laws long after they died… Let’s hold them to their OWN original intent.

The cast of characters in their “Founding Fathers” morality play shifts dramatically from issue to issue, Thomas Paine is revered on Violent Overthrow but booed and hissed on his theory that every citizen should receive a stipend from the government sufficient for their needs, paid annually.

Unless it’s the state of Alaska paying people to live there in which case he’s redeemed.

Thomas Jefferson is revered on States Rights and on any grasp-at-straws pick one word out of one sentence and three out of the next maneuvering to force us to believe that he advocated a Church State, or that he contradicted himself on slavery v Absolute Liberty. He also in his own writings said that Negroes stank. Apparently not badly enough to keep him from having sex with Sally Hemings and fathering a child by her… Repeatedly….

So the O. I. of the F.F. is kind of suspect. We only have their writings which were intended by them to cast themselves and their motives in a flattering light. Also there’s the probability that their progeny “deleted a few files” to protect the reputations of Grandpa…
So, did any of these proponents of Enhanced Child on Child warfare ever say that the Virginia Tech shooting could have been prevented, or the Columbine massacre could have been, if only Other Students had been packing heat? You know, give the Murderers a free ride simply because the victims were unarmed…. so it’s the fault of the victims?

I mean, the Original Founding Fathers’ Original Intent can’t be accurately measured. They didn’t agree unanimously on any subject and even the Chosen Few who wrote the constitution chose to leave out the Bill of Rights, including that Second Amendment. And again, not unanimously.

And those who agreed on the first and disagreed on the second and weren’t the same groups who disagreed on the fourth etc… changed with each article and each amendment.

And unlike the current herd of Bozos who blame the victims of any crime for not being able to prevent that crime, they can’t be interrogated.

So, how ’bout it, Bozos, were any group of people murdered en masse, be it by the governments of the world or by “lone wolf” social misfits or by organized criminal activity actually responsible for their own deaths simply by not being armed heavily enough, what’s your retard pronouncement on that? “Brought a knife to a gun fight”?

Were the people killed at the WTC, another one of your favorite subjects, were they responsible for their own deaths because they went to work that morning? How about the mostly Military personnel who died at Pearl Harbor, weren’t they armed heavily enough?

Do any of you Bozos (my sincere apologies for anybody actually named Bozo or persons who portrayed the Bozo the Clown character) but did any of your Klown Kartel ever try to reason with your even More Extremist comrades when they blamed the victims of Virginia Tech and Columbine for their own murders? Did you? Or did you simply keep silent when they said stupid shit like that.

Politely chuckle about the “brought a knife to a gunfight”?

Did you notice that it was those Unarmed Liberal “pussies” you love to mock and portray in posters with a gun-sight over their faces,” ha-ha-ha-ha we don’t really mean for people to shoot you but we hate you enough to tell them it’s ok to do it”?” acts of asshole behavio… but it was Unarmed Liberal “pussies” who disarmed the “lone Wolf” shooter y’all “conservatives” with your so called “moral fortitude” sicked on them at Tuscon and the one at the Unitarian Church in Knoxville? Did that escape your attention or are you deliberately skipping over it?

I mean, knowing how you LIE about other shit, I think you’re deliberately concealing that fact as well.

Man up about it, bitches.

Come right out and say your mind, it would be a short speech all things considered.

Say how kids who get murdered deserved to die because they didn’t have guns. C’mon, assholes, SAY IT!

And, really really man up about it and say it directly to the mommas and daddies of those kids. Bet you ain’t got the balls.

Mississippi set to honor Klan Founding Father Bedford-Forrest

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With “heritage” license plates. “It’s not Hate, it’s Heritage… a heritage of hating people so badly that we would deny them liberty from before they’re born and tear our nation apart, slaughter all together a half million Americans, in order to keep them as Slaves.” This is the guy whose orders, carried out, were to massacre Union P.O.W.s because they were black. After the surrender of Ft Pillow, April 12th 1864. A real American TERRORIST, infamous for his saying of “Save your Confederate Money, the South will rise again!” and urged that among others, General Robert E Lee should be hanged for surrendering, and every Confederate soldier refuse to honor the surrender, and keep the war going forever.

So far his Terrorist Movement has kept it going for a hundred and fifty years and with the addition of Lincoln’s Party and the TeaBag RACISTS to their list of allies.

I saw one bumper sticker here in Colorado Springs last year, had the Confederate Battle Flag and the POW flag and the slogan, “This flag would never have left you behind”.

Unless, of course, you happened to not be White in which case the proponents of the Hate-filled Cause represented by the flag would have simply killed you. The car had Texas tags.

Miz Lisa Czeladtko, drop the hell out of the race, M’kay?

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You know, there’s not many options. Threatening police actions and lawsuits for people mocking your positions on civic issues, especially when you’re hoping to be in government power, to be honest, would put you right up there with Rivera and his adopted/anointed replacement Bach-door. And the rest of the Clown Parade that is, sadly, our City Government. You’ve worked at St Mary’s, cool. But a few hours a week doesn’t equal one single day of the nightmare Hell that IS Homelessness. And it surely doesn’t give you any moral authority to go putting down people who have to endure that Hell. Go back to the Country Club, m’kay? That guy you saw cursing in the park, Remember? Your instant diagnosis of schizophrenia… what if he isn’t “crazy” or in the case of real schizophrenia, suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder? Would it make any difference to you, personally? How much concern does that show for HIS welfare as opposed to worrying that children might see what illness or death or age or poverty looks like? I call that the Prince Siddhartha Syndrome. Before he became The Buddha.

I don’t know nor do I give a rat’s ass if you personally said that poor people should be banned from public parks, but some of your friends and political colleagues DID and your thundering silence about their massive Hate-Crime is enough for me to lump you in with them.

I live with Autism, maybe you could study that one for a while before you make the assumption that Autists are somehow inferior to “neuro-typicals” the way you obviously did with the Fellow Child of God you wanted to keep out of the park.

There’s been some truly radical talk from your backers in this race, lady. Talk about actually banning people from appearing in public places if they “look” homeless.

One of your accomplices, Janis Heuberger, suggested banning bicyclists from Acacia Park, saying “only the Homeless ride bicycles”.

Now, I WAS homeless for a while, til I got SSI for my broken to hell foot and leg, and of course the Autism. I suffer not so much from these conditions as from the biting scorn of people who think those conditions somehow make Them superior to me. I can perfectly empathize with the fellow at the Acacia Park Pizza Party, if I had people like YOU looking down on me for daring to be in a public place without your royal permission I’d probably feel an overwhelming urge to shout at you too.

And, I’d be in the right to do so. You did far worse to him with your whispers and sneers than any curses he could possibly have screamed at YOU, your highness.

Go back to your Barbie-doll Perfect Rich Bitch world and leave people alone. I’d sooner be in the company of somebody like the Park Hollerin’ fellow than with a stuck up wannabee Princess.

The Homeless PEOPLE you love to hate aren’t the reason for the city’s decline. Capitalism is, in all its inglorious manifestations. That fellow depicted in the statue in the intersection? He cursed the city of Colorado Springs by founding it based on Grand Theft – Everything. The ultimate real-estate baron. There’s not a square inch of downtown that wasn’t taken at gunpoint.

There’s another park downtown, Monument Park, maybe you’ve seen it? It’s a “monument’ to some White Boys who picked a fight with some Indians who were “off the reservation”. And LOST. Teenage racist punks.

But it’s called the Last Indian Massacre in Colorado.

Imagine that. Born in America and told where you can be or not to be. Kind of like telling the homeless PEOPLE that they’re not allowed to be seen downtown, that they must stay on the Homeless Reservation at Marian House or the New Hope Center.

But that’s the kind of “We’re ever so much better than YOU” horse-shit the Colorado Springs Establishment loves to promote. It gets tiresome. It’s a blight on America and we really don’t need to promote it further, now, do we? Your groomers/handlers Silly Clark and Jerry Bootlicher can go to hell and, probably will. Heimlicher wants to live a thousand miles away and still run Colorado Springs, Hell NO!

By the way, your Hunger Meters? The ones we’re supposed to drop coins in rather than give to people on the street? They’re offensive. Really. Jesus said to give, and not spare, and asking no questions. People would occasionally stop me on the street and hand me money. It never went for cigarettes and whiskey and Wild Wild Women. (actual title of a song, google it)

So I took a washer I found in the street, spit a huge loogie all over it and dropped it into one of your meters. So much for your desire to control all alms-giving in town. “Give to the poor, as long as the Wealthy manage the money and the people, for We are Better Than You.” What all else do you tell people, that if they hire somebody who is homeless that he shouldn’t be paid in money?

Or, seeing as your friends think that merely APPEARING to be homeless is just cause for discrimination…

I mean, it’s the next illogical step in your dominance agenda, yes? Go back to your DreamHouse, Barbie.

TeaParty on Giffords “Hey, we TOLD the Bitch to shut up”

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Translated into plain English that is. Basically Mr Humphries said that anybody who has a Palin contract out on him should go into hiding.
Quote: The Arizona congresswoman shouldn’t have attended an event “in full view of the public” if she had security concerns, according to Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries.

“It’s political gamesmanship,” he told the Guardian. “The real case is that she [Giffords] had no security whatsoever at this event. So if she lived under a constant fear of being targeted, if she lived under this constant fear of this rhetoric and hatred that was seething, why would she attend an event in full view of the public with no security whatsoever?”

Yeah, how DARE somebody stand up and speak publicly even though the TeaBags had targeted her? I guess if Mr Humphries were ever threatened he would just shut up AND go into hiding. Just because TeaBags are cowards the rest of are supposed to follow their sick example.
Same thing, this time in English, “Hey, we’re allied with the Ku Klux Klan, the most successful Terrorist Group in American history, when we go to terrorizing folks they Better God-Damn act terrified, or else. And thus anything that we do to stop them from speaking up is Justified.”

Kind of like, every black person the Klan lynched had it coming because they continued to act all “uppity” even when they were warned not to think of themselves as Equals.

Arrogant enough to believe themselves equal and insolent enough to say so.

“For all the stuff they accuse [Palin] of, that gun poster has not done a tenth of the damage to the political discourse as what we’re hearing right now.”

“yeah, we blew away 5 Americans but you Libs talking bad about us is WRONG”

“There are people who are genuinely confused, scared, and I understand it. But there are also people who are deliberately manipulating this event and tragedy for political ends,” Humpries added.

“This Event”? You God-damn cowards MURDERED people for YOUR political gain, asshole.

And he may be right. Another tea party group in California has been using the tragedy to raise money.

In an e-mail to supporters this week, the Tea Party Express asked for donations.

Arrogant TeaBag murder accomplices are wanting to get PAID for killing Americans.

“Instead of prayers for the victims and their families, the Left was consumed with using this massacre to score political points by blaming the tea party movement, Gov. Sarah Palin and now Rush Limbaugh,” the e-mail said.

“That’s why we’ve asked you for your support. Let’s show the Left that instead of us being silenced, that there awful attacks on us will only backfire and that the tea party movement will be stronger than ever!”

“Please, make a contribution online right now to the Tea Party Express,” the letter concluded.

“Capital” Punishment, forced compliance with Money-Worship.

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If, as a Corporate Lawyer and somewhat friend suggests, Capital were the be-all and end-all for progress, economically, politically, technologically, and even spiritually, why then is Participation Made Mandatory? The Capitalist PIGS go after not only nations who opt for a more socialist economy, but communes within the Capitalist CONTROLLED countries.

Communal economies such as Anarcho-Syndicalism are brutally repressed, Unions are Brutally Repressed, by taxpayer funded State Manifestations of Power, like the Ludlow Massacre. The PIGS who murdered the 4 students at Kent State had loaded submachine guns, (M16A1) simply because earlier that day they were “negotiating” with a Teamster strike. At gunpoint. Since the guns weren’t pointed at the Corporate Faction in any of this, it’s patently obvious who exactly the Ohio National Guard were representing.

Their Rich-Bitch Owners.
If, as the Capitalists assert, it’s their own initiative, their own industry and entrepreneurship which gained them their riches, and anybody who takes government handouts is a Welfare State Junkie…

Why then don’t they “just say no” to the Welfare State subsidizing THEIR INDUSTRIES far above and beyond what pittances are accorded the Public at Large.

Instead huge amounts of Public Money is spent to ensure that the Public never rises in power. The People are kept down, especially the Working Class, by Police and Military and Court so-called “authority”, Union activity and other organized and coordinated collective action groups which benefit the individual workers above the Corporate Masters, criminalized and punished, yet so-called “revolutionaries” organized by the Corporations to protect the status-quo of Corporate Hegemony, both at home and abroad, like the so-called Tea Party so-called “patriots” not merely protected by the police and military but actually encouraged?

If the Capitalists had such hegemony, not only the right but the Duty to bring every nation and every person on earth under their dominion, if it were really patently obvious, as they insist it is, why would they spend more than half the Government Budgets of the United States, the states themselves and local “authorities” to FORCE compliance at gunpoint?

Why would it be necessary to send soldiers to other countries, to force those countries to obey the Capitalist Ideal, and why would it be necessary to lie and call such forced compliance “freedom”?

Two “american civilians” killed at firing range in Afghanistan

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And two Afghans. The “american civilians” is a code routine which means “Blackwater or Equivalent Mercenary Thugs who might or might not actually even be americans”. So much for those “civilians” carrying guns and wearing uniforms and training other murderers how to do it.
Now, how about the 120 REAL civilians, Afghans, mostly CHILDREN, murdered at Granai by United States Uniformed Military who were then given a free pass on any prosecution for their crimes? Or the ONE U.S. Soldier who is currently in a Military Prison in Iraq for exposing not just the MURDERS, of which the Afghan people were fully aware, but the LIES told by the U.S. Military to justify those MURDERS?

I realize this will probably draw the “really intelligent” comments such as “you’re criticizing the actions of warriors even though you’re not a warrior” which is MilitarySpeak for “Hey, the only people who are entitled to question the actions of Paid Killers are Other Paid Killers”.

It’s exactly like saying “The only people who should be allowed to be on a jury in a murder trial are Mafia Hit-men”.

By the way, it’s not “criticizing” it’s pointing out the CRIMES committed in OUR NAMES using OUR MONEY while robbing the victims of THEIR crime for the benefit of a FEW RICH BITCHES who don’t bother paying so much as the taxes on their blood money.

What, if we refrained from mentioning any of this, it would all magically go away, and we’d all be able to wallow in a “feel good happy happy flag-waving patriotism” and salute the Empire as it falls, dragging our nation down with it?

Ska-roo that noise, bubbas. I know that for every one that writes it out there’s a hundred who are thinking it. Stupid bastards, the lot of them.

Your wars and other crimes tear down America and just in a bizarre Co Inky Dink the rest of the world as well. It’s not “patriotism” blind or otherwise to stand and cheer for the destruction of America and the rest of the world.

Nor would it be “patriotism” to say nothing, to keep silent about such actions.

Of thee I Billy Sing

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Chinese-Australian hero of GallipoliOK, so that was the stupidest title. But the real story is even more stupid.
 
Australian TV producers were casting for a TeleDocumentary TV series “The Legend of Billy Sing” about a Chinese-Australian soldier who is lauded as a hero of Gallipoli. One of the Stupidest military campaigns in history, and that says much. Billy Sing was called the “Suvla Assassin” because he was apparently single-handedly responsible for the deaths of 200 Turkish soldiers. Imagine an Australian version of Sgt York, (every time I see some of this jingoistic crap I think of the film that didn’t-quite-star-John Lennon, he had a supporting role, “How I Won The War”.) but instead of Sgt Alvin York being portrayed by whoever the hell played him he was played and cast as say, an English or French or whoever Recent Immigrant instead of a hillbilly from the Cumberland Gap, imagine how well that would play in Tennessee.

So, Billy Sing, cultural folk hero to all Chinese-Australians, in the Television Drama, is being cast and played not as an Asian, but as a Caucasian.

Read the quote from the director:

The director, Geoff Davis, actually picked his son, Josh, to play the role, and defended the decision by saying that he could not find a 60-year-old Chinese actor to play Billy Sing’s father

SAY WHAT? How far did that freak peckerhead peckerwood look? Even in MEXICO you could find Ethnic Chinese neighborhoods. Far less Australia, which shares a large stretch of ocean with China. If nothing else, he could have gone to Goddamn Hong Kong, the Chinese answer to Hollywood, and I bet he would have found thousands of 60-year old Chinese actors with the necessary screen credentials AND probably a better command of the Queens English than he has. And since it’s Chinese Australians, what, did all the Chinese Australians sign some kind of pact to just freakin’ disappear before turning 60?

The dude is playing Nannie Nannie Boo Boo Stick your head in Doo Doo with every non-white Australian. “Hey, guys, we realize your culture was extant and fully developed, socially, economically, scientifically and even had a Written Language and advanced mathematics, back before the English stopped painting themselves blue, and lighting their hair on fire when they went into battle, naked… But gosh-darn it, we need a Hero from OUR much superior Culture. Not that we think YOURS is inferior, mind you, it’s just that, well, we’re racially and culturally better than you”.

I’m not a big fan of Jingoism rally-round-the-flag-boys Military Propaganda, and if Winston Churchill had been half the Gentleman he pretended to be, he wouldn’t have taken a Field Officers command subsequent to resigning from the Flag Rank he had held, but instead written a note to his wife, stuck his service revolver in his mouth and Done The Proper Thing. Because it was HIS stupid idea to jump the Turks in Gallipoli.

but the Band, played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped, to bury our slain
We buried ours
and the Turks, buried theirs.
Then we started all over again…

Difference between College Recruiter and Army Recruiter again

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So Maryland Public Schools have been administering the ASVAB tests to students wholesale, as in every kid takes the test. This is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. I suppose the Maryland Board of Education didn’t ask very many questions about Uncle Sugar giving them FREE testing materials and evaluations. What a “(Trojan)gift horse”. So the tests have an Opt-Out, option 8, which makes the test from the Army point of view anonymous. There was a loophole in the original agreement. Option 8 was not available. Until now. The Board of Education and the Maryland Legislature wised up a bit.
So the Recruiters were contacting the kids not only with the best scores, but for one Really Damn Important part of what the ASVAB measures… Suggestibility. The willingness to follow orders and be stupidly obedient. Clever, eh? The PentaGoons got a low cost database of the most vulnerable kids, the ones who could be most easily (mis)led to believe any lies the Recruiters give them.

And demonstrates areas where the Targeted CHILD can be most easily (mis)informed about “opportunities”. Where the recruiter knows the kid by name, phone number, school computer network chat and email usernames…

Stuff that Other Child Predators would be rightfully denied access to. “Oh, it’s ok, we’re not seducing the kids with sex or (illegal) drugs, we’re just convincing them to join the Murder Machine and kill other kids in other countries, or, if the Pentagon so chooses, this country as well” (all enemies, foreign and domestic
Think not? The United States Government especially the Army, UNTIL 1911 didn’t grant American Indians citizenship rights, (like being off the reservation without Military Permission, under pain of death, as “renegades”) Which gave the Army open season on any Indian, man woman or child, who didn’t obey the Martial Law imposed by the Conquerors. It’s the reason given for the Murder of Sitting Bull, and for the Little Ouachita Massacre.

My very favorite reason not to trust the Army aside, they’re given through the use of these ASVAB tests a BlackOps Psychological Warfare weapon to use against American KIDS.

Now, are we ready for a far darker side to this, darker even than the perverted seduction of children into the Business of Mass Murder?

It would also show which Children would be most likely to resist. The Database of potential dissidents suddenly grows larger.

Oh, and with the kids’ addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, (so they can freeze their assets “in case of national emergency”) date of birth and with a few math tools like the statistics analyses used to identify potential al Qa’eda sympathizers in the “liberated” nations of Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else in the world.
Using those tools, they could figure out the highest probability of who the “terrorist” kids are and who their closest friends are. Same, in reverse, for the “good” kids, the ones most likely to be seduced.
Kind of an Online Predator Drone aimed directly at American Kids.

Talk about your basic “bringing the War home”.

How much would you care to bet that the Army sues the school board over this decision?

WOOT! Kissinger War-Crimes evidence coming out!

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This one a communication FROM his Royal Satanic Lowness to the puppet leadership of the Chilean Massacres in 1976. That would be in the final year of the Noble Reign of King Gerald of Ford.
You remember how Bush the Elder and Bush The Chimp accused Iraq of hiding WMDs and War Criminals… and we on the Left (the ones who are still accused of being Wrong and of course Stupid because we questioned their fake assumptions) published a map of the one country on earth which has more of each class of WMD than the rest of the world combined and also harbors more war criminals than the rest of the world combined? with the headline “We Found ’em!”

…it’s a map of the United States…
Henry Kissinger is only one of many. But he’s a HUGE fish.

Pals around with Terrorists like Secord, North and Poindexter, who after betraying America and Americans in their pursuit of Empire have been given Government Jobs (and pardons for their treason) North works for the Ministry of Propaganda as a so-called “journalist” on DumFox Snooze with a show called “war stories”. Shielded from prosecution by Executive Order from the “freedom” loving George Bush jr. (the Chimpleton) Reagan, Ford and Nixon are in Hell fellating Saddam Hussein. Nobody wants to extradite them though.

That leaves the biggest Despotic Mass Murder in recent history to be Kissinger.

US inhumanity maxed at Azimuth Limit

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WikiLeaks video combat footage of 2007 collateral murder in Iraq“Light ’em all up. Come on, fire!” Watching the leaked combat footage of the helicopter gunships killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007, I’m troubled by my own desensitized response. When I saw earlier leaked videos of an AH-64 vaporizing Iraqi farmers and a C-130 wreaking mayhem in Afghanistan, I remember my real shock at seeing a human life extinguished. This time not even flinch. “Just fuckin’, once you get on ’em just open ’em up.” Not at the brutality, nor the callousness of the play by play –even as the pilots targeted rescuers trying to help the wounded. I fault the Rules of Engagement that allowed the massacre, not the soldiers’ laughing swagger –as I hope they will not begrudge my unguarded satisfaction when eventually spectators will be treated to leaked footage of American soldiers taking some fire.

If you watched the video, perhaps you too were wishing that July 12, 2007 had recorded a massive setback for US troops in Iraq, at the height of the “surge” where a whole shitload of “dismounts” had been ambushed by IED explosions in a Baghdad square in the aftermath of a civilian massacre. Those who watched the 39-minute extended version I know were hoping to see a resolution like that, instead of an additional war crime of disproportional force and the targeting of civilians, a Hellfire missile attack on a building into which armed and unarmed men had entered, surrounded by passing innocents and rescuers scrambling to help.

There it goes! Look at that bitch go!
Patoosh!
Ah, sweet!
Need a little more room.
Nice missile.
Does it look good?
Sweet!

The Army has declared that no further inquiry will be made into the 2007 killing of the two Reuters journalists. Its FOIA requests long thwarted, even Reuters is not expressing outrage at this footage. Civilians and journalists about to be lit up The corporate media is hoping to let this story fade on the fringe. Does this mean that more pilots and gunners might become emboldened to leak other trophy reels? It doesn’t take Nelson Ratings for news outlets to see that viewers are already clamoring for more combat snuff films.

We could grant amnesty in exchange for those who turn in the most degenerate sequences.

And pretend they’ll remain anonymous. Ultimately friends and relatives will be able to place identities with the radio voices. Speaking on one of the clearest channels is the young voiced HOTEL-26, who reported taking fire from the photographers and ID’d the “RPG” with started the whole engagement. Likewise the gunner on CRAZY HORSE-18 who responded “Alright, hahaha, I hit ’em….” is addressed “God damn it, Kyle.”

And then there’s the poor 30mm gunner in CRAZY HORSE-19 who assessed his work thus:

Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Ha ha!

While chomping at the bit to fire upon the improvised ambulance, he was momentarily thwarted by a puzzling “Azimuth Limit” which prevented his shooting.

Bloggers are now abuzz to decode the Azimuth Limit which slowed the turkey shoot when none of the gunners were showing restraint. Azimuth is the angular measurement of an object’s distance clockwise from True North. On rifles it expresses the adjustment of a gunsight to its boresight. On aircraft it apparently has something to do with the angle of relation to the axis of the fuselage. Whatever it is, maybe we can ratchet military Azimuth Limits down flat, if that’s what it will take to stop our soldiers from blowing away civilians, journalists, children and their rescuers alike. The shooters can cuss and salivate all they want so long as their trigger mechanisms respect human life or at least balk at excessive carnage.

What doesn’t come across the audio is what the US soldiers on the ground are saying to themselves as they survey “that big pile of [unarmed] bodies,” in their palaver, the “dead bastards.”

UPDATE — the testimonials begin:

From Iraq war veteran Michael Prysner, co-founder of March Forward!

The harrowing Apache footage released by WikiLeaks gives us a stomach-turning glimpse of war. Seventeen minutes of cold-blooded massacre in a war of more than seven years. A brief clip of one Apache video; a quick look at one part of one mission. Hundreds of those missions take place every day.

The video came to light thanks to military whistleblowers who provided it to WikiLeaks together with supporting documents.  Imagine if we had access to all such videos, the things we would see. Imagine all the Iraqis killed who have no one to uncover the truth about their deaths. Had the death of two Reuters news staffers not generated interest in this video, then the destruction of three families by hellfire missiles fired into an apartment building with no provocation, in a separate engagement also featured in the video, would have never been made public.

This massacre is a drop in a sea of blood. Many other such “incidents” will never be known.

Officers claimed there was “no question” that the pilots were responding to enemy fire; the video shows there is no question that they were not responding to enemy fire. They said that they had “no idea” how the journalists were killed; the video shows that they know very well how those journalists were killed. They were gunned down standing in a crowd of unarmed people.
After the slaughter of that group, the pilots beg for permission to kill the innocent passers-by who had come to the aid of one of the wounded, like any of us would have done if we saw our neighbor dying on the ground as we drove down the street. They kill everyone trying to help the dying journalist, and critically wound two children seen sitting in the front seat.

We see a group of unarmed men mowed down by a machine gun designed to destroy armored vehicles. We see a vanload of good Samaritans obliterated for trying to help a dying victim. We see all this with the soundtrack of the pilots mocking the dead, congratulating each other and laughing about the massacre.

No wonder the U.S. military goes to such great lengths to keep such videos from us. They want us to see Iraq and Afghanistan through their lens, through their embedded reporters, filtered by censorship and restrictions. They know that, once the people of this country see the extreme racism and brutality behind these occupations, they will be repulsed by what their tax dollars are paying for.

The military brass and the White House politicians have tried to justify this senseless atrocity. “Cut the pilots some slack. This was in Baghdad. This was a battle zone”—that’s been their line. The pilots had been indoctrinated with the same colonial mentality. “That’s what they get for bringing their kids into battle,” one pilot says.

The father driving that van was not “bringing his kids into battle.” He was bringing them to school, driving down the street where they live. But the U.S. occupation has made all of Iraq a battle zone. To those pilots, to their commanders over the radio and to the generals in the Pentagon, every single person in Baghdad and in Iraq is “fair game.”

The pilots joked about the people they killed, laughed about U.S. military vehicles running over dead bodies, knowing that their commanders were listening and that they were being recorded. They were not acting out of character. This is the culture of the occupation. This is how these wars are being conducted.

Having seen this, one cannot honestly believe that these atrocities are committed day in and day out for the liberation of the Iraqi people.

The Pentagon’s talking heads and media lackeys are hard at work putting their spin on this story. It’s time to tell the truth. For more than seven years, the U.S. has unleashed criminal, unprovoked aggression against the people of Iraq, and they have been doing the same thing in Afghanistan for more than eight years.

The U.S. military presence in Iraq is a colonial occupation force. The only way forward is a complete, immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. This government will not do that unless all of us who are outraged by these criminal acts stand up and demand it.

Iraq war veteran Josh Stieber, US Army Specialist, 1st ID, Bravo Company 2-16 in Baghdad (Rustamiyah) 2007-2008. Although he was not present at the scene of the video, he knows those who were involved and is familiar with the environment.

A lot of my friends are in that video. After watching the video, I would definitely say that that is, nine times out of ten, the way things ended up. Killing was following military protocol. It was going along with the rules as they are.

If these videos shock and revolt you, they show the reality of what war is like. If you don’t like what you see in them, it means we should be working harder towards alternatives to war.

?

A bit of Blatant Racism from veteran historian Dave Hughes and the Gazette

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Ok so nothing actually NEW about that, except that it was published yesterday. Mr Hughes celebrates the “counterinsurgency” and “Anti-Terrorist” actions of the Racist Murderer Kit Carson and the Colorado Militia. Yeppers! While blatantly comparing the Racist War on Iraq and Afghanistan to the equally Racist, equally For Profit War Of Conquest which “subjugated” the American Indians, he doesn’t apologize for his own attitude that them thar dark skinned “insurgents” need to be Put In Our Place and God-Damn Stay There.

Yes, we’re supposed to Grovel before the White European Culture and beg the White European Masters’ forgiveness for daring to be Dark Skinned and still believing that we’re equal to them.

I also gather that we’re not supposed to mention the Cowardly Baby-Killing, Then and Now, that accompanies their Imperial Wars.

“Kit” Carson was famous for pretending to be a friend to the Navajo nation, discovering where their winter supplies of food were, then leading the Militia to destroy those caches of food and Starve the Navajo nation into submission.

Real BRAVE person, not to mention honest. What a wonderful Idol Mr Dave Hughes holds up for us to worship and honor.
What a bunch of pukes.

Guess what, Dave Hughes, Gazette, all your Klan friends? You didn’t completely destroy the Indian Nations and you didn’t subjugate us.

This ONE, myself, for instance, isn’t “subjugated”. I can’t speak for any but Jonah, but I do urge anybody who isn’t of the Pure Aryan Stock to walk away from their Racist “conquering” Army. Don’t fight for the bastards who consider anybody who’s not Pure European culturally or racially to be “inferior” and in need of Subjugation. Let the Oil Companies fight for their own God-Damn profits.

Taking up arms against the chosen “enemies” of the White so-called “Masters” is a betrayal of your own families. They want to dominate the world with their “superior” culture? Let them do it for themselves, without the Uncle Tom servile sell-out cooperation of the people they despise as “inferior”.

This Dave Hughes punk is one of those who says the attempted Genocide wasn’t actually a genocidal racist action, that the WMD attacks on American Indians using Smallpox never happened, that the Sand Creek Massacre wasn’t a Racially Motivated War Crime.

Now Dave Hughes is saying American Indians were “terrorists” because we defended our place in the Soul of the Earth. He might as well come out and state openly the beliefs held by Carson and Custer and General Palmer, the “Manifest Destiny” belief that the English RACE is Ordained by GOD to be masters over all the “inferior” peoples on the Earth, and the belief of the authors of the “Manifest Destiny” doctrine that American Indians don’t even have Souls.

I bet he won’t, for a while yet. I bet he’s waiting, with Typical Republican “courage” for Other People to subjugate us to the point that he can come out and openly show his Full-Blown Racism.

Same with the Gazette and the rest of the not-very-secret Ku Klux Klan freaks who run our city.