Would you all agree with me that war is an ugly, but sometimes necessary thing? No SANE person ever wants to go to war. But when diplomacy fails and our national well being, safety, and security are at stake military action is sometimes necessary. When military action can no longer be avoided, for it to be truly effective it must be conducted violently and with overwhelming force to quickly defeat the enemy and make them KNOW that further resistance is futile. Contrary to what many opponents of any war believe, fewer people on both sides die if you hold to these principals. When you try to make war “nice,” as our spineless yellow bellied politicians have done, it turns into a slow war of attrition, a war of a thousand cuts. The enemy that threatened you is never defeated and will ALWAYS be a threat until they are defeated. They gain strength day after day and kill more and more of your people a few at a time.

With regard to Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other conflict in which our military is employed, just about every conservative I know, be they politician, talk show host, fellow soldier, sailor, Marine or airman, have universally held the opinion “let us win, or bring us home.” That includes me. When we went into Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a genuine military purpose and legitimate national security goal. Once the initial military victories on the ground had faded into history, the politicians got involved and began to tear down the success of our military. Especially those liberal politicians who didn’t want us to go to Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place, but who would not speak out because the POLLS said speaking out against the actions wasn’t popular. Cowards.

As each day passes, the liberals withdraw more and more support from our military men and women who are on the front lines risking and sacrificing their lives for America. The withhold money, new weapons, and reinforcements. They attack and belittle the military in the press. The two most notable examples of this are senator Harry Reid of Nevada who said the war in Iraq was lost before the surge ever began, and congressman Jack Murtha (spit) of Pennsylvania who with no proof or evidence came out publicly and loudly to proclaim that U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq were murderers and baby killers. Of course they were proven innocent, but Murtha (spit) couldn’t and still hasn’t found a microphone to say he was wrong, or that he is sorry for what he said. He calls himself a former Marine, but I assure you any REAL Marine would rather disembowel himself than shake this traitors hand.

Now we have the Obama administration about to prosecute three Navy SEALs for capturing a terrorist on the field of battle ALIVE. Keep in mind that usually SEALs don’t CAPTURE anyone. They kill them. Why are they being prosecuted? Because the terrorist, the mastermind of the abduction, torture, execution, and burning of four Blackwater agents whose bodies were then hung from a bridge, this scumbag got a bloody lip. I’m sure he wasn’t read his Miranda rights either. He should have died of acute lead poisoning. Navy “leadership,” in politically correct lock step with Obama and the liberals, tried to give these SEALs non-judicial punishment which would still effectively end their careers. Seeing the absurdity of this they exercised their option and demanded a trial by Courts Martial. God bless them.

Yesterday I heard several people who had been ardent supporters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan say it was time to bring our troops home. Radio hosts Roger Hedgecock and Glenn Beck were two of the more notable. When our Commander-in-Chief (in this case the campaigner-in-chief) and the rest of our national command structure no longer support our military in a time of war, when they will throw our own soldiers under the bus, when they WILL NOT ALLOW OUR MILITARY TO WIN, it is time to bring them home. The lives of a million of those dirt bag, swine excrement, satanic terrorists is not worth the life of even one single American.

Bring them home. Now.
+

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

Wednesday, November 25, 2009
By Rowan Scarborough

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

Neal Puckett, an attorney representing McCabe, told Fox News the SEALs are being charged for allegedly giving the detainee a “punch in the gut.”

“I don’t know how they’re going to bring this detainee to the United States and give us our constitutional right to confrontation in the courtroom,” Puckett said. “But again, we have terrorists getting their constitutional rights in New York City, but I suspect that they’re going to deny these SEALs their right to confrontation in a military courtroom in Virginia.”

The three SEALs will be arraigned separately on Dec. 7. Another three SEALs — two officers and an enlisted sailor — have been identified by investigators as witnesses but have not been charged.

FoxNews.com obtained the official handwritten statement from one of the three witnesses given on Sept. 3, hours after Abed was captured and still being held at the SEAL base at Camp Baharia. He was later taken to a cell in the U.S.-operated Green Zone in Baghdad.

The SEAL told investigators he had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee.

“I gave the detainee a glance over and then left,” the SEAL wrote. “I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health.”

Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, spokeswoman for the special operations component of U.S. Central Command, confirmed Tuesday to FoxNews.com that three SEALs have been charged in connection with the capture of a detainee. She said their court martial is scheduled for January.

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued.

The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that “Objective Amber” planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and “they had been tracking this guy for some time.”

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

The military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Navy charged four SEALs with abuse in 2004 in connection with detainee treatment.

Report from CNN (5:03):

The always insightful Rick Salutin of the Globe and Mail has joined the chorus of criticism about our government’s response to Richard Colvin’s testimony this week. But he also goes a step further, drawing a rather uncomfortable line between our possible complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees, and the Americans’ behaviour at Abu Ghraib prison.

Abused prisoner at Abu Ghraib, Iraq (from Wikimedia Commons)

Yes, I know – stay with me.

While we might object (and rightly so) that our people didn’t torture anybody themselves, that distinction is likely to be lost on the streets of Kandahar. We may see ourselves as The Good Guys, but whether that perception is accurate or not is irrelevant – what matters is how the people of Afghanistan see us. We can help them and protect them, but only as long as the average Afghani trusts our soldiers to have their best interests at heart. As soon as they start seeing us as the enemy, or in collusion with the enemy, we may as well go home.

It’s important to remember just how much of Canada’s success as peacekeepers has been dependant on the reputation of our country and our military as fair and honest brokers on the world stage. Regardless of whether that reputation has always been truly justified or not, it has allowed both the governments and the people of the nations we enter to see us as, if not friends, then at least unbiased arbiters.

That reputation and that trust, built up so carefully over decades, may now be irreparably damaged. And just as it was with Abu Ghraib, the knowledge of what we have allowed to be done will only inspire more Afghanis to take up arms against us, thus putting our fighting men and women in even greater danger.

Some may be tempted to blame Mr. Colvin for this, but don’t – he is only stating aloud what everybody in Afghanistan apparently already knew.

The difference is that now we know it too, and are therefore compelled to act. If we do not, then the damage really will be irreversible.

Angola 3 News interviewed Jeanne Theoharris who wrote an article this April at The Nation on the arrest, imprisonment and legal battles of Syed Hashmi, a U.S. citizen imprisoned in New York City prison with “Guantánamo-like conditions”.

18 Nov 09 | Angola 3 News

Jeanne Theoharis is the author of an April, 2009 article in The Nation, entitled “Guantánamo At Home,” which focuses on the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of U.S. citizen Syed Hashmi in a New York City prison with Guantanamo-like conditions. Theoharis holds the endowed chair in women’s studies and is an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

Syed Hashmi’s trial will begin in New York City on December 1. The website www.freefahad.com explains that: “Syed Hashmi, known to his family and friends as Fahad, was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1980, the second child of Syed Anwar Hashmi and Arifa Hashmi. Fahad immigrated with his family to America when he was three years old. His father said ‘We knew there would be many opportunities for us here in the United States. We came here to find the American dream.’ The large Hashmi family settled in Flushing, New York and soon developed deep roots throughout the tri-state area. Fahad graduated from Robert F. Wagner High School in 1998 and attended SUNY Stony Brook University. He transferred to Brooklyn College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2003. A devout Muslim, through the years Fahad established a reputation as an activist and advocate. In 2003, Fahad enrolled in London Metropolitan University in England to pursue a master’s degree in international relations, which he received in 2006. On June 6, 2006, Fahad was arrested in London Heathrow airport by British police based on an American indictment charging him with material support of Al Qaida. He was subsequently held in Belmarsh Prison, Britain’s most notorious jail.” For more information on the Hashmi case, also visit: www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org.

Angola 3 News: Can you please give us background on the arrest and prosecution of Syed Hashmi? For example, what are the charges against him? What is their evidence?

Jeanne Theoharis: In June 2006, Hashmi, who is a U.S. citizen, was arrested by the British police at Heathrow Airport (he was about to travel to Pakistan, where he has family) on a warrant issued by the U.S. government. In May 2007, he was extradited to the United States, the first U.S. citizen to be extradited under terrorism laws passed after 9/11. Since then, he has since been held in solitary confinement at Metropolitan Correctional Center (M.C.C.).

The U.S. government alleges that early in 2004, a man by the name of Junaid Babar, also a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, stayed with Hashmi at his London apartment for two weeks. According to the government, Babar stored luggage containing raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in Hashmi’s apartment and then Babar delivered these materials to the third-ranking member of al-Qa’ida in South Waziristan, Pakistan. In addition, Hashmi allegedly allowed Babar to use his cell phone to call other conspirators in terrorist plots.

The government has claimed that Babar’s testimony is the “centerpiece” of its case. Babar, who has pleaded guilty to five counts of material support for al-Qa’ida, faces up to seventy years in prison. While awaiting sentence, he has agreed to serve as a government witness in terrorism trials in Britain and Canada as well as in Hashmi’s trial. Under a plea agreement reported in the media, Babar will receive a reduced sentence in return for his cooperation.

A3N: What can you tell us about Hashmi as a person, especially your personal experience of knowing him when he was a student of yours?

JT: Fahad was a student of mine at Brooklyn College in 2002. An outspoken Muslim student activist, Fahad wrote his senior seminar paper with me on the treatment of Muslim groups within the United States and the violations of civil rights and liberties that many groups were facing. Needless to say, this feels particularly chilling—and no longer academic—as we have now witnessed his own rights being violated.

A3N: Since his arrest, what have the conditions of his incarceration been?

JT: Under special administrative measures (SAMs) imposed in October 2007 by the former Attorney General, Hashmi must be held in solitary confinement and may not communicate with anyone inside the prison other than prison officials. Family visits are limited to one person every other week for one and a half hours and cannot involve physical contact. While his correspondence to members of Congress and other government officials is not restricted, he may write only one letter (of no more than three pieces of paper) per week to one family member. He may not communicate, either directly or through his attorneys, with the news media. He may read only designated portions of newspapers—and not until thirty days after their publication – and his access to other reading material is restricted. He may not listen to or watch news-oriented radio stations and television channels. He may not participate in group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring inside and outside his cell—including when he showers or relieves himself—and 23-hour lockdown. He has no access to fresh air and must take his one hour of daily recreation—when it is given—inside a cage.

As the expert testimony supplied by Hashmi’s attorneys in a pre-trial motion of December 2008 attests, the conditions of Hashmi’s detention may have severe physical and mental consequences and impair his mental state and ability to testify on his own behalf.

While former Acting Attorney General Keisler claimed that these measures are necessary because “there is substantial risk that [Hashmi’s] communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury to persons,” Hashmi was held with other prisoners in a British jail for eleven months without incident. The SAMs were renewed by Attorney General Mukasey in November 2008 and upheld by Judge Loretta Preska in January 2009, citing Hashmi’s “proclivity for violence.” There has been no change to the SAMs under the Obama Administration. They were renewed again by Attorney General Holder in early November 2009. Yet, Hashmi is not being charged and has never been charged with committing an actual act of violence.

Currently, according to research by The New York Times in February 2009, there are six people in the United States being held on pre-trial terrorism SAMs; three (including Hashmi) are under the jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York, which has long served as a stepping stone to national political office.

A3N: Looking particularly at the harsh solitary confinement imposed on Hashmi, how is this officially justified? Do you think the stated reason is the actual motivation, or do you think there are other reasons for the solitary confinement and other harsh restrictions?

JT: My colleagues and I have begun to come to the conclusion that the use of prolonged solitary confinement is a tactic to ensure convictions. Such conditions weaken people mentally and the toll of sensory deprivation and isolation simultaneously makes people more eager to take a plea or not able to fully assist their counsel. Most experts agree it is torture (see Atul Gawande’s “Hellhole” in The New Yorker). While our public discussions have tended to see torture as a tactic to get information, in cases like Hashmi’s, torture is being used to help secure convictions.

A3N: How are the prion conditions for Hashmi in N.Y.C. different from those in Guantanamo?

JT: There are key similarities of prolonged isolation and sensory deprivation between Hashmi’s treatment at M.C.C. in lower Manhattan and what we have heard of the conditions at Guantanamo. However, there has been much less attention to these inhumane conditions within the United States.

The focus on prisons like Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and Baghram stems, in part, from a larger post-civil rights paradigm that assumes the judicial process is now fair in the United States and relatively incorruptible and thus it was necessary to go outside of the U.S. courts to do the extreme bad things.

Rather, what made Guantanamo possible stemmed from domestic legal practices, many already in place and many others expanded after 9/11, which have continued almost unabated under the Obama Administration.

A3N: With Hashmi’s trial beginning on December 1, what are activists currently doing to support him?

JH: Theaters Against War began holding weekly vigils in October to draw attention to the inhumane conditions of confinement and the due process violations Hashmi and others are facing within the federal courts. Artists and actors such as Wallace Shawn, Kathleen Chalfant, Bill Irwin, Jan Maxwell, Betty Shamieh, and Christine Moore have performed at the vigils.

A3N: Any closing thoughts?

JH: Three central Constitutional issues have become clear in the treatment of Hashmi and others within the federal system: the inhumane conditions of confinement, the abridgement of due process rights , and the lack of 1st Amendment protections.

If these are not addressed, then moving the Guantánamo detainees into the federal system does little to return America to the rule of law, of which we are rightfully proud. I am reminded of that quote by former Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1967, “”It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of…those liberties…which [make] the defense of the nation worthwhile.”

Free Fahad: Part One (9:44):

Free Fahad: Part Two (3:36):

(h/t: InfoShop News)

CAIRO — In a new abuse scandal of Iraqi detainees, British soldiers are copying US coercive interrogation techniques used in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, including sexual and physical abuses, The Independent reported Saturday, November 14.

“We were taken to a hall where soldiers started stripping us of our clothes,” Nassir Ghulaim, 24, a Iraqi laborer, said in a letter to the Ministry of Defense.

“They then asked us to pick fights with one another, or fight them. They were laughing at us and taking photos with digital cameras.”

When the Iraqi civilian, who was arrested by British soldiers in April 2007 and taken to a military base, objected the order, the doors of hell opened at him.

“A soldier started hitting me with a baton on my knees and used an electric baton on various parts of my body,” he added.

Ghulaim recalls that his torture session was based on the photographs taken from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

“They made us squeeze in pile-up, as in Abu Ghraib prison photos, while a soldier stood on top of us and started shouting and laughing,” he recalled in grief.

“I felt so humiliated and treated as a toy they messed up with.”

After a three-day nightmarish experience in the British camp, Ghulaim was freed without charges.

The Defense Ministry said it will investigate the claims of abuses by British soldiers.

The Abu Ghraib scandal first broke out in 2004 after American newspapers published shocking photos taken on mobile and digital cameras by US soldiers of Iraqi detainees.

Prisoners were subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse including the use of dogs to scare and bite prisoners, death threats and sexual abuse. It was also reported that prisoners were raped by American military personnel.

The abuses caused deep resentment across the world, damaging the image of the United States.

Rape

Ghulaim recalls seeing soldiers sexually abusing a young Iraqi man, who was detained with them.

“They picked further on a younger man who was good-looking,” he said.

“They made him strip naked and started messing with his penis and taking photos.”

The letter also features a claim by another Iraqi detainees, who said that he was raped by two British soldiers.

Hussain Hashim Khinyab, who was arrested on April 2006, recalls his hellish experience at the hands of his British jailers.

“While squatting in the toilets or in the showers, a female soldier used to expose her breast or parts of her body, or mess with another soldier in a sexual way in front of me,” he said.

Khinyab, a 35-old carpenter, said soldiers also used to play sexual movies and involve into sexual intercourse before the detainees.

“Soldiers used to play porn movies during evenings and at dawn,” he said.

“I was a practicing Muslim and this behavior was very shameful and humiliating for me.

“Also, a soldier in the observation tower used to point the laser spot of his gun at my penis while I was squatting in the toilet.”

The Iraqi man said that soldiers were also preventing detaining from practicing their religion.

“I also noticed that every time I started praying or reading Qur’an they would play very loud music to distract me and probably other detainees.”

Add some new research to the volumes that already exist to show torturing prisoners just doesn’t work on any level. Results of research at Harvard University suggest torturing a prisoner predisposes prison guards to think the truth has been found, and, further, that the more a prisoner suffers, the guiltier guards perceive them to be.

“Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception,” said the study’s co-author. The study stated torture can be a “self-justifying system” for those who administer the pain.

As the United States begins to phase out Guantanamo Bay, it’s important to remember why it never stood a chance of working in the first place.

Read the full study, Torture and judgments of guilt, here.

Over the weekend, we heard a new chorus of chicken hawks, their feathers neatly preened, warning Americans of the imminent danger that is involved with trying Guantanamo detainees in US Courts. Voices like that of Senator Joe “l want the Surge” Lieberman mounfully warned of wreckless danger in Attorney General Holder’s announcement that 5 detainees, all associated directly with planning 9/11, would be brought to court in New York City. I just wonder whether I am seeing Lieberman’s chest bravely sticking out or whether instead it is his tail.

Senators Bluster and Fluster were also on the Sunday talk show circuit denouncing rumors that the Government might move as many as 100 detainees to a prison in Illinois. I guess the good Senators were on holiday when they taught in American History class that around 300,000 German POWs were housed all over the US during WWII.

What really stands out is that these same people who object to moving detainees to the US mainland, were standing tall in support of the foolish and unnecessary invasion of Iraq.

A chicken hawk is a special kind of person. They take pains to avoid military duty themselves, but are quick to send other people’s children into war. They pompously preach behind the American flag and spout the great values we must all protect.

Guantanamo has been a disgrace to those American values and it is time to correct this mistake.

Still remember this one? More on Abu Ghraib here. And more on torture here. More political graffiti.

Errol Morris has kept us entertained recently in the New York Times.

You should know about Standard Operating Procedure, but given the remarkably well suppressed distribution last year, it might have bypassed your radar.

(Rainews24, The Indipendent) – Londra, 14-11-2009

Nuove accuse contro i militari britannici in Iraq per abusi sui detenuti, rivelate in un reportage esclusivo del quotidiano britannico ‘The Independent’. Accuse del genere erano gia’ affiorate nei mesi passati ma stavolta ci sarebbero 33 casi circostanziati di violenze denunciate dall’avvocato Phil Shiner.

Alcuni episodi sono simili a quelli emersi dalle segrete di Abu Ghraib, il carcere dove soldati americani hanno compiuto abusi contro iracheni. Il legale delle vittime, Phil Shiner, ha sollecitato la Gran Bretagna ad aprire inchieste su un totale di 33 casi, uno dei quali riguarda lo stupro di un ragazzo di 16 anni da parte di due soldati nel 2003, un altro quello di detenuti messi uno sopra l’altro e poi sottoposti a scariche elettriche.

“Accuse di questo genere vengono considerate in modo molto serio. Tuttavia, le accuse non devono essere considerate come fatti provati”, ha dichiarato il segretario delle forze armate, Bill Rammell, precisando che sette di queste accuse sono state presentate nell’ultimo mese.

“Oltre 120mila militari hanno prestato servizio in Iraq e la grande maggioranza di loro ha seguito gli standard piu’ elevati di comportamento, mostrando integrita’ e generoso impegno”, ha aggiunto. Per il momento, e’ stata aperta un’inchiesta solo sul caso della morte dell’iracheno Baha Mousa, ucciso mentre era nel carcere di Bassora, gestito dai militari britannici, con 93 diverse ferite o contusioni.

On Halloween the spiritual adviser of a neo-traditionalist sect in Georgia invited his followers to join him in a book burning (the group’s website is here).  In addition to burning recording of “Satan’s Music” (country, Jazz, Gospel, etc.) the group took special pride in burning the holy books of adherents of another religion, books considered holy, or the Word of God by those who read them.

You may recall that during the abuses at Abu Ghraib there were reports of copies of the Qur’an being defaced.  The outrage led to several attacks on innocent people.  Police in Georgia, however, are not expecting any retaliation.  The people whose holy books are being burned are followers of an ancient faith whose founder taught nonviolence.  He taught them to bless those who persecute them, to turn the other cheek, and to pray for those who insult them.

Lessons designated by the Common Lectionary include: I Samuel 1:4-20, Psalm 16, Hebrews 10: 11-14 and 19-25 and Mark 13:1-8

Our gospel lection this week “is replete with apocalyptic images and language, in concert with previous Jewish writings of the same genre. Yet it is helpful to read the chapter not so much as a predictive message about the future, but as a word addressing the issues pressing the Markan community at the time of writing. The events depicted in the chapter do not come out of the crystal ball of a divine soothsayer, but are the stuff of the community’s everyday life. The violence of war, the impending (if not already completed) destruction of the Temple, the perilous existence of the church under persecution, the enticing voices of false prophets and false messiahs were urgent concerns for the Christian community, and Mark 13 speaks directly to them.” (From Breuggemann et.al.: Texts for Preaching.)

I’ve been reading the story of an authentic American hero whose story is told in Jon Krakauer’s recent book about Pat Tillman, entitled, “Where Men Win Glory.” It is a story that also includes the violence of war and the struggle of an individual and a nation caught up in the tragedy and deceit that inevitably accompanies war

As I read this book, what impressed me was Tillman’s development as a human being. A “macho” hyper masculine character in high school whose life centered on football, he seriously injured another young person in an irrational brawl among fellow students. The price he paid included confinement in a juvenile prison. But he credits this as a time when he began to develop a habit of reading and study. Recruited by Arizona State University and again excelling as a football player, he graduated summa cum laude and then earned a starting position on the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. In part even greater fame came to him after 9/11 when moved and angered by the assault on our nation by terrorists he walked away from his $3.5 million professional football contract and a lifetime of security to enlist as a member of an elite military force known as the Rangers.

During his time of service he was driven by often contradictory understandings of duty, honor, justice, patriotism and masculine pride. On April 22, 2004, a barrage of bullets fired by his own fellow soldiers in Afghanistan ended his life. His superiors, however, lied about his death and proved the wisdom of the remark that the first thing to disappear in war is the truth.

While our lection from Mark occurred about two thousand years earlier, there are similarities to our own time where we live in a nation of false prophets whose preeminent god is also the god of war and obfuscation. Chris Hedges, a Harvard Divinity School graduate and former reporter for the New York Times now writing for Common Dreams supports that argument in reporting that while “the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people passed last week,” it was “attached to a $650-billion measure…which includes 130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The bill, he says, is clever marketing: The Democratic leadership can tell their conservative members who are “squeamish” in supporting gays and lesbians that their vote supports the war. On the other hand, liberals uneasy about the war could defend their vote by arguing their vote supports civil rights. Congress has arranged it so that everybody “wins”! It’s not difficult to imagine simmilar trade-offs in ancient and imperial Rome.

Especially when we discover that much of that now voted war budget will not support our nation’s legitimate military forces but rather our corporate mercenary forces. Thomas Friedman tells us (New York Times, 11/4/09) that every year, more and more of our national security is contracted out to private corporations. Some of those mercenaries were on hand at Abu Ghraib engaged in torturing prisoners. Friedman quotes from a new book by Allison Stanger entitled, “One Nation Under Contract” that 57% of the work of providing security for key personnel, sites, food, clothing, housing, training of army and police units — in other words, outsourcing the very core tasks of government. The article concludes that we’re building “a contractor-industrial-complex in Washington that has an economic interest in foreign expeditions. It appears that continuing wars benefit our profit hungry corporate system!

So the world hasn’t changed very much since Jesus wept over Jerusalem and warned his people of the coming turmoil “when no stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (Mark 13:44) In this passage, however, it is helpful to remember that our lection is not attempting to describe future events. It is dealing with what was the here and now of that ancient Jesus community’s perilous daily life with its risks of persecution and its encounter with the many false prophets assailing it.

So, what we find as a positive message in this rather gloomy and pessimistic passage is its call amid its trials for perseverance, patience and hope within the Jesus community. Pat Tillman personified those qualities in his personal passion to maintain his integrity and his love for his family, friends and nation during the turmoil of his last years. He was a soldier who went to war keeping Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance” as a steady reference. Indeed, he is a true and unusual American hero, worthy of our respect.

Ralph Ahlberg

Associated Press image

Palestinian-American Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who joined the U.S. military before Sept. 11, 2001 (and pictured above in 2007), apparently struggled to reconcile his Muslim faith and Arab background in an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab environment. Ultimately, Hasan, a military psychiatrist, rather ironically, shot up Fort Hood. Of course, we’ll blame everything on him, because that’s what we always fucking do, because we seem to love these tragedies on some level, given the fact that we perpetuate rather than prevent them.

Not again! my boyfriend has been lamenting in the wake of the news that a Muslim Arab American shot up his comrades at Fort Hood in Texas yesterday.

My fully Americanized boyfriend, you see, is half Arab — half Syrian and half Anglo but born in the United States and raised as a Catholic (the Catholicism didn’t take, because he’s somewhere around agnostic to atheist) – and he still recalls well the shit that he had to go through at airports in the aftermath of 9/11 because of his Arab surname.

I told my boyfriend not to worry. He won’t be threatened with any body cavity searches at airports, but I do feel sorry for those Muslim and Arab Americans who are in the armed forces right now.

There’s a lot that we don’t know about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old Army psychiatrist (!) who is accused of having shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood and shot and injured 30 others. He was shot himself, but he survives.

My guess is that Hasan took an awful lot of shit for being an Arab and a Muslim in the U.S. armed forces. After all, it has been Arabs and Muslims that the U.S. armed forces have been slaughtering since 2001 — far, far more of them slaughtered than the number of Americans who were slaughtered on Sept. 11, 2001, not by a nation such as Iraq or Afghanistan, but by 19 individuals, 15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia and not one of whom was from Iraq or Afghanistan.

The war profiteers need an enemy, because if there’s no war they don’t profit, and since the Cold War ended, the Arabs and Muslims have been a great enemy for the military-industrial complex.

The wingnuts too, who are fueled on ignorance, fear and hatred, also need a perpetual enemy, a la the brainwashed masses in George Orwell’s 1984, lest they start to examine their own shortcomings and wrongdoings.

And of course the corporatocrats and the plutocrats want the common American to have a plethora of false enemies, such as gay men and lesbians who want equal rights, Mexican immigrants who want better lives for themselves, and Muslims – because otherwise the common American might wake up and realize that the real enemy, the real threat to the nation and the real reason that the common American’s life really sucks ass right now, is the corporatocrats and the plutocrats.

Since July, The Associated Press notes, Hasan has been based in Texas, and it’s the Texans and other red-staters who have loved to call our president “B. Hussein Obama” — or “Osama” (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!). Anyone who claims that there hasn’t been anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment in the United States for the past several years must have been living in a cave. Like Osama/Obama.

Of course, once a Muslim/Arab American finally snaps and shoots the place up, everyone will vehemently deny that he ever was the victim of bigoted remarks or acts. Because that would be to admit some responsibility. And we can’t have that, because being an American means never having to take any fucking responsibility for anything and never having to say that you’re sorry.

We are to just buy that Hasan is just a nutcase and that he just snapped, that nothing precipitated his actions, but I don’t buy that bullshit. Not for a second.

According to The Associated Press, Hasan joined the military before 9/11, which answers my question why any Arab or Muslim American in his or her right mind would have joined the U.S. military after 9/11.

The AP also notes:

Hasan recently was involved in a spat with another Fort Hood soldier residing in his apartment complex, apparently related to [Hasan's] Muslim beliefs.

The manager of the complex, John Thompson, said the other soldier, John Van de Walker, allegedly keyed Hasan’s car and also removed and tore up a bumper sticker that read “Allah is Love.”

Thompson said Van de Walker had been in Iraq and was upset to learn that Hasan was Muslim.

A report filed with Killeen police on Aug. 16 indicates that Hasan’s vehicle, a 2006 Honda Civic, had been scratched by an unknown object, causing an estimated $1,000 worth of damage. The report indicates that Van de Walker, 30, was arrested on Oct. 21 and charged with criminal mischief. The matter has been referred for prosecution, according to the report….

In an interview with The Washington Post, Hasan’s aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Va., said he had been harassed about being a Muslim in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and he wanted to get out of the Army. She said he had sought a discharge for several years, and even offered to repay the cost of his medical training.

Um, yeah, so let’s not pretend that all of Hasan’s colleagues at Fort Hood were fucking angels and that Hasan acted in a God-damned vacuum.

The U.S. military is chock full o’ “Christo”fascists who believe that it’s their duty to slaughter Muslims for what they call “Christianity,” and my money is on the probability that that is the toxic environment that Hasan found himself in — especially in George W. Bush’s Texas, for fuck’s sake.

It was the members of the U.S. military (including their “leaders,” of course) who brought us the Abu Ghraib House of Horrors, remember, so let’s not dismiss the likelihood that Hasan took more anti-Muslim abuse than just the keying of his car by a Muslim-hating colleague who surely considers himself to be a great fucking Christian. (Hey, key a Muslim’s car for Jeeeeezus!)

We have lessons to learn from the Fort Hood massacre, but we’re Americans, so of course we won’t learn those lessons, but we’ll continue to act like assholes, only ensuring that even more such “senseless” tragedies occur in the future. (We love that word, “senseless.” It absolves us of all guilt, gives us the illusion that our actions and/or inaction never contribute to any tragic outcome.)

The lesson that we should learn, but that we won’t learn, from the Fort Hood massacre is this: The U.S. military should not be about waging an external or internal war between Christianity and Islam.

The U.S. military is paid for by the American taxpayers, which means that it is illegal for the U.S. military, by action or inaction, to endorse any one religion over any other religion, and the U.S. military is to be used for the defense of the nation, not for coverting Muslims to “Christianity” by dropping bombs on them – despite Ann Cunter’s September 2001 proclamation that “We should invade [Middle Eastern] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” (Because Jesus Christ was all about killing people for their own good!)

Lest you think that I’m an “Islamofascist” for refusing to believe that Hasan is just Satan incarnate and that everyone else at Fort Hood is a fucking angel who couldn’t possibly have contributed to yesterday’s events, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I think of the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) as Gangs for God, since the members of these rival gangs like to kill each other so much.

I reject all three of the Gangs for God – Judaism, Islam and Christianity – and when all of humankind wakes up and sees our unity instead of seeing false divisions based upon bullshit belief systems, the bloodbaths will finally fucking stop. (Most of them, anyway.)

I highly recommend Philip Caputo’s “A Rumor of War,” which I have just completed.  Caputo was a Marine lieutenant who served for nearly a year in Vietnam and later went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

The book is a work of non-fiction, a virtual day by day account of the madness that was Vietnam.  The author takes pains to make no overt political analysis or judgment, but along the undercurrent flows the unmistakable notion that political ambition and mindless bureaucracy at the highest levels sent hundreds of thousands to senseless death and suffering.

For me the experience of reading “A Rumor of War” was a reminder, one that in truth I shouldn’t need, that the United States has a long history of wartime atrocity.  It didn’t all begin with George W. Bush.  From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli; from tubercular blankets and other forms of genocide perpetrated on the First Nations peoples to training grounds for Latin American Death Squad colonels at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Here’s what I learned about U.S. military practices in Vietnam forty some years ago that have eerie echoes today:

Although on paper the U.S. military treated prisoners of war according to the Geneva Conventions, they routinely turned over captured suspected Viet Cong to the ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) to be tortured and killed.  This has been the case with the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan where prisoners have been turned over to local armies for torture and death; not to mention extraordinary rendition.

In Vietnam Mai Lai was probably the tip of the iceberg.  U.S. ground forces routinely used white phosphorous grenades to incinerate entire villages.  Apparently U.S. supplied white phosphorous was used by the Israeli military in its recent massacre of civilians in Gaza.

The military leaders in Vietnam were obsessed with kill ratios.  They wanted favorable stats on the number of Viet Cong killed.  The policy handed down was as follows: if it’s dead and it’s Vietnamese, then it’s VC.  One thinks of Colombia, a U.S. client state, where U.S. trained Colombian military have gone as far as killing civilians and dressing their corpses as guerrillas in order to up the count.

Caputo points out certain ironies, that, for example, it was forbidden to execute a Viet Cong prisoner while it was legitimate to kill him at long range; that it was forbidden to use white phosphorous grenades on civilians while at the same time napalming them from the air.  He concluded that when in doubt you could always get away with killing at a distance with high tech weapons.  Today’s overall U.S. military strategy from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan is to bombard with so-called smart weapons.  Unmanned Predator Missiles are a favorite.

In Caputo’s account we see U.S. marines growing frustrated and vengeful towards Vietnamese villagers who gave aid to the Viet Cong.  This is a natural reaction because, after all, it is the Viet Cong who are intent on killing U.S. marines.  It is what led to a number of atrocities committed against Vietnamese civilians, including children and the elderly.  A marine, of course, has been trained to the bone to take orders without question.  That he should be in Vietnam, 10,000 miles from home, fighting a guerrilla army made up of Vietnamese for the purpose of Vietnamese national liberation – this is not supposed to occur to him.  So, while the war criminals in Washington, those who put him there in the first place for reasons that have nothing to do with the fundamental interests of either the Vietnamese or the American people, act with impunity; the marine grunt finds himself turning into a desensitized and dehumanized killing machine.

The tragic and undeniable conclusion is that fundamentally no lessons were learned from the Vietnam debacle (where hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese were killed and wounded).  You do not win the “hearts and minds” of a people (much less instil democratic values and institutions) by invading a country with overpowering weaponry administered by soldiers inculcated with racist stereotypes and triumphalist attitudes.  Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, extraordinary rendition, CIA torture chambers: these are today’s atrocities.

As the song goes: “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”

Past and present ruminations about what is and isn’t a photograph have been a source of frustration for me. For one, people can draw whatever lines they wish to determine the point at which manipulation tricks out a photograph and thus qualifies it as photo-illustration. And for another, as Errol Morris keeps banging on about, ALL photography is lies (and manipulation).

These debates are not about truth. Interventions – power relations, habit, photographic custom, complicity among subjects, props, political agendas (and framing), cropping, tweaking of exposure levels before and after development, digital alterations – mean that photography can never be, will never be truthful.

People forget that often it is the ingenious tricks that have spurred the largest wonder among viewing public – think Oscar Rejlander’s Two Ways of Life, Spirit Photography and – in a different sense – Ansel Adams’ Zone System.

It is therefore, with some relief that an artist like Azzarella comes along using photo-manipulation as the tactic and purpose for his work.

Last week, I questioned Anton Kratochvil’s Homage to Abu Ghraib, mainly because I think it makes little contribution to the discourse on the political aesthetics of Abu Ghraib. The blurry references to torture in Kratochvil’s images are in response only to a personal, conscious and willing point of view. I understand that Kratochvil’s work was an exercise in self-therapy but that shouldn’t stop me comparing it to Azzarella’s broader concerns about more general and unconscious reactions to well-circulated images.

If I w re to wr t th s sent nce wi h lette s m ss ng, you can still read it. The human brain is a wonderful instrument drawing on past experience to quickly filter out the non-possibilities. Just as the brain instantaneously deciphers gaps in text so it does with gaps in images.

With every passing hour the Spectacle suffuses itself further. It isn’t so much us reading images but images reading us. Our involuntary responses to images are predictable, predicted, precoded. The redacted action of violence in Azzarella’s pictures plays second fiddle to the original image, for it is the original image we drooled over and devoured.

The hooded detainee, dead student, wailing child or falling soldier needn’t even be present; our internal, emotional feedback spun by these images will forever be the same. We fill in the gaps and short circuit to prescribed disgust, sadness and politics, thus confirming our prevailing bias.

Azzarella’s works expose the fraud in us all … and our cheapened, robotic response to image.

ALL IMAGES © JOSH AZZARELLA. FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: UNTITLED #13 (AHSF); UNTITLED (SSG FREDERICK); UNTITLED #24 (GREEN GLOVES); UNTITLED #35 (CAFETERIA); UNTITLED #39 (265); UNTITLED #20 TRANG BANG; UNTITLED #43 (PAR115311).

Twenty-two American CIA agents can now not leave the country without the threat of being arrested. That’s because an Italian court today convicted 23 Americans, all but one of them CIA agents, of the 2003 kidnap of Abu Omar, a suspected terrorist, from Milan, sending him to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured.

Under it’s extraordinary rendition program, the CIA has shuttled suspects from countries with established anti-torture laws to countries where torture is mildly tolerated, without following any legal process. Setting aside the criminality of torture for a moment, the rendition itself might be criminal.

And today’s news isn’t the first time a foreign court has looked at convicting American officials for these misgivings.

On Monday, a federal court of appeals dismissed Arar v. Ashcroft, a landmark case that alleged innocent victims of torture could sue Washington officials in civil court. The court held that Congress does not authorize those actions. (REad the full text of the decision.)

The plaintiff in that case, Maher Arar, had dual Canadian-Syrian citizenship at the time of his detention and has already received millions of dollars in compensation from the Canadian government, which in 2002 falsely tipped off U.S. officials about Arar’s terrorist ties in what it has admitted was a “mistake.”

These two cases are different in many ways, and the fact that one decision centered on the criminality of rendition and the other on the criminality of torture has to be among the most noteworthy.

Sometimes, in the midst of worrying about health care and Afghanistan, immigration and global warming, Congress actually gets around to doing something tangible that affects the here and now.

Last Friday was one of those days. A story in the New York Times said that after years and years of promises, a federal media shield law has been proposed by Congressional Democrats, and it stands a good chance of passing and becoming law.

For those who don’t know, a shield law would protect reporters from being thrown into jail, or fined heavily, if they refused to reveal confidential sources. This law would’ve helped Matt Cooper, who was about to be jailed in the Scooter Libby case, and Judith Miller, the NYT reporter who was imprisoned for three months for not revealing the source of a CIA leak.

The law, which will be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, is something I feel is vital (obviously, being a journalist, I may be a bit biased here). Some of the most important stories in American history, like Watergate, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and Enron’s crookedness, have come from journalists who used anonymous, confidential sources to reveal information.

No journalist that I’m aware of wants to use anonymous sources, but sometimes that’s the only way to get the information. I feel like a law like this is particularly important when you have an administration like we just had, when vengeance and punishment are dished out for “disloyal” people who actually dare to speak truth to power.

Throwing reporters in jail doesn’t accomplish anything. Don’t give me the “protecting national security” angle, either; that comes up in very rare cases.

Allowing journalists to use all means necessary to do their jobs, and protect their sources, has helped expose some of the biggest corruption and scandals in U.S. history. It’s about time Congress realized this and has taken up the issue.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go watch “All The President’s Men” for the 78th time.

*** So my man Joe Posnanski has written another beautiful blog essay, about a group of people from a small town in Kansas who got together to … well, I’ll let you read it. I’m always amazed at the power of people to do good. It just takes one person (in this case, one person who wants to help people get mammograms) to start the ball rolling, one person who aches to do good.

Poz’s post takes a little while to get going, but stick with it; you’ll be smiling by the end.

**So I’m pretty much over the Jets loss to Miami Sunday, but this stat, printed in Rich Cimini’s excellent blog in the New York Daily News, just blew me away. The Jets, in their 49-year history as a team, had only allowed 17 kickoff returns for touchdowns.

In only ONE season, 1970, did the Jets allow two kickoff returns for touchdowns. Then, Sunday, in one quarter, they gave up two to the same guy.

I still can’t believe they kicked to Ted Ginn again after he scored the first one. There’s belief in your team, and then there’s just outright stupidity.

**And now, one of my favorite scenes ever from “The West Wing,” for my money the best one-hour show ever on TV.

This is the last scene of an episode where Donna Moss (who I just loved so much) tries to get President Bartlet to give a proclamation honoring her favorite teacher, Mrs. Morello, who’s retiring. I just love this scene so much.