Tag Archives: US soldiers

Fog of War is not Fog for War Crime

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Special Forces extra-judicial execution of Partisans who fought the invading Germans
No pictures have yet emerged of what the 595 A-team Fifth Special Forces did with the captured Taliban at the mass graves at Dasht-e Leili. The BBC documentary Massacre at Mazar reports that an Afghan who sought the reputed black market video evidence was beaten by Northern Allied warlord men and left for dead.

In late November 2001 at the battle of Kondutz, several thousand surrendering Taliban promised amnesty, were loaded at Qala Zeini fort into thirteen unventilated shipping containers, bound and blindfolded, some hogtied, and transported to to Sheberghan prison where their dead bodies poured out like fish. US special forces directed the containers be taken to the desert where the bodies were spilled into trenches. Witnesses report that the dozen US soldiers killed those Taliban fighters who emerged alive.

Support the Troops executing civilians

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German regulars execute 36 Serb civilians in Pancevo, Vojvodina in retaliation for the deaths of two SS men
Early in WWII, a German Army film staff recorded this deed in color: enraged by the loss of two officers on April 21, 1941, the invading German soldiers gathered 36 random males from the town of Pancevo, Vojvodina and hung or shot them. How different was this from what US soldiers did on November 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq? In Haditha American Marines killed the women and children too. The Pancevo events in 1941 were kept from the German public lest their support for their troops waiver.

Garrett Reppenhagen Winter Soldier

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COLORADO COLLEGE- Iraq Veterans Against the War held a mini- Wintersoldier hearing this evening at the Max Kade Theatre in Armstrong Hall. They screened the original 1970 documentary, originally unseen in this country and unavailable until just recently on DVD. Afterwards four soldiers told of their experiences in Iraq. IVAW chairman Garrett Reppenhagen told an interesting story:

Have you ever seen pictures of fighter planes which bore tiny icons beneath the cockpit indicating how many planes they’d downed? Well some US soldiers in Iraq were putting little “car” stickers on their windshield to show how many cars they’d bumped off the road or totaled. Military vehicles are instructed to stop for nothing, so cars moving too slowly or stopped by traffic are simply hit and pushed out of the way. Commanders eventually had to forbid the stickers when the drivers’ views were being impaired by too many stickers. You could earn half stickers for dogs, or bikes or people.

Garrett was at the 50mm gun in a convoy when the humvee ahead swerved to hit an Iraqi child. The vehicle did not come close enough so the driver swung open his door to extend his reach. Garrett explained that armored doors are so heavy that they require two soldiers to lift them on or off their hinges. He’s certain the Iraqi boy was killed on impact.

When they returned to their FOP, Garrett was relieved to see an officer approach the guilty driver and scold him loudly for his actions. Later the very disgruntled soldier revealed that he was not reprimanded for striking the boy, but rather for having opened his door, exposing his fellow soldiers to the risk of gunfire.

Yoo who?

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The Bush Administration, after years of lying, has finally admitted that it is using torture on POWs. This it is doing after all those years of MIA/ POW campaigning against Vietnam, who were supposedly holding in secret some of our noble US soldiers in hidden camps, way years after the war. That campaign by the Right Wing- Love our Troops crowd- was ludicrous, of course, since there never were any missing GIs left behind.

But now that they have winked and us and admitted what liars they are, the Bush Administration has set us up a fall guy by the name of John Yoo to take the heat over torture. What a crock of shit! We know that all of you in the Bush Administration, plus hundreds upon hundreds of top Democrats,too, were all involved in approving torture use on the prisoners held by US military forces. Who is this Yoo you want us to go after? He is a nobody. Here is what the LA Times has to say about the issue- Which came first: memos or torture?

Why should John Yoo be taking the blame for people like Dick Cheney and Dubya? He is not even a Donald Rumsfield, or Condy Rice, not to mention all the generals who are in charge of the actual ongoing abuse of these many times innocent men and even children. Yoo, in short, is a yodel.

But behind all this game playing are the Democrats. Yoo is a play target for these DP politicians so complicit with carrying out the policies and activities of the Republican Party. Shame on you Democrats, for letting the Republicans get away with using torture on people, as you idly sat by and pretended to be mildly opposed to what they were doing. You are liars, too, and on a scale equal to the Republicans. Until we get rid of both you squads of creeps, this country is going nowhere good but fast.

More statistics to sleep on

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I hear that less than 25% of the American public knows approximately how many US soldiers have died in Iraq. The total as of today is 3,986. Two other US statistics of note: of men in prison and teenage girls:

The 4,000 death was predicted to fall a month from now, until a casual suicide bomber ambled up to a group of our soldiers. The death toll was five, though I find it beyond curious that Iraqi observers were insistent it had been six.

ONE PERCENT of all Americans is behind bars. The number represents 7% of all Black Americans, 11% of young black males, and 3% of Hispanic males. The work gulag capitalist enterprise system in China boasts the next highest incarceration rate, where the percentage of the Chinese population imprisoned is 0.1%.

One in four teenage American girls have an STD. That’s three million girls aged 14-19. 48% of all black girls, 20% of white girls. In 18% of the cases the STD is genital warts.

Offending the troops

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War crimes in IraqOffending the soldiers: I get into this trouble every time. IF YOU ARE A SOLDIER AND YOU ARE NOT UNEDUCATED OR NOT A MURDERER, and you know it, then neither criticism would apply to you. If you are caught up in our government’s very nasty actions and you are doing all you can not to participate, you know war critics are not addressing you. Does that make sense?

On the other hand, if you feel you’ve no recourse but to do what you’re told, kill babies, mother-raping, father-killing, and those mean nasty terrible things, you’ve got to know this: they couldn’t do it without you.

To be clear, our American wars of aggression (Iraq and Afghanistan included), our illegal occupations, our extra-judicial air strikes, our maltreatment of people, our abandonment of civilized behavior, our use of torture, etc, are WAR CRIMES. They are the uppermost of criminal acts, they are CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. To suggest this is a matter of opinion would be like trying to insinuate that murder is not. Just because you’ve been mislead by the war-monger bandwagon does not excuse what you and it are doing. Wake up and smell the corpses.

If it offends you to be called a murderer even though you work only behind the scenes, or even though you think you’re fighting on the side of good, or even though your definition of “good” is a dead Iraqi, it’s time to stand up and accept the condemnation you have earned. You’re a dumbass dumbfuck dupe doing the bidding of immoral mass-murdering businessmen. You bring dishonor unto everything we used to think made us Americans. You discredit the bright ambitious minds that created our democracy. You tarnish the legacy of those veterans who fought for equality and justice and prosperity. Do you think a failing grade in civics or ethics or religion calls for an attaboy? You deserve consolation without doubt, because your thinking-inability is certainly not your fault, but not an endorsement to put your failed education to work killing and marauding at whim. Put down your gun you big ol’ galloot and figure out an honorable way to earn a living.

If your mutiny would mean that your even-worse behaving comrades-in-murder feel they need to shoot you for breaking rank, well that’s what you and they have coming, isn’t it? Unless YOU can convince them otherwise. Quit looking to antiwar people to fight your battles. We don’t need to go to Iraq or wear your boots to know what you’re doing is immoral. Lucky for you, most of us are forgiving and compassionate. I see the murder of one million Iraqis and think a dressing down is the least you deserve.

Cell phones for home front profiteers

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Cell Phone Minutes for SoldiersOkay, if you’ve ordered anything from Amazon lately, you’ll have received something feel-goody non-profitish in the packaging, an empty doggy bag labeled CELL PHONE FOR SOLDIERS. You’re meant to read the patriotic blurb and send them your used cell phone to “Help Our Troops Call Home.” The unpadded baggy is pre-addressed to the Cell Phone Recycling Center, post paid, but you can “Help our troops even more by applying postage to this envelope.”
 
Wait, can our troops really use any old cell phone, refurbished, to call their loved ones back home? No.

Credit will be given for your returned phone and the credit will go toward paying for our soldiers’ phone calls. The CPFS website explains that soldiers receive prepaid calling cards with which to phone home. Looking further the site details that for every used cell phone it receives, a Michigan outfit called ReCellular disburses a payment to Cell Phones for Soldiers, enough to pay for one hour of international calling.

A survey of prepaid calling card rates for international calls yields rates ranging from 0.6¢ to 6¢ with a mean of 1.5¢. Rounding up, multiplied by 60 minutes, that’s a $1 value! The soldiers are getting ONE DOLLAR for your used phone.

Allowing for a discounted rate which CPFS can no doubt get, considering they’ve spent a million on this scheme already, probably that value is more like 50¢ per phone. From their own figures last year, CPFS distributed calling cards to 140,000 US soldiers, their share of the million being $2.50 each. In minutes, who knows how many or few. But wait, AT&T is credited with having contributed half that million in long distance minutes!

Whether we’re talking about administration expenses being gleaned from the cost differences, or tax deductions taken in excess of the contribution value, this is a windfall profit center for somebody. Not the soldiers.

Destroying the evidence of US government torture of POWs

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Our despicable national government has just admitted that it destroyed the video taping of its use of torture on prisoners held at the Guantanamo concentration camp for US captured POWs. See article… CIA destroyed video of ‘waterboarding’ al-Qaida detainees

What a group of liars and hypocrites the Bush Administration has assembled at the head of power in the US. First they deny that torture is being advocated, then they say that certain torture methods are in their eyes not actual torture, and then they destroy the evidence of the torture actually already being used on POWs in their hands.

And our local governments follow this type of misleadership straight on down the line. Don’t believe that? Then go and try to get a municipal resolution passed stating local opposition to the US use of torture in our domestic jails and military concentration camps. See what the reaction would be like down at the city council meetings here in Colorado Springs?

Speaking of torture…. do you know that the El Paso County has its school police force equipped with taser guns at middle schools and high schools? Do you know that the city police of Colorado Springs has used these devices on people already, even as some divisions of the United Nations says there is strong evidence that these weapons are being used as instruments of torture in an increasing manner?

Just recently I saw the downtown post office flying the black POW/MIA flag that became so promoted by the US Right Wing post Vietnam War. Apparently the concern about POWs is pretty damn selective in the US.

When is the US public going to say enough is enough about our government using torture on US held POWs, as it has been doing? Are we all too damn scared now to have POW/MIA bumperstickers on our cars and/ or a flag that demands that all human beings have rights to ethical treatment… even if the US government authorities presume them guilty of some crime or other?

We need some symbols like this, and they need to be flown from government buildings in place of that garbage accusing the Vietnam government of torturing US soldiers in secret. The Right Wingers in charge of our municipality prefer to promote war and the use of torture on US held POWs instead of speaking out for human decency though. And currently this city hasn’t had enough local citizens oppose this city government-military-industrial complex led by Mayor Lionel Rivera and his corporate backers like Lockheed, et al.

The people who ordered destroyed the tapes of the water boarding of POWs held by the US military are war criminals and need to be jailed and tried for their crime of destroying evidence. And then they need to be jailed for ordering the torture of POWs in the first place. Are Americans proud to have a government like this? All of us should be deeply ashamed for not doing more to stop these thugs. Get out and make your voice heard! Go to the local government meetings held downtown and put some pressure on the local officials to stop going along with it all.

Veterans and Peace

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Tomorrow is the annual Veterans Day Parade here in Colorado Springs and the local peace group, Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, has decided to hide in the shadows rather than attend this event with a message for PEACE. In taking this cowardly stance, they are betraying those veterans that oppose the war that is turning US soldiers and Iraqis alike into cannon fodder so that the US military-industrial complex can continue to grow and profit.

Also, this parade is heavily subsidized by our tax monies. The pretense that it is a private event is patently false, since many military units often attend these events all around the country. In short, we pay money to the government that maintains the military, and the government then parades the military through the streets demanding that both the government and its military be backed up in support for its invasions, occupations, and destruction of foreign countries.

The Justice and Peace Commission not only is failing to show support for veterans by not taking a pro-PEACE message to this parade, but is also failing to support the right of ALL citizens to speak freely in this city with out being clobbered by the police when the message is Against War, and not for it. This group just does not have its act together at this time, which is a crying shame.

Something that CAN be done about Blackwater

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A class action suit filed in federal court by US soldiers whose lives are recklessly endangered by the corporation.

Don’t know if anything has been started on that, but it is a workaround,

Also other US civilians working in Iraq.

Since the Bushiites have built an army in Iraq which is immune to American law, immune to Iraqi law, and immune to the UCMJ, that leaves Civil Law. Soldiers are forbidden from suing the Army, at all ever peiriod.

If the Pentagoons say that’s not true, they lie once again. They have “legal remedies” that would have you filling out papers for years before you could file a single civil court motion. But they can hide behind that process and say, “Look, we DO have a process for the soldiers to file suit, all they have to do is roll this boulder up this hill or stand in the middle of the river Lethes and drink a mouthful of water, just the rock is going to roll all the way down to the bottom just before you get it to the top and the river is going to lower in level every time you try to bend down”

But Blackwater, just chock full of people who were US military before, and had each therefore taken that Oath to Uphold and Defend the Constitution Of The United States, against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic”, … Imagine, if you will, the CEO being required to take the stand. And explain how his actions and those of his subordinates were actually legal under any set of laws, OR, conform to that oath in any way.

Even Mr Bush’s directive of June 17, when he said he had unitary authority to freeze any bank account and seize any property of any person or CORPORATION in the world who impeded the rebuilding of Iraq, can be used against them.

US Civilians in Iraq can file the same type of action, include the soldiers in their action, AND name Bush and Cheney and the Pentagoons as co-defendants.

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.

US bloodies up Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp

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Nahr el-Bared, one of Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp continues to be battered by the US-allied Lebanese government of ‘Prime Minister’ Saniori. The attack on this refugee camp was made in Washington DC, and Bush is sending in tons of military equipment in to the US controlled Lebanese government at this very moment. All to use on the Palestinian refugees in this camp.

Tens of thousands have already fled the bombardment, and Bush fully intends to terrorize these refugees yet more in the days to come. Yet the cowardly American corporate press is hiding away the details of American initiation of this attack and details of Bush’s political game plan to spread the US War Against Iraq into more and more neighboring countries. Rather than this just being an effort to clean out some extremists connected with al qaeda, this attack is nothing more than a direct US intervention into the internal political affairs of the Lebanese nation.

Once again, the US is helping Israel do its dirty work for it. In turn, Israel will be expected to continue to help the US do its dirty work of stealing out total control over the Middle East’s oil resources for itself. Meanwhile, how many amongst the circles of US soldiers, their families, and their friends know the full reasons of why American soldier’s lives are being (or were) put to risk on this Memorial Weekend? Their sacrifices are/were made in a war of the US rich against the World’s poor. And wounding and killing new thousands of destitute in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps is about par for the course.

Hillary Clinton makes it all clear

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Liberals have doggedly kept themselves under a broad delusion that has neutered their value as being any sort of a real force for ending US militarism. That delusion is that the top Democrats actually oppose being mired in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries of the Middle East and elsewhere. In fact, they are in essential agreement with the Republican Administration, that ‘national security interests’ mandate that we keep US troops to occupy foreign countries like Iraq.

The Republicans have held to their lie that the US is in Iraq to help Iraqi, and not themselves and their bloody oil comnpanies. As such, the Republicans argue that US troops must actively engage in combat in order to now keep the peace after having begun the war. Hillary Clinton and top Democrats argue that we need to keep the troops behind fortified walls, and let the Iraqis kill themselves. That way our ‘strategic national interests’ are guarded, and we lose less American casualties. When the sectarian strife we have unleashed eventually comes to a bloody climax and then the Iraqi energy is all gone, then the US can begin to cash in on the oil they came to take out. The Democrats argue, why get US soldiers caught up in the crossfire, when we can just wait it out?

It is clear that top Democrats are not going to support the views of Americans that we are morally wrong in having caused all this bloodshed, and that we would be morally wrong to continue to kill for oil to be stolen by our multi-national oil companies. OIL, oil, oil…. There is hardly a world citizen that hasn’t figured it out by now, that the US, Democrats and Republicans politicians alike are on an Easter egg hunt for oil throughout the world. Our government is using 9/11 and a phoney war aginst the shadows to cover for this vast operation. But the rest of the world is not desensitized by our state propaganda and can easily see this con for what it really is. Our US elites want the world oil supply in their hands.

Yes, Hillary Clinton is making it clear in her campaign for president, that a new Clinton Adminstration would be just like the previous one. Just another face on American imperialism now that the world has gotten utterly sick of the Rumsfields, Rices, Boltons, Dicks, and Bushes. But though Americans may be slow learners, the rest of the world does not lag so far behind. Bush and Cheney let the cat out of the bag and now it will not be so easy to get it back in. This is what the liberal imperialists hate. Cheney and Dubya dug them a hole so very deep, all just drilling for more oil. The sweet personalities of the Democrats are no longer enough to delude the world that human rights has anything to do with US foreign policy. All know that it is about brute force (military power) to be used to steal the world’s natural resources.

Vets have to battle nasty US medical system like the rest of us

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The bad conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has brought many US soldiers from killing Iraqis into a new battle with their own US government. Now they and their families are not waving US flags so much as they discover what many of the elderly and sick amongst us already knew. The US government doesn’t give much a damn about Afghans, Iraqis, nor the majority of US citizens either.

Did the youngsters signing up for the US killing machine think they would get something special? Some sort of privileged status for themselves for being hired killers for Dubya, Cheney, or whomever might come along whenever as their top officers?

The whole military medical system has big nasty holes in it much as does the civilian medical system does, too. When you sign up and go abroad to fight people you haven’t a clue about you might want to think you are a big hero/ heroine, but you are not. You are somebody looking to get special treatment, that’s all. You want that spiffy uniform, the perks, the respect by the people in power and their suck ass supporters at the lower economic levels. But once you get hurt all that fades into the background. Now you become much more like the rest of us, and the rest of us have to deal with sorry, don’t give a damn, medical care. So tell any younger sisters and brothers, to deal with the real problems back home, before getting all psyched up to supposedly go solve the world’s problmes by high tech killing. Didn’t make any sense to begin with, but you let yourself get suckered, didn’ you?And now the chickens perhaps have come home to roost, right on top of your own lonesome shoulders?

When somebody tells you to jump off a cliff by joining up as hired killer, you don’t have to go along smirking and thinking how smart you are. Yes, many vets that previously played the fool have to eventually battle the nasty US for-private-don’t-give-a-damn- except-about profits medical system like the rest of us. You’ll not get quality care like the top dogs are sure to give themselves.

It was a dummy thing you did joining up, and we wish you now the best, just like we wish all of us the best in getting the decent medical care that is our human right…. one that our rulers ignore all the time. How many of the wounded vets wish they could frag the same people they signed up to blindly follow? After all, they fragged you did they not? If not yet, then you are one of the more fortunate. Thank your lucky stars up to now. Because the nasty sorry ass US medical system is more likely to kill you in the long run, far more likely than any ol’ Osama. That’s whether you or vet, or not? What you heroes going to do about it? When you fight back (if you do?), at least you’ll be on the right side this time.

Afghanistan, Land of Accidents

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It seems that yet another ‘accident’ has occurred in Afghanistan. Whole weddings, whole schools and whole villages seem to routinely get demolished by ‘accidents’, yet this time an ‘accident’ has occurred to a US military chopper. As a result, at least 8 US soldiers have ‘accidentally’ lost their lives, while many more were ‘accidentally’ wounded. Afghanistan, Land of Accidents. We hope that the rest of the troops get ‘accidentally’ brought home, like yesterday.

Iraqi Freedom Bear

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Limited Treasures commemorative teddy bearThis is Sam(TM) The All American Bear(TM). The tag reads: THIS IS NOT A TOY. Please keep away from children. For decorative and collector use only.
 
For sale only at the PX to US soldiers and their families, Sam is part of The Hometown Heroes Collection which commemorates Operation Iraqi Freedom among other presumably cuddly Defense Department outreach programs.
 
Now I don’t begrudge the military needing to plan its offensives ahead of time, but this souvenir teddy bear bears a copyright 2002.

Scorched journalist policy

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Shall we speculate as to who is killing journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan? (141 to date in Iraq.) Well, the who is documented, much of it labeled “friendly fire.” Shall we speculate about the why? Forgive me if it feels like I am connecting the dots with a crayon.
 
A recent documentary interviewed some Iraqi journalists about their inconsistent use of flack jackets. The journalists said they choose not to wear protection around fellow Iraqis because they don’t want to be mistaken for working for the occupiers. But walking beside American soldiers the journalists do wear flack jackets because they are fearful of being shot …by the Americans.

Witness to a crime
We’ve all seen it in the movies: the protagonist is accidental witness to a crime and becomes targeted by the perpetrator lest he live to testify. Or the victim begging for life, vowing in exchange not to go to the police. Both victim and criminal know it’s an offer the villain cannot risk.

Massacres usually intend to leave no survivors because the dead tell no tales. Countless war movies have depicted the war correspondent happening upon a war crime in progress, recognizing immediately that a “stray bullet” will be eminent.

Kill Boxes
We’ve learned over the course of two Gulf Wars that our military employs such tactics as “Kill Boxes” and “Free Fire Zones.” Both describe a similar US M.O.. The first is Air Force lingo for an area bounded by given coordinates inside of which everything is considered a target. The airmen are tasked with killing everybody in that box. They have the discretion not to shoot something, but they will be held responsible for whatever they leave, authorized as they were to annihilate all.

Photo shown across the world except in the USA renowned Kill Box in 1990 was the Highway of Death, where thousands of Iraqi soldiers fleeing from Kuwait were incinerated in their vehicles. (American viewers were spared the graphic images.)

The Hague Conventions forbid firing upon soldiers who are no longer attacking you. Even cowboys know you don’t shoot somebody in the back. Both the Hague and Geneva Conventions outlaw the indiscriminate killing of civilians and other non-combatants.

Free Fire Zones
Kill Boxes violate all international conventions. They are as illegal as the US Army’s Free Fire Zone in which soldiers are ordered to fire freely at “anything that moves.” Civilians are expected to know beforehand to get out of the way. They figure it out when our snipers begin popping their family members’ heads off in their gardens. IED detonations now trigger automatic Free Fire Zones around the radius of the blast. An American reputation for ruthless overkill now precedes us. As a result, when IEDs explode, Iraqis have learned to run for their lives. Our soldiers lie to themselves that the escaping figures must be responsible for the IED, and are thus combatants. American Humvees carry extra shovels to plant on the bodies of the slain civilians to paint them as bomb laying insurgents.

The US has deliberately shot civilians since the Korean War, though this has only recently been revealed. In No Gun Ri, entire masses of refuges were machine-gunned to prevent fighters from passing amongst them. This policy continued in Vietnam, the My Lai massacre being unique only for having been uncovered. In war, Collateral Damage has always been a tragic unintended consequence, but by no stretch of a JAG’s imagination can it be a sanctioned consequence.

Secret and Confidential
Let’s speculate here… If military manuals exist with instructions for Kill Boxes and Free Fire Zones which explicitly require the killing of civilians and non-combatants, how do you suppose the instructions read for dealing with uninvited members of the press? The US military seems quite preoccupied with how its actions appear in news broadcasts. How might US soldiers be instructed to deal with journalists who stumble upon the bodies and capture the unbecoming bloodshed with their cameras? We’ll find out someday when a witness survives.

Corporate America’s micro-management addiction

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Decades ago, while working as a Seattle garment cutter where Jimmy Hendrix’s brother once worked, I observed with awe and amazement a White man, overly dressed in coat and tie, stand directly behind the seated rows of bent over Oriental women with stopwatch in hand.

He was measuring each and every fraction of a second their motions as they sewed together cut parts of skiwear. He was part of the management team’s effforts to micro-manage the workers at this factory. He would write down his observations and then they would be mathematically calculated to squeeze these women out of every ounce of their energy, for the least pennies to be paid. My thoughts back then were, Good God Almighty! This micro-management of people is sick, sick, sick!

Today, I am a proud parent of a District 11 school kid. Everyday she comes home at 2:45, angry, hostile, and upset. Why is this? The kids at this ‘excellent’ facility are being micro-managed, that’s why . No time for recess, no time for play, no time for socialization. Every second is to count.

If you might ask, I am voting for recall. My only wish is that the whole bunch of them were being recalled on that School Board. Their micro-management of kids is sick! There is no kid left behind from it, either. At the school my kid goes to, the teachers don’t even much get the chance to teach. They have a computer called ‘Success Maker’ supposedly doing that. Computers can micromanage little kids better than humans can, I guess?

All the teachers and principals are part of this micro-management, too. Even their cheerleading for the school seems totally forced. Like a Toyota production circle almost! And the kids conduct in this repressive setting becomes quite coarse. Another manifestation of the US corporate zeal for micro-management of others. Little kids even! Every second must count. We must ‘rationalize’ education! Speedup the teachers!

Last week in the New York City metro area, ecoli@TacoBell.com shut down 6 stores. But what is the New York City municipal health inspectors concerns per another article online last week? That there were sales of armadillo meat and other exotics at ethnic markets going on that were not kosher enough for them. The ethnic markets are not being micro-managed by the Health Dept. like they should supposedly be. In city across city in the US, it is next to impossible to vend food like is done in every other country around the world. The food cannot be micro-managed like at McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King by the ‘health’ bureaucracy. No way to stand stop watch in hand and measure productivity, etc. Uh, I meant sanitary conditions.

Pretty pathetic is it not? All those fast food joints have kids working without sick leave, and no health inspector ever is there to micro-manage the snot coming from them onto the food while at work sick. Got to spend more time micromanaging armadillo meat instead, and I guess cuy (guinea pig), too, which is available to South American immigrants in a park of one of their barrios in that city. In other cities, just try to vend even hot dogs around town! Food not Bombs gets harassed if they give away cooked food on the streets. Unhealthy. You guys are not going to get away from being totally micro-managed by corporate America! It’s for health reasons, the authorities will all announce. Shut up and eat your triple fat burger, Buddy.

Everything is micro-managed these days. The Iraq Study Group was micro-analyzing how they could micro-manage those savage Arabs and Kurds? How can ‘our’ oil be micro-managed in that faraway land? Bipartisan unity now. Democrats and Republicans all 100% behind the idea of corporate America micro-managing other peoples. Can they not micro-manage other people? No, they are addicts, are they not? They need Micro-Managers Anonymous.

At Safeway, the clerks are told what to say. At the hospitals, nurses are told what to say. At Wendy’s, management is taking away what to say and micro-managing that from the Exit 42 Corporation located in New Hampshire. At America On Line, what to say is not micro-managed on line by Americans on line, but by micro-managed Indians on line micro-managed in Quien Sabe, India! This corporate micro-management addiction is sick!

The in thing for business, is to violate labor law and micro-mange your break time, take it away, destroy it! It’s WalMarts specialty, and ask any nurse how management micro-manages them at the hospitals? Haven’t seen your nurse come by? They’re being micro-managed over at the desk by management. To see you in person they would need to have skates on. That would go with their bundle of equipment (cellphones, buzzers,sensors, etc.) that they have to carry around, like US soldiers on patrol. All a result of micro-management of their time by the corporation. Management must always be in contact!

Computers are used to program nurses these days, as they are other workers. Aw sure, those poor machines get programmed, too. But believe it, the machines program far more people than the other way around. Cash registers force the pace. Cameras are everywhere. Micro-management is in, big time. Satelites taking down your conversations on the ol’ cell phone even. All part of micro-management addiction by the business community. Real patriots, them! And it is sick, sick, sic, is it not? These efficiency and organization nuts need some major political metamucil!

Notice the headline this week? America is NUMBER ONE in the world in number of citizens in jail. Highest in per capita percentage, too. 5% of the world’s population, with 25% of those micro-managed in jail. Oh, and it really is micro-management in US jails! See Jose Padilla? See those guys at Guantanamo? It’s no aberration, either. Go to jail, and they will micro-manage your ass. And I mean that literally, too. Go to the airport and pray, they’ll micro-manage you there, too. They got you coded, Dude. And in jail, well they got ot watch your ass. You might have some palmed Tylenol tabs up your rear a foot or two. Wouldn’t want you to get high from smoking the stuff! Now that’s true micro-management, is it not?

So what is the first thing that corporate America will say to you if you want to stop their addiction to micro-managing you? They will scream and whine and shout!

“That is socialism! Keep your liberty. Socialists want to micro-manage you, and you won’t have the freedom we allow you here! We’re against micro-management!”

Comical, is it not? Despite corporate America’s micro-management addiction, all this micro-management is to be done on you. Try to ask for it to be directed their way, and they scream and squeal like the pigs they are. They are pigs, too. They not only will micro-manage your ass, if they get a chance, but if perhaps you fall by the road side in illness or old age, they will micro-manage your processing down the conveyor belt and into the hole in the ground the funeral micro-management industry has prepared for you. They will micro-manage the prayer said in your last behalf, want it or not! Yes, the last prayer before God will process you, and then you will get micro-managed for eternity. Corporate America is just obeying God on this matter.

Corporate America is addicted to micro-management of your life, from birth to graveyard. The Christian’s God gets you then.

What Bush and Osama together have taught the world

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September 11 was important in world history, because Osama bin Laden taught the world that resistance to US domination was most effectively fought on US soil, and not the soil of the world’s oppressed nations.

Seems simple enough, but most victims of US foreign policy up to then had fought back directly against their own US propped-up puppet governments. Osama bin Laden globalized the resistance to US imperial policies by taking the fight to US soil. His message? Not to let D.C. fight the war solely on your home territories.

The 9/11 attacks might have not alone taught the world much of anything, if there had not been the Bush Adminstration team in office. That was the genius of Osama. He knew how elite American arrogance would most likely respond, being of elite lineage himself. He knew that the US ruling class would tend to try to destroy this new resistance against their world domination by using pure and total violence, much as the ruling class in Osama’s native Saudi Arabia does when threatened. But pure violence is dangerous since it tends to overheat like a nuclear meltdown occurring within the core of a reactor.

At present glance, it appears that nothing much has changed. The response of the Bush Administration to 9/11 was to up the level of violence against the peoples of the Third World states of Afghanistan, then Iraq, and next Lebanon No new attacks have occurred on American soil meanwhile. And as usual, there have been yet new hundreds of thousands of victims of the US military and its ME Frankenstein, the state of Israel’s IDF. The European governments have done their part, as junior cheerleaders of the US mandated blood bath outside their own continent.

But what will be the ultimate cost that the American people will eventually pay for sitting by and silently allowing its corporate-run government to go bezerk after 9/11? I talk not of the trillions of dollars in national debt that is being run off, but rather of the fact that the Bush Adminstration has practically guaranteed that Osama’s message did take root in the populations of the world.

Osama said let’s start a dirty war of attrition against the US rulers on their home soil. Osama had the ability to give the lesson that this was the Achille’s heel of US imperialism, but he didn’t have the organization to do much more than just explode one big bonfire or two for the passive and impoverished crowd he was trying to wake up to see. Bush has now given this previously dormant crowd the knowledge of the technique to create one, two, a thousand mini or maximum 9/11s in the years ahead.

It does not involve airports nor planes, And the world is more awake now. It is probably only a matter of weeks, or months at best, before the war stirs once again on the US mainland soil, but this time with newer techniques learned on Afghan and Iraqi soil. The ultimate price to be paid by Americans for their acceptance of this carnage, is that the carnage will most likely hit our soil once again, just like it hit New York previously.

So let’s look some at the new techniques to wage war on American soil. Let’s look at the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which is close cousin to the cluster bomb. The IED has accounted for about 1/3 of the US casualties in Iraq. The components of an IED are cheap and its materials easily found. And let us not think that only Muslims can use these devices within the US. Anybody can.

Ex- US soldiers can come back and construct them. Hispanics tired of the US messing with their countries can put them together. Gang members trafficking in illegal substances and human flesh can do the same. That’s what a dirty war is all about. The weak use weaker weapons against the more powerful, but weapons they do begin to use. Iraq plus 9/11 = the ability and desire by yet more people, to use cheap weapons against the US government on US soil. Bush has given that little shove that was needed to make Osama’s lesson to the world more effective.

These IEDs are what has been giving the Iraqi resistance its sharpening edge. But where might this dirty war of attrition begin to play out in yet another battlefield? See William S. Lind’s commentary, The Boomerang Effect that shows how one scenario most likely might occur.

Osama taught us that what goes around comes around. Americans have just yet to learn that lesson, though the Bush Klan is determined that we certainly will. Dubya, Dick, and Donald helped the world find the most hard to stop weapon that could be used against the American people. The IED. The lesson was learned in Iraq, but the whole world has been watching.

How well is the war in Iraq going?

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Finally there is unity! The war in Iraq is not going well for the United States so say the press, the politicians, Rumsfield, even. Oh the suffering amongst the British and Americans. They did not forsee the unfolding problems. If only the Iraqis would act normal!

It’s so bad they say, you think that the American government would be suing for peace? Cut in run, don’t cut and run? How do we get out of this unfolding disaster for our beloved country? So now we are awash in crocodile tears we are. Boohoohoo. Our poor suffering America. Yes, and the entire elite spectacle is so sickening it makes one want to vomit.

And, yes, this spectacle even includes our churchly ‘peace movement’. One group of kind people, the nuns. were rushing around Colorado last week to send canned goods to the soldiers and their families. And now, the CS pacifists are beginning a countdown. Tick-tock-tick-tock. Look what’s been done to our soldiers! We are nearing the magical 3,000 mark! Time to light some candles and pray.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Iraqis, too! Mention them at the press release for when the clock strikes 3. Don’t let it strike 4! We beg of you. One would open one’s mouth to say something to them about this sad approach, but for the fact that lighting a candle or two is a major ‘peace action’ for them. They’re in motion now! So better to remain mum so that at least the ten or fifteen of them get their pictures in The Gazette and Indy as concerned folk.

All this wailing and despair. Both Democrats and Republicans are creasing their brows with worry and cold sweat. We’ve lost Iraq they moan. It’s all going so wrong! It’s become like one big sorry soap opera. Oh the agony, and Oh the guilt. We tried to do good, but we failed. Why, oh why, oh why? Maybe it was them? Yes that’s it. The Arabs cannot be trained!

All this would be way comical if it weren’t so absolutely pathetic. First all, the start of wartime didn’t begin yesterday with Bush’s invasion of Iraq. It didn’t begin with 9/11. It didn’t even begin with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. So where do all these stupid calculations begin? The liberal churchgoing peacenics would have it all start with the number ZERO, and would have our time of great despair calculated now at 3,000. It’s very Biblical to do it that way, but it is utter nonsense. US foreign policy effecting Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq have killed millions. ‘We’ lost less than 3,000 US soldiers in this time, and all America begins to cry like babies! Jesus H. Christ! Talk about being absolutely self-centered? YES, our society definitely takes the cake!

All this hysteria proceeds from the previous nonsense we have been spoon fed. Stuff about WOMD, protecting the sovereign country of Kuwait, helping establish democracy in the Middle East, and so on for ad nauseum. Can our elderly still remember all the nonsense about what a supposedly remarkable man was the Shah of iran? I date myself here, because I certainly can. Time Magazine, and all the usual rest of the pornographic US press, loved the guy! The Shah was the world master of running a state torture regime, like the one that America’s top criminals now copy so fanatically. Back then, it was claimed in the US that he was a man ahead of his time. Oh such a teacher that Donald and his ilk had! The Shah. Oh shit! Ask the British and they will show you how it started all way before even then.

And then, the unfortunate takedown. This modern day American hero, the Shah, fell. Tears. Where did ‘we’ go wrong? Where did this modern leader go wrong? We need to arm Osama and gang to the tune of multi-billions, and make the Soviets have their own Vietnam. Osama the freedom fighter! We need to cook up a war with Iran to show them we wouldn’t let them get away with thumping our patron saint, The Shah. So America and its buddies, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia armed Saddam Hussein. Killed a million plus.

Fast forward to now. Where did Bush go wrong, The chimp? Boohoohoo. It’s a bloodbath. And we get the ‘debate’ of the press corp buffoons. Stay the course, or cut and run? Yeah, but how ’bout we all just throw up? This is not a real debate our elites are engaging in, just a charade. A country that allowed its elites to destroy the lives of millions in this stretch of ME alone, deserves to go bankrupt. And we are! Boohoohoo. How we suffer they say! We approach 3,000 of our own dead, in the midst of this shower of blood we have constructed for others, and all the press propaganda brigade can talk about is American trauma! Nauseating. The real trauma for America will come when the bill arrives in the mail, Chumps.

Let’s face it. The war is going rather well. There have been 2 main goals for Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Lockheed, and President Cheney. Max out the profits that can be financed from the public treasury. And control the oil. These pied pipers of the Democratic and Republican politician rats are not going to ‘cut and run’. From what? They’re looking to extend the war, are they not? And for good reason. The war in Iraq is going well for them. Why not take it further? Why not make it permanent war? After all these decades of killing, the local peacenics can’t even get it together enough to get 100 people out to pray and light candles. The Iraq War is going well for the war machine. Three thousand? Oh get real, please.

The war in Iraq is going well; there is no anger in the air. Only religious pacifist good will. Feliz Navidad. When people get angry, they will not light candles and meditate. And without real anger, the bloodbath will go on.

Is Iraq in ‘Civil War’?

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Our national debates often enter into surreal territories, and I got to say that I find the liberal sites to be almost as bad as the conservative ones when it comes to their examination of US militarism. Today finds the liberal sites, like Alternet and CommonDreams celebrating what a supposed advance forward it is that NBC started calling the situation in Iraq a civil war. The White House duly responded with, “Is not! Is not!”. So there, we now have lined up the two sides of the usual American idiocy, The Democrats versus the Republicans. Yawn…. But is the Iraq conflict in reality a ‘civil war’ like the liberals are now declaring it to be? I think not.

See, the liberal Democratic Party types don’t dare call the Iraq conflict what it really is, which is an imperialist war and colonial occupation Made in America. So they do the next best thing they can come up with, and that is to say that the US has troops centered in a country with a ‘civil war’ flaring up. Oh my! Despite ‘our’ good intentions, we’re in danger! Let’s cut and run!
This way of stupidly arguing this issue of war and peace with the Right, allows pro-warmongers to say, Look, the Iraqis need us to keep themselves from killing each other. Oh how humane we shall always be!

Liberals, this is no civil war at all. Can you imagine in our real American Civil War, would we have ever called it a Civil War if all the American cities, both South and North, had been occupied by a bunch of murderous imperial troops, from say Mongolia or Japan? And that these troops were causing the chaos between different sections of our own country’s population? See the simple difference between a real civil war, and an imperialist war? Apparently, the liberals have big trouble on that! Our American Civil War was a civil war, whereas the Iraqi chaos is not.

If one remembers this, the Vietnam War was once described by the American press as a civil war, too. The supposed good guys in South Vietnam were our friends, and the bad guys there were the commies. It was taught that South Vietnam was in a civil war where another country would not leave the South Vietnamese alone to solve their internal difficuties. That bad country was called North Vietnam. Just like then, the argument went that we had to occupy the country, simply because without us, the ‘civil war’ there would go much for the worse. Plus, another country, Iran… uh I mean North Vietnam, was wrongly entering into another country’s civil strife. and trying to turn it into a ‘civil war’! We had to save the South Vietnamese from foreign intervention into their civil war! Oh such tortured logic the warmongers must use.

Liberals refuse to tell the truth to people, back then and right now. They don’t go out and say that we have torn apart another society because we are an imperialist country that invaded and occupied their land. God forbid it if the liberals , who are such great flag waving patriots, would ever speak bad of the troops! Instead, the liberals have a tendency to revert to just moaning and groaning about, Why be over there in such a bad neighborhood? Look, there’s a civil war going on. Gotta go now! We’re getting hurt. Today, some liberal nuns were actually here in Colorado delivering food to our US soldiers! Poor soldier boys and girls. Get them out of harm’s way. They’re innocently in the midst of a ‘civil war’, and need some canned goods delivered to them! They’re starving! Bring them home and feed them better. Such nonsense makes me want to cry, but that’s what the liberal nuns were pushing today in Colorado.

What to say when the US spent all that time previous to the invasion, arming and training Kurds in the North of Iraq? When they take orders from DC, Iraqi Kurds are not fighting a ‘civil war’ then? But if they free lance like the Shia and the Sunni are currently doing, well that’s ‘civil war’? No? That’s nonsense. Iraq is still a conflict where ethnic tensions are being provoked by foreign powers. There is a simple name for doing that, too. It is called IMPERIALISM, not ‘civil war. The US is an imperialist country as is Britain. Imperialism often times picking on weaker countries, not countries that can better fight back. So the first cousin of American imperialism is COLONIALISM. Iraq is in the center of a colonial war, not civil war, Olbermann. I center on this liberal, because he is the point man of the Democrats within the media at this time. It is he that is pushing this use of ‘civil war’ to describe the battlefield that his government has made in the Middle East. LOL. Well he would say, at least, that Bush is not ‘his’ government. But then again, both Iraqi Shia and Sunni agree on one thing. This is not a ‘civil war’, but a warfare forced on them by colonial occupiers. My Fellow Americans, this is an imperialist war and a colonial war. It’s kind of shameful for us continually putting the guilt on the Iraqis on this matter.

The sheer nature of imperialism, is that the imperial power always uses one sector of the colony against another. It only gets called civil war, when the imperial country doesn’t klike the way things are spinning out of its control. Then they can withdraw, and say, “Oh those primitive people. They hate each other. They are always in a civil war”. I’m waiting for the day when NBC and Olbermann start calling the Middle East wars of the US for what they are. What they really are. That’s right. I’m waiting to hear the righteous Olbermann to start calling the foreign policy of the US, IMPERIALISM. But Democratic Party motivated liberals and their liberalism can’t be depended on too much.

Afghanistan, where cowardly US military is deliberately murdering children

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Every week now, it seems that the US puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is ‘investigating’ another tragic ‘accidental bombing of civilians. He demands that these ‘accidents’ stop. But these are not accidents, and Karzai knows this well, as every other Afghan must now know it well, too. An accident occurs once or twice, but an intentional strategy of targeting civilians becomes constant, as have become the US bombings of Afghan civilians in the more remote regions of that country.
 
The strategy is ‘to destroy the sea that the guerrilla fighter must swim in’, as it was once explained in the Vietnam War era, years ago. In short, the quickest, easiest way to combat the enemy, is simply to target his wife and family, including the kids. So the cowardly US-led NATO army of occupation in Afghanistan, is systematically doing that instead of engaging the enemy on the ground, where politically dangerous casualties might occur. Bomb the Afghan women and children in their homes from up high, if there is even the remotest military resistance to US forces in their general neighborhood.

This is the same strategy that the US government formerly used in SE Asia, some 35 to 45 years previously. It is the same strategy that the NAZIs used when they pushed into East Europe against the Russians during the Second World War. In their pathway, they razed to the ground villages, towns, and even entire cities. It is even the same strategy that Mafia gangsters use against their opponents. It is the same strategy that the US fed Colombian death squads use, too. They go into villages with chain saws, and cut people up before their own family members. Basically, this is government sponsored terrorism against civilians, and the US is committing internationally recognized war crimes by targeting civilians instead of the armed combatants they face. The strategy, is to target the families of combatants, and not those who might actually be able to inflict return casualties upon the invading and occupying, barbarian armed forces.

see Hamid Karzai orders investigation

We expect this cowardice from the cowardly US military commanders and chiefs, like Dubya and Dick Cheney, Donald and Alberto, who all get great glee out of torturing US-held POWs. And we expect it from the US grunts, too. They mainly just want to get out alive, and don’t much care who gets hurt, as long as it is not themselves. Innocent children bombed as they play, or as they sleep? Well who cares? Not the uniformed soldier cowards, nor their leaders. They are much like the Israeli troops, another cowardly group of soldiers, that distributed hundreds of thousands of cluster bombes in the last 3 days of their Lebanon vacation. Early Christmas for the children? Well the uniformed forces of occupying armies don’t care. They are simply cowards who want to get back home whole, and they will follow cowardly orders, from cowardly leaders.

But what of the press? The press barely even reports Afghanistan these days to US readers. And when they do, they cowardly hide away the nature of what they are reporting on. To the US press, the Afghanistan fighting is a NATO conflict, and they will report whole articles without even once using the letters, ‘US’ or ‘USA’! Let’s keep our jobs, and let’s keep the whole Afghanistan issue away from the American public, who are too cowardly to actually think about what they are doing to that poor country.

And what about the US peaceniks’? They are cowardly, too. 99% of them vote for the Democratic Party, and talking about Afghanistan is too embarrasing to the top party hacks. So, shhhhhh….. Keep quiet. The recent AFSC tour of their ‘Eyes Wide Open’ exhibit was basically a ‘Mouths Tightly Closed’ exhibit of their AFSC political cowardice when it comes to Afghanistan. They should remember and be ashamed of this, when the Quaker leaders are inside the voter booths pushing the levers for the Democratic Party candidates. They could have put boots out for the US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But they didn’t. They could have placed out shoes of Afghani civilians killed by US and allied troops, but they didn’t.

But the other liberal peaceniks from the other liberal churches are equally as cowardly. When was the last time one saw a sign saying, Get Out of Afghanistan Now? All the talk is of Iraq instead. The liberal megawebsite, commondreams, carries bumperstickers calling for Get out of Iraq, No war with Iran, and even No War with Syria. But Get Out of Afghanistan? Not a chance! More political cowardness. It would push the Democratic Party hacks too hard. Yet our country is now deliberately bombing civilian children in that country, and doing it routinely, too.

It is political cowardice to bomb huts full of empoverished women and children noncombatants, rather than fight on the ground below against the men. But that’s what an imperialist army is full of. They are full of cowards who want to kill people like they are playing some video game back in the suburbs at home. But it, too, is cowardly for the US Peace Movement not to demand that our government get its troops out of Afghanistan with the same force we demand it get out of Iraq. We are betraying the children of that country, who are being slaughtered down like cattle. Yes, we have a cowardly antiwar movement in the US that wants only to concentrate on ‘Iraq’, and getting their cowardly Democratic Party leaders elected to office once again. Let’s hope that liberals can grow some backbone, and start opposing this war, too. Otherwise, the peace crowd is just as bad as ‘our troops’, who mainly want to kill from afar and from up high, with no possilbe repercussions to their cowardly, uniformed selves. Those that don’t mind killing innocent children, just so that they can claim a high ‘enemy’ body count.

A proposed local anti-torture resolution

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We, concerned American citizens and residents of the city of Colorado Springs, call upon our city council to issue a proclamation to both the state of Colorado and the federal government, that as citizens of this city, state, and country, we categorically reject the application of any deliberate mental or physical abuse upon any and all prisoners held by our local, state, and national governments. And further that we call upon our national leaders to have all prisoners held by the US military, be treated according to the regulations of the Geneva Conventions regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war.

We urge the passing of the following resolution by the City Council of Colorado Springs:
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We, the citizens of Colorado Springs, categorically reject the current policy of our national government of transferring US held prisoners to other countries, or to US allied armed groups, to have them tortured during interrogation or as punishment. We also reject any policy of deliberate governmental assassination of foreign opponents, whether it be carried out by our own military, or outsourced to US allies.

We, the citizens of Colorado Springs, categorically reject the indefinite holding of any prisoners without trial and without charges filed against them, whether foreign or domestic. We reject the systematic denial of timely access to lawyers of the choosing of the prisoners needing legal representation. We reject harassment of the legal councils of all prisoners. All prisoners should immediately have access to the press, so that any mistreatment can be made public. Not to do so, is not in keeping with the processes of a democratic society, whether these prisoners be domestic or foreign.

We, the citizens of Colorado Springs, call upon the US government to immediately prosecute any officials who have abused prisoners, or denied them their due rights. This includes not just the immediate abusers of prisoners, but those in supervisory positions over those lower level employees, who directed the actions of their subordinates. We call upon our federal government to immediately initiate a grand federal investigator commission into these multiple abuses that have already been documented as having occurred, and to have them stopped at once.

Further, we the citizens of Colorado Springs, call upon our state and local authorities to renounce the use of abuse and torture of American prisoners held in local and state facilities. We are well aware that the deliberate use of sexual abuse, solitary confinement, and physical assault is rampant throughout the US in multiple correctional facilities, and that the multiple torture methods and abuse techniques and denial of rights used against our own citizens is now being incorporated into the systematic abuse of foreign POWs held by our military. Calling foreign POWs by any other name does not change their real status as POWs. If the US military has taken prisoner any foreign citizen during military engagements, then these troops we consider to be POWs, and their treatment is subject to the Geneva Conventions.

We, the citizens of Colorado Springs and our city council, especially condemn local military contracting agencies, with their many offices located inside our city limits, that have directed torture against POWs in other countries. Already US troops operating in conjunction with these private contractors have been found guilty of directing torture and abuse of prisoners in their custody. These private operatives have been documented as having shot at foreign nationals and having severely injured and murdered foreign civilians as a result. We do not consider these companies to be good citizens of our community, and urge that appropriate criminal charges be brought against companies that have violated prisoner rights per the Geneva Accords regarding humane treatment of POWs. We call upon the city, the state of Colorado, and the US federal government to cease contracting at once with these companies, and to end their immunity from having charges brought against them for their acts of criminality overseas.

Further, we the citizens of Colorado Springs, reject as dishonest and criminal any government denial at either the state, local, or national levels that these abuses are in fact occurring. The documentation is extensive and overwhelming that the US is mistreating POWs, and also prisoners within its own national criminal corrections facilities. The US government has a known and long history of using torture against POWs. Tens of thousands of US held Vietnamese POWs were tortured to death in the so-called ‘tiger cages’ and during the US “Phoenix Operations.” Similarly, the atrocities on prisoners captured by the US financed ‘Contras’ has been well documented. The US use of torture on POWs is not new. What is new is the open advocacy by federal leaders of what had been covert policy. We condemn, as citizens of Colorado Springs, this open advocacy of war crimes committed by US soldiers. We support our troops by demanding that they not be subject to orders to commit war crimes.

We the citizens of Colorado Springs and our city council, proclaim it time for the abuse to stop, and for humane treatment of all prisoners to begin. To allow our government to abuse foreign prisoners of war is to be complicit in the crime, just as continuing to allow abuse to be inflicted on our own incarcerated citizens. We reject both, and call upon our government, at all levels, to most urgently begin to humanely treat those behind bars.

The passage of this proclamation by our city council to be sent to both the Governor of the state of Colorado and to the President of the United State.