Post by whatever on Mar 4, 2005 6:47:19 GMT -5
I like this first one. Bitter, biting, sarcastic and true. That mentality of ignoring people, tell them to just get over their problems, quit complaining, move on...what you crying for?? Sure. I'm willing to bet our nation will be calling these peoples lazy later, if they complain about what the US has done.
Why Death Is No Big Deal
By Al Kennedy
The Guardian U.K.
Wednesday 02 March 2005
I lost a friend last week. These things happen - I'm bad at people, after all - but I can't say I'm not pissed off. Last week I also talked to a nice lady who was great at describing loss, the details of loss, the amputated future, the lack of company. Because I'm bad at people it took me a long time to remember she was so well-informed because her husband died a while ago. I mean, ages ago, but she hasn't forgotten him. Which is odd, isn't it ? She wants to be able to talk to her husband, I want to be able to talk to my friend - but we shouldn't. We should be over it.
How do I know? Because I should be caring about how a bony tart and a petulant clothes horse choose to christen their spawn. I should be fretting over whether a lack of established royal precedent at Windsor register office will cause Camilla to spontaneously combust. I should want to see more and more and more of Jimmy Carr. Then I would be part of the real world, the things that matter, the questions that deserve every scrap of media attention they get.
Particularly, I should keep away from anything to do with unpleasantness, injury, or loss - they have no place in a modern media environment. Take Lance Corporal Andres Raya. I shouldn't think about him. He's dead now. He made it through Iraq, went home to California and couldn't take it. He committed suicide by cop in a three-hour gun fight. But he doesn't matter. Or Baha Mousa, he's never going to get the kind of headlines he might if he'd shagged Jordan, or shat himself in a celebrity detox special. He's dead now. Our troops killed him. But if that matters at all it's as an indication of how stressed war can make the modern soldier. His brother Ala'a misses him, but he probably lacks perspective.
skipped
Hussain Adbulkadr Youssouf Mustafa says he had a stick shoved up his rectum by US troops at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and he has the gall to complain. Didar Khalan says he was tortured for a week by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan until he finally gave false testimony against Mullah Krekar, testimony that was later presented as a valid basis for prosecution by US authorities. He claims his arm was broken and that he was made to stand in a freezing room without clothing and sit on blocks of ice. Which would have made a terrific reality special, but sadly, no one thought ahead.
Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed Al Deemawi was at Bagram, where he was threatened with dogs, stripped, photographed in obscene positions and placed in a cage with a hook and a hanging rope. He's not happy, either, when surely he should just be glad nobody killed him.
more...
Catch that part "he should just be glad nobody killed him"? That's what I think this nation believes or is being lead to believe; all them Iraqis should just be glad we don't kill them, and anything short of that is okay, by comparison. And I think what cold-hearted monsters we are to think that, never relating it to our own lives, homes, or families. From throwing out the GC to preemptive war; I believe humanity has become secondary to "security"...as if the one is worth anything without the other. Sad. Just horribly sad.
I read something else today
" About 15,000 Soviet troops were killed during nine years of fighting after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, a monthly total about twice as high as that suffered by the more highly trained US forces in Iraq.
Mr Carpenter told Reuters: "Unless the US either can crush the insurgency or negotiate an end to the insurgency, then we're going to see casualty rates similar to those that the Soviets suffered in Afghanistan." I can't imagine how anyone thinks we're going to "win" anything in Iraq. There are no facts, no historic events and no non-Administration-fabricated predictions that we will, or even can, win. Nothing indictes sucess except the words we've been hearing. Or can anyone tell me otherwise?
I also have to wonder for how long anyone will be able to tell anything " The horrible abuses at Abu Ghraib and other American prison camps badly damaged the nation's image as a defender of human rights. The administration then worsened the damage by refusing to deal with the issue openly and forcefully. Just yesterday, Douglas Jehl of The Times reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee's Republican chairman, Pat Roberts of Kansas, is blocking a serious inquiry into the C.I.A.'s abuse of prisoners.
Meanwhile, on the same day the State Department issued its human rights report, the administration said it would fight a third federal court order to end the illegal detention of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who has been held for nearly three years without charges because Mr. Bush has declared him an "enemy combatant."
A district court judge in South Carolina, Henry Floyd, who was appointed by Mr. Bush in 2003, said the president's claim that he could order such detentions was "deeply troubling." He said endorsing that view "would totally eviscerate the limits placed on presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties." His ruling echoed earlier decisions by federal courts in New York, which were mooted when the Supreme Court said Mr. Padilla's case should have been heard in South Carolina, where he is held in a Navy brig. Now that has happened, and still Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says the administration will not accept the decision."
Does anyone see that these measures remove all our rights, each and every constitutional ammendment, as a working theory? Can't anyone see that, just because it isn't likely it would happen to many of us (unfair imprisonment) doesn't make it any less wrong as a practice or even a theory? Is it truly a door we should be leaving open? My simple understanding says no. When a possible logical conclusion means it violates numerous rights for numerous people, it shouldn't be allowed; loopholes are targets for use and abuse in any legal system. Exploitation. Isn't that why we're so careful of law in the first place? Doesn't this overridding "national security" theory eat away everything else?
We torture prisoners. So can we at least deal with the concept that NO ONE in their right minds would put down their arms and surrender to someone that tortures prisoners? omg NO ONE in their right mind would join us. Now. Would you? No. Hell no. And no one will.
So that's that for our "enemies". Other "allied" nations have been dealing with bombings for years. Now, we're shown we want to play too. And we've been conditioned to accept it, and, no one will think it's any big deal. So there goes our "national security" and everything this nation didn't want.
We don't seem to care what ANY other nation thinks about us, and that bothers me, because it seems like we'll have no one to stand with us, if we ever need it. No nation will feel sorry for us, the greedy Americans hogging all the resources and killing other peoples with a will. If one nation or group of nations were actively trying to hurt us, and if they manage it... what will the rest of the world think? We'll be looters paradise, that's what they'll think.
It seems like we are weakened, and I can't understand why more folks don't percieve that as the most pressing danger. No one is going to feel sorry for us, if we're attacked blatantly, overthrown by some type of subversion, or ruined ecconomically. I don't think there would be any tears shed over needless deaths in our nation. Sept 11 was the last time for that. It won't happen twice. And short of horrific war, nothing else even matters, because...you should just be glad they didn't kill you. That attutide can be turned on us...with no one to say we don't deserve it. How can we say that, when all that has mattered to us has been our OWN safety and security, and nothing else?
I don't know about anyone else, but this war in Iraq is just a nasty history lesson to me, one big ugly piece of history to watch. It's been every bit as bad as I thought it would be, said it would be, and didn't want it to be. And the war supporters continue to insist that the problems we face now were NOT what the war detractors had warned them about. Somehow, all those predictions have been forgotten, as if it didn't matter. And as if it didn't matter that there weren't WMD, weren't welcomed with open arms, and that we haven't stabalized the place yet, all of which was obvious then. Painfully obvious to some.
I'm just curious, really, if it's money in this nation, or another/others. I know, it sounds like conspiracy theory all the way. But it's not so weird, in light of how much of America is literally owned by foreign people. Japan especially. It feels like most other presidents and their Admins have realized that REALLY screwing up America waslike "killing the golden goose", so most of them tried not to do that. Feels like this one doesn't care, driving our country recklessly. So I have to wonder about the wealthy oil man, friend of the wealthy Bin Laden family. Typical example of, if you ignore the obvious, you can get away with anything. Even murder.
In the end, it's simple. The ends usually can be found by following the money. Follow the money.
Why Death Is No Big Deal
By Al Kennedy
The Guardian U.K.
Wednesday 02 March 2005
I lost a friend last week. These things happen - I'm bad at people, after all - but I can't say I'm not pissed off. Last week I also talked to a nice lady who was great at describing loss, the details of loss, the amputated future, the lack of company. Because I'm bad at people it took me a long time to remember she was so well-informed because her husband died a while ago. I mean, ages ago, but she hasn't forgotten him. Which is odd, isn't it ? She wants to be able to talk to her husband, I want to be able to talk to my friend - but we shouldn't. We should be over it.
How do I know? Because I should be caring about how a bony tart and a petulant clothes horse choose to christen their spawn. I should be fretting over whether a lack of established royal precedent at Windsor register office will cause Camilla to spontaneously combust. I should want to see more and more and more of Jimmy Carr. Then I would be part of the real world, the things that matter, the questions that deserve every scrap of media attention they get.
Particularly, I should keep away from anything to do with unpleasantness, injury, or loss - they have no place in a modern media environment. Take Lance Corporal Andres Raya. I shouldn't think about him. He's dead now. He made it through Iraq, went home to California and couldn't take it. He committed suicide by cop in a three-hour gun fight. But he doesn't matter. Or Baha Mousa, he's never going to get the kind of headlines he might if he'd shagged Jordan, or shat himself in a celebrity detox special. He's dead now. Our troops killed him. But if that matters at all it's as an indication of how stressed war can make the modern soldier. His brother Ala'a misses him, but he probably lacks perspective.
skipped
Hussain Adbulkadr Youssouf Mustafa says he had a stick shoved up his rectum by US troops at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and he has the gall to complain. Didar Khalan says he was tortured for a week by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan until he finally gave false testimony against Mullah Krekar, testimony that was later presented as a valid basis for prosecution by US authorities. He claims his arm was broken and that he was made to stand in a freezing room without clothing and sit on blocks of ice. Which would have made a terrific reality special, but sadly, no one thought ahead.
Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed Al Deemawi was at Bagram, where he was threatened with dogs, stripped, photographed in obscene positions and placed in a cage with a hook and a hanging rope. He's not happy, either, when surely he should just be glad nobody killed him.
more...
Catch that part "he should just be glad nobody killed him"? That's what I think this nation believes or is being lead to believe; all them Iraqis should just be glad we don't kill them, and anything short of that is okay, by comparison. And I think what cold-hearted monsters we are to think that, never relating it to our own lives, homes, or families. From throwing out the GC to preemptive war; I believe humanity has become secondary to "security"...as if the one is worth anything without the other. Sad. Just horribly sad.
I read something else today
" About 15,000 Soviet troops were killed during nine years of fighting after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, a monthly total about twice as high as that suffered by the more highly trained US forces in Iraq.
Mr Carpenter told Reuters: "Unless the US either can crush the insurgency or negotiate an end to the insurgency, then we're going to see casualty rates similar to those that the Soviets suffered in Afghanistan." I can't imagine how anyone thinks we're going to "win" anything in Iraq. There are no facts, no historic events and no non-Administration-fabricated predictions that we will, or even can, win. Nothing indictes sucess except the words we've been hearing. Or can anyone tell me otherwise?
I also have to wonder for how long anyone will be able to tell anything " The horrible abuses at Abu Ghraib and other American prison camps badly damaged the nation's image as a defender of human rights. The administration then worsened the damage by refusing to deal with the issue openly and forcefully. Just yesterday, Douglas Jehl of The Times reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee's Republican chairman, Pat Roberts of Kansas, is blocking a serious inquiry into the C.I.A.'s abuse of prisoners.
Meanwhile, on the same day the State Department issued its human rights report, the administration said it would fight a third federal court order to end the illegal detention of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who has been held for nearly three years without charges because Mr. Bush has declared him an "enemy combatant."
A district court judge in South Carolina, Henry Floyd, who was appointed by Mr. Bush in 2003, said the president's claim that he could order such detentions was "deeply troubling." He said endorsing that view "would totally eviscerate the limits placed on presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties." His ruling echoed earlier decisions by federal courts in New York, which were mooted when the Supreme Court said Mr. Padilla's case should have been heard in South Carolina, where he is held in a Navy brig. Now that has happened, and still Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says the administration will not accept the decision."
Does anyone see that these measures remove all our rights, each and every constitutional ammendment, as a working theory? Can't anyone see that, just because it isn't likely it would happen to many of us (unfair imprisonment) doesn't make it any less wrong as a practice or even a theory? Is it truly a door we should be leaving open? My simple understanding says no. When a possible logical conclusion means it violates numerous rights for numerous people, it shouldn't be allowed; loopholes are targets for use and abuse in any legal system. Exploitation. Isn't that why we're so careful of law in the first place? Doesn't this overridding "national security" theory eat away everything else?
We torture prisoners. So can we at least deal with the concept that NO ONE in their right minds would put down their arms and surrender to someone that tortures prisoners? omg NO ONE in their right mind would join us. Now. Would you? No. Hell no. And no one will.
So that's that for our "enemies". Other "allied" nations have been dealing with bombings for years. Now, we're shown we want to play too. And we've been conditioned to accept it, and, no one will think it's any big deal. So there goes our "national security" and everything this nation didn't want.
We don't seem to care what ANY other nation thinks about us, and that bothers me, because it seems like we'll have no one to stand with us, if we ever need it. No nation will feel sorry for us, the greedy Americans hogging all the resources and killing other peoples with a will. If one nation or group of nations were actively trying to hurt us, and if they manage it... what will the rest of the world think? We'll be looters paradise, that's what they'll think.
It seems like we are weakened, and I can't understand why more folks don't percieve that as the most pressing danger. No one is going to feel sorry for us, if we're attacked blatantly, overthrown by some type of subversion, or ruined ecconomically. I don't think there would be any tears shed over needless deaths in our nation. Sept 11 was the last time for that. It won't happen twice. And short of horrific war, nothing else even matters, because...you should just be glad they didn't kill you. That attutide can be turned on us...with no one to say we don't deserve it. How can we say that, when all that has mattered to us has been our OWN safety and security, and nothing else?
I don't know about anyone else, but this war in Iraq is just a nasty history lesson to me, one big ugly piece of history to watch. It's been every bit as bad as I thought it would be, said it would be, and didn't want it to be. And the war supporters continue to insist that the problems we face now were NOT what the war detractors had warned them about. Somehow, all those predictions have been forgotten, as if it didn't matter. And as if it didn't matter that there weren't WMD, weren't welcomed with open arms, and that we haven't stabalized the place yet, all of which was obvious then. Painfully obvious to some.
I'm just curious, really, if it's money in this nation, or another/others. I know, it sounds like conspiracy theory all the way. But it's not so weird, in light of how much of America is literally owned by foreign people. Japan especially. It feels like most other presidents and their Admins have realized that REALLY screwing up America waslike "killing the golden goose", so most of them tried not to do that. Feels like this one doesn't care, driving our country recklessly. So I have to wonder about the wealthy oil man, friend of the wealthy Bin Laden family. Typical example of, if you ignore the obvious, you can get away with anything. Even murder.
In the end, it's simple. The ends usually can be found by following the money. Follow the money.
...when he's around