"It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in." : Colin Powell, regarding number of Iraqi troops killed in Gulf War I, New York Times, 23/3/1991 .
Stand Up For Judas
* (Leon Rosselson)
Chorus:
So stand up, stand up for Judas and the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word
The Romans were the masters when Jesus walked the land
In Judea and in Galilee they ruled with an iron hand
And the poor were sick with hunger and the rich were clothed in splendour
And the rebels whipped and crucified hung rotting as a warning
And Jesus knew the answer
Said, Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, said, Love your enemies
But Judas was a Zealot and he wanted to be free
Resist, he said, The Romans' tyranny
Jesus was a conjuror, miracles were his game
And he fed the hungry thousands and they glorified his name
He cured the lame and the lepers, he calmed the wind and the weather
And the wretched flocked to touch him so their troubles would be taken
And Jesus knew the answer
All you who labour, all you who suffer only believe in me
But Judas sought a world where no one starved or begged for bread
The poor are always with us, Jesus said
Now Jesus brought division where none had been before
Not the slaves against their masters but the poor against the poor
Set son to rise up against father, and brother to fight against brother
For he that is not with me is against me, was his teaching
Said Jesus, I am the answer
You unbelievers shall burn forever, shall die in your sins
Not sheep and goats, said Judas, But together we may dare
Shake off the chains of misery we share
Jesus stood upon the mountain with a distance in his eyes
I am the way, the life, he cried, The light that never dies
So renounce all earthly treasures and pray to your heavenly father
And he pacified the hopeless with the hope of life eternal
Said Jesus, I am the answer
And you who hunger only remember your reward's in Heaven
So Jesus preached the other world but Judas wanted this
And he betrayed his master with a kiss
By sword and gun and crucifix Christ's gospel has been spread
And 2.000 cruel years have shown the way that Jesus led
The heretics burned and tortured, and the butchering, bloody crusaders
The bombs and rockets sanctified that rain down death from heaven
They followed Jesus, they knew the answer
All non-believers must be believers or else be broken
So put no trust in Saviours, Judas said, For everyone
Must be to his or her own self - a sun
Friday, May 28, 2004
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Colin Powell, the Devil's Handmaiden...
Colin Powell 5 April 1937 New York, New York
Sun: 1 Hades 3 Zeus 7 Pluto
SUN HAD Carrier of secrets. Pursued by misfortune. Heavy rains. Cold with hailstorms. The body's susceptibility to sickness. Decay of the body. Debility. Infirmity. Diseased, deformed, or mutilated body. Oppressed or hindered in developing one's body and personality. Pursued by misfortune. Physical troubles.
SUN HAD ZEU Fever. Grave injuries of the body through fire or firearms. Born in poor circumstances. Criminal ancestors. Leader of criminals. A still birth. Miscarriage. Childbed sickness. Engagement for something with difficulties. Defeats. Reported to the police, the one who reports. Bodies destroyed by fire. Hindered in work on account of physical defects, sickness, or being crippled. The person who is subject to hate, who is detested. Soot-remainders from a fire. Carbonization, ashes.
Stan Goff from Counterpunch: "In 1963, well before the American public generally understood where Vietnam was, a young Army captain (Colin Luther Powell) led a South Vietnamese unit through the A Shau Valley to systematically burn villages to the ground. This was to deprive the so-called Vietcong of any base of support, and was called "draining the sea," a reference to Mao's dictum that the guerrilla is the fish and the population is the sea."
"...captain (Colin Luther Powell) would later write, "I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male. If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served... was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong."
[Indeed...]
Stan Goff continues: "On March 16, 1968, the US Infantry of C Company, Task Force Barker, 11th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division went into a Vietnamese hamlet designated My Lai 4 and killed 347 unarmed men, women, and children, engaging in rape and torture along the way for four hours before a US helicopter pilot who observed the massacre ordered his door gunners to open fire on the grunts if they didn't desist. The chopper pilot, however, did not report the massacre."
"Six months later, a young enlisted man, Spec 4 Tom Glen, sent a letter to General Creighton Abrams, commander of US forces in Vietnam. Without specifically mentioning My Lai, Glen said that murder had become a routine part of Americal operations. The letter was shunted over to Americal Divison, and then to the office of the same officer who had been leading the South Vietnamese arson campaign five years earlier, since promoted to major. He was now the deputy assistant Chief of Staff of the division--a functionary who was directed to craft a response to this report of widespread atrocities against Vietnamese civilians."
"In direct refutation of this portrayal," wrote the officer dismissively and with no investigation whatsoever, "is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Perhaps he believed that those killed were MAMs, and therefore outside the protection of the Geneva Conventions and international law."
"That officer is now the Secretary of State, Colin Powell" -Stan Goff in Counterpunch.org 24 May 2004
I would not be surprised to find out that Colin Powell sells fire insurance throughout the world and twists arms and closes sales by threats of setting the dogs of war on any and all who oppose the monstrosity that this Bush Administration has created out of a once mature country.
For another article, quite interesting for Colin Powell information see:
Paul de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Sun: 1 Hades 3 Zeus 7 Pluto
SUN HAD Carrier of secrets. Pursued by misfortune. Heavy rains. Cold with hailstorms. The body's susceptibility to sickness. Decay of the body. Debility. Infirmity. Diseased, deformed, or mutilated body. Oppressed or hindered in developing one's body and personality. Pursued by misfortune. Physical troubles.
SUN HAD ZEU Fever. Grave injuries of the body through fire or firearms. Born in poor circumstances. Criminal ancestors. Leader of criminals. A still birth. Miscarriage. Childbed sickness. Engagement for something with difficulties. Defeats. Reported to the police, the one who reports. Bodies destroyed by fire. Hindered in work on account of physical defects, sickness, or being crippled. The person who is subject to hate, who is detested. Soot-remainders from a fire. Carbonization, ashes.
Stan Goff from Counterpunch: "In 1963, well before the American public generally understood where Vietnam was, a young Army captain (Colin Luther Powell) led a South Vietnamese unit through the A Shau Valley to systematically burn villages to the ground. This was to deprive the so-called Vietcong of any base of support, and was called "draining the sea," a reference to Mao's dictum that the guerrilla is the fish and the population is the sea."
"...captain (Colin Luther Powell) would later write, "I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male. If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served... was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong."
[Indeed...]
Stan Goff continues: "On March 16, 1968, the US Infantry of C Company, Task Force Barker, 11th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division went into a Vietnamese hamlet designated My Lai 4 and killed 347 unarmed men, women, and children, engaging in rape and torture along the way for four hours before a US helicopter pilot who observed the massacre ordered his door gunners to open fire on the grunts if they didn't desist. The chopper pilot, however, did not report the massacre."
"Six months later, a young enlisted man, Spec 4 Tom Glen, sent a letter to General Creighton Abrams, commander of US forces in Vietnam. Without specifically mentioning My Lai, Glen said that murder had become a routine part of Americal operations. The letter was shunted over to Americal Divison, and then to the office of the same officer who had been leading the South Vietnamese arson campaign five years earlier, since promoted to major. He was now the deputy assistant Chief of Staff of the division--a functionary who was directed to craft a response to this report of widespread atrocities against Vietnamese civilians."
"In direct refutation of this portrayal," wrote the officer dismissively and with no investigation whatsoever, "is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Perhaps he believed that those killed were MAMs, and therefore outside the protection of the Geneva Conventions and international law."
"That officer is now the Secretary of State, Colin Powell" -Stan Goff in Counterpunch.org 24 May 2004
I would not be surprised to find out that Colin Powell sells fire insurance throughout the world and twists arms and closes sales by threats of setting the dogs of war on any and all who oppose the monstrosity that this Bush Administration has created out of a once mature country.
For another article, quite interesting for Colin Powell information see:
Paul de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Monday, May 24, 2004
Now you're talking! It's about time!
"The guards who tortured prisoners are faced with a year in prison. Well, great. A year for destroying our reputation as decent people.
I don't want them in prison, anyway. We shouldn't have to feed them. Take away their right to call themselves American - that's what I’d do. You aren't one of us. Get out. We don't want you. Find yourself another country or a desert island somewhere. If the order came from someone higher up, take him with you." Andy Rooney, 60 minutes 23 May 2004.
It is a source of great pride in real American values to see an agreement encompassing the generations of those of us who fought for our country's real needs. I am in full agreement about the proper dispensation of torturers whether in American or Nazi. Thank you Mr. Rooney from another veteran of another war.
"Inadequate and immoral men and women desiring dominance may be attracted to fields such as corrections and interrogations, where they can be in absolute control over others" -Colonel Henry Nelson commenting upon Charles Graner and Ivan "Chip" Frederick, "both had experience in corrections".
We have had precious few serious investigations into the abusive practices of police guards and sub-human corrections officers,- foreign or domestic. One of the most interesting, correct, and sickening comments to come out of the Senate Committee investigating the tortures at Abu Ghriab was the comment by one of the senators that this torture and humiliation was "no greater than punishments and humiliations meted out in county jails and state prisons throughout the United States." Indeed.
In a recent report of the California Prison Project a thoroughly implemented pattern of programmed abuse and humiliation emerged:
"In one small town in Northern California it was common practice in routine traffic stops for officers to insult and intimidate in the hope that a reaction to the officers' impertinence would be sufficient to escalate a pending charge to a more serious one. If an arrest was made, the person was shoved into an unbelievably cramped space and taunted. Upon arrival at the station the "perp" was further insulted and locked in a closet without sanitary facilities for several hours in the hopes that they would be forced to urinate in their clothes or perhaps rupture their bladder. After a false police report was created and filed the "perp" was transferred to the city jail."
"In one very disturbing case, the arresting officer discussed his personal collection of confiscated automatic weapons with another officer with the intention of selling them. There is an enormous illegal traffic in weapons taken in raids by officers but which never make it to the property room. Instead they are often resold to other officers who in turn distribute them back out into the community dealing out of the trunks of their vehicles or out of their homes."
"Once out of the public view in the fortress of the county jail the sexual humiliations and violations begin with the intake ritual abuse of strip searches and cavity searches performed by officers and 'trusty' prisoners in tandem. Bending over and spreading their cheeks and attempting to defecate under the eager and watchful eyes of the officers and "trusty's" to assure that they weren't carrying drugs."
-- California Prison Project Report, 2000
Just like in the movies...does life imitate Art? or...
Is it really surprising at all to find that the abuses occurred in Iraq by military police officers most of which move constantly through the revolving doors of the National Guard and Army Reserve and the county, municipal, and state incarceration systems throughout the United States? This IS life in the United States so why not send the low-life scum out of the country to torture and humiliate others? Since United States citizens can't get these abuses addressed by our local Governors and Congressional and State representatives who refuse to act, at least a war gets the stinking low-lifes out of the country for a while so that the rest of us can rest. I couldn't agree more that these devils need to be deprived of their right to return to the United States and stripped of their citizenship forever. Put the flies on their own island to pick each others scabs and suck their blood.
These guards are not human beings and need to be treated as the aliens they truly are. Join in pressing your representatives to strip the torturers of their citizenship and deport them to Devil's Island. We don't want them to return to America to practice their sick cruelty on American citizens. If they are not kept out of the country that is exactly what will happen. Thinking people know that George Bush would like nothing better than to instruct John Ashcroft to round up all the 'usual progressives' and cart them off to cement block private contract jails in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona and torture and abuse the only hopeful and good people who remain in America. Without the progressives this country dies in a whimper rather than a shout of triumph over our oppressors and occupiers. Without the progressives George Bush will "do what thou wilt" in the fashion of the macabre Alister Crowley. Consider his mouthpiece Donald Rumsfeld telling his under secretaries "to grab whomever they wanted to and to do whatever they needed to do".
Thank you Andy Rooney!
Andy Rooney, 14 January 1919, Albany, New York
Mercury: 3Pluto 3Kronos 3Apollon
PLU KRO APO From a tiny start developing into a gigantic transformation. Many are examined, tested. A big change for many. Sweeping changes in the state, in politics, and in the government. Developing a new science from a small beginning. Increase and expansion.
MER PLU APO £ ª » Speaking with many about a transformation. Having to think of many things. Many change their minds. Many converse about an alteration and change in their views. Thoughts, opinions or debates about transformations and changes. Under the influence of a big change. Expanded ideas.
MER PLU KRO £ ª º Development of thinking which enables enormous cognition. Developing important ideas. Growing up into a notable mental or spiritual leader. Thoughts, news, talks about big changes.
MER KRO APO £ º » The thinker. Spreading of momentous and important thoughts. Fashionable in speeches with many. Important scientific thoughts or ideas. Recognized leader of science. Leading scientific debates. The thinking is concentrated on scientific matters.
"The guards who tortured prisoners are faced with a year in prison. Well, great. A year for destroying our reputation as decent people.
I don't want them in prison, anyway. We shouldn't have to feed them. Take away their right to call themselves American - that's what I’d do. You aren't one of us. Get out. We don't want you. Find yourself another country or a desert island somewhere. If the order came from someone higher up, take him with you." Andy Rooney, 60 minutes 23 May 2004.
It is a source of great pride in real American values to see an agreement encompassing the generations of those of us who fought for our country's real needs. I am in full agreement about the proper dispensation of torturers whether in American or Nazi. Thank you Mr. Rooney from another veteran of another war.
"Inadequate and immoral men and women desiring dominance may be attracted to fields such as corrections and interrogations, where they can be in absolute control over others" -Colonel Henry Nelson commenting upon Charles Graner and Ivan "Chip" Frederick, "both had experience in corrections".
We have had precious few serious investigations into the abusive practices of police guards and sub-human corrections officers,- foreign or domestic. One of the most interesting, correct, and sickening comments to come out of the Senate Committee investigating the tortures at Abu Ghriab was the comment by one of the senators that this torture and humiliation was "no greater than punishments and humiliations meted out in county jails and state prisons throughout the United States." Indeed.
In a recent report of the California Prison Project a thoroughly implemented pattern of programmed abuse and humiliation emerged:
"In one small town in Northern California it was common practice in routine traffic stops for officers to insult and intimidate in the hope that a reaction to the officers' impertinence would be sufficient to escalate a pending charge to a more serious one. If an arrest was made, the person was shoved into an unbelievably cramped space and taunted. Upon arrival at the station the "perp" was further insulted and locked in a closet without sanitary facilities for several hours in the hopes that they would be forced to urinate in their clothes or perhaps rupture their bladder. After a false police report was created and filed the "perp" was transferred to the city jail."
"In one very disturbing case, the arresting officer discussed his personal collection of confiscated automatic weapons with another officer with the intention of selling them. There is an enormous illegal traffic in weapons taken in raids by officers but which never make it to the property room. Instead they are often resold to other officers who in turn distribute them back out into the community dealing out of the trunks of their vehicles or out of their homes."
"Once out of the public view in the fortress of the county jail the sexual humiliations and violations begin with the intake ritual abuse of strip searches and cavity searches performed by officers and 'trusty' prisoners in tandem. Bending over and spreading their cheeks and attempting to defecate under the eager and watchful eyes of the officers and "trusty's" to assure that they weren't carrying drugs."
-- California Prison Project Report, 2000
Just like in the movies...does life imitate Art? or...
Is it really surprising at all to find that the abuses occurred in Iraq by military police officers most of which move constantly through the revolving doors of the National Guard and Army Reserve and the county, municipal, and state incarceration systems throughout the United States? This IS life in the United States so why not send the low-life scum out of the country to torture and humiliate others? Since United States citizens can't get these abuses addressed by our local Governors and Congressional and State representatives who refuse to act, at least a war gets the stinking low-lifes out of the country for a while so that the rest of us can rest. I couldn't agree more that these devils need to be deprived of their right to return to the United States and stripped of their citizenship forever. Put the flies on their own island to pick each others scabs and suck their blood.
These guards are not human beings and need to be treated as the aliens they truly are. Join in pressing your representatives to strip the torturers of their citizenship and deport them to Devil's Island. We don't want them to return to America to practice their sick cruelty on American citizens. If they are not kept out of the country that is exactly what will happen. Thinking people know that George Bush would like nothing better than to instruct John Ashcroft to round up all the 'usual progressives' and cart them off to cement block private contract jails in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona and torture and abuse the only hopeful and good people who remain in America. Without the progressives this country dies in a whimper rather than a shout of triumph over our oppressors and occupiers. Without the progressives George Bush will "do what thou wilt" in the fashion of the macabre Alister Crowley. Consider his mouthpiece Donald Rumsfeld telling his under secretaries "to grab whomever they wanted to and to do whatever they needed to do".
Thank you Andy Rooney!
Andy Rooney, 14 January 1919, Albany, New York
Mercury: 3Pluto 3Kronos 3Apollon
PLU KRO APO From a tiny start developing into a gigantic transformation. Many are examined, tested. A big change for many. Sweeping changes in the state, in politics, and in the government. Developing a new science from a small beginning. Increase and expansion.
MER PLU APO £ ª » Speaking with many about a transformation. Having to think of many things. Many change their minds. Many converse about an alteration and change in their views. Thoughts, opinions or debates about transformations and changes. Under the influence of a big change. Expanded ideas.
MER PLU KRO £ ª º Development of thinking which enables enormous cognition. Developing important ideas. Growing up into a notable mental or spiritual leader. Thoughts, news, talks about big changes.
MER KRO APO £ º » The thinker. Spreading of momentous and important thoughts. Fashionable in speeches with many. Important scientific thoughts or ideas. Recognized leader of science. Leading scientific debates. The thinking is concentrated on scientific matters.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
KCBS and KRON
KCBS and KRON IN THE San Francisco media market chose to give more time to the Republican pundits than the Actual Message that Nancy Pelosi actually made regarding the sheer idiocy of George Bush and his complete failure of office.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Breaking this real story is next to impossible with the conservative press falling over itself to appear to be "responsible". Nick Berg was acting like a tech but his real role was as a reporter without a press card. The overwhelming fear of the DIA was that some news agency would pick up his story if he was allowed to return to the US. They picked him up, found out what he had observed in his 1000 foot high ringside seat for the "Cannibals and Christians" Roman-style atrocities which reached their heights of depravity under cover of darkness. While repairing the tower Nick Berg (who had knowledge of the language) no doubt heard the nightly screams of the dead and dying Iraqi civilians in the clutches of the DIA interrogators and may have even stuck around on the tower till the morning only to observe the dead bodies being carted out into trucks to be desposed of in landfills and incinerators outside of Baghdad. It was probably on one of these 'morning afters' that his position on the tower was observed by military prison guards prompting the MI to detain him. After questioning him they no doubt decided that they couldn't let him go and then the plan for his death was conceived.
Someone with real media access has to get this story out.
Michael Jordan
ballgame@transbay.net
http://www.apollotomorrow.blogspot.com/
Someone with real media access has to get this story out.
Michael Jordan
ballgame@transbay.net
http://www.apollotomorrow.blogspot.com/
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Blog update5/13/2004 6:24 pm
Since the previous blog more evidence has emerged which corroborates the conclusions that Nick Berg was sacrificed to the lies and obfuscation imperative of the Bush Administration putsch for dominant Empire. There are new emails from the family and close friends of Berg which detail his working on 1000 foot towers adjacent to the Abu Ghirab prison. Lets face the truth, Nick Berg saw SOME horrific torture and abuse which the FBI and CIA who were in charge of containment of the dissemination of the truth of what took place at Abu Ghirab
Donald Rumsfeld needs to be taken out of the Administration and imprisoned for the rest of his life. He both encouraged this and facilitated this murder of the witness who was Nick Berg. There is no punishment, which is too severe for Donald Rumsfeld. Please indicate through your comments what you would like to witness Donald Rumsfeld endure for Killing Nick Berg. Then when you have figured that out add on the punishment for the 10,000 plus civilians who have been killed as a direct result of the Rumsfeld-Bush doctrine of Iraqi Sovereign Oil Acquisition Campaign of 2001-2004.
Since the previous blog more evidence has emerged which corroborates the conclusions that Nick Berg was sacrificed to the lies and obfuscation imperative of the Bush Administration putsch for dominant Empire. There are new emails from the family and close friends of Berg which detail his working on 1000 foot towers adjacent to the Abu Ghirab prison. Lets face the truth, Nick Berg saw SOME horrific torture and abuse which the FBI and CIA who were in charge of containment of the dissemination of the truth of what took place at Abu Ghirab
Donald Rumsfeld needs to be taken out of the Administration and imprisoned for the rest of his life. He both encouraged this and facilitated this murder of the witness who was Nick Berg. There is no punishment, which is too severe for Donald Rumsfeld. Please indicate through your comments what you would like to witness Donald Rumsfeld endure for Killing Nick Berg. Then when you have figured that out add on the punishment for the 10,000 plus civilians who have been killed as a direct result of the Rumsfeld-Bush doctrine of Iraqi Sovereign Oil Acquisition Campaign of 2001-2004.
Deeper Analysis is Demanded; There is a Pattern Here...
A quick analysis of the circumstances including the emails of Nick Berg points to his beheading to be actually a murder by American intelligence agents bent on creating a new faux outrage to inflame Americans at home. The men in hoods are Americans. We do really know that Nick Berg was in the custody of the American military intelligence having been stopped for them by Iraqis at a checkpoint in the far north in the Area of Tal Afar and Mosul. The American intelligence teams placed him under severe interrogation to determine what he knew about the Abu Ghraib and Bucca prison atrocities and to determine what he was planning to do with that knowledge. They knew his history, he carried his resume with him which included working on the Republican Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.
They knew he was a young idealistic Republican brimming with a naive provincial confidence that everything Republican is good and that this war was a noble effort. MI saw a distinct danger in letting him return to the US because his conservative history lent gravitas to anything he might reveal upon his return to the US. They had his emails which hinted that he was harboring a need to expose the disconnect between the propaganda of the Bush Administration which was trading on America's past honor and glory; and the grotesque and twisted applications of Empire's real politique in Iraq. They knew that he had direct knowledge of the abuses and the horrors. They knew that they needed to find a way to prevent him from leaving and spilling the beans while making it into a galvanizing issue for the cause of continuing the war and re-selecting the Devil to the White House.
Why not just put on some hoods, fuzz up the video, and kill Nick Berg in the name of Allah? That's what they did; you can take that to the bank.
Nick Berg became upset and outraged at what he learned just as Mazen Dana, the award-winning photo-journalist who was shot to death by an American tank patrolling the perimeter of the Abu Ghirab Prison nearly a year ago while filming atrocities at the prison from the outside. Remember? The soldier who shot him said that he perceived the Dana's camera to be a shoulder-launched grenade launcher. That was a lie. The stated circumstances of this killing is also a lie.
And it is true that the Daniel Pearle (another journalist!) was finding out information which was running counter to the manufactured information of the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan and ready to go public when he was "kidnapped by Arabs" and decapitated.
Is this a stretch? Consider that the supposed perpetrator, who was purported to have done the deed, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been dead for months, being a victim of the US bombings in Northern Iraq. It might be instructive to look at the data of the journalists killed in Iraq as to where they were killed and what they were working on.
The following information is taken from the IPI Death Watch Site and compiled by Michael Kudlak. In the introduction to the 2003 listing Mr Kudlak makes this observation: "Several killings of journalists by U.S. troops – including the deaths of José Couso of Spain’s Telecinco and Taras Protsyuk of Reuters on 8 April, when a U.S. tank fired a shell at Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, and the shooting of veteran Reuters journalist Mazen Dana by a U.S. tank crew on 17 August – raised serious questions about the conduct and terms of engagement of coalition troops and the need for timely and transparent investigations into the unexplained killings of journalists working in Iraq.
Mazen Dana, 17 August 2003
Mazen Dana, 41, an award-winning Palestinian journalist for Reuters, was shot dead by a U.S. tank crew as he was filming outside the Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad. A U.S. army spokesman said, "Army soldiers engaged an individual they thought was aiming an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher) at them. It turned out to be a Reuters cameraman." However, Reuters soundman Nael al-Shyoukhi, who was with Dana at the time of the shooting, said that the camera team had been operating near the prison with the knowledge of the U.S. military.
Journalist Deaths in 2003 and 2004 in Iraq from IPI Deathwatch by By Michael Kudlak
IRAQ (10)
Jan. 27: DURAID ISA MOHAMMED, 27, a television producer for Cable News Network (CNN), and YASSER KHATAB, 25, his driver, died of multiple gunshot wounds when the two-car convoy they were travelling in came under fire near the southern city of Hillah. The vehicles were headed north toward Baghdad when a car approached from behind and a single gunman with an AK-47, standing through the sunroof, opened fire. Cameraman Scott McWhinnie, who was travelling in the second vehicle, was grazed in the head by a bullet and treated at a nearby military base. According to CNN, the network's vehicles were unmarked and the attackers may not have been aware they were journalists.
March 18: ALI ABDEL AZIZ, 35, an Iraqi cameraman for the Dubai-based satellite news channel, Al-Arabiya, was killed instantly when U.S. troops at a military checkpoint in central Baghdad opened fire after a vehicle tried to race through the roadblock. Al-Arabiya reporter ALI AL-KHATIB, 32, also an Iraqi national, died of his wounds hours later. The TV crew had gone to cover a rocket attack on the Burj al-Hayat Hotel when U.S. soldiers opened fire, the driver travelling with the journalists said.
March 18: NADIA NASRAT, MAJID RACHID and MOHAMAD AHMAD of the U.S.-funded regional television station, Diyala TV, were killed in an attack by armed men east of the town of Baaquba. The TV crew was travelling to work in a minibus when gunmen pulled up in a car and opened fire. Ten other staff members were reportedly injured in the attack.
March 26: BURHAN MOHAMED MAZHOUR, a freelance Iraqi cameraman working for the U.S. television station ABC, was killed in the city of Fallujah, west of the capital, Baghdad. According to news reports, 15 Iraqis were killed in Fallujah during fighting as U.S. Marines conducted house-to-house searches in the city. According to ABC News, Mazhour was struck in the head by a single bullet and later died in a hospital. ABC News asked the U.S. military to conduct an investigation into the incident.
April 19: ASSAD KADHEM, a correspondent, and HUSSEIN SALEH, his driver, who both worked for the coalition-funded television channel, Al-Iraqiya TV, were killed by U.S. military fire. Cameraman Jaassem Kamel, who was hit in the back during the incident, was taken to hospital in Samarra. The exact circumstances of the incident were not immediately clear.
2003 Journalist Deaths in Iraq from IPI Deathwatch By Michael Kudlak
Iraq (19)
Paul Moran, 22 March
Paul Moran, 39, a freelance cameraman on assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was killed when a car bomb exploded next to him near the village of Khurmal in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Kurdish officials blamed the apparent suicide attack on a militant group, Ansar al-Islam, which has been accused of links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. A fellow Australian journalist, Eric Campbell, suffered minor shrapnel wounds in the blast.
Terry Lloyd, 22 March
Terry Lloyd, 50, a veteran correspondent for the British TV broadcaster ITN, was killed by "friendly fire" near Basra in southern Iraq. Two members of his news crew, French cameraman Fred Nerac and Jordanian translator Hussein Osman, were reported missing. The fourth member of the team, cameraman Daniel Demoustier, who escaped with injuries, said the crew’s two vehicles were hit by "friendly fire" from U.S. or British forces aiming at two nearby vehicles carrying about a dozen Iraqi soldiers.
Gaby Rado, 30 March
Gaby Rado, 48, foreign correspondent for "Channel 4 News", London, UK, was found dead at a hotel in Suleimaniya, northern Iraq. It is believed that he fell from the roof of the Abu Sanaa hotel into the car park below, where his body was found, and that there was no direct connection with any military action.
Kaveh Golestan, 2 April
Kaveh Golestan, 52, an Iranian freelance cameraman on assignment for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was killed in northern Iraq when he stepped on a land mine as he climbed out of his car near the town of Kifri. He was travelling as part of a four-person BBC crew that included producer Stuart Hughes, Tehran bureau chief Jim Muir, and a local translator. Hughes injured his foot and was later treated by U.S. military medics. Muir and the translator suffered light cuts.
Michael Kelly, 4 April
Michael Kelly, 46, editor-at-large of The Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed in a Humvee accident while riding with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division south of Baghdad airport. Kelly, who had also served as editor of The New Republic and The National Review, was the first American journalist killed while covering the war.
David Bloom, 6 April
David Bloom, 39, a correspondent for NBC News, died of a pulmonary embolism while travelling with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division outside Baghdad. Bloom, who had no apparent health problems, had been co-anchor of the weekend edition of the "Today" programme since March 2000. Dehydration and sleeping in confined quarters may have been risk factors, doctors said.
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, 6 April
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, a Kurdish translator working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was killed by "friendly fire" after a U.S. F15 fighter jet dropped a bomb on a convoy of Kurdish troops and U.S. special forces who were travelling near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. Two BBC journalists, world affairs editor John Simpson and producer Tom Giles, were also injured. At least 18 people were reportedly killed in the incident.
Julio Anguita Parrado and Christian Liebig, 7 April
Julio Anguita Parrado, 32, a correspondent for the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo, and Christian Liebig, 35, a correspondent for the German news magazine FOCUS, were killed during a rocket attack on the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division outside Baghdad.
Tarek Ayoub, 8 April
Tarek Ayoub, a cameraman and correspondent for the Qatar-based satellite television network Al-Jazeera, was killed during a U.S. air raid on Baghdad. Ayoub, a Jordanian citizen, died in hospital after he was wounded in the strike, which set ablaze al-Jazeera’s office near the Information Ministry, the network said. Another member of al-Jazeera’s Baghdad crew, Zohair al-Iraqi, was wounded in the attack.
Taras Protsyuk and José Couso, 8 April
Taras Protsyuk, 35, a Reuters cameraman, and José Couso, 37, a cameraman for the Spanish television channel Tele 5, were killed when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, the base for many foreign media in Baghdad. Protsyuk, a Ukrainian citizen based in Warsaw, was killed immediately; Couso was wounded and later died in hospital. Three other members of the Reuters team in Baghdad were hurt in the tank shell blast.
Mario Podestá, 14 April
Mario Podestá, 51, an Argentine freelance correspondent on assignment for the television station America TV, was killed in a car accident on the highway between Amman and Baghdad. Podestá was travelling to Baghdad in a convoy of press vehicles when a tire on his car exploded, causing the crash. The veteran war correspondent died instantly. Argentine camerawoman Veronica Cabrera, who was travelling with Podestá, was taken to a Baghdad hospital, where she died from her injuries the next day. Witnesses said they heard gunfire just before the accident happened.
Veronica Cabrera, 15 April
Veronica Cabrera, 28, an Argentine freelance camerawoman, died of injuries sustained on April 14 in a car accident some 50 kilometres from Baghdad. Her colleague, Argentine war correspondent Mario Podestá, was killed instantly in the crash.
Elizabeth Neuffer, 8 May
Elizabeth Neuffer, 46, an award-winning reporter for the Boston Globe, was killed in an automobile accident while returning to Baghdad from an overnight trip to Tikrit, where she was writing about efforts to rid Iraq of the influence of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The accident, which occurred when Neuffer’s car struck a guardrail near the town of Samarra, also killed her translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami.
Richard Wild, 5 July
Richard Wild, 24, a British freelance cameraman, died after an unidentified assailant shot him in the head at close range in a crowded street near Baghdad’s Natural History Museum. Some press reports said Wild was not carrying a camera or wearing any clothing that would have identified him as a journalist.
Jeremy Little, 6 July
Jeremy Little, 27, an Australian freelance television soundman, died of complications from injuries sustained during a grenade attack in the central Iraqi town of Fallujah. Little, who was embedded with the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division for NBC News, had been receiving treatment at a military hospital in Germany.
Ahmed Shawkat, 28 October
Ahmed Shawkat, editor of the weekly Bilah Ittijah, was shot dead by two unidentified men in Mosul. Sources said he had recently received death threats ordering him to close his newspaper.
A quick analysis of the circumstances including the emails of Nick Berg points to his beheading to be actually a murder by American intelligence agents bent on creating a new faux outrage to inflame Americans at home. The men in hoods are Americans. We do really know that Nick Berg was in the custody of the American military intelligence having been stopped for them by Iraqis at a checkpoint in the far north in the Area of Tal Afar and Mosul. The American intelligence teams placed him under severe interrogation to determine what he knew about the Abu Ghraib and Bucca prison atrocities and to determine what he was planning to do with that knowledge. They knew his history, he carried his resume with him which included working on the Republican Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.
They knew he was a young idealistic Republican brimming with a naive provincial confidence that everything Republican is good and that this war was a noble effort. MI saw a distinct danger in letting him return to the US because his conservative history lent gravitas to anything he might reveal upon his return to the US. They had his emails which hinted that he was harboring a need to expose the disconnect between the propaganda of the Bush Administration which was trading on America's past honor and glory; and the grotesque and twisted applications of Empire's real politique in Iraq. They knew that he had direct knowledge of the abuses and the horrors. They knew that they needed to find a way to prevent him from leaving and spilling the beans while making it into a galvanizing issue for the cause of continuing the war and re-selecting the Devil to the White House.
Why not just put on some hoods, fuzz up the video, and kill Nick Berg in the name of Allah? That's what they did; you can take that to the bank.
Nick Berg became upset and outraged at what he learned just as Mazen Dana, the award-winning photo-journalist who was shot to death by an American tank patrolling the perimeter of the Abu Ghirab Prison nearly a year ago while filming atrocities at the prison from the outside. Remember? The soldier who shot him said that he perceived the Dana's camera to be a shoulder-launched grenade launcher. That was a lie. The stated circumstances of this killing is also a lie.
And it is true that the Daniel Pearle (another journalist!) was finding out information which was running counter to the manufactured information of the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan and ready to go public when he was "kidnapped by Arabs" and decapitated.
Is this a stretch? Consider that the supposed perpetrator, who was purported to have done the deed, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been dead for months, being a victim of the US bombings in Northern Iraq. It might be instructive to look at the data of the journalists killed in Iraq as to where they were killed and what they were working on.
The following information is taken from the IPI Death Watch Site and compiled by Michael Kudlak. In the introduction to the 2003 listing Mr Kudlak makes this observation: "Several killings of journalists by U.S. troops – including the deaths of José Couso of Spain’s Telecinco and Taras Protsyuk of Reuters on 8 April, when a U.S. tank fired a shell at Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, and the shooting of veteran Reuters journalist Mazen Dana by a U.S. tank crew on 17 August – raised serious questions about the conduct and terms of engagement of coalition troops and the need for timely and transparent investigations into the unexplained killings of journalists working in Iraq.
Mazen Dana, 17 August 2003
Mazen Dana, 41, an award-winning Palestinian journalist for Reuters, was shot dead by a U.S. tank crew as he was filming outside the Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad. A U.S. army spokesman said, "Army soldiers engaged an individual they thought was aiming an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher) at them. It turned out to be a Reuters cameraman." However, Reuters soundman Nael al-Shyoukhi, who was with Dana at the time of the shooting, said that the camera team had been operating near the prison with the knowledge of the U.S. military.
Journalist Deaths in 2003 and 2004 in Iraq from IPI Deathwatch by By Michael Kudlak
IRAQ (10)
Jan. 27: DURAID ISA MOHAMMED, 27, a television producer for Cable News Network (CNN), and YASSER KHATAB, 25, his driver, died of multiple gunshot wounds when the two-car convoy they were travelling in came under fire near the southern city of Hillah. The vehicles were headed north toward Baghdad when a car approached from behind and a single gunman with an AK-47, standing through the sunroof, opened fire. Cameraman Scott McWhinnie, who was travelling in the second vehicle, was grazed in the head by a bullet and treated at a nearby military base. According to CNN, the network's vehicles were unmarked and the attackers may not have been aware they were journalists.
March 18: ALI ABDEL AZIZ, 35, an Iraqi cameraman for the Dubai-based satellite news channel, Al-Arabiya, was killed instantly when U.S. troops at a military checkpoint in central Baghdad opened fire after a vehicle tried to race through the roadblock. Al-Arabiya reporter ALI AL-KHATIB, 32, also an Iraqi national, died of his wounds hours later. The TV crew had gone to cover a rocket attack on the Burj al-Hayat Hotel when U.S. soldiers opened fire, the driver travelling with the journalists said.
March 18: NADIA NASRAT, MAJID RACHID and MOHAMAD AHMAD of the U.S.-funded regional television station, Diyala TV, were killed in an attack by armed men east of the town of Baaquba. The TV crew was travelling to work in a minibus when gunmen pulled up in a car and opened fire. Ten other staff members were reportedly injured in the attack.
March 26: BURHAN MOHAMED MAZHOUR, a freelance Iraqi cameraman working for the U.S. television station ABC, was killed in the city of Fallujah, west of the capital, Baghdad. According to news reports, 15 Iraqis were killed in Fallujah during fighting as U.S. Marines conducted house-to-house searches in the city. According to ABC News, Mazhour was struck in the head by a single bullet and later died in a hospital. ABC News asked the U.S. military to conduct an investigation into the incident.
April 19: ASSAD KADHEM, a correspondent, and HUSSEIN SALEH, his driver, who both worked for the coalition-funded television channel, Al-Iraqiya TV, were killed by U.S. military fire. Cameraman Jaassem Kamel, who was hit in the back during the incident, was taken to hospital in Samarra. The exact circumstances of the incident were not immediately clear.
2003 Journalist Deaths in Iraq from IPI Deathwatch By Michael Kudlak
Iraq (19)
Paul Moran, 22 March
Paul Moran, 39, a freelance cameraman on assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was killed when a car bomb exploded next to him near the village of Khurmal in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Kurdish officials blamed the apparent suicide attack on a militant group, Ansar al-Islam, which has been accused of links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. A fellow Australian journalist, Eric Campbell, suffered minor shrapnel wounds in the blast.
Terry Lloyd, 22 March
Terry Lloyd, 50, a veteran correspondent for the British TV broadcaster ITN, was killed by "friendly fire" near Basra in southern Iraq. Two members of his news crew, French cameraman Fred Nerac and Jordanian translator Hussein Osman, were reported missing. The fourth member of the team, cameraman Daniel Demoustier, who escaped with injuries, said the crew’s two vehicles were hit by "friendly fire" from U.S. or British forces aiming at two nearby vehicles carrying about a dozen Iraqi soldiers.
Gaby Rado, 30 March
Gaby Rado, 48, foreign correspondent for "Channel 4 News", London, UK, was found dead at a hotel in Suleimaniya, northern Iraq. It is believed that he fell from the roof of the Abu Sanaa hotel into the car park below, where his body was found, and that there was no direct connection with any military action.
Kaveh Golestan, 2 April
Kaveh Golestan, 52, an Iranian freelance cameraman on assignment for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was killed in northern Iraq when he stepped on a land mine as he climbed out of his car near the town of Kifri. He was travelling as part of a four-person BBC crew that included producer Stuart Hughes, Tehran bureau chief Jim Muir, and a local translator. Hughes injured his foot and was later treated by U.S. military medics. Muir and the translator suffered light cuts.
Michael Kelly, 4 April
Michael Kelly, 46, editor-at-large of The Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed in a Humvee accident while riding with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division south of Baghdad airport. Kelly, who had also served as editor of The New Republic and The National Review, was the first American journalist killed while covering the war.
David Bloom, 6 April
David Bloom, 39, a correspondent for NBC News, died of a pulmonary embolism while travelling with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division outside Baghdad. Bloom, who had no apparent health problems, had been co-anchor of the weekend edition of the "Today" programme since March 2000. Dehydration and sleeping in confined quarters may have been risk factors, doctors said.
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, 6 April
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, a Kurdish translator working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was killed by "friendly fire" after a U.S. F15 fighter jet dropped a bomb on a convoy of Kurdish troops and U.S. special forces who were travelling near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. Two BBC journalists, world affairs editor John Simpson and producer Tom Giles, were also injured. At least 18 people were reportedly killed in the incident.
Julio Anguita Parrado and Christian Liebig, 7 April
Julio Anguita Parrado, 32, a correspondent for the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo, and Christian Liebig, 35, a correspondent for the German news magazine FOCUS, were killed during a rocket attack on the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division outside Baghdad.
Tarek Ayoub, 8 April
Tarek Ayoub, a cameraman and correspondent for the Qatar-based satellite television network Al-Jazeera, was killed during a U.S. air raid on Baghdad. Ayoub, a Jordanian citizen, died in hospital after he was wounded in the strike, which set ablaze al-Jazeera’s office near the Information Ministry, the network said. Another member of al-Jazeera’s Baghdad crew, Zohair al-Iraqi, was wounded in the attack.
Taras Protsyuk and José Couso, 8 April
Taras Protsyuk, 35, a Reuters cameraman, and José Couso, 37, a cameraman for the Spanish television channel Tele 5, were killed when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, the base for many foreign media in Baghdad. Protsyuk, a Ukrainian citizen based in Warsaw, was killed immediately; Couso was wounded and later died in hospital. Three other members of the Reuters team in Baghdad were hurt in the tank shell blast.
Mario Podestá, 14 April
Mario Podestá, 51, an Argentine freelance correspondent on assignment for the television station America TV, was killed in a car accident on the highway between Amman and Baghdad. Podestá was travelling to Baghdad in a convoy of press vehicles when a tire on his car exploded, causing the crash. The veteran war correspondent died instantly. Argentine camerawoman Veronica Cabrera, who was travelling with Podestá, was taken to a Baghdad hospital, where she died from her injuries the next day. Witnesses said they heard gunfire just before the accident happened.
Veronica Cabrera, 15 April
Veronica Cabrera, 28, an Argentine freelance camerawoman, died of injuries sustained on April 14 in a car accident some 50 kilometres from Baghdad. Her colleague, Argentine war correspondent Mario Podestá, was killed instantly in the crash.
Elizabeth Neuffer, 8 May
Elizabeth Neuffer, 46, an award-winning reporter for the Boston Globe, was killed in an automobile accident while returning to Baghdad from an overnight trip to Tikrit, where she was writing about efforts to rid Iraq of the influence of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The accident, which occurred when Neuffer’s car struck a guardrail near the town of Samarra, also killed her translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami.
Richard Wild, 5 July
Richard Wild, 24, a British freelance cameraman, died after an unidentified assailant shot him in the head at close range in a crowded street near Baghdad’s Natural History Museum. Some press reports said Wild was not carrying a camera or wearing any clothing that would have identified him as a journalist.
Jeremy Little, 6 July
Jeremy Little, 27, an Australian freelance television soundman, died of complications from injuries sustained during a grenade attack in the central Iraqi town of Fallujah. Little, who was embedded with the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division for NBC News, had been receiving treatment at a military hospital in Germany.
Ahmed Shawkat, 28 October
Ahmed Shawkat, editor of the weekly Bilah Ittijah, was shot dead by two unidentified men in Mosul. Sources said he had recently received death threats ordering him to close his newspaper.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Racing Into the Heart of Darkness
It is becoming increasingly clear that we don't probably want these American Soldiers coming back to the United States to live among the rest of us, as the brainwashing they've undergone in the hands of Military Intelligence makes them hazardous risks to the general population of the United States. The sea-change of attitude overtaking the country endangers good people and the polls seem to be indicating that good people are becoming harder and harder to find within the United States.
With the righteous right equating opposition to the policies of the Bush Administration as being "Anti-American", it is a very short walk to the point where the Democrat and the Progressive Independent who speaks out for raising standards of citizenship is picked up on bogus charges and disappeared into a system of torture. The willingness to behave inhumanely to others is well documented in the Stanford Prison Experiment (which was performed by 24 students at that Republican dominated school) and has become part of standard law enforcement procedure since the "Gulf War I". Mental and physical cruelty is routine in police officers who were reservists and returned to their jobs after the war.
Now with the illegal Bush II regime encouraging callousness at every level of government and private industry, the stakes of citizenship are far more challenging. The bad people are finding the Hannibal Lecter within. George Bush makes cruelty and torture into a tool of the war on the intellectual elites. The huckstering highwaymen of horror are bringing cruelty and degradation to a police station near you.
It is easy for a cynic like myself to believe that the Bush Administration had this cruel plan in mind for the United States all along, knowing that the war overseas could not go on forever and that when the reservists returned home they could practice their techniques on the vast secular population at home and whittle down the opposition to Empire. It puts some teeth into the Devilish mechanism put into motion on when Bush took over the country the second week of December 2000. The cowering of Gore and Clinton hints that continual shaming has permanent effects.
Anguished American Architects of Atrocity willingly use brutality and sadism to stoke the passivity and aggression of their victims. How soon we forget the burying alive of nearly 1000 Iraqis during the first Gulf War. When traveling in this country one is forced to conclude that Americans are a deeply ignorant and proud people; having seized upon ignorance as a coping mechanism for the fact that their country was stolen from them in 2000; and that their dictator is forcing them to descend into madness with him. The more that they deny their subjection, the more it becomes a part of them, the less truth they acknowledge, and the blinder they become. The systematic degradation of this country is no more evident than in the opinion polls which still state that Bush would win against Kerry 49% to 45%.
Even now it may be an impossible task to turn this around. The Apocalypse is Now. The terror alert level for the entire planet is bright red. Thanks to George and his knuckle dragging minions.
Blass, Thomas. (1991). Understanding Behavior in the Milgram Obedience Experiment: The Role of Personality, Situations, and Their Interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Behavior, 60, 398-407.
DeJong, William. (1975). Another Look at Banuazizi and Movahedi's Analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment. American Psychologist, 30, 1014.
Levy, A. (1997). Obedience and Individual Responsibility. A Heart of Good and Evil. Available: http://web.archive.org/web/19970704234734/http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~adlevy/evil.html [1997, December 3].
Milgram, S. (1974). The Perils of Obedience. Harper's Magazine. [Online]. http://web.archive.org/web/19981205163201/jmcneil.sba.muohio.edu/Private/PerilsofObedience.html [1997, November 30].
It is becoming increasingly clear that we don't probably want these American Soldiers coming back to the United States to live among the rest of us, as the brainwashing they've undergone in the hands of Military Intelligence makes them hazardous risks to the general population of the United States. The sea-change of attitude overtaking the country endangers good people and the polls seem to be indicating that good people are becoming harder and harder to find within the United States.
With the righteous right equating opposition to the policies of the Bush Administration as being "Anti-American", it is a very short walk to the point where the Democrat and the Progressive Independent who speaks out for raising standards of citizenship is picked up on bogus charges and disappeared into a system of torture. The willingness to behave inhumanely to others is well documented in the Stanford Prison Experiment (which was performed by 24 students at that Republican dominated school) and has become part of standard law enforcement procedure since the "Gulf War I". Mental and physical cruelty is routine in police officers who were reservists and returned to their jobs after the war.
Now with the illegal Bush II regime encouraging callousness at every level of government and private industry, the stakes of citizenship are far more challenging. The bad people are finding the Hannibal Lecter within. George Bush makes cruelty and torture into a tool of the war on the intellectual elites. The huckstering highwaymen of horror are bringing cruelty and degradation to a police station near you.
It is easy for a cynic like myself to believe that the Bush Administration had this cruel plan in mind for the United States all along, knowing that the war overseas could not go on forever and that when the reservists returned home they could practice their techniques on the vast secular population at home and whittle down the opposition to Empire. It puts some teeth into the Devilish mechanism put into motion on when Bush took over the country the second week of December 2000. The cowering of Gore and Clinton hints that continual shaming has permanent effects.
Anguished American Architects of Atrocity willingly use brutality and sadism to stoke the passivity and aggression of their victims. How soon we forget the burying alive of nearly 1000 Iraqis during the first Gulf War. When traveling in this country one is forced to conclude that Americans are a deeply ignorant and proud people; having seized upon ignorance as a coping mechanism for the fact that their country was stolen from them in 2000; and that their dictator is forcing them to descend into madness with him. The more that they deny their subjection, the more it becomes a part of them, the less truth they acknowledge, and the blinder they become. The systematic degradation of this country is no more evident than in the opinion polls which still state that Bush would win against Kerry 49% to 45%.
Even now it may be an impossible task to turn this around. The Apocalypse is Now. The terror alert level for the entire planet is bright red. Thanks to George and his knuckle dragging minions.
Blass, Thomas. (1991). Understanding Behavior in the Milgram Obedience Experiment: The Role of Personality, Situations, and Their Interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Behavior, 60, 398-407.
DeJong, William. (1975). Another Look at Banuazizi and Movahedi's Analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment. American Psychologist, 30, 1014.
Levy, A. (1997). Obedience and Individual Responsibility. A Heart of Good and Evil. Available: http://web.archive.org/web/19970704234734/http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~adlevy/evil.html [1997, December 3].
Milgram, S. (1974). The Perils of Obedience. Harper's Magazine. [Online]. http://web.archive.org/web/19981205163201/jmcneil.sba.muohio.edu/Private/PerilsofObedience.html [1997, November 30].
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