My father was a U.S. Army M.P. who had an opportunity to visit the ruins of Hiroshima shortly after the city was devastated.
He's often told me of what he experienced, and it's never ceased to move me to the depths of my soul...which was exactly HIS reaction.
Dad, the soldier, became a pacifist as a consequence of what he saw:
Climbing the skeletal remains of a solitary, still-standing building and seeing nothing but rubble in all directions.
Noticing a rail car, with no corresponding tracks. It had been blown there from another part of town.
Entering the basement of a demolished structure where he heard activity, and encountering some Japanese men operating a simple printing press.
Discovering in the Japanese naval base outside of Hiroshima a warship that our side's propaganda claimed had been sunk by U.S. planes (a revelation that impressed upon him that truth is the first casualty of war, and the initial step in a personal shift in the then-universal belief among our soldiers that the bombings had to happen.)
Dad now totally rejects the idea that the bombings were necessary to avert what persistent myth tells us would had to have been a massive, costly invasion. He fully subscribes to the views expressed in my previous two posts.
Also, he strongly feels -- based on his own study of the whole A-bomb circumstance -- that Okinawa could and should have been bypassed...but that it wasn't for two reasons:
To prolong the war to give maximum time for getting the A-bombs ready.
And to suggest that the ferocity of the Okinawa defense would have been duplicated in Japan proper, thereby strengthening the case for their "mandatory" use.
Incidentally, Luv 2 Fly is absolutely correct about the balloons the Japanese futilely used. Dad has a multi-volume pictoral history of WWII which includes photos of the crude devices. A few actually succeeded in crossing the ocean and landed in California forests...where they didn't so much as kill a chipmunk.
Contrasted with the tens of thousands who were incinerated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the even greater number of civilians who perished in prior fire bombings of other Japanese cities, including Tokyo.
One final point, on this day when the news tells of U.S. sailors having been subjected to experimental bio/chem spraying by their own government:
Nobody told my father and the few others who entered Hiroshima that there could be any radioactive danger.
But then, as a small boy, I remember watching a U.S. Army-produced Cold War TV show called The Big Picture, in which U.S. troops would jump up out of trenches to face a mushroom cloud in a nuclear-war simulation -- with a real bomb --- in the American Southwest.
Later there was Agent Orange, and Gulf War Syndrome...
It was on the Fox and Friends and it was a story about the latest suicide bombing. One of the hosts of the show (don't know his name. He has big mouth and talks over his co-hosts) called it a "homicide bombing." The reporter in Jerusalem then switched from calling it a "suicide bombing" to a "homicide bombing" and then back again. Someone didn't tell the people who did the graphics about the change in terminology, because "Suicide Bombing" was on the screen for awhile. It was later changed to "Homicide Bombing."
This whole thing carried on the length of the segment.
Evidently important style changes are being made on the fly at Fox and based on the whim of the on-air personalities. It's bias and unprofessional work.
Also, he strongly feels -- based on his own study of the whole A-bomb circumstance -- that Okinawa could and should have been bypassed...but that it wasn't for two reasons:
To prolong the war to give maximum time for getting the A-bombs ready.
We didn't know until we pressed the button on the testing grounds on July 16th 1945 in New Mexico that it would even work other than in theory. the battle for Okinawa started well before on March 18th 1945. And in fact the people that planned the Okinawa invasion did so in Oct 1944 well before any of those planners had even heard of a nuclear device and or operation manhattan.
So they all sat around and said "wait, we need to prolong this great war, so let's invade Okinawa for the hell of it so it will give us more time to work on something we never heard of". Very few knew of it's existance and the ones that did frankly thought it wouldn't work or at the very least had no idea of it's power. So this idea that we invaded Japan to give us more time to work on the "bomb" is fraught with flaws.
Why did we invade Okinawa ?
By April, 1945 German resistance in the European Campaign was on the verge of collapse, but the Empire of Japan continued to defiantly resist American advances across the Pacific. Strategically located some 400 miles south of Japan, possession of Okinawa would enable the Allies to cut Japan's sea lines of communication and isolate it from its vital sources of raw materials in the south. If the invasion of Japan proved necessary, Okinawa's harbors, anchorages, and airfields could be used to stage the ships, troops, aircraft, and supplies necessary for the amphibious assault. The island had several Japanese air bases and the only two substantial harbors between Formosa and Kyushu.
And to suggest that the ferocity of the Okinawa defense would have been duplicated in Japan proper, thereby strengthening the case for their "mandatory" use.
Well Dennis, more people died during the battle of Okinawa than did during Hiroshima or Nagasaki !
the fighting was more fierce and the bloodiest conflict of the entire pacific war. The numbers were 38,000 Americans wounded 12,000 American dead. 107,000 Japanese soilders killed and over 100,000 Japanese civilians killed. Stunning numbers no doubt. So even with fierce fighting like that and the thousands that also died at the hands of kamakazie pilots, these were NOT a defeated people in their minds, they were but wouldn't or couldn't admit it. So we are to believe that we wanted to prolong the war only to test a bomb that was only a theory at that point on paper. Sure, right. o.k.
The fierce fighting was pure madness by the fanatical Japanese. All this for an island a fraction hte size of mainland Japan whose citezenry was trained to resisit at all costs. Again, more died on Okinawa than in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. anyone who thinks after witnessing the fighting or talking to Japanese soilders that they were ready to surrender is kidding themselves and trying to rewrite history.
As sad a comment on the human condition that war itself is, the fact remains that large numbers of lives , millions, were saved because of unleashing that power. And finally awakening the emporer and his fnantical followers. They wouldn't have surrnedered until we raised the flag in Tokyo at a cost of millions more lives.
Now is there some that wanted to surrender before Okinawa ? Yes a small number that would have never admitted it without the emporer doing so first, they would ahve to commit suicide after even saying such a thing. There were many who thought Japan was winning too. But without doing what we did it was the only way it would happen because they were much like the fanatics of today. Attempts at rewriting history or making the Japanese cause somehow noble are simply not telling the truth.
There was a view within the ranks of certain American military planners that Okinawa shouldn't be invaded.
That group, with Admiral Spruance at its head, wanted to use the mouth of the Yangtze River in China as a forward base for final operations against Japan.
From the ideological standpoint of today's conservatives, it would have been a good idea.
With perhaps as many as a million U.S. troops in China, it's logical to think that Mao Tse Tung would have had a much more difficult time in defeating Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalists.
I'm glad that the civilian casualty figure of 100,000 was brought up.
Initially, it was claimed by our side that only 20,000 Okinawans died in the invasion.
Think about it:
The Japanese discriminated against the native Okinawans in a very harsh way. Consequently, many of them longed for some form of liberation.
But what they got was the virtual destruction of their island and at least 100,000 deaths.
While persecuted by the Imperial forces, they at least got by and survived.
Relations between Okinawans and occupying Americans have been strained ever since, heightened over the years by a cultural supremacism on our part (decidedly racist), with several prominent incidents involving great insensitivity and even criminality by our forces. I'm sure you all remember the rape cases.
As for the view that the A-bombings were not needed to bring about Japan's surrender, or represented an unacceptable level of barbarism, go back to my earlier links and check out just who said what.
Eisenhower, MacArthur, Herbert Hoover, Einstein, etc., took what is far from a "radical, revisionist" stance on the question.
I'm the first to admit that the case for stating that Okinawa was picked as part of an A-bombing related subterfuge is much harder to make than the pivotal contention that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks themselves were unwarranted, given substantial prior indication that Japan was prepared to surrender.
It's really difficult to maintain, now, after so much has been disclosed, that a two-fold purpose relating to Russia, not Japan, didn't actually motivate those bombings:
1. To end the war before the USSR entered the fray and made major advances in Northeast Asia.
2. To signal to the Soviets that we would be top dog in the post WWII era, in effect provocatively initiating the Cold War well before Churchill actually coined the phrase in his famous Missouri speech a few years later.
Who knows how war on mainland Japan would have ended.
Would we have a divided Japan, with islands held by varous entities? Would the world leading Japanese technical advancement be 20 or 30 years behind, making much of the world 20 or 30 years behind? Had there not been a clear, unconditional surrender, would we be discussing this on the Internet right now?
What would be the oucome of some type of negotiated settlement that would have required long-term vigilance by not just the United States, but much of Asia?
This all a parlor game. Ifs and Buts are for children.
U.S. TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN ORDERED TO KILL WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Here's a passage from a newspaper article that gives us the option of becoming instant, impassioned opponents of Bush's obscene war on terrorism -- or morally-dead, acquiescing "good Germans":
"The stench of decaying flesh hung heavy in the air as soldiers passed blown-up bunkers and caves.
"As they moved down an L-shaped corridor, the stiffened limbs of a Taliban soldier jutted from beneath piles of rock and dust in the sweltering afternoon air.
"Ripped-up pages from the Koran, and booklets describing ways to kill Americans, littered the tree-lined valley that had been bombarded by U.S. air strikes before their arrival.
"These recollections, marking the intensity of every hour of every day felt in combat, typify the memories that resurface for veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and other military combat this Memorial Day weekend.
"For Army Private Matt Guckenheimer, who recently returned home to Tompkins County after two missions in Eastern Afghanistan, processing these memories and readjusting to American life has just begun.
"Guckenheimer, who helped clear the L-shaped valley near the border of Pakistan whose twists and turns are burned into his memory, explained the nature of his company's mission. In doing so, he spoke candidly about the reality of war.
"In an April interview with The Ithaca Journal at his family's Cayuga Heights home, Guckenheimer, 22, shared his experiences during Operation Anaconda. He was sent on March 6 in a company of more than 100 soldiers to participate in the largest U.S.-led ground engagement in Eastern Afghanistan.
" 'We were told there were no friendly forces,' said Guckenheimer, an assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. 'If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them.' "
That's an interesting "story" Dennis. Since you didn't post a link I looked at the Ithaca Journal and couldn't find it and it wasn't there. Do you have the link ?
Thanks for the link Dennis, Their archives or lack thereof made it hard to find anything other than current on their site. Looks like a smaller local type paper so they probably don't have a huge budget.
Reading his story lends me plenty of suspsicion. First of all an order like that if it was ever issued and I can tell you that I have never seen an order like that issued in the many years I was in the Marine Corps. And or in combat. Secondly even if it was which I highly doubt, other soilders under military law would be obliged to actually disobey that order unless they were presenting a direct and or armed threat by a civilian. We had to go through about 4 different channels if we even thought there were civilians in the area, many times risking and costing lives of soilders to do so. An order like that would probably never been issued with any knowledge of military law and would be a quick ticket to Levenworth. Now it's possible that they were told anyone in the area was unfriendly or were briefed on who was friendly etc. The background of the story and failure of the reporter to press it or get other sources says something.
Is it possible ? Sure it's possible, there are bad people no matter where you go or who they are. But I can tell you first hand that no one would ever put out a direct order like that with their name attached to it. And there name would be attached to any order on the duty log. Nor like I said have I ever witnessed anything like that at all. Basically in my opinion I think he's full of crap. Judging from his background and parents background and the nature of that paper one would think a comment like that would elicit some more investigation and it's simply left at an inane comment made almost flippantly to just hang there. I didn't see where he said that they actually did fire on any civilians. Like I said, anything is possible and I would never say never but if it were true believe me there would be more comment by others as well. I will reserve judgement until I see more facts instead of commentary. Lest we be fooled and by another Jenin Massacre story lock stock and barrel.
First, there's nothing wrong with the Ithaca Journal.
It's a typical American smaller-city newspaper.
Second, the part about the "order" to kill women and children was almost incidental to the story's main gist, which was to simply tell about a local boy's experience in Afghanistan.
It was more like an accidental letting the cat out of the bag, which some antiwar activists were keen-eyed enough to pick up on and release to a broader audience.
Third, there's absolutely no legitimate reason for suggesting the soldier is lying.
Fourth, while there's basis for quibbling about whether what happened at Jenin was a "massacre", an "atrocity", a "war crime" or some other semantic variant...there's no question that Israeli overkill of a horrendous nature DID take place. Let's not try to whitewash a dreadful outrage when there's still such a bloody record before our eyes. Wait a few months, history re-writers!
Fifth, the military doesn't offer "suggestions" or related equivocations in combat. When you're "told" to do something, it's a definite order.
Sixth, given the U.S. intelligence failure which missed huge indications that 9/11 was going to occur, how can anyone possibly, credibly believe our "information" could accurately tell us with certainty that women and children in this or that part of Afghanistan would definitely be the "enemy"? Which is not to say it would be right to kill them even if they were. We don't speak the language(s), are oblivious to the culture, and we're just as generally in the dark now as was the case in Vietnam.
Seventh, this certainly wouldn't be the first time we've knowingly, purposely murdered women and children, either directly or through our policy proxies. From the Western prairies and the true nature of our Cavalry "glory" vis-a-vis the "Indians", to the Philippine Rebellion, to our intervention in the Russian Civil War...through the decades, on up to several countries in Central America, plus Korea and Vietnam...we've been consistenly brutal and ruthless. (Just recently, on May 18 to be exact, a South Korean tribunal found the U.S. guilty of complicity in the Kwangju Massacre, back in 1980, an officially down-played bloodbath in which 2,000 people died.)
Eighth...
Well, I can't think of an eighth right now.
But give me a little less unseasonal, torrid heat, and a bit of sleep with the fan going, and I'm liable to come back with a few more points.
Today's New York Times had the story of Zayden Zayden, 18, one of the potential Palestinian suicide bombers whose mechanism failed and ended up blowing out a chunk of his abdomen.
He's a fifth grade dropout who can't read or write. He spent a lot of time shooting pool and hangning around before he started going to mosque.
He claims he joined the suicide cult without any outside influence. But it doesn't sound like any people who should normally help out a kid who's seriously confused made much of an effort to discourage him. Instead, the bloodthirsty dogs decided to show him how to blow himself up and take as many innocent people as possible with him. It was a simple matter of flipping the switch to the "On" position. If it didn't work there was a backup. The bomb smelled like fertilizer so he doused himself with cologne.
They didn't even advise him on a target. They probably thought he could figure that out for himself.
I've been told as Americans, we're in no position to judge this.
Zayden will survive and go to jail. The parade of martyrs will continue. For Hamas and others, they're like buses. Miss one, and all they'll have to do is wait awhile for another to arrive.
Osama Bin Laden has won the war in Afghanistan – the first big battle of the War on Terrorism.
Americans are claiming victory because American bombers have devastated Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans have been killed, and the already-impoverished country is now almost completely in ruins.
But most likely this is exactly what bin Laden wanted. What has the devastation achieved? Osama bin Laden and Omar the Tentmaker are still on the loose...
Do you think Osama bin Laden cares how many innocent Afghans are killed?
Why would he? Every dead Afghan is another argument for his crusade.
Hundreds of millions of people in the Third World already hate the U.S. – for bombing Iraq, for interfering in the Middle East, for keeping troops in a hundred countries, for propping up dictators who support American policies. And every bomb that fell on Afghanistan converted more people into America-haters. The U.S. military has been confirming bin Laden's argument that Americans are bullies...
WHY WE ARE THREATENED
The root fallacy in the War on Terrorism is the idea that we have no choice but to fight people who won't rest until they destroy us.
But there have always been thugs in the world who wanted to destroy others. There have always been people who hated America – for good or bad reasons. There have always been evil people, malicious people, brutal people.
Why is it that only now do they represent such a grave threat to us?
The truth is that the evil, malicious, brutal thugs rarely have the ability to make any real trouble outside their own neighborhoods. The few exceptions – people like Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden – succeed only because they can get the financing, contacts, networking and other resources necessary to spread trouble.
And they can get that support only if large numbers of people have been mistreated. That was the case with the Germans after World War I – who had valuable pieces of Germany torn off and handed to France, Poland, or Czechoslovakia – who had all their foreign investments confiscated – who were told to pay astronomical reparations, even though all their valuable assets had been taken from them – who were made to bear the entire guilt for a war they were only one part of.
Hitler could command a very advanced, literate country because of the terrible treatment the Germans suffered after World War I. He promised to avenge the wrongs done to them, and they responded enthusiastically. If he hadn't had that fertile ground to work with, we'd never have heard of him...
Today, Osama bin Laden couldn't get the worldwide support necessary to carry out his evil plans if there weren't hundreds of millions of people who resent American troops stationed in their countries, who are appalled by the American blockade that's starving Iraqis, who don't like American Presidents imposing their decisions on their countries.
By bombing Afghanistan, by killing people who had nothing to do with the September attacks, George Bush has handed Osama Bin Laden exactly the victory he craved – the evidence that Americans don't believe innocent people have a right to live if they get in the way of American global ambitions.
THE TERRORIST STRATEGY
If Bin Laden could mastermind the September attacks, he must be smart enough to know that bombing the World Trade Center (or any future terrorist act) isn't going to defeat America. So why did he do it?
He could see an insecure American President, just barely elected and worried about his reelection, who might jump at the opportunity to demonstrate leadership, play the macho President, start bombing, and feed the worldwide resentment of American foreign policy.
And so bin Laden has maneuvered George Bush into destroying a poor, Islamic country – causing a further decline in support for America among the world's peoples (distinct from their leaders who feed at the American trough).
Round 1 goes to bin Laden by something close to a knockout.
DEFEATING TERRORISM
We will never defeat terrorism by killing innocent people. That's exactly what the terrorists want us to do...
Let there be no misunderstanding. I'm not blaming America. I'm blaming American foreign policy. And I'm not talking about pacifism. I'm talking about protecting you and me and all of America by not provoking war.
Nor am I talking about poverty as a cause of terrorism. I'm talking about American foreign policy as a cause of terrorism. The answer lies not in foreign aid for the world's impoverished. Quite the contrary.
The answer lies in minding our own business.
The answer lies in ending 50 years of foreign policy failures. Or are we going to let bin Laden win the rest of the war as well?
--Harry Browne, the Director of Public Policy at the (Libertarian) American Liberty Foundation.
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Weeping tears of joy, dozens of Afghan refugees stranded in Indonesia for years after fleeing the fundamentalist Taliban, began the long journey home on Friday.
Under a voluntary repatriation programme organised by the International Organisation of Migration, 36 Afghans hugged and kissed as they boarded a charter flight to Dubai en route to Kabul.
"We are very excited to go back to our country, our now peaceful country," Doctor Abdul Rasyid told Reuters, as he waited in the rain with his wife and four children...
...Rasyid's seven-year-old daughter Zainab was also overjoyed at the prospect of returning.
"I'm very happy I can go to school in Kabul," she said. Girls and women were prohibited from receiving any form of education under the Taliban.
Quetta, Pakistan - Some Afghans who fled their country in recent days say Taliban authorities are dragging young men off to the army and desperately trying to prop up collapsing economies in crippled cities.
Some told of sons and husbands shot without explanation by Taliban militiamen in a growing mood of fear and confusion. Many said only poverty, illness and age prevent a greater exodus.
"We'd be happy if America bombed Afghanistan - we just want to get rid of the Taliban," said Nazir Hussain, 50. "There's no choice left except to flee."Hussain and his family walked 15 days from Kabul to Quetta, crossing the border in the wild mountains east of Kandahar. Most refugees said they bribed Pakistani border guards to enter at closed checkpoints.
It was the kind of festival the Taliban would never allow; all-night parties, spontaneous drumming, singing and dancing in restaurants, picnics, high-jinks, gambling and merrymaking that had little to do with religion.
Afghans celebrated Nowruz, the first day of spring and the traditional start of the Persian new year on Thursday by discarding the puritanical and indulging in their new life of freedom.
Millions of Afghans took part in the revelry. In the capital, Kabul, and other large cities, they massed in parks and stadiums to see shows and concerts, climbed hillsides to visit shrines, visited family and friends and planted trees.
They sampled holiday fare such as haft miwa, a cocktail made from seven dried fruits, and samanu, a sweet wheat-sprout pudding.
A Kabul vendor called Rahimuddin said about the holiday: "This is the best of my life so far."He struggled to keep up with the customers stretching out their hands for his cherry juice and plates of honeyed nuts and seeds.
Near Kabul's stadium, which until last year was the scene of public stonings and executions by the Taliban authorities, children flew kites or rode on donkey carts and some women drew aside their burkas to expose their faces to the sun.
"We are very happy on this New Year's Day," said Fazlei Khuda, a 27-year-old university student.
"Our people have been freed from the dark period of the Taliban. It was a black reign that did not want Afghans to be happy and free."
Nowruz was the most festive time of the year until the Taliban came to power in most of Afghanistan between 1994 and 1996. Disliking the festival's un-Islamic origins and its emphasis on joyful indulgence rather than piety and prayer, the radical regime lost no time removing it from the roster of official holidays.
But people celebrated it discreetly anyway, within the family circle, said Izumarai, 49, an accounting manager.
"The things we could do at home, we did," he said. "Now that we are free, we are very lucky."
This year, Nowruz was an official day off work, part of a festive three-day weekend. The new school year begins today - the first day that girls will be allowed back into classrooms. And on Tuesday, the country's former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, is to make a triumphal return, the first since his exile in 1973.
The day before International Women's Day, which was on March 8, the atmosphere in and around Kabul was so charged with relief, joy, appreciation, power and happiness that Nader turned to me in the taxi and said, "This is a happy time!", the first time an Afghan has felt that in more than twenty years.
I wish you could have been here for the celebration on the 8th. The women's affairs minister, Dr Sima Samar, decided to hold it in the burned-out Zainab Cinema with no roof - open to the skies! How to cover it in case of rain? And the skies were cloudy and weepy! The Pakistan Ambassador generously collected three huge sections of white and red nylon tenting, but how to get it to Kabul from Peshawar? Parsa to the rescue! Our smart and perky Pashtu-speaking driver brought it up by pick-up and bus in time for Saleem, a long-time Parsa employee, to figure out a way to support it with nylon ropes strung across the gaping space.
The speeches: "Afghan people have a strength and energy unknown to the outside world" and a ringing "Free girls can now go to school!" from the deputy minister of education broke up the crowd, as did a powerful patriotic poem read by an Afghan girl parachutist in the uniform of the ISAF (International Security Afghanistan Force). She gave Hamid Karzai a smart salute before striding off the stage. Then five little girls dressed in long white dresses each let go of a white pigeon. They were supposed to fly out through an opening in the canopy but instead, maybe liking the energy of the meeting, stayed in the hall perched here and there, decoratively.
Now with Nau Roz (March 21, the Afghan New Year) approaching people are making grand preparations for the traditional picnic celebrations on hill tops and parks of Kabul - the first after five, heavy-going years. The government would like to have proclaimed a whole week to celebrate the events, but the exuberance is tempered by the closeness of Moharram, the ten day mourning period for the Shia hero/martyrs, ending on Sunday.
I find it impossible to describe the relief of living here without the heavy hand of the taliban, and their cold breath breathing down everyone's necks...
Take Old Glory down from the sticks stuck on either side of your Chevy truck's roof, LeRoy.
Put a Montreal Expos pennant on a wheelbarrow instead (with apologies to our Northern Neighbors, especially the survivors of those Canucks we wasted in Afghanistan).
We've lost the war on terrorism. Same goes for Israel.
It happened because gimcrack Republicans and geegaw Zionists couldn't grasp that terrorism wasn't really the tactic being employed against them. Suicide bombs weren't the chosen weapon; a shrewd psychological manipulation of understood American and Israeli responses was, along with the full utilization of basic axioms, such as "Pride goeth before the fall" and "The meek shall inherit the earth". We blindly walked right onto the palm fronds covering the elephant pit.
The George and Ariel "With Leaders Like Us, Who Needs Enemies?" Carnival of Mass Repression and Crazed, Indiscriminate Murder has succeeded...in totally antagonizing everyone on the entire planet, except for half a dozen, doddering ex-Nazis, four Klansmen too fat to nightride anymore, one Jewish Defense League hit man, and Jack, who hasn't thought or seen straight since drinking a jug of turpentine in '73.
Plus Pat Robertson.
Capitalism, Christianity and Judaism have scads more livid-with-rage, ready-to-die, utterly relentless, global adversaries than existed before Sept. 11, or before Sharon's tanks bulldozed whole families of Palestinians in their West Bank homes.
Palestinians who were afraid to come out because missile-spitting "Apaches" would have killed them in the open.
Here's the essence of why we're so intensely, universally hated:
Forget, just for awhile, sport-team names that racistly offend Native Americans.
Consider that the White Power which committed terroristic genocide against this continent's original, dark-skinned people has the obscene audacity to name a slaughter machine used to blow away dark-skinned people in Palestine, and elsewhere, after an "Indian" tribe.
Sick, sad, sorry SOB's rule this country, and they want to run the rest of the world, too.
Not to mention running their lumbering, tire-popping SUV's...on other folks' stolen oil.
But they can't get away with it, because Geronimo's ghost is galloping toward the fort, along with an army comprised of everyone from anywhere who's ever been screwed by the grifters, grafters and shiftless shafters chasing like fiends after the Yankee Dollar.
It's payback time.
Where will the ultimate toll be finally exacted?
How about Iraq?
Blend Custer's Last Stand with Dien Bien Phu and the Bay of Pigs, and you'll get some idea of what a fiasco is in the offing as Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld (not to mention that English goof, Tony Blair) set about seeking a "regime change" in Baghdad...with the whole world watching, as our tens of thousands of ground troops and sky-commanding bombers bloodily sacrifice the Iraqi civilian populace in trying to oust Saddam.
Aw, how our standing and prestige will be enhanced!
What multitudes of pals we'll make!
Sure...
Those four just aren't right in the head -- without turpentine.
It's bourgeois greed and fevered power lust that've made them wickedly nuts.
So we have lost the war. Amazing that those who live in Afghanistan and around the world who cherish freedom would disagree with you.
Now we get the same retoric about how we will get our arses kicked that we got when we first invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Remember the gloom and doom we heard about how Afghanistan kicked out the Russians and would do the same to us? Remember how the Iraqi army was supposed to be one of the most powerful on earth? Those predictions proved to be false and now we get bold lies about how we actually lost in Afghanistan and how those involved now hate us.
Forget about all those that claim that life is now amazingly better. You can tell they were drinking jugs of turpentine by the way they were dancing in the streets when we kicked out the Taliban.
Blend a dig at the christian religion with comparisons of the Republicans to the socialist NAZI party. To that mix add the hillbillies that live in places like Arkansas and Tennessee and just for good measure, throw in the ever evil SUV that must have been around to save us from the first ice age by causing all that global warming and somehow you have the recipe for how we have lost the war in the eyes of the left.
In a nearby community -- which is typical -- schools are being closed, electives eliminated, and classes contracted for want of roughly $500,000 that doesn't exist.
But the Pentagon got over a million bucks from its taxpayers in the last reporting period.
Quite apart from the horrendous military defeats that will inevitably come, the guns-before-butter-on-steroids orientation that Dubya's open-ended, multi-front war against everybody who dislikes us around the world (Gee, I wonder why?!) will SCUTTLE not just the general economy...but the capacity of countless, ordinary Americans to get from life what they'll be needing with increasing urgency for their precious families, as existing contradictions are further exacerbated.
Everything in the realm of civil culture, from jobs that pay enough to survive on, to affordable healthcare (or ANY at all), to a national infrastructure that isn't crumbling faster than an external enemy could possibly destroy it with terrorism.
All the while, overseas, we'll be sinking deeper into a quagmire of overextended imperialist impossibility, as warranted rage builds against us in every corner of the world.
The hatreds of today will seem minor in comparison.
All of which will lead to social unrest at home, precipitated decisively by the young, who'll be properly unwilling to either die for wrong causes abroad or suffer from their dire, domestic consequences at home.
And the people facilitating all this, of course, are the myth-and-propaganda-believing conservatives lost back in 1932 who haven't a CLUE about the international dynamic that's arrayed against us, due fundamentally to the obtuse stupidity of their own, failed, massively antagonizing, global policies.
Which they haven't got the sense to end or reform.
Osama relies on their foolishness to get THEM to destroy us.
George Bush has now come clean with the world and has said in a speech last week that "deterence and containment" are now irrelevant. America's new war doctrine is to strike first. George now says, "We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge".
We had all sorts of threats about attack before September 11 and George decided not to tell the American people about them, might hurt the airline industry, so he kept them to himself. Now George is going to attack our enemies before their threats and plans even emerge. Makes one really confident, when the President of the United States can tell who to attack before their threats and plans have been made public, maybe even before they know about them...
With leaders like George Bush, America will go to Hell in a handbag. "Strike First" is an aggressor tactic that those striving for power use. Throughout our history, we have always been told that we stand for truth and justice. Now after 226 years, we are starting a new way of doing things. We will be the ones to start wars and that will be our downfall.
We as a nation are better than this. Our founding fathers talked about staying out of foreign entanglements. They never dreamed that America would be attacking countries and neither did I. George Bush and his administration should scare all Americans. Nothing in our history has pointed us toward world domination.
--James Glaser, USMC Vietnam vet, Reader Weekly, June 6, 2002
I would bet that Bush's words were spoken virtually verbatim in the late Thirties, in German, by someone in the Nazi hierarchy, as plans for "blitzkreig" were being laid.
And that the people and nations set as targets back then were demonized exactly as our "enemies" have been, in the current context.
When we start attacking others without any prior provocation or actual first assault by their side (as opposed to Gulf-of-Tonkin fabrications feigning such), we'll become an international criminal.
A global "sucker puncher," as James Glaser said in the part of his commentary that I didn't post.
What's more, we'd be doing it at home as well, with secret police spying, harassment and intimidation being gratuitously directed at folks who were merely dissidents, not criminals.
"Hitting" like a classic bully.
And consequently, deservingly garnering everyone's outraged enmity.
That's just the scenario al-Qaeda counts on us being stupid enough to follow.
Too often, the media in the United States gives us only a limited picture of the conflict that has engulfed this region for centuries. As a result, the political divisions and the points of view that have placed Americans in one camp or another, limit their own visions. It's hard to really see events unfolding on a human scale.
Thankfully, that didn't occur in "The Seige of Bethelem, " a Frontline program I saw last night about the 39 days at the Church of the Nativity. It was one of the most illuminating reports I have seen on this terrible, historic struggle. If one approaches the story with an open mind they can see the ways both sides, the Israeli Defense Forces and the Palistinians in the Church tried to end a difficult tense situation and to keep it from spinning horribly out of control.
The restraint and painstaking negotiations from both sides probably saved many lives.
If you missed it, I don't see a rebroadcast on the schedule. It's too bad. It was a great story.
JERUSALEM (AP) - A Palestinian detonated nail-studded explosives on a Jerusalem bus crowded with high school students and office workers Tuesday, killing himself and 19 passengers in the city's deadliest suicide attack in six years. Fifty-five people were wounded.
The extremist Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack - the 69th Palestinian suicide bombing in 21 months. The bomber, a 22-year-old university student, wrote in a farewell note he had tried twice before to carry out an attack.
The blast tore through the bus just before 8 a.m., sending bodies flying through windows and peeling off the roof and sides. Rescue workers later lined up the dead on a sidewalk and covered them with black plastic bags. "Where is my sister? Where is my sister?" a woman screamed at volunteers collecting remains.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks, says his judge is mentally ill, his former lawyers are bloodsuckers and Jews are his enemies...
..."The curse of Allah is and will be on you," he wrote the judge on several occasions.
Describing himself as a "slave of Allah," Moussaoui said, "I am indeed a Muslim fundamentalist openly hostile to the Jew and the United States of America."
Moussaoui, a French citizen who often misspelled words and used poor grammar, called his now-dismissed legal team "a bunch of blood sucker, really discusting." He said the court-appointed team included a "wicked" public defender, a "nasty Jewish zealot" and a "right wing fascist."
In seeking to move his trial to Denver, Moussaoui argued the Colorado city is a "more neutral" location, that would "ensure a greater feeling of personal safety for the jury and ... reduce slightly the level of hostility."
He would have "a jury pool without over representation of loyal government employees," Moussaoui said, adding that "12 Talebans from Cuba" would be a fairer jury...
I wonder if the mention of Cuba was an accidental slip or a calculated move to divert our attention to Cuba? If there has been news of Taliban members in Cuba, I have missed it.
Their independent Palestine would be a rogue nation, a failed state from infancy, a grotesquery from inception. I did not used to think this. The homicide bombers, and the families who celebrate them as martyrs beloved by God, have convinced me of it."
Good article Rick, I think many people feel that way for any nation that would use those tactics would probably be doomed for failure from the start regardless of all obstacles being removed. If you would use those tactics then you're doomed to fail and should.
I used to think alot more than I do now that the Palestinains deserve a state. I think they do less and less for their cause with each bus they bomb and every mother of 3 at the market they murder. As recently as a few weeks ago I held hope that it could be worked out and the Palestinains seeing support in the U.S and elsewhere would siexe the moment and lay off of more bus bobomings. They couldn't and didn't. I still thought "you know although their tactics are sickening I can see their side too and they ought to have a state." Well ,no more. it would be rewarding terrorism if we did. In essence, screw em, they made their own bed, Yea yea I know they're opressed by the Isralies yada yada yada. Quit blowing up kids going to school and you might stand a chance. It's been said that they elected Arafat, well then I guess they made their choices and chose terroism as a tool, too bad. Forget it, they don't desreve a state.
If every Jew in the past hundred years had blown him or herself up along with everyone in the vicinity to protest imprisonment in ghettos and the Russian Pale of Settlement, there would be little left of Christian Europe.
The Bishop's comments are noted. I don't think that he can really make a broad comparison between apartheid South Africa and Israel. Israel is democratically elected, free market country WITH an arab population that takes part in society and has a stake in its future.
The way has existed for the Palistinians to shape their future. Their leadership is intransigent, and it's militant Islamist elements have poisoned the prosess with their hideous violence.
Can you see any back from this, Dennis? What type of state can be born from such as we've seen from the Palistinians?
What can they possibly achieve?
I've never heard you say things like "you don't get it, do you?" I used to laugh at right-wingers who said that.
I think most people "get it." Agreeing with it, might be another thing.
"How beautiful it is to make my bomb shrapnel kill the enemy. How beautiful it is to kill and to be killed — not to love death, but to struggle for life, to kill and be killed for the lives of the coming generation."
Mohammed al-Ghoul,
"The force of the blast is determined by the quantity of the explosive. An average bomb — the kind strapped around a suicide terrorist's waist, covered by a shirt — would likely detonate at a rate of about 28,000 feet per second — or about 22 times faster than a 9 mm bullet leaving the muzzle of a handgun. That means that the surrounding air pressure — normally 15 pounds per square inch — would spike to 2,200 pounds per square inch. Such heat and pressure will melt iron.
A person sitting nearby would feel, momentarily, a shock wave slamming into his or her body, with an "overpressure" of 300,000 pounds. Such a blast would crush the chest, rupture liver, spleen, heart and lungs, melt eyes, pull organs away from surrounding tissue, separate hands from arms and feet from legs."
The Palestinian people -- forget the leadership -- are "intransigent" in not accepting any sort of client-state gimmick in place of a truly independent, unitary homeland.
As for the suicide-bombing tactic employed by flagrant extremists...
It's horrific.
Morally unconscionable.
But it could actually wind up working.
Since there's really no way to completely prevent it, a certain percentage of bombers will continue to succeed in their lethal mission, causing not just an escalating loss of life, but tremendous economic and psychological tolls as well.
Israeli public opinion is sharply divided about the wisdom of the Occupation as it is, meaning there's a much larger body of Jewish sentiment than we're led to believe that thinks the basic Palestinian grievance, with its call for a true homeland, is correct.
Israel has a relatively small population and its economy has been thrown into a shambles as a result of what's been going on.
With enough people dying to cause legitimate worry over Jewish population viability in the region in the longterm, and with Tel Aviv's business engine stalled...someone in Israeli authority is ultimately going to rise up and say: "The situation is untenable. We simply can't continue the Occupation. We have to weigh the realities."
A rough equivalent of Eisenhower in response to the stalemated Korean War.
And, by that time, I'm willing to bet a majority of Israelis will concur.
At that point, the Palestinians will be dancing in the streets.
Well, I'm not one to predict the future. But I know there's an old phrase that goes: Anything borne of a black deed will flower in a foul manner. I heard a Jewish man say it.
I hold no ill will toward the Palistinians. We all want happiness, and the constitution says it's our right to pursue it.
But are they pursuing happiness or vengance? And if the answer is the latter, what should they be rewareded with?
When terrorism become a tactic of some who are part of a much larger group -- a people -- who have an eminently just cause, we need to take great care to avoid equating the wrong conduct of the extremists with that broader cause itself.
To keep from winding up on the wrong side.
We're making that basic mistake in connection with the Palestinians.
We've also done it relative to the 9/11 attack and Osama bin Laden.
Sure, al-Qaida is a dreadful bunch.
But, as I've been saying repeatedly: on a popular level, two or three notches down, there's a well-warranted mass anger in Arabic countries (and the Third World in general) that arises from our own policy wrongdoing over an extended period of time, which will only grow unless we see beyond the hypnotic symbolism of the downed WTC towers and begin seriously addressing what it is that we do on this planet, in such selfishly narrow pursuit of our own interests, that we've become so intensely and widely despised.
Now the terrorists of Israel, the 21st century Nazis led by "Fuhrer" Sharon, are putting up a $200 billion fence. I can't figure out if it's to keep Palestinian terrorists out or keep Israeli terrorists in.
Either way I know that Dimbulb Bush has "donated" our tax dollars so they can build their new Berlin Wall.
CHILDREN OF HATE (Click HEREfor the Hebrew version)
This is how the graduation ceremony goes at the kindergartens of the "Islamic Charitable Association" in Gaza
By Jackie Hugi
Kindergartens in Gaza teach children Jihad against Israel, justification of the Ramallah lynching [in Oct 2000], admiration of the Hizbullah, and the continuation of the Intifada. The children receive these lessons in Israel-hatred at the independently-run education network of the "Islamic Charitable Association", which is responsible for the education of some 5000 children.
At the graduation ceremony of one of the most recent kindergarten classes, the children burned the Israeli flag and cried: "In the name of the Shahid (martyr) Mohammed al-dura and the Shahida, the infant Iman al-Haju, we promise to continue with the Jihad, the resistance and the Intifada". One of the girls raised her hands high, hands dipped in red paint, in the manner of one of the perpetrators of the Ramallah lynching, whose hands were covered in blood. One boy, dressed as the secretary-general of the Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah, made a speech in which he said: "The Palestinians will not be alone in their battle against Zionism. Hizbullah is with them, always" - which earned him much applause. Children carried toy rifles, and some had Keffiyehs over their faces.
An internal document of the (Israeli) Government Operations Coordinator in the territories, which came out recently, analyzed the expressions of hostility in the Association's kindergartens. The document determines that the Islamic Association's network of kindergartens serves as a firm base to incite young children against Israel. The document warns that these kindergartens constitute for the Hamas the ideological basis for future suicide bombers.
The Association's website documents the ceremony of the 11th class to graduate these kindergartens. Participating at the ceremony, which took place at the Shati refugee camp on the Gaza coast, were 1650 children and thousands of adults.
The children were dressed in army fatigues. Around the podium where the ceremony took place hung flags of Hizballah and the Islamic Association, pictures of martyred children, and slogan. One of the latter cried: "The blood of the children and the martyred of Palestine will be a curse to haunt to Zionist criminals".
The ceremony started with the reading out loud of passages from the Koran by one of the children. Afterwards, a platoon of five-year-olds staged a military parade, armed with plastic rifles. Two of the children carried a model of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. One of the marchers stopped and cried, "Do Sharon's tanks, missiles and mortars frighten you?". His friends answered in unison: "No, no". He continued: "The Zionist bombings do not frighten us. Our people will not bend". Later, the children burned the Israeli flag, and one child impersonated Hamas' leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The Islamic Association of Gaza is the largest charitable organization in the Gaza Strip of the religious stream. It was founded 26 years ago, and at its head is Sheikh Ahmed Bahar, a member of Hamas. It operates tens of kindergartens in Gaza, helps needy families and orphans, and supports poor students and martyrs' children. Additionally, the Association facilitates blood donations, operates a medical clinic for a nominal fee, and also a sports club, best known for its successful volleyball team.
The Association subsists upon donations and the nominal dues of its members.
Last year, their institutions were visited by representatives of a Swedish NGO and of an South African Islamic delegation. Non-profit organizations in Italy and the US donated computers and VCRs.
Sheikh Bahar said at the ceremony that he places the responisbilty on the shoulders of the Palestinian mothers to "Raise the children on the teachings of Islam, love of Jerusalem and Palestine, and love of Jihad and resistance"
Washington - The Pentagon denied charges made in a documentary shown on Thursday to the European Parliament that Taliban prisoners in northern Afghanistan were massacred with the complicity of the United States.
In an initial reaction to the documentary, a spokesperson for the US Central Command in Florida, which leads US forces in Afghanistan, said that similar unfounded accusations emerged months ago.
"I think it surfaced in March and we looked at them, they were unfounded," Major Brad Lowell said.
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
More views of those questioning the "necessity" of
the Japanese A-bombings...
My father was a U.S. Army M.P. who had an opportunity to visit the ruins of Hiroshima shortly after the city was devastated.
He's often told me of what he experienced, and it's never ceased to move me to the depths of my soul...which was exactly HIS reaction.
Dad, the soldier, became a pacifist as a consequence of what he saw:
Climbing the skeletal remains of a solitary, still-standing building and seeing nothing but rubble in all directions.
Noticing a rail car, with no corresponding tracks.
It had been blown there from another part of town.
Entering the basement of a demolished structure where he heard activity, and encountering some Japanese men operating a simple printing press.
Discovering in the Japanese naval base outside of Hiroshima a warship that our side's propaganda claimed had been sunk by U.S. planes (a revelation that impressed upon him that truth is the first casualty of war, and the initial step in a personal shift in the then-universal belief among our soldiers that the bombings had to happen.)
Dad now totally rejects the idea that the bombings were necessary to avert what persistent myth tells us would had to have been a massive, costly invasion. He fully subscribes to the views expressed in my previous two posts.
Also, he strongly feels -- based on his own study of the whole A-bomb circumstance -- that Okinawa could and should have been bypassed...but that it wasn't for two reasons:
To prolong the war to give maximum time for getting the A-bombs ready.
And to suggest that the ferocity of the Okinawa defense would have been duplicated in Japan proper, thereby strengthening the case for their "mandatory" use.
Incidentally, Luv 2 Fly is absolutely correct about the balloons the Japanese futilely used. Dad has a multi-volume pictoral history of WWII which includes photos of the crude devices. A few actually succeeded in crossing the ocean and landed in California forests...where they didn't so much as kill a chipmunk.
Contrasted with the tens of thousands who were incinerated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the even greater number of civilians who perished in prior fire bombings of other Japanese cities, including Tokyo.
One final point, on this day when the news tells of U.S. sailors having been subjected to experimental bio/chem spraying by their own government:
Nobody told my father and the few others who entered Hiroshima that there could be any radioactive danger.
But then, as a small boy, I remember watching a U.S. Army-produced Cold War TV show called The Big Picture, in which U.S. troops would jump up out of trenches to face a mushroom cloud in a nuclear-war simulation -- with a real bomb --- in the American Southwest.
Later there was Agent Orange, and Gulf War Syndrome...
Fox News was having style problems this morning.
It was on the Fox and Friends and it was a story about the latest suicide bombing. One of the hosts of the show (don't know his name. He has big mouth and talks over his co-hosts) called it a "homicide bombing." The reporter in Jerusalem then switched from calling it a "suicide bombing" to a "homicide bombing" and then back again. Someone didn't tell the people who did the graphics about the change in terminology, because "Suicide Bombing" was on the screen for awhile. It was later changed to "Homicide Bombing."
This whole thing carried on the length of the segment.
Evidently important style changes are being made on the fly at Fox and based on the whim of the on-air personalities. It's bias and unprofessional work.
Dennis,
In regards to your or your father's opinion.
We didn't know until we pressed the button on the testing grounds on July 16th 1945 in New Mexico that it would even work other than in theory. the battle for Okinawa started well before on March 18th 1945. And in fact the people that planned the Okinawa invasion did so in Oct 1944 well before any of those planners had even heard of a nuclear device and or operation manhattan.
So they all sat around and said "wait, we need to prolong this great war, so let's invade Okinawa for the hell of it so it will give us more time to work on something we never heard of". Very few knew of it's existance and the ones that did frankly thought it wouldn't work or at the very least had no idea of it's power. So this idea that we invaded Japan to give us more time to work on the "bomb" is fraught with flaws.
Why did we invade Okinawa ?
By April, 1945 German resistance in the European Campaign was on the verge of collapse, but the Empire of Japan continued to defiantly resist American advances across the Pacific. Strategically located some 400 miles south of Japan, possession of Okinawa would enable the Allies to cut Japan's sea lines of communication and isolate it from its vital sources of raw materials in the south. If the invasion of Japan proved necessary, Okinawa's harbors, anchorages, and airfields could be used to stage the ships, troops, aircraft, and supplies necessary for the amphibious assault. The island had several Japanese air bases and the only two substantial harbors between Formosa and Kyushu.
Well Dennis, more people died during the battle of Okinawa than did during Hiroshima or Nagasaki !
the fighting was more fierce and the bloodiest conflict of the entire pacific war. The numbers were 38,000 Americans wounded 12,000 American dead. 107,000 Japanese soilders killed and over 100,000 Japanese civilians killed. Stunning numbers no doubt. So even with fierce fighting like that and the thousands that also died at the hands of kamakazie pilots, these were NOT a defeated people in their minds, they were but wouldn't or couldn't admit it. So we are to believe that we wanted to prolong the war only to test a bomb that was only a theory at that point on paper. Sure, right. o.k.
The fierce fighting was pure madness by the fanatical Japanese.
All this for an island a fraction hte size of mainland Japan whose citezenry was trained to resisit at all costs. Again, more died on Okinawa than in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. anyone who thinks after witnessing the fighting or talking to Japanese soilders that they were ready to surrender is kidding themselves and trying to rewrite history.
As sad a comment on the human condition that war itself is, the fact remains that large numbers of lives , millions, were saved because of unleashing that power. And finally awakening the emporer and his fnantical followers. They wouldn't have surrnedered until we raised the flag in Tokyo at a cost of millions more lives.
Now is there some that wanted to surrender before Okinawa ? Yes a small number that would have never admitted it without the emporer doing so first, they would ahve to commit suicide after even saying such a thing. There were many who thought Japan was winning too. But without doing what we did it was the only way it would happen because they were much like the fanatics of today. Attempts at rewriting history or making the Japanese cause somehow noble are simply not telling the truth.
hell, even harry truman didn't know about the a-bomb until he actually became president. that's how hush-hush it was.
There was a view within the ranks of certain American military planners that Okinawa shouldn't be invaded.
That group, with Admiral Spruance at its head, wanted to use the mouth of the Yangtze River in China as a forward base for final operations against Japan.
From the ideological standpoint of today's conservatives, it would have been a good idea.
With perhaps as many as a million U.S. troops in China, it's logical to think that Mao Tse Tung would have had a much more difficult time in defeating Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalists.
I'm glad that the civilian casualty figure of 100,000 was brought up.
Initially, it was claimed by our side that only 20,000 Okinawans died in the invasion.
Think about it:
The Japanese discriminated against the native Okinawans in a very harsh way. Consequently, many of them longed for some form of liberation.
But what they got was the virtual destruction of their island and at least 100,000 deaths.
While persecuted by the Imperial forces, they at least got by and survived.
Relations between Okinawans and occupying Americans have been strained ever since, heightened over the years by a cultural supremacism on our part (decidedly racist), with several prominent incidents involving great insensitivity and even criminality by our
forces. I'm sure you all remember the rape cases.
As for the view that the A-bombings were not needed to bring about Japan's surrender, or represented an unacceptable level of barbarism, go back to my earlier links and check out just who said what.
Eisenhower, MacArthur, Herbert Hoover, Einstein, etc., took what is far from a "radical, revisionist" stance on the question.
I'm the first to admit that the case for stating that Okinawa was picked as part of an A-bombing related subterfuge is much harder to make than the pivotal contention that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks themselves were unwarranted, given substantial prior indication that Japan was prepared to surrender.
It's really difficult to maintain, now, after so much has been disclosed, that a two-fold purpose relating to Russia, not Japan, didn't actually motivate those bombings:
1. To end the war before the USSR entered the fray
and made major advances in Northeast Asia.
2. To signal to the Soviets that we would be top dog in the post WWII era, in effect provocatively initiating the Cold War well before Churchill actually coined the phrase in his famous Missouri speech a few years later.
Who knows how war on mainland Japan would have ended.
Would we have a divided Japan, with islands held by varous entities? Would the world leading Japanese technical advancement be 20 or 30 years behind, making much of the world 20 or 30 years behind? Had there not been a clear, unconditional surrender, would we be discussing this on the Internet right now?
What would be the oucome of some type of negotiated settlement that would have required long-term vigilance by not just the United States, but much of Asia?
This all a parlor game. Ifs and Buts are for children.
U.S. TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN ORDERED TO KILL WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Here's a passage from a newspaper article that gives us the option of becoming instant, impassioned opponents of Bush's obscene war on terrorism -- or morally-dead, acquiescing "good Germans":
"The stench of decaying flesh hung heavy in the air as soldiers passed blown-up bunkers and caves.
"As they moved down an L-shaped corridor, the stiffened limbs of a Taliban soldier jutted from beneath piles of rock and dust in the sweltering afternoon air.
"Ripped-up pages from the Koran, and booklets describing ways to kill Americans, littered the tree-lined valley that had been bombarded by U.S. air strikes before their arrival.
"These recollections, marking the intensity of every hour of every day felt in combat, typify the memories that resurface for veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and other military combat this Memorial Day weekend.
"For Army Private Matt Guckenheimer, who recently returned home to Tompkins County after two missions in Eastern Afghanistan, processing these memories and readjusting to American life has just begun.
"Guckenheimer, who helped clear the L-shaped valley near the border of Pakistan whose twists and turns are burned into his memory, explained the nature of his company's mission. In doing so, he spoke candidly about the reality of war.
"In an April interview with The Ithaca Journal at his family's Cayuga Heights home, Guckenheimer, 22, shared his experiences during Operation Anaconda. He was sent on March 6 in a company of more than 100 soldiers to participate in the largest U.S.-led ground engagement in Eastern Afghanistan.
" 'We were told there were no friendly forces,' said Guckenheimer, an assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. 'If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them.' "
--Ithaca (NY) Journal, Saturday, May 25, 2002
That's an interesting "story" Dennis. Since you didn't post a link I looked at the Ithaca Journal and couldn't find it and it wasn't there. Do you have the link ?
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20020525/topstories/380284.html
The requested link...
Thanks for the link Dennis, Their archives or lack thereof made it hard to find anything other than current on their site. Looks like a smaller local type paper so they probably don't have a huge budget.
Reading his story lends me plenty of suspsicion. First of all an order like that if it was ever issued and I can tell you that I have never seen an order like that issued in the many years I was in the Marine Corps. And or in combat. Secondly even if it was which I highly doubt, other soilders under military law would be obliged to actually disobey that order unless they were presenting a direct and or armed threat by a civilian. We had to go through about 4 different channels if we even thought there were civilians in the area, many times risking and costing lives of soilders to do so. An order like that would probably never been issued with any knowledge of military law and would be a quick ticket to Levenworth. Now it's possible that they were told anyone in the area was unfriendly or were briefed on who was friendly etc. The background of the story and failure of the reporter to press it or get other sources says something.
Is it possible ? Sure it's possible, there are bad people no matter where you go or who they are. But I can tell you first hand that no one would ever put out a direct order like that with their name attached to it. And there name would be attached to any order on the duty log. Nor like I said have I ever witnessed anything like that at all. Basically in my opinion I think he's full of crap. Judging from his background and parents background and the nature of that paper one would think a comment like that would elicit some more investigation and it's simply left at an inane comment made almost flippantly to just hang there. I didn't see where he said that they actually did fire on any civilians. Like I said, anything is possible and I would never say never but if it were true believe me there would be more comment by others as well. I will reserve judgement until I see more facts instead of commentary. Lest we be fooled and by another Jenin Massacre story lock stock and barrel.
First, there's nothing wrong with the Ithaca Journal.
It's a typical American smaller-city newspaper.
Second, the part about the "order" to kill women and children was
almost incidental to the story's main gist, which was to simply tell about a local boy's experience in Afghanistan.
It was more like an accidental letting the cat out of the bag, which
some antiwar activists were keen-eyed enough to pick up on and release to a broader audience.
Third, there's absolutely no legitimate reason for suggesting the
soldier is lying.
Fourth, while there's basis for quibbling about whether what happened at Jenin was a "massacre", an "atrocity", a "war crime" or some other semantic variant...there's no question that Israeli overkill of a horrendous nature DID take place. Let's not try to whitewash a dreadful outrage when there's still such a bloody record before our eyes. Wait a few months, history re-writers!
Fifth, the military doesn't offer "suggestions" or related equivocations in combat. When you're "told" to do something, it's
a definite order.
Sixth, given the U.S. intelligence failure which missed huge indications that 9/11 was going to occur, how can anyone possibly, credibly believe our "information" could accurately tell us with certainty that women and children in this or that part of Afghanistan
would definitely be the "enemy"? Which is not to say it would be right to kill them even if they were. We don't speak the language(s), are oblivious to the culture, and we're just as generally in the dark now as was the case in Vietnam.
Seventh, this certainly wouldn't be the first time we've knowingly, purposely murdered women and children, either directly or through our policy proxies. From the Western prairies and the true nature of our Cavalry "glory" vis-a-vis the "Indians", to the Philippine Rebellion, to our intervention in the Russian Civil War...through the decades, on up to several countries in Central America, plus Korea and Vietnam...we've been consistenly brutal and ruthless. (Just recently, on May 18 to be exact, a South Korean tribunal found the U.S. guilty of complicity in the Kwangju Massacre, back in 1980, an officially down-played bloodbath in which 2,000 people died.)
Eighth...
Well, I can't think of an eighth right now.
But give me a little less unseasonal, torrid heat, and a bit of sleep with the fan going, and I'm liable to come back with a few more points.
Today's New York Times had the story of Zayden Zayden, 18, one of the potential Palestinian suicide bombers whose mechanism failed and ended up blowing out a chunk of his abdomen.
He's a fifth grade dropout who can't read or write. He spent a lot of time shooting pool and hangning around before he started going to mosque.
He claims he joined the suicide cult without any outside influence. But it doesn't sound like any people who should normally help out a kid who's seriously confused made much of an effort to discourage him. Instead, the bloodthirsty dogs decided to show him how to blow himself up and take as many innocent people as possible with him. It was a simple matter of flipping the switch to the "On" position. If it didn't work there was a backup. The bomb smelled like fertilizer so he doused himself with cologne.
They didn't even advise him on a target. They probably thought he could figure that out for himself.
I've been told as Americans, we're in no position to judge this.
Zayden will survive and go to jail. The parade of martyrs will continue. For Hamas and others, they're like buses. Miss one, and all they'll have to do is wait awhile for another to arrive.
LOSING THE WAR ON TERRORISM
Osama Bin Laden has won the war in Afghanistan – the first big battle of the War on Terrorism.
Americans are claiming victory because American bombers have devastated Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans have been killed, and the already-impoverished country is now almost completely in ruins.
But most likely this is exactly what bin Laden wanted. What has the devastation achieved? Osama bin Laden and Omar the Tentmaker are still on the loose...
Do you think Osama bin Laden cares how many innocent Afghans are killed?
Why would he? Every dead Afghan is another argument for his crusade.
Hundreds of millions of people in the Third World already hate the U.S. – for bombing Iraq, for interfering in the Middle East, for keeping troops in a hundred countries, for propping up dictators who support American policies. And every bomb that fell on Afghanistan converted more people into America-haters. The U.S. military has been confirming bin Laden's argument that Americans are bullies...
WHY WE ARE THREATENED
The root fallacy in the War on Terrorism is the idea that we have no choice but to fight people who won't rest until they destroy us.
But there have always been thugs in the world who wanted to destroy others. There have always been people who hated America – for good or bad reasons. There have always been evil people, malicious people, brutal people.
Why is it that only now do they represent such a grave threat to us?
The truth is that the evil, malicious, brutal thugs rarely have the ability to make any real trouble outside their own neighborhoods. The few exceptions – people like Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden – succeed only because they can get the financing, contacts, networking and other resources necessary to spread trouble.
And they can get that support only if large numbers of people have been mistreated. That was the case with the Germans after World War I – who had valuable pieces of Germany torn off and handed to France, Poland, or Czechoslovakia – who had all their foreign investments confiscated – who were told to pay astronomical reparations, even though all their valuable assets had been taken from them – who were made to bear the entire guilt for a war they were only one part of.
(conclusion)
Hitler could command a very advanced, literate country because of the terrible treatment the Germans suffered after World War I. He promised to avenge the wrongs done to them, and they responded enthusiastically. If he hadn't had that fertile ground to work with, we'd never have heard of him...
Today, Osama bin Laden couldn't get the worldwide support necessary to carry out his evil plans if there weren't hundreds of millions of people who resent American troops stationed in their countries, who are appalled by the American blockade that's starving Iraqis, who don't like American Presidents imposing their decisions on their countries.
By bombing Afghanistan, by killing people who had nothing to do with the September attacks, George Bush has handed Osama Bin Laden exactly the victory he craved – the evidence that Americans don't believe innocent people have a right to live if they get in the way of American global ambitions.
THE TERRORIST STRATEGY
If Bin Laden could mastermind the September attacks, he must be smart enough to know that bombing the World Trade Center (or any future terrorist act) isn't going to defeat America. So why did he do it?
He could see an insecure American President, just barely elected and worried about his reelection, who might jump at the opportunity to demonstrate leadership, play the macho President, start bombing, and feed the worldwide resentment of American foreign policy.
And so bin Laden has maneuvered George Bush into destroying a poor, Islamic country – causing a further decline in support for America among the world's peoples (distinct from their leaders who feed at the American trough).
Round 1 goes to bin Laden by something close to a knockout.
DEFEATING TERRORISM
We will never defeat terrorism by killing innocent people. That's exactly what the terrorists want us to do...
Let there be no misunderstanding. I'm not blaming America. I'm blaming American foreign policy. And I'm not talking about pacifism. I'm talking about protecting you and me and all of America by not provoking war.
Nor am I talking about poverty as a cause of terrorism. I'm talking about American foreign policy as a cause of terrorism. The answer lies not in foreign aid for the world's impoverished. Quite the contrary.
The answer lies in minding our own business.
The answer lies in ending 50 years of foreign policy failures. Or are we going to let bin Laden win the rest of the war as well?
--Harry Browne, the Director of Public Policy at the (Libertarian) American Liberty Foundation.
Meanwhile, in the real world.....
Joyful Afghan refugees fly home from Indonesia
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Weeping tears of joy, dozens of Afghan refugees stranded in Indonesia for years after fleeing the fundamentalist Taliban, began the long journey home on Friday.
Under a voluntary repatriation programme organised by the International Organisation of Migration, 36 Afghans hugged and kissed as they boarded a charter flight to Dubai en route to Kabul.
"We are very excited to go back to our country, our now peaceful country," Doctor Abdul Rasyid told Reuters, as he waited in the rain with his wife and four children...
...Rasyid's seven-year-old daughter Zainab was also overjoyed at the prospect of returning.
"I'm very happy I can go to school in Kabul," she said. Girls and women were prohibited from receiving any form of education under the Taliban.
Fleeing Afghans: Taliban in Trouble
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 2, 2001
Quetta, Pakistan - Some Afghans who fled their country in recent days say Taliban authorities are dragging young men off to the army and desperately trying to prop up collapsing economies in crippled cities.
Some told of sons and husbands shot without explanation by Taliban militiamen in a growing mood of fear and confusion. Many said only poverty, illness and age prevent a greater exodus.
"We'd be happy if America bombed Afghanistan - we just want to get rid of the Taliban," said Nazir Hussain, 50. "There's no choice left except to flee."Hussain and his family walked 15 days from Kabul to Quetta, crossing the border in the wild mountains east of Kandahar. Most refugees said they bribed Pakistani border guards to enter at closed checkpoints.
Afghans welcome spring with a day of joyful indulgence
By John Daniszewski, Jeffrey Gettleman
March 23 2002
It was the kind of festival the Taliban would never allow; all-night parties, spontaneous drumming, singing and dancing in restaurants, picnics, high-jinks, gambling and merrymaking that had little to do with religion.
Afghans celebrated Nowruz, the first day of spring and the traditional start of the Persian new year on Thursday by discarding the puritanical and indulging in their new life of freedom.
Millions of Afghans took part in the revelry. In the capital, Kabul, and other large cities, they massed in parks and stadiums to see shows and concerts, climbed hillsides to visit shrines, visited family and friends and planted trees.
They sampled holiday fare such as haft miwa, a cocktail made from seven dried fruits, and samanu, a sweet wheat-sprout pudding.
A Kabul vendor called Rahimuddin said about the holiday: "This is the best of my life so far."He struggled to keep up with the customers stretching out their hands for his cherry juice and plates of honeyed nuts and seeds.
Near Kabul's stadium, which until last year was the scene of public stonings and executions by the Taliban authorities, children flew kites or rode on donkey carts and some women drew aside their burkas to expose their faces to the sun.
"We are very happy on this New Year's Day," said Fazlei Khuda, a 27-year-old university student.
"Our people have been freed from the dark period of the Taliban. It was a black reign that did not want Afghans to be happy and free."
Nowruz was the most festive time of the year until the Taliban came to power in most of Afghanistan between 1994 and 1996. Disliking the festival's un-Islamic origins and its emphasis on joyful indulgence rather than piety and prayer, the radical regime lost no time removing it from the roster of official holidays.
But people celebrated it discreetly anyway, within the family circle, said Izumarai, 49, an accounting manager.
"The things we could do at home, we did," he said. "Now that we are free, we are very lucky."
This year, Nowruz was an official day off work, part of a festive three-day weekend. The new school year begins today - the first day that girls will be allowed back into classrooms. And on Tuesday, the country's former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, is to make a triumphal return, the first since his exile in 1973.
A HAPPY TIME
The day before International Women's Day, which was on March 8, the atmosphere in and around Kabul was so charged with relief, joy, appreciation, power and happiness that Nader turned to me in the taxi and said, "This is a happy time!", the first time an Afghan has felt that in more than twenty years.
I wish you could have been here for the celebration on the 8th. The women's affairs minister, Dr Sima Samar, decided to hold it in the burned-out Zainab Cinema with no roof - open to the skies! How to cover it in case of rain? And the skies were cloudy and weepy! The Pakistan Ambassador generously collected three huge sections of white and red nylon tenting, but how to get it to Kabul from Peshawar? Parsa to the rescue! Our smart and perky Pashtu-speaking driver brought it up by pick-up and bus in time for Saleem, a long-time Parsa employee, to figure out a way to support it with nylon ropes strung across the gaping space.
The speeches: "Afghan people have a strength and energy unknown to the outside world" and a ringing "Free girls can now go to school!" from the deputy minister of education broke up the crowd, as did a powerful patriotic poem read by an Afghan girl parachutist in the uniform of the ISAF (International Security Afghanistan Force). She gave Hamid Karzai a smart salute before striding off the stage. Then five little girls dressed in long white dresses each let go of a white pigeon. They were supposed to fly out through an opening in the canopy but instead, maybe liking the energy of the meeting, stayed in the hall perched here and there, decoratively.
Now with Nau Roz (March 21, the Afghan New Year) approaching people are making grand preparations for the traditional picnic celebrations on hill tops and parks of Kabul - the first after five, heavy-going years. The government would like to have proclaimed a whole week to celebrate the events, but the exuberance is tempered by the closeness of Moharram, the ten day mourning period for the Shia hero/martyrs, ending on Sunday.
I find it impossible to describe the relief of living here without the heavy hand of the taliban, and their cold breath breathing down everyone's necks...
THEM BOYS AIN'T RIGHT IN THE HEAD
Take Old Glory down from the sticks stuck on either side of your Chevy truck's roof, LeRoy.
Put a Montreal Expos pennant on a wheelbarrow instead (with apologies to our Northern Neighbors, especially the survivors of those Canucks we wasted in Afghanistan).
We've lost the war on terrorism. Same goes for Israel.
It happened because gimcrack Republicans and geegaw Zionists couldn't grasp that terrorism wasn't really the tactic being employed against them. Suicide bombs weren't the chosen weapon; a shrewd psychological manipulation of understood American and Israeli responses was, along with the full utilization of basic axioms, such as "Pride goeth before the fall" and "The meek shall inherit the earth". We blindly walked right onto the palm fronds covering the elephant pit.
The George and Ariel "With Leaders Like Us, Who Needs Enemies?" Carnival of Mass Repression and Crazed, Indiscriminate Murder has succeeded...in totally antagonizing
everyone on the entire planet, except for half a dozen, doddering ex-Nazis, four Klansmen too fat to nightride anymore, one Jewish Defense League hit man, and Jack, who hasn't thought or seen straight since drinking a jug of turpentine in '73.
Plus Pat Robertson.
Capitalism, Christianity and Judaism have scads more livid-with-rage, ready-to-die, utterly relentless, global adversaries than existed before Sept. 11, or before Sharon's tanks bulldozed whole families of Palestinians in their West Bank homes.
Palestinians who were afraid to come out because missile-spitting "Apaches" would have killed them in the open.
Here's the essence of why we're so intensely, universally hated:
Forget, just for awhile, sport-team names that racistly offend Native Americans.
Consider that the White Power which committed terroristic genocide against this continent's original, dark-skinned people has the obscene audacity to name a slaughter machine used to blow away dark-skinned people in Palestine, and elsewhere, after an "Indian" tribe.
Sick, sad, sorry SOB's rule this country, and they want to run the rest of the world, too.
Not to mention running their lumbering, tire-popping SUV's...on other folks' stolen
oil.
But they can't get away with it, because Geronimo's ghost is galloping toward the fort,
along with an army comprised of everyone from anywhere who's ever been screwed
by the grifters, grafters and shiftless shafters chasing like fiends after the Yankee Dollar.
It's payback time.
Where will the ultimate toll be finally exacted?
How about Iraq?
Blend Custer's Last Stand with Dien Bien Phu and the Bay of Pigs, and you'll get some idea
of what a fiasco is in the offing as Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld (not to mention that English goof, Tony Blair) set about seeking a "regime change" in Baghdad...with the whole world watching, as our tens of thousands of ground troops and sky-commanding bombers bloodily sacrifice the Iraqi civilian populace in trying to oust Saddam.
Aw, how our standing and prestige will be enhanced!
What multitudes of pals we'll make!
Sure...
Those four just aren't right in the head -- without turpentine.
It's bourgeois greed and fevered power lust that've made them wickedly nuts.
So we have lost the war. Amazing that those who live in Afghanistan and around the world who cherish freedom would disagree with you.
Now we get the same retoric about how we will get our arses kicked that we got when we first invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Remember the gloom and doom we heard about how Afghanistan kicked out the Russians and would do the same to us? Remember how the Iraqi army was supposed to be one of the most powerful on earth? Those predictions proved to be false and now we get bold lies about how we actually lost in Afghanistan and how those involved now hate us.
Forget about all those that claim that life is now amazingly better. You can tell they were drinking jugs of turpentine by the way they were dancing in the streets when we kicked out the Taliban.
Blend a dig at the christian religion with comparisons of the Republicans to the socialist NAZI party. To that mix add the hillbillies that live in places like Arkansas and Tennessee and just for good measure, throw in the ever evil SUV that must have been around to save us from the first ice age by causing all that global warming and somehow you have the recipe for how we have lost the war in the eyes of the left.
In a nearby community -- which is typical -- schools are being closed, electives eliminated, and classes contracted for want of roughly $500,000 that doesn't exist.
But the Pentagon got over a million bucks from its taxpayers
in the last reporting period.
Quite apart from the horrendous military defeats that will inevitably come, the guns-before-butter-on-steroids orientation that Dubya's open-ended, multi-front war against everybody who dislikes us around the world (Gee, I wonder why?!) will SCUTTLE not just the general economy...but the capacity of countless, ordinary Americans to get
from life what they'll be needing with increasing urgency for their precious families, as existing contradictions are further exacerbated.
Everything in the realm of civil culture, from jobs that pay enough to survive on, to affordable healthcare (or ANY at all), to a national infrastructure that isn't crumbling faster than an external enemy could possibly destroy it with terrorism.
All the while, overseas, we'll be sinking deeper into a quagmire of overextended imperialist impossibility, as warranted rage builds against us in every corner of the world.
The hatreds of today will seem minor in comparison.
All of which will lead to social unrest at home, precipitated decisively by the young, who'll be properly unwilling to either die for wrong causes abroad or suffer from their dire, domestic consequences at home.
And the people facilitating all this, of course, are the myth-and-propaganda-believing conservatives lost back in 1932 who haven't a CLUE about the international dynamic that's arrayed against us, due fundamentally to the obtuse stupidity of their own, failed, massively
antagonizing, global policies.
Which they haven't got the sense to end or reform.
Osama relies on their foolishness to get THEM to destroy us.
Dan Zachary,
Good posts as usual. Glad you're back. One thing, please stop using facts, reasoning and logic. It confuses one of our posters.
GET YOUR HANDBAG, CAUSE WE'RE GOING
George Bush has now come clean with the world and has said in a speech last week that "deterence and containment" are now irrelevant. America's new war doctrine is to strike first. George now says, "We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge".
We had all sorts of threats about attack before September 11 and George decided not to tell the American people about them, might hurt the airline industry, so he kept them to himself. Now George is going to attack our enemies before their threats and plans even emerge. Makes one really confident, when the President of the United States can tell who to attack before their threats and plans have been made public, maybe even before they know about them...
With leaders like George Bush, America will go to Hell in a handbag. "Strike First" is an aggressor tactic that those striving for power use. Throughout our history, we have always been told that we stand for truth and justice. Now after 226 years, we are starting a new way of doing things. We will be the ones to start wars and that will be our downfall.
We as a nation are better than this. Our founding fathers talked about staying out of foreign entanglements. They never dreamed that America would be attacking countries and neither did I. George Bush and his administration should scare all Americans. Nothing in our history has pointed us toward world domination.
--James Glaser, USMC Vietnam vet, Reader Weekly, June 6, 2002
good to hear it, way to go George ! It's about time. The best defense is a good offense.
I would bet that Bush's words were spoken virtually verbatim in the late Thirties, in German, by someone in the Nazi hierarchy, as plans for "blitzkreig" were being laid.
And that the people and nations set as targets back then were demonized exactly as our "enemies" have been, in the current context.
When we start attacking others without any prior provocation or actual
first assault by their side (as opposed to Gulf-of-Tonkin fabrications
feigning such), we'll become an international criminal.
A global "sucker puncher," as James Glaser said in the part of his commentary that I didn't post.
What's more, we'd be doing it at home as well, with secret police
spying, harassment and intimidation being gratuitously directed at
folks who were merely dissidents, not criminals.
"Hitting" like a classic bully.
And consequently, deservingly garnering everyone's outraged enmity.
That's just the scenario al-Qaeda counts on us being stupid enough
to follow.
Hey , you managed to throw a Nazi reference in today, how refreshing.
I had not seen someone called Hitler or a Nazi since before I went on vacation. That's going on a month.
Dennis did call people who disagreed with him "Good Germans" awhile ago. I don't know if you can count that.
I think the implication is there. Hell, I'm Irish :)
Too often, the media in the United States gives us only a limited picture of the conflict that has engulfed this region for centuries. As a result, the political divisions and the points of view that have placed Americans in one camp or another, limit their own visions. It's hard to really see events unfolding on a human scale.
Thankfully, that didn't occur in "The Seige of Bethelem, " a Frontline program I saw last night about the 39 days at the Church of the Nativity. It was one of the most illuminating reports I have seen on this terrible, historic struggle. If one approaches the story with an open mind they can see the ways both sides, the Israeli Defense Forces and the Palistinians in the Church tried to end a difficult tense situation and to keep it from spinning horribly out of control.
The restraint and painstaking negotiations from both sides probably saved many lives.
If you missed it, I don't see a rebroadcast on the schedule. It's too bad. It was a great story.
JERUSALEM (AP) - A Palestinian detonated nail-studded explosives on a Jerusalem bus crowded with high school students and office workers Tuesday, killing himself and 19 passengers in the city's deadliest suicide attack in six years. Fifty-five people were wounded.
The extremist Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack - the 69th Palestinian suicide bombing in 21 months. The bomber, a 22-year-old university student, wrote in a farewell note he had tried twice before to carry out an attack.
The blast tore through the bus just before 8 a.m., sending bodies flying through windows and peeling off the roof and sides. Rescue workers later lined up the dead on a sidewalk and covered them with black plastic bags. "Where is my sister? Where is my sister?" a woman screamed at volunteers collecting remains.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/3489727.htm
Well isn't that just great. These people don't deserve a state.
Ahhhh. That wonderful, peaceful religion of Islam and the peace loving people of Palestine. I just MUST visit that area one day.
Moussaoui Says Judge Is Mentally Ill
By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press Writer
June 18, 2002, 6:54 PM EDT
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks, says his judge is mentally ill, his former lawyers are bloodsuckers and Jews are his enemies...
..."The curse of Allah is and will be on you," he wrote the judge on several occasions.
Describing himself as a "slave of Allah," Moussaoui said, "I am indeed a Muslim fundamentalist openly hostile to the Jew and the United States of America."
Moussaoui, a French citizen who often misspelled words and used poor grammar, called his now-dismissed legal team "a bunch of blood sucker, really discusting." He said the court-appointed team included a "wicked" public defender, a "nasty Jewish zealot" and a "right wing fascist."
In seeking to move his trial to Denver, Moussaoui argued the Colorado city is a "more neutral" location, that would "ensure a greater feeling of personal safety for the jury and ... reduce slightly the level of hostility."
He would have "a jury pool without over representation of loyal government employees," Moussaoui said, adding that "12 Talebans from Cuba" would be a fairer jury...
I wonder if the mention of Cuba was an accidental slip or a calculated move to divert our attention to Cuba? If there has been news of Taliban members in Cuba, I have missed it.
In all fairness, terrorism (bombings, sans suicide) was a favorite tool of the Jews against the English.
Really THX?
Yes
How many suicide-bombings did the Jewish state perpetrate on the streets of London when they were defending themselves against the English?
None, I said they didn't do suicide bombings.
They did however use terrorism, and bomb the English that were occupying Palestine/Israel at the time.
Anger wells up in the civilized world as Palestinians chip away at their soul:
This from the Toronto Star.
"These are not, I have come to believe in recent months, people who deserve a state.
Their independent Palestine would be a rogue nation, a failed state from infancy, a grotesquery from inception. I did not used to think this. The homicide bombers, and the families who celebrate them as martyrs beloved by God, have convinced me of it."
Good article Rick, I think many people feel that way for any nation that would use those tactics would probably be doomed for failure from the start regardless of all obstacles being removed. If you would use those tactics then you're doomed to fail and should.
I used to think alot more than I do now that the Palestinains deserve a state. I think they do less and less for their cause with each bus they bomb and every mother of 3 at the market they murder. As recently as a few weeks ago I held hope that it could be worked out and the Palestinains seeing support in the U.S and elsewhere would siexe the moment and lay off of more bus bobomings. They couldn't and didn't. I still thought "you know although their tactics are sickening I can see their side too and they ought to have a state." Well ,no more. it would be rewarding terrorism if we did. In essence, screw em, they made their own bed, Yea yea I know they're opressed by the Isralies yada yada yada. Quit blowing up kids going to school and you might stand a chance. It's been said that they elected Arafat, well then I guess they made their choices and chose terroism as a tool, too bad. Forget it, they don't desreve a state.
http://www.ripsawnews.com/2002-06-19/op.html
Why some people win the Nobel Prize for Peace.
And others...just don't get it.
If every Jew in the past hundred years had blown him or herself up along with everyone in the vicinity to protest imprisonment in ghettos and the Russian Pale of Settlement, there would be little left of Christian Europe.
The Bishop's comments are noted. I don't think that he can really make a broad comparison between apartheid South Africa and Israel. Israel is democratically elected, free market country WITH an arab population that takes part in society and has a stake in its future.
The way has existed for the Palistinians to shape their future. Their leadership is intransigent, and it's militant Islamist elements have poisoned the prosess with their hideous violence.
Can you see any back from this, Dennis? What type of state can be born from such as we've seen from the Palistinians?
What can they possibly achieve?
I've never heard you say things like "you don't get it, do you?" I used to laugh at right-wingers who said that.
I think most people "get it." Agreeing with it, might be another thing.
Excerpts from the Toronto Star Article
"How beautiful it is to make my bomb shrapnel kill the enemy. How beautiful it is to kill and to be killed — not to love death, but to struggle for life, to kill and be killed for the lives of the coming generation."
Mohammed al-Ghoul,
"The force of the blast is determined by the quantity of the explosive. An average bomb — the kind strapped around a suicide terrorist's waist, covered by a shirt — would likely detonate at a rate of about 28,000 feet per second — or about 22 times faster than a 9 mm bullet leaving the muzzle of a handgun. That means that the surrounding air pressure — normally 15 pounds per square inch — would spike to 2,200 pounds per square inch. Such heat and pressure will melt iron.
A person sitting nearby would feel, momentarily, a shock wave slamming into his or her body, with an "overpressure" of 300,000 pounds. Such a blast would crush the chest, rupture liver, spleen, heart and lungs, melt eyes, pull organs away from surrounding tissue, separate hands from arms and feet from legs."
The Palestinian people -- forget the leadership -- are "intransigent" in not accepting any sort of client-state gimmick in place of a truly independent, unitary homeland.
As for the suicide-bombing tactic employed by flagrant extremists...
It's horrific.
Morally unconscionable.
But it could actually wind up working.
Since there's really no way to completely prevent it, a certain percentage of bombers will continue to succeed in their lethal mission, causing not just an escalating loss of life, but tremendous economic and psychological tolls as well.
Israeli public opinion is sharply divided about the wisdom of the Occupation as it is, meaning there's a much larger body of Jewish
sentiment than we're led to believe that thinks the basic Palestinian
grievance, with its call for a true homeland, is correct.
Israel has a relatively small population and its economy has been
thrown into a shambles as a result of what's been going on.
With enough people dying to cause legitimate worry over Jewish population viability in the region in the longterm, and with
Tel Aviv's business engine stalled...someone in Israeli
authority is ultimately going to rise up and say: "The situation is untenable. We simply can't continue the Occupation. We have to weigh the realities."
A rough equivalent of Eisenhower in response to the stalemated
Korean War.
And, by that time, I'm willing to bet a majority of Israelis will concur.
At that point, the Palestinians will be dancing in the streets.
Well, I'm not one to predict the future. But I know there's an old phrase that goes: Anything borne of a black deed will flower in a foul manner. I heard a Jewish man say it.
I hold no ill will toward the Palistinians. We all want happiness, and the constitution says it's our right to pursue it.
But are they pursuing happiness or vengance? And if the answer is the latter, what should they be rewareded with?
When terrorism become a tactic of some who are part of a much larger
group -- a people -- who have an eminently just cause, we need to take great care to avoid equating the wrong conduct of the extremists
with that broader cause itself.
To keep from winding up on the wrong side.
We're making that basic mistake in connection with the Palestinians.
We've also done it relative to the 9/11 attack and Osama bin Laden.
Sure, al-Qaida is a dreadful bunch.
But, as I've been saying repeatedly: on a popular level, two or three notches down, there's a well-warranted mass anger in Arabic countries
(and the Third World in general) that arises from our own policy
wrongdoing over an extended period of time, which will only grow
unless we see beyond the hypnotic symbolism of the downed WTC towers
and begin seriously addressing what it is that we do on this planet, in such selfishly narrow pursuit of our own interests, that we've become so intensely and widely despised.
Now the terrorists of Israel, the 21st century Nazis led by "Fuhrer" Sharon, are putting up a $200 billion fence. I can't figure out if it's to keep Palestinian terrorists out or keep Israeli terrorists in.
Either way I know that Dimbulb Bush has "donated" our tax dollars so they can build their new Berlin Wall.
Thanks Bush, you fucking idiot.
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=410&mode=thread&order=0
"The Anne Franks of Palestine"
CHILDREN OF HATE (Click HEREfor the Hebrew version)
This is how the graduation ceremony goes at the kindergartens of the "Islamic Charitable Association" in Gaza
By Jackie Hugi
Kindergartens in Gaza teach children Jihad against Israel, justification of the Ramallah lynching [in Oct 2000], admiration of the Hizbullah, and the continuation of the Intifada. The children receive these lessons in Israel-hatred at the independently-run education network of the "Islamic Charitable Association", which is responsible for the education of some 5000 children.
At the graduation ceremony of one of the most recent kindergarten classes, the children burned the Israeli flag and cried: "In the name of the Shahid (martyr) Mohammed al-dura and the Shahida, the infant Iman al-Haju, we promise to continue with the Jihad, the resistance and the Intifada". One of the girls raised her hands high, hands dipped in red paint, in the manner of one of the perpetrators of the Ramallah lynching, whose hands were covered in blood. One boy, dressed as the secretary-general of the Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah, made a speech in which he said: "The Palestinians will not be alone in their battle against Zionism. Hizbullah is with them, always" - which earned him much applause. Children carried toy rifles, and some had Keffiyehs over their faces.
An internal document of the (Israeli) Government Operations Coordinator in the territories, which came out recently, analyzed the expressions of hostility in the Association's kindergartens. The document determines that the Islamic Association's network of kindergartens serves as a firm base to incite young children against Israel. The document warns that these kindergartens constitute for the Hamas the ideological basis for future suicide bombers.
The Association's website documents the ceremony of the 11th class to graduate these kindergartens. Participating at the ceremony, which took place at the Shati refugee camp on the Gaza coast, were 1650 children and thousands of adults.
The children were dressed in army fatigues. Around the podium where the ceremony took place hung flags of Hizballah and the Islamic Association, pictures of martyred children, and slogan. One of the latter cried: "The blood of the children and the martyred of Palestine will be a curse to haunt to Zionist criminals".
The ceremony started with the reading out loud of passages from the Koran by one of the children. Afterwards, a platoon of five-year-olds staged a military parade, armed with plastic rifles. Two of the children carried a model of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. One of the marchers stopped and cried, "Do Sharon's tanks, missiles and mortars frighten you?". His friends answered in unison: "No, no". He continued: "The Zionist bombings do not frighten us. Our people will not bend". Later, the children burned the Israeli flag, and one child impersonated Hamas' leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The Islamic Association of Gaza is the largest charitable organization in the Gaza Strip of the religious stream. It was founded 26 years ago, and at its head is Sheikh Ahmed Bahar, a member of Hamas. It operates tens of kindergartens in Gaza, helps needy families and orphans, and supports poor students and martyrs' children. Additionally, the Association facilitates blood donations, operates a medical clinic for a nominal fee, and also a sports club, best known for its successful volleyball team.
The Association subsists upon donations and the nominal dues of its members.
Last year, their institutions were visited by representatives of a Swedish NGO and of an South African Islamic delegation. Non-profit organizations in Italy and the US donated computers and VCRs.
Sheikh Bahar said at the ceremony that he places the responisbilty on the shoulders of the Palestinian mothers to "Raise the children on the teachings of Islam, love of Jerusalem and Palestine, and love of Jihad and resistance"
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1023894901416B265&set_id=1
DOCUMENTARY FILM ON U.S. WAR CRIMES SHOCKS EUROPE...
Dennis Rahkonen 6/23/02 4:39pm
Lots of "claims" & allegations but..........
Wonder why they didn't have any video?
From Dennis' link:
The far-left Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) arranged for the special showing of Massacre At Mazar in the Reichstag.
Also from this website:
Pentagon denies 'war crimes' accusation
Washington - The Pentagon denied charges made in a documentary shown on Thursday to the European Parliament that Taliban prisoners in northern Afghanistan were massacred with the complicity of the United States.
In an initial reaction to the documentary, a spokesperson for the US Central Command in Florida, which leads US forces in Afghanistan, said that similar unfounded accusations emerged months ago.
"I think it surfaced in March and we looked at them, they were unfounded," Major Brad Lowell said.