Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Why we have lost the war on terror and why I'm going to take it out on a slug
If you aren't interested in talking about the state of the world, skip to the picture of a snail, although you'll be missing out.
If you haven't seen it already, try and get your hands on a copy of "The Siege." The movie, which came out a few years before 9/11, is about a New York being hit by a massive wave of Islamic-based terrorism. Denzel Washington of the FBI tries to suppress it, but eventually the Army is called in, and begins to cage up all the Muslim men it can get its hands on, and even tortures one to death. Denzel Washington looks the Army commander (Bruce Willis) in the eye and says:
It is of my firm belief that the moment we decided to lower ourselves to the same level as beasts, willing to torture our fellow human beings and shred human rights into little pieces, they won. The moment we decided to hold up hundreds of men in Guantanamo Bay, with no official status, not even POW status, despite the fact that they were part of the opposing force in a war, they won. The moment that Rumsfeld (and this is confirmed) told the Armed Forces to use techniques such as water dunking and sexual humiliation in order to get information from prisoners, they won.
Yesterday a South Korean man was beheaded in Iraq. Since the UK press is a little less squeamish, I got to see him pleading for his life on camera, minutes before they cut his head off. Those men that pose behind him, with their guns and their masks, are animals to the core. They are evil and screwed up in every way imaginable, for you have to be evil to kill or harm a man who is helpless.
Yet that is what we have done as well. We have taken defenseless men, often innocent men (the Red Cross estimates that more than 80% of Iraqis arrested during allied occuption are innocent of any crime), and tortured them. It seems that news is now out that we have been doing the same thing in Afghanistan. It seems that dozens of prisoners in Iraq and Afganistan have died under mysterious circumstances.... under our care. We don't feel any sympathy for these men, despite the fact that they have not been tried and found guilty, and most of them are, in fact, innocent. Innocent men that we are supposed to be liberating. If you believe in the Old Testament's eye for an eye policy, then the beheadings are justified (another reason why the Old Testament is full of shit).
I ask you to feel disgust. We are supposed to be better than these people, but it seems to me that they have accomplished in their goal of making us no better than them. I ask you to feel disgusted at what we have done. You have to feel ashamed that America has sunk this low before we can begin to climb again.
Whether or not you believe the Bush administration actively supported torture, you have to agree that they certainly didn't prohibit it. In fact, late last year, the administartion's lawyers told the President that they were exempt from international anti-torture law, and could do what they wanted.
I'll end this complaint with my goals for the 2 people that read this:
1. Support the granting of POW status to prisoners, so they are covered by the Geneva convention prohibiting torture, etc. Saddam Hussein himself has been granted POW status, but not the everyday Iraqi citizen arrested during the war.
2. Pay attention to the findings of the 9/11 commission, for they are revealing, bit by bit, what is actually going on in the world.
3. Notice that while our troops aren't dying as much in Iraq, we are ceding control of cities to the people we were initially fighting. So instead of winning the war, we are giving it away to the insurgents (all the public sees is a drop in troop casualty rates).
4. As you learned as a child, treat others how you want to be treated. Tell others what you think about US torture and "ghost prisoners (those without a status)". Rumsfeld told the armed forces to keep some prisoners off the books so the Red Cross couldn't find them. Tell other people what you think about this. Discuss it. Learn. Grow. Evolve. Be a better person than we have been over the past 3 years.
Pay attention, and we may just win this thing yet.
Now, the title may be a bit confusing, as it mentions a slug. Besides the president, you probably haven't read about a slug yet. Well, here we go:
We have a slug or snail problem. Last month, my dad would wake up in the morning and find a slug/snail trail on the ground. He found a hole in the wall he thought it was coming in through, and sealed it up. This happened again when I arrived, but he found that hole as well and sealed it up.
This morning I woke up and went downstairs to the living room, to find silver slime trails all over the place, including in and on my shoes! This constitutes as an attack on my homeland, and I will defend it against this slug menace.
I'll launch a plan of attack, which will involve getting up in the middle of the night and suprising the little bastard. I'm not going to kill him, I'm only going to remove him from the premise. I'll draw up a plan of attack tonight and will try and scan it to show you what I'll do.
If you haven't seen it already, try and get your hands on a copy of "The Siege." The movie, which came out a few years before 9/11, is about a New York being hit by a massive wave of Islamic-based terrorism. Denzel Washington of the FBI tries to suppress it, but eventually the Army is called in, and begins to cage up all the Muslim men it can get its hands on, and even tortures one to death. Denzel Washington looks the Army commander (Bruce Willis) in the eye and says:
What if what [the terrorists] really want is for us to herd children into stadiums like we're doing? And put soldiers on the street and - and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit? Because if we torture him, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won!
It is of my firm belief that the moment we decided to lower ourselves to the same level as beasts, willing to torture our fellow human beings and shred human rights into little pieces, they won. The moment we decided to hold up hundreds of men in Guantanamo Bay, with no official status, not even POW status, despite the fact that they were part of the opposing force in a war, they won. The moment that Rumsfeld (and this is confirmed) told the Armed Forces to use techniques such as water dunking and sexual humiliation in order to get information from prisoners, they won.
Yesterday a South Korean man was beheaded in Iraq. Since the UK press is a little less squeamish, I got to see him pleading for his life on camera, minutes before they cut his head off. Those men that pose behind him, with their guns and their masks, are animals to the core. They are evil and screwed up in every way imaginable, for you have to be evil to kill or harm a man who is helpless.
Yet that is what we have done as well. We have taken defenseless men, often innocent men (the Red Cross estimates that more than 80% of Iraqis arrested during allied occuption are innocent of any crime), and tortured them. It seems that news is now out that we have been doing the same thing in Afghanistan. It seems that dozens of prisoners in Iraq and Afganistan have died under mysterious circumstances.... under our care. We don't feel any sympathy for these men, despite the fact that they have not been tried and found guilty, and most of them are, in fact, innocent. Innocent men that we are supposed to be liberating. If you believe in the Old Testament's eye for an eye policy, then the beheadings are justified (another reason why the Old Testament is full of shit).
I ask you to feel disgust. We are supposed to be better than these people, but it seems to me that they have accomplished in their goal of making us no better than them. I ask you to feel disgusted at what we have done. You have to feel ashamed that America has sunk this low before we can begin to climb again.
Whether or not you believe the Bush administration actively supported torture, you have to agree that they certainly didn't prohibit it. In fact, late last year, the administartion's lawyers told the President that they were exempt from international anti-torture law, and could do what they wanted.
I'll end this complaint with my goals for the 2 people that read this:
1. Support the granting of POW status to prisoners, so they are covered by the Geneva convention prohibiting torture, etc. Saddam Hussein himself has been granted POW status, but not the everyday Iraqi citizen arrested during the war.
2. Pay attention to the findings of the 9/11 commission, for they are revealing, bit by bit, what is actually going on in the world.
3. Notice that while our troops aren't dying as much in Iraq, we are ceding control of cities to the people we were initially fighting. So instead of winning the war, we are giving it away to the insurgents (all the public sees is a drop in troop casualty rates).
4. As you learned as a child, treat others how you want to be treated. Tell others what you think about US torture and "ghost prisoners (those without a status)". Rumsfeld told the armed forces to keep some prisoners off the books so the Red Cross couldn't find them. Tell other people what you think about this. Discuss it. Learn. Grow. Evolve. Be a better person than we have been over the past 3 years.
Pay attention, and we may just win this thing yet.
Now, the title may be a bit confusing, as it mentions a slug. Besides the president, you probably haven't read about a slug yet. Well, here we go:
We have a slug or snail problem. Last month, my dad would wake up in the morning and find a slug/snail trail on the ground. He found a hole in the wall he thought it was coming in through, and sealed it up. This happened again when I arrived, but he found that hole as well and sealed it up.
This morning I woke up and went downstairs to the living room, to find silver slime trails all over the place, including in and on my shoes! This constitutes as an attack on my homeland, and I will defend it against this slug menace.
I'll launch a plan of attack, which will involve getting up in the middle of the night and suprising the little bastard. I'm not going to kill him, I'm only going to remove him from the premise. I'll draw up a plan of attack tonight and will try and scan it to show you what I'll do.
