marksimons

Which Side Are You On? by Joyce Marcel Say it's 1770 in the Colonies. Tempers are starting to boil over land ownership, taxes and debt-collecting. Yet many are thriving under the rule of the English king, George III. It's treason and heresy to publicly damn him. Are you a Whig or a Tory? Which side are you on? That's what I was thinking when I saw "The Equivalent Lands," last weekend, a play put on by the Vermont Theater Company and sponsored by the Dummerston and Putney Historical Societies. The play tells the story of Lt. Leonard Spaulding, who bought land on the western bank of the Connecticut River from the governor of New Hampshire. He cleared the land, built a home on it, brought his family there, and began working it, only to have it taken away by New York during a land grant dispute. Spaulding eventually led a rebellion against the king that some consider the first volley in the Revolutionary War. History is written by the winners, so from our view, the Revolutionary War looks like a fait accompli, a dead cert from the start. It was fought and won by patriots and heroes and for all the right reasons: independence, self-determination, taxation with representation, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Good stuff, all of it. But the truth is that the Revolution pitted neighbor against neighbor. Many supported the king. It takes a lot to challenge the status quo, especially when the costs are high. Back then, the status quo was George III. I couldn't help wondering if I would have had the courage to damn the king and possibly die for my beliefs? Would I have risked "Our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor," as the Declaration of Independence says? Which side would you have been on? Or say it's 1950, and for a while there you really believed in the ideals of brotherhood and socialism - before the realities of Soviet-style Communism made a mockery of them. Now Sen. Joseph McCarthy is holding hearings in Washington, and you're trembling in fear. Will they call you to testify? Will you lose your job and your standing in the community? If you are called, will you name names? Or will you have the courage of your convictions and be blacklisted for life? Which side would you be on? We've been brainwashed by our entertainment industry into identifying with the victorious -with the heroes, the leading actors and actresses of any play or movie or show on television. No matter what we look like, while they are on the screen we are them. In our national life, this translates into thinking of ourselves as "the greatest country on earth," and "the good guys." The other guys are the villains, or, in the language of our president, "the evil-doers." Now which side are you on? After 9/11, several columnists lost their jobs for pointing out that Pres. George W. Bush hid in a bunker on the day of the attacks. Dixie Chicks's records were burned. Censorship was everywhere. Americans, suddenly aware of their vulnerability, desperately wanted to believe they had a leader who could keep them safe. Playing on that, the right-wing Republicans erected an impermeable wall around Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney: no press conferences; no public appearances that weren't scripted; lies and evasions from the press secretary to a cowed and imprisoned White House press corps. Speaking against Bush was called treason. People were denounced for it. Muslims were randomly put in jail. The wall helped maintain the illusion that the government was on our side, working to protect us. God save the King! Now the wall has been shattered. First came the immensely touching photographs of flag-draped coffins. Then ABC's "Nightline" showed us the names and faces of 721 Americans who have died in Iraq. Then came the Abu Ghraib torture photos and videos. Then came the even more shocking information that "contractors" (read mercenaries), not American soldiers, are running that show. Now we have the revenge beheading of an American businessman. Next, I understand, we'll be seeing videos of American soldiers sodomizing Iraqi prisoners and having sex in front of them. Meanwhile, the conservatives - Who are these people? How deeply can one person dig his or her head in the sand and still be able to breathe? - are doing their best to regain control. Secretary of Defense (we attacked Iraq without provocation - shouldn't the name of his department be changed to the Dept. of Offense?) Donald Rumsfeld has taken "full responsibility" and apologized, as if that means anything more than a Britney Spears song: Oops! We did it again! Sinclair Broadcast Group and Piedmont Television, companies which own ABC stations, censored the "Nightline" show as "a blatant political act to undermine support for Pres. Bush and the war." Rush Limbaugh said our soldiers in Abu Ghraib were just "letting off steam" and their interrogation techniques were no more serious than a college hazing. (That kind of hazing is outlawed now, Rush.) Meanwhile, the Administration - the one supposed to keep us safe before and in the wake of 9/11 - is mining new Middle Eastern terrorists as if they were golden nuggets, while at the same time bankrupting our country with the cost of the war. (The woman who took the coffin photos was fired from a $100,000 contract job. Is anyone in the United States making $100,000 a year loading cargo planes?) Which side are you on, America? Why aren't you in the streets, demanding that Bush resign? Why aren't you demanding that he be tried as a war criminal? Why aren't you demanding the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, where we have no right to be? How much more truth do you need slammed down your throats? Now think back to those Revolutionary War days. Those of you who were right-wing conservatives then - the Tories - backed the king and lost. And you're still backing the wrong horse. I know it's hard to admit you are wrong. No one wants to believe their king, or their president, is a liar and a jackass. No one wants to believe that everything they are told, everything they believe in, is a lie. George Orwell said, "Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." After a year in Iraq, Americans know the truth. When do they become revolutionary? When do they say, "Enough. No more. We don't want to be the biggest bully the world has ever seen." Which side are you on? In December of 1941, just before America entered World War II, the great essayist E. B. White wrote in "Intimations": "To hold America in one's thoughts is like holding a love letter in one's hand - it has so special a meaning... (But) who is there big enough to love the whole planet? We must find such people for the next society." -- vive la revolution!

"WASHINGTON ? An Army Reserve general whose soldiers were photographed as they abused Iraqi prisoners said Saturday that she knew nothing about the abuse until weeks after it occurred and that she was "sickened" by the pictures. She said the prison cellblock where the abuse occurred was under the tight control of Army military intelligence officers who may have encouraged the abuse. "The suggestion by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski that the reservists acted at the behest of military intelligence officers appears largely supported in a still-classified Army report on prison conditions in Iraq that documented many of the worst abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, including the sexual humiliation of prisoners." Anyone who knows anything about interrogation knows that interrogators like to have prisoners 'softened' up. read the rest of that article here: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0502-03.htm

like bush is going to admit that this was policy, does he even know it was policy, did anyone mention, 'by the way, you know you said there were no torture and rape rooms in iraq, erm, that was wrong sir, we've got a few here and there, just to soften up the prisoners for interrogation you realise sir'... I doubt it. worthless repugnant piece of shit? I'm not the one making naked human pyramids out of prisoners, prisoners who for the most part have not been through anything resembling judicial process. if you think this is a new policy for your country, think again, if you think this is the first time your nation has been lied like this, think again, if you going to try and make this the last time that America can be manipulated in such a way, then you better start thinking, and yor better start getting involved. no amount of apologising, of saying this wasn't his fault, that this is not representative of the attitude of America's forces, well, for most people, it is. This was inevitable, perhaps not this in this exact way, but something like this was, it was obvious to me that the people planning this war would not be able to control it, and now, well now we've reached a point of no return. The US should get out of Iraq as soon as possible, before anything else is irreparably fucked.

I think you'll find the most worrying thing about the torture is this: This wasn't sporadic, heat of the moment, a one off. This was, is, policy. The CIA apparently instructed military officers to 'soften up' their prisoners for interrogation, and torture is the best way of softening people up. this wasn't a few people bringing the reputation of the US army and government into disripute, this is symbolic of the way your country is run, what leaders, military and civilian, are willing to tolerate. They are quite literally no better than saddam when it comes to their respect for the lives of ordinary Iraqi's it seems.

it's not 'them' and 'us' human beings. we're all in this together. straw, back, camel. Igloo. where are you? you guys denied there was torture, that things for many iraqi's were no better for saddam, that things could have been worse. now there is photographic proof of shit I've been saying for about a year now. shocked. yes. surprised. no. but the whole world knows about this now.

words fail me. I believe this is one of those, 'I told you so' moments.

cintron is like you igloo, but a little (a lot?) smarter, he can actually argue and make some good points that actually force me to think and consider the statements I made, not just rant, rave and insult me, which does nothing but make me wonder what sort of person you are. I just got back from switzerland, and I think my time in this internet cafe is running out, but I'm looking forward to replying to cintron when I get home...

no, but I don't recall US law being decided by a 2000 year old fundamentalist religious text. the US constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. I believe the death penalty falls under that catagory. the US claims to be christian, but was the holocaust your country inflicted on indo-china an act of people behaving as christ would? would jesus be praising the people sending B52s to bomb a country back to the stone age? or would jesus be protesting, or would jesus be like me, travelling around the world, meeting people, talking, listening, learning, arguing, trying to get in a position to be able to make a difference to the world, to get rid of the corrupt empire from where it is not wanted. anyway. yeah, death penalty is not christian, I mean, jesus would have been around a bit longer without it... perhaps the world would have been a better place for it, if he actually managed to set up the church he wanted...

ghhhhhost does make some good points. but he is biased towards serbia. serbian forces (not all serbians) under the control of milosovic planned and carried out acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, against muslims and croats. this is fact. all sides in that conflict committed war crimes, and everyone has a different angle on it. a fact clear in most conflict zones around the world, hell we still argue about the first and second world wars here!

ain't just something that them africans or arabs like, look, good ol' white americans doing a bit of stringing up the people they hate, and them negroes weren't even an part of an occupying force! Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The Dude: It's like what Lenin said... you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh... Donny: I am the walrus. The Dude: You know what I'm trying to say... Walter Sobchak: That fucking bitch... Donny: I am the walrus. Walter Sobchak: shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Illanich Uleninov!

yes. I have no idea what I'm talking about. whereas you do... igloo... tell me igloo, can you even point to colombia on a map, without the names or lines on it?

Saddam and Pablo are similar figures. they ruled large swathes of their country by fear. the Colombian jungles are probably trickier terrain, or equally as challenging (in different ways) to Iraq. pablo had a well trained army, places to run, people paid off in the country, and bodyguards and state of the art equpiment. he may even have been harder to kill than saddam, his standing amongst the public was similar, his ability to get people to fight for him, probably similar, could probably cause as much damage. have you ever looked into how Pablo Escobar was killed? ... if not, then please don't tell me my analogy is fantasy land when you don't know the facts.

as I've said before, if you're familiar with how the US secret services and colombian special forces managed to track down and kill Pablo Escobar, I think you'll see that something similar could have been done against Saddam. it's not James Bond, it's army business, I'm sure the CIA, NSA, FBI, Navy Seals in co-operation with the British SAS or SBS and local Iraqi's could have taken out Saddam. Read 'Killing Pablo', it details how the US and Colombia got Escobar, it's very interesting, and a good read. -- quick lesson in war; 1) the soliders wear camo 2) civilians dont -- yes, tongue in cheek or not, this shows a level of naievity I hereto excpected, but hadn't yet seen demonstrated so clearly. this was one of the major major problems of vietnam, fighting a guerilla war, like the one in iraq, or in vietnam, the main problem is that the civilians and soldiers are indistinguishable. the US police have had undercover agents in civilian clothes in demonstrations in the US, they have grabbed, dragged and beaten protestors. the US probably uses undercover secret service agents, I'm pretty sure CIA agents wouldn't be in combat fatigues for a start...

well, those bodies are in better shape than some of the babies I've seen born in areas that have been shelled with depleted uranium. war is never bloodless. but did you really need to fire that many missiles into bagdhad? can you offer me anything near proof that 'a sizeable majority of those "civilians" are dead becuase they were SHOOTING at us' other than a comment that got pulled out of thin air. the invasion, occupation and liberation of iraq could have been handled a lot better. you may be disgusted about how these bodies were treated, equally I'm sure that a lot of iraqi's are disgusted by how their country has been treated over the last 30 years.

Confident enemies do not drag bodies through the streets and mutilate corpses. The grim display in Fallujah was a symbol of weakness, not a sign of strength. -- Confident and compassionate liberatiors do not kill 10,000 civilians, accepting dead children, dead women and dead men as acceptable collatoral damage, sacrificed for the good of the nation. The grim fireworks display over Bagdahd was a symbol of weakness, a symbol of fear, a sign of inhumanity, not a sign of strength. re-mix from the MaSter. off to Switzerland for the weekend, see you guys next week!

I reckon saddam could have been taken out in the same way as Pablo Escobar. more from that speech, the scary bit: "Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program -- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials, and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons." bit in bold is lies. oh, where's the humanitarian concern... "We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in the country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic and the facts lead to one conclusion. Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take. "Delegates to the General Assembly: We have been more than patient. We have tried sanctions. We have tried the carrot of "oil for food" and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbid, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming." what's this? bush implying saddam will use nukes? oh, the concern for the iraqi people is clear as bush continues: "The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?" oh here's some concern: "The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people, who have suffered for too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it and the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq." we have no quarrel with you, so it doesn't matter if 10,000 of you die, our intentions were honorable, so what if we don't do body counts, more of you died under saddam than we killed, so we're not as bad. ah here we go, this is good: "We can harbor no illusions. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980, and Kuwait in 1990. He has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians and 40 Iraqi villages." *cough* right, now, america helped him gas Iranians in the war, by supplying sattelite images of iranian troops, america and the west supplied him with the materials for his war against iran, he was your dog, our dog, in that fight. apparently before the invasion of Kuwaitm America said it had no opinion on the matter (diplomatic speak for, we don't give a shit, do it) and then he got busted for it. After fighting a war against Iran that America wanted him to fight. He attacked Iran in 1980 and in 1983 Rumsfeld was there doing business with Saddam. Anyway, this is about the humanitarian stuff, not WMDs, right? "With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors." Here's the concern for the Iraqi's, this would almost be funny were it not so tragic: "The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world." hmmm... yes... quite... I bet the Iraqis look to Palestine now and think, yes, we have joined them... I have to wonder if the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are helping reform the region in a positive way... "Neither of these outcomes is certain. Both have been set before us. We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather. We must stand up for our security, and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. Delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand as well. "Thank you." two sentances on danger, one sentace about rights and hopes of mankind, with security before them. I stand by my assertion that at the time this war was mainly, predominantly about WMDs and the security of America from more 9/11 style stuff. I think this speech proves my assertion accurate.

I would have supported a war to remove saddam if that is what it was billed as, a humanitarian mission to get rid of a brutal dictator (that the US, UK, France, German, Russian and Chinese governments helped sustain and arm) then I would have supported it. The tactics used by the US and UK were wrong, 3000 missiles fired on Bagdhad, a massive invasion, a callous disgregard for innocent life. A targeted special ops assasination would have been far better in my eyes. at the time the reasons were security and WMDs, if it had been about removing saddam for the benefit of the iraqi's if that's how the war had been presented, then there would have been more international support. it wasn't, it was based on lies, about WMDs and terrorist links that were not there. I think the interest in the war on Iraq has made them have to persue different tactics on the oil front, i.e. that's what Libya was all about...

I don't think anyone who would take pleasure in beating a defenceless human being could be described as 'normal'.

what facts? that speech doesn't spell out any more reasons than the one's I've given. saddam was a baaaad man (no shit sherlock) he took money from his people and spent it on palaces (ooooh my god, who has heard of such a thing) and he brutally repressed his own people. no shit. but that still doesn't give any more reasons for the war (they would fall into the getting rid of saddam catagory) WMDs (lies), getting rid of saddam, oil. three reasons, one of which was bullshit, one humanitarian, but was handled in such a way that it killed 10,000 innocents, and caused great animosity to the invaders/occupiers/liberators (delete as applicable to your worldview), and the last reason, well that speaks for itself. so do you have any more reasons for the war? i was assured there were many, but to me, three doesn't seem like many. it seems one more than a couple.

no, I just find it a bit sickening that you would get pleasure from doing that, which I'm pretty sure you would, you'd laugh as I ran into a corner, covering my head, curled up in a ball, bullets bouncing off me, bruises appearing, skin being broken, shouts of pain and writhing around wondering when it's going to stop. then perhaps you'd like to walk over with your batton and give the fucking hippy a good kicking, a good few cracks to the back of the skull why not? and a good few shots to the ribs, perhaps hear one or two of them crunch, then why not kick me, give me a good fucking shoeing to teach me a lesson, a good kick to the jaw, see the blood splatter agaist the wall as the side of my face hits it. then you turn and walk leaving me a bloody, broken, crumpled mess on the floor. is that what you'd like to do? get rid of some of that anger on me, on a fucking dumbass peacenick who doesn't know what it's like to be a real man, fireing rubber bullets at someone who is defenceless whilst you stand there in body armour and a helmet.

yeah, 'cause shooting people who say what they wanna say is funny, and the american way! hur hur hur.

nope, that's not a reason for war... any more. come on, surely there are so many you can add to my list of three, well, two, if we get rid of the lies.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. He encouraged people to demonstrate against the war. He shut down central london for a whole day last year, he made sure the protestors could demonstrate and exercise their rights. he is a very popular mayor. Did you see the footage of the police in riot gear in miami? of the police undercover dragging protestors off? people being shot with rubber bullets? beaten? did you see that? or don't you care if it's 'whackos' being beaten up.