Tag Archives: Shooting Spree

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.

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.

DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad was early post-911 Muslim Avenger

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john allen muhammad beltway sniperWhat morbid fortuity that as President Obama heads to Fort Hood to commemorate the victims of renegade Nidal Malik Hasan, preparations are being made for the execution of another Islamic avenger, the Beltway sniper. As Americans satiate their blood lust against Muslims in the person of John Allen Muhammad who is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection, perhaps comparisons to Major Hasan will draw attention to the ideological motives behind the 2002 shooting spree. We don’t have to like them, but it would obviously pay us to listen.

Not to excuse the Washington DC killings, nor suggest that the Gulf War veteran and convert to Islam is any less a cold-blooded murderer, but TV crime shows have painted he and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo as sadistic serial killers, completely burying the sociopolitical elements which tie the snipers to the Global War On Terror/Islam, the legacy of the African American struggle, and its extreme incarnation as the Black Liberation Army.

Muhammad maintains his innocence, primarily because the evidence implicating him remains circumstantial. He was convicted on the strength of partner Malvo’s testimony, and recently lost a Supreme Court appeal. In his testimony, Malvo described three phases to Muhammad’s murderous plans. First was to be the sniper killings, which the two calculated could claim six victims a day. Phase two involved plans to murder a policeman and set bombs at the site of his funeral, to claim an unprecedented toll of police casualties. With money extorted from the government in return for a cessation to the killings, Muhammad and Malvo planned to retreat to Canada, where they planned to build a Utopian community for other disenfranchised African American men, where they would be trained for bigger and more numerous missions against the US.

While I can understand US public figures having to distance themselves from Muhammad, I’m not sure why the organizations speaking out for US political prisoners weren’t showing their solidarity for his motives. Were Muhammad’s ambitions much different from the freedom fighters of the EZLN? Does the rejection of Muhammad reflect the post 9/11 pallor of insurrection in word only?

The case against Major Hasan proceeds apace with the usual unofficial press leaks. I heard reporters site sources who don’t want to be identified by name, in deference to the legal constraints of the ongoing investigation. The accusations they make against Hasan, however, for the benefit of the media outlets, reflects not a concern for Hasan’s due process, but rather their fear for getting themselves in trouble. But the media is eating it up.

Unlawful Combatant Private Contractors

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Private contractors illegal enemy combatants
Here’s a rare photo of some private security contractors in Iraq. In the wild west they were called guns for hire. Incorporated they became Pinkertons and so continued a long tradition of reviled professional soldiers, Hessians, Swiss Guards, Gurkhas, usually associated with totalitarian regimes, not democracies.

Our government and media won’t use the term mercenaries, but they do perseverate on not having any official means to restrain their dogs of war. APPARENTLY Iraq law doesn’t touch them, ALAS, neither does American military law. We benefit from their ruthless methods but bear no responsibility DEAR GOD when someone catches them/us at it.

Bush and Co are eating their cake and having it in everybody’s faces as well. No accountability for our private contractor mercenaries? What is our own definition of UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANTS? Not that it’s any excuse to lock irregular soldiers away without due process, or to deny anyone their human rights, but certainly asymmetric warriors fit the bill for illegal combatants.

Can you believe that our diplomats and upper echelon will not go anywhere without these mercenary escorts? They’re confined to the Green Zone until Blackwater is cleared of its latest shooting spree. What about US soldiers as escorts? Our generals and statesmen do not trust our own troops for their safety. These private hired killers are the US Praetorian Guard, and our leaders claim they fall under no one’s authority?

What this administration and the press and every talking head war monger pay careful attention to ignore is that international law has jurisdiction over all their crimes. When you hear some military expert pensively mulling over with great dismay the untread gray area of indemnified private contractor actions. It’s silly subterfuge. International war conventions, Geneva Article 47 for example, have without ambiguity codified and condemned mercenaries and war criminals alike.

Blackwater, Aegis and the body of Khan

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Contractor mercenaries in their white SUVs
When Genghis Khan died, his body had to be returned from the battlefront to his birthplace in Outer Mongolia. Two factors determined how the Mongols decided to accomplish this. First, his successors hoped to keep word of the great Khan’s death from spreading panic across his empire, lest recently conquered vassals fall to the temptation of insurrection. Second, the Mongols were concerned not to be observed choosing their leader’s final resting place, to circumvent thieves trying to retrieve the treasures to be buried with him. Here’s the plan they developed: don’t let anyone see you.

But Genghis Khan’s escort could not disguise a cortege befitting the ruler of the then known world. Whoever came out of the woods or over the hill or out of the garden or along the trail to see the fantastic procession, was killed on the spot.

It’s thought that envoys were sent out to warn villagers away from their path. The Mongols also took care to pass through back roads where they would attract the least attention. They had no interest in a scorched earth policy on lands which belonged to them, whose prosperity paid their tribute and enhanced their Khan’s wealth.

IRAQ
American modern-day mercenaries in Iraq, sent out on missions in barely-armored white SUVs, face a similar imperative to quash witnesses who could report what they saw to forces better prepared to lay in ambush. To this end, the mercenaries post a warning on their vehicles that anyone coming too close will be shot. Trophy videos have found their way to the internet showing the shooting sprees this task sometimes has entailed. Men from AEGIS or BLACKWATER shoot approaching cars, even if their Iraqi drivers have not gotten close enough to read the printed warning.

It speaks to the volatility of Iraq, that our occupation forces, through the mercenaries they employ, find it better to annihilate bystanders sooner than administrate the lands and reap the rewards of protective stewardship.