Saturday, July 01, 2006
Countdown to Troops Home Fast
In preparation for Troops Home Fast, I was perusing the Code Pink Website, as I like to do from time-to-time (lots of cool stuff, although the clip art is a little hokey), and I came across this timely page:
Declare Peace for Mother's Day
I also urge readers to download the PDF white paper, "Iraqi Women Under Seige."
You'll also find more information on the site about how the U.S. refuses asylum to Iraqi women who have been left without families due to the occupation and its indiscriminate killing ways. This can be a death sentence for a Muslim woman in a country where Islamist feelings are running higher than ever.
All of this was prompted, not surprisingly, by my horror at this story out yesterday of the troops who allegedly premeditatedly attacked a family, planning for up to a week how to rape a woman and then kill the rest of the family, including a child, and then setting the woman's body on fire and the house on fire. (The reports are conflicting, so it's possibly my info is not exactly correct. But of the rape and setting the woman on fire - that part seems pretty accurate, the Iraqi police found her and found evidence of an accelerant.) Some links:
Troops Facing Murder Probe
Atrocities Against Iraqi Family Alleged
GIs May Have Planned Iraq Rape, Slayings
As I was investigating this horrible but not surprising turn of events, I accidentally happened upon photos of one Iraqi woman being raped, and three American women being raped by soldiers. (No dinner for me tonight.)
The Code Pink Paper details that the rapes are much more frequent than the MSM would have us know, especially the rapes (in the case of these photos GANG rapes) of the women in the photos, who, according to the following story were probably SOLDIERS!
Sexual assault reports in the military jump by 40 percent in 2005
I'm an anthropologist and I study the behaviors that attach themselves to war. Sadly rape is the most common next to combat and non-combat murder. Murders at checkpoints of pregant women in labor, families with children and even a high-level Italian intelligence officer come to mind. And we won't even get into the towns that have been treated like the Nazis treated small Jewish towns in the holocaust, other than the fact that the trenches probably looked about the same in the end.
That said, I cannot imagine the stress of war because I refused to join the military for moral reasons. But I do have every sympathy for the horrors these soldiers face, the IEDs, the daily suicide bombings in populated areas, the RPGs, etc. While it doesn't compare, I did live with the constant fear of death as a victim of domestic violence and I do suffer from PTSD. But you know what? I LEFT my SOB ex, I did not kill him. (I know some women have no choice, that's called self-defense.) He stalked me for a while, but luckily for me (less so for others), the restraining order worked. In other words, in spite of feeling in constant danger of losing my life, I exercised rational, moral choices. What is going through the minds of these kids when they perpetrate these horrors? Everyone comments that recruitment standards are down, but, hey, this went on in Vietnam too, and in every war I've ever studied. So it's not all about setting incipient criminals loose on an innocent civilian population.
It's called war, this is the kind of sick crap war does to some particularly stress-sensitive people, and it's why so many of us fought so hard to stop it before it started.
So I have conflicting feelings about this. One is I would like to metaphorically throttle the chickenhawks who sent our armed forces - most of whom are kids who are already impressionable and lacking in judgment - into this war of choice - and some of these COs who are doing a pisspoor job of commanding their troops. (And by this I am not referring to the many excellent COs and troops doing an excellent job over there.) Granted, the COs aren't getting a lot of helpful direction from Washington, but GODDAMNIT, why are they NOT teaching their soldiers the freakin' UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions?
But at the same time, this committed anti-death-penalty activist actually feels so much rage, I'd like those young men to suffer the same death that poor woman and her family did. Apparently the townspeople made sure that two innocent soldiers of that platoon did. That was tragic in every possible way. Especially that they didn't identify the real killers.
(Give me a day, I'll settle down.)
Meanwhile, Chickenhawk I, he of the five draft deferments, has a ticker that just won't stop ticking.
Cheney's Heart Condition Is Called Stable
Why in God's name does the Universe not do us a favor and let him suffer a nice quiet heart failure in his sleep? (See, even though we're dealing with ultimate evil here, I'm willing to be merciful and hope God is too. But GOD, we need you to be merciful to the REST OF US NOW!)
As I tried to navigate away as quickly as possible from those haunting faces in the pictures of the women being raped (I've avoided as many of these pictures as possible, although I have seen the most publicized ones from Abu Ghraib, of course), I did have one last thought: These soldiers can't be functioning rationally. Because a rational criminal DOES NOT DOCUMENT his crimes of torture and gang rape! This war will go down in history as the war with the best-documented atrocities ever, and unfortunately, the good people trying to do a good job are going to be labelled with that for the rest of their lives. Vietnam all over again. Only this time it's not our ignorance, it's the stupidity and lack of morality of far too many people in Washington and Arlington.
Closing on a positive note: Maureen Dowd apparently used the term I use for GWB ten years ago for Clinton. Ironic, because Clinton was not nearly as paternalistic as GWB. Cheney the kingmaker has made him believe that the best way to lead is to be paternal, to take cawe of all the wittle peoples. So I've been calling him "Daddy-in-Chief" for months now. That's the Zeitgeist for you.
Heck, I might have to finally break down and subscribe to Times Select now so I can read the archives.
Well, I guess that's about enough rage for one week. And to think I expressed rage twice this week, on my "less serious" blog. These are ragin' times, my friends. From talk radio to the idiotic 24-hour MSM to the regular people who have allowed themselves to buy into the acting of the so-called pundits who are only "enraged" to increase ratings, it's just become a mad, mad world. Sad but true. And here I am, supposed to be a "reasonable" progressive, raging like Rush Limbaugh. (I need to remember that analogy, because it's not pretty. It might encourage me to settle down faster in the future.)
Declare Peace for Mother's Day
I also urge readers to download the PDF white paper, "Iraqi Women Under Seige."
You'll also find more information on the site about how the U.S. refuses asylum to Iraqi women who have been left without families due to the occupation and its indiscriminate killing ways. This can be a death sentence for a Muslim woman in a country where Islamist feelings are running higher than ever.
All of this was prompted, not surprisingly, by my horror at this story out yesterday of the troops who allegedly premeditatedly attacked a family, planning for up to a week how to rape a woman and then kill the rest of the family, including a child, and then setting the woman's body on fire and the house on fire. (The reports are conflicting, so it's possibly my info is not exactly correct. But of the rape and setting the woman on fire - that part seems pretty accurate, the Iraqi police found her and found evidence of an accelerant.) Some links:
Troops Facing Murder Probe
Atrocities Against Iraqi Family Alleged
GIs May Have Planned Iraq Rape, Slayings
As I was investigating this horrible but not surprising turn of events, I accidentally happened upon photos of one Iraqi woman being raped, and three American women being raped by soldiers. (No dinner for me tonight.)
The Code Pink Paper details that the rapes are much more frequent than the MSM would have us know, especially the rapes (in the case of these photos GANG rapes) of the women in the photos, who, according to the following story were probably SOLDIERS!
Sexual assault reports in the military jump by 40 percent in 2005
I'm an anthropologist and I study the behaviors that attach themselves to war. Sadly rape is the most common next to combat and non-combat murder. Murders at checkpoints of pregant women in labor, families with children and even a high-level Italian intelligence officer come to mind. And we won't even get into the towns that have been treated like the Nazis treated small Jewish towns in the holocaust, other than the fact that the trenches probably looked about the same in the end.
That said, I cannot imagine the stress of war because I refused to join the military for moral reasons. But I do have every sympathy for the horrors these soldiers face, the IEDs, the daily suicide bombings in populated areas, the RPGs, etc. While it doesn't compare, I did live with the constant fear of death as a victim of domestic violence and I do suffer from PTSD. But you know what? I LEFT my SOB ex, I did not kill him. (I know some women have no choice, that's called self-defense.) He stalked me for a while, but luckily for me (less so for others), the restraining order worked. In other words, in spite of feeling in constant danger of losing my life, I exercised rational, moral choices. What is going through the minds of these kids when they perpetrate these horrors? Everyone comments that recruitment standards are down, but, hey, this went on in Vietnam too, and in every war I've ever studied. So it's not all about setting incipient criminals loose on an innocent civilian population.
It's called war, this is the kind of sick crap war does to some particularly stress-sensitive people, and it's why so many of us fought so hard to stop it before it started.
So I have conflicting feelings about this. One is I would like to metaphorically throttle the chickenhawks who sent our armed forces - most of whom are kids who are already impressionable and lacking in judgment - into this war of choice - and some of these COs who are doing a pisspoor job of commanding their troops. (And by this I am not referring to the many excellent COs and troops doing an excellent job over there.) Granted, the COs aren't getting a lot of helpful direction from Washington, but GODDAMNIT, why are they NOT teaching their soldiers the freakin' UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions?
But at the same time, this committed anti-death-penalty activist actually feels so much rage, I'd like those young men to suffer the same death that poor woman and her family did. Apparently the townspeople made sure that two innocent soldiers of that platoon did. That was tragic in every possible way. Especially that they didn't identify the real killers.
(Give me a day, I'll settle down.)
Meanwhile, Chickenhawk I, he of the five draft deferments, has a ticker that just won't stop ticking.
Cheney's Heart Condition Is Called Stable
Why in God's name does the Universe not do us a favor and let him suffer a nice quiet heart failure in his sleep? (See, even though we're dealing with ultimate evil here, I'm willing to be merciful and hope God is too. But GOD, we need you to be merciful to the REST OF US NOW!)
As I tried to navigate away as quickly as possible from those haunting faces in the pictures of the women being raped (I've avoided as many of these pictures as possible, although I have seen the most publicized ones from Abu Ghraib, of course), I did have one last thought: These soldiers can't be functioning rationally. Because a rational criminal DOES NOT DOCUMENT his crimes of torture and gang rape! This war will go down in history as the war with the best-documented atrocities ever, and unfortunately, the good people trying to do a good job are going to be labelled with that for the rest of their lives. Vietnam all over again. Only this time it's not our ignorance, it's the stupidity and lack of morality of far too many people in Washington and Arlington.
Closing on a positive note: Maureen Dowd apparently used the term I use for GWB ten years ago for Clinton. Ironic, because Clinton was not nearly as paternalistic as GWB. Cheney the kingmaker has made him believe that the best way to lead is to be paternal, to take cawe of all the wittle peoples. So I've been calling him "Daddy-in-Chief" for months now. That's the Zeitgeist for you.
Heck, I might have to finally break down and subscribe to Times Select now so I can read the archives.
Well, I guess that's about enough rage for one week. And to think I expressed rage twice this week, on my "less serious" blog. These are ragin' times, my friends. From talk radio to the idiotic 24-hour MSM to the regular people who have allowed themselves to buy into the acting of the so-called pundits who are only "enraged" to increase ratings, it's just become a mad, mad world. Sad but true. And here I am, supposed to be a "reasonable" progressive, raging like Rush Limbaugh. (I need to remember that analogy, because it's not pretty. It might encourage me to settle down faster in the future.)
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